In The Median Calendar and the Constellation Taurus I have put forward considerations drawn from Median and Assyrian sources, which seemed to me to lead to the conclusion that at about the date 4000 B.C. very close attention was given to the position of the colures amongst the fixed stars, and that at that date very special honour was given by the ancestors of the Medes to the constellation Sagittarius—the constellation which at the spring equinox was in opposition to the sun, and therefore visible all through the night. I need not here reiterate what was there advanced on this point concerning Median and Assyrian symbolism, but rather I now desire to draw attention to the existence in Egyptian art and mythologic teaching of what I cannot but think is very constant reference to the position of the colures, as they might have been observed—speaking in round numbers—from 4000 down to 2000 B.C.

It will be seen at Fig. 4 that the equinoctial colure, at the earlier of these dates, touched the confines of the constellation Sagittarius, and might even then, with almost equal right, have been claimed as adjoining those of Scorpio. We can well imagine that the astronomic school which carried out the reformation in method discussed above (pp. 222, 227), which resulted in the imagining of the constellations Hercules and Corona Australis, and in the extension, as I suggested, of the boundaries of Sagittarius—we can well imagine that this school would with reluctance admit the baleful image of Scorpio to take the post of leader of the year, so long held by Sagittarius. But from 4000 B.C. onwards to 2000 B.C. the constellations that did actually mark the equinoctial and solstitial colures, were Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius.

Volumes of controversy have been written concerning the astronomic teachings of the ceilings of the temples of Denderah and Edfu, as to the position of the colures amongst the fixed stars, suggested by the arrangement of the figures of the Zodiac in both these temples. The date astronomically referred to in these designs was claimed by some to be about 4000 B.C., but when it was proved that these temples had been restored in Ptolemaic times, and the ceilings probably redecorated then, the high claims put forward for the first imagining of these astronomic designs could no longer with certainty be upheld. A strong reaction in opinion then took place, and it was again and again asserted that the Egyptians were probably not even acquainted with the so-called Grecian twelve-fold division of the ecliptic till after the introduction of European culture into Egypt. To seek for allusions in ancient Egyptian mythology or art to any of the twelve Zodiacal constellations was, therefore, a much discouraged attempt.

But if the testimony of the ceilings of the Denderah and Edfu temples is rendered suspect by their Ptolemaic restoration, the same objection cannot be raised against the evidence borne by the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian building, which has certainly not been restored in Ptolemaic times. In the Description de l’Égypte,[118] we find a careful drawing of a “Tableau astronomique au Plafond de l’un des tombeaux des rois.” In the central portion on either side of this ceiling a monstrous hippopotamus and crocodile are represented, together with various beings depicted on a much smaller scale. In the drawing here given, of one of these central groups, we find, as it seems to me, very clear reference to the four figures—Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius (= Amphora).

The monstrous hippopotamus and crocodile here depicted are, I am strongly inclined to believe, representations, not of any particular constellation, but rather of the solstitial and equinoctial colures; and the four not at all, except astronomically, related figures of the Bull, Scorpion, Lion, and Water-jar, are here very clearly in evidence.

In Egyptian mythology the Apis Bull held a very important place. “It was regarded as a symbol and incarnation of Osiris, the husband of Isis, and next to Râ, the great divinity of Egypt.” Grecian authorities tell us that the Apis Bull was black, with some distinctive white markings; and on its back (or tongue, according to variant accounts) the figure of a scarabæus was to be observed. From a drawing in Ebers’ Egypt, Vol. I., p. 121, we may, however, gather, as I think I have seen it elsewhere stated, that the Apis Bull was marked by equal areas of black and white. Such equal areas would fitly symbolize the equal day and night of the equinoctial season, and the presence of the scarabæus on the back or tongue of the Bull—if the suggestion made at p. 218 should prove to be correct—would point to the traditional connexion of that creature with the same equinoctial season.

It has often been assumed that the golden calf set up and worshipped in the wilderness by the Israelites was a representation of the Apis god of Egypt; and that so also were the calves set up by Jeroboam in Bethel and in Dan on his return from Egypt. We read in 1 Kings xii. 32, “And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month.” ... Ver. 33, “So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.”

