E. Naville. The Old Egyptian Faith

Crown Theological Library
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CROWN THEOLOGICAL
LIBRARY
VOL. XXX.
NAVILLE'S
THE OLD EGYPTIAN FAITH
The Forty-two Gods, who avenge the
flinto
lui
lirwjsrh I'asha]
Osiris in his Shrint
Amniit, "The Eater" (of the condemned).
THE WEICxHING
IN THE
Hall
[Frontispiece.
Forty-twtj Trespasses, adored
by the Deceased,
from a Ptolemaic Pap.

The Deceased supported by tlie
Goddess
of Truth.
Thoth
re-
cording the
Anuhis and Horus watching the Balance.
Judgment.
OF THE HEART
OF THE Truths.
THE OLD
EGYPTIAN FAITH
BY
'
/V
^-ii
f^^B
'-r
EDOUARD NAVILLE r
;
9 1910
<
Hon. D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D., Litt.D., Hon. F.S.X^^-. CORRESPONDENT OF THE INSTITUTE OK FRANCE; ^<iPl ^ f^ O i CT^' FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCeT""^* ^ '* *" ^^'^' FELLOW OF king's COLLEGE, LONDON PROFESSOR OF EGYPTOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA
I '
TRANSLATED BY
COLIN CAMPBELL,
M.A., D.D.
minister OF DUNDEE PARISH
AUTHOR OF 'the gardener's TOMB AT THEBES," " TWO THEBAN QUEENS, "critical STUDIES IN ST LUKE's GOSPEL," " THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS IN GREEK," ETC.
NEW YORK:
:
G.
P.
PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

1909
PREFACE
The
the
six
lêctures which
first
compose the present

terms
vobime were the

College
that were instituted at

in
de
France
of
the
Michonis
in 1905.
endowment,
subject the
and
were
delivered
Their
religion
of
the
old
Egyptians
too
covers too wide
a field and raises
many different questions to permit us make a complete study of it in so small

compass, or to enter into
all
to
a
the discussions
rise.
I
to which this religion has given
have
accordingly selected
six principal topics, the
development of which appeared to

likely
me
to be
to
afibrd
us
a
in
general
spite
idea
of the
Egyptian
religion,
of
numerous
For
omissions which the shortness of the time at
my
disposal
rendered
inevitable.
this
vi
PREFACE
I
reason
have endeavoured,
these
studies
;
in
this
volume,
to keep
in
the
character
and
form of lectures
in this respect I
have really
made almost no
I
change.
crave
the
if
indulgence
of
my
learned
colleagues
for
in this general review, intended
an
ordinary
public
audience,
have
several
not been able to

obligations to
acknowledge
my
am
them
names.
brilliant
individually,
and
I
to
in-
mention
their
Especially
debted to the
gations of
and instructive
investi-
M. Maspero and M. AViedemann.
Others
will recognise in the following pages,
alongside of
fruits
my own
personal opinions, the
of their labours and discoveries, which
have
now become common
property.
My
my
beliefs
desire being, as far as possible, to
imbue
hearers with the spirit of the people whose
we had
to study,
have frequently
;
allowed the Egyptians to speak for themselves
hence the large number of translations to be
found
in the
I
volume, of which
in
almost every
instance
have mentioned the authors.
PREFACE
The
first
vii
lecture alone
is
slightly different
It
in character
from the
rest.
was necessary,
at the start, to
show who the Egyptians were,

;
and what their origin was
and
this involved
dis-
an examination of the results of recent

coveries
in
their bearing
on questions which
controversy.
are
still
matters of
much
EDOIIARD NAVILLE.
Malagnv, near Geneva,
June 1906.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
A RE-PERTisAi. of
La
Religion
Profcssor Edouard Naville's
des
Anciens
convinced
Egyptiens,
in
Egypt
last winter,
me
that, even
after the
appearance of the excellent works of

others,
in
Wiedemann, Erman, Budge, and

room
English, on the Egyptian Religion, there was

still
for another exposition of the
Old
Egyptian
Naville's
I
Faith,
such
as
that
which
Dr
Coiiferences afforded.
Accordingly,
applied to
him
for permission to translate
the Lectures into English
a
I
privilege
which
he most cordially granted.

that the result of
can only hope
my
pleasant labours, as pre-
sented in the following pages, will not only

justify
Professor
Naville's
confidence
in
humble worker
field
in the vast
and ever-expanding
of Egyptian studies
to
which he was
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
introduced more than a quarter of a century
ago by
his old
and revered teacher, the
late
Professor Lushington,
but will
also assist in
the comprehension of perhaps the most wonderful
body
it
can hardly be called a system
of religious
It
beliefs that the
human mind
has
ever conceived.
would be an impertinence on
my
part to
commend
ally
I
Professor Naville's work, either in
the domain of religion or of Egyptology gener;
have been only a "sitter at
his feet."
The
history of Egyptian thought and civilisa-
tion can never be truly presented to the world
without assigning to him a foremost place in

the ranks of original investigators.
haps,
little
I
Yet, per-
may
be allowed here to state that this

little,
book
because
its
author purposely
many otherwise interesting details seems to me to afford some lucid guiding ideas
omitted
and
principles, not
met with
in
any other work
known
to me, which
go a long way to explain

Egyptians
and illuminate the origin and the growth of

the religious conceptions
of the
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
during thousands of years.
details omitted,
xi
Even many
of the
which seem to many other

and which, especially
so
writers
so
important,
are
when
the
illustrated,
captivating
to
the
ordinary reader, will find their explanation in

principles
it
here
will
laid
down.
On many
many
that
points, too,
be found that the author
advances opinions different from
are current, especially in recent histories and
other accounts
but
it
is
needless to say that
Dr
like
ISâville
can always support his positions by
arguments and proofs which even protagonists

himself,
not to mention amateur

it
skir-
mishers, will find
hard,
if
not impossible, to
overthrow.
His judgments are cautious befull
cause they are based on
knowledge
he
is
accurate and clear in his statements because
he knows
how
easy
it
is
to slip into misstate;
ments
for the sake of effect
and
in
a field
is
where the play of fancy and imagination

alluring,
so
he
is
commendably reserved and

I
sober, without being unsympathetic.

in this reference, to
desire,
draw
special attention to
xii
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
a note, written at
my
request, which will be

III.,
found at the end of Chapter

briMiant,
if
on the
in
brief,
reform
accomplished
religion
and
art
by that extraordinary genius,
Amenhotep IV., Khu-en-aten, a portrait of whom, from a slab found by the translator in Luqsor Temple in 1906, is inthe Pharaoh
cluded in this volume.
The
spot.
illustrations are
almost entirely from
photographs taken by the translator on the
With Dr
Naville's consent, 1
have
in-
troduced three photographs of scenes from the

discovery of the marvellous Hathor
Cow
and
Shrine at Thebes on February
7,
1906,
when
my
wife and
had the good fortune to be
present.
In one of the pictures, taken soon
after the discovery,
Dr
Naville
is
seen beside
the Shrine, which, with the Cow,
is
now
in the
Cairo JNIuseum of Egyptian Antiquities.

is
It
a unique representation of
Hathor
as a
Cow.
The
frontispiece, illustrating the Âêighing of

is
the Heart,
from a photograph taken specially
for this translation,
by Brugsch Pasha, of the
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Cairo
xiii
It is from a Ptolemaic Museum. papyrus in the Museum, and has never before
been pubHshed.
Unfortunately,
it is
too long
to be reproduced in one length.
JNIy
thanks
are
due to him
for this picture
as well as to
the Trustees of the British INluseum, for permission, through the kindness of
reproduce a scene from the

nefer, representing the
Dr Budge, to Papyrus of Hu-
worship of the Osiris-
Dad
as the Rising Sun.
The
translator hopes that these pages, in
which he has
Naville's
endeavoured
to
present
Dr
meaning
faithfully, will
not only be
of service to the traveller in Egypt, but also

to
the student of comparative theology and
religion.
glance at the contents of the
chapters will suggest to the latter

jects
some sub-
which
will give
him food
for thought.
C. C.
Edinburgh,
October 26, igOQ.
CONTENTS
I
PAGES-
Oiigin of the Ancient Egyptians

historic
Not Negroes
:
Their Pre-
Their Civilisation was Pictures was Mena? The Invaders: From S. Arabia: Egyptian Orientation: The so-called Royal Slate Tombs of Abydos, mere Funerary Chapels Palettes The Primitive Royal Name The Falcon Mena or Kings The King a Horus, and Divine Menes, the First King, a Foreigner The Ka and the Fan: A Hierarchy: Mena's Name not yet Found:
Pottery
African:
Who
Agriculture the Basis of Civilisation:
The
Nile
Build-
ing with Brick
Egyptian Architecture and Stone Unique: Animals: Papyrus Plant: Vine Culture: The Horites Metal-working Imported Writing Horus and Set " The Opener of the Ways " Anthropomorphism Possible Relations with Babylon
: :
:
:
1-50
II
Methods
of Burial
The
so-called
memberment
of the
Body
:
Ka
Secondary Burial
: :
Embryonic Posture DisWiedemann's Theory The Revolt against Dismember:
ment Life of the Ka Personality Body, Ka, Soul, Shadow, Heart, etc. Prospects of the Dead Tombs The Ideal Life The Mdstaba of the Old Empire Chamber for the A'a The Stele in the Tomb No Importance of the Double or other Religious Object Ka Ancient Worship Idealised Terrestrial Bliss The Pyramids are but Tombs Mariette's Discovery
:
: :
:
xvi
T->
CONTENTS
Pyramid Religious Texts
tion
:
T-.
r^
PAGES
:
The
:
First
Osiris Myth Every Pyramid Texts for the King only Book of the Dead for All Mummification The Temples are Mortuary Chapels: Hatshepsu's Temple and Tomb: Osiris
: :
The
Pyramid InscripDead King an
Ramesseum: The Douat
Forms
:
of the
Book
"Am
:
Douat'': The Night-Sun's Journey: The Escort of
Ra
The
Soldiers of Ra,
:
Those who accompany Ra Those who do not and the Enemies of Ra Re-birth
:
of the
Sun (Ra) The Serpent Gods " The Friends of Ra Mortuary Chamber
:
called
:
"The
Life of the
:
.......
Ushabti Figures
The
U-IO^
III
The Doctrine of Heliopolis Egyptian Religion Unsystematic The Egyptians could not forget, either in Religion or in
: :
Art No Fixed Doctrine, therefore no Heresy Ancient Heliopolis (On), the Religious Capital:
:
The The
:
:
Ennead
of the
Gods of Heliopolis
:
The Cosmic Gods
Their Descent Osiris the most interesting God The only one with a touch of Morality: The Z>a^ Symbol, the Skeleton of Osiris Set and Nephthys Set repre:
:
sents the
Wild Animal-world
History of the Creation

