to the Th[e]bans & Ethiopians, who in the days of
Samuel David & Solomon & R[e]hoboam conquered
Egypt & the nations round about & erected a great
Empire, to represent & signify their conquering Kings
& Princes, not by writing down their names, but by making
various hieroglyphical figures; as by painting Ammon
with [R]amms horns to signify the king who conquered
Libya a country abounding with sheep; his father Amosis with a sith to signify that king who conquere[d]
the lower Egypt, a country abounding with corn;
his son Osiris by an Ox because he taught the
conquered nations to plow with [O | Ö]xen; & Bacchus with
Bull's horns for the same reason, & with grapes
because he taught the nations to plant vines, & upon
a Tiger because he subdued India; Orus the son of
Osiris with a harp to signify the Prince who was emi-
nently skilled on that instrument; Iupiter upon an
Eagle to signify the sublimity of his dominion, & with
a Thunder[b]olt to represent him as a warrior; Venus in
a chariot drawn with two Doves to represent her
amorous & lustfull; Neptune with a Trident to signify
the Co[m]mander of a Fleet composed of three squadrons; |Ægæon (a giant) with 50 hea[ds] & 100 han[d]s [illeg] \to s[ig]nify/ Neptune wit[h] his men in a ship of 50 oars;|
Thoth with a dogs head & wings at his cap & feet & a
Caduceus writhen about with two serpents to signify a
man of craft & an Embas[s]adour who reconciled two
contending nations; Pan with a Pipe & the leggs of a
Goat to signify a man delighted in piping & dancing;
& Hercules with pillars & a club because Sesostris
set up pillars in all his conquests, & in the reign
of his father Ammon fought against the Libyans
with clubs. [ So ^a 1 Hi |y|ginus: Afri et Ægptÿ primum fustibus
di[m]icaverunt, postea Belus Neptuni filius gladio belli-
geratus est, unde belum dictum . ] This is that Hercules
who (according [to] ^b 2 Eudoxus) was slain by Typh[o]n, & (according
to ^c 3 to Ptolomæus Hephæstion) was called Nilus, & who con-
quered Ge[r]ion with his three sons in Spain & set up
the famous Pillars at the mouth of the straits called Her-
cul[e]s his pillars. For Diodorus ^d 4 mentioning three Her-
cules, the Egyptian, the Tyrian, & the son of Al[cme]na,
saith that the oldest flourished among the Egyptians &
having conquered a great part of the world, set up the pil-
lars in Afric. And Vasæus ^e 5 : that Or |s|isi |ri|s called also Diony-
sius, came into Spain & conquered G[e]rion, & was the ~
first who brought Idolatry into Spain. Strabo ^f 6 tells us
that the Ethiopians called Megabares, fought with
clubs. And some of the Greeks did so till the times of
the Trojan war. Now from this hier\o/glyphical way of
writing it came to pass that upon the division of Egypt
into Nomes by Sesostris, the great men of the kingdom to
whom the Nomes were dedicated, were represented in their
Sepulchres or Temples of the Nomes by various Hiero-
glyphicks, as by an Ox, a Cat, a Dog, a Cebus, a Goat, a
Lyon, a Scarabæus, an Ichneumen, a Crocodile, an Hippo-
potamus, an Oxyrinchus, an Ibis, a Crow, a Hawk, a [Leek], &
were worshipped by the Nomes in the shape of these creatures.