Topic: Egyptian Mythology

[Prometheus]

CHAPTER VIII
FOREIGN GODS

THE Egyptians of the earlier period did not feel it necessary
to bring foreign gods to their country; when they went
to Syria and Nubia, they temporarily worshipped the local
divinities of those lands, without abandoning their own
deities.^ It is true that concepts of Asiatic mythology con-
stantly passed freely into the religion of Egypt,^ and, in
particular, the fairy stories of the New Empire not only
employed Asiatic motifs very liberally, but often placed their
scenes in Asia, thus frankly confessing their dependence on Asi-
atic material. Accordingly the Story of the Two Brothers (Ch. V,
Note io6) is laid largely on the "cedar mountain" of the Syrian
coast; and the Story of the Haunted Prince makes the hero
wander as a hunter to the remote East, the country of Naharina
(corresponding approximately to Mesopotamia), to win the
princess there. This prince, who is doomed to be killed by his
dog (a non-Egyptian explanation of Sirius) or by a serpent
(Hydra), represents a northern idea of the hunter Orion; and
his wife, whom he gains in a jumping-match, is clearly Astarte-
Venus-Virgo, who rescues him by restraining Hydra. ^ From
folk-lore and magic sooner or later such ideas finally passed
into the official theology; and future scholars will ultimately
recognize that a very considerable part of Egyptian religious
thought was derived from or influenced by the mythology
of Asia. Tracing such motifs to the Pyramid Period cer-
tainly does not prove that they were autochthonous. The
earliest centre of Egyptian religion, the ancient city of On-
Heliopolis (p. 31), was situated at the entrance of the great



154



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



caravan route from the East, and there we must assume a
constant interchange of ideas even in the most remote periods.
In the present state of our knowledge, however, we cannot
pass very positive judgement on the many prehistoric loans of
this nature,* and these borrowings, moreover,
consist of religious motifs alone. The actual
gods of Asia, or at least their names, could
not well be appropriated by a nation which
leaned so strongly on ancient local traditions
as did the Egyptian in the more primitive
stages of its history.

The only early exception was the goddess
of the holiest city of Phoenicia, the famous
Ba alath of Gebal-Byblos, who became known
and venerated in Egypt soon after 2000 b. c,
when she was identified with Hat-hor, the
Egyptian divinity most similar to the Asiatic
type of heavenly goddesses (p. 40), or was
worshipped simply as "the Mistress of
Byblos," a remarkable acknowledgement of
the fame of her city. Thus a statuette of
the New Empire in the museum of Turin
represents an Egyptian holding a pillar of
"Hat-hor, the mistress of peace, the mistress
OF THE Museum ^f j^^ [ordinarily Kupni, i. e. Byblos] and

OF Turin Show- *^ .

iNG Hat-hor of of Wawa [a part of Nubia]." Thus far the
^^^°^ admission of the connexion of that city with

the worship of Osiris (p. 120 and Ch. V, Note no) cannot be
traced to quite so early a date, but it may be much more
ancient; the period of the Old and Middle Empires was still
reluctant to confess loans from Asia.

In the New Empire, however, after 1600 b. c, when Egypt
underwent great changes and wished to appear as a military
state and a conquering empire on Asiatic models, and when
the customs and the language of Canaan thus spread through-




157. Statuette



FOREIGN GODS



155




Fig. 158. Reshpu



out the Nile-land, the worship of Asiatic deities became
fashionable, being propagated by many immigrants, merce-
naries, merchants, etc., from Syria. The warlike character of
the gods of Asia and the rich mythology at-
tached to them made them especially attrac-
tive to the Egyptian mind.^

Ba'al (Semitic Lord") is described as the
god of thunder, dwelling on mountains or in
the sky, and terrible in battle, so that the
Egyptians often identified him with their
warlike god Seth (see the next divinity).

Resheph, or Reshpu (Semitic "Lightning")
was represented as a man wearing a high, conical cap (some-
times resembling the crown of Upper Egypt) ,^ often tied with
a long ribbon falling over his back "^ and ornamented above
the forehead with the head of a gazelle, probably to indicate
that he was a hunter. He carries shield, spear, and club, and
sometimes has a quiver on his back. Once he is called Reshpu
Sharamana, i. e. he is identified with another Syrian god,
Shalman or Shalmon.^ As we shall see, he was associated with
Astarte-Qedesh. One form, marked by a long
tassel hanging from the top of the cap, which
we here reproduce after a monument of the
museum of Berlin, is there identified with Seth,
"the one great of strength." Thus Seth, as
the general patron of Asiatics and of warriors
(p. 103), was considered to manifest himself
in all the male deities of Asia.

Some female divinities from Asia were even
more popular.

Astarte ( Astart) had her chief temple in
Memphis,^ although she was also worshipped
in the city of Ramses and elsewhere. This " mistress of heaven "
was scarcely known as a goddess of love in Egypt, where she
was, rather, the deity of war, "the mistress of horses and of the




Fig. 159. Resheph
Seth



156



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




chariot." ^° She usually wears the conical crown of all Asiatic
divinities, with two feathers as an Egyptian addition. The
two following deities evidently constitute mere manifesta-
tions of Astarte. In Asiatlzing art she
seems to be represented also by the
non-Egyptian female sphinx, whose
head is marked by long tresses and a
peculiar kerchief, such as was worn
by Syrian women.

Qedesh (Semitic "the Holy, Awful
One") is pictured like the nude god-
desses of Babylonian art, standing on a
lion and holding flowers and a serpent
"Astarte, Mistress OF Horses which often degenerates into another
AND OF THE Chariot " fl^^^^. . u j^^ keeping with hcr title, " mis-
tress of heaven," she wears the sun and
moon on her head. Her two lovers, the
youthful Tammuz-Adonis and his warlike
rival, appear on either side of her, the
latter as Resheph-Reshpu, and the former
as the Egyptian god Min, who thus again
shows himself to be like Osiris (p. 139).

Asit always rides on horseback. The
name may be nothing more than a pop-
ular form of Astarte when pronounced
As[t]eyt, but in any case 'Asit was
treated as a separate divinity,

Anat has a similar dress

and equipment, but is not

found with the horse. Like

Astarte she is warlike and

sensual,/yet eternally virgin.

Ba'alt ("Mistress"; see p. 154 on the identical name

Ba alath) was the feminine counterpart of Ba'al, and we

also find a Ba'alt Zapuna ("Ba'alt of the North").




Fig. 161. Astarte




Fig. 162. Astarte as a Sphinx



FOREIGN GODS



157




Rarer goddesses of this kind were Atum(a), who seems to
have been the female form of the Canaanitish god Edom;
Nukara, or Nugara, i. e. the Babylonian NIngal,
the deity of the underworld; Amait, who was
worshipped in Memphis; etc. See pp. 207-09
for the numerous names of deities borrowed
from Asia by the sorcerers. We are, however,
uncertain how far those divinities really found
worship in popular circles.

The African neighbours of Egypt to the west
scarcely influenced the pantheon in the historic '^' ^ ^' ^^^^^^
period; after 1000 B.C. only one goddess, Shahdidi, seems to
have come from Libya. It is, however, a
fact which has not yet been observed by
Egyptologists that the Egyptians of the
earliest times worshipped some Nubian gods.
This was due less to Egyptian conquests of
Nubia in prehistoric days, like those of the
Fourth, Sixth, Twelfth, and Eighteenth Dy-
nasties, than to the strong cultural (and
perhaps ethnological) connexions which ex-
isted between the prehistoric Egyptians and
the tribes to the south of them, as excavations in Nubia have
recently shown. It is likewise probable that as mercenaries the
Nubians played the same important part in
the history of pre-dynastic Egypt that they
had later, when several dynasties of the Pyra-
mid Period appear to have been of Nubian
descent. Thus the goddess Selqet (p. 147 )
had her local worship south of the Cataract
region, and yet was a very important Egyp-
tian divinity, connected with the Osiris-myth.
In like fashion Dedun, a god in human form,
originally pictured as a bird on a crescent-shaped twig, was
worshipped at remote Semneh in Nubia, near the Second




Fig. 164. 'AsiT




165. 'Anat



158 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Cataract, as "the youth of the south who came forth from
Nubia," and yet it seems that kings of the Sixth Dynasty still
called themselves after this foreign god.^^ The hieroglyphs of
Dedun and Selqet appear combined on remarkable vessels of
the earliest dynastic period. ^^ Thus we
r(,.y see that the frontier of Egypt could once
be drawn rather far north of the First
Cataract, or else at this Cataract (as was
usually the case in historical times), or it
Fig. i66. Hieroglyphs could be extended far south of it, even to

OF Dedun and Selqet

the Second Cataract, according to varying
political conditions and the personal opinions of the ancient
scholars.^*

After Alexander the Great the Greek gods of the ruling
classes replaced the Egyptian divinities in some Hellenized
places, but made little impression on the Egyptian pantheon
where it was still maintained (see pp. 239-40, and for Serapis
cf. p. 98).




CHAPTER IX
WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN

FROM ancient times no feature of Egyptian religion has
attracted so much attention as the wide-spread cult of
animals.^ A few of the Classical writers viewed it with mystic
awe, but the majority of them expressed dislike or sarcasm
even before the Christians began to prove the diabolical nature
of paganism by this worst madness of the Egyptians (pp. 7-8).
Until very recently modern scholars themselves have found
this curious element inexplicable. Some of them, over-zealous
admirers of Egypt, attempted to excuse it as a later degenera-
tion of a symbolism which the alleged "pure religion" of earli-
est Egypt might have understood in a less materialistic sense.
The precise opposite Is true, for animal worship constitutes a
most prominent part of the primitive Egyptian beliefs. If we
start from the theory that animism was the basis of the begin-
nings of Egyptian religion, we have no difficulty in under-
standing the role which animals played In It. When the major-
ity of spirits worshipped by the rude, prehistoric Egyptians
were clad with animal form, this agrees with the view of the
brute creation which Is held by primitive man In general. It
Is not the superior strength or swiftness of some creatures
which causes them to be regarded with religious awe, and still
less is It gratitude for the usefulness of the domestic animals;
it is the fear that the seemingly dumb beasts possess reason and
a language of their own which man cannot fathom and which
consequently connect them with the mysterious, supernatural
world. It Is true that the lion, the hawk, and the poisonous
serpent predominate In the Egyptian pantheon, but the form



i6o EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

of the crocodile is limited to one or two gods; and the most
terrible of wild animals, the leopard, and perhaps the hippo-
potamus,^ are, possibly accidentally, wholly lacking, while,
on the other hand, the little shrew-mouse appears. We have
already explained the frequency of black bulls as belonging, in
all probability, to the advanced stage of cosmic gods (Ch. Ill,
Note lo), and the hawk may, likewise, indicate the same age in
which the hawk-shaped sun-god was dominant. Hence we must
be careful not to use these forms for explaining the primitive
meaning of that phenomenon. Where the cult of an animal
has survived in later times, it is repeatedly stated in clear words
that the spirit of some god has taken possession of it (see p. 164,
for instance, on the designation of the Mendes "ram" as the
"soul" of a deity). That the later Egyptians thought at the
same time of such divinities as residing in heaven presented
no difficulty to them, for gods were not limited to one soul;
a deity had several souls (or, rather, "forces")^ and might,
therefore, live contemporaneously both in heaven and on earth,
or might even appear in a number of earthly incarnations
simultaneously. The inconsistencies of these theories of the
incarnation of celestial beings show, however, that they were,
after all, a secondary development. We see this with especial
clearness In instances where the god, though said to be in-
carnate in an animal, is never actually represented in that
form, as is the case with Ptah, Osiris, Re', Min, etc.; or when,
as we shall see, the later Egyptians no longer understood the
connexion between the solarized god Montu and his original
bull-form, the Buchis, but tried, on the analogy of the Apis,
etc., to explain the latter animal as the embodiment of other,
more obviously celestial divinities.

The earliest Egyptians, who scarcely sought their gods out-
side the earth, must have worshipped such an animal, sup-
posed to be possessed by an extraordinary spirit, as divine in
itself. It was only the tendency of a more advanced age to
invest the gods with some higher (i. e. cosmic) power and to



WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN i6i

remove them from the earthly sphere that compelled the theo-
logians to resort to these theories of the incarnation of celestial
divinities. A similar attempt to break away from the crudest
conceptions of animal worship betrays itself likewise in the
numerous mixed representations of the old animal-gods, i. e.
with a human body and the head of an animal. Evidently
the underlying idea was that these deities were in reality not
animals, that they merely appeared (or had once appeared) on
earth in such guise, but that as a matter of fact they lived in
heaven in the form most becoming to gods, i. e. in an Idealized
human shape. This modification of the old animistic religion
can be traced to a date far anterior to the Pyramid Period,'*
The prehistoric Egyptians, as we have said above, must have
had the opposite view, namely, that the worthiest form for
the gods was that of animals.

We have no information as to how the earliest period treated
the succession of the divine animals which were adored in the
temples. The later theory that reincarnations came from
heaven in regular order, as we shall see when we consider the
Apis bull, does not seem plausible for the original local cults
of prehistoric times, since their means were so extremely lim-
ited that it must have been very difficult for them to find an-
other animal with the requisite physical characteristics. It is
possible that some sacred animals did not have such a succes-
sion. Some, like the crocodiles of Sobk, seem to have bred
in the temples. It is possible that in later times certain of the
sacred animals may primarily have been kept at the sanctuaries
merely as symbols to remind men of the god who now dwelt in
heaven after having once shown himself on earth as an animal
in the days of the pious ancestors when divinities still walked
in this world. The popular mind, however, anxious to have a
palpable sign of the god's existence, could not draw the line
between sacredness and real divinity, and soon regarded the
symbolic animal as a supernatural being in itself, thus return-
ing to the original conception of sacred animals.



1 62



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



The great difficulty In the problem under consideration is
that we know very little about the majority of the sacred ani-
mals; only the most prominent cults, which were observed
throughout Egypt, have left relatively full Information. Here
we are largely dependent on the Grseco-Roman writers, to
whom this feature of Egyptian religion seemed especially re-
markable; unfortunately, the data which these more or less
superficial observers record are not always trustworthy. The
hieroglyphic inscriptions do not have much to say concern-
ing the cult of animals, which is In itself a proof that the learned

priests could do little with this bequest
of the ancestors. It remained a mys-
tery to the generations that had out-
grown the animistic stage. This very
obscurity, however, seemed only a proof
that such cults were peculiarly vener-
able as transcending human under-
n standing and Intellect,
v,^ .<- Statuette of the ^^^ "^°^^ popular sacred animal was

Apis Showing his Sacred the ApIs (Egyptian Hp, pronounced

Hap, Hop; "the Runner") of Memphis,
a black bull with certain special white marks, "resembling an
eagle's wings," on his forehead and back, a "scarab-like" knot
under (.'') his tongue, and other signs. According to later be-
lief, he was conceived by a ray of light descending on a cow, I. e.
he was an Incarnation of the sun. His discovery, his solemn
escorting to Memphis, and his pompous installation as "the
holy god, the living Apis," at the temple called the " Apiaeum"
were celebrated throughout Egypt. He was kept In great
luxury and gave oracles by the path which he chose, the food
which he accepted or refused, etc. He was usually regarded
as the embodiment of Ptah, the chief local god, being called
"Ptah renewing himself" or "son of Ptah," but later he was
considered more as an incarnation of Oslris-Sokarl, especially
after his death. ^ He is depicted wearing the solar disk between




WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN



163



his horns and is thus connected not only with the sun (Re'
or Atum) but also with the moon, whence it is obvious that,
as we have noted above, he was originally a god himself
without any connexion with nature. The fact that he was
allowed to drink only from a well, not from the Nile, shows
that he was compared likewise — though very secondarily
— with Ha'pi, the Nile (or with Osiris in the same function?).
The anniversary of his birth was celebrated for seven (?) days
every year; when he died,^ great mourning was observed in the
whole land, and he was
sumptuously interred at
Saqqarah, where the tombs
of the Apis bulls and of
their mothers, who had be-
come sacred through the
divine birth, were found by
A, Mariette in 185 1. Soon
after the seventy days^ of
mourning over the loss of
the god, a new Apis calf was
discovered by the priests
with suspicious promptness. ^

[Prometheus]

Next in reputation was the Mnevis (Egyptian Nem-uer,
"Great Wanderer"), the sacred animal of Heliop-olis, who was
explained as "the living sun-god Re'" or "the (living) repro-
duction of Re'" and also of Osiris. His name reveals the
early comparison with celestial phenomena. He was a black
and white bull, somewhat similar to Apis. In later times the
black sacred bull of Montu, which was called Bekh or Bokh
(the Bax^'i, Ba«:;)j^i?, or, better, Bovxi^, of the Greeks) at Her-
monthis,^ was likewise called "the living soul of Re'" or of
Osiris (whence he also took the name Osorbuchis); he is pic-
tured much like Apis. Regarding the (white.?) bull of Min
(p. 139), the cow of Momemphis, the bull (perhaps of Osiris-
Horus) at Pharbaethos,^" etc., we know little. ^^




Fig. 168. BucHis



164



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




Fig. 169.
TheMendes
Ram and his
Plant Sym-
bol



A very curious problem is presented by the sacred ram (?) of
the city of Mendes in the Delta, called Bi-neb-ded(u) (muti-
lated in Greek as Mev8r]<, i. e. "Soul of the Lord
of Busiris." Thus he was understood to embody
the soul of the god Osiris of the neighbouring city
Busiris ;^^ occasionally he was also called "soul of
Re'." ^^ The divine incarnation in him likewise
was manifested by bodily marks "as described in
the sacred books," which the priests "recognized
according to the holy writings." He seems to
have been worshipped as a god of fecundity like
Osiris; and accordingly his
emblem also was an ear of grain. The
Classical stories about sexual intercourse
of these sacred animals with women are
probably due to misunderstandings of
the interpretation of Mendes as a sym-
bol of fertility or to errors regarding
ceremonies relating to such symbolism.
Strangely enough, all Graeco-Roman
sources agree in describing Mendes as a
he-goat. This contradiction to every
Egyptian representation has not yet been explained in a satis-
factory way.^^ The ram of other gods, e. g. of
Khnum(u), does not enjoy any prominence;
and although in later times Amon had a ram
instead of his earlier goose (p. 129), its worship
was not very marked.

A lion was kept, we are told, at Leontopolis
for Shu (p. 44) ; a she-cat was probably honoured
at Bubastos (cf. p. 150); and a baboon, in
Fig. 171. Atum of all likelihood, represented Thout at some place

Heliopolis , \ A 1- 1 1

(pp. 33-34). Accordmgly we may assume the
existence of many other sacred animals, arguing from the repre-
sentations of gods in animal form or with the heads of animals.




Fig. 170. Amon as a Ram




WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN



i6s




None of these creatures, however, gained a prominence com-
parable with the importance of the animal gods which have
been mentioned above. At Denderah we find,
not a single cow of Hat-hor, but a whole herd of
kine, the Tentet.

Among rarer mammals of smaller size the
most interesting is the ichneumon, which once
embodied the god Atum of Heliopolis. This
deity, who so very quickly assumed solar func-
tions and a human form (p. 27), nevertheless Fig 172 "Atum
appears in animal guise in some pictures from the Spirit of
which we see that the later artists were in doubt
as to what this creature was; e.g. one statue, carrying weap-
ons, has a weasel-like head, or he is shown as an enigmatic
^yfi^rx. animal in the interesting picture of the evening
sun, reproduced in Fig. 11. "Atum, the spirit
ika) of Heliopolis," is clearly an ichneumon.^^
The like statements apply to a god Shed (more
probably to be pronounced Shedeti, "the One
from the City of Shedet" in the Fayum); i. e.,
analogously, we later find incorrect pictures of
him like Fig. 174 besides the ichneumon type (Fig. 173)? which
was probably original. After 2000 B.C., curiously enough,
this deity bears a Semitic name, Khaturi, or Khatuli ("the
Weasel [i*]-Like").^^ Mummies of Ichneumons
have also been found at various places in the
Delta, and in later times the whole species
seems to have been sacred.
The shrew-mouse Is said
to have been dedicated to
the Horus of Chemmis.

Among sacred birds the
most important apparently was the phoe-
nix {benu; read bin, boin) ^'' of Heliopolis, a species of heron
with long crest feathers. It symbolized the sun-god under the



-=^^2



Fig. 173. Shedeti





Fig. 174.
Khatuli-Shedeti



Fig. 175. The
Phoenix



1 66



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



r<*r




names of Re' and Osiris (p. 95) and in later times was also their
embodiment in the planet Venus (p. 54). In the morning,
according to Egyptian belief, the heron, "creating himself,"

rises in a fragrant flame (p. 28)
over the celestial sycamore (or
its local representative, the Per sea
of Heliopolis), or as "the soul of
Osiris" it rests (at night?) on this
tree above the sarcophagus of
Osiris, as in the accompanying
picture. This forms the transition
to the fanciful Greek stories ^^
T, r >.T- c n " ,„ that the phoenix came from

Fig. 176. The Soul of Osiris in ^

A Sacred Tree Overshadowing Arabia (i. e. the region of SUnrise)
HIS Sarcophagus-like Shrine ^ ^1 ^ 1 r tt i- i*

to the temple or Jrieliopolis, em-
balmed his father (i.e. Osiris) in an ^^% (the sun?), and then
burned himself. The Greek misunderstanding of his appear-
ance in Egypt only at the end of a long calendric period —
variously given as 500, 540, 654, 1000, or 1461 years — seems
to show that no heron was kept at Heliopolis in Classical times;
but this proves nothing whatever for the earliest period, which
was more materialistic in outlook,^®

The tame crocodile of Sobk-Suchos which was
honoured at Arsinoe has become especially famous
through the graphic description which Strabo ^° gives
of its feeding by pious visitors. According to this
author, "it is called Suchos," so that it was regarded,
at least by the laity of Roman times, as a real in-
carnation of the local deity Sobk.

Serpents, which are considered demoniac creatures
in so many countries, were objects of especial awe In
Egypt as well. Numerous goddesses were worshipped in the
form of snakes, or could at least assume this shape, and the
serpent was even used as the general hieroglyph for "goddess."
It was probably for this reason that pictures of "erect ser-




WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN 167

pents," standing free or In chapels, protected the entrance to
the temples, and the geographical lists give the names of the
principal "erect snake" kept alive, perhaps In a cage, at each
Important shrine of the nome, evidently because a tutelary
spirit of this form was thought to be necessary for every sacred
place, exactly as each had to have a sacred tree. The temple
of Denderah even had eight sacred serpents with carefully
specified names, although It Is not clear whether these were
living reptiles or mere Images. ^^ Mummified frogs, fish, and
scarabs may be due rather to the sacredness of an entire
species, on which we shall speak below.

Granting that the Egyptians of the historic period had little
understanding of the fragments of primitive religion preserved
In these remnants of animal worship, we may nevertheless
assume that their explanation of this phenomenon by incarna-
tion of gods contains an Idea which Is partly correct. If stripped
of cosmic theories. The unsatisfactory material at our com-
mand, however, renders it difficult to determine why we cannot
prove a worship of a living Incarnation for every deity who is
represented on the monuments In a form either wholly or par-
tially animal. We must wonder why, for example, the sacred
hawk or hawks of Horus at Edfu (who never has human form)
are scarcely mentioned. We might try to explain this by the cos-
mic role which this Important god assumed at a very early time,
so that he accordingly withdrew from earth; and thus we might
suppose that the dog of Anubis and the wolf of Ophoi's lost
some of their dignity when these deities were attached to the
cosmic Ideas of the Osirian circle. On the other hand, Nekhbet
and Heqet, for example, never became cosmic divinities to a
degree which would enable us to explain why we hear nothing
positive concerning the cult of their Incarnation in a vulture
and in a frog. Thus it Is difficult to say why numerous local
animal cults left only half-effaced traces, while others survived
in rather primitive form. It would be wrong to distinguish
between such modernized or half-forgotten cults and the few



1 68 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

sacred animals which, through the greater importance of their
cities, attained high prominence and later enjoyed worship
throughout Egypt; this would be a repetition of the error of
Strabo,^^ who regarded the obscurer animals as merely sacred,
not divine. We have already seen (p. i6i) that a distinction
between sacred, symbolic animals and those which claimed to
be real Incarnations of a divinity was too subtle for the Egyptian
mind. Neither do the cosmic Interpretations of the prominent
animals constitute a general difference. These explanations,
as we have seen above, are suspiciously uniform and thus be-
tray the Influence of the more advanced period. ^^ This epoch,
seeking the gods In nature and In heaven, must have allowed
many places to lose their animal cults, though the old pictures
and names still revealed the barbarous origin of the local gods.
It was only here and there. It would seem, that local tradition
proved strong enough to maintain the ancestral cult without
too much modernization.

A different problem presents Itself when we consider the
sacredness of a whole species of animals as contrasted with the
Individual sanctity of which we have thus far spoken. It may
be either local or universal. The Classical writers describe with
sarcasm how a species of animal — the crocodile, for example
— was venerated in one nome, while in the one adjoining it
was even cursed and persecuted. In most Instances of this
character we can see that the original sacredness of an individual
animal had been extended to the species; a god's relatives also
seemed to deserve worship. This explains the case of some
creatures, whether wild or domesticated as pets, which were
treated with more or less veneration throughout the whole
country. Thus, for instance, the Greeks state that the ibis (of
Thout), the hawk (of Horus), and the cat (of Bubastis) were
everywhere so inviolable that even unintentional killing of
them was punished by death (the mob usually lynching the
offender), that they were fed by the population or by official
keepers, and that after death they were embalmed and burled



WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN 169

in collective tombs,^^ some being laid in central tombs at the
capital of the nome, while the mummies of others were sent
from the whole country to the most important place of wor-
ship. Cats, for example, were usually interred in an immense
cemetery devoted especially to them at Bubastos. It is quite
true that these animals were considered to be merely sacred,
and not divine, so that they could not receive prayers and
offerings, but the popular mind often failed to observe this
subtle distinction and actually termed such sacred creatures
"gods." This cult of whole species attained this degree of
prominence only in the latest period and seems to have devel-
oped gradually from a local veneration of less intense char-
acter; on the other hand, it again marks a reversion to some
primitive ideas. In like manner, when the K,(7a,>

snakes inhabiting a house are fed by the ^^W^

owner, the wish to gain protection through /A~~~-\r<f^<^
such demoniac beings rests on a most primi- \b^ « «
tive animistic conception. When we learn, Fig. 178. Egyptian
however, that various kinds of fish might
not be eaten, it is not always clear whether this prohibition
was based on their sacredness or on a curse. ^^ Mummified
species of fish prove their sacredness only for later times.

Fabulous beings which were believed to populate the desert
belonged, of course, to the realm of the supernatural and
formed the transition to the endless number of strangely mixed
forms which more obviously were part of the divine world,
inhabiting the sky or the lower regions. We may suppose,
moreover, that earthly creatures which fanciful hunters imag-
ined that they had seen in the desert or in the mountains, ^^
such as the griffin, the chimera (a winged leopard with a human
head projecting from its back), and the lion or leopard with a
serpent's neck, which was so popular in the prehistoric period
(pp. 64-65), were indistinct recollections of representations which
were once worshipped, as well as the double-faced bull (Fig. 2 (d))
and the double lion (p. 43). Indeed, we find all these fabulous



lyo

[Prometheus]

EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



beings pictured by magicians side by side with real gods,
whether because the sorcerers kept up old traditions, or because




Fig. 179. The Birth of a King Protected by Gods

they returned to forgotten divinities. The sphinx, originally a
picture of Hu, the god of wisdom (p. Gy), survived as an em-
blem of royalty and in its strictly Egyptian form was always
represented as male (for the foreign female sphinz
see p. 156 and cf. Fig. 162).

This brings us to the question how far men
were worshipped. The most prominent examples
of the adoration of human beings were the kings."
Every Pharaoh claimed to be a divine incar-
nation; according to the prevailing official theory
he was a "form," or "double," or "soul," or
"living representation," etc., of the sun-god, the
many souls of this deity (pp. 28, 160) facilitating
such a belief. As the living image of the sun the
king might also claim to have himself many souls
or "doubles" (ka), the number of these being as
high as fourteen. 2^ Accordingly we find such ^ o t-

o ^ •' r iG. 180. 1 HE

royal names as "Firm is the Form of the Sun- Ka of a King,
God" (Men-kheper-reS i. e. Thutmosis III), or li::^'Z,'''l
"Finest of the Forms of the Sun-God" (Nefr- Staff - Symbol

, , ^, . . , Ti 7- 1 r 1 • 1 N Indicating Life

khepru-re , i.e. Amen-hotep IV before his heresy),

etc. The pompous titles of the monarchs as "the good god,"

etc., were no mere poetic licence, but were meant to be taken




PLATE III

I. Amen-hotep

The divinization of men is by no means restricted
to Egyptian mythology. For an interesting parallel
in Indo-Chinese religion see infra, p. 260, and for the
corresponding artistic development see Plate V.

2. I-M-HOTEP

This scholar became so famous that ultimately
he was believed to be of divine ancestry and was
regarded as a son of the god Ptah.

3. The Zodiacal Signs

This picture, dating from the Roman period,
shows the blending of Egyptian and Classical con-
ceptions. See pp. 57, 65.









