Note 193 — Chapter IX

It is very remarkable, that the zodiac of the Indians contains the same signs as that of the Greeks and other western nations: that these signs were, in part, used by the Egyptians; and that the seven days of the week, which Dio Cassius, lib. xxxvii. speaks of as an ancient establishment of the Egyptians, are named after the same deities as among them. The Turks, Persians, Tartars and Chinese have in their zodiac a series of signs totally different, consequently must have derived their knowledge from a different source; but at the same time from a people who had observed the courses of the heavenly bodies, and who had endeavoured to compare the solar year with the lunar. I cannot help entertaining an idea that the people of Upper Egypt and Nubia, who were considered as Ethiopians, were the first who had a knowledge of the planets and heavenly bodies; and that their knowledge, was communicated to the Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians, and to the whole East. F.