374 E G ' 
lunar months, of thirty days each. A year of 360 days 
mud have produced great confufion in the fucceflions of 
feafons : accordingly, it is known that fo early as the 
Trojan war, the Egyptians had a year of 365 days ; this 
fell fliort of true tii'ne only twenty-five days in a century, 
corrected in the Julian calendar, by adding a day to every 
fourth year, called by us bilfextile or leap-year. 
Though the Egyptians gave to tire vulgar year no 
more than 365 days, yet they knew that the true year 
was fix hours longer. This the prieds explained in fe- 
cret to Eudoxus and Plato, but kept the life they made 
of it among the arcana of the college ; this life confided 
in adding the fourth of a day to every year, calling the 
firfl year the firft quarter, and fo on to the fourth, which 
formed the luftrum of four years, borrowed from them by 
Eudoxus, according to Strabo and Pliny. This fecret 
Julius Ctefar learnt during his day at Alexandria, and 
this led him to the reform of the Roman calendar. It is 
to the honour of fcience to obferve, that of all the events 
of Cmfar’s life, this bids the faired for immortality ; for, 
fuch is the nature of the thing, that time itfelf mud be 
lod, before this can be forgotten. Should it be alked, 
why did not the prieds apply their ludrum to the vulgar 
calendar? it may be anfwered, that they were politicians 
as well as prieds, and thought that, in both cafes, the 
vulgar were bed governed, as certain fowl are fed fatted, 
by being kept in the dark. By their excludve know¬ 
ledge of true time, they alone could predict with exaCt- 
nefs the annual inundation of the Nile, the dages of its 
increafe and retreat ; they alone could fix the precife 
time for obferving the religious feads, mod of which had 
their origin in the changes of the feafons; on thefe two 
articles depended the natural and political exidence.of an 
Egyptian. Hence it was, that the prieds were fo tena¬ 
cious of the power this fecret gave them over the people, 
that they obliged their kings, at their inauguration, to 
take an oath that they would never fuffer the calendar to 
be altered. Hence the cunning of the pried fuggefted a 
limilar policy to the fcience of the philofopher. The 
vulgar year lodng fix hours annually, or twenty-five days 
in a century, it follows that in 1465 years things mud 
come right again, and the year begin where it had done 
at the commencement of the period ; of this the adro- 
nomer took a mod ingenious advantage, by converting 
the period of 1463 years, thence called a cycle, into a mea- 
furement of time to be applied to the prodigious age he 
attributed to the world. 
It has been demondrated by modern adrononicrs, that 
the cycle was right in the 139th year of the Chridian era ; 
confequently, the preceding cycle mud have begun with 
the Egyptians 1456 years before, and.been thence carried 
back to the mealurement of an afeending period of pro¬ 
digious antiquity ; but here the prefent adronomers in- 
terpofe, and will not allow that the Egyptians carried 
lhefe cycles higher : yet it is drange, that a fendble peo¬ 
ple, who knew the value of time, (hould throw it away 
in forming a period of which they meant not to make ule 
more than twice or thrice. But dnee the recent difeo- 
very made by Denon of the advanced date of their adro- 
nomy, exemplided in their zodiac and planifphere, ftill 
extant in the great temple at Tentyra, it feems that they 
were entitled to much more intelligence and enlightened 
knowledge than modern writers have been willing to al¬ 
low them. And after the departure of Denon, we are 
informed, that general Defaix found another zodiac, 
fculptured on a peridyle at Efneh, apparently of much 
higher antiquity than the former. We learn alfo from a 
memoir tranfmitted by C. Corabeeuf, French engineer 
in Egypt, that the zodiac found at Efneh is in twenty-five 
degrees, and that at Tentyra, the prefent Dendera, in 
twenty-fix degrees, north latitude : and M. Burckhardt, 
who, having examined the drawing made by Denon, of 
the zodiac of Tentyra, finds that the foldice had ad¬ 
vanced fixty degrees further than the place where it now 
is; which fuppofes an antiquity of four thoufand years. 
r P T; " 
By dudying the furrounding figures, this pofition may^ 
perhaps, be obtained with more accuracy. C. Fournier 
has likewife prefented to the inftitute a memoir, contain¬ 
ing further details on this curious fubjeef. The zodiac 
of Efneh, he fays, reprefents the foldice in the conftella- 
tion of Virgo, which fuppofes an antiquity of feverj 
thouland years. But the pofition of the foldice is there 
indicated in a more vague manner, and it is not impodible 
that there may be an uncertainty of fome hundred years. 
