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3b3
Mar
302121788W
ASHMOLEAN LIBRARY, OXFORD
This book is to be returned on or before
the last date stamped below.
27 SEP 1988
*^7 NOV
rl Jul \%
9
^3 ViOV W
5 etc 200^
<y"'"./ 1..,' /I
ON THE
CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
OF
ANCIENT EGYPT.
ft
DISSERTATION
ON THE
CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
OP
ANCIENT EGYPT ;
WITH
REMARKS ON THE FIRST INTRODUCTION AND USE OF
THE ZODIAC AMONG THE GREEKS.
BT
W. MURE, Esq.
EDINBURGH :
BELL & BRADFUTE ; W. & D. LAING ;
AND
C, J., G. & F. RIVINGTON,
LONDON.
MDCCCXXXII.
I
EDIKBUBGH .*
PRINTKD BY A. BALFOUR AND CO- NIDDRY STREET.
PREFACE.
As the chronology of ancient Egypt has of late ex-
cited considerable attention among those who attach
interest to the history of the primaeval world, it ap-
peared to the author of the following pages, that some
service might be rendered to this branch of study, by
a careful inquiry into the .first elements of the chrono-
graphical art among the inhabitants of that country ;
that is to say, their methods of computing and divid-
ing time by months, years, or other periods.
The first of the five sections into which this disser-
tation is distributed, treats generally of the peculiari-
ties of the form of year used by the Egyptians ; more
' especially as regards, the influence which those pecu-
liarities may have exercised, or have been supposed
to exercise, oh their modes of calculating and record-
ing the dates of their civil history. As the ancient
authorities on these points are neither few nor unim-
portant, and as they have already been examined often
VI PREFACE.
and at great length by the most distinguished chrono-
logers of modern times, little new matter could here
be expected. But I have endeavoured to collect and
arrange in as simple and concise a form as the nature
of the inquiry permitted, every thing of moment that
has hitherto been asserted or conjectured by my pre-
decessors in the same investigation ; drawing, how-
ever, my own conclusions, and oflfering such illustra-
tions, as may serve either to correct the errors into
which foregoing writers may appear to me to have
fallen, or to throw additional light on our general
subject.
The three following sections are devoted to a more
minute analysis of the primitive form and probable
origin of the egyptian calendar, astrological and
civil ; and of the effect produced on the superstitions
and other habits of the people, by the early connexion
and subsequent separation of these two departments
of the same institution. The system which I have
here ventured to propose is, I believe, entirely new.
It was first suggested during a course of inquiry into
other points of egyptian antiquity, by observation of
certain curious coincidences, ' which, though not in
themselves enough to justify any conclusions, were
yet sufficient to provoke farther researches i the result
of which has been to augment the number of these
coincidences so considerably as to impress on my mind
the belief, that they could not be the effect of mere
chance ; and I have no hesitation in declaring my
own conviction, that in these three sections have been
pointed out not only the real origin of the zodiac, but
PREFACE. Vll
the primitive form and mysterious import of at least
one half of its signs. Those to which I would refer
more particularly, are Aries, Gemini, Cancer, Leo,
Virgo, and Libra.
That a system combining and resting upon so many
obscure and enigmatical details, should be restored at
once complete in all its parts, was not to be expected,
for Several obvious reasons ; among others, for this
very simple one, that the department of antiquarian
science to which this inquiry belongs is still in its
in&ncy ; many of the facts or monuments which have
affdrded the most striking illustrations of our subject
having only been brought to light within these few
years — some even since these researches were first
undertaken ; and at this moment others are, or may
be, in course of publication, which may help to fill
the remaining gaps in the circumference of the egyp-
tian astrological sphere.
Hie fifth and concluding section has been devoted
to the examination of the probable period and cir-
cumstances of the first introduction of the zodiac into
Greece— a question essentially connected, as shall be
shown, with our previous analysis of its egyptian
origin.
Some general elucidations of our subject, or of
matters of critical interest connected with it, the dis-
cussion of controverted points, &c* which could not
convenientiy be inserted in the pages of the text, have
been added in an appendix.
As much of what is new in the following work
rests upon the evidence of the recent discoveries in
«
VIU PREFACE.
hieroglyphic literature, which have excited so much
interest of late ; and as the reality of a portion' of
those discoveries, at least to the full extent claimed
by their authors, has been questioned, and in some
instances perhaps justly ; it might be thought neces-
sary, that whoever attempts to ground any argument
on their authority, should enter into some preliminary
explanation how far he : considers them entitled to
confidence, and of the motives which have induced
him to form his opinion. As this, however, would
open a field of discussion far too wide to be com^
prehended within the plan of this essay, I shall be
contented with stating my conviction, that the system
of hieroglyphic interpretation chiefly developed by
Mons. J..F. ChampoUion, in his Precis du Syst^me
Hieroglyphique, is substantially correct. With r^^ard
therefore to the appeals which I may have occasion
to make to individual portions of that system, where
there occurs no reasonable ground of doubt, I shall
not hesitate, according to the usual principle of cita-
tion of authority, to quote them as matter of fact ;
where the case is not so clear, I shall either in the
text or annotations state my reasons for agreeing or
diffiering.
Not having been able to procure a supply of Coptic
types, where I have had occasion to introduce words
of that language, I have made use of greek capitals
as a substitute. Of these, the greco-egyptian or coptie
characters are, as is well known, merely a corruption ; •
with the exception of five or six added to convey
certain sounds to which there is nothing correspond-
PREFACE. IX
ing in the greek tongue, and the representatives of
which, in the ancient written language of Egypt,
have therefore been retained, and transferred to the
modern alphabet. Of these supplementary characters,
I have caused a number sufficient for present use to
be cut.
Upon all occasions numerous references have been
given to the most esteemed authors who have already
treated, in many instances separately, and more at
length than was consistent with the limits of my
text, the various subjects on which I have had occa-
sion to touch, in as far as my opportunities of procur-
ing their works, often from their very nature scarce,
would permit. This I trust the candid reader will
attribute not to any anxiety on the part of the author
to display reading, but to a desire, however valueless
his own labours may prove, of rendering at least some
service to those who may be entering on the same
line of pursiut, by pointing out the sources from
whence materials for more extensive and successful
investigations are to be derived.
• •
' .
^
CONTENTS.
SECTION I.
Page
General remarks on the egyptian year and canicular cycle 1
SECTION 11.
Concerning the twelve egyptian calendar months, and the twelve
fdgns of the zodiac Analysis of their original positions with re-
spect to the seasons^ and to each other 34
SECTION III.
Continuation of the same subject. Inquiry into the pristine form
and signification of the signs 67
SECTION IV.
Conclusion of the same subject 143
SECTION V.
Remarks on the first introduction and use of the zodiac among the
Ghreeks 161
APPENDIX 207
INDEX 263
PLATES.
SECTION h
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EGYPTIAN YEAR AND
CANICULAR CYCLE.
Those who have devoted any attention to the anti-
quities of Egypt, will be aware, that a cycle of 1460
years, formed upon a difference of a quarter of a day,
between the length of the civil year in use among its
inhabitants, consisting of three hundred and sixty-five
days, and the more nearly accurate tropical or Julian
year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quar-
ter, occupies a prominent place in all discussions rela-»
tive to the early history and chronology of that em*
pire, and has given rise to a considerable deal of con-
troversy among the learned of modem times j the
investigation of the details of its primitive formatioii*
and use, involving an inquiry into all the minor points
of the very obscure history of the egyptian calendar,*
» The following are the principal authors, ancient and modem, on thor
subject of the egyptian year. Geminus, Elementa Astronomiie, c vi*
apud Petavium in op. De doctrina temporum, toL iii. ed. 1705. Censo-^
B
2 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
A few observations on the origin and general proper-
ties of this cycle, will therefore form the basis of the
ensuing illustrations. For although it may in itself,
strictly speaking, be considered as the whole or sum-
mary, of which the remaining portions of our subject
are merely parts or elements, yet, as will readily ap-
pear in the sequel, the peculiar character of this in-
vestigation renders the* analytical mode of inquiry
preferable.
There have been some, who, adopting an exagger-
ated view of the antiquity and extent of the astrono-
mical science of the Eg}^tians, as well as of the fide-
lity of their historical annals, seem to have held, that
if the dates of events of remote and fabulous ages be
recorded in years of this cycle, they ought, admitting
the good faith of the authors by whom they have been
rittus. de die ilatali, «. IS. sqq. Theon Alexandra ad oaleem DodwelL
append, ad Dissertationes cyprianicas. Scaliger, de Emendatione tern-
ponim,p. 179. sqq. ed. 159S. Petavius, de Doctrina temporum, vol. i.
lib. iii. G. d. ; voL ill. Var. Diss. y. 3. sqq. Bainbridg. Canicalaria, Ox-
1648. Marsbam, Cbronicufl canon, Lond. 1672, pp. 9. 235. 295. Dod-
welly append, ad Dissert Cj^riaa* Desyig^noles, de Annis fsgyptiac.
MiscelL Berolinens. t. iy. p. 3. Sir L Newton, Chronology, pp. 30. 79.
4to. It2d. De la Nauze, Histoire du Calendrier Egyptien. Mem. Acad.
Iftscf. t. xiy. p. 334. xyi. p. 170. sqq. Fr^ret, op. cit. t zyL p. 306.
D^fens^ d^ la cbrom^oigie. p* S85. sqq. 4to^ 1758. Jackson, Chronolo*
gical antiqnitiee, yol. ii. initio. 4to. 1752. Court de Gebelin. monde pri-
mitif. t. iy. c 5. p. 126. sqq. 4to. 1773-82. Hales, Analysis of Chrono-
logy, ed. 1830, yd. i. p. 31. sqq. Fourrier Recberdies sur les sciences,
4cc. de Ti^ypte, M^mmres de la DIscript. de I'lEgypte, Antiq* t i. p.
805. sqq. Ideler, Historiscbe Untersucbungen iiber die astronomiscben
Beobacbtungen der Alten. BerL 1806, 8». s. 64* ff. Id. Techniscbe Cbro-
nologie, Bd. i. «. 93. Berl. 8. 1825* (The first mentioned work of tUs
distinguished German cbronologer and mathematician has been publish-
ed in Frendi by HaLaui at the end of his translalion of Ptolemy, which
I regfet not haying been abSe to see.) Biot, Recherchee sur ploaieim
poistB de ra^oAomte ^yptieniie» Pw*. 1823^ p. 148^ sqq.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I* S
trahsmittedy to be assumed as fixed atid diandard
epdchs, by which the remainder should be regulated^ '
as by a true test of correctness ; somewhat as events
of obscute and doubtful periods of later history, if
recorded in connexion with eclipses, or other pheno-
mena of the heavenly bodies, are assumed by prefer-*
ence as chronological pivots. The following example
may serve for illustration. The first strictly histori-
cal epoch of the egyptian annals, is that of the expul-
sion of certain Asiatic tribes, called Pastors or Shep-
herds, who, in the early ages of the world, had occu-
pied, to the prejudice of the aboriginal inhabitants,
the whole or greater part of the country. This de-
liverance was effected by the victorious arms of i^
native prince commonly called Amosis, by some
Thoutmosis, who forced the strangers to abandon
their last hold, a strong city called Avaris on the
frontiers of Arabia, and finally established the Mi^s-
raimite sway over the whole valley of the lower Nile j
hence honoured by his native historians with a place
at the head of a dynasty, the eighteenth in their lists.
This was an event of the highest importance, and
such as must have formed a standard historical sera;
and been likely, above all others, had the chronologi-
cal art been as far advanced at the time as some
would suppose, to have been accurately recorded bv
every knWn method, astronomical or ciyU.
But on consulting the various extant fragments of
^rjrptian history, even amid all their uncertainties,
And the corruptions of the texts of the authors in
whose works they have been preserved, we have suf-
ficient proof that a very considerable difference must
have existed, in the relative antiquity assigned by
4 ON TH^ CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
different native annalists to this epoch. According
to the text of Manetho, a celebrated historian of this
country, as preserved by Africanus, the accession of
the eighteenth dynasty would be dated about the year
1670 B* c. According to a different version of the
same author given by Eusebius, it would fall about
1725 B. c. And in another national document, called
*t the old ISgyptian Chronicle," it is placed about
1748 B. c.'' But Clemens Alexandrinus,*" himself an
Egyptian, and well versed in the antiquities of his
own country, fixes, apparently on the authority cf
Ptolemy the Mendesian, (another native historian of
equal celebrity with Manetho,) this same epoch of the
^ The numbers of the years contained in the dynasties np to the nine^-
teenth inclusive, according to these various authorities, are given in my
Remarks on the chronology of the egyptian d3masties ; and may also be
seen in a note to p. 142 of the 85th Number of the Quarterly Review.
For the eighteenth dynasty, we must add to the lists of Atricanus 263
years ; to those of Eusebius and the Old Chronicle, 348. The same dyn-
asty, with Josephus, (contr. Ap. L § 15. ed. Haverc. t. ii. p. 446.) who
has affected to preserve its details, after Manetho, with a scrupulous de-
gree of accuracy, assigning the fractional months of each reign, compre-
hends 333 years. Several modem authors, (Larcher, Herod, t viL p.
153. edit* 1786. Faber, Pagan Idolatry, vol. iii. p. 534. Hales, Analys. of
Ohronol. vol. iv. pp. 419. 422. edit. 1830) misled, it would appear, by an
-error in the Latin version of Havercamp, have stated the numbers of the
Jewish historian at 340 years 7 months. These M. Champollion Figeac
(Lett. i. sur le Mus. de Turin, p. 95) has adopted, as the basis of an at-
tempt to reconcile the discrepancies in the statements of the ancients
concerning this point of egyptian chronology. Theophilus of Antioch
([Ad. AutoL ad obIc. Justin. M. edit. 1743, p. 392) has also given, after Ma-
netho, a list of the eighteenth dynasty, similar, in as far as the corrupt
state of his text will permit of our judging, to that preserved by Jose^
phus, from whom he has apparently copied it. The most important of
these texts on eg3rptian chronology, are to be found in the useful collec-
tion of Mr. Cory, entitled, Antient Fragments — Lond. Pickering, 1828,
p. 47, sqq.
' Strom, lib. i. p. 335. conf. p. 320, edit. 1688.
OF ANCIENT EGTPT. SECT. .1.'^ S
expulsion of the Shepherds and the commencement' of
the eighteenth dynasty, to the S46th year before the
lapse of the sothiac cycle. This is the cyde above
alluded to ; which terminated, as shall be seen, in the
year 1322 b. c. Now, upon the principle above men-
tioned, that dates attached to years of this cycle, are
to be considered as not only historically, but as- it
were astronomically recorded; and supposing that
Ptolemy the Mendesian, or Clemens, it matters not
which, had really, as there is no reason to doubt,
drawn his information from trust-worthy original re-
cords ; it ought, amid the conAision and contradiction
which prevails among these authorities, to. have the
preference ; and consequently, the sera of the acces-
sion of Amosis, and of the expulsion of the Shepr
herds, would be placed about 1668 b. c.
A very few observations, however, in the course of
the ensuing analysis, wilU I trust, be sufficient to
show, that dates of this nature, in years of the cycle;
are in themselves ao better than any others ; being
to all appearance merely proleptic ; matter 6t after
calculation, not of contemporary observation or re-
cord ; as well as that the very history of the cycle
itself affords proof, that the learned men of Egypt
were much less advanced in. either chronological or
astronomical science than their more enthusiastic ad-
mirers have imagined, at the remote period to which
their historical records or their celestial observations
.have been supposed to extend*
I shall endeavour to bestow upon this point, and
others of equal or greater difficulty and obscurity
connected with it, as close, and at the same time as
impartial an investigation as I am able. The anti-
quities of this celebrated nation, in spite of all the
O OK THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
learning and ingenuity which have been devoted to
them, have been destined seldom to obtain a fair and
unprejudiced examination from the historical critic of
modem times. This is not very difficult to account
for ; when we consider the paucity of original docu-
ments, the meagemess and obscurity of those which
exist, and the extreme vagueness and imperfection of
the information derived at second hand from the
classical authors of Greece and Rome. On all sub-
jects of great ei^tent or interest, the extravagance of
conjecture or of system is usually in proportion to
the slendemess of our means of accurate information.
Hence one need feel little surprise, if some, dazzled
by the splendour of the monuments still existing on
t^e banks of the Nile, or influenced by too servile a
deference to the vain-glorious traditions of the Egyp^*
tians themselves, and the exaggerations of credulous
Greeks, have been willing to give this people credit
for a degree of perfection in art and science of every
description, equal if not superior to any hitherto
attained by the most polished nations of christian
Europe, at a period when, according to all reasonable
probability, the human species, if already created,
could scarcely have advanced beyond the first steps
in civilization. Others, in combating these visionary
theories, have fallen into an opposite extreme of para-
dox ; advancing opinions, and endeavouring to esta-
blish systems, altogether derogatory, as well to the
real antiquity of this wonderfitl race, as to their just
rank in the intellectual scale of nations.
In the present inquiries I shall make every effort
to avoid the Scylla as. well as the Chary bdis, which
have proved fatal to so many voyagers in the straits
of egyptian research i and in attempting to throyr
i
OF ANCISNT BGYPT. SBCT* I. 7
light on the calendar and the elements of the dsuron^
ology of this ancient people, by, combining and coUatt
ing all the more important fragments of cla^ical an^
tiquity bearing on the subject, with the evidenoe of
existing monuments, and more especially of that m^m
of valuable material, which the enterprise of the
traveller or the labour and ingenuity of the learned
have, for the most part within the last thirty years^
added to this department of antiquarian science,— ^it
shall be my endeavour to banish all feeling of prf^
judice, either favourable or adverse to the nation it-
self, and all system but that of a careful investigation
. of truth.
The Egyptians having, at an early period of their
history, established an imperfect solar year of three
hundred and sixty-five days, soon found out that its
revolution did not produce the returns of the corres^
ponding seasons, but anticipated them by nearly a
quarter of a day annually. This anticipation they
fixed by inaccurate observations at six hours precisely^
and hence it was easy to calculate that in 1461 revo^
lutions of their own year, equal to 1460 of the tropical
year, their Thot or new-yearWay would, (accordiog
to their own computation,) have retrograded from a
given point through the tropical year, so that after
the completion of that period, it would again coin-
eide with the same day and season as it had done at
.starting. If thi^ was their notion of the cycle, as
there is little reason to doubt it was, it is hardly ne-
cessary to observe that they were mistaken ; they
calculated that every fim year# they lost a quarter of
a day ; whereas they only lost five hours and nearly
forty-nine minutes ; since the true solar year really
contains upwards of eleven minutes less than the
$ ON THE CALENDAR. AND ZODIAC
Julian year of 3651 days ; so tliat the first day of the
egyptian year, after 1461 of its revolations, instead of
having retrograded completely through the seasons,
would coincide with the corresponding day of the
Julian year, when the sun was in a point of the zodiac
about twelve degrees in advance of that which it
occupied at the commencement of the period: Thus
the twentieth of July, O. S. of the year 1322 b. c,
on which day, as shall be seen below, a cycle began,
was fourteen days after the summer solstice ; but in
A. b. 139, when that cycle ended, the same day of the
Julian year fell on the twenty-sixth day after the
solstice.**
This excess of a quarter of a day, which they assigned
the true solar year above their own, they either bor-
rowed from, or connected with, the heliacal rising of
Sirius or the Dogstar, which they supposed recurred
at intervals of three hundred and sixty-five days and
a quarter } and in this they seem to have been right ;
for although the true sidereal year exceeds the Julian
time nearly as much as the tropical year falls short of
it, yet it would appear from the calculations of modem
astronomers,^ that the intervals between the heliacal
rising of Sirius, in the latitude of Egypt, during the
flourishing ages of the empire, that is for upwards of
two thousand years before our Saviour, by a certain
-concurrence in the positions of the heavenly bodies,
really were what the Egyptians supposed them to be.
The periods of the cycle were regulated by the coin^
d Ideler, Unters. iib. die a^tr. Bepb. .s. '79, Sl.-r-Ed. Halma p. 38,
Techn. Chron. Bd. i. s. 129.
• Petav. Var. diss. V. 6. Bainbr. Canic. Conf. Graev. ad calc. op.
Kircliius ap. Desvign. de Ann. Mgypt Misc. Berol. tom^ iv. p. 3. Idel.
Unters. iib, d. Astron. Beob. d. Alt. s. 88. Id. Techn. ChronoL Bd. i,
». 129 ff/
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I. 9
tidence of this phenomenon with the first day of Thot,
the first month of their year ; which coincidence, ac-
cording to historical data, took place on the ^Oth of
July, in the year of Christ 139/ That .year was
therefore the end of a cycle. Counting back 1460
years, we have the 20th of July of the year 1322 b. Cr
for its commencement ; and if we count back other
1460 years, we shall have the year 2782 as the com-
mencement of that which terminated in 1322. . The
D<^tar was called in Egypt the star of Isis, or Sothis ^
hence the name of sothiacj or canicular cycle.
The explanation given by the Egyptians, or rather
by the Greeks for them, of this discrepancy between
their civil year and the true reckoning, on which their
cycle was grounded, — namely, that it was a point of
their national religion that every feast should fall suc-
cessively on every day of each season of the year,
which was thus effected by their being attached to
certain days of their own calendar,^ — ris evidently a
mere after-excuse, invented to palliate an uninten-
tional defect, rather than a reason for what was, in
itself, from the first, an intentional institution ; for,
besides that thev would have overshot* their mark, as
their feasts, instead of taking the days of the tropical
year in regular succession, would have fallen, during
four years, on the same day, an'd then passed on to
the next, it were in itself inconceivable that any people
should originally have established their festivals upon
such a principle ; for, as among all superstitious na-
' Cen§orin de die nat c. xxi. Conf. Petav* Var. diss. y. 6. De la
Nauze Mem. de TAcad. des Inscr. xiv- p. 343* sq. Ideler, Unters. Ub.
die astr. Beob. s. 74- Techn. Chron. Bd. ii. s. 127 sq.
s Gemin. Element. Astron. o* vi. apud Petav. Uranolo^. iu op. de duct.
temp. vol. iii. p. 19.
10 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
ttons, and more especially those whose BUperstitionisk
were so evidently founded on the phenomena of the
physical world, religious rites must, in their origin,
have borne reference to the yarious phases of the hea-
venly bodies, as well as the necessary periodical ope->
rations of agriculture, they must, from their very na*
ture, have been essentially connected in their institu->
tion with certsun seasons. And that this holds good
of Egypt above all other states, must be obvious to
every person who has bestowed the least attention on
either the natural or civil history of the country. So
that to have celebrated the death of Osiris, which, ac-
cording to themselves, was figurative of the low state
of the waters of the Nile and the decline of the sun
in the zodiac, in the month of May, when the sun wa^
rapidly advancing to the zenith, and the Nile just be^
ginning to swell, would have been such an anomaly,
as might, indeed, have been brought about by a con-
fusion of circumstances, and the obstinacy of a bigotted
people, but never could have been the effect of design*
It would, however, appear that some of their more
important solemnities did remain fixed to certain sea^
sons, and, consequently, could not have been attached
to particular days of any month ; such were the har-
vest-home of Isis, described by Diodorus,** at which
the first-fruits of certain vegetables, were offered, and
the sacrifice of hogs at fiiU moon, mentioned by He-
rodotus.* To these might, perhaps, be added th^
Niloa, or festival of the inundation, described by Se*-
neca*" and Heliodorus,' and apparently also noticed by
h Bib. hist. 1. i. c. 14. ^ L. ii. c. 47, conf. Plut de Is. et Os. c, 8.
k Qusest nat. L iv. C 2, p. 726. A- Edit Lipsii, 1715.
1 ^thiop. 1- ix- p. 423, Ed. ConameL Ciuit. 1598.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. t. ll
the father of grecian history ."^ Other examples might
possiUy be adduced ; but as the writers on whose au-
thority they rest flourished after the introduction of
the Julian year into Egypt, and as their illustrations
of the egyptian mysteries are given very confusedly,
partly with reference to the dates of the new calendar,
partly to those of the ancient year still in use among
th6 aboriginal inhabitants, the less attention is due to
them.'' The instances here quoted, however, are suf«
£cient, for the present, to show, that some' at least of
their feasts were originally assigned to certain seasons;
and the same may, from the very nature of egyptian
superstition, be inferred concerning the remainder.
Afterwards,, amid the irregularities of th^ir calendar^
those festivals whose ceremonies were so necessarily
dependent on the seasons, with respect to which they
were first instituted, that they could not possibly be
performed at any other, the harvest-home, for example,
or the Niloa, remained fixed, while others, where the
connexion was of less importance, -continued'attaohed
to their respective days of the national months,, and
not to the degrees of the ecliptic ; and the priesthood,
finding the year; of three hundred and sixty-five days
a simpleand convenient method of reckoning in other
respects, and unwilling to make any farther alteration
in their civil institutions, so repugnant to the feeling
it>f the nation at all times, sanctified this defect of the
calendar as a religious peculiarity, which distinguished
their national solemnities from those of their neigh-
bours ; the motive of their primeval institution being
still kept in view among the priests themselves, and
"* IL 60, conf. auct. apud Jablpnsk* Panth. segf. lib- iv* c 1, ^ 16 ; and
Heeren Ideen iiber die Politik, &c. der Alten. Edit 1826. IL Th. IL
Abth. p. 375. ^ See note to p. infr.
12 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
forming probably, as we sl^all have occasion to observe
farther hereafter, an important part of those mysterious
significations so much celebrated as contained in all
the superstitious rites of this people.
Farther proof, if indeed any be required, that it
could not have been the original intention of the
egyptian legislators, in establishing their civil year, to
make its revolution fall short of the true solar time,
exists in the circumstance, admitted by themselves,
and proved by the whole tenor of their tradition, that,
in early periods of their history, they, like other na-
tions in the infancy of civilization, used a year of three
hundred and sixty days, divided into twelve months
of thirty days each,° which formed the basis of their
calendar as afterwards permanently settled, and which,
if adhered to without occasional correction, would, no
doubt, have caused their feasts to retrograde through
the seasons, but would have been far from making
^ them fall* successively on each day of the solar year.
Now, as many of their superstitious rites may safely
be considered at least as ancient as their civil chrono-
logy, it is clear, upon their own admission, that those
jites could originally have been established on no such
principle as that which we have just been examining.
As to the real nature of this year of three hundred
and sixty days ; whether, as some have supposed, it
was allowed, like its successor, to anticipate the tro-
pical time, so that its commencement falling back five
days and a quarter each revolution, would shift through
the seasons in about seventy years ^ or whether it was
a lunisolar year, rectified occasionally by embolic
months, it would be in vain minutely to inquire, as
o See Appendix, No. I.
jOF ANCIEN'T EGYPT. SECT. I. IS
we liave few or no historical dalta concerning it ; but
the latter opinion is certainly the most reasbnable,
since it can hardly be supposed that any nation would
long submit to so very inconvenient an irregularity
as must otherwise have been the result. It was, how-
.ever, in order to obviate permanently, as they ima-
gined, the perpetual fluctuation of the seasons, which
must have been consequent on a strict adherence to
•their ancient mode of reckoning, that they established
their new form of year, by adding five supernumerary
days at the end pf the twelve months. This additional
number of days they borrowed from rude observation
of the courses of the stars, as a more accurate guide
than the changes of the moon, which had been the
foundation of their primitive reckoning, calculating
these courses, in round numbers, at three hundred and
sixty.five days. And it is not to be believed that they
*would, after once venturing upon such an innovation
pn their ancient institutions, have been contented thus
only to reform their civil calendar by halves, substi-
tuting a lesser for a greater error, had they at that
period known any more exact approximation to the
truth. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt
but that the Egyptians, in instituting their year of
three hundred and sixty-five days, believed, or hoped^
that its revolution would bring about the return of
the seasons, and that the sothiac cycle is, in fact, the
result of their disappointment.
The epoch at which these five days were perma-
nently added is also mere matter of conjecture, not
being recorded by any trustworthy document, and the
statements of the classical authors concerning it being
vague and contradictory. SyncellusP ascribes the im-
P Chronogr. p. 123, D. inter Script Bystant t vi. Par. fol. 1652.
14 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
provement to a king called Aseth, whom some^ on
grounds of a very unsatisfactory nature, have identi*^
fied with one of the shepherd kings. Ceifisorinui^*> ap-^
pears to consider as its author one Arminon ; which
name, however, does not occur in the lists of egyptiatt
sovereigns. The opinions of modern fchronologers dfl
this point have been, as might be expected, much di-
vided ; but those who have taken the most reasonable
view of the subject are agreed in supposing the insti-^
tutton to have befeu of no very extreme antiquity, pro-
bably not prior to the exodus, as there is much reason
to believe that the Jewish legislator, who wasleamed
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, was unacquaitited
with any such institution. Sir Isaac Newton' would
place it about nine hundred years before the christian
era ; biit, as his opinion is grounded" on a Ifeystem of
chronology which, however ingenious, is now getie^
rally admitted to be fallacious, little weight can be ati-
tached to it. Dodwell* carried his contempt of the
astronomy of the Egyptians so far as to maioitaiu that
their solar year was no invention of their own, but
borrowed from the Persians, on the conquest of their
country by CambyseS. On ihe other hand, Zoega's*
admiration of the science of his favourite among the
nations of antiquity led him to deny that this imi^er^
feet or moveable year was ever really in u^ athong
them, but that they had the Julian or tropicd year
from time immemorial ; and hence he supposes, like
Dodwell, though on different grounds, that the other
was an institution of their conquerors^ falsely attri**^
buted to themselves by the Greeks, who first became
4 De die nat c. 19. ' Chronol pp- 30, 79, sq*
* D« vet. cycl* diss. ii. sect* 6, p* 70 ; diss* iii. sect 4, 6, p. 134f
t Nmnni. Mgyj^t Mus* Borg* addend, p. 396*
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I. 15
acquainted with it in their country after the conquest.
The fallacy of both these opinions, eminent as is the
authority by which they are supported, is too obvious
to require to be pointed out minutely. Gatterer as-
serts, that the year of threa hundred and sixty-five
days must have been used in Egypt in the seventeenth
century before Christ, because Cecrops brought it
with him ifdo Attica."^ The learnt chronologer does
not say how he ascertained this last fact, but I conceive
it would be somewhat difficult to discover authority
for it.^ The most plausible opinion, perhaps, is that
which supposes that the reform of the egyptian calen-
dar took place in that same celebrated year 1322,
which was the period of the sothiac cycle, atid that
they then transferred their new year's* day from the
position in the seasons which it previously occupied
to the day whereon Siritis rose heliacally,^ — a pheno-
menon of great importance in their mythology, as well
from their general superstitious - reverence for that
brilliant star, * as from its appearance coinciding with
the inundation of the Nile, and being supposed to eso-
ercise a physical influence on the rise of its waters.
The very circumstance that the cycle of 1460 years,
formed upon the deficiency of their new calendar, was
afterwards regulated by the coincidence of the Thot
with that particular day, is certainly strong ground
of belief, as has been observed by De la Nauze and
others,'' that the reform itself was accompanied by that
« Weltgeschichte, B* I. p. 579, ft GotHng. S© 1785.
▼ See Append. No* II.
^ De la Naii2e, Mem. de TAcad. des Tnscr. t. ziv. p. 343. Gognet
erig. des lobe, torn. iv. p. 479, £d. Par. 1758. Ideler Unters. Uber die
aatr. Beob. &c. s. 70, ff. Techn. ChronoL Bf L s. 131. JPlayfair, ChroaoL
p. 13. Encyc Brit. art. Chronology, No* 21. Under the goTemment 4tf
a tovereign called Menophris, If we may trust a fragment o/ Theou Akx.
16 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
coincidence ;^ and, if so, without taking an extrava-
gant view of egyptian chronology, we can hardly as-
sign it to any other epoch than 1322 b. c, as the year
2782, on which the commencement of the previous
cycle would fall, reaches^ too remote a period of anti-
quity to justify the belief that even the egyptian statd
was as far advanced in, civilization as the existence of
such an institution would lead us to infer. It is, how-
ever, by no means inconsistent with probability, that,
the calendar having been reformed some time previous
to the year 1322, its Thot, or first day, being fixed at
a more advanced season, may, by retrograding towards
the solstice, have coincided with the heliacal rising of
Sirius in that year ; and this interesting coincidence
having been observed and recorded by the Egyptians,
may afterwards have aided them in regulating the pro-
portion between their own and the tropical year, and
so have equally formed the basis of their cycle. This
seems to have been the view taken of it by Jackson,^
who supposes the Thot, on the addition of the epago-
menee, to have been fixed about the autumnal equinox,
which opinion, we shall have occasion to notice more
particularly in treating of the egyptian zodiac. Sir
Isaac Newton,' on the same principle, supposed the
Thot of the improved year to have been fixed about
the vernal equinox of the year 887 b. c, so that it
would have retrograded to the 26th of February in
the first year of Nabonassar, or 7^6 years before the
cited from the Paris MS. by Biot Rech. sur Tastron. ^^pt, p- 303, Lar-
cher Herodot. torn, ii* ed. 2, p. 553. Cbampoll. l^ Lett* sur le miis* de
Turin. Notice chronoL p. 100. Volney, however, rejects, but apparent-
ly without reason, the interpretation of this passage adopted by these au<»
thors; see his Recherches nouvelles sur I'hist. ancienne, torn. iiL p. 216v
» See Append. No. III.
y Chron. Ant vol. ii. p, 7. f Chronol. pp. 31, 79.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I. 17
christian era, and have first coincided with the rising
of Sirius in a. d. 139, That is, however, as already
observed, much too low an estimate of this important
point of egyptian antiquity.
Diodorus* mentions a golden circle, of three hun-
dred and sixty-five cubits in circumference, by a cubit
in breadth, as having been formerly shown in a theban
edifice, among which cubits were distributed the days
of the year, with the proper risings and settings of the
stars attached to each, and their mystical import, ac-
cording to the egj'ptian astrologers. It is not very
easy to say what degree of faith is here due to the de-
scription of Diodorus, which he professes to have de-
rived from Hecataeus of Abdera, or other greek writ-
ers on Egypt of the days of the Ptolemies ; yet, im-
mediately afterwards, he informs us that this sphere
was carried off by Cambyses, two hundred years be-
fore their time. Admitting, however, the tradition to
be correct, there would be much reason to believe that
the sphere was constructed at the time the new calen-
dar was established, as a monument of the institution ;i»
certainly, it may be presumed, if Diodorus* account be
correct, not after they had observed the real discre-
pancy between the civil and the sidereal year, other-
wise it would have been quite vain to have fixed the
risings and settiijgs of the stars, and their prognosti-
cations, to particular days of the months, as they must
have known that in a few years the use of their sphere
» Lib. L J 49.
** " From this monument I collect," says Sir Isaac Newton, (Chron. p.
30,) '^ that it was Amenophis" (that is the person by whom he supposed
it to have been erected) ** who established this year, fixing the beginning
thereof to one of the four cardinal points of the heavens. For had not the
beginning thereof been now fixed, the heliacal risings and settings of the
stars could not have been noted on the days thereof*'*
C
18 ON THE CALENDAR AMD 20DIAC
would have been at an end. The building in which
DiodoruB states this golden calendar to have been
placed, seems to have been a monument of the reign
of Sesostris, (first king of the nineteenth dynasty,)
which the historian or his authorities mistook for the
sepulchre of a more ancient king, Osymandyas,^ of
Whom there may have been some memorial in the
neighbourhood. The reign of Sesostris, according to
the most moderate estimate of his native historians,
cannot be brought down lower than about the middle
of the fourteenth century b. c. ; but as the egyptian
emperors w^re much in the habit of adding to, and
embellishing the edifices of their predecessors, and as
this sphere was a mere piece of ornamental furniture,
not necessarily connected with the structure itself, its
existence there might be eridence of its having been
framed at a period posterior to the accession of tlii3
nineteenth dynasty, though it would be none of its
being of equal antiquity with the reign of the sove-
reign abovementioned. It might naturally suggest
itself, that a satisfactory mode of deciding the contro-
versy respecting the institution of the epagomense, or
five additional day^, would be to ascertain whether,
among the dates which recent discoveries in egyptian
literature enable scholars to interpret from the ancient
records, there be any marked in those days at remote
periods of antiquity. But it is singular enough, that
although a great number of historical dates, both of
the ancient dynasty of the Pharaohs, and of the greek
and roman sovereigns have been brought to light,**
^ Upon this curious point of antiquity, vid. Champol. 11. Lettro-siur lo
Mns. de Turin, p. 1 1. Conf. Let 14^ from Egypt, Lit Guz. Nov. 2), 1S99.
f. 762. Heeren Ideen iL die Potitik, &c. ii. Th. ii. Abth. s. 233. ff.
d Vid. ap. Young, -aooount of recent diseov. in hierogl. Lond. 182S.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT* SECT, I. 19
in the egyptian langvLBge and characters as well as in
greek, yet all, I helieve without exception^ refer to
days of the months, and not one to the embolic days.
This may be the result of accident, or possibly these
days may have been in a certain degree nefdstiy and
hence less likely to occur connected with dates of
civil or religious solemnities ; though I am not aware
that there is any authority to justify such Ck belief ;
indeed the very constitution of the calendar, which
caused the greater number of feasts to take the days
of the year in succession, seems to render it inadmis-
sible ; besides which, royal deaths, births, accessions,
and other public events of an unexpected, nature,
irhether joyful or calamitous, might require to be re-
corded on the epagomenae, as. well as the days of the
months.
But at whatever epoch the egyptian calendar was
finally established, it is clear that the first notioti of
the canicular cycle must date from the subsequent
period, when they had not only experienced how in-
correct it still was, but had fixed their error at a
quarter of a day ; and connected the deficiency with
the corresponding excess of the interval betweien the
heliacal risings of their favorite star, over their civil
year. Having calculated, therefore, that they lost a
day every four revolutions, it was .a very simple mat-
KoMgarton de prise 2B^[j^t, litteratura. Vimar. 1828. ChampoL IR
Lett snr le Mus. de Turin. The representative marks of the \*mycft.%vat
baye, it appears, not hitherto been discovered in the hieroglyphic, or any
other native egyptian character ; which is surprising, considering that
most of the other signs for the reckoning of tinie, such as year, day, the
twelvemonths, and the numerals from one to a thousand, have. been
identified, as might be expected from their nature, with greater £Eu;ility,
and more mathematical certainty, than almost any other hieroglyphic
cyphers.
20 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
ter to regulate a cycle of 1461 of their own years
upon this prindiple ; for as there are just so many
quarters of a day in the Julian year, at the end of that
period, their Thot, that is the first day of their first
month, must have retrograded through it to the point
from whence it set out.
It is equally clear, that this anticipation of the
seasons having been once so fixed, a cycle of this na-
ture could be dated from any given day of any given
year, to a. corresponding day after 1 46 1 revolutions ;
from the year, for instance, on which Sirius rose
heliacally on the 'first of the month Phamenoth, as
well as from that on which it rose heliacally on the
first of Thot. Thus the Phoenix, according to some,*
was fabled to appear in Egypt at intervals of 1461
years, which might be called the cycle of the Phoenix;
and in the same way national revolutions, the acces-
sion of favorite sovereigns, or other remarkable events,
might in partial chronological systems become the
4)asis of sothiac cycles. Of this we shall have occa-
sion priesently to notice an example of considerable
importance to the elucidation of our subject.
With regard to the period, when the discrepancy
between the civil and the tropical year was first ob-
served and defined ; it naturally suggests itself, that
the discovery would take place, in consequence of
their having remarked, that the interval between the
heliacal risings of Sirius, which they had assumed as
equal to the solar year, exceeded their own by about
six hours. . This, accordingly, has been the opinion
of those who suppose that the new calemlar was esta-
blished in 1322 B. c, its first day being fixed to that
e Tacit Ann. vi. c. 28.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I. 21
whereon Sirius rose heliacally ; among others of
Professor Ideler ;^ who adds, that on account of the
great difficulty of observing with any degree of nicety
in the climate of Egypt the exact days on which the
stars were disengaged from the rays of the sun,*^ a very
considerable time might have elapsed, before they could
have ascertained that Sirius appeared precisely a day
later in their calendar every four years. This same
difficulty has led other experimental astronomers^ to
doubt or to deny, that the true length of the Julian
year could have been originally regulated by any re-
ference to the phases of the Dogstar at all ; and
rather to suppose that having been calculated by some
other itieans, such as the observation of the shadow,
or of the points of sunrise, it may afterwards have
been identified with the heliacal year of Sirius. These
are matters which fall within the province of practical
astronomers, and where they differ, the historical
critic cannot pretend to decide. Some authors of
eminence* have indeed, in the heat of controversy, or
under the influence of system, even gone the length
^f doubting whether the rsragrov ^iJuigug of excess
had been thus ultimately defined, at the period of
the first familiar acquaintance of the Greeks with
Egypt ; an opinion of which I conceive no person
who takes an impartial view of egyptian antiquity,
will be inclined to approve. Its supporters appeal to
^ Unters. U. die astr. Beob. &c* p> S5.
i For this see Nouet ap. Volney recherches nouvelles sur Thist. anc.
torn. iii. append' p. 332.
^ Delambre ap. Cuvier on the revoi. of the surf, of the globe, p. 140,
EngL trans. Lond. 1S29. Conf. Biot Recherches sur TAstroo. ^ypt p.
224v
^ Goguet Origiue des loix, torn. v. p. 171. Dupuis, Hist, de I'Acad.
des Insc. t. xxix. p. 1 13. Dehimbre, Hist, de Tastr. anc. t> i. p. xlriii.
additions, &c* Cuvier op* sup. cit. p. 142.
22 ON THE CALENDAJEl AND ZODIAC
Herodotus, who, it is asserted, is so far from betrajr^-
ing any suspicion of the additional quarter of a day-
having been known to the Egyptians in his time, that
he commends that people,^ because ^^ they first of all
men had discovered the true year, distributing it into
twelve portions according to the seasons ; and in this
respect show themselves so much the wiser than the
Greeks in his opinion, as the Greeks intercalate every
second year, to keep pace with the seasons ; but the
Egyptians, counting twelve months of thirty days
each, Add to each year five days extraordinary, and
thus the seasons are kept to their proper places.**
Here, as elsewhere, the father of Grecian history does
indeed show how unwise he himself was in these mat-
ters, and utters at the same time an unintentional sa>
tire upon that wisdom which was the object of his
admiration ; the system he eulogizes being founded
on the very defect which his countrymen took pains
to rectify by their cycles of lunar years. But what
conclusion are we entitled to draw from this respect-
ing the astronomical i^ience of the Egyptians ? ' This,
it is evident, is merely the opinion of Herodotus him-,
self, who, finding a year of only three hundred and
sixty-five days in civil use among them, which his
profound admiration for their wisdom led him igno-
rantly to fancy must be the true length of the solar
revolution, makes his observations accordingly ; af-
fording one, among other strong proofs, of his super-
ficial acquaintance with several important points of
egyptian custom, on which his authority is so often
and confidently appealed to by modern critics. The
priests rtay surely have admitted the extra six hours
^ II. § 4.
^ See Append. No. IV.
OF ANCIJJNT Eay?T. SECT. U ^
into their aatronomical qoBip\itfktion in the day^ of
HeJfodotusa although they werQ uot at paiii@ to com-
muiucate their knowledge to that curious though sim-
ple inquirer, of whose honest credulity they seem not
unfrequently to have made a jesf It is however
added> that Thalea, who visited Egypt i^everal gene-
rations prior to Herodotus, and was admitted to a
participation of the mysteries of the learned men of
that country, obtained from them no nearer approxi-
mation to the true time than his countryman. Our
acquaintance with the philosophy of Thalea is by for
too vague and imperfect, to justify any positive infer-
ence respecting his doctrines, either moral or physi-
cal, much lesa with regard to those borrowed by him
from Egypt. But under any circumstances, if we ad-
mit that ^e ymr of 365 days was established in that
country, a» there can be no reasonable doubt it was,
many centuries before the days of either of the Greek
sages above mentioned, it were hardly credible that a
people in the habit of observing the heavens, as the
Egyptians unquestionably did with some attention, if
not with very excellent instruments, and among
whom, from the very nature of their climate, the cal-
culation of the returns of the seasons was a matter of
considerable importance, and at the same time of
^ 8ee, among other examples that might be adduced^ the accooDt
given him by the hiero^rammatist of Sais, who may be presomied to
have been among the dignitaries of the sacerdotal order most distin-
guished for learning and gravity, concerning the rise of the Nile in a
pool between two lofty peaks at Syene ; whence issuing, its waters were
divided, part flowing to the north, part to ^e south, (L, ii. § 28.) ; also
concerning the signification of the word Piromi, attached to the images
of departed priests, as of other mortals, to distinguish them from those of
the gods ; and conf. Young art. Egypt, Supp. Encyc* Brit. p« 46. Cham-
poL Pi'ecis du syst. hi6r. tab. gen. No. 153, sqq.
24 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
greater facility than in most other countries, — ^it is
hardly credible that such a people should have been
-so stupid as not to have perceived, that in a hundred
and twenty years the periodical returns of seed-time
and harvest, of the rise and fall of their river, of the
risings and settings of their favourite stars, had al-
tered their positions in the calendar by about a month ;
and if so, it required no very profound astronomical
science to fix the excess of the tropical year in round
numbers at a quarter of a day. If their astronomers
had not made this discovery before the days of Hero-
dotus, we must altogether deny them the merit of
ever having made it at all ; for it is not to be sup-
posed, that amid the anarchy, oppression, and national
distress, which followed the Persian conquest, the de-
graded priesthood should in a few years have advanced
more rapidly in astronomical discovery, than during*
ten centuries of the more brilliant ages of national
prosperity and independence. We should therefore
be reduced to the necessity of supposing, that they
acquired their knowledge of the Julian year from the
Greeks ; which is as inconsistent with probability, as
with the unanimous testimony of the Greeks them-
selves."
The silence however of the travellers of this last-
mentioned nation on these ppints, though not suffi-
cient to justify so low an estimate of egyptian learn-
ing, is certainly somewhat surprising. Plato and
Eudoxus are indeed stated by Strabo,° to have been
^ Larcher, in as far as I know, is the only critic who has gone the
length of advancing even this paradox. Memoire sur le Phoenix, &c.
Hist, et Mem. de I'lnst. royal, vol. i. p. 220. Classe d'hist. et de litt
anc. Apud Idel. Techn. chron. Bd. i. s. 137, note.
o P. 1 143, ed. Falcon.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. T. 25
made acquainted by the theban priests with the addi*
tional quarter of a day ; but amid the multitude of
learned and inquisitive men who are said to have de-
voted so much attention and so many years* study to
egyptian history, it is remarkable that no notice should
be taken of its application to the cycle prior to the
days of Manetho j'^ and this, added to the meagerness
of the allusions to the cycle itself, contained in his
works, as well as in those of other native annalists,
must be considered as strong proof how recent and
imperfect its use really was in their chronology.
It would be quite superfluous, after what has beea
already observed, to enter upon any lengthened ar-
gument to show, that this celebrated sothiac period,,
at whatever epoch the first notion of it may have oc-
curred, need be considered, in its application to remote
ages, as nothing more than a matter of calculation,
resembling the Julian period of Scaliger, or other si-
milar chronological fictions. This is indeed self-
evident, and has been so fully explained and illustrated
by various authors, more especially by M. Biot in his
valuable Researches on several points, of Egyptian
astronomy, that it will be sufficient to refer the reader
who may be curious to inquire farther to his work,
where the subject has been exhausted in a section ex-
pressly devoted to its investigation.** It may therefore
safely be asserted, that it were as unreasonable to as-
sume, that because in a system of chronology the date
of some event of remote antiquity is assigned to such
or such a year of this cycle, the knowledge of the cy-
cle itself must necessarily have existed in Egypt at
P See Append. No. V.
<i P. 148, sqq. conf. Idel. Unters. ub. di astr. Beob, &c. s. 83.
S6 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
the same period, as it would be to awort, tbat the
Julian year was used hj the Gre^ on the first esta^
blishment of the olympiads^ because that event, in our
chronology, is assigned to a certain year of the Julian
period. It is surprising, however, to what an extent
this error has prevailed among autiiors who ought to
have known better : thus Freret,' and altter him
Bailly,' have assumed the knowledge of this mode of
reckonii^ among the Egyptians, in the year 278^
B. c, merely on account of an apparent allusion by
Manetho to a vague date of his native history, given
as they supposed in years of the cycle terminating in
1322, and which ought therefore to have commenced
in 2782. And Baiily has gone the still greater
length of inferring, that the year of S65i days waa
known to the Egyptians at that remote period^ Had
Manetho, as he might accidentally have done, ascribed
to some still more ancient event of his fiibuloua hisr
tory its date in years of a former cycle, it would, upon
this principle, be equally incumbent on us to admit
the knowledge of the solar year in 4242 b. c*, and so
on ad infinitum, or at least up to a period of near
37000 years before our Saviour ; for it will be seen
presently, that the native historians claimed twenty**
five such cycles for the fabulous duration of their em**
pire, counted back from the year 350 b. c, the actual
existence and use of which among the antediluvian,
or rather antemundane Egyptians, must also be ad-
mitted upon the premises of the above mentioned
authors. Sir Isaac Newton* having, in his Chrono*
logy, placed the period of the reform of the calendar
r Defense de la Chronologie, pp. 25. 246. 414.
« Hist de Tastr. anc L. y. $ 10. p. 402.
t Pp. 30. 79. sqq.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT* SECT. I. 9!^
about the 900 b. c, Freret,"" in his confutation of that
system, adyanced as proof of the prior existence of the
egyptian year certain passa^s of Manetho, and other
historians of the age of the Ptolemies, where dates of
remote events are assigned in years of the cycle ; in-
ferring, as a necestory consequence, the existence in
those days of the form of year of which the cycle was
composed.. Newton did not condescend to enter
upon a serious exposure of this sophistry, but merely
observed, that his critic had misunderstood him, as
his argument referred merely to the ^^yptian year,
and had nothing to do with the cycle/ This answer
hi» antagonist himself quotes, somewhat piqued," and
in his reply formally states, that he is unable to com-*
prehend how Newton distinguished between the egyp*
tian year and the cycle composed of that year, or
how the one could exist without the other. The
4
learned academician might as well have said, that he
was unable to comprehend hpw .barbarians could rec«
kon time by days and nights without the knowledge
of the Julian yeat ; or how Julius Ciaesar could have
established his calendar, without being acquainted
with the Julian period. It is surprising that so acute
a genius as fr^ret unquestionably was, should have
been so blinded by the effect of prejudice or system,
as. thus to have persisted in that very sophistry him-
self which be saw and pointed out so acutely and
convincingly in others.
u Defense de la Chron. p. 4l4.
▼ PhiL Trans, vol* xxxiii. p. 320* '' I meddle not with that cycle, hut
speak of the egyptian year of 365 days.*'
^ Defense de la ChronoL p« 414. Je ne puis comprendre comment
M. Newton distingue entre Fannie ^yptienne et le cycle compose de ces
anuees. Ces deux choses me semhlent tellement liees qui Tune ne peat
aller sans Tautre.
28 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
A still farther illustration we have of the influence
on historical criticism, of this error of assuming date»
of calculation for epochs of contemporary observation
or record, in its application to the celebrated aera of
Nabonassar, which falls to be noticed here, as having
been, from certain circumstances, closely connected
and mixed up with the chronology of Egypt. This
was a chaldee period, commencing in 74? b. c, dated,
^s is usually supposed, from the accession of a Meso-
potamiam prince of the name of Nabonassar ; and the
greek astronomers, Hipparchus, and after him Pto-
lemy, having adopted the celestial observations of the^
Chaldees by preference, as the basis of their own as-
tronomical systems, assumed this aera as the limit,,
within which such of those observations as they con-
sidered worthy of their attention were comprised.
But finding it convenient, according to their own
principle of computation, to reduce the babylonian
reckoning of time, in. common with that of all other
states to whose scientific records they had occasion to
appeal, into the year in civil use in Alexandria, (at
that time the chief seat of learning,) which, from its
familiarity and great convenience, they had adopted
as a standard — we have thus in their works a series of
egyptian years, dating from the twenty-sixth of Feb-
ruary 747 »• c., (on which day the moveable Thot
fell at that epoch), called the aera of Nabonassar ; and
hence modern chronologers have been misled, as
above stated, to assume, some"" that the Chaldees had
adopted the use of the solar years of 365 days from
the Egyptians at that period ; others^ that this is
•
^ Newton, Chronol. pp. 80. 252. De la Nauze, Mem. de TAcad. des
Inscr. t. xiv. p. 338.
y Scalig. de Emend, temp. p. 189*
/.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I, 29
merely an egyptian sera, but dated from a conquest of
the country by Nabonassar the Assyrian ; and Dod-
well* and others, as already observed, have even gone
the length of supposing that the year of 365 days was
originally an invention of the Chaldeeis, first intro-
duced into Egypt by the Persian conquerors. All
which opinions are equally un^pported by any au-
thority but the conjecture of their supporters, as has
been pointed out by Petavius,* and still more fully
and satisfectorily by Freref andJackson/
The sothiac cycle being therefore, like the Julian
period, or the egyptian year of Nabonassar, merely
proleptic, the dates of remote events of egyptian his-
tory recorded in years of that cycle, putting the gene-
ral fabulousness of the early annals of the nation out
of the question, can be in themselves no better than
any others ; as not being necessarily, nor probably,
connected with any observation made at the time it-
.self. Had the cycle been known at the period of the
expulsion of the Shepherds, and the accession of
Amosis ; and this important epoch of the national
history been so noted at the time in the sacerdotal
records ; and established as it were on an astronomi-
cal basis, according to actual observation of Sirius ;
there could hardly have been any dispute among those
who afterwards compiled the same records, with re-
gard to so positive and standard a point of chronology ;
and consequently the wide discrepancy which we find
between the statements of Ptolemy the Mendesian —
> De yet cycL Diss. ii. § 6. conf. Zoiig. Num. Egfypt. Mas. Bor^. p.
395.
a De doct. temp. L. iii. c. 6.
^ Mem. de TAcad. des Inscr. t. xvi. p* 205, sqq.
^ Chronol. Antiq. vol. ii. p. 80. conf. infr. Append. No. VI.
30 ON THE CALENDAR AND 20DIAC
of the Old Chronicle-^nd those of Josephus, Afri-
canus, and Eusebius, each professing to be derived
from Manetho — could never have existed. This date
therefore, of three hundred and forty-five years before
the lapse of the cycle, can merely give us to under*-
stand, that according to Ptoiemy'«e view of the egyptian
annals, the expulsion of the Shepherds took place as
many years before his own time, as were contained
in the intervening period ; or about the 1668 b. c.
according to our reckoning j and may have been a
computation"^ made by himself, from observation of
the place in the tropical year which the Thot occu«
pied, as cotnpared with the day of the egyptian year
on which Sirius rose heliacally, at the epoch when he
himself wrote. Had the Old Chronicle fixed the
date of this event in years of the cycle, it would have
placed it in the four hundred and twenty-sixth year
before its lapse ; Manetho, taking his numbers accord-
ing to Africanus, woiild nearly have coincided witik
Ptolemy ; according to Eusebius he would have fixed
it four hundred and three years before its lapse ; and
according to Josephus would probably have differed
from all the others.
There can* be no doubt but that chronological
tables, formed upon this cycle on the principle^ of
calculation above alluded to, would have been found
by the egyptian annalists a very convenient and use-
fill method of establishing the relative dates of re-
markable events ; some sort of standard aera or period
of this kind being a desideratum in the annals of every
nation, more especially when of so great extent and
antiquity as those of Egypt. But there are various
^ See Append. No. VI !•
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. !• 31
circumstances which tend to show that this mode of
calculation, as here described, never was in familiar
use among the chronologers of that country. First,
the extreme paucity, or rather total want of dates so
recorded ; that of Ptolemy or Clemens above quoted^
being, as we shall ^ee, the only palpable one upon
record, as far at least as my researches go. Secondly,
that although among the native historians of the age
of the Ptolemies, mention occurs of a period of 1461
years as a measure of their annals, real or fabulous, the
cycle which they used seems to have been very differ-
ently regulated from that concerning which we have
hitherto been inquiring ; for the Old Chronicle already
quoted^ makes the egyptian empire last twenty-five
cycles, containing 365^ years, and terminating with
Nectanebo their last native monarch ; whose attempt
to re-establish the independence of his country was
crushed by Darius Ochus in the year 350 b. c. These
cycles therefore differed in their periods by upwards
of four hundred and eighty years, from those which
terminated in 132S B. c. and a. d. 139* I have
formerly had occasion to obse^ve,^ on the authority
of Africanus and Syncellus, that there is much reason
to believe, that, orf^ihis point, Manetho tind the na-
tive annalists in general, followed the same method
of computation as the Old Chronicle ; and that opin^
ion has been since confirmed by a passage of Jam-
blichiis,' who expressly states, that according to Ma-
netho, Mercury (or Thot) had illustrated the sacred
history of Egypt in 30595 volumes ; which, as Gale
justly observes in his note to the passage,' can refer
* Brief remarks on the Chrotiol. of the Egypt. Dynasties, p. 22.
f De in3r8t segyptiac. sect. viii. c. 1, edit. Gale. 1678. p. 157«
e Conf. Marsh. Chron. Can* p. 10.
3
32 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
to nothing else than the fsLbulous 36525 years, or
twenty.five cycles of duration, assigned to this empire.
