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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)
+
+Author: G. Maspero
+
+Editor: A.H. Sayce
+
+Translator: M.L. McClure
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19400]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Spines]
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
+
+By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen's
+College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of
+France
+
+Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
+
+Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
+Exploration Fund
+
+
+CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Volume I., Part A.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+THE GROLIER SOCIETY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+[Illustration: Titlepage]
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S PREFACE
+
+Professor Maspero does not need to be introduced to us. His name is
+well known in England and America as that of one of the chief masters of
+Egyptian science as well as of ancient Oriental history and archaeology.
+Alike as a philologist, a historian, and an archaeologist, he occupies
+a foremost place in the annals of modern knowledge and research. He
+possesses that quick apprehension and fertility of resource without
+which the decipherment of ancient texts is impossible, and he also
+possesses a sympathy with the past and a power of realizing it which are
+indispensable if we would picture it aright. His intimate acquaintance
+with Egypt and its literature, and the opportunities of discovery
+afforded him by his position for several years as director of the Bulaq
+Museum, give him an unique claim to speak with authority on the history
+of the valley of the Nile. In the present work he has been prodigal of
+his abundant stores of learning and knowledge, and it may therefore be
+regarded as the most complete account of ancient Egypt that has ever yet
+been published.
+
+In the case of Babylonia and Assyria he no longer, it is true, speaks
+at first hand. But he has thoroughly studied the latest and best
+authorities on the subject, and has weighed their statements with the
+judgment which comes from an exhaustive acquaintance with a similar
+department of knowledge.
+
+Naturally, in progressive studies like those of Egyptology and
+Assyriology, a good many theories and conclusions must be tentative and
+provisional only. Discovery crowds so quickly on discovery, that the
+truth of to-day is often apt to be modified or amplified by the truth
+of to-morrow. A single fresh fact may throw a wholly new and unexpected
+light upon the results we have already gained, and cause them to assume
+a somewhat changed aspect. But this is what must happen in all sciences
+in which there is a healthy growth, and archaeological science is no
+exception to the rule.
+
+The spelling of ancient Egyptian proper names adopted by Professor
+Maspero will perhaps seem strange to many. But it must be remembered
+that all our attempts to represent the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian
+words can be approximate only; we can never ascertain with certainty how
+they were actually sounded. All that can be done is to determine what
+pronunciation was assigned to them in the Greek period, and to work
+backwards from this, so far as it is possible, to more remote ages.
+This is what Professor Maspero has done, and it must be no slight
+satisfaction to him to find that on the whole his system of
+transliteration is confirmed by the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna.
+
+The difficulties attaching to the spelling of Assyrian names are
+different from those which beset our attempts to reproduce, even
+approximately, the names of ancient Egypt. The cuneiform system of
+writing was syllabic, each character denoting a syllable, so that we
+know what were the vowels in a proper name as well as the consonants.
+Moreover, the pronunciation of the consonants resembled that of the
+Hebrew consonants, the transliteration of which has long since become
+conventional. When, therefore, an Assyrian or Babylonian name is written
+phonetically, its correct transliteration is not often a matter
+of question. But, unfortunately, the names are not always written
+phonetically. The cuneiform script was an inheritance from the
+non-Semitic predecessors of the Semites in Babylonia, and in this script
+the characters represented words as well as sounds. Not unfrequently
+the Semitic Assyrians continued to write a name in the old Sumerian way
+instead of spelling it phonetically, the result being that we do not
+know how it was pronounced in their own language. The name of the
+Chaldæan Noab, for instance, is written with two characters which
+ideographically signify "the sun" or "day of life," and of the first of
+which the Sumerian values were _ut, babar, khis, tarn,_ and _par_,
+while the second had the value of _zi_. Were it not that the Chaldæan
+historian Bêrôssos writes the name Xisuthros, we should have no clue to
+its Semitic pronunciation.
+
+Professor Maspero's learning and indefatigable industry are well known
+to me, but I confess I was not prepared for the exhaustive acquaintance
+he shows with Assyriological literature. Nothing seems to have escaped
+his notice. Papers and books just published, and half forgotten articles
+in obscure periodicals which appeared years ago, have all alike been
+used and quoted by him. Naturally, however, there are some points on
+which I should be inclined to differ from the conclusions he draws,
+or to which he has been led by other Assyriologists. Without being an
+Assyriologist himself, it was impossible for him to be acquainted with
+that portion of the evidence on certain disputed questions which is only
+to be found in still unpublished or untranslated inscriptions.
+
+There are two points which seem to me of sufficient importance
+to justify my expression of dissent from his views. These are the
+geographical situation of the land of Magan, and the historical
+character of the annals of Sargon of Accad. The evidence about Magan is
+very clear. Magan is usually associated with the country of Melukhkha,
+"the salt" desert, and in _every_ text in which its geographical
+position is indicated it is placed in the immediate vicinity of Egypt.
+Thus Assur-bani-pal, after stating that he had "gone to the lands of
+Magan and Melukhkha," goes on to say that he "directed his road to
+Egypt and Kush," and then describes the first of his Egyptian campaigns.
+Similar testimony is borne by Esar-haddon. The latter king tells us that
+after quitting Egypt he directed his road to the land of Melukhkha, a
+desert region in which there were no rivers, and which extended "to the
+city of Rapikh" (the modern Raphia) "at the edge of the wadi of Egypt"
+(the present Wadi El-Arîsh). After this he received camels from the king
+of the Arabs, and made his way to the land and city of Magan. The Tel
+el-Amarna tablets enable us to carry the record back to the fifteenth
+century b.c. In certain of the tablets now as Berlin (Winckler and Abel,
+42 and 45) the Phoenician governor of the Pharaoh asks that help should
+be sent him from Melukhkha and Egypt: "The king should hear the words of
+his servant, and send ten men of the country of Melukhkha and twenty men
+of the country of Egypt to defend the city [of Gebal] for the king." And
+again, "I have sent [to] Pharaoh" (literally, "the great house") "for a
+garrison of men from the country of Melukhkha, and... the king has
+just despatched a garrison [from] the country of Melukhkha." At a still
+earlier date we have indications that Melukhkha and Magan denoted the
+same region of the world. In an old Babylonian geographical list which
+belongs to the early days of Chaldsean history, Magan is described as
+"the country of bronze," and Melukhkha as "the country of the _samdu_,"
+or "malachite." It was this list which originally led Oppert, Lenormant,
+and myself independently to the conviction that Magan was to be looked
+for in the Sinaitic Peninsula. Magan included, however, the Midian of
+Scripture, and the city of Magan, called Makkan in Semitic Assyrian, is
+probably the Makna of classical geography, now represented by the ruins
+of Mukna.
+
+As I have always maintained the historical character of the annals of
+Sargon of Accad, long before recent discoveries led Professor Hilprecht
+and others to adopt the same view, it is as well to state why I
+consider them worthy of credit. In themselves the annals contain
+nothing improbable; indeed, what might seem the most unlikely portion
+of them--that which describes the extension of Sargon's empire to the
+shores of the Mediterranean--has been confirmed by the progress of
+research. Ammi-satana, a king of the first dynasty of Babylon (about
+2200 B.C.), calls himself "king of the country of the Amorites," and
+the Tel el-Amarna tablets have revealed to us how deep and long-lasting
+Babylonian influence must have been throughout Western Asia. Moreover,
+the vase described by Professor Maspero in the present work proves that
+the expedition of Naram-Sin against Magan was an historical reality, and
+such an expedition was only possible if "the land of the Amorites," the
+Syria and Palestine of later days, had been secured in the rear.
+But what chiefly led me to the belief that the annals are a document
+contemporaneous with the events narrated in them, are two facts which
+do not seem to have been sufficiently considered. On the one side, while
+the annals of Sargon are given in full, those of his son Naram-Sin break
+off abruptly in the early part of his reign. I see no explanation of
+this, except that they were composed while Naram-Sin was still on the
+throne. On the other side, the campaigns of the two monarchs are coupled
+with the astrological phenomena on which the success of the campaigns
+was supposed to depend. We know that the Babylonians were given to the
+practice and study of astrology from the earliest days of their history;
+we know also that even in the time of the later Assyrian monarchy it was
+still customary for the general in the field to be accompanied by
+the _asipu_, or "prophet," the ashshâph of Dan. ii. 10, on whose
+interpretation of the signs of heaven the movements of the army
+depended; and in the infancy of Chaldæn history we should accordingly
+expect to find the astrological sign recorded along with the event with
+which it was bound up. At a subsequent period the sign and the event
+were separated from one another in literature, and had the annals of
+Sargon been a later compilation, in their case also the separation would
+assuredly have been made. That, on the contrary, the annals have the
+form which they could have assumed and ought to have assumed only at
+the beginning of contemporaneous Babylonian history, is to me a strong
+testimony in favour of their genuineness.
+
+It may be added that Babylonian seal-cylinders have been found in
+Cyprus, one of which is of the age of Sargon of Accad, its style and
+workmanship being the same as that of the cylinder figured in vol. iii.
+p. 96, while the other, though of later date, belonged to a person
+who describes himself as "the servant of the deified Naram-Sin." Such
+cylinders may, of course, have been brought to the island in later
+times; but when we remember that a characteristic object of prehistoric
+Cypriote art is an imitation of the seal-cylinder of Chaldsea, their
+discovery cannot be wholly an accident.
+
+Professor Maspero has brought his facts up to so recent a date that
+there is very little to add to what he has written. Since his
+manuscript was in type, however, a few additions have been made to our
+Assyriological knowledge. A fresh examination of the Babylonian dynastic
+tablet has led Professor Delitzsch to make some alterations in the
+published account of what Professor Maspero calls the ninth dynasty.
+According to Professor Delitzsch, the number of kings composing the
+dynasty is stated on the tablet to be twenty-one, and not thirty-one as
+was formerly read, and the number of lost lines exactly corresponds with
+this figure. The first of the kings reigned thirty-six years, and he
+had a predecessor belonging to the previous dynasty whose name has been
+lost. There would consequently have been two Elamite usurpers instead of
+one.
+
+I would further draw attention to an interesting text, published by
+Mr. Strong in the _Babylonian and Oriental Record_, which I believe to
+contain the name of a king who belonged to the legendary dynasties of
+Chaldæa. This is Samas-natsir, who is coupled with Sargon of Accad and
+other early monarchs in one of the lists. The legend, if I interpret it
+rightly, states that "Elam shall be altogether given to Samas-natsir;"
+and the same prince is further described as building Nippur and Dur-ilu,
+as King of Babylon and as conqueror both of a certain Baldakha and of
+Khumba-sitir, "the king of the cedar-forest." It will be remembered that
+in the Epic of Gil-games, Khumbaba also is stated to have been the lord
+of the "cedar-forest."
+
+But of new discoveries and facts there is a constant supply, and it
+is impossible for the historian to keep pace with them. Even while the
+sheets of his work are passing through the press, the excavator, the
+explorer, and the decipherer are adding to our previous stores of
+knowledge. In Egypt, Mr. de Morgan's unwearied energy has raised as it
+were out of the ground, at Kom Ombo, a vast and splendidly preserved
+temple, of whose existence we had hardly dreamed; has discovered
+twelfth-dynasty jewellery at Dahshur of the most exquisite workmanship,
+and at Meir and Assiut has found in tombs of the sixth dynasty painted
+models of the trades and professions of the day, as well as fighting
+battalions of soldiers, which, for freshness and lifelike reality,
+contrast favourably with the models which come from India to-day. In
+Babylonia, the American Expedition, under Mr. Haines, has at Niffer
+unearthed monuments of older date than those of Sargon of Accad. Nor
+must I forget to mention the lotiform column found by Mr. de Morgan in
+a tomb of the Old Empire at Abusir, or the interesting discovery made by
+Mr. Arthur Evans of seals and other objects from the prehistoric sites
+of Krete and other parts of the AEgean, inscribed with hieroglyphic
+characters which reveal a new system of writing that must at one time
+have existed by the side of the Hittite hieroglyphs, and may have had
+its origin in the influence exercised by Egypt on the peoples of the
+Mediterranean in the age of the twelfth dynasty.
+
+In volumes IV., V., and VI. we find ourselves in the full light of an
+advanced culture. The nations of the ancient East are no longer each
+pursuing an isolated existence, and separately developing the seeds of
+civilization and culture on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile.
+Asia and Africa have met in mortal combat. Babylonia has carried its
+empire to the frontiers of Egypt, and Egypt itself has been held in
+bondage by the Hyksôs strangers from Asia. In return, Egypt has driven
+back the wave of invasion to the borders of Mesopotamia, has substituted
+an empire of its own in Syria for that of the Babylonians, and has
+forced the Babylonian king to treat with its Pharaoh on equal terms.
+In the track of war and diplomacy have come trade and commerce; Western
+Asia is covered with roads, along which the merchant and the courier
+travel incessantly, and the whole civilised world of the Orient is knit
+together in a common literary culture and common commercial interests.
+
+The age of isolation has thus been succeeded by an age of intercourse,
+partly military and antagonistic, partly literary and peaceful.
+Professor Maspero paints for us this age of intercourse, describes
+its rise and character, its decline and fall. For the unity of Eastern
+civilization was again shattered. The Hittites descended from the ranges
+of the Taurus upon the Egyptian province of Northern Syria, and cut off
+the Semites of the west from those of the east. The Israelites poured
+over the Jordan out of Edom and Moab, and took possession of Canaan,
+while Babylonia itself, for so many centuries the ruling power of the
+Oriental world, had to make way for its upstart rival Assyria. The old
+imperial powers were exhausted and played out, and it needed time before
+the new forces which were to take their place could acquire sufficient
+strength for their work.
+
+As usual, Professor Maspero has been careful to embody in his history
+the very latest discoveries and information. Notice, it will be found,
+has been taken even of the _stela_ of Meneptah, recently disinterred by
+Professor Pétrie, on which the name of the Israelites is engraved.
+At Elephantine, I found, a short time since, on a granite boulder, an
+inscription of Khufuânkh--whose sarcophagus of red granite is one of
+the most beautiful objects in the Gizeh Museum--which carries back the
+history of the island to the age of the pyramid-builders of the fourth
+dynasty. The boulder was subsequently concealed under the southern side
+of the city-wall, and as fragments of inscribed papyrus coeval with the
+sixth dynasty have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood, on
+one of which mention is made of "this domain" of Pepi II., it would seem
+that the town of Elephantine must have been founded between the period
+of the fourth dynasty and that of the sixth. Manetho is therefore
+justified in making the fifth and sixth dynasties of Elephantine origin.
+
+It is in Babylonia, however, that the most startling discoveries have
+been made. At Tello, M. de Sarzec has found a library of more than
+thirty thousand tablets, all neatly arranged, piled in order one on the
+other, and belonging to the age of Gudea (b.c. 2700). Many more tablets
+of an early date have been unearthed at Abu-Habba (Sippara) and Jokha
+(Isin) by Dr. Scheil, working for the Turkish government. But the most
+important finds have been at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, in Northern
+Babylonia, where the American expedition has brought to a close its long
+work of systematic excavation. Here Mr. Haynes has dug down to the very
+foundations of the great temple of El-lil, and the chief historical
+results of his labours have been published by Professor Hilprecht (in
+_The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania_, vol. i.
+pl. 2, 1896).
+
+About midway between the summit and the bottom of the mound, Mr. Haynes
+laid bare a pavement constructed of huge bricks stamped with the names
+of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin. He found also the ancient wall
+of the city, which had been built by Naram-Sin, 13.7 metres wide. The
+_débris_ of ruined buildings which lies below the pavement of Sargon
+is as much as 9.25 metres in depth, while that above it, the topmost
+stratum of which brings us down to the Christian era, is only 11 metres
+in height. We may form some idea from this of the enormous age to which
+the history of Babylonian culture and writing reaches back. In fact,
+Professor Hilprecht quotes with approval Mr. Haynes's words: "We must
+cease to apply the adjective 'earliest' to the time of Sargon, or to any
+age or epoch within a thousand years of his advanced civilization." "The
+golden age of Babylonian history seems to include the reign of Sargon
+and of Ur-Gur."
+
+Many of the inscriptions which belong to this remote age of human
+culture have been published by Professor Hilprecht. Among them is a long
+inscription, in 132 lines, engraved on multitudes of large stone
+vases presented to the temple of El-lil by a certain Lugal-zaggisi.
+Lugal-zaggisi was the son of Ukus, the _patesi_ or high priest of the
+"Land of the Bow," as Mesopotamia, with its Bedawin inhabitants, was
+called. He not only conquered Babylonia, then known as Kengi, "the land
+of canals and reeds," but founded an empire which extended from the
+Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. This was centuries before Sargon
+of Akkad followed in his footsteps. Erech became the capital of
+Lugal-zaggisi's empire, and doubtless received at this time its Sumerian
+title of "the city" _par excellence_.
+
+For a long while previously there had been war between Babylonia and the
+"Land of the Bow," whose rulers seem to have established themselves
+in the city of Kis. At one time we find the Babylonian prince
+En-sag(sag)-ana capturing Kis and its king; at another time it is a king
+of Kis who makes offerings to the god of Nippur, in gratitude for his
+victories. To this period belongs the famous "Stela of the Vultures"
+found at Tello, on which is depicted the victory of E-dingir-ana-gin,
+the King of Lagas (Tello), over the Semitic hordes of the Land of the
+Bow. It may be noted that the recent discoveries have shown how correct
+Professor Maspero has been in assigning the kings of Lagas to a period
+earlier than that of Sargon of Akkad.
+
+Professor Hilprecht would place E-dingir-ana-gin after Lugal-zaggisi,
+and see in the Stela of the Vultures a monument of the revenge taken
+by the Sumerian rulers of Lagas for the conquest of the country by the
+inhabitants of the north. But it is equally possible that it marks
+the successful reaction of Chaldsea against the power established by
+Lugal-zaggisi. However this may be, the dynasty of Lagas (to which
+Professor Hilprecht has added a new king, En-Khegal) reigned in peace
+for some time, and belonged to the same age as the first dynasty of Ur.
+This was founded by a certain Lugal-kigubnidudu, whose inscriptions have
+been found at Niffer. The dynasty which arose at Ur in later days (cir.
+b.c. 2700), under Ur-Gur and Bungi, which has hitherto been known as
+"the first dynasty of Ur," is thus dethroned from its position, and
+becomes the second. The succeeding dynasty, which also made Ur its
+capital, and whose kings, Ine-Sin, Pur-Sin IL, and Gimil-Sin, were
+the immediate predecessors of the first dynasty of Babylon (to which
+Kharnmurabi belonged), must henceforth be termed the third.
+
+Among the latest acquisitions from Tello are the seals of the _patesi_,
+Lugal-usumgal, which finally remove all doubt as to the identity of
+"Sargani, king of the city," with the famous Sargon of Akkad. The
+historical accuracy of Sargon's annals, moreover, have been fully
+vindicated. Not only have the American excavators found the contemporary
+monuments of him and his son Naram-Sin, but also tablets dated in the
+years of his campaigns against "the land of the Amorites." In short,
+Sargon of Akkad, so lately spoken of as "a half-mythical" personage, has
+now emerged into the full glare of authentic history.
+
+That the native chronologists had sufficient material for reconstructing
+the past history of their country, is also now clear. The early
+Babylonian contract-tablets are dated by events which officially
+distinguished the several years of a king's reign, and tablets have been
+discovered compiled at the close of a reign which give year by year the
+events which thus characterised them. One of these tablets, for example,
+from the excavations at Niffer, begins with the words: (1) "The year
+when Par-Sin (II.) becomes king. (2) The year when Pur-Sin the king
+conquers Urbillum," and ends with "the year when Gimil-Sin becomes King
+of Ur, and conquers the land of Zabsali" in the Lebanon.
+
+Of special interest to the biblical student are the discoveries made
+by Mr. Pinches among some of the Babylonian tablets which have recently
+been acquired by the British Museum. Four of them relate to no less a
+personage than Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, "King of Elam," as
+well as to Eri-Aku or Arioch, King of Larsa, and his son Dur-makh-ilani;
+to Tudghula or Tidal, the son of Gazza[ni], and to their war against
+Babylon in the time of Khamrnu[rabi]. In one of the texts the question
+is asked, "Who is the son of a king's daughter who has sat on the throne
+of royalty? Dur-makh-ilani, the son of Eri-Âku, the son of the lady
+Kur... has sat on the throne of royalty," from which it may perhaps be
+inferred that Eri-Âku was the son of Kudur-Laghghamar's daughter; and in
+another we read, "Who is Kudur-Laghghamar, the doer of mischief? He
+has gathered together the Umman Manda, has devastated the land of Bel
+(Babylonia), and [has marched] at their side." The Umman Manda were the
+"Barbarian Hordes" of the Kurdish mountains, on the northern frontier of
+Elam, and the name corresponds with that of the Goyyim or "nations" in
+the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. We here see Kudur-Laghghamar acting
+as their suzerain lord. Unfortunately, all four tablets are in a
+shockingly broken condition, and it is therefore difficult to discover
+in them a continuous sense, or to determine their precise nature.
+
+They have, however, been supplemented by further discoveries made by
+Dr. Scheil at Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has
+found letters from Kharnmurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa,
+from which we learn that Sin-idinnam had been dethroned by the Elamites
+Kudur-Mabug and Eri-Âku, and had fled for refuge to the court of
+Kharnmurabi at Babylon. In the war which subsequently broke out between
+Kharnmurabi and Kudur-Laghghamar, the King of Elam (who, it would seem,
+exercised suzerainty over Babylonia for seven years), Sin-idinnam
+gave material assistance to the Babylonian monarch, and Khammurabi
+accordingly bestowed presents upon him as a "recompense for his valour
+on the day of the overthrow of Kudur-Laghghamar."
+
+I must also refer to a fine scarab--found in the rubbish-mounds of the
+ancient city of Kom Ombos, in Upper Egypt--which bears upon it the
+name of Sutkhu-Apopi. It shows us that the author of the story of the
+Expulsion of the Hyksôs, in calling the king Ra-Apopi, merely, like an
+orthodox Egyptian, substituted the name of the god of Heliopolis for
+that of the foreign deity. Equally interesting are the scarabs brought
+to light by Professor Flinders Pétrie, on which a hitherto unknown
+Ya'aqob-hal or Jacob-el receives the titles of a Pharaoh.
+
+In volumes VII., VIII., and IX., Professor Maspero concludes his
+monumental work on the history of the ancient East. The overthrow of the
+Persian empire by the Greek soldiers of Alexander marks the beginning of
+a new era. Europe at last enters upon the stage of history, and becomes
+the heir of the culture and civilisation of the Orient. The culture
+which had grown up and developed on the banks of the Euphrates and Nile
+passes to the West, and there assumes new features and is inspired with
+a new spirit. The East perishes of age and decrepitude; its strength is
+outworn, its power to initiate is past. The long ages through which it
+had toiled to build up the fabric of civilisation are at an end; fresh
+races are needed to carry on the work which it had achieved. Greece
+appears upon the scene, and behind Greece looms the colossal figure of
+the Roman Empire.
+
+During the past decade, excavation has gone on apace in Egypt and
+Babylonia, and discoveries of a startling and unexpected nature have
+followed in the wake of excavation. Ages that seemed prehistoric step
+suddenly forth into the daydawn of history; personages whom a sceptical
+criticism had consigned to the land of myth or fable are clothed once
+more with flesh and blood, and events which had been long forgotten
+demand to be recorded and described. In Babylonia, for example, the
+excavations at Niffer and Tello have shown that Sargon of Akkad, so far
+from being a creature of romance, was as much a historical monarch as
+Nebuchadrezzar himself; monuments of his reign have been discovered, and
+we learn from them that the empire he is said to have founded had a very
+real existence. Contracts have been found dated in the years when he was
+occupied in conquering Syria and Palestine, and a cadastral survey that
+was made for the purposes of taxation mentions a Canaanite who had been
+appointed "governor of the land of the Amorites." Even a postal service
+had already been established along the high-roads which knit the several
+parts of the empire together, and some of the clay seals which franked
+the letters are now in the Museum of the Louvre.
+
+At Susa, M. de Morgan, the late director of the Service of Antiquities
+in Egypt, has been excavating below the remains of the Achremenian
+period, among the ruins of the ancient Elamite capital. Here he
+has found numberless historical inscriptions, besides a text in
+hieroglyphics which may cast light on the origin of the cuneiform
+characters. But the most interesting of his discoveries are two
+Babylonian monuments that were carried off by Elamite conquerors from
+the cities of Babylonia. One of them is a long inscription of about 1200
+lines belonging to Manistusu, one of the early Babylonian kings, whose
+name has been met with at Niffer; the other is a monument of Naram-Sin,
+the Son of Sargon of Akkad, which it seems was brought as booty to Susa
+by Simti-silkhak, the grandfather, perhaps, of Eriaku or Arioch.
+
+In Armenia, also, equally important inscriptions have been found by
+Belck and Lehmann. More than two hundred new ones have been added to the
+list of Vannic texts. It has been discovered from them that the kingdom
+of Biainas or Van was founded by Ispuinis and Menuas, who rebuilt
+Yan itself and the other cities which they had previously sacked and
+destroyed. The older name of the country was Kumussu, and it may be that
+the language spoken in it was allied to that of the Hittites, since a
+tablet in hieroglyphics of the Hittite type has been unearthed at Toprak
+Kaleh. One of the newly-found inscriptions of Sarduris III. shows that
+the name of the Assyrian god, hitherto read Ramman or Rimmon, was
+really pronounced Hadad. It describes a war of the Vannic king against
+Assur-nirari, son of Hadad-nirari (_A-da-di-ni-ra-ri_) of Assyria, thus
+revealing not only the true form of the Assyrian name, but also the
+parentage of the last king of the older Assyrian dynasty. From another
+inscription, belonging to Rusas II., the son of Argistis, we learn that
+campaigns were carried on against the Hittites and the Moschi in the
+latter years of Sennacherib's reign, and therefore only just before the
+irruption of the Kimmerians into the northern regions of Western Asia.
+
+The two German explorers have also discovered the site and even the
+ruins of Muzazir, called Ardinis by the people of Van. They lie on the
+hill of Shkenna, near Topsanâ, on the road between Kelishin and Sidek.
+In the immediate neighbourhood the travellers succeeded in deciphering
+a monument of Rusas I., partly in Vannic, partly in Assyrian, from which
+it appears that the Vannic king did not, after all, commit suicide when
+the news of the fall of Muzazir was brought to him, as is stated by
+Sargon, but that, on the contrary, he "marched against the mountains
+of Assyria" and restored the fallen city itself. Urzana, the King of
+Muzazir, had fled to him for shelter, and after the departure of the
+Assyrian army he was sent back by Rusas to his ancestral domains. The
+whole of the district in which Muzazir was situated was termed Lulu, and
+was regarded as the southern province of Ararat. In it was Mount Nizir,
+on whose summit the ark of the Chaldsean Noah rested, and which is
+therefore rightly described in the Book of Genesis as one of "the
+mountains of Ararat." It was probably the Rowandiz of to-day.
+
+The discoveries made by Drs. Belck and Lehmann, however, have not been
+confined to Vannic texts. At the sources of the Tigris Dr. Lehmann has
+found two Assyrian inscriptions of the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser IL,
+one dated in his fifteenth and the other in his thirty-first year, and
+relating to his campaigns against Aram of Ararat. He has further found
+that the two inscriptions previously known to exist at the same spot,
+and believed to belong to Tiglath-Ninip and Assur-nazir-pal, are really
+those of Shalmaneser II., and refer to the war of his seventh year.
+
+But it is from Egypt that the most revolutionary revelations have
+come. At Abydos and Kom el-Ahmar, opposite El-Kab, monuments have been
+disinterred of the kings of the first and second dynasties, if not of
+even earlier princes; while at Negada, north of Thebes, M. de Morgan has
+found a tomb which seems to have been that of Menés himself. A new world
+of art has been opened out before us; even the hieroglyphic system of
+writing is as yet immature and strange. But the art is already advanced
+in many respects; hard stone was cut into vases and bowls, and even
+into statuary of considerable artistic excellence; glazed porcelain was
+already made, and bronze, or rather copper, was fashioned into weapons
+and tools. The writing material, as in Babylonia, was often clay,
+over which seal-cylinders of a Babylonian pattern were rolled. Equally
+Babylonian are the strange and composite animals engraved on some of the
+objects of this early age, as well as the structure of the tombs, which
+were built, not of stone, but of crude brick, with their external
+walls panelled and pilastered. Professor Hommel's theory, which brings
+Egyptian civilisation from Babylonia along with the ancestors of the
+historical Egyptians, has thus been largely verified.
+
+But the historical Egyptians were not the first inhabitants of the
+valley of the Nile. Not only have palaeolithic implements been found on
+the plateau of the desert; the relics of neolithic man have turned up
+in extraordinary abundance. When the historical Egyptians arrived with
+their copper weapons and their system of writing, the land was already
+occupied by a pastoral people, who had attained a high level of
+neolithic culture. Their implements of flint are the most beautiful and
+delicately finished that have ever been discovered; they were able to
+carve vases of great artistic excellence out of the hardest of stone,
+and their pottery was of no mean quality. Long after the country had
+come into the possession of the historical dynasties, and had even been
+united into a single monarchy, their settlements continued to exist
+on the outskirts of the desert, and the neolithic culture that
+distinguished them passed only gradually away. By degrees, however,
+they intermingled with their conquerors from Asia, and thus formed the
+Egyptian race of a later day. But they had already made Egypt what it
+has been throughout the historical period. Under the direction of the
+Asiatic immigrants and of the eugineering science whose first home had
+been in the alluvial plain of Babylonia, they accomplished those great
+works of irrigation which confined the Nile to its present channel,
+which cleared away the jungle and the swamp that had formerly bordered
+the desert, and turned them into fertile fields. Theirs were the hands
+which carried out the plans of their more intelligent masters, and
+cultivated the valley when once it had been reclaimed. The Egypt
+of history was the creation of a twofold race: the Egyptians of the
+monuments supplied the controlling and directing power; the Egyptians of
+the neolithic graves bestowed upon it their labour and their skill.
+
+The period treated of by Professor Maspero in these volumes is one for
+which there is an abundance of materials sucli as do not exist for
+the earlier portions of his history. The evidence of the monuments is
+supplemented by that of the Hebrew and classical writers. But on this
+very account it is in some respects more difficult to deal with, and the
+conclusions arrived at by the historian are more open to question and
+dispute. In some cases conflicting accounts are given of an event which
+seem to rest on equally good authority; in other cases, there is a
+sudden failure of materials just where the thread of the story becomes
+most complicated. Of this the decline and fall of the Assyrian empire
+is a prominent example; for our knowledge of it, we have still to depend
+chiefly on the untrustworthy legends of the Greeks. Our views must be
+coloured more or less by our estimate of Herodotos; those who, like
+myself, place little or no confidence in what he tells us about Oriental
+affairs will naturally form a very different idea of the death-struggle,
+of Assyria from that formed by writers who still see in him the Father
+of Oriental History.
+
+Even where the native monuments have come to our aid, they have not
+unfrequently introduced difficulties and doubts where none seemed to
+exist before, and have made the task of the critical historian harder
+than ever. Cyrus and his forefathers, for instance, turn out to have
+been kings of Anzan, and not of Persia, thus explaining why it is that
+the Neo-Susian language appears by the side of the Persian and the
+Babylonian as one of the three official languages of the Persian empire;
+but we still have to learn what was the relation of Anzan to Persia on
+the one hand, and to Susa on the other, and when it was that Cyrus of
+Anzan became also King of Persia. In the Annalistic Tablet, he is called
+"King of Persia" for the first time in the ninth year of Nabonidos.
+
+Similar questions arise as to the position and nationality of Astyages.
+He is called in the inscriptions, not a Mede, but a Manda--a name which,
+as I showed many years ago, meant for the Babylonian a "barbarian" of
+Kurdistan. I have myself little doubt that the Manda over whom Astyages
+ruled were the Scythians of classical tradition, who, as may be gathered
+from a text published by Mr. Strong, had occupied the ancient kingdom of
+Ellipi. It is even possible that in the Madyes of Herodotos, we have a
+reminiscence of the Manda of the cuneiform inscriptions. That the Greek
+writers should have confounded the Madâ or Medes with the Manda or
+Barbarians is not surprising; we find even Berossos describing one of
+the early dynasties of Babylonia as "Median" where Manda, and not
+Madâ, must plainly be meant.
+
+These and similar problems, however, will doubtless be cleared up by the
+progress of excavation and research. Perhaps M. de Morgan's excavations
+at Susa may throw some light on them, but it is to the work of the
+German expedition, which has recently begun the systematic exploration
+of the site of Babylon, that we must chiefly look for help. The Babylon
+of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar rose on the ruins of Nineveh, and
+the story of downfall of the Assyrian empire must still be lying buried
+under its mounds.
+
+A. H. SAYCE.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+
+In completing the translation of this great work, I have to thank
+Professor Maspero for kindly permitting me to appeal to him on various
+questions which arose while preparing the translation. His patience and
+courtesy have alike been unfailing in every matter submitted for his
+decision.
+
+I am indebted to Miss Bradbury for kindly supplying, in the midst of
+much other literary work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, the translation
+of the chapter on the gods, and also of the earlier parts of some of the
+first chapters. She has, moreover, helped me in my own share of the work
+with many suggestions and hints, which her intimate connection with the
+late Miss Amelia B. Edwards fully qualified her to give.
+
+As in the original there is a lack of uniformity in the transcription
+and accentuation of Arabic names, I have ventured to alter them in
+several cases to the form most familiar to English readers.
+
+The spelling of the ancient Egyptian words has, at Professor Maspero's
+request, been retained throughout, with the exception that the French
+_ou_ has been invariably represented by û, e.g. Khnoumou by Khnûmû.
+
+By an act of international courtesy, the director of the _Imprimerie
+Nationale_ has allowed the beautifully cut hieroglyphic and cuneiform
+type used in the original to be employed in the English edition, and
+I take advantage of this opportunity to express to him our thanks and
+appreciation of his graceful act.
+
+M. L. McClure.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I.--THE NILE AND EGYPT The River and its Influence upon the
+Formation of the Country--The Oldest Inhabitants of the Valley and its
+First Political Organization
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--THE GODS OF EGYPT Their Number and their Nature--The Feudal
+Gods, Living and Dead--The Triads--Temples and Priests--The Cosmogonies
+of the Delta--The Enneads of Heliopolis and of Hermopolis
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT The Divine Dynasties:
+Râ, Shû, Osiris, Sit, Horus-Thot, and the Invention of Sciences and
+Writing-Menes, and the Three First Human Dynasties
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE ONE]
+
+[Illustration: 002.jpg PAGE TWO]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--THE NILE AND EGYPT
+
+_THE RIVER AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF
+THE COUNTRY--THE OLDEST INHABITANTS OF THE LAND--THE FIRST POLITICAL
+ORGANIZATION OF THE VALLEY._
+
+_The Delta: its gradual formation, its structure, its canals--The valley
+of Egypt--The two arms of the river--The Eastern Nile--The appearance
+of its hanks--The hills--The gorge of Gehel Silsileh--The cataracts: the
+falls of Aswan--Nubia--The rapids of Wady Halfah--The Takazze--The Blue
+Nile and the White Nile.
+
+The sources of the Nile--The Egyptian cosmography--The four pillars
+and the four upholding mountains--The celestial Nile the source of the
+terrestial Nile--the Southern Sea and the islands of Spirits--The tears
+of Isis--The rise of the Nile--The Green Nile and the Bed Nile--The
+opening of the dykes---The fall of the Nile--The river at its lowest
+ebb.
+
+The alluvial deposits and the effects of the inundation upon the soil of
+Egypt--Paucity of the flora: aquatic plants, the papyrus and the lotus;
+the sycamore and the date-palm, the acacias, the dôm-palms--The fauna:
+the domestic and wild animals; serpents, the urstus; the hippopotamus
+and the crocodile; birds; fish, the fahaka.
+
+The Nile god: his form and its varieties--The goddess Mirit--The
+supposed sources of the Nile at Elephantine--The festivals of Gebel
+Silsileh-Hymn to the Nile from papyri m the British Museum.
+
+The names of the Nile and Egypt: Bomitu and Qimit--Antiquity of the
+Egyptianpeople--Their first horizon--The hypothesis of their Asiatic
+origin--The probability of their African origin--The language and its
+Semitic affinities--The race and its principal types.
+
+The primitive civilization of Egypt--Its survival into historic
+times--The women of Amon--Marriage--Rights of women and
+children--Houses--Furniture--Dress--Jewels--Wooden and metal
+arms--Primitive life-Fishing and hunting--The lasso and "bolas"--The
+domestication of animals--Plants used for food--The lotus--Cereals--The
+hoe and the plough.
+
+The conquest of the valley--Dykes--Basins--Irrigation--The princes--The
+nomes--The first local principalities--Late organization of the
+Delta--Character of its inhabitants--Gradual division of the
+principalities and changes of then areas--The god of the city._
+
+[Illustration: 003.jpg CHAPTER ONE]
+
+
+
+THE NILE AND EGYPT
+
+_The river and its influence upon the formation of the country--The
+oldest inhabitants of the valley and its first political organization._
+
+     *  The same expression has been attributed to Hecatseus of
+     Miletus. It has often been observed that this phrase seems
+     Egyptian   on  the face of it, and it certainly recalls such
+     forms of expression as the following, taken from a formula
+     frequently found on funerary "All things created by heaven,
+     given by earth, _brought by the Nile--from its mysterious
+     sources._" Nevertheless, up to the present time, the
+     hieroglyphic texts have yielded nothing altogether
+     corresponding to the exact terms of the Greek historians--
+     _gift_ of the Nile, or its natural _product_.
+
+A long low, level shore, scarcely rising above the sea, a chain of
+vaguely defined and ever-shifting lakes and marshes, then the triangular
+plain beyond, whose apex is thrust thirty leagues into the land--this,
+the Delta of Egypt, has gradually been acquired from the sea, and is
+as it were the gift of the Nile. The Mediterranean once reached to the
+foot of the sandy plateau on which stand the Pyramids, and formed a
+wide gulf where now stretches plain beyond plain of the Delta. The
+last undulations of the Arabian hills, from Gebel Mokattam to Gebel
+Geneffeh, were its boundaries on the east, while a sinuous and shallow
+channel running between Africa and Asia united the Mediterranean to
+the Red Sea. Westward, the littoral followed closely the contour of the
+Libyan plateau; but a long limestone spur broke away from it at about
+31° N., and terminated in Cape Abûkîr. The alluvial deposits first
+tilled up the depths of the bay, and then, under the influence of the
+currents which swept along its eastern coasts, accumulated behind that
+rampart of sand-hills whose remains are still to be seen near Benha.
+Thus was formed a miniature Delta, whose structure pretty accurately
+corresponded with that of the great Delta of to-day. Here the Nile
+divided into three divergent streams, roughly coinciding with the
+southern courses of the Rosetta and Damietta branches, and with the
+modern canal of Abu Meneggeh. The ceaseless accumulation of mud brought
+down by the river soon overpassed the first limits, and steadily
+encroached upon the sea until it was carried beyond the shelter
+furnished by Cape Abûkîr. Thence it was gathered into the great littoral
+current flowing from Africa to Asia, and formed an incurvated coast-line
+ending in the headland of Casios, on the Syrian frontier. From that time
+Egypt made no further increase towards the north, and her coast remains
+practically such as it was thousands of years ago:[*] the interior
+alone has suffered change, having been dried up, hardened, and gradually
+raised. Its inhabitants thought they could measure the exact length of
+time in which this work of creation had been accomplished. According
+to the Egyptians, Menés, the first of their mortal kings, had found, so
+they said, the valley under water. The sea came in almost as far as the
+Fayûm, and, excepting the province of Thebes, the whole country was
+a pestilential swamp. Hence, the necessary period for the physical
+formation of Egypt would cover some centuries after Menés. This is
+no longer considered a sufficient length of time, and some modern
+geologists declare that the Nile must have worked at the formation of
+its own estuary for at least seventy-four thousand years.[**]
+
+     * Élie de Beaumont, "The great distinction of the Nile Delta
+     lies in the almost uniform persistence of its coast-line....
+     The present sea-coast of Egypt is little altered from that
+     of three thousand years  ago."    The latest observations
+     prove it to be sinking and shrinking near Alexandria to rise
+     in the neighbourhood of Port Said.
+
+     ** Others, as for example Schweinfurth, are  more  moderate
+     in their views, and think "that it must have taken about
+     twenty thousand years for that alluvial deposit which now
+     forms  the   arable soil of Egypt to have attained to its
+     present depth and fertility."
+
+This figure is certainly exaggerated, for the alluvium would gain on
+the shallows of the ancient gulf far more rapidly than it gains upon the
+depths of the Mediterranean. But even though we reduce the period, we
+must still admit that the Egyptians little suspected the true age of
+their country. Not only did the Delta long precede the coming of Menés,
+but its plan was entirely completed before the first arrival of the
+Egyptians. The Greeks, full of the mysterious virtues which they
+attributed to numbers, discovered that there were seven principal
+branches, and seven mouths of the Nile, and that, as compared with
+these, the rest were but false mouths.
+
+[Illustration: 006.jpg THE MOUTH OF THE NILE PREVIOUS TO THE FORMATION
+OF THE DELTA.]
+
+As a matter of fact, there were only three chief outlets.    The Canopic
+branch flowed westward, and fell into the Mediterranean near Cape
+Abûkîr, at the western extremity of the arc described by the coast-line.
+The Pelusiac branch followed the length of the Arabian chain, and flowed
+forth at the other extremity; and the Sebennytic stream almost bisected
+the triangle contained between the Canopic and Pelusiac channels. Two
+thousand years ago, these branches separated from the main river at  the
+city of Cerkasoros, nearly four  miles north of the site where Cairo now
+stands. But after the Pelusiac branch had ceased to exist, the fork of
+the river gradually wore away the land from age to age, and is now some
+nine miles lower down.[*] These three great waterways are united by a
+network of artificial rivers and canals, and by ditches--some natural,
+others dug by the hand of man, but all ceaselessly shifting. They silt
+up, close, open again, replace each other, and ramify in innumerable
+branches over the surface of the soil, spreading life and fertility on
+all sides. As the land rises towards the south, this web contracts and
+is less confused, while black mould and cultivation alike dwindle, and
+the fawn-coloured line of the desert comes into sight. The Libyan and
+Arabian hills appear above the plain, draw nearer to each other, and
+gradually shut in the horizon until it seems as though they would unite.
+And there the Delta ends, and Egypt proper has begun.
+
+It is only a strip of vegetable mould stretching north and south between
+regions of drought and desolation, a prolonged oasis on the banks of the
+river, made by the Nile, and sustained by the Nile. The whole length of
+the land is shut in between two ranges of hills, roughly parallel at a
+mean distance of about twelve miles.[**]
+
+     * By the end of the Byzantine period, the fork of the river
+     lay at some distance south of Shetnûfi, the present
+     Shatanûf, which is the spot where it now is. The Arab
+     geographers call the head of the Delta Batn-el-Bagaraji, the
+     Cow's Belly. Ampère, in his Voyage en Egypte et en Nubie, p.
+     120, says,--"May it not be that this name, denoting the place
+     where the most fertile part of Egypt begins, is a
+     reminiscence of the Cow Goddess, of Isis, the symbol of
+     fecundity, and the personification of Egypt?"
+
+     **De Rozière estimated the mean breadth as being only a
+     little over nine miles.
+
+During the earlier ages, the river filled all this intermediate space,
+and the sides of the hills, polished, worn, blackened to their very
+summits, still bear unmistakable traces of its action. Wasted, and
+shrunken within the deeps of its ancient bed, the stream now makes a way
+through its own thick deposits of mud. The bulk of its waters keeps
+to the east, and constitutes the true Nile, the "Great River" of the
+hieroglyphic inscriptions. A second arm flows close to the Libyan
+desert, here and there formed into canals, elsewhere left to follow
+its own course. From the head of the Delta to the village of Demt it
+is called the Bahr-Yûsuf; beyond Derût--up to Gebel Silsileh--it is the
+Ibrâhimîyeh, the Sohâgîyeh, the Raiân. But the ancient names are unknown
+to us. This Western Nile dries up in winter throughout all its upper
+courses: where it continues to flow, it is by scanty accessions from
+the main Nile. It also divides north of Henassieh, and by the gorge of
+Illahûn sends out a branch which passes beyond the hills into the basin
+of the Fayûrn. The true Nile, the Eastern Nile, is less a river than
+a sinuous lake encumbered with islets and sandbanks, and its navigable
+channel winds capriciously between them, flowing with a strong and
+steady current below the steep, black banks cut sheer through the
+alluvial earth.
+
+[Illustration: 009.jpg A LINE OF LADEN CAMELS EMERGES FROM A HOLLOW OF
+THE UNDULATING ROAD. 1]
+
+     1  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     Insinger, taken in 1884.
+
+There are light groves of the date-palm, groups of acacia trees and
+sycamores, square patches of barley or of wheat, fields of beans or of
+bersîm,[*] and here and there a long bank of sand which the least breeze
+raises into whirling clouds. And over all there broods a great silence,
+scarcely broken by the cry of birds, or the song of rowers in a passing
+boat.
+
+     * Bersîm is a kind of trefoil, the _Trifolium Alexandrinum_
+     of LINNÆUS. It is very common in Egypt, and the only plant
+     of the kind generally cultivated for fodder.
+
+Something of human life may stir on the banks, but it is softened into
+poetry by distance. A half-veiled woman, bearing a bundle of herbs upon
+her head, is driving her goats before her. An irregular line of asses or
+of laden camels emerges from one hollow of the undulating road only to
+disappear within another. A group of peasants, crouched upon the shore,
+in the ancient posture of knees to chin, patiently awaits the return of
+the ferry-boat.
+
+[Illustration: 010.jpg]
+
+     1  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     Insinger, taken in 1886.
+
+A dainty village looks forth smiling from beneath its palm trees. Near
+at hand it is all naked filth and ugliness: a cluster of low grey huts
+built of mud and laths; two or three taller houses, whitewashed;
+an enclosed square shaded by sycamores; a few old men, each seated
+peacefully at his own door; a confusion of fowls, children, goats, and
+sheep; half a dozen boats made fast ashore. But, as we pass on, the
+wretchedness all fades away; meanness of detail is lost in light, and
+long before it disappears at a bend of the river, the village is again
+clothed with gaiety and serene beauty. Day by day, the landscape repeats
+itself. The same groups of trees alternate with the same fields, growing
+green or dusty in the sunlight according to the season of the year. With
+the same measured flow, the Nile winds beneath its steep banks and about
+its scattered islands.
+
+[Illustration: 011.jpg PART OF GEBEL SHÊKH HERÎDI. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1882.
+
+One village succeeds another, each alike smiling and sordid under its
+crown of foliage. The terraces of the Libyan hills, away beyond the
+Western Nile, scarcely rise above the horizon, and lie like a white
+edging between the green of the plain and the blue of the sky. The
+Arabian hills do not form one unbroken line, but a series of mountain
+masses with their spurs, now approaching the river, and now withdrawing
+to the desert at almost regular intervals. At the entrance to the
+valley, rise Gebel Mokattam and Gebel el-Ahmar. Gebel Hemûr-Shemûl and
+Gebel Shêkh Embârak next stretch in echelon from north to south, and are
+succeeded by Gebel et-Ter, where, according to an old legend, all the
+birds of the world are annually assembled.[*]
+
+     * In Makrizi's _Description of Egypt_ we read: "Every year,
+     upon a certain day, all the herons (Boukîr, _Ardea bubulcus_
+     of Cuvier) assemble at this mountain. One after another,
+     each puts his beak into a cleft of the hill until the cleft
+     closes upon one of them. And then forthwith all the others
+     fly away But the bird which has been caught struggles until
+     he dies, and there his body remains until it has fallen into
+     dust." The same tale is told by other Arab writers, of which
+     a list may be seen in Etienne Quatremère, _Mémoires
+     historiques et géographiques sur l'Egypte et quelques
+     contrées voisines_, vol. i. pp. 31-33. It faintly recalls
+     that ancient tradition of the Cleft at Abydos, whereby souls
+     must pass, as human-headed birds, in order to reach the
+     other world.
+
+[Illustration: 12.jpg THE HILL OF KASR ES-SAYYAD. 2]
+
+     2  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     insinger, taken in 1882.
+
+Then follows Gebel Abûfêda, dreaded by the sailors for its sudden gusts.
+Limestone predominates throughout, white or yellowish, broken by veins
+of alabaster, or of red and grey sandstones. Its horizontal strata are
+so symmetrically laid one above another as to seem more like the walls
+of a town than the side of a mountain. But time has often dismantled
+their summits and loosened their foundations. Man has broken into their
+façades to cut his quarries and his tombs; while the current is secretly
+undermining the base, wherein it has made many a breach. As soon as any
+margin of mud has collected between cliffs and river, halfah and wild
+plants take hold upon it, and date-palms grow there--whence their seed,
+no one knows. Presently a hamlet rises at the mouth of the ravine,
+among clusters of trees and fields in miniature. Beyond Siût, the light
+becomes more glowing, the air drier and more vibrating, and the green of
+cultivation loses its brightness. The angular outline of the dom-palni
+mingles more and more with that of the common palm and of the heavy
+sycamore, and the castor-oil plant increasingly abounds. But all these
+changes come about so gradually that they are effected before we notice
+them. The plain continues to contract. At Thebes it is still ten miles
+wide; at the gorge of Gebelên it has almost disappeared, and at Gebel
+Silsileh it has completely vanished. There, it was crossed by a natural
+dyke of sandstone, through which the waters have with difficulty scooped
+for themselves a passage. From this point, Egypt is nothing but the bed
+of the Nile lying between two escarpments of naked rock.
+
+Further on the cultivable land reappears, but narrowed, and changed
+almost beyond recognition. Hills, hewn out of solid sandstone, succeed
+each other at distances of about two miles, low, crushed, sombre, and
+formless. Presently a forest of palm trees, the last on that side,
+announces Aswan and Nubia. Five banks of granite, ranged in lines
+between latitude 24° and 18° N., cross Nubia from east to west, and from
+north-east to south-west, like so many ramparts thrown up between the
+Mediterranean and the heart of Africa. The Nile has attacked them from
+behind, and made its way over them one after another in rapids which
+have been glorified by the name of cataracts.
+
+[Illustration: 014.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE FIRST CATARACT. 1]
+
+     1 View taken from the hills opposite Elephantine, by
+     Insinger, in 1884.
+
+Classic writers were pleased to describe the river as hurled into the
+gulfs of Syne with so great a roar that the people of the neighbourhood
+were deafened by it. Even a colony of Persians, sent thither by
+Cambyses, could not bear the noise of the falls, and went forth to seek
+a quieter situation. The first cataract is a kind of sloping and sinuous
+passage six and a quarter miles in length, descending from the island
+of Philae to the port of Aswan, the aspect of its approach relieved and
+brightened by the ever green groves of Elephantine. Beyond Elephantine
+are cliffs and sandy beaches, chains of blackened "roches moutonnées"
+marking out the beds of the currents, and fantastic reefs, sometimes
+bare and sometimes veiled by long grasses and climbing plants, in
+which thousands of birds have made their nests. There are islets
+too, occasionally large enough to have once supported something of a
+population, such as Amerade, Salûg, Sehêl. The granite threshold of
+Nubia, is broken beyond Sehêl, but its débris, massed m disorder against
+the right bank, still seem to dispute the passage of the waters, dashing
+turbulently and roaring as they flow along through tortuous channels,
+where every streamlet is broken up into small cascades, ihe channel
+running by the left bank is always navigable.
+
+[Illustration: 015.jpg ENTRANCE TO NUBIA.]
+
+During the inundation, the rocks and sandbanks of the right side are
+completely under water, and their presence is only betrayed by eddies.
+But on the river's reaching its lowest point a fall of some six feet is
+established, and there big boats, hugging the shore, are hauled up by
+means of ropes, or easily drift down with the current.
+
+[Illustration: 016.jpg LEAGUE BEYOND LEAGUE, THE HILLS STKETCH ON IN LOW
+IGNOBLE OUTLINE. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1881.
+
+All kinds of granite are found together in this corner of Africa. There
+are the pink and red Syenites, porphyritic granite, yellow granite, grey
+granite, both black granite and white, and granites veined with black
+and veined with white. As soon as these disappear behind us, various
+sandstones begin to crop up, allied to the coarsest _calcaire grossier_.
+The hill bristle with small split blocks, with peaks half overturned,
+with rough and denuded mounds. League beyond league, they stretch in low
+ignoble outline. Here and there a valley opens sharply into the desert,
+revealing an infinite perspective of summits and escarpments in echelon
+one behind another to the furthest plane of the horizon, like motionless
+caravans. The now confined river rushes on with a low, deep murmur,
+accompanied night and day by the croaking of frogs and the rhythmic
+creak of the sâkîeh.[*]
+
+     * The sâkîeh is made of a notch-wheel fixed vertically on a
+     horizontal axle, and is actuated by various cog-wheels set
+     in continuous motion by oxen or asses.    A long chain of
+     earthenware vessels brings up the water either from the
+     river itself, or from some little branch  canal, and
+     empties it into a system of troughs and reservoirs.
+     Thence, it flows forth to be distributed over all the
+     neighbouring land.
+
+Jetties of rough stone-work, made in unknown times by an unknown people,
+run out like breakwaters into midstream.
+
+[Illustration: 018.jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE FIRST CATARACT]
+
+From time to time waves of sand are borne over, and drown the narrow
+fields of durra and of barley. Scraps of close, aromatic pasturage,
+acacias, date-palms, and dôm-palms, together with a few shrivelled
+sycamores, are scattered along both banks. The ruins of a crumbling
+pylon mark the site of some ancient city, and, overhanging the water,
+is a vertical wall of rock honeycombed with tombs. Amid these relics of
+another age, miserable huts, scattered hamlets, a town or two surrounded
+with little gardens are the only evidence that there is yet life in
+Nubia. South of Wâdy Halfah, the second granite bank is broken through,
+and the second cataract spreads its rapids over a length of four
+leagues: the archipelago numbers more than 350 islets, of which some
+sixty have houses upon them and yield harvests to their inhabitants. The
+main characteristics of the first two cataracts are repeated with slight
+variations in the cases of the three which follow,--at Hannek, at
+Guerendid, and El-Hu-mar. It is Egypt still, but a joyless Egypt bereft
+of its brightness: impoverished, disfigured, and almost desolate.
+
+[Illustration: 020.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE SECOND CATAKACT. 1]
+
+     1 View taken from the top of the rocks of Abusîr, after a
+     photograph by Insinger, in 1881.
+
+There is the same double wall of hills, now closely confining the
+valley, and again withdrawing from each other as though to flee into
+the desert. Everywhere are moving sheets of sand, steep black banks with
+their narrow strips of cultivation, villages which are scarcely visible
+on account of the lowness of their huts sycamore ceases at Gebel-Barkal,
+date-palms become fewer and finally disappear. The Nile alone has not
+changed. And it was at Philse, so it is at Berber. Here, however, on
+the right bank, 600 leagues from the sea, is its first affluent, the
+Takazze, which intermittently brings to it the waters of Northern
+Ethiopia. At Khartum, the single channel in which the river flowed
+divides; and two other streams are opened up in a southerly direction,
+each of them apparently equal in volume to the main stream. Which is
+the true Nile? Is it the Blue Nile, which seems to come down from the
+distant mountains? Or is it the White Nile, which has traversed the
+immense plains of equatorial Africa. The old Egyptians never knew.
+The river kept the secret of its source from them as obstinately as it
+withheld it from us until a few years ago. Vainly did their victorious
+armies follow the Nile for months together as they pursued the
+tribes who dwelt upon its banks, only to find it as wide, as full, as
+irresistible in its progress as ever. It was a fresh-water sea, and
+sea--_iaûmâ, iôma_--was the name by which they called it.
+
+The Egyptians therefore never sought its source. They imagined the whole
+universe to be a large box, nearly rectangular in form, whose greatest
+diameter was from south to north, and its least from east to west. The
+earth, with its alternate continents and seas, formed the bottom of the
+box; it was a narrow, oblong, and slightly concave floor, with Egypt
+in its centre. The sky stretched over it like an iron ceiling, flat
+according to some, vaulted according to others. Its earthward face was
+capriciously sprinkled with lamps hung from strong cables, and which,
+extinguished or unperceived by day, were lighted, or became visible to
+our eyes, at night.
+
+[Illustration: 022.jpg AN ATTEMPT TO REPRESENT THE EGYPTIAN UNIVERSE.2]
+
+     2 Section taken at Hermopolis. To the left, is the bark of
+     the sun on the celestial river.
+
+Since this ceiling could not remain in mid-air without support, four
+columns, or rather four forked trunks of trees, similar to those which
+maintained the primitive house, were supposed to uphold it. But it was
+doubtless feared lest some tempest should overturn them, for they were
+superseded by four lofty peaks, rising at the four cardinal points, and
+connected by a continuous chain of mountains. The Egyptians knew little
+of the northern peak: the Mediterranean, the "Very Green," interposed
+between it and Egypt, and prevented their coming near enough to see it.
+The southern peak was named Apit the Horn of the Earth; that on the east
+was called Bâkhû, the Mountain of Birth; and the western peak was known
+as Manu, sometimes as Onkhit, the Region of Life.
+
+[Illustration: 023.jpg FOOTNOTES WITH GRAPHICS]
+
+Bâkhû was not a fictitious mountain, but the highest of those distant
+summits seen from the Nile in looking towards the red Sea. In the same
+way, Manu answered to some hill of the Libyan desert, whose summit
+closed the horizon. When it was discovered that neither Bâkhû nor Manu
+were the limits of the world, the notion of upholding the celestial roof
+was not on that account given up. It was only necessary to withdraw the
+pillars from sight, and imagine fabulous peaks, invested with familiar
+names. These were not supposed to form the actual boundary of
+the universe; a great river--analogous to the Ocean-stream of the
+Greeks--lay between them and its utmost limits. This river circulated
+upon a kind of ledge projecting along the sides of the box a little
+below the continuous mountain chain upon which the starry heavens were
+sustained. On the north of the ellipse, the river was bordered by a
+steep and abrupt bank, which took its rise at the peak of Manu on the
+west, and soon rose high enough to form a screen between the river and
+the earth. The narrow valley which it hid from view was known as
+Da'it from remotest times. Eternal night enfolded that valley in thick
+darkness, and filled it with dense air such as no living thing could
+breathe. Towards the east the steep bank rapidly declined, and ceased
+altogether a little beyond Bâkhû, while the river flowed on between low
+and almost level shores from east to south, and then from south to west.
+The sun was a disc of fire placed upon a boat. At the same equable rate,
+the river carried it round the ramparts of the world. Erom evening until
+morning it disappeared within the gorges of Daït; its light did not then
+reach us, and it was night. From morning until evening its rays, being
+no longer intercepted by any obstacle, were freely shed abroad from one
+end of the box to the other, and it was day. The Nile branched off from
+the celestial river at its southern bend;[*] hence the south was
+the chief cardinal point to the Egyptians, and by that they oriented
+themselves, placing sunrise to their left, and sunset to their right.
+
+     * The classic writers themselves knew that, according to
+     Egyptian belief, the Nile flowed down from heaven. The
+     legend of the Nile having its source in the ocean stream was
+     but a Greek transposition of the Egyptian doctrine, which
+     represented it as an arm of the celestial river whereon the
+     sun sailed round the earth.
+
+Before they passed beyond the defiles of Gebel Silsileh, they thought
+that the spot whence the celestial waters left the sky was situate
+between Elephantine and Philae, and that they descended in an immense
+waterfall whose last leaps were at Syene. It may be that the tales about
+the first cataract told by classic writers are but a far-off echo of
+this tradition of a barbarous age. Conquests carried into the heart of
+Africa forced the Egyptians to recognize their error, but did not weaken
+their faith in the supernatural origin of the river. They only placed
+its source further south, and surrounded it with greater marvels.
+They told how, by going up the stream, sailors at length reached an
+undetermined country, a kind of borderland between this world and the
+next, a "Land of Shades," whose inhabitants were dwarfs, monsters,
+or spirits. Thence they passed into a sea sprinkled with mysterious
+islands, like those enchanted archipelagoes which Portuguese and Breton
+mariners were wont to see at times when on their voyages, and which
+vanished at their approach. These islands were inhabited by serpents
+with human voices, sometimes friendly and sometimes cruel to the
+shipwrecked. He who went forth from the islands could never more
+re-enter them: they were resolved into the waters and lost within the
+bosom of the waves. A modern geographer can hardly comprehend such
+fancies; those of Greek and Roman times were perfectly familiar with
+them. They believed that the Nile communicated with the Red Sea near
+Suakin, by means of the Astaboras, and this was certainly the route
+which the Egyptians of old had imagined for their navigators. The
+supposed communication was gradually transferred farther and farther
+south; and we have only to glance over certain maps of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, to see clearly drawn what the Egyptians had
+imagined--the centre of Africa as a great lake, whence issued the Congo,
+the Zambesi, and the Nile. Arab merchants of the Middle Ages believed
+that a resolute man could pass from Alexandria or Cairo to the land of
+the Zindjes and the Indian Ocean by rising from river to river.[*]
+
+     * Joinville has given a special chapter to the description
+     of the sources and wonders of the Nile, in which he believed
+     as firmly as in an article of his creed. As late as the
+     beginning of the seventeenth century, Wendelinus devoted
+     part of his _Admiranda Nili_ to proving that the river did
+     not rise in the earthly Paradise. At Gûrnah, forty years
+     ago, Rhind picked up a legend which stated that the Nile
+     flows down from the sky.
+
+[Illustration: 027.jpg SOUTH AFRICA AND THE SOURCES OF THE NILE, BY
+ODOAKDO LOPEZ. 1]
+
+     1 Facsimile of the map published by Kircher in _OEdipus
+     Ægyptiacus_, vol. i. (_Iconismus II_), p. 53.
+
+Many of the legends relating to this subject are lost, while others
+have been collected and embellished with fresh features by Jewish and
+Christian theologians. The Nile was said to have its source in Paradise,
+to traverse burning regions inaccessible to man, and afterwards to fall
+into a sea whence it made its way to Egypt. Sometimes it carried down
+from its celestial sources branches and fruits unlike any to be found
+on earth. The sea mentioned in all these tales is perhaps a less
+extravagant invention than we are at first inclined to think. A lake,
+nearly as large as the Victoria Nyanza, once covered the marshy plain
+where the Bahr el-Abiad unites with the Sobat, and with the Bahr
+el-Ghazal. Alluvial deposits have filled up all but its deepest
+depression, which is known as Birket Nû; but, in ages preceding our era,
+it must still have been vast enough to suggest to Egyptian soldiers and
+boatmen the idea of an actual sea, opening into the Indian Ocean.
+The mountains, whose outline was vaguely seen far to southward on the
+further shores, doubtless contained within them its mysterious source.
+There the inundation was made ready, and there it began upon a fixed
+day. The celestial Nile had its periodic rise and fall, on which those
+of the earthly Nile depended. Every year, towards the middle of June,
+Isis, mourning for Osiris, let fall into it one of the tears which she
+shed over her brother, and thereupon the river swelled and descended
+upon earth. Isis has had no devotees for centuries, and her very name is
+unknown to the descendants of her worshippers; but the tradition of her
+fertilizing tears has survived her memory. Even to this day, every one
+in Egypt, Mussulman or Christian, knows that a divine drop falls from
+heaven during the night between the 17th and 18th of June, and forthwith
+brings about the rise of the Nile. Swollen by the rains which fall
+in February over the region of the Great Lakes, the White Nile rushes
+northward, sweeping before it the stagnant sheets of water left by the
+inundation of the previous year. On the left, the Bahr el-Ghazâl brings
+it the overflow of the ill-defined basin stretching between Darfûr and
+the Congo; and the Sobat pours in on the right a tribute from the rivers
+which furrow the southern slopes of the Abyssinian mountains. The first
+swell passes Khartum by the end of April, and raises the water-level
+there by about a foot, then it slowly makes its way through Nubia, and
+dies away in Egypt at the beginning of June. Its waters, infected
+by half-putrid organic matter from the equatorial swamps, are not
+completely freed from it even in the course of this long journey, but
+keep a greenish tint as far as the Delta. They are said to be poisonous,
+and to give severe pains in the bladder to any who may drink them. I am
+bound to say that every June, for five years, I drank this green water
+from the Nile itself, without taking any other precaution than the usual
+one of filtering it through a porous jar. Neither I, nor the many people
+living with me, ever felt the slightest inconvenience from it. Happily,
+this _Green Nile_ does not last long, but generally flows away in three
+or four days, and is only the forerunner of the real flood. The melting
+of the snows and the excessive spring rains having suddenly swollen the
+torrents which rise in the central plateau of Abyssinia, the Blue Nile,
+into which they flow, rolls so impetuously towards the plain that, when
+its waters reach Khartum in the middle of May, they refuse to mingle
+with those of the White Nile, and do not lose their peculiar colour
+before reaching the neighbourhood of Abu Hamed, three hundred miles
+below. From that time the height of the Nile increases rapidly day
+by day. The river, constantly reinforced by floods following one upon
+another from the Great Lakes and from Abyssinia, rises in furious
+bounds, and would become a devastating torrent were its rage not checked
+by the Nubian cataracts. Here six basins, one above another, in which
+the water collects, check its course, and permit it to flow thence only
+as a partially filtered and moderated stream. It is signalled at Syene
+towards the 8th of June, at Cairo by the 17th to the 20th, and there its
+birth is officially celebrated during the "Night of the Drop." Two
+days later it reaches the Delta, just in time to save the country from
+drought and sterility. Egypt, burnt up by the Khamsin, a west wind
+blowing continuously for fifty days, seems nothing more than an
+extension of the desert. The trees are covered and choked by a layer of
+grey dust. About the villages, meagre and laboriously watered patches
+of vegetables struggle for life, while some show of green still
+lingers along the canals and in hollows whence all moisture has not
+yet evaporated. The plain lies panting in the sun--naked, dusty, and
+ashen--scored with intersecting cracks as far as eye can see. The Nile
+is only half its usual width, and holds not more than a twentieth of
+the volume of water which is borne down in October. It has at first hard
+work to recover its former bed, and attains it by such subtle gradations
+that the rise is scarcely noted. It is, however, continually gaining
+ground; here a sandbank is covered, there an empty channel is filled,
+islets are outlined where there was a continuous beach, a new stream
+detaches itself and gains the old shore. The first contact is disastrous
+to the banks; their steep sides, disintegrated and cracked by the heat,
+no longer offer any resistance to the current, and fall with a crash, in
+lengths of a hundred yards and more.
+
+[Illustration: 31.jpg DURING THE INUNDATION]
+
+As the successive floods grow stronger and are more heavily charged with
+mud, the whole mass of water becomes turbid and changes colour. In eight
+or ten days it has turned from greyish blue to dark red, occasionally of
+so intense a colour as to look like newly shed blood. The "Red Nile" is
+not unwholesome like the "Green Nile," and the suspended mud to which
+it owes its suspicious appearance deprives the water of none of its
+freshness and lightness. It reaches its full height towards the 15th
+of July; but the dykes which confine it, and the barriers constructed
+across the mouths of canals, still prevent it from overflowing. The Nile
+must be considered high enough to submerge the land adequately before
+it is set free. The ancient Egyptians measured its height by cubits of
+twenty-one and a quarter inches. At fourteen cubits, they pronounced it
+an excellent Nile; below thirteen, or above fifteen, it was accounted
+insufficient or excessive, and in either case meant famine, and perhaps
+pestilence at hand. To this day the natives watch its advance with the
+same anxious eagerness; and from the 3rd of July, public criers, walking
+the streets of Cairo, announce each morning what progress it has made
+since evening. More or less authentic traditions assert that the prelude
+to the opening of the canals, in the time of the Pharaohs, was
+the solemn casting to the waters of a young girl decked as for her
+bridal--the "Bride of the Nile." Even after the Arab conquest, the
+irruption of the river into the bosom of the land was still considered
+as an actual marriage; the contract was drawn up by a cadi, and
+witnesses confirmed its consummation with the most fantastic formalities
+of Oriental ceremonial. It is generally between the 1st and 16th of July
+that it is decided to break through the dykes. When that proceeding has
+been solemnly accomplished in state, the flood still takes several days
+to fill the canals, and afterwards spreads over the low lands, advancing
+little by little to the very edge of the desert. Egypt is then one sheet
+of turbid water spreading between two lines of rock and sand, flecked
+with green and black spots where there are towns or where the ground
+rises, and divided into irregular compartments by raised roads
+connecting the villages. In Nubia the river attains its greatest height
+towards the end of August; at Cairo and in the Delta not until three
+weeks or a month later. For about eight days it remains stationary, and
+then begins to fall imperceptibly. Sometimes there is a new freshet
+in October, and the river again increases in height. But the rise is
+unsustained; once more it falls as rapidly as it rose, and by December
+the river has completely retired to the limits of its bed. One after
+another, the streams which fed it fail or dwindle. The Tacazze is
+lost among the sands before rejoining it, and the Blue Nile, well-nigh
+deprived of tributaries, is but scantily maintained by Abyssinian
+snows. The White Nile is indebted to the Great Lakes for the greater
+persistence of its waters, which feed the river as far as the
+Mediterranean, and save the valley from utter drought in winter. But,
+even with this resource, the level of the water falls daily, and its
+volume is diminished. Long-hidden sandbanks reappear, and are again
+linked into continuous line. Islands expand by the rise of shingly
+beaches, which gradually reconnect them with each other and with the
+shore. Smaller branches of the river cease to flow, and form a mere
+network of stagnant pools and muddy ponds, which fast dry up. The main
+channel itself is only intermittently navigable; after March boats run
+aground in it, and are forced to await the return of the inundation for
+their release. From the middle of April to the middle of June, Egypt is
+only half alive, awaiting the new Nile.
+
+[Illustration: 034.jpg ASSIOUT]
+
+Those ruddy and heavily charged waters, rising and retiring with almost
+mathematical regularity, bring and leave the spoils of the countries
+they have traversed: sand from Nubia, whitish clay from the regions
+of the Lakes, ferruginous mud, and the various rock-formations of
+Abyssinia. These materials are not uniformly disseminated in the
+deposits; their precipitation being regulated both by their specific
+gravity and the velocity of the current. Flattened stones and rounded
+pebbles are left behind at the cataract between Syene and Keneh, while
+coarser particles of sand are suspended in the undercurrents and serve
+to raise the bed of the river, or are carried out to sea and form the
+sandbanks which are slowly rising at the Damietta and Rosetta mouths of
+the Nile. The mud and finer particles rise towards the surface, and are
+deposited upon the land after the opening of the dykes. Soil which is
+entirely dependent on the deposit of a river, and periodically invaded
+by it, necessarily maintains but a scanty flora; and though it is well
+known that, as a general rule, a flora is rich in proportion to its
+distance from the poles and its approach to the equator, it is also
+admitted that Egypt offers an exception to this rule. At the most, she
+has not more than a thousand species, while, with equal area, England,
+for instance, possesses more than fifteen hundred; and of this thousand,
+the greater number are not indigenous. Many of them have been brought
+From Central Africa by the river: birds and winds have continued
+the work, and man himself has contributed his part in making it more
+complete. From Asia he has at different times brought wheat barley
+the olive, the apple, the white or pink almond, and some twenty
+other species now acclimatized on the banks of the Nile. Marsh plants
+predominate in the Delta; but the papyrus, and the three varieties of
+blue, white, and pink lotus which once flourished there, being no longer
+cultivated, have now almost entirely disappeared, and reverted to their
+original habitats.
+
+[Illustration: 036.jpg ENTRANCE OF THE MUDÎRIYEH OF ASYÛT.]
+
+The sycamore and the date-palm, both importations from Central Africa,
+have better adapted themselves to their exile, and are now fully
+naturalized on Egyptian soil.
+
+[Illustration: 037.jpg FOREST OF DATE PALMS]
+
+The sycamore grows in sand on the edge of the desert as vigorously as
+in the midst of a well-watered country. Its roots go deep in search of
+water, which infiltrates as far as the gorges of the hills, and they
+absorb it freely, even where drought seems to reign supreme. The heavy,
+squat, gnarled trunk occasionally attains to colossal dimensions,
+without ever growing very high. Its rounded masses of compact foliage
+are so wide-spreading that a single tree in the distance may give the
+impression of several grouped together; and its shade is dense,
+and impenetrable to the sun. A striking contrast to the sycamore
+is presented by the date-palm. Its round and slender stem rises
+uninterruptedly to a height of thirteen to sixteen yards; its head
+is crowned with a cluster of flexible leaves arranged in two or three
+tiers, but so scanty, so pitilessly slit, that they fail to keep off the
+light, and cast but a slight and unrefreshing shadow. Few trees have so
+elegant an appearance, yet few are so monotonously elegant. There are
+palm trees to be seen on every hand; isolated, clustered by twos and
+threes at the mouths of ravines and about the villages, planted
+in regular file along the banks of the river like rows of columns,
+symmetrically arranged in plantations,--these are the invariable
+background against which other trees are grouped, diversifying the
+landscape. The feathery tamarisk[*] and the nabk, the moringa, the
+carob, or locust tree several varieties of acacia and mimosa-the sont,
+the mimosa habbas, the white acacia, the Acacia Parnesxana--and
+the pomegranate tree, increase in number with the distance from the
+Mediterranean.
+
+     * The Egyptian name for the tamarisk, _asari, asri_, is
+     identical with that given to it in Semitic languages, both
+     ancient and modern.    This would suggest the question
+     whether the tamarisk did not originally come from Asia. In
+     that case it must have been brought to Egypt from remote
+     antiquity, for it figures in the  Pyramid texts.   Bricks of
+     Nile mud, and Memphite and Theban tombs have yielded us
+     leaves, twigs, and even whole branches of the tamarisk.
+
+[Illustration: 40.jpg ACACIAS AT THE ENTRANCE TO A GARDEN OUTSIDE
+EKHMÎM. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1884.
+
+The dry air of the valley is marvellously suited to them, but makes the
+tissue of their foliage hard and fibrous, imparting an aerial aspect,
+and such faded tints as are unknown to their growth in other climates.
+The greater number of these trees do not reproduce themselves
+spontaneously, and tend to disappear when neglected. The Acacia Seyal,
+formerly abundant by the banks of the river, is now almost entirely
+confined to certain valleys of the Theban desert, along with a variety
+of the kernelled dôm-palm, of which a poetical description has come
+down to us from the Ancient Egyptians. The common dôm-palm bifurcates at
+eight or ten yards from the ground; these branches are subdivided, and
+terminate in bunches of twenty to thirty palmate and fibrous leaves, six
+to eight feet long. At the beginning of this century the tree was
+common in Upper Egypt, but it is now becoming scarce, and we are within
+measurable distance of the time when its presence will be an exception
+north of the first cataract. Willows are decreasing in number, and the
+persea, one of the sacred trees of Ancient Egypt, is now only to be
+found in gardens. None of the remaining tree species are common enough
+to grow in large clusters; and Egypt, reduced to her lofty groves of
+date-palms, presents the singular spectacle of a country where there is
+no lack of trees, but an almost entire absence of shade.
+
+[Illustration: 41.jpg SHE-ASS AND HER FOAL.]
+
+If Egypt is a land of imported flora, it is also a land of imported
+fauna, and all its animal species have been brought from neighbouring
+countries. Some of these--as, for example, the horse and the camel--were
+only introduced at a comparatively recent period, two thousand to
+eighteen hundred years before our era; the camel still later. The
+animals--such as the long and short-horned oxen, together with varieties
+of goats and dogs--are, like the plants, generally of African origin,
+and the ass of Egypt preserves an original purity of form and a vigour
+to which the European donkey has long been a stranger. The pig and
+the wild boar, the long-eared hare, the hedgehog, the ichneumon, the
+moufflon, or maned sheep, innumerable gazelles, including the Egyptian
+gazelles, and antelopes with lyre-shaped horns, are as much West Asian
+as African, like the carnivors of all sizes, whose prey they are--the
+wild cat, the wolf, the jackal, the striped and spotted hyenas, the
+leopard, the panther, the hunting leopard, and the lion.
+
+[Illustration: 042.jpg THE URÆUS OF EGYPT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from pl. iii. of the Reptiles-
+     Supplement to the _Description de Ægypte_.
+
+On the other hand, most of the serpents, large and small, are
+indigenous. Some are harmless, like the colubers; others are venomous,
+such as the soy tale, the cerastes, the haje viper, and the asp. The asp
+was worshipped by the Egyptians under the name of uræus. It occasionally
+attains to a length of six and a half feet, and when approached will
+erect its head and inflate its throat in readiness for darting forward.
+The bite is fatal, like that of the cerastes; birds are literally struck
+down by the strength of the poison, while the great mammals, and man
+himself, almost invariably succumb to it after a longer or shorter
+death-struggle. The uræus is rarely found except in the desert or in the
+fields; the scorpion crawls everywhere, in desert and city alike, and if
+its sting is not always followed by death, it invariably causes terrible
+pain. Probably there were once several kinds of gigantic serpent in
+Egypt, analogous to the pythons of equatorial Africa. They are still to
+be seen in representations of funerary scenes, but not elsewhere; for,
+like the elephant, the giraffe, and other animals which now only thrive
+far south, they had disappeared at the beginning of historic times.
+The hippopotamus long maintained its ground before returning to those
+equatorial regions whence it had been brought by the Nile. Common under
+the first dynasties, but afterwards withdrawing to the marshes of the
+Delta, it there continued to flourish up to the thirteenth century of
+our era. The crocodile, which came with it, has, like it also, been
+compelled to beat a retreat. Lord of the river throughout all ancient
+times, worshipped and protected in some provinces, execrated and
+proscribed in others, it might still be seen in the neighbourhood of
+Cairo towards the beginning of our century. In 1840, it no longer passed
+beyond the neighbourhood of Gebel et-Têr, nor beyond that of Manfalût
+in Thirty years later, Mariette asserted that it was steadily retreating
+before the guns of tourists, and the disturbance which the regular
+passing of steamboats produced in the deep waters. To-day, no one knows
+of a single crocodile existing below Aswan, but it continues to infest
+Nubia, and the rocks of the first cataract: one of them is occasionally
+carried down by the current into Egypt where it is speedily despatched
+by the fellâhin, or by some traveller in quest of adventure. The
+fertility of the soil, and the vastness of the lakes and marshes,
+attract many migratory birds; passerinæ and palmipedes flock thither
+from all parts of the Mediterranean. Our European swallows, our
+quails, our geese and wild ducks, our herons--to mention only the
+most familiar--come here to winter, sheltered from cold and inclement
+weather.
+
+[Illustration: 044.jpg THE IBIS OF EGYPT.]
+
+Even the non-migratory birds are really, for the most part, strangers
+acclimatized by long sojourn. Some of them--the turtledove, the magpie,
+the kingfisher, the partridge, and the sparrow-may be classed with our
+European species, while others betray their equatorial origin in the
+brightness of their colours. White and black ibises, red flamingoes,
+pelicans, and cormorants enliven the waters of the river, and animate
+the reedy swamps of the Delta in infinite variety. They are to be seen
+ranged in long files upon the sand-banks, fishing and basking in the
+sun; suddenly the flock is seized with panic, rises heavily, and settles
+away further off. In hollows of the hills, eagle and falcon, the merlin,
+the bald-headed vulture, the kestrel, the golden sparrow-hawk, find
+inaccessible retreats, whence they descend upon the plains like so many
+pillaging and well-armed barons. A thousand little chattering birds come
+at eventide to perch in flocks upon the frail boughs of tamarisk and
+acacia.
+
+[Illustration: 045.jpg THE MORMYRUS OXYRHYNCHUS.]
+
+Many sea-fish make their way upstream to swim in fresh waters-shad,
+mullet, perch, and labrus--and carry their excursions far into the Saïd.
+Those species which are not Mediterranean came originally, still come
+annually, from the heart of Ethiopia with the of the Nile, including two
+kinds of Alestes, the elled turtle, the Bagrus docmac, and the mormyrus.
+Some attain to a gigantic size, the Bagrus bayad and the turtle to about
+one yard, the latus to three and a half yards in length, while others,
+such as the sihlrus (catfish), are noted for their electric properties.
+Nature seems to have made the fahâka (the globe-fish) in a fit of
+playfulness. It is a long fish from beyond the cataracts, and it is
+carried by the Nile the more easily on account of the faculty it has of
+filling itself with air, and inflating its body at will.
+
+[Illustration: 046.jpg AHAKA]
+
+When swelled out immoderately, the fahâka overbalances, and drifts along
+upside down, its belly to the wind, covered with spikes so that it looks
+like a hedgehog. During the inundation, it floats with the current from
+one canal to another, and is cast by the retreating waters upon the
+muddy fields, where it becomes the prey of birds or of jackals, or
+serves as a plaything for children.
+
+[Illustration: 47.jpg TWO FISHERMEN CARRYING A LATUS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Medûm painting.    Pétrie,
+     _Medûm_, pl. xii.
+
+Everything is dependent upon the river:--the soil, the produce of the
+soil, the species of animals it bears, the birds which it feeds: and
+hence it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They
+personified it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous and
+portly body, such as befits the rich of high lineage. His breasts, fully
+developed like those of a woman, though less firm, hang heavily upon a
+wide bosom where the fat lies in folds. A narrow girdle, whose ends fall
+free about the thighs, supports his spacious abdomen, and his attire
+is completed by sandals, and a close-fitting head-dress, generally
+surmounted with a crown of water-plants. Sometimes water springs from
+his breast; sometimes he presents a frog, or libation vases; or holds a
+bundle of the cruces ansato, as symbols of life; or bears a flat tray,
+full of offerings--bunches of flowers, ears of corn, heaps of fish,
+and geese tied together by the feet. The inscriptions call him, "Hâpi,
+father of the gods, lord of sustenance, who maketh food to be, and
+covereth the two lands of Egypt with his products; who giveth life,
+banisheth want, and filleth the granaries to overflowing." He is evolved
+into two personages, one being sometimes coloured red, and the other
+blue. The former, who wears a cluster of lotus-flowers upon his head,
+presides over the Egypt of the south; the latter has a bunch of papyrus
+for his head-dress, and watches over the Delta.[**]
+
+     [**]  Wilkinson was the first who suggested that this god,
+     when painted red was the Red (that is High) Nile and when
+     painted blue, was to be identified with the Low Nile.
+     This opinion has since been generally adopted; but to me it
+     does not appear so incontrovertible as it has been
+     considered. Here, as in other cases, the difference in
+     colour is only a means of making the distinction between two
+     personages obvious to sight.
+
+Two goddesses, corresponding to the two Hâpis--Mirit Qimâit for Upper,
+and Mirit Mîhit for Lower Egypt--personified the banks of the river.
+They are often represented as standing with outstretched arms, as though
+begging for the water which should make them fertile. The Nile-god had
+his chapel in every province, and priests whose right it was to bury all
+bodies of men or beasts cast up by the river; for the god had claimed
+them, and to his servants they belonged.
+
+[Illustration: 048.jpg THE NILE GOD. 1]
+
+     1 THE NILE GOD: Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a statue in
+     the British Museum. The dedication of this statue took place
+     about 880 B.c. The giver was Sheshonqu, high-priest of Amon
+     in Thebes, afterwards King of Egypt under the name of
+     Sheshhonqû II., and he is represented as standing behind the
+     leg of the god.
+
+[Illustration: 049.jpg THE Shrine Of The Nile At Biggeh.1]
+
+     1 Reproduced from a bas-relief in the small temple of
+     Philae, built by Rajan and his successors.    The window or
+     door of this temple opened upon gen, and by comparing the
+     drawing of the Egyptian artist with the view i the end of
+     the chamber, it is easy to recognize the original of this
+     cliff bouette in the piled-up rocks of the island.    By a
+     mistake of the modern copyist's, his drawing faces the wrong
+     way.
+
+Several towns were dedicated to him: Hâthâpi, Nûit-Hâpi, Nilo-polis.
+It was told in the Thebaïd how the god dwelt within a grotto, or shrine
+(tophit), in the island of Biggeh, whence he issued at the inundation.
+This tradition dates from a time when the cataract was believed to be at
+the end of the world, and to bring down the heavenly river upon earth.
+Two yawning gulfs (_qorîti_), at the foot of the two granite cliffs
+(_monîti_) between which it ran, gave access to this mysterious retreat.
+A bas-relief from Philae represents blocks of stone piled one above
+another, the vulture of the south and the hawk of the north, each
+perched on a summit, wearing a panther skin, with both arms upheld in
+adoration. The statue is mutilated: the end of the nose, the beard, and
+part of the tray have disappeared, but are restored in the illustration.
+The two little birds hanging alongside the geese, together with a bunch
+of ears of corn, are fat quails, and the circular chamber wherein Hâpi
+crouches concealed, clasping a libation vase in either hand. A single
+coil of a serpent outlines the contour of this chamber, and leaves a
+narrow passage between its overlapping head and tail through which the
+rising waters may overflow at the time appointed, bringing to Egypt "all
+things good, and sweet, and pure," whereby gods and men are fed. Towards
+the summer solstice, at the very moment when the sacred water from the
+gulfs of Syene reached Silsileh, the priests of the place, sometimes the
+reigning sovereign, or one of his sons, sacrificed a bull and geese, and
+then cast into the waters a sealed roll of papyrus. This was a written
+order to do all that might insure to Egypt the benefits of a normal
+inundation. When Pharaoh himself deigned to officiate, the memory of
+the event was preserved by a stela engraved upon the rocks. Even in his
+absence, the festivals of the Nile were among the most solemn and joyous
+of the land. According to a tradition transmitted from age to age, the
+prosperity or adversity of the year was dependent upon the splendour
+and fervour with which they were celebrated. Had the faithful shown the
+slightest lukewarmness, the Nile might have refused to obey the command
+and failed to spread freely over the surface of the country. Peasants
+from a distance, each bringing his own provisions, ate their meals
+together for days, and lived in a state of brutal intoxication as long
+as this kind of fair lasted. On the great day itself, the priests came
+forth in procession from the sanctuary, bearing the statue of the god
+along the banks, to the sound of instruments and the chanting of hymns.
+
+[Illustration: 051.jpg NILE GODS FROM THE TEMPLE OF SETI I. AT ABYDOS
+BRINGING FOOD TO EVERY NOME OF EGYPT. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Faucher-Gudin, after a photograph by
+     Béato.
+
+"I.--Hail to thee, Hâpi!--who appearest in the land and comest--to give
+life to Egypt;--thou who dost hide thy coming in darkness--in this very
+day whereon thy coming is sung,--wave, which spreadest over the orchards
+created by Ra--to give life to all them that are athirst--who refusest
+to give drink unto the desert--of the overflow of the waters of heaven;
+as soon as thou descendest,--Sibû, the earth-god, is enamoured of
+bread,--Napri, the god of grain, presents his offering,--Phtah maketh
+every workshop to prosper.
+
+"II.--Lord of the fish! as soon as he passeth the cataract--the
+birds no longer descend upon the fields;--creator of corn, maker of
+barley,--he prolongeth the existence of temples.--Do his fingers cease
+from their labours, or doth he suffer?--then are all the millions of
+beings in misery;--doth he wane in heaven? then the gods--themselves,
+and all men perish.
+
+"III.--The cattle are driven mad, and all the world--both great and
+small, are in torment!--But if, on the contrary, the prayers of men are
+heard at his rising--and (for them) he maketh himself Khnûmû,--when
+he ariseth, then the earth shouts for joy,--then are all bellies
+joyful,--each back is shaken with laughter,--and every tooth grindeth.
+
+"IV.--Bringing food, rich in sustenance,--creator of all good
+things,--lord of all seeds of life, pleasant unto his elect,--if his
+friendship is secured--he produceth fodder for the cattle,--and he
+provideth for the sacrifices of all the gods,--finer than any other
+is the incense which cometh from him;--he taketh possession of the
+two lands--and the granaries are filled, the storehouses are
+prosperous,--and the goods of the poor are multiplied.
+
+"V.--He is at the service of all prayers to answer them,--withholding
+nothing. To make boats to be that is his strength.--Stones are not
+sculptured for him--nor statues whereon the double crown is placed;--he
+is unseen;--no tribute is paid unto him and no offerings are brought
+unto him,--he is not charmed by words of mystery;--the place of his
+dwelling is unknown, nor can his shrine be found by virtue of magic
+writings.
+
+"VI.--There is no house large enough for thee,--nor any who may
+penetrate within thy heart!--Nevertheless, the generations of thy
+children rejoice in thee--for thou dost rule as a king--whose decrees
+are established for the whole earth,--who is manifest in presence of the
+people of the South and of the North,--by whom the tears are washed from
+every eye,--and who is lavish of his bounties.
+
+"VII.--Where sorrow was, there doth break forth joy--and every
+heart rejoiceth. Sovkû, the crocodile, the child of Nit, leaps for
+gladness;[*]--for the Nine gods who accompany thee have ordered all
+things,--the overflow giveth drink unto the fields--and maketh all men
+valiant; one man taketh to drink of the labour of another,--without
+charge being brought against him.[**]
+
+     * The goddess Nît, the heifer born from the midst of the
+     primordial waters, had two crocodiles as her children, which
+     are sometimes represented on the monuments as hanging from
+     her bosom. Both the part played by these animals, and the
+     reason for connecting them with the goddess, are still
+     imperfectly understood.
+
+     ** This is an allusion to the quarrels and lawsuits
+     resulting from the distribution of the water in years when
+     the Nile was poor or bad.    If the inundation is abundant,
+     disputes are at an end.
+
+"IX.--If thou dost enter in the midst of songs to go forth in the midst
+of gladness,--if they dance with joy when thou comest forth out of the
+unknown,--it is that thy heaviness is death and corruption.--And when
+thou art implored to give the water of the year,--the people of the
+Thebai'd and of the North are seen side by side,--each man with the
+tools of his trade,--none tarrieth behind his neighbour;--of all
+those who clothed themselves, no man clotheth himself (with festive
+garments)--the children of Thot, the god of riches, no longer adorn
+themselves with jewels,--nor the Nine gods, but they are in the
+night!--As soon as thou hast answered by the rising,--each one anointeth
+himself with perfumes.
+
+"X.--Establisher of true riches, desire of men,--here are seductive
+words in order that thou mayest reply;--if thou dost answer mankind
+by waves of the heavenly Ocean,--Napri, the grain-god, presents his
+offering,--all the gods adore (thee),--the birds no longer descend upon
+the hills;--though that which thy hand formeth were of gold--or in the
+shape of a brick of silver,--it is not lapis-lazuli that we eat,--but
+wheat is of more worth than precious stones.
+
+"XI.--They have begun to sing unto thee upon the harp,--they sing
+unto thee keeping time with their hands,--and the generations of thy
+children rejoice in thee, and they have filled thee with salutations of
+praise;--for it is the god of Riches who adorneth the earth,--who maketh
+barks to prosper in the sight of man--who rejoiceth the heart of women
+with child--who loveth the increase of the flocks.
+
+"XII.--When thou art risen in the city of the Prince,--then is the rich
+man filled--the small man (the poor) disdaineth the lotus,--all is solid
+and of good quality,--all herbage is for his children.--Doth he forget
+to give food?--prosperity forsaketh the dwellings,--and earth falleth
+into a wasting sickness."
+
+[Illustration: 055.jpg Libyan Mountains]
+
+The word Nile is of uncertain origin. We have it from the Greeks,
+and they took it from a people foreign to Egypt, either from the
+Phoenicians, the Khîti, the Libyans, or from people of Asia Minor. When
+the Egyptians themselves did not care to treat their river as the god
+Hâpi, they called it the sea, or the great river. They had twenty terms
+or more by which to designate the different phases which it assumed
+according to the seasons, but they would not have understood what was
+meant had one spoken to them of the Nile. The name Egypt also is part
+of the Hellenic tradition; perhaps it was taken from the temple-name of
+Memphis, Hâikûphtah, which barbarian coast tribes of the Mediterranean
+must long have had ringing in their ears as that of the most important
+and wealthiest town to be found upon the shores of their sea. The
+Egyptians called themselves Bomitû, Botû, and their country Qîmit, the
+black land. Whence came they? How far off in time are we to carry back
+the date of their arrival? The oldest monuments hitherto known scarcely
+transport us further than six thousand years, yet they are of an art so
+fine, so well determined in its main outlines, and reveal so ingeniously
+combined a system of administration, government, and religion, that we
+infer a long past of accumulated centuries behind them. It must always
+be difficult to estimate exactly the length of time needful for a race
+as gifted as were the Ancient Egyptians to rise from barbarism into a
+high degree of culture. Nevertheless, I do not think that we shall be
+misled in granting them forty or fifty centuries wherein to bring so
+complicated an achievement to a successful issue, and in placing their
+first appearance at eight or ten thousand years before our era.
+Their earliest horizon was a very limited one. Their gaze might wander
+westward over the ravine-furrowed plains of the Libyan desert without
+reaching that fabled land of Manu where the sun set every evening; but
+looking eastward from the valley, they could see the peak of Bâkhû,
+which marked the limit of regions accessible to man.
+
+Beyond these regions lay the beginnings of To-nûtri, the land of the
+gods, and the breezes passing over it were laden with its perfumes, and
+sometimes wafted them to mortals lost in the desert.[*]
+
+     * The  perfumes  and the  odoriferous woods of the Divine
+     Land were celebrated in Egypt. A traveller or hunter,
+     crossing the desert, "could not but be vividly impressed by
+     suddenly becoming aware, in the very midst of the desert, of
+     the penetrating scent of the _robul (Puliciaria undulata_,
+     Schwbine.), which once followed us throughout a day and two
+     nights, in some places without our being able to distinguish
+     whence it came; as, for instance, when we were crossing
+     tracts of country without any traces of vegetation whatever."
+     (Golenischeff).
+
+Northward, the world came to an end towards the lagoons of the Delta,
+whose inaccessible islands were believed to be the sojourning-place
+of souls after death. As regards the south, precise knowledge of it
+scarcely went beyond the defiles of Gebel Sil-sileh, where the last
+remains of the granite threshold had perhaps not altogether disappeared.
+The district beyond Gebel Silsileh, the province of Konûsit, was still
+a foreign and almost mythic country, directly connected with heaven by
+means of the cataract. Long after the Egyptians had broken through this
+restricted circle, the names of those places which had as it were marked
+out their frontiers, continued to be associated in their minds with the
+idea of the four cardinal points. Bâkhû and Manu were still the most
+frequent expressions for the extreme East and West. Nekhabit and Bûto,
+the most populous towns in the neighbourhoods of Gebel Silsileh and the
+ponds of the Delta, were set over against each other to designate South
+and North. It was within these narrow limits that Egyptian civilization
+struck root and ripened, as in a closed vessel. What were the people by
+whom it was developed, the country whence they came, the races to
+which they belonged, is to-day unknown. The majority would place their
+cradle-land in Asia,[*] but cannot agree in determining the route which
+was followed in the emigration to Africa.
+
+     * The greater number of contemporary Egyptologists, Brugsch,
+     Ebers,--Lauth, Lieblein, have rallied to this opinion, in
+     the train of E. de Rougé; but the most extreme position has
+     been taken up by Hommel, the Assyriologist, who is inclined
+     to derive Egyptian civilization entirely from the
+     Babylonian. After having summarily announced this thesis in
+     his _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_, p. 12, et seq.,
+     he has set it forth at length in a special treatise, _Der
+     Babylonische Ursprung der àgyptischen Kultur_, 1892, wherein
+     he endeavours to prove that the Heliopolitan myths, and
+     hence the whole Egyptian religion, are derived from the
+     cults of Eridû, and would make the name of the Egyptian city
+     Onû, or Anû, identical with that of _Nûn-H, Nûn_, which is
+     borne by the Chaldean.
+
+Some think that the people took the shortest road across the Isthmus
+of Suez, others give them longer peregrinations and a more complicated
+itinerary. They would have them cross the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb,
+and then the Abyssinian mountains, and, spreading northward and keeping
+along the Nile, finally settle in the Egypt of to-day. A more minute
+examination compels us to recognize that the hypothesis of an Asiatic
+origin, however attractive it may seem, is somewhat difficult
+to maintain. The bulk of the Egyptian population presents the
+characteristics of those white races which have been found established
+from all antiquity on the Mediterranean slope of the Libyan continent;
+this population is of African origin, and came to Egypt from the West
+or South-West. In the valley, perhaps, it may have met with a black race
+which it drove back or destroyed; and there, perhaps, too, it afterwards
+received an accretion of Asiatic elements, introduced by way of the
+isthmus and the marshes of the Delta. But whatever may be the origin
+of the ancestors of the Egyptians, they were scarcely settled upon the
+banks of the Nile before the country conquered, and assimilated them to
+itself, as it has never ceased to do in the case of strangers who have
+occupied it. At the time when their history begins for us, all the
+inhabitants had long formed but one people, with but one language.
+
+This language seems to be connected with the Semitic tongues by many
+of its roots. It forms its personal pronouns, whether isolated or
+suffixed, in a similar way. One of the tenses of the conjugation, and
+that the simplest and most archaic, is formed with identical affixes.
+Without insisting upon resemblances which are open to doubt, it may be
+almost affirmed that most of the grammatical processes used in Semitic
+languages are to be found in a rudimentary condition in Egyptian. One
+would say that the language of the people of Egypt and the languages of
+the Semitic races, having once belonged to the same group, had separated
+very early, at a time when the vocabulary and the grammatical system
+of the group had not as yet taken definite shape. Subject to different
+influences, the two families would treat in diverse fashion the elements
+common to both. The Semitic dialects continued to develop for centuries,
+while the Egyptian language, although earlier cultivated, stopped short
+in its growth. "If it is obvious that there was an original connexion
+between the language of Egypt and that of Asia, this connexion is
+nevertheless sufficiently remote to leave to the Egyptian race a
+distinct physiognomy." We recognize it in sculptured and painted
+portraits, as well as in thousands of mummied bodies out of subterranean
+tombs. The highest type of Egyptian was tall and slender, with a proud
+and imperious air in the carriage of his head and in his whole bearing.
+He had wide and full shoulders, well-marked and vigorous pectoral
+muscles, muscular arms, a long, fine hand, slightly developed hips, and
+sinewy legs. The detail of the knee-joint and the muscles of the calf
+are strongly marked beneath the skin; the long, thin, and low-arched
+feet are flattened out at the extremities owing to the custom of going
+barefoot. The head is rather short, the face oval, the forehead somewhat
+retreating. The eyes are wide and fully opened, the cheekbones not too
+marked, the nose fairly prominent, and either straight or aquiline. The
+mouth is long, the lips full, and lightly ridged along their outline;
+the teeth small, even, well-set, and remarkably sound; the ears are set
+high on the head. At birth the skin is white, but darkens in proportion
+to its exposure to the sun. Men are generally painted red in the
+pictures, though, as a matter of fact, there must already have been
+all the shades which we see among the present population^ from a most
+delicate, rose-tinted complexion to that of a smoke-coloured bronze.
+Women, who were less exposed to the sun, are generally painted yellow,
+the tint paler in proportion as they rise in the social scale. The hair
+was inclined to be wavy, and even to curl into little ringlets, but
+without ever turning into the wool of the negro.
+
+[Illustration: 059.jpg THE NOBLE TYPE OF EGYPTIAN. 1]
+
+     1 Statue of Rânofir in the Gîzeh Museum (Vth dynasty), after
+     a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+[Illustration: 060.jpg HEAD OF A TILEBAN MUMMY.]
+
+The beard was scanty, thick only upon the chin. Such was the highest
+type; the commoner was squat, dumpy, and heavy. Chest and shoulders seem
+to be enlarged at the expense of the pelvis and the hips, to such an
+extent as to make the want of proportion between the upper and lower
+parts of the body startling and ungraceful. The skull is long, somewhat
+retreating, and slightly flattened on the top; the features are coarse,
+and as though carved in flesh by great strokes of the blocking-out
+chisel. Small frseuated eyes, a short nose, flanked by widely distended
+nostrils, round cheeks, a square chin, thick, but not curling lips--this
+unattractive and ludicrous physiognomy, sometimes animated by an
+expression of cunning which recalls the shrewd face of an old French
+peasant, is often lighted up by gleams of gentleness and of melancholy
+good-nature. The external characteristics of these two principal types
+in the ancient monuments, in all varieties of modifications, may still
+be seen among the living. The profile copied from a Theban mummy taken
+at hazard from a necropolis of the XVIIIth dynasty, and compared with
+the likeness of a modern Luxor peasant, would almost pass for a family
+portrait. Wandering Bisharîn have inherited the type of face of a great
+noble, the contemporary of Kheops; and any peasant woman of the Delta
+may bear upon her shoulders che head of a twelfth-dynasty king. A
+citizen of Cairo, gazing with wonder at the statues of Khafra or of Seti
+I. in the Gîzeh Museum, is himself, feature for feature, the very image
+of those ancient Pharaohs, though removed from them by fifty centuries.
+
+[Illustration: 062.jpg A FELLAH WOMAN WITH THE FEATURES OF AN ANCIENT
+KING. 1]
+
+     1  The face of the woman here given was taken separately,
+     and was subsequently attached to the figure of an Egyptian
+     woman whom Naville had photographed sitting beside a
+     colossal head. The nose of the statue has been restored.
+
+Until quite recently nothing, or all but nothing, had been discovered
+which could be attributed to the primitive races of Egypt: even the
+flint weapons and implements which had been found in various places
+could not be ascribed to them with any degree of certainty, for the
+Egyptians continued to use stone long after metal was known to them.
+They made stone arrowheads, hammers, and knives, not only in the time of
+the Pharaohs, but under the Romans, and during the whole period of
+the Middle Ages, and the manufacture of them has not yet entirely died
+out.[**]
+
+     **  An entire collection of flint tools--axes, adzes,
+     knives, and sickles--mostly with wooden handles, were found
+     by Prof. Pétrie in the ruins of Kahun, at the entrance to
+     the Fayûm: these go back to the time of the twelfth dynasty,
+     more than three thousand years before our era. Mariette had
+     previously pointed out to the learned world the fact that a
+     Coptic _Reis_, Salîb of Abydos, in charge of the
+     excavations, shaved his head with a flint knife, according
+     to the custom of his youth (1820-35). I knew the man, who
+     died at over eighty years of age in 1887; he was still
+     faithful to his flint implement, while his sons and the
+     whole population of El Kharbeh were using nothing but steel
+     razors. As his scalp was scraped nearly raw by the
+     operation, he used to cover his head with fresh leaves to
+     cool the inflamed skin.
+
+These objects, and the workshops where they were made, might therefore
+be less ancient than the greater part of the inscribed monuments. But if
+so far we had found no examples of any work belonging to the first ages,
+we met in historic times with certain customs which were out of harmony
+with the general civilization of the period. A comparison of these
+customs with analogous practices of barbarous nations threw light upon
+the former, completed their meaning, and showed us at the same time the
+successive stages through which the Egyptian people had to pass before
+reaching their highest civilization. We knew, for example, that even
+as late as the Cæsars, girls belonging to noble families at Thebes were
+consecrated to the service of Amon, and were thus licensed to a life
+of immorality, which, however, did not prevent them from making rich
+marriages when age obliged them to retire from office. Theban women were
+not the only people in the world to whom such licence was granted or
+imposed upon them by law; wherever in a civilized country we see a
+similar practice, we may recognize in it an ancient custom which in the
+course of centuries has degenerated into a religious observance. The
+institution of the women of Amon is a legacy from a time when the
+practice of polyandry obtained, and marriage did not yet exist. Age and
+maternity relieved them from this obligation, and preserved them from
+those incestuous connections of which we find examples in other races.
+A union of father and daughter, however, was perhaps not wholly
+forbidden,[*] and that of brother and sister seems to have been regarded
+as perfectly right and natural; the words brother and sister possessing
+in Egyptian love-songs the same significance as lover and mistress with
+us.
+
+     * E. de Rouge held that Rameses II. married at least two of
+     his daughters, Bint Anati and Honittui; Wiedemann admits
+     that Psammetichus I. had in the same way taken to wife
+     Nitocris, who had been born to him by the Theban princess
+     Shapenuapit. The Achæmenidan kings did the same: Artaxerxes
+     married two of his own daughters.
+
+Paternity was necessarily doubtful in a community of this kind, and
+hence the tie between fathers and children was slight; there being
+no family, in the sense in which we understand the word, except as it
+centred around the mother.
+
+Maternal descent was, therefore, the only one openly acknowledged, and
+the affiliation of the child was indicated by the name of the mother
+alone. When the woman ceased to belong to all, and confined herself to
+one husband, the man reserved to himself the privilege of taking as many
+wives as he wished, or as he was able to keep, beginning with his own
+sisters. All wives did not enjoy identical rights: those born of the
+same parents as the man, or those of equal rank with himself, preserved
+their independence. If the law pronounced him the master, _nibû_, to
+whom they owed obedience and fidelity, they were mistresses of the
+house, _nîbît pirû_, as well as wives, _himitû_, and the two words of
+the title express their condition. Each of them occupied, in fact, her
+own house, _pirû_, which she had from her parents or her husband, and of
+which she was absolute mistress, _nîbît_. She lived in it and performed
+in it without constraint all a woman's duties; feeding the fire,
+grinding the corn, occupying herself in cooking and weaving, making
+clothing and perfumes, nursing and teaching her children. When her
+husband visited her, he was a guest whom she received on an equal
+footing. It appears that at the outset these various wives were placed
+under the authority of an older woman, whom they looked on as their
+mother, and who defended their rights and interests against the master;
+but this custom gradually disappeared, and in historic times we read
+of it as existing only in the families of the gods. The female singers
+consecrated to Amon and other deities, owed obedience to several
+superiors, of whom the principal (generally the widow of a king or high
+priest) was called _chief-superior of the ladies of the harem of Amon_.
+Besides these wives, there were concubines, slaves purchased or born in
+the house, prisoners of war, Egyptians of inferior class, who were the
+chattels of the man and of whom he could dispose as he wished. All the
+children of one father were legitimate, whether their mother were a wife
+or merely a concubine, but they did not all enjoy the same advantages;
+those among them who were born of a brother or sister united in
+legitimate marriage, took precedence of those whose mother was a wife of
+inferior rank or a slave. In the family thus constituted, the woman,
+to all appearances, played the principal part. Children recognized the
+parental relationship in the mother alone. The husband appears to have
+entered the house of his wives, rather than the wives to have entered
+his, and this appearance of inferiority was so marked that the Greeks
+were deceived by it. They affirmed that the woman was supreme in Egypt;
+the man at the time of marriage promised obedience to her and entered
+into a contract not to raise any objection to her commands.
+
+We had, therefore, good grounds for supposing that the first Egyptians
+were semi-savages, like those still living in Africa and America, having
+an analogous organization, and similar weapons and tools. A few lived
+in the desert, in the oasis of Libya, or in the deep valleys of the Red
+Land--Doshirit, To Doshiru--between the Nile and the sea; the poverty
+of the country fostering their native savagery. Others, settled on
+the Black Land, gradually became civilized, and we have found of late
+considerable remains of those of their generations who, if not anterior
+to the times of written records, were at least contemporary with the
+earliest kings of the first historical dynasty.
+
+[Illustration: 066.jpg NEGRO PRISONERS WEARING THE PANTHER'S SKIST AS A
+LOIN-CLOTH.]
+
+Their houses were like those of the fellahs of to-day, low huts of
+wattle daubed with puddled clay, or of bricks dried in the sun. They
+contained one room, either oblong or square, the door being the only
+aperture. Those of the richer class only were large enough to make it
+needful to support the roof by means of one or more trunks of trees,
+which did duty for columns. Earthen pots, turned by hand, flint knives
+and other implements, mats of reeds or plaited straw, two flat stones
+for grinding corn, a few pieces of wooden furniture, stools, and
+head-rests for use at night, comprised all the contents. Their ordinary
+pottery is heavy and almost devoid of ornament, but some of the finer
+kinds have been moulded and baked in wickerwork baskets, which have left
+a quaint trellis-like impression on the surface of the clay. In many
+cases the vases are bicolour, the body being of a fine smooth red,
+polished with a stone, while the neck and base are of an intense black,
+the surface of which is even more shining than that of the red part.
+Sometimes they are ornamented with patterns in white of flowers,
+palms, ostriches, gazelles, boats with undulated or broken lines, or
+geometrical figures of a very simple nature. More often the ground is
+coloured a fine yellow, and the decoration has been traced in red lines.
+Jars, saucers, double vases, flat plates, large cups, supports for
+amphorae, trays raised on a foot--in short, every kind of form is found
+in use at that remote period. The men went about nearly naked, except
+the nobles, who wore a panther's skin, sometimes thrown over the
+shoulders, sometimes drawn round the waist, and covering the lower part
+of the body, the animal's tail touching the heels behind, as we see
+later in several representations of the negroes of the Upper Nile. They
+smeared their limbs with grease or oil, and they tattooed their faces
+and bodies, at least in part; but in later times this practice was
+retained by the lower classes only. On the other hand, the custom of
+painting the face was never given up. To complete their toilet, it was
+necessary to accentuate the arch of the eyebrow with a line of kohl
+(antimony powder). A similar black line surrounded and prolonged the
+oval of the eye to the middle of the temple, a layer of green coloured
+the under lid, and ochre and carmine enlivened the tints of the cheeks
+and lips. The hair, plaited, curled, oiled, and plastered with grease,
+formed an erection which was as complicated in the case of the man as in
+that of the woman.
+
+[Illustration: 068.jpg NOTABLE WEARING THE LARGE CLOAK OVER THE LEFT
+SHOULDER. 1; AND PRIEST WEARING THE PANTHER'S SKIN ACROSS THE BREAST. 2]
+
+     1 Wooden statue in the Gîzeh Museum (IVth dynasty), drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béchard.
+
+     2 Statue of the second prophet of Amon, Aa-nen, in the Turin
+     Museum (XVIIIth dynasty).
+
+Should the hair be too short, a black or blue wig, dressed with much
+skill, was substituted for it; ostrich feathers waved on the heads
+of warriors, and a large lock, flattened behind the right ear,
+distinguished the military or religious chiefs from their subordinates.
+When the art of weaving became common, a belt and loin-cloth of white
+linen replaced the leathern garment. Fastened round the waist, but so
+low as to leave the navel uncovered, the loin-cloth frequently reached
+to the knee; the hinder part was frequently drawn between the legs and
+attached in front to the belt, thus forming a kind of drawers. Tails
+of animals and wild beast's skin were henceforth only the insignia of
+authority with which priests and princes adorned themselves on great
+days and at religious ceremonies. The skin was sometimes carelessly
+thrown over the left shoulder and swayed with the movement of the body;
+sometimes it was carefully adjusted over one shoulder and under the
+other, so as to bring the curve of the chest into prominence. The head
+of the animal, skilfully prepared and enlivened by large eyes of enamel,
+rested on the shoulder or fell just below the waist of the wearer; the
+paws, with the claws attached, hung down over the thighs; the spots of
+the skin were manipulated so as to form five-pointed stars. On going
+out-of-doors, a large wrap was thrown over all; this covering was either
+smooth or hairy, similar to that in which the Nubians and Abyssinians of
+the present day envelop themselves. It could be draped in various
+ways; transversely over the left shoulder like the fringed shawl of the
+Chaldeans, or hanging straight from both shoulders like a mantle.[**]
+
+     ** This costume, to which Egyptologists have not given
+     sufficient attention, is frequently represented on the
+     monuments. Besides the two statues reproduced above, I may
+     cite those of Uahibri and of Thoth-nofir in the Louvre, and
+     the Lady Nofrit in the Gîzeh Museum. Thothotpû in his tomb
+     wears this mantle. Khnumhotpû and several of his workmen are
+     represented in it at Beni-Hasan, as also one of the princes
+     of Elephantine in the recently discovered tombs, besides
+     many Egyptians of all classes in the tombs  of  Thebes  (a
+     good  example  is  in  the tomb  of Harmhabi).    The reason
+     why it does not figure more often is, in the first place,
+     that the Egyptian artists experienced actual difficulty in
+     representing the folds of its drapery, although these were
+     simple compared with the complicated arrangement of the
+     Roman toga; finally, the wall-paintings mostly portray
+     either interior scenes, or agricultural labour, or the work
+     of various trades, or episodes of war, or religious
+     ceremonies, in all of which the mantle plays no part. Every
+     Egyptian peasant, however, possessed his own, and it was in
+     constant use in his daily life.
+
+In fact, it did duty as a cloak, sheltering the wearer from the sun
+or from the rain, from the heat or from the cold. They never sought to
+transform it into a luxurious garment of state, as was the case in later
+times with the Roman toga, whose amplitude secured a certain dignity of
+carriage, and whose folds, carefully adjusted beforehand, fell around
+the body with studied grace. The Egyptian mantle when not required was
+thrown aside and folded up. The material being fine and soft it occupied
+but a small space and was reduced to a long thin roll; the ends being
+then fastened together, it was slung over the shoulder and round the
+body like a cavalry cloak.[*]
+
+     * Many draughtsmen, ignorant of what they had to represent,
+     have made incorrect copies of the manner in which this cloak
+     was worn; but examples of it are numerous, although until
+     now attention has not been called to them. The following are
+     a few instances taken at random of the way in which it was
+     used: Pepi I., fighting against the nomads of Sinai, has the
+     cloak, but with the two ends passed through the belt of his
+     loin-cloth; at Zawyet el-Maiyitîn, Khunas, killing birds
+     with the boomerang from his boat, wears it, but simply
+     thrown over the left shoulder, with the two extremities
+     hanging free. Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan, the Khrihdbi, the
+     overseers, or the peasants, all have it rolled and slung
+     round them; the Prince of el-Bersheh wears it like a mantle
+     in folds over the two shoulders. If it is objected that the
+     material could not be reduced to such small dimensions as
+     those represented in these drawings of what I believe to be
+     the Egyptian cloak, I way cite our cavalry capes, when
+     rolled and slung, as an instance of what good packing will
+     do in reducing volume.
+
+[Illustration: 070.jpg a dignitary wrapped in his large cloak. 1]
+
+     1 Statue of Khiti in the Gîzeh Museum (XIIth and XIIIth
+     dynasties), drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+Travellers, shepherds, all those whose occupations called them to the
+fields, carried it as a bundle at the ends of their sticks; once arrived
+at the scene of their work, they deposited it in a corner with their
+provisions until they required it. The women were at first contented
+with a loin-cloth like that of the men; it was enlarged and lengthened
+till it reached the ankle below and the bosom above, and became a
+tightly fitting garment, with two bands over the shoulders, like braces,
+to keep it in place. The feet were not always covered; on certain
+occasions, however, sandals of coarse leather, plaited straw, split
+reed, or even painted wood, adorned those shapely Egyptian feet, which,
+to suit our taste, should be a little shorter.
+
+[Illustration: 072.jpg COSTUME OF EGYPTIAN WOMAN, SPINNING. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the spinning-women at
+     the Paris Exhibition of 1889. It was restored from the
+     paintings in the tomb of Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan.
+
+Both men and women loved ornaments, and covered their necks, breasts,
+arms, wrists, and ankles with many rows of necklaces and bracelets. The
+bracelets were made of elephant ivory, mother-of-pearl, or even flint,
+very cleverly perforated. The necklaces were composed of strings of
+pierced shells,[**] interspersed with seeds and little pebbles,
+either sparkling or of unusual shapes.[***] Subsequently imitations
+in terra-cotta replaced the natural shells, and precious stones were
+substituted for pebbles, as were also beads of enamel, either round,
+pear-shaped, or cylindrical: the necklaces were terminated and a uniform
+distance maintained between the rows of beads, by several slips of wood,
+bone, ivory, porcelain, or terra-cotta, pierced with holes, through
+which ran the threads.
+
+     **  The burying-places of Abydos, especially the most
+     ancient, have furnished us with millions of shells, pierced
+     and threaded as necklaces; they all belong to the species of
+     cowries used as money in Africa at the present day.
+
+     ***  Necklaces of seeds have been found in the tombs of
+     Abydos, Thebes, and Gebelên.    Of  these  Schweinfurth
+     has  identified,   among others,   the _Cassia absus_,  "a
+     weed of the Soudan whose seeds are sold in the drug bazaar
+     at Cairo and Alexandria under the name of _shishn_, as a
+     remedy, which is in great request among the natives, for
+     ophthalmia." For the necklaces of pebbles, cf. Maspeeo,
+     Guide du visiteur, pp. 270, 271, No. 4129. A considerable
+     number of these pebbles, particularly those of strange
+     shape, or presenting a curious combination of colours, must
+     have been regarded as amulets or fetishes by their Egyptian
+     owners; analogous cases, among other peoples, have been
+     pointed out by E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p.
+     189.
+
+[Illustration: 073.jpg MAN WEARING WIG AND NECKLACES.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a portrait of Pharaoh Seti I.
+     of the XIXth dynasty: the lower part of the necklace has
+     been completed.
+
+Weapons, at least among the nobility, were an indispensable part of
+costume. Most of them were for hand-to-hand fighting: sticks, clubs,
+lances furnished with a sharpened bone or stone point, axes and daggers
+of flint,[*] sabres and clubs of bone or wood variously shaped, pointed
+or rounded at the end, with blunt or sharp blades,--inoffensive enough
+to look at, but, wielded by a vigorous hand, sufficient to break an arm,
+crush in the ribs, or smash a skull with all desirable precision.[**]
+The plain or triple curved bow was the favourite weapon for attack at
+a distance,[***] but in addition to this there were the sling, the
+javelin, and a missile almost forgotten nowadays, the boomerang, we have
+no proof however, that the Egyptians handled the boomerang[****] with
+the skill of the Australians, or that they knew how to throw it so as to
+bring it back to its point of departure.[v]
+
+     *  In several museums, notably at Leyden, we find Egyptian
+     axes of stone, particularly of serpentine, both rough and
+     polished.
+
+     **  In primitive times the bone of an animal served as a
+     club.    This is proved by the shape of the object held in
+     the hand in the sign and the hieroglyph which is the
+     determinative in writing for all ideas   of violence or
+     brute force, comes down to us from a time when the principal
+     weapon was the club, or a bone serving as a club.
+
+     ***  For the two principal shapes of the bow, see Lepsius,
+     Der Bogen in der Hieroglypliik (Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 79-
+     88). From the earliest times the sign m£ portrays the
+     soldier equipped with the bow and bundle of arrows; the
+     quiver was of Asiatic origin, and was not adopted until much
+     later. In the contemporary texts of the first dynasties, the
+     idea of weapons is conveyed by the bow, arrow, and club or
+     axe.
+
+     ****  The boomerang is still used by certain tribes of the
+     Nile valley.    It is portrayed in the most ancient tombs,
+     and every museum possesses examples, varying in shape.
+     Besides the ordinary boomerang, the Egyptians used one which
+     ended in a knob, and another of semicircular shape: this
+     latter, reproduced in miniature in cornelian or in red
+     jasper, served as an amulet, and was placed on the mummy to
+     furnish the deceased in the other world with a fighting or
+     hunting weapon.
+
+     v  The Australian boomerang is much larger than the Egyptian
+     one; it is about a yard in length, two inches in width, and
+     three sixteenths of an inch in thickness. For the manner of
+     handling it, and what can be done with it, see Lubbock,
+     Prehistoric Man, pp. 402, 403.
+
+[Illustration: 074.jpg the boomerang and FIGHTING bow. 2 ]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of
+     Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan.
+
+[Illustration: 075.jpg VOTIVE AXE. 3]
+
+     3  The blade is of bronze, and is attached to the wooden
+     handle by interlacing thongs of leather (Gizeh Museum).
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey.
+
+Such was approximately the most ancient equipment as far as we can
+ascertain; but at a very early date copper and iron were known in
+Egypt.[**] Long before historic times, the majority of the weapons in
+wood were replaced by those of metal,--daggers, sabres, hatchets, which
+preserved, however, the shape of the old wooden instruments.
+
+     **  Metals were introduced into Egypt in very ancient times,
+     since the class of blacksmiths is associated with the
+     worship of Horus of Edfû, and appears in the account of the
+     mythical wars of that God. The earliest tools we possess, in
+     copper or bronze, date from the IVth dynasty: pieces of iron
+     have been found from time to time in the masonry of the
+     Great Pyramid. Mons Montélius has again and again contested
+     the authenticity of these discoveries, and he thinks that
+     iron was not known in Egypt till a much later period.
+
+Those wooden weapons which were retained, were used for hunting, or were
+only brought out on solemn occasions when tradition had to be respected.
+The war-baton became the commander's wand of authority, and at last
+degenerated into the walking-stick of the rich or noble.
+
+[Illustration: 076.jpg KING HOLDING THE BATON. 3]
+
+     3  Bas-relief in the temple of Luxor, from a photograph
+     taken by Insinger in 1886.
+
+The club at length represented merely the rank of a chieftain,[*] while
+the crook and the wooden-handled mace, with its head of ivory, diorite,
+granite, or white stone, the favourite weapons of princes, continued to
+the last the most revered insignia of royalty.[**]
+
+Life was passed in comparative ease and pleasure. Of the ponds left in
+the open country by the river at its fall, some dried up more or less
+quickly during the winter, leaving on the soil an immense quantity
+of fish, the possession of which birds and wild beasts disputed with
+man.[***]
+
+     *  The wooden club most commonly represented is the usual
+     insignia of a nobleman. Several kinds of clubs, somewhat
+     difficult for us moderns to distinguish, yet bearing
+     different names, formed a part of funereal furniture.
+
+     **  The crook is the sceptre of a prince, a Pharaoh, or a
+     god; the white mace has still the value apparently of a
+     weapon in the hands of the king who brandishes it over a
+     group of prisoners or over an ox which he is sacrificing to
+     a divinity. Most museums possess specimens of the stone
+     heads of these maces, but until lately their use was not
+     known. I had several placed in the Boulak Museum. It already
+     possessed a model of one entirely of wood.
+
+     ***  Cf. the description of these pools given by Geoffroy-
+     Saint-Hilaire in speaking of the fahaka. Even at the present
+     day the jackals come down from the mountains in the night,
+     and regale themselves with the fish left on the ground by
+     the gradual drying up of these ponds.
+
+[Illustration: 077.jpg FISHING IN THE MARSHES]
+
+Other pools, however, remained till the returning inundation, as so many
+_vivaria_ in which the fish were preserved for dwellers on the banks.
+Fishing with the harpoon, made either of stone or of metal, with the
+line, with a net or with traps, were all methods of fishing known and
+used by the Egyptians from early times. Where the ponds failed, the
+neighbouring Nile furnished them with inexhaustible supplies. Standing
+in light canoes, or rather supported by a plank on bundles of reeds
+bound together, they ventured into mid-stream, in spite of the danger
+arising from the ever-present hippopotamus; or they penetrated up
+the canals amid a thicket of aquatic plants, to bring down with the
+boomerang the birds which found covert there.
+
+[Illustration: 078.jpg HUNTING IN THE MARSHES: ENCOUNTERING AND SPEARING
+A HIPPOPOTAMUS. 1]
+
+     1 Tomb of Ti. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Dûmichen,
+     Besultate, vol. ii. pl. x.
+
+The fowl and fish which could not be eaten fresh, were dried, salted,
+or smoked, and kept for a rainy day. Like the river, the desert had its
+perils and its resources. Only too frequently, the lion, the leopard,
+the panther, and other large felidse were met with there.
+
+[Illustration: 079.jpg HUNTING IN THE DESERT: BULL, LION, AND ORYX
+PIERCED WITH ARROWS. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting by Beni-Hasan,
+     Lepsius, Denhm., ii. 136.
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpû.
+     The dogs on the upper level are of hyenoid type, those on
+     the lower are Abyssinian greyhounds.
+
+The nobles, like the Pharaohs of later times, deemed it as their
+privilege or duty to stalk and destroy these animals, pursuing them even
+to their dens. The common people preferred attacking the gazelle, the
+oryx, the mouflon sheep, the ibex, the wild ox, and the ostrich, but did
+not disdain more humble game, such as the porcupine and long-eared hare:
+nondescript packs, in which the jackal and the hyena ran side by side
+with the wolf-dog and the lithe Abyssinian greyhound, scented and
+retrieved for their master the prey which he had pierced with his
+arrows. At times a hunter, returning with the dead body of the mother,
+would be followed by one of her young; or a gazelle, but slightly
+wounded, would be taken to the village and healed of its hurt.
+
+[Illustration: 080.jpg CATCHING ANIMALS WITH THE BOLA. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpû.
+     Above are seen two porcupines, the foremost of which,
+     emerging from his hole, has seized a grasshopper.
+
+Such animals by daily contact with man, were gradually tamed, and
+formed about his dwelling a motley flock, kept partly for his pleasure
+and mostly for his profit, and becoming in case of necessity a ready
+stock of provisions.[**]
+
+     **  In the same way, before the advent of Europeans, the
+     half-civilized tribes of North America used to keep about
+     their huts whole flocks of different animals, which were
+     tame, but not domesticated.
+
+Efforts were therefore made to enlarge this flock, and the wish to
+procure animals without seriously injuring them, caused the Egyptians
+to use the net for birds and the lasso and the _bola_ for
+quadrupeds,[*]--weapons less brutal than the arrow and the javelin. The
+_bola_ was made by them of a single rounded stone, attached to a strap
+about five yards in length. The stone once thrown, the cord twisted
+round the legs, muzzle, or neck of the animal pursued, and by the
+attachment thus made the pursuer, using all his strength, was enabled to
+bring the beast down half strangled. The lasso has no stone attached
+to it, but a noose prepared beforehand, and the skill of the hunter
+consists in throwing it round the neck of his victim while running.
+They caught indifferently, without distinction of size or kind, all
+that chance brought within their reach. The daily chase kept up these
+half-tamed flocks of gazelles, wild goats, water-bucks, stocks, and
+ostriches, and their numbers are reckoned by hundreds on the monuments
+of the ancient empire.[**]
+
+     *  Hunting with the bola is constantly represented in the
+     paintings both of the Memphite and Theban periods. Wilkinson
+     has confounded it with lasso-hunting, and his mistake has
+     been reproduced by other Egyptologists. Lasso-hunting is
+     seen in Lepsius, Denhn., ii. 96, in Dùmichen, _resultate_,
+     vol. i. pl. viii., and particularly in the numerous
+     sacrificial scenes where the king is supposed to be
+     capturing the bull of the north or south, previous to
+     offering it to the god.
+
+     **  As the tombs of the ancient empire show us numerous
+     flocks of gazelles, antelopes, and storks, feeding under the
+     care of shepherds, Fr. Lenormant concluded that the
+     Egyptians of early times had succeeded in domesticating some
+     species, nowadays rebels to restraint. It is my belief that
+     the animals represented were tamed, but not domesticated,
+     and were the result of great hunting expeditions in the
+     desert. The facts which Lenormant brought forward to support
+     his theory may be used against him. For instance, the fawn
+     of the gazelle nourished by its mother does not prove that
+     it was bred in captivity; the gazelle may have been caught
+     before calving, or just after the birth of its young. The
+     fashion of keeping flocks of animals taken from the desert
+     died out between the XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties.    At the
+     time of the new empire, they had only one or two solitary
+     animals as pets for women or children, the mummies of which
+     were sometimes buried by the side of their mistresses.
+
+Experience alone taught the hunter to distinguish between those species
+from which he could draw profit, and others whose wildness made them
+impossible to domesticate. The subjection of the most useful kinds had
+not been finished when the historic period opened.
+
+[Illustration: 082.jpg A SWINEHERD AND HIS PIGS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in a Theban tomb
+     of the XVIIIth dynasty.
+
+The ass, the sheep, and the goat were already domesticated, but the pig
+was still out in the marshes in a semi-wild state, under the care of
+special herdsmen,[*] and the religious rites preserved the remembrance
+of the times in which the ox was so little tamed, that in order to
+capture while grazing the animals needed for sacrifice or for slaughter,
+it was necessary to use the lasso.[***]
+
+     *  The hatred of the Egyptians for the pig (Herodotus, ii.
+     47) is attributed to mythological motives. Lippert thinks
+     this antipathy did not exist in Egypt in primitive times. At
+     the outset the pig would have been the principal food of the
+     people; then, like the dog in other regions, it must have
+     been replaced at the table by animals of a higher order--
+     gazelles, sheep, goats, oxen--and would have thus fallen
+     into contempt. To the excellent reasons given by Lippert
+     could be added others drawn from the study of the Egyptian
+     myths, to prove that the pig has often been highly esteemed.
+     Thus, Isis is represented, down to late times, under the
+     form of a sow, and a sow, whether followed or not by her
+     young is one of the amulets placed in the tomb with the
+     deceased, to secure for him the protection of the goddess.
+
+     ***  Mariette, Abydos (vol. i. pl. 48 b, 53).    To prevent
+     the animal from evading the lasso and escaping during the
+     sacrifice, its right hind foot was fastened to its left
+     horn.
+
+Europeans are astonished to meet nowadays whole peoples who make use
+of herbs and plants whose flavour and properties are nauseating to
+us: these are mostly so many legacies from a remote past; for example,
+castor-oil, with which the Berbers rub their limbs, and with which the
+fellahîn of the Saïd flavour their bread and vegetables, was preferred
+before all others by the Egyptians of the Pharaonic age for
+anointing the body and for culinary use.[*] They had begun by eating
+indiscriminately every kind of fruit which the country produced. Many
+of these, when their therapeutic virtues had been learned by experience,
+were gradually banished as articles of food, and their use restricted to
+medicine; others fell into disuse, and only reappeared at sacrifices, or
+at funeral feasts; several varieties continue to be eaten to the
+present time--the acid fruits of the nabeca and of the carob tree,
+the astringent figs of the sycamore, the insipid pulp of the dam-palm,
+besides those which are pleasant to our Western palates, such as the
+common fig and the date. The vine flourished, at least in Middle and
+Lower Egypt; from time immemorial the art of making wine from it was
+known, and even the most ancient monuments enumerate half a dozen famous
+brands, red or white.[**]
+
+     *  I have often been obliged, from politeness, when dining
+     with the native agents appointed by the European powers at
+     Port Saïd, to eat salads and mayonnaise sauces flavoured
+     with castor-oil; the taste was not so disagreeable as might
+     be at first imagined.
+
+     **  The four kinds of canonical wine, brought respectively
+     from the north, south, east, and west of the country, formed
+     part of the official repast and of the wine-cellar of the
+     deceased from remote antiquity.
+
+Vetches, lupins, beans, chick-peas, lentils, onions, fenugreek,[*] the
+bamiâ,[**] the meloukhia,[***] the arum colocasia, all grew wild in the
+fields, and the river itself supplied its quota of nourishing plants.
+
+     *  All these species have been found in the tombs and
+     identified by savants in archaeological botany--Kunth,
+     Unger, Schweinfurth (Loret, _La Flore Pharaonique_, pp. 17,
+     40, 42, 43, Nos. 33, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106).
+
+     **  The bamiâ, _Hibiscus esculentus_, L., is a plant of the
+     family of the Malvaceae, having a fruit of five divisions,
+     covered with prickly hairs, and pontaining round, white,
+     soft seeds, slightly sweet, but astringent in taste, and
+     very mucilaginous.    It figures on the monuments of
+     Pharaonic times.
+
+     ***  The meloukhia, _Corchorus Olitorius_, L., is a plant
+     belonging to the Tilliacese, which is chopped up and cooked
+     much the same as endive is with us, but which few Europeans
+     can eat with pleasure, owing to the mucilage it contains.
+     Theophrastus says it was celebrated for its bitterness; it
+     was used as food, however, in the Greek town of Alexandria.
+
+[Illustration: 084.jpg THE EGYPTIAN LOTUS. 4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from the _Description de
+     l'Egypte_, Histoire Naturelle, pl. 61.
+
+Two of the species of lotus which grew in the Nile, the white and the
+blue, have seed-vessels similar to those of the poppy: the capsules
+contain small grains of the size of millet-seed. The fruit of the pink
+lotus "grows on a different stalk from that of the flower, and springs
+directly from the root; it resembles a honeycomb in form," or, to take
+a more prosaic simile, the rose of a watering-pot. The upper part has
+twenty or thirty cavities, "each containing a seed as big as an olive
+stone, and pleasant to eat either fresh or dried." This is what the
+ancients called the bean of Egypt. "The yearly shoots of the papyrus are
+also gathered. After pulling them up in the marshes, the points are cut
+off and rejected, the part remaining being about a cubit in length. It
+is eaten as a delicacy and is sold in the markets, but those who are
+fastidious partake of it only after baking." Twenty different kinds of
+grain and fruits, prepared by crushing between two stones, are kneaded
+and baked to furnish cakes or bread; these are often mentioned in the
+texts as cakes of nabeca, date cakes, and cakes of figs. Lily loaves,
+made from the roots and seeds of the lotus, were the delight of the
+gourmand, and appear on the tables of the kings of the XIXth dynasty.[*]
+
+     * _Tiû_, which is the most ancient word for bread, appears
+     in early times to have been used for every kind of paste,
+     whether made with fruits or grain; the more modern word âqû
+     applies specially to bread made from cereals. The lily
+     loaves are mentioned in the Papyrus Anastasi, No. 4, p. 14.
+     1. 1.
+
+Bread and cakes made of cereals formed the habitual food of the people.
+Durrah is of African origin; it is the "grain of the South" of the
+inscriptions. On the other hand, it is supposed that wheat and six-rowed
+barley came from the region of the Euphrates. Egypt was among the first
+to procure and cultivate them.[*] The soil there is so kind to man, that
+in many places no agricultural toil is required.
+
+     *  The position which wheat and barley occupy in the lists
+     of offerings, proves the antiquity of their existence in
+     Egypt. Mariette found specimens of barley in the tombs of
+     the Ancient Empire at Saqqarah.
+
+[Illustration: 086.jpg THE EGYPTIAN HOE.2]
+
+     2  Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti; drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+As soon as the water of the Nile retires, the ground is sown without
+previous preparation, and the grain, falling straight into the mud,
+grows as vigorously as in the best-ploughed furrows. Where the earth is
+hard it is necessary to break it up, but the extreme simplicity of the
+instruments with which this was done shows what a feeble resistance it
+offered. For a long time the hoe sufficed. It was composed either of a
+large stone tied to a wooden handle, or was made of two pieces of wood
+of unequal length, united at one of their extremities, and held together
+towards the middle by a slack cord: the plough, when first invented was
+but a slightly enlarged hoe, drawn by oxen. The cultivation of cereals,
+once established on the banks of the Nile, developed, from earliest
+times, to such a degree as to supplant all else: hunting, fishing,
+the rearing of cattle, occupied but a secondary place compared with
+agriculture, and Egypt became, that which she still remains, a vast
+granary of wheat. The part of the valley first cultivated was from Gebel
+Silsileh to the apex of the Delta.[*]
+
+     *  This was the tradition of all the ancients. Herodotus
+     related that, according to the Egyptians, the whole of
+     Egypt, with the exception of the Theban nome, was a vast
+     swamp previous to the time of Menés. Aristotle adds that the
+     Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the area now occupied by the
+     Delta, formed one sea. Cf. pp. 3-5 of this volume, on the
+     formation of the Delta.
+
+[Illustration: 087.jpg PLOUGHING. 2]
+
+     2  Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti; drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+Between the Libyan and Arabian ranges it presents a slightly convex
+surface, furrowed lengthways by a depression, in the bottom of which
+the Nile is gathered and enclosed when the inundation is over. In the
+summer, as soon as the river had risen higher than the top of its
+banks, the water rushed by the force of gravity towards the lower lands,
+hollowing in its course long channels, some of which never completely
+dried up, even when the Nile reached its lowest level.[*] Cultivation
+was easy in the neighbourhood of these natural reservoirs, but
+everywhere else the movements of the river were rather injurious than
+advantageous to man. The inundation scarcely ever covered the higher
+ground in the valley, which therefore remained unproductive; it flowed
+rapidly over the lands of medium elevation, and moved so sluggishly in
+the hollows that they became weedy and stagnant pools.[**]
+
+     * The whole description of the damage which can be done by
+     the Nile in places where the inundation is not regulated, is
+     borrowed from Linant de Bellefonds, _Mémoire sur les
+     principaux travaux d'utilité publique_, p. 3.
+
+     ** This physical configuration of the country explains the
+     existence at a very early date of those gigantic serpents
+     which I have already mentioned.
+
+[Illustration: 089.jpg AN EGYPTIAN SAKIÂ (WELL) SHOWING METHOD OF
+PROCURING WATER FOR IRRIGATION.]
+
+In any year the portion not watered by the river was invaded by the
+sand: from the lush vegetation of a hot country, there was but one
+step to absolute aridity. At the present day an ingeniously established
+system of irrigation allows the agriculturist to direct and distribute
+the overflow according to his needs. From Gebel Ain to the sea, the Nile
+and its principal branches are bordered by long dykes, which closely
+follow the windings of the river and furnish sufficiently stable
+embankments. Numerous canals lead off to right and left, directed more
+or less obliquely towards the confines of the valley; they are divided
+at intervals by fresh dykes, starting at the one side from the river,
+and ending on the other either at the Bahr Yusuf or at the rising of
+the desert. Some of these dykes protect one district only, and consist
+merely of a bank of earth; others command a large extent of territory,
+and a breach in them would entail the ruin of an entire province. These
+latter are sometimes like real ramparts, made of crude brick carefully
+cemented; a few, as at Qosheish, have a core of hewn stones, which later
+generations have covered with masses of brickwork, and strengthened with
+constantly renewed buttresses of earth. They wind across the plain with
+many unexpected and apparently aimless turns; on closer examination,
+however, it may be seen that this irregularity is not to be attributed
+to ignorance or caprice. Experience had taught the Egyptians the art
+of picking out, upon the almost imperceptible relief of the soil, the
+easiest lines to use against the inundation: of these they have followed
+carefully the sinuosities, and if the course of the dykes appears
+singular, it is to be ascribed to the natural configuration of the
+ground. Subsidiary embankments thrown up between the principal ones,
+and parallel to the Nile, separate the higher ground bordering the river
+from the low lands on the confines of the valley; they divide the larger
+basins into smaller divisions of varying area, in which the irrigation
+is regulated by means of special trenches. As long as the Nile
+is falling, the dwellers on its banks leave their canals in free
+communication with it; but they dam them up towards the end of the
+winter, just before the return of the inundation, and do not reopen them
+till early in August, when the new flood is at its height. The waters
+then flowing in by the trenches are arrested by the nearest transverse
+dyke and spread over the fields. When they have stood there long enough
+to saturate the ground, the dyke is pierced, and they pour into the next
+basin until they are stopped by a second dyke, which in its turn forces
+them again to spread out on either side. This operation is renewed from
+dyke to dyke, till the valley soon becomes a series of artificial ponds,
+ranged one above another, and flowing one into another from Grebel
+Silsileh to the apex of the Delta. In autumn, the mouth of each ditch is
+dammed up anew, in order to prevent the mass of water from flowing back
+into the stream. The transverse dykes, which have been cut in various
+places, are also repaired, and the basins become completely landlocked,
+separated by narrow causeways. In some places, the water thus imprisoned
+is so shallow that it is soon absorbed by the soil; in others, it is so
+deep, that after it has been kept in for several weeks, it is necessary
+to let it run off into a neighbouring depression, or straight into the
+river itself.
+
+[Illustration: 091.jpg BOATMEN FIGHTING ON A CANAL COMMUNICATING WITH
+THE NILE. 1]
+
+     1 Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti;   drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from  a photograph by E. Brugsch-Bey.
+
+History has left us no account of the vicissitudes of the struggle in
+which the Egyptians were engaged with the Nile, nor of the time expended
+in bringing it to a successful issue. Legend attributes the idea of the
+system and its partial working out to the god Osiris: then Menés, the
+first mortal king, is said to have made the dyke of Qosheish, on which
+depends the prosperity of the Delta and Middle Egypt, and the fabulous
+Mceris is supposed to have extended the blessings of the irrigation to
+the Fayûm. In reality, the regulation of the inundation and the making
+of cultivable land are the work of unrecorded generations who peopled
+the valley. The kings of the historic period had only to maintain and
+develop certain points of what had already been done, and Upper Egypt
+is to this day chequered by the network of waterways with which its
+earliest inhabitants covered it. The work must have begun simultaneously
+at several points, without previous agreement, and, as it were,
+instinctively. A dyke protecting a village, a canal draining or watering
+some small province, demanded the efforts of but few individuals; then
+the dykes would join one another, the canals would be prolonged till
+they met others, and the work undertaken by chance would be improved,
+and would spread with the concurrence of an ever-increasing population.
+What happened at the end of last century, shows us that the system grew
+and was developed at the expense of considerable quarrels and bloodshed.
+The inhabitants of each district carried out the part of the work most
+conducive to their own interest, seizing the supply of water, keeping
+it and discharging it at pleasure, without considering whether they
+were injuring their neighbours by depriving them of their supply or
+by flooding them; hence arose perpetual strife and fighting. It became
+imperative that the rights of the weaker should be respected, and that
+the system of distribution should be co-ordinated, for the country to
+accept a beginning at least of social organization analogous to that
+which it acquired later: the Nile thus determined the political as well
+as the physical constitution of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 092.jpg A GREAT EGYPTIAN LORD, TI, AND HIS WIFE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûmichen,
+     _Resultate_, vol. ii. pl. vit
+
+The country was divided among communities, whose members were supposed
+to be descended from the same seed (_paît_) and to belong to the
+same family (_pâîtû_): the chiefs of them were called _ropâîtû_, the
+guardians, or pastors of the family, and in later times their name
+became a title applicable to the nobility in general. Families combined
+and formed groups of various importance under the authority of a head
+chief--_ropâîtû-hâ_. They were, in fact, hereditary lords, dispensing
+justice, levying taxes in kind on their subordinates, reserving to
+themselves the redistribution of land, leading their men to, battle, and
+sacrificing to the gods.[*] The territories over which they exercised
+authority formed small states, whose boundaries even now, in some
+places, can be pointed out with certainty. The principality of the
+Terebinth[**] occupied the very heart of Egypt, where the valley is
+widest, and the course of the Nile most advantageously disposed
+by nature--a country well suited to be the cradle of an infant
+civilization. Siaût (Siût), the capital, is built almost at the foot
+of the Libyan range, on a strip of land barely a mile in width, which
+separates the river from the hills. A canal surrounds it on three sides,
+and makes, as it were, a natural ditch about its walls; during
+the inundation it is connected with the mainland only by narrow
+causeways--shaded with mimosas--and looking like a raft of verdure
+aground in the current.[***]
+
+     *  These prerogatives were still exercised by the princes of
+     the nomes under the Middle and New Empires; they only
+     enjoyed them then by the good will of the reigning
+     sovereign.
+
+     **  The Egyptian word for the tree which gives its name to
+     this principality is _atf, iatf, iôtf_: it is only by a
+     process of elimination that I have come to identify it with
+     the _Pistacia Terebinthus_, L., which furnished the
+     Egyptians with the scented resin _snûtir_.
+
+     ***  Boudier's drawing, reproduced on p. 31, and taken from
+     a photograph by Beato, gives most faithfully the aspect
+     presented by the plain and the modern town of Siout during
+     the inundation.
+
+[Illustration: 094.jpg NOMES OF MIDDLE EGYPT]
+
+The site is as happy as it is picturesque; not only does the town
+command the two arms of the river, opening or closing the waterway at
+will, but from time immemorial the most frequented of the routes into
+Central Africa has terminated at its gates, bringing to it the commerce
+of the Soudan. It held sway, at the outset, over both banks, from range
+to range, northward as far as Deyrût, where the true Bahr Yusuf leaves
+the Nile, and southward to the neighbourhood of Gebel Sheikh Haridi. The
+extent and original number of the other principalities is not so easily
+determined.
+
+The most important, to the north of Siût, were those of the Hare and the
+Oleander. The principality of the Hare never reached the dimensions
+of that of its neighbour the Terebinth, but its chief town was Khmûnû,
+whose antiquity was so remote, that a universally accepted tradition
+made it the scene of the most important acts of creation.[*] That of the
+Oleander, on the contrary, was even larger than that of the Terebinth,
+and from Hininsû, its chief governor ruled alike over the marshes of the
+Fayûm and the plains of Beni-Suef.[**] To the south, Apû on the right
+bank governed a district so closely shut in between a bend of the Nile
+and two spurs of the range, that its limits have never varied much since
+ancient times. Its inhabitants were divided in their employment between
+weaving and the culture of cereals. From early times they possessed the
+privilege of furnishing clothing to a large part of Egypt, and their
+looms, at the present day, still make those checked or striped
+"melayahs" which the fellah women wear over their long blue tunics.[***]
+
+     *  Khmûnû, the present Ashmûneîn, is the Hermopolis of the
+     Greeks, the town of the god Thot.
+
+     **  Hininsû is the _Heraecleopolis Magna_ of the Greeks, the
+     present Henassieh, called also Ahnas-el-Medineh. The
+     Egyptian word for the tree which gives its name to this
+     principality, is Nârît. Loret has shown that this tree,
+     _Nârît_, is the oleander.
+
+     ***  Apû was the Panopolis or Chemmis of the Greeks, the
+     town of the god Mîn or ithyphallic Khimû. Its manufactures
+     of linen are mentioned by Strabo; the majority of the
+     beautiful Coptic woven fabrics and embroideries which have
+     been brought to Europe lately, come from the necropolis of
+     the Arab period at Apû.
+
+Beyond Apû, Thinis, the Girgeh of the Arabs, situate on both banks of
+the river, rivalled Khmûnû in antiquity and Siût in wealth: its plains
+still produce the richest harvests and feed the most numerous herds of
+sheep and oxen in the Said.
+
+[Illustration: 096.jpg NOMES OF UPPER EGYPT]
+
+As we approach the cataract, information becomes scarcer. Qûbti and Aûnû
+of the South, the Coptos and Hermonthis of the Greeks, shared peaceably
+the plain occupied later on by Thebes and its temples, and Nekhabît and
+Zobû watched over the safety of Egypt. Nekhabît soon lost its position
+as a frontier town, and that portion of Nubia lying between Gebel
+Silsileh and the rapids of Syene formed a kind of border province, of
+which Nubît-Ombos was the principal sanctuary and Abu-Elephantine
+the fortress: beyond this were the barbarians, and those inaccessible
+regions whence the Nile descended upon our earth.
+
+The organization of the Delta, it would appear, was more slowly brought
+about. It must have greatly resembled that of the lowlands of Equatorial
+Africa, towards the confluence of the Bahr el Abiad and the Bahr el
+Ghazâl. Great tracts of mud, difficult to describe as either solid or
+liquid, marshes dotted here and there with sandy islets, bristling with
+papyrus reeds, water-lilies, and enormous plants through which the arms
+of the Nile sluggishly pushed their ever-shifting course, low-lying
+wastes intersected with streams and pools, unfit for cultivation
+and scarcely available for pasturing cattle. The population of such
+districts, engaged in a ceaseless struggle with nature, always preserved
+relatively ruder manners, and a more rugged and savage character,
+impatient of all authority. The conquest of this region began from the
+outer edge only. A few principalities were established at the apex of
+the Delta in localities where the soil had earliest been won from the
+river. It appears that one of these divisions embraced the country
+south of and between the bifurcation of the Nile: Aûnû of the North,
+the Heliopolis of the Greeks, was its capital. In very early times the
+principality was divided, and formed three new states, independent of
+each other. Those of Aûnû and the Haunch were opposite to each other,
+the first on the Arabian, the latter on the Libyan bank of the Nile. The
+district of the White Wall marched with that of the Haunch on the north,
+and on the south touched the territory of the Oleander. Further down the
+river, between the more important branches, the governors of Sai's and
+of Bubastis, of Athribis and of Busiris, shared among themselves the
+primitive Delta. Two frontier provinces of unequal size, the Arabian on
+the east in the Wady Tumilat, and the Libyan on the west to the south of
+Lake Mareotis, defended the approaches of the country from the attacks
+of Asiatic Bedâwins and of African nomads. The marshes of the interior
+and the dunes of the littoral, were not conducive to the development of
+any great industry or civilization. They only comprised tracts of thinly
+populated country, like the principalities of the Harpoon and of the
+Cow, and others whose limits varied from century to century with
+the changing course of the river. The work of rendering the marshes
+salubrious and of digging canals, which had been so successful in the
+Nile Valley, was less efficacious in the Delta, and proceeded more
+slowly. Here the embankments were not supported by a mountain chain:
+they were continued at random across the marshes, cut at every turn to
+admit the waters of a canal or of an arm of the river. The waters left
+their usual bed at the least disturbing influence, and made a fresh
+course for themselves across country. If the inundation were delayed,
+the soft and badly drained soil again became a slough: should it last
+but a few weeks longer than usual, the work of several generations was
+for a long time undone. The Delta of one epoch rarely presented the same
+aspect as that of previous periods, and Northern Egypt never became as
+fully mistress of her soil as the Egypt of the south.
+
+[Illustration: 099.jpg NOMES OF LOWER EGYPT]
+
+These first principalities, however small they appear to us, were yet
+too large to remain undivided. In those times of slow communication, the
+strong attraction which a capital exercised over the provinces under its
+authority did not extend over a wide radius. That part of the population
+of the Terebinth, living sufficiently near to Siût to come into the town
+for a few hours in the morning, returning in the evening to the villages
+when business was done, would not feel any desire to withdraw from the
+rule of the prince who governed there. On the other hand, those who
+lived outside that restricted circle were forced to seek elsewhere some
+places of assembly to attend the administration of justice, to sacrifice
+in common to the national gods, and to exchange the produce of the
+fields and of local manufactures. Those towns which had the good fortune
+to become such rallying-points naturally played the part of rivals to
+the capital, and their chiefs, with the district whose population, so
+to speak, gravitated around them, tended to become independent of the
+prince. When they succeeded in doing this, they often preserved for the
+new state thus created, the old name, slightly modified by the addition
+of an epithet. The primitive territory of Siût was in this way divided
+into three distinct communities; two, which remained faithful to the old
+emblem of the tree--the Upper Terebinth, with Siût itself in the centre,
+and the Lower Terebinth, with Kûsit to the north; the third, in the
+south and east, took as their totem the immortal serpent which dwelt in
+their mountains, and called themselves the Serpent Mountain, whose
+chief town was that of the Sparrow Hawk. The territory of the Oleander
+produced by its dismemberment the principality of the Upper Oleander,
+that of the Lower Oleander, and that of the Knife. The territory of
+the Harpoon in the Delta divided itself into the Western and Eastern
+Harpoon. The fission in most cases could not have been accomplished
+without struggles; but it did take place, and all the principalities
+having a domain of any considerable extent had to submit to it, however
+they may have striven to avoid it. This parcelling out was continued as
+circumstances afforded opportunity, until the whole of Egypt, except the
+half desert districts about the cataract, became but an agglomeration of
+petty states nearly equal in power and population.[*]
+
+     * Examples of the subdivision of ancient nomes and the
+     creation of fresh nomes are met with long after primitive
+     times. We find, for example, the nome of the Western Harpoon
+     divided under the Greeks and Romans into two districts--that
+     of the Harpoon proper, of which the chief town was Sonti-
+     nofir; and that of Ranûnr, with the Onûphis of classical
+     geographers for its capital.
+
+The Greeks called them nomes, and we have borrowed the word from them;
+the natives named them in several ways, the most ancient term
+being "nûît," which may be translated _domain_, and the most common
+appellation in recent times being "hospû," which signifies _district_.
+The number of the nomes varied considerably in the course of centuries:
+the hieroglyphic monuments and classical authors fixed them sometimes at
+thirty-six, sometimes at forty, sometimes at forty-four, or even fifty.
+The little that we know of their history, up to the present time,
+explains the reason of this variation. Ceaselessly quarrelled over by
+the princely families who possessed them, the nomes were alternately
+humbled and exalted by civil wars, marriages, and conquest, which caused
+them continually to pass into fresh hands, either entire or divided. The
+Egyptians, whom we are accustomed to consider as a people respecting
+the established order of things, and conservative of ancient tradition,
+showed themselves as restless and as prone to modify or destroy the work
+of the past, as the most inconstant of our modern nations. The distance
+of time which separates them from us, and the almost complete absence
+of documents, gives them an appearance of immobility, by which we are
+liable to be unconsciously deceived; when the monuments still existing
+shall have been unearthed, their history will present the same
+complexity of incidents, the same agitations, the same instability,
+which we suspect or know to have been characteristic of most other
+Oriental nations. One thing alone remained stable among them in the
+midst of so many revolutions, and which prevented them from losing their
+individuality and from coalescing in a common unity. This was the belief
+in and the worship of one particular deity. If the little capitals
+of the petty states whose origin is lost in a remote past--Edfû and
+Denderah, Nekhabît and Bûto, Siûfc, Thinis, Khmûnû, Sais, Bubastis,
+Athribis--had only possessed that importance which resulted from the
+presence of an ambitious petty prince, or from the wealth of their
+inhabitants, they would never have passed safe and sound through the
+long centuries of existence which they enjoyed from the opening to the
+close of Egyptian history. Fortune raised their chiefs, some even to the
+rank of rulers of the world, and in turn abased them: side by side with
+the earthly ruler, whose glory was but too often eclipsed, there was
+enthroned in each nome a divine ruler, a deity, a god of the domain,
+"nûtir nûiti," whose greatness never perished. The princely families
+might be exiled or become extinct, the extent of the territory might
+diminish or increase, the town might be doubled in size and population
+or fall in ruins: the god lived on through all these vicissitudes, and
+his presence alone preserved intact the rights of the state over which
+he reigned as sovereign. If any disaster befell his worshippers, his
+temple was the spot where the survivors of the catastrophe rallied
+around him, their religion preventing them from mixing with the
+inhabitants of neighbouring towns and from becoming lost among them.
+The survivors multiplied with that extraordinary rapidity which is the
+characteristic of the Egyptian fellah, and a few years of peace sufficed
+to repair losses which apparently were irreparable. Local religion
+was the tie which bound together those divers elements of which each
+principality was composed, and as long as it remained, the nomes
+remained; when it vanished, they disappeared with it.
+
+
+[Illustration: 105.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+[Illustration: 106.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--THE GODS OF EGYPT
+
+_THEIR NUMBER AND NATURE--THE FEUDAL GODS, LIVING AND DEAD--TRIADS----
+THE TEMPLES AND PRIESTHOOD--THE COSMOGONIES OF THE DELTA----THE ENNEADS
+OF HELIOPOLIS AND HERMOPOLIS._
+
+_Multiplicity of the Egyptian gods: the commonalty of the gods, its
+varieties, human, animal, and intermediate between man and beast; gods
+of foreign origin, indigenous gods, and the contradictory forms with
+which they were invested in accordance with various conceptions of their
+nature.
+
+The Star-gods--The Sun-god as the Eye of the Shy; as a bird, as a calf,
+and as a man; its barks, voyages round the world, and encounters with
+the serpent Apopi--The Moon-god and its enemies--The Star-gods: the
+Haunch of the Ox, the Hippopotamus, the Lion, the five Horus-planets;
+Sothis Sirius, and Sahû Orion.
+
+The feudal gods and their classes: the Nile-gods, the earth-gods, the
+sky-gods and the sun-god, the Horus-gods--The equality of feudal
+gods and goddesses; their persons, alliances, and marriages: their
+children--The triads and their various developments.
+
+The nature of the gods: the double, the soul, the body, death of men and
+gods, and their fate after death--The necessity for preserving the body,
+mummification--Dead gods the gods of the dead--The living gods, their
+temples and images--The gods of the people, trees, serpents, family
+fetiches--The theory of prayer and sacrifice: the servants of the
+temples, the property of the gods, the sacerdotal colleges.
+
+The cosmogonies of the Delta: Sibu and Naît, Osiris and Isis, SU and
+Nephthys--Heliopolis and its theological schools: Ra, his identification
+with Horus, his dual nature, and the conception of Atûmû--The
+Heliopolitan Enneads: formation of the Great Ennead--Thot and
+the Hermopolitan Ennead: creation by articulate words and by voice
+alone--Diffusion of the Enneads: their connection with the local triads,
+the god One and the god Eight--The one and only gods._
+
+[Illustration: 107.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+THE GODS OF EGYPT
+
+The incredible number of religious scenes to be found among the
+representations on the ancient monuments of Egypt is at first glance
+very striking. Nearly every illustration in the works of Egyptologists
+brings before us the figure of some deity receiving with an impassive
+countenance the prayers and offerings of a worshipper. One would think
+that the country had been inhabited for the most part by gods, and
+contained just sufficient men and animals to satisfy the requirements of
+their worship.
+
+[Illustration: 108.jpg THE GODDESS NAPKÎT, STAPÎT.1]
+
+     1  The goddess Naprît, Napît; bas-relief from the first
+     chamber of Osiris, on the east side of the great temple of
+     Denderah. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+On penetrating into this mysterious world, we are confronted by an
+actual rabble of gods, each one of whom has always possessed but a
+limited and almost unconscious existence. They severally represented a
+function, a moment in the life of man or of the universe; thus Naprît
+was identified with the ripe ear, or the grain of wheat;[**]
+
+     **  The word _naprît_ means _grain_, the grain of wheat. The
+     grain-god is represented in the tomb of Seti I. as a man
+     wearing two full ears of wheat or barley upon his head. He
+     is mentioned in the _Hymn to the Nile_ about the same date,
+     and in two or three other texts of different periods. The
+     goddess _Naprît_, or _Napît_, to whom reference is here
+     made, was his duplicate; her head-dress is a sheaf of corn,
+     as in the illustration.
+
+     *** This goddess, whose name expresses and whose form
+     personifies the brick or stone couch, the child-bed or
+     -chair, upon which women in labour bowed themselves, is
+     sometimes subdivided into two or four secondary divinities.
+     She is mentioned along with Shaît, _destiny_, and Raninît,
+     _suckling_. Her part of fairy godmother at the cradle of the
+     new-born child is indicated in the passage of the Westcar
+     Papyrus giving a detailed account of the births of three
+     kings of the fifth dynasty. She is represented in human
+     form, and often wears upon her head two long palm-shoots,
+     curling over at their ends.
+
+Maskhonît appeared by the child's cradle at the very moment of its
+birth;[*] and Raninît presided over the naming and the nurture of the
+newly born.[*] Neither Raninît, the fairy godmother, nor Maskhonît
+exercised over nature as a whole that sovereign authority which we are
+accustomed to consider the primary attribute of deity. Every day
+of every year was passed by the one in easing the pangs of women in
+travail; by the other, in choosing for each baby a name of an auspicious
+sound, and one which would afterwards serve to exorcise the influences
+of evil fortune. No sooner were their tasks accomplished in one place
+than they hastened to another, where approaching birth demanded their
+presence and their care. From child-bed to child-bed they passed, and if
+they fulfilled the single offices in which they were accounted adepts,
+the pious asked nothing more of them. Bands of mysterious cynocephali
+haunting the Eastern and the Western mountains concentrated the whole
+of their activity on one passing moment of the day. They danced and
+chattered in the East for half an hour, to salute the sun at his rising,
+even as others in the West hailed him on his entrance into night.[**]
+
+     *  Raninît presides over the child's suckling, but she also
+     gives him his name, and hence, his fortune. She is on the
+     whole the nursing goddess. Sometimes she is represented as a
+     human-headed woman, or as lioness-headed, most frequently
+     with the head of a serpent; she is also the urseus, clothed,
+     and wearing two long plumes on her head, and a simple urous,
+     as represented in the illustration on p. 169.
+
+     **  This is the subject of a vignette in the _Book of the
+     Dead_, ch. xvi., where the cynocephali are placed in echelon
+     upon the slopes of the hill on the horizon, right and left
+     of the radiant solar disk, to which they offer worship by
+     gesticulations.
+
+It was the duty of certain genii to open gates in Hades, or to keep the
+paths daily traversed by the sun.[*] These genii were always at their
+posts, never free to leave them, and possessed no other faculty than
+that of punctually fulfilling their appointed offices. Their existence,
+generally unperceived, was suddenly revealed at the very moment when the
+specific acts of their lives were on the point of accomplishment. These
+being completed, the divinities fell back into their state of inertia,
+and were, so to speak, reabsorbed by their functions until the next
+occasion.[***]
+
+     *  Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35.
+
+     ***  The Egyptians employed a still more forcible expression
+     than our word "absorption" to express this idea. It was said
+     of objects wherein these genii concealed themselves, and
+     whence they issued in order to re-enter them immediately,
+     that these forms _ate_ them, or that they _ate_ their own
+     forms.
+
+[Illustration: 110.jpg SOME FABULOUS BEASTS OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERT. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from Champollion's copies, made
+     from the tombs of Beni-Hassan. To the right is the _sha_,
+     one of the animals of Sit, and an exact image of the god
+     with his stiff and arrow-like tail. Next comes the _safir_,
+     the griffin; and, lastly, we have the serpent-headed _saza_.
+
+Scarcely visible even by glimpses, they were not easily depicted; their
+real forms being often unknown, these were approximately conjectured
+from their occupations. The character and costume of an archer, or of a
+spear-man, were ascribed to such as roamed through Hades, to pierce the
+dead with arrows or with javelins. Those who prowled around souls to cut
+their throats and hack them to pieces were represented as women armed
+with knives, carvers--_donît_--or else as lacerators--_nokit_. Some
+appeared in human form; others as animals--bulls or lions, rams or
+monkeys, serpents, fish, ibises, hawks; others dwelt in inanimate
+things, such as trees,[*] sistrums, stakes stuck in the ground;[**] and
+lastly, many betrayed a mixed origin in their combinations of human and
+animal forms. These latter would be regarded by us as monsters; to the
+Egyptians, they were beings, rarer perhaps than the rest, but not the
+less real, and their like might be encountered in the neighbourhood of
+Egypt.[***]
+
+     *  Thus, the sycamores planted on the edge of the desert
+     were supposed to be inhabited by Hâthor, Nûît, Selkît, Nît,
+     or some other goddess. In vignettes representing the
+     deceased as stopping before one of these trees and receiving
+     water and loaves of bread, the bust of the goddess generally
+     appears from amid her sheltering foliage. But occasionally,
+     as on the sarcophagus of Petosiris, the transformation is
+     complete, and the trunk from which the branches spread is
+     the actual body of the god or goddess. Finally, the whole
+     body is often hidden, and only the arm of the goddess to be
+     seen emerging from the midst of the tree, with an
+     overflowing libation vase in her hand.
+
+     **  The trunk of a tree, disbranched, and then set up in the
+     ground, seems to me the origin of the Osirian emblem called
+     _tat_ or _didu_. The symbol was afterwards so
+     conventionalized as to represent four columns seen in
+     perspective, one capital overtopping another; it thus became
+     the image of the four pillars which uphold the world.
+
+     ***  The belief in the real existence of fantastic animals
+     was first noted by Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et
+     d'Archéologie Égyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 117, 118, 132, and
+     vol.  ii.  p.   213.    Until then,  scholars only
+     recognized the sphinx, and other Egyptian monsters, as
+     allegorical combinations by which the priesthood claimed to
+     give visible expression in one and the same being to
+     physical or moral qualities belonging to several different
+     beings. The later theory has now been adopted by Wiedemann,
+     and by most contemporary Egyptologists.
+
+How could men who believed themselves surrounded by sphinxes and
+griffins of flesh and blood doubt that there were bull-headed and
+hawk-headed divinities with human busts? The existence of such
+paradoxical creatures was proved by much authentic testimony; more
+than one hunter had distinctly seen them as they ran along the furthest
+planes of the horizon, beyond the herds of gazelles of which he was
+in chase; and shepherds dreaded them for their flocks as truly as they
+dreaded the lions, or the great felidse of the desert.[*]
+
+     * At Beni-Hassan and in Thebes many of the fantastic animals
+     mentioned in the text, griffins, hierosphinxes, serpent-
+     headed lions, are placed along with animals which might be
+     encountered by local princes hunting in the desert.
+
+This nation of gods, like nations of men, contained foreign elements,
+the origin of which was known to the Egyptians themselves. They knew
+that Hâthor, the milch cow, had taken up her abode in their land from
+very ancient times, and they called her the Lady of Pûanît, after the
+name of her native country. Bîsû had followed her in course of time,
+and claimed his share of honours and worship along with her. He first
+appeared as a leopard; then he became a man clothed in a leopard's skin,
+but of strange countenance and alarming character, a big-headed dwarf
+with high cheek-bones, and a wide and open mouth, whence hung an
+enormous tongue; he was at once jovial and martial, the friend of the
+dance and of battle.[*]
+
+     *  The hawk-headed monster with flower-tipped tail was
+     called the saga.
+
+In historic times all nations subjugated by the Pharaohs transferred
+some of their principal divinities to their conquerors, and the Libyan
+Shehadidi was enthroned in the valley of the Nile, in the same way as
+the Semitic Baâlû and his retinue of Astartes, Anitis, Eeshephs, and
+Kadshûs. These divine colonists fared like all foreigners who
+have sought to settle on the banks of the Nile: they were promptly
+assimilated, wrought, moulded, and made into Egyptian deities scarcely
+distinguishable from those of the old race. This mixed pantheon had
+its grades of nobles, princes, kings, and each of its members was
+representative of one of the elements constituting the world, or of one
+of the forces which regulated its government.
+
+[Illustration: 113.jpb SOME FABULOUS BEASTS OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERT 1]
+
+     1  Bîsû, pp. 111-184. The tail-piece to the summary of this
+     chapter is a figure of Bîsû, drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an
+     amulet in blue enamelled pottery.
+
+The sky, the earth, the stars, the sun, the Nile, were so many breathing
+and thinking beings whose lives were daily manifest in the life of the
+universe.
+
+They were worshipped from one end of the valley to the other, and the
+whole nation agreed in proclaiming their sovereign power. But when the
+people began to name them, to define their powers and attributes, to
+particularize their forms, or the relationships that subsisted among
+them, this unanimity was at an end. Each principality, each nome, each
+city, almost every village, conceived and represented them differently.
+Some said that the sky was the Great Horus, Haroêris, the sparrow-hawk
+of mottled plumage which hovers in highest air, and whose gaze embraces
+the whole field of creation. Owing to a punning assonance between his
+name and the word _horû_, which designates the human countenance, the
+two senses were combined, and to the idea of the sparrow-hawk there was
+added that of a divine face, whose two eyes opened in turn, the right
+eye being the sun, to give light by day, and the left eye the moon, to
+illumine the night. The face shone also with a light of its own, the
+zodiacal light, which appeared unexpectedly, morning or evening, a
+little before sunrise, and a little after sunset. These luminous beams,
+radiating from a common centre, hidden in the heights of the firmament,
+spread into a wide pyramidal sheet of liquid blue, whose base rested
+upon the earth, but whose apex was slightly inclined towards the zenith.
+The divine face was symmetrically framed, and attached to earth by four
+thick locks of hair; these were the pillars which upbore the firmament
+and prevented its falling into ruin. A no less ancient tradition
+disregarded as fabulous all tales told of the sparrow-hawk, or of the
+face, and taught that heaven and earth are wedded gods, Sibû, and Nûît,
+from whose marriage came forth all that has been, all that is, and all
+that shall be.
+
+[Illustration: 115.jpg NÛÎT THE STARRY ONE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painted coffin of the XXIth
+     dynasty in Leyden.
+
+Most people invested them with human form, and represented the earth-god
+Sibû as extended beneath Nûît the Starry One; the goddess stretched out
+her arms, stretched out her slender legs, stretched out her body above
+the clouds, and her dishevelled head drooped westward. But there were
+also many who believed that Sibû was concealed under the form of a
+colossal gander, whose mate once laid the Sun Egg, and perhaps still
+laid it daily. From the piercing cries wherewith he congratulated her,
+and announced the good news to all who cared to hear it--after the
+manner of his kind--he had received the flattering epithet of _Ngagu
+oîrû_, the Great Cack-ler. Other versions repudiated the goose in favour
+of a vigorous bull, the father of gods and men, whose companion was a
+cow, a large-eyed Hâthor, of beautiful countenance. The head of the
+good beast rises into the heavens, the mysterious waters which cover
+the world flow along her spine; the star-covered underside of her body,
+which we call the firmament, is visible to the inhabitants of earth, and
+her four legs are the four pillars standing at the four cardinal points
+of the world.
+
+[Illustration: 116.jpg THE GOOSE-GOD FACING THE CAT-GODDESS, THE LADY OF
+HEAVEN. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stella in the museum of
+     Gîzeh. This is not the goose of Sibû, but the goose of Amon,
+     which was nurtured in the temple of Karnak, and was called
+     Smonû. Pacing it is the cat of Maût, the wife of Amon. Amon,
+     originally an earth-god, was, as we see, confounded with
+     Sibû, and thus naturally appropriated that deity's form of a
+     goose.
+
+The planets, and especially the sun, varied in form and nature according
+to the prevailing conception of the heavens. The fiery disk _Atonû_, by
+which the sun revealed himself to men, was a living god, called Râ, as
+was also the planet itself.[*] Where the sky was regarded as Horus, Râ
+formed the right eye of the divine face: when Horus opened his eyelids
+in the morning, he made the dawn and day; when he closed them in the
+evening, the dusk and night were at hand.
+
+     *   The name of Râ has been variously explained. The
+     commonest etymology is that deriving the name from a verb
+     râ, _to give, to make to be_ a person or a thing, so that Râ
+     would thus be the great organizer, the author of all things.
+     Lauth goes so far as to say that "notwithstanding its
+     brevity, Râ is a composite word (r-a, _maker--to be_)" As a
+     matter of fact, the word is simply the name of the
+     planet applied to the god.    It means the _sun_, and nothing
+     more.
+
+[Illustration: 117.jpg THE COW HÂTHOR, THE LADY OP HEAVEN.3]
+
+     3  Drawn by Boudier, from a XXXth dynasty statue of green
+     basalt in the Gîzeh Museum (Maspero, _Guide du Visiteur_, p.
+     345, No. 5243). The statue was also published by Mariette,
+     _Monuments divers_, pl. 96 A-B, and in the _Album
+     photographique du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. x.
+
+Where the sky was looked upon as the incarnation of a goddess, Râ was
+considered as her son,[**] his father being the earth-god, and he was
+born again with every new dawn, wearing a sidelock, and with his finger
+to his lips as human children were conventionally represented.
+
+     **  Several passages from the Pyramid texts prove that the
+     _two eyes_ were very anciently considered as belonging to
+     the face of Nûît, and this conception persisted to the last
+     days of Egyptian paganism. Hence, we must not be surprised
+     if the inscriptions generally represent the god Râ as coming
+     forth from Nûît under the form of a disc, or a scarabaeus,
+     and born of her even as human children are born.
+
+He was also that luminous egg, laid and hatched in the East by the
+celestial goose, from which the sun breaks forth to fill the world with
+its rays.[**]
+
+     **  These are the very expressions used in the seventeenth
+     chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol.
+     i. pl. xxv. lines 58-61; Lepsius, _Todtenbuch_, pl. ix. 11.
+     50, 51).
+
+[Illustration: 118.jpg THE TWELVE STAGES IN THE LIFE OF THE SUN AND ITS
+TWELVE FORMS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. 1]
+
+     1  The twelve forms of the sun during the twelve hours of
+     the day, from the ceiling of the Hall of the New Year at
+     Edfu. Drawing by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+Nevertheless, by an anomaly not uncommon in religions, the egg did not
+always contain the same kind of bird; a lapwing, or a heron, might
+come out of it,[*] or perhaps, in memory of Horus, one of the beautiful
+golden sparrow-hawks of Southern Egypt. A Sun-Hawk, hovering in high
+heaven on outspread wings, at least presented a bold and poetic image;
+but what can be said for a Sun-Calf? Yet it is under the innocent
+aspect of a spotted calf, a "sucking calf of pure mouth,"[**] that the
+Egyptians were pleased to describe the Sun-God when Sibu, the father,
+was a bull, and Hâthor a heifer.
+
+     *  The lapwing or the heron, the Egyptian _bonû_, is
+     generally the Osirian bird. The persistence with which it is
+     associated with Heliopolis and the gods of that city shows
+     that in this also we have a secondary form of Râ.
+
+     **  The calf is represented in ch. cix. of the _Book of the
+     Dead_ (Naville's edition, pl. cxx.), where the text says
+     (lines 10, 11), "I know that this calf is Harmakhis the Sun,
+     and that it is no other than the Morning Star, daily
+     saluting Râ." The expression "_sucking calf of pure
+     mouth_" is taken word for word from a formula preserved in
+     the Pyramid texts (Ûnas, 1. 20).
+
+But the prevalent conception was that in which the life of the sun was
+likened to the life of man. The two deities presiding over the East
+received the orb upon their hands at its birth, just as midwives receive
+a new-born child, and cared for it during the first hour of the day and
+of its life. It soon left them, and proceeded "under the belly of Nûît,"
+growing and strengthening from minute to minute, until at noon it had
+become a triumphant hero whose splendour is shed abroad over all. But as
+night comes on his strength forsakes him and his glory is obscured; he
+is bent and broken down, and heavily drags himself along like an old
+man leaning upon his stick. At length he passes away beyond the horizon,
+plunging westward into the mouth of Nûît, and traversing her body by
+night to be born anew the next morning, again to follow the paths along
+which he had travelled on the preceding day.
+
+A first bark, the _saktit_, awaited him at his birth, and carried him
+from the Eastern to the Southern extremity of the world. _Mâzît_, the
+second bark, received him at noon, and bore him into the land of Manu,
+which is at the entrance into Hades; other barks, with which we are less
+familiar, conveyed him by night, from his setting until his rising at
+morn.[*] Sometimes he was supposed to enter the barks alone, and then
+they were magic and self-directed, having neither oars, nor sails, nor
+helm.[**]
+
+     *  In the formulæ of the _Book of Knowing that which is in
+     Hades_, the dead sun remains in the bark Saktit during part
+     of the night, and it is only to traverse the fourth and
+     fifth hours that he changes into another.
+
+     **  Such is the bark of the sun in the other world. Although
+     carrying a complete crew of gods, yet for the most part it
+     progresses at its own will, and without their help. The bark
+     containing the sun alone is represented in many vignettes of
+     the _Book of the Dead_, and at the head of many stelæ.
+
+Sometimes they were equipped with a full crew, like that of an Egyptian
+boat--a pilot at the prow to take soundings in the channel and forecast
+the wind, a pilot astern to steer, a quartermaster in the midst to
+transmit the orders of the pilot at the prow to the pilot at the stern,
+and half a dozen sailors to handle poles or oars. Peacefully the bark
+glided along the celestial river amid the acclamations of the gods who
+dwelt upon its shores. But, occasionally, Apôpi, a gigantic serpent,
+like that which hides within the earthly Nile and devours its banks,
+came forth from the depth of the waters and arose in the path of the
+god.[*] As soon as they caught sight of it in the distance, the crew
+flew to arms, and entered upon the struggle against him with prayers
+and spear-thrusts. Men in their cities saw the sun faint and fail,
+and sought to succour him in his distress; they cried aloud, they were
+beside themselves with excitement, beating their breasts, sounding their
+instruments of music, and striking with all their strength upon every
+metal vase or utensil in their possession, that their clamour might rise
+to heaven and terrify the monster. After a time of anguish, Râ emerged
+from the darkness and again went on his way, while Apôpi sank back into
+the abyss,[**] paralysed by the magic of the gods, and pierced with many
+a wound.
+
+     *  In Upper Egypt there is a widespread belief in the
+     existence of a monstrous serpent, who dwells at the bottom
+     of the river, and is the genius of the Nile. It is he who
+     brings about those falls of earth (_batabît_) at the decline
+     of the inundation which often destroy the banks and eat
+     whole fields. At such times, offerings of durrah, fowls, and
+     dates are made to him, that his hunger may be appeased, and
+     it is not only the natives who give themselves up to these
+     superstitious practices. Part of the grounds belonging to
+     the Karnak hotel at Luxor having been carried away during
+     the autumn of 1884, the manager, a Greek, made the customary
+     offerings to the serpent of the Nile.
+
+     **  The character of Apôpi and of his struggle with the sun
+     was, from the first, excellently defined by Champollion as
+     representing the conflict of darkness with light.
+     Occasionally, but very rarely, Apôpi seems to win, and his
+     triumph over Râ furnishes one explanation of a solar
+     eclipse. A similar explanation is common to many races. In
+     one very ancient form of the Egyptian legend, the sun is
+     represented by a wild ass running round the world along the
+     sides of the mountains that uphold the sky, and the serpent
+     which attacks it is called _Haiû_.
+
+Apart from these temporary eclipses, which no one could foretell, the
+Sun-King steadily followed his course round the world, according to laws
+which even his will could not change. Day after day he made his oblique
+ascent from east to south, thence to descend obliquely towards the west.
+During the summer months the obliquity of his course diminished, and
+he came closer to Egypt; during the winter it increased, and he went
+farther away. This double movement recurred with such regularity from
+equinox to solstice, and from solstice to equinox, that the day of
+the god's departure and the day of his return could be confidently
+predicted. The Egyptians explained this phenomenon according to their
+conceptions of the nature of the world. The solar bark always kept close
+to that bank of the celestial river which was nearest to men; and when
+the river overflowed at the annual inundation, the sun was carried along
+with it outside the regular bed of the stream, and brought yet closer
+to Egypt. As the inundation abated, the bark descended and receded, its
+greatest distance from earth corresponding with the lowest level of the
+waters. It was again brought back to us by the rising strength of the
+next flood; and, as this phenomenon was yearly repeated, the periodicity
+of the sun's oblique movements was regarded as the necessary consequence
+of the periodic movements of the celestial Nile.
+
+The same stream also carried a whole crowd of gods, whose existence was
+revealed at night only to the inhabitants of earth. At an interval of
+twelve hours, and in its own bark, the pale disk of the moon--_Yâûhû
+Aûhû_--followed the disk of the sun along the ramparts of the world.
+The moon, also, appeared in many various forms--here, as a man born of
+Nûît;[*] there, as a cynocephalus or an ibis;[**] elsewhere, it was the
+left eye of Horus,[***] guarded by the ibis or cynocephalus. Like Râ,
+it had its enemies incessantly upon the watch for it: the crocodile, the
+hippopotamus, and the sow. But it was when at the full, about the 15th
+of each month, that the lunar eye was in greatest peril.
+
+     *  He may be seen as a child, or man, bearing the lunar disk
+     upon his head, and pressing the lunar eye to his breast.
+     Passages from the Pyramid text of Unas indicate the
+     relationship subsisting between Thot, Sibû, and Nûît, making
+     Thot the brother of Isis, Sit, and Nephthys. In later times
+     he was considered a son of Râ.
+
+     **  Even as late as the Græco-Roman period, the temple of
+     Thot at Khmûnû contained a sacred ibis, which was the
+     incarnation of the god, and said to be immortal by the local
+     priesthood. The temple sacristans showed it to Apion the
+     grammarian, who reports the fact, but is very sceptical in
+     the matter.
+
+     ***  The texts quoted by Chabas and Lepsius to show that the
+     sun is the right eye of Horus also prove that his left eye
+     is the moon.
+
+[Illustration: 123.jpg EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL
+CONSTELLATIONS OF THE NORTHERN SKY.4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the ceiling of the
+     Ramesseum. On the right, the _female hippopotamus_ bearing
+     the _crocodile_, and leaning on the _Monâît_; in the middle,
+     the _Haunch_, here represented by the whole bull; to the
+     left, _Selkit_ and the _Sparrow-hawk_, with the _Lion_, and
+     the _Giant fighting the Crocodile_.
+
+The sow fell upon it, tore it out of the face of heaven, and cast it,
+streaming with blood and tears, into the celestial Nile, where it was
+gradually extinguished, and lost for days; but its twin, the sun, or
+its guardian, the cyno-cephalus, immediately set forth to find it and
+to restore it to Horus. No sooner was it replaced, than it slowly
+recovered, and renewed its radiance; when it was well--_ûzaît_--the sow
+again attacked and mutilated it, and the gods rescued and again revived
+it.
+
+[Illustration: 124.jpg THE LUNAR BARK, SELF-PROPELLED, UNDER THE
+PROTECTION OF THE TWO EYES.]
+
+Each month there was a fortnight of youth and of growing splendour,
+followed by a fortnight's agony and ever-increasing pallor. It was born
+to die, and died to be born again twelve times in the year, and each
+of these cycles measured a month for the inhabitants of the world.
+One invariable accident from time to time disturbed the routine of
+its existence. Profiting by some distraction of the guardians, the sow
+greedily swallowed it, and then its light went out suddenly, instead of
+fading gradually. These eclipses, which alarmed mankind at least as much
+as did those of the sun, were scarcely more than momentary, the gods
+compelling the monster to cast up the eye before it had been destroyed.
+
+[Illustration: 125.jpg THE HAUNCH, AND THE FEMALE HIPPOPOTAMUS.1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the rectangular zodiac
+     carved upon the ceiling of the great temple of Denderah
+     (Dùmichen, _Resultate_, vol. ii. pl. xxxix.).
+
+Every evening the lunar bark issued out of Hades by the door which Râ
+had passed through in the morning, and as it rose on the horizon, the
+star-lamps scattered over the firmament appeared one by one, giving
+light here and there like the camp-fires of a distant army. However
+many of them there might be, there were as many Indestructibles--_Akhîmû
+Sokû_--or Unchanging Ones--_Akhîmû Ûrdû_--whose charge it was to attend
+upon them and watch over their maintenance.[**]
+
+     **  The _Akhîmû Sokû_ and the _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ have been very
+     variously defined by different Egyptologists who have
+     studied them. Chabas considered them to be gods or genii of
+     the constellations of the ecliptic, which mark the apparent
+     course of the sun through the sky. Following the indications
+     given by Dévéria, he also thought them to be the sailors of
+     the solar bark, and perhaps the gods of the twelve hours,
+     divided into two classes: the _Akhîmû Sokû_ being those who
+     are rowing, and the _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ those who are resting. But
+     texts found and cited by Brugsch show that the _Akhîmû Sokû_
+     are the planets accompanying Râ in the northern sky, while
+     the _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ are his escort in the south. The
+     nomenclature of the stars included in these two classes is
+     furnished by monuments of widely different epochs. The two
+     names should be translated according to the meaning of their
+     component words: _Akhîmû Sokû_, those who know not
+     destruction, the Indestructibles; and _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ (
+     _Urzii_), those who know not the immobility of death, the
+     _Imperishables_.
+
+They were not scattered at random by the hand which had suspended them,
+but their distribution had been ordered in accordance with a certain
+plan, and they were arranged in fixed groups like so many star
+republics, each being independent of its neighbours. They represented
+the outlines of bodies of men and animals dimly traced out upon
+the depths of night, but shining with greater brilliancy in certain
+important places. The seven stars which we liken to a chariot (Charles's
+Wain) suggested to the Egyptians the haunch of an ox placed on the
+northern edge of the horizon.[*]
+
+     * The forms of the constellations, and the number of stars
+     composing them in the astronomy of different periods, are
+     known from the astronomical scenes of tombs and temples. The
+     identity of the _Haunch_ with the _Chariot_, or _Great Bear_
+     of modern astronomy, was discovered by Lepsius and confirmed
+     by Biot. Mariette pointed out that the Pyramid Arabs applied
+     the name of the _Haunch (er-Rigl)_ to the same group of
+     stars as that thus designated by the ancient Egyptians.
+     Champollion had noted the position of the _Haunch_ in the
+     northern sky, but had not suggested any identification. The
+     _Haunch_ appertained to Sît-Typhon.
+
+Two lesser stars connected the haunch--_Maskhaît_--with
+thirteen others, which recalled the silhouette of a female
+hippopotamus--_Rirît_--erect upon her hind legs,[*] and jauntily
+carrying upon her shoulders a monstrous crocodile whose jaws opened
+threateningly above her head. Eighteen luminaries of varying size and
+splendour, forming a group hard by the hippopotamus, indicated the
+outline of a gigantic lion couchant, with stiffened tail, its head
+turned to the right, and facing the Haunch.[***]
+
+     *  The connection of _Birît_, the female hippopotamus, with
+     the Haunch is made quite clear in scenes from Philae and
+     Edfû, representing Isis holding back Typhon by a chain, that
+     he might do no hurt to Sâhii-Osiris. Jollois and Devilliers
+     thought that the hippopotamus was the _Great Bear_. Biot
+     contested their conclusions, and while holding that the
+     hippopotamus might at least in part present our
+     constellation of the Dragon, thought that it was probably
+     included in the scene only as an ornament, or as an emblem.
