Their use of the zodiac is illustrated in an interesting manner by a mummy found some years ago in Egypt. At the bottom of the coffin was found painted a zodiac, something like that of Denderah; underneath the lid, along the body of a great goddess, were drawn eleven signs, but with that of _Capricornus_ left out. The inscription showed that the mummy was that of a young man, aged 21 years, 4 months, and 22 days, who died the 19th year of Trajan, on the 8th of the month Pazni, which corresponds to the 2nd of June, A.D. 116. The embalmed was therefore born on the 12th of January, A.D. 95, at which time the sun was in the constellation of Capricornus. This shows that the zodiac was the representation of the astrological theories about the person embalmed, who was doubtless a person of some importance. (See Plate IV.) Any such use as this, however, must have been long subsequent to the invention of the signs themselves, as it involves a much more complicated idea. CHAPTER V. THE PLEIADES. Among the most remarkable of the constellations is a group of seven stars arranged in a kind of triangular cluster, and known as the Pleiades. It is not, strictly speaking, one of the constellations, as it forms only part of one. We have seen that one of the ancient signs of the zodiac is the Bull, or Taurus; the group of stars we are now speaking of forms part of this, lying towards the eastern part in the shoulders of the Bull. The Pleiades scarcely escape anybody's observation now, and we shall not be, therefore, surprised that they have always attracted great attention. So great indeed has been the attention paid to them that festivals and seasons, calendars and years, have by many nations been regulated by their rising or culmination, and they have been thus more mixed up with the early history of astronomy, and have left more marks on the records of past nations, than any other celestial object, except the sun and moon. The interesting details of the history of the Pleiades have been very carefully worked out by R. G. Haliburton, F.S.A., to whom we owe the greater part of the information we possess on the subject.[1] Let us first explain what may be observed with respect to the Pleiades. It is a group possessing peculiar advantages for observation; it is a compact group, the whole will appear at once; and it is an unmistakable group and it is near the equator, and is therefore visible to observers in either hemisphere.