III. How A Year

Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, tr. Alexander Turner Cory, [1840], at sacred-texts.com

III. HOW A YEAR.

 ²

When they would represent a year, they delineate

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[paragraph continues] ISIS, i. e. a woman. By the same symbol they also represent the goddess. Now Isis is with them a star, called in Egyptian, Sothis, but in Greek Astrocyon, [the Dog' star]; which seems also to preside over the other stars, inasmuch as it sometimes rises greater, and at other times less; sometimes brighter, and at other times not so; and moreover, because according to the rising of this star we shew all the events of the ensuing year: ¹ therefore not without reason do they call the year Isis. When they would represent the year otherwise, they delineate a PALM TREE ² [BRANCH], because of all others this tree alone at each renovation of the

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moon produces one additional branch, so that in twelve branches the year is completed.

Footnotes

8:2

I. A year.

II. ISIS SOTHIS, from the ceiling of the Ramesseion.

III. The palm branch; on which Thoth measures time.

9:1 Regulate the calendar.

9:2 Qy. A palm branch, Sharpe, 636. Clemens Alex. describing a procession, states that the Horoscopus carries a φοίνικα, which evidently must imply a palm branch. See passage of Clemens in the Appendix.