+     The present tendency is to identify the hippopotamus with
+     the Dragon and with certain stars not included in the
+     constellations surrounding it.
+
+     ***  The Lion, with its eighteen stars, is represented on
+     the tomb of Seti I.; on the ceiling of the Ramesseum; and on
+     the sarcophagus of Htari.
+
+[Illustration: 127.jpg OKION, SOTHIS, AND TWO HOKUS-PLANETS STANDING IN
+THEIR BAKKS. 2]
+
+     2  From the astronomic ceiling in the tomb of Seti I.
+     (Lefébure, 4th part, pl. xxxvi.).
+
+The Lion is sometimes shown as having a crocodile's tail. According
+to Biot the Egyptian Lion has nothing in common with the Greek
+constellation of that name, nor yet with our own, but was composed of
+smaller stars, belonging to the Greek constellation of the Cup or to
+the continuation of the Hydra, so that its head, its body, and its
+tail would follow the [ ] of the Hydra, between the [ ] and [ ] of that
+constellation, or the [ ] of the Virgin.
+
+Most of the constellations never left the sky: night after night they
+were to be found almost in the same places, and always shining with the
+same even light.
+
+[Illustration: 128.jpg SAHU-ORION. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small bronze in the Gîzeh
+     Museum, published by Mariette, in the _Album photographique
+     du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. 9. The legs are a modern
+     restoration.
+
+Others borne by a slow movement passed annually beyond the limits of
+sight for months at a time. Five at least of our planets were known
+from all antiquity, and their characteristic colours and appearances
+carefully noted. Sometimes each was thought to be a hawk-headed Horus.
+Ùapshetatûi, our Jupiter, Kahiri-(Saturn), Sobkû-(Mercury), steered
+their barks straight ahead like Iâûhû and Râ; but Mars-Doshiri, the
+red, sailed backwards. As a star Bonu, the bird (Yenus) had a dual
+personality; in the evening it was Uati, the lonely star which is
+the first to rise, often before nightfall; in the morning it became
+Tiûnûtiri, the god who hails the sun before his rising and proclaims the
+dawn of day.
+
+Sahû and Sopdît, Orion and Sirius, were the rulers of this mysterious
+world. Sahû consisted of fifteen stars, seven large and eight small,
+so arranged as to represent a runner darting through space, while the
+fairest of them shone above his head, and marked him out from afar to
+the admiration of mortals.
+
+[Illustration: 129.jpg ORION AND THE COW SOTHIS SEPARATED BY THE
+SPARROW-HAWK. 1]
+
+     1 Scene from the rectangular zodiac of Denderah, drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken with magnesium light
+     by Dûmichen.
+
+With his right hand he flourished the _crux ansata_, and turning his
+head towards Sothis as he beckoned her on with his left, seemed as
+though inviting her to follow him. The goddess, standing sceptre in
+hand, and crowned with a diadem of tall feathers surmounted by her most
+radiant star, answered the call of Sahû with a gesture, and quietly
+embarked in pursuit as though in no anxiety to overtake him. Sometimes
+she is represented as a cow lying down in her bark, with tree stars
+along her back, and Sirius flaming from between her horns.[*]
+
+     * The identity of the cow with Sothis was discovered by
+     Jollois and Devilliers. It is under this animal form that
+     Sothis is represented in most of the Græco-Roman temples,
+     at Denderah, Edfû, Esneh, Dêr el-Medîneh.
+
+Not content to shine by night only, her bluish rays, suddenly darted
+forth in full daylight and without any warning, often described upon the
+sky the mystic lines of the triangle which stood for her name. It was
+then that she produced those curious phenomena of the zodiacal light
+which other legends attributed to Horus himself. One, and perhaps
+the most ancient of the innumerable accounts of this god and goddess,
+represented Sahû as a wild hunter. A world as vast as ours rested upon
+the other side of the iron firmament; like ours, it was distributed into
+seas, and continents divided by rivers and canals, but peopled by races
+unknown to men. Sahû traversed it during the day, surrounded by genii
+who presided over the lamps forming his constellation. At his appearing
+"the stars prepared themselves for battle, the heavenly archers rushed
+forward, the bones of the gods upon the horizon trembled at the sight
+of him," for it was no common game that he hunted, but the very gods
+themselves. One attendant secured the prey with a lasso, as bulls are
+caught in the pastures, while another examined each capture to decide if
+it were pure and good for food. This being determined, others bound the
+divine victim, cut its throat, disembowelled it, cut up its carcass,
+cast the joints into a pot, and superintended their cooking. Sahû did
+not devour indifferently all that the fortune of the chase might bring
+him, but classified his game in accordance with his wants. He ate the
+great gods at his breakfast in the morning, the lesser gods at his
+dinner towards noon, and the small ones at his supper; the old were
+rendered more tender by roasting.
+
+[Illustration: 131.jpg AMON-RÂ, AS MÎNÛ OF COPTOS, AND INVESTED WITH HIS
+EMBLEMS. 1]
+
+     1 Scene on the north wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak;
+     drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in
+     1882. The king, Seti I., is presenting bouquets of leaves to
+     Amon-Mînû. Behind the god stands Isis (of Coptos), sceptre
+     and _crux ansata_ in hand.
+
+As each god was assimilated by him, its most precious virtues were
+transfused into himself; by the wisdom of the old was his wisdom
+strengthened, the youth of the young repaired the daily waste of his
+own youth, and all their fires, as they penetrated his being, served to
+maintain the perpetual splendour of his light.
+
+The nome gods who presided over the destinies of Egyptian cities, and
+formed a true feudal system of divinities, belonged to one or other of
+these natural categories. In vain do they present themselves under
+the most shifting aspects and the most deceptive attributes; in vain
+disguise themselves with the utmost care; a closer examination generally
+discloses the principal features of their original physiognomies. Osiris
+of the Delta, Khuûmû of the Cataract, Harshâfitû of Heracleopolis, were
+each of them, incarnations of the fertilizing and life-sustaining Nile.
+Wherever there is some important change in the river, there they are
+more especially installed and worshipped: Khnûmû at the place of its
+entering into Egypt, and again at the town of Hâûrît, near the point
+where a great arm branches off from the Eastern stream to flow towards
+the Libyan hills and form the Bahr-Yûsuf: Harshâfitû at the gorges of
+the Fayûm, where the Bahr-Yûsuf leaves the valley; and, finally, Osiris
+at Mendes and at Busiris, towards the mouth of the middle branch, which
+was held to be the true Nile by the people of the land. Isis of Bûto
+denoted the black vegetable mould of the valley, the distinctive soil of
+Egypt annually covered and fertilized by the inundation.[*]
+
+     * In the case of Isis, as in that of Osiris, we must mark
+     the original character; and note her characteristics as
+     goddess of the Delta before she had become a multiple and
+     contradictory personality through being confounded with
+     other divinities.
+
+But the earth in general, as distinguished from the sky--the earth with
+its continents, its seas, its alternation of barren deserts and fertile
+lands--was represented as a man: Phtah at Memphis, Amon at Thebes, Mînû
+at Coptos and at Panopolis. Amon seems rather to have symbolized the
+productive soil, while Mînû reigned over the desert. But these were fine
+distinctions, not invariably insisted upon, and his worshippers often
+invested Amon with the most significant attributes of Mînû.
+
+[Illustration: 133.jpg ANHÛRI. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze of the Saïte period,
+     in my own possession.
+
+The Sky-gods, like the Earth-gods, were separated into two groups, the
+one consisting of women: Hâthor of Denderah, or Nît of Sais; the other
+composed of men identical with Horus, or derived from him: Anhûri-Shû of
+Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, Horus of the two eyes, at Pharbaethos;
+Har-Sapdi, Horus the source of the zodiacal light, in the Wâdy Tumilât;
+and finally Harhûdîti at Edfû. Râ, the solar disk, was enthroned at
+Heliopolis, and sun-gods were numerous among the nome deities, but they
+were sun-gods closely connected with gods representing the sky, and
+resembled Horus quite as much as Râ. Whether under the name of Horus
+or of Anhûri, the sky was early identified with its most brilliant
+luminary, its solar eye, and its divinity was as it were fused into that
+of the Sun. Horus the Sun, and Râ, the Sun-Cod of Heliopolis, had so
+permeated each other that none could say where the one began and the
+other ended. One by one all the functions of Râ had been usurped by
+Horus, and all the designations of Horus had been appropriated by Râ.
+The sun was styled Harmakhûîti, the Horus of the two mountains--that is,
+the Horus who comes forth from the mountain of the east in the morning,
+and retires at evening into the mountain of the west;[*] or Hartimâ,
+Horus the Pikeman, that Horus whose lance spears the hippopotamus or the
+serpent of the celestial river; or Harnûbi, the Golden Horus, the great
+golden sparrow-hawk with mottled plumage, who puts all other birds
+to flight; and these titles were indifferently applied to each of the
+feudal gods who represented the sun.
+
+     *  From the time of Champollion, Harmakhûîti has been
+     identified with the Harmachis of the Greeks, the great
+     Sphinx.
+
+[Illustration: 134.jpg THE HAWK-HEADED HOKUS.2]
+
+     2  A bronze of the Saïte period, from the Posno collection,
+     and now in the Louvre; drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The god is
+     represented as upholding a libation vase with both hands,
+     and pouring the life-giving water upon the king, standing,
+     or prostrate, before him.    In performing this ceremony, he
+     was always assisted by another god, generally by Sit,
+     sometimes by Thot or Anubis.
+
+The latter were numerous. Sometimes, as in the case of Harkhobi, Horus
+of Khobiû,[*] a geographical qualification was appended to the generic
+term of Horus, while specific names, almost invariably derived from
+the parts which they were supposed to play, were borne by others. The
+sky-god worshipped at Thinis in Upper Egypt, at Zarît and at Sebennytos
+in Lower Egypt, was called Anhuri. When he assumed the attributes of
+Râ, and took upon himself the solar nature, his name was interpreted as
+denoting the conqueror of the sky. He was essentially combative. Crowned
+with a group of upright plumes, his spear raised and ever ready to
+strike the foe, he advanced along the firmament and triumphantly
+traversed it day by day.[**] The sun-god who at Medamôfc Taûd and Erment
+had preceded Amon as ruler of the Theban plain, was also a warrior,
+and his name of Montû had reference to his method of fighting. He was
+depicted as brandishing a curved sword and cutting off the heads of his
+adversaries.[***]
+
+     *  _Harkhobi, Harâmkhobiû_ is the Horus of the marshes
+     (_khobiû_) of the Delta, the lesser Horus the son of Isis,
+     who was also made into the son of Osiris.
+
+     **  The right reading of the name was given as far back as
+     Lepsius. The part played by the god, and the nature of the
+     link connecting him with Shû, have been explained by
+     Maspero. The Greeks transcribed his name Onouris, and
+     identified him with Ares.
+
+     ***  Montû preceded Amon as god of the land between Kûs and
+     Gebelên, and he recovered his old position in the Græco-
+     Roman period after the destruction of Thebes. Most
+     Egyptologists, and finally Brugsch, made him into a
+     secondary form of Amon, which is contrary to what we know of
+     the history of the province. Just as Onû of the south
+     (Erment) preceded Thebes as the most important town in that
+     district, so Montû had been its most honoured god. Heer
+     Wiedemann thinks the name related to that of Amon and
+     derived from it, with the addition of the final _tû_.
+
+Each of the feudal gods naturally cherished pretensions to universal
+dominion, and proclaimed himself the suzerain, the father of all the
+gods, as the local prince was the suzerain, the father of all men; but
+the effective suzerainty of god or prince really ended where that of his
+peers ruling over the adjacent nomes began.
+
+[Illustration: 136.jpg THE HOEUS OF HIBONÛ, ON THE BACK OF THE GAZELLE.]
+
+The goddesses shared in the exercise of supreme power, and had the same
+right of inheritance and possession as regards sovereignty that women
+had in human law.[*] Isis was entitled lady and mistress at Bûto, as
+Hâthor was at Denderah, and as Nit at Sais, "the firstborn, when as yet
+there had been no birth." They enjoyed in their cities the same honours
+as the male gods in theirs; as the latter were kings, so were they
+queens, and all bowed down before them. The animal gods, whether
+entirely in the form of beasts, or having human bodies attached to
+animal heads, shared omnipotence with those in human form. Horus of
+Hibonû swooped down upon the back of a gazelle like a hunting hawk,
+Hâthor of Denderah was a cow, Bastit of Bubastis was a cat or a tigress,
+while Nekhabit of El Kab was a great bald-headed vulture.[**] Hermopolis
+worshipped the ibis and cynocephalus of Thot; Oxyrrhynchus the
+_mor-myrus_ fish;[***] and Ombos and the Fayûm a crocodile, under the
+name of Sobkû,[****] sometimes with the epithet of Azaï, the brigand.[v]
+
+     *  In attempts at reconstituting Egyptian religions, no
+     adequate weight has hitherto been given to the equality of
+     gods and goddesses, a fact to which attention was first
+     called by Maspeeo (_Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 253, et seq.).
+
+     **  Nekhabît, the goddess of the south, is the vulture, so
+     often represented in scenes of war or sacrifice, who hovers
+     over the head of the Pharaohs. She is also shown as a
+     vulture-headed woman.
+
+     ***  We have this on the testimony of classic writers,
+     Steabo, book xvii. p. 812, _De Iside et Csiride_, § vii.,
+     1872, Paethey's edition, pp. 9, 30, 128. ^Elianus, Hist,
+     anim., book x. § 46.
+
+     ****  Sobhû, Sovkû is the animal's name, and the exact
+     translation of Sovû would be crocodile-god. Its Greek
+     transcription is [ ]. On account of the assonance of the
+     names he was sometimes confounded with _Sivû, Sibû_ by the
+     Egyptians themselves, and thus obtained the titles of that
+     god. This was especially the case at the time when Sit
+     having been proscribed, Sovkû the crocodile, who was
+     connected with Sit, shared his evil reputation, and
+     endeavoured to disguise his name or true character as much
+     as possible.
+
+     v  Azaï  is generally considered to be the Osiris of the
+     Fayûm, but he was only transformed into Osiris, and that by
+     the most daring process of assimilation.    His full name
+     defines him as _Osiri Azaï hi halt To-sit (Osiris the
+     Brigand, who is in the Fayûm)_, that is to say,  as Sovkû
+     identified with Osiris.
+
+[Illustration: 138.jpg THE CAT-HEADED BAST. 4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a green enamelled figure in
+     my possession (Saïte period).
+
+We cannot always understand what led the inhabitants of each nome to
+affect one animal rather than another. Why, towards Græco-Roman times,
+should they have worshipped the jackal, or even the dog, at Siût?[**]
+How came Sit to be incarnate in a fennec, or in an imaginary
+quadruped?[***] Occasionally, however, we can follow the train of
+thought that determined their choice.
+
+     ** Uapuaîtû, the _guide of the celestial ways_, who must not
+     be confounded with Anubis of the Cynopolite nome of Upper
+     Egypt, was originally the feudal god of Siût. He guided
+     human souls to the paradise of the Oasis, and the sun upon
+     its southern path by day, and its northern path by night.
+
+     ***  Champollion, Rosellini, Lepsius, have held that the
+     Typhonian animal was a purely imaginary one, and Wilkinson
+     says that the Egyptians themselves admitted its unreality by
+     representing it along with other fantastic beasts. This
+     would rather tend to show that they believed in its actual
+     existence (cf. p. 112 of this History). Plbyte thinks that
+     it may be a degenerated form of the figure of the ass or
+     oryx.
+
+The habit of certain monkeys in assembling as it were in full court,
+and chattering noisily a little before sunrise and sunset, would almost
+justify the as yet uncivilized Egyptians in entrusting cynocephali with
+the charge of hailing the god morning and evening as he appeared in the
+east, or passed away in the west.
+
+[Illustration: 139.jpg TWO IMAGES]
+
+If Râ was held to be a grasshopper under the Old Empire, it was because
+he flew far up in the sky like the clouds of locusts driven from Central
+Africa which suddenly fall upon the fields and ravage them. Most of the
+Nile-gods, Khnûmû, Osiris, Harshafitû, were incarnate in the form of a
+ram or of a buck. Does not the masculine vigour and procreative rage
+of these animals naturally point them out as fitting images of the
+life-giving Nile and the overflowing of its waters? It is easy to
+understand how the neighbourhood of a marsh or of a rock-encumbered
+rapid should have suggested the crocodile as supreme deity to the
+inhabitants of the Fayûm or of Ombos. The crocodiles there multiplied so
+rapidly as to constitute a serious danger; there they had the mastery,
+and could be appeased only by means of prayers and sacrifices.
+When instinctive terror had been superseded by reflection, and some
+explanation was offered of the origin of the various cults, the very
+nature of the animal seemed to justify the veneration with which it was
+regarded. The crocodile is amphibious; and Sobkû was supposed to be
+a crocodile, because before the creation the sovereign god plunged
+recklessly into the dark waters and came forth to form the world, as the
+crocodile emerges from the river to lay its eggs upon the bank.
+
+Most of the feudal divinities began their lives in solitary grandeur,
+apart from, and often hostile to, their neighbours. Families were
+assigned to them later.[*]
+
+     * The existence of the Egyptian triads was discovered and
+     defined by Champollion. These triads have long served as the
+     basis upon which modern writers have sought to establish
+     their systems of the Egyptian religion. Brugsch was the
+     first who rightly attempted to replace the triad by the
+     Ennead, in his book Religion und Mythologie der alten
+     Ægypter. The process of forming local triads, as here set
+     forth, was first pointed out by Maspero (_Études de
+     Mythologie et d'Archéologie Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 269,
+     et seq.).
+
+Each appropriated two companions and formed a trinity, or as it is
+generally called, a triad. But there were several kinds of triads. In
+nomes subject to a god, the local deity was frequently content with one
+wife and one son; but often he was united to two goddesses, who were at
+once his sisters and his wives according to the national custom.
+
+[Illustration: 141.jpg NIT OF SAÏS.]
+
+Thus, Thot of Hermopolis possessed himself of a harem consisting of
+Seshaît-Safk-hîtâbûi and Hahmâûît. Tûmû divided the homage of the
+inhabitants of Helio-polis with Nebthôtpît and with Iûsasît. Khnûmû
+seduced and married the two fairies of the neighbouring cataract--Anûkît
+the constrainer, who compresses the Nile between its rocks at Philse and
+at Syene, and Satît the archeress, who shoots forth the current straight
+and swift as an arrow.[*] Where a goddess reigned over a nome, the triad
+was completed by two male deities, a divine consort and a divine son.
+Nît of Sai's had taken for her husband Osiris of Mendes, and borne him a
+lion's whelp, Ari-hos-nofir.[**]
+
+     *  Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 273, et seq.
+
+     **  _Arihosnofir_ means _the lion whose gaze has a
+     beneficent fascination_. He also goes under the name of
+     _Tutu_, which seems as though it should be translated "_the
+     bounding_,"--a mere epithet characterizing one gait of the
+     lion-god's.
+
+Hâthor of Denderah had completed her household with Haroêris and a
+younger Horus, with the epithet of Ahi--he who strikes the sistrum.[*]
+
+     *  Brugsch explains the name of Ahi as meaning _he who
+     causes his waters to rise_, and recognizes this personage as
+     being, among other things, a form of the Nile. The
+     interpretation offered by myself is borne out by the many
+     scenes representing the child of Hâthor playing upon the
+     sistrum and the _monâît_. Moreover, _ahi, ahît_ is an
+     invariable title of the priests and priestesses whose office
+     it is, during religious ceremonies, to strike the sistrum,
+     and that other mystic musical instrument, the sounding whip
+     called _monâît_.
+
+[Illustration: 142.jpg IMHOTPÛ. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette encrusted
+     with gold, in the Gîzeh Museum.    The seat is alabaster,
+     and of modern manufacture.
+
+A triad containing two goddesses produced no legitimate offspring, and
+was unsatisfactory to a people who regarded the lack of progeny as a
+curse from heaven; one in which the presence of a son promised to
+ensure the perpetuity of the race was more in keeping with the idea of a
+blessed and prosperous family, as that of gods should be. Triads of
+the former kind were therefore almost everywhere broken up into two new
+triads, each containing a divine father, a divine mother, and a divine
+son. Two fruitful households arose from the barren union of Thot
+with Safkhîtâbûi and Nahmâûît: one composed of Thot, Safkhîtâbûi, and
+Harnûbi, the golden sparrow-hawk;[***] into the other Nahmâûît and her
+nursling Nofirhorû entered.
+
+     ***  This somewhat rare triad, noted by Wilkinson, is
+     sculptured on the wall of a chamber in the Tûrah quarries.
+
+[Illustration: 143.jpg NOFIRTÛMÛ. 3]
+
+     3  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette incrusted
+     with gold, in the Gîzeh Museum.
+
+The persons united with the old feudal divinities in order to form
+triads were not all of the same class. Goddesses, especially, were made
+to order, and might often be described as grammatical, so obvious is the
+linguistic device to which they owe their being. From Râ, Amon, Horus,
+Sobkû, female Ras, Anions, Horuses, and Sobkûs were derived, by the
+addition of the regular feminine affix to the primitive masculine
+names--Râît, Amonît, Horît, Sobkît.[*] In the same way, detached
+cognomens of divine fathers were embodied in divine sons. Imhotpû, "he
+who comes in peace," was merely one of the epithets of Phtah before he
+became incarnate as the third member of the Memphite triad.[**] In other
+cases, alliances were contracted between divinities of ancient stock,
+but natives of different nomes, as in the case of Isis of Bûto and the
+Mendesian Osiris; of Haroêris of Edfu and Hâthor of Denderah.
+
+     *  Maspero,   _Études  de  Mythologie et  d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 7, 8, 256.
+
+     **  Imhotpû, the Imouthes of the Greeks, and by them
+     identified with Æsculapius, was discovered by Salt, and his
+     name was first translated as _he who comes with offering_.
+     The translation, _he who comes in peace_, proposed by E. de
+     Rougé, is now universally adopted. Imhotpû did not take form
+     until the time of the New Empire; his great popularity at
+     Memphis and throughout Egypt dates from the Saïte and Greek
+     periods.
+
+In the same manner Sokhît of Letopolis and Bastît of Bubastis were
+appropriated as wives to Phtah of Memphis, Nofirtûmû being represented
+as his son by both unions.[*] These improvised connections were
+generally determined by considerations of vicinity; the gods of
+conterminous principalities were married as the children of kings of two
+adjoining kingdoms are married, to form or to consolidate relations,
+and to establish bonds of kinship between rival powers whose unremitting
+hostility would mean the swift ruin of entire peoples.
+
+The system of triads, begun in primitive times and con-, tinned
+unbrokenly up to the last days of Egyptian polytheism, far from in any
+way lowering the prestige of the feudal gods, was rather the means
+of enhancing it in the eyes of the multitude. Powerful lords as the
+new-comers might be at home, it was only in the strength of an auxiliary
+title that they could enter a strange city, and then only on condition
+of submitting to its religious law. Hâthor, supreme at Denderah, shrank
+into insignificance before Haroêris at Edfû, and there retained only the
+somewhat subordinate part of a wife in the house of her husband.[**]
+
+     *  Originally, Nofirtûmû appears to have been the son of cat
+     or lioness-headed goddesses, Bastît and Sokhît, and from
+     them he may have inherited the lion's head with which he is
+     often represented. His name shows him to have been in the
+     first place an incarnation of Atûmû, but he was affiliated
+     to the god Phtah of Memphis when that god became the husband
+     of his mothers, and preceded Imhotpû as the third personage
+     in the oldest Memphite triad.
+
+     **  Each year, and at a certain time, the goddess came in
+     high state to spend a few days in the great temple of Edfû,
+     with her husband Haroêris.
+
+On the other hand, Haroêris when at Denderah descended from the supreme
+rank, and was nothing more than the almost useless consort of the lady
+Hâthor. His name came first in invocations of the triad because of his
+position therein as husband and father; but this was simply a concession
+to the propriety of etiquette, and even though named in second place,
+Hâthor was none the less the real chief of Denderah and of its divine
+family.[*] Thus, the principal personage in any triad was always the
+one who had been patron of the nome previous to the introduction of the
+triad: in some places the father-god, and in others the mother-goddess.
+
+     *  The part played by Haroêris at Denderah was so
+     inconsiderable that the triad containing him is not to be
+     found in the temple. "In all our four volumes of plates, the
+     triad is not once represented, and this is the more
+     remarkable since at Thebes, at Memphis, at Philse, at the
+     cataracts, at Elephantine, at Edfû, among all the data which
+     one looks to find in temples, the triad is most readily
+     distinguished by the visitor. But we must not therefore
+     conclude that there was no triad in this case. The triad of
+     Edfû consists of Hor-Hut, Hâthor, and Hor-Sam-ta-ui. The
+     triad of Denderah contains Hâthor, Hor-Hut, and Hor-Sam-ta-
+     ui. The difference is obvious. At Edfû, the male principle,
+     as represented by Hor-Hut, takes the first place, whereas
+     the first person at Denderah is Hâthor, who represents the
+     female principle" (Mariette, _Dendérah_, Texte, pp. 80, 81).
+
+[Illustration: 145.jpg HORUS]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a statuette in the Gîzeh
+     Museum (Mariette, _Album du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. 4).
+
+The son in a divine triad had of himself but limited authority. When
+Isis and Osiris were his parents, he was generally an infant Horus,
+naked, or simply adorned with necklaces and bracelets; a thick lock of
+hair depended from his temple, and his mother squatting on her heels,
+or else sitting, nursed him upon her knees, offering him her breast.[*]
+Even in triads where the son was supposed to have attained to man's
+estate, he held the lowest place, and there was enjoined upon him the
+same respectful attitude towards his parents as is observed by children
+of human race in the presence of theirs. He took the lowest place at all
+solemn receptions, spoke only with his parents' permission, acted only
+by their command and as the agent of their will. Occasionally he was
+vouchsafed a character of his own, and filled a definite position, as at
+Memphis, where Imhotpû was the patron of science.[**]
+
+     *  For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, see
+     Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, pis. ccxxvii.,
+     ccxxviii., and particularly pl. cccx. 2, where there is a
+     scene in which the young god, represented as a sparrow-hawk,
+     is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with
+     his beak.
+
+     **  Hence he is generally represented as seated, or
+     squatting, and attentively reading a papyrus roll, which
+     lies open upon his knees; cf. the illustration on p. 142.
+
+But, generally, he was not considered as having either office or marked
+individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's,
+and possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two
+such contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as
+a matter of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more
+than two aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees
+of relationship mutually exclusive of each other in a human family.
+Father, inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue
+of being its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he
+was at once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother.
+
+Gods, like men, might be resolved into at least two elements, soul and
+body;[*] but in Egypt, the conception of the soul varied in different
+times and in different schools. It might be an insect--butterfly,
+bee, or praying mantis;[**] or a bird--the ordinary sparrow-hawk, the
+human-headed sparrow-hawk, a heron or a crane--bi, haï--whose
+wings enabled it to pass rapidly through space;[***] or the black
+shadow--khaîbît--that is attached to every body, but which death sets
+free, and which thenceforward leads an independent existence, so that it
+can move about at will, and go out into the open sunlight.
+
+     *  In one of the Pyramid texts, Sâhû-Orion, the wild hunter,
+     captures the gods, slaughters and disembowels them, cooks
+     their joints, their haunches, their legs, in his burning
+     cauldrons, and feeds on their souls as well as on their
+     bodies. A god was not limited to a single body and a single
+     soul; we know from several texts that Râ had _seven souls
+     and fourteen doubles_.
+
+     **  Mr. Lepage-Renouf supposes that the soul may have been
+     considered as being a butterfly at times, as in Greece. M.
+     Lefébure thinks that it must sometimes have been incarnate
+     as a wasp--I should rather say a bee or a praying mantis.
+
+     ***  The simple sparrow-hawk  is chiefly used to denote the
+     soul of a god; the human-headed sparrow-hawk, the heron, or
+     the crane  is used indifferently for human or divine souls.
+     It is from Horapollo that we learn this symbolic
+     significance of the sparrow-hawk and the pronunciation of
+     the name of the soul as _bai_.
+
+[Illustration: 147.jp THE BLACK SHADOW COMING OUT INTO THE SUNLIGHT. 4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville's _Das Thebanische
+     Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. civ._
+
+Finally, it might be a kind of light shadow, like a reflection from
+the surface of calm water, or from a polished mirror, the living and
+coloured projection of the human figure, a double--_ka_--reproducing in
+minutest detail the complete image of the object or the person to whom
+it belonged.[*]
+
+     *  The nature of the double has long been misapprehended by
+     Egyptologists, who had even made its name into a kind of
+     pronominal form. That nature was publicly and almost
+     simultaneously announced in 1878, first by Maspero, and
+     directly afterwards by Lepage-Renouf.
+
+[Illustration: 148.jpg THE AUGUST SOULS OF OSIRIS AnD HORUS IN ADORATION
+BEFORE THE SOLAR DISK. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûmichen, of
+     a scene on the cornice of the front room of Osiris on the
+     terrace of the great temple of Denderah. The soul on the
+     left belongs to Horus, that on the right to Osiris, lord of
+     Amentît. Each bears upon its head the group of tall feathers
+     which is characteristic of figures of Anhûri (cf. p. 103).
+
+The soul, the shadow, the double of a god, was in no way essentially
+different from the soul, shadow, or double of a man; his body, indeed,
+was moulded out of a more rarefied substance, and generally invisible,
+but endowed with the same qualities, and subject to the same
+imperfections as ours. The gods, therefore, on the whole, were more
+ethereal, stronger, more powerful, better fitted to command, to enjoy,
+and to suffer than ordinary men, but they were still men. They had
+bones,[**] muscles, flesh, blood; they were hungry and ate, they were
+thirsty and drank; our passions, griefs, joys, infirmities, were also
+theirs. The _sa_, a mysterious fluid, circulated throughout their
+members, and carried with it health, vigour, and life.
+
+     **  For example, the text of the _Destruction of Men_, and
+     other documents, teach us that the flesh of the aged sun had
+     become gold, and his bones silver. The blood of Râ is
+     mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_, as well as the blood of
+     Isis and of other divinities.
+
+They were not all equally charged with it; some had more, others less,
+their energy being in proportion to the amount which they contained. The
+better supplied willingly gave of their superfluity to those who lacked
+it, and all could readily transmit it to mankind, this transfusion being
+easily accomplished in the temples. The king, or any ordinary man who
+wished to be thus impregnated, presented himself before the statue of
+the god, and squatted at its feet with his back towards it. The statue
+then placed its right hand upon the nape of his neck, and by making
+passes, caused the fluid to flow from it, and to accumulate in him as
+in a receiver. This rite was of temporary efficacy only, and required
+frequent renewal in order that its benefit might be maintained.
+
+[Illustration: 150.jpg THE KING AFTER HIS CORONATION RECEIVING THE
+IMPOSITION OF THE SA. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a photograph by M. Gay et, taken in
+     1889, of a scene in the hypostyle hall at Lûxor. This
+     illustration shows the relative positions of prince and god.
+     Anion, after having placed the pschent upon the head of the
+     Pharaoh Amenôthes III., who kneels before him, proceeds to
+     _impose the sa_.
+
+By using or transmitting it the gods themselves exhausted their _sa_ of
+life; and the less vigorous replenished themselves from the stronger,
+while the latter went to draw fresh fulness from a mysterious pond
+in the northern sky, called the "pond of the Sa."[*] Divine bodies,
+continually recruited by the influx of this magic fluid, preserved their
+vigour far beyond the term allotted to the bodies of men and beasts.
+Age, instead of quickly destroying them, hardened and transformed them
+into precious metals. Their bones were changed to silver, their flesh to
+gold; their hair, piled up and painted blue, after the manner of great
+chiefs, was turned into lapis-lazuli.[**]
+
+     *   It is thus that in the _Tale of the Daughter of the
+     Prince of Bakhtan_ we find that one of the statues of the
+     Theban Konsû supplies itself with _sa_ from another statue
+     representing one of the most powerful forms of the god. The
+     _pond of Sa_, whither the gods go to draw the magic fluid,
+     is mentioned in the Pyramid texts.
+
+     **  Cf. the text of the _Destruction of Men_ (Il. 1, 2)
+     referred to above, where age produces these transformations
+     in the body of the sun. This changing of the bodies of the
+     gods into gold, silver, and precious stones, explains why
+     the alchemists, who were disciples of the Egyptians, often
+     compared the transmutation of metals to the metamorphosis of
+     a genius or of a divinity: they thought by their art to
+     hasten at will that which was the slow work of nature.
+
+This transformation of each into an animated statue did not altogether
+do away with the ravages of time. Decrepitude was no less irremediable
+with them than with men, although it came to them more slowly; when the
+sun had grown old "his mouth trembled, his drivelling ran down to earth,
+his spittle dropped upon the ground."
+
+None of the feudal gods had escaped this destiny; for them as for
+mankind the day came when they must leave the city and go forth to the
+tomb.[*]
+
+     * The idea of the inevitable death of the gods is expressed
+     in other places as well as in a passage of the eighth
+     chapter of the Booh of the Dead (Naville's edition), which
+     has not to my knowledge hitherto been noticed: "I am that
+     Osiris in the West, and Osiris knoweth his day in which he
+     shall be no more;" that is to say, the day of his death
+     when he will cease to exist. All the gods, Atûmû, Horus, Râ,
+     Thot, Phtah, Khnûmû, are represented under the forms of
+     mummies, and this implies that they are dead.    Moreover,
+     their tombs were pointed out in several places in Egypt.
+
+The ancients long refused to believe that death was natural
+and inevitable. They thought that life, once began, might go on
+indefinitely: if no accident stopped it short, why should it cease of
+itself? And so men did not die in Egypt; they were assassinated. The
+murderer often belonged to this world, and was easily recognized as
+another man, an animal, some inanimate object such as a stone loosened
+from the hillside, a tree which fell upon the passer-by and crushed him.
+But often too the murderer was of the unseen world, and so was hidden,
+his presence being betrayed in his malignant attacks only. He was a god,
+an evil spirit, a disembodied soul who slily insinuated itself into the
+living man, or fell upon him with irresistible violence--illness being a
+struggle between the one possessed and the power which possessed him.
+As soon as the former succumbed he was carried away from his own people,
+and his place knew him no more. But had all ended for him with the
+moment in which he had ceased to breathe? As to the body, no one was
+ignorant of its natural fate. It quickly fell to decay, and a few years
+sufficed to reduce it to a skeleton. And as for the skeleton, in the
+lapse of centuries that too was disintegrated and became a mere train of
+dust, to be blown away by the first breath of wind. The soul might
+have a longer career and fuller fortunes, but these were believed to
+be dependent upon those of the body, and commensurate with them. Every
+advance made in the process of decomposition robbed the soul of some
+part of itself; its consciousness gradually faded until nothing was left
+but a vague and hollow form that vanished altogether when the corpse had
+entirely disappeared. Erom an early date the Egyptians had endeavoured
+to arrest this gradual destruction of the human organism, and their
+first effort to this end naturally was directed towards the preservation
+of the body, since without it the existence of the soul could not be
+ensured. It was imperative that during that last sleep, which for
+them was fraught with such terrors, the flesh should neither become
+decomposed nor turn to dust, that it should be free from offensive odour
+and secure from predatory worms.
+
+They set to work, therefore, to discover how to preserve it. The oldest
+burials which have as yet been found prove that these early inhabitants
+were successful in securing the permanence of the body for a few decades
+only. When one of them died, his son, or his nearest relative, carefully
+washed the corpse in water impregnated with an astringent or aromatic
+substance, such as natron or some solution of fragrant gums, and then
+fumigated it with burning herbs and perfumes which were destined to
+overpower, at least temporarily, the odour of death.[*]
+
+     * This is to be gathered from the various Pyramid texts
+     relating to the purification by water and to fumigation: the
+     pains taken to secure material cleanliness, described in
+     these formulas, were primarily directed towards the
+     preservation of the bodies subjected to these processes, and
+     further to the perfecting of the souls to which these bodies
+     had been united.
+
+Having taken these precautions, they placed the body in the grave,
+sometimes entirely naked, sometimes partially covered with its ordinary
+garments, or sewn up in a closely fitting gazelle skin. The dead man
+was placed on his left side, lying north and south with his face to the
+east, in some cases on the bare ground, in others on a mat, a strip of
+leather or a fleece, in the position of a child in the foetal state. The
+knees were sharply bent at an angle of 45° with the thighs, while the
+latter were either at right angles with the body, or drawn up so as
+almost to touch the elbows. The hands are sometimes extended in front
+of the face, sometimes the arms are folded and the hands joined on the
+breast or neck. In some instances the legs are bent upward in such a
+fashion that they almost lie parallel with the trunk. The deceased could
+only be made to assume this position by a violent effort, and in
+many cases the tendons and the flesh had to be cut to facilitate the
+operation. The dryness of the ground selected for these burial-places
+retarded the corruption of the flesh for a long time, it is true, but
+only retarded it, and so did not prevent the soul from being finally
+destroyed. Seeing decay could not be prevented, it was determined
+to accelerate the process, by taking the flesh from the bones before
+interment. The bodies thus treated are often incomplete; the head is
+missing, or is detached from the neck and laid in another part of the
+pit, or, on the other hand, the body is not there, and the head only is
+found in the grave, generally placed apart on a brick, a heap of stones,
+or a layer of cut flints. The forearms and the hands were subjected to
+the same treatment as the head. In many cases no trace of them appears,
+in others they are deposited by the side of the skull or scattered
+about haphazard. Other mutilations are frequently met with; the ribs are
+divided and piled up behind the body, the limbs are disjointed or the
+body is entirely dismembered, and the fragments arranged upon the ground
+or enclosed together in an earthenware chest.
+
+These precautions were satisfactory in so far as they ensured the
+better preservation of the more solid parts of the human frame, but the
+Egyptians felt this result was obtained at too great a sacrifice. The
+human organism thus deprived of all flesh was not only reduced to
+half its bulk, but what remained had neither unity, consistency, nor
+continuity. It was not even a perfect skeleton with its constituent
+parts in their relative places, but a mere mass of bones with no
+connecting links. This drawback, it is true, was remedied by the
+artificial reconstruction in the tomb of the individual thus completely
+dismembered in the course of the funeral ceremonies. The bones were laid
+in their natural order; those of the feet at the bottom, then those
+of the leg, trunk, and arms, and finally the skull itself. But the
+superstitious fear inspired by the dead man, particularly of one thus
+harshly handled, and particularly the apprehension that he might revenge
+himself on his relatives for the treatment to which they had subjected
+him, often induced them to make this restoration intentionally
+incomplete. When they had reconstructed the entire skeleton, they
+refrained from placing the head in position, or else they suppressed
+one or all of the vertebras of the spine, so that the deceased should be
+unable to rise and go forth to bite and harass the living. Having taken
+this precaution, they nevertheless felt a doubt whether the soul could
+really enjoy life so long as one half only of the body remained, and the
+other was lost for ever: they therefore sought to discover the means
+of preserving the fleshy parts in addition to the bony framework of the
+body. It had been observed that when a corpse had been buried in the
+desert, its skin, speedily desiccated and hardened, changed into a case
+of blackish parchment beneath which the flesh slowly wasted away,[*] and
+the whole frame thus remained intact, at least in appearance, while its
+integrity ensured that of the soul.
+
+     * Such was the appearance of the bodies of Coptic monks of
+     the sixth, eighth, and ninth centuries, which I found in the
+     convent cemeteries of Contra-Syene, Taûd, and Akhmîm, right
+     in the midst of the desert.
+
+An attempt was made by artificial means to reproduce the conservative
+action of the sand, and, without mutilating the body, to secure at will
+that incorruptibility without which the persistence of the soul was but
+a useless prolongation of the death-agony. It was the god Anubis--the
+jackal lord of sepulture--who was supposed to have made this discovery.
+He cleansed the body of the viscera, those parts which most rapidly
+decay, saturated it with salts and aromatic substances, protected it
+first of all with the hide of a beast, and over this laid thick layers
+of linen. The victory the god had thus gained over corruption was,
+however, far from being a complete one. The bath in which the dead man
+was immersed could not entirely preserve the softer parts of the body:
+the chief portion of them was dissolved, and what remained after the
+period of saturation was so desiccated that its bulk was seriously
+diminished.
+
+When any human being had been submitted to this process, he emerged from
+it a mere skeleton, over which the skin remained tightly drawn: these
+shrivelled limbs, sunken chest, grinning features, yellow and blackened
+skin spotted by the efflorescence of the embalmer's salts, were not
+the man himself, but rather a caricature of what he had been. As
+nevertheless he was secure against immediate destruction, the Egyptians
+described him as furnished with his shape; henceforth he had been purged
+of all that was evil in him, and he could face with tolerable security
+whatever awaited him in the future. The art of Anubis, transmitted to
+the embalmers and employed by them from generation to generation,
+had, by almost eliminating the corruptible part of the body without
+destroying its outward appearance, arrested decay, if not for ever,
+at least for an unlimited period of time. If there were hills at hand,
+thither the mummied dead were still borne, partly from custom, partly
+because the dryness of the air and of the soil offered them a further
+chance of preservation. In districts of the Delta where the hills were
+so distant as to make it very costly to reach them, advantage was
+taken of the smallest sandy islet rising above the marshes, and there
+a cemetery was founded. Where this resource failed, the mummy was
+fearlessly entrusted to the soil itself, but only after being placed
+within a sarcophagus of hard stone, whose lid and trough, hermetically
+fastened together with cement, prevented the penetration of any
+moisture. Reassured on this point, the soul followed the body to the
+tomb, and there dwelt with it as in its eternal house, upon the confines
+of the visible and invisible worlds.
+
+Here the soul kept the distinctive character and appearance which
+pertained to it "upon the earth:" as it had been a "double" before
+death, so it remained a double after it, able to perform all functions
+of animal life after its own fashion. It moved, went, came, spoke,
+breathed, accepted pious homage, but without pleasure, and as it were
+mechanically, rather from an instinctive horror of annihilation than
+from any rational desire for immortality. Unceasing regret for the
+bright world which it had left disturbed its mournful and inert
+existence. "O my brother, withhold not thyself from drinking and from
+eating, from drunkenness, from love, from all enjoyment, from following
+thy desire by night and by day; put not sorrow within thy heart, for
+what are the years of a man upon earth? The West is a land of sleep and
+of heavy shadows, a place wherein its inhabitants, when once installed,
+slumber on in their mummy-forms, never more waking to see their
+brethren; never more to recognize their fathers or their mothers, with
+hearts forgetful of their wives and children. The living water, which
+earth giveth to all who dwell upon it, is for me but stagnant and dead;
+that water floweth to all who are on earth, while for me it is but
+liquid putrefaction, this water that is mine. Since I came into this
+funereal valley I know not where nor what I am. Give me to drink of
+running water!... Let me be placed by the edge of the water with my face
+to the North, that the breeze may caress me and my heart be refreshed
+from its sorrow." By day the double remained concealed within the tomb.
+If it went forth by night, it was from no capricious or sentimental
+desire to revisit the spots where it had led a happier life. Its organs
+needed nourishment as formerly did those of its body, and of itself it
+possessed nothing "but hunger for food, thirst for drink."[*] Want and
+misery drove it from its retreat, and flung it back among the living.
+It prowled like a marauder about fields and villages, picking up and
+greedily devouring whatever it might find on the ground--broken meats
+which had been left or forgotten, house and stable refuse--and,
+should these meagre resources fail, even the most revolting dung and
+excrement.[**]
+
+     *   _Teti_, 11. 74, 75. "Hateful unto Teti is hunger, and
+     he eateth it not; hateful unto Teti is thirst, nor hath he
+     drunk it." We see that the Egyptians made hunger and thirst
+     into two substances or beings, to be swallowed as food is
+     swallowed, but whose effects were poisonous unless
+     counteracted by the immediate absorption of more satisfying
+     sustenance.
+
+     **  King Teti, when distinguishing his fate from that of the
+     common dead, stated that he had abundance of food, and hence
+     was not reduced to so pitiful an extremity. "Abhorrent unto
+     Teti is excrement, Teti rejecteth urine, and Teti abhorreth
+     that which is abominable in him; abhorrent unto him is
+     faecal matter and he eateth it not, hateful unto Teti is
+     liquid filth." (_Teti_, 11. 68, 69_). The same doctrine is
+     found in several places in the Book of the Dead_.
+
+This ravenous sceptre had not the dim and misty form, the long shroud
+of floating draperies of our modern phantoms, but a precise and definite
+shape, naked, or clothed in the garments which it had worn while yet
+upon earth, and emitting a pale light, to which it owed the name of
+Luminous--_Khû, Khûû_.[*] The double did not allow its family to
+forget it, but used all the means at its disposal to remind them of
+its existence. It entered their houses and their bodies, terrified them
+waking and sleeping by its sudden apparitions, struck them down with
+disease or madness,[**] and would even suck their blood like the modern
+vampire.
+
+     *  The name of luminous was at first so explained as to make
+     the light wherewith souls were clothed, into a portion of
+     the divine light. In my opinion the idea is a less abstract
+     one, and shows that, as among many other nations, so with
+     the Egyptians the soul was supposed to appear as a kind of
+     pale flame, or as emitting a glow analogous to the
+     phosphorescent halo which is seen by night about a piece of
+     rotten wood, or putrefying fish. This primitive conception
+     may have subsequently faded, and _khû the glorious one_, one
+     of the _mânes_, may have become one of those flattering
+     names by which it was thought necessary to propitiate the
+     dead; it then came to have that significance of _resplendent
+     with light_ which is ordinarily attributed to it.
+
+     **  The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published
+     by Pleyte is full are directed against _dead men or dead
+     women_ who entered into one of the living to give him the
+     _migraine_, and violent headaches. Another Leyden Papyrus,
+     briefly analyzed by Ohabas, and translated by Maspero,
+     contains the complaint, or rather the formal act of
+     requisition of a husband whom the _luminous_ of his wife
+     returned to torment in his home, without any just cause for
+     such conduct.
+
+One effectual means there was, and one only, of escaping or preventing
+these visitations, and this lay in taking to the tomb all the various
+provisions of which the double stood in need, and for which it visited
+their dwellings. Funerary sacrifices and the regular cultus of the
+dead originated in the need experienced for making provision for the
+sustenance of the manes after having secured their lasting existence by
+the mummification of their bodies.[*]
+
+     *  Several chapters of the _Book of the Dead_ consist of
+     directions for giving food to that part of man which
+     survives his death, e.g. chap, cv., "_Chapter for providing
+     food for the double_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxvii.), and
+     chap, cvi., "_Chapter for giving daily abundance unto the
+     deceased, in Memphis_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxviii.).
+
+[Illustration: 161.jpg SACRIFICING TO THE DEAD IN THE TOMB CHAPEL. 2]
+
+     2  Stela of Antûf I., Prince of Thebes, drawn by Faucher-
+     Gudin from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey.    Below,
+     servants and relations are bringing the victims and cutting
+     up the ox at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the dead
+     man, seated under his pavilion and receiving the sacrifice:
+     an attendant offers him drink, another brings him the haunch
+     of an ox a third a basket and two jars; provisions fill the
+     whole chamber. Behind Antûf stand two servants, the one
+     fanning his master, and the second offering him his staff
+     and sandals. The position of the door, which is in the
+     lowest row of the scenes, indicates that what is represented
+     above it takes place within the tomb.
+
+Gazelles and oxen were brought and sacrificed at the door of the tomb
+chapel; the haunches, heart, and breast of each victim being presented
+and heaped together upon the ground, that there the dead might find them
+when they began to be hungry. Vessels of beer or wine, great jars of
+fresh water, purified with natron, or perfumed, were brought to them
+that they might drink their fill at pleasure, and by such voluntary
+tribute men bought their good will, as in daily life they bought that of
+some neighbour too powerful to be opposed.
+
+The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils which
+death so plentifully bestows upon men. Their bodies suffered change and
+gradually perished until nothing was left of them. Their souls,
+like human souls, were only the representatives of their bodies, and
+gradually became extinct if means of arresting the natural tendency to
+decay were not found in time. Thus, the same necessity that forced men
+to seek the kind of sepulture which gave the longest term of existence
+to their souls, compelled the gods to the same course. At first, they
+were buried in the hills, and one of their oldest titles describes them
+as those "who are upon the sand,"[*] safe from putrefaction; afterwards,
+when the art of embalming had been discovered, the gods received the
+benefit of the new invention and were mummified.
+
+     * In the _Book of Knowing that which is in Hades_, for the
+     fourth and fifth hours of the night, we have the description
+     of the sandy realm of Sokaris and of the gods _Hiriû Shâîtû-
+     senû_, who are on their sand. Elsewhere in the same book we
+     have a cynocephalus _upon its sand_, and the gods of the
+     eighth hour are also mysterious gods who are on their sand.
+     Wherever these personages are represented in the vignettes,
+     the Egyptian artist has carefully drawn the ellipse painted
+     in yellow and sprinkled with red, which is the conventional
+     rendering of sand, and sandy districts.
+
+Each nome possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead god: at Thinis
+there was the mummy and the tomb of Anhuri, the mummy of Osiris at
+Mendes, the mummy of Tûmû at Heliopolis.[*] In some of the nomes the
+gods did not change their names in altering the mode of their existence:
+the deceased Osiris remained Osiris; Nit and Hâthor when dead were still
+Nît and Hâthor, at Saïs and at Denderah. But Phtah of Memphis became
+Sokaris by dying; Uapûaîtû, the jackal of Siût, was changed into
+Anubis;[**] and when his disk had disappeared at evening, Anhûri, the
+sunlit sky of Thinis, was Khontamentît, Lord of the West, until the
+following day.
+
+     *  The sepulchres of Tûmû, Khopri, Râ, Osiris, and in each
+     of them the heap of sand hiding the body, are represented in
+     the tomb of Seti I., as also the four rams in which the
+     souls of the god are incarnate. The tombs of the gods were
+     known even in Roman times.
+
+     **  To my mind, at least, this is an obvious conclusion from
+     the monuments of Siût, in which the jackal god is called
+     Uapûaîtû, as the living god, lord of the city, and Anûpû,
+     master of embalming or of the Oasis, lord of Ra-qrirît,
+     inasmuch as he is god of the dead. Ra-qrirît, _the door of
+     the stone_, was the name which the people of Siût gave to
+     their necropolis and to the infernal domain of their god.
+
+That bliss which we dream of enjoying in the world to come was not
+granted to the gods any more than to men. Their bodies were nothing
+but inert larvae, "with unmoving heart,"[*] weak and shrivelled limbs,
+unable to stand upright were it not that the bandages in which they were
+swathed stiffened them into one rigid block. Their hands and heads alone
+were free, and were of the green or black shades of putrid flesh.
+
+     *  This is the characteristic epithet for the dead Osiris,
+     Urdu Mt, he whose heart is unmoving, he whose heart no
+     longer beats, and who has therefore ceased to live.
+
+[Illustration: 164.jpg PHTAH AS A MUMMY. 2]
+
+     2  Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a bronze statuette of the
+     Saïte period, found in the department of Hérault, at the end
+     of a gallery in an ancient mine.
+
+Their doubles, like those of men, both dreaded and regretted the light.
+All sentiment was extinguished by the hunger from which they suffered,
+and gods who were noted for their compassionate kindness when alive,
+became pitiless and ferocious tyrants in the tomb. When once men were
+bidden to the presence of Sokaris, Khontamentîfc, or even of Osiris,
+"mortals come terrifying their hearts with fear of the god, and none
+dareth to look him in the face either among gods or men; for him the
+great are as the small. He spareth not those who love him; he beareth
+away the child from its mother, and the old man who walketh on his way;
+full of fear, all creatures make supplication before him, but he turneth
+not his face towards them." Only by the unfailing payment of tribute,
+and by feeding him as though he were a simple human double, could living
+or dead escape the consequences of his furious temper. The living paid
+him his dues in pomps and solemn sacrifices, repeated from year to year
+at regular intervals; but the dead bought more dearly the protection
+which he deigned to extend to them. He did not allow them to receive
+directly the prayers, sepulchral meals, or offerings of kindred on
+feast-days; all that was addressed to them must first pass through his
+hands. When their friends wished to send them wine, water, bread, meat,
+vegetables, and fruits, he insisted that these should first be offered
+and formally presented to himself; then he was humbly prayed to transmit
+them to such or such a double, whose name and parentage were pointed out
+to him. He took possession of them, kept part for his own use, and of
+his bounty gave the remainder to its destined recipient. Thus death
+made no change in the relative positions of the feudal god and his
+worshippers. The worshipper who called himself the _amakhû_ of the god
+during life was the subject and vassal of his mummied god even in the
+tomb;[*] and the god who, while living, reigned over the living, after
+his death continued to reign over the dead.
+
+     * The word _amakhû_ is applied to an individual who has
+     freely entered the service of king or baron, and taken him
+     for his lord: _amakhû khir nibuf_ means _vassal of his
+     lord_. In the same way, each chose for himself a god who
+     became his patron, and to whom he owed _fealty_, i.e. to
+     whom he was _amakhû_--vassal. To the god he owed the service
+     of a good vassal--tribute, sacrifices, offerings; and to his
+     vassal the god owed in return the service of a suzerain--
+     protection, food, reception into his dominions and access to
+     his person. A man might be absolutely _nib amahkît_, master
+     of fealty, or, relatively to a god, _amakhû khir Osiri_, the
+     vassal of Osiris, _amakhû khir Phtah-Sokari_, the vassal of
+     Phtah-Sokaris.
+
+He dwelt in the city near the prince and in the midst of his subjects:
+Râ living in Heliopolis along with the prince of Heliopolis; Haroêris
+in Edfû together with the prince of Edfû; Nît in Saïs with the prince of
+Sais. Although none of the primitive temples have come down to us,
+the name given to them in the language of the time, shows what
+they originally were. A temple was considered as the feudal
+mansion--hâît,--the house--_pirû, pi_,--of the god, better cared for,
+and more respected than the houses of men, but not otherwise differing
+from them. It was built on a site slightly raised above the level of
+the plain, so as to be safe from the inundation, and where there was no
+natural mound, the want was supplied by raising a rectangular platform
+of earth. A layer of sand spread uniformly on the sub-soil provided
+against settlements or infiltration, and formed a bed for the
+foundations of the building.[*]
+
+     * This custom lasted into Græco-Roman times, and was part of
+     the ritual for laying the foundations of a temple. After the
+     king had dug out the soil on the ground where the temple was
+     to stand, he spread over the spot sand mixed with pebbles
+     and precious stones, and upon this he laid the first course
+     of stone.
+
+This was first of all a single room, circumscribed, gloomy, covered in
+by a slightly vaulted roof, and having no opening but the doorway, which
+was framed by two tall masts, whence floated streamers to attract from
+afar the notice of worshippers; in front of its façade [*] was a court,
+fenced in with palisading.
+
+     *  No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to
+     our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we
+     have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the
+     word _temple_ in texts of the Memphite period.
+
+[Illustration: 167.jpg THE SACRED BULL. 2]
+
+     2  A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gîzeh Museum,
+     drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are
+     copied from those of similar figures on stelæ of the
+     Serapeum.
+
+Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood,
+or metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for
+containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was
+every day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of
+chambers increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs,
+precious vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode;
+until that which had once constituted the whole temple became no more
+than its sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in
+body,[*] and the fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several
+cities did not prevent his being present in all of them at once. He
+could divide his double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he
+pleased, and these bodies might be human or animal, natural objects
+or things manufactured--such as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**]
+Several of the gods were incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitû
+at Heracleopolis, Khnûmû at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their
+temples, and allowed to gratify any fancy that came into their
+animal brains. Other gods entered into bulls: Râ at Heliopolis, and,
+subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minû at Thebes, and Montû at Hermonthis.
+They indicated beforehand by certain marks such beasts as they intended
+to animate by. their doubles, and he who had learnt to recognize these
+signs was at no loss to find a living god when the time came for
+seeking one and presenting it to the adoration of worshippers in the
+temple.[***]
+
+     *  Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hâthor
+     likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed
+     sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine
+     cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other
+     instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in
+     thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life
+     to the statues and images which they made, and believed
+     (especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit
+     haunted images of itself."
+
+     **  Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et l'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. i. p. 77, et seq.; _Archéologie
+     Égyptienne_, pp. 106, 107; English edition, pp. 105, 106.
+     This notion of actuated statues seemed so strange and so
+     unworthy of the wisdom of the Egyptians that Egyptologists
+     of the rank of M. de Rougé have taken in an abstract and
+     metaphorical sense expressions referring to the automatic
+     movements of divine images.
+
+     ***  The bulls of Râ and of Phtah, the Mnevis and the Hapis,
+     are known to us from classic writers. The bull of Minû at
+     Thebes may be seen in the procession of the god as
+     represented on monuments of Ramses II. and Ramses III. Bâkhû
+     (called Bakis by the Greeks), the bull of Hermonthis, is
+     somewhat rare, and mainly represented upon a few later
+     stelæ in the Gîzeh Museum; it is chiefly known from the
+     texts. The particular signs distinguishing each of these
+     sacred animals have been determined both on the authority of
+     ancient writers, and from examination of the figured
+     monuments; the arrangement and outlines of some of the black
+     markings of the Hapis are clearly shown in the illustration
+     on p. 167.
+
+And if the statues had not the same outward appearance of actual life as
+the animals, they none the less concealed beneath their rigid exteriors
+an intense energy of life which betrayed itself on occasion by gestures
+or by words. They thus indicated, in language which their servants could
+understand, the will of the gods, or their opinion on the events of the
+day; they answered questions put to them in accordance with prescribed
+forms, and sometimes they even foretold the future.
+
+[Illustration: 169.jpg OPEN-AIR OFFERINGS TO THE SERPENT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the
+     tomb of Khopirkerîsonbû. The inscription behind the urseus
+     states that it represents _Banûît the August, lady of the
+     double granary_.
+
+Each temple held a fairly large number of statues representing so many
+embodiments of the local divinity and of the members of his triad. These
+latter shared, albeit in a lesser degree, all the honours and all the
+prerogatives of the master; they accepted sacrifices, answered prayers,
+and, if needful, they prophesied. They occupied either the sanctuary
+itself, or one of the halls built about the principal sanctuary, or
+one of the isolated chapels which belonged to them, subject to the
+suzerainty of the feudal god. The god has his divine court to help him
+in the administration of his dominions, just as a prince is aided by his
+ministers in the government of his realm.
+
+This State religion, so complex both in principle and in its outward
+manifestations, was nevertheless inadequate to express the exuberant
+piety of the populace. There were casual divinities in every nome
+whom the people did not love any the less because of their inofficial
+character; such as an exceptionally high palm tree in the midst of the
+desert, a rock of curious outline, a spring trickling drop by drop from
+the mountain to which hunters came to slake their thirst in the hottest
+hours of the day, or a great serpent believed to be immortal, which
+haunted a field, a grove of trees, a grotto, or a mountain ravine.[*]
+
+     * It was a serpent of this kind which gave its name to the
+     hill of Shêikh Harîdî, and the adjacent nome of the Serpent
+     Mountain; and though the serpent has now turned Mussulman,
+     he still haunts the mountain and preserves his faculty of
+     coming to life again every time that he is killed.
+
+The peasants of the district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and
+thought that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their
+fields by gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines
+of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are
+fine single sycamores, flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.
+
+[Illustration: 171.jpg THE PEASANT'S OFFERING TO THE SYCAMORE. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a scene in the tomb of
+     Khopirkerîsonbû. The sacred sycamore here stands at the end
+     of a field of corn, and would seem to extend its protection
+     to the harvest.
+
+Their fresh greenness is in sharp contrast with the surrounding
+fawn-coloured landscape, and their thick foliage defies the midday sun
+even in summer. But, on examining the ground in which they grow, we soon
+find that they drink from water which has infiltrated from the Nile, and
+whose existence is in nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil. They
+stand as it were with their feet in the river, though no one about them
+suspects it. Egyptians of all ranks counted them divine and habitually
+worshipped them,[**] making them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers,
+vegetables, and water in porous jars daily replenished by good and
+charitable people.
+
+     **  Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 224--227. They were represented
+     as animated by spirits concealed within them, but which
+     could manifest themselves on occasion. At such times the
+     head or whole body of the spirit of a tree would emerge from
+     its trunk, and when it returned to its hiding-place the
+     trunk reabsorbed it, or _ate_ it again, according to the
+     Egyptian expression, which I have already had occasion to
+     quote above; see p. 110, note 3.
+
+Passers-by drank of the water, and requited the unexpected benefit with
+a short prayer. There were several such trees in the Memphite nome, and
+in the Letopolite nome from Dashûr to Gîzeh, inhabited, as every one
+knew, by detached doubles of Nûît and Hâthor. These combined districts
+were known as the "Land of the Sycamore," a name afterwards extended
+to the city of Memphis; and their sacred trees are worshipped at the
+present day both by Mussulman and Christian fellahîn.[*]
+
+     * The tree at Matarîeh, commonly called the _Tree of the
+     Virgin_, seems to me to be the successor of a sacred tree of
+     Heliopolis in which a goddess, perhaps Hâthor, was
+     worshipped.
+
+The most famous among them all, the Sycamore of the South--_nûhît
+rîsit_--was regarded as the living body of Hâthor on earth. Side by side
+with its human gods and prophetic statues, each nome proudly advanced
+one or more sacred animals, one or more magic trees. Each family, and
+almost every individual, also possessed gods and fetishes, which had
+been pointed out for their worship by some fortuitous meeting with an
+animal or an object; by a dream, or by sudden intuition. They had a
+place in some corner of the house, or a niche in its walls; lamps were
+continually kept burning before them, and small daily offerings
+were made to them, over and above what fell to their share on solemn
+feast-days. In return, they became the protectors of the household, its
+guardians and its counsellors. Appeal was made to them in every exigency
+of daily life, and their decisions were no less scrupulously carried out
+by their little circle of worshippers, than was the will of the feudal
+god by the inhabitants of his principality.
+
+[Illustration: 173.jpg THE SACRIFICE OF THE BULL.--THE OFFICIATING
+PRIEST LASSOING THE VICTIM. 1]
+
+     1 Bas-relief from the temple of Seti I. at Abydos; drawn by
+     Boudier, from a photograph by M. Daniel Héron. Seti I.,
+     second king of the XIXth dynasty, is throwing the lasso; his
+     son, Ramses II., who is still the crown prince, holds the
+     bull by the tail to prevent its escaping from the slipknot.
+
+The prince was the great high priest. The whole religion of the nome
+rested upon him, and originally he himself performed its ceremonies. Of
+these, the chief was sacrifice,--that is to say, a banquet which it was
+his duty to prepare and lay before the god with his own hands. He went
+out into the fields to lasso the half-wild bull; bound it, cut its
+throat, skinned it, burnt part of the carcase in front of his idol
+and distributed the rest among his assistants, together with plenty of
+cakes, fruits, vegetables, and wine.[*] On the occasion, the god was
+present both in body and double, suffering himself to be clothed and
+perfumed, eating and drinking of the best that was set on the table
+before him, and putting aside some of the provisions for future use.
+This was the time to prefer requests to him, while he was gladdened and
+disposed to benevolence by good cheer. He was not without suspicion as
+to the reason why he was so feasted, but he had laid down his conditions
+beforehand, and if they were faithfully observed he willingly yielded
+to the means of seduction brought to bear upon him. Moreover, he himself
+had arranged the ceremonial in a kind of contract formerly made with his
+worshippers and gradually perfected from age to age by the piety of new
+generations.[**] Above all things, he insisted on physical cleanliness.
+The officiating priest must carefully wash--_ûâbû_--his face, mouth,
+hands, and body; and so necessary was this preliminary purification
+considered, that from it the professional priest derived his name of
+_ûîbû_, the washed, the clean.[***]
+
+     *  This appears from the sacrificial ritual employed in the
+     temples up to the last days of Egyptian paganism; cf., for
+     instance, the illustration on p. 173, where the king is
+     represented as lassoing the bull. That which in historic
+     times was but an image, had originally been a reality.
+
+     **  The most striking example of the divine institution of
+     religious services is furnished by the inscription relating
+     the history of the destruction of men in the reign of Râ,
+     where the god, as he is about to make his final ascension
+     into heaven, substitutes animal for human sacrifices.
+
+     ***  The idea of physical cleanliness comes out in such
+     variants as _ûîbû totûi_, "clean of both hands," found on
+     stelae instead of the simple title _ûîbû_. We also know, on
+     the evidence of ancient writers, the scrupulous daily care
+     which Egyptian priests took of their bodies. It was only as
+     a secondary matter that the idea of moral purity entered
+     into the conception of a priest.
+
+His costume was the archaic dress, modified according to circumstances.
+During certain services, or at certain points in the sacrifices, it was
+incumbent upon him to wear sandals, the panther-skin over his shoulder,
+and the thick lock of hair falling over his right ear; at other times he
+must gird himself with the loin-cloth having a jackal's tail, and take
+the shoes from off his feet before proceeding with his office, or attach
+a false beard to his chin. The species, hair, and age of the victim, the
+way in which it was to be brought and bound, the manner and details of
+its slaughter, the order to be followed in opening its body and cutting
+it up, were all minutely and unchangeably decreed. And these were but
+the least of the divine exactions, and those most easily satisfied. The
+formulas accompanying each act of the sacrificial priest contained
+a certain number of words whose due sequence and harmonies might not
+suffer the slightest modification whatever, even from the god himself,
+under penalty of losing their efficacy.[*]
+
+     * The Purification Ritual for officiating priests is
+     contained in a papyrus of the Berlin Museum, whose analysis
+     and table of chapters has been published by Herr Oscar von
+     Lemm, _Das Bitualbuch des Ammonsdienstes_, p. 4, et seq.
+
+They were always recited with the same rhythm, according to a system of
+chaunting in which every tone had its virtue, combined with movements
+which confirmed the sense and worked with irresistible effect: one
+false note, a single discord between the succession of gestures and the
+utterance of the sacramental words, any hesitation, any awkwardness in
+the accomplishment of a rite, and the sacrifice was vain.
+
+Worship as thus conceived became a legal transaction, in the course of
+which the god gave up his liberty in exchange for certain compensations
+whose kind and value were fixed by law. By a solemn deed of transfer the
+worshipper handed over to the legal representatives of the contracting
+divinity such personal or real property as seemed to him fitting payment
+for the favour which he asked, or suitable atonement for the wrong which
+he had done. If man scrupulously observed the innumerable conditions
+with which the transfer was surrounded, the god could not escape the
+obligation of fulfilling his petition;[*] but should he omit the least
+of them, the offering remained with the temple and went to increase
+the endowments in mortmain, while the god was pledged to nothing in
+exchange.
+
+     * This obligation is evident from texts where, as in the
+     poem of Pentaûirît, a king who is in danger demands from his
+     favourite god the equivalent in protection of the sacrifices
+     which he has offered to that divinity, and the gifts
+     wherewith he has enriched him. "Have I not made unto thee
+     many offerings?" says Ramses II. to Amon. "I have filled
+     thy temple with my prisoners, I have built thee a mansion
+     for millions of years.... Ah if evil is the lot of them who
+     insult thee, good are thy purposes towards those who honour
+     thee, O Amon!"
+
+Hence the officiating priest assumed a formidable responsibility
+as regarded his fellows: a slip of memory, the slightest accidental
+impurity, made him a bad priest, injurious to himself and harmful to
+those worshippers who had entrusted him with their interests before the
+gods. Since it was vain to expect ritualistic perfections from a prince
+constantly troubled with affairs of state, the custom was established
+of associating professional priests with him, personages who devoted all
+their lives to the study and practice of the thousand formalities whose
+sum constituted the local religion. Each temple had its service of
+priests, independent of those belonging to neighbouring temples, whose
+members, bound to keep their hands always clean and their voices true,
+were ranked according to the degrees of a learned hierarchy. At their
+head was a sovereign pontiff to direct them in the exercise of their
+functions. In some places he was called the first prophet, or rather the
+first servant of the god--_hon-nûtir topi_; at Thebes he was the first
+prophet of Amon, at Thinis he was the first prophet of Anhûri.[*]
+
+     * This title of _first prophet_ belongs to priests of the
+     less important towns, and to secondary divinities. If we
+     find it employed in connection with the Theban worship, it
+     is because Amon was originally a provincial god, and only
+     rose into the first rank with the rise of Thebes and the
+     great conquests of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.
+
+But generally he bore a title appropriate to the nature of the god whose
+servant he was. The chief priest of Râ at Heliopolis, and in all the
+cities which adopted the Heliopolitan form of worship, was called _Oîrû
+maû_, the master of visions, and he alone besides the sovereign of
+the nome, or of Egypt, enjoyed the privilege of penetrating into the
+sanctuary, of "entering into heaven and there beholding the god" face
+to face. In the same way, the high priest of Anhûri at Sebennytos was
+entitled the wise and pure warrior--_ahûîti saû uîbu_--because his god
+went armed with a pike, and a soldier god required for his service a
+pontiff who should be a soldier like himself.
+
+These great personages did not always strictly seclude themselves
+within the limits of the religious domain. The gods accepted, and even
+sometimes solicited, from their worshippers, houses, fields, vineyards,
+orchards, slaves, and fishponds, the produce of which assured their
+livelihood and the support of their temples. There was no Egyptian who
+did not cherish the ambition of leaving some such legacy to the patron
+god of his city, "for a monument to himself," and as an endowment
+for the priests to institute prayers and perpetual sacrifices on his
+behalf.[*] In course of time these accumulated gifts at length formed
+real sacred fiefs--_hotpû-nûtir_--analogous to the _wakfs_ of Mussulman
+Egypt.[**] They were administered by the high priest, who, if necessary,
+defended them by force against the greed of princes or kings. Two,
+three, or even four classes of prophets or _heiroduli_ under his orders
+assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in giving religious
+instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal
+rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind
+of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his
+maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was
+to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses
+they held the chief rank, and were called _hierodules_, or priestesses,
+_hierodules_ of Nit, _hierodules_ of Hâthor, _hierodules_ of
+Pakhît.[***]
+
+     *  As regards the Saïte period, we are beginning to
+     accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or
+     houses, made either by the king or by private individuals.
+
+     **  We know from the _Great Harris Papyrus_ to what the
+     fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses
+     III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, _Die
+     Ægyptologie_, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, _Bubastis, Eighth
+     Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund_, p. 61, a
+     calculation as to the quantities of precious metals
+     belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis;
+     its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.
+
+     *** Mariette remarks  that   priests  play  but   a
+     subordinate part in the temple of Hâthor. This fact, which
+     surprised him, is adequately explained by remembering that
+     Hâthor being a goddess, women take precedence over men in a
+     temple dedicated to her. At Sais, the chief priest was a
+     man, the Tcharp-haîtû; but the persistence with which women
+     of the highest rank, and even queens themselves, took the
+     title of prophetess of Nit from the times of the Ancient
+     Empire shows that in this city the priestess of the goddess
+     was of equal, if not superior, rank to the priest.
+
+The lower offices in the households of the gods, as in princely
+households, were held by a troop of servants and artisans: butchers to
+cut the throats of the victims, cooks and pastrycooks, confectioners,
+weavers, shoemakers, florists, cellarers, water-carriers and
+milk-carriers. In fact, it was a state within a state, and the prince
+took care to keep its government in his own hands, either by investing
+one of his children with the titles and functions of chief pontiff',
+or by arrogating them to himself. In that case, he provided against
+mistakes which would have annulled the sacrifice by associating with
+himself several masters of the ceremonies, who directed him in the
+orthodox evolutions before the god and about the victim, indicated the
+due order of gestures and the necessary changes of costume, and prompted
+him with the words of each invocation from a book or tablet which they
+held in their hands.[*]
+
+     * The title of such a personage was _khri-habi_, the man
+     with the roll or tablet, because of the papyrus roll, or
+     wooden tablet containing the ritual, which he held in his
+     hand.
+
+In addition to its rites and special hierarchy, each of the sacerdotal
+colleges thus constituted had a theology in accordance with the nature
+and attributes of its god. Its fundamental dogma affirmed the unity of
+the nome god, his greatness, his supremacy over all the gods of Egypt
+and of foreign lands[*]--whose existence was nevertheless admitted, and
+none dreamed of denying their reality or contesting their power.
+
+     *  In the inscriptions all local gods bear the titles of
+     _Nûtir ûâ_, only god; Sûton nûtirû, Sûntirû, [ Greek word],
+     king of the gods; of _Nûtir âa nib pit_, the great god, lord
+     of heaven, which show their pretensions to the sovereignty
+     and to the position of creator of the universe.
+
+The latter also boasted of their unity, their greatness, their
+supremacy; but whatever they were, the god of the nome was master of
+them all--their prince, their ruler, their king. It was he alone who
+governed the world, he alone kept it in good order, he alone had created
+it. Not that he had evoked it out of nothing; there was as yet no
+concept of nothingness, and even to the most subtle and refined of
+primitive theologians creation was only a bringing of pre-existent
+elements into play.
+
+[Illustration: 180.jpg SHU UPLIFTING THE SKY. 2]
+
+     2  Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a green enamelled statuette
+     in my possession. It was from Shu that the Greeks derived
+     their representations, and perhaps their myth of Atlas.
+
+The latent germs of things had always existed, but they had slept for
+ages and ages in the bosom of the Nû, of the dark waters. In fulness of
+time the god of each nome drew them forth, classified them, marshalled
+them according to the bent of his particular nature, and made his
+universe out of them by methods peculiarly his own. Nît of Saïs, who was
+a weaver, had made the world of warp and woof, as the mother of a family
+weaves her children's linen.
+
+Khnûmû, the Nile-God of the cataracts, had gathered up the mud of his
+waters and therewith moulded his creatures upon a potter's table. In the
+eastern cities of the Delta these procedures were not so simple. There
+it was admitted that in the beginning earth and sky were two lovers lost
+in the Nû, fast locked in each other's embrace, the god lying beneath
+the goddess. On the day of creation a new god, Shu, came forth from the
+primaeval waters, slipped between the two, and seizing Nûît with both
+hands, lifted her above his head with outstretched arms.[*]
+
+     * This was what the Egyptians called _the upliftings of
+     Shû_. The event first took place at Hermopolis, and certain
+     legends added that in order to get high enough the god had
+     been obliged to make use of a staircase or mound situate in
+     this city, and which was famous throughout Egypt.
+
+Though the starry body of the goddess extended in space--her head being
+to the west and her loins to the east--her feet and hands hung down to
+the earth. These were the four pillars of the firmament under another
+form, and four gods of four adjacent principalities were in charge of
+them. Osiris, or Horus the sparrow-hawk, presided over the southern, and
+Sit over the northern pillar; Thot over that of the west, and Sapdi, the
+author of the zodiacal light, over that of the east. They had divided
+the world among themselves into four regions, or rather into four
+"houses," bounded by those mountains which surround it, and by the
+diameters intersecting between the pillars. Each of these houses
+belonged to one, and to one only; none of the other three, nor even
+the sun himself, might enter it, dwell there, or even pass through
+it without having obtained its master's permission. Sibu had not been
+satisfied to meet the irruption of Shû by mere passive resistance. He
+had tried to struggle, and he is drawn in the posture of a man who has
+just awakened out of sleep, and is half turning on his couch before
+getting up. One of his legs is stretched out, the other is bent and
+partly drawn up as in the act of rising. The lower part of the body is
+still unmoved, but he is raising himself with difficulty on his left
+elbow, while his head droops and his right arm is lifted towards the
+sky. His effort was suddenly arrested. Rendered powerless by a stroke of
+the creator, Sibû remained as if petrified in this position, the obvious
+irregularities of the earth's surface being due to the painful attitude
+in which he was stricken. His sides have since been clothed with
+verdure, generations of men and animals have succeeded each other
+upon his back, but without bringing any relief to his pain; he suffers
+evermore from the violent separation of which he was the victim when
+Nûît was torn from him, and his complaint continues to rise to heaven
+night and day.
+
+[Illustration: 182.jpg SHÛ FORCIBLY SEPARATING SIBÛ AND NÛÎT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting on the mummy-case
+     of Bûtehamon in the Turin Museum. "Shû, the great god, lord
+     of heaven," receives the adoration of two ram-headed souls
+     placed upon his right and left.
+
+[Illustration: 183.jpg THE DIDÛ OF OSIRIS. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a specimen in blue enamelled
+     pottery, now in my possession.
+
+[Illustration: 183b.jpg THE DIDÛ DRESSED. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a figure frequently found in
+     Theban mummy-cases of XXIst and XXIInd dynasties (Wilkinson,
+     _Manners and Customs_. 2nd edit., vol. iii. pl. xxv., No 5).
+
+The aspect of the inundated plains of the Delta, of the river by which
+they are furrowed and fertilized, and of the desert sands by which they
+are threatened, had suggested to the theologians of Mendes and Bûto an
+explanation of the mystery of creation, in which the feudal divinities
+of these cities and of several others in their neighbourhood, Osiris,
+Sit, and Isis, played the principal parts. Osiris first represented the
+wild and fickle Nile of primitive times; afterwards, as those who dwelt
+upon his banks learned to regulate his course, they emphasized
+the kindlier side of his character and soon transformed him into
+a benefactor of humanity, the supremely good being, Ûnnofriû,
+Onnophris.[*] He was lord of the principality of Didû, which lay along
+the Sebennytic branch of the river between the coast marshes and the
+entrance to the Wâdy Tûmilât, but his domain had been divided; and the
+two nomes thus formed, namely, the ninth and sixteenth nomes of the
+Delta in the Pharaonic lists, remained faithful to him, and here
+he reigned without rival, at Busiris as at Mendes. His most famous
+idol-form was the Didû, whether naked or clothed, the fetish, formed
+of four superimposed columns, which had given its name to the
+principality.[**]
+
+     *  It has long been a dogma with Egyptologists that Osiris
+     came from Abydos. Maspero has shown that from his very
+     titles he is obviously a native of the Delta, and more
+     especially of Busiris and Mendes.
+
+     **  The Didû has been very variously interpreted. It has
+     been taken for a kind of nilometer, for a sculptor's or
+     modeller's stand, or a painter's easel for an altar with
+     four superimposed tables, or a sort of pedestal bearing four
+     door-lintels, for a series of four columns placed one behind
+     another, of which the capitals only are visible, one above
+     the other, etc. The explanation given in the text is that of
+     Reuvens, who recognized the Didû as a symbolic
+     representation of the four regions of the world; and of
+     Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 359, note 3. According to Egyptian
+     theologians, it represented the spine of Osiris, preserved
+     as a relic in the town bearing the name of _Didû, Bidît_.
+
+[Illustration: 185.jpg OSIRIS-ONNOPHRIS, WHIP AND CROOK IN HAND. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a statue in green basalt found at
+     Sakkarah, and now in the Gîzeh Museum.
+
+They ascribed life to this Didû, and represented it with a somewhat
+grotesque face, big cheeks, thick lips, a necklace round its throat, a
+long flowing dress which hid the base of the columns beneath its folds,
+and two arms bent across the breast, the hands grasping one a whip and
+the other a crook, symbols of sovereign authority. This, perhaps, was
+the most ancient form of Osiris; but they also represented him as a
+man, and supposed him to assume the shapes of rams and bulls,[*] or
+even those of water-birds, such as lapwings, herons, and cranes, which
+disported themselves about the lakes of that district.[**]
+
+     *  The ram of Mendes is sometimes Osiris, and sometimes the
+     soul of Osiris. The ancients took it for a he-goat, and to
+     them we are indebted for the record of its exploits.
+     According to Manetho, the worship of the sacred ram is not
+     older than the time of King Kaiekhos of the second dynasty.
+     A Ptolemaic necropolis of sacred rams was discovered by
+     Mariette at Tmai el-Amdid, in the ruins of Thmûis, and some
+     of their sarcophagi are now in the Gîzeh Museum.
+
+     **  The Bonû, the chief among these birds, is not the
+     phoenix, as has so often been asserted. It is a kind of
+     heron, either the _Ardea cinerea_, which is common in Egypt,
+     or else some similar species.
+
+The goddess whom we are accustomed to regard as inseparable from him,
+Isis the cow, or woman with cow's horns, had not always belonged to him.
+Originally she was an independent deity, dwelling at Bûto in the
+midst of the ponds of Adhû. She had neither husband nor lover, but had
+spontaneously conceived and given birth to a son, whom she suckled among
+the reeds--a lesser Horus who was called Harsiîsît, Horus the son of
+Isis, to distinguish him from Haroêris. At an early period she was
+married to her neighbour Osiris, and no marriage could have been better
+suited to her nature. For she personified the earth--not the earth in
+general, like Sibu, with its unequal distribution of seas and mountains,
+deserts and cultivated land; but the black and luxuriant plain of the
+Delta, where races of men, plants, and animals increase and multiply
+in ever-succeeding generations. To whom did she owe this inexhaustible
+productive energy if not to her neighbour Osiris, to the Nile? The Nile
+rises, overflows, lingers upon the soil; every year it is wedded to the
+earth, and the earth comes forth green and fruitful from its embraces.
+
+[Illustration: 187.jpg ISIS, WEARING THE COW-HORN HEAD-DRESS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a green basalt statue in the Gîzeh
+     Museum. Prom a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+The marriage of the two elements suggested that of the two divinities;
+Osiris wedded Isis and adopted the young Horus. But this prolific and
+gentle pair were not representative of all the phenomena of nature.
+The eastern part of the Delta borders upon the solitudes of Arabia, and
+although it contains several rich and fertile provinces, yet most of
+these owe their existence to the arduous labour of the inhabitants,
+their fertility being dependent on the daily care of man, and on his
+regular distribution of the water. The moment he suspends the straggle
+or relaxes his watchfulness, the desert reclaims them and overwhelms
+them with sterility. Sit was the spirit of the mountain, stone and sand,
+the red and arid ground as distinguished from the moist black soil of
+the valley. On the body of a lion or of a dog he bore a fantastic head
+with a slender curved snout, upright and square-cut ears; his cloven
+tail rose stiffly behind him, springing from his loins like a fork. He
+also assumed a human form, or retained the animal head only upon a man's
+shoulders. He was felt to be cruel and treacherous, always ready to
+shrivel up the harvest with his burning breath, and to smother Egypt
+beneath a shroud of shifting sand. The contrast between this evil being
+and the beneficent couple, Osiris and Isis, was striking. Nevertheless,
+the theologians of the Delta soon assigned a common origin to these
+rival divinities of Nile and desert, red land and black. Sibû had
+begotten them, Nûît had given birth to them one after another when the
+demiurge had separated her from her husband; and the days of their birth
+were the days of creation.[*]
+
+     * According to one legend which is comparatively old in
+     origin, the fous* children of Nûît, and Horus her grandson,
+     were born one after another, each on one of the intercalary
+     days of the year. This legend was still current in the Greek
+     period.
+
+At first each of them had kept to his own half of the world. Moreover
+Sit, who had begun by living alone, had married, in order that he might
+be inferior to Osiris in nothing.
+
+[Illustration: 189.jpg NEPHTHYS, AS A WAILING WOMAN. 1 and THE GOD SÎT,
+FIGHTING. 2]
+
+     1   Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted wooden statuette
+     in my possession, from a funeral couch found at Akhmîm. On
+     her head the goddess bears the hieroglyph for her name; she
+     is kneeling at the foot of the funeral couch of Osiris and
+     weeps for the dead god.
+
+     2  Bronze statuette of the XXth dynasty, encrusted with
+     gold, from the Hoffmann collection: drawn by Faucher-Gudin
+     from a photograph taken by Legrain in 1891. About the time
+     when the worship of Sît was proscribed, one of the Egyptian
+     owners of this little monument had endeavoured to alter its
+     character, and to transform it into a statuette of the god
+     Khnûmû. He took out the upright ears, replacing them with
+     ram's horns, but made no other change. In the drawing I have
+     had the later addition of the curved horns removed, and
+     restored the upright ears, whose marks may still be seen
+     upon the sides of the head-dress.
+
+As a matter of fact, his companion, Nephthys, did not manifest any great
+activity, and was scarcely more than an artificial counterpart of the
+wife of Osiris, a second Isis who bore no children to her husband;[*]
+for the sterile desert brought barrenness to her as to all that it
+touched.
+
+     *  The impersonal character of Nephthys, her artificial
+     origin, and her derivation from Isis, have been pointed out
+     by Maspero (_Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 362-364). The very name of the
+     goddess, which means _the lady (nibît)_ of the_ mansion
+     (haït)_, confirms this view.
+
+ [Illustration: 190.jpg  PLAN  OF  THE   RUINS   OF  HELIOPOLIS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Thuillier, from the _Description de l'Egypte_
+     (Atlas, Ant., vol. v. pl. 26, 1).
+
+Yet she had lost neither the wish nor the power to bring forth, and
+sought fertilization from another source. Tradition had it that she had
+made Osiris drunken, drawn him to her arms without his knowledge, and
+borne him a son; the child of this furtive union was the jackal Anubis.
+Thus when a higher Nile overflows lands not usually covered by the
+inundation, and lying unproductive for lack of moisture, the soil
+eagerly absorbs the water, and the germs which lay concealed in the
+ground burst forth into life. The gradual invasion of the domain of
+Sît by Osiris marks the beginning of the strife. Sit rebels against the
+wrong of which he is the victim, involuntary though it was; he surprises
+and treacherously slays his brother, drives Isis into temporary
+banishment among her marshes, and reigns over the kingdom of Osiris
+as well as over his own. But his triumph is short-lived. Horus, having
+grown up, takes arms against him, defeats him in many encounters, and
+banishes him in his turn. The creation of the world had brought the
+destroying and the life-sustaining gods face to face: the history of the
+world is but the story of their rivalries and warfare.
+
+None of these conceptions alone sufficed to explain the whole mechanism
+of creation, nor the part which the various gods took in it. The priests
+of Heliopolis appropriated them all, modified some of their details
+and eliminated others, added several new personages, and thus finally
+constructed a complete cosmogony, the elements of which were learnedly
+combined so as to correspond severally with the different operations by
+which the world had been evoked out of chaos and gradually brought to
+its present state. Heliopolis was never directly involved in the great
+revolutions of political history; but no city ever originated so many
+mystic ideas and consequently exercised so great an influence upon the
+development of civilization.[*]
+
+     *  By its inhabitants it was accounted older  than any
+     other  city  of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 192.jpg HORUS, THE AVENGER OF HIS FATHER, AND ANUBIS
+ÛAPÔAÎTÛ. 2]
+
+     2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béato of a
+     bas-relief in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos. The two gods
+     are conducting King Ramses II., here identified with Osiris,
+     towards the goddess Hâthor.
+
+It was a small town built on the plain not far from the Nile at the apex
+of the Delta, and surrounded by a high wall of mud bricks whose remains
+could still be seen at the beginning of the century, but which have now
+almost completely disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: 191.jpg THE SUN SPRINGING FROM AN OPENING LOTUS-FLOWER]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The open lotus-flower, with a bud
+     on either side, stands upon the usual sign for any water-
+     basin. Here the sign represents the Nû, that dark watery
+     abyss from which the lotus sprang on the morning of
+     creation, and whereon it is still supposed to bloom.
+
+One obelisk standing in the midst of the open plain, a few waste mounds
+of débris, scattered blocks, and two or three lengths of crumbling wall,
+alone mark the place where once the city stood. Ka was worshipped there,
+and the Greek name of Heliopolis is but the translation of that which
+was given to it by the priests--Pi-ra, City of the Sun. Its principal
+temple, the "Mansion of the Prince," rose from about the middle of the
+enclosure, and sheltered, together with the god himself, those animals
+in which he became incarnate: the bull Mnevis, and sometimes the Phoenix.
+According to an old legend, this wondrous bird appeared in Egypt only
+once in five hundred years. It is born and lives in the depths of
+Arabia, but when its father dies it covers the body with a layer of
+myrrh, and flies at utmost speed to the temple of Helio-polis, there to
+bury it.[*]
+
+     *  The Phoenix is not the _Bonû_ (cf. p. 186, note 2), but a
+     fabulous bird derived from the golden sparrow-hawk, which
+     was primarily a form of Haroêris, and of the sun-gods in
+     second place only. On the authority of his Heliopolitan
+     guides, Herodotus tells us (ii. 83) that in shape and size
+     the phoenix resembled the eagle, and this statement alone
+     should have sufficed to prevent any attempt at identifying
+     it with the Bonû, which is either a heron or a lapwing.
+
+[Illustration: 194.jpg THE PLAIN AND MOUNDS OF HELIOPOLIS FIFTY YEARS
+AGO.2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a water-colour published by
+     Lepsius, _Denkm_., i. 56. The view is taken from the midst
+     of the ruins at the foot of the obelisk of Usirtasen.    A
+     little stream runs in the foreground, and passes through a
+     muddy pool; to right and left are mounds of ruins, which
+     were then considerable, but have since been partially razed.
+     In the distance Cairo rises against the south-west.
+
+In the beginning, Râ was the sun itself, whose fires appear to be
+lighted every morning in the east and to be extinguished at evening
+in the west; and to the people such he always remained. Among the
+theologians there was considerable difference of opinion on the point.
+Some held the disk of the sun to be the body which the god assumes when
+presenting himself for the adoration of his worshippers. Others affirmed
+that it rather represented his active and radiant soul. Finally, there
+were many who defined it as one of his forms of being--_khopriû_--one of
+his self-manifestations, without presuming to decide whether it was his
+body or his soul which he deigned to reveal to human eyes; but whether
+soul or body, all agreed that the sun's disk had existed in the Nû
+before creation. But how could it have lain beneath the primordial ocean
+without either drying up the waters or being extinguished by them? At
+this stage the identification of Râ with Horus and his right eye served
+the purpose of the theologians admirably: the god needed only to have
+closed his eyelid in order to prevent his fires from coming in contact
+with the water.[*]
+
+     * This is clearly implied in the expression so often used by
+     the sacred writers of Ancient Egypt in reference to the
+     appearance of the sun and his first act at the time of
+     creation: "_Thou openest the two eyes_, and earth is flooded
+     with rays of light."
+
+He was also said to have shut up his disk within a lotus-bud, whose
+folded petals had safely protected it. The flower had opened on the
+morning of the first day, and from it the god had sprung suddenly as
+a child wearing the solar disk upon his head. But all theories led the
+theologians to distinguish two periods, and as it were two beings in
+the existence of supreme deity: a pre-mundane sun lying inert within the
+bosom of the dark waters, and our living and life-giving sun.
+
+[Illustration: 196.jpg HAKMAKHÛÎTI-HAKMAKHIS, THE GREAT GOD. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger of an
+     outer wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Harmakhis grants
+     years and festivals to the Pharaoh Seti I., who kneels
+     before him, and is presented by the lioness-headed goddess
+     Sokhît, here described as a magician--_Oîrît hilcaû_.
+
+One division of the Heliopolitan school retained the use of traditional
+terms and images in reference to these Sun-gods. To the first it left
+the human form, and the title of Râ, with the abstract sense of creator,
+deriving the name from the verb _râ_, which means to give. For
+the second it kept the form of the sparrow-hawk and the name of
+Harma-khûîti--Horus in the two horizons--which clearly denoted his
+function;[*] and it summed up the idea of the sun as a whole in the
+single name of Râ-Harmakhûîti, and in a single image in which the
+hawk-head of Horus was grafted upon the human body of Râ. The other
+divisions of the school invented new names for new conceptions. The sun
+existing before the world they called Creator--_Tûmû, Atûmû_ [**]--and
+our earthly sun they called _Khopri_--He who is.
+
+     *  Harmakhûîti is Horus, the sky of the two horizons; _i.e._
+     the sky of the daytime, and the night sky. When the
+     celestial Horus was confounded with Râ, and became the sun
+     (cf. p. 133), he naturally also became the sun of the two
+     horizons, the sun by day, and the sun by night.
+
+     **  E. de Rouge, _Études sur le Rituel funéraire_, p. 76:
+     "His name may be connected with two radicals. Tem is a
+     negation; it may be taken to mean _the Inapproachable One,
+     the Unknown_ (as in Thebes, where _Aman_ means mystery).
+     Atûm is, in fact, described as 'existing alone in the
+     abyss,' before the appearance of light. It was in this time
+     of darkness that Atûm performed the first act of creation,
+     and this allows of our also connecting his name with the
+     Coptic tamio, _creare_. Atûm was also the prototype of man
+     (in Coptic tme, _homo_), and becomes a perfect 'tûm' after
+     his resurrection." Rugsch would rather explain _Tûmû_ as
+     meaning _the Perfect One, the Complete_. E. de Rougé's
+     philological derivations are no longer admissible; but his
+     explanation of the name corresponds so well with the part
+     played by the god that I fail to see how that can be
+     challenged.
+
+Tûmû was a man crowned and clothed with the insignia of supreme power, a
+true king of gods, majestic and impassive as the Pharaohs who succeeded
+each other upon the throne of Egypt. The conception of Khopri as a disk
+enclosing a scarabæus, or a man with a scarabous upon his head, or a
+scarabus-headed mummy, was suggested by the accidental alliteration of
+his name and that of Khopirrû, the scarabæus. The difference between
+the possible forms of the god was so slight as to be eventually
+lost altogether. His names were grouped by twos and threes in every
+conceivable way, and the scarabæus of Khopri took its place upon the
+head of Râ, while the hawk headpiece was transferred from the shoulders
+of Harmakhûîti to those of Tûmû. The complex beings resulting from these
+combinations, Râ-Tûmû, Atûmû-Râ, Râ-Tûmû-Khopri, Râ-Harmakhûîti-Tûmû,
+Tûm-Harmakhûîti-Khopri, never attained to any pronounced individuality.
+
+[Illustration: 198.jpg KHOPRI, IN HIS BARK]
+
+They were as a rule simple duplicates of the feudal god, names rather
+than persons, and though hardly taken for one another indiscriminately,
+the distinctions between them had reference to mere details of their
+functions and attributes. Hence arose the idea of making these gods into
+embodiments of the main phases in the life of the sun during the day
+and throughout the year. Râ symbolized the sun of springtime and before
+sunrise, Harmakhûîti the summer and the morning sun, Atûmû the sun of
+autumn and of afternoon, Khopri that of winter and of night. The people
+of Heliopolis accepted the new names and the new forms presented for
+their worship, but always subordinated them to their beloved Râ. For
+them Râ never ceased to be the god of the nome; while Atûmû remained the
+god of the theologians, and was invoked by them, the people preferred
+Râ. At Thinis and at Sebennytos Anhûri incurred the same fate as befell
+Râ at Heliopolis. After he had been identified with the sun, the similar
+identification of Shû inevitably followed. Of old, Anhûri and Shû were
+twin gods, incarnations of sky and earth. They were soon but one god in
+two persons--the god Anhûri-Shû, of which the one half under the title
+of Auhûri represented, like Atûmû, the primordial being; and Shû, the
+other half, became, as his name indicates, the creative sun-god who
+upholds (_shû_) the sky.
+
+Tûrnû then, rather than Râ, was placed by the Heliopolitan priests at
+the head of their cosmogony as supreme creator and governor. Several
+versions were current as to how he had passed from inertia into action,
+from the personage of Tûmû into that of Râ. According to the version
+most widely received, he had suddenly cried across the waters, "Come
+unto me!"[*] and immediately the mysterious lotus had unfolded its
+petals, and Râ had appeared at the edge of its open cup as a disk,
+a newborn child, or a disk-crowned sparrow-hawk; this was probably a
+refined form of a ruder and earlier tradition, according to which it
+was upon Râ himself that the office had devolved of separating Sibû from
+Nûît, for the purpose of constructing the heavens and the earth.
+
+     * It was on this account that the Egyptians named the first
+     day of the year the _Day of Come-unto-me!_
+
+But it was doubtless felt that so unseemly an act of intervention was
+beneath the dignity even of an inferior form of the suzerain god; Shû
+was therefore borrowed for the purpose from the kindred cult of Anhûri,
+and at Heliopolis, as at Sebennytos, the office was entrusted to him
+of seizing the sky-goddess and raising her with outstretched arms. The
+violence suffered by Nûît at the hands of Shû led to a connexion of the
+Osirian dogma of Mendes with the solar dogma of Sebennytos, and thus the
+tradition describing the creation of the world was completed by another,
+explaining its division into deserts and fertile lands. Sîbû, hitherto
+concealed beneath the body of his wife, was now exposed to the sun;
+Osiris and Sit, Isis and Nephthys, were born, and, falling from the sky,
+their mother, on to the earth, their father, they shared the surface of
+the latter among themselves. Thus the Heliopolitan doctrine recognized
+three principal events in the creation of the universe: the dualization
+of the supreme god and the breaking forth of light, the raising of the
+sky and the laying bare of the earth, the birth of the Nile and the
+allotment of the soil of Egypt, all expressed as the manifestations
+of successive deities. Of these deities, the latter ones already
+constituted a family of father, mother, and children, like human
+families. Learned theologians availed themselves of this example to
+effect analogous relationships between the rest of the gods, combining
+them all into one line of descent. As Atûmû-Râ could have no fellow, he
+stood apart in the first rank, and it was decided that Shû should be
+his son, whom he had formed out of himself alone, on the first day of
+creation, by the simple intensity of his own virile energy. Shû, reduced
+to the position of divine son, had in his turn begotten Sibû and Nûît,
+the two deities which he separated. Until then he had not been supposed
+to have any wife, and he also might have himself brought his own progeny
+into being; but lest a power of spontaneous generation equal to that
+of the demiurge should be ascribed to him, he was married, and the wife
+found for him was Tafnûît, his twin sister, born in the same way as
+he was born. This goddess, invented for the occasion, was never fully
+alive, and remained, like Nephthys, a theological entity rather than a
+real person. The texts describe her as the pale reflex of her husband.
+
+[Illustration: 201.jpg THE TWIN LIONS, SHÛ AND TAFNÛÎT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a vignette in the papyrus of
+     Ani in the British Museum, published by Lepage-Renouf in the
+     _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, vol.
+     xi., 1889-90, pp. 26-28. The inscription above the lion on
+     the right reads _safu_, "yesterday;" the other, _dûaû_,
+     "this morning."
+
+Together with him she upholds the sky, and every morning receives
+the newborn sun as it emerges from the mountain of the east; she is a
+lioness when Shû is a lion, a woman when he is a man, a lioness-headed
+woman if he is a lion-headed man; she is angry when he is angry,
+appeased when he is appeased; she has no sanctuary wherein he is not
+worshipped. In short, the pair made one being in two bodies, or, to use
+the Egyptian expression, "one soul in its two twin bodies."
+
+Hence we see that the Heliopolitans proclaimed the creation to be the
+work of the sun-god, Atûmû-Râ, and of the four pairs of deities who were
+descended from him. It was really a learned variant of the old doctrine
+that the universe was composed of a sky-god, Horus, supported by his
+four children and their four pillars: in fact, the four sons of the
+Heliopolitan cosmogony, Shû and Sibû, Osiris and Sit, were occasionally
+substituted for the four older gods of the "houses" of the world. This
+being premised, attention must be given to the important differences
+between the two systems. At the outset, instead of appearing
+contemporaneously upon the scene, like the four children of Horus, the
+four Heliopolitan gods were deduced one from another, and succeeded each
+other in the order of their birth. They had not that uniform attribute
+of supporter, associating them always with one definite function, but
+each of them felt himself endowed with faculties and armed with special
+powers required by his condition. Ultimately they took to themselves
+goddesses, and thus the total number of beings working in different ways
+at the organization of the universe was brought up to nine. Hence they
+were called by the collective name of the Ennead, the Nine gods--_paûit
+nûtîrû_,[*]--and the god at their head was entitled _Paûîti_, the god of
+the Ennead.
+
+     * The first Egyptologists confounded the sign used in
+     writing _paûît_ with the sign _kh_, and the word _khet,
+     other_. E. de Rougé was the first to determine its phonetic
+     value: "it should be read Paû, and designates a body of
+     gods." Shortly afterwards Beugsch proved that "the group of
+     gods invoked by E. de Rougé must have consisted of nine "--
+     of an Ennead. This explanation was not at first admitted
+     either by Lepsius or by Mariette, who had proposed a mystic
+     interpretation of the word in his _Mémoire sur la mère
+     d'Apis_, or by E. de Rougé, or by Chabas. The interpretation
+     a _Nine_, an _Ennead_, was not frankly adopted until later,
+     and more especially after the discovery of the Pyramid
+     texts; to-day, it is the only meaning admitted. Of course
+     the Egyptian Ennead has no other connection than that of
+     name with the Enneads of the Neo-Platonists.
+
+When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by
+countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were
+not at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries
+to preside over each of the functions essential to the regular and
+continued working of all things. The theologians of Heliopolis selected
+eighteen from among the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of
+Egypt, and of these they formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded
+as the offspring of the Ennead of the creation. The first of the two
+secondary Enneads, generally known as the Minor Ennead, recognized
+as chief Harsiesis, the son of Osiris. Harsiesis was originally an
+earth-god who had avenged the assassination of his father and the
+banishment of his mother by Sit; that is, he had restored fulness to the
+Nile and fertility to the Delta. When Harsiesis was incorporated into
+the solar religions of Heliopolis, his filiation was left undisturbed
+as being a natural link between the two Enneads, but his personality
+was brought into conformity with the new surroundings into which he was
+transplanted. He was identified with Râ through the intervention of the
+older Horus, Haroêris-Harmakhis, and the Minor Ennead, like the Great
+Ennead, began with a sun-god. This assimilation was not pushed so far
+as to invest the younger Horus with the same powers as his fictitious
+ancestor: he was the sun of earth, the everyday sun, while Atûmû-Râ was
+still the sun pre-mundane and eternal. Our knowledge of the eight other
+deities of the Minor Ennead is very imperfect.
+
+[Illustration: 204.jpg THE FOUR FUNERARY GENII, KHABSONÛF, TIÛMAÛTF,
+HAPI, AND AMSÎT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Wilkinson's _Manners and
+     Customs_, 2nd edit., vol. iii. p. 221, pl. xlviii.
+
+We see only that these were the gods who chiefly protected the sun-god
+against its enemies and helped it to follow its regular course. Thus
+Harhûditi, the Horus of Edfû, spear in hand, pursues the hippopotami
+or serpents which haunt the celestial waters and menace the god. The
+progress of the Sun-bark is controlled by the incantations of Thot,
+while Uapûaîtû, the dual jackal-god of Siufc, guides, and occasionally
+tows it along the sky from south to north. The third Ennead would seem
+to have included among its members Anubis the jackal, and the four
+funerary genii, the children of Horus--Hapi, Amsît, Tiûmaûtf, Kabhsonûf;
+it further appears as though its office was the care and defence of
+the dead sun, the sun by night, as the second Ennead had charge of
+the living sun. Its functions were so obscure and apparently so
+insignificant as compared with those exercised by the other Enneads,
+that the theologians did not take the trouble either to represent it
+or to enumerate its persons. They invoked it as a whole, after the
+two others, in those formulas in which they called into play all the
+creative and preservative forces of the universe; but this was rather as
+a matter of conscience and from love of precision than out of any true
+deference. At the initial impulse of the lord of Heliopolis, the three
+combined Enneads started the world and kept it going, and gods whom
+they had not incorporated were either enemies to be fought with, or mere
+attendants.
+
+The doctrine of the Heliopolitan Ennead acquired an immediate and a
+lasting popularity. It presented such a clear scheme of creation, and
+one whose organization was so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit
+of tradition, that the various sacerdotal colleges adopted it one after
+another, accommodating it to the exigencies of local patriotism. Each
+placed its own nome-god at the head of the Ennead as "god of the Nine,"
+"god of the first time," creator of heaven and earth, sovereign ruler
+of men, and lord of all action. As there was the Ennead of Atûmû at
+Heliopolis, so there was that of Anhûri at Thinis and at Sebennytos;
+that of Minû at Coptos and at Panopolis; that of Haroêris at Edfû; that
+of Sobkhû at Ombos; and, later, that of Phtah at Memphis and of Amon
+at Thebes. Nomes which worshipped a goddess had no scruples whatever in
+ascribing to her the part played by Atûmû, and in crediting her with the
+spontaneous maternity of Shû and Tafnûît.
+
+Illustration: 206.jpg [PLAN OF THE RUINS OP HERMOPOLIS MAGNA. 1]
+
+     1  Plan drawn by Thuillier, from the _Description de l'
+     Egypte_, Ant., vol. iv. pl. 50.
+
+Nît was the source and ruler of the Ennead of Saïs, Isis of that of
+Bûto, and Hâthor of that of Denderah.[**] Few of the sacerdotal colleges
+went beyond the substitution of their own feudal gods for Atûmû.
+Provided that the god of each nome held the rank of supreme lord, the
+rest mattered little, and the local theologians made no change in the
+order of the other agents of creation, their vanity being unhurt even by
+the lower offices assigned by the Heliopolitan tradition to such powers
+as Osiris, Sibû, and Sit, who were known and worshipped throughout the
+whole country.
+
+     **  On the Ennead of Hâthor at Denderah, see Mariette,
+     Denderah, p. 80., et seq., of the text. The fact that Nît,
+     Isis, and, generally speaking, all the feudal goddesses,
+     were the chiefs of their local Enneads, is proved by the
+     epithets applied to them, which represent them as having
+     independent creative power by virtue of their own unaided
+     force and energy, like the god at the head of the
+     Heliopolitan Ennead.
+
+The theologians of Hermopolis alone declined to borrow the new system
+just as it stood, and in all its parts. Hermopolis had always been one
+of the ruling cities of Middle Egypt. Standing alone in the midst of the
+land lying between the Eastern and Western Mies, it had established upon
+each of the two great arms of the river a port and a custom-house, where
+all boats travelling either up or down stream paid toll on passing. Not
+only the corn and natural products of the valley and of the Delta, but
+also goods from distant parts of Africa brought to Siûfc by Soudanese
+caravans, helped to fill the treasury of Hermopolis. Thot, the god of
+the city, represented as ibis or baboon, was essentially a moon-god, who
+measured time, counted the days, numbered the months, and recorded the
+years. Lunar divinities, as we know, are everywhere supposed to exercise
+the most varied powers: they command the mysterious forces of the
+universe; they know the sounds, words, and gestures by which those
+forces are put in motion, and not content with using them for their own
+benefit, they also teach to their worshippers the art of employing them.
+
+[Illustration: 208.jpg THE IBIS THOT. 1; and THE CYNOCEPHALOUS THOT. 2]
+
+     1   Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an enamelled pottery figure
+     from Coptos, now in my possession. Neck, feet, and tail are
+     in blue enamel, the rest is in green. The little personage
+     represented as squatting beneath the beak is Mâit, the
+     goddess of truth, and the ally of Thot. The ibis was
+     furnished with a ring for suspending it; this has been
+     broken off, but traces of it may still be seen at the back
+     of the head.
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a green enamelled pottery
+     figure in my possession (Saïte period).
+
+Thot formed no exception to this rule. He was lord of the voice, master
+of words and of books, possessor or inventor of those magic writings
+which nothing in heaven, on earth, or in Hades can withstand.[***]
+
+     ***  Cf. in the tale of Satni (Maspero, _Contes populaires
+     de l'Ancienne Egypte_, 2nd edit., p. 175) the description of
+     the book which Thot has himself written with his own hand,
+     and which makes its possessor the equal of the gods. "The
+     two formulas which are written therein, if thou recitest the
+     first thou shalt charm heaven, earth, Hades, the mountains,
+     the waters; thou shalt know the birds of the sky and the
+     reptiles, how many soever they be; thou shalt see the fish
+     of the deep, for a divine power will cause them to rise to
+     the surface of the water.    If thou readest the second
+     formula, even although thou shouldest be in the tomb, thou
+     shalt again take the form which was thine upon earth; thou
+     shalt even see the sun rising in heaven, and his cycle of
+     gods, and the moon in the form wherein it appeareth."
+
+He had discovered the incantations which evoke and control the gods; he
+had transcribed the texts and noted the melodies of these incantations;
+he recited them with that true intonation--_mâ khrôû_--which renders
+them all-powerful, and every one, whether god or man, to whom he
+imparted them, and whose voice he made true--_smâ khrôû_--became like
+himself master of the universe. He had accomplished the creation not
+by muscular effort to which the rest of the cosmogonical gods primarily
+owed their birth, but by means of formulas, or even of the voice alone,
+"the first time" when he awoke in the Nû. In fact, the articulate word
+and the voice were believed to be the most potent of creative forces,
+not remaining immaterial on issuing from the lips, but condensing, so
+to speak, into tangible substances; into bodies which were themselves
+animated by creative life and energy; into gods and goddesses who lived
+or who created in their turn. By a very short phrase Tûmû had called
+forth the gods who order all things; for his "Come unto me!" uttered
+with a loud voice upon the day of creation, had evoked the sun from
+within the lotus. Thot had opened his lips, and the voice which
+proceeded from him had become an entity; sound had solidified into
+matter, and by a simple emission of voice the four gods who preside over
+the four houses of the world had come forth alive from his mouth without
+bodily effort on his part, and without spoken evocation. Creation by the
+voice is almost as great a refinement of thought as the substitution
+of creation by the word for creation by muscular effort. In fact, sound
+bears the same relation to words that the whistle of a quartermaster
+bears to orders for the navigation of a ship transmitted by a speaking
+trumpet; it simplifies speech, reducing it as it were to a pure
+abstraction. At first it was believed that the creator had made the
+world with a word, then that he had made it by sound; but the further
+conception of his having made it by thought does not seem to have
+occurred to the theologians. It was narrated at Hermopolis, and the
+legend was ultimately universally accepted, even by the Heliopolitans,
+that the separation of Nûît and Sibû had taken place at a certain spot
+on the site of the city where Sibû had ascended the mound on which
+the feudal temple was afterwards built, in order that he might better
+sustain the goddess and uphold the sky at the proper height. The
+conception of a Creative Council of five gods had so far prevailed at
+Hermopolis that from this fact the city had received in remote antiquity
+the name of the "House of the Five;" its temple was called the "Abode of
+the Five" down to a late period in Egyptian history, and its prince,
+who was the hereditary high priest of Thot, reckoned as the first of his
+official titles that of "Great One of the House of the Five."
+
+The four couples who had helped Atûmû were identified with the four
+auxiliary gods of Thot, and changed the council of Five into a Great
+Hermopolitan Ennead, but at the cost of strange metamorphoses. However
+artificially they had been grouped about Atûmû, they had all preserved
+such distinctive characteristics as prevented their being confounded one
+with another. When the universe which they had helped to build up
+was finally seen to be the result of various operations demanding a
+considerable manifestation of physical energy, each god was required to
+preserve the individuality necessary for the production of such effects
+as were expected of him. They could not have existed and carried on
+their work without conforming to the ordinary conditions of humanity;
+being born one of another, they were bound to have paired with living
+goddesses as capable of bringing forth their children as they were of
+begetting them. On the other hand, the four auxiliary gods of Hermopolis
+exercised but one means of action--the voice. Having themselves come
+forth from the master's mouth, it was by voice that they created and
+perpetuated the world. Apparently they could have done without goddesses
+had marriage not been imposed upon them by their identification with the
+corresponding gods of the Heliopolitan Ennead; at any rate, their wives
+had but a show of life, almost destitute of reality. As these four gods
+worked after the manner of their master, Thot, so they also bore his
+form and reigned along with him as so many baboons. When associated with
+the lord of Hermopolis, the eight divinities of Heliopolis assumed the
+character and the appearance of the four Hermopolitan gods in whom they
+were merged. They were often represented as eight baboons surrounding
+the supreme baboon, or as four pairs of gods and goddesses without
+either characteristic attributes or features; or, finally, as four pairs
+of gods and goddesses, the gods being, as far as we are able to judge,
+the couple Nû-Nûît answers to Shû-Tafnûît; Hahû-Hehît to Sibû and Nûîfc;
+Kakû-Kakît to Osiris and Isis; Ninû-Ninît to Sit and Nephthys. There
+was seldom any occasion to invoke them separately; they were addressed
+collectively as the Eight--_Khmûnû_--and it was on their account that
+Hermopolis was named _Khmûnû_, the City of the Eight. Ultimately they
+were deprived of the little individual life still left to them, and were
+fused into a single being to whom the texts refer as Khomninû, the god
+Eight.
+
+[Illustration: 212.jpg THE HERMOPOLITAN OGDOAD. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Béato. Cf.
+     Lepsius, Denkm., iv. pl. 66 c. In this illustration I have
+     combined! the two extremities of a great scene at Philæ, in
+     which the _Eight_, divided into two groups of four, frog-
+     headed men, and the goddesses serpent-headed women. Morning
+     and evening  do they sing;   and the mysterious hymns
+     wherewith they salute the rising and the setting sun ensure
+     the continuity of his course.    Their names did not survive
+     their  metamorphoses;   each  pair had no longer more than a
+     single name, the termination of each name varying according
+     as a god or a goddess was intended:--Nu  and Nûît, Hehû and
+     Hehît, Kakû and Kakît, Ninû and Ninît, the god One and the
+     god Eight, the Monad and the Ogdoad. The latter had scarcely
+     more than a theoretical existence, and was generally
+     absorbed into the person of the former. Thus the theologians
+     of Hermopolis gradually disengaged the unity of their feudal
+     god from the multiplicity of the cosmogonie deities.
+
+[Illustration: 213.jpg AMON. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette found at
+     Thebes, and now in my possession.
+
+By degrees the Ennead of Thot was thus reduced to two terms: take part
+in the adoration of the king. According to a custom common towards the
+Græco-Roman period, the sculptor has made the feet of his gods like
+jackals' heads; it is a way of realizing the well-known metaphor which
+compares a rapid runner to the jackal roaming around Egypt.
+
+As the sacerdotal colleges had adopted the Heliopolitan doctrine, so
+they now generally adopted that of Hermopolis: Amon, for instance, being
+made to preside indifferently over the eight baboons and over the four
+independent couples of the primitive Ennead. In both cases the process
+of adaptation was absolutely identical, and would have been attended by
+no difficulty whatever, had the divinities to whom it was applied only
+been without family; in that case, the one needful change for each city
+would have been that of a single name in the Heliopolitan list, thus
+leaving the number of the Ennead unaltered. But since these deities had
+been turned into triads they could no longer be primarily regarded as
+simple units, to be combined with the elements of some one or other of
+the Enneads without preliminary arrangement. The two companions whom
+each had chosen had to be adopted also, and the single Thot, or single
+Atûmû, replaced by the three patrons of the nome, thus changing the
+traditional nine into eleven. Happily, the constitution of the triad
+lent itself to all these adaptations. We have seen that the father
+and the son became one and the same personage, whenever it was thought
+desirable. We also know that one of the two parents always so far
+predominated as almost to efface the other. Sometimes it was the goddess
+who disappeared behind her husband; sometimes it was the god whose
+existence merely served to account for the offspring of the goddess, and
+whose only title to his position consisted in the fact that he was her
+husband. Two personages thus closely connected were not long in blending
+into one, and were soon defined as being two faces, the masculine and
+feminine aspects of a single being. On the one hand, the father was one
+with the son, and on the other he was one with the mother. Hence the
+mother was one with the son as with the father, and the three gods of
+the triad were resolved into one god in three persons.
+
+[Illustration: 215.jpg THE THEBAN ENNEAD]
+
+     1 This Ennead consists of fourteen members--Montû,
+     duplicating Atûmû; the four usual couples; then Horus, the
+     son of Isis and Osiris, together with his associate deities,
+     Hâthor, Tanu, and Anît.
+
+Thanks to this subterfuge, to put a triad at the head of an Ennead was
+nothing more than a roundabout way of placing a single god there: the
+three persons only counted as one, and the eleven names only amounted
+to the nine canonical divinities. Thus, the Theban Ennead of
+Amon-Maut-Khonsû, Shû, Tafnûît, Sibû, Nûît, Osiris, Isis, Sît, and
+Nephthys, is, in spite of its apparent irregularity, as correct as the
+typical Ennead itself. In such Enneads Isis is duplicated by goddesses
+of like nature, such as Hâthor, Selkît, Taninît, and yet remains but
+one, while Osiris brings in his son Horus, who gathers about himself
+all such gods as play the part of divine son in other triads. The
+theologians had various methods of procedure for keeping the number of
+persons in an Ennead at nine, no matter how many they might choose to
+embrace in it. Supernumeraries were thrown in like the "shadows" at
+Roman suppers, whom guests would bring without warning to their host,
+and whose presence made not the slightest difference either in the
+provision for the feast, or in the arrangements for those who had been
+formally invited.
+
+Thus remodelled at all points, the Ennead of Heliopolis was readily
+adjustable to sacerdotal caprices, and even profited by the facilities
+which, the triad afforded for its natural expansion. In time the
+Heliopolitan version of the origin of Shû-Tafnûît must have appeared too
+primitively barbarous. Allowing for the licence of the Egyptians during
+Pharaonic times, the concept of the spontaneous emission whereby Atûrnû
+had produced his twin children was characterized by a superfluity of
+coarseness which it was at least unnecessary to employ, since by
+placing the god in a triad, this double birth could be duly explained
+in conformity with the ordinary laws of life. The solitary Atûrnû of the
+more ancient dogma gave place to Atûrnû the husband and father. He had,
+indeed, two wives, Iûsâsît and Nebthotpît, but their individualities
+were so feebly marked that no one took the trouble to choose between
+them; each passed as the mother of Shû and Tafnûîfc. This system of
+combination, so puerile in its ingenuity, was fraught with the gravest
+consequences to the history of Egyptian religions. Shu having been
+transformed into the divine son of the Heliopolitan triad, could
+henceforth be assimilated with the divine sons of all those triads which
+took the place of Tûmû at the heads of provincial Enneads. Thus we find
+that Horus the son of Isis at Bûto, Arihosnofir the son of Nit at Sais,
+Khnûmû the son of Hâthor at Esneh, were each in turn identified with
+Shû the son of Atûrnû, and lost their individualities in his. Sooner
+or later this was bound to result in bringing all the triads closer
+together, and in their absorption into one another. Through constant
+reiteration of the statement that the divine sons of the triads were
+identical with Shû, as being in the second rank of the Ennead, the idea
+arose that this was also the case in triads unconnected with Enneads; in
+other terms, that the third person in any family of gods was everywhere
+and always Shû under a different name. It having been finally admitted
+in the sacerdotal colleges that Tûmû and Shû, father and son, were one,
+all the divine sons were, therefore, identical with Tûmû, the father
+of Shû, and as each divine son was one with his parents, it inevitably
+followed that these parents themselves were identical with Tûmû.
+Reasoning in this way, the Egyptians naturally tended towards that
+conception of the divine oneness to which the theory of the Hermopolitan
+Ogdoad was already leading them. In fact, they reached it, and the
+monuments show us that in comparatively early times the theologians were
+busy uniting in a single person the prerogatives which their ancestors
+had ascribed to many different beings. But this conception of deity
+towards which their ideas were converging has nothing in common with the
+conception of the God of our modern religions and philosophies. No god
+of the Egyptians was ever spoken of simply as God. Tûmû was the "one
+and only god"--_nûtir ûâû ûâîti_--at Heliopolis; Anhûri-Shû was also the
+"one and only god" at Sebennytos and at Thinis. The unity of Atûmû did
+not interfere with that of Anhûri-Shû, but each of these gods, although
+the "sole" deity in his own domain, ceased to be so in the domain of the
+other. The feudal spirit, always alert and jealous, prevented the higher
+dogma which was dimly apprehended in the temples from triumphing over
+local religions and extending over the whole land. Egypt had as many
+"sole" deities as she had large cities, or even important temples; she
+never accepted the idea of the sole God, "beside whom there is none
+other."
+
+[Illustration: 218.jpg TAILPIECE]
+
+[Illustration: 219.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+[Illustration: 220.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.---THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT
+
+_THE DIVINE DYNASTIES: RÂ, SHÛ, OSIEIS, SÎT, HOEUS--THOT, AND THE
+INVENTION OF SCIENCES AND WRITING--MENES, AND THE THREE FIRST HUMAN
+DYNASTIES._
+
+_The Egyptians claim to Be the most ancient of peoples: traditions
+concerning the creation of man and of animals--The Heliopolitan Enneads
+the framework of the divine dynasties--Râ, the first King of Egypt, and
+his fabulous history: he allows himself to be duped and robbed by Isis,
+destroys rebellious men, and ascends into heaven.
+
+The legend of Shu and Sibil--The reign of Osiris Onnophris and of Isis:
+they civilize Egypt and the world--Osiris, slain by Sit, is entombed by
+Isis and avenged by Horus--The wars of Typhon and of Horus: peace, and
+the division of Egypt between the two gods.
+
+The Osirian embalmment; the kingdom of Osiris opened to the followers of
+Horus--The Book of the Dead--The journeying of the soul in search of the
+fields of Ialû--The judgment of the soul, the negative confession--The
+privileges and duties of Osirian souls--Confusion between Osirian and
+Solar ideas as to the state of the dead: the dead in the hark of the
+Sun--The going forth by day--The campaigns of Harmakhis against Sit.
+
+Thot, the inventor: he reveals all sciences to men--Astronomy, stellar
+tables; the year, its subdivisions, its defects, influence of
+the heavenly bodies and the days upon human destiny--Magic arts;
+incantations, amulets---Medicine: the vitalizing spirits, diagnosis,
+treatment--Writing: ideographic, syllabic, alphabetic.
+
+The history of Egypt as handed down by tradition: Manetho, the royal
+lists, main divisions of Egyptian history--The beginnings of its early
+history vague and uncertain: Menés, and the legend of Memphis--The first
+three human dynasties, the two Thimie and the Memphite--Character and,
+origin of the legends concerning them--The famine stela--The earliest
+monuments: the step pyramid of Saqgdrah._
+
+[Illustration: 221.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT
+
+_The divine dynasties: Râ, Shû, Osiris, Sît, Horus--Thot, and the
+invention of sciences and writing--Menés, and the three first human
+dynasties._
+
+The building up and diffusion of the doctrine of the Ennead, like the
+formation of the land of Egypt, demanded centuries of sustained effort,
+centuries of which the inhabitants themselves knew neither the number
+nor the authentic history. When questioned as to the remote past of
+their race, they proclaimed themselves the most ancient of mankind, in
+comparison with whom all other races were but a mob of young children;
+and they looked upon nations which denied their pretensions with such
+indulgence and pity as we feel for those who doubt a well-known truth.
+Their forefathers had appeared upon the banks of the Nile even before
+the creator had completed his work, so eager were the gods to behold
+their birth. No Egyptian disputed the reality of this right of the
+firstborn, which ennobled the whole race; but if they were asked the
+name of their divine father, then the harmony was broken, and each
+advanced the claims of a different personage.[*] Phtah had modelled man
+with his own hands;[**] Khnûmû had formed him on a potter's table.[***]
+
+     * We know the words which Plato puts into the mouth of an
+     Egyptian priest: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always
+     children, and there is no old man who is a Greek! You are
+     all young in mind; there is no opinion or tradition of
+     knowledge among you which is white with age." Other nations
+     disputed their priority--the Phrygians, the Medes, or rather
+     the tribe of the Magi among the Medes, the Ethiopians, the
+     Scythians. A cycle of legends had gathered about this
+     subject, giving an account of the experiments instituted, by
+     Psamtik, or other sovereigns, to find out which were right,
+     Egyptians or foreigners.
+
+     **  At Philæ and at Denderah, Phtah is represented as piling
+     upon his potter's table the plastic clay from which he is
+     about to make a human body, and which is somewhat wrongly
+     called the egg of the world. It is really the lump of earth
+     from which man came forth at his creation.
+
+     ***  At Philas, Khnûmû calls himself "the potter who
+     fashions men, the modeller of the gods." He there moulds the
+     members of Osiris, the husband of the local Isis, as at
+     Erment he forms the body of Harsamtaûi, or rather that of
+     Ptolemy Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar and the celebrated
+     Cleopatra, identified with Harsamtaûi.
+
+Râ at his first rising, seeing the earth desert and bare, had flooded it
+with his rays as with a flood of tears; all living things, vegetable and
+animal, and man himself, had sprung pell-mell from his eyes, and were
+scattered abroad with the light over the surface of the world.[*]
+Sometimes the facts were presented under a less poetic aspect. The mud
+of the Nile, heated to excess by the burning sun, fermented and brought
+forth the various races of men and animals by spontaneous generation,
+having moulded itself into a thousand living forms. Then its procreative
+power became weakened to the verge of exhaustion. Yet on the banks of
+the river, in the height of summer, smaller animals might still be found
+whose condition showed what had once taken place in the case of the
+larger kinds. Some appeared as already fully formed, and struggling
+to free themselves from the oppressive mud; others, as yet imperfect,
+feebly stirred their heads and fore feet, while their hind quarters
+were completing their articulation and taking shape within the matrix of
+earth.[**]
+
+     *  With reference to the substances which proceeded from the
+     eye of Râ, see the remarks of Birch, _Sur un papyrus magique
+     du Musée Britannique_. By his tears (_romîtû_) Horus, or his
+     eye as identified with the sun, had given birth to all men,
+     Egyptians (_romîtû, rotû_), Libyans, and Asiatics, excepting
+     only the negroes. The latter were born from another part of
+     his body by the same means as those employed by Atûmû in the
+     creation of Shû and Tafnûît.
+
+     **  The same story is told, but with reference to rats only,
+     by Pliny, by Diodorus, by Ælianus, by Macrobius, and by
+     other Greek or Latin writers. Even in later times, and in
+     Europe, this pretended phenomenon met with a certain degree
+     of belief, as may be seen from the curious work of Marcus
+     Fredericus Wendelinus, _Archipalatinus, Admiranda Nili_,
+     Franco-furti, mdcxxiii., cap. xxi. pp. 157-183. In Egypt all
+     the fellahîn believe in the spontaneous generation of rats
+     as in an article of their creed. They have spoken to me of
+     it at Thebes, at Denderah, and on the plain of Abydos; and
+     Major Brown has lately noted the same thing in the Fayûm.
+     The variant which he heard from the lips of the notables is
+     curious, for it professes to explain why the rats who infest
+     the fields in countless bands during the dry season,
+     suddenly disappear at the return of the inundation; born of
+     the mud and putrid water of the preceding year, to mud they
+     return, and as it were dissolve at the touch of the new
+     waters.
+
+It was not Râ alone whose tears were endowed with vitalizing power. All
+divinities whether beneficent or malevolent, Sit as well as Osiris or
+Isis, could give life by weeping; and the work of their eyes, when once
+it had fallen upon earth, flourished and multiplied as vigorously as
+that which came from the eyes of Râ.
+
+[Illustration: 224.jpg KHNÛMÛ MODELLING MAN UPON A POTTER'S TABLE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet. The scene is
+     taken from bas-reliefs in the temple of Luxor, where the god
+     Khnûmû is seen completing his modelling of the future King
+     Amenôthes III. and his double, represented as two children
+     wearing the side-lock and large necklace. The first holds
+     his finger to his lips, while the arms of the second swing
+     at his sides.
+
+The individual character of the creator was not without bearing upon
+the nature of his creatures; good was the necessary outcome of the
+good gods, evil of the evil ones; and herein lay the explanation of
+the mingling of things excellent and things execrable, which is found
+everywhere throughout the world. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Sit and
+his partisans were the cause and origin of all that is harmful. Daily
+their eyes shed upon the world those juices by which plants are made
+poisonous, as well as malign influences, crime, and madness. Their
+saliva, the foam which fell from their mouths during their attacks of
+rage, their sweat, their blood itself, were all no less to be feared.
+When any drop of it touched the earth, straightway it germinated, and
+produced something strange and baleful--a serpent, a scorpion, a plant
+of deadly nightshade or of henbane. But, on the other hand, the sun
+was all goodness, and persons or things which it cast forth into life
+infallibly partook of its benignity. Wine that maketh man glad, the bee
+who works for him in the flowers secreting wax and honey, the meat and
+herbs which are his food, the stuffs that clothe him, all useful things
+which he makes for himself, not only emanated from the Solar Eye
+of Horus, but were indeed nothing more than the Eye of Horus under
+different aspects, and in his name they were presented in sacrifice. The
+devout generally were of opinion that the first Egyptians, the sons and
+flock of Râ, came into the world happy and perfect;[*] by degrees their
+descendants had fallen from that native felicity into their present
+state.
+
+     * In the tomb of Seti I, the words _flock of the Sun, flock
+     of Râ_, are those by which the god Horus refers to men.
+     Certain expressions used by Egyptian writers are in
+     themselves sufficient to show that the first generations of
+     men were supposed to have lived in a state of happiness and
+     perfection. To the Egyptians _the times of Râ, the times of
+     the god_--that is to say, the centuries immediately
+     following on the creation---were the ideal age, and no good
+     thing had appeared upon earth since then.
+
+Some, on the contrary, affirmed that their ancestors were born as so
+many brutes, unprovided with the most essential arts of gentle life.
+They knew nothing of articulate speech, and expressed themselves by
+cries only, like other animals, until the day when Thot taught them both
+speech and writing.
+
+These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre
+fare for the intelligence of the learned. The latter did not confine
+their ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory
+details concerning the beginnings of humanity. They wished to know the
+history of its consecutive development from the very first; what manner
+of life had been led by their fathers; what chiefs they had obeyed and
+the names or adventures of those chiefs; why part of the nations had
+left the blessed banks of the Nile and gone to settle in foreign lands;
+by what stages and in what length of time those who had not emigrated
+rose out of native barbarism into that degree of culture to which the
+most ancient monuments bore testimony. No efforts of imagination were
+needful for the satisfaction of their curiosity: the old substratum of
+indigenous traditions was rich enough, did they but take the trouble
+to work it out systematically, and to eliminate its most incongruous
+elements. The priests of Heliopolis took this work in hand, as they had
+already taken in hand the same task with regard to the myths referring
+to the creation; and the Enneads provided them with a ready-made
+framework. They changed the gods of the Ennead into so many kings,
+determined with minute accuracy the lengths of their reigns, and
+compiled their biographies from popular tales. The duality of the feudal
+god supplied an admirable expedient for connecting the history of the
+world with that of chaos. Tûmû was identified with Nû, and relegated to
+the primordial Ocean: Râ was retained, and proclaimed the first king
+of the world. He had not established his rule without difficulty. The
+"Children of Defeat," beings hostile to order and light, engaged him in
+fierce battles; nor did he succeed in organizing his kingdom until
+he had conquered them in nocturnal combat at Hermopolis, and even at
+Heliopolis itself.[*]
+
+     * The _Children of Defeat_, in Egyptian _Mosû batashû_, or
+     _Mosû batashît_, are often confounded with the followers of
+     Sit, the enemies of Osiris. From the first they were
+     distinct, and represented beings and forces hostile to the
+     sun, with the dragon Apôpi at their head. Their defeat at
+     Hermopolis corresponded to the moment when Shu, raising the
+     sky above the sacred mound in that city, substituted order
+     and light for chaos and darkness. This defeat is mentioned
+     in chap xvii. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition,
+     vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 3, et seq.), in which connexion E. de
+     Rougé first explained its meaning. In the same chapter of
+     the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis.
+     xxiv., xxv., 11. 54-58), reference is also made to the
+     battle by night, in Heliopolis, at the close of which Râ
+     appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the
+     great serpent.
+
+Pierced with wounds, Apôpi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at
+the very moment when the new year began. The secondary members of the
+Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which
+began with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus,
+the son of Isis. The local schools of theology welcomed this method of
+writing history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the
+Ennead itself. Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and
+hastened to associate him with their own; others completely eliminated
+him in favour of the feudal divinity,--Amon at Thebes, Thot at
+Hermopolis, Phtah at Memphis,--keeping the rest of the dynasty
+absolutely unchanged.[*] The gods in no way compromised their prestige
+by becoming incarnate and descending to earth. Since they were men of
+finer nature, and their qualities, including that of miracle-working,
+were human qualities raised to the highest pitch of intensity, it was
+not considered derogatory to them personally to have watched over
+the infancy and childhood of primeval man. The raillery in which the
+Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard to them, the good-humoured
+and even ridiculous _rôles_ ascribed to them in certain legends, do not
+prove that they were despised, or that zeal for them had cooled. The
+greater the respect of believers for the objects of their worship,
+the more easily do they tolerate the taking of such liberties, and the
+condescension of the members of the Ennead, far from lowering them
+in the eyes of generations who came too late to live with them upon
+familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in which they were
+held. Nothing shows this better than the history of Râ. His world was
+ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and Nuit still
+reposed in the arms of Sibû, earth and sky were but one.[**]
+
+     *  Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the
+     titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his
+     supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the
+     first king. One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he
+     came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of
+     Atûmû, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Râ."
+     Atûmû-Khopri-Râ being the first earthly king, it follows
+     that the _Majesty of Thot_, with whom Ptolemy identifies
+     himself, comparing himself to the three forms of the God Râ,
+     is also the first earthly king.
+
+     **  This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is
+     clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of
+     The Destruction of Men. Nuit does not rise to form the sky
+     until such time as Râ thinks of bringing his reign to an
+     end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in
+     existence for many centuries. In chap. xvii. of the Book of
+     the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 11. 3-5) it
+     is stated that the reign of Râ began in the times when the
+     upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before
+     Shu had separated Nûît from Sibû, and forcibly uplifted her
+     above the body of her husband.
+
+Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable,
+animal, and human life. Egypt was there, all complete, with her two
+chains of mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and
+the nomes themselves. Then the soil was more generous; the harvests,
+without the labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when
+the Egyptians of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any
+person or thing, they said that the like had never been known since the
+time of Râ.
+
+     * This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of
+     the fields of Ialû in chap. ex. of the _Book of the Dead_
+     (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis. cxxi.~ cxxiii.). As with
+     the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead
+     still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed
+     during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to
+     say, under the direct rule of Râ.
+
+It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst
+for happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the
+remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is
+only known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors.
+Râ dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of
+the city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"--Haït Sarû,--passed
+for having been his palace. His court was mainly composed of gods and
+goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men. It contained
+also men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food,
+received the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and
+household affairs. It was said that the _oîrû maû_--the high priest of
+Râ, the _hankistît_--his high priestess, and generally speaking all the
+servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended
+from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had
+succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.
+
+[Illustration: 230.jpg AT THE FIRST HOUR OF THE BAY THE SUN EMBARKS FOB
+HIS JOURNEY THROUGH EGYPT.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented
+     upon the architraves of the pronaos at Edfû (Rosellini,
+     _Monumenti del Culto_, pl. xxxviii. No. 1).
+
+In the morning he went forth with his divine train, and, amid the
+acclamations of the crowd, entered the bark in which he made his
+accustomed circuit of the world, returning to his home at the end of
+twelve hours after the accomplishment of his journey. He visited each
+province in turn, and in each he tarried for an hour, to settle all
+disputed matters, as the final judge of appeal. He gave audience to both
+small and great, he decided their quarrels and adjudged their lawsuits,
+he granted investiture of fiefs from the royal domains to those who
+had deserved them, and allotted or confirmed to every family the income
+needful for their maintenance. He pitied the sufferings of his people,
+and did his utmost to alleviate them; he taught to all comers potent
+formulas against reptiles and beasts of prey, charms to cast out evil
+spirits, and the best recipes for preventing illness. His incessant
+bounties left him at length with only one of his talismans: the name
+given to him by his father and mother at his birth, which they had
+revealed to him alone, and which he kept concealed within his bosom lest
+some sorcerer should get possession of it to use for the furtherance of
+his evil spells.
+
+But old age came on, and infirmities followed; the body of Râ grew bent,
+"his mouth trembled, his slaver trickled down to earth and his
+saliva dropped upon the ground." Isis, who had hitherto been a mere
+woman-servant in the household of the Pharaoh, conceived the project of
+stealing his secret from him, "that she might possess the world and make
+herself a goddess by the name of the august god." Force would have been
+unavailing; all enfeebled as he was by reason of his years, none was
+strong enough to contend successfully against him. But Isis "was a woman
+more knowing in her malice than millions of men, clever among millions
+of the gods, equal to millions of spirits, to whom as unto Râ nothing
+was unknown either in heaven or upon earth." She contrived a most
+ingenious stratagem. When man or god was struck down by illness, the
+only chance of curing him lay in knowing his real name, and thereby
+adjuring the evil being that tormented him. Isis determined to cast a
+terrible malady upon Râ, concealing its cause from him; then to offer
+her services as his nurse, and by means of his sufferings to extract
+from him the mysterious word indispensable to the success of the
+exorcism. She gathered up mud impregnated with the divine saliva, and
+moulded of it a sacred serpent which she hid in the dust of the road.
+Suddenly bitten as he was setting out upon his daily round, the god
+cried out aloud, "his voice ascended into heaven and his Nine called:
+'What is it? what is it?' and his gods: 'What is the matter? what is the
+matter?' but he could make them no answer so much did his lips tremble,
+his limbs shake, and the venom take hold upon his flesh as the Nile
+seizeth upon the land which it invadeth." Presently he came to himself,
+and succeeded in describing his sensations. "Something painful hath
+stung me; my heart perceiveth it, yet my two eyes see it not; my hand
+hath not wrought it, nothing that I have made knoweth it what it is, yet
+have I never tasted suffering like unto it, and there is no pain that
+may overpass it.... Fire it is not, water it is not, yet is my heart in
+flames, my flesh trembleth, all my members are full of shiverings born
+of breaths of magic. Behold! let there be brought unto me children of
+the gods of beneficent words, who know the power of their mouths, and
+whose science reacheth unto heaven." They came, these children of the
+gods, all with their books of magic. There came Isis with her sorcery,
+her mouth full of life-giving breaths, her recipe for the destruction of
+pain, her words which pour life into breathless throats, and she said:
+"What is it? what is it, O father of the gods? May it not be that a
+serpent hath wrought this suffering in thee; that one of thy children
+hath lifted up his head against thee? Surely he shall be overthrown by
+beneficent incantations, and I will make him to retreat at the sight
+of thy rays." On learning the cause of his torment, the Sun-god is
+terrified, and begins to lament anew: "I, then, as I went along the
+ways, travelling through my double land of Egypt and over my mountains,
+that I might look upon that which I have made, I was bitten by a serpent
+that I saw not. Fire it is not, water it is not, yet am I colder than
+water, I burn more than fire, all my members stream with sweat, I
+tremble, mine eye is not steady, no longer can I discern the sky, drops
+roll from my face as in the season of summer." Isis proposes her remedy,
+and cautiously asks him his ineffable name. But he divines her trick,
+and tries to evade it by an enumeration of his titles. He takes the
+universe to witness that he is called "Khopri in the morning, Râ at
+noon, Tûmû in the evening." The poison did not recede, but steadily
+advanced, and the great god was not eased. Then Isis said to Râ: "Thy
+name was not spoken in that which thou hast said. Tell it to me and the
+poison will depart; for he liveth upon whom a charm is pronounced in his
+own name." The poison glowed like fire, it was strong as the burning
+of flame, and the Majesty of Râ said, "I grant thee leave that thou
+shouldest search within me, O mother Isis! and that my name pass from my
+bosom into thy bosom." In truth, the all-powerful name was hidden within
+the body of the god, and could only be extracted thence by means of
+a surgical operation similar to that practised upon a corpse which
+is about to be mummified. Isis undertook it, carried it through
+successfully, drove out the poison, and made herself a goddess by virtue
+of the name. The cunning of a mere woman had deprived Râ of his last
+talisman.
+
+In course of time men perceived his decrepitude. They took counsel
+against him: "Lo! his Majesty waxeth old, his bones are of silver, his
+flesh is of gold, his hair of lapis-lazuli." As soon as his Majesty
+perceived that which they were saying to each other, his Majesty said to
+those who were of his train, "Call together for me my Divine Eye, Shû,
+Tafnûît, Sibû, and Nûît, the father and the mother gods who were with
+me when I was in the Nû, with the god Nû. Let each bring his cycle along
+with him; then, when thou shalt have brought them in secret, thou shalt
+take them to the great mansion that they may lend me their counsel and
+their consent, coming hither from the Nû into this place where I have
+manifested myself." So the family council comes together: the ancestors
+of Râ, and his posterity still awaiting amid the primordial waters
+the time of their manifestation--his children Shû and Tafnûît, his
+grandchildren Sibû and Nûît. They place themselves, according to
+etiquette, on either side his throne, prostrate, with their foreheads to
+the ground, and thus their conference begins: "O Nû, thou the eldest of
+the gods, from whom I took my being, and ye the ancestor-gods, behold!
+men who are the emanation of mine eye have taken counsel together
+against me! Tell me what ye would do, for I have bidden you here before
+I slay them, that I may hear what ye would say thereto." Nû, as the
+eldest, has the right to speak first, and demands that the guilty shall
+be brought to judgment and formally condemned. "My son Râ, god greater
+than the god who made him, older than the gods who created him, sit thou
+upon thy throne, and great shall be the terror when thine eye shall
+rest upon those who plot together against thee!" But Râ not unreasonably
+fears that when men see the solemn pomp of royal justice, they may
+suspect the fate that awaits them, and "flee into the desert, their
+hearts terrified at that which I have to say to them." The desert was
+even then hostile to the tutelary gods of Egypt, and offered an almost
+inviolable asylum to their enemies. The conclave admits that the
+apprehensions of Râ are well founded, and pronounces in favour of
+summary execution; the Divine Eye is to be the executioner. "Let it go
+forth that it may smite those who have devised evil against thee, for
+there is no Eye more to be feared than thine when it attacketh in the
+form of Hâthor." So the Eye takes the form of Hâthor, suddenly falls
+upon men, and slays them right and left with great strokes of the knife.
+After some hours, Râ, who would chasten but not destroy his children,
+commands her to cease from her carnage; but the goddess has tasted
+blood, and refuses to obey him. "By thy life," she replies, "when I
+slaughter men then is my heart right joyful!"
+
+[Illustration: 236.jpg SOKHÎT, THE LIONESS-HEADED. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette of the
+     Saïte period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album
+     photographique du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. 6).
+
+That is why she was afterwards called Sokhît the slayer, and represented
+under the form of a fierce lioness. Nightfall stayed her course in the
+neighbourhood of Heracleopolis; all the way from Heliopolis she had
+trampled through blood. As soon as she had fallen asleep, Râ hastily
+took effectual measures to prevent her from beginning her work again on
+the morrow. "He said: 'Call on my behalf messengers agile and swift,
+who go like the wind.' When these messengers were straightway brought
+to him, the Majesty of the god said: 'Let them run to Elephantine and
+bring me mandragora in plenty.'"[**]
+
+** The mandragora of Elephantine was used in the manufacture of an
+intoxicating and narcotic drink employed either in medicine or in magic.
+In a special article, Brugsch has collected particulars preserved by the
+texts as to the uses of this plant. It was not as yet credited with
+the human form and the peculiar kind of life ascribed to it by western
+sorcerers.
+
+When they had brought him the mandragora, the Majesty of this great god
+summoned the miller which is in Heliopolis that he might bray it; and
+the women-servants having crushed grain for the beer, the mandragora,
+and also human blood, were mingled with the liquor, and thereof was made
+in all seven thousand jars of beer. Râ himself examined this delectable
+drink, and finding it to possess the wished-for properties: "'It is
+well,' said he; 'therewith shall I save men from the goddess;' then,
+addressing those of his train: 'Take these jars in your arms, and carry
+them to the place where she has slaughtered men.' Râ, the king, caused
+dawn to break at midnight, so that this philtre might be poured down
+upon the earth; and the fields were flooded with it to the depth of four
+palms, according as it pleased the souls of his Majesty." In the morning
+the goddess came, "that she might return to her carnage, but she
+found that all was flooded, and her countenance softened; when she had
+drunken, it was her heart that softened; she went away drunk, without
+further thought of men." There was some fear lest her fury might return
+when the fumes of drunkenness were past, and to obviate this danger
+Râ instituted a rite, partly with the object of instructing future
+generations as to the chastisement which he had inflicted upon the
+impious, partly to console Sokhît for her discomfiture. He decreed
+that "on New Year's Day there should be brewed for her as many jars of
+philtre as there were priestesses of the sun. That was the origin of
+all those jars of philtre, in number equal to that of the priestesses,
+which, at the feast of Hâthor, all men make from that day forth."
+
+Peace was re-established, but could it last long? Would not men, as
+soon as they had recovered from their terror, betake themselves again to
+plotting against the god? Besides, Râ now felt nothing but disgust for
+our race. The ingratitude of his children had wounded him deeply; he
+foresaw ever-renewed rebellions as his feebleness became more marked,
+and he shrank from having to order new massacres in which mankind would
+perish altogether. "By my life," says he to the gods who accompanied
+him, "my heart is too weary for me to remain with mankind, and slay them
+until they are no more: annihilation is not of the gifts that I love
+to make." And the gods exclaim in surprise: "Breathe not a word of thy
+weariness at a time when thou dost triumph at thy pleasure." But Râ does
+not yield to their representations; he will leave a kingdom wherein
+they murmur against him, and turning towards Nû he says: "My limbs are
+decrepit for the first time; I will not go to any place where I can
+be reached." It was no easy matter to find him an inaccessible retreat
+owing to the imperfect state in which the universe had been left by the
+first effort of the demiurge. Nû saw no other way out of the difficulty
+than that of setting to work to complete the creation. Ancient tradition
+had imagined the separation of earth and sky as an act of violence
+exercised by Shu upon Sibû and Nûît. History presented facts after a
+less brutal fashion, and Shû became a virtuous son who devoted his time
+and strength to upholding Nûît, that he might thereby do his father a
+service. Nûît, for her part, showed herself to be a devoted daughter
+whom there was no need to treat roughly in order to teach her her duty;
+of herself she consented to leave her husband, and place her beloved
+ancestor beyond reach. "The Majesty of Nû said: 'Son Shu, do as thy
+father Râ shall say; and thou, daughter Nûît, place him upon thy back
+and hold him suspended above the earth!' Nûît said: 'And how then, my
+father Nû?' Thus spake Nûît, and she did that which Nû commanded her;
+she changed herself into a cow, and placed the Majesty of Râ upon her
+back. When those men who had not been slain came to give thanks to Râ,
+behold! they found him no longer in his palace; but a cow stood there,
+and they perceived him upon the back of the cow." They found him so
+resolved to depart that they did not try to turn him from his purpose,
+but only desired to give him such a proof of their repentance as should
+assure them of the complete pardon of their crime. "They said unto him:
+'Wait until the morning, O Râ! our lord, and we will strike down thine
+enemies who have taken counsel against thee.' So his Majesty returned to
+his mansion, descended from the cow, went in along with them, and earth
+was plunged into darkness. But when there was light upon earth the next
+morning, the men went forth with their bows and their arrows, and began
+to shoot at the enemy. Whereupon the Majesty of this god said unto them:
+'Your sins are remitted unto you, for sacrifice precludes the execution
+of the guilty.' And this was the origin upon earth of sacrifices in
+which blood was shed."
+
+Thus it was that when on the point of separating for ever, the god
+and men came to an understanding as to the terms of their future
+relationship. Men offered to the god the life of those who had offended
+him. Human sacrifice was in their eyes the obligatory sacrifice, the
+only one which could completely atone for the wrongs committed against
+the godhead; man alone was worthy to wash away with his blood the sins
+of men.[*] For this one time the god accepted the expiation just as it
+was offered to him; then the repugnance which he felt to killing his
+children overcame him, he substituted beast for man, and decided that
+oxen, gazelles, birds, should henceforth furnish the material for
+sacrifice.[**]
+
+     * This legend, which seeks to explain the discontinuance of
+     human sacrifices among the Egyptians, affords direct proof
+     of their existence in primitive times. This is confirmed by
+     many facts. We shall see that _ûashbîti_ laid in graves were
+     in place of the male or female slaves who were originally
+     slaughtered at the tombs of the rich and noble that they
+     might go to serve their masters in the next world. Even in
+     Thebes, under the XIXth dynasty, certain rock-cut tombs
+     contain scenes which might lead us to believe that
+     occasionally at least human victims were sent to doubles of
+     distinction. During this same period, moreover, the most
+     distinguished hostile chiefs taken in war were still put to
+     death before the gods. In several towns, as at Eilithyia and
+     at Heliopolis, or before certain gods, such as Osiris or
+     Kronos-Sibû, human sacrifice lasted until near Roman times.
+     But generally speaking it was very rare. Almost everywhere
+     cakes of a particular shape, and called [Greek word], or
+     else animals, had been substituted for man.
+
+     **  It was asserted that the partisans of Apôpi and of Sît,
+     who were the enemies of Râ, Osiris, and the other gods, had
+     taken refuge in the bodies of certain animals. Hence, it was
+     really human or divine victims which were offered when
+     beasts were slaughtered in sacrifice before the altars.
+
+This point settled, he again mounted the cow, who rose, supported on her
+four legs as on so many pillars; and her belly, stretched out above the
+earth like a ceiling, formed the sky. He busied himself with organizing
+the new world which he found on her back; he peopled it with many
+beings, chose two districts in which to establish his abode, the Field
+of Reeds--_Sokhît Ialû_--and the Field of Rest--_Sokhît Hotpît_--and
+suspended the stars which were to give light by night. All this is
+related with many plays upon words, intended, according to Oriental
+custom, as explanations of the names which the legend assigned to the
+different regions of heaven. At sight of a plain whose situation pleased
+him, he cried: "The Field rests in the distance!"--and that was
+the origin of the Field of Rest. He added: "There will I gather
+plants!"--and from this the Field of Reeds took its name. While he gave
+himself up to this philological pastime, Nûît, suddenly transported to
+unaccustomed heights, grew frightened, and cried for help: "For pity's
+sake give me supports to sustain me!" This was the origin of the
+support-gods. They came and stationed themselves by each of her four
+legs, steadying these with their hands, and keeping constant watch over
+them. As this was not enough to reassure the good beast, "Râ said, 'My
+son Shû, place thyself beneath my daughter Nûît, and keep watch on both
+sides over the supports, who live in the twilight; hold thou her
+up above thy head, and be her guardian!'" Shû obeyed; Nûît composed
+herself, and the world, now furnished with the sky which it had hitherto
+lacked, assumed its present symmetrical form.
+
+Shû and Sibû succeeded Râ, but did not acquire so lasting a popularity
+as their great ancestor. Nevertheless they had their annals, fragments
+of which have come down to us. Their power also extended over the whole
+universe: "The Majesty of Shû was the excellent king of the sky, of the
+earth, of Hades, of the water, of the winds, of the inundation, of
+the two chains of mountains, of the sea, governing with a true voice
+according to the precepts of his father Râ-Harmakhis."
+
+[Illustration: 242.jpg COW, SUSTAINED ABOVE THE EARTH BY SHÛ AND THE
+SUPPORT]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+Only "the children of the serpent Apôpi, the impious ones who haunt
+the solitary places and the deserts," disavowed his authority. Like the
+Bedawîn of later times, they suddenly streamed in by the isthmus routes,
+went up into Egypt under cover of night, slew and pillaged, and then
+hastily returned to their fastnesses with the booty which they had
+carried off. From sea to sea Ka had fortified the eastern frontier
+against them. He had surrounded the principal cities with walls,
+embellished them with temples, and placed within them those mysterious
+talismans more powerful for defence than a garrison of men. Thus
+Aît-nobsû, near the mouth of the Wady-Tûmilât, possessed one of the
+rods of the Sun-god, also the living uraeus of his crown whose breath
+consumes all that it touches, and, finally, a lock of his hair, which,
+being cast into the waters of a lake, was changed into a hawk-headed
+crocodile to tear the invader in pieces.[*]
+
+     * Egyptians of all periods never shrank from such marvels.
+     One of the tales of the Theban empire tells us of a piece of
+     wax which, on being thrown into the water, changed into a
+     living crocodile capable of devouring a man. The talismans
+     which protected Egypt against invasion are mentioned by the
+     Pseudo-Callisthenes, who attributes their invention to
+     Nectanebo. Arab historians often refer to them.
+
+The employment of these talismans was dangerous to those unaccustomed
+to use them, even to the gods themselves. Scarcely was Sibû enthroned as
+the successor of Shu, who, tired of reigning, had reascended into heaven
+in a nine days' tempest, before he began his inspection of the eastern
+marches, and caused the box in which was kept the uræus of Râ to be
+opened. "As soon as the living viper had breathed its breath against the
+Majesty of Sibû there was a great disaster--great indeed, for those
+who were in the train of the god perished, and his Majesty himself was
+burned in that day. When his Majesty had fled to the north of Aît-nobsû,
+pursued by the fire of this magic urasus, behold! when he came to the
+fields of henna, the pain of his burn was not yet assuaged, and the gods
+who were behind him said unto him: 'O Sire! let them take the lock of Râ
+which is there, when thy Majesty shall go to see it and its mystery, and
+his Majesty shall be healed as soon as it shall be placed upon thee.'
+So the Majesty of Sibû caused the magic lock to be brought to
+Piarît,--the lock for which was made that great reliquary of hard stone
+which is hidden in the secret place of Piarît, in the district of the
+divine lock of the Lord Râ,--and behold! this fire departed from the
+members of the Majesty of Sibû. And many years afterwards, when this
+lock, which had thus belonged to Sibû, was brought back to Piarît
+in Aît-nobsû, and cast into the great lake of Piarît whose name is
+_Aît-tostesû_, the dwelling of waves, that it might be purified, behold!
+this lock became a crocodile: it flew to the water and became Sobkû,
+the divine crocodile of Aît-nobsû." In this way the gods of the solar
+dynasty from generation to generation multiplied talismans and enriched
+the sanctuaries of Egypt with relics.
+
+[Illustration: 244.jpg THREE OF THE DIVINE AMULETS PRESERVED IN THE
+TEMPLE OF AÎT-NOBSÛ AT THE ROMAN PERIOD. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Griffith. The
+     three talismans here represented are two crowns, each in a
+     naos, and the burning fiery uræus.
+
+Were there ever duller legends and a more senile phantasy! They did not
+spring spontaneously from the lips of the people, but were composed at
+leisure by priests desirous of enhancing the antiquity of their cult,
+and augmenting the veneration of its adherents in order to increase
+its importance. Each city wished it to be understood that its feudal
+sanctuary was founded upon the very day of creation, that its privileges
+had been extended or confirmed during the course of the first divine
+dynasty, and that these pretensions were supported by the presence
+of objects in its treasury which had belonged to the oldest of the
+king-gods. Such was the origin of tales in which the personage of the
+beneficent Pharaoh is often depicted in ridiculous fashion. Did we
+possess all the sacred archives, we should frequently find them quoting
+as authentic history more than one document as artificial as the
+chronicle of Aît-nobsû. When we come to the later members of the Ennead,
+there is a change in the character and in the form of these tales.
+Doubtless Osiris and Sît did not escape unscathed out of the hands of
+the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend
+concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there
+in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of
+imagination such as are never found in those of Shû and of Sibû.
+This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them
+strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world.
+Shû was the stay, Sibû the material foundation of the world; and so long
+as the one bore the weight of the firmament without bending, and the
+other continued to suffer the tread of human generations upon his
+back, the devout took no more thought of them than they themselves
+took thought of the devout. The life of Osiris, on the other hand, was
+intimately mingled with that of the Egyptians, and his most trivial
+actions immediately reacted upon their fortunes. They followed the
+movements of his waters; they noted the turning-points in his struggles
+against drought; they registered his yearly decline, yearly compensated
+by his aggressive returns and his intermittent victories over Typhon;
+his proceedings and his character were the subject of their minute
+study. If his waters almost invariably rose upon the appointed day and
+extended over the black earth of the valley, this was no mechanical
+function of a being to whom the consequences of his conduct are
+indifferent; he acted upon reflection, and in full consciousness of the
+service that he rendered. He knew that by spreading the inundation
+he prevented the triumph of the desert; he was life, he was
+goodness--_Onnofriû_--and Isis, as the partner of his labours, became
+like him the type of perfect goodness. But while Osiris developed
+for the better, Sit was transformed for the worse, and increased in
+wickedness as his brother gained in purity and moral elevation. In
+proportion as the person of Sît grew more defined, and stood out more
+clearly, the evil within him contrasted more markedly with the innate
+goodness of Osiris, and what had been at first an instinctive struggle
+between two beings somewhat vaguely defined--the desert and the Nile,
+water and drought--was changed into conscious and deadly enmity. No
+longer the conflict of two elements, it was war between two gods; one
+labouring to produce abundance, while the other strove to do away with
+it; one being all goodness and life, while the other was evil and death
+incarnate.
+
+A very ancient legend narrates that the birth of Osiris and his brothers
+took place during the five additional days at the end of the year; a
+subsequent legend explained how Nûît and Sibû had contracted marriage
+against the express wish of Râ, and without his knowledge. When he
+became aware of it he fell into a violent rage, and cast a spell over
+the goddess to prevent her giving birth to her children in any month of
+any year whatever. But Thot took pity upon her, and playing at draughts
+with the moon won from it in several games one seventy-second part of
+its fires, out of which he made five whole days; and as these were not
+included in the ordinary calendar, Nûît could then bring forth her five
+children, one after another: Osiris, Haroêris, Sit, Isis, and Nephthys.
+Osiris was beautiful of face, but with a dull and black complexion; his
+height exceeded five and a half yards.[*]
+
+     * As a matter of fact, Osiris is often represented with
+     black or green hands and face, as is customary for gods of
+     the dead; it was probably this peculiarity which suggested
+     the popular idea of his black complexion. A magic papyrus of
+     Ramesside times fixes the stature of the god at seven
+     cubits, and a phrase in a Ptolemaic inscription places it at
+     eight cubits, six palms, three fingers.
+
+He was born at Thebes, in the first of the additional days,
+and straightway a mysterious voice announced that the lord of
+all--_nibû-r-zarû_--had appeared. The good news was hailed with shouts
+of joy, followed by tears and lamentations when it became known with
+what evils he was menaced.[*] The echo reached Râ in his far-off
+dwelling, and his heart rejoiced, notwithstanding the curse which he
+had laid upon Nûît. He commanded the presence of his great-grandchild
+in Xoïs, and unhesitatingly acknowledged him as the heir to his throne.
+Osiris had married his sister Isis, even, so it was said, while both of
+them were still within their mother's womb;[**] and when he became king
+he made her queen regent and the partner of all his undertakings.
+
+     * One variant of the legend told that a certain Pamylis of
+     Thebes having gone to draw water had heard a voice
+     proceeding from the temple of Zeus, which ordered him to
+     proclaim aloud to the world the birth of the great king, the
+     beneficent Osiris. He had received the child from the hands
+     of Kronos, brought it up to youth, and to him the Egyptians
+     had consecrated the feast of Pamylies, which resembled the
+     Phallophoros festival of the Greeks.
+
+     ** _De Iside et Osiride_, Leemans' edition, § 12, pp. 20,
+     21. Haroêris, the Apollo of the Greeks, was supposed to be
+     the issue of a marriage consummated before the birth of his
+     parents while they were still within the womb of their
+     mother Rhea-Nûît. This was a way of connecting the personage
+     of Haroêris with the Osirian myths by confounding him with
+     the homonymous Harsiêsis, the son of Isis, who became the
+     son of Osiris through his mother's marriage with that god.
+
+The Egyptians were as yet but half civilized; they were cannibals, and
+though occasionally they lived upon the fruits of the earth, they did
+not know how to cultivate them. Osiris taught them the art of making
+agricultural implements--the plough and the hoe,--field labour, the
+rotation of crops, the harvesting of wheat and barley,[*] and vine
+culture.
+
+     * Diodoeus even ascribes to him the discovery of barley and
+     of wheat; this is consequent upon the identification of Isis
+     with Demeter by the Greeks. According to the historian, Leo
+     of Pella, the goddess twined herself a crown of ripe ears
+     and placed it upon her head one day when she was sacrificing
+     to her parents.
+
+Isis weaned them from cannibalism, healed their diseases by means of
+medicine or of magic, united women to men in legitimate marriage, and
+showed them how to grind grain between two flat stones and to prepare
+bread for the household. She invented the loom with the help of her
+sister Nephthys, and was the first to weave and bleach linen. There
+was no worship of the gods before Osiris established it, appointed the
+offerings, regulated the order of ceremonies, and composed the texts and
+melodies of the liturgies. He built cities, among them Thebes itself,
+according to some; though others declared that he was born there. As he
+had been the model of a just and pacific king, so did he desire to be
+that of a victorious conqueror of nations; and, placing the regency in
+the hands of Isis, he went forth to war against Asia, accompanied by
+Thot the ibis and the jackal Anubis. He made little or no use of force
+and arms, but he attacked men by gentleness and persuasion, softened
+them with songs in which voices were accompanied by instruments, and
+taught them also the arts which he had made known to the Egyptians.
+No country escaped his beneficent action, and he did not return to the
+banks of the Nile until he had traversed and civilized the world from
+one horizon to the other.
+
+Sît-Typhon was red-haired and white-skinned, of violent, gloomy, and
+jealous temper.[*] Secretly he aspired to the crown, and nothing but the
+vigilance of Isis had kept him from rebellion during the absence of his
+brother. The rejoicings which celebrated the king's return to Memphis
+provided Sit with his opportunity for seizing the throne.
+
+     *  The colour of his hair was compared with that of a red-
+     haired ass, and on that account the ass was sacred to him.
+     As to his violent and jealous disposition, see the opinion
+     of Diodorus Siculus, book i. 21, and the picture drawn by
+     Synesius in his pamphlet Ægyptius. It was told how he tore
+     his mother's bowels at birth, and made his own way into the
+     world through her side.
+
+[Illustration: 250.jpg THE OSMIAN TRIAD HOKUS. OSIRIS, ISIS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawing by Boudier of the gold group in the Louvre
+     Museum. The drawing is made from a photograph which belonged
+     to M. de Witte, before the monument was acquired by E. de
+     Rougé in 1871. The little square pillar of lapis-lazuli,
+     upon which Osiris squats, is wrongly set up, and the names
+     and titles of King Osorkon, the dedicator of the triad, are
+     placed upside down.
+
+He invited Osiris to a banquet along with seventy-two officers whose
+support he had ensured, made a wooden chest of cunning workmanship and
+ordered that it should be brought in to him, in the midst of the feast.
+As all admired its beauty, he sportively promised to present it to any
+one among the guests whom it should exactly fit. All of them tried it,
+one after another, and all unsuccessfully; but when Osiris lay down
+within it, immediately the conspirators shut to the lid, nailed it
+firmly down, soldered it together with melted lead, and then threw it
+into the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which carried it to the sea. The
+news of the crime spread terror on all sides. The gods friendly to
+Osiris feared the fate of their master, and hid themselves within the
+bodies of animals to escape the malignity of the new king. Isis cut off
+her hair, rent her garments, and set out in search of the chest. She
+found it aground near the mouth of the river[*] under the shadow of
+a gigantic acacia, deposited it in a secluded place where no one ever
+came, and then took refuge in Bûto, her own domain and her native
+city, whose marshes protected her from the designs of Typhon even as in
+historic times they protected more than one Pharaoh from the attacks of
+his enemies. There she gave birth to the young Horus, nursed and reared
+him in secret among the reeds, far from the machinations of the wicked
+one.[**]
+
+     *  At this point the legend of the Saïte and Greek period
+     interpolates a whole chapter, telling how the chest was
+     carried out to sea and cast upon the Phoenician coast near
+     to Byblos. The acacia, a kind of heather or broom in this
+     case, grew up enclosing the chest within its trunk. This
+     addition to the primitive legend must date from the XVIIIth
+     to the XXth dynasties, when Egypt had extensive relations
+     with the peoples of Asia. No trace of it whatever has
+     hitherto been found upon Egyptian monuments strictly so
+     called; not even on the latest.
+
+     **  The opening illustration of this chapter (p. 221) is
+     taken from a monument at Phihe, and depicts Isis among the
+     reeds. The representation of the goddess as squatting upon a
+     mat probably gave rise to the legend of the floating isle of
+     Khemmis, which HECATÆUS of Miletus had seen upon the lake of
+     Bûto, but whose existence was denied by Herodotus
+     notwithstanding the testimony of Hecatæus.
+
+But it happened that Sît, when hunting by moonlight, caught sight of the
+chest, opened it, and recognizing the corpse, cut it up into fourteen
+pieces, which he scattered abroad at random. Once more Isis set forth on
+her woeful pilgrimage. She recovered all the parts of the body excepting
+one only, which the oxyrhynchus had greedily devoured;[*] and with the
+help of her sister Nephthys, her son Horus, Anubis, and Thot, she joined
+together and embalmed them, and made of this collection of his remains
+an imperishable mummy, capable of sustaining for ever the soul of a god.
+On his coming of age, Horus called together all that were left of the
+loyal Egyptians and formed them into an army.[**]
+
+     *  This part of the legend was so thoroughly well known,
+     that by the time of the XIXth dynasty it suggested incidents
+     in popular literature. When Bitiû, the hero of _The Tale of
+     the Two Brothers_, mutilated himself to avoid the suspicion
+     of adultery, he cast his bleeding member into the water, and
+     _the Oxyrhynchus devoured it_.
+
+     **  Towards the Grecian period there was here interpolated
+     an account of how Osiris had returned from the world of the
+     dead to arm his son and train him to fight. According to
+     this tale he had asked Horus which of all animals seemed to
+     him most useful in time of war, and Horus chose the horse
+     rather than the lion, because the lion avails for the weak
+     or cowardly in need of help, whereas the horse is used for
+     the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. Judging from this
+     reply that Horus was ready to dare all, Osiris allowed him
+     to enter upon the war. The mention of the horse affords
+     sufficient proof that this episode is of comparatively late
+     origin (cf. p. 41 for the date at which the horse was
+     acclimatized in Egypt).
+
+His "Followers"--_Shosûû Horû_--defeated the "Accomplices of
+Sît"--_Samiu Sît_--who were now driven in their turn to transform
+themselves into gazelles, crocodiles and serpents,--animals which were
+henceforth regarded as unclean and Typhonian. For three days the two
+chiefs had fought together under the forms of men and of hippopotami,
+when Isis, apprehensive as to the issue of the duel, determined to bring
+it to an end. "Lo! she caused chains to descend upon them, and made them
+to drop upon Horus. Thereupon Horus prayed aloud, saying: 'I am thy son
+Horus!' Then Isis spake unto the fetters, saying; 'Break, and unloose
+yourselves from my son Horus!' She made other fetters to descend, and
+let them fall upon her brother Sit. Forthwith he lifted up his voice and
+cried out in pain, and she spake unto the fetters and said unto them:
+'Break!' Yea, when Sît prayed unto her many times, saying: 'Wilt thou
+not have pity upon the brother of thy son's mother?' then her heart was
+filled with compassion, and she cried to the fetters: 'Break, for he is
+my eldest brother!' and the fetters unloosed themselves from him, and
+the two foes again stood face to face like two men who will not come
+to terms." Horus, furious at seeing his mother deprive him of his prey,
+turned upon her like a panther of the South. She fled before him on that
+day when battle was waged with Sît the Violent, and he cut off her head.
+But Thot transformed her by his enchantments and made a cow's head for
+her, thereby identifying her with her companion, Hâthor.
+
+[Illustration: 253.jpg ISIS-HATHOR, COW-HEADED. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette of Saïte
+     period in the Gîzeh Museum (Mariette, _Album photographique
+     du musée de Boulaq_, pl. 5, No. 167).
+
+The war went on, with all its fluctuating fortunes, till the gods at
+length decided to summon both rivals before their tribunal. According to
+a very ancient tradition, the combatants chose the ruler of a
+neighbouring city, Thot, lord of Hermopolis Parva, as the arbitrator of
+their quarrel. Sît was the first to plead, and he maintained that Horus
+was not the son of Osiris, but a bastard, whom Isis haô conceived after
+the death of her husband. Horua triumphantly vindicated the legitimacy
+of his birth; and Thot condemned Sît to restore, according to some, the
+whole of the inheritance which he had wrongly retained,--according to
+others, part of it only. The gods ratified the sentence, and awarded to
+the arbitrator the title of _Ûapirahûhûi_: he who judges between two
+parties. A legend of more recent origin, and circulated after the
+worship of Osiris had spread over all Egypt, affirmed that the case had
+remained within the jurisdiction of Sibû, who was father to the one, and
+grandfather to the other party. Sibû, however, had pronounced the same
+judgment as Thot, and divided the kingdom into halves--_poshûi_; Sît
+retained the valley from the neighbourhood of Memphis to the first
+cataract, while Horus entered into possession of the Delta. Egypt
+henceforth consisted of two distinct kingdoms, of which one, that of the
+North, recognized Horus, the son of Isis, as its patron deity; and the
+other, that of the South, placed itself under the protection of Sît
+Nûbîti, the god of Ombos.[*]
+
+     * Another form of the legend gives the 27th Athyr as the
+     date of the judgment, assigning Egypt to Horus, and to Sît
+     Nubia, or _Doshirît_, the red land. It must have arisen
+     towards the age of the XVIIIth dynasty, at a time when their
+     piety no longer allowed the devout to admit that the
+     murderer of Osiris could be the legitimate patron of half
+     the country. So _the half_ belonging to Sît was then placed
+     either in Nubia or in the western desert, which had, indeed,
+     been reckoned as his domain from earliest times.
+
+The moiety of Horus, added to that of Sît, formed the kingdom which Sibû
+had inherited; but his children failed to keep it together, though it
+was afterwards reunited under Pharaohs of human race.
+
+The three gods who preceded Osiris upon the throne had ceased to reign,
+but not to live. Râ had taken refuge in heaven, disgusted with his own
+creatures; Shû had disappeared in the midst of a tempest; and Sibû had
+quietly retired within his palace when the time of his sojourning upon
+earth had been fulfilled. Not that there was no death, for death, too,
+together with all other things and beings, had come into existence in
+the beginning, but while cruelly persecuting both man and beast, had for
+a while respected the gods. Osiris was the first among them to be struck
+down, and hence to require funeral rites. He also was the first for whom
+family piety sought to provide a happy life beyond the tomb. Though he
+was king of the living and the dead at Mendes by virtue of the rights of
+all the feudal gods in their own principalities, his sovereignty after
+death exempted him no more than the meanest of his subjects from that
+painful torpor into which all mortals fell on breathing their last. But
+popular imagination could not resign itself to his remaining in that
+miserable state for ever. What would it have profited him to have
+Isis the great Sorceress for his wife, the wise Horus for his son,
+two master-magicians--Thot the Ibis and the jackal Anubis--for his
+servants, if their skill had not availed to ensure him a less gloomy
+and less lamentable after-life than that of men. Anubis had long before
+invented the art of mummifying, and his mysterious science had secured
+the everlasting existence of the flesh; but at what a price!
+
+[Illustration: 256.jpg THE OSIRIAN MUMMY PREPARED AND LAID UPON THE
+FUNERARY COUCH BY THE JACKAL ANUBIS.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellint, _Monumenti
+     Civili_, pl. cxxxiv. 2. While Anubis is stretching out his
+     hands to lay out the mummy on its couch, the soul is
+     hovering above its breast, and holding to its nostrils the
+     sceptre, and the wind-filled sail which is the emblem of
+     breath and of the new life.
+
+For the breathing, warm, fresh-coloured body, spontaneous in movement
+and function, was substituted an immobile, cold and blackish mass, a
+sufficient basis for the mechanical continuity of the double, but which
+that double could neither raise nor guide; whose weight paralysed and
+whose inertness condemned it to vegetate in darkness, without pleasure
+and almost without consciousness of existence. Thot, Isis, and Horus
+applied themselves in the case of Osiris to ameliorating the discomfort
+and constraint entailed by the more primitive embalmment.
+
+[Illustration: 257.jpg THE RECEPTION OP THE MUMMY BY ANUBIS AT THE DOOR
+OP THE TOMB, AND THE OPENING OF THE MOUTH. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of a
+     king in the Theban necropolis.
+
+They did not dispense with the manipulations instituted by Anubis,
+but endued them with new power by means of magic. They inscribed the
+principal bandages with protective figures and formulas; they decorated
+the body with various amulets of specific efficacy for its different
+parts; they drew numerous scenes of earthly existence and of the life
+beyond the tomb upon the boards of the coffin and upon the walls of
+the sepulchral chamber. When the body had been made imperishable, they
+sought to restore one by one all the faculties of which their previous
+operations had deprived it. The mummy was set up at the entrance to the
+vault; the statue representing the living person was placed beside it,
+and semblance was made of opening the mouth, eyes, and ears, of loosing
+the arms and legs, of restoring breath to the throat and movement to the
+heart. The incantations by which these acts were severally accompanied
+were so powerful that the god spoke and ate, lived and heard, and could
+use his limbs as freely as though he had never been steeped in the bath
+of the embalmer. He might have returned to his place among men, and
+various legends prove that he did occasionally appear to his faithful
+adherents. But, as his ancestors before him, he preferred to leave
+their towns and withdraw into his own domain. The cemeteries of the
+inhabitants of Busiris and of Mendes were called _Sokhît Ialû_, the
+Meadow of Reeds, and _Sokhît Hotpû_, the Meadow of Best. They were
+secluded amid the marshes, in small archipelagoes of sandy islets where
+the dead bodies, piled together, rested in safety from the inundations.
+This was the first kingdom of the dead Osiris, but it was soon placed
+elsewhere, as the nature of the surrounding districts and the geography
+of the adjacent countries became better known; at first perhaps on the
+Phoenician shore beyond the sea, and then in the sky, in the Milky Way,
+between the North and the East, but nearer to the North than to the
+East. This kingdom was not gloomy and mournful like that of the other
+dead gods, Sokaris or Khontamentît, but was lighted by sun and moon;
+the heat of the day was tempered by the steady breath of the north wind,
+and its crops grew and throve abundantly.
+
+[Illustration: 259.jpg OSIKIS IN HADES, ACCOMPANIED BY ISIS, AMENTÎT,
+AND NEPHTHYS, RECEIVES THE HOMAGE OF TRUTH. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Héron,
+     taken in 1881 in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos.
+
+Thick walls served as fortifications against the attacks of Sit and
+evil genii; a palace like that of the Pharaohs stood in the midst
+of delightful gardens; and there, among his own people, Osiris led a
+tranquil existence, enjoying in succession all the pleasures of earthly
+life without any of its pains.
+
+The goodness which had gained him the title of Onnophris while he
+sojourned here below, inspired him with the desire and suggested the
+means of opening the gates of his paradise to the souls of his former
+subjects. Souls did not enter into it unexamined, nor without trial.
+Each of them had first to prove that during its earthly life it had
+belonged to a friend, or, as the Egyptian texts have it, to a vassal of
+Osiris--_amakhû khir Osiri_--one of those who had served Horus in his
+exile and had rallied to his banner from the very beginning of the
+Typhonian wars.
+
+[Illustration: 260.jpg THE DECEASED CLIMBING THE SLOPE OF THE MOUNTAIN
+OF THE WEST,2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville Bas Ægyptische
+     Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. cxxviii. Ai.
+
+These were those followers of Horus--_Shosûû Horû_--so often referred to
+in the literature of historic times.[*]
+
+     *  Cf, p. 252. The _Followers of Horns_, i.e. those who had
+     followed Horus during the Typhonian wars, are mentioned in a
+     Turin fragment of the Canon of the Kings, in which the
+     author summarizes the chronology of the divine period. Like
+     the reign of Râ, the time in which the followers of Horus
+     were supposed to have lived was for the Egyptians of classic
+     times the ultimate point beyond which history did not reach.
+
+Horus, their master, having loaded them with favours during life,
+decided to extend to them after death the same privileges which he had
+conferred upon his father. He convoked around the corpse the gods who
+had worked with him at the embalmment of Osiris: Anubis and Thot,
+Isis and Nephthys, and his four children--Hâpi, Qabhsonûf, Amsît, and
+Tiûmaûtf--to whom he had entrusted the charge of the heart and viscera.
+They all performed their functions exactly as before, repeated the same
+ceremonies, and recited the same formulas at the same stages of the
+operations, and so effectively that the dead man became a real Osiris
+under their hands, having a true voice, and henceforth combining the
+name of the god with his own.
+
+[Illustration: 261.jpg THE MUMMY OF SÛTIMOSÛ CLASPING HIS SOUL INTO HIS
+ARMS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Guieysse-Lefébure, _Le
+     Papyrus de Soutimès_, pl. viii. The outlines of the original
+     have unfortunately been restored and enfeebled by the
+     copyist.
+
+He had been Sakhomka or Menkaûrî; he became the Osiris Sakhomka, or the
+Osiris Menkaûrî, true of voice. Horus and his companions then celebrated
+the rites consecrated to the "Opening of the Mouth and the Eyes:"
+animated the statue of the deceased, and placed the mummy in the tomb,
+where Anubis received it in his arms. Recalled to life and movement, the
+double reassumed, one by one, all the functions of being, came and went
+and took part in the ceremonies of the worship which was rendered to him
+in his tomb. There he might be seen accepting the homage of his
+kindred, and clasping to his breast his soul under the form of a great
+human-headed bird with features the counterpart of his own. After being
+equipped with the formulas and amulets wherewith his prototype, Osiris,
+had been furnished, he set forth to seek the "Field of Reeds." The way
+was long and arduous, strewn with perils to which he must have succumbed
+at the very first stages had he not been carefully warned beforehand and
+armed against them.
+
+[Illustration: 262.jpg CYNOCEPHALI DRAWING THE NET IN WHICH SOULS ARE
+CAUGHT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a facsimile by Dévèria (E. de
+     Rougé, _Études sur le Rituel Funéraire_, pl. iv. No. 4).
+     Ignorant souls fished for by the cynocephali are here
+     represented as fish; but the soul of Nofirûbnû, instructed
+     in the protective formulas, preserves its human form.
+
+A papyrus placed with the mummy in its coffin contained the needful
+topo-graphical directions and passwords, in order that he might
+neither stray nor perish by the way. The wiser Egyptians copied out the
+principal chapters for themselves, or learned them by heart while yet
+in life, in order to be prepared for the life beyond. Those who had not
+taken this precaution studied after death the copy with which they were
+provided; and since few Egyptians could read, a priest, or relative of
+the deceased, preferably his son, recited the prayers in the mummy's
+ear, that he might learn them before he was carried away to the
+cemetery. If the double obeyed the prescriptions of the "Book of the
+Dead" to the letter, he reached his goal without fail.[*] On leaving
+the tomb he turned his back on the valley, and staff in hand climbed
+the hills which bounded it on the west, plunging boldly into the desert,
+where some bird, or even a kindly insect such as a praying mantis, a
+grasshopper, or a butterfly, served as his guide. Soon he came to one of
+those sycamores which grow in the sand far away from the Nile, and
+are regarded as magic trees by the fellahîn. Out of the foliage a
+goddess--Nûît, ïïâthor, or Nît--half emerged, and offered him a dish of
+fruit, loaves of bread, and a jar of water.
+
+     * Manuscripts of this work represent about nine-tenths of
+     the papyri hitherto discovered. They are not all equally
+     full; complete copies are still relatively scarce, and most
+     of those found with mummies contain nothing but extracts of
+     varying length. The book itself was studied by Champollion,
+     who called it the _Funerary Ritual_; Lepsius afterwards gave
+     it the less definite name of _Book of the Dead_, which seems
+     likely to prevail. It has been chiefly known from the
+     hieroglyphic copy at Turin, which Lepsius traced and had
+     lithographed in 1841, under the title of _Das Todtenbuch der
+     Ægypter_. In 1865, E. du Rougé began to publish a hieratic
+     copy in the Louvre, but since 1886 there has been a critical
+     edition of manuscripts of the Theban period most carefully
+     collated by E. Naville, _Das Mgyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII
+     bis XX Dynastie_, Berlin, 1886, 2 vols, of plates in folio,
+     and 1 vol. of Introduction in 4to. On this edition see
+     Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 325-387.
+
+By accepting these gifts he became the guest of the goddess, and could
+never more retrace his steps[*] without special permission. Beyond
+the sycamore were lands of terror, infested by serpents and ferocious
+beasts, furrowed by torrents of boiling water, intersected by ponds and
+marshes where gigantic monkeys cast their nets.
+
+     *  Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 224-227. It was not in Egypt
+     alone that the fact of accepting food offered by a god of
+     the dead constituted a recognition of suzerainty, and
+     prevented the human soul from returning to the world of the
+     living. Traces of this belief are found everywhere, in
+     modern as in ancient times, and E. B. Tylob, has collected
+     numerous examples of the same in Primitive Culture, 2nd
+     edit., vol. ii. pp. 47, 51, 52.
+
+[Illustration: 264.jpg THE DECEASED AND HIS WIFE SEATED IN FRONT OF THE
+SYCAMORE OF NÛÎT AND RECEIVING THE BREAD AND WATER OF THE NEXT WORLD. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coloured plate in
+     Rosellini, _Monumenti civili._,pl. cxxxiv. 3.
+
+Ignorant souls, or those ill prepared for the struggle, had no easy work
+before them when they imprudently entered upon it. Those who were not
+overcome by hunger and thirst at the outset were bitten by a urasus, or
+horned viper, hidden with evil intent below the sand, and perished in
+convulsions from the poison; or crocodiles seized as many of them as
+they could lay hold of at the fords of rivers; or cynocephali netted
+and devoured them indiscriminately along with the fish into which the
+partisans of Typhon were transformed. They came safe and sound out of
+one peril only to fall into another, and infallibly succumbed before
+they were half through their journey. But, on the other hand, the
+double who was equipped and instructed, and armed with the true voice,
+confronted each foe with the phylactery and the incantation by which his
+enemy was held in check. As soon as he caught sight of one of them he
+recited the appropriate chapter from his book, he loudly proclaimed
+himself Râ, Tûmû, Horus, or Khopri--that god whose name and attributes
+were best fitted to repel the immediate danger--and flames withdrew at
+his voice, monsters fled or sank paralysed, the most cruel of genii
+drew in their claws and lowered their arms before him. He compelled
+crocodiles to turn away their heads; he transfixed serpents with his
+lance; he supplied himself at pleasure with all the provisions that he
+needed, and gradually ascended the mountains which surround the world,
+sometimes alone, and fighting his way step by step, sometimes escorted
+by beneficent divinities. Halfway up the slope was the good cow Hâfchor,
+the lady of the West, in meadows of tall plants where every evening
+she received the sun at his setting. If the dead man knew how to ask
+it according to the prescribed rite, she would take him upon her
+shoulders[*] and carry him across the accursed countries at full speed.
+
+     *  Coffins of the XXth and XXIst dynasties, with a yellow
+     ground, often display this scene. Generally the scene is
+     found beneath the feet of the dead, at the lower end of the
+     cartonage, and the cow is represented as carrying off at a
+     gallop the mummy who is lying on her back.
+
+[Illustration: 266.jpg THE DECEASED PIERCING A SERPENT WITH HIS LANCE.
+2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville (_Das
+     Ægyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl. iii. P b). The commonest
+     enemies of the dead were various kinds of serpents.
+
+Having reached the North, he paused at the edge of an immense lake, the
+lake of Kha, and saw in the far distance the outline of the Islands of
+the Blest. One tradition, so old as to have been almost forgotten in
+Rames-side times, told how Thot the ibis there awaited him, and bore
+him away on his wings;[***] another, no less ancient but of more lasting
+popularity, declared that a ferry-boat plied regularly between the solid
+earth and the shores of paradise.
+
+     ***  It is often mentioned in the Pyramid texts, and
+     inspired one of the most obscure chapters among them
+     (_Teti_, 11. 185-200; cf. _Recueil de Travaux_, vol. v. pp.
+     22, 23). It seems that the ibis had to fight with Sit for
+     right of passage.
+
+The god who directed it questioned the dead, and the bark itself
+proceeded to examine them before they were admitted on board; for it
+was a magic bark. "Tell me my name," cried the mast; and the travellers
+replied: "He who guides the great goddess on her way is thy name." "Tell
+me my name," repeated the braces. "The Spine of the Jackal Ûapûaîtû is
+thy name." "Tell me my name," proceeded the mast-head.
+
+[Illustration: 267.jpg THE GOOD COW HÂTHOR CARRYING THE DEAD MAN AND HIS
+SOUL. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coloured facsimile
+     published by Leemans, _Monuments Égyptiens du Musée d'
+     Antiquités des Pays-Bas à Leyden_, part iii. pl. xii.
+
+"The Neck of Amsît is thy name." "Tell me my name," asked the sail.
+"Nûît is thy name." Each part of the hull and of the rigging spoke
+in turn and questioned the applicant regarding its name, this being
+generally a mystic phrase by which it was identified either with some
+divinity as a whole, or else with some part of his body.
