THE COW OF ISIS.
The other symbolism is quite different; instead of a hippopotamus we deal with a cow.
In the inscriptions at Denderah we find the star Sirius represented by a cow in a boat. In the circular zodiac we have the cow in the boat, the point of the beginning of the year, and the constellation Orion, so located as to indicate clearly that, at that time, the beginning of the year fell between the heliacal rising of Sirius and of the stars in Orion. Sirius was Isis-Sothis.
If we go to Thebes, we pass there from the cow Isis-Sothis to Isis-Hathor, and there we find the mythology retains the idea of the cow, the cow gradually appearing from behind the western hills. There is not a doubt, I think, that the basis of this mythological representation was, that the temple which was built to observe the rising of the star at a time perhaps somewhat later than that given by Biot (3285 B.C.) was situated in the western hills of Thebes, so that Hathor, the goddess on which the light was to fall in the sanctuary, was imaged as dwelling in the western hills. At Philæ we get no longer either Isis-Sothis or Isis-Hathor, but Isis-Sati.[63]
HATHOR AS A COW.
Now just as certainly as the hippopotamus had to do with the constellation Draco, the cow had to do with Sirius, for Sirius was represented as a cow in a boat.
HATHOR, "THE COW OF THE WESTERN HILLS."
It may be gathered from this how truly astronomical in basis was the mythologic symbolism to which we have been driven in the effort to obtain more light; and, indeed, it is necessary for us to consider it still more closely.