continuous change in the apparent position of the fixed stars, a change
not in their position relatively to each other, but in their distances
from the heavenly equator and its poles.

The effort to fully realize these effects by means of careful
calculations and measurements must prove to any but an astronomer a
most arduous task; but, by aid of the mechanical contrivance called
a “precessional globe,” much of the difficulty of the task may be
overcome. The accompanying diagrams have been drawn from a precessional
globe, which can be adjusted so as to show the position of the poles
and equator amongst the fixed stars, at dates distant from each other
by intervals of 538 years.[109]

  [109] 1800 A.D. is the date to which the globe in question originally
  refers; the intervals of 538 years can be reckoned backwards or
  forwards from this date.

I have shown in continuous outline those constellations for whose first
imagining it seemed to me as early a date might be claimed as that
referred to in each diagram; all others are given in dotted outline.
The strange figures of the “ancient constellations” are here drawn
as they are represented on the globe; but the fixed stars which mark
these figures for observers of the heavens, I have not ventured to
indicate, as to do so would have required great accuracy of drawing
and measurement. It is not for a moment to be contended that all the
ancient constellations were imagined _exactly_ under the forms by which
we have learnt to know them from classic representations, from the poem
of Aratos, and from the star list of Ptolemy. Variants of many of the
figures are to be met with in astronomical atlases and on the celestial
globes in use to-day; and to establish the relative claims concerning
the antiquity of these variant forms is a branch to itself of research.

That these constellations have indeed been well denominated “ancient”
is scarcely to be denied, and our only wonder, when studying the
subject, must be, not that some differences are to be met with as
to the exact form under which, at different dates and by different
nations, these figures were delineated in the heavens, but rather the
wonder must be that (as archæological research is always more and more
clearly establishing) through many thousands of years, and by nations
long and widely separated, the stars, which to an unaccustomed observer
seem to be scattered in wild and random profusion on the sky, should
have been divided into the same distinct groups, and thought of as
representing the same mysterious beings.

But though it may be impossible to maintain that the Grecians have
handed down to us in an absolutely unchanged form the figures of the
ancient constellations as they were first imagined in remote ages, yet
many proofs may be cited in favour of the opinion, that not lightly
or arbitrarily did astronomical artists venture to tamper with the
Zodiacal and extra-Zodiacal figures.

Some of these proofs have already been pointed out in the foregoing
Papers. Attention will be drawn to others in the consideration of the
diagrams here given.

In Plates XV., XVI., XVII., and XVIII., the positions of the solstitial
and equinoctial colures amongst the constellations are given at the
date 5744 B.C. Had it been possible, I should have liked to have drawn
these diagrams as at 6000 B.C.--not only because it is easier to deal
with and to remember a round number such as that, but also because at
that date the solstitial colure passed through the ecliptic only one
degree distant from the initial point of the Indian Zodiac--a point
which there seems good reason to believe was the initial point of many,
other than Indian, ancient Zodiacs.

Owing to the mechanical restrictions of the precessional globe, it was
not possible to adjust it to any more accurate date than that of 5744
B.C.

It will not be necessary here to reiterate the considerations in favour
of the opinion already advanced that the calendrical importance of the
constellation Aries in some nations, and its symbolical importance in
the mythology of others, may best be explained by the supposition that
the choice of this constellation as “Prince and Leader” of the signs
was made _not_ when its stars marked the spring equinox, but when they
marked the winter solstice.

Let us rather take this opinion as a working hypothesis, and turn
our attention to the importance, in ancient symbolism, of the _four_
constellations--Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricornus--which, according
to this hypothesis, marked the _four_ seasons, and the cardinal points
6000 B.C.

Next in this order to Aries comes Cancer, _The Crab_ (see Plate XVI.).
In Babylonia, it seems to be established that a _tortoise_, not a crab,
represented the fourth constellation of the Zodiac. In Egypt, as we
learn from the Zodiacs of Esneh and Denderah, it was the _scarabæus_
beetle that held the place given to the crab in the Grecian sphere.

There is a sort of outward resemblance between these three creatures,
wide apart as they are anatomically from each other. They are all
hard-shelled, creeping, and insignificant-looking animals. Why under
any of these three forms a constellation of the Zodiac should have been
depicted, it is difficult to conjecture; but if we have to admit that
in Egyptian astronomy the beetle played the important part of marking
as a constellation one of the quarters of the ecliptic circle, this
admission will furnish us with an adequate reason for the extraordinary
honour paid in Egyptian symbolic art to this lowly, and in itself
unattractive, insect.

The scarabæus, according to our hypothesis, marked in ancient
calendrical tradition the spring equinox when in _conjunction_ with
the sun, and the autumn equinox in _opposition_ to it. And it was as
presiding _visibly in opposition_ that we may reasonably suppose it
gained such honour in Egypt. For the autumn, not the spring, is in
that land the time when vegetation begins to burst into life, and when
all Egypt rejoices. I think, moreover, that facts connected with the
worship of the Apis Bull will further strengthen the opinion that the
Egyptians considered the constellations in _opposition_ to the sun to
be those which presided over particular seasons and months.[110]

  [110] See below, pp. 234, 235.

To trace allusions in the symbolic art of Egypt to Libra--the
third in order of the constellations we are now discussing (see
Plate XVII.)--is, it must be confessed, not so simple a matter,
and it is with some diffidence that I put forward the following
suggestion--_i.e._, that we may perhaps find in the “two feathers,” so
prominent in Egyptian mythologic imagery, a reference to the two scales
of the Balance (Libra).

[Illustration: The Didû dressed.]

In allegorical language _we_ speak often of the even scales of Justice,
and in art the goddess is always represented with the Balance in
her hand. In Egyptian symbolism and art, I think the two feathers
represented the equal weights of the scales of Justice. In the great
judgment hall of Osiris, the souls of men were weighed in the balance.
The soul, or heart, of the dead Egyptian was placed in one scale, while
a feather--or the figure of the goddess Mait, wearing on her head a
single plume or feather--occupied the other. Mait was the goddess of
Justice, and we often read also of “the two Maits who preside over
Justice and Truth.”

There is a woodcut in Prof. Maspero’s _Dawn of Civilization_, p. 130,
in which the head-dress--the symbolic head-dress--so often to be met
with in Egyptian mythologic representations, is very clearly drawn. It
was in studying this woodcut that the idea first suggested itself to
my mind, that in this head-dress we may find a reference to the four
constellations which, when the Zodiac was first imagined, marked the
four colures--the four quarters of the heavens--that it was in fact an
astronomic monogram, combining four figures in one.

In this head-dress very plainly are to be seen the horns of a ram,
and those of a goat. Less convincingly, perhaps, the disc from which
spring the goat’s horns suggests “the disc enclosing a scarabæus,”[111]
under which form the sun as _Khophri_--“He who is”[112]--was sometimes
represented by the Egyptians.

  [111] Maspero, p. 139.

  [112] _Ibid._ p. 138.

The two feathers in outline clearly show themselves, but to connect
these two feathers with the scales of Libra is only adventured as a
possible means of giving an astronomic value to the so often repeated
combination of the forms in this head-dress.

As to Capricornus (the fourth of the constellations which marked
the colures 6000 B.C.), (see Plate XVIII.), we do not meet with
any representations, so far as I know, of a goat-fish on Egyptian
monuments, but on Babylonian boundary stones and engraved gems this
monster is often to be seen, exactly represented in form and attitude
as on the Grecian sphere. The goat’s _horns_ are all we find portrayed
in ancient Egyptian art, and when they are portrayed they appear
together with the _ram’s horns_, and often springing out of a ram’s
head. For this curt reference to the goat (Capricornus) a reason may
be found by remembering that this constellation, _in opposition_,
presided--traditionally--over the least honoured season of the Egyptian
year--the arid season preceding the inundations.

It should be borne in mind that all the Egyptian mythologic symbolism
we have been considering must necessarily have only embodied traditions
already even under the earliest dynasties extremely ancient; for it
was, as may be seen in the Plates, about 6000 B.C. that the colures
touched the extreme western degrees of the constellations Aries,
Cancer, and Libra--and a point some degrees to the west of Capricornus,
as it is now drawn. In each succeeding century the colures moved
still more to the west, through the stars, and from 6000 down to 4000
B.C. they were no longer to be observed in the four already named
constellations, but in Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius.

It is curious to note that there seems to be no pronounced allusion in
Egyptian art or literature to these four constellations, though there
are indications (see pp. 230-238) which may lead us to believe that
the astronomical phenomena of the later date, 4000 B.C., were closely
observed, and seem to have formed the basis of much of the mythology of
Egypt.

These facts tend to confirm the conclusion--so often advocated in this
book--that the ancestors of the Egyptians, as also of all the great
civilized nations of antiquity, followed through many long ages the
same sidereal calendar--one based on the observation of the colures
amongst the fixed stars 6000 B.C. And it would seem that not till
about 4000 B.C., when the colures had traversed, from east to west,
the constellations Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius, and had
arrived at the eastern degrees of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio,
did astronomic authorities in Egypt direct their attention to a reform
of the calendar and introduce into it, and into religious observances,
references to these four last-named constellations.

Turning to Plate XVI. we may notice that the equinoctial colure,
marking out as it does the extreme western limits of the constellation
Cancer, passes also through a part of the constellation Gemini. This
fact may, I think, help to explain some of the legends connected with
the twins Castor and Pollux in ancient lore.

A very brilliant star glitters on the head of each twin. These stars
are of almost equal lustre and well deserve the name of twin stars; and
so we can easily suppose how it was that the imaginative astronomers
who, at the early date in question, mapped out the figures of the
Zodiac, noticing that the equinoctial colure passed between these two
bright stars, should have elected to represent them as marking the
heads of twin figures, which they determined should symbolize the
_equal day and night_ of the season over which they presided.