+
+When the double had established his right of passage by the correctness
+of his answers, the bark consented to receive him and to carry him to
+the further shore. There he was met by the gods and goddesses of the
+court of Osiris: by Anubis, by Hathor the lady of the cemetery, by Nît,
+by the two Màîts who preside over justice and truth, and by the four
+children of Horus stiff-sheathed in their mummy wrappings. They formed
+as it were a guard of honour to introduce him and his winged guide into
+an immense hall, the ceiling of which rested on light graceful columns
+of painted wood.
+
+[Illustration: 268.jpg ANUBIS AND THOT WEIGHING THE HEART OF THE
+DECEASED IN THE SCALES OF TRUTH. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn  by   Faucher-Gudin,   from  pl.  cxxxvi. Ag of
+     Naville's  _Das Thebanische Todtenbuch_.
+
+At the further end of the hall Osiris was seated in mysterious twilight
+within a shrine through whose open doors he might be seen wearing a red
+necklace over his close-fitting case of white bandaging, his green face
+surmounted by the tall white diadem flanked by two plumes, his slender
+hands grasping flail and crook, the emblems of his power.
+
+[Illustration: 269.jpg THE DECEASED IS BROUGHT BEFORE THE SHRINE OF
+OSIRIS THE JUDGE BY HORUS, THE SON OF ISIS.]
+
+Behind him stood Isis and Nephthys watching over him with uplifted
+hands, bare bosoms, and bodies straitly cased in linen. Forty-two jurors
+who had died and been restored to life like their lord, and who had
+been chosen, one from each of those cities of Egypt which recognized
+his authority, squatted right and left, and motionless, clothed in the
+wrappings of the dead, silently waited until they were addressed.
+The soul first advanced to the foot of the throne, carrying on its
+outstretched hands the image of its heart or of its eyes, agents and
+accomplices of its sins and virtues. It humbly "smelt the earth," then
+arose, and with uplifted hands recited its profession of faith. "Hail
+unto you, ye lords of Truth! hail to thee, great god, lord of Truth and
+Justice! I have come before thee, my master; I have been brought to see
+thy beauties. For I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of thy
+forty-two gods who are with thee in the Hall of the Two Truths, living
+on the remains of sinners, gorging themselves with their blood, in that
+day when account is rendered before Onnophris, the true of voice. Thy
+name which is thine is 'the god whose two twins are the ladies of the
+two Truths;' and I, I know you, ye lords of the two Truths, I bring unto
+you Truth, I have destroyed sins for you. I have not committed iniquity
+against men! I have not oppressed the poor! I have not made defalcations
+in the necropolis! I have not laid labour upon any free man beyond that
+which he wrought for himself! I have not transgressed, I have not
+been weak, I have not defaulted, I have not committed that which is an
+abomination to the gods. I have not caused the slave to be ill-treated
+of his master! I have not starved any man, I have not made any to
+weep, I have not assassinated any man, I have not caused any man to be
+treacherously assassinated, and I have not committed treason against
+any! I have not in aught diminished the supplies of temples! I have not
+spoiled the shrewbread of the gods! I have not taken away the loaves and
+the wrappings of the dead! I have done no carnal act within the sacred
+enclosure of the temple! I have not blasphemed! I have in nought
+curtailed the sacred revenues! I have not pulled down the scale of the
+balance! I have not falsified the beam of the balance! I have not taken
+away the milk from the mouths of sucklings! I have not lassoed cattle on
+their pastures! I have not taken with nets the birds of the gods! I
+have not fished in their ponds! I have not turned back the water in its
+season! I have not cut off a water-channel in its course! I have not
+put out the fire in its time! I have not defrauded the Nine Gods of the
+choice part of victims! I have not ejected the oxen of the gods! I have
+not turned back the god at his coming forth! I am pure! I am pure! I am
+pure! I am pure! Pure as this Great Bonû of Heracleopolis is pure!...
+There is no crime against me in this land of the Double Truth! Since I
+know the names of the gods who are with thee in the Hall of the Double
+Truth, save thou me from them!" He then turned towards the jury and
+pleaded his cause before them. They had been severally appointed for
+the cognizance of particular sins, and the dead man took each of them by
+name to witness that he was innocent of the sin which that one recorded.
+His plea ended, he returned to the supreme judge, and repeated, under
+what is sometimes a highly mystic form, the ideas which he had already
+advanced in the first part of his address. "Hail unto you, ye gods who
+are in the Great Hall of the Double Truth, who have no falsehood in
+your bosoms, but who live on Truth in Aûnû, and feed your hearts upon it
+before the Lord God who dwelleth in his solar disc! Deliver me from
+the Typhon who feedeth on entrails, O chiefs! in this hour of supreme
+judgment;--grant that the deceased may come unto you, he who hath not
+sinned, who hath neither lied, nor done evil, nor committed any crime,
+who hath not borne false witness, who hath done nought against himself,
+but who liveth on truth, who feedeth on truth. He hath spread joy on all
+sides; men speak of that which he hath done, and the gods rejoice in it.
+He hath reconciled the god to him by his love; he hath given bread to
+the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked; he hath given
+a boat to the shipwrecked; he hath offered sacrifices to the gods,
+sepulchral meals unto the manes. Deliver him from himself, speak not
+against him before the Lord of the Dead, for his mouth is pure, and his
+two hands are pure!" In the middle of the Hall, however, his acts were
+being weighed by the assessors. Like all objects belonging to the gods,
+the balance is magic, and the genius which animates it sometimes shows
+its fine and delicate little human head on the top of the upright
+stand which forms its body. Everything about the balance recalls its
+superhuman origin: a cynocephalus, emblematic of Thot, sits perched on
+the upright and watches the beam; the cords which suspend the scales are
+made of alternate _cruces ansato and tats_. Truth squats upon one of
+the scales; Thot, ibis-headed, places the heart on the other, and always
+merciful, bears upon the side of Truth that judgment may be favourably
+inclined. He affirms that the heart is light of offence, inscribes
+the result of the proceeding upon a wooden tablet, and pronounces the
+verdict aloud. "Thus saith Thot, lord of divine discourse, scribe of
+the Great Ennead, to his father Osiris, lord of eternity, 'Behold the
+deceased in this Hall of the Double Truth, his heart hath been weighed
+in the balance in the presence of the great genii, the lords of Hades,
+and been found true. No trace of earthly impurity hath been found in
+his heart. Now that he leaveth the tribunal true of voice, his heart
+is restored to him, as well as his eyes and the material cover of his
+heart, to be put back in their places each in its own time, his soul in
+heaven, his heart in the other world, as is the custom of the "Followers
+of Horus." Henceforth let his body lie in the hands of Anubis, who
+presideth over the tombs; let him receive offerings at the cemetery in
+the presence of Onno-phris; let him be as one of those favourites who
+follow thee; let his soul abide where it will in the necropolis of
+his city, he whose voice is true before the Great Ennead.'" In this
+"Negative Confession," which the worshippers of Osiris taught to their
+dead, all is not equally admirable. The material interests of the temple
+were too prominent, and the crime of killing a sacred goose or stealing
+a loaf from the bread offerings was considered as abominable as calumny
+or murder. But although it contains traces of priestly cupidity, yet
+how many of its precepts are untarnished in their purity by any selfish
+ulterior motive! In it is all our morality in germ, and with refinements
+of delicacy often lacking among peoples of later and more advanced
+civilizations. The god does not confine his favour to the prosperous and
+the powerful of this world; he bestows it also upon the poor. His will
+is that they be fed and clothed, and exempted from tasks beyond their
+strength; that they be not oppressed, and that unnecessary tears be
+spared them. If this does not amount to the love of our neighbour as our
+religions preach it, at least it represents the careful solicitude due
+from a good lord to his vassals. His pity extends to slaves; not only
+does he command that no one should ill-treat them himself, but he
+forbids that their masters should be led to ill-treat them. This
+profession of faith, one of the noblest bequeathed us by the old world,
+is of very ancient origin. It may be read in scattered fragments upon
+the monuments of the first dynasties, and the way in which its ideas are
+treated by the compilers of these inscriptions proves that it was not
+then regarded as new, but as a text so old and so well known that its
+formulas were current in all mouths, and had their prescribed places
+in epitaphs.[*] Was it composed in Mendes, the god's own home, or in
+Heliopolis, when the theologians of that city appropriated the god of
+Mendes and incorporated him in their Ennead? In conception it certainly
+belongs to the Osirian priesthood, but it can only have been diffused
+over the whole of Egypt after the general adoption of the Heliopolitan
+Ennead throughout the cities.
+
+As soon as he was judged, the dead man entered into the possession of
+his rights as a pure soul. On high he received from the Universal
+Lord all that kings and princes here below bestowed upon their
+followers--rations of food,[**] and a house, gardens, and fields to be
+held subject to the usual conditions of tenure in Egypt, i.e. taxation,
+military service, and the corvée.
+
+     *  For instance, one of the formulas found in Memphite tombs
+     states that the deceased had been the friend of his father,
+     the beloved of his mother, sweet to those who lived with
+     him, gracious to his brethren, loved of his servants, and
+     that he had never sought wrongful quarrel with any man;
+     briefly, that he spoke and did that which is right here
+     below.
+
+     **  The formula of the pyramid times is: "Thy thousand of
+     oxen, thy thousand of geese, of roast and boiled joints from
+     the larder of the gods, of bread, and plenty of the good
+     things presented in the hall of Osiris."
+
+If the island was attacked by the partisans of Sit, the Osirian doubles
+hastened in a body to repulse them, and fought bravely in its defence.
+Of the revenues sent to him by his kindred on certain days and by means
+of sacrifices, each gave tithes to the heavenly storehouses. Yet this
+was but the least part of the burdens laid upon him by the laws of the
+country, which did not suffer him to become enervated by idleness, but
+obliged him to labour as in the days when he still dwelt in Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 275.jpg THE MANES TILLING THE GROUND AND REAPING IN THE
+FIELDS OF IALÛ. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in the funerary
+     papyrus of Nebhopît in Turin.
+
+He looked after the maintenance of canals and dykes, he tilled the
+ground, he sowed, he reaped, he garnered the grain for his lord and for
+himself. Yet to those upon whom they were incumbent, these posthumous
+obligations, the sequel and continuation of feudal service, at length
+seemed too heavy, and theologians exercised their ingenuity to find
+means of lightening the burden. They authorized the manes to look to
+their servants for the discharge of all manual labour which they ought
+to have performed themselves. Barely did a dead man, no matter how
+poor, arrive unaccompanied at the eternal cities; he brought with him a
+following proportionate to his rank and fortune upon earth.
+
+[Illustration: 276.jpg UASHBÎTI. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted limestone statuette
+     from the tomb of _Sonnozmû_ at Thebes, dating from the end
+     of the XXth dynasty.
+
+At first they were real doubles, those of slaves or vassals killed at
+the tomb, and who had departed along with the double of the master to
+serve him beyond the grave as they had served him here. A number of
+statues and images, magically endued with activity and intelligence,
+was afterwards substituted for this retinue of victims. Originally of
+so large a size that only the rich or noble could afford them, they were
+reduced little by little to the height of a few inches. Some were carved
+out of alabaster, granite, diorite, fine limestone, or moulded out
+of fine clay and delicately modelled; others had scarcely any human
+resemblance. They were endowed with life by means of a formula recited
+over them at the time of their manufacture, and afterwards traced upon
+their legs. All were possessed of the same faculties. When the god who
+called the Osirians to the corvée pronounced the name of the dead man to
+whom the figures belonged, they arose and answered for him; hence their
+designation of "Respondents "--_Ûashbîti_. Equipped for agricultural
+labour, each grasping a hoe and carrying a seed-bag on his shoulder,
+they set out to work in their appointed places, contributing the
+required number of days of forced labour.
+
+[Illustration: 277.jpg THE DEAD MAN AND HIS WIFE PLAYING AT DRAUGHTS IN
+THE PAVILION. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in No, 4 Papyrus,
+     Dublin (Naville, _Das Mgyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl.
+     xxvii. Da). The name of draughts is not altogether accurate;
+     a description of the game may be found in Falkner, _Games
+     Ancient and Oriental and how to play them_, pp. 9-101.
+
+Up to a certain point they thus compensated for those inequalities of
+condition which death itself did not efface among the vassals of Osiris;
+for the figures were sold so cheaply that even the poorest could always
+afford some for themselves, or bestow a few upon their relations; and
+in the Islands of the Blest, fellah, artisan, and slave were indebted to
+the Uashbîti for release from their old routine of labour and unending
+toil. While the little peasants of stone or glazed ware dutifully toiled
+and tilled and sowed, their masters were enjoying all the delights
+of the Egyptian paradise in perfect idleness. They sat at ease by the
+water-side, inhaling the fresh north breeze, under the shadow of trees
+which were always green. They fished with lines among the lotus-plants;
+they embarked in their boats, and were towed along by their servants, or
+they would sometimes deign to paddle themselves slowly about the canals.
+
+[Illustration: 278.jpg THE DEAD MAN SAILING IN HIS BARK ALONG THE CANALS
+OF THE FIELDS OF IALIT. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the Papyrus of Nebhopît, in
+     Turin. This drawing is from part of the same scene as the
+     illustration on p. 275.
+
+They went fowling among the reed-beds, or retired within their painted
+pavilions to read tales, to play at draughts, to return to their wives
+who were for ever young and beautiful.[**]
+
+     **  Gymnastic exercises, hunting, fishing, sailing, are all
+     pictured in Theban tombs. The game of draughts is mentioned
+     in the title of chap. xvii. of the _Book of the Dead_
+     (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 2), and the
+     women's pavilion is represented in the tomb of Rakhmiri That
+     the dead were supposed to read tales is proved from the fact
+     that broken ostraca bearing long fragments of literary works
+     are found in tombs; they were broken to kill them and to
+     send on their doubles to the dead man in the next world.
+
+It was but an ameliorated earthly life, divested of all suffering under
+the rule and by the favour of the true-voiced Onnophris. The feudal gods
+promptly adopted this new mode of life.
+
+[Illustration: 279.jpg BOAT OF A FUNERARY FLEET ON ITS WAY TO ABYDOS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Éinil
+     Brugsch-Bey. The original was found in the course of M. de
+     Morgan's excavations at Mêîr, and is now at Gîzeh. The dead
+     man is sitting in the cabin, wrapped in his cloak. As far as
+     I know, this is the only boat which has preserved its
+     original rigging.    It dates from the XIth or XIIth
+     dynasty.
+
+Each of their dead bodies, mummified, and afterwards reanimated in
+accordance with the Osirian myth, became an Osiris as did that of any
+ordinary person. Some carried the assimilation so far as to absorb the
+god of Mendes, or to be absorbed in him. At Memphis Phtah-Sokaris
+became Phtah-Sokar-Osiris, and at Thinis Khontamentîfc became Osiris
+Khontamentît. The sun-god lent himself to this process with comparative
+ease because his life is more like a man's life, and hence also more
+like that of Osiris, which is the counterpart of a man's life.
+
+[Illustration: 280.jpg THE SOLAR BARK INTO WHICH THE DEAD MAN IS ABOUT
+TO ENTER. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in the Papyrus of
+     Nebqadn, in Paris.
+
+Born in the morning, he ages as the day declines, and gently passes away
+at evening. From the time of his entering the sky to that of his leaving
+it, he reigns above as he reigned here below in the beginning; but when
+he has left the sky and sinks into Hades, he becomes as one of the dead,
+and is, as they are, subjected to Osirian embalmment. The same dangers
+that menace their human souls threaten his soul also; and when he has
+vanquished them, not in his own strength, but by the power of amulets
+and magical formulas, he enters into the fields of lalû, and ought to
+dwell there for ever under the rule of Onuophris. He did nothing of the
+kind, however, for daily the sun was to be seen reappearing in the east
+twelve hours after it had sunk into the darkness of the west. Was it a
+new orb each time, or did the same sun shine every day? In either case
+the result was precisely the same; the god came forth from death and
+re-entered into life. Having identified the course of the sun-god with
+that of man, and Râ with Osiris for a first day and a first night,
+it was hard not to push the matter further, and identify them for all
+succeeding days and nights, affirming that man and Osiris might, if they
+so wished, be born again in the morning, as Râ was, and together with
+him. If the Egyptians had found the prospect of quitting the darkness of
+the tomb for the bright meadows of Ialû a sensible alleviation of their
+lot, with what joy must they have been filled by the conception which
+allowed them to substitute the whole realm of the sun for a little
+archipelago in an out-of-the-way corner of the universe. Their first
+consideration was to obtain entrance into the divine bark, and this
+was the object of all the various practices and prayers, whose text,
+together with that which already contained the Osirian formulas, ensured
+the unfailing protection of Râ to their possessor. The soul desirous of
+making use of them went straight from his tomb to the very spot where
+the god left earth to descend into Hades. This was somewhere in the
+immediate neighbourhood of Abydos, and was reached through a narrow
+gorge or "cleft" in the Libyan range, whose "mouth" opened in front
+of the temple of Osiris Khontamentît, a little to the north-west of the
+city. The soul was supposed to be carried thither by a small flotilla of
+boats, manned by figures representing friends or priests, and laden with
+food, furniture, and statues. This flotilla was placed within the
+vault on the day of the funeral, and was set in motion by means of
+incantations recited over it during one of the first nights of the year,
+at the annual feast of the dead. The bird or insect which had previously
+served as guide to the soul upon its journey now took the helm to show
+the fleet the right way, and under this command the boats left Abydos
+and mysteriously passed through the "cleft" into that western sea which
+is inaccessible to the living, there to await the daily coming of the
+dying sun-god.
+
+[Illustration: 282.jpg THE SOLAR BARK PASSING INTO THE MOUNTAIN OF THE
+WEST. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a very small photograph
+     published in the Catalogue of the Minutoli Sale.
+
+As soon as his bark appeared at the last bend of the celestial Nile,
+the cynocephali, who guarded the entrance into night, began to dance and
+gesticulate upon the banks as they intoned their accustomed hymn. The
+gods of Abydos mingled their shouts of joy with the chant of the sacred
+baboons, the bark lingered for a moment upon the frontiers of day, and
+initiated souls seized the occasion to secure their recognition and
+their reception on board of it.[*] Once admitted, they took their share
+in the management of the boat, and in the battles with hostile deities;
+but they were not all endowed with the courage or equipment needful to
+withstand the perils and terrors of the voyage. Many stopped short by
+the way in one of the regions which it traversed, either in the realm of
+Khontamentît, or in that of Sokaris, or in those islands where the good
+Osiris welcomed them as though they had duly arrived in the ferry-boat,
+or upon the wing of Thot. There they dwelt in colonies under the
+suzerainty of local gods, rich, and in need of nothing, but condemned
+to live in darkness, excepting for the one brief hour in which the
+solar bark passed through their midst, irradiating them with beams of
+light.[**]
+
+     *  This description of the embarkation and voyage of the
+     soul is composed from indications given in one of the
+     vignettes of chap. xvi. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's
+     edition, vol. i. pl. xxii.), combined with the text of a
+     formula which became common from the times of the XIth and
+     XIIth dynasties (Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et
+     l'Archéologie Égyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 14-18, and _Études
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 122, 123).
+
+
+     **  Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 44, 45.
+
+The few persevered, feeling that they had courage to accompany the sun
+throughout, and these were indemnified for their sufferings by the most
+brilliant fate ever dreamed of by Egyptian souls., Born anew with the
+sun-god and appearing with him at the gates of the east, they were
+assimilated to him, and shared his privilege of growing old and dying,
+only to be ceaselessly rejuvenated and to live again with ever-renewed
+splendour. They disembarked where they pleased, and returned at will
+into the world. If now and then they felt a wish to revisit all that was
+left of their earthly bodies, the human-headed sparrow-hawk descended
+the shaft in full flight, alighted upon the funeral couch, and, with
+hands softly laid upon the spot where the heart had been wont to beat,
+gazed upwards at the impassive mask of the mummy.
+
+[Illustration: 284.jpg THE SOUL DESCENDING THE SEPULCHRAL SHAFT ON ITS
+WAY TO REJOIN THE MUMMY. 1]
+
+      1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Dévèria.
+
+This was but for a moment, since nothing compelled these perfect souls
+to be imprisoned within the tomb like the doubles of earlier times,
+because they feared the light. They "went forth by day," and dwelt in
+those places where they had lived; they walked in their gardens by their
+ponds of running water; they perched like so many birds on the branches
+of the trees which they had planted, or enjoyed the fresh air under the
+shade of their sycamores; they ate and drank at pleasure; they travelled
+by hill and dale; they embarked in the boat of Râ, and disembarked
+without weariness, and without distaste for the same perpetual round.
+
+This conception, which was developed somewhat late, brought the
+Egyptians back to the point from which they had started when first they
+began to speculate on the life to come.
+
+[Illustration: 285.jpg THE SOUL ON THE EDGE OF THE FUNERAL COUCH, WITH
+ITS HANDS ON THE HEART OF THE MUMMY. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey, reproducing the miniature sarcophagus of the scribe Râ
+     (Maspero, _Guide du Visiteur_, pp. 130, 131, No. 1621).
+
+The soul, after having left the place of its incarnation to which in the
+beginning it clung, after having ascended into heaven and there sought
+congenial asylum in vain, forsook all havens which it had found above,
+and unhesitatingly fell back upon earth, there to lead a peaceful, free,
+and happy life in the full light of day, and with the whole valley of
+Egypt for a paradise.
+
+The connection, always increasingly intimate between Osiris and Râ,
+gradually brought about a blending of the previously separate myths and
+beliefs concerning each. The friends and enemies of the one became the
+friends and enemies of the other, and from a mixture of the original
+conceptions of the two deities, arose new personalities, in which
+contradictory elements were blent together, often without true fusion.
+The celestial Horuses one by one were identified with Horus, son of
+Isis, and their attributes were given to him, as his in the same way
+became theirs. Apopi and the monsters--the hippopotamus, the crocodile,
+the wild boar--who lay in wait for Râ as he sailed the heavenly ocean,
+became one with Sît and his accomplices. Sit still possessed his half
+of Egypt, and his primitive brotherly relation to the celestial Horus
+remained unbroken, either 'on account of their sharing one temple, as at
+Nûbît, or because they were worshipped as one in two neighbouring
+nomes, as, for example, at Oxyrrhynchos and at Heracleopolis Magna.
+The repulsion with which the slayer of Osiris was regarded did not
+everywhere dissociate these two cults: certain small districts persisted
+in this double worship down to the latest times of paganism. It was,
+after all, a mark of fidelity to the oldest traditions of the race, but
+the bulk of the Egyptians, who had forgotten these, invented reasons
+taken from the history of the divine dynasties to explain the fact. The
+judgment of Thot or of Sibû had not put an end to the machinations of
+Sît: as soon as Horus had left the earth, Sît resumed them, and pursued
+them, with varying fortune, under the divine kings of the second Ennead.
+Now, in the year 363 of Harmakhis, the Typhonians reopened the campaign.
+Beaten at first near Edfû, they retreated precipitately northwards,
+stopping to give battle wherever their partisans predominated,--at
+Zatmîfc in the Theban nome,[*] at Khaîtnûtrît to the north-east of
+Denderah, and at Hibonû in the principality of the Gazelle.
+
+     *  Zatmît appears to have been situate at some distance from
+     Bayadîyéh, on the spot where the map published by the
+     Egyptian Commission marks the ruins of a modern village.
+     There was a necropolis of considerable extent there, which
+     furnishes the Luxor dealers with antiquities, many of which
+     belong to the first Theban empire.
+
+[Illustration: 287.jpg THE SOUL GOING FORTH INTO ITS GARDEN BY DAY. 2]
+
+     2  Copied by Faucher-Gudin from the survey-drawings of the
+     tomb of Anni by Boussac, member of the _Mission française_
+     in Egypt (1891). The inscription over the arbour gives the
+     list of the various trees in the garden of Anni during his
+     lifetime.
+
+Several bloody combats, which took place between Oxyrrhynchos and
+Heracleopolis Magna, were the means of driving them finally out of the
+Nile Valley; they rallied for the last time in the eastern provinces
+of the Delta, were beaten at Zalû, and giving up all hope of success on
+land, they embarked at the head of the Gulf of Suez, in order to return
+to the Nubian Desert, their habitual refuge in times of distress.
+The sea was the special element of Typhon, and upon it they believed
+themselves secure. Horus, however, followed them, overtook them near
+Shas-hirît, routed them, and on his return to Edfu, celebrated his
+victory by a solemn festival. By degrees, as he made himself master
+of those localities which owed allegiance to Sit, he took energetic
+measures to establish in them the authority of Osiris and of the solar
+cycle. In all of them he built, side by side with the sanctuary of the
+Typhonian divinities, a temple to himself, in which he was enthroned
+under the particular form he was obliged to assume in order to vanquish
+his enemies. Metamorphosed into a hawk at the battle of Hibonû, we
+next see him springing on to the back of Sit under the guise of a
+hippopotamus; in his shrine at Hibonû he is represented as a hawk
+perching on the back of a gazelle, emblem of the nome where the struggle
+took place. Near to Zalû he became incarnate as a human-headed lion,
+crowned with the triple diadem, and having feet armed with claws which
+cut like a knife; it was under the form, too, of a lion that he was
+worshipped in the temple at Zalû. The correlation of Sit and the
+celestial Horus was not, therefore, for these Egyptians of more recent
+times a primitive religious fact; it was the consequence, and so to
+speak the sanction, of the old hostility between the two gods.
+
+[Illustration: 289.jpg]
+
+Horus had treated his enemy in the same fashion that a victorious
+Pharaoh treated the barbarians conquered by his arms: he had constructed
+a fortress to keep his foe in check, and his priests formed a sort of
+garrison as a precaution against the revolt of the rival priesthood and
+the followers of the rival deity. In this manner the battles of the gods
+were changed into human struggles, in which, more than once, Egypt was
+deluged with blood. The hatred of the followers of Osiris to those of
+Typhon was perpetuated with such implacability, that the nomes which had
+persisted in adhering to the worship of Sit, became odious to the
+rest of the population: the image of their master on the monuments was
+mutilated, their names were effaced from the geographical lists, they
+were assailed with insulting epithets, and to pursue and slay their
+sacred animals was reckoned a pious act. Thus originated those
+skirmishes which developed into actual civil wars, and were continued
+down to Roman times. The adherents of Typhon only became more confirmed
+in their veneration for the accursed god; Christianity alone overcame
+their obstinate fidelity to him.[*]
+
+     * This incident in the wars of Horus and Sit is drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin from a bas-relief of the temple of Edfû. On
+     the right, Har-Hûdîti, standing up in the solar bark,
+     pierces with his lance the head of a crocodile, a partisan
+     of Sît, lying in the water below; Harmâkhis, standing behind
+     him, is present at the execution. Facing this divine pair,
+     is the young Horus, who kills a man, another partisan of
+     Sît, while Isis and Har-Hûdîti hold his chains; behind
+     Horus, Isis and Thot are leading four other captives bound
+     and ready to be sacrificed before Harmâkhis.
+
+The history of the world for Egypt was therefore only the history of the
+struggle between the adherents of Osiris and the followers of Sît; an
+interminable warfare in which sometimes one and sometimes the other of
+the rival parties obtained a passing advantage, without ever gaining a
+decisive victory till the end of time. The divine kings of the second
+and third Ennead devoted most of the years of their earthly reign
+to this end; they were portrayed under the form of the great warrior
+Pharaohs, who, from the eighteenth to the twelfth century before our
+era, extended their rule from the plains of the Euphrates to the marshes
+of Ethiopia. A few peaceful sovereigns are met with here and there in
+this line of conquerors--a few sages or legislators, of whom the most
+famous was styled Thot, the doubly great, ruler of Hermopolis and of
+the Hermopolitan Ennead. A legend of recent origin made him the prime
+minister of Horus, son of Isis; a still more ancient tradition would
+identify him with the second king of the second dynasty, the immediate
+successor of the divine Horuses, and attributes to him a reign of 3226
+years. He brought to the throne that inventive spirit and that creative
+power which had characterized him from the time when he was only
+a feudal deity. Astronomy, divination, magic, medicine, writing,
+drawing--in fine, all the arts and sciences emanated from him as from
+their first source. He had taught mankind the methodical observation
+of the heavens and of the changes that took place in them, the slow
+revolutions of the sun, the rapid phases of the moon, the intersecting
+movements of the five planets, and the shapes and limits of the
+constellations which each night were lit up in the sky. Most of the
+latter either remained, or appeared to remain immovable, and seemed
+never to pass out of the regions accessible to the human eye. Those
+which were situate on the extreme margin of the firmament accomplished
+movements there analogous to those of the planets.
+
+[Illustration: 293.jpg ONE OF THE ASTRONOMICAL TABLES OF THE TOMB OF
+RAMSES IV. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a copy by Lepsius, _Denkm._,
+     iii. 227, 3.
+
+Every year at fixed times they were seen to sink one after another below
+the horizon, to disappear, and rising again after an eclipse of greater
+or less duration, to regain insensibly their original positions. The
+constellations were reckoned to be thirty-six in number, the thirty-six
+_decani_ to whom were attributed mysterious powers, and of whom Sothis
+was queen--Sothis transformed into the star of Isis, when Orion (Sâhû),
+became the star of Osiris. The nights are so clear and the atmosphere so
+transparent in Egypt, that the eye can readily penetrate the depths of
+space, and distinctly see points of light which would be invisible
+in our foggy climate. The Egyptians did not therefore need special
+instruments to ascertain the existence of a considerable number of stars
+which we could not see without the help of our telescopes; they could
+perceive with the naked eye stars of the fifth magnitude, and note them
+upon their catalogues.[*] It entailed, it is true, a long training and
+uninterrupted practice to bring their sight up to its maximum keenness;
+but from very early times it was a function of the priestly colleges
+to found and maintain schools of astronomy. The first observatories
+established on the banks of the Nile seem to have belonged to the
+temples of the sun; the high priests of Râ--who, to judge from their
+title, were alone worthy to behold the sun face to face--were actively
+employed from the earliest times in studying the configuration and
+preparing maps of the heavens. The priests of other gods were quick to
+follow their example: at the opening of the historic period, there was
+not a single temple, from one end of the valley to the other, that did
+not possess its official astronomers, or, as they were called, "watchers
+of the night."[**]
+
+     *   Biot, however, states that stars of the third and fourth
+     magnitude "are the smallest which can be seen with the
+     naked eye." I believe I am right in affirming that several
+     of the fellahîn and Bedawîn attached to the "service des
+     Antiquités" can see stars which are usually classed with
+     those of the fifth magnitude.
+
+     **   _Urshu_: this word is also used for the soldiers on
+     watch during the day upon the walls of a fortress. Birch
+     believed he had discovered in the British Museum a catalogue
+     of observations made at Thebes by several astronomers upon a
+     constellation which answered to the Hyades or the Pleiades;
+     it was merely a question in this text of the quantity of
+     water supplied regularly to the astronomers of a Theban
+     temple for their domestic purposes.
+
+In the evening they went up on to the high terraces above the shrine, or
+on to the narrow platforms which terminated the pylons, and fixing
+their eyes continuously on the celestial vault above them, followed the
+movements of the constellations and carefully noted down the slightest
+phenomena which they observed. A portion of the chart of the heavens,
+as known to Theban Egypt between the eighteenth and twelfth centuries
+before our era, has survived to the present time; parts of it were
+carved by the decorators on the ceilings of temples, and especially on
+royal tombs. The deceased Pharaohs were identified with Osiris in a more
+intimate fashion than their subjects. They represented the god even in
+the most trivial details; on earth--where, after having played the part
+of the beneficent Onnophris of primitive ages, they underwent the most
+complete and elaborate embalming, like Osiris of the lower world; in
+Hades--where they embarked side by side with the Sun-Osiris to cross the
+night and to be born again at daybreak; in heaven--where they shone with
+Orion-Sâhu under the guardianship of Sothis, and, year by year, led the
+procession of the stars. The maps of the firmament recalled to them, or
+if necessary taught them, this part of their duties: they there saw
+the planets and the _decani_ sail past in their boats, and the
+constellations follow one another in continuous succession. The lists
+annexed to the charts indicated the positions occupied each month by the
+principal heavenly bodies--their risings, their culminations, and their
+settings. Unfortunately, the workmen employed to execute these pictures
+either did not understand much about the subject in hand, or did not
+trouble themselves to copy the originals exactly: they omitted many
+passages, transposed others, and made endless mistakes, which made it
+impossible for us to transfer accurately to a modern map the information
+possessed by the ancients.
+
+In directing their eyes to the celestial sphere, Thot had at the same
+time revealed to men the art of measuring time, and the knowledge of the
+future. As he was the moon-god _par excellence_, he watched with jealous
+care over the divine eye which had been entrusted to him by Horus, and
+the thirty days during which he was engaged in conducting it through all
+the phases of its nocturnal life, were reckoned as a month. Twelve of
+these months formed the year, a year of three hundred and sixty days,
+during which the earth witnessed the gradual beginning and ending of the
+circle of the seasons. The Nile rose, spread over the fields, sank again
+into its channel; to the vicissitudes of the inundation succeeded the
+work of cultivation; the harvest followed the seedtime: these formed
+three distinct divisions of the year, each of nearly equal duration.
+Thot made of them the three seasons,--that of the waters, Shaît; that
+of vegetation, Pirûît; that of the harvest, Shômû--each comprising
+four months, numbered one to four; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months of
+Shaît; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months of Pirûît; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,
+and 4th months of Shômû. The twelve months completed, a new year began,
+whose birth was heralded by the rising of Sothis in the early days of
+August. The first month of the Egyptian year thus coincided with the
+eighth of ours. Thot became its patron, and gave it his name, relegating
+each of the others to a special protecting divinity; in this manner
+the third month of Shaît fell to Hathor, and was called after her; the
+fourth of Pirûît belonged to Ranûît or Ramûît, the lady of harvests, and
+derived from her its appellation of Pharmûti. Official documents always
+designated the months by the ordinal number attached to them in each
+season, but the people gave them by preference the names of their
+tutelary deities, and these names, transcribed into Greek, and then into
+Arabic, are still used by the Christian inhabitants of Egypt, side by
+side with the Mussulman appellations. One patron for each month was,
+however, not deemed sufficient: each month was subdivided into three
+decades, over which presided as many _decani_, and the days themselves
+were assigned to genii appointed to protect them. A number of festivals
+were set apart at irregular intervals during the course of the year:
+festivals for the new year, festivals for the beginning of the seasons,
+months and decades, festivals for the dead, for the supreme gods, and
+for local divinities. Every act of civil life was so closely allied to
+the religious life, that it could not be performed without a sacrifice
+or a festival. A festival celebrated the cutting of the dykes, another
+the opening of the canals, a third the reaping of the first sheaf, or
+the carrying of the grain; a crop gathered or stored without a festival
+to implore the blessing of the gods, would have been an act of sacrilege
+and fraught with disaster. The first year of three hundred and sixty
+days, regulated by the revolutions of the moon, did not long meet the
+needs of the Egyptian people; it did not correspond with the length of
+the solar year, for it fell short of it by five and a quarter days, and
+this deficit, accumulating from twelvemonth to twelvemonth, caused such
+a serious difference between the calendar reckoning and the natural
+seasons, that it soon had to be corrected. They intercalated, therefore,
+after the twelfth month of each year and before the first day of the
+ensuing year, five epagomenal days, which they termed the "five days
+over and above the year."[*]
+
+     * There appears to be a tendency among Egyptologists now to
+     doubt the existence, under the Ancient Empire, of the five
+     epagomenal days, and as a fact they are nowhere to be found
+     expressly mentioned; but we know that the five gods of the
+     Osirian cycle were born during the epagomenal day (cf. p.
+     247 of this History), and the allusions to the Osirian
+     legend which are met with in the Pyramid texts, prove that
+     the days were added long before the time when those
+     inscriptions were cut. As the wording of the texts often
+     comes down from prehistoric times, it is most likely that
+     the invention of the epagomenal days is anterior to the
+     first Thinite and Memphite dynasties.
+
+The legend of Osiris relates that Thot created them in order to permit
+Nûît to give birth to all her children. These days constituted, at the
+end of the "great year," a "little month," which considerably lessened
+the difference between the solar and lunar computation, but did not
+entirely do away with it, and the six hours and a few minutes of which
+the Egyptians had not taken count gradually became the source of fresh
+perplexities. They at length amounted to a whole day, which needed to
+be added every four years to the regular three hundred and sixty days,
+a fact which was unfortunately overlooked. The difficulty, at first only
+slight, which this caused in public life, increased with time, and ended
+by disturbing the harmony between the order of the calendar and that of
+natural phenomena: at the end of a hundred and twenty years, the legal
+year had gained a whole month on the actual year, and the 1st of Thot
+anticipated the heliacal rising of Sothis by thirty days, instead of
+coinciding with it as it ought. The astronomers of the Græco-Roman
+period, after a retrospective examination of all the past history of
+their country, discovered a very ingenious theory for obviating this
+unfortunate discrepancy. If the omission of six hours annually entailed
+the loss of one day every four years, the time would come, after three
+hundred and sixty-five times four years, when the deficit would amount
+to an entire year, and when, in consequence, fourteen hundred and
+sixty whole years would exactly equal fourteen hundred and sixty-one
+incomplete years. The agreement of the two years, which had been
+disturbed by the force of circumstances, was re-established of itself
+after rather more than fourteen and a half centuries: the opening of the
+civil year became identical with the beginning of the astronomical
+year, and this again coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, and
+therefore with the official date of the inundation. To the Egyptians of
+Pharaonic times, this simple and eminently practical method was unknown:
+by means of it hundreds of generations, who suffered endless troubles
+from the recurring difference between an uncertain and a fixed year,
+might have consoled themselves with the satisfaction of knowing that
+a day would come when one of their descendants would, for once in
+his life, see both years coincide with mathematical accuracy, and
+the seasons appear at their normal times. The Egyptian year might be
+compared to a watch which loses a definite number of minutes daily. The
+owner does not take the trouble to calculate a cycle in which the total
+of minutes lost will bring the watch round to the correct time: he bears
+with the irregularity as long as his affairs do not suffer by it; but
+when it causes him inconvenience, he alters the hands to the right hour,
+and repeats this operation each time he finds it necessary, without
+being guided by a fixed rule. In like manner the Egyptian year fell
+into hopeless confusion with regard to the seasons, the discrepancy
+continually increasing, until the difference became so great, that the
+king or the priests had to adjust the two by a process similar to that
+employed in the case of the watch.
+
+The days, moreover, had each their special virtues, which it was
+necessary for man to know if he wished to profit by the advantages, or
+to escape the perils which they possessed for him. There was not one
+among them that did not recall some incident of the divine wars, and had
+not witnessed a battle between the partisans of Sit and those of Osiris
+or Râ; the victories or the disasters which they had chronicled had as
+it were stamped them with good or bad luck, and for that reason they
+remained for ever auspicious or the reverse. It was on the 17th of Athyr
+that Typhon had enticed his brother to come to him, and had murdered him
+in the middle of a banquet. Every year, on this day, the tragedy that
+had taken place in the earthly abode of the god seemed to be repeated
+afresh in the heights of heaven. Just as at the moment of the death of
+Osiris, the powers of good were at their weakest, and the sovereignty
+of evil everywhere prevailed, so the whole of Nature, abandoned to the
+powers of darkness, became inimical to man. Whatever he undertook on
+that day issued in failure. If he went out to walk by the river-side,
+a crocodile would attack him, as the crocodile sent by Sît had attacked
+Osiris. If he set out on a journey, it was a last farewell which he bade
+to his family and friends: death would meet him by the way. To escape
+this fatality, he must shut himself up at home, and wait in inaction
+until the hours of danger had passed and the sun of the ensuing day had
+put the evil one to flight.[*]
+
+     * On the 20th of Thot no work was to be done, no oxen
+     killed, no stranger received. On the 22nd no fish might be
+     eaten, no oil lamp was to be lighted. On the 23rd "put no
+     incense on the fire, nor kill big cattle, nor goats, nor
+     ducks; eat of no goose, nor of that which has lived." On the
+     26th "do absolutely nothing on this day," and the same
+     advice is found on the 7th of Paophi, on the 18th, on the
+     26th, on the 27th, and more than thirty times in the
+     remainder of the Sallier Calendar. On the 30th of Mechir it
+     is forbidden to speak aloud to any one.
+
+It was to his interest to know these adverse influences; and who would
+have known them all, had not Thot pointed them out and marked them in
+his calendars? One of these, long fragments of which have come down to
+us, indicated briefly the character of each day, the gods who presided
+over it, the perils which accompanied their patronage, or the good
+fortune which might be expected of them. The details of it are not
+always intelligible to us, as we are still ignorant of many of the
+episodes in the life of Osiris. The Egyptians were acquainted with the
+matter from childhood, and were guided with sufficient exactitude by
+these indications. The hours of the night were all inauspicious; those
+of the day were divided into three "seasons" of four hours each, of
+which some were lucky, while others were invariably of ill omen. "The
+4th of Tybi: _good, good, good_. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will
+be fortunate. Whosoever is born on this day, will die more advanced in
+years than any of his family; he will attain to a greater age than his
+father. The 5th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical, inimical_. This is the day
+on which the goddess Sokhîfc, mistress of the double white Palace, burnt
+the chiefs when they raised an insurrection, came forth, and manifested
+themselves. Offerings of bread to Shû, Phtah, Thot: burn incense to Râ,
+and to the gods who are his followers, to Phtah, Thot, Hû-Sû, on this
+day. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be fortunate. The 6th of
+Tybi: _good, good, good_. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be
+fortunate. The 7th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical, inimical_. Do not
+join thyself to a woman in the presence of the Eye of Horus. Beware of
+letting the fire go out which is in thy house. The 8th of Tybi: _good,
+good, good_. Whatsoever thou seest with thine eye this day, the Ennead
+of the gods will grant to thee: the sick will recover. The 9th of Tybi:
+_good, good, good_. The gods cry out for joy at noon this day. Bring
+offerings of festal cakes and of fresh bread, which rejoice the heart
+of the gods and of the manes. The 10th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical,
+mimical_. Do not set fire to weeds on this day: it is the day on
+which the god Sap-hôû set fire to the land of Btito. The 11th of Tybi:
+_inimical, inimical, inimical_. Do not draw nigh to any flame on this
+day, for Râ entered the flames to strike all his enemies, and whosoever
+draws nigh to them on this day, it shall not be well with him during his
+whole life. The 12th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical, inimical_. See that
+thou beholdest not a rat on this day, nor approachest any rat within thy
+house: it is the day wherein Sokhît gave forth the decrees." In these
+cases a little watchfulness or exercise of memory sufficed to put a
+man on his guard against evil omens; but in many circumstances all the
+vigilance in the world would not protect him, and the fatality of the
+day would overtake him, without his being able to do ought to avert it.
+No man can at will place the day of his birth at a favourable time; he
+must accept it as it occurs, and yet it exercises a decisive influence
+on the manner of his death. According as he enters the world on the 4th,
+5th, or 6th of Paophi, he either dies of marsh fever, of love, or of
+drunkenness. The child of the 23rd perishes by the jaws of a crocodile:
+that of the 27th is bitten and dies by a serpent. On the other hand, the
+fortunate man whose birthday falls on the 9th or the 29th lives to an
+extreme old age, and passes away peacefully, respected by all.
+
+[Illustration: 304.jpg THE GODS FIGHTING FOE THE MAGICIAN WHO HAS
+INVOKED THEM. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from  the tracing by Golbnischeff,
+     _Die Metternich-Stele_, pi, iii. 14.
+
+
+Thot, having pointed out the evil to men, gave to them at the same time
+the remedy. The magical arts of which he was the repository, made him
+virtual master of the other gods. He knew their mystic names, their
+secret weaknesses, the kind of peril they most feared, the ceremonies
+which subdued them to his will, the prayers which they could not refuse
+to grant under pain of misfortune or death. His wisdom, transmitted to
+his worshippers, assured to them the same authority which he exercised
+upon those in heaven, on earth, or in the nether world. The magicians
+instructed in his school had, like the god, control of the words and
+sounds which, emitted at the favourable moment with the "correct voice,"
+would evoke the most formidable deities from beyond the confines of the
+universe: they could bind and loose at will Osiris, Sit, Anubis, even
+Thot himself; they could send them forth, and recall them, or constrain
+them to work and fight for them. The extent of their power exposed the
+magicians to terrible temptations; they were often led to use it to the
+detriment of others, to satisfy their spite, or to gratify their grosser
+appetites. Many, moreover, made a gain of their knowledge, putting it at
+the service of the ignorant who would pay for it. When they were asked
+to plague or get rid of an enemy, they had a hundred different ways of
+suddenly surrounding him without his suspecting it: they tormented him
+with deceptive or terrifying dreams; they harassed him with apparitions
+and mysterious voices; they gave him as a prey to sicknesses, to
+wandering spectres, who entered into him and slowly consumed him. They
+constrained, even at a distance, the wills of men; they caused women to
+be the victims of infatuations, to forsake those they had loved, and
+to love those they had previously detested. In order to compose an
+irresistible charm, they merely required a little blood from a person, a
+few nail-parings, some hair, or a scrap of linen which he had worn,
+and which, from contact with his skin, had become impregnated with his
+personality. Portions of these were incorporated with the wax of a doll
+which they modelled, and clothed to resemble their victim; thenceforward
+all the inflictions to which the image was subjected were experienced by
+the original; he was consumed with fever when his effigy was exposed
+to the fire, he was wounded when the figure was pierced by a knife. The
+Pharaohs themselves had no immunity from these spells.[*]
+
+     * Spells were employed against Ramses III., and the evidence
+     in the criminal charge brought against the magicians
+     explicitly mentions the wax figures and the philters used on
+     this occasion.
+
+These machinations were wont to be met by others of the same kind, and
+magic, if invoked at the right moment, was often able to annul the ills
+which magic had begun. It was not indeed all-powerful against fate: the
+man born on the 27th of Paophi would die of a snake-bite, whatever
+charm he might use to protect himself. But if the day of his death
+were foreordained, at all events the year in which it would occur was
+uncertain, and it was easy for the magician to arrange that it should
+not take place prematurely. A formula recited opportunely, a sentence
+of prayer traced on a papyrus, a little statuette worn about the person,
+the smallest amulet blessed and consecrated, put to flight the serpents
+who were the instruments of fate. Those curious stelae on which we see
+Horus half naked, standing on two crocodiles and brandishing in his
+fists creatures which had reputed powers of fascination, were so many
+protecting talismans; set up at the entrance to a room or a house, they
+kept off the animals represented and brought the evil fate to nought.
+
+[Illustration: 306.jpg THE CHILD HORUS ON THE CROCODILES. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Alexandrian stele in the
+     Gîzeh Museum. The reason for the appearance of so many
+     different animals in this stele and  in  others of  the
+     same nature, has   been given by Maspero, _Études de
+     Mythologie et d'Archéologie Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 417-
+     419; they were all supposed to possess the evil eye and to
+     be able to fascinate their victim before striking him.
+
+Sooner or later destiny would doubtless prevail, and the moment would
+come when the fated serpent, eluding all precautions, would succeed in
+carrying out the sentence of death. At all events the man would have
+lived, perhaps to the verge of old age, perhaps to the years of a
+hundred and ten, to which the wisest of the Egyptians hoped to attain,
+and which period no man born of mortal mother might exceed. If the
+arts of magic could thus suspend the law of destiny, how much more
+efficacious were they when combating the influences of secondary
+deities, the evil eye, and the spells of man? Thot, who was the patron
+of sortilege, presided also over exorcisms, and the criminal acts which
+some committed in his name could have reparation made for them by others
+in his name. To malicious genii, genii still stronger were opposed; to
+harmful amulets, those which were protective; to destructive measures,
+vitalizing remedies; and this was not even the most troublesome part
+of the magicians' task. Nobody, in fact, among those delivered by
+their intervention escaped unhurt from the trials to which, he had
+been subjected. The possessing spirits when they quitted their victim
+generally left behind them traces of their occupation, in the brain,
+heart, lungs, intestines--in fact, in the whole body. The illnesses
+to which the human race is prone, were not indeed all brought about by
+enchanters relentlessly persecuting their enemies, but they were all
+attributed to the presence of an invisible being, whether spectre
+or demon, who by some supernatural means had been made to enter the
+patient, or who, unbidden, had by malice or necessity taken up his
+abode within him. It was needful, after expelling the intruder, to
+re-establish the health of the sufferer by means of fresh remedies. The
+study of simples and other _materiæ medicæ_ would furnish these; Thot
+had revealed himself to man as the first magician, he became in like
+manner for them the first physician and the first surgeon.
+
+Egypt is naturally a very salubrious country, and the Egyptians boasted
+that they were "the healthiest of all mortals;" but they did not neglect
+any precautions to maintain their health. "Every month, for three
+successive days, they purged the system by means of emetics or clysters.
+The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each
+physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed
+several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others for the head,
+or the teeth, or the stomach, or for internal diseases." But the
+subdivision was not carried to the extent that Herodotus would make
+us believe. It was the custom to make a distinction only between the
+physician trained in the priestly schools, and further instructed by
+daily practice and the study of books,--the bone-setter attached to
+the worship of Sokhit who treated fractures by the intercession of the
+goddess,--and the exorcist who professed to cure by the sole virtue of
+amulets and magic phrases. The professional doctor treated all kinds
+of maladies, but, as with us, there were specialists for certain
+affections, who were consulted in preference to general practitioners.
+If the number of these specialists was so considerable as to attract
+the attention of strangers, it was because the climatic character of
+the country necessitated it. Where ophthalmia and affections of the
+intestines raged violently, we necessarily find many oculists[*] as well
+as doctors for internal maladies. The best instructed, however, knew but
+little of anatomy. As with the Christian physicians of the Middle
+Ages, religious scruples prevented the Egyptians from cutting open
+or dissecting, in the cause of pure science, the dead body which was
+identified with that of Osiris. The processes of embalming, which would
+have instructed them in anatomy, were not intrusted to doctors; the
+horror was so great with which any one was regarded who mutilated the
+human form, that the "paraschite," on whom devolved the duty of making
+the necessary incisions in the dead, became the object of universal
+execration: as soon as he had finished his task, the assistants
+assaulted him, throwing stones at him with such violence that he had to
+take to his heels to escape with his life.[**]
+
+     *  Affections of the eyes occupy one-fourth of the _Ebers
+     Papyrus_.
+
+     **  Diodorus Siculus, i. 91.
+
+The knowledge of what went on within the body was therefore but vague.
+Life seemed to be a little air, a breath which was conveyed by the veins
+from member to member. "The head contains twenty-two vessels, which draw
+the spirits into it and send them thence to all parts of the body. There
+are two vessels for the breasts, which communicate heat to the lower
+parts. There are two vessels for the thighs, two for the neck, two for
+the arms, two for the back of the head, two for the forehead, two for
+the eyes, two for the eyelids, two for the right ear by which enter the
+breaths of life, and two for the left ear which in like manner admit the
+breaths of death."
+
+[Illustration: 310.jpg A DEAD MAN RECEIVING THE BREATH OF LIFE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville, in the
+     _Ægyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl. lxix. The deceased
+     carries in this hand a sail inflated by the wind,
+     symbolizing the air, and holds it to his nostrils that he
+     may inhale the breaths which will fill anew his arteries,
+     and bring life to his limbs.
+
+The "breaths" entering by the right ear, are "the good airs, the
+delicious airs of the north;" the sea-breeze which tempers the burning
+of summer and renews the strength of man, continually weakened by the
+heat and threatened with exhaustion. These vital spirits, entering the
+veins and arteries by the ear or nose, mingled with the blood, which
+carried them to all parts of the body; they sustained the animal, and
+were, so to speak, the cause of its movement. The heart, the perpetual
+mover--_hâîti_--collected them and redistributed them throughout
+the body: it was regarded as "the beginning of all the members," and
+whatever part of the living body the physician touched, "whether the
+head, the nape of the neck, the hands, the breast, the arms, the legs,
+his hand lit upon the heart," and he felt it beating under his fingers.
+Under the influence of the good breaths, the vessels were inflated and
+worked regularly; under that of the evil, they became inflamed, were
+obstructed, were hardened, or gave way, and the physician had to remove
+the obstruction, allay the inflammation, and re-establish their vigour
+and elasticity. At the moment of death, the vital spirits "withdrew with
+the soul; the blood," deprived of air, "became coagulated, the veins
+and arteries emptied themselves, and the creature perished" for want of
+breaths.
+
+The majority of the diseases from which the ancient Egyptians suffered,
+are those which still attack their successors; ophthalmia, affections
+of the stomach, abdomen, and bladder, intestinal worms, varicose veins,
+ulcers in the leg, the Nile pimple, and finally the "divine mortal
+malady," the _divinus morbus_ of the Latins, epilepsy. Anaemia, from
+which at least one-fourth of the present population suffers, was not
+less prevalent than at present, if we may judge from the number of
+remedies which were used against hematuria, the principal cause of it.
+The fertility of the women entailed a number of infirmities or local
+affections which the doctors attempted to relieve, not always with
+success.[*]
+
+     * With regard to the diseases of women, cf. _Ebers Papyrus_,
+     pis. xciii., xcviii., etc. Several of the recipes are
+     devoted to the solution of a problem which appears to have
+     greatly exercised the mind of the ancients, viz. the
+     determination of the sex of a child before its birth.
+
+The science of those days treated externals only, and occupied itself
+merely with symptoms easily determined by sight or touch; it never
+suspected that troubles which showed themselves in two widely remote
+parts of the body might only be different effects of the same illness,
+and they classed as distinct maladies those indications which we now
+know to be the symptoms of one disease. They were able, however,
+to determine fairly well the specific characteristics of ordinary
+affections, and sometimes described them in a precise and graphic
+fashion. "The abdomen is heavy, the pit of the stomach painful, the
+heart burns and palpitates violently. The clothing oppresses the sick
+man and he can barely support it. Nocturnal thirsts. His heart is sick,
+as that of a man who has eaten of the sycamore gum. The flesh loses
+its sensitiveness as that of a man seized with illness. If he seek to
+satisfy a want of nature he finds no relief. Say to this, 'There is an
+accumulation of humours in the abdomen, which makes the heart sick. I
+will act.'" This is the beginning of gastric fever so common in Egypt,
+and a modern physician could not better diagnose such a case; the
+phraseology would be less flowery, but the analysis of the symptoms
+would not differ from that given us by the ancient practitioner. The
+medicaments recommended comprise nearly everything which can in some way
+or other be swallowed, whether in solid, mucilaginous, or liquid form.
+Vegetable remedies are reckoned by the score, from the most modest herb
+to the largest tree, such as the sycamore, palm, acacia, and cedar, of
+which the sawdust and shavings were supposed to possess both antiseptic
+and emollient properties. Among the mineral substances are to be noted
+sea-salt, alum, nitre, sulphate of copper, and a score of different
+kinds of stones--among the latter the "memphite stone" was distinguished
+for its virtues; if applied to parts of the body which were lacerated
+or unhealthy, it acted as an anaesthetic and facilitated the success of
+surgical operations. Flesh taken from the living subject, the heart, the
+liver, the gall, the blood--either dried or liquid--of animals, the hair
+and horn of stags, were all customarily used in many cases where the
+motive determining their preference above other _materiæ medicæ_ is
+unknown to us. Many recipes puzzle us by their originality and by the
+barbaric character of the ingredients recommended: "the milk of a woman
+who has given birth to a boy," the dung of a lion, a tortoise's brains,
+an old book boiled in oil.[*]
+
+     * Ebers Papyrus, pl. lxxviii. 1. 22--lxxix. 1. 1: "To
+     relieve a child who is constipated.--An old book. Boil it in
+     oil, and apply half to the stomach, to provoke evacuation."
+     It must not be forgotten that, the writings being on
+     papyrus, the old book in question, once boiled, would have
+     an effect analogous to that of our linseed-meal poultices.
+     If the physician recommended taking an old one, it was for
+     economical reasons merely; the Egyptians of the middle
+     classes would always have in their possession a number of
+     letters, copy-books, and other worthless waste papers, of
+     which they would gladly rid themselves in such a profitable
+     manner.
+
+The medicaments compounded of these incongruous substances were often
+very complicated. It was thought that the healing power was increased by
+multiplying the curative elements; each ingredient acted upon a specific
+region of the body, and after absorption, separated itself from the rest
+to bring its influence to bear upon that region. The physician made use
+of all the means which we employ to-day to introduce remedies into
+the human system, whether pills or potions, poultices, or ointments,
+draughts or clysters. Not only did he give the prescriptions, but he
+made them up, thus combining the art of the physician with that of the
+dispenser. He prescribed the ingredients, pounded them either separately
+or together, he macerated them in the proper way, boiled them, reduced
+them by heating, and filtered them through linen. Fat served him as the
+ordinary vehicle for ointments, and pure water for potions; but he
+did not despise other liquids, such as wine, beer (fermented or
+un-fermented), vinegar, milk, olive oil, "ben" oil either crude or
+refined, even the urine of men and animals: the whole, sweetened with
+honey, was taken hot, night and morning. The use of more than one of
+these remedies became worldwide; the Greeks borrowed them from the
+Egyptians; we have piously accepted them from the Greeks; and our
+contemporaries still swallow with resignation many of the abominable
+mixtures invented on the banks of the Nile, long before the building of
+the Pyramids.
+
+It was Thot who had taught men arithmetic; Thot had revealed to them the
+mysteries of geometry and mensuration; Thot had constructed instruments
+and promulgated the laws of music; Thot had instituted the art of
+drawing, and had codified its unchanging rules. He had been the inventor
+or patron of all that was useful or beautiful in the Nile valley,
+and the climax of his beneficence was reached by his invention of the
+principles of writing, without which humanity would have been liable to
+forget his teaching, and to lose the advantage of his discoveries. It
+has been sometimes questioned whether writing, instead of having been
+a benefit to the Egyptians, did not rather injure them. An old legend
+relates that when the god unfolded his discovery to King Thamos, whose
+minister he was, the monarch immediately raised an objection to it.
+
+[Illustration: 315.jpg TH0T RECORDS THE YEARS OF THE LIFE OF RAMSES. 1]
+
+     1 Bas-relief of the temple of Seti I. at Abydos, drawn by
+     Boudier; from a photograph by Beato. The god is marking with
+     his reed-pen upon the notches of a long frond of palm, the
+     duration in millions of years of the reign of Pharaoh upon
+     this earth, in accordance with the decree of the gods.
+
+Children and young people, who had hitherto been forced to apply
+themselves diligently to learn and retain whatever was taught them, now
+that they possessed a means of storing up knowledge without trouble,
+would cease to apply themselves, and would neglect to exercise their
+memories. Whether Thamos was right or not, the criticism came too late:
+"the ingenious art of painting words and of speaking to the eyes" had
+once for all been acquired by the Egyptians, and through them by the
+greater part of mankind. It was a very complex system, in which were
+united most of the methods fitted for giving expression to thought,
+namely: those which were limited to the presentment of the idea, and
+those which were intended to suggest sounds.
+
+[Illustration: 316.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+At the outset the use was confined to signs intended to awaken the idea
+of the object in the mind of the reader by the more or less faithful
+picture of the object itself; for example, they depicted the sun by a
+centred disc, the moon by a crescent, a lion by a lion in the act of
+walking, a man by a small figure in a squatting attitude. As by this
+method it was possible to convey only a very restricted number of
+entirely materialistic concepts, it became necessary to have recourse
+to various artifices in order to make up for the shortcomings of the
+ideograms properly so-called. The part was put for the whole, the pupil
+in place of the whole eye, the head of the ox instead of the complete
+ox. The Egyptians substituted cause for effect and effect for cause, the
+instrument for the work accomplished, and the disc of the sun signified
+the day; a smoking brazier the fire: the brush, inkpot, and palette of
+the scribe denoted writing or written documents. They conceived the
+idea of employing some object which presented an actual or supposed
+resemblance to the notion to be conveyed; thus, the foreparts of a lion
+denoted priority, supremacy, command; the wasp symbolized royalty, and
+a tadpole stood for hundreds of thousands. They ventured finally to use
+conventionalisms, as for instance when they drew the axe for a god,
+or the ostrich-feather for justice; the sign in these cases had only a
+conventional connection with the concept assigned to it. At times two or
+three of these symbols were associated in order to express conjointly an
+idea which would have been inadequately rendered by one of them alone:
+a five-pointed star placed under an inverted crescent moon denoted a
+month, a calf running before the sign for water indicated thirst.
+
+[Illustration: 317.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+All these artifices combined furnished, however, but a very incomplete
+means of seizing and transmitting thought. When the writer had written
+out twenty or thirty of these signs and the ideas which they were
+supposed to embody, he had before him only the skeleton of a sentence,
+from which the flesh and sinews had disappeared; the tone and rhythm of
+the words were wanting, as were also the indications of gender, number,
+person, and inflection, which distinguish the different parts of speech
+and determine the varying relations between them. Besides this, in order
+to understand for himself and to guess the meaning of the author, the
+reader was obliged to translate the symbols which he deciphered,
+by means of words which represented in the spoken language the
+pronunciation of each symbol. Whenever he looked at them, they suggested
+to him both the idea and the word for the idea, and consequently a sound
+or group of sounds; when each of them had thus acquired three or four
+invariable associations of sound, he forgot their purely ideographic
+value and accustomed himself to consider them merely as notations of
+sound.
+
+The first experiment in phonetics was a species of rebus, where each of
+the signs, divorced from its original sense, served to represent
+several words, similar in sound, but differing in meaning in the spoken
+language. The same group of articulations, _Naûfir, Nofir_, conveyed in
+Egyptian the concrete idea of a lute and the abstract idea of beauty;
+the sign expressed at once the lute and beauty.
+
+[Illustration: 318.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+The beetle was called Khopirru, and the verb "to be" was pronounced
+_khopirû_: the figure of the beetle & consequently signified both the
+insect and the verb, and by further combining with it other signs, the
+articulation of each corresponding syllable was given in detail. The
+sieve _Miaû_, the mat _pu, pi_, the mouth _ra, rû_, gave the formula
+_khaû-pi-rû_, which was equivalent to the sound of _khopirû_, the verb
+"to be:" grouped together, they denoted in writing the concept of "to
+be" by means of a triple rebus. In this system, each syllable of a
+word could be represented by one of several signs, all sounding alike.
+One-half of these "syllables" stood for open, the other half for closed
+syllables, and the use of the former soon brought about the formation of
+a true alphabet. The final vowel in them became detached, and left only
+the remaining consonant--for example, _r in rû, h in ha, n in ni, b in
+bû_--so that rû, ha, bû, eventually stood for r, h, n, and b only. This
+process in the course of time having been applied to a certain number of
+syllables, furnished a fairly large alphabet, in which several letters
+represented each of the twenty-two chief articulations, which
+the scribes considered sufficient for their purposes. The signs
+corresponding to one and the same letter were homophones or "equivalents
+in sound"--[ ] are homophones, just as [ ] and [ ], because each of
+them, in the group to which it belongs, may be indifferently used to
+translate to the eye the articulations m or n. One would have thought
+that when the Egyptians had arrived thus far, they would have been led,
+as a matter of course, to reject the various characters which they had
+used each in its turn, in order to retain an alphabet only.
+
+[Illustration: 319.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+But the true spirit of invention, of which they had given proof,
+abandoned them here as elsewhere: if the merit of a discovery was often
+their due, they were rarely able to bring their invention to perfection.
+They kept the ideographic and syllabic signs which they had used at the
+outset, and, with the residue of their successive notations, made for
+themselves a most complicated system, in which syllables and ideograms
+were mingled with letters properly so called. There is a little of
+everything in an Egyptian phrase, sometimes even in a word; as, for
+instance, in [ ] maszirû, the ear, or [ ] kherôû, the voice; there are
+the syllables [ ] kher, the ordinary letters [ ], which complete the
+phonetic pronunciation, and finally the ideograms, namely, [ ], which
+gives the picture of the ear by the side of the written word for it, and
+[ ] which proves that the letters represent a term designating an action
+of the mouth. This medley had its advantages; it enabled the Egyptians
+to make clear, by the picture of the object, the sense of words which
+letters alone might sometimes insufficiently explain. The system
+demanded a serious effort of memory and long years of study; indeed,
+many people never completely mastered it. The picturesque appearance
+of the sentences, in which we see representations of men, animals,
+furniture, weapons, and tools grouped together in successive little
+pictures, rendered hieroglyphic writing specially suitable for the
+decoration of the temples of the gods or the palaces of kings. Mingled
+with scenes of worship, sacrifice, battle, or private life, the
+inscriptions frame or separate groups of personages, and occupy the
+vacant spaces which the sculptor or painter was at a loss to fill;
+hieroglyphic writing is pre-eminently a monumental script. For the
+ordinary purposes of life it was traced in black or red ink on fragments
+of limestone or pottery, or on wooden tablets covered with stucco, and
+specially on the fibres of papyrus. The exigencies of haste and the
+unskilfulness of scribes soon changed both its appearance and its
+elements; the characters when contracted, superimposed and united to
+one another with connecting strokes, preserved only the most distant
+resemblance to the persons or things which they had originally
+represented. This cursive writing, which was somewhat incorrectly
+termed hieratic, was used only for public or private documents, for
+administrative correspondence, or for the propagation of literary,
+scientific, and religious works.
+
+It was thus that tradition was pleased to ascribe to the gods, and
+among them to Thot--the doubly great--the invention of all the arts and
+sciences which gave to Egypt its glory and prosperity. It was clear,
+not only to the vulgar, but to the wisest of the nation, that, had their
+ancestors been left merely to their own resources, they would never have
+succeeded in raising themselves much above the level of the brutes. The
+idea that a discovery of importance to the country could have risen in a
+human brain, and, once made known, could have been spread and developed
+by the efforts of successive generations, appeared to them impossible
+to accept. They believed that every art, every trade, had remained
+unaltered from the outset, and if some novelty in its aspect tended to
+show them their error, they preferred to imagine a divine intervention,
+rather than be undeceived. The mystic writing, inserted as chapter
+sixty-four in the _Book of the Dead_, and which subsequently was
+supposed to be of decisive moment to the future life of man, was, as
+they knew, posterior in date to the other formulas of which this book
+was composed; they did not, however, regard it any the less as being of
+divine origin. It had been found one day, without any one knowing whence
+it came, traced in blue characters on a plaque of alabaster, at the
+foot of the statue of Thot, in the sanctuary of Hermopolis. A prince,
+Hardiduf, had discovered it in his travels, and regarding it as a
+miraculous object, had brought it to his sovereign. This king, according
+to some, was Hûsaphaîti of the first dynasty, but by others was believed
+to be the pious Mykerinos. In the same way, the book on medicine,
+dealing with the diseases of women, was held not to be the work of
+a practitioner; it had revealed itself to a priest watching at night
+before the Holy of Holies in the temple of Isis at Coptos. "Although the
+earth was plunged into darkness, the moon shone upon it and enveloped
+it with light. It was sent as a great wonder to the holiness of King
+Kheops, the just of speech." The gods had thus exercised a direct
+influence upon men until they became entirely civilized, and this work
+of culture was apportioned among the three divine dynasties according
+to the strength of each. The first, which comprised the most vigorous
+divinities, had accomplished the more difficult task of establishing the
+world on a solid basis; the second had carried on the education of
+the Egyptians; and the third had regulated, in all its minutiae, the
+religious constitution of the country. When there was nothing more
+demanding supernatural strength or intelligence to establish it, the
+gods returned to heaven, and were succeeded on the throne by mortal men.
+One tradition maintained dogmatically that the first human king whose
+memory it preserved, followed immediately after the last of the gods,
+who, in quitting the palace, had made over the crown to man as his heir,
+and that the change of nature had not entailed any interruption in the
+line of sovereigns. Another tradition would not allow that the contact
+between the human and divine series had been so close. Between the
+Ennead and Menés, it intercalated one or more lines of Theban or Thinite
+kings; but these were of so formless, shadowy, and undefined an aspect,
+that they were called Manes, and there was attributed to them at most
+only a passive existence, as of persons who had always been in the
+condition of the dead, and had never been subjected to the trouble of
+passing through life. Menés was the first in order of those who were
+actually living. From his time, the Egyptians claimed to possess an
+uninterrupted list of the Pharaohs who had ruled over the Nile valley.
+As far back as the XVIIIth dynasty this list was written upon papyrus,
+and furnished the number of years that each prince occupied the throne,
+or the length of his life.[*]
+
+     * The only one of these lists which we possess, the "Turin
+     Royal Papyrus," was bought, nearly intact, at Thebes, by
+     Drovetti, about 1818, but was accidentally injured by him in
+     bringing home. The fragments of it were acquired, together
+     with the rest of the collection, by the Piedmontese
+     Government in 1820, and placed in the Turin Museum, where
+     Champollion saw and drew attention to them in 1824.
+     Seyffarth carefully collected and arranged them in the order
+     in which they now are; subsequently Lepsius gave a facsimile
+     of them in 1840, in his _Auswahl der wichtigsten Urhunden_,
+     pls. i.-vi., but this did not include the verso;
+     Champollion-Figeac edited in 1847, in the _Revue
+     Archéologique_, 1st series, vol. vi., the tracings taken by
+     the younger Champollion before Seyffarth's arrangement;
+     lastly, Wilkinson published the whole in detail in 1851.
+     Since then, the document has been the subject of continuous
+     investigation: E. de Rougé has reconstructed, in an almost
+     conclusive manner, the pages containing the first six
+     dynasties, and Lauth, with less certainty, those which deal
+     with the eight following dynasties.
+
+Extracts from it were inscribed in the temples, or even in the tombs
+of private persons; and three of these abridged catalogues are still
+extant, two coming from the temples of Seti I. and Ramses II. at
+Abydos,[*] while the other was discovered in the tomb of a person
+of rank named Tunari, at Saqqâra.[**] They divided this interminable
+succession of often problematical personages into dynasties, following
+in this division, rules of which we are ignorant, and which varied in
+the course of ages. In the time of the Ramessides, names in the list
+which subsequently under the Lagides formed five groups were made to
+constitute one single dynasty.[***]
+
+     *  The first table of Abydos, unfortunately incomplete, was
+     discovered in the temple of Ramses II. by Banks, in 1818;
+     the copy published by Caillaud and by Salt served as a
+     foundation for Champollion's first investigations on the
+     history of Egypt. The original, brought to France by Mimaut,
+     was acquired by England, and is now in the British Museum.
+     The second table, which is complete, all but a few signs,
+     was brought to light by Mariette in 1864, in the excavations
+     at Abydos, and was immediately noticed and published by
+     Dùmichen. The text of it is to be found in Mariette, _La
+     Nouvelle Table d'Abydos (Revue Archéologique_, 2nd series,
+     vol. xiii.), and _Abydos_, vol. i. pl. 43.
+
+     **  The table of Saqqâra, discovered in 1863, has been
+     published by Mariette, _La Table de Saqqâra (Revue
+     Archéologique_, 2nd series, vol. x. p. 169, et seq.), and
+     reproduced in the _Monuments Divers_, pl. 58.
+
+     ***  The Royal Canon of Turin, which dates from the
+     Ramesside period, gives, indeed, the names of these early
+     kings without a break, until the list reaches Unas; at this
+     point it sums up the number of Pharaohs and the aggregate
+     years of their reigns, thus indicating the end of a dynasty.
+     In the intervals between the dynasties rubrics are placed,
+     pointing out the changes which took place in the order of
+     direct succession. The division of the same group of
+     sovereigns into five dynasties has been preserved to us by
+     Manetho.
+
+Manetho of Sebennytos, who wrote a history of Europe for the use of
+Alexandrine Greeks, had adopted, on some unknown authority, a division
+of thirty-one dynasties from Menés to the Macedonian Conquest, and his
+system has prevailed--not, indeed, on account of its excellence, but
+because it is the only complete one which has come down to us.[*] All
+the families inscribed in his lists ruled in succession.[**]
+
+     *  The best restoration of the system of Manetho is that by
+     Lepsius, _Das Konigsbuch der Alten Ægypter_, which should be
+     completed and corrected from the memoirs of Lauth, Lieblein,
+     Krall, and Unger. A common fault attaches to all these
+     memoirs, so remarkable in many respects. They regard the
+     work of Manetho, not as representing a more or less
+     ingenious system applied to Egyptian history, but as
+     furnishing an authentic scheme of this history, in which it
+     is necessary to enclose all the royal names which the
+     monuments have revealed, and are still daily revealing to
+     us.
+
+     **  E. de Rougé triumphantly demonstrated, in opposition to
+     Bunsen, now nearly fifty years ago, that all Manetho's
+     dynasties are successive, and the monuments discovered from
+     year to year in Egypt have confirmed his demonstration in
+     every detail.
+
+The country was no doubt frequently broken up into a dozen or more
+independent states, each possessing its own kings during several
+generations; but the annalists had from the outset discarded these
+collateral lines, and recognized only one legitimate dynasty, of which
+the rest were but vassals. Their theory of legitimacy does not always
+agree with actual history, and the particular line of princes which they
+rejected as usurpers represented at times the only family possessing
+true rights to the crown.[*]
+
+     * It is enough to give two striking examples of this. The
+     royal lists of the time of the Ramessides suppress, at the
+     end of the XVIIIth dynasty, Amenôthes IV. and several of his
+     successors, and give the following sequence--Amenôthes
+     III., Harmhabît, Ramses I., without any apparent hiatus;
+     Manetho, on the contrary, replaces the kings who were
+     omitted, and keeps approximately to the real order between
+     Horos (Amenôthes III.) and Armais (Harmhabît). Again, the
+     official tradition of the XXth dynasty gives, between Ramses
+     II. and Ramses III., the sequence--Mînephtah, Seti IL,
+     Nakht-Seti; Manetho, on the other hand, gives Amenemes
+     followed by Thûôris, who appear to correspond to the
+     Amenmeses and Siphtah of contemporary monuments, but, after
+     Mînephtah, he omits Seti II. and Nakhîtou-Seti, the father
+     of Ramses III.
+
+In Egypt, as elsewhere, the official chroniclers were often obliged to
+accommodate the past to the exigencies of the present, and to manipulate
+the annals to suit the reigning party; while obeying their orders the
+chroniclers deceived posterity, and it is only by a rare chance that
+we can succeed in detecting them in the act of falsification, and can
+re-establish the truth.
+
+[Illustration: 325.jpg TABLE OF THE KINGS]
+
+The system of Manetho, in the state in which it has been handed down
+to us by epitomizers, has rendered, and continues to render, service to
+science; if it is not the actual history of Egypt, it is a sufficiently
+faithful substitute to warrant our not neglecting it when we wish to
+understand and reconstruct the sequence of events. His dynasties furnish
+the necessary framework for most of the events and revolutions, of which
+the monuments have preserved us a record. At the outset, the centre to
+which the affairs of the country gravitated was in the extreme north
+of the valley. The principality which extended from the entrance of the
+Fayûm to the apex of the Delta, and subsequently the town of Memphis
+itself, imposed their sovereigns upon the remaining nomes, served as an
+emporium for commerce and national industries, and received homage and
+tribute from neighbouring peoples. About the time of the VIth dynasty
+this centre of gravity was displaced, and tended towards the interior;
+it was arrested for a short time at Heracleo-polis (IXth and Xth
+dynasties), and ended by fixing itself at Thebes (XIth dynasty). From
+henceforth Thebes became the capital, and furnished Egypt with her
+rulers. With the exception of the XIVth Xoïte dynasty, all the families
+occupying the throne from the XIth to the XXth dynasty were Theban. When
+the barbarian shepherds invaded Africa from Asia, the Thebaïd became the
+last refuge and bulwark of Egyptian nationality; its chiefs struggled
+for many centuries against the conquerors before they were able to
+deliver the rest of the valley. It was a Theban dynasty, the XVIIIth,
+which inaugurated the era of foreign conquest; but after the XIXth, a
+movement, the reverse of that which had taken place towards the end of
+the first period, brought back the centre of gravity, little by little,
+towards the north of the country. From the time of the XXIst dynasty,
+Thebes ceased to hold the position of capital: Tanis, Bubastis, Mendes,
+Sebennytos, and above all, Sais, disputed the supremacy with each other,
+and political life was concentrated in the maritime provinces. Those
+of the interior, ruined by Ethiopian and Assyrian invasions, lost their
+influence and gradually dwindled away. Thebes became impoverished and
+depopulated; it fell into ruins, and soon was nothing more than a resort
+for devotees or travellers. The history of Egypt is, therefore, divided
+into three periods, each corresponding to the suzerainty of a town or a
+principality:--
+
+I.--Memphite Period, usually called the "Ancient Empire," from the Ist
+to the Xth dynasty: kings of Memphite origin ruled over the whole of
+Egypt during the greater part of this epoch.
+
+II.--Theban Period, from the XIth to the XXth dynasty. It is divided
+into two parts by the invasion of the Shepherds (XVIth dynasty):
+
+a. The first Theban Empire (Middle Empire), from the XIth to the XIVth
+dynasty.
+
+b. The new Theban Empire, from the XVIIth to the XXth dynasty.
+
+III.--Saïte Period, from the XXIst to the XXXth dynasty, divided into
+two unequal parts by the Persian Conquest:
+
+a. The first Saïte period, from the XXIst to the XXVIth dynasty.
+
+b. The second Saïte period, from the XXVIIIth to the XXXth dynasty.
+
+The Memphites had created the monarchy. The Thebans extended the rule of
+Egypt far and wide, and made of her a conquering state: for nearly six
+centuries she ruled over the Upper Nile and over Western Asia. Under
+the Saïtes she retired gradually within her natural frontiers, and
+from having been aggressive became assailed, and suffered herself to be
+crushed in turn by all the nations she had once oppressed.[*]
+
+     * The division into Ancient, Middle, and New Empire,
+     proposed by Lepsius, has the disadvantage of not taking into
+     account the influence which the removal of the seat of the
+     dynasties exercised on the history of the country. The
+     arrangement which I have here adopted was first put forward
+     in the _Revue critique_, 1873, vol. i. pp. 82, 83.
+
+The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended
+to unite the country under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that
+the feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two
+groups, each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the
+chief focus in the north, from which civilization radiated over the
+rich plains and the marshes of the Delta. Its colleges of priests had
+collected, condensed, and arranged the principal myths of the local
+religions; the Ennead to which it gave conception would never have
+obtained the popularity which we must acknowledge it had, if its princes
+had not exercised, for at least some period, an actual suzerainty over
+the neighbouring plains. It was around Heliopolis that the kingdom of
+Lower Egypt was organized; everything there bore traces of Heliopolitan
+theories--the protocol of the kings, their supposed descent from Râ, and
+the enthusiastic worship which they offered to the sun. The Delta, owing
+to its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited for government from
+one centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow, tortuous, and stretching
+like a thin strip on either bank of the river, did not lend itself to so
+complete a unity. It, too, represented a single kingdom, having the reed
+and the lotus for its emblems; but its component parts were more loosely
+united, its religion was less systematized, and it lacked a well-placed
+city to serve as a political and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained
+schools of theologians who certainly played an important part in the
+development of myths and dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was
+never widely felt. In the south, Siût disputed their supremacy, and
+Heracleopolis stopped their road to the north. These three cities
+thwarted and neutralized one another, and not one of them ever succeeded
+in obtaining a lasting authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two
+kingdoms had its own natural advantages and its system of government,
+which gave to it a particular character, and stamped it, as it were,
+with a distinct personality down to its latest days. The kingdom
+of Upper Egypt was more powerful, richer, better populated, and was
+governed apparently by more active and enterprising rulers. It is to
+one of the latter, Mini or Menés of Thinis, that tradition ascribes
+the honour of having fused the two Egypts into a single empire, and of
+having inaugurated the reign of the human dynasties. Thinis figured in
+the historic period as one of the least of Egyptian cities. It barely
+maintained an existence on the left bank of the Nile, if not on the
+exact spot now occupied by Girgeh, at least only a short distance from
+it.[*]
+
+     * The site of Thinis is not yet satisfactorily identified.
+     It is neither at Kom-es-Sultân, as Mariette thought, nor,
+     according to the hypothesis of A. Schmidt, at El-Kherbeh.
+     Brugsch has proposed to fix the site at the village of
+     Tineh, near Berdis, and is followed in this by Dumichen. The
+     present tendency is to identify it either with Girgeh
+     itself, or with one of the small neighbouring towns--for
+     example, Birbeh--where there are some ancient ruins; this
+     was also the opinion of Champollion and of Nester L'hôte. I
+     may mention that, in a frequently quoted passage of
+     Hellanicos, Zoèga corrects the reading [Greek phrase], which
+     would once more give us the name of Thinis: the mention of
+     this town as being "situated on the river," would be a fresh
+     reason for its identification with Girgeh.
+
+[Illustration: 332.jpg PLAN OF THE RUINS OF ABYDOS, MADE BY MARIETTE IN
+1865 AND 1875.]
+
+The principality of the Osirian Reliquary, of which it was the
+metropolis, occupied the valley from one mountain range to the other,
+and gradually extended across the desert as far as the Great Theban
+Oasis. Its inhabitants worshipped a sky-god, Anhûri, or rather two twin
+gods, Anhûri-Shû, who were speedily amalgamated with the solar deities
+and became a warlike personification of Râ. Anhûri-Shû, like all the
+other solar manifestations, came to be associated with a goddess having
+the form or head of a lioness--a Sokhît, who took for the occasion the
+epithet of Mîhît, the northern one. Some of the dead from this city
+are buried on the other side of the Nile, near the modern village of
+Mesheikh, at the foot of the Arabian chain, whose steep cliffs here
+approach somewhat near the river: the principal necropolis was at some
+distance to the east, near the sacred town of Abydos. It would appear
+that, at the outset, Abydos was the capital of the country, for the
+entire nome bore the same name as the city, and had adopted for its
+symbol the representation of the reliquary in which the god reposed. In
+very early times Abydos fell into decay, and resigned its political rank
+to Thinis, but its religious importance remained unimpaired. The city
+occupied a long and narrow strip of land between the canal and the first
+slopes of the Libyan mountains. A brick fortress defended it from the
+incursions of the Bedouin, and beside it the temple of the god of the
+dead reared its naked walls. Here, Anhûri, having passed from life to
+death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentît, the chief of
+that western region whither souls repair on quitting this earth. It is
+impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what political
+combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with Osiris of
+Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote antiquity; it had
+become an established fact long before the most ancient sacred books
+were compiled. Osiris Khontamentît grew rapidly in popular favour, and
+his temple attracted annually an increasing number of pilgrims. The
+Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of mysterious
+paradise, whither the dead went in search of peace and happiness. It was
+called Uîfc, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after it had become
+an actual Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its ancient purpose
+survived in the minds of the people, so that the "cleft," or gorge
+in the mountain through which the doubles journeyed towards it, never
+ceased to be regarded as one of the gates of the other world. At the
+time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all parts
+of the valley; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in order
+to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khontamentît.
+Abydos, even before the historic period, was the only town, and its god
+the only god, whose worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them
+all with an equal devotion. The excavations of the last few years have
+brought to light some, at all events, of the oldest Pharaohs known to
+the Egyptian annalists, namely, those whom they placed in their first
+human dynasties; and the locality where the monuments of these
+princes were discovered, shows us that these writers were correct in
+representing Thinis as playing an important part in the history of the
+early ages of their country. If the tomb of Menés--that sovereign
+whom we are inclined to look upon as the first king of the official
+lists--lies near the village of Nagadeh, not far from Thebes,[*] those
+of his immediate successors are close to Thinis, in the cemeteries of
+Abydos.[**] They stand at the very foot of the Libyan hills, near the
+entrance to the ravine--the "Cleft"--through which the mysterious oasis
+was reached, and thither the souls flocked in order that they might
+enter by a safe way the land beyond the grave.[***]
+
+     * The objects found during these excavations are now in  the
+     Gîzeh Museum.
+
+     **  The credit of having discovered this important
+     necropolis, and of having brought to light the earliest
+     known monuments of the first dynasties, is entirely due to
+     Amélineau. He carried on important work there during four
+     years, from 1895 to 1899: unfortunately its success was
+     impaired by the theories which he elaborated with regard to
+     the new monuments, and by the delay in publishing an account
+     of the objects which remained in his possession.
+
+     ***  For the "Cleft," cf. supra, pp. 281, 282, 334.
+
+The mass of pottery, whole and broken, which has accumulated on this
+site from the offerings of centuries has obtained for it among the
+Fellahin the name of Omm-el-G-aâb--"the mother of pots." The tombs there
+lie in serried ranks. They present for the most part a rough model of
+the pyramids of the Memphite period--rectangular structures of bricks
+without mortar rising slightly above the level of the plain. The funeral
+chamber occupies the centre of each, and is partly hollowed out of the
+soil, like a shallow well, the sides being bricked. It had a flat timber
+roof, covered by a layer of about three feet of sand; the floor also was
+of wood, and in several cases the remains of the beams of both ceiling
+and pavement have been brought to light. The body of the royal inmate
+was laid in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by its funeral
+furniture and by a part of the offerings. The remainder was placed in
+the little rooms which opened out of the principal vault, sometimes
+on the same level, sometimes on one higher than itself; after their
+contents had been laid within them, the entrance to these rooms was
+generally walled up. Human bodies have been found inside them, probably
+those of slaves killed at the funeral that they might wait upon the dead
+in his life beyond the grave.[*] The objects placed in these chambers
+were mostly offerings, but besides these were coarse stelae bearing the
+name of a person, and dictated to "the double of his luminary."[**]
+Some of them mention a dwarf[***] or a favourite dog of the sovereign,
+who accompanied his master into the tomb. Tablets of ivory or bone
+skilfully incised furnish us with scenes representing some of the
+ceremonies of the deification of the king in his lifetime and the
+sacrifices offered at the time of his burial;[****] in rarer instances
+they record his exploits.
+
+     *  El. Petrie, The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty, part i.
+     p. 14.
+
+     **  The "luminous double" or the "double of his luminary" is
+     doubtless that luminous spectre which haunted the tombs and
+     even the houses of the living during the night, and which I
+     have mentioned, supra, p. 160.
+
+     ***  Petrie found the skeletons of two dwarfs, probably the
+     very two to whom the two stelae (Nos. 36, 37) in the tomb of
+     Semempses were raised. Was one of these dwarfs one of the
+     _Danga_ of Puanît who were sought after by the Pharaohs of
+     the Memphite dynasties?
+
+     ****  This was the ceremony called by the Egyptians "The
+     Festival of the Foundation "--_habu sadu_.
+
+The offerings themselves were such as we meet with in burials of
+a subsequent age--bread, cakes, meat, and poultry of various
+sorts--indeed, everything we find mentioned in the lists inscribed in
+the tombs of the later dynasties, particularly the jars of wine and
+liquors, on the clay bungs of which are still legible the impression
+of the signet bearing the name of the sovereign for whose use they were
+sealed. Besides stuffs and mats, the furniture comprised chairs, beds,
+stools, an enormous number of vases, some in coarse pottery for common
+use, others in choice stone such as diorite, granite, or rock crystal
+very finely worked, on the fragments of all of which may be read cut
+in outline the names and preamble of the Pharaoh to whom the object
+belonged. The ceremonial of the funerary offering and its significance
+was already fully developed at this early period; this can be gathered
+by the very nature of the objects buried with the deceased, by their
+number, quantity, and by the manner in which they were arranged. Like
+their successors in the Egypt of later times, these ancient kings
+expected to continue their material existence within the tomb, and
+they took precautions that life there should be as comfortable as
+circumstances should permit. Access to the tomb was sometimes gained
+by a sloping passage or staircase; this made it possible to see if
+everything within was in a satisfactory condition. After the dead had
+been enclosed in his chamber, and five or six feet of sand had been
+spread over the beams which formed its roof, the position of the tomb
+was shown merely by a scarcely perceptible rise in the soil of the
+necropolis, and its site would soon have been forgotten, if its
+easternmost limits had not been marked by two large stelae on which
+were carefully engraved one of the appellations of the king--that of his
+double, or his Horus name.[*]
+
+     * For the Horus name of the Pharaohs, see vol. ïi., pp. 23-
+     25.
+
+It was on this spot, upon an altar placed between the two stelæ, that
+the commemorative ceremonies were celebrated, and the provisions renewed
+on certain days fixed by the religious law. Groups of private tombs
+were scattered around,--the resting-places of the chief officers of the
+sovereign, the departed Pharaoh being thus surrounded in death by
+the same courtiers as those who had attended him during his earthly
+existence.
+
+The princes, whose names and titles have been revealed to us by the
+inscriptions on these tombs, have not by any means been all classified
+as yet, the prevailing custom at that period having been to designate
+them by their Horus names, but rarely by their proper names, which
+latter is the only one which figures in the official lists which we
+possess of the Egyptian kings. A few texts, more explicit than the rest,
+enable us to identify three of them with the Usaphais, the Miebis, and
+the Semempses of Manetho--the fifth, sixth, and seventh kings of
+the Ist dynasty.[*] The fact that they are buried in the necropolis of
+Abydos apparently justifies the opinion of the Egyptian chroniclers that
+they were natives of Thinis. Is the Menés who usually figures at their
+head[**] also a Thinite prince?
+
+     *  The credit is due to Sethe of having attributed their
+     ordinary names to several of the kings of the Ist dynasty
+     with Horus names only which were found by Amélineau, and
+     these identifications have been accepted by all
+     Egyptologists. Pétrie discovered quite recently on some
+     fragments of vases the Horus names of these same princes,
+     together with their ordinary names. The Usaphais, the
+     Miebis, and the Semempses of Manetho are now satisfactorily
+     identified with three of the Pharaohs discovered by
+     Amélineau and by Pétrie.
+
+     **  In the time of Seti I. and Ramses II. he heads the list
+     of the Table of Abydos. Under Ramses II. his statue was
+     carried in procession, preceding all  the  other  royal
+     statues.    Finally,   the  "Royal  Papyrus"  of  Turin,
+     written in the time of Ramses I., begins the entire series
+     of the human Pharaohs with his name.
+
+Several scholars believe that his ordinary name, Mini, is to be read on
+an ivory tablet engraved for a sovereign whose Horus name--Ahauîti, the
+warlike--is known to us from several documents, and whose tomb also has
+been discovered, but at Nagadeh. It is a great rectangular structure
+of bricks 165 feet long and 84 broad, the external walls of which were
+originally ornamented by deep polygonal grooves, resembling those which
+score the façade of Chaldæan buildings, but the Nagadeh tomjb has a
+second brick wall which fills up all the hollows left in the first one,
+and thus hides the primitive decoration of the monument. The building
+contains twenty-one chambers, five of which in the centre apparently
+constituted the dwelling of the deceased, while the others, grouped
+around these, serve as storehouses from whence he could draw his
+provisions at will. Did the king buried within indeed bear the name
+of Menés,[*] and if such was the case, how are we to reconcile the
+tradition of his Thinite origin with the existence of his far-off tomb
+in the neighbourhood of Thebes?
+
+     * The sign _Manu_, which appears on the ivory tablet found
+     in this tomb, has been interpreted as a king's name, and
+     consequently inferred to be Menés. This reading has been
+     disputed on various sides, and the point remains, therefore,
+     a contested one until further discovery.
+
+Objects bearing his Horus name have been found at Omm-el-Gaâb, and it is
+evident that he belonged to the same age as the sovereigns interred in
+this necropolis. If, indeed, Menés was really his personal name, there
+is no reason against his being the Menés of tradition, he whom the
+Pharaohs of the glorious Theban dynasties regarded as the earliest of
+their purely human ancestors. Whether he was really the first king who
+reigned over the whole of Egypt, or whether he had been preceded
+by other sovereigns whose monuments we may find in some site still
+unexplored, is a matter for conjecture. That princes had exercised
+authority in various parts of the country is still uncertain, but that
+the Egyptian historians did not know them, seems to prove that they had
+left no written records of their names. At any rate, a Menés lived who
+reigned at the outset of history, and doubtless before long the Nile
+valley, when more carefully explored, will yield us monuments recording
+his actions and determining his date. The civilization of the Egypt of
+his time was ruder than that with which we have hitherto been familiar
+on its soil, but even at that early period it was almost as complete.
+It had its industries and its arts, of which the cemeteries furnish
+us daily with the most varied examples: weaving, modelling in clay,
+wood-carving, the incising of ivory, gold, and the hardest stone were
+all carried on; the ground was cultivated with hoe and plough; tombs
+were built showing us the model of what the houses and palaces must have
+been; the country had its army, its administrators, its priests, its
+nobles, its writing, and its system of epigraphy differs so little from
+that to which we are accustomed in later ages, that we can decipher it
+with no great difficulty. Frankly speaking, all that we know at present
+of the first of the Pharaohs beyond the mere fact of his existence is
+practically _nil_, and the stories related of him by the writers of
+classical times are mere legends arranged to suit the fancy of the
+compiler. "This Menés, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with
+dykes. For the river formerly followed the sandhills for some distance
+on the Libyan side. Menés, having dammed up the reach about a hundred
+stadia to the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and
+conveyed the river through an artificial channel dug midway between the
+two mountain ranges. Then Menés, the first who was king, having enclosed
+a firm space of ground with dykes, there founded that town which is
+still called Memphis; he then made a lake round it, to the north and
+west, fed by the river, the city being bounded on the east by the
+Nile."[*]
+
+     * The dyke supposed to have been made by Menés is evidently
+     that of Qosheîsh, which now protects the province of Gîzeh,
+     and regulates the inundation in its neighbourhood.
+
+The history of Memphis, such as it can be gathered from the monuments,
+differs considerably from the tradition current in Egypt at the time of
+Herodotus. It appears, indeed, that at the outset, the site on which
+it subsequently arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbû-hazû--the
+white wall--which was dependent on Heliopolis, and in which Phtah
+possessed a sanctuary. After the "white wall" was separated from the
+Heliopolitan principality to form a nome by itself, it assumed a certain
+importance, and furnished, so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded
+the Thinite. Its prosperity dates only, however, from the time when
+the sovereigns of the Vth and VIth dynasties fixed on it for their
+residence; one of them, Papi L, there founded for himself and for his
+"double" after him, a new town, which he called Minnofîrû, from his
+tomb. Minnofîrû, which is the correct pronunciation and the origin of
+Memphis, probably signified "the good refuge," the haven of the good,
+the burying-place where the blessed dead came to rest beside Osiris. The
+people soon forgot the true interpretation, or probably it did not fall
+in with their taste for romantic tales. They were rather disposed, as a
+rule, to discover in the beginnings of history individuals from whom the
+countries or cities with which they were familiar took their names:
+if no tradition supplied them with this, they did not experience any
+scruple in inventing one. The Egyptians of the time of the Ptolemies,
+who were guided in their philological speculations by the pronunciation
+in vogue around them, attributed the patronship of their city to a
+Princess Memphis, a daughter of its founder, the fabulous Uchoreus;
+those of preceding ages before the name had become altered, thought
+to find in Minnofîrû a "Mini Nofir," or "Menés the Good," the reputed
+founder of the capital of the Delta. Menés the Good, divested of his
+epithet, is none other than Menés, the first king, and he owes this
+episode in his life to a popular attempt at etymology. The legend which
+identifies the establishment of the kingdom with the construction of
+the city, must have originated at the time when Memphis was still the
+residence of the kings and the seat of government, at latest about the
+end of the Memphite period. It must have been an old tradition in the
+time of the Theban dynasties, since they admitted unhesitatingly the
+authenticity of the statements which ascribed to the northern city so
+marked a superiority over their own country.
+
+[Illustration: 343.jpg NECKLACE, BEARING NAME OF MENES. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin after Prisse d'Avenues. The gold
+     medallions engraved with the name of Menés are ancient, and
+     perhaps go back to the XXth dynasty; the setting is entirely
+     modern, with the exception of the three oblong pendants of
+     cornelian.
+
+When once this half-mythical Menés was firmly established in his
+position, there was little difficulty in inventing a story which would
+portray him as an ideal sovereign. He was represented as architect,
+warrior, and statesman; he had begun the temple of Phtah, written laws
+and regulated the worship of the gods, particularly that of Hâpis, and
+he had conducted expeditions against the Libyans. When he lost his only
+son in the flower of his age, the people improvised a hymn of mourning
+to console him--the "Maneros"--both the words and the tune of which were
+handed down from generation to generation. He did not, moreover, disdain
+the luxuries of the table, for he invented the art of serving a dinner,
+and the mode of eating it in a reclining posture. One day, while
+hunting, his dogs, excited by something or other, fell upon him to
+devour him. He escaped with difficulty, and, pursued by them, fled to
+the shore of Lake Moeris, and was there brought to bay; he was on the
+point of succumbing to them, when a crocodile took him on his back and
+carried him across to the other side.[*] In gratitude he built a new
+town, which he called Crocodilopolis, and assigned to it for its god the
+crocodile which had saved him; he then erected close to it the famous
+labyrinth and a pyramid for his tomb. Other traditions show him in a
+less favourable light. They accuse him of having, by horrible crimes,
+excited against him the anger of the gods, and allege that after a reign
+of sixty to sixty-two years, he was killed by a hippopotamus which came
+forth from the Nile.[**]
+
+     *  This is an episode from the legend of Osiris: at Phihe,
+     in the little building of the Antonines, may be seen a
+     representation of a crocodile crossing the Nile, carrying on
+     his back the mummy of the god. The same episode is also
+     found in the tale of Onus el Ujûd and of Uard f'il-Ikmâm,
+     where the crocodile leads the hero to his beautiful prisoner
+     in the Island of Philæ. Ebers, _Ægypte_, French trans., vol.
+     ii. pp. 415, 416, has shown how this episode in the Arab
+     story must have been inspired by the bas-relief at Philæ and
+     by the scene which it portrays: the temple is still called
+     "Kasr," and the island "Geziret Onus el-Ujûd."
+
+     **  In popular romances, this was the usual end of criminals
+     of every kind; we shall see that another king, Akhthoes the
+     founder of the IXth dynasty, after committing horrible
+     misdeeds, was killed, in the same way as Menés, by a
+     hippopotamus.
+
+They also related that the Saïte Tafnakhti, returning from an expedition
+against the Arabs, during which he had been obliged to renounce the pomp
+and luxuries of royal life, had solemnly cursed him, and had caused his
+imprecations to be inscribed upon a stele set up in the temple of Amon
+at Thebes. Nevertheless, in the memory that Egypt preserved of its first
+Pharaoh, the good outweighed the evil. He was worshipped in Memphis side
+by side with Phtah and Ramses II.; his name figured at the head of the
+royal lists, and his cult continued till the time of the Ptolemies.
+
+His immediate successors had an actual existence, and their tombs are
+there in proof of it. We know where Usaphais, Miebis, and Semempses[*]
+were laid to rest, besides more than a dozen other princes whose real
+names and whose position in the official lists are still uncertain. The
+order of their succession was often a matter of doubt to the Egyptians
+themselves, but perhaps the discoveries of the next few years will
+enable us to clear up and settle definitely matters which were shrouded
+in mystery in the time of the Theban Pharaohs. As a fact, the forms of
+such of their names as have been handed down to us by later tradition,
+are curt and rugged, indicative of an early state of society, and
+harmonizing with the more primitive civilization to which they belong:
+Ati the Wrestler, Teti the Runner, Qenqoni the Crusher, are suitable
+rulers for a people, the first duty of whose chief was to lead his
+followers into battle, and to strike harder than any other man in the
+thickest of the fight.[**]
+
+     *  Flinders Pétrie, _The 'Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty_,
+     vol. i. p. 56.
+
+     **  The Egyptians were accustomed to explain the meaning of
+     the names of their kings to strangers, and the Canon of
+     Eratosthenes has preserved several of their derivations, of
+     which a certain number, as, for instance, that of Menés from
+     aùovioç, the "lasting," are tolerably correct. M. Krall is,
+     to my knowledge, the only Egyptologist who has attempted to
+     glean from the meaning of these names indications of the
+     methods by which the national historians of Egypt
+     endeavoured to make up the lists of the earliest dynasties.
+
+Some of the monuments they have left us, seem to show that their reigns
+were as much devoted to war as those of the later Pharaohs. The king
+whose Horus name was Nârumîr, is seen on a contemporary object which has
+come down to us, standing before a heap of beheaded foes; the bodies
+are all stretched out on the ground, each with his head placed neatly
+between his legs: the king had overcome, apparently in some important
+engagement, several thousands of his enemies, and was inspecting the
+execution of their leaders. That the foes with whom these early kings
+contended were in most cases Egyptian princes of the nomes, is proved by
+the list of city names which are inscribed on the fragments of another
+document of the same nature, and we gather from them that Dobu (Edfu),
+Hasutonu (Cynopolis), Habonu (Hipponon), Hakau (Memphis) and others were
+successively taken and dismantled.[*]
+
+     *  Palette resembling the preceding one, and with it
+     deposited in the Gîzeh Museum; reproduced by Steindokff, and
+     by J. de Morgan. The names of the towns were enclosed within
+     the embattled line which was used later on to designate
+     foreign countries. The animals which surmount them represent
+     the gods of Egypt, the king's protectors; and the king
+     himself, identified with these gods, is making a breach in
+     the wall with a pick-axe. The names of the towns have not
+     been satisfactorily identified: Hat-kau, for instance, may
+     not be Memphis, but it appears that there is no doubt with
+     regard to Habonu. Cf. Sayce, The Beginnings of the Egyptian
+     Monarchy in the Proceedings of the Biblical Archæological
+     Society, 1898, vol. xx. pp, 99-101.
+
+On this fragment King Den is represented standing over a prostrate chief
+of the Bedouin, striking him with his mace. Sondi, who is classed in the
+IInd dynasty, received a continuous worship towards the end of the IIIrd
+dynasty. But did all those whose names preceded or followed his on the
+lists, really exist as he did? and if they existed, to what extent do
+the order and the relation assigned to them agree with the actual truth?
+The different lists do not contain the same names in the same positions;
+certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason.
+Where Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time
+of Seti I. gave us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the IInd
+dynasty, while they register only five.[*]
+
+     * The impossibility of reconciling the names of the Greek
+     with those of the Pharaonic lists has been admitted by most
+     of the savants who have discussed the matter, viz. Mariette,
+     E. de Rouge, Lieblein, Wiedemann; most of them explain the
+     differences by the supposition that, in many cases, one of
+     the lists gives the cartouche name, and the other the
+     cartouche prenomen of the same king.
+
+The monuments, indeed, show us that Egypt in the past obeyed princes
+whom her annalists were unable to classify: for instance, they associate
+with Sondi a Pirsenû, who is not mentioned in the annals. We must,
+therefore, take the record of all this opening period of history for
+what it is--namely, a system invented at a much later date, by means of
+various artifices and combinations--to be partially accepted in default
+of a better, but without according to it that excessive confidence which
+it has hitherto received. The two Thinite dynasties, in direct descent
+from the first human king Menés, furnish, like this hero himself, only a
+tissue of romantic tales and miraculous legends in the place of history.
+A double-headed stork, which had appeared in the first year of Teti,
+son of Menés, had foreshadowed to Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine
+under Ouenephes, and a terrible plague under Semempses, had depopulated
+the country: the laws had been relaxed, great crimes had been committed,
+and revolts had broken out. During the reign of Boêthos, a gulf had
+opened near Bubastis, and swallowed up many people, then the Nile had
+flowed with honey for fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and
+Sesochris was supposed to have been a giant in stature. A few details
+about royal edifices were mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid
+the foundation of the great palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the
+pyramids of Ko-komè near Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had
+published books on theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and
+medicine; several had made laws which lasted down to the beginning of
+the Christian era. One of them was called Kakôû, the male of males, or
+the bull of bulls. They explained his name by the statement that he had
+concerned himself about the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods,
+Hâpis of Memphis, Mnevis of Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes. After
+him, Binôthris had conferred the right of succession upon all the women
+of the blood-royal. The accession of the IIIrd dynasty, a Memphite one
+according to Manetho, did not at first change the miraculous character
+of this history. The Libyans had revolted against Necherophes, and the
+two armies were encamped before each other, when one night the disk of
+the moon became immeasurably enlarged, to the great alarm of the rebels,
+who recognized in this phenomenon a sign of the anger of heaven, and
+yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the successor of Necherophes,
+brought the hieroglyphs and the art of stone-cutting to perfection. He
+composed, as Teti did, books of medicine, a fact which caused him to
+be identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The priests related these
+things seriously, and the Greek writers took them down from their lips
+with the respect which they offered to everything emanating from the
+wise men of Egypt.
+
+What they related of the human kings was not more detailed, as we see,
+than their accounts of the gods. Whether the legends dealt with deities
+or kings, all that we know took its origin, not in popular imagination,
+but in sacerdotal dogma: they were invented long after the times they
+dealt with, in the recesses of the temples, with an intention and a
+method of which we are enabled to detect flagrant instances on the
+monuments. Towards the middle of the third century before our era, the
+Greek troops stationed on the southern frontier, in the forts at the
+first cataract, developed a particular veneration for Isis of Philæ.
+Their devotion spread to the superior officers who came to inspect them,
+then to the whole population of the Thebàid, and finally reached the
+court of the Macedonian kings. The latter, carried away by force
+of example, gave every encouragement to a movement which attracted
+worshippers to a common sanctuary, and united in one cult the two races
+over which they ruled. They pulled down the meagre building of the
+Sa'ite period which had hitherto sufficed for the worship of Isis,
+constructed at great cost the temple which still remains almost intact,
+and assigned to it considerable possessions in Nubia, which, in
+addition to gifts from private individuals, made the goddess the richest
+landowner in Southern Egypt. Khnûmû and his two wives, Anûkit and Satît,
+who, before Isis, had been the undisputed suzerains of the cataract,
+perceived with jealousy their neighbour's prosperity: the civil wars
+and invasions of the centuries immediately preceding had ruined their
+temples, and their poverty contrasted painfully with the riches of the
+new-comer.
+
+[Illustration: 350.jpg SATÎT PRESENTS THE PHARAOH AMENÔTHES III. TO
+KHNÔMÛ.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
+     temple of Khnûmû, at Elephantine.    This bas-relief is now
+     destroyed.
+
+The priests resolved to lay this sad state of affairs before King
+Ptolemy, to represent to him the services which they had rendered and
+still continued to render to Egypt, and above all to remind him of the
+generosity of the ancient Pharaohs, whose example, owing to the poverty
+of the times, the recent Pharaohs had been unable to follow.
+
+[Illustration: 351.jpg ANÛKIT]
+
+Doubtless authentic documents were wanting in their archives to support
+their pretensions: they therefore inscribed upon a rock, in the island
+of Sehel, a long inscription which they attributed to Zosiri of the
+IIIrd dynasty. This sovereign had left behind him a vague reputation for
+greatness. As early as the XIIth dynasty Usirtasen III. had claimed
+him as "his father"--his ancestor--and had erected a statue to him; the
+priests knew that, by invoking him, they had a chance of obtaining a
+hearing. The inscription which they fabricated, set forth that in
+the eighteenth year of Zosiri's reign he had sent to Madîr, lord of
+Elephantine, a message couched in these terms: "I am overcome with
+sorrow for the throne, and for those who reside in the palace, and my
+heart is afflicted and suffers greatly because the Nile has not risen in
+my time, for the space of eight years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack
+of herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his
+neighbours for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the
+young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their
+limbs are bent."
+
+Ptolemies admit the claims which the local priests attempted to deduce
+from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the
+domains and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows
+us with what ease the scribes could forge official documents, when
+the exigencies of they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the
+courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished
+with rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was in them has
+disappeared.
+
+"My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks to call upon
+the Saviour who was here where I am, during the centuries of the gods,
+upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpû, son of Phtah of
+Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is the god or
+goddess concealed there? What is his likeness?"
+
+[Illustration: 353.jpg THE STEP PYRAMID OF SAUARA. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Dévèria (1864); in
+     the foreground, the tomb of Ti.
+
+The lord of Elephantine brought his reply in person. He described to the
+king, who was evidently ignorant of it, the situation of the island and
+the rocks of the cataract, the phenomena of the inundation, the gods who
+presided over it, and who alone could relieve Egypt from her disastrous
+plight. Zosiri repaired to the temple of the principality and offered
+the prescribed sacrifices; the god arose, opened his eyes, panted and
+cried aloud, "I am Khnûmû who created thee!" and promised him a speedy
+return of a high Nile and the cessation of the famine. Pharaoh was
+touched by the benevolence which his divine father had shown him; he
+forthwith made a decree by which he ceded to the temple all his rights
+of suzerainty over the neighbouring nomes within a radius of twenty
+miles. Henceforward the entire population, tillers and vinedressers,
+fishermen and hunters, had to yield the tithe of their incomes to the
+priests; the quarries could not be worked without the consent of Khnûmû,
+and the payment of a suitable indemnity into his coffers, and finally,
+all metals and precious woods shipped thence for Egypt had to submit to
+a toll on behalf of the temple. Did the daily life forced the necessity
+upon them; it teaches us at the same time how that fabulous chronicle
+was elaborated, whose remains have been preserved for us by classical
+writers. Every prodigy, every fact related by Manetho, was taken from
+some document analogous to the supposed inscription of Zosiri.[*]
+
+     *  The legend of the yawning gulf at Bubastis must be
+     connected with the gifts supposed to have been offered by
+     King Boêthos to the temple of that town, to repair the
+     losses sustained by the goddess on that occasion; the legend
+     of the pestilence and famine is traceable to some relief
+     given by a local god, and for which Semempses and Ùenephes
+     might have shown their gratitude in the same way as Zosiri.
+     The tradition of the successive restorations of Denderah
+     accounts for the constructions attributed to Teti I. and to
+     Tosorthros; finally, the prête tided discoveries of sacred
+     books, dealt with elsewhere, show how Manetho was enabled to
+     attribute to his Pharaohs the authorship of works on
+     medicine or theology.
+
+The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our
+researches, and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes
+which Egypt passed through before being consolidated into a single
+kingdom, under the rule of one man. Many names, apparently of powerful
+and illustrious princes, had survived in the memory of the people;
+these were collected, classified, and grouped in a regular manner into
+dynasties, but the people were ignorant of any exact facts connected
+with the names, and the historians, on their own account, were reduced
+to collect apocryphal traditions for their sacred archives. The
+monuments of these remote ages, however, cannot have entirely
+disappeared: they exist in places where we have not as yet thought of
+applying the pick, and chance excavations will some day most certainly
+bring them to light. The few which we do possess barely go back beyond
+the IIIrd dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri, priest of Sondi and
+Pirsenû; possibly the tomb of Khûîthotpû at Saqqâra; the Great Sphinx
+of Gîzeh; a short inscription on the rocks of the Wady Maghâra, which
+represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnûmû in the
+Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or copper mines of
+Sinai; and finally the Step-Pyramid where this same Pharaoh rests.[*]
+
+     * The stele of Sehêl has enabled us to verify the fact that
+     the preamble [a string of titles] to the inscription of the
+     king, buried in the Step-Pyramid, is identical with that of
+     King Zosiri: it was, therefore, Zosiri who constructed, or
+     arranged for the construction of this monument as his tomb.
+     The Step-Pyramid of Saqqâra was opened in 1819, at the
+     expense of the Prussian General Minutoli, who was the first
+     to give a brief description of the interior, illustrated by
+     plans and drawings.
+
+It forms a rectangular mass, incorrectly orientated, with a variation
+from the true north of 4° 35', 393 ft. 8 in. long from east to west,
+and 352 ft. deep, with a height of 159 ft. 9 in. It is composed of six
+cubes, with sloping sides, each being about 13 ft. less in width than
+the one below it; that nearest to the ground measures 37 ft. 8 in. in
+height, and the uppermost one 29 ft. 9 in. It was entirely constructed
+of limestone from the neighbouring mountains. The blocks are small, and
+badly cut, the stone courses being concave to offer a better resistance
+to downward thrust and to shocks of earthquake. When breaches in the
+masonry are examined, it can be seen that the external surface of
+the steps has, as it were, a double stone facing, each facing being
+carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid is solid, the chambers
+being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have been often enlarged,
+restored, and reworked in the course of centuries, and the passages
+which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which it is dangerous
+to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the galleries and
+halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom of which the
+architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt, to contain
+the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until the beginning
+of this century, the vault had preserved its original lining of glazed
+pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface were covered with green
+tiles, oblong and slightly convex on the outer side, but flat on the
+inner: a square projection pierced with a hole, served to fix them at
+the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods.
+
+[Illustration: 356. jpg ONE OF THE CHAMBERS OF THE STEP-PYRAMID, WITH
+ITS WALL-COVERING OF GLAZED TILES.1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured sketch by
+     Sogato. M. Stern attributes the decoration of glazed pottery
+     to the XXVI '' dynasty, which opinion is shared by
+     Borchardt. The yellow and green glazed tiles hearing the
+     cartouche of Papi I., show that the Egyptians of the
+     Memphite dynasties used glazed facings at that early date;
+     we may, therefore, believe, if the tiles of the vault of
+     Zosiri are really of the Saïte period, that they replaced a
+     decoration of the same kind, which belonged to the time of
+     its construction, and of which some fragments still exist
+     among the tiles of more recent date.
+
+The three bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the
+titles of the Pharaoh: the hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red,
+green, or yellow, on a fawn-coloured ground. Other kings had built
+temples, palaces, and towns,--as, for instance, King Khâsakhimu, of
+whose constructions some traces exist at Hieracônpolis, opposite to
+El-Kab, or King Khâsakhmui, who preceded by a few years the Pharaohs of
+the IVth dynasty--but the monuments which they raised to be witnesses of
+their power or piety to future generations, have, in the course of ages,
+disappeared under the tramplings and before the triumphal blasts of many
+invading hosts: the pyramid alone has survived, and the most ancient of
+the historic monuments of Egypt is a tomb.
+
+[Illustration: 357.jpg TAILPIECE]
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      History of Egypt, by Maspero, Volume 1, Part A.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+   </style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)
+
+Author: G. Maspero
+
+Editor: A.H. Sayce
+
+Translator: M.L. McClure
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19400]
+Last Updated: October 22, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0001" id="linklinkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/spines.jpg" width="100%" alt="Spines " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0002" id="linklinkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="100%" alt="Cover " />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      HISTORY OF EGYPT <br /><br /> CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By G. MASPERO, <br /><br /> Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of
+      Queen's College, <br /> Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at
+      the College of France
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Edited by A. H. SAYCE, <br /> Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      Translated by M. L. McCLURE, <br /> Member of the Committee of the Egypt
+      Exploration Fund
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Volume I.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      LONDON <br /> THE GROLIER SOCIETY <br /> PUBLISHERS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklinkimage-0003" id="linklinkimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="frontispeice (156K)" src="images/frontispeice.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="frontis_title (9K)" src="images/frontis_title.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0004" id="linklinkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="titlepage1 (189K)" src="images/titlepage1.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklink2H_4_0001"> EDITOR'S PREFACE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklink2H_4_0002"> TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkillust"> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklink2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I.&mdash;THE NILE AND EGYPT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkB2HCH0001"> CHAPTER II.&mdash;THE GODS OF EGYPT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkC2HCH0001"> CHAPTER III.&mdash;-THE LEGENDARY HISTORY
+        OF EGYPT </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklink2H_4_0001" id="linklink2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      EDITOR'S PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Professor Maspero does not need to be introduced to us. His name is well
+      known in England and America as that of one of the chief masters of
+      Egyptian science as well as of ancient Oriental history and archaeology.
+      Alike as a philologist, a historian, and an archaeologist, he occupies a
+      foremost place in the annals of modern knowledge and research. He
+      possesses that quick apprehension and fertility of resource without which
+      the decipherment of ancient texts is impossible, and he also possesses a
+      sympathy with the past and a power of realizing it which are indispensable
+      if we would picture it aright. His intimate acquaintance with Egypt and
+      its literature, and the opportunities of discovery afforded him by his
+      position for several years as director of the Bulaq Museum, give him an
+      unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the valley of the
+      Nile. In the present work he has been prodigal of his abundant stores of
+      learning and knowledge, and it may therefore be regarded as the most
+      complete account of ancient Egypt that has ever yet been published.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the case of Babylonia and Assyria he no longer, it is true, speaks at
+      first hand. But he has thoroughly studied the latest and best authorities
+      on the subject, and has weighed their statements with the judgment which
+      comes from an exhaustive acquaintance with a similar department of
+      knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Naturally, in progressive studies like those of Egyptology and
+      Assyriology, a good many theories and conclusions must be tentative and
+      provisional only. Discovery crowds so quickly on discovery, that the truth
+      of to-day is often apt to be modified or amplified by the truth of
+      to-morrow. A single fresh fact may throw a wholly new and unexpected light
+      upon the results we have already gained, and cause them to assume a
+      somewhat changed aspect. But this is what must happen in all sciences in
+      which there is a healthy growth, and archaeological science is no
+      exception to the rule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spelling of ancient Egyptian proper names adopted by Professor Maspero
+      will perhaps seem strange to many. But it must be remembered that all our
+      attempts to represent the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian words can be
+      approximate only; we can never ascertain with certainty how they were
+      actually sounded. All that can be done is to determine what pronunciation
+      was assigned to them in the Greek period, and to work backwards from this,
+      so far as it is possible, to more remote ages. This is what Professor
+      Maspero has done, and it must be no slight satisfaction to him to find
+      that on the whole his system of transliteration is confirmed by the
+      cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difficulties attaching to the spelling of Assyrian names are different
+      from those which beset our attempts to reproduce, even approximately, the
+      names of ancient Egypt. The cuneiform system of writing was syllabic, each
+      character denoting a syllable, so that we know what were the vowels in a
+      proper name as well as the consonants. Moreover, the pronunciation of the
+      consonants resembled that of the Hebrew consonants, the transliteration of
+      which has long since become conventional. When, therefore, an Assyrian or
+      Babylonian name is written phonetically, its correct transliteration is
+      not often a matter of question. But, unfortunately, the names are not
+      always written phonetically. The cuneiform script was an inheritance from
+      the non-Semitic predecessors of the Semites in Babylonia, and in this
+      script the characters represented words as well as sounds. Not
+      unfrequently the Semitic Assyrians continued to write a name in the old
+      Sumerian way instead of spelling it phonetically, the result being that we
+      do not know how it was pronounced in their own language. The name of the
+      Chaldæan Noab, for instance, is written with two characters which
+      ideographically signify "the sun" or "day of life," and of the first of
+      which the Sumerian values were <i>ut, babar, khis, tarn,</i> and <i>par</i>,
+      while the second had the value of <i>zi</i>. Were it not that the Chaldæan
+      historian Bêrôssos writes the name Xisuthros, we should have no clue to
+      its Semitic pronunciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Professor Maspero's learning and indefatigable industry are well known to
+      me, but I confess I was not prepared for the exhaustive acquaintance he
+      shows with Assyriological literature. Nothing seems to have escaped his
+      notice. Papers and books just published, and half forgotten articles in
+      obscure periodicals which appeared years ago, have all alike been used and
+      quoted by him. Naturally, however, there are some points on which I should
+      be inclined to differ from the conclusions he draws, or to which he has
+      been led by other Assyriologists. Without being an Assyriologist himself,
+      it was impossible for him to be acquainted with that portion of the
+      evidence on certain disputed questions which is only to be found in still
+      unpublished or untranslated inscriptions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are two points which seem to me of sufficient importance to justify
+      my expression of dissent from his views. These are the geographical
+      situation of the land of Magan, and the historical character of the annals
+      of Sargon of Accad. The evidence about Magan is very clear. Magan is
+      usually associated with the country of Melukhkha, "the salt" desert, and
+      in <i>every</i> text in which its geographical position is indicated it is
+      placed in the immediate vicinity of Egypt. Thus Assur-bani-pal, after
+      stating that he had "gone to the lands of Magan and Melukhkha," goes on to
+      say that he "directed his road to Egypt and Kush," and then describes the
+      first of his Egyptian campaigns. Similar testimony is borne by
+      Esar-haddon. The latter king tells us that after quitting Egypt he
+      directed his road to the land of Melukhkha, a desert region in which there
+      were no rivers, and which extended "to the city of Rapikh" (the modern
+      Raphia) "at the edge of the wadi of Egypt" (the present Wadi El-Arîsh).
+      After this he received camels from the king of the Arabs, and made his way
+      to the land and city of Magan. The Tel el-Amarna tablets enable us to
+      carry the record back to the fifteenth century b.c. In certain of the
+      tablets now as Berlin (Winckler and Abel, 42 and 45) the Phoenician
+      governor of the Pharaoh asks that help should be sent him from Melukhkha
+      and Egypt: "The king should hear the words of his servant, and send ten
+      men of the country of Melukhkha and twenty men of the country of Egypt to
+      defend the city [of Gebal] for the king." And again, "I have sent [to]
+      Pharaoh" (literally, "the great house") "for a garrison of men from the
+      country of Melukhkha, and... the king has just despatched a garrison
+      [from] the country of Melukhkha." At a still earlier date we have
+      indications that Melukhkha and Magan denoted the same region of the world.
+      In an old Babylonian geographical list which belongs to the early days of
+      Chaldsean history, Magan is described as "the country of bronze," and
+      Melukhkha as "the country of the <i>samdu</i>," or "malachite." It was
+      this list which originally led Oppert, Lenormant, and myself independently
+      to the conviction that Magan was to be looked for in the Sinaitic
+      Peninsula. Magan included, however, the Midian of Scripture, and the city
+      of Magan, called Makkan in Semitic Assyrian, is probably the Makna of
+      classical geography, now represented by the ruins of Mukna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have always maintained the historical character of the annals of
+      Sargon of Accad, long before recent discoveries led Professor Hilprecht
+      and others to adopt the same view, it is as well to state why I consider
+      them worthy of credit. In themselves the annals contain nothing
+      improbable; indeed, what might seem the most unlikely portion of them&mdash;that
+      which describes the extension of Sargon's empire to the shores of the
+      Mediterranean&mdash;has been confirmed by the progress of research.
+      Ammi-satana, a king of the first dynasty of Babylon (about 2200 B.C.),
+      calls himself "king of the country of the Amorites," and the Tel el-Amarna
+      tablets have revealed to us how deep and long-lasting Babylonian influence
+      must have been throughout Western Asia. Moreover, the vase described by
+      Professor Maspero in the present work proves that the expedition of
+      Naram-Sin against Magan was an historical reality, and such an expedition
+      was only possible if "the land of the Amorites," the Syria and Palestine
+      of later days, had been secured in the rear. But what chiefly led me to
+      the belief that the annals are a document contemporaneous with the events
+      narrated in them, are two facts which do not seem to have been
+      sufficiently considered. On the one side, while the annals of Sargon are
+      given in full, those of his son Naram-Sin break off abruptly in the early
+      part of his reign. I see no explanation of this, except that they were
+      composed while Naram-Sin was still on the throne. On the other side, the
+      campaigns of the two monarchs are coupled with the astrological phenomena
+      on which the success of the campaigns was supposed to depend. We know that
+      the Babylonians were given to the practice and study of astrology from the
+      earliest days of their history; we know also that even in the time of the
+      later Assyrian monarchy it was still customary for the general in the
+      field to be accompanied by the <i>asipu</i>, or "prophet," the ashshâph of
+      Dan. ii. 10, on whose interpretation of the signs of heaven the movements
+      of the army depended; and in the infancy of Chaldæn history we should
+      accordingly expect to find the astrological sign recorded along with the
+      event with which it was bound up. At a subsequent period the sign and the
+      event were separated from one another in literature, and had the annals of
+      Sargon been a later compilation, in their case also the separation would
+      assuredly have been made. That, on the contrary, the annals have the form
+      which they could have assumed and ought to have assumed only at the
+      beginning of contemporaneous Babylonian history, is to me a strong
+      testimony in favour of their genuineness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be added that Babylonian seal-cylinders have been found in Cyprus,
+      one of which is of the age of Sargon of Accad, its style and workmanship
+      being the same as that of the cylinder figured in vol. iii. p. 96, while
+      the other, though of later date, belonged to a person who describes
+      himself as "the servant of the deified Naram-Sin." Such cylinders may, of
+      course, have been brought to the island in later times; but when we
+      remember that a characteristic object of prehistoric Cypriote art is an
+      imitation of the seal-cylinder of Chaldsea, their discovery cannot be
+      wholly an accident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Professor Maspero has brought his facts up to so recent a date that there
+      is very little to add to what he has written. Since his manuscript was in
+      type, however, a few additions have been made to our Assyriological
+      knowledge. A fresh examination of the Babylonian dynastic tablet has led
+      Professor Delitzsch to make some alterations in the published account of
+      what Professor Maspero calls the ninth dynasty. According to Professor
+      Delitzsch, the number of kings composing the dynasty is stated on the
+      tablet to be twenty-one, and not thirty-one as was formerly read, and the
+      number of lost lines exactly corresponds with this figure. The first of
+      the kings reigned thirty-six years, and he had a predecessor belonging to
+      the previous dynasty whose name has been lost. There would consequently
+      have been two Elamite usurpers instead of one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would further draw attention to an interesting text, published by Mr.
+      Strong in the <i>Babylonian and Oriental Record</i>, which I believe to
+      contain the name of a king who belonged to the legendary dynasties of
+      Chaldæa. This is Samas-natsir, who is coupled with Sargon of Accad and
+      other early monarchs in one of the lists. The legend, if I interpret it
+      rightly, states that "Elam shall be altogether given to Samas-natsir;" and
+      the same prince is further described as building Nippur and Dur-ilu, as
+      King of Babylon and as conqueror both of a certain Baldakha and of
+      Khumba-sitir, "the king of the cedar-forest." It will be remembered that
+      in the Epic of Gil-games, Khumbaba also is stated to have been the lord of
+      the "cedar-forest."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of new discoveries and facts there is a constant supply, and it is
+      impossible for the historian to keep pace with them. Even while the sheets
+      of his work are passing through the press, the excavator, the explorer,
+      and the decipherer are adding to our previous stores of knowledge. In
+      Egypt, Mr. de Morgan's unwearied energy has raised as it were out of the
+      ground, at Kom Ombo, a vast and splendidly preserved temple, of whose
+      existence we had hardly dreamed; has discovered twelfth-dynasty jewellery
+      at Dahshur of the most exquisite workmanship, and at Meir and Assiut has
+      found in tombs of the sixth dynasty painted models of the trades and
+      professions of the day, as well as fighting battalions of soldiers, which,
+      for freshness and lifelike reality, contrast favourably with the models
+      which come from India to-day. In Babylonia, the American Expedition, under
+      Mr. Haines, has at Niffer unearthed monuments of older date than those of
+      Sargon of Accad. Nor must I forget to mention the lotiform column found by
+      Mr. de Morgan in a tomb of the Old Empire at Abusir, or the interesting
+      discovery made by Mr. Arthur Evans of seals and other objects from the
+      prehistoric sites of Krete and other parts of the AEgean, inscribed with
+      hieroglyphic characters which reveal a new system of writing that must at
+      one time have existed by the side of the Hittite hieroglyphs, and may have
+      had its origin in the influence exercised by Egypt on the peoples of the
+      Mediterranean in the age of the twelfth dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In volumes IV., V., and VI. we find ourselves in the full light of an
+      advanced culture. The nations of the ancient East are no longer each
+      pursuing an isolated existence, and separately developing the seeds of
+      civilization and culture on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia
+      and Africa have met in mortal combat. Babylonia has carried its empire to
+      the frontiers of Egypt, and Egypt itself has been held in bondage by the
+      Hyksôs strangers from Asia. In return, Egypt has driven back the wave of
+      invasion to the borders of Mesopotamia, has substituted an empire of its
+      own in Syria for that of the Babylonians, and has forced the Babylonian
+      king to treat with its Pharaoh on equal terms. In the track of war and
+      diplomacy have come trade and commerce; Western Asia is covered with
+      roads, along which the merchant and the courier travel incessantly, and
+      the whole civilised world of the Orient is knit together in a common
+      literary culture and common commercial interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The age of isolation has thus been succeeded by an age of intercourse,
+      partly military and antagonistic, partly literary and peaceful. Professor
+      Maspero paints for us this age of intercourse, describes its rise and
+      character, its decline and fall. For the unity of Eastern civilization was
+      again shattered. The Hittites descended from the ranges of the Taurus upon
+      the Egyptian province of Northern Syria, and cut off the Semites of the
+      west from those of the east. The Israelites poured over the Jordan out of
+      Edom and Moab, and took possession of Canaan, while Babylonia itself, for
+      so many centuries the ruling power of the Oriental world, had to make way
+      for its upstart rival Assyria. The old imperial powers were exhausted and
+      played out, and it needed time before the new forces which were to take
+      their place could acquire sufficient strength for their work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As usual, Professor Maspero has been careful to embody in his history the
+      very latest discoveries and information. Notice, it will be found, has
+      been taken even of the <i>stela</i> of Meneptah, recently disinterred by
+      Professor Pétrie, on which the name of the Israelites is engraved. At
+      Elephantine, I found, a short time since, on a granite boulder, an
+      inscription of Khufuânkh&mdash;whose sarcophagus of red granite is one of
+      the most beautiful objects in the Gizeh Museum&mdash;which carries back
+      the history of the island to the age of the pyramid-builders of the fourth
+      dynasty. The boulder was subsequently concealed under the southern side of
+      the city-wall, and as fragments of inscribed papyrus coeval with the sixth
+      dynasty have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood, on one of
+      which mention is made of "this domain" of Pepi II., it would seem that the
+      town of Elephantine must have been founded between the period of the
+      fourth dynasty and that of the sixth. Manetho is therefore justified in
+      making the fifth and sixth dynasties of Elephantine origin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is in Babylonia, however, that the most startling discoveries have been
+      made. At Tello, M. de Sarzec has found a library of more than thirty
+      thousand tablets, all neatly arranged, piled in order one on the other,
+      and belonging to the age of Gudea (b.c. 2700). Many more tablets of an
+      early date have been unearthed at Abu-Habba (Sippara) and Jokha (Isin) by
+      Dr. Scheil, working for the Turkish government. But the most important
+      finds have been at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, in Northern Babylonia,
+      where the American expedition has brought to a close its long work of
+      systematic excavation. Here Mr. Haynes has dug down to the very
+      foundations of the great temple of El-lil, and the chief historical
+      results of his labours have been published by Professor Hilprecht (in <i>The
+      Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania</i>, vol. i. pl.
+      2, 1896).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About midway between the summit and the bottom of the mound, Mr. Haynes
+      laid bare a pavement constructed of huge bricks stamped with the names of
+      Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin. He found also the ancient wall of
+      the city, which had been built by Naram-Sin, 13.7 metres wide. The <i>débris</i>
+      of ruined buildings which lies below the pavement of Sargon is as much as
+      9.25 metres in depth, while that above it, the topmost stratum of which
+      brings us down to the Christian era, is only 11 metres in height. We may
+      form some idea from this of the enormous age to which the history of
+      Babylonian culture and writing reaches back. In fact, Professor Hilprecht
+      quotes with approval Mr. Haynes's words: "We must cease to apply the
+      adjective 'earliest' to the time of Sargon, or to any age or epoch within
+      a thousand years of his advanced civilization." "The golden age of
+      Babylonian history seems to include the reign of Sargon and of Ur-Gur."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of the inscriptions which belong to this remote age of human culture
+      have been published by Professor Hilprecht. Among them is a long
+      inscription, in 132 lines, engraved on multitudes of large stone vases
+      presented to the temple of El-lil by a certain Lugal-zaggisi.
+      Lugal-zaggisi was the son of Ukus, the <i>patesi</i> or high priest of the
+      "Land of the Bow," as Mesopotamia, with its Bedawin inhabitants, was
+      called. He not only conquered Babylonia, then known as Kengi, "the land of
+      canals and reeds," but founded an empire which extended from the Persian
+      Gulf to the Mediterranean. This was centuries before Sargon of Akkad
+      followed in his footsteps. Erech became the capital of Lugal-zaggisi's
+      empire, and doubtless received at this time its Sumerian title of "the
+      city" <i>par excellence</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long while previously there had been war between Babylonia and the
+      "Land of the Bow," whose rulers seem to have established themselves in the
+      city of Kis. At one time we find the Babylonian prince En-sag(sag)-ana
+      capturing Kis and its king; at another time it is a king of Kis who makes
+      offerings to the god of Nippur, in gratitude for his victories. To this
+      period belongs the famous "Stela of the Vultures" found at Tello, on which
+      is depicted the victory of E-dingir-ana-gin, the King of Lagas (Tello),
+      over the Semitic hordes of the Land of the Bow. It may be noted that the
+      recent discoveries have shown how correct Professor Maspero has been in
+      assigning the kings of Lagas to a period earlier than that of Sargon of
+      Akkad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Professor Hilprecht would place E-dingir-ana-gin after Lugal-zaggisi, and
+      see in the Stela of the Vultures a monument of the revenge taken by the
+      Sumerian rulers of Lagas for the conquest of the country by the
+      inhabitants of the north. But it is equally possible that it marks the
+      successful reaction of Chaldsea against the power established by
+      Lugal-zaggisi. However this may be, the dynasty of Lagas (to which
+      Professor Hilprecht has added a new king, En-Khegal) reigned in peace for
+      some time, and belonged to the same age as the first dynasty of Ur. This
+      was founded by a certain Lugal-kigubnidudu, whose inscriptions have been
+      found at Niffer. The dynasty which arose at Ur in later days (cir. b.c.
+      2700), under Ur-Gur and Bungi, which has hitherto been known as "the first
+      dynasty of Ur," is thus dethroned from its position, and becomes the
+      second. The succeeding dynasty, which also made Ur its capital, and whose
+      kings, Ine-Sin, Pur-Sin IL, and Gimil-Sin, were the immediate predecessors
+      of the first dynasty of Babylon (to which Kharnmurabi belonged), must
+      henceforth be termed the third.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the latest acquisitions from Tello are the seals of the <i>patesi</i>,
+      Lugal-usumgal, which finally remove all doubt as to the identity of
+      "Sargani, king of the city," with the famous Sargon of Akkad. The
+      historical accuracy of Sargon's annals, moreover, have been fully
+      vindicated. Not only have the American excavators found the contemporary
+      monuments of him and his son Naram-Sin, but also tablets dated in the
+      years of his campaigns against "the land of the Amorites." In short,
+      Sargon of Akkad, so lately spoken of as "a half-mythical" personage, has
+      now emerged into the full glare of authentic history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the native chronologists had sufficient material for reconstructing
+      the past history of their country, is also now clear. The early Babylonian
+      contract-tablets are dated by events which officially distinguished the
+      several years of a king's reign, and tablets have been discovered compiled
+      at the close of a reign which give year by year the events which thus
+      characterised them. One of these tablets, for example, from the
+      excavations at Niffer, begins with the words: (1) "The year when Par-Sin
+      (II.) becomes king. (2) The year when Pur-Sin the king conquers Urbillum,"
+      and ends with "the year when Gimil-Sin becomes King of Ur, and conquers
+      the land of Zabsali" in the Lebanon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of special interest to the biblical student are the discoveries made by
+      Mr. Pinches among some of the Babylonian tablets which have recently been
+      acquired by the British Museum. Four of them relate to no less a personage
+      than Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, "King of Elam," as well as to
+      Eri-Aku or Arioch, King of Larsa, and his son Dur-makh-ilani; to Tudghula
+      or Tidal, the son of Gazza[ni], and to their war against Babylon in the
+      time of Khamrnu[rabi]. In one of the texts the question is asked, "Who is
+      the son of a king's daughter who has sat on the throne of royalty?
+      Dur-makh-ilani, the son of Eri-Âku, the son of the lady Kur... has sat on
+      the throne of royalty," from which it may perhaps be inferred that Eri-Âku
+      was the son of Kudur-Laghghamar's daughter; and in another we read, "Who
+      is Kudur-Laghghamar, the doer of mischief? He has gathered together the
+      Umman Manda, has devastated the land of Bel (Babylonia), and [has marched]
+      at their side." The Umman Manda were the "Barbarian Hordes" of the Kurdish
+      mountains, on the northern frontier of Elam, and the name corresponds with
+      that of the Goyyim or "nations" in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. We
+      here see Kudur-Laghghamar acting as their suzerain lord. Unfortunately,
+      all four tablets are in a shockingly broken condition, and it is therefore
+      difficult to discover in them a continuous sense, or to determine their
+      precise nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They have, however, been supplemented by further discoveries made by Dr.
+      Scheil at Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has found
+      letters from Kharnmurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa, from which we
+      learn that Sin-idinnam had been dethroned by the Elamites Kudur-Mabug and
+      Eri-Âku, and had fled for refuge to the court of Kharnmurabi at Babylon.
+      In the war which subsequently broke out between Kharnmurabi and
+      Kudur-Laghghamar, the King of Elam (who, it would seem, exercised
+      suzerainty over Babylonia for seven years), Sin-idinnam gave material
+      assistance to the Babylonian monarch, and Khammurabi accordingly bestowed
+      presents upon him as a "recompense for his valour on the day of the
+      overthrow of Kudur-Laghghamar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must also refer to a fine scarab&mdash;found in the rubbish-mounds of
+      the ancient city of Kom Ombos, in Upper Egypt&mdash;which bears upon it
+      the name of Sutkhu-Apopi. It shows us that the author of the story of the
+      Expulsion of the Hyksôs, in calling the king Ra-Apopi, merely, like an
+      orthodox Egyptian, substituted the name of the god of Heliopolis for that
+      of the foreign deity. Equally interesting are the scarabs brought to light
+      by Professor Flinders Pétrie, on which a hitherto unknown Ya'aqob-hal or
+      Jacob-el receives the titles of a Pharaoh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In volumes VII., VIII., and IX., Professor Maspero concludes his
+      monumental work on the history of the ancient East. The overthrow of the
+      Persian empire by the Greek soldiers of Alexander marks the beginning of a
+      new era. Europe at last enters upon the stage of history, and becomes the
+      heir of the culture and civilisation of the Orient. The culture which had
+      grown up and developed on the banks of the Euphrates and Nile passes to
+      the West, and there assumes new features and is inspired with a new
+      spirit. The East perishes of age and decrepitude; its strength is outworn,
+      its power to initiate is past. The long ages through which it had toiled
+      to build up the fabric of civilisation are at an end; fresh races are
+      needed to carry on the work which it had achieved. Greece appears upon the
+      scene, and behind Greece looms the colossal figure of the Roman Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the past decade, excavation has gone on apace in Egypt and
+      Babylonia, and discoveries of a startling and unexpected nature have
+      followed in the wake of excavation. Ages that seemed prehistoric step
+      suddenly forth into the daydawn of history; personages whom a sceptical
+      criticism had consigned to the land of myth or fable are clothed once more
+      with flesh and blood, and events which had been long forgotten demand to
+      be recorded and described. In Babylonia, for example, the excavations at
+      Niffer and Tello have shown that Sargon of Akkad, so far from being a
+      creature of romance, was as much a historical monarch as Nebuchadrezzar
+      himself; monuments of his reign have been discovered, and we learn from
+      them that the empire he is said to have founded had a very real existence.
+      Contracts have been found dated in the years when he was occupied in
+      conquering Syria and Palestine, and a cadastral survey that was made for
+      the purposes of taxation mentions a Canaanite who had been appointed
+      "governor of the land of the Amorites." Even a postal service had already
+      been established along the high-roads which knit the several parts of the
+      empire together, and some of the clay seals which franked the letters are
+      now in the Museum of the Louvre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Susa, M. de Morgan, the late director of the Service of Antiquities in
+      Egypt, has been excavating below the remains of the Achremenian period,
+      among the ruins of the ancient Elamite capital. Here he has found
+      numberless historical inscriptions, besides a text in hieroglyphics which
+      may cast light on the origin of the cuneiform characters. But the most
+      interesting of his discoveries are two Babylonian monuments that were
+      carried off by Elamite conquerors from the cities of Babylonia. One of
+      them is a long inscription of about 1200 lines belonging to Manistusu, one
+      of the early Babylonian kings, whose name has been met with at Niffer; the
+      other is a monument of Naram-Sin, the Son of Sargon of Akkad, which it
+      seems was brought as booty to Susa by Simti-silkhak, the grandfather,
+      perhaps, of Eriaku or Arioch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Armenia, also, equally important inscriptions have been found by Belck
+      and Lehmann. More than two hundred new ones have been added to the list of
+      Vannic texts. It has been discovered from them that the kingdom of Biainas
+      or Van was founded by Ispuinis and Menuas, who rebuilt Yan itself and the
+      other cities which they had previously sacked and destroyed. The older
+      name of the country was Kumussu, and it may be that the language spoken in
+      it was allied to that of the Hittites, since a tablet in hieroglyphics of
+      the Hittite type has been unearthed at Toprak Kaleh. One of the
+      newly-found inscriptions of Sarduris III. shows that the name of the
+      Assyrian god, hitherto read Ramman or Rimmon, was really pronounced Hadad.
+      It describes a war of the Vannic king against Assur-nirari, son of
+      Hadad-nirari (<i>A-da-di-ni-ra-ri</i>) of Assyria, thus revealing not only
+      the true form of the Assyrian name, but also the parentage of the last
+      king of the older Assyrian dynasty. From another inscription, belonging to
+      Rusas II., the son of Argistis, we learn that campaigns were carried on
+      against the Hittites and the Moschi in the latter years of Sennacherib's
+      reign, and therefore only just before the irruption of the Kimmerians into
+      the northern regions of Western Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two German explorers have also discovered the site and even the ruins
+      of Muzazir, called Ardinis by the people of Van. They lie on the hill of
+      Shkenna, near Topsanâ, on the road between Kelishin and Sidek. In the
+      immediate neighbourhood the travellers succeeded in deciphering a monument
+      of Rusas I., partly in Vannic, partly in Assyrian, from which it appears
+      that the Vannic king did not, after all, commit suicide when the news of
+      the fall of Muzazir was brought to him, as is stated by Sargon, but that,
+      on the contrary, he "marched against the mountains of Assyria" and
+      restored the fallen city itself. Urzana, the King of Muzazir, had fled to
+      him for shelter, and after the departure of the Assyrian army he was sent
+      back by Rusas to his ancestral domains. The whole of the district in which
+      Muzazir was situated was termed Lulu, and was regarded as the southern
+      province of Ararat. In it was Mount Nizir, on whose summit the ark of the
+      Chaldsean Noah rested, and which is therefore rightly described in the
+      Book of Genesis as one of "the mountains of Ararat." It was probably the
+      Rowandiz of to-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The discoveries made by Drs. Belck and Lehmann, however, have not been
+      confined to Vannic texts. At the sources of the Tigris Dr. Lehmann has
+      found two Assyrian inscriptions of the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser IL, one
+      dated in his fifteenth and the other in his thirty-first year, and
+      relating to his campaigns against Aram of Ararat. He has further found
+      that the two inscriptions previously known to exist at the same spot, and
+      believed to belong to Tiglath-Ninip and Assur-nazir-pal, are really those
+      of Shalmaneser II., and refer to the war of his seventh year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is from Egypt that the most revolutionary revelations have come. At
+      Abydos and Kom el-Ahmar, opposite El-Kab, monuments have been disinterred
+      of the kings of the first and second dynasties, if not of even earlier
+      princes; while at Negada, north of Thebes, M. de Morgan has found a tomb
+      which seems to have been that of Menés himself. A new world of art has
+      been opened out before us; even the hieroglyphic system of writing is as
+      yet immature and strange. But the art is already advanced in many
+      respects; hard stone was cut into vases and bowls, and even into statuary
+      of considerable artistic excellence; glazed porcelain was already made,
+      and bronze, or rather copper, was fashioned into weapons and tools. The
+      writing material, as in Babylonia, was often clay, over which
+      seal-cylinders of a Babylonian pattern were rolled. Equally Babylonian are
+      the strange and composite animals engraved on some of the objects of this
+      early age, as well as the structure of the tombs, which were built, not of
+      stone, but of crude brick, with their external walls panelled and
+      pilastered. Professor Hommel's theory, which brings Egyptian civilisation
+      from Babylonia along with the ancestors of the historical Egyptians, has
+      thus been largely verified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the historical Egyptians were not the first inhabitants of the valley
+      of the Nile. Not only have palaeolithic implements been found on the
+      plateau of the desert; the relics of neolithic man have turned up in
+      extraordinary abundance. When the historical Egyptians arrived with their
+      copper weapons and their system of writing, the land was already occupied
+      by a pastoral people, who had attained a high level of neolithic culture.
+      Their implements of flint are the most beautiful and delicately finished
+      that have ever been discovered; they were able to carve vases of great
+      artistic excellence out of the hardest of stone, and their pottery was of
+      no mean quality. Long after the country had come into the possession of
+      the historical dynasties, and had even been united into a single monarchy,
+      their settlements continued to exist on the outskirts of the desert, and
+      the neolithic culture that distinguished them passed only gradually away.
+      By degrees, however, they intermingled with their conquerors from Asia,
+      and thus formed the Egyptian race of a later day. But they had already
+      made Egypt what it has been throughout the historical period. Under the
+      direction of the Asiatic immigrants and of the eugineering science whose
+      first home had been in the alluvial plain of Babylonia, they accomplished
+      those great works of irrigation which confined the Nile to its present
+      channel, which cleared away the jungle and the swamp that had formerly
+      bordered the desert, and turned them into fertile fields. Theirs were the
+      hands which carried out the plans of their more intelligent masters, and
+      cultivated the valley when once it had been reclaimed. The Egypt of
+      history was the creation of a twofold race: the Egyptians of the monuments
+      supplied the controlling and directing power; the Egyptians of the
+      neolithic graves bestowed upon it their labour and their skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The period treated of by Professor Maspero in these volumes is one for
+      which there is an abundance of materials sucli as do not exist for the
+      earlier portions of his history. The evidence of the monuments is
+      supplemented by that of the Hebrew and classical writers. But on this very
+      account it is in some respects more difficult to deal with, and the
+      conclusions arrived at by the historian are more open to question and
+      dispute. In some cases conflicting accounts are given of an event which
+      seem to rest on equally good authority; in other cases, there is a sudden
+      failure of materials just where the thread of the story becomes most
+      complicated. Of this the decline and fall of the Assyrian empire is a
+      prominent example; for our knowledge of it, we have still to depend
+      chiefly on the untrustworthy legends of the Greeks. Our views must be
+      coloured more or less by our estimate of Herodotos; those who, like
+      myself, place little or no confidence in what he tells us about Oriental
+      affairs will naturally form a very different idea of the death-struggle,
+      of Assyria from that formed by writers who still see in him the Father of
+      Oriental History.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even where the native monuments have come to our aid, they have not
+      unfrequently introduced difficulties and doubts where none seemed to exist
+      before, and have made the task of the critical historian harder than ever.
+      Cyrus and his forefathers, for instance, turn out to have been kings of
+      Anzan, and not of Persia, thus explaining why it is that the Neo-Susian
+      language appears by the side of the Persian and the Babylonian as one of
+      the three official languages of the Persian empire; but we still have to
+      learn what was the relation of Anzan to Persia on the one hand, and to
+      Susa on the other, and when it was that Cyrus of Anzan became also King of
+      Persia. In the Annalistic Tablet, he is called "King of Persia" for the
+      first time in the ninth year of Nabonidos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Similar questions arise as to the position and nationality of Astyages. He
+      is called in the inscriptions, not a Mede, but a Manda&mdash;a name which,
+      as I showed many years ago, meant for the Babylonian a "barbarian" of
+      Kurdistan. I have myself little doubt that the Manda over whom Astyages
+      ruled were the Scythians of classical tradition, who, as may be gathered
+      from a text published by Mr. Strong, had occupied the ancient kingdom of
+      Ellipi. It is even possible that in the Madyes of Herodotos, we have a
+      reminiscence of the Manda of the cuneiform inscriptions. That the Greek
+      writers should have confounded the Madâ or Medes with the Manda or
+      Barbarians is not surprising; we find even Berossos describing one of the
+      early dynasties of Babylonia as "Median" where Manda, and not Madâ, must
+      plainly be meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These and similar problems, however, will doubtless be cleared up by the
+      progress of excavation and research. Perhaps M. de Morgan's excavations at
+      Susa may throw some light on them, but it is to the work of the German
+      expedition, which has recently begun the systematic exploration of the
+      site of Babylon, that we must chiefly look for help. The Babylon of
+      Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar rose on the ruins of Nineveh, and the
+      story of downfall of the Assyrian empire must still be lying buried under
+      its mounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. H. SAYCE. <a name="linklink2H_4_0002" id="linklink2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In completing the translation of this great work, I have to thank
+      Professor Maspero for kindly permitting me to appeal to him on various
+      questions which arose while preparing the translation. His patience and
+      courtesy have alike been unfailing in every matter submitted for his
+      decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am indebted to Miss Bradbury for kindly supplying, in the midst of much
+      other literary work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, the translation of the
+      chapter on the gods, and also of the earlier parts of some of the first
+      chapters. She has, moreover, helped me in my own share of the work with
+      many suggestions and hints, which her intimate connection with the late
+      Miss Amelia B. Edwards fully qualified her to give.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As in the original there is a lack of uniformity in the transcription and
+      accentuation of Arabic names, I have ventured to alter them in several
+      cases to the form most familiar to English readers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spelling of the ancient Egyptian words has, at Professor Maspero's
+      request, been retained throughout, with the exception that the French <i>ou</i>
+      has been invariably represented by û, e.g. Khnoumou by Khnûmû.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By an act of international courtesy, the director of the <i>Imprimerie
+      Nationale</i> has allowed the beautifully cut hieroglyphic and cuneiform
+      type used in the original to be employed in the English edition, and I
+      take advantage of this opportunity to express to him our thanks and
+      appreciation of his graceful act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. L. McClure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkillust" id="linklinkillust"></a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>List of Illustrations</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0007"> 003.jpg Chapter One </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0008"> 006.jpg The Mouth of The Nile Previous to
+        The Formation Of the Delta. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0009"> 009.jpg A Line of Laden Camels Emerges
+        from A Hollow </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0010"> 010.jpg </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0011"> 011.jpg Part of Gebel Shêkh HerÎdi </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0012"> 012.jpg The Hill of Kasr Es-sayyad </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0013"> 014.jpg Entrance to the First Cataract
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0014"> 015.jpg Entrance to Nubia </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0015"> 016.jpg League Beyond League, the Hills
+        Stretch on </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0016"> 018.jpg The Entrance to The First
+        Cataract </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0017"> 020.jpg Entrance to the Second Catakact
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0018"> 022.jpg An Attempt to Represent the
+        Egyptian Universe </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0019"> 023.jpg Footnotes With Graphics </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0020"> 027.jpg South Africa and the Sources of
+        The Nile </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0021"> 031.jpg During the Inundation </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0022"> 034.jpg Assiout </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0023"> 036.jpg Entrance of the MudÎriyeh Of
+        AsyÛt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0024"> 037.jpg Forest of Date Palms </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0025"> 040.jpg Acacias at the Entrance to a
+        Garden Outside EkhmÎm </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0026"> 041.jpg She-ass and Her Foal </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0027"> 042.jpg The UrÆus of Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0028"> 044.jpg The Ibis of Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0029"> 045.jpg The Mormyrus Oxyrhynchus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0030"> 046.jpg Ahaka </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0031"> 047.jpg Two Fishermen Carrying a Latus
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0032"> 048.jpg The Nile God </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0033"> 049.jpg The Shrine of The Nile at Biggeh
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0034"> 051.jpg Nile Gods from the Temple of Seti
+        I. At Abydos </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0035"> 055.jpg Libyan Mountains </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0036"> 059.jpg The Noble Type of Egyptian </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0037"> 060.jpg Head of a Tileban Mummy </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkwrappings"> 060b.jpg Wrappings from a Mummy (Oil
+        painting) </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0038"> 062.jpg A Fellah Woman With the Features
+        of an Ancient King </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0039"> 066.jpg Negro Prisoners Wearing the
+        Panther's Skin As A Loin-cloth. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0040"> 068.jpg Notable Wearing the Large Cloak;
+        Priest Wearing Panther's Skin </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0041"> 070.jpg A Dignitary Wrapped in his Large
+        Cloak </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0042"> 072.jpg Costume of Egyptian Woman,
+        Spinning </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0043"> 073.jpg Man Wearing Wig and Necklaces
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0044"> 074.jpg The Boomerang and Fighting Bow
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0045"> 075.jpg Votive Axe </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0046"> 076.jpg King Holding the Baton </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0047"> 077.jpg Fishing in the Marshes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0048"> 078.jpg Hunting in the Marshes:
+        Encountering a Hippopotamus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0049"> 079.jpg Hunting in the Desert: Bull,
+        Lion, and Oryx </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0050"> 080.jpg Catching Animals With the Bola
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0051"> 082.jpg A Swineherd and his Pigs </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0052"> 084.jpg The Egyptian Lotus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0053"> 086.jpg The Egyptian Hoe </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0054"> 087.jpg Ploughing </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0055"> 089.jpg An Egyptian Saki (well)
+        Procuring Water for Irrigation </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0056"> 091.jpg Boatmen Fighting on a Canal
+        Communicating With The Nile </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0057"> 092.jpg A Great Egyptian Lord, Ti, and
+        his Wife </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0058"> 094.jpg Nomes of Middle Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0059"> 096.jpg Nomes of Upper Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkimage-0060"> 099.jpg Nomes of Lower Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0005"> 105.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0006"> 106.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0007"> 107.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0008"> 108.jpg the Goddess NapkÎt, StapÎt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0009"> 110.jpg Some Fabulous Beasts of the
+        Egyptian Desert </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0010"> 113.jpb Some Fabulous Beasts of the
+        Egyptian Desert </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0011"> 115.jpg NÛÎt the Starry One </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0012"> 116.jpg Goose-god Facing The
+        Cat-goddess, The Lady Of Heaven </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0013"> 117.jpg the Cow HÂthor, The Lady Of
+        Heaven </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0014"> 118.jpg Twelve Stages in The Life of The
+        Sun and Its Twelve Forms </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0015"> 123.jpg Conception of the Principal
+        Constellations of the Northern Sky </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0016"> 124.jpg Lunar Bark, Self-propelled,
+        Under The Protection of the Two Eyes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0017"> 125.jpg The Haunch, and The Female
+        Hippopotamus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0018"> 127.jpg Okion, Sothis, and Two
+        Hokus-planets </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0019"> 128.jpg Sahu-orion. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0020"> 129.jpg Orion and the Cow Sothis
+        Separated by The Sparrow-hawk </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0021"> 131.jpg Amon-rÂ, As MÎnÛ of Coptos,
+        Invested With His Emblems </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0022"> 133.jpg AnhÛri </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0023"> 134.jpg The Hawk-headed Hokus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0024"> 136.jpg The Hoeus of HibonÛ, on The Back
+        Of The Gazelle </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0025"> 138.jpg The Cat-headed Bast </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0026"> 139.jpg Two Images </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0027"> 141.jpg Nit of SaÏs </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0028"> 142.jpg ImhotpÛ </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0029"> 143.jpg NofirtÛmÛ </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0030"> 145.jpg Horus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0031"> 147.jp The Black Shadow Coming out Into
+        The Sunlight. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0032"> 148.jpg August Souls of Osiris and Horus
+        in Adoration </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0033"> 150.jpg The King After his Coronation
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0034"> 161.jpg Sacrificing to the Dead in The
+        Tomb Chapel </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0035"> 164.jpg Phtah As a Mummy </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0036"> 167.jpg The Sacred Bull </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0037"> 169.jpg Open-air Offerings to the
+        Serpent </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0038"> 171.jpg The Peasant's Offering to The
+        Sycamore </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0039"> 173.jpg Sacrifice of The Bull.&mdash;Priest
+        Lassoing the Victim </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0040"> 180.jpg Shu Uplifting the Sky </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0041"> 182.jpg ShÛ Forcibly Separating SibÛ and
+        NÛÎt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0042"> 183.jpg The DidÛ of Osiris </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0043"> 183b.jpg The DidÛ Dressed </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0044"> 185.jpg Osiris-onnophris, Whip and Crook
+        in Hand </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0045"> 187.jpg Isis, Wearing the Cow-horn
+        Head-dress </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0046"> 189.jpg Nephthys, As a Wailing Woman,
+        and the God SÎt, Fighting </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0047"> 192.jpg Horus, the Avenger of his
+        Father, and Anubis ÛapÔaÎtÛ </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0048"> 191.jpg The Sun Springing from an
+        Opening Lotus-flower </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0049"> 194.jpg The Plain and Mounds of
+        Heliopolis Fifty Years Ago </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0050"> 196.jpg HakmakhÛÎti-hakmakhis, the Great
+        God </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0051"> 198.jpg Khopri, in his Bark </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0052"> 201.jpg The Twin Lions, ShÛ and TafnÛÎt
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0053"> 204.jpg The Four Funerary Genii,
+        KhabsonÛf, TiÛmaÛtf, Hapi, and AmsÎt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0054"> 208.jpg The Ibis Thot, and The
+        Cynocephalous Thot </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0055"> 212.jpg The Hermopolitan Ogdoad </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0056"> 213.jpg Amon </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0057"> 215.jpg The Theban Ennead </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkBimage-0058"> 218.jpg Tailpiece </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0005"> 219.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0006"> 220.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0007"> 221.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0008"> 224.jpg KhnÛmÛ Modelling Man Upon a
+        Potter's Table. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0009"> 230.jpg At the First Hour of The Day The
+        Sun Embarks </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0010"> 236.jpg SokhÎt, the Lioness-headed. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0011"> 242.jpg Cow, Sustained Above the Earth
+        by ShÛ and The Support </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0012"> 244.jpg Three of the Divine Amulets
+        Preserved </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0013"> 250.jpg the Osmian Triad Hokus. Osiris,
+        Isis. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0014"> 253.jpg Isis-hathor, Cow-headed. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0015"> 256.jpg The Osirian Mummy Prepared </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0016"> 257.jpg The Reception Op The Mummy by
+        Anubis </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0017"> 259.jpg Osikis in Hades, Accompanied by
+        Isis, AmentÎt, And Nephthys </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0018"> 260.jpg The Deceased Climbing The Slope
+        of The Mountain Of the West </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0019"> 261.jpg The Mummy of SÛtimosÛ Clasping
+        his Soul Into His Arms. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0020"> 262.jpg Cynocephali Drawing the Net in
+        Which Souls Are Caught. 1 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0021"> 264.jpg Deceased and his Wife Seated in
+        Front of The Sycamore of NÛÎt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0022"> 266.jpg Deceased Piercing a Serpent With
+        his Lance. 2 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0023"> 267.jpg Good Cow HÂthor Carrying The
+        Dead Man and His Soul. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0024"> 268.jpg Anubis and Thot Weighing the
+        Heart of The Deceased </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0025"> 269.jpg The Deceased is Brought Before
+        The Shrine Of Osiris the Judge </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkani"> 272B.jpg The Occupations of Ani in the Elysian
+        Fields </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0026"> 275.jpg The Manes Tilling The Ground and
+        Reaping in Fields </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0027"> 276.jpg UashbÎti. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0028"> 277.jpg The Dead Man and his Wife
+        Playing at Draughts In The Pavilion. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0029"> 278.jpg The Dead Man Sailing in his Bark
+        Along The Canals </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0030"> 279.jpg Boat of a Funerary Fleet on Its
+        Way to Abydos. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0031"> 280.jpg The Solar Bark Into Which The
+        Dead Man is About To Enter. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0032"> 282.jpg The Solar Bark Passing Into The
+        Mountain of The West. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0033"> 284.jpg The Soul Descending The
+        Sepulchral Shaft </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0034"> 285.jpg The Soul on The Edge of The
+        Funeral Couch </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0035"> 287.jpg The Soul Going Forth Into Its
+        Garden by Day </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkwars"> 289.jpg An Incident in the Wars of Haratheus
+        and Sit </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0037"> 293.jpg One of the Astronomical Tables
+        Of The Tomb Of Ramses IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0038"> 304.jpg The Gods Fighting Foe The
+        Magician Who Has Invoked Them. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0039"> 306.jpg The Child Horus on The
+        Crocodiles. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0040"> 310.jpg A Dead Man Receiving the Breath
+        of Life. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0041"> 315.jpg Th0t Records the Years of The
+        Life Of Ramses. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0042"> 316.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0043"> 317.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0044"> 318.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0045"> 319.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0046"> 325.jpg Table of the Kings </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0047"> 332.jpg Plan of the Ruins Of Abydos,
+        Made by Mariette In 1865 and 1875. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0048"> 343.jpg Necklace, Bearing Name of Menes.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0049"> 350.jpg SatÎt Presents the Pharaoh
+        AmenÔthes III. To KhnÔmÛ. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0050"> 351.jpg AnÛkit </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0051"> 353.jpg The Step Pyramid of Sauara. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0052"> 356. Jpg One of the Chambers Of The
+        Step-pyramid </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linklinkCimage-0053"> 357.jpg Tailpiece </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="001 (122K)" src="images/001.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="002 (81K)" src="images/002.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklink2HCH0001" id="linklink2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.&mdash;THE NILE AND EGYPT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i> THE RIVER AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF THE
+      COUNTRY&mdash;THE OLDEST INHABITANTS OF THE LAND&mdash;THE FIRST POLITICAL
+      ORGANIZATION OF THE VALLEY. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The Delta: its gradual formation, its structure, its canals&mdash;The
+      valley of Egypt&mdash;The two arms of the river&mdash;The Eastern Nile&mdash;The
+      appearance of its hanks&mdash;The hills&mdash;The gorge of Gehel Silsileh&mdash;The
+      cataracts: the falls of Aswan&mdash;Nubia&mdash;The rapids of Wady Halfah&mdash;The
+      Takazze&mdash;The Blue Nile and the White Nile. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The sources of the Nile&mdash;The Egyptian cosmography&mdash;The four
+      pillars and the four upholding mountains&mdash;The celestial Nile the
+      source of the terrestial Nile&mdash;the Southern Sea and the islands of
+      Spirits&mdash;The tears of Isis&mdash;The rise of the Nile&mdash;The Green
+      Nile and the Bed Nile&mdash;The opening of the dykes&mdash;-The fall of
+      the Nile&mdash;The river at its lowest ebb. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The alluvial deposits and the effects of the inundation upon the soil
+      of Egypt&mdash;Paucity of the flora: aquatic plants, the papyrus and the
+      lotus; the sycamore and the date-palm, the acacias, the dôm-palms&mdash;The
+      fauna: the domestic and wild animals; serpents, the urstus; the
+      hippopotamus and the crocodile; birds; fish, the fahaka. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The Nile god: his form and its varieties&mdash;The goddess Mirit&mdash;The
+      supposed sources of the Nile at Elephantine&mdash;The festivals of Gebel
+      Silsileh-Hymn to the Nile from papyri m the British Museum. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The names of the Nile and Egypt: Bomitu and Qimit&mdash;Antiquity of
+      the Egyptianpeople&mdash;Their first horizon&mdash;The hypothesis of their
+      Asiatic origin&mdash;The probability of their African origin&mdash;The
+      language and its Semitic affinities&mdash;The race and its principal
+      types. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The primitive civilization of Egypt&mdash;Its survival into historic
+      times&mdash;The women of Amon&mdash;Marriage&mdash;Rights of women and
+      children&mdash;Houses&mdash;Furniture&mdash;Dress&mdash;Jewels&mdash;Wooden
+      and metal arms&mdash;Primitive life-Fishing and hunting&mdash;The lasso
+      and "bolas"&mdash;The domestication of animals&mdash;Plants used for food&mdash;The
+      lotus&mdash;Cereals&mdash;The hoe and the plough. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The conquest of the valley&mdash;Dykes&mdash;Basins&mdash;Irrigation&mdash;The
+      princes&mdash;The nomes&mdash;The first local principalities&mdash;Late
+      organization of the Delta&mdash;Character of its inhabitants&mdash;Gradual
+      division of the principalities and changes of then areas&mdash;The god of
+      the city. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0007" id="linklinkimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/003.jpg" width="100%" alt="003.jpg Chapter One " />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE NILE AND EGYPT
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <i>The river and its influence upon the formation of the country&mdash;The
+      oldest inhabitants of the valley and its first political organization.</i>
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The same expression has been attributed to Hecatseus of
+     Miletus. It has often been observed that this phrase seems
+     Egyptian   on  the face of it, and it certainly recalls such
+     forms of expression as the following, taken from a formula
+     frequently found on funerary "All things created by heaven,
+     given by earth, <i>brought by the Nile&mdash;from its mysterious
+     sources.</i>" Nevertheless, up to the present time, the
+     hieroglyphic texts have yielded nothing altogether
+     corresponding to the exact terms of the Greek historians&mdash;
+     <i>gift</i> of the Nile, or its natural <i>product</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A long low, level shore, scarcely rising above the sea, a chain of vaguely
+      defined and ever-shifting lakes and marshes, then the triangular plain
+      beyond, whose apex is thrust thirty leagues into the land&mdash;this, the
+      Delta of Egypt, has gradually been acquired from the sea, and is as it
+      were the gift of the Nile. The Mediterranean once reached to the foot of
+      the sandy plateau on which stand the Pyramids, and formed a wide gulf
+      where now stretches plain beyond plain of the Delta. The last undulations
+      of the Arabian hills, from Gebel Mokattam to Gebel Geneffeh, were its
+      boundaries on the east, while a sinuous and shallow channel running
+      between Africa and Asia united the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Westward,
+      the littoral followed closely the contour of the Libyan plateau; but a
+      long limestone spur broke away from it at about 31° N., and terminated in
+      Cape Abûkîr. The alluvial deposits first tilled up the depths of the bay,
+      and then, under the influence of the currents which swept along its
+      eastern coasts, accumulated behind that rampart of sand-hills whose
+      remains are still to be seen near Benha. Thus was formed a miniature
+      Delta, whose structure pretty accurately corresponded with that of the
+      great Delta of to-day. Here the Nile divided into three divergent streams,
+      roughly coinciding with the southern courses of the Rosetta and Damietta
+      branches, and with the modern canal of Abu Meneggeh. The ceaseless
+      accumulation of mud brought down by the river soon overpassed the first
+      limits, and steadily encroached upon the sea until it was carried beyond
+      the shelter furnished by Cape Abûkîr. Thence it was gathered into the
+      great littoral current flowing from Africa to Asia, and formed an
+      incurvated coast-line ending in the headland of Casios, on the Syrian
+      frontier. From that time Egypt made no further increase towards the north,
+      and her coast remains practically such as it was thousands of years
+      ago:[*] the interior alone has suffered change, having been dried up,
+      hardened, and gradually raised. Its inhabitants thought they could measure
+      the exact length of time in which this work of creation had been
+      accomplished. According to the Egyptians, Menés, the first of their mortal
+      kings, had found, so they said, the valley under water. The sea came in
+      almost as far as the Fayûm, and, excepting the province of Thebes, the
+      whole country was a pestilential swamp. Hence, the necessary period for
+      the physical formation of Egypt would cover some centuries after Menés.
+      This is no longer considered a sufficient length of time, and some modern
+      geologists declare that the Nile must have worked at the formation of its
+      own estuary for at least seventy-four thousand years.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Élie de Beaumont, "The great distinction of the Nile Delta
+     lies in the almost uniform persistence of its coast-line....
+     The present sea-coast of Egypt is little altered from that
+     of three thousand years  ago."    The latest observations
+     prove it to be sinking and shrinking near Alexandria to rise
+     in the neighbourhood of Port Said.
+
+     ** Others, as for example Schweinfurth, are  more  moderate
+     in their views, and think "that it must have taken about
+     twenty thousand years for that alluvial deposit which now
+     forms  the   arable soil of Egypt to have attained to its
+     present depth and fertility."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This figure is certainly exaggerated, for the alluvium would gain on the
+      shallows of the ancient gulf far more rapidly than it gains upon the
+      depths of the Mediterranean. But even though we reduce the period, we must
+      still admit that the Egyptians little suspected the true age of their
+      country. Not only did the Delta long precede the coming of Menés, but its
+      plan was entirely completed before the first arrival of the Egyptians. The
+      Greeks, full of the mysterious virtues which they attributed to numbers,
+      discovered that there were seven principal branches, and seven mouths of
+      the Nile, and that, as compared with these, the rest were but false
+      mouths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0008" id="linklinkimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/006.jpg" width="100%"
+      title="The Mouth of The Nile Previous to The Formation Of the Delta."
+      alt="006.jpg the Mouth of The Nile Previous to The Formation Of the Delta. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, there were only three chief outlets. The Canopic
+      branch flowed westward, and fell into the Mediterranean near Cape Abûkîr,
+      at the western extremity of the arc described by the coast-line. The
+      Pelusiac branch followed the length of the Arabian chain, and flowed forth
+      at the other extremity; and the Sebennytic stream almost bisected the
+      triangle contained between the Canopic and Pelusiac channels. Two thousand
+      years ago, these branches separated from the main river at the city of
+      Cerkasoros, nearly four miles north of the site where Cairo now stands.
+      But after the Pelusiac branch had ceased to exist, the fork of the river
+      gradually wore away the land from age to age, and is now some nine miles
+      lower down.[*] These three great waterways are united by a network of
+      artificial rivers and canals, and by ditches&mdash;some natural, others
+      dug by the hand of man, but all ceaselessly shifting. They silt up, close,
+      open again, replace each other, and ramify in innumerable branches over
+      the surface of the soil, spreading life and fertility on all sides. As the
+      land rises towards the south, this web contracts and is less confused,
+      while black mould and cultivation alike dwindle, and the fawn-coloured
+      line of the desert comes into sight. The Libyan and Arabian hills appear
+      above the plain, draw nearer to each other, and gradually shut in the
+      horizon until it seems as though they would unite. And there the Delta
+      ends, and Egypt proper has begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only a strip of vegetable mould stretching north and south between
+      regions of drought and desolation, a prolonged oasis on the banks of the
+      river, made by the Nile, and sustained by the Nile. The whole length of
+      the land is shut in between two ranges of hills, roughly parallel at a
+      mean distance of about twelve miles.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * By the end of the Byzantine period, the fork of the river
+     lay at some distance south of Shetnûfi, the present
+     Shatanûf, which is the spot where it now is. The Arab
+     geographers call the head of the Delta Batn-el-Bagaraji, the
+     Cow's Belly. Ampère, in his Voyage en Egypte et en Nubie, p.
+     120, says,&mdash;"May it not be that this name, denoting the place
+     where the most fertile part of Egypt begins, is a
+     reminiscence of the Cow Goddess, of Isis, the symbol of
+     fecundity, and the personification of Egypt?"
+
+     **De Rozière estimated the mean breadth as being only a
+     little over nine miles.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      During the earlier ages, the river filled all this intermediate space, and
+      the sides of the hills, polished, worn, blackened to their very summits,
+      still bear unmistakable traces of its action. Wasted, and shrunken within
+      the deeps of its ancient bed, the stream now makes a way through its own
+      thick deposits of mud. The bulk of its waters keeps to the east, and
+      constitutes the true Nile, the "Great River" of the hieroglyphic
+      inscriptions. A second arm flows close to the Libyan desert, here and
+      there formed into canals, elsewhere left to follow its own course. From
+      the head of the Delta to the village of Demt it is called the Bahr-Yûsuf;
+      beyond Derût&mdash;up to Gebel Silsileh&mdash;it is the Ibrâhimîyeh, the
+      Sohâgîyeh, the Raiân. But the ancient names are unknown to us. This
+      Western Nile dries up in winter throughout all its upper courses: where it
+      continues to flow, it is by scanty accessions from the main Nile. It also
+      divides north of Henassieh, and by the gorge of Illahûn sends out a branch
+      which passes beyond the hills into the basin of the Fayûrn. The true Nile,
+      the Eastern Nile, is less a river than a sinuous lake encumbered with
+      islets and sandbanks, and its navigable channel winds capriciously between
+      them, flowing with a strong and steady current below the steep, black
+      banks cut sheer through the alluvial earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0009" id="linklinkimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/009.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="009.jpg a Line of Laden Camels Emerges from A Hollow Of The Undulating Road. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     Insinger, taken in 1884.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There are light groves of the date-palm, groups of acacia trees and
+      sycamores, square patches of barley or of wheat, fields of beans or of
+      bersîm,[*] and here and there a long bank of sand which the least breeze
+      raises into whirling clouds. And over all there broods a great silence,
+      scarcely broken by the cry of birds, or the song of rowers in a passing
+      boat.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Bersîm is a kind of trefoil, the <i>Trifolium Alexandrinum</i>
+     of LINNÆUS. It is very common in Egypt, and the only plant
+     of the kind generally cultivated for fodder.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Something of human life may stir on the banks, but it is softened into
+      poetry by distance. A half-veiled woman, bearing a bundle of herbs upon
+      her head, is driving her goats before her. An irregular line of asses or
+      of laden camels emerges from one hollow of the undulating road only to
+      disappear within another. A group of peasants, crouched upon the shore, in
+      the ancient posture of knees to chin, patiently awaits the return of the
+      ferry-boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0010" id="linklinkimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/010.jpg" width="100%" alt="010.jpg " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     Insinger, taken in 1886.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A dainty village looks forth smiling from beneath its palm trees. Near at
+      hand it is all naked filth and ugliness: a cluster of low grey huts built
+      of mud and laths; two or three taller houses, whitewashed; an enclosed
+      square shaded by sycamores; a few old men, each seated peacefully at his
+      own door; a confusion of fowls, children, goats, and sheep; half a dozen
+      boats made fast ashore. But, as we pass on, the wretchedness all fades
+      away; meanness of detail is lost in light, and long before it disappears
+      at a bend of the river, the village is again clothed with gaiety and
+      serene beauty. Day by day, the landscape repeats itself. The same groups
+      of trees alternate with the same fields, growing green or dusty in the
+      sunlight according to the season of the year. With the same measured flow,
+      the Nile winds beneath its steep banks and about its scattered islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0011" id="linklinkimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/011.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="011.jpg Part of Gebel Shêkh HerÎdi. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1882.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One village succeeds another, each alike smiling and sordid under its
+      crown of foliage. The terraces of the Libyan hills, away beyond the
+      Western Nile, scarcely rise above the horizon, and lie like a white edging
+      between the green of the plain and the blue of the sky. The Arabian hills
+      do not form one unbroken line, but a series of mountain masses with their
+      spurs, now approaching the river, and now withdrawing to the desert at
+      almost regular intervals. At the entrance to the valley, rise Gebel
+      Mokattam and Gebel el-Ahmar. Gebel Hemûr-Shemûl and Gebel Shêkh Embârak
+      next stretch in echelon from north to south, and are succeeded by Gebel
+      et-Ter, where, according to an old legend, all the birds of the world are
+      annually assembled.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In Makrizi's <i>Description of Egypt</i> we read: "Every year,
+     upon a certain day, all the herons (Boukîr, <i>Ardea bubulcus</i>
+     of Cuvier) assemble at this mountain. One after another,
+     each puts his beak into a cleft of the hill until the cleft
+     closes upon one of them. And then forthwith all the others
+     fly away But the bird which has been caught struggles until
+     he dies, and there his body remains until it has fallen into
+     dust." The same tale is told by other Arab writers, of which
+     a list may be seen in Etienne Quatremère, <i>Mémoires
+     historiques et géographiques sur l'Egypte et quelques
+     contrées voisines</i>, vol. i. pp. 31-33. It faintly recalls
+     that ancient tradition of the Cleft at Abydos, whereby souls
+     must pass, as human-headed birds, in order to reach the
+     other world.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0012" id="linklinkimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/012.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="12.jpg the Hill of Kasr Es-sayyad. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     insinger, taken in 1882.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Then follows Gebel Abûfêda, dreaded by the sailors for its sudden gusts.
+      Limestone predominates throughout, white or yellowish, broken by veins of
+      alabaster, or of red and grey sandstones. Its horizontal strata are so
+      symmetrically laid one above another as to seem more like the walls of a
+      town than the side of a mountain. But time has often dismantled their
+      summits and loosened their foundations. Man has broken into their façades
+      to cut his quarries and his tombs; while the current is secretly
+      undermining the base, wherein it has made many a breach. As soon as any
+      margin of mud has collected between cliffs and river, halfah and wild
+      plants take hold upon it, and date-palms grow there&mdash;whence their
+      seed, no one knows. Presently a hamlet rises at the mouth of the ravine,
+      among clusters of trees and fields in miniature. Beyond Siût, the light
+      becomes more glowing, the air drier and more vibrating, and the green of
+      cultivation loses its brightness. The angular outline of the dom-palni
+      mingles more and more with that of the common palm and of the heavy
+      sycamore, and the castor-oil plant increasingly abounds. But all these
+      changes come about so gradually that they are effected before we notice
+      them. The plain continues to contract. At Thebes it is still ten miles
+      wide; at the gorge of Gebelên it has almost disappeared, and at Gebel
+      Silsileh it has completely vanished. There, it was crossed by a natural
+      dyke of sandstone, through which the waters have with difficulty scooped
+      for themselves a passage. From this point, Egypt is nothing but the bed of
+      the Nile lying between two escarpments of naked rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further on the cultivable land reappears, but narrowed, and changed almost
+      beyond recognition. Hills, hewn out of solid sandstone, succeed each other
+      at distances of about two miles, low, crushed, sombre, and formless.
+      Presently a forest of palm trees, the last on that side, announces Aswan
+      and Nubia. Five banks of granite, ranged in lines between latitude 24° and
+      18° N., cross Nubia from east to west, and from north-east to south-west,
+      like so many ramparts thrown up between the Mediterranean and the heart of
+      Africa. The Nile has attacked them from behind, and made its way over them
+      one after another in rapids which have been glorified by the name of
+      cataracts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0013" id="linklinkimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/014.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="014.jpg Entrance to the First Cataract. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 View taken from the hills opposite Elephantine, by
+     Insinger, in 1884.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Classic writers were pleased to describe the river as hurled into the
+      gulfs of Syne with so great a roar that the people of the neighbourhood
+      were deafened by it. Even a colony of Persians, sent thither by Cambyses,
+      could not bear the noise of the falls, and went forth to seek a quieter
+      situation. The first cataract is a kind of sloping and sinuous passage six
+      and a quarter miles in length, descending from the island of Philae to the
+      port of Aswan, the aspect of its approach relieved and brightened by the
+      ever green groves of Elephantine. Beyond Elephantine are cliffs and sandy
+      beaches, chains of blackened "roches moutonnées" marking out the beds of
+      the currents, and fantastic reefs, sometimes bare and sometimes veiled by
+      long grasses and climbing plants, in which thousands of birds have made
+      their nests. There are islets too, occasionally large enough to have once
+      supported something of a population, such as Amerade, Salûg, Sehêl. The
+      granite threshold of Nubia, is broken beyond Sehêl, but its débris, massed
+      m disorder against the right bank, still seem to dispute the passage of
+      the waters, dashing turbulently and roaring as they flow along through
+      tortuous channels, where every streamlet is broken up into small cascades,
+      ihe channel running by the left bank is always navigable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0014" id="linklinkimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/015.jpg" width="100%" alt="015.jpg Entrance to Nubia. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      During the inundation, the rocks and sandbanks of the right side are
+      completely under water, and their presence is only betrayed by eddies. But
+      on the river's reaching its lowest point a fall of some six feet is
+      established, and there big boats, hugging the shore, are hauled up by
+      means of ropes, or easily drift down with the current.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0015" id="linklinkimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/016.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="016.jpg League Beyond League, the Hills Stketch on in Low Ignoble Outline. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1881.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      All kinds of granite are found together in this corner of Africa. There
+      are the pink and red Syenites, porphyritic granite, yellow granite, grey
+      granite, both black granite and white, and granites veined with black and
+      veined with white. As soon as these disappear behind us, various
+      sandstones begin to crop up, allied to the coarsest <i>calcaire grossier</i>.
+      The hill bristle with small split blocks, with peaks half overturned, with
+      rough and denuded mounds. League beyond league, they stretch in low
+      ignoble outline. Here and there a valley opens sharply into the desert,
+      revealing an infinite perspective of summits and escarpments in echelon
+      one behind another to the furthest plane of the horizon, like motionless
+      caravans. The now confined river rushes on with a low, deep murmur,
+      accompanied night and day by the croaking of frogs and the rhythmic creak
+      of the sâkîeh.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The sâkîeh is made of a notch-wheel fixed vertically on a
+     horizontal axle, and is actuated by various cog-wheels set
+     in continuous motion by oxen or asses.    A long chain of
+     earthenware vessels brings up the water either from the
+     river itself, or from some little branch  canal, and
+     empties it into a system of troughs and reservoirs.
+     Thence, it flows forth to be distributed over all the
+     neighbouring land.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Jetties of rough stone-work, made in unknown times by an unknown people,
+      run out like breakwaters into midstream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0016" id="linklinkimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/017.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="018.jpg the Entrance to The First Cataract " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      From time to time waves of sand are borne over, and drown the narrow
+      fields of durra and of barley. Scraps of close, aromatic pasturage,
+      acacias, date-palms, and dôm-palms, together with a few shrivelled
+      sycamores, are scattered along both banks. The ruins of a crumbling pylon
+      mark the site of some ancient city, and, overhanging the water, is a
+      vertical wall of rock honeycombed with tombs. Amid these relics of another
+      age, miserable huts, scattered hamlets, a town or two surrounded with
+      little gardens are the only evidence that there is yet life in Nubia.
+      South of Wâdy Halfah, the second granite bank is broken through, and the
+      second cataract spreads its rapids over a length of four leagues: the
+      archipelago numbers more than 350 islets, of which some sixty have houses
+      upon them and yield harvests to their inhabitants. The main
+      characteristics of the first two cataracts are repeated with slight
+      variations in the cases of the three which follow,&mdash;at Hannek, at
+      Guerendid, and El-Hu-mar. It is Egypt still, but a joyless Egypt bereft of
+      its brightness: impoverished, disfigured, and almost desolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0017" id="linklinkimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/020.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="020.jpg Entrance to the Second Catakact. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 View taken from the top of the rocks of Abusîr, after a
+     photograph by Insinger, in 1881.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There is the same double wall of hills, now closely confining the valley,
+      and again withdrawing from each other as though to flee into the desert.
+      Everywhere are moving sheets of sand, steep black banks with their narrow
+      strips of cultivation, villages which are scarcely visible on account of
+      the lowness of their huts sycamore ceases at Gebel-Barkal, date-palms
+      become fewer and finally disappear. The Nile alone has not changed. And it
+      was at Philse, so it is at Berber. Here, however, on the right bank, 600
+      leagues from the sea, is its first affluent, the Takazze, which
+      intermittently brings to it the waters of Northern Ethiopia. At Khartum,
+      the single channel in which the river flowed divides; and two other
+      streams are opened up in a southerly direction, each of them apparently
+      equal in volume to the main stream. Which is the true Nile? Is it the Blue
+      Nile, which seems to come down from the distant mountains? Or is it the
+      White Nile, which has traversed the immense plains of equatorial Africa.
+      The old Egyptians never knew. The river kept the secret of its source from
+      them as obstinately as it withheld it from us until a few years ago.
+      Vainly did their victorious armies follow the Nile for months together as
+      they pursued the tribes who dwelt upon its banks, only to find it as wide,
+      as full, as irresistible in its progress as ever. It was a fresh-water
+      sea, and sea&mdash;<i>iaûmâ, iôma</i>&mdash;was the name by which they
+      called it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptians therefore never sought its source. They imagined the whole
+      universe to be a large box, nearly rectangular in form, whose greatest
+      diameter was from south to north, and its least from east to west. The
+      earth, with its alternate continents and seas, formed the bottom of the
+      box; it was a narrow, oblong, and slightly concave floor, with Egypt in
+      its centre. The sky stretched over it like an iron ceiling, flat according
+      to some, vaulted according to others. Its earthward face was capriciously
+      sprinkled with lamps hung from strong cables, and which, extinguished or
+      unperceived by day, were lighted, or became visible to our eyes, at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0018" id="linklinkimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/022.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="022.jpg an Attempt to Represent the Egyptian Universe.2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2 Section taken at Hermopolis. To the left, is the bark of
+     the sun on the celestial river.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Since this ceiling could not remain in mid-air without support, four
+      columns, or rather four forked trunks of trees, similar to those which
+      maintained the primitive house, were supposed to uphold it. But it was
+      doubtless feared lest some tempest should overturn them, for they were
+      superseded by four lofty peaks, rising at the four cardinal points, and
+      connected by a continuous chain of mountains. The Egyptians knew little of
+      the northern peak: the Mediterranean, the "Very Green," interposed between
+      it and Egypt, and prevented their coming near enough to see it. The
+      southern peak was named Apit the Horn of the Earth; that on the east was
+      called Bâkhû, the Mountain of Birth; and the western peak was known as
+      Manu, sometimes as Onkhit, the Region of Life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0019" id="linklinkimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/023.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="023.jpg Footnotes With Graphics " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Bâkhû was not a fictitious mountain, but the highest of those distant
+      summits seen from the Nile in looking towards the red Sea. In the same
+      way, Manu answered to some hill of the Libyan desert, whose summit closed
+      the horizon. When it was discovered that neither Bâkhû nor Manu were the
+      limits of the world, the notion of upholding the celestial roof was not on
+      that account given up. It was only necessary to withdraw the pillars from
+      sight, and imagine fabulous peaks, invested with familiar names. These
+      were not supposed to form the actual boundary of the universe; a great
+      river&mdash;analogous to the Ocean-stream of the Greeks&mdash;lay between
+      them and its utmost limits. This river circulated upon a kind of ledge
+      projecting along the sides of the box a little below the continuous
+      mountain chain upon which the starry heavens were sustained. On the north
+      of the ellipse, the river was bordered by a steep and abrupt bank, which
+      took its rise at the peak of Manu on the west, and soon rose high enough
+      to form a screen between the river and the earth. The narrow valley which
+      it hid from view was known as Da'it from remotest times. Eternal night
+      enfolded that valley in thick darkness, and filled it with dense air such
+      as no living thing could breathe. Towards the east the steep bank rapidly
+      declined, and ceased altogether a little beyond Bâkhû, while the river
+      flowed on between low and almost level shores from east to south, and then
+      from south to west. The sun was a disc of fire placed upon a boat. At the
+      same equable rate, the river carried it round the ramparts of the world.
