THE ARGO AND THE ARK
Beginning with Jacob Bryant in 1774, a school of thought emerged that equated Jason's Argo with Noah's Ark. This was based entirely on the supposition that because the word "Argo" sounds like the Latin word for ark, arcus, that both must therefore be related, with the Greek myth a corruption of the presumably more ancient scripture. Later philological analysis would prove this linguistic connection entirely spurious (Argo derives from a word for "swift" in all likelihood, while Ark comes from a root for "box"), but this theory lived on through the nineteenth century in scholarly circles and even today find adherents among uncritical authors of so-called "alternative archaeology" and New Age spirituality. Below are three examples of scholars' attempts to link the Argo and the Ark.
A NEW SYSTEM
Jacob Bryant
1774-1776
JACOB BRYANT (1715-1804) was an eminent British scholar an mythologer whose many books attempted to ascertain the truth behind myth. In A New System, Bryant tried to establish the primacy of the Bible by demonstrating that all pagan myths were corruptions of narratives from the Book of Genesis. In this excerpt, Bryant first proposes the theory that Noah's Ark was misunderstood by the Greeks as the Argo. Note: I have substituted an English translation for a Greek line about Osiris and the Ark from Plutarch.
The Argo, however, that sacred ship, which was said to have been framed by divine wisdom, is to be found there; and was certainly no other than the ark. The Grecians supposed it to have been built at Pagasse in Thessaly, and thence navigated to Colchis. I shall hereafter shew the improbability of this story: and it is to be observed, that this very harbour, where it was supposed to have been constructed, was called the port of Deucalion. This alone would be a strong presumption, that in the history of the place there was a reference to the Deluge. The Grecians placed every antient record to their own1 account: their country was the scene of every action. The people of Thessaly maintained that Deucalion was exposed to a flood in 9 their district, and saved upon mount Athos: the people of Phocis make him to be driven to Parnassus: the Dorians in Sicily say he landed upon mount Aetna. Lastly, the natives of Epirus suppose him to have been of their country, and to have founded the antient temple of Dodona. In consequence of this they likewise have laid claim to his history. In respect to the Argo, it was the same as the ship of Noah, of which the Baris of Egypt was a representation. It is called by Plutarch the ship of Osiris, who as I have mentioned, was exposed in an ark to avoid the fury of Typhon: “Having therefore privately taken the measure of Osiris’s body, and framed a curious ark, very finely beautified and just of the size of his body, he brought it to a certain banquet.” The vessel in the celestial sphere, which the Grecians call the Argo, is a representation of the ship of Osiris, which out of reverence has been placed in the heavens. The original therefore of it must be looked for in Egypt. The very name of the Argo shews, what it alluded to; for Argus, as it should be truly expressed, signified precisely an ark, and was synonymous to Theba. It is made use of in that sense by the priests and diviners of the Philistim; who, when the ark of God was to be restored to the Israelites, put the presents of atonement, which were to accompany it, into an Argus, or sacred receptacle. And as they were the Caphtorim, who made use of this term, to signify an holy vessel; we may presume that it was not unknown in Egypt, the region from whence they came. For this people were the children of Mizraim, as well as the native Egyptians, and their language must necessarily have been a dialect of that country. I have mentioned that many colonies went abroad under the title of Thebeans, or Arkites; and in consequence of this built cities called Theba. In like manner there were many cities built of the name of Argos; particularly in Thessaly, Boeotia, Epirus, and Sicily: whence it is that in all these places there is some tradition of Deucalion, and the ark; however it may have been misapplied. The whole Peloponnesus was once called both Apia, and Argos. As there were many temples called both Theba and Argus in memory of the ark, they had priests, which were denominated accordingly.
Source: Jacob Bryant, A New System: Or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, 3rd ed., vol. 3 (London: 1807), 54-58
Source: Jacob Bryant, A New System: Or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, 3rd ed., vol. 3 (London: 1807), 54-58
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY
George Stanley Faber
1816
GEORGE STANLEY FABER (1773-1854) was a British theologian who, like Bryant before him, believed that all pagan myths were corruptions of the Bible. In The Origin of Pagan Idolatry (1816), he followed Bryant's line of speculation, adding Indian mythology to Bryant's discussion of Greek and Egyptian myth.
