Book 1. Of the Egyptian-Greek Hieroglyphics.

exceeding all others in benefit to her subjects: After her death, however, she attained the honors of the immortals, and was buried at Memphis in the grove of Vulcan, where even to this time her sepulcher is shown. Some believe the bodies of these Gods are not situated there, but in the mountains of Ethiopia and Egypt, near the island which is called the Gates of the Nile from the field sacred to the Gods. Evidence of this shows both the sepulcher of Osiris constructed and held in honor by the Egyptian Priests, and three hundred sixty urns, which the Priests instituted for that purpose fill daily with milk, and they renew their mourning, calling the Gods by name. For this reason, the island is prohibited to passersby. Among the inhabitants of the Thebais (which is the most ancient city of all), the greatest oath is held by Osiris existing in the clouds, with all the parts of Osiris, as I have reported, buried there except for the genitals: for those had been thrown into the river by Typhon, when none of the accomplices in the slaughter wanted them to be in their possession: By Isis later, they were buried in a sepulcher with no less honor than the other parts. But from Osiris and Isis up to Alexander the Great, who founded a city of his own name in Egypt, they say there were more than ten thousand years, but as some assert, a little less than twenty-three thousand: These are his words. Note. That all these things are written not by historical but by allegorical faith, anyone of the Christian profession, even the most unlettered, would recognize, provided he knows how to compute the years of the creation of the World from the beginning to this time, which do not yet exceed 5575. Osiris therefore lived almost twenty thousand years before the world was founded by God and the first parent of men, Adam, according to the allegories or tradition of the Egyptians: And since Hercules is reported to be contemporary with Osiris, who preceded the times of the Trojan war, as they are established, by a little, Troy also was destroyed as many thousands of years before the creation of the world: but if we were to attempt to refute these from histories to a fingernail, innumerable other