+      Erom evening until morning it disappeared within the gorges of Daït; its
+      light did not then reach us, and it was night. From morning until evening
+      its rays, being no longer intercepted by any obstacle, were freely shed
+      abroad from one end of the box to the other, and it was day. The Nile
+      branched off from the celestial river at its southern bend;[*] hence the
+      south was the chief cardinal point to the Egyptians, and by that they
+      oriented themselves, placing sunrise to their left, and sunset to their
+      right.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The classic writers themselves knew that, according to
+     Egyptian belief, the Nile flowed down from heaven. The
+     legend of the Nile having its source in the ocean stream was
+     but a Greek transposition of the Egyptian doctrine, which
+     represented it as an arm of the celestial river whereon the
+     sun sailed round the earth.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Before they passed beyond the defiles of Gebel Silsileh, they thought that
+      the spot whence the celestial waters left the sky was situate between
+      Elephantine and Philae, and that they descended in an immense waterfall
+      whose last leaps were at Syene. It may be that the tales about the first
+      cataract told by classic writers are but a far-off echo of this tradition
+      of a barbarous age. Conquests carried into the heart of Africa forced the
+      Egyptians to recognize their error, but did not weaken their faith in the
+      supernatural origin of the river. They only placed its source further
+      south, and surrounded it with greater marvels. They told how, by going up
+      the stream, sailors at length reached an undetermined country, a kind of
+      borderland between this world and the next, a "Land of Shades," whose
+      inhabitants were dwarfs, monsters, or spirits. Thence they passed into a
+      sea sprinkled with mysterious islands, like those enchanted archipelagoes
+      which Portuguese and Breton mariners were wont to see at times when on
+      their voyages, and which vanished at their approach. These islands were
+      inhabited by serpents with human voices, sometimes friendly and sometimes
+      cruel to the shipwrecked. He who went forth from the islands could never
+      more re-enter them: they were resolved into the waters and lost within the
+      bosom of the waves. A modern geographer can hardly comprehend such
+      fancies; those of Greek and Roman times were perfectly familiar with them.
+      They believed that the Nile communicated with the Red Sea near Suakin, by
+      means of the Astaboras, and this was certainly the route which the
+      Egyptians of old had imagined for their navigators. The supposed
+      communication was gradually transferred farther and farther south; and we
+      have only to glance over certain maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth
+      centuries, to see clearly drawn what the Egyptians had imagined&mdash;the
+      centre of Africa as a great lake, whence issued the Congo, the Zambesi,
+      and the Nile. Arab merchants of the Middle Ages believed that a resolute
+      man could pass from Alexandria or Cairo to the land of the Zindjes and the
+      Indian Ocean by rising from river to river.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Joinville has given a special chapter to the description
+     of the sources and wonders of the Nile, in which he believed
+     as firmly as in an article of his creed. As late as the
+     beginning of the seventeenth century, Wendelinus devoted
+     part of his <i>Admiranda Nili</i> to proving that the river did
+     not rise in the earthly Paradise. At Gûrnah, forty years
+     ago, Rhind picked up a legend which stated that the Nile
+     flows down from the sky.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0020" id="linklinkimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/027.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="027.jpg South Africa and the Sources of The Nile, By Odoakdo Lopez. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Facsimile of the map published by Kircher in <i>OEdipus
+     Ægyptiacus</i>, vol. i. (<i>Iconismus II</i>), p. 53.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Many of the legends relating to this subject are lost, while others have
+      been collected and embellished with fresh features by Jewish and Christian
+      theologians. The Nile was said to have its source in Paradise, to traverse
+      burning regions inaccessible to man, and afterwards to fall into a sea
+      whence it made its way to Egypt. Sometimes it carried down from its
+      celestial sources branches and fruits unlike any to be found on earth. The
+      sea mentioned in all these tales is perhaps a less extravagant invention
+      than we are at first inclined to think. A lake, nearly as large as the
+      Victoria Nyanza, once covered the marshy plain where the Bahr el-Abiad
+      unites with the Sobat, and with the Bahr el-Ghazal. Alluvial deposits have
+      filled up all but its deepest depression, which is known as Birket Nû;
+      but, in ages preceding our era, it must still have been vast enough to
+      suggest to Egyptian soldiers and boatmen the idea of an actual sea,
+      opening into the Indian Ocean. The mountains, whose outline was vaguely
+      seen far to southward on the further shores, doubtless contained within
+      them its mysterious source. There the inundation was made ready, and there
+      it began upon a fixed day. The celestial Nile had its periodic rise and
+      fall, on which those of the earthly Nile depended. Every year, towards the
+      middle of June, Isis, mourning for Osiris, let fall into it one of the
+      tears which she shed over her brother, and thereupon the river swelled and
+      descended upon earth. Isis has had no devotees for centuries, and her very
+      name is unknown to the descendants of her worshippers; but the tradition
+      of her fertilizing tears has survived her memory. Even to this day, every
+      one in Egypt, Mussulman or Christian, knows that a divine drop falls from
+      heaven during the night between the 17th and 18th of June, and forthwith
+      brings about the rise of the Nile. Swollen by the rains which fall in
+      February over the region of the Great Lakes, the White Nile rushes
+      northward, sweeping before it the stagnant sheets of water left by the
+      inundation of the previous year. On the left, the Bahr el-Ghazâl brings it
+      the overflow of the ill-defined basin stretching between Darfûr and the
+      Congo; and the Sobat pours in on the right a tribute from the rivers which
+      furrow the southern slopes of the Abyssinian mountains. The first swell
+      passes Khartum by the end of April, and raises the water-level there by
+      about a foot, then it slowly makes its way through Nubia, and dies away in
+      Egypt at the beginning of June. Its waters, infected by half-putrid
+      organic matter from the equatorial swamps, are not completely freed from
+      it even in the course of this long journey, but keep a greenish tint as
+      far as the Delta. They are said to be poisonous, and to give severe pains
+      in the bladder to any who may drink them. I am bound to say that every
+      June, for five years, I drank this green water from the Nile itself,
+      without taking any other precaution than the usual one of filtering it
+      through a porous jar. Neither I, nor the many people living with me, ever
+      felt the slightest inconvenience from it. Happily, this <i>Green Nile</i>
+      does not last long, but generally flows away in three or four days, and is
+      only the forerunner of the real flood. The melting of the snows and the
+      excessive spring rains having suddenly swollen the torrents which rise in
+      the central plateau of Abyssinia, the Blue Nile, into which they flow,
+      rolls so impetuously towards the plain that, when its waters reach Khartum
+      in the middle of May, they refuse to mingle with those of the White Nile,
+      and do not lose their peculiar colour before reaching the neighbourhood of
+      Abu Hamed, three hundred miles below. From that time the height of the
+      Nile increases rapidly day by day. The river, constantly reinforced by
+      floods following one upon another from the Great Lakes and from Abyssinia,
+      rises in furious bounds, and would become a devastating torrent were its
+      rage not checked by the Nubian cataracts. Here six basins, one above
+      another, in which the water collects, check its course, and permit it to
+      flow thence only as a partially filtered and moderated stream. It is
+      signalled at Syene towards the 8th of June, at Cairo by the 17th to the
+      20th, and there its birth is officially celebrated during the "Night of
+      the Drop." Two days later it reaches the Delta, just in time to save the
+      country from drought and sterility. Egypt, burnt up by the Khamsin, a west
+      wind blowing continuously for fifty days, seems nothing more than an
+      extension of the desert. The trees are covered and choked by a layer of
+      grey dust. About the villages, meagre and laboriously watered patches of
+      vegetables struggle for life, while some show of green still lingers along
+      the canals and in hollows whence all moisture has not yet evaporated. The
+      plain lies panting in the sun&mdash;naked, dusty, and ashen&mdash;scored
+      with intersecting cracks as far as eye can see. The Nile is only half its
+      usual width, and holds not more than a twentieth of the volume of water
+      which is borne down in October. It has at first hard work to recover its
+      former bed, and attains it by such subtle gradations that the rise is
+      scarcely noted. It is, however, continually gaining ground; here a
+      sandbank is covered, there an empty channel is filled, islets are outlined
+      where there was a continuous beach, a new stream detaches itself and gains
+      the old shore. The first contact is disastrous to the banks; their steep
+      sides, disintegrated and cracked by the heat, no longer offer any
+      resistance to the current, and fall with a crash, in lengths of a hundred
+      yards and more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0021" id="linklinkimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/030.jpg" width="100%" alt="30.jpg During the Inundation " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      As the successive floods grow stronger and are more heavily charged with
+      mud, the whole mass of water becomes turbid and changes colour. In eight
+      or ten days it has turned from greyish blue to dark red, occasionally of
+      so intense a colour as to look like newly shed blood. The "Red Nile" is
+      not unwholesome like the "Green Nile," and the suspended mud to which it
+      owes its suspicious appearance deprives the water of none of its freshness
+      and lightness. It reaches its full height towards the 15th of July; but
+      the dykes which confine it, and the barriers constructed across the mouths
+      of canals, still prevent it from overflowing. The Nile must be considered
+      high enough to submerge the land adequately before it is set free. The
+      ancient Egyptians measured its height by cubits of twenty-one and a
+      quarter inches. At fourteen cubits, they pronounced it an excellent Nile;
+      below thirteen, or above fifteen, it was accounted insufficient or
+      excessive, and in either case meant famine, and perhaps pestilence at
+      hand. To this day the natives watch its advance with the same anxious
+      eagerness; and from the 3rd of July, public criers, walking the streets of
+      Cairo, announce each morning what progress it has made since evening. More
+      or less authentic traditions assert that the prelude to the opening of the
+      canals, in the time of the Pharaohs, was the solemn casting to the waters
+      of a young girl decked as for her bridal&mdash;the "Bride of the Nile."
+      Even after the Arab conquest, the irruption of the river into the bosom of
+      the land was still considered as an actual marriage; the contract was
+      drawn up by a cadi, and witnesses confirmed its consummation with the most
+      fantastic formalities of Oriental ceremonial. It is generally between the
+      1st and 16th of July that it is decided to break through the dykes. When
+      that proceeding has been solemnly accomplished in state, the flood still
+      takes several days to fill the canals, and afterwards spreads over the low
+      lands, advancing little by little to the very edge of the desert. Egypt is
+      then one sheet of turbid water spreading between two lines of rock and
+      sand, flecked with green and black spots where there are towns or where
+      the ground rises, and divided into irregular compartments by raised roads
+      connecting the villages. In Nubia the river attains its greatest height
+      towards the end of August; at Cairo and in the Delta not until three weeks
+      or a month later. For about eight days it remains stationary, and then
+      begins to fall imperceptibly. Sometimes there is a new freshet in October,
+      and the river again increases in height. But the rise is unsustained; once
+      more it falls as rapidly as it rose, and by December the river has
+      completely retired to the limits of its bed. One after another, the
+      streams which fed it fail or dwindle. The Tacazze is lost among the sands
+      before rejoining it, and the Blue Nile, well-nigh deprived of tributaries,
+      is but scantily maintained by Abyssinian snows. The White Nile is indebted
+      to the Great Lakes for the greater persistence of its waters, which feed
+      the river as far as the Mediterranean, and save the valley from utter
+      drought in winter. But, even with this resource, the level of the water
+      falls daily, and its volume is diminished. Long-hidden sandbanks reappear,
+      and are again linked into continuous line. Islands expand by the rise of
+      shingly beaches, which gradually reconnect them with each other and with
+      the shore. Smaller branches of the river cease to flow, and form a mere
+      network of stagnant pools and muddy ponds, which fast dry up. The main
+      channel itself is only intermittently navigable; after March boats run
+      aground in it, and are forced to await the return of the inundation for
+      their release. From the middle of April to the middle of June, Egypt is
+      only half alive, awaiting the new Nile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0022" id="linklinkimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/031.jpg" width="100%" alt="031.jpg Assiout " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Those ruddy and heavily charged waters, rising and retiring with almost
+      mathematical regularity, bring and leave the spoils of the countries they
+      have traversed: sand from Nubia, whitish clay from the regions of the
+      Lakes, ferruginous mud, and the various rock-formations of Abyssinia.
+      These materials are not uniformly disseminated in the deposits; their
+      precipitation being regulated both by their specific gravity and the
+      velocity of the current. Flattened stones and rounded pebbles are left
+      behind at the cataract between Syene and Keneh, while coarser particles of
+      sand are suspended in the undercurrents and serve to raise the bed of the
+      river, or are carried out to sea and form the sandbanks which are slowly
+      rising at the Damietta and Rosetta mouths of the Nile. The mud and finer
+      particles rise towards the surface, and are deposited upon the land after
+      the opening of the dykes. Soil which is entirely dependent on the deposit
+      of a river, and periodically invaded by it, necessarily maintains but a
+      scanty flora; and though it is well known that, as a general rule, a flora
+      is rich in proportion to its distance from the poles and its approach to
+      the equator, it is also admitted that Egypt offers an exception to this
+      rule. At the most, she has not more than a thousand species, while, with
+      equal area, England, for instance, possesses more than fifteen hundred;
+      and of this thousand, the greater number are not indigenous. Many of them
+      have been brought From Central Africa by the river: birds and winds have
+      continued the work, and man himself has contributed his part in making it
+      more complete. From Asia he has at different times brought wheat barley
+      the olive, the apple, the white or pink almond, and some twenty other
+      species now acclimatized on the banks of the Nile. Marsh plants
+      predominate in the Delta; but the papyrus, and the three varieties of
+      blue, white, and pink lotus which once flourished there, being no longer
+      cultivated, have now almost entirely disappeared, and reverted to their
+      original habitats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0023" id="linklinkimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/036.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="036.jpg Entrance of the MudÎriyeh Of AsyÛt. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The sycamore and the date-palm, both importations from Central Africa,
+      have better adapted themselves to their exile, and are now fully
+      naturalized on Egyptian soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0024" id="linklinkimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/037.jpg" width="100%" alt="037.jpg Forest of Date Palms " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The sycamore grows in sand on the edge of the desert as vigorously as in
+      the midst of a well-watered country. Its roots go deep in search of water,
+      which infiltrates as far as the gorges of the hills, and they absorb it
+      freely, even where drought seems to reign supreme. The heavy, squat,
+      gnarled trunk occasionally attains to colossal dimensions, without ever
+      growing very high. Its rounded masses of compact foliage are so
+      wide-spreading that a single tree in the distance may give the impression
+      of several grouped together; and its shade is dense, and impenetrable to
+      the sun. A striking contrast to the sycamore is presented by the
+      date-palm. Its round and slender stem rises uninterruptedly to a height of
+      thirteen to sixteen yards; its head is crowned with a cluster of flexible
+      leaves arranged in two or three tiers, but so scanty, so pitilessly slit,
+      that they fail to keep off the light, and cast but a slight and
+      unrefreshing shadow. Few trees have so elegant an appearance, yet few are
+      so monotonously elegant. There are palm trees to be seen on every hand;
+      isolated, clustered by twos and threes at the mouths of ravines and about
+      the villages, planted in regular file along the banks of the river like
+      rows of columns, symmetrically arranged in plantations,&mdash;these are
+      the invariable background against which other trees are grouped,
+      diversifying the landscape. The feathery tamarisk[*] and the nabk, the
+      moringa, the carob, or locust tree several varieties of acacia and
+      mimosa-the sont, the mimosa habbas, the white acacia, the Acacia
+      Parnesxana&mdash;and the pomegranate tree, increase in number with the
+      distance from the Mediterranean.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Egyptian name for the tamarisk, <i>asari, asri</i>, is
+     identical with that given to it in Semitic languages, both
+     ancient and modern.    This would suggest the question
+     whether the tamarisk did not originally come from Asia. In
+     that case it must have been brought to Egypt from remote
+     antiquity, for it figures in the  Pyramid texts.   Bricks of
+     Nile mud, and Memphite and Theban tombs have yielded us
+     leaves, twigs, and even whole branches of the tamarisk.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0025" id="linklinkimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/040.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="40.jpg Acacias at the Entrance to a Garden Outside EkhmÎm. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1884.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The dry air of the valley is marvellously suited to them, but makes the
+      tissue of their foliage hard and fibrous, imparting an aerial aspect, and
+      such faded tints as are unknown to their growth in other climates. The
+      greater number of these trees do not reproduce themselves spontaneously,
+      and tend to disappear when neglected. The Acacia Seyal, formerly abundant
+      by the banks of the river, is now almost entirely confined to certain
+      valleys of the Theban desert, along with a variety of the kernelled
+      dôm-palm, of which a poetical description has come down to us from the
+      Ancient Egyptians. The common dôm-palm bifurcates at eight or ten yards
+      from the ground; these branches are subdivided, and terminate in bunches
+      of twenty to thirty palmate and fibrous leaves, six to eight feet long. At
+      the beginning of this century the tree was common in Upper Egypt, but it
+      is now becoming scarce, and we are within measurable distance of the time
+      when its presence will be an exception north of the first cataract.
+      Willows are decreasing in number, and the persea, one of the sacred trees
+      of Ancient Egypt, is now only to be found in gardens. None of the
+      remaining tree species are common enough to grow in large clusters; and
+      Egypt, reduced to her lofty groves of date-palms, presents the singular
+      spectacle of a country where there is no lack of trees, but an almost
+      entire absence of shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0026" id="linklinkimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/041.jpg" width="100%" alt="41.jpg She-ass and Her Foal. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      If Egypt is a land of imported flora, it is also a land of imported fauna,
+      and all its animal species have been brought from neighbouring countries.
+      Some of these&mdash;as, for example, the horse and the camel&mdash;were
+      only introduced at a comparatively recent period, two thousand to eighteen
+      hundred years before our era; the camel still later. The animals&mdash;such
+      as the long and short-horned oxen, together with varieties of goats and
+      dogs&mdash;are, like the plants, generally of African origin, and the ass
+      of Egypt preserves an original purity of form and a vigour to which the
+      European donkey has long been a stranger. The pig and the wild boar, the
+      long-eared hare, the hedgehog, the ichneumon, the moufflon, or maned
+      sheep, innumerable gazelles, including the Egyptian gazelles, and
+      antelopes with lyre-shaped horns, are as much West Asian as African, like
+      the carnivors of all sizes, whose prey they are&mdash;the wild cat, the
+      wolf, the jackal, the striped and spotted hyenas, the leopard, the
+      panther, the hunting leopard, and the lion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0027" id="linklinkimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/042.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="042.jpg the UrÆus of Egypt. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from pl. iii. of the Reptiles-
+     Supplement to the <i>Description de Ægypte</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, most of the serpents, large and small, are indigenous.
+      Some are harmless, like the colubers; others are venomous, such as the soy
+      tale, the cerastes, the haje viper, and the asp. The asp was worshipped by
+      the Egyptians under the name of uræus. It occasionally attains to a length
+      of six and a half feet, and when approached will erect its head and
+      inflate its throat in readiness for darting forward. The bite is fatal,
+      like that of the cerastes; birds are literally struck down by the strength
+      of the poison, while the great mammals, and man himself, almost invariably
+      succumb to it after a longer or shorter death-struggle. The uræus is
+      rarely found except in the desert or in the fields; the scorpion crawls
+      everywhere, in desert and city alike, and if its sting is not always
+      followed by death, it invariably causes terrible pain. Probably there were
+      once several kinds of gigantic serpent in Egypt, analogous to the pythons
+      of equatorial Africa. They are still to be seen in representations of
+      funerary scenes, but not elsewhere; for, like the elephant, the giraffe,
+      and other animals which now only thrive far south, they had disappeared at
+      the beginning of historic times. The hippopotamus long maintained its
+      ground before returning to those equatorial regions whence it had been
+      brought by the Nile. Common under the first dynasties, but afterwards
+      withdrawing to the marshes of the Delta, it there continued to flourish up
+      to the thirteenth century of our era. The crocodile, which came with it,
+      has, like it also, been compelled to beat a retreat. Lord of the river
+      throughout all ancient times, worshipped and protected in some provinces,
+      execrated and proscribed in others, it might still be seen in the
+      neighbourhood of Cairo towards the beginning of our century. In 1840, it
+      no longer passed beyond the neighbourhood of Gebel et-Têr, nor beyond that
+      of Manfalût in Thirty years later, Mariette asserted that it was steadily
+      retreating before the guns of tourists, and the disturbance which the
+      regular passing of steamboats produced in the deep waters. To-day, no one
+      knows of a single crocodile existing below Aswan, but it continues to
+      infest Nubia, and the rocks of the first cataract: one of them is
+      occasionally carried down by the current into Egypt where it is speedily
+      despatched by the fellâhin, or by some traveller in quest of adventure.
+      The fertility of the soil, and the vastness of the lakes and marshes,
+      attract many migratory birds; passerinæ and palmipedes flock thither from
+      all parts of the Mediterranean. Our European swallows, our quails, our
+      geese and wild ducks, our herons&mdash;to mention only the most familiar&mdash;come
+      here to winter, sheltered from cold and inclement weather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0028" id="linklinkimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/044.jpg" width="100%" alt="044.jpg the Ibis of Egypt. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Even the non-migratory birds are really, for the most part, strangers
+      acclimatized by long sojourn. Some of them&mdash;the turtledove, the
+      magpie, the kingfisher, the partridge, and the sparrow-may be classed with
+      our European species, while others betray their equatorial origin in the
+      brightness of their colours. White and black ibises, red flamingoes,
+      pelicans, and cormorants enliven the waters of the river, and animate the
+      reedy swamps of the Delta in infinite variety. They are to be seen ranged
+      in long files upon the sand-banks, fishing and basking in the sun;
+      suddenly the flock is seized with panic, rises heavily, and settles away
+      further off. In hollows of the hills, eagle and falcon, the merlin, the
+      bald-headed vulture, the kestrel, the golden sparrow-hawk, find
+      inaccessible retreats, whence they descend upon the plains like so many
+      pillaging and well-armed barons. A thousand little chattering birds come
+      at eventide to perch in flocks upon the frail boughs of tamarisk and
+      acacia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0029" id="linklinkimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/045.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="045.jpg the Mormyrus Oxyrhynchus. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Many sea-fish make their way upstream to swim in fresh waters-shad,
+      mullet, perch, and labrus&mdash;and carry their excursions far into the
+      Saïd. Those species which are not Mediterranean came originally, still
+      come annually, from the heart of Ethiopia with the of the Nile, including
+      two kinds of Alestes, the elled turtle, the Bagrus docmac, and the
+      mormyrus. Some attain to a gigantic size, the Bagrus bayad and the turtle
+      to about one yard, the latus to three and a half yards in length, while
+      others, such as the sihlrus (catfish), are noted for their electric
+      properties. Nature seems to have made the fahâka (the globe-fish) in a fit
+      of playfulness. It is a long fish from beyond the cataracts, and it is
+      carried by the Nile the more easily on account of the faculty it has of
+      filling itself with air, and inflating its body at will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0030" id="linklinkimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/046.jpg" width="100%" alt="046.jpg Ahaka " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      When swelled out immoderately, the fahâka overbalances, and drifts along
+      upside down, its belly to the wind, covered with spikes so that it looks
+      like a hedgehog. During the inundation, it floats with the current from
+      one canal to another, and is cast by the retreating waters upon the muddy
+      fields, where it becomes the prey of birds or of jackals, or serves as a
+      plaything for children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0031" id="linklinkimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/047.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="47.jpg Two Fishermen Carrying a Latus. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Medûm painting.    Pétrie,
+     <i>Medûm</i>, pl. xii.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Everything is dependent upon the river:&mdash;the soil, the produce of the
+      soil, the species of animals it bears, the birds which it feeds: and hence
+      it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They personified
+      it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous and portly body, such as
+      befits the rich of high lineage. His breasts, fully developed like those
+      of a woman, though less firm, hang heavily upon a wide bosom where the fat
+      lies in folds. A narrow girdle, whose ends fall free about the thighs,
+      supports his spacious abdomen, and his attire is completed by sandals, and
+      a close-fitting head-dress, generally surmounted with a crown of
+      water-plants. Sometimes water springs from his breast; sometimes he
+      presents a frog, or libation vases; or holds a bundle of the cruces
+      ansato, as symbols of life; or bears a flat tray, full of offerings&mdash;bunches
+      of flowers, ears of corn, heaps of fish, and geese tied together by the
+      feet. The inscriptions call him, "Hâpi, father of the gods, lord of
+      sustenance, who maketh food to be, and covereth the two lands of Egypt
+      with his products; who giveth life, banisheth want, and filleth the
+      granaries to overflowing." He is evolved into two personages, one being
+      sometimes coloured red, and the other blue. The former, who wears a
+      cluster of lotus-flowers upon his head, presides over the Egypt of the
+      south; the latter has a bunch of papyrus for his head-dress, and watches
+      over the Delta.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [**]  Wilkinson was the first who suggested that this god,
+     when painted red was the Red (that is High) Nile and when
+     painted blue, was to be identified with the Low Nile.
+     This opinion has since been generally adopted; but to me it
+     does not appear so incontrovertible as it has been
+     considered. Here, as in other cases, the difference in
+     colour is only a means of making the distinction between two
+     personages obvious to sight.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two goddesses, corresponding to the two Hâpis&mdash;Mirit Qimâit for
+      Upper, and Mirit Mîhit for Lower Egypt&mdash;personified the banks of the
+      river. They are often represented as standing with outstretched arms, as
+      though begging for the water which should make them fertile. The Nile-god
+      had his chapel in every province, and priests whose right it was to bury
+      all bodies of men or beasts cast up by the river; for the god had claimed
+      them, and to his servants they belonged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0032" id="linklinkimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/048.jpg" width="100%" alt="048.jpg the Nile God. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 THE NILE GOD: Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a statue in
+     the British Museum. The dedication of this statue took place
+     about 880 B.c. The giver was Sheshonqu, high-priest of Amon
+     in Thebes, afterwards King of Egypt under the name of
+     Sheshhonqû II., and he is represented as standing behind the
+     leg of the god.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0033" id="linklinkimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/049.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="049.jpg the Shrine of The Nile at Biggeh.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Reproduced from a bas-relief in the small temple of
+     Philae, built by Rajan and his successors.    The window or
+     door of this temple opened upon gen, and by comparing the
+     drawing of the Egyptian artist with the view i the end of
+     the chamber, it is easy to recognize the original of this
+     cliff bouette in the piled-up rocks of the island.    By a
+     mistake of the modern copyist's, his drawing faces the wrong
+     way.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Several towns were dedicated to him: Hâthâpi, Nûit-Hâpi, Nilo-polis. It
+      was told in the Thebaïd how the god dwelt within a grotto, or shrine
+      (tophit), in the island of Biggeh, whence he issued at the inundation.
+      This tradition dates from a time when the cataract was believed to be at
+      the end of the world, and to bring down the heavenly river upon earth. Two
+      yawning gulfs (<i>qorîti</i>), at the foot of the two granite cliffs (<i>monîti</i>)
+      between which it ran, gave access to this mysterious retreat. A bas-relief
+      from Philae represents blocks of stone piled one above another, the
+      vulture of the south and the hawk of the north, each perched on a summit,
+      wearing a panther skin, with both arms upheld in adoration. The statue is
+      mutilated: the end of the nose, the beard, and part of the tray have
+      disappeared, but are restored in the illustration. The two little birds
+      hanging alongside the geese, together with a bunch of ears of corn, are
+      fat quails, and the circular chamber wherein Hâpi crouches concealed,
+      clasping a libation vase in either hand. A single coil of a serpent
+      outlines the contour of this chamber, and leaves a narrow passage between
+      its overlapping head and tail through which the rising waters may overflow
+      at the time appointed, bringing to Egypt "all things good, and sweet, and
+      pure," whereby gods and men are fed. Towards the summer solstice, at the
+      very moment when the sacred water from the gulfs of Syene reached
+      Silsileh, the priests of the place, sometimes the reigning sovereign, or
+      one of his sons, sacrificed a bull and geese, and then cast into the
+      waters a sealed roll of papyrus. This was a written order to do all that
+      might insure to Egypt the benefits of a normal inundation. When Pharaoh
+      himself deigned to officiate, the memory of the event was preserved by a
+      stela engraved upon the rocks. Even in his absence, the festivals of the
+      Nile were among the most solemn and joyous of the land. According to a
+      tradition transmitted from age to age, the prosperity or adversity of the
+      year was dependent upon the splendour and fervour with which they were
+      celebrated. Had the faithful shown the slightest lukewarmness, the Nile
+      might have refused to obey the command and failed to spread freely over
+      the surface of the country. Peasants from a distance, each bringing his
+      own provisions, ate their meals together for days, and lived in a state of
+      brutal intoxication as long as this kind of fair lasted. On the great day
+      itself, the priests came forth in procession from the sanctuary, bearing
+      the statue of the god along the banks, to the sound of instruments and the
+      chanting of hymns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0034" id="linklinkimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/051.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="051.jpg Nile Gods from the Temple of Seti I. At Abydos Bringing Food to Every Nome of Egypt. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 From a drawing by Faucher-Gudin, after a photograph by
+     Béato.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "I.&mdash;Hail to thee, Hâpi!&mdash;who appearest in the land and comest&mdash;to
+      give life to Egypt;&mdash;thou who dost hide thy coming in darkness&mdash;in
+      this very day whereon thy coming is sung,&mdash;wave, which spreadest over
+      the orchards created by Ra&mdash;to give life to all them that are athirst&mdash;who
+      refusest to give drink unto the desert&mdash;of the overflow of the waters
+      of heaven; as soon as thou descendest,&mdash;Sibû, the earth-god, is
+      enamoured of bread,&mdash;Napri, the god of grain, presents his offering,&mdash;Phtah
+      maketh every workshop to prosper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "II.&mdash;Lord of the fish! as soon as he passeth the cataract&mdash;the
+      birds no longer descend upon the fields;&mdash;creator of corn, maker of
+      barley,&mdash;he prolongeth the existence of temples.&mdash;Do his fingers
+      cease from their labours, or doth he suffer?&mdash;then are all the
+      millions of beings in misery;&mdash;doth he wane in heaven? then the gods&mdash;themselves,
+      and all men perish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "III.&mdash;The cattle are driven mad, and all the world&mdash;both great
+      and small, are in torment!&mdash;But if, on the contrary, the prayers of
+      men are heard at his rising&mdash;and (for them) he maketh himself Khnûmû,&mdash;when
+      he ariseth, then the earth shouts for joy,&mdash;then are all bellies
+      joyful,&mdash;each back is shaken with laughter,&mdash;and every tooth
+      grindeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "IV.&mdash;Bringing food, rich in sustenance,&mdash;creator of all good
+      things,&mdash;lord of all seeds of life, pleasant unto his elect,&mdash;if
+      his friendship is secured&mdash;he produceth fodder for the cattle,&mdash;and
+      he provideth for the sacrifices of all the gods,&mdash;finer than any
+      other is the incense which cometh from him;&mdash;he taketh possession of
+      the two lands&mdash;and the granaries are filled, the storehouses are
+      prosperous,&mdash;and the goods of the poor are multiplied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "V.&mdash;He is at the service of all prayers to answer them,&mdash;withholding
+      nothing. To make boats to be that is his strength.&mdash;Stones are not
+      sculptured for him&mdash;nor statues whereon the double crown is placed;&mdash;he
+      is unseen;&mdash;no tribute is paid unto him and no offerings are brought
+      unto him,&mdash;he is not charmed by words of mystery;&mdash;the place of
+      his dwelling is unknown, nor can his shrine be found by virtue of magic
+      writings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "VI.&mdash;There is no house large enough for thee,&mdash;nor any who may
+      penetrate within thy heart!&mdash;Nevertheless, the generations of thy
+      children rejoice in thee&mdash;for thou dost rule as a king&mdash;whose
+      decrees are established for the whole earth,&mdash;who is manifest in
+      presence of the people of the South and of the North,&mdash;by whom the
+      tears are washed from every eye,&mdash;and who is lavish of his bounties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "VII.&mdash;Where sorrow was, there doth break forth joy&mdash;and every
+      heart rejoiceth. Sovkû, the crocodile, the child of Nit, leaps for
+      gladness;[*]&mdash;for the Nine gods who accompany thee have ordered all
+      things,&mdash;the overflow giveth drink unto the fields&mdash;and maketh
+      all men valiant; one man taketh to drink of the labour of another,&mdash;without
+      charge being brought against him.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The goddess Nît, the heifer born from the midst of the
+     primordial waters, had two crocodiles as her children, which
+     are sometimes represented on the monuments as hanging from
+     her bosom. Both the part played by these animals, and the
+     reason for connecting them with the goddess, are still
+     imperfectly understood.
+
+     ** This is an allusion to the quarrels and lawsuits
+     resulting from the distribution of the water in years when
+     the Nile was poor or bad.    If the inundation is abundant,
+     disputes are at an end.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "IX.&mdash;If thou dost enter in the midst of songs to go forth in the
+      midst of gladness,&mdash;if they dance with joy when thou comest forth out
+      of the unknown,&mdash;it is that thy heaviness is death and corruption.&mdash;And
+      when thou art implored to give the water of the year,&mdash;the people of
+      the Thebai'd and of the North are seen side by side,&mdash;each man with
+      the tools of his trade,&mdash;none tarrieth behind his neighbour;&mdash;of
+      all those who clothed themselves, no man clotheth himself (with festive
+      garments)&mdash;the children of Thot, the god of riches, no longer adorn
+      themselves with jewels,&mdash;nor the Nine gods, but they are in the
+      night!&mdash;As soon as thou hast answered by the rising,&mdash;each one
+      anointeth himself with perfumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "X.&mdash;Establisher of true riches, desire of men,&mdash;here are
+      seductive words in order that thou mayest reply;&mdash;if thou dost answer
+      mankind by waves of the heavenly Ocean,&mdash;Napri, the grain-god,
+      presents his offering,&mdash;all the gods adore (thee),&mdash;the birds no
+      longer descend upon the hills;&mdash;though that which thy hand formeth
+      were of gold&mdash;or in the shape of a brick of silver,&mdash;it is not
+      lapis-lazuli that we eat,&mdash;but wheat is of more worth than precious
+      stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "XI.&mdash;They have begun to sing unto thee upon the harp,&mdash;they
+      sing unto thee keeping time with their hands,&mdash;and the generations of
+      thy children rejoice in thee, and they have filled thee with salutations
+      of praise;&mdash;for it is the god of Riches who adorneth the earth,&mdash;who
+      maketh barks to prosper in the sight of man&mdash;who rejoiceth the heart
+      of women with child&mdash;who loveth the increase of the flocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "XII.&mdash;When thou art risen in the city of the Prince,&mdash;then is
+      the rich man filled&mdash;the small man (the poor) disdaineth the lotus,&mdash;all
+      is solid and of good quality,&mdash;all herbage is for his children.&mdash;Doth
+      he forget to give food?&mdash;prosperity forsaketh the dwellings,&mdash;and
+      earth falleth into a wasting sickness."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0035" id="linklinkimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/053.jpg" width="100%" alt="055.jpg Libyan Mountains " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The word Nile is of uncertain origin. We have it from the Greeks, and they
+      took it from a people foreign to Egypt, either from the Phoenicians, the
+      Khîti, the Libyans, or from people of Asia Minor. When the Egyptians
+      themselves did not care to treat their river as the god Hâpi, they called
+      it the sea, or the great river. They had twenty terms or more by which to
+      designate the different phases which it assumed according to the seasons,
+      but they would not have understood what was meant had one spoken to them
+      of the Nile. The name Egypt also is part of the Hellenic tradition;
+      perhaps it was taken from the temple-name of Memphis, Hâikûphtah, which
+      barbarian coast tribes of the Mediterranean must long have had ringing in
+      their ears as that of the most important and wealthiest town to be found
+      upon the shores of their sea. The Egyptians called themselves Bomitû,
+      Botû, and their country Qîmit, the black land. Whence came they? How far
+      off in time are we to carry back the date of their arrival? The oldest
+      monuments hitherto known scarcely transport us further than six thousand
+      years, yet they are of an art so fine, so well determined in its main
+      outlines, and reveal so ingeniously combined a system of administration,
+      government, and religion, that we infer a long past of accumulated
+      centuries behind them. It must always be difficult to estimate exactly the
+      length of time needful for a race as gifted as were the Ancient Egyptians
+      to rise from barbarism into a high degree of culture. Nevertheless, I do
+      not think that we shall be misled in granting them forty or fifty
+      centuries wherein to bring so complicated an achievement to a successful
+      issue, and in placing their first appearance at eight or ten thousand
+      years before our era. Their earliest horizon was a very limited one. Their
+      gaze might wander westward over the ravine-furrowed plains of the Libyan
+      desert without reaching that fabled land of Manu where the sun set every
+      evening; but looking eastward from the valley, they could see the peak of
+      Bâkhû, which marked the limit of regions accessible to man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond these regions lay the beginnings of To-nûtri, the land of the gods,
+      and the breezes passing over it were laden with its perfumes, and
+      sometimes wafted them to mortals lost in the desert.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The  perfumes  and the  odoriferous woods of the Divine
+     Land were celebrated in Egypt. A traveller or hunter,
+     crossing the desert, "could not but be vividly impressed by
+     suddenly becoming aware, in the very midst of the desert, of
+     the penetrating scent of the <i>robul (Puliciaria undulata</i>,
+     Schwbine.), which once followed us throughout a day and two
+     nights, in some places without our being able to distinguish
+     whence it came; as, for instance, when we were crossing
+     tracts of country without any traces of vegetation whatever."
+     (Golenischeff).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Northward, the world came to an end towards the lagoons of the Delta,
+      whose inaccessible islands were believed to be the sojourning-place of
+      souls after death. As regards the south, precise knowledge of it scarcely
+      went beyond the defiles of Gebel Sil-sileh, where the last remains of the
+      granite threshold had perhaps not altogether disappeared. The district
+      beyond Gebel Silsileh, the province of Konûsit, was still a foreign and
+      almost mythic country, directly connected with heaven by means of the
+      cataract. Long after the Egyptians had broken through this restricted
+      circle, the names of those places which had as it were marked out their
+      frontiers, continued to be associated in their minds with the idea of the
+      four cardinal points. Bâkhû and Manu were still the most frequent
+      expressions for the extreme East and West. Nekhabit and Bûto, the most
+      populous towns in the neighbourhoods of Gebel Silsileh and the ponds of
+      the Delta, were set over against each other to designate South and North.
+      It was within these narrow limits that Egyptian civilization struck root
+      and ripened, as in a closed vessel. What were the people by whom it was
+      developed, the country whence they came, the races to which they belonged,
+      is to-day unknown. The majority would place their cradle-land in Asia,[*]
+      but cannot agree in determining the route which was followed in the
+      emigration to Africa.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The greater number of contemporary Egyptologists, Brugsch,
+     Ebers,&mdash;Lauth, Lieblein, have rallied to this opinion, in
+     the train of E. de Rougé; but the most extreme position has
+     been taken up by Hommel, the Assyriologist, who is inclined
+     to derive Egyptian civilization entirely from the
+     Babylonian. After having summarily announced this thesis in
+     his <i>Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens</i>, p. 12, et seq.,
+     he has set it forth at length in a special treatise, <i>Der
+     Babylonische Ursprung der àgyptischen Kultur</i>, 1892, wherein
+     he endeavours to prove that the Heliopolitan myths, and
+     hence the whole Egyptian religion, are derived from the
+     cults of Eridû, and would make the name of the Egyptian city
+     Onû, or Anû, identical with that of <i>Nûn-H, Nûn</i>, which is
+     borne by the Chaldean.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Some think that the people took the shortest road across the Isthmus of
+      Suez, others give them longer peregrinations and a more complicated
+      itinerary. They would have them cross the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb, and
+      then the Abyssinian mountains, and, spreading northward and keeping along
+      the Nile, finally settle in the Egypt of to-day. A more minute examination
+      compels us to recognize that the hypothesis of an Asiatic origin, however
+      attractive it may seem, is somewhat difficult to maintain. The bulk of the
+      Egyptian population presents the characteristics of those white races
+      which have been found established from all antiquity on the Mediterranean
+      slope of the Libyan continent; this population is of African origin, and
+      came to Egypt from the West or South-West. In the valley, perhaps, it may
+      have met with a black race which it drove back or destroyed; and there,
+      perhaps, too, it afterwards received an accretion of Asiatic elements,
+      introduced by way of the isthmus and the marshes of the Delta. But
+      whatever may be the origin of the ancestors of the Egyptians, they were
+      scarcely settled upon the banks of the Nile before the country conquered,
+      and assimilated them to itself, as it has never ceased to do in the case
+      of strangers who have occupied it. At the time when their history begins
+      for us, all the inhabitants had long formed but one people, with but one
+      language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This language seems to be connected with the Semitic tongues by many of
+      its roots. It forms its personal pronouns, whether isolated or suffixed,
+      in a similar way. One of the tenses of the conjugation, and that the
+      simplest and most archaic, is formed with identical affixes. Without
+      insisting upon resemblances which are open to doubt, it may be almost
+      affirmed that most of the grammatical processes used in Semitic languages
+      are to be found in a rudimentary condition in Egyptian. One would say that
+      the language of the people of Egypt and the languages of the Semitic
+      races, having once belonged to the same group, had separated very early,
+      at a time when the vocabulary and the grammatical system of the group had
+      not as yet taken definite shape. Subject to different influences, the two
+      families would treat in diverse fashion the elements common to both. The
+      Semitic dialects continued to develop for centuries, while the Egyptian
+      language, although earlier cultivated, stopped short in its growth. "If it
+      is obvious that there was an original connexion between the language of
+      Egypt and that of Asia, this connexion is nevertheless sufficiently remote
+      to leave to the Egyptian race a distinct physiognomy." We recognize it in
+      sculptured and painted portraits, as well as in thousands of mummied
+      bodies out of subterranean tombs. The highest type of Egyptian was tall
+      and slender, with a proud and imperious air in the carriage of his head
+      and in his whole bearing. He had wide and full shoulders, well-marked and
+      vigorous pectoral muscles, muscular arms, a long, fine hand, slightly
+      developed hips, and sinewy legs. The detail of the knee-joint and the
+      muscles of the calf are strongly marked beneath the skin; the long, thin,
+      and low-arched feet are flattened out at the extremities owing to the
+      custom of going barefoot. The head is rather short, the face oval, the
+      forehead somewhat retreating. The eyes are wide and fully opened, the
+      cheekbones not too marked, the nose fairly prominent, and either straight
+      or aquiline. The mouth is long, the lips full, and lightly ridged along
+      their outline; the teeth small, even, well-set, and remarkably sound; the
+      ears are set high on the head. At birth the skin is white, but darkens in
+      proportion to its exposure to the sun. Men are generally painted red in
+      the pictures, though, as a matter of fact, there must already have been
+      all the shades which we see among the present population^ from a most
+      delicate, rose-tinted complexion to that of a smoke-coloured bronze.
+      Women, who were less exposed to the sun, are generally painted yellow, the
+      tint paler in proportion as they rise in the social scale. The hair was
+      inclined to be wavy, and even to curl into little ringlets, but without
+      ever turning into the wool of the negro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0036" id="linklinkimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/059.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="059.jpg the Noble Type of Egyptian. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Statue of Rânofir in the Gîzeh Museum (Vth dynasty), after
+     a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0037" id="linklinkimage-0037">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/060.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="060.jpg Head of a Tileban Mummy. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The beard was scanty, thick only upon the chin. Such was the highest type;
+      the commoner was squat, dumpy, and heavy. Chest and shoulders seem to be
+      enlarged at the expense of the pelvis and the hips, to such an extent as
+      to make the want of proportion between the upper and lower parts of the
+      body startling and ungraceful. The skull is long, somewhat retreating, and
+      slightly flattened on the top; the features are coarse, and as though
+      carved in flesh by great strokes of the blocking-out chisel. Small
+      frseuated eyes, a short nose, flanked by widely distended nostrils, round
+      cheeks, a square chin, thick, but not curling lips&mdash;this unattractive
+      and ludicrous physiognomy, sometimes animated by an expression of cunning
+      which recalls the shrewd face of an old French peasant, is often lighted
+      up by gleams of gentleness and of melancholy good-nature. The external
+      characteristics of these two principal types in the ancient monuments, in
+      all varieties of modifications, may still be seen among the living. The
+      profile copied from a Theban mummy taken at hazard from a necropolis of
+      the XVIIIth dynasty, and compared with the likeness of a modern Luxor
+      peasant, would almost pass for a family portrait. Wandering Bisharîn have
+      inherited the type of face of a great noble, the contemporary of Kheops;
+      and any peasant woman of the Delta may bear upon her shoulders che head of
+      a twelfth-dynasty king. A citizen of Cairo, gazing with wonder at the
+      statues of Khafra or of Seti I. in the Gîzeh Museum, is himself, feature
+      for feature, the very image of those ancient Pharaohs, though removed from
+      them by fifty centuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linklinkwrappings" id="linklinkwrappings"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="060b (172K)" src="images/060b.jpg" width="100%"
+      title="DECORATED WRAPPINGS FROM A MUMMY (THEBES TOMBS)" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklinkimage-0038" id="linklinkimage-0038">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/062.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="062.jpg a Fellah Woman With the Features of an Ancient King. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  The face of the woman here given was taken separately,
+     and was subsequently attached to the figure of an Egyptian
+     woman whom Naville had photographed sitting beside a
+     colossal head. The nose of the statue has been restored.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Until quite recently nothing, or all but nothing, had been discovered
+      which could be attributed to the primitive races of Egypt: even the flint
+      weapons and implements which had been found in various places could not be
+      ascribed to them with any degree of certainty, for the Egyptians continued
+      to use stone long after metal was known to them. They made stone
+      arrowheads, hammers, and knives, not only in the time of the Pharaohs, but
+      under the Romans, and during the whole period of the Middle Ages, and the
+      manufacture of them has not yet entirely died out.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  An entire collection of flint tools&mdash;axes, adzes,
+     knives, and sickles&mdash;mostly with wooden handles, were found
+     by Prof. Pétrie in the ruins of Kahun, at the entrance to
+     the Fayûm: these go back to the time of the twelfth dynasty,
+     more than three thousand years before our era. Mariette had
+     previously pointed out to the learned world the fact that a
+     Coptic <i>Reis</i>, Salîb of Abydos, in charge of the
+     excavations, shaved his head with a flint knife, according
+     to the custom of his youth (1820-35). I knew the man, who
+     died at over eighty years of age in 1887; he was still
+     faithful to his flint implement, while his sons and the
+     whole population of El Kharbeh were using nothing but steel
+     razors. As his scalp was scraped nearly raw by the
+     operation, he used to cover his head with fresh leaves to
+     cool the inflamed skin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These objects, and the workshops where they were made, might therefore be
+      less ancient than the greater part of the inscribed monuments. But if so
+      far we had found no examples of any work belonging to the first ages, we
+      met in historic times with certain customs which were out of harmony with
+      the general civilization of the period. A comparison of these customs with
+      analogous practices of barbarous nations threw light upon the former,
+      completed their meaning, and showed us at the same time the successive
+      stages through which the Egyptian people had to pass before reaching their
+      highest civilization. We knew, for example, that even as late as the
+      Cæsars, girls belonging to noble families at Thebes were consecrated to
+      the service of Amon, and were thus licensed to a life of immorality,
+      which, however, did not prevent them from making rich marriages when age
+      obliged them to retire from office. Theban women were not the only people
+      in the world to whom such licence was granted or imposed upon them by law;
+      wherever in a civilized country we see a similar practice, we may
+      recognize in it an ancient custom which in the course of centuries has
+      degenerated into a religious observance. The institution of the women of
+      Amon is a legacy from a time when the practice of polyandry obtained, and
+      marriage did not yet exist. Age and maternity relieved them from this
+      obligation, and preserved them from those incestuous connections of which
+      we find examples in other races. A union of father and daughter, however,
+      was perhaps not wholly forbidden,[*] and that of brother and sister seems
+      to have been regarded as perfectly right and natural; the words brother
+      and sister possessing in Egyptian love-songs the same significance as
+      lover and mistress with us.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * E. de Rouge held that Rameses II. married at least two of
+     his daughters, Bint Anati and Honittui; Wiedemann admits
+     that Psammetichus I. had in the same way taken to wife
+     Nitocris, who had been born to him by the Theban princess
+     Shapenuapit. The Achæmenidan kings did the same: Artaxerxes
+     married two of his own daughters.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Paternity was necessarily doubtful in a community of this kind, and hence
+      the tie between fathers and children was slight; there being no family, in
+      the sense in which we understand the word, except as it centred around the
+      mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maternal descent was, therefore, the only one openly acknowledged, and the
+      affiliation of the child was indicated by the name of the mother alone.
+      When the woman ceased to belong to all, and confined herself to one
+      husband, the man reserved to himself the privilege of taking as many wives
+      as he wished, or as he was able to keep, beginning with his own sisters.
+      All wives did not enjoy identical rights: those born of the same parents
+      as the man, or those of equal rank with himself, preserved their
+      independence. If the law pronounced him the master, <i>nibû</i>, to whom
+      they owed obedience and fidelity, they were mistresses of the house, <i>nîbît
+      pirû</i>, as well as wives, <i>himitû</i>, and the two words of the title
+      express their condition. Each of them occupied, in fact, her own house, <i>pirû</i>,
+      which she had from her parents or her husband, and of which she was
+      absolute mistress, <i>nîbît</i>. She lived in it and performed in it
+      without constraint all a woman's duties; feeding the fire, grinding the
+      corn, occupying herself in cooking and weaving, making clothing and
+      perfumes, nursing and teaching her children. When her husband visited her,
+      he was a guest whom she received on an equal footing. It appears that at
+      the outset these various wives were placed under the authority of an older
+      woman, whom they looked on as their mother, and who defended their rights
+      and interests against the master; but this custom gradually disappeared,
+      and in historic times we read of it as existing only in the families of
+      the gods. The female singers consecrated to Amon and other deities, owed
+      obedience to several superiors, of whom the principal (generally the widow
+      of a king or high priest) was called <i>chief-superior of the ladies of
+      the harem of Amon</i>. Besides these wives, there were concubines, slaves
+      purchased or born in the house, prisoners of war, Egyptians of inferior
+      class, who were the chattels of the man and of whom he could dispose as he
+      wished. All the children of one father were legitimate, whether their
+      mother were a wife or merely a concubine, but they did not all enjoy the
+      same advantages; those among them who were born of a brother or sister
+      united in legitimate marriage, took precedence of those whose mother was a
+      wife of inferior rank or a slave. In the family thus constituted, the
+      woman, to all appearances, played the principal part. Children recognized
+      the parental relationship in the mother alone. The husband appears to have
+      entered the house of his wives, rather than the wives to have entered his,
+      and this appearance of inferiority was so marked that the Greeks were
+      deceived by it. They affirmed that the woman was supreme in Egypt; the man
+      at the time of marriage promised obedience to her and entered into a
+      contract not to raise any objection to her commands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had, therefore, good grounds for supposing that the first Egyptians
+      were semi-savages, like those still living in Africa and America, having
+      an analogous organization, and similar weapons and tools. A few lived in
+      the desert, in the oasis of Libya, or in the deep valleys of the Red Land&mdash;Doshirit,
+      To Doshiru&mdash;between the Nile and the sea; the poverty of the country
+      fostering their native savagery. Others, settled on the Black Land,
+      gradually became civilized, and we have found of late considerable remains
+      of those of their generations who, if not anterior to the times of written
+      records, were at least contemporary with the earliest kings of the first
+      historical dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0039" id="linklinkimage-0039">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/066.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="066.jpg Negro Prisoners Wearing the Panther's Skist As A Loin-cloth. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Their houses were like those of the fellahs of to-day, low huts of wattle
+      daubed with puddled clay, or of bricks dried in the sun. They contained
+      one room, either oblong or square, the door being the only aperture. Those
+      of the richer class only were large enough to make it needful to support
+      the roof by means of one or more trunks of trees, which did duty for
+      columns. Earthen pots, turned by hand, flint knives and other implements,
+      mats of reeds or plaited straw, two flat stones for grinding corn, a few
+      pieces of wooden furniture, stools, and head-rests for use at night,
+      comprised all the contents. Their ordinary pottery is heavy and almost
+      devoid of ornament, but some of the finer kinds have been moulded and
+      baked in wickerwork baskets, which have left a quaint trellis-like
+      impression on the surface of the clay. In many cases the vases are
+      bicolour, the body being of a fine smooth red, polished with a stone,
+      while the neck and base are of an intense black, the surface of which is
+      even more shining than that of the red part. Sometimes they are ornamented
+      with patterns in white of flowers, palms, ostriches, gazelles, boats with
+      undulated or broken lines, or geometrical figures of a very simple nature.
+      More often the ground is coloured a fine yellow, and the decoration has
+      been traced in red lines. Jars, saucers, double vases, flat plates, large
+      cups, supports for amphorae, trays raised on a foot&mdash;in short, every
+      kind of form is found in use at that remote period. The men went about
+      nearly naked, except the nobles, who wore a panther's skin, sometimes
+      thrown over the shoulders, sometimes drawn round the waist, and covering
+      the lower part of the body, the animal's tail touching the heels behind,
+      as we see later in several representations of the negroes of the Upper
+      Nile. They smeared their limbs with grease or oil, and they tattooed their
+      faces and bodies, at least in part; but in later times this practice was
+      retained by the lower classes only. On the other hand, the custom of
+      painting the face was never given up. To complete their toilet, it was
+      necessary to accentuate the arch of the eyebrow with a line of kohl
+      (antimony powder). A similar black line surrounded and prolonged the oval
+      of the eye to the middle of the temple, a layer of green coloured the
+      under lid, and ochre and carmine enlivened the tints of the cheeks and
+      lips. The hair, plaited, curled, oiled, and plastered with grease, formed
+      an erection which was as complicated in the case of the man as in that of
+      the woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0040" id="linklinkimage-0040">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/068.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="068.jpg Notable Wearing the Large Cloak over The Left Shoulder. 1; and Priest Wearing the Panther's Skin Across The Breast. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Wooden statue in the Gîzeh Museum (IVth dynasty), drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béchard.
+
+     2 Statue of the second prophet of Amon, Aa-nen, in the Turin
+     Museum (XVIIIth dynasty).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Should the hair be too short, a black or blue wig, dressed with much
+      skill, was substituted for it; ostrich feathers waved on the heads of
+      warriors, and a large lock, flattened behind the right ear, distinguished
+      the military or religious chiefs from their subordinates. When the art of
+      weaving became common, a belt and loin-cloth of white linen replaced the
+      leathern garment. Fastened round the waist, but so low as to leave the
+      navel uncovered, the loin-cloth frequently reached to the knee; the hinder
+      part was frequently drawn between the legs and attached in front to the
+      belt, thus forming a kind of drawers. Tails of animals and wild beast's
+      skin were henceforth only the insignia of authority with which priests and
+      princes adorned themselves on great days and at religious ceremonies. The
+      skin was sometimes carelessly thrown over the left shoulder and swayed
+      with the movement of the body; sometimes it was carefully adjusted over
+      one shoulder and under the other, so as to bring the curve of the chest
+      into prominence. The head of the animal, skilfully prepared and enlivened
+      by large eyes of enamel, rested on the shoulder or fell just below the
+      waist of the wearer; the paws, with the claws attached, hung down over the
+      thighs; the spots of the skin were manipulated so as to form five-pointed
+      stars. On going out-of-doors, a large wrap was thrown over all; this
+      covering was either smooth or hairy, similar to that in which the Nubians
+      and Abyssinians of the present day envelop themselves. It could be draped
+      in various ways; transversely over the left shoulder like the fringed
+      shawl of the Chaldeans, or hanging straight from both shoulders like a
+      mantle.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ** This costume, to which Egyptologists have not given
+     sufficient attention, is frequently represented on the
+     monuments. Besides the two statues reproduced above, I may
+     cite those of Uahibri and of Thoth-nofir in the Louvre, and
+     the Lady Nofrit in the Gîzeh Museum. Thothotpû in his tomb
+     wears this mantle. Khnumhotpû and several of his workmen are
+     represented in it at Beni-Hasan, as also one of the princes
+     of Elephantine in the recently discovered tombs, besides
+     many Egyptians of all classes in the tombs  of  Thebes  (a
+     good  example  is  in  the tomb  of Harmhabi).    The reason
+     why it does not figure more often is, in the first place,
+     that the Egyptian artists experienced actual difficulty in
+     representing the folds of its drapery, although these were
+     simple compared with the complicated arrangement of the
+     Roman toga; finally, the wall-paintings mostly portray
+     either interior scenes, or agricultural labour, or the work
+     of various trades, or episodes of war, or religious
+     ceremonies, in all of which the mantle plays no part. Every
+     Egyptian peasant, however, possessed his own, and it was in
+     constant use in his daily life.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In fact, it did duty as a cloak, sheltering the wearer from the sun or
+      from the rain, from the heat or from the cold. They never sought to
+      transform it into a luxurious garment of state, as was the case in later
+      times with the Roman toga, whose amplitude secured a certain dignity of
+      carriage, and whose folds, carefully adjusted beforehand, fell around the
+      body with studied grace. The Egyptian mantle when not required was thrown
+      aside and folded up. The material being fine and soft it occupied but a
+      small space and was reduced to a long thin roll; the ends being then
+      fastened together, it was slung over the shoulder and round the body like
+      a cavalry cloak.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Many draughtsmen, ignorant of what they had to represent,
+     have made incorrect copies of the manner in which this cloak
+     was worn; but examples of it are numerous, although until
+     now attention has not been called to them. The following are
+     a few instances taken at random of the way in which it was
+     used: Pepi I., fighting against the nomads of Sinai, has the
+     cloak, but with the two ends passed through the belt of his
+     loin-cloth; at Zawyet el-Maiyitîn, Khunas, killing birds
+     with the boomerang from his boat, wears it, but simply
+     thrown over the left shoulder, with the two extremities
+     hanging free. Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan, the Khrihdbi, the
+     overseers, or the peasants, all have it rolled and slung
+     round them; the Prince of el-Bersheh wears it like a mantle
+     in folds over the two shoulders. If it is objected that the
+     material could not be reduced to such small dimensions as
+     those represented in these drawings of what I believe to be
+     the Egyptian cloak, I way cite our cavalry capes, when
+     rolled and slung, as an instance of what good packing will
+     do in reducing volume.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0041" id="linklinkimage-0041">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/070.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="070.jpg a Dignitary Wrapped in his Large Cloak. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Statue of Khiti in the Gîzeh Museum (XIIth and XIIIth
+     dynasties), drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Travellers, shepherds, all those whose occupations called them to the
+      fields, carried it as a bundle at the ends of their sticks; once arrived
+      at the scene of their work, they deposited it in a corner with their
+      provisions until they required it. The women were at first contented with
+      a loin-cloth like that of the men; it was enlarged and lengthened till it
+      reached the ankle below and the bosom above, and became a tightly fitting
+      garment, with two bands over the shoulders, like braces, to keep it in
+      place. The feet were not always covered; on certain occasions, however,
+      sandals of coarse leather, plaited straw, split reed, or even painted
+      wood, adorned those shapely Egyptian feet, which, to suit our taste,
+      should be a little shorter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0042" id="linklinkimage-0042">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/072.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="072.jpg Costume of Egyptian Woman, Spinning. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the spinning-women at
+     the Paris Exhibition of 1889. It was restored from the
+     paintings in the tomb of Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Both men and women loved ornaments, and covered their necks, breasts,
+      arms, wrists, and ankles with many rows of necklaces and bracelets. The
+      bracelets were made of elephant ivory, mother-of-pearl, or even flint,
+      very cleverly perforated. The necklaces were composed of strings of
+      pierced shells,[**] interspersed with seeds and little pebbles, either
+      sparkling or of unusual shapes.[***] Subsequently imitations in
+      terra-cotta replaced the natural shells, and precious stones were
+      substituted for pebbles, as were also beads of enamel, either round,
+      pear-shaped, or cylindrical: the necklaces were terminated and a uniform
+      distance maintained between the rows of beads, by several slips of wood,
+      bone, ivory, porcelain, or terra-cotta, pierced with holes, through which
+      ran the threads.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  The burying-places of Abydos, especially the most
+     ancient, have furnished us with millions of shells, pierced
+     and threaded as necklaces; they all belong to the species of
+     cowries used as money in Africa at the present day.
+
+     ***  Necklaces of seeds have been found in the tombs of
+     Abydos, Thebes, and Gebelên.    Of  these  Schweinfurth
+     has  identified,   among others,   the <i>Cassia absus</i>,  "a
+     weed of the Soudan whose seeds are sold in the drug bazaar
+     at Cairo and Alexandria under the name of <i>shishn</i>, as a
+     remedy, which is in great request among the natives, for
+     ophthalmia." For the necklaces of pebbles, cf. Maspeeo,
+     Guide du visiteur, pp. 270, 271, No. 4129. A considerable
+     number of these pebbles, particularly those of strange
+     shape, or presenting a curious combination of colours, must
+     have been regarded as amulets or fetishes by their Egyptian
+     owners; analogous cases, among other peoples, have been
+     pointed out by E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p.
+     189.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0043" id="linklinkimage-0043">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/073.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="073.jpg Man Wearing Wig and Necklaces.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a portrait of Pharaoh Seti I.
+     of the XIXth dynasty: the lower part of the necklace has
+     been completed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Weapons, at least among the nobility, were an indispensable part of
+      costume. Most of them were for hand-to-hand fighting: sticks, clubs,
+      lances furnished with a sharpened bone or stone point, axes and daggers of
+      flint,[*] sabres and clubs of bone or wood variously shaped, pointed or
+      rounded at the end, with blunt or sharp blades,&mdash;inoffensive enough
+      to look at, but, wielded by a vigorous hand, sufficient to break an arm,
+      crush in the ribs, or smash a skull with all desirable precision.[**] The
+      plain or triple curved bow was the favourite weapon for attack at a
+      distance,[***] but in addition to this there were the sling, the javelin,
+      and a missile almost forgotten nowadays, the boomerang, we have no proof
+      however, that the Egyptians handled the boomerang[****] with the skill of
+      the Australians, or that they knew how to throw it so as to bring it back
+      to its point of departure.[v]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  In several museums, notably at Leyden, we find Egyptian
+     axes of stone, particularly of serpentine, both rough and
+     polished.
+
+     **  In primitive times the bone of an animal served as a
+     club.    This is proved by the shape of the object held in
+     the hand in the sign and the hieroglyph which is the
+     determinative in writing for all ideas   of violence or
+     brute force, comes down to us from a time when the principal
+     weapon was the club, or a bone serving as a club.
+
+     ***  For the two principal shapes of the bow, see Lepsius,
+     Der Bogen in der Hieroglypliik (Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 79-
+     88). From the earliest times the sign m£ portrays the
+     soldier equipped with the bow and bundle of arrows; the
+     quiver was of Asiatic origin, and was not adopted until much
+     later. In the contemporary texts of the first dynasties, the
+     idea of weapons is conveyed by the bow, arrow, and club or
+     axe.
+
+     ****  The boomerang is still used by certain tribes of the
+     Nile valley.    It is portrayed in the most ancient tombs,
+     and every museum possesses examples, varying in shape.
+     Besides the ordinary boomerang, the Egyptians used one which
+     ended in a knob, and another of semicircular shape: this
+     latter, reproduced in miniature in cornelian or in red
+     jasper, served as an amulet, and was placed on the mummy to
+     furnish the deceased in the other world with a fighting or
+     hunting weapon.
+
+     v  The Australian boomerang is much larger than the Egyptian
+     one; it is about a yard in length, two inches in width, and
+     three sixteenths of an inch in thickness. For the manner of
+     handling it, and what can be done with it, see Lubbock,
+     Prehistoric Man, pp. 402, 403.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0044" id="linklinkimage-0044">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/074.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="074.jpg the Boomerang and Fighting Bow. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of
+     Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0045" id="linklinkimage-0045">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/075.jpg" width="100%" alt="075.jpg Votive Axe. 3 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     3  The blade is of bronze, and is attached to the wooden
+     handle by interlacing thongs of leather (Gizeh Museum).
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Such was approximately the most ancient equipment as far as we can
+      ascertain; but at a very early date copper and iron were known in
+      Egypt.[**] Long before historic times, the majority of the weapons in wood
+      were replaced by those of metal,&mdash;daggers, sabres, hatchets, which
+      preserved, however, the shape of the old wooden instruments.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  Metals were introduced into Egypt in very ancient times,
+     since the class of blacksmiths is associated with the
+     worship of Horus of Edfû, and appears in the account of the
+     mythical wars of that God. The earliest tools we possess, in
+     copper or bronze, date from the IVth dynasty: pieces of iron
+     have been found from time to time in the masonry of the
+     Great Pyramid. Mons Montélius has again and again contested
+     the authenticity of these discoveries, and he thinks that
+     iron was not known in Egypt till a much later period.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Those wooden weapons which were retained, were used for hunting, or were
+      only brought out on solemn occasions when tradition had to be respected.
+      The war-baton became the commander's wand of authority, and at last
+      degenerated into the walking-stick of the rich or noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0046" id="linklinkimage-0046">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/076.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="076.jpg King Holding the Baton. 3 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     3  Bas-relief in the temple of Luxor, from a photograph
+     taken by Insinger in 1886.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The club at length represented merely the rank of a chieftain,[*] while
+      the crook and the wooden-handled mace, with its head of ivory, diorite,
+      granite, or white stone, the favourite weapons of princes, continued to
+      the last the most revered insignia of royalty.[**]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life was passed in comparative ease and pleasure. Of the ponds left in the
+      open country by the river at its fall, some dried up more or less quickly
+      during the winter, leaving on the soil an immense quantity of fish, the
+      possession of which birds and wild beasts disputed with man.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The wooden club most commonly represented is the usual
+     insignia of a nobleman. Several kinds of clubs, somewhat
+     difficult for us moderns to distinguish, yet bearing
+     different names, formed a part of funereal furniture.
+
+     **  The crook is the sceptre of a prince, a Pharaoh, or a
+     god; the white mace has still the value apparently of a
+     weapon in the hands of the king who brandishes it over a
+     group of prisoners or over an ox which he is sacrificing to
+     a divinity. Most museums possess specimens of the stone
+     heads of these maces, but until lately their use was not
+     known. I had several placed in the Boulak Museum. It already
+     possessed a model of one entirely of wood.
+
+     ***  Cf. the description of these pools given by Geoffroy-
+     Saint-Hilaire in speaking of the fahaka. Even at the present
+     day the jackals come down from the mountains in the night,
+     and regale themselves with the fish left on the ground by
+     the gradual drying up of these ponds.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0047" id="linklinkimage-0047">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/077.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="077.jpg Fishing in the Marshes " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Other pools, however, remained till the returning inundation, as so many
+      <i>vivaria</i> in which the fish were preserved for dwellers on the banks.
+      Fishing with the harpoon, made either of stone or of metal, with the line,
+      with a net or with traps, were all methods of fishing known and used by
+      the Egyptians from early times. Where the ponds failed, the neighbouring
+      Nile furnished them with inexhaustible supplies. Standing in light canoes,
+      or rather supported by a plank on bundles of reeds bound together, they
+      ventured into mid-stream, in spite of the danger arising from the
+      ever-present hippopotamus; or they penetrated up the canals amid a thicket
+      of aquatic plants, to bring down with the boomerang the birds which found
+      covert there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0048" id="linklinkimage-0048">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/078.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="078.jpg Hunting in the Marshes: Encountering and Spearing A Hippopotamus. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Tomb of Ti. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Dûmichen,
+     Besultate, vol. ii. pl. x.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The fowl and fish which could not be eaten fresh, were dried, salted, or
+      smoked, and kept for a rainy day. Like the river, the desert had its
+      perils and its resources. Only too frequently, the lion, the leopard, the
+      panther, and other large felidse were met with there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0049" id="linklinkimage-0049">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/079.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="079.jpg Hunting in the Desert: Bull, Lion, and Oryx Pierced With Arrows. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting by Beni-Hasan,
+     Lepsius, Denhm., ii. 136.
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpû.
+     The dogs on the upper level are of hyenoid type, those on
+     the lower are Abyssinian greyhounds.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The nobles, like the Pharaohs of later times, deemed it as their privilege
+      or duty to stalk and destroy these animals, pursuing them even to their
+      dens. The common people preferred attacking the gazelle, the oryx, the
+      mouflon sheep, the ibex, the wild ox, and the ostrich, but did not disdain
+      more humble game, such as the porcupine and long-eared hare: nondescript
+      packs, in which the jackal and the hyena ran side by side with the
+      wolf-dog and the lithe Abyssinian greyhound, scented and retrieved for
+      their master the prey which he had pierced with his arrows. At times a
+      hunter, returning with the dead body of the mother, would be followed by
+      one of her young; or a gazelle, but slightly wounded, would be taken to
+      the village and healed of its hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0050" id="linklinkimage-0050">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/080.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="080.jpg Catching Animals With the Bola. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpû.
+     Above are seen two porcupines, the foremost of which,
+     emerging from his hole, has seized a grasshopper.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Such animals by daily contact with man, were gradually tamed, and formed
+      about his dwelling a motley flock, kept partly for his pleasure and mostly
+      for his profit, and becoming in case of necessity a ready stock of
+      provisions.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  In the same way, before the advent of Europeans, the
+     half-civilized tribes of North America used to keep about
+     their huts whole flocks of different animals, which were
+     tame, but not domesticated.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Efforts were therefore made to enlarge this flock, and the wish to procure
+      animals without seriously injuring them, caused the Egyptians to use the
+      net for birds and the lasso and the <i>bola</i> for quadrupeds,[*]&mdash;weapons
+      less brutal than the arrow and the javelin. The <i>bola</i> was made by
+      them of a single rounded stone, attached to a strap about five yards in
+      length. The stone once thrown, the cord twisted round the legs, muzzle, or
+      neck of the animal pursued, and by the attachment thus made the pursuer,
+      using all his strength, was enabled to bring the beast down half
+      strangled. The lasso has no stone attached to it, but a noose prepared
+      beforehand, and the skill of the hunter consists in throwing it round the
+      neck of his victim while running. They caught indifferently, without
+      distinction of size or kind, all that chance brought within their reach.
+      The daily chase kept up these half-tamed flocks of gazelles, wild goats,
+      water-bucks, stocks, and ostriches, and their numbers are reckoned by
+      hundreds on the monuments of the ancient empire.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Hunting with the bola is constantly represented in the
+     paintings both of the Memphite and Theban periods. Wilkinson
+     has confounded it with lasso-hunting, and his mistake has
+     been reproduced by other Egyptologists. Lasso-hunting is
+     seen in Lepsius, Denhn., ii. 96, in Dùmichen, <i>resultate</i>,
+     vol. i. pl. viii., and particularly in the numerous
+     sacrificial scenes where the king is supposed to be
+     capturing the bull of the north or south, previous to
+     offering it to the god.
+
+     **  As the tombs of the ancient empire show us numerous
+     flocks of gazelles, antelopes, and storks, feeding under the
+     care of shepherds, Fr. Lenormant concluded that the
+     Egyptians of early times had succeeded in domesticating some
+     species, nowadays rebels to restraint. It is my belief that
+     the animals represented were tamed, but not domesticated,
+     and were the result of great hunting expeditions in the
+     desert. The facts which Lenormant brought forward to support
+     his theory may be used against him. For instance, the fawn
+     of the gazelle nourished by its mother does not prove that
+     it was bred in captivity; the gazelle may have been caught
+     before calving, or just after the birth of its young. The
+     fashion of keeping flocks of animals taken from the desert
+     died out between the XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties.    At the
+     time of the new empire, they had only one or two solitary
+     animals as pets for women or children, the mummies of which
+     were sometimes buried by the side of their mistresses.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Experience alone taught the hunter to distinguish between those species
+      from which he could draw profit, and others whose wildness made them
+      impossible to domesticate. The subjection of the most useful kinds had not
+      been finished when the historic period opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0051" id="linklinkimage-0051">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/082.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="082.jpg a Swineherd and his Pigs. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in a Theban tomb
+     of the XVIIIth dynasty.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The ass, the sheep, and the goat were already domesticated, but the pig
+      was still out in the marshes in a semi-wild state, under the care of
+      special herdsmen,[*] and the religious rites preserved the remembrance of
+      the times in which the ox was so little tamed, that in order to capture
+      while grazing the animals needed for sacrifice or for slaughter, it was
+      necessary to use the lasso.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The hatred of the Egyptians for the pig (Herodotus, ii.
+     47) is attributed to mythological motives. Lippert thinks
+     this antipathy did not exist in Egypt in primitive times. At
+     the outset the pig would have been the principal food of the
+     people; then, like the dog in other regions, it must have
+     been replaced at the table by animals of a higher order&mdash;
+     gazelles, sheep, goats, oxen&mdash;and would have thus fallen
+     into contempt. To the excellent reasons given by Lippert
+     could be added others drawn from the study of the Egyptian
+     myths, to prove that the pig has often been highly esteemed.
+     Thus, Isis is represented, down to late times, under the
+     form of a sow, and a sow, whether followed or not by her
+     young is one of the amulets placed in the tomb with the
+     deceased, to secure for him the protection of the goddess.
+
+     ***  Mariette, Abydos (vol. i. pl. 48 b, 53).    To prevent
+     the animal from evading the lasso and escaping during the
+     sacrifice, its right hind foot was fastened to its left
+     horn.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Europeans are astonished to meet nowadays whole peoples who make use of
+      herbs and plants whose flavour and properties are nauseating to us: these
+      are mostly so many legacies from a remote past; for example, castor-oil,
+      with which the Berbers rub their limbs, and with which the fellahîn of the
+      Saïd flavour their bread and vegetables, was preferred before all others
+      by the Egyptians of the Pharaonic age for anointing the body and for
+      culinary use.[*] They had begun by eating indiscriminately every kind of
+      fruit which the country produced. Many of these, when their therapeutic
+      virtues had been learned by experience, were gradually banished as
+      articles of food, and their use restricted to medicine; others fell into
+      disuse, and only reappeared at sacrifices, or at funeral feasts; several
+      varieties continue to be eaten to the present time&mdash;the acid fruits
+      of the nabeca and of the carob tree, the astringent figs of the sycamore,
+      the insipid pulp of the dam-palm, besides those which are pleasant to our
+      Western palates, such as the common fig and the date. The vine flourished,
+      at least in Middle and Lower Egypt; from time immemorial the art of making
+      wine from it was known, and even the most ancient monuments enumerate half
+      a dozen famous brands, red or white.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  I have often been obliged, from politeness, when dining
+     with the native agents appointed by the European powers at
+     Port Saïd, to eat salads and mayonnaise sauces flavoured
+     with castor-oil; the taste was not so disagreeable as might
+     be at first imagined.
+
+     **  The four kinds of canonical wine, brought respectively
+     from the north, south, east, and west of the country, formed
+     part of the official repast and of the wine-cellar of the
+     deceased from remote antiquity.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Vetches, lupins, beans, chick-peas, lentils, onions, fenugreek,[*] the
+      bamiâ,[**] the meloukhia,[***] the arum colocasia, all grew wild in the
+      fields, and the river itself supplied its quota of nourishing plants.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  All these species have been found in the tombs and
+     identified by savants in archaeological botany&mdash;Kunth,
+     Unger, Schweinfurth (Loret, <i>La Flore Pharaonique</i>, pp. 17,
+     40, 42, 43, Nos. 33, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106).
+
+     **  The bamiâ, <i>Hibiscus esculentus</i>, L., is a plant of the
+     family of the Malvaceae, having a fruit of five divisions,
+     covered with prickly hairs, and pontaining round, white,
+     soft seeds, slightly sweet, but astringent in taste, and
+     very mucilaginous.    It figures on the monuments of
+     Pharaonic times.
+
+     ***  The meloukhia, <i>Corchorus Olitorius</i>, L., is a plant
+     belonging to the Tilliacese, which is chopped up and cooked
+     much the same as endive is with us, but which few Europeans
+     can eat with pleasure, owing to the mucilage it contains.
+     Theophrastus says it was celebrated for its bitterness; it
+     was used as food, however, in the Greek town of Alexandria.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0052" id="linklinkimage-0052">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/084.jpg" width="100%" alt="084.jpg the Egyptian Lotus. 4 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from the <i>Description de
+     l'Egypte</i>, Histoire Naturelle, pl. 61.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two of the species of lotus which grew in the Nile, the white and the
+      blue, have seed-vessels similar to those of the poppy: the capsules
+      contain small grains of the size of millet-seed. The fruit of the pink
+      lotus "grows on a different stalk from that of the flower, and springs
+      directly from the root; it resembles a honeycomb in form," or, to take a
+      more prosaic simile, the rose of a watering-pot. The upper part has twenty
+      or thirty cavities, "each containing a seed as big as an olive stone, and
+      pleasant to eat either fresh or dried." This is what the ancients called
+      the bean of Egypt. "The yearly shoots of the papyrus are also gathered.
+      After pulling them up in the marshes, the points are cut off and rejected,
+      the part remaining being about a cubit in length. It is eaten as a
+      delicacy and is sold in the markets, but those who are fastidious partake
+      of it only after baking." Twenty different kinds of grain and fruits,
+      prepared by crushing between two stones, are kneaded and baked to furnish
+      cakes or bread; these are often mentioned in the texts as cakes of nabeca,
+      date cakes, and cakes of figs. Lily loaves, made from the roots and seeds
+      of the lotus, were the delight of the gourmand, and appear on the tables
+      of the kings of the XIXth dynasty.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * <i>Tiû</i>, which is the most ancient word for bread, appears
+     in early times to have been used for every kind of paste,
+     whether made with fruits or grain; the more modern word âqû
+     applies specially to bread made from cereals. The lily
+     loaves are mentioned in the Papyrus Anastasi, No. 4, p. 14.
+     1. 1.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Bread and cakes made of cereals formed the habitual food of the people.
+      Durrah is of African origin; it is the "grain of the South" of the
+      inscriptions. On the other hand, it is supposed that wheat and six-rowed
+      barley came from the region of the Euphrates. Egypt was among the first to
+      procure and cultivate them.[*] The soil there is so kind to man, that in
+      many places no agricultural toil is required.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The position which wheat and barley occupy in the lists
+     of offerings, proves the antiquity of their existence in
+     Egypt. Mariette found specimens of barley in the tombs of
+     the Ancient Empire at Saqqarah.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0053" id="linklinkimage-0053">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/086.jpg" width="100%" alt="086.jpg the Egyptian Hoe.2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti; drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the water of the Nile retires, the ground is sown without
+      previous preparation, and the grain, falling straight into the mud, grows
+      as vigorously as in the best-ploughed furrows. Where the earth is hard it
+      is necessary to break it up, but the extreme simplicity of the instruments
+      with which this was done shows what a feeble resistance it offered. For a
+      long time the hoe sufficed. It was composed either of a large stone tied
+      to a wooden handle, or was made of two pieces of wood of unequal length,
+      united at one of their extremities, and held together towards the middle
+      by a slack cord: the plough, when first invented was but a slightly
+      enlarged hoe, drawn by oxen. The cultivation of cereals, once established
+      on the banks of the Nile, developed, from earliest times, to such a degree
+      as to supplant all else: hunting, fishing, the rearing of cattle, occupied
+      but a secondary place compared with agriculture, and Egypt became, that
+      which she still remains, a vast granary of wheat. The part of the valley
+      first cultivated was from Gebel Silsileh to the apex of the Delta.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  This was the tradition of all the ancients. Herodotus
+     related that, according to the Egyptians, the whole of
+     Egypt, with the exception of the Theban nome, was a vast
+     swamp previous to the time of Menés. Aristotle adds that the
+     Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the area now occupied by the
+     Delta, formed one sea. Cf. pp. 3-5 of this volume, on the
+     formation of the Delta.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0054" id="linklinkimage-0054">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/087.jpg" width="100%" alt="087.jpg Ploughing. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti; drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Between the Libyan and Arabian ranges it presents a slightly convex
+      surface, furrowed lengthways by a depression, in the bottom of which the
+      Nile is gathered and enclosed when the inundation is over. In the summer,
+      as soon as the river had risen higher than the top of its banks, the water
+      rushed by the force of gravity towards the lower lands, hollowing in its
+      course long channels, some of which never completely dried up, even when
+      the Nile reached its lowest level.[*] Cultivation was easy in the
+      neighbourhood of these natural reservoirs, but everywhere else the
+      movements of the river were rather injurious than advantageous to man. The
+      inundation scarcely ever covered the higher ground in the valley, which
+      therefore remained unproductive; it flowed rapidly over the lands of
+      medium elevation, and moved so sluggishly in the hollows that they became
+      weedy and stagnant pools.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The whole description of the damage which can be done by
+     the Nile in places where the inundation is not regulated, is
+     borrowed from Linant de Bellefonds, <i>Mémoire sur les
+     principaux travaux d'utilité publique</i>, p. 3.
+
+     ** This physical configuration of the country explains the
+     existence at a very early date of those gigantic serpents
+     which I have already mentioned.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0055" id="linklinkimage-0055">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/089.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="089.jpg an Egyptian Saki (well) Showing Method Of Procuring Water for Irrigation. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      In any year the portion not watered by the river was invaded by the sand:
+      from the lush vegetation of a hot country, there was but one step to
+      absolute aridity. At the present day an ingeniously established system of
+      irrigation allows the agriculturist to direct and distribute the overflow
+      according to his needs. From Gebel Ain to the sea, the Nile and its
+      principal branches are bordered by long dykes, which closely follow the
+      windings of the river and furnish sufficiently stable embankments.
+      Numerous canals lead off to right and left, directed more or less
+      obliquely towards the confines of the valley; they are divided at
+      intervals by fresh dykes, starting at the one side from the river, and
+      ending on the other either at the Bahr Yusuf or at the rising of the
+      desert. Some of these dykes protect one district only, and consist merely
+      of a bank of earth; others command a large extent of territory, and a
+      breach in them would entail the ruin of an entire province. These latter
+      are sometimes like real ramparts, made of crude brick carefully cemented;
+      a few, as at Qosheish, have a core of hewn stones, which later generations
+      have covered with masses of brickwork, and strengthened with constantly
+      renewed buttresses of earth. They wind across the plain with many
+      unexpected and apparently aimless turns; on closer examination, however,
+      it may be seen that this irregularity is not to be attributed to ignorance
+      or caprice. Experience had taught the Egyptians the art of picking out,
+      upon the almost imperceptible relief of the soil, the easiest lines to use
+      against the inundation: of these they have followed carefully the
+      sinuosities, and if the course of the dykes appears singular, it is to be
+      ascribed to the natural configuration of the ground. Subsidiary
+      embankments thrown up between the principal ones, and parallel to the
+      Nile, separate the higher ground bordering the river from the low lands on
+      the confines of the valley; they divide the larger basins into smaller
+      divisions of varying area, in which the irrigation is regulated by means
+      of special trenches. As long as the Nile is falling, the dwellers on its
+      banks leave their canals in free communication with it; but they dam them
+      up towards the end of the winter, just before the return of the
+      inundation, and do not reopen them till early in August, when the new
+      flood is at its height. The waters then flowing in by the trenches are
+      arrested by the nearest transverse dyke and spread over the fields. When
+      they have stood there long enough to saturate the ground, the dyke is
+      pierced, and they pour into the next basin until they are stopped by a
+      second dyke, which in its turn forces them again to spread out on either
+      side. This operation is renewed from dyke to dyke, till the valley soon
+      becomes a series of artificial ponds, ranged one above another, and
+      flowing one into another from Grebel Silsileh to the apex of the Delta. In
+      autumn, the mouth of each ditch is dammed up anew, in order to prevent the
+      mass of water from flowing back into the stream. The transverse dykes,
+      which have been cut in various places, are also repaired, and the basins
+      become completely landlocked, separated by narrow causeways. In some
+      places, the water thus imprisoned is so shallow that it is soon absorbed
+      by the soil; in others, it is so deep, that after it has been kept in for
+      several weeks, it is necessary to let it run off into a neighbouring
+      depression, or straight into the river itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0056" id="linklinkimage-0056">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/091.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="091.jpg Boatmen Fighting on a Canal Communicating With The Nile. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti;   drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from  a photograph by E. Brugsch-Bey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      History has left us no account of the vicissitudes of the struggle in
+      which the Egyptians were engaged with the Nile, nor of the time expended
+      in bringing it to a successful issue. Legend attributes the idea of the
+      system and its partial working out to the god Osiris: then Menés, the
+      first mortal king, is said to have made the dyke of Qosheish, on which
+      depends the prosperity of the Delta and Middle Egypt, and the fabulous
+      Mceris is supposed to have extended the blessings of the irrigation to the
+      Fayûm. In reality, the regulation of the inundation and the making of
+      cultivable land are the work of unrecorded generations who peopled the
+      valley. The kings of the historic period had only to maintain and develop
+      certain points of what had already been done, and Upper Egypt is to this
+      day chequered by the network of waterways with which its earliest
+      inhabitants covered it. The work must have begun simultaneously at several
+      points, without previous agreement, and, as it were, instinctively. A dyke
+      protecting a village, a canal draining or watering some small province,
+      demanded the efforts of but few individuals; then the dykes would join one
+      another, the canals would be prolonged till they met others, and the work
+      undertaken by chance would be improved, and would spread with the
+      concurrence of an ever-increasing population. What happened at the end of
+      last century, shows us that the system grew and was developed at the
+      expense of considerable quarrels and bloodshed. The inhabitants of each
+      district carried out the part of the work most conducive to their own
+      interest, seizing the supply of water, keeping it and discharging it at
+      pleasure, without considering whether they were injuring their neighbours
+      by depriving them of their supply or by flooding them; hence arose
+      perpetual strife and fighting. It became imperative that the rights of the
+      weaker should be respected, and that the system of distribution should be
+      co-ordinated, for the country to accept a beginning at least of social
+      organization analogous to that which it acquired later: the Nile thus
+      determined the political as well as the physical constitution of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0057" id="linklinkimage-0057">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/092.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="092.jpg a Great Egyptian Lord, Ti, and his Wife. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûmichen,
+     <i>Resultate</i>, vol. ii. pl. vit
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The country was divided among communities, whose members were supposed to
+      be descended from the same seed (<i>paît</i>) and to belong to the same
+      family (<i>pâîtû</i>): the chiefs of them were called <i>ropâîtû</i>, the
+      guardians, or pastors of the family, and in later times their name became
+      a title applicable to the nobility in general. Families combined and
+      formed groups of various importance under the authority of a head chief&mdash;<i>ropâîtû-hâ</i>.
+      They were, in fact, hereditary lords, dispensing justice, levying taxes in
+      kind on their subordinates, reserving to themselves the redistribution of
+      land, leading their men to, battle, and sacrificing to the gods.[*] The
+      territories over which they exercised authority formed small states, whose
+      boundaries even now, in some places, can be pointed out with certainty.
+      The principality of the Terebinth[**] occupied the very heart of Egypt,
+      where the valley is widest, and the course of the Nile most advantageously
+      disposed by nature&mdash;a country well suited to be the cradle of an
+      infant civilization. Siaût (Siût), the capital, is built almost at the
+      foot of the Libyan range, on a strip of land barely a mile in width, which
+      separates the river from the hills. A canal surrounds it on three sides,
+      and makes, as it were, a natural ditch about its walls; during the
+      inundation it is connected with the mainland only by narrow causeways&mdash;shaded
+      with mimosas&mdash;and looking like a raft of verdure aground in the
+      current.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  These prerogatives were still exercised by the princes of
+     the nomes under the Middle and New Empires; they only
+     enjoyed them then by the good will of the reigning
+     sovereign.
+
+     **  The Egyptian word for the tree which gives its name to
+     this principality is <i>atf, iatf, iôtf</i>: it is only by a
+     process of elimination that I have come to identify it with
+     the <i>Pistacia Terebinthus</i>, L., which furnished the
+     Egyptians with the scented resin <i>snûtir</i>.
+
+     ***  Boudier's drawing, reproduced on p. 31, and taken from
+     a photograph by Beato, gives most faithfully the aspect
+     presented by the plain and the modern town of Siout during
+     the inundation.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0058" id="linklinkimage-0058">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/094.jpg" width="100%" alt="094.jpg Nomes of Middle Egypt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The site is as happy as it is picturesque; not only does the town command
+      the two arms of the river, opening or closing the waterway at will, but
+      from time immemorial the most frequented of the routes into Central Africa
+      has terminated at its gates, bringing to it the commerce of the Soudan. It
+      held sway, at the outset, over both banks, from range to range, northward
+      as far as Deyrût, where the true Bahr Yusuf leaves the Nile, and southward
+      to the neighbourhood of Gebel Sheikh Haridi. The extent and original
+      number of the other principalities is not so easily determined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most important, to the north of Siût, were those of the Hare and the
+      Oleander. The principality of the Hare never reached the dimensions of
+      that of its neighbour the Terebinth, but its chief town was Khmûnû, whose
+      antiquity was so remote, that a universally accepted tradition made it the
+      scene of the most important acts of creation.[*] That of the Oleander, on
+      the contrary, was even larger than that of the Terebinth, and from
+      Hininsû, its chief governor ruled alike over the marshes of the Fayûm and
+      the plains of Beni-Suef.[**] To the south, Apû on the right bank governed
+      a district so closely shut in between a bend of the Nile and two spurs of
+      the range, that its limits have never varied much since ancient times. Its
+      inhabitants were divided in their employment between weaving and the
+      culture of cereals. From early times they possessed the privilege of
+      furnishing clothing to a large part of Egypt, and their looms, at the
+      present day, still make those checked or striped "melayahs" which the
+      fellah women wear over their long blue tunics.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Khmûnû, the present Ashmûneîn, is the Hermopolis of the
+     Greeks, the town of the god Thot.
+
+     **  Hininsû is the <i>Heraecleopolis Magna</i> of the Greeks, the
+     present Henassieh, called also Ahnas-el-Medineh. The
+     Egyptian word for the tree which gives its name to this
+     principality, is Nârît. Loret has shown that this tree,
+     <i>Nârît</i>, is the oleander.
+
+     ***  Apû was the Panopolis or Chemmis of the Greeks, the
+     town of the god Mîn or ithyphallic Khimû. Its manufactures
+     of linen are mentioned by Strabo; the majority of the
+     beautiful Coptic woven fabrics and embroideries which have
+     been brought to Europe lately, come from the necropolis of
+     the Arab period at Apû.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Beyond Apû, Thinis, the Girgeh of the Arabs, situate on both banks of the
+      river, rivalled Khmûnû in antiquity and Siût in wealth: its plains still
+      produce the richest harvests and feed the most numerous herds of sheep and
+      oxen in the Said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0059" id="linklinkimage-0059">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/096.jpg" width="100%" alt="096.jpg Nomes of Upper Egypt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      As we approach the cataract, information becomes scarcer. Qûbti and Aûnû
+      of the South, the Coptos and Hermonthis of the Greeks, shared peaceably
+      the plain occupied later on by Thebes and its temples, and Nekhabît and
+      Zobû watched over the safety of Egypt. Nekhabît soon lost its position as
+      a frontier town, and that portion of Nubia lying between Gebel Silsileh
+      and the rapids of Syene formed a kind of border province, of which
+      Nubît-Ombos was the principal sanctuary and Abu-Elephantine the fortress:
+      beyond this were the barbarians, and those inaccessible regions whence the
+      Nile descended upon our earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The organization of the Delta, it would appear, was more slowly brought
+      about. It must have greatly resembled that of the lowlands of Equatorial
+      Africa, towards the confluence of the Bahr el Abiad and the Bahr el
+      Ghazâl. Great tracts of mud, difficult to describe as either solid or
+      liquid, marshes dotted here and there with sandy islets, bristling with
+      papyrus reeds, water-lilies, and enormous plants through which the arms of
+      the Nile sluggishly pushed their ever-shifting course, low-lying wastes
+      intersected with streams and pools, unfit for cultivation and scarcely
+      available for pasturing cattle. The population of such districts, engaged
+      in a ceaseless struggle with nature, always preserved relatively ruder
+      manners, and a more rugged and savage character, impatient of all
+      authority. The conquest of this region began from the outer edge only. A
+      few principalities were established at the apex of the Delta in localities
+      where the soil had earliest been won from the river. It appears that one
+      of these divisions embraced the country south of and between the
+      bifurcation of the Nile: Aûnû of the North, the Heliopolis of the Greeks,
+      was its capital. In very early times the principality was divided, and
+      formed three new states, independent of each other. Those of Aûnû and the
+      Haunch were opposite to each other, the first on the Arabian, the latter
+      on the Libyan bank of the Nile. The district of the White Wall marched
+      with that of the Haunch on the north, and on the south touched the
+      territory of the Oleander. Further down the river, between the more
+      important branches, the governors of Sai's and of Bubastis, of Athribis
+      and of Busiris, shared among themselves the primitive Delta. Two frontier
+      provinces of unequal size, the Arabian on the east in the Wady Tumilat,
+      and the Libyan on the west to the south of Lake Mareotis, defended the
+      approaches of the country from the attacks of Asiatic Bedâwins and of
+      African nomads. The marshes of the interior and the dunes of the littoral,
+      were not conducive to the development of any great industry or
+      civilization. They only comprised tracts of thinly populated country, like
+      the principalities of the Harpoon and of the Cow, and others whose limits
+      varied from century to century with the changing course of the river. The
+      work of rendering the marshes salubrious and of digging canals, which had
+      been so successful in the Nile Valley, was less efficacious in the Delta,
+      and proceeded more slowly. Here the embankments were not supported by a
+      mountain chain: they were continued at random across the marshes, cut at
+      every turn to admit the waters of a canal or of an arm of the river. The
+      waters left their usual bed at the least disturbing influence, and made a
+      fresh course for themselves across country. If the inundation were
+      delayed, the soft and badly drained soil again became a slough: should it
+      last but a few weeks longer than usual, the work of several generations
+      was for a long time undone. The Delta of one epoch rarely presented the
+      same aspect as that of previous periods, and Northern Egypt never became
+      as fully mistress of her soil as the Egypt of the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkimage-0060" id="linklinkimage-0060">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/099.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/099th.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="099.jpg Nomes of Lower Egypt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> Click on the Image to Enlarge to Full Size
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These first principalities, however small they appear to us, were yet too
+      large to remain undivided. In those times of slow communication, the
+      strong attraction which a capital exercised over the provinces under its
+      authority did not extend over a wide radius. That part of the population
+      of the Terebinth, living sufficiently near to Siût to come into the town
+      for a few hours in the morning, returning in the evening to the villages
+      when business was done, would not feel any desire to withdraw from the
+      rule of the prince who governed there. On the other hand, those who lived
+      outside that restricted circle were forced to seek elsewhere some places
+      of assembly to attend the administration of justice, to sacrifice in
+      common to the national gods, and to exchange the produce of the fields and
+      of local manufactures. Those towns which had the good fortune to become
+      such rallying-points naturally played the part of rivals to the capital,
+      and their chiefs, with the district whose population, so to speak,
+      gravitated around them, tended to become independent of the prince. When
+      they succeeded in doing this, they often preserved for the new state thus
+      created, the old name, slightly modified by the addition of an epithet.
+      The primitive territory of Siût was in this way divided into three
+      distinct communities; two, which remained faithful to the old emblem of
+      the tree&mdash;the Upper Terebinth, with Siût itself in the centre, and
+      the Lower Terebinth, with Kûsit to the north; the third, in the south and
+      east, took as their totem the immortal serpent which dwelt in their
+      mountains, and called themselves the Serpent Mountain, whose chief town
+      was that of the Sparrow Hawk. The territory of the Oleander produced by
+      its dismemberment the principality of the Upper Oleander, that of the
+      Lower Oleander, and that of the Knife. The territory of the Harpoon in the
+      Delta divided itself into the Western and Eastern Harpoon. The fission in
+      most cases could not have been accomplished without struggles; but it did
+      take place, and all the principalities having a domain of any considerable
+      extent had to submit to it, however they may have striven to avoid it.
+      This parcelling out was continued as circumstances afforded opportunity,
+      until the whole of Egypt, except the half desert districts about the
+      cataract, became but an agglomeration of petty states nearly equal in
+      power and population.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Examples of the subdivision of ancient nomes and the
+     creation of fresh nomes are met with long after primitive
+     times. We find, for example, the nome of the Western Harpoon
+     divided under the Greeks and Romans into two districts&mdash;that
+     of the Harpoon proper, of which the chief town was Sonti-
+     nofir; and that of Ranûnr, with the Onûphis of classical
+     geographers for its capital.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks called them nomes, and we have borrowed the word from them; the
+      natives named them in several ways, the most ancient term being "nûît,"
+      which may be translated <i>domain</i>, and the most common appellation in
+      recent times being "hospû," which signifies <i>district</i>. The number of
+      the nomes varied considerably in the course of centuries: the hieroglyphic
+      monuments and classical authors fixed them sometimes at thirty-six,
+      sometimes at forty, sometimes at forty-four, or even fifty. The little
+      that we know of their history, up to the present time, explains the reason
+      of this variation. Ceaselessly quarrelled over by the princely families
+      who possessed them, the nomes were alternately humbled and exalted by
+      civil wars, marriages, and conquest, which caused them continually to pass
+      into fresh hands, either entire or divided. The Egyptians, whom we are
+      accustomed to consider as a people respecting the established order of
+      things, and conservative of ancient tradition, showed themselves as
+      restless and as prone to modify or destroy the work of the past, as the
+      most inconstant of our modern nations. The distance of time which
+      separates them from us, and the almost complete absence of documents,
+      gives them an appearance of immobility, by which we are liable to be
+      unconsciously deceived; when the monuments still existing shall have been
+      unearthed, their history will present the same complexity of incidents,
+      the same agitations, the same instability, which we suspect or know to
+      have been characteristic of most other Oriental nations. One thing alone
+      remained stable among them in the midst of so many revolutions, and which
+      prevented them from losing their individuality and from coalescing in a
+      common unity. This was the belief in and the worship of one particular
+      deity. If the little capitals of the petty states whose origin is lost in
+      a remote past&mdash;Edfû and Denderah, Nekhabît and Bûto, Siûfc, Thinis,
+      Khmûnû, Sais, Bubastis, Athribis&mdash;had only possessed that importance
+      which resulted from the presence of an ambitious petty prince, or from the
+      wealth of their inhabitants, they would never have passed safe and sound
+      through the long centuries of existence which they enjoyed from the
+      opening to the close of Egyptian history. Fortune raised their chiefs,
+      some even to the rank of rulers of the world, and in turn abased them:
+      side by side with the earthly ruler, whose glory was but too often
+      eclipsed, there was enthroned in each nome a divine ruler, a deity, a god
+      of the domain, "nûtir nûiti," whose greatness never perished. The princely
+      families might be exiled or become extinct, the extent of the territory
+      might diminish or increase, the town might be doubled in size and
+      population or fall in ruins: the god lived on through all these
+      vicissitudes, and his presence alone preserved intact the rights of the
+      state over which he reigned as sovereign. If any disaster befell his
+      worshippers, his temple was the spot where the survivors of the
+      catastrophe rallied around him, their religion preventing them from mixing
+      with the inhabitants of neighbouring towns and from becoming lost among
+      them. The survivors multiplied with that extraordinary rapidity which is
+      the characteristic of the Egyptian fellah, and a few years of peace
+      sufficed to repair losses which apparently were irreparable. Local
+      religion was the tie which bound together those divers elements of which
+      each principality was composed, and as long as it remained, the nomes
+      remained; when it vanished, they disappeared with it. remained; when it
+      vanished, they disappeared with it. <br /> <br /> ==================== <br />
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0005" id="linklinkBimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/105.jpg" width="100%" alt="105.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+     <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0006" id="linklinkBimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/106.jpg" width="100%" alt="106.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklinkB2HCH0001" id="linklinkB2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.&mdash;THE GODS OF EGYPT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>THEIR NUMBER AND NATURE&mdash;THE FEUDAL GODS, LIVING AND DEAD&mdash;TRIADS&mdash;&mdash;
+      THE TEMPLES AND PRIESTHOOD&mdash;THE COSMOGONIES OF THE DELTA&mdash;&mdash;THE
+      ENNEADS OF HELIOPOLIS AND HERMOPOLIS.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Multiplicity of the Egyptian gods: the commonalty of the gods, its
+      varieties, human, animal, and intermediate between man and beast; gods of
+      foreign origin, indigenous gods, and the contradictory forms with which
+      they were invested in accordance with various conceptions of their nature.
+      </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The Star-gods&mdash;The Sun-god as the Eye of the Shy; as a bird, as a
+      calf, and as a man; its barks, voyages round the world, and encounters
+      with the serpent Apopi&mdash;The Moon-god and its enemies&mdash;The
+      Star-gods: the Haunch of the Ox, the Hippopotamus, the Lion, the five
+      Horus-planets; Sothis Sirius, and Sahû Orion. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The feudal gods and their classes: the Nile-gods, the earth-gods, the
+      sky-gods and the sun-god, the Horus-gods&mdash;The equality of feudal gods
+      and goddesses; their persons, alliances, and marriages: their children&mdash;The
+      triads and their various developments. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The nature of the gods: the double, the soul, the body, death of men
+      and gods, and their fate after death&mdash;The necessity for preserving
+      the body, mummification&mdash;Dead gods the gods of the dead&mdash;The
+      living gods, their temples and images&mdash;The gods of the people, trees,
+      serpents, family fetiches&mdash;The theory of prayer and sacrifice: the
+      servants of the temples, the property of the gods, the sacerdotal
+      colleges. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The cosmogonies of the Delta: Sibu and Naît, Osiris and Isis, SU and
+      Nephthys&mdash;Heliopolis and its theological schools: Ra, his
+      identification with Horus, his dual nature, and the conception of Atûmû&mdash;The
+      Heliopolitan Enneads: formation of the Great Ennead&mdash;Thot and the
+      Hermopolitan Ennead: creation by articulate words and by voice alone&mdash;Diffusion
+      of the Enneads: their connection with the local triads, the god One and
+      the god Eight&mdash;The one and only gods.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0007" id="linklinkBimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/107.jpg" width="100%" alt="107.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE GODS OF EGYPT
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The incredible number of religious scenes to be found among the
+      representations on the ancient monuments of Egypt is at first glance very
+      striking. Nearly every illustration in the works of Egyptologists brings
+      before us the figure of some deity receiving with an impassive countenance
+      the prayers and offerings of a worshipper. One would think that the
+      country had been inhabited for the most part by gods, and contained just
+      sufficient men and animals to satisfy the requirements of their worship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0008" id="linklinkBimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/108.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="108.jpg the Goddess NapkÎt, StapÎt.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  The goddess Naprît, Napît; bas-relief from the first
+     chamber of Osiris, on the east side of the great temple of
+     Denderah. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On penetrating into this mysterious world, we are confronted by an actual
+      rabble of gods, each one of whom has always possessed but a limited and
+      almost unconscious existence. They severally represented a function, a
+      moment in the life of man or of the universe; thus Naprît was identified
+      with the ripe ear, or the grain of wheat;[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  The word <i>naprît</i> means <i>grain</i>, the grain of wheat. The
+     grain-god is represented in the tomb of Seti I. as a man
+     wearing two full ears of wheat or barley upon his head. He
+     is mentioned in the <i>Hymn to the Nile</i> about the same date,
+     and in two or three other texts of different periods. The
+     goddess <i>Naprît</i>, or <i>Napît</i>, to whom reference is here
+     made, was his duplicate; her head-dress is a sheaf of corn,
+     as in the illustration.
+
+     *** This goddess, whose name expresses and whose form
+     personifies the brick or stone couch, the child-bed or
+     -chair, upon which women in labour bowed themselves, is
+     sometimes subdivided into two or four secondary divinities.
+     She is mentioned along with Shaît, <i>destiny</i>, and Raninît,
+     <i>suckling</i>. Her part of fairy godmother at the cradle of the
+     new-born child is indicated in the passage of the Westcar
+     Papyrus giving a detailed account of the births of three
+     kings of the fifth dynasty. She is represented in human
+     form, and often wears upon her head two long palm-shoots,
+     curling over at their ends.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Maskhonît appeared by the child's cradle at the very moment of its
+      birth;[*] and Raninît presided over the naming and the nurture of the
+      newly born.[*] Neither Raninît, the fairy godmother, nor Maskhonît
+      exercised over nature as a whole that sovereign authority which we are
+      accustomed to consider the primary attribute of deity. Every day of every
+      year was passed by the one in easing the pangs of women in travail; by the
+      other, in choosing for each baby a name of an auspicious sound, and one
+      which would afterwards serve to exorcise the influences of evil fortune.
+      No sooner were their tasks accomplished in one place than they hastened to
+      another, where approaching birth demanded their presence and their care.
+      From child-bed to child-bed they passed, and if they fulfilled the single
+      offices in which they were accounted adepts, the pious asked nothing more
+      of them. Bands of mysterious cynocephali haunting the Eastern and the
+      Western mountains concentrated the whole of their activity on one passing
+      moment of the day. They danced and chattered in the East for half an hour,
+      to salute the sun at his rising, even as others in the West hailed him on
+      his entrance into night.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Raninît presides over the child's suckling, but she also
+     gives him his name, and hence, his fortune. She is on the
+     whole the nursing goddess. Sometimes she is represented as a
+     human-headed woman, or as lioness-headed, most frequently
+     with the head of a serpent; she is also the urseus, clothed,
+     and wearing two long plumes on her head, and a simple urous,
+     as represented in the illustration on p. 169.
+
+     **  This is the subject of a vignette in the <i>Book of the
+     Dead</i>, ch. xvi., where the cynocephali are placed in echelon
+     upon the slopes of the hill on the horizon, right and left
+     of the radiant solar disk, to which they offer worship by
+     gesticulations.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was the duty of certain genii to open gates in Hades, or to keep the
+      paths daily traversed by the sun.[*] These genii were always at their
+      posts, never free to leave them, and possessed no other faculty than that
+      of punctually fulfilling their appointed offices. Their existence,
+      generally unperceived, was suddenly revealed at the very moment when the
+      specific acts of their lives were on the point of accomplishment. These
+      being completed, the divinities fell back into their state of inertia, and
+      were, so to speak, reabsorbed by their functions until the next
+      occasion.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35.
+
+     ***  The Egyptians employed a still more forcible expression
+     than our word "absorption" to express this idea. It was said
+     of objects wherein these genii concealed themselves, and
+     whence they issued in order to re-enter them immediately,
+     that these forms <i>ate</i> them, or that they <i>ate</i> their own
+     forms.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0009" id="linklinkBimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/110.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="110.jpg Some Fabulous Beasts of the Egyptian Desert. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from Champollion's copies, made
+     from the tombs of Beni-Hassan. To the right is the <i>sha</i>,
+     one of the animals of Sit, and an exact image of the god
+     with his stiff and arrow-like tail. Next comes the <i>safir</i>,
+     the griffin; and, lastly, we have the serpent-headed <i>saza</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely visible even by glimpses, they were not easily depicted; their
+      real forms being often unknown, these were approximately conjectured from
+      their occupations. The character and costume of an archer, or of a
+      spear-man, were ascribed to such as roamed through Hades, to pierce the
+      dead with arrows or with javelins. Those who prowled around souls to cut
+      their throats and hack them to pieces were represented as women armed with
+      knives, carvers&mdash;<i>donît</i>&mdash;or else as lacerators&mdash;<i>nokit</i>.
+      Some appeared in human form; others as animals&mdash;bulls or lions, rams
+      or monkeys, serpents, fish, ibises, hawks; others dwelt in inanimate
+      things, such as trees,[*] sistrums, stakes stuck in the ground;[**] and
+      lastly, many betrayed a mixed origin in their combinations of human and
+      animal forms. These latter would be regarded by us as monsters; to the
+      Egyptians, they were beings, rarer perhaps than the rest, but not the less
+      real, and their like might be encountered in the neighbourhood of
+      Egypt.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Thus, the sycamores planted on the edge of the desert
+     were supposed to be inhabited by Hâthor, Nûît, Selkît, Nît,
+     or some other goddess. In vignettes representing the
+     deceased as stopping before one of these trees and receiving
+     water and loaves of bread, the bust of the goddess generally
+     appears from amid her sheltering foliage. But occasionally,
+     as on the sarcophagus of Petosiris, the transformation is
+     complete, and the trunk from which the branches spread is
+     the actual body of the god or goddess. Finally, the whole
+     body is often hidden, and only the arm of the goddess to be
+     seen emerging from the midst of the tree, with an
+     overflowing libation vase in her hand.
+
+     **  The trunk of a tree, disbranched, and then set up in the
+     ground, seems to me the origin of the Osirian emblem called
+     <i>tat</i> or <i>didu</i>. The symbol was afterwards so
+     conventionalized as to represent four columns seen in
+     perspective, one capital overtopping another; it thus became
+     the image of the four pillars which uphold the world.
+
+     ***  The belief in the real existence of fantastic animals
+     was first noted by Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et
+     d'Archéologie Égyptiennes</i>, vol. i. pp. 117, 118, 132, and
+     vol.  ii.  p.   213.    Until then,  scholars only
+     recognized the sphinx, and other Egyptian monsters, as
+     allegorical combinations by which the priesthood claimed to
+     give visible expression in one and the same being to
+     physical or moral qualities belonging to several different
+     beings. The later theory has now been adopted by Wiedemann,
+     and by most contemporary Egyptologists.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      How could men who believed themselves surrounded by sphinxes and griffins
+      of flesh and blood doubt that there were bull-headed and hawk-headed
+      divinities with human busts? The existence of such paradoxical creatures
+      was proved by much authentic testimony; more than one hunter had
+      distinctly seen them as they ran along the furthest planes of the horizon,
+      beyond the herds of gazelles of which he was in chase; and shepherds
+      dreaded them for their flocks as truly as they dreaded the lions, or the
+      great felidse of the desert.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * At Beni-Hassan and in Thebes many of the fantastic animals
+     mentioned in the text, griffins, hierosphinxes, serpent-
+     headed lions, are placed along with animals which might be
+     encountered by local princes hunting in the desert.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This nation of gods, like nations of men, contained foreign elements, the
+      origin of which was known to the Egyptians themselves. They knew that
+      Hâthor, the milch cow, had taken up her abode in their land from very
+      ancient times, and they called her the Lady of Pûanît, after the name of
+      her native country. Bîsû had followed her in course of time, and claimed
+      his share of honours and worship along with her. He first appeared as a
+      leopard; then he became a man clothed in a leopard's skin, but of strange
+      countenance and alarming character, a big-headed dwarf with high
+      cheek-bones, and a wide and open mouth, whence hung an enormous tongue; he
+      was at once jovial and martial, the friend of the dance and of battle.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The hawk-headed monster with flower-tipped tail was
+     called the saga.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In historic times all nations subjugated by the Pharaohs transferred some
+      of their principal divinities to their conquerors, and the Libyan
+      Shehadidi was enthroned in the valley of the Nile, in the same way as the
+      Semitic Baâlû and his retinue of Astartes, Anitis, Eeshephs, and Kadshûs.
+      These divine colonists fared like all foreigners who have sought to settle
+      on the banks of the Nile: they were promptly assimilated, wrought,
+      moulded, and made into Egyptian deities scarcely distinguishable from
+      those of the old race. This mixed pantheon had its grades of nobles,
+      princes, kings, and each of its members was representative of one of the
+      elements constituting the world, or of one of the forces which regulated
+      its government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0010" id="linklinkBimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/113.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="113.jpb Some Fabulous Beasts of the Egyptian Desert 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Bîsû, pp. 111-184. The tail-piece to the summary of this
+     chapter is a figure of Bîsû, drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an
+     amulet in blue enamelled pottery.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The sky, the earth, the stars, the sun, the Nile, were so many breathing
+      and thinking beings whose lives were daily manifest in the life of the
+      universe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were worshipped from one end of the valley to the other, and the
+      whole nation agreed in proclaiming their sovereign power. But when the
+      people began to name them, to define their powers and attributes, to
+      particularize their forms, or the relationships that subsisted among them,
+      this unanimity was at an end. Each principality, each nome, each city,
+      almost every village, conceived and represented them differently. Some
+      said that the sky was the Great Horus, Haroêris, the sparrow-hawk of
+      mottled plumage which hovers in highest air, and whose gaze embraces the
+      whole field of creation. Owing to a punning assonance between his name and
+      the word <i>horû</i>, which designates the human countenance, the two
+      senses were combined, and to the idea of the sparrow-hawk there was added
+      that of a divine face, whose two eyes opened in turn, the right eye being
+      the sun, to give light by day, and the left eye the moon, to illumine the
+      night. The face shone also with a light of its own, the zodiacal light,
+      which appeared unexpectedly, morning or evening, a little before sunrise,
+      and a little after sunset. These luminous beams, radiating from a common
+      centre, hidden in the heights of the firmament, spread into a wide
+      pyramidal sheet of liquid blue, whose base rested upon the earth, but
+      whose apex was slightly inclined towards the zenith. The divine face was
+      symmetrically framed, and attached to earth by four thick locks of hair;
+      these were the pillars which upbore the firmament and prevented its
+      falling into ruin. A no less ancient tradition disregarded as fabulous all
+      tales told of the sparrow-hawk, or of the face, and taught that heaven and
+      earth are wedded gods, Sibû, and Nûît, from whose marriage came forth all
+      that has been, all that is, and all that shall be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0011" id="linklinkBimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/115.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="115.jpg NÛÎt the Starry One. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painted coffin of the XXIth
+     dynasty in Leyden.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Most people invested them with human form, and represented the earth-god
+      Sibû as extended beneath Nûît the Starry One; the goddess stretched out
+      her arms, stretched out her slender legs, stretched out her body above the
+      clouds, and her dishevelled head drooped westward. But there were also
+      many who believed that Sibû was concealed under the form of a colossal
+      gander, whose mate once laid the Sun Egg, and perhaps still laid it daily.
+      From the piercing cries wherewith he congratulated her, and announced the
+      good news to all who cared to hear it&mdash;after the manner of his kind&mdash;he
+      had received the flattering epithet of <i>Ngagu oîrû</i>, the Great
+      Cack-ler. Other versions repudiated the goose in favour of a vigorous
+      bull, the father of gods and men, whose companion was a cow, a large-eyed
+      Hâthor, of beautiful countenance. The head of the good beast rises into
+      the heavens, the mysterious waters which cover the world flow along her
+      spine; the star-covered underside of her body, which we call the
+      firmament, is visible to the inhabitants of earth, and her four legs are
+      the four pillars standing at the four cardinal points of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0012" id="linklinkBimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/116.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="116.jpg the Goose-god Facing The Cat-goddess, The Lady Of Heaven. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stella in the museum of
+     Gîzeh. This is not the goose of Sibû, but the goose of Amon,
+     which was nurtured in the temple of Karnak, and was called
+     Smonû. Pacing it is the cat of Maût, the wife of Amon. Amon,
+     originally an earth-god, was, as we see, confounded with
+     Sibû, and thus naturally appropriated that deity's form of a
+     goose.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The planets, and especially the sun, varied in form and nature according
+      to the prevailing conception of the heavens. The fiery disk <i>Atonû</i>,
+      by which the sun revealed himself to men, was a living god, called Râ, as
+      was also the planet itself.[*] Where the sky was regarded as Horus, Râ
+      formed the right eye of the divine face: when Horus opened his eyelids in
+      the morning, he made the dawn and day; when he closed them in the evening,
+      the dusk and night were at hand.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *   The name of Râ has been variously explained. The
+     commonest etymology is that deriving the name from a verb
+     râ, <i>to give, to make to be</i> a person or a thing, so that Râ
+     would thus be the great organizer, the author of all things.
+     Lauth goes so far as to say that "notwithstanding its
+     brevity, Râ is a composite word (r-a, <i>maker&mdash;to be</i>)" As a
+     matter of fact, the word is simply the name of the
+     planet applied to the god.    It means the <i>sun</i>, and nothing
+     more.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0013" id="linklinkBimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/117.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="117.jpg the Cow HÂthor, The Lady Op Heaven.3 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     3  Drawn by Boudier, from a XXXth dynasty statue of green
+     basalt in the Gîzeh Museum (Maspero, <i>Guide du Visiteur</i>, p.
+     345, No. 5243). The statue was also published by Mariette,
+     <i>Monuments divers</i>, pl. 96 A-B, and in the <i>Album
+     photographique du Musée de Boulaq</i>, pl. x.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Where the sky was looked upon as the incarnation of a goddess, Râ was
+      considered as her son,[**] his father being the earth-god, and he was born
+      again with every new dawn, wearing a sidelock, and with his finger to his
+      lips as human children were conventionally represented.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  Several passages from the Pyramid texts prove that the
+     <i>two eyes</i> were very anciently considered as belonging to
+     the face of Nûît, and this conception persisted to the last
+     days of Egyptian paganism. Hence, we must not be surprised
+     if the inscriptions generally represent the god Râ as coming
+     forth from Nûît under the form of a disc, or a scarabaeus,
+     and born of her even as human children are born.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He was also that luminous egg, laid and hatched in the East by the
+      celestial goose, from which the sun breaks forth to fill the world with
+      its rays.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  These are the very expressions used in the seventeenth
+     chapter of the <i>Book of the Dead</i> (Naville's edition, vol.
+     i. pl. xxv. lines 58-61; Lepsius, <i>Todtenbuch</i>, pl. ix. 11.
+     50, 51).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0014" id="linklinkBimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/118.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="118.jpg the Twelve Stages in The Life of The Sun and Its Twelve Forms Throughout the Day. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  The twelve forms of the sun during the twelve hours of
+     the day, from the ceiling of the Hall of the New Year at
+     Edfu. Drawing by Faucher-Gudin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, by an anomaly not uncommon in religions, the egg did not
+      always contain the same kind of bird; a lapwing, or a heron, might come
+      out of it,[*] or perhaps, in memory of Horus, one of the beautiful golden
+      sparrow-hawks of Southern Egypt. A Sun-Hawk, hovering in high heaven on
+      outspread wings, at least presented a bold and poetic image; but what can
+      be said for a Sun-Calf? Yet it is under the innocent aspect of a spotted
+      calf, a "sucking calf of pure mouth,"[**] that the Egyptians were pleased
+      to describe the Sun-God when Sibu, the father, was a bull, and Hâthor a
+      heifer.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The lapwing or the heron, the Egyptian <i>bonû</i>, is
+     generally the Osirian bird. The persistence with which it is
+     associated with Heliopolis and the gods of that city shows
+     that in this also we have a secondary form of Râ.
+
+     **  The calf is represented in ch. cix. of the <i>Book of the
+     Dead</i> (Naville's edition, pl. cxx.), where the text says
+     (lines 10, 11), "I know that this calf is Harmakhis the Sun,
+     and that it is no other than the Morning Star, daily
+     saluting Râ." The expression "<i>sucking calf of pure
+     mouth</i>" is taken word for word from a formula preserved in
+     the Pyramid texts (Ûnas, 1. 20).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But the prevalent conception was that in which the life of the sun was
+      likened to the life of man. The two deities presiding over the East
+      received the orb upon their hands at its birth, just as midwives receive a
+      new-born child, and cared for it during the first hour of the day and of
+      its life. It soon left them, and proceeded "under the belly of Nûît,"
+      growing and strengthening from minute to minute, until at noon it had
+      become a triumphant hero whose splendour is shed abroad over all. But as
+      night comes on his strength forsakes him and his glory is obscured; he is
+      bent and broken down, and heavily drags himself along like an old man
+      leaning upon his stick. At length he passes away beyond the horizon,
+      plunging westward into the mouth of Nûît, and traversing her body by night
+      to be born anew the next morning, again to follow the paths along which he
+      had travelled on the preceding day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A first bark, the <i>saktit</i>, awaited him at his birth, and carried him
+      from the Eastern to the Southern extremity of the world. <i>Mâzît</i>, the
+      second bark, received him at noon, and bore him into the land of Manu,
+      which is at the entrance into Hades; other barks, with which we are less
+      familiar, conveyed him by night, from his setting until his rising at
+      morn.[*] Sometimes he was supposed to enter the barks alone, and then they
+      were magic and self-directed, having neither oars, nor sails, nor
+      helm.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  In the formulæ of the <i>Book of Knowing that which is in
+     Hades</i>, the dead sun remains in the bark Saktit during part
+     of the night, and it is only to traverse the fourth and
+     fifth hours that he changes into another.
+
+     **  Such is the bark of the sun in the other world. Although
+     carrying a complete crew of gods, yet for the most part it
+     progresses at its own will, and without their help. The bark
+     containing the sun alone is represented in many vignettes of
+     the <i>Book of the Dead</i>, and at the head of many stelæ.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes they were equipped with a full crew, like that of an Egyptian
+      boat&mdash;a pilot at the prow to take soundings in the channel and
+      forecast the wind, a pilot astern to steer, a quartermaster in the midst
+      to transmit the orders of the pilot at the prow to the pilot at the stern,
+      and half a dozen sailors to handle poles or oars. Peacefully the bark
+      glided along the celestial river amid the acclamations of the gods who
+      dwelt upon its shores. But, occasionally, Apôpi, a gigantic serpent, like
+      that which hides within the earthly Nile and devours its banks, came forth
+      from the depth of the waters and arose in the path of the god.[*] As soon
+      as they caught sight of it in the distance, the crew flew to arms, and
+      entered upon the struggle against him with prayers and spear-thrusts. Men
+      in their cities saw the sun faint and fail, and sought to succour him in
+      his distress; they cried aloud, they were beside themselves with
+      excitement, beating their breasts, sounding their instruments of music,
+      and striking with all their strength upon every metal vase or utensil in
+      their possession, that their clamour might rise to heaven and terrify the
+      monster. After a time of anguish, Râ emerged from the darkness and again
+      went on his way, while Apôpi sank back into the abyss,[**] paralysed by
+      the magic of the gods, and pierced with many a wound.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  In Upper Egypt there is a widespread belief in the
+     existence of a monstrous serpent, who dwells at the bottom
+     of the river, and is the genius of the Nile. It is he who
+     brings about those falls of earth (<i>batabît</i>) at the decline
+     of the inundation which often destroy the banks and eat
+     whole fields. At such times, offerings of durrah, fowls, and
+     dates are made to him, that his hunger may be appeased, and
+     it is not only the natives who give themselves up to these
+     superstitious practices. Part of the grounds belonging to
+     the Karnak hotel at Luxor having been carried away during
+     the autumn of 1884, the manager, a Greek, made the customary
+     offerings to the serpent of the Nile.
+
+     **  The character of Apôpi and of his struggle with the sun
+     was, from the first, excellently defined by Champollion as
+     representing the conflict of darkness with light.
+     Occasionally, but very rarely, Apôpi seems to win, and his
+     triumph over Râ furnishes one explanation of a solar
+     eclipse. A similar explanation is common to many races. In
+     one very ancient form of the Egyptian legend, the sun is
+     represented by a wild ass running round the world along the
+     sides of the mountains that uphold the sky, and the serpent
+     which attacks it is called <i>Haiû</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Apart from these temporary eclipses, which no one could foretell, the
+      Sun-King steadily followed his course round the world, according to laws
+      which even his will could not change. Day after day he made his oblique
+      ascent from east to south, thence to descend obliquely towards the west.
+      During the summer months the obliquity of his course diminished, and he
+      came closer to Egypt; during the winter it increased, and he went farther
+      away. This double movement recurred with such regularity from equinox to
+      solstice, and from solstice to equinox, that the day of the god's
+      departure and the day of his return could be confidently predicted. The
+      Egyptians explained this phenomenon according to their conceptions of the
+      nature of the world. The solar bark always kept close to that bank of the
+      celestial river which was nearest to men; and when the river overflowed at
+      the annual inundation, the sun was carried along with it outside the
+      regular bed of the stream, and brought yet closer to Egypt. As the
+      inundation abated, the bark descended and receded, its greatest distance
+      from earth corresponding with the lowest level of the waters. It was again
+      brought back to us by the rising strength of the next flood; and, as this
+      phenomenon was yearly repeated, the periodicity of the sun's oblique
+      movements was regarded as the necessary consequence of the periodic
+      movements of the celestial Nile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same stream also carried a whole crowd of gods, whose existence was
+      revealed at night only to the inhabitants of earth. At an interval of
+      twelve hours, and in its own bark, the pale disk of the moon&mdash;<i>Yâûhû
+      Aûhû</i>&mdash;followed the disk of the sun along the ramparts of the
+      world. The moon, also, appeared in many various forms&mdash;here, as a man
+      born of Nûît;[*] there, as a cynocephalus or an ibis;[**] elsewhere, it
+      was the left eye of Horus,[***] guarded by the ibis or cynocephalus. Like
+      Râ, it had its enemies incessantly upon the watch for it: the crocodile,
+      the hippopotamus, and the sow. But it was when at the full, about the 15th
+      of each month, that the lunar eye was in greatest peril.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  He may be seen as a child, or man, bearing the lunar disk
+     upon his head, and pressing the lunar eye to his breast.
+     Passages from the Pyramid text of Unas indicate the
+     relationship subsisting between Thot, Sibû, and Nûît, making
+     Thot the brother of Isis, Sit, and Nephthys. In later times
+     he was considered a son of Râ.
+
+     **  Even as late as the Græco-Roman period, the temple of
+     Thot at Khmûnû contained a sacred ibis, which was the
+     incarnation of the god, and said to be immortal by the local
+     priesthood. The temple sacristans showed it to Apion the
+     grammarian, who reports the fact, but is very sceptical in
+     the matter.
+
+     ***  The texts quoted by Chabas and Lepsius to show that the
+     sun is the right eye of Horus also prove that his left eye
+     is the moon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0015" id="linklinkBimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/123.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="123.jpg Egyptian Conception of the Principal Constellations of the Northern Sky.4 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the ceiling of the
+     Ramesseum. On the right, the <i>female hippopotamus</i> bearing
+     the <i>crocodile</i>, and leaning on the <i>Monâît</i>; in the middle,
+     the <i>Haunch</i>, here represented by the whole bull; to the
+     left, <i>Selkit</i> and the <i>Sparrow-hawk</i>, with the <i>Lion</i>, and
+     the <i>Giant fighting the Crocodile</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The sow fell upon it, tore it out of the face of heaven, and cast it,
+      streaming with blood and tears, into the celestial Nile, where it was
+      gradually extinguished, and lost for days; but its twin, the sun, or its
+      guardian, the cyno-cephalus, immediately set forth to find it and to
+      restore it to Horus. No sooner was it replaced, than it slowly recovered,
+      and renewed its radiance; when it was well&mdash;<i>ûzaît</i>&mdash;the
+      sow again attacked and mutilated it, and the gods rescued and again
+      revived it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0016" id="linklinkBimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/124.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="124.jpg the Lunar Bark, Self-propelled, Under The Protection of the Two Eyes. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Each month there was a fortnight of youth and of growing splendour,
+      followed by a fortnight's agony and ever-increasing pallor. It was born to
+      die, and died to be born again twelve times in the year, and each of these
+      cycles measured a month for the inhabitants of the world. One invariable
+      accident from time to time disturbed the routine of its existence.
+      Profiting by some distraction of the guardians, the sow greedily swallowed
+      it, and then its light went out suddenly, instead of fading gradually.
+      These eclipses, which alarmed mankind at least as much as did those of the
+      sun, were scarcely more than momentary, the gods compelling the monster to
+      cast up the eye before it had been destroyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0017" id="linklinkBimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/125.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="125.jpg the Haunch, and The Female Hippopotamus.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the rectangular zodiac
+     carved upon the ceiling of the great temple of Denderah
+     (Dùmichen, <i>Resultate</i>, vol. ii. pl. xxxix.).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Every evening the lunar bark issued out of Hades by the door which Râ had
+      passed through in the morning, and as it rose on the horizon, the
+      star-lamps scattered over the firmament appeared one by one, giving light
+      here and there like the camp-fires of a distant army. However many of them
+      there might be, there were as many Indestructibles&mdash;<i>Akhîmû Sokû</i>&mdash;or
+      Unchanging Ones&mdash;<i>Akhîmû Ûrdû</i>&mdash;whose charge it was to
+      attend upon them and watch over their maintenance.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  The <i>Akhîmû Sokû</i> and the <i>Akhîmû Ûrdû</i> have been very
+     variously defined by different Egyptologists who have
+     studied them. Chabas considered them to be gods or genii of
+     the constellations of the ecliptic, which mark the apparent
+     course of the sun through the sky. Following the indications
+     given by Dévéria, he also thought them to be the sailors of
+     the solar bark, and perhaps the gods of the twelve hours,
+     divided into two classes: the <i>Akhîmû Sokû</i> being those who
+     are rowing, and the <i>Akhîmû Ûrdû</i> those who are resting. But
+     texts found and cited by Brugsch show that the <i>Akhîmû Sokû</i>
+     are the planets accompanying Râ in the northern sky, while
+     the <i>Akhîmû Ûrdû</i> are his escort in the south. The
+     nomenclature of the stars included in these two classes is
+     furnished by monuments of widely different epochs. The two
+     names should be translated according to the meaning of their
+     component words: <i>Akhîmû Sokû</i>, those who know not
+     destruction, the Indestructibles; and <i>Akhîmû Ûrdû</i> (
+     <i>Urzii</i>), those who know not the immobility of death, the
+     <i>Imperishables</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They were not scattered at random by the hand which had suspended them,
+      but their distribution had been ordered in accordance with a certain plan,
+      and they were arranged in fixed groups like so many star republics, each
+      being independent of its neighbours. They represented the outlines of
+      bodies of men and animals dimly traced out upon the depths of night, but
+      shining with greater brilliancy in certain important places. The seven
+      stars which we liken to a chariot (Charles's Wain) suggested to the
+      Egyptians the haunch of an ox placed on the northern edge of the
+      horizon.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The forms of the constellations, and the number of stars
+     composing them in the astronomy of different periods, are
+     known from the astronomical scenes of tombs and temples. The
+     identity of the <i>Haunch</i> with the <i>Chariot</i>, or <i>Great Bear</i>
+     of modern astronomy, was discovered by Lepsius and confirmed
+     by Biot. Mariette pointed out that the Pyramid Arabs applied
+     the name of the <i>Haunch (er-Rigl)</i> to the same group of
+     stars as that thus designated by the ancient Egyptians.
+     Champollion had noted the position of the <i>Haunch</i> in the
+     northern sky, but had not suggested any identification. The
+     <i>Haunch</i> appertained to Sît-Typhon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two lesser stars connected the haunch&mdash;<i>Maskhaît</i>&mdash;with
+      thirteen others, which recalled the silhouette of a female hippopotamus&mdash;<i>Rirît</i>&mdash;erect
+      upon her hind legs,[*] and jauntily carrying upon her shoulders a
+      monstrous crocodile whose jaws opened threateningly above her head.
+      Eighteen luminaries of varying size and splendour, forming a group hard by
+      the hippopotamus, indicated the outline of a gigantic lion couchant, with
+      stiffened tail, its head turned to the right, and facing the Haunch.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The connection of <i>Birît</i>, the female hippopotamus, with
+     the Haunch is made quite clear in scenes from Philae and
+     Edfû, representing Isis holding back Typhon by a chain, that
+     he might do no hurt to Sâhii-Osiris. Jollois and Devilliers
+     thought that the hippopotamus was the <i>Great Bear</i>. Biot
+     contested their conclusions, and while holding that the
+     hippopotamus might at least in part present our
+     constellation of the Dragon, thought that it was probably
+     included in the scene only as an ornament, or as an emblem.
+     The present tendency is to identify the hippopotamus with
+     the Dragon and with certain stars not included in the
+     constellations surrounding it.
+
+     ***  The Lion, with its eighteen stars, is represented on
+     the tomb of Seti I.; on the ceiling of the Ramesseum; and on
+     the sarcophagus of Htari.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0018" id="linklinkBimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/127.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="127.jpg Okion, Sothis, and Two Hokus-planets Standing In Their Bakks. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  From the astronomic ceiling in the tomb of Seti I.
+     (Lefébure, 4th part, pl. xxxvi.).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Lion is sometimes shown as having a crocodile's tail. According to
+      Biot the Egyptian Lion has nothing in common with the Greek constellation
+      of that name, nor yet with our own, but was composed of smaller stars,
+      belonging to the Greek constellation of the Cup or to the continuation of
+      the Hydra, so that its head, its body, and its tail would follow the [ ]
+      of the Hydra, between the [ ] and [ ] of that constellation, or the [ ] of
+      the Virgin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most of the constellations never left the sky: night after night they were
+      to be found almost in the same places, and always shining with the same
+      even light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0019" id="linklinkBimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/128.jpg" width="100%" alt="128.jpg Sahu-orion. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small bronze in the Gîzeh
+     Museum, published by Mariette, in the <i>Album photographique
+     du Musée de Boulaq</i>, pl. 9. The legs are a modern
+     restoration.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Others borne by a slow movement passed annually beyond the limits of sight
+      for months at a time. Five at least of our planets were known from all
+      antiquity, and their characteristic colours and appearances carefully
+      noted. Sometimes each was thought to be a hawk-headed Horus. Ùapshetatûi,
+      our Jupiter, Kahiri-(Saturn), Sobkû-(Mercury), steered their barks
+      straight ahead like Iâûhû and Râ; but Mars-Doshiri, the red, sailed
+      backwards. As a star Bonu, the bird (Yenus) had a dual personality; in the
+      evening it was Uati, the lonely star which is the first to rise, often
+      before nightfall; in the morning it became Tiûnûtiri, the god who hails
+      the sun before his rising and proclaims the dawn of day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sahû and Sopdît, Orion and Sirius, were the rulers of this mysterious
+      world. Sahû consisted of fifteen stars, seven large and eight small, so
+      arranged as to represent a runner darting through space, while the fairest
+      of them shone above his head, and marked him out from afar to the
+      admiration of mortals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0020" id="linklinkBimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/129.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="129.jpg Orion and the Cow Sothis Separated by The Sparrow-hawk. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Scene from the rectangular zodiac of Denderah, drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken with magnesium light
+     by Dûmichen.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      With his right hand he flourished the <i>crux ansata</i>, and turning his
+      head towards Sothis as he beckoned her on with his left, seemed as though
+      inviting her to follow him. The goddess, standing sceptre in hand, and
+      crowned with a diadem of tall feathers surmounted by her most radiant
+      star, answered the call of Sahû with a gesture, and quietly embarked in
+      pursuit as though in no anxiety to overtake him. Sometimes she is
+      represented as a cow lying down in her bark, with tree stars along her
+      back, and Sirius flaming from between her horns.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The identity of the cow with Sothis was discovered by
+     Jollois and Devilliers. It is under this animal form that
+     Sothis is represented in most of the Græco-Roman temples,
+     at Denderah, Edfû, Esneh, Dêr el-Medîneh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Not content to shine by night only, her bluish rays, suddenly darted forth
+      in full daylight and without any warning, often described upon the sky the
+      mystic lines of the triangle which stood for her name. It was then that
+      she produced those curious phenomena of the zodiacal light which other
+      legends attributed to Horus himself. One, and perhaps the most ancient of
+      the innumerable accounts of this god and goddess, represented Sahû as a
+      wild hunter. A world as vast as ours rested upon the other side of the
+      iron firmament; like ours, it was distributed into seas, and continents
+      divided by rivers and canals, but peopled by races unknown to men. Sahû
+      traversed it during the day, surrounded by genii who presided over the
+      lamps forming his constellation. At his appearing "the stars prepared
+      themselves for battle, the heavenly archers rushed forward, the bones of
+      the gods upon the horizon trembled at the sight of him," for it was no
+      common game that he hunted, but the very gods themselves. One attendant
+      secured the prey with a lasso, as bulls are caught in the pastures, while
+      another examined each capture to decide if it were pure and good for food.
+      This being determined, others bound the divine victim, cut its throat,
+      disembowelled it, cut up its carcass, cast the joints into a pot, and
+      superintended their cooking. Sahû did not devour indifferently all that
+      the fortune of the chase might bring him, but classified his game in
+      accordance with his wants. He ate the great gods at his breakfast in the
+      morning, the lesser gods at his dinner towards noon, and the small ones at
+      his supper; the old were rendered more tender by roasting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0021" id="linklinkBimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/131.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="131.jpg Amon-rÂ, As MÎnÛ of Coptos, and Invested With His Emblems. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Scene on the north wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak;
+     drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in
+     1882. The king, Seti I., is presenting bouquets of leaves to
+     Amon-Mînû. Behind the god stands Isis (of Coptos), sceptre
+     and <i>crux ansata</i> in hand.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As each god was assimilated by him, its most precious virtues were
+      transfused into himself; by the wisdom of the old was his wisdom
+      strengthened, the youth of the young repaired the daily waste of his own
+      youth, and all their fires, as they penetrated his being, served to
+      maintain the perpetual splendour of his light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nome gods who presided over the destinies of Egyptian cities, and
+      formed a true feudal system of divinities, belonged to one or other of
+      these natural categories. In vain do they present themselves under the
+      most shifting aspects and the most deceptive attributes; in vain disguise
+      themselves with the utmost care; a closer examination generally discloses
+      the principal features of their original physiognomies. Osiris of the
+      Delta, Khuûmû of the Cataract, Harshâfitû of Heracleopolis, were each of
+      them, incarnations of the fertilizing and life-sustaining Nile. Wherever
+      there is some important change in the river, there they are more
+      especially installed and worshipped: Khnûmû at the place of its entering
+      into Egypt, and again at the town of Hâûrît, near the point where a great
+      arm branches off from the Eastern stream to flow towards the Libyan hills
+      and form the Bahr-Yûsuf: Harshâfitû at the gorges of the Fayûm, where the
+      Bahr-Yûsuf leaves the valley; and, finally, Osiris at Mendes and at
+      Busiris, towards the mouth of the middle branch, which was held to be the
+      true Nile by the people of the land. Isis of Bûto denoted the black
+      vegetable mould of the valley, the distinctive soil of Egypt annually
+      covered and fertilized by the inundation.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In the case of Isis, as in that of Osiris, we must mark
+     the original character; and note her characteristics as
+     goddess of the Delta before she had become a multiple and
+     contradictory personality through being confounded with
+     other divinities.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But the earth in general, as distinguished from the sky&mdash;the earth
+      with its continents, its seas, its alternation of barren deserts and
+      fertile lands&mdash;was represented as a man: Phtah at Memphis, Amon at
+      Thebes, Mînû at Coptos and at Panopolis. Amon seems rather to have
+      symbolized the productive soil, while Mînû reigned over the desert. But
+      these were fine distinctions, not invariably insisted upon, and his
+      worshippers often invested Amon with the most significant attributes of
+      Mînû.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0022" id="linklinkBimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/133.jpg" width="100%" alt="133.jpg AnhÛri. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze of the Saïte period,
+     in my own possession.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Sky-gods, like the Earth-gods, were separated into two groups, the one
+      consisting of women: Hâthor of Denderah, or Nît of Sais; the other
+      composed of men identical with Horus, or derived from him: Anhûri-Shû of
+      Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, Horus of the two eyes, at Pharbaethos;
+      Har-Sapdi, Horus the source of the zodiacal light, in the Wâdy Tumilât;
+      and finally Harhûdîti at Edfû. Râ, the solar disk, was enthroned at
+      Heliopolis, and sun-gods were numerous among the nome deities, but they
+      were sun-gods closely connected with gods representing the sky, and
+      resembled Horus quite as much as Râ. Whether under the name of Horus or of
+      Anhûri, the sky was early identified with its most brilliant luminary, its
+      solar eye, and its divinity was as it were fused into that of the Sun.
+      Horus the Sun, and Râ, the Sun-Cod of Heliopolis, had so permeated each
+      other that none could say where the one began and the other ended. One by
+      one all the functions of Râ had been usurped by Horus, and all the
+      designations of Horus had been appropriated by Râ. The sun was styled
+      Harmakhûîti, the Horus of the two mountains&mdash;that is, the Horus who
+      comes forth from the mountain of the east in the morning, and retires at
+      evening into the mountain of the west;[*] or Hartimâ, Horus the Pikeman,
+      that Horus whose lance spears the hippopotamus or the serpent of the
+      celestial river; or Harnûbi, the Golden Horus, the great golden
+      sparrow-hawk with mottled plumage, who puts all other birds to flight; and
+      these titles were indifferently applied to each of the feudal gods who
+      represented the sun.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  From the time of Champollion, Harmakhûîti has been
+     identified with the Harmachis of the Greeks, the great
+     Sphinx.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0023" id="linklinkBimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/134.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="134.jpg the Hawk-headed Hokus.2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  A bronze of the Saïte period, from the Posno collection,
+     and now in the Louvre; drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The god is
+     represented as upholding a libation vase with both hands,
+     and pouring the life-giving water upon the king, standing,
+     or prostrate, before him.    In performing this ceremony, he
+     was always assisted by another god, generally by Sit,
+     sometimes by Thot or Anubis.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The latter were numerous. Sometimes, as in the case of Harkhobi, Horus of
+      Khobiû,[*] a geographical qualification was appended to the generic term
+      of Horus, while specific names, almost invariably derived from the parts
+      which they were supposed to play, were borne by others. The sky-god
+      worshipped at Thinis in Upper Egypt, at Zarît and at Sebennytos in Lower
+      Egypt, was called Anhuri. When he assumed the attributes of Râ, and took
+      upon himself the solar nature, his name was interpreted as denoting the
+      conqueror of the sky. He was essentially combative. Crowned with a group
+      of upright plumes, his spear raised and ever ready to strike the foe, he
+      advanced along the firmament and triumphantly traversed it day by day.[**]
+      The sun-god who at Medamôfc Taûd and Erment had preceded Amon as ruler of
+      the Theban plain, was also a warrior, and his name of Montû had reference
+      to his method of fighting. He was depicted as brandishing a curved sword
+      and cutting off the heads of his adversaries.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  <i>Harkhobi, Harâmkhobiû</i> is the Horus of the marshes
+     (<i>khobiû</i>) of the Delta, the lesser Horus the son of Isis,
+     who was also made into the son of Osiris.
+
+     **  The right reading of the name was given as far back as
+     Lepsius. The part played by the god, and the nature of the
+     link connecting him with Shû, have been explained by
+     Maspero. The Greeks transcribed his name Onouris, and
+     identified him with Ares.
+
+     ***  Montû preceded Amon as god of the land between Kûs and
+     Gebelên, and he recovered his old position in the Græco-
+     Roman period after the destruction of Thebes. Most
+     Egyptologists, and finally Brugsch, made him into a
+     secondary form of Amon, which is contrary to what we know of
+     the history of the province. Just as Onû of the south
+     (Erment) preceded Thebes as the most important town in that
+     district, so Montû had been its most honoured god. Heer
+     Wiedemann thinks the name related to that of Amon and
+     derived from it, with the addition of the final <i>tû</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Each of the feudal gods naturally cherished pretensions to universal
+      dominion, and proclaimed himself the suzerain, the father of all the gods,
+      as the local prince was the suzerain, the father of all men; but the
+      effective suzerainty of god or prince really ended where that of his peers
+      ruling over the adjacent nomes began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0024" id="linklinkBimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/136.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="136.jpg the Hoeus of HibonÛ, on The Back Of The Gazelle. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The goddesses shared in the exercise of supreme power, and had the same
+      right of inheritance and possession as regards sovereignty that women had
+      in human law.[*] Isis was entitled lady and mistress at Bûto, as Hâthor
+      was at Denderah, and as Nit at Sais, "the firstborn, when as yet there had
+      been no birth." They enjoyed in their cities the same honours as the male
+      gods in theirs; as the latter were kings, so were they queens, and all
+      bowed down before them. The animal gods, whether entirely in the form of
+      beasts, or having human bodies attached to animal heads, shared
+      omnipotence with those in human form. Horus of Hibonû swooped down upon
+      the back of a gazelle like a hunting hawk, Hâthor of Denderah was a cow,
+      Bastit of Bubastis was a cat or a tigress, while Nekhabit of El Kab was a
+      great bald-headed vulture.[**] Hermopolis worshipped the ibis and
+      cynocephalus of Thot; Oxyrrhynchus the <i>mor-myrus</i> fish;[***] and
+      Ombos and the Fayûm a crocodile, under the name of Sobkû,[****] sometimes
+      with the epithet of Azaï, the brigand.[v]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  In attempts at reconstituting Egyptian religions, no
+     adequate weight has hitherto been given to the equality of
+     gods and goddesses, a fact to which attention was first
+     called by Maspeeo (<i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. p. 253, et seq.).
+
+     **  Nekhabît, the goddess of the south, is the vulture, so
+     often represented in scenes of war or sacrifice, who hovers
+     over the head of the Pharaohs. She is also shown as a
+     vulture-headed woman.
+
+     ***  We have this on the testimony of classic writers,
+     Steabo, book xvii. p. 812, <i>De Iside et Csiride</i>, § vii.,
+     1872, Paethey's edition, pp. 9, 30, 128. ^Elianus, Hist,
+     anim., book x. § 46.
+
+     ****  Sobhû, Sovkû is the animal's name, and the exact
+     translation of Sovû would be crocodile-god. Its Greek
+     transcription is [ ]. On account of the assonance of the
+     names he was sometimes confounded with <i>Sivû, Sibû</i> by the
+     Egyptians themselves, and thus obtained the titles of that
+     god. This was especially the case at the time when Sit
+     having been proscribed, Sovkû the crocodile, who was
+     connected with Sit, shared his evil reputation, and
+     endeavoured to disguise his name or true character as much
+     as possible.
+
+     v  Azaï  is generally considered to be the Osiris of the
+     Fayûm, but he was only transformed into Osiris, and that by
+     the most daring process of assimilation.    His full name
+     defines him as <i>Osiri Azaï hi halt To-sit (Osiris the
+     Brigand, who is in the Fayûm)</i>, that is to say,  as Sovkû
+     identified with Osiris.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0025" id="linklinkBimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/138.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="138.jpg the Cat-headed Bast. 4 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a green enamelled figure in
+     my possession (Saïte period).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We cannot always understand what led the inhabitants of each nome to
+      affect one animal rather than another. Why, towards Græco-Roman times,
+      should they have worshipped the jackal, or even the dog, at Siût?[**] How
+      came Sit to be incarnate in a fennec, or in an imaginary quadruped?[***]
+      Occasionally, however, we can follow the train of thought that determined
+      their choice.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ** Uapuaîtû, the <i>guide of the celestial ways</i>, who must not
+     be confounded with Anubis of the Cynopolite nome of Upper
+     Egypt, was originally the feudal god of Siût. He guided
+     human souls to the paradise of the Oasis, and the sun upon
+     its southern path by day, and its northern path by night.
+
+     ***  Champollion, Rosellini, Lepsius, have held that the
+     Typhonian animal was a purely imaginary one, and Wilkinson
+     says that the Egyptians themselves admitted its unreality by
+     representing it along with other fantastic beasts. This
+     would rather tend to show that they believed in its actual
+     existence (cf. p. 112 of this History). Plbyte thinks that
+     it may be a degenerated form of the figure of the ass or
+     oryx.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The habit of certain monkeys in assembling as it were in full court, and
+      chattering noisily a little before sunrise and sunset, would almost
+      justify the as yet uncivilized Egyptians in entrusting cynocephali with
+      the charge of hailing the god morning and evening as he appeared in the
+      east, or passed away in the west.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0026" id="linklinkBimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/139.jpg" width="100%" alt="139.jpg Two Images " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      If Râ was held to be a grasshopper under the Old Empire, it was because he
+      flew far up in the sky like the clouds of locusts driven from Central
+      Africa which suddenly fall upon the fields and ravage them. Most of the
+      Nile-gods, Khnûmû, Osiris, Harshafitû, were incarnate in the form of a ram
+      or of a buck. Does not the masculine vigour and procreative rage of these
+      animals naturally point them out as fitting images of the life-giving Nile
+      and the overflowing of its waters? It is easy to understand how the
+      neighbourhood of a marsh or of a rock-encumbered rapid should have
+      suggested the crocodile as supreme deity to the inhabitants of the Fayûm
+      or of Ombos. The crocodiles there multiplied so rapidly as to constitute a
+      serious danger; there they had the mastery, and could be appeased only by
+      means of prayers and sacrifices. When instinctive terror had been
+      superseded by reflection, and some explanation was offered of the origin
+      of the various cults, the very nature of the animal seemed to justify the
+      veneration with which it was regarded. The crocodile is amphibious; and
+      Sobkû was supposed to be a crocodile, because before the creation the
+      sovereign god plunged recklessly into the dark waters and came forth to
+      form the world, as the crocodile emerges from the river to lay its eggs
+      upon the bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most of the feudal divinities began their lives in solitary grandeur,
+      apart from, and often hostile to, their neighbours. Families were assigned
+      to them later.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The existence of the Egyptian triads was discovered and
+     defined by Champollion. These triads have long served as the
+     basis upon which modern writers have sought to establish
+     their systems of the Egyptian religion. Brugsch was the
+     first who rightly attempted to replace the triad by the
+     Ennead, in his book Religion und Mythologie der alten
+     Ægypter. The process of forming local triads, as here set
+     forth, was first pointed out by Maspero (<i>Études de
+     Mythologie et d'Archéologie Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. p. 269,
+     et seq.).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Each appropriated two companions and formed a trinity, or as it is
+      generally called, a triad. But there were several kinds of triads. In
+      nomes subject to a god, the local deity was frequently content with one
+      wife and one son; but often he was united to two goddesses, who were at
+      once his sisters and his wives according to the national custom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0027" id="linklinkBimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/141.jpg" width="100%" alt="141.jpg Nit of SaÏs. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Thus, Thot of Hermopolis possessed himself of a harem consisting of
+      Seshaît-Safk-hîtâbûi and Hahmâûît. Tûmû divided the homage of the
+      inhabitants of Helio-polis with Nebthôtpît and with Iûsasît. Khnûmû
+      seduced and married the two fairies of the neighbouring cataract&mdash;Anûkît
+      the constrainer, who compresses the Nile between its rocks at Philse and
+      at Syene, and Satît the archeress, who shoots forth the current straight
+      and swift as an arrow.[*] Where a goddess reigned over a nome, the triad
+      was completed by two male deities, a divine consort and a divine son. Nît
+      of Sai's had taken for her husband Osiris of Mendes, and borne him a
+      lion's whelp, Ari-hos-nofir.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. p. 273, et seq.
+
+     **  <i>Arihosnofir</i> means <i>the lion whose gaze has a
+     beneficent fascination</i>. He also goes under the name of
+     <i>Tutu</i>, which seems as though it should be translated "<i>the
+     bounding</i>,"&mdash;a mere epithet characterizing one gait of the
+     lion-god's.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hâthor of Denderah had completed her household with Haroêris and a younger
+      Horus, with the epithet of Ahi&mdash;he who strikes the sistrum.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Brugsch explains the name of Ahi as meaning <i>he who
+     causes his waters to rise</i>, and recognizes this personage as
+     being, among other things, a form of the Nile. The
+     interpretation offered by myself is borne out by the many
+     scenes representing the child of Hâthor playing upon the
+     sistrum and the <i>monâît</i>. Moreover, <i>ahi, ahît</i> is an
+     invariable title of the priests and priestesses whose office
+     it is, during religious ceremonies, to strike the sistrum,
+     and that other mystic musical instrument, the sounding whip
+     called <i>monâît</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0028" id="linklinkBimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/142.jpg" width="100%" alt="142.jpg ImhotpÛ. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette encrusted
+     with gold, in the Gîzeh Museum.    The seat is alabaster,
+     and of modern manufacture.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A triad containing two goddesses produced no legitimate offspring, and was
+      unsatisfactory to a people who regarded the lack of progeny as a curse
+      from heaven; one in which the presence of a son promised to ensure the
+      perpetuity of the race was more in keeping with the idea of a blessed and
+      prosperous family, as that of gods should be. Triads of the former kind
+      were therefore almost everywhere broken up into two new triads, each
+      containing a divine father, a divine mother, and a divine son. Two
+      fruitful households arose from the barren union of Thot with Safkhîtâbûi
+      and Nahmâûît: one composed of Thot, Safkhîtâbûi, and Harnûbi, the golden
+      sparrow-hawk;[***] into the other Nahmâûît and her nursling Nofirhorû
+      entered.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ***  This somewhat rare triad, noted by Wilkinson, is
+     sculptured on the wall of a chamber in the Tûrah quarries.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0029" id="linklinkBimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/143.jpg" width="100%" alt="143.jpg NofirtÛmÛ. 3 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     3  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette incrusted
+     with gold, in the Gîzeh Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The persons united with the old feudal divinities in order to form triads
+      were not all of the same class. Goddesses, especially, were made to order,
+      and might often be described as grammatical, so obvious is the linguistic
+      device to which they owe their being. From Râ, Amon, Horus, Sobkû, female
+      Ras, Anions, Horuses, and Sobkûs were derived, by the addition of the
+      regular feminine affix to the primitive masculine names&mdash;Râît,
+      Amonît, Horît, Sobkît.[*] In the same way, detached cognomens of divine
+      fathers were embodied in divine sons. Imhotpû, "he who comes in peace,"
+      was merely one of the epithets of Phtah before he became incarnate as the
+      third member of the Memphite triad.[**] In other cases, alliances were
+      contracted between divinities of ancient stock, but natives of different
+      nomes, as in the case of Isis of Bûto and the Mendesian Osiris; of
+      Haroêris of Edfu and Hâthor of Denderah.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Maspero,   <i>Études  de  Mythologie et  d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 7, 8, 256.
+
+     **  Imhotpû, the Imouthes of the Greeks, and by them
+     identified with Æsculapius, was discovered by Salt, and his
+     name was first translated as <i>he who comes with offering</i>.
+     The translation, <i>he who comes in peace</i>, proposed by E. de
+     Rougé, is now universally adopted. Imhotpû did not take form
+     until the time of the New Empire; his great popularity at
+     Memphis and throughout Egypt dates from the Saïte and Greek
+     periods.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the same manner Sokhît of Letopolis and Bastît of Bubastis were
+      appropriated as wives to Phtah of Memphis, Nofirtûmû being represented as
+      his son by both unions.[*] These improvised connections were generally
+      determined by considerations of vicinity; the gods of conterminous
+      principalities were married as the children of kings of two adjoining
+      kingdoms are married, to form or to consolidate relations, and to
+      establish bonds of kinship between rival powers whose unremitting
+      hostility would mean the swift ruin of entire peoples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The system of triads, begun in primitive times and con-, tinned unbrokenly
+      up to the last days of Egyptian polytheism, far from in any way lowering
+      the prestige of the feudal gods, was rather the means of enhancing it in
+      the eyes of the multitude. Powerful lords as the new-comers might be at
+      home, it was only in the strength of an auxiliary title that they could
+      enter a strange city, and then only on condition of submitting to its
+      religious law. Hâthor, supreme at Denderah, shrank into insignificance
+      before Haroêris at Edfû, and there retained only the somewhat subordinate
+      part of a wife in the house of her husband.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Originally, Nofirtûmû appears to have been the son of cat
+     or lioness-headed goddesses, Bastît and Sokhît, and from
+     them he may have inherited the lion's head with which he is
+     often represented. His name shows him to have been in the
+     first place an incarnation of Atûmû, but he was affiliated
+     to the god Phtah of Memphis when that god became the husband
+     of his mothers, and preceded Imhotpû as the third personage
+     in the oldest Memphite triad.
+
+     **  Each year, and at a certain time, the goddess came in
+     high state to spend a few days in the great temple of Edfû,
+     with her husband Haroêris.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, Haroêris when at Denderah descended from the supreme
+      rank, and was nothing more than the almost useless consort of the lady
+      Hâthor. His name came first in invocations of the triad because of his
+      position therein as husband and father; but this was simply a concession
+      to the propriety of etiquette, and even though named in second place,
+      Hâthor was none the less the real chief of Denderah and of its divine
+      family.[*] Thus, the principal personage in any triad was always the one
+      who had been patron of the nome previous to the introduction of the triad:
+      in some places the father-god, and in others the mother-goddess.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The part played by Haroêris at Denderah was so
+     inconsiderable that the triad containing him is not to be
+     found in the temple. "In all our four volumes of plates, the
+     triad is not once represented, and this is the more
+     remarkable since at Thebes, at Memphis, at Philse, at the
+     cataracts, at Elephantine, at Edfû, among all the data which
+     one looks to find in temples, the triad is most readily
+     distinguished by the visitor. But we must not therefore
+     conclude that there was no triad in this case. The triad of
+     Edfû consists of Hor-Hut, Hâthor, and Hor-Sam-ta-ui. The
+     triad of Denderah contains Hâthor, Hor-Hut, and Hor-Sam-ta-
+     ui. The difference is obvious. At Edfû, the male principle,
+     as represented by Hor-Hut, takes the first place, whereas
+     the first person at Denderah is Hâthor, who represents the
+     female principle" (Mariette, <i>Dendérah</i>, Texte, pp. 80, 81).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0030" id="linklinkBimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/145.jpg" width="100%" alt="145.jpg Horus " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a statuette in the Gîzeh
+     Museum (Mariette, <i>Album du Musée de Boulaq</i>, pl. 4).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The son in a divine triad had of himself but limited authority. When Isis
+      and Osiris were his parents, he was generally an infant Horus, naked, or
+      simply adorned with necklaces and bracelets; a thick lock of hair depended
+      from his temple, and his mother squatting on her heels, or else sitting,
+      nursed him upon her knees, offering him her breast.[*] Even in triads
+      where the son was supposed to have attained to man's estate, he held the
+      lowest place, and there was enjoined upon him the same respectful attitude
+      towards his parents as is observed by children of human race in the
+      presence of theirs. He took the lowest place at all solemn receptions,
+      spoke only with his parents' permission, acted only by their command and
+      as the agent of their will. Occasionally he was vouchsafed a character of
+      his own, and filled a definite position, as at Memphis, where Imhotpû was
+      the patron of science.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, see
+     Lanzone, <i>Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia</i>, pis. ccxxvii.,
+     ccxxviii., and particularly pl. cccx. 2, where there is a
+     scene in which the young god, represented as a sparrow-hawk,
+     is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with
+     his beak.
+
+     **  Hence he is generally represented as seated, or
+     squatting, and attentively reading a papyrus roll, which
+     lies open upon his knees; cf. the illustration on p. 142.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But, generally, he was not considered as having either office or marked
+      individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's, and
+      possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two such
+      contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as a matter
+      of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more than two
+      aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees of
+      relationship mutually exclusive of each other in a human family. Father,
+      inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue of being
+      its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he was at
+      once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gods, like men, might be resolved into at least two elements, soul and
+      body;[*] but in Egypt, the conception of the soul varied in different
+      times and in different schools. It might be an insect&mdash;butterfly,
+      bee, or praying mantis;[**] or a bird&mdash;the ordinary sparrow-hawk, the
+      human-headed sparrow-hawk, a heron or a crane&mdash;bi, haï&mdash;whose
+      wings enabled it to pass rapidly through space;[***] or the black shadow&mdash;khaîbît&mdash;that
+      is attached to every body, but which death sets free, and which
+      thenceforward leads an independent existence, so that it can move about at
+      will, and go out into the open sunlight.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  In one of the Pyramid texts, Sâhû-Orion, the wild hunter,
+     captures the gods, slaughters and disembowels them, cooks
+     their joints, their haunches, their legs, in his burning
+     cauldrons, and feeds on their souls as well as on their
+     bodies. A god was not limited to a single body and a single
+     soul; we know from several texts that Râ had <i>seven souls
+     and fourteen doubles</i>.
+
+     **  Mr. Lepage-Renouf supposes that the soul may have been
+     considered as being a butterfly at times, as in Greece. M.
+     Lefébure thinks that it must sometimes have been incarnate
+     as a wasp&mdash;I should rather say a bee or a praying mantis.
+
+     ***  The simple sparrow-hawk  is chiefly used to denote the
+     soul of a god; the human-headed sparrow-hawk, the heron, or
+     the crane  is used indifferently for human or divine souls.
+     It is from Horapollo that we learn this symbolic
+     significance of the sparrow-hawk and the pronunciation of
+     the name of the soul as <i>bai</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0031" id="linklinkBimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/147.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="147.jp the Black Shadow Coming out Into The Sunlight. 4 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville's <i>Das Thebanische
+     Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. civ.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Finally, it might be a kind of light shadow, like a reflection from the
+      surface of calm water, or from a polished mirror, the living and coloured
+      projection of the human figure, a double&mdash;<i>ka</i>&mdash;reproducing
+      in minutest detail the complete image of the object or the person to whom
+      it belonged.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The nature of the double has long been misapprehended by
+     Egyptologists, who had even made its name into a kind of
+     pronominal form. That nature was publicly and almost
+     simultaneously announced in 1878, first by Maspero, and
+     directly afterwards by Lepage-Renouf.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0032" id="linklinkBimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/148.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="148.jpg the August Souls of Osiris and Horus in Adoration Before the Solar Disk. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûmichen, of
+     a scene on the cornice of the front room of Osiris on the
+     terrace of the great temple of Denderah. The soul on the
+     left belongs to Horus, that on the right to Osiris, lord of
+     Amentît. Each bears upon its head the group of tall feathers
+     which is characteristic of figures of Anhûri (cf. p. 103).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The soul, the shadow, the double of a god, was in no way essentially
+      different from the soul, shadow, or double of a man; his body, indeed, was
+      moulded out of a more rarefied substance, and generally invisible, but
+      endowed with the same qualities, and subject to the same imperfections as
+      ours. The gods, therefore, on the whole, were more ethereal, stronger,
+      more powerful, better fitted to command, to enjoy, and to suffer than
+      ordinary men, but they were still men. They had bones,[**] muscles, flesh,
+      blood; they were hungry and ate, they were thirsty and drank; our
+      passions, griefs, joys, infirmities, were also theirs. The <i>sa</i>, a
+      mysterious fluid, circulated throughout their members, and carried with it
+      health, vigour, and life.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  For example, the text of the <i>Destruction of Men</i>, and
+     other documents, teach us that the flesh of the aged sun had
+     become gold, and his bones silver. The blood of Râ is
+     mentioned in the <i>Book of the Dead</i>, as well as the blood of
+     Isis and of other divinities.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They were not all equally charged with it; some had more, others less,
+      their energy being in proportion to the amount which they contained. The
+      better supplied willingly gave of their superfluity to those who lacked
+      it, and all could readily transmit it to mankind, this transfusion being
+      easily accomplished in the temples. The king, or any ordinary man who
+      wished to be thus impregnated, presented himself before the statue of the
+      god, and squatted at its feet with his back towards it. The statue then
+      placed its right hand upon the nape of his neck, and by making passes,
+      caused the fluid to flow from it, and to accumulate in him as in a
+      receiver. This rite was of temporary efficacy only, and required frequent
+      renewal in order that its benefit might be maintained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0033" id="linklinkBimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/150.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="150.jpg the King After his Coronation Receiving The Imposition of the Sa. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a photograph by M. Gay et, taken in
+     1889, of a scene in the hypostyle hall at Lûxor. This
+     illustration shows the relative positions of prince and god.
+     Anion, after having placed the pschent upon the head of the
+     Pharaoh Amenôthes III., who kneels before him, proceeds to
+     <i>impose the sa</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By using or transmitting it the gods themselves exhausted their <i>sa</i>
+      of life; and the less vigorous replenished themselves from the stronger,
+      while the latter went to draw fresh fulness from a mysterious pond in the
+      northern sky, called the "pond of the Sa."[*] Divine bodies, continually
+      recruited by the influx of this magic fluid, preserved their vigour far
+      beyond the term allotted to the bodies of men and beasts. Age, instead of
+      quickly destroying them, hardened and transformed them into precious
+      metals. Their bones were changed to silver, their flesh to gold; their
+      hair, piled up and painted blue, after the manner of great chiefs, was
+      turned into lapis-lazuli.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *   It is thus that in the <i>Tale of the Daughter of the
+     Prince of Bakhtan</i> we find that one of the statues of the
+     Theban Konsû supplies itself with <i>sa</i> from another statue
+     representing one of the most powerful forms of the god. The
+     <i>pond of Sa</i>, whither the gods go to draw the magic fluid,
+     is mentioned in the Pyramid texts.
+
+     **  Cf. the text of the <i>Destruction of Men</i> (Il. 1, 2)
+     referred to above, where age produces these transformations
+     in the body of the sun. This changing of the bodies of the
+     gods into gold, silver, and precious stones, explains why
+     the alchemists, who were disciples of the Egyptians, often
+     compared the transmutation of metals to the metamorphosis of
+     a genius or of a divinity: they thought by their art to
+     hasten at will that which was the slow work of nature.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This transformation of each into an animated statue did not altogether do
+      away with the ravages of time. Decrepitude was no less irremediable with
+      them than with men, although it came to them more slowly; when the sun had
+      grown old "his mouth trembled, his drivelling ran down to earth, his
+      spittle dropped upon the ground."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of the feudal gods had escaped this destiny; for them as for mankind
+      the day came when they must leave the city and go forth to the tomb.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The idea of the inevitable death of the gods is expressed
+     in other places as well as in a passage of the eighth
+     chapter of the Booh of the Dead (Naville's edition), which
+     has not to my knowledge hitherto been noticed: "I am that
+     Osiris in the West, and Osiris knoweth his day in which he
+     shall be no more;" that is to say, the day of his death
+     when he will cease to exist. All the gods, Atûmû, Horus, Râ,
+     Thot, Phtah, Khnûmû, are represented under the forms of
+     mummies, and this implies that they are dead.    Moreover,
+     their tombs were pointed out in several places in Egypt.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The ancients long refused to believe that death was natural and
+      inevitable. They thought that life, once began, might go on indefinitely:
+      if no accident stopped it short, why should it cease of itself? And so men
+      did not die in Egypt; they were assassinated. The murderer often belonged
+      to this world, and was easily recognized as another man, an animal, some
+      inanimate object such as a stone loosened from the hillside, a tree which
+      fell upon the passer-by and crushed him. But often too the murderer was of
+      the unseen world, and so was hidden, his presence being betrayed in his
+      malignant attacks only. He was a god, an evil spirit, a disembodied soul
+      who slily insinuated itself into the living man, or fell upon him with
+      irresistible violence&mdash;illness being a struggle between the one
+      possessed and the power which possessed him. As soon as the former
+      succumbed he was carried away from his own people, and his place knew him
+      no more. But had all ended for him with the moment in which he had ceased
+      to breathe? As to the body, no one was ignorant of its natural fate. It
+      quickly fell to decay, and a few years sufficed to reduce it to a
+      skeleton. And as for the skeleton, in the lapse of centuries that too was
+      disintegrated and became a mere train of dust, to be blown away by the
+      first breath of wind. The soul might have a longer career and fuller
+      fortunes, but these were believed to be dependent upon those of the body,
+      and commensurate with them. Every advance made in the process of
+      decomposition robbed the soul of some part of itself; its consciousness
+      gradually faded until nothing was left but a vague and hollow form that
+      vanished altogether when the corpse had entirely disappeared. Erom an
+      early date the Egyptians had endeavoured to arrest this gradual
+      destruction of the human organism, and their first effort to this end
+      naturally was directed towards the preservation of the body, since without
+      it the existence of the soul could not be ensured. It was imperative that
+      during that last sleep, which for them was fraught with such terrors, the
+      flesh should neither become decomposed nor turn to dust, that it should be
+      free from offensive odour and secure from predatory worms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They set to work, therefore, to discover how to preserve it. The oldest
+      burials which have as yet been found prove that these early inhabitants
+      were successful in securing the permanence of the body for a few decades
+      only. When one of them died, his son, or his nearest relative, carefully
+      washed the corpse in water impregnated with an astringent or aromatic
+      substance, such as natron or some solution of fragrant gums, and then
+      fumigated it with burning herbs and perfumes which were destined to
+      overpower, at least temporarily, the odour of death.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This is to be gathered from the various Pyramid texts
+     relating to the purification by water and to fumigation: the
+     pains taken to secure material cleanliness, described in
+     these formulas, were primarily directed towards the
+     preservation of the bodies subjected to these processes, and
+     further to the perfecting of the souls to which these bodies
+     had been united.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having taken these precautions, they placed the body in the grave,
+      sometimes entirely naked, sometimes partially covered with its ordinary
+      garments, or sewn up in a closely fitting gazelle skin. The dead man was
+      placed on his left side, lying north and south with his face to the east,
+      in some cases on the bare ground, in others on a mat, a strip of leather
+      or a fleece, in the position of a child in the foetal state. The knees
+      were sharply bent at an angle of 45° with the thighs, while the latter
+      were either at right angles with the body, or drawn up so as almost to
+      touch the elbows. The hands are sometimes extended in front of the face,
+      sometimes the arms are folded and the hands joined on the breast or neck.
+      In some instances the legs are bent upward in such a fashion that they
+      almost lie parallel with the trunk. The deceased could only be made to
+      assume this position by a violent effort, and in many cases the tendons
+      and the flesh had to be cut to facilitate the operation. The dryness of
+      the ground selected for these burial-places retarded the corruption of the
+      flesh for a long time, it is true, but only retarded it, and so did not
+      prevent the soul from being finally destroyed. Seeing decay could not be
+      prevented, it was determined to accelerate the process, by taking the
+      flesh from the bones before interment. The bodies thus treated are often
+      incomplete; the head is missing, or is detached from the neck and laid in
+      another part of the pit, or, on the other hand, the body is not there, and
+      the head only is found in the grave, generally placed apart on a brick, a
+      heap of stones, or a layer of cut flints. The forearms and the hands were
+      subjected to the same treatment as the head. In many cases no trace of
+      them appears, in others they are deposited by the side of the skull or
+      scattered about haphazard. Other mutilations are frequently met with; the
+      ribs are divided and piled up behind the body, the limbs are disjointed or
+      the body is entirely dismembered, and the fragments arranged upon the
+      ground or enclosed together in an earthenware chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These precautions were satisfactory in so far as they ensured the better
+      preservation of the more solid parts of the human frame, but the Egyptians
+      felt this result was obtained at too great a sacrifice. The human organism
+      thus deprived of all flesh was not only reduced to half its bulk, but what
+      remained had neither unity, consistency, nor continuity. It was not even a
+      perfect skeleton with its constituent parts in their relative places, but
+      a mere mass of bones with no connecting links. This drawback, it is true,
+      was remedied by the artificial reconstruction in the tomb of the
+      individual thus completely dismembered in the course of the funeral
+      ceremonies. The bones were laid in their natural order; those of the feet
+      at the bottom, then those of the leg, trunk, and arms, and finally the
+      skull itself. But the superstitious fear inspired by the dead man,
+      particularly of one thus harshly handled, and particularly the
+      apprehension that he might revenge himself on his relatives for the
+      treatment to which they had subjected him, often induced them to make this
+      restoration intentionally incomplete. When they had reconstructed the
+      entire skeleton, they refrained from placing the head in position, or else
+      they suppressed one or all of the vertebras of the spine, so that the
+      deceased should be unable to rise and go forth to bite and harass the
+      living. Having taken this precaution, they nevertheless felt a doubt
+      whether the soul could really enjoy life so long as one half only of the
+      body remained, and the other was lost for ever: they therefore sought to
+      discover the means of preserving the fleshy parts in addition to the bony
+      framework of the body. It had been observed that when a corpse had been
+      buried in the desert, its skin, speedily desiccated and hardened, changed
+      into a case of blackish parchment beneath which the flesh slowly wasted
+      away,[*] and the whole frame thus remained intact, at least in appearance,
+      while its integrity ensured that of the soul.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Such was the appearance of the bodies of Coptic monks of
+     the sixth, eighth, and ninth centuries, which I found in the
+     convent cemeteries of Contra-Syene, Taûd, and Akhmîm, right
+     in the midst of the desert.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      An attempt was made by artificial means to reproduce the conservative
+      action of the sand, and, without mutilating the body, to secure at will
+      that incorruptibility without which the persistence of the soul was but a
+      useless prolongation of the death-agony. It was the god Anubis&mdash;the
+      jackal lord of sepulture&mdash;who was supposed to have made this
+      discovery. He cleansed the body of the viscera, those parts which most
+      rapidly decay, saturated it with salts and aromatic substances, protected
+      it first of all with the hide of a beast, and over this laid thick layers
+      of linen. The victory the god had thus gained over corruption was,
+      however, far from being a complete one. The bath in which the dead man was
+      immersed could not entirely preserve the softer parts of the body: the
+      chief portion of them was dissolved, and what remained after the period of
+      saturation was so desiccated that its bulk was seriously diminished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When any human being had been submitted to this process, he emerged from
+      it a mere skeleton, over which the skin remained tightly drawn: these
+      shrivelled limbs, sunken chest, grinning features, yellow and blackened
+      skin spotted by the efflorescence of the embalmer's salts, were not the
+      man himself, but rather a caricature of what he had been. As nevertheless
+      he was secure against immediate destruction, the Egyptians described him
+      as furnished with his shape; henceforth he had been purged of all that was
+      evil in him, and he could face with tolerable security whatever awaited
+      him in the future. The art of Anubis, transmitted to the embalmers and
+      employed by them from generation to generation, had, by almost eliminating
+      the corruptible part of the body without destroying its outward
+      appearance, arrested decay, if not for ever, at least for an unlimited
+      period of time. If there were hills at hand, thither the mummied dead were
+      still borne, partly from custom, partly because the dryness of the air and
+      of the soil offered them a further chance of preservation. In districts of
+      the Delta where the hills were so distant as to make it very costly to
+      reach them, advantage was taken of the smallest sandy islet rising above
+      the marshes, and there a cemetery was founded. Where this resource failed,
+      the mummy was fearlessly entrusted to the soil itself, but only after
+      being placed within a sarcophagus of hard stone, whose lid and trough,
+      hermetically fastened together with cement, prevented the penetration of
+      any moisture. Reassured on this point, the soul followed the body to the
+      tomb, and there dwelt with it as in its eternal house, upon the confines
+      of the visible and invisible worlds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the soul kept the distinctive character and appearance which
+      pertained to it "upon the earth:" as it had been a "double" before death,
+      so it remained a double after it, able to perform all functions of animal
+      life after its own fashion. It moved, went, came, spoke, breathed,
+      accepted pious homage, but without pleasure, and as it were mechanically,
+      rather from an instinctive horror of annihilation than from any rational
+      desire for immortality. Unceasing regret for the bright world which it had
+      left disturbed its mournful and inert existence. "O my brother, withhold
+      not thyself from drinking and from eating, from drunkenness, from love,
+      from all enjoyment, from following thy desire by night and by day; put not
+      sorrow within thy heart, for what are the years of a man upon earth? The
+      West is a land of sleep and of heavy shadows, a place wherein its
+      inhabitants, when once installed, slumber on in their mummy-forms, never
+      more waking to see their brethren; never more to recognize their fathers
+      or their mothers, with hearts forgetful of their wives and children. The
+      living water, which earth giveth to all who dwell upon it, is for me but
+      stagnant and dead; that water floweth to all who are on earth, while for
+      me it is but liquid putrefaction, this water that is mine. Since I came
+      into this funereal valley I know not where nor what I am. Give me to drink
+      of running water!... Let me be placed by the edge of the water with my
+      face to the North, that the breeze may caress me and my heart be refreshed
+      from its sorrow." By day the double remained concealed within the tomb. If
+      it went forth by night, it was from no capricious or sentimental desire to
+      revisit the spots where it had led a happier life. Its organs needed
+      nourishment as formerly did those of its body, and of itself it possessed
+      nothing "but hunger for food, thirst for drink."[*] Want and misery drove
+      it from its retreat, and flung it back among the living. It prowled like a
+      marauder about fields and villages, picking up and greedily devouring
+      whatever it might find on the ground&mdash;broken meats which had been
+      left or forgotten, house and stable refuse&mdash;and, should these meagre
+      resources fail, even the most revolting dung and excrement.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *   <i>Teti</i>, 11. 74, 75. "Hateful unto Teti is hunger, and
+     he eateth it not; hateful unto Teti is thirst, nor hath he
+     drunk it." We see that the Egyptians made hunger and thirst
+     into two substances or beings, to be swallowed as food is
+     swallowed, but whose effects were poisonous unless
+     counteracted by the immediate absorption of more satisfying
+     sustenance.
+
+     **  King Teti, when distinguishing his fate from that of the
+     common dead, stated that he had abundance of food, and hence
+     was not reduced to so pitiful an extremity. "Abhorrent unto
+     Teti is excrement, Teti rejecteth urine, and Teti abhorreth
+     that which is abominable in him; abhorrent unto him is
+     faecal matter and he eateth it not, hateful unto Teti is
+     liquid filth." (<i>Teti</i>, 11. 68, 69<i>). The same doctrine is
+     found in several places in the Book of the Dead</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This ravenous sceptre had not the dim and misty form, the long shroud of
+      floating draperies of our modern phantoms, but a precise and definite
+      shape, naked, or clothed in the garments which it had worn while yet upon
+      earth, and emitting a pale light, to which it owed the name of Luminous&mdash;<i>Khû,
+      Khûû</i>.[*] The double did not allow its family to forget it, but used
+      all the means at its disposal to remind them of its existence. It entered
+      their houses and their bodies, terrified them waking and sleeping by its
+      sudden apparitions, struck them down with disease or madness,[**] and
+      would even suck their blood like the modern vampire.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The name of luminous was at first so explained as to make
+     the light wherewith souls were clothed, into a portion of
+     the divine light. In my opinion the idea is a less abstract
+     one, and shows that, as among many other nations, so with
+     the Egyptians the soul was supposed to appear as a kind of
+     pale flame, or as emitting a glow analogous to the
+     phosphorescent halo which is seen by night about a piece of
+     rotten wood, or putrefying fish. This primitive conception
+     may have subsequently faded, and <i>khû the glorious one</i>, one
+     of the <i>mânes</i>, may have become one of those flattering
+     names by which it was thought necessary to propitiate the
+     dead; it then came to have that significance of <i>resplendent
+     with light</i> which is ordinarily attributed to it.
+
+     **  The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published
+     by Pleyte is full are directed against <i>dead men or dead
+     women</i> who entered into one of the living to give him the
+     <i>migraine</i>, and violent headaches. Another Leyden Papyrus,
+     briefly analyzed by Ohabas, and translated by Maspero,
+     contains the complaint, or rather the formal act of
+     requisition of a husband whom the <i>luminous</i> of his wife
+     returned to torment in his home, without any just cause for
+     such conduct.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One effectual means there was, and one only, of escaping or preventing
+      these visitations, and this lay in taking to the tomb all the various
+      provisions of which the double stood in need, and for which it visited
+      their dwellings. Funerary sacrifices and the regular cultus of the dead
+      originated in the need experienced for making provision for the sustenance
+      of the manes after having secured their lasting existence by the
+      mummification of their bodies.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Several chapters of the <i>Book of the Dead</i> consist of
+     directions for giving food to that part of man which
+     survives his death, e.g. chap, cv., "<i>Chapter for providing
+     food for the double</i>" (Naville's edition, pl. cxvii.), and
+     chap, cvi., "<i>Chapter for giving daily abundance unto the
+     deceased, in Memphis</i>" (Naville's edition, pl. cxviii.).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0034" id="linklinkBimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/161.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="161.jpg Sacrificing to the Dead in The Tomb Chapel. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Stela of Antûf I., Prince of Thebes, drawn by Faucher-
+     Gudin from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey.    Below,
+     servants and relations are bringing the victims and cutting
+     up the ox at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the dead
+     man, seated under his pavilion and receiving the sacrifice:
+     an attendant offers him drink, another brings him the haunch
+     of an ox a third a basket and two jars; provisions fill the
+     whole chamber. Behind Antûf stand two servants, the one
+     fanning his master, and the second offering him his staff
+     and sandals. The position of the door, which is in the
+     lowest row of the scenes, indicates that what is represented
+     above it takes place within the tomb.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Gazelles and oxen were brought and sacrificed at the door of the tomb
+      chapel; the haunches, heart, and breast of each victim being presented and
+      heaped together upon the ground, that there the dead might find them when
+      they began to be hungry. Vessels of beer or wine, great jars of fresh
+      water, purified with natron, or perfumed, were brought to them that they
+      might drink their fill at pleasure, and by such voluntary tribute men
+      bought their good will, as in daily life they bought that of some
+      neighbour too powerful to be opposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils which
+      death so plentifully bestows upon men. Their bodies suffered change and
+      gradually perished until nothing was left of them. Their souls, like human
+      souls, were only the representatives of their bodies, and gradually became
+      extinct if means of arresting the natural tendency to decay were not found
+      in time. Thus, the same necessity that forced men to seek the kind of
+      sepulture which gave the longest term of existence to their souls,
+      compelled the gods to the same course. At first, they were buried in the
+      hills, and one of their oldest titles describes them as those "who are
+      upon the sand,"[*] safe from putrefaction; afterwards, when the art of
+      embalming had been discovered, the gods received the benefit of the new
+      invention and were mummified.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In the <i>Book of Knowing that which is in Hades</i>, for the
+     fourth and fifth hours of the night, we have the description
+     of the sandy realm of Sokaris and of the gods <i>Hiriû Shâîtû-
+     senû</i>, who are on their sand. Elsewhere in the same book we
+     have a cynocephalus <i>upon its sand</i>, and the gods of the
+     eighth hour are also mysterious gods who are on their sand.
+     Wherever these personages are represented in the vignettes,
+     the Egyptian artist has carefully drawn the ellipse painted
+     in yellow and sprinkled with red, which is the conventional
+     rendering of sand, and sandy districts.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Each nome possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead god: at Thinis
+      there was the mummy and the tomb of Anhuri, the mummy of Osiris at Mendes,
+      the mummy of Tûmû at Heliopolis.[*] In some of the nomes the gods did not
+      change their names in altering the mode of their existence: the deceased
+      Osiris remained Osiris; Nit and Hâthor when dead were still Nît and
+      Hâthor, at Saïs and at Denderah. But Phtah of Memphis became Sokaris by
+      dying; Uapûaîtû, the jackal of Siût, was changed into Anubis;[**] and when
+      his disk had disappeared at evening, Anhûri, the sunlit sky of Thinis, was
+      Khontamentît, Lord of the West, until the following day.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The sepulchres of Tûmû, Khopri, Râ, Osiris, and in each
+     of them the heap of sand hiding the body, are represented in
+     the tomb of Seti I., as also the four rams in which the
+     souls of the god are incarnate. The tombs of the gods were
+     known even in Roman times.
+
+     **  To my mind, at least, this is an obvious conclusion from
+     the monuments of Siût, in which the jackal god is called
+     Uapûaîtû, as the living god, lord of the city, and Anûpû,
+     master of embalming or of the Oasis, lord of Ra-qrirît,
+     inasmuch as he is god of the dead. Ra-qrirît, <i>the door of
+     the stone</i>, was the name which the people of Siût gave to
+     their necropolis and to the infernal domain of their god.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That bliss which we dream of enjoying in the world to come was not granted
+      to the gods any more than to men. Their bodies were nothing but inert
+      larvae, "with unmoving heart,"[*] weak and shrivelled limbs, unable to
+      stand upright were it not that the bandages in which they were swathed
+      stiffened them into one rigid block. Their hands and heads alone were
+      free, and were of the green or black shades of putrid flesh.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  This is the characteristic epithet for the dead Osiris,
+     Urdu Mt, he whose heart is unmoving, he whose heart no
+     longer beats, and who has therefore ceased to live.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0035" id="linklinkBimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/164.jpg" width="100%" alt="164.jpg Phtah As a Mummy. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a bronze statuette of the
+     Saïte period, found in the department of Hérault, at the end
+     of a gallery in an ancient mine.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Their doubles, like those of men, both dreaded and regretted the light.
