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of the mythological elements of the important seventeenth chapter. He traces the solar gods to Heliopolis, and considers the Osiris myth as probably derived from Abydos, and added at a later time. Professor Lepsius does not admit the Heliopolite origin of the solar group, on account of the small political importance of Heliopolis. Yet the circumstance that the chief divinities of that city, which had the sacred name Pe-ra, the abode of Ra, were Atmu, Shu, and Tefnet (Rit. xviii. 4, ap. Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., i. 254, cf. 255) seems conclusive.2

Some account may now be given of these divinities in the order of the lists, the later additions being noticed last and then lesser divinities. It will be impossible to give more than the simplest particulars, and many names in the Pantheon must be omitted altogether.

Ra, the sun, is usually represented as a hawk-headed man, occasionally as a man, in both cases generally bearing on his head the solar disk, round which the uræus, symbolic of royal power, is sometimes coiled. His symbol is either the solar disk or the hawk. Ra had the most general worship of any Egyptian divinity, except Osiris. The worship of Osiris under his own name was more common than that of Ra under his, but this was in some degree compensated for by the union of Ra with other gods-besides solar ones, such as Amen, Num, Sebek, forming the compound divinities Amen-ra, Num-ra, Sebek-ra (Lepsius, Erst. Aeg. Götterkreis), and by his being the type of sovereignty, so that each king was a Ra son of Ra. This importance of his worship was due to the adoption of Ra as the leading representative of the supreme being, from whom indeed he is sometimes undistinguishable in the Ritual, though as already noticed this does not seem to have been the primitive opinion, for there are evidences of his inferiority to the supreme god and to Osiris (De Rongé, "Etudes," Rev. Arch., n.8., i. 358). In the religious paintings he is the supreme being, carrying on in his course a constant warfare with and triumph over evil, represented by the great serpent Apap, a wholly evil being, not a divinity. His career resembles that of Osiris, but with notable differences. Ra is purely solar. He is rarely associated with any consort, and if so associated his consort is a female Ra (Lepsius, Erst. Acg. Götter kreis). He is always victoribus. He protects mankind, but has nothing in common with them. Osiris on the other hand is only solar because he is the beneficent power of nature. He is constantly associated with Isis. He has a life-long conflict with a maleficent power, his brother or son Seth, who is not wholly evil. Vanquished and killed he recovers his life and wins, but it is rather Horus his son who wins, and Horus, a sun-god, is the direct link with Ra in the Osiris family. Osiris protects mankind because his life resembled theirs: if he did not live on earth, at least his tomb was shown there. At Heliopolis two animals sacred to Ra were reverenced, the black bull Mnevis, sacred to Ra and Atmu, and the Phoenix (Bennu) sacred to Ra. Both are connected with Osiris, the bull by the worship of Apis at Heliopolis, the Phoenix as also representing Osiris (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., 1. 257, 258). In addition the sacred Persea-tree was reverenced at Heliopolis.

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In the attempt under Dynasty XVIII. to establish sun-worship in an original or ideal simplicity, the only representation is the solar disk with the ureus entwined round it, and rays ending in human hands, one of which offers the symbol of life to the worshipper The great sun-temple then founded contained uo statue whatever (Lepsius, Erst. Acy. Gotterkreis).

Mentu and Atmu may best be noticed together as merely two phases of Ra, representing, as already stated, the rising and the setting sun, the sun of the upper and the lower world. Their twincharacter is seen in the circumstance that Mentu was worshipped at Southern An (Hermonthis) and Atmu at Northern An (Heliopolis, the On of the Bible). Mentu, or Mentu-ra, is represented as Ra with the tall plumes of Amen, Atmu in a human form. cannot be distinguished from Ra except that probably their attributes were more restricted, and while Menta seems to be within limits identical with Ra, the human form of Atmu may perhaps hiut a relation to Osiris.

Both

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Shu is light, and is a type of celestial force, for he is represented supporting the goddess of heaven. M. de Rougé remarks that it identified with the luminous principle ("Etudes," Rev. Arch., i 225, is curious to find in this ancient cosmogony the principle of force 236). His figure is human and he sometimes bears on his head the ostrich-feat!:er, which, though the initial of his name, must here have its symbolical sense of "truth." The relation of light and truth is with Shu in the cycle, is represented with the head of a lioness. not less remarkable than that of light and force. Tefnet, associated This is the most common compound form of Egyptian goddesses, as the hawk-headed of the gods. Both are connected with solar worship. The lioness was probably chosen as the highest form of the family to which the luminous-eyed cat, one of the most popular of the sacred animals, belonged.

Seb stands at the heal of the family of Osiris. He is represented in human form like his cousort Nut. They are called "father of the gods" and "bearer of the gods." Seb was the god of the earth (De Rougé, Ibid. 238), and Nut the goddess of heaven. Her name means the abyss, though curiously the primordial abyss is called, in ch. xvii. of the Ritual, nu, in the masculine (cid. 359).