Seventy-five
:
"The
Adoration of
Ra": The
Forms:
:
"Litany of the Sun": Henotheism Pantheism The Theban Doctrine The Theban Triad, Amon, Mut, and Khons Hymns to Amon Amon not a Creative God " The Decrees of Amon " Pantheism again Colleges
:
of Priests
Priestly
Hymns: Amenhotep the Aten Hymns

:
rather than religious
Power The Aten Worship and IV., Khu-enaten: Pantheism of Khu-en-aten's Reform political in its aim Note on Khu-en-aten's
:
:
Revolt
104-158
IV
The Book
of
Dead Not a Unity any more than the Book Psalms Magic at its Root Should be called "Book
of the
:
:
of
Coming
Its
out
FROM THE Day"
instead
of
"by
Day":
Chapters and their Titles: The Meaning
CONTENTS
of "
xvii
I'AGES
The Triumphant One": Origin of the Book Old Empire Fragments of the Book Chapter XVII. perhaps The Saite Recension Difficulties of the the Oldest Book Its Introductory Hymns to Osiris and Ra
:
Reconstruction or Reconstitution of Osiris
Power of
:
Thoth
Magical Virtue of the Words of the Book Myth of Osiris TransmigraIncoherent Doctrines
: :
:
tion of Souls:
Garden of Aalou
of the Soul
:
The "Answerers":
:
The Judgment
Repudiation of certain Trespasses, a Preliminary Confession The Weighing

of the Heart before Osiris
the
;
Forty-two Trespasses
:
Gods and The Confession and the

the Forty-two
:
:
Decalogue compared The Sentence Conscience Future Bliss Dialogue of a Man with his Soul Egyptian Pessimism, Carpe Diem A Woman's Wail A Better Hope in the Next World 159-207
: :
:
....
:
Anthropomorphism in the Egyptian Religion Egyptian Myths, and Greek The Myth of the Destruction of Mankind Origin of Sacrifice Creation of the Heaven More Incoherence (Sky) and the Earth The An Egyptian Deluge Why Magical Use of Myths Swine were forbidden to be Sacrificed to Horus Myth of Ra and Isis the Enchantress Her Device to gain More Magical Myths the Knowledge of Ra's Name Miracle of Healing by Thoth Anthropomorphic Myths The Complaint of the Sphinx, who begs to be The Relations of Gods and Men cleared of the Sand Prayer of Rameses II. to a System of Bargaining Amon His Claims on Amon A Healing Image The Story of the Possessed Princess Speaking
:
Statues
The
Fellah's Religion a Nature-cult
VI
Rites and Ceremonies
:
The
Sovereign's
of ()ueen
Divme
Birth
Queen
:
Halshepsu's and King Amenhotep III.'s Divine Birth
The Enthronement
Hatshepsu
at
Der
el
xviii
CONTENTS
PAGES
Bahri
Her
Presentation to
the
People
Associated
with her Father, Thothmes I., on the Throne: The Worship of the Monarch, even during Life Determining the Royal Style and Names Royal Duties to the Gods The Founding of a Temple The Sed Festivals Deification of the King The King always Divine Kings and Ordinary Mortals Cult of the KinginLife: Cult of other Divinities: Rituals of Abydos and Thebes The Daily Service A Glance of the God might be Fatal Sacrifice, and the Egyptian Account of the Origin of Sacrifice Human Sacrifice in Egypt Amenhotep II. 's Slaughter of Seven Princes: Description of a Theban Tomb where Human Sacrifice is alleged M. Maspero's Theory untenable Human Sacrifice possibly practised on Extraordinary Occasions Its Burlesque in Ptolemaic Times Wealth of the
: :
:
Egyptian Ceremonial The Latest Cults Differences between the Old and the New Customs and Inscriptions on the Temples Excessive Development of Magic Hybrid Divinities Dawn of Christianity
: :
: :
The
so-called
:
Hermetic Books
End
of the Egyptian
.
Religion
The Farewell Lament
of a Faithful Soul
264-319
320, 321
Principal Authorities
........
LIST
The Weighing
OF ILLUSTRATIONS
of the Heart.
a Ptolemaic Papyrus
....
Parts.)
(Two
From
Frontispiece
PAGE
The
Hathor
Shrine
and
Cow,
Naville^ the Discoverer
.....
with
.
.
Professor
1
Horus name of King, with epithet Den
18
Thothmes
III.
worshipping Ptah^ Patron of the

.
.
Blacksmiths
41
The
so-called
Embryonic Posture
in his
in Burial
.
53
91
1
The Sun-God
Boat at Night
The Horus
Isis
of Edfou
Osiris as the Rising
.
.
08
and Nephthys adoring

III.
Sun
.
126
1.S8
Thothmes
worshipping Anion Ra
.
Amenhotep
IV. (Khu-en-aten)
.151
2.50
Khons-Neferhotej), Mut, and Anion worshipped by
the King
.......
Cow
.
Amenhotep
II.
being suckled by the Hathor

rich in kas "
266
271
Horus name of Hatshepsut, "
XX
Sety
I.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
offering
Maat (Truth)
of Paheri of Renni
to Osiris
292 300
302
305
Man
in Skin, in Skin,
in Skin, in Skin.
Tomb
Tomb Tomb
Man
Man
of Sen-nofer
of
Man
Tomb
Menna
306
[To face page
1,
[I'hoto by Translator.
The Hathor Shrine and Cow, February

with Professor Naville.
7,
1906,
THE
OLD EGYPTIAN FAITH

Who
they
were the Egyptians

belong?
To what
race did
Were
they
autochthonous,
native to the
soil,
or were they invaders
who
its
brought with them from their foreign home

that interesting civilisation of theirs, with
sharply defined character, a civilisation which,
outwardly at
essentially
least,
seems to have remained

for
the
?
same
more
than
four
thousand years
These are some of the questions which

for
havê
in
long confronted
studies.
all
who
are engaged
Egyptian
They have forced themstrikingly
selves all the
more
on the attention
1

fact that the
from the
Egyptian civihsation
seems to emerge quite suddenly, without any

previous preparation, or anything to herald
its
coming.
At
the very outset
it
appeared
in all its
inferior
own
beauty, a beauty imperfect and
perhaps,
but
still
of a kind which
seems not to lack the elements of growth and

development.
to
It
is
true that
to
it
preferred not
or
turn
these
for,
elements
any
of
much
account;
with
periods
it
alternating
splendour and decay,

its
remained throughout
it
history
much
the same as
had been
at its
first
appearance.
But the question

and
recurs,
first
what was the source of

manifestations,
origin of these
how
many
centuries
had to elapse before the

that point
?
civilisation
reached
For
our
a long period
it
was believed that the

insoluble,
enigma would remain

mystery would be
last
and that
all
efforts to raise the veil of the

baffled.
impenetrable
But during the

from
decade
light
has
dawned and broken

its
forth from this old land of Egypt,
THE PRIMITIVE EGYPTIAN NOT NEGRO

so
very sand, which has so affectionately preserved
many
treasures of antiquity, and which,

still
we
a
are convinced,
safely holds in its
bosom
rich harvest, if not for ourselves, at least for
our children.
The
recent
excavations
Quibell,
of
Amelineau,
have
Morgan,
Petrie,
and others
revealed to us that, as far back as

there existed in
we
can go,
Egypt
call
a primitive population
with a degree of culture which had not emerged
from what we
the Stone Age.

