DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0225
20})
of the gods of Egypt, their itinerant votaries acquired an extra-
ordinary influence over the public mind, and the senate found it
frequently necessary to interpose their authority to prevent the
evil from spreading too wide.
A few other circumstances attending the sculptures at Dendera
appear to give some corroboration to the foregoing hypothesis :—
the extraordinary richness of ornament about the figures of the
deities and priests ; the greater elegance and precision of forms,
and the unfinished state in which some of them have been left:
to these I may add the frequent recurrence of the same Greek
building, under which Harpocrates is represented as sitting, and
holding one finger to his mouth *, In this the proportion of the
columns, the pointed pediment, or aires, and the dentills which
fall from each of its sides, are totally unlike any of the usual cha-
racteristic forms of the seulpturc or architecture of anticnt Egypt.
I shall now add a few observations on the two zodiacs which
have lately been discovered within the great temple of Tcntyra;
and have to regret that these monuments have as yet been deemed
so little worthy the attention of astronomers and antiquaries.
Little, I believe, has hitherto been published on the subject, ex-
cept a short treatise by Signor Visconti, and some remarks upon
that gentleman's conjectures by De la Lande -f*.
Signor Visconti has given a concise description of the large
zodiac on the cieling of the pronaon from Denon's drawing ;—
for this I refer my readers to the engraving accompanying this
work, which is taken from an original drawing made by Major
Hayes on the spot, with very great attention. It will be seen
* The same kind of building I have seen painted on some of the large Greek vases;
and cither sitting or standing within it is the figure- of Mars, or of JBacclms, armed,
to whom priestesses arc presenting flowers and garlands.
t See Connaissanccs des Terns pour PAn XIV.
2 e that
of the gods of Egypt, their itinerant votaries acquired an extra-
ordinary influence over the public mind, and the senate found it
frequently necessary to interpose their authority to prevent the
evil from spreading too wide.
A few other circumstances attending the sculptures at Dendera
appear to give some corroboration to the foregoing hypothesis :—
the extraordinary richness of ornament about the figures of the
deities and priests ; the greater elegance and precision of forms,
and the unfinished state in which some of them have been left:
to these I may add the frequent recurrence of the same Greek
building, under which Harpocrates is represented as sitting, and
holding one finger to his mouth *, In this the proportion of the
columns, the pointed pediment, or aires, and the dentills which
fall from each of its sides, are totally unlike any of the usual cha-
racteristic forms of the seulpturc or architecture of anticnt Egypt.
I shall now add a few observations on the two zodiacs which
have lately been discovered within the great temple of Tcntyra;
and have to regret that these monuments have as yet been deemed
so little worthy the attention of astronomers and antiquaries.
Little, I believe, has hitherto been published on the subject, ex-
cept a short treatise by Signor Visconti, and some remarks upon
that gentleman's conjectures by De la Lande -f*.
Signor Visconti has given a concise description of the large
zodiac on the cieling of the pronaon from Denon's drawing ;—
for this I refer my readers to the engraving accompanying this
work, which is taken from an original drawing made by Major
Hayes on the spot, with very great attention. It will be seen
* The same kind of building I have seen painted on some of the large Greek vases;
and cither sitting or standing within it is the figure- of Mars, or of JBacclms, armed,
to whom priestesses arc presenting flowers and garlands.
t See Connaissanccs des Terns pour PAn XIV.
2 e that