-7q6 trans. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



rest of Cesnola's collection, about 20,000 objects, have been pur- 

 chased by a number of patriotic citizens of New York city, of 

 whom Mr. John Taylor Johnston contributed the principal share 

 of the requisite sum, $130,000. 



All these antiquities will be found in " The Metropolitan Mu- 

 seum of Art," a new grandiose building in our Central Park, as 

 soon as the former shall be opened to the public next spring. 



The most important Cyprian monuments, apart from the Egyp- 

 tian, PhcEnician, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, and proper Cypriote 

 inscriptions, are, no doubt, the astronomical ones, because they 

 fix the dates of certain events of history with mathematical cer- 

 tainty, and confirm the ancient reports that all nations of anti- 

 quity worshipped the same deities, viz., the seven planets and the 

 twelve signs of the Zodiac ; and that all religions of old origin- 

 ated from one source in Asia, as has been demonstrated in these 

 Transactions, vol. iv.. No. i. 



Cesnola's work represents four astronomical inscriptions dis- 

 covered in Cyprus (pp. 114, 276, 329, and 77), expressed upon 

 silver, bronze, and copper bowls. The latter inscription being 

 the most instructive, we shall confine ourselves to the interpreta- 

 tion of that only. 



The appended cut is a reduced copy of Cesnola's fac simile 

 of the said bronze bowl, 5^ inches in diameter, 2\ inches high, 

 discovered in a tomb at Dali, the ancient Idalium, to which we 

 added the corresponding primitive signs of the Zodiac and their 

 respective planetary wardens, as will be seen hereafter. 



These singular images have been, as far as possible, explained 

 by Ceccaldi in Revue Archeolog. 1872, vol. xxiv., p. 24, as fol- 

 lows. He takes the six figures with joined hands for dancers, 

 and the sitting figure in cA. No. 10 for Isis. Hence he continues 

 (p. 78 in Cesnola's work) as follows : " It is therefore probable 

 that the goddess here represented (in T) was one the perform- 

 ance of whose rites and ceremonies devolved upon women. 

 Cyprus enjoyed a high reputation from very early times for mu- 

 sical skill both with the flute and the lyre, and there can be little 

 doubt that this skill has been attained and developed chiefly 

 through religious practice such as that illustrated on this bowl. 

 The vases represented on a table (cj;^) in front of the dancers 

 are ornamented with designs peculiar to the very archaic pottery 