;
It
was
clearly an African race

in later times,
the same people who,
were called Libyans, and are

peoples of
like the Berbers.
represented in our day by the
North Africa,
AVhen we speak of Libyans or Berbers, we must not think that we are dealing with a
negro race
;
quite the contrary.
"I
set aside,
at the very beginning, the
negro race," says

a careful study of
Dr Fouquet, who
has
made
the craniology of that remote epoch, and who,
without making an absolute pronouncement

as to the origin of the
Egyptian
race, affirms

and that there
an entire
that the people had straight hair, sometimes
even
fair in colour,
is
absence of that prognathism or prominence of
jaw which, with woolly
hair,
is
the most
marked
pottery
characteristic of the negro type.
Some rude
found
paintings
in
which
adorn
the
the tombs of this epoch
afford us a glimpse of the
manner of
life
of
this aboriginal race, as I shall call
them.
;
In
the
first
place, they
were huntsmen
bows and
arrows provided them with food, for they do
not seem to have been

agriculture.
And
if
much in love with we may judge from the

found
rather
uncouth
drawings
on
these
earthenware
articles
drawings
different
which
ways,
in
have
been
interpreted
in
their
wicker-work
dwellings
stood
enclosures
surrounded by stakes, intended primarily to

protect
the
inhabitants
from wild animals.

see
Within these enclosures we

desert animals, which the
men, bow
in
hand, and women, as well as several kinds of
bowmen seem
not
only to have tamed, but also to have domesti-
THEIR VASE PICTURES

cated.
I
note especially different kinds of
gazelles
and antelopes, large herds of which
rich Egyptians, centuries afterwards, loved to

possess.
In later days,
when more
state.
useful
animals replaced these creatures, they were
allowed to return to their wild

these enclosures
Within
of the primitive people
we
see neither cattle, nor asses, nor sheep
which
would have been brought from abroad by the

conquering race when they subjugated the
indigenous population.
We
can recognise,
however, in spite of the imperfect drawing and

painting, different
ostriches,
kinds of birds,
especially
which seem to have held a large
place in the poultry-yards of these primitive

peoples.
Generally speaking, the huts shown
in the enclosures are
two
in
number, one on
either side of the door.
Boats propelled by
rowers or by
sails
prove that the people knew

:
how
to
navigate
these
boats
were most
probably used mainly for fishing.
Nothing
as
yet reveals that these aborigines practised any
form of
cult,
except a kind of standard, set

huts.
It
up above one of the

either the
was perhaps
totem or the sacred animal of the

it
family over whose dwelling
stood.
Now
mentary
It
this
culture
or
is
civilisation, so
rudi-
in its nature,
an African culture.
has
been styled Libyan, a name which
stands for nothing definite.
The Libyans
or the Africans in old

;
Egypt
seems,
included different hordes or tribes
it
indeed, that in the time of the fifth dynasty a white African population occupied the region
adjoining
what
is
now
the
Sudan, namely,
Darfour and Kordofan.
These peoples,
whom
we
the
find afterwards
on the western frontier of
Egypt, whence they several times menaced
kingdom of the Pharaohs,

or
are called the

see
Tamahou
practised
Tehennu.
a
We
fact
that they
tatooing,
which
we
can
establish also
from one or two small

epoch
;
figures
of the
oldest
and they
also
adorned
their heads
with ostrich feathers, as did the
primitive
bowmen.
opinion, these white African people
In
my
THEIR CIVILISATION AFRICAN
bore also another name, that of Anou, which
means archers
Sinai
and from Nubia
as
far
as
we
find
them always regarded

race.
as the
enemies of the conquering
Thus the
basis of the
Egyptian population
in type
;
was African, and Caucasian

appears to have spread
this race
nmch
further to the
south than
it
afterwards did, and subsequently
to have been driven northwards
by the negroes.
still
This old African people has
its
repre-
sentatives to-day, in the Berbers

for
and Kabyles,
find almost
example, amongst
whom we
the same
arts, especially
the pottery, which
we
is
meet with
in the prehistoric epoch.
Now, did
centre or
these
Anou
possess towns
It
interesting that the city which
was the
religious
metropolis
of
Egypt, afterwards
called Heliopolis, bears in
Egyptian the very

one of the names
same name of An.

of
In
fact,
Egypt
is
"the two lands of An."
The
oldest religious myths, too, carry us back to

Heliopolis.
It
is
quite possible, then, that the

shall
conquerors of
whom we
shortly
speak

their
had established
own
cult
in
the old
metropolis of the indigenous people, which
was then perhaps but a simple

which continued to the
regarded with the
latest
village,
but
times to be
greatest
reverence,
and
For,
maintained
all its
prestige to the end.
according to the mythological geography, the

city of cities, corresponding to our
heavenly
Jerusalem, was the city of An.
The Greek
glyphic
lists
historians
tell
and the oldest hierofirst
us that the
or Menes.
historical
is
king was called
Mena
It
certain
that with his advent something happened in
Egypt which worked

that he was the
a great
:
change
in
the
whole state of the country

first
it
appears, indeed,
to unite under his sceptre
the tribes or hordes scattered up and

river.
down
the
did
Was Mena
a native of the soil?
he belong to that African stock of which
we
?
have spoken, or was he himself a foreigner
Was
he the conqueror, and did he belong to
the race
who subdued
the aborigines,
who
were settled on the banks of the river before
WHO WAS MENA?

him
?
To
it
these questions
;
we
are
unable to
shall try to
give a positive answer

establish,
but, as
we
seems quite probable that he was

all
of the conquering race, for
the authorities
in declaring
which allude to him are at one

that
it
was he who introduced into the country

call civilisation.
what we should
represented a
Clearly he
new element which developed

this
and transformed the old stock of the native

population,
which up to
time had been
rather backward.
We must now
came
attempt to discover whence

If
this foreign element.
we
consult not
only the hieroglyphic documents, but those

relating either to the people of Israel or to old
Babylon,
Sea, on
Africa,
different
we
shall
find that, along the
Red
bore
both shores, in Arabia as well as in

there
stretches
a region which
is
names, one of which

Ethiopia,
in
Kush
often
divine
incorrectly rendered
and
another,
Fount,
very
common
or
the
hieroglyphic
inscriptions,
even
Ta-nouter, the
designation.
It
land,
its
more frequent
seems
10

name was Arabia
it
that the district which in primitive times bore

this
of the South, and
it
was
from
that the populations migrated
who were
settled
on the African shore.
This Arabia of
the South seems to have been peopled by a

race
whose personal appearance
at that
remote
epoch
later
we
age,
are ignorant
of,
but of whom, at a
when they
inhabited the African
portion of the country of Pount,
we
possess
some
portraits.
They were men
of an aquiline
type, with pointed beard, and silky hair, some-
times tied up with a head-band or
fillet
or
decked out with an ostrich feather
and they
wear a cincture
a race in
all
like the
Egyptians
altogether,
respects similar to the dwellers
on the
Nile,
though the paintings which show
them
are later
by several thousand years than
the date of the sojourn of the conquerors of the Nile valley in the south of Arabia.
The
only difference worth pointing out
is
a differ-
ence of colour
the
people of Pount being
painted in a deeper red than the Egyptians.

It
is,
then, from the south of Arabia that
we
THE INVADERS
bring the foreign element, and
the same race as the Africans,
it
11
belonged to
the
first
occupants of the
who conquered country, and who

come?
Opinions
It has
brought them their
civilisation.
By what
said,
route did they
differ considerably
on
this point.
been
by Lepsius
seems
for instance, that they entered

this
by the isthmus of Suez, but

view
have crossed
say where.
at a place
point of
now abandoned. it the Red Sea

;
They must
is
difficult to
Petrie believes that they landed
now
called Kosseir
Harbour, and
that they passed through the

w^hich
Wady Hamamat,
httle to
I
would have taken them towards the

in
town of Keneh,
Middle Egypt, a
the north of Thebes.
For myself,
cannot
help thinking that they crossed the
Red Sea
further to the south, and landed perhaps some-
where
in the region of
Massowah, or even on
This opinion agrees
the coast of Abyssinia.
with the data of the

I will
classical authors, of
quote only one, Diodorus

"
whom He Siculus.
Egypt
is
says
The Ethiopians
affirm that
12

The very
soil is
one of their colonies.
brought
down from
the Nile.
their country
by the deposits of
There are striking resemblances

"
;
between the customs and laws of the two

countries
and he mentions several instances,

:
like the following
" the kings have the
same
costume, and the uraûs serpent adorns their

crown."
tion to
;
I will
confine myself to this quotafor,
might produce others,
according
the
Greek authors,
it
was
clearly
from
is,
Ethiopia the Egyptians came.

all this, it
Tliere
in
appears to me, a distant allusion to
the migration from Arabia, of which

spoken, and which would be
the banks of the river, in
first
we have
arrested at
Upper Egypt.
We can, however, offer even better evidence,

especially the
his bearings.
way
in
which the Egyptian takes
He
always turns to the south,
the west being thus on his right hand, and the

east
as
on
his left.
We
must not think of this
implying that he walks towards the south,
thus following the direction indicated to him
by
his ancestors.
believe that the explana-
EGYPTIAN ORIENTATION
tion of
it
is
13
quite different.
In the mytho-
logical traditions,
is
Horus, the king of Egypt,
regarded
as
coming down the Nile
and
It
conquering Egypt, which was under Set.

is,
then,
natural
;
for
the Egyptian to turn
towards the god
he turns at the same time
towards the Nile, and he pays homage to the

great
his
ri\
er
whose beneficent waters bring him
means of sustenance and suffer him to Besides, it is a fact beyond all doubt live.
that,
in in
the division into two parts, which the
even
most
is
remote
epochs appears
whenever Egypt
South
mentioned, Egypt of the
Upper
over
Egypt
the
is
always named
first,
she has always the precedence and the pre-
eminence
other.
The kings
king, or royal,
of
Upper Egypt
are
mentioned before those of

is
Lower Egypt.
sufficient
The word
to
in
itself
indicate
the king
of
Upper Egypt.
in
In certain
sacrifices, too,
when
will
place
of slaughtering
is
two
bulls
one
suffice,
the one slain
that of
Upper Egypt.
The
national character, also, has always been
14

in
more marked
I
Upper than
in
Lower Egypt.
believe, therefore, that this kind of predilec-
tion of the Egyptians for the south arose out
of a tradition reminding them that the south
had been their
first
place of settlement.
These emigrants, who came from the south

of Arabia, always advancing further north, and
following the course of the river, passed the

