Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

140 The Mystery of tlic Heavens. [Ch.

that Herodotus himself in all probability did
not understand —■ and was not intended to
understand—the drift of the extract, strongly
favours its authenticity ; since it is very diffi-
cult to conceive that a person, ignorant of
astronomy, should so misrepresent a statement
made to him by astronomers, as to blunder by
accident into the correct exposition of a
different astronomical relation. We learn
therefore that two Sothiac cycles (four re-
versals) had been completed since the institu-
tion of the scientific Kalendar; so that the
cycle then current would be the third. And
as there is evidence that that cycle was com-
pleted in a.d. 139, and therefore commenced
in B.C. 1322, we conclude that the commence-
ment of the first Sothiac cycle and the
institution of the scientific Kalendar took place
(2 x 1461 years previously, i.e.) at the summer
solstice of B.C. 4244; the moment of com-
mencement being marked by the heliacal rising
of Sothis. In chapter lxiv., which describes