DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0082
72
this kind, amounting to some hundreds, the coin has been driven into
the die, and not struck with it, and the incuse impression been made
either before or after the other, the edges of it being always beaten
in or out. Similar impressions also occur on some of the little
Egyptian amulets of paste, found in mummies, which were never
struck, or marked with any impression on the. reverse.
96. In these square areas, upon different coins almost every dif-
ferent symbol of the deity is to be found : whence, probably, the
goddess represented by this form, acquired the singular titles of
the Place of the Gods,1 and the mundane House of Horns.1 These
titles are both Egyptian : but the latter is signified very clearly upon
Greek coins, by an asterisk placed in the centre of an incuse
square:3 for the asterisk being composed of obelisks, or rays di-
verging from a globe or common centre, was the natural represen-
tation of the Sun ; and precisely the same as the radiated head of
Apollo, except that, in the latter, the globe or centre was humanised.
Upon the ancient medals of Corinth and Cnossus, the square is a little
varied, by having the angles drawn out and inverted ; 4 particularly
upon those of the latter city, which show a progressive variation of
this form from a few simple lines, which, becoming more compli-
cated and inverted, produce at length the celebrated Labyrinth5
which Dasdalus is said by the mythologists to have built fpr Minos,
as a prison to confine a monster begotten upon his wife Pasiphae, by
a bull, and therefore called the Minotaur. Pasiphae is said to have
been the daughter of the Sun; and her name, signifying all-splendid,
is evidently an ancient epithet of that luminary. The bull is said to
have been sent by Neptune, or the Sea ; 6 and.the title which distin-
1 A10 km tt)V ~2vpiav Arapyari)v tottov Ozuv naAovcrtv, km ttjv Icriv ol Atymrioi, Sis
iroWwv Owv lounrrras irepiexovaas. Simplic. in Aristot. lib. iv. Aliscult. Phys,
p. 150. ed. Akl. Hence Plutarch says that Osiris was'the beginning, Isis the
receptacle, and Ous the completion. De Is. et Osir. p. 374.
H 0 Iffis, eo-TiK 6te Kai Mov0, km TraXw Advpi, km Mcdvep Trpacrayopevovin-'SiiiLaivovtri
St T(f irparry tow ovonaruv fnyrepa, rip 5e Sewreptp oikov 'Clpov Kaafuov. Plutarch, ibid.
3 See small brass coins of Syracuse, which are very common,
* See Mus. Hunterian.
5 Ibid. -
6 Apollodor. lib. iii. c. i.
this kind, amounting to some hundreds, the coin has been driven into
the die, and not struck with it, and the incuse impression been made
either before or after the other, the edges of it being always beaten
in or out. Similar impressions also occur on some of the little
Egyptian amulets of paste, found in mummies, which were never
struck, or marked with any impression on the. reverse.
96. In these square areas, upon different coins almost every dif-
ferent symbol of the deity is to be found : whence, probably, the
goddess represented by this form, acquired the singular titles of
the Place of the Gods,1 and the mundane House of Horns.1 These
titles are both Egyptian : but the latter is signified very clearly upon
Greek coins, by an asterisk placed in the centre of an incuse
square:3 for the asterisk being composed of obelisks, or rays di-
verging from a globe or common centre, was the natural represen-
tation of the Sun ; and precisely the same as the radiated head of
Apollo, except that, in the latter, the globe or centre was humanised.
Upon the ancient medals of Corinth and Cnossus, the square is a little
varied, by having the angles drawn out and inverted ; 4 particularly
upon those of the latter city, which show a progressive variation of
this form from a few simple lines, which, becoming more compli-
cated and inverted, produce at length the celebrated Labyrinth5
which Dasdalus is said by the mythologists to have built fpr Minos,
as a prison to confine a monster begotten upon his wife Pasiphae, by
a bull, and therefore called the Minotaur. Pasiphae is said to have
been the daughter of the Sun; and her name, signifying all-splendid,
is evidently an ancient epithet of that luminary. The bull is said to
have been sent by Neptune, or the Sea ; 6 and.the title which distin-
1 A10 km tt)V ~2vpiav Arapyari)v tottov Ozuv naAovcrtv, km ttjv Icriv ol Atymrioi, Sis
iroWwv Owv lounrrras irepiexovaas. Simplic. in Aristot. lib. iv. Aliscult. Phys,
p. 150. ed. Akl. Hence Plutarch says that Osiris was'the beginning, Isis the
receptacle, and Ous the completion. De Is. et Osir. p. 374.
H 0 Iffis, eo-TiK 6te Kai Mov0, km TraXw Advpi, km Mcdvep Trpacrayopevovin-'SiiiLaivovtri
St T(f irparry tow ovonaruv fnyrepa, rip 5e Sewreptp oikov 'Clpov Kaafuov. Plutarch, ibid.
3 See small brass coins of Syracuse, which are very common,
* See Mus. Hunterian.
5 Ibid. -
6 Apollodor. lib. iii. c. i.