First Cataract
and emerged from the region
where
the
mountains and the desert sand

;
reach the Nile
then, the cataract left behind,

in-
they found themselves in a wide valley,
undated every year by the

with luxuriant vegetation.
river,
and covered
it
Here
was that
they gave themselves up to agriculture, which
became the pathway that

advanced state of
led
them
to
an
civilisation.
The degree
invaders
is
of culture possessed by these

to us
known
by the excavations
made in recent years by Amelineau, Petrie, and Morgan in different parts of Egypt. They came upon buildings, sometimes underground, composed of a central chamber round
SO-CALLED ROYAL TOMBS (ABYDOS)
15
which were ranged rows of narrow rooms, all of them containing vases, remains of furniture,
and especially amphoras with earthen stoppers bearing an impression made by a cylinder on
the clay while
it
was
still soft.
These build-
ings have been called tombs, and even royal
tombs
indeed, in
all
the recent works which
deal with
them they are called the Royal Tombs of Abydos. The most famous is the one that some would fain associate with
Menes, situated
I
in a locality called
Negadah.
I
cannot
fall
in
with this view;
look on
these buildings as funerary chapels in which a certain cult was rendered to the dead
who
or
were buried
at
some depth underneath,

are not the only
somewhere
in the neighbourhood.
But these buildings
monu-
ments that remain to us of that remote period. We possess also what are known as palettes,
in
schist, of
different sizes.
Of
only one of
them do we know the

largest are 74
place of origin.
The
and 76 centimetres
in length,
and are scarcely
more than
centimetres
16
thick.

They
are
generally covered on both
sides with sculptures,
and
it
is
not impossible
that
a thin plating of gold
was
added
In
as
an enrichment of the
decorations.
the
middle of one face of the palette is a little round hollow, which some authorities would
regard as a place for grinding colours.
I
beheve that the purpose of

different, especially if
this
hollow
is
quite
we have
regard to the
it.
representations
which
surround
It
was
meant
to hold the
emblem
an emblem perhaps conical

of a cone or pyramid.
palettes are
tions of
of a king or a god
in form, either a
precious stone or a piece of wood, in the shape
The majority
of these
ornamented only with representaor of animals,
men
but there
real
is
small
number of them which bear

and that
in-
scriptions in hieroglyphics,
in hiero-
glyphics quite similar to those that
we
shall
meet
at
later
period.
We
must, then,
admit that the writing as we know it was imported by the conquering foreigners. But
when
say imported,
is it
the proper word to
THE SLATE PALETTES

use
?
17
Were
before
they already in possession of this
script
they set out from Arabia

far as this
:
cannot go so
contrary, to
inchne,
on the
the behef that the writing was
developed after they had occupied the valley

of the Nile.
For
it is
certain that the writing
has a
very pronounced Egyptian character:

find
it
we never
element.
mixed up with a foreign
The
vations
pottery, palettes, ivories, jar-sealings or
stoppers which have been found in the excain
different places, but especially at
Abydos, allow us to form an approximate idea

of what the civilisation of these foreigners was.
And
first, let
us begin with the kings, and
note that their names are written in quite a

special Avay,
and
in a
framework always the
same.
At
the top of the group
we
see a bird
of prey, which has been long called a hawk,
and which M. Loret has decided

the peregrine falcon.
is
a falcon,
This bird
is
is
perched on
an oblong rectangle, which

as a banner,
often described
and which ends
at the
bottom
in
18

of lines recalling the front of a
a collection
funerary chapel, the door by which the double

of the deceased
is
supposed to go in and out.

the top of the rectangle,
falcon's feet,
is
At
and under the
a space in which are inscribed
one or two hieroglyphic

signifying
signs,
some
characteristic
epithet
of the king
or
the
AAA/VV\
>^CxX>OW0<
dominant quality by which he

wished specially to be
guished.
distinis
The group not even the name

Pliaraoh
i
thus
of the
Hoius name
of king,
thc
i
prenomcu by
with epithet den.
which he was designated,

is
it
a qualification or title
the
first title,
or the
first
element of the complicated protocol which
forms a royal name.

kings of the
first
But the
fact
that the
dynasties are cited almost
always by this qualification or description and

not by their prenomen, yet affords us infor-
mation
of
the
utmost
all
consequence.
of
The
ancient kins^s are thus
them
falcons,
men
THE FALCON KINGS

falcons, the
19
companions of the falcon

is
we
are
told, in fact, that this bird
the emblem, the
standard of the tribe to which they belong.
Now,
first
the falcon (in Egyptian, hern), from
its
appearance in this
the beliefs of
when
is
way down to ancient Egypt

he
is
the time
vanished,
the god
Horus
whether
represented
under the form of the

of a
bird, or has the likeness
man
with a falcon's head.

falcon,
Further, the
is
Egyptian word heru, the

Arabic word
;
also
an
and
this brings us
back again
to the opinion
the original
we have advanced above, that home of the conquering Egyptians

for in Arabia.
must be sought
Thus,
it
was the companions of Horus that

to
brought
civilisation
the land of
Egypt
when they conquered the indigenous African race that peopled it. This fact, which we
gather from the oldest monuments,
is
con-
firmed either by legends or by the reports of

the
Greek
historians.
According to several
the
last
chronologies
Horus
is
of the gods
who
ruled over
Egypt
as the predecessors of
20

;
the historical kings

inscriptions the "
and
in the hieroglyphic
companions or followers of
epoch
Horus"
Manes
represent the legendary
the
in
period called by the Greeks the epoch of the
demi-gods, -
though, however, they
were mortals.
Everything that transpired
the time of the ''followers of
Horus"
repre-
sented to the ancient Egyptians events of such
hoary antiquity that
it
could not be measured.
design, found in a brick wall, which

at the
was
drawn
time of the companions of Horus,

Thus, at the
goes back to prehistoric times.
very beginning, on the threshold of history,
we
find
Horus and
his
companions, a clan, a
as
tribe
who had
the falcon
;
their
is
sacred
animal or their god
every king
himself a
Horus, and in the oldest inscriptions that we

possess, the
king
is
not
designated by
is
his
prenomen, or personal name, he

with
this
Horus
or that qualification or description

is
added.
This
in
the important fact which
we
in
must bear
mind, namely, that the king
is
very deed the double of the sacred bird of the
THE KING A DIVINE BEING

tribe, and,
inff his
21
moreover, that by thus estabhshis
divine nature he
invested with an
authority from which

If
no one could escape.
we remember,
title
too, that all the sovereigns
of Egypt, even the
Roman emperors,
we must
since
reckoned
the Horus
among
those bestowed upon

recognise
them
that
at
their
accession,
we
are here face to face with a tradition

vitality,
it
of
extraordinary
lasted
all
more than four thousand
years.
In
ages
the idea of royalty, and consequently of power
and authority, was associated with the name

of
Horus
"to
sit
upon the throne of Horus

all
"
was to enter into possession of

which royalty conferred
;
the rights
and the king became,
ipso facto, a divine being.
In the epoch of the Macedonian kings the

conquest
of
Egypt by Horus formed the
subject of a long narrative, engraved on one
of the walls of the temple of Edfou.

time,
By
that
owing to the modifications which had

falcon
taken place in the religion and the mythology,
Horus was no longer merely the
whom
22

he had become the local
the conquering tribe had followed in the dim
and distant
past,
in
god of Edfou,
whose honour a magnificent
temple was erected, served by a large college

of priests, and the great object was to glorify
the god
of the locality.
Accordingly, the
legend recounted
reigned
how his father, Ra Harmachis, in Nubia, and how in the three hundred
his reign
and sixty-third year of

in a ship, followed
he embarked
by
soldiers
without number,
in order to
make
a descent on Egypt, at that
time
in the possession
of Set and his com-
panions.
Starting from Edfou, and coming
down
stream, his son Horus fought numerous
battles,
the various
episodes
of
which
are
enshrined in the names of the places where
he reported his victories.
Though
certainly
we must not look for history in this we may nevertheless conclude from
even
in the
legend,
it
that
time of the Ptolemies the belief
was
still
held that
Egypt had been conquered

tliey
by the followers of Horus, and that

set
had
out from
Nubia, where they had been
MENA THE
long settled.
FIRST KING
this
23
For us
first
sojourn in Xubia
means but the
stage in a migration which
originated in Arabia.
The
as the
hieroglyphic
lists
of the kings as well
Greek
first
historians inform us that
Menes
was the
this
king.
The
latter often refer to

district in
king as coming from This, a
JVIiddle
Egypt,
in the
near neighbourhood of
called
his
what was afterwards

the time of
is
Abydos.
Hence
Menes and
immediate successors
styled the Thinite epoch.
He
went down
stream and founded Memphis, on the borders

of the Delta.
JNIention
is
made
of wars
waged
by him outside of Egypt, of works undertaken

for
damming
making
this
the Nile, and of progress of

for civilisation.
all
sorts
Diodorus constory
:
tributes
extraordinary
"
Menes
instructed his people to fear the gods, and

to
offer
sacrifices
to
them
he also taught
them how
stuffs
to use tables and beds and costly
in
word, he
living.
introduced
luxurious
and sumptuous
after,
And some
generations
father of
when King Tnephactus, the
24
Bocchoris the Wise, in an expedition against