Osiris, in Egyptian Hesiri, is usually represented as a mummy, wearing the royal cap of Upper Egypt, which may indicate the Thinite origin of his worship, or that, as Horus and Seth were the special divinities of Upper and Lower Egypt, so he was particularly connected with the upper country. His cap is usually flanked by ostrich plumes, which probably have a reference to Ma-t the goddess of truth and justice. The myth of Osiris is the most interesting because the most human part of Egyptian mythology. It is im possible to attempt a full account of it: the materials have yet to be gathered. We cannot accept the treatise On Isis and Osiris as representing the older form of the myth. In different documents we seem to trace its growth, and notably do we find in those later than Dyn. XXII. the change due to the altered theory of good and evil. Yet the general outlines are the same in what we may reasonably hold to be the earliest documents.. It is these that are, as far as possible, used here.

Osiris is essentially the good principle: hence his name Unnefer, the good being, rather than the revealer of good (Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, 38). Like Ra he is the creator, and like him in perpetual warfare with evil. Ilis brother, or son, Typhon, Seth (Set), is his opponent. They are light and darkness, physical good and evil, the Nile and the desert, Egypt and the foreign land. Osiris is certainly moral good, Seth is to a certain extent moral evil. Throughout the Ritual they are in conflict for right and wrong, for the welfare and destruction of the human soul. In ch. xvii., which was preserved intact from a remote age, this conflict appears. Seth is, however, not there distinctly named as the opponent of Osiris, except in the glosses, which may be as old or (like the case of the Mishna and the Gemara) older than the text, and once in the text he appears as joining with Horus his adversary in accomplishing the final condition of the deceased who had reached the abode of happiness (ver. 35); and on the other hand, one gloss explains the executioner of souls to be Seth, but otherwise Horus the elder, brother of Osiris, who is but a variation of the younger Horus (ver. 33). Yet the opposition of Osiris and Seth is a perpetual combat. Osiris is vanquished. He is cut in pieces and submerged in the water. Watched by his sisters, Isis his consort and Nephthys the con sort of Seth, he revives. Horus his son avenges him, and with the aid of Thoth, or reason, he destroys the power of Seth, but does not annihilate him. The myth is a picture of the daily life of the sun, combating darkness yet at last succumbing to it, to appear again in renewed splendour, as the young Horus a solar god triumphs over Seth. It is also a picture of human life, its perpetual conflict and final seeming destruction, to be restored in the new youth of a brighter existence. In this view suffering is not wholly evil, but has its beneficent aspect in the accomplishment of final good There are two ways of explaining the origin of this myth. Either we may regard Osiris as the sun of the night, and so the protector of those who pass away into the realm of shades, or we may suppose that once taken as the type and ruler of mankind in the after state, the hidden sun was naturally chosen to represent him, the sun being with the Egyptians the source and governor of all life. Those who make the solar idea the first form of the myth have to explain its specially human aspect, and particularly why we see no such aspect in any deep sense in the case of Atmu the sun of the night in the group of solar divinities.

It will be easily seen how such a story took ho'd of the affections of the Egyptians. Osiris was the type of humanity, its struggles, its sufferings, its temporary defeat, and its final victory. The liv ing, and still mere the dead, were identified with him. Under his name, without distinction of sex, they passed into the hidden place because the word tum has the sense man, and may be thus a play upon the name of the divinity (cf. De Rongé, "Etudes," 350, 351), but it is muore likely that Tum is here used as Osiris everywhere to indicate the divine quality of the justified,

tamenti), the divine world below (Ker-neter), to be protected by him in their conflict with Seth and his genii, and to have their final state determined by him as their judge. It was to Osiris that the prayers and offerings for the dead were made, and all sepulchral inscriptions, except those of the oldest period, are directly addressed to him. As Isis is a form of the female principle, Osiris, the sun and the Nile, was considered in one phase to be the male principle. The Osiris of Mendes was the name of this form, which was more especially known by the name of Mendes.

The three most famous of those more sacred animals which were worshipped as individuals, not as a class, were the bulls Apis and Mnevis and the Mendesian goat. Of these Apis and the Mendesian goat were connected with the worship of Osiris. Manetho says that all these animals were first reckoned among the gods under a very early Egyptian Pharaoh, Kaiechôs, in Egyptian Ka-kau, second king of Dyn. II. It is very characteristic of the Egyptian religion that the reverence for Osiris should have taken this grossly-material form.

The bull Apis, who bears in Egyptian the same name as the Nile, Hapi, was worshipped at Memphis. Here M. Mariette discovered a series of the tombs of these bulls, with tablets recording the reigns in which they were buried, and in several cases further exact par ticulars of date, thus affording important chronological evidence. Apis was considered to be the living emblem of Osiris, and was thus connected with the sun and the Nile, and the chronological aspect of both explains his being also connected with the moon. On the death of an Apis, a successor was sought for and recognized by certain marks. He was then inaugurated and worshipped during his lifetime. (See Aris.)

