Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt:...an 'inflamed ulcer or boil, ' a simile which might be applied to a brightly blazing star. But another reading is Sukudu, 'the Eestless, ' i.e., eager, impetuous blazing. 19. Ina yu-mi innamar; rukh iltdnu illak. At daybreak it-is-seen; a north wind blows. 20. Kakkab Kak-si-sa khaldbu: mdta The star the Leader (is) misty: the land kha-ru-bi-e ikkalu. locusts devour. 21. Ina arkhi Duzu kakkab Kak-si-sa In the month Tammuz the star the Leader (u) kakkab Id-khu ikassidu: and the star the Eagle are-in-the-ascendant: samassammu esiri the sesame (Gk. o-foanov) (is) flourishing. 22. Kakkab Kak-si-sa u kakkab Id-khu The star the Leader and the star the Eagle a-kha-mis innamaru, together are-seen. Tab. K. 2310, Ob. contains some similar lines. Akhamis (lit. 'Like-brothers') is here used of time, not of space. The Sesame, associated in legend with Schamir, Sassafras (=Saxifrage), etc. is a plant which plays a prominent part in mythic tales, and in original idea is connected with the lightning (Vide Sir G. W. Cox, Mythol. of the Aryan Nations, 2nd edit. pp. 95, 440 et seq.). When we analyse the evidence contained in the foregoing quotations, we shall find that it seems, on the whole, to point strongly towards Sirius. But not with absolute conclusiveness. Thus Kaksisa is 'like bronze' (eru), and, agreeably with this, Ptolemy styles Sirius v-woKippos (Vide Vol. I. 98). But at present Sirius, as Mr. H. Sadler observes, is 'one of the whitest stars in the heavens '; and Prof. Schjellerup has suggested that ' the attribution of the colour in question to Sirius arises from the error of a copyist.' This, again, is easy to suggest, but by no means very probable. Why should a copyist insert viroKippoi here apropos of nothing? Sir Norman Lockyer (Element. Les..