the Arabs, was compelled, in consequence of
the
failure
of
supplies
in
desolate
for a
and
destitute country, to put
up with,
whole
day, the coarsest and most wretched fare, he
found
it
perfectly dehghtful,
and cursed the
luxury of his predecessor, and gave vent to

imprecations on the king
who had
first
set
the example of such magnificence.
Moreover, he applied himself so thoroughly to make an entire change in his food, drink, and bed, that
he
commanded
the priests
to
inscribe
his
imprecations in the sacred books of the temple

of Jupiter at Thebes.
to be the reason
And
this
seems to
me
why
the glory and the honour

the latest
paid to
times."
Menes
In
did not endure to
this,
however, Diodorus was mis-
taken, for the cult of JNIenes lasted for a very
long time.
Menes
There
the
is
assuredly the
first
sovereign
whom
the Egyptians regarded as

is
king
of Egypt.
no doubt whatever on
this point, as
lists
preserved to us are quite distinct.
MENA A FOREIGNER
I
25
am
accordingly unable to accept theories

as to
which have been recently put forward

pre-Menite or pre-dynastic kings.
find a king like
list
AAHien
we
Rameses
II.
drawing up a
of sovereigns
who had
reigned before him,

in order to
and going back to the beginning
show what a numerous and glorious
line of
monarchs had preceded him upon the throne,
we may be
first,
sure that he
would begin with the

the annalists of his
or with
him
whom
time accepted as the
first.
Had
there been
other kings before Menes, Rameses would not
have
failed to
have named them.
Now Mena or JNIenes belongs to the foreigners

or that tribe of
Horus who subjugated the
indigenous race and ended by amalgamating
with them so as to form one people, just as

it
happened with the Normans and the Saxons

Great Britain.
in
Though
it
JNIenes
is
said to
have founded Memphis,
was, however, in
capital of
Abydos,
the
first
in
Middle Egypt, that the
kings remained,
the
present,
where have been

the majority of
found,
up to
26

tombs,
belonging
the monuments, especially those which have
been
called
the
to
this
remote age.
careful study of the objects discovered
in these
tombs
which,
for
my
part, I
must
is,
continue to
call
funerary chapels, that

set apart for
the
portion of the
tomb
worship and
not the place where the deceased was buried
will
show that even then Egyptian
civilisa-
tion was of a very advanced order.
It does
not differ
existed
much from that which afterwards when the contemporaries of the

tombs
of
excite
INlemphite kings had those magnificent
excavated which
travellers.
the
admiration
From
is
the very beginning hieroin
glyphic script
use
it
is
doubtless less
developed than
just the
it
was
later,
but the signs are

value.
same and have the same

all
We
can read almost
the inscriptions impressed

jars, or
on the clay stoppers of the
graven on
the ivory plaques, or even on the palettes or
maces.
times,
And
is
the inscription, just as in later the
often
accompaniment
of
THE KA AND THE FAN

sculptured
or
27
it
is
painted scene, of which
the explanation.
These scenes and inscriptions already supply

us with a correct idea of the degree of
tion
civilisa;
attained
by these old Pharaohs

;
they
built with brick, but also with stone
and the
ceremonies connected with

a building are already seen,
state.
tlie
if
foundation of
in a
is
rudimentary
the marking
If the matter in
hand
out of a temple boundary, the king takes a
hoe or mattock and traces
its
lines
on the
ground, while someone pours sand or gravel

into the furrow
which he has made,

as
in order
to
define the impression, just
was done,
several
thousand
at
years later,
by a
Roman
re-
Emperor
Denderah.
Behind the king are

fans
the fan-bearers.
The
must not be
garded simply as means of supplying fresh
and cool
air to
the king
they have chiefly a
symbolical signification, as representing a vital
element of
his
personality
the
emblem of
what
At/,
is
called the shade or the double
the_
of which any
person could have several,
28

Wanting
and which was an indispensable element of

personality.
this double, the
person
was annihilated.
protecting genius
Thus the double became the
who always accompanied
the king, and without

a complete being.
this double,
is
whom
he would not be
The
and
fan, the
emblem of
it is
thus a talisman to preserve the

war,
as
king,
even
in
such
seen
behind his chariot when he goes into
battle.
We thus
see that this collection of symboli-
cal or mystical ideas
which we
find
running
throughout the whole of Egyptian antiquity

already existed at the period of the Tliinite
kings.
it.
There
are, besides,
other examples of
lêfore the
king are borne in procession
four standards, two of which are crowned with

falcons, a third with a jackal, or rather a dog,
and the fourth with an emblem which became

the representation of the god Khons.
standards, as
at
These
M. Loret
has brought out, were

divinities,
one time hieroglyphic names of

tribes,
emblems of
and afterwards became the
designations of the
nomes
or provinces which
A HIERARCHY
composed
Egypt.
29
AVe come across
these
standards in religious ceremonies or in festivals
through the whole course of Egyptian

quity.
anti-
the
among the first descendants of Horus tribes we can discern the first
Thus,
instances of the outward manifestations of the

cult,
and of
all
that rather fantastic religious
pomp which
afterwards
assumed
such
an
extraordinary development.
As we have
already mentioned, there was

administrative hierarchy of
at this period an
priests of different orders
and functions, and
also a division of the soil, or

isation, for
economic organlands
we
find
certain
named
as
properties
belonging to funerary chapels or
tombs.
Storehouses receive the rents in kind

lands, or the offerings
if
the produce of these

that were brought.
And
we
art,
turn to the
department of industry or
we
discover
amongst the contemporaries of the Thinites

great facility in working such hard
as rock crystal.
its
material
Sculpture has already
made
appearance, for
we
possess
two
or three
30

Some fragments
statues which can be referred to that remote time.
of articles of furniture
as ivory feet
which have been preserved, such
of tables and chairs, might be attributed to
the best epoch of Egyptian
art.
The weapons
of the king are the same as they were later

his
maces are adorned with the same sculpsovereign's head-
tured scenes, in which the

dress
is
now
the diadem of the north,

south, just
as
now
or a
that
of the
Rameses
Psammetichus might be crowned.

of
On
some
his
;
the
schist
palettes
the
a
king
clubs
enemies,
others he
or
is
celebrates
great festival
on
seen following the chase
of the
desert animals.
times,
as
in
I
These palettes were somethat of the king

lu.ve,
the case of
whose name
read as Boethos, ohjets de
and were not the work of a young or a rude

people.
see there
Without
a doubt the civilisation
we
came
in
with the foreign conquering
element
but what the conquerors did find
among
the indigenous Africans was the native
earthenware or pottery, together with great

MENA^S
facility in
NAME NOT YET FOUND

certain
articles
31
making
in
stone,
such as vases, even of large dimensions, and

flint
implements.
But
as to
in
what
should
call
the intellectual factor

rises
civilisation
anything that
above mere manual labour,
especially anything relating to a religious cult
of
race
this
we can
find
no trace among the native
who peopled
the cemeteries styled pre-
historic.
Here, then, we come face to face with a

question which always confronts us in Egyptian
studies.
We
imagined we had disposed of

it,
it
and found an answer to

pushed the
but we had only

It is per-
difficulty further back.
fectly clear that

civilisation did
the evidences of Egyptian

first
not appear for the
time
at the epoch of the Pyramids, as
was believed
ten years ago
for
we have
since learned that
contemporaries of Menes, or his immediate

successors,
if
not Menes himself
whose
arrived
name
at
we have not
yet indisputably found on any
contemporary monument
had
degree of culture very similar to that to which
32

have merely pushed the starting-point
the kings of the historic epochs had attained.
We
several centuries back, or, to adopt
Egyptian
to the
chronological terms, from the fourth

first
dynasty.
believe,
But
if this
first
dynasty came,
;
as
we
from a foreign country from Arabia,

it
and
if,
after setting out
crossed the
Red Sea
for
to reach the Nile and establish itself

at
good
the head of the valley of the

if
it
Great River, we must ask

with
it
also carried
if so,
this civilisation
it
from Arabia, and
how comes
of
it
that
we can
discover no traces
on the way at any stage of the journey?

does
it
How
we
happen that
it
it
is
only in Egypt
so
first
find
with
?
its
characteristics
definitely
marked
If
shall
we study
the question more closely
we
not be slow to recognise that Egyptian

all its
culture in
features has been determined
by
the
nature
of
the
country
where
it
it
developed,
and consequently that
could
hardly have been born outside of the Nile

valley.
The
civilisation
is
essentially agricul-
THE NILE
tural in
its
33
like the majority
origins
it arises,
of civilisations, from the tilling of the ground,

lêt us dwell, then, for a little
on the
interest-
ing feature of the nature of the country, so

different
from what we find elsewhere

First of
all,
in the
is
world.
the whole country
the
creation, or, as
Herodotus
says, the gift of the
Great River.
The
Nile,
we know,
has a level
It
which varies almost every day.
has no
normal depth which

longed period
:
it
maintains for any pro-
it
rises
and
it
falls
is
unceasingly.
;
At
the
summer
rise,
solstice
lowest
it
then
begins to
a hundred
and
;
this
goes on for almost
days
then
some days
after,
it
begins to
fall
again for eight months.

fields
As
the
waters
fall
and the
begin to get un-
covered,
forth
the inhabitants of the country go

;
and sow
after
which the harvest comes
in the spring
in
months.
We
the
understand how,
these
circumstances,
Egyptians
had
only three seasons.

