. The Mythology of all races .. . reat of the wanderings of the dead king among the stars, where he himself becomes a star (cf. p. 178). Later even the astronomical meaning of these texts was forgotten, and the conception of the stars as the souls of the dead grew less distinct. New interest in their groups was awakened especially by Greek influence when the twelve signs of the zodiac, which the Greeks had received from the Babylonians, penetrated into the sacred astronomy of Egypt (p. 57).^* The four winds also were considered to be divine. Thenorth wind is a ram or bull with four heads, alth
. The Mythology of all races .. . reat of the wanderings of the dead king among the stars, where he himself becomes a star (cf. p. 178). Later even the astronomical meaning of these texts was forgotten, and the conception of the stars as the souls of the dead grew less distinct. New interest in their groups was awakened especially by Greek influence when the twelve signs of the zodiac, which the Greeks had received from the Babylonians, penetrated into the sacred astronomy of Egypt (p. 57).^* The four winds also were considered to be divine. Thenorth wind is a ram or bull with four heads, although variantssometimes occur; the east wind is a hawk, perhaps becausethe sun-god rises in the east; the south and west winds revealtheir burning character by having the head or body of a lionand a serpent respectively. Many of these attributes arequadrupled, four being the celestial number (pp. 39, 52); oc-casionally they occur in even greater repetitions.^^ Frequentlyall four winds have the shape or head of a ram as an allusion. Fig. 71. The Air-God Shu-Heh with the South and North Winds to the word bai (soul, breath). They are usually names are known only from very late times. On the analogy of the four souls, or rams, of the winds,the Greek period attempted to represent the gods of the four XII —6
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmythology, bookyear19
