Page 217 - Foundations

Constellation Taurus

During the time of Paul’s arrest and transfer to Rome as a prisoner, ships traditionally had figureheads
adorning the prow. Luke describes one such emblem in the book of Acts.

Acts 28:11
And at the end of three months we set sail on an Alexandrian ship which had wintered at the island,
and which had the Twin Brothers for its figurehead.

Alexandria was an Egyptian city, but it was Greek in culture, being founded by, and named after, the
Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. “The Twin Brothers” is an apparent reference to Castor and
Pollux who are depicted in the constellation Gemini, often referred to as “the Twins.” This Biblical
narrative demonstrates credibly that zodiacal images were found on the prow of ships, but it does not
resolve the question of which came first. Was the Phoenician zodiac derived from the images on their
ships, or did the Phoenicians decorate their ships with much more ancient images found in their
zodiac? Certainly, in the case of the ship that Paul and Luke sailed upon, the ship was adorned with
the image of a zodiacal figure of much greater antiquity.

An argument against the ship’s figurehead theory is that many of the images of creatures in the zodiac
are full body in their depiction, not being cut in half as one would expect on a ship’s prow. Regardless
of what alterations may have been made by the Phoenicians to their zodiac, the more ancient one is
certainly the Babylonian. Before the Phoenicians were ever settled along the shores of Syria and
Canaan, their ancestors were gathered with all other men in the plains of Shinar at ancient Babel.
There all men were of one tongue, and one purpose. There they had the knowledge of the
constellations, so that when God scattered them they carried this science with them to all parts of the
earth. This explains the great similarity in the zodiac found among scattered people of different
tongues. Frances Rolleston, in the opening chapter of her book Mazzaroth, relates the great antiquity
of the constellatons of the zodiac.

Now that the hieroglyphics of Egypt are interpreted, and the characters of Babylon and Assyria
deciphered, should those far more ancient and more widely diffused, the primitive hieroglyphics of
the whole human race, be neglected? Those, the great enigma of ages, transmitting far more