124 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF 



We should still have to ascertain when tliey ceased to place the 

 constellation in which the sun entered after the solstice, at tbe head 

 of the descending signs, and whether that took place immediately 

 that the solstice had retrograded, so as to touch the preceding con- 

 stellation. 



Thus MM. Jollois and Devilliers, to whose unremitting ardour we 

 are indebted for our knowledge of thess famous monuments, alwaj'^s 

 taking the division towards the entrance of the vestibule as the sol- 

 stice, and judging that Virgo must have been the first of the descend- 

 ing constellations, considering that the solstice had not receded at 

 least as far as to the middle of the constellation of Leo ; and thinking, 

 moreover, as Ave have observed, that Leo is divided in the great 

 zodiac of Esne, only make the zodiac as remote as 2610 years before 

 Christ *. 



Mr. Hamilton, the first who observed the division of the sign of 

 Leo in the zodiac of Esne, reduced the distance of the period of the 

 solstice there to 1 400 years before Christ. 



Many other systems on this subject have appeared. Mr. Rhode, 

 for instance, proposed two. The first made the date of the zodiac of 

 the portico at Dendera 591 years before Christ, the second fixes it at 

 1290 f. M. Latreille assumed the epoch of this zodiac at 670 years 

 before Christ ; that of the planisphere at 550 ; that of the zodiac of 

 the great temple of Esne at 2550 ; and that of the smaller at 1760. 



But there was a vital difficulty in all these dates, which set out on 

 the twofold supposition that the division marks the solstice, and that 

 the position of the solstice marks the epoch of the monument. The 

 unavoidable result is, that the zodiac of Esne must be at least 2000, 

 and perhaps 3000 X years more ancient than that of Dendera, a con- 

 sequence which evidently destroys the supposition ; for no man, with 

 the slightest knowledge of the history of the arts, can believe that 

 two edifices so strikingly similar in their architecture have been built 

 at periods so widely remote from each other. 



The feeling of this impossibility, united with the belief that this 

 division of the zodiacs marks a date, give rise to the conjecture, that 

 it was intended to mark the period of the sacred years of the Egyp- 

 tians, when the monument was constructed. These years only lasting 



* See the great work on Egypt. Ant. Mem. vol. i, p. 486. 



•f- Rhode's Essay on the Age of the Zodiac and Origin of Constellations, in Ger- 

 man, 1809, p. 78. 



J According to the tables given above, tbe solstice remained 3474, or at least 

 3307 years in the constellation Virgo, which occupies the greatest space in the 

 zodiac ; and 261 7 in that of Leo. 