All this is sufficient proof thiat the historical cycle
commonly used by the egyptian annalists differed from
the astronomical cycle, regulated by the coincidence
of the Thot with the heliacal rising of Sirius. It is
however evident, as has been shown by Bainbridge,^
Ideler,* and by myself elsewhere,'' from the general
tenor of their records, and the comparative chrono-
logy of other nations, that the date preserved by
Clemens Alexandrinus is given in years of the cycle
terminating in 1 322 b, c. That this date is borrowed
by him from the pagan historian Ptolemy, to whom
he appeals as to the best authority, there can be little
doubt ; as the method of computation it^lf, limited as
it is among the egyptian annalists, was yet peculiar to
them* The only occasion where the name of Manetho
occurs connected with a date of this nature, is a pas-
sage of Syncellus ;' which some have interpreted as
stating, that Manetho had placed the occupation of
Egypt by the Shepherds in the seven hundredth year
of a canicular cycle. Of this, however, as the text of
Syncellus is now read, no sense whatever can be
made ; and unless we suppose dither that the passage
is corrupt, or that Syncellus himself has misquoted or
misunderstood Manetho, we must admit that Manetho
.computed his cycles in a manner different from any
hitherto mentioned.™ For as the seven hundredth
h Canic. p. 35. i Techn. Chronol. Bd. i. s. 134.
^ Brief remarks on the chronoL &c. p. 32. note.
1 Chrongr. p. 103.
™ This confused passage of Syncellus, which has been the basis of so
many erroneous and discordant systeins relative to egyptian history, has
been analyzed in my Brief remarks on the chronology of the egyptian
OP ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. I. 33
year spokenof by Syncellus in connexion with the cycle
of Manetho, is also, according to the same christian
chronologer, the seven hundredth year after the disper-
sion of Babel, and as the dispersion of Babel is placed
by him in the year 2724 b. c*, the cycle itself would
have terminated in 1264 b. ۥ ; which would harmo-
-nijze with no method of computation hitherto deve-
loped. Although Marsham*" has clearly pointed out
this discrepancy, yet Freret,° and after him ChapapoU
lion Figeac,^ have founded their respective systems
of egyptian chronology upon the basis of the date of
Syncellus, as, alluding to seven hundred years of a
cycle terminating in 1322 ; and Pezron** has also ad-
mitted it into his calculations, but on the. supposition
that it referred, in a confused sort of way, to the cycle
of the Old Chronicle ; which suited his views better.
The results of their, respective theories are as incon^
gruous and unsatisfikctory, as. might .ihe expected from
the common error on which. they are founded. What
is perhaps still less excusable, Bailly.has, with oth^r
critical fallacies of Freret, adopted also. this, imaginary
date, and assigned it considerable importaiice. in, his
history of ancient astronomy.'
dynasties ; where the principal misinterpretations to which it has. been
subjected have been pointed out.
Chr6n. Can. p. 296i
o M^m. de F Acad, des Insc. t xlvii., p. ao. sgq.^and JM. de la ChconpL
pp. 25, 407.
P Prem. Lett, sur le mus^e de Turin, notice chronoL p. 99.
4 L'antiquit^ des terns defend. &c. 4to. p.^ 16S*
' Hist deJ'astron. aac. pp.. 173. 402.
(M on TH£ CALENDAK AND ZODIAC
• /
SECTION II.
CONCERNING THE TWELVE EGYPTIAN CALENDAB:
MONTHS, AND THE TWELVE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC^
ANALYSIS OF THEIR ORIGINAL POSITIONS WITH R&
SFBCT TO THE SEASOKSb AND TO EACH OTHER.
-SB
Having thus examinedy in as &r as our soaaty mute-
liab will permit, the true nature aaod historf of the
canicular crcle, and of Uie form of year on which it
was grouniad, we shaU now proceed to inquire more
minutelf into the origiii, and primitire arrangement
with respect to the seasons, of the egyptiaa calendar
Iteelf ; <L is to say. of the twelve ^nths which eon*
Uitated the elements of diat year and cycle. The in*
i,<«B%a«ion of these matters will, beddaB its o^ im.
mediate results, also tend naturally to throw addi*^
tional light on others previously treated of. And on
entering upon this obscure and difficult portion of our
subject, I shall at once lay distinctly and concisely be-
fore the reader the basis, and at the siune time the
summary, of those researches to which the remainder
of this essay will be deroted, by observing : that a
careful examination of the namea and hieroglypfaieal
emblems of the twelve egyptian months, as referred
to the twelve corresponding seasons of the climate of
the banks of the Nile, and illustrated by the general
details of egyptian tradition and mythology, have led
Of ANCIENT K6YPT. SECT* lU 35
me to infer: First, that these emblems were originaUjr
. adapted to a year, whose Thot, or first day, was fixed
about the autumnal equinox ; Secondly, tiuit on the
basis of feueh a year, there etxirts between the namieB'
and characters of the months, and the signs of th«
zodiac considered as mythological symbols or faiet q»
glypliies^ so dose a correspondence and analogy, ac
not only afforda additional proof of die correctness of
this basis, but tends to explain and elucidate, in a new
and unexpected manner, that great mystery, the ori«
gin and primitire use of the zodiac itself*
I am well aware how very strongs and indeed rea*
sonable^ an inclination there may be, to consider dia*
cuasiona of thia hind as useless or Tisionary, and nMnra
especially all speculations connected with the history
of the zodiac, — a nam^ which, donsidering the extras
yagancaes into which this subject has led many learned
and ingenious persons during the last thirty years^
m^ht be supposed sujBBoient in itself to call forth a-
blush on the dieek of ey&ty egyplian antiquary, for
1^ errors of his brethren, if not for hia own* Con-
vinced^ however, of the reasonableness^ I will not say
the conclusiveness,, of the system which I am about to
propose, I shall not be deterred by any such consider^
ations from offering those remarks which may, I con-
ceive^ whether correct or erroneous, he calculated ei^*
ther in themselves to throw light on an obscure point
of antiquity, or lead to farther inquiries illustrative
thereof.
It will readily be admitted, that any people, in
whatever s^kte of barbarism or civilization they may,
be supposed, who established a form of year, divided*
into twelve months, according to the seasons^ must
have intended that its revolution should bring about,,
36 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
more or less accurately, the returns of those seasonis
to the corresponding months. Some, when they dig.
covered that their computation was defective, may
have been willing, from indifference, superstition^ or
other causes,' to submit to the inconvenience of. a mut-
able year, while others were careful, by occasional
correction or intercalation, to keep its commenc^ent
more or less steady to its original point ; but none
could ^have meant to establish, in the first instance, as
a positive institution, so very useless or even perni-
cious an irregularity. ThaA the Egyptians, at least,
had no such intention, we appear .to have convincing
proofs in the hieroglyphic signs of their months, em-
blems handed down from very remote aiitiquity, hav-
isig been observed in dates of records, which may rea-
sonably be assigned to a period not less than fifteen
hundred years prior to the christian era, as has been
shown in a satisfactory manner by M. ChampoUion
the younger, in his letters on the museum of Turin.*
These emblems I have caused td be engraved, for the
convenience of reference,^ and in order that the reader
may judge for himself, how far I am justified in sup-
posing that they represent the portion of the year to
which I am about to assign them.
The characters . here given are borrowed from the
work of Professor Kosegarten"" on the ancient language
» Lettres I. II. ^ M. le due de Blacas d Aulps, relatives au Masi^ ^gyp*^*
de Turin, Par. 1824, 1^26.
^ Vid. Plate No. 1. In the names of the months I \uLre there
adhered to the vulgar greek orthography, as adopted hy Professor Kose-
garteri, which differs in some instances from what I have in the sequel
))een induced to prefes, as the more genuine Coptic or eg^tian forms.
^ De prise, egj-pt li^terat. Comment. I. p. 50, tah. D. , Also-apl Young,
Kudimeiits of aa eg3rpt dictionary, p. 5, append, to Tatham*s Egyptian
grammar, Lond. 1830.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. II. 37
and literature of Egypt, being derived originally from
lahe papyri of the museum of Turin ; and many .oif
them may> be seen iii the plates to^ the Jotters, on. that
museum/ above mentioned, occupying their places in
the dates of the* hieroglyphic inscriptions, which form
the material of those learned, and ingenious. illustra-
tions. I have seen another set of similar . characters
compiled by some of our '. own countrymen, in the
course of their researches in Egypt, and forming part
of a valuable collection of hieroglyphic and other re-
mains, engraved in lithography at Cairo.* The sym-
hoh of the months are, with little variety, the same,
to all essential purposes, as far as our present jnquiry
is concerned, in both collections ;. but I have pre-
ferred those. of Professor Kosegarten, as well from
thcdr indisputable antiquitv as from their greater sim^-
pKcity. The principal variations in the other set are,
first, a sign of water or moisture under the numeral
of each month, possibly an emblem of the general in-
flifence which the phenomena of the Nik exercised on
the regulationof the calendar, as on most other na-
tional institutions of the Egyptians; and, . secondly,
that the idea month is designated by a star, in addi-
tion to the more familiar and ancient emblem, the in-
verted half-moon. We shall have occasion farther to
notice this last peculiarity in a subsequent page.
The year, it will be observed by a reference to the
plate, is divided into three portions, each containing
four months ; which arrangement corresponds to the
statement of Diodorus,^ that the Egyptians . acknow-
ledged but three seasons, spring, summer, and autumn,
<* Vid. Atlas k la 2^^ lett.
• e Materia hieroglyph: pi. vi. conf. Young, Snppl. Enc. Brit art- Egypt,
pL Ixxvii. No. 179. ^ / Diod. i. c. 11, 16.
3S ON THE CAUSNDAR AND ZODIAC
and may be the foundation of the tradkioa ineoittoiittd
by that author, and fiimiliar among the aacients^' tiiat
thrir year itself formeiiy consisted of only four months.
The notion, however, that such a computatioii erer
was in actual use, thou^ admitted by many chroiic^
Rogers, in common with years of one, two» and three
months, for the accommodation of fimcifill systems^
appears destitute of historical proof, as wdl as of i«e»-
ismiable probability.
The first four months, or tiie first season, Th4t»
Paophi, Athyr, ChotdL, are r^reaehted, firsts by the
ooeimon sign of month, an inrerted half moon ; se-
condly, by the peculiarly characterislie sign of the
season, a group of lotus flowers and buds, symbols of
vegetation &miliar to those conrersairt in hieroglyw
phic lore,'^ but more especially of the fteA and vigoiv
ous VT^B^etation caused by the fertilizing influence of
the waters of the Nile ; thirdly, by their respective
numbers, I, II, III, IV. The emblems^ of these £t>ur
^monllis denote therefore the season commencing wilh
the firat subsiding of the inundation, when the egyp-
tian ,rfain buret forth, as it waa gradtudly ymcovered
by the waters, into the most brilliant verdure ; partly
8 Biod. i. c. 26. Plttt in Nute. a, IB. CeDaoriii. de die nat o. 19.
August, de civit Dei. xii. 10, xv. 12. Plin. H. N. yii. 49. Solin. Polyh.
c. 1, p. 3, ۥ edit. Salin. ProcL in Tim. Plat p. 31.
^ This sign is idso the phonetic letter VJ, (SH) <^ the egyptina hiero-
glyphic alphabet M. ChampoUion (precb da Syst lii^rogL 2de ^dit p.
1 16.) calls it an espdce dejardin, because it is the first letter of the word
P^NH, which bears that sense in Coptic, (ibid. p. 361. It is however
eridenliy but an abbreviated variety o£ lihe group of wateivplants, liiid
syndiol of the iower region, that is, of lower Egypt, so remarkaUe tar
that species of vegetation, (vid. ChampoL Pantheon, pi. 7. A. 7. B.) So
that the word ly API, the egyptian generic name for water-plants, would
perhi^s furnish a more appropriate derivation, (vid. Hossi. Etym. Copt.
and Croze. Lexic. ffigypt. in voce).
OF ANCIfNT ilOYPT* aECX. II. 39
nalural, ansin^ from the spring of the lotu9t ttnd the
midtitude of other plants, as well aquatic aa of apon-.
taneous growth, for which Egypt was so celebrated
that Plinyt supported by Herodotus*' asserts they
would ahnost sii^ce for the sub^stence of the mha*
bitantSy without toil or tillage of any kind ; partly^^—
i£ one may be allowed to use such a term — artificial ;
for the sowing conunenced as the flood subsided, and
the youi^ blade, during this season, rapidly springing
up^ contributed still more to deck the fertile plain
with luxuriant green. These four months, therefore,
have been not inappropriately named in the Cairo
collection, the season of water plants.
Of the next four, Tobi, Mediir, Phamenodi, Phar-
mouthi, the precise sense of the symbol is not so ob-
vious. The hieroglyphic legend, read phonetiaiUy,
gives us £r- or Hir, or H-r-t ; which syllables, Cham-
polHon, from the analogy of the Rosetta inscription,
interprets, though on somewhat questionable grounds,*^
** brilliant or resplendent.'' Admitting, however,
the correctness of the rendering, it would be dijBScult
to see the propriety of the application of this epithet
to the four months in question, which from their po-
sition must have been the season of drought and ari«
dity, without being that in which the sun was at his.
greatest height and brilliancy. In the Cairo collec-
tion they are called the season of ploughing ; but I
question whether there be sufficient authority, from
the history of ancient egyptian husbandry, to justify
such a description. The season of harvest would, I
conceive, be a more appropriate appellation, for rea-
i Plin. H. N. L. xxL c. 15. Herod, ii. 92.
^ Precis, du Syst hi^rogl. 2d ed. p. 20S. Tab. gen. No. 395. oonf.
Kkproth Ck»llect. d'antiqvit^ ^Syp^ ^^' ^^* ^^^' Observat. crit p. 7.
40 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
sons whicfa shall be given when we come to examiner
the months in detail. The position, however, which
these four occupy, renders the sense of their hiero-
glyphic name of less importance; since the characters
of those which precede, and of those which follow
them, iBuiBiciently vouch for their own.
The four last, Pachon, Paoni, Epiphi, Mesori^ are
rightly named in the work just quoted, the seasoh ,of
waters; that is, of the increase or overflow of the
Nile, dB expressed by the hieroglyphic of water, and
more especially of the water of -the Nile, thrice .re?^
peated, and forming the most important feature of the
group. This emblem is almost too well known, .and
its sense too obvious, to require much comment ;
being one of the most common and tamiliar, and oc-
curring constantly, not only as the hieroglyphic. sign,
but as the picture as it were of water. Thus, in bt
scene given in the Cairo collection,^ where a body .of
prisoners is led across a river, probably the Nile, or
one of its branches, the water is represented by a
number of these zigzags, among which are also drawn
fish, and round their edges leaves, denoting the water
plants on its banks. The boats in the river scene of
the grotto of Elithya are also drawn ; on .a »milar
ground. The same figure is applied to the pouring
of water, the fluid being represented by a' zigzag line
issuing from a vase ; and is also the sign Aquarius of
the zodiak.
Professor Ideler, in allusion to certain passages of
the ancients above quoted, concerning the ancient
subdivision of the egyptian year, while yet unac-
quainted with the discoveries on which the present
y Mater. hierogL pi. xxxyi.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. lU 41
pbservations ar^ grounded, expresses himself as fol-
lows:" ** It is very probable that the Egyptians, on
the first establishment of theii^ solar year, subdivided
it into periods of four months, as nature herself sub-
divides the seasons in their climate in a similar man-
ner ; namely, into the period of the inundation, that
S>f the bursting vegetation, and that of dry and un-
<wholesome heat/' This is so apt and true a descrip-
ttion of what has since turned out to be the fact, that
,one might almost have suppbsed, that instead of basing
.merely *an ingenious conjecture, it hp^d been written
as a commentary on the hieroglyphic calendar itself.
<C)n the supposition, then, that these emblems de-
note the peculiar character of the respective seasons
or months, as^originally fixed in the primitive Egyp-
tian calendar ; it remains, before .we c^n be led to any
^further conclusions, to assign these months their pro-
per position in the solar or tropical year, correspond-
ing to thei^r characters. And here we can have little
.hesitation in fixing the commencement of the first
^ month to the autumnal equinox ; as well from the
. probability that the Egyptians, in common with other
• neighbouring nations, in the early ages of their his-
-tory,, really did so reckon, as shall be seen,— as from
the fact, that at this period precisely, with the subsid-
ing of the inundation, commenced that luxuriant
growth of water-plants, and that florid vegetation in-
dicated by. the hieroglyphic of the season. " The
, lotus,'* says Pliny," " springs up as the waters of the
Nile begin to. subside ; its stalk and luxuriant leaves
. not unlike those of a bean, but shorter and . more
™ Techn. ChronoL Bd. L 8. 94.
. ° Hist nat. L. xiii. c. 17. oonf. Herod<«t. ii. 92* Theophr. Hist plant.
IV. c. 10. conf. Prosp. Alp. not. ad loc
42 OK THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
slender^ crowned with a flower like a poppy .^ This
last is a tolerably accurate description of tbe flower of
the symbol, as represented in the more finished hier-
oglyphic texts. To the above we may add the ele-
gant description of the same phenomenon by our own
geographer Pinkerton :^ *' Tlie lotus is a species of
nymplttea or water lily^ which at the retreat of the
inundation covers all the canals and shallow pools
with its broad round leaves^ among which are its
cup-shaped blossoms of pure white and cerulean blue»
reposing with inimitable grace on the surfisice of the
water.'' And the French memorialises remark,^ that
at this period the Nile rapidly retiringi ^^ the earth is
all of a sudden covered with abundant vegetation.'*
With reqiect to the remaining months, and the gene,
ral rapidity of growth of all kinds which is ike cha-
racter of title season, Maillet'* observes^ that *^ during
November, December and January, the vegetation is
so powerful, that an ox reposing on the grass woidd
find sufficient pasture for a day by browsing around
him without rising from his place." This fi^t season
therefore comprehends the four months dated from
the end of our September, during which the sun tra-
verses the signs of Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Ca-
pricorn. The next season, the four months of
drought, from the end of January to the end of May.;
and the season of water, or of the increase of the
Nile, the remaining four, from the end of May to the
end of September* It might perhaps be objected,
•
c Modern Geogr. 4to. voL ii. p. 786, €oiif. Heereiiy Ideen* &o. ii. Th.
ii. Abth. 8. 357> ff.
P Mem. relative to Egypt, &c. EngL trans. 1800, p* 12. •
4 Descript. de TEgypte, ed. 1740, Yok I Let i* p. 30* ooiif. Savary
Lett. 8ur TEg. 8o. 1786, torn. ii. p. 7.
OF ANCIfiNT S6YPT; SECT. II* 43
dttt the swell of the river does not b^n until about
Idle summer solfirtice, towards the end of June ; suid
tiiere is no doubt but that the greater number of au«
thorS) both ancient and modenii are used to date the
augmentation of its wateis in general terms from
that epoch. But that this must be understood*
not of the first perceptible influence of the rains
of Ethiopia upon its stream, but either of the pe-
riod when it became so visibly affected as to ex-
cite the attention of the vulgar* or when the first
observation of the increase was made on the nilo-
meter, end promulgated to the public, may be pre*
sumed, as wdl from the testimony of those travellers
who have had the best opportunities of judging, as
from the ascertsuned facts respecting the fall of the.
periodical rains, which commence when the sun is
perpendicular to the climate of Abyssinia, about a
month after the equinoj^ and constantly increasing,
produce a perceptible alteration in the waters of the
river about the end of May or the beginning of June.'
The statements of egyptian travellers on this point
are so various as almost to be contradictory, some
pladng the first visible increase at the solstice, others
a month before, others not for some days afterwards j
which discrepancy must be accounted for by the fact,
admitted by intelligent observers, that the phenome-
non itself is not strictly regular in its periodical re-
turns. The followii^ is the account of Maillet,' whose
opinion, from his long residence in the country, added,
to his general good sense and accuracy, is deserving
of greater attention than that of the mere occasional
r Poncet. ap. Pinkert. ColL of Voyag. vol. xy. p. S3. Brace, Travels,
vol. V. p. 333, so Edin. 1805.
* Descnp. de TEg. vol. i. lett. S.'p. 70.
44 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
and hasty traveller, who must necessarily be a partial
and superficial observer. He remarks, . that though
some asserted that the river began to increase as soon'
as the sun had crossed the line, no such augmentation
was perceptible, and that, in general, there can hardly
be said to be any difference Until the last days of Apnl
or the beginning of May. The waters first become
muddy, and then increase, but so slowly, that, during
a considerable part of the month of Jfune, there is
hardly a cubit of rise ; but that, about the solstice,
it is already very considerable. And, in coiiformify
with the above, in his account of the nilometer or
mikias,* he states, that the first examination tak^
place about the end of April, the second about ■ the
end of June, at which time the Nile has risen eight
or nine cubits, and adds, that it was a wise regulation
to place the first announcement of the increase of the
waters at this advanced season, in order to spare the
people anxiety concerning their progress. This may
account for the circumstance that so many authors,
without inquiring into details, assign the solstice, in
round terms, as the fixed date of the commencement
of the inundation. The testimony of Maillet is sup-
ported by several others of the most respectable writ-
ers on Egypt, and the minutest observers of the phy-
sical peculiarities of its climate. " The river Nile,^*
says Thevenot," " begins commonly to swell iii the
month of May, and on St. Peter's day, the 28th of
June, they begin to cry about the streets how much
its waters have risen/* " In the first days of June,'*
says Savary,^ " the Nile begins to increase, but the
t Op. tit. p. 83.
" Travels, Engl, trang. 1687, pt. i; b. ii. c. 22, p; 158.
^ Lett, sur TEg. torn. ii. p. 179. '
' OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. 11. 45
augmentation firist becomes remarkable about the sum-
mer solstice.** Shaw,'' too, states, that, in the middle
of June, in his time, the waters had risen very consi-
derably.
It will farther be observed, that the hieroglyphic of
water attached to the third season is to be considered
as denoting, not so much the inundation itself, as the
space between the 'first perceptible rise of the river
and the period when its waters began again to de-
crease ; first, because the actual overflow of the Nile
scarcely lasts three months, commencing at soonest in
thl^ middle of July, and terminating suddenly in the
beginning of October ; secondly, because the season
of vegetation, or of water plants, setting in at once
with the subsiding of the flood, (as illustrated by the
above passages of Pliny, and other authors, collated
with the hieroglyphic of the first four months,) can-
not admit of the new year*s day being fixed at any
other epoch than the equinox of autumn, or towards
the end of our September, when the Nile, according
to the unanimous testimony of both geographers and
travellers, regularly begins to uncover the land, its
stagnating waters to send forth their luxuriant growth,
and the whole face of nature is renewed ; all which
coincidences combined formed an epoch which could
hardly fail to present itself to the first simple fraiaers
of a calendar in this climate, as the natural and ob-
yious commencement of their year. As, therefore,
the Nile does, in fact, begin to alter its appearance,
almost invariably, many days before the solstice, it re-:
mains an evident consequence, that, consistently with
the quadrimestrial partition of the year, the month
" Travels, Ed. 1808, 8o vol. ii. p. 224, c. 2, sect. 3.
1
46 ON THE CAL'^DAR AND ZODIAC
preceding that epoch must necessarily be the first of
the' season of waters, or of the rise of the river. But,
besides this, although we certainly have the statem^it^
of many respectable authorities among the Greeks,
that they themselves were the first to discover the
true cause of the inundation of the river, I confess I
am unable to look upon the opinion, that the Egypt-
ians, during the flourishing ages of their empire, were
totally unacquainted with this important point of the
natural history of their own country, in any other
light than as an egregious paradox. There can be no
doubt but that the Egyptians and the Ethiopians of
the upper Nile were a people of the same origin and
of similar manners, and in habits of fi-equent commu-
nication, both civil and military, with each other ; so
that the report of a single traveller, or emancipated
prisoner of war, would have sufiiced to establish the
truth. And if we admit, what has long been the ge-
neral opinion of the learned, that Abyssinia is the pa-
rent land of the Mizraimite race,^ the notion that the
Egyptians should, in the infancy of their civil institu-
tions, and for some thousand years afterwards, never
have had a tradition of the periodical rains which
swelled their river, becomes quite inadmissible. Here,
as usual, Herodotus is appealed to, whose testimony
I reject at once, as the priests most unquestionably
made game of him in their answers to his inquiries
respecting the Nile. The next authorities are Eu-
doxus and Plato. These two distinguished men vi-
sited Egypt about the same time, and have transmitted
> Diod. Inl $ 2, 3. Pmiw. Kedi. siir les Egypt, vol K pp. S3, S^
Murray, app. to Bnioe*8 travels, vol. ii. p. 479, Ed. 1805. Zoeg. de Obe-
lise, p. 577. Heeren, Ideen, &c. II* Th. I. abth. p. 439. ChamjIoL Pre-
CIS, &c p. 455.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. Ii; 47
two difibrent, though uppar^ntly perfectly correct, ao«
counts of the real opinions of the priesthood concern*
ing the phenomena of their river, and which are also
jointly stated and confirmed by HorapoUo. That of
Plato shall be mentioned in another place. But Eu*
doxus^ was infomied that the inundation was caused
by the periodical fell of the tropical rains. Now, as
they must have known that these rains, falling with
greatest violence during the months of May and June,
ware immediately followed by the at first almost im*
perceptible alteration of the state of the river, they
would find it the more reasonable to comprehend the
month immediately preceding the solstice in the sea*
son of waters, although the visible rise of the river
might not commence until nearly the solstice itself.
The faieroglypfaical seasons may therefore be distri*
buted, as to their more immediate reference to the
phenomena of the Nile itself, which influenced all the
institutions of this country, into four months of the
Hsa, four months of the fall, and four months of the
lowest or stationary condition of its waters. Lest,
however, it should be thought that too much reliance
has bare been placed on conjecture, and too little on
aocient authority, I shall produce very convincing and
satis&ctory testimony to prove that this division of the
seasons is as conformable to the familiar opinion of
antiquity as to the truth. The following is the result
of the investigations of Aristides, who states that he
T Plutarch, de plac phil. iv. i. Eustath. Comm. ad Odyss. p. 1505.
£dit. Horn, coflil LibelL de liist pbilofik iater Galen, opp. 6. SS. Before
Eudoxus however, Democritus, among the Oreeks, had assigned the true
cause, (Diod. i. § 39,) whose knowledge, if we maj trust his own account,
as quoted by Clemens Alex., was also derived directly from Egypt*
(Strom. lib. i. p. SM*, A. conf. Diod. i. § 98.)
48 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
had traversed Egypt four times, as far as Ethiopia^ for
the express purpose of examinii^ the peculiarities of
the Nile. " When the proper season arrives,** says
he,' ^' the river begins to increase, but so slowly, that
at first the augmentation is not perceptible, but, set-
ting out with a few inches, it gradually gains force,
so that in about ^bz^r months the waters reach their
greatest height at Memphis.** " They subside in a
similar manner, dud require about as long to return
to their pristine state as they did to reach their full
• height.**' Precisely the same account is given by Se-
neca : ^^ Nilus per quatuor menses liquitur, et ilU
aequalis accessio est,** — " The Nile subsides during
four monthSy and the increase of its waters occupies
an equal time ',** all this too agrees exactly with the
distribution of the egyptian year by Diodorus, as
above mentioned, into three seasons ; spring, summer,
and autumn — ^winter being omitted altogether, and
justly, as there is in fact no such season in Egypt.
The arrangement that would appear most natural in
the opinion of a Greek, would probably be February,
March, April, May, for spring ; June, July, August,
September, for summer ; October, November, De-
. cember, January, for autumn ; but it is to be supposed
that the Egyptians, in conformity with the peculiarities
of their climate, reversed this order ; the four last
mentioned months, the first of their calendar, being
in fact their season of spring, seed-time, atid opening
vegetation.
Now the symbols which we have just been ex-
amining, being peculiarly figurative of certain seasons,
« Orat. £§:ypt. Ed. Ox. 1730, torn. ii. p. 336. '
* p. 338. b QiuBst. nat. iv. 2, p. 725, A.
OP ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. II. 49
•
it results indisputably, that it could not be the inten-
tion of the Egyptians when they invented them, that
the months whose names they represented should
shift their places in the year ; no nation could have
been willfully guilty of such an absurdity. It is
equally plain, that the year to which they were origi-
nally adapted, commenced, not with the heliacal rising
of Sirius, and the overflow of the Nile, as some sup-
pose was the : case on the first establishment of the
calendar,*" but with the subsiding of the waters about
the autumnal equinox. Nor is this view of the primi^-
tive arrangement of the Calendar of the Egyptians*
by any means new ; several distinguished writers have
been of opinion, that their ancient year began in
autumn ; among whom it were sufficient to mention
Calmet, Jackson, and Playfair.* None of these how-
ever state their reasons in detail. But the celebrated
Zoega, who, in profoundness of learning and acute-
ness of conception, is second to no egyptian antiquary,
not only was cofivinced, but had actually, as he him-
self informs us, composed a dissertation to prove that
the That or commencement of the year, in its original
form, was fixed precisely as I have stated it ; that is,
" ab incipiente retrocessu Nili,'' " from the first sub-
siding of the inundation of the river.**® His reasons
for holding this opinion he also does not give at length,
and it must be admitted that his views of ciertain other
c See Appendix, No. VIIL
^ Calmet Diet de la Bib. v. Monde. Playfair^ ChronoL p. 11 . Jacks,
Ohron. Antiq. yol. i. p. 23. ii. p. 5. It must be admitted, however, that
this learned chronologer's ideas are here somewhat confused*
* NunL Mgypt, Mus. Borg^. addend, p. 395, I have since observed that
Dr. Hales (Analys. of ChronoL vol. i. p. 31.) supports the same opinion*
by reasons drawn from the natural history of Egypt, similar to those hero
advanced.
E
50 ON THE CALENDAR AND. ZODIAC
collateral points of egyptian chronology, as stated ift
the passage referred to, are far from correct ; indeed,
his own diffidence of their soundness, as he himself
informs us, prevented him from publishing his essay ;
there are however various circumstances, as shall be
observed in another place, which lead to a belief that
some of the arguments which have been, or shall be,
here o£Fered in support of this opinion, were among
those which induced him to adopt it ; but owing to
the comparatively backward state of this department
of antiquarian science in his time, many others of a
more forcible nature could not have occurred to him.
It will now be necessary to turn our attention to
another essential portion of our subject, the history
of the egyptian zodiac. We shall -first have occasion
to inquire generally into the real nature and origin of
that institution, and its primitive connexion with the
civil reckoning of time ; and afterwards endeavoiur
to illustrate both conjointly, by pointing out the re-
markable correspondence and analogy which exists
between the signs of the astronomical, and the months
and seasons of the civil calendar, on the basis of the
positions already laid down, with reference to the
traditional mythology, and ancient language and no-
menclature of the country.
It is, I believe, universally admitted to be an erro-
neous opinion that the twelve positions of the celestial
zone called the zodiack, were originally divided, or
received their names, in consequence of certain groups
of stars which it traverses, being supposed really to
resemble in their form or disposition, the figures of
human or brute creatures, monsters, or other objects.
Such resemblances may have been imagined in later
times, and adapted to the ancient names of the signs
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. II. 51
by fanciful astrologers ; who^ in the delineation of a
sphere, naturally endeavoured, though unsuccessfully
enough, to group the stars in the neighbourhood of
the ecliptic, into constellations corresponding in their
forms to the physical emblems, whose names were
attached to certain portions of that circle. But those
visionary images can, and ought to be, no guide to
us in our researches into the real history of the signs
or symbols which represented the twelve divisions of
the sun's annual course in the heavens ; or into the
origin of their various appellations.
The Egyptians or any other nation, who instituted,
in the infancy of their civilization, an imperfect year
of twelve months, supposing that the revolution of
the seasons would be completed during their course,
would naturally, as they advanced in science, divide
the heavens also into the twelve portions, which the
sun was supposed to occupy during each of those
months respectively ; and both the names of their
months, and of the corresponding divisions of the
sphere would be connected with their mythology, and
the titles or attributes of the various deities whose
celestial emblems they may have discovered in par-
ticular points of the heaven, or seasons of the year,
or to whom certain stars or seasons were especially
dedicated. Such an institution seems to have been
common, under certain varieties, to almost all the
ancient nations, Chaldees/ Egyptians, Chinese, or
others, who made any progress in astrological science ;
and might have suggested itself to each separately,
without any immediate connexion with their neigh-
^ That this was the case with the Chaldees^ Diodorus assures us :
X*yf»iMff ^m^imt Id «^nfu»ei» Lib* ii. § 30.
5Q OS THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
hours, from its obvious correspondence to the twelve
months and three hundred and sixty days, into which
the same tribes seem originally to have agreed in
dividing their year. Yet the zodiac of the western
nations,^ to which alone our present observations are
confined, affords even in its present form the strongest
internal evidence, that though corrupted or altered,
as it is admitted to have been to a certain esttent in
passing through the hands of the Greeks, it is origi-
nally an egyptian invention ; as well from the pecu-
liar turn of that people, to represent by material
emblems every thing capable of being so represented,
as from the palpable connexion of some of these
emblems with their figurative mythology. Each sign
of the zodiac, therefore, appears to have been a mere
hieroglyphic of the season of the year to which it
corresponded, or of the deity to whom that season
was specially sacred* This has been well pointed out
by Warburton^ and others, and is indeed very gener-
ally admitted, though the efforts made since the days
of Macrobius* up to the present century, to analyze
more closely the origin of the institution itself, by a
reference to the climate or mythology of the banks
of the Nile, having been directed upon false principles,
have not been successful.^ The hieroglyphical zodiac
8 See Appendix, No. IX.
h Div. Leg. 4to, vol. ii. p. 471.
) Saturn, lib. i. c. 21.
^ Kirch. (Edip. JEg* torn. iii. p. 153, sqq. (whose interpretations ap-
pear to me to have come much nearer the truth, than those of others
who have made it their business to vilify both hLs labours and himself.)
Schmidt de zod. orig. aegypt in opusc Carolsr. 1765. Pluche Hist du
ciel, tom, i. lib* i. Court de Gebelin. Mond. prim. t. iv. p. 65* Dupuis,
orig. de tout les cultes, torn. vi. pt* i* p« 390, sqq. M. Remi Raige ift a
memoir inserted in the Description de I'Egypte, (Antiquity voL of M«ni.
p. 169*) undertook, as I have done, to investigate the origin of the zodiac,
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT, lU 53
therefore, represented the seasons mythologicajly or
fignratiirely, and had no connexion with imaginary
forms or creatures in the heaven itself.* All this will
be put in a more clear point of view, when we come to
trace the correspondence between the signs and the
names and characters of the twelve months, according
to the position they occupied in the civil year at its
first establishment. Thus Cancer or the Scarabee re-
presented the solstitial month of summer, that is the
sun when highest in the heaven, and his heat and in-
fluence most felt ; Libra the month of the autumnal
equinox, Aries that of the vernal equinox, and so of
the rest ; afterwards, when the signs were . attached
by the Greeks to particular groups of stars, embodied
into fantastical forms, the ancient terms became un-
meaning, and the origin and history of the whole
system was confounded and obscured.
That the twelve divisions of the zodiac, among the
ancient nations, (whether chaldee or egyptian,) with
on tbe supposition of an ancient connexion between the forms and sym-
bolic significations of the signs, and the sense of the names of the Coptic
or ancient egyptian months. Thus far our two systems agree ; but they
di^r in this, that the memorialist adopted as the groundwork of his, first
that the egjrptian zodiac was constructed 15000 years ago, about 8000
before the creation, on a moderate computation ; the sign Capricorn which
is now January, then representing July, Cancer corresponding to Capri-
^m, and so of the rest ; 2dly, That the etymology of the names of the
months is to be sought in the arable tongue, which he supposed the most
ancient dialect of egyptian. The conclusiveness of the ingenious essay-
ist's arguments, is in proportion to the reasonableness of the postulates
on which they are based.
1 It is no doubt possible, however, that the appearances in certaih por-
tions of the sphere, may have suggested modifications or alterations of
the emblems; as in the case of the sign Oemini, which, as we shall here*
after have occasion to observe, seems to have been consecrated to two
kindred or twin deities, irwyeut 4ioi, perhaps from the remarkable appear-
ance of two brilliant stars close to each other, in an otherwise not ver^
brilliant part of the heaven which it represented.
54 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
whom the institution originiated, were, from the first,
signs or i&lbvcocrfjiJbogiit, and not constellations — portions
of the sun's course in the heavens, corresponding, more
or less accurately, to the seasons, not imaginary forms
in the celestial sphere — we have strong proof in the
tradition preserved of the manner in which the astro-
nomers of those nations subdivided the ecliptic, I
shall not go into the minute details of their method,
as described by Macrobius of the Egyptians, and by
Sextus Empiricus of the Chaldees,"* and quoted and
illustrated by various popular authors among the mo-
derns." It will be sufficient to observe, that, by a
species of clepsydra, they first measured the diurnal
revolution of the heavens, noting the departure and
return of a particular star to and from the same point
of the horizon, and then pointing off twelve equal por-
tions of the circle of the equinoctial, commencing from
th?s star ; which portions, transferred to the ecliptic,
constituted the zodiac, and were therefore quite dif-
ferent in their nature from the fanciful constellations
of unequal size into which the Greeks afterwards dis-
tributed the same zone. The method here alluded to
is so vague, as to have excited the ridicule of some,**
who nevertheless have not ventured to deny the va-
lidity of the substance of the tradition, however they
may have been inclined to criticise its details. It
would appear also, as well from this mode of division
as from the correspondence of the signs to the twelve
months of the year, that the cardinal points of the
m
Macrob. Somn. Scip. lib. i. c. 21. Sext. Empir. adv. Mathemat. lib.
V. c. 24, p. 342, Ed. Fabric. Lips. 1713, fol. conf. Theon. ad Ptolem.
Magn. constr. lib. y. p. 261.
n Petav. Var. Diss. lib. ii. c. 1. Goguet, Orig. des Loix, Par. 1758,
torn. ii. p. 503, sqq. Fergusson, Astron. Ed. Brewster, vol. i. p. 307.
^ Goguet, sup. cit. p. 507.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. II. 55
sun's course could hardly have been placed elsewhere
than at the commencement of the signs. That such
was the case, is still farther evident from the circum-
stance, that the zodiac, on its introduction into Eu-
rope, and first application by the Greeks to their ca-
lendar, was, in fact, so constituted. I know well how
little this assertion is in unison with the favourite
theories upon this subject ; but those theories are al-
together of modern invention, and grounded on what
is, I am convinced, a &llacious view of the history of
the institution, totally unknown to the ancient au-
thors, from whom our first notions of it are, or ought
to be, derived, and altogether repugnant to their tes-
timony. This we shall have occasion to inquire into
farther, when we come to treat of the use of the zo-
diac in Greece. In proof of the correctness of the
opinion here advanced, I shall be contented, for the
present, to quote Hipparchus, who is, beyond a doubt,
the highest authority in these matters, and who, when
criticising the works of certain of his own country-
men, who followed a different arrangement, positive-
ly asserts, that almost all the early astronomers fixed
their cardinal points in the beginning of the signs : kou
r^f, r9vro¥ rov rgoroif 6 ^afiiC6xog KvxKoq hfigrjroJ^ Now, as
the coincidence of the first star of Aries with the equi-
noctial colure, which is usually supposed to have given
rise to the present arrangement, did not take place
until the days of Hipparchus himself,"^ it is evident
P Hipp, in Arat Phenom. lib. ii. c. 3, in Petay. Uran. app. ad op. de
doot temp. toL iii. p. 120, conf. p. 119.
4. Until after the days of Hipparchus, the greek astronomers reckoned
their long^itude on the equinoctial, and not on the ecliptic. It is essen-
tial that this should be borne in mind, in all references to the statements
of Eudoxus, Meton, and other ancient observers, concerning the positions
56 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
that the ancient mathematicians to whom he alludes
must either be the Egyptians or Chaldees themselves,
or those among his owii countrymen who first adopt-
ed the use of the zodiac from them, about the age of
Thales probably. If, therefore, preceding astrono-
mers, of different ages, were in the habit of placing
the cardinal points at the commencement of the signs,
it is evident that the use of the institution among
them must have been precisely as above stated, name-
ly, that. a sign represented rather a season than a par-
ticular group of stars. Accordingly, we learn from
Achilles Tatius, that Euctemon, one of the most an-
cient greek philosophers recorded to have used the
zodiac, and who flourished three hundred years be-
fore Hipparchus, placed the autumnal equinox in the
first of Libra, the winter solstice in the first of Capri-
corn. Calippus, about one hundred years after Euo-
temon, arranged his cardinal points in the same man-
ner. Others there were, no doubt, who followed a
different method ; but almost all those concerning
whose astronomical opinions we have any authentic
tradition, agreed in making their divisions equal, that
is, consisting of thirty degrees each. It is evident,
therefore, on the authority of Hipparchus himself,
supported by that of the other classical authors on
this point of the history of science, that the distinc-
tion between signs and constellations, supposed to be
an invention of that philosopher, is much more an-
cient, and, in fact, coeval with the origin and primi-
tive use of the zodiac itself ; and that the arrangement
of the egyptian symbols into the irregular and fantas-
tical constellations now visible on our globes, was
of the heavenly bodies for their respective ages. This matter has been
fully explained by Petaviiis, Var. Dissert, lib. ii. cap. 1, sq.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT* SECT. II, ' STf
probably an innovation of the Greeks, in the days, it
-would appear, of Cleostratus of Tenedos, not long af.
ter the introduction of the institution into Asia minor.
But this arrangement, as shall be shown hereafter,
seems to have been little attended to by the early
practical astronomers of Greece.
As it can hardly be supposed that the complicated
process, the details of which have been preserved by
Macrobius and Sextus Empiricus, relates merely to
^ne single and original distribution of the dodecate-
moria, in the infancy of the civilization of each of the
two nations to whom they ascribe it, it may be farther
inferred, from the terms of their description, as well
as from the real nature of the zodiac itself, as shewn
above, that this division of its signs took place from
time to time, in order that the symbols might conti-
nue to correspond to their respective seasons or por-
tions of the sun's course, from whence they would
otherwise have varied owing to the precession of
equinoxes. This would necessarily imply an acquaint-
ance on the part of the Egyptians with that pheno-
menon; which most of those who have treated of
their astronomical science have been inclined to doubt
or to deny. As I have, throughout these remarks,
endeavoured to combat what appear to me the exag-
gerated opinions entertained by some, on the subject
of the antiquities of Egypt, I trust I shall not be con-
sidered as falling into a similar error, when I state,
that it seems almost inconceivable, that any nation
among whom such an institution as the zodiac exist-
ed, and who were in the habit of observing the hea-
vens by a reference to its divisions, during perhaps
upwards of a thousand years, should have failed during
so long a period to discover the variation of the tro-
5S ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
pical and equinoctial points with respect to ' the fixed
stars. Ptolemy appears to ascribe to Hipparchus the
merit of having been the first who made thisobserva^
tion/ and though his language is somewhat ambigu-
ous, yet this opinion, as if upon his authority, had
been very generally adopted by the modems. Upon
this point I shall be contented .to appeal to Hippar-
chus himself, whose evidence must I conceive be su^*
perior to that of any other person ; and whose words,
in the following passage, not only furnish sufficient
proof that the fact was known, or at least suspected,
long before his time, but afford reasonable ground of
belief, that the Egyptians themselves were not unin-
itiated into the mystery. The celebrated Eudoxus
of Cnidos, generally considered by the Greeks as the
greatest genius among their early astronomers, wrote
two works ; one called the Enoptron or Mirror, the
other the Phsenomena : from the first of these Hip-
parchus quotes in the following terms : '^ Eudoxus
in his Enoptron observes, that ^ the tropical points of
the sun's course appear to be subject to variation, but
so slight as to be scarcely perceptible.**" These
words of Eudoxus, which seem to have been misunr
derstood by his less enlightened countrymen, as Atta-
ins, and even Hipparchus, at the time when he wrote
the work from whence the above is an extract, speak
for themselves, and prove that the truth had in this
instance not escaped him ;^ and as the advances made
by him in astronomical science, beyond his ignorant
' Magn* constr. Ed. BasiL 1538, p. 59. L. iii. init.
* Hipp. ad. Phsen. lib. i. p. 112. Asyw yat^ h h rS hiwr^af irtii*
Adri^Av il X0AA« tcau vetvrt ^ug tfA/yilv.
t See Appendix, No. X.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. 11. 59
countrjrmen of the day, are invariably attributed to
his haying studied a considerable time in Egypt, it is
not unreasonable to suppose, that whatever informa-
tion he may have possessed on this point, was derived
from the schools of Thebes or Heliopolis. As to what
use the Egyptians may have made of this discovery,
even supposing them to have made it, or how far they
may have applied it to the regulation of the difference
between the sidereal and the tropical year, that is an-
other question, concerning which we have no data to
justify any satisfactory conclusion.
This opinion concerning the real use of the zodiac
among the Egyptians has, I find, been stated, and I
conceive judiciously and correctly, by Kircher, after
a learned Copt called Michael Schatta ; and on the
authority of the evidence of astronomical monuments,
preserved among the ruins which cover the banks of
the Nile, whether those recently brought to light by
european travellers, or perhaps others still more im-
portant, now no longer in existence. " The images,"
says he, speaking of the egyptian sphere, " represent-
ed under hieroglyphical symbols, do not exactly cor-
respond to their places in the heaven, but^for the most
part differ considerably ; nor need we be surprised at
this, since the object of the Egyptians in constructing
these hemispheres was not so much to delineate aste-
risms, as the stations of their deities in the vast firma-
ment. Nor did they, like the Greeks, suppose that
the figures of their objects of worship were made out
by certain groups of stars, but they denominated such
or such a group the station of a certain divinity, who
was supposed to preside over a certain portion of the
heaven.'*" The correctness of the first part of this
" CEdip. segypt. t. iii. p. 205. Figurae hieroglyphicis adumbratse synir
bolis non exacte suis locis correspondent^ sed at plurimum diffemnt;
60 ON THE CALENDAR AN0 ZODIAC
*
remark, that the constellations figured on the hiero*
gljphical sphere do not always correspond to their
true places in the heaven, has been, as relates to the
planisphere of Dendera, admitted by all, and satisfac-
torily shewn by M. Biot,"" in his dissertation on this
and the other greco-egyptian"^ astronomical monu-
ments. The second part coincides with the opinion
above advanced respecting the true nature of the
egyptian zodiac. It is clear also, upon this principle,
that however consistent it may be with the phraseo-
logy of modern science, to speak of a certain cardinal
point of the sun's course, having been at such or such
an sera in the sign of the Ram, Bull, or so forth, it
would be altogether incompatible with that of ancient
hierpglyphical learning. The Ram being merely an
emblem of the vernal equinox, that season was always
in the Ram, the autumnal equinox always in Libra ;
so that, in fact, the zodiac among the Egyptian^ would
be precisely what it now is among us, and has, in
truth, with little variety, always been in civilized Eu-
rope, as has been stated above, and shall be pointed
out still more distinctly hereafter, by reference to the
most unimpeachable testimony of antiquity*
Deque hoc cuipiam mirum yideri debet, cum ^yptii hisce hsemisphseriis,
non tain* Stellas, quam stationes numinum in vasta ilia firmamenti fkcie
ezprimere sint conati ; neque enim uti Orseci, figuras numinum stella-
rum coacervatione componi putabant, sed certam quandam stellarum con-
geriem talis et talis numinis stationem yocabant, quod tali aut tali loco
ckU dominari credebant.
V Rech. sur PAstr. Bgypt. sup. cit.
^ This term, for the sake of brevity, must be understood as referring
to the monuments both of the greek and roman period. The science of
the roman empire was in fact greek science ; and the manners and lan-
guage of this counti^, in as far as derived from Europe, continued to be
greek. The hieroglyhical inscriptions of the roman emperors on these
monuments are couched, partly at least, in greek ; as is evident from the
interpreted titles AvT«itg«T«>j, ZfC«f«f, &c.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. S^CT. II. f)l
- Oil the present hypothesis, that the twelve egjptian
months and. the twelve signs of the zodia<^ formerly
corresponded — ^the one as a vulgar or civil, the other
as an astronomical or mythologicq.1 calendar — ^to each
other, and to a form of year commiencing in autumn,
the inquiry naturally suggests itself,— How and when
this correspondence existed ? whether was that form
of year the ancient reckoning of three hundred and
sixty days occasionally corrected, as I presume it must
have heen, by some rude method of intercalation ?
or, was it the reformed calendar of three hundred and
sixty-five days, in which the five additional days, or
epagomense, were annually and permanently supplied ?
This is a matter of great obscurity, connected inti-
mately with the question at what period the reform
of the calendar itself and the addition of the epago-
mense took place ; the difficulty of which we have al-
ready had occasion to notice, as well as the variety of
discordant opinions to which it has given rise among
the most celebrated chronologer$ of modern times. I
shall venture, in the sequel, to offer a few observa*
tions on this head, although all that can be said, from
the great want of historical data, must necessarily re-
solve itself into conjecture. As, however, this inquiry
does not essentially bear on the portion of our subject
with which we are at present engaged, I shall delay
entering farther upon it for the present, and proceed
in my endeavour to amplify and corroborate the sys-
tem, which I have here ventured to propose and de-
velop, by some close critical and etymological illus-
trations of the names and characters of the individual
months of the calendar, in connexion with the signs
of the zodiac, derived from the mythology, language,
and general antiquities of Egypt. In so doing, I shall
6i ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
I
take pains to avoid all far-fetched analogies, and re-
sist all temptation to strain, at the expense of quibble
or subtlety, any connexion between the two systems,
where not in itself reasonable or probable ; but shall,
in analyzing the seasons in their order, content myself
with pointing out certain obvious and striking coinci-
dences of a most unequivocal nature, comprehending
more than one-half of the signs, and offering a few
conjectures, to which I attach less weight, with re-
spect to some others. That, with our still limited
sources of knowledge, we should be enabled at once
to clear up every portion of so enigmatical a system,
hinging upon the nicest adaptation* to each other, of
various points of mysterious physical doctrine or local
superstition, is hardly to be expected ; but, consider-
ing how much new and unexpected light has been
thrown on other portions of the symbolic mythology
of Egypt by the discoveries of the last thirty years, it
may be permitted to hope that something yet remains
behind calculated still farther to elucidate our present
subject. There are, too, various circumstances which
render it improbable that more than a certain number
of the emblems of the zodiac familiar to us should be
of pure egyptian original, the Greeks having, it would
appear, in adapting it to their own figurative astro-
nomy, made some very important alterations in its
primitive form, by substituting, for instance, the claws
of the Scorpion for the egyptian sign of Libra, and
the Crab for the Scarabee. As no complete speci-
mens of egyptian zodiacs have yet been brought to
light, but what are ascertained to have heeh executed
under the Romans after their occupation of the coun-
try, we have but slender means of ascertaining what
other changes of a similar nature may have taken
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. II, 63
..place. But, even such as they are, the monuments of
the Thebais,"" apparently a mixture of egyptian and
^eek astrology, will be of great assistance in our re-
searches into the original form and signification of the
signs.
There exists, however, one very important monu-
ment among the ruins of Thebes, evidently of an as^
tronomical nature, and which, as it belongs to one of
the celebrated tombs of the theban kings, must, I pre-
sume, be referred to a period of antiquity far prior to
the greek or even the persian conquest. This curious
relic is published in the great french work on Egypt ;^
and, as I shall have occasion frequently to refer to it,
as confirming or illustrating my views, I have -caused
a sketch of the most essential portion of it to be en-
graved.' It contains a number of symbolic figures ;
among others, a procession headed by a figure bearing
an ear of corn, or some such object, followed at some
little distance by the god Thot, with his ibis-head ; a
scarabee supporting the disc of the sun ; another pro-
cession, headed by a somewhat similar figure, of whose
hieroglyphic title the chief feature is a new-born in«
fant i a lion couchant ; a bull standing on another
^ See the zodiacs : of Esne, Description de Tcgypte. Antiquites, voL i,
pL Izxiz. Izxxvi. Ixxxvii. Of Dendera, vol. ii. pL xx. xxL Denon,
Voyage. Atlas* pL cxxx. sq., and EngL trans. 1S03, 8<> yoL ii. p. 316. vol.
iii. p. 272. The circular planisphere in the plates to Biot, Recherches sur
Tastronom. Eg3rpt. My illustrations have heen dra\i^ chiefly from the
two monuments of Denderah, where the signs are complete, and arranged
in their usual order. On those of Esne some signs are omitted, others
repeated, and the whole appear under so many varieties of form and po-
sition, as to suggest rather the idea of astrological enigmaff than zodiacs.
y Antiquit6s, voL ii. pi. Ixxxii.
' See Plate II. I have here only given what appeared to hear im-
mediate reference to the zodiac, occupying two opposite sides of the
quadrangular tablet, which the reader, if necessary, may consult in full
in the work whence I have copied.
64 ON THE CALENDAR AMD ZODIAC
emblem resembling tbe zodiacal sigii libra ; a non*
descript animal, on whose back rides a crocodile ;' a
vase, a scorpion, &c. These figures, several of which
-are repeated on each side of the tablet or planisphere,
are unquestionably, in great part at least, astronomi-
cal symbols, and most of them, it can hardly be doubt-
ed, signs of the zodiac, although the irregularity of
their arrangement bears little or no reference to the
<K)rresponding seasons. This last circumstance leads
to infer some mysterious signification ; any attempts,
however, to throw light upon that, whatever it may
be, have hitherto been, and will probably continue to
be, vain and inconclusive ; from all such, therefore, I
shall abstain. Other fragments there are, also con-
nected With astrology, and probably of equal antiquity,
engraved in the same splendid work, where similar
figures occur singly or in lesser groups. There is an-
other piece of egyptian art, of a mysterious and appa-
rently astronomical nature, copies of which are not
uncommon in collections ; it is a small stela, sculptur-
ed in relief, representing a naked male figure with a
fantastical headdress, standing upon two crocodiles
facing right and left ; in his left hand he holds two
snakes, a scorpion, and a lion — in his right, two
snakes, and a ram or goat. On the ground of the
relief are other emblematic figures, much mutilated,
in the only examples which I have seen. The back
and sides are covered with hieroglyphics. One of
these stelse is given in the plates to Bruce's travels,*
the original of which, the enterprising author informs
us, was found at Axum in Abyssinia ; and is probably
* PI. X. conf. vol. ii. p. 342, edit 1S05, 8<>. Edin. It is now in the
collection of my friend Mr. Charles Cummingf Bruce of Kinnaird*
i
OF ANCIENT EQYPT. $ZCf, tU \6S
^ remnanit of the expeditioas pf tijx^ Ptohmim into
that cpuntry^ or of th^ asj^cient coimnpnicatiiQia /oivtl
or m^tary, betw:een tl^e tribjeip of the upper a^d low-
er Nile.^ The traveller adds^ that there are five or
six precisely similar in the British Museum ; aad
several are engraved hy Kircher^ an4 Montf^ucon/
Other relics of egyptiam or egyptio-greek astrology,
to which we shall have occasion to appeal in the
course of the enduing inquiri^, will be noticed in
their proper places. A few illustrations of no uniin-
portant nature, will he derive^ fitioin a comparison .of
the niiodejrn orab or {)i€irsisMi sp^ieres, with tho$^ pf
Greece and Egypt. All being palpably deiived
from tlie same s<K)ck, it is not i^i^ireasonable to sujp-
pose, that traces of the prijqiitive common or^gmalf
which have Jbieen oblitera^ted by the hand of time or
of innovation in one, may have been preserved more
entire in another.
As ji;t may safely be assumed, that many of the
favQwite superstitions of the Egyptians are as ancient
as the first formation of their cale^dar, it will appear
evident, th$i.t if we would ajttempt to explain at all
the mysterious ipipprt of tho^ ob^cur^e and enigijiati-
cal ceremonies, which were attached to p$^ticular
days of their months, o^n the supposition which will
hardly be disputed, that they bore refe^rei^ce in tih^r
origin to particular seasons of the year, or pheiio-
mei^a of the heayenly ]i)o4ies, — ^we casU o^ily hope for
success, by going back to the original position of the
months in the early ages of their civilization, when
^ See Append. No. XI.
^ (Edip. aegypt torn. iiL p. 259.
^ Antiq. expliq. t ii. pt ii. pi. clxvii. and SuppL t. i. p. 186. eonf. JoU
lois et Devillien, Descr. de I'Egypte. Antiq. M^m. pL B.
F
66 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
those feasts were first established ; and I shall have
occasion below to point out, on the basis of a year
commencing in autumn, how closely some of the
periodical solemnities, the particulars of which have
been transmitted to us by the Greeks, correspond to
their ancient places in the seasons. There can in-
deed be little doubt, but that the regular shifting of
the feasts, which formed the essential peculiarity of
the reformed calendar, gave rise to a portion at least
of the mysterious significations ascribed by the
egyptian priests to many of their religious rites, which
to an ordinary observer appeared fanciful or unmean-
ing. Take for example the death of Osiris, which
was celebrated towards the end of the month Athyr,
and was accompanied by certain solemnities signifi-
cant of the distance of the sun from the zenith, and
the low state of the Nile ; this month we shall find,
at its primeval institution, to have been that immedi-
ately preceding the winter solstice ; when such rites
were peculiarly appropriate. But seven hundred
years afterwards, the same ceremonies, though strictly
adhered to, were apparently altogether unmeaning ;
and therefore the knowledge of their true import be-
came what is called a mystery ; namely a hidden or
esoteric doctrine attached to the solemnity, and only
familiar to the priests themselves, or those to whom
they were pleased to communicate it under strict
pledge of secrecy. But more of this in its proper
place.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. &J
SECTION III.
COKTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.— INQUIRY INTO
THE PRISTINE FORM AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE
SIGNS.