*>;»?-



I



\S^ V-3 ^»C> '?\2Bi*^ "/7r



PUBLIC Liii^LAliY



ASTOB, LENOX AND
TILDBN FOlANDAriiNS



WORSHIP OF ANIMALS AND MEN 171

quite literally. "Birth-temples" were erected to commemo-
rate the birth of each new king and to describe and glorify in
inscription and in picture the conception and advent of the
new divinity sent from the skies to be the terrestrial repre-
sentative of the gods and to rule that land which reproduced
heaven on earth. ^^ The full divinity of the Pharaoh was mani-
fested, however, only at his coronation, which was accordingly
commemorated similarly in memorial temples. We also find
kings sacrificing and praying to the divine spirit resident in
themselves, or to their own ka ("double," or "soul"), which
was distinguished from their earthly personality and which
was thought to follow them as a kind of guardian spirit.
After death the Pharaoh was held to be a new manifestation
of Osiris, and In some cases the worship of the dead ruler
sought to excel the honour which had been paid him while
he was alive. This was the case, e. g., with the short-lived
Amen-hotep I, who became the divine ruler of a part of the
Theban necropolis, for which his burial probably opened a new
tract of land. In similar fashion great builders might receive
divine honours near their monuments, as did "Pramarres"
(Amen-em-het III, of the Twelfth Dynasty) In the Fayum,
which he seems to have reclaimed from the lake.^° Even
private citizens of extraordinary ability might receive worship
as saints and subsequently rise to the rank of gods. The
princely scholar I-m-hotep of the Fourth Dynasty became so
famous for his learning that In the latest period he was the
patron of all scholars, and especially of physicians, whence
the Greeks explained "Imuthes" as the Egyptian Asklepios.
He is represented as a seated priest with shaven head, hold-
ing a book on his knees. Here royal blood may have con-
tributed somewhat, but we also find Amen-hotep, the son of
Hap(u), the prime minister of Amen-hotep III, worshipped as
a famous scholar at his memorial sanctuary at Der el-Medi-
neh;'^ and there were some similar minor saints, such as two
at Dandur in Nubia who were called "the genius" {shay; cf.



172 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

p. 52 for this expression) of the locality and "Osiris, much
praised in the underworld." ^^

Generally speaking, all the dead might be worshipped on the
theory that as blessed spirits they lived with the gods in a
state of illumination and sanctification. Their chapels were,
however, places to pray for them rather than to pray to them;
and the sacrifices offered there were not to win their interces-
sion, but served merely to maintain their hungry souls (p. 177).
Contrary to the usual belief, therefore, the worship of an-
cestors, as we shall see in the following chapter, was not so
clearly and strongly developed in ancient Egypt as among
some other peoples.



CHAPTER X
LIFE AFTER DEATH

THE doctrine of life after death ^ was so richly developed In
ancient Egypt that here we can sketch only a few of Its
most remarkable features. It would require an entire volume
to do justice to this chapter, for no people ever showed so much
care for the dead as the Egyptians, or so much Imagination
about the life hereafter.

Even In the earliest prehistoric times the soul was believed
to be Immortal, as Is shown by the gifts of food, drink, and
ornaments found In all graves of that period. There only a
large tray or pot placed over the bodies, which were Interred
in a crouching position, or a few stones or mud bricks show
gradual efforts to guard the dead against the animals of the
desert; but the large tombs of the kings at the beginning of the
Dynastic Period commence to betray precisely the same care
for the existence of the departed as was manifested In later
times. In the Pyramid Period embalmment begins with the
kings, increasing care Is given to the tombs of private citizens,
and rich Inscriptions reveal to us most of the views about life
after death which the later Egyptians kept so faithfully. We
see from them that in the earhest period as well as In the latest
the most contradictory views reigned concerning life after
death. In harmony with the general character of Egyptian
religion, which desired to preserve all ancestral opinions as
equally sacred without examining them too closely and with-
out systematizing them.

We may Infer that the most primitive period held that the
spirits of the dead haunted the wide desert where the graves



174 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

were situated, filling the stony mountains of this inhospitable

region by night. In consequence of their miserable abode and

hard existence such spirits were not very safe company for the

wanderer in the desert. The best wish for the soul

of one's relatives may have been that it might become

the most dangerous among all those demons, feared

and respected by the rest. The custom of placing all
Fig. i8i. ...^ ,-iiii i--

The Soul- kmds oi weapons beside the dead to protect him m

^^^^ this life of danger, in which he is hunted by the ter-
rible demons of the desert or of the underworld, also looks
like a remnant of such primitive ideas, although it survived
until the New Empire.^

The soul of man is usually depicted as a human-headed bird
fluttering from his mouth at death. An earlier term for "soul,"
ka (or kai ?),^ the hieroglyphic symbol of which is two uplifted
arms, as in Fig. i8o, seems to imply that the soul continues
to live in the form of a shadowy double of the body. In
the New Empire especially the defunct soul is distinctly
identified with the shadow, which is symbolized by the
silhouette of the body or by the hieroglyph of a parasol
(cf. Fig. 189). Some very late theologians sought to dis-
tinguish the three synonyms, "double," "soul," and "shadow,"
as different parts of the soul and occasionally even added
as a fourth element the "illuminated soul," or ikh{u). No
decision was ever reached as to whether the
soul continued to live in the corpse, returning,
some believed, from the realm of the dead
after its purification (i. e. mummification),
either forever or from time to time; or whether
it stayed in or near the grave, or roamed in the „
desert, or went far hence to the place of Osiris. The Soul Return-
The funerary texts and burial preparations of
the wealthier classes tried to take all these different views into
account, although they gave preference to the last theory, as
being the most advanced. For the first possibility all care is




LIFE AFTER DEATH



175




taken to protect and preserve the corpse;^ if, nevertheless, the
body should decay, the soul may settle In one or more portrait
statues placed in the grave. There food is prepared, either
actually (meat being sometimes embalmed), or
in imitations in stone, clay, or wood, or in pic-
tures and written magic formulae, these ma-
terial offerings being renewed on festival days.
Prayefs also express the wish that the dead may
be able to leave his tomb and to appear not
merely by night, when all spirits are freed to p^^ jg ^.^^
haunt the earth, but also by day, taking what- Soul Returns

, . , -r' ^1 • ^1 1 r TO THE GrAVE

ever form it may choose, ror this the shape 01
several birds is preferred, although even the crocodile, the
snake, the grasshopper, and the flower are considered.^ The
spirit desires to visit his home — a belief which is not always
pleasant for the superstitious inmates^ — or if it roams in
the desert, the tomb ought to open Itself to house it again.
A little ladder assists the dead to ascend to heaven, or a small
model of a ship enables him to sail to or over it, or prayer and
magic help his soul to fly up to the stars. The way to the re-
mote realm of Osiris is indeed blocked by many difficulties.
Evil spirits threaten to devour the soul; dozens of gates are
watched by monstrous guardians armed with knives (the
"knife-bearers") or with sharp teeth and claws; broad rivers

and steep mountains must be passed,
etc. Magic formulae and pictures for
overcoming all these obstacles are placed
on the walls of the tomb or on the sar-
cophagus, are later included in books
laid near the mummy or inside it (e. g.

Fig. 184. The Dead Visits in Its arm-pit), and finally are even
HIS House . , . , ,

written on the wrappings round the

mummy. Thus the rich literature of semi-magic illustrated
guide-books for the dead developed, above all the great collec-
tion which we call the Book of the Dead.''



I I L / /

I n ' / /



176 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

These texts and other magic aids assisted the dead to over-
come all obstacles, to be carried by strange ferries across the
Stygian river or the ocean, to fly to heaven in the form of a bird
or of an insect or to be transported thither on the wings of gods
or of their messengers, to climb to the celestial heights by the
heavenly tree or by a ladder or to walk to them over the moun-
tains of the west, to open the door of heaven or to descend the
long subterranean roads leading to the underworld. The last
and most serious difiiculty awaited the departed when finally
he approached the judgement hall or court of Osiris for exam-
ination of his life on earth. There he expected to be brought
M before the throne of this god and his as-
sembly of forty-two assessors,^ most of whom
were monsters of horrible aspect and ter-
rible names, such as "Blood-Drinker,"
"Bone-Breaker," or "Shadow-Swallower." ^
His heart was weighed by Thout and his
~ cynocephalous baboon (p. 33)^° and by
Wanders over a Anubis (p. Ill); and he himself read from his
Mountain to the guide-book the "Negative Confession," enu-

Seat of Osiris • r • r 1 • 1 1 1 1

meratmg forty-two sms of which he declared
himself guiltless, triumphantly exclaiming at the end, "I am
pure, I am pure." He was then admitted to the realm of
Osiris, which is described as situated in heaven or in a deep
hole {tephet) under the earth, or between sky and earth; accord-
ing to the earliest theory, it ascended and descended in the stars
(p. 97) which form the "divine fields." In the oldest texts the
ferry to that land is usually described as sailing on the dark
waters which come from the realm of Khnum (the lower
world), i. e. on the subterranean Nile and the abyss (p. 89);
the latter, however, leads to the great terrestrial ocean and its
continuation in the sky, which likewise receive description as
being the way to Osiris (p. 95), For the strange ferryman
"who looks backward, whose face is backward," see p. 58.
In company with the gods the departed lead a life of luxury,



LIFE AFTER DEATH 177

clad in fine linen and eating especially grapes and figs "from
the divine garden," " bread from the granary of the deities, or
even more miraculous food, as from the tree of life or similar
wonderful plants which grow in the various "meadows" or
" fields ";^^ sometimes they are even expected to drink milk
from the breasts of the goddesses or water from the fountain of
life (Fig. 89), which was often identified with the source of the
Nile (p. 95). Such food gives eternal life and divine nature.
More modest is the expectation of a farmer's life in prolific
fields which the dead plough, sow, and reap under the direc-
tion of Osiris. Since this still remains a laborious existence,
subsequently little proxies of wood or earthenware, the
ushehtiu (" answerers "),^^ are expected to answer for the de-
parted when Osiris calls his name, bidding him work and
wield the wooden hoe in the heavenly fields. While the
peasants will be glad to toil for Osiris as they did in their
earthly existence, the nobles desire a new life of greater leisure.
Various pastimes are considered in the other world, as when
the dead wishes to play at draughts (sometimes, according
to later texts, with his own soul).^"* In the belief of the
period from 3000 to 1800 b. c. the figures of bakers, butchers,
and other servants which were put into the grave provided
for the food and comfort of the dead, saving him from toil;
and the human sacrifices described below may have had the
same purpose of furnishing servants for the departed.

This brings us back to the fact that, after all, man dares
not depend entirely on celestial nourishment. Do not the gods
themselves, though surrounded by all kinds 'of miraculous
food and drink, need the sacrifices of man.^ From such beliefs
arise the many preparations which we have described for feed-
ing the soul in or near the grave, or for providing food even for
its life in the more remote other- world. Precautions for all con-
tingencies are advisable, since no fate of a soul is more sad
for it than to be compelled, in its ravenous hunger and thirst,

to live on oflFal and even to swallow its own excreta. Accord-
XII— 13



178 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Ingly it was the anxious wish of every Egyptian to have chil-
dren to provide sacrifices for his soul; and the first duty of each
man, according to the moral maxims of Ani, was, "Pour liba-
tions of water for thy father and thy mother, who rest In the
valley. . . . Thy son shall do the same for thee." Wretched
indeed is the soul of the childless, who has none to remember
him!

This care for the feeding of the departed seems to us, of
course. In flagrant contradiction to the condition which the
dead ought to enjoy according to the higher views. They are
not merely with the gods, but they completely share their life
of luxury. They sit on thrones in the circumpolar region of the
sky, where the highest divinities dwell (p. 55); or they perch
like birds on the branches of the celestial tree, i. e. they become
stars (p. 35), even some very prominent stellar bodies which
are usually identified with the greatest deities. As rowers or
soldiers they take a place In the ship In which the sun-god
sails over the celestial ocean, ^^ or they sit In the cabin as hon-
oured guests and are rowed by the god, as in Fig. 7. They
actually become like Osiris, the personification of resurrection,
to such an extent that they are kings and judges of the de-
parted, wherefore each one who has passed away, whether
male or female. Is addressed as "Osiris N. N." Deceased
women are later styled also "Hat-hor N. N." With Osiris
the dead may assume a solar, lunar, or stellar character and
may appear as this same deity In the other manifestations of
nature. The Book of the Dead, however, prays also that the
deceased may become In general a god and that he may be
Identified with Ptah, etc.^^

Many of these expectations were originally suitable only for
the kings, who, being divine In their lifetime, claimed an exalted
position after death; yet just as the costly burial customs were
gradually extended from the Pharaohs to the nobles and thence
to the common folk, those high hopes of future life were soon
appropriated by the nobility and finally by the ordinary popu-

[Prometheus]

LIFE AFTER DEATH



179




lace. Thus "followers of Horus" (or of Re' or Osiris) ^^ quickly
came to mean simply "the blessed dead," although primarily
it seems to have been restricted to the kings, who alone had
a right to be ad-
mitted to the
solar bark. On
the other hand,
side by side with
these extrava-
gant desires we
are told that the

hopes of some Fig. 186. The Dead before Osiris, the Balance of Jus-
r ^1 1^1 tice, the Lake of Fire, and "the Swallower"

or the wealthy

would be satisfied if their souls might dwell in their spacious
and comfortable tombs, sit on the green trees without, and
drink from the artificial lake that lay there; nor were the very
modest expectations of the peasants forgotten whose highest
longing was to dig the grounds in the fields of Osiris (p. 177).
The Book of the Dead describes all these hopes and desires that
each and every one of them may be realized.

These pleasant promises are only for the worthy. The souls
of the wicked are soon annihilated by the multitude of demons
who inhabit the underworld or by the stern guardians who
watch the roads and gates to the kingdom of Osiris. If they
reach his tribunal, they are condemned to a second death.
^^^ ^ The forty- two terrible

•. Livvv^^j^ ...yj ^'^^?^^^ /y judges themselves may

A 'n l\ 1 // \ A 1 // ^^^^ them to pieces im-

/ V * ''^^^t^y^jy v!r^^^ mediately; or the mon-

' • ;;v^ - ;^-v;-i.i- \v strous watch-dog of

Fig. 187. The^C^^demned ""before t^^^o^ OsirIs,"the swallower," ^8

or "swallower of the
west" — a mixture of crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus — may
devour them; or they may be cast before a fire-breathing dragon
who seems to be none other than the dragon 'Apop; or Anubis



i8o



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




Fig. i88. Shades Swimming in
THE Abyss



or the baboon of Thout will lead them, sometimes in the de-
grading form of a pig (apparently usually female), to the place
of punishment, "the place of slaughter." The doom of these

sinners is a hell filled with flames and
biting serpents, or the depths of the
abyss in which they will be drowned, ^^
or lakes of flames (or of flames in the
form of fiery serpents) or of boiling
water, or ovens in which we see the
burning of heads (as the seats of life)
or of the shades (as in the accompanying picture; cf. p. 174);
or swarms of evil spirits, armed with knives (p. 175) to behead
or dissect the souls, will execute the wicked. At the place of
torture Thout, as the god of justice, has his four baboons ^° who
watch the lake of fire or catch the souls of the condemned in a
net to deliver them to torment (for the net cf. p. 109). These
punishments mean instantaneous annihilation or long agony,
as does also life with one's head hanging downward, although
eternal torture is nowhere so clearly stated as eternal bliss. ^^

The view that only virtue and piety toward the gods free
man from such an evil fate and secure him bliss can be traced
in its beginnings to
the Pyramid Period,
and officially it pre-
dominates in gen-
eral after the Mid-
dle Empire. Even
kings are subject to
it and expect to re-
cite tne INegailve p^^ ^g^ ^ Female Guardian with Fiery Breath
Confession" before Watches Souls, Symbolized by Shades and Heads,
,, ^ r r\ • IN the Ovens of Hell

the tribunal 01 Usi-

ris, although in our chapter on magic we shall find some strange
passages which place the Pharaoh beyond all justice and above
the gods themselves, thus forming a marked contrast to the




LIFE AFTER DEATH



i8i



general teaching. This ethical theory, however, was never able
entirely to displace the more primitive view that bliss for the
dead could be mechanically secured after death by sacrifices,
prayers, and religious ceremonies which might be considered
magical from the point of view of a more advanced religion.
The equipment of the dead with endless amulets and with
writings and pictures of a semi-magic character, such as we
have described on p. 175, is likewise quite essential for every
one. In later times embalmment also was counted among
these mechanical means (p. iii), for It had been forgotten that
the only object of the mummification
of the body and the preservation of
the most important viscera In canopic
vases (p. 112) was to keep an abode for
the soul. It was then believed that
Osiris was the first to be mummified,
and that embalmment by the fingers
of Anubis had secured for him eternal
life. This seems likewise to have been
the purpose of a strange and diamet-
rically opposite custom which was ir-
regularly applied to the dead from prehistoric times to the
Pyramid Period and according to which the corpse was cut
into a larger or smaller number of pieces. The Idea seems to
have been that If Osiris met such a fate, and if the fragments
of his body were afterward put together for a blessed life (pp.
1 14-15), it was wise to imitate this feature of the Osiris-tradi-
tion and thus to provide perfect Identity with the king of the
dead.^^ At the funeral the priest and the sacred scribe may
have appeared to the popular mind mostly as sorcerers whose
paid services were more important for the future of the de-
parted than his past virtues. Thus when with a strange hook
the priest touched the mouth of the dead "to open it," it was
wrong to doubt that he gave the mummy power to speak In the
other world, etc. It is quite possible that all these mechanical




Fig. 190. Thout's Baboons
Fishing Souls



l82



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




means were even considered capable of cheating the divine
judges of the dead, although their omniscience was affirmed
with sufficient clearness. Such a conflict of ideas can, however,

be found in many other
religions as well.

The details of the
cult of the dead cannot
be described here. The
ceremonies at the burial
were endless and were

Fig. 191. Dancers and a Buffoon at a Funeral ^ery complicated in

character, frequently
representing the thought and the customs of very difi^erent
ages. Thus at funerals of the wealthy in the sixteenth cen-
tury B. c. companies of wailing women, beating their breasts
and filling the air with their cries, accompanied the funeral pro-
cession, together with male dancers, tumblers, and bufl"oons,
some of them in strange costume. Equally endless were the
preparations for the comfort of the dead in their tombs or in
the other world. As we have already said (p. 172), however,
the leading idea of the entire cult of the dead was merely
the feeding and com-
fort of the souls, not
worship of the ances-
tors as divine. This
also accounts for the
heartless neglect of
the dead who did not
belong to the family.
Households of wealth

could not do enough ^^^- ^9^- Large Sacrifice Brought before a

Sepulchral Chapel in the Pyramid Period

for their members,

e. g. by sumptuous burial and by the erection of costly tombs
decorated by the best efi"orts of painters and sculptors, and
filled with furniture, ornaments, etc., for the use of the de-




LIFE AFTER DEATH 183

parted;^' at certain festivals the altars of the memorial chapels
seem to have been heaped with food, and for the maintenance
of these cults large foundations of fields, money, and slaves
were often established. Yet when all had died who took a
personal interest in these particular departed, no one was
ashamed to appropriate the unprotected tomb for his own
dead, to replace the name of the first proprietor by new
inscriptions, and to use certain parts of the funerary outfit
a second time. It is less surprising that most tombs con-
taining valuables were plundered in antiquity and that even
great numbers of police were unable constantly to protect the
jewellery in royal tombs; there was too much poverty in
the ancient Orient. Even kings showed piety only toward the
buildings of their nearest ancestors and were not ashamed to
efface the names of earlier monarchs from their ancient monu-
ments to replace them by their own titles, or to pull down the
older buildings and to use the stones, though they thus aban-
doned the victims of their recklessness to oblivion, a most
dreadful fate which entailed neglect and hunger for their souls
(p. 177). Sooner or later sequestration was the fate of founda-
tions for sacrifices to souls, even those of the Pharaohs of past
dynasties. This proves that there was no really serious fear of
the dead and that the deification of the departed to which we
have repeatedly alluded must not be overestimated. In this
also we again recognize the crude animism from which the
religion had developed.



CHAPTER XI
ETHICS AND CULT

THIS chapter may be connected with the preceding by a
hymn which, according to the Book of the Dead^ the de-
parted is supposed to address to Osiris and his tribunal when
he is brought before them.

"Hail to thee, O great god, lord of the judges!
I have come to thee, my lord;
I have been brought to see thy beauty.
I know thee and the names of the forty-two gods
Who are with thee in the court of judges.
Who live cutting the sinful in pieces,^
Who fill themselves with their blood

On that day of taking account of words before Unen-nofer (p. 97)
Near his [variant: thy] two daughters, (his) two eyes.^
Lord of Justice is thy name.
I have come to thee,
I have brought justice to thee,
I have removed wickedness away for thee.
I have not done wrong to men,
I did not oppress [variant: kill] relatives,
I did not commit deceit in the place of justice,
I did not know transgression [variant: worthless things]."

The text then rambles on in an enumeration of special sins
which the deceased declares that he has not committed, one
of the so-called "Negative Confessions" (see p. 176 and below).

It is very difficult to judge the morality of a nation from
a distance of several thousand years and from scanty material
derived chiefly from cemeteries. Such inscriptions create an
exaggerated impression of piety by which we must not be de-
ceived, just as we must not permit ourselves to be misled by
the elaborate preparations for life after death. This latter



ETHICS AND CULT 185

feature did not make the Egyptians a nation of stern philos-
ophers, as modern people so often believe. On the contrary,
their manners were gay to the point of frivolity, and their many
superstitions were but a feeble barrier to their light-hearted-
ness. The most popular song at banquets^ was an exhortation
to use every day for pleasure and to enjoy life "until the day
shall come to depart for the land whence none returns." It is
better to use one's means for luxuries than for the grave; even
the tombs of the greatest and wisest, like the deified I-m-hotep
(p. 171), are now deserted and forgotten. This contradiction of
the dominant view of the value of care for the dead is no more
flagrant than the conflict between the rules for the conduct of
life, as laid down in the books of the wise,^ and the actual ob-
servance of these rules. All the sages, for example, warn against
drunkenness from a practical point of view, yet drunkenness
seems to have been the most common vice in ancient Egypt; ^
and similar conditions may be proved to have existed in many
things forbidden by the moral as well as by the religious books.
On the other hand, the code of morals of these sources is
theoretically of the very highest type. Thus the "Negative
Confessions" of the Book of the Dead ^ include among cardinal
sins even falsehood, slander, gossip, (excessive.?) grief, cursing,
boasting, unkindness to animals (even to harmless wild ones),
extinguishing the fire (when needed by others.?), damming
water (for private use), polluting the river, etc. Other texts
inform us that it was considered (by some.?) sinful to destroy
life even in the egg. Formal restrictions about clean and
unclean things seem to have been numerous, although we
know little about them. When, for instance, we read in
Genesis xliii. 32 that "the Egyptians might not eat bread with
the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians,"
this probably means that all foreigners were held to be cere-
monially unclean. It is strange that the prohibition of pork
does not seem to have developed until later, probably after
1600 B. c. (for the reasons see Ch. V, Note 33) ; but subsequently



1 86 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

the pig was the most unclean animal imaginable, completely
defiling whatever it touched. Greek writers state that cows
were not killed, evidently because of the celestial cow (p. 37)
and the goddesses identified with her. Many kinds of fish
were forbidden (p. 169) — in some localities all fish — and then
(in most places?) the heads of killed animals were prohibited,
not because they were unclean, but because, as the seat of life,
they belonged to the gods, so that the head was regularly
offered at sacrifices. Blood was, perhaps, only locally unclean
for the Egyptians. At present it is difficult to decide which
of these rules for clean and unclean were really local in origin,
and which sprang from tabus of holiness rather than from
tabus of abhorrence (see Ch. I, Note 3). Special laws of clean
and unclean existed for the sacrificial animals. Some rules,
e. g. for the uncleanness of women at certain times, are
general. Circumcision existed in Egypt from time imme-
morial, but had no religious character and was merely a
preparation for marriage; it applied to girls as well as to boys.
Restrictions of marriage because of kinship seem scarcely to
have existed. Marriage with a sister was a very common
custom (p. 119), and Ramses II appears to have taken his
own daughter, Bent-'anat, to wife. Polygamy was unlimited
in theory, though not very extensive in practice.

If we may believe the epitaphs, charity to the needy —
"giving bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to
the naked, a ship to the stranded" — protection of the weak,
honesty, etc., were observed in a manner which would satisfy
even the highest moral demands.^ Unfortunately, however,
we also read of many crimes, especially of wicked and op-
pressive officials; and among the nations the reputation of the
Egyptians was never brilliant. Practically they appear, as
we have already stated (p. 185), to have been of rather lax
morality in many respects.

One of the reasons for this may be found in the dry formalism
of the religion. Being too strongly fettered to the imperfect



ETHICS AND CULT



187




Fig.



193. Temples of the
Earliest Period



beliefs of crude ancestors by the bonds of traditionalism, re-
ligion could not attain sufficient spiritual development, and
thus failed to emphasize the ethical side as seriously as some
other pagan faiths. It is quite true
that, as we have already seen (p. 180),
the belief that the soul's salvation de-
pends principally on a moral life is old,
and that after 2000 B.C. it was formu-
lated with increasing clearness. Yet
the earliest forerunner of the "Negative Confession," a passage
in the Pyramid Texts, which claims that a man's soul can as-
cend to heaven because of his morality, still rests on a purely
formal righteousness.

"He hath not cursed the King;
He hath not mocked (?) the goddess Ubastet;
He hath not danced at the tomb of Osiris (?)." '

When, therefore, we learn that the ferryman of the gods will
transport to heaven only the "just dead," we must not think
of justice in the sense of the New Testament (for the funerary
formalism which conflicts with the idea of ethical justice see
p. 181). Some development toward higher ethical ideals and a

more personal piety

^,— >. ^ ' r\ r^ ^^^Y^ however, be

*" '^ *^ " ' * traced after 1500

B.C., as we shall see
in our concluding
chapter.

The temples of

Fig. 194. Guardian Statues and Guardian Serpents prehistoric times
OF A Temple ^^^^ ^^^^ j^^^g ^f

primitive form and light material (mats, wicker-work, or straw)
enclosing an Idol. A fence and, perhaps, a small court pro-
tected the entrance, which one of our pictures represents
decorated with horns above and with poles at the sides. Later




EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



the wonderful development of architecture made the temples
large buildings of stone; only the outer courts usually had
walls of mud bricks. The road leading to the temple was gen-
erally spacious, well kept for processions, and lined with statues
(principally sphinxes and other sacred animals) to guard the
entrance against evil powers (cf. pp. 166-67 on the guardian
serpents). The front wall formed two high, tower-like buildings,

the so-called pylons, which,
decorated with flagstaffs and
pictures of large dimensions,
flanked the entrance. Before
them usually stood two obe-
lisks of granite, whose most
important part was the py-
ramidal point, the benben, or
pyramidion, which was some-
times made of metal (for the
cosmic signification of the obe-
lisk, which was probably re-
peated in the pylon, see p. 31).
Behind the pylons generally
Fig. 195. Front of a Temple accorjjing came a large court where the

TO AN Egyptian Picture , • . , ^ 1 1 , .

laity might assemble and wit-
ness sacrifices, next there was a dimly lighted, columned hall In
which the priests gathered, and finally the holiest place of all,
a dark chamber (the adytum), accessible to the higher priest-
hood alone. Here the principal Idol or the sacred animal
dwelt, often housed In a chapel-like shrine, or naos, which, if
possible, was cut from a single stone. Round the adytum
were small magazines in which some of the divine outfit and
ceremonial utensils and books were kept. In larger temples
the number of rooms might be greater, but those which we
have just mentioned were the essential parts. Where several
gods were worshipped In one temple, each divinity might have
a special adytum, so that practically several parallel shrines

[Prometheus]

ETHICS AND CULT 189

were combined, though not always under the same roof; the
Idols of a triad (p. 20), at least, were generally united in a
single adytum. Larger temples had kitchens for the offerings
and festal meals, laboratories for the preparation of the sacred
perfumes and cakes, shops for the manufacture of the amulets
which were sold to pilgrims, etc.; and round them were houses
for the priests and granaries for their food, so that they even
formed large sacred cities.

In place of the divine statues, to whose simplicity we have
already alluded (p. 12), we sometimes find pillars with the head
of the divinity, like the Greek herms,^° or with divine emblems.
Such "sceptres" or "columns," occasionally as tall as obe-
lisks, are mentioned as objects of worship, and (Fig. 196) we find
the king bringing sacrifices to them as "gods." ^^ Their more
original meaning Is unknown, so that we cannot say to what ex-
tent they were analogous to the sacred pillars of the Semites.

The decoration of the temples was very uniform In so far as
the celling was always painted blue to represent the sky (usu-
ally with indication of the stars and sometimes with elaborate
pictures of the constellations), while the ground is green and
blue like meadows or the Nile, so that each temple Is a repro-
duction of the world, a microcosm. The outer walls represent
the deeds of the royal builder, often his wars, for the laity;
the inner walls depict the worship of the gods for the priests.

This description of the normal temple does not apply to all
religious buildings. The funerary shrines for the cult of the
souls of deceased kings present peculiarities,^^ as do those
which commemorate exclusively the birth or enthronement of a
king (p. 171) or the more extensive constructions which were
erected when a Pharaoh celebrated the so-called "jubilee of
thirty years," etc.^^ Some large sanctuaries built by the kings
of the Fifth Dynasty are quite unique: on a large base, sur-
rounded by courts with altars, stands a single obelisk, whose
proportions are too huge to be monolithic. These were erected
in honour of the sun-god, whose ship, constructed of bricks.



190



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY





,0

o

o







am:^i^mn m^^ m




ETHICS AND CULT



191




was in the immediate vicinity, or as his resting-place. The
mural decorations of these sanctuaries are also unusual and
depict very worldly scenes.

