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at Paris, and the lid of which is at Cambridge, were dis- 
covered. On these sarcophagi the planetary configurations, 
observed in the birth-years of Osimanphtha and Sesostris are 
represented. These monuments testify that the kings in 
question were born in 1693 and 1730 B.C. Besides, on the 
ruins of the Osimandyeum at Karnak there has been pre- 
served another planetary configuration, referring to the same 
Osimanphtha, and this concerns again the year 1730 B.C. 
(See the fac-simile in " Seyffarth's Berichtigungen der alten 
Geschichte," PI. 1.) Thus, then, the contemporary age of 
Osimanphtha and Ramses, is reliably determined ; the only 
question being, whether the planetary configuration, 
represented on our coffin, agrees with the years 1730 and 
1693 B.C. And so we come now to the most interesting 
part of the coffin, to the planetary configuration observed 
in the birth-year of Enkasiv-Amun, which, we hope, 
everybody will understand, without being a professor of 
astronomy. 
The starry sky contains a belt, in which the planets of the 
Ancients — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Yenus, Mercury, 
and the Moon, — perform their revolutions. This circular 
girdle, or zone, the so-called zodiac, was, according to the 
twelve months, divided into twelve segments of thirty 
degrees each, the so-called signs of the zodiac. Their names 
are : — Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Yirgo, Libra, 
Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces ; and their 
direction is from west to east. The same twelve signs were 
called by the Ancients the Houses of the Planets, because 
each of the five real planets presided over two signs, one of 
which lay east, the other west of the winter solstice, i.e., the 
point of the zodiac, occupied by the sun on the shortest day, 
the Bruma of the Romans. The sun and the moon had only 
one house each, which were opposite to the winter solstice, 
and to the houses of Saturn. The following is the scheme of 