These two stars, thousands of years after they had ceased to mark
the equinox, were still associated by the Greeks with the twin
heroes--Castor and Pollux--brothers who, according to the legend, were
“possessed of an immortality of existence so divided among them, that
as one dies, the other revives.” The learned Dr Barrett has pointed out
that “this furnishes a complete description of Day and Night.” This
remark of Dr Barrett’s becomes especially interesting if we attribute
the first symbolizing of day and night by these stars to the work of
astronomers at a date when the day and night these stars symbolized
were of exactly equal length, and when, therefore, the equal stars and
equal alternation of light and darkness might both be fitly symbolized
as twins.

At Plate XVIII. it is to be observed that the equinoctial colure,
instead of adjoining Capricornus, occupies an almost central position
in the preceding constellation, Sagittarius. This fact, together with
other considerations, has led me to think that originally only the
bow and arrow of Sagittarius were imagined for that division of the
ecliptic; and that the huge composite figure of the archer--half man
and half horse--was added to the original design in later ages, by
astronomers who chose the spring equinox instead of the winter solstice
for the beginning of the year.

In discussing the Median calendar, the importance which seems to
have been given by the ancestors of the Medes to the constellation
Sagittarius, at a date when it marked the spring equinox, was dwelt
upon. It will, I think, appear likely, when we come to study Plates
XIX. and XX., that as early as 4600 B.C. constellations were imagined
to honour and mark the equinoctial as well as the solstitial seasons.

Perhaps then, at that date the constellation Sagittarius was extended
to its present dimensions; and it may be that some centuries later,
when the colure of the _winter solstice_ had passed into the
constellation Aquarius, some astronomers desired--like Gudea of Lagash
and Tchuen-Hio in China--to honour that season, and to make it the
beginning of the year. It may be that such astronomers dealt with the
eleventh constellation of the Zodiac, as earlier ones had dealt with
Sagittarius, and that they added to what was possibly originally only a
_water jar_, Amphora, the figure of the _water pourer_ Aquarius.

These ideas are put forward very speculatively. They were partly
suggested by noticing that in the Indian Zodiac the name of the
constellation Sagittarius is merely Dhanus (arrow), and the name of
Aquarius is Kumbha (water jar).

In the diagrams which we have been discussing, it will be observed that
only the twelve figures of the Zodiac, and _two_ of the extra-Zodiacal
constellations, are given in continuous outline, one of these two is
Draco--the dragon or serpent whose folds surround the _Pole of the
Ecliptic_--the central point of the circle of the Zodiac.

That the astronomers who traced out the circle of the Zodiac on
the heavens, and imagined its twelve strange figures, should also
have devoted attention to, and marked out, its central point, is
not improbable. The _Pole of the Ecliptic_, unlike the _Pole of the
Heavens_, is immoveable amongst the fixed stars. At 6000 B.C., as at
the present date, the stars of Draco surrounded this point--a point not
itself marked by any conspicuous star. We have not, however, I think,
at present sufficient grounds for deciding at what exact date the
constellation Draco was imagined under the form it now holds. But that
it is very ancient there is no doubt.

For the first depicting on the vault of heaven of the figure of Bootes,
I claim with much stronger conviction the date of 6000 B.C., and the
latitude of 45° north. For then and there Bootes might be seen at
midnight of the summer solstice, standing upright on the northern
horizon, his head reaching nearly to the Pole of the Heavens. Never
since that date has he held so commanding a position in the sky, nor at
any more southern latitude could his whole figure have been represented
as standing on the horizon.

One further suggestion as to this constellation I am tempted to make.
Not, it is true, on the same firm astronomical grounds as those put
forward for the date of the first imagining of the figure, but a
suggestion based on the Greek name of the constellation.

The name Bootes has been translated as ox-driver, and of him Aratos
says:--

    “The _Bear-ward_, whom mankind the _Ploughman_ call,
    Because he seems to touch the wain-like _Bear_.”[113]

  [113] _The Phainomena or “Heavenly Display” of Aratos, done into
  English verse_ by Robert Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 92.

The seven bright stars which mark the tail and part of the body of
the Great Bear are often spoken of as “the Plough,” and in the large
remaining space allotted on the sphere to the constellation Ursa Major,
it would not be difficult to include oxen harnessed to the brightly
marked celestial plough.

I have said that at midnight of the summer solstice the constellation
Bootes--if we suppose it to have been imagined at 6000 B.C.--presided
visibly over the northern sky. But we have learnt from the month
names in the Accadian calendar that the astronomers who instituted
it always directed attention to the constellations which _invisibly_
accompanied the sun in his daily journeyings from east to west, rather
than to those which (in opposition) were visible through the hours
of the night. For example--all through the mid-winter month of the
sacrifice of righteousness, the stars of the Ram--the celestial symbol
of that sacrifice--were invisible, hidden in the overpowering light
of the sun. In like manner, I think, we may assume that at the close
of the Accadian year--in the “month of the sowing of seed” or in “the
dark month of sowing,” when mortal husbandmen were following on earth
their ox-drawn ploughs, Bootes, the ox-driver, though invisible to the
bodily eye, appeared to the mental vision of the astronomer, following
unweariedly the ox-drawn plough in the sky.

The various suppositions here put forward will lead those who accept
them as probably correct, to picture to themselves the existence, at
the early date of 6000 B.C., in latitude 45° N., of a race of men--not
savages, and not merely pastoral nomads--but a race of agriculturists
who tilled the ground and reaped its fruits--a race possessed of high
intellectual power--who respected law and justice, and whose religion
taught them to offer to their god “sacrifices of righteousness.”

PLATES XIX. AND XX.

In Plate XIX., fig. 1, it is the constellation known in the Grecian
sphere as Hercules that claims our attention. At the date and latitude
above named, this constellation, if then it had already been imagined,
culminated gloriously on the northern meridian at midnight of the
spring equinox. The head of the hero, or demi-god, touched the very
zenith, and with his club brandished aloft he must have seemed well
fitted to triumph over, not only the dragon coiled beneath his feet,
but over every opposing power.

As was said at p. 223 about Bootes, 6000 B.C., so it may here be
repeated of Hercules, 4667 B.C., “never since that date has he held so
commanding a position in the sky.”

At the present date of writing, and in our English latitudes, Hercules
“will ever rise reversed,”[114] and through the summer and autumn
months his kneeling figure is always to be seen hanging head downwards
in the southern quarter of the sky.

  [114] _The Phainomena or “Heavenly Display” of Aratos, done into
  English verse_ by Robert Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 669.

Grecian writers, some centuries B.C., were already puzzled to account
for this “_reversed_” position of “the Kneeler.” Aratos, from whom I
have quoted above, thus further wonders as to this constellation. At
line 63 we read:--

    “... like a toiling man, revolves
    A form. Of it can no one clearly speak,
    Nor to what toil he is attached; but, simply,
    _Kneeler_ they call him. Labouring on his knees,
    Like one who sinks he seems;”

and again at line 614--

    “The _Kneeler_ ...
    He who is ne’er far distant from the _Lyre_,
    Whoe’er this stranger of the heavenly forms
    May be.”[115]

  [115] _The Phainomena or “Heavenly Display” of Aratos, done into
  English verse_ by Robert Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 669.

4600 B.C. no such difficult speculations could have presented
themselves to the minds of those who, in the joyous springtime of
the year, beheld in imagination, night after night, the grand and
conquering figure of this god or hero, typifying for them, as we may
easily suppose, the ever-increasing triumph at that season of the power
of light over darkness.

Plate XIX., fig. 2. It was perhaps at this same date that the cluster
of stars “led round in circle”[116] close to the bow of Sagittarius,
and exactly marking the equinoctial colure, was figured as a
_crown_, and that so depicted, as I have contended at page 76, this
constellation suggested the symbolic circle, crown, or wreath which
sometimes takes the place of the bow in Assur’s hand, and which almost
always is present in the hand of Ahura Mazda in Median representations
of that figure.

  [116] _The Phainomena or “Heavenly Display” of Aratos, done into
  English verse_ by Robert Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 401.

At Plate XX., fig. 1, I have drawn the constellation Hydra as it would
have appeared at the date 4667 B.C. At pages 117, 118, the reasons
which led me to suppose that this constellation was then first imagined
have been given.

At Plate XX., fig. 2, it may be seen how 4667 B.C. the figure of
Orion very accurately marked the equinoctial colure, and this fact
may incline us to suppose that the giant hunter--so often, according
to Grecian legend, in conflict with the powers of high Heaven--was
depicted about this date by ancient astronomers to represent the
strength of the adverse powers which, at the _autumnal_ season in the
mythologies of northern nations, appear in combat with, and temporarily
triumphant over, the powers of light.

In favour of the high date here claimed for the imagining of Orion’s
figure under very much the same form as that still depicted on our
globes, there are some indications to be observed in the Sanscrit names
of the Nakshatra, which contains the stars, λ φ₁ φ₂ Orionis--_i.e._,
the stars marking the head of Orion.

This Nakshatra is known in Hindu astronomy under two quite different
names--viz., Mṛigashirsha and Agrahayani. The Sanscrit word,
Mṛigashirsha, means literally “Wild beast’s head,” and B. G. Tilak,
in his work, _The Orion; or, Researches into the Antiquity of the
Vedas_, basing his opinion upon many ingenious and recondite arguments,
supposes that ancient Indian astronomers gave the name of Mṛigashiras
to the stars of Orion, which they imagined portrayed in the sky an
“Antelope’s head” transfixed by an arrow--the arrow being marked by the
three bright stars so well known to us as Orion’s Belt.

Mṛiga, there can be no doubt, carries often with it in Sanscrit
literature the meaning of “antelope”: but Tilak expressly says at p.
97, “Though I have translated the word _Mṛigashiras_ by ‘Antelope’s
head,’ I do not mean to imply that _Mṛiga_ necessarily meant ‘an
antelope’ in the Vedic literature.” Again, at p. 151, he says: “The
word _Mṛiga_ in the Rigveda, means according to Sâyaṇa both a lion and
a deer.”

