This passage has been the subject of exhaustive commentaries, the authors of which tried to invent every possible explanation of the phenomenon, but failed to consider the meaning which was plainly stated by the priests of Egypt, and their efforts through the centuries have remained fruitless.
The famous chronologist of the sixteenth century, Joseph Scaliger,
i Herodotus, Bk. ii, 142 (transl. A. D. Godley, 1921).
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weighed the question whether the Sothis period, or time reckoning by years of 365 days which, when compared with the Julian calendar, accumulated an error of a full year in 1,461 years, was hinted at by this passage in Herodotus, and remarked: "Sed hoc non fuerit occa-sum et orientem mutare" (No reversal of sunrise and sunset takes place in a Sothis period).2
Did the words of the priests to Herodotus refer to the slow change in the direction of the terrestrial axis during a period of approximately 25,800 years, which is brought about by its spinning or by the slow movement of the equinoctial points of the terrestrial orbit (precession of the equinoxes)? So thought Alexander von Humboldt of "the famous passage of the second book of Herodotus which so strained the sagacity of the commentators." 3 But this is also a violation of the meaning of the words of the priests, for during the period of spinning, orient and Occident do not exchange places.
One may doubt the trustworthiness of the priests' statements, or of Egyptian tradition in general, or attack Herodotus for ignorance of the natural sciences,4 but there is no way to reconcile the passage with present-day natural science. It remains "a very remarkable passage of Herodotus that has become the despair of commentators."5
Pomponius Mela, a Latin author of the first century, wrote: "The Egyptians pride themselves on being the most ancient people in the world. In their authentic annals . . . one may read that since they have been in existence, the course of the stars has changed direction four times, and that the sun has set twice in that part of the sky where it rises today." 6
It should not be deduced that Mela's only source for this statement was Herodotus. Mela refers explicitly to Egyptian written sources. He mentions the reversal in the movement of the stars as well as of the sun; if he had copied Herodotus, he would probably not have
2 Joseph Scaliger, Opus de emendatione temporum (1629), III, 198.
3 Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, II, 131 (Researches, II, 30).
robin-bobin
4 A. Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Ruch (1890), p. 506: "Tiefe Stufe seiner naturwissenschaftlichen Kenntnisse."
5 P. M. de la Faye in Histoire de I'art Sgyptien by Prisse d'Avennes (1879), p. 41.
6 Pomponius Mela De situ orbis. i. 9. 8.
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mentioned the reversal in the movement of the stars (sidera). At a time when the movement of the sun, planets, and stars was not yet regarded as the result of the movement of the earth, the change in the direction of the sun was not necessarily connected in Mela's mind with a similar change in the movement of all heavenly bodies.7
If, in Mela's time, there were Egyptian historical records which referred to the rising of the sun in the west, we ought to investigate the old Egyptian literary sources extant today.
The Magical Papyrus Harris speaks of a cosmic upheaval of fire and water when "the south becomes north, and the Earth turns over." 8
In the Papyrus Ipuwer it is similarly stated that "the land turns round [over] as does a potter's wheel" and the "Earth turned upside down." 9 This papyrus bewails the terrible devastation wrought by the upheaval of nature. In the Ermitage Papyrus (Leningrad, 1116b recto) also, reference is made to a catastrophe that turned the 'land upside down; happens that which never (yet) had happened."10 It is assumed that at that time—in the second millennium—people were not aware of the daily rotation of the earth, and believed that the firmament with its luminaries turned around the earth; therefore, the expression, "the earth turned over," does not refer to the daily rotation of the globe.
Nor do these descriptions in the papyri of Leiden and Leningrad leave room for a figurative explanation of the sentence, especially if we consider the text of the Papyrus Harris—the turning over of the earth is accompanied by the interchange of the south and north poles.
Harakhte is the Egyptian name for the western sun. As there is but one sun in the sky, it is supposed that Harakhte means the sun at its setting. But why should the sun at its setting be regarded as a
T Mela, differing from Herodotus, computed the length of Egyptian history as equal to 330
generations until Amasis (died —525) and figured it at more than thirteen thousand years.
8 H. O. Lange, "Der Magische Papyrus Harris," K. Danske Videnskabemes Selskab (1927), p.
58.
9 Papyrus Ipuwer 2 : 8. Cf. Lange's (German) translation of tne papyrus (Sitzungsberichte d.
Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften [1903], pp. 601-610).
10 Gardiner, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, I (1914); Cambridge Ancient History, I, 346.
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deity different from the morning sun? The identity of the rising and the setting sun is seen by everyone. The inscriptions do not leave any room for misunderstanding: "Harakhte, he riseth in the west." u
The texts found in the pyramids say that the luminary "ceased to live in the Occident, and shines, a new one, in the orient."12
After the reversal of direction, whenever it may have occurred, the words "west" and "sunrise"
were no longer synonyms, and it was necessary to clarify references by adding: "the west which is at the sun-setting." It was not mere tautology, as the translator of this text thought.13
Inasmuch as the hieroglyphics were deciphered in the nineteenth century, it would be only reasonable to expect that since then the commentaries on Herodotus and Mela would have been written after consulting the Egyptian texts.
In the tomb of Senmut, the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on the ceiling shows the celestial sphere with the signs of the zodiac and other constellations in "a reversed orientation" of the southern sky.14
The end of the Middle Kingdom antedated the time of Queen Hatshepsut by several centuries.
The astronomical ceiling presenting a reversed orientation must have been a venerated chart, made obsolete a number of centuries earlier.
robin-bobin
"A characteristic feature of the Senmut ceiling is the astronomically objectionable orientation of the southern panel." The center of this panel is occupied by the Orion-Sirius group, in which Orion appears west of Sirius instead of east. "The orientation of the southern panel is such that the person in the tomb looking at it has to lift his head and face north, not south." "With the reversed orientation of the south panel, Orion, the most conspicuous constellation of the 11 Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, III, Sec. 18.
12 L. Speelers, Les Textes des Pyramides (1923), I.
13 K. Piehl, Inscriptions hi6roglyphiques, seconde seiie (1892), p. 65: 'Touest qui est a l'occident."
14 A. Pogo, "The Astronomical Ceiling Decoration in the Tomb of Senmut (XVIIIth Dynasty),"
Isis (1930), p. 306.
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southern sky, appeared to be moving eastward, i.e., in the wrong direction." 15
The real meaning of "the irrational orientation of the southern panel" and the "reversed position of Orion" appears to be this: the southern panel shows the sky of Egypt as it was before the celestial sphere interchanged north and south, east and west. The northern panel shows the sky of Egypt as it was on some night of the year in the time of Senmut.
Was there no autochthonous tradition in Greece about the reversals of the revolution of the sun and stars?