Sarapis, or Serapis, in Egyptian Hesiri-Hapt, is the defunct Apis, who has become Osiris. The great extension of the worship of Sarapis, after the importation of his statue by Ptolemy I., was merely a development of long existing Egyptian ideas. Hence the rapid spread and great popularity of this worship. (See SERAPIS.) The Mendesian goat had no special name. He is called the Ran:. He was considered an emblem of Ra and Shu as well as of Seb and Osiris, but probably he was chiefly sacred to Osiris, and in his solar aspect, which would thus introduce the relation to the more markedly solar gods. The seat of his worship was Mendes in the eastern part of the Delta, where Dr Brugsch has discovered a very interesting stele of the reign of Ptolemy II., Philadelphus, giving the history of the finding and inauguration of a sacred ram, and of the honour paid to him and to his temple. His worship was similar to that of Apis, but of a grosser form, inasmuch as the goat or ram was a symbol of the productive force of nature.

Isis, or Hes, represented as a woman bearing on her head her emblem the throne, or the solar disk and cow's horns, is the female form of Osiris. Unlike Ra, the Osiris family have consorts; but no one is so distinctly as Isis a counterpart and of equal importance. Though the place of Isis is not as significant as that of Osiris in the myth to which they belong, she is necessary to it, and this is probably the reason why she attained an importance beyond the other Egyptian goddesses except only Hathor, who is but another Isis.

Seth, the Egyptian Set, usually called by the Greeks Typhon, is represented with the head of a fabulous animal, having a pointed suout and high square ears. He was the brother or son and opponent of Osiris, the divinity of the enemies of Egypt, and the chief of the powers which fought with the human soul in the after life. He certainly represents physical evil. It would be easy to account for his worship in Egypt were it not for his appearing as the enemy of gods as well as of men. There is indeed something illogical in his holding a place in the Pantheon, which gains consistency by his expulsion, though the consequent confusion of moral and physical evil was detrimental to ethical ideas. It is remarkable as showing the Egyptian notion of Seth while he was still worshipped, that in the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, those whose names are composed with his, Setee I. and II., and Set-nekht, use instead the name of Osiris. This seems to have been sometimes done afterwards by a change in the inscriptions, but still at the time when the tombs were first completed, and thus while the reverence of Seth, as is shown

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1 M. de Rougé has noticed that the name of this king, "the male of males or "the bull of bulls," may be connected with the cultus of the sacred bulls, while that of Binôthris, his successor, contains a symbol, the ram, interchangeable with the goat, which makes it look like a second commemorative medal (Six Prem. Dyn., 243, 244). If this be so the names of these early Pharaohs must have been taken on their accession or on some remarkable event, like the throne-names after the introduction of that second name. A change of name during a king's reign for a religious reason is seen in the case of the sun. worshipping Amenoph IV., who took the name of Khu-en-aten.

Records of the Past, viii. 91 seqq., where the stele of Mendes is translated.

It has been usual to call Seth the brother of Osiris; Dr Brugsch prefers to style in his son (Hist., 2 ed. p. 20, 22). This double relationship is the key to the similar position of Horus, and the identity of Hathor and Isis,

by these royal names, was in full bloom (Lepsins, Erst. Acg. Götterkreis). The subsequent change of opinion as to Seth, his identification with moral evil, and his consequent expulsion from the Pantheon have been already noticed. In consequence his figure and name are usually effaced on the monuments, and other gods to ke his place in the cycles in which he had a position. In later times Seth is the enemy of all good, feared and hated, but no longer reverenced. The date of the chauge is as yet undetermined. "It has been usually assigned to the Bubastite kings who composed Dyn. XXII. M. Mariette has discovered the curious fact that one of those kings, a hitherto unknown Osorkon, altered the figure of Seth in the legends of Ramses II. at Tanis to that of a Set-Ra (Musie Boulak, p. 273). Was this the beginning of the change

Nephthys, or Nebti, the sister of Osiris and Isis, and consort of Seth, does not, as far as the Egyptian documents tell us, share his character. It is rather as the sister of Isis that she there appears, aiding her in her labours to recover and revive Osiris. Thus like Isis she is a protector of the dead, and her figure and worship escaped the fate of those of Seth.

Horus, or Har, is in the cycles the son of Osiris and Isis. There is also a Horus the elder, Haroëris, Har-oer, brother of Osiris, and a Horus the child, Harpocrates, Har-pe-khruti, son of Osiris and Isis, and two other forms, Har-Hut, the Horus of Hut or Apollopolis Magna, and Har-em-akhn, "Horus in the horizon." Horus is generally hawk-headed, and thus a solar god connected with Ra. This connection is perhaps strongest in the form Har-em-aklu, worshipped at Heliopolis sometimes even as Ra-Har-em-akhu. The most interesting form is that of Horus as the son and avenger of Osiris. Osiris being identified with the sun of the night, Horus is naturally the sun of the day. From this identification arose the idea of an infant Horus as the rising sun. As Horus took the place of Osiris in the contest with Seth, he became the elder Horus, to be on an equality with his opponent, who seems oftener the brother than the son of Osiris. Specially Horus is the ruler of Upper Egypt, and the typical king of Egypt as much as Ra. It is indeed so hard to distinguish Horus from Ra that it seems impossible to hold any opinion but that they had their origin in separate religious systems.