The names of the egyptian months, which we now
proceed to analyze, have been preserved in the works
of greek authors of various ages ; as well as in the
idioms of the native Copts, and Egyptio-arabs, among
whom they continued to be used in modem times.
That they are the primitive egyptian appellations is,
I believe, not disputed ; and indeed is placed beyond
a doubt, as well by the internal evidence which they
themselves afford of their connexion with the ancient
language and religion of the country, as by the con-
stancy and harmony of the tradition, by which they
have been handed down through ages as such. I have
given below,' in the notes, references to the authors
in whose works the most important varieties of these
names have been preserved, as well in the . greek as
the Coptic idiom.* To the coptic orthography the
^ According to the greek orthography : see generally, Ptolem. de Ap-
parent, ap. Petav. Uranol. in op. de doct. temp. voL liL p. 42. Antholog.
graec. L i. c 91. Fabricii Menolog.. p. 22. According to the Coptic ortho^
6S 0]!t rUfi ^ALEKlDAlt AND ZODIAC
greatest weight is in most instances to be attached, as
representing the pronunciation of the old ^di^l^ct of
Egypt, for the most part it may reasonably be assum-
ed, pure and unaltered. Occasional allusion has also
been made to the analogy of the Copto-arabic.
These names, as the egyptian scholar will, see at
once, though of various characters, are for the most
p^t derived from tine mythological nomenclature;
each nionth, as Hier^dotus^^ has loiig' since observed,
being peculiarly sacred to a certain deity. They may
be classed under three distinct heads. First, those
which are called simply by the names or titles of
deities ; such are Thot, Athor, Epiphi, Mesori. Se-
condly, those which are not directly synonymous with
their patron divinities, but dedicated to them by the
common possessive pa^ or phUf prefixed to their
names or titles ; as Paophi, Phamenoth, Pharmouthi,
Pachon, Paoni. Thirdly, those of obscure or doubt-
fiil import, perhaps of a miscellaneous, figurative
nature ; Choiak, Tobi, Mechir. With respect to
these last, I repeat as before, that where nothing
obvious occurs in the way of illustration, I shall re-
frain from entering at large into speculations, which
might "be liable to the reproach of being farfetched or
visionary.
}gtaphj; Kivcher, litn^. sgfjrpt. restitut Scala magna, p. 63, et Prodrom.
CopM;* p. 140. Tukiy Rudim. lin^. copt p. 391. sqq. Oroze, Lexic. a^gi^t.
in yy. Jablonski, CoUectio yocam legjrptiarum, in y. y. Opusc. yoL i.
et ap. Steph. Thes. lingf. gnec. edit. Valpy, yoL i. initio. Youngs, append.
'«d Tatfaam. Bg^ptt gcamm. p. d. Crox. Thesaurus epistolicus, pt iii. p.
1S3..
to It s. S2.
OF ANCIENT ^GYPT. SBOTi IH^ ^
Thot,* (Libra J
According to the hieroglyphic emblem^ the fir^t man^]|
of vegetation, dating from, about the autumnal equi-
nox, wh^n the Nile retired from th^ Und. The
name speaks for itself, being that of the deity repre*
seated with the head of an Ibis, whcHn the Gr^el;^
identified with their Hermes, and who, as th^ p^lfoi^
of art, science, and literature in the egyptiata pan-
theon,*^ naturally takeapreeed^fice in the civil calendw,
which was fabled his own inventioi^ ; bis feast we ^p
learA from Plutarch was celebrated during this month/
That Libra, of the egyptian ZKidis^c, bore some re*
ference to the equal balance of day and night at the
equinox, there is no reason to doubt ; but that b^«
sides this, there was also a mysterious connexion, be*
tween the emblem, and the god of the month tp
which it belonged, we have very curious proof.
Among the most remarkable symbols or attributes,
by which this deity is usually attended in the figur^tiye
xnythology, are the egyptian ape or cyno<^phalu9,
and the scales or balance* These s^ttributes of Thot
are chiefly observable in the funereal papyri/ In the
• • •
c Memphit. 0aOTT, theb. 0OOTT. Tuki, Rudim. ling, oopt p. 39».
Kirch. ScaL mag. p. 50. These are unquestionably the ancient eg3rptiau
forms. ^««^. Rosett Inscr. line 50. ap. Kosegsurt p. 64. and Inscript. ap.
Letronne Rechercfaes pour servir a Thist. de I'Egypte, &c. Pbris, 1823. p.
155. sq* Conf. Plato, edit Serran. t iii. p. 274. Euseb. Praep. ey. i. c.
9...oy AiyvirrUt ptlt hcuXto-etv Oa>v^, 'AM^ecvi^Ui il 0d^^. Conf. Clem. Alex.
Strom, i. p* 303. c. The etymology and signification of this name has
been inquired into in the Appendix No* VIII.
^ Plato, loc. sup. cit. Cic- de nat. Deor. iii. c 22. Diod. i,§§ 15, 16, 43.
Strab. p. 1156.
e De Is. et Os. c 68. '
f De$cript de Vtg. Antiq. vol. ii. pi. Ix, Ixii, Ixir, Ixvii, Lxxii. Deuon,
70 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
principal scene of those extraordinary pictures, repre-
senting the last judgment, Thot in his capacity of
secretary or chief minister, of Osiris in his character
of Serapis or judge^ of the infernal regions, invari-
ably appears attended by his subordinate divinities,
presiding over the scales in which are weighed the
souls of departed mortals, and presenting his report
of their merits or demerits to his chief. On the
cemtre of the beam sits a cynocephalus, and helps to
adjust the balance ; and in the upper compartment of
the same figurative representation, the line of mytho-
logical emblems, Tt^hich forms as it were a frieze or
cornice of the porch of Amenthes where the judg-
ment is held, is terminated at each end by a sitting
figure of a cynocephalus holding a balance in his
forepaws, in alludon to the awful ceremony below.^
Horapollo, in the first and most valuable part of his
work, which is now generally admitted to contain the
best extaiit commentary on the hieroglyphic literature
of Egypt, informs iisV not only that the cynocephalus,
(as we learn also from other authors) was sacred to
Thot, but that a sitting cynocephalus was the emblem
of the equinox ; as an attendant then on the patron
deity of the ancient equinoctial month he is quite in
in his place. But besides, this animal, as sacred to
Thot, was also a favourite personification of the deity
Atlas, pL cxlj. Hieroglyphics of Egypt. Society, pi. v. Mai, Catalogo dei
papiri egiziani deila Biblioteca Vaticana. Koma, 1825. Tav. i. The same
in german, .Sgyptischen Papyrus der Vatic. Bibl. ubers. v. Ludw. Bach-
mann. Leipzig, 1827, to this last I here refer, not having been able to pro-
ciore the italian ,- and from it Plate III. No. i. (which see) is copied.
« 2JEP-2,An. There can be little doubt but that this is the true ety-
mology of the name Ser-ap-is^ mighty judge ; deducting the greek termi-
nation.
^ See Plate III. No. 2. * Hicrogl. 1. i c. 14. c. 16.
1
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. m. 71
himself, who is frequently represented under the
figure of a cjnocephalus,^ as Ammon under that of
a Ram, Horus of a Sparrowhawk, &c. So that here
we have in fact Thot himself emblematic of the same
season. The scales which he holds in his hand, and
which are not only an attribute of Thot, but a symbol
of the equinox to this day, require little farther com-
ment.
We shall have occasion to observe in the sequel,
how closely egyptian superstition connected the mi-
gration of souls, and the mythology of the world of
spirits or Hades, with astrology, the sun's course in
the heavens, and the vicissitudes of the seasons. Of
the connexion between the infernal balance of Thot,
and th& Scales of the zodiac, we have farther inci-
dental proof in the circumstance, that immediately
in front of the deity in the papyri,^ and beneath the
tablet on which he is writing, is an infant or jur
venile human figure mounted on a staff, evidently
bearing some mysterious reference to the peculiar
ofiice of the god ; and accordingly we find that the
figure of the Balance on the zodiacs of Denderah, is
invariably accompanied by a medallion containing
such a juvenile form, crouching in a similar attitude
between the scales. But besides the scene of the
funereal papyri, to which, as most common and fami-
liar, I have here referred more particularly, we find
/rhot appearing with the same attributes, on other
occasions which bear a most unequivocal reference to
^ Vid. Num. Hermop. ap. Zoeg. Num. Mus. Borg. p. 124«. No. 122.
Champol. Panth. pi. 30 F. A very curious group, where Thot in this
form is supplicated by a soul to be favorable in the ordeal of the Balance^
couf. pi 30. g.
1 Pap. der Vat Bibl. Tab. i.
7^^ ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
«he cadeifidte. In plate* xxxv. vol. iu of the A«ti-
qiiiites of the Description de TJ^gypte," he is repre-
£(eiited standing as above belbfe his divine master ;
behind him the scales stirmcmnied by the cynocepha-
lus, HiiA derved by the saYne ttvo subordinate divini-
• ties as in the papyri. Here, however, another em-
blem, probably connected with the calendar, is substi-
tuted in the scale for that of the soul, and Thot holds
in his hand, hot, as before, the tablet and style^ to
cast Up the accdtitit of human good and evil, and strike
the f>£d^tice of t'eWard or punishment^ but in his left
hdiid he grasps a long rod or wand, gradually beilding
toVards the upper extremity, with notches cut regu-
larly oii the exterior curve from top to bottom ; of
these notches, with an index which he holds in his
hand, he points off a certain number. A precisely
similar rod, when marked with only one notch, has
beeii ascertained to be the symbol or hieroglyphic of
t/etif ;^ hence it is reasonable to suppose, that, when
notched in its whole lengthy it denotes a number of
years, and that the pointing off a certain number de^
» See PLAtE IV.
n Yoang, Art. Egypt, p- 70, pi. Ixxvii. No. 180. Champ. Pr6eis. p.
214, pi. xiii. No. 5. To this symbol I understand Horapollo to allude
(lib. i. c. 3) ^hei'e he t^lls us, that, to represent a year, the/ drew a jm/m,
b^€«iUsQ that trefe shot forth a branch every month. He probably means
&palm branch or sapling, as the hieroglyphic rod is not unlike such an
object, rudely or conventionally delineated; and, if so, the additional
shoots must be understood as of years, not months. Dr. Young, (loc. sop.
ci^.), who first identified this symbol, observed that it resembled a plant,
and the notch in its centre an annual shoot or bud. Horapollo also in-
forms us, (L c. 4), that^ to denote a month, they drew a palm branch, or
an inverted half-moon. This last is the sign of month in professor Kose-
garten's calendar. Of the palm branch for the same sign I know of no
example ; which confirms me in the opinion, that Horapollo's description
is, here as elsewhere, however valuable, not minutely correct, BX\d that
he has confounded the respective symbols of year and month.
OS ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. ^5
notes a special number of yeard set apart for some pe«
euKar purpose. This, it may be presumed, was the
hieroglyphical use of %e rod, the number of notches
actually cut in it having no pmlicular dbron(>iogical
meaning, but denoting years in general ; but the num«
ber pointed out or indicated by the bearer cannot but
admit of some mysterious signification, connected with
the adjustment of the calendar, civil or astronomical.
Various other monuments, where this same figura-
tive rod occurs, with the ceremony of marking off or
subdividing its notches, have been examined by M*
ChampoUion,'' who supposes the ceremony to dUude
to the regulation of the national festivals or xo^pfiyvgiig
at stated intervals; This interpretation, there can be
little doubt, is as accurate as it is ingenious, with re*
gard to several, at least,. of the monuments illustrated
by that distinguished critic, which seem to belong
chiefly to the greek or roman periods, and where the
rods are held by various deities or other personages.
But, in the one to which our observations have been
directed^ there is this distinctive peculiarity, that the
rod is not only held by Thot, but the Cynocephalus
and Scales form an important feature of the group,
which is wanting on all others of a similar nature that
I have had an opportunity of seeing. Whatevjer may
be the preci&e signification of this mysterious cere-
mony, we have, at least, here Thot with his scales
and cynocephalus, as the regulator of the calendar ;
and the scales and cynocephalus being symbols of the
equinox, and the hieroglyphic of the month of Thot
being also a symbol of the autumnal season, we have
confirmation strong of the opinion here advanced,
^ Precis du Syst. hier. p. 215, sqq.
74 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
that the equinox of autumn was the place in the year
originally occupied by that month, for all these coin-
cidences could hardly be the r ffult of chance.
In the painting of the theban tomb»^ as above ob-
served, there is a procession, headed by a figure, bear-
ing an ear of corn, or a sprig of some other vegetable
production, in its hand, doubtless symbolic of the con-
stellation Spica, or Virgo of our sphere. In front is
the Lion. This figure is followed by three others,
whose persons are marked by no distinctive attributes,
probably subordinates or companions of the leader with
the Spica ; but immediately in their rear marches the
god Thot, between the very same two lesser deities,
who act as his ministers in the ceremony of adjusting
the balance. May not we conjecture that we have
here Leo, Virgo (Spica), Libra ?
All this receives light from a passage of Julius Fir-
micus,^ an author who appears to have preserved many
genuine remains of the old judicial astrology of the
Egyptians, according to the celebrated chiefs of that
school, Nechepsos and Petosiris, and who, in treating
of the influences of the signs on human destiny or cha-
racter, makes Libra produce : Sacerdotes, et quibus
deoruro. secreta credantur, musicos, regumque scribas,
vel quibus dictandi committant officium ; medicos,
geometras, mathematicos, negotiator es, templorum
ministros, &c. &c. ; every one of which qualities or
occupations were under the special patronage of Thot.
It might, perhaps, be objected by some, that on the
more ancient greek sphere there is no such sign as
Libra, its place being occupied by the claws of the
Scorpion, and, therefore, that the symbol itself was a
P See Plate II. "? Astronomic, lib. viii. c. 25.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT, SECT. III. ^S
recent iimovation on the orio^inal zodiac ; and Pluche/
probably after Hyginus,' asserted that it was an inven-
tion of the Romans, about the age of Augustus. No
great deference is, indeed, due to this authority, which
I was surprised to find has also been adopted by the
judicious Goguet,^ and other critics, who usually go
deeper into their subject. It will, however, be worth
while to point out shortly the error of this opinion,
as, by so doing, we shall be enabled to advance still
farther evidence, that Libra was the primitive sign of
this season in the egyptian zodiac, and, by inference,
that both that sign and the zodiac itself are of egypt-
ian invention.
The oldest extant greek author, professedly treat-
ing of the signs of the zodiac, of whom we have more
than an incidental fragment, is Aratus, who certainly
never mentions Libra ; with him this sign is always
Chelse, or the Claws. Hipparchus," however, who
flourished upwards of a century and a half before the
christian era, once calls it Libra; and with Geipinus,""
who lived about eighty years afterwards, it is the fa-
miliar and ordinary term. Both these authors wrote
before Augustus was born ; the opinion, therefore, of
Goguet falls to the ground at once. As the Romans
were indebted for all their scientific institutions to
their more highly civilized neighbours, whether greek
' Hist, du Ciel, lib. i. $ 3. * Poet. Astron. ii. 26.
t Orig. des loix, t. iv. p. 779. Fonteuelle, ap. Court de Gebelin Monde
prim. t. iv. p. 598. The only additional foundation for this opinion is an
obscure passage of Virgil, (georg- i. v. 32), whichj however, his scholiasts
have not so understood. The utmost that can be inferred from it is, that
the Ilomans, having hitherto, like the more ancient Greeks, used the
Claws, Augustus, in imitation of the alexandrian Greeks, first substituted
the Balance.
« Ad. Arat. Phsenora. lib. iii. c. 2, in Petav. Uran. p. 134'.
^ Elem. Astron. Uranol. snp. cit. p. I, sqq.
76 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
or oriental, it is not very likely, in iteel^ that, in
adopting their zodiac^ in other respects entire, they
should hare been at pains to make an alteration in
this particular point ; still less is it to be conceived,
that, in the days of the Ptolemies, when Alesandi^ia
was the central seat of learning* and civilization, and
Rome herself had hardly begun to turn her attention
to. the sciences, the greek mathematicians shoidd have
sought for new technical terms in the rude almanacks
ofLatium.
Libra occurs on all the extant egyptian zodiacs ad
the sign of the equinoctial month of autumn, as ^ell
as on those of the Arabs and other oriental nations,
who, i% may be conjectured, borrowed, either directly
or indirectly, from Egypt. The present hieroglyphic
of the sign, of which there is some trace in the picture
of the theban tomb, is also, apparently an abbreviated
representation of a portion of a balance. But, what
is still more decisive, Achilles Tatius,"' an author of
considerable weight in matters of astronomical his*
tory, positively asserts Libra to be peculiarly andxlis^
tinctively egyptian : " The sun,'* says he, " in his
course througn the zodiac, when he enters the Ram,
or the Claws,. which the Egyptians call the Balance,
makes the days and nights equal." Tatius was him-
self a native of Egypt, and therefore must have had
good opportunities of ascertaining the fact. The
same is stated equally positively by Servius,* in his
commentary on a line of the first Georgic, where Vir^
gil (as the latin poets seem to have done by prefer-
ence) calls the sign by its greek name of Chelae or
Claws : " The Egyptians affirm that there are twelve
^ Fra^menta, apud Petav. Uran. p. 96.
» Ad Virg. Georg. i. 32.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. lU. 77
signs^ but the Chaldaes eleven, for they make Libra
and iScorpio on^, assigning' to Libra the claws of the
Scorpion/' By Chaldee, be it observed, mixst bere
be und^fitood, according to the ordinary phrauBeology
of this and other contemporary authors, the professed
astrologers of the day, who being chiefly Greeks, pro^
baUy nsed the old greek form ; for there is no reason
to believe, that the pristine Chaldee zodiac bore any
resemblance in this respect to that of Greece. There
is indeed an astrological poem which passes under the
name of Manettio,^ where it is as^rted that the
Egyptians also used the Claws in early times, which
emblem the priests afterwards changed into the Scales.
But to this wo^k we can grant no claim to authorky,
being a wretched piece of trifling, full of all sorts of
corruptions ; and if really the production of the eele*
brated historian of the dynasties, can only $how liiat
leas deference is due to his testimony in matters of
science thatt of civil history.
The opinion here advanced respecting the superior
aniiquity of Libra, has, I find, also been preferred by
:the most distinguished historians of ancient astro-
nomy.*
From the details above given, it appears probable^
that the Greeks, on first adopting the egyptian zo-
diac, corrupted this and the following sign, dividing
Scorpio into two, and substituting its claws for the
original Libra, for what reason it is not worth while
7 Manethonis Apotelesnuittica, Gronov. Lu^d.. Bat» 1698, 4to« lib. ii.
Y. 136.
> Bailly, Hist de Fastr^tiL aac. p. 4^7, sq. who, in Gonformity with his
favourite systems however, would have it ^n inventiou of the Indians.
Dekmbre, Hist, de Tastr. anc. t. i. p. 8i. Addit. p. zi. Ideler, Unters.
Uber die astr. Beob, &€. s. 272.
78 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
here to inquire.' Afterwards, when Alexandria be-
came the seat of learning, the ancient figure, being-
observed on the egyptian monuments by greek au-
thors, who wrote under the auspices of the Ptole-
mies, was restored to its place in their sphere, which
it afterwards enjoyed conjointly with their own Che-
lae, The Romans preferred the pure egyptian em-
blem.
Paophi, (Scorpio.)
Written by the modern Copts IIAnril, or n-AOIII ;*
but to judge by the analogy of the greek, (too^/),
and of other similar compounds in the Coptic lan-
guage, probably, according to the old etymology :
HAaOfl, or nAOTS:i, the month of the Agatho-
dsemon, or sacred snake, so celebrated in the egyptian
pantheon. The word HOI or OT^L is apparently
a variety of the egyptian JSOfI, Snake, and occurs as
an element of the appellations of both sovereigns and
private individuals ; according to the well known cus-
tom of conferring upon mortals the names or titles of
deities, either simply, or combined as patronymic or
■ There is a dissertation on this point by the gcerman hellenist Batt-
mann, inserted in the work of Professor Ideler, (sup. cit. s. 373.) The
alteration is supposed by him to have originated in a confusion of the
various primitive senses of the greek term x%^iy xnXeti, assumed in its
origin from the analogy of x>^^^^ x^A«»d, &c. to have anciently denoted
not only Claws, but shell, or scale ; german, Scbale, Wagschale. The
solution .is ingenious, though resting too much upon mere conjecture to
be quite admissible. See also Jollois et Devilliers. Descript. de I'E-
gypte. Antiquity. Memoires, p. 456.
b Tuki. Rudim. p. 391, conf. Croz. Thes. Epist. Pt. iii. p. 133.
c Vid. Schow, Cart. Pap. Mus. Borg. Rom. 1788, p. 89, conf. Croze
Lex. in v.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 79
dedicatory compounds.^ Thus, in the fourth dynasty
of Manetho, we find the second and third kings called
Souphis, or son of Ouphi ; as also the fifth king of the
third dynasty. Plutarch* mentions a priest of Helio-
polis, in the days of Solon, called Psenophis, the sense
of which is similar ; and in a catalogue of egyptian
proper names, in a. papyrus of the Borgian museum,
we have nETOTqi, nAOT^I;^ this last maybe
considered as precisely the same compound as the
name of the month, and is by ChampoUion justly ren-
dered uyu^oiuti/fOvtog.^
During this month, as we learn from Plutarch,^
was celebrated a feast called the Staff of the sun ; the
mysterious sense of which referred to his course mid-
way between the equinox, and the most distant point
of the lower hemisphere, at which period he was
fabled to require support or assistance, to sustain him
on his journey ;
We can here trace no connexion between the name
of the month, and the corresponding symbol of the
zodiac, of so satisfactory a nature as in the case of
Thot. There can however be no doubt, but that the
scorpion, though little noticed in the vulgar mytholo-
gy of the Egyptians, must have played a cUstinguished
part in their scientific mysteries ; as it constantly oc-
curs on their astrological monuments, not only- on
those of greco-egyptian art, but in the pictures of the
^ For thi^. custom, to which we have frequent occasion to allude, see
Koseg. de prise. JEg, lit p. 28, sqq.
• In Vit. SoL
' Schow. Cart. pap. sup. cit. pp. 6. 42- 89.
i L'Egpypte sous les Pharaons, yoL i. p. 109. This etymology, for the
name of the month also, suggested itself to Count de Gebelin. Mond*
prim. vol. iv. p. 90.
h De Is. et Os. c. 52.
HO ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
■
royal, twi^i ]i^oi|gfl^ of email size and apparently in a
8ub6rdinai;e capacity ;^ on the stelaa of Bruce and
Montfaucon ( as well as on various gems a^d . scar^-
bees.^ Before therefore a^y satisfactory illustration
of this sign of the zodiac ca^ be expected, we mu^jb
acquire more distinct notions of the figurative attri-
butes or properties, which the priests in their wisdpqci
di^coverod in the naftural history pf tbiB animal, with
reference to their climate ; concerning which we Iwe
at present no historical data whatever. Sevjeral con-
jectures indeed offer themselves, respecting the pro-
bability that some mysterious combination of the
Agathodsemon and Scorpion, may have b^n the pri- .
mitiye symbol of this month in the .egyptian ^diac.
To these however I am unwilling to ^tach much
weight, not having yet been able, to corroborate them
by a reference to either authorities or monuments .
illustrative of the pure egyptian astrological fable*
It may yet jbe remarked, that a veiy important con-
stellation of the greek sphere, called Ophiuchus, or
the Serpent-bearer, occupies a portion of the division
of the zodiac assigned to the Scorpion ; which reptile
he was feigned by the greek astrojogers to t^rample
under foot :
\J<pi^ • • • • 0$ p« /rf fce^'ovy
i See Plate II.
^ Klaproth, Collection d'antiquites egyp^ Pa^- ^ol- 1829, pi. xi.
xxviiL &c.
1 Phseoom. y. 83. Fest Avien. v. 238. See the fig^iwe of the ancient
xodiac engraved by Grotius in his edition of the Aratwa. ad German.
Pheenom. p. 8.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT, SECT, im 81
The Serpentarius, as the Latins call him, was by some
commentators identified with Triptolemus," by others
urith Esculapius ;° both which heroes, and their atten-
dant snakeis, are mere counterparts of the egyptian
Agathodsemon', who is sometimes represented on the
monuments as a serpent mounted on the lower partq
of a man ;** which curious figure, I feel tempted to
suspect, is the original of the Ophiuchus of the greek
sphere, where so many images are evidently borrowed
from Egypt. This might justify the suspicion at least,
that both the reptiles above mentioned may have en*-'
tered into the composition of this symbol among the
Egyptians. It will appear beyond a doubf in the se-
quel, that the emblems, in the zodiac of that peoplci
were not so strictly limited to one figure as in the
corresponding signs of that of the Greeks. The ex-
ample which we shall adduce of this below, in the ca£[0
of the sign Leo, where we find the Lion trampling
upon the evil genius of the season, might, by its ana*
logy, lead to some inference respecting the probable
form of the original sign Scorpio.^
^ Hygfin^ Poet. Astron. ii. 14. Fest. AvieniiB, Phamom. ▼. 205^
^ Eratosth. Catast 6. Scholiast, ad Germanic, v. 72. Serv. ad JEn,
X. V. 260. Ovid. Fast vi. v. 735.
^ ChampoL Panth. pL 3. bis.
P That the scorpion was figoratiye among the Egyptians of the
typhonic influences, appears probable, as well from the very nature
of the animal, as from the circumstance, that on the zodiac be is
sometimes accompanied by an hippopotamus, which monster, as is well
known, was the familiar emblem of Typhon, and is hixnself here re-
presented with the tail of a scorpion. See the sig^n Scorpio of the qua^-
drangubr zodiac of Denderahy and conf. Horap-HierogL L ii. c. 35.
^lian, (Hist. Anim. 1. x. c. 23.) describes a ceremony practised at fune-
rals by the people of Coptos, where it was customary for enthusiasts to
trample upon Scorpions, as symboUc of the most noxious and dangerous
of objects, without receiving any hurt. The Ag^thodjemon, as figurative
of the sun, trampling upon a scorpion as Typhon, would be an apt enough
G
82 ON THE' CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
The sacred month of the goddess of the s^me name,
written, by the Greeks, Athor, Athyr, and Athyri ;
by the Copts invariably Athor or Hathor ;' a deity
irhose influence and attributes were closely connected
with the lower hemisphere, whether, in a mythologi-
cal sense, as referred to Hades, or the shades of after
life, that isj the lower portion of the celestial regk>n,
where the souls of departed mortals were supposed to
dwell ;• or, in, a merely astronomical or physical sense,
as denoting the lowest position of the sun or planets
in the zodiac. . The Greeks, for reasons which it is
unnecessary to explain at length, called her, in com-
mon with other analogous divinities of the neighbour-
ing oriental nations. Aphrodite or Venus. It is well
known that the Aphrodite of the greco-orieiital my-
thology "^s both a celestial and infernal goddess, both
Urania and Hecate ; and such also (in as &r as the
peculiar character of the egyptian pfmtheon will per-
mit the analogy) appears to have been Athor, and in
this respect to have cbrrespbnded both to the Astarte
of the Phenicians and the Alilat of the 'Arabs. Hence,
among the Greeks themselves, we find an 'Ap^o^irti
type of the struggle between the powers of light and of darknen at thb
season, alluded to in the festiiral mentioned aboye as celebrated during
this month.
<i Vid. Orion* ap. Etynt. M. y» AH^ Hesych. ead. y.
' Memph. AOnP. Theb. &A0aP. Tuki, Rudim. p. 391, ^q.
* In the egyptian mythology* it appears that the souls were not feigned
to descend under ground into a Tartarus, as among the Greeks, but to
dwell in the lower hemisphere of the oelestiid regions. Hence it is that
Athyr, and other deities of the infernal world, even while invested with
funereal attributes, are yet frequently, in inscription^^ styled celestial dip
vinities. .
OF ANCIENT EGYPT- SECT. III. 8S
^tksx^if^ irtrujit^^u'^ ataong' the- Latins, Libitinsi/ or
Venus sepulchralis* There can, however, be no jdoubt
but that Athor was, like other lesser goddesses, mere-
ly a personificatioQ of certain fittrifoutes of Isis, and
may be considered a3 that essence of the female god-
head in her capacity oi Hecate or Proserpine."' Plii-
tarch assures us, thf^ the name Athor or Atfayri was,
in fact, a title or epithet of Isis ;* and we shall fiiid
that th^ feast celebrated during this month in honoiir
of AthoF was also called the Isia or feast of Isis. Plu-
tarch^ farther informs us, that Aphrodite was the same
as Nephthe, and that Nephthe represented Tekevrnu,
the JEnd, or to v^i yn^ kou o^am^ that is, the lower
hemisphere, either physically or mythoiogically ; and
Diodorus* also calls this Nephthe, Aphrodite, or Ve-
nus, which shows the correspondence of the three in.
person and attribute to each other, and to the charac-
ter of Hecate ; hence the egyptian ^Apgo^'rji is called
axoriu by Hesychius,* the same, no doubt, as the* ^xa-
r/a. 'Excirn. of Diodorus,^ and the Ni)| yintrig wvrm 1^
teat KvTgiv xukiaoffitsv of the orphic cosmogony/ Ao
cordingly, Athor, with her hieroglyphic titles append-
ed, appears chiefly on egyptian monuments, connected
with the mythology of the lower regions, Amenti, or
Hades. In Belzoni's tomb,"^ for example, the figure
receiving the hero in the shades, represented with a
t Pausan. Cor. c. 2, § 4. Arcad. c. 6, § 2, Bceot. €. 87, § 4k Att c^
19, § 2. Athenieus, Ifeiph. ££t. Casaub. xiii. p. 5SS.
u Plutaroh. Qamt rom. 23-
▼ Plutarch, loc. cit. Dion, Halic Ant rom. L iy^ c. 15. Ed. Hnds^ pv
213. Horat L iiL od. 30, v. 6. Sueton. vit» Neron. c. 39.
^. Plut de U. et Os. c. 27. ^ lab. dt c. 56.
y Lib. cit. ccp 12, 44. » Lib. i. § 13. » V. 2«»t^.
^ 1, § 96. ^ Orpheus, Hymn. ii. See Append. No. XIL
d PLxviii.
84 ON Tll£ CALENDAR ANI) ZODIAC
black head-dress, crowned with black horns, betTireeti
which is the disc of the moon, is Athor.
It will appear, then, with \V^hat propriety this sea-
son, during which the sun descended to the greatest
distance from the zenith, and dwelt the greater por-
tion of the twenty-four hours beneath the horizon,
would be dedicated to the deity whose name it bears.
A striking illustration of this we haVe in the religious
rites celebrated during this month* Athor, as we
learn from the testimony of the ancients, confirmed
by that of the monuments,^ was frequently represented
under the form of a heifer ;• and we find accordingly,
that, in the feast called by Plutarch' the Death or Loss
of Osiris, which commenced on the seventeenth of
-this month, a gilded heifer, (which may either denote
. a gilded image, or a living animal of a gold colour, or
with golden ornaments,) covered with black cloth,
was led in procession, figurative of the fall of the year,
the descent of the sun in the zodiac, and the lolv ebb
of the water of the Nile. Plutarch asserts that this
heifer was the image of Isis ;' and we have observed
already, and shall amply prove in the sequel, that
Athor WHS here merely a personification of Isis.
« Hesych. y. 'a0v(, conf. Strab. p. 1139. ^lian. de An. x. c« 37.
Hence, probably, the reason why the bones of the sacred cattle were bu»
ried in Atarbechis, or the city of Athor. Herodot ii. § 4fi, conf. Jab-
lonsk. Panth. i. p. 4, 5, and Collect, voc. a^Tpt in voce 'Attt^Zn^is.
' De Is. et Os. c 39, Conf. cc 13, 42.
K In the passage referred to, Wyttenbach and others, after tmst-nrorthjr
MSS', instead of the vulgarly edited /Sovy y«i^ 'O^f^ti^ tiicifd ««/ yiiy vo-
f^i^cvrtf^ have restored Mf y^^ "l0-<}«; uium, »• r. A. which is unques-
tionably the true reading; for Osiris could. not be led in search of himself,
still less as chief mourner at his own funeral. That the 0ov« is here fe-
male, appears also evident from the passage of c. 52^ where she is again
introduced.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. $ECT. Ill, 85
Messrs. Salt^ and Champollion^ have identified the
hieroglyphic name attached to the figure of the heifer,
which appears commonly at the end of the funereal
papyri, and in the more secret adyta of the tombs ^ as
that of Athor ; and we have before had occasion to
point out, as indeed every egyptian antiquary is aware,
how close a mysterious connexion there was between
the lower regions, in a spiritual sense, as the abode of
departed souls, and the lower portion of the sun^s
course in the heavens. Hence, in the papyri, the
souls are made to travel to Amenti in the descending
bark of the sun and moon,^ which intimates that their
descent into the lower world took place under the
guidance of those luminaries as they sunk beneath the
hori;zon. Again, Eusebius informs us, that the Hip-
popotamus was one of the emblems of the south pole,
or lower hemisphere, where the sun became invisible;
^nd; accordingly, we find, that a chief attribute of
Osiris, as lord of Amenti or Hades, in the funereal
rituals, is an hippopotamus, who sits in front of the
deity, while Athor stands behind him."^ The abbre-
yiated symbol of this goddess, according to Cbampol-
lion,* was a woman's head with the ear^ of a co\f •
This also forms the capitals of the polumns of her
temple at Denderah, which contains the celebrated
remains of egyptio-greek astrology. And, besides thQ
b Essay on phonet l^erog^. p. 42, pL iii. F.
i Paoth. pi. 17, conf. I^recis du syst hi|r. tab. gep* Np. 102.
k This is the expression u^ed by Salt, whose statement is corroborated
by the circumstance, that, in the funereal rituals of the Vatican Papyri,
described by Mai, aftef Chainpollion, we find that Athor, pr the sacred
heifer, is almost invariably the last of the deities of Hades to whom the
soul is presented, or to whom it addresses its supplications.
1 ChampoL in Papyr. der Vat. fiibl. s. 5.
"> See the funereal papyri, p^im ; and conf. Belzoni, pi. xix.
nPanth. pi. 18 a. .17 a.
I
86 ON TttE GAI/fiNOAR ANO ZODIAC
heifer, with the Mme Athor annexed, we find an^^
other"* of a bright yellow or gold colour, appearing
with the title of mother of the s^n, also in the depul^
chral papyri, and in the same portion as Athor her-
self, and which is, no donbt^ merely another personi-
fication of the same dimity, as ^e wears the symbol of
Athor, above described, round her neck< The red or
yellow disc is also among her prim^ipal ornamentB,
which she bears som^titneft between her horns, sonie^
times it ki deposited on the prow of the mysterious
bark in which she travels. From the correspondence
ci the colour, it is probable that this is the very golden
heifer described by Rutardi as led in procei^ion in the^
mournful ceremonies of the feast of Athor.
Plutarch, like others of the later greek authors who-
treat of egyptian superstition, ignorantly or arbitrarily
explains the mysterious rites of this festival, as of se-**
veral others^ by a confusion between ancient tradition,
and the positions of the iegyptian months in the seasons
at the titne he wrote ; according to the double reckon-*
ing of the alexaudrian or Julian y^ar recently iiltro*-
duced into Egypt, and the ancient moveable year,
which continued for long after to be iti use among
the aboriginal inhabitants.^ In quoting, therefore^
® ChampoL Panth. pi. 23 d. 23 e. conf. Papyr. der Vat Bib. in fine.
Rabmen iii. A. 9.-^viii. 6. — ^xv. B, 4.
P After tbe final settlement of Egypt by Augustus as a province of the
roman empire, tbe use of tbe Julian form of computation was established
in Alexandria, the first day of tbe new calendar being fixed to tbe 29tii
of August, tbe Thot of tbe year in which the innovation took pkce ;
from which period, six, instead of five, supplementary days were added
at tbe end of every fourth year ; so that tbe form of the alexandrian yeair
was as follows :
Tbot 29 August,
P^opbi 28 September,
Athyr 2S October,
Choiak 27 November,
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. Ill, 87
fiom hiui, m well as other wthors of the sai&e stamp,
we mu^ be cautious, while ^e extraict from them va*
luable facts, not to allow ourselves tp be misled by
too great a deference to their fanciful commentaries.
This leads us to some impqrtant ob^rvaifcioBs on the
history aad mysterious significatioa of this festival of
the death' of Osiris, the result of whicb will, I trust,
a£brd strong evidence that the month Athor, to which
it was appointed, originally occupied the place we
have assigned it at the establishmait of the primitive
6gyptian calendar*
Achilles Tatius,"* in treating of the zodiac^ observes,
that *^ the Egyptians formerly, perceiving the descent
e£ the sun from Cancer upon Capricorn, and the
nights prolonged, were wont to mourn> as if fearing
Tybi .V. ; 27 December,.
Mechjr .n ..26 Januaiy,
Phamenoth 25 February,
Phannouthi 27 March^
Pachon 26 April,
Paoai ., , 26 May,
Epiphi 25 June, ^
Meson ..•• .....25 Jidy,
Ep.g«.e»» ...24A4mi.
The aocieut moveable year, however, 'maintained ifs ground among the
aboriginal natives iii vulgar use, and as the regulator of the returns of
their religious solemnities, up to a very late period. (Dodw, App. ad
diss. cyp. § iv. Theon. ap. eund. in fin.) 6o t^t we have tiius two ca-
lendars of precisely similar form in use at the same time, in the same
country, differing only in the circumstance, that the year of the one, by
means of the qimdrennial intercalation, was fixed, while that of the other
retregraded a day in the seasons every four revolutions. About th^ se-
cond century after the christian era, the relative points of the two in the
tropical year diSered considerably, which has been the source of a cousi-
' derable deal of error in the writings of Plutarq^i, and other authoiHs of
tliat ^riod, who confound the dates of \the two in tireatdng of egyptiaii
matters. (Conf. Scaliger, de Emend, temp., p. 222. Ideler Unters. Ub.
die astr. Beob. s. 127. Techu. Chronol. B4 i. s. 150.) .
,<i Isagog. c. ^3i ap. Petav. Uran. p. P5.
88 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
lest he should leave them altogether, and this is the
time of what they call the Isia ; a^in, when he be-
gan to reascend, they put on gay clothes, and deck^
themselves with garlands." That these Isia are pre-
cisely the same with the festival called by Plutarch the
death of Osiris, which began on the seventeenth of
Athor, is, I believe, admitted by both chronologers
and mythologists, and is proved as well by the great
similarity in the description of the two solemnities, as
by other collateral evidence. For example ; Geminus/
in illustration of the peculiarities of the egyptian ca-
lendar, mentions, that it was a vulgar error among
the Greeks to suppose that the Isia fell on the winter
solstice, as fixed by Eudoxus ; " for, indeed, an hun-
dred and twenty years ago,*' says he, " that was the
case ; but as the egyptian feasts, in consequence of
the deficiency of their calendar, go back a day in the
seasons every four years, there has arisen in one hun-
dred and twenty years a deference of a full month ;
so that those who suppose them still to be celebrated
at the winter solstice show very gross ignorance.'*
Now we find by calculation, that, in the year 195
B. c, the seventeenth of Athor, the first day of the
solemnity described hj Plutarch, coincided with the
twenty-sixth of December old style, which was fdsp
the winter solstice as fixed by Eudoxus ; deduct from
these 120, and we have 75 b. c, which ought, upon
our hypothesis that the two feasts are the same, to be
the epoch about which Geminus wrote : accordingly
we find that this i^ in fact the aera assigned him by
the best chronologers, partly on the authority of the
0.bove coincidence, partly from its being amply justi-
T Elem. Astron, c. vi. ap. Petav. op. cit p. IflU
OF ANCIEirr EGYPT. SECT. III. 89
fied by the internal evidence of his own writings/
And here it will be remarked, that this same vulgar
error of the Greeks, noticed by Geminus, leads to an
inference of some importance to our subject; for as
this feast) as both he and Eratosthenes^ i*ightly ob^
serve, wandered through the year, falling successively
en spring, summer, autumn and winter, it is not like-
ly that their countrymen of different ages should thus
so curiously agree in connecting the mysterious signi-
ficatidn of its rites with the sun's motion at the winter
tropic, unless the period of its celebration, to which
those rites bore reference, at its original institution,
really had coincided with that season.
A comparison of the respective descriptions of
Achilles Tatius and Plutarch, will tend still farther
to prove the identity between the Isia and the Death
or Loss of Osiris, as well as to throw light on the
original signification of the feast. Tatius, as we have
seen, divides it into two parts ; the first was grief for
the rapid decline of the luminary, some time before
the solstice ; the second, joy for his return, after he
had well passed the tropic. Accordingly, from Plu-
tarch" we learn, that the first or mournfiil ceremony
lasted four days, from the seventeenth to the twen-^
tieth inclusive, many days before the actual soU
stice, according to the ancient position of this month ;
the joyiul ceremony was not for many days after-*
wards, probably well on in the next month f when,
according to the same author, " going forth towards
the sea, the priests and ministers brought out the sa-
f Petay. dQ doct. temp. lib. ji. c. 7. vol. i. p. 53, sqq. conf. vol. iii<
not. ad loc. Gemin. sup. cit. See Appendix, No. XIII.
t Ap. Gemin. loc. sup. cit. ^ De Is. et Os. c. 39.
^ See Append. No. ^IV.
90 ON THE CALENPAR ATiD ZODIAC
cred chest, contaihing a golden casket, ioto .n^faicii
pouring fresh water, all present raised a cry that Osi-
ris was found*'' This arrangement, it will be ob-
served, is not without its meaninj^, but highly appro«>
priate, and consistent with the vulgar opinion re£|)ect-
ing the motion of the sun, which remains to all ob*
servation stationary, during many days before and afr
ter that of the actual tropic. In the time of Gemi-
nus,"" who is high authority in these matters, the po-
pular notion of the day extended this period to about
twenty days before, and as many after the solstice.
Nor does the opinion, that the feasts of the ancients
were distributed with reference to the seasons upon
this principle, rest on mere conjecture ; we have on
this subject a curious passage of the emperor Julian,^
who, if any man, was well informed in the history
and antiquities of pagan superstition, whether egyp-
tian, greek, or roman. It is a description of certain
festivals of the roman calendar, corresponding in a
very striking manner to the egyptian Isia. ^^ Imme--
diately after the completion, of the month of Saturn
(December), we celebrate magnificent games to the
sun, called the feast of the Invincible Sun, in whic^
it is not permitted to introduce any of those unseem*
ly though necessary rites, which belong to the previ-
ous month ; but the Saturnalia being at an end, the
feast of the Sun comes next in succession ; nor was it
the intention of the ancients, that this solemnity
should be fixed to the very day on which the god
passes the ^ tropic, but to that on which his return
from south to north first becomes perceptible to all ;
for they knew not yet the nice mode of observation,
V Op. sup. cit. c. v. p. Ht 15. > Orat. iv^ p. 156 £d^ Spaiinb.
OF ANCIEKT EGYPT. SECT. III. 91
idPbetwards discovered by the Chaldees and Egyptians^
and perfected by Hippardius and Ptolemy.'^
The account given by Apuleius' of the Isia as ce-
lebrated at Corinth, still more distinctly shovrs theii^
identity with the Feast of Athor ; as he mentions the
^sane two acts of the mythological drama, described
by Plutarch as usual in that feast ; first, the carryit^
in procession a heifer the image of the goddess ; and
secondly, the ceremony of going down to the sea with
the sacred bark^ followed by rejoicings.
Plutarch'^ in another place states, that at the solstice
itself they led the heifer seven times round the tem-^
pie ; which was called the Search of Osiris* It may
be a question, whether this inaccurate author means
to assert that this was a fixed feast ; or whether, as is
more probable, according to the vulgar error stigma^
tized by Geminus, he has confounded in this, as in
other instances, the mysterious origin of the ceremony
with the period of its actual celebration ; but in eithei^
case, its connexion with the other rites of Athor is
very obvious. It may have been originally a supple-^
mentary ^lemnity at the solstice itself, the search na-
turally intervening between the losing and finding of
the god. The Arabs to this day call the sev^i days
of the winter solstice Aiam Alagiuz, the days of the
old woman, or Uie lame and impotent days ;^ which
y This descHption odh:^poiids sufficiently with the positions of thtf
festivals of the Saturnalia and of Phsebus, in the extant roman calendars |
(Ap. Graey. Thes. Antiq. romap. torn. viii. init Court de GebeL Mond,
Prim. toin. iv. p. 40.) the one being fixed some days before, the other as
many after the solstice.
I Metam. 1. ix. edit. Paris, 12<> 1796, torn. iii. p. 160. 169.
* De Is. et Os. c. 52.
^ Herbelot. Bibl. orient, v. Agiuz. couf. Golii Lexic. arab. vv. -^ *%dE*
Vid, Append. No. XV. ^^ ^-'^^
92 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
figui'ative expression is evidently derived from the old
egyptian fable, that the Sun at this period of the year
was feeble and impotent, and on his reapproach to the
zenith was gradually renovated into childhood and
youth.
There can be no doubt but that the commemorar
tion of the birth or finding of Harpocrates at the
winter solstice, so celebrated by latin authors, was
merely another name under which the Isia were
known among the Romans, when introduced into
their familiar mythology ; both festivals comprising
the like alternate mournful and joyful ceremonies',
typical of the declining, stationary, and ascending
condition of the solar orb. This Harpocrates is der
scribed as a son of Isis, and amid the general con-
fusion of persons which forms the distinctive peculi-
arity of the egyptian pantheon,^ seems, like Osiris
and his own brother Horus, under some of their at*
tributes, to have been merely a personification of the
sun. The best method of illustrating this, will be to
quote a few passages of those authors where his rites
are described. " Isis,'' says Plutarch,* " brought forth
Harpocrates about the winter solstice, unformed and
tender." Now Macrobius says, that the various posi-
tions of the sun were typified among the Egj'^tian^,
by the childhood, youth, manhood, and old age of the
human body, and that at the winter solstice he was
likened to an infant, " in which form he is brought
by the priests out of the sanctuary on a certain day ;**
" Haec aetatum diversitates ad solem referuntur, ut
parvulus videatur hyemali solstitio, qualem JEgypti^
c See Append. No. XVI.
^ De Is. et Os. c. 65.
ot Ancient egy^t. sECt. ilr. 93
proferunt ex adyto certo die, quod tunc brevissimo
die veluti parvus et infans videatur."* Macrobius,
be it remarked, does not say that this ceremony took
place at the winter solstice, but that it bore a myste-
rious allusion to that season, being attached to a cer^-
tain day, that is of the egyptian year, no doubt the
very same on which the finding of Osiris took place }
both being ill fact the same solemnity. Accordingly^
both seem to be ridiculed Conjointly by Minutius
Felix,^ in the following powerful language : " Isis
perditum filium, cum Cynocephalo et calvis sacerdo*.
tibus, luget, plangit, inquirit ; mox, invento parVulo,
gaudet Isis, exultant sacerdotes, nee desinunt omni-
bus annis, vel perdere quod inveniunt> vel invenire
quod perdunt, Isis, with her Cynocephalus and
bald priests, wailing and lamenting, seeks her lost
son ; presently the infant is found, Isis rejoices, the
priests exult ; nor do they fail every year either to
lose what they find, or to find what they lose/* The
same is stated with little variety by Lactantius :*
" The rites of the egyptian Isis consist in the losing
and finding of her infant son ; first the priests beat
their breasts and lament, as she is feigned to have
done when she lost him ; then the child is brought
forth, as if found, and their mourning is turned into
joy ; for they are always either finding or losing.**
The identity of this feast and of the rites of Athor
appears to be farther confirmed by the evidence of a
greco-egyptian tablet, published by Kircher*" and Mont-
faucon,^ sculptured in relief on both sides, and repre-»
SatumaL i. c. 18.
' In Octavio. Edit. Heraldi, 1613. p. 29.
. K Instit. 1. i. c. 21.
^ (£dip. Mg, t iv. p. 426.
* Antiq. expl. t. ii. pt ii. pi. oxvi. p. 286. There is another group
9* ON THE CALENDAR AWD ZODIAC
denting two distinct acts of the mysteries of Isb*
On one compartment we haye a figure of a taw or
heifer, borne in procession on a staff ; on the other
we have a similar procession, where, however, a new
born infant is substituted for the heifer. This aUudes,
without doubt, to the substitution of the joyflil for
the mournful ceremonies, as in the foregoing descrip^
tions^ and throws light upon the mysterious title
conferred on the heifer representing Athor, noticed
in the first part of this article, namely Mes Re, Mo^
ther of the sun ; as, in her present capacity, she was
in fact Isis mother of Harpocrates, the symbol of the
sun at this season, distinct, as shall be shown, from
Isis mother of Horus,''
I have formerly had occasion to observe generally,
that it is probable some of the esoteric doctrines,
which the old Egyptians affected to attach to. these
periodical solemnities, may have borne reference to
their mystical import, as connected in their origiji
with certain seasons, which remark appears amply
confirmed by the foregoing details respecting the
Isia. On the decline of the national character and
institutions, after the permanent subjection of the
country to the Greeks and Romans, these mysterious
significations, such as they were, gradually became
trite and public, as is evident from all that has been
somewhat similai', ap. Spon. Rei antiq. select qiuest. in Poleni SuppL ad
Grsev. Thes. t. iv. p. 1260. and Montf. sup. cit. pL cxv.
^ These solstitial solemnities seem to have been common, as might be
expected from their very nature, to many nations. ( Vid. Court de Oe-
belin. Hist du Calendr. Monde prim. t. iv. p. 285.) Besides the Sa-
turnalia of the Romans above noticed, Hyde describes a feast among the
ancient Persians of a like nature ; and to a similar association of ideas he,
perhaps reasonably enough, would refer some of the old rites of Twelfth
night in England. (Relig. vet Pers. 2d edit. p. 2^3, 256.)
DF ANCIENT EGYPt- feEGT. HI. 95
said above. But in the days of Herodotus^ the case
was different. That author describes this festival
somewhat in the same terms as the others, but does
not venture upon any explanation of its meaning ;
observing, that he was not at liberty to disclose the
real motive of the lamentations, with which it was
accompanied. Herodotus may have yjsited Egypt
about 450 fi. c, at which time the seventeenth of
Athor fell on the twenty-seventh of February old
style, when it is clear the mournful ceremonies of
the Isia, could only have had a mysterious connexion
with the circumstances of their institution.
The foregoing illustrations sufficiently confirm the
remark already made, that Athor, like several other
egyptiah deities, was, in reality, merely one of the
personifications of Ms, the essence of the female god^
head, whom she represented in that capacity of infer-
nal deity which entered into her attributes, as well as
into those of her husband Osiris. Accordingly, Plu-
tarch informs us°* that Isis was sometimes called Mout,
sometimes Athyri, The first of these titles or epi-
thets shall be examined in the sequel ; as for Athyri,
("A^fi,) it is evidently one of the synonymes or va-
rieties of Athor, and denoted, according to the same
ailthor, literally, the mundane habitation ofHorusJ"
1 iL 61. ra De Is. ^t Os, c 66.
" OixAv '1C2(«tf xorfCMv, rendered mandanam Hon domum by almost ajl
the commentators, Croze, (Thes. Epist. pt iii. p. 150) Jablonsky, (Panth*
1. ill. c. 5, § 2, fin.) Squire, (in loc.) Wyttenbach, (in loc.) Champollion.
(Panth. pL 18, a.) This sense I have therefore been willing to adopt, as
being certainly most in unison with the general tenor of the subject Yet
it must be admitted that the adjective »«V^/«f hardly, if ever, so far as I
know, occurs in any other classical greek author but as the deriratiye of
K9o-fM^ in its signification of ordo, ornatus; x^TfiixU being the adjective of
»iafL0fj mundus. Old Amyot gives, la belle ipaisou do Horns. Squire
endeavours to show that the name of Osiris would here be more appro-
96 dN THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
That he was right in this interpretation, has been
abundantly proved by recent discoveries, the figura-
tive emblem of this goddess having been observed
by Messrs. Champollion° and Salt** to be a square, the
hieroglyphic of House^ in which sits a sparrow-hawk,
the common symbol of Horus. This curious emblem
occurs, among other instances, in the plates of the
tomb of the theban king, published by Bekoni ;** where
the female figure who stands behind the throne of the
egyptian Pluto is Athor, with her name and titles af-
fixed. In Champollion's Pantheon' we have a figure
of the goddess wearing as a crown this hieroglyphical
house, decked with a fringe of lotus flowers, the em-
blem of the lower regiorij of which I conceive Athor
as olxog "^D^gou to be typical. The symbol suggests at
once the etymology of the word, the principal ele-
ments of which are evidently the Coptic Hi or AI,
House, and the name of the god its inhabitant.' It
priate than that of Horus, and has even gone the length of substituting it
in his english version. It would, however, require many more and
stronger arguments than any adduced by him to justify so strange a li-
berty, even if the emendation were not nullified by the clear testimony
' of the hierogljrphic monuments.
o Precis du syst. hi^r. tab. gen. No. 101.
P Essay on phonet* Hierog. p. 42, pi. iii. No. 47.
<i Plates xviii. xix. 'PI. 17, a.
B That this was the true sense of the name, occurred to Lacreze (Thes.
Epist. pt. iii. p. 159,) who supposes it to be compounded of HI, house,
©O, the world, and the name of the god. This would give HI 0' HP,
which is not inadmissible, and would render very closely, and to the let-
ter, the mysterious signification of the word, according to the interpreta-
tion of the passage of Plutarch adopted by that critic. I should, how-
ever, prefer a more simple form, HI0-nP, the 'House of Horus, the ar-
ticle being postfixed to the governing substantive. The word HI, I am
aware, is masculine in modern Coptic ; but in the hieroglyphic texts it is
usually accompanied by the feminine article, or, at least, by the semicircle
denoting the feminine gender, (Champol. Precis, tab. gen. No. 278, 279,
280,) which justifies the conjecture,' that> in the ancient sacerdotal dia-
lect, the noun itself was feminine. Besides, it is evident, that, in the pre-
8
OF ANCIENT EGYPT, SECT. III. 97
•
iV not difficult to guess the allusion contained in this
mysterious appellation ; for the Sun, who enters ihto
the sacred character and attributes of several egyptian
deities, and more especially of Horus, the sparrow-
hawk god, by the united testimony of antiquity, d6s*
cending, during this month, on that point of the zo-
diac where he appeared, when visible, lowest in the
heaven, and remained the greater number of hours
beneath the horizon, might well be said to take up
his abode with that deity of the lower hemisphere or
region (to vto y^p kgl) ii/po^ki) to whom the season was
especially dedicated.
From all this it may be collected, that Isis, as mo-^
ther of Harpocrates, and Athor, as the house of Ho-
rus, at this season, were merely symbolic representa-
tives of the same deity, in an almost precisely similar
capacity. The name Harpocrates means literally^^
Horus lame in the footj allusive to the embarrassed
motion of the sun at the solstice ; for these two ju-
venile deities, Horus and Harpocrates, were but two
different personifications of the same emblematic ori-
g'inal, the one born of Isis at the winter solstice, called
Harpocrates, or Horus lame, the other produced at a
seat case, even a masculine noun, when adopted as the proper name of a ;.
femsale goddess, might become feminine in composition ; the female House
of Horus,
This form of the genitive case in simple rc^men^ as in the idiom of the ,
Semitic languages, is very common, and, indeed, prevalent in old egypt-
ian, as appears from the traditional remains of that tongue in its pure
state transmitted by the Greeks, and the eoptic proper names, 2X-H2}!
2^EMNOTTC, &c., as TV ell as the interpreted hieroglyphic texts. In
modem Coptic, it is, I believe, rare or obsolete, the genitive case beipg
jbrmed by a servile prefix or preposition. Thre postfixing of the article^ ,
so common in the ancient, is also unknown or unusual in the modern
dialect, (cf. Champ. Precis, p. 127.) ,
The et3rmology above proposed has, I find, occurred, in part at least, to
Alberti. (Not. ad Hesych. v. *Atfv^ )
H
98 ON THB CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
different season from the same female deityi called
Horns simply, or Horud sound or perfect, as shall be
shown in its proper place.
With respect to any connexion between this month
Itndthesign Sagittarius ; — theGreeks, there is no doubt,
identified Horus with their Apollo, whose emblem is
a bow and arrow ; and we have authority to believe
that such an attribute also belonged to the egyptian
deity, according to the primitive mythology. It may
be observed, tlmt the figure of the Sagittarius, on the
circular planisphere of Denderah, has a janus or
double-headed bust ; one of the faces is that of a spar-
row-hawk ; the animaPs body is that of the coW spe-
cies, with cloven feet j the head-dress is that peculiar
to Osiris in his character of Pluto ; all which seems
to hint at some connexion between the season and the
deities into whose influences thereon We have just
been inquiring. On the quadrangular Zodiac, the em-
blems, though somewhat varied, are analogous. In
the janus, the head of a lion is4ndeed substituted for
that of the sparrow-hawk,* but the bird itself k repre-
sented entire, sitting on the back of the cIoven*footed
animal. There is, however, another mysterious re«-
presentation iit the same compartment, which consti-
tutes a principal portion of th§ emblem of the sign ;^
a human figure with the head of a sparrow-hawk, evi-«
dently Horus, transfixes with a dart or arrow a hi-
deous nondescript, probably one of the personifications
of Typhon, or the evil genius, whose tail or train is
' ^ This substitution niaj receite light from a comparison of the siga
Leo, as will be seen presentij ; the lion^ Of lion's head, being but another
type of the sun combating the typhonic influences- He is also support-
ed by the sparrow-hawk.