+      All sentiment was extinguished by the hunger from which they suffered, and
+      gods who were noted for their compassionate kindness when alive, became
+      pitiless and ferocious tyrants in the tomb. When once men were bidden to
+      the presence of Sokaris, Khontamentîfc, or even of Osiris, "mortals come
+      terrifying their hearts with fear of the god, and none dareth to look him
+      in the face either among gods or men; for him the great are as the small.
+      He spareth not those who love him; he beareth away the child from its
+      mother, and the old man who walketh on his way; full of fear, all
+      creatures make supplication before him, but he turneth not his face
+      towards them." Only by the unfailing payment of tribute, and by feeding
+      him as though he were a simple human double, could living or dead escape
+      the consequences of his furious temper. The living paid him his dues in
+      pomps and solemn sacrifices, repeated from year to year at regular
+      intervals; but the dead bought more dearly the protection which he deigned
+      to extend to them. He did not allow them to receive directly the prayers,
+      sepulchral meals, or offerings of kindred on feast-days; all that was
+      addressed to them must first pass through his hands. When their friends
+      wished to send them wine, water, bread, meat, vegetables, and fruits, he
+      insisted that these should first be offered and formally presented to
+      himself; then he was humbly prayed to transmit them to such or such a
+      double, whose name and parentage were pointed out to him. He took
+      possession of them, kept part for his own use, and of his bounty gave the
+      remainder to its destined recipient. Thus death made no change in the
+      relative positions of the feudal god and his worshippers. The worshipper
+      who called himself the <i>amakhû</i> of the god during life was the
+      subject and vassal of his mummied god even in the tomb;[*] and the god
+      who, while living, reigned over the living, after his death continued to
+      reign over the dead.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The word <i>amakhû</i> is applied to an individual who has
+     freely entered the service of king or baron, and taken him
+     for his lord: <i>amakhû khir nibuf</i> means <i>vassal of his
+     lord</i>. In the same way, each chose for himself a god who
+     became his patron, and to whom he owed <i>fealty</i>, i.e. to
+     whom he was <i>amakhû</i>&mdash;vassal. To the god he owed the service
+     of a good vassal&mdash;tribute, sacrifices, offerings; and to his
+     vassal the god owed in return the service of a suzerain&mdash;
+     protection, food, reception into his dominions and access to
+     his person. A man might be absolutely <i>nib amahkît</i>, master
+     of fealty, or, relatively to a god, <i>amakhû khir Osiri</i>, the
+     vassal of Osiris, <i>amakhû khir Phtah-Sokari</i>, the vassal of
+     Phtah-Sokaris.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He dwelt in the city near the prince and in the midst of his subjects: Râ
+      living in Heliopolis along with the prince of Heliopolis; Haroêris in Edfû
+      together with the prince of Edfû; Nît in Saïs with the prince of Sais.
+      Although none of the primitive temples have come down to us, the name
+      given to them in the language of the time, shows what they originally
+      were. A temple was considered as the feudal mansion&mdash;hâît,&mdash;the
+      house&mdash;<i>pirû, pi</i>,&mdash;of the god, better cared for, and more
+      respected than the houses of men, but not otherwise differing from them.
+      It was built on a site slightly raised above the level of the plain, so as
+      to be safe from the inundation, and where there was no natural mound, the
+      want was supplied by raising a rectangular platform of earth. A layer of
+      sand spread uniformly on the sub-soil provided against settlements or
+      infiltration, and formed a bed for the foundations of the building.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This custom lasted into Græco-Roman times, and was part of
+     the ritual for laying the foundations of a temple. After the
+     king had dug out the soil on the ground where the temple was
+     to stand, he spread over the spot sand mixed with pebbles
+     and precious stones, and upon this he laid the first course
+     of stone.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This was first of all a single room, circumscribed, gloomy, covered in by
+      a slightly vaulted roof, and having no opening but the doorway, which was
+      framed by two tall masts, whence floated streamers to attract from afar
+      the notice of worshippers; in front of its façade [*] was a court, fenced
+      in with palisading.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to
+     our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we
+     have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the
+     word <i>temple</i> in texts of the Memphite period.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0036" id="linklinkBimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/167.jpg" width="100%" alt="167.jpg the Sacred Bull. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gîzeh Museum,
+     drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are
+     copied from those of similar figures on stelæ of the
+     Serapeum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood, or
+      metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for
+      containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was every
+      day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of chambers
+      increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs, precious
+      vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode; until that
+      which had once constituted the whole temple became no more than its
+      sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in body,[*] and the
+      fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several cities did not
+      prevent his being present in all of them at once. He could divide his
+      double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he pleased, and these
+      bodies might be human or animal, natural objects or things manufactured&mdash;such
+      as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**] Several of the gods were
+      incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitû at Heracleopolis, Khnûmû
+      at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their temples, and allowed to
+      gratify any fancy that came into their animal brains. Other gods entered
+      into bulls: Râ at Heliopolis, and, subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minû at
+      Thebes, and Montû at Hermonthis. They indicated beforehand by certain
+      marks such beasts as they intended to animate by. their doubles, and he
+      who had learnt to recognize these signs was at no loss to find a living
+      god when the time came for seeking one and presenting it to the adoration
+      of worshippers in the temple.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hâthor
+     likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed
+     sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine
+     cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other
+     instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in
+     thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life
+     to the statues and images which they made, and believed
+     (especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit
+     haunted images of itself."
+
+     **  Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et l'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. i. p. 77, et seq.; <i>Archéologie
+     Égyptienne</i>, pp. 106, 107; English edition, pp. 105, 106.
+     This notion of actuated statues seemed so strange and so
+     unworthy of the wisdom of the Egyptians that Egyptologists
+     of the rank of M. de Rougé have taken in an abstract and
+     metaphorical sense expressions referring to the automatic
+     movements of divine images.
+
+     ***  The bulls of Râ and of Phtah, the Mnevis and the Hapis,
+     are known to us from classic writers. The bull of Minû at
+     Thebes may be seen in the procession of the god as
+     represented on monuments of Ramses II. and Ramses III. Bâkhû
+     (called Bakis by the Greeks), the bull of Hermonthis, is
+     somewhat rare, and mainly represented upon a few later
+     stelæ in the Gîzeh Museum; it is chiefly known from the
+     texts. The particular signs distinguishing each of these
+     sacred animals have been determined both on the authority of
+     ancient writers, and from examination of the figured
+     monuments; the arrangement and outlines of some of the black
+     markings of the Hapis are clearly shown in the illustration
+     on p. 167.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And if the statues had not the same outward appearance of actual life as
+      the animals, they none the less concealed beneath their rigid exteriors an
+      intense energy of life which betrayed itself on occasion by gestures or by
+      words. They thus indicated, in language which their servants could
+      understand, the will of the gods, or their opinion on the events of the
+      day; they answered questions put to them in accordance with prescribed
+      forms, and sometimes they even foretold the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0037" id="linklinkBimage-0037">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/169.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="169.jpg Open-air Offerings to the Serpent. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the
+     tomb of Khopirkerîsonbû. The inscription behind the urseus
+     states that it represents <i>Banûît the August, lady of the
+     double granary</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Each temple held a fairly large number of statues representing so many
+      embodiments of the local divinity and of the members of his triad. These
+      latter shared, albeit in a lesser degree, all the honours and all the
+      prerogatives of the master; they accepted sacrifices, answered prayers,
+      and, if needful, they prophesied. They occupied either the sanctuary
+      itself, or one of the halls built about the principal sanctuary, or one of
+      the isolated chapels which belonged to them, subject to the suzerainty of
+      the feudal god. The god has his divine court to help him in the
+      administration of his dominions, just as a prince is aided by his
+      ministers in the government of his realm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This State religion, so complex both in principle and in its outward
+      manifestations, was nevertheless inadequate to express the exuberant piety
+      of the populace. There were casual divinities in every nome whom the
+      people did not love any the less because of their inofficial character;
+      such as an exceptionally high palm tree in the midst of the desert, a rock
+      of curious outline, a spring trickling drop by drop from the mountain to
+      which hunters came to slake their thirst in the hottest hours of the day,
+      or a great serpent believed to be immortal, which haunted a field, a grove
+      of trees, a grotto, or a mountain ravine.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It was a serpent of this kind which gave its name to the
+     hill of Shêikh Harîdî, and the adjacent nome of the Serpent
+     Mountain; and though the serpent has now turned Mussulman,
+     he still haunts the mountain and preserves his faculty of
+     coming to life again every time that he is killed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The peasants of the district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and thought
+      that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their fields by
+      gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines of cultivated
+      ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are fine single
+      sycamores, flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0038" id="linklinkBimage-0038">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/171.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="171.jpg the Peasant's Offering to The Sycamore. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a scene in the tomb of
+     Khopirkerîsonbû. The sacred sycamore here stands at the end
+     of a field of corn, and would seem to extend its protection
+     to the harvest.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Their fresh greenness is in sharp contrast with the surrounding
+      fawn-coloured landscape, and their thick foliage defies the midday sun
+      even in summer. But, on examining the ground in which they grow, we soon
+      find that they drink from water which has infiltrated from the Nile, and
+      whose existence is in nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil. They
+      stand as it were with their feet in the river, though no one about them
+      suspects it. Egyptians of all ranks counted them divine and habitually
+      worshipped them,[**] making them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers,
+      vegetables, and water in porous jars daily replenished by good and
+      charitable people.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 224&mdash;227. They were represented
+     as animated by spirits concealed within them, but which
+     could manifest themselves on occasion. At such times the
+     head or whole body of the spirit of a tree would emerge from
+     its trunk, and when it returned to its hiding-place the
+     trunk reabsorbed it, or <i>ate</i> it again, according to the
+     Egyptian expression, which I have already had occasion to
+     quote above; see p. 110, note 3.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Passers-by drank of the water, and requited the unexpected benefit with a
+      short prayer. There were several such trees in the Memphite nome, and in
+      the Letopolite nome from Dashûr to Gîzeh, inhabited, as every one knew, by
+      detached doubles of Nûît and Hâthor. These combined districts were known
+      as the "Land of the Sycamore," a name afterwards extended to the city of
+      Memphis; and their sacred trees are worshipped at the present day both by
+      Mussulman and Christian fellahîn.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The tree at Matarîeh, commonly called the <i>Tree of the
+     Virgin</i>, seems to me to be the successor of a sacred tree of
+     Heliopolis in which a goddess, perhaps Hâthor, was
+     worshipped.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The most famous among them all, the Sycamore of the South&mdash;<i>nûhît
+      rîsit</i>&mdash;was regarded as the living body of Hâthor on earth. Side
+      by side with its human gods and prophetic statues, each nome proudly
+      advanced one or more sacred animals, one or more magic trees. Each family,
+      and almost every individual, also possessed gods and fetishes, which had
+      been pointed out for their worship by some fortuitous meeting with an
+      animal or an object; by a dream, or by sudden intuition. They had a place
+      in some corner of the house, or a niche in its walls; lamps were
+      continually kept burning before them, and small daily offerings were made
+      to them, over and above what fell to their share on solemn feast-days. In
+      return, they became the protectors of the household, its guardians and its
+      counsellors. Appeal was made to them in every exigency of daily life, and
+      their decisions were no less scrupulously carried out by their little
+      circle of worshippers, than was the will of the feudal god by the
+      inhabitants of his principality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0039" id="linklinkBimage-0039">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/173.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="173.jpg the Sacrifice of The Bull.--the Officiating Priest Lassoing the Victim. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Bas-relief from the temple of Seti I. at Abydos; drawn by
+     Boudier, from a photograph by M. Daniel Héron. Seti I.,
+     second king of the XIXth dynasty, is throwing the lasso; his
+     son, Ramses II., who is still the crown prince, holds the
+     bull by the tail to prevent its escaping from the slipknot.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The prince was the great high priest. The whole religion of the nome
+      rested upon him, and originally he himself performed its ceremonies. Of
+      these, the chief was sacrifice,&mdash;that is to say, a banquet which it
+      was his duty to prepare and lay before the god with his own hands. He went
+      out into the fields to lasso the half-wild bull; bound it, cut its throat,
+      skinned it, burnt part of the carcase in front of his idol and distributed
+      the rest among his assistants, together with plenty of cakes, fruits,
+      vegetables, and wine.[*] On the occasion, the god was present both in body
+      and double, suffering himself to be clothed and perfumed, eating and
+      drinking of the best that was set on the table before him, and putting
+      aside some of the provisions for future use. This was the time to prefer
+      requests to him, while he was gladdened and disposed to benevolence by
+      good cheer. He was not without suspicion as to the reason why he was so
+      feasted, but he had laid down his conditions beforehand, and if they were
+      faithfully observed he willingly yielded to the means of seduction brought
+      to bear upon him. Moreover, he himself had arranged the ceremonial in a
+      kind of contract formerly made with his worshippers and gradually
+      perfected from age to age by the piety of new generations.[**] Above all
+      things, he insisted on physical cleanliness. The officiating priest must
+      carefully wash&mdash;<i>ûâbû</i>&mdash;his face, mouth, hands, and body;
+      and so necessary was this preliminary purification considered, that from
+      it the professional priest derived his name of <i>ûîbû</i>, the washed,
+      the clean.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  This appears from the sacrificial ritual employed in the
+     temples up to the last days of Egyptian paganism; cf., for
+     instance, the illustration on p. 173, where the king is
+     represented as lassoing the bull. That which in historic
+     times was but an image, had originally been a reality.
+
+     **  The most striking example of the divine institution of
+     religious services is furnished by the inscription relating
+     the history of the destruction of men in the reign of Râ,
+     where the god, as he is about to make his final ascension
+     into heaven, substitutes animal for human sacrifices.
+
+     ***  The idea of physical cleanliness comes out in such
+     variants as <i>ûîbû totûi</i>, "clean of both hands," found on
+     stelae instead of the simple title <i>ûîbû</i>. We also know, on
+     the evidence of ancient writers, the scrupulous daily care
+     which Egyptian priests took of their bodies. It was only as
+     a secondary matter that the idea of moral purity entered
+     into the conception of a priest.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His costume was the archaic dress, modified according to circumstances.
+      During certain services, or at certain points in the sacrifices, it was
+      incumbent upon him to wear sandals, the panther-skin over his shoulder,
+      and the thick lock of hair falling over his right ear; at other times he
+      must gird himself with the loin-cloth having a jackal's tail, and take the
+      shoes from off his feet before proceeding with his office, or attach a
+      false beard to his chin. The species, hair, and age of the victim, the way
+      in which it was to be brought and bound, the manner and details of its
+      slaughter, the order to be followed in opening its body and cutting it up,
+      were all minutely and unchangeably decreed. And these were but the least
+      of the divine exactions, and those most easily satisfied. The formulas
+      accompanying each act of the sacrificial priest contained a certain number
+      of words whose due sequence and harmonies might not suffer the slightest
+      modification whatever, even from the god himself, under penalty of losing
+      their efficacy.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Purification Ritual for officiating priests is
+     contained in a papyrus of the Berlin Museum, whose analysis
+     and table of chapters has been published by Herr Oscar von
+     Lemm, <i>Das Bitualbuch des Ammonsdienstes</i>, p. 4, et seq.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They were always recited with the same rhythm, according to a system of
+      chaunting in which every tone had its virtue, combined with movements
+      which confirmed the sense and worked with irresistible effect: one false
+      note, a single discord between the succession of gestures and the
+      utterance of the sacramental words, any hesitation, any awkwardness in the
+      accomplishment of a rite, and the sacrifice was vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Worship as thus conceived became a legal transaction, in the course of
+      which the god gave up his liberty in exchange for certain compensations
+      whose kind and value were fixed by law. By a solemn deed of transfer the
+      worshipper handed over to the legal representatives of the contracting
+      divinity such personal or real property as seemed to him fitting payment
+      for the favour which he asked, or suitable atonement for the wrong which
+      he had done. If man scrupulously observed the innumerable conditions with
+      which the transfer was surrounded, the god could not escape the obligation
+      of fulfilling his petition;[*] but should he omit the least of them, the
+      offering remained with the temple and went to increase the endowments in
+      mortmain, while the god was pledged to nothing in exchange.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This obligation is evident from texts where, as in the
+     poem of Pentaûirît, a king who is in danger demands from his
+     favourite god the equivalent in protection of the sacrifices
+     which he has offered to that divinity, and the gifts
+     wherewith he has enriched him. "Have I not made unto thee
+     many offerings?" says Ramses II. to Amon. "I have filled
+     thy temple with my prisoners, I have built thee a mansion
+     for millions of years.... Ah if evil is the lot of them who
+     insult thee, good are thy purposes towards those who honour
+     thee, O Amon!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hence the officiating priest assumed a formidable responsibility as
+      regarded his fellows: a slip of memory, the slightest accidental impurity,
+      made him a bad priest, injurious to himself and harmful to those
+      worshippers who had entrusted him with their interests before the gods.
+      Since it was vain to expect ritualistic perfections from a prince
+      constantly troubled with affairs of state, the custom was established of
+      associating professional priests with him, personages who devoted all
+      their lives to the study and practice of the thousand formalities whose
+      sum constituted the local religion. Each temple had its service of
+      priests, independent of those belonging to neighbouring temples, whose
+      members, bound to keep their hands always clean and their voices true,
+      were ranked according to the degrees of a learned hierarchy. At their head
+      was a sovereign pontiff to direct them in the exercise of their functions.
+      In some places he was called the first prophet, or rather the first
+      servant of the god&mdash;<i>hon-nûtir topi</i>; at Thebes he was the first
+      prophet of Amon, at Thinis he was the first prophet of Anhûri.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This title of <i>first prophet</i> belongs to priests of the
+     less important towns, and to secondary divinities. If we
+     find it employed in connection with the Theban worship, it
+     is because Amon was originally a provincial god, and only
+     rose into the first rank with the rise of Thebes and the
+     great conquests of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But generally he bore a title appropriate to the nature of the god whose
+      servant he was. The chief priest of Râ at Heliopolis, and in all the
+      cities which adopted the Heliopolitan form of worship, was called <i>Oîrû
+      maû</i>, the master of visions, and he alone besides the sovereign of the
+      nome, or of Egypt, enjoyed the privilege of penetrating into the
+      sanctuary, of "entering into heaven and there beholding the god" face to
+      face. In the same way, the high priest of Anhûri at Sebennytos was
+      entitled the wise and pure warrior&mdash;<i>ahûîti saû uîbu</i>&mdash;because
+      his god went armed with a pike, and a soldier god required for his service
+      a pontiff who should be a soldier like himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These great personages did not always strictly seclude themselves within
+      the limits of the religious domain. The gods accepted, and even sometimes
+      solicited, from their worshippers, houses, fields, vineyards, orchards,
+      slaves, and fishponds, the produce of which assured their livelihood and
+      the support of their temples. There was no Egyptian who did not cherish
+      the ambition of leaving some such legacy to the patron god of his city,
+      "for a monument to himself," and as an endowment for the priests to
+      institute prayers and perpetual sacrifices on his behalf.[*] In course of
+      time these accumulated gifts at length formed real sacred fiefs&mdash;<i>hotpû-nûtir</i>&mdash;analogous
+      to the <i>wakfs</i> of Mussulman Egypt.[**] They were administered by the
+      high priest, who, if necessary, defended them by force against the greed
+      of princes or kings. Two, three, or even four classes of prophets or <i>heiroduli</i>
+      under his orders assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in
+      giving religious instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not
+      hold equal rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed
+      a kind of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines,
+      his maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was
+      to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses they
+      held the chief rank, and were called <i>hierodules</i>, or priestesses, <i>hierodules</i>
+      of Nit, <i>hierodules</i> of Hâthor, <i>hierodules</i> of Pakhît.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  As regards the Saïte period, we are beginning to
+     accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or
+     houses, made either by the king or by private individuals.
+
+     **  We know from the <i>Great Harris Papyrus</i> to what the
+     fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses
+     III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, <i>Die
+     Ægyptologie</i>, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, <i>Bubastis, Eighth
+     Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund</i>, p. 61, a
+     calculation as to the quantities of precious metals
+     belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis;
+     its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.
+
+     *** Mariette remarks  that   priests  play  but   a
+     subordinate part in the temple of Hâthor. This fact, which
+     surprised him, is adequately explained by remembering that
+     Hâthor being a goddess, women take precedence over men in a
+     temple dedicated to her. At Sais, the chief priest was a
+     man, the Tcharp-haîtû; but the persistence with which women
+     of the highest rank, and even queens themselves, took the
+     title of prophetess of Nit from the times of the Ancient
+     Empire shows that in this city the priestess of the goddess
+     was of equal, if not superior, rank to the priest.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The lower offices in the households of the gods, as in princely
+      households, were held by a troop of servants and artisans: butchers to cut
+      the throats of the victims, cooks and pastrycooks, confectioners, weavers,
+      shoemakers, florists, cellarers, water-carriers and milk-carriers. In
+      fact, it was a state within a state, and the prince took care to keep its
+      government in his own hands, either by investing one of his children with
+      the titles and functions of chief pontiff', or by arrogating them to
+      himself. In that case, he provided against mistakes which would have
+      annulled the sacrifice by associating with himself several masters of the
+      ceremonies, who directed him in the orthodox evolutions before the god and
+      about the victim, indicated the due order of gestures and the necessary
+      changes of costume, and prompted him with the words of each invocation
+      from a book or tablet which they held in their hands.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The title of such a personage was <i>khri-habi</i>, the man
+     with the roll or tablet, because of the papyrus roll, or
+     wooden tablet containing the ritual, which he held in his
+     hand.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In addition to its rites and special hierarchy, each of the sacerdotal
+      colleges thus constituted had a theology in accordance with the nature and
+      attributes of its god. Its fundamental dogma affirmed the unity of the
+      nome god, his greatness, his supremacy over all the gods of Egypt and of
+      foreign lands[*]&mdash;whose existence was nevertheless admitted, and none
+      dreamed of denying their reality or contesting their power.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  In the inscriptions all local gods bear the titles of
+     <i>Nûtir ûâ</i>, only god; Sûton nûtirû, Sûntirû, [ Greek word],
+     king of the gods; of <i>Nûtir âa nib pit</i>, the great god, lord
+     of heaven, which show their pretensions to the sovereignty
+     and to the position of creator of the universe.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The latter also boasted of their unity, their greatness, their supremacy;
+      but whatever they were, the god of the nome was master of them all&mdash;their
+      prince, their ruler, their king. It was he alone who governed the world,
+      he alone kept it in good order, he alone had created it. Not that he had
+      evoked it out of nothing; there was as yet no concept of nothingness, and
+      even to the most subtle and refined of primitive theologians creation was
+      only a bringing of pre-existent elements into play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0040" id="linklinkBimage-0040">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/180.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="180.jpg Shu Uplifting the Sky. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a green enamelled statuette
+     in my possession. It was from Shu that the Greeks derived
+     their representations, and perhaps their myth of Atlas.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The latent germs of things had always existed, but they had slept for ages
+      and ages in the bosom of the Nû, of the dark waters. In fulness of time
+      the god of each nome drew them forth, classified them, marshalled them
+      according to the bent of his particular nature, and made his universe out
+      of them by methods peculiarly his own. Nît of Saïs, who was a weaver, had
+      made the world of warp and woof, as the mother of a family weaves her
+      children's linen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Khnûmû, the Nile-God of the cataracts, had gathered up the mud of his
+      waters and therewith moulded his creatures upon a potter's table. In the
+      eastern cities of the Delta these procedures were not so simple. There it
+      was admitted that in the beginning earth and sky were two lovers lost in
+      the Nû, fast locked in each other's embrace, the god lying beneath the
+      goddess. On the day of creation a new god, Shu, came forth from the
+      primaeval waters, slipped between the two, and seizing Nûît with both
+      hands, lifted her above his head with outstretched arms.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This was what the Egyptians called <i>the upliftings of
+     Shû</i>. The event first took place at Hermopolis, and certain
+     legends added that in order to get high enough the god had
+     been obliged to make use of a staircase or mound situate in
+     this city, and which was famous throughout Egypt.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Though the starry body of the goddess extended in space&mdash;her head
+      being to the west and her loins to the east&mdash;her feet and hands hung
+      down to the earth. These were the four pillars of the firmament under
+      another form, and four gods of four adjacent principalities were in charge
+      of them. Osiris, or Horus the sparrow-hawk, presided over the southern,
+      and Sit over the northern pillar; Thot over that of the west, and Sapdi,
+      the author of the zodiacal light, over that of the east. They had divided
+      the world among themselves into four regions, or rather into four
+      "houses," bounded by those mountains which surround it, and by the
+      diameters intersecting between the pillars. Each of these houses belonged
+      to one, and to one only; none of the other three, nor even the sun
+      himself, might enter it, dwell there, or even pass through it without
+      having obtained its master's permission. Sibu had not been satisfied to
+      meet the irruption of Shû by mere passive resistance. He had tried to
+      struggle, and he is drawn in the posture of a man who has just awakened
+      out of sleep, and is half turning on his couch before getting up. One of
+      his legs is stretched out, the other is bent and partly drawn up as in the
+      act of rising. The lower part of the body is still unmoved, but he is
+      raising himself with difficulty on his left elbow, while his head droops
+      and his right arm is lifted towards the sky. His effort was suddenly
+      arrested. Rendered powerless by a stroke of the creator, Sibû remained as
+      if petrified in this position, the obvious irregularities of the earth's
+      surface being due to the painful attitude in which he was stricken. His
+      sides have since been clothed with verdure, generations of men and animals
+      have succeeded each other upon his back, but without bringing any relief
+      to his pain; he suffers evermore from the violent separation of which he
+      was the victim when Nûît was torn from him, and his complaint continues to
+      rise to heaven night and day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0041" id="linklinkBimage-0041">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/182.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="182.jpg ShÛ Forcibly Separating SibÛ and NÛÎt. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting on the mummy-case
+     of Bûtehamon in the Turin Museum. "Shû, the great god, lord
+     of heaven," receives the adoration of two ram-headed souls
+     placed upon his right and left.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0042" id="linklinkBimage-0042">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/183.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="183.jpg the DidÛ of Osiris. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a specimen in blue enamelled
+     pottery, now in my possession.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0043" id="linklinkBimage-0043">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/183b.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="183b.jpg the DidÛ Dressed. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a figure frequently found in
+     Theban mummy-cases of XXIst and XXIInd dynasties (Wilkinson,
+     <i>Manners and Customs</i>. 2nd edit., vol. iii. pl. xxv., No 5).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The aspect of the inundated plains of the Delta, of the river by which
+      they are furrowed and fertilized, and of the desert sands by which they
+      are threatened, had suggested to the theologians of Mendes and Bûto an
+      explanation of the mystery of creation, in which the feudal divinities of
+      these cities and of several others in their neighbourhood, Osiris, Sit,
+      and Isis, played the principal parts. Osiris first represented the wild
+      and fickle Nile of primitive times; afterwards, as those who dwelt upon
+      his banks learned to regulate his course, they emphasized the kindlier
+      side of his character and soon transformed him into a benefactor of
+      humanity, the supremely good being, Ûnnofriû, Onnophris.[*] He was lord of
+      the principality of Didû, which lay along the Sebennytic branch of the
+      river between the coast marshes and the entrance to the Wâdy Tûmilât, but
+      his domain had been divided; and the two nomes thus formed, namely, the
+      ninth and sixteenth nomes of the Delta in the Pharaonic lists, remained
+      faithful to him, and here he reigned without rival, at Busiris as at
+      Mendes. His most famous idol-form was the Didû, whether naked or clothed,
+      the fetish, formed of four superimposed columns, which had given its name
+      to the principality.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  It has long been a dogma with Egyptologists that Osiris
+     came from Abydos. Maspero has shown that from his very
+     titles he is obviously a native of the Delta, and more
+     especially of Busiris and Mendes.
+
+     **  The Didû has been very variously interpreted. It has
+     been taken for a kind of nilometer, for a sculptor's or
+     modeller's stand, or a painter's easel for an altar with
+     four superimposed tables, or a sort of pedestal bearing four
+     door-lintels, for a series of four columns placed one behind
+     another, of which the capitals only are visible, one above
+     the other, etc. The explanation given in the text is that of
+     Reuvens, who recognized the Didû as a symbolic
+     representation of the four regions of the world; and of
+     Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. p. 359, note 3. According to Egyptian
+     theologians, it represented the spine of Osiris, preserved
+     as a relic in the town bearing the name of <i>Didû, Bidît</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0044" id="linklinkBimage-0044">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/185.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="185.jpg Osiris-onnophris, Whip and Crook in Hand. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a statue in green basalt found at
+     Sakkarah, and now in the Gîzeh Museum.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They ascribed life to this Didû, and represented it with a somewhat
+      grotesque face, big cheeks, thick lips, a necklace round its throat, a
+      long flowing dress which hid the base of the columns beneath its folds,
+      and two arms bent across the breast, the hands grasping one a whip and the
+      other a crook, symbols of sovereign authority. This, perhaps, was the most
+      ancient form of Osiris; but they also represented him as a man, and
+      supposed him to assume the shapes of rams and bulls,[*] or even those of
+      water-birds, such as lapwings, herons, and cranes, which disported
+      themselves about the lakes of that district.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The ram of Mendes is sometimes Osiris, and sometimes the
+     soul of Osiris. The ancients took it for a he-goat, and to
+     them we are indebted for the record of its exploits.
+     According to Manetho, the worship of the sacred ram is not
+     older than the time of King Kaiekhos of the second dynasty.
+     A Ptolemaic necropolis of sacred rams was discovered by
+     Mariette at Tmai el-Amdid, in the ruins of Thmûis, and some
+     of their sarcophagi are now in the Gîzeh Museum.
+
+     **  The Bonû, the chief among these birds, is not the
+     phoenix, as has so often been asserted. It is a kind of
+     heron, either the <i>Ardea cinerea</i>, which is common in Egypt,
+     or else some similar species.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The goddess whom we are accustomed to regard as inseparable from him, Isis
+      the cow, or woman with cow's horns, had not always belonged to him.
+      Originally she was an independent deity, dwelling at Bûto in the midst of
+      the ponds of Adhû. She had neither husband nor lover, but had
+      spontaneously conceived and given birth to a son, whom she suckled among
+      the reeds&mdash;a lesser Horus who was called Harsiîsît, Horus the son of
+      Isis, to distinguish him from Haroêris. At an early period she was married
+      to her neighbour Osiris, and no marriage could have been better suited to
+      her nature. For she personified the earth&mdash;not the earth in general,
+      like Sibu, with its unequal distribution of seas and mountains, deserts
+      and cultivated land; but the black and luxuriant plain of the Delta, where
+      races of men, plants, and animals increase and multiply in ever-succeeding
+      generations. To whom did she owe this inexhaustible productive energy if
+      not to her neighbour Osiris, to the Nile? The Nile rises, overflows,
+      lingers upon the soil; every year it is wedded to the earth, and the earth
+      comes forth green and fruitful from its embraces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0045" id="linklinkBimage-0045">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/187.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="187.jpg Isis, Wearing the Cow-horn Head-dress. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a green basalt statue in the Gîzeh
+     Museum. Prom a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The marriage of the two elements suggested that of the two divinities;
+      Osiris wedded Isis and adopted the young Horus. But this prolific and
+      gentle pair were not representative of all the phenomena of nature. The
+      eastern part of the Delta borders upon the solitudes of Arabia, and
+      although it contains several rich and fertile provinces, yet most of these
+      owe their existence to the arduous labour of the inhabitants, their
+      fertility being dependent on the daily care of man, and on his regular
+      distribution of the water. The moment he suspends the straggle or relaxes
+      his watchfulness, the desert reclaims them and overwhelms them with
+      sterility. Sit was the spirit of the mountain, stone and sand, the red and
+      arid ground as distinguished from the moist black soil of the valley. On
+      the body of a lion or of a dog he bore a fantastic head with a slender
+      curved snout, upright and square-cut ears; his cloven tail rose stiffly
+      behind him, springing from his loins like a fork. He also assumed a human
+      form, or retained the animal head only upon a man's shoulders. He was felt
+      to be cruel and treacherous, always ready to shrivel up the harvest with
+      his burning breath, and to smother Egypt beneath a shroud of shifting
+      sand. The contrast between this evil being and the beneficent couple,
+      Osiris and Isis, was striking. Nevertheless, the theologians of the Delta
+      soon assigned a common origin to these rival divinities of Nile and
+      desert, red land and black. Sibû had begotten them, Nûît had given birth
+      to them one after another when the demiurge had separated her from her
+      husband; and the days of their birth were the days of creation.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * According to one legend which is comparatively old in
+     origin, the fous* children of Nûît, and Horus her grandson,
+     were born one after another, each on one of the intercalary
+     days of the year. This legend was still current in the Greek
+     period.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At first each of them had kept to his own half of the world. Moreover Sit,
+      who had begun by living alone, had married, in order that he might be
+      inferior to Osiris in nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0046" id="linklinkBimage-0046">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/189.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="189.jpg Nephthys, As a Wailing Woman. 1 and the God SÎt, Fighting. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1   Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted wooden statuette
+     in my possession, from a funeral couch found at Akhmîm. On
+     her head the goddess bears the hieroglyph for her name; she
+     is kneeling at the foot of the funeral couch of Osiris and
+     weeps for the dead god.
+
+     2  Bronze statuette of the XXth dynasty, encrusted with
+     gold, from the Hoffmann collection: drawn by Faucher-Gudin
+     from a photograph taken by Legrain in 1891. About the time
+     when the worship of Sît was proscribed, one of the Egyptian
+     owners of this little monument had endeavoured to alter its
+     character, and to transform it into a statuette of the god
+     Khnûmû. He took out the upright ears, replacing them with
+     ram's horns, but made no other change. In the drawing I have
+     had the later addition of the curved horns removed, and
+     restored the upright ears, whose marks may still be seen
+     upon the sides of the head-dress.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, his companion, Nephthys, did not manifest any great
+      activity, and was scarcely more than an artificial counterpart of the wife
+      of Osiris, a second Isis who bore no children to her husband;[*] for the
+      sterile desert brought barrenness to her as to all that it touched.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The impersonal character of Nephthys, her artificial
+     origin, and her derivation from Isis, have been pointed out
+     by Maspero (<i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 362-364). The very name of the
+     goddess, which means <i>the lady (nibît)</i> of the<i> mansion
+     (haït)</i>, confirms this view.
+
+ [Illustration: 190.jpg  PLAN  OF  THE   RUINS   OF  HELIOPOLIS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Thuillier, from the <i>Description de l'Egypte</i>
+     (Atlas, Ant., vol. v. pl. 26, 1).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Yet she had lost neither the wish nor the power to bring forth, and sought
+      fertilization from another source. Tradition had it that she had made
+      Osiris drunken, drawn him to her arms without his knowledge, and borne him
+      a son; the child of this furtive union was the jackal Anubis. Thus when a
+      higher Nile overflows lands not usually covered by the inundation, and
+      lying unproductive for lack of moisture, the soil eagerly absorbs the
+      water, and the germs which lay concealed in the ground burst forth into
+      life. The gradual invasion of the domain of Sît by Osiris marks the
+      beginning of the strife. Sit rebels against the wrong of which he is the
+      victim, involuntary though it was; he surprises and treacherously slays
+      his brother, drives Isis into temporary banishment among her marshes, and
+      reigns over the kingdom of Osiris as well as over his own. But his triumph
+      is short-lived. Horus, having grown up, takes arms against him, defeats
+      him in many encounters, and banishes him in his turn. The creation of the
+      world had brought the destroying and the life-sustaining gods face to
+      face: the history of the world is but the story of their rivalries and
+      warfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of these conceptions alone sufficed to explain the whole mechanism of
+      creation, nor the part which the various gods took in it. The priests of
+      Heliopolis appropriated them all, modified some of their details and
+      eliminated others, added several new personages, and thus finally
+      constructed a complete cosmogony, the elements of which were learnedly
+      combined so as to correspond severally with the different operations by
+      which the world had been evoked out of chaos and gradually brought to its
+      present state. Heliopolis was never directly involved in the great
+      revolutions of political history; but no city ever originated so many
+      mystic ideas and consequently exercised so great an influence upon the
+      development of civilization.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  By its inhabitants it was accounted older  than any
+     other  city  of Egypt.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0047" id="linklinkBimage-0047">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/192.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="192.jpg Horus, the Avenger of his Father, and Anubis ÛapÔaÎtÛ. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Béato of a
+     bas-relief in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos. The two gods
+     are conducting King Ramses II., here identified with Osiris,
+     towards the goddess Hâthor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was a small town built on the plain not far from the Nile at the apex
+      of the Delta, and surrounded by a high wall of mud bricks whose remains
+      could still be seen at the beginning of the century, but which have now
+      almost completely disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0048" id="linklinkBimage-0048">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/193.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="193.jpg the Sun Springing from an Opening Lotus-flower " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The open lotus-flower, with a bud
+     on either side, stands upon the usual sign for any water-
+     basin. Here the sign represents the Nû, that dark watery
+     abyss from which the lotus sprang on the morning of
+     creation, and whereon it is still supposed to bloom.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One obelisk standing in the midst of the open plain, a few waste mounds of
+      débris, scattered blocks, and two or three lengths of crumbling wall,
+      alone mark the place where once the city stood. Ka was worshipped there,
+      and the Greek name of Heliopolis is but the translation of that which was
+      given to it by the priests&mdash;Pi-ra, City of the Sun. Its principal
+      temple, the "Mansion of the Prince," rose from about the middle of the
+      enclosure, and sheltered, together with the god himself, those animals in
+      which he became incarnate: the bull Mnevis, and sometimes the Phoenix.
+      According to an old legend, this wondrous bird appeared in Egypt only once
+      in five hundred years. It is born and lives in the depths of Arabia, but
+      when its father dies it covers the body with a layer of myrrh, and flies
+      at utmost speed to the temple of Helio-polis, there to bury it.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The Phoenix is not the <i>Bonû</i> (cf. p. 186, note 2), but a
+     fabulous bird derived from the golden sparrow-hawk, which
+     was primarily a form of Haroêris, and of the sun-gods in
+     second place only. On the authority of his Heliopolitan
+     guides, Herodotus tells us (ii. 83) that in shape and size
+     the phoenix resembled the eagle, and this statement alone
+     should have sufficed to prevent any attempt at identifying
+     it with the Bonû, which is either a heron or a lapwing.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0049" id="linklinkBimage-0049">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/194.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="194.jpg the Plain and Mounds of Heliopolis Fifty Years Ago.2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a water-colour published by
+     Lepsius, <i>Denkm</i>., i. 56. The view is taken from the midst
+     of the ruins at the foot of the obelisk of Usirtasen.    A
+     little stream runs in the foreground, and passes through a
+     muddy pool; to right and left are mounds of ruins, which
+     were then considerable, but have since been partially razed.
+     In the distance Cairo rises against the south-west.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the beginning, Râ was the sun itself, whose fires appear to be lighted
+      every morning in the east and to be extinguished at evening in the west;
+      and to the people such he always remained. Among the theologians there was
+      considerable difference of opinion on the point. Some held the disk of the
+      sun to be the body which the god assumes when presenting himself for the
+      adoration of his worshippers. Others affirmed that it rather represented
+      his active and radiant soul. Finally, there were many who defined it as
+      one of his forms of being&mdash;<i>khopriû</i>&mdash;one of his
+      self-manifestations, without presuming to decide whether it was his body
+      or his soul which he deigned to reveal to human eyes; but whether soul or
+      body, all agreed that the sun's disk had existed in the Nû before
+      creation. But how could it have lain beneath the primordial ocean without
+      either drying up the waters or being extinguished by them? At this stage
+      the identification of Râ with Horus and his right eye served the purpose
+      of the theologians admirably: the god needed only to have closed his
+      eyelid in order to prevent his fires from coming in contact with the
+      water.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This is clearly implied in the expression so often used by
+     the sacred writers of Ancient Egypt in reference to the
+     appearance of the sun and his first act at the time of
+     creation: "<i>Thou openest the two eyes</i>, and earth is flooded
+     with rays of light."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He was also said to have shut up his disk within a lotus-bud, whose folded
+      petals had safely protected it. The flower had opened on the morning of
+      the first day, and from it the god had sprung suddenly as a child wearing
+      the solar disk upon his head. But all theories led the theologians to
+      distinguish two periods, and as it were two beings in the existence of
+      supreme deity: a pre-mundane sun lying inert within the bosom of the dark
+      waters, and our living and life-giving sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0050" id="linklinkBimage-0050">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/196.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="196.jpg HakmakhÛÎti-hakmakhis, the Great God. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger of an
+     outer wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Harmakhis grants
+     years and festivals to the Pharaoh Seti I., who kneels
+     before him, and is presented by the lioness-headed goddess
+     Sokhît, here described as a magician&mdash;<i>Oîrît hilcaû</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One division of the Heliopolitan school retained the use of traditional
+      terms and images in reference to these Sun-gods. To the first it left the
+      human form, and the title of Râ, with the abstract sense of creator,
+      deriving the name from the verb <i>râ</i>, which means to give. For the
+      second it kept the form of the sparrow-hawk and the name of Harma-khûîti&mdash;Horus
+      in the two horizons&mdash;which clearly denoted his function;[*] and it
+      summed up the idea of the sun as a whole in the single name of
+      Râ-Harmakhûîti, and in a single image in which the hawk-head of Horus was
+      grafted upon the human body of Râ. The other divisions of the school
+      invented new names for new conceptions. The sun existing before the world
+      they called Creator&mdash;<i>Tûmû, Atûmû</i> [**]&mdash;and our earthly
+      sun they called <i>Khopri</i>&mdash;He who is.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Harmakhûîti is Horus, the sky of the two horizons; <i>i.e.</i>
+     the sky of the daytime, and the night sky. When the
+     celestial Horus was confounded with Râ, and became the sun
+     (cf. p. 133), he naturally also became the sun of the two
+     horizons, the sun by day, and the sun by night.
+
+     **  E. de Rouge, <i>Études sur le Rituel funéraire</i>, p. 76:
+     "His name may be connected with two radicals. Tem is a
+     negation; it may be taken to mean <i>the Inapproachable One,
+     the Unknown</i> (as in Thebes, where <i>Aman</i> means mystery).
+     Atûm is, in fact, described as 'existing alone in the
+     abyss,' before the appearance of light. It was in this time
+     of darkness that Atûm performed the first act of creation,
+     and this allows of our also connecting his name with the
+     Coptic tamio, <i>creare</i>. Atûm was also the prototype of man
+     (in Coptic tme, <i>homo</i>), and becomes a perfect 'tûm' after
+     his resurrection." Rugsch would rather explain <i>Tûmû</i> as
+     meaning <i>the Perfect One, the Complete</i>. E. de Rougé's
+     philological derivations are no longer admissible; but his
+     explanation of the name corresponds so well with the part
+     played by the god that I fail to see how that can be
+     challenged.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Tûmû was a man crowned and clothed with the insignia of supreme power, a
+      true king of gods, majestic and impassive as the Pharaohs who succeeded
+      each other upon the throne of Egypt. The conception of Khopri as a disk
+      enclosing a scarabæus, or a man with a scarabous upon his head, or a
+      scarabus-headed mummy, was suggested by the accidental alliteration of his
+      name and that of Khopirrû, the scarabæus. The difference between the
+      possible forms of the god was so slight as to be eventually lost
+      altogether. His names were grouped by twos and threes in every conceivable
+      way, and the scarabæus of Khopri took its place upon the head of Râ, while
+      the hawk headpiece was transferred from the shoulders of Harmakhûîti to
+      those of Tûmû. The complex beings resulting from these combinations,
+      Râ-Tûmû, Atûmû-Râ, Râ-Tûmû-Khopri, Râ-Harmakhûîti-Tûmû,
+      Tûm-Harmakhûîti-Khopri, never attained to any pronounced individuality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0051" id="linklinkBimage-0051">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/198.jpg" width="100%" alt="198.jpg Khopri, in his Bark " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      They were as a rule simple duplicates of the feudal god, names rather than
+      persons, and though hardly taken for one another indiscriminately, the
+      distinctions between them had reference to mere details of their functions
+      and attributes. Hence arose the idea of making these gods into embodiments
+      of the main phases in the life of the sun during the day and throughout
+      the year. Râ symbolized the sun of springtime and before sunrise,
+      Harmakhûîti the summer and the morning sun, Atûmû the sun of autumn and of
+      afternoon, Khopri that of winter and of night. The people of Heliopolis
+      accepted the new names and the new forms presented for their worship, but
+      always subordinated them to their beloved Râ. For them Râ never ceased to
+      be the god of the nome; while Atûmû remained the god of the theologians,
+      and was invoked by them, the people preferred Râ. At Thinis and at
+      Sebennytos Anhûri incurred the same fate as befell Râ at Heliopolis. After
+      he had been identified with the sun, the similar identification of Shû
+      inevitably followed. Of old, Anhûri and Shû were twin gods, incarnations
+      of sky and earth. They were soon but one god in two persons&mdash;the god
+      Anhûri-Shû, of which the one half under the title of Auhûri represented,
+      like Atûmû, the primordial being; and Shû, the other half, became, as his
+      name indicates, the creative sun-god who upholds (<i>shû</i>) the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tûrnû then, rather than Râ, was placed by the Heliopolitan priests at the
+      head of their cosmogony as supreme creator and governor. Several versions
+      were current as to how he had passed from inertia into action, from the
+      personage of Tûmû into that of Râ. According to the version most widely
+      received, he had suddenly cried across the waters, "Come unto me!"[*] and
+      immediately the mysterious lotus had unfolded its petals, and Râ had
+      appeared at the edge of its open cup as a disk, a newborn child, or a
+      disk-crowned sparrow-hawk; this was probably a refined form of a ruder and
+      earlier tradition, according to which it was upon Râ himself that the
+      office had devolved of separating Sibû from Nûît, for the purpose of
+      constructing the heavens and the earth.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It was on this account that the Egyptians named the first
+     day of the year the <i>Day of Come-unto-me!</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But it was doubtless felt that so unseemly an act of intervention was
+      beneath the dignity even of an inferior form of the suzerain god; Shû was
+      therefore borrowed for the purpose from the kindred cult of Anhûri, and at
+      Heliopolis, as at Sebennytos, the office was entrusted to him of seizing
+      the sky-goddess and raising her with outstretched arms. The violence
+      suffered by Nûît at the hands of Shû led to a connexion of the Osirian
+      dogma of Mendes with the solar dogma of Sebennytos, and thus the tradition
+      describing the creation of the world was completed by another, explaining
+      its division into deserts and fertile lands. Sîbû, hitherto concealed
+      beneath the body of his wife, was now exposed to the sun; Osiris and Sit,
+      Isis and Nephthys, were born, and, falling from the sky, their mother, on
+      to the earth, their father, they shared the surface of the latter among
+      themselves. Thus the Heliopolitan doctrine recognized three principal
+      events in the creation of the universe: the dualization of the supreme god
+      and the breaking forth of light, the raising of the sky and the laying
+      bare of the earth, the birth of the Nile and the allotment of the soil of
+      Egypt, all expressed as the manifestations of successive deities. Of these
+      deities, the latter ones already constituted a family of father, mother,
+      and children, like human families. Learned theologians availed themselves
+      of this example to effect analogous relationships between the rest of the
+      gods, combining them all into one line of descent. As Atûmû-Râ could have
+      no fellow, he stood apart in the first rank, and it was decided that Shû
+      should be his son, whom he had formed out of himself alone, on the first
+      day of creation, by the simple intensity of his own virile energy. Shû,
+      reduced to the position of divine son, had in his turn begotten Sibû and
+      Nûît, the two deities which he separated. Until then he had not been
+      supposed to have any wife, and he also might have himself brought his own
+      progeny into being; but lest a power of spontaneous generation equal to
+      that of the demiurge should be ascribed to him, he was married, and the
+      wife found for him was Tafnûît, his twin sister, born in the same way as
+      he was born. This goddess, invented for the occasion, was never fully
+      alive, and remained, like Nephthys, a theological entity rather than a
+      real person. The texts describe her as the pale reflex of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0052" id="linklinkBimage-0052">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/201.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="201.jpg the Twin Lions, ShÛ and TafnÛÎt. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a vignette in the papyrus of
+     Ani in the British Museum, published by Lepage-Renouf in the
+     <i>Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology</i>, vol.
+     xi., 1889-90, pp. 26-28. The inscription above the lion on
+     the right reads <i>safu</i>, "yesterday;" the other, <i>dûaû</i>,
+     "this morning."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Together with him she upholds the sky, and every morning receives the
+      newborn sun as it emerges from the mountain of the east; she is a lioness
+      when Shû is a lion, a woman when he is a man, a lioness-headed woman if he
+      is a lion-headed man; she is angry when he is angry, appeased when he is
+      appeased; she has no sanctuary wherein he is not worshipped. In short, the
+      pair made one being in two bodies, or, to use the Egyptian expression,
+      "one soul in its two twin bodies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence we see that the Heliopolitans proclaimed the creation to be the work
+      of the sun-god, Atûmû-Râ, and of the four pairs of deities who were
+      descended from him. It was really a learned variant of the old doctrine
+      that the universe was composed of a sky-god, Horus, supported by his four
+      children and their four pillars: in fact, the four sons of the
+      Heliopolitan cosmogony, Shû and Sibû, Osiris and Sit, were occasionally
+      substituted for the four older gods of the "houses" of the world. This
+      being premised, attention must be given to the important differences
+      between the two systems. At the outset, instead of appearing
+      contemporaneously upon the scene, like the four children of Horus, the
+      four Heliopolitan gods were deduced one from another, and succeeded each
+      other in the order of their birth. They had not that uniform attribute of
+      supporter, associating them always with one definite function, but each of
+      them felt himself endowed with faculties and armed with special powers
+      required by his condition. Ultimately they took to themselves goddesses,
+      and thus the total number of beings working in different ways at the
+      organization of the universe was brought up to nine. Hence they were
+      called by the collective name of the Ennead, the Nine gods&mdash;<i>paûit
+      nûtîrû</i>,[*]&mdash;and the god at their head was entitled <i>Paûîti</i>,
+      the god of the Ennead.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The first Egyptologists confounded the sign used in
+     writing <i>paûît</i> with the sign <i>kh</i>, and the word <i>khet,
+     other</i>. E. de Rougé was the first to determine its phonetic
+     value: "it should be read Paû, and designates a body of
+     gods." Shortly afterwards Beugsch proved that "the group of
+     gods invoked by E. de Rougé must have consisted of nine "&mdash;
+     of an Ennead. This explanation was not at first admitted
+     either by Lepsius or by Mariette, who had proposed a mystic
+     interpretation of the word in his <i>Mémoire sur la mère
+     d'Apis</i>, or by E. de Rougé, or by Chabas. The interpretation
+     a <i>Nine</i>, an <i>Ennead</i>, was not frankly adopted until later,
+     and more especially after the discovery of the Pyramid
+     texts; to-day, it is the only meaning admitted. Of course
+     the Egyptian Ennead has no other connection than that of
+     name with the Enneads of the Neo-Platonists.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by
+      countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were not
+      at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries to preside
+      over each of the functions essential to the regular and continued working
+      of all things. The theologians of Heliopolis selected eighteen from among
+      the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of Egypt, and of these they
+      formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded as the offspring of the
+      Ennead of the creation. The first of the two secondary Enneads, generally
+      known as the Minor Ennead, recognized as chief Harsiesis, the son of
+      Osiris. Harsiesis was originally an earth-god who had avenged the
+      assassination of his father and the banishment of his mother by Sit; that
+      is, he had restored fulness to the Nile and fertility to the Delta. When
+      Harsiesis was incorporated into the solar religions of Heliopolis, his
+      filiation was left undisturbed as being a natural link between the two
+      Enneads, but his personality was brought into conformity with the new
+      surroundings into which he was transplanted. He was identified with Râ
+      through the intervention of the older Horus, Haroêris-Harmakhis, and the
+      Minor Ennead, like the Great Ennead, began with a sun-god. This
+      assimilation was not pushed so far as to invest the younger Horus with the
+      same powers as his fictitious ancestor: he was the sun of earth, the
+      everyday sun, while Atûmû-Râ was still the sun pre-mundane and eternal.
+      Our knowledge of the eight other deities of the Minor Ennead is very
+      imperfect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0053" id="linklinkBimage-0053">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/204.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="204.jpg the Four Funerary Genii, KhabsonÛf, TiÛmaÛtf, Hapi, and AmsÎt. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Wilkinson's <i>Manners and
+     Customs</i>, 2nd edit., vol. iii. p. 221, pl. xlviii.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We see only that these were the gods who chiefly protected the sun-god
+      against its enemies and helped it to follow its regular course. Thus
+      Harhûditi, the Horus of Edfû, spear in hand, pursues the hippopotami or
+      serpents which haunt the celestial waters and menace the god. The progress
+      of the Sun-bark is controlled by the incantations of Thot, while Uapûaîtû,
+      the dual jackal-god of Siufc, guides, and occasionally tows it along the
+      sky from south to north. The third Ennead would seem to have included
+      among its members Anubis the jackal, and the four funerary genii, the
+      children of Horus&mdash;Hapi, Amsît, Tiûmaûtf, Kabhsonûf; it further
+      appears as though its office was the care and defence of the dead sun, the
+      sun by night, as the second Ennead had charge of the living sun. Its
+      functions were so obscure and apparently so insignificant as compared with
+      those exercised by the other Enneads, that the theologians did not take
+      the trouble either to represent it or to enumerate its persons. They
+      invoked it as a whole, after the two others, in those formulas in which
+      they called into play all the creative and preservative forces of the
+      universe; but this was rather as a matter of conscience and from love of
+      precision than out of any true deference. At the initial impulse of the
+      lord of Heliopolis, the three combined Enneads started the world and kept
+      it going, and gods whom they had not incorporated were either enemies to
+      be fought with, or mere attendants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctrine of the Heliopolitan Ennead acquired an immediate and a
+      lasting popularity. It presented such a clear scheme of creation, and one
+      whose organization was so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of
+      tradition, that the various sacerdotal colleges adopted it one after
+      another, accommodating it to the exigencies of local patriotism. Each
+      placed its own nome-god at the head of the Ennead as "god of the Nine,"
+      "god of the first time," creator of heaven and earth, sovereign ruler of
+      men, and lord of all action. As there was the Ennead of Atûmû at
+      Heliopolis, so there was that of Anhûri at Thinis and at Sebennytos; that
+      of Minû at Coptos and at Panopolis; that of Haroêris at Edfû; that of
+      Sobkhû at Ombos; and, later, that of Phtah at Memphis and of Amon at
+      Thebes. Nomes which worshipped a goddess had no scruples whatever in
+      ascribing to her the part played by Atûmû, and in crediting her with the
+      spontaneous maternity of Shû and Tafnûît.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="206 (187K)" src="images/206.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Plan drawn by Thuillier, from the <i>Description de l'
+     Egypte</i>, Ant., vol. iv. pl. 50.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nît was the source and ruler of the Ennead of Saïs, Isis of that of Bûto,
+      and Hâthor of that of Denderah.[**] Few of the sacerdotal colleges went
+      beyond the substitution of their own feudal gods for Atûmû. Provided that
+      the god of each nome held the rank of supreme lord, the rest mattered
+      little, and the local theologians made no change in the order of the other
+      agents of creation, their vanity being unhurt even by the lower offices
+      assigned by the Heliopolitan tradition to such powers as Osiris, Sibû, and
+      Sit, who were known and worshipped throughout the whole country.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  On the Ennead of Hâthor at Denderah, see Mariette,
+     Denderah, p. 80., et seq., of the text. The fact that Nît,
+     Isis, and, generally speaking, all the feudal goddesses,
+     were the chiefs of their local Enneads, is proved by the
+     epithets applied to them, which represent them as having
+     independent creative power by virtue of their own unaided
+     force and energy, like the god at the head of the
+     Heliopolitan Ennead.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The theologians of Hermopolis alone declined to borrow the new system just
+      as it stood, and in all its parts. Hermopolis had always been one of the
+      ruling cities of Middle Egypt. Standing alone in the midst of the land
+      lying between the Eastern and Western Mies, it had established upon each
+      of the two great arms of the river a port and a custom-house, where all
+      boats travelling either up or down stream paid toll on passing. Not only
+      the corn and natural products of the valley and of the Delta, but also
+      goods from distant parts of Africa brought to Siûfc by Soudanese caravans,
+      helped to fill the treasury of Hermopolis. Thot, the god of the city,
+      represented as ibis or baboon, was essentially a moon-god, who measured
+      time, counted the days, numbered the months, and recorded the years. Lunar
+      divinities, as we know, are everywhere supposed to exercise the most
+      varied powers: they command the mysterious forces of the universe; they
+      know the sounds, words, and gestures by which those forces are put in
+      motion, and not content with using them for their own benefit, they also
+      teach to their worshippers the art of employing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0054" id="linklinkBimage-0054">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/208.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="208.jpg the Ibis Thot. 1; and The Cynocephalous Thot. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1   Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an enamelled pottery figure
+     from Coptos, now in my possession. Neck, feet, and tail are
+     in blue enamel, the rest is in green. The little personage
+     represented as squatting beneath the beak is Mâit, the
+     goddess of truth, and the ally of Thot. The ibis was
+     furnished with a ring for suspending it; this has been
+     broken off, but traces of it may still be seen at the back
+     of the head.
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a green enamelled pottery
+     figure in my possession (Saïte period).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thot formed no exception to this rule. He was lord of the voice, master of
+      words and of books, possessor or inventor of those magic writings which
+      nothing in heaven, on earth, or in Hades can withstand.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ***  Cf. in the tale of Satni (Maspero, <i>Contes populaires
+     de l'Ancienne Egypte</i>, 2nd edit., p. 175) the description of
+     the book which Thot has himself written with his own hand,
+     and which makes its possessor the equal of the gods. "The
+     two formulas which are written therein, if thou recitest the
+     first thou shalt charm heaven, earth, Hades, the mountains,
+     the waters; thou shalt know the birds of the sky and the
+     reptiles, how many soever they be; thou shalt see the fish
+     of the deep, for a divine power will cause them to rise to
+     the surface of the water.    If thou readest the second
+     formula, even although thou shouldest be in the tomb, thou
+     shalt again take the form which was thine upon earth; thou
+     shalt even see the sun rising in heaven, and his cycle of
+     gods, and the moon in the form wherein it appeareth."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He had discovered the incantations which evoke and control the gods; he
+      had transcribed the texts and noted the melodies of these incantations; he
+      recited them with that true intonation&mdash;<i>mâ khrôû</i>&mdash;which
+      renders them all-powerful, and every one, whether god or man, to whom he
+      imparted them, and whose voice he made true&mdash;<i>smâ khrôû</i>&mdash;became
+      like himself master of the universe. He had accomplished the creation not
+      by muscular effort to which the rest of the cosmogonical gods primarily
+      owed their birth, but by means of formulas, or even of the voice alone,
+      "the first time" when he awoke in the Nû. In fact, the articulate word and
+      the voice were believed to be the most potent of creative forces, not
+      remaining immaterial on issuing from the lips, but condensing, so to
+      speak, into tangible substances; into bodies which were themselves
+      animated by creative life and energy; into gods and goddesses who lived or
+      who created in their turn. By a very short phrase Tûmû had called forth
+      the gods who order all things; for his "Come unto me!" uttered with a loud
+      voice upon the day of creation, had evoked the sun from within the lotus.
+      Thot had opened his lips, and the voice which proceeded from him had
+      become an entity; sound had solidified into matter, and by a simple
+      emission of voice the four gods who preside over the four houses of the
+      world had come forth alive from his mouth without bodily effort on his
+      part, and without spoken evocation. Creation by the voice is almost as
+      great a refinement of thought as the substitution of creation by the word
+      for creation by muscular effort. In fact, sound bears the same relation to
+      words that the whistle of a quartermaster bears to orders for the
+      navigation of a ship transmitted by a speaking trumpet; it simplifies
+      speech, reducing it as it were to a pure abstraction. At first it was
+      believed that the creator had made the world with a word, then that he had
+      made it by sound; but the further conception of his having made it by
+      thought does not seem to have occurred to the theologians. It was narrated
+      at Hermopolis, and the legend was ultimately universally accepted, even by
+      the Heliopolitans, that the separation of Nûît and Sibû had taken place at
+      a certain spot on the site of the city where Sibû had ascended the mound
+      on which the feudal temple was afterwards built, in order that he might
+      better sustain the goddess and uphold the sky at the proper height. The
+      conception of a Creative Council of five gods had so far prevailed at
+      Hermopolis that from this fact the city had received in remote antiquity
+      the name of the "House of the Five;" its temple was called the "Abode of
+      the Five" down to a late period in Egyptian history, and its prince, who
+      was the hereditary high priest of Thot, reckoned as the first of his
+      official titles that of "Great One of the House of the Five."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The four couples who had helped Atûmû were identified with the four
+      auxiliary gods of Thot, and changed the council of Five into a Great
+      Hermopolitan Ennead, but at the cost of strange metamorphoses. However
+      artificially they had been grouped about Atûmû, they had all preserved
+      such distinctive characteristics as prevented their being confounded one
+      with another. When the universe which they had helped to build up was
+      finally seen to be the result of various operations demanding a
+      considerable manifestation of physical energy, each god was required to
+      preserve the individuality necessary for the production of such effects as
+      were expected of him. They could not have existed and carried on their
+      work without conforming to the ordinary conditions of humanity; being born
+      one of another, they were bound to have paired with living goddesses as
+      capable of bringing forth their children as they were of begetting them.
+      On the other hand, the four auxiliary gods of Hermopolis exercised but one
+      means of action&mdash;the voice. Having themselves come forth from the
+      master's mouth, it was by voice that they created and perpetuated the
+      world. Apparently they could have done without goddesses had marriage not
+      been imposed upon them by their identification with the corresponding gods
+      of the Heliopolitan Ennead; at any rate, their wives had but a show of
+      life, almost destitute of reality. As these four gods worked after the
+      manner of their master, Thot, so they also bore his form and reigned along
+      with him as so many baboons. When associated with the lord of Hermopolis,
+      the eight divinities of Heliopolis assumed the character and the
+      appearance of the four Hermopolitan gods in whom they were merged. They
+      were often represented as eight baboons surrounding the supreme baboon, or
+      as four pairs of gods and goddesses without either characteristic
+      attributes or features; or, finally, as four pairs of gods and goddesses,
+      the gods being, as far as we are able to judge, the couple Nû-Nûît answers
+      to Shû-Tafnûît; Hahû-Hehît to Sibû and Nûîfc; Kakû-Kakît to Osiris and
+      Isis; Ninû-Ninît to Sit and Nephthys. There was seldom any occasion to
+      invoke them separately; they were addressed collectively as the Eight&mdash;<i>Khmûnû</i>&mdash;and
+      it was on their account that Hermopolis was named <i>Khmûnû</i>, the City
+      of the Eight. Ultimately they were deprived of the little individual life
+      still left to them, and were fused into a single being to whom the texts
+      refer as Khomninû, the god Eight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0055" id="linklinkBimage-0055">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/212.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="212.jpg the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Béato. Cf.
+     Lepsius, Denkm., iv. pl. 66 c. In this illustration I have
+     combined! the two extremities of a great scene at Philæ, in
+     which the <i>Eight</i>, divided into two groups of four, frog-
+     headed men, and the goddesses serpent-headed women. Morning
+     and evening  do they sing;   and the mysterious hymns
+     wherewith they salute the rising and the setting sun ensure
+     the continuity of his course.    Their names did not survive
+     their  metamorphoses;   each  pair had no longer more than a
+     single name, the termination of each name varying according
+     as a god or a goddess was intended:&mdash;Nu  and Nûît, Hehû and
+     Hehît, Kakû and Kakît, Ninû and Ninît, the god One and the
+     god Eight, the Monad and the Ogdoad. The latter had scarcely
+     more than a theoretical existence, and was generally
+     absorbed into the person of the former. Thus the theologians
+     of Hermopolis gradually disengaged the unity of their feudal
+     god from the multiplicity of the cosmogonie deities.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0056" id="linklinkBimage-0056">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/213.jpg" width="100%" alt="213.jpg Amon. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette found at
+     Thebes, and now in my possession.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By degrees the Ennead of Thot was thus reduced to two terms: take part in
+      the adoration of the king. According to a custom common towards the
+      Græco-Roman period, the sculptor has made the feet of his gods like
+      jackals' heads; it is a way of realizing the well-known metaphor which
+      compares a rapid runner to the jackal roaming around Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the sacerdotal colleges had adopted the Heliopolitan doctrine, so they
+      now generally adopted that of Hermopolis: Amon, for instance, being made
+      to preside indifferently over the eight baboons and over the four
+      independent couples of the primitive Ennead. In both cases the process of
+      adaptation was absolutely identical, and would have been attended by no
+      difficulty whatever, had the divinities to whom it was applied only been
+      without family; in that case, the one needful change for each city would
+      have been that of a single name in the Heliopolitan list, thus leaving the
+      number of the Ennead unaltered. But since these deities had been turned
+      into triads they could no longer be primarily regarded as simple units, to
+      be combined with the elements of some one or other of the Enneads without
+      preliminary arrangement. The two companions whom each had chosen had to be
+      adopted also, and the single Thot, or single Atûmû, replaced by the three
+      patrons of the nome, thus changing the traditional nine into eleven.
+      Happily, the constitution of the triad lent itself to all these
+      adaptations. We have seen that the father and the son became one and the
+      same personage, whenever it was thought desirable. We also know that one
+      of the two parents always so far predominated as almost to efface the
+      other. Sometimes it was the goddess who disappeared behind her husband;
+      sometimes it was the god whose existence merely served to account for the
+      offspring of the goddess, and whose only title to his position consisted
+      in the fact that he was her husband. Two personages thus closely connected
+      were not long in blending into one, and were soon defined as being two
+      faces, the masculine and feminine aspects of a single being. On the one
+      hand, the father was one with the son, and on the other he was one with
+      the mother. Hence the mother was one with the son as with the father, and
+      the three gods of the triad were resolved into one god in three persons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0057" id="linklinkBimage-0057">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/215.jpg" width="100%" alt="215.jpg the Theban Ennead " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This Ennead consists of fourteen members&mdash;Montû,
+     duplicating Atûmû; the four usual couples; then Horus, the
+     son of Isis and Osiris, together with his associate deities,
+     Hâthor, Tanu, and Anît.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to this subterfuge, to put a triad at the head of an Ennead was
+      nothing more than a roundabout way of placing a single god there: the
+      three persons only counted as one, and the eleven names only amounted to
+      the nine canonical divinities. Thus, the Theban Ennead of
+      Amon-Maut-Khonsû, Shû, Tafnûît, Sibû, Nûît, Osiris, Isis, Sît, and
+      Nephthys, is, in spite of its apparent irregularity, as correct as the
+      typical Ennead itself. In such Enneads Isis is duplicated by goddesses of
+      like nature, such as Hâthor, Selkît, Taninît, and yet remains but one,
+      while Osiris brings in his son Horus, who gathers about himself all such
+      gods as play the part of divine son in other triads. The theologians had
+      various methods of procedure for keeping the number of persons in an
+      Ennead at nine, no matter how many they might choose to embrace in it.
+      Supernumeraries were thrown in like the "shadows" at Roman suppers, whom
+      guests would bring without warning to their host, and whose presence made
+      not the slightest difference either in the provision for the feast, or in
+      the arrangements for those who had been formally invited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus remodelled at all points, the Ennead of Heliopolis was readily
+      adjustable to sacerdotal caprices, and even profited by the facilities
+      which, the triad afforded for its natural expansion. In time the
+      Heliopolitan version of the origin of Shû-Tafnûît must have appeared too
+      primitively barbarous. Allowing for the licence of the Egyptians during
+      Pharaonic times, the concept of the spontaneous emission whereby Atûrnû
+      had produced his twin children was characterized by a superfluity of
+      coarseness which it was at least unnecessary to employ, since by placing
+      the god in a triad, this double birth could be duly explained in
+      conformity with the ordinary laws of life. The solitary Atûrnû of the more
+      ancient dogma gave place to Atûrnû the husband and father. He had, indeed,
+      two wives, Iûsâsît and Nebthotpît, but their individualities were so
+      feebly marked that no one took the trouble to choose between them; each
+      passed as the mother of Shû and Tafnûîfc. This system of combination, so
+      puerile in its ingenuity, was fraught with the gravest consequences to the
+      history of Egyptian religions. Shu having been transformed into the divine
+      son of the Heliopolitan triad, could henceforth be assimilated with the
+      divine sons of all those triads which took the place of Tûmû at the heads
+      of provincial Enneads. Thus we find that Horus the son of Isis at Bûto,
+      Arihosnofir the son of Nit at Sais, Khnûmû the son of Hâthor at Esneh,
+      were each in turn identified with Shû the son of Atûrnû, and lost their
+      individualities in his. Sooner or later this was bound to result in
+      bringing all the triads closer together, and in their absorption into one
+      another. Through constant reiteration of the statement that the divine
+      sons of the triads were identical with Shû, as being in the second rank of
+      the Ennead, the idea arose that this was also the case in triads
+      unconnected with Enneads; in other terms, that the third person in any
+      family of gods was everywhere and always Shû under a different name. It
+      having been finally admitted in the sacerdotal colleges that Tûmû and Shû,
+      father and son, were one, all the divine sons were, therefore, identical
+      with Tûmû, the father of Shû, and as each divine son was one with his
+      parents, it inevitably followed that these parents themselves were
+      identical with Tûmû. Reasoning in this way, the Egyptians naturally tended
+      towards that conception of the divine oneness to which the theory of the
+      Hermopolitan Ogdoad was already leading them. In fact, they reached it,
+      and the monuments show us that in comparatively early times the
+      theologians were busy uniting in a single person the prerogatives which
+      their ancestors had ascribed to many different beings. But this conception
+      of deity towards which their ideas were converging has nothing in common
+      with the conception of the God of our modern religions and philosophies.
+      No god of the Egyptians was ever spoken of simply as God. Tûmû was the
+      "one and only god"&mdash;<i>nûtir ûâû ûâîti</i>&mdash;at Heliopolis;
+      Anhûri-Shû was also the "one and only god" at Sebennytos and at Thinis.
+      The unity of Atûmû did not interfere with that of Anhûri-Shû, but each of
+      these gods, although the "sole" deity in his own domain, ceased to be so
+      in the domain of the other. The feudal spirit, always alert and jealous,
+      prevented the higher dogma which was dimly apprehended in the temples from
+      triumphing over local religions and extending over the whole land. Egypt
+      had as many "sole" deities as she had large cities, or even important
+      temples; she never accepted the idea of the sole God, "beside whom there
+      is none other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkBimage-0058" id="linklinkBimage-0058">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/218.jpg" width="100%" alt="218.jpg Tailpiece " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> ================= <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklinkCimage-0005" id="linklinkCimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/219.jpg" width="100%" alt="219.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0006" id="linklinkCimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/220.jpg" width="100%" alt="220.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linklinkC2HCH0001" id="linklinkC2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.&mdash;-THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE DIVINE DYNASTIES: RÂ, SHÛ, OSIEIS, SÎT, HOEUS&mdash;THOT, AND THE
+      INVENTION OF SCIENCES AND WRITING&mdash;MENES, AND THE THREE FIRST HUMAN
+      DYNASTIES.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The Egyptians claim to Be the most ancient of peoples: traditions
+      concerning the creation of man and of animals&mdash;The Heliopolitan
+      Enneads the framework of the divine dynasties&mdash;Râ, the first King of
+      Egypt, and his fabulous history: he allows himself to be duped and robbed
+      by Isis, destroys rebellious men, and ascends into heaven. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The legend of Shu and Sibil&mdash;The reign of Osiris Onnophris and of
+      Isis: they civilize Egypt and the world&mdash;Osiris, slain by Sit, is
+      entombed by Isis and avenged by Horus&mdash;The wars of Typhon and of
+      Horus: peace, and the division of Egypt between the two gods. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The Osirian embalmment; the kingdom of Osiris opened to the followers
+      of Horus&mdash;The Book of the Dead&mdash;The journeying of the soul in
+      search of the fields of Ialû&mdash;The judgment of the soul, the negative
+      confession&mdash;The privileges and duties of Osirian souls&mdash;Confusion
+      between Osirian and Solar ideas as to the state of the dead: the dead in
+      the hark of the Sun&mdash;The going forth by day&mdash;The campaigns of
+      Harmakhis against Sit. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> Thot, the inventor: he reveals all sciences to men&mdash;Astronomy,
+      stellar tables; the year, its subdivisions, its defects, influence of the
+      heavenly bodies and the days upon human destiny&mdash;Magic arts;
+      incantations, amulets&mdash;-Medicine: the vitalizing spirits, diagnosis,
+      treatment&mdash;Writing: ideographic, syllabic, alphabetic. </i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i> The history of Egypt as handed down by tradition: Manetho, the royal
+      lists, main divisions of Egyptian history&mdash;The beginnings of its
+      early history vague and uncertain: Menés, and the legend of Memphis&mdash;The
+      first three human dynasties, the two Thimie and the Memphite&mdash;Character
+      and, origin of the legends concerning them&mdash;The famine stela&mdash;The
+      earliest monuments: the step pyramid of Saqgdrah.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0007" id="linklinkCimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/221.jpg" width="100%" alt="221.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>The divine dynasties: Râ, Shû, Osiris, Sît, Horus&mdash;Thot, and the
+      invention of sciences and writing&mdash;Menés, and the three first human
+      dynasties.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The building up and diffusion of the doctrine of the Ennead, like the
+      formation of the land of Egypt, demanded centuries of sustained effort,
+      centuries of which the inhabitants themselves knew neither the number nor
+      the authentic history. When questioned as to the remote past of their
+      race, they proclaimed themselves the most ancient of mankind, in
+      comparison with whom all other races were but a mob of young children; and
+      they looked upon nations which denied their pretensions with such
+      indulgence and pity as we feel for those who doubt a well-known truth.
+      Their forefathers had appeared upon the banks of the Nile even before the
+      creator had completed his work, so eager were the gods to behold their
+      birth. No Egyptian disputed the reality of this right of the firstborn,
+      which ennobled the whole race; but if they were asked the name of their
+      divine father, then the harmony was broken, and each advanced the claims
+      of a different personage.[*] Phtah had modelled man with his own
+      hands;[**] Khnûmû had formed him on a potter's table.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * We know the words which Plato puts into the mouth of an
+     Egyptian priest: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always
+     children, and there is no old man who is a Greek! You are
+     all young in mind; there is no opinion or tradition of
+     knowledge among you which is white with age." Other nations
+     disputed their priority&mdash;the Phrygians, the Medes, or rather
+     the tribe of the Magi among the Medes, the Ethiopians, the
+     Scythians. A cycle of legends had gathered about this
+     subject, giving an account of the experiments instituted, by
+     Psamtik, or other sovereigns, to find out which were right,
+     Egyptians or foreigners.
+
+     **  At Philæ and at Denderah, Phtah is represented as piling
+     upon his potter's table the plastic clay from which he is
+     about to make a human body, and which is somewhat wrongly
+     called the egg of the world. It is really the lump of earth
+     from which man came forth at his creation.
+
+     ***  At Philas, Khnûmû calls himself "the potter who
+     fashions men, the modeller of the gods." He there moulds the
+     members of Osiris, the husband of the local Isis, as at
+     Erment he forms the body of Harsamtaûi, or rather that of
+     Ptolemy Cæsarion, the son of Julius Cæsar and the celebrated
+     Cleopatra, identified with Harsamtaûi.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Râ at his first rising, seeing the earth desert and bare, had flooded it
+      with his rays as with a flood of tears; all living things, vegetable and
+      animal, and man himself, had sprung pell-mell from his eyes, and were
+      scattered abroad with the light over the surface of the world.[*]
+      Sometimes the facts were presented under a less poetic aspect. The mud of
+      the Nile, heated to excess by the burning sun, fermented and brought forth
+      the various races of men and animals by spontaneous generation, having
+      moulded itself into a thousand living forms. Then its procreative power
+      became weakened to the verge of exhaustion. Yet on the banks of the river,
+      in the height of summer, smaller animals might still be found whose
+      condition showed what had once taken place in the case of the larger
+      kinds. Some appeared as already fully formed, and struggling to free
+      themselves from the oppressive mud; others, as yet imperfect, feebly
+      stirred their heads and fore feet, while their hind quarters were
+      completing their articulation and taking shape within the matrix of
+      earth.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  With reference to the substances which proceeded from the
+     eye of Râ, see the remarks of Birch, <i>Sur un papyrus magique
+     du Musée Britannique</i>. By his tears (<i>romîtû</i>) Horus, or his
+     eye as identified with the sun, had given birth to all men,
+     Egyptians (<i>romîtû, rotû</i>), Libyans, and Asiatics, excepting
+     only the negroes. The latter were born from another part of
+     his body by the same means as those employed by Atûmû in the
+     creation of Shû and Tafnûît.
+
+     **  The same story is told, but with reference to rats only,
+     by Pliny, by Diodorus, by Ælianus, by Macrobius, and by
+     other Greek or Latin writers. Even in later times, and in
+     Europe, this pretended phenomenon met with a certain degree
+     of belief, as may be seen from the curious work of Marcus
+     Fredericus Wendelinus, <i>Archipalatinus, Admiranda Nili</i>,
+     Franco-furti, mdcxxiii., cap. xxi. pp. 157-183. In Egypt all
+     the fellahîn believe in the spontaneous generation of rats
+     as in an article of their creed. They have spoken to me of
+     it at Thebes, at Denderah, and on the plain of Abydos; and
+     Major Brown has lately noted the same thing in the Fayûm.
+     The variant which he heard from the lips of the notables is
+     curious, for it professes to explain why the rats who infest
+     the fields in countless bands during the dry season,
+     suddenly disappear at the return of the inundation; born of
+     the mud and putrid water of the preceding year, to mud they
+     return, and as it were dissolve at the touch of the new
+     waters.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was not Râ alone whose tears were endowed with vitalizing power. All
+      divinities whether beneficent or malevolent, Sit as well as Osiris or
+      Isis, could give life by weeping; and the work of their eyes, when once it
+      had fallen upon earth, flourished and multiplied as vigorously as that
+      which came from the eyes of Râ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0008" id="linklinkCimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/224.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="224.jpg KhnÛmÛ Modelling Man Upon a Potter's Table. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet. The scene is
+     taken from bas-reliefs in the temple of Luxor, where the god
+     Khnûmû is seen completing his modelling of the future King
+     Amenôthes III. and his double, represented as two children
+     wearing the side-lock and large necklace. The first holds
+     his finger to his lips, while the arms of the second swing
+     at his sides.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The individual character of the creator was not without bearing upon the
+      nature of his creatures; good was the necessary outcome of the good gods,
+      evil of the evil ones; and herein lay the explanation of the mingling of
+      things excellent and things execrable, which is found everywhere
+      throughout the world. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Sit and his partisans
+      were the cause and origin of all that is harmful. Daily their eyes shed
+      upon the world those juices by which plants are made poisonous, as well as
+      malign influences, crime, and madness. Their saliva, the foam which fell
+      from their mouths during their attacks of rage, their sweat, their blood
+      itself, were all no less to be feared. When any drop of it touched the
+      earth, straightway it germinated, and produced something strange and
+      baleful&mdash;a serpent, a scorpion, a plant of deadly nightshade or of
+      henbane. But, on the other hand, the sun was all goodness, and persons or
+      things which it cast forth into life infallibly partook of its benignity.
+      Wine that maketh man glad, the bee who works for him in the flowers
+      secreting wax and honey, the meat and herbs which are his food, the stuffs
+      that clothe him, all useful things which he makes for himself, not only
+      emanated from the Solar Eye of Horus, but were indeed nothing more than
+      the Eye of Horus under different aspects, and in his name they were
+      presented in sacrifice. The devout generally were of opinion that the
+      first Egyptians, the sons and flock of Râ, came into the world happy and
+      perfect;[*] by degrees their descendants had fallen from that native
+      felicity into their present state.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In the tomb of Seti I, the words <i>flock of the Sun, flock
+     of Râ</i>, are those by which the god Horus refers to men.
+     Certain expressions used by Egyptian writers are in
+     themselves sufficient to show that the first generations of
+     men were supposed to have lived in a state of happiness and
+     perfection. To the Egyptians <i>the times of Râ, the times of
+     the god</i>&mdash;that is to say, the centuries immediately
+     following on the creation&mdash;-were the ideal age, and no good
+     thing had appeared upon earth since then.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Some, on the contrary, affirmed that their ancestors were born as so many
+      brutes, unprovided with the most essential arts of gentle life. They knew
+      nothing of articulate speech, and expressed themselves by cries only, like
+      other animals, until the day when Thot taught them both speech and
+      writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre
+      fare for the intelligence of the learned. The latter did not confine their
+      ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory details
+      concerning the beginnings of humanity. They wished to know the history of
+      its consecutive development from the very first; what manner of life had
+      been led by their fathers; what chiefs they had obeyed and the names or
+      adventures of those chiefs; why part of the nations had left the blessed
+      banks of the Nile and gone to settle in foreign lands; by what stages and
+      in what length of time those who had not emigrated rose out of native
+      barbarism into that degree of culture to which the most ancient monuments
+      bore testimony. No efforts of imagination were needful for the
+      satisfaction of their curiosity: the old substratum of indigenous
+      traditions was rich enough, did they but take the trouble to work it out
+      systematically, and to eliminate its most incongruous elements. The
+      priests of Heliopolis took this work in hand, as they had already taken in
+      hand the same task with regard to the myths referring to the creation; and
+      the Enneads provided them with a ready-made framework. They changed the
+      gods of the Ennead into so many kings, determined with minute accuracy the
+      lengths of their reigns, and compiled their biographies from popular
+      tales. The duality of the feudal god supplied an admirable expedient for
+      connecting the history of the world with that of chaos. Tûmû was
+      identified with Nû, and relegated to the primordial Ocean: Râ was
+      retained, and proclaimed the first king of the world. He had not
+      established his rule without difficulty. The "Children of Defeat," beings
+      hostile to order and light, engaged him in fierce battles; nor did he
+      succeed in organizing his kingdom until he had conquered them in nocturnal
+      combat at Hermopolis, and even at Heliopolis itself.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The <i>Children of Defeat</i>, in Egyptian <i>Mosû batashû</i>, or
+     <i>Mosû batashît</i>, are often confounded with the followers of
+     Sit, the enemies of Osiris. From the first they were
+     distinct, and represented beings and forces hostile to the
+     sun, with the dragon Apôpi at their head. Their defeat at
+     Hermopolis corresponded to the moment when Shu, raising the
+     sky above the sacred mound in that city, substituted order
+     and light for chaos and darkness. This defeat is mentioned
+     in chap xvii. of the <i>Book of the Dead</i> (Naville's edition,
+     vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 3, et seq.), in which connexion E. de
+     Rougé first explained its meaning. In the same chapter of
+     the <i>Book of the Dead</i> (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis.
+     xxiv., xxv., 11. 54-58), reference is also made to the
+     battle by night, in Heliopolis, at the close of which Râ
+     appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the
+     great serpent.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Pierced with wounds, Apôpi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at
+      the very moment when the new year began. The secondary members of the
+      Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which began
+      with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus, the son
+      of Isis. The local schools of theology welcomed this method of writing
+      history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the Ennead
+      itself. Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and hastened to
+      associate him with their own; others completely eliminated him in favour
+      of the feudal divinity,&mdash;Amon at Thebes, Thot at Hermopolis, Phtah at
+      Memphis,&mdash;keeping the rest of the dynasty absolutely unchanged.[*]
+      The gods in no way compromised their prestige by becoming incarnate and
+      descending to earth. Since they were men of finer nature, and their
+      qualities, including that of miracle-working, were human qualities raised
+      to the highest pitch of intensity, it was not considered derogatory to
+      them personally to have watched over the infancy and childhood of primeval
+      man. The raillery in which the Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard
+      to them, the good-humoured and even ridiculous <i>rôles</i> ascribed to
+      them in certain legends, do not prove that they were despised, or that
+      zeal for them had cooled. The greater the respect of believers for the
+      objects of their worship, the more easily do they tolerate the taking of
+      such liberties, and the condescension of the members of the Ennead, far
+      from lowering them in the eyes of generations who came too late to live
+      with them upon familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in
+      which they were held. Nothing shows this better than the history of Râ.
+      His world was ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and
+      Nuit still reposed in the arms of Sibû, earth and sky were but one.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the
+     titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his
+     supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the
+     first king. One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he
+     came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of
+     Atûmû, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Râ."
+     Atûmû-Khopri-Râ being the first earthly king, it follows
+     that the <i>Majesty of Thot</i>, with whom Ptolemy identifies
+     himself, comparing himself to the three forms of the God Râ,
+     is also the first earthly king.
+
+     **  This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is
+     clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of
+     The Destruction of Men. Nuit does not rise to form the sky
+     until such time as Râ thinks of bringing his reign to an
+     end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in
+     existence for many centuries. In chap. xvii. of the Book of
+     the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 11. 3-5) it
+     is stated that the reign of Râ began in the times when the
+     upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before
+     Shu had separated Nûît from Sibû, and forcibly uplifted her
+     above the body of her husband.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable, animal,
+      and human life. Egypt was there, all complete, with her two chains of
+      mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and the nomes
+      themselves. Then the soil was more generous; the harvests, without the
+      labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when the Egyptians
+      of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any person or thing,
+      they said that the like had never been known since the time of Râ.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of
+     the fields of Ialû in chap. ex. of the <i>Book of the Dead</i>
+     (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis. cxxi.~ cxxiii.). As with
+     the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead
+     still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed
+     during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to
+     say, under the direct rule of Râ.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst for
+      happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the
+      remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is only
+      known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors. Râ
+      dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of the
+      city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"&mdash;Haït Sarû,&mdash;passed
+      for having been his palace. His court was mainly composed of gods and
+      goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men. It contained also
+      men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food, received
+      the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and household
+      affairs. It was said that the <i>oîrû maû</i>&mdash;the high priest of Râ,
+      the <i>hankistît</i>&mdash;his high priestess, and generally speaking all
+      the servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended
+      from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had
+      succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0009" id="linklinkCimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/230.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="230.jpg at the First Hour of The Bay The Sun Embarks Fob His Journey Through Egypt.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented
+     upon the architraves of the pronaos at Edfû (Rosellini,
+     <i>Monumenti del Culto</i>, pl. xxxviii. No. 1).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the morning he went forth with his divine train, and, amid the
+      acclamations of the crowd, entered the bark in which he made his
+      accustomed circuit of the world, returning to his home at the end of
+      twelve hours after the accomplishment of his journey. He visited each
+      province in turn, and in each he tarried for an hour, to settle all
+      disputed matters, as the final judge of appeal. He gave audience to both
+      small and great, he decided their quarrels and adjudged their lawsuits, he
+      granted investiture of fiefs from the royal domains to those who had
+      deserved them, and allotted or confirmed to every family the income
+      needful for their maintenance. He pitied the sufferings of his people, and
+      did his utmost to alleviate them; he taught to all comers potent formulas
+      against reptiles and beasts of prey, charms to cast out evil spirits, and
+      the best recipes for preventing illness. His incessant bounties left him
+      at length with only one of his talismans: the name given to him by his
+      father and mother at his birth, which they had revealed to him alone, and
+      which he kept concealed within his bosom lest some sorcerer should get
+      possession of it to use for the furtherance of his evil spells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But old age came on, and infirmities followed; the body of Râ grew bent,
+      "his mouth trembled, his slaver trickled down to earth and his saliva
+      dropped upon the ground." Isis, who had hitherto been a mere woman-servant
+      in the household of the Pharaoh, conceived the project of stealing his
+      secret from him, "that she might possess the world and make herself a
+      goddess by the name of the august god." Force would have been unavailing;
+      all enfeebled as he was by reason of his years, none was strong enough to
+      contend successfully against him. But Isis "was a woman more knowing in
+      her malice than millions of men, clever among millions of the gods, equal
+      to millions of spirits, to whom as unto Râ nothing was unknown either in
+      heaven or upon earth." She contrived a most ingenious stratagem. When man
+      or god was struck down by illness, the only chance of curing him lay in
+      knowing his real name, and thereby adjuring the evil being that tormented
+      him. Isis determined to cast a terrible malady upon Râ, concealing its
+      cause from him; then to offer her services as his nurse, and by means of
+      his sufferings to extract from him the mysterious word indispensable to
+      the success of the exorcism. She gathered up mud impregnated with the
+      divine saliva, and moulded of it a sacred serpent which she hid in the
+      dust of the road. Suddenly bitten as he was setting out upon his daily
+      round, the god cried out aloud, "his voice ascended into heaven and his
+      Nine called: 'What is it? what is it?' and his gods: 'What is the matter?
+      what is the matter?' but he could make them no answer so much did his lips
+      tremble, his limbs shake, and the venom take hold upon his flesh as the
+      Nile seizeth upon the land which it invadeth." Presently he came to
+      himself, and succeeded in describing his sensations. "Something painful
+      hath stung me; my heart perceiveth it, yet my two eyes see it not; my hand
+      hath not wrought it, nothing that I have made knoweth it what it is, yet
+      have I never tasted suffering like unto it, and there is no pain that may
+      overpass it.... Fire it is not, water it is not, yet is my heart in
+      flames, my flesh trembleth, all my members are full of shiverings born of
+      breaths of magic. Behold! let there be brought unto me children of the
+      gods of beneficent words, who know the power of their mouths, and whose
+      science reacheth unto heaven." They came, these children of the gods, all
+      with their books of magic. There came Isis with her sorcery, her mouth
+      full of life-giving breaths, her recipe for the destruction of pain, her
+      words which pour life into breathless throats, and she said: "What is it?
+      what is it, O father of the gods? May it not be that a serpent hath
+      wrought this suffering in thee; that one of thy children hath lifted up
+      his head against thee? Surely he shall be overthrown by beneficent
+      incantations, and I will make him to retreat at the sight of thy rays." On
+      learning the cause of his torment, the Sun-god is terrified, and begins to
+      lament anew: "I, then, as I went along the ways, travelling through my
+      double land of Egypt and over my mountains, that I might look upon that
+      which I have made, I was bitten by a serpent that I saw not. Fire it is
+      not, water it is not, yet am I colder than water, I burn more than fire,
+      all my members stream with sweat, I tremble, mine eye is not steady, no
+      longer can I discern the sky, drops roll from my face as in the season of
+      summer." Isis proposes her remedy, and cautiously asks him his ineffable
+      name. But he divines her trick, and tries to evade it by an enumeration of
+      his titles. He takes the universe to witness that he is called "Khopri in
+      the morning, Râ at noon, Tûmû in the evening." The poison did not recede,
+      but steadily advanced, and the great god was not eased. Then Isis said to
+      Râ: "Thy name was not spoken in that which thou hast said. Tell it to me
+      and the poison will depart; for he liveth upon whom a charm is pronounced
+      in his own name." The poison glowed like fire, it was strong as the
+      burning of flame, and the Majesty of Râ said, "I grant thee leave that
+      thou shouldest search within me, O mother Isis! and that my name pass from
+      my bosom into thy bosom." In truth, the all-powerful name was hidden
+      within the body of the god, and could only be extracted thence by means of
+      a surgical operation similar to that practised upon a corpse which is
+      about to be mummified. Isis undertook it, carried it through successfully,
+      drove out the poison, and made herself a goddess by virtue of the name.
+      The cunning of a mere woman had deprived Râ of his last talisman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In course of time men perceived his decrepitude. They took counsel against
+      him: "Lo! his Majesty waxeth old, his bones are of silver, his flesh is of
+      gold, his hair of lapis-lazuli." As soon as his Majesty perceived that
+      which they were saying to each other, his Majesty said to those who were
+      of his train, "Call together for me my Divine Eye, Shû, Tafnûît, Sibû, and
+      Nûît, the father and the mother gods who were with me when I was in the
+      Nû, with the god Nû. Let each bring his cycle along with him; then, when
+      thou shalt have brought them in secret, thou shalt take them to the great
+      mansion that they may lend me their counsel and their consent, coming
+      hither from the Nû into this place where I have manifested myself." So the
+      family council comes together: the ancestors of Râ, and his posterity
+      still awaiting amid the primordial waters the time of their manifestation&mdash;his
+      children Shû and Tafnûît, his grandchildren Sibû and Nûît. They place
+      themselves, according to etiquette, on either side his throne, prostrate,
+      with their foreheads to the ground, and thus their conference begins: "O
+      Nû, thou the eldest of the gods, from whom I took my being, and ye the
+      ancestor-gods, behold! men who are the emanation of mine eye have taken
+      counsel together against me! Tell me what ye would do, for I have bidden
+      you here before I slay them, that I may hear what ye would say thereto."
+      Nû, as the eldest, has the right to speak first, and demands that the
+      guilty shall be brought to judgment and formally condemned. "My son Râ,
+      god greater than the god who made him, older than the gods who created
+      him, sit thou upon thy throne, and great shall be the terror when thine
+      eye shall rest upon those who plot together against thee!" But Râ not
+      unreasonably fears that when men see the solemn pomp of royal justice,
+      they may suspect the fate that awaits them, and "flee into the desert,
+      their hearts terrified at that which I have to say to them." The desert
+      was even then hostile to the tutelary gods of Egypt, and offered an almost
+      inviolable asylum to their enemies. The conclave admits that the
+      apprehensions of Râ are well founded, and pronounces in favour of summary
+      execution; the Divine Eye is to be the executioner. "Let it go forth that
+      it may smite those who have devised evil against thee, for there is no Eye
+      more to be feared than thine when it attacketh in the form of Hâthor." So
+      the Eye takes the form of Hâthor, suddenly falls upon men, and slays them
+      right and left with great strokes of the knife. After some hours, Râ, who
+      would chasten but not destroy his children, commands her to cease from her
+      carnage; but the goddess has tasted blood, and refuses to obey him. "By
+      thy life," she replies, "when I slaughter men then is my heart right
+      joyful!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0010" id="linklinkCimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/236.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="236.jpg SokhÎt, the Lioness-headed. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette of the
+     Saïte period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, <i>Album
+     photographique du Musée de Boulaq</i>, pl. 6).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That is why she was afterwards called Sokhît the slayer, and represented
+      under the form of a fierce lioness. Nightfall stayed her course in the
+      neighbourhood of Heracleopolis; all the way from Heliopolis she had
+      trampled through blood. As soon as she had fallen asleep, Râ hastily took
+      effectual measures to prevent her from beginning her work again on the
+      morrow. "He said: 'Call on my behalf messengers agile and swift, who go
+      like the wind.' When these messengers were straightway brought to him, the
+      Majesty of the god said: 'Let them run to Elephantine and bring me
+      mandragora in plenty.'"[**]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ** The mandragora of Elephantine was used in the manufacture of an
+      intoxicating and narcotic drink employed either in medicine or in magic.
+      In a special article, Brugsch has collected particulars preserved by the
+      texts as to the uses of this plant. It was not as yet credited with the
+      human form and the peculiar kind of life ascribed to it by western
+      sorcerers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had brought him the mandragora, the Majesty of this great god
+      summoned the miller which is in Heliopolis that he might bray it; and the
+      women-servants having crushed grain for the beer, the mandragora, and also
+      human blood, were mingled with the liquor, and thereof was made in all
+      seven thousand jars of beer. Râ himself examined this delectable drink,
+      and finding it to possess the wished-for properties: "'It is well,' said
+      he; 'therewith shall I save men from the goddess;' then, addressing those
+      of his train: 'Take these jars in your arms, and carry them to the place
+      where she has slaughtered men.' Râ, the king, caused dawn to break at
+      midnight, so that this philtre might be poured down upon the earth; and
+      the fields were flooded with it to the depth of four palms, according as
+      it pleased the souls of his Majesty." In the morning the goddess came,
+      "that she might return to her carnage, but she found that all was flooded,
+      and her countenance softened; when she had drunken, it was her heart that
+      softened; she went away drunk, without further thought of men." There was
+      some fear lest her fury might return when the fumes of drunkenness were
+      past, and to obviate this danger Râ instituted a rite, partly with the
+      object of instructing future generations as to the chastisement which he
+      had inflicted upon the impious, partly to console Sokhît for her
+      discomfiture. He decreed that "on New Year's Day there should be brewed
+      for her as many jars of philtre as there were priestesses of the sun. That
+      was the origin of all those jars of philtre, in number equal to that of
+      the priestesses, which, at the feast of Hâthor, all men make from that day
+      forth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace was re-established, but could it last long? Would not men, as soon
+      as they had recovered from their terror, betake themselves again to
+      plotting against the god? Besides, Râ now felt nothing but disgust for our
+      race. The ingratitude of his children had wounded him deeply; he foresaw
+      ever-renewed rebellions as his feebleness became more marked, and he
+      shrank from having to order new massacres in which mankind would perish
+      altogether. "By my life," says he to the gods who accompanied him, "my
+      heart is too weary for me to remain with mankind, and slay them until they
+      are no more: annihilation is not of the gifts that I love to make." And
+      the gods exclaim in surprise: "Breathe not a word of thy weariness at a
+      time when thou dost triumph at thy pleasure." But Râ does not yield to
+      their representations; he will leave a kingdom wherein they murmur against
+      him, and turning towards Nû he says: "My limbs are decrepit for the first
+      time; I will not go to any place where I can be reached." It was no easy
+      matter to find him an inaccessible retreat owing to the imperfect state in
+      which the universe had been left by the first effort of the demiurge. Nû
+      saw no other way out of the difficulty than that of setting to work to
+      complete the creation. Ancient tradition had imagined the separation of
+      earth and sky as an act of violence exercised by Shu upon Sibû and Nûît.
+      History presented facts after a less brutal fashion, and Shû became a
+      virtuous son who devoted his time and strength to upholding Nûît, that he
+      might thereby do his father a service. Nûît, for her part, showed herself
+      to be a devoted daughter whom there was no need to treat roughly in order
+      to teach her her duty; of herself she consented to leave her husband, and
+      place her beloved ancestor beyond reach. "The Majesty of Nû said: 'Son
+      Shu, do as thy father Râ shall say; and thou, daughter Nûît, place him
+      upon thy back and hold him suspended above the earth!' Nûît said: 'And how
+      then, my father Nû?' Thus spake Nûît, and she did that which Nû commanded
+      her; she changed herself into a cow, and placed the Majesty of Râ upon her
+      back. When those men who had not been slain came to give thanks to Râ,
+      behold! they found him no longer in his palace; but a cow stood there, and
+      they perceived him upon the back of the cow." They found him so resolved
+      to depart that they did not try to turn him from his purpose, but only
+      desired to give him such a proof of their repentance as should assure them
+      of the complete pardon of their crime. "They said unto him: 'Wait until
+      the morning, O Râ! our lord, and we will strike down thine enemies who
+      have taken counsel against thee.' So his Majesty returned to his mansion,
+      descended from the cow, went in along with them, and earth was plunged
+      into darkness. But when there was light upon earth the next morning, the
+      men went forth with their bows and their arrows, and began to shoot at the
+      enemy. Whereupon the Majesty of this god said unto them: 'Your sins are
+      remitted unto you, for sacrifice precludes the execution of the guilty.'
+      And this was the origin upon earth of sacrifices in which blood was shed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that when on the point of separating for ever, the god and men
+      came to an understanding as to the terms of their future relationship. Men
+      offered to the god the life of those who had offended him. Human sacrifice
+      was in their eyes the obligatory sacrifice, the only one which could
+      completely atone for the wrongs committed against the godhead; man alone
+      was worthy to wash away with his blood the sins of men.[*] For this one
+      time the god accepted the expiation just as it was offered to him; then
+      the repugnance which he felt to killing his children overcame him, he
+      substituted beast for man, and decided that oxen, gazelles, birds, should
+      henceforth furnish the material for sacrifice.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This legend, which seeks to explain the discontinuance of
+     human sacrifices among the Egyptians, affords direct proof
+     of their existence in primitive times. This is confirmed by
+     many facts. We shall see that <i>ûashbîti</i> laid in graves were
+     in place of the male or female slaves who were originally
+     slaughtered at the tombs of the rich and noble that they
+     might go to serve their masters in the next world. Even in
+     Thebes, under the XIXth dynasty, certain rock-cut tombs
+     contain scenes which might lead us to believe that
+     occasionally at least human victims were sent to doubles of
+     distinction. During this same period, moreover, the most
+     distinguished hostile chiefs taken in war were still put to
+     death before the gods. In several towns, as at Eilithyia and
+     at Heliopolis, or before certain gods, such as Osiris or
+     Kronos-Sibû, human sacrifice lasted until near Roman times.
+     But generally speaking it was very rare. Almost everywhere
+     cakes of a particular shape, and called [Greek word], or
+     else animals, had been substituted for man.
+
+     **  It was asserted that the partisans of Apôpi and of Sît,
+     who were the enemies of Râ, Osiris, and the other gods, had
+     taken refuge in the bodies of certain animals. Hence, it was
+     really human or divine victims which were offered when
+     beasts were slaughtered in sacrifice before the altars.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This point settled, he again mounted the cow, who rose, supported on her
+      four legs as on so many pillars; and her belly, stretched out above the
+      earth like a ceiling, formed the sky. He busied himself with organizing
+      the new world which he found on her back; he peopled it with many beings,
+      chose two districts in which to establish his abode, the Field of Reeds&mdash;<i>Sokhît
+      Ialû</i>&mdash;and the Field of Rest&mdash;<i>Sokhît Hotpît</i>&mdash;and
+      suspended the stars which were to give light by night. All this is related
+      with many plays upon words, intended, according to Oriental custom, as
+      explanations of the names which the legend assigned to the different
+      regions of heaven. At sight of a plain whose situation pleased him, he
+      cried: "The Field rests in the distance!"&mdash;and that was the origin of
+      the Field of Rest. He added: "There will I gather plants!"&mdash;and from
+      this the Field of Reeds took its name. While he gave himself up to this
+      philological pastime, Nûît, suddenly transported to unaccustomed heights,
+      grew frightened, and cried for help: "For pity's sake give me supports to
+      sustain me!" This was the origin of the support-gods. They came and
+      stationed themselves by each of her four legs, steadying these with their
+      hands, and keeping constant watch over them. As this was not enough to
+      reassure the good beast, "Râ said, 'My son Shû, place thyself beneath my
+      daughter Nûît, and keep watch on both sides over the supports, who live in
+      the twilight; hold thou her up above thy head, and be her guardian!'" Shû
+      obeyed; Nûît composed herself, and the world, now furnished with the sky
+      which it had hitherto lacked, assumed its present symmetrical form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shû and Sibû succeeded Râ, but did not acquire so lasting a popularity as
+      their great ancestor. Nevertheless they had their annals, fragments of
+      which have come down to us. Their power also extended over the whole
+      universe: "The Majesty of Shû was the excellent king of the sky, of the
+      earth, of Hades, of the water, of the winds, of the inundation, of the two
+      chains of mountains, of the sea, governing with a true voice according to
+      the precepts of his father Râ-Harmakhis."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0011" id="linklinkCimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/242.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="242.jpg Cow, Sustained Above the Earth by ShÛ and The Support " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Only "the children of the serpent Apôpi, the impious ones who haunt the
+      solitary places and the deserts," disavowed his authority. Like the
+      Bedawîn of later times, they suddenly streamed in by the isthmus routes,
+      went up into Egypt under cover of night, slew and pillaged, and then
+      hastily returned to their fastnesses with the booty which they had carried
+      off. From sea to sea Ka had fortified the eastern frontier against them.
+      He had surrounded the principal cities with walls, embellished them with
+      temples, and placed within them those mysterious talismans more powerful
+      for defence than a garrison of men. Thus Aît-nobsû, near the mouth of the
+      Wady-Tûmilât, possessed one of the rods of the Sun-god, also the living
+      uraeus of his crown whose breath consumes all that it touches, and,
+      finally, a lock of his hair, which, being cast into the waters of a lake,
+      was changed into a hawk-headed crocodile to tear the invader in pieces.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Egyptians of all periods never shrank from such marvels.
+     One of the tales of the Theban empire tells us of a piece of
+     wax which, on being thrown into the water, changed into a
+     living crocodile capable of devouring a man. The talismans
+     which protected Egypt against invasion are mentioned by the
+     Pseudo-Callisthenes, who attributes their invention to
+     Nectanebo. Arab historians often refer to them.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The employment of these talismans was dangerous to those unaccustomed to
+      use them, even to the gods themselves. Scarcely was Sibû enthroned as the
+      successor of Shu, who, tired of reigning, had reascended into heaven in a
+      nine days' tempest, before he began his inspection of the eastern marches,
+      and caused the box in which was kept the uræus of Râ to be opened. "As
+      soon as the living viper had breathed its breath against the Majesty of
+      Sibû there was a great disaster&mdash;great indeed, for those who were in
+      the train of the god perished, and his Majesty himself was burned in that
+      day. When his Majesty had fled to the north of Aît-nobsû, pursued by the
+      fire of this magic urasus, behold! when he came to the fields of henna,
+      the pain of his burn was not yet assuaged, and the gods who were behind
+      him said unto him: 'O Sire! let them take the lock of Râ which is there,
+      when thy Majesty shall go to see it and its mystery, and his Majesty shall
+      be healed as soon as it shall be placed upon thee.' So the Majesty of Sibû
+      caused the magic lock to be brought to Piarît,&mdash;the lock for which
+      was made that great reliquary of hard stone which is hidden in the secret
+      place of Piarît, in the district of the divine lock of the Lord Râ,&mdash;and
+      behold! this fire departed from the members of the Majesty of Sibû. And
+      many years afterwards, when this lock, which had thus belonged to Sibû,
+      was brought back to Piarît in Aît-nobsû, and cast into the great lake of
+      Piarît whose name is <i>Aît-tostesû</i>, the dwelling of waves, that it
+      might be purified, behold! this lock became a crocodile: it flew to the
+      water and became Sobkû, the divine crocodile of Aît-nobsû." In this way
+      the gods of the solar dynasty from generation to generation multiplied
+      talismans and enriched the sanctuaries of Egypt with relics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0012" id="linklinkCimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/244.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="244.jpg Three of the Divine Amulets Preserved in The Temple of AÎt-nobsÛ at the Roman Period. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Griffith. The
+     three talismans here represented are two crowns, each in a
+     naos, and the burning fiery uræus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Were there ever duller legends and a more senile phantasy! They did not
+      spring spontaneously from the lips of the people, but were composed at
+      leisure by priests desirous of enhancing the antiquity of their cult, and
+      augmenting the veneration of its adherents in order to increase its
+      importance. Each city wished it to be understood that its feudal sanctuary
+      was founded upon the very day of creation, that its privileges had been
+      extended or confirmed during the course of the first divine dynasty, and
+      that these pretensions were supported by the presence of objects in its
+      treasury which had belonged to the oldest of the king-gods. Such was the
+      origin of tales in which the personage of the beneficent Pharaoh is often
+      depicted in ridiculous fashion. Did we possess all the sacred archives, we
+      should frequently find them quoting as authentic history more than one
+      document as artificial as the chronicle of Aît-nobsû. When we come to the
+      later members of the Ennead, there is a change in the character and in the
+      form of these tales. Doubtless Osiris and Sît did not escape unscathed out
+      of the hands of the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference
+      spoiled the legend concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it.
+      Here and there in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and
+      liveliness of imagination such as are never found in those of Shû and of
+      Sibû. This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them
+      strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world. Shû
+      was the stay, Sibû the material foundation of the world; and so long as
+      the one bore the weight of the firmament without bending, and the other
+      continued to suffer the tread of human generations upon his back, the
+      devout took no more thought of them than they themselves took thought of
+      the devout. The life of Osiris, on the other hand, was intimately mingled
+      with that of the Egyptians, and his most trivial actions immediately
+      reacted upon their fortunes. They followed the movements of his waters;
+      they noted the turning-points in his struggles against drought; they
+      registered his yearly decline, yearly compensated by his aggressive
+      returns and his intermittent victories over Typhon; his proceedings and
+      his character were the subject of their minute study. If his waters almost
+      invariably rose upon the appointed day and extended over the black earth
+      of the valley, this was no mechanical function of a being to whom the
+      consequences of his conduct are indifferent; he acted upon reflection, and
+      in full consciousness of the service that he rendered. He knew that by
+      spreading the inundation he prevented the triumph of the desert; he was
+      life, he was goodness&mdash;<i>Onnofriû</i>&mdash;and Isis, as the partner
+      of his labours, became like him the type of perfect goodness. But while
+      Osiris developed for the better, Sit was transformed for the worse, and
+      increased in wickedness as his brother gained in purity and moral
+      elevation. In proportion as the person of Sît grew more defined, and stood
+      out more clearly, the evil within him contrasted more markedly with the
+      innate goodness of Osiris, and what had been at first an instinctive
+      struggle between two beings somewhat vaguely defined&mdash;the desert and
+      the Nile, water and drought&mdash;was changed into conscious and deadly
+      enmity. No longer the conflict of two elements, it was war between two
+      gods; one labouring to produce abundance, while the other strove to do
+      away with it; one being all goodness and life, while the other was evil
+      and death incarnate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very ancient legend narrates that the birth of Osiris and his brothers
+      took place during the five additional days at the end of the year; a
+      subsequent legend explained how Nûît and Sibû had contracted marriage
+      against the express wish of Râ, and without his knowledge. When he became
+      aware of it he fell into a violent rage, and cast a spell over the goddess
+      to prevent her giving birth to her children in any month of any year
+      whatever. But Thot took pity upon her, and playing at draughts with the
+      moon won from it in several games one seventy-second part of its fires,
+      out of which he made five whole days; and as these were not included in
+      the ordinary calendar, Nûît could then bring forth her five children, one
+      after another: Osiris, Haroêris, Sit, Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris was
+      beautiful of face, but with a dull and black complexion; his height
+      exceeded five and a half yards.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * As a matter of fact, Osiris is often represented with
+     black or green hands and face, as is customary for gods of
+     the dead; it was probably this peculiarity which suggested
+     the popular idea of his black complexion. A magic papyrus of
+     Ramesside times fixes the stature of the god at seven
+     cubits, and a phrase in a Ptolemaic inscription places it at
+     eight cubits, six palms, three fingers.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He was born at Thebes, in the first of the additional days, and
+      straightway a mysterious voice announced that the lord of all&mdash;<i>nibû-r-zarû</i>&mdash;had
+      appeared. The good news was hailed with shouts of joy, followed by tears
+      and lamentations when it became known with what evils he was menaced.[*]
+      The echo reached Râ in his far-off dwelling, and his heart rejoiced,
+      notwithstanding the curse which he had laid upon Nûît. He commanded the
+      presence of his great-grandchild in Xoïs, and unhesitatingly acknowledged
+      him as the heir to his throne. Osiris had married his sister Isis, even,
+      so it was said, while both of them were still within their mother's
+      womb;[**] and when he became king he made her queen regent and the partner
+      of all his undertakings.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * One variant of the legend told that a certain Pamylis of
+     Thebes having gone to draw water had heard a voice
+     proceeding from the temple of Zeus, which ordered him to
+     proclaim aloud to the world the birth of the great king, the
+     beneficent Osiris. He had received the child from the hands
+     of Kronos, brought it up to youth, and to him the Egyptians
+     had consecrated the feast of Pamylies, which resembled the
+     Phallophoros festival of the Greeks.
+
+     ** <i>De Iside et Osiride</i>, Leemans' edition, § 12, pp. 20,
+     21. Haroêris, the Apollo of the Greeks, was supposed to be
+     the issue of a marriage consummated before the birth of his
+     parents while they were still within the womb of their
+     mother Rhea-Nûît. This was a way of connecting the personage
+     of Haroêris with the Osirian myths by confounding him with
+     the homonymous Harsiêsis, the son of Isis, who became the
+     son of Osiris through his mother's marriage with that god.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptians were as yet but half civilized; they were cannibals, and
+      though occasionally they lived upon the fruits of the earth, they did not
+      know how to cultivate them. Osiris taught them the art of making
+      agricultural implements&mdash;the plough and the hoe,&mdash;field labour,
+      the rotation of crops, the harvesting of wheat and barley,[*] and vine
+      culture.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Diodoeus even ascribes to him the discovery of barley and
+     of wheat; this is consequent upon the identification of Isis
+     with Demeter by the Greeks. According to the historian, Leo
+     of Pella, the goddess twined herself a crown of ripe ears
+     and placed it upon her head one day when she was sacrificing
+     to her parents.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Isis weaned them from cannibalism, healed their diseases by means of
+      medicine or of magic, united women to men in legitimate marriage, and
+      showed them how to grind grain between two flat stones and to prepare
+      bread for the household. She invented the loom with the help of her sister
+      Nephthys, and was the first to weave and bleach linen. There was no
+      worship of the gods before Osiris established it, appointed the offerings,
+      regulated the order of ceremonies, and composed the texts and melodies of
+      the liturgies. He built cities, among them Thebes itself, according to
+      some; though others declared that he was born there. As he had been the
+      model of a just and pacific king, so did he desire to be that of a
+      victorious conqueror of nations; and, placing the regency in the hands of
+      Isis, he went forth to war against Asia, accompanied by Thot the ibis and
+      the jackal Anubis. He made little or no use of force and arms, but he
+      attacked men by gentleness and persuasion, softened them with songs in
+      which voices were accompanied by instruments, and taught them also the
+      arts which he had made known to the Egyptians. No country escaped his
+      beneficent action, and he did not return to the banks of the Nile until he
+      had traversed and civilized the world from one horizon to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sît-Typhon was red-haired and white-skinned, of violent, gloomy, and
+      jealous temper.[*] Secretly he aspired to the crown, and nothing but the
+      vigilance of Isis had kept him from rebellion during the absence of his
+      brother. The rejoicings which celebrated the king's return to Memphis
+      provided Sit with his opportunity for seizing the throne.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The colour of his hair was compared with that of a red-
+     haired ass, and on that account the ass was sacred to him.
+     As to his violent and jealous disposition, see the opinion
+     of Diodorus Siculus, book i. 21, and the picture drawn by
+     Synesius in his pamphlet Ægyptius. It was told how he tore
+     his mother's bowels at birth, and made his own way into the
+     world through her side.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0013" id="linklinkCimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/250.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="250.jpg the Osmian Triad Hokus. Osiris, Isis. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawing by Boudier of the gold group in the Louvre
+     Museum. The drawing is made from a photograph which belonged
+     to M. de Witte, before the monument was acquired by E. de
+     Rougé in 1871. The little square pillar of lapis-lazuli,
+     upon which Osiris squats, is wrongly set up, and the names
+     and titles of King Osorkon, the dedicator of the triad, are
+     placed upside down.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He invited Osiris to a banquet along with seventy-two officers whose
+      support he had ensured, made a wooden chest of cunning workmanship and
+      ordered that it should be brought in to him, in the midst of the feast. As
+      all admired its beauty, he sportively promised to present it to any one
+      among the guests whom it should exactly fit. All of them tried it, one
+      after another, and all unsuccessfully; but when Osiris lay down within it,
+      immediately the conspirators shut to the lid, nailed it firmly down,
+      soldered it together with melted lead, and then threw it into the Tanitic
+      branch of the Nile, which carried it to the sea. The news of the crime
+      spread terror on all sides. The gods friendly to Osiris feared the fate of
+      their master, and hid themselves within the bodies of animals to escape
+      the malignity of the new king. Isis cut off her hair, rent her garments,
+      and set out in search of the chest. She found it aground near the mouth of
+      the river[*] under the shadow of a gigantic acacia, deposited it in a
+      secluded place where no one ever came, and then took refuge in Bûto, her
+      own domain and her native city, whose marshes protected her from the
+      designs of Typhon even as in historic times they protected more than one
+      Pharaoh from the attacks of his enemies. There she gave birth to the young
+      Horus, nursed and reared him in secret among the reeds, far from the
+      machinations of the wicked one.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  At this point the legend of the Saïte and Greek period
+     interpolates a whole chapter, telling how the chest was
+     carried out to sea and cast upon the Phoenician coast near
+     to Byblos. The acacia, a kind of heather or broom in this
+     case, grew up enclosing the chest within its trunk. This
+     addition to the primitive legend must date from the XVIIIth
+     to the XXth dynasties, when Egypt had extensive relations
+     with the peoples of Asia. No trace of it whatever has
+     hitherto been found upon Egyptian monuments strictly so
+     called; not even on the latest.
+
+     **  The opening illustration of this chapter (p. 221) is
+     taken from a monument at Phihe, and depicts Isis among the
+     reeds. The representation of the goddess as squatting upon a
+     mat probably gave rise to the legend of the floating isle of
+     Khemmis, which HECATÆUS of Miletus had seen upon the lake of
+     Bûto, but whose existence was denied by Herodotus
+     notwithstanding the testimony of Hecatæus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But it happened that Sît, when hunting by moonlight, caught sight of the
+      chest, opened it, and recognizing the corpse, cut it up into fourteen
+      pieces, which he scattered abroad at random. Once more Isis set forth on
+      her woeful pilgrimage. She recovered all the parts of the body excepting
+      one only, which the oxyrhynchus had greedily devoured;[*] and with the
+      help of her sister Nephthys, her son Horus, Anubis, and Thot, she joined
+      together and embalmed them, and made of this collection of his remains an
+      imperishable mummy, capable of sustaining for ever the soul of a god. On
+      his coming of age, Horus called together all that were left of the loyal
+      Egyptians and formed them into an army.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  This part of the legend was so thoroughly well known,
+     that by the time of the XIXth dynasty it suggested incidents
+     in popular literature. When Bitiû, the hero of <i>The Tale of
+     the Two Brothers</i>, mutilated himself to avoid the suspicion
+     of adultery, he cast his bleeding member into the water, and
+     <i>the Oxyrhynchus devoured it</i>.
+
+     **  Towards the Grecian period there was here interpolated
+     an account of how Osiris had returned from the world of the
+     dead to arm his son and train him to fight. According to
+     this tale he had asked Horus which of all animals seemed to
+     him most useful in time of war, and Horus chose the horse
+     rather than the lion, because the lion avails for the weak
+     or cowardly in need of help, whereas the horse is used for
+     the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. Judging from this
+     reply that Horus was ready to dare all, Osiris allowed him
+     to enter upon the war. The mention of the horse affords
+     sufficient proof that this episode is of comparatively late
+     origin (cf. p. 41 for the date at which the horse was
+     acclimatized in Egypt).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      His "Followers"&mdash;<i>Shosûû Horû</i>&mdash;defeated the "Accomplices
+      of Sît"&mdash;<i>Samiu Sît</i>&mdash;who were now driven in their turn to
+      transform themselves into gazelles, crocodiles and serpents,&mdash;animals
+      which were henceforth regarded as unclean and Typhonian. For three days
+      the two chiefs had fought together under the forms of men and of
+      hippopotami, when Isis, apprehensive as to the issue of the duel,
+      determined to bring it to an end. "Lo! she caused chains to descend upon
+      them, and made them to drop upon Horus. Thereupon Horus prayed aloud,
+      saying: 'I am thy son Horus!' Then Isis spake unto the fetters, saying;
+      'Break, and unloose yourselves from my son Horus!' She made other fetters
+      to descend, and let them fall upon her brother Sit. Forthwith he lifted up
+      his voice and cried out in pain, and she spake unto the fetters and said
+      unto them: 'Break!' Yea, when Sît prayed unto her many times, saying:
+      'Wilt thou not have pity upon the brother of thy son's mother?' then her
+      heart was filled with compassion, and she cried to the fetters: 'Break,
+      for he is my eldest brother!' and the fetters unloosed themselves from
+      him, and the two foes again stood face to face like two men who will not
+      come to terms." Horus, furious at seeing his mother deprive him of his
+      prey, turned upon her like a panther of the South. She fled before him on
+      that day when battle was waged with Sît the Violent, and he cut off her
+      head. But Thot transformed her by his enchantments and made a cow's head
+      for her, thereby identifying her with her companion, Hâthor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0014" id="linklinkCimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/253.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="253.jpg Isis-hathor, Cow-headed. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette of Saïte
+     period in the Gîzeh Museum (Mariette, <i>Album photographique
+     du musée de Boulaq</i>, pl. 5, No. 167).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The war went on, with all its fluctuating fortunes, till the gods at
+      length decided to summon both rivals before their tribunal. According to a
+      very ancient tradition, the combatants chose the ruler of a neighbouring
+      city, Thot, lord of Hermopolis Parva, as the arbitrator of their quarrel.
+      Sît was the first to plead, and he maintained that Horus was not the son
+      of Osiris, but a bastard, whom Isis haô conceived after the death of her
+      husband. Horua triumphantly vindicated the legitimacy of his birth; and
+      Thot condemned Sît to restore, according to some, the whole of the
+      inheritance which he had wrongly retained,&mdash;according to others, part
+      of it only. The gods ratified the sentence, and awarded to the arbitrator
+      the title of <i>Ûapirahûhûi</i>: he who judges between two parties. A
+      legend of more recent origin, and circulated after the worship of Osiris
+      had spread over all Egypt, affirmed that the case had remained within the
+      jurisdiction of Sibû, who was father to the one, and grandfather to the
+      other party. Sibû, however, had pronounced the same judgment as Thot, and
+      divided the kingdom into halves&mdash;<i>poshûi</i>; Sît retained the
+      valley from the neighbourhood of Memphis to the first cataract, while
+      Horus entered into possession of the Delta. Egypt henceforth consisted of
+      two distinct kingdoms, of which one, that of the North, recognized Horus,
+      the son of Isis, as its patron deity; and the other, that of the South,
+      placed itself under the protection of Sît Nûbîti, the god of Ombos.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Another form of the legend gives the 27th Athyr as the
+     date of the judgment, assigning Egypt to Horus, and to Sît
+     Nubia, or <i>Doshirît</i>, the red land. It must have arisen
+     towards the age of the XVIIIth dynasty, at a time when their
+     piety no longer allowed the devout to admit that the
+     murderer of Osiris could be the legitimate patron of half
+     the country. So <i>the half</i> belonging to Sît was then placed
+     either in Nubia or in the western desert, which had, indeed,
+     been reckoned as his domain from earliest times.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The moiety of Horus, added to that of Sît, formed the kingdom which Sibû
+      had inherited; but his children failed to keep it together, though it was
+      afterwards reunited under Pharaohs of human race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three gods who preceded Osiris upon the throne had ceased to reign,
+      but not to live. Râ had taken refuge in heaven, disgusted with his own
+      creatures; Shû had disappeared in the midst of a tempest; and Sibû had
+      quietly retired within his palace when the time of his sojourning upon
+      earth had been fulfilled. Not that there was no death, for death, too,
+      together with all other things and beings, had come into existence in the
+      beginning, but while cruelly persecuting both man and beast, had for a
+      while respected the gods. Osiris was the first among them to be struck
+      down, and hence to require funeral rites. He also was the first for whom
+      family piety sought to provide a happy life beyond the tomb. Though he was
+      king of the living and the dead at Mendes by virtue of the rights of all
+      the feudal gods in their own principalities, his sovereignty after death
+      exempted him no more than the meanest of his subjects from that painful
+      torpor into which all mortals fell on breathing their last. But popular
+      imagination could not resign itself to his remaining in that miserable
+      state for ever. What would it have profited him to have Isis the great
+      Sorceress for his wife, the wise Horus for his son, two master-magicians&mdash;Thot
+      the Ibis and the jackal Anubis&mdash;for his servants, if their skill had
+      not availed to ensure him a less gloomy and less lamentable after-life
+      than that of men. Anubis had long before invented the art of mummifying,
+      and his mysterious science had secured the everlasting existence of the
+      flesh; but at what a price!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0015" id="linklinkCimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/256.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="256.jpg the Osirian Mummy Prepared and Laid Upon The Funerary Couch by the Jackal Anubis.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellint, <i>Monumenti
+     Civili</i>, pl. cxxxiv. 2. While Anubis is stretching out his
+     hands to lay out the mummy on its couch, the soul is
+     hovering above its breast, and holding to its nostrils the
+     sceptre, and the wind-filled sail which is the emblem of
+     breath and of the new life.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For the breathing, warm, fresh-coloured body, spontaneous in movement and
+      function, was substituted an immobile, cold and blackish mass, a
+      sufficient basis for the mechanical continuity of the double, but which
+      that double could neither raise nor guide; whose weight paralysed and
+      whose inertness condemned it to vegetate in darkness, without pleasure and
+      almost without consciousness of existence. Thot, Isis, and Horus applied
+      themselves in the case of Osiris to ameliorating the discomfort and
+      constraint entailed by the more primitive embalmment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0016" id="linklinkCimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/257.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="257.jpg the Reception Op The Mummy by Anubis at The Door Op the Tomb, and The Opening of The Mouth. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of a
+     king in the Theban necropolis.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They did not dispense with the manipulations instituted by Anubis, but
+      endued them with new power by means of magic. They inscribed the principal
+      bandages with protective figures and formulas; they decorated the body
+      with various amulets of specific efficacy for its different parts; they
+      drew numerous scenes of earthly existence and of the life beyond the tomb
+      upon the boards of the coffin and upon the walls of the sepulchral
+      chamber. When the body had been made imperishable, they sought to restore
+      one by one all the faculties of which their previous operations had
+      deprived it. The mummy was set up at the entrance to the vault; the statue
+      representing the living person was placed beside it, and semblance was
+      made of opening the mouth, eyes, and ears, of loosing the arms and legs,
+      of restoring breath to the throat and movement to the heart. The
+      incantations by which these acts were severally accompanied were so
+      powerful that the god spoke and ate, lived and heard, and could use his
+      limbs as freely as though he had never been steeped in the bath of the
+      embalmer. He might have returned to his place among men, and various
+      legends prove that he did occasionally appear to his faithful adherents.
+      But, as his ancestors before him, he preferred to leave their towns and
+      withdraw into his own domain. The cemeteries of the inhabitants of Busiris
+      and of Mendes were called <i>Sokhît Ialû</i>, the Meadow of Reeds, and <i>Sokhît
+      Hotpû</i>, the Meadow of Best. They were secluded amid the marshes, in
+      small archipelagoes of sandy islets where the dead bodies, piled together,
+      rested in safety from the inundations. This was the first kingdom of the
+      dead Osiris, but it was soon placed elsewhere, as the nature of the
+      surrounding districts and the geography of the adjacent countries became
+      better known; at first perhaps on the Phoenician shore beyond the sea, and
+      then in the sky, in the Milky Way, between the North and the East, but
+      nearer to the North than to the East. This kingdom was not gloomy and
+      mournful like that of the other dead gods, Sokaris or Khontamentît, but
+      was lighted by sun and moon; the heat of the day was tempered by the
+      steady breath of the north wind, and its crops grew and throve abundantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0017" id="linklinkCimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/259.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="259.jpg Osikis in Hades, Accompanied by Isis, AmentÎt, And Nephthys, Receives the Homage of Truth. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Héron,
+     taken in 1881 in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thick walls served as fortifications against the attacks of Sit and evil
+      genii; a palace like that of the Pharaohs stood in the midst of delightful
+      gardens; and there, among his own people, Osiris led a tranquil existence,
+      enjoying in succession all the pleasures of earthly life without any of
+      its pains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The goodness which had gained him the title of Onnophris while he
+      sojourned here below, inspired him with the desire and suggested the means
+      of opening the gates of his paradise to the souls of his former subjects.
+      Souls did not enter into it unexamined, nor without trial. Each of them
+      had first to prove that during its earthly life it had belonged to a
+      friend, or, as the Egyptian texts have it, to a vassal of Osiris&mdash;<i>amakhû
+      khir Osiri</i>&mdash;one of those who had served Horus in his exile and
+      had rallied to his banner from the very beginning of the Typhonian wars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0018" id="linklinkCimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/260.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="260.jpg the Deceased Climbing The Slope of The Mountain Of the West,2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville Bas Ægyptische
+     Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. cxxviii. Ai.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These were those followers of Horus&mdash;<i>Shosûû Horû</i>&mdash;so
+      often referred to in the literature of historic times.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Cf, p. 252. The <i>Followers of Horns</i>, i.e. those who had
+     followed Horus during the Typhonian wars, are mentioned in a
+     Turin fragment of the Canon of the Kings, in which the
+     author summarizes the chronology of the divine period. Like
+     the reign of Râ, the time in which the followers of Horus
+     were supposed to have lived was for the Egyptians of classic
+     times the ultimate point beyond which history did not reach.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Horus, their master, having loaded them with favours during life, decided
+      to extend to them after death the same privileges which he had conferred
+      upon his father. He convoked around the corpse the gods who had worked
+      with him at the embalmment of Osiris: Anubis and Thot, Isis and Nephthys,
+      and his four children&mdash;Hâpi, Qabhsonûf, Amsît, and Tiûmaûtf&mdash;to
+      whom he had entrusted the charge of the heart and viscera. They all
+      performed their functions exactly as before, repeated the same ceremonies,
+      and recited the same formulas at the same stages of the operations, and so
+      effectively that the dead man became a real Osiris under their hands,
+      having a true voice, and henceforth combining the name of the god with his
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0019" id="linklinkCimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/261.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="261.jpg the Mummy of SÛtimosÛ Clasping his Soul Into His Arms. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Guieysse-Lefébure, <i>Le
+     Papyrus de Soutimès</i>, pl. viii. The outlines of the original
+     have unfortunately been restored and enfeebled by the
+     copyist.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He had been Sakhomka or Menkaûrî; he became the Osiris Sakhomka, or the
+      Osiris Menkaûrî, true of voice. Horus and his companions then celebrated
+      the rites consecrated to the "Opening of the Mouth and the Eyes:" animated
+      the statue of the deceased, and placed the mummy in the tomb, where Anubis
+      received it in his arms. Recalled to life and movement, the double
+      reassumed, one by one, all the functions of being, came and went and took
+      part in the ceremonies of the worship which was rendered to him in his
+      tomb. There he might be seen accepting the homage of his kindred, and
+      clasping to his breast his soul under the form of a great human-headed
+      bird with features the counterpart of his own. After being equipped with
+      the formulas and amulets wherewith his prototype, Osiris, had been
+      furnished, he set forth to seek the "Field of Reeds." The way was long and
+      arduous, strewn with perils to which he must have succumbed at the very
+      first stages had he not been carefully warned beforehand and armed against
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0020" id="linklinkCimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/262.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="262.jpg Cynocephali Drawing the Net in Which Souls Are Caught. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a facsimile by Dévèria (E. de
+     Rougé, <i>Études sur le Rituel Funéraire</i>, pl. iv. No. 4).
+     Ignorant souls fished for by the cynocephali are here
+     represented as fish; but the soul of Nofirûbnû, instructed
+     in the protective formulas, preserves its human form.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A papyrus placed with the mummy in its coffin contained the needful
+      topo-graphical directions and passwords, in order that he might neither
+      stray nor perish by the way. The wiser Egyptians copied out the principal
+      chapters for themselves, or learned them by heart while yet in life, in
+      order to be prepared for the life beyond. Those who had not taken this
+      precaution studied after death the copy with which they were provided; and
+      since few Egyptians could read, a priest, or relative of the deceased,
+      preferably his son, recited the prayers in the mummy's ear, that he might
+      learn them before he was carried away to the cemetery. If the double
+      obeyed the prescriptions of the "Book of the Dead" to the letter, he
+      reached his goal without fail.[*] On leaving the tomb he turned his back
+      on the valley, and staff in hand climbed the hills which bounded it on the
+      west, plunging boldly into the desert, where some bird, or even a kindly
+      insect such as a praying mantis, a grasshopper, or a butterfly, served as
+      his guide. Soon he came to one of those sycamores which grow in the sand
+      far away from the Nile, and are regarded as magic trees by the fellahîn.
+      Out of the foliage a goddess&mdash;Nûît, ïïâthor, or Nît&mdash;half
+      emerged, and offered him a dish of fruit, loaves of bread, and a jar of
+      water.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Manuscripts of this work represent about nine-tenths of
+     the papyri hitherto discovered. They are not all equally
+     full; complete copies are still relatively scarce, and most
+     of those found with mummies contain nothing but extracts of
+     varying length. The book itself was studied by Champollion,
+     who called it the <i>Funerary Ritual</i>; Lepsius afterwards gave
+     it the less definite name of <i>Book of the Dead</i>, which seems
+     likely to prevail. It has been chiefly known from the
+     hieroglyphic copy at Turin, which Lepsius traced and had
+     lithographed in 1841, under the title of <i>Das Todtenbuch der
+     Ægypter</i>. In 1865, E. du Rougé began to publish a hieratic
+     copy in the Louvre, but since 1886 there has been a critical
+     edition of manuscripts of the Theban period most carefully
+     collated by E. Naville, <i>Das Mgyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII
+     bis XX Dynastie</i>, Berlin, 1886, 2 vols, of plates in folio,
+     and 1 vol. of Introduction in 4to. On this edition see
+     Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. i. pp. 325-387.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By accepting these gifts he became the guest of the goddess, and could
+      never more retrace his steps[*] without special permission. Beyond the
+      sycamore were lands of terror, infested by serpents and ferocious beasts,
+      furrowed by torrents of boiling water, intersected by ponds and marshes
+      where gigantic monkeys cast their nets.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 224-227. It was not in Egypt
+     alone that the fact of accepting food offered by a god of
+     the dead constituted a recognition of suzerainty, and
+     prevented the human soul from returning to the world of the
+     living. Traces of this belief are found everywhere, in
+     modern as in ancient times, and E. B. Tylob, has collected
+     numerous examples of the same in Primitive Culture, 2nd
+     edit., vol. ii. pp. 47, 51, 52.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0021" id="linklinkCimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/264.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="264.jpg the Deceased and his Wife Seated in Front of The Sycamore of NÛÎt and Receiving the Bread And Water Of The Next World. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coloured plate in
+     Rosellini, <i>Monumenti civili.</i>,pl. cxxxiv. 3.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Ignorant souls, or those ill prepared for the struggle, had no easy work
+      before them when they imprudently entered upon it. Those who were not
+      overcome by hunger and thirst at the outset were bitten by a urasus, or
+      horned viper, hidden with evil intent below the sand, and perished in
+      convulsions from the poison; or crocodiles seized as many of them as they
+      could lay hold of at the fords of rivers; or cynocephali netted and
+      devoured them indiscriminately along with the fish into which the
+      partisans of Typhon were transformed. They came safe and sound out of one
+      peril only to fall into another, and infallibly succumbed before they were
+      half through their journey. But, on the other hand, the double who was
+      equipped and instructed, and armed with the true voice, confronted each
+      foe with the phylactery and the incantation by which his enemy was held in
+      check. As soon as he caught sight of one of them he recited the
+      appropriate chapter from his book, he loudly proclaimed himself Râ, Tûmû,
+      Horus, or Khopri&mdash;that god whose name and attributes were best fitted
+      to repel the immediate danger&mdash;and flames withdrew at his voice,
+      monsters fled or sank paralysed, the most cruel of genii drew in their
+      claws and lowered their arms before him. He compelled crocodiles to turn
+      away their heads; he transfixed serpents with his lance; he supplied
+      himself at pleasure with all the provisions that he needed, and gradually
+      ascended the mountains which surround the world, sometimes alone, and
+      fighting his way step by step, sometimes escorted by beneficent
+      divinities. Halfway up the slope was the good cow Hâfchor, the lady of the
+      West, in meadows of tall plants where every evening she received the sun
+      at his setting. If the dead man knew how to ask it according to the
+      prescribed rite, she would take him upon her shoulders[*] and carry him
+      across the accursed countries at full speed.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Coffins of the XXth and XXIst dynasties, with a yellow
+     ground, often display this scene. Generally the scene is
+     found beneath the feet of the dead, at the lower end of the
+     cartonage, and the cow is represented as carrying off at a
+     gallop the mummy who is lying on her back.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0022" id="linklinkCimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/266.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="266.jpg the Deceased Piercing a Serpent With his Lance. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville (<i>Das
+     Ægyptische Todtenbuch</i>, vol. i. pl. iii. P b). The commonest
+     enemies of the dead were various kinds of serpents.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having reached the North, he paused at the edge of an immense lake, the
+      lake of Kha, and saw in the far distance the outline of the Islands of the
+      Blest. One tradition, so old as to have been almost forgotten in
+      Rames-side times, told how Thot the ibis there awaited him, and bore him
+      away on his wings;[***] another, no less ancient but of more lasting
+      popularity, declared that a ferry-boat plied regularly between the solid
+      earth and the shores of paradise.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ***  It is often mentioned in the Pyramid texts, and
+     inspired one of the most obscure chapters among them
+     (<i>Teti</i>, 11. 185-200; cf. <i>Recueil de Travaux</i>, vol. v. pp.
+     22, 23). It seems that the ibis had to fight with Sit for
+     right of passage.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The god who directed it questioned the dead, and the bark itself proceeded
+      to examine them before they were admitted on board; for it was a magic
+      bark. "Tell me my name," cried the mast; and the travellers replied: "He
+      who guides the great goddess on her way is thy name." "Tell me my name,"
+      repeated the braces. "The Spine of the Jackal Ûapûaîtû is thy name." "Tell
+      me my name," proceeded the mast-head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0023" id="linklinkCimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/267.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="267.jpg the Good Cow HÂthor Carrying The Dead Man and His Soul. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coloured facsimile
+     published by Leemans, <i>Monuments Égyptiens du Musée d'
+     Antiquités des Pays-Bas à Leyden</i>, part iii. pl. xii.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "The Neck of Amsît is thy name." "Tell me my name," asked the sail. "Nûît
+      is thy name." Each part of the hull and of the rigging spoke in turn and
+      questioned the applicant regarding its name, this being generally a mystic
+      phrase by which it was identified either with some divinity as a whole, or
+      else with some part of his body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the double had established his right of passage by the correctness of
+      his answers, the bark consented to receive him and to carry him to the
+      further shore. There he was met by the gods and goddesses of the court of
+      Osiris: by Anubis, by Hathor the lady of the cemetery, by Nît, by the two
+      Màîts who preside over justice and truth, and by the four children of
+      Horus stiff-sheathed in their mummy wrappings. They formed as it were a
+      guard of honour to introduce him and his winged guide into an immense
+      hall, the ceiling of which rested on light graceful columns of painted
+      wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0024" id="linklinkCimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/268.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="268.jpg Anubis and Thot Weighing the Heart of The Deceased in the Scales of Truth. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn  by   Faucher-Gudin,   from  pl.  cxxxvi. Ag of
+     Naville's  <i>Das Thebanische Todtenbuch</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At the further end of the hall Osiris was seated in mysterious twilight
+      within a shrine through whose open doors he might be seen wearing a red
+      necklace over his close-fitting case of white bandaging, his green face
+      surmounted by the tall white diadem flanked by two plumes, his slender
+      hands grasping flail and crook, the emblems of his power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0025" id="linklinkCimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/269.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="269.jpg the Deceased is Brought Before The Shrine Of Osiris the Judge by Horus, The Son of Isis. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Behind him stood Isis and Nephthys watching over him with uplifted hands,
+      bare bosoms, and bodies straitly cased in linen. Forty-two jurors who had
+      died and been restored to life like their lord, and who had been chosen,
+      one from each of those cities of Egypt which recognized his authority,
+      squatted right and left, and motionless, clothed in the wrappings of the
+      dead, silently waited until they were addressed. The soul first advanced
+      to the foot of the throne, carrying on its outstretched hands the image of
+      its heart or of its eyes, agents and accomplices of its sins and virtues.
+      It humbly "smelt the earth," then arose, and with uplifted hands recited
+      its profession of faith. "Hail unto you, ye lords of Truth! hail to thee,
+      great god, lord of Truth and Justice! I have come before thee, my master;
+      I have been brought to see thy beauties. For I know thee, I know thy name,
+      I know the names of thy forty-two gods who are with thee in the Hall of
+      the Two Truths, living on the remains of sinners, gorging themselves with
+      their blood, in that day when account is rendered before Onnophris, the
+      true of voice. Thy name which is thine is 'the god whose two twins are the
+      ladies of the two Truths;' and I, I know you, ye lords of the two Truths,
+      I bring unto you Truth, I have destroyed sins for you. I have not
+      committed iniquity against men! I have not oppressed the poor! I have not
+      made defalcations in the necropolis! I have not laid labour upon any free
+      man beyond that which he wrought for himself! I have not transgressed, I
+      have not been weak, I have not defaulted, I have not committed that which
+      is an abomination to the gods. I have not caused the slave to be
+      ill-treated of his master! I have not starved any man, I have not made any
+      to weep, I have not assassinated any man, I have not caused any man to be
+      treacherously assassinated, and I have not committed treason against any!
+      I have not in aught diminished the supplies of temples! I have not spoiled
+      the shrewbread of the gods! I have not taken away the loaves and the
+      wrappings of the dead! I have done no carnal act within the sacred
+      enclosure of the temple! I have not blasphemed! I have in nought curtailed
+      the sacred revenues! I have not pulled down the scale of the balance! I
+      have not falsified the beam of the balance! I have not taken away the milk
+      from the mouths of sucklings! I have not lassoed cattle on their pastures!
+      I have not taken with nets the birds of the gods! I have not fished in
+      their ponds! I have not turned back the water in its season! I have not
+      cut off a water-channel in its course! I have not put out the fire in its
+      time! I have not defrauded the Nine Gods of the choice part of victims! I
+      have not ejected the oxen of the gods! I have not turned back the god at
+      his coming forth! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! Pure as this
+      Great Bonû of Heracleopolis is pure!... There is no crime against me in
+      this land of the Double Truth! Since I know the names of the gods who are
+      with thee in the Hall of the Double Truth, save thou me from them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkani" id="linklinkani"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img alt="272b (279K)" src="images/272b.jpg" width="100%"
+      title="THE OCCUPATIONS OF ANI IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then turned towards the jury and pleaded his cause before them. They
+      had been severally appointed for the cognizance of particular sins, and
+      the dead man took each of them by name to witness that he was innocent of
+      the sin which that one recorded. His plea ended, he returned to the
+      supreme judge, and repeated, under what is sometimes a highly mystic form,
+      the ideas which he had already advanced in the first part of his address.
+      "Hail unto you, ye gods who are in the Great Hall of the Double Truth, who
+      have no falsehood in your bosoms, but who live on Truth in Aûnû, and feed
+      your hearts upon it before the Lord God who dwelleth in his solar disc!
+      Deliver me from the Typhon who feedeth on entrails, O chiefs! in this hour
+      of supreme judgment;&mdash;grant that the deceased may come unto you, he
+      who hath not sinned, who hath neither lied, nor done evil, nor committed
+      any crime, who hath not borne false witness, who hath done nought against
+      himself, but who liveth on truth, who feedeth on truth. He hath spread joy
+      on all sides; men speak of that which he hath done, and the gods rejoice
+      in it. He hath reconciled the god to him by his love; he hath given bread
+      to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked; he hath given
+      a boat to the shipwrecked; he hath offered sacrifices to the gods,
+      sepulchral meals unto the manes. Deliver him from himself, speak not
+      against him before the Lord of the Dead, for his mouth is pure, and his
+      two hands are pure!" In the middle of the Hall, however, his acts were
+      being weighed by the assessors. Like all objects belonging to the gods,
+      the balance is magic, and the genius which animates it sometimes shows its
+      fine and delicate little human head on the top of the upright stand which
+      forms its body. Everything about the balance recalls its superhuman
+      origin: a cynocephalus, emblematic of Thot, sits perched on the upright
+      and watches the beam; the cords which suspend the scales are made of
+      alternate <i>cruces ansato and tats</i>. Truth squats upon one of the
+      scales; Thot, ibis-headed, places the heart on the other, and always
+      merciful, bears upon the side of Truth that judgment may be favourably
+      inclined. He affirms that the heart is light of offence, inscribes the
+      result of the proceeding upon a wooden tablet, and pronounces the verdict
+      aloud. "Thus saith Thot, lord of divine discourse, scribe of the Great
+      Ennead, to his father Osiris, lord of eternity, 'Behold the deceased in
+      this Hall of the Double Truth, his heart hath been weighed in the balance
+      in the presence of the great genii, the lords of Hades, and been found
+      true. No trace of earthly impurity hath been found in his heart. Now that
+      he leaveth the tribunal true of voice, his heart is restored to him, as
+      well as his eyes and the material cover of his heart, to be put back in
+      their places each in its own time, his soul in heaven, his heart in the
+      other world, as is the custom of the "Followers of Horus." Henceforth let
+      his body lie in the hands of Anubis, who presideth over the tombs; let him
+      receive offerings at the cemetery in the presence of Onno-phris; let him
+      be as one of those favourites who follow thee; let his soul abide where it
+      will in the necropolis of his city, he whose voice is true before the
+      Great Ennead.'" In this "Negative Confession," which the worshippers of
+      Osiris taught to their dead, all is not equally admirable. The material
+      interests of the temple were too prominent, and the crime of killing a
+      sacred goose or stealing a loaf from the bread offerings was considered as
+      abominable as calumny or murder. But although it contains traces of
+      priestly cupidity, yet how many of its precepts are untarnished in their
+      purity by any selfish ulterior motive! In it is all our morality in germ,
+      and with refinements of delicacy often lacking among peoples of later and
+      more advanced civilizations. The god does not confine his favour to the
+      prosperous and the powerful of this world; he bestows it also upon the
+      poor. His will is that they be fed and clothed, and exempted from tasks
+      beyond their strength; that they be not oppressed, and that unnecessary
+      tears be spared them. If this does not amount to the love of our neighbour
+      as our religions preach it, at least it represents the careful solicitude
+      due from a good lord to his vassals. His pity extends to slaves; not only
+      does he command that no one should ill-treat them himself, but he forbids
+      that their masters should be led to ill-treat them. This profession of
+      faith, one of the noblest bequeathed us by the old world, is of very
+      ancient origin. It may be read in scattered fragments upon the monuments
+      of the first dynasties, and the way in which its ideas are treated by the
+      compilers of these inscriptions proves that it was not then regarded as
+      new, but as a text so old and so well known that its formulas were current
+      in all mouths, and had their prescribed places in epitaphs.[*] Was it
+      composed in Mendes, the god's own home, or in Heliopolis, when the
+      theologians of that city appropriated the god of Mendes and incorporated
+      him in their Ennead? In conception it certainly belongs to the Osirian
+      priesthood, but it can only have been diffused over the whole of Egypt
+      after the general adoption of the Heliopolitan Ennead throughout the
+      cities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he was judged, the dead man entered into the possession of his
+      rights as a pure soul. On high he received from the Universal Lord all
+      that kings and princes here below bestowed upon their followers&mdash;rations
+      of food,[**] and a house, gardens, and fields to be held subject to the
+      usual conditions of tenure in Egypt, i.e. taxation, military service, and
+      the corvée.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  For instance, one of the formulas found in Memphite tombs
+     states that the deceased had been the friend of his father,
+     the beloved of his mother, sweet to those who lived with
+     him, gracious to his brethren, loved of his servants, and
+     that he had never sought wrongful quarrel with any man;
+     briefly, that he spoke and did that which is right here
+     below.
+
+     **  The formula of the pyramid times is: "Thy thousand of
+     oxen, thy thousand of geese, of roast and boiled joints from
+     the larder of the gods, of bread, and plenty of the good
+     things presented in the hall of Osiris."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If the island was attacked by the partisans of Sit, the Osirian doubles
+      hastened in a body to repulse them, and fought bravely in its defence. Of
+      the revenues sent to him by his kindred on certain days and by means of
+      sacrifices, each gave tithes to the heavenly storehouses. Yet this was but
+      the least part of the burdens laid upon him by the laws of the country,
+      which did not suffer him to become enervated by idleness, but obliged him
+      to labour as in the days when he still dwelt in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0026" id="linklinkCimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/275.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="275.jpg the Manes Tilling The Ground and Reaping in The Fields of IalÛ. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in the funerary
+     papyrus of Nebhopît in Turin.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He looked after the maintenance of canals and dykes, he tilled the ground,
+      he sowed, he reaped, he garnered the grain for his lord and for himself.
+      Yet to those upon whom they were incumbent, these posthumous obligations,
+      the sequel and continuation of feudal service, at length seemed too heavy,
+      and theologians exercised their ingenuity to find means of lightening the
+      burden. They authorized the manes to look to their servants for the
+      discharge of all manual labour which they ought to have performed
+      themselves. Barely did a dead man, no matter how poor, arrive
+      unaccompanied at the eternal cities; he brought with him a following
+      proportionate to his rank and fortune upon earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0027" id="linklinkCimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/276.jpg" width="100%" alt="276.jpg UashbÎti. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted limestone statuette
+     from the tomb of <i>Sonnozmû</i> at Thebes, dating from the end
+     of the XXth dynasty.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At first they were real doubles, those of slaves or vassals killed at the
+      tomb, and who had departed along with the double of the master to serve
+      him beyond the grave as they had served him here. A number of statues and
+      images, magically endued with activity and intelligence, was afterwards
+      substituted for this retinue of victims. Originally of so large a size
+      that only the rich or noble could afford them, they were reduced little by
+      little to the height of a few inches. Some were carved out of alabaster,
+      granite, diorite, fine limestone, or moulded out of fine clay and
+      delicately modelled; others had scarcely any human resemblance. They were
+      endowed with life by means of a formula recited over them at the time of
+      their manufacture, and afterwards traced upon their legs. All were
+      possessed of the same faculties. When the god who called the Osirians to
+      the corvée pronounced the name of the dead man to whom the figures
+      belonged, they arose and answered for him; hence their designation of
+      "Respondents "&mdash;<i>Ûashbîti</i>. Equipped for agricultural labour,
+      each grasping a hoe and carrying a seed-bag on his shoulder, they set out
+      to work in their appointed places, contributing the required number of
+      days of forced labour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0028" id="linklinkCimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/277.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="277.jpg the Dead Man and his Wife Playing at Draughts In The Pavilion. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in No, 4 Papyrus,
+     Dublin (Naville, <i>Das Mgyptische Todtenbuch</i>, vol. i. pl.
+     xxvii. Da). The name of draughts is not altogether accurate;
+     a description of the game may be found in Falkner, <i>Games
+     Ancient and Oriental and how to play them</i>, pp. 9-101.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Up to a certain point they thus compensated for those inequalities of
+      condition which death itself did not efface among the vassals of Osiris;
+      for the figures were sold so cheaply that even the poorest could always
+      afford some for themselves, or bestow a few upon their relations; and in
+      the Islands of the Blest, fellah, artisan, and slave were indebted to the
+      Uashbîti for release from their old routine of labour and unending toil.
+      While the little peasants of stone or glazed ware dutifully toiled and
+      tilled and sowed, their masters were enjoying all the delights of the
+      Egyptian paradise in perfect idleness. They sat at ease by the water-side,
+      inhaling the fresh north breeze, under the shadow of trees which were
+      always green. They fished with lines among the lotus-plants; they embarked
+      in their boats, and were towed along by their servants, or they would
+      sometimes deign to paddle themselves slowly about the canals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0029" id="linklinkCimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/278.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="278.jpg the Dead Man Sailing in his Bark Along The Canals Of the Fields of Ialit. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the Papyrus of Nebhopît, in
+     Turin. This drawing is from part of the same scene as the
+     illustration on p. 275.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They went fowling among the reed-beds, or retired within their painted
+      pavilions to read tales, to play at draughts, to return to their wives who
+      were for ever young and beautiful.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  Gymnastic exercises, hunting, fishing, sailing, are all
+     pictured in Theban tombs. The game of draughts is mentioned
+     in the title of chap. xvii. of the <i>Book of the Dead</i>
+     (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 2), and the
+     women's pavilion is represented in the tomb of Rakhmiri That
+     the dead were supposed to read tales is proved from the fact
+     that broken ostraca bearing long fragments of literary works
+     are found in tombs; they were broken to kill them and to
+     send on their doubles to the dead man in the next world.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was but an ameliorated earthly life, divested of all suffering under
+      the rule and by the favour of the true-voiced Onnophris. The feudal gods
+      promptly adopted this new mode of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0030" id="linklinkCimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/279.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="279.jpg Boat of a Funerary Fleet on Its Way to Abydos. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Éinil
+     Brugsch-Bey. The original was found in the course of M. de
+     Morgan's excavations at Mêîr, and is now at Gîzeh. The dead
+     man is sitting in the cabin, wrapped in his cloak. As far as
+     I know, this is the only boat which has preserved its
+     original rigging.    It dates from the XIth or XIIth
+     dynasty.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Each of their dead bodies, mummified, and afterwards reanimated in
+      accordance with the Osirian myth, became an Osiris as did that of any
+      ordinary person. Some carried the assimilation so far as to absorb the god
+      of Mendes, or to be absorbed in him. At Memphis Phtah-Sokaris became
+      Phtah-Sokar-Osiris, and at Thinis Khontamentîfc became Osiris
+      Khontamentît. The sun-god lent himself to this process with comparative
+      ease because his life is more like a man's life, and hence also more like
+      that of Osiris, which is the counterpart of a man's life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0031" id="linklinkCimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/280.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="280.jpg the Solar Bark Into Which The Dead Man is About To Enter. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in the Papyrus of
+     Nebqadn, in Paris.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Born in the morning, he ages as the day declines, and gently passes away
+      at evening. From the time of his entering the sky to that of his leaving
+      it, he reigns above as he reigned here below in the beginning; but when he
+      has left the sky and sinks into Hades, he becomes as one of the dead, and
+      is, as they are, subjected to Osirian embalmment. The same dangers that
+      menace their human souls threaten his soul also; and when he has
+      vanquished them, not in his own strength, but by the power of amulets and
+      magical formulas, he enters into the fields of lalû, and ought to dwell
+      there for ever under the rule of Onuophris. He did nothing of the kind,
+      however, for daily the sun was to be seen reappearing in the east twelve
+      hours after it had sunk into the darkness of the west. Was it a new orb
+      each time, or did the same sun shine every day? In either case the result
+      was precisely the same; the god came forth from death and re-entered into
+      life. Having identified the course of the sun-god with that of man, and Râ
+      with Osiris for a first day and a first night, it was hard not to push the
+      matter further, and identify them for all succeeding days and nights,
+      affirming that man and Osiris might, if they so wished, be born again in
+      the morning, as Râ was, and together with him. If the Egyptians had found
+      the prospect of quitting the darkness of the tomb for the bright meadows
+      of Ialû a sensible alleviation of their lot, with what joy must they have
+      been filled by the conception which allowed them to substitute the whole
+      realm of the sun for a little archipelago in an out-of-the-way corner of
+      the universe. Their first consideration was to obtain entrance into the
+      divine bark, and this was the object of all the various practices and
+      prayers, whose text, together with that which already contained the
+      Osirian formulas, ensured the unfailing protection of Râ to their
+      possessor. The soul desirous of making use of them went straight from his
+      tomb to the very spot where the god left earth to descend into Hades. This
+      was somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of Abydos, and was reached
+      through a narrow gorge or "cleft" in the Libyan range, whose "mouth"
+      opened in front of the temple of Osiris Khontamentît, a little to the
+      north-west of the city. The soul was supposed to be carried thither by a
+      small flotilla of boats, manned by figures representing friends or
+      priests, and laden with food, furniture, and statues. This flotilla was
+      placed within the vault on the day of the funeral, and was set in motion
+      by means of incantations recited over it during one of the first nights of
+      the year, at the annual feast of the dead. The bird or insect which had
+      previously served as guide to the soul upon its journey now took the helm
+      to show the fleet the right way, and under this command the boats left
+      Abydos and mysteriously passed through the "cleft" into that western sea
+      which is inaccessible to the living, there to await the daily coming of
+      the dying sun-god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0032" id="linklinkCimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/282.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="282.jpg the Solar Bark Passing Into The Mountain of The West. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a very small photograph
+     published in the Catalogue of the Minutoli Sale.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As soon as his bark appeared at the last bend of the celestial Nile, the
+      cynocephali, who guarded the entrance into night, began to dance and
+      gesticulate upon the banks as they intoned their accustomed hymn. The gods
+      of Abydos mingled their shouts of joy with the chant of the sacred
+      baboons, the bark lingered for a moment upon the frontiers of day, and
+      initiated souls seized the occasion to secure their recognition and their
+      reception on board of it.[*] Once admitted, they took their share in the
+      management of the boat, and in the battles with hostile deities; but they
+      were not all endowed with the courage or equipment needful to withstand
+      the perils and terrors of the voyage. Many stopped short by the way in one
+      of the regions which it traversed, either in the realm of Khontamentît, or
+      in that of Sokaris, or in those islands where the good Osiris welcomed
+      them as though they had duly arrived in the ferry-boat, or upon the wing
+      of Thot. There they dwelt in colonies under the suzerainty of local gods,
+      rich, and in need of nothing, but condemned to live in darkness, excepting
+      for the one brief hour in which the solar bark passed through their midst,
+      irradiating them with beams of light.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  This description of the embarkation and voyage of the
+     soul is composed from indications given in one of the
+     vignettes of chap. xvi. of the <i>Book of the Dead</i> (Naville's
+     edition, vol. i. pl. xxii.), combined with the text of a
+     formula which became common from the times of the XIth and
+     XIIth dynasties (Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et
+     l'Archéologie Égyptiennes</i>, vol. i. pp. 14-18, and <i>Études
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. i. pp. 122, 123).
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     **  Maspero, <i>Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
+     Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 44, 45.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The few persevered, feeling that they had courage to accompany the sun
+      throughout, and these were indemnified for their sufferings by the most
+      brilliant fate ever dreamed of by Egyptian souls., Born anew with the
+      sun-god and appearing with him at the gates of the east, they were
+      assimilated to him, and shared his privilege of growing old and dying,
+      only to be ceaselessly rejuvenated and to live again with ever-renewed
+      splendour. They disembarked where they pleased, and returned at will into
+      the world. If now and then they felt a wish to revisit all that was left
+      of their earthly bodies, the human-headed sparrow-hawk descended the shaft
+      in full flight, alighted upon the funeral couch, and, with hands softly
+      laid upon the spot where the heart had been wont to beat, gazed upwards at
+      the impassive mask of the mummy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0033" id="linklinkCimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/284.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="284.jpg the Soul Descending The Sepulchral Shaft on Its Way to Rejoin the Mummy. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Dévèria.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This was but for a moment, since nothing compelled these perfect souls to
+      be imprisoned within the tomb like the doubles of earlier times, because
+      they feared the light. They "went forth by day," and dwelt in those places
+      where they had lived; they walked in their gardens by their ponds of
+      running water; they perched like so many birds on the branches of the
+      trees which they had planted, or enjoyed the fresh air under the shade of
+      their sycamores; they ate and drank at pleasure; they travelled by hill
+      and dale; they embarked in the boat of Râ, and disembarked without
+      weariness, and without distaste for the same perpetual round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This conception, which was developed somewhat late, brought the Egyptians
+      back to the point from which they had started when first they began to
+      speculate on the life to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0034" id="linklinkCimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/285.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="285.jpg the Soul on The Edge of The Funeral Couch, With Its Hands on the Heart of The Mummy. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey, reproducing the miniature sarcophagus of the scribe Râ
+     (Maspero, <i>Guide du Visiteur</i>, pp. 130, 131, No. 1621).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The soul, after having left the place of its incarnation to which in the
+      beginning it clung, after having ascended into heaven and there sought
+      congenial asylum in vain, forsook all havens which it had found above, and
+      unhesitatingly fell back upon earth, there to lead a peaceful, free, and
+      happy life in the full light of day, and with the whole valley of Egypt
+      for a paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The connection, always increasingly intimate between Osiris and Râ,
+      gradually brought about a blending of the previously separate myths and
+      beliefs concerning each. The friends and enemies of the one became the
+      friends and enemies of the other, and from a mixture of the original
+      conceptions of the two deities, arose new personalities, in which
+      contradictory elements were blent together, often without true fusion. The
+      celestial Horuses one by one were identified with Horus, son of Isis, and
+      their attributes were given to him, as his in the same way became theirs.
+      Apopi and the monsters&mdash;the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the wild
+      boar&mdash;who lay in wait for Râ as he sailed the heavenly ocean, became
+      one with Sît and his accomplices. Sit still possessed his half of Egypt,
+      and his primitive brotherly relation to the celestial Horus remained
+      unbroken, either 'on account of their sharing one temple, as at Nûbît, or
+      because they were worshipped as one in two neighbouring nomes, as, for
+      example, at Oxyrrhynchos and at Heracleopolis Magna. The repulsion with
+      which the slayer of Osiris was regarded did not everywhere dissociate
+      these two cults: certain small districts persisted in this double worship
+      down to the latest times of paganism. It was, after all, a mark of
+      fidelity to the oldest traditions of the race, but the bulk of the
+      Egyptians, who had forgotten these, invented reasons taken from the
+      history of the divine dynasties to explain the fact. The judgment of Thot
+      or of Sibû had not put an end to the machinations of Sît: as soon as Horus
+      had left the earth, Sît resumed them, and pursued them, with varying
+      fortune, under the divine kings of the second Ennead. Now, in the year 363
+      of Harmakhis, the Typhonians reopened the campaign. Beaten at first near
+      Edfû, they retreated precipitately northwards, stopping to give battle
+      wherever their partisans predominated,&mdash;at Zatmîfc in the Theban
+      nome,[*] at Khaîtnûtrît to the north-east of Denderah, and at Hibonû in
+      the principality of the Gazelle.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Zatmît appears to have been situate at some distance from
+     Bayadîyéh, on the spot where the map published by the
+     Egyptian Commission marks the ruins of a modern village.
+     There was a necropolis of considerable extent there, which
+     furnishes the Luxor dealers with antiquities, many of which
+     belong to the first Theban empire.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0035" id="linklinkCimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/287.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="287.jpg the Soul Going Forth Into Its Garden by Day. 2 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2  Copied by Faucher-Gudin from the survey-drawings of the
+     tomb of Anni by Boussac, member of the <i>Mission française</i>
+     in Egypt (1891). The inscription over the arbour gives the
+     list of the various trees in the garden of Anni during his
+     lifetime.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Several bloody combats, which took place between Oxyrrhynchos and
+      Heracleopolis Magna, were the means of driving them finally out of the
+      Nile Valley; they rallied for the last time in the eastern provinces of
+      the Delta, were beaten at Zalû, and giving up all hope of success on land,
+      they embarked at the head of the Gulf of Suez, in order to return to the
+      Nubian Desert, their habitual refuge in times of distress. The sea was the
+      special element of Typhon, and upon it they believed themselves secure.
+      Horus, however, followed them, overtook them near Shas-hirît, routed them,
+      and on his return to Edfu, celebrated his victory by a solemn festival. By
+      degrees, as he made himself master of those localities which owed
+      allegiance to Sit, he took energetic measures to establish in them the
+      authority of Osiris and of the solar cycle. In all of them he built, side
+      by side with the sanctuary of the Typhonian divinities, a temple to
+      himself, in which he was enthroned under the particular form he was
+      obliged to assume in order to vanquish his enemies. Metamorphosed into a
+      hawk at the battle of Hibonû, we next see him springing on to the back of
+      Sit under the guise of a hippopotamus; in his shrine at Hibonû he is
+      represented as a hawk perching on the back of a gazelle, emblem of the
+      nome where the struggle took place. Near to Zalû he became incarnate as a
+      human-headed lion, crowned with the triple diadem, and having feet armed
+      with claws which cut like a knife; it was under the form, too, of a lion
+      that he was worshipped in the temple at Zalû. The correlation of Sit and
+      the celestial Horus was not, therefore, for these Egyptians of more recent
+      times a primitive religious fact; it was the consequence, and so to speak
+      the sanction, of the old hostility between the two gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkwars" id="linklinkwars">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/289.jpg" alt="" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Horus had treated his enemy in the same fashion that a victorious Pharaoh
+      treated the barbarians conquered by his arms: he had constructed a
+      fortress to keep his foe in check, and his priests formed a sort of
+      garrison as a precaution against the revolt of the rival priesthood and
+      the followers of the rival deity. In this manner the battles of the gods
+      were changed into human struggles, in which, more than once, Egypt was
+      deluged with blood. The hatred of the followers of Osiris to those of
+      Typhon was perpetuated with such implacability, that the nomes which had
+      persisted in adhering to the worship of Sit, became odious to the rest of
+      the population: the image of their master on the monuments was mutilated,
+      their names were effaced from the geographical lists, they were assailed
+      with insulting epithets, and to pursue and slay their sacred animals was
+      reckoned a pious act. Thus originated those skirmishes which developed
+      into actual civil wars, and were continued down to Roman times. The
+      adherents of Typhon only became more confirmed in their veneration for the
+      accursed god; Christianity alone overcame their obstinate fidelity to
+      him.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * This incident in the wars of Horus and Sit is drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin from a bas-relief of the temple of Edfû. On
+     the right, Har-Hûdîti, standing up in the solar bark,
+     pierces with his lance the head of a crocodile, a partisan
+     of Sît, lying in the water below; Harmâkhis, standing behind
+     him, is present at the execution. Facing this divine pair,
+     is the young Horus, who kills a man, another partisan of
+     Sît, while Isis and Har-Hûdîti hold his chains; behind
+     Horus, Isis and Thot are leading four other captives bound
+     and ready to be sacrificed before Harmâkhis.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The history of the world for Egypt was therefore only the history of the
+      struggle between the adherents of Osiris and the followers of Sît; an
+      interminable warfare in which sometimes one and sometimes the other of the
+      rival parties obtained a passing advantage, without ever gaining a
+      decisive victory till the end of time. The divine kings of the second and
+      third Ennead devoted most of the years of their earthly reign to this end;
+      they were portrayed under the form of the great warrior Pharaohs, who,
+      from the eighteenth to the twelfth century before our era, extended their
+      rule from the plains of the Euphrates to the marshes of Ethiopia. A few
+      peaceful sovereigns are met with here and there in this line of conquerors&mdash;a
+      few sages or legislators, of whom the most famous was styled Thot, the
+      doubly great, ruler of Hermopolis and of the Hermopolitan Ennead. A legend
+      of recent origin made him the prime minister of Horus, son of Isis; a
+      still more ancient tradition would identify him with the second king of
+      the second dynasty, the immediate successor of the divine Horuses, and
+      attributes to him a reign of 3226 years. He brought to the throne that
+      inventive spirit and that creative power which had characterized him from
+      the time when he was only a feudal deity. Astronomy, divination, magic,
+      medicine, writing, drawing&mdash;in fine, all the arts and sciences
+      emanated from him as from their first source. He had taught mankind the
+      methodical observation of the heavens and of the changes that took place
+      in them, the slow revolutions of the sun, the rapid phases of the moon,
+      the intersecting movements of the five planets, and the shapes and limits
+      of the constellations which each night were lit up in the sky. Most of the
+      latter either remained, or appeared to remain immovable, and seemed never
+      to pass out of the regions accessible to the human eye. Those which were
+      situate on the extreme margin of the firmament accomplished movements
+      there analogous to those of the planets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0037" id="linklinkCimage-0037">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/293.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="293.jpg One of the Astronomical Tables Of The Tomb Of Ramses Iv. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a copy by Lepsius, <i>Denkm.</i>,
+     iii. 227, 3.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Every year at fixed times they were seen to sink one after another below
+      the horizon, to disappear, and rising again after an eclipse of greater or
+      less duration, to regain insensibly their original positions. The
+      constellations were reckoned to be thirty-six in number, the thirty-six <i>decani</i>
+      to whom were attributed mysterious powers, and of whom Sothis was queen&mdash;Sothis
+      transformed into the star of Isis, when Orion (Sâhû), became the star of
+      Osiris. The nights are so clear and the atmosphere so transparent in
+      Egypt, that the eye can readily penetrate the depths of space, and
+      distinctly see points of light which would be invisible in our foggy
+      climate. The Egyptians did not therefore need special instruments to
+      ascertain the existence of a considerable number of stars which we could
+      not see without the help of our telescopes; they could perceive with the
+      naked eye stars of the fifth magnitude, and note them upon their
+      catalogues.[*] It entailed, it is true, a long training and uninterrupted
+      practice to bring their sight up to its maximum keenness; but from very
+      early times it was a function of the priestly colleges to found and
+      maintain schools of astronomy. The first observatories established on the
+      banks of the Nile seem to have belonged to the temples of the sun; the
+      high priests of Râ&mdash;who, to judge from their title, were alone worthy
+      to behold the sun face to face&mdash;were actively employed from the
+      earliest times in studying the configuration and preparing maps of the
+      heavens. The priests of other gods were quick to follow their example: at
+      the opening of the historic period, there was not a single temple, from
+      one end of the valley to the other, that did not possess its official
+      astronomers, or, as they were called, "watchers of the night."[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *   Biot, however, states that stars of the third and fourth
+     magnitude "are the smallest which can be seen with the
+     naked eye." I believe I am right in affirming that several
+     of the fellahîn and Bedawîn attached to the "service des
+     Antiquités" can see stars which are usually classed with
+     those of the fifth magnitude.
+
+     **   <i>Urshu</i>: this word is also used for the soldiers on
+     watch during the day upon the walls of a fortress. Birch
+     believed he had discovered in the British Museum a catalogue
+     of observations made at Thebes by several astronomers upon a
+     constellation which answered to the Hyades or the Pleiades;
+     it was merely a question in this text of the quantity of
+     water supplied regularly to the astronomers of a Theban
+     temple for their domestic purposes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the evening they went up on to the high terraces above the shrine, or
+      on to the narrow platforms which terminated the pylons, and fixing their
+      eyes continuously on the celestial vault above them, followed the
+      movements of the constellations and carefully noted down the slightest
+      phenomena which they observed. A portion of the chart of the heavens, as
+      known to Theban Egypt between the eighteenth and twelfth centuries before
+      our era, has survived to the present time; parts of it were carved by the
+      decorators on the ceilings of temples, and especially on royal tombs. The
+      deceased Pharaohs were identified with Osiris in a more intimate fashion
+      than their subjects. They represented the god even in the most trivial
+      details; on earth&mdash;where, after having played the part of the
+      beneficent Onnophris of primitive ages, they underwent the most complete
+      and elaborate embalming, like Osiris of the lower world; in Hades&mdash;where
+      they embarked side by side with the Sun-Osiris to cross the night and to
+      be born again at daybreak; in heaven&mdash;where they shone with
+      Orion-Sâhu under the guardianship of Sothis, and, year by year, led the
+      procession of the stars. The maps of the firmament recalled to them, or if
+      necessary taught them, this part of their duties: they there saw the
+      planets and the <i>decani</i> sail past in their boats, and the
+      constellations follow one another in continuous succession. The lists
+      annexed to the charts indicated the positions occupied each month by the
+      principal heavenly bodies&mdash;their risings, their culminations, and
+      their settings. Unfortunately, the workmen employed to execute these
+      pictures either did not understand much about the subject in hand, or did
+      not trouble themselves to copy the originals exactly: they omitted many
+      passages, transposed others, and made endless mistakes, which made it
+      impossible for us to transfer accurately to a modern map the information
+      possessed by the ancients.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In directing their eyes to the celestial sphere, Thot had at the same time
+      revealed to men the art of measuring time, and the knowledge of the
+      future. As he was the moon-god <i>par excellence</i>, he watched with
+      jealous care over the divine eye which had been entrusted to him by Horus,
+      and the thirty days during which he was engaged in conducting it through
+      all the phases of its nocturnal life, were reckoned as a month. Twelve of
+      these months formed the year, a year of three hundred and sixty days,
+      during which the earth witnessed the gradual beginning and ending of the
+      circle of the seasons. The Nile rose, spread over the fields, sank again
+      into its channel; to the vicissitudes of the inundation succeeded the work
+      of cultivation; the harvest followed the seedtime: these formed three
+      distinct divisions of the year, each of nearly equal duration. Thot made
+      of them the three seasons,&mdash;that of the waters, Shaît; that of
+      vegetation, Pirûît; that of the harvest, Shômû&mdash;each comprising four
+      months, numbered one to four; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months of Shaît;
+      the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months of Pirûît; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
+      months of Shômû. The twelve months completed, a new year began, whose
+      birth was heralded by the rising of Sothis in the early days of August.
+      The first month of the Egyptian year thus coincided with the eighth of
+      ours. Thot became its patron, and gave it his name, relegating each of the
+      others to a special protecting divinity; in this manner the third month of
+      Shaît fell to Hathor, and was called after her; the fourth of Pirûît
+      belonged to Ranûît or Ramûît, the lady of harvests, and derived from her
+      its appellation of Pharmûti. Official documents always designated the
+      months by the ordinal number attached to them in each season, but the
+      people gave them by preference the names of their tutelary deities, and
+      these names, transcribed into Greek, and then into Arabic, are still used
+      by the Christian inhabitants of Egypt, side by side with the Mussulman
+      appellations. One patron for each month was, however, not deemed
+      sufficient: each month was subdivided into three decades, over which
+      presided as many <i>decani</i>, and the days themselves were assigned to
+      genii appointed to protect them. A number of festivals were set apart at
+      irregular intervals during the course of the year: festivals for the new
+      year, festivals for the beginning of the seasons, months and decades,
+      festivals for the dead, for the supreme gods, and for local divinities.
+      Every act of civil life was so closely allied to the religious life, that
+      it could not be performed without a sacrifice or a festival. A festival
+      celebrated the cutting of the dykes, another the opening of the canals, a
+      third the reaping of the first sheaf, or the carrying of the grain; a crop
+      gathered or stored without a festival to implore the blessing of the gods,
+      would have been an act of sacrilege and fraught with disaster. The first
+      year of three hundred and sixty days, regulated by the revolutions of the
+      moon, did not long meet the needs of the Egyptian people; it did not
+      correspond with the length of the solar year, for it fell short of it by
+      five and a quarter days, and this deficit, accumulating from twelvemonth
+      to twelvemonth, caused such a serious difference between the calendar
+      reckoning and the natural seasons, that it soon had to be corrected. They
+      intercalated, therefore, after the twelfth month of each year and before
+      the first day of the ensuing year, five epagomenal days, which they termed
+      the "five days over and above the year."[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * There appears to be a tendency among Egyptologists now to
+     doubt the existence, under the Ancient Empire, of the five
+     epagomenal days, and as a fact they are nowhere to be found
+     expressly mentioned; but we know that the five gods of the
+     Osirian cycle were born during the epagomenal day (cf. p.
+     247 of this History), and the allusions to the Osirian
+     legend which are met with in the Pyramid texts, prove that
+     the days were added long before the time when those
+     inscriptions were cut. As the wording of the texts often
+     comes down from prehistoric times, it is most likely that
+     the invention of the epagomenal days is anterior to the
+     first Thinite and Memphite dynasties.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The legend of Osiris relates that Thot created them in order to permit
+      Nûît to give birth to all her children. These days constituted, at the end
+      of the "great year," a "little month," which considerably lessened the
+      difference between the solar and lunar computation, but did not entirely
+      do away with it, and the six hours and a few minutes of which the
+      Egyptians had not taken count gradually became the source of fresh
+      perplexities. They at length amounted to a whole day, which needed to be
+      added every four years to the regular three hundred and sixty days, a fact
+      which was unfortunately overlooked. The difficulty, at first only slight,
+      which this caused in public life, increased with time, and ended by
+      disturbing the harmony between the order of the calendar and that of
+      natural phenomena: at the end of a hundred and twenty years, the legal
+      year had gained a whole month on the actual year, and the 1st of Thot
+      anticipated the heliacal rising of Sothis by thirty days, instead of
+      coinciding with it as it ought. The astronomers of the Græco-Roman period,
+      after a retrospective examination of all the past history of their
+      country, discovered a very ingenious theory for obviating this unfortunate
+      discrepancy. If the omission of six hours annually entailed the loss of
+      one day every four years, the time would come, after three hundred and
+      sixty-five times four years, when the deficit would amount to an entire
+      year, and when, in consequence, fourteen hundred and sixty whole years
+      would exactly equal fourteen hundred and sixty-one incomplete years. The
+      agreement of the two years, which had been disturbed by the force of
+      circumstances, was re-established of itself after rather more than
+      fourteen and a half centuries: the opening of the civil year became
+      identical with the beginning of the astronomical year, and this again
+      coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, and therefore with the
+      official date of the inundation. To the Egyptians of Pharaonic times, this
+      simple and eminently practical method was unknown: by means of it hundreds
+      of generations, who suffered endless troubles from the recurring
+      difference between an uncertain and a fixed year, might have consoled
+      themselves with the satisfaction of knowing that a day would come when one
+      of their descendants would, for once in his life, see both years coincide
+      with mathematical accuracy, and the seasons appear at their normal times.
+      The Egyptian year might be compared to a watch which loses a definite
+      number of minutes daily. The owner does not take the trouble to calculate
+      a cycle in which the total of minutes lost will bring the watch round to
+      the correct time: he bears with the irregularity as long as his affairs do
+      not suffer by it; but when it causes him inconvenience, he alters the
+      hands to the right hour, and repeats this operation each time he finds it
+      necessary, without being guided by a fixed rule. In like manner the
+      Egyptian year fell into hopeless confusion with regard to the seasons, the
+      discrepancy continually increasing, until the difference became so great,
+      that the king or the priests had to adjust the two by a process similar to
+      that employed in the case of the watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The days, moreover, had each their special virtues, which it was necessary
+      for man to know if he wished to profit by the advantages, or to escape the
+      perils which they possessed for him. There was not one among them that did
+      not recall some incident of the divine wars, and had not witnessed a
+      battle between the partisans of Sit and those of Osiris or Râ; the
+      victories or the disasters which they had chronicled had as it were
+      stamped them with good or bad luck, and for that reason they remained for
+      ever auspicious or the reverse. It was on the 17th of Athyr that Typhon
+      had enticed his brother to come to him, and had murdered him in the middle
+      of a banquet. Every year, on this day, the tragedy that had taken place in
+      the earthly abode of the god seemed to be repeated afresh in the heights
+      of heaven. Just as at the moment of the death of Osiris, the powers of
+      good were at their weakest, and the sovereignty of evil everywhere
+      prevailed, so the whole of Nature, abandoned to the powers of darkness,
+      became inimical to man. Whatever he undertook on that day issued in
+      failure. If he went out to walk by the river-side, a crocodile would
+      attack him, as the crocodile sent by Sît had attacked Osiris. If he set
+      out on a journey, it was a last farewell which he bade to his family and
+      friends: death would meet him by the way. To escape this fatality, he must
+      shut himself up at home, and wait in inaction until the hours of danger
+      had passed and the sun of the ensuing day had put the evil one to
+      flight.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * On the 20th of Thot no work was to be done, no oxen
+     killed, no stranger received. On the 22nd no fish might be
+     eaten, no oil lamp was to be lighted. On the 23rd "put no
+     incense on the fire, nor kill big cattle, nor goats, nor
+     ducks; eat of no goose, nor of that which has lived." On the
+     26th "do absolutely nothing on this day," and the same
+     advice is found on the 7th of Paophi, on the 18th, on the
+     26th, on the 27th, and more than thirty times in the
+     remainder of the Sallier Calendar. On the 30th of Mechir it
+     is forbidden to speak aloud to any one.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was to his interest to know these adverse influences; and who would
+      have known them all, had not Thot pointed them out and marked them in his
+      calendars? One of these, long fragments of which have come down to us,
+      indicated briefly the character of each day, the gods who presided over
+      it, the perils which accompanied their patronage, or the good fortune
+      which might be expected of them. The details of it are not always
+      intelligible to us, as we are still ignorant of many of the episodes in
+      the life of Osiris. The Egyptians were acquainted with the matter from
+      childhood, and were guided with sufficient exactitude by these
+      indications. The hours of the night were all inauspicious; those of the
+      day were divided into three "seasons" of four hours each, of which some
+      were lucky, while others were invariably of ill omen. "The 4th of Tybi: <i>good,
+      good, good</i>. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be fortunate.
+      Whosoever is born on this day, will die more advanced in years than any of
+      his family; he will attain to a greater age than his father. The 5th of
+      Tybi: <i>inimical, inimical, inimical</i>. This is the day on which the
+      goddess Sokhîfc, mistress of the double white Palace, burnt the chiefs
+      when they raised an insurrection, came forth, and manifested themselves.
+      Offerings of bread to Shû, Phtah, Thot: burn incense to Râ, and to the
+      gods who are his followers, to Phtah, Thot, Hû-Sû, on this day. Whatsoever
+      thou seest on this day will be fortunate. The 6th of Tybi: <i>good, good,
+      good</i>. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be fortunate. The 7th of
+      Tybi: <i>inimical, inimical, inimical</i>. Do not join thyself to a woman
+      in the presence of the Eye of Horus. Beware of letting the fire go out
+      which is in thy house. The 8th of Tybi: <i>good, good, good</i>.
+      Whatsoever thou seest with thine eye this day, the Ennead of the gods will
+      grant to thee: the sick will recover. The 9th of Tybi: <i>good, good, good</i>.
+      The gods cry out for joy at noon this day. Bring offerings of festal cakes
+      and of fresh bread, which rejoice the heart of the gods and of the manes.
+      The 10th of Tybi: <i>inimical, inimical, mimical</i>. Do not set fire to
+      weeds on this day: it is the day on which the god Sap-hôû set fire to the
+      land of Btito. The 11th of Tybi: <i>inimical, inimical, inimical</i>. Do
+      not draw nigh to any flame on this day, for Râ entered the flames to
+      strike all his enemies, and whosoever draws nigh to them on this day, it
+      shall not be well with him during his whole life. The 12th of Tybi: <i>inimical,
+      inimical, inimical</i>. See that thou beholdest not a rat on this day, nor
+      approachest any rat within thy house: it is the day wherein Sokhît gave
+      forth the decrees." In these cases a little watchfulness or exercise of
+      memory sufficed to put a man on his guard against evil omens; but in many
+      circumstances all the vigilance in the world would not protect him, and
+      the fatality of the day would overtake him, without his being able to do
+      ought to avert it. No man can at will place the day of his birth at a
+      favourable time; he must accept it as it occurs, and yet it exercises a
+      decisive influence on the manner of his death. According as he enters the
+      world on the 4th, 5th, or 6th of Paophi, he either dies of marsh fever, of
+      love, or of drunkenness. The child of the 23rd perishes by the jaws of a
+      crocodile: that of the 27th is bitten and dies by a serpent. On the other
+      hand, the fortunate man whose birthday falls on the 9th or the 29th lives
+      to an extreme old age, and passes away peacefully, respected by all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0038" id="linklinkCimage-0038">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/304.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="304.jpg the Gods Fighting Foe The Magician Who Has Invoked Them. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from  the tracing by Golbnischeff,
+     <i>Die Metternich-Stele</i>, pi, iii. 14.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thot, having pointed out the evil to men, gave to them at the same time
+      the remedy. The magical arts of which he was the repository, made him
+      virtual master of the other gods. He knew their mystic names, their secret
+      weaknesses, the kind of peril they most feared, the ceremonies which
+      subdued them to his will, the prayers which they could not refuse to grant
+      under pain of misfortune or death. His wisdom, transmitted to his
+      worshippers, assured to them the same authority which he exercised upon
+      those in heaven, on earth, or in the nether world. The magicians
+      instructed in his school had, like the god, control of the words and
+      sounds which, emitted at the favourable moment with the "correct voice,"
+      would evoke the most formidable deities from beyond the confines of the
+      universe: they could bind and loose at will Osiris, Sit, Anubis, even Thot
+      himself; they could send them forth, and recall them, or constrain them to
+      work and fight for them. The extent of their power exposed the magicians
+      to terrible temptations; they were often led to use it to the detriment of
+      others, to satisfy their spite, or to gratify their grosser appetites.
