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56 One peculiar fact respecting Aries for which there is no apparent explanation, is that the ram is always represented with reverted head. On a coin type of Cyzicus, about 500-450, the ram is thus depicted. Allen notes as an exception to this almost universal figure, the ram erect in the Albumasar of 1489.

Berosus, a Babylonian priest in the time of Alexander the Great, said that the ancients—those ancient to him— believed that the world was created when the sun was in Aries.

Pliny said that Cleostratos of Tenedos first formed Aries, but there is no doubt that the constellation originated many centuries before this.

Plunket informs us that in the Egyptian calendars no reference is made to Aries, but in Egyptian mythology the importance of the ram is revealed. Amen or Amon, the great god of the Theban triad, is sometimes represented as ram-headed. The great temple to him in conjunction with the sun, i.e., to Amen-Ra, is approached through an avenue of gigantic ram-headed sphinxes. At the season of all the year when Aries specially dominated the ecliptic, the statue of the god Amen was carried in procession to the Nekropolis, from which place the constellation Aries was fully visible. "The preparations for this great festival began before the full moon next to the spring equinox, and on the fourteenth day of that moon all Egypt was in joy over the dominion of the Ram. The people crowned the Ram with flowers, carried him with extraordinary pomp in grand procession, and rejoiced in him to the utmost." The ancient Persians, who called Aries "Bara," had a similar festival.

Between 1400 and 1100, when Rameses II, dedicated the temple of Aboo Simbel, the sun when it penetrated into the shrine of the temple was in conjunction with the first stars of the constellation Aries, and this fact doubtless led the King to honour Aries in connection with the god Amen. The Egyptians called Aries "the Lord of the Head."