on which this would
rest appears to be false. Astronomy played a considerable part in
religious matters for fixing the dates of festivals and determining the
hours of the night. The titles of several temple books are preserved
recording the movements and phases of the sun, moon and stars. The
rising of Sothis (Sirius) at the beginning of the inundation was a
particularly important point to fix in the yearly calendar (see below, S
"Chronology"). The primitive clock[10] of the temple time-keeper
(horoscopus), consisting of a [Greek: horologion kai phoinika] (Clemens
Alex. _Strom._, vi. 4. 35), has been identified with two inscribed
objects in the Berlin Museum; these are a palm branch with a sight-slit
in the broader end, and a short handle from which a plummet line was
hung. The former was held close to the eye, the latter in the other
hand, perhaps at arm's length. From the above-mentioned tables of
culmination in the tombs of Rameses VI. and IX. it seems that for fixing
the hours of the night a man seated on the ground faced the horoscopus
in such a position that the line of observation of the Pole-star passed
over the middle of his head. On the different days of the year each hour
was determined by a fixed star culminating or nearly culminating in it,
and the position of these stars at the time is given in the tables as
"in the centre," "on the left eye," "on the right shoulder," &c.
According to the texts, in founding or rebuilding temples the north axis
was determined by the same apparatus, and we may conclude that it was
the usual one for astronomical observations. It is conceivable that in
ingenious and careful hands it might give results of a high degree of
accuracy.

See L. Borchardt, "Ein altagyptisches astronomisches Instrument" in
_Zeitschrift fur agyptische Sprache_, xxxvii. (1899), p. 10; Ed.
Meyer, _Agyptische Chronologie_, p. 36. Besides the sun and moon, five
planets, thirty-six dekans, and constellations to which animal and
other forms are given, appear in the early astronomical texts and
paintings. The zodiacal signs were not introduced till the Ptolemaic
period. See H. Brugsch, _Die Agyptologie_ (Leipzig, 1891), pp. 315 et
seqq., for a full account of all these.

_Medicine._--Except, that splints are sometimes found on the limbs of
bodies of all periods, at present nothing is known, from texts or
otherwise, of the existence of Egyptian surgery or dentistry. For
historical pathology