the
tropical
They had
the
various years,
solar year
year,
vague
sixty-five
of
three
hundred
and
days,
and,
34
as

Brugsch
shows
with
some
in
reason,
practice,
a lunar year.
But what was,
bound
to be the true calendar of the rural
population, was the

in
movement
falhng
of the of
Nile,
the
rising
and
phases
the
inundation.
The Egyptian was not slow^ to notice the Nile mud, sun-dried, was an easy
ally in so
that
sub-
stance to work, and also very durable, especi-
dry a climate.
No
great effort of
the imagination was needed to hit on brick-
making
it
mud
out,
was only a matter of cutting the there was no need to bake it.
Egyptian bricks have always been, and are to

this day,
crude or sun-dried bricks
the burned
or baked brick
was imported into Egypt by

action of
is
the Romans.
in countries
in the clay.
The
fire
is
necessary
where there
no binding matter
first
Egyptian building was at

;
of
brick and
[|
wood
it
was only
later that stone
was used, and then only

especially for temples.
if at
for fine
buildings,
It does
not appear as
any epoch any large use of stone was made
BRICK AND STONE BUILDING

for dwelling-houses, or
35
even for palaces.

their
monarchs of the East loved to erect
The own
habitations, each for himself; they did not feel
bound
either to inhabit the houses of their
fathers, or to
transmit to their descendants
those which they themselves had reared, and

so these edifices
had to be erected quickly.
In the tombs of the Thinite epoch

trace the transition
this respect
we can
In
from brick to
stone.
Egypt was
singularly favoured, as
building materials are plentiful and of splendid
quahty.
It
was sandstone that was

neighbourhood
first
used,
easy to work, and to be had in

at
all
Silsilis
Upper Egypt,
;
and
its
and of
it
the great buildings at Thebes were con-
structed.
soft
Then came
a fine white limestone,
enough to work, and capable of taking

for
on colour, and excellently adapted

sculpture of hieroglyphics.
granite were also
the
Various kinds of
:
employed
quarries
;
the black, which
came from the

granite of
lying between the
Nile and the lied Sea
and the famous red

stone, in fre-
Aswan, that superb
36
queiit

use
in
all
periods,
and
capable
of
receiving a very fine polish and even of being
worked with great
delicacy.
Nothing was
easier than the transition
from brick to such
excellent materials, lying ready to the hands
of the inhabitants.
We can thus easily underbecame

so,
stand
how
the Egyptians
builders,
and
were not slow to become
from the time

it
they settled in the Nile valley, lying as
does between two mountain ramparts which

furnished
them with
all
is
the stones they needed.
Edifice construction
civilisation
certainly the branch of
which they cultivated the most.

they have surpassed
;
In
all
it
this respect, indeed,
other nations of antiquity
and
it
was on
also they set the highest store themselves.
When
his
a king wished to appraise himself, he

in
might speak
vague terms of
his conquests,
power, and of his having extended the

his
bounds of
empire to the beginning of the
world at the south or to the marshes of the

north
;
but
all
these are
but conventional
sovereign
after
expressions
repeated
by
ANIMALS
sovereign.
precise
37
He
becomes, however,
much more
In anyit is
when he speaks
of his buildings, which
are to endure as long as the heavens.
thing pertaining to Egyptian architecture
impossible to detect a single trace of foreign

influence
:
it
is
an art wholly native to the
country,
special
and
determined
of the
entirely
by
the
it
conditions
birth.
land in which
had
its
We
have mentioned
above
that
in
the
earliest representations
domestic animals do
animals of
not appear, but only

the desert.
Latterly,
wîld animals,
much
attention has been
given by naturalists to the study of

fied
mummi-
animals
and they have propounded the
question whether these animals, particularly
sheep and cattle, were really of African origin,

or
were imported from Asia.

arrived
at
The
experts
have
It
no
unanimous conclusion.
probable that several
would seem quite

of
varieties
domestic
animals
;
came
from
abroad, probably from Asia

are really
but that others

ftiuna,
members of the African
and
38

must have been domestihad brought
Asia,
it
that in Africa they

cated.
If the conquering Horites
the domestic animals with
them from
if
would have been surprising

also
they had not

is
brought the horse, which

:
never seen
on the ancient sculptures
he appears only
after the great Asiatic invasion of the
Hyksos,
who probably came from Mesopotamia. Of the sacred animals, all of which
indigenous,
it
is
are
curious to find that one of
the most venerated has vanished from the
fauna of Egypt, namely, the white

bird of the
ibis,
the
god Thoth.
The same
fate has
overtaken a plant which the Egyptians used

in great quantities, the papyrus,
which
it
it
is still is
found
in
the
Upper
Nile,
though
no
longer seen in
Egypt
itself
it
As
it
grows
as
wild on the Upper Nile,

if
would appear
the
the Egyptians had brought
with them
in
first
from that region, not

instance for
indeed
making
paper.
For the papyrus

the lower part of
;
can be put to
the stem
is
many
uses
of a fleshy nature, and edible
THE PAPYRUS: VINE CULTURE

while the long and flexible stalks
for basket-work,
39
may
be used
and even
for
making small
they would
during their
Arabia.
is
boats.
We can understand why the Egyptians

;
took with them so useful a plant
have learned to
know and
utilise it
stay in the South, on their
way from
During the Thinite epoch mention
already
did
made
the
Asia,
of the vine and of wine.

it
?
Whence
of
Egyptians bring
for
Apparently from
we know
the
names
several
in the
esteemed vintages, offered to the gods

temples,
and these vintages
all
came from
the Delta.
We
must, then, allow that the
vine was brought into the country during a

later
immigration than that of the Horites,

it
and that
If
came from Asia by the Delta.

pass from agriculture to industry,
in the oldest period the use of
is
now we
we And even
ivory,
which of course
an African product.
As
for the precious stones, such as
amethyst
in
and carnelian, they were certainly obtained

the country
itself
:
in fact, in the
tombs of the
Old Empire,
so rich
and
instructive,
we
find
40

is
nothing that
that
not entirely indigenous, and
we may not regard as the normal development of a culture which, though still rudimentime a sudden expansion and growth from
tary at the Thinite epoch, received at a later
some cause which we cannot yet
explain.
But the element which ought to exhibit

the clearest traces of foreign influence
script or
is
the
mode
of writing.
Now,
most
seen,
it is
precisely in this region

characteristics
it
we have that we find

as
Egyptian
Evidently
pronounced.
wâs
with picture-writing a start
was made.
Egyptian
objects
All the signs that
we meet with
of the
from the most remote times are exclusively

:
they are
representations
life.
of
everyday
The
Egyptians
sculptured
them
just as they
saw them, often
indeed with a childish and awkward hand,
but at the same time in a way that makes

impossible for us to discern in their
it
work a
reminiscence of anything they had seen elsewhere.

It follows, then,
from
this analysis that

its
the Egyptian civilisation, as a whole, had
To face page 41.
[I'hotv by Tranalator.
Thothmes
III.
worshipping Ptih, the Patron of Blacksmiths, Tem])le of Ptah, Karnak.
WRITING: METAL-WORKING
birth in the Nile valley,
41
from the time that the
Horites settled below the First Cataract.
There
isation
is,
however, one feature of this
civil-
which was undoubtedly brought
in
by
the invaders, and which must have

without,
come from
of
metals.
mean
the
working
Egypt
allow
is
a country too poor in
minerals to
its
inhabitants to have formed the idea
of using, and consequently of working, metals.
The Ptolemaic legend

by Horus,
tells
to which
have already
alluded as a narrative of the conquest of

us that
Egypt
some of
There
his
companions
were blacksmiths,
whom
he settled in different
is
parts of the country.
here perhaps
Maspero concludes, of an Egypt who had into irruption of tribes These amonpfst them a caste of blacksmiths.
an echo, as
M.
blacksmiths could, as circumstances required,
work other things

chiefly
besides metal, but
what they
made was weapons, and
this fact agrees
with the warhke character of Horus, the god
whose companions
or escort these
in
men
is
were.
people
skilled
metals
certainly
42

only
flint
superior to a primitive race using
implements, even though the latter
may have
attained a certain facility in arts familiar to
them,
such
as
pottery-making or even the
fabrication of stone vases.
The Horites would

they
seem to have been more capable of develop-
ment than the

better
native
Africans
knew
how
to avail themselves of the resources
which the country afforded.

