This cross has certainly a most remarkable connection with the ancient history of Egypt, being found universally represented on the monuments, the tombs, the walls, and the wrapping cloths of the dead; hence, evidently, the idea that it is peculiarly Egyptian and its ascription of "Key of the Nile." From Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Ruffinus, we learn that it was known to the Egyptian Christians at the close of the fourth century as the symbol of eternal life. Later on, Dr. Max Uhlman wrote, "that the handle cross means _life_, is manifest from the Rosetta inscription and other texts." Zoeckler, another German author, notices the opinion of Macrobius that it was the hieroglyphic sign of Osiris, or the sun, it being a fact that when the ancient Egyptians wished to symbolise Osiris, they set up a staff with an eye upon it, because in antiquity the sun was known as the eye of God, and then claims that the round portion represented the orb of the sun, the perpendicular bar signifying the rays of the high mid-day sun, and the shorter horizontal bar symbolising the rays of the rising or setting sun. The discovery of this emblem by M. Mariette in a niche of the holy of holies in the ancient temple of Denderah, points significantly to its importance and peculiar sacredness, and it has been thought probable that it was the central object of interest in the inner precincts of the temple. It seems that the Egyptian priests, when asked for an explanation of this cross, evaded the question by replying that the Tau was a "_divine mystery_." However varied the explanations offered may be, and whatever the mystery said to surround this object, the feature always remains,--its symbolisation of life and regeneration. From this, its phallic character was very easily inferred--its derivation from the _lingam-yoni_ symbol, said Barlow, seemed a very natural process. The junction of the yoni with the cross, in Dr. Inman's judgment, sufficiently proved that it had a phallic or male signification; a conclusion which certain unequivocal Etruscan remains fully confirmed. "We conclude, therefore," says this writer, "that the ancient cross was an emblem of the belief in a male creator, and the method by which creation was initiated."