Again, as to the other name of the Nakshatra--Agrahayani--it has
the meaning of “first-going” (of the sun) understood. In a long
dissertation on this name, Tilak contends that it marked an important
point in the annual course of the sun, and then further seeks to derive
the Greek name Orion from the Sanscrit word, Agrahayani. Of the value
of the etymological arguments advanced, I am quite unable to judge, but
on astronomic grounds it would not seem an improbable derivation.

But the acceptance of Tilak’s contention as to the derivation of the
name Orion would make it reasonable to suppose that not only the name
but also the configuration of the constellation might, in the astronomy
of the Greek and Indian nations, resemble each other; and thus we
should be more ready to believe that Mṛigashirsha referred to the
lion’s head on Orion’s arm, and not to an “antelope’s head”--a head
which, as depicted by Tilak at p. 100, would alone have filled nearly
all the space in the heavens occupied in the Grecian sphere by the
huge figure of the giant hunter known to us as Orion.

The indications furnished by these two Sanscrit Nakshatra names, if
they are followed, must lead us to attribute the imagining and naming
of the constellation Orion to a time before that when the ancestors of
the Greeks and Indians went their separate ways to the west and to the
east, and so will strengthen the claim here made for the depicting of
the constellation on the sky as early as 4600 B.C.

It will be noted that in the suggestions here offered concerning
Hercules, Corona Australis, Hydra, and Orion, a change in the symbolic
methods followed by earlier astronomers, 6000 B.C., must be supposed.

It was to the constellations invisibly _accompanying_ the sun that the
originators of the Zodiac appear to have directed their attention. But
the symbolic figures we have now been studying--there can, it seems to
me, be little doubt--were designed to mark _visibly_, and, therefore,
in _opposition_ to the sun, the various seasons of the year.

A great astronomic activity, a sort of astronomic renaissance, in fact,
seems to manifest itself as we study the celestial globe at 4600 B.C.,
and to this date I would attribute the origin of the astronomic myths
of many nations.

PLATE XXI.[117]

  [117] The figures in this Plate have been drawn from the globe
  adjusted to the date, 4128 B.C., Lat. 40° N.

In _The Median Calendar and the Constellation Taurus_ I have put
forward considerations drawn from Median and Assyrian sources, which
seemed to me to lead to the conclusion that at about the date 4000 B.C.
very close attention was given to the position of the colures amongst
the fixed stars, and that at that date very special honour was given
by the ancestors of the Medes to the constellation Sagittarius--the
constellation which at the spring equinox was in opposition to the sun,
and therefore visible all through the night. I need not here reiterate
what was there advanced on this point concerning Median and Assyrian
symbolism, but rather I now desire to draw attention to the existence
in _Egyptian_ art and mythologic teaching of what I cannot but think is
very constant reference to the position of the colures, as they might
have been observed--speaking in round numbers--from 4000 down to 2000
B.C.

It will be seen at Fig. 4 that the equinoctial colure, at the earlier
of these dates, touched the confines of the constellation Sagittarius,
and might even then, with almost equal right, have been claimed as
adjoining those of Scorpio. We can well imagine that the astronomic
school which carried out the reformation in method discussed above
(pp. 222, 227), which resulted in the imagining of the constellations
Hercules and Corona Australis, and in the extension, as I suggested,
of the boundaries of Sagittarius--we can well imagine that this school
would with reluctance admit the baleful image of Scorpio to take the
post of leader of the year, so long held by Sagittarius. But from 4000
B.C. onwards to 2000 B.C. the constellations that did actually mark
the equinoctial and solstitial colures, were Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and
Aquarius.

Volumes of controversy have been written concerning the astronomic
teachings of the ceilings of the temples of Denderah and Edfu, as to
the position of the colures amongst the fixed stars, suggested by the
arrangement of the figures of the Zodiac in both these temples. The
date astronomically referred to in these designs was claimed by some
to be about 4000 B.C., but when it was proved that these temples had
been restored in Ptolemaic times, and the ceilings probably redecorated
then, the high claims put forward for the first imagining of these
astronomic designs could no longer with certainty be upheld. A strong
reaction in opinion then took place, and it was again and again
asserted that the Egyptians were probably not even acquainted with the
so-called Grecian twelve-fold division of the ecliptic till after the
introduction of European culture into Egypt. To seek for allusions
in ancient Egyptian mythology or art to any of the twelve Zodiacal
constellations was, therefore, a much discouraged attempt.

But if the testimony of the ceilings of the Denderah and Edfu temples
is rendered suspect by their Ptolemaic restoration, the same objection
cannot be raised against the evidence borne by the ceiling of an
ancient Egyptian building, which has certainly not been restored in
Ptolemaic times. In the _Description de l’Égypte_,[118] we find a
careful drawing of a “Tableau astronomique au Plafond de l’un des
tombeaux des rois.” In the central portion on either side of this
ceiling a monstrous hippopotamus and crocodile are represented,
together with various beings depicted on a much smaller scale. In the
drawing here given, of one of these central groups, we find, as it
seems to me, very clear reference to the four figures--Taurus, Scorpio,
Leo, and Aquarius (= Amphora).

  [118] _Description de l’Égypte_, 10 vols., Paris, MDCCCXII.-XXIII.,
  Vol. I., Antiquités, planche 95.

[Illustration: Portion of Ceiling at Bybân-el-Molouk.

[_To face p. 233._]

[Illustration: BULL APIS]

The monstrous hippopotamus and crocodile here depicted are, I am
strongly inclined to believe, representations, not of any particular
constellation, but rather of the solstitial and equinoctial colures;
and the four not at all, except astronomically, related figures of the
Bull, Scorpion, Lion, and Water-jar, are here very clearly in evidence.

In Egyptian mythology the Apis Bull held a very important place. “It
was regarded as a symbol and incarnation of Osiris, the husband of
Isis, and next to Râ, the great divinity of Egypt.” Grecian authorities
tell us that the Apis Bull was black, with some distinctive white
markings; and on its back (or tongue, according to variant accounts)
the figure of a scarabæus was to be observed. From a drawing in Ebers’
_Egypt_, Vol. I., p. 121, we may, however, gather, as I think I have
seen it elsewhere stated, that the Apis Bull was marked by _equal_
areas of black and white. Such equal areas would fitly symbolize the
equal day and night of the equinoctial season, and the presence of the
scarabæus on the back or tongue of the Bull--if the suggestion made
at p. 218 should prove to be correct--would point to the traditional
connexion of that creature with the same equinoctial season.

It has often been assumed that the golden calf set up and worshipped in
the wilderness by the Israelites was a representation of the Apis god
of Egypt; and that so also were the calves set up by Jeroboam in Bethel
and in Dan on his return from Egypt. We read in 1 Kings xii. 32, “And
Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of
the month.” ... Ver. 33, “So he offered upon the altar which he had
made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month
which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the
children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.”

Now, from our knowledge of the Babylonian calendar, and its
correspondence with that in use in Palestine, we may conclude that the
“eighth month” (Marchesvan), devised by Jeroboam, was that during which
the sun traversed the constellation Scorpio, and during which Taurus
was dominantly visible all night; and when in this constellation the
full moon of the fifteenth or festival day was to be observed. This
mention of the _eighth_ month in connexion with the worship of the
golden calves--a worship, as has been supposed, copied from Egyptian
practice--greatly strengthens the opinion that the Apis Bull was in
Egypt looked upon as a living representative of the Zodiacal Bull--the
constellation which in the time of the early dynasties marked, in
opposition to the sun, the autumnal equinox.

In Median mythology and art we have seen the great importance of Tauric
symbolism: but there is a wide difference between the Tauric symbolism
of the Medes and the Egyptians. Mithras, the Median sun-god, again and
again triumphs over and slays the Bull. In Egypt, on the contrary,
the Sacred Bull is honoured and worshipped during its lifetime, and
reverently embalmed, and with all pomp and glory buried after its death.

This difference in the mythologic conceptions of Media and Egypt may be
attributed, I think, to the difference of climatic conditions in the
two countries.

In Media, spring--in Egypt, autumn--is the joyous and fruitful season
of the year. In the early ages, when Median and Egyptian mythologies
took their rise, Taurus was at the spring equinox in conjunction with
the sun, and was, therefore, slain by its overwhelming brightness; but
at the autumn equinox that same constellation, _in opposition_, rose
when the sun set, and all night long was visible. In Median art, it is
the Bull immolated by the sun in springtime that is represented. In
Egyptian symbolism, it is to the Bull triumphantly traversing the sky
by night, in the autumn season, that attention is directed.

In the light of these astronomic considerations, it is interesting to
think of the fanatical act of Cambyses in slaying the Apis Bull, as
one prompted not only by fury at seeing the high honour paid to the
Egyptian god, but also by an insane pride, which made him desire to
imitate the triumph of Mithras--the Persian sun-god--over the Bull in
the heavens, by killing its earthly representative, the Apis Bull.

In the days of Cambyses, when Apis worship prevailed in Egypt, and
even still earlier when the children of Israel, in imitation of this
worship, set up the golden calf in the wilderness, the _raison d’être_
for the honour paid to Taurus as a star mark of the autumnal season
no longer existed; for we know that about 1800 B.C., the equinoctial
colure had left that constellation, and had entered the eastern degrees
of the constellation Aries. Egyptian history assures us, however,
that the institution of the Apis worship was effected by some king
of the first dynasty in the far back ages when Taurus, Scorpio, Leo,
and Aquarius did actually preside over the four seasons of the year.
Moreover, the recent discoveries of the tombs of kings and other
personages, in the first Egyptian dynasty, lead us back to the remote
date of 4000 B.C., when the very earliest observations of the colures
in the four above-named constellations could have been made.

