associated with a class of people under their representative, and a day of
the calendar on which obligations towards the central government, such as
the paying of tribute, had to be performed in a fixed order of rotation,
corresponding to the annual circuit of the circumpolar constellations
around the pole star.

During centuries the most remarkable of these, Ursa Major, like the hand
of a great celestial dial, moved by an unseen ruling power apparently
located in Polaris, became visible after dusk and pointed towards the four
quarters of heaven in succession, at intervals of nine decades of days. As
in China and elsewhere at the present day, its position was referred to as
a guide in determining time, during the night, and the seasons; and
mankind became familiarized with the idea of a changeless inexorable law
and order governing the universe and determining human periodical
activities, and thus directly influencing individual lives. Added to this
the idea of a heavenly kingdom, traversed by the celestial Nile, the Milky
Way, and in which each familiar locality in Egypt had its counterpart, it
is easy to follow the spread of the belief that there was a close
connection between the stars and their terrestrial counterparts and that
they directly influenced the destinies of individuals, each of which had
its particular star in the sky.

The following portions of the decree inscribed B.C. 238 on the famous
trilingual stela of Canopus, preserved at Gizeh, contain what appear to me
to be distinct allusions to the ideal of a terrestrial kingdom, laid out
and governed in accordance with the system and fixed laws observed as
existing in the heavens and governing the movements of celestial bodies.
The hieroglyphic text records the establishment of festivals "in accord
with the existing fundamental laws upon which the heavens [the movements
of heavenly bodies] are established."... The Greek translation of this
passage reads: "according to the now existing order of the world
[universe]" and the demotic version is: "in accordance with the scheme,
upon which the heaven is established " (Brugsch, _op. cit._ I, p. 180).
Further facts concerning celestial and terrestrial territorial divisions
remain to be examined and discussed.

A number of representations exist in which the figure of the sky-goddess,
Nut, appears as though stretched across the vault of heaven, her feet
resting on the earth in the east and the tips of her fingers t