THEORY OF THE EARTH. 229 



taining, according to the very legible Greek in- 

 scription upon it, the body of a young man who 

 died in the ninth year of Trajan, 116 years after 

 Christ *, presents a zodiac divided at the same 

 point as those of Dendera f ; and all the appear- 

 ances indicate that this division marks some astro- 

 logical theme relative to the individual, a con- 

 clusion which may probably be equally applied to 

 the division of the zodiacs contained in the tem- 

 ples. It may mark either the astrological theme of 

 the time of their erection, or that of the prince 

 to whose safety they had been consecrated, or 

 such another epoch with relation to which the 

 position of the sun would have appeared of import- 

 ance to be noticed. 



Thus are dissipated for ever the conclusions 

 which people had drawn from some ill explained 

 monuments, against the newness of the conti- 

 nents and nations ; and we might have dispensed 

 with treating of them so much in detail had they 

 not been so recent, and had they not made suffi- 



* Letronne. Critical and Archaeological Observations 

 upon the object of the zodiacal representations which remain 

 to us of antiquity, occasioned by an Egyptian zodiac painted 

 in a mummy case, which bears a Greek inscription of the 

 time of Trajan ; Paris, 1824, 8vo, p. 30. 



t Idem, p. 48, and 49, 



* 