Hathor, Athor, or Hat-har, whose name means "the abode of Horus," is hard to distinguish from Isis. She was worshipped with Isis at Dendarah (Dümichen, Bauurkunde der Tempelanlagen von Dondera, 3, 4) and Dr Brugsch even supposes the local goddess to have been Isis-Hathor (Geogr. Inschr., i. 202, 203), but this he has not proved, for the representations and titles are different for the two goddesses (cf. Dumichen, l.c.). The cow was sacred to both Hathor and Isis, and both wear the disk and cow's horns. Hathor in the form of a cow plays an important part in Amenti (cf. Dümichen, ibid. 21; Mariette, Musée Boulaq, 118, 119). Curiously she is more widely reverenced than even Isis. She is really the female counterpart of Osiris. She was, like him, worshipped throughout Egypt, and the great temple of Adfoo contains a list of over three hundred names of the goddess in her local forms (Dümichen, ibid. 20). more remarkably, in late times, the cow, here the symbol of Hathor, not seldom takes the place of the name of Osiris as applied to women deceased: instead of taking the form of Osiris, they take that of Hathor (Ibid. 21). It is characteristic of the Egyptian religion that this irregularity should occur, and we may well hesitate to attempt to define the place of Hathor in the Pantheon (Mariette, Musée Bouluq, 118), though M. Dümichen has made this endeavour in a very interesting passage, that could be accepted had he given sufficient authority from the monuments, and not shown traces of the influence of Greek interpretation, besides too great a tendency to reason on the negative evidence of the simple statements of the earlier monuments (Ibid. 20, seqq.).

Still

Phtha, or Ptah, the Egyptian Hephaestus, is the first to be noticed of the divinities introduced into the chief cycles after their formation. His name is one of the Egyptian words which can be recognized letter for letter in Hebrew ("he opened, began," and (Piel) "carved "); and the sense is similar. Ptah is thus the divine architect (cf. Brugsch, Histoire, 2d ed., 21). He was the chief god of Memphis, worshipped under a human form, sometimes as a pigmy, supposed to be an embryo. He was the creative forec, but seemingly not as the sun. Though when connected with the local form of Osiris worshipped at Memphis under the name Sekeri-Hesiri, and then called Ptah-Sekeri-Hesiri, he is sometimes hawk-headed, this is rather with a reference to Horus than to Ra. Perhaps Professor Lepsius's view that he is put before Ra in the Memphite form of the cycle as an abstract idea of intellectual power is the true one. If so, it seems probable that the worship of Ptah was of foreign origin.

Ammon, the Egyptian Amen, "the hidden," probably owed his importance to the greatness of Thebes, the chief Egyptian seat of his worship. He seems to derive his characteristics from his association with other gods. As Amen-ra he takes the qualities of

Dümichen considers Hathor as the female principle to be identical with Isis (Bauurkunde von Dendera, 20), /

the sin; as Amen-ra ka-mut-f, "the husband of his mother," he takes those of Min or Khem, the productive principle. Rarely he has the rain-headed form that Greck notions would lead us to expect.

Sebek, the crocodile-headed god, seems to have held a similar place to Seth. There may have been a time when he was reverenced throughout Egypt, but in the Græco-Roman period he was a local divinity so disliked in most parts of Egypt that, as already noticed, the Arsinoïte nome where he was worshipped does not appear in the geographical lists. His sacred animal the crocodile was held in abhorrence and hunted wherever Sebek was not reverenced (cf. Brugsch, Hist., 2d. ed., 106, 107).

Thoth, or Tauut, is the head of the second cycle in the two principal forms of the cycles. As the chief moon-god he thus takes an inferior place corresponding to that of Ra. He is generally represented as ibis-headed, and frequently bears the disk and crescent of the moon. He is the god of letters and of the reckoning of time, and thus sometimes has solar attributes. The ibis and the cynocephalus were sacred to him. As the deity of wisdom he aids Horus in his conflict with Seth, and records the judgment of the deceased before Osiris. He appears in Phoenician mythology, though not at a period early enough for us to infer that his worship was not borrowed from Egypt. Yet it is not impossible that here, as in the case of Phtha, we have a trace of early Eastern influence. It is at least remarkable that the great seat, of his worship, Hermopolis Magna, bearing in ancient Egyptian the civil name Sesennu, also Pe-sesennu and Ha-sesennu, Eight, or the Abode, or House of Eight, is called in Coptic corn, or wuorn В (-cifar, two), where the numeral eight approaches the Semitic form (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., i. 219). Was the change in the Coptic numeral due to an ancient form of the name of this celebrated city?

