Part 57

To the north of Esne is a small isolated temple, equally facing the east, and having a zodiac also in its portico (Great Work on Egypt, Antiquities, vol. i. Plate 87.) This zodiac is upon two lateral and separated bands. That which extends along the south side commences with the Lion, which marches toward the bottom, or toward the west, the feet turned toward the wall, or the south. It is preceded by the Scarabæus, and the latter by the Gemini, marching in the same direction. The Bull, on the contrary, faces them, having a direction toward the east. But the Ram and the Fishes resume the direction toward the bottom, or toward the west. On the band of the north side, the Aquarius is near the bottom, or the west, marching towards the entrance or east, the feet turned toward the wall, preceded by the Capricorn and Sagittary, both marching in the same direction. The other signs are lost; but it is clear that the Virgin must have marched at the head of this band, on the side next the entrance. Among the accessory figures of this small zodiac, must be remarked two winged Rams placed across, the one between the Bull and the Twins, the other between the Scorpion and Sagittary, and each nearly in the middle of its band; the second, however, a little more advanced toward the entrance.

It was at first thought, that, in the great zodiac of Esne, the division of the entrance took place between the Virgin and the Lion, and that of the bottom between the Fishes and the Aquarius. But Mr Hamilton, and MM. de Jollois and Villiers, have supposed, that, in the Sphinx, which precedes the Virgin, they found a repetition of the Lion, analogous to that of the Cancer in the great zodiac of Dendera; so that, according to them, the division would be at the Lion. In fact, without this explanation, there would only be five signs on one side, while there would be seven on the other.

With regard to the small zodiac of the north of Esne, it is not known whether some emblem analogous to this Sphinx may have occurred in it, because this part is destroyed.--See British Review, February 1817, p. 136; and Critical Letter on Zodiacomania, p. 33.

Description of the Pyramids of Ghiza, by M. Grobert, p. 117.

Connaissance des Temps for the year xiv.

Observations upon the zodiac of Dendera, in the Revue Philosophique et Litteraire, 1806, p. 257, et seq.

Ægyptiaca, p. 212.

See in the British Review of February 1817, p. 13. et seq. the article No. vi. upon the origin and antiquity of the zodiac. It is translated at the end of Swartz’s Critical Letter upon the Zodiacomania.

See M. Nouet’s Memoir in Volney’s New Inquiries regarding Ancient History, vol. iii. p. 328-336.

Eratosthenes has made but one constellation of the Scorpion and Talons. He indicates the commencement of the latter without its termination; and as he gives 1823 years to Scorpio, properly so called, there remain 1089 for the other, on the supposition that there is not an empty space between these two constellations.

See the great work on Egypt. Antiq. Mem. vol. i. p. 486.

Rhode. Essay upon the Age of the Zodiac, and the Origin of the Constellations, in German. Breslau, 1809, p. 78.

According to the tables of M. Delambre’s note above, the solstice has remained 3474, or at least 3307 years, in the constellation of virgo, the one which occupies the greatest space in the zodiac, and 2617 in that of the Lion.

Translation of Herodotus by Larcher, vol. ii. p. 570.

See the Dissertation of the Abbé Dominique Testa, Sopra due Zodiaci novellamente scoperte nell’ Egitto, Rome, 1802, p. 34.

Delambre. Note at the end of the Report on the Memoir of M. de Paravey. This report is printed in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, vol. viii.

See the work of M. Biot, entitled, Recherches sur plusieurs points de l’Astronomie Egyptienne, appliquées aux monumens astronomiques trouvés en Egypte; Paris, 1823, 8vo.

Letronne. Researches into the history of Egypt during the domination of the Greeks and Romans, p. 180.

Id. ibid. p. xxxviij.

Letronne. Ibid. p. 456, and 457.

Letronne. Critical and Archæological 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.

Idem, p. 48, and 49.

Varro, de Ling. Lat. lib. vi. Signa, quod aliquid significent, ut libra æquinoctium; Macrob. Sat. lib. i. cap. xxi. Capricornus ab infernis partibus ad superas solem reducens Capræ naturam videtur imitari.

See the Memoir on the Origin of the Constellations, in Dupuis’s Origine des Cultes, vol. iii. p. 324. et seq.

Id. ibid. p. 267.

Dupuis himself suggests this second hypothesis. Ibid. p. 340.

Ægyptiaca, p. 215.

See in the Great Work on Egypt, Antiq. Mem. vol. i., the memoir of M. Remi Raige upon the nominal and original zodiac of the ancient Egyptians. See also the table of the Greek, Roman, and Alexandrian months, in M. Halma’s Ptolemy, vol. iii.