The priests were divided into vari-
ous classes :^^ some officiated regularly,
while others had secular employment
and came to the temple only from
time to time, the so-called ''priests for
hours "; or their priesthood was purely
nominal, as in the case of many nobles.
In the earlier period the priesthood
and the laity were not distinctly sep-
arated. The king's position as the p,^ ,^7. ^he King Offering
highest priest of the nation was due Incense and Keeping a

, . J. . .^ / \ TT 1 Meat-Offering Warm

to his divmity (p. 170). He was the

proper intercessor with the gods, and from time immemorial
a "sacrifice offered by the king" was desired for every one
who died, since it was sure to please the deities and to secure
eternal life. Before long, however, this high-priesthood of the
Pharaoh became merely a fiction, and in the New Empire we
find sharp conflicts between the royal power and the hierarchy,
while in later times the priests formed almost as distinct a class

as was the case in ancient Israel.

Priestesses were permitted only for
female divinities, the greater number
of these women being found in the
earlier period; and their rank was in-
ferior to that of male priests of the
same cult. In the worship of male
divinities women ordinarily formed
only the choir which sang before the
god, rattled sistra and peculiar chains, and danced; in later
times noble women were fond of calling themselves "musicians
of the god N. N." Herodotus correctly observes ^^ that women
did not enjoy full priestly standing, and we must not be misled




Fig. 198. Temple Choir in U
usual Costume



192



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




by the later Greek usage of applying the name of "priest-
esses" to those who performed the services which we have
noted. ^^ A semi-priestly position was also held by the "twin
sisters" in temples of Osiris, where they prob-
ably represented the twins Isis and Nephthys.
The exact status of other women, called "the
harem of the god, the women bound" (i. e. to
the temple), is not clear. Were they temple
slaves.^ When the kings of later days dedi-
cated one of their daughters to Amon under
the title of "wife" or "worshipper of the god,"
Fig iqq ^^^^ seems to be nothing more than a pious

Two Women Rep- form for the sequestration of the excessive
AND Nephthys as ^n^ount of land held by the Theban temple of
Mourners at Amon; and thus the princess had a pleasant

Processions . . • n tt 1 • 1 • ?»

smecure tor occasionally playmg the sistrum
before the god as his "wife." The position held in the earlier
period in the temple of Amon by the solitary, fe-
male personage called "the worshipper of the god"
is uncertain.

Peculiar symbolic names were attached to the more
important priestly offices, as when the high-priest of
Heliopolis was called "the great seer" (i.e., prob-
ably, astronomer; cf. p. 54), or the high-priest of
Ptah was "the chief artificer" (p. 145). Even the
lower orders of the priesthood sometimes received
a wealth of such names, which were Intelligible only
to the local scholars; and dress and insignia likewise
had endless local variations. The incomes of the
sanctuaries varied from princely wealth, derived
from hundreds of villages of serfs with their fields, to meagre
stipends for the one or two priests who constituted the
whole staff of a little temple.

All priests were obliged to be scrupulously clean, especially
for the sacrifices. Their shaven heads and beards, their white




Fig. 200.
"The Wor-
SH ipper
of th e
God"



ETHICS AND CULT



193




linen clothing, their special lustrations, and their abstention
from certain foods, etc., were intended to prevent any defile-
ment of the sacred places and ceremonies. Besides
the washable garments, the leopard's skin played
an important part in the ritual, being the regular
vestment of some priestly classes, the ' wearers of
the leopard's skin" (p. 134), evidently as a rem-
nant of the primitive times when wild animals
abounded in Egypt. Other details of priestly
dress also date from a very early period, such as ^^ ^oi Priest
the strange side-locks of some orders which the with the Book
Egyptians of historic times retained only for small

boys, and later for royal sons. On the other hand,
the shaving of the head and beard seems, in general,
to be lacking in the Pyramid Age for priests. Cere-
monial cleanness, however, appears at all times to
have been almost more important than moral sanc-
tity. Even the layman might not enter the temples

without carefully purifying himself; but in later times
Fig. 202. 1 • 1 • 1

Archaistic this cleansmg became a per-

Priestly functory ceremony of sprink-

AdORNMENT ,. 'Ill r

Img With holy water from
vessels at the entrance to the temple,
or turning a brass wheel from which
(originally.^) water ran, or merely pull-
ing a brass ring at the gate.^^

In the temples the priests performed
endless rites from early morning, when
they broke the seals of clay which had
protected the sacred rooms during the
night, till evening fell; sometimes the
night also was celebrated with lighted
lamps, as on the eve of major festivals.
Adoration of the deities by bowing, prostration, recitation of

hymns, burning of incense, libations, etc., was practically con-
XII — 14





Fig. 203. A King Pulling
the Ring at the Temple
Door



194



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




tinuous, and groups of priests took these services by turns. At
certain times the idols had to be washed, anointed, and per-
fumed with oil and in-



cense; their eyes were
painted, ^^ and their
clothing and golden
decorations were
changed. Sometimes
they were taken out in
procession to encircle
the temple (p. 31) or
to traverse the city, or
even to visit a neigh-
bouring divinity. On
such excursions the god generally was carried on the shoulders
of the priests; and usually the portable shrine
had the form of a ship, not so much because
travelling was done chiefly on the Nile as be-
cause all the gods ought to sail on the heav-
enly ocean (p. 34). The sacred lake near the
temple (p. 31) often symbolized this ocean,
the source of life, etc.; the god sailed on it or
was bathed in it. Thus there were endless Fig
reproductions of mythological scenes, whether
quiet ceremonies in the adytum of the shrine, or long spec-
tacular performances (especially of the Osiris-myth) for the



Fig. 204. A God Carried in Procession




205. A Small
Portable Shrine




Fig. 206. Mythological Scenes from a Procession



public, frequently embellished with music, dancers, and acro-
bats. Sometimes the general public might take part in these
"miracle plays" and reproduce, for example, mythological



ETHICS AND CULT



195




Fig. 207. An Acrobat
Following a Sacrifi-
cial Animal



battles by a combat between two sides. Numerous festivals,
occasionally lasting for several days, gave the populace an
opportunity to eat and drink to excess in honour of the gods.
Sometimes the sanctuary distributed bread
to the multitude for this purpose, but the
principal banquets to the glory of the di-
vinity were held in the temple by the
priests and some guests, either from the
income of the shrine or from special
donations.

The festival days varied, of course,
according to the local cults. It would seem, however, that
the great calendric feasts were observed in all, or almost all,
sanctuaries, such as the five epagomenal days (p. 113), the New
Year, the first, sixth, and middle (fifteenth) day of every
month (pp. 90-91), etc., even when the deity worshipped in the
temple was not associated with sun, moon, or sky.

The many and richly varied sacrifices of food which the
monuments depict were evidently used for the maintenance of
the priesthood after they had been spread be-
fore the gods. Sending them to heaven by
burning was always known, but was not so
popular as in Asia, since the deities were almost
invariably thought to be present.^" The original
theory of the sacrifices seems to have been a
simple feeding of the divinities; e. g. no oracles
appear to have been sought from them. Never-
theless much symbolism attached to them. Thus
far we do not know why a sacrifice of the high-
est type consisted of four bullocks of different
colour (spotted, red, white, and black), or of
four different sorts of game; and we are equally
ignorant as to why at certain festivals a pig was offered at a
time when this animal had already come to be considered
very unclean, etc. Sometimes, as in foundation sacrifices,




Fig. 208. Small
holoc austic
Sacrifice on an
Oven



196



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




Images of pottery, etc., were substituted for the expensive
sacrificial animals (cf. p. 175 for this custom of substitution,
and see infra for its use Instead of human victims). In the

symbolism dominant In the Grseco-
Roman period -^ the sacrificial ani-
mals represent the enemies of the
gods; red or brown animals or rep-
tiles In particular symbolize Seth.
Accordingly the object In killing and
Fig. 209. Human Sacrifice at burning them was simply to please
A Royal Tomb of the First the gods; the use of the meat as food

Dynasty •

is scarcely mentioned. Evidently this
Is a late development of the holocaustic offerings, dependent
principally on the transformation of Seth Into a Satan (p. 109);
and It may also transfer to the animal victims a subsequent
theory of human sacrifice. Concerning the latter type of offer-
ings we possess almost no information. Nevertheless we may
infer that It was employed in earlier times, since In the latest
period cakes In the shape of men and animals were given to
the gods as an avowed substitute for human sacrifices. We
learn, moreover, that human victims were still burned at







Fig. 210. Nubian Slaves Strangled and Burned at a Funeral



Ellelthylaspolls even In the time of Plutarch. ^^ The former Im-
portance of the offering of men is also manifest from certain
pictures which show that once upon a time slaves were killed



ETHICS AND CULT 197

and buried near their defunct owner or were burned at the
entrance to his tomb, not merely at the funeral of a king, but
even at the burial of wealthy private citizens, as In Fig. 210.^^
It is possible that we have a trace of such occasional sacri-
fices in some corpses found in the royal tombs of the Eight-
eenth Dynasty, and this permits us to infer parallel usages in
the divine cults.

The way in which oracles were given is likewise very obscure.
For a long time they seem to have played a very minor part, at
least politically. One of the earliest instances is a text in which
Ramses II describes how he nominated the high-priest of Amon
by consulting the god himself.^* The King enumerated before
Amon the names of all officials capable of filling the post and
asked the deity's assent; but "the god was not satisfied with
one of them, except when I told him the name" (of the nom-
inee). In the twelfth century b. c, however, when the priest-
hood gained greater power than ever, the priests brought before
the deity, either orally or in writing, all political questions and
many legal cases, sometimes of very minor importance. He
decided these problems, as we have just indicated, by saying
"yes" or "no"; but how he did this is not described. Later
we hear little of such direct consultations. Some prophetic
and oracular writings have been preserved; their language is,
naturally, very obscure.^^ The gods also communicated their
will to men by dreams. For the knowledge of lucky and un-
lucky days and for other practical wisdom of the theologians
see the following chapter.



CHAPTER XII
MAGIC

MAGIC played an Important role in ancient Egypt, where
it was perhaps an even more vital factor than in Baby-
lonia.^ It is, however, very difficult to state where religion ends
and magic begins; and to the Egyptian mind magic was merely
applied religion. The man who best knew the gods and under-
stood how to please them could obtain from them what he de-
sired. Great theologians were always believed to
be sorcerers as well; e.g. the famous scholar Amen-
hotep, son of Hapu,^ is reported to have been not
only a prophet, but also the author of a magical
book filled with especially unintelligible galimatias;
and the great magicians of popular stories are always
''ritual priests." This theory of the identity of
Fig. 211. witchcraft, scholarship, and theology is not specifi-
A Ritual cally Egyptian, but has its parallels in many other

Priest .

religious systems as well.
The very naive Egyptian spirit, which was so unable to dis-
tinguish between the material and the supernatural, and the
excessive formalism of the worship give us the impression that
the whole religion of the Nile-land had a strongly magic char-
acter. This is true of most religions which are based on animism
(p. lo), yet we may easily go too far, as when, for example, some
scholars brand as magic all the customs intended to secure eter-
nal life for the dead or to improve their state (p. i8i). It Is
quite true that the assertion of a funerary text that the dead
goes to heaven ^ may be understood as a prayer; but a prayer
which is sure to be efficacious, and a wish passing into reality
in vivid Imagination, indeed border on magic, a statement




MAGIC 199

which is equally true of the numerous ceremonies and amulets
which mechanically benefit the soul of the dead. The Book of
the Dead, with its directions how to find the way to Osiris, what
to say before him, what words to recite, and what mysterious
names to give to the guardians of his realm, presents a close
approximation to magic; yet, after all, it is no secret knowledge,
but is open to all who can read, and, therefore, does not fall
under the modern definition of sorcery; neither did the
Egyptians themselves consider it magical.

In similar fashion the healing art is inseparably connected
with magic and religion. No medicine will have full eff"ect with-
out certain ceremonies and an incantation, which is usually
repeated four times.'* The incantation may also be written
down, washed off into the medicine, and drunk (p. 83), as is
still done so commonly in the modern Orient. Ceremonies and
incantations accompanying the healing usually have a religious
character, and the man to apply them is the general scholar,
the priest. He summons the gods to come and to cure the
disease, or he speaks in their name, threatening or coaxing
the evil spirits which are always believed to have caused the
illness, as in every "strongly animistic religion. He often recites
a story in which an analogous trouble was healed by the
deities, and much of our mythological material is derived
from such texts. Sometimes the divinities in person (i. e. their
images) are brought to exorcize the demons, and we even hear
of idols being sent to or brought from foreign countries to heal
the illness of princes.^ Frequently, however, the medical in-
cantations also assume a character which seems to us purely
magical, and frequently they degenerate into mere gibberish;
likewise many of the amulets, such as* cords with magic
knots,^ used for expelling or preventing disease have no re-
ligious meaning whatever. Nevertheless everything employed
for controlling the supernatural world (i. e. the demons in the
present connexion) becomes religious in the hands of the
proper individual, the theologian, and is considered accordingly.

[Prometheus]

200 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

The calendars of lucky and unlucky days^ plainly belong
to the category of useful religious knowledge even more than to
that of witchcraft. They set forth which days are propitious
and which are so unlucky that on them it is advisable for one
not to leave his house at all, or on which certain occupations
should be avoided, e. g. the making of a new fire, which al-
ways remains an especially important action.^ Often the
mythological reasons are given. Children born on certain un-
lucky days will die a violent death; birth on one specified day,
for example, condemns the individual In question to be killed
by a crocodile. Lucky dates of birth bring long life and luxury,
the most enviable death predicted being one In Intoxication.
Astrological oracles and horoscopes, on the other hand, are
known only In the latest period and follow Babylonian models.^

Considering the usefulness of magic In so many respects and
bearing In mind its religious character, it is no cause for wonder
that the gods also rule the world by magic, I. e. by hidden
wisdom (see pp. 44, 151 for some of these deities who are called
"magicians" or "great in magic"). The master of sorcery
among the male divinities Is Thout. Among the goddesses
his counterpart is not the stern "book-goddess" Sekha(u)It
(pp. 52-53), whom we should expect, but rather Isis, who even,
according to a myth which we have translated on pp. 80-83,
wrested the secret name, and thus omniscience (which practi-
cally means supreme power), from the aged and Infirm sun-god
by a cruel ruse which shows that honesty was not an essential
characteristic of the divinities.

If the deities themselves were not particularly scrupulous
In the acquisition and use of such power, we need not wonder
that the Egyptian theologians were not content to learn the
will of the gods or to Implore their aid, but that they often
sought to force the divinities to lend their power to the magi-
cian. From promises of sacrifices the sorcerer goes on to threaten
that the offerings will be withdrawn, so that the gods will be
hungry.^" If the magician speaks In the name of a certain deity,



MAGIC 20I

or claims to be Identical with him, then the other gods cannot
refuse his request without endangering the whole divine order
of things. Thus the Incantation may warn them that the entire
course of nature will stop. The sun and the moon will be dark-
ened, and the Nile will dry up; heaven will be turned Into
Hades; and the divinities will lose all their power and exist-
ence. When the magician can speak In the name of a higher
god, the lower pantheon must obey, and hence the sorcerer
constantly desires to learn the hidden, real names of the very
highest gods. This secret is so profound that none has ever
heard it; the owner of the name alone knows It, and even his
mother may be ignorant of It. When the deity has revealed
this wonderful name, it means power over the whole universe
for him who can pronounce the marvellous word. Thus in the
story of Isis and the old ruler of the universe, the sun-god
(pp. 80-83), we see how the betrayal of the name divests the
formerly mysterious deity of his power and subjects him to the
will of the sorcerer. Generally speaking, the name is the essence
of everything. Many materials or objects in ordinary life have a
hidden force which comes under the control of him who can
call them by their true name, unknown to the ordinary man.
Accordingly it Is the highest aim of the scholars to know the
real name of everything in the whole world, first of each super-
natural being, and then of all forces of nature. The endeavour
to accomplish this brings the sage in touch with every depart-
ment of science. Thus the word and the thought of man can
rule the universe and can accomplish more than some gods
can do, possibly transcending even the power of the greatest
divinities.

Such a desire to surpass the deities themselves is not impiety,
and If a scholar acquires such wonderful knowledge, he feels no
scruples In applying it. The very gods rule the world by their
power rather than by their holiness, as we have already seen;
although emphasis is often laid on the opposite conception of
the divinities as representing absolute morality.



202 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

A section of the Pyramid Texts ^^ describes the apotheosis
of the king and his advancement to the highest power among
the gods In the following fanciful hymn which Is very Instruc-
tive for the light which It casts on the low Egyptian view of the
gods and of religion (cf. also p. i6).

"The sky Is darkened by clouds,

The stars by rain (?);^^

The constellations become disordered,

The bones of the earth-god ^^ tremble.

The carriers (?) shut their mouth

When they see King N. N.,
, When (his) ^^ soul ariseth as a god,
1 Living on his fathers,
I Feasting on his mothers.
i

N. N. Is a lord of wisdom

Whose mother (even) knoweth not his name;

His glory is in the sky,

His might is in the horizon,

Like Atumu, his father who begat him.

After he had begotten N. N.,

N. N. was stronger than he.

N. N. Is the bull of the sky,

Fierce in hisTieart,

Living on the essence of every god

And eating their intestines,

When they come, having filled their bellies

With magic from the Island of flames. ^^

He judgeth the word together with the one whose name is hidden

On the day of slaughtering the eldest ones.

N. N. is a master of sacrifices

Whose offerings are prepared (f) by himself.

N. N. is one who eateth men and liveth on gods,

A master of tribute

Who graspeth (?) presents sent by messengers.

The 'Grasper of Locks' ^^ in Kehau,

He lassoeth them for N. N.

The serpent 'Wide (Reaching) Head' it Is

Who watcheth them and driveth them back (into the fold) for him.



MAGIC 203

The 'One on the Willows' (?) ^^ bindeth them for N. N.

The 'One Hunting All Knife-Bearing (Spirits)'*^ strangleth (?)

them for N. N.;
He taketh out their entrails,

He is the messenger whom N. N. sendeth for punishment (?).
Shesmu ^^ cutteth them up for N. N.,
He cooketh a part of them
In his kettles as supper [or, in his supper-kettles].

N. N. eateth their magic qualities

And devoureth their illuminated souls.

Their great ones are for (his) morning portion,

Their middling ones for his evening meal,

Their little ones for his night meal.

Their old ones, male and female, for his burning.

At the north pole of the sky the great ones '^^

Put fire to kettles full of them

With the legs of their oldest ones.^^

Those that are in the sky run around (?) ^- for N. N.;

With the legs of their women the kettles are filled for him.

N. N. hath encircled the two skies together.

He hath gone around the two regions (i. e. Egypt).

N. N. is the great, the mighty one

Who is powerful among the powerful [or, overpowereth the power-

full;
N. N. is the great, the strong one.

Whomsoever he findeth on his way

He eateth up immediately (?).

His safe place is before all the noble (dead)

Who are in the horizon.

N. N. is a god, older than the oldest.

Thousands (of sacrifices) come for N. N.;

Hundreds are off^ered to him (as sacrifices).

A position as 'the great, the mighty one'

Is given him by Orion, the father of the gods.

N. N. ariseth again in the sky.

He shineth like a star (?), as master of the horizon.

He hath counted the joints (?) of . . .,
He hath taken away the hearts of the gods;
He hath eaten the red (blood);
He hath swallowed the fresh (juice?);
He hath feasted on lungs (?);



204 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

The sacrifice of N. N. to his satisfaction

Meaneth living on hearts and their magic power.

Their magic is in his belly.

His wisdom ^^ is not taken away from him.

He hath swallowed the knowledge of every god.

The lifetime of N. N. is eternity,

His end is everlasting time in this his dignity

Of the one who doth what he will,

And doth not what he will not,

Who liveth in the limits of the horizon

Forever and for eternity.

Their (soul-) force (is) in his belly,
Their souls are with him;
V/More abundant is his portion than that of the gods.
His fuel is of their bones;
Their (soul-) force is with N, N.,
Their shadows are with their companions."

This strange hymn seems to betray its great antiquity by the
difficulties which it apparently presented to the scholars of the
Fifth Dynasty and by its many repetitious accretions. It harks
back again and again to the crude fancy of a new divinity who
will show his power over the old pantheon in a barbarous fash-
ion, recklessly depriving the gods of their magic potencies. It
looks, indeed, like a survival from the most primitive age, from
the purely animistic religion whose deities were lurking spirits
rather than gods (p. i6), and which held very pessimistic views
concerning the souls of the dead.^^ On the other hand, it is re-
markable that this old text still appealed to the Egyptian mind
after 3000 b. c, a fact which again shows the lack of a moral
basis for the divinities of the Egyptians and is significant of
their inclination toward a magic conception of religion, as we
have said on p. 198. Other passages of these ancient funeral
texts in the Pyramids (p. 180) are somewhat parallel, such as
the one which wishes the king to have unlimited power in
heaven "so that at his heart's desire he may take any woman
away from her husband." The Pharaoh's royal power on



MAGIC 205

earth may have been despotic enough, but the inscriptions
would scarcely" boast of this particular ability; when such
wishes were reduced to writing, they were preferably hidden
in the obscure burial chamber and may be regarded as
approximating magic.

Here we enter the realm of true black art, i. e. forbidden
magic. We must remember that sorcery in itself was not held
to be wrong. Even the most ordinary Egyptian layman was ex-
pected to wear a number of amulets for his health and good
fortune, to protect his home against dangerous animals and
spirits by other charms, and to do many more things which
often cannot well be termed religious ceremonies, although, as
we have said on p. 199, the Egyptians may still have felt them
to be such. Spells of this character came under a ban only
when they were used to injure others. The wicked brought
disease and death on their enemies by torturing and killing
them in efRgy, a custom which is traceable throughout the
world. Thus we read of a terrible criminal who wished to
murder his benign sovereign, the Pharaoh, by making wax
figures which represented the King, and then piercing them;
to increase the heinousness of this offence he had stolen from
the royal library itself a magic book. This book evidently con-
tained awful formulae to accomplish the end at which he aimed,
but in the divine hands of the king their use meant no wrong.
Evil effects could be obtained by merely cursing one's adver-
sary, whence such maledictions were considered sinful, es-
pecially if they were directed against the gods or the king.
The "evil eye" was much dreaded, and "He Who Averts
(seta) the Evil Eye" was a popular personal name.

Though cruel punishment was meted out for all such abuses
of magic, we may be sure that they were extremely common.
Above all, love-charms and love-philtres were not treated with
as much severity by public opinion as by strict theology.^^
The extant magic papyri prove that the sorcerers collected
useful knowledge of all kinds without drawing a line between



2o6 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

medicine and magic, between the forbidden and the beneficent.
The largest of all these papyri,^^ e, g., contains the most harm-
less medical prescriptions, like the treatment of warts, gout,
dog bites, etc., and notes about medicinal plants and minerals,
mixed with subjects of a forbidden character, e.g. numerous
erotic charms and prescriptions (with their antidotes), advice
for separating man and wife, and even more dangerous matters,
such as sending madness on an enemy, as well as many
methods of divination for consulting gods or spirits, for dis-
covering a thief, etc. Again we see that in ancient times all
sciences formed a unity and centred in religion (p. 201).

It was, of course, believed that magic could accomplish
practically everything. Thus some famous sages, according to
a popular story, once made a living crocodile of wax which
caught an evil-doer, kept him living seven days under water,
set him free, and became wax again; a lake was rolled up like
a blanket; a head was cut off and replaced, etc.^^ Such
scholars possess books written by the gods themselves. Ac-
cording to another Egyptian tale, one of these volumes was
discovered in the Nile, enclosed in six boxes of metal and
defended by monsters. He who read it "enchanted heaven,
earth, the underworld, the mountains, the seas; he under-
stood all that the birds of the heaven, the fishes of the sea,
and the wild animals spoke; he saw the sun manifesting him-
self in heaven with his cycle of gods, the moon appearing,
and the stars in their forms," etc.^^ The extant magic papyri
do not, of course, furnish quite such miraculous knowledge.
Their most serious portions reveal the beginnings of hypno-
tism, as when oracles are obtained by the sorcerer gazing,
either directly or through a medium (usually an innocent boy),
into a vessel filled with some fluid (especially oil) or into the
flame of a lamp, as is still done in the Orient.^^ That the be-
ginnings of natural science can be traced to such books has
been mentioned above.

The language of the magic formulae is, as we should natu-



MAGIC



207



rally expect, one of stilted obscurity. Accordingly it likes to
borrow from foreign languages and names, and especially from
Asiatic sources. It plays on such words and sacred names by
endlessly repeating, inverting, varying, and mutilating them
(Note 32), and thus often degenerates into mere galimatias, yet
for the most part we can still recognize invocations of deities
in this seeming nonsense. There are no
special gods for the sorcerers; it is only
In the later period, when Seth is becom-
ing a kind of Satan (p. 109), that his name
readily lends itself to forbidden magic.
As we have noted above, Asiatic deities
were very popular in this black art, e. g.
such Babylonian goddesses of the lower
world as Ningal and Ereskigal, while in
the latest period the highest rank as a
divinity of this nature was taken by the
strange and mysterious God of the Jews,
who jealously allowed no god beside Him.
Ethiopic deities do not seem to have been
popular, although the Southland held
mystic attractions (p. 91). The principal
divine assistants of the magician were
the forgotten and neglected divinities of whom there were
so many. Such a god, whose temples have disappeared, and
who has not received a sacrifice for a thousand years, must be
more grateful for a cup of milk and a cake than a popular
divinity may be for a holocaust of a hundred oxen; the for-
gotten deity is, after all, a god and able to be useful. It was,
therefore, considered wise, especially after 700 b. c, to collect
all possible divine names and pictures from earlier monuments
and to unite their reproductions; they might as a body prove a
powerful aid for the man who had such a gallery of gods, or a
single one of their number might show himself to be especially
potent and grateful for having his forgotten picture reproduced.




Fig. 212. A Section of

THE MeTTERNICH StELE




2o8 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Such a monument Is the famous Metternich Stele, a small sec-
tion of which is here shown; this stone, covered with hundreds
of minute divine figures and magic incantations, must have
protected some very rich house against all evil influences
(Fig. 214). Thus magic again returns to the purely religious
basis from which it once started.

A great many features of this complicated and difficult sub-
ject still require further examination. We do not know, for
example, the mode of use of the magic wands of bone which
date from the period subsequent to 2000 b. c. and which are
covered with many pictures of gods, sometimes unusual and

frequently astral in
origin.^" Yet they, too,
show once more how all
magic has a religious
foundation to which it

Fig. 213. Fragment of a Magic Wand

ever reverts.
To illustrate the character of Egyptian magic we give here
a few specimens of texts of this nature, beginning with a

"SPELL FOR BRINGING A BONE FORTH FROM THE THROAT." «i

*' I am he whose head reacheth the sky,
And whose feet reach the abyss,

Who hath awakened the crocodile of wax (.'') in Pe-zeme of Thebes;
For I am So, Sime, Tamaho,^^
This is my correct name.
Anuk, anuk! '^

For a hawk's egg is what Is In my mouth,
An ibis's egg is what is in my belly.^*
Therefore, bone of god.
Bone of man,
Bone of bird,
Bone of fish.
Bone of animal.
Bone of anything,
None being excepted;
Therefore, that which is in thy belly,
Let it come to thy chest!



MAGIC 209

That which is in thy chest,

Let it come to thy mouth !

That which is in thy mouth,

Let it come to my hand now!

For I am he who is in the seven heavens,

Who standeth in the seven sanctuaries,

For I am the son of the living god."

This must be said seven times over a cup of water; and when
the patient drinks it, the bone will come out.
Still more gibberish appears in a

"SPELL UTTERED OVER THE BITE OF A DOC'^s

"The spell of Amon and Triphis thus:
I am this strong messenger (?),^^
Shlamala, Malet,

The mysterious one who hath reached the most mysterious one,'^
Greshei, Greshei,

The lord of Rent, Tahne, Bahne.^*
This dog, this black one,
The dog, the mysterious one,
This dog of the four (bitch?) pups, ^^
The wild dog, son of Ophoi's,
Son of Anubis,
Relax *^ thy tooth.
Stop *^ thy spittle!

Thou actest as the face of Seth against Osiris, /
Thou actest as the face of 'Apop against Re'.
Horus, the son of Osiris, born by Isis,
Is he with whom thou didst fill thy mouth; ^
N. N., son of N. N.,

Is he with whom thou didst fill thy mouth.
Listen to this speech,
Horus, who healed burning,''^
Who went to the abyss.
Who founded the earth; .
Listen, O Yaho-Sabaho, j
Abiaho*^ by name!"

The reader will recognize in the closing lines an especially
clear invocation of " Jehovah of Hosts " (Hebrew YHVH
S^bhdoth), the God of the Jews (cf. Note 32).

XII — 15

[Prometheus]

2IO EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

As an example of a longer mythological story narrated by
the magician to form an analogy to the magic effect which he
desires we give

THE LEGEND OF ISIS AND THE SCORPION.^

"I, Isis, left the mansion in which my brother Seth had placed me.
Tljout, the great one, commander of justice in heaven and earth,

spake to me:
*Come, O Isis, O goddess, for it is good to listen,
And one liveth when another acteth as guide.
Hide thyself with thy little son !
He will come to us when his limbs have grown,
And his full strength (hath developed?).
Make him take his place then on the throne of his father.
Hand over to him the dignity of the ruler of both countries!'

I went forth at the time of evening.