In these ancient tombs, amongst other objects, have been found slate
slabs of various shapes--some of them, in their general outline, as it
appears to me, representing in the flat the form of a jar or vase. In
the accompanying cuts, a proposed restoration of the broken-off top
of one of the slates is given, and is distinguished from the existing
portion of the slate by being drawn in dotted lines. Both sides of
these slabs are covered by finely executed carvings, not incised but
in relief. The subjects of the reliefs are very varied, but prominent
amongst them, and exactly repeated more than once, is the figure of a
bull trampling under his feet, and preparing to gore with his horns,
a fallen human foe. Lions are also portrayed in many attitudes, and
on one slate, where in the upper register this triumphing bull is
represented, below it in a crenellated cartouche a lion and an urn
or jar are to be seen in close proximity to each other. On another
slate, a scorpion is delineated above a crenellated cartouche; and
representations of scorpions carved in relief on mace-heads and on
jars, and scorpions carved in the round, have been met with in great
numbers in the excavations at Hierakonpolis--the site also of the
discovery of one of the most important of the carved slates here
described.

It is difficult, I think, to resist the conclusion that we have in
the carvings on these ancient slate objects references not to merely
terrestrial bulls, lions, scorpions, and water jars, but rather to the
constellations, already imagined under those forms, whose stars, at the
date when these carvings were made, marked in conjunction with, and in
opposition to, the sun, the four seasons of the year.[119]

  [119] In the centre of many, if not of all, of the slates under
  our notice, there is carved on the obverse a ring surrounding a
  depression. “Mr Quibell’s theory, which is still adhered to by
  Professor Petrie, is that this ring was intended to receive the
  green paint with which it is supposed the earliest Egyptians painted
  their faces,” but Mr Legge in his Paper, from which I have here
  quoted (contributed to the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
  Archæology_, May 1900, pp. 137, 138), puts forward a different
  view, which, if it is correct, would lend support to the astronomic
  interpretation above proposed for some of the carved representations.
  Mr Legge considers that the rings represented the sun, and that
  “it is quite possible that this significance was heightened by
  the introduction of some bright substance, such as gold foil.” He
  points out that the composite monsters of the slates, all of which
  are represented on certain ivories, which he names, are always
  associated with the sun-disk. He believes these figures to have a
  symbolic meaning, though he does not in his Paper claim the especial
  astronomic interpretations I have above advocated.

[Illustration: Outlines of two carved slates drawn from Plates I. and
III. in _The Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_ for May
1900.

[_To face p. 236._]

PLATE XXII.[120]

  [120] This plate has been drawn from the globe adjusted to the dates
  and latitudes of 5744 B.C. Lat. 18° N., and of 3588 B.C., Lat. 23° N.

In Grecian legend Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, the sea-monster
(Cetus), and Perseus are associated together, and on the Grecian sphere
five neighbouring constellations represent the actors of the legend.

Studying these constellations as they must have appeared to observers
of the heavens at different dates, we shall, I think, see some reason
to attribute the imagining of the figure of the hero Perseus to a
later age than that of the other members of the group, and, on the
other hand, there are considerations which may make us hesitate
whether we should not place the origin of the constellation Andromeda
at an even earlier date than those of Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and the
sea-monster.[121] One point in the legend, however, finds strong
astronomic support from a study of the precessional globe--namely, the
fact that Cepheus and Cassiopeia were personages of Ethiopian--_i.e._,
of tropical provenance.

  [121] See below at p. 246, and pp. 242, 243.

It will be seen in Plate XXII., fig. 1, that only in a latitude as far
South as 18° N. could the figure of Cassiopeia--even at the early date
of 6000 B.C.--have been imagined as that of a queen seated in royal
dignity, and visible in the northern quarter of the heavens.

By referring to Plate XV., we may learn that in Lat. 45° N. at that
date, Cassiopeia would have appeared in the southern quarter of the
sphere, head downwards, while the figure of Cepheus could only have
been observed by turning first to one and then to the other quarter
of the sky. As, however, the _head of Cepheus_ would have marked so
exactly the solstitial colure 6000 B.C., it seemed to me only right
to seek for a latitude in which his figure and that of his queen
should appear upright and in the same quarter of the heavens--a
latitude, therefore, in which it might be possible to suppose these
constellations had been originated as star-marks of the solstitial
season. To attain this object it was necessary to set the globe to the
very low latitude of 18° N.

To suppose at 6000 B.C. so wide a diffusion, not only of the human
race, but also of astronomical science and authority, seemed to involve
an historical unlikelihood. Moreover, even if for the sake of suitably
establishing the dignity of this regal pair one were tempted to suppose
the great improbability of schools of astronomy existing, and with
equal authority instituting constellations as star-marks for the year,
in regions as far north as Lat. 45° N. and as far south as 18° N.--even
so, I do not think the position of the constellations themselves in
relation to the solstitial colure as shown in the diagram is by any
means so convincingly symmetrical as to force us to accept the date
6000 B.C. for their origin. The head only of Cepheus appears on the
meridian, his figure and the whole constellation of Cassiopeia lie
considerably to the east of that line.

Under these circumstances it is satisfactory to find at a later,
and therefore at a more historically probable date, and still in an
Ethiopian (tropical) latitude, a meridian line on and about which
the constellations Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Cetus form a
well-balanced group.

This meridian, it is true, is not that of a solstice or an equinox; but
it is one which marked a very important astronomical moment--namely,
the commencement of the calendrical year--the year counted from the
entry of the sun into the constellation Aries. (See Plate XXII., fig.
2.)

Of the high calendrical importance attached through thousands of years
to this point in the sun’s annual course by the Accadian and Babylonian
nations and by the Hindus down to the present day, astronomic records
testify. Egyptian mythology and Chinese traditions also, as I have
claimed, refer to it: it need not, therefore, surprise us to find
constellations imagined to mark the beginning of a year counted from
that point, even at a date when this beginning did not coincide either
with solstice or equinox.

3500 B.C. is the approximate date I would suggest in a latitude not far
from 23° N. for the origin of the constellations Cepheus, Cassiopeia,
and probably also for that of Cetus.

The legend tells us that Cassiopeia by boasting of her own or of her
daughter’s surpassing beauty incurred the enmity of the nereids. She is

    “... that starr’d Ethiop queen that strove
    To set her beauty’s praise above
    The sea-nymphs, and their power offended.”[122]

  [122] Milton, _Il Penseroso_.

It seems to me that for this legend, as for many others, an astronomic
basis may be assigned. 3500 B.C. the solstitial colure passed through
the constellation Aquarius. The stars of that constellation might then
not unfitly have been likened to sea divinities, and rival schools of
astronomers and calendar keepers may have exalted the praise, on the
one hand, of the stars that marked a calendrical, and, on the other
hand, of those that marked a solstitial year.

A curious fact as to the lines in which Aratos refers to the
constellation Cassiopeia must here be noted.

Aratos versified “the _Phainomena_ of the astronomer Eudoxos, who
lived cir. B.C. 403-350.” It has often been pointed out that the facts
concerning the constellations which Aratos and Eudoxos record “are to
a great extent traditional and archaic, and belong to another and far
earlier epoch.” What is said of Cassiopeia is a case in point; for thus
the poet deplores her pride and its punishment at line 654 _et seq._--

    “And now she, too, her daughter’s form pursues,
    Sad _Kassiepeia_; nor seemly still
    Show from her seat her feet and knees above;
    But she head foremost like a tumbler sits:
    With knees divided: since a doom must fall
    On boasts to equal Panopê and Doris.”[123]

  [123] _The Phainomena or “Heavenly Display” of Aratos_, _ub. supr._

Now in Eudoxos’ time and in his latitude, though Cassiopeia’s head did
by a few degrees extend into the southern heavens, yet her position was
not so deplorably ignominious as the poem would suggest. Three thousand
years earlier the pity for her expressed by Aratos would have been
more appropriate, for then her whole figure for observers in lat. 35°
N. would have been visible in the southern quarter of the sky, and her
feet, not her head (as at Lat. 23° N.), would have been on the zenith.

These considerations may lead us to suppose that the idea of
Cassiopeia’s pride, and the fit punishment of it--_i.e._, her reversed
position in the heavens, must have assumed form in _northern_ latitudes
almost at as early a date as the constellation figures were first
imagined in _tropical_ latitudes.

If this be so, it is indeed curious to find a legend which embodied
the _animus_ of astronomic rivalry 3500 B.C. handed down for thousands
of years, and repeated in what professed to be a somewhat scientific
treatise at a date between 400 and 300 B.C., when the astronomic facts
no longer tallied with those narrated in the legend.

As to Andromeda, the classic story describes her as the daughter
of Cepheus and Cassiopeia; but the constellation itself--except on
legendary grounds--might equally well have marked the beginning of a
solstitial year 6000 B.C., or of a non-solstitial and calendrical year
3500 B.C.

The terrible prevalence of human sacrifices in ancient times, and
at the solstices especially, may make us almost fear that the
representation of a chained human victim had its place in the sphere at
the earlier (solstitial) date.

The chains which bind Andromeda’s arms are fastened by staples to the
sky. They appear (at fig. 1) at 6000 B.C. as though driven into two
important astronomic lines--_i.e._, one of them into the line of the
equator, the other into that of the solstitial colure. This may, of
course, be a mere coincidence, and should not be allowed to weigh at
all heavily in the almost evenly adjusted balance of probabilities
regarding the date of the origin of the constellation Andromeda. Her
story is so interwoven, not only with that of Cepheus and Cassiopeia,
but also with that of the sea-monster Cetus, that we should not hastily
attempt to dissociate the members of this group.