Ma-t, the goddess of truth, succeeds Thoth in a fragment of the list of the dynasties of the gods in the Turin chronological papyrus. She is characterized by the ostrich-feather, the emblem of truth, upon her head. She thus corresponds to Shu, holding the corresponding place. Thoth is called her husband (Lepsius, Königsbuch, taf. iii. 22), but she is not his consort at Hermopolis (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., i. 220). She is the daughter of the sun. Her place in the myth of Osiris is very important, for it is in her hall, where she is called the Two Truths, that the deceased are judged.

Anubis, or Anup, jackal-headed, probably held in one system the next place to Ma-t. He belongs to the family of Osiris, being called the son of that divinity. He presided over mummification. In the earliest sepulchral inscriptions the divinity addressed is Anubis, not Osiris. No reason has yet been discovered for this. can be little doubt that Osiris was always intended, and that the earliest inscriptions, for some reason connected with the EgyP

tian reticence as to this divinity, address Anubis.

There

The four genii of Amenti were inferior divinities connected with embalming. They were called Amset, Håpi, Tiu-mut-f, and Kebh. senuf. The vases found in Egyptian tombs which bear covers in the forms of the heads of these genii were intended to contain the viscera of the mummy, as it was held to be of importance that every part of the body should be preserved.

The rest of the principal Egyptian gods may now be noticed as far as possible in the order of their importance. It must, however, be remembered, that we are likely to be misled by the abundant monuments of Upper Egypt, and the scantiness of those of Lower Egypt, and that therefore we cannot yet decide which were insig.

nificant members of the Pantheon.

Chnuphis, or Khnum, represented with a ram's head, and to whom the ram was sacred, is the soul of the universe, and thus is He was spoken of as the creator (Mariette, Musée Boulaq, 113). specially worshipped in Nubia, and at the First Cataract, with his consort Sati, the goddess of the inundation (Brugsch, Geogr. Insch., i. 150, seqq). He is closely connected with Amen.

He was

The Egyptian Pan, the god of Panopolis, or Chernmis, was Min, or Khem, the productive principle, a form of Osiris. worshipped at Panopolis with a form of Isis as his consort (Brugsch. ibid., 212, seqq.) It is remarkable that he was connected with Amen at Thebes, for the myth of Amen and that of Osiris are singularly apart.

Mendes, or Ba-neb-tet, is merely a local form of Osiris, lord of Mendes, connected with the worship of the sacred rain, or Mendesian goat (Brugsch, ibid., 267, 268, 271, 272; Records of the Past, viii. 91).

Neith, or Nit, worshipped at Saïs, identified by the Greeks with Athena, is one of the few goddesses who held the first place in local worship. From the idea of a supreme being, single and selfproducing, arose that of a female aspect of this being. Thus Khnum is called, as representing this being, "the father of fathers, the mother of mothers" (Mariette, Musée Boulag, 113). This would suggest the personification of a female principle. This principle seems specially represented by the higher goddesses, like Neith, who is called the mother who bare the sun, the first boru, but not

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begotten, born" (Brugsch, Geogr. İnschr., i. 217). She wears the crown of Lower Egypt, where she was principally worshipped. Paklit, or Sekhet, and Bast, are two forms of one goddess diff. cult to distinguish. They are both usually lioness-headed, though sometimes they have the head of the cat, their sacred animal. Pakht was worshipped at Memphis as the consort of Phtha; Bast seems to have held a place at her city Bubastis like that of Neith at Saïs. The monuments identify Hathor with Bast, and Isis with both Pakht and Bast, Hathor being called "Lady of Bubastis," while Isis is spoken of as bringing misfortune as the goddess Pakht, bringing peace as the goddess Bast" (Champ, Not. Man. 192, ap. Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., į. 276). Pakht and Bast thus represent a double nature, not unlike the two principles in the Osiris inyth (Mariette, Musée Boulaq, 1106; Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., i. 275, 276). Pakht and Bast were identified with Artemis (Brugsch, ibid., 224, 275).

Mut, the "mother," consort of Amen-ra at Thebes, is, as her name implies, another embodiment of the female principle, though not in so important a form as Neith, so far as our present knowledge goes.

Khuns, worshipped at Thebes as the son of Amen and Mut, is a lunar divinity wearing the disk and crescent of the moon, his hair being plaited in the side-lock of a child. Sometimes he is hawkheaded, and thus connected with the sun. As a divinity mainly lunar his inferior place is accounted for. The goddess Suben, identified with Eileithyia or Lucina, was worshipped at the town Eilethyia. She was especially the mothergoddess, and the goddess of southern Egypt; her symbol, that of naternity, was the vulture (Mariette, Musée Boulaq, 121).

The goddess corresponding to Suben was Uati, or Buto, who was the protector of the north, and whose emblem was the uræus serpent. Onuris, or Anher, was the local deity of the ancient city of Thinis. His functions are not clearly defined.