« See Plat» III. No. 3.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 99
held hy another monster, usually supposed, and, I
conceive, with justice, to be the hippopotamus, which,
we learn from the ancients, was the ordinary emblem
of Typhon or of the south pole. In the picture of
the theban tomb'' the sign Sagittarius seems to be re-
presented by the same symbolic adventure. The fi-
gure of Horus appears there also combating sometimes
a crocodile, one of the common emblems of the lower
hemisphere,"* sometimes a nondescript monster, not
unlike that pourtrayed as engaged with the same deity
in the zodiac of Denderah. The classical commenta-
tors of the zodiac inform us, that the real meaning of
the symbol Sagittarius was doubtful ; but, according
to Eratosthenes'" and others, the arrows he bore were
the same with which Apollo had destroyed the Cy-
clops, in revenge of the death of Esculapius. It is
obvious how naturally the Greeks would connect or
confound this fable, with the egyptian tradition of the
war of Typhon against Osiris, and his defeat and death
by the hand of Horus. And the analogy between
this mysterious combat, ai^l the struggle of the deities
of light against the evil influences of the lower hemi-
sphere in the tropic, during the month of Athor, is very
palpable. All this may be elucidated by the following
passage of Eusebius :^ — " The light of the moon is
consecrated in the city of Apollinopolis. Its symbol
is a man with the head of a sparrow-hawk, attacking
with a dart' Typhon, in the form of a hippopotamus.^
^ See Plate II. ^ Horapol. i. c 69, 70.
^ Ap. Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 15, conf. Scholiast, ad Germanic, v. 305.
y Pnep. ev. p. 1 16. Ed. Pto. 1628.
z ^St^TjvTif whick denotes precisely the same sort of instrument as tbaf;
with which the figure of the god combats on the zodiac, namely, a light
feathered dart, or arrow used as a javelin. Vid. commentat. ad Hesych.
vv. Zv^Qrivny ZiCuvtj, S/Cwi^tj.
^ So also Damasc. apud Phot. cod. ccxlii. Ed. Schott. 1611, p. 1043.
/
\ .. ... /
100 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
The image is light in its colour, as denoting the bor-
rowed light of the moon. The head of the sparrow-
hawk shows that its light is derived from the sun, for
the sparrow-hawk is sacred to the sun, as the symbol
of light and spirit ; but the hippopotamus denotes the
lower hemisphere. The god who is worshipped in
this city is Horus/* Tlie moon combined with Ho-
rns, whilst he combats with an arrow the hippopota-
mus, or Typhon of the lower hemisphere, can denote
nothing else but the united forces of the divinity of
light, combating the typhonic influences which oppose
his progress in the winter tropic, during the month of
Athor, with whom he then takes up his habitation.
This mystical junction of the two luminaries at this
season, and in this position, in the physical mythology,
may be connected with the figure already mentioned
of the spiritual mythology, that the souls descended
into Amenti in the bark of the Sun and Moon. We
certainly have here a striking enough analogy between
the symbols of the deities of this month, and those of
the corresponding division of the zodiac.
Choiak, ( Capricornus.)
The name of this month is very obscure. The
only word in the egyptian mythological vocabulary to
which it bears any resemblance, is the name of the
god Sevek, or Souak, of which we may perhaps be
permitted to conjecture Choiak to be a variety or cor-
ruption ; the guttural being substituted for the sibi-
lant, as these two sounds are very commonly con-
founded in Coptic : thus we find the month Pachon
written also Pashon ; Mechir, Meshir ; besides many
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT, lit. 101
other examples.^ This deity is personified under the
form of a crocodile,'' the name of the animal being
the same as that of the god, according to Strabo'^ and
Damascius.®
. We have already remarked, that among t&e zodia-
jcslI symbols of the royal tomb, is a crocodile riding on
the back of another animal, apparently an hippopotor
nius, the hieroglyphic of the lower hemisphere. A
similar group is not uncommon on scarabee gems;
.on. several published in Count Pahlen's collection,^
the crocodile - is represented mounting on ^ a goat- ;
which infers a mystical union between Mendes or
Pan and Sewek.^ This might be merely a variety of
the symbol of the tomb, and approaches as nearly as
C£|,n well be imagined to CaipriGorn of the greek zor
diac, a nondescript, half goat half fish. ' HorapoUo*
mentions a crocodile, or the tail of a crocodile, which
may be the hinder part of Capricorn in its combined
^tate, among the embLems^of the, lower hemisphere or
south pole. The position of this month in the seasons
would render the figure equally appropriate as applied
to itp These coincidences justify at least the conjee-,
ture, that the crocodile of the tomb may be the pro?
totype of the greek Capricorn.^
• • •
b See Klaproth, Lettr« I. a M. de Giulianoff, p. 21,
W^Z^ pour XAg ; iUimine.
gjOBT ... XOBT; chaog^er, &c. &c.
c Cbampol Papth. pL 22. * P. 1150.
« Ap. Phot. <Bod. ccxiii. p. 1043. ' '
1. ' ldapco% CoU. d'Autiq. ^gyj^U pL xxviiL No. 1521. 1524<, conf.^ pi
JUL, No. 1089. 1090, pL xxvii No. 1449.
« Hieix^. i. C.69- 70.
b The conjecture that this is the month of Sewek, or the crocodile god,
nputy receiy.e ^n^e corfobpii&tion from the circumstance, that the Lattni^
identified that deity >vith their own Satan| ; (vid. Champ: Panth. pi. 22. >
for what possible reason (since he certainly was not the father of Am-
10^ Off THE CALSNDAfi AND ZODIAC
ToBi,* (Aquarius).
The first montli of drought, or of harvest ; for that
these significations, one or both, belong to the hiero-
glyphic of this, the Second season, there can be little
doubt.
According to Plutarch,^ this was the montli in
'which took pUtce the return of Isis from Phenicia.
Without paying too implicit a deference to his account
of the journey and adventures of the goddess, which
mon or Jove in the Egyptian Pantheon) it were difficult to iuiderstui4»
unless we derive it from the correspondence of the two in character and
attribute, as referred to the ph3rsical mythology. Among the Latins, the
solstitial season was dedicated to Saturn ; who, after his expulsion frcMft
Olympus, became one of the principal divinities of the lower regions :
T^»«im-* •St 4tnft9a-^ /S«^W H ti T^^^^ ifitfis* (JL #. 479.)
The tradition that Saturn Hed from Greece to the west, or to Latium, as
a hiding-iplace, whence Vir^l : Latiumque vocari maluit ; his quoniam
tutus latuisset in oris: (JBn. viii. Vt 3d^8.).-and Ovid: Dicta iuit Lsti«n
terra latente Deo :' (Fast i. v. ^38.) is l>ut a variety of Homer'a accouDt
of his being thrust into the Shades. The ideas of West, Sunset, ^vrt^.
Darkness, and the lower regions in a spiritual sense, are inseparable in
the primitive greek iMe ; wh^re, as in that of Egypt, l^e astronondeai and
funereal mythology, by an obvious and^tural association of ideas, were
closely connected; as is clear from the whole Nf«^«|w«frf/« of the Odyssey,
and the phoenicogreek names "£^1^0$, Erebus, from ^*13^ Ereb, the W^t,
Evening, or Dusk ; and Zo^«f , Z«^«9 'nt^tfretf from zaphun, the north,
or *< Hidden from" the sun. Vid. Buzt Lex. hebr, v. ]^^* In the
egyptio-greek medals, the figure of Saturn appears in company with
the sign Capricorn of the zodiac. Zoeg. Nmn. Egypt Mus. boi^. p. 183,
No. 170.
i Memph. TQBU Theb. TaB£. Tuki, Rud. p. 391, sq. Jablonsk. Lex;
in V. With the Greeks usually Tv^t*
i^ De Is. et Os. c. 50.
OF ANCIENT EOYPT. aECT. 111^. lOS
tsavours little of the pure egj^tian mythology, we hav6
at least enough to suggest the etymology of the name
of the month, and possibly the sense in which it was
applied. Tobi in Coptic means to return, repay, or
restore. This was the season in which it would
seem that, according to the ordinary course of egyp-
tian agriculture, as influenced by the peculiarities of
the climate, the blade shot forth its full ear, and the
early crops began to ripen for the harvest;' from
which period the earth returned, in rapid succession,
the various deposits committed to her breast by the
husbandmail, since the period of the first subsiding of
the Nile ; so that there could not be a more appro-
priate appellation of the season, than the return of
Isis, the Demeter or Ceres of Egypt. The probabi-
lity of this etymolog}' has occurred to the learned
Rossi,*" who has assigned it a place in his lexicon,!
though without entering into any analysis of the mys-»
terio^s signification of the word. We have an appo-
site illustration of this in the Chinese calendar,"^ where
the first month after the winter solstice, for a different
reason, though by a precisely similar analogy, is called
Fou or Return ; by which, says De Guig'ues, they
denote the return of yang, that is, the principle of
heat, which since mid-summer had constantly de-
clined, but from the opposite tropic began gradually
to resume its vigour.
Some authors would refer, and not without appa-
rent reason, the sign Aquarius or the Water-carrier,
to certain old customs connected with the state of
K
V
1 Pococke, Travels, fol. 1745, vol. i. p. 204. Sonnini, Travels, Eng,
trans. 4to. ISOO, p. 393, sqq. conf. Zoega, de Obelise, p. 166, note.
™ Etymology. Bsgypt. Rom. 4to. p. 277. sq.
^ Deguignes, Mem. de TAcad. des iiisc. U xlvii. p* 384.
104f ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
the river at this season, which are said still to main*
tain their ground among the natives of Egypt ; ieind
we shall adduce some evidence from the remains of
^yptian tradition, as well as from the natural history
'of the climate, in fitvour of the plausibility, at least, of
the conjecture..
The inhabitants of the banks of the Nile were
accustomed, as is well known, to depend almost sole-
ly on the river water for all purposes to whjqh that
fluid can be applied ; for besides their superstitious
regard for the Nile itself, its stream was considered,
when properly purified and preserved, not only the
most wholesome, but the most invigorating of bever-r
ages.^ The Egyptians, says Aristides,^ are the only
people who preserve water in jars, and calculate its
age as other nations do that of wine. Deguigaes
asserts "^ on the authority of Arab writers, tlmt during
the months of Tybi and Mechir of the Alexandrian;
calendar, a custom prevails in Egypt to this day, o$
preparing the vessels and cisterns^ and laying in the
supply of drinking water for the season ; the rivei^
having now reached its lowest, and to a certain de^
gree stationary condition, and its stream being per^;
fectly pure, and unadulterated by alluvia of any kind.
The months Tybi and Mechir of the alexandrian year,'
correspond to Cboiak and Tybi of the ancient calen-
dar, which we are now endeavopring to elucidate.
The chief of the emblems which we have conjectured
to represent the month Choiak on tihe zodiac, the
croQodile, is closely connected with the water of the
Nile ; and the festivals mentioned by the ancients as
o Pint, de Is. et Os. c. 5.
P Orat. egypt. vol. ii. p. 363. ed. Oxon. 173P.
n Lib. sup. cit. pi 387»
• OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 105
celebrated during this month Tybi, however obscure
their precise meanings all bear reference to something
^peculiar in the state of the river, and most probably
to the lowness of its waters ; and one of them alludes
most unequivocally to the very custom mentioned by
,De Guignes. On the seventh day of the month
Tybi, says Plutarch/ they bake cakes with the figure
of an hippopotamus bounds stamped on them ; and
in the city of Apollinopolis, the whole day was de--
voted to hunting the Crocodile ; when having de-
stroyed as many as they were able, they feasted on
them in great ceremony before the temple ; it being
incumbent on every person, on that day, to taste the
flesh of this animal. The above ceremonies there is little
reason to doubt were in honour of the river to which
these animals were peculiar. On the eleventh day
of Tybi, we learn from Epiphanius,' it was customary
for every Egyptian to draw a certain quantity of
water from the Nile. This ceremony the worthy
father supposes to contain some mysterious reference
to our Saviour's miracle of converting water into
wine, but it bears sufficient marks of pagan origin ;
and suggests at once the idea of Aquarius, the sign of
the zodiac for the season. May not the fable, that
during the reign of one of the early king? of Egypt, the
Nile flowed eleven days with honey, figurative of the
sweetness and excellence of its waters,* be connected
with the above number of the day of the month, to
which this rite was attached. According to Mr.
Salt," the emblem of the river itself,' was a figure
' De Is. et Os. c 50. ■ Haeres. li. 30. ed. P^tav. p. 451.
^ Manetho, Djnast. 2d. ap. Syncel. Chronogr- p. 54. et Euseb. in Tbcs.
temp. Scalig. p. 14.
^ Essay on phon. hier. p. 48. pi. iii. q.
106 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
crowned with lotus, pouring water, precisely similar
to the figure of Aquarius on the greco-egyptian zodi-
acs, which We may therefore presume to have been a
personification of the Nile in its lowest state, when
the value of its waters rendered them an especial
object of superstitious veneration, though of a difierent
nature from that attached to them during the inun- ^
dation. ChampoUion has also given in his Pantheon""
a figure of Ammon in the character of Nilus, pouring
water out of a vase; In the hierogljrphic inscriptions,
We sometimes find three vases assigned the river god
as ah attribute, sometimes only one."' The first
number is an emblem of the inundation, as we learn
from HorapoUo ;* any thing thrice repeated denoting
abundance or a great quantity of the object/ The
single vase probably refers to the lowest state of the
river. It is well known tiiat the vases for filtering
or preserving the Nile water, called Canopi by the
Greeks, played a distinguished part in the egyptian
mythology.* Immediately below the group of the
^ PL 3. ter.
^ Ibid. Gonf. Precis da s^st M^r. tab. gfen. no. 241, 248.
^ HierogL lib. i. c. 21. HorapoHo in the same passage observes, that
the inundation of the riyer was called Noun. ML ChampoUion in tho
second edition of his Preds (loc. sup. cit.) has affixed to this group in
his vocabukry, the word NOTB— -either, I presume, as supposing that
-Horapollo's text is incorrect, or that the two words are synonymous. Be
that as it may, NOTN certainly is a pure coptic word denoting a flood or
mass of waters; and as such occurs frequently in the Coptic version of
scripture; as in Ps. xli. 7. <I>NOTN AqMOTTI OTBE ONOTN—
J>eep calleth unto deep. Conf. Deut viii. 7. Luc. viiL 31. It is clear
^hat in the text of Horapollo, as has been frequently observed, we must
read hf ^^wo-t, for et tc«Xova-t. (Yid. Jablonsk. ColL voc segypt. in v.)
The sai^ie nppiber of signs of water is, as we have seen, the symbol of
the season of the rise of the river, in the calendar.
y Young, Art EgypI* p. 70*. No. 204. Champol. Prec. tab. gen. No.
227.
> Plut de Is. et Os. c. 36. Montf. Ant. ezpL t. ii pt. ii* f* 320. pi.
cxxxii. sqq. Jablonsk. Panth. 1. v* c. 4. § d*
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 107
crocodne and hippopotamus in the theban tomb, is a
vase, on which the monster rests" one foot. This
the french illustrators ci that monument have, I
conceive, justly conjectured to be the sign of Amphora
or Aqu&rius.
Mechie. (Pisces.)
Concerning this month or its name no observa-
tions of a satis&cloiy nature present themselves ;
in the coptic vocabulary it occurs written also
Meshir, arabice >A^t Amshir.^ Kircher"" asserts,
but without giving his authority, that during this
month, it was customary to fumigate and purify the
temples and sanctuaries. If he be right, it might
give the etymology of the name, as Amshir in Egyp-
tian means a censer, or oblation of incense. Being,
however, here destitute of any guide to our re-
searches, we shall pass on to the next month, which
will afford more pointed! illustrations of our views.
Phamenoth. (Aries.)
The sense of this word is obvious ; namely the
month of ABK)n or Amen, the patron deity of Thebes,
whose name evidently constitutes its principal ele^
ment. It is nearly the same as the appellation of some
of the most celebrated theban sovereigns, Ainenoph,
* Jomard, m Descr. de TEg. Antiq* M^. p. 256.
^ Tidd; Kircher ; looc. citt. adf, 67. supn « (£d. Kgjpt t. iu. p, 2621.
108 ON TH£ CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
or with tke prefix, Phamenoth/ which means literally
dedicated or devoted to Amon. It corresponds stiH
more closely to the proper names of private individiu
fBils, Phamenothes, or Amenothes/ common in papyri^
and really synonymous with the other ; the termina^
tions oth or oph^ being merely varieties of pronun-
ciation of the Coptic HTn to devote or dedicate j'
so that there can be no question respecting its import ;
this being evidently the month of the chief of the
thebaii pantheon, commonly called in inscriptions^
Amon, ruler or director of the gods ; identified by
the Greeks with their Jupiter.
There seems among many nations, at whatever
period of the seasons the civil commencement of their
year may b^ fixed, to be a natural tendency to date its
first montb» in an astronomical sense, from the vernal
equinox ; as the epoch when the sun, having renewed
his vigour, completely overcomes the ascendency of
the lower hemisphere, and advances rapidly towards
the zenith. This may account for the Egyptians
having dedicated this month by preference, to the
prince of their pantheon, Amon Ra, himself an em-
blem of the luminary, and whose hieroglyphical symr
bol, it is scarcely necessary to observe, was a Ram,^
the sign of this division of the zodiac ; thereby in«
vesting him with the supremacy of their astronomical
calendar, while Thot presided over that in. civil uise.
There can be little doubt, but that the practice of
counting the signs from Aries was originally an egyp*
d As in the celebrated greek inscription on the theban statue* Gob£
Pausan. Att. c. 42. § 2.
e Papyr. ap. Young, account of recent discov* p. 77, 78. sqq.
f Champol. Pr^is p. 168. Koseg. de prise* iEgfypt lit p. 32. ^
If See the splendid figure ap. ChampoL Panth. pL 2. bis, 2. qutftei?.
8
6F ancient EGYPT. SECT. III. 109
tian custom, which only became general among the
L^uropeans in later ages ; for the moi'e ancient Greeks,
on their first adoption and use of the zodiac, seem to
have adapted its signs to their civil calendar, reckon-
ing from Cancer, as 4;he commencement of their own
olympian year.** That the other was the' peculiarly
egyptian arrangement, we are led to conjecture from
its own internal evidence ; but besides this,* Theon of
Alexandria, an author sufficiently Well versed in the
mythological astronomy of Egypt, positively asserts
it to have been so. In his commentary on a passage
of Aratus, where that poet in enumerating the signs
begins With Cancer, he observes :* " But why does he
begin with Cancer, while the Egyptians always reckon
from the sign of the Ram ? because it is his usual
practice to reckon from the north, atid Cancer is the
most northerly sign ; but the Egyptians with equal
I'eason commence from • the Ram, arranging their
emblems according to the analogy of their physical
qualities/ Hence, say they, ihe Ram is the chief, as
being by nature princely and commanding, since the
Ram is leader and guide of the flock ; as also because
in this sign the equinox takes place/'
Plutarch^ informs us, that on the first day of Fha-
menoth they celebrated the " entrance oi Osiris into
the moon,** as being, 6(tgog afjc^, " the beginning of
springy*^ (according to the sense of the expression
as referred to the vulgar idiom.) The first part of
this description is not very intelligible ; there can
howevei: be little doubt, from the second, but that
^ Arat. PhaBDom. v. 545, sqq. Hipparch. ad Arat lib. iii. ap« Petav.
Uran. p. 136. sqq. Calend. Grsec. ap. Gemin. Elein. c. xvi. conk Petay.
Uran. p» 142.
^ Ad Arat Phsenbm. v. 5H. ^ De Is. et Os.c. 43.
1 10 ON TH£ CALENDAR AN0 ZODIAC
the feast here alluded to was nothing more than an
ancient solemnity first instituted in honour of the
vernal equinox, or first day of Jupiter's month ;
which remaining, like other rites, attached to the
month, and not to the sign, may.have been confound-
ed or misunderstood by Plutarch. This appears to be
proved by the circumstance that the expression htgo^
iffxh* ^^^^ used by that author, commonly denotes
with astronomers, not literally the commencement of
the season called spring, but the vernal equinox itself^
the chief point or acme of the season. So Theon *2
Mo^y ya^ i» Kf idi Cwm aifrw^ iago^ ug^^if 7^^flf ifAoUj^
$uu ix) tS¥ "KoixUff* ^* for when you know that the sun
is in the Ram, you will reckon that it is lag^ o^,
the acme of spring, and the same holds good of the
other . cardinal points ;" and accordingly in another
place:" a^ XS'/^w^i •^a*' i» ^S ^ytxigeifn ywitcu i
^Ijog^ rm yof ap^^ um¥ i ^sipkiy. *^ The agxpi yf^
fMwo^, or acme of winter, is when the sun enters Ca^
pricom ; for then is the severity of winter.**
Fharmouthi, (Tauru^.y
We may trace a connexion between this name and
the egyptian pantheon, iii the resemblance qf its radi^
cal syllables to those of Hermouthis or Thermouthis^
the title of a female personage of some celebrity among
the ancient expounders of egyptian mythology.
. That the month Fharmouthi took its name from
this divinity, has occurred to Jablonski,'' who has,
1 Ad Arat. r. 59». « Ad r. 886,
n Pimtb. lib. i. c. ▼. $ 10. conf, Scbow, Cart pap. pp. 46, 47. .^ckaon,
Cbron. Ant toL it p. 4^
OF ANCIENT EGYPT* SECT, III. Ill
however, aseiigiied a eharactei* to herself, and an ety*
mology to her name, neither of which appear very
plausible, namely, EPMOTT, catmng death, or with
the article 0EPMOTT, Thermouthis, t?he causer or
goddess of death ; identiiying her with Hecate or Tith-
rambo, an evidence which ought, in refison, to lead to
a conclusion the reverse of that which he has formed.
Epiphanius, in treating of egyptian superstition, ob-
sierves, that ^^ some are initiated into the mysteries of
Tithrambo, who is also called Hecate, others inta
those of Nephthys, others into those of Thermouthis ^"
whence the learned critic infers, that Tithrambo or
Hecate, and Thermouthis, are the same, apparently
because it suited his argument ; but the sense of the
passage leads to the more just inference, that they
were different, as an express distincticm is made be-
tween their rites.
Tn the existing remains of hieroglyphic antiquity,
{here occurs no distinct proper name of a divinity re-
sembling Hermouthis or Thermouthis ; but there is a
familiar title so nearly corresponding to it, as to leave
little doubt but that it is the same, considered by the
Greeks as that of a separate goddess, namely, MOTT,
mother ; or commonly with the epithet !)££P mighty
prefixed, 2CEPMOTTI, mighty or powerful mother.**
This, with the usual prefix Ilia, might give us the name
of the month ; the first letter of the second or longer
name, being a liquid or aspirate of uncertain sound in
the egyptian language, may possibly have been supV;
pressed or slurred over in composition, more ei^ci-
ally by the Greeks anxious on all occasions to reduce
the pronunciation of foreign tongues to their own
9 Champol* PrMs. du lyst. hi^r. p. 1S2, sqq-
112 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
standard of euphony. Among Coptic proper names,
we find Patermouthis ;^ which, (as in the case of ^
Paophi, Phamenoth, and other months,) seems to be.
merely the same dedicatory compound, applied ac-
cording to familiar custom to private individuals ; and
where the proiymciation of the initial radical appears
to have been preserved entire. Without insisting
upon the rigid exactness of this etymology, we may
be permitted to assume, that in whatever .way the
name is compounded, it contains the signification of *
sacred to Mouth, or Zermout ; as Phamenoth con-
tains that of sacred to Amon. We shall, in another
place, adduce farther confirmation of this opinion,
from the close connexion between this deity herself,
and those who preside over the months, which pre-
cede and follow her own in the calendar.
We find this title of Mouth, Zermout, or Ther-*
mouthis, applied by the ancients, or appended in the
hieroglyphic inscriptions, to various female person-*
ages of the pantheon, Isis, Neit, Buto ; who thus be-'
come more especially invested with the attributes of
maternity or female productiveness.** The principal
p Schow, Cart pap. pp. 12. 24. 2S.
4 We have seen (supra, p« 9S<) that Plutarch mentions Moat, which
ivord is rendered by himself mother, among the titles of Isis, that is, of
the female essence of the egyptian divinity in general. This is confirmed
by iBlian, (Hist. Anim. x. 22.), who also observes (x. 31.) that a parti-
cular species of snake, one of the sacred emblems of Isis, and her favour-
ite head ornament, was called Thermouthis. Horapollo assigns the same
cnaracter to Neit (Minerva), as he informs us that a vulture was the
emblem of both that deity and of the idea mother. (HierogL i. c. 11, 12.)
Eusebius (Pnep. £v. L iiL c. 11.) states that Isis was also so represented.:
In M. Champollion's Pantheon the title Mout or Zermout (Thermouthis)
is applied to various other female deities.
According to Josephus (Ant. Jud. II. ix. 5), the Pharaoh's daughter
who saved Moses from the waters of the Nile, was called Thermouthis ;
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 113
component part of the hieroglyphic name is a vulture,
the sign of the idea mother. ^ In fact, this mysterious
idol appears to have been merely a symbol of the ma-
ternal essence or principle of the creation, the mother
or mighty mother of the world. She was considered
as the wife of Ammon, whom we find invested with
the character of male generative principle, or Priapus.
Horapollo^ asserts that the Bull of the zodiac was
consecrated to a female deity whom he calls the
Moon ; a description not incompatible with the vari-
ed properties of Mout. According to the unani-
mous testimony of antiquity, the moon was a§(rB»66fj\i/g
in the egyptian cosmogony ;* that is, one of those
physical objects of the creation which partook both of
the male and female essence. Thermouthis also fre-
quently appears with very unequivocal marks of the
double sex." " The moon was considered female,'*
says Plutarch,^ " as impregnated through her junction
with the sun, male as herself redistributing the same
generative or creative principles throughout the
wliicli may have been either a title of honour peculiar to herself, or as-
sumed according to the prevailing fashion in honour of some favourite
deity. Heliodorus, however, in his romance (^thiop. L i. p. 54, sqq.)
gives the same name to a man, with whom, as a professed warrior or sol-
dier of fortune, it may have borne reference to Neith as goddess of war,
if indeed she can be so considered in the egyptian pantheon. This, how-
ever, might still &rther corroborate what has been observed in the text
concerning the sex of the divinity. One of the branches of the Nile,
called Thermuthiac or Pharmuthiac by Ptolemy, (Geogr. IV. 5.) and
Pharmuthis, a small town of the Delta, also, it may be presumed, derived
their name from this deity.
' Champol. Precis du syst. hier. p. 122.
s Hierog. lib. i. c. 10.
t Plut. de Is. et Os. c. 43. Spartian. in vit. Carac. c. 7. aBbf. Orph.
Hymn. 8. Macrob. Sat. iii. c. 8. Selden, De diis syr. Synt. ii. c. 2.
See Appendix No. XVII.
^ See Champ. Panth. pi. 6. bis- ^ De Is. et Os. c. 43.
I
114 ON TH£ CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
world/' In the same passag'e he observes, that ^^ this
was the reason why the Egyptians called the moon
the mother of the worJd!^ i/o kou (iffjriga r^i' ^ekrjpfiif roD
xotrijuov zocKovffi. This corresponds with the descrip-
tion given of her by Horapollo."' " This goddess
produces and nourishes every thing useful in the uni-
verse ;'* r^g 6zov aurijg wvtgs, yspvaKTTjg zou ocv^aifowrfjg offcc^
Kara top xaefjbou gcW xs^^f^^ C)Til, confirmed by Plu-
tarch, states that the issue of this mystical union be-
tween the two deities, was the bull Apis :^ the same
no doubt alluded to by Horapollo above quoted, and
which we learn from many testimonies^ was especially
sacred to the moon. On the greco-egyptian zodiacs,
and elsewhere,^ Taurus appears accordingly with the
disk of the moon between his horns. Eusebius,"" it
may be added, asserts* that the moon in one of her fe-
male characters was personified by a goddess with the
head of a vulture, which bird we have already seen
was the symbol of Mout, or Mother. This mysteri-
ous union of the two luminaries, to whom these two
contiguous months, Fhamenoth, Pharmouthi, were
respectively dedicated, namely, Ammon, the male
principle of the sun, and Mout, the female essence of
the moon, may possibly be hinted at in the obscure
fable of the passage of Plutarch, quoted in the preced-
ing article.
^ Hierog. I. c. 4&.
* Cyril, ad Hos. x. 3. p. 145. TtXim filv ya^ tiKfot, acyavov 3« 'HA<©o,
'Tcv'^Amv Aiy vvrm fcv$ o^X»^ov9Tti iXty^u conf. Plut. Sympos* viii. qu. 1.
Be. Is. c. 43.
y Ap. Jablonsk. Panth. I. iy. c. 1. $ 3.
> Passe[|||Gemm. astrifer. vol. i. No* xxii. &c.
a Pnep. ev. 1. iii. c. 12.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 115
Pachon, (Oemini.)
This word, which among the Copts admits of con-
siderable variety of orthography, Pachon, Pachons,
Pashons ;^ denotes literally the month of Chon, or
Chons, the egyptian Hercules, whose name occurs in
the ancient authors under corresponding varieties.
From the Etymologicum magnum*" we have, " Chon ;
among the Egyptians Hercules j*' and ChampoUion"^
has identified the name Chons accompanying the
figure of the god on the monuments. The same is
common as an element of the appellations of indivi-
duals in the papyri, and other inscriptions ; as Pete-*
chonsis, Psenchonsis, Devoted to Chons, Son of
Chons, &c.* In the list of theban kings given by
Eratosthenes, the name of this deity occurs under the
form of Som or Sem, as an element of that of king
Semphoucrates, or Hercules Harpocrates, according
to the greek translation appended to it ; and in Ma-
netho's twenty-third dynasty, in a note attached to
the name of king Psammus, it is said that he was
called by the Egyptians Hercules. This, deducting
the greek termination, is the same word with the ar-
ticle prefixed.' Hence there can be no doubt, as has
* Vid. auctores sup. cit. ad p. 67. ^ y. Xwvs^.
d Precis Tab. gen. No. 49. 193.
* Papyr. ap. Young, account of discov. p. 70. 75, alib. conf. Append, to
same work. No. I. Rosegart. de prise. Mg, Ut. p. 68.
' Enseb. Chron. ap. ScaL Thes. temp. p. 16. conf. Champol. Free. p.
252. M. Klaproth (Collect. d'Ant. egypt p. 23.) has indeed denied the
justness of this etymology, so ingeniously deducedbyMons. C, and asserted
that the article was never prefixed to proper names in Egyptian. Here
however, as in some other instances, this acute critic, in the ardour of
his controversy, seems to have overshot his mark. Egyptian proper
116 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
been often observed by egyptian antiquaries/ but that
this name Chon or Chons, under its numerous ♦varie-
ties, is originally no other than the coptic radical
2COM, or 2CnN2, — strength or power ;^ the sound
of the first letter of the word being, as we have seen
above, uncertain, or such as cannot be conveyed ex-
actly in the idiom of any foreign language, but par-
taking it would appear of the varieties of guttural,
aspirate, and sibilant.
The reasons which have induced me to assign this
position in the year to Pachon, or the first water
month according to the hieroglyphic, have been given
above ; and in still farther corroboration of them, it
will be easy to show how closely its patron deity was
connected with this season in the egyptian mythology.
If any attention be due, on the one hand, to the
joint testimony of Eudoxus and HorapoUo,* — on the
other hand, to that of Solon and Plato, ^ two among"
the sages of Greece who are supposed to have been
most intimately acquainted with the doctrines of the
theban priesthood, confirmed by Porphyry^ and Ho-
names, especially wlien significant of some quality or attribute, do un-
questionably occur very frequently with the article prefixed. For ex-
ample, that of the god Sun, PH and ^PH, on medals, gems, Abraxas, Sec.
AMENHO), a>AIVtENa4) ; supr. p. 108. 2EN020P, HSENOSOP, Ko-
segart. pp. 29. 37. MAT, Mother; MATT, or TMAT, Plutarch ; vid-
sup. p. 111. conf. Lex. Copt, in vv. IlinP, Schow Cart. Papyr. Mus.
Borg. p. 88. niAMOTN; id. ibid. Phthah, I hold to. be HTAft,
(the) Establisher; as here nXOM, (the) Strength or Might, &c. &c.
« Jablonsk. Coll. voc. ieg. v. XflN. Te Water, ad loc. p. 200. Id.
Jablonsk. Panth. lib. ii. c 3. § 3. Young, Art. Eg. p. 45. No. 18. Cham-
pol. Precis, p. 249.
*» We find traces of the same primitive root in the hebrew 1^5, per-
sian khan, german konig, (king), kuhn, konnen, all referable to the same
original source of human language.
* Vid. auctores, cit. ad p. 47. supr. conf. Horap. i. c. 21.
^ Edit. Serran. t. iii. p. 22 i Ap. Procl. ad Tim. Plat. p. 37.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT, SECT. Ill, 117
rapoUo ;" — the most ancient recorded doctrine of that
fraternity respecting the rise of the Nile was twofold ;
the phenomenon being ascribed, partly to the rains of
jiEthiopia, partly to an ebullition or oozing of water
from the lower parts of the earth, a peculiar blessing
bestowed by the gods on their favourite land, for the
purpose of fertilizing its soily without exposing it to
those natural convulsions, or other calamities, to
which, according to the same priests, all countries
were, subject that were dependant on the water of
their own atmosphere alone for the moistening or ir-
rigation of their fields.
• It will be seen, then, with what propriety the first,
and as it were laborious, augmentation of the waters
of the river, was dedicated to Hercules ; who was in
the egyptian mysteries the active or physical power of
the deity, or of nature ; Virtus deorum,*" Avyoi/jifig rijg
(pvfTicjg.'' We have traces of a title of this deity, pre-
cisely corresponding to the above epithets, in the
name of the city of Sebenn}i;us, called by the
Copts 2CEMNOTTI, Semnouti ;P which means lite-
rally Strength or Power of God ; and that it really
was the sacred city of Hercules, may be inferred from
the circumstance, that on the greek and roman coins
of Sebennytus,*^ the common device is a figure of Mars
or of Hercules, (these two deities being one with the
greek interpreters of egyptian theogony), namely, a
™ Hierogl. loc. sup. cit conf. Aristid. orat. iEgypt. p. 363, sq. ed>
Oxon. 1730.
n Macrob. Sat i. c. 20.
o Jamblich. yita Pythag. Ed. Kuster. c. xxviii. sect. 155, p. 13 1>
p Kircher, Scala mag. p. 208. Croze. Lexic in v. Jablonsk. Pauth.
L ii. c. 3. § 4. Champol. L'fgypte sous les Phar. torn. ii. p. 192.
q Zoeg. Num. segypt. Mus. Borg. p. 117, No. 187. p. 187, No. 212.
118 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
man armed at all points. And we hear^ of a native
author, ApollonideSy also called HorapiuSj (probably
the same as the celebrated Horapollo), who wrote a
work under the same title of Semnuthis, in which he
described the exploits of the gods against the giants.
That the title of the work was the same as that of the
god, appears from Macrobius in the passage already
alluded to, where Hercules is described as the power
of the gods (virtus deoruiii) by which they overcame
the giants. Ipse creditur et gigantes interemisse, cum
caelo propugnaret, quasi Virtus deorum* The prin-
ciple of drought, or unwholesome aridity, was a chief
element of the Typhon of the physical world, of
whose evil influences the giants were considered as
personifications. To these the principle of moisture,
figurative of the waters of the Nile, or the vapours
arising from them, was in perpetual hostility. Dio-
dorus expressly invests the egyptian Hercules with
the power of controlling or influencing the inunda-
tion of the Nile ;" of this we have also traces in the
fables,^ apparently of native origin, wheire that hero,
when afflicted with thirst in crossing the deserts of
Lybia, is relieved, by Minerva according to some,
according to others by Jupiter in the form of a ram,
that is Ammon ;* who suddenly caused tepid springs
to issue from the bowels of the earth for his supply.
A figure of Hercules striking the ground, from
whence issues forth a stream of water, is common on
egyptian medals."
' TheophiL Antioch. ad AUtolyc. lib. ii< g. 6. ad calc. Justmi Martyr.
ed. Paris, 1742, p. 352.
8 BibL hist. 1. c. 19.
t Hesych. v. 'H^uxMiet Advtjff . Suid. v. 'H^Mt^^uos 4'4»{«. Serv. in
Virg. Mn. iv. 196.
" Zoeg. Num. Mus. Borg. p. 117. No. 118; p. 191. No. 238; p. 192.
No. 243; p. 211. No. 445.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. 111. 119
The Twins, emblems of this season on the zodiac,
have at first sight no apparent connexion with the my-
thology of Egypt ; but most of my readers will probably
be aware, that one of these twins, the Pollux of the
Greeks, is called on the arab zodiac Hercules -^ and
one of the two most brilliant stars of the constellation
was also named Hercules by the Greeks ;"' which
star, as well as the twin to whom it belongs, is still
called Hercules on our globes. There exists, more-
over a fragment of an egyptio-greek zodiac, sculp-
tured on marble, and which has been frequently en-
graved and illustrated,"" where the sign of Gemini
is occupied by two figures, one of whom, the largest
and most prominent, is the greek Hercules with his club;
the person of the other lesser figure has no such dis-
tinctive marks, but appears to be a female. On the zo-
diac of Dendera, the constellation Gemini is also repre-
sented by two figures, the one male, and the other
female.^ The latter has the head of a lion, which pecu-
Uarity, it is well known, belongs to an egyptian goddess,
whose name M. ChampoUion' has identified as Tafne.
The same distinguished critic, in his first letter on the
museum of Turin* has observed, that this very lion-
headed goddess, whom he considers as a personifica-
tion of the attributes of Neit, in her character of
Minerva bellica, the defensive deity of Egypt, " ap-
pears among the female divinities of second class,
V Hjrde, ad Ulugh Beigk p. 33. Scalig. ad Manil. p. 480. ed. 1600.
Kiroh. CEd. M^^^X, torn. iii. p. 154.
^ PtoL Tetrab. L c. 8. Procl. Paraplir. in Ptolem. Tetr. p. 33. Elzev.
1635. Hy^n. Poet astron. ii. c. 22.
> Bailly, Hist de Tastr. anc. pi. iii. p. 504. Court de Gebelin, Monde
prim, t iv. pL viiL Conf. Grot. imag. ad Germanic. P^sen. p. 18. in Arat.
Phsen. edit 1600, 4to.
y See Plate IIL No. 4. » Precis du syst hier. tab. gen. No. 53, 72.
a P. 44. Conf. Precis tab. gen. No. 53.
I
120 ON THE CALENDAR AND 20DIAC
associated under the name of Tafne to the egyptian
Hercules." This god therefore ought to be her
companion in the sphere ; and in fact on the quad-
rangular zodiac of Denderah, he appears in his place
in the same attire as the figure of the god Chon
given in the Pantheon of the french author.*" This
fact concludes a chain of circumstantial evidence,
which can leave no reasonable doubt, respecting the
original connexion between the month Pachon and
the zodiacal sign of the Twins ; while it shows, that
the constructors of the egyptio-greek astronomical
monuments of later times, have, in some instances,
adhered with much fidelity to the pristine mythology
of the banks of the Nile ; of this, equally striking
examples will occur in the following months.
M. ChampoUion's opinion, that Tafne, as an atten-
dant on Hercules, was a personification of Neith or
Minerva, appears to be justified by the close connex-
ion which we find between that goddess and her com-
panion, in the vulgar mythology. Of this we have
already given an example ; another occurs in the
Orphic poems, which contain so many mysterious al-
lusions to egyptian fable ; where we are told that
Hercules was conducted up to heaven by Pallas :
*» PL 25. See our Plate III. No. 5, conf. No. 4, sup. cit. In Chainpol-
lion's Pantheon the figure of the god is seated. I have therefore only
copied the head, to show the identity with the zodiacal deity. This the
feather that crowns his cap sufficiently establishes, being observable on
the head of the same god, in the tableau general of the Precis du syst. hi^r.
of the french critic, (No. 71.) while Chons,or Hercules, is the only male
deity, either in that collection, in the Pantheon of the same author, or
on the zodiac, distinguished by this ornament.
Mons. C. has offered in his Precis the variety S6ou of the name of this
god. I know not on what authority it rests ; but if genuine, it might be
connected with a corresponding variety in the name of the month, given
by Tuki, IIAjJnETS, which the critics have usually considered as an
error of impression for IIA^^NS.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 121
IlaXXa^ 'A^pcuTi XdQffffoov 'Hfa«?i?a.c
This harmonizes aptly enough with the position of
the two figures on the zodiacs, where with joined
hands they occupy their place in the midst of the
celestial train.
The custom of associating deities in pairs, as to
especial points of worship or of attribute, like the
(rvvvaoi ^soi of the Greeks, is familiar in egyptian su-
perstition. It is obvious, how naturally the Greeks,
in transferring this figurative couple to their own
pantheon, might metamorphose them into their own
national twins. Castor and Pollux.
In mentioning above, the correspondence of the
opinion of Zoega respecting the ancient form of the
egyptian year, with that which I have here ventured
to offer, I observed, that I had been led to suspect,
that among the reasons which had induced him to
adopt it, were some not dissimilar to those here ad-
yanced. In confirmation of that remark, I shall quote
the following passage from his work on the medals of
the Borgian Museum. In a note to a coin of Seben-
nytus,"* where, as already stated, we have for device a
figure of Hercules, or a man armed at all points, he
observes : " The name of this city has been excellent-
ly, interpreted by Jablonski, !^EMNOTTI, Robur
Dei, the power of the divinity. It would appear,
that in the egyptian mythology there were two chil-
dren of Jove, whether called Cabiri, Pataeci, Hercules,
Martes, or Castores, matters not ; for they all sprung
originally from the same source. The essential point
« Lithic. in Pro9em. v. 9, sqq. ** No. 99. p. 74f. conf. Note to p. 176.
12^ ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
is, that by two vigorous youths, sometimes represented
with joined hands side by side, at others posted by
the throne of the deity, was figured the arm of the
Almighty, the protecting and all-conquering power
or virtue of the divinity. Hence, according to He-
sychius,* ytyviv^ yiyZr TlaraiKog iTtrgocmZfog' AlyvTrioig
'HguKTJjg* hence the Patseci and Cabiri of Herodotus,
who, when he rejects the Dioscuri from the egyptian
mythology, must be understood to refer to the lace-
daemonian Castores, not the celestial Twins. For
those deities who in the old egyptian cosmogony
were called Cabiri^ or Nidsjom, (NDCOM) the same,
in their heroic fable, were styled Horus and Harpo-
crates ; the latter corresponds to the Hercules of the
Greeks, the former to their Mars. But Horus being
conjoined with Aroeris became their Apollo, where-
fore, in the egyptio-greek zodiac we find Hercules
and Apollo combined." These observations, inexact
as some of them may be, are yet fraught with the
genius of the profound and acute critic from whom
they emanate. Zoega being convinced, that 2COM
or Hercules was the representative of the twins
of the zodiac, could not, had he treated of the cal-
endar on the basis proposed by himself, of a year
commencing in autumn, have failed to observe, how
exactly Pa-chon, or the month of Hercules would
be in its place. He had only to substitute d|e
female Tafne with the lion's head, as the secohd
of the mythological twins* protectors, and his
• Voce. Ttyfifu
^ So Nigidios, the old roman commentator on the sphcera barlMurica or
egyptia, (apud Schol. German, v. 146.) calls the twins : Cabiros, deos
Samothraoes, quoniin ai^g^umentum nefts est numerarer Ck>ii£ 4wphic
hymn, xxxvii. v. 23.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 123
theory would have been correct ; for in fact, as we
have already seen, and shall still farther prove in the
sequel, Chons and his companion of the lion's head
were the true Cabiri, or essential personifications,
male and female, of strength or power, in the egyp-
tito pantheon. Nor, indeed, is it altogether impro-
bable, that some other male deity of lesser rank, si-
milar to the one whom he describes, may occasionally
have occupied the place of Tafne by the side of Chons ;
since, on the sphere of the Arabs,* who in this in-
stance have no doubt copied more or less accurately
from the greco-egyptian astrology, the Twins are to
this day Hercules and Apollo ; which variety has
been adopted on our globes ; and appears on the
ancient images of the zodiac illustrated by Grotius ;
these names having been also preferred by several of
the classical commentators.^
Paoni,* (Cancer.)
The month of the Sun by pre-eminence, that is, of
the greatest height and brilliancy of the luminary,
corresponding to our July ; which season, the rapid
approach of the Nile to its full tide, and the rise of
the Dqgstar, rendered the most important and joyous
of the year ; hence its dedication by preference to
the splendid orb itself, which influenced and reign-
ed supreme over their calendar, as well as their my-
thology.
s Vid. auctores sup. cit. p. 1 19.
1" Hygin. Poet. astr. ii* 22. Ptolem. Tetrab. i. 8. Senrius in iBn* xL
¥. 260.
i Memph. OAaNI. thebaic HAllNE.
3
124 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
On, as we know from Scripture, was an ancient
name of the godhead of the Sun.^ Hence Pharaoh's
officer Petephre, or Potiphera, whose name means
literally in the coptic language dedicated or devoted
to the Sun,* is called by Moses"" priest of On. Al-
though in the existing remains of that tongue, there
is little appearance of the name having been in fami-
liar use, yet CyriP knew it as an egyptian word ; and
there are plentiful traces of its application to the Sun
in a religious or mysterious sense at least. The true
appellation of the city of the Sun, called by the Greeks
Heliopolis, was On, or the city of On ; a name it has
retained in the coptic language ;** whence it may be
presumed, that, in the above mentioned passage of
Genesis, the term applies as well to the place of the
deity's worship as to himself ; corresponding to the
version of the Copts, where it is rendered HN-
TIBAKI, and by the Septuagint 'H^jovTroKsg.^ The
same city seems to have been styled by Ptolemy the
metropolis of On ;** and the Arabs still call it Ain
shemsh, or Ain of the sun ;' although the first part of
this name, from its resemblance to another word in
their own language denoting a fountain, they have
referred to a spring among the ruins of the city.
Plutarch* informs us, that the priest of Heliopolis,
under whom Pythagoras studied, was called Onon-
is Bonjour, Mon. Copt. Mus. Vatic, p. 20. Jablonsk. Panth. lib. ii.
c. i. 5 8. Young, Encycl. brit. Supp. art. Egypt, p. 44?.
1 Cbampol. Precis, p. 177.
" Gen. xli. v. 45. xlvi. v. 20.
n Ad Hos. c. X. V. 3. p. 145. "I2i» 3s lf< xar 'etvrws i "HAioj.
o ChampoL L'Egypte sous les Phar. torn. ii. p. 40.
P Conf.£xod. i. II.
*i D*Anville, M^m. sur I'Egypte, p. 113.
. ' Michaelis, ad Abulfed. Descript. Mgy^t p. 125, sqq. Gott. 1776, 8°.
« De Is. et Os. c 10.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 125
phis ; which is evidently nN-nXII, devoted or de-
dicated to On or the Sun ; by the same analogy as
Amenoph, sacred to Amon, and other similar titles ;
and is in fact nearly synonymous with Petephre, the
name of the same minister in the days of Joseph.
Onouphis was also a title of one of the sacred oxen
of the Sun.* The Coptic for light is to this day OEIN
or OTONI," which is doubtless merely the same
word under slight varieties of orthography, the last
of which corresponds, in respect to the euphonic pa-
ragoge of the last vowel, to that adopted in the name
of the month. In the hebrew Aven, which EzekieF
uses for On, we have a similar variety of the pronun-
ciation of the first syllable. The word Phe-on, . the
article being prefixed, occurs on the gems of the Ba-
silidians, as an appellation of their Abraxas, or Sun-
god, in common with Phre, Chnoubis, and others
borrowed from the mythology of Egypt."^ The name
Ouenephre, in Manetho's first dynasty, appears to
contain both those of the deity combined ; it might
be rendered Lux solis.*
The sign of this season on the greek zodiac is a
crab ; an unmeaning emblem as referred to egyptian
mythology. But on the greater number of egyptio-
greek astronomical monuments, we find a scarabee
t iElian. Hist. An. xii. 11.
^ Croze. Lexic. dialect. Sahid. in v. Jablo&sk. ColL voc. segypt. v. ON.
V C. XXX. V. 17.
^ Montf. Ant. exp» t. ii. pt. ii. pi. cxlvi. conf. Gorlsei. Dactylothec, pt
ii. No. 404?.
^ Verosimile mihi fit, says Jablonski, memsem hunc sic dictum fuisse
ab OTHINI vel XIINI, luce, quod in antiquissimo dialecto thebaico eflfe-
rebatur OEIN ; rationem autem denominationis hujus nondum perspexi.
I have however no doubt but that the foregoing considerations would
have satisfied the learned author of the correctness of his opinion, ColL
voc. segypt. v. nATNI.
126 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
instead of a crab/ as the emblem of the solstitial
month ; and it is hardly necessary toobserve, that the
scarabee is the symbol of the Sun, or On, in his no-
blest capacity, as Lord of the universe, first source
and origin, and continual preserver of the created
world. In this respect the scarabee was a represen-
tative, not only of the solar orb itself, but by analogy
of certain deities of distinguished rank, whose loftier
attributes comprehended those of the brilliant Lord
of the physical world ; as of Phtha,' the Demiurgus
or creative power, whom the Greeks identified with
their Hephaestus or Vulcan, probably as combining
with his other properties that of god of fire. In the
ancient astronomical picture of the tomb of the kings,
the scarabee, with the red disk of the sun in his claws,
occupies a conspicuous place among the zodiacal em-
blems. The same insect also occurs in an astrologi-
cal gem of Count .Pahlen's collection,* accompanying
Libra and Scorpio ; and we seem to have farther cu-
rious evidence, that it was the original symbol of this
division of the ancient egyptian zodiac, in the circum-
stance, that the cypher of the same division, still in
vulgar use, is apparently but an abbreviated form of
the hieroglyphic " Scarabee;" the hieratic contrac-
tion of which contains precisely the same elements,
under trifling varieties of arrangement, as the modem
sign, namely, two curves or hooks placed trans-
versely.**
y On the quadrangrular zodiac of Denderah, and one of those of Esne,
(Desc. de TEg. Antiq. y. i. pi. 87.) we have the Scarabee ; on another
of Esne, an animal of doubtful form (ibidem, pi. 79.) ; on the circular of .
Denderah, apparently a crab.
« Champol. Pantb. pi. 12, 13.
a Klaproth, ColL d'antiq. pi. xi. No. 602.
^ See Plate V. No. 5, These cyphers are copied from ChampoL 2de
Lett, sur le Mus. de Turin, pi. ix. and xiii.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 127
The Greeks, in adopting the zodiac, may either
have mistaken this insect for a crah, to which on
some of the monuments it hears a close enough re-
semblance ;* and on the gems of the Abraxas the sea-
rabee, crab, and other shell-fish, are frequently con-
founded ;^ or possibly, as they did not attach the same
veneration as the Egj^ptians to its symbolic character,
they may have converted the reptile of the land into
the reptile of the sea, as a figure more congenial to
their ideas and taste as a maritime people ; ^ A per-
son ignorant of egyptian theology," says Porphyry,
** would feel nothing but disgust for the scarabee, but
the Egyptians adore it as the living image of the Sun."*
The opposite character of this nation, whose abomi-
nation of every thing connected with salt water is
proverbial,^ were in itself sufficient proof, in the ab-
sence of all other, that this odious shell-fish. could ne-
ver have originally obtained so distinguished a place
among the noblest of their figurative emblems.
There is however in one respect a remarkable
enough analogy between' the two symbols, which may
tend still farther to shew, that the one is the egyptian
original, the other the greek copy. Classical authors
have asserted that the crab was chosen to represent
the solstice, because of the correspondence of its pro-
verbially retrograde motion to the sun's course about
the tropic ;* an interpretation which has been adopted
^ I have myself observed persons little fiuniliar with egyptian monu-
mentSy on being shewn hieroglyphic drawings, mistake the scarabee for a
crab.
d Mont Ant expL t. ii. pt ii. p* 365, and plates ibid.
« De Abst. iv. § 9. and ap. Euseb. prep. ev. p. 94, c
' Pint de Is. et Os. cc. 7. 32. Id. Sympos, viii. qu. 8. Porphyr. de
Abst. iy. § 8.
s Macrob. Saturn, i. c. 2h
128 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
by the greater number of modem expositors, with
what degree of justice I shall not presume positively
to decide. This however, we find, is the very same
reason given by the ancients, and among others by
Clemens Alexandrinus^ in the famous passage on
hieroglyphic symbols so often quoted, for the scarabee
having been adopted by the egyptian mystics as a re-
presentative of the sun's motion. " The oblique
course of the other heavenly bodies," says the learned
father, " is represented by a snake, but that of the
sun by a scarabee." Those who are familiar with the
natural history of this singular animal, or who have
ever observed its habits, will not be at a loss to divine
the reason. Clemens himself assigns it : " because,
shaping a piece of dung into a circular form, he rolls
it backwards, his face being turned in a contrary di-
rection to his course." And Plutarch :* " The scara-
bee depositing his seed in a piece of dung made into
a circular form, rolls it backwards, as the sun appears
to turn the heavens round in a contrary direction,
himself being borne from west to east." Porphyry :^
" The scarabee making a piece of dung into a round
ball, pushes it with his hind legs backwards, as the sun
does the heaven." Here therefore we have the sca-
rabee, with his globe, as an emblem of the retrograde
motion of the sun ; probably both as regards his sup-
posed annual course from west to east, contrary to his
diurnal motion from east to west ; and his retrograde
motion from the solstice. This beetle is a very sin-
gular insect, although its peculiarities, which are of a
l» Strom, iv. p. 556, B.
* De Is. et Os. c. 74.
^ De Abst. iv. § 9. et ap. Euseb. sup. cit. conf. Horap. i. c. 10. Plin.
H. N. XXX. 11.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. . J29
striking enough description, and a pfoper knowledge
of which is of the highest importance to the study of
egyptian antiquity, have heen strangely overlooked
by those who have devoted their attention to thafi
study. The scarabee, in conformity to the ahove
authorities, as an eye-witness can attest, shaping a
piece, usually of horse, mule, or cow dung, into a
perfectly circular form, turns himself on his fore claws,
so as to stand as it were on his head, and with his
hind claws raised against his ball, he thus pushes it
before, or rather behind him, in the most indefatiga^
ble manner, until he reaches his destination. This is
the chief, and indeed reasonable cause, why the egyp-
tians attached so great a sanctity to the animal, as the
symbol of the divinity or godhead of the sun, whose
globe he is generally represented on the monumental
holding in his claws. Another motive of a secondary
nature may have been the circumstance, .also alluded
to by classical authors, and well known to naturalists,
that the animal depositing its eggs in this ][)all, buries
it several feet deep in the earth, where, as in a na-»
tural womb, the foetus ripens for the birth. In this
respect, his globe might also be symbolic of the all-?
generative powers of the luminary. As for the other
traditions concerning it,^ such as that the species was
composed entirely of males, that they dwelt six months
below, and six months above ground, they may be
partly founded on fact, partly mere fictions of sophists,
egyptian or greek.''*
1 P]ut de Is. et Os. cc. ip. 74> iBlian. fie An. x. 15. Horap. loc.
sup. cit.
^ See AppenOi:^, No. XVIII.
K
130 . OJf THE CALEVDA& AND ZODIAC
m
Is written by the Copts £pep, EIIHII f a name which
has also been identified hj M. ChampoUion in. pho-
netic hieroglTphios, attached to the figure of an egyp-
tian divinitj, called by him"* " Apap-^Apop— Apoph,
represented und^ the form of a gigantic snake, com-
batted and corered with wounds by various deitieSki
This is the Apophis, or Apopis, the enemy of the sun,
wliom Plutarch mentions in his treatise on Isier and
Osiris/' Plutai^^ farther observes, that Apopis was
the brother of the sun, which may account, among
other caujaes, for his proximity to him in the calendar.
It may be observed, that of the hieroglyphic elements
of this and other egyptian names, the consonants alone
are of importance ; the vowel which M. Champpllion
renders A denotes equally £,^ and consequently ap-
plies as well to the Coptic orthography as to that of
Hutarch.
Jablonski' has rightly supposed this Apophis to be
one of the personifications of Typhon, the evil genius ;
and that by his enmity to the Sun was figured the
principle of vapour: or darkness, which was fedbled to
oppose the god of light in his efibrts to ascend, or
maintain himself in the upper hemisphere. His po-
n UsiuOly Ennn. Xuki, &c. EHHra, WQk. Diss, de lin^. copt
ad calc. Cumberland. Orat Doxmn. p. 102. In Eplgr. Aiitholog. *^i^i or
iim^l. conf. Salmas. ad SoL -p. 304. A.
• Plr6ci8. dtt syst. hi6r. tab. ^n. No. 66, a.
P De Is. et Os. c. 36.
9 Yid. Champol Precis, pp. 111. 113. 114. conf. Tatfaam, IlemiEU*k8 on
the alphabet in Egypt grammar, c. 2.