The very interesting question as to what southern people first depicted
the Ethiopic king and queen on the sphere cannot be answered on
astronomic grounds. We know that the latitude in which these figures
were imagined must have been tropical, if the date of their imagining
was as early as 3500 _B.C._ But we cannot learn from the celestial
globe what was the longitude of the land in which they were so
imagined. Ethiopia proper, and parts of Arabia and India, lie within
the tropics, and the term Ethiopia, in classic writings, embraces all
these countries.

Etymologists are, I believe, divided in opinion as to what language
the rather un-Grecian names, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, were derived
from. Some writers have suggested for their origin the Sanscrit names
Capuja and Cassyape: and if, as I have already urged, the Aries-year
was followed in ancient Vedic times in India, the Sanscrit derivation
suggested will seem not an unlikely one. Nor under these suppositions
would it be difficult to propose a possible Sanscrit origin for the
name Andromeda, though for this purpose we should have to deprive the
legend of all its classic and romantic charm. Cassyape, in Sanscrit
story, is not the name of a gloriously beautiful queen, but of a
“sage,” and it might be that the constellation Andromeda also, for
ancient Indian astronomers, represented merely a _human_ sacrifice, not
that of the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother. Though in the
Rig Veda there is no legend of the sacrifice of a woman, yet in it we
meet with seven consecutive hymns referring to the sacrifice, real or
symbolical, of Sunahśepas, the son of a rishi or sage, who, according
to the commentators, had consented to yield his son up to this cruel
fate. The prayers of the victim, addressed to many gods, at last result
in his deliverance.

Two other hymns in the Rig Veda relate to the great ceremony of the
sacrifice, real or symbolical, of a horse. I give at p. 252 some of the
considerations which have convinced me that the praises of the winged
steed--_i.e._, of the constellation Pegasus, and not merely the praises
of an earthly horse, are the subject of these two hymns. The ceremony
in question bore the name of Aswamedha, literally Horse-Sacrifice.

In reading and comparing these two series of sacrificial hymns, some
points of contact present themselves, and, observing this, it occurred
to me that some Sanscrit word ending in _Medha_--_i.e._, sacrifice,
and conveying the meaning of _human sacrifice_, might by ancient
Indian astronomers have been attached to the constellation, which
for us represents the hapless Andromeda: for if we suppose that the
constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus were imagined in India, but
adopted with an appropriate legend into the Grecian sphere--the names
of the personages in the legend at the same time suffering a Grecian
change--it would be easy further to suppose that the Indian name of
the constellation near to them, transformed and misunderstood, came to
represent in Grecian story not merely a _human_ sacrifice, but that of
the much-to-be-pitied daughter of the proud Cassiopeia.

Whether these fanciful speculations concerning the names of the actors
in the ancient legend be adopted or not need not affect our judgment
as to the reasonableness, or otherwise, of the date, 3500 B.C., and of
Lat. 23° N. for the origin of the constellational group here discussed.

PLATE XXIII.[124]

  [124] The figures in this plate have been drawn from the globe
  adjusted to the following dates and latitudes. Figs. 1 and 2, 3589
  B.C., Lat. 35° N. Fig. 3, 3050 B.C., Lat. 35° N. Fig. 4, 1443 B.C.,
  Lat. 40° N.

The probable dates for the first imagining of four constellations are
here given--namely, for the Centaur, Ophiuchus, Auriga, and Perseus.

For the Centaur the date in round numbers of 3500 B.C. (fig. 1) is
suggested: at that date his huge figure would have well marked, in
opposition, the beginning of the calendrical Aries-year; or, in
conjunction with the sun, the beginning of the seventh month of the
same year. It is not necessary, at that date, to attribute a low
latitude to the astronomers who designed this figure: in that of 35°
N., as shown in the diagram, the whole constellation would then have
been well above the horizon. The much earlier epoch of 6000 B.C. might
perhaps be claimed for the Centaur. At that date, as I have assumed,
the calendrical and the solstitial year coincided. (Compare Plate XVII.
and Plate IX.) As between 6000 and 3500 B.C. I have often hesitated,
but on the whole I have come to think the later date, as here given,
the more probable.

Fig. 2.--Again at the date 3500 B.C. and in the latitude 35° N. I
have drawn the constellation Ophiuchus as it would have appeared in
opposition to the sun at the season of the spring equinox; triumphing
over the powers of darkness--namely, the scorpion on which he treads
and the serpent which he crushes with his hands. Although at the date
in question Hercules’ position in the northern heavens was not quite
so commanding and symmetrical as it was a thousand years earlier (see
Plate XIX.), yet in the lower latitude given here (Plate XXIII., fig.
2) the heads of Hercules and of Ophiuchus would have been on the
zenith, and these brothers might have been seen, one of them in the
northern and the other in the southern quarter of the sky, strongly
combating and conquering the forces of winter and darkness at the
season of the spring equinox.

Fig. 3.--For Auriga, I have suggested the later date of 3000 B.C.,
for then the bright star Capella, the most important star in the
constellation and one of the brightest in that part of the sky, was
on the meridian in conjunction with the sun at noon of the spring
equinox--and in opposition at mid-night of the autumn equinox.

The star Capella has, by several writers, been identified with the
star “Icu of Babylon” mentioned in many of the Babylonian astrological
texts. If this identification of Capella and “Icu of Babylon” should
be established as correct, we ought, I suppose, to credit _Babylonian_
astronomers with the delineation of the figure Auriga.

Fig. 4.--Unless we adopt on the authority of the Cepheus, Cassiopeia,
and Andromeda legend the date 3500 for Perseus, it will seem, I think,
almost necessary to attribute the much later one of 1433 B.C. for the
designing of this constellation. At the earlier date the position of
Perseus--see Plate XXII., fig. 2--militates against the likelihood of
its having then been imagined; as part of the figure of Perseus would
have been visible in the northern and part in the southern hemisphere.

In favour of the later date we may note the way in which the figure
of Perseus has been fitted in, as it were, between already-named
constellations, so that though restricted to a small space it still
retains heroic proportions.

The star Algol, whose strange alternations of magnitude may well have
suggested to the ancients the _winking_ of the eye of some malignant
monster, was imagined by the astronomers who drew the figure of
Perseus, as on the brow of the Gorgon Medusa. It will be seen in the
Plate how, at the date there given, this mysterious star exactly marked
the equinoctial meridian.

The northern latitude 40° N., suitable for the imagining of this
constellation, and its name Perseus, seem to point to an Iranian school
of astronomers as the probable originators of this figure.

PLATE XXIV.

It will be seen that by consulting the precessional globe it has been
possible to suggest dates at which the various simple and composite
human figures, represented on the (Grecian) sphere could have been
originally imagined in an upright position, either on the northern or
southern meridian at some well-marked time of the year--that is of
either a cosmical or a calendrical year.

That many other of the remaining ancient constellations--Canis Major
and Canis Minor, Aquila, Cygnus, &c., were depicted and named at very
remote dates, there can, I think, be little doubt. The wide-spread
traditions connected with these figures demand an early origin for
them. It is probable that the _heliacal rising_ of certain bright stars
in these constellations at some special season of the year, rather than
their _culmination at noon or at midnight_, may have been the occasion
for the interest taken in them.

A further study of the precessional globe with this thought present
would probably suggest approximate dates for the imagining of some of
these constellations, small in extent but marked by bright stars.

I will now only allude to the two remaining ancient constellations of
_wide extent_--namely, to Argo and Pegasus.

Glancing at Plate X. (Astronomy in the Rig Veda) the almost upright and
symmetrical position of Argo 3000 B.C. may suggest the likelihood that
at that date or perhaps a few hundred years later, and in a latitude
about 12° higher than that given in the diagram, this constellation
was imagined. It will be observed that all the stars of Argo, even the
bright and southern Canopus at 35° N. would have been above the horizon
and visible at midnight of the winter solstice. At noon of the summer
solstice they would have been above the horizon, but invisible in
conjunction with the sun.

But now turning our thoughts to the constellation Pegasus, a difficulty
confronts us at every date from 6000 B.C. downwards even to this
present A.D. 1903: Pegasus as depicted on the globe has held and still
holds a reversed position in the heavens. The very fact that for all
the other ancient constellations which represent living beings, it has
been possible to find some season and some date at which they could
have been observed upright in the sky, makes it a more imperative need
to seek for some explanation of the anomalous treatment meted out by
astronomers of old to the winged steed.

In this stress of difficulty, I venture to make a suggestion which
will, I fear, at first sight, appear far-fetched and fanciful, and
quite out of line with other suppositions put forward in this book.

My suggestion is that an error concerning the right depicting of this
constellation was fallen into by some astronomers of old, and that this
error was handed down to us through the Grecian school.

If on some clear autumnal or winter night we search for the
constellation Pegasus, not on a globe or map but in the southern
quarter of the actual sky, we may quickly recognise it by four very
bright stars which mark the corners of an almost exact and very
extensive _square_ on the vault of heaven. Then stretching away from
the lower and western corner of this square still farther towards
the horizon and to the west, we may trace the faint stars which mark
the neck, and the somewhat brighter star which marks the head of the
Demi-Horse: while starting from the upper western corner of the square
and stretching still higher towards the zenith, and to the west we
detect the lines of fainter stars which mark the fore legs and the
hoofs of Pegasus. If we allow the four stars of the “square of Pegasus”
still to mark the body of the horse, and think of the upper lines
of faint stars as marking its neck and head and of the lower ones as
marking its fore legs and hoofs, the figure exactly reversed will
still fit within the limiting lines of the constellation, with the
satisfactory result that the winged steed, not miserably floundering on
its back but upright and alert, will be seen in our mental vision night
after night pursuing its course from east to west across the heavens.

[Illustration: AQUARIUS]

But even to arrive at so satisfactory a result, we might scarcely dare
to propose without some other plea than its mere desirability, so
arbitrary a method of dealing with the reversed position of Pegasus,
as that of thus correcting a supposed error on the part of early
astronomers.