Seven scorpions were my followers and furnished me aid;

Tefen and Ben were behind me;

Mestet and Mest-(yo?)tef were near me;

Petet, Tetet, and Matet prepared the way for me.

I gave orders to them aloud, my voice found access to their ears thus:

'Know that obedience in worship . . .

Distinguisheth a son of somebody from a subject.*^

Let your face be below on the road

As companions and guides seeking for me.'

We reached the city of Pso'is ^^ and the City of the Two Sisters

At the beginning of the (Delta) marshes as far as (.^) the city of Deb.

I approached the houses of the most respectable women.^^

The noblest saw me on my way;

She closed her door to me,

Suspicious of my companions.

These, therefore, took counsel.

They placed their poison all together on the tail of Tefen.

A poor woman opened her door for me,

I entered into her house.

Tefen secretly ( ?) entered under the wings of the door,

She stung the son of the rich woman.

[Fire broke forth in the house of the rich woman;

There was no water to quench it.

Neither was there rain against it in the house of the rich woman;

It was not the season for this.] ^^

This was because she had not opened to me.



MAGIC 211

Her heart was in grief,

She knew not (how to save) his life;

She roamed around (?) in her city lamenting;

There was not one who came at her voice.

Therefore my heart was grieved for the sake of the child;

(Wishing) to restore the innocent being to life,

I called her: 'To me! Come to me! Come to me!

Behold, my mouth holdeth life;

I am a daughter well known in her city.

Through whose word the bite (?) is stilled.

(The word) which my father taught me,

That should be known;

I am his true daughter.'

Isis put her hands on the child

To revive that which had no more breath ( ?) :

'O poison, O Tefen, come!

Come forth on the ground ! Go not on !

The poison shall not penetrate!

Befnet, come!

Come forth on the ground!

1 am Isis the goddess.

The mistress of magic who doth magic,
The best one to speak (?) words.

Listen to me, ye reptiles of all kinds that bite!

Fall down, thou poison of Mestet!

The poison of Mest-(yo?)tef shall run no farther.

The poison of Petet and Tetet shall not rise!

Thou shalt not enter, Matet!

Fall down, do not bite!'"

After this "Isis the goddess, greatest in magic among the
gods" (cf. pp. 82, 200), begins another address to the scor-
pions. The terms of this are very obscure,^° but the lines
which we have quoted are sufficient to show that the ma-
gician merely narrates the story to keep all scorpions away
from the house or to render their bites harmless.^^



CHAPTER XIII

DEVELOPMENT AND PROPAGATION OF
EGYPTIAN RELIGION

AT first glance it would seem that the religion of ancient
-ZjL Egypt had been successfully stereotyped in prehistoric
times, and that the priests had completely re;alized their aims of
following the same ideas, worshipping the same gods, and using
the same forms of adoration as the blessed ancestors of that
incredibly remote age from which the bulk of their religious
beliefs must date. It is perhaps true that the Egyptians present
the most extreme case of religious conservatism that we know;
yet on closer examination we observe that even they could
not entirely resist the various influences which, in course of
time, are common to religion. We may thus observe many
gradual changes in religious thought and may watch the growth
or decay of creeds and forms of worship both in smaller and in
larger circles of the ancient Egyptians. Here, however, we can
sketch only the most salient features of such developments.

The representations of the gods in sacred art are, indeed, the
most remarkable instance of conservatism. The majority of
artistic types dated from the prehistoric period and underwent
very little alteration; it was only in Roman days that slight
adaptations to Grseco-Roman types of the divinities, were to be
found (see Fig. 218).^ Beginning with the New Empire many (or
even most) gods receive wings (Ch. V, Note 58), or at least have
indications of them, wrapped Hke shawls around the body; or
some parts of the dress have feather patterns as an indication
of celestial nature (cf. the type of Onuris-An-horet as pictured
in Fig. 146). The more archaic and primitive a statue was, the



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 213

more venerable it appeared (see p. 139, on Min, and p. 144, on
Ptah). In many instances, of course, the later artists did not
understand old models, but misinterpreted them to a consider-
able degree. -

The greater part of the religious development of Egypt lies
long before historic times, as is shown by the conflicting views
which meet us in the Pyramid Texts of the Fifth and Sixth
Dynasties. These texts were taken from books which, in part,
evidently were understood only imperfectly by the Egyptians
of 2800 B.C., and they are, consequently, the most ancient
religious texts of the whole world. At the same time a warning
must be uttered against the tendency, which is now prevalent,
to overrate too strongly their general antiquity. Some por-
tions may, it is true, date even from predynastic times, but the
bulk of the texts, according to the Osirian theology which is
dominant in them (p. 120), was written in the early Pyramid
Age, about 3000 b. c. The contradictory teachings of these
texts, especially in regard to cosmic forces and the life after
death, seem, as we have just said, to imply previous millenniums
of religious thought; but thus far it would be very hazardous
to date such views from these documents according to any
impressions of crude or advanced ideas which we may receive
from them. Are we quite certain, for example, that one of the
most primitive specimens of religious fancy, that the king's
soul lives by cannibalism on other souls, even those of the gods
(p. 202), goes back to the time before 5000 b. c, when the
dwellers in the valley of the Nile may well have been real can-
nibals.^ Could not a loyal magician's fancy wander thus far
even in the age of highest civilization.^ On the other hand, it is
not safe to assume that some isolated and remarkable advances
of thought in these texts, e.g. a certain moral standard de-
manded even for the king if he is to be admitted to the realm
of the gods (p. 180), could not be much earlier than the great
development of Egyptian civilization which begins about
3000 b. c. The Egyptians themselves could not classify the



214 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

traditions. Wherever we find the theologians wrestHng with the
problem of reconciling the worst contradictions among the
religious traditions of the ancients, their thought, fettered by
the fear of losing anything derived from antiquity, could move
only in strange circles, increasing the number of inconsisten-
cies by awkward attempts to harmonize them and invariably
ending in what appears to us to be utter confusion (see, for
example, the myth of the lost eye of the sun, pp. 29, 90, or
the conflicting views on the ocean, pp. 47, 106). This helpless
attitude toward the traditions remains characteristic of
Egyptian theology in all periods.

It is clear that the purely animistic stage which we presup-
pose as the very earliest stratum of religious thought (p. 15)
was far prior to the historic period. Even in the remote days
when the first attempts were made to reduce religious poetry
to writing (i. e., probably, before 4000 b. c.) the Egyptians
must have outgrown this primitive stage of pure animism.
Nevertheless that system of thought left strong traces in the
religion of all the millenniums which followed, and its expres-
sion in so many small isolated local cults actually remained
the most characteristic feature of Egyptian religion through-
out its history (p. 18). We may suppose that the next step,
probably some time before the historic period, was marked
by a tendency which sought to remove all the old local spirits
and fetishes from this earth and to place them in heaven.^ It
would seem, therefore, that the tendency to make the gods
cosmic (i. e. to distribute the forces of nature among them)
must be dated somewhat later still, since it implies the initial
steps toward a philosophic conception of the universe.

Before any real system had developed from these attempts
at primitive philosophy, they were crippled by the exaggerated
position given to the sun in the cosmic pantheon (p. 24). No
cosmic function seemed desirable for any local deity except
that of the sun, the lord of heaven. The solarization of the
pantheon is traceable at least as early as the First Dynasty



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 215

(see p. 26 for the blending of different Ideas regarding the sun-
god which we find at that period). Re' appears to have become
solar at an earHer period than Horus, whose cosmic explanation
hovered even later between the celestial and the solar Interpreta-
tion (p. 28). The increasing emphasis laid on the official role
of these two blended solar deities as protector, type, ancestor,
and even soul of the king (p. 170) did not stop the free trans-
ference of this kind of cosmic conception, and later It proceeded
more rapidly (see e. g. p. 149 for Sokarl's solarlzation In the
Pyramid Texts). In the Middle and New Empires few deities
escaped some degree of assimilation to It. In particular Amon
of Thebes, advancing to the position of lord of the pantheon,
became an Imitation of Horus-Re' which was called Amen-Re'
(p. 129); and most goddesses were solarized as the "daughter"
or "eye" or "diadem" of the sun (p. 29). Lunarlzation of
divinities, on the other hand, remained a rare process (p. 34).
The other cosmic functions were distributed only in very in-
complete and unsuccessful fashion, as has been shown In
Ch. III. Repetitions of such functions, therefore, never caused
serious difficulty to the Egyptian theologians.

It is not easy to estimate the enormous number of divinities
in the Egyptian pantheon at the beginning of history. Fortu-
nately many deities whose popularity decreased in comparison
with the "great gods" fell Into oblivion; and this diminution,
which continued In the historic period, must have made con-
siderable progress long before the days of the pyramid-builders.
Xhe'priests never hastened this process of reduction violently;
all that they could do to bring the bewildering mass of divine
names into some degree of system was to endeavour to form
at least approximate groupings of the deities and to place them
in mutual relation on the model of a human genealogy. The
numerous triads (p. 20) may represent the beginning of this
classification and may have satisfied the smaller local centres
for a long time. At the place which was the most important
for the theological history of Egypt, Heliopolis (p. 31), a wider-



2i6 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

reaching grouping of the nine most important divinities of all
Egypt was undertaken, possibly somewhat before the beginning
of the Pyramid Period. This "ennead" (perhaps a triple triad
in origin) consisted of the following genealogy: ^





Sun (Atum or Re')

A


Shu


Tefen

A


Qeb


Nut

A



_A.



Osiris and Isis Seth and Nephthys

Imperfect as this system was, It was felt to be a great step
forward. Parallel with this "great ennead," therefore, a "little
ennead" was later formed in which the other gods of the Osirian
cycle and Thout found a place, together with various minor
divinities. Sometimes the double ennead of eighteen gods was
expanded into a triple one of twenty-seven. The ennead of
Heliopolis and its duplication became known and mentioned
everywhere, but the priests could not follow it strictly if it did
not include the local divinity, or if it failed to give this deity
his proper eminence. Accordingly local imitations sprang up,
as when, for example, at Memphis one began with Ptah as the
earliest and the foremost god. Everywhere the priests tended
to ascribe nine followers to their principal deity or to make him
the chief of eight other gods. Thus the term "ennead" finally
lost its numerical meaning and became synonymous with
"circle of associated gods." The unsystematic character of the
Egyptian mind clearly revealed itself in these attempts at
some methodical arrangement.^

As for the kaleidoscopic character of the mythology, there
never was a rationalizing wish to change it. We children of an
over-rationalistic age too easily forget that most mythologies
once had this indistinctness of character and that to the ancient
mind it was not a disadvantage, but a beauty. In like manner



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 217

the Egyptians, proud of the wealth of fanciful variants which
distinguished their mythology above those of all the neigh-
bouring countries were careful not to correct this mystic
confusion, which we find so bewildering. Even in Plutarch's
systematizing account of the Osiris-myth we see how seldom
the necessity of harmonizing contradictory variants was felt.

The next mode of adapting the incoherent cults of the an-
cestors to the mind of a more advanced age was always the
comparison and identification (syncretism) of similar gods.
The assimilation of deities must have been in progress even
before the time when cosmic ideas were made to underlie the old
names. It was impossible not to compare and identify divinities
with the same animal form or with similar symbols or dress.
Thus the lionesses Sekhmet, Tefenet, and Pekhet, for example,
were treated as manifestations of one and the same personality
at an early date, and soon the cat Ubastet joined them. Next,
identical functions led to identification. When almost all fe-
male divinities assumed the character of personifications of the
sky (Ch. VIII, Note 2), it was natural to ask whether they
were not merely different forms or names of one great goddess.
The male pantheon did not lend itself to identifications quite
so easily, for more individuality was exhibited in it; nevertheless
it could be reduced to a very limited number of types. When
the solarization which we have just described was applied to
almost any of these types, it became possible to fuse them all
into one god of the universe. As the first steps rather bold in-
stances occur as early as the Pyramid Texts, where several
divinities not too similar in character are declared to differ
only in name.^ This contradiction of the theory that the name
is the most essential thing in a deity was reconciled with it by
the doctrine that all names and personifications are not alike;
some are greater, and one is the greatest, most true, original,
and essential (p. 201). This permitted the full preservation of
local names and cults; the priests of each local divinity or the
worshippers of a special patron could claim that their deity




21 8 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

was the oldest and best of all "names" or manifestations of
that god whom the king officially recognized as the leader or
father of the pantheon. Side by side with such religious par-
ticularism, however, the process of assimilation and identi-
fication went on unhindered until, after 1600 b. c, it ended in
the most radical syncretism, in a pantheistic approach to
monotheism which will be described below.

It must not be forgotten, however, that all such speculations
remained the property of a few priests of the highest rank of
education who had mastered the whole realm of traditional
theology with so much success that they were able to reach
beyond it. Ordinary people said their prayers and deposited
their offerings at the local temple without speculations on the
nature of the deity whom they thus worshipped. His adora-
tion had continued from time immemorial, and this was reason
enough for following the trodden path, leaving the interpreta-
tion of the venerable traditions to the theologians. Yet, con-
trary to the opinion often held by modern writers, the teach-
ings of these learned priests were not mysteries withheld from
the laity. There was no secrecy about them; they were gener-
ally inscribed on temple walls where they might be read by all
who could do so; and they were repeated in places which were
even more easily accessible. The limited number of those who
could read difficult texts and the conservatism of the masses
sufficed to prevent the spread of ideas which might sometimes
have become dangerous to traditionalism. It was only some
funerary texts of a semi-magic character which pretended to be
"a book great in secrecy," as when we read in one later
-^chapter of the Book of the Dead^ "Allow no human eye to see
it; a forbidden thing it is to know it; hide it." Yet ultimately
any one might buy this mysterious literature for his dead
(cf. p. 199).

These speculations of learned priests, furthermore, ordina-
rily moved along strange lines, as we have stated on p. 214. It is
only in rare instances that they are philosophical, and for the

[Prometheus]

EGYPTIAN RELIGION 219

most part they show the priests quite as fettered by tradition-
alism as were the people. The best illustration is the strange
commentary and supercommentary contained In the seven-
teenth chapter of the Book of the Dead^ which seems to have
been considered a masterpiece of theological thought. Some-
times it seems reasonable enough, as when the departed says,^
"I am the great god who became by himself," on which the
commentary remarks, "What does this mean? It Is the water
[according to other manuscripts, "the abyss, the father of the
gods"]; another interpretation: it is the sun-god" (see pp. 44,
48, on the question who was the oldest god). We can at least
follow the thought when the words, " I know the yesterday and
the tomorrow," are glossed, "What is thls.^" The yesterday is
Osiris, and the tomorrow is Re'," thus distinguishing the dead
sun-god from the one who is reborn every day. Then, however,
we find the text declaring, "I am Min at his appearance, my
two feathers are given me on my head." These simple words
the commentators endeavour to render more profound by the
gloss: "MinisHorus, who avenged his father [cf. p. 117]; his
appearances are his birth; his two feathers on his head are Isis
and Nephthys, who went and placed themselves on his head
when they were two birds [cf. p. 115], at the time when his head
ached. Another interpretation: the two uraeus serpents [p. 29]
are they before his father. Another interpretation: his two
eyes were the feathers on his head." We perceive how difhcult
It was for such minds to rise above a very shallow symbolism,
and we are not surprised that wisdom of this type moved in a
circle for several thousand years. Nevertheless here also we
see the constant tendency toward a syncretistic comparison
and identification of divinities. Thus we read again in a similar
commentary:^ "The soul of Shu is Khnum, the soul of end-
less space [Heh, p. 44] Is Shu (.''), the soul of (primeval) dark-
ness Is night, the soul of Nuu is Re', that of Osiris is the
Mendes, the souls of the Sobks are the crocodiles, the soul
of every god Is In the serpents [cf. p. 166], that of 'Apop is



220 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

In (the land of) Bekh,^° that of Re' is over the whole earth."
Here once more we note the endeavour, which gained ground
In the New Empire, to identify the abyss (Nuu) with the sun
(Re') and thus to explain the latter as "self-begotten" (p. 50)
and as the essence of the whole world. In opposition to earlier
doctrines (p. 50). We likewise observe that "soul" or "force"
approximates the sense of "manifestation" or "antitype."

More detailed In Its syncretistic speculations Is a document
which claims to have been found on a worm-eaten and partially
Illegible papyrus about 720 b. c. and which was then incised on
a block of stone as a very wonderful specimen of ancestral
thought.^^ It daringly reconciles the Memphltic and Hello-
polltan doctrine. Ptah, the local deity of Memphis, was the
earliest of all gods. He existed in eight forms, the oldest of
which were Ptah-Nuu as the father and Ptah-Nekhbet as the
mother (!) of Atum.^^ When this sun-god Atum propagated
the rest of the ennead, as described on p. 216, these divinities
were not only descendants of Ptah, but were In fact mere
manifestations of him. In other words, as our text explains,
Ptah, "the Great One," Is the heart and tongue of the ennead,
and thought and speech (on whose mutual relations some
speculations are added) represent the activity of every god.
Consequently Ptah is the universal power. Then the "little
ennead" of Heliopolls Is considered. Horus and Thout — the
latter the organizer of the present pantheon — likewise "came
from Ptah" both directly and Indirectly, and thus the whole
universe has emanated from him and is ruled by him.^^

Such pantheistic tendencies are elsewhere attached to Re',
to his parallels, Amen-Re' and Osiris, "the master of all things"
(p. 96),^'* etc., but especially, from the Nineteenth Dynasty
onward, to the Memphltic deity Ptah-Tatunen (whom we
have mentioned above) and to his variant, Sokarl-Oslris. When
Ptah is called "he who standeth on the earth and toucheth
the sky with his head, he whose upper half Is the sky and whose
lower half Is the underworld," etc.,^^ or when Osiris-Sokari



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 221

( = Ptah) is described not merely as the earth-god who gives
life to plants, etc., or as ruler of the lower world, and at the
same time producer of the air, but even as possessing solar
faculties, ^^ we have the development of a conception of deity
as the cosmic universe which cannot but end in a pantheistic
belief in one god, though he manifests himself in a hundred
forms and names. A clear expression of this doctrine is found
in a late hymn ^^ in which the supreme god Amen-Re' is treated
as the sun and thus is identified with such solar manifestations
as Min, Atum, Khepri, Montu, and Har-shaf, perhaps even
with androgynous combinations like Shu-Tefenet and Mut-
Khonsu (line 37), and repeatedly with the universalized Ptah-
Tatunen-Sokari. Consequently

"Thy forms are Nile and Earth,
Thou art the eldest, greater than the gods.
Thou art the abyss when it stretched itself over the ground;
Thou didst return in thy ripples (.'').

Thou art the sky, thou art the earth, thou art the underworld,
Thou art the water, thou art the air between them."

It would be a mistake to see Iranian influence in this text
merely because it chances to be preserved in a temple dating
from the reign of Darius I; it was evidently written several
centuries before, and its thoughts can be traced to a time even
more remote. As early as the Nineteenth Dynasty the Litany
of the Sun ^^ declares that the solar deity Re'-Hor manifests
himself in practically all gods. Not only are all divinities who
admit of solarization identical with him as his "power," but
he is one with Nuu (the abyss), Qeb (the earth), Shay ("Des-
tiny," see p. 52), the new "furnace-deity" (Ketuiti) which
represents hell and the lower world (Ch. X, Note 21), and
even with such female forces as Isis and Nephthys.

All this enables us to understand a hymn to a mysterious
cosmic god in which a magician wishes to express his idea of
an unknown god greater than anyone had hitherto been able
to imagine.^^



222 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

"O thou dwarf of heaven (f),^''
Thou big-faced dwarf
With high back,
With weakly legs,

The great pillar which (reacheth) from heaven (to) the lower world!
O lord of the corpse which resteth in Heliopolis,

great lord of life who resteth in Dedet! ^^
N. N., son of N. N., guard him by day,
Watch him by night;

Protect him as thou hast protected Osiris against [Seth?] ^^
On that day of (his) burial in Heliopolis! ^^

1 am the lion in the ship ( ?) ^* of the Phoenix.
Thy form is that of a monkey ^^

With the face of an old man.

There were ( ?) witnesses when thou didst send (a message) to me,
(When?) a resting-place was taken in the wall (i.e. of Memphis.^).
Thus: may a chapel of one cubit be made for me!

'Art thou not a giant of seven cubits.'"

I said to thee, 'Thou canst not enter into this chapel of one cubit;
Art thou not a giant of seven cubits.?'
(But) thou didst enter it and rest in it.

[Fall (?), O flames which know (!) not the abyss! ^6

Thou chapel, open, open thyself!

Thou who art in it with thy monkey face,

Woe! Woe! Fire! Fire!

Thou child of the maiden (?),2'

Thou baboon!"]

The last strophe seems to have no connexion with what
precedes, and it has the appearance of an incongruous magic
addition like the one translated on p. 83. Yet in the first part
of the hymn we find the idea of a god who, like Osiris-Re' (i.e.
the Heliopolitan god), represents the entire universe and has
the outward form partly of the dwarf or giant Bes, and in
greater degree that of his Memphitic variant, Ptah-Nuu-
Sokari, as a dwarf (p. 64). Obviously the magician again re-
gards the latter as the god of all nature, both infant and old
man, the beginning and the end, the smallest and the greatest
principle of nature, etc. Osiris, elsewhere the deity of universal



EGYPTIAN RELIGION



223



nature, is here merely subordinate to this all-god and is, it would
seem, only one of his manifestations.

Thus we can also understand the origin and meaning of
magic representations, dating from the latest period, of a
mysterious, nameless deity. His pictures unite the portrayals



^:0:)°^<^=^«





mjl^i^'^^w



:^^\^\KK\^^\M^^^



Fig. 214. Late Nameless God of the Universe

of the hawk Horus, and sometimes of the crocodile Sobk, the
phallic divinity Min, and the similar picture of the "self-be-
gotten" Amen-Re', etc.; but the principal source is Bes, who,
as above, is the same as Sokari, who in turn equals Nuu-Ptah.
The representation with innumerable eyes covering his body,
somewhat like the Greek Argos,^^ has a forerunner in a deity
who is described ^^ as having seventy-seven eyes and as many
ears. The shoes are those of the primeval ogdoad (p. 48) ; the
feet tread the abyss (in serpent-form; p. 104) and his helpers;



224 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

the surrounding flames shield this mysterious being from the
profane world.^° It is an amalgamation of the greatest cosmic
powers, as being all identical, into one new god of the universe.

The hymn which we have translated above, with its striv-
ing after a mysterious, nameless, all-embracing divinity of the
entire universe, is found in a papyrus of the Twentieth
Dynasty (twelfth century b. c), but the text has been copied
from earlier sources. As we have repeatedly stated, the clear
doctrinal formulation of pantheism, as in the- texts which we
have quoted, seems to appear about the beginning of the New
Empire, in the Eighteenth Dynasty.

If the growth of pantheistic ideas in this epoch, the time
after 1600 b. c, betrays a struggle against traditionalism, a
groping for a new and larger conception of the godhead, and a
tendency toward a solar explanation of the origin of all nature,
we can understand how, not much later, an effort could be
made violently to reform the religion of Egypt — the famous
revolution of Pharaoh Amen-hotep (Amenophis) IV, about
1400 B. c. The pantheistic striving of scholars had at least
prepared the way for the revolution. At all events this very
interesting movement, the only violent religious reform of
which we know, not only in Egypt, but in the entire pre-Chris-
tian Orient outside Israel, must not be explained as due to
Asiatic influences. Neither can it be understood as coming
from the old Heliopolitan theology, as some scholars have
supposed; contrary to Egyptian traditionalism, it did not seek
to support itself by that most venerable school of tradition,
but desired to be an entirely new doctrine.

Like so many other religious revolutions, this also seems to
have had a political basis. The King, being the son of a woman
who was not of royal blood (Teye, the daughter of an ordinary
priest), probably encountered opposition from the Theban
hierarchy as not being quite legitimate, and he punished the
priests by deposing Amon from his position as the official chief
god. Wishing to suppress entirely the worship of Amon, the



EGYPTIAN RELIGION



225



Pharaoh tried to bring oblivion on the divinity by erasing the
deity's name and that of his consort Mut from all earlier monu-
ments, even those of a private nature, such as old tombs. He
himself moved from Amon's city of Thebes to a place in Middle
Egypt near the site of the modern Tell Amarna, where he built a
new capital. Thus breaking with all tradition and finding ready
to hand the concept that the sun-god was the master or, in real-
ity, the only deity of
the whole universe, the
King was unwilling to
employ any of the old
names and representa-
tions for this supreme
divinity, but rational-
istically called him
simply Aten ("the
Disk") and portrayed
him in an entirely new
manner as a plain disk
with rays ending in
hands (a symbolism
indicative of activity.'*).
To this new god he
built a magnificent

temple in the new capital, which he called "Horizon of the
Disk" in Aten's honour (see Fig. 195 for a picture of the front
of this sanctuary), and he even changed his own name from
Amen-hotep ("Amon is Satisfied") to Akh-en-aten ("Splendour
of the Disk").^^ Parallel with these innovations free scope
was given to a certain realistic modernism in art, etc. These
violent reforms met with much opposition, and after the
King's death so strong a reaction set in that his successors
were constrained to return hurriedly to the old faith and to
re-establish the worship of the Theban triad. The memory of
the heretic and of his god was persecuted as mercilessly as he

XII — 16




Fig. 215. Amen-hotep IV and his Wife Sacrific-
ing TO THE Solar Disk



226 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

had repressed the religion of Amon, and in particular the
schismatic temple of the sun was razed to the ground. Thus
we know little about Amen-hotep's new "doctrine" to which
his Inscriptions proudly allude; few texts have survived con-
cerning it, and these documents are only hymns which vaguely
extol the sun as the benefactor of all animate nature.

The revolution does not seem to have been quite so radical a
solar monotheism as modern writers often state. We have no
evidence that any cults outside the divine triad of Thebes were

persecuted. Some old names and
forms of solar deities were still re-
tained in the new royal worship (es-
pecially Horus and Har-akhti), or
at least were tolerated (Atum). Thus
the system may have been henothe-
istic or monolatristic rather than
monotheistic. Neither was It icono-
clastic to the extent of strict avold-
FiG. 216. Profile of Amen- ^nce of the human or animal types

of the deities who were retained or
tolerated. Nevertheless It remains a very remarkable rational-
istic attempt, and it reveals independence of thought by re-
fusing the support of the pantheistic amalgamations of old
names and forms which we have described above.^^

It is quite true that the only motive of Amen-hotep in
avoiding this pantheism seems to have been, not philosophical
thought, but simply the fear that he might be compelled to
retain all the traditional names and cults, and thus to admit
Amon also as a manifestation of the universal god of the
free-thinkers. Yet we must give him credit for breaking
away from the crude old beliefs which, after theoretically re-
moving the deities to heaven, had In reality kept them on
earth within the touch of man and In the human and animal
forms of primitive tradition. Although the thought was far
from new, nevertheless It was a radical step actually to remove




EGYPTIAN RELIGION 227

the supreme divinity to the sky and to worship him only in the
form in which the sun appears daily to every eye. This break
with traditionalism, however, was the fatal difficulty. The
conservative mind of the masses was unable to abandon the
time-hallowed names and cults of the forefathers. We may
admire the great boldness of the King's step, may view it with
sympathy, and may regret its failure, yet Amen-hotep IV
must not be overrated and compared with the great thinkers
and reformers in the world's history.

As an illustration of his doctrine and of the literature
developed at his court we here quote his famous hymn to the
sun.^^

"The praise of the sun-god [by the King N. N.j:
Thou appearest beautiful in the horizon of the sky,

O living Disk, beginning of life! r \:;:^ J\ ^^ jlj

When thou risest in the eastern horizon, >AJV*>— *• vj/^frv^jk^ \MJi>/\
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty.
Thou art beautiful, great,
Resplendent and exalted over every land.
Thy rays encompass the lands
To the extent of all things which thou hast made;
(Since) thou art Re', thou bringest them all.
Thou subjectest them to thy beloved son (i. e. to the Pharaoh).
(Though) thou art afar, thy rays are on earth;
Thou art on their faces [and thus they feel.^] thy steps.

(When) thou goest to rest in the western horizon,

The earth is in darkness, in the condition of death.

(Men) lie in their chambers with their heads wrapped up;

One eye seeth not the other.

Their belongings are stolen (even when) lying under their heads.

And they notice it not.

Every lion cometh from his den,

All serpents bite.

Darkness [is their protection.^],

The earth (resteth) in silence

(While) he who made them is in his horizon.

The earth is bright when thou risest on the horizon,
Resplendent as the sun-disk in day-time.



228 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Thou removest darkness

(When) thou sendest thy rays.

Both lands (i. e. Egypt) are in festival joy,

Awakening and standing on (their) feet;

Thou hast raised them up.

Their limbs being bathed, they take (their) clothing;

Their arms are (lifted) in worship at thy rising;

(Thereupon) all the land perform their toil.

All cattle rejoice in their grass;

Trees and herbs are greening; ^*

The birds are flying from their nests {seshu),

Their wings are (lifted) in worship to thy being;

All (wild) animals skip on their feet;

The birds and all things fluttering

(Feel) alive when thou hast arisen for them.

The ships sail (on) the stream up and down alike;

Every way is open when thou arisest.

The fish in the rivers leap {!) before thee;

Thy rays are (even) in the innermost of the great ocean.

Creator of issue in women,

Maker of seed in men.

Who preserveth alive the son in his mother's womb

And keepeth him quiet that he weep not,

A nurse (for him even) in the (maternal) womb.

Who giveth breath to keep alive all that he maketh;

(When) it descendeth from the womb, [thou showest care for it.''] on

the day of its birth;
Thou openest its mouth, giving it voice;
Thou makest what it doth need.