Now the luniform ark of Osiris, in which he floated on the surface of the waters, was certainly the sacred ship of Osiris; that ship, in which the Egyptians placed the Sun, and in which they depicted their eight great gods sailing together over the ocean. But the ship of Osiris, as we are plainly taught by Plutarch, was that very ship, which the Greeks called Argo, and which they feigned to be the vehicle of Jason and his adventurous companions to Colchis: for he tells us, that the Argo was placed among the constellations in honour of the ship of Osiris. Hence it will follow, that the Argo must be the Ark, and that the whole fable of the Argonautic expedition must be a mere romance founded on the mystic voyage of Osiris, that is to say, on the real voyage of Noah. It will also follow, that Danaus who was reputed to have sailed from Egypt to Argolis in the ship Argo, and that Jason who was thought to have sailed in it to Colchis, must each be mere variations of the character of Osiris or Noah.' And for such an opinion there is sufficient evidence, distinct from that which arises from both of them being, like Osiris, the reputed navigators of the Argo. Some mycologists rightly esteemed Danaus the son of Theba; which word, as it is well known, literally signifies an ark: and from others we learn, that Jason, when a child, was inclosed in an ark, like one dead, in order that he might escape the fury of Pelias. Now, since Jason and Osiris are equally said to be the captains of the Argo, since each was inclosed in an ark, since each was persecuted by a relentless enemy, since each was bewailed by females as one dead, and since each upon quitting the ark was thought to be restored to life: we must inevitably conclude, that these two famous Argonauts are fundamentally the very same character, that the Argo is in both cases the Ark, and that the Egyptian deity and his transcript the Greek hero are equally the god of the Ark. The accounts indeed, which we have of the Argo, shew plainly enough what primeval ship it was designed to shadow out. Various persons were reputed to be the builders of it: but, whether its architect was Danaus, or Jason, or Argus, or Hercules, or Melicertes, or Minerva, or Typhon; whether it was framed in Egypt, or at Argos, or at Pagasae, or in Phenicia, or on mount Ossa; still a constant notion prevailed, that it was the first ship which was ever constructed, the first ship that divided the waves of the hitherto impassable sea, that remarkable ship with which the science of navigation commenced, the ship in short which on that very account was thought worthy of being placed among the constellations.' Nor was it only the first ship: it was also the ship in which Danaus the son of Theba, who was thought to have flourished synchronically with the deluge of Ogyges, fled from the rage of Egyptus his brother; the ship, into winch Osiris was equally driven by the fury of his brother Typhon or the sea; the ship, from which Jason, who was similarly persecuted by Pelias, was believed to have sent out a dove. When to these highly characteristic circumstances is added the manifest identity of the Argo of the Egyptian Osiris and the Argha of the Indian Eswara, and when we recollect that the Argha was supposed to have floated on the surface of the deluge and afterwards to have been metamorphosed into a dove; it is almost impossible not to recognize in the Argo the Ship of Noah, and in Osiris the patriarch himself.
Source: George Stanley Faber, The Origin of Pagan Idolatry Ascertained from Historical Testimony and Circumstantial Evidence, vol. 2 (London: F. and C. Rivingtons, 1816), 244-246.
Source: George Stanley Faber, The Origin of Pagan Idolatry Ascertained from Historical Testimony and Circumstantial Evidence, vol. 2 (London: F. and C. Rivingtons, 1816), 244-246.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO "NOAH'S RAINBOW"
R. P.
1884
When it became clear that the linguistic connection between the Argo and the Ark would not hold, other answers had to be found. In this editor's preface to a piece on Noah's rainbow from Knowledge magazine, the editor, R. P., proposed that the similarities were not linguistic by stellar--that the story of Noah's Ark, Osiris, the Argonauts, etc. were all descriptions of the sun's annual path through the zodiac, with Argo Navis standing in for the Argo, the Ark, etc. This theory is chronologically impossible since the zodiac was only formalized at least 500 years after the Argonaut story was first told, but it still has adherents in the alternative archaeology community.
Just as the whole story of the Fall is found fully recorded in anoient Persian star pictures, so the story of the Flood corresponds with the course of Osiris (the sun) through tho watery constellations Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, to conjunction with the ship Argo (the Ark), and the long sea-line indicated by Hydra, and so past Chiron the Centaur, (identified of old with Noah), represented as offering sacrifice on the altar (Ara),--
Ara ferens thuris, stellis imitantibus, ignem,
while above, in the smoke of incense was seen tho Bow of Sagittarius. All these figures were seen in the stellar heavens (in fact, few of the constellation figurings are more easily recognised among the stars than the streams from the water-cans of Aquarius, the shape of the Poop of Argo, the long sea-snake (with the Raven on ita back), the Altar and the Bow; and it is fully in accordance with what has repeatedly happened in such cases, that pictures associated with these imagined figures should afterwards have a story attached to thorn, and that this story should be very widely spread. It is at least remarkable that the story of the Flood corresponds closely, as to time intervals with the extension of the constellations named beside the course of the sun. It is also noteworthy that the Egyptian account, which is undoubtedly tho oldest (older even than the Assyrian) is associated with what is unquestionably a solar myth.
Source: Editor's preface to "Noah's Rainbow," Knowledge, June 13, 1884, 440.