Work on the principal sanctuary of Amon – the Temple of Karnak at Luxor in upper Egypt – was begun at around 2000 BC23 and, as those who have visited that temple will recall, its principal icons are rams, long rows of which guard its entrances. The immediate predecessor to the Age of Aries was the Age of Taurus – the Bull – which spanned the period between 4380 and 2200 BC.24 It was during this precessional epoch, when the sun on the vernal equinox rose in the constellation of Taurus, that the Bull-cult of Minoan Crete flourished.25 And during this epoch, too, the civilization of dynastic
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