The young bird crieth in the shell

(Because) thou givest it breath within to preserve its life.

When thou hast given it strength ^^ to open ^^ the &^^,

It Cometh from the egg

To cry with full strength.

It runneth on its feet

When it cometh forth from it.

How manifold are (the things) which thou hast made!

They are mysteries before [us.''].

Thou only god.

Whose place none else can take!

[Prometheus]

EGYPTIAN RELIGION 229

Thou hast created the earth according to thy heart —

Thou being alone —

Men, flocks, and all animals,

Whatsoever is on earth,

Going on feet,

Whatsoever is high in the air, flying with its wings,

The foreign lands, Syria and Ethiopia,

(And) the land of Egypt.

Thou assignest every man to his place,

Thou makest what they need.

Each one hath his food.

And his lifetime is counted.^^

The tongues are distinguished in speech;

Their forms and also their skins ^^ are differentiated;

(Thus) thou didst distinguish the strange nations.

Thou madest the Nile in the lower world.

Thou bringest him according to thy liking.

For furnishing life to mankind.

As thou hast made them for thyself,

Thou, their lord, (lord) of them all,

Resting among them,^^

Thou lord of every land

Who ariseth for them,

O sun-disk of the day, great of power!

All foreign countries, the remote.

Thou makest life for them;

(Because) thou hast placed a Nile in the sky,

It descendeth for them,

It maketh waves on the mountain like the great ocean,

Irrigating ^'^ their fields in their towns.

How excellent are thy plans, O lord of eternity!

Thou [hast established] *^ the Nile in the sky for the foreign lands

And for the wild beasts of every mountain country wandering on ^

their feet;
(But) the Nile cometh from the underworld for Egypt.

Thy rays nourish ^^ every green spot;
(When) thou risest, they live
And they grow for thee.



230 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Thou hast made the seasons

To produce all that thou makest;

The winter to cool them,

The (season of) heat (when) they (really) taste thee.

Thou didst make the sky far away to rise in it

And to behold all that thou makest.

Thou art alone, rising in thy forms as a living disk,

Appearing, shining, departing, and (again) drawing nigh.

Thou makest millions of forms from thyself alone.

Cities, villages, and tribes.

Highways and rivers;

Every eye beholdeth thee before them

(When) thou art the disk of day-time above [them]."

The text, apparently becoming corrupt after this strophe,
has some very obscure sentences whose approximate meaning
seems to be: "Thou hast not (?) gone away since (}) thine
eye hath existed (which.?) thou hast created for (?) them that
thou shouldst not see joy (.'')"; and it then continues in a
more personal prayer.

"Thou art in my heart (i.e. understanding);
None other is there who knoweth thee
Except thy son, Akh-en-aten;
Thou hast made him wise in thy plans and in thy power.^

The (whole) earth is at thy command

As thou hast made them.

When thou hast risen, they (feel) alive;

When thou hast set, they (feel) dead.

(Thus) in thyself ^^ thou art lifetime;

People live from thee;

(All) eyes (are fixed) on thy beauty until thou settest;

All work is stopped (when) thou settest in the west.

Arising, thou makest [everything good.^] grow for the king

[Who hath been a servant following thee.''],^^

For thou hast founded the earth

And raised it *'' up for thy son.

The one who came forth from thy limbs.

The king of Upper and Lower Egypt,

Living in ^^ truth, lord of both countries,



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 231

Nefer-khepru-re' [" the Best of the Forms of the Sun "; cf. p. 170],

Ua'-n-re' [" the Only One of the Sun "],
Son of the sun, living in *^ truth,
The lord of diadems, Akh-en-aten.
Long (be) his life,

And the chief royal wife, beloved of him,
The mistress of both countries,
Nefer-nefru-aten, Nefert-iti,
Who liveth and flourisheth for ever and for eternity."

There are some shorter hymns and prayers of this same
period, usually abridged from the long hymn w^hich we have
just quoted.'*^ All of them have the same character: they fol-
low a modern, lyric style of poetic description, depicting nature
with a minute observation of small details, but they present
scarcely a religious thought which cannot be found In earlier
literature. They might almost as well have been written of the
solar deities of preceding generations.

The reaction which set In after the death of Amen-hotep IV
re-established the old forms and names of the deities every-
where and even sought to emphasize them more than before.
It was easy to destroy the heresies of the schismatic Pharaoh
since his short-lived reform had nowhere penetrated the masses.
If the reformation left any trace, we might find It in the fact
that the style of religious literature did not return to the dry
formalism which had reigned before the New Empire; the
warmer, pletlstic tone was maintained, and this could be done
with Impunity since the heretical movement did not, strictly
speaking. Inaugurate this style, which had had forerunners
before the time of Amen-hotep IV. This lyric, personal tone ^^
seems to deepen even In the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Dynasties, so that the worship of the ancient deities was,
after all, not quite the same as In the days of the ancestors,
and this wholly apart from the pantheistic syncretism of
scholars. The texts reveal an increasing tendency to break
away from formalism in worship and to Inculcate a personal
devotion to the deity. They emphasize that the divinity loves



232



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY




Fig. 217. Prayer-Stele with
Symbols of Hearing



man, not merely the human race, but each Individual, even
the most humble; the very animals are objects of his fatherly
care. Where earlier poetry praised the divine power exclusively
and regarded It with awe alone, now the kindness of the gods

toward the poor and needy Is de-
scribed. The sick, the orphan and
the widow, and the unjustly accused
win not pray in vain for deliverance
from their misery (cf. p. 237). Such
fatherly love must be reciprocated
by a manifestation of man's love
toward the deity and by devotion to
him and to his worship. We no-
where find it stated in plain words
that sacrifices or ritual alone cannot
save; yet the wise Anl,^^ who seems
to have lived at the end of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, at least de-
nounces the belief that loud, formal, and lengthy prayers can
compel the deity to do his worshipper's bidding.

"The sanctuary of the god,^^ shouting is Its abhorrence;
Pray for thyself with a loving heart!
All his (?) words ^* are in secret;
He performeth thy cause;
He heareth thy saying;
He receiveth thy sacrifice."

With this lofty view of prayer we may contrast the con-
temporary stelae which pilgrims erected and on which they
depicted first one pair of ears to express the invocation, "May
the god hear my supplication!" and then multiplied these sym-
bols to show how intensely they desired to compel the deity to
hearken, as In the accompanying cut, whose inscription reads,
"Praise to the soul {ka) of Ptah, the lord of justice, great In
might, (who) heareth prayer!"

Other advanced thinkers departed even further from formal-



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 233

ism by urging the silent, humble prayer of the contrite heart,
as when we read:^'*

"Thou savest the silent, O Thout,
Thou sweet well of water for him who is athirst in the desert!
It is closed for the eloquent; ^^
It is open for the silent.

When the silent cometh, he findeth the well;
The one that bumeth with heat, him dost thou refresh."

This does not mean that it is not man's duty to honour the
gods by praise, for he must extol them constantly before men.

"I make praises for his name,
I praise him to the height of heaven;
As wide as the ground (of the earth) is
I describe his power to them that go southward and northward." ^^

The wise AnI certainly would not destroy all formalism, for
in his Maxims we read:^^

"Celebrate the feasts of thy god!
Observe^* his (sacred) seasons!
The god is wroth when he experienceth trespassing."

See also p. 178 for his admonition to sacrifice for the dead
in the traditional way.

The deities expect not only loving worship, but also obedi-
ence to their moral demands; if these be broken, affliction will
follow as a speedy punishment.

"Beware of him!
Tell it to (thy) son and to (thy) daughter.
To the great and to the small!
Report it t© the (present) generation
And to the generation which hath not yet come!
Report it to the fish in the deep.
To the birds in the sky!
Repeat it to him who doth not yet know it,
And to him who knoweth it!
Beware of him!" ^^



234 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

In remorse a man who seems to have sworn a false oath by
the moon-god erects a stele to confess his sin:^°

"I am a man who had wrongly said,
' (As) he remaineth' to the moon concerning (?) the barrier (?). ^^
Then before the whole country he made me see how great his might is.
I report thy power to the fish in the river
And to the birds in the sky.

They (i.e. mankind) shall say to the children of their children,
'Beware of the moon, who can turn this (away) when he is
appeased.'"

A similar case is described more pathetically.®^ A man grew
blind, attributed his affliction to perjury which he had com-
mitted, and implored the god's forgiveness in the following
words :

"I am one who swore falsely by Ptah, the Lord of Justice;
He made me see darkness in day-time.
I shall tell his power to the one who knoweth him^^ not, as well as

to the one who knoweth,
To the small and to the great.
Beware of Ptah, the Lord of Justice!
Behold, he doth not overlook a (wrong) deed of any man.
Abstain from pronouncing Ptah's name wrongly!
Lo, he who pronounceth it wrongly,
Behold, he goeth to destruction.

He made me to be like a dog on the street;
I was in his hand.

He made me to be a spectacle for men and for gods
Since I have been a man who wrought abomination against his
master.

Ptah, the Lord of Justice, is just to me;
He hath afflicted me with punishment.
Be merciful unto me!
I have seen that thou art merciful."

Another man excuses himself before the deity In a more gen-
eral way:^^ "I am an ignorant, heartless (i.e. stupid, brainless)
man who knoweth not the difference between good and evil."
Others declare that mankind as a whole is weak and helpless



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 235

before the gods. Even when no specific sin burdens the con-
science, it is well to confess this human weakness before the
divinities and to assume that they might easily discover faults
if they were not so gracious and forgiving. This is the tone of
the following hymn:^^

"Thou (art) the only one, O Har-akhti!
There is none indeed like unto him,
(Able to) protect millions
And to shield hundreds of thousands,
Thou protector of him who calleth for him!

Lord of Heliopolis, reproach me not for my many sins!

1 am one who knoweth not (anything) ,^^
Whose breast ^^ Is Ignorant;

I am a man without heart; ®^

I spend the whole time walking after my own mouth

As an ox (goeth) after the grass.

If I forget ( ?) my time, . . .

I walk . . . " «9

This pietistic tone penetrates even the oflftcial Inscriptions.
We find Pharaohs who humbly pray to the gods for divine
guidance and illumination where, according to the traditional
theory of Egyptian kingship (p. 170), they should have spoken
haughtily as being themselves incarnate divinities and masters
of all wisdom. Thus one royal prayer runs : ''^ " Suffer me not
to do that which thou hatest; save me from that which is
wicked!" Nevertheless such humble confessions of royal
fallibility and weakness are not so numerous as the parallel
assertions of the older view, according to which the Pharaoh
was too far above the level of ignorant and feeble humanity
to commit sin. After 1000 b.c. the old formalism, generally
speaking, stifled the pietistic tone more and more, especially
after 750, when mechanical copying of the earliest forms was
the prevailing tendency, and when Egyptian conservatism cele-
brated Its greatest triumph. In Increasing measure it became
the highest ambition of the theologians to search the ruins of
temples and tombs for Inscriptions and papyri, and to gather



236 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

from them old and imperfectly known texts, as well as names
and pictures of the gods whom the ancestors had worshipped,
thus bringing to light many forgotten divinities. This archaiz-
ing tendency begins with the Ethiopian kings of the eighth
century b. c. and culminates in the fourth century with the
reign of Nectanebo, a pious monarch famous in later tradition
also as a scholar and magician, who has left a surprising num-
ber of monuments illustrative of the pantheon and of the
doctrines of the remote past (see p. 207).

To demonstrate the great contrast between the pietistic style
in the religious poetry of the New Empire and the old poetic
vein we quote a specimen from a long hymn to Amen-Re'
which is preserved in a papyrus of the museum at Cairo.'^^
This hymn is composed of poetic fragments of various ages
and thus exhibits the old formalism side by side with the more
lyrical style. In it, accordingly, we find examples of the most
stilted and archaic tone:

"Awake in health, Mln-Ainon,^^
Lord of eternity.
Who hath made endless time!
Lord of adoration,
The one before . . .^^

Firm of horns,

Fair of face,

Lord of the crown,

With high feathers!

Fine with the ribbon on his head,'*

(Wearing) the white crown.

The serpent diadem and the two serpents of Buto ^^ belong to his

face.
The ornaments (.^) of the one in the palace,'^
The double crown, the royal cap, and the helmet!
Fine of face when he hath received the fourfold crown!
Who loveth the Southern as well as the Northern crown!
Master of the double crown who hath received the sceptre!
Master of the club, holding the whip,
The good ruler who appeareth with the white crown!"



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 237

Thus far the hymn merely describes the incredibly old statue
of the god Min of Koptos (p. 139), of whose mythological char-
acter the poet could say little, since he was obviously unwilling
to follow the deity's later identification with Osiris (pp. 139,
156). At this point the style becomes slightly more vivid and
modern, and passes over into a hymn to the sun.

"Lord of rays, maker of light,
To whom the gods give praises,
Who sendeth forth his arms as he will!
His enemies fall by his flame.
It is his eye which overthrew the wicked.
It sent its spear to be swallowed by the abyss,
It forced the impious dragon to spit forth what he had swallowed.^''

Hail to thee, O Re', lord of truth.

Whose shrine is mysterious, master of the gods!

Khepri In his ship,

Who uttered the command, and the gods were made!

Atumu, the creator of men.

Who distinguished their forms and made their life.

Distinguishing the form ^^ of one from (that of) the other!"

Now follows a section in the most modern, lyric vein:

"Who hearkeneth to the prayer of him that is In prison,
Kind of heart when one crieth unto him!
Who delivereth the timid from him that is violent of heart,
Who judgeth the oppressed, the oppressed and the needy!

Lord of knowledge, on whose lips is wisdom,''^

At whose pleasure the Nile cometh!

Lord of pleasantness, great of love,

Who giveth *° life to men.

Who openeth every eye!

O thou (that wert) made in the abyss.

Who created pleasure and light!

The gods rejoice at the signs of his goodness, ^^

Their hearts revive when they behold him."

The next section of the hymn reverts to a jejune style which
celebrates the deity, as worshipped In Thebes and Heliopolis,

[Prometheus]

238 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

"for whom the sixth day and the middle day of the month are
honoured" (cf. p. 90). With endless repetitions it describes
his crowns and emblems. After a time, however, the account
of his activity as creator and sustainer resumes a modern,
pietistic tone.

"The only one who made what is,
Creator of all men, who made what doth exist!
Men proceeded from his eyes,
The gods sprang from his lips.
Who maketh grass for the herds.
The life-bearing trees for men;
Who permitteth the fish to live in the river.
The birds to touch (?) the sky.
He giveth breath to that which is in the egg;
He sustaineth the grasshopper
And keepeth alive (even) the gnat,^^
The creeping and the flying things alike;
Who maketh food for the mice in their holes
And feedeth the flying (creatures) on every tree.

Hail to thee for all these things !
The one, the only one, with many hands,^^
Who lieth awake for all men when they sleep.
Seeking what is best for his animals!"

It is clear that the Egyptian conception of the gods In the New
Empire meant a great advance beyond the low, primitive Ideas
which we have described on pp. 16, 202-04, ^^c. The deities of
these later religious hymns have not only gained unlimited
power over all nature, but appear as great moral forces, as the
principles of love, thought, and justice — at least in the figure
of the supreme divinity whom the religious thinkers and poets
seek. If we could cleanse these Egyptian descriptions from
polytheistic and pantheistic traits, their conception of a fa-
therly and omnipotent deity would seem at times to approach
the Biblical Idea of God.

On the other hand, we must constantly query how far the
masses could follow so lofty an advance. Not even the priests
had that ability, for they were unable to free the mythology



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 239

from the old objectionable traditions which described the gods
as very weak and imperfect beings, both in morality and in
power. ^^ In the magic of all periods the deities appear still
more fallible. The late sorcerers are even particularly fond
of preserving and emphasizing the traditional weaknesses of
the divinities, as in the retention of objectionable myths in
magic rites (p. 80). Sometimes they actually endeavour by
threats to draw the gods from their celestial abodes (p. 201).
Nevertheless they never completely return to the concep-
tion of the local spirits which was current in the primitive age,
and similar conflicts between higher and lower ideals of the
gods can be found to continue in other religions than that of
the Nile-land.

Foreign influences cannot be discovered in any of the de-
velopments which we have thus far considered. The borrowing
of Asiatic motifs by Egyptian mythology (p. 153) could never
revolutionize Egyptian thought, nor could this be done by a
few Asiatic deities which enjoyed worship in Egypt at one
period (pp. 154-57). These foreign cults existed side by side with
the ancient Egyptian worships, neither mingling with them nor
aflFecting them. In later times the intrusion of many inas-
similable elements of this kind only made Egyptian religion more
conservative. This is equally true of the Greek period, when
even the official Serapis cult (p. 98) advanced very slowly
among the native Egyptians. It was only magic that was al-
ways open to foreign influence (p. 207). In the Roman period,
when the religion of Greece and Rome had been strangely
Egyptianized, and when the spread of Christianity threatened
every type of paganism alike, we perceive a certain amount of
intermingling of the Egyptian and Grseco-Roman systems in the
popular mind. This influence, however, was less strong in
the temple cults, which still endeavoured, as best they could, to
copy the most ancient models. The sun-god, once pictured at
Philae as an archer, is one of the rare adaptations to Greek
mythology; ^^ and the same statement holds true of a curious



240



EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



change of the old type of the god Antaeus (p. 130) to that of Sera-
pis with a non-Egyptian halo, the dress and armour of a Roman
soldier, etc. Anubis and Ophois, guarding a tomb near Alexan-
dria, are represented in similar fashion; one of them, with the
lower part of his body in the form of a serpent, may possibly be

explained as a curious reminiscence
of the serpent in the underworld
(p. 105); it is again quite a new liberty.
The strange degeneration of the
sacred uraeus serpent on the same
tomb is equally non-Egyptian. Still
bolder innovations can be found
among the terra-cotta figures which
adorned private houses of this period
(see Plate II, i, 2 for specimens), but
we know little about the meaning of
such strange fancies.

The influence of the Egyptian re-
ligion on neighbouring countries was
strongest in Nubia, where such Egyp-
tian divinities as were recognized
throughout Egypt (i. e. the Theban
and Osirian circles) were rendered
popular by conquest, colonization,
and the imposition of the official cults
on the dark-skinned subject races.
Amon especially, as being the highest divinity in the state
cult, became the official god of Napata and Meroe, and of all
the great Ethiopian Empire as well when it won its independ-
ence. The Egyptian priests of the Greek period actually
looked southward with envy and described the Ethiopians as
the best, most pious, and, consequently, happiest men on
earth. ^^ In particular the employment of oracles to direct
politics and even to choose kings continued in Ethiopia until
the Persian period, as it had in Egypt in days gone by




Fig. 218. Antaeus-Serapis



EGYPTIAN RELIGION



241




(p. 197). As the supreme official divinity of the conquering
Egyptian empire between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Dy-
nasties, the ram-headed Amon also became known as the high-
est god in Libya, west of
Egypt, as is shown by the
name of the "Oasis of
Amon" and its famous
oracle in the Libyan Des-
ert. The influence as
manifested in Asia and
earlier Europe was less
direct, although Egyptian
art imported many Nilotic
motifs thither. Since Phoe-
nician art was always much
more strongly influenced
by the Egyptian style

*u u ^1- -u r TD u 1 • Fig. 219. Guarjjian Deities on the Tomb of
than by that of Babylonia, k6m-esh-Shugafa near Alexandria

we may assume that the

religion of Phoenicia likewise borrowed liberally from Egypt.

Thus Tammuz-Adonis was worshipped atByblos like Osiris with
Egyptianizing forms of cult (Ch. V, Note 84),
the Phoenicians gave the name of Taaut to the
inventor of writing (Ch. Ill, Note 2), etc. In
like manner we find, for example, the sacred
musical instrument of Egypt, the sistrum, or
rattle (p. 41), used in religious ceremonies in
Crete as early as Minoan times, when it is
1^ pictured on the famous vase of Phaistos. Thus

Fig. 220. Guardian "^e are not Surprised that distinctly Egyptian
Symbol from the traits are numerous in Greek mythology,

Same Tomb . 111

and some seem to have wandered even to
northern Europe.

Despite all this, the Egyptians never propagated their re-
ligion abroad by missionaries. After the time of Alexander

xn — 17




242 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

the Greeks, who had always been somewhat attracted by the
mysterious worship of the Nile-land, began to imitate some
of its cults in their entirety, even outside Egypt itself; in the
Roman period these cults spread to Italy, and thence through
the whole Roman Empire as far as Brittany. As we have al-
ready seen (p. 121), this propagation of the Egyptian religion
was almost exclusively restricted to the deities of the Osirian
cycle, the most popular of the Egyptian divinities, and to the
Graeco-Egyptian Serapis. In the dispersion the cults sought
to imitate as closely as possible — though not always with
success — the ancient traditions of the Nile-land. The archi-
tecture and the hieroglyphs of the temples, the obelisks and
sphinxes before the shrines, the strange linen vestments of the
priests with their shaven heads and faces, the endless and
obscure ritual, and the animal forms of some of the idols every-
where filled the Classical world with peculiar awe, and
wonderful mysteries were believed to be hidden under these
Incomprehensibilities. It mattered not that some free-thinkers
always scoffed at the animal worship and other strange features
of this barbarous cult; the proselytes only clung to its mysteries
with the greater zeal, and the "Isiac" religion proved a formi-
dable competitor of rising Christianity.^^

The principal reason for this success must have been the
strong impression which the tenacious conservatism of Egypt
made on that skeptical age. While the ancient Grseco-Roman
religion had lost all hold on the people and could be mocked
with impunity, while the deities of old had become meaning-
less names or shadowy philosophical abstractions, the Egyp-
tians, in childlike faith, showed all the miraculous trees, lakes,
rocks, etc., of mythology, the abode of the gods In their temples
on this very earth, and the divinities themselves actually em-
bodied In statues and in sacred animals. This staunch faith,
combined with the mysterious forms of worship, gave strangers
the conviction that Egypt was the holiest country in the world
and that "in truth the gods dwelt there." A pilgrimage to the



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 243

Nile was always thought to bring marvellous revelations and
spiritual blessings, and the pilgrims, returning with freshened
zeal, spread at home the conviction that the profoundest reli-
gious knowledge had its home in the gloom of those gigantic
temples which, in their largely intact condition, impressed the
Roman traveller even more than their ruins now affect the
tourist from the West.

Nevertheless the Classical world, though longing for new
religious thought, was unable to copy that same conservatism
which it admired in the Egyptians. Even in Egypt the more
popular divinities, especially of the Osirian cycle, had been in-
vested, as we have already noted, with some non-Egyptian
ideas in the cities with a larger Greek population; and in Eu-
rope amalgamation with Greek and Asiatic names and myth-
ologies, and with philosophic speculations, reduced them to
vague, pantheistic personalities. At last Isis and Osiris-Sera-
pis, as they were worshipped abroad in the mystic cult of secret
" Isiac societies," retained little more of their Egyptian origin
than their names and forms of worship. Strange new myths
were also invented. The picture of Harpokrates, or "Horus
the Child" (p. 117), putting his finger to his lips as a
conventional sign of childhood (cf. Figs. 45, 48, and Plate II),
was misinterpreted as commanding the faithful to be silent
concerning the deep religious mysteries of Egypt, an interpre-
tation which strongly appealed to proselytes to that faith.
The so-called "Hermetic literature" blended Greek and
Egyptian religion with great freedom. ^^ Even the specula-
tions which Plutarch, in his treatise "On Isis and Osiris"
(p. 92), sought to read into the names of the divinities of the
Nile-land are Egyptian only in part. On the other hand,
the masses, especially the women of the Roman world, clung,
as we have said, at least to the outer forms of the Egyptian
religion to the best of their ability, as when, for instance, the
representation of the great mother Isis always retained the type
which we can trace to the Pyramid Period.



244 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

In Egypt itself, for the first three centuries of the Christian
era, the temples saw the old creed, the old cults, and the pious
throngs of worshippers without revolutionary change. After
that time Christianity spread far more rapidly, and when,
near the end of the fourth century, the famous edict of Theo-
dosius ordered the closing of the pagan shrines, the masses had
abandoned the ancient faith so thoroughly that the populace
even turned against the heathen priests and their few followers.
The scanty remnants of Egyptian and Greek religion, much
disfigured by amalgamation during this bitter period, as we
have repeatedly stated, died in wild riots during the fifth cen-
tury. It was only on the beautiful little island of Philae (p. 99)
that the cult of Isis and her associates continued undisturbed
and uncorrupted. The wild, brown, nomadic tribes of the
Blemmyans and Nobadians, east and south of Egypt, still
refused to accept Christianity, and by clinging to the old
faith they forced the Roman government, which feared the
raids of these barbarians and even paid tribute to keep them
quiet, to tolerate a few priests of Isis in the temple at Philae,
at the southern frontier. In the beginning of the sixth cen-
tury, however, the powerful Emperor Justinian suppressed
these remnants of paganism, closed the temple, imprisoned
the priests, and propagated the preaching of the Christian
religion among the Nubians. With the death of the last priest
who could read and interpret the "writings of the words of
the gods," as the hieroglyphs were called, the old faith sank
Into oblivion. It was only In popular magic that some super-
stitious practices lingered on as feeble and sporadic traces of
what had been, a couple of centuries before, a faith which
bade fair to become the universal religion; or a statue of Isis
and Horus, which had escaped destruction, was Interpreted as
a representation of the Madonna and Child. A vague senti-
ment of admiration and of awe for this strangest of all pagan
religions still survived, but from the very Incomplete inform-
ation given by the Classical writers no clear idea of the van-



EGYPTIAN RELIGION 245

ished faith could be constructed, and when the thunder of
Napoleon's cannon awoke knowledge of Egypt to new life,
her religion proved the hardest task for the scholars who
strove to decipher her inscriptions and papyri (pp. 8-9). Yet
despite all difficulties which still remain, we venture to hope
that our survey, unprejudiced and unbiassed, has shown that
though the Egyptians can in no wise furnish us edification or
be compared with the philosophic Greeks and Indians, or even
with the more systematic Babylonians, the extremely primi-
tive character of their faith makes it a most valuable and in-
dispensable source of information for those who wish to study
the origin and the growth of religion.




NOTES



EGYPTIAN



Introduction

1. For a collection of monotheistic expressions, which often,
however, are only fallacious, see Pierret, Mythologie, viii; Brugsch,
Religion, p. 96; Budge, Gods, pp. 120 ff. For the real approaches to
monotheism, cf. Ch. XIII.

2. "Der agyptische Fetischdienst und Gotterglaube," in Zeit-
schrift fur Ethnologie, x. 153-82 (1878). He had a predecessor
in the work of the famous French scholar, C. de Brosses, Du culte
des dieux fetiches, Paris, 1760.

3. If these factors were Asiatics who entered Egypt in consider-
able numbers, we could understand that such conquerors or immi-
grants would leave the religion of the natives absolutely untouched,
as is shown by repeated parallels in the later history of Egypt. This
explanation for the rapid development of Egypt is, however, at
present merely a hypothesis which lacks confirmation from the
monuments.

4. In similar fashion the costume of the kings affords reminiscences
of primitive times, e. g. in such adornments as the long tail tied to
their girdles, or the barbarous crowns.

Chapter I

1. See G. Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, London, 1894,
p. 121. Generally speaking, all serpents were supposed to embody
spirits (pp. 166-67) or the one mentioned in the present connex-
ion might be regarded as a manifestation of the harvest-goddess
Renenutet (p. 66).

2. In many instances the phrase "souls of a city" is used instead
of "its gods," especially for some of the very oldest cities, as for the
two most ancient capitals, Buto and Hierakonpolis (Pe-Dep and
Nekhen). It seems to be an archaic expression which was used with
special reverence, or possibly it had a more general meaning than
"gods." Pyr. 561 substitutes the word ka for "the souls of Pe," i. e.
a word which is more distinctly used of defunct souls. Otherwise
the divine nature of all departed souls is not so clear as in other
animistic religions (cf. pp. 15-17).



362 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

3. Each Egyptian nome also had one or two tabus of its own.
Thus in one place honey was the local "abomination," while in
others a special piece of meat, such as the liver or even the hind
quarters of all cattle, was tabu. In many places the head or the
blood is mentioned as forbidden; but since both of these seem to
have been avoided throughout Egypt, this may merely imply that
the prohibition was more strictly observed in certain places, and the
same statement probably holds true of some sexual sins mentioned
in the lists of the nome tabus. Many prohibitions must have origi-
nated from tabus of holiness, as that of hurting a sheep, which was
forbidden in one district; certainly the abhorrence of the hawk, re-
corded in one locality, does not denote its uncleanness, especially as
the bird was sacred in all parts of Egypt. Other instances, as those
in connexion with the hippopota mus, gazelle, etc., however, are to be
understood as the consequences of curses. "Making light in day-
time" is also declared to have been a local sin. The whole subject
is thus far involved in much obscurity.

4. The religion of Babylonia likewise shows unmistakable evi-
dences of an original animistic basis, although it was earlier adapted
to cosmic theories and better systematized than was the religion of
Egypt. Scholars have often tried to find traces of totemism in the
symbols of the gods, the cities, and the districts of Egypt. Such an
interpretation is especially tempting when these emblems, carried
on a standard as the coat of arms of the nomes, represent an animal
or a plant. The only statement which we can positively make is
that the Egyptians in historic times were not conscious of a totem-
istic explanation of these symbols. Their application was divine
or local, never tribal like the totemistic symbols of primitive peoples.
The interpretation of totemism in general is at present in a state of
discussion and uncertainty.

