402 
Art. XV.—ASTRONOMICAL AND NAUTICAL 
COLLECTIONS. 
No. XII. 
i. Remarks on the Zodiac of Dendera, by the Author of the 
Article Ecyrt, and by Mr. CuaMPottion, junior. 
“From the chronology of Egypt we may pass very naturally 
to the consideration of its calendar, which has often been a 
subject of speculation both with critics and with astronomers. 
The inquiry is in itself somewhat intricate; but the principal 
difficulties have arisen from the ignorance or carelessness of the 
Greek authors, who have written on the Egyptian mythology. 
The Baron Alexander von Humboldt and M. Jomard have 
displayed great learning and research in collecting authorities 
on this subject; and nothing is wanting to establish the pro- 
priety of their acquiescence in the opinion of Petavius, except 
a little less indulgence for the extreme inattention of Plutarch, 
and a more marked deference to the important testimony of 
Eratosthenes, a writer whose catalogue of the Egyptian kings 
has already been noticed, as bearing intrinsic marks of the 
authenticity of his information, and whose competency, as an 
accomplished astronomer, to discuss the regulation of the calen- 
dar is of still greater notoriety. Geminus, a Greek astronomer 
of the Augustan age, has very distinctly stated, that the later 
Greeks had been in the habit of mentioning the Egyptian festi- 
vals as connected with particular seasons of the year, in spite 
of the clearest evidence that their mythological year consisted 
of 365 days only, and that their anniversary festivals must ne- 
cessarily have passed in succession through every part of the 
natural year. * It is a common and inveterate error among the 
Greeks,’ says Geminus, ‘ to believe that the festival of Isis 
happens at the winter solstice. This was indeed true 120 years 
ago, but it is now a month earlier ; and such a mistake betrays 
the grossest ignorance of the Egyptian calendar. In former 
ages this festival was celebrated not only as late as the winter 
solstice, but, at an earlier period of time, even at the summer 
