tion of the buildings, on which they are sculptured, to be posterior to the Christian era. But as it has been since urged, that they may be copies of more ancient representations, it may not be irrelevant to inquire, what date may be assigned to their original construction, even upon this supposition. Letronne has, indeed, and, we conceive, with some appearance of success, attempted to prove, that, so far from being astronomical representations, or planispheres, they are mere astrological horoscopes; and that no argument whatever can be deduced from them, in relation to the antiquity either of their actual execution or primitive delineation. Biot has, on the other hand, admitted them to be planispheres; has sought the mathematical principle by which the spherical appearance of the heavens has been transferred to a plane projection, and thence deduced the epoch at which they might have been constructed from actual observation. Of these Zodiacs, two are of the form of longitudinal bands, containing a representation of the constellations of the Zodiac alone; but a third is circular, and comprises all the constellations visible in the latitudes of Egypt. It is, on this account, more susceptible of being reduced to calculation, while the additional facility has been afforded of its being no longer necessary to have recourse to mere graphic delineations, the original having itself been removed, and exhibited in the city of Paris. A short time previous to the French expedition to Egypt, a work had been published in France, which referred the origin of the Zodiac to Egypt, and imagined that the several signs derived their names and characters from the succession of the employments of the agricultural year in that country. Such a coincidence was supposed to be found at the time the summer solstice fell, by the procession of the equinoxes, in the constellation Capricorn. This position of the solstice occurred about 15,000 years before the Christian era. The savans, who accompanied the French expedition, fancied they had found upon the temples of Dendera and Esneh, the confirmation of this startling hypothesis, and referred, if not the actual erection of those buildings, at least the origin of the science their sculptures commemorated, to that remote date. And this was the first view of the subject propagated by Denon and his coadjutors. Dupuis himself, however, was almost afraid of the boldness of his own views; and suggested that the names of the constellations might have been derived from their being in opposition to the sun, at the time that the specified agricultural labours would have occurred. This was at once a falling from the high pretensions to antiquity, of upwards of twelve thousand years, and this is the view that appears to have been finally adopted by those who hold this opinion. Such, at least, is the opinion of Fourier, who has taken the most prominent part on this side of the argument. In this way, he fixes the epoch of the Zodiac of Esneh at about 2500 years before Christ. One thing, however, appears, at first inspection, a difficulty, in regard to this or any other view of the remote antiquity of these Zodiacs. The constellation Libra is figured among them, in the form of a balance, exactly similar to that instrument as it is now used. The mere shape of this representation is, however, of little importance in the argument, as the instrument is so simple in principle, as to be of probable introduction at an early date. But this sign was, as we learn from Aratus and Eratosthenes, unknown to the Greeks while an independent nation, and was not introduced into the Roman world until after the time of Augustus, as is manifest from the well-known lines of Virgil, addressed to that Emperor: "Anne novum tardis sidus te mensibus addas, Qua locus Erigonen inter, Chelasque sequentes We may reasonably infer, that it was equally unknown in Egypt at that period; for Egypt was in truth the seat and centre of astronomic knowledge, not derived from its ancient inhabitants, but introduced by its Greek conquerors, and cultivated under the dynasty of the Ptolemies. We should not, therefore, have hesitated to pronounce at once, that these Zodiacs were sculptured after the beginning of the Christian era. Still, however, the state of the heavens that is represented, may be of an earlier date. By determining the position of the stars, and asterisms figured on the planisphere, and thence determining the simple and easy principle on which it was projected, Biot has fixed the position of the pole of the equator, in respect to the several constellations. As this pole performs a revolution around the pole of the ecliptic, in a little more than 25,000 years, a knowledge of its position will determine the date at which the observations were made, by which the planisphere was constructed. Biot has shown, that this is not more remote than 716 years before the Christian era. If, then, we admit their being intended as astronomical representations, we must here limit their antiquity.But there is much more than a probability, that they are far more modern, not only from the names of Roman Emperors inscribed on the buildings, but from the fact of the constellation Libra being figured upon them. Such being the case, we must confess that we incline to the opinion of Letronne, that they are mere horoscopes, and can in consequence be referred to no specific date. This opinion is confirmed by the fact, that upon mummies, well known from other circumstances to be of Roman times, representations precisely similar to these Zodiacs. have been found. In any event, their remote origin can no longer be maintained. Before the discoveries of Champollion and Young, our knowledge of early Egyptian history was derived from a few scanty or mutilated sources. The notices, scattered at distant intervals in scriptural history, are too few to furnish any connected materials, however they may aid in elucidating and corroborating the evidence that can be drawn from other authorities. That it became the appanage of Misraim, the son of Ham; that it was visited by Abraham; became the place of sojourning of the family of Jacob, who there increased to a vast number; and, after years of servitude, went forth loaded with the wealth of Egypt, we learn from these venerated records. But they give us but meagre information as to the arts, the sciences, and the state of the country. In after times, we find Solomon connected by marriage with the King of Egypt, and succeeding monarchs of that country, exercising a powerful influence over the declining fortunes of the divided Hebrews, until misplaced confidence in Hophra, (the Apries of profane historians,) was the apparent human cause of the captivity, and the final destruction of the kingdom of Judah. Herodotus, the father of profane history, devotes no small portion of his work to the subject of Egypt. His information was obtained from the priests, and appears, on the very face of it, to be a strange mixture of truth with