Aquarius Water Pourer Water Water Water

Pisces Fishes(and Knot) Knot Twisted Reeds --


Notice how closely these lists are alike. The ram does not appear
in America because no such animal was known there. The nearest
substitute was the llama. In the Old World the second
constellation is now called the bull, but curiously enough in
earlier days it was called the stag in Mesopotamia. The twins,
instead of being Castor and Pollux, may equally well be a man and
a woman or two generals. To landsmen not familiar with creatures
of the deep, the crab and the cuttlefish would not seem greatly
different. The lion is unknown in America, but the creature which
most nearly takes his place is the puma or ocelot. So it goes
with all the signs of the zodiac. There are little differences
between the Old World and the New, but they only emphasize the
resemblance. Mathematically there is not one chance in thousands
or even millions that such a resemblance could grow up by
accident. Other similarities between ceremonies or religious
words in the Old World and the New might be pointed out, but the
zodiac is illustration enough.

Such resemblances, however, do not indicate a permanent
connection between Mediterranean civilization and that of Central
America. They do not even indicate that any one ever returned
from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern previous to Columbus.
Nor do they indicate that the civilization of the New World arose
from that of the Old. They simply suggest that after the people
of the Mediterranean regions had become well civilized and after