Imhotep, identified by the Greeks with Esculapius, was the son of Ptah and Pakht, and with them formed the triad of Memphis. He is probably the god of the sciences, and similar to Thoth (Mariette, ibid. 117, 118)

The Nile as a divinity bears the same name as the sacred Memphite bull, Håpi, probably meaning "the concealed." He is represented as a man with pendent breasts, to indicate the fertility of the river. A hymn to the Nile by Enna, who flourished under Menptah, the successor of Ramses II. (Dyn. XIX.), shows how completely even an inferior Egyptian divinity was identified with the supreme god, and with the principal members of the Pantheon (Select Papyri, xx.-xxiii., cxxxiv. -cxxxix.; Maspero, Hymne on Nil, a critical edition, and Records of the Past, iv. 105, seqq., au elegant translation by the Rev. F. C. Cook).

temples being dedicated to one of these lesser cycles, consisting of The Egyptian divinities were frequently associated in triads,

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father, mother, and child. The child is almost always a son. is extremely difficult to make out a local triad in several cases, where there were two chief local divinities, or where the chief divinity was a goddess. At Thebes the triad was Amen-ra, Mut, and Khuns; at Memphis, Ptah, Pakht or Seklet, and Imhotep; at Ombos there were two triads, Sebek, Hathor, and Khuns, and Haruer, Tasen-nefert, and Pnebto-pkhrut; the triad of Nubia and at Elephantine was Num, Sati, and the goddess Ank-t; at Apollinopolis Magua, Har-Hut, Hat-har, and Har-pkhrut; at Latopolis, Num, Nebuut, and Har-pkhrat; at Hermonthis, Munt, Ra-ta, and Har-pkhrut; and Osiris, Isis, and Horus, throughout Egypt. The third member of the triad always belongs to an inferior rank, and is sometimes a child-god (khrut), as will be observed in the three cases in which Har-pkhrut (Harpocrates) occurs, and the similar instance of Puebto-pkhrut. Much of our knowledge of the Egyptian triads is founded on late documents of the Ptolemaic and Roman temples, and it is possible that the idea may have not been as much developed in earlier times. The whole subject requires a careful investigation.

The Egyptian notions as to the cosmogony are too closely identified with mythology to be very clearly defined. It seems, however, that they held that the heavenly abyss was the abode of the supreme deity, who there produced the sun and the moon as well as the rest of the Pantheon. Yet it is stated in one gloss in the Ritual that the abyss itself was the supreme deity. (f. De Rougé, "Études," Rev. Arch., n.s., i. 235, seqq.). The aspect of the passages of the Ritual in which these ideas are developed seems as if due to the attempt to introduce philosophical ideas into the mythology, as though the Egyptians had some notion of the origin of things independent of that mythology.

The worship of the Egyptian deities was public and

private-that of the temples and that of the tombs. Every | philosophy. Unfortunately, however, a thousand super. town had at least one temple dedicated to the chief divinity of the place, with certain associated gods, and usually, if not always, a living symbol in the form of a sacred animal supposed to be animated by the chief local divinity. The services were conducted by priests, and on occasions by the king, and by scribes, who sometimes formed a college and lived at the temples, the various duties of which required the services of learned men. It is probable that the common people had a very small share in the religious services, the most important of which took place in the smaller inner chambers, which could never have admitted many worshippers. The outer courts, and still more the great inclosures containing the whole group of temple-buildings, must, however, have been the chief public resort for business and pleasure. There were no other public buildings, or, apparently, market-places. Like the modern mosque, the temple must have been the chief centre of the population.

The worship in the tombs was not local. It was always connected with Osiris or a divinity of the same group, and had the intention of securing benefits for the deceased in the future state. It took place in the chapel of each tomb of the wealthy; and though properly the function of the family, whose members officiated, the inscriptious invite all passers-by, as they ascend or descend the Nile, overlooked by the sepulcbral grottoes, to say a prayer for the welfare of the chief person there buried.

The sacrifices were of animals and vegetables, with libations of wine, and burning of incense. Human sacrifice seems to have been practised in early periods. The monuments do not mention it, but Manetho speaks of its having been abolished, at least at one place, by Amôsis, no doubt the first king of Dynasty XVIII. The reference is probably to some barbarous usage during the great war with the Shepherds.1

The origin and destiny of man in the Egyptian religion is now known to us on the authority of its own documents, which in the main confirm what Greek writers had already stated on the subject. The aspect of the Egyptian teaching is either that of a simple theory, which was afterwards mythically interpreted, or of a union of such a theory with a superstition existing side by side with it. In the famous seventeenth chapter of the Ritual it is possible, as De Rougé has done with extraordinary skill, to extract from the text a consistent theory which the glosses confuse by the mythological turn they give to the simple statements of the text. Notwithstanding this difficulty, it is sufficiently clear that the Egyptians attributed to the human soul a divine origin, that they held that it was throughout life engaged in the warfare of good and evil, and that after life its final state was determined by judgment according to its doings on earth. Those who were justified before Osiris passed into perpetual happiness, those who were condemned into perpetual misery. The justified took the name of Osiris, the judge, under which they indeed already appeared for judgment.