well understand that the
in metals exercises his
Yet we can
can work
man who
xV
power only to fashion

requires.
is
some instrument he
proverb has
invention
of
all
;
familiar
it
that necessity
the mother of
and necessity
JNIan
his
also lies at the root
civilisation.
was led to fashion

hand
seemed
to
instruments
because
demand
in his
assistance, a
something to help him

first
work, which at the
was wholly
given up to getting the means of livelihood.
We
may
confidently assert that the working

its first
of metals had for
motive
this assistance
is
in the cultivation of the soil,
which
another
way
of saying that
in
order of time agri-
THE HORITES
culture comes
first.
43
There
is,
then, nothing
surprising in the fact that
when the Horites

its
arrived in the Nile valley, so splendid in

fertility,
they should at once set to work to

all
profit
by
the wealth offered
them by the
country in which they had

well
settled.
They very
knew how
from
to assimilate
what they found

were, however,
in the native population,

far
who
being
savages.
And
from
the
mixture of these two elements emerged the
Egypt
that
we know
and while we admire
her brilliant qualities, they cannot, however,
make
tions
us blind to certain defects or imperfec-
which surprise
these
us.
We
are accustomed
to
call
imperfections
to interpret
conventions.
think
we ought
they
them
quite other-
wise
spring
from
what was always
lacking in the Egyptians
the idea of progress,

efforts
the necessity of doing better, and consequently

of
leaving
in
their
childish
falls
behind.
:
Nothing
Egypt ever
into desuetude
once a thing was found to answer a certain

end,
what was the good of looking
for
anything
44

why
not keep
?
better?
it
to serve the
same
purpose again
The
conquerors, as
we have
seen,
were the
followers of the
god Horus, and
this leads us
to speak of
either
what we know of the
religion,
of the Thinite epoch,
or of the
pre-
ceding one.
In the representations which the
pottery has preserved for us of the condition

of the prehistoric population, the only thing
that suggest itself to our minds as a religious
element
at
all
is
the ensigns or standards
surmounting one of the towers or huts which

guard
the
enclosures
where
this
primitive
people dwelt.
These standards consist of a

is
kind of perch or pole, at the top of which

placed the distinctive sign of the tribe.
sign
is
This
not always recognisable, but sometimes

distinguish a plant, or an animal such
It
we can
as
an elephant, or an animal with horns.
would seem that these ensigns were of the

nature
element,
of
a
rallying
point,
a
in
constituti^'e
or, to
use a word
much
vogue nowit
adays, the totem of the tribe.
Was
already
THE TOTEM OF THE TRIBE

a divinity
for a
?
45
Did the people take the totem
god
Was
it
the object of a cult, howconceive

it
ever elementary
we may
to h-dxe
been
To
case
these questions
we cannot
yet give
an answer.
The
is
quite different
with the com-
panions of Horus, or the conquering foreigners,
whom
have styled by the name of Horites.

falcon
is
Horus the
really their god, a deity in
very truth to
whom
a cult
was paid of which

one
we know
certain
little,
but of which we can make out
ceremonies.
There
is
feature,
however, which reminds us of the primitive

state of things
:
the falcon, like other animals,

If
often appears on a standard.

falcon
is
Horus the
there are
goddesses,
the outstanding god of these con-
querors, he
does not reign alone
others
besides,
both
gods
and
especially Set or Sit, a
quadruped which we
cannot yet exactly identify.

in
Some would
;
see
him the
he
is
okapi, or
greyhound
at
any
rate,
the god of another clan, also of
foreign
origin,
with
whom
the
Horites are
46

at
sometimes
Set
war and sometimes
at
peace.
may have
so
reigned over a part
of the
to
country which the Horites found

conquer,
difficult
it difficult
indeed that one of the
kings
made an
Set.
addition to his name, indicating
that he had joined together the
two gods,
Horus and
There are
also goddesses, re-
presented by a vulture, by serpents, or by an
emblem
like that of Neith,
which
is
composed
Of these deities the one we most commonly meet with is Apouatou, or Oupouatou, literally, "he who opens the ways." " To open the ways " means
of a shield and two arrows.
in
Egyptian to
give access
to
unexplored
regions, to enable one to enter an
unknown
frequent
place
title,
truly a great achievement, a glorious
of which the sovereigns
made
boast.
as
Apouatou
is
a jackal, or rather a dog,
Loret has just pointed out, mounted on a
perch or standard
a pole
with a cross-bar or
crutch at the top.

seeing this divinity
The kings were fond of borne before them when
they went to war, as their visible leader and
ANTHROPOMORPHISM OF THE GODS

guide, to point
47
out the
way
for
them and
obstacle.
in the
enable
I
them
is
to
overcome
every
This deity
\
the great god of

;
Abydos
Thinite epoch
\
at a later date he will
take
the
It in
name
is
of Osiris.
all
to
these gods,
whom we
shall find
after-
subsequent ages, that worship will

in
wards be given,
an elaborate
cult,
abound-
ing in ceremonies and holding a large place in
the
life
of the nation
but by that date the
deities
themselves will have somewhat changed
in
character.
While
still
preserving some
traces of their animal appearance, they will
have assumed a
human
form,
if
not entirely,
at least for the greater part of their being or
shape.
falcon's
Horus
head
;
will
become
will
man, but with a

a
Neith
become
woman,
attri-
with certain ornaments and distinctive

butes
;
her
emblem
will be
of former times, the shield
and arrows,
name.
used only for writing her
In the Thinite epoch, however, the an-
thropomorphism of the gods scarcely appears

it
shows
itself
only towards the close of the
48

before
that,
period;
the
gods
are
still
either
animals or emblems, as they are

seen on their standards.
arises to
often
And
here a question
give a precise
serves
?
which
has
it
is
difficult to
answer
the
animal
that
as
or,
standard for the tribe become the god

the other hand,
is
on
it
the god that has become
the rallying point the

is
Hag of the
tribe
I
It
not without some hesitation that
venture
an answer.
seems to
The second of these alternatives me to be the more probable one. 1
believe that the animal, whether falcon, jackal,
or snake, appealed forcibly to the imagination
of
these
uncultured races, because, to the
primitive man, there was something intensely mysterious about its existence as he saw the
creature reproducing itself unceasingly, in a
perpetual renewal of
its
kind.
;
Besides,
an
animal shows no hesitation

its
it
goes straight to
it
is
mark,
to
how
knows exactly what procure it. The animal

it
wants and
guided by
an unerring instinct which, we can quite understand,
would be interpreted
as a supernatural
EGYPT AND BABYLON

thing,
49
a something transcending
humanity,
and exciting a rehgious dread which induced
men
to look on animals as gods.
One
trihe
would thus be distinguished from another by

the god to
which
it
rendered worship
the
devotees of the falcon would be a clan apart
from the devotees of the

its
ibis
each would have
special
god
to
for its standard,

all
all this is
fact
it
common
but
I
ages.
1 believe,
then, that
was the god that became the
flag of the
is
tribe,
repeat that this opinion
only a
conjecture on
my
part.
Before leaving this

should like to touch
ancient
civilisation
on a question which
has been the subject of lively discussion in

recent years.
Did
this
Egyptian
civilisation,
which
we have shown came

its
partly
?
from
without, take
rise
in
Babylon
Was
lower
Mesopotamia
the
mother
country
whence issued the culture found on the banks

of the Nile
?
This idea has been recently

in
upheld in
Germany by Hommel,
France by
it
de Morgan, to the latter of
whom
was sug-
50

Egypt extendexist
gested by his excavations in

ing over several years.
That analogies
is
between the two
civilisations
incontestable,
its
but the development of each has followed
own
that
course,
and along such
different
paths
is
we can
scarcely suppose that the one
directly
derived
from the
other.
cannot
believe that
Egypt was Babylon's daughter. On the other hand, we may admit that both
came from the same
from
it
region, namely, Arabia

it
they diverged, and
is
this
common
point of departure that explains the analogies

that exist between them.
To sum up
jugated and
an African population sub-
civilised
by Asiatics who came
from Arabia, crossed the Red Sea, invaded the country at the south, and who were not slow
to
mix with the conquered

the
race,
this
of
is,
in
short,
sum and
substance
recent
researches concerning the nature and origin
of the Egyptians.
II
Before entering on
the study of the rehgious
beUefs of the old Egyptians, let us cast a rapid
glance at their modes of burial
because then
we
in
shall
be able to judge, from the manner
which they treated their dead, what their

life
ideas were concerning the
to come.
It
is
evident that,
if
their
motive was the preserva-
tion of the dead
body from destruction, they
must have believed that the existence of the body was a necessary condition of the life
beyond the grave
;
or perhaps that the preser-
vation of the body assured to the
survivors
some
state of happiness or security.
In con-
nection with this
we
shall
be able to show
that the Egyptians in historic times had very
decided ideas which induced them to

51
mummify
52
their

dead
practice to which they attached
vast importance, and which

in their
was
so firmly fixed
wêll
minds that the custom continued

era,
on into the Christian
thereby provoking
the severe strictures of certain fathers of the
Church.
The
mummy
if it
became the hallowed
expression for the dead in the land of Egypt,
and
it
seems as
had never been otherwise.
Well, great was the astonishment of the

first
explorers
when they found
that, at the
oldest period
call it prehistoric, or primitive,
what you
case.
will
this
was by no means the

