rom a copy by Lepsius, _Denkm._,
iii. 227, 3.

Every year at fixed times they were seen to sink one after another below
the horizon, to disappear, and rising again after an eclipse of greater
or less duration, to regain insensibly their original positions. The
constellations were reckoned to be thirty-six in number, the thirty-six
_decani_ to whom were attributed mysterious powers, and of whom Sothis
was queen--Sothis transformed into the star of Isis, when Orion (Sahu),
became the star of Osiris. The nights are so clear and the atmosphere so
transparent in Egypt, that the eye can readily penetrate the depths of
space, and distinctly see points of light which would be invisible
in our foggy climate. The Egyptians did not therefore need special
instruments to ascertain the existence of a considerable number of stars
which we could not see without the help of our telescopes; they could
perceive with the naked eye stars of the fifth magnitude, and note them
upon their catalogues.[*] It entailed, it is true, a long training and
uninterrupted practice to bring their sight up to its maximum keenness;
but from very early times it was a function of the priestly colleges
to found and maintain schools of astronomy. The first observatories
established on the banks of the Nile seem to have belonged to the
temples of the sun; the high priests of Ra--who, to judge from their
title, were alone worthy to behold the sun face to face--were actively
employed from the earliest times in studying the configuration and
preparing maps of the heavens. The priests of other gods were quick to
follow their example: at the opening of the historic period, there was
not a single temple, from one end of the valley to the other, that did
not possess its official astronomers, or, as they were called, "watchers
of the night."[**]

* Biot, however, states that stars of the third and fourth
magnitude "are the smallest which can be seen with the
naked eye." I believe I am right in affirming that several
of the fellahin and Bedawin attached to the "service des
Antiquites" can see stars which are usually classed with
those of the fifth magnitude.

** _Urshu_: this word is also used for the soldiers on
watch during the day upon the walls of a fortress. Birch
believed he had discovered in the British Museum a catalogue
of observations made at Thebes by several astronomers upon a
constellation w