ers of the temple of Her Majesty." It
is further said "With his glance directed towards the 'ak' of the Bull's
Thigh constellation he [the king] establishes the temple house of the
mistress of Denderak, as took place there before."

Having found out, by referring to Egyptian dictionaries, that er-ak means
"in the middle," and em-aka "in the midst or middle," while Hak was a word
employed for "king," I suggest that these meanings afford a different and
much more simple explanation of the "ak" mentioned in the inscription than
that given by Sir Norman Lockyer and Duemichen. In dealing, further on,
with the astronomical signs and names associated with the pole of the
ecliptic, I shall, moreover, point out that the bull=ka, employed as an
astronomical symbol of Ursa Major, may have been adopted as a cryptic sign
for Polaris, merely because its name contained the letters of the word
ak=the Middle. The recurrence of the same letters in Hak=king seems to
explain also why the king of Egypt was entitled "the bull."

Returning to the inscription relating to the ceremony of laying the
foundation stone; in other texts cited by Sir Norman Lockyer we find the
king saying: "I have grasped the wooden peg [stake] and the handle of the
club; I hold the rope with Sesheta [his female consort]. My glance follows
the course of the stars; my eye is on Meskhet; standing as divider of time
by his measuring instrument" (Duemichen's version) or "mine is the part of
time of the number of the hour-clock " (Brugsch's version). In another
part the king says "... I let my glance enter the constellation of the
Thigh (representing the divider of time at his measuring instrument)"
(Duemichen's translation) or "the part of my time stands in the place of
his hour-clock" (Brugsch's translation). Sir Norman Lockyer notes that
"the word merech or merechet, in which Brugsch suspects hour or
water-clock, does not occur elsewhere."

Whatever differences there may be in the Brugsch and Duemichen
translations and the interpretations of the word ak, the above texts
establish that the Egyptian king directed his glance to "the Middle" and
that the constellation Meskhet=Ursa Major was connected with
time-measurement and the establishment of the four quarters of the temple.

As I shall show further on, the "Sesheta," mentioned in the text as
performing the ceremony with the king, appears to be not a "mythical
goddess," as Sir Norman Lockyer infers, but the living "di