5. Such triads were the rule in Babylonia as well. It is quite
wrong to call the Egyptian or Babylonian triad a trinity in the Chris-
tian sense,

6. Sometimes the Theban triad was Amon, Amonet, and Mut. In
this instance the minor male god Kh6ns(u), who usually took the
place here occupied by Amonet, was set aside to avoid exceeding the
traditional number three.

7. This is always the meaning of the orthography in the Old Em-
pire; it was only at a later period that the name was held to signify
"Master of the West" (i. e. the region of the dead, amentei) or "the
One before his (!) Westerners" {Pyr. 285). On the assimilation of
Khent(i)-amentiu to Osiris see p. 98.

8. It is quite improbable that awe of pronouncing the sacrosanct
name caused it to fall into desuetude. We do not find such fear in

[Prometheus]

NOTES 363

the historic period in Egypt, where the divine name was used (and
abused) in direct proportion to its sanctity. On the other hand, the
names of certain ancient gods seem to have disappeared at a very
early time. Thus the crocodile with an ostrich-feather, which once
was worshipped in Denderah, remained on the standard of the nome,
but its name was so completely lost that later it was held to symbolize
the conquest of Seth (here boldly identified with Sobk) by Horus (in
this instance explained as symbolized by the feather; see Mariette,
Denderah, iii. 78). A divine name rendered in three contradictory
ways {Pyr. 1017, 1719, etc.), so that we must conclude that it was
unfamiliar to scholars as early as 30CX) b. c, may have many par-
allels in names of doubtful occurrence or reading in the earliest
hieroglyphic inscriptions.

9. Mariette, Les Mastaba, p. 112; Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii. 279
(near Memphis.'').

Chapter II

1. On his later role in the Osiris-myth as son, re-embodiment,
and avenger of Osiris see pp. 102, 113, 11 5-1 8, where the now popular
theory is criticized that the winged disk of Edfu is the earliest form
of Horus (p. loi).

2. This interpretation is evidently based on an etymological con-
nexion with the root khoper, "to become, to be formed." This ety-
mology leads also to an explanation of the name as "the One who
Forms Himself, the Self-Begotten," as the sun-god later was called.
For the earliest orthography, Kheprer, see Pyr. 12 10, 2079.

3. A localization of Khepri at Heliopolis is scarcely original, for
Atum(u) was the earlier solarized god of this place.

4. Some texts seem to understand the two sekhnui of the sun to
be gangways, or something of the sort. Pyr. 337, for example, says,
"Throw down the two gangways {sekhnui) of the sky for the sun-
god that he may sail thereon toward the (eastern) horizon." Then
their number is doubled, and they are located at the four cardinal
points (see Pyr. 464), "These four clean gangways are laid down for
Osiris' when he comes forth to the sky, sailing to the cool place."
Later their name is transferred to the four pillars of heaven. The
original meaning of the word seems very soon to have become odscure.
In the earliest pictures (Petrie, Royal Tombs, ii. Plates X-XI) it is
clearly a mat hanging from the prow of the solar ship.

5. Very late art even tries to make it a curtain of beads or an
ornament symbolizing the rays of the sun (e. g. Benedite, Philae,
Plate XLIII); or it may appear as a black tablet adorned with stars
{Ani Papyrus).



364 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

6. Pyr. 1209. The numerical symbolism is interesting.

7. Later this expression loses its original force, so that all the
righteous dead are expected to join the elect who sail in the boat of
the sun (p. 26).

8. Bonomi and Sharpe, Oimenepthah, Plate XL

9. These wars belong more properly to the later mythology; see
p. 106.

10. The earlier idea was that during the night the bark of the sun
was drawn by jackals "in the mountain to a hidden place" {Harris
Magic Papyrus, 5). This and the idea of the "jackal (lakes)" {Pyr.
1 164, 1457), or "jackal field(s)," into which the sun descends, seem to
date from the time when the dog or jackal Anudis (already possibly
identified with Ophois) was the only ruler of the nether world (see
pp. 98, iio-ii). Cf. the jackals at "the lake of life" (Bonomi and
Sharpe, Oimenepthah, Plate VIII). The rope around the neck of such
jackal-gods seems to refer to their towing of the solar ship.

11. Later, by a misreading, the "flaming island," or "island of
flames," is interpreted as the "lake of flames" or the "canal of
flames." The former becomes the place of torment for the wicked;
while the latter is evolved into that portion of the subterranean
water-way where the sun battles with its diabolical adversary 'Apop
(pp. 104-06). Theologians also seek to distinguish other parts of the
ocean where the sun sets or rises, e.g. the "lakes of growing [or of
Khepri.^], of Heqet, and of Sokari" (Virey, Tombeau de Rekhmara,
Plate XXIV). Four lakes (ib. Plate XXVII) refer to the four sources
of the Nile as the birthplace of the sun (p. 46).

12. Or Mese(n)ktet; cf. P. Lacau, in RT xxv. 152 (1903), on the
doubtful pronunciation of this name.

13. This is a strange feature, since Heliopolis, the place of worship of
this latter local form of the sun, was situated at the eastern frontier
of the Delta, so that we should expect him to represent the morn-
ing appearance. It is possible that Atum was the earliest solariza-
tion of a local god in Lower Egypt, so that he could represent the
old sun, quite as Re' did in some of the later myths (see the following
Note). On the original sacred animal of Atum see p. 165.

14. See the myths recounting why the gods withdrew from earth
(pp. 76-79). It is for this reason that very late texts equate Re'
with the feeble and dethroned Kronos of Classical mythology.

15. The special name given to this ram-headed form, Ef, Euf, can-
not yet be definitely explained. Later the sun, again like Khnum, is
often represented with four rams' heads, probably on the analogy of
the four mythological sources or subterranean branches of the Nile.

16. These numbers can be traced to the divisions of the month by
seven and fourteen, which fit both the solar and the lunar chronology.



NOTES 36s

17. See E. Lefebure, Le Mythe osirien, i. Les Yeux d'Horus, Paris,

1874-

18. For a picture of the sun-god sitting on his stairs and with a
single eye instead of a head see Mariette, Denderah, iv. 78.

19. It is difficult to determine the extent to which the Asiatic
concept of the planet Venus as a daughter of the sun (pp. 54, loi)
and the femininity of the sun in certain Asiatic languages and re-
ligious systems may have affected the Egyptian development in this
regard.

20. It is possible that the "female sun," Re'et, or "Re'et of the
two countries" {RaH taui), originated from these individualizations
of the solar eye; yet it may have been merely the tendency to divide
gods, especially those of cosmic character, into a male divinity and
his female consort, as we find Amon(u)-Amonet, Anup(u)-Anupet,
etc. At all events, the divinity Re'et, who was worshipped as a
minor deity at Heliopolis and some other places, is usually human-
headed and is treated as analogous to the celestial goddesses, as is
shown by her head-dress of horns and the solar disk; sometimes she
is also analogous to the lion-headed Tefenet.

21. The original meaning of this symbolism was sometimes
confused by the fact that Seth came from the "golden city" of
Ombos.

22. Pyr. 391; similarly 1178. The two obelisks in heaven were also
called "the two marks, or signs [i. e. limits], of power" {sekhmui), a
phrase which the later Egyptians did not understand and interpreted
mechanically as "two sceptres" (W. Spiegelberg, in RT xxvi. 163
[1904]).

23. On the divine descent and worship of all kings see pp. 170-71.

24. W. von Bissing, in RT xxxv. 167 (1902).

25. "The great (cosmic) source" in Heliopolis {Pyr. 810).

26. See the three hawks from Pe-Dep (Buto) and the three jackals
from Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), these latter animals from the "Hawk
City" forming a strange contradiction to its name (Lepsius, Denk-
mdler, iv. 26, 77, 87, etc.).

27. For the name of these baboons, Hetu (feminine Hetet; cf. Hetet,
Pyr. 505), see H. Schafer, in AZ xxxi. 117 (1893), and Lanzone,
DizionariOy p. 505. The sacred qejden (or henti) monkeys seem to be
little different. Female marmosets surround the morning star {Pyr.
286). Regarding the four baboons of Thout, especially as the judges
and guardians of condemned souls, see p. 180.



366 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY



Chapter III

1. The moon as the father of the heavenly god {Pyr. 1104) is an
isolated thought.

2. Thus he ought to correspond to the planet Mercury in the
mythologies of other nations (see Note 63, on Sebgu). Phoenician
mythology borrowed his name, under the form Taaut, as the in-
ventor of writing.

3. Later the baboon form of Thout was called "Esden," as at
Denderah; but this appellation seems to be merely a copyist's cor-
ruption of Esdes, the name of a god who is mentioned together with
Thout as a wise counsellor and judge (for a collection of some early
passages concerning Esdes see Erman, Gesprdch eines Lebensmilden
mit seiner Seele, p. 28), the two being subsequently blended. Esdes
is represented as having the head of a wolf or jackal (Mariette,
Denderah, iv. 21; cf. also ChampoUion, Notices, i. 417, Lepsius,
Denkmdler, i. 100, Diimichen, Patuamenap, iii. 28). It is possible
that he was an earlier god of some necropolis who once wavered
between identification with Thout and with Anubis, both being
judges of the dead. If we were certain that he originally had a
baboon's shape, we should assume that he was the god who trans-
ferred it to Thout.

4. Even as early as this period Khonsu is sometimes identified
with the clerk Thout (Erman, Gesprdch, p. 27).

5. Thus at Ombos Khons appears as the son of the solarized
Sobk and of Hat-hor, the sky.

6. The symbol of the double bull has the value khens (e. g. Pyr.
416 as a constellation connected with hunting, as also on the "Hunt-
er's Palette") and likewise seems to appear among constellations on
the magic wands (p. 208). For the other symbol see on Dua,
Ch. VII, Note 21.

7. For these female pillars see Mariette, Denderah, ii. 55; De
Morgan, Ombos, i. 254. For other interpretations of the four pillars
of heaven see p. 44 on Shu with the pillars, p. 39 on Hat-hor's tresses
in the same function, Ch. II, Note 4, on the later name of the four
pillars, and pp. 39, 111-13 on the sons or tresses of Horus. There
were various other concepts of heaven which were less popular. Thus
from the frequent idea of a ladder leading to the height of heaven
{Pyr. 472, etc.) was developed the thought thsK. heaven itself is a
great ladder (ib. 479), corresponding to the great stairway of the sun
in other texts. Many of these ideas are not yet deafly understood.
The concept of several superimposed heavens (as in Fig. 47) is rare;
but Pyr. 514, "he has united the heavens," and Pyr. 279, 541, "the



NOTES 367

two heavens," may refer to the opposed skies of the upper and lower
world.

8. Pyr. 1433, etc. For the two pillars as parallel to this idea see
pp. 30-31 and Ch. II, Note 22.

9. Pyr. 1216.

10. The oldest texts speak more frequently of the heavenly wild
bull, despite the Egyptian gender of the word pet; and this also seems
to explain why so many gods (especially deities of a celestial char-
acter) appear in the form of a black bull, since black and blue were
felt to be the same colour. In Pyr. 470, for instance, mention is
made of the heavenly bull with four horns, one for each cardinal
point. Accordingly in earlier tradition Osiris often has the form of a
bull. Thus the whole conception seems to be borrowed from coun-
tries farther north, where the lowing of heaven, i. e. thunder was
more common than in Egypt.

11. The later Egyptian theological interpretation of this name as
"the (celestial) house of Horus," i.e. the goddess who includes the
sun-god in his wanderings, is philologically impossible. Originally
the term can have meant nothing more than "temple with a face,"
i.e. with the skull of a cow nailed over its entrance to ward off evil
spirits. The head of the cow or ox as a religious symbol throughout
the ancient world may be traced partly to the Egyptian personifica-
tion of the sky and partly to earlier Asiatic motives. Later the
primary signification was no longer understood in most countries
outside Egypt, and the head of the cow or bull became a mere orna-
ment, although the "bucranium" still seems to have been used
preferably for religious decoration over the whole ancient world (see
E. Lefebure, "Le Bucrane," in Sphinx, x. 67-129 [1906]).

12. The "green ray" above the horizon has been used as an ex-
planation by modern scholars, but the daily rise and death of the sun
in the green ocean would seem to furnish a more natural interpreta-
tion. The Egyptians, however, were scarcely conscious of this origin
of "the green." We again find the idea of the green bed of the sun
in the story of Isis and the young sun in the green jungles of the
Delta (pp. 1 15-16), in "Horus on his green" (ib.), and probably also
in "the malachite lake(s)" in which the gods are sometimes said to
dwell {Pyr. 1784, etc.). Malachite powder falls from the stars {Pyr.
567), just as the blue lapis lazuli is celestial in origin (ib. 513).
Whether the goddess Hat-hor as the patroness of the malachite
mines on the Sinai'tic peninsula (and of a "Malachite City," Mefkat,
in Egypt) is intentionally thus identified with the green colour is
less certain, because Hat-hor also rules over all foreign countries. On
the other hand, the metal peculiar to the Asiatic Queen of Heaven
(Astarte, etc.) is copper, from which the green colour of the ancient






368 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Orientals was derived; but thus far we do not know whether this
explanation was primary or secondary. We are equally unable to
explain why the stars which cover the body of the heavenly cow in
Egypt usually have four rays, while all other stars are depicted with
five. Four is the special celestial or cosmic number (see e. g. Note 7,
on the pillars of heaven).

13. When a leopard's skin forms the garment of the goddess
(Mariette, Denderah, iii. 40), she is assimilated to the goddess of
fate.

14. Cf., in this connexion, Pharaoh's dream of the seven cows
proceeding from the floods and plants of the Nile to indicate the
nature of the coming harvest (Genesis xli).

15. See Brugsch, Religion, p. 318, Mariette, Denderah, iii. 59, 76,
Lepsius, Denkmdler, iv. 26, etc.

16. The reading Bat is furnished by Pyr. 1096, where her symbol
is clearly a cow's head on a standard, difi'ering from Hat-hor's symbol
only by the strong inward curve of the horns. The statement that
Bat had "a double face" (ib.) is thus far unique.

17. The pronunciation of this name is very uncertain; It might
also be read Nuet, Neyet, or Nunet, or in some other way contain-
ing two w's. If the name of the ocean was Nun or Nunu, we should
expect' Nunet, provided that the connexion of the goddess with the
ocean was not merely an etymological play upon words, which is
quite possible. Thus we retain a conventional error as pronuncia-
tion. For the equally doubtful pronunciation of Nuu or NQn see
infra, Note 38.

18. The earliest form of the name seems to have been Gebeb
(K. Sethe, In AZ xlill. 147 [1906]). For the reading Gebk (based on
the Greek transcription Kr?/3Kts) see W. Splegelberg, in AZ xlvi. 141-42
(1910), but cf. Note 63. The form Qeb Is here followed in harmony
with the Greek transliterations Kot/3ts, Krj/S, etc. Seb, the reading of
the early Egyptologists, is erroneous.

19. He cackles at night before he lays this eg^ {Harris Magic
Papyrus, vli. 7). The ordinary laws of sex, of course, do not apply
to the gods. See also p. 71 on the symbol of the &gg.

20. Thus as early as Pyr. 1464, etc. He is also master of snakes
in Pyr. 439 and master of magic, Ib. 477.

21. Qeb and Aker are mentioned together as early as Pyr. 796,
1014, 1713.

22. The Babylonian Nergal, the god of the lower world. Is a single
lion, but he may be, to a certain extent, parallel. Later we often
find Aker with two difi"erentlated heads or as a single Hon, as
when, for example In the accompanying picture (Lepsius, Denkmdler,
iii. 266), Nut, bearing the sun in the form of a scarab, bends over



NOTES



369




Fig. 221. Nut, Aker, and Khepri



him as over her usual husband Qeb. Again, the source-god
Khnum stands on the back of a lion, which thus represents the
depths of the earth (Mariette,
Denderah, iv. 80, etc.).

23. Champollion, Notices, ii.

584, 507-

24. See pp. 104-06. The
thought that the underworld
was a huge serpent, or that it
was encircled by one (an idea that may have been derived from the
similar representation of the ocean), seems to be still later and more
vague.

25. The pronunciation is not quite certain; it may be Shou. The
Greek renderings, 2co$, liwaos-, Swo-is, seem to presuppose also a
pronunciation Shoshu, but this may be based on an artificial ety-
mology from ashesh, "to spit out," to which allusion is made e.g.
in the creation-myth (Pyr. 1071, etc.; cf. p. 69). The lion-shaped

rain-spouts of the temples perhaps represent Shu,
although the later Egyptians were no longer conscious
of this fact, but called them simply "storm-spouts"
{shen\ Lepsius, Denkmdler, iv. 67, etc.).

26. When Shu is compared to the midday sun, this

seems to mean that the sun is most under his power

at noon, when the widest aerial space separates the

sun from the earth. This idea, perhaps combined

with an etymology from the verb showi, "to be dry,"

has led some Egyptologists to compare Shu to the

(dry.?) heat, the (drying.'') air; but in his prevalent

function as a god of air and wind he is often called

Fig. 222. the master of the cooling air-currents (cf. Fig. 71).

Shu with Four Whether another etymology, from shuo (or shuy ?),

Feathers u^^ I^^ empty, to empty," is the original reason for

his identification with Heh, "the empty space," or is only a secondary

etymological paronomasia like so many of the forced etymologies of

Egyptian theology (see Note 30 on Tefenet), is fully as doubtful.

His earliest cosmic function seems to have been solar (and is still

so, for example, in Orbiney Papyrus, v. 7); yielding to more recent

sun-gods, he had early to assume the inferior role of carrying these

deities.

27. The transition may frequently be seen in pictures which, as
in Naville, Deir el Bahari, Plate XLVI, represent "Shu, the son of the
sun," with four feathers. Cosmic explanations of this number easily
suggest themselves (see Notes 7, 10, Ch. II, Note 15, Ch. V, Notes
27, 67).

XII — 25

[Prometheus]

370 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

28. This name is not to be pronounced Tefnut, Tefnuet, and con-
sequently is not to be connected with the sky-goddess Nut.

29. At first she aids Shu in holding the sky {Pyr. 228, 1443, 1691,
etc.), a function which the later Egyptians no longer mentioned.

30. An etymological connexion with tof, "to spit," seemed possi-
ble only to the paronomasiac mind of the Egyptian scribes (cf. Note
26 on the name of Shu), although this play on words appears as early
as Pyr. 1652. Nevertheless they did not interpret it of her cosmic
function, but of her creation by the sun-god. The conclusion of
early Egyptologists that she denoted the dew rests on an erroneous
etymology of her name ("spittle of Nut"), which is not supported
by Egyptian texts (see Note 28 on the lack of a connexion with the
name Nut).

31. This, however, does not seem to be a very ancient expression.
The name is subsequently confused with an old god Ruruti (.^), who
is mentioned side by side with Atum {Pyr. 447 [like his wife?], 696,
2081, 2086; see also A. Erman, in AZ xxxviii. 25 [1900]).

32. Ha'pi is not androgynous, as Egyptologists usually state;
see p. 46 on his two wives. The pendulous breast recurs on many
Egyptian representations of fat men; and the obesity of Ha*pi
(Greek pronunciation 'fi</>i or 'fi^t; cf. the Kpcoc^t and M<2i</)t of
Herodotus, ii. 28; the earliest orthography is simply Hp) symbolizes
the fertility which is brought by the life-giving river.

33. These are usually differentiated into the plant-hieroglyphs
for "north" and "south" in conformity with the traditional con-
ception of Egypt as "the two countries," or kingdoms. Another ex-
planation of the double Nile, according to its Egyptian or Nubian
course, can also be applied to this distinction.

34. Cf. Genesis ii.

35. See e.g. Griffith, Siut, Plate XVH, 42, and passim. Four
Niles are mentioned in Mariette, Denderah, iv. 81.

36. See Lanzone, Dizionario, Plate XIV, and Borchardt, Sa'hu-re\
Plates XXIX-XXX (whence our Fig. 41 is drawn).

37. Pyr. 1229.

38. The pronunciation is quite uncertain, and it is difficult to say
how the late (but excellent) tradition Nun can be reconciled with
the earlier orthography, which looks like Niu or Nuu. Later con-
nexions with n{y[?])ny, "to be weak, inert, lazy," might seem to
harmonize both traditions, but are apparently mere etymological
plays on words, such as have been discussed in Notes 26, 30.

39. Pyr. 1 69 1, etc.

40. Pyr. 1040.

41. Cf. praises of Nuu's fertility (Champollion, Notices, i. 731).

42. Champollion, Notices, ii. 429. Did the idea come from Asia?



NOTES



371




43. ChampoUIon, Notices, n. 423.

44. The artist who copied this picture from early models evidently
did not understand the two "mysterious gods" who appear behind
Nuu, one representing the sun and the other carrying a strange sym-
bol. In the latter we now see the divinity who figures -^
among the birth-deities and for his symbol carries a '
milk-vessel on his head (Naville, Deir el Bahari,
Plate LIII; in Gayet, Louxor, Plate LXVIII, signifi-
cantly enough, a figure of the Nile takes its place).
We might think that this is no new god, but merely
the cataract-deity Khnum, whose hieroglyph (a
pitcher with one handle) later artists may not have
recognized. In the old birth-temples he would thus
appear as the creator of the king (p. 51). It is, how-
ever, possible that here we have an earlier god of
the deep. Cf. Pyr. 123, 559, 565, where Ageb ("the
Cool One"), an earlier name for the abyss, seems to
be addressed as "water-furnisher (of the gods)."
His name is there written with a similar jar, unless
this is an earlier orthography for Nuu, which later
was imperfectly understood (cf. Pyr. 1565).

45. See Lepsius, "Uber die Cotter der vier Ele-
mente," in ABAW, 1856, pp. 181-234, who did not Fig. 223. Ageb,
yet understand the true meaning of these gods, i"^"^ Watery
They were very popular in magic as being the most ^^^^
mysterious forces imaginable. We cannot yet say whether their
strange shoes, which resemble a jackal's head, connect them with
the jackals who draw the ship of the sun (Ch. II, Note 10), etc.

46. Because of the difficulty of the latter idea some monuments
substituted the vaguer names Emen and Emenet ("the Hidden," as
in Pyr. 446), terms which have no connexion with Amon; occasionally
these other names replace the third pair in the ogdoad. A sarcoph-
agus in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has for the
consort of Niu a variant Hemset ("the Sitting, Resting Force"), and
for that of Emen the primeval cow-form of the sky, Ehet, Ahet
(p. 40). Heh(u) is understood by some texts to mean "flood" (or
"rain-water"?). The earliest tradition knows only the first two pairs
(e.g. Lanzone, Domicile des esprits, v). On the system of dividing
every principle into a male and female person cf. Ch. II, Note 20;
it seems to symbolize the creative activity of the differentiated
forces of nature.

47. See Mariette, Denderah, iv. 76. The accompanying title,
"father of the gods," may be a trace of the original interpretation
as the ocean. Yet the earth-god Qeb also sometimes bears this title,



372 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

and it is certain that the latest period tried to find him in this unusual
representation.

48. This conception of spontaneous creation was too profound
for some priests, who gave gross interpretations to it, telling how
the god "became enamoured with himself" or with his shadow, or
polluted himself, such imaginings being found as early as Pyr. 1248
(cf. also the hymn of creation on p. 69). A more philosophical specu-
lative text says, "the soul (i. e. apparition, incarnation) of Nuu is
the sun-god," i. e. the sun is only a part of primitive matter {Destruc-
tion of Men, ed. E. Naville, 1. 86). See pp. 219-20 for this pantheis-
tic idea.

49. See Hieroglyphic Texts . . . in the British Museum, ii. 5, 6,
etc., and Mariette, Denderah, ii. 37.

50. e. g. Hieroglyphic Texts . . . in the British Museum, ii. 14
(Twelfth Dynasty). Both deities appear as masters of the necropo-
lis of Abydos, etc.

51. This belief was entertained even before the New Empire (cf.
Westcar Papyrus, x. 14, Book of the Dead, xxx). For the "double,"
or ka, see p. 174.

52. See Pyr. 1183-85 for the symbol of the feelers, which seem to
furnish the etymology (from sekhen, "to meet, to touch ".^ cf. Ch. II,
Note 4). The name of the goddess is written with the sign of the
two birth-bricks (e. g. Mariette, De^iderah, iv. 27, 29, etc.) or with
the bed (Budge, Book of the Dead, Plate III). As a birth-goddess
she is sometimes identified with Epet-Tueris (Mariette, loc. cit.).

53. The exact form is doubtful; only the consonants S-kh-t are
quite certain.

54. Borchardt, Sa'hu-re\ ii. 19.

55. Similarly the name of Nut Is often written with the hiero-
glyphic sign for "heaven" turned upside down, thus denoting the
heaven of the underworld (p. 41).

56. She may once have been another personification of the seven
Pleiades (cf. p. 40) or a single star which was rarely seen above the
horizon. On the question whether the eight-rayed star of the Semitic
Queen of Heaven is to be compared, since the shaft supporting the
star of Sekhalt might be counted as the eighth ray, see the present
writer's notes in MVG ix. 170 (1904). Cf. also the seven-rayed star
as a hieroglyph (Quibell, Hierakonpolis, Plates XXVIc, XXIX). For
another symbolism of the stellar rays see Note 12.

57. In the Greek period Sekhalt was, accordingly. Identified with
one of the Muses, though a more accurate parallel would be the
Sibyl. She seems to be the Selene of Plutarch {De Iside et Osiride,
xil), whom he describes as the mistress of time, although the femi-
ninity of the moon is quite foreign to Egyptian theology (pp. 32-34).



NOTES 373

In this capacity, according to him, she yields to the wise moon-god
one seventieth of the year (i. e. the five epagomenal days) for the
birth of the great gods. Plutarch or his source seems to have mis-
taken the horns of Sekhait for the lunar crescent.

58. This identification is found as early as Pyr. 268, etc. For
assimilation with Hat-hor see Note 13.

59. This is not her original name, as is often erroneously supposed,
but is merely an epithet which replaces it.

60. e. g. Pyr. 1207, where he is called "Horus of the Star-Abode"
(i.e. abode of the dead, the underworld) and "god of the ocean"
{Pyr. 1 719, etc.). It is not quite certain whether "the single
star" means the evening star as distinguished from the morning star.
In the Roman period the planet Venus was represented with two
male heads, this being, perhaps, an allusion to the double nature of
the star (Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 68) or to that of Orion, its parallel
among the constellations.

61. A tradition {Pyr. 820) speaks of "the duat-stSLT who has bom
Orion," but this may be a mistake for duat, "nether world, lower
firmament." Pyr. 929, 1204, are obscure allusions to the birth of or
by the morning star. In some later cosmic pictures the female figure
carrying a star on her head and standing before the sun in his morn-
ing boat evidently meant Venus. The later Egyptians copied this
without comprehending it and interpreted the figure as representing
the hour of sunrise, a misunderstanding which proves that the
original of these pictures goes back to a much older time. In other
pictures, as that of two goddesses conceiving from the blood of
Osiris (Fig. 118), it is difficult to decide, for Isis-Sothis could be
meant, not the female morning star.

62. Pyr. 362, 488, 1455, etc.

63. Sebg(u)'s name is also written Sebga, Sebagu, early Coptic
Suke (F. LI. Griffith, in J'Z xxxviii. 77 [1900]). The
explanation of his association with Seth seems to
go back to the early attribution of a dangerous
character to the planet Mercury. In Champollion,
Notices, i. 452 = Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii. 206, "Se-
beg who is in the wells (.^)" appears as a dread guar- pjc. 224. "Sebeg
dian of the underworld, while in the Book of the Dead, in the Wells"
cxxxvi A, his staircase is said to be at the sky. The
explanation of this change of interpretation may be found in cer-
tain very obscure old texts (P. Lacau, in RT xxvi. 225-28 [1904]),
where the dead fear "the pen and the inkstand of Gebga." It is
probable that this name Gebga is a corruption of Sebga, so that
Mercury really appears here like the Asiatic secretary of the gods,
the deity of judgement, corresponding to the Egyptian Thout. This




374 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Gebga is there once called "the son of (the sun-god) Atumu," and
at another time he is associated with the goddess of justice, so that
we are told that he can send the soul either to the lake of flames
(i.e. hell) or to the fields of the blessed (P. Lacau, m RT xxvi. 227
[1904]). It is not likely that the earth-god Qeb was meant here;
variants of his name, like the Greek variant KrjjS/cts (Note 18), may
be derived from the texts to which we have just referred.

64. Pyr. 749, 1 144; cf. p. 26. The planets likewise are divine
messengers {Pyr. 491).

65. ib. 1 187.

66. If this name connects her with the god Sopd(u), who is usually
called "the master of the east," we may infer that the Egyptians
were not conscious of this association (to which allusion appears to
be made only in Pyr. 1534), though it seems plausible because of
the similar head-dress, etc., of both divinities.

67. She appears thus in Mariette, Denderah, iv. 80, as well. This
association may be based either on earlier tradition or on a late,
but erroneous, etymology of the Greek pronunciation Scoots, re-
adapted to Egyptian sat (older form sat), "to shoot." The position
assigned to the two spouses in the picture given in the text (De
Morgan, Ombos, p. 250, Rosellini, Monumenti del culto, p. 78) tempts
us to regard them as counterparts who interchange places like va-
rious consorts in universal mythology, especially constellations who
descend alternately into the lower world. Though it could be possible
that, as Lepsius assumed {Denkmdler, iv. 49), we here have merely
a correcting superposition of one picture over another, yet the same
detail occurs on the oldest Sothis-Orion group^ described by G.
Daressy, in Annales du service des antiquites de VEgypte, i. 80 (1900);
it seems, therefore, to have been intentional.