+      Many, moreover, made a gain of their knowledge, putting it at the service
+      of the ignorant who would pay for it. When they were asked to plague or
+      get rid of an enemy, they had a hundred different ways of suddenly
+      surrounding him without his suspecting it: they tormented him with
+      deceptive or terrifying dreams; they harassed him with apparitions and
+      mysterious voices; they gave him as a prey to sicknesses, to wandering
+      spectres, who entered into him and slowly consumed him. They constrained,
+      even at a distance, the wills of men; they caused women to be the victims
+      of infatuations, to forsake those they had loved, and to love those they
+      had previously detested. In order to compose an irresistible charm, they
+      merely required a little blood from a person, a few nail-parings, some
+      hair, or a scrap of linen which he had worn, and which, from contact with
+      his skin, had become impregnated with his personality. Portions of these
+      were incorporated with the wax of a doll which they modelled, and clothed
+      to resemble their victim; thenceforward all the inflictions to which the
+      image was subjected were experienced by the original; he was consumed with
+      fever when his effigy was exposed to the fire, he was wounded when the
+      figure was pierced by a knife. The Pharaohs themselves had no immunity
+      from these spells.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Spells were employed against Ramses III., and the evidence
+     in the criminal charge brought against the magicians
+     explicitly mentions the wax figures and the philters used on
+     this occasion.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These machinations were wont to be met by others of the same kind, and
+      magic, if invoked at the right moment, was often able to annul the ills
+      which magic had begun. It was not indeed all-powerful against fate: the
+      man born on the 27th of Paophi would die of a snake-bite, whatever charm
+      he might use to protect himself. But if the day of his death were
+      foreordained, at all events the year in which it would occur was
+      uncertain, and it was easy for the magician to arrange that it should not
+      take place prematurely. A formula recited opportunely, a sentence of
+      prayer traced on a papyrus, a little statuette worn about the person, the
+      smallest amulet blessed and consecrated, put to flight the serpents who
+      were the instruments of fate. Those curious stelae on which we see Horus
+      half naked, standing on two crocodiles and brandishing in his fists
+      creatures which had reputed powers of fascination, were so many protecting
+      talismans; set up at the entrance to a room or a house, they kept off the
+      animals represented and brought the evil fate to nought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0039" id="linklinkCimage-0039">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/306.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="306.jpg the Child Horus on The Crocodiles. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Alexandrian stele in the
+     Gîzeh Museum. The reason for the appearance of so many
+     different animals in this stele and  in  others of  the
+     same nature, has   been given by Maspero, <i>Études de
+     Mythologie et d'Archéologie Égyptiennes</i>, vol. ii. pp. 417-
+     419; they were all supposed to possess the evil eye and to
+     be able to fascinate their victim before striking him.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Sooner or later destiny would doubtless prevail, and the moment would come
+      when the fated serpent, eluding all precautions, would succeed in carrying
+      out the sentence of death. At all events the man would have lived, perhaps
+      to the verge of old age, perhaps to the years of a hundred and ten, to
+      which the wisest of the Egyptians hoped to attain, and which period no man
+      born of mortal mother might exceed. If the arts of magic could thus
+      suspend the law of destiny, how much more efficacious were they when
+      combating the influences of secondary deities, the evil eye, and the
+      spells of man? Thot, who was the patron of sortilege, presided also over
+      exorcisms, and the criminal acts which some committed in his name could
+      have reparation made for them by others in his name. To malicious genii,
+      genii still stronger were opposed; to harmful amulets, those which were
+      protective; to destructive measures, vitalizing remedies; and this was not
+      even the most troublesome part of the magicians' task. Nobody, in fact,
+      among those delivered by their intervention escaped unhurt from the trials
+      to which, he had been subjected. The possessing spirits when they quitted
+      their victim generally left behind them traces of their occupation, in the
+      brain, heart, lungs, intestines&mdash;in fact, in the whole body. The
+      illnesses to which the human race is prone, were not indeed all brought
+      about by enchanters relentlessly persecuting their enemies, but they were
+      all attributed to the presence of an invisible being, whether spectre or
+      demon, who by some supernatural means had been made to enter the patient,
+      or who, unbidden, had by malice or necessity taken up his abode within
+      him. It was needful, after expelling the intruder, to re-establish the
+      health of the sufferer by means of fresh remedies. The study of simples
+      and other <i>materiæ medicæ</i> would furnish these; Thot had revealed
+      himself to man as the first magician, he became in like manner for them
+      the first physician and the first surgeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt is naturally a very salubrious country, and the Egyptians boasted
+      that they were "the healthiest of all mortals;" but they did not neglect
+      any precautions to maintain their health. "Every month, for three
+      successive days, they purged the system by means of emetics or clysters.
+      The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each
+      physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed
+      several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others for the head, or
+      the teeth, or the stomach, or for internal diseases." But the subdivision
+      was not carried to the extent that Herodotus would make us believe. It was
+      the custom to make a distinction only between the physician trained in the
+      priestly schools, and further instructed by daily practice and the study
+      of books,&mdash;the bone-setter attached to the worship of Sokhit who
+      treated fractures by the intercession of the goddess,&mdash;and the
+      exorcist who professed to cure by the sole virtue of amulets and magic
+      phrases. The professional doctor treated all kinds of maladies, but, as
+      with us, there were specialists for certain affections, who were consulted
+      in preference to general practitioners. If the number of these specialists
+      was so considerable as to attract the attention of strangers, it was
+      because the climatic character of the country necessitated it. Where
+      ophthalmia and affections of the intestines raged violently, we
+      necessarily find many oculists[*] as well as doctors for internal
+      maladies. The best instructed, however, knew but little of anatomy. As
+      with the Christian physicians of the Middle Ages, religious scruples
+      prevented the Egyptians from cutting open or dissecting, in the cause of
+      pure science, the dead body which was identified with that of Osiris. The
+      processes of embalming, which would have instructed them in anatomy, were
+      not intrusted to doctors; the horror was so great with which any one was
+      regarded who mutilated the human form, that the "paraschite," on whom
+      devolved the duty of making the necessary incisions in the dead, became
+      the object of universal execration: as soon as he had finished his task,
+      the assistants assaulted him, throwing stones at him with such violence
+      that he had to take to his heels to escape with his life.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Affections of the eyes occupy one-fourth of the <i>Ebers
+     Papyrus</i>.
+
+     **  Diodorus Siculus, i. 91.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The knowledge of what went on within the body was therefore but vague.
+      Life seemed to be a little air, a breath which was conveyed by the veins
+      from member to member. "The head contains twenty-two vessels, which draw
+      the spirits into it and send them thence to all parts of the body. There
+      are two vessels for the breasts, which communicate heat to the lower
+      parts. There are two vessels for the thighs, two for the neck, two for the
+      arms, two for the back of the head, two for the forehead, two for the
+      eyes, two for the eyelids, two for the right ear by which enter the
+      breaths of life, and two for the left ear which in like manner admit the
+      breaths of death."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0040" id="linklinkCimage-0040">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/310.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="310.jpg a Dead Man Receiving the Breath of Life. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville, in the
+     <i>Ægyptische Todtenbuch</i>, vol. i. pl. lxix. The deceased
+     carries in this hand a sail inflated by the wind,
+     symbolizing the air, and holds it to his nostrils that he
+     may inhale the breaths which will fill anew his arteries,
+     and bring life to his limbs.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The "breaths" entering by the right ear, are "the good airs, the delicious
+      airs of the north;" the sea-breeze which tempers the burning of summer and
+      renews the strength of man, continually weakened by the heat and
+      threatened with exhaustion. These vital spirits, entering the veins and
+      arteries by the ear or nose, mingled with the blood, which carried them to
+      all parts of the body; they sustained the animal, and were, so to speak,
+      the cause of its movement. The heart, the perpetual mover&mdash;<i>hâîti</i>&mdash;collected
+      them and redistributed them throughout the body: it was regarded as "the
+      beginning of all the members," and whatever part of the living body the
+      physician touched, "whether the head, the nape of the neck, the hands, the
+      breast, the arms, the legs, his hand lit upon the heart," and he felt it
+      beating under his fingers. Under the influence of the good breaths, the
+      vessels were inflated and worked regularly; under that of the evil, they
+      became inflamed, were obstructed, were hardened, or gave way, and the
+      physician had to remove the obstruction, allay the inflammation, and
+      re-establish their vigour and elasticity. At the moment of death, the
+      vital spirits "withdrew with the soul; the blood," deprived of air,
+      "became coagulated, the veins and arteries emptied themselves, and the
+      creature perished" for want of breaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The majority of the diseases from which the ancient Egyptians suffered,
+      are those which still attack their successors; ophthalmia, affections of
+      the stomach, abdomen, and bladder, intestinal worms, varicose veins,
+      ulcers in the leg, the Nile pimple, and finally the "divine mortal
+      malady," the <i>divinus morbus</i> of the Latins, epilepsy. Anaemia, from
+      which at least one-fourth of the present population suffers, was not less
+      prevalent than at present, if we may judge from the number of remedies
+      which were used against hematuria, the principal cause of it. The
+      fertility of the women entailed a number of infirmities or local
+      affections which the doctors attempted to relieve, not always with
+      success.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * With regard to the diseases of women, cf. <i>Ebers Papyrus</i>,
+     pis. xciii., xcviii., etc. Several of the recipes are
+     devoted to the solution of a problem which appears to have
+     greatly exercised the mind of the ancients, viz. the
+     determination of the sex of a child before its birth.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The science of those days treated externals only, and occupied itself
+      merely with symptoms easily determined by sight or touch; it never
+      suspected that troubles which showed themselves in two widely remote parts
+      of the body might only be different effects of the same illness, and they
+      classed as distinct maladies those indications which we now know to be the
+      symptoms of one disease. They were able, however, to determine fairly well
+      the specific characteristics of ordinary affections, and sometimes
+      described them in a precise and graphic fashion. "The abdomen is heavy,
+      the pit of the stomach painful, the heart burns and palpitates violently.
+      The clothing oppresses the sick man and he can barely support it.
+      Nocturnal thirsts. His heart is sick, as that of a man who has eaten of
+      the sycamore gum. The flesh loses its sensitiveness as that of a man
+      seized with illness. If he seek to satisfy a want of nature he finds no
+      relief. Say to this, 'There is an accumulation of humours in the abdomen,
+      which makes the heart sick. I will act.'" This is the beginning of gastric
+      fever so common in Egypt, and a modern physician could not better diagnose
+      such a case; the phraseology would be less flowery, but the analysis of
+      the symptoms would not differ from that given us by the ancient
+      practitioner. The medicaments recommended comprise nearly everything which
+      can in some way or other be swallowed, whether in solid, mucilaginous, or
+      liquid form. Vegetable remedies are reckoned by the score, from the most
+      modest herb to the largest tree, such as the sycamore, palm, acacia, and
+      cedar, of which the sawdust and shavings were supposed to possess both
+      antiseptic and emollient properties. Among the mineral substances are to
+      be noted sea-salt, alum, nitre, sulphate of copper, and a score of
+      different kinds of stones&mdash;among the latter the "memphite stone" was
+      distinguished for its virtues; if applied to parts of the body which were
+      lacerated or unhealthy, it acted as an anaesthetic and facilitated the
+      success of surgical operations. Flesh taken from the living subject, the
+      heart, the liver, the gall, the blood&mdash;either dried or liquid&mdash;of
+      animals, the hair and horn of stags, were all customarily used in many
+      cases where the motive determining their preference above other <i>materiæ
+      medicæ</i> is unknown to us. Many recipes puzzle us by their originality
+      and by the barbaric character of the ingredients recommended: "the milk of
+      a woman who has given birth to a boy," the dung of a lion, a tortoise's
+      brains, an old book boiled in oil.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Ebers Papyrus, pl. lxxviii. 1. 22&mdash;lxxix. 1. 1: "To
+     relieve a child who is constipated.&mdash;An old book. Boil it in
+     oil, and apply half to the stomach, to provoke evacuation."
+     It must not be forgotten that, the writings being on
+     papyrus, the old book in question, once boiled, would have
+     an effect analogous to that of our linseed-meal poultices.
+     If the physician recommended taking an old one, it was for
+     economical reasons merely; the Egyptians of the middle
+     classes would always have in their possession a number of
+     letters, copy-books, and other worthless waste papers, of
+     which they would gladly rid themselves in such a profitable
+     manner.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The medicaments compounded of these incongruous substances were often very
+      complicated. It was thought that the healing power was increased by
+      multiplying the curative elements; each ingredient acted upon a specific
+      region of the body, and after absorption, separated itself from the rest
+      to bring its influence to bear upon that region. The physician made use of
+      all the means which we employ to-day to introduce remedies into the human
+      system, whether pills or potions, poultices, or ointments, draughts or
+      clysters. Not only did he give the prescriptions, but he made them up,
+      thus combining the art of the physician with that of the dispenser. He
+      prescribed the ingredients, pounded them either separately or together, he
+      macerated them in the proper way, boiled them, reduced them by heating,
+      and filtered them through linen. Fat served him as the ordinary vehicle
+      for ointments, and pure water for potions; but he did not despise other
+      liquids, such as wine, beer (fermented or un-fermented), vinegar, milk,
+      olive oil, "ben" oil either crude or refined, even the urine of men and
+      animals: the whole, sweetened with honey, was taken hot, night and
+      morning. The use of more than one of these remedies became worldwide; the
+      Greeks borrowed them from the Egyptians; we have piously accepted them
+      from the Greeks; and our contemporaries still swallow with resignation
+      many of the abominable mixtures invented on the banks of the Nile, long
+      before the building of the Pyramids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Thot who had taught men arithmetic; Thot had revealed to them the
+      mysteries of geometry and mensuration; Thot had constructed instruments
+      and promulgated the laws of music; Thot had instituted the art of drawing,
+      and had codified its unchanging rules. He had been the inventor or patron
+      of all that was useful or beautiful in the Nile valley, and the climax of
+      his beneficence was reached by his invention of the principles of writing,
+      without which humanity would have been liable to forget his teaching, and
+      to lose the advantage of his discoveries. It has been sometimes questioned
+      whether writing, instead of having been a benefit to the Egyptians, did
+      not rather injure them. An old legend relates that when the god unfolded
+      his discovery to King Thamos, whose minister he was, the monarch
+      immediately raised an objection to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0041" id="linklinkCimage-0041">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/315.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="315.jpg Th0t Records the Years of The Life Of Ramses. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Bas-relief of the temple of Seti I. at Abydos, drawn by
+     Boudier; from a photograph by Beato. The god is marking with
+     his reed-pen upon the notches of a long frond of palm, the
+     duration in millions of years of the reign of Pharaoh upon
+     this earth, in accordance with the decree of the gods.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Children and young people, who had hitherto been forced to apply
+      themselves diligently to learn and retain whatever was taught them, now
+      that they possessed a means of storing up knowledge without trouble, would
+      cease to apply themselves, and would neglect to exercise their memories.
+      Whether Thamos was right or not, the criticism came too late: "the
+      ingenious art of painting words and of speaking to the eyes" had once for
+      all been acquired by the Egyptians, and through them by the greater part
+      of mankind. It was a very complex system, in which were united most of the
+      methods fitted for giving expression to thought, namely: those which were
+      limited to the presentment of the idea, and those which were intended to
+      suggest sounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0042" id="linklinkCimage-0042">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/316.jpg" width="100%" alt="316.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      At the outset the use was confined to signs intended to awaken the idea of
+      the object in the mind of the reader by the more or less faithful picture
+      of the object itself; for example, they depicted the sun by a centred
+      disc, the moon by a crescent, a lion by a lion in the act of walking, a
+      man by a small figure in a squatting attitude. As by this method it was
+      possible to convey only a very restricted number of entirely materialistic
+      concepts, it became necessary to have recourse to various artifices in
+      order to make up for the shortcomings of the ideograms properly so-called.
+      The part was put for the whole, the pupil in place of the whole eye, the
+      head of the ox instead of the complete ox. The Egyptians substituted cause
+      for effect and effect for cause, the instrument for the work accomplished,
+      and the disc of the sun signified the day; a smoking brazier the fire: the
+      brush, inkpot, and palette of the scribe denoted writing or written
+      documents. They conceived the idea of employing some object which
+      presented an actual or supposed resemblance to the notion to be conveyed;
+      thus, the foreparts of a lion denoted priority, supremacy, command; the
+      wasp symbolized royalty, and a tadpole stood for hundreds of thousands.
+      They ventured finally to use conventionalisms, as for instance when they
+      drew the axe for a god, or the ostrich-feather for justice; the sign in
+      these cases had only a conventional connection with the concept assigned
+      to it. At times two or three of these symbols were associated in order to
+      express conjointly an idea which would have been inadequately rendered by
+      one of them alone: a five-pointed star placed under an inverted crescent
+      moon denoted a month, a calf running before the sign for water indicated
+      thirst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0043" id="linklinkCimage-0043">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/317.jpg" width="100%" alt="317.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      All these artifices combined furnished, however, but a very incomplete
+      means of seizing and transmitting thought. When the writer had written out
+      twenty or thirty of these signs and the ideas which they were supposed to
+      embody, he had before him only the skeleton of a sentence, from which the
+      flesh and sinews had disappeared; the tone and rhythm of the words were
+      wanting, as were also the indications of gender, number, person, and
+      inflection, which distinguish the different parts of speech and determine
+      the varying relations between them. Besides this, in order to understand
+      for himself and to guess the meaning of the author, the reader was obliged
+      to translate the symbols which he deciphered, by means of words which
+      represented in the spoken language the pronunciation of each symbol.
+      Whenever he looked at them, they suggested to him both the idea and the
+      word for the idea, and consequently a sound or group of sounds; when each
+      of them had thus acquired three or four invariable associations of sound,
+      he forgot their purely ideographic value and accustomed himself to
+      consider them merely as notations of sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first experiment in phonetics was a species of rebus, where each of
+      the signs, divorced from its original sense, served to represent several
+      words, similar in sound, but differing in meaning in the spoken language.
+      The same group of articulations, <i>Naûfir, Nofir</i>, conveyed in
+      Egyptian the concrete idea of a lute and the abstract idea of beauty; the
+      sign expressed at once the lute and beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0044" id="linklinkCimage-0044">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/318.jpg" width="100%" alt="318.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The beetle was called Khopirru, and the verb "to be" was pronounced <i>khopirû</i>:
+      the figure of the beetle &amp; consequently signified both the insect and
+      the verb, and by further combining with it other signs, the articulation
+      of each corresponding syllable was given in detail. The sieve <i>Miaû</i>,
+      the mat <i>pu, pi</i>, the mouth <i>ra, rû</i>, gave the formula <i>khaû-pi-rû</i>,
+      which was equivalent to the sound of <i>khopirû</i>, the verb "to be:"
+      grouped together, they denoted in writing the concept of "to be" by means
+      of a triple rebus. In this system, each syllable of a word could be
+      represented by one of several signs, all sounding alike. One-half of these
+      "syllables" stood for open, the other half for closed syllables, and the
+      use of the former soon brought about the formation of a true alphabet. The
+      final vowel in them became detached, and left only the remaining consonant&mdash;for
+      example, <i>r in rû, h in ha, n in ni, b in bû</i>&mdash;so that rû, ha,
+      bû, eventually stood for r, h, n, and b only. This process in the course
+      of time having been applied to a certain number of syllables, furnished a
+      fairly large alphabet, in which several letters represented each of the
+      twenty-two chief articulations, which the scribes considered sufficient
+      for their purposes. The signs corresponding to one and the same letter
+      were homophones or "equivalents in sound"&mdash;[ ] are homophones, just
+      as [ ] and [ ], because each of them, in the group to which it belongs,
+      may be indifferently used to translate to the eye the articulations m or
+      n. One would have thought that when the Egyptians had arrived thus far,
+      they would have been led, as a matter of course, to reject the various
+      characters which they had used each in its turn, in order to retain an
+      alphabet only.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0045" id="linklinkCimage-0045">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/319.jpg" width="100%" alt="319.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But the true spirit of invention, of which they had given proof, abandoned
+      them here as elsewhere: if the merit of a discovery was often their due,
+      they were rarely able to bring their invention to perfection. They kept
+      the ideographic and syllabic signs which they had used at the outset, and,
+      with the residue of their successive notations, made for themselves a most
+      complicated system, in which syllables and ideograms were mingled with
+      letters properly so called. There is a little of everything in an Egyptian
+      phrase, sometimes even in a word; as, for instance, in [ ] maszirû, the
+      ear, or [ ] kherôû, the voice; there are the syllables [ ] kher, the
+      ordinary letters [ ], which complete the phonetic pronunciation, and
+      finally the ideograms, namely, [ ], which gives the picture of the ear by
+      the side of the written word for it, and [ ] which proves that the letters
+      represent a term designating an action of the mouth. This medley had its
+      advantages; it enabled the Egyptians to make clear, by the picture of the
+      object, the sense of words which letters alone might sometimes
+      insufficiently explain. The system demanded a serious effort of memory and
+      long years of study; indeed, many people never completely mastered it. The
+      picturesque appearance of the sentences, in which we see representations
+      of men, animals, furniture, weapons, and tools grouped together in
+      successive little pictures, rendered hieroglyphic writing specially
+      suitable for the decoration of the temples of the gods or the palaces of
+      kings. Mingled with scenes of worship, sacrifice, battle, or private life,
+      the inscriptions frame or separate groups of personages, and occupy the
+      vacant spaces which the sculptor or painter was at a loss to fill;
+      hieroglyphic writing is pre-eminently a monumental script. For the
+      ordinary purposes of life it was traced in black or red ink on fragments
+      of limestone or pottery, or on wooden tablets covered with stucco, and
+      specially on the fibres of papyrus. The exigencies of haste and the
+      unskilfulness of scribes soon changed both its appearance and its
+      elements; the characters when contracted, superimposed and united to one
+      another with connecting strokes, preserved only the most distant
+      resemblance to the persons or things which they had originally
+      represented. This cursive writing, which was somewhat incorrectly termed
+      hieratic, was used only for public or private documents, for
+      administrative correspondence, or for the propagation of literary,
+      scientific, and religious works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was thus that tradition was pleased to ascribe to the gods, and among
+      them to Thot&mdash;the doubly great&mdash;the invention of all the arts
+      and sciences which gave to Egypt its glory and prosperity. It was clear,
+      not only to the vulgar, but to the wisest of the nation, that, had their
+      ancestors been left merely to their own resources, they would never have
+      succeeded in raising themselves much above the level of the brutes. The
+      idea that a discovery of importance to the country could have risen in a
+      human brain, and, once made known, could have been spread and developed by
+      the efforts of successive generations, appeared to them impossible to
+      accept. They believed that every art, every trade, had remained unaltered
+      from the outset, and if some novelty in its aspect tended to show them
+      their error, they preferred to imagine a divine intervention, rather than
+      be undeceived. The mystic writing, inserted as chapter sixty-four in the
+      <i>Book of the Dead</i>, and which subsequently was supposed to be of
+      decisive moment to the future life of man, was, as they knew, posterior in
+      date to the other formulas of which this book was composed; they did not,
+      however, regard it any the less as being of divine origin. It had been
+      found one day, without any one knowing whence it came, traced in blue
+      characters on a plaque of alabaster, at the foot of the statue of Thot, in
+      the sanctuary of Hermopolis. A prince, Hardiduf, had discovered it in his
+      travels, and regarding it as a miraculous object, had brought it to his
+      sovereign. This king, according to some, was Hûsaphaîti of the first
+      dynasty, but by others was believed to be the pious Mykerinos. In the same
+      way, the book on medicine, dealing with the diseases of women, was held
+      not to be the work of a practitioner; it had revealed itself to a priest
+      watching at night before the Holy of Holies in the temple of Isis at
+      Coptos. "Although the earth was plunged into darkness, the moon shone upon
+      it and enveloped it with light. It was sent as a great wonder to the
+      holiness of King Kheops, the just of speech." The gods had thus exercised
+      a direct influence upon men until they became entirely civilized, and this
+      work of culture was apportioned among the three divine dynasties according
+      to the strength of each. The first, which comprised the most vigorous
+      divinities, had accomplished the more difficult task of establishing the
+      world on a solid basis; the second had carried on the education of the
+      Egyptians; and the third had regulated, in all its minutiae, the religious
+      constitution of the country. When there was nothing more demanding
+      supernatural strength or intelligence to establish it, the gods returned
+      to heaven, and were succeeded on the throne by mortal men. One tradition
+      maintained dogmatically that the first human king whose memory it
+      preserved, followed immediately after the last of the gods, who, in
+      quitting the palace, had made over the crown to man as his heir, and that
+      the change of nature had not entailed any interruption in the line of
+      sovereigns. Another tradition would not allow that the contact between the
+      human and divine series had been so close. Between the Ennead and Menés,
+      it intercalated one or more lines of Theban or Thinite kings; but these
+      were of so formless, shadowy, and undefined an aspect, that they were
+      called Manes, and there was attributed to them at most only a passive
+      existence, as of persons who had always been in the condition of the dead,
+      and had never been subjected to the trouble of passing through life. Menés
+      was the first in order of those who were actually living. From his time,
+      the Egyptians claimed to possess an uninterrupted list of the Pharaohs who
+      had ruled over the Nile valley. As far back as the XVIIIth dynasty this
+      list was written upon papyrus, and furnished the number of years that each
+      prince occupied the throne, or the length of his life.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The only one of these lists which we possess, the "Turin
+     Royal Papyrus," was bought, nearly intact, at Thebes, by
+     Drovetti, about 1818, but was accidentally injured by him in
+     bringing home. The fragments of it were acquired, together
+     with the rest of the collection, by the Piedmontese
+     Government in 1820, and placed in the Turin Museum, where
+     Champollion saw and drew attention to them in 1824.
+     Seyffarth carefully collected and arranged them in the order
+     in which they now are; subsequently Lepsius gave a facsimile
+     of them in 1840, in his <i>Auswahl der wichtigsten Urhunden</i>,
+     pls. i.-vi., but this did not include the verso;
+     Champollion-Figeac edited in 1847, in the <i>Revue
+     Archéologique</i>, 1st series, vol. vi., the tracings taken by
+     the younger Champollion before Seyffarth's arrangement;
+     lastly, Wilkinson published the whole in detail in 1851.
+     Since then, the document has been the subject of continuous
+     investigation: E. de Rougé has reconstructed, in an almost
+     conclusive manner, the pages containing the first six
+     dynasties, and Lauth, with less certainty, those which deal
+     with the eight following dynasties.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Extracts from it were inscribed in the temples, or even in the tombs of
+      private persons; and three of these abridged catalogues are still extant,
+      two coming from the temples of Seti I. and Ramses II. at Abydos,[*] while
+      the other was discovered in the tomb of a person of rank named Tunari, at
+      Saqqâra.[**] They divided this interminable succession of often
+      problematical personages into dynasties, following in this division, rules
+      of which we are ignorant, and which varied in the course of ages. In the
+      time of the Ramessides, names in the list which subsequently under the
+      Lagides formed five groups were made to constitute one single
+      dynasty.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The first table of Abydos, unfortunately incomplete, was
+     discovered in the temple of Ramses II. by Banks, in 1818;
+     the copy published by Caillaud and by Salt served as a
+     foundation for Champollion's first investigations on the
+     history of Egypt. The original, brought to France by Mimaut,
+     was acquired by England, and is now in the British Museum.
+     The second table, which is complete, all but a few signs,
+     was brought to light by Mariette in 1864, in the excavations
+     at Abydos, and was immediately noticed and published by
+     Dùmichen. The text of it is to be found in Mariette, <i>La
+     Nouvelle Table d'Abydos (Revue Archéologique</i>, 2nd series,
+     vol. xiii.), and <i>Abydos</i>, vol. i. pl. 43.
+
+     **  The table of Saqqâra, discovered in 1863, has been
+     published by Mariette, <i>La Table de Saqqâra (Revue
+     Archéologique</i>, 2nd series, vol. x. p. 169, et seq.), and
+     reproduced in the <i>Monuments Divers</i>, pl. 58.
+
+     ***  The Royal Canon of Turin, which dates from the
+     Ramesside period, gives, indeed, the names of these early
+     kings without a break, until the list reaches Unas; at this
+     point it sums up the number of Pharaohs and the aggregate
+     years of their reigns, thus indicating the end of a dynasty.
+     In the intervals between the dynasties rubrics are placed,
+     pointing out the changes which took place in the order of
+     direct succession. The division of the same group of
+     sovereigns into five dynasties has been preserved to us by
+     Manetho.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Manetho of Sebennytos, who wrote a history of Europe for the use of
+      Alexandrine Greeks, had adopted, on some unknown authority, a division of
+      thirty-one dynasties from Menés to the Macedonian Conquest, and his system
+      has prevailed&mdash;not, indeed, on account of its excellence, but because
+      it is the only complete one which has come down to us.[*] All the families
+      inscribed in his lists ruled in succession.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The best restoration of the system of Manetho is that by
+     Lepsius, <i>Das Konigsbuch der Alten Ægypter</i>, which should be
+     completed and corrected from the memoirs of Lauth, Lieblein,
+     Krall, and Unger. A common fault attaches to all these
+     memoirs, so remarkable in many respects. They regard the
+     work of Manetho, not as representing a more or less
+     ingenious system applied to Egyptian history, but as
+     furnishing an authentic scheme of this history, in which it
+     is necessary to enclose all the royal names which the
+     monuments have revealed, and are still daily revealing to
+     us.
+
+     **  E. de Rougé triumphantly demonstrated, in opposition to
+     Bunsen, now nearly fifty years ago, that all Manetho's
+     dynasties are successive, and the monuments discovered from
+     year to year in Egypt have confirmed his demonstration in
+     every detail.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The country was no doubt frequently broken up into a dozen or more
+      independent states, each possessing its own kings during several
+      generations; but the annalists had from the outset discarded these
+      collateral lines, and recognized only one legitimate dynasty, of which the
+      rest were but vassals. Their theory of legitimacy does not always agree
+      with actual history, and the particular line of princes which they
+      rejected as usurpers represented at times the only family possessing true
+      rights to the crown.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It is enough to give two striking examples of this. The
+     royal lists of the time of the Ramessides suppress, at the
+     end of the XVIIIth dynasty, Amenôthes IV. and several of his
+     successors, and give the following sequence&mdash;Amenôthes
+     III., Harmhabît, Ramses I., without any apparent hiatus;
+     Manetho, on the contrary, replaces the kings who were
+     omitted, and keeps approximately to the real order between
+     Horos (Amenôthes III.) and Armais (Harmhabît). Again, the
+     official tradition of the XXth dynasty gives, between Ramses
+     II. and Ramses III., the sequence&mdash;Mînephtah, Seti IL,
+     Nakht-Seti; Manetho, on the other hand, gives Amenemes
+     followed by Thûôris, who appear to correspond to the
+     Amenmeses and Siphtah of contemporary monuments, but, after
+     Mînephtah, he omits Seti II. and Nakhîtou-Seti, the father
+     of Ramses III.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In Egypt, as elsewhere, the official chroniclers were often obliged to
+      accommodate the past to the exigencies of the present, and to manipulate
+      the annals to suit the reigning party; while obeying their orders the
+      chroniclers deceived posterity, and it is only by a rare chance that we
+      can succeed in detecting them in the act of falsification, and can
+      re-establish the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0046" id="linklinkCimage-0046">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/325.jpg" width="100%" alt="325.jpg Table of the Kings " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The system of Manetho, in the state in which it has been handed down to us
+      by epitomizers, has rendered, and continues to render, service to science;
+      if it is not the actual history of Egypt, it is a sufficiently faithful
+      substitute to warrant our not neglecting it when we wish to understand and
+      reconstruct the sequence of events. His dynasties furnish the necessary
+      framework for most of the events and revolutions, of which the monuments
+      have preserved us a record. At the outset, the centre to which the affairs
+      of the country gravitated was in the extreme north of the valley. The
+      principality which extended from the entrance of the Fayûm to the apex of
+      the Delta, and subsequently the town of Memphis itself, imposed their
+      sovereigns upon the remaining nomes, served as an emporium for commerce
+      and national industries, and received homage and tribute from neighbouring
+      peoples. About the time of the VIth dynasty this centre of gravity was
+      displaced, and tended towards the interior; it was arrested for a short
+      time at Heracleo-polis (IXth and Xth dynasties), and ended by fixing
+      itself at Thebes (XIth dynasty). From henceforth Thebes became the
+      capital, and furnished Egypt with her rulers. With the exception of the
+      XIVth Xoïte dynasty, all the families occupying the throne from the XIth
+      to the XXth dynasty were Theban. When the barbarian shepherds invaded
+      Africa from Asia, the Thebaïd became the last refuge and bulwark of
+      Egyptian nationality; its chiefs struggled for many centuries against the
+      conquerors before they were able to deliver the rest of the valley. It was
+      a Theban dynasty, the XVIIIth, which inaugurated the era of foreign
+      conquest; but after the XIXth, a movement, the reverse of that which had
+      taken place towards the end of the first period, brought back the centre
+      of gravity, little by little, towards the north of the country. From the
+      time of the XXIst dynasty, Thebes ceased to hold the position of capital:
+      Tanis, Bubastis, Mendes, Sebennytos, and above all, Sais, disputed the
+      supremacy with each other, and political life was concentrated in the
+      maritime provinces. Those of the interior, ruined by Ethiopian and
+      Assyrian invasions, lost their influence and gradually dwindled away.
+      Thebes became impoverished and depopulated; it fell into ruins, and soon
+      was nothing more than a resort for devotees or travellers. The history of
+      Egypt is, therefore, divided into three periods, each corresponding to the
+      suzerainty of a town or a principality:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I.&mdash;Memphite Period, usually called the "Ancient Empire," from the
+      Ist to the Xth dynasty: kings of Memphite origin ruled over the whole of
+      Egypt during the greater part of this epoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II.&mdash;Theban Period, from the XIth to the XXth dynasty. It is divided
+      into two parts by the invasion of the Shepherds (XVIth dynasty):
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      a. The first Theban Empire (Middle Empire), from the XIth to the XIVth
+      dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      b. The new Theban Empire, from the XVIIth to the XXth dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III.&mdash;Saïte Period, from the XXIst to the XXXth dynasty, divided into
+      two unequal parts by the Persian Conquest:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      a. The first Saïte period, from the XXIst to the XXVIth dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      b. The second Saïte period, from the XXVIIIth to the XXXth dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Memphites had created the monarchy. The Thebans extended the rule of
+      Egypt far and wide, and made of her a conquering state: for nearly six
+      centuries she ruled over the Upper Nile and over Western Asia. Under the
+      Saïtes she retired gradually within her natural frontiers, and from having
+      been aggressive became assailed, and suffered herself to be crushed in
+      turn by all the nations she had once oppressed.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The division into Ancient, Middle, and New Empire,
+     proposed by Lepsius, has the disadvantage of not taking into
+     account the influence which the removal of the seat of the
+     dynasties exercised on the history of the country. The
+     arrangement which I have here adopted was first put forward
+     in the <i>Revue critique</i>, 1873, vol. i. pp. 82, 83.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended to
+      unite the country under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that the
+      feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two groups,
+      each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the chief focus
+      in the north, from which civilization radiated over the rich plains and
+      the marshes of the Delta. Its colleges of priests had collected,
+      condensed, and arranged the principal myths of the local religions; the
+      Ennead to which it gave conception would never have obtained the
+      popularity which we must acknowledge it had, if its princes had not
+      exercised, for at least some period, an actual suzerainty over the
+      neighbouring plains. It was around Heliopolis that the kingdom of Lower
+      Egypt was organized; everything there bore traces of Heliopolitan theories&mdash;the
+      protocol of the kings, their supposed descent from Râ, and the
+      enthusiastic worship which they offered to the sun. The Delta, owing to
+      its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited for government from one
+      centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow, tortuous, and stretching like a
+      thin strip on either bank of the river, did not lend itself to so complete
+      a unity. It, too, represented a single kingdom, having the reed and the
+      lotus for its emblems; but its component parts were more loosely united,
+      its religion was less systematized, and it lacked a well-placed city to
+      serve as a political and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained schools
+      of theologians who certainly played an important part in the development
+      of myths and dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was never widely
+      felt. In the south, Siût disputed their supremacy, and Heracleopolis
+      stopped their road to the north. These three cities thwarted and
+      neutralized one another, and not one of them ever succeeded in obtaining a
+      lasting authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two kingdoms had its own
+      natural advantages and its system of government, which gave to it a
+      particular character, and stamped it, as it were, with a distinct
+      personality down to its latest days. The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more
+      powerful, richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more
+      active and enterprising rulers. It is to one of the latter, Mini or Menés
+      of Thinis, that tradition ascribes the honour of having fused the two
+      Egypts into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of the
+      human dynasties. Thinis figured in the historic period as one of the least
+      of Egyptian cities. It barely maintained an existence on the left bank of
+      the Nile, if not on the exact spot now occupied by Girgeh, at least only a
+      short distance from it.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The site of Thinis is not yet satisfactorily identified.
+     It is neither at Kom-es-Sultân, as Mariette thought, nor,
+     according to the hypothesis of A. Schmidt, at El-Kherbeh.
+     Brugsch has proposed to fix the site at the village of
+     Tineh, near Berdis, and is followed in this by Dumichen. The
+     present tendency is to identify it either with Girgeh
+     itself, or with one of the small neighbouring towns&mdash;for
+     example, Birbeh&mdash;where there are some ancient ruins; this
+     was also the opinion of Champollion and of Nester L'hôte. I
+     may mention that, in a frequently quoted passage of
+     Hellanicos, Zoèga corrects the reading [Greek phrase], which
+     would once more give us the name of Thinis: the mention of
+     this town as being "situated on the river," would be a fresh
+     reason for its identification with Girgeh.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0047" id="linklinkCimage-0047">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/332.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="332.jpg Plan of the Ruins Of Abydos, Made by Mariette In 1865 and 1875. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The principality of the Osirian Reliquary, of which it was the metropolis,
+      occupied the valley from one mountain range to the other, and gradually
+      extended across the desert as far as the Great Theban Oasis. Its
+      inhabitants worshipped a sky-god, Anhûri, or rather two twin gods,
+      Anhûri-Shû, who were speedily amalgamated with the solar deities and
+      became a warlike personification of Râ. Anhûri-Shû, like all the other
+      solar manifestations, came to be associated with a goddess having the form
+      or head of a lioness&mdash;a Sokhît, who took for the occasion the epithet
+      of Mîhît, the northern one. Some of the dead from this city are buried on
+      the other side of the Nile, near the modern village of Mesheikh, at the
+      foot of the Arabian chain, whose steep cliffs here approach somewhat near
+      the river: the principal necropolis was at some distance to the east, near
+      the sacred town of Abydos. It would appear that, at the outset, Abydos was
+      the capital of the country, for the entire nome bore the same name as the
+      city, and had adopted for its symbol the representation of the reliquary
+      in which the god reposed. In very early times Abydos fell into decay, and
+      resigned its political rank to Thinis, but its religious importance
+      remained unimpaired. The city occupied a long and narrow strip of land
+      between the canal and the first slopes of the Libyan mountains. A brick
+      fortress defended it from the incursions of the Bedouin, and beside it the
+      temple of the god of the dead reared its naked walls. Here, Anhûri, having
+      passed from life to death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentît,
+      the chief of that western region whither souls repair on quitting this
+      earth. It is impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what
+      political combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with
+      Osiris of Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote antiquity;
+      it had become an established fact long before the most ancient sacred
+      books were compiled. Osiris Khontamentît grew rapidly in popular favour,
+      and his temple attracted annually an increasing number of pilgrims. The
+      Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of mysterious paradise,
+      whither the dead went in search of peace and happiness. It was called
+      Uîfc, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after it had become an actual
+      Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its ancient purpose survived in
+      the minds of the people, so that the "cleft," or gorge in the mountain
+      through which the doubles journeyed towards it, never ceased to be
+      regarded as one of the gates of the other world. At the time of the New
+      Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all parts of the valley; they
+      there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in order to embark with him and
+      enter safely the dominions of Khontamentît. Abydos, even before the
+      historic period, was the only town, and its god the only god, whose
+      worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them all with an equal
+      devotion. The excavations of the last few years have brought to light
+      some, at all events, of the oldest Pharaohs known to the Egyptian
+      annalists, namely, those whom they placed in their first human dynasties;
+      and the locality where the monuments of these princes were discovered,
+      shows us that these writers were correct in representing Thinis as playing
+      an important part in the history of the early ages of their country. If
+      the tomb of Menés&mdash;that sovereign whom we are inclined to look upon
+      as the first king of the official lists&mdash;lies near the village of
+      Nagadeh, not far from Thebes,[*] those of his immediate successors are
+      close to Thinis, in the cemeteries of Abydos.[**] They stand at the very
+      foot of the Libyan hills, near the entrance to the ravine&mdash;the
+      "Cleft"&mdash;through which the mysterious oasis was reached, and thither
+      the souls flocked in order that they might enter by a safe way the land
+      beyond the grave.[***]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The objects found during these excavations are now in  the
+     Gîzeh Museum.
+
+     **  The credit of having discovered this important
+     necropolis, and of having brought to light the earliest
+     known monuments of the first dynasties, is entirely due to
+     Amélineau. He carried on important work there during four
+     years, from 1895 to 1899: unfortunately its success was
+     impaired by the theories which he elaborated with regard to
+     the new monuments, and by the delay in publishing an account
+     of the objects which remained in his possession.
+
+     ***  For the "Cleft," cf. supra, pp. 281, 282, 334.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The mass of pottery, whole and broken, which has accumulated on this site
+      from the offerings of centuries has obtained for it among the Fellahin the
+      name of Omm-el-G-aâb&mdash;"the mother of pots." The tombs there lie in
+      serried ranks. They present for the most part a rough model of the
+      pyramids of the Memphite period&mdash;rectangular structures of bricks
+      without mortar rising slightly above the level of the plain. The funeral
+      chamber occupies the centre of each, and is partly hollowed out of the
+      soil, like a shallow well, the sides being bricked. It had a flat timber
+      roof, covered by a layer of about three feet of sand; the floor also was
+      of wood, and in several cases the remains of the beams of both ceiling and
+      pavement have been brought to light. The body of the royal inmate was laid
+      in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by its funeral furniture and by a
+      part of the offerings. The remainder was placed in the little rooms which
+      opened out of the principal vault, sometimes on the same level, sometimes
+      on one higher than itself; after their contents had been laid within them,
+      the entrance to these rooms was generally walled up. Human bodies have
+      been found inside them, probably those of slaves killed at the funeral
+      that they might wait upon the dead in his life beyond the grave.[*] The
+      objects placed in these chambers were mostly offerings, but besides these
+      were coarse stelae bearing the name of a person, and dictated to "the
+      double of his luminary."[**] Some of them mention a dwarf[***] or a
+      favourite dog of the sovereign, who accompanied his master into the tomb.
+      Tablets of ivory or bone skilfully incised furnish us with scenes
+      representing some of the ceremonies of the deification of the king in his
+      lifetime and the sacrifices offered at the time of his burial;[****] in
+      rarer instances they record his exploits.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  El. Petrie, The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty, part i.
+     p. 14.
+
+     **  The "luminous double" or the "double of his luminary" is
+     doubtless that luminous spectre which haunted the tombs and
+     even the houses of the living during the night, and which I
+     have mentioned, supra, p. 160.
+
+     ***  Petrie found the skeletons of two dwarfs, probably the
+     very two to whom the two stelae (Nos. 36, 37) in the tomb of
+     Semempses were raised. Was one of these dwarfs one of the
+     <i>Danga</i> of Puanît who were sought after by the Pharaohs of
+     the Memphite dynasties?
+
+     ****  This was the ceremony called by the Egyptians "The
+     Festival of the Foundation "&mdash;<i>habu sadu</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The offerings themselves were such as we meet with in burials of a
+      subsequent age&mdash;bread, cakes, meat, and poultry of various sorts&mdash;indeed,
+      everything we find mentioned in the lists inscribed in the tombs of the
+      later dynasties, particularly the jars of wine and liquors, on the clay
+      bungs of which are still legible the impression of the signet bearing the
+      name of the sovereign for whose use they were sealed. Besides stuffs and
+      mats, the furniture comprised chairs, beds, stools, an enormous number of
+      vases, some in coarse pottery for common use, others in choice stone such
+      as diorite, granite, or rock crystal very finely worked, on the fragments
+      of all of which may be read cut in outline the names and preamble of the
+      Pharaoh to whom the object belonged. The ceremonial of the funerary
+      offering and its significance was already fully developed at this early
+      period; this can be gathered by the very nature of the objects buried with
+      the deceased, by their number, quantity, and by the manner in which they
+      were arranged. Like their successors in the Egypt of later times, these
+      ancient kings expected to continue their material existence within the
+      tomb, and they took precautions that life there should be as comfortable
+      as circumstances should permit. Access to the tomb was sometimes gained by
+      a sloping passage or staircase; this made it possible to see if everything
+      within was in a satisfactory condition. After the dead had been enclosed
+      in his chamber, and five or six feet of sand had been spread over the
+      beams which formed its roof, the position of the tomb was shown merely by
+      a scarcely perceptible rise in the soil of the necropolis, and its site
+      would soon have been forgotten, if its easternmost limits had not been
+      marked by two large stelae on which were carefully engraved one of the
+      appellations of the king&mdash;that of his double, or his Horus name.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * For the Horus name of the Pharaohs, see vol. ïi., pp. 23-
+     25.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was on this spot, upon an altar placed between the two stelæ, that the
+      commemorative ceremonies were celebrated, and the provisions renewed on
+      certain days fixed by the religious law. Groups of private tombs were
+      scattered around,&mdash;the resting-places of the chief officers of the
+      sovereign, the departed Pharaoh being thus surrounded in death by the same
+      courtiers as those who had attended him during his earthly existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The princes, whose names and titles have been revealed to us by the
+      inscriptions on these tombs, have not by any means been all classified as
+      yet, the prevailing custom at that period having been to designate them by
+      their Horus names, but rarely by their proper names, which latter is the
+      only one which figures in the official lists which we possess of the
+      Egyptian kings. A few texts, more explicit than the rest, enable us to
+      identify three of them with the Usaphais, the Miebis, and the Semempses of
+      Manetho&mdash;the fifth, sixth, and seventh kings of the Ist dynasty.[*]
+      The fact that they are buried in the necropolis of Abydos apparently
+      justifies the opinion of the Egyptian chroniclers that they were natives
+      of Thinis. Is the Menés who usually figures at their head[**] also a
+      Thinite prince?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The credit is due to Sethe of having attributed their
+     ordinary names to several of the kings of the Ist dynasty
+     with Horus names only which were found by Amélineau, and
+     these identifications have been accepted by all
+     Egyptologists. Pétrie discovered quite recently on some
+     fragments of vases the Horus names of these same princes,
+     together with their ordinary names. The Usaphais, the
+     Miebis, and the Semempses of Manetho are now satisfactorily
+     identified with three of the Pharaohs discovered by
+     Amélineau and by Pétrie.
+
+     **  In the time of Seti I. and Ramses II. he heads the list
+     of the Table of Abydos. Under Ramses II. his statue was
+     carried in procession, preceding all  the  other  royal
+     statues.    Finally,   the  "Royal  Papyrus"  of  Turin,
+     written in the time of Ramses I., begins the entire series
+     of the human Pharaohs with his name.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Several scholars believe that his ordinary name, Mini, is to be read on an
+      ivory tablet engraved for a sovereign whose Horus name&mdash;Ahauîti, the
+      warlike&mdash;is known to us from several documents, and whose tomb also
+      has been discovered, but at Nagadeh. It is a great rectangular structure
+      of bricks 165 feet long and 84 broad, the external walls of which were
+      originally ornamented by deep polygonal grooves, resembling those which
+      score the façade of Chaldæan buildings, but the Nagadeh tomjb has a second
+      brick wall which fills up all the hollows left in the first one, and thus
+      hides the primitive decoration of the monument. The building contains
+      twenty-one chambers, five of which in the centre apparently constituted
+      the dwelling of the deceased, while the others, grouped around these,
+      serve as storehouses from whence he could draw his provisions at will. Did
+      the king buried within indeed bear the name of Menés,[*] and if such was
+      the case, how are we to reconcile the tradition of his Thinite origin with
+      the existence of his far-off tomb in the neighbourhood of Thebes?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The sign <i>Manu</i>, which appears on the ivory tablet found
+     in this tomb, has been interpreted as a king's name, and
+     consequently inferred to be Menés. This reading has been
+     disputed on various sides, and the point remains, therefore,
+     a contested one until further discovery.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Objects bearing his Horus name have been found at Omm-el-Gaâb, and it is
+      evident that he belonged to the same age as the sovereigns interred in
+      this necropolis. If, indeed, Menés was really his personal name, there is
+      no reason against his being the Menés of tradition, he whom the Pharaohs
+      of the glorious Theban dynasties regarded as the earliest of their purely
+      human ancestors. Whether he was really the first king who reigned over the
+      whole of Egypt, or whether he had been preceded by other sovereigns whose
+      monuments we may find in some site still unexplored, is a matter for
+      conjecture. That princes had exercised authority in various parts of the
+      country is still uncertain, but that the Egyptian historians did not know
+      them, seems to prove that they had left no written records of their names.
+      At any rate, a Menés lived who reigned at the outset of history, and
+      doubtless before long the Nile valley, when more carefully explored, will
+      yield us monuments recording his actions and determining his date. The
+      civilization of the Egypt of his time was ruder than that with which we
+      have hitherto been familiar on its soil, but even at that early period it
+      was almost as complete. It had its industries and its arts, of which the
+      cemeteries furnish us daily with the most varied examples: weaving,
+      modelling in clay, wood-carving, the incising of ivory, gold, and the
+      hardest stone were all carried on; the ground was cultivated with hoe and
+      plough; tombs were built showing us the model of what the houses and
+      palaces must have been; the country had its army, its administrators, its
+      priests, its nobles, its writing, and its system of epigraphy differs so
+      little from that to which we are accustomed in later ages, that we can
+      decipher it with no great difficulty. Frankly speaking, all that we know
+      at present of the first of the Pharaohs beyond the mere fact of his
+      existence is practically <i>nil</i>, and the stories related of him by the
+      writers of classical times are mere legends arranged to suit the fancy of
+      the compiler. "This Menés, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis
+      with dykes. For the river formerly followed the sandhills for some
+      distance on the Libyan side. Menés, having dammed up the reach about a
+      hundred stadia to the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and
+      conveyed the river through an artificial channel dug midway between the
+      two mountain ranges. Then Menés, the first who was king, having enclosed a
+      firm space of ground with dykes, there founded that town which is still
+      called Memphis; he then made a lake round it, to the north and west, fed
+      by the river, the city being bounded on the east by the Nile."[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The dyke supposed to have been made by Menés is evidently
+     that of Qosheîsh, which now protects the province of Gîzeh,
+     and regulates the inundation in its neighbourhood.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The history of Memphis, such as it can be gathered from the monuments,
+      differs considerably from the tradition current in Egypt at the time of
+      Herodotus. It appears, indeed, that at the outset, the site on which it
+      subsequently arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbû-hazû&mdash;the
+      white wall&mdash;which was dependent on Heliopolis, and in which Phtah
+      possessed a sanctuary. After the "white wall" was separated from the
+      Heliopolitan principality to form a nome by itself, it assumed a certain
+      importance, and furnished, so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded
+      the Thinite. Its prosperity dates only, however, from the time when the
+      sovereigns of the Vth and VIth dynasties fixed on it for their residence;
+      one of them, Papi L, there founded for himself and for his "double" after
+      him, a new town, which he called Minnofîrû, from his tomb. Minnofîrû,
+      which is the correct pronunciation and the origin of Memphis, probably
+      signified "the good refuge," the haven of the good, the burying-place
+      where the blessed dead came to rest beside Osiris. The people soon forgot
+      the true interpretation, or probably it did not fall in with their taste
+      for romantic tales. They were rather disposed, as a rule, to discover in
+      the beginnings of history individuals from whom the countries or cities
+      with which they were familiar took their names: if no tradition supplied
+      them with this, they did not experience any scruple in inventing one. The
+      Egyptians of the time of the Ptolemies, who were guided in their
+      philological speculations by the pronunciation in vogue around them,
+      attributed the patronship of their city to a Princess Memphis, a daughter
+      of its founder, the fabulous Uchoreus; those of preceding ages before the
+      name had become altered, thought to find in Minnofîrû a "Mini Nofir," or
+      "Menés the Good," the reputed founder of the capital of the Delta. Menés
+      the Good, divested of his epithet, is none other than Menés, the first
+      king, and he owes this episode in his life to a popular attempt at
+      etymology. The legend which identifies the establishment of the kingdom
+      with the construction of the city, must have originated at the time when
+      Memphis was still the residence of the kings and the seat of government,
+      at latest about the end of the Memphite period. It must have been an old
+      tradition in the time of the Theban dynasties, since they admitted
+      unhesitatingly the authenticity of the statements which ascribed to the
+      northern city so marked a superiority over their own country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0048" id="linklinkCimage-0048">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/343.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="343.jpg Necklace, Bearing Name of Menes. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin after Prisse d'Avenues. The gold
+     medallions engraved with the name of Menés are ancient, and
+     perhaps go back to the XXth dynasty; the setting is entirely
+     modern, with the exception of the three oblong pendants of
+     cornelian.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When once this half-mythical Menés was firmly established in his position,
+      there was little difficulty in inventing a story which would portray him
+      as an ideal sovereign. He was represented as architect, warrior, and
+      statesman; he had begun the temple of Phtah, written laws and regulated
+      the worship of the gods, particularly that of Hâpis, and he had conducted
+      expeditions against the Libyans. When he lost his only son in the flower
+      of his age, the people improvised a hymn of mourning to console him&mdash;the
+      "Maneros"&mdash;both the words and the tune of which were handed down from
+      generation to generation. He did not, moreover, disdain the luxuries of
+      the table, for he invented the art of serving a dinner, and the mode of
+      eating it in a reclining posture. One day, while hunting, his dogs,
+      excited by something or other, fell upon him to devour him. He escaped
+      with difficulty, and, pursued by them, fled to the shore of Lake Moeris,
+      and was there brought to bay; he was on the point of succumbing to them,
+      when a crocodile took him on his back and carried him across to the other
+      side.[*] In gratitude he built a new town, which he called Crocodilopolis,
+      and assigned to it for its god the crocodile which had saved him; he then
+      erected close to it the famous labyrinth and a pyramid for his tomb. Other
+      traditions show him in a less favourable light. They accuse him of having,
+      by horrible crimes, excited against him the anger of the gods, and allege
+      that after a reign of sixty to sixty-two years, he was killed by a
+      hippopotamus which came forth from the Nile.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  This is an episode from the legend of Osiris: at Phihe,
+     in the little building of the Antonines, may be seen a
+     representation of a crocodile crossing the Nile, carrying on
+     his back the mummy of the god. The same episode is also
+     found in the tale of Onus el Ujûd and of Uard f'il-Ikmâm,
+     where the crocodile leads the hero to his beautiful prisoner
+     in the Island of Philæ. Ebers, <i>Ægypte</i>, French trans., vol.
+     ii. pp. 415, 416, has shown how this episode in the Arab
+     story must have been inspired by the bas-relief at Philæ and
+     by the scene which it portrays: the temple is still called
+     "Kasr," and the island "Geziret Onus el-Ujûd."
+
+     **  In popular romances, this was the usual end of criminals
+     of every kind; we shall see that another king, Akhthoes the
+     founder of the IXth dynasty, after committing horrible
+     misdeeds, was killed, in the same way as Menés, by a
+     hippopotamus.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They also related that the Saïte Tafnakhti, returning from an expedition
+      against the Arabs, during which he had been obliged to renounce the pomp
+      and luxuries of royal life, had solemnly cursed him, and had caused his
+      imprecations to be inscribed upon a stele set up in the temple of Amon at
+      Thebes. Nevertheless, in the memory that Egypt preserved of its first
+      Pharaoh, the good outweighed the evil. He was worshipped in Memphis side
+      by side with Phtah and Ramses II.; his name figured at the head of the
+      royal lists, and his cult continued till the time of the Ptolemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His immediate successors had an actual existence, and their tombs are
+      there in proof of it. We know where Usaphais, Miebis, and Semempses[*]
+      were laid to rest, besides more than a dozen other princes whose real
+      names and whose position in the official lists are still uncertain. The
+      order of their succession was often a matter of doubt to the Egyptians
+      themselves, but perhaps the discoveries of the next few years will enable
+      us to clear up and settle definitely matters which were shrouded in
+      mystery in the time of the Theban Pharaohs. As a fact, the forms of such
+      of their names as have been handed down to us by later tradition, are curt
+      and rugged, indicative of an early state of society, and harmonizing with
+      the more primitive civilization to which they belong: Ati the Wrestler,
+      Teti the Runner, Qenqoni the Crusher, are suitable rulers for a people,
+      the first duty of whose chief was to lead his followers into battle, and
+      to strike harder than any other man in the thickest of the fight.[**]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Flinders Pétrie, <i>The 'Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty</i>,
+     vol. i. p. 56.
+
+     **  The Egyptians were accustomed to explain the meaning of
+     the names of their kings to strangers, and the Canon of
+     Eratosthenes has preserved several of their derivations, of
+     which a certain number, as, for instance, that of Menés from
+     aùovioç, the "lasting," are tolerably correct. M. Krall is,
+     to my knowledge, the only Egyptologist who has attempted to
+     glean from the meaning of these names indications of the
+     methods by which the national historians of Egypt
+     endeavoured to make up the lists of the earliest dynasties.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Some of the monuments they have left us, seem to show that their reigns
+      were as much devoted to war as those of the later Pharaohs. The king whose
+      Horus name was Nârumîr, is seen on a contemporary object which has come
+      down to us, standing before a heap of beheaded foes; the bodies are all
+      stretched out on the ground, each with his head placed neatly between his
+      legs: the king had overcome, apparently in some important engagement,
+      several thousands of his enemies, and was inspecting the execution of
+      their leaders. That the foes with whom these early kings contended were in
+      most cases Egyptian princes of the nomes, is proved by the list of city
+      names which are inscribed on the fragments of another document of the same
+      nature, and we gather from them that Dobu (Edfu), Hasutonu (Cynopolis),
+      Habonu (Hipponon), Hakau (Memphis) and others were successively taken and
+      dismantled.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Palette resembling the preceding one, and with it
+     deposited in the Gîzeh Museum; reproduced by Steindokff, and
+     by J. de Morgan. The names of the towns were enclosed within
+     the embattled line which was used later on to designate
+     foreign countries. The animals which surmount them represent
+     the gods of Egypt, the king's protectors; and the king
+     himself, identified with these gods, is making a breach in
+     the wall with a pick-axe. The names of the towns have not
+     been satisfactorily identified: Hat-kau, for instance, may
+     not be Memphis, but it appears that there is no doubt with
+     regard to Habonu. Cf. Sayce, The Beginnings of the Egyptian
+     Monarchy in the Proceedings of the Biblical Archæological
+     Society, 1898, vol. xx. pp, 99-101.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On this fragment King Den is represented standing over a prostrate chief
+      of the Bedouin, striking him with his mace. Sondi, who is classed in the
+      IInd dynasty, received a continuous worship towards the end of the IIIrd
+      dynasty. But did all those whose names preceded or followed his on the
+      lists, really exist as he did? and if they existed, to what extent do the
+      order and the relation assigned to them agree with the actual truth? The
+      different lists do not contain the same names in the same positions;
+      certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason. Where
+      Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time of Seti
+      I. gave us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the IInd dynasty,
+      while they register only five.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The impossibility of reconciling the names of the Greek
+     with those of the Pharaonic lists has been admitted by most
+     of the savants who have discussed the matter, viz. Mariette,
+     E. de Rouge, Lieblein, Wiedemann; most of them explain the
+     differences by the supposition that, in many cases, one of
+     the lists gives the cartouche name, and the other the
+     cartouche prenomen of the same king.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The monuments, indeed, show us that Egypt in the past obeyed princes whom
+      her annalists were unable to classify: for instance, they associate with
+      Sondi a Pirsenû, who is not mentioned in the annals. We must, therefore,
+      take the record of all this opening period of history for what it is&mdash;namely,
+      a system invented at a much later date, by means of various artifices and
+      combinations&mdash;to be partially accepted in default of a better, but
+      without according to it that excessive confidence which it has hitherto
+      received. The two Thinite dynasties, in direct descent from the first
+      human king Menés, furnish, like this hero himself, only a tissue of
+      romantic tales and miraculous legends in the place of history. A
+      double-headed stork, which had appeared in the first year of Teti, son of
+      Menés, had foreshadowed to Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine under
+      Ouenephes, and a terrible plague under Semempses, had depopulated the
+      country: the laws had been relaxed, great crimes had been committed, and
+      revolts had broken out. During the reign of Boêthos, a gulf had opened
+      near Bubastis, and swallowed up many people, then the Nile had flowed with
+      honey for fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and Sesochris was
+      supposed to have been a giant in stature. A few details about royal
+      edifices were mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid the foundation
+      of the great palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the pyramids of
+      Ko-komè near Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had published books
+      on theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and medicine; several had
+      made laws which lasted down to the beginning of the Christian era. One of
+      them was called Kakôû, the male of males, or the bull of bulls. They
+      explained his name by the statement that he had concerned himself about
+      the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods, Hâpis of Memphis, Mnevis of
+      Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes. After him, Binôthris had conferred the
+      right of succession upon all the women of the blood-royal. The accession
+      of the IIIrd dynasty, a Memphite one according to Manetho, did not at
+      first change the miraculous character of this history. The Libyans had
+      revolted against Necherophes, and the two armies were encamped before each
+      other, when one night the disk of the moon became immeasurably enlarged,
+      to the great alarm of the rebels, who recognized in this phenomenon a sign
+      of the anger of heaven, and yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the
+      successor of Necherophes, brought the hieroglyphs and the art of
+      stone-cutting to perfection. He composed, as Teti did, books of medicine,
+      a fact which caused him to be identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The
+      priests related these things seriously, and the Greek writers took them
+      down from their lips with the respect which they offered to everything
+      emanating from the wise men of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What they related of the human kings was not more detailed, as we see,
+      than their accounts of the gods. Whether the legends dealt with deities or
+      kings, all that we know took its origin, not in popular imagination, but
+      in sacerdotal dogma: they were invented long after the times they dealt
+      with, in the recesses of the temples, with an intention and a method of
+      which we are enabled to detect flagrant instances on the monuments.
+      Towards the middle of the third century before our era, the Greek troops
+      stationed on the southern frontier, in the forts at the first cataract,
+      developed a particular veneration for Isis of Philæ. Their devotion spread
+      to the superior officers who came to inspect them, then to the whole
+      population of the Thebàid, and finally reached the court of the Macedonian
+      kings. The latter, carried away by force of example, gave every
+      encouragement to a movement which attracted worshippers to a common
+      sanctuary, and united in one cult the two races over which they ruled.
+      They pulled down the meagre building of the Sa'ite period which had
+      hitherto sufficed for the worship of Isis, constructed at great cost the
+      temple which still remains almost intact, and assigned to it considerable
+      possessions in Nubia, which, in addition to gifts from private
+      individuals, made the goddess the richest landowner in Southern Egypt.
+      Khnûmû and his two wives, Anûkit and Satît, who, before Isis, had been the
+      undisputed suzerains of the cataract, perceived with jealousy their
+      neighbour's prosperity: the civil wars and invasions of the centuries
+      immediately preceding had ruined their temples, and their poverty
+      contrasted painfully with the riches of the new-comer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0049" id="linklinkCimage-0049">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/350.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="350.jpg SatÎt Presents the Pharaoh AmenÔthes Iii. To KhnÔmÛ.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
+     temple of Khnûmû, at Elephantine.    This bas-relief is now
+     destroyed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The priests resolved to lay this sad state of affairs before King Ptolemy,
+      to represent to him the services which they had rendered and still
+      continued to render to Egypt, and above all to remind him of the
+      generosity of the ancient Pharaohs, whose example, owing to the poverty of
+      the times, the recent Pharaohs had been unable to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0050" id="linklinkCimage-0050">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/351.jpg" width="100%" alt="351.jpg AnÛkit " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless authentic documents were wanting in their archives to support
+      their pretensions: they therefore inscribed upon a rock, in the island of
+      Sehel, a long inscription which they attributed to Zosiri of the IIIrd
+      dynasty. This sovereign had left behind him a vague reputation for
+      greatness. As early as the XIIth dynasty Usirtasen III. had claimed him as
+      "his father"&mdash;his ancestor&mdash;and had erected a statue to him; the
+      priests knew that, by invoking him, they had a chance of obtaining a
+      hearing. The inscription which they fabricated, set forth that in the
+      eighteenth year of Zosiri's reign he had sent to Madîr, lord of
+      Elephantine, a message couched in these terms: "I am overcome with sorrow
+      for the throne, and for those who reside in the palace, and my heart is
+      afflicted and suffers greatly because the Nile has not risen in my time,
+      for the space of eight years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack of herbage,
+      and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his neighbours for
+      help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the young man is uneasy,
+      the hearts of the old men are in despair, their limbs are bent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ptolemies admit the claims which the local priests attempted to deduce
+      from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the domains
+      and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows us with
+      what ease the scribes could forge official documents, when the exigencies
+      of they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the courtiers have no
+      further resources; the shops formerly furnished with rich wares are now
+      filled only with air, all that was in them has disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks to call upon
+      the Saviour who was here where I am, during the centuries of the gods,
+      upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpû, son of Phtah of
+      Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is the god or
+      goddess concealed there? What is his likeness?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0051" id="linklinkCimage-0051">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/353.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="353.jpg the Step Pyramid of Sauara. 1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Dévèria (1864); in
+     the foreground, the tomb of Ti.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The lord of Elephantine brought his reply in person. He described to the
+      king, who was evidently ignorant of it, the situation of the island and
+      the rocks of the cataract, the phenomena of the inundation, the gods who
+      presided over it, and who alone could relieve Egypt from her disastrous
+      plight. Zosiri repaired to the temple of the principality and offered the
+      prescribed sacrifices; the god arose, opened his eyes, panted and cried
+      aloud, "I am Khnûmû who created thee!" and promised him a speedy return of
+      a high Nile and the cessation of the famine. Pharaoh was touched by the
+      benevolence which his divine father had shown him; he forthwith made a
+      decree by which he ceded to the temple all his rights of suzerainty over
+      the neighbouring nomes within a radius of twenty miles. Henceforward the
+      entire population, tillers and vinedressers, fishermen and hunters, had to
+      yield the tithe of their incomes to the priests; the quarries could not be
+      worked without the consent of Khnûmû, and the payment of a suitable
+      indemnity into his coffers, and finally, all metals and precious woods
+      shipped thence for Egypt had to submit to a toll on behalf of the temple.
+      Did the daily life forced the necessity upon them; it teaches us at the
+      same time how that fabulous chronicle was elaborated, whose remains have
+      been preserved for us by classical writers. Every prodigy, every fact
+      related by Manetho, was taken from some document analogous to the supposed
+      inscription of Zosiri.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  The legend of the yawning gulf at Bubastis must be
+     connected with the gifts supposed to have been offered by
+     King Boêthos to the temple of that town, to repair the
+     losses sustained by the goddess on that occasion; the legend
+     of the pestilence and famine is traceable to some relief
+     given by a local god, and for which Semempses and Ùenephes
+     might have shown their gratitude in the same way as Zosiri.
+     The tradition of the successive restorations of Denderah
+     accounts for the constructions attributed to Teti I. and to
+     Tosorthros; finally, the prête tided discoveries of sacred
+     books, dealt with elsewhere, show how Manetho was enabled to
+     attribute to his Pharaohs the authorship of works on
+     medicine or theology.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our researches,
+      and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes which Egypt
+      passed through before being consolidated into a single kingdom, under the
+      rule of one man. Many names, apparently of powerful and illustrious
+      princes, had survived in the memory of the people; these were collected,
+      classified, and grouped in a regular manner into dynasties, but the people
+      were ignorant of any exact facts connected with the names, and the
+      historians, on their own account, were reduced to collect apocryphal
+      traditions for their sacred archives. The monuments of these remote ages,
+      however, cannot have entirely disappeared: they exist in places where we
+      have not as yet thought of applying the pick, and chance excavations will
+      some day most certainly bring them to light. The few which we do possess
+      barely go back beyond the IIIrd dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri,
+      priest of Sondi and Pirsenû; possibly the tomb of Khûîthotpû at Saqqâra;
+      the Great Sphinx of Gîzeh; a short inscription on the rocks of the Wady
+      Maghâra, which represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of
+      Khnûmû in the Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or
+      copper mines of Sinai; and finally the Step-Pyramid where this same
+      Pharaoh rests.[*]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The stele of Sehêl has enabled us to verify the fact that
+     the preamble [a string of titles] to the inscription of the
+     king, buried in the Step-Pyramid, is identical with that of
+     King Zosiri: it was, therefore, Zosiri who constructed, or
+     arranged for the construction of this monument as his tomb.
+     The Step-Pyramid of Saqqâra was opened in 1819, at the
+     expense of the Prussian General Minutoli, who was the first
+     to give a brief description of the interior, illustrated by
+     plans and drawings.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It forms a rectangular mass, incorrectly orientated, with a variation from
+      the true north of 4° 35', 393 ft. 8 in. long from east to west, and 352
+      ft. deep, with a height of 159 ft. 9 in. It is composed of six cubes, with
+      sloping sides, each being about 13 ft. less in width than the one below
+      it; that nearest to the ground measures 37 ft. 8 in. in height, and the
+      uppermost one 29 ft. 9 in. It was entirely constructed of limestone from
+      the neighbouring mountains. The blocks are small, and badly cut, the stone
+      courses being concave to offer a better resistance to downward thrust and
+      to shocks of earthquake. When breaches in the masonry are examined, it can
+      be seen that the external surface of the steps has, as it were, a double
+      stone facing, each facing being carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid
+      is solid, the chambers being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have
+      been often enlarged, restored, and reworked in the course of centuries,
+      and the passages which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which it
+      is dangerous to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the galleries
+      and halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom of which
+      the architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt, to contain
+      the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until the beginning
+      of this century, the vault had preserved its original lining of glazed
+      pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface were covered with green tiles,
+      oblong and slightly convex on the outer side, but flat on the inner: a
+      square projection pierced with a hole, served to fix them at the back in a
+      horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0052" id="linklinkCimage-0052">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/356.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="356. Jpg One of the Chambers Of The Step-pyramid, With Its Wall-covering of Glazed Tiles.1 " />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured sketch by
+     Sogato. M. Stern attributes the decoration of glazed pottery
+     to the XXVI '' dynasty, which opinion is shared by
+     Borchardt. The yellow and green glazed tiles hearing the
+     cartouche of Papi I., show that the Egyptians of the
+     Memphite dynasties used glazed facings at that early date;
+     we may, therefore, believe, if the tiles of the vault of
+     Zosiri are really of the Saïte period, that they replaced a
+     decoration of the same kind, which belonged to the time of
+     its construction, and of which some fragments still exist
+     among the tiles of more recent date.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The three bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the titles
+      of the Pharaoh: the hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red, green, or
+      yellow, on a fawn-coloured ground. Other kings had built temples, palaces,
+      and towns,&mdash;as, for instance, King Khâsakhimu, of whose constructions
+      some traces exist at Hieracônpolis, opposite to El-Kab, or King
+      Khâsakhmui, who preceded by a few years the Pharaohs of the IVth dynasty&mdash;but
+      the monuments which they raised to be witnesses of their power or piety to
+      future generations, have, in the course of ages, disappeared under the
+      tramplings and before the triumphal blasts of many invading hosts: the
+      pyramid alone has survived, and the most ancient of the historic monuments
+      of Egypt is a tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linklinkCimage-0053" id="linklinkCimage-0053">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/357.jpg" width="100%" alt="357.jpg Tailpiece " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero
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+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)
+
+Author: G. Maspero
+
+Editor: A.H. Sayce
+
+Translator: M.L. McClure
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19400]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Spines]
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
+
+By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of Queen's
+College, Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of
+France
+
+Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
+
+Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of the Committee of the Egypt
+Exploration Fund
+
+
+CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Volume I., Part A.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+THE GROLIER SOCIETY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+[Illustration: Titlepage]
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S PREFACE
+
+Professor Maspero does not need to be introduced to us. His name is
+well known in England and America as that of one of the chief masters of
+Egyptian science as well as of ancient Oriental history and archaeology.
+Alike as a philologist, a historian, and an archaeologist, he occupies
+a foremost place in the annals of modern knowledge and research. He
+possesses that quick apprehension and fertility of resource without
+which the decipherment of ancient texts is impossible, and he also
+possesses a sympathy with the past and a power of realizing it which are
+indispensable if we would picture it aright. His intimate acquaintance
+with Egypt and its literature, and the opportunities of discovery
+afforded him by his position for several years as director of the Bulaq
+Museum, give him an unique claim to speak with authority on the history
+of the valley of the Nile. In the present work he has been prodigal of
+his abundant stores of learning and knowledge, and it may therefore be
+regarded as the most complete account of ancient Egypt that has ever yet
+been published.
+
+In the case of Babylonia and Assyria he no longer, it is true, speaks
+at first hand. But he has thoroughly studied the latest and best
+authorities on the subject, and has weighed their statements with the
+judgment which comes from an exhaustive acquaintance with a similar
+department of knowledge.
+
+Naturally, in progressive studies like those of Egyptology and
+Assyriology, a good many theories and conclusions must be tentative and
+provisional only. Discovery crowds so quickly on discovery, that the
+truth of to-day is often apt to be modified or amplified by the truth
+of to-morrow. A single fresh fact may throw a wholly new and unexpected
+light upon the results we have already gained, and cause them to assume
+a somewhat changed aspect. But this is what must happen in all sciences
+in which there is a healthy growth, and archaeological science is no
+exception to the rule.
+
+The spelling of ancient Egyptian proper names adopted by Professor
+Maspero will perhaps seem strange to many. But it must be remembered
+that all our attempts to represent the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian
+words can be approximate only; we can never ascertain with certainty how
+they were actually sounded. All that can be done is to determine what
+pronunciation was assigned to them in the Greek period, and to work
+backwards from this, so far as it is possible, to more remote ages.
+This is what Professor Maspero has done, and it must be no slight
+satisfaction to him to find that on the whole his system of
+transliteration is confirmed by the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna.
+
+The difficulties attaching to the spelling of Assyrian names are
+different from those which beset our attempts to reproduce, even
+approximately, the names of ancient Egypt. The cuneiform system of
+writing was syllabic, each character denoting a syllable, so that we
+know what were the vowels in a proper name as well as the consonants.
+Moreover, the pronunciation of the consonants resembled that of the
+Hebrew consonants, the transliteration of which has long since become
+conventional. When, therefore, an Assyrian or Babylonian name is written
+phonetically, its correct transliteration is not often a matter
+of question. But, unfortunately, the names are not always written
+phonetically. The cuneiform script was an inheritance from the
+non-Semitic predecessors of the Semites in Babylonia, and in this script
+the characters represented words as well as sounds. Not unfrequently
+the Semitic Assyrians continued to write a name in the old Sumerian way
+instead of spelling it phonetically, the result being that we do not
+know how it was pronounced in their own language. The name of the
+Chaldaean Noab, for instance, is written with two characters which
+ideographically signify "the sun" or "day of life," and of the first of
+which the Sumerian values were _ut, babar, khis, tarn,_ and _par_,
+while the second had the value of _zi_. Were it not that the Chaldaean
+historian Berossos writes the name Xisuthros, we should have no clue to
+its Semitic pronunciation.
+
+Professor Maspero's learning and indefatigable industry are well known
+to me, but I confess I was not prepared for the exhaustive acquaintance
+he shows with Assyriological literature. Nothing seems to have escaped
+his notice. Papers and books just published, and half forgotten articles
+in obscure periodicals which appeared years ago, have all alike been
+used and quoted by him. Naturally, however, there are some points on
+which I should be inclined to differ from the conclusions he draws,
+or to which he has been led by other Assyriologists. Without being an
+Assyriologist himself, it was impossible for him to be acquainted with
+that portion of the evidence on certain disputed questions which is only
+to be found in still unpublished or untranslated inscriptions.
+
+There are two points which seem to me of sufficient importance
+to justify my expression of dissent from his views. These are the
+geographical situation of the land of Magan, and the historical
+character of the annals of Sargon of Accad. The evidence about Magan is
+very clear. Magan is usually associated with the country of Melukhkha,
+"the salt" desert, and in _every_ text in which its geographical
+position is indicated it is placed in the immediate vicinity of Egypt.
+Thus Assur-bani-pal, after stating that he had "gone to the lands of
+Magan and Melukhkha," goes on to say that he "directed his road to
+Egypt and Kush," and then describes the first of his Egyptian campaigns.
+Similar testimony is borne by Esar-haddon. The latter king tells us that
+after quitting Egypt he directed his road to the land of Melukhkha, a
+desert region in which there were no rivers, and which extended "to the
+city of Rapikh" (the modern Raphia) "at the edge of the wadi of Egypt"
+(the present Wadi El-Arish). After this he received camels from the king
+of the Arabs, and made his way to the land and city of Magan. The Tel
+el-Amarna tablets enable us to carry the record back to the fifteenth
+century b.c. In certain of the tablets now as Berlin (Winckler and Abel,
+42 and 45) the Phoenician governor of the Pharaoh asks that help should
+be sent him from Melukhkha and Egypt: "The king should hear the words of
+his servant, and send ten men of the country of Melukhkha and twenty men
+of the country of Egypt to defend the city [of Gebal] for the king." And
+again, "I have sent [to] Pharaoh" (literally, "the great house") "for a
+garrison of men from the country of Melukhkha, and... the king has
+just despatched a garrison [from] the country of Melukhkha." At a still
+earlier date we have indications that Melukhkha and Magan denoted the
+same region of the world. In an old Babylonian geographical list which
+belongs to the early days of Chaldsean history, Magan is described as
+"the country of bronze," and Melukhkha as "the country of the _samdu_,"
+or "malachite." It was this list which originally led Oppert, Lenormant,
+and myself independently to the conviction that Magan was to be looked
+for in the Sinaitic Peninsula. Magan included, however, the Midian of
+Scripture, and the city of Magan, called Makkan in Semitic Assyrian, is
+probably the Makna of classical geography, now represented by the ruins
+of Mukna.
+
+As I have always maintained the historical character of the annals of
+Sargon of Accad, long before recent discoveries led Professor Hilprecht
+and others to adopt the same view, it is as well to state why I
+consider them worthy of credit. In themselves the annals contain
+nothing improbable; indeed, what might seem the most unlikely portion
+of them--that which describes the extension of Sargon's empire to the
+shores of the Mediterranean--has been confirmed by the progress of
+research. Ammi-satana, a king of the first dynasty of Babylon (about
+2200 B.C.), calls himself "king of the country of the Amorites," and
+the Tel el-Amarna tablets have revealed to us how deep and long-lasting
+Babylonian influence must have been throughout Western Asia. Moreover,
+the vase described by Professor Maspero in the present work proves that
+the expedition of Naram-Sin against Magan was an historical reality, and
+such an expedition was only possible if "the land of the Amorites," the
+Syria and Palestine of later days, had been secured in the rear.
+But what chiefly led me to the belief that the annals are a document
+contemporaneous with the events narrated in them, are two facts which
+do not seem to have been sufficiently considered. On the one side, while
+the annals of Sargon are given in full, those of his son Naram-Sin break
+off abruptly in the early part of his reign. I see no explanation of
+this, except that they were composed while Naram-Sin was still on the
+throne. On the other side, the campaigns of the two monarchs are coupled
+with the astrological phenomena on which the success of the campaigns
+was supposed to depend. We know that the Babylonians were given to the
+practice and study of astrology from the earliest days of their history;
+we know also that even in the time of the later Assyrian monarchy it was
+still customary for the general in the field to be accompanied by
+the _asipu_, or "prophet," the ashshaph of Dan. ii. 10, on whose
+interpretation of the signs of heaven the movements of the army
+depended; and in the infancy of Chaldaen history we should accordingly
+expect to find the astrological sign recorded along with the event with
+which it was bound up. At a subsequent period the sign and the event
+were separated from one another in literature, and had the annals of
+Sargon been a later compilation, in their case also the separation would
+assuredly have been made. That, on the contrary, the annals have the
+form which they could have assumed and ought to have assumed only at
+the beginning of contemporaneous Babylonian history, is to me a strong
+testimony in favour of their genuineness.
+
+It may be added that Babylonian seal-cylinders have been found in
+Cyprus, one of which is of the age of Sargon of Accad, its style and
+workmanship being the same as that of the cylinder figured in vol. iii.
+p. 96, while the other, though of later date, belonged to a person
+who describes himself as "the servant of the deified Naram-Sin." Such
+cylinders may, of course, have been brought to the island in later
+times; but when we remember that a characteristic object of prehistoric
+Cypriote art is an imitation of the seal-cylinder of Chaldsea, their
+discovery cannot be wholly an accident.
+
+Professor Maspero has brought his facts up to so recent a date that
+there is very little to add to what he has written. Since his
+manuscript was in type, however, a few additions have been made to our
+Assyriological knowledge. A fresh examination of the Babylonian dynastic
+tablet has led Professor Delitzsch to make some alterations in the
+published account of what Professor Maspero calls the ninth dynasty.
+According to Professor Delitzsch, the number of kings composing the
+dynasty is stated on the tablet to be twenty-one, and not thirty-one as
+was formerly read, and the number of lost lines exactly corresponds with
+this figure. The first of the kings reigned thirty-six years, and he
+had a predecessor belonging to the previous dynasty whose name has been
+lost. There would consequently have been two Elamite usurpers instead of
+one.
+
+I would further draw attention to an interesting text, published by
+Mr. Strong in the _Babylonian and Oriental Record_, which I believe to
+contain the name of a king who belonged to the legendary dynasties of
+Chaldaea. This is Samas-natsir, who is coupled with Sargon of Accad and
+other early monarchs in one of the lists. The legend, if I interpret it
+rightly, states that "Elam shall be altogether given to Samas-natsir;"
+and the same prince is further described as building Nippur and Dur-ilu,
+as King of Babylon and as conqueror both of a certain Baldakha and of
+Khumba-sitir, "the king of the cedar-forest." It will be remembered that
+in the Epic of Gil-games, Khumbaba also is stated to have been the lord
+of the "cedar-forest."
+
+But of new discoveries and facts there is a constant supply, and it
+is impossible for the historian to keep pace with them. Even while the
+sheets of his work are passing through the press, the excavator, the
+explorer, and the decipherer are adding to our previous stores of
+knowledge. In Egypt, Mr. de Morgan's unwearied energy has raised as it
+were out of the ground, at Kom Ombo, a vast and splendidly preserved
+temple, of whose existence we had hardly dreamed; has discovered
+twelfth-dynasty jewellery at Dahshur of the most exquisite workmanship,
+and at Meir and Assiut has found in tombs of the sixth dynasty painted
+models of the trades and professions of the day, as well as fighting
+battalions of soldiers, which, for freshness and lifelike reality,
+contrast favourably with the models which come from India to-day. In
+Babylonia, the American Expedition, under Mr. Haines, has at Niffer
+unearthed monuments of older date than those of Sargon of Accad. Nor
+must I forget to mention the lotiform column found by Mr. de Morgan in
+a tomb of the Old Empire at Abusir, or the interesting discovery made by
+Mr. Arthur Evans of seals and other objects from the prehistoric sites
+of Krete and other parts of the AEgean, inscribed with hieroglyphic
+characters which reveal a new system of writing that must at one time
+have existed by the side of the Hittite hieroglyphs, and may have had
+its origin in the influence exercised by Egypt on the peoples of the
+Mediterranean in the age of the twelfth dynasty.
+
+In volumes IV., V., and VI. we find ourselves in the full light of an
+advanced culture. The nations of the ancient East are no longer each
+pursuing an isolated existence, and separately developing the seeds of
+civilization and culture on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile.
+Asia and Africa have met in mortal combat. Babylonia has carried its
+empire to the frontiers of Egypt, and Egypt itself has been held in
+bondage by the Hyksos strangers from Asia. In return, Egypt has driven
+back the wave of invasion to the borders of Mesopotamia, has substituted
+an empire of its own in Syria for that of the Babylonians, and has
+forced the Babylonian king to treat with its Pharaoh on equal terms.
+In the track of war and diplomacy have come trade and commerce; Western
+Asia is covered with roads, along which the merchant and the courier
+travel incessantly, and the whole civilised world of the Orient is knit
+together in a common literary culture and common commercial interests.
+
+The age of isolation has thus been succeeded by an age of intercourse,
+partly military and antagonistic, partly literary and peaceful.
+Professor Maspero paints for us this age of intercourse, describes
+its rise and character, its decline and fall. For the unity of Eastern
+civilization was again shattered. The Hittites descended from the ranges
+of the Taurus upon the Egyptian province of Northern Syria, and cut off
+the Semites of the west from those of the east. The Israelites poured
+over the Jordan out of Edom and Moab, and took possession of Canaan,
+while Babylonia itself, for so many centuries the ruling power of the
+Oriental world, had to make way for its upstart rival Assyria. The old
+imperial powers were exhausted and played out, and it needed time before
+the new forces which were to take their place could acquire sufficient
+strength for their work.
+
+As usual, Professor Maspero has been careful to embody in his history
+the very latest discoveries and information. Notice, it will be found,
+has been taken even of the _stela_ of Meneptah, recently disinterred by
+Professor Petrie, on which the name of the Israelites is engraved.
+At Elephantine, I found, a short time since, on a granite boulder, an
+inscription of Khufuankh--whose sarcophagus of red granite is one of
+the most beautiful objects in the Gizeh Museum--which carries back the
+history of the island to the age of the pyramid-builders of the fourth
+dynasty. The boulder was subsequently concealed under the southern side
+of the city-wall, and as fragments of inscribed papyrus coeval with the
+sixth dynasty have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood, on
+one of which mention is made of "this domain" of Pepi II., it would seem
+that the town of Elephantine must have been founded between the period
+of the fourth dynasty and that of the sixth. Manetho is therefore
+justified in making the fifth and sixth dynasties of Elephantine origin.
+
+It is in Babylonia, however, that the most startling discoveries have
+been made. At Tello, M. de Sarzec has found a library of more than
+thirty thousand tablets, all neatly arranged, piled in order one on the
+other, and belonging to the age of Gudea (b.c. 2700). Many more tablets
+of an early date have been unearthed at Abu-Habba (Sippara) and Jokha
+(Isin) by Dr. Scheil, working for the Turkish government. But the most
+important finds have been at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, in Northern
+Babylonia, where the American expedition has brought to a close its long
+work of systematic excavation. Here Mr. Haynes has dug down to the very
+foundations of the great temple of El-lil, and the chief historical
+results of his labours have been published by Professor Hilprecht (in
+_The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania_, vol. i.
+pl. 2, 1896).
+
+About midway between the summit and the bottom of the mound, Mr. Haynes
+laid bare a pavement constructed of huge bricks stamped with the names
+of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin. He found also the ancient wall
+of the city, which had been built by Naram-Sin, 13.7 metres wide. The
+_debris_ of ruined buildings which lies below the pavement of Sargon
+is as much as 9.25 metres in depth, while that above it, the topmost
+stratum of which brings us down to the Christian era, is only 11 metres
+in height. We may form some idea from this of the enormous age to which
+the history of Babylonian culture and writing reaches back. In fact,
+Professor Hilprecht quotes with approval Mr. Haynes's words: "We must
+cease to apply the adjective 'earliest' to the time of Sargon, or to any
+age or epoch within a thousand years of his advanced civilization." "The
+golden age of Babylonian history seems to include the reign of Sargon
+and of Ur-Gur."
+
+Many of the inscriptions which belong to this remote age of human
+culture have been published by Professor Hilprecht. Among them is a long
+inscription, in 132 lines, engraved on multitudes of large stone
+vases presented to the temple of El-lil by a certain Lugal-zaggisi.
+Lugal-zaggisi was the son of Ukus, the _patesi_ or high priest of the
+"Land of the Bow," as Mesopotamia, with its Bedawin inhabitants, was
+called. He not only conquered Babylonia, then known as Kengi, "the land
+of canals and reeds," but founded an empire which extended from the
+Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. This was centuries before Sargon
+of Akkad followed in his footsteps. Erech became the capital of
+Lugal-zaggisi's empire, and doubtless received at this time its Sumerian
+title of "the city" _par excellence_.
+
+For a long while previously there had been war between Babylonia and the
+"Land of the Bow," whose rulers seem to have established themselves
+in the city of Kis. At one time we find the Babylonian prince
+En-sag(sag)-ana capturing Kis and its king; at another time it is a king
+of Kis who makes offerings to the god of Nippur, in gratitude for his
+victories. To this period belongs the famous "Stela of the Vultures"
+found at Tello, on which is depicted the victory of E-dingir-ana-gin,
+the King of Lagas (Tello), over the Semitic hordes of the Land of the
+Bow. It may be noted that the recent discoveries have shown how correct
+Professor Maspero has been in assigning the kings of Lagas to a period
+earlier than that of Sargon of Akkad.
+
+Professor Hilprecht would place E-dingir-ana-gin after Lugal-zaggisi,
+and see in the Stela of the Vultures a monument of the revenge taken
+by the Sumerian rulers of Lagas for the conquest of the country by the
+inhabitants of the north. But it is equally possible that it marks
+the successful reaction of Chaldsea against the power established by
+Lugal-zaggisi. However this may be, the dynasty of Lagas (to which
+Professor Hilprecht has added a new king, En-Khegal) reigned in peace
+for some time, and belonged to the same age as the first dynasty of Ur.
+This was founded by a certain Lugal-kigubnidudu, whose inscriptions have
+been found at Niffer. The dynasty which arose at Ur in later days (cir.
+b.c. 2700), under Ur-Gur and Bungi, which has hitherto been known as
+"the first dynasty of Ur," is thus dethroned from its position, and
+becomes the second. The succeeding dynasty, which also made Ur its
+capital, and whose kings, Ine-Sin, Pur-Sin IL, and Gimil-Sin, were
+the immediate predecessors of the first dynasty of Babylon (to which
+Kharnmurabi belonged), must henceforth be termed the third.
+
+Among the latest acquisitions from Tello are the seals of the _patesi_,
+Lugal-usumgal, which finally remove all doubt as to the identity of
+"Sargani, king of the city," with the famous Sargon of Akkad. The
+historical accuracy of Sargon's annals, moreover, have been fully
+vindicated. Not only have the American excavators found the contemporary
+monuments of him and his son Naram-Sin, but also tablets dated in the
+years of his campaigns against "the land of the Amorites." In short,
+Sargon of Akkad, so lately spoken of as "a half-mythical" personage, has
+now emerged into the full glare of authentic history.
+
+That the native chronologists had sufficient material for reconstructing
+the past history of their country, is also now clear. The early
+Babylonian contract-tablets are dated by events which officially
+distinguished the several years of a king's reign, and tablets have been
+discovered compiled at the close of a reign which give year by year the
+events which thus characterised them. One of these tablets, for example,
+from the excavations at Niffer, begins with the words: (1) "The year
+when Par-Sin (II.) becomes king. (2) The year when Pur-Sin the king
+conquers Urbillum," and ends with "the year when Gimil-Sin becomes King
+of Ur, and conquers the land of Zabsali" in the Lebanon.
+
+Of special interest to the biblical student are the discoveries made
+by Mr. Pinches among some of the Babylonian tablets which have recently
+been acquired by the British Museum. Four of them relate to no less a
+personage than Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, "King of Elam," as
+well as to Eri-Aku or Arioch, King of Larsa, and his son Dur-makh-ilani;
+to Tudghula or Tidal, the son of Gazza[ni], and to their war against
+Babylon in the time of Khamrnu[rabi]. In one of the texts the question
+is asked, "Who is the son of a king's daughter who has sat on the throne
+of royalty? Dur-makh-ilani, the son of Eri-Aku, the son of the lady
+Kur... has sat on the throne of royalty," from which it may perhaps be
+inferred that Eri-Aku was the son of Kudur-Laghghamar's daughter; and in
+another we read, "Who is Kudur-Laghghamar, the doer of mischief? He
+has gathered together the Umman Manda, has devastated the land of Bel
+(Babylonia), and [has marched] at their side." The Umman Manda were the
+"Barbarian Hordes" of the Kurdish mountains, on the northern frontier of
+Elam, and the name corresponds with that of the Goyyim or "nations" in
+the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. We here see Kudur-Laghghamar acting
+as their suzerain lord. Unfortunately, all four tablets are in a
+shockingly broken condition, and it is therefore difficult to discover
+in them a continuous sense, or to determine their precise nature.
+
+They have, however, been supplemented by further discoveries made by
+Dr. Scheil at Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has
+found letters from Kharnmurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa,
+from which we learn that Sin-idinnam had been dethroned by the Elamites
+Kudur-Mabug and Eri-Aku, and had fled for refuge to the court of
+Kharnmurabi at Babylon. In the war which subsequently broke out between
+Kharnmurabi and Kudur-Laghghamar, the King of Elam (who, it would seem,
+exercised suzerainty over Babylonia for seven years), Sin-idinnam
+gave material assistance to the Babylonian monarch, and Khammurabi
+accordingly bestowed presents upon him as a "recompense for his valour
+on the day of the overthrow of Kudur-Laghghamar."
+
+I must also refer to a fine scarab--found in the rubbish-mounds of the
+ancient city of Kom Ombos, in Upper Egypt--which bears upon it the
+name of Sutkhu-Apopi. It shows us that the author of the story of the
+Expulsion of the Hyksos, in calling the king Ra-Apopi, merely, like an
+orthodox Egyptian, substituted the name of the god of Heliopolis for
+that of the foreign deity. Equally interesting are the scarabs brought
+to light by Professor Flinders Petrie, on which a hitherto unknown
+Ya'aqob-hal or Jacob-el receives the titles of a Pharaoh.
+
+In volumes VII., VIII., and IX., Professor Maspero concludes his
+monumental work on the history of the ancient East. The overthrow of the
+Persian empire by the Greek soldiers of Alexander marks the beginning of
+a new era. Europe at last enters upon the stage of history, and becomes
+the heir of the culture and civilisation of the Orient. The culture
+which had grown up and developed on the banks of the Euphrates and Nile
+passes to the West, and there assumes new features and is inspired with
+a new spirit. The East perishes of age and decrepitude; its strength is
+outworn, its power to initiate is past. The long ages through which it
+had toiled to build up the fabric of civilisation are at an end; fresh
+races are needed to carry on the work which it had achieved. Greece
+appears upon the scene, and behind Greece looms the colossal figure of
+the Roman Empire.
+
+During the past decade, excavation has gone on apace in Egypt and
+Babylonia, and discoveries of a startling and unexpected nature have
+followed in the wake of excavation. Ages that seemed prehistoric step
+suddenly forth into the daydawn of history; personages whom a sceptical
+criticism had consigned to the land of myth or fable are clothed once
+more with flesh and blood, and events which had been long forgotten
+demand to be recorded and described. In Babylonia, for example, the
+excavations at Niffer and Tello have shown that Sargon of Akkad, so far
+from being a creature of romance, was as much a historical monarch as
+Nebuchadrezzar himself; monuments of his reign have been discovered, and
+we learn from them that the empire he is said to have founded had a very
+real existence. Contracts have been found dated in the years when he was
+occupied in conquering Syria and Palestine, and a cadastral survey that
+was made for the purposes of taxation mentions a Canaanite who had been
+appointed "governor of the land of the Amorites." Even a postal service
+had already been established along the high-roads which knit the several
+parts of the empire together, and some of the clay seals which franked
+the letters are now in the Museum of the Louvre.
+
+At Susa, M. de Morgan, the late director of the Service of Antiquities
+in Egypt, has been excavating below the remains of the Achremenian
+period, among the ruins of the ancient Elamite capital. Here he
+has found numberless historical inscriptions, besides a text in
+hieroglyphics which may cast light on the origin of the cuneiform
+characters. But the most interesting of his discoveries are two
+Babylonian monuments that were carried off by Elamite conquerors from
+the cities of Babylonia. One of them is a long inscription of about 1200
+lines belonging to Manistusu, one of the early Babylonian kings, whose
+name has been met with at Niffer; the other is a monument of Naram-Sin,
+the Son of Sargon of Akkad, which it seems was brought as booty to Susa
+by Simti-silkhak, the grandfather, perhaps, of Eriaku or Arioch.
+
+In Armenia, also, equally important inscriptions have been found by
+Belck and Lehmann. More than two hundred new ones have been added to the
+list of Vannic texts. It has been discovered from them that the kingdom
+of Biainas or Van was founded by Ispuinis and Menuas, who rebuilt
+Yan itself and the other cities which they had previously sacked and
+destroyed. The older name of the country was Kumussu, and it may be that
+the language spoken in it was allied to that of the Hittites, since a
+tablet in hieroglyphics of the Hittite type has been unearthed at Toprak
+Kaleh. One of the newly-found inscriptions of Sarduris III. shows that
+the name of the Assyrian god, hitherto read Ramman or Rimmon, was
+really pronounced Hadad. It describes a war of the Vannic king against
+Assur-nirari, son of Hadad-nirari (_A-da-di-ni-ra-ri_) of Assyria, thus
+revealing not only the true form of the Assyrian name, but also the
+parentage of the last king of the older Assyrian dynasty. From another
+inscription, belonging to Rusas II., the son of Argistis, we learn that
+campaigns were carried on against the Hittites and the Moschi in the
+latter years of Sennacherib's reign, and therefore only just before the
+irruption of the Kimmerians into the northern regions of Western Asia.
+
+The two German explorers have also discovered the site and even the
+ruins of Muzazir, called Ardinis by the people of Van. They lie on the
+hill of Shkenna, near Topsana, on the road between Kelishin and Sidek.
+In the immediate neighbourhood the travellers succeeded in deciphering
+a monument of Rusas I., partly in Vannic, partly in Assyrian, from which
+it appears that the Vannic king did not, after all, commit suicide when
+the news of the fall of Muzazir was brought to him, as is stated by
+Sargon, but that, on the contrary, he "marched against the mountains
+of Assyria" and restored the fallen city itself. Urzana, the King of
+Muzazir, had fled to him for shelter, and after the departure of the
+Assyrian army he was sent back by Rusas to his ancestral domains. The
+whole of the district in which Muzazir was situated was termed Lulu, and
+was regarded as the southern province of Ararat. In it was Mount Nizir,
+on whose summit the ark of the Chaldsean Noah rested, and which is
+therefore rightly described in the Book of Genesis as one of "the
+mountains of Ararat." It was probably the Rowandiz of to-day.
+
+The discoveries made by Drs. Belck and Lehmann, however, have not been
+confined to Vannic texts. At the sources of the Tigris Dr. Lehmann has
+found two Assyrian inscriptions of the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser IL,
+one dated in his fifteenth and the other in his thirty-first year, and
+relating to his campaigns against Aram of Ararat. He has further found
+that the two inscriptions previously known to exist at the same spot,
+and believed to belong to Tiglath-Ninip and Assur-nazir-pal, are really
+those of Shalmaneser II., and refer to the war of his seventh year.
+
+But it is from Egypt that the most revolutionary revelations have
+come. At Abydos and Kom el-Ahmar, opposite El-Kab, monuments have been
+disinterred of the kings of the first and second dynasties, if not of
+even earlier princes; while at Negada, north of Thebes, M. de Morgan has
+found a tomb which seems to have been that of Menes himself. A new world
+of art has been opened out before us; even the hieroglyphic system of
+writing is as yet immature and strange. But the art is already advanced
+in many respects; hard stone was cut into vases and bowls, and even
+into statuary of considerable artistic excellence; glazed porcelain was
+already made, and bronze, or rather copper, was fashioned into weapons
+and tools. The writing material, as in Babylonia, was often clay,
+over which seal-cylinders of a Babylonian pattern were rolled. Equally
+Babylonian are the strange and composite animals engraved on some of the
+objects of this early age, as well as the structure of the tombs, which
+were built, not of stone, but of crude brick, with their external
+walls panelled and pilastered. Professor Hommel's theory, which brings
+Egyptian civilisation from Babylonia along with the ancestors of the
+historical Egyptians, has thus been largely verified.
+
+But the historical Egyptians were not the first inhabitants of the
+valley of the Nile. Not only have palaeolithic implements been found on
+the plateau of the desert; the relics of neolithic man have turned up
+in extraordinary abundance. When the historical Egyptians arrived with
+their copper weapons and their system of writing, the land was already
+occupied by a pastoral people, who had attained a high level of
+neolithic culture. Their implements of flint are the most beautiful and
+delicately finished that have ever been discovered; they were able to
+carve vases of great artistic excellence out of the hardest of stone,
+and their pottery was of no mean quality. Long after the country had
+come into the possession of the historical dynasties, and had even been
+united into a single monarchy, their settlements continued to exist
+on the outskirts of the desert, and the neolithic culture that
+distinguished them passed only gradually away. By degrees, however,
+they intermingled with their conquerors from Asia, and thus formed the
+Egyptian race of a later day. But they had already made Egypt what it
+has been throughout the historical period. Under the direction of the
+Asiatic immigrants and of the eugineering science whose first home had
+been in the alluvial plain of Babylonia, they accomplished those great
+works of irrigation which confined the Nile to its present channel,
+which cleared away the jungle and the swamp that had formerly bordered
+the desert, and turned them into fertile fields. Theirs were the hands
+which carried out the plans of their more intelligent masters, and
+cultivated the valley when once it had been reclaimed. The Egypt
+of history was the creation of a twofold race: the Egyptians of the
+monuments supplied the controlling and directing power; the Egyptians of
+the neolithic graves bestowed upon it their labour and their skill.
+
+The period treated of by Professor Maspero in these volumes is one for
+which there is an abundance of materials sucli as do not exist for
+the earlier portions of his history. The evidence of the monuments is
+supplemented by that of the Hebrew and classical writers. But on this
+very account it is in some respects more difficult to deal with, and the
+conclusions arrived at by the historian are more open to question and
+dispute. In some cases conflicting accounts are given of an event which
+seem to rest on equally good authority; in other cases, there is a
+sudden failure of materials just where the thread of the story becomes
+most complicated. Of this the decline and fall of the Assyrian empire
+is a prominent example; for our knowledge of it, we have still to depend
+chiefly on the untrustworthy legends of the Greeks. Our views must be
+coloured more or less by our estimate of Herodotos; those who, like
+myself, place little or no confidence in what he tells us about Oriental
+affairs will naturally form a very different idea of the death-struggle,
+of Assyria from that formed by writers who still see in him the Father
+of Oriental History.
+
+Even where the native monuments have come to our aid, they have not
+unfrequently introduced difficulties and doubts where none seemed to
+exist before, and have made the task of the critical historian harder
+than ever. Cyrus and his forefathers, for instance, turn out to have
+been kings of Anzan, and not of Persia, thus explaining why it is that
+the Neo-Susian language appears by the side of the Persian and the
+Babylonian as one of the three official languages of the Persian empire;
+but we still have to learn what was the relation of Anzan to Persia on
+the one hand, and to Susa on the other, and when it was that Cyrus of
+Anzan became also King of Persia. In the Annalistic Tablet, he is called
+"King of Persia" for the first time in the ninth year of Nabonidos.
+
+Similar questions arise as to the position and nationality of Astyages.
+He is called in the inscriptions, not a Mede, but a Manda--a name which,
+as I showed many years ago, meant for the Babylonian a "barbarian" of
+Kurdistan. I have myself little doubt that the Manda over whom Astyages
+ruled were the Scythians of classical tradition, who, as may be gathered
+from a text published by Mr. Strong, had occupied the ancient kingdom of
+Ellipi. It is even possible that in the Madyes of Herodotos, we have a
+reminiscence of the Manda of the cuneiform inscriptions. That the Greek
+writers should have confounded the Mada or Medes with the Manda or
+Barbarians is not surprising; we find even Berossos describing one of
+the early dynasties of Babylonia as "Median" where Manda, and not
+Mada, must plainly be meant.
+
+These and similar problems, however, will doubtless be cleared up by the
+progress of excavation and research. Perhaps M. de Morgan's excavations
+at Susa may throw some light on them, but it is to the work of the
+German expedition, which has recently begun the systematic exploration
+of the site of Babylon, that we must chiefly look for help. The Babylon
+of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar rose on the ruins of Nineveh, and
+the story of downfall of the Assyrian empire must still be lying buried
+under its mounds.
+
+A. H. SAYCE.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+
+In completing the translation of this great work, I have to thank
+Professor Maspero for kindly permitting me to appeal to him on various
+questions which arose while preparing the translation. His patience and
+courtesy have alike been unfailing in every matter submitted for his
+decision.
+
+I am indebted to Miss Bradbury for kindly supplying, in the midst of
+much other literary work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, the translation
+of the chapter on the gods, and also of the earlier parts of some of the
+first chapters. She has, moreover, helped me in my own share of the work
+with many suggestions and hints, which her intimate connection with the
+late Miss Amelia B. Edwards fully qualified her to give.
+
+As in the original there is a lack of uniformity in the transcription
+and accentuation of Arabic names, I have ventured to alter them in
+several cases to the form most familiar to English readers.
+
+The spelling of the ancient Egyptian words has, at Professor Maspero's
+request, been retained throughout, with the exception that the French
+_ou_ has been invariably represented by u, e.g. Khnoumou by Khnumu.
+
+By an act of international courtesy, the director of the _Imprimerie
+Nationale_ has allowed the beautifully cut hieroglyphic and cuneiform
+type used in the original to be employed in the English edition, and
+I take advantage of this opportunity to express to him our thanks and
+appreciation of his graceful act.
+
+M. L. McClure.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I.--THE NILE AND EGYPT The River and its Influence upon the
+Formation of the Country--The Oldest Inhabitants of the Valley and its
+First Political Organization
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--THE GODS OF EGYPT Their Number and their Nature--The Feudal
+Gods, Living and Dead--The Triads--Temples and Priests--The Cosmogonies
+of the Delta--The Enneads of Heliopolis and of Hermopolis
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT The Divine Dynasties:
+Ra, Shu, Osiris, Sit, Horus-Thot, and the Invention of Sciences and
+Writing-Menes, and the Three First Human Dynasties
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE ONE]
+
+[Illustration: 002.jpg PAGE TWO]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--THE NILE AND EGYPT
+
+_THE RIVER AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF
+THE COUNTRY--THE OLDEST INHABITANTS OF THE LAND--THE FIRST POLITICAL
+ORGANIZATION OF THE VALLEY._
+
+_The Delta: its gradual formation, its structure, its canals--The valley
+of Egypt--The two arms of the river--The Eastern Nile--The appearance
+of its hanks--The hills--The gorge of Gehel Silsileh--The cataracts: the
+falls of Aswan--Nubia--The rapids of Wady Halfah--The Takazze--The Blue
+Nile and the White Nile.
+
+The sources of the Nile--The Egyptian cosmography--The four pillars
+and the four upholding mountains--The celestial Nile the source of the
+terrestial Nile--the Southern Sea and the islands of Spirits--The tears
+of Isis--The rise of the Nile--The Green Nile and the Bed Nile--The
+opening of the dykes---The fall of the Nile--The river at its lowest
+ebb.
+
+The alluvial deposits and the effects of the inundation upon the soil of
+Egypt--Paucity of the flora: aquatic plants, the papyrus and the lotus;
+the sycamore and the date-palm, the acacias, the dom-palms--The fauna:
+the domestic and wild animals; serpents, the urstus; the hippopotamus
+and the crocodile; birds; fish, the fahaka.
+
+The Nile god: his form and its varieties--The goddess Mirit--The
+supposed sources of the Nile at Elephantine--The festivals of Gebel
+Silsileh-Hymn to the Nile from papyri m the British Museum.
+
+The names of the Nile and Egypt: Bomitu and Qimit--Antiquity of the
+Egyptianpeople--Their first horizon--The hypothesis of their Asiatic
+origin--The probability of their African origin--The language and its
+Semitic affinities--The race and its principal types.
+
+The primitive civilization of Egypt--Its survival into historic
+times--The women of Amon--Marriage--Rights of women and
+children--Houses--Furniture--Dress--Jewels--Wooden and metal
+arms--Primitive life-Fishing and hunting--The lasso and "bolas"--The
+domestication of animals--Plants used for food--The lotus--Cereals--The
+hoe and the plough.
+
+The conquest of the valley--Dykes--Basins--Irrigation--The princes--The
+nomes--The first local principalities--Late organization of the
+Delta--Character of its inhabitants--Gradual division of the
+principalities and changes of then areas--The god of the city._
+
+[Illustration: 003.jpg CHAPTER ONE]
+
+
+
+THE NILE AND EGYPT
+
+_The river and its influence upon the formation of the country--The
+oldest inhabitants of the valley and its first political organization._
+
+     *  The same expression has been attributed to Hecatseus of
+     Miletus. It has often been observed that this phrase seems
+     Egyptian   on  the face of it, and it certainly recalls such
+     forms of expression as the following, taken from a formula
+     frequently found on funerary "All things created by heaven,
+     given by earth, _brought by the Nile--from its mysterious
+     sources._" Nevertheless, up to the present time, the
+     hieroglyphic texts have yielded nothing altogether
+     corresponding to the exact terms of the Greek historians--
+     _gift_ of the Nile, or its natural _product_.
+
+A long low, level shore, scarcely rising above the sea, a chain of
+vaguely defined and ever-shifting lakes and marshes, then the triangular
+plain beyond, whose apex is thrust thirty leagues into the land--this,
+the Delta of Egypt, has gradually been acquired from the sea, and is
+as it were the gift of the Nile. The Mediterranean once reached to the
+foot of the sandy plateau on which stand the Pyramids, and formed a
+wide gulf where now stretches plain beyond plain of the Delta. The
+last undulations of the Arabian hills, from Gebel Mokattam to Gebel
+Geneffeh, were its boundaries on the east, while a sinuous and shallow
+channel running between Africa and Asia united the Mediterranean to
+the Red Sea. Westward, the littoral followed closely the contour of the
+Libyan plateau; but a long limestone spur broke away from it at about
+31 deg. N., and terminated in Cape Abukir. The alluvial deposits first
+tilled up the depths of the bay, and then, under the influence of the
+currents which swept along its eastern coasts, accumulated behind that
+rampart of sand-hills whose remains are still to be seen near Benha.
+Thus was formed a miniature Delta, whose structure pretty accurately
+corresponded with that of the great Delta of to-day. Here the Nile
+divided into three divergent streams, roughly coinciding with the
+southern courses of the Rosetta and Damietta branches, and with the
+modern canal of Abu Meneggeh. The ceaseless accumulation of mud brought
+down by the river soon overpassed the first limits, and steadily
+encroached upon the sea until it was carried beyond the shelter
+furnished by Cape Abukir. Thence it was gathered into the great littoral
+current flowing from Africa to Asia, and formed an incurvated coast-line
+ending in the headland of Casios, on the Syrian frontier. From that time
+Egypt made no further increase towards the north, and her coast remains
+practically such as it was thousands of years ago:[*] the interior
+alone has suffered change, having been dried up, hardened, and gradually
+raised. Its inhabitants thought they could measure the exact length of
+time in which this work of creation had been accomplished. According
+to the Egyptians, Menes, the first of their mortal kings, had found, so
+they said, the valley under water. The sea came in almost as far as the
+Fayum, and, excepting the province of Thebes, the whole country was
+a pestilential swamp. Hence, the necessary period for the physical
+formation of Egypt would cover some centuries after Menes. This is
+no longer considered a sufficient length of time, and some modern
+geologists declare that the Nile must have worked at the formation of
+its own estuary for at least seventy-four thousand years.[**]
+
+     * Elie de Beaumont, "The great distinction of the Nile Delta
+     lies in the almost uniform persistence of its coast-line....
+     The present sea-coast of Egypt is little altered from that
+     of three thousand years  ago."    The latest observations
+     prove it to be sinking and shrinking near Alexandria to rise
+     in the neighbourhood of Port Said.
+
+     ** Others, as for example Schweinfurth, are  more  moderate
+     in their views, and think "that it must have taken about
+     twenty thousand years for that alluvial deposit which now
+     forms  the   arable soil of Egypt to have attained to its
+     present depth and fertility."
+
+This figure is certainly exaggerated, for the alluvium would gain on
+the shallows of the ancient gulf far more rapidly than it gains upon the
+depths of the Mediterranean. But even though we reduce the period, we
+must still admit that the Egyptians little suspected the true age of
+their country. Not only did the Delta long precede the coming of Menes,
+but its plan was entirely completed before the first arrival of the
+Egyptians. The Greeks, full of the mysterious virtues which they
+attributed to numbers, discovered that there were seven principal
+branches, and seven mouths of the Nile, and that, as compared with
+these, the rest were but false mouths.
+
+[Illustration: 006.jpg THE MOUTH OF THE NILE PREVIOUS TO THE FORMATION
+OF THE DELTA.]
+
+As a matter of fact, there were only three chief outlets.    The Canopic
+branch flowed westward, and fell into the Mediterranean near Cape
+Abukir, at the western extremity of the arc described by the coast-line.
+The Pelusiac branch followed the length of the Arabian chain, and flowed
+forth at the other extremity; and the Sebennytic stream almost bisected
+the triangle contained between the Canopic and Pelusiac channels. Two
+thousand years ago, these branches separated from the main river at  the
+city of Cerkasoros, nearly four  miles north of the site where Cairo now
+stands. But after the Pelusiac branch had ceased to exist, the fork of
+the river gradually wore away the land from age to age, and is now some
+nine miles lower down.[*] These three great waterways are united by a
+network of artificial rivers and canals, and by ditches--some natural,
+others dug by the hand of man, but all ceaselessly shifting. They silt
+up, close, open again, replace each other, and ramify in innumerable
+branches over the surface of the soil, spreading life and fertility on
+all sides. As the land rises towards the south, this web contracts and
+is less confused, while black mould and cultivation alike dwindle, and
+the fawn-coloured line of the desert comes into sight. The Libyan and
+Arabian hills appear above the plain, draw nearer to each other, and
+gradually shut in the horizon until it seems as though they would unite.
+And there the Delta ends, and Egypt proper has begun.
+
+It is only a strip of vegetable mould stretching north and south between
+regions of drought and desolation, a prolonged oasis on the banks of the
+river, made by the Nile, and sustained by the Nile. The whole length of
+the land is shut in between two ranges of hills, roughly parallel at a
+mean distance of about twelve miles.[**]
+
+     * By the end of the Byzantine period, the fork of the river
+     lay at some distance south of Shetnufi, the present
+     Shatanuf, which is the spot where it now is. The Arab
+     geographers call the head of the Delta Batn-el-Bagaraji, the
+     Cow's Belly. Ampere, in his Voyage en Egypte et en Nubie, p.
+     120, says,--"May it not be that this name, denoting the place
+     where the most fertile part of Egypt begins, is a
+     reminiscence of the Cow Goddess, of Isis, the symbol of
+     fecundity, and the personification of Egypt?"
+
+     **De Roziere estimated the mean breadth as being only a
+     little over nine miles.
+
+During the earlier ages, the river filled all this intermediate space,
+and the sides of the hills, polished, worn, blackened to their very
+summits, still bear unmistakable traces of its action. Wasted, and
+shrunken within the deeps of its ancient bed, the stream now makes a way
+through its own thick deposits of mud. The bulk of its waters keeps
+to the east, and constitutes the true Nile, the "Great River" of the
+hieroglyphic inscriptions. A second arm flows close to the Libyan
+desert, here and there formed into canals, elsewhere left to follow
+its own course. From the head of the Delta to the village of Demt it
+is called the Bahr-Yusuf; beyond Derut--up to Gebel Silsileh--it is the
+Ibrahimiyeh, the Sohagiyeh, the Raian. But the ancient names are unknown
+to us. This Western Nile dries up in winter throughout all its upper
+courses: where it continues to flow, it is by scanty accessions from
+the main Nile. It also divides north of Henassieh, and by the gorge of
+Illahun sends out a branch which passes beyond the hills into the basin
+of the Fayurn. The true Nile, the Eastern Nile, is less a river than
+a sinuous lake encumbered with islets and sandbanks, and its navigable
+channel winds capriciously between them, flowing with a strong and
+steady current below the steep, black banks cut sheer through the
+alluvial earth.
+
+[Illustration: 009.jpg A LINE OF LADEN CAMELS EMERGES FROM A HOLLOW OF
+THE UNDULATING ROAD. 1]
+
+     1  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     Insinger, taken in 1884.
+
+There are light groves of the date-palm, groups of acacia trees and
+sycamores, square patches of barley or of wheat, fields of beans or of
+bersim,[*] and here and there a long bank of sand which the least breeze
+raises into whirling clouds. And over all there broods a great silence,
+scarcely broken by the cry of birds, or the song of rowers in a passing
+boat.
+
+     * Bersim is a kind of trefoil, the _Trifolium Alexandrinum_
+     of LINNAEUS. It is very common in Egypt, and the only plant
+     of the kind generally cultivated for fodder.
+
+Something of human life may stir on the banks, but it is softened into
+poetry by distance. A half-veiled woman, bearing a bundle of herbs upon
+her head, is driving her goats before her. An irregular line of asses or
+of laden camels emerges from one hollow of the undulating road only to
+disappear within another. A group of peasants, crouched upon the shore,
+in the ancient posture of knees to chin, patiently awaits the return of
+the ferry-boat.
+
+[Illustration: 010.jpg]
+
+     1  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     Insinger, taken in 1886.
+
+A dainty village looks forth smiling from beneath its palm trees. Near
+at hand it is all naked filth and ugliness: a cluster of low grey huts
+built of mud and laths; two or three taller houses, whitewashed;
+an enclosed square shaded by sycamores; a few old men, each seated
+peacefully at his own door; a confusion of fowls, children, goats, and
+sheep; half a dozen boats made fast ashore. But, as we pass on, the
+wretchedness all fades away; meanness of detail is lost in light, and
+long before it disappears at a bend of the river, the village is again
+clothed with gaiety and serene beauty. Day by day, the landscape repeats
+itself. The same groups of trees alternate with the same fields, growing
+green or dusty in the sunlight according to the season of the year. With
+the same measured flow, the Nile winds beneath its steep banks and about
+its scattered islands.
+
+[Illustration: 011.jpg PART OF GEBEL SHEKH HERIDI. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1882.
+
+One village succeeds another, each alike smiling and sordid under its
+crown of foliage. The terraces of the Libyan hills, away beyond the
+Western Nile, scarcely rise above the horizon, and lie like a white
+edging between the green of the plain and the blue of the sky. The
+Arabian hills do not form one unbroken line, but a series of mountain
+masses with their spurs, now approaching the river, and now withdrawing
+to the desert at almost regular intervals. At the entrance to the
+valley, rise Gebel Mokattam and Gebel el-Ahmar. Gebel Hemur-Shemul and
+Gebel Shekh Embarak next stretch in echelon from north to south, and are
+succeeded by Gebel et-Ter, where, according to an old legend, all the
+birds of the world are annually assembled.[*]
+
+     * In Makrizi's _Description of Egypt_ we read: "Every year,
+     upon a certain day, all the herons (Boukir, _Ardea bubulcus_
+     of Cuvier) assemble at this mountain. One after another,
+     each puts his beak into a cleft of the hill until the cleft
+     closes upon one of them. And then forthwith all the others
+     fly away But the bird which has been caught struggles until
+     he dies, and there his body remains until it has fallen into
+     dust." The same tale is told by other Arab writers, of which
+     a list may be seen in Etienne Quatremere, _Memoires
+     historiques et geographiques sur l'Egypte et quelques
+     contrees voisines_, vol. i. pp. 31-33. It faintly recalls
+     that ancient tradition of the Cleft at Abydos, whereby souls
+     must pass, as human-headed birds, in order to reach the
+     other world.
+
+[Illustration: 12.jpg THE HILL OF KASR ES-SAYYAD. 2]
+
+     2  From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
+     insinger, taken in 1882.
+
+Then follows Gebel Abufeda, dreaded by the sailors for its sudden gusts.
+Limestone predominates throughout, white or yellowish, broken by veins
+of alabaster, or of red and grey sandstones. Its horizontal strata are
+so symmetrically laid one above another as to seem more like the walls
+of a town than the side of a mountain. But time has often dismantled
+their summits and loosened their foundations. Man has broken into their
+facades to cut his quarries and his tombs; while the current is secretly
+undermining the base, wherein it has made many a breach. As soon as any
+margin of mud has collected between cliffs and river, halfah and wild
+plants take hold upon it, and date-palms grow there--whence their seed,
+no one knows. Presently a hamlet rises at the mouth of the ravine,
+among clusters of trees and fields in miniature. Beyond Siut, the light
+becomes more glowing, the air drier and more vibrating, and the green of
+cultivation loses its brightness. The angular outline of the dom-palni
+mingles more and more with that of the common palm and of the heavy
+sycamore, and the castor-oil plant increasingly abounds. But all these
+changes come about so gradually that they are effected before we notice
+them. The plain continues to contract. At Thebes it is still ten miles
+wide; at the gorge of Gebelen it has almost disappeared, and at Gebel
+Silsileh it has completely vanished. There, it was crossed by a natural
+dyke of sandstone, through which the waters have with difficulty scooped
+for themselves a passage. From this point, Egypt is nothing but the bed
+of the Nile lying between two escarpments of naked rock.
+
+Further on the cultivable land reappears, but narrowed, and changed
+almost beyond recognition. Hills, hewn out of solid sandstone, succeed
+each other at distances of about two miles, low, crushed, sombre, and
+formless. Presently a forest of palm trees, the last on that side,
+announces Aswan and Nubia. Five banks of granite, ranged in lines
+between latitude 24 deg. and 18 deg. N., cross Nubia from east to west, and from
+north-east to south-west, like so many ramparts thrown up between the
+Mediterranean and the heart of Africa. The Nile has attacked them from
+behind, and made its way over them one after another in rapids which
+have been glorified by the name of cataracts.
+
+[Illustration: 014.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE FIRST CATARACT. 1]
+
+     1 View taken from the hills opposite Elephantine, by
+     Insinger, in 1884.
+
+Classic writers were pleased to describe the river as hurled into the
+gulfs of Syne with so great a roar that the people of the neighbourhood
+were deafened by it. Even a colony of Persians, sent thither by
+Cambyses, could not bear the noise of the falls, and went forth to seek
+a quieter situation. The first cataract is a kind of sloping and sinuous
+passage six and a quarter miles in length, descending from the island
+of Philae to the port of Aswan, the aspect of its approach relieved and
+brightened by the ever green groves of Elephantine. Beyond Elephantine
+are cliffs and sandy beaches, chains of blackened "roches moutonnees"
+marking out the beds of the currents, and fantastic reefs, sometimes
+bare and sometimes veiled by long grasses and climbing plants, in
+which thousands of birds have made their nests. There are islets
+too, occasionally large enough to have once supported something of a
+population, such as Amerade, Salug, Sehel. The granite threshold of
+Nubia, is broken beyond Sehel, but its debris, massed m disorder against
+the right bank, still seem to dispute the passage of the waters, dashing
+turbulently and roaring as they flow along through tortuous channels,
+where every streamlet is broken up into small cascades, ihe channel
+running by the left bank is always navigable.
+
+[Illustration: 015.jpg ENTRANCE TO NUBIA.]
+
+During the inundation, the rocks and sandbanks of the right side are
+completely under water, and their presence is only betrayed by eddies.
+But on the river's reaching its lowest point a fall of some six feet is
+established, and there big boats, hugging the shore, are hauled up by
+means of ropes, or easily drift down with the current.
+
+[Illustration: 016.jpg LEAGUE BEYOND LEAGUE, THE HILLS STKETCH ON IN LOW
+IGNOBLE OUTLINE. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1881.
+
+All kinds of granite are found together in this corner of Africa. There
+are the pink and red Syenites, porphyritic granite, yellow granite, grey
+granite, both black granite and white, and granites veined with black
+and veined with white. As soon as these disappear behind us, various
+sandstones begin to crop up, allied to the coarsest _calcaire grossier_.
+The hill bristle with small split blocks, with peaks half overturned,
+with rough and denuded mounds. League beyond league, they stretch in low
+ignoble outline. Here and there a valley opens sharply into the desert,
+revealing an infinite perspective of summits and escarpments in echelon
+one behind another to the furthest plane of the horizon, like motionless
+caravans. The now confined river rushes on with a low, deep murmur,
+accompanied night and day by the croaking of frogs and the rhythmic
+creak of the sakieh.[*]
+
+     * The sakieh is made of a notch-wheel fixed vertically on a
+     horizontal axle, and is actuated by various cog-wheels set
+     in continuous motion by oxen or asses.    A long chain of
+     earthenware vessels brings up the water either from the
+     river itself, or from some little branch  canal, and
+     empties it into a system of troughs and reservoirs.
+     Thence, it flows forth to be distributed over all the
+     neighbouring land.
+
+Jetties of rough stone-work, made in unknown times by an unknown people,
+run out like breakwaters into midstream.
+
+[Illustration: 018.jpg THE ENTRANCE TO THE FIRST CATARACT]
+
+From time to time waves of sand are borne over, and drown the narrow
+fields of durra and of barley. Scraps of close, aromatic pasturage,
+acacias, date-palms, and dom-palms, together with a few shrivelled
+sycamores, are scattered along both banks. The ruins of a crumbling
+pylon mark the site of some ancient city, and, overhanging the water,
+is a vertical wall of rock honeycombed with tombs. Amid these relics of
+another age, miserable huts, scattered hamlets, a town or two surrounded
+with little gardens are the only evidence that there is yet life in
+Nubia. South of Wady Halfah, the second granite bank is broken through,
+and the second cataract spreads its rapids over a length of four
+leagues: the archipelago numbers more than 350 islets, of which some
+sixty have houses upon them and yield harvests to their inhabitants. The
+main characteristics of the first two cataracts are repeated with slight
+variations in the cases of the three which follow,--at Hannek, at
+Guerendid, and El-Hu-mar. It is Egypt still, but a joyless Egypt bereft
+of its brightness: impoverished, disfigured, and almost desolate.
+
+[Illustration: 020.jpg ENTRANCE TO THE SECOND CATAKACT. 1]
+
+     1 View taken from the top of the rocks of Abusir, after a
+     photograph by Insinger, in 1881.
+
+There is the same double wall of hills, now closely confining the
+valley, and again withdrawing from each other as though to flee into
+the desert. Everywhere are moving sheets of sand, steep black banks with
+their narrow strips of cultivation, villages which are scarcely visible
+on account of the lowness of their huts sycamore ceases at Gebel-Barkal,
+date-palms become fewer and finally disappear. The Nile alone has not
+changed. And it was at Philse, so it is at Berber. Here, however, on
+the right bank, 600 leagues from the sea, is its first affluent, the
+Takazze, which intermittently brings to it the waters of Northern
+Ethiopia. At Khartum, the single channel in which the river flowed
+divides; and two other streams are opened up in a southerly direction,
+each of them apparently equal in volume to the main stream. Which is
+the true Nile? Is it the Blue Nile, which seems to come down from the
+distant mountains? Or is it the White Nile, which has traversed the
+immense plains of equatorial Africa. The old Egyptians never knew.
+The river kept the secret of its source from them as obstinately as it
+withheld it from us until a few years ago. Vainly did their victorious
+armies follow the Nile for months together as they pursued the
+tribes who dwelt upon its banks, only to find it as wide, as full, as
+irresistible in its progress as ever. It was a fresh-water sea, and
+sea--_iauma, ioma_--was the name by which they called it.
+
+The Egyptians therefore never sought its source. They imagined the whole
+universe to be a large box, nearly rectangular in form, whose greatest
+diameter was from south to north, and its least from east to west. The
+earth, with its alternate continents and seas, formed the bottom of the
+box; it was a narrow, oblong, and slightly concave floor, with Egypt
+in its centre. The sky stretched over it like an iron ceiling, flat
+according to some, vaulted according to others. Its earthward face was
+capriciously sprinkled with lamps hung from strong cables, and which,
+extinguished or unperceived by day, were lighted, or became visible to
+our eyes, at night.
+
+[Illustration: 022.jpg AN ATTEMPT TO REPRESENT THE EGYPTIAN UNIVERSE.2]
+
+     2 Section taken at Hermopolis. To the left, is the bark of
+     the sun on the celestial river.
+
+Since this ceiling could not remain in mid-air without support, four
+columns, or rather four forked trunks of trees, similar to those which
+maintained the primitive house, were supposed to uphold it. But it was
+doubtless feared lest some tempest should overturn them, for they were
+superseded by four lofty peaks, rising at the four cardinal points, and
+connected by a continuous chain of mountains. The Egyptians knew little
+of the northern peak: the Mediterranean, the "Very Green," interposed
+between it and Egypt, and prevented their coming near enough to see it.
+The southern peak was named Apit the Horn of the Earth; that on the east
+was called Bakhu, the Mountain of Birth; and the western peak was known
+as Manu, sometimes as Onkhit, the Region of Life.
+
+[Illustration: 023.jpg FOOTNOTES WITH GRAPHICS]
+
+Bakhu was not a fictitious mountain, but the highest of those distant
+summits seen from the Nile in looking towards the red Sea. In the same
+way, Manu answered to some hill of the Libyan desert, whose summit
+closed the horizon. When it was discovered that neither Bakhu nor Manu
+were the limits of the world, the notion of upholding the celestial roof
+was not on that account given up. It was only necessary to withdraw the
+pillars from sight, and imagine fabulous peaks, invested with familiar
+names. These were not supposed to form the actual boundary of
+the universe; a great river--analogous to the Ocean-stream of the
+Greeks--lay between them and its utmost limits. This river circulated
+upon a kind of ledge projecting along the sides of the box a little
+below the continuous mountain chain upon which the starry heavens were
+sustained. On the north of the ellipse, the river was bordered by a
+steep and abrupt bank, which took its rise at the peak of Manu on the
+west, and soon rose high enough to form a screen between the river and
+the earth. The narrow valley which it hid from view was known as
+Da'it from remotest times. Eternal night enfolded that valley in thick
+darkness, and filled it with dense air such as no living thing could
+breathe. Towards the east the steep bank rapidly declined, and ceased
+altogether a little beyond Bakhu, while the river flowed on between low
+and almost level shores from east to south, and then from south to west.
+The sun was a disc of fire placed upon a boat. At the same equable rate,
+the river carried it round the ramparts of the world. Erom evening until
+morning it disappeared within the gorges of Dait; its light did not then
+reach us, and it was night. From morning until evening its rays, being
+no longer intercepted by any obstacle, were freely shed abroad from one
+end of the box to the other, and it was day. The Nile branched off from
+the celestial river at its southern bend;[*] hence the south was
+the chief cardinal point to the Egyptians, and by that they oriented
+themselves, placing sunrise to their left, and sunset to their right.
+
+     * The classic writers themselves knew that, according to
+     Egyptian belief, the Nile flowed down from heaven. The
+     legend of the Nile having its source in the ocean stream was
+     but a Greek transposition of the Egyptian doctrine, which
+     represented it as an arm of the celestial river whereon the
+     sun sailed round the earth.
+
+Before they passed beyond the defiles of Gebel Silsileh, they thought
+that the spot whence the celestial waters left the sky was situate
+between Elephantine and Philae, and that they descended in an immense
+waterfall whose last leaps were at Syene. It may be that the tales about
+the first cataract told by classic writers are but a far-off echo of
+this tradition of a barbarous age. Conquests carried into the heart of
+Africa forced the Egyptians to recognize their error, but did not weaken
+their faith in the supernatural origin of the river. They only placed
+its source further south, and surrounded it with greater marvels.
+They told how, by going up the stream, sailors at length reached an
+undetermined country, a kind of borderland between this world and the
+next, a "Land of Shades," whose inhabitants were dwarfs, monsters,
+or spirits. Thence they passed into a sea sprinkled with mysterious
+islands, like those enchanted archipelagoes which Portuguese and Breton
+mariners were wont to see at times when on their voyages, and which
+vanished at their approach. These islands were inhabited by serpents
+with human voices, sometimes friendly and sometimes cruel to the
+shipwrecked. He who went forth from the islands could never more
+re-enter them: they were resolved into the waters and lost within the
+bosom of the waves. A modern geographer can hardly comprehend such
+fancies; those of Greek and Roman times were perfectly familiar with
+them. They believed that the Nile communicated with the Red Sea near
+Suakin, by means of the Astaboras, and this was certainly the route
+which the Egyptians of old had imagined for their navigators. The
+supposed communication was gradually transferred farther and farther
+south; and we have only to glance over certain maps of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, to see clearly drawn what the Egyptians had
+imagined--the centre of Africa as a great lake, whence issued the Congo,
+the Zambesi, and the Nile. Arab merchants of the Middle Ages believed
+that a resolute man could pass from Alexandria or Cairo to the land of
+the Zindjes and the Indian Ocean by rising from river to river.[*]
+
+     * Joinville has given a special chapter to the description
+     of the sources and wonders of the Nile, in which he believed
+     as firmly as in an article of his creed. As late as the
+     beginning of the seventeenth century, Wendelinus devoted
+     part of his _Admiranda Nili_ to proving that the river did
+     not rise in the earthly Paradise. At Gurnah, forty years
+     ago, Rhind picked up a legend which stated that the Nile
+     flows down from the sky.
+
+[Illustration: 027.jpg SOUTH AFRICA AND THE SOURCES OF THE NILE, BY
+ODOAKDO LOPEZ. 1]
+
+     1 Facsimile of the map published by Kircher in _OEdipus
+     AEgyptiacus_, vol. i. (_Iconismus II_), p. 53.
+
+Many of the legends relating to this subject are lost, while others
+have been collected and embellished with fresh features by Jewish and
+Christian theologians. The Nile was said to have its source in Paradise,
+to traverse burning regions inaccessible to man, and afterwards to fall
+into a sea whence it made its way to Egypt. Sometimes it carried down
+from its celestial sources branches and fruits unlike any to be found
+on earth. The sea mentioned in all these tales is perhaps a less
+extravagant invention than we are at first inclined to think. A lake,
+nearly as large as the Victoria Nyanza, once covered the marshy plain
+where the Bahr el-Abiad unites with the Sobat, and with the Bahr
+el-Ghazal. Alluvial deposits have filled up all but its deepest
+depression, which is known as Birket Nu; but, in ages preceding our era,
+it must still have been vast enough to suggest to Egyptian soldiers and
+boatmen the idea of an actual sea, opening into the Indian Ocean.
+The mountains, whose outline was vaguely seen far to southward on the
+further shores, doubtless contained within them its mysterious source.
+There the inundation was made ready, and there it began upon a fixed
+day. The celestial Nile had its periodic rise and fall, on which those
+of the earthly Nile depended. Every year, towards the middle of June,
+Isis, mourning for Osiris, let fall into it one of the tears which she
+shed over her brother, and thereupon the river swelled and descended
+upon earth. Isis has had no devotees for centuries, and her very name is
+unknown to the descendants of her worshippers; but the tradition of her
+fertilizing tears has survived her memory. Even to this day, every one
+in Egypt, Mussulman or Christian, knows that a divine drop falls from
+heaven during the night between the 17th and 18th of June, and forthwith
+brings about the rise of the Nile. Swollen by the rains which fall
+in February over the region of the Great Lakes, the White Nile rushes
+northward, sweeping before it the stagnant sheets of water left by the
+inundation of the previous year. On the left, the Bahr el-Ghazal brings
+it the overflow of the ill-defined basin stretching between Darfur and
+the Congo; and the Sobat pours in on the right a tribute from the rivers
+which furrow the southern slopes of the Abyssinian mountains. The first
+swell passes Khartum by the end of April, and raises the water-level
+there by about a foot, then it slowly makes its way through Nubia, and
+dies away in Egypt at the beginning of June. Its waters, infected
+by half-putrid organic matter from the equatorial swamps, are not
+completely freed from it even in the course of this long journey, but
+keep a greenish tint as far as the Delta. They are said to be poisonous,
+and to give severe pains in the bladder to any who may drink them. I am
+bound to say that every June, for five years, I drank this green water
+from the Nile itself, without taking any other precaution than the usual
+one of filtering it through a porous jar. Neither I, nor the many people
+living with me, ever felt the slightest inconvenience from it. Happily,
+this _Green Nile_ does not last long, but generally flows away in three
+or four days, and is only the forerunner of the real flood. The melting
+of the snows and the excessive spring rains having suddenly swollen the
+torrents which rise in the central plateau of Abyssinia, the Blue Nile,
+into which they flow, rolls so impetuously towards the plain that, when
+its waters reach Khartum in the middle of May, they refuse to mingle
+with those of the White Nile, and do not lose their peculiar colour
+before reaching the neighbourhood of Abu Hamed, three hundred miles
+below. From that time the height of the Nile increases rapidly day
+by day. The river, constantly reinforced by floods following one upon
+another from the Great Lakes and from Abyssinia, rises in furious
+bounds, and would become a devastating torrent were its rage not checked
+by the Nubian cataracts. Here six basins, one above another, in which
+the water collects, check its course, and permit it to flow thence only
+as a partially filtered and moderated stream. It is signalled at Syene
+towards the 8th of June, at Cairo by the 17th to the 20th, and there its
+birth is officially celebrated during the "Night of the Drop." Two
+days later it reaches the Delta, just in time to save the country from
+drought and sterility. Egypt, burnt up by the Khamsin, a west wind
+blowing continuously for fifty days, seems nothing more than an
+extension of the desert. The trees are covered and choked by a layer of
+grey dust. About the villages, meagre and laboriously watered patches
+of vegetables struggle for life, while some show of green still
+lingers along the canals and in hollows whence all moisture has not
+yet evaporated. The plain lies panting in the sun--naked, dusty, and
+ashen--scored with intersecting cracks as far as eye can see. The Nile
+is only half its usual width, and holds not more than a twentieth of
+the volume of water which is borne down in October. It has at first hard
+work to recover its former bed, and attains it by such subtle gradations
+that the rise is scarcely noted. It is, however, continually gaining
+ground; here a sandbank is covered, there an empty channel is filled,
+islets are outlined where there was a continuous beach, a new stream
+detaches itself and gains the old shore. The first contact is disastrous
+to the banks; their steep sides, disintegrated and cracked by the heat,
+no longer offer any resistance to the current, and fall with a crash, in
+lengths of a hundred yards and more.
+
+[Illustration: 31.jpg DURING THE INUNDATION]
+
+As the successive floods grow stronger and are more heavily charged with
+mud, the whole mass of water becomes turbid and changes colour. In eight
+or ten days it has turned from greyish blue to dark red, occasionally of
+so intense a colour as to look like newly shed blood. The "Red Nile" is
+not unwholesome like the "Green Nile," and the suspended mud to which
+it owes its suspicious appearance deprives the water of none of its
+freshness and lightness. It reaches its full height towards the 15th
+of July; but the dykes which confine it, and the barriers constructed
+across the mouths of canals, still prevent it from overflowing. The Nile
+must be considered high enough to submerge the land adequately before
+it is set free. The ancient Egyptians measured its height by cubits of
+twenty-one and a quarter inches. At fourteen cubits, they pronounced it
+an excellent Nile; below thirteen, or above fifteen, it was accounted
+insufficient or excessive, and in either case meant famine, and perhaps
+pestilence at hand. To this day the natives watch its advance with the
+same anxious eagerness; and from the 3rd of July, public criers, walking
+the streets of Cairo, announce each morning what progress it has made
+since evening. More or less authentic traditions assert that the prelude
+to the opening of the canals, in the time of the Pharaohs, was
+the solemn casting to the waters of a young girl decked as for her
+bridal--the "Bride of the Nile." Even after the Arab conquest, the
+irruption of the river into the bosom of the land was still considered
+as an actual marriage; the contract was drawn up by a cadi, and
+witnesses confirmed its consummation with the most fantastic formalities
+of Oriental ceremonial. It is generally between the 1st and 16th of July
+that it is decided to break through the dykes. When that proceeding has
+been solemnly accomplished in state, the flood still takes several days
+to fill the canals, and afterwards spreads over the low lands, advancing
+little by little to the very edge of the desert. Egypt is then one sheet
+of turbid water spreading between two lines of rock and sand, flecked
+with green and black spots where there are towns or where the ground
+rises, and divided into irregular compartments by raised roads
+connecting the villages. In Nubia the river attains its greatest height
+towards the end of August; at Cairo and in the Delta not until three
+weeks or a month later. For about eight days it remains stationary, and
+then begins to fall imperceptibly. Sometimes there is a new freshet
+in October, and the river again increases in height. But the rise is
+unsustained; once more it falls as rapidly as it rose, and by December
+the river has completely retired to the limits of its bed. One after
+another, the streams which fed it fail or dwindle. The Tacazze is
+lost among the sands before rejoining it, and the Blue Nile, well-nigh
+deprived of tributaries, is but scantily maintained by Abyssinian
+snows. The White Nile is indebted to the Great Lakes for the greater
+persistence of its waters, which feed the river as far as the
+Mediterranean, and save the valley from utter drought in winter. But,
+even with this resource, the level of the water falls daily, and its
+volume is diminished. Long-hidden sandbanks reappear, and are again
+linked into continuous line. Islands expand by the rise of shingly
+beaches, which gradually reconnect them with each other and with the
+shore. Smaller branches of the river cease to flow, and form a mere
+network of stagnant pools and muddy ponds, which fast dry up. The main
+channel itself is only intermittently navigable; after March boats run
+aground in it, and are forced to await the return of the inundation for
+their release. From the middle of April to the middle of June, Egypt is
+only half alive, awaiting the new Nile.
+
+[Illustration: 034.jpg ASSIOUT]
+
+Those ruddy and heavily charged waters, rising and retiring with almost
+mathematical regularity, bring and leave the spoils of the countries
+they have traversed: sand from Nubia, whitish clay from the regions
+of the Lakes, ferruginous mud, and the various rock-formations of
+Abyssinia. These materials are not uniformly disseminated in the
+deposits; their precipitation being regulated both by their specific
+gravity and the velocity of the current. Flattened stones and rounded
+pebbles are left behind at the cataract between Syene and Keneh, while
+coarser particles of sand are suspended in the undercurrents and serve
+to raise the bed of the river, or are carried out to sea and form the
+sandbanks which are slowly rising at the Damietta and Rosetta mouths of
+the Nile. The mud and finer particles rise towards the surface, and are
+deposited upon the land after the opening of the dykes. Soil which is
+entirely dependent on the deposit of a river, and periodically invaded
+by it, necessarily maintains but a scanty flora; and though it is well
+known that, as a general rule, a flora is rich in proportion to its
+distance from the poles and its approach to the equator, it is also
+admitted that Egypt offers an exception to this rule. At the most, she
+has not more than a thousand species, while, with equal area, England,
+for instance, possesses more than fifteen hundred; and of this thousand,
+the greater number are not indigenous. Many of them have been brought
+From Central Africa by the river: birds and winds have continued
+the work, and man himself has contributed his part in making it more
+complete. From Asia he has at different times brought wheat barley
+the olive, the apple, the white or pink almond, and some twenty
+other species now acclimatized on the banks of the Nile. Marsh plants
+predominate in the Delta; but the papyrus, and the three varieties of
+blue, white, and pink lotus which once flourished there, being no longer
+cultivated, have now almost entirely disappeared, and reverted to their
+original habitats.
+
+[Illustration: 036.jpg ENTRANCE OF THE MUDIRIYEH OF ASYUT.]
+
+The sycamore and the date-palm, both importations from Central Africa,
+have better adapted themselves to their exile, and are now fully
+naturalized on Egyptian soil.
+
+[Illustration: 037.jpg FOREST OF DATE PALMS]
+
+The sycamore grows in sand on the edge of the desert as vigorously as
+in the midst of a well-watered country. Its roots go deep in search of
+water, which infiltrates as far as the gorges of the hills, and they
+absorb it freely, even where drought seems to reign supreme. The heavy,
+squat, gnarled trunk occasionally attains to colossal dimensions,
+without ever growing very high. Its rounded masses of compact foliage
+are so wide-spreading that a single tree in the distance may give the
+impression of several grouped together; and its shade is dense,
+and impenetrable to the sun. A striking contrast to the sycamore
+is presented by the date-palm. Its round and slender stem rises
+uninterruptedly to a height of thirteen to sixteen yards; its head
+is crowned with a cluster of flexible leaves arranged in two or three
+tiers, but so scanty, so pitilessly slit, that they fail to keep off the
+light, and cast but a slight and unrefreshing shadow. Few trees have so
+elegant an appearance, yet few are so monotonously elegant. There are
+palm trees to be seen on every hand; isolated, clustered by twos and
+threes at the mouths of ravines and about the villages, planted
+in regular file along the banks of the river like rows of columns,
+symmetrically arranged in plantations,--these are the invariable
+background against which other trees are grouped, diversifying the
+landscape. The feathery tamarisk[*] and the nabk, the moringa, the
+carob, or locust tree several varieties of acacia and mimosa-the sont,
+the mimosa habbas, the white acacia, the Acacia Parnesxana--and
+the pomegranate tree, increase in number with the distance from the
+Mediterranean.
+
+     * The Egyptian name for the tamarisk, _asari, asri_, is
+     identical with that given to it in Semitic languages, both
+     ancient and modern.    This would suggest the question
+     whether the tamarisk did not originally come from Asia. In
+     that case it must have been brought to Egypt from remote
+     antiquity, for it figures in the  Pyramid texts.   Bricks of
+     Nile mud, and Memphite and Theban tombs have yielded us
+     leaves, twigs, and even whole branches of the tamarisk.
+
+[Illustration: 40.jpg ACACIAS AT THE ENTRANCE TO A GARDEN OUTSIDE
+EKHMIM. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger,
+     taken in 1884.
+
+The dry air of the valley is marvellously suited to them, but makes the
+tissue of their foliage hard and fibrous, imparting an aerial aspect,
+and such faded tints as are unknown to their growth in other climates.
+The greater number of these trees do not reproduce themselves
+spontaneously, and tend to disappear when neglected. The Acacia Seyal,
+formerly abundant by the banks of the river, is now almost entirely
+confined to certain valleys of the Theban desert, along with a variety
+of the kernelled dom-palm, of which a poetical description has come
+down to us from the Ancient Egyptians. The common dom-palm bifurcates at
+eight or ten yards from the ground; these branches are subdivided, and
+terminate in bunches of twenty to thirty palmate and fibrous leaves, six
+to eight feet long. At the beginning of this century the tree was
+common in Upper Egypt, but it is now becoming scarce, and we are within
+measurable distance of the time when its presence will be an exception
+north of the first cataract. Willows are decreasing in number, and the
+persea, one of the sacred trees of Ancient Egypt, is now only to be
+found in gardens. None of the remaining tree species are common enough
+to grow in large clusters; and Egypt, reduced to her lofty groves of
+date-palms, presents the singular spectacle of a country where there is
+no lack of trees, but an almost entire absence of shade.
+
+[Illustration: 41.jpg SHE-ASS AND HER FOAL.]
+
+If Egypt is a land of imported flora, it is also a land of imported
+fauna, and all its animal species have been brought from neighbouring
+countries. Some of these--as, for example, the horse and the camel--were
+only introduced at a comparatively recent period, two thousand to
+eighteen hundred years before our era; the camel still later. The
+animals--such as the long and short-horned oxen, together with varieties
+of goats and dogs--are, like the plants, generally of African origin,
+and the ass of Egypt preserves an original purity of form and a vigour
+to which the European donkey has long been a stranger. The pig and
+the wild boar, the long-eared hare, the hedgehog, the ichneumon, the
+moufflon, or maned sheep, innumerable gazelles, including the Egyptian
+gazelles, and antelopes with lyre-shaped horns, are as much West Asian
+as African, like the carnivors of all sizes, whose prey they are--the
+wild cat, the wolf, the jackal, the striped and spotted hyenas, the
+leopard, the panther, the hunting leopard, and the lion.
+
+[Illustration: 042.jpg THE URAEUS OF EGYPT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from pl. iii. of the Reptiles-
+     Supplement to the _Description de AEgypte_.
+
+On the other hand, most of the serpents, large and small, are
+indigenous. Some are harmless, like the colubers; others are venomous,
+such as the soy tale, the cerastes, the haje viper, and the asp. The asp
+was worshipped by the Egyptians under the name of uraeus. It occasionally
+attains to a length of six and a half feet, and when approached will
+erect its head and inflate its throat in readiness for darting forward.
+The bite is fatal, like that of the cerastes; birds are literally struck
+down by the strength of the poison, while the great mammals, and man
+himself, almost invariably succumb to it after a longer or shorter
+death-struggle. The uraeus is rarely found except in the desert or in the
+fields; the scorpion crawls everywhere, in desert and city alike, and if
+its sting is not always followed by death, it invariably causes terrible
+pain. Probably there were once several kinds of gigantic serpent in
+Egypt, analogous to the pythons of equatorial Africa. They are still to
+be seen in representations of funerary scenes, but not elsewhere; for,
+like the elephant, the giraffe, and other animals which now only thrive
+far south, they had disappeared at the beginning of historic times.
+The hippopotamus long maintained its ground before returning to those
+equatorial regions whence it had been brought by the Nile. Common under
+the first dynasties, but afterwards withdrawing to the marshes of the
+Delta, it there continued to flourish up to the thirteenth century of
+our era. The crocodile, which came with it, has, like it also, been
+compelled to beat a retreat. Lord of the river throughout all ancient
+times, worshipped and protected in some provinces, execrated and
+proscribed in others, it might still be seen in the neighbourhood of
+Cairo towards the beginning of our century. In 1840, it no longer passed
+beyond the neighbourhood of Gebel et-Ter, nor beyond that of Manfalut
+in Thirty years later, Mariette asserted that it was steadily retreating
+before the guns of tourists, and the disturbance which the regular
+passing of steamboats produced in the deep waters. To-day, no one knows
+of a single crocodile existing below Aswan, but it continues to infest
+Nubia, and the rocks of the first cataract: one of them is occasionally
+carried down by the current into Egypt where it is speedily despatched
+by the fellahin, or by some traveller in quest of adventure. The
+fertility of the soil, and the vastness of the lakes and marshes,
+attract many migratory birds; passerinae and palmipedes flock thither
+from all parts of the Mediterranean. Our European swallows, our
+quails, our geese and wild ducks, our herons--to mention only the
+most familiar--come here to winter, sheltered from cold and inclement
+weather.
+
+[Illustration: 044.jpg THE IBIS OF EGYPT.]
+
+Even the non-migratory birds are really, for the most part, strangers
+acclimatized by long sojourn. Some of them--the turtledove, the magpie,
+the kingfisher, the partridge, and the sparrow-may be classed with our
+European species, while others betray their equatorial origin in the
+brightness of their colours. White and black ibises, red flamingoes,
+pelicans, and cormorants enliven the waters of the river, and animate
+the reedy swamps of the Delta in infinite variety. They are to be seen
+ranged in long files upon the sand-banks, fishing and basking in the
+sun; suddenly the flock is seized with panic, rises heavily, and settles
+away further off. In hollows of the hills, eagle and falcon, the merlin,
+the bald-headed vulture, the kestrel, the golden sparrow-hawk, find
+inaccessible retreats, whence they descend upon the plains like so many
+pillaging and well-armed barons. A thousand little chattering birds come
+at eventide to perch in flocks upon the frail boughs of tamarisk and
+acacia.
+
+[Illustration: 045.jpg THE MORMYRUS OXYRHYNCHUS.]
+
+Many sea-fish make their way upstream to swim in fresh waters-shad,
+mullet, perch, and labrus--and carry their excursions far into the Said.
+Those species which are not Mediterranean came originally, still come
+annually, from the heart of Ethiopia with the of the Nile, including two
+kinds of Alestes, the elled turtle, the Bagrus docmac, and the mormyrus.
+Some attain to a gigantic size, the Bagrus bayad and the turtle to about
+one yard, the latus to three and a half yards in length, while others,
+such as the sihlrus (catfish), are noted for their electric properties.
+Nature seems to have made the fahaka (the globe-fish) in a fit of
+playfulness. It is a long fish from beyond the cataracts, and it is
+carried by the Nile the more easily on account of the faculty it has of
+filling itself with air, and inflating its body at will.
+
+[Illustration: 046.jpg AHAKA]
+
+When swelled out immoderately, the fahaka overbalances, and drifts along
+upside down, its belly to the wind, covered with spikes so that it looks
+like a hedgehog. During the inundation, it floats with the current from
+one canal to another, and is cast by the retreating waters upon the
+muddy fields, where it becomes the prey of birds or of jackals, or
+serves as a plaything for children.
+
+[Illustration: 47.jpg TWO FISHERMEN CARRYING A LATUS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Medum painting.    Petrie,
+     _Medum_, pl. xii.
+
+Everything is dependent upon the river:--the soil, the produce of the
+soil, the species of animals it bears, the birds which it feeds: and
+hence it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They
+personified it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous and
+portly body, such as befits the rich of high lineage. His breasts, fully
+developed like those of a woman, though less firm, hang heavily upon a
+wide bosom where the fat lies in folds. A narrow girdle, whose ends fall
+free about the thighs, supports his spacious abdomen, and his attire
+is completed by sandals, and a close-fitting head-dress, generally
+surmounted with a crown of water-plants. Sometimes water springs from
+his breast; sometimes he presents a frog, or libation vases; or holds a
+bundle of the cruces ansato, as symbols of life; or bears a flat tray,
+full of offerings--bunches of flowers, ears of corn, heaps of fish,
+and geese tied together by the feet. The inscriptions call him, "Hapi,
+father of the gods, lord of sustenance, who maketh food to be, and
+covereth the two lands of Egypt with his products; who giveth life,
+banisheth want, and filleth the granaries to overflowing." He is evolved
+into two personages, one being sometimes coloured red, and the other
+blue. The former, who wears a cluster of lotus-flowers upon his head,
+presides over the Egypt of the south; the latter has a bunch of papyrus
+for his head-dress, and watches over the Delta.[**]
+
+     [**]  Wilkinson was the first who suggested that this god,
+     when painted red was the Red (that is High) Nile and when
+     painted blue, was to be identified with the Low Nile.
+     This opinion has since been generally adopted; but to me it
+     does not appear so incontrovertible as it has been
+     considered. Here, as in other cases, the difference in
+     colour is only a means of making the distinction between two
+     personages obvious to sight.
+
+Two goddesses, corresponding to the two Hapis--Mirit Qimait for Upper,
+and Mirit Mihit for Lower Egypt--personified the banks of the river.
+They are often represented as standing with outstretched arms, as though
+begging for the water which should make them fertile. The Nile-god had
+his chapel in every province, and priests whose right it was to bury all
+bodies of men or beasts cast up by the river; for the god had claimed
+them, and to his servants they belonged.
+
+[Illustration: 048.jpg THE NILE GOD. 1]
+
+     1 THE NILE GOD: Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a statue in
+     the British Museum. The dedication of this statue took place
+     about 880 B.c. The giver was Sheshonqu, high-priest of Amon
+     in Thebes, afterwards King of Egypt under the name of
+     Sheshhonqu II., and he is represented as standing behind the
+     leg of the god.
+
+[Illustration: 049.jpg THE Shrine Of The Nile At Biggeh.1]
+
+     1 Reproduced from a bas-relief in the small temple of
+     Philae, built by Rajan and his successors.    The window or
+     door of this temple opened upon gen, and by comparing the
+     drawing of the Egyptian artist with the view i the end of
+     the chamber, it is easy to recognize the original of this
+     cliff bouette in the piled-up rocks of the island.    By a
+     mistake of the modern copyist's, his drawing faces the wrong
+     way.
+
+Several towns were dedicated to him: Hathapi, Nuit-Hapi, Nilo-polis.
+It was told in the Thebaid how the god dwelt within a grotto, or shrine
+(tophit), in the island of Biggeh, whence he issued at the inundation.
+This tradition dates from a time when the cataract was believed to be at
+the end of the world, and to bring down the heavenly river upon earth.
+Two yawning gulfs (_qoriti_), at the foot of the two granite cliffs
+(_moniti_) between which it ran, gave access to this mysterious retreat.
+A bas-relief from Philae represents blocks of stone piled one above
+another, the vulture of the south and the hawk of the north, each
+perched on a summit, wearing a panther skin, with both arms upheld in
+adoration. The statue is mutilated: the end of the nose, the beard, and
+part of the tray have disappeared, but are restored in the illustration.
+The two little birds hanging alongside the geese, together with a bunch
+of ears of corn, are fat quails, and the circular chamber wherein Hapi
+crouches concealed, clasping a libation vase in either hand. A single
+coil of a serpent outlines the contour of this chamber, and leaves a
+narrow passage between its overlapping head and tail through which the
+rising waters may overflow at the time appointed, bringing to Egypt "all
+things good, and sweet, and pure," whereby gods and men are fed. Towards
+the summer solstice, at the very moment when the sacred water from the
+gulfs of Syene reached Silsileh, the priests of the place, sometimes the
+reigning sovereign, or one of his sons, sacrificed a bull and geese, and
+then cast into the waters a sealed roll of papyrus. This was a written
+order to do all that might insure to Egypt the benefits of a normal
+inundation. When Pharaoh himself deigned to officiate, the memory of
+the event was preserved by a stela engraved upon the rocks. Even in his
+absence, the festivals of the Nile were among the most solemn and joyous
+of the land. According to a tradition transmitted from age to age, the
+prosperity or adversity of the year was dependent upon the splendour
+and fervour with which they were celebrated. Had the faithful shown the
+slightest lukewarmness, the Nile might have refused to obey the command
+and failed to spread freely over the surface of the country. Peasants
+from a distance, each bringing his own provisions, ate their meals
+together for days, and lived in a state of brutal intoxication as long
+as this kind of fair lasted. On the great day itself, the priests came
+forth in procession from the sanctuary, bearing the statue of the god
+along the banks, to the sound of instruments and the chanting of hymns.
+
+[Illustration: 051.jpg NILE GODS FROM THE TEMPLE OF SETI I. AT ABYDOS
+BRINGING FOOD TO EVERY NOME OF EGYPT. 1]
+
+     1 From a drawing by Faucher-Gudin, after a photograph by
+     Beato.
+
+"I.--Hail to thee, Hapi!--who appearest in the land and comest--to give
+life to Egypt;--thou who dost hide thy coming in darkness--in this very
+day whereon thy coming is sung,--wave, which spreadest over the orchards
+created by Ra--to give life to all them that are athirst--who refusest
+to give drink unto the desert--of the overflow of the waters of heaven;
+as soon as thou descendest,--Sibu, the earth-god, is enamoured of
+bread,--Napri, the god of grain, presents his offering,--Phtah maketh
+every workshop to prosper.
+
+"II.--Lord of the fish! as soon as he passeth the cataract--the
+birds no longer descend upon the fields;--creator of corn, maker of
+barley,--he prolongeth the existence of temples.--Do his fingers cease
+from their labours, or doth he suffer?--then are all the millions of
+beings in misery;--doth he wane in heaven? then the gods--themselves,
+and all men perish.
+
+"III.--The cattle are driven mad, and all the world--both great and
+small, are in torment!--But if, on the contrary, the prayers of men are
+heard at his rising--and (for them) he maketh himself Khnumu,--when
+he ariseth, then the earth shouts for joy,--then are all bellies
+joyful,--each back is shaken with laughter,--and every tooth grindeth.
+
+"IV.--Bringing food, rich in sustenance,--creator of all good
+things,--lord of all seeds of life, pleasant unto his elect,--if his
+friendship is secured--he produceth fodder for the cattle,--and he
+provideth for the sacrifices of all the gods,--finer than any other
+is the incense which cometh from him;--he taketh possession of the
+two lands--and the granaries are filled, the storehouses are
+prosperous,--and the goods of the poor are multiplied.
+
+"V.--He is at the service of all prayers to answer them,--withholding
+nothing. To make boats to be that is his strength.--Stones are not
+sculptured for him--nor statues whereon the double crown is placed;--he
+is unseen;--no tribute is paid unto him and no offerings are brought
+unto him,--he is not charmed by words of mystery;--the place of his
+dwelling is unknown, nor can his shrine be found by virtue of magic
+writings.
+
+"VI.--There is no house large enough for thee,--nor any who may
+penetrate within thy heart!--Nevertheless, the generations of thy
+children rejoice in thee--for thou dost rule as a king--whose decrees
+are established for the whole earth,--who is manifest in presence of the
+people of the South and of the North,--by whom the tears are washed from
+every eye,--and who is lavish of his bounties.
+
+"VII.--Where sorrow was, there doth break forth joy--and every
+heart rejoiceth. Sovku, the crocodile, the child of Nit, leaps for
+gladness;[*]--for the Nine gods who accompany thee have ordered all
+things,--the overflow giveth drink unto the fields--and maketh all men
+valiant; one man taketh to drink of the labour of another,--without
+charge being brought against him.[**]
+
+     * The goddess Nit, the heifer born from the midst of the
+     primordial waters, had two crocodiles as her children, which
+     are sometimes represented on the monuments as hanging from
+     her bosom. Both the part played by these animals, and the
+     reason for connecting them with the goddess, are still
+     imperfectly understood.
+
+     ** This is an allusion to the quarrels and lawsuits
+     resulting from the distribution of the water in years when
+     the Nile was poor or bad.    If the inundation is abundant,
+     disputes are at an end.
+
+"IX.--If thou dost enter in the midst of songs to go forth in the midst
+of gladness,--if they dance with joy when thou comest forth out of the
+unknown,--it is that thy heaviness is death and corruption.--And when
+thou art implored to give the water of the year,--the people of the
+Thebai'd and of the North are seen side by side,--each man with the
+tools of his trade,--none tarrieth behind his neighbour;--of all
+those who clothed themselves, no man clotheth himself (with festive
+garments)--the children of Thot, the god of riches, no longer adorn
+themselves with jewels,--nor the Nine gods, but they are in the
+night!--As soon as thou hast answered by the rising,--each one anointeth
+himself with perfumes.
+
+"X.--Establisher of true riches, desire of men,--here are seductive
+words in order that thou mayest reply;--if thou dost answer mankind
+by waves of the heavenly Ocean,--Napri, the grain-god, presents his
+offering,--all the gods adore (thee),--the birds no longer descend upon
+the hills;--though that which thy hand formeth were of gold--or in the
+shape of a brick of silver,--it is not lapis-lazuli that we eat,--but
+wheat is of more worth than precious stones.
+
+"XI.--They have begun to sing unto thee upon the harp,--they sing
+unto thee keeping time with their hands,--and the generations of thy
+children rejoice in thee, and they have filled thee with salutations of
+praise;--for it is the god of Riches who adorneth the earth,--who maketh
+barks to prosper in the sight of man--who rejoiceth the heart of women
+with child--who loveth the increase of the flocks.
+
+"XII.--When thou art risen in the city of the Prince,--then is the rich
+man filled--the small man (the poor) disdaineth the lotus,--all is solid
+and of good quality,--all herbage is for his children.--Doth he forget
+to give food?--prosperity forsaketh the dwellings,--and earth falleth
+into a wasting sickness."
+
+[Illustration: 055.jpg Libyan Mountains]
+
+The word Nile is of uncertain origin. We have it from the Greeks,
+and they took it from a people foreign to Egypt, either from the
+Phoenicians, the Khiti, the Libyans, or from people of Asia Minor. When
+the Egyptians themselves did not care to treat their river as the god
+Hapi, they called it the sea, or the great river. They had twenty terms
+or more by which to designate the different phases which it assumed
+according to the seasons, but they would not have understood what was
+meant had one spoken to them of the Nile. The name Egypt also is part
+of the Hellenic tradition; perhaps it was taken from the temple-name of
+Memphis, Haikuphtah, which barbarian coast tribes of the Mediterranean
+must long have had ringing in their ears as that of the most important
+and wealthiest town to be found upon the shores of their sea. The
+Egyptians called themselves Bomitu, Botu, and their country Qimit, the
+black land. Whence came they? How far off in time are we to carry back
+the date of their arrival? The oldest monuments hitherto known scarcely
+transport us further than six thousand years, yet they are of an art so
+fine, so well determined in its main outlines, and reveal so ingeniously
+combined a system of administration, government, and religion, that we
+infer a long past of accumulated centuries behind them. It must always
+be difficult to estimate exactly the length of time needful for a race
+as gifted as were the Ancient Egyptians to rise from barbarism into a
+high degree of culture. Nevertheless, I do not think that we shall be
+misled in granting them forty or fifty centuries wherein to bring so
+complicated an achievement to a successful issue, and in placing their
+first appearance at eight or ten thousand years before our era.
+Their earliest horizon was a very limited one. Their gaze might wander
+westward over the ravine-furrowed plains of the Libyan desert without
+reaching that fabled land of Manu where the sun set every evening; but
+looking eastward from the valley, they could see the peak of Bakhu,
+which marked the limit of regions accessible to man.
+
+Beyond these regions lay the beginnings of To-nutri, the land of the
+gods, and the breezes passing over it were laden with its perfumes, and
+sometimes wafted them to mortals lost in the desert.[*]
+
+     * The  perfumes  and the  odoriferous woods of the Divine
+     Land were celebrated in Egypt. A traveller or hunter,
+     crossing the desert, "could not but be vividly impressed by
+     suddenly becoming aware, in the very midst of the desert, of
+     the penetrating scent of the _robul (Puliciaria undulata_,
+     Schwbine.), which once followed us throughout a day and two
+     nights, in some places without our being able to distinguish
+     whence it came; as, for instance, when we were crossing
+     tracts of country without any traces of vegetation whatever."
+     (Golenischeff).
+
+Northward, the world came to an end towards the lagoons of the Delta,
+whose inaccessible islands were believed to be the sojourning-place
+of souls after death. As regards the south, precise knowledge of it
+scarcely went beyond the defiles of Gebel Sil-sileh, where the last
+remains of the granite threshold had perhaps not altogether disappeared.
+The district beyond Gebel Silsileh, the province of Konusit, was still
+a foreign and almost mythic country, directly connected with heaven by
+means of the cataract. Long after the Egyptians had broken through this
+restricted circle, the names of those places which had as it were marked
+out their frontiers, continued to be associated in their minds with the
+idea of the four cardinal points. Bakhu and Manu were still the most
+frequent expressions for the extreme East and West. Nekhabit and Buto,
+the most populous towns in the neighbourhoods of Gebel Silsileh and the
+ponds of the Delta, were set over against each other to designate South
+and North. It was within these narrow limits that Egyptian civilization
+struck root and ripened, as in a closed vessel. What were the people by
+whom it was developed, the country whence they came, the races to
+which they belonged, is to-day unknown. The majority would place their
+cradle-land in Asia,[*] but cannot agree in determining the route which
+was followed in the emigration to Africa.
+
+     * The greater number of contemporary Egyptologists, Brugsch,
+     Ebers,--Lauth, Lieblein, have rallied to this opinion, in
+     the train of E. de Rouge; but the most extreme position has
+     been taken up by Hommel, the Assyriologist, who is inclined
+     to derive Egyptian civilization entirely from the
+     Babylonian. After having summarily announced this thesis in
+     his _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_, p. 12, et seq.,
+     he has set it forth at length in a special treatise, _Der
+     Babylonische Ursprung der agyptischen Kultur_, 1892, wherein
+     he endeavours to prove that the Heliopolitan myths, and
+     hence the whole Egyptian religion, are derived from the
+     cults of Eridu, and would make the name of the Egyptian city
+     Onu, or Anu, identical with that of _Nun-H, Nun_, which is
+     borne by the Chaldean.
+
+Some think that the people took the shortest road across the Isthmus
+of Suez, others give them longer peregrinations and a more complicated
+itinerary. They would have them cross the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb,
+and then the Abyssinian mountains, and, spreading northward and keeping
+along the Nile, finally settle in the Egypt of to-day. A more minute
+examination compels us to recognize that the hypothesis of an Asiatic
+origin, however attractive it may seem, is somewhat difficult
+to maintain. The bulk of the Egyptian population presents the
+characteristics of those white races which have been found established
+from all antiquity on the Mediterranean slope of the Libyan continent;
+this population is of African origin, and came to Egypt from the West
+or South-West. In the valley, perhaps, it may have met with a black race
+which it drove back or destroyed; and there, perhaps, too, it afterwards
+received an accretion of Asiatic elements, introduced by way of the
+isthmus and the marshes of the Delta. But whatever may be the origin
+of the ancestors of the Egyptians, they were scarcely settled upon the
+banks of the Nile before the country conquered, and assimilated them to
+itself, as it has never ceased to do in the case of strangers who have
+occupied it. At the time when their history begins for us, all the
+inhabitants had long formed but one people, with but one language.
+
+This language seems to be connected with the Semitic tongues by many
+of its roots. It forms its personal pronouns, whether isolated or
+suffixed, in a similar way. One of the tenses of the conjugation, and
+that the simplest and most archaic, is formed with identical affixes.
+Without insisting upon resemblances which are open to doubt, it may be
+almost affirmed that most of the grammatical processes used in Semitic
+languages are to be found in a rudimentary condition in Egyptian. One
+would say that the language of the people of Egypt and the languages of
+the Semitic races, having once belonged to the same group, had separated
+very early, at a time when the vocabulary and the grammatical system
+of the group had not as yet taken definite shape. Subject to different
+influences, the two families would treat in diverse fashion the elements
+common to both. The Semitic dialects continued to develop for centuries,
+while the Egyptian language, although earlier cultivated, stopped short
+in its growth. "If it is obvious that there was an original connexion
+between the language of Egypt and that of Asia, this connexion is
+nevertheless sufficiently remote to leave to the Egyptian race a
+distinct physiognomy." We recognize it in sculptured and painted
+portraits, as well as in thousands of mummied bodies out of subterranean
+tombs. The highest type of Egyptian was tall and slender, with a proud
+and imperious air in the carriage of his head and in his whole bearing.
+He had wide and full shoulders, well-marked and vigorous pectoral
+muscles, muscular arms, a long, fine hand, slightly developed hips, and
+sinewy legs. The detail of the knee-joint and the muscles of the calf
+are strongly marked beneath the skin; the long, thin, and low-arched
+feet are flattened out at the extremities owing to the custom of going
+barefoot. The head is rather short, the face oval, the forehead somewhat
+retreating. The eyes are wide and fully opened, the cheekbones not too
+marked, the nose fairly prominent, and either straight or aquiline. The
+mouth is long, the lips full, and lightly ridged along their outline;
+the teeth small, even, well-set, and remarkably sound; the ears are set
+high on the head. At birth the skin is white, but darkens in proportion
+to its exposure to the sun. Men are generally painted red in the
+pictures, though, as a matter of fact, there must already have been
+all the shades which we see among the present population^ from a most
+delicate, rose-tinted complexion to that of a smoke-coloured bronze.
+Women, who were less exposed to the sun, are generally painted yellow,
+the tint paler in proportion as they rise in the social scale. The hair
+was inclined to be wavy, and even to curl into little ringlets, but
+without ever turning into the wool of the negro.
+
+[Illustration: 059.jpg THE NOBLE TYPE OF EGYPTIAN. 1]
+
+     1 Statue of Ranofir in the Gizeh Museum (Vth dynasty), after
+     a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+[Illustration: 060.jpg HEAD OF A TILEBAN MUMMY.]
+
+The beard was scanty, thick only upon the chin. Such was the highest
+type; the commoner was squat, dumpy, and heavy. Chest and shoulders seem
+to be enlarged at the expense of the pelvis and the hips, to such an
+extent as to make the want of proportion between the upper and lower
+parts of the body startling and ungraceful. The skull is long, somewhat
+retreating, and slightly flattened on the top; the features are coarse,
+and as though carved in flesh by great strokes of the blocking-out
+chisel. Small frseuated eyes, a short nose, flanked by widely distended
+nostrils, round cheeks, a square chin, thick, but not curling lips--this
+unattractive and ludicrous physiognomy, sometimes animated by an
+expression of cunning which recalls the shrewd face of an old French
+peasant, is often lighted up by gleams of gentleness and of melancholy
+good-nature. The external characteristics of these two principal types
+in the ancient monuments, in all varieties of modifications, may still
+be seen among the living. The profile copied from a Theban mummy taken
+at hazard from a necropolis of the XVIIIth dynasty, and compared with
+the likeness of a modern Luxor peasant, would almost pass for a family
+portrait. Wandering Bisharin have inherited the type of face of a great
+noble, the contemporary of Kheops; and any peasant woman of the Delta
+may bear upon her shoulders che head of a twelfth-dynasty king. A
+citizen of Cairo, gazing with wonder at the statues of Khafra or of Seti
+I. in the Gizeh Museum, is himself, feature for feature, the very image
+of those ancient Pharaohs, though removed from them by fifty centuries.
+
+[Illustration: 062.jpg A FELLAH WOMAN WITH THE FEATURES OF AN ANCIENT
+KING. 1]
+
+     1  The face of the woman here given was taken separately,
+     and was subsequently attached to the figure of an Egyptian
+     woman whom Naville had photographed sitting beside a
+     colossal head. The nose of the statue has been restored.
+
+Until quite recently nothing, or all but nothing, had been discovered
+which could be attributed to the primitive races of Egypt: even the
+flint weapons and implements which had been found in various places
+could not be ascribed to them with any degree of certainty, for the
+Egyptians continued to use stone long after metal was known to them.
+They made stone arrowheads, hammers, and knives, not only in the time of
+the Pharaohs, but under the Romans, and during the whole period of
+the Middle Ages, and the manufacture of them has not yet entirely died
+out.[**]
+
+     **  An entire collection of flint tools--axes, adzes,
+     knives, and sickles--mostly with wooden handles, were found
+     by Prof. Petrie in the ruins of Kahun, at the entrance to
+     the Fayum: these go back to the time of the twelfth dynasty,
+     more than three thousand years before our era. Mariette had
+     previously pointed out to the learned world the fact that a
+     Coptic _Reis_, Salib of Abydos, in charge of the
+     excavations, shaved his head with a flint knife, according
+     to the custom of his youth (1820-35). I knew the man, who
+     died at over eighty years of age in 1887; he was still
+     faithful to his flint implement, while his sons and the
+     whole population of El Kharbeh were using nothing but steel
+     razors. As his scalp was scraped nearly raw by the
+     operation, he used to cover his head with fresh leaves to
+     cool the inflamed skin.
+
+These objects, and the workshops where they were made, might therefore
+be less ancient than the greater part of the inscribed monuments. But if
+so far we had found no examples of any work belonging to the first ages,
+we met in historic times with certain customs which were out of harmony
+with the general civilization of the period. A comparison of these
+customs with analogous practices of barbarous nations threw light upon
+the former, completed their meaning, and showed us at the same time the
+successive stages through which the Egyptian people had to pass before
+reaching their highest civilization. We knew, for example, that even
+as late as the Caesars, girls belonging to noble families at Thebes were
+consecrated to the service of Amon, and were thus licensed to a life
+of immorality, which, however, did not prevent them from making rich
+marriages when age obliged them to retire from office. Theban women were
+not the only people in the world to whom such licence was granted or
+imposed upon them by law; wherever in a civilized country we see a
+similar practice, we may recognize in it an ancient custom which in the
+course of centuries has degenerated into a religious observance. The
+institution of the women of Amon is a legacy from a time when the
+practice of polyandry obtained, and marriage did not yet exist. Age and
+maternity relieved them from this obligation, and preserved them from
+those incestuous connections of which we find examples in other races.
+A union of father and daughter, however, was perhaps not wholly
+forbidden,[*] and that of brother and sister seems to have been regarded
+as perfectly right and natural; the words brother and sister possessing
+in Egyptian love-songs the same significance as lover and mistress with
+us.
+
+     * E. de Rouge held that Rameses II. married at least two of
+     his daughters, Bint Anati and Honittui; Wiedemann admits
+     that Psammetichus I. had in the same way taken to wife
+     Nitocris, who had been born to him by the Theban princess
+     Shapenuapit. The Achaemenidan kings did the same: Artaxerxes
+     married two of his own daughters.
+
+Paternity was necessarily doubtful in a community of this kind, and
+hence the tie between fathers and children was slight; there being
+no family, in the sense in which we understand the word, except as it
+centred around the mother.
+
+Maternal descent was, therefore, the only one openly acknowledged, and
+the affiliation of the child was indicated by the name of the mother
+alone. When the woman ceased to belong to all, and confined herself to
+one husband, the man reserved to himself the privilege of taking as many
+wives as he wished, or as he was able to keep, beginning with his own
+sisters. All wives did not enjoy identical rights: those born of the
+same parents as the man, or those of equal rank with himself, preserved
+their independence. If the law pronounced him the master, _nibu_, to
+whom they owed obedience and fidelity, they were mistresses of the
+house, _nibit piru_, as well as wives, _himitu_, and the two words of
+the title express their condition. Each of them occupied, in fact, her
+own house, _piru_, which she had from her parents or her husband, and of
+which she was absolute mistress, _nibit_. She lived in it and performed
+in it without constraint all a woman's duties; feeding the fire,
+grinding the corn, occupying herself in cooking and weaving, making
+clothing and perfumes, nursing and teaching her children. When her
+husband visited her, he was a guest whom she received on an equal
+footing. It appears that at the outset these various wives were placed
+under the authority of an older woman, whom they looked on as their
+mother, and who defended their rights and interests against the master;
+but this custom gradually disappeared, and in historic times we read
+of it as existing only in the families of the gods. The female singers
+consecrated to Amon and other deities, owed obedience to several
+superiors, of whom the principal (generally the widow of a king or high
+priest) was called _chief-superior of the ladies of the harem of Amon_.
+Besides these wives, there were concubines, slaves purchased or born in
+the house, prisoners of war, Egyptians of inferior class, who were the
+chattels of the man and of whom he could dispose as he wished. All the
+children of one father were legitimate, whether their mother were a wife
+or merely a concubine, but they did not all enjoy the same advantages;
+those among them who were born of a brother or sister united in
+legitimate marriage, took precedence of those whose mother was a wife of
+inferior rank or a slave. In the family thus constituted, the woman,
+to all appearances, played the principal part. Children recognized the
+parental relationship in the mother alone. The husband appears to have
+entered the house of his wives, rather than the wives to have entered
+his, and this appearance of inferiority was so marked that the Greeks
+were deceived by it. They affirmed that the woman was supreme in Egypt;
+the man at the time of marriage promised obedience to her and entered
+into a contract not to raise any objection to her commands.
+
+We had, therefore, good grounds for supposing that the first Egyptians
+were semi-savages, like those still living in Africa and America, having
+an analogous organization, and similar weapons and tools. A few lived
+in the desert, in the oasis of Libya, or in the deep valleys of the Red
+Land--Doshirit, To Doshiru--between the Nile and the sea; the poverty
+of the country fostering their native savagery. Others, settled on
+the Black Land, gradually became civilized, and we have found of late
+considerable remains of those of their generations who, if not anterior
+to the times of written records, were at least contemporary with the
+earliest kings of the first historical dynasty.
+
+[Illustration: 066.jpg NEGRO PRISONERS WEARING THE PANTHER'S SKIST AS A
+LOIN-CLOTH.]
+
+Their houses were like those of the fellahs of to-day, low huts of
+wattle daubed with puddled clay, or of bricks dried in the sun. They
+contained one room, either oblong or square, the door being the only
+aperture. Those of the richer class only were large enough to make it
+needful to support the roof by means of one or more trunks of trees,
+which did duty for columns. Earthen pots, turned by hand, flint knives
+and other implements, mats of reeds or plaited straw, two flat stones
+for grinding corn, a few pieces of wooden furniture, stools, and
+head-rests for use at night, comprised all the contents. Their ordinary
+pottery is heavy and almost devoid of ornament, but some of the finer
+kinds have been moulded and baked in wickerwork baskets, which have left
+a quaint trellis-like impression on the surface of the clay. In many
+cases the vases are bicolour, the body being of a fine smooth red,
+polished with a stone, while the neck and base are of an intense black,
+the surface of which is even more shining than that of the red part.
+Sometimes they are ornamented with patterns in white of flowers,
+palms, ostriches, gazelles, boats with undulated or broken lines, or
+geometrical figures of a very simple nature. More often the ground is
+coloured a fine yellow, and the decoration has been traced in red lines.
+Jars, saucers, double vases, flat plates, large cups, supports for
+amphorae, trays raised on a foot--in short, every kind of form is found
+in use at that remote period. The men went about nearly naked, except
+the nobles, who wore a panther's skin, sometimes thrown over the
+shoulders, sometimes drawn round the waist, and covering the lower part
+of the body, the animal's tail touching the heels behind, as we see
+later in several representations of the negroes of the Upper Nile. They
+smeared their limbs with grease or oil, and they tattooed their faces
+and bodies, at least in part; but in later times this practice was
+retained by the lower classes only. On the other hand, the custom of
+painting the face was never given up. To complete their toilet, it was
+necessary to accentuate the arch of the eyebrow with a line of kohl
+(antimony powder). A similar black line surrounded and prolonged the
+oval of the eye to the middle of the temple, a layer of green coloured
+the under lid, and ochre and carmine enlivened the tints of the cheeks
+and lips. The hair, plaited, curled, oiled, and plastered with grease,
+formed an erection which was as complicated in the case of the man as in
+that of the woman.
+
+[Illustration: 068.jpg NOTABLE WEARING THE LARGE CLOAK OVER THE LEFT
+SHOULDER. 1; AND PRIEST WEARING THE PANTHER'S SKIN ACROSS THE BREAST. 2]
+
+     1 Wooden statue in the Gizeh Museum (IVth dynasty), drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Bechard.
+
+     2 Statue of the second prophet of Amon, Aa-nen, in the Turin
+     Museum (XVIIIth dynasty).
+
+Should the hair be too short, a black or blue wig, dressed with much
+skill, was substituted for it; ostrich feathers waved on the heads
+of warriors, and a large lock, flattened behind the right ear,
+distinguished the military or religious chiefs from their subordinates.
+When the art of weaving became common, a belt and loin-cloth of white
+linen replaced the leathern garment. Fastened round the waist, but so
+low as to leave the navel uncovered, the loin-cloth frequently reached
+to the knee; the hinder part was frequently drawn between the legs and
+attached in front to the belt, thus forming a kind of drawers. Tails
+of animals and wild beast's skin were henceforth only the insignia of
+authority with which priests and princes adorned themselves on great
+days and at religious ceremonies. The skin was sometimes carelessly
+thrown over the left shoulder and swayed with the movement of the body;
+sometimes it was carefully adjusted over one shoulder and under the
+other, so as to bring the curve of the chest into prominence. The head
+of the animal, skilfully prepared and enlivened by large eyes of enamel,
+rested on the shoulder or fell just below the waist of the wearer; the
+paws, with the claws attached, hung down over the thighs; the spots of
+the skin were manipulated so as to form five-pointed stars. On going
+out-of-doors, a large wrap was thrown over all; this covering was either
+smooth or hairy, similar to that in which the Nubians and Abyssinians of
+the present day envelop themselves. It could be draped in various
+ways; transversely over the left shoulder like the fringed shawl of the
+Chaldeans, or hanging straight from both shoulders like a mantle.[**]
+
+     ** This costume, to which Egyptologists have not given
+     sufficient attention, is frequently represented on the
+     monuments. Besides the two statues reproduced above, I may
+     cite those of Uahibri and of Thoth-nofir in the Louvre, and
+     the Lady Nofrit in the Gizeh Museum. Thothotpu in his tomb
+     wears this mantle. Khnumhotpu and several of his workmen are
+     represented in it at Beni-Hasan, as also one of the princes
+     of Elephantine in the recently discovered tombs, besides
+     many Egyptians of all classes in the tombs  of  Thebes  (a
+     good  example  is  in  the tomb  of Harmhabi).    The reason
+     why it does not figure more often is, in the first place,
+     that the Egyptian artists experienced actual difficulty in
+     representing the folds of its drapery, although these were
+     simple compared with the complicated arrangement of the
+     Roman toga; finally, the wall-paintings mostly portray
+     either interior scenes, or agricultural labour, or the work
+     of various trades, or episodes of war, or religious
+     ceremonies, in all of which the mantle plays no part. Every
+     Egyptian peasant, however, possessed his own, and it was in
+     constant use in his daily life.
+
+In fact, it did duty as a cloak, sheltering the wearer from the sun
+or from the rain, from the heat or from the cold. They never sought to
+transform it into a luxurious garment of state, as was the case in later
+times with the Roman toga, whose amplitude secured a certain dignity of
+carriage, and whose folds, carefully adjusted beforehand, fell around
+the body with studied grace. The Egyptian mantle when not required was
+thrown aside and folded up. The material being fine and soft it occupied
+but a small space and was reduced to a long thin roll; the ends being
+then fastened together, it was slung over the shoulder and round the
+body like a cavalry cloak.[*]
+
+     * Many draughtsmen, ignorant of what they had to represent,
+     have made incorrect copies of the manner in which this cloak
+     was worn; but examples of it are numerous, although until
+     now attention has not been called to them. The following are
+     a few instances taken at random of the way in which it was
+     used: Pepi I., fighting against the nomads of Sinai, has the
+     cloak, but with the two ends passed through the belt of his
+     loin-cloth; at Zawyet el-Maiyitin, Khunas, killing birds
+     with the boomerang from his boat, wears it, but simply
+     thrown over the left shoulder, with the two extremities
+     hanging free. Khnumhotpu at Beni-Hasan, the Khrihdbi, the
+     overseers, or the peasants, all have it rolled and slung
+     round them; the Prince of el-Bersheh wears it like a mantle
+     in folds over the two shoulders. If it is objected that the
+     material could not be reduced to such small dimensions as
+     those represented in these drawings of what I believe to be
+     the Egyptian cloak, I way cite our cavalry capes, when
+     rolled and slung, as an instance of what good packing will
+     do in reducing volume.