There is, however, I think, in Grecian and in Vedic legend some support
to be found for the opinion that the original position of Pegasus was
upright and not reversed.

Though on the Grecian astronomic sphere Pegasus appears reversed, on no
artistic monument, vase, or coin is he thus represented, and in Grecian
legend he is ever a glorious and highly-prized friend and helper of
gods and heroes. Amongst other achievements, we read of him that he
produced with a blow of his hoof the inspiring fountain Hippocrene.

In the Rig Veda we read of a swift horse, belonging to the Aswins, who
from his hoof filled a hundred vases of sweet liquor.

Max Müller has pointed out that the Aswins possessed a horse called
Pagas. The stars α and β Arietis are in Hindu astronomy called the
“Aswins,” and at p. 137 I have contended that these stars in Vedic
times symbolised the twin heroes, the Aswins, the possessors, according
to Max Müller, of the horse Pagas. If we look at Pegasus in the sky,
and observe how closely following that constellation the bright stars
that mark the head of Aries appear, we shall easily understand how
these Aswins might have by Vedic bards been imagined as possessing and
driving in front of them the swift steed Pegasus.

In two hymns addressed to the Aswins we read as follows:[125]--

  MAṆḌALA I.--Súkta cxvi. and verse 7.

  “You filled from the hoof of your vigorous steed, as if from a cask,
  a hundred jars of wine.”

  And again in the next hymn, cxvii. verse 6--

  “You filled for the (expectant) man a hundred vases of sweet
  (liquors) from the hoof of your fleet horse.”

  [125] Wilson’s translation of the Rig Veda.

As Pegasus is now represented his hoofs touch no well or fountain, cask
or vase. But if we depict him as suggested above (see Plate XXIV.), his
hoof would indeed appear as almost in the act of striking the vase in
the constellation Aquarius, from which the abundant waters gush forth.

I have already alluded to the Aswamedha hymns in the Rig Veda as
probably referring not merely to the sacrifice of an actual horse, but
rather to a symbolic sacrifice of the winged horse of the constellation
Pegasus. In support of this opinion I will quote from the hymns in
question:--

  MAṆḌALA I.--Súkta clxii.

  “1. Let neither MITRA nor VARUN̂A, ARYAMAN, ÁYU, INDRA, RIBHUKSHIN,
  nor the _Maruts_ censure us: when we proclaim in the sacrifice the
  virtues of the swift horse sprung from the gods.

  “2. When they, (the priests), bring the prepared offering to the
  presence (of the horse), who has been bathed and decorated with rich
  (trappings), the various-coloured goat going before him, bleating,
  becomes an acceptable offering to INDRA and PÚSHAN.

  “3. This goat, the portion of PÚSHAN, fit for all the gods, is
  brought first with the fleet courser, so that TWASHT́ṚI may prepare
  him along with the horse, as an acceptable preliminary offering for
  the (sacrificial) food.”

Looking at Plate XXIV., Figs. 1, 2, we may observe how the
constellation Capricornus “goes before” that of Pegasus, and we may
understand the aspiration that Twasht́ṛi may prepare him along with the
horse as an acceptable preliminary offering.

After many verses entering into minute and rather horrible details of
the “immolation” and even of the cooking of the sacrificial horse the
19th verse adds--

“There is one immolator of the radiant horse, which is Time”; and these
words seem to carry us back from thoughts of an actual to a, in some
way, symbolical sacrifice, especially when at verse 21 we read:

“Verily at this moment thou dost not die; nor art thou harmed; for thou
goest by auspicious paths to the gods. The horses of INDRA, the steeds
of the _Maruts_ shall be yoked (to their cars), and a courser shall be
placed in the shaft of the ass of the AŚWINS (to bear thee to heaven).”

The following hymn (lxiii.) I give _in extenso_:--

  MAṆḌALA I.--Súkta clxiii.

  1. Thy great birth, O Horse, is to be glorified; whether first
  springing from the firmament or from the water, inasmuch as thou hast
  neighed (auspiciously), for thou hast the wings of the falcon and the
  limbs of the deer.

  2. TRITA harnessed the horse which was given by YAMA: INDRA first
  mounted him, and GANDHARBA seized his reins. _Vasus_, you fabricated
  the horse from the sun.

  3. Thou, horse, art YAMA: thou art A’DITYA: thou art TRITA by a
  mysterious act: thou art associated with SOMA. The sages have said
  there are three bindings of thee in heaven.

  4. They have said that three are thy bindings in heaven; three upon
  earth; and three in the firmament. Thou declarest to me, Horse,
  who art (one with) VARUN̂A, that which they have called thy most
  excellent birth.

  5. I have beheld, Horse, these thy purifying (regions); these
  impressions of the feet of thee, who sharest in the sacrifice; and
  here thy auspicious reins, which are the protectors of the rite that
  preserve it.

  6. I recognise in my mind thy form afar off, going from (the earth)
  below, by way of heaven, to the sun. I behold thy head soaring aloft,
  and mounting quickly by unobstructed paths, unsullied by dust.

  7. I behold thy most excellent form coming eagerly to (receive) thy
  food in thy (holy) place of earth; when thy attendant brings thee
  nigh to the enjoyment (of the provender), therefore greedy, thou
  devourest the fodder.

  8. The car follows thee, O Horse: men attend thee; cattle follow
  thee; the loveliness of maidens (waits) upon thee; troops of
  demi-gods following thee have sought thy friendship; the gods
  themselves have been admirers of thy vigour.

  9. His mane is of gold; his feet are of iron; and fleet as thought,
  INDRA is his inferior (in speed). The gods have come to partake of
  his (being offered as) oblation; the first who mounted the horse was
  INDRA.

  10. The full-haunched, slender-waisted, high-spirited, and celestial
  coursers (of the sun), gallop along like swans in rows, when the
  horses spread along the heavenly path.

  11. Thy body, horse, is made for motion; thy mind is rapid (in
  intention) as the wind; the hairs (of thy mane) are tossed in
  manifold directions; and spread beautiful in the forests.

  12. The swift horse approaches the place of immolation, meditating
  with mind intent upon the gods; the goat bound to him is led before
  him; after him follow the priests and the singers.

  13. The horse proceeds to that assembly which is most excellent: to
  the presence of his father and his mother (heaven and earth). Go,
  (Horse), to-day rejoicing to the gods, that (the sacrifice) may yield
  blessings to the donor.

Many passages in this hymn, such as those in verse 3 referring to Trita
and Soma, may suggest corroborative astronomic observations,[126] but I
would here especially refer to the description, verse 1, of the horse
possessing “the wings of the falcon,” and in verse 6 to the words, “I
behold _thy head soaring aloft_, and mounting quickly by unobstructed
paths, unsullied by dust.”

  [126] V. pp. 176, 177.

As I read these hymns I cannot think merely of an actual horse led to
sacrifice, but of the winged celestial Pegasus; nor is it easy to think
of that celestial horse as it is at present depicted, _reversed_ in the
sky.

The Vedic poet beheld his head soaring aloft, but in the previous
verse he has said, “I have beheld Horse, ... those impressions of the
feet of thee”; and if these “impressions” were the stars which, on the
Grecian sphere, marked the horse’s head, but, as I have contended,
originally marked his hoof, then we shall understand how, associated
with Soma, and identical with Trita by a mysterious act--_i.e._, at the
season of the summer solstice, and when the moon was at its full in the
constellation Aquarius, ancient astronomers imagined to themselves the
horse Pegasus producing with his hoof the sweet exhilarating waters of
the fountain Hippocrene.

The date of this particular legend concerning the hoof of Pegasus I
should be inclined to place at about 3000 B.C., when the solstitial
colure was so closely marked by “those impressions of the feet” of the
“swift horse sprung from the gods.” For the first imagining of the
constellation I think that of 4000 B.C. is more probable (see Plate
XXIV., Figs. 1, 2).

[Illustration: PLATE XV.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 2.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE XVI.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Spring Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Autumn Equinox.

FIG. 2.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Spring Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Autumn Equinox.

FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE XVII.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Summer Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Winter Solstice.

FIG. 2.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Summer Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Winter Solstice.

FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Autumn Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Spring Equinox.

FIG. 2.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 45° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Autumn Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Spring Equinox.

FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE XIX.

  4,667 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Autumn Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Spring Equinox.

FIG. 2.

  4,667 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Autumn Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Spring Equinox,

FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE XX.

  4,667 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Spring Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Autumn Equinox.

FIG. 2.

  4,667 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Summer Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Winter Solstice.

FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXI.

  4,128 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Autumn Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Spring Equinox.

FIG. 4.

  4,128 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Summer Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Winter Solstice.

FIG. 3.

  4,128 B.C.
  Lat 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 1.

  4,128 B.C.
  Lat 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Spring Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Autumn Solstice.

FIG. 2.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXII.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 18° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 2.

  3,589 B.C.
  Lat. 23° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, beginning Calendrical Year.

Visible--Midnight, 7th Month, Calendrical Year.

FIG. 4.

  5,744 B.C.
  Lat. 18° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 1.

  3,589 B.C.
  Lat. 23° N.

Constellations above Northern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon beginning Calendrical Year.

Visible--Midnight, 7th Month, Calendrical Year.

FIG. 3.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.

  1,433 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Spring Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Autumn Equinox.

FIG. 4.

  3,050 B.C.
  Lat. 35° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Spring Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Autumn Equinox.

FIG. 3.

  3,589 B.C.
  Lat. 35° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, 7th Month, Calendrical Year.

Visible--Midnight, beginning Calendrical Year.

FIG. 1.

  3,589 B.C.
  Lat. 35° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Autumn Equinox.

Visible--Midnight, Spring Equinox.

FIG. 2.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.

  3,050 B.C.
  Lat. 23° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 2.

  4,128 B.C.
  Lat. 40° N.

Constellations above Southern Horizon.

Invisible--Noon, Winter Solstice.

Visible--Midnight, Summer Solstice.