68. Pyr. 965.

69. ib. 959. The south is here the lower world, as on p. 46, etc.

70. "Orion, the father of the gods" {Pyr. /F. 516 = T. 328). As
early as Pyr. M. 67 Orion is identified with Osiris and is connected
with the fatal vine. The most important star of Orion is that on his
shoulder {Pyr. 882, 1480, etc.). It is remarkable that the peculiar
turban or frontal ribbon of the Asiatic types of Orion (cf. on Reshpu,
P« ISS)> which often ornaments or blinds him, appears on the
oldest Egyptian representation of him (G. Daressy, Annales du service
des antiquites de VEgypte, i. 80 [1900]). Cf. the mysterious reference
to the fillet, e. g. "of the single star" {Pyr. 1048) or "on the head
of the sun" {Pyr. N. 37, etc.). When the Book of the Dead, xxiii,
speaks of a goddess as "the female Orion" or "the companion of
Orion {sahet) in the midst of the spirits (Ch. I, Note 2) of Heliopo-
Hs," the allusion is as yet inexplicable.



NOTES



375



71. After Lepsius, Denkmaler, iii. 170.

72. See the Book of That Which is in the Lower World, reproduced
by Budge, Egyptian Heaven and Hell, i. 58. This explains the strange
pictures of the Book of the Dead, xvii (manuscript Da, etc.)- It is
possible that a remarkable representation (Rosellini, Monumenti del
culto, p. 78, De Morgan, Ombos, i. 250) gives in two figures of Orion,
drawn athwart each other, a hint of the changing or antagonistic
nature of the twins, unless, as Lepsius {Denkmaler, iv. 49) assumes,
we have merely a corrected picture. See, however. Note 67 for a
similar instance.

73. This is indistinctly considered in Pyr. 925 and perhaps also
in 2120. Cf. Note 70 on his fillet. In Pyr. 1201 he is called "the
gate-keeper of Osiris." The names Nuru (1183), Heqrer (1222),
and Hezhez (1737), given to the ferryman, cannot yet be explained.
Pyr. 493 seems to ascribe to him two faces, one looking forward,
and the other backward.

74. See Book of the Dead, xvii. 63 (.''). The passages cliii. 8, 25;
clxx. 6, are obscure.

75. Thus Pyr. W. 511; Pyr. T. 332-34; Mariette, Denderah, iv.
7, 16; Book of the Dead, xvii. 63; De Morgan, Ombos, p. 68. In
Pyr. P. 707, he seems to give water and wine; Pyr. T. 41 connects
him with a "vine-city," probably because of the hieroglyph for
"press," just as his function of butcher may be derived from a forced
etymology oi seshem ("butcher's steel").

76. See G. Daressy, in Annales du service des antiquites de VEgypte,
i. 85 (1900), where the word is written Sebshesen, etc. The name of
the goddess was discovered by P. Lacau {RT xxiv. 198 [1902]; cf.
also E. Naville, in AZ. xlvii. 56 [1910]). It was so unfamiliar to
scribes of the Fifth Dynasty, and even earlier, that they doubted
whether it was not merely the same as Sekhmet (hence the meaning-
less repetition in Pyr. 390 = Book of the Dead, clxxiv. . It is possi-
ble that her lion's head comes simply from this identification with
Sekhmet, yet we must not forget that Shesmu also appears to be
leontocephalous. She seems to be a companion to the deity who is
called "the Horus of Shesmet" {Pyr. 449, etc.), although this may
be an adaptation of the ancient Shesmu to the worship of Horus
which prevailed later. At all events it is certain that when the dec-
anal circle was established in the prehistoric period, the names
Shesmu and Shesemtet must have been compared, though later the
connexion became unintelligible, except in the Greek decanal list,
where both are called Secr/xrj.

77. The decanal lists mention a number of other forgotten stellar
gods whose names are incredibly mutilated. Thus we know little
about the eighteenth, Semdet(i), who had the head of some animal



376 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

(Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii. 270, etc.) and who appeared both in the
northern and in the southern sky (G. Daressy, \n RT xxi. 3 [1899],
and Annales du service des antiquites de FEgypte, i. 80 [1900]). None
of these gods played a part in mythology, for the decanal system,
originating in a very early period, soon became largely unintelligi-
ble. The "four sons of Horus" do not appear regularly among the
decans (see pp. 111-13). Brugsch {Thesaurus, p. 179) claimed to
have discovered a different decanal system, which would seem to
have been purely local.

78. This constellation is also called "the Club Stars" {Pyr. 458,
etc.). The number seven, which was generally unlucky to the Egyp-
tian mind, recurs in the Pleiades, which are the constellation of fate
(p. 40). The group of "the many stars" does not seem to be iden-
tical with the latter constellation.

79. She is called Epi in Pyr. 381 (cf. Epit in Lepsius, Denkmdler,
iv. 34, etc.), and in Greek she once appears as T-y^ts (Brugsch,
Thesaurus, p. 735). Locally she was also named Sheput (perhaps to
be read Eput), and sometimes also Riret ("Sow"), because a sow
occasionally serves as her symbol instead of a hippopotamus. Since
she often leans on a peculiar piece of wood (for which the hieroglyph
for "talisman" was later substituted), she seems to be termed "the
great landing-stick" {menet) in Pyr. 794, etc., where she likewise
reappears as divine nurse (perhaps also Pyr. 658.^).

80. He is called Dua-'Anu as early as Pyr. 1098; i. e. he is identi-
fied with the morning star (who equals Horus) and is connected with
the "four sons of Horus." Accordingly his picture is sometimes
called simply Dua ("Morning Star").

81. See J. Krall, "Ueber den agyptischen Gott Bes," in Jahrbuch
der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, ix.
72-95 (1889), and also A. Grenfell, in PSBA xxiv. 21 (1902). The
earliest mention of this god seems to be Pyr. 1768, which speaks of
"the tail of Bes" (as stellar.?).

82. When Plutarch {De I side et Osiride, xix) calls Thueris the
wife of Typhon-Seth, he evidently confuses the wicked Seth with
the ugly, but benevolent, Bes.

83. It is uncertain whether the reason for this mode of repre-
sentation was that the full effect of his grinning face might frighten
evil spirits away (cf. J. E. Harrison, "Gorgon," in Encyclopcedia of
Religion and Ethics, vi. 330-32), or whether it rested on a very
archaic delineation.

[Prometheus]

84. For Bu-gemet ("Place of Finding") as the birth-place of the
sun cf. p. 86 on the myth of the loss of the eye of the sun; for Bu-
gemet as the birth-place of Osiris see Champollion, Notices, i. 172,
etc.



NOTES



377



85. The first scarab after A. Grenfell, the second in the possession
of the author.

86. The Egyptian kings, who at a very early time repeatedly sent
expeditions to remote parts of Africa for obtaining a member of the
dwarf tribes, stated that they were impelled not only by curiosity,
but also by religious zeal, to have the dwarf "for the sacred dances."
Possibly a personage wearing a mask(.?) like Bes, and regarded, it
would seem, as coming from Wawa (i. e. Central Nubia near the
Second Cataract), appears in sacred dances and ceremonies (Naville,
Festival Hall, Plate XV). "The dwarf of the sacred dances who
amuses the divine heart" {Pyr. 11 89) seems to be placed in the sky.
We might suppose that the myths of Bes were reproduced in these
religious performances and that these legends were actually connected
with the interior of Africa. Another trace of this is possibly found
in the idea (which seems to have found its way into other mythol-
ogies as well) that dwarfs are the best goldsmiths, since the interior
of Africa furnished both dwarfs and gold. Diodorus (i. 18; cf. R.
Pietschmann, in AZ xxxi. 73 [1893]) speaks of hairy Satyrs meet-
ing Bacchus (i.e. Osiris) in Ethiopia with music, and mention is also
made of Bes-like gods (haitiu) who, together with the baboons of
the sun (p. 32), dance and play on musical instruments before solar
gods coming from the east or south (cf. H. Junker, "Der Auszug der
Hathor-Tefnut aus Nubien," in ABAW, 191 1, pp. 45, 86). We have,
however, no unmistakable connexion of these mythical ideas with
the earthly dwarfs of Africa.

87. e. g. Lepsius, Denkmdler, Text, i. 100; cf. also Borchardt,
Sa'hu-re', Plate XXII.

88. e. g. Quibell, The Ramesseum, Plate III. For dwarf-like gods
of the earliest period see, perhaps, Fig. 2, (/). This type occurs re-
peatedly (Quibell, Hierakonpolis, i. Plates XI, XVIII).

89. e.g., cf. Sopd, p. 149.

90. Herodotus, iii. 37. For Ptah-Bes as the cosmic universe and
for a magic hymn to a great god who is both dwarf and giant see
p. 222. In very late times remarkable combinations of the two
dwarf types, Bes and Khepri-Sokari, are found in which one of them
carries the other on his shoulders, probably to express their close
association.

91. Concerning him see von Bergmann, Buck vom Durchwandeln,
p. 44, where proof is found that he was originally a local god, like
most deities who were placed among the stars. The statement in
Mariette, Denderah, iv. 32, no. I, is based on a misunderstanding.

92. See G. Daressy, in RT xxx. 3 (1899), on his stellar character
and cf. Pyr. 452.

93. 1019, 1094, 1 1 52, 1250.



378 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

94. For the Egyptian names of the zodiacal signs see W. Spiegel-
berg, in AZ. xlviii. 146 (191 1). Representations of them are always
intermingled with some old pictures of decanal stars, etc., as also in

Fig- 56.

95. Some pictures of the winds are collected by Brugsch, Thesaurus,
p. 847.

96. Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 736.

97. ib. 28-31.

98. Renenutet was also understood as a "Nurse-Goddess" who
cared for the young gods and watched the growth of men. Possibly
this was originally a distinct personality in human form, later con-
fused with the harvest-serpent (p. 16). In this capacity she and
Meskhenet (p. 52) watch the beginning of the second life in the
realm of Osiris (Budge, Book of the Dead, Plate III; cf. supra, p. 52).

.The four harvest-goddesses (Mariette, Denderah, iii. 75) seem to be
parallel to the four genii at the birth of Osiris (pp. 52, 95). In Pyr.
302 Renenutet is identified with the asp on the head of the sun-god.

99. De Morgan, Ombos, no. 65.

100. Cf. p. 135 on Khnemtet.

loi. See p. 44 for the old, irregular identification of Heka with
Shu.

102. Borchardt, Sa'hu~re', Plate XXX. There are more person-
ifications of this kind, such as the gods "Eternity" and "Endless
Time" (Neheh, Zet); cf. von Bergmann, Buch vom Durchwandeln,
line 26. "Abundance" may likewise be feminine as Ba'het {Pyr. 555).
Personifications of cities and districts are usually feminine.

Chapter IV

1. See E. A. W. Budge, "The Hieratic Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu,"
in Jrchceologia, Hi. 393-608 (1890); the original may now be found
in the same scholar's Facsimiles of Hieratic Papyri in the British
Museum, p. 14, Plate XII.

2. See Ch. II, Note 2, for the play on this name, "the One
Forming, Becoming," which is here considerably elaborated.

3. i.e. my word (or thought) began the differentiation of living
beings.

4. Hardly " (nor) the reptiles," etc., since the following line shows
them already in existence. A variant text of this line reads, "I am
he who was formed as the forms of Khepri."

5. Variant: "I created many other forms of the forming one"
(Khepri; cf. Note 2).

6. See Ch. Ill, Notes 25, 30, for the etymological paronomasias
on these two names.



NOTES 379

7. Variant: "I used my mouth for (pronouncing) my own name,
which was magical" (Budge, in Archceologia, Hi. 558 [1890]).

8. One of the many confusing repetitions of the same word seems
to be omitted.

9. Or, "Ubidinem excitavi."

10. Cf. Ch. Ill, Note 48, on this fancy (or crude lack of fancy)
which, however, is very old and widely known.

11. The manuscript is corrupt here, but some obscure word mean-
ing "kept them in rest," "kept them back," is implied. Possibly
this word was s-nyny, with a play on the name Nuu (cf. Ch. Ill,
Note 38).

12. The manuscript is again corrupt.

13. Or, "after I became a god."

14. The meaning is, apparently, "after I had replaced my eye."
If this hypothesis is correct, the subsequent story of the disappoint-
ment of the eye on its return would belong to another myth; other-
wise, the restoration of Shu and Tefenet to their father, the sun-
god, would be meant. In Egyptian theology "members" denote
the various manifestations of the same divine force (cf. p. 28).

15. This verse cannot be translated, or, rather, reconstructed
with certainty.

16. "In them" evidently means "in the plants" (a term of un-
certain signification). Cf. Book of the Dead, Ixxviii. 15, on the crea-
tion of the first beings "which Atumu himself had created, which he
formed from the plants (and }) his eye."

17. The symbolism of the plants seems to be an analogy to the
green plants which surround the heavenly beings at their rising; see
pp. 38, 116. A variant of the same papyrus (Budge, in Archceo-
logia, lii. 561 [1890]) goes so far as to make these plants and the
primeval reptiles come from the tears shed from the divine eye (pp.

30» 70).

18. Thus the creation of man can also be connected once more
with the source-god (later the potter) Khnum, who was subse-
quently regarded as the special creator of the human race (see p.
51). For the myth of the loss of the sun's eye in the realm of Khnum
see pp. 89-90. We may here note that frequently (e. g. Mariette,
Denderah, iii. JJ\ Book of the Dead, lii) we find a theological division
of mankind into three or four classes; but until we understand the
names of these categories with certainty, we cannot say whether they
refer to the creation or to the present cosmic order. PeHiu, the name
of one of these classes, means "nobles," but the explanation of
rekh{i)tiu as "the knowing ones, the wise," is very uncertain, and
one name, henmemtiu, often applied to celestial beings in the Pyramid
Texts, is quite obscure. The fourth name ordinarily means "men."



38o EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

19. Marietta, Denderah, iii. Plate LXXVIII.

20. This expression seems to mean "in development," "in primi-
tive shape." Cf. also Note 14.

21. The seeming indication of a basis on which the heavenly cow-
stands probably was in origin an indication of the ocean.

22. clxxv. 16 ff.; cf. also E. Naville, in PSBA xxvi. 81-83
(1904). •

23. The manuscript refers this to Seth as being in the boat, but
the original seems to have been, "from those who are in the boat,"
i. e. the guardians of the monster were chosen from the companions
of the sun-god (p. 26).

24. i. e. the celestial beings; see p. 41.

25. Or, perhaps, "an order of Atum is given to Thout."

26. Destruction of Men, first copied by E. Naville, in TSBA iv.
1-19 (1876) (cf. also ib. viii. 412-20 [1885]), and later by von Berg-
mann, Hieroglyphische Inschriften, Plates LXXV-LXXVII.

27. The words in brackets fill the lacunae in the original text.

28. Ms., "mygod"(.?).

29. This and the following imperative are in the masculine singular,
so that we must suspect that the original address was to Thout, the
divine messenger.

30. i. e. they shall not abandon their plan.

31. The epithets of Nuu and Re' have here been confused, but we
try to separate them again. On the expression rekhtiu for a class or
generation of men see Note 18.

32. Or, "of it" (i.e. of the eye). We should, however, expect
"before thee." It was, it would seem, not the brilliant manifesta-
tion of the sun by day, but its appearance by night, that was to pur-
sue the evil-doers to their lairs.

33. Or, perhaps, "may it go as Hat-hor."

34. Or, "fear"(?).

35. Or, "cakes" (?). The word recurs in 1. 18.

36. This sentence, which is in part obscure, both concludes the
preceding section by an etymology of a divine name and, in the
manner of a title, introduces the following story.

37. An Ethiopian fruit which could be brought only from the
southern frontier.

38. Apparently a goddess. We have here an allusion to the name
of the city On (Heliopolis; p. 31) as meaning "great stone," i. e.
either "monument" or "millstone."

39. Of the company of the gods? We should expect "her (i. e. of
the destroying goddess) time."

40. If this is correctly understood, it means the coolest part of the
night just preceding sunrise, the best time for working.



NOTES 381

41. Emu at the western frontier of the Delta, famous for the local
worship of Hat-hor.

42. TimcBus, p. 22, etc.; cf. H. Usener, Die Sintflutsagen, Bonn,

1899, P- 39-

43. The statement of Sallier Papyrus, IV. ii. 3, that on the night
of the twenty-fifth day of the month Thout "Sekhmet went to the
eastern mountain to strike the companions of Seth," seems to allude
to the same event, though in a secondary association with the Osiris-
myth. Sekhmet is frequently mentioned as a flaming destroyer
(p. 87).

44. Or, "pain" (= disgust.^). The text is obscure.

45. Thus better than "is not ... a failure" of the text.

46. This passage is very obscure.

47. The command to Shu to put himself under the heavenly cow
Nut and to support her with his hands seems to have dropped out;
but cf. the description as repeated below.

48. i. e. forgiven.

49. See p. 48 for this name of the aerial space, which is often
identified with Shu, the air, as on p. 44 and in Fig. 71, as well as
in this passage, though rather indistinctly. In Destruction of Men,
ed. E. Naville, 1. 86, Heh is equated with Shu and Knum, as is also
the case infra, p. 89.

50. The meaning of this section was first elucidated correctly by
E. Lefebure, in JZ xxi. 32 (1883).

5 1 . The text is here corrected on the analogy of the following line.

52. i. e. the formulae for repressing and avoiding them.

53. Originally hn'-y, "with me "(.''),

54. Or, "hole"(.?)-

55. This may also mean, "I shall rise on the sky," implying a re-
moval from them.

56. Heka; see pp. 44, 133.

57. This may also refer to their magic forces.

58. From a papyrus of about the thirteenth century B.C., pre-
served in the museum at Turin. The text is edited by Pleyte and
Rossi, Papyrus de Turin, Plates CXXXI ff. (reprinted by Moller,
Hieratische Lesestilcke, ii. Plates XXIX fi^.); the first translation and
correct mythological interpretation are due to E. Lefebure, in AZ, xxi.
27 (1883). The original division into verses (indicated by dots of
red ink in the papyrus) has been followed here, except in a few in-^
stances, although it does not always seem to agree with the rules for
logical parallelism. The biting of the sun-god Atumu by some mons-
ter {Pyr. 425) does not seem to be analogous.

59. We should expect "to whom an age means a year."

60. i. e. neither men nor gods.



382 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

6i. This does not fit the preceding introduction; originally the
connexion must have been different.

62. Or, "the world of men" (Lefebure).

63. I.e. [she thought:] "Could she not be.'"' We have adopted
Lefebure's correction of the manuscript, which reads, "she was not
able (to be)."

64. Manuscript, "land (of the) goddess." MoUer {loc. cit.) pro-
posed to divide, "mistress of the land. The goddess thought,"
etc.; but this has the difficulty that, according to the story, Isis Is
not yet a goddess.

65. Manuscript, "crew," as though he were In his ship(?).

66. This Is apparently the meaning, although the manuscript Is
mutilated at this point.

67. Or, "concealed on the way"(.^) or, "blocking the way"(.?).
The word is mutilated In the text.

68. I. e. Egypt, not the entire world. In 1. 2 and Plate CXXXIII,
1. I, the land of Egypt also seems to be meant, not the earth.

69. The italicized words seem to have been erroneously trans-
posed In the manuscript.

70. Correct the manuscript to psh.

71. The sun-god, breathing heavily and painfully, emits his flames.

72. Possibly an epithet of the sun-god. For the cosmic tree as a
cedar see pp. 36, 115. After emi, "being In," the manuscript has
an obscure and superfluous sign.

73. Literally, "moved, pushed."

74. Literally, "found his mouth."

75. Omitted In the manuscript.

76. Literally, "he established his heart."

77. Manuscript, "KheprI," a meaningless reading, though of
theological Interest; cf. pp. 25, 68.

78. If the manuscript reading is correct, we should translate,
"my heart hath (now) noticed It, (but) mine eyes have not seen it."

79. "The Horus of Praises," I. e. the praise-worthy (cf. Ch. V,
Note 28).

80. Or, "power (of) magic."

81. This may also be read as a question: "Is It fire.'' Is It water.''"
See, however, the repetition below.

82. The younger generations of gods who form the transition to
mankind ( pp. 69, 120).

83. We should expect, "my heart."

84. Manuscript, shed = old ushed, a remarkable archaism.

85. Manuscript, "bound together."

86. I. e. on the earth. The mention of the mountains must have
been different in the original form.



NOTES 383

87. This may also refer to the sun-god, "who became (was formed)
in the great flood." For this Great Flood (Meht-uer) as the name of
a goddess see p. 39, and for the sun-god as "bull of his mother"
see p. 38.

88. The manuscript (perhaps correctly) understands this as "the
one who created the first life."

89. Or, referring the secrecy only to the horizon, " made the heaven
and the secrets of the double horizon."

90. Literally, "the force." It must be noted that all gods are
here treated as manifestations of the same force (cf. p. 28 and Note

14).

91. Manuscript, "palaces" (.'').

92. i. e. at noontime. On the different manifestations of the sun
see pp. 27-28.

93. Alluding to the belief that a man's personality and the memory
of it live only as long as his name is in use.

94. Manuscript, "behold ye."

95. Is this the god Bebon (see p. 131), or has the word baba its
ordinary signification of "hole, cave, cave of a spring, spring "."^

96. The text is corrupt; perhaps we should read ja'[r]^, "wisdom."

97. The text is again corrupt, but seems to continue to allude to
the revolt against the sun-god as described in myth No. III.

98. Or, "proxy."

99. Corrupt text.

100. A word later used for the foreigners coming from the north,
such as the Greeks. Why the moon has this special function is very
obscure. It is not probable that it is an allusion to the dark rain-
clouds coming from the north in winter.

loi. See H. Junker, "Der Auszug der Hathor-Tefnut aus Nubien,"
in ABAW, 191 1, and W. Spiegelberg, in SBAW, 1915, p. 876.

102. See Ch. Ill, Note 84, on this place where young solar and
stellar gods "are found."

103. Shu may here be compared with the warlike An-ljoret (Onu-
ris), as is often the case; see pp. 44, 143-44.

104. Junker, p. 54.

105. Cf. Ch. V, Note 28, for a similar form of Horus. The com-
bination of gods in this passage is not clear.

106. Saltier Papyrus, IV. xxiv. 2, has an obscure reference to it:
"The sun's eye (literally, "the Intact One"; cf. pp. 30, 91), the mis-
tress who is in the sky as ... to seeking (that which 1) stood before,
which was among the wicked ones, for (.^) their ... in the Delta."
We cannot make much out of this version, which may possibly be
connected with the story of the fall of mankind.

107. Pyr. 698.



\



384 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

108. Pyr. 1 09 1, 660, etc.

109. ib. 195, etc. Cf. Pyr. 1040: "It was not the fear which arose
for (? hr) the eye of Horus" (before the world was created). Pyr.
1 147, however, speaks of "the eye of Horus, stronger than men and
gods."

no. ib. 2090.

111. Pyr. P. 455.

112. Pyr. 1832. Hence the ferry of the underworld is called "the
eye (i. e. the best activity) of Khnum" {Pyr. 1227-28). Cf. likewise
the restoration of "the eye of Khnum" {Pyr. 1769) by the ferryman
"who looks backward" (p. 58). For Khnum cf. pp. 50, 135.

113. Book of the Dead, ed. Lepsius, ch. cxlix; Mariette, Denderah,
iv. 80, etc.

114. Attempts were, however, also made to localize this place at
Heliopolis {Pyr. 2050), in the sacred well of that city (p. 31).

115. H. Junker and G. MoUer, in JZ xlviii. 100-06 (191 1). The
texts are very obscure, and the scribes seem hopelessly to confuse
the solar and lunar myths. We should expect the seventh day (cf.
also the fourteen souls — i. e. manifestations — of the sun-god),
though this number may intentionally have been avoided as unlucky
(as it appears in Asiatic systems also) by the substitution of the astro-
nomically meaningless number six. The sixth day and the middle of
the month are mentioned as festivals as early as Pyr. 716, etc.

[Prometheus]

116. The explanation of the Nile flood in summer and of vegeta-
tion runs remarkably parallel to the well-known Babylonian myth of
the descent of the goddess Ishtar to the lower world and of her re-
turn to the upper earth when she is needed there. Unfortunately
the interpretation of the Nile's water which has been mentioned
above, p. 90, seems to be a somewhat secondary explanation of the
myth of the solar eye. Cf. also the pig in the sun's eye as described on
pp. 124-25, and the Vatican Magic Papyrus, iii. 8: "When the sun
was blind (and) saw (not), the goddess Nut opened the way to the
divinities." See Ch. V, Note 28, on the "blind (.?) Horus."

Chapter V

1. We must remember that the strictly localized, non-cosmic
gods of the primitive period could develop very little mythology
(p. 20).

2. The exact Egyptian pronunciation of the name is uncertain.
If it was, as is usually assumed, Usir(i) (perhaps for an original
Wesir), the connexion with the name of his wife Isis, which is
otherwise so plausible, becomes very forced (cf. p. 98). Parono-
masias associating his name with that of the sun-god Re' are as old



NOTES 385

as the Nineteenth Dynasty. The name looks very non-Egyptian,
and it may be an old misreading of hieroglyphic symbols which had
become unintelligible.

3. It is not certain whether the pillar as the hieroglyph of the
city may not have been the earlier conception, and whether the
deity may not merely have been called "the one of Ded(u)" (cf.
pp. 20—21 for such names of divinities). Later times may have re-
versed this relation of city and god. What the pillar represents is
wholly obscure; it is neither a Nilometer, nor the backbone of
Osiris. It may have been merely an old architectural experiment
without any original religious meaning. Its frequent repetition
simply means "Dedi, the (god) of Ded." In Pyr. 288 an old scholar
registers the names Zedu, Zedet, Zedut for the city.

4. See Ch. Ill, Note 10. The identifications with the sacred
bulls of 'Memphis (the Apis), Heliopolis (the Mnevis), and Her-
monthis (the Buchis) are, however, much later; and the ancient
ram (or goat.^) of Mendes, called "the soul of Ded(u)," proves that
no consistency whatever exists in the incarnations of Osiris.

5. See Brugsch, Religion, p. 615, and Book of the Dead, cxlii. 5
(where Osiris is at the same time equated with Orion).

6. The exact date of the concept of Osiris as floating in a chest
(cf. Fig. 76 and Plate II), is uncertain. For other ideas associated
with the ship Argo see pp. 57-58.

7. A rare identification with Qeb seems to occur in Lanzone,
Dizionario, Plate CLVII.

8. Plutarch (De I side et Osiride, xxxvii) mentions a special flower
which was sacred to him and which seems to have formed his
crown (cf. also Petrie, Athribis, Plate XLI). Diodorus (i. 17) ascribes
the ivy to him; for the vine connected with him as the Egyptian
Dionysos see pp. 36, 113.

9. Pyr. 589, etc.

10. e. g. in the late monument given by Mariette, Les Mastaha,
p. 448. A frequent prayer for the dead in the Eighteenth Dynasty
is, "may he drink the water at the source of the river!" This water
comes directly from Osiris or is a part of him; consequently it makes
man one with the god.

11. Greek Leyden Papyrus, Ixxv; cf. Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 735.

12. The four birth-genii of Osiris-Horus, who are united here as
elsewhere, are explained as Tefenet, Nut, Isis, and Nephthys (Mari-
ette, Denderah, iv. 43), or, better, as Nebt-meret (i. e. Muit-Nekhbet or
Meret .''), Neith, Heqet, and Nephthys (Lepsius, Denkmdler, iv. 82);
elsewhere as Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet, and Heqet (cf. the parallel
in Westcar Papyrus, ix. 23), and Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Selqet
{Pyr. 606).

XII — 26



386 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

13. See the god rolled up, Figs. 46, 47, which the later Egyptians
probably misunderstood. For Osiris rolled together see Champollion,
Notices, ii. 511, 601-02, 618; variants of the picture given in our text
may be found ib. ii. 541, 614.

14. Sometimes Osiris is represented as green, which is often noth-
ing but a discoloured blue; and blue, according to Oriental ideas, is
merely another hue of black (cf. Ch. Ill, Note 10); see, however,
Petrie, Athribis, p. 12, Budge, Book oj the Dead, Plate IV, 20, etc.,
for unquestionable green colouring, [which may hint at his life in
sprouting plants.

15. Cf. p. 35 on the idea underlying this detail.

16. The earliest term for his realm, Duat (or Daei\ latest tradi-
tional pronunciation in Greek letters Tiyt), really means "Rising
Abode of the Stars," and its localization, therefore, varies. The
word is best translated "underworld" because we have no corre-
sponding phrase and because, as a matter of fact, the later Egyp-
tian conception closely corresponds with this rendering as denoting
the place where the stars go to rest.

17. The old standard of the nome, a basket on a pole ornamented
with feathers, did not represent this relic, as the priests later claimed;
see e. g. Petrie, Royal Tombs, ii. 19, for the original form. The name
of this old fetish was teni, "the lifted (symbol)," whence came the
name of the city Tin, the Greek This {Pyr. 627).

18. This identification is found as early as Pyr. 1256.

19. Greek writers claimed that the name and the picture of Se-
rapis came from the Greek city of Sinope on the Euxine Sea, and as
a matter of fact this god was worshipped in Egypt chiefly under the
Greek representation of Zeus (cf. Plate II, 3, and pp. 239, 242).
Nevertheless the Greek origin of Serapis is a disputed point, and
the Egyptian etymology of his name which we have given appears
as official at an early time under the Ptolemies.

