6 Lockyer, The Dawn of Astronomy. 7 Ibid*, p. viii
WORLDS 72V COLLISION 319
erally only the temples of a later time faced the east, and that earlier temples, built before the seventh century, had their foundations purposely directed—the same orientation can be traced in a number of archaic foundations—away from the present east.8
Knowing by now that the earth repeatedly shifted the direction of the sunrise and sunset, we understand the changes in the orientation of the foundations as the result of changes in nature.
Thus, we have in the foundations of the temples, like that of Eleusis, a record of the changing direction of the terrestrial axis and the position of the pole; the temple was destroyed by catastrophes and rebuilt each time with a different orientation.
Besides the temples and their gates, the obelisks also served the purpose of fixing the direction of east and west, or of sunrise and sunset on equinoctial days. As this purpose was not perceived, the object for which the obelisks were built seemed enigmatic: "The origin and religious significance of the obelisks are somewhat obscure." 9
Two pillars were erected before the Temple of Solomon,10 but their purpose is not revealed in the Scriptures.
In America, obelisk-pillars were built, too. Sometimes a ring was set on the vertex of the pillar for the sun's rays to pass through. "The solstices and equinoxes were carefully observed. Stone pillars were erected eight on the east and eight on the west side of Cuzco, to observe the solstices. ... At the heads of the pillars there were discs for the sun's rays to enter. Marks were robin-bobin
made on the ground, which had been levelled and paved. Lines were drawn to mark the movement of the sun. . . .
"To ascertain the time of the equinoxes there was a stone column in the open space before the temple of the sun, in the center of a large circle. . . . The instrument was called inti-huatana, which means the place where the sun is tied up or encircled. There are
8H. Nissen, Orientation, Studien zur Geschichte der Religion (1906); E. PfeifFer, Gestirne und Wetter im griechischen Volksglauben (1914), p. 7. See also F. G. Penrose, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, CLXXXIV, 1893, 805-834, and CXC, 1897, 43-65. • R. Engelbach, The Problem of the Obelisks (1923), p. 18. «• I Kings 7 : 15.
320 WORLDS IN COLLISION
inti-huatanas on the height of Ollantay-tampu, at Pissac, at Hatun-colla, and in other places." a The Egyptian obelisk could serve as a gnomon, or shadow clock. The length of the shadow and its direction would indicate the hour of the day. Obelisks placed in pairs served as a calendar. On the vernal and autumnal equinoxes their shadows would be continuous for the length of the day, the sun rising exactly in the east and setting exactly in the west.
That the purpose for which the obelisks were erected was to check on the shadow of the sun (and the position of the earth) can be plainly seen from this passage of Pliny:
"The obelisk [of Sesothis, brought from Egypt] that has been erected in the campus Martins [in Rome] has been applied to a singular purpose by the late Emperor Augustus: that of marking the shadow projected by the sun, and so measuring the length of the days and nights." There then follows this remark: "For nearly the last thirty years, however, the observations derived from this dial have been found not to agree: whether it is that the sun itself has changed its course in consequence of some derangement of the heavenly system; or whether that the whole earth has been in some degree displaced from the center, a thing that, I have heard say, has been remarked in other places as well; or whether that some earthquake, confined to this city only, has wrenched the dial from its original position; or whether it is that in consequence of the inundations of the Tiber, the foundations of the mass have subsided." 12
The passage indicates that Pliny envisaged every possible cause, not excluding the one known to have occurred in earlier times when, in the language of Plutarch, "the Pole received a turn or inclination," or in the words of Ovid, "Earth sank a little lower than her wonted place."
The Shadow Clock
The poles changed their locations; all latitudes were displaced; the axis changed its direction; the number of days in the year increased
11 Markham, The Incas of Peru, pp. 115, 116.
12 Pliny, Natural History, xxxvi. 15 (transl. Bostock and Riley).
WORLDS IN COLLISION 321
from 360 to 365/4, a fact demonstrated in a following section; the length of the day probably also altered. Of course, a sundial or shadow clock from before —687 can no longer serve the purpose for which it was devised, but it might well be of use in proving our assumption.
Such a clock, originating from the period between circa —850 and —720, was found in Faijum in Egypt at latitude 27°. A horizontal slab with hour marks has at one end a shadow-casting vertical hob.1 This shadow clock cannot show correctly the change of time in Faijum or elsewhere in Egypt. A scholar who investigated its working came to the conclusion that it must have been kept with its head to the east in the forenoon and to the west in the afternoon, and several scholars agreed that this was the way to use the clock. But this arrangement by itself did not make it possible to read the time. "Since all actual hour shadows lie substantially closer to the hob than the corresponding marks of the instrument, the shadow-casting edge must have been higher over the shadow-receiving plane than we find it to be. The upper edge cannot be the shadow-caster of the instrument; it must have been on a parallel line above this edge." 2 "The marks were also not made on the basis of actual observations, but must have been taken from some theory or other." 3 But, as a critic remarked, "this theory implies that at no season of the robin-bobin
year did the clock denote the hours correctly, without an hourly alteration of the height of that part of the instrument which cast the shadow." *
As the clock has no device to adjust the height of the head, it is improbable that this hourly manipulation took place. Besides, in order to change the height of the head every hour, in itself an impractical method, it would have been necessary to have another clock to show the hours without any manipulation, thus indicating the exact
1 The Egyptian day was divided into hours that represented equal portions of time between sunrise and sunset, independently of the length of the day.
2 L. Borchardt, "Altagyptische Sonnenuhren," Zeitschrift fur dgyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, XLVIII (1911), 14.
3 Ibid., p. 15.
4 J. MacNaughton, "The Use of the Shadow Clock of Seti I," Journal of the British Astronomical Association, LIV, No. 7 (Sept. 1944).
322 WORLDS IN COLLISION
moment when the first clock had to be adjusted. But if there was a clock that could show the hours correctly without adjustment, what purpose did the shadow clock serve?
Another explanation has therefore been offered for the manner in which the Egyptian sundial was used. The author of the new idea supposes that at some early date (the precession of the equinoxes being taken into consideration) the shadow clock was used at some latitude in Egypt on the day of the summer solstice. He admits: "Account has, however, not been taken of change in the declination of the sun between sunrise and sunset. . . . For other seasons of the year it would be necessary at each hour or each clock reading, either to alter the height of the hob, or tilt the st't [clock] or both. Indeed, when the sun had south declination, and even when it had slight north declination, it would always be necessary to do both. The inference is, therefore, that the clock was originally used at or near the time of the summer solstice."B The problem of adjustment for each reading once more crops up in this explanation, again requiring some better means of knowing the exact time. The conclusion at which the author of this explanation arrives—that originally the clock was built for a single day in the year—is rather odd and defies the very purpose for which clocks are constructed. And even if a clock were to be read only once a year, the author of this theory could not make the specimen found in Faijum work, but only a similar clock that had been found broken in pieces; and this he could do only by having recourse to the precession of the equinoxes and by referring the clock to a period many hundreds of years earlier than chronolo-gists assume.