» Panth. lib. t. c. ii. } 22.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. ISl
sition in the seasons, according to the general tenor
of the physical mythology of Egypt, is therefore high.^
ly appropriate ; as presiding over the month, in which
the sun, after having reigned in all his glory ahout
the tropic, descends visibly and rapidly in the ecliptic*
The etymology, or rather original meaning of the
name, suggested by the same Jablonski/ to whose la*
bours Coptic literature and egyptian antiquity in ge-r
neral are so much indebted, appears unquestionable ;
namely, A<I>ri<I> or £nn<I>, ^ giant, in the scriptur
ral sense of the term ; a violent and outrageous per-
6on. The same occurs under the variety of Aphobis,
as the appellation of one of the Shepherd kings in
Manetho's dynasty ;^ that the Egyptians were accus-
tomed to confer titles of reproach or abhorrence on
their tyrants, or foreign oppressors, is well known ;
thus the ferocious Ochus was called by them the
Sword ; and the same, or another equally brutal per-
sian despot, the Ass.^
\ That the Lion was the egyptian symbol of this sea^
tson there can be no doubt, as it occurs on all the as*
tronomical monuments, including that of the royaj
tomb. But that it was so, not alone, but combined
with the emblem of the month or god Apophis or
Epep, we have very convincing proof. M. Champol*
lion,^ as already observed, has identified a large noxif
ous serpent as the personification of this deity ; and
on the greco-egyptian zodiacs the figure of the Lion
is remarksible for the peculiarity, that it tramples upon
■ Loc. sup. cit. p. 100.
* Joseph, contr. Ap. i. c. 14. conf. Enseb. in Scalig. Thes. temp. p. 16.
Syncell. ChroiK^. loc. parall.
u Plut. de Is. et Os. cc. 11. 31.
▼ Precis, tab. gen. No. 66.
132 ON THE CALENDAa AND ZODIAC
a monstrous snake, which forms as it were the boat
in which he is borne on his celestial voyage/ Now
the same distinguished antiquary has also discovered
among the monuments, and caused to be engraved
in his pantheon,^ a group consisting of a female
deity with a lion's head crowned with the disk of
the Sun, who combats and tramples upon this same
serpent, standing over him in an attitude not dissimiT
lar to that of the Lion on the zodiac ; the head and
tail of the reptile which she grasps, rising in front and
rear. This deity M. ChampoUion calls Neith Casti-
gatrice ; the snake he has recognised as Apophis.
His description of the aenigma, as illustrative of our
subject, requires little comment. *^ Sa tete de lion
est ornee du disque et de Turaeus ; elle saisit de ses
deux mains, et foule en meme temps aux pieds, une
eiiorme couleuvre, le grand serpent ennemi des dieux
nomme Apop, ou Apoph, dans les textes
. hieroglyphiques.'' In the hierogl}T)hic legend attach-
ed to the figure, the most remarkable emblems are
the disk of the sun, an eye, and the forepart of a lion.
According to M. ChampoUiou's interpretation, she is
there described as: oeil du soleil, souveraine de la
force, chatiant les impurs. It cannot be doubted,
but that this group and Leo of the zodiac, are mere-
ly varieties of the same aenigma. In the zodiacal em-
blem, it may also be remarked, that the figure of the
lion is supported, and as it were backed and encour-r
aged, by a female d^ity ; which is evidently but an-
^ See Platb V. No. 1. copied from Biot's sphere of Denderah ; on the
Quadrangular monument the ^mbjem is apparently; tl^e i^am^, though ^he
hinder part of the group is damaged.'
* PI. 6. septies. See our Plate V. JTo. 2. .
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. Ill; 133
Other type of the mystical combination of the two in
the monument of Champollion.
This is a noble enough symbol of the combat be-
tween the powers of light, and the typhonic influences
by tvhich they were assailed at this season ; and still
farther illustrates the connexion already pointed out,
between the lion-headed heroine, and Chons or Her-
cules. He was the especial representative of the
strength or prc^wess of the gods, whereby they sub-
dued the giants^ The lion's liead was the egyptian
symbol of strelngth.^ The war therefore between his
comrade, and the giant Apoph, is quite in character.
The disk of the sun on her head denotes the strength
of the Sun. Macrobius, in the following passage of
his Saturnalia,' while treating of the character of the
^un in the egyptian asti'ological fable^ appears to de-
scribe this point of physical superstition to the letter.
" Ipse creditur et Oigantes interemisse, cum coelo
propugnaret .... horum pedes in drdconum volumi-
na desinebant, quod significat, nihil eos rectum nihil
superum eogitasSe ; totius vitas eorum. gressu atque
processu in infema mergente^ Ab hac gente, Sol
pcenas debitas vi pestiferi caloris exegit." On one of
the astrological medals of the egyptian Abraxas, pub-
lished by Montfaucon, we have a deity with a lion's
head, armed with sword and shield ; on the reverse,
T Homjp. 1. is. > Lib. i. c 20.
* Ant. expl. t ir. pt. ii. pi. cL oonf. Gorbei Dactylothec pt ii. Ko* 364f*
134 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
Mesori^ (Virgo.)
Written by the Greeks usually (Attrogi, sometimes
|M,g<rfl;fi? but by .the Copts ME2nPI or ME2nPH,*
with the accent and quantity on the second syllable^
denotes the month of Isis, in her peculiar and dis«
tinctive character of mother of Horus; the name
being compounded of ME^S, the prefix denoting ge-
neration or maternity, and HP, the name of the
deity her son ; as already pointed out by the learned
Rossi/ Of the extra yowel attached, for the sake of
euphony, by the Egyptians to the end of the word, we
have many apposite examples ; as in the name Athyr,
the latter part of which, being precisely the same
element as that of Mesori, is written with a similar
variety, Athyri ; also in the names of the foregoii^
months, Pharmouthi, Paoni, Epiphi ; and of Osiris,
sometimes written Osir, sometimes Osiri, Scc.^ This
inclination to soften the endings of their words by
the addition of vowels, is in general very perceptible
in the egyptian idiom/ How properly this title be-
longed to Isis, appears ferther from the circumtances,
that Si-esi, or son of Isis, is in like manner the common
' ^ Jablonsk. Collect, too. «g, v. Mwt^i. ^ot. Te Water acL lot. Btbrio.
MenoL p. 23.
^ Tuki, loc. snp. cit. Croze Lex. in t. et Thes. epistoL pt. iiL p. 133.
also ME20TFI, Jabl. Tuk. locc citt Rossi, infr. cit
<i Etym, .^Igypt. y. ME20TPH. Concerning the syllable MES as a
component part in diyine titles, oonf. Cbampol. Precis, p. 18S, sqf. lab.
gen. No. 346, s^. Possibly the title Methuer ascribed by Plutarch (De
Is. et Os. c* 56.) to Isis, may be a Tariety of this same Mesor ; the aspi-
rate being substituted for the sibilant, by a common antithesis. Plutarch
however gives it another sense.
® Koseg. de prise, seg. litt p. 37.
' Akerblad* Lettre snr I'lnscr. de Rpsette, p. 9.
OF. ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IH. 1S5
epithet of Horus. His name appears written hietti^
gtypktcaily, Qr-si-efiit on the Hmrgiot of the.cinraldE
Planisphere of 'Dende|*a» immediately below the image
, €i the moth^ herself, whose positioii ampn^ tiie %u<*
ratire characters of .that monument ^all be pointed
out. immediately. The -same epithet indeed^ with the
addition occaaionallj of the &tlter Osiris^ is an idjnost
inyaHable appendage' of the name of Horus in hiefQ-
glyphic mscriptions ; in that of Rosetta it is lieyef
omitted, and ia aldo very familiar in both ancienf and
modern egyptian literature, as a Inunan appellation;
trahsfenrjed like others from tiie sfod to the mortaL^
The Isis of the' egyptian pan^eon ^presented, in
her behest and noblest capacity,, the essence of the
female godhead ;: hence, according to the principles
of that system, we find her ;iame or familiar qtmlities
firequehtly mi^ed. up or. confounded with thoa^ of
other lesser goddesses, . Buto, Bubastia^ Neit, Athor^
who w;ere.iii &ct little more than personifications of
her .varied attributes; But .here she appears in that
character which.belanged exclusively to her or^iial
and distinct person, namely, as the mother of Homi
or the good genius of the earth, perpetual enemy vnd
victor of Typhon, and other noxious influences of the
physical world* This was the season m which the
inundation of <he river becatne stationa^y^ or even
beginning to subside, deposited its .fertilizii^ alWio
on the plain ; hence the probable motive of dedicate
fi^ it to.. the parent deity of the terrestrial riches
and prosperity of the land of f^pt; allegorised ion the
person of her son Horus.
From th^ remnants of egyptian antiqnfty may he
• m
f •
g GhampoL Precis, p. 130. Koseg. op. cit p. 41. ' *
136 ON THE CALENDAR AND. ZODIAC
gathered Tarious proofe of the correctness of the above
etjmologj, as well, as of the fact, that Isis was fabled
to have produced Horus at this season, in the primi-
tive tradition. This goddess, according to the unani-'
inous testimony of the ancients, dei^oted physicallj
the earth fertilized hj the inundation of the Nile ^
Osiris her husband, the Nile, or the inundation itself.
Thus Heliodorus :^ ** Isis is mystically the eairthy
Osiris the Nile ;'' and Plutarch J " The Nile is
Osiris, who is united with Isis, that is, the earth ;**
for ** the body of Isi)» is not the whole earth, birt
that portion of it which is impregnated through it»
coitidn with the Nile. The issue of this union is
Horus," the emblem of the fertility and wealth o£
Egypt. Isis was the primeval matter, the slime or
soil; which, according tq Jamblichus,^ contained in
itself the generative or nutritive faculty, that is, ^^ the
capability of receiving or containing the rivep of
generationJ* This river was Osiris, the male prin-
ciple^ and emblem of th^ Nile.* It is impossible to
overlook the evident connexion which all this esta-
blishes between Horus^ the ofispring of Isis, and the
fertility produced by the rich alluvial deposit of the
river at this season.
Some, however, hate held the in£a,nt Horus and
Harpoerates to be the same ; and as we have already
shown the latter to have been produced about the
winter solstice, that opinion, if admitted, would very
much interfere with our present views. / I «hall not
attempt to go into all the details, etymological or
» ^thiop. K. p. 434. . ,
i I)e Is. et Os. c. 38. Conf. Euseb. Pnep. eu. III. c. \\.
k De myst Egypt Sect VIL c. 2, p. 150. Ed. Gale. oanf. Plut de
fa. et Os. c. dS.
ar ANCIENT EGYt>T. SECt. lU. IS']?^
mythological, which offer themselves respecting the
names and properties of these two figurative beings ;
but merely observe, that although they were very
closely connected, and, in fact, little more than two
varied personifications of the same deity, it is y^t
very certain that there is a marked difference in their
attributes, however those attributes may have becfn
blended or confounded by superficial authors. This
difference has been well pointed out by Plutarch,'
who has given us the history of these mythological
persons, both parent and offspring, in great detail,
ftnd who makes Horus and Harpocrates brothers,
both sons of Isis ; the one born during the life of
Osiris, the other after his death ; which corresponds
exactly to our account of the matter. Osiris, as the
living husband of Isis, was the Nile in all its glory
at the inundation, when Horus was bom.; Osiris
dead is, as we have ^een, Osiris at the winter solstice,
when the Nile was nearly at the lowest, and when,
as we have shown in our account of that season,
Harpocrates was bom. The last is said by Plutarch*
to have been produced ** out of season, and mutilated
in his lower members.'"' The other is called by the
same author ^* Horus, symmetrical and perfect.'^
Here we find an equally positive and apt allusion to
their two characters, according to the two reasons.
The emblem of .the deity at the winter solstice was
represented mutilated, because of the defective state
of the river, besides the figurative lameness or em-
1 De Isi et Os. c. 19. Conf. Young, Art. Egypt p. 46.
™ De Is. «t OS. ^c. 19. d^. 66.
B Henoe the admitted etymology of his name, Har-poch^rat^ Horns
lame in the foot Jablooaki, Panth. T. I. p. 246, sq.
^ Op. cite 56.
138 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIACT
barrassment of the course of the. sun at. that season.
The perfect season, represented hjr'a perfect emblem,
was the full inundation of the Nile.
Plutarch, having informed us that Horus was the
issue of the connexion between Osiris and Isis at the
inundation, continues : ^* But this Horns is the pre-
se^yi^g and nourishing property of tiie atmosphwe,
fostered in the marshes about the city of- Buto, be-
cause the land, flooded and ii^igfadted, chiefly . esmito
those vapours, which are opposed to &e influences of
drought and aridity.*'^ These last were the Typhon,
against whom Horus waged war. « By Typfcodi,''
says the same author,'* « they signify every thing dry
or fiery that promotes aridity, or is opposed to mois^
ture ^" and accordingly in another place,' he states,
that ^^ Isis nourished Horus with exhalations and
vapours, whereby gaining strength, he was enabled to
obtain the mastery of Typhon." . Here then we have
Horus, born when, the inundation was at its height,
nursed and fostered among the vapours which rose
from thq water, gradually subsidii^ ai^d retiring ftom
the land. Hence it is that the infant deity is so often
represented* sitting on a lotus flower, the faieFoglyphi-
eal emblem of the season of his childhood ; aasd pos-
sibly the* juvenile figure, which, as we have above
noted, is an attendant of Libra or. That onr both
fiii^ereal a^d astronomical monuments, may contain
an allusion to the childhood, or fostering of Horus
during the month ' of Thot, the Beascm of opening
vegetation.*
»
«
PC. 38. qC. 33. Coixf.39. 'C,40.
* la the egjq^tian lueroglyphicTOcsbobyT;' the idea chUd is repcesented
by a small croaching human %ure, with its hand raised to its-moutlii
The propriety of this symbol will be eyident to those who ha^e bteen
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 139
Nigidius, an old roman commentator of tbe egypu
tian sphere, gives us to understand, as quoted by
Servius/ that Horus was born or nursed under the
sign Virgo, which corresponds to this month in our
calendar. The symbol so called by the Greeks, there
can be no doubt, as observed by Eratosthenes and
others,^ originally represented Isb, Ceres, or Deme-
ter, being a female figure holding ears of com in her
hand, which can apply to no other personage of the
greek pantheon ; whence the name of the most eele*
brated star of this constellation, Spica virginiB. The
constellation Virgo of the greek sphere is of conside*
rable extent, and may, in fact, be divided into two»
Virgo and Spica virginis ; as the Arabs call the whole
indiscriminately by both names. But' on the greco-
Egyptian sphere of Denderah, the usual zodiacal mga
of Virgo, namely, a female figure bearing an ear of
corn, is somewhat confined; immediately below it^
however, is another large female figuire, sitting on a
throne, holding a new bom infant on her lap ; the
whole precisely similar to the. group of Isis in hw
character of mother of Horus, so common on medals,
gems, and other monuments/ This group is evi-
in tbe liabit of olMerving^ new bom infuitflf, with whom this is a comnum
and &Toiirite altitude. The in&nts Horus and Harpocrates were ao-
cordingly both so depieted ; and this seems to be the whole claim of the
latter to the mystical character of god of silence, with which the later
greek and roman mythologists have inyested him, and which has become
with modern iUoBtrators of egyptian fable, his ch^f title to celd)ri<7»
t Ad. Virgil. Oeorg. I. 19.
« Eratostfa. Catast IX. Sphnr. Empedpc. y. 10. apud Fahr. Bib» gr.
L. IL e, 12. Fest Avion. Ph»nom» v. 282.
▼ Montf. Ant. ezpL T. I. Pt. IL PL zxxviii. lib. vL e. 4. Descript
de TEgypte. Antiq. vol. I. PL xzii. xcv. xcvi. and pasda. Zoeg. Num-
«eg. Mas. B» No.. 96. p. 108 note, p. 1S4» Conft Biusch. Lexic, rei n«m.
Tomu IV. p. 976, v. Isis.
140- OK THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC '
dently connected with the circle of the zodiac itself,
on the boiind^ies of which it encroaches, close to the
figure holding the ear of corn."" The whole, there-
fore, may be considered as emblematic of the com-
plete constellation, Virgo and Spi(» yirginis of our
globes. The mothet with the new born child is
Mesori. This was also the view taken of the mean^
faig of this group by Mess. JoUois and Devilliers, in
their excellent and comprehensive memoir on the
greco-egyptian zodiacs, inserted in the collection of
the Description de PEgypte."" The same sitting
figure with the infant, they observe, was, though
nearly effaced, distinguishable on the greater zodiac
of the portico of the same ruins. On the persian
sphere, as given by Scaliger,^ we find in this sign
'^ a beautiful young woman, with long hair, bearing
two ears of corn in her hand, sitting on a throne^
and tenderly fostering an infant.'' And the same
was gathered by Selden' and Kircher* from Arabic
or rabbinical authorities, who, after old egyptian
astrologers, describe the sign in precisely similar
terms. Among the relies of egyptio^^gnostic supersti-
^ See Plate V. No. 3. These figures are copied from the sphere as
engraved uuder the auspices of M. Biot, Recherches, &c. PL dern. The
dotted segments of circles represent the two tropics and the equatoiv
the ohiique line the ectiptic^ upon his projection. The most easterly-
portion of Leo's snake appears above the head of the mother and child.
^ Antiq. M^m. T. L p. 492.
y Gomm. in ManiL Astron. p. 377.
* De DS^. Syr.'Synt. I. c 2. p. 30. Ed. 16S1 : who has preserved
some curious notices of this symbol, tending to show how fiuniliar it was
in the lower and middle ages, having been identified at a very early
period with the group of the Viigin and child, the fiivourite object if
roman catholic adoration ; a notion adopted among others by Roger
Bacon, in his letter to Clement IV.
* (Edip. iEgypt vol. III. p. 203. Conf. Jollois et Devill. Mem. sup.
cit p. 448 sqq. PI* A.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. III. 141
tion given by Montfaucon,^ we find a gem contain-
injg a female figure sitting on a cloud nursing an
infant, and holding ears of corn in one band ; on her
forehead a star ; the whole no doubt emblematic of
this season, or Mesori.
The ingenious firench memorialists above noticed
were led by their analysis of the monuments which
form the subject of their dissertation'' to conclude,
that Virgo of the egyptian sphere originally co];isiste4
of two different constellations ; the one represented
by the goddess of harvest or productiveness,* the
other by Isis nursing 'Horns ; which two asteri^ms
were confounded into one in the sphere of the Greeks.
These judicious remarks, which I quote in corrobora-
tion of my own opinion with the greater satisfaction,
that having been made without reference to any sys-
tem, they are beyond the suspicion of partiality,
appear to be confirmed, not only by the evidence of
the greco-egyptian monuments, but by that of the
astronomical picture of the theban tomb. In it, as
we have formerly remarked, are two processions;
the one, whose leader bears an ear of corn or some-
thing similar, we have above conjectured to be indi-
cative of the position of Spica, between Leo, and Libra
or Thot. The other procession occupies an exactly
parallel position on the opposite side of the picture,
and is apparently a mere duplicate of the first, with
this exception, however, that while its leader wants
the distinctive mark of the eox or branch, the princi-
pal feature of the hieroglyphic inscription appended,
and substituted, as it were, for the Spica, is a new-
* Ant. expl. T. IL Pt. II. PI clviii. See our Plate V. No. 4.
^ Joll. et Devill. Men^. sup. cit p. 452* ^ See Appendix, No. XIX.
14«
ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
born in&nt. It has already been remarked, that in
this monument the signs are not arranged in their
usual order, being apparently discomposed and varied
for some mysterious purpose. Yet it were reasonable
to conclude, that these two figures are symbolic of
die dign of this season in a twofold capacity, as at Den.
derah, and according to the form which the french
e«iayists haye assigned it on the pristine egyptiau
^faere*
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IV. 143
SECTION IV.
CONCLUSION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.
The foregoing analysis of the names and characters
of the individual months has, I trust, been sujGcient
to justify the reasonableness of our primary hypo-
thesis, grounded on the internal evidence of their
•hieroglyphic symbols, that the year to which they
w6re originally adapted commenced in autumn, and
that this pristine arrangement of the civil calendar
coincided with that of the signs of the zodiac, or
corresponding divisions of the astronomical calendar.
I «hall now add a few remarks on these months in
generdy more especially on those- whose positions
stand in iihmediate relation to the cardinal points of
the. tropical year, in order still farther to show the
appropriate nature of their astronomical emblems, as
well as of the proper feasts* assigned to each with
respect to their positions.
Thus we find that the first month, or Thot, being
fixed to the season of the year when night obtained
the ascendency of day, the symbols of its patron
deity chosen to represent it were not the most com-
144 OM THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
mon or familiar, but such as appeared to beloqg to
him more especially in his character of minister of
Osiris, and superintendent of the transmission of souls
from the upper tp the lower regioi^s, in conformity
with the admitted principle of a connexion or analogy
between the egyptian fable relative to the celestial
spheres and that concerning the regions of departed
spirits. Another obvious motive for adopting by pre-
ference the scales as the symbol of the month of Thot,
would be the very palpable allusion i^ contains to the
balance of day and i^ight at the equinox. The position
and rites of the month Athyr, a» regards the deity to
whom it was dedicated, and the emblems by which it was
represented, have been amply illustrated above. The
equinoctial month Phamenoth was dedicated .to Anir
mon, or Amon-ra, whom egyptian mythologists agre^
in supposing to have been a personification of the Sun,
more peculiarly at the vernal equinox;, in.tbechvactQr
where he finally triumphs over night, and rieassume«
his ascendency in the hemisphere. Again, the month
succeeding the solstice we find devoted to the Sun
himself simply, for reasons already assigned. ,And
here it will be remarked how appropriately the season
chosen for the mournful rites of their astrological my-
thology was that which preceded the winter, solstice,
because those lamentations, as we have seen, were
only in character during the visible decline of the so-
lar orb ; after he became stationary, or began. to ree
ascend, all canse of grief or fear was ^.t an end* But
the proper month of the Sun was that which stwcee^"
ed the summer solstice, because, as it is well . known,
the god previous to that period does not attain h^
* Jablonsk. Pi^th. lib. ii. c. 2, § 5, part 1, p. 166, sq. Champol. Panth«
pl».
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IV. 145
greatest power, nor the inundation, supposed to de-
pend on his influence, any considerable height.
All this will be found in close harmony with the
assertion of Porphyry, Proclus, and others,** that the
more important signs of the egyptian zodiac were no-
thing more than figures of the influence of the sun in
various parts of his orbit. The substance of their
statements is condensed into two verses of an epi-
gram, which, though attributed by Macrobius** to the
oracle of Apollo Clarius, is evidently a fragment of
the gnostic or basilidian school of mystics, usually
called christian heretics, but who may more properly
be considered a pagan sect, their doctrines being a
fanciful combination of those of the various religions
in vogue under the roman empire, among which were,
as might be expected, many borrowed, or rather cor-
rupted, from both Judaism and Christianity. But the
sect originated in Egypt, and the basis of its mysteries
was the ancient paganism of that country, as is clearly
evinced by the character of the devices which occur
on the gems and other extant relics of their supersti-
tion.* Their principal deity was the Sun, typified by
various monstrous symbols, partly derived from thie
egyptian pantheon, partly the pure fruit of gnostic
imaginations. These are usually accompanied on the
monuments by greek or coptic inscriptions, containing
^ Porph. in epist. Jambl. myst. prsefix. et ap. Euseb. Prep. ev. p. 19S,
C. Ed. Par. 162S. Proclus, in Tim. Plat. p. 33, Ed. Bas. 1534, oonf.
Jablonsk. Panth. lib. ii. c. 2, p. 157, sqq.
' This receives light from the etymology of the egyptian word Rompe,
Year; Pfl'M'IIE, Face of the heaven; which shows the intimate con-
nexion between the ideas year and zodiac^ and consequently month and
^ign in the infaiicy of these institutions.
^ Sat. lib. i. c. 18.
• Vid. Montfaucon. L'antiq. expliq. tom. ii. p*. 2, p. 353, sqq.
L
146 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
the namesf Phre, Chnoubis, Thoout, but most fre-
quently AbraxaB,' or Jao, which last is the mysterious
subject of the following ode :
<PgdiZ,sorov Toiyrm vTrarop ^eov i(Lyi*iv 'loo;,
"yLiSfJbari [dth r ^AtifiVy Ala i' eXa^g ag^ofJi^miOy
" Know that Jao is the supreme god, in winter Hades
or Pluto, in the opening spring Jove, the Sun in sum-
mer, in autumn the tender Jao/* Here we have the
deity of the seasons, in winter in a character corres-
ponding to that of Horus in the month Athyr his
subterranean dwelling place, or of • Osiris when lost
at the solstice. In spring he is Jove or Ammon, the
Ram-god of the month Phamenoth, or the vernal
equinox. In summer the sun himself, or the Scarabee
^ Bfontfanc. lib. cit pL cxlix.
8 This w«rd Abraxas, or Abraaax, may be oonridered jm the priiut^^
and ordinary proper name of the baailidian Sun-god, to which the others
were frequently added as titles or epithets ; and its sense (in addition to
the evidence derived firom the astrological eharacter of all the monnmeiili
of the sect) shows that their Jirhole superstition was founded upon the
mysteries of the egyptian calendar, Abrasax being composed of the six
letters which represent the number of days in the egyptian year :
A 1
B ^ 2
P 100
A : I
2 200
A 1
S 60
' 365
Vid mict ap. Mentf. op. cit p. 355> sq. Jablonak. Diss, de nom. Abraxas,
^ 9, 12. Opusc t iv. p. 96, sqq. Michaelis supposes this name to be
older than the days of the Basilidians, and of pure gTeoo*«gypttan, pagan
origin. (Apud Te Water, not. ad Jablonsk. lib* cit. p^ 80.) Jao is the
sacred hebrew tetragnunmaton, adopted among other titles of the deity by
these mystics.
OF ANCIENT eOYPT^ SKOT. *V. 147
of Paoni the mottth of tbe sun. Whj Autumn should
be attributed to J(W properlt^ so called^ is not so
clear ; but the epithet k^gSg^ apparently allusive to
the luxuriant bursting vegetation of the season, seems
to indicate that the whole figure refers to the climate
of Egypt, .where alone such a description pf autumn
would be in character ; and probably to the birth and
infancy of Horus in the months of Mesori and Thot.
In an equally appro]»riate manner we find that
Thot, as the patron or author of all literary or scien-
tific, diseov^riets or institutions, is placed at the head
of the civil calendar, fabled his own pe(mliar inven-
tion ; while Ammon, the greatest wad most glorious
of tbe popular divinities^ takei» precedence in the
mythological calendar ; where he also appears attend-
ed by his chief favourites or companionigr in the pan-
theon i for M, ChampoUion,.^. it seems, has identified
among the monuments of Thebes three principal di*
vinitiesy almost invariably connected in office or in
attribute, whom he therefore calls the theban triad
or trinity, Ammon, Mouth, and Chons ^ now in our
calendar we hftve found lliese very three divinities
following each other in regular succession, in the
montibs and sigpos of the zodiac ; Phamenoth, Phar-
mouthi, Pachons.
All these coincidences form a mass of eircumstan-
tial evidence in favour of the system here proposed,
which may be the result of chance ; but if so, it must
be admitted 'to be a chance of a very extraordinary
and unaccountable nature.
We shall now devote some little attention to a
* See L'ettei-s from Egjpt, No. 7; in Lit. Gaz. Feb. 28, 1829, p. He.
No. 14, in Lit. Gaz. Nov. 14, 1829, p. 745; Nov. 21, p. 672.
1*8 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
question already noticed in a former pag^e, as being
to a certain degree connected with our present sub-
ject, namely : whether the form of calendar, and the
combination of symbols, which we have just been
examining, were originally adapted to the ancient
year of three hundred and sixty days, or to the re-
formed year of three hundred and sixty-five. Upon
this point I shall not presume to express a decid-
ed opinion, but content myself with offering such
observations as occur with respect to either view of
the subject, in the shape of conjecture merely ; for
to such all our endeavours to throw light on so very
obscure and doubtftil a matter, concerning which we
have no satisfactory historical data, must ultimately
be reduced.
I. We have already remarked,* that a considerable
degree of plausibility attends the opinion originally
advanced by; De la Nauze, and adopted by many
other chronologers, that the reform of the calendar
coincided with the commencement of a Sothiac cycle,
and as they have supposed, of that of 1322 b. c.
Admitting its correctness ; since the Thot, or first day
of the egyptian year of three hundred and sixty-five
days, would, upon their hypothesis, have originally been
appointed to the twentieth of July, in order to find a
year whose Thot was fixed to the autumnal season, we
should be obliged to go back to the more ancient mode
of reckoning. Some authors, indeed, have been of
* opinion, that the zodiac must necessarily kt its original
i Supra p. 15. Those who are inclined to assign a more extensive
antiquity to the chronological science 'of the Egyptians, will obserre,
that these vtmmakji apply, for the most part, equally well to any other
previous cycle ; although, for the sake of arrangement, and consistently
with my own view of egyptian history, I have adopted as their basis the
cycle of 1322.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT, SECT. IV. 149
institution, have been adapted to the year of 360
days, from the correspondence of the number of these
days with that of the degrees of the ecliptic ; but if
so, we can hardly doubt but that the Egyptians, if
they used this form of year in conjunction with their
zodiac, during any considerable time, were careful to
keep its commencement more or less accurately to
the seasons, by some rude method of intercalation^
perhaps by the addition of a supplementary month
from time to time ; as a substitute for which mode
the five epagomensB were afterwards permanently
added ; otherwise the rapid fluctuation of the seasons
would scarcely have admitted of the twelve months
bearing even a remote correspondence to the twelve
signs, beyond the period of a single year. That such
was really the case seems to be implied in the tradi-
tion,^ that the ancient egyptian sovereigns, after the
final establishment of the calendar, were obliged to
swear at their consecration, that they would neither
intercalate months nor day beyond the five appointed
by law. What degree of authenticity this tradition
may possess, I shall not venture to decide ; but it
certainly derives an air of probability, from the con-
geniality of such a practice with the habits of a bigot-
ed and superstitious people, strongly attached to ex-
isting customs, and who, having already submitted to
one important alteration in their method of comput-
ing time, were averse to any more such innovations. *
Admitting its validity, as the greater number of
chronologers have done ;' it mu8t be obvious, that
k Ap< Scholiast, in Germanic, v. 284.
1 Among others, Freret, Def. de hi Chr. p. 395 j who however, to serve
some particukir system, supposes that the sovereigns sulgected to this
ordinance, were not those of the old dynasties, but the native princes,
150 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
the expression Hionth or day could have little mean-
ing, unless we suppose, that the Egyptians in remote
ages really had been in the practice of intercalating
months, as well as days ; had such a practice been
totally unknown. It is not likely that it would have
been thus specifically guarded against ; and if it be
admitted to have existed, it can • be referred to no
other than the year of three hundred and sixty days.
II. On the other hand, we might suppose with
Jackson," that the Thot of the reformed calendar was
4 originally fixed at the autumnal equinox j from whence
gradually retrograding, it coincided with the heliacal
rising of Sirius on the twentieth of July of the year
1322 f which coincidence being observed and re-
corded as a remarkable epoch, became the standard
for regulating the proportion between the length of
the civil and tropical year, and consequently the cal-
culation of the cycle of 1460 years. There is unques-
tionably a considerable deal of speciousness attached
to this view of the matter ; for the date of. egyptian .
history, to which it would refer both the institution
of the new form of year, and probably the final ar-
rangement of the corresponding points of the zodiac,
namely, the early part of the eighteenth dynasty, is
not only a brilliant and flourishing period of the mo-
if)io r^igaed during the short intervals of freedom whioh occurred after
• the first subjection to the Persians;, the priests being afraid, that the in-
tercalation of months in use among their oriental oppressors, might be
forced upon diemselves. This hypothesis howeyir rests on no aiithaiity»
and V in itself extremel)* improbable ; asther^is no ground of belief
that any attempts were made, either by the persian or native princes in
later times, to innovate on this department of the national institutions.
Such partial interpretations, of allusions made by authors generally to
the customs of the ancient Egyptians, cannot be admitted unless npon
very strong evidence.
"> Cfaron. Ant. vol. ii. p. 7. conf. supr. p. 16.
» See Append. No. XX.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IV. 151
narchy, but precisely that when the nation, not long
after the expulsion of the Shepherds, being restored
to its independence, may be supposed to have reor-
ganized and consolidated all its civil institutions, and
from whence it appears to have made new and ra-
pid strides in all the arts and sciences ; a vast pro-
portion of the splendid works of architecture, sculp-
ture, and painting, the remains of which still adorn
the banks of the Nile, being monuments of the mag-
nificence of the distinguished family of princes,^ who
then sat on the j;hrone of the Pharaohs* Upon this
principle, it were not difficult to ascertain the date of
the original coincidence of the month Thot with the
sign of Libra. For the first day of the calendar of
36^ days, if fixed to the autumnal equinox, would
have retrograded between the year in which it was
60 fixed and the 13^2 b. c, as many days as intervene
between that on which the equinox fell on the former
year, and the 20th of July of the latter year. These
tlays multiplied by four, would therefore give us, on
the principle of calculation formerly noticed, the num-
ber of years of interval between the two dates."" > The
autumnal equinox in the seventeenth century b. c.
fell on the 8th of October ; between which day and
the twentieth of July are 80 days, which, multiplied
by four, produce 320 ; aiid these, added to 132^
would give 1642 b.-c. as the epoch of the establish-
ment of the year of 365 days. We have seen already,
that the accession of the eighteenth dynasty fluctuates
in the chronology between 1668 and 1748 :^ suppos-
^ Snpr. p. 30. conf. Append. No.
P Supra, p. 3, sq. Professor Heeren (Ideen iiber den Handel, &g.
der alien Welt, ii. Th. ii. Abth. s. 310) has also been led to place the
probable date of that event between 1600 and 1700 b. c, by a eoUatioa
15Q ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
ing it to have taken place in round numbers about
the 1700, we should have the final arrangement of
the calendar not many years afterwards ; an hypothe-
sis which^ as already observed, is sufficiently plausible,
and consistent with the general tenor of the history
of egyptian civilization.
Ill* This inquiry necessarily involves to a certain
extent a much agitated chronological question, name-
ly, the period of the Jewish Exodus. To enter at
lei^h upon that point, would lead into a maze of
controversy which I am here anxious to avoid. We
shall therefore be contented to bestow upon it one or
two brief observations. Josephus informs us that the
hebrew year, previous to the departure from Egypt,
commenced in autumn ; and his evidence is fully cor-
roborated by the testimony of scripture. The words
of Josephus are as follows, in speaking of the flood :
" This calamity," says he, " happened in the second
month, which is called by the Macedonians Dius**
(November),** " but by'the Hebrews Marsewan ; for
so they reckoned their months in Eg}rpt. But Moses
ordained that Nisan, which is Xanthicus" (April),
** should be the first month in respect to religious
rites, as in it he brought the Hebrews out of Egypt.
But although this was looked upon as the first of the
year in every thing relating to divine matters, yet
with respect to buying, selling, and all civil transac-
of the general details of egyptian history, though upon principles differ-
ent from those here laid down. Jackson (Chron. Ant. p. 193) places it
in 1722. Hales (AnaL of Chron. vol. iy. p. 418) in 1648. My reasons
for rejecting the system of M. Champollion Figeac, which carries the
eighteenth dynasty much farther back, have been given; in part at least,
in my Brief Remarks on the chronology of the egyptian dynasties.
4 Usser. de Maced. ann. soL c. iv. Id|eler, Untersuch. Uber die astr.
Beob. &c. s. 246.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IV. 153
tions, the ancient mode of reckoning was retained.*'
Of the correctness of this statement of Josephus, it is
not necessary to say much, as it has been generally
admitted by both chronologers and theologians ;'
being confirmed by the testimony of Moses himself
in various passages of his works. Now, consistently
with what appears to me the most correct view of the
connexion of sacred and profane chronology for this
period, (an opinion not hastily adopted, but resting
on solid reasons derived from the comparative history
of the two nations, which this is not the place to de-
velop), the Exodus ought not to be dated much ear-
lier than about the commencement of the sixteenth
century before our aera. If therefore the Jews then
used a year commencing in autumn, in confor-
mity with the practice of the country, it must have
been the ancient form of year of 360 days ; as the
Thot of the year of 365 days, supposing it to have
been already in use, would then have fallen consider-
ably above a month prior to that season. Some chro-
nologers however, who place the Expdus much ear-
lier, have been of opinion, that the new-year's day
of the Jews fell on the autumnal equinox, merely
in consequence of the Thot of the egyptian year,
which they had hitherto used, happening to coincide
' M. Ideler (Techn. Chron. Bd. i. s. 493) indeed appears to doubt this,
and, in as far as I know, is the first chronologer who has yentured to do
so ; but I have not been able to discover the slightest reasonable ground
for his scepticism. Matters of this kind are seldom capable of mathe-
matical proof; but if the united testimony of trust- worthy authors and
reasonable tradition justify the admission of a fact, there can be no
solid reason for impugning the correctness of the .statement of Josephus.
See, among others who have examined this point, Sca%. Can. Isag. p.
284. Meyer de temp. sacr. part. i. c. i. ap. Ugolini. Thes. ant sacr. tom.
i. Fr^ret, Def. de la chron. p. 402, sqq. Jackson, Chron. Ant vol* ii*
p. 16.
5
1^4 ON THE CALENDAH AND ZODIAC
with the same season at the period of their depar*
ture from £^pt, and on this basis have attempted to
calcuhite the date of that event. Neither the words
of Josephus, however, nor the general tenor of bibli-
cal tradition, seem to be in favour of such an hjrpo-
thesis ; nor, if we admit their authority in this matter
at all, ought we reasonably to limit their evidence
with respect to the ancient patriarchal new-year's day
to the mere observation of a temporary and accidental
coincidence. The more ancient tradition of the Jews,
indeed, referred the origin of this primitive calendar
to the creation itself,' which they supposed to have
taken place in autumn^ and that the pristine. egyptian
mythology corresponded here also to a certain e:a^tent,
I see little reason to doubt, as it is an admitted fact,
that the egyptian cosmogonists followed the mosaic
principle of creation, namely, that of a chaos or flood
of waters, which gradually subsiding, caused the dry
land to appear. It is also certain that they connected
this tradition, and very naturally, with the subsiding
of the flood of their own river, which both displayed
to view, and renovated with fresh vegetative .power,
the land of Egypt. There are, it is true, various pas-
sages of popular authors, as of Porphyry, Macrobius,
Julius Firmicus, and others, which refer the creation
of the world, according to the Egyptians, to about
midsummer. But there is reason to believe that these
statements are merely grounded . on the knowledge
that the revolution or ie^TroKarwrroung of the sothiac
cycle, (and with it the proper commencement of the
egyptian year in its more recent form,) was connect-
ed with that season. Of this the very vagueness
• Vid. Scalig. de Emend, temp. p. 345, sq. Can. Isag. p. 2S4, conf.
Calmet, Diet de la Bib. vr. Ann^e, Monde.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IV. 153
and dkcrepancy of the statements themselves afford
strong proof* With Porphyry, both the creation and
the commencement of the egyptian year took place in
Cancer, becatise the Dog-star was situated in or near
that constellation ;^ which expression can only be un-
derstood as alluding to the circumstance, that this star,
during the whole period of its connexion with the egyp-
tian year, rose heliacally in the latitude of Egypt, when
the sun was in the sign Cancer. Of the value of the
testimony of Porphyry in this instance, we may judge
by his assertion, contained in the same passage, that
the roman year dated from the sign Aquarius, where-
as it commenced nearly with Capricorn. Macrobius"
places the creation, according to the Egyptians, in the
sign Leo, apparently on a precisely similar principle,
because the reappearance of Sothis in his age and cli«
mate coincided nearly with the entrance of the sun
into the Lion. As for Julius Firmicus,^ whose works
appear to contain considerable traces of the pure egypt-
ian astrology', in one place he seems to agree with
Macrobius, where he states, that the world was created
in the forty-fifth day after the solstice, that is, in the
middle of the sign Leo ; but in another place^ he in*
forms us, that the earth was finally arranged and or-
dered in the latter part of the sign Libra, which is
more favourable to our hypothesis. The apparent
contradiction between the two passages may be re-
conciled, either upon the principle that the egyptian
mythologists made a distinction between the creation
t De Antr. Kymph, p, 265. Ed. Cantab. 1655.
V Sdmn. Scip. L c. 21.
^ Astronom. lib. iii. c> 1.
^ Lib. viii. c. 3, conf. Scalig. ad Manil. p. 32. De Emend. Temp,
p. 3-k). ^
156 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
of the world or universe, and the formation of our
habitable terrestrial globe ; or by supposing, what is
perhaps more probable, that the one tradition refers
to the more recent, the other to the ancient calendar.''
Although the old Jewish cosmogonists placed the
creation of the world in autumn, yet there were not
wanting some among the rabbis^ who assigned it to
spring. And it is curious enough, that the argument
advanced by the authors of the new system tends to
prove, that the other opinion was connected with
egyptian tradition; because, say the new school,
and plausibly enough, it is not probable that the crea-
tion should coincide with the decline or fall of the
year, but rather with the opening season/ Now, this
very motive would lead the egyptians to place both
the creation and their new-year's day at the autumnal
equinox, which was in their climate the opening sea-
son or natural spring, as March and April were in
Palestine.
IV. The evidence of the monuments, which are,
no doubt, the most valuable guides in egyptian re-
search, might perhaps assist our inquiries into the pe-
riod of the first establishment of the year of three
hundred and sixty-five days. We have seen above,
that, in the very ancient papyri, whence M. Champol-
lion has derived his hieroglyphic calendar, the sign of
month is merely an inverted half-moon, as described
by HorapoUo. But in the Rosetta inscription, and
X M. Champollion asserts, (Panth. pL 2,) that, according to the egypt-
ian cosmogony, the world was created hy Ammon at the vernal equinox.
He has not, however, produced any authority for that statement, nor am
1 aware that any exists.
y Vid. Scalig. de £mend. temp. p. 345, sq.
> Scalig. loc. sup. cit. Philo Jud. de Septen. et fest. p. 1 190.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT, IV, 157
other monuments,^ which have served as authorities
for the Calendar of the Cairo collection, we find a star,
in addition to the original symbol, forming portion of
the group. Whether this peculiarity be confined to
inscriptions of a later date than 1322, or to those of
any particular period whatever, we have no means of
judging ; but the additional mark itself can hardly re-
fer to any thing else but the connexion of the calendar
with some star, and that star cannot well be any other
than Sirius. This emblem may have been attached to
the seasons at the reform of the calendar, to denote
ttat the length of the year was in future to be regu-
lated by the supposed motions of the stars, more es-
pecially of Sirius ; not of the moon, as in former
times. Might not this be alluded to by an obscure
remark of HorapoUo,^ contained in a passage, part of
which has already been quoted, where that author ap-
pears to state, that the Egyptians denoted a year, among
other symbols, by the star IsiSy or Sothis : 'Ewayrov
he ^ovK6fji*BPO$ ifjT^Skruiy "Itnvy roSrsffri yvvouKcc ^Gjygocpovffiif*
Tci ie ocvtS Kcci r^p 6zov (Tfjfiumvffiif. 'Itr/^ $e xug ccvroig
iffriv affTfjgf ouYvxriffTi Kockovfiepog ^Zdig^ iKhjviffr} is ourrgo-
icvm^ 0^ Kou ioKsT ^ocffiKsvssif rZv KoixSv Mrsg&fv . . • 'in ii
xcu hoTi Kara rfjv rovrov rov atrrgov aifccroTjjif fffifLeiovfJifefia
^Bgi 'jrdvrm rSv h rZ hiavrZ fjbeXkovratv rskehiar hoT^g ovk
oLkoyoiq rov iviavrop "Iffiu Xiyovaiv. " When they would
denote a year, they draw Isis, that is, a woman, as
they also represent the goddess ; but Isis is a star,
called in egyptian Sothis, in greek Dog-star, which
appears to reign over the other stars • . • also be-
cause, by observation of this star, we prognosticate
a Young, SuppL to Encyc. Brit. art. Egypt, plate 77, No. 179. Mate-
ria hierogl. Cairo, pi. 6.
*» HierogL 1. i. c. 3.
158 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
all that is to take place during the year. Hence it i^
not without reason that the year is called Isisl'*
But at whatever period, or under whatever cir-
cumstances, this primeval coincidence of the ^yptian
new year's day with the sign Libra may have taken
place, the question may perhaps occur, how came
the zodiacal signs which were origlnaUy attached to
the twelve months to remain fixed, when the posi-
tions of the months with respect to the seasons under-
went an alteration? and why, if it was originally
meant that a conneicion should subsist between the
civil and the astrological calender, was that intention
so completely lost sight of? These and other ques-
tions of a similar nature, our imperfect acquaintance
with the early history of eg}rptian dcience puts it oat
of our power to answer ; it is sufficient to be able
to judge, on plausible grounds^ that such wiaus the
case. The twelve months even with the epagomenaa
were soon found* to be imperfect^ but the divisioii of
the heavens into twelve portions of thirty degrees
each, was found to be very perfect, * and highly con-
ducive to the facility of computing time, and of ob-
serving the heavenly bodies. The imperfection of
the one system was no reason ' for abandoning the
other ; on the contrary, the effects produced by the
separation of the two on the national superstition
were in close barmony, as we have shown above,
with the proverbial taste of the egyptian priesthood
for mystery and enigma. If we admit the opinion
of De la Nauze .respecting the first establishment of
the year of 365 days, we should be equally ^t a loss
to know the precise motive which induced them to
date its commencement, not as before from the
equinox, but from the rising of the dog-star ; or why.
OP ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. IV. 159
in fixing' the Thottothe period of the rapid rise of the
Nile, they should have retained, as its hieroglyphic,
a symbol denoting the subsiding of the waters, which
necessarily produced a corresponding' irregularity
throughout the remainder of the calendar ; but that it
must have been so is obvious. The best method of
throwing light on any obscure matter of this kind is by
analogy ; and we should have one of a very curious
natilre in the history of the roman year, the first day
of which was fixed, in early times, on or about the
vernal equinox, March being the first month, and
February the last ; whence the seventh, eighth, ninth,
and tenth) were called September, October, Novem-
ber, December ; their names in the latin tongue
Uterally denoting their places. Subsequent altera-
tions, the details of which are almost as doubtful as
of those which took place in the egyptian calendar,
caused these months to become the ninth, tenth,
eleventh, and twelfth ; yet they still retained their
former names, which does not seem to have shocked
ibe delicate ear of the latin grammarian, though
quite as great a paradox, in point of idiom, as would
have been the retaining the hieroglyphic of vege-
tation for the month Thot, after it was become the
season of the full flood of Nile. The incongruity
between the emblems of the months and their
new positions in the egyptian year was, it may be
farther observed, by no means so striking in the
eyes of the vulgar, as that between the names of
the roman months and their new position in the
roman calendar; for the pure hieroglyphic, which
alone preserved the original type or symbol, was
appropriated to the sacred records and the use of the
priests ; and the existence of this very anomaly, com-
160 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
bined with the knowledge of its real cause, would
add to their stock of mysteries. On the other hand,
in the enchorial character, which was alone in popular
use, the original form had totally disappeared, or
degenerated into a mere sign,*^ denoting with the
vulgar nothing more than the simple names, Thot,
Paophi, &c. The new calendar being too, after all,
defectire, and the months in a short time discovered
to be still unsettled, the impropriety of the emblems,
according to the new positions, would soon have
become of little importance. When we find such
strange anomalies, during the most civilized period
of the egyptian empire, sanctioned both by custom
and law, we can feel the less surprised at any others
of a similar nature which may present themselves,
in the course of our investigations into the chrono-
logy of its remote and obscure ages.
We shall now willingly take leave of these dark
and intricate matters, all attempts to elucidate which
can only end in conjecture of a sufficiently vague ^
and unsatisfactorv nature, and extend our observa-
tions to the history of the first introduction and use
of the zodiac among the Greeks.
c Vid. Kosegfart de prise, ^gypt. lit. p. 50, tab. E. F.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT, SECT. V. l6l
SECTION V.
REMARKS ON THE FIRST INTRODUCTION AND USE OP
THE ZODIAC AMONG THE GREEKS.
The inquiry to which the present section is devoted,
though belonging to a department of critical research,
of a somewhat diflferent nature from that in which
We have hitherto been engaged, is yet closely con-
nected with our previous subject in more ways than
one. First, from the interest we may naturally take,
in following up our endeavours to investigate the re-
mote origin of this celebrated institution, by tracing
its progress across the mediterranean, and adoption
by the most anciently civilized people of the western
world ; from whom its use has been propagated
Among almost all the nations of modern times, who
have paid any attention to astronomical science. Se«
condly, because several authors of eminence having
been of opinion, that the zodiac is of hellenic rather-
than egyptian origin; others, that its constellations
in their present form, as delineated on oiir globes,
were familiar at least to the remotest ages of fabulous
greek antiquity ; and having made these opinions,
respectively, the basis of their endeavours to illustrate
M
l62 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
its history, and of conclusions widely discrepant from
those to which we have been led by the foregoing
researches, — it becomes of importance to investigate,
on this head, as much of the truth as the nature of
existing testimonies will permit*
A careful examination of the comparative history
and antiquities of the two countries, has led me to
the conviction, that the accounts of the direct impor-
tation of egyptian science into Greece during its he-
roic ages, by colonies transplanted from the banks of
the Nile to the coasts of the JSgean, are destitute of
any reasonable probability. Still less credible are the
legends of the voyages up the Nile, undertaken by the
early sages of barbarous Hellas, the purely mythical
OrpheuS) Mus^eus, Triplolemus, or the semi-historical
Jlomer,* Hesibd, Lycurgus, and their initiation into
the mysteries of the priests of Heliopolis or of Thebes.
The first real connexion between the two countries
ought to be dated from the reign of Psammeticbus,
who overcame or violated the ancient prejudices of
his subjects, and admitted the Greeks freely to the in*
terior of the country, as visitors, as settlers, or as
mercenari^. From this period we can first trace histo-
rically the direct and positive influence of the manners
and mythology of Egypt, on those of their european
neighbours. The force of early association will per-
hq)s raise up difficulties against the admission of this
as a general rule, nor is this the place to support it by
anj lengthened argument ; but in as far as our pre-*
sent question is immediately concerned, it will be
found I trust nearly capable of demonstration.
Although the early poets Qf Greece, diu*ing many
* See Appendix, No. XXI.
OF ANCIENf EGYPT. 'SECT. V: l68
ages the only authors she possessed, m'dke frequent
allusion to the heavenly bodies and theit motions,
both as connected with theif mythology, dnd as serv-
ing as guides to the rustic in his labours, of beacons
to the navigator in his course j and though they seem
to have been in the habit, like all other barbarous
nations, of combining certain remarkable stars into
constellations, with names significant of their forms,
positions, or supposed influences ; it will be remarked,
that among these names, those of the signs of the
zodiac never occur. Yet it were natural to infer, had
they been known, as has been so often gratuitously
supposed^ long before the trojan war, that they might
have been considered by Homer, Hesiiod, and other
old poets, (as they ever have been since they became
familiar,) among the most important, and most worthy
of notice, whether in an astronomical or poetical
point of view. Homer says that Vulcan, among
other decorations of the shield of Achilles, distributed
around its circumference all the images which adorn
the heaven :
'El' ie roi rg/fga Toivra rA r ovpocvog iffrepoimrocr^
After this, although we could hardly expect him to
give us a literal catalogue of all the constellations,
yet one might reasonably suppose that in mentioning
the most remarkable, he would not overlook the
twelve celebrated emblems of the zodiac, or at least
the nobtest and most poetical among their number,
had he known them ; but he continues :
*> II. 0-. V. 4*83. sqq.
164 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
I
t
Hhj'idiag ^' 'ToXa^ rg, ro re (r6i»og 'Clgiofvogf
"A^KTov ^\ fjp Kou "AfdfO^uu I'jcixhiaiv Koikiovtnvj
and elsewhere he mentions o-v/zg Ivoncc Bo<^?jv/ and
the dog-star,
'^Op Tg xvu 'iTlgtmog iTtxhjffiu xoO^ovaiv.^
and the planet Venus, sometimes as the morning-star^
sometimes as the evening star :
"E^Tgf Off og xuKkiarog h ovgotvZ iffrurai affrfjg.^
Here indeed we have the Pleiads, and Hyads, por-
tions of the BulPs head and neck, but no allusion to
the \wna{jr/p(x, ravgop himself; no Tra^dmv ouhoiriv^ no
<£i6m(t Xmrocy no
■
although each of these heroes or animals furnishes
material, upon other occasions, for the most beautiful
imagery of his poem, or the most elegant periods of
his measure. He enters in the course of his fable
into considerable details concerning the apotheosis of
the Tyndaridae ; had he known them as promoted
to heaven under the celestial emblem of the twins,
he could hardly have failed to allude to it.*" The well
« Lib. cit V. 486. ^ Odyss. i. v. 272. • H. >;. v. 29.
' n. >^. 226. conf. Od: v, v. 93. « U. x- 318.
^ It appears indeed very doubtful whether Castor and Pollux ever had
in the greek astrological mythology, any peculiar claims on the coor
stellation of the Twins ; since, as already noticed, some held these to be
Hercules and Apollo, others Amphion and Zethus ; others Cabiri, or
Samothracian deities of unknown or mystexious character. Vid. auctor.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. l65
known peculiarities attending the grant of divine
honours to the lacedaemonian brothers at their death,
are in themselves strong proof that in its origin the
tradition had no connexion with astrology, or the
constellation over which they were afterwards fabled
to preside ; for they are said to enjoy life on alternate
days, the one being visible in the upper regions, of
light, while the other was confined to the shades be-
low :
but the two brilliant stars called Castor and Pollux,
being close to each other in the heavens, the one
cannot well be visible without the other.'' Hesiod'
adds to the catalogue of his predecessor the names
of Sirius and Arcturus, the first another title of the^
Dog-star, the second of Bootes j and frequently enters
into minute definitions of the proper divisions of the
seasons, according to the rustic calendar, with reference
to the rising, setting, and culminating of certain favour-p
ite stars ; but without betraying the slightest know-
ledge of such a thing as a zodiac or its signs ;™ and
the same may be said of the early writers of Greece,
almost without exception ; up even to the very period
when we find the institution in familiar use, among
the practical astronomers who flourished towards the
commencement of the peloponnesian war.
The above then are the only constellations men-
tioned in the heroic greek mythology ; and of these
sup. pit ad p. 122, sq.' Scholiast ad German, v. 146. and Nigid. de Sphacr.
ap. ennd. Orph. Hymn, xxxvii. t. 23.
i ddyss. A. 299, sq. ^ See Appendix, No. XXII.
i-E^y. 566, 610. 572, 619, &c. °» See Appendix, No- XXIIl.
166 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
there is hardly a single one of which the name is not
either according to a palpably hellenic etymology,
significant of its form or supposed influences^ or
directly referable to pure greek or grecophenician .
fable. Thus, where Hopaer calls the bear, "A^ktw^
ny Kcci "Afitce^oiv . . . the name afJifCf^^j or w^in, which
is common to many ancient nations, is sugge^teid at
once by the form of the asteri^m ;" for it i$ evi4ent,
as Hipparchus" also assures us, that the old rustic
astrologers comprehended, in this constellation, not
the whole space occupied by the monstrous %ure to
which the same name is now applied, according to
the more recent division of the sphere, but the seven
bright stars alone which compose its. rump or tail.
The appellation of bear^ however, can hardly be
derived from any thing in the arrangement qf the
stars themselves, but seems to imply some collusion to
" A<« ri ixttf oxnf*-a «/kci{ii«. (Schol. ad. Arat. Phaen. ▼.* 27.) In
the East, Agala^ nb:)^^, the chariot; (Hyde ad Ulugh Beigh. p. 9.
11. Buxt. Lex. Chald. in t.) corrupted apparently ap. Hesych* into
Ayaewae, thongh some suppose this to be a primitive greek appella-
tion also bearing the sense of chariot, (Ideler. Unters. iiher den Urspr.
&c. der Sternn. s. 7.) ; as from the root ^Jtytt, (whence also «^«{«^
«5r« rov ufiot ecyuv, according to some), and connected with the teutonic
wagen, waggon, Wa-n. The word nb:jr, like the greek fiA/icu applied to
the same constellation, denotes also any thing revolved or rolled,
allusive to its whirliog motion round the pole. The Arabs also call the
lesser Bear, Arracyba ^j^StJ^? which, from the analogy of the chaldee
or hebrew, may denote either a chariot, or the upper millstone, as the
primitive root ll^^l admitsi both significations. The last mentioned
figure (the force of which will be apparent to those who are acquainted
with the structure of the old oriental or classical mill) seems to have been
familiar to the Arabs. Vid. Cazwini ap. Idel. op. cit. p. 375 ; whose
Gditor,»^owever, seems to have misunderstood the sense of the passage.
The latin appellations, Plaustnim, Septemtrio (the team of oxen),
correspond to the greek »^<v|<«. The Arabs also call both constellations,
by a similar analogy as referred to their motions or appearance, the
Bier or Litter. Golius, ad Alforgan, p. 64. Lex. Arab. p. 2405. Cazwini,
c. 1, 2.
o Ad. Arat. L. L c. 10. Petav. Uran. p. 101.
QF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V, iGj
their, northerly position, and the connexion of the
animal with the extreme cold towards the pole,^
which the Greeks, or the phenician navigators, from
whom they borrowed their notions of geography,
may hare had occasion to observe during their
voyages. This ^asterism, we are positively assured
by the ancients, whose testimony is confirmed by that
of the monuments, bore a totally different appellation
among the Egyptians, being dedicated to their Ty-
phon,** who accordingly appears in his place undet
the form of an hippopotamus, in the greco-egyptian
planispheres,' where no figure resembling a bear is
visible. The Pleiads took their name either from
their number," or, as some suppose, from their being
likened to a flight qf pigeons." The oriental astro*^
nomers, by a similar analogy, call them the hen and
chicken^ and terms of like import are applied to them
in the vulgar idiom of various nations.* The Hyads
were named, most probably, from their supposed
influence on the seasons, as promoters of rain." The
same are called by the Latins, apparently by a 'mis-
translation of the greek term, Sucute, or the litter of
^ The same name has been observed by trayellers to be common ia
the savages of N<M*th America from a somewhat similar assodation of
ideas. Qogxiet Ong. des Loix, vol. IV. p. 741, 757.
