tral
dot, with the swastika, four-petalled flower and the wheel, occurs on the
oldest monuments of Greek art; on the prehistoric bronzes and pottery of
Italy (where the sacred geese were kept on the Capitoline at Rome); on the
bronzes of Hallstatt, of ancient Gaul and of prehistoric Sweden. Pointing
out that we thus obtain a whole chain of associations which link the
syllables am and an to deities and pole-star symbolism, I next present,
for reference, the names for the bird given in Webster's dictionary.

Sanscrit, hangsa; Latin, anser, for hanser; German, gans (in Germany,
according to Pliny, the small, white geese were called ganzoe al. gantoe
lib. X, 22); Greek, khen; Danish, gaas; Swedish, gos; Welsh, gwydd;
Anglo-Saxon, gos; Irish, geadh; Icelandic, gas; Slavonic, gusj and gonsj.
Noting that in the Sanscrit, Latin, Greek and German alike, the syllable
an or en is present in the name for goose, I return to the Egyptian
symbols which express the words an and ankh, and, bearing the "birth of
Brahma from a lotus" in mind, refer again to the Egyptian title Neb-ankh,
"lord of life," which, as I point out, also signified "the lord of the
lotus flower." Let us now briefly examine some Egyptian texts relating to
pl. V, 12 and 15, which represent the boat (am and its synonyms) and the
flower=ankh, associated with the boy and the serpent.

In an astronomical text from Edfu, published by Brugsch, New Year's day is
mentioned in connection with the "coming forth of the great lotus blossom
in the form of a bud in its symbolical interpretation as the god ahi
(literally, boy).... The count of his rulership begins from the first day
of his rising or birth...." In another text it is said: "New Year's day,
the sun (Ra) comes forth from a lotus flower in the great sea," and there
are numerous allusions in other inscriptions to "the lotus blossom in the
great waters, from which the sun-child arises in radiance towards heaven."
The text accompanying (pl. V, 15), where a serpent rises from the lotus in
the boat, states "the sun, uniter of the world, in Tentyra"=the New Year.

In another inscription it is said: "thou risest like the sacred serpent,
as a living spirit, in thy glorious form in the bark of the sunrise;" and
this passage forms an interesting parallel to that already cited where the
sun is said to rise "like a hawk from the midst of its lotus bud." Pl.
VII, 14, exhibits a nine-petalled lotus growing from a pedestal and a head