Had this plain outline been left unfilled by the priests, the Egyptians might have been credited with a lofty

According to Plutarch, Manetho stated that human sacrifices were anciently practised at Eilethyia (De Is. et Osir. i. cap. 73); whereas Porphyry says, on the same authority, that Amosis abolished them at Heliopolis (De Abstin., p. 199). As, however, according to Porphyry they were sacrificed to Hera, who would well correspond to Suben, goddess of Eilethyia, not to any goddess of Heliopolis, it is probable that Heliopolis is an error for Eilethyia (Ηλιοῦ πόλει for Εἰληθυίας Toλe, as in the other passage where this is a correction for Idiovias wóλe), but the two citations are very different. According to Por

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stitions took the place of the attempt to lead an honest life. In the tombs we find every one who could pay for a sculptured record characterized as justified, every nummy already an Osiris. How was this determined? Possibly there was a council held, which decided that the deceased could be treated as one who was certain of future happiness. It is, however, more probable that the learning certain prayers and incantations, the performance of ceremonies, and the whole process of embalming, together with tho charms attached to the mummy, and prayers said by those who visited the tomb, were held to secure future happiness. In reading the Ritual we are struck by the small space given to man's duties as compared with that filled by incantations and charms. The human mind must have lost sight of the value of good and seized upon the multifarious equivalents which needed nothing to be done by way of either self-restraint from evil or active benevolence. Thus as we look at the documents we see a noble idea lost in a crowd of superstitious fancies; as we look at the Egyptians as they lived, we trace the effect of the indomitable good, and yet find it always greatly alloyed with evil. The Egyptian idea of the future state is the converse of that of Socrates. It is no little incident of human weakness, like the request to sacrifice a cock to Esculapius, which injures but does not destroy a harmonious whole; a mere glimpse of truth is seen through thick mists peopled with the phantoms of the basest superstition.

In the long course of ages the Egyptian ideas as to the future state seem to have undergone changes, not in themselves, but in the manner in which they were regarded. The vast labour expended on the Pyramids, and their solid simplicity, are in striking contrast with the elaborate religious representations of the tombs of the kings of Dynasties XIX. and XX. So, too, the sculptures on the walls of the tombs of subjects of the earlier kings, representing the everyday life of duty and pleasure, give place to funereal and religious scenes in the later periods. These were fashions, but they show the changed mood of the national mind. It is only in a tablet of the age of the Ptolemies that Greek ideas assert their predominance in a touching lament addressed from the land of shades, which no longer speaks of active happiness, but in its place of purposeless oblivion (Birch, "Two Tablets of the Ptolemaic Period," Archæologia, xxxix. 22, 23).

Laws and Government.—We are gradually gaining an insight into the Egyptian laws. This is principally due to M. Chabas, the third volume of whose Mélanges Egyptologiques mainly consists of essays, nearly all by himself, on texts relative to the administration of justice under the Pharaohs. His general results confirm the accuracy of what Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch state on the subject. It was to be expected that their evidence would have been good as to matters which could not have been easily misunderstood, and which must in the case of Diodorus have been personally observed. In this matter the two sets of authorities may fairly be combined.

The government of Egypt was monarchical. It was determined as early as the rule of Dynasty IL, according to Manetho, that women could reign. Accordingly we find instances of queens regnant. Their rule, however, seems to have been disliked, and they are passed over in the lists made under Dynasty XIX., when, it may be observed, the royal family seems to have been affected by Shemite influences. The royal power can scarcely have been despotic, although under certain kings it became so. It is sufficient to compare Assyrian and Babylonian with Egyptian history and documents to perceive a marked difference. The earliest monuments indicate a powerful local aristocracy holding hereditary functions. Those of

the Empire (Dynasties XVIII.-XX.) scarcely indicate any such class. Even the princes are no longer a royal clan, but the children of the reigning sovereign. The whole system of government rests with the king, who appointe all the functionaries and dismisses them at his pleasure. Hence arose a vast and corrupt bureaucracy, to which the decay of Egypt may have been mainly due. At all times the country was governed by nomarchs and lesser officers. In the earliest period these were local magnates whose office was at least sometimes hereditary, and whose interest it was to promote the welfare of their districts. Under the Empire governments seem to have been mere places of profit given by favour and held by force and corruption, according to the Turkish method.

The laws were administered by judges appointed by the king. It is certain that commissions for an occasion were thus formed. We do not know that there were judges appointed for life; but it is probable that such was the case, as it must have been the duty of a class to be thoroughly acquainted with the written laws. A legal scribe may, however, have been attached to each commission. All the particulars of each case, though not necessarily submitted in writing, were recorded, and the decision was written. The process was conducted with great care, and the culprit examined on his oath. The punishments probably were not extremely severe. For murder, but not for manslaughter, death was the penalty. Adultery was severely punished, perhaps rather by custom than by law. Theft was rigorously prosecuted. For sacrilegious theft the criminal was punished with death. The laws relating to debt are not yet well known. They appear to have been complicated by a system of loans and pawning, and to have been subject to modifications. Of the tenure of land we know little. The temple-lands seem to have been held in perpetuity, and this was probably the case with private domains in the carliest period (De Rougé, Six Prem. Dyn., 255, note 1).