+
+[Illustration: 070.jpg a dignitary wrapped in his large cloak. 1]
+
+     1 Statue of Khiti in the Gizeh Museum (XIIth and XIIIth
+     dynasties), drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+Travellers, shepherds, all those whose occupations called them to the
+fields, carried it as a bundle at the ends of their sticks; once arrived
+at the scene of their work, they deposited it in a corner with their
+provisions until they required it. The women were at first contented
+with a loin-cloth like that of the men; it was enlarged and lengthened
+till it reached the ankle below and the bosom above, and became a
+tightly fitting garment, with two bands over the shoulders, like braces,
+to keep it in place. The feet were not always covered; on certain
+occasions, however, sandals of coarse leather, plaited straw, split
+reed, or even painted wood, adorned those shapely Egyptian feet, which,
+to suit our taste, should be a little shorter.
+
+[Illustration: 072.jpg COSTUME OF EGYPTIAN WOMAN, SPINNING. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the spinning-women at
+     the Paris Exhibition of 1889. It was restored from the
+     paintings in the tomb of Khnumhotpu at Beni-Hasan.
+
+Both men and women loved ornaments, and covered their necks, breasts,
+arms, wrists, and ankles with many rows of necklaces and bracelets. The
+bracelets were made of elephant ivory, mother-of-pearl, or even flint,
+very cleverly perforated. The necklaces were composed of strings of
+pierced shells,[**] interspersed with seeds and little pebbles,
+either sparkling or of unusual shapes.[***] Subsequently imitations
+in terra-cotta replaced the natural shells, and precious stones were
+substituted for pebbles, as were also beads of enamel, either round,
+pear-shaped, or cylindrical: the necklaces were terminated and a uniform
+distance maintained between the rows of beads, by several slips of wood,
+bone, ivory, porcelain, or terra-cotta, pierced with holes, through
+which ran the threads.
+
+     **  The burying-places of Abydos, especially the most
+     ancient, have furnished us with millions of shells, pierced
+     and threaded as necklaces; they all belong to the species of
+     cowries used as money in Africa at the present day.
+
+     ***  Necklaces of seeds have been found in the tombs of
+     Abydos, Thebes, and Gebelen.    Of  these  Schweinfurth
+     has  identified,   among others,   the _Cassia absus_,  "a
+     weed of the Soudan whose seeds are sold in the drug bazaar
+     at Cairo and Alexandria under the name of _shishn_, as a
+     remedy, which is in great request among the natives, for
+     ophthalmia." For the necklaces of pebbles, cf. Maspeeo,
+     Guide du visiteur, pp. 270, 271, No. 4129. A considerable
+     number of these pebbles, particularly those of strange
+     shape, or presenting a curious combination of colours, must
+     have been regarded as amulets or fetishes by their Egyptian
+     owners; analogous cases, among other peoples, have been
+     pointed out by E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p.
+     189.
+
+[Illustration: 073.jpg MAN WEARING WIG AND NECKLACES.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a portrait of Pharaoh Seti I.
+     of the XIXth dynasty: the lower part of the necklace has
+     been completed.
+
+Weapons, at least among the nobility, were an indispensable part of
+costume. Most of them were for hand-to-hand fighting: sticks, clubs,
+lances furnished with a sharpened bone or stone point, axes and daggers
+of flint,[*] sabres and clubs of bone or wood variously shaped, pointed
+or rounded at the end, with blunt or sharp blades,--inoffensive enough
+to look at, but, wielded by a vigorous hand, sufficient to break an arm,
+crush in the ribs, or smash a skull with all desirable precision.[**]
+The plain or triple curved bow was the favourite weapon for attack at
+a distance,[***] but in addition to this there were the sling, the
+javelin, and a missile almost forgotten nowadays, the boomerang, we have
+no proof however, that the Egyptians handled the boomerang[****] with
+the skill of the Australians, or that they knew how to throw it so as to
+bring it back to its point of departure.[v]
+
+     *  In several museums, notably at Leyden, we find Egyptian
+     axes of stone, particularly of serpentine, both rough and
+     polished.
+
+     **  In primitive times the bone of an animal served as a
+     club.    This is proved by the shape of the object held in
+     the hand in the sign and the hieroglyph which is the
+     determinative in writing for all ideas   of violence or
+     brute force, comes down to us from a time when the principal
+     weapon was the club, or a bone serving as a club.
+
+     ***  For the two principal shapes of the bow, see Lepsius,
+     Der Bogen in der Hieroglypliik (Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 79-
+     88). From the earliest times the sign mL portrays the
+     soldier equipped with the bow and bundle of arrows; the
+     quiver was of Asiatic origin, and was not adopted until much
+     later. In the contemporary texts of the first dynasties, the
+     idea of weapons is conveyed by the bow, arrow, and club or
+     axe.
+
+     ****  The boomerang is still used by certain tribes of the
+     Nile valley.    It is portrayed in the most ancient tombs,
+     and every museum possesses examples, varying in shape.
+     Besides the ordinary boomerang, the Egyptians used one which
+     ended in a knob, and another of semicircular shape: this
+     latter, reproduced in miniature in cornelian or in red
+     jasper, served as an amulet, and was placed on the mummy to
+     furnish the deceased in the other world with a fighting or
+     hunting weapon.
+
+     v  The Australian boomerang is much larger than the Egyptian
+     one; it is about a yard in length, two inches in width, and
+     three sixteenths of an inch in thickness. For the manner of
+     handling it, and what can be done with it, see Lubbock,
+     Prehistoric Man, pp. 402, 403.
+
+[Illustration: 074.jpg the boomerang and FIGHTING bow. 2 ]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of
+     Khnumhotpu at Beni-Hasan.
+
+[Illustration: 075.jpg VOTIVE AXE. 3]
+
+     3  The blade is of bronze, and is attached to the wooden
+     handle by interlacing thongs of leather (Gizeh Museum).
+     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey.
+
+Such was approximately the most ancient equipment as far as we can
+ascertain; but at a very early date copper and iron were known in
+Egypt.[**] Long before historic times, the majority of the weapons in
+wood were replaced by those of metal,--daggers, sabres, hatchets, which
+preserved, however, the shape of the old wooden instruments.
+
+     **  Metals were introduced into Egypt in very ancient times,
+     since the class of blacksmiths is associated with the
+     worship of Horus of Edfu, and appears in the account of the
+     mythical wars of that God. The earliest tools we possess, in
+     copper or bronze, date from the IVth dynasty: pieces of iron
+     have been found from time to time in the masonry of the
+     Great Pyramid. Mons Montelius has again and again contested
+     the authenticity of these discoveries, and he thinks that
+     iron was not known in Egypt till a much later period.
+
+Those wooden weapons which were retained, were used for hunting, or were
+only brought out on solemn occasions when tradition had to be respected.
+The war-baton became the commander's wand of authority, and at last
+degenerated into the walking-stick of the rich or noble.
+
+[Illustration: 076.jpg KING HOLDING THE BATON. 3]
+
+     3  Bas-relief in the temple of Luxor, from a photograph
+     taken by Insinger in 1886.
+
+The club at length represented merely the rank of a chieftain,[*] while
+the crook and the wooden-handled mace, with its head of ivory, diorite,
+granite, or white stone, the favourite weapons of princes, continued to
+the last the most revered insignia of royalty.[**]
+
+Life was passed in comparative ease and pleasure. Of the ponds left in
+the open country by the river at its fall, some dried up more or less
+quickly during the winter, leaving on the soil an immense quantity
+of fish, the possession of which birds and wild beasts disputed with
+man.[***]
+
+     *  The wooden club most commonly represented is the usual
+     insignia of a nobleman. Several kinds of clubs, somewhat
+     difficult for us moderns to distinguish, yet bearing
+     different names, formed a part of funereal furniture.
+
+     **  The crook is the sceptre of a prince, a Pharaoh, or a
+     god; the white mace has still the value apparently of a
+     weapon in the hands of the king who brandishes it over a
+     group of prisoners or over an ox which he is sacrificing to
+     a divinity. Most museums possess specimens of the stone
+     heads of these maces, but until lately their use was not
+     known. I had several placed in the Boulak Museum. It already
+     possessed a model of one entirely of wood.
+
+     ***  Cf. the description of these pools given by Geoffroy-
+     Saint-Hilaire in speaking of the fahaka. Even at the present
+     day the jackals come down from the mountains in the night,
+     and regale themselves with the fish left on the ground by
+     the gradual drying up of these ponds.
+
+[Illustration: 077.jpg FISHING IN THE MARSHES]
+
+Other pools, however, remained till the returning inundation, as so many
+_vivaria_ in which the fish were preserved for dwellers on the banks.
+Fishing with the harpoon, made either of stone or of metal, with the
+line, with a net or with traps, were all methods of fishing known and
+used by the Egyptians from early times. Where the ponds failed, the
+neighbouring Nile furnished them with inexhaustible supplies. Standing
+in light canoes, or rather supported by a plank on bundles of reeds
+bound together, they ventured into mid-stream, in spite of the danger
+arising from the ever-present hippopotamus; or they penetrated up
+the canals amid a thicket of aquatic plants, to bring down with the
+boomerang the birds which found covert there.
+
+[Illustration: 078.jpg HUNTING IN THE MARSHES: ENCOUNTERING AND SPEARING
+A HIPPOPOTAMUS. 1]
+
+     1 Tomb of Ti. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Dumichen,
+     Besultate, vol. ii. pl. x.
+
+The fowl and fish which could not be eaten fresh, were dried, salted,
+or smoked, and kept for a rainy day. Like the river, the desert had its
+perils and its resources. Only too frequently, the lion, the leopard,
+the panther, and other large felidse were met with there.
+
+[Illustration: 079.jpg HUNTING IN THE DESERT: BULL, LION, AND ORYX
+PIERCED WITH ARROWS. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting by Beni-Hasan,
+     Lepsius, Denhm., ii. 136.
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpu.
+     The dogs on the upper level are of hyenoid type, those on
+     the lower are Abyssinian greyhounds.
+
+The nobles, like the Pharaohs of later times, deemed it as their
+privilege or duty to stalk and destroy these animals, pursuing them even
+to their dens. The common people preferred attacking the gazelle, the
+oryx, the mouflon sheep, the ibex, the wild ox, and the ostrich, but did
+not disdain more humble game, such as the porcupine and long-eared hare:
+nondescript packs, in which the jackal and the hyena ran side by side
+with the wolf-dog and the lithe Abyssinian greyhound, scented and
+retrieved for their master the prey which he had pierced with his
+arrows. At times a hunter, returning with the dead body of the mother,
+would be followed by one of her young; or a gazelle, but slightly
+wounded, would be taken to the village and healed of its hurt.
+
+[Illustration: 080.jpg CATCHING ANIMALS WITH THE BOLA. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpu.
+     Above are seen two porcupines, the foremost of which,
+     emerging from his hole, has seized a grasshopper.
+
+Such animals by daily contact with man, were gradually tamed, and
+formed about his dwelling a motley flock, kept partly for his pleasure
+and mostly for his profit, and becoming in case of necessity a ready
+stock of provisions.[**]
+
+     **  In the same way, before the advent of Europeans, the
+     half-civilized tribes of North America used to keep about
+     their huts whole flocks of different animals, which were
+     tame, but not domesticated.
+
+Efforts were therefore made to enlarge this flock, and the wish to
+procure animals without seriously injuring them, caused the Egyptians
+to use the net for birds and the lasso and the _bola_ for
+quadrupeds,[*]--weapons less brutal than the arrow and the javelin. The
+_bola_ was made by them of a single rounded stone, attached to a strap
+about five yards in length. The stone once thrown, the cord twisted
+round the legs, muzzle, or neck of the animal pursued, and by the
+attachment thus made the pursuer, using all his strength, was enabled to
+bring the beast down half strangled. The lasso has no stone attached
+to it, but a noose prepared beforehand, and the skill of the hunter
+consists in throwing it round the neck of his victim while running.
+They caught indifferently, without distinction of size or kind, all
+that chance brought within their reach. The daily chase kept up these
+half-tamed flocks of gazelles, wild goats, water-bucks, stocks, and
+ostriches, and their numbers are reckoned by hundreds on the monuments
+of the ancient empire.[**]
+
+     *  Hunting with the bola is constantly represented in the
+     paintings both of the Memphite and Theban periods. Wilkinson
+     has confounded it with lasso-hunting, and his mistake has
+     been reproduced by other Egyptologists. Lasso-hunting is
+     seen in Lepsius, Denhn., ii. 96, in Dumichen, _resultate_,
+     vol. i. pl. viii., and particularly in the numerous
+     sacrificial scenes where the king is supposed to be
+     capturing the bull of the north or south, previous to
+     offering it to the god.
+
+     **  As the tombs of the ancient empire show us numerous
+     flocks of gazelles, antelopes, and storks, feeding under the
+     care of shepherds, Fr. Lenormant concluded that the
+     Egyptians of early times had succeeded in domesticating some
+     species, nowadays rebels to restraint. It is my belief that
+     the animals represented were tamed, but not domesticated,
+     and were the result of great hunting expeditions in the
+     desert. The facts which Lenormant brought forward to support
+     his theory may be used against him. For instance, the fawn
+     of the gazelle nourished by its mother does not prove that
+     it was bred in captivity; the gazelle may have been caught
+     before calving, or just after the birth of its young. The
+     fashion of keeping flocks of animals taken from the desert
+     died out between the XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties.    At the
+     time of the new empire, they had only one or two solitary
+     animals as pets for women or children, the mummies of which
+     were sometimes buried by the side of their mistresses.
+
+Experience alone taught the hunter to distinguish between those species
+from which he could draw profit, and others whose wildness made them
+impossible to domesticate. The subjection of the most useful kinds had
+not been finished when the historic period opened.
+
+[Illustration: 082.jpg A SWINEHERD AND HIS PIGS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in a Theban tomb
+     of the XVIIIth dynasty.
+
+The ass, the sheep, and the goat were already domesticated, but the pig
+was still out in the marshes in a semi-wild state, under the care of
+special herdsmen,[*] and the religious rites preserved the remembrance
+of the times in which the ox was so little tamed, that in order to
+capture while grazing the animals needed for sacrifice or for slaughter,
+it was necessary to use the lasso.[***]
+
+     *  The hatred of the Egyptians for the pig (Herodotus, ii.
+     47) is attributed to mythological motives. Lippert thinks
+     this antipathy did not exist in Egypt in primitive times. At
+     the outset the pig would have been the principal food of the
+     people; then, like the dog in other regions, it must have
+     been replaced at the table by animals of a higher order--
+     gazelles, sheep, goats, oxen--and would have thus fallen
+     into contempt. To the excellent reasons given by Lippert
+     could be added others drawn from the study of the Egyptian
+     myths, to prove that the pig has often been highly esteemed.
+     Thus, Isis is represented, down to late times, under the
+     form of a sow, and a sow, whether followed or not by her
+     young is one of the amulets placed in the tomb with the
+     deceased, to secure for him the protection of the goddess.
+
+     ***  Mariette, Abydos (vol. i. pl. 48 b, 53).    To prevent
+     the animal from evading the lasso and escaping during the
+     sacrifice, its right hind foot was fastened to its left
+     horn.
+
+Europeans are astonished to meet nowadays whole peoples who make use
+of herbs and plants whose flavour and properties are nauseating to
+us: these are mostly so many legacies from a remote past; for example,
+castor-oil, with which the Berbers rub their limbs, and with which the
+fellahin of the Said flavour their bread and vegetables, was preferred
+before all others by the Egyptians of the Pharaonic age for
+anointing the body and for culinary use.[*] They had begun by eating
+indiscriminately every kind of fruit which the country produced. Many
+of these, when their therapeutic virtues had been learned by experience,
+were gradually banished as articles of food, and their use restricted to
+medicine; others fell into disuse, and only reappeared at sacrifices, or
+at funeral feasts; several varieties continue to be eaten to the
+present time--the acid fruits of the nabeca and of the carob tree,
+the astringent figs of the sycamore, the insipid pulp of the dam-palm,
+besides those which are pleasant to our Western palates, such as the
+common fig and the date. The vine flourished, at least in Middle and
+Lower Egypt; from time immemorial the art of making wine from it was
+known, and even the most ancient monuments enumerate half a dozen famous
+brands, red or white.[**]
+
+     *  I have often been obliged, from politeness, when dining
+     with the native agents appointed by the European powers at
+     Port Said, to eat salads and mayonnaise sauces flavoured
+     with castor-oil; the taste was not so disagreeable as might
+     be at first imagined.
+
+     **  The four kinds of canonical wine, brought respectively
+     from the north, south, east, and west of the country, formed
+     part of the official repast and of the wine-cellar of the
+     deceased from remote antiquity.
+
+Vetches, lupins, beans, chick-peas, lentils, onions, fenugreek,[*] the
+bamia,[**] the meloukhia,[***] the arum colocasia, all grew wild in the
+fields, and the river itself supplied its quota of nourishing plants.
+
+     *  All these species have been found in the tombs and
+     identified by savants in archaeological botany--Kunth,
+     Unger, Schweinfurth (Loret, _La Flore Pharaonique_, pp. 17,
+     40, 42, 43, Nos. 33, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106).
+
+     **  The bamia, _Hibiscus esculentus_, L., is a plant of the
+     family of the Malvaceae, having a fruit of five divisions,
+     covered with prickly hairs, and pontaining round, white,
+     soft seeds, slightly sweet, but astringent in taste, and
+     very mucilaginous.    It figures on the monuments of
+     Pharaonic times.
+
+     ***  The meloukhia, _Corchorus Olitorius_, L., is a plant
+     belonging to the Tilliacese, which is chopped up and cooked
+     much the same as endive is with us, but which few Europeans
+     can eat with pleasure, owing to the mucilage it contains.
+     Theophrastus says it was celebrated for its bitterness; it
+     was used as food, however, in the Greek town of Alexandria.
+
+[Illustration: 084.jpg THE EGYPTIAN LOTUS. 4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from the _Description de
+     l'Egypte_, Histoire Naturelle, pl. 61.
+
+Two of the species of lotus which grew in the Nile, the white and the
+blue, have seed-vessels similar to those of the poppy: the capsules
+contain small grains of the size of millet-seed. The fruit of the pink
+lotus "grows on a different stalk from that of the flower, and springs
+directly from the root; it resembles a honeycomb in form," or, to take
+a more prosaic simile, the rose of a watering-pot. The upper part has
+twenty or thirty cavities, "each containing a seed as big as an olive
+stone, and pleasant to eat either fresh or dried." This is what the
+ancients called the bean of Egypt. "The yearly shoots of the papyrus are
+also gathered. After pulling them up in the marshes, the points are cut
+off and rejected, the part remaining being about a cubit in length. It
+is eaten as a delicacy and is sold in the markets, but those who are
+fastidious partake of it only after baking." Twenty different kinds of
+grain and fruits, prepared by crushing between two stones, are kneaded
+and baked to furnish cakes or bread; these are often mentioned in the
+texts as cakes of nabeca, date cakes, and cakes of figs. Lily loaves,
+made from the roots and seeds of the lotus, were the delight of the
+gourmand, and appear on the tables of the kings of the XIXth dynasty.[*]
+
+     * _Tiu_, which is the most ancient word for bread, appears
+     in early times to have been used for every kind of paste,
+     whether made with fruits or grain; the more modern word aqu
+     applies specially to bread made from cereals. The lily
+     loaves are mentioned in the Papyrus Anastasi, No. 4, p. 14.
+     1. 1.
+
+Bread and cakes made of cereals formed the habitual food of the people.
+Durrah is of African origin; it is the "grain of the South" of the
+inscriptions. On the other hand, it is supposed that wheat and six-rowed
+barley came from the region of the Euphrates. Egypt was among the first
+to procure and cultivate them.[*] The soil there is so kind to man, that
+in many places no agricultural toil is required.
+
+     *  The position which wheat and barley occupy in the lists
+     of offerings, proves the antiquity of their existence in
+     Egypt. Mariette found specimens of barley in the tombs of
+     the Ancient Empire at Saqqarah.
+
+[Illustration: 086.jpg THE EGYPTIAN HOE.2]
+
+     2  Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti; drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+As soon as the water of the Nile retires, the ground is sown without
+previous preparation, and the grain, falling straight into the mud,
+grows as vigorously as in the best-ploughed furrows. Where the earth is
+hard it is necessary to break it up, but the extreme simplicity of the
+instruments with which this was done shows what a feeble resistance it
+offered. For a long time the hoe sufficed. It was composed either of a
+large stone tied to a wooden handle, or was made of two pieces of wood
+of unequal length, united at one of their extremities, and held together
+towards the middle by a slack cord: the plough, when first invented was
+but a slightly enlarged hoe, drawn by oxen. The cultivation of cereals,
+once established on the banks of the Nile, developed, from earliest
+times, to such a degree as to supplant all else: hunting, fishing,
+the rearing of cattle, occupied but a secondary place compared with
+agriculture, and Egypt became, that which she still remains, a vast
+granary of wheat. The part of the valley first cultivated was from Gebel
+Silsileh to the apex of the Delta.[*]
+
+     *  This was the tradition of all the ancients. Herodotus
+     related that, according to the Egyptians, the whole of
+     Egypt, with the exception of the Theban nome, was a vast
+     swamp previous to the time of Menes. Aristotle adds that the
+     Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the area now occupied by the
+     Delta, formed one sea. Cf. pp. 3-5 of this volume, on the
+     formation of the Delta.
+
+[Illustration: 087.jpg PLOUGHING. 2]
+
+     2  Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti; drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+Between the Libyan and Arabian ranges it presents a slightly convex
+surface, furrowed lengthways by a depression, in the bottom of which
+the Nile is gathered and enclosed when the inundation is over. In the
+summer, as soon as the river had risen higher than the top of its
+banks, the water rushed by the force of gravity towards the lower lands,
+hollowing in its course long channels, some of which never completely
+dried up, even when the Nile reached its lowest level.[*] Cultivation
+was easy in the neighbourhood of these natural reservoirs, but
+everywhere else the movements of the river were rather injurious than
+advantageous to man. The inundation scarcely ever covered the higher
+ground in the valley, which therefore remained unproductive; it flowed
+rapidly over the lands of medium elevation, and moved so sluggishly in
+the hollows that they became weedy and stagnant pools.[**]
+
+     * The whole description of the damage which can be done by
+     the Nile in places where the inundation is not regulated, is
+     borrowed from Linant de Bellefonds, _Memoire sur les
+     principaux travaux d'utilite publique_, p. 3.
+
+     ** This physical configuration of the country explains the
+     existence at a very early date of those gigantic serpents
+     which I have already mentioned.
+
+[Illustration: 089.jpg AN EGYPTIAN SAKIA (WELL) SHOWING METHOD OF
+PROCURING WATER FOR IRRIGATION.]
+
+In any year the portion not watered by the river was invaded by the
+sand: from the lush vegetation of a hot country, there was but one
+step to absolute aridity. At the present day an ingeniously established
+system of irrigation allows the agriculturist to direct and distribute
+the overflow according to his needs. From Gebel Ain to the sea, the Nile
+and its principal branches are bordered by long dykes, which closely
+follow the windings of the river and furnish sufficiently stable
+embankments. Numerous canals lead off to right and left, directed more
+or less obliquely towards the confines of the valley; they are divided
+at intervals by fresh dykes, starting at the one side from the river,
+and ending on the other either at the Bahr Yusuf or at the rising of
+the desert. Some of these dykes protect one district only, and consist
+merely of a bank of earth; others command a large extent of territory,
+and a breach in them would entail the ruin of an entire province. These
+latter are sometimes like real ramparts, made of crude brick carefully
+cemented; a few, as at Qosheish, have a core of hewn stones, which later
+generations have covered with masses of brickwork, and strengthened with
+constantly renewed buttresses of earth. They wind across the plain with
+many unexpected and apparently aimless turns; on closer examination,
+however, it may be seen that this irregularity is not to be attributed
+to ignorance or caprice. Experience had taught the Egyptians the art
+of picking out, upon the almost imperceptible relief of the soil, the
+easiest lines to use against the inundation: of these they have followed
+carefully the sinuosities, and if the course of the dykes appears
+singular, it is to be ascribed to the natural configuration of the
+ground. Subsidiary embankments thrown up between the principal ones,
+and parallel to the Nile, separate the higher ground bordering the river
+from the low lands on the confines of the valley; they divide the larger
+basins into smaller divisions of varying area, in which the irrigation
+is regulated by means of special trenches. As long as the Nile
+is falling, the dwellers on its banks leave their canals in free
+communication with it; but they dam them up towards the end of the
+winter, just before the return of the inundation, and do not reopen them
+till early in August, when the new flood is at its height. The waters
+then flowing in by the trenches are arrested by the nearest transverse
+dyke and spread over the fields. When they have stood there long enough
+to saturate the ground, the dyke is pierced, and they pour into the next
+basin until they are stopped by a second dyke, which in its turn forces
+them again to spread out on either side. This operation is renewed from
+dyke to dyke, till the valley soon becomes a series of artificial ponds,
+ranged one above another, and flowing one into another from Grebel
+Silsileh to the apex of the Delta. In autumn, the mouth of each ditch is
+dammed up anew, in order to prevent the mass of water from flowing back
+into the stream. The transverse dykes, which have been cut in various
+places, are also repaired, and the basins become completely landlocked,
+separated by narrow causeways. In some places, the water thus imprisoned
+is so shallow that it is soon absorbed by the soil; in others, it is so
+deep, that after it has been kept in for several weeks, it is necessary
+to let it run off into a neighbouring depression, or straight into the
+river itself.
+
+[Illustration: 091.jpg BOATMEN FIGHTING ON A CANAL COMMUNICATING WITH
+THE NILE. 1]
+
+     1 Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti;   drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
+     from  a photograph by E. Brugsch-Bey.
+
+History has left us no account of the vicissitudes of the struggle in
+which the Egyptians were engaged with the Nile, nor of the time expended
+in bringing it to a successful issue. Legend attributes the idea of the
+system and its partial working out to the god Osiris: then Menes, the
+first mortal king, is said to have made the dyke of Qosheish, on which
+depends the prosperity of the Delta and Middle Egypt, and the fabulous
+Mceris is supposed to have extended the blessings of the irrigation to
+the Fayum. In reality, the regulation of the inundation and the making
+of cultivable land are the work of unrecorded generations who peopled
+the valley. The kings of the historic period had only to maintain and
+develop certain points of what had already been done, and Upper Egypt
+is to this day chequered by the network of waterways with which its
+earliest inhabitants covered it. The work must have begun simultaneously
+at several points, without previous agreement, and, as it were,
+instinctively. A dyke protecting a village, a canal draining or watering
+some small province, demanded the efforts of but few individuals; then
+the dykes would join one another, the canals would be prolonged till
+they met others, and the work undertaken by chance would be improved,
+and would spread with the concurrence of an ever-increasing population.
+What happened at the end of last century, shows us that the system grew
+and was developed at the expense of considerable quarrels and bloodshed.
+The inhabitants of each district carried out the part of the work most
+conducive to their own interest, seizing the supply of water, keeping
+it and discharging it at pleasure, without considering whether they
+were injuring their neighbours by depriving them of their supply or
+by flooding them; hence arose perpetual strife and fighting. It became
+imperative that the rights of the weaker should be respected, and that
+the system of distribution should be co-ordinated, for the country to
+accept a beginning at least of social organization analogous to that
+which it acquired later: the Nile thus determined the political as well
+as the physical constitution of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 092.jpg A GREAT EGYPTIAN LORD, TI, AND HIS WIFE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dumichen,
+     _Resultate_, vol. ii. pl. vit
+
+The country was divided among communities, whose members were supposed
+to be descended from the same seed (_pait_) and to belong to the
+same family (_paitu_): the chiefs of them were called _ropaitu_, the
+guardians, or pastors of the family, and in later times their name
+became a title applicable to the nobility in general. Families combined
+and formed groups of various importance under the authority of a head
+chief--_ropaitu-ha_. They were, in fact, hereditary lords, dispensing
+justice, levying taxes in kind on their subordinates, reserving to
+themselves the redistribution of land, leading their men to, battle, and
+sacrificing to the gods.[*] The territories over which they exercised
+authority formed small states, whose boundaries even now, in some
+places, can be pointed out with certainty. The principality of the
+Terebinth[**] occupied the very heart of Egypt, where the valley is
+widest, and the course of the Nile most advantageously disposed
+by nature--a country well suited to be the cradle of an infant
+civilization. Siaut (Siut), the capital, is built almost at the foot
+of the Libyan range, on a strip of land barely a mile in width, which
+separates the river from the hills. A canal surrounds it on three sides,
+and makes, as it were, a natural ditch about its walls; during
+the inundation it is connected with the mainland only by narrow
+causeways--shaded with mimosas--and looking like a raft of verdure
+aground in the current.[***]
+
+     *  These prerogatives were still exercised by the princes of
+     the nomes under the Middle and New Empires; they only
+     enjoyed them then by the good will of the reigning
+     sovereign.
+
+     **  The Egyptian word for the tree which gives its name to
+     this principality is _atf, iatf, iotf_: it is only by a
+     process of elimination that I have come to identify it with
+     the _Pistacia Terebinthus_, L., which furnished the
+     Egyptians with the scented resin _snutir_.
+
+     ***  Boudier's drawing, reproduced on p. 31, and taken from
+     a photograph by Beato, gives most faithfully the aspect
+     presented by the plain and the modern town of Siout during
+     the inundation.
+
+[Illustration: 094.jpg NOMES OF MIDDLE EGYPT]
+
+The site is as happy as it is picturesque; not only does the town
+command the two arms of the river, opening or closing the waterway at
+will, but from time immemorial the most frequented of the routes into
+Central Africa has terminated at its gates, bringing to it the commerce
+of the Soudan. It held sway, at the outset, over both banks, from range
+to range, northward as far as Deyrut, where the true Bahr Yusuf leaves
+the Nile, and southward to the neighbourhood of Gebel Sheikh Haridi. The
+extent and original number of the other principalities is not so easily
+determined.
+
+The most important, to the north of Siut, were those of the Hare and the
+Oleander. The principality of the Hare never reached the dimensions
+of that of its neighbour the Terebinth, but its chief town was Khmunu,
+whose antiquity was so remote, that a universally accepted tradition
+made it the scene of the most important acts of creation.[*] That of the
+Oleander, on the contrary, was even larger than that of the Terebinth,
+and from Hininsu, its chief governor ruled alike over the marshes of the
+Fayum and the plains of Beni-Suef.[**] To the south, Apu on the right
+bank governed a district so closely shut in between a bend of the Nile
+and two spurs of the range, that its limits have never varied much since
+ancient times. Its inhabitants were divided in their employment between
+weaving and the culture of cereals. From early times they possessed the
+privilege of furnishing clothing to a large part of Egypt, and their
+looms, at the present day, still make those checked or striped
+"melayahs" which the fellah women wear over their long blue tunics.[***]
+
+     *  Khmunu, the present Ashmunein, is the Hermopolis of the
+     Greeks, the town of the god Thot.
+
+     **  Hininsu is the _Heraecleopolis Magna_ of the Greeks, the
+     present Henassieh, called also Ahnas-el-Medineh. The
+     Egyptian word for the tree which gives its name to this
+     principality, is Narit. Loret has shown that this tree,
+     _Narit_, is the oleander.
+
+     ***  Apu was the Panopolis or Chemmis of the Greeks, the
+     town of the god Min or ithyphallic Khimu. Its manufactures
+     of linen are mentioned by Strabo; the majority of the
+     beautiful Coptic woven fabrics and embroideries which have
+     been brought to Europe lately, come from the necropolis of
+     the Arab period at Apu.
+
+Beyond Apu, Thinis, the Girgeh of the Arabs, situate on both banks of
+the river, rivalled Khmunu in antiquity and Siut in wealth: its plains
+still produce the richest harvests and feed the most numerous herds of
+sheep and oxen in the Said.
+
+[Illustration: 096.jpg NOMES OF UPPER EGYPT]
+
+As we approach the cataract, information becomes scarcer. Qubti and Aunu
+of the South, the Coptos and Hermonthis of the Greeks, shared peaceably
+the plain occupied later on by Thebes and its temples, and Nekhabit and
+Zobu watched over the safety of Egypt. Nekhabit soon lost its position
+as a frontier town, and that portion of Nubia lying between Gebel
+Silsileh and the rapids of Syene formed a kind of border province, of
+which Nubit-Ombos was the principal sanctuary and Abu-Elephantine
+the fortress: beyond this were the barbarians, and those inaccessible
+regions whence the Nile descended upon our earth.
+
+The organization of the Delta, it would appear, was more slowly brought
+about. It must have greatly resembled that of the lowlands of Equatorial
+Africa, towards the confluence of the Bahr el Abiad and the Bahr el
+Ghazal. Great tracts of mud, difficult to describe as either solid or
+liquid, marshes dotted here and there with sandy islets, bristling with
+papyrus reeds, water-lilies, and enormous plants through which the arms
+of the Nile sluggishly pushed their ever-shifting course, low-lying
+wastes intersected with streams and pools, unfit for cultivation
+and scarcely available for pasturing cattle. The population of such
+districts, engaged in a ceaseless struggle with nature, always preserved
+relatively ruder manners, and a more rugged and savage character,
+impatient of all authority. The conquest of this region began from the
+outer edge only. A few principalities were established at the apex of
+the Delta in localities where the soil had earliest been won from the
+river. It appears that one of these divisions embraced the country
+south of and between the bifurcation of the Nile: Aunu of the North,
+the Heliopolis of the Greeks, was its capital. In very early times the
+principality was divided, and formed three new states, independent of
+each other. Those of Aunu and the Haunch were opposite to each other,
+the first on the Arabian, the latter on the Libyan bank of the Nile. The
+district of the White Wall marched with that of the Haunch on the north,
+and on the south touched the territory of the Oleander. Further down the
+river, between the more important branches, the governors of Sai's and
+of Bubastis, of Athribis and of Busiris, shared among themselves the
+primitive Delta. Two frontier provinces of unequal size, the Arabian on
+the east in the Wady Tumilat, and the Libyan on the west to the south of
+Lake Mareotis, defended the approaches of the country from the attacks
+of Asiatic Bedawins and of African nomads. The marshes of the interior
+and the dunes of the littoral, were not conducive to the development of
+any great industry or civilization. They only comprised tracts of thinly
+populated country, like the principalities of the Harpoon and of the
+Cow, and others whose limits varied from century to century with
+the changing course of the river. The work of rendering the marshes
+salubrious and of digging canals, which had been so successful in the
+Nile Valley, was less efficacious in the Delta, and proceeded more
+slowly. Here the embankments were not supported by a mountain chain:
+they were continued at random across the marshes, cut at every turn to
+admit the waters of a canal or of an arm of the river. The waters left
+their usual bed at the least disturbing influence, and made a fresh
+course for themselves across country. If the inundation were delayed,
+the soft and badly drained soil again became a slough: should it last
+but a few weeks longer than usual, the work of several generations was
+for a long time undone. The Delta of one epoch rarely presented the same
+aspect as that of previous periods, and Northern Egypt never became as
+fully mistress of her soil as the Egypt of the south.
+
+[Illustration: 099.jpg NOMES OF LOWER EGYPT]
+
+These first principalities, however small they appear to us, were yet
+too large to remain undivided. In those times of slow communication, the
+strong attraction which a capital exercised over the provinces under its
+authority did not extend over a wide radius. That part of the population
+of the Terebinth, living sufficiently near to Siut to come into the town
+for a few hours in the morning, returning in the evening to the villages
+when business was done, would not feel any desire to withdraw from the
+rule of the prince who governed there. On the other hand, those who
+lived outside that restricted circle were forced to seek elsewhere some
+places of assembly to attend the administration of justice, to sacrifice
+in common to the national gods, and to exchange the produce of the
+fields and of local manufactures. Those towns which had the good fortune
+to become such rallying-points naturally played the part of rivals to
+the capital, and their chiefs, with the district whose population, so
+to speak, gravitated around them, tended to become independent of the
+prince. When they succeeded in doing this, they often preserved for the
+new state thus created, the old name, slightly modified by the addition
+of an epithet. The primitive territory of Siut was in this way divided
+into three distinct communities; two, which remained faithful to the old
+emblem of the tree--the Upper Terebinth, with Siut itself in the centre,
+and the Lower Terebinth, with Kusit to the north; the third, in the
+south and east, took as their totem the immortal serpent which dwelt in
+their mountains, and called themselves the Serpent Mountain, whose
+chief town was that of the Sparrow Hawk. The territory of the Oleander
+produced by its dismemberment the principality of the Upper Oleander,
+that of the Lower Oleander, and that of the Knife. The territory of
+the Harpoon in the Delta divided itself into the Western and Eastern
+Harpoon. The fission in most cases could not have been accomplished
+without struggles; but it did take place, and all the principalities
+having a domain of any considerable extent had to submit to it, however
+they may have striven to avoid it. This parcelling out was continued as
+circumstances afforded opportunity, until the whole of Egypt, except the
+half desert districts about the cataract, became but an agglomeration of
+petty states nearly equal in power and population.[*]
+
+     * Examples of the subdivision of ancient nomes and the
+     creation of fresh nomes are met with long after primitive
+     times. We find, for example, the nome of the Western Harpoon
+     divided under the Greeks and Romans into two districts--that
+     of the Harpoon proper, of which the chief town was Sonti-
+     nofir; and that of Ranunr, with the Onuphis of classical
+     geographers for its capital.
+
+The Greeks called them nomes, and we have borrowed the word from them;
+the natives named them in several ways, the most ancient term
+being "nuit," which may be translated _domain_, and the most common
+appellation in recent times being "hospu," which signifies _district_.
+The number of the nomes varied considerably in the course of centuries:
+the hieroglyphic monuments and classical authors fixed them sometimes at
+thirty-six, sometimes at forty, sometimes at forty-four, or even fifty.
+The little that we know of their history, up to the present time,
+explains the reason of this variation. Ceaselessly quarrelled over by
+the princely families who possessed them, the nomes were alternately
+humbled and exalted by civil wars, marriages, and conquest, which caused
+them continually to pass into fresh hands, either entire or divided. The
+Egyptians, whom we are accustomed to consider as a people respecting
+the established order of things, and conservative of ancient tradition,
+showed themselves as restless and as prone to modify or destroy the work
+of the past, as the most inconstant of our modern nations. The distance
+of time which separates them from us, and the almost complete absence
+of documents, gives them an appearance of immobility, by which we are
+liable to be unconsciously deceived; when the monuments still existing
+shall have been unearthed, their history will present the same
+complexity of incidents, the same agitations, the same instability,
+which we suspect or know to have been characteristic of most other
+Oriental nations. One thing alone remained stable among them in the
+midst of so many revolutions, and which prevented them from losing their
+individuality and from coalescing in a common unity. This was the belief
+in and the worship of one particular deity. If the little capitals
+of the petty states whose origin is lost in a remote past--Edfu and
+Denderah, Nekhabit and Buto, Siufc, Thinis, Khmunu, Sais, Bubastis,
+Athribis--had only possessed that importance which resulted from the
+presence of an ambitious petty prince, or from the wealth of their
+inhabitants, they would never have passed safe and sound through the
+long centuries of existence which they enjoyed from the opening to the
+close of Egyptian history. Fortune raised their chiefs, some even to the
+rank of rulers of the world, and in turn abased them: side by side with
+the earthly ruler, whose glory was but too often eclipsed, there was
+enthroned in each nome a divine ruler, a deity, a god of the domain,
+"nutir nuiti," whose greatness never perished. The princely families
+might be exiled or become extinct, the extent of the territory might
+diminish or increase, the town might be doubled in size and population
+or fall in ruins: the god lived on through all these vicissitudes, and
+his presence alone preserved intact the rights of the state over which
+he reigned as sovereign. If any disaster befell his worshippers, his
+temple was the spot where the survivors of the catastrophe rallied
+around him, their religion preventing them from mixing with the
+inhabitants of neighbouring towns and from becoming lost among them.
+The survivors multiplied with that extraordinary rapidity which is the
+characteristic of the Egyptian fellah, and a few years of peace sufficed
+to repair losses which apparently were irreparable. Local religion
+was the tie which bound together those divers elements of which each
+principality was composed, and as long as it remained, the nomes
+remained; when it vanished, they disappeared with it.
+
+
+[Illustration: 105.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+[Illustration: 106.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--THE GODS OF EGYPT
+
+_THEIR NUMBER AND NATURE--THE FEUDAL GODS, LIVING AND DEAD--TRIADS----
+THE TEMPLES AND PRIESTHOOD--THE COSMOGONIES OF THE DELTA----THE ENNEADS
+OF HELIOPOLIS AND HERMOPOLIS._
+
+_Multiplicity of the Egyptian gods: the commonalty of the gods, its
+varieties, human, animal, and intermediate between man and beast; gods
+of foreign origin, indigenous gods, and the contradictory forms with
+which they were invested in accordance with various conceptions of their
+nature.
+
+The Star-gods--The Sun-god as the Eye of the Shy; as a bird, as a calf,
+and as a man; its barks, voyages round the world, and encounters with
+the serpent Apopi--The Moon-god and its enemies--The Star-gods: the
+Haunch of the Ox, the Hippopotamus, the Lion, the five Horus-planets;
+Sothis Sirius, and Sahu Orion.
+
+The feudal gods and their classes: the Nile-gods, the earth-gods, the
+sky-gods and the sun-god, the Horus-gods--The equality of feudal
+gods and goddesses; their persons, alliances, and marriages: their
+children--The triads and their various developments.
+
+The nature of the gods: the double, the soul, the body, death of men and
+gods, and their fate after death--The necessity for preserving the body,
+mummification--Dead gods the gods of the dead--The living gods, their
+temples and images--The gods of the people, trees, serpents, family
+fetiches--The theory of prayer and sacrifice: the servants of the
+temples, the property of the gods, the sacerdotal colleges.
+
+The cosmogonies of the Delta: Sibu and Nait, Osiris and Isis, SU and
+Nephthys--Heliopolis and its theological schools: Ra, his identification
+with Horus, his dual nature, and the conception of Atumu--The
+Heliopolitan Enneads: formation of the Great Ennead--Thot and
+the Hermopolitan Ennead: creation by articulate words and by voice
+alone--Diffusion of the Enneads: their connection with the local triads,
+the god One and the god Eight--The one and only gods._
+
+[Illustration: 107.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+THE GODS OF EGYPT
+
+The incredible number of religious scenes to be found among the
+representations on the ancient monuments of Egypt is at first glance
+very striking. Nearly every illustration in the works of Egyptologists
+brings before us the figure of some deity receiving with an impassive
+countenance the prayers and offerings of a worshipper. One would think
+that the country had been inhabited for the most part by gods, and
+contained just sufficient men and animals to satisfy the requirements of
+their worship.
+
+[Illustration: 108.jpg THE GODDESS NAPKIT, STAPIT.1]
+
+     1  The goddess Naprit, Napit; bas-relief from the first
+     chamber of Osiris, on the east side of the great temple of
+     Denderah. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+On penetrating into this mysterious world, we are confronted by an
+actual rabble of gods, each one of whom has always possessed but a
+limited and almost unconscious existence. They severally represented a
+function, a moment in the life of man or of the universe; thus Naprit
+was identified with the ripe ear, or the grain of wheat;[**]
+
+     **  The word _naprit_ means _grain_, the grain of wheat. The
+     grain-god is represented in the tomb of Seti I. as a man
+     wearing two full ears of wheat or barley upon his head. He
+     is mentioned in the _Hymn to the Nile_ about the same date,
+     and in two or three other texts of different periods. The
+     goddess _Naprit_, or _Napit_, to whom reference is here
+     made, was his duplicate; her head-dress is a sheaf of corn,
+     as in the illustration.
+
+     *** This goddess, whose name expresses and whose form
+     personifies the brick or stone couch, the child-bed or
+     -chair, upon which women in labour bowed themselves, is
+     sometimes subdivided into two or four secondary divinities.
+     She is mentioned along with Shait, _destiny_, and Raninit,
+     _suckling_. Her part of fairy godmother at the cradle of the
+     new-born child is indicated in the passage of the Westcar
+     Papyrus giving a detailed account of the births of three
+     kings of the fifth dynasty. She is represented in human
+     form, and often wears upon her head two long palm-shoots,
+     curling over at their ends.
+
+Maskhonit appeared by the child's cradle at the very moment of its
+birth;[*] and Raninit presided over the naming and the nurture of the
+newly born.[*] Neither Raninit, the fairy godmother, nor Maskhonit
+exercised over nature as a whole that sovereign authority which we are
+accustomed to consider the primary attribute of deity. Every day
+of every year was passed by the one in easing the pangs of women in
+travail; by the other, in choosing for each baby a name of an auspicious
+sound, and one which would afterwards serve to exorcise the influences
+of evil fortune. No sooner were their tasks accomplished in one place
+than they hastened to another, where approaching birth demanded their
+presence and their care. From child-bed to child-bed they passed, and if
+they fulfilled the single offices in which they were accounted adepts,
+the pious asked nothing more of them. Bands of mysterious cynocephali
+haunting the Eastern and the Western mountains concentrated the whole
+of their activity on one passing moment of the day. They danced and
+chattered in the East for half an hour, to salute the sun at his rising,
+even as others in the West hailed him on his entrance into night.[**]
+
+     *  Raninit presides over the child's suckling, but she also
+     gives him his name, and hence, his fortune. She is on the
+     whole the nursing goddess. Sometimes she is represented as a
+     human-headed woman, or as lioness-headed, most frequently
+     with the head of a serpent; she is also the urseus, clothed,
+     and wearing two long plumes on her head, and a simple urous,
+     as represented in the illustration on p. 169.
+
+     **  This is the subject of a vignette in the _Book of the
+     Dead_, ch. xvi., where the cynocephali are placed in echelon
+     upon the slopes of the hill on the horizon, right and left
+     of the radiant solar disk, to which they offer worship by
+     gesticulations.
+
+It was the duty of certain genii to open gates in Hades, or to keep the
+paths daily traversed by the sun.[*] These genii were always at their
+posts, never free to leave them, and possessed no other faculty than
+that of punctually fulfilling their appointed offices. Their existence,
+generally unperceived, was suddenly revealed at the very moment when the
+specific acts of their lives were on the point of accomplishment. These
+being completed, the divinities fell back into their state of inertia,
+and were, so to speak, reabsorbed by their functions until the next
+occasion.[***]
+
+     *  Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35.
+
+     ***  The Egyptians employed a still more forcible expression
+     than our word "absorption" to express this idea. It was said
+     of objects wherein these genii concealed themselves, and
+     whence they issued in order to re-enter them immediately,
+     that these forms _ate_ them, or that they _ate_ their own
+     forms.
+
+[Illustration: 110.jpg SOME FABULOUS BEASTS OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERT. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from Champollion's copies, made
+     from the tombs of Beni-Hassan. To the right is the _sha_,
+     one of the animals of Sit, and an exact image of the god
+     with his stiff and arrow-like tail. Next comes the _safir_,
+     the griffin; and, lastly, we have the serpent-headed _saza_.
+
+Scarcely visible even by glimpses, they were not easily depicted; their
+real forms being often unknown, these were approximately conjectured
+from their occupations. The character and costume of an archer, or of a
+spear-man, were ascribed to such as roamed through Hades, to pierce the
+dead with arrows or with javelins. Those who prowled around souls to cut
+their throats and hack them to pieces were represented as women armed
+with knives, carvers--_donit_--or else as lacerators--_nokit_. Some
+appeared in human form; others as animals--bulls or lions, rams or
+monkeys, serpents, fish, ibises, hawks; others dwelt in inanimate
+things, such as trees,[*] sistrums, stakes stuck in the ground;[**] and
+lastly, many betrayed a mixed origin in their combinations of human and
+animal forms. These latter would be regarded by us as monsters; to the
+Egyptians, they were beings, rarer perhaps than the rest, but not the
+less real, and their like might be encountered in the neighbourhood of
+Egypt.[***]
+
+     *  Thus, the sycamores planted on the edge of the desert
+     were supposed to be inhabited by Hathor, Nuit, Selkit, Nit,
+     or some other goddess. In vignettes representing the
+     deceased as stopping before one of these trees and receiving
+     water and loaves of bread, the bust of the goddess generally
+     appears from amid her sheltering foliage. But occasionally,
+     as on the sarcophagus of Petosiris, the transformation is
+     complete, and the trunk from which the branches spread is
+     the actual body of the god or goddess. Finally, the whole
+     body is often hidden, and only the arm of the goddess to be
+     seen emerging from the midst of the tree, with an
+     overflowing libation vase in her hand.
+
+     **  The trunk of a tree, disbranched, and then set up in the
+     ground, seems to me the origin of the Osirian emblem called
+     _tat_ or _didu_. The symbol was afterwards so
+     conventionalized as to represent four columns seen in
+     perspective, one capital overtopping another; it thus became
+     the image of the four pillars which uphold the world.
+
+     ***  The belief in the real existence of fantastic animals
+     was first noted by Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et
+     d'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 117, 118, 132, and
+     vol.  ii.  p.   213.    Until then,  scholars only
+     recognized the sphinx, and other Egyptian monsters, as
+     allegorical combinations by which the priesthood claimed to
+     give visible expression in one and the same being to
+     physical or moral qualities belonging to several different
+     beings. The later theory has now been adopted by Wiedemann,
+     and by most contemporary Egyptologists.
+
+How could men who believed themselves surrounded by sphinxes and
+griffins of flesh and blood doubt that there were bull-headed and
+hawk-headed divinities with human busts? The existence of such
+paradoxical creatures was proved by much authentic testimony; more
+than one hunter had distinctly seen them as they ran along the furthest
+planes of the horizon, beyond the herds of gazelles of which he was
+in chase; and shepherds dreaded them for their flocks as truly as they
+dreaded the lions, or the great felidse of the desert.[*]
+
+     * At Beni-Hassan and in Thebes many of the fantastic animals
+     mentioned in the text, griffins, hierosphinxes, serpent-
+     headed lions, are placed along with animals which might be
+     encountered by local princes hunting in the desert.
+
+This nation of gods, like nations of men, contained foreign elements,
+the origin of which was known to the Egyptians themselves. They knew
+that Hathor, the milch cow, had taken up her abode in their land from
+very ancient times, and they called her the Lady of Puanit, after the
+name of her native country. Bisu had followed her in course of time,
+and claimed his share of honours and worship along with her. He first
+appeared as a leopard; then he became a man clothed in a leopard's skin,
+but of strange countenance and alarming character, a big-headed dwarf
+with high cheek-bones, and a wide and open mouth, whence hung an
+enormous tongue; he was at once jovial and martial, the friend of the
+dance and of battle.[*]
+
+     *  The hawk-headed monster with flower-tipped tail was
+     called the saga.
+
+In historic times all nations subjugated by the Pharaohs transferred
+some of their principal divinities to their conquerors, and the Libyan
+Shehadidi was enthroned in the valley of the Nile, in the same way as
+the Semitic Baalu and his retinue of Astartes, Anitis, Eeshephs, and
+Kadshus. These divine colonists fared like all foreigners who
+have sought to settle on the banks of the Nile: they were promptly
+assimilated, wrought, moulded, and made into Egyptian deities scarcely
+distinguishable from those of the old race. This mixed pantheon had
+its grades of nobles, princes, kings, and each of its members was
+representative of one of the elements constituting the world, or of one
+of the forces which regulated its government.
+
+[Illustration: 113.jpb SOME FABULOUS BEASTS OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERT 1]
+
+     1  Bisu, pp. 111-184. The tail-piece to the summary of this
+     chapter is a figure of Bisu, drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an
+     amulet in blue enamelled pottery.
+
+The sky, the earth, the stars, the sun, the Nile, were so many breathing
+and thinking beings whose lives were daily manifest in the life of the
+universe.
+
+They were worshipped from one end of the valley to the other, and the
+whole nation agreed in proclaiming their sovereign power. But when the
+people began to name them, to define their powers and attributes, to
+particularize their forms, or the relationships that subsisted among
+them, this unanimity was at an end. Each principality, each nome, each
+city, almost every village, conceived and represented them differently.
+Some said that the sky was the Great Horus, Haroeris, the sparrow-hawk
+of mottled plumage which hovers in highest air, and whose gaze embraces
+the whole field of creation. Owing to a punning assonance between his
+name and the word _horu_, which designates the human countenance, the
+two senses were combined, and to the idea of the sparrow-hawk there was
+added that of a divine face, whose two eyes opened in turn, the right
+eye being the sun, to give light by day, and the left eye the moon, to
+illumine the night. The face shone also with a light of its own, the
+zodiacal light, which appeared unexpectedly, morning or evening, a
+little before sunrise, and a little after sunset. These luminous beams,
+radiating from a common centre, hidden in the heights of the firmament,
+spread into a wide pyramidal sheet of liquid blue, whose base rested
+upon the earth, but whose apex was slightly inclined towards the zenith.
+The divine face was symmetrically framed, and attached to earth by four
+thick locks of hair; these were the pillars which upbore the firmament
+and prevented its falling into ruin. A no less ancient tradition
+disregarded as fabulous all tales told of the sparrow-hawk, or of the
+face, and taught that heaven and earth are wedded gods, Sibu, and Nuit,
+from whose marriage came forth all that has been, all that is, and all
+that shall be.
+
+[Illustration: 115.jpg NUIT THE STARRY ONE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painted coffin of the XXIth
+     dynasty in Leyden.
+
+Most people invested them with human form, and represented the earth-god
+Sibu as extended beneath Nuit the Starry One; the goddess stretched out
+her arms, stretched out her slender legs, stretched out her body above
+the clouds, and her dishevelled head drooped westward. But there were
+also many who believed that Sibu was concealed under the form of a
+colossal gander, whose mate once laid the Sun Egg, and perhaps still
+laid it daily. From the piercing cries wherewith he congratulated her,
+and announced the good news to all who cared to hear it--after the
+manner of his kind--he had received the flattering epithet of _Ngagu
+oiru_, the Great Cack-ler. Other versions repudiated the goose in favour
+of a vigorous bull, the father of gods and men, whose companion was a
+cow, a large-eyed Hathor, of beautiful countenance. The head of the
+good beast rises into the heavens, the mysterious waters which cover
+the world flow along her spine; the star-covered underside of her body,
+which we call the firmament, is visible to the inhabitants of earth, and
+her four legs are the four pillars standing at the four cardinal points
+of the world.
+
+[Illustration: 116.jpg THE GOOSE-GOD FACING THE CAT-GODDESS, THE LADY OF
+HEAVEN. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stella in the museum of
+     Gizeh. This is not the goose of Sibu, but the goose of Amon,
+     which was nurtured in the temple of Karnak, and was called
+     Smonu. Pacing it is the cat of Maut, the wife of Amon. Amon,
+     originally an earth-god, was, as we see, confounded with
+     Sibu, and thus naturally appropriated that deity's form of a
+     goose.
+
+The planets, and especially the sun, varied in form and nature according
+to the prevailing conception of the heavens. The fiery disk _Atonu_, by
+which the sun revealed himself to men, was a living god, called Ra, as
+was also the planet itself.[*] Where the sky was regarded as Horus, Ra
+formed the right eye of the divine face: when Horus opened his eyelids
+in the morning, he made the dawn and day; when he closed them in the
+evening, the dusk and night were at hand.
+
+     *   The name of Ra has been variously explained. The
+     commonest etymology is that deriving the name from a verb
+     ra, _to give, to make to be_ a person or a thing, so that Ra
+     would thus be the great organizer, the author of all things.
+     Lauth goes so far as to say that "notwithstanding its
+     brevity, Ra is a composite word (r-a, _maker--to be_)" As a
+     matter of fact, the word is simply the name of the
+     planet applied to the god.    It means the _sun_, and nothing
+     more.
+
+[Illustration: 117.jpg THE COW HATHOR, THE LADY OP HEAVEN.3]
+
+     3  Drawn by Boudier, from a XXXth dynasty statue of green
+     basalt in the Gizeh Museum (Maspero, _Guide du Visiteur_, p.
+     345, No. 5243). The statue was also published by Mariette,
+     _Monuments divers_, pl. 96 A-B, and in the _Album
+     photographique du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. x.
+
+Where the sky was looked upon as the incarnation of a goddess, Ra was
+considered as her son,[**] his father being the earth-god, and he was
+born again with every new dawn, wearing a sidelock, and with his finger
+to his lips as human children were conventionally represented.
+
+     **  Several passages from the Pyramid texts prove that the
+     _two eyes_ were very anciently considered as belonging to
+     the face of Nuit, and this conception persisted to the last
+     days of Egyptian paganism. Hence, we must not be surprised
+     if the inscriptions generally represent the god Ra as coming
+     forth from Nuit under the form of a disc, or a scarabaeus,
+     and born of her even as human children are born.
+
+He was also that luminous egg, laid and hatched in the East by the
+celestial goose, from which the sun breaks forth to fill the world with
+its rays.[**]
+
+     **  These are the very expressions used in the seventeenth
+     chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol.
+     i. pl. xxv. lines 58-61; Lepsius, _Todtenbuch_, pl. ix. 11.
+     50, 51).
+
+[Illustration: 118.jpg THE TWELVE STAGES IN THE LIFE OF THE SUN AND ITS
+TWELVE FORMS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. 1]
+
+     1  The twelve forms of the sun during the twelve hours of
+     the day, from the ceiling of the Hall of the New Year at
+     Edfu. Drawing by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+Nevertheless, by an anomaly not uncommon in religions, the egg did not
+always contain the same kind of bird; a lapwing, or a heron, might
+come out of it,[*] or perhaps, in memory of Horus, one of the beautiful
+golden sparrow-hawks of Southern Egypt. A Sun-Hawk, hovering in high
+heaven on outspread wings, at least presented a bold and poetic image;
+but what can be said for a Sun-Calf? Yet it is under the innocent
+aspect of a spotted calf, a "sucking calf of pure mouth,"[**] that the
+Egyptians were pleased to describe the Sun-God when Sibu, the father,
+was a bull, and Hathor a heifer.
+
+     *  The lapwing or the heron, the Egyptian _bonu_, is
+     generally the Osirian bird. The persistence with which it is
+     associated with Heliopolis and the gods of that city shows
+     that in this also we have a secondary form of Ra.
+
+     **  The calf is represented in ch. cix. of the _Book of the
+     Dead_ (Naville's edition, pl. cxx.), where the text says
+     (lines 10, 11), "I know that this calf is Harmakhis the Sun,
+     and that it is no other than the Morning Star, daily
+     saluting Ra." The expression "_sucking calf of pure
+     mouth_" is taken word for word from a formula preserved in
+     the Pyramid texts (Unas, 1. 20).
+
+But the prevalent conception was that in which the life of the sun was
+likened to the life of man. The two deities presiding over the East
+received the orb upon their hands at its birth, just as midwives receive
+a new-born child, and cared for it during the first hour of the day and
+of its life. It soon left them, and proceeded "under the belly of Nuit,"
+growing and strengthening from minute to minute, until at noon it had
+become a triumphant hero whose splendour is shed abroad over all. But as
+night comes on his strength forsakes him and his glory is obscured; he
+is bent and broken down, and heavily drags himself along like an old
+man leaning upon his stick. At length he passes away beyond the horizon,
+plunging westward into the mouth of Nuit, and traversing her body by
+night to be born anew the next morning, again to follow the paths along
+which he had travelled on the preceding day.
+
+A first bark, the _saktit_, awaited him at his birth, and carried him
+from the Eastern to the Southern extremity of the world. _Mazit_, the
+second bark, received him at noon, and bore him into the land of Manu,
+which is at the entrance into Hades; other barks, with which we are less
+familiar, conveyed him by night, from his setting until his rising at
+morn.[*] Sometimes he was supposed to enter the barks alone, and then
+they were magic and self-directed, having neither oars, nor sails, nor
+helm.[**]
+
+     *  In the formulae of the _Book of Knowing that which is in
+     Hades_, the dead sun remains in the bark Saktit during part
+     of the night, and it is only to traverse the fourth and
+     fifth hours that he changes into another.
+
+     **  Such is the bark of the sun in the other world. Although
+     carrying a complete crew of gods, yet for the most part it
+     progresses at its own will, and without their help. The bark
+     containing the sun alone is represented in many vignettes of
+     the _Book of the Dead_, and at the head of many stelae.
+
+Sometimes they were equipped with a full crew, like that of an Egyptian
+boat--a pilot at the prow to take soundings in the channel and forecast
+the wind, a pilot astern to steer, a quartermaster in the midst to
+transmit the orders of the pilot at the prow to the pilot at the stern,
+and half a dozen sailors to handle poles or oars. Peacefully the bark
+glided along the celestial river amid the acclamations of the gods who
+dwelt upon its shores. But, occasionally, Apopi, a gigantic serpent,
+like that which hides within the earthly Nile and devours its banks,
+came forth from the depth of the waters and arose in the path of the
+god.[*] As soon as they caught sight of it in the distance, the crew
+flew to arms, and entered upon the struggle against him with prayers
+and spear-thrusts. Men in their cities saw the sun faint and fail,
+and sought to succour him in his distress; they cried aloud, they were
+beside themselves with excitement, beating their breasts, sounding their
+instruments of music, and striking with all their strength upon every
+metal vase or utensil in their possession, that their clamour might rise
+to heaven and terrify the monster. After a time of anguish, Ra emerged
+from the darkness and again went on his way, while Apopi sank back into
+the abyss,[**] paralysed by the magic of the gods, and pierced with many
+a wound.
+
+     *  In Upper Egypt there is a widespread belief in the
+     existence of a monstrous serpent, who dwells at the bottom
+     of the river, and is the genius of the Nile. It is he who
+     brings about those falls of earth (_batabit_) at the decline
+     of the inundation which often destroy the banks and eat
+     whole fields. At such times, offerings of durrah, fowls, and
+     dates are made to him, that his hunger may be appeased, and
+     it is not only the natives who give themselves up to these
+     superstitious practices. Part of the grounds belonging to
+     the Karnak hotel at Luxor having been carried away during
+     the autumn of 1884, the manager, a Greek, made the customary
+     offerings to the serpent of the Nile.
+
+     **  The character of Apopi and of his struggle with the sun
+     was, from the first, excellently defined by Champollion as
+     representing the conflict of darkness with light.
+     Occasionally, but very rarely, Apopi seems to win, and his
+     triumph over Ra furnishes one explanation of a solar
+     eclipse. A similar explanation is common to many races. In
+     one very ancient form of the Egyptian legend, the sun is
+     represented by a wild ass running round the world along the
+     sides of the mountains that uphold the sky, and the serpent
+     which attacks it is called _Haiu_.
+
+Apart from these temporary eclipses, which no one could foretell, the
+Sun-King steadily followed his course round the world, according to laws
+which even his will could not change. Day after day he made his oblique
+ascent from east to south, thence to descend obliquely towards the west.
+During the summer months the obliquity of his course diminished, and
+he came closer to Egypt; during the winter it increased, and he went
+farther away. This double movement recurred with such regularity from
+equinox to solstice, and from solstice to equinox, that the day of
+the god's departure and the day of his return could be confidently
+predicted. The Egyptians explained this phenomenon according to their
+conceptions of the nature of the world. The solar bark always kept close
+to that bank of the celestial river which was nearest to men; and when
+the river overflowed at the annual inundation, the sun was carried along
+with it outside the regular bed of the stream, and brought yet closer
+to Egypt. As the inundation abated, the bark descended and receded, its
+greatest distance from earth corresponding with the lowest level of the
+waters. It was again brought back to us by the rising strength of the
+next flood; and, as this phenomenon was yearly repeated, the periodicity
+of the sun's oblique movements was regarded as the necessary consequence
+of the periodic movements of the celestial Nile.
+
+The same stream also carried a whole crowd of gods, whose existence was
+revealed at night only to the inhabitants of earth. At an interval of
+twelve hours, and in its own bark, the pale disk of the moon--_Yauhu
+Auhu_--followed the disk of the sun along the ramparts of the world.
+The moon, also, appeared in many various forms--here, as a man born of
+Nuit;[*] there, as a cynocephalus or an ibis;[**] elsewhere, it was the
+left eye of Horus,[***] guarded by the ibis or cynocephalus. Like Ra,
+it had its enemies incessantly upon the watch for it: the crocodile, the
+hippopotamus, and the sow. But it was when at the full, about the 15th
+of each month, that the lunar eye was in greatest peril.
+
+     *  He may be seen as a child, or man, bearing the lunar disk
+     upon his head, and pressing the lunar eye to his breast.
+     Passages from the Pyramid text of Unas indicate the
+     relationship subsisting between Thot, Sibu, and Nuit, making
+     Thot the brother of Isis, Sit, and Nephthys. In later times
+     he was considered a son of Ra.
+
+     **  Even as late as the Graeco-Roman period, the temple of
+     Thot at Khmunu contained a sacred ibis, which was the
+     incarnation of the god, and said to be immortal by the local
+     priesthood. The temple sacristans showed it to Apion the
+     grammarian, who reports the fact, but is very sceptical in
+     the matter.
+
+     ***  The texts quoted by Chabas and Lepsius to show that the
+     sun is the right eye of Horus also prove that his left eye
+     is the moon.
+
+[Illustration: 123.jpg EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL
+CONSTELLATIONS OF THE NORTHERN SKY.4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the ceiling of the
+     Ramesseum. On the right, the _female hippopotamus_ bearing
+     the _crocodile_, and leaning on the _Monait_; in the middle,
+     the _Haunch_, here represented by the whole bull; to the
+     left, _Selkit_ and the _Sparrow-hawk_, with the _Lion_, and
+     the _Giant fighting the Crocodile_.
+
+The sow fell upon it, tore it out of the face of heaven, and cast it,
+streaming with blood and tears, into the celestial Nile, where it was
+gradually extinguished, and lost for days; but its twin, the sun, or
+its guardian, the cyno-cephalus, immediately set forth to find it and
+to restore it to Horus. No sooner was it replaced, than it slowly
+recovered, and renewed its radiance; when it was well--_uzait_--the sow
+again attacked and mutilated it, and the gods rescued and again revived
+it.
+
+[Illustration: 124.jpg THE LUNAR BARK, SELF-PROPELLED, UNDER THE
+PROTECTION OF THE TWO EYES.]
+
+Each month there was a fortnight of youth and of growing splendour,
+followed by a fortnight's agony and ever-increasing pallor. It was born
+to die, and died to be born again twelve times in the year, and each
+of these cycles measured a month for the inhabitants of the world.
+One invariable accident from time to time disturbed the routine of
+its existence. Profiting by some distraction of the guardians, the sow
+greedily swallowed it, and then its light went out suddenly, instead of
+fading gradually. These eclipses, which alarmed mankind at least as much
+as did those of the sun, were scarcely more than momentary, the gods
+compelling the monster to cast up the eye before it had been destroyed.
+
+[Illustration: 125.jpg THE HAUNCH, AND THE FEMALE HIPPOPOTAMUS.1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the rectangular zodiac
+     carved upon the ceiling of the great temple of Denderah
+     (Dumichen, _Resultate_, vol. ii. pl. xxxix.).
+
+Every evening the lunar bark issued out of Hades by the door which Ra
+had passed through in the morning, and as it rose on the horizon, the
+star-lamps scattered over the firmament appeared one by one, giving
+light here and there like the camp-fires of a distant army. However
+many of them there might be, there were as many Indestructibles--_Akhimu
+Soku_--or Unchanging Ones--_Akhimu Urdu_--whose charge it was to attend
+upon them and watch over their maintenance.[**]
+
+     **  The _Akhimu Soku_ and the _Akhimu Urdu_ have been very
+     variously defined by different Egyptologists who have
+     studied them. Chabas considered them to be gods or genii of
+     the constellations of the ecliptic, which mark the apparent
+     course of the sun through the sky. Following the indications
+     given by Deveria, he also thought them to be the sailors of
+     the solar bark, and perhaps the gods of the twelve hours,
+     divided into two classes: the _Akhimu Soku_ being those who
+     are rowing, and the _Akhimu Urdu_ those who are resting. But
+     texts found and cited by Brugsch show that the _Akhimu Soku_
+     are the planets accompanying Ra in the northern sky, while
+     the _Akhimu Urdu_ are his escort in the south. The
+     nomenclature of the stars included in these two classes is
+     furnished by monuments of widely different epochs. The two
+     names should be translated according to the meaning of their
+     component words: _Akhimu Soku_, those who know not
+     destruction, the Indestructibles; and _Akhimu Urdu_ (
+     _Urzii_), those who know not the immobility of death, the
+     _Imperishables_.
+
+They were not scattered at random by the hand which had suspended them,
+but their distribution had been ordered in accordance with a certain
+plan, and they were arranged in fixed groups like so many star
+republics, each being independent of its neighbours. They represented
+the outlines of bodies of men and animals dimly traced out upon
+the depths of night, but shining with greater brilliancy in certain
+important places. The seven stars which we liken to a chariot (Charles's
+Wain) suggested to the Egyptians the haunch of an ox placed on the
+northern edge of the horizon.[*]
+
+     * The forms of the constellations, and the number of stars
+     composing them in the astronomy of different periods, are
+     known from the astronomical scenes of tombs and temples. The
+     identity of the _Haunch_ with the _Chariot_, or _Great Bear_
+     of modern astronomy, was discovered by Lepsius and confirmed
+     by Biot. Mariette pointed out that the Pyramid Arabs applied
+     the name of the _Haunch (er-Rigl)_ to the same group of
+     stars as that thus designated by the ancient Egyptians.
+     Champollion had noted the position of the _Haunch_ in the
+     northern sky, but had not suggested any identification. The
+     _Haunch_ appertained to Sit-Typhon.
+
+Two lesser stars connected the haunch--_Maskhait_--with
+thirteen others, which recalled the silhouette of a female
+hippopotamus--_Ririt_--erect upon her hind legs,[*] and jauntily
+carrying upon her shoulders a monstrous crocodile whose jaws opened
+threateningly above her head. Eighteen luminaries of varying size and
+splendour, forming a group hard by the hippopotamus, indicated the
+outline of a gigantic lion couchant, with stiffened tail, its head
+turned to the right, and facing the Haunch.[***]
+
+     *  The connection of _Birit_, the female hippopotamus, with
+     the Haunch is made quite clear in scenes from Philae and
+     Edfu, representing Isis holding back Typhon by a chain, that
+     he might do no hurt to Sahii-Osiris. Jollois and Devilliers
+     thought that the hippopotamus was the _Great Bear_. Biot
+     contested their conclusions, and while holding that the
+     hippopotamus might at least in part present our
+     constellation of the Dragon, thought that it was probably
+     included in the scene only as an ornament, or as an emblem.
+     The present tendency is to identify the hippopotamus with
+     the Dragon and with certain stars not included in the
+     constellations surrounding it.
+
+     ***  The Lion, with its eighteen stars, is represented on
+     the tomb of Seti I.; on the ceiling of the Ramesseum; and on
+     the sarcophagus of Htari.
+
+[Illustration: 127.jpg OKION, SOTHIS, AND TWO HOKUS-PLANETS STANDING IN
+THEIR BAKKS. 2]
+
+     2  From the astronomic ceiling in the tomb of Seti I.
+     (Lefebure, 4th part, pl. xxxvi.).
+
+The Lion is sometimes shown as having a crocodile's tail. According
+to Biot the Egyptian Lion has nothing in common with the Greek
+constellation of that name, nor yet with our own, but was composed of
+smaller stars, belonging to the Greek constellation of the Cup or to
+the continuation of the Hydra, so that its head, its body, and its
+tail would follow the [ ] of the Hydra, between the [ ] and [ ] of that
+constellation, or the [ ] of the Virgin.
+
+Most of the constellations never left the sky: night after night they
+were to be found almost in the same places, and always shining with the
+same even light.
+
+[Illustration: 128.jpg SAHU-ORION. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small bronze in the Gizeh
+     Museum, published by Mariette, in the _Album photographique
+     du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. 9. The legs are a modern
+     restoration.
+
+Others borne by a slow movement passed annually beyond the limits of
+sight for months at a time. Five at least of our planets were known
+from all antiquity, and their characteristic colours and appearances
+carefully noted. Sometimes each was thought to be a hawk-headed Horus.
+Uapshetatui, our Jupiter, Kahiri-(Saturn), Sobku-(Mercury), steered
+their barks straight ahead like Iauhu and Ra; but Mars-Doshiri, the
+red, sailed backwards. As a star Bonu, the bird (Yenus) had a dual
+personality; in the evening it was Uati, the lonely star which is
+the first to rise, often before nightfall; in the morning it became
+Tiunutiri, the god who hails the sun before his rising and proclaims the
+dawn of day.
+
+Sahu and Sopdit, Orion and Sirius, were the rulers of this mysterious
+world. Sahu consisted of fifteen stars, seven large and eight small,
+so arranged as to represent a runner darting through space, while the
+fairest of them shone above his head, and marked him out from afar to
+the admiration of mortals.
+
+[Illustration: 129.jpg ORION AND THE COW SOTHIS SEPARATED BY THE
+SPARROW-HAWK. 1]
+
+     1 Scene from the rectangular zodiac of Denderah, drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken with magnesium light
+     by Dumichen.
+
+With his right hand he flourished the _crux ansata_, and turning his
+head towards Sothis as he beckoned her on with his left, seemed as
+though inviting her to follow him. The goddess, standing sceptre in
+hand, and crowned with a diadem of tall feathers surmounted by her most
+radiant star, answered the call of Sahu with a gesture, and quietly
+embarked in pursuit as though in no anxiety to overtake him. Sometimes
+she is represented as a cow lying down in her bark, with tree stars
+along her back, and Sirius flaming from between her horns.[*]
+
+     * The identity of the cow with Sothis was discovered by
+     Jollois and Devilliers. It is under this animal form that
+     Sothis is represented in most of the Graeco-Roman temples,
+     at Denderah, Edfu, Esneh, Der el-Medineh.
+
+Not content to shine by night only, her bluish rays, suddenly darted
+forth in full daylight and without any warning, often described upon the
+sky the mystic lines of the triangle which stood for her name. It was
+then that she produced those curious phenomena of the zodiacal light
+which other legends attributed to Horus himself. One, and perhaps
+the most ancient of the innumerable accounts of this god and goddess,
+represented Sahu as a wild hunter. A world as vast as ours rested upon
+the other side of the iron firmament; like ours, it was distributed into
+seas, and continents divided by rivers and canals, but peopled by races
+unknown to men. Sahu traversed it during the day, surrounded by genii
+who presided over the lamps forming his constellation. At his appearing
+"the stars prepared themselves for battle, the heavenly archers rushed
+forward, the bones of the gods upon the horizon trembled at the sight
+of him," for it was no common game that he hunted, but the very gods
+themselves. One attendant secured the prey with a lasso, as bulls are
+caught in the pastures, while another examined each capture to decide if
+it were pure and good for food. This being determined, others bound the
+divine victim, cut its throat, disembowelled it, cut up its carcass,
+cast the joints into a pot, and superintended their cooking. Sahu did
+not devour indifferently all that the fortune of the chase might bring
+him, but classified his game in accordance with his wants. He ate the
+great gods at his breakfast in the morning, the lesser gods at his
+dinner towards noon, and the small ones at his supper; the old were
+rendered more tender by roasting.
+
+[Illustration: 131.jpg AMON-RA, AS MINU OF COPTOS, AND INVESTED WITH HIS
+EMBLEMS. 1]
+
+     1 Scene on the north wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak;
+     drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in
+     1882. The king, Seti I., is presenting bouquets of leaves to
+     Amon-Minu. Behind the god stands Isis (of Coptos), sceptre
+     and _crux ansata_ in hand.
+
+As each god was assimilated by him, its most precious virtues were
+transfused into himself; by the wisdom of the old was his wisdom
+strengthened, the youth of the young repaired the daily waste of his
+own youth, and all their fires, as they penetrated his being, served to
+maintain the perpetual splendour of his light.
+
+The nome gods who presided over the destinies of Egyptian cities, and
+formed a true feudal system of divinities, belonged to one or other of
+these natural categories. In vain do they present themselves under
+the most shifting aspects and the most deceptive attributes; in vain
+disguise themselves with the utmost care; a closer examination generally
+discloses the principal features of their original physiognomies. Osiris
+of the Delta, Khuumu of the Cataract, Harshafitu of Heracleopolis, were
+each of them, incarnations of the fertilizing and life-sustaining Nile.
+Wherever there is some important change in the river, there they are
+more especially installed and worshipped: Khnumu at the place of its
+entering into Egypt, and again at the town of Haurit, near the point
+where a great arm branches off from the Eastern stream to flow towards
+the Libyan hills and form the Bahr-Yusuf: Harshafitu at the gorges of
+the Fayum, where the Bahr-Yusuf leaves the valley; and, finally, Osiris
+at Mendes and at Busiris, towards the mouth of the middle branch, which
+was held to be the true Nile by the people of the land. Isis of Buto
+denoted the black vegetable mould of the valley, the distinctive soil of
+Egypt annually covered and fertilized by the inundation.[*]
+
+     * In the case of Isis, as in that of Osiris, we must mark
+     the original character; and note her characteristics as
+     goddess of the Delta before she had become a multiple and
+     contradictory personality through being confounded with
+     other divinities.
+
+But the earth in general, as distinguished from the sky--the earth with
+its continents, its seas, its alternation of barren deserts and fertile
+lands--was represented as a man: Phtah at Memphis, Amon at Thebes, Minu
+at Coptos and at Panopolis. Amon seems rather to have symbolized the
+productive soil, while Minu reigned over the desert. But these were fine
+distinctions, not invariably insisted upon, and his worshippers often
+invested Amon with the most significant attributes of Minu.
+
+[Illustration: 133.jpg ANHURI. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze of the Saite period,
+     in my own possession.
+
+The Sky-gods, like the Earth-gods, were separated into two groups, the
+one consisting of women: Hathor of Denderah, or Nit of Sais; the other
+composed of men identical with Horus, or derived from him: Anhuri-Shu of
+Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, Horus of the two eyes, at Pharbaethos;
+Har-Sapdi, Horus the source of the zodiacal light, in the Wady Tumilat;
+and finally Harhuditi at Edfu. Ra, the solar disk, was enthroned at
+Heliopolis, and sun-gods were numerous among the nome deities, but they
+were sun-gods closely connected with gods representing the sky, and
+resembled Horus quite as much as Ra. Whether under the name of Horus
+or of Anhuri, the sky was early identified with its most brilliant
+luminary, its solar eye, and its divinity was as it were fused into that
+of the Sun. Horus the Sun, and Ra, the Sun-Cod of Heliopolis, had so
+permeated each other that none could say where the one began and the
+other ended. One by one all the functions of Ra had been usurped by
+Horus, and all the designations of Horus had been appropriated by Ra.
+The sun was styled Harmakhuiti, the Horus of the two mountains--that is,
+the Horus who comes forth from the mountain of the east in the morning,
+and retires at evening into the mountain of the west;[*] or Hartima,
+Horus the Pikeman, that Horus whose lance spears the hippopotamus or the
+serpent of the celestial river; or Harnubi, the Golden Horus, the great
+golden sparrow-hawk with mottled plumage, who puts all other birds
+to flight; and these titles were indifferently applied to each of the
+feudal gods who represented the sun.
+
+     *  From the time of Champollion, Harmakhuiti has been
+     identified with the Harmachis of the Greeks, the great
+     Sphinx.
+
+[Illustration: 134.jpg THE HAWK-HEADED HOKUS.2]
+
+     2  A bronze of the Saite period, from the Posno collection,
+     and now in the Louvre; drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The god is
+     represented as upholding a libation vase with both hands,
+     and pouring the life-giving water upon the king, standing,
+     or prostrate, before him.    In performing this ceremony, he
+     was always assisted by another god, generally by Sit,
+     sometimes by Thot or Anubis.
+
+The latter were numerous. Sometimes, as in the case of Harkhobi, Horus
+of Khobiu,[*] a geographical qualification was appended to the generic
+term of Horus, while specific names, almost invariably derived from
+the parts which they were supposed to play, were borne by others. The
+sky-god worshipped at Thinis in Upper Egypt, at Zarit and at Sebennytos
+in Lower Egypt, was called Anhuri. When he assumed the attributes of
+Ra, and took upon himself the solar nature, his name was interpreted as
+denoting the conqueror of the sky. He was essentially combative. Crowned
+with a group of upright plumes, his spear raised and ever ready to
+strike the foe, he advanced along the firmament and triumphantly
+traversed it day by day.[**] The sun-god who at Medamofc Taud and Erment
+had preceded Amon as ruler of the Theban plain, was also a warrior,
+and his name of Montu had reference to his method of fighting. He was
+depicted as brandishing a curved sword and cutting off the heads of his
+adversaries.[***]
+
+     *  _Harkhobi, Haramkhobiu_ is the Horus of the marshes
+     (_khobiu_) of the Delta, the lesser Horus the son of Isis,
+     who was also made into the son of Osiris.
+
+     **  The right reading of the name was given as far back as
+     Lepsius. The part played by the god, and the nature of the
+     link connecting him with Shu, have been explained by
+     Maspero. The Greeks transcribed his name Onouris, and
+     identified him with Ares.
+
+     ***  Montu preceded Amon as god of the land between Kus and
+     Gebelen, and he recovered his old position in the Graeco-
+     Roman period after the destruction of Thebes. Most
+     Egyptologists, and finally Brugsch, made him into a
+     secondary form of Amon, which is contrary to what we know of
+     the history of the province. Just as Onu of the south
+     (Erment) preceded Thebes as the most important town in that
+     district, so Montu had been its most honoured god. Heer
+     Wiedemann thinks the name related to that of Amon and
+     derived from it, with the addition of the final _tu_.
+
+Each of the feudal gods naturally cherished pretensions to universal
+dominion, and proclaimed himself the suzerain, the father of all the
+gods, as the local prince was the suzerain, the father of all men; but
+the effective suzerainty of god or prince really ended where that of his
+peers ruling over the adjacent nomes began.
+
+[Illustration: 136.jpg THE HOEUS OF HIBONU, ON THE BACK OF THE GAZELLE.]
+
+The goddesses shared in the exercise of supreme power, and had the same
+right of inheritance and possession as regards sovereignty that women
+had in human law.[*] Isis was entitled lady and mistress at Buto, as
+Hathor was at Denderah, and as Nit at Sais, "the firstborn, when as yet
+there had been no birth." They enjoyed in their cities the same honours
+as the male gods in theirs; as the latter were kings, so were they
+queens, and all bowed down before them. The animal gods, whether
+entirely in the form of beasts, or having human bodies attached to
+animal heads, shared omnipotence with those in human form. Horus of
+Hibonu swooped down upon the back of a gazelle like a hunting hawk,
+Hathor of Denderah was a cow, Bastit of Bubastis was a cat or a tigress,
+while Nekhabit of El Kab was a great bald-headed vulture.[**] Hermopolis
+worshipped the ibis and cynocephalus of Thot; Oxyrrhynchus the
+_mor-myrus_ fish;[***] and Ombos and the Fayum a crocodile, under the
+name of Sobku,[****] sometimes with the epithet of Azai, the brigand.[v]
+
+     *  In attempts at reconstituting Egyptian religions, no
+     adequate weight has hitherto been given to the equality of
+     gods and goddesses, a fact to which attention was first
+     called by Maspeeo (_Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 253, et seq.).
+
+     **  Nekhabit, the goddess of the south, is the vulture, so
+     often represented in scenes of war or sacrifice, who hovers
+     over the head of the Pharaohs. She is also shown as a
+     vulture-headed woman.
+
+     ***  We have this on the testimony of classic writers,
+     Steabo, book xvii. p. 812, _De Iside et Csiride_, Sec. vii.,
+     1872, Paethey's edition, pp. 9, 30, 128. ^Elianus, Hist,
+     anim., book x. Sec. 46.
+
+     ****  Sobhu, Sovku is the animal's name, and the exact
+     translation of Sovu would be crocodile-god. Its Greek
+     transcription is [ ]. On account of the assonance of the
+     names he was sometimes confounded with _Sivu, Sibu_ by the
+     Egyptians themselves, and thus obtained the titles of that
+     god. This was especially the case at the time when Sit
+     having been proscribed, Sovku the crocodile, who was
+     connected with Sit, shared his evil reputation, and
+     endeavoured to disguise his name or true character as much
+     as possible.
+
+     v  Azai  is generally considered to be the Osiris of the
+     Fayum, but he was only transformed into Osiris, and that by
+     the most daring process of assimilation.    His full name
+     defines him as _Osiri Azai hi halt To-sit (Osiris the
+     Brigand, who is in the Fayum)_, that is to say,  as Sovku
+     identified with Osiris.
+
+[Illustration: 138.jpg THE CAT-HEADED BAST. 4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a green enamelled figure in
+     my possession (Saite period).
+
+We cannot always understand what led the inhabitants of each nome to
+affect one animal rather than another. Why, towards Graeco-Roman times,
+should they have worshipped the jackal, or even the dog, at Siut?[**]
+How came Sit to be incarnate in a fennec, or in an imaginary
+quadruped?[***] Occasionally, however, we can follow the train of
+thought that determined their choice.
+
+     ** Uapuaitu, the _guide of the celestial ways_, who must not
+     be confounded with Anubis of the Cynopolite nome of Upper
+     Egypt, was originally the feudal god of Siut. He guided
+     human souls to the paradise of the Oasis, and the sun upon
+     its southern path by day, and its northern path by night.
+
+     ***  Champollion, Rosellini, Lepsius, have held that the
+     Typhonian animal was a purely imaginary one, and Wilkinson
+     says that the Egyptians themselves admitted its unreality by
+     representing it along with other fantastic beasts. This
+     would rather tend to show that they believed in its actual
+     existence (cf. p. 112 of this History). Plbyte thinks that
+     it may be a degenerated form of the figure of the ass or
+     oryx.
+
+The habit of certain monkeys in assembling as it were in full court,
+and chattering noisily a little before sunrise and sunset, would almost
+justify the as yet uncivilized Egyptians in entrusting cynocephali with
+the charge of hailing the god morning and evening as he appeared in the
+east, or passed away in the west.
+
+[Illustration: 139.jpg TWO IMAGES]
+
+If Ra was held to be a grasshopper under the Old Empire, it was because
+he flew far up in the sky like the clouds of locusts driven from Central
+Africa which suddenly fall upon the fields and ravage them. Most of the
+Nile-gods, Khnumu, Osiris, Harshafitu, were incarnate in the form of a
+ram or of a buck. Does not the masculine vigour and procreative rage
+of these animals naturally point them out as fitting images of the
+life-giving Nile and the overflowing of its waters? It is easy to
+understand how the neighbourhood of a marsh or of a rock-encumbered
+rapid should have suggested the crocodile as supreme deity to the
+inhabitants of the Fayum or of Ombos. The crocodiles there multiplied so
+rapidly as to constitute a serious danger; there they had the mastery,
+and could be appeased only by means of prayers and sacrifices.
+When instinctive terror had been superseded by reflection, and some
+explanation was offered of the origin of the various cults, the very
+nature of the animal seemed to justify the veneration with which it was
+regarded. The crocodile is amphibious; and Sobku was supposed to be
+a crocodile, because before the creation the sovereign god plunged
+recklessly into the dark waters and came forth to form the world, as the
+crocodile emerges from the river to lay its eggs upon the bank.
+
+Most of the feudal divinities began their lives in solitary grandeur,
+apart from, and often hostile to, their neighbours. Families were
+assigned to them later.[*]
+
+     * The existence of the Egyptian triads was discovered and
+     defined by Champollion. These triads have long served as the
+     basis upon which modern writers have sought to establish
+     their systems of the Egyptian religion. Brugsch was the
+     first who rightly attempted to replace the triad by the
+     Ennead, in his book Religion und Mythologie der alten
+     AEgypter. The process of forming local triads, as here set
+     forth, was first pointed out by Maspero (_Etudes de
+     Mythologie et d'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 269,
+     et seq.).
+
+Each appropriated two companions and formed a trinity, or as it is
+generally called, a triad. But there were several kinds of triads. In
+nomes subject to a god, the local deity was frequently content with one
+wife and one son; but often he was united to two goddesses, who were at
+once his sisters and his wives according to the national custom.
+
+[Illustration: 141.jpg NIT OF SAIS.]
+
+Thus, Thot of Hermopolis possessed himself of a harem consisting of
+Seshait-Safk-hitabui and Hahmauit. Tumu divided the homage of the
+inhabitants of Helio-polis with Nebthotpit and with Iusasit. Khnumu
+seduced and married the two fairies of the neighbouring cataract--Anukit
+the constrainer, who compresses the Nile between its rocks at Philse and
+at Syene, and Satit the archeress, who shoots forth the current straight
+and swift as an arrow.[*] Where a goddess reigned over a nome, the triad
+was completed by two male deities, a divine consort and a divine son.
+Nit of Sai's had taken for her husband Osiris of Mendes, and borne him a
+lion's whelp, Ari-hos-nofir.[**]
+
+     *  Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 273, et seq.
+
+     **  _Arihosnofir_ means _the lion whose gaze has a
+     beneficent fascination_. He also goes under the name of
+     _Tutu_, which seems as though it should be translated "_the
+     bounding_,"--a mere epithet characterizing one gait of the
+     lion-god's.
+
+Hathor of Denderah had completed her household with Haroeris and a
+younger Horus, with the epithet of Ahi--he who strikes the sistrum.[*]
+
+     *  Brugsch explains the name of Ahi as meaning _he who
+     causes his waters to rise_, and recognizes this personage as
+     being, among other things, a form of the Nile. The
+     interpretation offered by myself is borne out by the many
+     scenes representing the child of Hathor playing upon the
+     sistrum and the _monait_. Moreover, _ahi, ahit_ is an
+     invariable title of the priests and priestesses whose office
+     it is, during religious ceremonies, to strike the sistrum,
+     and that other mystic musical instrument, the sounding whip
+     called _monait_.
+
+[Illustration: 142.jpg IMHOTPU. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette encrusted
+     with gold, in the Gizeh Museum.    The seat is alabaster,
+     and of modern manufacture.
+
+A triad containing two goddesses produced no legitimate offspring, and
+was unsatisfactory to a people who regarded the lack of progeny as a
+curse from heaven; one in which the presence of a son promised to
+ensure the perpetuity of the race was more in keeping with the idea of a
+blessed and prosperous family, as that of gods should be. Triads of
+the former kind were therefore almost everywhere broken up into two new
+triads, each containing a divine father, a divine mother, and a divine
+son. Two fruitful households arose from the barren union of Thot
+with Safkhitabui and Nahmauit: one composed of Thot, Safkhitabui, and
+Harnubi, the golden sparrow-hawk;[***] into the other Nahmauit and her
+nursling Nofirhoru entered.
+
+     ***  This somewhat rare triad, noted by Wilkinson, is
+     sculptured on the wall of a chamber in the Turah quarries.
+
+[Illustration: 143.jpg NOFIRTUMU. 3]
+
+     3  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette incrusted
+     with gold, in the Gizeh Museum.
+
+The persons united with the old feudal divinities in order to form
+triads were not all of the same class. Goddesses, especially, were made
+to order, and might often be described as grammatical, so obvious is the
+linguistic device to which they owe their being. From Ra, Amon, Horus,
+Sobku, female Ras, Anions, Horuses, and Sobkus were derived, by the
+addition of the regular feminine affix to the primitive masculine
+names--Rait, Amonit, Horit, Sobkit.[*] In the same way, detached
+cognomens of divine fathers were embodied in divine sons. Imhotpu, "he
+who comes in peace," was merely one of the epithets of Phtah before he
+became incarnate as the third member of the Memphite triad.[**] In other
+cases, alliances were contracted between divinities of ancient stock,
+but natives of different nomes, as in the case of Isis of Buto and the
+Mendesian Osiris; of Haroeris of Edfu and Hathor of Denderah.
+
+     *  Maspero,   _Etudes  de  Mythologie et  d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 7, 8, 256.
+
+     **  Imhotpu, the Imouthes of the Greeks, and by them
+     identified with AEsculapius, was discovered by Salt, and his
+     name was first translated as _he who comes with offering_.
+     The translation, _he who comes in peace_, proposed by E. de
+     Rouge, is now universally adopted. Imhotpu did not take form
+     until the time of the New Empire; his great popularity at
+     Memphis and throughout Egypt dates from the Saite and Greek
+     periods.
+
+In the same manner Sokhit of Letopolis and Bastit of Bubastis were
+appropriated as wives to Phtah of Memphis, Nofirtumu being represented
+as his son by both unions.[*] These improvised connections were
+generally determined by considerations of vicinity; the gods of
+conterminous principalities were married as the children of kings of two
+adjoining kingdoms are married, to form or to consolidate relations,
+and to establish bonds of kinship between rival powers whose unremitting
+hostility would mean the swift ruin of entire peoples.
+
+The system of triads, begun in primitive times and con-, tinned
+unbrokenly up to the last days of Egyptian polytheism, far from in any
+way lowering the prestige of the feudal gods, was rather the means
+of enhancing it in the eyes of the multitude. Powerful lords as the
+new-comers might be at home, it was only in the strength of an auxiliary
+title that they could enter a strange city, and then only on condition
+of submitting to its religious law. Hathor, supreme at Denderah, shrank
+into insignificance before Haroeris at Edfu, and there retained only the
+somewhat subordinate part of a wife in the house of her husband.[**]
+
+     *  Originally, Nofirtumu appears to have been the son of cat
+     or lioness-headed goddesses, Bastit and Sokhit, and from
+     them he may have inherited the lion's head with which he is
+     often represented. His name shows him to have been in the
+     first place an incarnation of Atumu, but he was affiliated
+     to the god Phtah of Memphis when that god became the husband
+     of his mothers, and preceded Imhotpu as the third personage
+     in the oldest Memphite triad.
+
+     **  Each year, and at a certain time, the goddess came in
+     high state to spend a few days in the great temple of Edfu,
+     with her husband Haroeris.
+
+On the other hand, Haroeris when at Denderah descended from the supreme
+rank, and was nothing more than the almost useless consort of the lady
+Hathor. His name came first in invocations of the triad because of his
+position therein as husband and father; but this was simply a concession
+to the propriety of etiquette, and even though named in second place,
+Hathor was none the less the real chief of Denderah and of its divine
+family.[*] Thus, the principal personage in any triad was always the
+one who had been patron of the nome previous to the introduction of the
+triad: in some places the father-god, and in others the mother-goddess.
+
+     *  The part played by Haroeris at Denderah was so
+     inconsiderable that the triad containing him is not to be
+     found in the temple. "In all our four volumes of plates, the
+     triad is not once represented, and this is the more
+     remarkable since at Thebes, at Memphis, at Philse, at the
+     cataracts, at Elephantine, at Edfu, among all the data which
+     one looks to find in temples, the triad is most readily
+     distinguished by the visitor. But we must not therefore
+     conclude that there was no triad in this case. The triad of
+     Edfu consists of Hor-Hut, Hathor, and Hor-Sam-ta-ui. The
+     triad of Denderah contains Hathor, Hor-Hut, and Hor-Sam-ta-
+     ui. The difference is obvious. At Edfu, the male principle,
+     as represented by Hor-Hut, takes the first place, whereas
+     the first person at Denderah is Hathor, who represents the
+     female principle" (Mariette, _Denderah_, Texte, pp. 80, 81).
+
+[Illustration: 145.jpg HORUS]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a statuette in the Gizeh
+     Museum (Mariette, _Album du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. 4).
+
+The son in a divine triad had of himself but limited authority. When
+Isis and Osiris were his parents, he was generally an infant Horus,
+naked, or simply adorned with necklaces and bracelets; a thick lock of
+hair depended from his temple, and his mother squatting on her heels,
+or else sitting, nursed him upon her knees, offering him her breast.[*]
+Even in triads where the son was supposed to have attained to man's
+estate, he held the lowest place, and there was enjoined upon him the
+same respectful attitude towards his parents as is observed by children
+of human race in the presence of theirs. He took the lowest place at all
+solemn receptions, spoke only with his parents' permission, acted only
+by their command and as the agent of their will. Occasionally he was
+vouchsafed a character of his own, and filled a definite position, as at
+Memphis, where Imhotpu was the patron of science.[**]
+
+     *  For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, see
+     Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, pis. ccxxvii.,
+     ccxxviii., and particularly pl. cccx. 2, where there is a
+     scene in which the young god, represented as a sparrow-hawk,
+     is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with
+     his beak.
+
+     **  Hence he is generally represented as seated, or
+     squatting, and attentively reading a papyrus roll, which
+     lies open upon his knees; cf. the illustration on p. 142.
+
+But, generally, he was not considered as having either office or marked
+individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's,
+and possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two
+such contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as
+a matter of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more
+than two aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees
+of relationship mutually exclusive of each other in a human family.
+Father, inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue
+of being its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he
+was at once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother.
+
+Gods, like men, might be resolved into at least two elements, soul and
+body;[*] but in Egypt, the conception of the soul varied in different
+times and in different schools. It might be an insect--butterfly,
+bee, or praying mantis;[**] or a bird--the ordinary sparrow-hawk, the
+human-headed sparrow-hawk, a heron or a crane--bi, hai--whose
+wings enabled it to pass rapidly through space;[***] or the black
+shadow--khaibit--that is attached to every body, but which death sets
+free, and which thenceforward leads an independent existence, so that it
+can move about at will, and go out into the open sunlight.
+
+     *  In one of the Pyramid texts, Sahu-Orion, the wild hunter,
+     captures the gods, slaughters and disembowels them, cooks
+     their joints, their haunches, their legs, in his burning
+     cauldrons, and feeds on their souls as well as on their
+     bodies. A god was not limited to a single body and a single
+     soul; we know from several texts that Ra had _seven souls
+     and fourteen doubles_.
+
+     **  Mr. Lepage-Renouf supposes that the soul may have been
+     considered as being a butterfly at times, as in Greece. M.
+     Lefebure thinks that it must sometimes have been incarnate
+     as a wasp--I should rather say a bee or a praying mantis.
+
+     ***  The simple sparrow-hawk  is chiefly used to denote the
+     soul of a god; the human-headed sparrow-hawk, the heron, or
+     the crane  is used indifferently for human or divine souls.
+     It is from Horapollo that we learn this symbolic
+     significance of the sparrow-hawk and the pronunciation of
+     the name of the soul as _bai_.
+
+[Illustration: 147.jp THE BLACK SHADOW COMING OUT INTO THE SUNLIGHT. 4]
+
+     4  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville's _Das Thebanische
+     Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. civ._
+
+Finally, it might be a kind of light shadow, like a reflection from
+the surface of calm water, or from a polished mirror, the living and
+coloured projection of the human figure, a double--_ka_--reproducing in
+minutest detail the complete image of the object or the person to whom
+it belonged.[*]
+
+     *  The nature of the double has long been misapprehended by
+     Egyptologists, who had even made its name into a kind of
+     pronominal form. That nature was publicly and almost
+     simultaneously announced in 1878, first by Maspero, and
+     directly afterwards by Lepage-Renouf.
+
+[Illustration: 148.jpg THE AUGUST SOULS OF OSIRIS AnD HORUS IN ADORATION
+BEFORE THE SOLAR DISK. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dumichen, of
+     a scene on the cornice of the front room of Osiris on the
+     terrace of the great temple of Denderah. The soul on the
+     left belongs to Horus, that on the right to Osiris, lord of
+     Amentit. Each bears upon its head the group of tall feathers
+     which is characteristic of figures of Anhuri (cf. p. 103).
+
+The soul, the shadow, the double of a god, was in no way essentially
+different from the soul, shadow, or double of a man; his body, indeed,
+was moulded out of a more rarefied substance, and generally invisible,
+but endowed with the same qualities, and subject to the same
+imperfections as ours. The gods, therefore, on the whole, were more
+ethereal, stronger, more powerful, better fitted to command, to enjoy,
+and to suffer than ordinary men, but they were still men. They had
+bones,[**] muscles, flesh, blood; they were hungry and ate, they were
+thirsty and drank; our passions, griefs, joys, infirmities, were also
+theirs. The _sa_, a mysterious fluid, circulated throughout their
+members, and carried with it health, vigour, and life.
+
+     **  For example, the text of the _Destruction of Men_, and
+     other documents, teach us that the flesh of the aged sun had
+     become gold, and his bones silver. The blood of Ra is
+     mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_, as well as the blood of
+     Isis and of other divinities.
+
+They were not all equally charged with it; some had more, others less,
+their energy being in proportion to the amount which they contained. The
+better supplied willingly gave of their superfluity to those who lacked
+it, and all could readily transmit it to mankind, this transfusion being
+easily accomplished in the temples. The king, or any ordinary man who
+wished to be thus impregnated, presented himself before the statue of
+the god, and squatted at its feet with his back towards it. The statue
+then placed its right hand upon the nape of his neck, and by making
+passes, caused the fluid to flow from it, and to accumulate in him as
+in a receiver. This rite was of temporary efficacy only, and required
+frequent renewal in order that its benefit might be maintained.
+
+[Illustration: 150.jpg THE KING AFTER HIS CORONATION RECEIVING THE
+IMPOSITION OF THE SA. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a photograph by M. Gay et, taken in
+     1889, of a scene in the hypostyle hall at Luxor. This
+     illustration shows the relative positions of prince and god.
+     Anion, after having placed the pschent upon the head of the
+     Pharaoh Amenothes III., who kneels before him, proceeds to
+     _impose the sa_.
+
+By using or transmitting it the gods themselves exhausted their _sa_ of
+life; and the less vigorous replenished themselves from the stronger,
+while the latter went to draw fresh fulness from a mysterious pond
+in the northern sky, called the "pond of the Sa."[*] Divine bodies,
+continually recruited by the influx of this magic fluid, preserved their
+vigour far beyond the term allotted to the bodies of men and beasts.
+Age, instead of quickly destroying them, hardened and transformed them
+into precious metals. Their bones were changed to silver, their flesh to
+gold; their hair, piled up and painted blue, after the manner of great
+chiefs, was turned into lapis-lazuli.[**]
+
+     *   It is thus that in the _Tale of the Daughter of the
+     Prince of Bakhtan_ we find that one of the statues of the
+     Theban Konsu supplies itself with _sa_ from another statue
+     representing one of the most powerful forms of the god. The
+     _pond of Sa_, whither the gods go to draw the magic fluid,
+     is mentioned in the Pyramid texts.
+
+     **  Cf. the text of the _Destruction of Men_ (Il. 1, 2)
+     referred to above, where age produces these transformations
+     in the body of the sun. This changing of the bodies of the
+     gods into gold, silver, and precious stones, explains why
+     the alchemists, who were disciples of the Egyptians, often
+     compared the transmutation of metals to the metamorphosis of
+     a genius or of a divinity: they thought by their art to
+     hasten at will that which was the slow work of nature.
+
+This transformation of each into an animated statue did not altogether
+do away with the ravages of time. Decrepitude was no less irremediable
+with them than with men, although it came to them more slowly; when the
+sun had grown old "his mouth trembled, his drivelling ran down to earth,
+his spittle dropped upon the ground."
+
+None of the feudal gods had escaped this destiny; for them as for
+mankind the day came when they must leave the city and go forth to the
+tomb.[*]
+
+     * The idea of the inevitable death of the gods is expressed
+     in other places as well as in a passage of the eighth
+     chapter of the Booh of the Dead (Naville's edition), which
+     has not to my knowledge hitherto been noticed: "I am that
+     Osiris in the West, and Osiris knoweth his day in which he
+     shall be no more;" that is to say, the day of his death
+     when he will cease to exist. All the gods, Atumu, Horus, Ra,
+     Thot, Phtah, Khnumu, are represented under the forms of
+     mummies, and this implies that they are dead.    Moreover,
+     their tombs were pointed out in several places in Egypt.
+
+The ancients long refused to believe that death was natural
+and inevitable. They thought that life, once began, might go on
+indefinitely: if no accident stopped it short, why should it cease of
+itself? And so men did not die in Egypt; they were assassinated. The
+murderer often belonged to this world, and was easily recognized as
+another man, an animal, some inanimate object such as a stone loosened
+from the hillside, a tree which fell upon the passer-by and crushed him.
+But often too the murderer was of the unseen world, and so was hidden,
+his presence being betrayed in his malignant attacks only. He was a god,
+an evil spirit, a disembodied soul who slily insinuated itself into the
+living man, or fell upon him with irresistible violence--illness being a
+struggle between the one possessed and the power which possessed him.
+As soon as the former succumbed he was carried away from his own people,
+and his place knew him no more. But had all ended for him with the
+moment in which he had ceased to breathe? As to the body, no one was
+ignorant of its natural fate. It quickly fell to decay, and a few years
+sufficed to reduce it to a skeleton. And as for the skeleton, in the
+lapse of centuries that too was disintegrated and became a mere train of
+dust, to be blown away by the first breath of wind. The soul might
+have a longer career and fuller fortunes, but these were believed to
+be dependent upon those of the body, and commensurate with them. Every
+advance made in the process of decomposition robbed the soul of some
+part of itself; its consciousness gradually faded until nothing was left
+but a vague and hollow form that vanished altogether when the corpse had
+entirely disappeared. Erom an early date the Egyptians had endeavoured
+to arrest this gradual destruction of the human organism, and their
+first effort to this end naturally was directed towards the preservation
+of the body, since without it the existence of the soul could not be
+ensured. It was imperative that during that last sleep, which for
+them was fraught with such terrors, the flesh should neither become
+decomposed nor turn to dust, that it should be free from offensive odour
+and secure from predatory worms.
+
+They set to work, therefore, to discover how to preserve it. The oldest
+burials which have as yet been found prove that these early inhabitants
+were successful in securing the permanence of the body for a few decades
+only. When one of them died, his son, or his nearest relative, carefully
+washed the corpse in water impregnated with an astringent or aromatic
+substance, such as natron or some solution of fragrant gums, and then
+fumigated it with burning herbs and perfumes which were destined to
+overpower, at least temporarily, the odour of death.[*]
+
+     * This is to be gathered from the various Pyramid texts
+     relating to the purification by water and to fumigation: the
+     pains taken to secure material cleanliness, described in
+     these formulas, were primarily directed towards the
+     preservation of the bodies subjected to these processes, and
+     further to the perfecting of the souls to which these bodies
+     had been united.
+
+Having taken these precautions, they placed the body in the grave,
+sometimes entirely naked, sometimes partially covered with its ordinary
+garments, or sewn up in a closely fitting gazelle skin. The dead man
+was placed on his left side, lying north and south with his face to the
+east, in some cases on the bare ground, in others on a mat, a strip of
+leather or a fleece, in the position of a child in the foetal state. The
+knees were sharply bent at an angle of 45 deg. with the thighs, while the
+latter were either at right angles with the body, or drawn up so as
+almost to touch the elbows. The hands are sometimes extended in front
+of the face, sometimes the arms are folded and the hands joined on the
+breast or neck. In some instances the legs are bent upward in such a
+fashion that they almost lie parallel with the trunk. The deceased could
+only be made to assume this position by a violent effort, and in
+many cases the tendons and the flesh had to be cut to facilitate the
+operation. The dryness of the ground selected for these burial-places
+retarded the corruption of the flesh for a long time, it is true, but
+only retarded it, and so did not prevent the soul from being finally
+destroyed. Seeing decay could not be prevented, it was determined
+to accelerate the process, by taking the flesh from the bones before
+interment. The bodies thus treated are often incomplete; the head is
+missing, or is detached from the neck and laid in another part of the
+pit, or, on the other hand, the body is not there, and the head only is
+found in the grave, generally placed apart on a brick, a heap of stones,
+or a layer of cut flints. The forearms and the hands were subjected to
+the same treatment as the head. In many cases no trace of them appears,
+in others they are deposited by the side of the skull or scattered
+about haphazard. Other mutilations are frequently met with; the ribs are
+divided and piled up behind the body, the limbs are disjointed or the
+body is entirely dismembered, and the fragments arranged upon the ground
+or enclosed together in an earthenware chest.
+
+These precautions were satisfactory in so far as they ensured the
+better preservation of the more solid parts of the human frame, but the
+Egyptians felt this result was obtained at too great a sacrifice. The
+human organism thus deprived of all flesh was not only reduced to
+half its bulk, but what remained had neither unity, consistency, nor
+continuity. It was not even a perfect skeleton with its constituent
+parts in their relative places, but a mere mass of bones with no
+connecting links. This drawback, it is true, was remedied by the
+artificial reconstruction in the tomb of the individual thus completely
+dismembered in the course of the funeral ceremonies. The bones were laid
+in their natural order; those of the feet at the bottom, then those
+of the leg, trunk, and arms, and finally the skull itself. But the
+superstitious fear inspired by the dead man, particularly of one thus
+harshly handled, and particularly the apprehension that he might revenge
+himself on his relatives for the treatment to which they had subjected
+him, often induced them to make this restoration intentionally
+incomplete. When they had reconstructed the entire skeleton, they
+refrained from placing the head in position, or else they suppressed
+one or all of the vertebras of the spine, so that the deceased should be
+unable to rise and go forth to bite and harass the living. Having taken
+this precaution, they nevertheless felt a doubt whether the soul could
+really enjoy life so long as one half only of the body remained, and the
+other was lost for ever: they therefore sought to discover the means
+of preserving the fleshy parts in addition to the bony framework of the
+body. It had been observed that when a corpse had been buried in the
+desert, its skin, speedily desiccated and hardened, changed into a case
+of blackish parchment beneath which the flesh slowly wasted away,[*] and
+the whole frame thus remained intact, at least in appearance, while its
+integrity ensured that of the soul.
+
+     * Such was the appearance of the bodies of Coptic monks of
+     the sixth, eighth, and ninth centuries, which I found in the
+     convent cemeteries of Contra-Syene, Taud, and Akhmim, right
+     in the midst of the desert.
+
+An attempt was made by artificial means to reproduce the conservative
+action of the sand, and, without mutilating the body, to secure at will
+that incorruptibility without which the persistence of the soul was but
+a useless prolongation of the death-agony. It was the god Anubis--the
+jackal lord of sepulture--who was supposed to have made this discovery.
+He cleansed the body of the viscera, those parts which most rapidly
+decay, saturated it with salts and aromatic substances, protected it
+first of all with the hide of a beast, and over this laid thick layers
+of linen. The victory the god had thus gained over corruption was,
+however, far from being a complete one. The bath in which the dead man
+was immersed could not entirely preserve the softer parts of the body:
+the chief portion of them was dissolved, and what remained after the
+period of saturation was so desiccated that its bulk was seriously
+diminished.
+
+When any human being had been submitted to this process, he emerged from
+it a mere skeleton, over which the skin remained tightly drawn: these
+shrivelled limbs, sunken chest, grinning features, yellow and blackened
+skin spotted by the efflorescence of the embalmer's salts, were not
+the man himself, but rather a caricature of what he had been. As
+nevertheless he was secure against immediate destruction, the Egyptians
+described him as furnished with his shape; henceforth he had been purged
+of all that was evil in him, and he could face with tolerable security
+whatever awaited him in the future. The art of Anubis, transmitted to
+the embalmers and employed by them from generation to generation,
+had, by almost eliminating the corruptible part of the body without
+destroying its outward appearance, arrested decay, if not for ever,
+at least for an unlimited period of time. If there were hills at hand,
+thither the mummied dead were still borne, partly from custom, partly
+because the dryness of the air and of the soil offered them a further
+chance of preservation. In districts of the Delta where the hills were
+so distant as to make it very costly to reach them, advantage was
+taken of the smallest sandy islet rising above the marshes, and there
+a cemetery was founded. Where this resource failed, the mummy was
+fearlessly entrusted to the soil itself, but only after being placed
+within a sarcophagus of hard stone, whose lid and trough, hermetically
+fastened together with cement, prevented the penetration of any
+moisture. Reassured on this point, the soul followed the body to the
+tomb, and there dwelt with it as in its eternal house, upon the confines
+of the visible and invisible worlds.
+
+Here the soul kept the distinctive character and appearance which
+pertained to it "upon the earth:" as it had been a "double" before
+death, so it remained a double after it, able to perform all functions
+of animal life after its own fashion. It moved, went, came, spoke,
+breathed, accepted pious homage, but without pleasure, and as it were
+mechanically, rather from an instinctive horror of annihilation than
+from any rational desire for immortality. Unceasing regret for the
+bright world which it had left disturbed its mournful and inert
+existence. "O my brother, withhold not thyself from drinking and from
+eating, from drunkenness, from love, from all enjoyment, from following
+thy desire by night and by day; put not sorrow within thy heart, for
+what are the years of a man upon earth? The West is a land of sleep and
+of heavy shadows, a place wherein its inhabitants, when once installed,
+slumber on in their mummy-forms, never more waking to see their
+brethren; never more to recognize their fathers or their mothers, with
+hearts forgetful of their wives and children. The living water, which
+earth giveth to all who dwell upon it, is for me but stagnant and dead;
+that water floweth to all who are on earth, while for me it is but
+liquid putrefaction, this water that is mine. Since I came into this
+funereal valley I know not where nor what I am. Give me to drink of
+running water!... Let me be placed by the edge of the water with my face
+to the North, that the breeze may caress me and my heart be refreshed
+from its sorrow." By day the double remained concealed within the tomb.
+If it went forth by night, it was from no capricious or sentimental
+desire to revisit the spots where it had led a happier life. Its organs
+needed nourishment as formerly did those of its body, and of itself it
+possessed nothing "but hunger for food, thirst for drink."[*] Want and
+misery drove it from its retreat, and flung it back among the living.
+It prowled like a marauder about fields and villages, picking up and
+greedily devouring whatever it might find on the ground--broken meats
+which had been left or forgotten, house and stable refuse--and,
+should these meagre resources fail, even the most revolting dung and
+excrement.[**]
+
+     *   _Teti_, 11. 74, 75. "Hateful unto Teti is hunger, and
+     he eateth it not; hateful unto Teti is thirst, nor hath he
+     drunk it." We see that the Egyptians made hunger and thirst
+     into two substances or beings, to be swallowed as food is
+     swallowed, but whose effects were poisonous unless
+     counteracted by the immediate absorption of more satisfying
+     sustenance.
+
+     **  King Teti, when distinguishing his fate from that of the
+     common dead, stated that he had abundance of food, and hence
+     was not reduced to so pitiful an extremity. "Abhorrent unto
+     Teti is excrement, Teti rejecteth urine, and Teti abhorreth
+     that which is abominable in him; abhorrent unto him is
+     faecal matter and he eateth it not, hateful unto Teti is
+     liquid filth." (_Teti_, 11. 68, 69_). The same doctrine is
+     found in several places in the Book of the Dead_.
+
+This ravenous sceptre had not the dim and misty form, the long shroud
+of floating draperies of our modern phantoms, but a precise and definite
+shape, naked, or clothed in the garments which it had worn while yet
+upon earth, and emitting a pale light, to which it owed the name of
+Luminous--_Khu, Khuu_.[*] The double did not allow its family to
+forget it, but used all the means at its disposal to remind them of
+its existence. It entered their houses and their bodies, terrified them
+waking and sleeping by its sudden apparitions, struck them down with
+disease or madness,[**] and would even suck their blood like the modern
+vampire.
+
+     *  The name of luminous was at first so explained as to make
+     the light wherewith souls were clothed, into a portion of
+     the divine light. In my opinion the idea is a less abstract
+     one, and shows that, as among many other nations, so with
+     the Egyptians the soul was supposed to appear as a kind of
+     pale flame, or as emitting a glow analogous to the
+     phosphorescent halo which is seen by night about a piece of
+     rotten wood, or putrefying fish. This primitive conception
+     may have subsequently faded, and _khu the glorious one_, one
+     of the _manes_, may have become one of those flattering
+     names by which it was thought necessary to propitiate the
+     dead; it then came to have that significance of _resplendent
+     with light_ which is ordinarily attributed to it.
+
+     **  The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published
+     by Pleyte is full are directed against _dead men or dead
+     women_ who entered into one of the living to give him the
+     _migraine_, and violent headaches. Another Leyden Papyrus,
+     briefly analyzed by Ohabas, and translated by Maspero,
+     contains the complaint, or rather the formal act of
+     requisition of a husband whom the _luminous_ of his wife
+     returned to torment in his home, without any just cause for
+     such conduct.
+
+One effectual means there was, and one only, of escaping or preventing
+these visitations, and this lay in taking to the tomb all the various
+provisions of which the double stood in need, and for which it visited
+their dwellings. Funerary sacrifices and the regular cultus of the
+dead originated in the need experienced for making provision for the
+sustenance of the manes after having secured their lasting existence by
+the mummification of their bodies.[*]
+
+     *  Several chapters of the _Book of the Dead_ consist of
+     directions for giving food to that part of man which
+     survives his death, e.g. chap, cv., "_Chapter for providing
+     food for the double_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxvii.), and
+     chap, cvi., "_Chapter for giving daily abundance unto the
+     deceased, in Memphis_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxviii.).
+
+[Illustration: 161.jpg SACRIFICING TO THE DEAD IN THE TOMB CHAPEL. 2]
+
+     2  Stela of Antuf I., Prince of Thebes, drawn by Faucher-
+     Gudin from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey.    Below,
+     servants and relations are bringing the victims and cutting
+     up the ox at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the dead
+     man, seated under his pavilion and receiving the sacrifice:
+     an attendant offers him drink, another brings him the haunch
+     of an ox a third a basket and two jars; provisions fill the
+     whole chamber. Behind Antuf stand two servants, the one
+     fanning his master, and the second offering him his staff
+     and sandals. The position of the door, which is in the
+     lowest row of the scenes, indicates that what is represented
+     above it takes place within the tomb.
+
+Gazelles and oxen were brought and sacrificed at the door of the tomb
+chapel; the haunches, heart, and breast of each victim being presented
+and heaped together upon the ground, that there the dead might find them
+when they began to be hungry. Vessels of beer or wine, great jars of
+fresh water, purified with natron, or perfumed, were brought to them
+that they might drink their fill at pleasure, and by such voluntary
+tribute men bought their good will, as in daily life they bought that of
+some neighbour too powerful to be opposed.
+
+The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils which
+death so plentifully bestows upon men. Their bodies suffered change and
+gradually perished until nothing was left of them. Their souls,
+like human souls, were only the representatives of their bodies, and
+gradually became extinct if means of arresting the natural tendency to
+decay were not found in time. Thus, the same necessity that forced men
+to seek the kind of sepulture which gave the longest term of existence
+to their souls, compelled the gods to the same course. At first, they
+were buried in the hills, and one of their oldest titles describes them
+as those "who are upon the sand,"[*] safe from putrefaction; afterwards,
+when the art of embalming had been discovered, the gods received the
+benefit of the new invention and were mummified.
+
+     * In the _Book of Knowing that which is in Hades_, for the
+     fourth and fifth hours of the night, we have the description
+     of the sandy realm of Sokaris and of the gods _Hiriu Shaitu-
+     senu_, who are on their sand. Elsewhere in the same book we
+     have a cynocephalus _upon its sand_, and the gods of the
+     eighth hour are also mysterious gods who are on their sand.
+     Wherever these personages are represented in the vignettes,
+     the Egyptian artist has carefully drawn the ellipse painted
+     in yellow and sprinkled with red, which is the conventional
+     rendering of sand, and sandy districts.
+
+Each nome possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead god: at Thinis
+there was the mummy and the tomb of Anhuri, the mummy of Osiris at
+Mendes, the mummy of Tumu at Heliopolis.[*] In some of the nomes the
+gods did not change their names in altering the mode of their existence:
+the deceased Osiris remained Osiris; Nit and Hathor when dead were still
+Nit and Hathor, at Sais and at Denderah. But Phtah of Memphis became
+Sokaris by dying; Uapuaitu, the jackal of Siut, was changed into
+Anubis;[**] and when his disk had disappeared at evening, Anhuri, the
+sunlit sky of Thinis, was Khontamentit, Lord of the West, until the
+following day.
+
+     *  The sepulchres of Tumu, Khopri, Ra, Osiris, and in each
+     of them the heap of sand hiding the body, are represented in
+     the tomb of Seti I., as also the four rams in which the
+     souls of the god are incarnate. The tombs of the gods were
+     known even in Roman times.
+
+     **  To my mind, at least, this is an obvious conclusion from
+     the monuments of Siut, in which the jackal god is called
+     Uapuaitu, as the living god, lord of the city, and Anupu,
+     master of embalming or of the Oasis, lord of Ra-qririt,
+     inasmuch as he is god of the dead. Ra-qririt, _the door of
+     the stone_, was the name which the people of Siut gave to
+     their necropolis and to the infernal domain of their god.
+
+That bliss which we dream of enjoying in the world to come was not
+granted to the gods any more than to men. Their bodies were nothing
+but inert larvae, "with unmoving heart,"[*] weak and shrivelled limbs,
+unable to stand upright were it not that the bandages in which they were
+swathed stiffened them into one rigid block. Their hands and heads alone
+were free, and were of the green or black shades of putrid flesh.
+
+     *  This is the characteristic epithet for the dead Osiris,
+     Urdu Mt, he whose heart is unmoving, he whose heart no
+     longer beats, and who has therefore ceased to live.
+
+[Illustration: 164.jpg PHTAH AS A MUMMY. 2]
+
+     2  Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a bronze statuette of the
+     Saite period, found in the department of Herault, at the end
+     of a gallery in an ancient mine.
+
+Their doubles, like those of men, both dreaded and regretted the light.
+All sentiment was extinguished by the hunger from which they suffered,
+and gods who were noted for their compassionate kindness when alive,
+became pitiless and ferocious tyrants in the tomb. When once men were
+bidden to the presence of Sokaris, Khontamentifc, or even of Osiris,
+"mortals come terrifying their hearts with fear of the god, and none
+dareth to look him in the face either among gods or men; for him the
+great are as the small. He spareth not those who love him; he beareth
+away the child from its mother, and the old man who walketh on his way;
+full of fear, all creatures make supplication before him, but he turneth
+not his face towards them." Only by the unfailing payment of tribute,
+and by feeding him as though he were a simple human double, could living
+or dead escape the consequences of his furious temper. The living paid
+him his dues in pomps and solemn sacrifices, repeated from year to year
+at regular intervals; but the dead bought more dearly the protection
+which he deigned to extend to them. He did not allow them to receive
+directly the prayers, sepulchral meals, or offerings of kindred on
+feast-days; all that was addressed to them must first pass through his
+hands. When their friends wished to send them wine, water, bread, meat,
+vegetables, and fruits, he insisted that these should first be offered
+and formally presented to himself; then he was humbly prayed to transmit
+them to such or such a double, whose name and parentage were pointed out
+to him. He took possession of them, kept part for his own use, and of
+his bounty gave the remainder to its destined recipient. Thus death
+made no change in the relative positions of the feudal god and his
+worshippers. The worshipper who called himself the _amakhu_ of the god
+during life was the subject and vassal of his mummied god even in the
+tomb;[*] and the god who, while living, reigned over the living, after
+his death continued to reign over the dead.
+
+     * The word _amakhu_ is applied to an individual who has
+     freely entered the service of king or baron, and taken him
+     for his lord: _amakhu khir nibuf_ means _vassal of his
+     lord_. In the same way, each chose for himself a god who
+     became his patron, and to whom he owed _fealty_, i.e. to
+     whom he was _amakhu_--vassal. To the god he owed the service
+     of a good vassal--tribute, sacrifices, offerings; and to his
+     vassal the god owed in return the service of a suzerain--
+     protection, food, reception into his dominions and access to
+     his person. A man might be absolutely _nib amahkit_, master
+     of fealty, or, relatively to a god, _amakhu khir Osiri_, the
+     vassal of Osiris, _amakhu khir Phtah-Sokari_, the vassal of
+     Phtah-Sokaris.
+
+He dwelt in the city near the prince and in the midst of his subjects:
+Ra living in Heliopolis along with the prince of Heliopolis; Haroeris
+in Edfu together with the prince of Edfu; Nit in Sais with the prince of
+Sais. Although none of the primitive temples have come down to us,
+the name given to them in the language of the time, shows what
+they originally were. A temple was considered as the feudal
+mansion--hait,--the house--_piru, pi_,--of the god, better cared for,
+and more respected than the houses of men, but not otherwise differing
+from them. It was built on a site slightly raised above the level of
+the plain, so as to be safe from the inundation, and where there was no
+natural mound, the want was supplied by raising a rectangular platform
+of earth. A layer of sand spread uniformly on the sub-soil provided
+against settlements or infiltration, and formed a bed for the
+foundations of the building.[*]
+
+     * This custom lasted into Graeco-Roman times, and was part of
+     the ritual for laying the foundations of a temple. After the
+     king had dug out the soil on the ground where the temple was
+     to stand, he spread over the spot sand mixed with pebbles
+     and precious stones, and upon this he laid the first course
+     of stone.
+
+This was first of all a single room, circumscribed, gloomy, covered in
+by a slightly vaulted roof, and having no opening but the doorway, which
+was framed by two tall masts, whence floated streamers to attract from
+afar the notice of worshippers; in front of its facade [*] was a court,
+fenced in with palisading.
+
+     *  No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to
+     our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we
+     have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the
+     word _temple_ in texts of the Memphite period.
+
+[Illustration: 167.jpg THE SACRED BULL. 2]
+
+     2  A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gizeh Museum,
+     drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are
+     copied from those of similar figures on stelae of the
+     Serapeum.
+
+Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood,
+or metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for
+containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was
+every day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of
+chambers increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs,
+precious vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode;
+until that which had once constituted the whole temple became no more
+than its sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in
+body,[*] and the fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several
+cities did not prevent his being present in all of them at once. He
+could divide his double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he
+pleased, and these bodies might be human or animal, natural objects
+or things manufactured--such as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**]
+Several of the gods were incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitu
+at Heracleopolis, Khnumu at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their
+temples, and allowed to gratify any fancy that came into their
+animal brains. Other gods entered into bulls: Ra at Heliopolis, and,
+subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minu at Thebes, and Montu at Hermonthis.
+They indicated beforehand by certain marks such beasts as they intended
+to animate by. their doubles, and he who had learnt to recognize these
+signs was at no loss to find a living god when the time came for
+seeking one and presenting it to the adoration of worshippers in the
+temple.[***]
+
+     *  Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hathor
+     likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed
+     sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine
+     cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other
+     instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in
+     thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life
+     to the statues and images which they made, and believed
+     (especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit
+     haunted images of itself."
+
+     **  Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et l'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. i. p. 77, et seq.; _Archeologie
+     Egyptienne_, pp. 106, 107; English edition, pp. 105, 106.
+     This notion of actuated statues seemed so strange and so
+     unworthy of the wisdom of the Egyptians that Egyptologists
+     of the rank of M. de Rouge have taken in an abstract and
+     metaphorical sense expressions referring to the automatic
+     movements of divine images.
+
+     ***  The bulls of Ra and of Phtah, the Mnevis and the Hapis,
+     are known to us from classic writers. The bull of Minu at
+     Thebes may be seen in the procession of the god as
+     represented on monuments of Ramses II. and Ramses III. Bakhu
+     (called Bakis by the Greeks), the bull of Hermonthis, is
+     somewhat rare, and mainly represented upon a few later
+     stelae in the Gizeh Museum; it is chiefly known from the
+     texts. The particular signs distinguishing each of these
+     sacred animals have been determined both on the authority of
+     ancient writers, and from examination of the figured
+     monuments; the arrangement and outlines of some of the black
+     markings of the Hapis are clearly shown in the illustration
+     on p. 167.
+
+And if the statues had not the same outward appearance of actual life as
+the animals, they none the less concealed beneath their rigid exteriors
+an intense energy of life which betrayed itself on occasion by gestures
+or by words. They thus indicated, in language which their servants could
+understand, the will of the gods, or their opinion on the events of the
+day; they answered questions put to them in accordance with prescribed
+forms, and sometimes they even foretold the future.
+
+[Illustration: 169.jpg OPEN-AIR OFFERINGS TO THE SERPENT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the
+     tomb of Khopirkerisonbu. The inscription behind the urseus
+     states that it represents _Banuit the August, lady of the
+     double granary_.
+
+Each temple held a fairly large number of statues representing so many
+embodiments of the local divinity and of the members of his triad. These
+latter shared, albeit in a lesser degree, all the honours and all the
+prerogatives of the master; they accepted sacrifices, answered prayers,
+and, if needful, they prophesied. They occupied either the sanctuary
+itself, or one of the halls built about the principal sanctuary, or
+one of the isolated chapels which belonged to them, subject to the
+suzerainty of the feudal god. The god has his divine court to help him
+in the administration of his dominions, just as a prince is aided by his
+ministers in the government of his realm.
+
+This State religion, so complex both in principle and in its outward
+manifestations, was nevertheless inadequate to express the exuberant
+piety of the populace. There were casual divinities in every nome
+whom the people did not love any the less because of their inofficial
+character; such as an exceptionally high palm tree in the midst of the
+desert, a rock of curious outline, a spring trickling drop by drop from
+the mountain to which hunters came to slake their thirst in the hottest
+hours of the day, or a great serpent believed to be immortal, which
+haunted a field, a grove of trees, a grotto, or a mountain ravine.[*]
+
+     * It was a serpent of this kind which gave its name to the
+     hill of Sheikh Haridi, and the adjacent nome of the Serpent
+     Mountain; and though the serpent has now turned Mussulman,
+     he still haunts the mountain and preserves his faculty of
+     coming to life again every time that he is killed.
+
+The peasants of the district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and
+thought that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their
+fields by gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines
+of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are
+fine single sycamores, flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.
+
+[Illustration: 171.jpg THE PEASANT'S OFFERING TO THE SYCAMORE. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a scene in the tomb of
+     Khopirkerisonbu. The sacred sycamore here stands at the end
+     of a field of corn, and would seem to extend its protection
+     to the harvest.
+
+Their fresh greenness is in sharp contrast with the surrounding
+fawn-coloured landscape, and their thick foliage defies the midday sun
+even in summer. But, on examining the ground in which they grow, we soon
+find that they drink from water which has infiltrated from the Nile, and
+whose existence is in nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil. They
+stand as it were with their feet in the river, though no one about them
+suspects it. Egyptians of all ranks counted them divine and habitually
+worshipped them,[**] making them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers,
+vegetables, and water in porous jars daily replenished by good and
+charitable people.
+
+     **  Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 224--227. They were represented
+     as animated by spirits concealed within them, but which
+     could manifest themselves on occasion. At such times the
+     head or whole body of the spirit of a tree would emerge from
+     its trunk, and when it returned to its hiding-place the
+     trunk reabsorbed it, or _ate_ it again, according to the
+     Egyptian expression, which I have already had occasion to
+     quote above; see p. 110, note 3.
+
+Passers-by drank of the water, and requited the unexpected benefit with
+a short prayer. There were several such trees in the Memphite nome, and
+in the Letopolite nome from Dashur to Gizeh, inhabited, as every one
+knew, by detached doubles of Nuit and Hathor. These combined districts
+were known as the "Land of the Sycamore," a name afterwards extended
+to the city of Memphis; and their sacred trees are worshipped at the
+present day both by Mussulman and Christian fellahin.[*]
+
+     * The tree at Matarieh, commonly called the _Tree of the
+     Virgin_, seems to me to be the successor of a sacred tree of
+     Heliopolis in which a goddess, perhaps Hathor, was
+     worshipped.
+
+The most famous among them all, the Sycamore of the South--_nuhit
+risit_--was regarded as the living body of Hathor on earth. Side by side
+with its human gods and prophetic statues, each nome proudly advanced
+one or more sacred animals, one or more magic trees. Each family, and
+almost every individual, also possessed gods and fetishes, which had
+been pointed out for their worship by some fortuitous meeting with an
+animal or an object; by a dream, or by sudden intuition. They had a
+place in some corner of the house, or a niche in its walls; lamps were
+continually kept burning before them, and small daily offerings
+were made to them, over and above what fell to their share on solemn
+feast-days. In return, they became the protectors of the household, its
+guardians and its counsellors. Appeal was made to them in every exigency
+of daily life, and their decisions were no less scrupulously carried out
+by their little circle of worshippers, than was the will of the feudal
+god by the inhabitants of his principality.
+
+[Illustration: 173.jpg THE SACRIFICE OF THE BULL.--THE OFFICIATING
+PRIEST LASSOING THE VICTIM. 1]
+
+     1 Bas-relief from the temple of Seti I. at Abydos; drawn by
+     Boudier, from a photograph by M. Daniel Heron. Seti I.,
+     second king of the XIXth dynasty, is throwing the lasso; his
+     son, Ramses II., who is still the crown prince, holds the
+     bull by the tail to prevent its escaping from the slipknot.
+
+The prince was the great high priest. The whole religion of the nome
+rested upon him, and originally he himself performed its ceremonies. Of
+these, the chief was sacrifice,--that is to say, a banquet which it was
+his duty to prepare and lay before the god with his own hands. He went
+out into the fields to lasso the half-wild bull; bound it, cut its
+throat, skinned it, burnt part of the carcase in front of his idol
+and distributed the rest among his assistants, together with plenty of
+cakes, fruits, vegetables, and wine.[*] On the occasion, the god was
+present both in body and double, suffering himself to be clothed and
+perfumed, eating and drinking of the best that was set on the table
+before him, and putting aside some of the provisions for future use.
+This was the time to prefer requests to him, while he was gladdened and
+disposed to benevolence by good cheer. He was not without suspicion as
+to the reason why he was so feasted, but he had laid down his conditions
+beforehand, and if they were faithfully observed he willingly yielded
+to the means of seduction brought to bear upon him. Moreover, he himself
+had arranged the ceremonial in a kind of contract formerly made with his
+worshippers and gradually perfected from age to age by the piety of new
+generations.[**] Above all things, he insisted on physical cleanliness.
+The officiating priest must carefully wash--_uabu_--his face, mouth,
+hands, and body; and so necessary was this preliminary purification
+considered, that from it the professional priest derived his name of
+_uibu_, the washed, the clean.[***]
+
+     *  This appears from the sacrificial ritual employed in the
+     temples up to the last days of Egyptian paganism; cf., for
+     instance, the illustration on p. 173, where the king is
+     represented as lassoing the bull. That which in historic
+     times was but an image, had originally been a reality.
+
+     **  The most striking example of the divine institution of
+     religious services is furnished by the inscription relating
+     the history of the destruction of men in the reign of Ra,
+     where the god, as he is about to make his final ascension
+     into heaven, substitutes animal for human sacrifices.
+
+     ***  The idea of physical cleanliness comes out in such
+     variants as _uibu totui_, "clean of both hands," found on
+     stelae instead of the simple title _uibu_. We also know, on
+     the evidence of ancient writers, the scrupulous daily care
+     which Egyptian priests took of their bodies. It was only as
+     a secondary matter that the idea of moral purity entered
+     into the conception of a priest.
+
+His costume was the archaic dress, modified according to circumstances.
+During certain services, or at certain points in the sacrifices, it was
+incumbent upon him to wear sandals, the panther-skin over his shoulder,
+and the thick lock of hair falling over his right ear; at other times he
+must gird himself with the loin-cloth having a jackal's tail, and take
+the shoes from off his feet before proceeding with his office, or attach
+a false beard to his chin. The species, hair, and age of the victim, the
+way in which it was to be brought and bound, the manner and details of
+its slaughter, the order to be followed in opening its body and cutting
+it up, were all minutely and unchangeably decreed. And these were but
+the least of the divine exactions, and those most easily satisfied. The
+formulas accompanying each act of the sacrificial priest contained
+a certain number of words whose due sequence and harmonies might not
+suffer the slightest modification whatever, even from the god himself,
+under penalty of losing their efficacy.[*]
+
+     * The Purification Ritual for officiating priests is
+     contained in a papyrus of the Berlin Museum, whose analysis
+     and table of chapters has been published by Herr Oscar von
+     Lemm, _Das Bitualbuch des Ammonsdienstes_, p. 4, et seq.
+
+They were always recited with the same rhythm, according to a system of
+chaunting in which every tone had its virtue, combined with movements
+which confirmed the sense and worked with irresistible effect: one
+false note, a single discord between the succession of gestures and the
+utterance of the sacramental words, any hesitation, any awkwardness in
+the accomplishment of a rite, and the sacrifice was vain.
+
+Worship as thus conceived became a legal transaction, in the course of
+which the god gave up his liberty in exchange for certain compensations
+whose kind and value were fixed by law. By a solemn deed of transfer the
+worshipper handed over to the legal representatives of the contracting
+divinity such personal or real property as seemed to him fitting payment
+for the favour which he asked, or suitable atonement for the wrong which
+he had done. If man scrupulously observed the innumerable conditions
+with which the transfer was surrounded, the god could not escape the
+obligation of fulfilling his petition;[*] but should he omit the least
+of them, the offering remained with the temple and went to increase
+the endowments in mortmain, while the god was pledged to nothing in
+exchange.
+
+     * This obligation is evident from texts where, as in the
+     poem of Pentauirit, a king who is in danger demands from his
+     favourite god the equivalent in protection of the sacrifices
+     which he has offered to that divinity, and the gifts
+     wherewith he has enriched him. "Have I not made unto thee
+     many offerings?" says Ramses II. to Amon. "I have filled
+     thy temple with my prisoners, I have built thee a mansion
+     for millions of years.... Ah if evil is the lot of them who
+     insult thee, good are thy purposes towards those who honour
+     thee, O Amon!"
+
+Hence the officiating priest assumed a formidable responsibility
+as regarded his fellows: a slip of memory, the slightest accidental
+impurity, made him a bad priest, injurious to himself and harmful to
+those worshippers who had entrusted him with their interests before the
+gods. Since it was vain to expect ritualistic perfections from a prince
+constantly troubled with affairs of state, the custom was established
+of associating professional priests with him, personages who devoted all
+their lives to the study and practice of the thousand formalities whose
+sum constituted the local religion. Each temple had its service of
+priests, independent of those belonging to neighbouring temples, whose
+members, bound to keep their hands always clean and their voices true,
+were ranked according to the degrees of a learned hierarchy. At their
+head was a sovereign pontiff to direct them in the exercise of their
+functions. In some places he was called the first prophet, or rather the
+first servant of the god--_hon-nutir topi_; at Thebes he was the first
+prophet of Amon, at Thinis he was the first prophet of Anhuri.[*]
+
+     * This title of _first prophet_ belongs to priests of the
+     less important towns, and to secondary divinities. If we
+     find it employed in connection with the Theban worship, it
+     is because Amon was originally a provincial god, and only
+     rose into the first rank with the rise of Thebes and the
+     great conquests of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.
+
+But generally he bore a title appropriate to the nature of the god whose
+servant he was. The chief priest of Ra at Heliopolis, and in all the
+cities which adopted the Heliopolitan form of worship, was called _Oiru
+mau_, the master of visions, and he alone besides the sovereign of
+the nome, or of Egypt, enjoyed the privilege of penetrating into the
+sanctuary, of "entering into heaven and there beholding the god" face
+to face. In the same way, the high priest of Anhuri at Sebennytos was
+entitled the wise and pure warrior--_ahuiti sau uibu_--because his god
+went armed with a pike, and a soldier god required for his service a
+pontiff who should be a soldier like himself.
+
+These great personages did not always strictly seclude themselves
+within the limits of the religious domain. The gods accepted, and even
+sometimes solicited, from their worshippers, houses, fields, vineyards,
+orchards, slaves, and fishponds, the produce of which assured their
+livelihood and the support of their temples. There was no Egyptian who
+did not cherish the ambition of leaving some such legacy to the patron
+god of his city, "for a monument to himself," and as an endowment
+for the priests to institute prayers and perpetual sacrifices on his
+behalf.[*] In course of time these accumulated gifts at length formed
+real sacred fiefs--_hotpu-nutir_--analogous to the _wakfs_ of Mussulman
+Egypt.[**] They were administered by the high priest, who, if necessary,
+defended them by force against the greed of princes or kings. Two,
+three, or even four classes of prophets or _heiroduli_ under his orders
+assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in giving religious
+instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal
+rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind
+of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his
+maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was
+to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses
+they held the chief rank, and were called _hierodules_, or priestesses,
+_hierodules_ of Nit, _hierodules_ of Hathor, _hierodules_ of
+Pakhit.[***]
+
+     *  As regards the Saite period, we are beginning to
+     accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or
+     houses, made either by the king or by private individuals.
+
+     **  We know from the _Great Harris Papyrus_ to what the
+     fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses
+     III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, _Die
+     AEgyptologie_, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, _Bubastis, Eighth
+     Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund_, p. 61, a
+     calculation as to the quantities of precious metals
+     belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis;
+     its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.
+
+     *** Mariette remarks  that   priests  play  but   a
+     subordinate part in the temple of Hathor. This fact, which
+     surprised him, is adequately explained by remembering that
+     Hathor being a goddess, women take precedence over men in a
+     temple dedicated to her. At Sais, the chief priest was a
+     man, the Tcharp-haitu; but the persistence with which women
+     of the highest rank, and even queens themselves, took the
+     title of prophetess of Nit from the times of the Ancient
+     Empire shows that in this city the priestess of the goddess
+     was of equal, if not superior, rank to the priest.
+
+The lower offices in the households of the gods, as in princely
+households, were held by a troop of servants and artisans: butchers to
+cut the throats of the victims, cooks and pastrycooks, confectioners,
+weavers, shoemakers, florists, cellarers, water-carriers and
+milk-carriers. In fact, it was a state within a state, and the prince
+took care to keep its government in his own hands, either by investing
+one of his children with the titles and functions of chief pontiff',
+or by arrogating them to himself. In that case, he provided against
+mistakes which would have annulled the sacrifice by associating with
+himself several masters of the ceremonies, who directed him in the
+orthodox evolutions before the god and about the victim, indicated the
+due order of gestures and the necessary changes of costume, and prompted
+him with the words of each invocation from a book or tablet which they
+held in their hands.[*]
+
+     * The title of such a personage was _khri-habi_, the man
+     with the roll or tablet, because of the papyrus roll, or
+     wooden tablet containing the ritual, which he held in his
+     hand.
+
+In addition to its rites and special hierarchy, each of the sacerdotal
+colleges thus constituted had a theology in accordance with the nature
+and attributes of its god. Its fundamental dogma affirmed the unity of
+the nome god, his greatness, his supremacy over all the gods of Egypt
+and of foreign lands[*]--whose existence was nevertheless admitted, and
+none dreamed of denying their reality or contesting their power.
+
+     *  In the inscriptions all local gods bear the titles of
+     _Nutir ua_, only god; Suton nutiru, Suntiru, [ Greek word],
+     king of the gods; of _Nutir aa nib pit_, the great god, lord
+     of heaven, which show their pretensions to the sovereignty
+     and to the position of creator of the universe.
+
+The latter also boasted of their unity, their greatness, their
+supremacy; but whatever they were, the god of the nome was master of
+them all--their prince, their ruler, their king. It was he alone who
+governed the world, he alone kept it in good order, he alone had created
+it. Not that he had evoked it out of nothing; there was as yet no
+concept of nothingness, and even to the most subtle and refined of
+primitive theologians creation was only a bringing of pre-existent
+elements into play.
+
+[Illustration: 180.jpg SHU UPLIFTING THE SKY. 2]
+
+     2  Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a green enamelled statuette
+     in my possession. It was from Shu that the Greeks derived
+     their representations, and perhaps their myth of Atlas.
+
+The latent germs of things had always existed, but they had slept for
+ages and ages in the bosom of the Nu, of the dark waters. In fulness of
+time the god of each nome drew them forth, classified them, marshalled
+them according to the bent of his particular nature, and made his
+universe out of them by methods peculiarly his own. Nit of Sais, who was
+a weaver, had made the world of warp and woof, as the mother of a family
+weaves her children's linen.
+
+Khnumu, the Nile-God of the cataracts, had gathered up the mud of his
+waters and therewith moulded his creatures upon a potter's table. In the
+eastern cities of the Delta these procedures were not so simple. There
+it was admitted that in the beginning earth and sky were two lovers lost
+in the Nu, fast locked in each other's embrace, the god lying beneath
+the goddess. On the day of creation a new god, Shu, came forth from the
+primaeval waters, slipped between the two, and seizing Nuit with both
+hands, lifted her above his head with outstretched arms.[*]
+
+     * This was what the Egyptians called _the upliftings of
+     Shu_. The event first took place at Hermopolis, and certain
+     legends added that in order to get high enough the god had
+     been obliged to make use of a staircase or mound situate in
+     this city, and which was famous throughout Egypt.
+
+Though the starry body of the goddess extended in space--her head being
+to the west and her loins to the east--her feet and hands hung down to
+the earth. These were the four pillars of the firmament under another
+form, and four gods of four adjacent principalities were in charge of
+them. Osiris, or Horus the sparrow-hawk, presided over the southern, and
+Sit over the northern pillar; Thot over that of the west, and Sapdi, the
+author of the zodiacal light, over that of the east. They had divided
+the world among themselves into four regions, or rather into four
+"houses," bounded by those mountains which surround it, and by the
+diameters intersecting between the pillars. Each of these houses
+belonged to one, and to one only; none of the other three, nor even
+the sun himself, might enter it, dwell there, or even pass through
+it without having obtained its master's permission. Sibu had not been
+satisfied to meet the irruption of Shu by mere passive resistance. He
+had tried to struggle, and he is drawn in the posture of a man who has
+just awakened out of sleep, and is half turning on his couch before
+getting up. One of his legs is stretched out, the other is bent and
+partly drawn up as in the act of rising. The lower part of the body is
+still unmoved, but he is raising himself with difficulty on his left
+elbow, while his head droops and his right arm is lifted towards the
+sky. His effort was suddenly arrested. Rendered powerless by a stroke of
+the creator, Sibu remained as if petrified in this position, the obvious
+irregularities of the earth's surface being due to the painful attitude
+in which he was stricken. His sides have since been clothed with
+verdure, generations of men and animals have succeeded each other
+upon his back, but without bringing any relief to his pain; he suffers
+evermore from the violent separation of which he was the victim when
+Nuit was torn from him, and his complaint continues to rise to heaven
+night and day.
+
+[Illustration: 182.jpg SHU FORCIBLY SEPARATING SIBU AND NUIT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting on the mummy-case
+     of Butehamon in the Turin Museum. "Shu, the great god, lord
+     of heaven," receives the adoration of two ram-headed souls
+     placed upon his right and left.
+
+[Illustration: 183.jpg THE DIDU OF OSIRIS. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a specimen in blue enamelled
+     pottery, now in my possession.
+
+[Illustration: 183b.jpg THE DIDU DRESSED. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a figure frequently found in
+     Theban mummy-cases of XXIst and XXIInd dynasties (Wilkinson,
+     _Manners and Customs_. 2nd edit., vol. iii. pl. xxv., No 5).
+
+The aspect of the inundated plains of the Delta, of the river by which
+they are furrowed and fertilized, and of the desert sands by which they
+are threatened, had suggested to the theologians of Mendes and Buto an
+explanation of the mystery of creation, in which the feudal divinities
+of these cities and of several others in their neighbourhood, Osiris,
+Sit, and Isis, played the principal parts. Osiris first represented the
+wild and fickle Nile of primitive times; afterwards, as those who dwelt
+upon his banks learned to regulate his course, they emphasized
+the kindlier side of his character and soon transformed him into
+a benefactor of humanity, the supremely good being, Unnofriu,
+Onnophris.[*] He was lord of the principality of Didu, which lay along
+the Sebennytic branch of the river between the coast marshes and the
+entrance to the Wady Tumilat, but his domain had been divided; and the
+two nomes thus formed, namely, the ninth and sixteenth nomes of the
+Delta in the Pharaonic lists, remained faithful to him, and here
+he reigned without rival, at Busiris as at Mendes. His most famous
+idol-form was the Didu, whether naked or clothed, the fetish, formed
+of four superimposed columns, which had given its name to the
+principality.[**]
+
+     *  It has long been a dogma with Egyptologists that Osiris
+     came from Abydos. Maspero has shown that from his very
+     titles he is obviously a native of the Delta, and more
+     especially of Busiris and Mendes.
+
+     **  The Didu has been very variously interpreted. It has
+     been taken for a kind of nilometer, for a sculptor's or
+     modeller's stand, or a painter's easel for an altar with
+     four superimposed tables, or a sort of pedestal bearing four
+     door-lintels, for a series of four columns placed one behind
+     another, of which the capitals only are visible, one above
+     the other, etc. The explanation given in the text is that of
+     Reuvens, who recognized the Didu as a symbolic
+     representation of the four regions of the world; and of
+     Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. p. 359, note 3. According to Egyptian
+     theologians, it represented the spine of Osiris, preserved
+     as a relic in the town bearing the name of _Didu, Bidit_.
+
+[Illustration: 185.jpg OSIRIS-ONNOPHRIS, WHIP AND CROOK IN HAND. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a statue in green basalt found at
+     Sakkarah, and now in the Gizeh Museum.
+
+They ascribed life to this Didu, and represented it with a somewhat
+grotesque face, big cheeks, thick lips, a necklace round its throat, a
+long flowing dress which hid the base of the columns beneath its folds,
+and two arms bent across the breast, the hands grasping one a whip and
+the other a crook, symbols of sovereign authority. This, perhaps, was
+the most ancient form of Osiris; but they also represented him as a
+man, and supposed him to assume the shapes of rams and bulls,[*] or
+even those of water-birds, such as lapwings, herons, and cranes, which
+disported themselves about the lakes of that district.[**]
+
+     *  The ram of Mendes is sometimes Osiris, and sometimes the
+     soul of Osiris. The ancients took it for a he-goat, and to
+     them we are indebted for the record of its exploits.
+     According to Manetho, the worship of the sacred ram is not
+     older than the time of King Kaiekhos of the second dynasty.
+     A Ptolemaic necropolis of sacred rams was discovered by
+     Mariette at Tmai el-Amdid, in the ruins of Thmuis, and some
+     of their sarcophagi are now in the Gizeh Museum.
+
+     **  The Bonu, the chief among these birds, is not the
+     phoenix, as has so often been asserted. It is a kind of
+     heron, either the _Ardea cinerea_, which is common in Egypt,
+     or else some similar species.
+
+The goddess whom we are accustomed to regard as inseparable from him,
+Isis the cow, or woman with cow's horns, had not always belonged to him.
+Originally she was an independent deity, dwelling at Buto in the
+midst of the ponds of Adhu. She had neither husband nor lover, but had
+spontaneously conceived and given birth to a son, whom she suckled among
+the reeds--a lesser Horus who was called Harsiisit, Horus the son of
+Isis, to distinguish him from Haroeris. At an early period she was
+married to her neighbour Osiris, and no marriage could have been better
+suited to her nature. For she personified the earth--not the earth in
+general, like Sibu, with its unequal distribution of seas and mountains,
+deserts and cultivated land; but the black and luxuriant plain of the
+Delta, where races of men, plants, and animals increase and multiply
+in ever-succeeding generations. To whom did she owe this inexhaustible
+productive energy if not to her neighbour Osiris, to the Nile? The Nile
+rises, overflows, lingers upon the soil; every year it is wedded to the
+earth, and the earth comes forth green and fruitful from its embraces.
+
+[Illustration: 187.jpg ISIS, WEARING THE COW-HORN HEAD-DRESS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier from a green basalt statue in the Gizeh
+     Museum. Prom a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
+
+The marriage of the two elements suggested that of the two divinities;
+Osiris wedded Isis and adopted the young Horus. But this prolific and
+gentle pair were not representative of all the phenomena of nature.
+The eastern part of the Delta borders upon the solitudes of Arabia, and
+although it contains several rich and fertile provinces, yet most of
+these owe their existence to the arduous labour of the inhabitants,
+their fertility being dependent on the daily care of man, and on his
+regular distribution of the water. The moment he suspends the straggle
+or relaxes his watchfulness, the desert reclaims them and overwhelms
+them with sterility. Sit was the spirit of the mountain, stone and sand,
+the red and arid ground as distinguished from the moist black soil of
+the valley. On the body of a lion or of a dog he bore a fantastic head
+with a slender curved snout, upright and square-cut ears; his cloven
+tail rose stiffly behind him, springing from his loins like a fork. He
+also assumed a human form, or retained the animal head only upon a man's
+shoulders. He was felt to be cruel and treacherous, always ready to
+shrivel up the harvest with his burning breath, and to smother Egypt
+beneath a shroud of shifting sand. The contrast between this evil being
+and the beneficent couple, Osiris and Isis, was striking. Nevertheless,
+the theologians of the Delta soon assigned a common origin to these
+rival divinities of Nile and desert, red land and black. Sibu had
+begotten them, Nuit had given birth to them one after another when the
+demiurge had separated her from her husband; and the days of their birth
+were the days of creation.[*]
+
+     * According to one legend which is comparatively old in
+     origin, the fous* children of Nuit, and Horus her grandson,
+     were born one after another, each on one of the intercalary
+     days of the year. This legend was still current in the Greek
+     period.
+
+At first each of them had kept to his own half of the world. Moreover
+Sit, who had begun by living alone, had married, in order that he might
+be inferior to Osiris in nothing.
+
+[Illustration: 189.jpg NEPHTHYS, AS A WAILING WOMAN. 1 and THE GOD SIT,
+FIGHTING. 2]
+
+     1   Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted wooden statuette
+     in my possession, from a funeral couch found at Akhmim. On
+     her head the goddess bears the hieroglyph for her name; she
+     is kneeling at the foot of the funeral couch of Osiris and
+     weeps for the dead god.
+
+     2  Bronze statuette of the XXth dynasty, encrusted with
+     gold, from the Hoffmann collection: drawn by Faucher-Gudin
+     from a photograph taken by Legrain in 1891. About the time
+     when the worship of Sit was proscribed, one of the Egyptian
+     owners of this little monument had endeavoured to alter its
+     character, and to transform it into a statuette of the god
+     Khnumu. He took out the upright ears, replacing them with
+     ram's horns, but made no other change. In the drawing I have
+     had the later addition of the curved horns removed, and
+     restored the upright ears, whose marks may still be seen
+     upon the sides of the head-dress.
+
+As a matter of fact, his companion, Nephthys, did not manifest any great
+activity, and was scarcely more than an artificial counterpart of the
+wife of Osiris, a second Isis who bore no children to her husband;[*]
+for the sterile desert brought barrenness to her as to all that it
+touched.
+
+     *  The impersonal character of Nephthys, her artificial
+     origin, and her derivation from Isis, have been pointed out
+     by Maspero (_Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 362-364). The very name of the
+     goddess, which means _the lady (nibit)_ of the_ mansion
+     (hait)_, confirms this view.
+
+ [Illustration: 190.jpg  PLAN  OF  THE   RUINS   OF  HELIOPOLIS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Thuillier, from the _Description de l'Egypte_
+     (Atlas, Ant., vol. v. pl. 26, 1).
+
+Yet she had lost neither the wish nor the power to bring forth, and
+sought fertilization from another source. Tradition had it that she had
+made Osiris drunken, drawn him to her arms without his knowledge, and
+borne him a son; the child of this furtive union was the jackal Anubis.
+Thus when a higher Nile overflows lands not usually covered by the
+inundation, and lying unproductive for lack of moisture, the soil
+eagerly absorbs the water, and the germs which lay concealed in the
+ground burst forth into life. The gradual invasion of the domain of
+Sit by Osiris marks the beginning of the strife. Sit rebels against the
+wrong of which he is the victim, involuntary though it was; he surprises
+and treacherously slays his brother, drives Isis into temporary
+banishment among her marshes, and reigns over the kingdom of Osiris
+as well as over his own. But his triumph is short-lived. Horus, having
+grown up, takes arms against him, defeats him in many encounters, and
+banishes him in his turn. The creation of the world had brought the
+destroying and the life-sustaining gods face to face: the history of the
+world is but the story of their rivalries and warfare.
+
+None of these conceptions alone sufficed to explain the whole mechanism
+of creation, nor the part which the various gods took in it. The priests
+of Heliopolis appropriated them all, modified some of their details
+and eliminated others, added several new personages, and thus finally
+constructed a complete cosmogony, the elements of which were learnedly
+combined so as to correspond severally with the different operations by
+which the world had been evoked out of chaos and gradually brought to
+its present state. Heliopolis was never directly involved in the great
+revolutions of political history; but no city ever originated so many
+mystic ideas and consequently exercised so great an influence upon the
+development of civilization.[*]
+
+     *  By its inhabitants it was accounted older  than any
+     other  city  of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 192.jpg HORUS, THE AVENGER OF HIS FATHER, AND ANUBIS
+UAPOAITU. 2]
+
+     2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato of a
+     bas-relief in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos. The two gods
+     are conducting King Ramses II., here identified with Osiris,
+     towards the goddess Hathor.
+
+It was a small town built on the plain not far from the Nile at the apex
+of the Delta, and surrounded by a high wall of mud bricks whose remains
+could still be seen at the beginning of the century, but which have now
+almost completely disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: 191.jpg THE SUN SPRINGING FROM AN OPENING LOTUS-FLOWER]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The open lotus-flower, with a bud
+     on either side, stands upon the usual sign for any water-
+     basin. Here the sign represents the Nu, that dark watery
+     abyss from which the lotus sprang on the morning of
+     creation, and whereon it is still supposed to bloom.
+
+One obelisk standing in the midst of the open plain, a few waste mounds
+of debris, scattered blocks, and two or three lengths of crumbling wall,
+alone mark the place where once the city stood. Ka was worshipped there,
+and the Greek name of Heliopolis is but the translation of that which
+was given to it by the priests--Pi-ra, City of the Sun. Its principal
+temple, the "Mansion of the Prince," rose from about the middle of the
+enclosure, and sheltered, together with the god himself, those animals
+in which he became incarnate: the bull Mnevis, and sometimes the Phoenix.
+According to an old legend, this wondrous bird appeared in Egypt only
+once in five hundred years. It is born and lives in the depths of
+Arabia, but when its father dies it covers the body with a layer of
+myrrh, and flies at utmost speed to the temple of Helio-polis, there to
+bury it.[*]
+
+     *  The Phoenix is not the _Bonu_ (cf. p. 186, note 2), but a
+     fabulous bird derived from the golden sparrow-hawk, which
+     was primarily a form of Haroeris, and of the sun-gods in
+     second place only. On the authority of his Heliopolitan
+     guides, Herodotus tells us (ii. 83) that in shape and size
+     the phoenix resembled the eagle, and this statement alone
+     should have sufficed to prevent any attempt at identifying
+     it with the Bonu, which is either a heron or a lapwing.
+
+[Illustration: 194.jpg THE PLAIN AND MOUNDS OF HELIOPOLIS FIFTY YEARS
+AGO.2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a water-colour published by
+     Lepsius, _Denkm_., i. 56. The view is taken from the midst
+     of the ruins at the foot of the obelisk of Usirtasen.    A
+     little stream runs in the foreground, and passes through a
+     muddy pool; to right and left are mounds of ruins, which
+     were then considerable, but have since been partially razed.
+     In the distance Cairo rises against the south-west.
+
+In the beginning, Ra was the sun itself, whose fires appear to be
+lighted every morning in the east and to be extinguished at evening
+in the west; and to the people such he always remained. Among the
+theologians there was considerable difference of opinion on the point.
+Some held the disk of the sun to be the body which the god assumes when
+presenting himself for the adoration of his worshippers. Others affirmed
+that it rather represented his active and radiant soul. Finally, there
+were many who defined it as one of his forms of being--_khopriu_--one of
+his self-manifestations, without presuming to decide whether it was his
+body or his soul which he deigned to reveal to human eyes; but whether
+soul or body, all agreed that the sun's disk had existed in the Nu
+before creation. But how could it have lain beneath the primordial ocean
+without either drying up the waters or being extinguished by them? At
+this stage the identification of Ra with Horus and his right eye served
+the purpose of the theologians admirably: the god needed only to have
+closed his eyelid in order to prevent his fires from coming in contact
+with the water.[*]
+
+     * This is clearly implied in the expression so often used by
+     the sacred writers of Ancient Egypt in reference to the
+     appearance of the sun and his first act at the time of
+     creation: "_Thou openest the two eyes_, and earth is flooded
+     with rays of light."
+
+He was also said to have shut up his disk within a lotus-bud, whose
+folded petals had safely protected it. The flower had opened on the
+morning of the first day, and from it the god had sprung suddenly as
+a child wearing the solar disk upon his head. But all theories led the
+theologians to distinguish two periods, and as it were two beings in
+the existence of supreme deity: a pre-mundane sun lying inert within the
+bosom of the dark waters, and our living and life-giving sun.
+
+[Illustration: 196.jpg HAKMAKHUITI-HAKMAKHIS, THE GREAT GOD. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger of an
+     outer wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Harmakhis grants
+     years and festivals to the Pharaoh Seti I., who kneels
+     before him, and is presented by the lioness-headed goddess
+     Sokhit, here described as a magician--_Oirit hilcau_.
+
+One division of the Heliopolitan school retained the use of traditional
+terms and images in reference to these Sun-gods. To the first it left
+the human form, and the title of Ra, with the abstract sense of creator,
+deriving the name from the verb _ra_, which means to give. For
+the second it kept the form of the sparrow-hawk and the name of
+Harma-khuiti--Horus in the two horizons--which clearly denoted his
+function;[*] and it summed up the idea of the sun as a whole in the
+single name of Ra-Harmakhuiti, and in a single image in which the
+hawk-head of Horus was grafted upon the human body of Ra. The other
+divisions of the school invented new names for new conceptions. The sun
+existing before the world they called Creator--_Tumu, Atumu_ [**]--and
+our earthly sun they called _Khopri_--He who is.
+
+     *  Harmakhuiti is Horus, the sky of the two horizons; _i.e._
+     the sky of the daytime, and the night sky. When the
+     celestial Horus was confounded with Ra, and became the sun
+     (cf. p. 133), he naturally also became the sun of the two
+     horizons, the sun by day, and the sun by night.
+
+     **  E. de Rouge, _Etudes sur le Rituel funeraire_, p. 76:
+     "His name may be connected with two radicals. Tem is a
+     negation; it may be taken to mean _the Inapproachable One,
+     the Unknown_ (as in Thebes, where _Aman_ means mystery).
+     Atum is, in fact, described as 'existing alone in the
+     abyss,' before the appearance of light. It was in this time
+     of darkness that Atum performed the first act of creation,
+     and this allows of our also connecting his name with the
+     Coptic tamio, _creare_. Atum was also the prototype of man
+     (in Coptic tme, _homo_), and becomes a perfect 'tum' after
+     his resurrection." Rugsch would rather explain _Tumu_ as
+     meaning _the Perfect One, the Complete_. E. de Rouge's
+     philological derivations are no longer admissible; but his
+     explanation of the name corresponds so well with the part
+     played by the god that I fail to see how that can be
+     challenged.
+
+Tumu was a man crowned and clothed with the insignia of supreme power, a
+true king of gods, majestic and impassive as the Pharaohs who succeeded
+each other upon the throne of Egypt. The conception of Khopri as a disk
+enclosing a scarabaeus, or a man with a scarabous upon his head, or a
+scarabus-headed mummy, was suggested by the accidental alliteration of
+his name and that of Khopirru, the scarabaeus. The difference between
+the possible forms of the god was so slight as to be eventually
+lost altogether. His names were grouped by twos and threes in every
+conceivable way, and the scarabaeus of Khopri took its place upon the
+head of Ra, while the hawk headpiece was transferred from the shoulders
+of Harmakhuiti to those of Tumu. The complex beings resulting from these
+combinations, Ra-Tumu, Atumu-Ra, Ra-Tumu-Khopri, Ra-Harmakhuiti-Tumu,
+Tum-Harmakhuiti-Khopri, never attained to any pronounced individuality.
+
+[Illustration: 198.jpg KHOPRI, IN HIS BARK]
+
+They were as a rule simple duplicates of the feudal god, names rather
+than persons, and though hardly taken for one another indiscriminately,
+the distinctions between them had reference to mere details of their
+functions and attributes. Hence arose the idea of making these gods into
+embodiments of the main phases in the life of the sun during the day
+and throughout the year. Ra symbolized the sun of springtime and before
+sunrise, Harmakhuiti the summer and the morning sun, Atumu the sun of
+autumn and of afternoon, Khopri that of winter and of night. The people
+of Heliopolis accepted the new names and the new forms presented for
+their worship, but always subordinated them to their beloved Ra. For
+them Ra never ceased to be the god of the nome; while Atumu remained the
+god of the theologians, and was invoked by them, the people preferred
+Ra. At Thinis and at Sebennytos Anhuri incurred the same fate as befell
+Ra at Heliopolis. After he had been identified with the sun, the similar
+identification of Shu inevitably followed. Of old, Anhuri and Shu were
+twin gods, incarnations of sky and earth. They were soon but one god in
+two persons--the god Anhuri-Shu, of which the one half under the title
+of Auhuri represented, like Atumu, the primordial being; and Shu, the
+other half, became, as his name indicates, the creative sun-god who
+upholds (_shu_) the sky.
+
+Turnu then, rather than Ra, was placed by the Heliopolitan priests at
+the head of their cosmogony as supreme creator and governor. Several
+versions were current as to how he had passed from inertia into action,
+from the personage of Tumu into that of Ra. According to the version
+most widely received, he had suddenly cried across the waters, "Come
+unto me!"[*] and immediately the mysterious lotus had unfolded its
+petals, and Ra had appeared at the edge of its open cup as a disk,
+a newborn child, or a disk-crowned sparrow-hawk; this was probably a
+refined form of a ruder and earlier tradition, according to which it
+was upon Ra himself that the office had devolved of separating Sibu from
+Nuit, for the purpose of constructing the heavens and the earth.
+
+     * It was on this account that the Egyptians named the first
+     day of the year the _Day of Come-unto-me!_
+
+But it was doubtless felt that so unseemly an act of intervention was
+beneath the dignity even of an inferior form of the suzerain god; Shu
+was therefore borrowed for the purpose from the kindred cult of Anhuri,
+and at Heliopolis, as at Sebennytos, the office was entrusted to him
+of seizing the sky-goddess and raising her with outstretched arms. The
+violence suffered by Nuit at the hands of Shu led to a connexion of the
+Osirian dogma of Mendes with the solar dogma of Sebennytos, and thus the
+tradition describing the creation of the world was completed by another,
+explaining its division into deserts and fertile lands. Sibu, hitherto
+concealed beneath the body of his wife, was now exposed to the sun;
+Osiris and Sit, Isis and Nephthys, were born, and, falling from the sky,
+their mother, on to the earth, their father, they shared the surface of
+the latter among themselves. Thus the Heliopolitan doctrine recognized
+three principal events in the creation of the universe: the dualization
+of the supreme god and the breaking forth of light, the raising of the
+sky and the laying bare of the earth, the birth of the Nile and the
+allotment of the soil of Egypt, all expressed as the manifestations
+of successive deities. Of these deities, the latter ones already
+constituted a family of father, mother, and children, like human
+families. Learned theologians availed themselves of this example to
+effect analogous relationships between the rest of the gods, combining
+them all into one line of descent. As Atumu-Ra could have no fellow, he
+stood apart in the first rank, and it was decided that Shu should be
+his son, whom he had formed out of himself alone, on the first day of
+creation, by the simple intensity of his own virile energy. Shu, reduced
+to the position of divine son, had in his turn begotten Sibu and Nuit,
+the two deities which he separated. Until then he had not been supposed
+to have any wife, and he also might have himself brought his own progeny
+into being; but lest a power of spontaneous generation equal to that
+of the demiurge should be ascribed to him, he was married, and the wife
+found for him was Tafnuit, his twin sister, born in the same way as
+he was born. This goddess, invented for the occasion, was never fully
+alive, and remained, like Nephthys, a theological entity rather than a
+real person. The texts describe her as the pale reflex of her husband.
+
+[Illustration: 201.jpg THE TWIN LIONS, SHU AND TAFNUIT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a vignette in the papyrus of
+     Ani in the British Museum, published by Lepage-Renouf in the
+     _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology_, vol.
+     xi., 1889-90, pp. 26-28. The inscription above the lion on
+     the right reads _safu_, "yesterday;" the other, _duau_,
+     "this morning."
+
+Together with him she upholds the sky, and every morning receives
+the newborn sun as it emerges from the mountain of the east; she is a
+lioness when Shu is a lion, a woman when he is a man, a lioness-headed
+woman if he is a lion-headed man; she is angry when he is angry,
+appeased when he is appeased; she has no sanctuary wherein he is not
+worshipped. In short, the pair made one being in two bodies, or, to use
+the Egyptian expression, "one soul in its two twin bodies."
+
+Hence we see that the Heliopolitans proclaimed the creation to be the
+work of the sun-god, Atumu-Ra, and of the four pairs of deities who were
+descended from him. It was really a learned variant of the old doctrine
+that the universe was composed of a sky-god, Horus, supported by his
+four children and their four pillars: in fact, the four sons of the
+Heliopolitan cosmogony, Shu and Sibu, Osiris and Sit, were occasionally
+substituted for the four older gods of the "houses" of the world. This
+being premised, attention must be given to the important differences
+between the two systems. At the outset, instead of appearing
+contemporaneously upon the scene, like the four children of Horus, the
+four Heliopolitan gods were deduced one from another, and succeeded each
+other in the order of their birth. They had not that uniform attribute
+of supporter, associating them always with one definite function, but
+each of them felt himself endowed with faculties and armed with special
+powers required by his condition. Ultimately they took to themselves
+goddesses, and thus the total number of beings working in different ways
+at the organization of the universe was brought up to nine. Hence they
+were called by the collective name of the Ennead, the Nine gods--_pauit
+nutiru_,[*]--and the god at their head was entitled _Pauiti_, the god of
+the Ennead.
+
+     * The first Egyptologists confounded the sign used in
+     writing _pauit_ with the sign _kh_, and the word _khet,
+     other_. E. de Rouge was the first to determine its phonetic
+     value: "it should be read Pau, and designates a body of
+     gods." Shortly afterwards Beugsch proved that "the group of
+     gods invoked by E. de Rouge must have consisted of nine "--
+     of an Ennead. This explanation was not at first admitted
+     either by Lepsius or by Mariette, who had proposed a mystic
+     interpretation of the word in his _Memoire sur la mere
+     d'Apis_, or by E. de Rouge, or by Chabas. The interpretation
+     a _Nine_, an _Ennead_, was not frankly adopted until later,
+     and more especially after the discovery of the Pyramid
+     texts; to-day, it is the only meaning admitted. Of course
+     the Egyptian Ennead has no other connection than that of
+     name with the Enneads of the Neo-Platonists.
+
+When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by
+countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were
+not at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries
+to preside over each of the functions essential to the regular and
+continued working of all things. The theologians of Heliopolis selected
+eighteen from among the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of
+Egypt, and of these they formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded
+as the offspring of the Ennead of the creation. The first of the two
+secondary Enneads, generally known as the Minor Ennead, recognized
+as chief Harsiesis, the son of Osiris. Harsiesis was originally an
+earth-god who had avenged the assassination of his father and the
+banishment of his mother by Sit; that is, he had restored fulness to the
+Nile and fertility to the Delta. When Harsiesis was incorporated into
+the solar religions of Heliopolis, his filiation was left undisturbed
+as being a natural link between the two Enneads, but his personality
+was brought into conformity with the new surroundings into which he was
+transplanted. He was identified with Ra through the intervention of the
+older Horus, Haroeris-Harmakhis, and the Minor Ennead, like the Great
+Ennead, began with a sun-god. This assimilation was not pushed so far
+as to invest the younger Horus with the same powers as his fictitious
+ancestor: he was the sun of earth, the everyday sun, while Atumu-Ra was
+still the sun pre-mundane and eternal. Our knowledge of the eight other
+deities of the Minor Ennead is very imperfect.
+
+[Illustration: 204.jpg THE FOUR FUNERARY GENII, KHABSONUF, TIUMAUTF,
+HAPI, AND AMSIT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Wilkinson's _Manners and
+     Customs_, 2nd edit., vol. iii. p. 221, pl. xlviii.
+
+We see only that these were the gods who chiefly protected the sun-god
+against its enemies and helped it to follow its regular course. Thus
+Harhuditi, the Horus of Edfu, spear in hand, pursues the hippopotami
+or serpents which haunt the celestial waters and menace the god. The
+progress of the Sun-bark is controlled by the incantations of Thot,
+while Uapuaitu, the dual jackal-god of Siufc, guides, and occasionally
+tows it along the sky from south to north. The third Ennead would seem
+to have included among its members Anubis the jackal, and the four
+funerary genii, the children of Horus--Hapi, Amsit, Tiumautf, Kabhsonuf;
+it further appears as though its office was the care and defence of
+the dead sun, the sun by night, as the second Ennead had charge of
+the living sun. Its functions were so obscure and apparently so
+insignificant as compared with those exercised by the other Enneads,
+that the theologians did not take the trouble either to represent it
+or to enumerate its persons. They invoked it as a whole, after the
+two others, in those formulas in which they called into play all the
+creative and preservative forces of the universe; but this was rather as
+a matter of conscience and from love of precision than out of any true
+deference. At the initial impulse of the lord of Heliopolis, the three
+combined Enneads started the world and kept it going, and gods whom
+they had not incorporated were either enemies to be fought with, or mere
+attendants.
+
+The doctrine of the Heliopolitan Ennead acquired an immediate and a
+lasting popularity. It presented such a clear scheme of creation, and
+one whose organization was so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit
+of tradition, that the various sacerdotal colleges adopted it one after
+another, accommodating it to the exigencies of local patriotism. Each
+placed its own nome-god at the head of the Ennead as "god of the Nine,"
+"god of the first time," creator of heaven and earth, sovereign ruler
+of men, and lord of all action. As there was the Ennead of Atumu at
+Heliopolis, so there was that of Anhuri at Thinis and at Sebennytos;
+that of Minu at Coptos and at Panopolis; that of Haroeris at Edfu; that
+of Sobkhu at Ombos; and, later, that of Phtah at Memphis and of Amon
+at Thebes. Nomes which worshipped a goddess had no scruples whatever in
+ascribing to her the part played by Atumu, and in crediting her with the
+spontaneous maternity of Shu and Tafnuit.
+
+Illustration: 206.jpg [PLAN OF THE RUINS OP HERMOPOLIS MAGNA. 1]
+
+     1  Plan drawn by Thuillier, from the _Description de l'
+     Egypte_, Ant., vol. iv. pl. 50.
+
+Nit was the source and ruler of the Ennead of Sais, Isis of that of
+Buto, and Hathor of that of Denderah.[**] Few of the sacerdotal colleges
+went beyond the substitution of their own feudal gods for Atumu.
+Provided that the god of each nome held the rank of supreme lord, the
+rest mattered little, and the local theologians made no change in the
+order of the other agents of creation, their vanity being unhurt even by
+the lower offices assigned by the Heliopolitan tradition to such powers
+as Osiris, Sibu, and Sit, who were known and worshipped throughout the
+whole country.
+
+     **  On the Ennead of Hathor at Denderah, see Mariette,
+     Denderah, p. 80., et seq., of the text. The fact that Nit,
+     Isis, and, generally speaking, all the feudal goddesses,
+     were the chiefs of their local Enneads, is proved by the
+     epithets applied to them, which represent them as having
+     independent creative power by virtue of their own unaided
+     force and energy, like the god at the head of the
+     Heliopolitan Ennead.
+
+The theologians of Hermopolis alone declined to borrow the new system
+just as it stood, and in all its parts. Hermopolis had always been one
+of the ruling cities of Middle Egypt. Standing alone in the midst of the
+land lying between the Eastern and Western Mies, it had established upon
+each of the two great arms of the river a port and a custom-house, where
+all boats travelling either up or down stream paid toll on passing. Not
+only the corn and natural products of the valley and of the Delta, but
+also goods from distant parts of Africa brought to Siufc by Soudanese
+caravans, helped to fill the treasury of Hermopolis. Thot, the god of
+the city, represented as ibis or baboon, was essentially a moon-god, who
+measured time, counted the days, numbered the months, and recorded the
+years. Lunar divinities, as we know, are everywhere supposed to exercise
+the most varied powers: they command the mysterious forces of the
+universe; they know the sounds, words, and gestures by which those
+forces are put in motion, and not content with using them for their own
+benefit, they also teach to their worshippers the art of employing them.
+
+[Illustration: 208.jpg THE IBIS THOT. 1; and THE CYNOCEPHALOUS THOT. 2]
+
+     1   Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an enamelled pottery figure
+     from Coptos, now in my possession. Neck, feet, and tail are
+     in blue enamel, the rest is in green. The little personage
+     represented as squatting beneath the beak is Mait, the
+     goddess of truth, and the ally of Thot. The ibis was
+     furnished with a ring for suspending it; this has been
+     broken off, but traces of it may still be seen at the back
+     of the head.
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a green enamelled pottery
+     figure in my possession (Saite period).
+
+Thot formed no exception to this rule. He was lord of the voice, master
+of words and of books, possessor or inventor of those magic writings
+which nothing in heaven, on earth, or in Hades can withstand.[***]
+
+     ***  Cf. in the tale of Satni (Maspero, _Contes populaires
+     de l'Ancienne Egypte_, 2nd edit., p. 175) the description of
+     the book which Thot has himself written with his own hand,
+     and which makes its possessor the equal of the gods. "The
+     two formulas which are written therein, if thou recitest the
+     first thou shalt charm heaven, earth, Hades, the mountains,
+     the waters; thou shalt know the birds of the sky and the
+     reptiles, how many soever they be; thou shalt see the fish
+     of the deep, for a divine power will cause them to rise to
+     the surface of the water.    If thou readest the second
+     formula, even although thou shouldest be in the tomb, thou
+     shalt again take the form which was thine upon earth; thou
+     shalt even see the sun rising in heaven, and his cycle of
+     gods, and the moon in the form wherein it appeareth."
+
+He had discovered the incantations which evoke and control the gods; he
+had transcribed the texts and noted the melodies of these incantations;
+he recited them with that true intonation--_ma khrou_--which renders
+them all-powerful, and every one, whether god or man, to whom he
+imparted them, and whose voice he made true--_sma khrou_--became like
+himself master of the universe. He had accomplished the creation not
+by muscular effort to which the rest of the cosmogonical gods primarily
+owed their birth, but by means of formulas, or even of the voice alone,
+"the first time" when he awoke in the Nu. In fact, the articulate word
+and the voice were believed to be the most potent of creative forces,
+not remaining immaterial on issuing from the lips, but condensing, so
+to speak, into tangible substances; into bodies which were themselves
+animated by creative life and energy; into gods and goddesses who lived
+or who created in their turn. By a very short phrase Tumu had called
+forth the gods who order all things; for his "Come unto me!" uttered
+with a loud voice upon the day of creation, had evoked the sun from
+within the lotus. Thot had opened his lips, and the voice which
+proceeded from him had become an entity; sound had solidified into
+matter, and by a simple emission of voice the four gods who preside over
+the four houses of the world had come forth alive from his mouth without
+bodily effort on his part, and without spoken evocation. Creation by the
+voice is almost as great a refinement of thought as the substitution
+of creation by the word for creation by muscular effort. In fact, sound
+bears the same relation to words that the whistle of a quartermaster
+bears to orders for the navigation of a ship transmitted by a speaking
+trumpet; it simplifies speech, reducing it as it were to a pure
+abstraction. At first it was believed that the creator had made the
+world with a word, then that he had made it by sound; but the further
+conception of his having made it by thought does not seem to have
+occurred to the theologians. It was narrated at Hermopolis, and the
+legend was ultimately universally accepted, even by the Heliopolitans,
+that the separation of Nuit and Sibu had taken place at a certain spot
+on the site of the city where Sibu had ascended the mound on which
+the feudal temple was afterwards built, in order that he might better
+sustain the goddess and uphold the sky at the proper height. The
+conception of a Creative Council of five gods had so far prevailed at
+Hermopolis that from this fact the city had received in remote antiquity
+the name of the "House of the Five;" its temple was called the "Abode of
+the Five" down to a late period in Egyptian history, and its prince,
+who was the hereditary high priest of Thot, reckoned as the first of his
+official titles that of "Great One of the House of the Five."
+
+The four couples who had helped Atumu were identified with the four
+auxiliary gods of Thot, and changed the council of Five into a Great
+Hermopolitan Ennead, but at the cost of strange metamorphoses. However
+artificially they had been grouped about Atumu, they had all preserved
+such distinctive characteristics as prevented their being confounded one
+with another. When the universe which they had helped to build up
+was finally seen to be the result of various operations demanding a
+considerable manifestation of physical energy, each god was required to
+preserve the individuality necessary for the production of such effects
+as were expected of him. They could not have existed and carried on
+their work without conforming to the ordinary conditions of humanity;
+being born one of another, they were bound to have paired with living
+goddesses as capable of bringing forth their children as they were of
+begetting them. On the other hand, the four auxiliary gods of Hermopolis
+exercised but one means of action--the voice. Having themselves come
+forth from the master's mouth, it was by voice that they created and
+perpetuated the world. Apparently they could have done without goddesses
+had marriage not been imposed upon them by their identification with the
+corresponding gods of the Heliopolitan Ennead; at any rate, their wives
+had but a show of life, almost destitute of reality. As these four gods
+worked after the manner of their master, Thot, so they also bore his
+form and reigned along with him as so many baboons. When associated with
+the lord of Hermopolis, the eight divinities of Heliopolis assumed the
+character and the appearance of the four Hermopolitan gods in whom they
+were merged. They were often represented as eight baboons surrounding
+the supreme baboon, or as four pairs of gods and goddesses without
+either characteristic attributes or features; or, finally, as four pairs
+of gods and goddesses, the gods being, as far as we are able to judge,
+the couple Nu-Nuit answers to Shu-Tafnuit; Hahu-Hehit to Sibu and Nuifc;
+Kaku-Kakit to Osiris and Isis; Ninu-Ninit to Sit and Nephthys. There
+was seldom any occasion to invoke them separately; they were addressed
+collectively as the Eight--_Khmunu_--and it was on their account that
+Hermopolis was named _Khmunu_, the City of the Eight. Ultimately they
+were deprived of the little individual life still left to them, and were
+fused into a single being to whom the texts refer as Khomninu, the god
+Eight.
+
+[Illustration: 212.jpg THE HERMOPOLITAN OGDOAD. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Beato. Cf.
+     Lepsius, Denkm., iv. pl. 66 c. In this illustration I have
+     combined! the two extremities of a great scene at Philae, in
+     which the _Eight_, divided into two groups of four, frog-
+     headed men, and the goddesses serpent-headed women. Morning
+     and evening  do they sing;   and the mysterious hymns
+     wherewith they salute the rising and the setting sun ensure
+     the continuity of his course.    Their names did not survive
+     their  metamorphoses;   each  pair had no longer more than a
+     single name, the termination of each name varying according
+     as a god or a goddess was intended:--Nu  and Nuit, Hehu and
+     Hehit, Kaku and Kakit, Ninu and Ninit, the god One and the
+     god Eight, the Monad and the Ogdoad. The latter had scarcely
+     more than a theoretical existence, and was generally
+     absorbed into the person of the former. Thus the theologians
+     of Hermopolis gradually disengaged the unity of their feudal
+     god from the multiplicity of the cosmogonie deities.
+
+[Illustration: 213.jpg AMON. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette found at
+     Thebes, and now in my possession.
+
+By degrees the Ennead of Thot was thus reduced to two terms: take part
+in the adoration of the king. According to a custom common towards the
+Graeco-Roman period, the sculptor has made the feet of his gods like
+jackals' heads; it is a way of realizing the well-known metaphor which
+compares a rapid runner to the jackal roaming around Egypt.
