* The connection of Birît, the female hippopotamus, with
the Haunch is made quite clear in scenes from Philae and
Edfû, representing Isis holding back Typhon by a chain, that
he might do no hurt to Sâhii-Osiris. Jollois and Devilliers
thought that the hippopotamus was the Great Bear. Biot
contested their conclusions, and while holding that the
hippopotamus might at least in part present our
constellation of the Dragon, thought that it was probably
included in the scene only as an ornament, or as an emblem.
The present tendency is to identify the hippopotamus with
the Dragon and with certain stars not included in the
constellations surrounding it.
*** The Lion, with its eighteen stars, is represented on
the tomb of Seti I.; on the ceiling of the Ramesseum; and on
the sarcophagus of Htari.
2 From the astronomic ceiling in the tomb of Seti I.
(Lefébure, 4th part, pl. xxxvi.).
The Lion is sometimes shown as having a crocodile's tail. According to Biot the Egyptian Lion has nothing in common with the Greek constellation of that name, nor yet with our own, but was composed of smaller stars, belonging to the Greek constellation of the Cup or to the continuation of the Hydra, so that its head, its body, and its tail would follow the [ ] of the Hydra, between the [ ] and [ ] of that constellation, or the [ ] of the Virgin.
Most of the constellations never left the sky: night after night they were to be found almost in the same places, and always shining with the same even light.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small bronze in the Gîzeh
Museum, published by Mariette, in the Album photographique
du Musée de Boulaq, pl. 9. The legs are a modern
restoration.
Others borne by a slow movement passed annually beyond the limits of sight for months at a time. Five at least of our planets were known from all antiquity, and their characteristic colours and appearances carefully noted. Sometimes each was thought to be a hawk-headed Horus. Ùapshetatûi, our Jupiter, Kahiri-(Saturn), Sobkû-(Mercury), steered their barks straight ahead like Iâûhû and Râ; but Mars-Doshiri, the red, sailed backwards. As a star Bonu, the bird (Yenus) had a dual personality; in the evening it was Uati, the lonely star which is the first to rise, often before nightfall; in the morning it became Tiûnûtiri, the god who hails the sun before his rising and proclaims the dawn of day.