forgot that the Egyptians did not speak Greek. To which it may be answered, that the polite and learned among them did speak Greek, after the time of Alexander. It is overlooked by Sir William, that this name (as he acknowledges) νεον εστι, is modern. It is probable that the Greeks found the ancient Egyptian name to signify black, and the letters of it to denote or to signify the year of 365 days. But as they could not in their language give it a term which would signify both, and as they understood why it was called 365 or the year, but did not understand why it was called black, they adopted the former, and called it Νειλος.
The ancient name, as we have said, was Sir, or Siri, the same as O-sir, or Osiris, who was always black; after whom it was called, and by whom was meant the sun. Thus it was called the river of the sun, or the river sun, or the river of Osiris—as we say, the river of the Amazons, or the river Amazon. And this river flowed from the land of the sun and moon. It arose in the mountains of the moon, and flowed through the land of Sir, perhaps the land of Siriad, where Josephus was told that columns had been placed which were built before the flood—κατα την γην Συριάδα. Manetho, 300 years before Josephus, says, these columns stood εν τῃ γῃ Συριαδικῃ, and from them Josephus took his history, which was inscribed on them in the sacred language and in hieroglyphical characters, a language and character evidently both unknown to him. These columns were probably the Egyptian monuments—Pyramids, or Obelisks, which had escaped the destruction of Cambyses, perhaps because they were only historical and not religious, or perhaps because they were linghams, to which the Persians might not object—but the knowledge of whose characters was at that time lost amidst the universal destruction of priests and temples, and which has never been really known since, though the new priests would not be willing to confess their ignorance. Query, שור sur יא ia די di, The holy land of Sur?
The river Nile in Sanscreet books is often called Crishna.[1]
שר sr, is the origin or root of Osiris, and means a leader, regulator, ruler, or director. The ninth of the meanings given to it by Parkhurst in the form שור sur, is that of Beeve.
The modern words Sir, Mon-sieur, Mon-seignor, are all derived from the Hebrew word שר Sr, or Lord, as we translate it, which was an epithet of the sun in all the eastern countries. This is the same as the Iswara of India, which means Lord.[2] The Bull of the Zodiac, or the sun, also had a name very similar to this, whence probably it came to be applied to the animal; or at least they had the same names. See Parkhurst in voce שור sur.
Mr. Maurice says,[3] Persæ Συρη Deum vocant. Surya is the name of the solar divinity of India. It is also the name of Osiris. Mr. Bryant says, Οσειριν προσαγορευουσι και Συριον.[4] As the God of the Egyptians went by several names, as Apis, Serapis, Cneph, Osiris, &c., so did the God of the Hindoos. The word sable or black was one of their epithets. Thus Christ is, in like manner, an epithet of Jesus. He is called Jesus the Christ, the Anointed.
8. As the reader has seen above, and also in my Celtic Druids, I have derived Osiris from the word Sr, and the Greek emphatic article Ο. This derivation is justified by Porphyry. But Hellanicus informs us, that it was sometimes written Υσιρις. Now, as Isis was the wife of Osiris, may it not have come from the Hebrew word ישע iso, to save, and שר sr, or שור sur? Osiris was the Sun, so was Surya in India and Persia: for, as we have seen, Persæ Surē Deum vocant. Syria was the land of the Sun. The Sun was called Lord and Saviour; so was Mithra. The Bull was the emblem of the Sun—of Mithra, called Lord, and of the God in the land where Surya or the Sun, with seven heads, was adored, and in Japan, where he breaks the mundane egg with his
