The Phainomena (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 Excerpt: ... them; but the sinister the Ram In rising raises. And when he ascends You may behold the Altar from the west;l 1 This connexion between the ' Altar's sacred seat' (V. 692. Cf. Manilius: 'Ara mundi templum est, ' Astronomicon, i. 427) and the Ram is very interesting," being a reduplication of the prior connexion between the original solar Ram and the Heaven-altar on which he is offered up daily; so that the Akkadian name of the First Month, the zodiacal Sign of which is Ariel, is liura zigijar (' The Altar of the Demiurge, ' or ' The Upright Altar;' called in the abbreviated form ' The Altar' or 'The Sacrifice'). The Seventh Month (present zodiacal Sign Libra, vide V. 403, note) is called in Akkadian Tul ku (' The Holy Altar, ' Le Tumulus pur, ' Lenormant; 'The Illustrious Mound, ' Sayce), and in the abbreviated form becomes also simply ' the Altar, ' the patron divinity of the month being Sanias (the Sun-god, Heb. Shemesh); and there is very strong reason to believe that the original Euphratean Zodiac showed a circular altar (cf. V. 440; vide Appendix I. Figs, xxxviii-xl), or perhaps merely a solar circle, the Crown (vide E. 70) of the, Sun-god Diannisi (Dionysos), to be afterwards reduplicated in the Stephanos (Corona Borealis) and tie Stephanos Notios (Corona Australia). This solar Crown-altar was almost grasped by the adjoining Claws of the Scorpion, type of Darkness (vide Appendix I. Fig. xxvi). Now certain stars in the constellation Libra form a very decided circle, and a Euphratean seal in the British Museum shows a large scorpion grasping a circle with both claws (vide Menant, Empreintes de Cachets Assyio-Chalditns, Fig. x. p. 9), a design evidently symbolical. Thus, again, on a very remarkable Euphratean uranographic Stone (vide E. Fig. iv. p. 77) we .