4 AchiU. Tat Isag. in fine. Uranol. p. 94. Pint de Is. et Os. c* 31.
' Biot. op. cit. p. 87. sqq.
" Btjrm. M» nxfitf^, «$ l» vXtUfMt atrri^vf oSvm. Ion. et poet.
Il^«dfs.« According to the form FIsAfM^fis, whicli does not occur in Homer
^r Hesiod, but is preferred bj later poets*— as Pindar, i^uZv y% niXf<«)«y.
(N^m. II. I7,j And iEschylus, (apud Athen. p. 491. A.) uwrt^t
^tXHtiiiii, The derivation ^^c t*v 5rX«i', because at the season of their
'rising it was usual to undertake voyages, seems worthy of no attention.
^ Hyde ad. Ulugh Beigh. p. 42. Ideler. Uuters. Uber den Urspr. &g>
der Stemn. p. 148.
" A plucndo ; vuv enim est pluerc. Cicer. de Nat. Deor. lib. II. c.
^^> Conf. Not Davis, ad loc.
IC6 * ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
pigs ; although this name is not in itself inconsistent
with the character of the rustic mythology of Italy,''
hor is it ill adapted to the appearance of the constel-
lation. Bootes with Homer is the waggoner or driver
of the oxen of the Amaxa. With Hesiod his title of
Arcturus corresponds to the variety of his office, as
keeper or guardian of the bear. Orion is a well
known hero of greek fable, famous for his beauty*
and his skill in the chace. The brightest star in the
heaven, which rises immediately behind him, is his
dog.'' The name Sirius for the dog-star, in use, as
we have seen, as early as the days of Hesiod, is
apparently of boeoto-phenician origin,* and an ancient
Epithet for any very brilliant or sparkling heavenly
body, as Eratosthenes^ assures us ; and Hesiod* also
^ This same most unpoetical group acts a distinguished part in the
most popular latin fable, as narrated in the noblest of latin poems, ( Virg.
^n. III. V. 389, sqq.; VIII. v. 42, 81, sqq.) It happens, too, curiously
enough with reference to the legend of Virgil, that the roman tradition
also connected the phases of the constellation with the foundation of
the city. (PUn. L. XVIII. c. 26.)
^ A most natural figure, also familiar to the Arabs. Abderrahman
Suphi (ap. Hyde ad. Ulugh. Beigh. p. 51) says, that Canis major is called
Kelb-algebbar, or the dog of tite giant, because it continually follows
Orion, which constellation was named the giant among them. And
Cazwini, (Ideler. uber d. Ursp. d. Stemn. s. 400, 237), ^' This star fol-
lows the constellation of Orion, hence called the D<^."
^ Possibly from 'l')1V, principatum gerere ; the probability of which
etymology receives incidental force from passages of various authors,
tending to show how naturally this idea presented itself to the pagan
astrologers. Thus Horapollo, among the reasons for this star being
consecrated to Isis, remarks, *' that it appears to reign over all the other
stars" oi Jutt iotat raff ^oi^cHv urri^anf pua-tXivity. (Hierog. L. I. c- 3.)
And Cazwini : *' This star was worshipped in the days of heathenisnii
because its path through the heaven is more illustrious than that of the
other stars." (Ap. Ideler. ilber d. Urspr. d. Sternn. &c« s. 400, 237.)
Add Homer, (U. x* v. 27, 30.
Accfi7r^i<ruro$ ^Iv oy ia-rht ufi^nXci H el uvyott
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. l69
applies the term^ ^sigiog aariig, to the sun himself.
This star was called by the Egyptians Isis, or the star
of Isis. Hence the name Sothis in the feminine
gender, while those of the dog star^ xvofv^ affr^oKvm,
^Bigiogj are masculine. In the egyptian mjrthology^
Sothis was adored as the most beneficent of the
heavenly bodies, while with the greek poets its in-
fluences are proverbially blasting and noxious.
Now in all these remnants of the primitive hellenic
astrology, we cannot discover the least trace of egyp-
tian fable, or egyptian figurative imagery, which in
the zodiac and its signs it is equally impossible to
overlook ; and this, besides the silence of antiquity,
is sufficient proof that the knowledge of these last
was comparatively recent in Greece.
The only account of the precise period of the
first use of the zodiac in that country, which seems
worthy of any attention, is preserved by Pliny,* who
assigns the division of its constellations to Cleostratus
of Tenedos, about 536 b. c. ;^ this may, I presume,
be understood of his having first distributed the stars
in the neighbourhood of the ecliptic, among the twelve
ioGiaginary creatures whose names were contained
in the original symbols, when first imported from
Egypt. The first attempt at a more accurate obser-
vation of the sun's course, after the method of the
Suidas has the variety ^u^» The Arabs, besides the appeUation Dog,
have another, pronounced Shira ; probably corrupted from thfe Xu'^tof of
the Greeks; though some, on the other hand, would have this to be the
primitive oriental name, whence the Grreeks have borrowed theirs; and
ip signify hairy or bristly (cfj^)j which is not unreasonable, as the
remarkable sparkling or twinkling of Sirius really gives it such an ap
pearance. (Ideler. op. cit. p. 240.)
y Catast 33.
■ "E^y. V. 4-15. conf. Archiloch. ap. Hcsych, v. 26<g/W.
a Hist. Nat. H. c. 8. * See Appendix, No. XXiV.
170 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
egyptian zodiac, may perhaps be hinted at la the
tradition, that Pythagoras* according to some, Ana-
ximander according to others,* first observed the
obliquity of the ecliptic ; which cannot allude to any
thing else but a more accurate measurement of that
circle, and of the distance of the tropic from the
equator ; for the mere variation of the sun's course
from the equinoctial must have been self-^erideat
even to the simplest contemplator. This observation
was, according to Pliny, what suggested to Cleos-
tratus the construction of his zodiac, rerum fores
aperuit/ All these efforts towards the advancement
of science were made not long after Thales, and other
enterprising sages, had brought the knowledge of
several scientific institutions of the Egjrptians, and
other ancient and highly civilized nations, into Asia
minor. The use of the new method of regulatings
the calendar seems, however, not to have been for n
considerable time afterwards either popular orfanodliar^
but to have been confined almost entirely to astro-
nomers and mathematicians ; for not one of the extant
classical authors, who are ascertained to have flou«*
rished previous to the days of Meton, makes the
slightest allusion to the zodiac or its signs. Hero-*
dotus especially, if we may judge from his silence,
appears to have been ignorant of them. The sanxe
may be said of the writings of Plato, and the older
attic poets. The first extant work, if we admit its
title to be authentic, where we find any distinct
account of the signs of the zodiac, is the sphere attri-^
buted to Empedocles, published by Fabricius in his
r •
« Plut de Plac. Thil. II. c. 14 ; IV. c. 12.
^ Plin. II. N. II. c. 8. Obliqiiitatcm ejus intellcxisse.
« Loc, cit.
OF ANCIENT EjGYPT, Sj:CT. V. I7I
Bibliotheca graeca/ Whether it really be the pro-
duction of that celebrated philosopher is more than
doubtful ; but from it§ style and language, there can
be no objection to assigning its author nearly an equal
antiquity with AratuB, who wrote his poem called
the Ph^enomena about the year 9^/0 b, g*, the earliest
positively authenticated work of a popular nature
where the zodiac is inentioned* That its use, how-
ever, was familiar to practical astronomers long before
this period is evident from the fragments of Eudoxus, .
and the testimony of later mathematicians, who quote
big; authority, and that of other philosophers of a still
older date*
The earliest mathematicians on record, who fixed
tjie cardinal points of the sun's course, from observa-
/ tion, in degrees of the ecliptic, according to the twelve
signs or constellations, are Euctemon and Meton*
Euctemon^ placed the winter solstice and the autum-
nal equinox in the first degrees of Capricorn and Li-
bra. Meton,** however, about the same time, is said
to have fixed the same points in the eighth degrees.
Eudoxus,* who flourished not long after, and was rec-
koned a better astronomer than either, placed his car-
dinal points in the sixteenth degrees of Aries, Cancer,
Libra, and Capricorn, Calippus, and after him Ara*
f Lib. II. c. n,
s Gemin. Element. Astron. c. 16. Uran. p. 36, sqq.
^ Colum. De re irust lib. ix. c. 14. conf. Achil. Tat. Isag-. c. 23. Uran.
p: 85.
. i Hipparch. ad Arat. lib. i. cc. 27. 29. Uran. p. 1 16, sq. conf. lib, ii. c. 3,
p. 1 19. Hipparchus says tbe middle of the signs. This has been usually
interpreted the fifteenth degrees ; which is erroneous. The central point,
fiilr«en decrees or half a sign to the eastward of the first, must be consi-
dered as the sixteenth ,- as Mill be clear from the text of Hipparchus,
below.
172 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
tu8 and Hipparchus, re-established them in the first,''
where they have with little exception ever since re-
mained; and from thence is supposed to date the
more accurate distinction between signs and consteU
lations ; the first thirty degrees of longitude, counted
on the ecliptic from the vernal equino:i^ for the time
being, having been ever since considered as Aries,
and so of the other cardinal points ; although the pre^
cession of equinoxes has carried them far from their
original positions, with respect to the constellations
whose names they bear. By constellation I would
be understood to mean the well known groups of
stars, comprehended within the outline of certain ima^
ginary forms of living or inanimate objects, as still de-
lineated on our globes ; by signs, the dodecatemoria^
or equal portions of thirty degrees of the ecliptic, as
subdivided for the purpose of astronomical calcula-
tion. Where it is doubtful which of these methods
was followed by different astronomers in recordings
their observations, I have used both designations.
To whom we may be originally indebted for the
precise outline of the imaginary figures of the con-
stellations of the greek zodiac, according to the ar-
rangement which has been generally adopted in both
ancient and modern times, whether to Cleostratus
himself, or to succeeding astrologers, is unknown.
But the above mentioned strange variety in the defi-
nitions of the three first mathematicians, who are re-
corded to have noted their observations' according to
the twelve divisions of that circle, can only be reason-
ably accounted for, by supposing that they distribut-
ed those divisions, whether as constellations or signs^
^ Gemin. Elem. c. 16.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 173
differently ; or, in other words, that the constellation
or sign of the Ram with Eudoxus, comprehended a
different portion of the heaven about the ecliptic,
from that assigned it by Euctemon and those who
followed his method. And that such was really the
case w^ are assured by Hipparchus, who, in his trea-
.lise on the Phsenomena, gives convincing examples o£
the existence and effect of this variety, and of the
confusion which it produced, in all attempts to recour*
cile the observations of different greek astronomers,
as compared with each other. Some of these exam-
ples we shall have occasion to adduce in a subsequent
page. This singular vagueness and incongruity, how-
ever, of the methods of distributing the signs or con-
jstellations, followed by the earliest greek sages who
are reported to have used the zodiac, affords another
strong proof in addition to those already advanced,
how very recent and imperfect the knowledge of the
institution really was in Greece in their days ; and
shews at the same time, that with the greater number
of the early astronomers of that country, the divisions
of the ecliptic, as alreadj remarked, must be consi-
dered as signs rather than as constellations ; each
having adopted that mode of arrangement which best
suited his system, or appeared to him, with reference
to the remainder of the sphere, to afford the greatest
facilities of celestial observation*
Some authors have however attempted to account
for these varieties in a different manner. Setting out
with the presupposition, that the constellations of the
zodiac, as delineated in the greek sphere, were really
of hellenic invention, or at least had been familiar to
the Greeks from time immemorial, they have assumed,
that those among tlie above mentioned astronomers,
174 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
who placed their equinoctial or solstitial poiilts to the
eastward of the first degrees of the constellations
Aries, Libi;a, Cancer, Capricorn, followed certain an-
cient calendars, still in use among the rustics of
Greece, formed at a period when the colui*es really
did occupy the eighth or fifteenth degrees of the con-
stellations in their present form, from which, owing
to the precession of equinoxes, they had gradually re-
ceded. Thus no less a man than the great Sir L
Newton,^ having assumed that the zodiac was invent-
ed by the fabulous centaur ChirOn for the use of th^
Argonauts^ and that the supposed old calendar, fot
lowed by Eudoxus, which placed the Colures in the
middle of the constellations, was the same originally
constructed by that allegorical personage, and finding
that Meton fixed the same colures in the eighth de-
grees ; he inferred, that they had receded seven de-
grees in the intermediate period j whence, by calcu-
lating the precession of equinoxes at a degree in se-
venty-two years, and adopting such an arrangement
of other principal constellations of the sphere, as was
most favourable to his own vie\i^s, he concluded that
Chiron must have flourished 504 years before Meton,
or 935 B. c, ; at which epoch therefore he places the
expedition of the Argonauts,'* and on this basis erects
his system of chronology.
How fallacious such a method rhust be, is evident
from the circumstance already mentioned, that Euc-
temon, who observed at the same time as Meton, and
Calippus, who flourished not long after, placed their
cardinal points in the first, and not in the . eighth de-
grees ; so that a chronologer, who found it suited his
»
^ Chronol. p. 25. 82. Sqq. ' *» Clironol. p. 93.
OF ANCIENT-EGYPT. SECT. V. 175
system, might equally, upon this principle^ assume,
that, in the days of Euctemon, the colures had reced-
ed fifteen degrees since the time of Chiron, and as-
sign, accordingly, the argonautic expedition to a much
more remote period of antiquity.
Such, in factj has been the method of Freretj" who,
in combating with considerable success the antiquarian
mistakes of our great countryman, has himself fallen
itito others of a similar but still more flagrant nature.
Assuming, like Sir Isaac, that the zodiacal constella-
tions had been in use in Greece time out of mind, he
has adopted the very hypothesis above alluded to, viz.
that, in the days of Euctemon, the cardinal points,
which had been originally fixed at a much more ad-
vanced point of the constellations, had retrograded to
their commencement; that M^on, in placing them
in the eighth degrees, followed an old rustic ca^
lendar, constructed in the tenth century b. c* ; that
Eudoxus, in like manner, in fixing them at the six-
teenth,^ conformed to a still more aiicient calendar^
constructed in the fifteenth century b. c. j^ that is to
say, that Meton and Budoxus, though perfectly awiu*e
that the cardinal points really weii^e nearly in the first
d^rees of their respective constellations, out of defe-
venoe to the rustics of Cnidos or of Attica, among
whom these calendars were still in use, placed them^
in their respective works, the one about eighty the
other fifteen degrees out of their true positions* Of
this theory, which its author has developed at great
detail, in his celebrated controversial work, entitled^
» Defense de la Chronol. p. 6, sqq., 417, sqq.
' o With Freret, the fifteenth. 8ee Note to p. 171, supra.
P At p. 14, he makes the date 14 GS n. c. ; at v, .'39, after Whiston^
1353.
176 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
Defense de la Chronologie, and which has been ver jr
generally adopted by succeeding writers on these sub-
jects, I shall endeavour shortly to point out the fal-
lacy.
In the first place, it must be observed, that the
whole of the above system, plausible as it has appear-
ed to many, is contrary to the express testimony of
the ancients, more especially of Hipparchus and Ca*
lumella, to whose works the learned academician and
his followers have principally appealed in support of
their hypothesis, but who, instead of justifying, con-
fute it, as shall be shown, in the most positive terms.
But, besides this, it were in itself most extraordinary,
and indeed almost incredible, that Meton and Eu«
doxus, who pretended to be correct practical astrono-
merSy after the fashion of the time, and who have al-
ways been considered, if not as the fathers of the
science, at least as its first great reformers and im*
provers among the Greeks, should intentionally have
composed complete theories of the heavens upon the
basis of a wilful error of not less than fifteen degrees
of longitude in the position of the cardinal points of
the sun's course, and that merely to gratify the rustic
prejudices of the time. ** On ne s'embarrassait pas
beaucoup,'' says Freret,** " de placer les points car-
dinaux hors de leur veritable lieu ; on songeait seul^
ment a se faire entendre des gens de la campagne,
pour lesquels on ecrivait, et dont il fallait respecter
les prejuges/* That the first philosophers of Greece
wrote merely for the peasantry, whose prejudices it
was necessary to respect, is surely a most unwarrant-
able supposition. If men of science were to conform
q Op. cit p. 10.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 177
thus servilely to all the vulgar errors of the day, their
labours would comparatively be of little value. Their
object ought to be, and we may be sure that of Meton
and Eudoxus was, by their discoveries to correct and
root out, not to confirm, the ignorance and b^otry
of the lower orders of their countrymen. We shall
first turn our attention to the method of Eudoxus,
which, as described by Hipparchus, has formed the
principal groundwork of the speculations of Freret,
and those who have adopted his views ; and in the
course of our inquiries into it, we shall be led to a
few observations upon that of Meton.
Hipparchus, in his commentary on the Phsenomena
of Aratus,' sets out by observing, that the poet, in his
description of the heavenly bodies, had for the most
part imitated, or even closely copied, the sphere of
Eudoxus, frequently doing little more than transcribe
his words in verse. When, however, he comes to
institute a close comparison between the two authors,
he thus expresses himself:' " First of all, it must be
considered, that Aratus so divided his zodiac, that the
tropical and equinoctial points should form the com-
mencement of the signs ; but Eudoxus so, that the
same points should be the middle of Cancer, Capri-
corn, Aries, and Libra." Having then quoted cer-
tain statements of Aratus in proof of his first asser-
tion, he adds, " and in this way almost all the old
astronomers divided their zodiac ;** which passage,
as we have before had occasion to remark, is of great
ilnportance, as showing the superior antiquity of this
method, originally borrowed, it may be presumed,
from the Egyptians or Chaldees ; and that the prac-
' Lib. i. c. 2, p. 98. » Lib- ii. c. 3, p. 119.
N
178 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
tice of assigning the cardinal points to various other
parts of the signs or constellations, is comparatively
a recent innovation. Hipparchus then proceeds to
prove the truth of the second part of his statement,
in the words of Eudoxus himself. " He himself/'
says he/ ^' bears witness, that he placed the solstitial
points in the middle of the signs, in the following
words : * The second circle is that in which the sum-
mer conversions are e£Pected ; in it is the middle of
Cancer. The third circle is that in which the equi-
noxes are effected ; it passes through the centre of
Aries and of Libra. The fourth, in which is the win-
ter tropic, is in the middle of Capricorn.* *' Had Eu-
doxus meant to say that all this took place in Chiron's
time, or about 900 years before his own ; or, that
these were not the true cardinal points, but merely
what the rustics of Cnidos considered as su9h, it were
surprising that he should have expressed himself in
such a manner ; but still more so, that neither Hip-
parchus, one of the acutesf critics that ever exist-
ed, nor any succeeding commentator, should have
had a suspicion of his true meaning. But, in truth,
according to the actual arrangement of the zodiacal
constellations, as supposed to have existed in the days
of Chiron, (namely, that still followed on our globes,)
it is impossible that the colures coiild have fallen in
the middle of the four constellations, Aries, libra.
Cancer, and Capricorn, since these occupy unequal
and very irregular portions of the eclip£ic ; so that
such a correspondence never could have existed."
This were in itself sufficient proof that Eudoxus dis«
t Lib. ii. c. 3, p. 120.
u Vid. Delambre, Hist* de Tastroii. anc torn. L p. xli.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT, V. 179
tributed his zodiae, and platted his cardinal points, af-
ter a method of his own, without reference to the
sphere of Chiron or any other such ^ionary system.
Btit, hesides all this; Hippiiithus has, fortunately,-
iii nuinerous illustrations 'of the positions of the hea-^
venly foodies, as refefred to*their lon^ude, according
to the ahore various methods of dividing the zodiac,
left us convincing and unequivocal proof, that although
£udoxus placed the same cardinal points in the middle
of the signs which Aratus and he Umself fixed at their
commencement, yet' both j making allowances for trif-
ling errors or discrepancies consequent on their im-
perfect mode of observation, assigned j or meant to as-
sign thism precisely the same position in the ecliptic.
I shall quote nearly his own Words, confining myself
to examples drawn from great and important constel-
latiofis^ concerning whose real form and position there
C5an be no diflFerence of opinion ; for -as to majiyofthe
other more obscure oi* less well-defined iteterisms^ there
can be little doubt but that in the sphei-e of Eudoxus
tliey differed as much in their precise extent and figure
from those which Hipparchus designated by the same
flames, as did the signs of the zodiac- themseltes.- I
have also selected such examples aa are least charge-
able with that confusion and inconsistency from which
many portions of the work' of Hipparchus j in itS' pre-
sent state, great as is its general merit, are not ex-
empt.
'^ The last and inost easterly star in th^ tail of the
great Bear, on a circle parallel to the equator, would
be .situatfed in the fourth degree of Librae the solsti-
tial and equinoctial points being fixed at the com-
mencement of the signs ; btit if, with Eudoxui^,* we
place those points in the middle of the signs, the same
180 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
star will be situated in the nineteenth of Libra/'^ If
the fourth degree of the Libra of Aratus or Hippar-
chus corresponds with the nineteenth degree of the
Libra of Eudoxus, it follows, that the first degree of
the same sign with Hipparchus must correspond with
the sixteenth according to Eudoxus ; consequently
their equinoctial colures were in the same point of the
ecliptic.
Again, according to the method of Aratus,*" " the
most southerly of the four stars which form the quad-
rangle of the great Bear, occupied about the twenty-
fifth degree of Leo ;" but, according to the other sys-
tem, "the same star coincided with the tenth of Virgo.**
The result answers precisely to that obtained from the
foregoing example. The first degree of the Virgo of
Aratus would be equivalent to the sixteenth with Eu-
doxus ; the first of Leo to its sixteenth ; and the com-
mencement of each sign to the centre of the same,
according to the arrangement of each respectively.
Again */ " the last and brightest star of the lesser
Bear is situated in the eighteenth degree of Pisces,
but as Eudoxus divides his zodiac in the third of
Aries.** Consequently the sixteenth of Pisces with
Aratus corresponded to the first of Aries with Eu-
doxus ; the first of Aries with Aratus to the sixteenth
with Eudoxus ; so that, as in the previous instances,
their cardinal points, though nominally different, oc-
cupied the same position in the true ecliptic.^
This is farther illustrated by the discrepancy be-
tween their ffvpttvotrdkaty and ffvyzaro^vtrugy or the de-
scription of the stars or constellations, which rose or
▼ Hipparch. in Phnn. Arati. lib. i. c. 10, p. 104, sq. ^ Loc. dt.
* Lib. 1. c. 12. in fine, p* 106*
y Conf. Petay. Var. diss, ad Uran. lib. ii. c 5.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT.' SECT. V. 181
set together with particular portions of the zodiac,
according to the two systems ; which also shews, not
less pointedly, that the corresponding signs were fixed
by Eudoxus, many degrees of longitude west of those
of Aratus.
" Aratus," says his commentator,* " having sup-
posed the commencement of Cancer to be on the
eastern horizon, observes, that the (lower*) half of
the Crown had set ; the southern Fish as far as the
back fin ; Ingeniculus up to the belly ; Ophiuchus as
far as the shoulders, &c. But Eudoxus asserts, that
the whole of Ingeniculus is still visible when Cancer
begins to rise ; the (lower) half of the Crown ; the
heads of Arctophylax and Ophiuchus, &c." It would
appear, by a reference to our globes, that several of n
the constellations mentioned in this passiage were dif-
ferently arranged in the sphere of Eudoxus from what
they are now. ; but it is equally clear, as well from the
description of those which correspond, as from the
remarks of Hipparchus, that as they were visible to a
much greater extent above the western horizon on
the rising of Cancer, according to Eudoxus, than ale-
cording to Aratus, the Cancer of the one must have
commenced much farther west in the ecliptic than
that of the other. And accordingly Hipparchus con-
tinues :^ " Concerning the Crown Aratus is right, as
in the latitude of Greece it begins to set when the
twenty-third degree of Gemini rises, and goes down
altogether when the fourth of Cancer rises. Sut the
method of Eudoxus is palpably different^ since the
beginning of Cancer is placed hy him in the middle
^ L. ii. c. 5. p. 120*
* So it must be rendered, consistently with the general sense of the
passage. ^ P* 121.
182 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
of Gemini; mo that. let it be observed once for. aUj
that, as they portioned . their signs differently 9 it is
impossible that the relative phenomena can corres^
pond in the descriptions of each J* Thi&is sufficient*
ly explicit. If therefore Eudoxus placed the. como
mencement of his Cancer in the middle of the Ge-
mini of Aratus, the sixteenth of Cancer with the one,
would correspond to the. first of Cancer with the
other, their solstitial points being da before precisely
the same in the true ecliptic.
I have dwelt on these convinci^ examples at the
greater length, because Freret himself^ has noticed
several of them, admitting that their evidence is con*-
elusive. But. by some, most unaccountable confusion
of ideas, he has advanced them as proof of the cor-
rectness of his own theory ; whereas it must be clear
to every person who compirehends them, and . could
scarcely have escaped his own acute judgment, had it
not been blinded by system, that their direct tendency
is on the contrary to subvert and destroy it altoge-
ther. It is no less surprising that he should, through^
out his argument, have formally referred the reader
to Petavius, for farther proof and illustration of his
views ;'^ calling him justly a great man, and appear#-
ing to pay the greatest deference to. his opinion. If,
however, the authority of Petavius were to be final,
the question would indeed be decided, but in a very
different manner from what he supposed ; for on re*
ferring to the works of that profound calculator, I
find that he not only held precisely the same opinion
as that here supported, but has devoted several chap*
ters to the careful examination and confutation of the
<^ Def. de la Chron. p» 449. ^ Op. cit. pp. 7. 450.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 183
very system of which the french academician profess-
ed himself an advocate. To him, therefore, I shall
in my turn refer the reader .•
t am well aware that this theory, propounded I be-
lieve first by Scaliger, justified to a certain extent by
Sir I. Newton, and more fully developed by Freret,
has obtained great popularity among modern critics, I
and been adopted by many distinguished authors be- ^
sides those above mentioned.' But authorities can-
not prevail against facts ; and those which have been
here brought forward are too unequivocal to be mis-
understood. Whiston, who like Freret combieited
the system of Sir L Newton, admitting, with that
great man, that Chiron was the inventor of the zo-
diac, but differing from him merely with respect to
the period of invention, composed a dissertation, in-
serted by Freret in his work,' to prove that the car-
dinal points, as constituted by Eudoxus, relate to near-
ly the same remote period of antiquity ieissumed by
the french antiquary. I shall not attempt to follow
him through his argument, which both in as far as re-
gards his attempt to confute Newton, as his endeavour
to establish his own position, appears fallacious and
inconclusive. I shall merely mention the principal
drift of it. He, like Sir Isaac, lays dovm as a basis,
the description giveii by Eudoxus, as quoied by Hip-
parchus, of the line of constellations through which
« Var. Diss. u. g. d. p. 44. Haec non obscure testantur, aequinoctia et
solstitia Dunquam alibi ab antiquioribus astrohomis, quam in mutuis cir-
culorum sectionibus et taction] bus coliocata fuisse ; quas octavie yei de-
cimaequintse signorum parti vel aliis imputabant ; neo octavas illas Cfetei^
asve partes ab aequinoctialibus aut solstitialibus punctis esse numeratas.
' Playfair, ChrpnoL p. 37. Lalande, &c. ap« eund. Ideler, Unters.
iiber die astr. Beob. der Alt s. 336.
s Defease de la Cbron. p. 420.
184 • ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
the colures passed from north to south ; and then en-
deavours to shoW) thaty consistently with a certain ar-
rangement of these constellations, partly with refer-
ence to their form as now delineated on our globes,
partly to that in which he supposes they may have
.appeared on those of the aboriginal Greeks, the same
colures would have passed toward fifteen degrees to the
eastward of their true positions for the days of £u-
doxus himself. Whatever plausibility his argument
may possess, seems to be derived chiefly from the dis-
crepancy in the accounts given of the constellations
by the various authors who have transmitted any de-
tails concerning their ancient form, upon which va-
rieties he naturally enough puts a private interpreta-
tion most favourable to his own views ; the changes
which he has found it necessary to make in several of
them, in order to accommodate them to his own sys-
tem, being quite as inadmi^ible as those with which
he reproaches Sir Isaac. The description given by
Eudoxus of the constellations through which the co-
lures passed, is indeed, as must be evident to any one
who impartially examines it, totally irreconcilable up-
on any system, or by a reference to any age of the
world, with their actual arrangement on the tables of
Bayer, or upon our globes.
Freret^ has also with a similar view, instituted a
comparison between the line of Colures according to
their description by Eudoxus, and their true position
in the days of that philosopher ; more especially with
reference to the strictures of Hipparchus on the
errors that description contains. The result, however,
he himself, as well from the difficulty of ascertaining
^ Op. sup. cit. p. 4^1, sqq.
OF ANCIENt EGYPT, SECT. V. 185
the precise form of the ancient asterisms, as from
other causes, appears to have found so little satisfac-
tory, that he admits the principal weight ought to
belong to the striking illustrations above adduced, from
the comparative positions of those heavenly bodies,
concerning the form of which there can be no dis-
pute ; and in so doing, he has, as already observed,
unintentionally brought forward the most conclusive
arguments against his own system. He has, farther,
collated the respective delineations of the tropical
and equinoctial circles, by Eudoxus, Aratus,^ and
Manetho, in order to show, that they bore reference
to the positions for the same remote period, but here,
as before, in spite of a very arbitrary mode of deduc-
tion, the just inference appears to be far from favour-
able to his own views.
There can be no stronger proof of the little reli-
ance to be placed on any evidence, derived from par-
tial illustration of the supposed form and positions of
fanciful groups of stars, concerning which, as defined
in the spheres of the more ancient astronomers, we
have so few precise data, than the circumstance, that
such men as Petavius, Newton supported by Halley,^
and Whiston, have each arrived by that method at
i That any appeal should here be made to Aratus is the more surpris-
ing, since Hipparchus (L. iL c. 3. p. 1 19.) expressly states that although
that poet agreed with Eudoxus in his real positions, yet he placed his
cardinal points in the commencement of the signs ; and this he also proves
yery clearly by the following passage of the Phsenomena, descriptive of
the arc of the horizon within which the zodiac rises and sets* (v. 537,
^ Phil trans, vo. xxxiv. p. 205. vol. xxxv. p. 296.
186 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
conclusions favourable to their own views, though
totally irreconcilable with each other. There is
however this difference in the value to be attached to
the speculations of these great calculators, that while
the inquiries of english astronomers were co|ifined to
one point, and that for the purpose of establishing
particular systems, the learned Jesuit extended his
views over the whole circuit of the astronomical
chronology of the ancients ; and without any favour*
ite theory to support, has elucidated these obscure mat*
ters, with such a vast deal of profound learning and
solid argument, as must carry conviction to every un-
prejudiced mind.
With regard to the strictures of Hipparchus him-
self on the position of Eudoxus, on which Freret lays
considerable stress, as confirming his views, it maybe
remarked, that although the distinguished commenta-
tor of Aratus criticises and condemns with much
bitterness, and frequently with undue severity, the
views of his predecessor, yet he never betrays the
slightest suspicion, that Eudoxus had either wilfully
or unintentionally misplaced his real cardinal points
to any considerable extent ; but finds fault, partly
with actual errors in his positions, chiefly, however,
with what he considers a confiised or unusual arrange-
ment of certain constellations. To this his principal
censures are directed; and it were inconceivable, had
the whole theory of Eudoxus been grounded on a
wilful error of fifteen degrees in the positions of the
Colures, that so acute a genius as Hipparchus, when
carefully reading and commenting his work, should
never have had a surmise of his real intention ; but
should merely have supposed, that in the division of
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 187
the ecliptic, he had made the commencement of his
signs anticipitte the usual position hj fifteen degrees.
To examine all these matters minutely would not
only exceed our present limits, but require a know-
ledge of practical astronomy to which the author of
this essay has no pretensions. We shall therefore be
contented to rest our argument on the testimony of
Hipparchus himself, who had read and criticised the
works of EudoKus, which we only know from second
hand, and by imperfect quotations ; on that of Peta-
viu9, who has edited, carefully studied, and profound-
ly commented the text of Hipparchus ; on the im-
portant examples above cited, the evidence of which
the chief supporter of the opposite system has admitted
to be decisive ; but^ above all, on the extreme impro^-
bability, that the most distinguished astronomer of his
day should have been guilty of such a puerile defe«
rence to the prejudice and bigotry of a small body of
greek rustics, as to have intentionally constructed a
whole theory of the heavens on so absurd a basis.
How is so strange an admission to be reconciled with
the reputation which Eudoxus obtained as an improver
of science throughout the civilized world ? Are we
to suppose that the celebrated Octoeteris which he
composed lor the use of Greece was founded on a fix-
ing of the solstice fifteen days after that on which it
really fell ? Freret supposes that the barbarians of
Hellas, in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries before
our era, had a well-regulated zodiac and calendar ;
that, in the little less rude age of Hesiod, this sup-
posed sphere of Chiron received a correction propor-
tioned to the alteration which had tietken place in the
positions, the cardinal points being transferred from
the-sixteenth to the eighth degrees ; that, in the days
188 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
of Euctemon, it received a still farther correction, the
same points being transferred to the commencement
of the constellations ; and yet we are to believe that
Eudoxus (as well as Metoii) obtained a fame far sur-
passing that of all preceding astronomers, merely by
going back to the old system of his bfurbarous forefa-
thers, the fallacy of which his countrymen had been,
during ages, endeavouring to show. Was this the
fruit of his long study in Egypt, that, on his return
to Greece, he should be more willing to confirm his
fellow-countrymen in error and bigotry, than impart
to them the benefit of his lessons among the theban
priesthood ? The highest praise which poetical hy-
perbole could devise for the author of the Julian ca-
lendar was, that his merit equalled that of Eudoxus :^
and did such glory belong to the mere reproduction
of a method which had been corrected or exploded as
erroneous during ten centuries ? Geminus, who lived
about three hundred years after Eudoxus, speaks™ of
the solstice, as regulated by his observations, assisted
by those of the Egyptmns. as having been a standard
of correctness with his countrymen for long after-
wards. This solstice, Petavius," for sound reasons,
has fixed, not far from the true time, towards the end
of December ; but, upon the other system, we must
transfer it to the second week in January, — a compu-
tation which never could have been a subject of any
thing but ridicule to Geminus. This author, how-
ever, furnishes us with farther evidence that Eudoxus
. 1 Lucan. PharsaL x. y. 187.
Nee meus Eudoxi vincetur fiutibiis annus.
^ Elem. c. 6, p. 19.
° De doct temp. 1. ii. c. 7, voL i. p. 53, conf. not ad loc. Gemin. sup.
cit
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V, 189
was guilty of no such absurdity, who, according to
him," placed the spring equinox in the sixth of Aries,
the winter solstice in the fourth of Capricorn. How
is this to be reconciled with the above designation of
the sixteenth degrees? Fr^ret would suppose an-:
other rustic calendar, of which he has a supply ready
to help him out of all difficulties. As there is, how-
ever, not the least evidence that Eudoxus ever con-
structed but one sphere or calendar, or ever assigned
but one real position to the cardinal points, this very
circumstance shows that the variety of his zodiac
consisted but in terms. Had Eudoxus, in one of his
works, fixed his colures in the sixth, in another in the
sixteenth, of Aries, it is not to be believed that Hip-
parchus, in his commentary on them, should have
omitted to mention so important a circumstance.
The statement of Geminus, therefore, rightly inter-
preted, might clear up the difficulty. He, no doubt,
means here to assign what he considered the true po-
sition of the colures of Eudoxus, according to the re-
ceived division of the constellations, which that as-
tronomer had recomposed as signs after a form of his
own. Accordingly, Petavius^ has observed, that, con-
sistently with the method of the ancients, who count-
ed their degrees of longitude on the equator, and not
on the ecliptic, the sixth of Aries and the fourth of
Capricorn (as constellations) would be as near an ap-
proximation to the true positions, for the time of Eu-
doxus, as could well be expected from the rude me-
thods of observation in those days.
It was not until after the foregoing observations
were nearly prepared for publication in their present
o Elem. c. 16. p Var. diss. 1, ii. c. 4.
190 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
form, that I discovered that the celebrated M. De-
lambre had devoted a long article of his History of
ancient astronomy to this very point, where, by a fitr
more scientific, but not more impartial, analysis of the
same authorities here appealed to, he has been led to
a precisely similar conclusion. I shall quote at some
length the passage containing the summary of his re-
marks ; for, having naturally felt somd diffidence in
venturing to oppose my ^opinion td that of distinguish*
ed astronomers in a matter any way connected with
their own science, it is gratifying to be able to adduce
in its support testimony of at least ^ual weight, as
far as the present question is concerned^ M. Delam*
bre attributes more, perhaps, than I have done to the
extreme rudeness of the methods of observation in
the days of -Eudoxus, and less to the discrepanciids in
the arrangement of the constellations ; but the result
is the same. After examining very minutely the de-
scriptions of Hipparchus,*^ which form the basii^ of the
» • « ■ •
<l Histoire de TastroiL ailoieiiiie^ torn, i ^ 122, sq. Dans tonte» oes
remarques sur le tropique d'Eudoxe on ne trouve pas one seole position
un pen praise. Sa sphere devait done avoir et^ faite k rue et sans
aucun i]i8tniinent....Mai8 les donndas d'Eudoxe ne s'acoordent pas entre
elles ; c'est qu'il n'a point regard^ le ciel, qu'il » receuilli les obserratioBs
grossieres faites a vue, peut-etre en differens terns et en differens pays,
n n'est pas ^tonnant qu' avec des ^^mens anssi imparfaits, il ait donn^
des discordances dnormes ; ce qui ^tonne dayantage, c*est la peine in-
utile que se sont donn^ quelques modemes* pour expliquer tout cela» en
supposant des observations fidtes a des ^poques eloi^^es les unes des
autres. U faudrait autant dMpoques diffc^rentes qu* Eudoxe a nomm^
d'^toUes. On s'est acoorde a prendre pour id^e fondamentale que les
observations ^taient bonnes. U etait bien plus .naturel de les supposer
mauvaises; mais alors on n'aurait pu b&tir aucun syst^me.
Enfin on ne verra qu'une inani^e diff^rente de compter les signes et
les degr^ entre Hipparque et Eudoxe ; le premier mettait les pointi
6quinoxiaux et solsticiaux dans le milieu des signes. U ^tend le signe
d*^t^, oelui des plus longs jours, ^t^rmr»f comme dit Aratus, ik 15^ de
part et d*autre du point solsticiaL... Hipparque, au oentraire, qui avait
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V.
191
theories of Newton, Whiston, and Freret, he ob-
serves : '^ In all these remarks on the sphere of
Eudoxusy we do not find a single position tolerably
correct. His sphere, therefore, must have been con-
structed by the naked eye, without any instrument.
;....But his statements do not even agree with each
other, which arises from his not having studied the
heavens, but merely put together rude observations,
made at sight, perhaps at different times, and in dif*
ferent countries. It is not (Surprising that with such
imperfect elements the whole should be so discordant ;
but what is really surprising, is the useless trouble
which the moderns have taken to explain all this, by
supposing observations made at different epochs, and
in countries far distant from each other. We should
require as many different epochs as Eudoxus has men-
tioned stars. These authors have set out with the
fundainental idea that the observations were correct ;
it had been more reasonable to have supposed them
erroneous. But then there would have been no l*oom
for the construction of a system It will be seen,
that Eudoxus and Hipparchus differed but in their
method of reckoning the degrees and signs. The
former placed the equinoctial and solstitial points in
the middle of the signs ; extending the sign of sum-
mer, or of the longest days, ^egsirocrop as Aratus calls
it, to fifteen degrees on each side of the solstitial point.
..••..Hipparchus, on the other hand, saw the propriety
jmagine tm perfectionn^ la trigonometrie, avait senti le besoin de* placer
le point da zodiaque et de ]'6quateur, ^ Tintersection de ces deux
eordes....ainsi les 15 degr^ d'Eudoxe ne signifient pas qu' Hipparque
«t lui eussent placd le solstice en des points reellement diffilrens. Le
point etait le meme, le chifire seal etait change. Voila ce que n'ont pas
YU les chronologistes, qui avaient ^ peine quelques notions d'astronomie,
et ce qae n'out pas youlu Toir les astronomes ik systeme.
192 ON THE CALENDAR. AND ZODIAC
of placing the point zero of the zodiac, and of the
equator, at the intersection of these two circles
so that the fifteen degrees of Eudoarus^ do not denote
that HipparchuSy and he himself really assigned to
the solstice essentially different positions. The
position wa^ the same^ in the cypher alone lay the
difference. This is what chronologers^ who had
scarcely a notion of asironomy^ have not been able^
and aMronomerSy under the influence ofsystem^ have
not been willing^ to ^ee.** Thus far Delambre ; and
whoever takes the trouble to compare his illustrations
with those of Whiston and Freret, and with the text
«
of the original authors, which forms the groundwork
of the whole, will no doubt arrive at the same con-
clusion.
It remains now to offer a few observations on a
passage of Columella, which Freret,' and those who
adopt his views, are accustomed to quote confident*
ly in favour of their argument, that the ancients were
careless of nicety in the calculation of the seasons,
and more willing to humour than to correct ' the prcf-
judices of the vulgar ; but which, I shall endeavour
to shew, they have either never read at all in the
original work of Columella, or have altogether mis-
conceived its import ; as it not only, when rightly
understood, bears a totally different sense from what
they have assigned it, but, like the parallel texts of
Hipparchus, is altogether at variance with their
theory. The passage, or rather the portion of it
usually adduced, is as follows :* Nee me fallit Hip-
parchi ratio, quae docet, solstitia et sequinoctia non
octavis, sed primis partibus signorum confici. Verum
' D^f. de la chron. pp. 10, 472, sqq. ■ Colum. de Re rust ix. c. 14.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 193 •
in hac ruris disciplina, sequor nunc Eudbxi et Me-
tdnJSy antiquorumque fastos astrologorum, qui sunt
aplliti publicis sacrificiis, quia et notior est ista vetus
agricolis concepta opinio ; nee tamen Hipparchi sub-
tilitas pinguioribus, ut aiunt, rusticorum Uteris neces-
saria est/* That is, as these critics have understood
him : " that instead of folio v^ing the corr.ect calen-
dars of his own time, regulated upon the principles of
Hipparchus, according to whom the cardinal points
were fixed at the first degrees of the signs ; he pre-^
ferred adhering to the old vulgar or rustic calendar,
regulated according to observations of ancient^ greek
astronomers, where the equinoxes and solstices were
placed seven degrees beyond their proper places for
the time at which he wrote.'** This observation, if the •
above were the real import of his words, (which we«
shall hereafter see it was not,) would, in as far as!
regards Meton, be tolerably correct ; for as that phi-
losopher lived towards five hundred years before Co-
lumella, the precession of equinoxes amounted be-
tween the age of the two, very nearly to seven degrees. ♦
As for the coupling the name of Eudoxus with that
^ Freret, p. 469, sqq. — This is in fact the interpretation given, not only
by Freret generally throughout his observations, but more especially by
Professor Ideler, (Untersuch. liber die astr. Beob. &c. s. 335, ff.) who
adopts his views, and makes Columella say : that " the colures of the old
calendars of Meton and Eudoxus, differed eight (seven) degrees of longi-
tude from the correct reckoning of his own time ;" bezieheu sich auf eine
Lage der sequinoctial und solstitial punkte, welche um acht grad ostlich
Ton der jetzigen abweicht. fiut in the very next page it is stated, that
Meton must have followed a calendar constructed for the tenth century
B. c, wherein the cardinal points were placed in the eighth degrees of
the constellations according to their actual arrangement Now that'
would make a difference, as observed in our text, of fourteen, and not
seven degrees, between the calendar of Meton and the true positions in
the days of Columella. How the learned professor reconciles these two
statements I am at a loss to understand.
O
IQi ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
of Meton, it can here be nothing but a confusion of
ideas on the part of Columella, for the best auth^-
ties do not, as we have already seen, admit of the ^-
lief that he ever followed such an arrangement. But,
in the case oi Meton ; would not this very statement,
even as here interpreted, afford sufficient proof of the
correctness of the opinion above advanced, reapecting
his method of dividing the zodiac ? namely, that he
made the commencement of the signs anticipate the
colures by seven degrees. For if he had placed his
cohires, as Freret supposed, seven degrees out of their
proper place in the heavens for his own age, and Co-
lumella in his rustic calendar placed them where
Meton did, then Columella would have differed four-
teen, and not seven degrees only, from the correct
calendar of his own time. If, therefore, in conform-
ity with the sense of the passage adopted by these
critics, the difference between the calendar of Meton
and the correct reckoning for the days of Columella,
amounted to only seven degrees, nearly what it ought
to have done according to the laws of precession, it
were clear that Meton must have fixed his cardinal
points, as nearly as his means of observation permit-
ted, to their proper positions in the sphere.
But the fact is, that this very rustic reckoning of
Columella himself, as opposed to the improved method
of Hipparchus, relates, like the corresponding varieties
of Meton and Eudoxus, not to a wilfully erroneous
calculation of the cardinal points of the year, but
merely to the preference of an old fashioned arrange-
ment of the signs themselves ; according to which those
points were fixed at the eighth, instead of the first
degrees. This is evident from the remainder of the
text of Columella, which has been generally only
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 195
quoted by halves ; and where he mentions not only
the degree^ of the zodiac, but the days of the months,
to which the equinoxes and solstices were fixed.
Speaking of the management of bees with respect to
the various seasons of the year, he observes ;" that
the vernal equinox takes place in the month of March,
VIII Calend* April., in the eighth degree of Aries;
Mense Martico circa viii Cal. Apr,, in octava partd
Arietis conficitur. A little lower down he fixes the
autumnal equinox in the . viii Gal. Oct. The winter
solstice in the viii Cal. Jan., about the eighth degree
of Capricorn ^ brumam qua^ fere conficitur circa viii
Cal. Jan. in octava parte Capricorni. After which he
adds as above : nee me fallit Hipparchi ratio, &o»
The eighth Caleiids of April was the twenty-fifth of
March, to which day the equinox was fixed in the
Julian calendar. The true equinox, according to the
correct computation of modern astronomers, fell
somewhat earlier, but the constructor of the Julian
calendar supposed his reckoning to be right,"" and so
did Columella; there iia no wilfiil error on either
side. Columella therefore, instead of differing seven
degrees from the accurate standard of the day, coin-
cided with it exactly. He differed only from Hip-
parchus, in following an old and vulgar arrangement
of the signs, instead of the improved system recom-
mended by that astronomer. His countrymen of the
same period did precisely the sam«, as is clear from a
multitude of passages of Ovid, Pliny, and others,^
u Cap. sup. eit.
^ Petay. de doct. temp. 1. iy. c. 27. Ideler^ op. cit. p.. 368.
^ PUb. H. N. xyiu. c. 25. conf. ii. c. 19. Qyid. Fast 1. iii. y. 877. yi.
v. 725, sq. 790. Martian. Capella, de nupt. PhiloL 1. yiii. Conf. Petay.
de doct. temp. iy. c. 27. Var. diss. iiL c. 2. et Calend. Rom- ap. eund.
TJran. p. 60. Slee also fn^^mpnts of roman calendars, ap. Graey. Thes. an-
tiq. rom. torn. yiii. init.
196' ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
which assign the equinoxes and solstices to their pro-
per days according to the Julian reckoning, but to the
eighth degrees of the signs. Indeed ther'e is no rea-
son to doubt, but that Sosigenes constructed the new
roman or Julian calendar on that principle ; finding
that it harmonized with the ancient usage of Latium,
borrowed, it may be supposed, from Greece in the
hsLrly ages of the republic.
Freret has followed up his remarks upon this pas-
sage of Columella by a long catalogue of the errors
and inconsistencies of that author, and of the calen-
dars in use among the Italian peasantry in his day,
ascribing most of them to a bigoted adherence to the
supposed fasti of Meton, adapted, as he conceives, to
the positions in the age of Hesiod, about ten cen-
turies B. c. ; the cardinal points being in those days
in the eighth degrees of the constellations. As how-
ever Columella, in the only passage where he men-
tions Meton, happens to be right in his computation
of the seasons, it is hardly fair to assume that all his
mistakes rest on the authority of that philosopher.
Accordingly, in a subsequent page,^ where the critic
notices the circumstance that the Parapegma of Meton
was engraved in letters of gold, and posted up at
Olympia for the public use of Greece, he admits that
the vulgar calendar, which he supposes Columella to
have considered as emanating from Meton, must have
been falsely ascribed to that astronomer. It would
indeed be surprising if the public authorities of the
greek confederacy had recorded in letters of gold, as
a new discovery, a system which was as old as Hesiod,
and had been no better than a vulgar error ever since
1
^ P. 4S3.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT.^ SECT. V. 197
the days of that poet. Yet this very golden para-
p^ma was the same which Meton regulated by the
eighth degrees of the signs or constellations, at least
we hear of no other ascribed to him. Of the actual
degree of merit it possessed, we may judge from the
statement of Ptolemy,^ whose authority will not be
disputed, that Metpn*s observation of the solstice,
though rude, was accurate enough to be of some
assistance to Hipparchus in making his celebrated
computation of the precession of equinoxes. The
same Ptolemy' assigns it to the morning of a day of
the era of Nabonassar, identified by Petayius with the
twenty-seventh of June, who has also shown the ob-
servation itself to be sufficiently correct.* Unless,
therefore, we suppose that Meton was guilty of the
absurdity of fixing his cardinal points to the just day
of the year, while he placed them seven degrees out
of their positions in the heavens, we must admit that
the method of this astronomer is as inconsistent with
the argument of Freret, as that of Eudoxus has been
shown to be.**
The whole proof, therefore, as resting on the above
theory, of the use of the zodiac, or of its constellations
according to the received division, being known
among the heroes, rustics, or poets of the early and
7 Magn. C0118..L in. p. 62, sq. Freret (op. at p. 13) has, in quot-
ing this passage of Ptolemjr, as on so manjr other occasions, given a most
unfair interpretation of his author; as if the expression iXog^tpm^Wf
applied hy the astronomer to the ohsenration of Meton, were intended
to signify, that it was incorrect hy several days ; whereas it is clear that
he applies it only to inaccuracies of minutes, or at the most, hours, as
compared with the greater precision of Hipparchus.
> ibid.
^ According to the mean motion of the sun by which the calculations
of the ancient astronomers were regulated. De doct. temp. L. IV. c. 26.
b See Appendix, No. XXV.
198 ON TM£ CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
barbarouB ages of Greece, as well as of the Uind
deference of the philosophers of her drilized ages to
these imaginary ancient calendars, and of their wil-
lingness to sacrifice the interests of science to the
superstition and prejudice of the vulgar, falls to the
ground ; or even resolves itself into evidence of the
very reverse of all this, namely, of an arbitrary and
presumptuous spirit of innovaticm in those very sages,
who were not contented with the old and simple
method borrowed from the Egyptians or Chaldees,
and sanctioned by the earliest astrologers of their
own nation, in conformity with which, as we learn
from the express testimony of Hippardius, the car«-
dinal points were placed at the commencement of the
signs ; but each, according to his own fancy, thought
pr^e; to construct his ^here and portion his zo£.
in such a way as he found most convenient, or was
most congenial to his own taste. Nor can we have
stronger evidence of the recent introduction o£ the
zodiac into Greece than this very fact, that the dis*
tribution of its signs or constellations, it matters not
which, was, in the age of Euctemon, Meton, and
Eudoxus, so yery arbitrary ; had these constellations
been accurately defined and familiar to all ranks of
men, to the rustic or the navigator as to the sage,
during ten centuries, it is not likely that these most
popular authors of the day should so strangely have
confounded them. It would appear, then, that though
the Greeks, about the time of Thales, adopted the
astronomical symbols of the twelve divisions of the
seasons from their more ancient neighbours, they
did not at first understand their exact use. All that
seems to have been known was, that the ecliptic con-
tained twelve parts, equal perhaps according to some.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT* V. 199
•
unequal according to others ; which, under the name
of gods, animals, or other objects, bore a certain
reference to particular seasons ; but the more exact
arrangement of the gods, animals, &c. themselves,
with raspect to the three hundred and sixty degrees,
previous to the dmys of Hipparchus, depended very
much upon the fiemcy of individual astrologers*
Unless, therefore, some very important facts or
authorities, unknown to me, as well as to those who
have advocated the opposite opinions, have been
omitted in the foregoing inquiry, it will hardly be
denied, in spite of the force of association or of pre-
judice, that the internal evidence, both negative aiiid
positive, of primitive greek tradition, as well as the
testimony of the most reasonable and trustworthy of
the clas^cal authors who have treated of these mat^
ters, and who are seldom backward in assigning a
due share of antiquity to their own ii^titutions, is at
direct variance with the belief, that the constellations
of the zodiac of Greece were either of native inven^
tion, or known in that country at any v^ry remote
period.
Having thus examinjed, to the best of our ability,
the probable origin and primitive form of the egy^
tian zodiac,' and the period and circumstances of its
first introduction into Europe, I shall conclude this
essay with a few remains on lihe signs or cyphers by
which its twelve portions are still represented, and
which are in &ct mere hieroglyphics of the seasons,
as were those of the Egyptians of old, and appear to
be of very consideriable antiquity* Salmasius,*" Mont<-
faucon,"* and other learned men distinguished for their
<" la Sdin. p. 872, sqq. "^ Paloeog. f mc p. 373.
OXFORD
^OP QN THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
knowledge of ancient codices, state that they occur
familiarly in both greek and latin manuscripts ; and
Du Cange has inserted them among the Sigla vetenim
.appended to his glossary of the middle and lower
greek idiom,* M, Delambre^ observes that the only
greek work where he had observed these symbols
is the commentary of Proclus on the Apotelesmata
attributed to Ptolemy ; they occur, however, in other
published greek authors, as in the treatise of Ptolemy
himself; in the old preface to which, a table of
the signs of the zodiac, with their influences, is also
offered for the convenience of the reader, " accord-
ing to the method transmitted by Ptolemy as the
most accurate.** Hence we may infer that Ptolemy
himself, or whoever may be the author of the tetra-
biblion, also used them. They are to be seen in the
Elementa of Geminus,^ attached to various diagrams
.whereby that mathematician illustrates the argument
of his text, and which are clearly his own, as he
expressly refers to them. That his editor Petavius
should have inserted cyphers different from what
existed in the original, there is the less reason to
suppose, since some of them differ considerably in
their forms from those in modern use. That of
Capricorn especially, consisting of two distinct por-
tions, seems to refer to what I have above conjec-
tured to be the original egyptian form of the symbol,
namely, two different animals, combined by the Greeks
into one amphibious monster. This variety also
appears in the cyphers of Ptolemy, and is stated by
Salmasius^ to be usual with greek authors, while the
e Vol. II. Suppl. II. p. 2, 5.
f Hist, de TAstron. Ajic torn, II. p. 544.
< Cap. L Uran. p. 4>, sq. ^ In. Solio. p. 783, A.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 201
Latins employ the ordinary figure, which would
imply the superior antiquity of the former. The
zodiacal cyphers are also attached to geometrical
figures in Theon's commentary on the Almagest.
Macrobius* expressly refers to them under the name
of notsB or marks, as distinct from the alphabetic
letters, in his illustrations of a similar diagram, where
both are used. They appear also on the Abraxas,
or basilidian gems, published by Mont&ucon. ^ Bailly
gives, in his History of andent astronomy,^ a firagment
of a zodiac sculptured on marble, also published by
Kircher,*" which, if it be faithfully represented in his
engraving, may, from its form and execution, be con-
adered as not of the most barbarous age of roman
art, where we have, as emblems of some of the con-
steUations, apparently the same images represented
in full, of which we have the abbreviations in our
own cyphers; as the horns of the Ram, the head or
front of the Bull ; while in some of the other divi-
sions are groups, which have no apparent connexion
with either greek or egyptian mythology. The Twins,
for instance, are two sitting figures of animals resem-
bling apes. Cancer contains the head of a bird, and
the tail of some reptile or insect. Libra and Aquarius
are the same as our own. Virgo consists of three
ears of com united by a fillet ; the same number is
common on ancient monuments as an emblem of fer-
tility or plenty, and as an attribute of Isis, as, for ex-
ample, in the figure of Mesori, or Isis nursing Horns,
formerly alluded to ;"" and in a picture belonging to an
' Sonm. Scip. L I. c^ 21.
^ Antiq. Ezpliq. torn. II. pt. II. pL cxx.
I PL I. p< 487. "> CBd. .£gypt torn. IIL p. 182.
^ Sup. p. 141, ooDf. Plate V. No. 4.
W2 ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC
ancient manuBcript of Hyginus, according to Saima-
sius,"' the figiire of Virgo is represented bearing an
equal number in her hand; Of these the modem sign
of Vii^o b doubtless an abbreviation. The only edit-
ed work of arabic astrology where I haye had oppor-
tunity to observe the zodiacal cyphers, is the Globus
ocBlestis cuficoarabicus, published by Aissemanni. Scar
liger asserts that the signs of the planets are also com-
mon in the most andent manuscripts. They occur,
too, in gems/ with the exception of that of the orb
which we inhabit.
