It will be seen at Fig. 4 that the equinoctial colure, at the earlier of these dates, touched the confines of the constellation Sagittarius, and might even then, with almost equal right, have been claimed as adjoining those of Scorpio. We can well imagine that the astronomic school which carried out the reformation in method discussed above (pp. 222, 227), which resulted in the imagining of the constellations Hercules and Corona Australis, and in the extension, as I suggested, of the boundaries of Sagittarius--we can well imagine that this school would with reluctance admit the baleful image of Scorpio to take the post of leader of the year, so long held by Sagittarius. But from 4000 B.C. onwards to 2000 B.C. the constellations that did actually mark the equinoctial and solstitial colures, were Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius. Volumes of controversy have been written concerning the astronomic teachings of the ceilings of the temples of Denderah and Edfu, as to the position of the colures amongst the fixed stars, suggested by the arrangement of the figures of the Zodiac in both these temples. The date astronomically referred to in these designs was claimed by some to be about 4000 B.C., but when it was proved that these temples had been restored in Ptolemaic times, and the ceilings probably redecorated then, the high claims put forward for the first imagining of these astronomic designs could no longer with certainty be upheld. A strong reaction in opinion then took place, and it was again and again asserted that the Egyptians were probably not even acquainted with the so-called Grecian twelve-fold division of the ecliptic till after the introduction of European culture into Egypt. To seek for allusions in ancient Egyptian mythology or art to any of the twelve Zodiacal constellations was, therefore, a much discouraged attempt. But if the testimony of the ceilings of the Denderah and Edfu temples is rendered suspect by their Ptolemaic restoration, the same objection cannot be raised against the evidence borne by the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian building, which has certainly not been restored in Ptolemaic times. In the _Description de l’Égypte_,[118] we find a careful drawing of a “Tableau astronomique au Plafond de l’un des tombeaux des rois.” In the central portion on either side of this ceiling a monstrous hippopotamus and crocodile are represented, together with various beings depicted on a much smaller scale. In the drawing here given, of one of these central groups, we find, as it seems to me, very clear reference to the four figures--Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius (= Amphora). [118] _Description de l’Égypte_, 10 vols., Paris, MDCCCXII.-XXIII., Vol. I., Antiquités, planche 95. [Illustration: Portion of Ceiling at Bybân-el-Molouk. [_To face p. 233._] [Illustration: BULL APIS]