Army. We know little as yet of the organization of the Egyptian army, but much of its arms and mode of conducting warfare. It consisted from very early times of foreigners as well as Egyptians. The Egyptian troops seem to have been a military caste, though not in the strictest sense, and to have had certain lands allotted to them. There were two main divisions of the army,-a chariot-force, in which each chariot contained an archer and a charioteer, and was drawn by two horses; and a force of foot-soldiers variously armed, chiefly heavy infantry, armed with shield and spear, sword, axe, or mace, and light infantry, with bow, and axe or falchion, as well as slingers. It may be noticed that flint-tipped arrows were used in the chase. We know nothing of the military manoeuvres, but it is evident that the troops were drilled to move in formations, and that the art of besieging was as well understood as by the Assyrians, in the mode of attacking the enemy's fort as well as in that of protecting the soldiers.

Manners and Customs.-The subjects of the walls of the Egyptian tombs and the hieratic papyri tell us much of the domestic life of the ancient people. The education in the earliest age seems to have been more manly and more simple than in that of the Empire, when the college of a temple or the miniature court of a great officer was the school instead of the estate of the landed proprietor. This system, however, gave almost his only chance of advance

1 M. Chabas has given the constitution of a tribunal under Dynasty XX. It was held at the great assizes of Thebes, and presided over by the poliarch, with nine inferior judges, including his three assessors, who were a royal controller, a majordomo, and another royal controller, the fist prophet of Amen-ra and an inferior prophet, a royal scribe, a captain of cavalry, an ensign of the navy, and the commandant of the city. The last was the prosecutor, and was himself condemned by the other judges on the acquittal of the defendants (Mélanges, iii. i, 131,

ment to a poor man's son, for the very highest posts were open to the successful scholar. (Cf. Brugsch, Hist. 2d ed. 16, 17.) Circumcision was practised from the earliest times, but apparently not as a religious rite, and not until the earlier years of childhood had passed. Of the education of girls there is no indication, but, as they afterwards shared the public life of men, and even held posts of importance in the priesthood, it could not have been neglected. It has not been proved that the Egyptians had any definite marriage law. We find, however, that they married but one wife, who is termed the lady of the house, and shares with her husband the honours paid to the deceased. Concubinage was no doubt allowed, but it is seldom that we find any trace of children more numerous than those of legitimate wives could be. The family of Ramses II. is an instance of an Oriental household, and the fifty-two children of Baba, whose tomb is found at Eilethyia, may also be cited, though the term children may in this case include other descendants (f. Brugsch, ibid. 176, 177). Ordinarily the aspect of the family is that which it wears in civilized countries. The women were not secluded, and, if they did not take the place of those of republican Rome, it was due to faults of national character rather than the restraints of custom. There was no separation into castes, although many occupations were usually hereditary. As there was no noble caste, there was nothing to prevent the rise of naturally able persons but the growth of the official class, which gradually absorbed all power and closed the avenues to success. The corruption of this class has been remarkably shown by the researches into the Egyptian administration of justice by M. Chabas, who cites lists of robbers of tombs and houses containing the names of scribes and priests, besides a higher grade of servants (Mélanges, iii. i. 144, segg. ). There are other indications of the social condition of Egypt under the Empire in the complaints of the lower class against the brigandage to which they were subject on the part of persons who found means to interest the highest functionaries, and so escape merited punishment. At the same time it is to be remembered that they had the right of direct appeal to the king (Ibid. 173–216). This part of the picture of Egyptian life is strikingly like that of China, and the dislike of foreigners is consistent with the comparison. The lower class being uneducated, and for the most part very poor, was held in contempt by the higher, and this was especially the case with labourers and herdsmen. All handicrafts were considered unworthy of a gentleman, and even the sculptor and painter were not raised above this general level. The only occupations fit for the upper class were priestly, civil, and military, and the direction of architectural and other works which required scientific knowledge, not skill of hand. The servants were of a higher grade than the labourers: not so the slaves, who were generally captives taken in war.

The everyday life of the ancient Egyptians is abundantly represented in the pictures of the tombs from the earliest monumental age to that of the Empire. The rich passed much of their time in hospitality, giving feasts at which the guests were entertained in various ways. The host and hostess sat together, as did other married people, and the other men and women generally were seated apart. The seats were single or double chairs, but many sat on the ground. Each feaster was decked with a necklace of flowers by the servants, and a lotus flower was bound to the head, on which was also placed a lump of ointment. Small tables were set before the guests, on which were piled meat, fruits, cakes, and other food, and wine-cups were carried round. Before the repast, hired musicians and dancers entertained the company, and often thie eems to have been the sole object of invitation.

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