It seems very doubtful how &r these symbob, in
their present form, hieroglyphics as they are, ought
to be considered, as they frequently have been, of pure
egyptian origin. Aquarius, among those of the zo-
diac, is evidently so ; to which we may, perhaps, add
Libra, from its resemblance to one of the figures of
the theban tomb. The sign Cancer, too, as stated in
our remarks on that portion of the zodiac, seems to
be an abbreviation of the hieratic character Scao'ahee^
Among the planets, the Sun and Moon are certainly
the egyptian hieroglyphics of those luminaries ; but
the globe and crescent sugg^est themselves so natural-
ly to the human imagination, as concise methods of
representing those familiar objects, that hardly any
inference can be drawn from that circumstance re-
specting their origin. It must, however, be observed,
that the sign of the terrestrial globe, which does not
appear to have been in use among the more ancient
greek or roman astrologers, is the same as that which
"* In Solin, p. 873, G. See also the figure of Vii^go, a^ Grot, lo Gciv
mail. ph»nom. p. 14.
V Montfouc Ant ejspl. torn* ii« pt ii. pi. olix. clxviii. dxiz.
OF ANCIENT EGYPT. SECT. V. 203
Porphyry"* states to have been the egyptian symbol of
region^ country^ earth ; whose testimony has also
been confirmed by recent discoveries/ Salmasius^
however, states, that it occurs in old mathematical
works as the representative of Sphere, Circle.' The
sign of Venus ( 9 ) is the well-known egyptian em-
blem of life, the globe and cross. Salmasius^ supposes
it to be a corruption of 4>, the initial of (p^tHrp6gog^ one
of the titles of the planet, a notion more fanciful than
plaudble. That of Saturn is precisely the same as
the modem coptic letter T}, the representative of the
old hieratic j^* Salmasius would have it a contrac-
tion of the Kf . of Kfwo$. Mercury ( 5 ) is apparently
the caduceus, which may more reasonably be suppos-
ed « greek than an egyptian emblem, being an inva-
riable attribute of this deity in the greek mythology,
while there is no trace of its connexion with the Thot
of the banks of the Nile. The same author mention-
ed above supposes this cypher to represent the St of
Sr/X&vv, an epithet of Mercury, which is still less ad**
missible than his other derivations, the more since, as
he himself observes, it presupposes a latin and not a
greek S. There is more speciousness in his supposi-
tion, that Mars ( * ) is a contraction of the 6g of 0oS-
f 0^, and Jupiter ( V ) of the radical letters of the word
Zevg^ as in ancient manuscripts their respective forms
frequently show traces of such an origin." Scaliger's
derivations'" are, for the most part, very imaginary.
4 Ap. Euseb. Pnep. Ev. p. 41, D. et Procl. in Tim. Plat p. 216.
' Young, EncycL art Egfypt, No. 85. ChampoL Precis, du syst hi^rog.
tabl. g^ner. No. 240.
* In Solin. p. 874. ^ Loc. sup. cit.
u Vid. Dn Cange. and Ptol. Tetrab. sup. cit.
V Ad. Manil. p. 506. There i» an essay on this subject, by Frisch, in-
serted in the MisceL Berolin. torn. iv. p. 65, which contains a number of
204f ON THE CALENDAR AND ZODIAC, ftc.
Saturn, with him, is the scythe of its patron deity ; Ju-
piter, the thunder of Olympus ; Mars, the shield and
spear of the god ; Venus, the looking-glass of the
goddess ; Mercury, the caduceus. Goguet'' would
hare the signs of the planets to be of arabic origin,
because they are the same as the chemical cyphers
of that nation ; but it were more reasonable to sup-
pose, that they were transferred in later times from
the astrology of the Arabs to their alchymy ; from
the more ancient mystical or magical science to the
more modern ; as it can hardly be supposed that the
chemical studies of this people preceded the age of
the manuscripts above noticed, or of the gems where
these characters occur, given by Montfaucon, some
of which, being of no hielegant workmanship, must
be of a comparatively flourishing period of roman art.
other conjectures respecting the origin of these cypher^, but resting on
no authority, and very arbitrary and fancifuL
^ Origine des loix, torn. iv. p. 799, conf. Bailly, hist de Fastr. anc.
p. 518.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
No. I.— Page 12.
There appears to be an inclination in some quarters to doubt,
or to deny altogether, the existence of such a thing as a year
of three hundred and sixty days, among the Egyptians, or
any other nation of antiquity ; but not having been able to
perceive any reasonable ground for this scepticism, I have
been willing to adhere to the commonly received opinion. This
mode of reckoning certainly seems such as would offer itself
instinctively to the human understanding, when making the
first advances in the arts of civilised life. After the computa-
tion bynights and days, the firs^step towards a more artifidai
division of time would be the observation of the courses of the
moon. The synodic month is twenty-nine days and a half;
but as it is not to be supposed that barbarians would calculate
fractions of days, they would therefore reckon their month in
round numbers at thirty days* In the same way they would
observe that the moon changed twelve times in the course of
the year. They would therefore naturally assign their year
twelve months. This account of the first rude formation of
a calendar seems so simple and obvious,'^ that one mi|^ feel
surprised that its accuracy should be questioned, even were it
* Vid. Sca%. de Emend, temp. p. 12, sq. Sir I. Newton, ChronoL
p* 71. Jackson, Chrenol. Antiq. vol. ii. p. 1, sqq.
208 APPENDIX. NO. I.
not supported by a mass of tradition and authority, both
greek and barbarian, such as can hardly be brought^ to bear
on any other equally remote point of antiquity. That any
people should be willing long to adhere to so imperfect a form
of year, without correction of any kind, is no doubt highly
improbable. Those who were anxious that its revolutions
should correspond with the changes of the seasons, would en-
deavour to effect this, in as f«r as their imperfect means of
calculating these changes would permit, by some vague and
irregular mode of intercalation, by months or days, as judged
necessary from time to time. As they advanced in politeness,
they would fall upon more accurate and sett|^ methods : those
who, like the Egyptians, preferred a purely solar year, by the
permanent addition of the five epagomense, or days extraor-
dinary,, attached to no month ; others, whose habits led them
to regulate their feasts with reference to the phases of the
moon, as well as of the sun, might, like the Greeks, make
their months alternately of thirty and twenty-nine days, their
year of three hundred and fifty-four, and keep it to its posi-
tions by lunisolar cycles. This, accordingly, has been the
opinion generally entertained by the learned concerning the
gradual progress made by these two nations respectively to-
wards the final settlement of their calendar.
Professor Ideler^ is the only chronologer, as far as I know,
who has declared himself decidedly, and in detail, against the
existence, at any period, of this form of year of three hundred
and sixty days ; and yet his authorities, which he adduces, as
upon all other occasions, with great fidelity and impartiality^
appear to me altogether in favour of, rather than adverse to,
the opinions which he endeavours to confute. With respect
to the egyptian calendar, after entering at some length into
the inquiry at what time it may reasonably be supposed to have
been finally arranged by the addition of the epagomenae, he
appears to decide in favour of the date assigned by De la
Nauze, namely, the year 1322 b. c.^ But, in another place,
with something which looks like inconsistency, while contro-
to Techn. ChronoL Bd. i. s. 187. ^ Vid. Sup. p. 15.
APPENDIX. NO. I. 209
verting the views of Desvignoles, a strenuous supporter of the
year of three hundred and sixty days, he adduces the well-
known egyptian fable, that the five epagomensB were the birth
days of five principal deities, as proof that ^' the supplement-
ary days were introduced before all historical ages, at a period
concerning which only a dim tradition has been preserved.^^^
But, even admitting this, the question would be only with re-
spect to the period, as they were still supplementary days to
an older and deficient reckoning. What that reckoning was,
the subsequent form of the egyptian . calendar itself seems to
declare, namely, a year of three hundred and sixty days. This,
however, M. Ideler does not admit ; but, from some confu*
fiion or inaccuracy in a passage of Plutarch, where the fable
is narrated, would have the ancient measure of time to have
been a lunar year. The account of Plutarch® is, that ^^ Rhea
having fallen with child to Saturn, the Sun inflicted the curse
upon her, that she should produce neither on month nor year ;
but Mercury, playing at dice with the Moon, gains from her
the seventieth part of her light, out of which he formed five
days, which were added to the three hundred and sixty, and
called epagomense, and honoured as the birth-days of five dei^
ties ; on the first was bom Osiris, on the second Arueris, om
the third Typhon, on the fourth Isis, on the fifth Nephthys.''^
Five, however, are the seventy-second, not the seventieth part
of three hundred and sixty ; and, accordingly, Scaliger^ reads
iCdofAfptfOrhv hlmffx» for the edited iCdo^sixotft^v of Plutarch ; and
there can be litde doubt that this was at least the sense of the
author. M. Ideler, however, supposes Plutarch to mean a
lunar year, which would consist of three hundred and fifty
days, five being the seventieth part of three hundred and fifty.
But have we any better authority for a lunar year of three
hundred and fifty days in antiquity, than for a lunisolar year
of three hundred and sixty ? Have we, indeed, a shadow of
authority for any such mode of computation ? and is the ex-
istence of such an one more credible than of that which the
professor rejects? Besides, the five added to the old year would,
* Tecfan. Chron. B* i. 8.J90. • D^Is. et Os. c 12.
f De Emend, Temp. p. 185.
210 APPENDIX. NO. I.
upon this principle, have made it consiBt o£ only three hun-
dred and fifty-five, not three hundred and sixty-five days. In
no case can the tradition be reasonable or intelligible, unless
it be understood as of an addition of the five epagomenae to an
original three hundred and sixty. Diodorus informs us, that
in the city of Acanthus were three hundred and sixty priests^
whose office, according to ancient usage, was, one on each daj
of the year to bring water frdm the Nile, and pour it into a
Vessel perforated with holes ; and we find superstitions of a
somewhat similar nature, with an equal number of ministers,
established in other places.^ Why the number of these priests
should have been limited to three hundred and sixty, rather
than three hundred and sixty-five, unless at the remote period
of antiquity, when the rite was instituted, the egyptian year
had consisted of the former rather than the latter number of
days,-^or why they should have omitted five days in a custom
which, as Diodorus remarks, was meant to comprehend every
day in the year^— I am unable to see.
With respect to the greek year, this argument appears
equally unsatisfactory. There exists a great mass of unques-
tionable evidence, that, according to the unanimous voice of
the most ancient tradition, twelve months, consisting of thirty
days each, formed the basis of the primitive hellenic calendar,
the only attempt ever made to invalidate which resolves itself
into an hypothesis, that the sum three hundred and sixty, or
twelve times thirty, was adopted iri vulgar language as a con-
venient mode of reckoning years and months in round num-
bers, though unknown in practical use at any period, — a con-
jecture which is as inadequate to explain away the positive
terms in which the year of three hundred and sixty days is
« Bibl. histor. i. § 97, conf. § 22, not. Wess. ad loc. It would appear
that modern travellers have observed traces of these curious rites still
existing in Egypt, as transferred to the superstitions of the Coptic churcli.
" Vers la fin du siede passe," says the satirical Pauw, " Feveque d'lme
yille connue sous le nom de Siout, qu'on sait etre la Lycopolis des an-
ciens, montra au voyageur Vansleb les debris d'un monastere copte, oii
trois cent soixante religieux cherchaient sans cesse la pierre philosophale.'*
Recherches sur les Eg}*>t. Berl. 1773, torn. i. p. 299.
APPENDIX. NO. I.
211
spoken of as an Ustoribal reality, as to account for the con-
stancy^ and universality of the tradition itself, even after the
greek reckoning became purely lunar of three hundred and
fifty-four days, with months alternately of thirty and twenty-
nine.^
M. Ideler^s general and most forcible objections appear to
refer, not so much to the existence of this form of year among
any people, as to the improbability that any should long have
adhered to it without intercalation, which was a part of the
system of Desvignoles^^ to confute whom his arguments have
chiefly been directed. I regret not having had ait opportunity
of referring to the work of Desvignoles here alluded to ; in
tliis respect, however, I feel inclined to agree with his oppo-
nent, but dilFer only in supposing that the year of three hun-
dred and sixty days is, as well with reference to tradition as, to
its own internal evidence, more likely to have been the basis
of the improved calendar of the Egyptians, than the lunar
year proposed by himself; and that, with this original simple
form, a people in the infancy of civilization might, in feeUng
their way to improvement, have tried various modes of inter-
calation to adapt it to the seasons, and a considerable time
might have elapsed before they established the five epago-
mense as a substitute for all others.
As for the argument in favour of the transcendant an-
tiquity of this last-mentioned institution, derived from the
circumstance that the five days themselves were fabled
the birth-days of Osiris, Isis, and other distinguished dei-
ties, I confess it appears to me altogether fallacious. It
can only be valid on the supposition, that the year of three
hundred and sixty-five days is as ancient in Egypt as the
worship or knowledge of the deities themselves, which would
involve a very great paradox. The worship of Osiris and
Isis, the very elements or essence of the egyptian godhead,
may safely be supposed as ancient as the religion of the Egypt-
^ Vid. Scaliger, de Emend, temp. p. 22, sqq. Petav. de Doctr. temp,
lib. i. c. 6, and Var. Diss. lib. iv. c. 2, sqq.
i Chronolog^ie de Fhistoire sainte, I. vi. c. 1, torn. ii. p. 651, sqq.
212 APPENDIX. NO. I.
ians, and, consequently, more ancient than their first adoption
of the habits of civilised life, since the superstitions of every
people, if of native growth, (as there can be no doubt those of.
Egypt were,) originating in their barbarism, are afterwards
transferred and engrafted on their political institutions. But
who can doubt that the year of three hundred and sixty-five
days is the work of an already advanced state of civilization,
when the egyptian pantheon (as shall be made evident from
the names of the months, in the sequel of the text) existed in
all its integrity ? and it were the height of extravagance to
maintain, that, at this epoch, the godhead of Osiris and Isis,
the very basis of that pantheon, and of whom all its members
were little more than personifications, could be unknown on
the banks of the Nile. The celebration, therefore, of the na-
tivity of the five deities on the epagomenae can only be rea-
sonably understood as of some form of consecration of the new.
days, or commemoration of their introduction, at whatever
period that introduction may have taken place. Similar feasts
were common in the egyptian calendar, as the birth of Har-
pocrates, the birth of the eyes of Horus,^ the death of Osiris.
How unreasonable it were to take this sort of tradition by the
letter, as involving allusions to real events, we may judge by
examining the details of the above fable, as related by Plu-
tarch.^ We have seen that Rhea having become pregnant
by Saturn, the Sun cursed her ; but, by the good offices of
Mercury, she was enabled to bring fofth her five children,
Osiris, Aroueris, Typhon, Isis, Nephthys, on five successive
days. Yet, in the same chapter, we are told, that Osiris and
Aroueris were the sons of the Sun, Isis of Hermes ; and that,
while yet in their mother^s womb, Isis and Osiris had con-
nexion, the fruit of which was Aroueris, who just before was
called brother of Osiris, and offspring both of Saturn and of
the Sun ! ^ Who does not see that all these legends are ob-
scure enigmas, bearing reference to no historical facts, but to
physical or astronomical phenomena, and so confusedly repeated
by Plutarch,, as to have become still more dark and mysterious
than from their very nature they must originally have been.
k Plut. de Is. et Os. c. 52. ^ De Is. et Os. c. 12.
APPENDIX. NO. II. 213
Diodorus also gives this fable, but more briefly, and in
somewhat different terms. According to him,"* Saturn, hav-
ing married his sister Rhea, begat Osiris and Isis, or, as others
asserted, Jupiter and Juno, from whom were bom the same
five deities mentioned by Plutarch. And both authors agree
in stating," that no sooner was Osiris bom, than he set about
preventing men frpm eating each other ; and Isis contributed
her share towards raising them from a level with the brutes,
by teaching them the art of cultivating com. So that, if his>
torical value be assigned to the tradition, it would, if it prove
the antiquity of the egyptian year at all, also prove that the
people by whom it was established were cannibals, barbarians
of the lowest and most degraded caste !
No. U.-^Page 16.
It is singular enough that this author, one of the most dis-
tinguished chronologers of a nation, among whose failings a
disregard of truth is by no means conspicuous, should, through-
out his otherwise leamed and valuable works, so often broadly
and positively advance as acknowledged facts, statements to-
tally devoid of all reasonable probability, if not utterly and
palpably false. According to him, previous to the arrival of
Gecrops, the Athenians had a year of three hundred and sixty
days ; after his improvements, it consisted of three hundred
and sixty-five, that is, twelve months, and five epagomenae, as
among the Egyptians. Thales introduced the tropical year of
three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, which was
again altered by Solon into a lunar year of three hundred and
fifty-four days. The year of three hundred and sixty-five,
similar to that of Attica under Gecrops, was, he asserts, also
established at Rome by Numa. Upon all this one observa-
tion will be sufficient : Fides sit penes auctprem.
m Lib. i. § 13. n piut. op, cit c. 13. Died. lib. i. $ 14.
214 APPENDIX* NO. IV.
No. Ill— Page 16.
The language of some of the ancient commentators seems
also to hint at this, who assert that the rising of Sothis was
the new-yearVday of the Egyptians ; as Porphyry,** ^ouiifpSa
l» avroTi fi Sw^m; avaroTJ}' which may allude to a tradition con-
cerning the position it occupied at its original institution.
Some authors, however, and among them De la Nauzei* him-
self, have inferred from this and other vague passages of the
ancients, that the Egyptians had two forms of year, one move-
able and sacred, dating from the first of Thot for the time
being ; the other fixed, and in civil use, commencing with the
day on which Sinus rose heliacally. The falsehood of this
opinion has been amply shown by Ideler'^ and Biot ;^ and be-
fore them by Petavius,^ Jackson,^ and Freret," although this
last author, with an unfairness which I have found in .too
many instances characteristic of his mode of criticism, contra-
dicts himself in his controversy with Newton,'' when he finds
it suit his argument, and advocates the same opinion in dis-
proof of which he had before written a long dissertation. On
this the honest Court de Gebelin^ remarks : M. Fr6ret contte
Newton accorde done des choses, que nie M. Freret centre
De la Nauze. Est ce precipitation ? est ce oubli ?
No. IV.— Page 22.
Dupuis, in the same essay above quoted, where he supports
o De Autre nymph, p. 256, edit. Cantab. 1655.
P Mem. Acad. Inscr. xiv. p. 351. Scalig. de Emend, temp. pp. 186,
368. Bainbr. Canic. p. 26.
4 Uutersucb. Ub. d. astron. Beob. &c. s. 96. Techn. ChronoL B*^ i.
8. 174. ' Recbercbes sur Tastron. egypt p. 310.
" De Doctr. temp. lib. iii. c. 2. Var. diss. v. 4.
t Chrono). antiq. voL ii. p. 78. " Mem. Acad. Inscr. zyi. p. 308.
^ Defense de la Chron. p. 393. ^ Monde prim. tom. iv. p. 132.
APPENDIX. NO. V. 215
this opinioiiy states,* that the Egyptians were in error in sup-
posing that the coincidence of the first of Tbot with the helia-
cal rising of Sirius took place after 1461 revolutions of their
civil year ; according to him, it would only have required 1424.
The error is the critic's own, who supposes the visible heliacal
year of the star in that age and latitude to have been 365^ 6^
9' 11". An antiquary of a thousand years hence might quote
the testimony of Dupuis as proof of the backwardness of ma-
thematical science in the eighteenth century, with as much
xeason as he himself appeals to Herodotus as evidence of the
ignorance of the Egyptians.
No. v.— Page 25.
The attempt of Idelfer^ to discover an allusion to the so-
tbiac cycle in the fable of Herodotus concerning the rising of
the sun in the west, is not fortunate ; and the less so that it
is grounded on an uncritical interpretation of the grammatical
structure of the passage in which that fable is contained. So
that, as Biot has observed,^ concerning another equally un-
successful attempt : " Si Tenigme propos^e a Herodote n'est
pas une de ces forfanteries, dont les memes pretres* se mon-
traient si prodigues envers lui et les autres voyageurs, elle
reste encore a interpreter.^ The same author has shown in a
satisfactory manner, that all similar endeavours to assign mys-
terious significations to this fable must be vain ; since* ^^ le
nombre que Ton pretend interpreter, n^est pas dans T^nonce
egyptien, et qu'il r6sulte seulement du mode arbitraire d^evalu-
ation qu** Herodote y applique." The truth of this remark
will be apparent to whoever collates the egyptian chronology of
Herodotus, the basis of which is his own computation of a hun-
dred years to three generations, with the dynasties, as given
by the native authorities, Manetho and the Old Chronicle.
« P. 117. y Techn. chronoL Bd. i. s. 138.
> R«ch. sur Tastr. e^pt. p. 318. » Ibid. p. 226, 314.
216 APPENDIX. NO. VI.
Dr. Hales^i* interpretotioii of the riddle is btill less plaurible.
After reproving preceding chronologers tor having '* idly taxed
the relation of the priests, as a falsehood, a dream, or a fable,*"
he himself, without any ceremony, reduces thethree hundred and
forty-one generations of this most veradous hierarchy to about
fifty, and the eleven thousand three hundred and forty years
of Herodotus to seventeen hundred, and then applies the so-
thiac cycle to the result, in a manner which, to me at least, is
not very intelligible. It is evident, however, that by this
arbitrary mode of proceeding, any &1sehood, any dream, or
any paradox however absurd, may be constituted an ingenious
riddle and solved accordingly.
For my part I am ait a loss to see, how the statement that
the .sun had risen where he now sets, and set where he now
rises, can by any exercise of subtilty be made to bear reference
to the anomalies of the cycle. As the seasons shifted their
position in the egyptian year, the sun.might be said to effect
his summer where formerly his winter conversions, and to pro-
duce autumn where formerly spring. But the sun rose in the
east and set in the west, at one period of the cyde as at an-
other, and by no ingenuity can the contraiy statement be
shown to be any thing but a gross fakehood.
I confess I feel inclined to believe with Scaliger, Stilling-
fleet, and other sagacious critics, whose opinion Dr. Hales
treats so lightly, that here, as in other similar instances noticed
above,^ the priests were merely endeavouring to amuse them-
selves, at the expense of the credulity and simplicity of their
greek admirers.
No. VI.— Page 29.
The opinion of De la Nauze, which I had imagined to have
few or no supporters, has however lately acquired importance,
*» Analys. of Chron. vol. i. p. 39. vol. iv. p. 412, sqq.
^ Sup. pa^e 23, Note m.
APPENDIX. NO. VI. 217
from its having been adopted by the distinguished german
chronologer mentioned in the foregoing note ;^ who is inclined
to the belief, that the ancient mode of calculation, used by the
astronomers of Chaldaea, since about the year 2240 b. c, which
he assigns as the date of their earliest celestial observations,
having been found deficient and imperfect in ^4t^ b. c, had
then been abandoned ; and the egyptian solar year substituted
as a more simple and convenient mode of computation. My
reasons for preferring the opinion stated in the text are as
follows.
First ; the great improbability that the Chaldees, who were
much better astronomers than the Egyptians, (as seems dear
from the very fact that Hipparchus and Ptolemy made the
babylonish observations the basis of their improved systems,
while those of the Egyptians are not so much as hinted at,)
should, after no less than fifteen hundred years of their own
experience, have been reduced to the necessity of adopting
from their less scientific neighbours, a new form of computa-
tion. Still less, had they even been reduced to this necessity,
is it likely, that they would have found it expedient also to
fix the commencement of their new year on the same day, and
to call their months by the same names as the Egyptians.
The very circumstance that the regulator of the nabonassa-
rean sera is the Thot of 7^7 ^' ^'9 ^^ ^^ twenty-sixth of Fe-
bruary Julian, appears in itself strong evidence that the whole
system is of alexandrian, rather than of chaldee original. - It
is scarcely credible, that a proud and superstitious hierarchy
should at so advanced a period of their own civilization, not
only servilely adopt a foreign calendar, with foreign names of
the months ; but those names the titles of strange gods, mem-
bers of the pantheon of their ancient and national eiiemies.
This were the more improbable, since, as Hyde^ has shown,
their subjects the Persians had used from a remote period of
antiquity the year of three hundred and sixty-five days ; so
^ Ideler, Untersuch. iiber die astron. Beob. &c. s. 145, sqq. Techn.
chronol. Bd. i. s. 205, sqq.
« Dc relig. vet Pers. c. xiy.
/
218 APPENDIX. NO. VI,
that it would have been unnecessary to trayel to a far distant
and foreign country, in search of so simple an institution.
Secondly ; the terms of the text of Ptolemy, from whom
all our information respecting this era is derived, appear in-
consistent with such a belief. That author, (or rather Hip-
parchus whom he follows) invariably distinguishes between
the era as that of Nabonassar, d^rh Na^ovatftfa^, and the year
as that peculiar to the Egyptians, »ar Alyufrrloug' and in so
pointed a manner, as can hardly admit of a suspicion, that
the latter was common to both nations. Had the astronomical
reckoning of the Chaldees been attached to this form of year,
with the same names of the months, in their corresponding
positions with respect to the sun^s course, during nearly six
centuries, it would in fact have become, in as far as Hippar-
chus was concerned, in an astronomical point of view, equally,
or rather by preference, the chaldee year ; for there is not a
single observation of the Egyptians themselves recorded by
either Hipparchus or Ptolemy. So that the expressions ttar
AtyvTrioug^ SO often repeated by them, might have been omit-
ted or changed into «ara XcO^kug/ That this was merely a
standard reckoning, adopted fpr its convenience by the alexan^
drian Greeks, appears, &om its being applied by them pre-
cisely in a similar manner, to the calendars and periods of all
the other nations without exception, whose observations of the
heavens they quote. Besides the egyptian dates, we not un-
frequently find those of the athenian archons, and attic lunar
months, added for farther illustration ; but the old babylonian
civil calendar being no way familiar to the Greeks^ and having
been supplanted by that of the macedonian conquerors long
before the days of Hipparchus, it had been quite useless for
him, who wrote merely for hi» own countrymen, (still more so
for Ptolemy,) to have assigned dates to the babylonian eclipses
' It will be observed, tbat the term xar' Aiyvrrtougf bas more force than
that of sTuv aJyv^TtaxuVy also frequently employed by Ptolemy. The
egyptian year, if adopted by the Chaldees, might reasonably continue to
be named STog a/yu^rr/ax^v, as distinct from their old vulgar and national
reckoning. But the computation, »^t Alyu'jrriwg^ or according to the
Egyptiansy must refer to something peculiar to themselves.
APPENDIX. NO. VI. 219
according to that obsolete mode of computation. Ptolemy ^
quotes two observations of the roman mathematician Mene-
laus, assigning them their dates according to the egyptian
year, without the least hint at either month or year of the
roman calendar ; but we cannot infer from this that the egyp-
tian year was in use in Rome.
The history of the chaldean calendar is itself so excessively
obscure, that on these points miich must be left to conjecture ;
but, at least, the mere existence of the nabonassarean sera is
not sufficient, without farther evidence, to justify our admis-
sion of so important a fact in the history of ancient civilization,
as the servile adoption of the egyptian year, with its months,
their names, and positions in the seasons, by the Gh^ld^es, in
the year 7*7 b. c.
In as far however as modem authorities are concerned, it
may be observed, that M. Ideler is mistaken in supposing, as he
does,^ that Fr6ret was th,e first or only chronologer^who held the
opinion here adopted, having overlooked (not to mention
our own Jackson^) no less a person than Petavius,^ the prince
of modem chronologers, who condemns, in strcmg terms, the
contrary sentiment entertained by Scaliger. Nam oSB^'gyptiorum
propria fuit ilia sequabilis annorum forma,, quae ab sera Na-
bonassari tempora deducebat ; quorum titulus solus chaldaicus
fuit, anni descriptio u^gyptiorum propria ; cum enim ^gyptii
mathematicas omnes observationes ex Chaldoeorum commen-
tariis didicissent, ubi illse Nabonassari aerse consignatse lege-
bantur, cum epocha Nabonassari ad anni sui formam appli-
carunt ; similiter ac si quis Saracenorum Arabumque res gestas
ex nostris in historiam redigens, ab initio Mahommedis annos
numeret ; aut quemadmodum chronologi vulgo anni juliani
formam, ad orbis conditi, et nationum omnium iempus accom-
modant. ^
c Ma^. CoDstr. 1. vii. p. 170, 171.
^ Untersuch* s. 146. Techn. chronoL loc. cit.
i Chronolog. antiq. vol. ii. p. 80, sqq. whose remarks are extremely
sound and conclusive ; though he seeuis also to have claimed the credit
which Ideler gives Freret, of having been the first who took the yiew
of the nabonassarean sera here supported.
^ De Doct temp. L iii* c. 6*
3
220 APPENDIX. NO. VII.
No. VII.— Page 30.
As the year of three hundred and sixty-five days falls short
of the heliacal year of Sirius at the regular rate of six hours
each revolution, consistently with the visible motion of the
heavenly bodies, Sirius would rise four years successively on
the same day of the egyptian year, as, for instance, on the
first of Thot, and then pass on to the next. In framing a
cycle, therefore, for the purpose of chronological computation,
it would be necessary to establish one of the four years on
which Sirius so rose on the first of Thot, as the fundamental
epoch or first year of the period, say the first of the four. In
order to find the year of the cycle elapsed at any particular
time, we should then multiply by four the number of days
counted from the first of Thot for the time being, itself in-
cluded, to the day on which Sirius rose heliacally in the year
for which the calculation was made, itself not included, adding
to the product a number equal to the times which Sirius had
already risen heliacally on that day. The sum will be the
year of the cycle required.
For example, if Sirius rose for the third time on the tenth
of Phamenoth, the seventh egyptian month, what was the
year of the cycle ?
30 X 6 + 9 = 189 days, x 4 = 766 + 3 = 769 years. So
that the date required was the seven hundred and fifty-ninth
year of the cycle.
Hence at the moment when Sirius rose heliacally for the
third time on the tenth of Phamenoth, there would have
elapsed of this cycle 768 full Julian years, and 768 ^yptian
years, six jaonths, nine days.
According to the most accurate calculations,^ Sirius rose
heliacally on the first of Thot, in the years b. c. 1326, 1324,
1323, 1322 ; and consequently in a. d. 136, 137, 138, 139.
^ See Dodwell, append, ad diss. cypr. $ 17. Desvign. de ann> segypt
in Misc. Berol. t iv. p. 14. Ideler, Techn. chronol* bd. i. s. 128.
APPENDIX. NO. VIII. 221
It seems more probable that the Egyptians would choose the
first year of the coincidence as the epoch of their cycle, in
"which case we ought to prefer 1325 b. c. as the basis of any
chronological computation grounded on its revolution. But
as Censorinus, the first author from whom we have any authen-
tic details respecting the canicular reckoning, assumed the
year 139, and consequently 1322, as a standard, and has been
followed in this by most of the modems, I have not been
willing to depart &om the received method.
No. VIII.— Page 49 and 69.
I must not here overlook the circumstance, that many
authors,™ assuming that Sotfais the star and Thot the deity
were originally connected in name and attribute, have inferred,
that the commencement of the egyptian year was, at its early
institution, or at least from the period of its first month having
received the name of Thot, fixed to the heliacal rising of
Sirius ; an opinion which, if admitted, would interfere very
much with those advanced in this dissertation ; but which,
I am convinced, is altogether false. It appears to rest chiefly
upon the supposition, that Sothis, like the greek appellation
of the same star, meant dog in the egyptian language ; and
that Thot or Mercury being also represented among the
Egyptians in the form of a dog, the two terms, Sothis and
Thot, must be considered as synonymous, the star being
merely a celestial representative of the god ; from whence it
is farther inferred, that the same name and mythological
character having been applied to the first day of the year,
as to the star, the one must necessarily, in the infancy of the
calendar, have coincided with the heliacal rising of the other.
*" De la Nauze, M^m. de TAcacl. des Inscr. torn. xiv. p. 347. Fr^ret,
Def. de la Chron. p. 407, sq. Gatterer, Weltgesch. B^ i. s. 214. Bailly,
Hist, de TAstron. anc. p. 269. Ideler, Untersuch. &:c. s. 71. Techn.
Chron. bd. i. s. 126, &c.
222 APPENDIX. NO. VIII.
Not one of these assumptions, however, rests on any satis-
factory evidence. On the contrary, each one of them appears
to be repugnant to the spirit, as well of the pure mythology
as of the figurative language of Egypt. That the names
Sothis, and Thot or Thooiit, as written by the Egyptians, are
the same, or that either of them denoted dog will, I conceive,
hardly be maintained by any Coptic scholar of the present
day ; nor is there a single ancient authority for such a belief.
Kircher, as is well. known, interpolated several articles out of
his own imagination into the copto-arabic lexicon edited by
him, and among others, nicioeic, or iiicinei was inserted
with the signification dog attached to it ; a fraud suggested
by the above mentioned fallacious inference, that because
Sirius is called the ddgstar by the Greeks, and Sothis by the
Egyptians, Sothis must therefore denote dog in Egyptian.
Several learned men° have been led into error by the cheat,
whicli was however detected, and exposed by Jablonski.''
Yet M . KlaprothP has recently advanced this word, as the
egyptian name of the animal. He admits that it rests on the
sole authority of Kircher, and that it has been surreptitiously
inserted by him in the Scala Magna ; but observes, that as
Jablonski had not .proved, in opposition to Kircher, that it
was not really an egyptian word, he is willing to adopt it.
But surely this is a strange method of criticism. Is the fiat
of Kircher sufficient to establish a word as pure egyptian, for
which there is no other authority, at the very moment when
he is found guilty of a fraud ? At this rate, any le^cographer
who wished to fill up space, might insert as many words out
of his own head as suited his convenience, and when called
to account, has only to challenge his critics to show them to
be spurious. The onus probandi lay not on Jablonski, but
the Jesuit and his followers. The learned orientalist, however,
does not seem to insist on the genuineness of the word,"^ and
n Frdret, et al. sup. cit Bochart, Hic^roz. p. 691* £d. 1712.
o Fanth. lib. iii. -cap. 2. $ 9.
P Prem. Lettre a M. de Giulianoff suf les Hierog^. Acrolog^ques, pp*
17. 43.
^ Lett. II. sur les Hier. Acrol. p. 31.
APPENDIX. NO. VIII. 223
»
is too sound a critic not to be i^U aware of ite real inadmis-
sibility, though he may carelessly have quoted it for the sake
of argument.
The name Sothis, according to Plutarch/ signified concep-
tion or pregnancy, which, if the etymology were admitted,
would contain a very palpable allegorical allusion to its sup-
posed influence on the inundation, big with the fertility and
prosperity of Egypt. The valu€ of his interpretation, how-
ever, is destroyed by an attempt (not unusual with him in
such cases) to strain, by a silly pun, some analogy between
the egyptian sense of the tern}, and the idiom of his own. lan-
guage ; for «ug/y, says he, in greek, means to conceive, aa
ffoidl in egyptian ; hence the greek name »vw of the star. The
falsehood of this conceit, if not in other respects palpable, it
were easy to show by a reference to the most ancient of greek
fabulists, who thus describes the dog star :
• • . ^gri^a . * .
'Oi ^ T h'JFiii^g sh/v, «^/^9jXoi ds 6i avyai
*'Oy re kw 'Xl^io/fo^ WUKn^if/v Ka7^<nj<ftv.^
Orion was a great hunter of the early greek tradition,
transferred by the fable at his death into a brilliant constella-^
^on ; and another very bright star in his neighbourhood was
naturally enough called his dog. Greek mythologists are
unanimous on this point. But the noxious influences ascribed
by the poet to the star still farther disproye any connexion^
not only between the two names, but between > greek and
egyptian superstition in general, in as far as it is concerned.
For, on the banks of the Nile, its reappearance was hailed
as the attendant of the inundation, the most joyful and agree-
able season of the year, and as the forerunner and guarantee
of divine favour and a productive harvest. Whereas the greek
poet describes it merely as '^ an evil omen announcing scorch-
ing heat to wretched mortals f^
' De Is. et Os. c. 61. « Homer, U. %. 27.
224 APPENDIX. NO. VIII.
Aofiv^arog fiiv 8y ff<rr/, xan^ ds re fff^fiM Tgrtmrou,
Kai n pi^i mD^hv iru^Hv buKHfit ^^otSi,^
That Sothis signified dog-star of dog^ or had any original
connexion with Thot, is still farther disproved by the terms
in which it is mentioned, as well by Plutarch himself in
various passages, as by a multitude of other classical illustra-
tors of egyptian antiquity. *^ The Egyptians,'^ says Damas-
dus,*^ ** assert that Sothis is Isis^ while the Greeks consider
this star as the same with Sirius, and Sirius is the same as
the Dog of Orion.'" Horapollo :^ " When they would denote
a year, they draw Isis, that is, the iigure of a woman, by
which they also represent the goddess. But Isis is toith them
a star, called by the Egyptians Sothis, but by the Grreeks
Dog-star, which seems to reign over the other stars, and by
the rising of which they regulate the prognostications of their
calendar.*" Plutarch :^ ^^ The Egyptians consider the Dog-
star as sacred to Isis.^' It were needless to accumulate quota-
tions, but many other authorities might be adduced, whose
evidence corresponds with those above cited. From all this
it appears, first, that the star which the Greeks called D(^-
'star, was indeed the same which the Egyptians knew by the
name of Sothis, but there is no trace of this name itte^ de-
noting a dog, or any thing of the kind. Secondly, That
Sothis was a representative of Isis, or at least consecrated to
that goddess, and not to Thot ; whose name, as far as I know,
is never mentioned in connexion with this star by any author
worthy of notice ; which would be unaccountable considering
the multitude there are who have treated minutely of both,
if the star were, I wQl not say dedicated to him, but actually
himself, the two names being synonymous. Thirdly, That
Sothis being Isis, or consecrated to Isis, was a female star;
hence the name. also is with the Greeks, as might be expect-
ed, feminine, fi Iu6ts; whereas Thot is a male deity, and
the greek i&r^xvoj¥ or kvcov '^n^/wvo; is also masculine. It will
t II. X' 30.
"i Apud Phot. cod. ccxlii. p. 1043. Ed. Schott. 1611.
^ Hierog. lib. i. c. 3. ^ De Is. et Os. c- 61.
APPENDIX. NO. VIII* 225
hardljr be supposed that the Egyptians gave either their
deity Isis, or her favpurite celestial orb, the name of she-dog.
On this point we have still a passage of Plutarch* more ex-
plicit than any hitherto quoted, and totally incompatible with
such a supposition. The Egyptians, he informs us, supposed
that the bodies of certain deities were preserved among them-
selves upon earth, " while their souls were translated to heaven,
there to shine forth as so many stars. Thus the soul of Isis
is what the Greeks call Dog-star, but the Egyptians Sothis.**^
That Sothis was sacred to Isis may farther be gathered from
the egyptian zodiacs, where this star or constellation is repre->
sented as a heifer, one of the sacred emblems of that deity :
the identity is not to be questioned, as the figure occurs regu-
larly in its place in the sign Cancer, accompanied by acces-
saries whose signification cannot well be misunderstood. But
in no one of these astronomical monuments, or any others
which I have seen, is there the appearance of a dog, or any
animal in the least resembling one, still less of Thot, or his
attributes or emblems, occupying a place in the portion of the
sign Cancer devoted to the constellation Sothis. Traces of
the egyptian character of the star we have also in the later
greek or roman mythology; as in a gem given by De la
Chausse,^ where we have a female bearing ears of com in one
hand, and a plate of fruits or vegetables in the other, with the
legend C£I. for Sc/jp/o;, as justly interpreted by the ingcniou
author of the compilation*
All this seems to be confirmed by the following passage of
Salt's Essay on Phonetic Hieroglyphics,* which, if the value
attached by him to his cyphers be admitted, would seem to
put the matter beyond controversy ; ^* The phonetic name of
Sothis is very frequent, but it is generally found accompany-
ing a figure of Isis ... it is composed of a star 2, the upper
half of a circle 0, and an egg 2.''
The true etymology of the word Sothis is very doubtful.
That suggested by Plutarch is in itself not devoid of speciousr
» De Is. et Os. c. 21.
7 Gemme antiche figiirate, No. 109. Romis 170P, 4t9.
* P. 48, pL iii. Q.
Q
226 APPENDIX. KO. VIH.
I168S, and has been ingeniously enough referred to di^ ooptic
haxgnage by Jablonski,* who, however, in support of some
fuTourite system, prefers another of a much less plausible
description. I should be disposed, from the positiye way in
which HorapoUo** and others assert that the star was called
Isis^ or the star of Iris, to consider it as the compound sot-
eH£l, literally, the star Iris, or the star of Isis« contracted by
the Greeks into 22^ts^ On the other hand, the pristine rig-
nification of the name Thot or Th6out as written by the
Egyptians, appears very obvious, from a comparison of the
attributes of this god of science and all civil institutions, with
* Panth. lib. iii. c. 2. § 10, pt 2, p. 48.
^ Lib. cit. § 10. p. 52.
^ The variety Xif^ of the name, which might appear at v^biance with
this deriyation, rests on the sole testimony of Vettius Yalens, an author
of little weigfhti frequently quoted from MS*, but not yet published.
(Scalier. Can. hag. p. 275. £d. 1658. Marsh. Chron. Can. p. 9.) Plu«
tarch, on the other hand) (de Is. c 41. 49. 62.) asserts, that Seth, 2,||,
was an egyptian name of Typhon, denoting violence, wHch is much
more probable ; the word is apparently the same primitive radical as the
arabic I^Lm Sat, to bum up or destroy, (this being the peculiar occupation
of Typhon); whence the nanie of Satan^ whose character in the orien-
tal mythus answers to that of the egyptian dnmoui the fiery fiend, or
evil genius. Both are also occasionally personided as serpents. The
greek Tv^uivt (the archaic form of the word) corresponds exactly in
name as in attribute; this appellation being of pure hellenic origina
from rvp^y Tt^ej, signifying fiery or unwholesome vapours. The at-
tempts to force an egyptian etymology upon it ar^ worthy of no atteft-
tion.
The identity of these mysterious personages, as typical of the eml
principle in the common legend of the primaeval human race, appears
farther, from their having each been held to have been precipitated by
the deity into the abyss* Concerning the tm« Satan, the prototype of
• ail, we need cite no pagan authority. Mahomet calls the arabian dsmon
. Satan radjim ^i\^j Satan stoned, lapidibus obrutos. (Kor. Sur. xv. 17.
conf. Not. Maracij et GoL Lex. in v.) Concerning the egyptian Typhon,
see Herodotus (iiL 5.) Concerning the greek, Horn. IL j3. 782. Hesiod.
Theog. 821, sqq. Find. Ol. iv. 12. Pyth. i. 31.
As it is not very probable that Typhon, the evil genius, and Sothis,
the good genius, should be designated among the Egyptians by the same
name, the form Seth, as applied to the latter, cannot be admitted on such
indifferent authority.
APPENDIX. NO. VIII* ^27
tbe sense of the Coptic roots of similar sound and orthography.
©nOTT in Coptic means an assembly, meeting, or council,^
On the monuments, the deity is frequently represented bear-
ing in jhifl hand the hieroglyphic symbol^ denoting Assembly,
Senate, 'jravtr/v^igy &c., as evidently exercising an influence over
iheir proceedings or periodical meetings ; and we have autho^
rity to believe, that in a mysterious sense, assembly or Thoout,
the egyptian Mercury, and scientific invention or improvement,
of which he was patron, were nearly synonymous. ^^ The
god Mercury,^^ says Jamblichus,^ in his work on the egyptian
mysteries, ^^ was considered as the cbmmon genius of the
priesthood, since the patron deity of science is one and the
same in all. Hence the ancients dedicated the inventions of
their own wisdom to Mercury, inscribing all their treatises
with his name.^ " In Egypt,'** says Galen,« ^^ it was neces-
sary that every new discovery in the arts should be approved
of and sanctioned by the common council of the learned ; after
which it was inscribed, without the name of the author, on
the sacred columns, and deposited in the archives. Hence
80 great a number of books ascribed to Mercury.^ Here then
Mercury, and the assembly of the learned, or college of priests,
as public and ostensible authors of all inventions, are one and
the same ; Thoout therefore was merely a figure of the inven^
tive and intellectual faculties of humanity. Proclus relates
nearly the same thing of the P)rthagoreani9, whose school was
formed on the egyptian model : r^v »oimvi(tv ^o^di^ovTo r^v h roug
quoting these authorities, Jablonski observes :b «< Sponte
consequitur, Thot proprie Aiisse numen sacerdotale, quod
sacerdotibus eorumque coliegiis omnibus, itidem eoruin inven-
tis, ac scientiis cunctis preess^ cnederetur.'*' He then, how-
ever, as too commonly happens with him, passes over with
neglect the more simple and obvious sense of the name of the
' Croze. Lex. iEgypt. in v.
® Champol. Precis da Syst. Hier. p. 213^ sq.
^ De myst. tRgy^tisLC. iuitio.
s Vid. Gale, not. ad JambL loc. sup. eit
^ Panth. lib. y. c 6, { U . pt 3, p, 170.
228 APPENDIX. NO. VIII.
deity, to exercise his learning or his ingenuity in farfetcbed *
and less pointed illustrations.
It is evident, then, that the opinion now under examina-
tion, is far from being justified by any connexion between the
names of Thot and Sothis. Another cause of error has been
the notion, suggested by a superficial view of egyptian
superstition, that Thot was the same person as Anubis, the
dog-headed deity, which has gone much to confirm the
belief that he was the same as the dogstar. This opinion is
however also inconsistent with the pure egyptian doctrine.
The greek, or rather the latin authors of the lower ages of
classical antiquity, amid the confiision introduced by them
into the ancient mythology, by their attempts to identify the
gods of all the neighbouring nations with their own, were
no doubt in the habit of calling both Thot and Anubis,
and perhaps several other egyptian divinities, by the name of
Hermes or Mercury. But these two, in the original pan-
theon, were distinct persons. The first was a deity of high
rank and dignified office, as above described ; and represented
with the head of an ibis, or sometimes by the bird itself The
other was represented with the head of a dog, or rather, as
M. Champollion,^ I conceive justly, observes, of a jackal,
mistaken by the Greeks for a household dog. His precise at-
tributes are little known, but he seems to have been a \&j
subordinate divinity, a drudge (or lUm^s-profcider as it were)
of Thot, in his capacity of secretary or chief minister of Osiris
and Isis. The distinction between the two is laid down indeed
accurately enough by several of the classics ; who inform us
that the sacred animals of the one were the ibis, and cynoce-
phalus or egyptian ape; of the other, the dog or jackal.^
The one was worshipped at Hermopolis, the sacred dty of
the Cynocephalus ; the other at CynopoUs, the sacred city of
the Dog.^ Here accident opened a wide door to error ; the
ape called dqgheaded by the Greeks being the emblem of the
i Pk'ec. da syst. hier. p. 155. The household dog, however, firora the
general testimony of authors, seems to have been also sacred to him.
^ Auctor. apud Jablonsk. Panth. lib. v. c. 1. $ 3. c. 5. § 0. sqq.
^ Strabo, p. 1151. Ed. Falo. ^lian. Anim. z. 29. &c.
APPENDIX. NO. IX. 229
one deity, the dog that of the other, naturally led to a confu-
sion of the two ; and it is clear how obvious it was, for such
fanciful interpreters farther to confound both with their Dog-
star ; which, after all, none of the more profound or discreet
illustrators of egyptian tradition have done, JablonsM," al-
though for the sake of arrangement he calls both these deities
•Mercury, in conformity with the old classical phraseology, has
yet judiciously classed them as quite distinct personages of
his pantheon. ^
No. IX.— Page 52.
Under the term weste$n^ I would be understood to include
certain* oriental nations of modern times, whose zodiacs, from
their close resemblance to that of Egypt or Greece, cannot
but be considered as borrowed directly or indirectly, in the vi-
cissitudes of the history of science, from one or other of those
countries. That such is the case with respect to the sphere
of the Arabs and Persians is generally admitted ; which
makes it the more surprising, that a person usually so well
informed on these subjects as De la Nauze'^ should assert, that
>^ no connexion can be traced between the names of the signs
which we have adopted from the Greeks, and those by which
they are known among the Arabs, and other oriental nations,
who are supposed to have best preserved the remains of the
ancient egyptian sphere C a statement disproved in the most
jdistinct and positive manner, by almost every author, oriental
or european, who has treated of these matters.^ 'Sir William
Jones,!^ it is true, strenuously asserts the claims of the Hin^
m Panth. lib. v. c. 1. J 11. p. 25.
^ Mem. de TAcad. des Inscr. t. xiv. p. 360.
** Scalig. ad ManiL p. 480, ed. 1600. Maracci, Not ad alcoran, Sur.
XV. V. 16. GoL ad Alfergp. p. 16. Hyde ad Ulugh Beigh. p. 4, &c. &c.
conf. Joilois et Devilliers. M^m. sur les bas reliefs astron. in Descr. de
TEgr. p. 445, 446. PI. A.
P Asiat Res. .vol. ii. p. 289, sqq, artic XVI.
230 APPENDIX. NO. IX.
dvLBy if not to the ori^nal inyention, at least to the knowledge
and use of the twelve signs, from the remotest periods of an-
tiquity. But as the zodiac, which he^ and other illustrators
of Indian astronomy' have given us, is precisely the same as
that of the Greeks, it is impossible to suppose but that the one
is borrowed from the other ; and that the Greeks have bor-
rowed from the Indians is hardly to be conceived. Sir Wil-
liam appeals to the vast antiquity of indian science ; to the
contempt of the Hindus for every thing foreign ; and the scorn
and ridicule with which their sages treat the notion of their
having been indebted, directly or indirectly, to the Javans or
Greeks, for any of their institutions. Yet, after all, he sums up
with the conclusion,* that " the practice of observing the stars
began in Chaldaea, from whence it was propagated into Egypt,
India, Greece, &c. before the reign of Sisac or Sacya, who by
'Conquest spread a new system of re%ion and philosophy from
the Nile to the Ganges, about a thousand years b. c."" It is
not easy to reconcile ^this admission of a new system from
Egypt in the tenth century b. c. with the immense antiquity
of their astronomical science, and abhorrence of foreign inno-
vation. If Sir William Jones eould, consistently with his
system, believe the paradox, that the egyptian Sisac conquer-
ed all Asia, and introduced a civil as well as a political revo-
lution into India in the tenth century 'b. c, may we not be
permitted to suppose, that the zodiac was borrowed from the
Greeks, successors of Alexander^ or the arab conquerors of the
middle ages ; and that Sir William^s indian authorities who
assert the contrary, are as fallacious as those on whom he rests
his belief of the empire of Sisac.
Mr. Bentley, a writer of equal authority on these points,
has founded on the same evidence a very different opinion ;
treating very lightly both the antiquity of the astrono^
my of the Indians, and the genuineness of their supposed
primeval records.^ " The most candid part of the Hindus,"
4 Lib. Git. pw 303.
' Conf. Philosoph. trans, vol. bEii. an. 1772. BatUy, Hist, de PastrW'
anc. PL I. p. 487.
■ P. 306. t Asiat Res, vol viii, p. 20a
APPENDIX. NO. IX. 231
fiays be, *^ acknowledge that literary forgeries are frequently
committed, in consequence of the depravity of the age ve live
in, which can relish nothing but what is supposed to bear the
atamp of antiquity. Hence learned men are under the neces-
sity of fathering their works on the sag^s of early times ;^^ and
h^ adds, that on account of the great ignorance and supersti-.
tion of the hindu reading public, " every species of literary,
imposition may be committed without the smallest danger of
detection.*^
Captain Wilfwft" informs us, after his Pundit, that tlm
constellations of Cassiopea, Cepheus, Perseus, and Androme-
da, were also in the Indian sphere. He, too, with the natural
partiality of an oriental antiquary, refers the origin of the
names of these asterisms, as well as of the fables attached to
them, to the tradition of the gymno-sophists. The impartial
mythologist will perhn)s judge differently.
" The Hindus'' says Mr. Colebroke,^ another acute and
laborious inquirer into the history of indian astrology, *^ have
adopted the division of the ecliptic into twelve signs or con-
stellations, agreeing in figure and designation with those of
the Greeks... >That they took the hint of this mode of dividing
the ecliptic from the Greeks is not altogether improbable.'*^
And in another place, treating of the correspondence of the
Daresh' canas with the Decani of the egyptian, greek, and
roman astrologers ; after adopting the opinion of Huet the
commentator of Manilius, that the word Decanus was corruptly
formed by the astrologers of Alexandria, from the greek nu-
meral dsKUy he observes:^ *'The Sanscrit name apparently
comes from the same source. I do not suppose it to be originally
Sanscrit, since in that language it bears no etymological signi-
fication. For the same reason it is likely that the astrological
doctrine itself may be exotic in India. One branch of astro-*
logy> entitled Tijaca, has been confessedly borrowed from the
Arabians ; and the technical terms used in it are, as I am in-
formed by hindu astrologers, arable. The casting of nativities,
" Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 433. ^
^ Asiat. Res. vq|. ix. No. 6. p. 347.
^ Ibid. p. 375, sq.
^Q APPENDIX. NO. X*
though its practice is of more ancient date in India, may also
have been received firom western astrologers; Egyptians,
Chaldeans, or even Greeks.^ He also states, that one of their
highest authorities^ ^^ Var^a Mihira himself, as interpreted
by his commentator, quotes the Yavanas, (meaning perhaps
grecian authors) inia manner which indicates that' the descrip-
tion of the Dr6shcdnas is borrowed from them." One of these
was called Yavani ch&rya — ^probably a greek philo8(^her of
the name of Chares. All this is sufficient answer to the re-^
marks of Sir William Jones on the contempt of the Bramas
for the science of western nations.'
No- X.— Page Sa
That this was the true raeuiing of Eudoxus appears from
the peculiar tenor of the passage itself, fragment as it isv which
evidently bears reference to a comparison drawn by that philo-
sopher, between the motions of the sun, and those of some
other heavenly body, whose retrograde course in the ecliptic
was much more remarkable ; and from the general context of
Hipparchus it would appear that that heavenly body was the
moon. The moon^s nodes, or the points at which she crosses
the ecliptic in her orbit, have a retrograde motion of 19^ de-
grees every year ; so that they shift through all the signs and
degrees of the ecliptic in eighteen years, two hundred and
twenty-iive days. It would appear then probable, that Eu-t
doxus, having just before remarked this great variation of the
orbit of the moon, adds ;^ ^{vsrai ds hia^o^v ruv xara t^oq toww
x&i 6 iXtOi ^oiovfiivoiy u^XoTs^ov ds ^oXX^ X0L4 vavTiXui hXlyfiv literally ;
^ but the sun also appears to vary his tropical points, though
much less perceptibly and in a very slight degree.*" The
commentators have however understood him to say, that the
sun one year effected its conversions farther to the north, an-
^ Conf. Delambre, Hist, de Fastr. anc. torn. i. L iuc. 3. p. 446.
y Hipparch. in Phaenom. L i. c. 21. p. 112.
APPENDIX. NO. XI. 283
i>tlier farther to the south ; that is, that its orbit was one year
more, another less inclined to the equator ; a sense which is
far from being implied in his own words. Eudoxus may have
expressed himself obscurely, as being really little familiar with
the true nature of the phenomenon ; and Hipparchus, who is
admitted to have been ignorant of it, at the time when he com*
posed the treatise where this passage occurs, may have misun-
derstood him ; but there is no reasonable ground to doubt,
that the words of the cnidian philosopher contain «n allusion,
however vague, to the precession of equinoxes.
No. XL— Page 66.
Bruce calls this stela « a Tot'' (Thot) « or calendar ^
•both which appellations may be to a certain extent correct ;
AS the human figure which it contains, from a comparison
with other monuments, I conjecture to be the god Lunus or
Moon, who, there seems little reason to doubt, is the deity of
jfche egyptian pantheon frequently represented with a similar
horn, and standing upon two crocodiles ;' itnd a lunar reckon-
ing being the primitive foundation of the egyptian, as of all
other calendars, the divinity of the moon might not improba*
bly be fabled to exercise an influence over it. It would ap-
pear also that the same luminary was not unfrequently person-
ified by the god Thot,^ who was unquestionably the patron
,^ty of the calendar as of all other scientific institutions.
There can therefore be little doubt but that the physical sym-
bols which this deity holds, or by which he is surrounded, are
connected with the zodiac. The orphic sage, the fragments
lof whose works contain so many traces of egyptian mythology,
4q[>pears to make, as quoted by Proclus ad Hesiod. dies, p.
168, very unequivocal allusion to this single horn of the god
« ChampoL Panth. pi. 14*, H. 14, F. ter. 14>, D. Conf. Montf. ant
«xpl. t ii. pt ii pL cxxvii.
* ChampoL op* cit. ibid, et alibi.
234 APPENDIX^ NO. xn.
Lunus, 'O M^ff h aUfi {rfl i^) m^* *0^it^utu^{>erat Mvt&u^
No. XII.— Page 83.
Jftblonski^ has analysed tlie character and properties of this
goddess with much learning and acuteness, though some of
his conclusions may not perhaps be in strict harmony with
the pure spirit of egyptian mythology. His etymology is
certainly false : yet I incline to believe, that the influence
which he assigns Athor in the cosmogony, as primeval princi-
ple of dusk or darkness, whence springs light and the sun,
according to the orphic tradition, is justified by the general
tenor of the testimony of both authorities and raonumoits.
M. ChampoUion, while advocating a different opinion, has
here, as on other occasions, treated the views of this valuable
liuthor with |i degree of contemptuous severity, which was
neither necessary nor warranted by any new light hitherto
thrown on the properties of Athor by his own researches.
