. The serpent symbol, and the worship of the reciprocal principles of nature in America . a serpent.* {See Note R,at end of Chapter.) Certain it is that in the earlier monu-ments of Assyria, antedating the Persian empire, we find evi-dences of the adoration paid to the But perhaps themost remarkable application of the serpent symbol, in thatquarter of the world, and which has its counterpart in Egypt,is its combination with the circle, egg, or globe, and hierogram seems to have been allusive to the loftiest reli-gious conceptions of the nations by whom it was adopted. It h
. The serpent symbol, and the worship of the reciprocal principles of nature in America . a serpent.* {See Note R,at end of Chapter.) Certain it is that in the earlier monu-ments of Assyria, antedating the Persian empire, we find evi-dences of the adoration paid to the But perhaps themost remarkable application of the serpent symbol, in thatquarter of the world, and which has its counterpart in Egypt,is its combination with the circle, egg, or globe, and hierogram seems to have been allusive to the loftiest reli-gious conceptions of the nations by whom it was adopted. It hasgiven rise to much curious speculation, the general tenor ofwhich cannot be unknown to the reader. It is not my purpose,at this time, to add anything upon the subject, further than toobserve that this compound symbol demonstrates the high posi-tion which the serpent emblem occupied in the symbolicalsystems of the earliest historical ages of the world. In Egyptit appears upon every temple, and upon almost every monu-ment, and has generally been regarded as an emblem of Fig. 66. Tue EcYrxiAX IIeirogram ok Seepents, Globe, and Wings. The explanation of Hermes Trismegistus, (the thrice greatHermes,) who assumed the name of Thoth, in whose temple he * Bryants Arch. Myth. vol. ii. p. Layards Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 354. 248 AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES, officiated, is that the globe signified the simple essence of God,the serpents the vivifying, and the wings the penetrativepower of Grod, pervading all things, and called Love ; the wholerepresenting the ^!5upreme Being, in his character of Creatorand Preserver. Hermes defines Deity to be a circle whosecentre is everywhere and whose circumference has also been suggested that the serpents are emblems ofeternity; the wings, of the power which brooded over thevast expanse of chaos ; and that the whole signifies simply theEternal Creator. But while conceding that the hierogramis allusive to the Suprem
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