"En passant à la balance, on trouve les fruits; la commence le règne du ma aussitôt que l'homme vient à cueillir les pommes. La nature quitte sa parure; aussi nous avons écrit ces mots, dépouillement de la nature; sous le scorpion on lit froid; sous le sagittaire, neiges; sous le capricorne, glace et brouillard, siège des ténèbres et de longs nuits; sous le verseau, pluies et frimas; sous les poissons, vents impétueux."
Since the great pyramids were built in the time of the fourth dynasty, it is quite clear that Eridu must have been founded long before if the transitions were anything like those I have stated.
The Argument touching η Argus.
But there is not only evidence that at Eridu the sun-worship was at first connected with the winter solstice. It is known that there was star-worship as well; and there must have been moon-worship too, judging by the moon-god of the adjacent town of Ur.
Associated with Ía was an Ía-star, which Jensen concludes may be η Argûs. This we must consider.
Jensen concludes that the Ía-star is η Argûs on the ground that many of the texts suggest a darkening of it now and again; he very properly points out that a variability in the star is the only point worth considering in this connection, and by this argument he is driven to η, which is one of the most striking variables in the heavens, outshining Canopus at its maximum. Speaking generally, everybody would agree that obscuration by clouds, etc., would not be recorded; but if the star were observed just rising above the southern horizon only, then its absence, due to such causes, would, I should fancy, be chronicled, and it must not be forgotten that this is precisely the region where the Ía star would be observed, if all of the inscriptions referred to by Jensen are to be satisfied; its place was in "äussersten Süden" (page 153). It was "das Pendant des im Nordpol des Aequators sitzenden Himmels-Bi'l" (page 148); "Ía's 'Ort' am Himmel liegt im Süden" (page 26).
There is another argument. Professor Sayce in his lectures reproduces (page 437) Mr. George Smith's account of the Temple of Bel derived from a Babylonian text. The temple was oriented east and west. In a description of one of the enclosures we read that on the northern side was a temple of Ía, while on the southern side there was a temple of Bīl and Anu. This not only shows that Ía was regarded as sacred to the true south, but that the temple buildings were planned like the Egyptian ones, the light either from sun or star passing over the heads of the worshippers in the courts into the temples. (Compare temple M in the temple of Amen-Rā, page 118 ante.)
But η Argûs never rose or set anywhere near the south. I have ascertained that its declination was approximately 32° S. in 5000 B.C., and increased to 42° S. by about 2000 B.C. Hence between these dates at Eridu its amplitude varied between 38° and 51° S. of E. or W. Now here we are far away from the S. point, though very near the S.E. or S.W. point, to which it is stated some of the Babylonian structures had their sides oriented.
The question arises whether there was a star which answers the other conditions. There was a series of such stars.
It may be here mentioned generally that the precessional movement must, after certain intervals, cause this phenomenon to be repeated constantly with one star after another.