The learned Higgins, an English judge, who for some years spent ten
hours a day in antiquarian studies, says that Moriah, of Isaiah and
Abraham, is the Meru of the Hindus, and the Olympus of the Greeks.
Solomon built high places for Ashtoreth, Astarte, or Venus, which
because mounts of Venus, _mons veneris_—Meru and Mount Calvary—each a
slightly skull-shaped mount, that might be represented by a bare head.
The Bible translators perpetuate the same idea in the word “calvaria.”
Prof. Stanley denies that “Mount Calvary” took its name from its being
the place of the crucifixion of Jesus. Looking elsewhere and in earlier
times for the bare calvaria, we find among Oriental women, the Mount of
Venus, _mons veneris_, through motives of neatness or religious
sentiment, deprived of all hirsute appendage. We see Mount Calvary
imitated in the shaved poll of the head of a priest. The priests of
China, says Mr. J. M. Peebles, continue to shave the head. To make a
place holy, among the Hindus, Tartars, and people of Thibet, it was
necessary to have a mount Meru, also a Linga-Yoni, or Arba.