This, however, appears calculated to give probability to 
the lvypotheds of Dupuis, who aferibes our zodiac to the 
climate of Egypt when the fummer foldice was in the 
condellation of capricorn, fourteen or fifteen thoufand 
years before our era. See an anfwer to this under the ar¬ 
ticle Earth, p. 206, of this volume. 
With adronomy, the fine arts leem to have kept pace 
in Egypt. Certain it is, that the Egyptians engraved the 
pietre dure, or gems, two thoufand years before our era ; 
and to this we are wholly indebted for the correCt figures 
and portraits, which have been tranfmitted to us from 
thofe early times. What ages mud have preceded their 
arrival at this point in an art of fo great didiculty ! In 
like manner, the mod difficult operations in mechanics 
mud have taken place in the building of their vad tem¬ 
ples and pyramids, and the erection of their dupendous 
obelilks. 
The Egyptians excelled in works of glafs, cad large 
plates, but dopt diort of the mirror : they cad dallies of 
coloured glafs, and counterfeited the murine vafes ; but 
it is now unknown what thofe vafes were ; though they 
are fuppofed to be of the nature of the onyx. They de¬ 
lighted in fimple and contraded colours ; for they had 
no knowledge of mixed tints; accordingly, we never 
hear amongd the ancients of an Egyptian painter, though 
Plato allures us that they cultivated the art, as far as re¬ 
lated to architecture, ten thoufand years before his time. 
The datuaries of Egypt were confined by the prieds to 
certain forms and modes of reprefentation : hence Plato 
obferves, that they were, in his time, jud where they 
were at their fird fetting out, except as to greater cor- 
reftnefs and beauty in the dile of finidiing. 
It is fuggeded by Ariddtle, that the agriculture of 
Egypt being eafv, and of little labour, and the confe- 
quent idlenefs of the people thought hurtful to their 
health and morals, they were condantly employed in fome 
great work. Thus the policy of the rulers became the 
paflion of the people; and a mader-droke in police. It 
is certain that the Egyptians had little employment in 
navigation and commerce ; what they wanted from other 
countries was brought to them. It is very remarkable, 
that they neither coined, nor made ufe of, money, till 
fome time after the Periian invadon. Yet Montelquieu 
makes this the ted of civilization. 
It appears that the errors into which we have fallen, 
touching the developement of the arts, have their fource 
in Varro, who aderts, that all the arts were invented in 
Greece in the courfe of a thoufand years ; but it now 
turns out that the Greeks did not invent either arts or 
fciences ; they went abroad to learn them, or they were 
brought to them: had they been confined to their own 
country, and had no communication with Egypt, it would 
probably have taken them up a thoufand years to com¬ 
plete an alphabet; which was brought to them in a day, 
and that by accident. The very Ilow progrefs of fcience 
is evinced in the following indance : The prieds of Thebes 
and Heliopolis, who thought that they had difeovered 
the precife term of a tropical year, made a midake of 
fome minutes, as is Been in the deleft of the Julian year; 
it was but the other day that this midake was corrected, 
and this branch of fcience brought to perfection. Cadra- 
tion, male and female, was laid to be praCtifed in Egypt 
from the earlied times. ^Strange it is that this triage 
diould not have palled with the Egyptian colonies into 
Greece, if any fuch were. Cudoms, ceremonies, leads, 
&c. palling from Egypt into Greece, are accounted fur. 
