[108] Sayce, _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, February 1874. If we now accept Tchuen-Hio’s reformation as a re-adjustment of a previously-existing sidereal and originally solstitial calendar, we are at once given the clue to the two so similar Hindu and Chinese traditions quoted above, concerning the initial point of their Lunar Zodiacs: and we shall recognise that Kio--containing the star Spica--_in opposition to_, and the first degrees of Aswinī, _in conjunction with_, the sun, obtained the posts of leaders of the lunar series for the same reason--namely, _that they marked the beginning of the year at the winter solstice_ 6000 B.C. To this same cause I have here, and elsewhere, attributed the fact that in the Accadian calendar the stars of Aries held the same position, and marked the _first_ month of the year, as the month of the “sacrifice of righteousness.” In thus tracing back the history of the calendars of the ancient nations of the East, in observing the identity of their earliest astronomical traditions, and noting the curious points of contact and divergence in their later scientific and mythological ideas, the impression seems to force itself upon us more and more definitely, that before the races of mankind were “scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth,” their ancestors were capable of great scientific achievements, and possessed in common high intellectual aspirations. We in these later days, so picturing to ourselves the past, may be freshly struck by the words of the ancient history, which tell us of the time when “the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” PART II PLATES. PART II. PLATES XV., XVI., XVII., AND XVIII. In the foregoing pages arguments have been urged in support of the view that the ecliptic circle, at the remote date (speaking in round numbers) of 6000 B.C., had been portioned by some “ancient race of men” into twelve divisions; and that the twelve constellational figures of the Zodiac had then also been imagined under forms more or less closely resembling those which we recognize in the heavens at the present day. Most of the arguments in favour of this opinion are necessarily based on considerations connected with the phenomena of the heavens, effected in the long course of ages by a slow revolution of the earth’s axis. Astronomers during the last two thousand years have carefully observed the effects and studied the causes of this slow terrestrial movement, and they can now tell us with confidence and exactness that the space of 25,868 years is required for the accomplishment of one such revolution of the earth’s axis.