thus used from the subsequent history, wherein the worship of the Atlantians is described. The mythologists gave out, that Atlas supported heaven one reason for this notion was, that upon mount Atlas stood a temple to Coëlus. It is mentioned by Maximus Tyrius in one of his dissertations, and is here, as in many other instances, changed to xoxos, hollow. The temple was undoubtedly a cavern: but the name is to be understood in its original acceptation, as Coël, the house of God; to which the natives paid their adoration. This mode of worship among the Atlantians betrays a great antiquity; as the temple seems to have been merely a vast hollow in the side of the mountain; and to have had in it neither image, nor pillar, nor stone, nor any material object of adoration : " Εs. δε Ατλας ορος κοιλον, Εςι επιεικως ὑψηλον. -Τετο Λιβύων και ἱερον, και θεος, και ignos, naι aɣarμa. This Atlas (of which I have όρκος, και αγαλμα. been speaking) is a mountain with a cavity, and of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a Deity: and it is the great object by which they swear; and to which they pay their devotions. The cave in the mountain was certainly named Co-el, the house of God; equivalent to Coelus of the Romans. To this the 14 Maximus Tyrius. Dissert. 8. p. 37. people made their offerings: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. It seems to have been no uncommon term among the Africans. There was a city in Libya named Coël, which the Romans rendered Coëlu. They would have expressed it Coelus, or Cœlus; but the name was copied in the time of the Punic wars, before the s final was admitted into their writings. Vaillant has given several specimens of coins struck in this city to the honour of some of the Roman " emperors, but especially of Verus, Commodus, and Antoninus Pius. 15 Among the Persians most of the temples were caverns in rocks, either formed by nature, or artificially produced. They had likewise Puratheia, or open temples, for the celebration of the rites of fire. I shall hereafter shew, that the religion, of which I have been treating, was derived from the sons of Chus: and in the antient province of Chusistan, called afterwards Persis, there are to be seen at this day many curious monuments of antiquity, which have a reference to that worship. The learned Hyde supposes them to have been either palaces, or tombs. The chief building, 16 15 Vaillant: Numism. Erea Imperator. Pars prima. p. 243, 245, 285. and elsewhere. 16 Hyde. Religio Veterum Persarum. c. 23. p. 306, 7, 8. which he has taken for a palace, is manifestly a Puratheion; one of those open edifices called by the Greeks Taga. It is very like the temple at Lucorein in upper Egypt, and seems to be still entire. At a glance we may perceive, that it was never intended for an habitation. At a distance are some sacred grottos, hewn out of the rock; the same which he imagines to have been tombs. Many of the antients, as well as of the moderns, have been of the same opinion. In the front of these grottos are representations of various characters: and among others is figured, more than once, a princely personage, who is approaching the altar where the sacred fire is "burning. Above all is the Sun, and the figure of a Deity in a cloud, with sometimes a sacred bandage, at other times a serpent entwined round his middle, similar to the Cnuphis of Egypt. Hyde supposes the figure above to be the soul of the king, who stands before the altar: but it is certainly an emblem of the Deity, of which we have a second example in Le 18 Bruyn, copied from another part of these edifices. Hyde takes notice, that there were several repetitions of this 17 See PLATE ii. iii. 18 Le Bruyn. Plate 153. See the subsequent plate with the characters of Cneuphis. |