20. This is suggested by the hieroglyphic orthography of both
names and by parallel paronomasias on names of mythological con-
sorts in other countries. According to the traditional pronunciations
of these Egyptian names, Usir (Wesiri? see Note 2) and Eset (rarely
written Aset; H. Grapow, in AZ xlvi. 108 [1910]), this connexion
would appear to us an artificial play on words, and clearly betrays a
poor imitation of a foreign mythological idea.

21. See Lanzone, Dizionario, Plate CLI, where Nut is shown with
the knot hieroglyph of Isis, and cf. p. 99.

22. The confusion of the two different meanings of the feather
hieroglyph, or at least the clear interpretation of the feather-bearing
personage as "Justice," does not appear to be traceable to the earliest
texts. It seems to begin with Pyr. 744, which says that "Justice



NOTES 387

before the sun-god on that day of the new year" deUghts the world.
For its development see Book of the Dead, Ixv. 12, where we read that
the solar deity "lives (i.e. feeds) on Justice." The source of the con-
fusion can be found in such euphemisms as Pyr. 1208, 1230, where
the region of death, whether on earth or in the depths of earth or
sky, is termed "the beautiful one, the daughter of the great god."
In Pyr. 282 "her beautiful tresses" plainly associate her with the
sky, Hat-hor (p. 39). The extensive worship of Ma'et ("Justice")
at the court of the Ancient Empire has nothing to do with this mis-
interpretation of "the West." "Justice" there appears as the prin-
ciple which governs state and dynasty.

23. We must, however, again remind the reader that this interest-
ing development is quite secondary. Later ages were still correct in
their interpretation of the arms stretched from the western moun-
tains, or from the symbol of the west, to receive the dead, though
they did not invariably understand the parallel meaning of the arms
stretching from the sky to the sun. Sometimes they rightly explained
these mysterious arms as "the embracer of the sun, the mistress of
the west," but sometimes they also regarded them as a special deity,
"the Embracer" (Hapet). We cannot yet explain with certainty
why this alleged new divinity received a reptile's head and was
associated with a great serpent (at the top of a flight of stairs; cf.
pp. 42, 104, on the earth-god .^) which separates Osiris from this world;
possibly it may be connected with the dragon 'Apop. Similar god-
desses are easily associated with a serpent, either in a bad sense (as
on p. 80) or in a good sense, as when the "double justice" holds
serpents (Fig. 95).

24. For Nephthys as a doublet of Isis as mistress of the west see
p. no.

25. For such pictures see Book of the Dead, xvii.

26. In the Graeco-Roman period the role of Venus-Astarte as mis-
tress of the sea and protectress of navigation was, therefore, given
to Isis (cf. Ch. Ill, Note 61).

27. Cf. Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii. 36 b. The Horus of Hierakon-
polis is contrasted with Seth in Pyr. 201 1, etc. We may note that
at Hierakonpolis the principal representation of the god was an an-
cient effigy of such clumsiness that the feet were not indicated. Like
everything dating from the prehistoric period, this statue was con-
sidered the most sacred of all, and its imperfections were carefully
preserved in copies. Throughout Egypt we find such rude hawk-
figures which remind us of a mummied and bandaged bird (see Fig.
153, representing Sopd); it is possible that they are all derived from
the hawk-god of Hierakonpolis. The special name, 'akhom, given to
this peculiar hawk-form is not yet intelligible. Old texts speak of



388 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

four Horuses (see Breasted, Development, p. 155, etc.), and the same
idea recurs in a four-faced god {Pyr. 1207), apparently symbolizing
at first the four cardinal points of the sky, but later applied to the
four planets or the four sources of the Nile, etc. The four Horuses
are then variously localized in Egypt, and being also called "sons of
Horus," are identified with the four sons of Osiris-Horus, for whom
see pp. 111-13.

28. Some local forms of Horus diverge from the hawk-shape,
such as the lion-headed "Horus of Mesen (.'')" or "the fine Horus"
(De Morgan, Ombos, no. 48) or Har-tehen (" Bright Horus"), who
sometimes has a serpent's head (Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii. 35), and
whose name is erroneously explained (see Naville, Festival Hall,
Plate VH) as Har-tehenu ("Horus of the Libyans"). Many of these
gods were evidently quite independent in origin, but were identified
with Horus when he became the principal deity. Very late specula-
tion produced the strangely varying "Horus in Three Hundred"
(the number probably symbolizes the year), who was sometimes de-
picted as composed of parts of a lion, ichneumon, crocodile, and
hippopotamus. Some of the local forms of Horus are the following:
Har-akhti ("Horus of the Horizon") was worshipped at Heliopolis
and was the most popular form after the Horus of Edfu. His name
was sometimes interpreted as "Horus of the Two Horizons" (east
and west), so that he was occasionally pictured as a double-headed
god. This is also the explanation of the "resplendent" double-
headed god in Champollion, Notices, 1. 452, etc. On this name for the
planet Mars, see p. 54. Later a similar god, whose name in Greek
was 'Apjuaxts (i- e. Har-em-akhet, or "Horus in the Horizon".''),
was worshipped at the Great Sphinx. Har-merti ("Horus with Two
Eyes," i. e. sun and moon ?) was adored at Athribis. Har-shuti
("Horus with Two Feathers"). Har-hekenu ("Horus of Praises,"
i. e. praiseworthy) often has a lion's body and also
appears as astral (see p. 81). Har-sam-taui ("Horus
the Uniter of Both Countries") is mentioned espe-
|\ cially at Denderah(.^). Har-khent(i)-khet(.0 was
worshipped at Athribis or Xois; on this deity, who
is once represented with a crocodile's head, see
A. Wiedemann, in PSBA xxiii. 272 (1901). Har-
khent(i)-merti(.'') ("Horus before the Two Eyes")
received honour at Panopolis {Pyr. 1670, 2015).
"Horus of the Later, Strangely enough, the name (beginning with
Two Horizons" Pyr. JJi .^ was altered into "Horus in Front (of the
one) Without Eyes," as if through some reminis-
cence of the blind, eclipsed sun-god (pp. 29, 85 if.). When he is de-
picted as an ichneumon (Champollion, Notices, ii. 513), we may trace




NOTES 389

a similar thought, leading to identification with Atum as the evening
sun (see p. 165 and Fig. 1 1 on his original animal form). The devel-
opment of the name is not yet clear. On Horus in connexion with
the planets — e.g. "Horus the Opener of Secrets" (or, "the Re-
splendent" \upesh]) = Jupiter; "the Red Horus" = Mars; and
"Horus the Bull" = Saturn — see pp. 54-55; on a development as
master of the lower world, not only like Osiris, but even as ruler of
hell, see Ch. X, Note 21.

29. Accordingly "Qeb told Horus, 'Go where thy father swam!'"
(i.e. take his place; A. Erman, in SBJJV, 1911, p. 926). We there-
fore find "Horus in the ocean" (Pyr. 1505) and as "the star trav-
ersing the ocean" (Pyr. 1508). Thus both Horus and Osiris are
bom from the waters of the deep (pp. 95, 116). For the occasional
confusion of Horus and Osiris as both represented in the constella-
tion Orion, see p. 57, etc.

30. Pyr. 204, 370, etc. This "gold city" must not be confused
with the more southern city which the Greeks also called Ombos.

31. The later Egyptian pronunciation must have been something
like Set(e)kh. The name is written Sut(e)kh (pronounced Sotekh)
about 1400 B.C.; the earliest orthography also permits S(o)tesh.
The final aspirate of the Greek transliteration is an attempt to rep-
resent the Egyptian kh. The transcription 2771^, found once in
Greek, would imply a dialectic pronunciation Seeth. Whether the
rare orthography Suti had its origin in a misreading or in an inten-
tional mutilation for superstitious reasons is matter of doubt.

32. All male and some female deities carry a sceptre which bears
his head, as stated on p. 12 (see Petrie, Royal Tombs, ii. 23, etc., and
cf. our Fig. 30, etc.), although this detail does not seem to have been
recognized by the later Egyptian artists. Consequently at some pre-
historic period he must once have been the principal god of the entire
pantheon, and he was accordingly worshipped at various places, e.g.
as nome-god in the eleventh nome of Upper Egypt and also in the
Delta.

33. After 1600 B.C. the Egyptians compared it more frequently
to a red (i. e. wild) ass; later it was also regarded in rare instances as
an antelope with straight horns. It is possible that it was likened
to a boar as well, and that the whole religious prejudice of Asia and
Africa against pork goes back to this identification (see pp. 124-25 on
the beginning of this idea in the myth which tells how a black hog
penetrated into the eye of Horus, perhaps at eclipses). Egyptologists
and naturalists have sought to find in Seth's animal the greyhound,
jerboa, okapi, oryx, giraff"e, or ant-eater, but none of these iden-
tifications agrees with the oldest pictures. The Egyptians called it
"the sha-nnimal" and as late as 2000 b. c. they believed that it was



390 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

still to be found in the desert, which, however, they peopled with
so many fabulous beings that this does not prove much for zoolo-
gists. Later the tail is often treated like an arrow (L. Borchardt, in
ATj xlvi. 90 [1910], where the body seems striped from head to tail).
In Naville, Festival Hall, Plate II, it erroneously looks as if it has
three tails; and in Borchardt, Sa^hu-re, Plate XLVIII, its skin is
yellow.

34. This he showed even at his birth, when, according to Plutarch
{De hide et Osiride, xii), he broke through the side of his mother.
Nut. Mythological fancy could thus attribute to him various moral
weaknesses and perverse inclinations, which led him to pursue the
youthful Horus and in punishment for which, according to a myth
traceable to nearly 2000 b. c, he lost his manhood (Griffith, Petrie
Papyri, Plate IV).

35. Accordingly iron was later regarded as the sacred metal of
Seth — "Typhon's bone" {Pyr. 393, 530 seems to mean rocks rather
than metals). That Seth became a god of the Asiatics was not so
much due to their warlike character or their red hair (although both
traits contributed to this patronage) as to the building of the strong-
hold and capital Auaris in the eastern Delta by the Hyksos kings,
the Asiatic conquerors of Egypt, who found him there as the old
local god and accordingly gave special honour to him. This acci-
dental connexion with the Asiatics caused him to be compared to
Ba'al, the Syrian god of heaven, and gave rise to the wide-spread
slander that the Jews (and later the Christians) worshipped an
ass, the latter idea receiving additional support in Egypt from the
similarity of the Egyptian word for "ass," i6\ to the ordinary
Hebrew pronunciation of Jehovah's name, Yahii, Yaho (see pp. 208-
09). Later the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the turtle, and the

/ griffin also became "Typhonic" animals belonging to Seth.

36. Petrograd papyrus of "The Shipwrecked Sailor," II. 32, 57,
etc. The idea occurs as early as Pyr. 298, 326, where rain is asso-
ciated with Seth; ib. 289, "the heavenly cow (Meht-ueret) is between
the two fighters." In Pyr. 418 Seth is identified with the celestial
bull (contrary to Ch. Ill, Note 10), probably because of his lowing.

37. Accordingly it is possible that originally the testicles of Seth,
which were torn from him, were found in the belemnites.

38. Or, 'Aapop, once 'Aapopi (Bonomi and Sharpe, Oimenepthah,
p. 3). The name is derived from 'op, "to fly," the reduplicated form
signifying "to move as in flight" (i. e. swiftly). Old texts frequently
state that 'Apop had legs which were cut off in the battle (see the
hymn given on pp. 127-28). As a result there are many tales con-
cerning serpents with two or with many legs.

39. The god Aker (pp. 42-43) acts as his gaoler, holding him fast



NOTES 391

and confining him in his prison {Harris Magic Papyrus, v. 9); in
another text "Qeb holds him down(?), (standing) on his back"
(A. Erman, in AZ xxxviii. 20 [1900]; cf. Fig. 36).

40. The Egyptian text which accompanies this representation is
in still greater error as to its meaning since it places the scene in
heaven. All these pictures are from the sarcophagus of Sethos I (ed.
J. Bonomi and S. Sharpe, The Alabaster Sarcophagus of Oimenepthah /,
King of Egypt, London, 1 864 ) .

41. See Diimichen, Patuamenap, Plate XV.

[Prometheus]

42. Sometimes, by error, these heads are five in number, thus
paralleling the five sons of Osiris, of whom there are, properly speak-
ing, only four. For the origin of this change cf. Figs. 101-02.

43. Later we find, e.g., interesting connexions of Osiris with a
great serpent which has a single (sometimes human) head. In the
lower world or in the sky the god encircles or guards or carries this
monster (Lanzone, Dizionario, Plates CLIX, CLXII [?], CXCIX,
CCVIII-CCXI; in Plate CCLVII the serpent is bound by Horus).
These ideas again try to harmonize the old (Osirian) and the later
(Satanic) idea of the abyss (cf. Note 23). The placing of 'Apop
near the source of the Nile was the easier because as early as Pyr.
489 the serpent Neheb-kau was thought to block the way there at
the side of the goddess Selqet, or a serpent Qerery (Pyr. 1229) with
the monstrous "Swallower" (p. 179), who watched this entrance to
the lower world. In these old passages, however, the underlying
idea was still unlike that of the 'Apop-myth.

44. Book of the Dead, xxxix, etc.

45. Bonomi and Sharpe, Oimenepthah, Plate IX.

46. ch. xl.

47. Or, " harpoon " .'* cf . Note loi concerning this weapon, on which
various traditions existed. It is probable that the last verse confuses
Seth with Horus.

48. A. Erman, in AZ xxxviii. 20 (1900).

49. A. Erman, ib. xxxi. 121 (1893).

50. Figs. 107-08 are from Bonomi and Sharpe, Oimenepthah,
Plate XII, and ChampoUion, Notices, ii. 521.

51. The Book of the Gates, from which this picture has been taken,
goes on to vary the idea of the infernal monster, describing it as
having one body and eight heads, under each of which is a pair of
human legs to justify the name Shemti, i.e. "the One who Walks"
(as a variant of the name 'Apop, "Moving Swiftly"; see Note 38);
or it appears as an even more complicated monster. In each instance
gods of the lower world (once Khnum and "Horus in the under-
world") keep it down.

52. The net is drawn by Horus and Khnum (in allusion to the



392 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Cataract region in which the struggle usually takes place; see pp. 104-
05); or sometimes by the "Book-Goddess" (Fate; see pp. 52-54).
The genii of pictures like Fig. 109 bear distinct nets (e. g. Cham-
poUion, Notices, ii. 520, etc.).

53. The etymology is uncertain, but possibly the name is to be
explained as Neki ("the Harmful One").

54. For the confusion of Seth with the serpent Neha-hor see p. 141.
In the New Empire, when Seth was still honoured as a real god,
his name began occasionally to be avoided by euphemisms. Thus
Setkhuy (Sethos) I ("He who Belongs to Seth") changes his name
to "the Osirian" or "He who Belongs to Isis" in his funerary in-
scriptions or in places where Osiris is not to be offended. The last
king bearing Seth's name belongs to the Twentieth Dynasty, about
1200 B. c. The interesting evolution of this god into a Satan is due
to the influence of the Babylonian myth of Tiamat.

55. Seth's Greek name, Ti;0coj^, has been derived by some scholars
from the Semitic word for "north" (cf. Hebrew sdfon), supposed
to designate Charles's Wain as "the northern constellation." Ac-
cording to an older view, this constellation, here called "the
Great Club," battles against Seth (Budge, in Archceologia, lii. 548
I1890]).

56. Nebt-hot's name is scarcely derived from Hot (better Hoit),
"the Temple (City)," the capital of the seventh nome of Upper
Egypt, for the goddess worshipped there seems to have been Hat-
hor and not to have been compared with Nephthys until later, on
the basis of the similarity of the name of the city of Hot (cf. on
Hat-hor, Ch. Ill, Note 11). At Antaiopolis, in the tenth nome

' (cf . p. 130 and Note loi), Nephthys was a neighbour of Seth, and
their union would become intelligible from this proximity if we were
not compelled to assume the northern Ombos as Seth's original seat
of worship.

57. Once (Mariette, Denderah, iv. 81) she appears, strangely
.enough, with the head of a crane or ibis, like her sister Isis.

58. See also pp. 100-01 on Isis and Nephthys as becoming the
feather-wearing "double justice," though originally they were the
two divinities of the west, the region of the dead. By calling Neph-
thys TeXevT-i] ("End") Plutarch (De I side et Osiride xii, lix) likewise
makes her the sterner side of Fate. On the other hand, his identi-
fications of Nephthys with Aphrodite (= Isis-Hat-hor .^) and with
Nike ("Victory"; perhaps because of the wings on the later repre-
sentations of her, cf. e.g. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i.
Plate LIX; later, however, all Egyptian goddesses appear as winged)
are meaningless. A Greek papyrus (cf. p. 95) identifies 'Hcrtvecfivs
(i. e. Isis-Nephthys) with the springtime, but this is obviously a



%^



NOTES 393

confusion of the foreign conception of Adonis as the god of spring
with the Egyptian idea of inundation. According to Pyr. 489, Seth
has two wives, the Teti-(y?)eb, and from this obscure name seems
to be derived the idea (Pyr. 1521) that Neith also was his spouse.
All this is perhaps expUcable as due to misreadings of the name
Nephthys.

59. Perhaps this is the reason why she is called Menkhet ("the
Kind One").

60. The god of this seventeenth nome and its capital, the city of
Saka, was later identified with Anubis, and under this name he ap-
pears as the brother and rival of his neighbour
Bati in the Tale of the Two Brothers, although the
earliest inscribed monuments (Petrie, ^oya/ Tombs,

i. 30) seem to distinguish between Anubis and the /. 5 s.*^ — >

jackal (.'') with a feather (confused in Pyr. 896.''). yy

Probably the "Anubis of Saka" originally had a ^
name of his own, just as he had his own hiero- Fig. 226.

glyphic symbol (cf. Pyr. 1995). A local form of '^''^ {'"^l^^^^^^"'^
Anubis is "the one before his chapel."

61. Possibly, however, this role of guide (whence the Greeks
termed him 'Ep^avov^Ls, after Hermes, the psychopompos, or guide
of the dead; cf. Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916, i. 194) is sec-
ondary and is derived from his identification (which may be as early
as Pyr. 1287) with the (standing) wolf Up-uaut ("Opener of the
Ways"; 'O^oi's in Greek transcription) of Assiut and Sa'is, on whom
see p. 144. The Greeks (Diodorus, i. 18) speak of a dog-god Ma/ceSajv
as companion of Osiris, which suggests some misunderstanding of
Ophois (W. von Bissing, m RT xxvii. 250 [1905]); but the Hellenic
name remains enigmatic.

62. The present writer has suggested {OL xiii. 433 [1910]) that
this symbol was first transferred to Osiris or to his myth (possibly
associating the skin with the vine of Osiris, pp. 36, 113). So, for
example, the Asianic myth of Marsyas (cf. Mythology of All Races,
Boston, 1916, i. 181), which is closely connected with that of Osiris,
derives the river (originally the Nile) from the bleeding of a sus-
pended divine skin. At all events this skin-symbol is constantly
represented before Osiris (see Petrie, Royal Tombs, ii. II, where the
skin-symbol may interchange with Anubis, though it seems to be
distinguished in Petrie, Abydos, ii. 2). The title Emi-uet ("the One
[in the city of (.'')] Uet"), given to this symbol, was interpreted,
somewhat later, to mean "the Embalmer" and thus was transferred
to Anubis. Did the symbol originally designate "the one (hidden)
in the skin, the one wrapped up".^

63. In this latter case the genii are called the grandchildren of



394 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

Osiris {Pyr. 1983). On the interchange of Osiris and Horus see
p. 102, etc.; on the four Horuses cf. Note 67.

64. Pyr. 1228, 1483, 2078, 1 141. Accordingly they are near the
ferryman of the lower world {Pyr. 1222), who can be found in the
constellation Argo and may be explained as Osiris (p. 57).

65. Book of the Dead, cxiii.

66. From Dumichen, Patuamenap, Plate XV.

67. Pyr. 436, 418 (.^). Thus they correspond to the four pillars of
the sky (p. 35). Their tresses indicate youth (pp. 34, 193), or they
themselves thus become another interpretation of Hat-hor's blue-
black celestial tresses (p. 39). We again recognize these four celes-
tial gods in many allusions, e. g. as four long-haired youths in the
east, watching the birth of the sun-god and preparing his ship for
his daily course (Pyr. 1205), or sitting there in the shadow of
the chapel (.?) of Qati (Pyr. 1 105). Or, they dwell in the south, "on the
water of the lower world" (Kenset; Pyr. 1141), where they guard the
blessed against storms (Pyr. 1207). Thus they are at the same time
celestial and protect the souls against the subterranean serpent Neh-
ebkau (Pyr. 340). They are also called "four spirits of Horus" (Pyr.
1092). By another blending of the celestial and abysmal localization
(Pyr. 2078) their abode is in the south, the region of the lower world,
and there they hold the heavenly ladder. When they are localized in
the city of Pe, a quarter of Buto, the ancient capital of the Delta, they
are confused with the hawk-headed "souls of Pe" (Ch. II, Note 26).
The four-headed god of the lower world (Pyr. 1207; cf. Note 27 on
the four-headed Horus) seems to be compared with them because
his faces likewise "dispel storms"; originally, like them, he may
have represented the four subterranean rivers as well (see Figs. loi,
103, 115). It would seem that, in similar fashion, the four male gods
with crocodiles' heads (cf. Sobk, p. 148) who assist at royal births
(Naville, Deir el Bahari, Plate LI) are merely another representation
of the sons of Horus as bringing Osiris (the Nile) to life.

68. A. M. Blackman, in AZ xlvii. 117 (1910).

69. Lepsius, Denkmaler, iii. 137.

70. On these days see p. 57 and Ch. Ill, Note 57. According to
Pyr. 1961, they were "the birthdays of the gods," i. e. of the most
prominent among them.

71 . On the birth of Osiris from the ocean see p. 94, etc. His identity
with Horus receives additional proof, e. g., in the fact that Osiris
also had "two nurses" (Pyr. 313). Nephthys is called the sister of
Horus in the Harris Magic Papyrus, etc., and Seth is often regarded
as his brother (pp. 103, 114), etc.

72. Connexion with music is frequent in the myths outside of
Egypt, but cannot be proved in the hieroglyphs.



NOTES 395

73. Plutarch's idea {De I side et Osiride, xiii) that Osiris preached
humanitarian views over the whole world is absolutely non-Egyptian
and probably shows some indirect influence of Christianity.

74. Pyr. 972, etc.

75. Seventy-two as a cosmic number ordinarily expresses the
circle of heaven, the number of half-decades (p. 57) which consti-
tute a year. The original meaning was, therefore, that for a whole
year Osiris regularly vanished until he reappeared in some phe-
nomenon of nature, this being, according to the version which
Plutarch chiefly follows, the swelling of the Nile (pp. 94-95).

76. This motif, which is unknown elsewhere, seems to point to
Ethiopia as the region or type of the lower world. Comparing the
Greek form of the myth of Adonis (see Mythology of All Races,
Boston, 1916, i. 198), we should think of Nephthys as the rival of
Isis and perhaps should regard it as a later variant under Asiatic
influence; see, however, p. 87 on two rival goddesses, one of whom
came from the depths. The name Aso is thus far unexplained.

77. See pp. 63-64 on the dwarf divinities connected with the
young sun and p. 32 on the parallel animal companions, who are
here confused by Plutarch.

78. The number has its parallel in the days of the half month or
the fourteen souls of the sun, and in the fourteen fragments of the
solar eye (pp. 28, 90). Originally the stars were probably regarded
as the scattered and reunited fragments of the sun.

79. On the winged deities of later times see Note 58. It is, how-
ever, possible to find here the bird-form of the mourning Isis.

80. According to some versions, only the virile organ was lost,
being eaten by a fish [or by three kinds of fish, if we follow Plutarch]
which was, therefore, considered unclean. This is a variant of the
motif oi death because of sinful love (see p. 119).

81. The Egyptian mind felt no difiiculty in duplicating relics, as
when, for example, the head of Osiris, the seat of his life, was wor-
shipped both at Abydos (p. 98) and at Memphis. The localization
of the worship of other relics shows many similar contradictions.
The appearance of the legs at the frontiers of the Delta betrays the
conception of Osiris as the Nile, particularly as the Egyptian word
for "leg" also means "branch of a river."

82. See p. 36 and Fig. 84 on Osiris in the celestial tree, and cf. K.
Sethe, in AZ xlvii. 72 (1910), where the vine, sycamore, acacia, and
other trees are also mentioned (cf. p. 36).

83. That she might not confer immortality by her milk, a detail
which contradicts the fire-story.

84. This detail of the fire around Isis, which has not yet been
found in Egypt, seems to be the Asiatic motif of the Queen of Heaven



396 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

surrounded by flames, although the most mysterious gods of the
later Egyptian magicians are Ukewise described as encircled with
fire, and the ancient gods draw their magic wisdom from "the island
of (i.e. surrounded by?) flames" {Pyr. 506; cf. p. 202 and Ch. II,
Note 11). In other respects the prince whom Isis nursed in Syria
seems to be her own son (i. e. Osiris-Horus) as worshipped by the
Phoenicians at Byblos under the name of Tammuz-Adonis. Evi-
dently some later Egyptian priests were unwilling to accord full rec-
ognition to the Asiatic parallels. For the Greek analogue of
Demeter and Demophon see Mythology of All Races, Boston, 1916,
i. 228.

85. It will be noted that the question constantly recurs (although
more or less effaced in the tradition) why Osiris and (through him)
mankind lost immortality. Plutarch {De hide et Osiride, xvii) in-
terpolates a hopelessly confused story of an alleged prince Maneros,
who was killed by the angry glance of Isis; he derives this from
the Egyptian convivial Maneros-song about the brevity of earthly
existence, thus instinctively reverting to the problem why human
life is so short. The reason for this is here ascribed to Isis and her
Asiatic double, Astarte (pp. 155-56); cf. also p. 119.

86. For the pillar of Osiris, which the Phoenicians seem to have
imitated, see pp. 92-93.

87. A calendric hint (see Note 78 on the number fourteen); cf.
also p. 94 on the predominantly lunar character of the festivals of
Osiris.

88. "The (goddess of the) sky conceived by wine" {Pyr. 1082),
etc. (cf. p. 36).

89. For the green place of the birth or death of the solar god see
pp. 35, 38.^

90. On Epet-Tueris and Bes as helpers in earlier mythology see
pp. 60-62.

91. See pp. 57-58 on the star Canopus, the steersman of Argo,
and the possible interchange of Orion and Argo.

92. See Note 75 for a parallel explanation of the yearly interval.

93. The more original form of the legend must be that, as in
the Asiatic parallels, Pamyles did not know the divine nature of the
babe. From this announcement the gay and wanton festival of the
Pamylia had its origin. As yet, however, we have no Egyptian evi-
dence either for Pamyles or for the Pamylia. The Asiatic versions
that the finder of the infant was a shepherd or husbandman are
less clear in Egypt (see, however. Note iii). In Asia the water-
carrier is Aquarius, who corresponds in Egypt to the Nile-god, be-
cause Osiris himself is connected with the swelling Nile (pp. 94-95),
and because the new inundation brings Osiris. On other primeval



NOTES



397



gods who are similarly represented as floating in embryon form in a
chest in the abyss see p. 71; and the young Horus is also shown sit-
ting in a chest (e.g. Rosellini, Monumenti del culto, p. 18, etc.).

94. Hence Pharaoh's daughter, who found Moses in the Nile and
brought him up, is called QtpyLovdis by Josephus {Antiquities, II.
ix. 5-7). In the Greek period the name Menuthias ("Island of the
Nurse") was given to a mythical island in the south as being the
abode of the divine nurse, and later this was identified with Mada-
gascar as the most remote island in the south, i.e. the lower world.
Renenutet may be understood to nurse Horus in her double capacity
of goddess of harvest and of educator (p. 66).

95. See pp. 210-11 for a magic text containing a similar story.
It is perhaps a variant of the myth which tells how the sun-god
was bitten by a serpent (see pp. 79-83). The role of Isis seems simply
to be reversed.

96. This may be a recollection that "the great Horus" was an
old form of this deity which remained independent of the Osiris-
myth. As an older god he was sometimes even called "father of
Osiris" when he was associated with the latter or regarded as his
equal.

97. See p. no and cf., as a variant, Fig. 118, where both sisters re-
ceive the fertilizing blood of Osiris to bear posthumous ofl"spring.

98. Perhaps implying that he was deprived of his mother, par-
ticularly as the myth of the dying goddess (pp. loo-oi) would later
furnish a basis for such a theory.

99. Pyr. 1 214.

100. The word here translated "avenger" is also
interpreted as "the one who shakes," "awakens,"
or "takes care of."

loi. The word deb, "hippopotamus," can also
mean "bear," and in Phoenicia the enemy of the
young nature-god is a bear or a boar. Although the
Egyptians understood deb to denote "hippopota-
mus," they also substituted various other animals for
it (see Note 35). In later times Horus sometimes
appears fighting from a chariot drawn by griffins or
dragons, and in the Roman period he even fights
from horseback. For the winged disk of Edfu see p. loi. Horus
fights with a harpoon which has a strange, often practically impos-
sible head (H. Schafer, in AZ xli. 69 [1904]). Originally it must have
had three points (Lepsius, Denkmdler, iv. 35), this hypothesis being
confirmed by paronomasias in the texts, e.g. "the weapon (which
marks) thirty" {Pyr. P. 424, 1212, etc.), i.e. possessing three hooks,
since a hook is a sign for "ten" (and represents a month .^).




Fig. 227.
The Harpoon
Horus