The internal evidence even of those monuments which he him-
aelf has published and illustrated, appears to me very much to
confirm the views of Jablonski. The french critic in his Pan-
thecm^ describes a goddess as, ^^ Bouto nourrice des dieux, em-
bUme de Tantique nuit ou des t^nebres primitives. On donnait
avec raison le sumom de mere des dieux a la d^esse Bouto, puis«-
que unie aux dieu Phtha elle avait enfant6 Phr^ ou le sdeil,
desquels naquirent ensuite tons les autres dieux.'' Compare this
with the following passage of his description of Athor :^ <* Phtha
6tant le pere de tous les dieux, la d^sse Hathor sa compagne
fidele, d{it passer sinon pour leur mere, du moins pour leur
nourrice.^ It appears then quite clear according to this ac-
count, that Athor and Bouto are merely different personifies^
^ See Fragfoi. zxxvi. Edit. Gessn. p* 307.
• Paoth. lib. i. initio. PL 23, 23, ft.
• Op. cit pi. 18.
APPENDIX, NO. XIII. 235
tions of the same primeval Night, spouse of Phtba ; which i9
precisely the system of JabloQski/ In another place however^
M. ChampoUion in his ardour to confute his brother antiquary,
has I fear contradicted himself. '^ Jablonski/^ says be,^ ^^ en-»
train6 par Tesprit de systeme, a voulu conclure que la deesse
egyptienne Athor, etait la nuit et le principe de toutes choses.
...mais ce principe inconnu u'est autre que le grand ^tre d^
miurgique Ammon,^ 8?c. ! * Surely this is not very consistent.
At this rate Ammon (himself la nuit), being in common with
the sun and all the other gods, descended from Bouto (also la
nuit) or Athor, and Phtha, would be the principe inconnu of
his own grandfather and grandmother.
No. XIIL— Page 89.
Jackson^ however disagrees with Petavius, and is of opinion
that Geminus must have lived before Hipparchus, that is he^
fore the year 160 b. c. in which that astronomer flourished ;
assigning as a reason, that neither the works of Hipparchus,
nor of any other equally recent author, are alluded to in the
treatise of Geminus. He has therefore been induced to place
that mathematician about 246 b. c. ; chiefly by a misinterpret
tation, as we shall see, of a passage of his work,^ where mention
is made of Eudoxus ; as if we were there given to understand
that he himself, (Geminus) lived only a hundred and twenty
years after the philosopher of Gnidos. But that our chronolo-
ger is egregiously mistaken is clear ; since it so happens, that
' Panth. loc. sup. cit oonf. L iii. c 4. $ 7. * Op, dt. pi. 17.
^ Chron. Ant. toL ii. p. 26. Note. Bonjour, in a Dissertation entitled,
De nomine patriarchae Josephi a Pharaone imposito. Appendix de tem-
pore Isiorum. Rom. 1696 ; places Geminus in 137 b. c. I have not seen '
the work itself; but his argument, as stated by his reviewers, (Acta
Erudit. Ups. 1697. p. 9.) does not seem to be deserving- of much atten-
tion.
* Elem, Astron. cap. secund.
236 APPENDIX. NO. XIII.
Geminus mentions Hipparchus no less than three times in one
chapter. Whence it would appear, that the learned critic had
not read the work he quotes with any care ; but has probably
been misled by Petavius,*^ who by a curious enough oversight,
although himself the editor of the Elementa of Geminus, has
fallen into the same error. Fabricius' has also omitted the
name of Hipparchus in his list of the authors cited by Gemi-
nus. This is a singular instance of three men of such pro-
found research, following as it were the steps of each other in
so strange a blunder ; and shows the danger of admitting ap-
peals to authority, without careful collation of the original
text. But even had Jackson been right in this respect, there
are other points of internal evidence contained in the work of
Geminus, amply sufficient to confute his views. In the first
place, Geminus quotes, not only Eratosthenes™ who flourished
towards the end of the third century b. c. and Gratis" the ho-
meric critic of the age of Philometor, which comes down as low
as 145 B. c.,but Posidonius,"" who lived nearly about the same
period which we have assigned himself. Secondly, his style
and language prove him to be more recent than Hipparchus,
especially his constant use of the term ^uyoV, or libra, for yfi^^
or the claws of the Scorpion, the ancient name of the seventh
sign of the zodiac among the Greeks, with whom the term
X^k came only recently into general use, being unknown to
Aratus, used once by Hipparchus, but supplanting Chela? al-
most altogether with Geminus. Petavius^has also remarked that
the calculation of the degrees of longitude on the ecliptic, and
not on the equinoctial, was familiar to this mathematician ;
whereas it was unknown or little practised before the days of
Hipparchus. Thirdly, the name Geminus being evidently
latin, though pronounced Tsfinog by the Greeks, implies a con-
nexion with Rome, which could hardly be presumed in the
k De Doct. temp, li .ii. c. 7. vol. L p. 54.
1 Bib. gr, 1. iii. ci 5. vol. iL p. 98, 99.
"* £lem. Astr. c. 6. p. 19. " Op. cit. c. 5. p. 14,
• Vid. Simplic. in Aristot Phys. lib. ii. p. 65.
P Var. Diss. 1. ii. c 2.
APPENDIX. NO. XIII. 237
case of a rhodian philosopher of the period to vhich Jackson
would assign him, namely the first punic war.
Under all these circumstances, taken in connexion with his
statement concerning the Isia, the epoch assigned him by
Fetavius appears unexceptionable. Zoega^ has run into the
opposite extreme from Jackson, and found so little proof of
antiquity in the Elementa, that he was inclined tahave brought
their author down to a much lower period ; for reasons how-
ever, which he does not state, and the soundness of which he
himself distrusted.
The following is the passage of Geminus above alluded to,
on which the conclusion of Jackson is grounded : vin^i^Xyiv oux
diro\vTov<fiv dymagf 0/ diaXaw^dyovTBg sv rots ^Icfintg xar' Ajyumoui, xaJ
xar Ew^o^oy, ra^ ^ajM^/va^ r^dig iJvai. This the learned chrono-
loger has understood, as if Geminus had said, that ^^ those
were in error/ who thought the Isia were celebrated at the
winter solstice in the days of Eudoxus ;" in which case the
literal interpretation of the latter part of the passage would be,
<^ that the winter solstice coincided with the Isia, in the day a
of the Egyptians and of Eudoarus ;''\ which is evidently non-
sense, unless we suppose the whole race of native Egyptians
extinct in Geminus^ time. Fetavius^ on tl^e other hand under-
stands it, ^^ that they erred in supposing the celebration of the.
Isia to be fixed to the winter solstice, as constituted accord^
ing to the ohsenmtions of the Egyptians and Etcdowus ;^'
namely, towards the end of December ; whioh is both better
grammar, and plain sense; Eudoxus having studied under the
theban priests, and being supposed to be indebted to them
for the improvements which he made in the calendar of his
countrymen.
4 Num. Egypt. Mas. Boiig'. p. 395.
' In this error, Jablonski (De tab. bembin. Diss. ii. $ 11. MisceL Bert
olin. t. vii. et Opusc. t. ii. p. 254.) persists, in a manner not very cout
sistent with his usual research or judgment. In spite however of his
l^eneral learning, this author's ideas on the subject of the egyptian calendar
were somewhat crude and undigested ; as appears not ouly from the weak
passage here referred to, but the whole tenor of his writings ou ejfj^yp-
tian antiquity,
* De Doct. temp. lib. iL c. 7, p. 53.
238 APPENDIX. NO. XIV.
No. XIV.— Page 89.
Plutarch,^after describing the four days of mourning, from
the seventeenth to the twentieth of Athyr inclusive, (Ti<f<fa^
adds : ^^ but on the nineteenth at night, they go down towards
the sea, and the priests and ministers bring forth the sacred
chest, containing the gilded shrine, into which they pour fresh
water, and immediately a cry is raised by all present that Osi-
ris is foimd ;" followed by other agreeable ceremonies. This
day, however, cannot be the nineteenth of Athyr, devoted, as
above stated, to lamentation. Accordingly, t% commentators
are nearly unanimous, that there is some error^ither in the
text or the description, or that the name of the month has
fallen out. Kircher" supposes the day alluded to belonged to
the next month, Choiak ; with whom I have no hesitation in
agreeing ; referring it either to the nineteenth of that month,
or to the nineteenth day from the commencement, of the cere-
mony, which would be the fifth of Choiak. Jablonski,^ who
also saw that there was an error, and agreed with Kircher
that it lay in the omission of the name of the month, would
rather supply Tybi; and upon this basis has grounded bis
attempt to illustrate the mysteries of the Isia. His whole
argument is however from the first fallacious, resting or^
nally on the fallacious hypothesis, that the festival was ap-
pointed to a season of the fixed alexandrian year ; adopted
from too great a deference to the careless and superficial lan«
guage of Plutarch, though contrary to the testimony of Era-
tosthenes, Geminus, and the whole tenor of egyptian tradition.
Besides, it is evident from the joint testimony of the authors
quoted in our text, that these ceremonies, however varied,
were yet in a certain degree continuous, forming portions of
one mythological drama; which would hardly be consistent
t De Is. et Os. c. 39. u (Edip, aegypt. t, iii. p. 262.
▼ De tab. bcmbin. diss. ii. § xiv. See Miscel. BeroL torn. vii. p. 309,
and Opu8€ul. t ii. p. 259*
APPENDIX. NO. XV. 239
with the notion of their being extended over three months.
It would appear indeed, from the description of Apuleius^
quoted in the text, that these solemnities, when adopted by
the Greeks, were completed in one day. It was not to be
expected that such lively imitators would, in transferring the
new rites to their own calendar, adhere very closely to all the
characteristic details of the original egyptian usage* This
v^ circumstance, however, tends still farther to shew the
correctness of the sense we have assigned to the text of Plu-*
jtarch. It is probable that the going out to the sea with the
aacred chest or ark, as described by that author, is connected
with the ceremony, which the Greeks considered (whether
rightly or no may be doubtful) as the annual mission of a
messenger by water to Byblos in Phenicia, annouQcing the
proper season tor celebrating the feast of the Adonia ; which
they held to be derived from the Isia or death of Osiris in
JEgypt, and supposed could not be commented, until the rites
of its prototype were concluded.^ To this ceremony the pro-
phet Isaiah has been supposed to allude in the passage : Woe
to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers
of Gush, that sendeth ambassadors to the sea, even in vessels
of bullrushes upon the waters, saying, go ye swift; messengers,
&c.*
No. XV.— Page 91.
The seven days of the Saturnalia ot solstitial feast of an-
cient Rome, offer a curious enough coincidence. *< Apud
veteres opinio fuit,'^ says Macrobius,^ *^ s^tem diebus peragi
Saturnalia ; si opinio vocanda est quae idoneis firmatur aucto-
^ Lucian, de dea syr. edit Bourdelot*1615, p. 1058.
X C. xviii. y. 1. sqq. vid. Procop. et CyriL in loc conf. Bocbart.
Geogr. dac. p. 212, sqq. Ed, 1712. ScldeD> de DIs. syr. SyDt ii. c. 11.
p. 258, sqq. edit 1681.
y Saturn, i. c 10.
240 APPENDIX. NO. XV»
nbus. Novius enim probatissimus Atellanarum scriptor ait :
elim ewpectata vefiiitmt septem Saturnalia. Menimius quo-
que, qui post Novium et Pomponium diu jacentem artem
atellanam suscitavit, < Nostri/ inquit, ^ majores velut bene
multa instituere, Hoc optima ; a frigore fecere summo dies
septem Saturnalia.'* ^
Many circumstances combined to render seven a sacred
number among the Egyptians. The pbmets were seven, in-
cluding the sun ; whence the Nile : irrumpens, imitatus sidera
mundi, per fauces septem,^ is called by Heliodorus,* dvrir/fioc
$b^vov. We hear also of seven vowel sounds having been
sanctified as metrical elements peculiar to the hymns in praise
of the gods.^ The nation itself according to Herodotus^
was divided into seven castes. Lucian*^ describes the theban
Memnon when uttering his oracles, as dw^^o^ rh arSfia h iv&oif
Wrd. And, with Apuleius,^ Lucius purifies himself before
partaking of the Isia by seveii ablutions. See also Plutarch
Hie Is. et Os. c. 31. and Eusebius Praep. ev. ix. 6.
No. XVI.— Page 92,
From Porphyry^ we learn, that Osiris was the husband,
brother, and son of Isis ; a remark which however proble-
matical, is confirmed by the whole tenor of egyptian tradition*
He was in fact the male principle of nature, of which many of
his sons or subordinat^divinities were merely portions or pro-
perties personified* In the same way Isis, as the female prin-
ciple, was also Neith, Bouto or Latona, Athor, &c. To treat
this subject at length would require a dissertation of itself.
s Manil. iii. r. 453. ^ ^thiop. ix. p. 423.
^ Demetr. Phaler. ap. Jablonsk. Paoth. prolog, p. 55. Quatremeri^
Becherches sur la lit^rat de I'Egypte, p. 268.
« IL c. 164. •> Philops. Ed. Bourdelot, 1615. p- 842.
* Metam. xi. torn. iiL p. 144.
' Ap. Euseb. Pr»p. ev. lib. iii. c. 1 1, in fine.
APPENDIX. NO, xvir, 241
I have however all along admitted as the basis of my endea*
vours to illustrate egyptian mythology, the fundamental
principle formally laid down and recognised by the ancients,
that Isis and Osiris were respectively the female and male
essence of the godhead. This canon is first established by
Herodotus,^ (the earliest greek author who treats of the su*
perstitions of this country and who visited it when the national
institutions still existed in their purity,) in the passage where
he tells us, that while the worship of the other deities was
chiefly confined to the city or nome under their peculiar pa-
tronage, that of Isis and Osiris was common to the whole na-
tion. It has continued through successive ages to be admitted
as unquestionable, and beyond the pale of controversy, and
has formed the groundwork of the most celebrated treatiiSes
ancient or modem on the subject of egyptian mythology ; and
I have seen no soUd reason for questioning its accuracy^
I have been led to this observation, from having perceived,
or fancied I perceived, a disposition in some quarters, to de«
grade these two celebrated elements of ancient superstition,
into deities of inferior rank in the modern pantheon.
No. XVII.— Page 113.
Mons. ChampoUion^ has indeed asserted, that the moon
among the Egyptians was a male deity, and a male deity only.
This opinion however appears to me to rest on no authority
but his own ; being in express contradiction to the united
testimony of the ancients, who formally state that the luminary
entered in a feminine capacity into the character of several
female personages of the pantheon. Of this the disc between
bulFs horns, worn by these female deities, was, as we learn
from Diodorus,^ Orpheus,^ and all the most respectable
« II. 42. h Panth. eg. pi. 14. A. i Bill. hist. i. J 11.
^ Hymn viii. conf. xviii. v. 11. Conf. Plut. de Is. et Os. c. 52. Ovid.
Met ix. V. 687, &c.
R
242 APPENDIX. NO. XVIII.
authors, a natural and obvious symbol. And the firench critic
has advanced no evidence calculated, in my opinion, to out-
weigh their authority. The passages of Plutarch, Spartianus,
and Ammonitts, which he quotes in favour of his own system,
and which I have consulted in the original, appear to me alto-
gether adverse to it. As they distincdy admit the moon to
have been affft96hiku€ among the Egyptians.
No. XVIII.— Page 129.
The author of these remarks has occupied himself for hours
together, in observing the motions of diese singular insects,
which are more or less common on all the sandy coasts of
the Mediterranean, at least on those of Sicily and Calabna.
He has not unfrequently seen two, apparently male and fe-
male, engaged with one ball ; which would seem to confute at
once the fanciful opinion of the Greeks concerning the sex of
the species. Among other claims which they have to be con-
sidered as typical of the god of day, is the constancy with
which they continue their course, and their boldness and per-
severance in trundling their orb along, in spite of all obstacles
which may occur to hamper their retrograde movement ; as if
still farther to emulate, in one of his noblest attributes, the
unwearied aun^ 'RsXiov dxapbawa. I have sometimes amused
myself with scraping a small trench in the sand across the
path of the traveller, into the bottom of which he and his
globe tumbled backwards together* He would then look round
for some part of the side of the abyss, so little precipitous, as
to permit of his rolling it out again ; and finding none, would
set to work, and scrape a gap sufficiently wide and smooth for
the purpose, and then turning round on his head again, grasp
his precious burden in his thighs, and resume his retrograde
journey. Once I deprived him of his ball altogether, and
having removed him to a position at some considerable dis-
tance, where he could not observe my proceedings, buried it
1
APPENDIX. NO. XVIII. 24*3
to some depth in the sand. Immediatdy however on being
set free) he rushed back to the spot where he had been separat-
ed from his bit of dung, and not finding it, began to hunt the
ground in the neighbourhood like a pointer ; until suddenly
stopping over the place where it was buried, he commenced
burrowing in the sand until he reached it, and whisking round
again upon his head rolled it off in triumph. It was impos-
sible ilot to feel surprise, and at the same time admiration, at
the boldness, constancy, and skill, with which the little crea-
ture maintained his own against a superior force, without the
slightest appearance of personal fear, or of any othier feeling
but anxiety for the safety of his beloved orb ; nor certainly,
if egyptian piety admitted that the sun could, under any cir-
cumstances, be appropriately represented by a nasty reptile,
cotdd they have selected one, more Worthy of his high sym-
bolic; office, than this beetle. The joiirney seemed to be long
and tiresome, as I never had either time or patience to see
where or how it ended. Such are the facts that have come
under my observation respecting the sCtoi^b^e, to which ndther
commentators nor travellers appear to have paid mtich attention.
Even those who qilote the well-known passages of Clemens
Aleiandrintia &nd others, seem sddom to have understood their
import. Tdy as "HX/oy, says that learned fathet, rtf! roD noM^u^
AvTiw^oifoiirot xxikiv^i. This Warburtoft* renders : "but the sun
they likened to a scarabee, because this insect makes a round
ball of beasts dung, and rolls it dircularly with his fiice op-
posed to that luminary.'^ What he means by " rolling it cir-
cularly"^ it is difficult to understand. • A round ball, if rolled
at all, must, in a certain sense, no doubt be rolled circularly ;
but if his meaning be, that the scarabee and his ball describe
a circle in their retrograde course, that is neither true in itself
nor the sense contained in the text of Clemens. The word
aiT/ff-^oVw^rof he has also misunderstood ; as it refers to the posi-
tion of the face of the anihial, not with respect to the -sun, but
to the ball of duug, or to his own course.
* Div. Leg. 4to, vol. ii. p. 415.
244 APPENDIX. NO. XVIII.
*
The following description of this species of scarabee is ex-
tracted from the Encyclopiedia britannica,"^ which the reader
may compare with what I have given above from personal ob-
servation. ^^ The Scarabaeus camifex, which the Americans
call the iumhle-dumg^ particularly demands our attention. It
is all over of a dusky black, rounder than those animals are
generally found to be, and so strong, though not much larger
than the common black beetle, that if one of them be put
under a brass candlestick, it will cause it to move backwards
and forwards, as if it were by an invisible hand, to the admira-
tion of those who are not accustcyned to the sight. But this
strength is given it for much more useful purposes than those
of exciting human curiosity ; for there is no creature more
laborious, either in seeking subsistence, or providing a proper
retreat for its young. They are endowed with sagacity to dis-
cover subsistence by their excellent smelling, which directs
them in flights to excrements just fallen from man or beasts,
on which they instantly drop, and fall unanimously to work
in forming round balls or pellets thereof, in the middle of
which they lay an egg. These pellets, in September, they
convey three feet deep in the earth, where they lie till the
approach of spring ; when the eggs are hatched, and burst
their nests, and the insects find their way out of the earth.
They assist each other with indefatigable industry, in rolling
these globular pellets to the place where they are to be buried.
This they are to perform with the tail foremost, by raising up
their hinder part, Mid shoving along the ball with their hind
feet.
No. XIX.— Page 141.
The history of the Sibyl of the greek and rwnan mytho-
logy idFords curious proof of the antiquity of this emblem on
"» In voce, voL xvi. p. 693.
APPENDIX. NO. XIX. 245
the sphere of the Phenicians, Arabs, and other oriental na-
tidns. An old name of the constellation Virgo among these
vas Spica, in the Semitic tongues Shibbula,'' Shibboleth,
nbi^u;, Mbi^u;, aXaJum, from the ear of com she held in her
hand, a part being taken for the whole, as in the modem
cyphers of this and other signs of the zodiac. Virgo is still
commonly represented on the arable sphere by the ear of com
alone. Among many ancient nations, both hellene and bar*
barous, the gift of prophetic inspiration, though common to
both sexes, seems yet to have been considered, more than any
other divine attribute, as peculiarly conferred upon females.
Most of the greek oracles were served by women ; and of
prophetesses by profession in the east we have, among other
examples, that of the witch of Endor. As divination in all
ages of the world was connected with observation of the stars,
it was natural enough that the celestial maid, or shibbula,
(should become the embleth or type of the science. Hence,
as Hyde observes :'' *< Among the chaldee and phenician
Bdystics, was feigned a certain sup^matural virgin, by name
Sibylla, or as Tacitus has it, SibuUa, which name became
common to every female who had pretensions to enthusiastic
inspiration or prophetic fire.'* , A mysteriorum cusoribus,
Chaldaeis et Phcenicibus, prsetendebatur miraculosa qusedam
viigo, nomine Sibylla, seu, ut Tacitus, SibuUa ; unde factum
est ut qusevis enthusiastica fcemina et extatico furore acta
vaticinatrix, eodem nomine vocaretur. This same supersti-
tion we find transferred from east to west, imder the mys-
terious character of Sibylla ; a name certainly not of greek or
latin origin, and of which there can be no doubt but the above
is the true etymology. As proof of this it may be remarked,
that several of the most celebrated of these Sibyls are referred
, to Asia, as Sibylla persica, babylonia, ery thrsea-P The attempt
to pve the word a greek etymology : " ut sit (rfCuXXa, quasi
f/oD ^?XXa, seolice pro %ou PovyJi^"" is far from' plausible. That
n Hyde, de relig. vet Pera. c. xxxii. Scalig. ad ManiL p. 473.
« Op. cit. p. 394.
P Suid. y. £/^vAA«f. U^ttTn cSr n UttXixU n nai Ds^o-/;.
246 APPENDIX. NO. XXI.
of Sahnasiujs :^ (T/Cij quod aeolicum est pro ^tdn, whence as a
diminutiye sKvXKuy ia mere triffing; beaides othos equally
fandfid.
No. XX.— Page 150.
Jackson, however, it must be observed, errs grossly in sup-
posing, that not only the heliacal rising of Sirius, but the
sununer solstice of the year 1322, fell on the 22d of July ct
the Julian calendar ; whereas this last really fell on the sixth
of diat month; and the error has been transferred to his
calculation of the epoch at which the coincidence is made to
take place between the Thot and the equinox. Dr. Hales,'
in adopting and repeating his mistake, quotes Petavius, who,
he observes, made the 20th* of July 1322 the day of the
summer solstice ; but Petavius was never guilty of such an
oversight. I find a very different statement in his Yar.
Dissert, ii. 4. Jackson' is farther of opinion, that the ^yp-
tian names of the months were not invented uiitil afiter the
Exodus, because Moses did not adopt them as his cpuutiy-
man did those of the Ghaldees after the babylonish captivity.
A previous remark of his own might have furnished him with
a better solution of this difficulty, namely, that the months of
the Egyptians were called afte^ their gods. .W^s it likely
that Moses would have dedicated the seasons of his saored
year to Thot, Athyr, Ammon, the ajbomiuations of the
Egyptians P
No. XXL— Page 162.
In spite of the vain attempts of travellers or critics to
identify among the ruins of Thebes the hundred gates of the
4 Ad. Solin. p. 56. Conf. Hoffinann.^ Lexic. in v.
' Analys. of Chronol. vol i. p. 40.
■ Ghrcinol. ant. vol. ii. pp. 4. 7. sqq.
APPENDIX. NO. XXI. S47
Iliad, which evea the most curious of the ancients could not
make out to be ^any thing more than a poetical hyperbole ;*
or to prove by the authority of the Odyssey, that lower Egj^t,
which existed in the days of Moses, was a bay of the sea in
those of Menelaus; still, the poet^s own descriptions of this
country, when fairly examined, bear in themselves the strong-
est internal evidence, that he had no personal acquaintance
with its interior, and that what little he knew of it was derived
6om heassay, or possibly from a piratical expediuon to its
coast, similar to those described by himself, and by Herodotus,
as usual among their countrymen in early ages.^ Sir I. New-
ton^ assumed that the pyramids were not built in Homer^s
time, because the bard, having been in Egypt, does not nven*
lion them ( and the conclusion is just, as referred to the pre-
mises ; since a poetical imagination could hardly fail to be
smitten with those prodigious monuments; and a poet, so
minute in his description of localities as Homer, were still less
likely to have passed them over imnoticed, in treating of the
wonders of the banks of the Nile. But were it not more
reasonable to infer, that he does not mention them because he
had never seen them ? Others go the length of asserting,
that Homer knew the true cause of the inundation, which re-
mained a mystery to the most curious of his countrymen for
many centuries after his day, because he applies the epithet of
ditmrrie to the Nile. ^t^tTtis, it is said, means falling or pro-
ceeding from. Jove, that is, figuratively, swoln by rains, ^ths
ifiQ§(fi' but the inundation was owing to the rains of Ethiopia,
therefore Homer knew its cause. These critics have over*
looked the circumstance, that dt'/^r^i is a familiar epithet with
the poet for any river, when it happens to suit his metre ; those
of his own country being little more than mountain torrents,
frill in winter, but nearly dry in summer, unless when swoln
by showers, on which occasions they frequently overflowed theit
banks, and committed great ravages; and these visitations
^ Diod. lib. i. c. 4)5. Pomp. MeL L 9. conf, Heyn. Var. obs. ad II. ix.
383.
" Odyss, ^. V. 246, sqq. Herod, lib. ii. c. 152. ^ ChronoL p. 32.
248 APPENDIX. JSO. XXI.
being ascribed by the supenUtionB inhabitants of their valleys
to the anger of the deity »^ the expression dMrer^Cy both in a
moral and physical sense is highly appropriate. It occurs
seven times ; twice applied to the Nile,^ twice to the Scaman-
der,y once to the Sperchaeus,' once to a river of the island of
Scheria,* and once in a meie poetical simile to a river in gene-
ral ;^ to suppose then that it contains any mysterious or spedal
allusion in the case of the Nile, is altogether gratuitous. The
more, as the supposed allusion itself would have been unin-
telligible to his countrymen, to whom his descriptions of that
river were addressed, and who could merely have inferred firom
it, that the Nile was such a torrent as the Scamander or the
Sp^rchaeus. Might we not then more fairly argue, &om the
▼ery fact of the poet^s applying this ordinary and common-
place epithet to the Nile, that he was really ignorant of the
little resemblance which existed between that great stream, and
the mountain torrents of his own country ; and consequently,
of the general peculiarities for which the climate of Egypt was
celebrated in the vulgar tradition of both Egyptians and
Greeks ; namely, that rain never fell on its soil, unless as a
prodigy, and that the river, instead of being replenished accord-
ing to the ordinary course of nature, was made to overflow its
banks by mysterious and supernatural means. Had Homer,
like Hecataeus or Herodotus, ever really travelled in Egypt,
these are the wonders for which he would probably, like them,
have celebrated that country on his return home.
Antiquaries are surely very inconsistent, who in one place
tell us, what is most true, that the Egyptians in early timefi
hated navigation or foreign travel, and were jealous of admit-
ting strangers, especially uncircumcised barbarians like the
Greeks, to the interior of their country ; and in another, de-
scribe the same E^ptians as establishing maritime colonies
over the whole coast of the segsean sea, and the same european
barbarians as sailing up and down the Nile 1200 years, b. c,
with as much freedom as their descendants do, under the
auspices of Mohammed Ali.
^ II. X. 493. * Odyss. ^. 477, 581. v U. ^ 268, 326.
» U. X. 174. a Od. « 284. b II. ^. 263.
V
APPENDIX. NO. XXII. 249
The best version of the tradition concerning the colonists,
Danaus, &c. is that given by Diodorus ;^ "who makes them
arab or phenician occupants of lower Egypt, driven out by
the aboriginal natives to seek refuge, partly in Palestine,
partly on the coasts of Hellas ; an account both probable in
itself, and highly consistent with the general tenor of the
history of all tlyree nations. The antiquities of the heroic age
of Greece are replete with traces of the influence of phenician
commerce and settlement; while between the language and
primitive manners of its inhabitants, and those of the Egyp-
tians, little else than fanciful analogies can be traced, and such
as would hold equally good between Greece and Hindostan.
No. XXII.— Page 166.
It has been said, that the mere circumstance of certain con-
stellations not having been mentioned by Homer, is not suffi-
cient proof that he was ignorant of them. The remark though
reasonable enough as referred to the old sophistical dogma,
that nothing which the poet has not noticed could be known
to him, can yet hardly apply here ; considering his compre-
hensive language in various passages, and the opportunities
he had of adding to his catalogue. He himself however
affords positive as well as negative proof, how very limited the
number of constellations was in his age and country. As he
describes the great bear as the only one of the sphere that
never set :
Hence the dragon and the lesser bear, so remarkable both as
regards their appearance and their position with respect to the
c Eclog. ex lib. W*. ap» Phot cod. ccxliy. et Diod* Ed. Wessel.
vol. ii* p. 542, sq.
d IL if. 489, Od. 1. 275.
250 APPENDIX. NO. xxin.
pole, were unobsenred by tbe QtcAb in die mge of Homer.
Accordingly it is admitted, that while the more scientific Fhe-
nicians guided their course by observation of the lesser astensm,
hence called, "Afux^a ^ xXiouff/ ^chmg;^ the Greeks merely
looked to the larger and more brilliant image. As Ulysses by
advice of Calypso :
T^y ya^ d^ /uv &m ye KcLkuy\fU Sta ^seiSjVf
Hence Ovid—
Magna minorque fene quanmi regis altera Graias,
Altera Sidonias utraque sicca rate&ff
No. XXIIL— Page 165.
I allude here to the Theogony and Works and days alone,
to which may, in as far as the present subject is concerned,
be added the Shield of Hercules ; all these poems, whether
by the same author or no, being unquestionably of considera-
ble antiquity. As for the Poetical Astronomy, which, with
a multitude of other works now lost, by obscure or doubtfiil
authors, was vulgarly attributed to Hesiod, there is no reason,
from the internal evidence of the fragments, to suppose it of
much earlier date than the days of Pindar or i^schylus. For
instance, we find Hesiod quoted as mentioning the fall of
Phaeton into the Eridanus or Po, and his adventures with a
a king of Liguria called Gycnus, which are clearly recent
fables of greco-italian or etruscan character, and no way con-
nected with heroic greek mythology.'^
« CSallim, ap. Diog. Laert vit. Thaletis. AchilL Tat. Jsag". c. 1. cf.
Arat Ph»n. v. 37, sqq.
f Od. u 876, « Trist iv. 3.
^ Schol. German, v. 366. Hesiodns aatem dicit eum inter astra col-
locatum propter Phaetonta solis et Clymenes filiom, qid dicitor comim
patris aaoendisse ; cumque a terra altius levaretor, pre tbnore in Eri-
APPENDIX. NO. XXIII. 251
The history of the constellatiens Orion and Scorpio afford
appoedte illustration of the changes made by the introduction
of the signs of the zodiac on the primitive ihythology of
Greece. The former, as ahready obseryed, was a hero cele*
brated for his beauty and love of the chace ; who having, in
consequence of an amour with the rosy fingered Aurora,
incurred the displeasure of the deities, and, among others, of
the chaste Diana, was slain by the arrows of the virgin god-
dess in her own island of Ortygia.
. . .or' 'n^iW .ilXsr« ^adodtUruXog 'Hcu^,
"^Ems fnv lv'Ofruy/j|}, ^i^vc^^mi''Agfyus ayvii,
This may allude to the sudden death, or mysterious disappear*
ance of the hero ; since 'an important ofEce of the twin archer
deities, in the primitive greek mythology, was that of angels
or ministers of fate ; sudden death, without disease or apparent
cause, being assigned to their influence, or to their arrows^
as might be shown by a multitude of passages of Homer.
Probably Orion wais in the habit of going fo^th to the chace
at daybreak, and having one fatal morning disappeared, and
never more been heai^d of, it might be fabled, that, in conse-
quepce of his love for Aurora, h6 had been slain by the arrows
danum flavium, qui et Padus dicitur, cecidisse, &c. This the real Hesiod
contradicts in th^ following verses :
Ti$tiyft y 'Hat? tixi Mtf^fofti jcecXx6K6^vrriip,
Al6t6xttf fiteo'tX'iiH, xeci 'Hiutt9ttif€t Hfetxru
Toy ftt Hof rifsv uyBcf ijc*rr l^ucvUdt ijSnf,
TIetii' ceff-tfAi^ ^^ofUrra, ^iX6ftfiuin$ 'A^^tihiif
. Nms-oAav fitxi^w ^«<ii«'4ir« imifM^tt )7*r. (Theog. 984.)
Such are all the adventures of this hero mentioned by Hesiod. As he
is here made son of Cephalus and Aurora^ and not of Sol and Olymene,
it is clear that Ovid's whole fable of his fatal accident in the chariot of
his father was unknown to the author of the Theogony.
252 APPENDIX. NO. XXIII.
of Artemis. Tb^ homeric tradition is followed by Apollodonis^
and Horace.*^ But, in the later mytbology of the oFphic
hymns, Eratosthenes, and others,^ who appear to quote one of
these Pseudo-hesiods, (whose accounts must have been very
contradictory, as Diodorus,"^ on similar authority, tells quite a
different story), we find that Orion having been guilty in the
island of Crete, Chios, or any other which suited the fancy of
the fabulist, of an attempt to ravish Diana, or of some such
impiety, Terra enraged sent forth a scorpion from her bosom,
which stung him on the heel ; and the wound having caused
his death, both the hero and his executioner were transferred
by Jupiter to the skies. Aratus^ and others assure us that
the mysterious signification of all this was, that Orion sets
when Scorpio rises, hence the death of the one was attributed
to the birth of the other ; which is very likely ; but the sting
of a scorpion is a very different thing from the gentle darts
of Homer^s Diana, and the new version of the fable is as
lame and unmeaning as the old heroic tradition is simple,
elegant, and poetical.
The question, where or what this island of Ortygia may
have been, where Diana slew Orion, is very obscure ; and has
been treated in a very unsatisfactory manner by the commen-
tators. The name is much celebrated in the early mytholo-
gy, although it does not appear to have been the ordinaiy
appellation of any island of the greek seas in historical ages.
Homer mentions it in one other place, as situated in the
JEgea,n not far from Syros :**
^ Biblioth. lib. i. c. 4. § 5. Ed. Heyn. p. 24<.
^ Lib. iii. od. iv. v; 71.
1 Orph. Lithic. 13. Eratosth. Catast. 32. Arat. Pfaoenom. v. 636.
SchoL ad German, y. 327» Palcephat. De iiicredib«5» &c. Conf. Heyn.
not. ad loc. ApoUod. sup. cit
™ Lib. iv. c. 85.
n PhoBuom. T. 645. Serv. ad Virg. ^n. i. 539.
o Odyss. •. 402.
APPENDIX, NO, XXIII. 253
These verses prove at least that Homer's Of tygia was one of
the Cyclades. Later mythologists, from its being connected
by the poet with the twin deities, have supposed it to be the
saine as Delos, which opinion has been adopted by the greater
number of modem commentators ; but that they are in error
appears, as well from Homer himself, who distinguishes De-
los elsewhere by its proper name, as from the two next most
ancient testimonies concerning both islands ; that of the au-
thor of the hymn to Apollo ascribed to Homer, in the follow-
ing passage :^
Xou^ (/Anjai^ oi A^jro?, lies} lixsg dyhxA rtxvay
'AiroXKuvti r avaxra xai "A^/miv lo^sat^Vy
T^v fMv iv '0§Tvytfi rhv Si xfavafi hi A^X^.
and the orpbic hymn :^
■
Tii¥ afjawi ^^6v ra xa/ "A^fiiv /o^eai^v^
T^v fiJkv iv 'OgTuytfi rb ds TCQotvafi hi A^X^.
Here we have the express distinction, that Apollo was born in
Delos, Artemis in Ortygia ; Delos then and Ortygia cannot be
the same ; but the two localities, being so closely connected
as the birth-places of twin deities, cannot be far distant. This
suggests the probability, that the Ortygia of Homer and of
the ancient poets, being evidently one of the Cyclades, may
have been Rhensea, an island situated so close to Delos, as to
be in fact the twin isle of that celebrated sanctuary of Apollo,
to whom, as to his sister Diana, it was, with its more celebrate
ed neighbour, jointly consecrated. Hence both are called
now-a-days, by the modern greeks, Dili, or the two Delos ;^
being separated by a channel of scarcely half a mile in
breadth, and in ancient times connected by a bridge. In
fact, Strabo, the oldest and most authentic writer who identi-
P v. 14, sqq. ^ xxxiv. rv. I. 4. 5.
' Spon. Voyage du levant. 12? 1678, torn. i. p. 172, sqq. Tourne-
fort, Voyage au levant, Ed. Amst. 4to. 1718, toL i. p. 1 10«
254 APPENDIX. NO. xxtrir
fies Ortyg^ as one of the Gydades, and who had made the
poems of Homer his peculiar study, expressly informs us that
Rhensea was anciently called Ortyg^. The following is the
description of the island given by him :* *P4w/a S" I^i^mv vn^n
ouSk xitvu h Afi\(ff r^finr imfuAZ/^ro df tujJ ^OgrvySa r^6n^. ^ Rhe-
nsea is a desert island, about four stadia from Delos, where
are the delian cemeteries ; since in Delos itself it is not per-
mitted to bury, or to bum a corpse, nor so much as to keep a
dog ; but it was formerly called also Ortygia.^ This text has
been misunderstood by the commentators, who under the in-
fluence of the old prgudice that Delos and Ortygia were the
same, have supposed the latter part of the passage to relate to
the first of these islands. But those who co&sider it impar-
tially will see, that the geographer, having finished his des-
cription of Delos, had proceeded in his circuit of the Cyclades
to the neighbouring island of Rhensea, and that to Rhenaea
alone can the words dmfibd^iro dk xai 'Oftvyia nr^iffn apply ; the
mention of Delos having been introduced only incidentaUy,
to account for the circumstance of its burying ground being
in Rhensea. Add to this that Pliny asserts Rhensea to have
been anciently named Artemitis, or. the island of Diana, and
no doubt can remain thai this is really the original Ortygia of
Homer, and of the goddess, where she slew Orion. The only
modem author who seems to have had a suspicion of this,
among many who have devoted pages to the illustration of
this obscure name, is the learned and accurate Toumefort ;^
who, after stating that both islands were called Delos by the
modem Greeks, adds : ^^ Les cailles avaient fait donner le
nom d^'Ortygia aux deux Delos.""
In later times this name seems to have been common to se-
veral sanctuaries of Diana, as to a grove near her temple of
Ephesus,^ and to the famous Syracusan citadel'' sacred to
• P. 709, Ed. Falcon. t Lib. cit p. 119.
"^ Strab. Ed. Falc. vol. iL p. 916, aq.
V Pindar, Nem. i. 1. Diod. lib. v» c. 3. Pindar, in the passage
quoted, by a natural figure, calls the Sicilian Ortyipa, AaXou zastyvi^ ;
APPENDIX. NO. XXIII. ^5
that goddess, where the niins of her temj^le still exist. To
these the title was doubtless transferred by the greek colon-
ists, from her more ancient rifAsm among the Cydades ; and
the superior celebrity of these new Ortygias in after a^es,
may have been among the causes, why so little tRce of the
appellation as applied to the twin islet of Delos remained.
Delos seems afterwards to have engrossed the worship of
both Apollo and Diana to itself, as well as the honours and
emoluments accruing from their patronage; while Rhensea
was degraded to be the cemetery of its more holy neighbour*
whose soil it was not permitted to pollute with the corruptioit
of a dead body. Rhenaea, however, though called by Strabo
i^Tifio vfjtrtdtov, probably from its being completely occupied as a
burying ground before his time, is yet much the best island of
the two, and many times larger than its neighbour.^ The
name Ortygia was no doubt applied to it from the number of
quails that frequented it. Rhenaea may be from *P^y, cattle ;
hence *P^v6/a, the island of pasturing, from the nature of its
soil, as opposed to that of Delos, which was in spite of its
sanctity but a dreary rock. Accordingly, Toumefort states,
that in his time the inhabitants of the neighbouring isles used
Rhenssa as a sheepwalk, while Delos was quite barren and
deserted.
But to return from this digression; That the fundamental
claims of the hero Orion to distinction, in the primitive greek
mythology, were, as we have hitherto assiimed, partly his
surpassing beauty of person, which even attracted the love of
Aurora, but chiefly his skill in the chace and fondness for
that diversion, appears from the testimony of Homer, which
in these matters must be admitted as superior to all others ;
and who describes him as alone among the heroes in the realms
of Pluto, engaged in his fiivourite occupation ; pursuing, even
on the asphodel meadow of that dreary land, the s/do^Xa of
the same wild animals, which he himself had slain on the
mountains of the upper-earth :
whence, it is not very probable, that the name Ortygia was also known
to him as an appellation of Delos itself.
"^ Toumef. p. 120, sq.
256 APPENDIX. NO. xxiii;
T^ ft yxT 'Xl^/ftwa ^rsXcd^ioy licvtiafiWy
Tout avrbs juvnwt^nf h oiwrokuiSn 2^0V/y,^
a r^markMe passi^ in several respects, and proving, at
least, how vitally and essentially the character of Oiioh in the
ancient mythology was that of Hunter. Hence the bright
star Siritts, which rises immediately behind his own constel-
lation ih the heavens, was considered as his dog, following at
his heels. And with respdct to his personal advantages, the
poet, speaking of the twin giants Otus and Ephialtes, says :
Ow ^ fAtpUanvf df f>)/f ^€ld6^ &^v^
Such is the description of Homer ; and, taken in connexion
with the account of his death in the island^ and by the hand
of Diana, is consistent and characteristic. Ideler,^ however,
who would have the appellation Dogstar to be of egyptian
ori^n, asstunes in conformity with that opinion, that the cha-
racter of Orion, while on earth, was that of a mere warlike
adventurer, remarkable for strength, violence and ferocity, (a
capacity in which, strictly speaking, he does not appear even
in the later mythology) ; and thiat his celebrity as a hunter
was altogether adventitious, derived from the neighbourhood
of the constellatidn which bore his name to the egyptian Dog-
star. Of this interpretation, all that can be said is, that being
contrary to reasonable analogy, and the most ancient authori-
ties, it is as inadmissible as we have already shewn the basis
to be on which it rests, namely, the supposed signification (%
of the egyptian word Sothis.
X Odyss. K 571. y tOdyss. ;l. 308.
> Uuters. Ub. den Urspr. &e. der Sternn. s. 219*
APPENDIX. NO. XXIV. 257
No. XXIV.— Page 169.
As for the invention of the zodiac by the centaur Chiron,
of which Sir Isaac Newton (followed by Whiston and others)
speaks with as much confidence, as we can do of his own dis-
covery of the true system of the world ; great as is the weight
of his name, it may safely be classed among those paradoxes,
which will hardly be seriously maimtained by either astrono-
mer or antiquary of the present day. The whole hypothesis
rests on the evidcQce of an obscure and nameless poet, who,
as quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus,^ states, that Chiron de-
lineated a^Titiara, 'OXvfiTou; whence our great mathematician
concludes,^ that the centaur was a practical astronomer, '^nd
constructed a sphere for the use of the Argonauts in their
voyage. :^x,^fmra *OXvfi^ov have however very little to do with
the dcabtxarrifiS^ia of the ecliptic ; Homer and Hesiod also
speak familiarly of certain constellations and their forms, but
that they were totally ignorant of the signs of the zodiac is
perfectly clear. But even admitting that this expression ne-
cessarily referred to the constellations of the zodiac, what
faith is due to so vague and unauthentic a fragment ? Pre-
cisely the same astronomical discoveries, which Sir Isaac^s
author ascribes to Chiron, are attributed by Sophocles to Pa-
lamedes, by Euripides to Atreus, &c. ;^ each fabulist select-
ing as the author of popular inventions, such of the early na-
tional heroes, as in his opinion were most distinguished for
wisdom or ingenuity ; but are we hence to conclude that these
were all practical astronomers and constructors of spheres ? '
Achilles Tatius,^ after recapitulating the various contradic-
• Strom, i. p. 306. ««i « t«i» Tirci,^ofUiy(Jiuv y^d-^ctf ^ij^/r «; TF^airc^
r ^
>» Chronol. p. 83.
c Ap. Achil. Tat. c. L p. 73, 74. ^ Loc. cit.
S
258 APPENDIX. NO. XXIV.
tory statements of mythologists on this point, very wisely
concludes that none of them are entitled to much credit ; and
having observed that Apion, the celebrated critic, maintained,
than so sublime a genius as Homer could not fail to be an
astronomer, he adds the following remark ; which is worthy of
notice, as well on account of its great beauty and simplidty,
as because it contains, in a few words, nearly the sum total
of the astronomical science, which can reasonably be attributed
to the sages of barbarous antiquity. ^' Nor need it be matter
of wonder, that the human mind should by nature be strongly
bent on this species of contemplation ; for as every soul,
being immortal, came down originally from heaven, looking
up wistfully to the skies, it beholds nought but kindred and
congenial objects, and feels attracted toward that place, whi-
ther it is destined ultimately to return.^ Oy^sv Ss im^ddi^w
itir avfi^yroiiv roAzunjv ev^iffrivat ^scaoiav ^{/u;^^ ySt^ x&ffa d^dvaros ^xarsX"
No. XXV.— Page 197-
Fr6ret, in his elaborate dissertation* on the rustic calendars
of the ancients, has no doubt shown, in a satisfactory manner,
that there was a vast deal of prejudice and bigotry among the
lower orders of both Greece and Italy, as of all other parts of
the world, in all ages ; and that the constructors of almanacks
for vulgar use, as well as the popular writers on agriculture,
were not unfrequently under the influence of these prejudices
themselves, or willing to humour them in others ; but, that
the most celebrated astronomers of Greece, in those great works
on which their future fame was to rest, permitted their calcu-
lations to be influenced by such motives, he has altogether
failed to show, as, with regard to Meton, he himself seems to
c Defense de la Chrou. p. 469.
APPENDIX. NO. XXV. 259
have admilted. It must be ackDOT?ledged, however, that he
has carried his system to an extravagant extent. Many of his
illustrations are derived from confused accounts of the obser-
vations of old astronomers, of various ages and countries, con-
tained in occasional passages of careless or ignorant authors,
or in certain fragments, some of them ascertained to be spu-
rious, and most of them of very questionable authenticity ; and
in each of these statements the slightest variation which he de-
tects from what ought to be the exact reckoning for the age of
the author with whose name the observation is connected, he
accounts for at once, by assuming the observation itself to have
been derived from some ancient rustic calendar, constructed for
the true period to which it ought to relate, as the age of Chi-
ron, Hesiod, Thales, or others as it happens; all these calendars
of the barbarous ages being supposed to be correct to a year,
while those of the first philosophers of civilized Greece are as-
sumed to be wrong. It is asserted by modem experimental as-
tronomers, and, indeed, must be self-evident, that the precise
period of the heliacal rising of a star, owing to the vicissitudes
of climate, or the refraction of the atmosphere, can seldom be
ascertained exactly to a few degrees ; and yet a discrepancy of
a few days between two recorded statements of this nature is
sufficient, with the french academician, to estabHsh an inter-
val of several centuries between the epochs of the construction
of the imaginary rustic calendars, whence they are supposed
respectively to be derived. In the adjustment of his system,
he takes in a range of climate from the tropic to the Danube ;
he flies from Syene to Thebes, from Thebes to Alexandria,
from Egypt to Greece, Italy, Thrace, Scythia, in quest of
these calendars and their authors. All this sotinds very learn-
ed and ingenious, and has passed current with many persons
of both learning and ingenuity, and exercised a very consi-
derable influence on chronological criticism ; but to those who
take the trouble carefully to analyze the proofs, it will also
appear very fallacious and inconsistent. Were it not more
reasonable to account for many of these discrepancies and
self-contradictions by real errors in the observations, — by the
oversights of quoters, who have misunderstood the sense of
260 APPENDIX. NO. XXV.
their authors, — or by the carelessness of transcribers and copy-
ists, than to accuse the first men of science of antiquity of such
puerile inconsistencies ? In one instance^ he has created an
egyptian calendar for the fifteenth century b. c out of a state-
ment contained in a latin firagment, which has passed under
the name of a translation from Ptolemy, but was admitted by
its editor, Petavius,' and has been still farther shown by suc-
ceeding critics to be sadly corrupt, if not altogether spurious.^
Ideler^ has pointed out the fallacy, but cites Bailly as its au-
thor, who has'^, however, in this instance, as in several others,
merely copied Fr^ret. As he was not, apparently, much of a
scholar himself, many of those illustrations contained in his
history of ancient astronomy, which* involve to a certain ex-
tent classical criticism, are borrowed from the works of the
learned secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions, a great part
of whose argument rests on the authority of this very frag-
ment, where he has mistaken for observations made at widely
remote periods, certain varieties of data, which, in as far as
they are intelligible at all, really refer to different climates.
Once or twice, however, he has found observations attributed
to greek phOosophers which would be inexact as to the latitude
of Greece for a period of not less than five hundred years after
the age in which they flourished ; as where Euctemon places
the rising of Sirius thirty-two days after the solstice.' Ought
we not, on Freret^s own principle, tp conclude, that Euctemon
followed a calendar constructed as many centuries after he
was in his grave ? The difiiculty he escapes at once, by sup-
posing the observation to relate to the latitude of Scythia ; les
pays septentrionaux du pont Euxin, ou les Grecs avaient alors
un grand commerce. In another place,™ Eudoxus makes the
Pleiads set fifteen days after their true time for his own lati-
tude. Here, again, Freret makes the observation refer to the
' Lib. cit. p. 487.
> UranoL ia yoL iii. de Doct. temp. Pnef. ad lect.
^ Usser. de Maced. anno solar, c. tL DodweU, append, ad Diss. cjpr.
$ 16. Fab. Bib. gr. lib. iy. c ziy. $ 7. torn. iii. p. 421.
* Untersuch. s. 91. * Hist, de I'Astn anc. lib. i. J 7, p. 11.
1 Defense de la Chron. p. 487. » p. 493.
APPENDIX. NO. XXV. 26 1
extreme north of Greece. Why not have applied the same
method to reconcile other discrepancies in the statements of
Eudoxus, many of which might be accounted for in an equally
simple way by supposing observations made in the various
countries in which he studied, from southern Egypt to the
Hellespont, instead of an appeal to the spheres of Chiron or
of Hesiod ? But then, as Delambre says, On n'aurait pu ba.
tir aucun systeme.
■1^
INDEX.
Abraxas — si^ificationof tlie word,
pa^e 14«6, note.
A^thodnmon-^^tian deity, 78.
Amoa-— egyptian deity, his month
and sign of the zodiac, 107.
Amosis or Thoutmosis— egyptian
king, 3.
Anubis— egyptian deity, 228.
Apophis—see Epiphi.
Aquarius — sign of the Bodiap, 102.
Aratus — 171, 177, sq.
AriA — Hgn of the zodiac, 107.
Athor — goddess, and third egyptian
month, 82, 234— name illustrate
ed, 95.
Basili$ans or Gnostics— religious
sect, 145.
Bear — constellation, 166.
Chon — Chons — 8om or Sem —
eg}rptian deity (Hercules) — his
month and sign of the zodiac, 115.
Cleostratus of Tenedos, 169.
Columella — his text illustrated,
192, sq.
Cycle — sothiac or canicular, 1, sq.
why so called, 8 — when first cal-
culated, 19. Its use in egyptian
chronology, 25, 30— date of, no-
ticed by Clemens Alexandrinus,
4— date of, noticed by Manetho,
and erroneous interpretations of
his text, 32, sq. — yarious modes
of computing, 8, 20, 31, 220 —
twenty-five cycles of fabulous
egyptian annals, 31.
Cynocephalus — its symboUc office,
70.
Cslendars of Greece— erroneous
opinions concerning, 1 73, sq., 258.
Calippus — his observation, 171.
Cancer — sign of the zodiac, 123.
Capricomus — sign of the zodiac,
100.
Chiron — ^his supposed sphere, 174,
257.
Choiack — ^fourth egyptian month,
100.
Dogstar — see Sothis.
Dynasty— eighteenth of eg3rptian
empire, important era, 3, sq. 150.
Epagomense — when added to egyp-
tian year, 13, sq.— ^fable concern-
ing them, 211.
Epiphi — Epep— orApophis— eg3rp-
tian deity — eleventh month — and
sign of the zodiac, 130.
264
INDEX.
Euctemon — his observation, 171.
Eudoxns — 171, 174, sq. 187, sq. —
opinion of DeUunbre concerning'
him, 190.
Teasts— of egyptian calendar, 9, sq.
Freret — his theory concerning the
zodiac of Greece, 175, sq.
Geminus— epoch when he flourish-
ed, 88, 235.
Gemini — ^sign of the zodiac, 115,
119, sq.
Gnostics — see Basilidians.
Harpocrates— egyptian deity — ^fes-
tival of his birth, 92 — significa*
tion of the name, 97.
Hercules — see Chon.
Hesiod — ^his astrology, 165, 250.
Hipparchus — 172, 177, sq.
Hippopotamus — its symbolic cha-
racter, 85, 100.
Homer — ^his astrology, 163— know-
ledge of Egypt, 246, sq.
Horus — Egyptian deity, 96, 134, sq.
Hyads— constellation, 167.
Isis — 135, sq. 240.
bia, or feasts of Isis — 10, 87» sq.
102, 238.
Leo-Hsign of the zodiac, 130.
Libra — ^sign of the zodiac, 69.
Lotus plant — 38, 41, sq.
Mechir — sixth egyptian month,
107.
Mercury — see Thot.
Mesori — twelfth egyptian month,
134.
Meton — his observations, 171, 174,
193.
Minerva — see Neit
Month — hieroglyphic symbol of,
36
Moon — ^how personified, 1 13, 233,
241.
Nabonassar, era of — its connexion
with egyptian chronology, 28,
216, sq.
Neit (Minerva)—- egyptian goddess,
^119, sq.
Newton, Sir Isaac — ^his theory ood-
ceroing the greek zodiac, 174
Nile— its inundation, 43, sq. 117^
how represented, 106— other pe-
culiarities — and honours paid it,
104, sq.
Niloa^fe6tival of, 10.
^""^STP^^ deity, 124.
Ophiuchus or Serpentarius—con-
stellation, 80, sq.
Orion— 223, 251, 255.
Ortygia, island of — ^its geognpbjr
illustrated, 252.
Osiris— 136, 240— his rites, 84, 87,
91.
Osymandyas egyptian king-
sphere attributed to him, 17, sq.
Pachon— ninth egyptian m#th,
115.
Paoni — ^ntfa egyptian month, 123.
Ptoplu— second egyptian month,
78.
Pastors, or Shepherds — ^their dy-
nasty, 3.
Phamenoth-'— seventh Egyptian
month, 107
Pharmuthi-eighth eg3^tian month,
110.
Pisces — sign of the zodiac^ 107.
Pleiads — constellation, 167.
Sagittarius — sign of the zodiac, 82,
98.
Saturn — see Sewek.
Saturnaliar— illustrated, 239.
Scarabee — ^in egyptian astrology
n
^^.
INDEX.
265
125— its natural peculiarities,
127, sq. 242,
Scorpio— sigpi of the zodiac, 78.
Sebeanytus — see Semnouthis.
Semnouthis — egyptian city < Seben-
nytus) 117, 121— title of egyp-
tian mythological work, 118.
Serpentarius — see Ophiuchus.
Seth — egyptian name of Typhon,
226, note.
Sewek — egyptian deity (Saturn)
100.
Shepherds — see Pastors.
Sibyll — her connexion with the
zodiac, 244*.
Sirius — see Sothis.
Som or Sem — see Chon.
Sothis — Sirius, Canis major, or
Dogstar, 8, 15, 157, 168, 221, sq.
Sun — in egyptian mythology, 87.
108, 123, 130, 144, &c. fable con-
cerning his rise in the west, 215*
Tafne-^egyptian goddess, 119.
Taurus — sign of Uie zodiac, 110.
Thermouthis — egyptian deity, 110.
Thot or Thoout — egyptian deity —
and first month, 9, 38, 69— ety-
mology of the name, 226 — ^first
day of egyptian year so called —
its original position, 35, 41, 148,
221.
Thoutmods — see Amosis.
Tobi — fifth egyptian month, 102.
Typhon— 99, 118, 138, 167— «ee
Seth.
Virgo— sign of the zodiac, 134,
139, sq.
Year — principal authors on egyp-
tian year, 2, note — ancient year
of 360 days, 12, 148, 207— egyp-
tian year of 365 days, 7, sq. —
year of 365J days in Egypt —
error concerning it, 213, sq. —
alexandrian or Julian year, 86,
note— Jewish year in Egypt,
152, sq.
Zodiac — its origin and primitive
use, 50, sq. — first introduction
and use among the Greeks, 161,
sq. — zodiac of the oriental na
tions, 65, 229— of India, 229, sq.
—of the cyphers or signs of its
divisions still in common use,
119, sq.— zodiacs of the Thebais,
63.
THE END.
EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY A. BAf.FOUR AND eO. NIDDRY STREET.
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