Note 46 — ANCIENT BABYLONIAN ASTROGONY.

The following passage from Admiral Smyth’s Bedford Catalogue is worth noticing in this connection:—“We find that both the Chinese and the Japanese had a zodiac consisting of animals, as zodiacs needs must, among which they placed a tiger, a peacock, a cat, an alligator, a duck, an ape, a hog, a rat, and what not. Animals also formed the Via Solis of the Kirghis, the Mongols, the Persians, the Mantshus, and the ancient Turks; and the Spanish monks in the army of Cortes found that the Mexicans had a zodiac with strange creatures in the departments. Such a striking similitude is assuredly indicative of a common origin, since the coincidences are too exact in most instances to be the effect of chance; but where this origin is to be fixed has been the subject of interminable discussions, and learning, ignorance, sagacity, and prejudice have long been in battle array against each other. Diodorus Siculus considers it to be Babylonian, but Bishop Warburton, somewhat dogmatically tells us, ‘Brute worship gave rise to the Egyptian asterisms prior to the time of Moses.’” There is now, of course, very little reason for questioning that Egyptian astronomy was borrowed from Babylon.