birth and
death controlled and measured the lives of mankind.

But incidentally the moon determined the earliest subdivision of time
into months; and the moon-goddess lent the sanctity of her divine
attributes to the number twenty-eight.

The sun was obviously the determiner of day and night, and its rising
and setting directed men's attention to the east and the west as
cardinal points intimately associated with the daily birth and death of
the sun. We have no certain clue as to the factors which first brought
the north and the south into prominence. But it seems probable that the
direction of the river Nile,[401] which was the guide to the orientation
of the corpse in its grave, may have been responsible for giving special
sanctity to these other cardinal points. The association of the
direction of the deceased's head with the position of the original
homeland and the eventual home of the dead would have made the south a
"divine" region in Predynastic times. For similar reasons the north may
have acquired special significance in the Early Dynastic period.[402]

When the north and the south were added to the other two cardinal points
the intimate association of the east and the west with the measurement
of time would be extended to include all the four cardinal points.[403]
Four became a sacred number associated with time-measurement, and
especially with the sun.[404]

Many other factors played a part in the establishment of the sanctity
of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the
four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as
the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which
was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the
evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests
that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks
helped in the process of determining the four-sided form of house and
room.

When, out of these rude beginnings, the vast four-sided pyramid was
developed, the direction of its sides was brought into relationship with
the four cardinal points; and there was a corresponding development and
enrichment of the symbolism of the number four. The form of the divine
house of the dead king, who was the god, was thus assimilated to the
form of the universe, which was conceived as an oblong area at the four
corners of which pillars supported the sky, as the four legs supported
the C