24 



But this conviction must not be left to surmise, however 

 plausible. Other monuments of antiquity prove that at all 

 events the two zodiacal signs with which we have most to do, 

 viz., the Lion and the Bull, were well known some considera- 

 ble time previous to the deluge. Amongst all the monuments 

 of antiquity these two zodiacal animals were the most noticed 

 and reverenced ; and they were so, because at that remote 

 epoch they were the signs in which lay those most prized 

 astronomical periods^, the vernal equinox and the summer 

 solstice. 



In estimating the ages of these zodiacs, we are not by any 

 means obliged to give to the temples or those monuments the 

 antiquity which their astronomical dates assign, because 

 zodiacs might, and probably would, get copied from generation 

 to generation — often by those who did not understand the 

 precession of the equinoxes, and who would leave them where 

 they found them. But the proof is no less conclusive that 

 there were zodiacs in which the equinoxes and solstices were 

 thus marked. 



A remarkable instance of this preservation of the ancient 

 zodiac, in comparatively modern sculpture, will be found in 

 the celebrated planispheres of Dendera ; an Egyptian temple, 

 not more ancient, probably, than the days of the Ptolemies, or 

 about three hundred years B.C. The temple is of Grseco- 

 Egyptian architecture, and I believe the zodiac partakes of the 

 same mixed style. The Egyptian figures are carved with Gre- 

 cian freedom and elegance. The Bull, which is very unlike 

 the solemn heavy character of Egyptian figures, is particularly 

 worthy of attention ; and the Lion begins the zodiacal proces- 

 sion. Tliis procession would certainly begin either at the 

 equinox or the solstice ; and as the Lion could not possibly be 

 in the place of the former, it must be in that of the latter. 

 Now the Greeks began their year at the summer solstice; 

 the Egyptians, and all the Sabaean nations, at the equinox. 

 But then the summer solstice, at the time of the Ptolemies, 