Now, from our knowledge of the Babylonian calendar, and its correspondence with that in use in Palestine, we may conclude that the “eighth month” (Marchesvan), devised by Jeroboam, was that during which the sun traversed the constellation Scorpio, and during which Taurus was dominantly visible all night; and when in this constellation the full moon of the fifteenth or festival day was to be observed. This mention of the eighth month in connexion with the worship of the golden calves—a worship, as has been supposed, copied from Egyptian practice—greatly strengthens the opinion that the Apis Bull was in Egypt looked upon as a living representative of the Zodiacal Bull—the constellation which in the time of the early dynasties marked, in opposition to the sun, the autumnal equinox.

In Median mythology and art we have seen the great importance of Tauric symbolism: but there is a wide difference between the Tauric symbolism of the Medes and the Egyptians. Mithras, the Median sun-god, again and again triumphs over and slays the Bull. In Egypt, on the contrary, the Sacred Bull is honoured and worshipped during its lifetime, and reverently embalmed, and with all pomp and glory buried after its death.

This difference in the mythologic conceptions of Media and Egypt may be attributed, I think, to the difference of climatic conditions in the two countries.

In Media, spring—in Egypt, autumn—is the joyous and fruitful season of the year. In the early ages, when Median and Egyptian mythologies took their rise, Taurus was at the spring equinox in conjunction with the sun, and was, therefore, slain by its overwhelming brightness; but at the autumn equinox that same constellation, in opposition, rose when the sun set, and all night long was visible. In Median art, it is the Bull immolated by the sun in springtime that is represented. In Egyptian symbolism, it is to the Bull triumphantly traversing the sky by night, in the autumn season, that attention is directed.

In the light of these astronomic considerations, it is interesting to think of the fanatical act of Cambyses in slaying the Apis Bull, as one prompted not only by fury at seeing the high honour paid to the Egyptian god, but also by an insane pride, which made him desire to imitate the triumph of Mithras—the Persian sun-god—over the Bull in the heavens, by killing its earthly representative, the Apis Bull.

In the days of Cambyses, when Apis worship prevailed in Egypt, and even still earlier when the children of Israel, in imitation of this worship, set up the golden calf in the wilderness, the raison d’être for the honour paid to Taurus as a star mark of the autumnal season no longer existed; for we know that about 1800 B.C., the equinoctial colure had left that constellation, and had entered the eastern degrees of the constellation Aries. Egyptian history assures us, however, that the institution of the Apis worship was effected by some king of the first dynasty in the far back ages when Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius did actually preside over the four seasons of the year. Moreover, the recent discoveries of the tombs of kings and other personages, in the first Egyptian dynasty, lead us back to the remote date of 4000 B.C., when the very earliest observations of the colures in the four above-named constellations could have been made.

In these ancient tombs, amongst other objects, have been found slate slabs of various shapes—some of them, in their general outline, as it appears to me, representing in the flat the form of a jar or vase. In the accompanying cuts, a proposed restoration of the broken-off top of one of the slates is given, and is distinguished from the existing portion of the slate by being drawn in dotted lines. Both sides of these slabs are covered by finely executed carvings, not incised but in relief. The subjects of the reliefs are very varied, but prominent amongst them, and exactly repeated more than once, is the figure of a bull trampling under his feet, and preparing to gore with his horns, a fallen human foe. Lions are also portrayed in many attitudes, and on one slate, where in the upper register this triumphing bull is represented, below it in a crenellated cartouche a lion and an urn or jar are to be seen in close proximity to each other. On another slate, a scorpion is delineated above a crenellated cartouche; and representations of scorpions carved in relief on mace-heads and on jars, and scorpions carved in the round, have been met with in great numbers in the excavations at Hierakonpolis—the site also of the discovery of one of the most important of the carved slates here described.

It is difficult, I think, to resist the conclusion that we have in the carvings on these ancient slate objects references not to merely terrestrial bulls, lions, scorpions, and water jars, but rather to the constellations, already imagined under those forms, whose stars, at the date when these carvings were made, marked in conjunction with, and in opposition to, the sun, the four seasons of the year.[119]