falsehood. Menes is named as the first King, and he counts 330 reigns from him to that of Sesostris; of these monarchs, eighteen were Ethiopians, one a foreign female named Nitocris, and but one (Moris,) wor thy of notice on account of his actions. After these, he places Sesostris, whose exploits and conquests he records. From his reign, the notices of names and events become more frequent; and it is evident, that in the history of this prince, we have the line that separates truth from fable. Herodotus himself, as has already been stated, evidently disbelieved the tales that were related to him, and takes pains to make his readers acquainted with his want of faith. From the time of Herodotus to that of Diodorus Siculus, many Greeks visited and wrote concerning Egypt, which, during the latter part of this interval, had fallen under the government of a Grecian dynasty. Few authentic remains of their writings have reached us. Diodorus was about 400 years later than Herodotus, and also derived his knowledge of Egyptian history, either directly or at second-hand, from the priests. But the pretensions to high antiquity seem to have abated in this space of time.Menes, or Menas, again appears as the first monarch; from him to Busiris, fifty-two kings are reckoned, who reigned 1400 years. Of the name of Busiris, he counts eight kings, the last of whom built Thebes. Icoreus, the builder of Memphis, succeeded the last of these. From him to Moris, he counts twelve reigns; from Moris to Sesoosis (the Sesostris of Herodotus,) six. In all, from Menes to Sesostris, eighty-seven, or but about a fourth of the number communicated to Herodotus. It unluckily happens, that these are the only ancient historians, that have treated of the affairs of Egypt, whose works have come down to us in their original form. One author, from whom information of the greatest importance might have been derived, has been almost wholly lost; and the little that has reached us, in the form of extracts, inserted in other writers, is so mutilated and twisted, to suit their respective views, as to leave it a matter of great difficulty, at the present day, to ascertain the sense he meant to convey. The author to whom we refer is Manetho, a Sebennyte by birth, who, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, compiled a history of Egypt from inscriptions and the records of the temples of Egypt. * A few short notices of the work of Manetho, are given by Eusebius, in his Preparatio Evangelica; others, longer and of much more importance, by Josephus, in his controversy with Appion: a list of his thirty dynasties, with the names of many of the kings, is given by Eusebius, in the first book of his Chronicon; and a similar synopsis, made by Julius Africanus,§ is appended to Scaliger's edition of Eusebius, and has been made use of by that learned critic, in his chronological labours. ||—— These two last, although derived from the same source, have several remarkable differences from each other. From the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, however, their coincidence is sufficient to show, that they have both understood their authority in the same sense; and the differences exist merely in the spelling of names, and the copying of numerals. But, in the previous dynasties, with the exception of the first and second, this is by no means the case. Thus, for instance, the dynasty of Phenician Shepherds is the seventeenth in Eusebius, and the fifteenth in Africanus. The same names, or persons, are found in different dynasties: thus, Sesostris, and his father Animenes, are, both by Africanus and Eusebius, named as the second and third kings of the twelfth dynasty; while no doubt can now remain, *Eusebii Pamphili Prep. Evan. Lib. 2. Proem. Lib. 4. Cap. 16. Coloniæ 1688. p. 44 and 155. + Flavii Josephi contra Appionem Lib. 1. p. 1336 et seq. and p. 1352 et seq. Oxon. 1720. † Εὐσεβιοῦ τοῦ Πάμφιλον χρονικών λογ. προτ. p. 15. Lug. Bat. 1658. §‘150gtwv ovvaywyn in edit. Chron. Eusebii Pamphili, op. et stud. Jos. Just. Scaligeri. p. 351. Lug. Bat. 1657. | Canonum Isagogicorum Jos. Just. Scaligeri Lib. ii. p. 128. Lug. Bat. 1622. that the former is identical with Sethos,* the first king of the nineteenth. We cannot, therefore, avoid the inference, that neither Eusebius nor Africanus understood the sense of their author; and that we must reject their authority, from the third to the seventeenth dynasty, inclusive; receiving those only, as correctly extracted, in which they both concur, or in which there is no suspicion, that cotemporaneous races, ruling in different provinces, may have been classed as ruling the whole country in succession. The discrepancy in the number assigned to the dynasty of Shepherd Kings can be settled, and the true place in which this race of conquerors is to be introduced in Egyptian history ascertained, by the extract contained in Josephus. It thence appears, that, under the reign of a king called Timæus, a numerous nation poured from the East into Egypt, and subdued it almost without resistance; that they retained the empire under six of their monarchs, for 259 years, and were finally expelled by Amosis, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty, with whom they made a capitulation, and retired to the desert to the number of 240,000 men. He adds, that they passed on to Syria and built Jerusalem-a fact inconsistent with sacred history, and which we must therefore reject, particularly as it is contradicted afterwards by Manetho himself. Josephus endeavours to prove, that this history of the conquest of Egypt by the Shepherd Kings, is the Egyptian version of the settlement of the family of Jacob in that country, under the auspices of his son Joseph; and that their expulsion refers to the Exodus of the Israelites. He therefore charges him with forgery, in the account that he gives, under another and subsequent reign, of a transaction, which, allowing for the natural colouring that an enemy, with wounded feelings of national pride, and exasperated by religious disputes, would give to the acts of the hostile party, is a most remarkable confirmation of the Mosaic history. The true record of the Exodus, and Manetho's account of the same transaction, differ less in their real meaning, than we have, even in our own enlightened days, seen in the bulletins of two opposing European armies, which have frequently, in describing the same battle, each dwelt upon, or overrated, particular circumstances, favourable to themselves, and avoided or extenuated those favourable to the other side, until it was hardly possible, except by the evidence of date, to ascertain that both were intended to describe the same great action. One thing, however, is certain, that Eusebius is correct in placing the dynasty of six Shepherd Kings immediately before the 18th dynasty, of which Amosis, or Tethmosis, is the first; while, as an Egyptian race, of which this monarch was the descendant, ruled cotempo * See American Quarterly Review, No. 2. p. 455. . |