IDEAS OF COSMOLOGY
In viewing this astronomical system of the Egyptians
one cannot avoid the question as to just what
interpretation was placed upon it as regards the actual
mechanical structure of the universe. A proximal
answer to the question is supplied us with a good deal
of clearness. It appears that the Egyptian conceived
the sky as a sort of tangible or material roof placed
above the world, and supported at each of its four corners
by a column or pillar, which was later on conceived
as a great mountain. The earth itself was conceived
to be a rectangular box, longer from north to south
than from east to west; the upper surface of this box,
upon which man lived, being slightly concave and having,
of course, the valley of the Nile as its centre. The
pillars of support were situated at the points of the
compass; the northern one being located beyond the
Mediterranean Sea; the southern one away beyond
the habitable regions towards the source of the Nile,
and the eastern and western ones in equally inaccessible
regions. Circling about the southern side of the,
world was a great river suspended in mid-air on something
comparable to mountain cliffs; on which river the
sun-god made his daily course in a boat, fighting day
by day his ever-recurring battle against Set, the demon
of darkness. The wide channel of this river enabled
the sun-god to alter his course from time to time, as he
is observed to do; in winter directing his bark towards
the farther bank of the channel; in summer gliding
close to the nearer bank. As to the stars, they were
similar lights, suspended from the vault of the heaven;
but just how their observed motion of translation
across the heavens was explained is not apparent.
It is more than probable that no one explanation was,
universally accepted.
In explaining the origin of this mechanism of the
heavens, the Egyptian imagination ran riot. Each
separate part of Egypt had its own hierarchy of gods,
and more or less its own explanations of cosmogony.
There does not appear to have been any one central
story of creation that found universal acceptance, any
more than there was one specific deity everywhere
recognized as supreme among the gods. Perhaps the
most interesting of the cosmogonic myths was that
which conceived that Nuit, the goddess of night, had
been torn from the arms of her husband, Sibû the
earth-god, and elevated to the sky despite her protests and
her husband's struggles, there to remain supported by
her four limbs, which became metamorphosed into the
pillars, or mountains, already mentioned. The forcible
elevation of Nuit had been effected on the day of
creation by a new god, Shu, who came forth from the
primeval waters. A painting on the mummy case of
one Betuhamon, now in the Turin Museum, illustrates,
in the graphic manner so characteristic of the Egyptians,
this act of creation. As Maspero
[2]
points out, the struggle of Sibû resulted in contorted attitudes to
which the irregularities of the earth's surface are to be
ascribed.
In contemplating such a scheme of celestial mechanics
as that just outlined, one cannot avoid raising the
question as to just the degree of literalness which the
Egyptians themselves put upon it. We know how
essentially eye-minded the Egyptian was, to use a
modern psychological phrase—that is to say, how essential
to him it seemed that all his conceptions should be
visualized. The evidences of this are everywhere: all
his gods were made tangible; he believed in the immortality
of the soul, yet he could not conceive of such
immortality except in association with an immortal
body; he must mummify the body of the dead, else,
as he firmly believed, the dissolution of the spirit
would take place along with the dissolution of the body
itself. His world was peopled everywhere with spirits,
but they were spirits associated always with corporeal
bodies; his gods found lodgment in sun and moon and
stars; in earth and water; in the bodies of reptiles
and birds and mammals. He worshipped all of these
things: the sun, the moon, water, earth, the spirit of
the Nile, the ibis, the cat, the ram, and apis the bull;
but, so far as we can judge, his imagination did not
reach to the idea of an absolutely incorporeal deity.
Similarly his conception of the mechanism of the
heavens must be a tangibly mechanical one. He must
think of the starry firmament as a substantial entity
which could not defy the law of gravitation, and which,
therefore, must have the same manner of support as is
required by the roof of a house or temple. We know
that this idea of the materiality of the firmament
found elaborate expression in those later cosmological
guesses which were to dominate the thought of Europe
until the time of Newton. We need not doubt,
therefore, that for the Egyptian this solid vault of the
heavens had a very real existence. If now and then
some dreamer conceived the great bodies of the firmament
as floating in a less material plenum—and such
iconoclastic dreamers there are in all ages—no record
of his musings has come down to us, and we must freely
admit that if such thoughts existed they were alien to
the character of the Egyptian mind as a whole.
While the Egyptians conceived the heavenly bodies
as the abiding-place of various of their deities, it does
not appear that they practised astrology in the later
acceptance of that word. This is the more remarkable
since the conception of lucky and unlucky days was
carried by the Egyptians to the extremes of absurdity.
"One day was lucky or unlucky,'' says Erman, [3] "according
as a good or bad mythological incident took
place on that day. For instance, the 1st of Mechir, on
which day the sky was raised, and the 27th of Athyr,
when Horus and, Set concluded peace together and
divided the world between them, were lucky days; on
the other hand, the 14th of Tybi, on which Isis and
Nephthys mourned for Osiris, was an unlucky day.
With the unlucky days, which, fortunately, were less in
number than the lucky days, they distinguished
different degrees of ill-luck. Some were very unlucky,
others only threatened ill-luck, and many, like the 17th
and the 27th Choiakh, were partly good and partly
bad according to the time of day. Lucky days might,
as a rule, be disregarded. At most it might be as well
to visit some specially renowned temple, or to `celebrate
a joyful day at home,' but no particular precautions
were really necessary; and, above all, it was said,
`what thou also seest on the day is lucky.' It was
quite other-wise with the unlucky and dangerous days,
which imposed so many and such great limitations on
people that those who wished to be prudent were
always obliged to bear them in mind when determining
on any course of action. Certain conditions were easy
to carry out. Music and singing were to be avoided
on the 14th Tybi, the day of the mourning of Osiris,
and no one was allowed to wash on the 16th Tybi;
whilst the name of Set might not be pronounced on the
24th of Pharmuthi. Fish was forbidden on certain
days; and what was still more difficult in a country
so rich in mice, on the 12th of Tybi no mouse might
be seen. The most tiresome prohibitions, however,
were those which occurred not infrequently, namely,
those concerning work and going out: for instance,
four times in Paophi the people had to `do nothing
at all,' and five times to sit the whole day or half
the day in the house; and the same rule had to be
observed each month. It was impossible to rejoice
if a child was born on the 23d of Thoth; the parents
knew it could not live. Those born on the
20th of Choiakh would become blind, and those born
on the 3d of Choiakh, deaf.''