PROF. SEYFFARTH. INSCRIPTIONS OF THE DAVENPORT TAP.LETS. 79 



that the ancients, Ijeing- destitute of the Copernican system and planet- 

 ary tables, could not determine the places of the planets for earlier 

 times. 



Plate VII. 



Another remarkalile Indian antiquity published in the same Pro- 

 ceedings of the Academy of Sciences of Davenport, Iowa. It contains 

 the same phonetic characters represented in the afor(Mnentioned slab, 

 and deserves to be explained as far as possible. 



The whole is, as it seems to me, a memorial of a great eclipse of the 

 sun, observed in a certain hour of a certain day of a certain month of 

 a certain year of an Indian king. 



The figures of the sun and moon having been recognized on Plate 

 I, we see that the disk of the moon covers that of the sun by nearlv 

 ten inches, which is a rare and was a terrible phenomenon for ancient 

 people. 



Both bodies appear between the feet of Mars, the god t)f war, who 

 bears in one hand a lance, in the other a shield, the characteristics of 

 Mars. Upon his head we see a hut or cottage, signifying the hut or 

 the house of Mars. This planet, however, jiossessed two houses, viz., 

 the Zodiacal signs Taurus and Sagittarius ; but it will be seen below 

 that Taurus had been in view. 



It is not impossible that the figure of Mars, as signifying the planet, 

 represented a conjunction of Mars with the sun and the moon during 

 the eclipse, and the face on the breast of Mars favors this })resump- 

 tion ; but in this case the hut upon Mars remains inexplicable. 



The images of an eagle and a wolf above Mars pi-ol)ably express 

 the Decuriae of Jujnter (eagle) and Mars (wolf), lielonging to the 

 sign Taurus, as will be seen in the writer's Astronomia Aegyptiaca, 

 PI. 1. In this case the sun nmst have stood in Taurus 10^ whilst 

 the obscuration happened. 



Concerning the Indian letters joined with the figure of the god of 

 war, we venture to add a few presumings. Should the first sign on 

 the left represent the pupil, and hence the sun (/i'ttr,) as was the case 

 in Egypt and Persia, this sign signified, phonetically, king. The fol- 

 lowing characters contain, perhaps, the word (i</, mighty, and then 

 the name of the king. The following figures may contain the words: 

 First, Korp, solar cyclus, for the little orb is, as we learn from the 

 Egyptians, cyclus. The following two lines signify II and the added 

 three orbs, the plurality of the preceding, give two monthly cycles. 

 The following XI, accompanied by the same three orbs, involve 

 eleven days. The concluding diagram, containing X cross lines, 



