174 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 1, 1888. 



side (the keel line of the ship), is about eighty degrees long 

 and forty degrees broad. 



Now, in the time of the Pyramid builders, this region was 

 so situated that its length was parallel to the horizon when 

 the region was at its highest above the southern horizon. 

 Thus the great ship had its proper position as floating on a 

 sort of heavenly sea, the horizon of which was the celestial 

 equator, along which was the great Sea-serpent, floating 

 lazily ouwards — for the motion of the star sphere carried 

 Hydra forwards, his head reared above the sea level, towards 

 the west. It is to be noticed also that the elevation of the 

 ship above the natural horizon of Babylon, Persia, Greece, or 

 Egypt, was such as to give the ship the most natural appear- 

 ance possible, for the keel would be actually on the horizon 

 of the three first-named regions, and raised very little above 

 the horizon in the latitude of Athens. From a picture 

 which I have drawn showing the southern skies of Babylon 

 at midnight in winter — about the time con-esponding to the 

 middle of December — I find that Argo must then have 

 pre-sented such an appearance that it would require no 

 liveliness of imagination whatever to picture a grand 

 celestial ship there — nay, rather that only the dullest 

 imagination could fail to have this idea suggested to it most 

 strongly. Certainly the scene then presented by the star- 

 strewn skies .above the southern horizon was more striking 

 than any which the skies present now, in any latitude and 

 at any hour. 



Recognising this remarkably suggestive aspect of the 

 heavens in the days of the pyramid builders, and remem- 

 bering the importance attached to the ship Argo alike by 

 ancient observers of the stars, and as belonging to ancient 

 myths, I was led to inquire further respecting the constella- 

 tions brought successively above the southern horizon as the 

 year passed on. 



In the first place, I observe that preceding the arrival of 

 the great Ship .as the ruling southern constellation at night, 

 there came a long array of those watery constellations — 

 Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, and Eridanus — which the 

 ancient astronomers regarded as undoubtedly associated with 

 Hood and deluge on the earth. Till far later times, the 

 belief prevailed that when all the planets are conjoined in 

 Capricorn the world would be destroyed by flood ; but the 

 superstition had its origin in that remote time to which we 

 are now extending our survey. An old idea of mine was 

 thus recalled to me, that in the constellations of the watery 

 kind (as the old astrological astronomers considered them), 

 the ship Argo, and certain others, the story of the flood as 

 related in Genesis is presented — men either finding in the 

 lieavens the record of what had happened on the earth, or 

 picturing a series of events in the heavens which they later 

 transformed into a terrestrial legend. But now I had the 

 means of dealing with this idea much more satisfactorily 

 than when I touched upon it formerly in a merely sug- 

 gestive way. For, in the first place, I now had the' exact 

 aspact of the stellar heavens for every month and every 

 hour of the night at the time to which the story must be 

 referred, and in the latitudes whence the Egyptian and 

 Babylonian astronomers observed the heavens ; and in the 

 second place, the reading of the Ninevitish cuneiform 

 inscriptions on the one hand and the study of Egyptian 

 Biblical lore on the other, had thrown enough light on the 

 deluge narrative to show how it was in a general sense to 

 be interpreted. 



In what follows, I employ the story of Noah in Genesis 

 chiefly as giving the best record we probably have of what 

 at the time of the Captivity was the accepted account of the 

 deluge as to times and seasons. Probably the cuneiform 

 inscriptions, as read by Messrs. George Smith, Sayce, and 

 others, present rather a popular form of the legend than 



the full record which the priests of Babylon possessed, and 

 which they were ready to communicate to the more learned 

 and devout among the Hebrew priests. At any rate, it is 

 clear that precise details as to dates were given to the 

 scribes and priests of Judah, and by them transferred to 

 their sacred books, the narrative being only so far modified 

 as to emphasise the story of the origin of the Hebrew race 

 as the chosen people of God. 



The story, alike in Egypt, in Babylon, and in Jerusalem, 

 relates to the tenth of the first generations dealt with 

 by legend or history. Noah is the tenth antediluvian 

 patriarch ; Hor is the tenth Egyptian god ; Xisuthrus 

 is the tenth Chaldean king. The idea associated with the 

 deity, king, or patriarch — according to the race among 

 whom the story appears — is that of rest. The singular 

 prophecy by Lamech respecting Noah, thus finds a partial 

 interpretation : " This same shall comfort us for our work 

 and for the toil of our hands because of the ground which 

 the Lord hath cursed." But the explanation becomes 

 clearer when we recognise in Noah a solar hero, and in the 

 account of the deluge a very ancient solar myth — as Gold- 

 ziher, Steinthal, and other Hebrew scholars (rejecting Pro- 

 fessor Max Miiller's idea that the Hebrews had no 

 mythology) have learned to recognise. Xisuthrus is the 

 sun at setting ; the journey of Xisuthrus is the journey of 

 the sun at night below the horizon : but also, as in all solar 

 myths, the sun is dealt with here as god of the year, not 

 solely or even chiefly as god of the day. Thus, the hero of 

 the deluge legend is the god of winter, which, like night, 

 brings rest from agricultural labours. 



As in all solar m3'ths, however, we find in the legend of 

 the deluge the record of a full year, and — as has long been 

 considered remarkable by Bible commentators — precisely 

 one year of 365 days. The life of Enoch, it is to be noticed, 

 is given as 3G5 j-ears, and it is noteworthy that a certain 

 confusion may be recognised between Enoch and Noah, as 

 between their Egyptian and Babylonian analogues. The 

 seventh Egyptian god, like the tenth, is named Hor ; and, 

 again, Xisuthrus, the Babylonian Noah, is translated after 

 the close of his achievements as a solar hero, as Enoch is 

 translated after his solar life of 30.5 days. It is true that 

 the year of 365 days was not in general use either in Egypt 

 or ChaldsEa ; but the length of the year was known to tho 

 astronomers of the Pyramid time with much greater 

 accuracy than even the period of 365 days would indicate — 

 probably it was known within a few minutes of the true 

 value. Just here it may be noticed that the Jewish 

 Midrash compares the course of the sun to a ship coming 

 from Akramania (wherever that may be) with 365 ropes, 

 and to a ship coming from Alexandria which has 354 

 ropes (354 being the number of days in a lunar year). 

 There is a Phrygian legend that the king or patriarch 

 Annakos, i.e. Enoch, being more than 300 years old, pre- 

 dicted the flood, and prayed with many tears and lamenta- 

 tions for the people. The dates directly associated with the 

 flood in the Babylonian account, presented (we may 

 assume) in Genesis, belong to Mesopotamia, where great 

 floods attain their greatest height in spring, at the season 

 indicated as the time when Noah's flood w-as at its highest. 

 Dr. Bell tells of a flood in Mesopotamia so high at this 

 season, that as far as the eye could reach nothing could be 

 seen from the highest tower of the Baghdad mosques but a 

 great waste of wateis, studded here and there with a few date 

 groves, which appeared like little islands : '■ Thousands of 

 square miles," he says, " were at that time under water." 

 These floods commonly begin towards the end of October, 

 and the waters continue to increase, though the rains are 

 not continuous until sju-ing. But, of course, the Baby- 

 lonian record of the flood, though it may have been 