FIG. 1.]

INDEX

  Ab ab-gar, 4

  Abba uddu, 4

  Abel, 164

  Abhra, 113

  Abib, 165, 166, 168, 170

  Aboo Simbel, 39, 40, 41

  Abraham, 167

  Abu, 2, 4

  Accad, 6, 52-57, 80. _See_ Calendar

  Achæmenid kings, 60, 73

  Açvinî. _See_ Aswinī

  Adar, Adaru, 2-6, 69

  A’ditya, 253

  Agane, 151

  Agni, 125-131, 138, 140, 153, 172, 181, 183

  Agrahayani, 228

  Ahi, 111. _See_ Vritra

  Ahura Mazda, 60, 64, 65, 73-76, 81-83, 149-155, 172, 227

  Airu, 2, 4, 11

  Aitareya Brahmana, 140

  Akiba, Rabbi, 163

  Albumassar, 17, 18

  Alexander, 25, 91, 103

  Algol, 246

  Alphonsus, 23

  Altair, 67

  Amen, 32-41

  Amen-Ra, 32-34, 39-41

  Amon. _See_ Amen

  Amphora, 44, 45, 67, 79, 204, 223, 233, 236

  Andromeda, 239-244, 246

  Anna, 48

  Apām Napāt, 126

  Apin-am-a, 4

  Apis Bull, 218, 233-235

  Apollo, 156

  Apollonius of Tyana, 97

  Aptya. _See_ Trita

  Aquarii β, 196

  Aquarius, 9, 40, 44-47, 51-57, 66-70, 79, 80, 83, 123, 124, 129-132,
  144, 174-179, 197, 199, 202, 209, 221-223, 232-235, 241, 250, 251, 255

  Aqrabu, 44

  Aquila, 66-70, 80, 124, 248

  Arakh-makru, 4

  Arakh-samna, 2, 4

  Aratos, 216, 224-227, 241, 242

  Archer. _See_ Sagittarius

  Arcitenens, 44

  Argo, 248

  Aries, 1-19, 24-44, 53-57, 92, 94, 104, 145-147, 170, 171, 186-190,
  209, 210, 217, 218, 220, 224, 235, 245, 251

  Arietis α and β, 94, 137, 142, 143, 251

  Arsacidæ, 4

  Artemis, 156, 157, 160

  Arū, 44

  Aryaman, 252

  As a-an, 4

  Assara Mazas, 149, 150

  Assur, 74-79, 83, 84, 86, 150-155, 227

  Assurbanipal, 6, 69

  Assyrian Standard, 77-80, 83, 86

  Asteria, 179

  Asura, 81, 82, 85, 86, 112, 150-153, 182, 183

  Asura maha, 153

  Aswamedha, 244, 251

  Aswinī, 92-94, 104, 132, 134, 136-148, 172, 181, 183, 187, 188, 210,
  251, 253

  Aswins, the. _See_ Aswinī

  Atharva Veda, 94, 133, 136

  Atri, 141, 181-184

  Attic year, 180

  Auriga, 245, 246

  Ava, 85

  Avesta. _See_ Zend Avesta

  Áyu, 252

  Babylonia. _See_ Calendar

  Bahu. _See_ Bau

  Bailly, Jean Silvain, 17, 20, 26, 27, 29

  Barrett, Dr, 222

  Bar zig-gar, 4, 7, 10, 13-15, 53, 104, 165, 166, 171, 172

  Bau, 47-55, 57, 69, 210-212

  Bel, 16, 81

  Bel-Merodach, 69

  Bélier. _See_ Aries

  Beltis, 16

  Bentley, Mr, 100

  Bergaigne, 140, 143

  Berosus, 18, 83

  Bethel, 233

  Bible, the, 21, 84, 164-170

  Bodhanundánath Swami, 157

  Boötes, 223-226

  British Museum, 3, 8

  Brown, Robert, 224, 226, 247

  Browne, Bishop, 21

  Brugsch, 33

  Bull. _See_ Taurus

  Bulls, Assyrian, 87

  Burgess, 90, 93, 98

  Cain, 164

  Calendar, Accadian, 1-23, 57-58, 103, 145-147, 187, 208-210, 224

  ---- Babylonian, 1-3, 103, 165, 234

  ---- Chinese, 185-211

  ---- Egyptian, 31, 34, 38, 39

  ---- Grecian, 180

  ---- Gregorian, 193-196

  ---- Hebrew, 162-170, 234

  ---- Indian, 88, 92, 96, 104, 132-148, 167, 171, 176, 181-184, 188,
       217

  ---- Lagash, 54, 57

  ---- Median, 56-87, 222, 229

  ---- Persian, 58-61

  ---- Roman, 11, 159, 180, 193

  Cambyses, 235

  Cancer, 8, 36, 44, 218-221

  Canis Major, 248

  Canis Minor, 248

  Canopus, 248

  Capella, 246

  Caper, 44

  Capricornus, 52, 218, 220, 222, 252

  Capuja, 243

  Cassiopeia, 239-244, 246

  Cassyape, 243

  Castor, 221, 222

  Centaur, 155-158, 245

  Cepheus, 239-244, 246

  Cetus, 239-243

  Chaitra, 134-138, 171, 172, 181, 188

  Che, 202

  Chevreau, 23

  Ch’in, 207

  China, History of, 197-209

  Chipiez. _See_ Perrot

  Chiron, 155, 156

  Chons, 32, 33

  Cisilivu, 4

  Claudius Ptolemy, 17, 216

  Clemens Alexandrinus, 23

  Confucius, 206, 207

  Cook, 21

  Corona Australis, 77, 229, 230

  Crab. _See_ Cancer

  Cumont, 61

  Cuthah, 85

  Cuzallu, 4

  Cygnus, 248

  Cyrannid books, 17

  Dan, 233

  Darmesteter, 60

  Denderah, 218, 232

  Deuteronomy, 169, 170

  Devas, 82

  Dhanus, 223

  Dharbitu, 4

  D’Herbelot, 18

  Diana, 158

  Dianus, 158

  Doris, 242

  Draco, 223

  Dupuis, 27-29

  Dûzu, 2, 4

  Dvita, 177-180

  Eagle, 64. _See_ Aquila

  Ebers, 35, 233

  Eden, 21, 22

  Edfu, 232

  Ekâṣhṭakā, 134

  Ekata, 177-180

  Ekhud, 48

  Elam, 81

  Ellilla, 48

  Elul, 2, 5

  Eninnu, 48

  Enzu, 44

  Epping and Strassmaier, 1-16, 44, 45, 102

  Equulei, α, 196

  Esneh, 218

  Eudoxos, 241, 242

  Eul-ya, 185, 204

  Eusebius, 17

  Evetts, 48

  Exodus, 165, 170

  Fasti Siculi, 23

  Fomalhaut, 67

  Freya, 96

  Gamaliel, Rabbi, 163

  Gandharba, 253

  Gan-ganna, 4

  Ganymede, 70

  Garga, 97

  Gàthàs, 153

  Gaubil, 204

  Gemini, 10, 44, 77, 146, 220, 221

  Genesis, 21, 210

  Genica, 17

  Gir-tab, 8

  Go, 113

  Goat-fish, 8, 220

  Golden calf, 233, 235

  Gregory XIII., 11, 193

  Griffin, 68

  Griffiths, 31

  Gu, 9, 44-47

  Gudea, 48-57, 208, 209, 222

  Gula, 9, 46-57, 69, 209

  Gutium, 81

  Hamath, 85

  Ḫammurabi, 3, 4, 6, 12, 83-85

  Heb en-ant, 35

  Hecate, 179

  Hermes, 17

  Hercules, 226, 229, 230, 245, 246

  Herodotus, 81

  Hierakonpolis, 236

  Hillebrandt, 122

  Hippocrene, 251, 255

  Hiu, 196-209

  Hommel, 149-151

  Horus, 33, 40

  Hsiâ, 207

  Hvarya, 150

  Hydra, 117-123, 132, 227, 229

  Icu, 246

  Indra, 111-124, 130, 131, 138, 148, 172-183, 252-254

  Innanna, 6

  Innannanki, 5

  Isaac, 167

  Isis, 33

  Istar, 4, 10, 84

  Jacob, 167

  Jana, 158

  Janus, 158-160

  Jemsheed, 58

  Jensen, 45, 49, 50, 68, 102

  Jeroboam, 233, 234

  Jerusalem, 163

  Jesuits, 194-196, 207

  Johnston, 40

  Jones, Sir William, 89, 90, 95, 96

  Josephus, 20, 169

  Jupiter, 47, 103

  Kailáçe, 158

  Kaiomurs, 58

  Kang, 186, 188

  Kao-yang, 201

  Karnak, 35, 36, 39

  Kas, 4, 10

  Ker Porter, 58, 65

  Khar-sidi, 4, 10

  Khophri, 220

  Ki Gingir-na, 4, 10

  Kîmta-rapaštu, 6

  Kio, 185, 186, 188, 191, 210

  Kis, 69

  Kislimu, 2, 4

  Kneeler, The, 226

  Kou, 205

  Kriṣánu, 125

  Krishna, 182

  Krittikā, 94, 134, 136

  Ku (sarikku), 44

  Kumbha, 223

  Lactantius, 23

  Lagash, 48-57, 68, 69, 208, 209, 222

  Lajard, 63, 66

  Lâṭadeva, 98

  Layard, 74, 77

  Legge, Mr, 234

  Legge, Professor, 197, 200, 207

  Lehmann, 102

  Leo, 44, 64-70, 79, 80, 83, 221, 232, 233, 235, 236

  Libra, 44, 218-220

  Lion. _See_ Leo.

