SEYFFARTH ORIGINAL EGYPTIAN NAMES OF PLANETS. 42I 



L. xi. 13, represents Mars in the house of Mercury i:^), and 

 this sign is expressed by a fence (nn. chetb). including a sparrow- 

 hawk (Horus), which group signified, as Plutarch says, domus 

 mundancE Hori — Scorpio, tlie house of Venus. Plate I. 1. iii. 6. 



AH these names and emblems of the signs of the Zodiac or 

 their wardens are confirmed and completed by many other astro- 

 nomical inscriptions representing the 12 signs according to their 

 regular order. We specify the sarcophagus in the British Muse- 

 um, No. 23, explained in my "Berichtigungen der alten Geschich- 

 te," p. 169 ; further, the sarcophagus No. 3 of the same museum, 

 deciphered in the same Berichtigungen, p. 174; and the plane- 

 tary configuration of Ptolem£eus Epiphanes, represented in 

 Young's Hieroglyphics, PI. d']. 



Having thus determined the elements of Egyptian astronomy, 

 namely, the primitive names and emblems of the 7 planets and 

 those of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, we proceed now to 



HI. The Interpretation of some very important Planetary Configura- 

 tions, 



A planetary configuration, we understand, is a representation 

 of the seven planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the 

 Moon, and the Sun, together with the segments of the Zodiac, 

 with which the former were conjoined at a certain epoch of his- 

 tory. In order to understand inscriptions of this kind, it is to be 

 borne in mind that the ancients were in the habit of observing 

 the places of the planets on the cardinal days, and recording them 

 in their temple annals ; that they fixed the longitudes of the re- 

 spective planets according to the movable signs of the Zodiac ; 

 and in case two planets occupied the same sign, then they speci- 

 fied the Decurice of the sign in which the respective planets 

 appeared : to-wit, each sign was subdivided into three parts of 

 10 degs. each, which were likewise presided over by the planets, 

 as has been shown specifically in the writer's Astronomia ^^g., 

 PI. I. E.g., the first sign after the vernal equinoctial point (T 0°) 

 containing the Decuriae of ^ , ©, 9; suppose \ to have once, 

 occupied the Decuria of $, but 2/ that of the © in T, then the 

 Egyptians represented 2/ in the house of the Sun, but \ in that 

 of ? . All these particulars have been handed down by ancient 

 astronomers, especially by Firmicus and an Egyptian papyrus. 



