The fame of Orion was eclipsed in later days by that of Sopd or Sirius. But this had its reason in the physio-graphical peculiarities of Egypt. The heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog Star, that is to say, its first appearance along with the sun, corresponded with the rise of the Nile in Upper Egypt, and accordingly became a mark of time, and the starting-point of the solar year. Its importance therefore was great, not only for the calendar, but also for those agricultural operations upon which the very existence of Egypt depended. We need not wonder, accordingly, if with the settlement of the Pharaonic Egyptians in the valley of the Nile the worship and name of Orion fell more and more into the background, while that of Sirius became pre-eminent. How far back the pre-eminence of Sirius reaches may be gathered from the fact that the twentieth nome of Northern Egypt—that of Goshen—derived its name from a combination of the mummified hawk of Horus and the cone which, as Brugsch first showed,(189) represents the shaft of zodiacal light that accompanies the rising of Sirius before the dawn of day. Sopd or Sirius is thus identified with the dead Horus who presided over Nekhen in Upper Egypt, and preceded Osiris as the god of the dead.(190) Of the other stars and constellations we do not know much. The Great Bear was called “the haunch of beef,” and was at times identified with Set, and made the abode of the souls of the wicked. Not far off was the hippopotamus, which Brugsch would identify with Draco; while among other constellations were to be found the Lion and the Horus-hawk, as well as a warrior armed with a spear. All over the world the more prominent stars and constellations have received names. But it is only the more prominent and brilliant among them of which this is true. So far as we know, the only people who have ever systematically mapped out the heavens, dividing the stars into groups, and giving to each group a name of its own, were the Babylonians; and it was from the Babylonians that the constellations as known to Greeks and Romans, to Hindus, or to Chinese, were ultimately derived. The inference, therefore, is near at hand, that the primitive Egyptians also were indebted for their map of the sky to the same source. And the inference is supported by more than one fact.