27 



once in a period of between eighteen and nineteen years ;* and 

 then great were the festive rejoicings indeed ! Then, according 

 to the language of Job, "Nazareth was in her season," the 

 two great lights were together, ready to start afresh from the 

 same goal and run through the same changes and eclipses as 

 before. There was the Sacred Bull led out, (exactly as the 

 great Croethy bull is led to this day at the same feast in 

 China,) but only on this occasion with the solar, inserted 

 within the lunar disc. But ancient as these monuments cer- 

 tainly are, tracing up their date almost to the deluge (according 

 to the Hebrew chronology, which I do not believe to be so 

 correct as that of the Septuagint), by far the more ancient are 

 those which have the solar disc placed between the horns of 

 the Bull, which now form the cusps of the lunar disc, and 

 serve the same purpose as that on the Chinese cloud. 



A large bronze bull from Babylon, and one in stone from 

 Palestine, are both of much greater antiquity. They are the 

 sculptured memorials of a period which must have preceded 

 the deluge several hundred years. The monuments which 

 record this period are extremely numerous. The golden calf 

 worshipped at the foot of Sinai was doubtless an image of the 

 Egyptian Apis, upon whose head the solar orb was placed, 

 encircled by the slender crescent of the horns. The bronze 

 image of Apis in the possession of Wilkinson, has not only 

 the same orb upon the head, but the emblem of the sun is too 

 plainly marked upon his back to suffer us to doubt his astro- 

 nomical intention. The sacred bull of India to tliis day bears 

 the same characteristics. 



Scarcely inferior, however, are the instances in which the 

 solsticial sun is recorded in the sign of the Lion. We have 

 seen that at the same period when the equinox was in the sign 

 of the Bull the summer solstice was in that of the Lion. Upon 



'* [This is the Ciutldean saros, a pcritMl of two liundreil and twenty-three lunatiuiis, 

 or eighteen years ten days.] — Khit(»r. 



