398 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



these questions can be answered except by the writer's Astrono- 

 mia yEgyptiaca^ Leips. 1S33. 



The key to the astronomical monuments of the Egyptians, 

 Greeks, Romans, Cyprians, etc., so often mentioned and referred 

 to times immemorial by ancient authors, was discovered in 1S27. 

 During my annual studies, extending throughout one year, in the 

 R. Museum of Turin, I resolved, at last, to re-examine a large box 

 containing half a million of papyrus fragments which had been 

 examined two years earlier by Champollion. Among these frag- 

 ments a small papyrus, representing the Zodiac and a planetary 

 configuration, was found, of which a /ac simile will be seen in 

 the aforesaid Astronomia ^g. Tab. iii. This papyrus brought 

 to light — 



1. That the deities of the Egyptians and all other nations of 

 antiquity were the seven planets and the twelve signs of the 

 Zodiac. 



2. That the ancients expressed the planets and the signs by the 

 images of their gods, specified by ancient authors. 



3. That a certain planet or sign was very often signified by the 

 figure of an animal, or plant, or other object, which the ancients 

 referred to the '■'■Ducatus" of the same planet or zodiacal god. 



4. That the retrograding planets were expressed by retrograd- 

 ing deities or animals ; thus the papyrus under consideration rep- 

 resents the vulture {h) and the sparrow-hawk (9) looking back- 

 ward. 



5. That in case two planets or more appeared in the same sign, 

 but in different Decuriae of the same sign, commonly one of them 

 was transferred to another sign, viz., that which belonged to the 

 same planetary warden who presided over the said Decurias. 



6. That the ancients recorded the places of the seven planets 

 on a cardinal day, mostly on the day of the winter solstice. 



This key to all kinds of ancient astronomical inscriptions has 

 been discussed in extenso in the author's Astronomia y^g., and 

 confirmed by a great number of other astronomical monuments. 

 Our Turin papyrus refers to 128 B.C., Dec. 23, as the following 

 comparison of the observation with the computation, though su- 

 perficial, demonstrates : 



OBSERVATION. COMPUTATION. 



O 9« 0° O 9» 0° 



J) io«+° D 10' 15° 



