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Excerpt from Original Papers Read Before the Syro-Egyptian Society of London, Vol. 1 The word year, which is common in hieroglyphical inscriptions as part of a date, is spelt BAIT, by means of a Palm branch which is the syllable BAI, and the letter T. Bait is also the name of a bird; and hence we get at the reason why the Bird, the Palm branch, and the Year, are united in Egyptian fable. The Bird and the Palm branch are thus used as symbols of the word Year which could not otherwise be sculptured for the eye. In Greek the Palm, the tree of Phœnicia, was called a Phœnix, and hence the Greeks called the fabulous Egyptian bird by the same name. This fabulous Phœnix was, however, chiefly spoken of as the symbol of a longer period of time, at the end of which it returned to earth to die, and its offspring at once grew out of its mothers ashes. The Romans readily borrowed this, as other Egyptian fables, and Tacitus tells us that the Phœnix, whose period of return was very variously stated, came to Egypt in the consulship of P. Fabius and L. Vitellius. This was A.D. 34, a year in which we in vain look for anything peculiar to justify the event. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.