+
+As the sacerdotal colleges had adopted the Heliopolitan doctrine, so
+they now generally adopted that of Hermopolis: Amon, for instance, being
+made to preside indifferently over the eight baboons and over the four
+independent couples of the primitive Ennead. In both cases the process
+of adaptation was absolutely identical, and would have been attended by
+no difficulty whatever, had the divinities to whom it was applied only
+been without family; in that case, the one needful change for each city
+would have been that of a single name in the Heliopolitan list, thus
+leaving the number of the Ennead unaltered. But since these deities had
+been turned into triads they could no longer be primarily regarded as
+simple units, to be combined with the elements of some one or other of
+the Enneads without preliminary arrangement. The two companions whom
+each had chosen had to be adopted also, and the single Thot, or single
+Atumu, replaced by the three patrons of the nome, thus changing the
+traditional nine into eleven. Happily, the constitution of the triad
+lent itself to all these adaptations. We have seen that the father
+and the son became one and the same personage, whenever it was thought
+desirable. We also know that one of the two parents always so far
+predominated as almost to efface the other. Sometimes it was the goddess
+who disappeared behind her husband; sometimes it was the god whose
+existence merely served to account for the offspring of the goddess, and
+whose only title to his position consisted in the fact that he was her
+husband. Two personages thus closely connected were not long in blending
+into one, and were soon defined as being two faces, the masculine and
+feminine aspects of a single being. On the one hand, the father was one
+with the son, and on the other he was one with the mother. Hence the
+mother was one with the son as with the father, and the three gods of
+the triad were resolved into one god in three persons.
+
+[Illustration: 215.jpg THE THEBAN ENNEAD]
+
+     1 This Ennead consists of fourteen members--Montu,
+     duplicating Atumu; the four usual couples; then Horus, the
+     son of Isis and Osiris, together with his associate deities,
+     Hathor, Tanu, and Anit.
+
+Thanks to this subterfuge, to put a triad at the head of an Ennead was
+nothing more than a roundabout way of placing a single god there: the
+three persons only counted as one, and the eleven names only amounted
+to the nine canonical divinities. Thus, the Theban Ennead of
+Amon-Maut-Khonsu, Shu, Tafnuit, Sibu, Nuit, Osiris, Isis, Sit, and
+Nephthys, is, in spite of its apparent irregularity, as correct as the
+typical Ennead itself. In such Enneads Isis is duplicated by goddesses
+of like nature, such as Hathor, Selkit, Taninit, and yet remains but
+one, while Osiris brings in his son Horus, who gathers about himself
+all such gods as play the part of divine son in other triads. The
+theologians had various methods of procedure for keeping the number of
+persons in an Ennead at nine, no matter how many they might choose to
+embrace in it. Supernumeraries were thrown in like the "shadows" at
+Roman suppers, whom guests would bring without warning to their host,
+and whose presence made not the slightest difference either in the
+provision for the feast, or in the arrangements for those who had been
+formally invited.
+
+Thus remodelled at all points, the Ennead of Heliopolis was readily
+adjustable to sacerdotal caprices, and even profited by the facilities
+which, the triad afforded for its natural expansion. In time the
+Heliopolitan version of the origin of Shu-Tafnuit must have appeared too
+primitively barbarous. Allowing for the licence of the Egyptians during
+Pharaonic times, the concept of the spontaneous emission whereby Aturnu
+had produced his twin children was characterized by a superfluity of
+coarseness which it was at least unnecessary to employ, since by
+placing the god in a triad, this double birth could be duly explained
+in conformity with the ordinary laws of life. The solitary Aturnu of the
+more ancient dogma gave place to Aturnu the husband and father. He had,
+indeed, two wives, Iusasit and Nebthotpit, but their individualities
+were so feebly marked that no one took the trouble to choose between
+them; each passed as the mother of Shu and Tafnuifc. This system of
+combination, so puerile in its ingenuity, was fraught with the gravest
+consequences to the history of Egyptian religions. Shu having been
+transformed into the divine son of the Heliopolitan triad, could
+henceforth be assimilated with the divine sons of all those triads which
+took the place of Tumu at the heads of provincial Enneads. Thus we find
+that Horus the son of Isis at Buto, Arihosnofir the son of Nit at Sais,
+Khnumu the son of Hathor at Esneh, were each in turn identified with
+Shu the son of Aturnu, and lost their individualities in his. Sooner
+or later this was bound to result in bringing all the triads closer
+together, and in their absorption into one another. Through constant
+reiteration of the statement that the divine sons of the triads were
+identical with Shu, as being in the second rank of the Ennead, the idea
+arose that this was also the case in triads unconnected with Enneads; in
+other terms, that the third person in any family of gods was everywhere
+and always Shu under a different name. It having been finally admitted
+in the sacerdotal colleges that Tumu and Shu, father and son, were one,
+all the divine sons were, therefore, identical with Tumu, the father
+of Shu, and as each divine son was one with his parents, it inevitably
+followed that these parents themselves were identical with Tumu.
+Reasoning in this way, the Egyptians naturally tended towards that
+conception of the divine oneness to which the theory of the Hermopolitan
+Ogdoad was already leading them. In fact, they reached it, and the
+monuments show us that in comparatively early times the theologians were
+busy uniting in a single person the prerogatives which their ancestors
+had ascribed to many different beings. But this conception of deity
+towards which their ideas were converging has nothing in common with the
+conception of the God of our modern religions and philosophies. No god
+of the Egyptians was ever spoken of simply as God. Tumu was the "one
+and only god"--_nutir uau uaiti_--at Heliopolis; Anhuri-Shu was also the
+"one and only god" at Sebennytos and at Thinis. The unity of Atumu did
+not interfere with that of Anhuri-Shu, but each of these gods, although
+the "sole" deity in his own domain, ceased to be so in the domain of the
+other. The feudal spirit, always alert and jealous, prevented the higher
+dogma which was dimly apprehended in the temples from triumphing over
+local religions and extending over the whole land. Egypt had as many
+"sole" deities as she had large cities, or even important temples; she
+never accepted the idea of the sole God, "beside whom there is none
+other."
+
+[Illustration: 218.jpg TAILPIECE]
+
+[Illustration: 219.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+[Illustration: 220.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.---THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT
+
+_THE DIVINE DYNASTIES: RA, SHU, OSIEIS, SIT, HOEUS--THOT, AND THE
+INVENTION OF SCIENCES AND WRITING--MENES, AND THE THREE FIRST HUMAN
+DYNASTIES._
+
+_The Egyptians claim to Be the most ancient of peoples: traditions
+concerning the creation of man and of animals--The Heliopolitan Enneads
+the framework of the divine dynasties--Ra, the first King of Egypt, and
+his fabulous history: he allows himself to be duped and robbed by Isis,
+destroys rebellious men, and ascends into heaven.
+
+The legend of Shu and Sibil--The reign of Osiris Onnophris and of Isis:
+they civilize Egypt and the world--Osiris, slain by Sit, is entombed by
+Isis and avenged by Horus--The wars of Typhon and of Horus: peace, and
+the division of Egypt between the two gods.
+
+The Osirian embalmment; the kingdom of Osiris opened to the followers of
+Horus--The Book of the Dead--The journeying of the soul in search of the
+fields of Ialu--The judgment of the soul, the negative confession--The
+privileges and duties of Osirian souls--Confusion between Osirian and
+Solar ideas as to the state of the dead: the dead in the hark of the
+Sun--The going forth by day--The campaigns of Harmakhis against Sit.
+
+Thot, the inventor: he reveals all sciences to men--Astronomy, stellar
+tables; the year, its subdivisions, its defects, influence of
+the heavenly bodies and the days upon human destiny--Magic arts;
+incantations, amulets---Medicine: the vitalizing spirits, diagnosis,
+treatment--Writing: ideographic, syllabic, alphabetic.
+
+The history of Egypt as handed down by tradition: Manetho, the royal
+lists, main divisions of Egyptian history--The beginnings of its early
+history vague and uncertain: Menes, and the legend of Memphis--The first
+three human dynasties, the two Thimie and the Memphite--Character and,
+origin of the legends concerning them--The famine stela--The earliest
+monuments: the step pyramid of Saqgdrah._
+
+[Illustration: 221.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EGYPT
+
+_The divine dynasties: Ra, Shu, Osiris, Sit, Horus--Thot, and the
+invention of sciences and writing--Menes, and the three first human
+dynasties._
+
+The building up and diffusion of the doctrine of the Ennead, like the
+formation of the land of Egypt, demanded centuries of sustained effort,
+centuries of which the inhabitants themselves knew neither the number
+nor the authentic history. When questioned as to the remote past of
+their race, they proclaimed themselves the most ancient of mankind, in
+comparison with whom all other races were but a mob of young children;
+and they looked upon nations which denied their pretensions with such
+indulgence and pity as we feel for those who doubt a well-known truth.
+Their forefathers had appeared upon the banks of the Nile even before
+the creator had completed his work, so eager were the gods to behold
+their birth. No Egyptian disputed the reality of this right of the
+firstborn, which ennobled the whole race; but if they were asked the
+name of their divine father, then the harmony was broken, and each
+advanced the claims of a different personage.[*] Phtah had modelled man
+with his own hands;[**] Khnumu had formed him on a potter's table.[***]
+
+     * We know the words which Plato puts into the mouth of an
+     Egyptian priest: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always
+     children, and there is no old man who is a Greek! You are
+     all young in mind; there is no opinion or tradition of
+     knowledge among you which is white with age." Other nations
+     disputed their priority--the Phrygians, the Medes, or rather
+     the tribe of the Magi among the Medes, the Ethiopians, the
+     Scythians. A cycle of legends had gathered about this
+     subject, giving an account of the experiments instituted, by
+     Psamtik, or other sovereigns, to find out which were right,
+     Egyptians or foreigners.
+
+     **  At Philae and at Denderah, Phtah is represented as piling
+     upon his potter's table the plastic clay from which he is
+     about to make a human body, and which is somewhat wrongly
+     called the egg of the world. It is really the lump of earth
+     from which man came forth at his creation.
+
+     ***  At Philas, Khnumu calls himself "the potter who
+     fashions men, the modeller of the gods." He there moulds the
+     members of Osiris, the husband of the local Isis, as at
+     Erment he forms the body of Harsamtaui, or rather that of
+     Ptolemy Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and the celebrated
+     Cleopatra, identified with Harsamtaui.
+
+Ra at his first rising, seeing the earth desert and bare, had flooded it
+with his rays as with a flood of tears; all living things, vegetable and
+animal, and man himself, had sprung pell-mell from his eyes, and were
+scattered abroad with the light over the surface of the world.[*]
+Sometimes the facts were presented under a less poetic aspect. The mud
+of the Nile, heated to excess by the burning sun, fermented and brought
+forth the various races of men and animals by spontaneous generation,
+having moulded itself into a thousand living forms. Then its procreative
+power became weakened to the verge of exhaustion. Yet on the banks of
+the river, in the height of summer, smaller animals might still be found
+whose condition showed what had once taken place in the case of the
+larger kinds. Some appeared as already fully formed, and struggling
+to free themselves from the oppressive mud; others, as yet imperfect,
+feebly stirred their heads and fore feet, while their hind quarters
+were completing their articulation and taking shape within the matrix of
+earth.[**]
+
+     *  With reference to the substances which proceeded from the
+     eye of Ra, see the remarks of Birch, _Sur un papyrus magique
+     du Musee Britannique_. By his tears (_romitu_) Horus, or his
+     eye as identified with the sun, had given birth to all men,
+     Egyptians (_romitu, rotu_), Libyans, and Asiatics, excepting
+     only the negroes. The latter were born from another part of
+     his body by the same means as those employed by Atumu in the
+     creation of Shu and Tafnuit.
+
+     **  The same story is told, but with reference to rats only,
+     by Pliny, by Diodorus, by AElianus, by Macrobius, and by
+     other Greek or Latin writers. Even in later times, and in
+     Europe, this pretended phenomenon met with a certain degree
+     of belief, as may be seen from the curious work of Marcus
+     Fredericus Wendelinus, _Archipalatinus, Admiranda Nili_,
+     Franco-furti, mdcxxiii., cap. xxi. pp. 157-183. In Egypt all
+     the fellahin believe in the spontaneous generation of rats
+     as in an article of their creed. They have spoken to me of
+     it at Thebes, at Denderah, and on the plain of Abydos; and
+     Major Brown has lately noted the same thing in the Fayum.
+     The variant which he heard from the lips of the notables is
+     curious, for it professes to explain why the rats who infest
+     the fields in countless bands during the dry season,
+     suddenly disappear at the return of the inundation; born of
+     the mud and putrid water of the preceding year, to mud they
+     return, and as it were dissolve at the touch of the new
+     waters.
+
+It was not Ra alone whose tears were endowed with vitalizing power. All
+divinities whether beneficent or malevolent, Sit as well as Osiris or
+Isis, could give life by weeping; and the work of their eyes, when once
+it had fallen upon earth, flourished and multiplied as vigorously as
+that which came from the eyes of Ra.
+
+[Illustration: 224.jpg KHNUMU MODELLING MAN UPON A POTTER'S TABLE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet. The scene is
+     taken from bas-reliefs in the temple of Luxor, where the god
+     Khnumu is seen completing his modelling of the future King
+     Amenothes III. and his double, represented as two children
+     wearing the side-lock and large necklace. The first holds
+     his finger to his lips, while the arms of the second swing
+     at his sides.
+
+The individual character of the creator was not without bearing upon
+the nature of his creatures; good was the necessary outcome of the
+good gods, evil of the evil ones; and herein lay the explanation of
+the mingling of things excellent and things execrable, which is found
+everywhere throughout the world. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Sit and
+his partisans were the cause and origin of all that is harmful. Daily
+their eyes shed upon the world those juices by which plants are made
+poisonous, as well as malign influences, crime, and madness. Their
+saliva, the foam which fell from their mouths during their attacks of
+rage, their sweat, their blood itself, were all no less to be feared.
+When any drop of it touched the earth, straightway it germinated, and
+produced something strange and baleful--a serpent, a scorpion, a plant
+of deadly nightshade or of henbane. But, on the other hand, the sun
+was all goodness, and persons or things which it cast forth into life
+infallibly partook of its benignity. Wine that maketh man glad, the bee
+who works for him in the flowers secreting wax and honey, the meat and
+herbs which are his food, the stuffs that clothe him, all useful things
+which he makes for himself, not only emanated from the Solar Eye
+of Horus, but were indeed nothing more than the Eye of Horus under
+different aspects, and in his name they were presented in sacrifice. The
+devout generally were of opinion that the first Egyptians, the sons and
+flock of Ra, came into the world happy and perfect;[*] by degrees their
+descendants had fallen from that native felicity into their present
+state.
+
+     * In the tomb of Seti I, the words _flock of the Sun, flock
+     of Ra_, are those by which the god Horus refers to men.
+     Certain expressions used by Egyptian writers are in
+     themselves sufficient to show that the first generations of
+     men were supposed to have lived in a state of happiness and
+     perfection. To the Egyptians _the times of Ra, the times of
+     the god_--that is to say, the centuries immediately
+     following on the creation---were the ideal age, and no good
+     thing had appeared upon earth since then.
+
+Some, on the contrary, affirmed that their ancestors were born as so
+many brutes, unprovided with the most essential arts of gentle life.
+They knew nothing of articulate speech, and expressed themselves by
+cries only, like other animals, until the day when Thot taught them both
+speech and writing.
+
+These tales sufficed for popular edification; they provided but meagre
+fare for the intelligence of the learned. The latter did not confine
+their ambition to the possession of a few incomplete and contradictory
+details concerning the beginnings of humanity. They wished to know the
+history of its consecutive development from the very first; what manner
+of life had been led by their fathers; what chiefs they had obeyed and
+the names or adventures of those chiefs; why part of the nations had
+left the blessed banks of the Nile and gone to settle in foreign lands;
+by what stages and in what length of time those who had not emigrated
+rose out of native barbarism into that degree of culture to which the
+most ancient monuments bore testimony. No efforts of imagination were
+needful for the satisfaction of their curiosity: the old substratum of
+indigenous traditions was rich enough, did they but take the trouble
+to work it out systematically, and to eliminate its most incongruous
+elements. The priests of Heliopolis took this work in hand, as they had
+already taken in hand the same task with regard to the myths referring
+to the creation; and the Enneads provided them with a ready-made
+framework. They changed the gods of the Ennead into so many kings,
+determined with minute accuracy the lengths of their reigns, and
+compiled their biographies from popular tales. The duality of the feudal
+god supplied an admirable expedient for connecting the history of the
+world with that of chaos. Tumu was identified with Nu, and relegated to
+the primordial Ocean: Ra was retained, and proclaimed the first king
+of the world. He had not established his rule without difficulty. The
+"Children of Defeat," beings hostile to order and light, engaged him in
+fierce battles; nor did he succeed in organizing his kingdom until
+he had conquered them in nocturnal combat at Hermopolis, and even at
+Heliopolis itself.[*]
+
+     * The _Children of Defeat_, in Egyptian _Mosu batashu_, or
+     _Mosu batashit_, are often confounded with the followers of
+     Sit, the enemies of Osiris. From the first they were
+     distinct, and represented beings and forces hostile to the
+     sun, with the dragon Apopi at their head. Their defeat at
+     Hermopolis corresponded to the moment when Shu, raising the
+     sky above the sacred mound in that city, substituted order
+     and light for chaos and darkness. This defeat is mentioned
+     in chap xvii. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition,
+     vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 3, et seq.), in which connexion E. de
+     Rouge first explained its meaning. In the same chapter of
+     the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis.
+     xxiv., xxv., 11. 54-58), reference is also made to the
+     battle by night, in Heliopolis, at the close of which Ra
+     appeared in the form of a cat or lion, and beheaded the
+     great serpent.
+
+Pierced with wounds, Apopi the serpent sank into the depths of Ocean at
+the very moment when the new year began. The secondary members of the
+Great Ennead, together with the Sun, formed the first dynasty, which
+began with the dawn of the first day, and ended at the coming of Horus,
+the son of Isis. The local schools of theology welcomed this method of
+writing history as readily as they had welcomed the principle of the
+Ennead itself. Some of them retained the Heliopolitan demiurge, and
+hastened to associate him with their own; others completely eliminated
+him in favour of the feudal divinity,--Amon at Thebes, Thot at
+Hermopolis, Phtah at Memphis,--keeping the rest of the dynasty
+absolutely unchanged.[*] The gods in no way compromised their prestige
+by becoming incarnate and descending to earth. Since they were men of
+finer nature, and their qualities, including that of miracle-working,
+were human qualities raised to the highest pitch of intensity, it was
+not considered derogatory to them personally to have watched over
+the infancy and childhood of primeval man. The raillery in which the
+Egyptians occasionally indulged with regard to them, the good-humoured
+and even ridiculous _roles_ ascribed to them in certain legends, do not
+prove that they were despised, or that zeal for them had cooled. The
+greater the respect of believers for the objects of their worship,
+the more easily do they tolerate the taking of such liberties, and the
+condescension of the members of the Ennead, far from lowering them
+in the eyes of generations who came too late to live with them upon
+familiar terms, only enhanced the love and reverence in which they were
+held. Nothing shows this better than the history of Ra. His world was
+ours in the rough; for since Shu was yet nonexistent, and Nuit still
+reposed in the arms of Sibu, earth and sky were but one.[**]
+
+     *  Thot is the chief of the Hermopolitan Ennead, and the
+     titles ascribed to him by inscriptions maintaining his
+     supremacy show that he also was considered to have been the
+     first king. One of the Ptolemies said of himself that he
+     came "as the Majesty of Thot, because he was the equal of
+     Atumu, hence the equal of Khopri, hence the equal of Ra."
+     Atumu-Khopri-Ra being the first earthly king, it follows
+     that the _Majesty of Thot_, with whom Ptolemy identifies
+     himself, comparing himself to the three forms of the God Ra,
+     is also the first earthly king.
+
+     **  This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is
+     clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of
+     The Destruction of Men. Nuit does not rise to form the sky
+     until such time as Ra thinks of bringing his reign to an
+     end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in
+     existence for many centuries. In chap. xvii. of the Book of
+     the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 11. 3-5) it
+     is stated that the reign of Ra began in the times when the
+     upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before
+     Shu had separated Nuit from Sibu, and forcibly uplifted her
+     above the body of her husband.
+
+Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable,
+animal, and human life. Egypt was there, all complete, with her two
+chains of mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and
+the nomes themselves. Then the soil was more generous; the harvests,
+without the labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when
+the Egyptians of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any
+person or thing, they said that the like had never been known since the
+time of Ra.
+
+     * This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of
+     the fields of Ialu in chap. ex. of the _Book of the Dead_
+     (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis. cxxi.~ cxxiii.). As with
+     the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead
+     still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed
+     during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to
+     say, under the direct rule of Ra.
+
+It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst
+for happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the
+remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is
+only known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors.
+Ra dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of
+the city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"--Hait Saru,--passed
+for having been his palace. His court was mainly composed of gods and
+goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men. It contained
+also men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food,
+received the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and
+household affairs. It was said that the _oiru mau_--the high priest of
+Ra, the _hankistit_--his high priestess, and generally speaking all the
+servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended
+from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had
+succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.
+
+[Illustration: 230.jpg AT THE FIRST HOUR OF THE BAY THE SUN EMBARKS FOB
+HIS JOURNEY THROUGH EGYPT.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the scenes represented
+     upon the architraves of the pronaos at Edfu (Rosellini,
+     _Monumenti del Culto_, pl. xxxviii. No. 1).
+
+In the morning he went forth with his divine train, and, amid the
+acclamations of the crowd, entered the bark in which he made his
+accustomed circuit of the world, returning to his home at the end of
+twelve hours after the accomplishment of his journey. He visited each
+province in turn, and in each he tarried for an hour, to settle all
+disputed matters, as the final judge of appeal. He gave audience to both
+small and great, he decided their quarrels and adjudged their lawsuits,
+he granted investiture of fiefs from the royal domains to those who
+had deserved them, and allotted or confirmed to every family the income
+needful for their maintenance. He pitied the sufferings of his people,
+and did his utmost to alleviate them; he taught to all comers potent
+formulas against reptiles and beasts of prey, charms to cast out evil
+spirits, and the best recipes for preventing illness. His incessant
+bounties left him at length with only one of his talismans: the name
+given to him by his father and mother at his birth, which they had
+revealed to him alone, and which he kept concealed within his bosom lest
+some sorcerer should get possession of it to use for the furtherance of
+his evil spells.
+
+But old age came on, and infirmities followed; the body of Ra grew bent,
+"his mouth trembled, his slaver trickled down to earth and his
+saliva dropped upon the ground." Isis, who had hitherto been a mere
+woman-servant in the household of the Pharaoh, conceived the project of
+stealing his secret from him, "that she might possess the world and make
+herself a goddess by the name of the august god." Force would have been
+unavailing; all enfeebled as he was by reason of his years, none was
+strong enough to contend successfully against him. But Isis "was a woman
+more knowing in her malice than millions of men, clever among millions
+of the gods, equal to millions of spirits, to whom as unto Ra nothing
+was unknown either in heaven or upon earth." She contrived a most
+ingenious stratagem. When man or god was struck down by illness, the
+only chance of curing him lay in knowing his real name, and thereby
+adjuring the evil being that tormented him. Isis determined to cast a
+terrible malady upon Ra, concealing its cause from him; then to offer
+her services as his nurse, and by means of his sufferings to extract
+from him the mysterious word indispensable to the success of the
+exorcism. She gathered up mud impregnated with the divine saliva, and
+moulded of it a sacred serpent which she hid in the dust of the road.
+Suddenly bitten as he was setting out upon his daily round, the god
+cried out aloud, "his voice ascended into heaven and his Nine called:
+'What is it? what is it?' and his gods: 'What is the matter? what is the
+matter?' but he could make them no answer so much did his lips tremble,
+his limbs shake, and the venom take hold upon his flesh as the Nile
+seizeth upon the land which it invadeth." Presently he came to himself,
+and succeeded in describing his sensations. "Something painful hath
+stung me; my heart perceiveth it, yet my two eyes see it not; my hand
+hath not wrought it, nothing that I have made knoweth it what it is, yet
+have I never tasted suffering like unto it, and there is no pain that
+may overpass it.... Fire it is not, water it is not, yet is my heart in
+flames, my flesh trembleth, all my members are full of shiverings born
+of breaths of magic. Behold! let there be brought unto me children of
+the gods of beneficent words, who know the power of their mouths, and
+whose science reacheth unto heaven." They came, these children of the
+gods, all with their books of magic. There came Isis with her sorcery,
+her mouth full of life-giving breaths, her recipe for the destruction of
+pain, her words which pour life into breathless throats, and she said:
+"What is it? what is it, O father of the gods? May it not be that a
+serpent hath wrought this suffering in thee; that one of thy children
+hath lifted up his head against thee? Surely he shall be overthrown by
+beneficent incantations, and I will make him to retreat at the sight
+of thy rays." On learning the cause of his torment, the Sun-god is
+terrified, and begins to lament anew: "I, then, as I went along the
+ways, travelling through my double land of Egypt and over my mountains,
+that I might look upon that which I have made, I was bitten by a serpent
+that I saw not. Fire it is not, water it is not, yet am I colder than
+water, I burn more than fire, all my members stream with sweat, I
+tremble, mine eye is not steady, no longer can I discern the sky, drops
+roll from my face as in the season of summer." Isis proposes her remedy,
+and cautiously asks him his ineffable name. But he divines her trick,
+and tries to evade it by an enumeration of his titles. He takes the
+universe to witness that he is called "Khopri in the morning, Ra at
+noon, Tumu in the evening." The poison did not recede, but steadily
+advanced, and the great god was not eased. Then Isis said to Ra: "Thy
+name was not spoken in that which thou hast said. Tell it to me and the
+poison will depart; for he liveth upon whom a charm is pronounced in his
+own name." The poison glowed like fire, it was strong as the burning
+of flame, and the Majesty of Ra said, "I grant thee leave that thou
+shouldest search within me, O mother Isis! and that my name pass from my
+bosom into thy bosom." In truth, the all-powerful name was hidden within
+the body of the god, and could only be extracted thence by means of
+a surgical operation similar to that practised upon a corpse which
+is about to be mummified. Isis undertook it, carried it through
+successfully, drove out the poison, and made herself a goddess by virtue
+of the name. The cunning of a mere woman had deprived Ra of his last
+talisman.
+
+In course of time men perceived his decrepitude. They took counsel
+against him: "Lo! his Majesty waxeth old, his bones are of silver, his
+flesh is of gold, his hair of lapis-lazuli." As soon as his Majesty
+perceived that which they were saying to each other, his Majesty said to
+those who were of his train, "Call together for me my Divine Eye, Shu,
+Tafnuit, Sibu, and Nuit, the father and the mother gods who were with
+me when I was in the Nu, with the god Nu. Let each bring his cycle along
+with him; then, when thou shalt have brought them in secret, thou shalt
+take them to the great mansion that they may lend me their counsel and
+their consent, coming hither from the Nu into this place where I have
+manifested myself." So the family council comes together: the ancestors
+of Ra, and his posterity still awaiting amid the primordial waters
+the time of their manifestation--his children Shu and Tafnuit, his
+grandchildren Sibu and Nuit. They place themselves, according to
+etiquette, on either side his throne, prostrate, with their foreheads to
+the ground, and thus their conference begins: "O Nu, thou the eldest of
+the gods, from whom I took my being, and ye the ancestor-gods, behold!
+men who are the emanation of mine eye have taken counsel together
+against me! Tell me what ye would do, for I have bidden you here before
+I slay them, that I may hear what ye would say thereto." Nu, as the
+eldest, has the right to speak first, and demands that the guilty shall
+be brought to judgment and formally condemned. "My son Ra, god greater
+than the god who made him, older than the gods who created him, sit thou
+upon thy throne, and great shall be the terror when thine eye shall
+rest upon those who plot together against thee!" But Ra not unreasonably
+fears that when men see the solemn pomp of royal justice, they may
+suspect the fate that awaits them, and "flee into the desert, their
+hearts terrified at that which I have to say to them." The desert was
+even then hostile to the tutelary gods of Egypt, and offered an almost
+inviolable asylum to their enemies. The conclave admits that the
+apprehensions of Ra are well founded, and pronounces in favour of
+summary execution; the Divine Eye is to be the executioner. "Let it go
+forth that it may smite those who have devised evil against thee, for
+there is no Eye more to be feared than thine when it attacketh in the
+form of Hathor." So the Eye takes the form of Hathor, suddenly falls
+upon men, and slays them right and left with great strokes of the knife.
+After some hours, Ra, who would chasten but not destroy his children,
+commands her to cease from her carnage; but the goddess has tasted
+blood, and refuses to obey him. "By thy life," she replies, "when I
+slaughter men then is my heart right joyful!"
+
+[Illustration: 236.jpg SOKHIT, THE LIONESS-HEADED. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette of the
+     Saite period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album
+     photographique du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. 6).
+
+That is why she was afterwards called Sokhit the slayer, and represented
+under the form of a fierce lioness. Nightfall stayed her course in the
+neighbourhood of Heracleopolis; all the way from Heliopolis she had
+trampled through blood. As soon as she had fallen asleep, Ra hastily
+took effectual measures to prevent her from beginning her work again on
+the morrow. "He said: 'Call on my behalf messengers agile and swift,
+who go like the wind.' When these messengers were straightway brought
+to him, the Majesty of the god said: 'Let them run to Elephantine and
+bring me mandragora in plenty.'"[**]
+
+** The mandragora of Elephantine was used in the manufacture of an
+intoxicating and narcotic drink employed either in medicine or in magic.
+In a special article, Brugsch has collected particulars preserved by the
+texts as to the uses of this plant. It was not as yet credited with
+the human form and the peculiar kind of life ascribed to it by western
+sorcerers.
+
+When they had brought him the mandragora, the Majesty of this great god
+summoned the miller which is in Heliopolis that he might bray it; and
+the women-servants having crushed grain for the beer, the mandragora,
+and also human blood, were mingled with the liquor, and thereof was made
+in all seven thousand jars of beer. Ra himself examined this delectable
+drink, and finding it to possess the wished-for properties: "'It is
+well,' said he; 'therewith shall I save men from the goddess;' then,
+addressing those of his train: 'Take these jars in your arms, and carry
+them to the place where she has slaughtered men.' Ra, the king, caused
+dawn to break at midnight, so that this philtre might be poured down
+upon the earth; and the fields were flooded with it to the depth of four
+palms, according as it pleased the souls of his Majesty." In the morning
+the goddess came, "that she might return to her carnage, but she
+found that all was flooded, and her countenance softened; when she had
+drunken, it was her heart that softened; she went away drunk, without
+further thought of men." There was some fear lest her fury might return
+when the fumes of drunkenness were past, and to obviate this danger
+Ra instituted a rite, partly with the object of instructing future
+generations as to the chastisement which he had inflicted upon the
+impious, partly to console Sokhit for her discomfiture. He decreed
+that "on New Year's Day there should be brewed for her as many jars of
+philtre as there were priestesses of the sun. That was the origin of
+all those jars of philtre, in number equal to that of the priestesses,
+which, at the feast of Hathor, all men make from that day forth."
+
+Peace was re-established, but could it last long? Would not men, as
+soon as they had recovered from their terror, betake themselves again to
+plotting against the god? Besides, Ra now felt nothing but disgust for
+our race. The ingratitude of his children had wounded him deeply; he
+foresaw ever-renewed rebellions as his feebleness became more marked,
+and he shrank from having to order new massacres in which mankind would
+perish altogether. "By my life," says he to the gods who accompanied
+him, "my heart is too weary for me to remain with mankind, and slay them
+until they are no more: annihilation is not of the gifts that I love
+to make." And the gods exclaim in surprise: "Breathe not a word of thy
+weariness at a time when thou dost triumph at thy pleasure." But Ra does
+not yield to their representations; he will leave a kingdom wherein
+they murmur against him, and turning towards Nu he says: "My limbs are
+decrepit for the first time; I will not go to any place where I can
+be reached." It was no easy matter to find him an inaccessible retreat
+owing to the imperfect state in which the universe had been left by the
+first effort of the demiurge. Nu saw no other way out of the difficulty
+than that of setting to work to complete the creation. Ancient tradition
+had imagined the separation of earth and sky as an act of violence
+exercised by Shu upon Sibu and Nuit. History presented facts after a
+less brutal fashion, and Shu became a virtuous son who devoted his time
+and strength to upholding Nuit, that he might thereby do his father a
+service. Nuit, for her part, showed herself to be a devoted daughter
+whom there was no need to treat roughly in order to teach her her duty;
+of herself she consented to leave her husband, and place her beloved
+ancestor beyond reach. "The Majesty of Nu said: 'Son Shu, do as thy
+father Ra shall say; and thou, daughter Nuit, place him upon thy back
+and hold him suspended above the earth!' Nuit said: 'And how then, my
+father Nu?' Thus spake Nuit, and she did that which Nu commanded her;
+she changed herself into a cow, and placed the Majesty of Ra upon her
+back. When those men who had not been slain came to give thanks to Ra,
+behold! they found him no longer in his palace; but a cow stood there,
+and they perceived him upon the back of the cow." They found him so
+resolved to depart that they did not try to turn him from his purpose,
+but only desired to give him such a proof of their repentance as should
+assure them of the complete pardon of their crime. "They said unto him:
+'Wait until the morning, O Ra! our lord, and we will strike down thine
+enemies who have taken counsel against thee.' So his Majesty returned to
+his mansion, descended from the cow, went in along with them, and earth
+was plunged into darkness. But when there was light upon earth the next
+morning, the men went forth with their bows and their arrows, and began
+to shoot at the enemy. Whereupon the Majesty of this god said unto them:
+'Your sins are remitted unto you, for sacrifice precludes the execution
+of the guilty.' And this was the origin upon earth of sacrifices in
+which blood was shed."
+
+Thus it was that when on the point of separating for ever, the god
+and men came to an understanding as to the terms of their future
+relationship. Men offered to the god the life of those who had offended
+him. Human sacrifice was in their eyes the obligatory sacrifice, the
+only one which could completely atone for the wrongs committed against
+the godhead; man alone was worthy to wash away with his blood the sins
+of men.[*] For this one time the god accepted the expiation just as it
+was offered to him; then the repugnance which he felt to killing his
+children overcame him, he substituted beast for man, and decided that
+oxen, gazelles, birds, should henceforth furnish the material for
+sacrifice.[**]
+
+     * This legend, which seeks to explain the discontinuance of
+     human sacrifices among the Egyptians, affords direct proof
+     of their existence in primitive times. This is confirmed by
+     many facts. We shall see that _uashbiti_ laid in graves were
+     in place of the male or female slaves who were originally
+     slaughtered at the tombs of the rich and noble that they
+     might go to serve their masters in the next world. Even in
+     Thebes, under the XIXth dynasty, certain rock-cut tombs
+     contain scenes which might lead us to believe that
+     occasionally at least human victims were sent to doubles of
+     distinction. During this same period, moreover, the most
+     distinguished hostile chiefs taken in war were still put to
+     death before the gods. In several towns, as at Eilithyia and
+     at Heliopolis, or before certain gods, such as Osiris or
+     Kronos-Sibu, human sacrifice lasted until near Roman times.
+     But generally speaking it was very rare. Almost everywhere
+     cakes of a particular shape, and called [Greek word], or
+     else animals, had been substituted for man.
+
+     **  It was asserted that the partisans of Apopi and of Sit,
+     who were the enemies of Ra, Osiris, and the other gods, had
+     taken refuge in the bodies of certain animals. Hence, it was
+     really human or divine victims which were offered when
+     beasts were slaughtered in sacrifice before the altars.
+
+This point settled, he again mounted the cow, who rose, supported on her
+four legs as on so many pillars; and her belly, stretched out above the
+earth like a ceiling, formed the sky. He busied himself with organizing
+the new world which he found on her back; he peopled it with many
+beings, chose two districts in which to establish his abode, the Field
+of Reeds--_Sokhit Ialu_--and the Field of Rest--_Sokhit Hotpit_--and
+suspended the stars which were to give light by night. All this is
+related with many plays upon words, intended, according to Oriental
+custom, as explanations of the names which the legend assigned to the
+different regions of heaven. At sight of a plain whose situation pleased
+him, he cried: "The Field rests in the distance!"--and that was
+the origin of the Field of Rest. He added: "There will I gather
+plants!"--and from this the Field of Reeds took its name. While he gave
+himself up to this philological pastime, Nuit, suddenly transported to
+unaccustomed heights, grew frightened, and cried for help: "For pity's
+sake give me supports to sustain me!" This was the origin of the
+support-gods. They came and stationed themselves by each of her four
+legs, steadying these with their hands, and keeping constant watch over
+them. As this was not enough to reassure the good beast, "Ra said, 'My
+son Shu, place thyself beneath my daughter Nuit, and keep watch on both
+sides over the supports, who live in the twilight; hold thou her
+up above thy head, and be her guardian!'" Shu obeyed; Nuit composed
+herself, and the world, now furnished with the sky which it had hitherto
+lacked, assumed its present symmetrical form.
+
+Shu and Sibu succeeded Ra, but did not acquire so lasting a popularity
+as their great ancestor. Nevertheless they had their annals, fragments
+of which have come down to us. Their power also extended over the whole
+universe: "The Majesty of Shu was the excellent king of the sky, of the
+earth, of Hades, of the water, of the winds, of the inundation, of
+the two chains of mountains, of the sea, governing with a true voice
+according to the precepts of his father Ra-Harmakhis."
+
+[Illustration: 242.jpg COW, SUSTAINED ABOVE THE EARTH BY SHU AND THE
+SUPPORT]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.
+
+Only "the children of the serpent Apopi, the impious ones who haunt
+the solitary places and the deserts," disavowed his authority. Like the
+Bedawin of later times, they suddenly streamed in by the isthmus routes,
+went up into Egypt under cover of night, slew and pillaged, and then
+hastily returned to their fastnesses with the booty which they had
+carried off. From sea to sea Ka had fortified the eastern frontier
+against them. He had surrounded the principal cities with walls,
+embellished them with temples, and placed within them those mysterious
+talismans more powerful for defence than a garrison of men. Thus
+Ait-nobsu, near the mouth of the Wady-Tumilat, possessed one of the
+rods of the Sun-god, also the living uraeus of his crown whose breath
+consumes all that it touches, and, finally, a lock of his hair, which,
+being cast into the waters of a lake, was changed into a hawk-headed
+crocodile to tear the invader in pieces.[*]
+
+     * Egyptians of all periods never shrank from such marvels.
+     One of the tales of the Theban empire tells us of a piece of
+     wax which, on being thrown into the water, changed into a
+     living crocodile capable of devouring a man. The talismans
+     which protected Egypt against invasion are mentioned by the
+     Pseudo-Callisthenes, who attributes their invention to
+     Nectanebo. Arab historians often refer to them.
+
+The employment of these talismans was dangerous to those unaccustomed
+to use them, even to the gods themselves. Scarcely was Sibu enthroned as
+the successor of Shu, who, tired of reigning, had reascended into heaven
+in a nine days' tempest, before he began his inspection of the eastern
+marches, and caused the box in which was kept the uraeus of Ra to be
+opened. "As soon as the living viper had breathed its breath against the
+Majesty of Sibu there was a great disaster--great indeed, for those
+who were in the train of the god perished, and his Majesty himself was
+burned in that day. When his Majesty had fled to the north of Ait-nobsu,
+pursued by the fire of this magic urasus, behold! when he came to the
+fields of henna, the pain of his burn was not yet assuaged, and the gods
+who were behind him said unto him: 'O Sire! let them take the lock of Ra
+which is there, when thy Majesty shall go to see it and its mystery, and
+his Majesty shall be healed as soon as it shall be placed upon thee.'
+So the Majesty of Sibu caused the magic lock to be brought to
+Piarit,--the lock for which was made that great reliquary of hard stone
+which is hidden in the secret place of Piarit, in the district of the
+divine lock of the Lord Ra,--and behold! this fire departed from the
+members of the Majesty of Sibu. And many years afterwards, when this
+lock, which had thus belonged to Sibu, was brought back to Piarit
+in Ait-nobsu, and cast into the great lake of Piarit whose name is
+_Ait-tostesu_, the dwelling of waves, that it might be purified, behold!
+this lock became a crocodile: it flew to the water and became Sobku,
+the divine crocodile of Ait-nobsu." In this way the gods of the solar
+dynasty from generation to generation multiplied talismans and enriched
+the sanctuaries of Egypt with relics.
+
+[Illustration: 244.jpg THREE OF THE DIVINE AMULETS PRESERVED IN THE
+TEMPLE OF AIT-NOBSU AT THE ROMAN PERIOD. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Griffith. The
+     three talismans here represented are two crowns, each in a
+     naos, and the burning fiery uraeus.
+
+Were there ever duller legends and a more senile phantasy! They did not
+spring spontaneously from the lips of the people, but were composed at
+leisure by priests desirous of enhancing the antiquity of their cult,
+and augmenting the veneration of its adherents in order to increase
+its importance. Each city wished it to be understood that its feudal
+sanctuary was founded upon the very day of creation, that its privileges
+had been extended or confirmed during the course of the first divine
+dynasty, and that these pretensions were supported by the presence
+of objects in its treasury which had belonged to the oldest of the
+king-gods. Such was the origin of tales in which the personage of the
+beneficent Pharaoh is often depicted in ridiculous fashion. Did we
+possess all the sacred archives, we should frequently find them quoting
+as authentic history more than one document as artificial as the
+chronicle of Ait-nobsu. When we come to the later members of the Ennead,
+there is a change in the character and in the form of these tales.
+Doubtless Osiris and Sit did not escape unscathed out of the hands of
+the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend
+concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there
+in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of
+imagination such as are never found in those of Shu and of Sibu.
+This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them
+strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world.
+Shu was the stay, Sibu the material foundation of the world; and so long
+as the one bore the weight of the firmament without bending, and the
+other continued to suffer the tread of human generations upon his
+back, the devout took no more thought of them than they themselves
+took thought of the devout. The life of Osiris, on the other hand, was
+intimately mingled with that of the Egyptians, and his most trivial
+actions immediately reacted upon their fortunes. They followed the
+movements of his waters; they noted the turning-points in his struggles
+against drought; they registered his yearly decline, yearly compensated
+by his aggressive returns and his intermittent victories over Typhon;
+his proceedings and his character were the subject of their minute
+study. If his waters almost invariably rose upon the appointed day and
+extended over the black earth of the valley, this was no mechanical
+function of a being to whom the consequences of his conduct are
+indifferent; he acted upon reflection, and in full consciousness of the
+service that he rendered. He knew that by spreading the inundation
+he prevented the triumph of the desert; he was life, he was
+goodness--_Onnofriu_--and Isis, as the partner of his labours, became
+like him the type of perfect goodness. But while Osiris developed
+for the better, Sit was transformed for the worse, and increased in
+wickedness as his brother gained in purity and moral elevation. In
+proportion as the person of Sit grew more defined, and stood out more
+clearly, the evil within him contrasted more markedly with the innate
+goodness of Osiris, and what had been at first an instinctive struggle
+between two beings somewhat vaguely defined--the desert and the Nile,
+water and drought--was changed into conscious and deadly enmity. No
+longer the conflict of two elements, it was war between two gods; one
+labouring to produce abundance, while the other strove to do away with
+it; one being all goodness and life, while the other was evil and death
+incarnate.
+
+A very ancient legend narrates that the birth of Osiris and his brothers
+took place during the five additional days at the end of the year; a
+subsequent legend explained how Nuit and Sibu had contracted marriage
+against the express wish of Ra, and without his knowledge. When he
+became aware of it he fell into a violent rage, and cast a spell over
+the goddess to prevent her giving birth to her children in any month of
+any year whatever. But Thot took pity upon her, and playing at draughts
+with the moon won from it in several games one seventy-second part of
+its fires, out of which he made five whole days; and as these were not
+included in the ordinary calendar, Nuit could then bring forth her five
+children, one after another: Osiris, Haroeris, Sit, Isis, and Nephthys.
+Osiris was beautiful of face, but with a dull and black complexion; his
+height exceeded five and a half yards.[*]
+
+     * As a matter of fact, Osiris is often represented with
+     black or green hands and face, as is customary for gods of
+     the dead; it was probably this peculiarity which suggested
+     the popular idea of his black complexion. A magic papyrus of
+     Ramesside times fixes the stature of the god at seven
+     cubits, and a phrase in a Ptolemaic inscription places it at
+     eight cubits, six palms, three fingers.
+
+He was born at Thebes, in the first of the additional days,
+and straightway a mysterious voice announced that the lord of
+all--_nibu-r-zaru_--had appeared. The good news was hailed with shouts
+of joy, followed by tears and lamentations when it became known with
+what evils he was menaced.[*] The echo reached Ra in his far-off
+dwelling, and his heart rejoiced, notwithstanding the curse which he
+had laid upon Nuit. He commanded the presence of his great-grandchild
+in Xois, and unhesitatingly acknowledged him as the heir to his throne.
+Osiris had married his sister Isis, even, so it was said, while both of
+them were still within their mother's womb;[**] and when he became king
+he made her queen regent and the partner of all his undertakings.
+
+     * One variant of the legend told that a certain Pamylis of
+     Thebes having gone to draw water had heard a voice
+     proceeding from the temple of Zeus, which ordered him to
+     proclaim aloud to the world the birth of the great king, the
+     beneficent Osiris. He had received the child from the hands
+     of Kronos, brought it up to youth, and to him the Egyptians
+     had consecrated the feast of Pamylies, which resembled the
+     Phallophoros festival of the Greeks.
+
+     ** _De Iside et Osiride_, Leemans' edition, Sec. 12, pp. 20,
+     21. Haroeris, the Apollo of the Greeks, was supposed to be
+     the issue of a marriage consummated before the birth of his
+     parents while they were still within the womb of their
+     mother Rhea-Nuit. This was a way of connecting the personage
+     of Haroeris with the Osirian myths by confounding him with
+     the homonymous Harsiesis, the son of Isis, who became the
+     son of Osiris through his mother's marriage with that god.
+
+The Egyptians were as yet but half civilized; they were cannibals, and
+though occasionally they lived upon the fruits of the earth, they did
+not know how to cultivate them. Osiris taught them the art of making
+agricultural implements--the plough and the hoe,--field labour, the
+rotation of crops, the harvesting of wheat and barley,[*] and vine
+culture.
+
+     * Diodoeus even ascribes to him the discovery of barley and
+     of wheat; this is consequent upon the identification of Isis
+     with Demeter by the Greeks. According to the historian, Leo
+     of Pella, the goddess twined herself a crown of ripe ears
+     and placed it upon her head one day when she was sacrificing
+     to her parents.
+
+Isis weaned them from cannibalism, healed their diseases by means of
+medicine or of magic, united women to men in legitimate marriage, and
+showed them how to grind grain between two flat stones and to prepare
+bread for the household. She invented the loom with the help of her
+sister Nephthys, and was the first to weave and bleach linen. There
+was no worship of the gods before Osiris established it, appointed the
+offerings, regulated the order of ceremonies, and composed the texts and
+melodies of the liturgies. He built cities, among them Thebes itself,
+according to some; though others declared that he was born there. As he
+had been the model of a just and pacific king, so did he desire to be
+that of a victorious conqueror of nations; and, placing the regency in
+the hands of Isis, he went forth to war against Asia, accompanied by
+Thot the ibis and the jackal Anubis. He made little or no use of force
+and arms, but he attacked men by gentleness and persuasion, softened
+them with songs in which voices were accompanied by instruments, and
+taught them also the arts which he had made known to the Egyptians.
+No country escaped his beneficent action, and he did not return to the
+banks of the Nile until he had traversed and civilized the world from
+one horizon to the other.
+
+Sit-Typhon was red-haired and white-skinned, of violent, gloomy, and
+jealous temper.[*] Secretly he aspired to the crown, and nothing but the
+vigilance of Isis had kept him from rebellion during the absence of his
+brother. The rejoicings which celebrated the king's return to Memphis
+provided Sit with his opportunity for seizing the throne.
+
+     *  The colour of his hair was compared with that of a red-
+     haired ass, and on that account the ass was sacred to him.
+     As to his violent and jealous disposition, see the opinion
+     of Diodorus Siculus, book i. 21, and the picture drawn by
+     Synesius in his pamphlet AEgyptius. It was told how he tore
+     his mother's bowels at birth, and made his own way into the
+     world through her side.
+
+[Illustration: 250.jpg THE OSMIAN TRIAD HOKUS. OSIRIS, ISIS. 2]
+
+     2  Drawing by Boudier of the gold group in the Louvre
+     Museum. The drawing is made from a photograph which belonged
+     to M. de Witte, before the monument was acquired by E. de
+     Rouge in 1871. The little square pillar of lapis-lazuli,
+     upon which Osiris squats, is wrongly set up, and the names
+     and titles of King Osorkon, the dedicator of the triad, are
+     placed upside down.
+
+He invited Osiris to a banquet along with seventy-two officers whose
+support he had ensured, made a wooden chest of cunning workmanship and
+ordered that it should be brought in to him, in the midst of the feast.
+As all admired its beauty, he sportively promised to present it to any
+one among the guests whom it should exactly fit. All of them tried it,
+one after another, and all unsuccessfully; but when Osiris lay down
+within it, immediately the conspirators shut to the lid, nailed it
+firmly down, soldered it together with melted lead, and then threw it
+into the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which carried it to the sea. The
+news of the crime spread terror on all sides. The gods friendly to
+Osiris feared the fate of their master, and hid themselves within the
+bodies of animals to escape the malignity of the new king. Isis cut off
+her hair, rent her garments, and set out in search of the chest. She
+found it aground near the mouth of the river[*] under the shadow of
+a gigantic acacia, deposited it in a secluded place where no one ever
+came, and then took refuge in Buto, her own domain and her native
+city, whose marshes protected her from the designs of Typhon even as in
+historic times they protected more than one Pharaoh from the attacks of
+his enemies. There she gave birth to the young Horus, nursed and reared
+him in secret among the reeds, far from the machinations of the wicked
+one.[**]
+
+     *  At this point the legend of the Saite and Greek period
+     interpolates a whole chapter, telling how the chest was
+     carried out to sea and cast upon the Phoenician coast near
+     to Byblos. The acacia, a kind of heather or broom in this
+     case, grew up enclosing the chest within its trunk. This
+     addition to the primitive legend must date from the XVIIIth
+     to the XXth dynasties, when Egypt had extensive relations
+     with the peoples of Asia. No trace of it whatever has
+     hitherto been found upon Egyptian monuments strictly so
+     called; not even on the latest.
+
+     **  The opening illustration of this chapter (p. 221) is
+     taken from a monument at Phihe, and depicts Isis among the
+     reeds. The representation of the goddess as squatting upon a
+     mat probably gave rise to the legend of the floating isle of
+     Khemmis, which HECATAEUS of Miletus had seen upon the lake of
+     Buto, but whose existence was denied by Herodotus
+     notwithstanding the testimony of Hecataeus.
+
+But it happened that Sit, when hunting by moonlight, caught sight of the
+chest, opened it, and recognizing the corpse, cut it up into fourteen
+pieces, which he scattered abroad at random. Once more Isis set forth on
+her woeful pilgrimage. She recovered all the parts of the body excepting
+one only, which the oxyrhynchus had greedily devoured;[*] and with the
+help of her sister Nephthys, her son Horus, Anubis, and Thot, she joined
+together and embalmed them, and made of this collection of his remains
+an imperishable mummy, capable of sustaining for ever the soul of a god.
+On his coming of age, Horus called together all that were left of the
+loyal Egyptians and formed them into an army.[**]
+
+     *  This part of the legend was so thoroughly well known,
+     that by the time of the XIXth dynasty it suggested incidents
+     in popular literature. When Bitiu, the hero of _The Tale of
+     the Two Brothers_, mutilated himself to avoid the suspicion
+     of adultery, he cast his bleeding member into the water, and
+     _the Oxyrhynchus devoured it_.
+
+     **  Towards the Grecian period there was here interpolated
+     an account of how Osiris had returned from the world of the
+     dead to arm his son and train him to fight. According to
+     this tale he had asked Horus which of all animals seemed to
+     him most useful in time of war, and Horus chose the horse
+     rather than the lion, because the lion avails for the weak
+     or cowardly in need of help, whereas the horse is used for
+     the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. Judging from this
+     reply that Horus was ready to dare all, Osiris allowed him
+     to enter upon the war. The mention of the horse affords
+     sufficient proof that this episode is of comparatively late
+     origin (cf. p. 41 for the date at which the horse was
+     acclimatized in Egypt).
+
+His "Followers"--_Shosuu Horu_--defeated the "Accomplices of
+Sit"--_Samiu Sit_--who were now driven in their turn to transform
+themselves into gazelles, crocodiles and serpents,--animals which were
+henceforth regarded as unclean and Typhonian. For three days the two
+chiefs had fought together under the forms of men and of hippopotami,
+when Isis, apprehensive as to the issue of the duel, determined to bring
+it to an end. "Lo! she caused chains to descend upon them, and made them
+to drop upon Horus. Thereupon Horus prayed aloud, saying: 'I am thy son
+Horus!' Then Isis spake unto the fetters, saying; 'Break, and unloose
+yourselves from my son Horus!' She made other fetters to descend, and
+let them fall upon her brother Sit. Forthwith he lifted up his voice and
+cried out in pain, and she spake unto the fetters and said unto them:
+'Break!' Yea, when Sit prayed unto her many times, saying: 'Wilt thou
+not have pity upon the brother of thy son's mother?' then her heart was
+filled with compassion, and she cried to the fetters: 'Break, for he is
+my eldest brother!' and the fetters unloosed themselves from him, and
+the two foes again stood face to face like two men who will not come
+to terms." Horus, furious at seeing his mother deprive him of his prey,
+turned upon her like a panther of the South. She fled before him on that
+day when battle was waged with Sit the Violent, and he cut off her head.
+But Thot transformed her by his enchantments and made a cow's head for
+her, thereby identifying her with her companion, Hathor.
+
+[Illustration: 253.jpg ISIS-HATHOR, COW-HEADED. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette of Saite
+     period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album photographique
+     du musee de Boulaq_, pl. 5, No. 167).
+
+The war went on, with all its fluctuating fortunes, till the gods at
+length decided to summon both rivals before their tribunal. According to
+a very ancient tradition, the combatants chose the ruler of a
+neighbouring city, Thot, lord of Hermopolis Parva, as the arbitrator of
+their quarrel. Sit was the first to plead, and he maintained that Horus
+was not the son of Osiris, but a bastard, whom Isis hao conceived after
+the death of her husband. Horua triumphantly vindicated the legitimacy
+of his birth; and Thot condemned Sit to restore, according to some, the
+whole of the inheritance which he had wrongly retained,--according to
+others, part of it only. The gods ratified the sentence, and awarded to
+the arbitrator the title of _Uapirahuhui_: he who judges between two
+parties. A legend of more recent origin, and circulated after the
+worship of Osiris had spread over all Egypt, affirmed that the case had
+remained within the jurisdiction of Sibu, who was father to the one, and
+grandfather to the other party. Sibu, however, had pronounced the same
+judgment as Thot, and divided the kingdom into halves--_poshui_; Sit
+retained the valley from the neighbourhood of Memphis to the first
+cataract, while Horus entered into possession of the Delta. Egypt
+henceforth consisted of two distinct kingdoms, of which one, that of the
+North, recognized Horus, the son of Isis, as its patron deity; and the
+other, that of the South, placed itself under the protection of Sit
+Nubiti, the god of Ombos.[*]
+
+     * Another form of the legend gives the 27th Athyr as the
+     date of the judgment, assigning Egypt to Horus, and to Sit
+     Nubia, or _Doshirit_, the red land. It must have arisen
+     towards the age of the XVIIIth dynasty, at a time when their
+     piety no longer allowed the devout to admit that the
+     murderer of Osiris could be the legitimate patron of half
+     the country. So _the half_ belonging to Sit was then placed
+     either in Nubia or in the western desert, which had, indeed,
+     been reckoned as his domain from earliest times.
+
+The moiety of Horus, added to that of Sit, formed the kingdom which Sibu
+had inherited; but his children failed to keep it together, though it
+was afterwards reunited under Pharaohs of human race.
+
+The three gods who preceded Osiris upon the throne had ceased to reign,
+but not to live. Ra had taken refuge in heaven, disgusted with his own
+creatures; Shu had disappeared in the midst of a tempest; and Sibu had
+quietly retired within his palace when the time of his sojourning upon
+earth had been fulfilled. Not that there was no death, for death, too,
+together with all other things and beings, had come into existence in
+the beginning, but while cruelly persecuting both man and beast, had for
+a while respected the gods. Osiris was the first among them to be struck
+down, and hence to require funeral rites. He also was the first for whom
+family piety sought to provide a happy life beyond the tomb. Though he
+was king of the living and the dead at Mendes by virtue of the rights of
+all the feudal gods in their own principalities, his sovereignty after
+death exempted him no more than the meanest of his subjects from that
+painful torpor into which all mortals fell on breathing their last. But
+popular imagination could not resign itself to his remaining in that
+miserable state for ever. What would it have profited him to have
+Isis the great Sorceress for his wife, the wise Horus for his son,
+two master-magicians--Thot the Ibis and the jackal Anubis--for his
+servants, if their skill had not availed to ensure him a less gloomy
+and less lamentable after-life than that of men. Anubis had long before
+invented the art of mummifying, and his mysterious science had secured
+the everlasting existence of the flesh; but at what a price!
+
+[Illustration: 256.jpg THE OSIRIAN MUMMY PREPARED AND LAID UPON THE
+FUNERARY COUCH BY THE JACKAL ANUBIS.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellint, _Monumenti
+     Civili_, pl. cxxxiv. 2. While Anubis is stretching out his
+     hands to lay out the mummy on its couch, the soul is
+     hovering above its breast, and holding to its nostrils the
+     sceptre, and the wind-filled sail which is the emblem of
+     breath and of the new life.
+
+For the breathing, warm, fresh-coloured body, spontaneous in movement
+and function, was substituted an immobile, cold and blackish mass, a
+sufficient basis for the mechanical continuity of the double, but which
+that double could neither raise nor guide; whose weight paralysed and
+whose inertness condemned it to vegetate in darkness, without pleasure
+and almost without consciousness of existence. Thot, Isis, and Horus
+applied themselves in the case of Osiris to ameliorating the discomfort
+and constraint entailed by the more primitive embalmment.
+
+[Illustration: 257.jpg THE RECEPTION OP THE MUMMY BY ANUBIS AT THE DOOR
+OP THE TOMB, AND THE OPENING OF THE MOUTH. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of a
+     king in the Theban necropolis.
+
+They did not dispense with the manipulations instituted by Anubis,
+but endued them with new power by means of magic. They inscribed the
+principal bandages with protective figures and formulas; they decorated
+the body with various amulets of specific efficacy for its different
+parts; they drew numerous scenes of earthly existence and of the life
+beyond the tomb upon the boards of the coffin and upon the walls of
+the sepulchral chamber. When the body had been made imperishable, they
+sought to restore one by one all the faculties of which their previous
+operations had deprived it. The mummy was set up at the entrance to the
+vault; the statue representing the living person was placed beside it,
+and semblance was made of opening the mouth, eyes, and ears, of loosing
+the arms and legs, of restoring breath to the throat and movement to the
+heart. The incantations by which these acts were severally accompanied
+were so powerful that the god spoke and ate, lived and heard, and could
+use his limbs as freely as though he had never been steeped in the bath
+of the embalmer. He might have returned to his place among men, and
+various legends prove that he did occasionally appear to his faithful
+adherents. But, as his ancestors before him, he preferred to leave
+their towns and withdraw into his own domain. The cemeteries of the
+inhabitants of Busiris and of Mendes were called _Sokhit Ialu_, the
+Meadow of Reeds, and _Sokhit Hotpu_, the Meadow of Best. They were
+secluded amid the marshes, in small archipelagoes of sandy islets where
+the dead bodies, piled together, rested in safety from the inundations.
+This was the first kingdom of the dead Osiris, but it was soon placed
+elsewhere, as the nature of the surrounding districts and the geography
+of the adjacent countries became better known; at first perhaps on the
+Phoenician shore beyond the sea, and then in the sky, in the Milky Way,
+between the North and the East, but nearer to the North than to the
+East. This kingdom was not gloomy and mournful like that of the other
+dead gods, Sokaris or Khontamentit, but was lighted by sun and moon;
+the heat of the day was tempered by the steady breath of the north wind,
+and its crops grew and throve abundantly.
+
+[Illustration: 259.jpg OSIKIS IN HADES, ACCOMPANIED BY ISIS, AMENTIT,
+AND NEPHTHYS, RECEIVES THE HOMAGE OF TRUTH. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Heron,
+     taken in 1881 in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos.
+
+Thick walls served as fortifications against the attacks of Sit and
+evil genii; a palace like that of the Pharaohs stood in the midst
+of delightful gardens; and there, among his own people, Osiris led a
+tranquil existence, enjoying in succession all the pleasures of earthly
+life without any of its pains.
+
+The goodness which had gained him the title of Onnophris while he
+sojourned here below, inspired him with the desire and suggested the
+means of opening the gates of his paradise to the souls of his former
+subjects. Souls did not enter into it unexamined, nor without trial.
+Each of them had first to prove that during its earthly life it had
+belonged to a friend, or, as the Egyptian texts have it, to a vassal of
+Osiris--_amakhu khir Osiri_--one of those who had served Horus in his
+exile and had rallied to his banner from the very beginning of the
+Typhonian wars.
+
+[Illustration: 260.jpg THE DECEASED CLIMBING THE SLOPE OF THE MOUNTAIN
+OF THE WEST,2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville Bas AEgyptische
+     Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. cxxviii. Ai.
+
+These were those followers of Horus--_Shosuu Horu_--so often referred to
+in the literature of historic times.[*]
+
+     *  Cf, p. 252. The _Followers of Horns_, i.e. those who had
+     followed Horus during the Typhonian wars, are mentioned in a
+     Turin fragment of the Canon of the Kings, in which the
+     author summarizes the chronology of the divine period. Like
+     the reign of Ra, the time in which the followers of Horus
+     were supposed to have lived was for the Egyptians of classic
+     times the ultimate point beyond which history did not reach.
+
+Horus, their master, having loaded them with favours during life,
+decided to extend to them after death the same privileges which he had
+conferred upon his father. He convoked around the corpse the gods who
+had worked with him at the embalmment of Osiris: Anubis and Thot,
+Isis and Nephthys, and his four children--Hapi, Qabhsonuf, Amsit, and
+Tiumautf--to whom he had entrusted the charge of the heart and viscera.
+They all performed their functions exactly as before, repeated the same
+ceremonies, and recited the same formulas at the same stages of the
+operations, and so effectively that the dead man became a real Osiris
+under their hands, having a true voice, and henceforth combining the
+name of the god with his own.
+
+[Illustration: 261.jpg THE MUMMY OF SUTIMOSU CLASPING HIS SOUL INTO HIS
+ARMS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Guieysse-Lefebure, _Le
+     Papyrus de Soutimes_, pl. viii. The outlines of the original
+     have unfortunately been restored and enfeebled by the
+     copyist.
+
+He had been Sakhomka or Menkauri; he became the Osiris Sakhomka, or the
+Osiris Menkauri, true of voice. Horus and his companions then celebrated
+the rites consecrated to the "Opening of the Mouth and the Eyes:"
+animated the statue of the deceased, and placed the mummy in the tomb,
+where Anubis received it in his arms. Recalled to life and movement, the
+double reassumed, one by one, all the functions of being, came and went
+and took part in the ceremonies of the worship which was rendered to him
+in his tomb. There he might be seen accepting the homage of his
+kindred, and clasping to his breast his soul under the form of a great
+human-headed bird with features the counterpart of his own. After being
+equipped with the formulas and amulets wherewith his prototype, Osiris,
+had been furnished, he set forth to seek the "Field of Reeds." The way
+was long and arduous, strewn with perils to which he must have succumbed
+at the very first stages had he not been carefully warned beforehand and
+armed against them.
+
+[Illustration: 262.jpg CYNOCEPHALI DRAWING THE NET IN WHICH SOULS ARE
+CAUGHT. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a facsimile by Deveria (E. de
+     Rouge, _Etudes sur le Rituel Funeraire_, pl. iv. No. 4).
+     Ignorant souls fished for by the cynocephali are here
+     represented as fish; but the soul of Nofirubnu, instructed
+     in the protective formulas, preserves its human form.
+
+A papyrus placed with the mummy in its coffin contained the needful
+topo-graphical directions and passwords, in order that he might
+neither stray nor perish by the way. The wiser Egyptians copied out the
+principal chapters for themselves, or learned them by heart while yet
+in life, in order to be prepared for the life beyond. Those who had not
+taken this precaution studied after death the copy with which they were
+provided; and since few Egyptians could read, a priest, or relative of
+the deceased, preferably his son, recited the prayers in the mummy's
+ear, that he might learn them before he was carried away to the
+cemetery. If the double obeyed the prescriptions of the "Book of the
+Dead" to the letter, he reached his goal without fail.[*] On leaving
+the tomb he turned his back on the valley, and staff in hand climbed
+the hills which bounded it on the west, plunging boldly into the desert,
+where some bird, or even a kindly insect such as a praying mantis, a
+grasshopper, or a butterfly, served as his guide. Soon he came to one of
+those sycamores which grow in the sand far away from the Nile, and
+are regarded as magic trees by the fellahin. Out of the foliage a
+goddess--Nuit, iiathor, or Nit--half emerged, and offered him a dish of
+fruit, loaves of bread, and a jar of water.
+
+     * Manuscripts of this work represent about nine-tenths of
+     the papyri hitherto discovered. They are not all equally
+     full; complete copies are still relatively scarce, and most
+     of those found with mummies contain nothing but extracts of
+     varying length. The book itself was studied by Champollion,
+     who called it the _Funerary Ritual_; Lepsius afterwards gave
+     it the less definite name of _Book of the Dead_, which seems
+     likely to prevail. It has been chiefly known from the
+     hieroglyphic copy at Turin, which Lepsius traced and had
+     lithographed in 1841, under the title of _Das Todtenbuch der
+     AEgypter_. In 1865, E. du Rouge began to publish a hieratic
+     copy in the Louvre, but since 1886 there has been a critical
+     edition of manuscripts of the Theban period most carefully
+     collated by E. Naville, _Das Mgyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII
+     bis XX Dynastie_, Berlin, 1886, 2 vols, of plates in folio,
+     and 1 vol. of Introduction in 4to. On this edition see
+     Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 325-387.
+
+By accepting these gifts he became the guest of the goddess, and could
+never more retrace his steps[*] without special permission. Beyond
+the sycamore were lands of terror, infested by serpents and ferocious
+beasts, furrowed by torrents of boiling water, intersected by ponds and
+marshes where gigantic monkeys cast their nets.
+
+     *  Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 224-227. It was not in Egypt
+     alone that the fact of accepting food offered by a god of
+     the dead constituted a recognition of suzerainty, and
+     prevented the human soul from returning to the world of the
+     living. Traces of this belief are found everywhere, in
+     modern as in ancient times, and E. B. Tylob, has collected
+     numerous examples of the same in Primitive Culture, 2nd
+     edit., vol. ii. pp. 47, 51, 52.
+
+[Illustration: 264.jpg THE DECEASED AND HIS WIFE SEATED IN FRONT OF THE
+SYCAMORE OF NUIT AND RECEIVING THE BREAD AND WATER OF THE NEXT WORLD. 2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coloured plate in
+     Rosellini, _Monumenti civili._,pl. cxxxiv. 3.
+
+Ignorant souls, or those ill prepared for the struggle, had no easy work
+before them when they imprudently entered upon it. Those who were not
+overcome by hunger and thirst at the outset were bitten by a urasus, or
+horned viper, hidden with evil intent below the sand, and perished in
+convulsions from the poison; or crocodiles seized as many of them as
+they could lay hold of at the fords of rivers; or cynocephali netted
+and devoured them indiscriminately along with the fish into which the
+partisans of Typhon were transformed. They came safe and sound out of
+one peril only to fall into another, and infallibly succumbed before
+they were half through their journey. But, on the other hand, the
+double who was equipped and instructed, and armed with the true voice,
+confronted each foe with the phylactery and the incantation by which his
+enemy was held in check. As soon as he caught sight of one of them he
+recited the appropriate chapter from his book, he loudly proclaimed
+himself Ra, Tumu, Horus, or Khopri--that god whose name and attributes
+were best fitted to repel the immediate danger--and flames withdrew at
+his voice, monsters fled or sank paralysed, the most cruel of genii
+drew in their claws and lowered their arms before him. He compelled
+crocodiles to turn away their heads; he transfixed serpents with his
+lance; he supplied himself at pleasure with all the provisions that he
+needed, and gradually ascended the mountains which surround the world,
+sometimes alone, and fighting his way step by step, sometimes escorted
+by beneficent divinities. Halfway up the slope was the good cow Hafchor,
+the lady of the West, in meadows of tall plants where every evening
+she received the sun at his setting. If the dead man knew how to ask
+it according to the prescribed rite, she would take him upon her
+shoulders[*] and carry him across the accursed countries at full speed.
+
+     *  Coffins of the XXth and XXIst dynasties, with a yellow
+     ground, often display this scene. Generally the scene is
+     found beneath the feet of the dead, at the lower end of the
+     cartonage, and the cow is represented as carrying off at a
+     gallop the mummy who is lying on her back.
+
+[Illustration: 266.jpg THE DECEASED PIERCING A SERPENT WITH HIS LANCE.
+2]
+
+     2  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville (_Das
+     AEgyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl. iii. P b). The commonest
+     enemies of the dead were various kinds of serpents.
+
+Having reached the North, he paused at the edge of an immense lake, the
+lake of Kha, and saw in the far distance the outline of the Islands of
+the Blest. One tradition, so old as to have been almost forgotten in
+Rames-side times, told how Thot the ibis there awaited him, and bore
+him away on his wings;[***] another, no less ancient but of more lasting
+popularity, declared that a ferry-boat plied regularly between the solid
+earth and the shores of paradise.
+
+     ***  It is often mentioned in the Pyramid texts, and
+     inspired one of the most obscure chapters among them
+     (_Teti_, 11. 185-200; cf. _Recueil de Travaux_, vol. v. pp.
+     22, 23). It seems that the ibis had to fight with Sit for
+     right of passage.
+
+The god who directed it questioned the dead, and the bark itself
+proceeded to examine them before they were admitted on board; for it
+was a magic bark. "Tell me my name," cried the mast; and the travellers
+replied: "He who guides the great goddess on her way is thy name." "Tell
+me my name," repeated the braces. "The Spine of the Jackal Uapuaitu is
+thy name." "Tell me my name," proceeded the mast-head.
+
+[Illustration: 267.jpg THE GOOD COW HATHOR CARRYING THE DEAD MAN AND HIS
+SOUL. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coloured facsimile
+     published by Leemans, _Monuments Egyptiens du Musee d'
+     Antiquites des Pays-Bas a Leyden_, part iii. pl. xii.
+
+"The Neck of Amsit is thy name." "Tell me my name," asked the sail.
+"Nuit is thy name." Each part of the hull and of the rigging spoke
+in turn and questioned the applicant regarding its name, this being
+generally a mystic phrase by which it was identified either with some
+divinity as a whole, or else with some part of his body.
+
+When the double had established his right of passage by the correctness
+of his answers, the bark consented to receive him and to carry him to
+the further shore. There he was met by the gods and goddesses of the
+court of Osiris: by Anubis, by Hathor the lady of the cemetery, by Nit,
+by the two Maits who preside over justice and truth, and by the four
+children of Horus stiff-sheathed in their mummy wrappings. They formed
+as it were a guard of honour to introduce him and his winged guide into
+an immense hall, the ceiling of which rested on light graceful columns
+of painted wood.
+
+[Illustration: 268.jpg ANUBIS AND THOT WEIGHING THE HEART OF THE
+DECEASED IN THE SCALES OF TRUTH. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn  by   Faucher-Gudin,   from  pl.  cxxxvi. Ag of
+     Naville's  _Das Thebanische Todtenbuch_.
+
+At the further end of the hall Osiris was seated in mysterious twilight
+within a shrine through whose open doors he might be seen wearing a red
+necklace over his close-fitting case of white bandaging, his green face
+surmounted by the tall white diadem flanked by two plumes, his slender
+hands grasping flail and crook, the emblems of his power.
+
+[Illustration: 269.jpg THE DECEASED IS BROUGHT BEFORE THE SHRINE OF
+OSIRIS THE JUDGE BY HORUS, THE SON OF ISIS.]
+
+Behind him stood Isis and Nephthys watching over him with uplifted
+hands, bare bosoms, and bodies straitly cased in linen. Forty-two jurors
+who had died and been restored to life like their lord, and who had
+been chosen, one from each of those cities of Egypt which recognized
+his authority, squatted right and left, and motionless, clothed in the
+wrappings of the dead, silently waited until they were addressed.
+The soul first advanced to the foot of the throne, carrying on its
+outstretched hands the image of its heart or of its eyes, agents and
+accomplices of its sins and virtues. It humbly "smelt the earth," then
+arose, and with uplifted hands recited its profession of faith. "Hail
+unto you, ye lords of Truth! hail to thee, great god, lord of Truth and
+Justice! I have come before thee, my master; I have been brought to see
+thy beauties. For I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of thy
+forty-two gods who are with thee in the Hall of the Two Truths, living
+on the remains of sinners, gorging themselves with their blood, in that
+day when account is rendered before Onnophris, the true of voice. Thy
+name which is thine is 'the god whose two twins are the ladies of the
+two Truths;' and I, I know you, ye lords of the two Truths, I bring unto
+you Truth, I have destroyed sins for you. I have not committed iniquity
+against men! I have not oppressed the poor! I have not made defalcations
+in the necropolis! I have not laid labour upon any free man beyond that
+which he wrought for himself! I have not transgressed, I have not
+been weak, I have not defaulted, I have not committed that which is an
+abomination to the gods. I have not caused the slave to be ill-treated
+of his master! I have not starved any man, I have not made any to
+weep, I have not assassinated any man, I have not caused any man to be
+treacherously assassinated, and I have not committed treason against
+any! I have not in aught diminished the supplies of temples! I have not
+spoiled the shrewbread of the gods! I have not taken away the loaves and
+the wrappings of the dead! I have done no carnal act within the sacred
+enclosure of the temple! I have not blasphemed! I have in nought
+curtailed the sacred revenues! I have not pulled down the scale of the
+balance! I have not falsified the beam of the balance! I have not taken
+away the milk from the mouths of sucklings! I have not lassoed cattle on
+their pastures! I have not taken with nets the birds of the gods! I
+have not fished in their ponds! I have not turned back the water in its
+season! I have not cut off a water-channel in its course! I have not
+put out the fire in its time! I have not defrauded the Nine Gods of the
+choice part of victims! I have not ejected the oxen of the gods! I have
+not turned back the god at his coming forth! I am pure! I am pure! I am
+pure! I am pure! Pure as this Great Bonu of Heracleopolis is pure!...
+There is no crime against me in this land of the Double Truth! Since I
+know the names of the gods who are with thee in the Hall of the Double
+Truth, save thou me from them!" He then turned towards the jury and
+pleaded his cause before them. They had been severally appointed for
+the cognizance of particular sins, and the dead man took each of them by
+name to witness that he was innocent of the sin which that one recorded.
+His plea ended, he returned to the supreme judge, and repeated, under
+what is sometimes a highly mystic form, the ideas which he had already
+advanced in the first part of his address. "Hail unto you, ye gods who
+are in the Great Hall of the Double Truth, who have no falsehood in
+your bosoms, but who live on Truth in Aunu, and feed your hearts upon it
+before the Lord God who dwelleth in his solar disc! Deliver me from
+the Typhon who feedeth on entrails, O chiefs! in this hour of supreme
+judgment;--grant that the deceased may come unto you, he who hath not
+sinned, who hath neither lied, nor done evil, nor committed any crime,
+who hath not borne false witness, who hath done nought against himself,
+but who liveth on truth, who feedeth on truth. He hath spread joy on all
+sides; men speak of that which he hath done, and the gods rejoice in it.
+He hath reconciled the god to him by his love; he hath given bread to
+the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked; he hath given
+a boat to the shipwrecked; he hath offered sacrifices to the gods,
+sepulchral meals unto the manes. Deliver him from himself, speak not
+against him before the Lord of the Dead, for his mouth is pure, and his
+two hands are pure!" In the middle of the Hall, however, his acts were
+being weighed by the assessors. Like all objects belonging to the gods,
+the balance is magic, and the genius which animates it sometimes shows
+its fine and delicate little human head on the top of the upright
+stand which forms its body. Everything about the balance recalls its
+superhuman origin: a cynocephalus, emblematic of Thot, sits perched on
+the upright and watches the beam; the cords which suspend the scales are
+made of alternate _cruces ansato and tats_. Truth squats upon one of
+the scales; Thot, ibis-headed, places the heart on the other, and always
+merciful, bears upon the side of Truth that judgment may be favourably
+inclined. He affirms that the heart is light of offence, inscribes
+the result of the proceeding upon a wooden tablet, and pronounces the
+verdict aloud. "Thus saith Thot, lord of divine discourse, scribe of
+the Great Ennead, to his father Osiris, lord of eternity, 'Behold the
+deceased in this Hall of the Double Truth, his heart hath been weighed
+in the balance in the presence of the great genii, the lords of Hades,
+and been found true. No trace of earthly impurity hath been found in
+his heart. Now that he leaveth the tribunal true of voice, his heart
+is restored to him, as well as his eyes and the material cover of his
+heart, to be put back in their places each in its own time, his soul in
+heaven, his heart in the other world, as is the custom of the "Followers
+of Horus." Henceforth let his body lie in the hands of Anubis, who
+presideth over the tombs; let him receive offerings at the cemetery in
+the presence of Onno-phris; let him be as one of those favourites who
+follow thee; let his soul abide where it will in the necropolis of
+his city, he whose voice is true before the Great Ennead.'" In this
+"Negative Confession," which the worshippers of Osiris taught to their
+dead, all is not equally admirable. The material interests of the temple
+were too prominent, and the crime of killing a sacred goose or stealing
+a loaf from the bread offerings was considered as abominable as calumny
+or murder. But although it contains traces of priestly cupidity, yet
+how many of its precepts are untarnished in their purity by any selfish
+ulterior motive! In it is all our morality in germ, and with refinements
+of delicacy often lacking among peoples of later and more advanced
+civilizations. The god does not confine his favour to the prosperous and
+the powerful of this world; he bestows it also upon the poor. His will
+is that they be fed and clothed, and exempted from tasks beyond their
+strength; that they be not oppressed, and that unnecessary tears be
+spared them. If this does not amount to the love of our neighbour as our
+religions preach it, at least it represents the careful solicitude due
+from a good lord to his vassals. His pity extends to slaves; not only
+does he command that no one should ill-treat them himself, but he
+forbids that their masters should be led to ill-treat them. This
+profession of faith, one of the noblest bequeathed us by the old world,
+is of very ancient origin. It may be read in scattered fragments upon
+the monuments of the first dynasties, and the way in which its ideas are
+treated by the compilers of these inscriptions proves that it was not
+then regarded as new, but as a text so old and so well known that its
+formulas were current in all mouths, and had their prescribed places
+in epitaphs.[*] Was it composed in Mendes, the god's own home, or in
+Heliopolis, when the theologians of that city appropriated the god of
+Mendes and incorporated him in their Ennead? In conception it certainly
+belongs to the Osirian priesthood, but it can only have been diffused
+over the whole of Egypt after the general adoption of the Heliopolitan
+Ennead throughout the cities.
+
+As soon as he was judged, the dead man entered into the possession of
+his rights as a pure soul. On high he received from the Universal
+Lord all that kings and princes here below bestowed upon their
+followers--rations of food,[**] and a house, gardens, and fields to be
+held subject to the usual conditions of tenure in Egypt, i.e. taxation,
+military service, and the corvee.
+
+     *  For instance, one of the formulas found in Memphite tombs
+     states that the deceased had been the friend of his father,
+     the beloved of his mother, sweet to those who lived with
+     him, gracious to his brethren, loved of his servants, and
+     that he had never sought wrongful quarrel with any man;
+     briefly, that he spoke and did that which is right here
+     below.
+
+     **  The formula of the pyramid times is: "Thy thousand of
+     oxen, thy thousand of geese, of roast and boiled joints from
+     the larder of the gods, of bread, and plenty of the good
+     things presented in the hall of Osiris."
+
+If the island was attacked by the partisans of Sit, the Osirian doubles
+hastened in a body to repulse them, and fought bravely in its defence.
+Of the revenues sent to him by his kindred on certain days and by means
+of sacrifices, each gave tithes to the heavenly storehouses. Yet this
+was but the least part of the burdens laid upon him by the laws of the
+country, which did not suffer him to become enervated by idleness, but
+obliged him to labour as in the days when he still dwelt in Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 275.jpg THE MANES TILLING THE GROUND AND REAPING IN THE
+FIELDS OF IALU. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in the funerary
+     papyrus of Nebhopit in Turin.
+
+He looked after the maintenance of canals and dykes, he tilled the
+ground, he sowed, he reaped, he garnered the grain for his lord and for
+himself. Yet to those upon whom they were incumbent, these posthumous
+obligations, the sequel and continuation of feudal service, at length
+seemed too heavy, and theologians exercised their ingenuity to find
+means of lightening the burden. They authorized the manes to look to
+their servants for the discharge of all manual labour which they ought
+to have performed themselves. Barely did a dead man, no matter how
+poor, arrive unaccompanied at the eternal cities; he brought with him a
+following proportionate to his rank and fortune upon earth.
+
+[Illustration: 276.jpg UASHBITI. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a painted limestone statuette
+     from the tomb of _Sonnozmu_ at Thebes, dating from the end
+     of the XXth dynasty.
+
+At first they were real doubles, those of slaves or vassals killed at
+the tomb, and who had departed along with the double of the master to
+serve him beyond the grave as they had served him here. A number of
+statues and images, magically endued with activity and intelligence,
+was afterwards substituted for this retinue of victims. Originally of
+so large a size that only the rich or noble could afford them, they were
+reduced little by little to the height of a few inches. Some were carved
+out of alabaster, granite, diorite, fine limestone, or moulded out
+of fine clay and delicately modelled; others had scarcely any human
+resemblance. They were endowed with life by means of a formula recited
+over them at the time of their manufacture, and afterwards traced upon
+their legs. All were possessed of the same faculties. When the god who
+called the Osirians to the corvee pronounced the name of the dead man to
+whom the figures belonged, they arose and answered for him; hence their
+designation of "Respondents "--_Uashbiti_. Equipped for agricultural
+labour, each grasping a hoe and carrying a seed-bag on his shoulder,
+they set out to work in their appointed places, contributing the
+required number of days of forced labour.
+
+[Illustration: 277.jpg THE DEAD MAN AND HIS WIFE PLAYING AT DRAUGHTS IN
+THE PAVILION. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in No, 4 Papyrus,
+     Dublin (Naville, _Das Mgyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl.
+     xxvii. Da). The name of draughts is not altogether accurate;
+     a description of the game may be found in Falkner, _Games
+     Ancient and Oriental and how to play them_, pp. 9-101.
+
+Up to a certain point they thus compensated for those inequalities of
+condition which death itself did not efface among the vassals of Osiris;
+for the figures were sold so cheaply that even the poorest could always
+afford some for themselves, or bestow a few upon their relations; and
+in the Islands of the Blest, fellah, artisan, and slave were indebted to
+the Uashbiti for release from their old routine of labour and unending
+toil. While the little peasants of stone or glazed ware dutifully toiled
+and tilled and sowed, their masters were enjoying all the delights
+of the Egyptian paradise in perfect idleness. They sat at ease by the
+water-side, inhaling the fresh north breeze, under the shadow of trees
+which were always green. They fished with lines among the lotus-plants;
+they embarked in their boats, and were towed along by their servants, or
+they would sometimes deign to paddle themselves slowly about the canals.
+
+[Illustration: 278.jpg THE DEAD MAN SAILING IN HIS BARK ALONG THE CANALS
+OF THE FIELDS OF IALIT. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the Papyrus of Nebhopit, in
+     Turin. This drawing is from part of the same scene as the
+     illustration on p. 275.
+
+They went fowling among the reed-beds, or retired within their painted
+pavilions to read tales, to play at draughts, to return to their wives
+who were for ever young and beautiful.[**]
+
+     **  Gymnastic exercises, hunting, fishing, sailing, are all
+     pictured in Theban tombs. The game of draughts is mentioned
+     in the title of chap. xvii. of the _Book of the Dead_
+     (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 2), and the
+     women's pavilion is represented in the tomb of Rakhmiri That
+     the dead were supposed to read tales is proved from the fact
+     that broken ostraca bearing long fragments of literary works
+     are found in tombs; they were broken to kill them and to
+     send on their doubles to the dead man in the next world.
+
+It was but an ameliorated earthly life, divested of all suffering under
+the rule and by the favour of the true-voiced Onnophris. The feudal gods
+promptly adopted this new mode of life.
+
+[Illustration: 279.jpg BOAT OF A FUNERARY FLEET ON ITS WAY TO ABYDOS. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Einil
+     Brugsch-Bey. The original was found in the course of M. de
+     Morgan's excavations at Meir, and is now at Gizeh. The dead
+     man is sitting in the cabin, wrapped in his cloak. As far as
+     I know, this is the only boat which has preserved its
+     original rigging.    It dates from the XIth or XIIth
+     dynasty.
+
+Each of their dead bodies, mummified, and afterwards reanimated in
+accordance with the Osirian myth, became an Osiris as did that of any
+ordinary person. Some carried the assimilation so far as to absorb the
+god of Mendes, or to be absorbed in him. At Memphis Phtah-Sokaris
+became Phtah-Sokar-Osiris, and at Thinis Khontamentifc became Osiris
+Khontamentit. The sun-god lent himself to this process with comparative
+ease because his life is more like a man's life, and hence also more
+like that of Osiris, which is the counterpart of a man's life.
+
+[Illustration: 280.jpg THE SOLAR BARK INTO WHICH THE DEAD MAN IS ABOUT
+TO ENTER. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a vignette in the Papyrus of
+     Nebqadn, in Paris.
+
+Born in the morning, he ages as the day declines, and gently passes away
+at evening. From the time of his entering the sky to that of his leaving
+it, he reigns above as he reigned here below in the beginning; but when
+he has left the sky and sinks into Hades, he becomes as one of the dead,
+and is, as they are, subjected to Osirian embalmment. The same dangers
+that menace their human souls threaten his soul also; and when he has
+vanquished them, not in his own strength, but by the power of amulets
+and magical formulas, he enters into the fields of lalu, and ought to
+dwell there for ever under the rule of Onuophris. He did nothing of the
+kind, however, for daily the sun was to be seen reappearing in the east
+twelve hours after it had sunk into the darkness of the west. Was it a
+new orb each time, or did the same sun shine every day? In either case
+the result was precisely the same; the god came forth from death and
+re-entered into life. Having identified the course of the sun-god with
+that of man, and Ra with Osiris for a first day and a first night,
+it was hard not to push the matter further, and identify them for all
+succeeding days and nights, affirming that man and Osiris might, if they
+so wished, be born again in the morning, as Ra was, and together with
+him. If the Egyptians had found the prospect of quitting the darkness of
+the tomb for the bright meadows of Ialu a sensible alleviation of their
+lot, with what joy must they have been filled by the conception which
+allowed them to substitute the whole realm of the sun for a little
+archipelago in an out-of-the-way corner of the universe. Their first
+consideration was to obtain entrance into the divine bark, and this
+was the object of all the various practices and prayers, whose text,
+together with that which already contained the Osirian formulas, ensured
+the unfailing protection of Ra to their possessor. The soul desirous of
+making use of them went straight from his tomb to the very spot where
+the god left earth to descend into Hades. This was somewhere in the
+immediate neighbourhood of Abydos, and was reached through a narrow
+gorge or "cleft" in the Libyan range, whose "mouth" opened in front
+of the temple of Osiris Khontamentit, a little to the north-west of the
+city. The soul was supposed to be carried thither by a small flotilla of
+boats, manned by figures representing friends or priests, and laden with
+food, furniture, and statues. This flotilla was placed within the
+vault on the day of the funeral, and was set in motion by means of
+incantations recited over it during one of the first nights of the year,
+at the annual feast of the dead. The bird or insect which had previously
+served as guide to the soul upon its journey now took the helm to show
+the fleet the right way, and under this command the boats left Abydos
+and mysteriously passed through the "cleft" into that western sea which
+is inaccessible to the living, there to await the daily coming of the
+dying sun-god.
+
+[Illustration: 282.jpg THE SOLAR BARK PASSING INTO THE MOUNTAIN OF THE
+WEST. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a very small photograph
+     published in the Catalogue of the Minutoli Sale.
+
+As soon as his bark appeared at the last bend of the celestial Nile,
+the cynocephali, who guarded the entrance into night, began to dance and
+gesticulate upon the banks as they intoned their accustomed hymn. The
+gods of Abydos mingled their shouts of joy with the chant of the sacred
+baboons, the bark lingered for a moment upon the frontiers of day, and
+initiated souls seized the occasion to secure their recognition and
+their reception on board of it.[*] Once admitted, they took their share
+in the management of the boat, and in the battles with hostile deities;
+but they were not all endowed with the courage or equipment needful to
+withstand the perils and terrors of the voyage. Many stopped short by
+the way in one of the regions which it traversed, either in the realm of
+Khontamentit, or in that of Sokaris, or in those islands where the good
+Osiris welcomed them as though they had duly arrived in the ferry-boat,
+or upon the wing of Thot. There they dwelt in colonies under the
+suzerainty of local gods, rich, and in need of nothing, but condemned
+to live in darkness, excepting for the one brief hour in which the
+solar bark passed through their midst, irradiating them with beams of
+light.[**]
+
+     *  This description of the embarkation and voyage of the
+     soul is composed from indications given in one of the
+     vignettes of chap. xvi. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's
+     edition, vol. i. pl. xxii.), combined with the text of a
+     formula which became common from the times of the XIth and
+     XIIth dynasties (Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et
+     l'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 14-18, and _Etudes
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 122, 123).
+
+
+     **  Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
+     Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 44, 45.
+
+The few persevered, feeling that they had courage to accompany the sun
+throughout, and these were indemnified for their sufferings by the most
+brilliant fate ever dreamed of by Egyptian souls., Born anew with the
+sun-god and appearing with him at the gates of the east, they were
+assimilated to him, and shared his privilege of growing old and dying,
+only to be ceaselessly rejuvenated and to live again with ever-renewed
+splendour. They disembarked where they pleased, and returned at will
+into the world. If now and then they felt a wish to revisit all that was
+left of their earthly bodies, the human-headed sparrow-hawk descended
+the shaft in full flight, alighted upon the funeral couch, and, with
+hands softly laid upon the spot where the heart had been wont to beat,
+gazed upwards at the impassive mask of the mummy.
+
+[Illustration: 284.jpg THE SOUL DESCENDING THE SEPULCHRAL SHAFT ON ITS
+WAY TO REJOIN THE MUMMY. 1]
+
+      1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Deveria.
+
+This was but for a moment, since nothing compelled these perfect souls
+to be imprisoned within the tomb like the doubles of earlier times,
+because they feared the light. They "went forth by day," and dwelt in
+those places where they had lived; they walked in their gardens by their
+ponds of running water; they perched like so many birds on the branches
+of the trees which they had planted, or enjoyed the fresh air under the
+shade of their sycamores; they ate and drank at pleasure; they travelled
+by hill and dale; they embarked in the boat of Ra, and disembarked
+without weariness, and without distaste for the same perpetual round.
+
+This conception, which was developed somewhat late, brought the
+Egyptians back to the point from which they had started when first they
+began to speculate on the life to come.
+
+[Illustration: 285.jpg THE SOUL ON THE EDGE OF THE FUNERAL COUCH, WITH
+ITS HANDS ON THE HEART OF THE MUMMY. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
+     Bey, reproducing the miniature sarcophagus of the scribe Ra
+     (Maspero, _Guide du Visiteur_, pp. 130, 131, No. 1621).
+
+The soul, after having left the place of its incarnation to which in the
+beginning it clung, after having ascended into heaven and there sought
+congenial asylum in vain, forsook all havens which it had found above,
+and unhesitatingly fell back upon earth, there to lead a peaceful, free,
+and happy life in the full light of day, and with the whole valley of
+Egypt for a paradise.
+
+The connection, always increasingly intimate between Osiris and Ra,
+gradually brought about a blending of the previously separate myths and
+beliefs concerning each. The friends and enemies of the one became the
+friends and enemies of the other, and from a mixture of the original
+conceptions of the two deities, arose new personalities, in which
+contradictory elements were blent together, often without true fusion.
+The celestial Horuses one by one were identified with Horus, son of
+Isis, and their attributes were given to him, as his in the same way
+became theirs. Apopi and the monsters--the hippopotamus, the crocodile,
+the wild boar--who lay in wait for Ra as he sailed the heavenly ocean,
+became one with Sit and his accomplices. Sit still possessed his half
+of Egypt, and his primitive brotherly relation to the celestial Horus
+remained unbroken, either 'on account of their sharing one temple, as at
+Nubit, or because they were worshipped as one in two neighbouring
+nomes, as, for example, at Oxyrrhynchos and at Heracleopolis Magna.
+The repulsion with which the slayer of Osiris was regarded did not
+everywhere dissociate these two cults: certain small districts persisted
+in this double worship down to the latest times of paganism. It was,
+after all, a mark of fidelity to the oldest traditions of the race, but
+the bulk of the Egyptians, who had forgotten these, invented reasons
+taken from the history of the divine dynasties to explain the fact. The
+judgment of Thot or of Sibu had not put an end to the machinations of
+Sit: as soon as Horus had left the earth, Sit resumed them, and pursued
+them, with varying fortune, under the divine kings of the second Ennead.
+Now, in the year 363 of Harmakhis, the Typhonians reopened the campaign.
+Beaten at first near Edfu, they retreated precipitately northwards,
+stopping to give battle wherever their partisans predominated,--at
+Zatmifc in the Theban nome,[*] at Khaitnutrit to the north-east of
+Denderah, and at Hibonu in the principality of the Gazelle.
+
+     *  Zatmit appears to have been situate at some distance from
+     Bayadiyeh, on the spot where the map published by the
+     Egyptian Commission marks the ruins of a modern village.
+     There was a necropolis of considerable extent there, which
+     furnishes the Luxor dealers with antiquities, many of which
+     belong to the first Theban empire.
+
+[Illustration: 287.jpg THE SOUL GOING FORTH INTO ITS GARDEN BY DAY. 2]
+
+     2  Copied by Faucher-Gudin from the survey-drawings of the
+     tomb of Anni by Boussac, member of the _Mission francaise_
+     in Egypt (1891). The inscription over the arbour gives the
+     list of the various trees in the garden of Anni during his
+     lifetime.
+
+Several bloody combats, which took place between Oxyrrhynchos and
+Heracleopolis Magna, were the means of driving them finally out of the
+Nile Valley; they rallied for the last time in the eastern provinces
+of the Delta, were beaten at Zalu, and giving up all hope of success on
+land, they embarked at the head of the Gulf of Suez, in order to return
+to the Nubian Desert, their habitual refuge in times of distress.
+The sea was the special element of Typhon, and upon it they believed
+themselves secure. Horus, however, followed them, overtook them near
+Shas-hirit, routed them, and on his return to Edfu, celebrated his
+victory by a solemn festival. By degrees, as he made himself master
+of those localities which owed allegiance to Sit, he took energetic
+measures to establish in them the authority of Osiris and of the solar
+cycle. In all of them he built, side by side with the sanctuary of the
+Typhonian divinities, a temple to himself, in which he was enthroned
+under the particular form he was obliged to assume in order to vanquish
+his enemies. Metamorphosed into a hawk at the battle of Hibonu, we
+next see him springing on to the back of Sit under the guise of a
+hippopotamus; in his shrine at Hibonu he is represented as a hawk
+perching on the back of a gazelle, emblem of the nome where the struggle
+took place. Near to Zalu he became incarnate as a human-headed lion,
+crowned with the triple diadem, and having feet armed with claws which
+cut like a knife; it was under the form, too, of a lion that he was
+worshipped in the temple at Zalu. The correlation of Sit and the
+celestial Horus was not, therefore, for these Egyptians of more recent
+times a primitive religious fact; it was the consequence, and so to
+speak the sanction, of the old hostility between the two gods.
+
+[Illustration: 289.jpg]
+
+Horus had treated his enemy in the same fashion that a victorious
+Pharaoh treated the barbarians conquered by his arms: he had constructed
+a fortress to keep his foe in check, and his priests formed a sort of
+garrison as a precaution against the revolt of the rival priesthood and
+the followers of the rival deity. In this manner the battles of the gods
+were changed into human struggles, in which, more than once, Egypt was
+deluged with blood. The hatred of the followers of Osiris to those of
+Typhon was perpetuated with such implacability, that the nomes which had
+persisted in adhering to the worship of Sit, became odious to the
+rest of the population: the image of their master on the monuments was
+mutilated, their names were effaced from the geographical lists, they
+were assailed with insulting epithets, and to pursue and slay their
+sacred animals was reckoned a pious act. Thus originated those
+skirmishes which developed into actual civil wars, and were continued
+down to Roman times. The adherents of Typhon only became more confirmed
+in their veneration for the accursed god; Christianity alone overcame
+their obstinate fidelity to him.[*]
+
+     * This incident in the wars of Horus and Sit is drawn by
+     Faucher-Gudin from a bas-relief of the temple of Edfu. On
+     the right, Har-Huditi, standing up in the solar bark,
+     pierces with his lance the head of a crocodile, a partisan
+     of Sit, lying in the water below; Harmakhis, standing behind
+     him, is present at the execution. Facing this divine pair,
+     is the young Horus, who kills a man, another partisan of
+     Sit, while Isis and Har-Huditi hold his chains; behind
+     Horus, Isis and Thot are leading four other captives bound
+     and ready to be sacrificed before Harmakhis.
+
+The history of the world for Egypt was therefore only the history of the
+struggle between the adherents of Osiris and the followers of Sit; an
+interminable warfare in which sometimes one and sometimes the other of
+the rival parties obtained a passing advantage, without ever gaining a
+decisive victory till the end of time. The divine kings of the second
+and third Ennead devoted most of the years of their earthly reign
+to this end; they were portrayed under the form of the great warrior
+Pharaohs, who, from the eighteenth to the twelfth century before our
+era, extended their rule from the plains of the Euphrates to the marshes
+of Ethiopia. A few peaceful sovereigns are met with here and there in
+this line of conquerors--a few sages or legislators, of whom the most
+famous was styled Thot, the doubly great, ruler of Hermopolis and of
+the Hermopolitan Ennead. A legend of recent origin made him the prime
+minister of Horus, son of Isis; a still more ancient tradition would
+identify him with the second king of the second dynasty, the immediate
+successor of the divine Horuses, and attributes to him a reign of 3226
+years. He brought to the throne that inventive spirit and that creative
+power which had characterized him from the time when he was only
+a feudal deity. Astronomy, divination, magic, medicine, writing,
+drawing--in fine, all the arts and sciences emanated from him as from
+their first source. He had taught mankind the methodical observation
+of the heavens and of the changes that took place in them, the slow
+revolutions of the sun, the rapid phases of the moon, the intersecting
+movements of the five planets, and the shapes and limits of the
+constellations which each night were lit up in the sky. Most of the
+latter either remained, or appeared to remain immovable, and seemed
+never to pass out of the regions accessible to the human eye. Those
+which were situate on the extreme margin of the firmament accomplished
+movements there analogous to those of the planets.
+
+[Illustration: 293.jpg ONE OF THE ASTRONOMICAL TABLES OF THE TOMB OF
+RAMSES IV. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a copy by Lepsius, _Denkm._,
+     iii. 227, 3.
+
+Every year at fixed times they were seen to sink one after another below
+the horizon, to disappear, and rising again after an eclipse of greater
+or less duration, to regain insensibly their original positions. The
+constellations were reckoned to be thirty-six in number, the thirty-six
+_decani_ to whom were attributed mysterious powers, and of whom Sothis
+was queen--Sothis transformed into the star of Isis, when Orion (Sahu),
+became the star of Osiris. The nights are so clear and the atmosphere so
+transparent in Egypt, that the eye can readily penetrate the depths of
+space, and distinctly see points of light which would be invisible
+in our foggy climate. The Egyptians did not therefore need special
+instruments to ascertain the existence of a considerable number of stars
+which we could not see without the help of our telescopes; they could
+perceive with the naked eye stars of the fifth magnitude, and note them
+upon their catalogues.[*] It entailed, it is true, a long training and
+uninterrupted practice to bring their sight up to its maximum keenness;
+but from very early times it was a function of the priestly colleges
+to found and maintain schools of astronomy. The first observatories
+established on the banks of the Nile seem to have belonged to the
+temples of the sun; the high priests of Ra--who, to judge from their
+title, were alone worthy to behold the sun face to face--were actively
+employed from the earliest times in studying the configuration and
+preparing maps of the heavens. The priests of other gods were quick to
+follow their example: at the opening of the historic period, there was
+not a single temple, from one end of the valley to the other, that did
+not possess its official astronomers, or, as they were called, "watchers
+of the night."[**]
+
+     *   Biot, however, states that stars of the third and fourth
+     magnitude "are the smallest which can be seen with the
+     naked eye." I believe I am right in affirming that several
+     of the fellahin and Bedawin attached to the "service des
+     Antiquites" can see stars which are usually classed with
+     those of the fifth magnitude.
+
+     **   _Urshu_: this word is also used for the soldiers on
+     watch during the day upon the walls of a fortress. Birch
+     believed he had discovered in the British Museum a catalogue
+     of observations made at Thebes by several astronomers upon a
+     constellation which answered to the Hyades or the Pleiades;
+     it was merely a question in this text of the quantity of
+     water supplied regularly to the astronomers of a Theban
+     temple for their domestic purposes.
+
+In the evening they went up on to the high terraces above the shrine, or
+on to the narrow platforms which terminated the pylons, and fixing
+their eyes continuously on the celestial vault above them, followed the
+movements of the constellations and carefully noted down the slightest
+phenomena which they observed. A portion of the chart of the heavens,
+as known to Theban Egypt between the eighteenth and twelfth centuries
+before our era, has survived to the present time; parts of it were
+carved by the decorators on the ceilings of temples, and especially on
+royal tombs. The deceased Pharaohs were identified with Osiris in a more
+intimate fashion than their subjects. They represented the god even in
+the most trivial details; on earth--where, after having played the part
+of the beneficent Onnophris of primitive ages, they underwent the most
+complete and elaborate embalming, like Osiris of the lower world; in
+Hades--where they embarked side by side with the Sun-Osiris to cross the
+night and to be born again at daybreak; in heaven--where they shone with
+Orion-Sahu under the guardianship of Sothis, and, year by year, led the
+procession of the stars. The maps of the firmament recalled to them, or
+if necessary taught them, this part of their duties: they there saw
+the planets and the _decani_ sail past in their boats, and the
+constellations follow one another in continuous succession. The lists
+annexed to the charts indicated the positions occupied each month by the
+principal heavenly bodies--their risings, their culminations, and their
+settings. Unfortunately, the workmen employed to execute these pictures
+either did not understand much about the subject in hand, or did not
+trouble themselves to copy the originals exactly: they omitted many
+passages, transposed others, and made endless mistakes, which made it
+impossible for us to transfer accurately to a modern map the information
+possessed by the ancients.
+
+In directing their eyes to the celestial sphere, Thot had at the same
+time revealed to men the art of measuring time, and the knowledge of the
+future. As he was the moon-god _par excellence_, he watched with jealous
+care over the divine eye which had been entrusted to him by Horus, and
+the thirty days during which he was engaged in conducting it through all
+the phases of its nocturnal life, were reckoned as a month. Twelve of
+these months formed the year, a year of three hundred and sixty days,
+during which the earth witnessed the gradual beginning and ending of the
+circle of the seasons. The Nile rose, spread over the fields, sank again
+into its channel; to the vicissitudes of the inundation succeeded the
+work of cultivation; the harvest followed the seedtime: these formed
+three distinct divisions of the year, each of nearly equal duration.
+Thot made of them the three seasons,--that of the waters, Shait; that
+of vegetation, Piruit; that of the harvest, Shomu--each comprising
+four months, numbered one to four; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months of
+Shait; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months of Piruit; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,
+and 4th months of Shomu. The twelve months completed, a new year began,
+whose birth was heralded by the rising of Sothis in the early days of
+August. The first month of the Egyptian year thus coincided with the
+eighth of ours. Thot became its patron, and gave it his name, relegating
+each of the others to a special protecting divinity; in this manner
+the third month of Shait fell to Hathor, and was called after her; the
+fourth of Piruit belonged to Ranuit or Ramuit, the lady of harvests, and
+derived from her its appellation of Pharmuti. Official documents always
+designated the months by the ordinal number attached to them in each
+season, but the people gave them by preference the names of their
+tutelary deities, and these names, transcribed into Greek, and then into
+Arabic, are still used by the Christian inhabitants of Egypt, side by
+side with the Mussulman appellations. One patron for each month was,
+however, not deemed sufficient: each month was subdivided into three
+decades, over which presided as many _decani_, and the days themselves
+were assigned to genii appointed to protect them. A number of festivals
+were set apart at irregular intervals during the course of the year:
+festivals for the new year, festivals for the beginning of the seasons,
+months and decades, festivals for the dead, for the supreme gods, and
+for local divinities. Every act of civil life was so closely allied to
+the religious life, that it could not be performed without a sacrifice
+or a festival. A festival celebrated the cutting of the dykes, another
+the opening of the canals, a third the reaping of the first sheaf, or
+the carrying of the grain; a crop gathered or stored without a festival
+to implore the blessing of the gods, would have been an act of sacrilege
+and fraught with disaster. The first year of three hundred and sixty
+days, regulated by the revolutions of the moon, did not long meet the
+needs of the Egyptian people; it did not correspond with the length of
+the solar year, for it fell short of it by five and a quarter days, and
+this deficit, accumulating from twelvemonth to twelvemonth, caused such
+a serious difference between the calendar reckoning and the natural
+seasons, that it soon had to be corrected. They intercalated, therefore,
+after the twelfth month of each year and before the first day of the
+ensuing year, five epagomenal days, which they termed the "five days
+over and above the year."[*]
+
+     * There appears to be a tendency among Egyptologists now to
+     doubt the existence, under the Ancient Empire, of the five
+     epagomenal days, and as a fact they are nowhere to be found
+     expressly mentioned; but we know that the five gods of the
+     Osirian cycle were born during the epagomenal day (cf. p.
+     247 of this History), and the allusions to the Osirian
+     legend which are met with in the Pyramid texts, prove that
+     the days were added long before the time when those
+     inscriptions were cut. As the wording of the texts often
+     comes down from prehistoric times, it is most likely that
+     the invention of the epagomenal days is anterior to the
+     first Thinite and Memphite dynasties.
+
+The legend of Osiris relates that Thot created them in order to permit
+Nuit to give birth to all her children. These days constituted, at the
+end of the "great year," a "little month," which considerably lessened
+the difference between the solar and lunar computation, but did not
+entirely do away with it, and the six hours and a few minutes of which
+the Egyptians had not taken count gradually became the source of fresh
+perplexities. They at length amounted to a whole day, which needed to
+be added every four years to the regular three hundred and sixty days,
+a fact which was unfortunately overlooked. The difficulty, at first only
+slight, which this caused in public life, increased with time, and ended
+by disturbing the harmony between the order of the calendar and that of
+natural phenomena: at the end of a hundred and twenty years, the legal
+year had gained a whole month on the actual year, and the 1st of Thot
+anticipated the heliacal rising of Sothis by thirty days, instead of
+coinciding with it as it ought. The astronomers of the Graeco-Roman
+period, after a retrospective examination of all the past history of
+their country, discovered a very ingenious theory for obviating this
+unfortunate discrepancy. If the omission of six hours annually entailed
+the loss of one day every four years, the time would come, after three
+hundred and sixty-five times four years, when the deficit would amount
+to an entire year, and when, in consequence, fourteen hundred and
+sixty whole years would exactly equal fourteen hundred and sixty-one
+incomplete years. The agreement of the two years, which had been
+disturbed by the force of circumstances, was re-established of itself
+after rather more than fourteen and a half centuries: the opening of the
+civil year became identical with the beginning of the astronomical
+year, and this again coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, and
+therefore with the official date of the inundation. To the Egyptians of
+Pharaonic times, this simple and eminently practical method was unknown:
+by means of it hundreds of generations, who suffered endless troubles
+from the recurring difference between an uncertain and a fixed year,
+might have consoled themselves with the satisfaction of knowing that
+a day would come when one of their descendants would, for once in
+his life, see both years coincide with mathematical accuracy, and
+the seasons appear at their normal times. The Egyptian year might be
+compared to a watch which loses a definite number of minutes daily. The
+owner does not take the trouble to calculate a cycle in which the total
+of minutes lost will bring the watch round to the correct time: he bears
+with the irregularity as long as his affairs do not suffer by it; but
+when it causes him inconvenience, he alters the hands to the right hour,
+and repeats this operation each time he finds it necessary, without
+being guided by a fixed rule. In like manner the Egyptian year fell
+into hopeless confusion with regard to the seasons, the discrepancy
+continually increasing, until the difference became so great, that the
+king or the priests had to adjust the two by a process similar to that
+employed in the case of the watch.
+
+The days, moreover, had each their special virtues, which it was
+necessary for man to know if he wished to profit by the advantages, or
+to escape the perils which they possessed for him. There was not one
+among them that did not recall some incident of the divine wars, and had
+not witnessed a battle between the partisans of Sit and those of Osiris
+or Ra; the victories or the disasters which they had chronicled had as
+it were stamped them with good or bad luck, and for that reason they
+remained for ever auspicious or the reverse. It was on the 17th of Athyr
+that Typhon had enticed his brother to come to him, and had murdered him
+in the middle of a banquet. Every year, on this day, the tragedy that
+had taken place in the earthly abode of the god seemed to be repeated
+afresh in the heights of heaven. Just as at the moment of the death of
+Osiris, the powers of good were at their weakest, and the sovereignty
+of evil everywhere prevailed, so the whole of Nature, abandoned to the
+powers of darkness, became inimical to man. Whatever he undertook on
+that day issued in failure. If he went out to walk by the river-side,
+a crocodile would attack him, as the crocodile sent by Sit had attacked
+Osiris. If he set out on a journey, it was a last farewell which he bade
+to his family and friends: death would meet him by the way. To escape
+this fatality, he must shut himself up at home, and wait in inaction
+until the hours of danger had passed and the sun of the ensuing day had
+put the evil one to flight.[*]
+
+     * On the 20th of Thot no work was to be done, no oxen
+     killed, no stranger received. On the 22nd no fish might be
+     eaten, no oil lamp was to be lighted. On the 23rd "put no
+     incense on the fire, nor kill big cattle, nor goats, nor
+     ducks; eat of no goose, nor of that which has lived." On the
+     26th "do absolutely nothing on this day," and the same
+     advice is found on the 7th of Paophi, on the 18th, on the
+     26th, on the 27th, and more than thirty times in the
+     remainder of the Sallier Calendar. On the 30th of Mechir it
+     is forbidden to speak aloud to any one.
+
+It was to his interest to know these adverse influences; and who would
+have known them all, had not Thot pointed them out and marked them in
+his calendars? One of these, long fragments of which have come down to
+us, indicated briefly the character of each day, the gods who presided
+over it, the perils which accompanied their patronage, or the good
+fortune which might be expected of them. The details of it are not
+always intelligible to us, as we are still ignorant of many of the
+episodes in the life of Osiris. The Egyptians were acquainted with the
+matter from childhood, and were guided with sufficient exactitude by
+these indications. The hours of the night were all inauspicious; those
+of the day were divided into three "seasons" of four hours each, of
+which some were lucky, while others were invariably of ill omen. "The
+4th of Tybi: _good, good, good_. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will
+be fortunate. Whosoever is born on this day, will die more advanced in
+years than any of his family; he will attain to a greater age than his
+father. The 5th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical, inimical_. This is the day
+on which the goddess Sokhifc, mistress of the double white Palace, burnt
+the chiefs when they raised an insurrection, came forth, and manifested
+themselves. Offerings of bread to Shu, Phtah, Thot: burn incense to Ra,
+and to the gods who are his followers, to Phtah, Thot, Hu-Su, on this
+day. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be fortunate. The 6th of
+Tybi: _good, good, good_. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be
+fortunate. The 7th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical, inimical_. Do not
+join thyself to a woman in the presence of the Eye of Horus. Beware of
+letting the fire go out which is in thy house. The 8th of Tybi: _good,
+good, good_. Whatsoever thou seest with thine eye this day, the Ennead
+of the gods will grant to thee: the sick will recover. The 9th of Tybi:
+_good, good, good_. The gods cry out for joy at noon this day. Bring
+offerings of festal cakes and of fresh bread, which rejoice the heart
+of the gods and of the manes. The 10th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical,
+mimical_. Do not set fire to weeds on this day: it is the day on
+which the god Sap-hou set fire to the land of Btito. The 11th of Tybi:
+_inimical, inimical, inimical_. Do not draw nigh to any flame on this
+day, for Ra entered the flames to strike all his enemies, and whosoever
+draws nigh to them on this day, it shall not be well with him during his
+whole life. The 12th of Tybi: _inimical, inimical, inimical_. See that
+thou beholdest not a rat on this day, nor approachest any rat within thy
+house: it is the day wherein Sokhit gave forth the decrees." In these
+cases a little watchfulness or exercise of memory sufficed to put a
+man on his guard against evil omens; but in many circumstances all the
+vigilance in the world would not protect him, and the fatality of the
+day would overtake him, without his being able to do ought to avert it.
+No man can at will place the day of his birth at a favourable time; he
+must accept it as it occurs, and yet it exercises a decisive influence
+on the manner of his death. According as he enters the world on the 4th,
+5th, or 6th of Paophi, he either dies of marsh fever, of love, or of
+drunkenness. The child of the 23rd perishes by the jaws of a crocodile:
+that of the 27th is bitten and dies by a serpent. On the other hand, the
+fortunate man whose birthday falls on the 9th or the 29th lives to an
+extreme old age, and passes away peacefully, respected by all.
+
+[Illustration: 304.jpg THE GODS FIGHTING FOE THE MAGICIAN WHO HAS
+INVOKED THEM. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from  the tracing by Golbnischeff,
+     _Die Metternich-Stele_, pi, iii. 14.
+
+
+Thot, having pointed out the evil to men, gave to them at the same time
+the remedy. The magical arts of which he was the repository, made him
+virtual master of the other gods. He knew their mystic names, their
+secret weaknesses, the kind of peril they most feared, the ceremonies
+which subdued them to his will, the prayers which they could not refuse
+to grant under pain of misfortune or death. His wisdom, transmitted to
+his worshippers, assured to them the same authority which he exercised
+upon those in heaven, on earth, or in the nether world. The magicians
+instructed in his school had, like the god, control of the words and
+sounds which, emitted at the favourable moment with the "correct voice,"
+would evoke the most formidable deities from beyond the confines of the
+universe: they could bind and loose at will Osiris, Sit, Anubis, even
+Thot himself; they could send them forth, and recall them, or constrain
+them to work and fight for them. The extent of their power exposed the
+magicians to terrible temptations; they were often led to use it to the
+detriment of others, to satisfy their spite, or to gratify their grosser
+appetites. Many, moreover, made a gain of their knowledge, putting it at
+the service of the ignorant who would pay for it. When they were asked
+to plague or get rid of an enemy, they had a hundred different ways of
+suddenly surrounding him without his suspecting it: they tormented him
+with deceptive or terrifying dreams; they harassed him with apparitions
+and mysterious voices; they gave him as a prey to sicknesses, to
+wandering spectres, who entered into him and slowly consumed him. They
+constrained, even at a distance, the wills of men; they caused women to
+be the victims of infatuations, to forsake those they had loved, and
+to love those they had previously detested. In order to compose an
+irresistible charm, they merely required a little blood from a person, a
+few nail-parings, some hair, or a scrap of linen which he had worn,
+and which, from contact with his skin, had become impregnated with his
+personality. Portions of these were incorporated with the wax of a doll
+which they modelled, and clothed to resemble their victim; thenceforward
+all the inflictions to which the image was subjected were experienced by
+the original; he was consumed with fever when his effigy was exposed
+to the fire, he was wounded when the figure was pierced by a knife. The
+Pharaohs themselves had no immunity from these spells.[*]
+
+     * Spells were employed against Ramses III., and the evidence
+     in the criminal charge brought against the magicians
+     explicitly mentions the wax figures and the philters used on
+     this occasion.
+
+These machinations were wont to be met by others of the same kind, and
+magic, if invoked at the right moment, was often able to annul the ills
+which magic had begun. It was not indeed all-powerful against fate: the
+man born on the 27th of Paophi would die of a snake-bite, whatever
+charm he might use to protect himself. But if the day of his death
+were foreordained, at all events the year in which it would occur was
+uncertain, and it was easy for the magician to arrange that it should
+not take place prematurely. A formula recited opportunely, a sentence
+of prayer traced on a papyrus, a little statuette worn about the person,
+the smallest amulet blessed and consecrated, put to flight the serpents
+who were the instruments of fate. Those curious stelae on which we see
+Horus half naked, standing on two crocodiles and brandishing in his
+fists creatures which had reputed powers of fascination, were so many
+protecting talismans; set up at the entrance to a room or a house, they
+kept off the animals represented and brought the evil fate to nought.
+
+[Illustration: 306.jpg THE CHILD HORUS ON THE CROCODILES. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Alexandrian stele in the
+     Gizeh Museum. The reason for the appearance of so many
+     different animals in this stele and  in  others of  the
+     same nature, has   been given by Maspero, _Etudes de
+     Mythologie et d'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 417-
+     419; they were all supposed to possess the evil eye and to
+     be able to fascinate their victim before striking him.
+
+Sooner or later destiny would doubtless prevail, and the moment would
+come when the fated serpent, eluding all precautions, would succeed in
+carrying out the sentence of death. At all events the man would have
+lived, perhaps to the verge of old age, perhaps to the years of a
+hundred and ten, to which the wisest of the Egyptians hoped to attain,
+and which period no man born of mortal mother might exceed. If the
+arts of magic could thus suspend the law of destiny, how much more
+efficacious were they when combating the influences of secondary
+deities, the evil eye, and the spells of man? Thot, who was the patron
+of sortilege, presided also over exorcisms, and the criminal acts which
+some committed in his name could have reparation made for them by others
+in his name. To malicious genii, genii still stronger were opposed; to
+harmful amulets, those which were protective; to destructive measures,
+vitalizing remedies; and this was not even the most troublesome part
+of the magicians' task. Nobody, in fact, among those delivered by
+their intervention escaped unhurt from the trials to which, he had
+been subjected. The possessing spirits when they quitted their victim
+generally left behind them traces of their occupation, in the brain,
+heart, lungs, intestines--in fact, in the whole body. The illnesses
+to which the human race is prone, were not indeed all brought about by
+enchanters relentlessly persecuting their enemies, but they were all
+attributed to the presence of an invisible being, whether spectre
+or demon, who by some supernatural means had been made to enter the
+patient, or who, unbidden, had by malice or necessity taken up his
+abode within him. It was needful, after expelling the intruder, to
+re-establish the health of the sufferer by means of fresh remedies. The
+study of simples and other _materiae medicae_ would furnish these; Thot
+had revealed himself to man as the first magician, he became in like
+manner for them the first physician and the first surgeon.
+
+Egypt is naturally a very salubrious country, and the Egyptians boasted
+that they were "the healthiest of all mortals;" but they did not neglect
+any precautions to maintain their health. "Every month, for three
+successive days, they purged the system by means of emetics or clysters.
+The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each
+physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed
+several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others for the head,
+or the teeth, or the stomach, or for internal diseases." But the
+subdivision was not carried to the extent that Herodotus would make
+us believe. It was the custom to make a distinction only between the
+physician trained in the priestly schools, and further instructed by
+daily practice and the study of books,--the bone-setter attached to
+the worship of Sokhit who treated fractures by the intercession of the
+goddess,--and the exorcist who professed to cure by the sole virtue of
+amulets and magic phrases. The professional doctor treated all kinds
+of maladies, but, as with us, there were specialists for certain
+affections, who were consulted in preference to general practitioners.
+If the number of these specialists was so considerable as to attract
+the attention of strangers, it was because the climatic character of
+the country necessitated it. Where ophthalmia and affections of the
+intestines raged violently, we necessarily find many oculists[*] as well
+as doctors for internal maladies. The best instructed, however, knew but
+little of anatomy. As with the Christian physicians of the Middle
+Ages, religious scruples prevented the Egyptians from cutting open
+or dissecting, in the cause of pure science, the dead body which was
+identified with that of Osiris. The processes of embalming, which would
+have instructed them in anatomy, were not intrusted to doctors; the
+horror was so great with which any one was regarded who mutilated the
+human form, that the "paraschite," on whom devolved the duty of making
+the necessary incisions in the dead, became the object of universal
+execration: as soon as he had finished his task, the assistants
+assaulted him, throwing stones at him with such violence that he had to
+take to his heels to escape with his life.[**]
+
+     *  Affections of the eyes occupy one-fourth of the _Ebers
+     Papyrus_.
+
+     **  Diodorus Siculus, i. 91.
+
+The knowledge of what went on within the body was therefore but vague.
+Life seemed to be a little air, a breath which was conveyed by the veins
+from member to member. "The head contains twenty-two vessels, which draw
+the spirits into it and send them thence to all parts of the body. There
+are two vessels for the breasts, which communicate heat to the lower
+parts. There are two vessels for the thighs, two for the neck, two for
+the arms, two for the back of the head, two for the forehead, two for
+the eyes, two for the eyelids, two for the right ear by which enter the
+breaths of life, and two for the left ear which in like manner admit the
+breaths of death."
+
+[Illustration: 310.jpg A DEAD MAN RECEIVING THE BREATH OF LIFE. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville, in the
+     _AEgyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl. lxix. The deceased
+     carries in this hand a sail inflated by the wind,
+     symbolizing the air, and holds it to his nostrils that he
+     may inhale the breaths which will fill anew his arteries,
+     and bring life to his limbs.
+
+The "breaths" entering by the right ear, are "the good airs, the
+delicious airs of the north;" the sea-breeze which tempers the burning
+of summer and renews the strength of man, continually weakened by the
+heat and threatened with exhaustion. These vital spirits, entering the
+veins and arteries by the ear or nose, mingled with the blood, which
+carried them to all parts of the body; they sustained the animal, and
+were, so to speak, the cause of its movement. The heart, the perpetual
+mover--_haiti_--collected them and redistributed them throughout
+the body: it was regarded as "the beginning of all the members," and
+whatever part of the living body the physician touched, "whether the
+head, the nape of the neck, the hands, the breast, the arms, the legs,
+his hand lit upon the heart," and he felt it beating under his fingers.
+Under the influence of the good breaths, the vessels were inflated and
+worked regularly; under that of the evil, they became inflamed, were
+obstructed, were hardened, or gave way, and the physician had to remove
+the obstruction, allay the inflammation, and re-establish their vigour
+and elasticity. At the moment of death, the vital spirits "withdrew with
+the soul; the blood," deprived of air, "became coagulated, the veins
+and arteries emptied themselves, and the creature perished" for want of
+breaths.
+
+The majority of the diseases from which the ancient Egyptians suffered,
+are those which still attack their successors; ophthalmia, affections
+of the stomach, abdomen, and bladder, intestinal worms, varicose veins,
+ulcers in the leg, the Nile pimple, and finally the "divine mortal
+malady," the _divinus morbus_ of the Latins, epilepsy. Anaemia, from
+which at least one-fourth of the present population suffers, was not
+less prevalent than at present, if we may judge from the number of
+remedies which were used against hematuria, the principal cause of it.
+The fertility of the women entailed a number of infirmities or local
+affections which the doctors attempted to relieve, not always with
+success.[*]
+
+     * With regard to the diseases of women, cf. _Ebers Papyrus_,
+     pis. xciii., xcviii., etc. Several of the recipes are
+     devoted to the solution of a problem which appears to have
+     greatly exercised the mind of the ancients, viz. the
+     determination of the sex of a child before its birth.
+
+The science of those days treated externals only, and occupied itself
+merely with symptoms easily determined by sight or touch; it never
+suspected that troubles which showed themselves in two widely remote
+parts of the body might only be different effects of the same illness,
+and they classed as distinct maladies those indications which we now
+know to be the symptoms of one disease. They were able, however,
+to determine fairly well the specific characteristics of ordinary
+affections, and sometimes described them in a precise and graphic
+fashion. "The abdomen is heavy, the pit of the stomach painful, the
+heart burns and palpitates violently. The clothing oppresses the sick
+man and he can barely support it. Nocturnal thirsts. His heart is sick,
+as that of a man who has eaten of the sycamore gum. The flesh loses
+its sensitiveness as that of a man seized with illness. If he seek to
+satisfy a want of nature he finds no relief. Say to this, 'There is an
+accumulation of humours in the abdomen, which makes the heart sick. I
+will act.'" This is the beginning of gastric fever so common in Egypt,
+and a modern physician could not better diagnose such a case; the
+phraseology would be less flowery, but the analysis of the symptoms
+would not differ from that given us by the ancient practitioner. The
+medicaments recommended comprise nearly everything which can in some way
+or other be swallowed, whether in solid, mucilaginous, or liquid form.
+Vegetable remedies are reckoned by the score, from the most modest herb
+to the largest tree, such as the sycamore, palm, acacia, and cedar, of
+which the sawdust and shavings were supposed to possess both antiseptic
+and emollient properties. Among the mineral substances are to be noted
+sea-salt, alum, nitre, sulphate of copper, and a score of different
+kinds of stones--among the latter the "memphite stone" was distinguished
+for its virtues; if applied to parts of the body which were lacerated
+or unhealthy, it acted as an anaesthetic and facilitated the success of
+surgical operations. Flesh taken from the living subject, the heart, the
+liver, the gall, the blood--either dried or liquid--of animals, the hair
+and horn of stags, were all customarily used in many cases where the
+motive determining their preference above other _materiae medicae_ is
+unknown to us. Many recipes puzzle us by their originality and by the
+barbaric character of the ingredients recommended: "the milk of a woman
+who has given birth to a boy," the dung of a lion, a tortoise's brains,
+an old book boiled in oil.[*]
+
+     * Ebers Papyrus, pl. lxxviii. 1. 22--lxxix. 1. 1: "To
+     relieve a child who is constipated.--An old book. Boil it in
+     oil, and apply half to the stomach, to provoke evacuation."
+     It must not be forgotten that, the writings being on
+     papyrus, the old book in question, once boiled, would have
+     an effect analogous to that of our linseed-meal poultices.
+     If the physician recommended taking an old one, it was for
+     economical reasons merely; the Egyptians of the middle
+     classes would always have in their possession a number of
+     letters, copy-books, and other worthless waste papers, of
+     which they would gladly rid themselves in such a profitable
+     manner.
+
+The medicaments compounded of these incongruous substances were often
+very complicated. It was thought that the healing power was increased by
+multiplying the curative elements; each ingredient acted upon a specific
+region of the body, and after absorption, separated itself from the rest
+to bring its influence to bear upon that region. The physician made use
+of all the means which we employ to-day to introduce remedies into
+the human system, whether pills or potions, poultices, or ointments,
+draughts or clysters. Not only did he give the prescriptions, but he
+made them up, thus combining the art of the physician with that of the
+dispenser. He prescribed the ingredients, pounded them either separately
+or together, he macerated them in the proper way, boiled them, reduced
+them by heating, and filtered them through linen. Fat served him as the
+ordinary vehicle for ointments, and pure water for potions; but he
+did not despise other liquids, such as wine, beer (fermented or
+un-fermented), vinegar, milk, olive oil, "ben" oil either crude or
+refined, even the urine of men and animals: the whole, sweetened with
+honey, was taken hot, night and morning. The use of more than one of
+these remedies became worldwide; the Greeks borrowed them from the
+Egyptians; we have piously accepted them from the Greeks; and our
+contemporaries still swallow with resignation many of the abominable
+mixtures invented on the banks of the Nile, long before the building of
+the Pyramids.
+
+It was Thot who had taught men arithmetic; Thot had revealed to them the
+mysteries of geometry and mensuration; Thot had constructed instruments
+and promulgated the laws of music; Thot had instituted the art of
+drawing, and had codified its unchanging rules. He had been the inventor
+or patron of all that was useful or beautiful in the Nile valley,
+and the climax of his beneficence was reached by his invention of the
+principles of writing, without which humanity would have been liable to
+forget his teaching, and to lose the advantage of his discoveries. It
+has been sometimes questioned whether writing, instead of having been
+a benefit to the Egyptians, did not rather injure them. An old legend
+relates that when the god unfolded his discovery to King Thamos, whose
+minister he was, the monarch immediately raised an objection to it.
+
+[Illustration: 315.jpg TH0T RECORDS THE YEARS OF THE LIFE OF RAMSES. 1]
+
+     1 Bas-relief of the temple of Seti I. at Abydos, drawn by
+     Boudier; from a photograph by Beato. The god is marking with
+     his reed-pen upon the notches of a long frond of palm, the
+     duration in millions of years of the reign of Pharaoh upon
+     this earth, in accordance with the decree of the gods.
+
+Children and young people, who had hitherto been forced to apply
+themselves diligently to learn and retain whatever was taught them, now
+that they possessed a means of storing up knowledge without trouble,
+would cease to apply themselves, and would neglect to exercise their
+memories. Whether Thamos was right or not, the criticism came too late:
+"the ingenious art of painting words and of speaking to the eyes" had
+once for all been acquired by the Egyptians, and through them by the
+greater part of mankind. It was a very complex system, in which were
+united most of the methods fitted for giving expression to thought,
+namely: those which were limited to the presentment of the idea, and
+those which were intended to suggest sounds.
+
+[Illustration: 316.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+At the outset the use was confined to signs intended to awaken the idea
+of the object in the mind of the reader by the more or less faithful
+picture of the object itself; for example, they depicted the sun by a
+centred disc, the moon by a crescent, a lion by a lion in the act of
+walking, a man by a small figure in a squatting attitude. As by this
+method it was possible to convey only a very restricted number of
+entirely materialistic concepts, it became necessary to have recourse
+to various artifices in order to make up for the shortcomings of the
+ideograms properly so-called. The part was put for the whole, the pupil
+in place of the whole eye, the head of the ox instead of the complete
+ox. The Egyptians substituted cause for effect and effect for cause, the
+instrument for the work accomplished, and the disc of the sun signified
+the day; a smoking brazier the fire: the brush, inkpot, and palette of
+the scribe denoted writing or written documents. They conceived the
+idea of employing some object which presented an actual or supposed
+resemblance to the notion to be conveyed; thus, the foreparts of a lion
+denoted priority, supremacy, command; the wasp symbolized royalty, and
+a tadpole stood for hundreds of thousands. They ventured finally to use
+conventionalisms, as for instance when they drew the axe for a god,
+or the ostrich-feather for justice; the sign in these cases had only a
+conventional connection with the concept assigned to it. At times two or
+three of these symbols were associated in order to express conjointly an
+idea which would have been inadequately rendered by one of them alone:
+a five-pointed star placed under an inverted crescent moon denoted a
+month, a calf running before the sign for water indicated thirst.
+
+[Illustration: 317.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+All these artifices combined furnished, however, but a very incomplete
+means of seizing and transmitting thought. When the writer had written
+out twenty or thirty of these signs and the ideas which they were
+supposed to embody, he had before him only the skeleton of a sentence,
+from which the flesh and sinews had disappeared; the tone and rhythm of
+the words were wanting, as were also the indications of gender, number,
+person, and inflection, which distinguish the different parts of speech
+and determine the varying relations between them. Besides this, in order
+to understand for himself and to guess the meaning of the author, the
+reader was obliged to translate the symbols which he deciphered,
+by means of words which represented in the spoken language the
+pronunciation of each symbol. Whenever he looked at them, they suggested
+to him both the idea and the word for the idea, and consequently a sound
+or group of sounds; when each of them had thus acquired three or four
+invariable associations of sound, he forgot their purely ideographic
+value and accustomed himself to consider them merely as notations of
+sound.
+
+The first experiment in phonetics was a species of rebus, where each of
+the signs, divorced from its original sense, served to represent
+several words, similar in sound, but differing in meaning in the spoken
+language. The same group of articulations, _Naufir, Nofir_, conveyed in
+Egyptian the concrete idea of a lute and the abstract idea of beauty;
+the sign expressed at once the lute and beauty.
+
+[Illustration: 318.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+The beetle was called Khopirru, and the verb "to be" was pronounced
+_khopiru_: the figure of the beetle & consequently signified both the
+insect and the verb, and by further combining with it other signs, the
+articulation of each corresponding syllable was given in detail. The
+sieve _Miau_, the mat _pu, pi_, the mouth _ra, ru_, gave the formula
+_khau-pi-ru_, which was equivalent to the sound of _khopiru_, the verb
+"to be:" grouped together, they denoted in writing the concept of "to
+be" by means of a triple rebus. In this system, each syllable of a
+word could be represented by one of several signs, all sounding alike.
+One-half of these "syllables" stood for open, the other half for closed
+syllables, and the use of the former soon brought about the formation of
+a true alphabet. The final vowel in them became detached, and left only
+the remaining consonant--for example, _r in ru, h in ha, n in ni, b in
+bu_--so that ru, ha, bu, eventually stood for r, h, n, and b only. This
+process in the course of time having been applied to a certain number of
+syllables, furnished a fairly large alphabet, in which several letters
+represented each of the twenty-two chief articulations, which
+the scribes considered sufficient for their purposes. The signs
+corresponding to one and the same letter were homophones or "equivalents
+in sound"--[ ] are homophones, just as [ ] and [ ], because each of
+them, in the group to which it belongs, may be indifferently used to
+translate to the eye the articulations m or n. One would have thought
+that when the Egyptians had arrived thus far, they would have been led,
+as a matter of course, to reject the various characters which they had
+used each in its turn, in order to retain an alphabet only.
+
+[Illustration: 319.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+But the true spirit of invention, of which they had given proof,
+abandoned them here as elsewhere: if the merit of a discovery was often
+their due, they were rarely able to bring their invention to perfection.
+They kept the ideographic and syllabic signs which they had used at the
+outset, and, with the residue of their successive notations, made for
+themselves a most complicated system, in which syllables and ideograms
+were mingled with letters properly so called. There is a little of
+everything in an Egyptian phrase, sometimes even in a word; as, for
+instance, in [ ] masziru, the ear, or [ ] kherou, the voice; there are
+the syllables [ ] kher, the ordinary letters [ ], which complete the
+phonetic pronunciation, and finally the ideograms, namely, [ ], which
+gives the picture of the ear by the side of the written word for it, and
+[ ] which proves that the letters represent a term designating an action
+of the mouth. This medley had its advantages; it enabled the Egyptians
+to make clear, by the picture of the object, the sense of words which
+letters alone might sometimes insufficiently explain. The system
+demanded a serious effort of memory and long years of study; indeed,
+many people never completely mastered it. The picturesque appearance
+of the sentences, in which we see representations of men, animals,
+furniture, weapons, and tools grouped together in successive little
+pictures, rendered hieroglyphic writing specially suitable for the
+decoration of the temples of the gods or the palaces of kings. Mingled
+with scenes of worship, sacrifice, battle, or private life, the
+inscriptions frame or separate groups of personages, and occupy the
+vacant spaces which the sculptor or painter was at a loss to fill;
+hieroglyphic writing is pre-eminently a monumental script. For the
+ordinary purposes of life it was traced in black or red ink on fragments
+of limestone or pottery, or on wooden tablets covered with stucco, and
+specially on the fibres of papyrus. The exigencies of haste and the
+unskilfulness of scribes soon changed both its appearance and its
+elements; the characters when contracted, superimposed and united to
+one another with connecting strokes, preserved only the most distant
+resemblance to the persons or things which they had originally
+represented. This cursive writing, which was somewhat incorrectly
+termed hieratic, was used only for public or private documents, for
+administrative correspondence, or for the propagation of literary,
+scientific, and religious works.
+
+It was thus that tradition was pleased to ascribe to the gods, and
+among them to Thot--the doubly great--the invention of all the arts and
+sciences which gave to Egypt its glory and prosperity. It was clear,
+not only to the vulgar, but to the wisest of the nation, that, had their
+ancestors been left merely to their own resources, they would never have
+succeeded in raising themselves much above the level of the brutes. The
+idea that a discovery of importance to the country could have risen in a
+human brain, and, once made known, could have been spread and developed
+by the efforts of successive generations, appeared to them impossible
+to accept. They believed that every art, every trade, had remained
+unaltered from the outset, and if some novelty in its aspect tended to
+show them their error, they preferred to imagine a divine intervention,
+rather than be undeceived. The mystic writing, inserted as chapter
+sixty-four in the _Book of the Dead_, and which subsequently was
+supposed to be of decisive moment to the future life of man, was, as
+they knew, posterior in date to the other formulas of which this book
+was composed; they did not, however, regard it any the less as being of
+divine origin. It had been found one day, without any one knowing whence
+it came, traced in blue characters on a plaque of alabaster, at the
+foot of the statue of Thot, in the sanctuary of Hermopolis. A prince,
+Hardiduf, had discovered it in his travels, and regarding it as a
+miraculous object, had brought it to his sovereign. This king, according
+to some, was Husaphaiti of the first dynasty, but by others was believed
+to be the pious Mykerinos. In the same way, the book on medicine,
+dealing with the diseases of women, was held not to be the work of
+a practitioner; it had revealed itself to a priest watching at night
+before the Holy of Holies in the temple of Isis at Coptos. "Although the
+earth was plunged into darkness, the moon shone upon it and enveloped
+it with light. It was sent as a great wonder to the holiness of King
+Kheops, the just of speech." The gods had thus exercised a direct
+influence upon men until they became entirely civilized, and this work
+of culture was apportioned among the three divine dynasties according
+to the strength of each. The first, which comprised the most vigorous
+divinities, had accomplished the more difficult task of establishing the
+world on a solid basis; the second had carried on the education of
+the Egyptians; and the third had regulated, in all its minutiae, the
+religious constitution of the country. When there was nothing more
+demanding supernatural strength or intelligence to establish it, the
+gods returned to heaven, and were succeeded on the throne by mortal men.
+One tradition maintained dogmatically that the first human king whose
+memory it preserved, followed immediately after the last of the gods,
+who, in quitting the palace, had made over the crown to man as his heir,
+and that the change of nature had not entailed any interruption in the
+line of sovereigns. Another tradition would not allow that the contact
+between the human and divine series had been so close. Between the
+Ennead and Menes, it intercalated one or more lines of Theban or Thinite
+kings; but these were of so formless, shadowy, and undefined an aspect,
+that they were called Manes, and there was attributed to them at most
+only a passive existence, as of persons who had always been in the
+condition of the dead, and had never been subjected to the trouble of
+passing through life. Menes was the first in order of those who were
+actually living. From his time, the Egyptians claimed to possess an
+uninterrupted list of the Pharaohs who had ruled over the Nile valley.
+As far back as the XVIIIth dynasty this list was written upon papyrus,
+and furnished the number of years that each prince occupied the throne,
+or the length of his life.[*]
+
+     * The only one of these lists which we possess, the "Turin
+     Royal Papyrus," was bought, nearly intact, at Thebes, by
+     Drovetti, about 1818, but was accidentally injured by him in
+     bringing home. The fragments of it were acquired, together
+     with the rest of the collection, by the Piedmontese
+     Government in 1820, and placed in the Turin Museum, where
+     Champollion saw and drew attention to them in 1824.
+     Seyffarth carefully collected and arranged them in the order
+     in which they now are; subsequently Lepsius gave a facsimile
+     of them in 1840, in his _Auswahl der wichtigsten Urhunden_,
+     pls. i.-vi., but this did not include the verso;
+     Champollion-Figeac edited in 1847, in the _Revue
+     Archeologique_, 1st series, vol. vi., the tracings taken by
+     the younger Champollion before Seyffarth's arrangement;
+     lastly, Wilkinson published the whole in detail in 1851.
+     Since then, the document has been the subject of continuous
+     investigation: E. de Rouge has reconstructed, in an almost
+     conclusive manner, the pages containing the first six
+     dynasties, and Lauth, with less certainty, those which deal
+     with the eight following dynasties.
+
+Extracts from it were inscribed in the temples, or even in the tombs
+of private persons; and three of these abridged catalogues are still
+extant, two coming from the temples of Seti I. and Ramses II. at
+Abydos,[*] while the other was discovered in the tomb of a person
+of rank named Tunari, at Saqqara.[**] They divided this interminable
+succession of often problematical personages into dynasties, following
+in this division, rules of which we are ignorant, and which varied in
+the course of ages. In the time of the Ramessides, names in the list
+which subsequently under the Lagides formed five groups were made to
+constitute one single dynasty.[***]
+
+     *  The first table of Abydos, unfortunately incomplete, was
+     discovered in the temple of Ramses II. by Banks, in 1818;
+     the copy published by Caillaud and by Salt served as a
+     foundation for Champollion's first investigations on the
+     history of Egypt. The original, brought to France by Mimaut,
+     was acquired by England, and is now in the British Museum.
+     The second table, which is complete, all but a few signs,
+     was brought to light by Mariette in 1864, in the excavations
+     at Abydos, and was immediately noticed and published by
+     Dumichen. The text of it is to be found in Mariette, _La
+     Nouvelle Table d'Abydos (Revue Archeologique_, 2nd series,
+     vol. xiii.), and _Abydos_, vol. i. pl. 43.
+
+     **  The table of Saqqara, discovered in 1863, has been
+     published by Mariette, _La Table de Saqqara (Revue
+     Archeologique_, 2nd series, vol. x. p. 169, et seq.), and
+     reproduced in the _Monuments Divers_, pl. 58.
+
+     ***  The Royal Canon of Turin, which dates from the
+     Ramesside period, gives, indeed, the names of these early
+     kings without a break, until the list reaches Unas; at this
+     point it sums up the number of Pharaohs and the aggregate
+     years of their reigns, thus indicating the end of a dynasty.
+     In the intervals between the dynasties rubrics are placed,
+     pointing out the changes which took place in the order of
+     direct succession. The division of the same group of
+     sovereigns into five dynasties has been preserved to us by
+     Manetho.
+
+Manetho of Sebennytos, who wrote a history of Europe for the use of
+Alexandrine Greeks, had adopted, on some unknown authority, a division
+of thirty-one dynasties from Menes to the Macedonian Conquest, and his
+system has prevailed--not, indeed, on account of its excellence, but
+because it is the only complete one which has come down to us.[*] All
+the families inscribed in his lists ruled in succession.[**]
+
+     *  The best restoration of the system of Manetho is that by
+     Lepsius, _Das Konigsbuch der Alten AEgypter_, which should be
+     completed and corrected from the memoirs of Lauth, Lieblein,
+     Krall, and Unger. A common fault attaches to all these
+     memoirs, so remarkable in many respects. They regard the
+     work of Manetho, not as representing a more or less
+     ingenious system applied to Egyptian history, but as
+     furnishing an authentic scheme of this history, in which it
+     is necessary to enclose all the royal names which the
+     monuments have revealed, and are still daily revealing to
+     us.
+
+     **  E. de Rouge triumphantly demonstrated, in opposition to
+     Bunsen, now nearly fifty years ago, that all Manetho's
+     dynasties are successive, and the monuments discovered from
+     year to year in Egypt have confirmed his demonstration in
+     every detail.
+
+The country was no doubt frequently broken up into a dozen or more
+independent states, each possessing its own kings during several
+generations; but the annalists had from the outset discarded these
+collateral lines, and recognized only one legitimate dynasty, of which
+the rest were but vassals. Their theory of legitimacy does not always
+agree with actual history, and the particular line of princes which they
+rejected as usurpers represented at times the only family possessing
+true rights to the crown.[*]
+
+     * It is enough to give two striking examples of this. The
+     royal lists of the time of the Ramessides suppress, at the
+     end of the XVIIIth dynasty, Amenothes IV. and several of his
+     successors, and give the following sequence--Amenothes
+     III., Harmhabit, Ramses I., without any apparent hiatus;
+     Manetho, on the contrary, replaces the kings who were
+     omitted, and keeps approximately to the real order between
+     Horos (Amenothes III.) and Armais (Harmhabit). Again, the
+     official tradition of the XXth dynasty gives, between Ramses
+     II. and Ramses III., the sequence--Minephtah, Seti IL,
+     Nakht-Seti; Manetho, on the other hand, gives Amenemes
+     followed by Thuoris, who appear to correspond to the
+     Amenmeses and Siphtah of contemporary monuments, but, after
+     Minephtah, he omits Seti II. and Nakhitou-Seti, the father
+     of Ramses III.
+
+In Egypt, as elsewhere, the official chroniclers were often obliged to
+accommodate the past to the exigencies of the present, and to manipulate
+the annals to suit the reigning party; while obeying their orders the
+chroniclers deceived posterity, and it is only by a rare chance that
+we can succeed in detecting them in the act of falsification, and can
+re-establish the truth.
+
+[Illustration: 325.jpg TABLE OF THE KINGS]
+
+The system of Manetho, in the state in which it has been handed down
+to us by epitomizers, has rendered, and continues to render, service to
+science; if it is not the actual history of Egypt, it is a sufficiently
+faithful substitute to warrant our not neglecting it when we wish to
+understand and reconstruct the sequence of events. His dynasties furnish
+the necessary framework for most of the events and revolutions, of which
+the monuments have preserved us a record. At the outset, the centre to
+which the affairs of the country gravitated was in the extreme north
+of the valley. The principality which extended from the entrance of the
+Fayum to the apex of the Delta, and subsequently the town of Memphis
+itself, imposed their sovereigns upon the remaining nomes, served as an
+emporium for commerce and national industries, and received homage and
+tribute from neighbouring peoples. About the time of the VIth dynasty
+this centre of gravity was displaced, and tended towards the interior;
+it was arrested for a short time at Heracleo-polis (IXth and Xth
+dynasties), and ended by fixing itself at Thebes (XIth dynasty). From
+henceforth Thebes became the capital, and furnished Egypt with her
+rulers. With the exception of the XIVth Xoite dynasty, all the families
+occupying the throne from the XIth to the XXth dynasty were Theban. When
+the barbarian shepherds invaded Africa from Asia, the Thebaid became the
+last refuge and bulwark of Egyptian nationality; its chiefs struggled
+for many centuries against the conquerors before they were able to
+deliver the rest of the valley. It was a Theban dynasty, the XVIIIth,
+which inaugurated the era of foreign conquest; but after the XIXth, a
+movement, the reverse of that which had taken place towards the end of
+the first period, brought back the centre of gravity, little by little,
+towards the north of the country. From the time of the XXIst dynasty,
+Thebes ceased to hold the position of capital: Tanis, Bubastis, Mendes,
+Sebennytos, and above all, Sais, disputed the supremacy with each other,
+and political life was concentrated in the maritime provinces. Those
+of the interior, ruined by Ethiopian and Assyrian invasions, lost their
+influence and gradually dwindled away. Thebes became impoverished and
+depopulated; it fell into ruins, and soon was nothing more than a resort
+for devotees or travellers. The history of Egypt is, therefore, divided
+into three periods, each corresponding to the suzerainty of a town or a
+principality:--
+
+I.--Memphite Period, usually called the "Ancient Empire," from the Ist
+to the Xth dynasty: kings of Memphite origin ruled over the whole of
+Egypt during the greater part of this epoch.
+
+II.--Theban Period, from the XIth to the XXth dynasty. It is divided
+into two parts by the invasion of the Shepherds (XVIth dynasty):
+
+a. The first Theban Empire (Middle Empire), from the XIth to the XIVth
+dynasty.
+
+b. The new Theban Empire, from the XVIIth to the XXth dynasty.
+
+III.--Saite Period, from the XXIst to the XXXth dynasty, divided into
+two unequal parts by the Persian Conquest:
+
+a. The first Saite period, from the XXIst to the XXVIth dynasty.
+
+b. The second Saite period, from the XXVIIIth to the XXXth dynasty.
+
+The Memphites had created the monarchy. The Thebans extended the rule of
+Egypt far and wide, and made of her a conquering state: for nearly six
+centuries she ruled over the Upper Nile and over Western Asia. Under
+the Saites she retired gradually within her natural frontiers, and
+from having been aggressive became assailed, and suffered herself to be
+crushed in turn by all the nations she had once oppressed.[*]
+
+     * The division into Ancient, Middle, and New Empire,
+     proposed by Lepsius, has the disadvantage of not taking into
+     account the influence which the removal of the seat of the
+     dynasties exercised on the history of the country. The
+     arrangement which I have here adopted was first put forward
+     in the _Revue critique_, 1873, vol. i. pp. 82, 83.
+
+The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended
+to unite the country under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that
+the feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two
+groups, each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the
+chief focus in the north, from which civilization radiated over the
+rich plains and the marshes of the Delta. Its colleges of priests had
+collected, condensed, and arranged the principal myths of the local
+religions; the Ennead to which it gave conception would never have
+obtained the popularity which we must acknowledge it had, if its princes
+had not exercised, for at least some period, an actual suzerainty over
+the neighbouring plains. It was around Heliopolis that the kingdom of
+Lower Egypt was organized; everything there bore traces of Heliopolitan
+theories--the protocol of the kings, their supposed descent from Ra, and
+the enthusiastic worship which they offered to the sun. The Delta, owing
+to its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited for government from
+one centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow, tortuous, and stretching
+like a thin strip on either bank of the river, did not lend itself to so
+complete a unity. It, too, represented a single kingdom, having the reed
+and the lotus for its emblems; but its component parts were more loosely
+united, its religion was less systematized, and it lacked a well-placed
+city to serve as a political and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained
+schools of theologians who certainly played an important part in the
+development of myths and dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was
+never widely felt. In the south, Siut disputed their supremacy, and
+Heracleopolis stopped their road to the north. These three cities
+thwarted and neutralized one another, and not one of them ever succeeded
+in obtaining a lasting authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two
+kingdoms had its own natural advantages and its system of government,
+which gave to it a particular character, and stamped it, as it were,
+with a distinct personality down to its latest days. The kingdom
+of Upper Egypt was more powerful, richer, better populated, and was
+governed apparently by more active and enterprising rulers. It is to
+one of the latter, Mini or Menes of Thinis, that tradition ascribes
+the honour of having fused the two Egypts into a single empire, and of
+having inaugurated the reign of the human dynasties. Thinis figured in
+the historic period as one of the least of Egyptian cities. It barely
+maintained an existence on the left bank of the Nile, if not on the
+exact spot now occupied by Girgeh, at least only a short distance from
+it.[*]
+
+     * The site of Thinis is not yet satisfactorily identified.
+     It is neither at Kom-es-Sultan, as Mariette thought, nor,
+     according to the hypothesis of A. Schmidt, at El-Kherbeh.
+     Brugsch has proposed to fix the site at the village of
+     Tineh, near Berdis, and is followed in this by Dumichen. The
+     present tendency is to identify it either with Girgeh
+     itself, or with one of the small neighbouring towns--for
+     example, Birbeh--where there are some ancient ruins; this
+     was also the opinion of Champollion and of Nester L'hote. I
+     may mention that, in a frequently quoted passage of
+     Hellanicos, Zoega corrects the reading [Greek phrase], which
+     would once more give us the name of Thinis: the mention of
+     this town as being "situated on the river," would be a fresh
+     reason for its identification with Girgeh.
+
+[Illustration: 332.jpg PLAN OF THE RUINS OF ABYDOS, MADE BY MARIETTE IN
+1865 AND 1875.]
+
+The principality of the Osirian Reliquary, of which it was the
+metropolis, occupied the valley from one mountain range to the other,
+and gradually extended across the desert as far as the Great Theban
+Oasis. Its inhabitants worshipped a sky-god, Anhuri, or rather two twin
+gods, Anhuri-Shu, who were speedily amalgamated with the solar deities
+and became a warlike personification of Ra. Anhuri-Shu, like all the
+other solar manifestations, came to be associated with a goddess having
+the form or head of a lioness--a Sokhit, who took for the occasion the
+epithet of Mihit, the northern one. Some of the dead from this city
+are buried on the other side of the Nile, near the modern village of
+Mesheikh, at the foot of the Arabian chain, whose steep cliffs here
+approach somewhat near the river: the principal necropolis was at some
+distance to the east, near the sacred town of Abydos. It would appear
+that, at the outset, Abydos was the capital of the country, for the
+entire nome bore the same name as the city, and had adopted for its
+symbol the representation of the reliquary in which the god reposed. In
+very early times Abydos fell into decay, and resigned its political rank
+to Thinis, but its religious importance remained unimpaired. The city
+occupied a long and narrow strip of land between the canal and the first
+slopes of the Libyan mountains. A brick fortress defended it from the
+incursions of the Bedouin, and beside it the temple of the god of the
+dead reared its naked walls. Here, Anhuri, having passed from life to
+death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentit, the chief of
+that western region whither souls repair on quitting this earth. It is
+impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what political
+combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with Osiris of
+Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote antiquity; it had
+become an established fact long before the most ancient sacred books
+were compiled. Osiris Khontamentit grew rapidly in popular favour, and
+his temple attracted annually an increasing number of pilgrims. The
+Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of mysterious
+paradise, whither the dead went in search of peace and happiness. It was
+called Uifc, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after it had become
+an actual Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its ancient purpose
+survived in the minds of the people, so that the "cleft," or gorge
+in the mountain through which the doubles journeyed towards it, never
+ceased to be regarded as one of the gates of the other world. At the
+time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all parts
+of the valley; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in order
+to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khontamentit.
+Abydos, even before the historic period, was the only town, and its god
+the only god, whose worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them
+all with an equal devotion. The excavations of the last few years have
+brought to light some, at all events, of the oldest Pharaohs known to
+the Egyptian annalists, namely, those whom they placed in their first
+human dynasties; and the locality where the monuments of these
+princes were discovered, shows us that these writers were correct in
+representing Thinis as playing an important part in the history of the
+early ages of their country. If the tomb of Menes--that sovereign
+whom we are inclined to look upon as the first king of the official
+lists--lies near the village of Nagadeh, not far from Thebes,[*] those
+of his immediate successors are close to Thinis, in the cemeteries of
+Abydos.[**] They stand at the very foot of the Libyan hills, near the
+entrance to the ravine--the "Cleft"--through which the mysterious oasis
+was reached, and thither the souls flocked in order that they might
+enter by a safe way the land beyond the grave.[***]
+
+     * The objects found during these excavations are now in  the
+     Gizeh Museum.
+
+     **  The credit of having discovered this important
+     necropolis, and of having brought to light the earliest
+     known monuments of the first dynasties, is entirely due to
+     Amelineau. He carried on important work there during four
+     years, from 1895 to 1899: unfortunately its success was
+     impaired by the theories which he elaborated with regard to
+     the new monuments, and by the delay in publishing an account
+     of the objects which remained in his possession.
+
+     ***  For the "Cleft," cf. supra, pp. 281, 282, 334.
+
+The mass of pottery, whole and broken, which has accumulated on this
+site from the offerings of centuries has obtained for it among the
+Fellahin the name of Omm-el-G-aab--"the mother of pots." The tombs there
+lie in serried ranks. They present for the most part a rough model of
+the pyramids of the Memphite period--rectangular structures of bricks
+without mortar rising slightly above the level of the plain. The funeral
+chamber occupies the centre of each, and is partly hollowed out of the
+soil, like a shallow well, the sides being bricked. It had a flat timber
+roof, covered by a layer of about three feet of sand; the floor also was
+of wood, and in several cases the remains of the beams of both ceiling
+and pavement have been brought to light. The body of the royal inmate
+was laid in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by its funeral
+furniture and by a part of the offerings. The remainder was placed in
+the little rooms which opened out of the principal vault, sometimes
+on the same level, sometimes on one higher than itself; after their
+contents had been laid within them, the entrance to these rooms was
+generally walled up. Human bodies have been found inside them, probably
+those of slaves killed at the funeral that they might wait upon the dead
+in his life beyond the grave.[*] The objects placed in these chambers
+were mostly offerings, but besides these were coarse stelae bearing the
+name of a person, and dictated to "the double of his luminary."[**]
+Some of them mention a dwarf[***] or a favourite dog of the sovereign,
+who accompanied his master into the tomb. Tablets of ivory or bone
+skilfully incised furnish us with scenes representing some of the
+ceremonies of the deification of the king in his lifetime and the
+sacrifices offered at the time of his burial;[****] in rarer instances
+they record his exploits.
+
+     *  El. Petrie, The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty, part i.
+     p. 14.
+
+     **  The "luminous double" or the "double of his luminary" is
+     doubtless that luminous spectre which haunted the tombs and
+     even the houses of the living during the night, and which I
+     have mentioned, supra, p. 160.
+
+     ***  Petrie found the skeletons of two dwarfs, probably the
+     very two to whom the two stelae (Nos. 36, 37) in the tomb of
+     Semempses were raised. Was one of these dwarfs one of the
+     _Danga_ of Puanit who were sought after by the Pharaohs of
+     the Memphite dynasties?
+
+     ****  This was the ceremony called by the Egyptians "The
+     Festival of the Foundation "--_habu sadu_.
+
+The offerings themselves were such as we meet with in burials of
+a subsequent age--bread, cakes, meat, and poultry of various
+sorts--indeed, everything we find mentioned in the lists inscribed in
+the tombs of the later dynasties, particularly the jars of wine and
+liquors, on the clay bungs of which are still legible the impression
+of the signet bearing the name of the sovereign for whose use they were
+sealed. Besides stuffs and mats, the furniture comprised chairs, beds,
+stools, an enormous number of vases, some in coarse pottery for common
+use, others in choice stone such as diorite, granite, or rock crystal
+very finely worked, on the fragments of all of which may be read cut
+in outline the names and preamble of the Pharaoh to whom the object
+belonged. The ceremonial of the funerary offering and its significance
+was already fully developed at this early period; this can be gathered
+by the very nature of the objects buried with the deceased, by their
+number, quantity, and by the manner in which they were arranged. Like
+their successors in the Egypt of later times, these ancient kings
+expected to continue their material existence within the tomb, and
+they took precautions that life there should be as comfortable as
+circumstances should permit. Access to the tomb was sometimes gained
+by a sloping passage or staircase; this made it possible to see if
+everything within was in a satisfactory condition. After the dead had
+been enclosed in his chamber, and five or six feet of sand had been
+spread over the beams which formed its roof, the position of the tomb
+was shown merely by a scarcely perceptible rise in the soil of the
+necropolis, and its site would soon have been forgotten, if its
+easternmost limits had not been marked by two large stelae on which
+were carefully engraved one of the appellations of the king--that of his
+double, or his Horus name.[*]
+
+     * For the Horus name of the Pharaohs, see vol. ii., pp. 23-
+     25.
+
+It was on this spot, upon an altar placed between the two stelae, that
+the commemorative ceremonies were celebrated, and the provisions renewed
+on certain days fixed by the religious law. Groups of private tombs
+were scattered around,--the resting-places of the chief officers of the
+sovereign, the departed Pharaoh being thus surrounded in death by
+the same courtiers as those who had attended him during his earthly
+existence.
+
+The princes, whose names and titles have been revealed to us by the
+inscriptions on these tombs, have not by any means been all classified
+as yet, the prevailing custom at that period having been to designate
+them by their Horus names, but rarely by their proper names, which
+latter is the only one which figures in the official lists which we
+possess of the Egyptian kings. A few texts, more explicit than the rest,
+enable us to identify three of them with the Usaphais, the Miebis, and
+the Semempses of Manetho--the fifth, sixth, and seventh kings of
+the Ist dynasty.[*] The fact that they are buried in the necropolis of
+Abydos apparently justifies the opinion of the Egyptian chroniclers that
+they were natives of Thinis. Is the Menes who usually figures at their
+head[**] also a Thinite prince?
+
+     *  The credit is due to Sethe of having attributed their
+     ordinary names to several of the kings of the Ist dynasty
+     with Horus names only which were found by Amelineau, and
+     these identifications have been accepted by all
+     Egyptologists. Petrie discovered quite recently on some
+     fragments of vases the Horus names of these same princes,
+     together with their ordinary names. The Usaphais, the
+     Miebis, and the Semempses of Manetho are now satisfactorily
+     identified with three of the Pharaohs discovered by
+     Amelineau and by Petrie.
+
+     **  In the time of Seti I. and Ramses II. he heads the list
+     of the Table of Abydos. Under Ramses II. his statue was
+     carried in procession, preceding all  the  other  royal
+     statues.    Finally,   the  "Royal  Papyrus"  of  Turin,
+     written in the time of Ramses I., begins the entire series
+     of the human Pharaohs with his name.
+
+Several scholars believe that his ordinary name, Mini, is to be read on
+an ivory tablet engraved for a sovereign whose Horus name--Ahauiti, the
+warlike--is known to us from several documents, and whose tomb also has
+been discovered, but at Nagadeh. It is a great rectangular structure
+of bricks 165 feet long and 84 broad, the external walls of which were
+originally ornamented by deep polygonal grooves, resembling those which
+score the facade of Chaldaean buildings, but the Nagadeh tomjb has a
+second brick wall which fills up all the hollows left in the first one,
+and thus hides the primitive decoration of the monument. The building
+contains twenty-one chambers, five of which in the centre apparently
+constituted the dwelling of the deceased, while the others, grouped
+around these, serve as storehouses from whence he could draw his
+provisions at will. Did the king buried within indeed bear the name
+of Menes,[*] and if such was the case, how are we to reconcile the
+tradition of his Thinite origin with the existence of his far-off tomb
+in the neighbourhood of Thebes?
+
+     * The sign _Manu_, which appears on the ivory tablet found
+     in this tomb, has been interpreted as a king's name, and
+     consequently inferred to be Menes. This reading has been
+     disputed on various sides, and the point remains, therefore,
+     a contested one until further discovery.
+
+Objects bearing his Horus name have been found at Omm-el-Gaab, and it is
+evident that he belonged to the same age as the sovereigns interred in
+this necropolis. If, indeed, Menes was really his personal name, there
+is no reason against his being the Menes of tradition, he whom the
+Pharaohs of the glorious Theban dynasties regarded as the earliest of
+their purely human ancestors. Whether he was really the first king who
+reigned over the whole of Egypt, or whether he had been preceded
+by other sovereigns whose monuments we may find in some site still
+unexplored, is a matter for conjecture. That princes had exercised
+authority in various parts of the country is still uncertain, but that
+the Egyptian historians did not know them, seems to prove that they had
+left no written records of their names. At any rate, a Menes lived who
+reigned at the outset of history, and doubtless before long the Nile
+valley, when more carefully explored, will yield us monuments recording
+his actions and determining his date. The civilization of the Egypt of
+his time was ruder than that with which we have hitherto been familiar
+on its soil, but even at that early period it was almost as complete.
+It had its industries and its arts, of which the cemeteries furnish
+us daily with the most varied examples: weaving, modelling in clay,
+wood-carving, the incising of ivory, gold, and the hardest stone were
+all carried on; the ground was cultivated with hoe and plough; tombs
+were built showing us the model of what the houses and palaces must have
+been; the country had its army, its administrators, its priests, its
+nobles, its writing, and its system of epigraphy differs so little from
+that to which we are accustomed in later ages, that we can decipher it
+with no great difficulty. Frankly speaking, all that we know at present
+of the first of the Pharaohs beyond the mere fact of his existence is
+practically _nil_, and the stories related of him by the writers of
+classical times are mere legends arranged to suit the fancy of the
+compiler. "This Menes, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with
+dykes. For the river formerly followed the sandhills for some distance
+on the Libyan side. Menes, having dammed up the reach about a hundred
+stadia to the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and
+conveyed the river through an artificial channel dug midway between the
+two mountain ranges. Then Menes, the first who was king, having enclosed
+a firm space of ground with dykes, there founded that town which is
+still called Memphis; he then made a lake round it, to the north and
+west, fed by the river, the city being bounded on the east by the
+Nile."[*]
+
+     * The dyke supposed to have been made by Menes is evidently
+     that of Qosheish, which now protects the province of Gizeh,
+     and regulates the inundation in its neighbourhood.
+
+The history of Memphis, such as it can be gathered from the monuments,
+differs considerably from the tradition current in Egypt at the time of
+Herodotus. It appears, indeed, that at the outset, the site on which
+it subsequently arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbu-hazu--the
+white wall--which was dependent on Heliopolis, and in which Phtah
+possessed a sanctuary. After the "white wall" was separated from the
+Heliopolitan principality to form a nome by itself, it assumed a certain
+importance, and furnished, so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded
+the Thinite. Its prosperity dates only, however, from the time when
+the sovereigns of the Vth and VIth dynasties fixed on it for their
+residence; one of them, Papi L, there founded for himself and for his
+"double" after him, a new town, which he called Minnofiru, from his
+tomb. Minnofiru, which is the correct pronunciation and the origin of
+Memphis, probably signified "the good refuge," the haven of the good,
+the burying-place where the blessed dead came to rest beside Osiris. The
+people soon forgot the true interpretation, or probably it did not fall
+in with their taste for romantic tales. They were rather disposed, as a
+rule, to discover in the beginnings of history individuals from whom the
+countries or cities with which they were familiar took their names:
+if no tradition supplied them with this, they did not experience any
+scruple in inventing one. The Egyptians of the time of the Ptolemies,
+who were guided in their philological speculations by the pronunciation
+in vogue around them, attributed the patronship of their city to a
+Princess Memphis, a daughter of its founder, the fabulous Uchoreus;
+those of preceding ages before the name had become altered, thought
+to find in Minnofiru a "Mini Nofir," or "Menes the Good," the reputed
+founder of the capital of the Delta. Menes the Good, divested of his
+epithet, is none other than Menes, the first king, and he owes this
+episode in his life to a popular attempt at etymology. The legend which
+identifies the establishment of the kingdom with the construction of
+the city, must have originated at the time when Memphis was still the
+residence of the kings and the seat of government, at latest about the
+end of the Memphite period. It must have been an old tradition in the
+time of the Theban dynasties, since they admitted unhesitatingly the
+authenticity of the statements which ascribed to the northern city so
+marked a superiority over their own country.
+
+[Illustration: 343.jpg NECKLACE, BEARING NAME OF MENES. 1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin after Prisse d'Avenues. The gold
+     medallions engraved with the name of Menes are ancient, and
+     perhaps go back to the XXth dynasty; the setting is entirely
+     modern, with the exception of the three oblong pendants of
+     cornelian.
+
+When once this half-mythical Menes was firmly established in his
+position, there was little difficulty in inventing a story which would
+portray him as an ideal sovereign. He was represented as architect,
+warrior, and statesman; he had begun the temple of Phtah, written laws
+and regulated the worship of the gods, particularly that of Hapis, and
+he had conducted expeditions against the Libyans. When he lost his only
+son in the flower of his age, the people improvised a hymn of mourning
+to console him--the "Maneros"--both the words and the tune of which were
+handed down from generation to generation. He did not, moreover, disdain
+the luxuries of the table, for he invented the art of serving a dinner,
+and the mode of eating it in a reclining posture. One day, while
+hunting, his dogs, excited by something or other, fell upon him to
+devour him. He escaped with difficulty, and, pursued by them, fled to
+the shore of Lake Moeris, and was there brought to bay; he was on the
+point of succumbing to them, when a crocodile took him on his back and
+carried him across to the other side.[*] In gratitude he built a new
+town, which he called Crocodilopolis, and assigned to it for its god the
+crocodile which had saved him; he then erected close to it the famous
+labyrinth and a pyramid for his tomb. Other traditions show him in a
+less favourable light. They accuse him of having, by horrible crimes,
+excited against him the anger of the gods, and allege that after a reign
+of sixty to sixty-two years, he was killed by a hippopotamus which came
+forth from the Nile.[**]
+
+     *  This is an episode from the legend of Osiris: at Phihe,
+     in the little building of the Antonines, may be seen a
+     representation of a crocodile crossing the Nile, carrying on
+     his back the mummy of the god. The same episode is also
+     found in the tale of Onus el Ujud and of Uard f'il-Ikmam,
+     where the crocodile leads the hero to his beautiful prisoner
+     in the Island of Philae. Ebers, _AEgypte_, French trans., vol.
+     ii. pp. 415, 416, has shown how this episode in the Arab
+     story must have been inspired by the bas-relief at Philae and
+     by the scene which it portrays: the temple is still called
+     "Kasr," and the island "Geziret Onus el-Ujud."
+
+     **  In popular romances, this was the usual end of criminals
+     of every kind; we shall see that another king, Akhthoes the
+     founder of the IXth dynasty, after committing horrible
+     misdeeds, was killed, in the same way as Menes, by a
+     hippopotamus.
+
+They also related that the Saite Tafnakhti, returning from an expedition
+against the Arabs, during which he had been obliged to renounce the pomp
+and luxuries of royal life, had solemnly cursed him, and had caused his
+imprecations to be inscribed upon a stele set up in the temple of Amon
+at Thebes. Nevertheless, in the memory that Egypt preserved of its first
+Pharaoh, the good outweighed the evil. He was worshipped in Memphis side
+by side with Phtah and Ramses II.; his name figured at the head of the
+royal lists, and his cult continued till the time of the Ptolemies.
+
+His immediate successors had an actual existence, and their tombs are
+there in proof of it. We know where Usaphais, Miebis, and Semempses[*]
+were laid to rest, besides more than a dozen other princes whose real
+names and whose position in the official lists are still uncertain. The
+order of their succession was often a matter of doubt to the Egyptians
+themselves, but perhaps the discoveries of the next few years will
+enable us to clear up and settle definitely matters which were shrouded
+in mystery in the time of the Theban Pharaohs. As a fact, the forms of
+such of their names as have been handed down to us by later tradition,
+are curt and rugged, indicative of an early state of society, and
+harmonizing with the more primitive civilization to which they belong:
+Ati the Wrestler, Teti the Runner, Qenqoni the Crusher, are suitable
+rulers for a people, the first duty of whose chief was to lead his
+followers into battle, and to strike harder than any other man in the
+thickest of the fight.[**]
+
+     *  Flinders Petrie, _The 'Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty_,
+     vol. i. p. 56.
+
+     **  The Egyptians were accustomed to explain the meaning of
+     the names of their kings to strangers, and the Canon of
+     Eratosthenes has preserved several of their derivations, of
+     which a certain number, as, for instance, that of Menes from
+     auovioc, the "lasting," are tolerably correct. M. Krall is,
+     to my knowledge, the only Egyptologist who has attempted to
+     glean from the meaning of these names indications of the
+     methods by which the national historians of Egypt
+     endeavoured to make up the lists of the earliest dynasties.
+
+Some of the monuments they have left us, seem to show that their reigns
+were as much devoted to war as those of the later Pharaohs. The king
+whose Horus name was Narumir, is seen on a contemporary object which has
+come down to us, standing before a heap of beheaded foes; the bodies
+are all stretched out on the ground, each with his head placed neatly
+between his legs: the king had overcome, apparently in some important
+engagement, several thousands of his enemies, and was inspecting the
+execution of their leaders. That the foes with whom these early kings
+contended were in most cases Egyptian princes of the nomes, is proved by
+the list of city names which are inscribed on the fragments of another
+document of the same nature, and we gather from them that Dobu (Edfu),
+Hasutonu (Cynopolis), Habonu (Hipponon), Hakau (Memphis) and others were
+successively taken and dismantled.[*]
+
+     *  Palette resembling the preceding one, and with it
+     deposited in the Gizeh Museum; reproduced by Steindokff, and
+     by J. de Morgan. The names of the towns were enclosed within
+     the embattled line which was used later on to designate
+     foreign countries. The animals which surmount them represent
+     the gods of Egypt, the king's protectors; and the king
+     himself, identified with these gods, is making a breach in
+     the wall with a pick-axe. The names of the towns have not
+     been satisfactorily identified: Hat-kau, for instance, may
+     not be Memphis, but it appears that there is no doubt with
+     regard to Habonu. Cf. Sayce, The Beginnings of the Egyptian
+     Monarchy in the Proceedings of the Biblical Archaeological
+     Society, 1898, vol. xx. pp, 99-101.
+
+On this fragment King Den is represented standing over a prostrate chief
+of the Bedouin, striking him with his mace. Sondi, who is classed in the
+IInd dynasty, received a continuous worship towards the end of the IIIrd
+dynasty. But did all those whose names preceded or followed his on the
+lists, really exist as he did? and if they existed, to what extent do
+the order and the relation assigned to them agree with the actual truth?
+The different lists do not contain the same names in the same positions;
+certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason.
+Where Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time
+of Seti I. gave us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the IInd
+dynasty, while they register only five.[*]
+
+     * The impossibility of reconciling the names of the Greek
+     with those of the Pharaonic lists has been admitted by most
+     of the savants who have discussed the matter, viz. Mariette,
+     E. de Rouge, Lieblein, Wiedemann; most of them explain the
+     differences by the supposition that, in many cases, one of
+     the lists gives the cartouche name, and the other the
+     cartouche prenomen of the same king.
+
+The monuments, indeed, show us that Egypt in the past obeyed princes
+whom her annalists were unable to classify: for instance, they associate
+with Sondi a Pirsenu, who is not mentioned in the annals. We must,
+therefore, take the record of all this opening period of history for
+what it is--namely, a system invented at a much later date, by means of
+various artifices and combinations--to be partially accepted in default
+of a better, but without according to it that excessive confidence which
+it has hitherto received. The two Thinite dynasties, in direct descent
+from the first human king Menes, furnish, like this hero himself, only a
+tissue of romantic tales and miraculous legends in the place of history.
+A double-headed stork, which had appeared in the first year of Teti,
+son of Menes, had foreshadowed to Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine
+under Ouenephes, and a terrible plague under Semempses, had depopulated
+the country: the laws had been relaxed, great crimes had been committed,
+and revolts had broken out. During the reign of Boethos, a gulf had
+opened near Bubastis, and swallowed up many people, then the Nile had
+flowed with honey for fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and
+Sesochris was supposed to have been a giant in stature. A few details
+about royal edifices were mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid
+the foundation of the great palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the
+pyramids of Ko-kome near Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had
+published books on theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and
+medicine; several had made laws which lasted down to the beginning of
+the Christian era. One of them was called Kakou, the male of males, or
+the bull of bulls. They explained his name by the statement that he had
+concerned himself about the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods,
+Hapis of Memphis, Mnevis of Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes. After
+him, Binothris had conferred the right of succession upon all the women
+of the blood-royal. The accession of the IIIrd dynasty, a Memphite one
+according to Manetho, did not at first change the miraculous character
+of this history. The Libyans had revolted against Necherophes, and the
+two armies were encamped before each other, when one night the disk of
+the moon became immeasurably enlarged, to the great alarm of the rebels,
+who recognized in this phenomenon a sign of the anger of heaven, and
+yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the successor of Necherophes,
+brought the hieroglyphs and the art of stone-cutting to perfection. He
+composed, as Teti did, books of medicine, a fact which caused him to
+be identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The priests related these
+things seriously, and the Greek writers took them down from their lips
+with the respect which they offered to everything emanating from the
+wise men of Egypt.
+
+What they related of the human kings was not more detailed, as we see,
+than their accounts of the gods. Whether the legends dealt with deities
+or kings, all that we know took its origin, not in popular imagination,
+but in sacerdotal dogma: they were invented long after the times they
+dealt with, in the recesses of the temples, with an intention and a
+method of which we are enabled to detect flagrant instances on the
+monuments. Towards the middle of the third century before our era, the
+Greek troops stationed on the southern frontier, in the forts at the
+first cataract, developed a particular veneration for Isis of Philae.
+Their devotion spread to the superior officers who came to inspect them,
+then to the whole population of the Thebaid, and finally reached the
+court of the Macedonian kings. The latter, carried away by force
+of example, gave every encouragement to a movement which attracted
+worshippers to a common sanctuary, and united in one cult the two races
+over which they ruled. They pulled down the meagre building of the
+Sa'ite period which had hitherto sufficed for the worship of Isis,
+constructed at great cost the temple which still remains almost intact,
+and assigned to it considerable possessions in Nubia, which, in
+addition to gifts from private individuals, made the goddess the richest
+landowner in Southern Egypt. Khnumu and his two wives, Anukit and Satit,
+who, before Isis, had been the undisputed suzerains of the cataract,
+perceived with jealousy their neighbour's prosperity: the civil wars
+and invasions of the centuries immediately preceding had ruined their
+temples, and their poverty contrasted painfully with the riches of the
+new-comer.
+
+[Illustration: 350.jpg SATIT PRESENTS THE PHARAOH AMENOTHES III. TO
+KHNOMU.1]
+
+     1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
+     temple of Khnumu, at Elephantine.    This bas-relief is now
+     destroyed.
+
+The priests resolved to lay this sad state of affairs before King
+Ptolemy, to represent to him the services which they had rendered and
+still continued to render to Egypt, and above all to remind him of the
+generosity of the ancient Pharaohs, whose example, owing to the poverty
+of the times, the recent Pharaohs had been unable to follow.
+
+[Illustration: 351.jpg ANUKIT]
+
+Doubtless authentic documents were wanting in their archives to support
+their pretensions: they therefore inscribed upon a rock, in the island
+of Sehel, a long inscription which they attributed to Zosiri of the
+IIIrd dynasty. This sovereign had left behind him a vague reputation for
+greatness. As early as the XIIth dynasty Usirtasen III. had claimed
+him as "his father"--his ancestor--and had erected a statue to him; the
+priests knew that, by invoking him, they had a chance of obtaining a
+hearing. The inscription which they fabricated, set forth that in
+the eighteenth year of Zosiri's reign he had sent to Madir, lord of
+Elephantine, a message couched in these terms: "I am overcome with
+sorrow for the throne, and for those who reside in the palace, and my
+heart is afflicted and suffers greatly because the Nile has not risen in
+my time, for the space of eight years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack
+of herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his
+neighbours for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the
+young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their
+limbs are bent."
+
+Ptolemies admit the claims which the local priests attempted to deduce
+from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the
+domains and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows
+us with what ease the scribes could forge official documents, when
+the exigencies of they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the
+courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished
+with rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was in them has
+disappeared.
+
+"My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks to call upon
+the Saviour who was here where I am, during the centuries of the gods,
+upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpu, son of Phtah of
+Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is the god or
+goddess concealed there? What is his likeness?"
+
+[Illustration: 353.jpg THE STEP PYRAMID OF SAUARA. 1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Deveria (1864); in
+     the foreground, the tomb of Ti.
+
+The lord of Elephantine brought his reply in person. He described to the
+king, who was evidently ignorant of it, the situation of the island and
+the rocks of the cataract, the phenomena of the inundation, the gods who
+presided over it, and who alone could relieve Egypt from her disastrous
+plight. Zosiri repaired to the temple of the principality and offered
+the prescribed sacrifices; the god arose, opened his eyes, panted and
+cried aloud, "I am Khnumu who created thee!" and promised him a speedy
+return of a high Nile and the cessation of the famine. Pharaoh was
+touched by the benevolence which his divine father had shown him; he
+forthwith made a decree by which he ceded to the temple all his rights
+of suzerainty over the neighbouring nomes within a radius of twenty
+miles. Henceforward the entire population, tillers and vinedressers,
+fishermen and hunters, had to yield the tithe of their incomes to the
+priests; the quarries could not be worked without the consent of Khnumu,
+and the payment of a suitable indemnity into his coffers, and finally,
+all metals and precious woods shipped thence for Egypt had to submit to
+a toll on behalf of the temple. Did the daily life forced the necessity
+upon them; it teaches us at the same time how that fabulous chronicle
+was elaborated, whose remains have been preserved for us by classical
+writers. Every prodigy, every fact related by Manetho, was taken from
+some document analogous to the supposed inscription of Zosiri.[*]
+
+     *  The legend of the yawning gulf at Bubastis must be
+     connected with the gifts supposed to have been offered by
+     King Boethos to the temple of that town, to repair the
+     losses sustained by the goddess on that occasion; the legend
+     of the pestilence and famine is traceable to some relief
+     given by a local god, and for which Semempses and Uenephes
+     might have shown their gratitude in the same way as Zosiri.
+     The tradition of the successive restorations of Denderah
+     accounts for the constructions attributed to Teti I. and to
+     Tosorthros; finally, the prete tided discoveries of sacred
+     books, dealt with elsewhere, show how Manetho was enabled to
+     attribute to his Pharaohs the authorship of works on
+     medicine or theology.
+
+The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our
+researches, and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes
+which Egypt passed through before being consolidated into a single
+kingdom, under the rule of one man. Many names, apparently of powerful
+and illustrious princes, had survived in the memory of the people;
+these were collected, classified, and grouped in a regular manner into
+dynasties, but the people were ignorant of any exact facts connected
+with the names, and the historians, on their own account, were reduced
+to collect apocryphal traditions for their sacred archives. The
+monuments of these remote ages, however, cannot have entirely
+disappeared: they exist in places where we have not as yet thought of
+applying the pick, and chance excavations will some day most certainly
+bring them to light. The few which we do possess barely go back beyond
+the IIIrd dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri, priest of Sondi and
+Pirsenu; possibly the tomb of Khuithotpu at Saqqara; the Great Sphinx
+of Gizeh; a short inscription on the rocks of the Wady Maghara, which
+represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnumu in the
+Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or copper mines of
+Sinai; and finally the Step-Pyramid where this same Pharaoh rests.[*]
+
+     * The stele of Sehel has enabled us to verify the fact that
+     the preamble [a string of titles] to the inscription of the
+     king, buried in the Step-Pyramid, is identical with that of
+     King Zosiri: it was, therefore, Zosiri who constructed, or
+     arranged for the construction of this monument as his tomb.
+     The Step-Pyramid of Saqqara was opened in 1819, at the
+     expense of the Prussian General Minutoli, who was the first
+     to give a brief description of the interior, illustrated by
+     plans and drawings.
+
+It forms a rectangular mass, incorrectly orientated, with a variation
+from the true north of 4 deg. 35', 393 ft. 8 in. long from east to west,
+and 352 ft. deep, with a height of 159 ft. 9 in. It is composed of six
+cubes, with sloping sides, each being about 13 ft. less in width than
+the one below it; that nearest to the ground measures 37 ft. 8 in. in
+height, and the uppermost one 29 ft. 9 in. It was entirely constructed
+of limestone from the neighbouring mountains. The blocks are small, and
+badly cut, the stone courses being concave to offer a better resistance
+to downward thrust and to shocks of earthquake. When breaches in the
+masonry are examined, it can be seen that the external surface of
+the steps has, as it were, a double stone facing, each facing being
+carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid is solid, the chambers
+being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have been often enlarged,
+restored, and reworked in the course of centuries, and the passages
+which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which it is dangerous
+to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the galleries and
+halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom of which the
+architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt, to contain
+the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until the beginning
+of this century, the vault had preserved its original lining of glazed
+pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface were covered with green
+tiles, oblong and slightly convex on the outer side, but flat on the
+inner: a square projection pierced with a hole, served to fix them at
+the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods.
+
+[Illustration: 356. jpg ONE OF THE CHAMBERS OF THE STEP-PYRAMID, WITH
+ITS WALL-COVERING OF GLAZED TILES.1]
+
+     1  Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured sketch by
+     Sogato. M. Stern attributes the decoration of glazed pottery
+     to the XXVI '' dynasty, which opinion is shared by
+     Borchardt. The yellow and green glazed tiles hearing the
+     cartouche of Papi I., show that the Egyptians of the
+     Memphite dynasties used glazed facings at that early date;
+     we may, therefore, believe, if the tiles of the vault of
+     Zosiri are really of the Saite period, that they replaced a
+     decoration of the same kind, which belonged to the time of
+     its construction, and of which some fragments still exist
+     among the tiles of more recent date.
+
+The three bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the
+titles of the Pharaoh: the hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red,
+green, or yellow, on a fawn-coloured ground. Other kings had built
+temples, palaces, and towns,--as, for instance, King Khasakhimu, of
+whose constructions some traces exist at Hieraconpolis, opposite to
+El-Kab, or King Khasakhmui, who preceded by a few years the Pharaohs of
+the IVth dynasty--but the monuments which they raised to be witnesses of
+their power or piety to future generations, have, in the course of ages,
+disappeared under the tramplings and before the triumphal blasts of many
+invading hosts: the pyramid alone has survived, and the most ancient of
+the historic monuments of Egypt is a tomb.
+
+[Illustration: 357.jpg TAILPIECE]
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria,
+Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12), by G. Maspero
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