  Lugal-ki-ušuna, 6

  Lydda, 163

  Lyra, 226

  Macdonell, 111-128, 153, 175

  Magan, 49

  Mâgha, 134, 135

  Mahesa, 157

  Mahler, 102

  Mailla, Père de, 197-200

  Mait, 219

  Manda. _See_ Umman Manda

  Mangala, 96

  Marchesvan, 234

  Marduk, 5

  Mars, 103

  Maruts, 173-175, 184, 252, 253

  Maspero, 33, 49, 68, 69, 219

  Mašu, 44

  Maut, 32, 33

  Mayer, 102

  Medusa, 246

  Memnonium, 35

  Memphian Triad, The, 33

  Mercury, 9, 103

  Merodach, 68

  Mesopotamia, 8, 49, 80, 83-86, 209

  Mills, 153

  Milton, 181, 241

  Mishna, 163

  Mithræum, 62

  Mithras, 60-65, 74, 81, 234, 235

  Mitra, 81, 252

  Mlechchas, 95, 97

  Moguls, 95

  Montucla, 89

  Moses, 165, 167

  Mṛiga, 228

  Mṛigashirsha, 228

  Müller, Max, 251

  Muna-xa, 8

  Munga, 4

  Muradi, 17

  Nakshatra, 92, 94, 104, 132, 133, 136, 142, 188, 227-229

  Nanâ, 6

  Nekropolis, 35-37

  Nicephorus, 23

  Nile, 32, 35, 36, 37

  Nineveh, 73, 74, 84, 86

  Ningirsu, 48-51, 208

  Ningiszida, 48

  Ninib, 49-53, 208

  Nisan, 2-19, 53, 69, 163-166

  Nisannu. _See_ Nisan

  Noah, 58

  Noel, 205

  Nowroose, 58-60

  Oldenburg, 151, 152

  Olivet, 163

  Onuphrius Panvinius, 23

  Ophiuchus, 245, 246

  Oppert, 102

  Orion, 157, 227-229

  Ormuzd, 65

  Osiride pillars, 40

  Osiris, 33, 219

  Ostia, 62

  Pa, 44

  Pagas, 251

  Paitámaha, 98

  Pañchasiddhântikâ, 98

  Pan̂i, 112

  Panopê, 242

  Panvinius, Onuphrius, 23

  Passover, The, 169, 170

  Pauliśa, 98

  Pavamāna. _See_ Soma

  Pegasus, 244, 248-255

  Peking, 194, 195

  Perrot and Chipiez, 64, 71, 73

  Persepolis, 64, 70, 72-74, 86, 87

  Perseus, 179, 239, 245-247

  Petrie, 236

  Phalgunī, 134, 135

  Pharisees, 169

  Philastrius, 23

  Philostratus, 97

  Phœnicians, 81

  Pisces, 44, 80, 174, 177-179, 202, 220, 221

  Piscium ζ, 93

  Pleiades, 94

  Plumptre, 163

  Poissons, Les. _See_ Pisces

  Pollux. _See_ Castor

  Ptah, 40

  Ptolemy, 17, 216

  Pulukku, 44

  Punjaub, 128

  Púshan, 252

  Quibell, 236

  Ram. _See_ Aries

  Rameses II., 35-40

  Ramessides, 33

  Rashis, 92

  Ravi, 96

  Revatī, 92, 93, 104, 132, 138, 143, 187, 188

  Ribhukshin, 252

  Ricci, Matteo, 194

  Rig Veda, 92, 105-148, 153, 171-184, 228, 244, 251-255

  Rim-sin, 3, 4

  Rishis, 97, 106, 108, 123, 130, 133

  Romaka, 98

  Roman year, 180

  Rome, 61, 172, 193

  Rudra, 152-160, 172-174, 184

  Ṛṣis, 141. _See_ Rishis

  Šabahu, 4

  Šabâtu, 2

  Sabbath, 163, 169, 170

  Sadducees, 169

  Sagitta, 125

  Sagittarius, 8, 76-83, 147, 150-160, 172-174, 220-223, 227, 230

  Sam, 36

  Samaria, 84, 85

  Samaritan Pentateuch, 22

  Samson Agonistes, 181

  Samsu-iluna, 3, 4

  Sani, 96

  Sara zig-gar, 4. _See_ Bar zig-gar

  Sargon I., 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 16, 80, 81, 83, 151

  Sargon II., 78

  Sassinide dynasty, 60

  Satapatha Brahmana, 141

  Sater, 96

  Saturn, 103

  Saura, 98

  Savitṛ, 140

  Sávitra, 98

  Sâyaṇa, 228

  Sayce, 7, 9, 46, 69, 81, 102

  Scarabæus, 218, 220

  Schall, J. A. von, 194, 195

  Schlegel, Gustav, 185, 186, 190, 191, 204, 205

  Scorpio, 8, 44, 63-67, 80, 221, 231-236

  Se-dir, 4, 13, 14, 146, 147

  Se-ki-sil, 4, 13, 14, 146, 147

  Seleucidæ, 4

  Semites, 83-85

  Sepharvaim, 85

  Septuagint, 22

  Seth, 20

  Seti, 36, 39

  Shou, 33

  Shuddh Paksha, 182

  Shukla, 182

  Siddhāntas, The, 98. _See_ Sūrya Siddhānta

  Simannu, 2, 4

  Sing-king, 186

  Siou, 185, 188, 196, 197, 202, 207

  Sirius, 31, 38

  Siva, 157, 173

  Slates, 235-238

  Sóma, 96

  Soma, 107, 108, 111, 121-125, 131, 138, 172-177, 253-255

  Souciet, 204

  Southern Crown, 77

  Sphinxes, 32, 34

  Spica, 28, 167, 170, 171, 188-190, 210

  Standard, Assyrian, 77-80, 83, 86

  Strassmaier. _See_ Epping

  Strauchius, 23

  Sucra, 96

  Suidas, 23

  Su-kul-na, 4

  Sunahśepas, 244

  Suria, 150

  Surias, 150

  Súrya, 182, 183

  Sūrya Siddhānta, 90, 93, 98, 187

  Susa, 70-73, 87

  Swarbhánu, 182, 183

  Syncellus, 17

  Taittirîya Brāhmana, 136

  Taittirîya Sanhitâ, 134-136, 139

  Talmud, 162, 163, 169

  Tasritu, 4

  Taurus, 8, 11, 44, 56-87, 146, 154, 156, 159, 160, 221, 232-236

  Tchuen-Hio, 197-210, 222

  Tebitu, 2, 4

  Telloh, 48, 49

  Te (mennu), 44

  Theban Triad, The, 32, 33

  Thebes, 34

  Thibaut, 98

  Thor, 96

  Thoth, 38, 39

  Thraetona, 178

  Thrita, 178

  Tilak, B. G., 134, 135, 228

  Tischritu, 2, 4

  Tisri, 163

  Tithis, 176, 180, 182

  Tortoise, 8, 218

  Trita Aptya, 175-181, 184, 253-255

  Triton, 178, 179

  Tsivan, 4

  Tuisco, 96

  Tul-cu, 4

  Twasht́ṛi, 252

  Twins. _See_ Gemini

  Tyana, 97

  Ūdhar, 113

  Ulûlu, 2, 4

  Umman Manda, 81-86, 151

  Unger, 27

  Universal History, 21

  Ursa Major, 224

  Uṣas, 139, 140

  Usher, Archbishop, 21, 22

  Utu, 5

  Vadya Paksha, 182

  Vala, 112

  Valley, Feast of the, 36, 38

  Varāha, 97-99

  Varāhamihira. _See_ Varāha

  Varuna, 152-154, 252, 253

  Vâsisṭha, 98

  Vasus, 253

  Vedas, 95, 106, 128. _See_ Atharva Veda, Rig Veda, Yajur Veda

  Venus, 103

  Verethraghna, 114

  Verseau. _See_ Aquarius

  Vierge. _See_ Virgo

  Virgil, 159

  Virginis α, 188

  Virgo, 10, 28, 44, 80, 185, 186, 220, 221

  Vossius, Isaac, 23

  Vrihaspati, 96

  Vritra, 111-123, 148, 177

  Vrtrahan, 114

  Wan-nian-shu, 194

  Water-jar. _See_ Amphora

  Water-man. _See_ Aquarius

  Week, Days of, 96

  Whitney, 93, 187

  Wilson, 112, 124-127, 153, 182, 251

  Woden, 96

  Wogue, 169

  Yajur Veda, 94, 133-135

  Yama, 253

  Yāska, 141

  Yavan, 95, 97

  Yoga stars, 142

  Zamama, 69

  Zend Avesta, 60, 113, 114, 178

  Zeus, 70

  Zib, 44

  Zibanîtu, 44

  Zodiac, 2 _et passim_

  Zu, 69

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  Transcriber’s Notes

  Depending on the hard- and software used to read this text and their
  settings, not all elements may display as intended.

  Inconsistent spelling and use of diacriticals (also in names),
  punctuation and hyphenation have been retained, except as mentioned
  under Changes below.

  Page 5, Iraba^{m}-šin: possibly an error for Iriba^{m}-šin.

  Page 188, paragraph starting Spica (α Virginis) is the chief star
  ...: the use of quote marks around ... “siou Kang), président aux
  métamorphoses de la création,” ... is as in the source document.

  Changes made

  Footnotes and illustrations have been moved out of text paragraphs.
  Footnotes have been moved to directly under the paragraph where they
  are referenced.

  Obvious minor typographical and punctuation errors have been
  corrected silently.

  Some occurrences of _Ibid._ have been replaced with the full title
  for the sake of clarity.

  Page 5, footnote [3]: Ululu changed to Ulûlu; Sabahu changed to
  Šabahu.

  Page 39: ... the temple to Amen-Ra ... changed to ... the temple of
  Amen-Ra ....

  Page 98, ... over the Paulisa and Romaka Siddhāntas ... changed to
  ... over the Pauliśa and Romaka Siddhāntas ....

  Index: the spelling of some entries has been changed to conform to
  that used in the text.