;
Quite the contrary
the methods of
burial appeared to answer to quite a different
idea from that which prevailed later.
In the
cemeteries of the indigenous people
who had
been subjugated by the victorious foreigners,
we
find small
tombs, rectangular or oval in
shape, the corpse lying entire, without a trace
of mummification, with
the knees bent up
against the chest, and the hands clasping the
knees or held before the mouth.
Sometimes
schist,
one of the hands holds a plaque of
PRLAIITIVE
BURIAL
5S
lozenge-shaped, or a rude representation of

a
fish,
bird, or
''
an animal.
This position
if it
has
in
been called
the
attitude
best
embryonic," as
preparatory
to
were
second
birth
the
position
for
body about
to be born into a
new
life.
The
so-called
embiyonic posture in
burial.
But
is
it
appears to
me
that this explanation
trifle
too learned for the people in quesis
tion.
There
another and a simpler one,
supplied to us by Herodotus, the father of

history.
He
says
(iv.
190), speaking of the
Nasamonians,
an
African
people
'*
:
They
bury their dead

care at the
in a sitting posture, taking
moment when
the
man
expires
54

him
sitting,
to place lying
and not to
let
him
die
of
''
down on his back." When ice speak men sitting " we naturally think of them
on chairs or some other
sit
as sitting
seat.
But
in
the East people
on
their heels, with their
knees up to their breast, and their hands as

hig-h
as the face.
Take
Bedouin or even
a fellah,
he
;
never dreams of sitting in any

chairs
other
way
do not form part of the
furniture of the establishment of an inhabitant
of the desert.
Turn over on
his side a
man
seated in this fashion, and you have an exact
counterpart of the position of the dead in the

primitive cemeteries.
Herodotus
also helps us to discover, in the
above passage, the meaning we must attach

to this
custom.
is
This sitting or crouching

life
;
posture
that
the posture of everyday
it is
which the
his
hunter
assumes
when he
meal.
returns to
labours,
hut or
tent, to rest after his
or
when he
eats
his
frugal
Now
place beside the dead
man
as
is
almost
always the case in these tombs
some jars or
DISMEMBERMENT OF THE BODY

vessels containing,
it
55
may
will
be, grain or otiier
food,
and the tomb
become the picture

him.
of the hut where he sat or crouched with his

primitive furniture around
is
The whole
of the
life
a rudimentary representation
which he hoped to continue

life
after death
quite similar to
that which he had left
behind.
In the case before us, at
least, it
seems to
for
me am
this
that
we can very
governed
I
well account
this
the
I
idea which
kind of burial.
not sure that
can say as
much
regarding
at
in
another kind which
we
often
meet with
burials
remote
epoch,
namely, the
which dismemberment of the body was performed, either
immediately after death, or

In certain cases
previous to a secondary burial.
the body was cut in pieces immediately after

death, and in others the
body was
first
buried
cor-
and,
when the
flesh
had decomposed by
ruption, the bones were collected and laid in
a tomb.
Sometimes the attempt was made
to give the skeleton the embryonic position;
56

bones were thrown together
confused heap, whether complete or
at other times, the
into a
not, or
whether they belonged to the same
body or were a mixture of bones belonging

to different
corpses.
in
This was the case in

the
many
instances
Negadah cemetery,
inclined
excavated by Petrie,
who was even
at first to see in these burials the
remains of
cannibal feasts.
these
last
I believe that Petrie has in
years
abandoned
this
hypothesis.
The custom of secondary burial is met with among other peoples besides the Egyptians,
and
idea
it
is
rather difficult to
lies
account for the

dis-
which
at
the
root either of
memberment
would
be
remained.
or
of temporary burial which
final
when
explains
nothing
but
bones
Wiedemann
the world
dismemberment by
a kind of
the wish to compel the ka or double to leave
the double being
image
of an individual, the presence of which was

a necessary condition of existence, and which
survived after death.
With
this
particular
WIEDEMANxVS THEORY
object in view, the deceased
57
was decapitated
and not only was the person himself subjected

to this treatment, but even the articles laid
beside
etc.,
him
in
the
tomb vases, ornaments,
which were placed beside the body

It
is
were
shattered and broken.

this
is
undeniable that
an Egyptian idea of which we find

:
frequent examples in later epochs
they even
went
so far as to break an ostracon, or a slice
of stone, bearing an inscription, in order that
the latter, being thus put to death, should

follow the deceased into the next world.
But
does not this explanation somewhat transcend

the intellectual
practised
plane
of
?
the
peoples
who
Jxa
dismemberment
Did
they, at that
early stage, even possess the idea of the
or double, which
lies
at the root of the later

life
Egyptian conception of the
beyond the
it
is
tomb
We
to
cannot
say
meantime
this
difficult
interpret
otherwise
it
strange
custom, unless
we
see in
a kind of sacrifice
made
to the gods
beyond the grave.
We
can more easily understand the case of
58

It
secondary burial.
seems to
me
to
have
sprung from the desire to disencumber the
body of
all
quickly perishing elements, and
to preserve only
what endures,
especially
if
the object was to reconstruct the skeleton in

a second tomb, and place
it
in
the so-called
embryonic
position.
as
This would satisfy the
same sentiment
mummification
the
wish,
namely, that the deceased should

he was to continue
exist,
because
his life elsew^here.
What happened
the seat
JNIemphis
towards the close of the
Thinite epoch to cause the transference of

of the royal
?
power from This to

from Asia
all
?
Was it a fresh invasion

;
We
are
unable to say
but at
events,
apart from the extraordinary development of

civilisation
which distinguishes
the
definite
this epoch,
we
and
now
of a
to
all
witness
introduction
establishment, in everything relating to burial,
method and system completely opposed

the primitive customs.
Dismemberment
to
now
gives place to
;
embalmment,
mummifi-
cation
there
is
an intense and all-absorbing
A NEW DEPARTURE: MUMMIFICATION

thought how best to preserve the body
59
intact,
and to shield
which
protect
it
it
from
all
possible violation to
all
might be exposed, and above

it
to
from corruption and decay.

to
This
new departure must not be taken

that
all
mean
had
only
remembrance of the old

vanished
;
practices
completely
but
they
were
recalled in order to be detested,

hibit the horror felt at everything
and to exresembling
dismemberment.
In a book with which
we
shall
deal later
we
see protest after protest unceasingly
made
against
such a prospect, and anything that
might bring disaster to the body, and especially

against corruption, the most active agent in
dismemberment,
against
whose
destructive
power they
precautions.
felt
they could not take too

its
many
Several of
chapters promise
the deceased that his head will not be taken
away from him, nor any other part of

body.
in
his
In chapter
cliv.
the old recensions,^
a very rare with the
chapter
'
title,
The
in
Chapter of not letting the Body decay
60

Netherworld," the description
''
the
of what
the great French orator called

able something" of dread
is
the indescrib-
painted in the
of cor-
most
realistic
colours.
The prospect
ruption and decay was the most horrible an
Egyptian could conceive, and the chapter ends

with these words
I
:
" I
am,
am,
I
I live, I live,
grow,
grow, and when
shall
awake
in
peace,
I
I shall
not be destroyed in
shall
be free of pestilence,
my bandages. my eye will not

IMy
will
be corrupted,
ear will not
my
skin will not disappear.
be deaf,
my
head
not be
taken away from

not be torn out,
my neck, my tongue will my hair will not be cut off,

not be shaven
off.
my
is
eyebrows
will shall
No
body
grievous
firm,
harm
it
come upon me,
my
shall
not be destroyed.
It shall
not perish in this earth for ever."
Thus the
deceased will not suffer any dismemberment

at
all,
and
it is
for this that
he was embalmed
and mummified.
Now, what caused the Egyptians
to cling
so tenaciously to the idea of the preservation
REVOLT AGAINST DISMEMBERMENT

of the body was their behef that
its
(U
destruction
involved
the
;
destruction
of the immaterial
element
it
meant the annihilation of the

namely, the
individual,
and, in particular, of one of the
essential elements of personality,
double that subsisted in the
life
beyond the
person-
tomb.
ality
For
to the Egyptians
human
was not a unity, but a composition of

elements
;
diverse
first
the body,
then the
double, a second
copy of the body, not so
dense in substance as the material body
re-
kind of projection of the individual and
producing
him
feature
for
feature,
it,
his
" twin," as Nestor I'Hote called
or "
com-
panion
"
according to Champollion.
life
During
the earthly
the support of the double was the
the body itself;

ever,
embalmed body, how-
ceased to exist, and the double,
now
its
separated
from
the
body, had
to find
support in statues or portraits, which were

true representations of the deceased, placed in
the tombs.
During
life,
besides, the double,

it,
or the ka as the Egyptians called
was so
62
closely

identified
with
"
the
body
that
the
phrase " to thy ka

*'to thyself."
became the equivalent of

had the power of going
After death, the ka withdrew

it
into the tomb, but

in
and
out.
It
became the object of worship

was
either
by the family of the deceased or by

Jxci.
priests specially set apart for the
It
kept
in
being by statues of the dead
man
placed in the
its
tomb
and the better to assure
support and existence, these statues were
multiplied.
Moreover, a
:
human being
could
have several doubles

as
he might have as
many
also
fourteen.
The
offerings
depicted on the
walls
were of the same nature, being

ministering
to
doubles,
the
support
and
nourishment of the double of the deceased.
There was even no necessity

to be real
;
for the offerings

call
it
was enough to
passer
them
into
existence
if
by the tomb simply

and enumer-
recited an invocation to a deity
ated the
ofFerinfifs.
Besides the body and the double there was

a third element, to which
two
different
names
ELEMENTS OF PERSONALITY
were sometimes given, or
subdivided
into
it
63
was sometimes
This third
in nature,
two elements.
element was undoubtedly immaterial
what we
is
shall call the Soul.

witli
symbolised by a bird
At one time it a human head

;
and, according to the characteristics attributed

to
it.
we
;
should rather recognise in

it is
it
the
Will
the
at another,
called the Shining

it
One,
Bright
One, and then
would be the
light
Intelligence, as symbolised
by
and
fire.
The
it
soul departs
into
the West, the other
world.
It can there clothe itself in
any form
pleases,
including the
human
form.
But
these three elements
are not severally inde-
pendent, the double and the soul cannot exist
without the body
and
yet, in another aspect,

life
the soul has a certain control over the

the body, being able even to prevent
dying,
if it
of
it
from
wishes
still
to enjoy
life.
All these
ill-
doctrines,
however, are very vague and

here,
as in
defined
everything relating to
the region of ideas or thought
among
the
Egyptians, there
is
an absolute want of system
64 or

logic.
Thus we can only present
outin-
standing features.
We
meet with texts

personality
is
forming us that
human
divided,
not into three, but into four or six parts.
We
in
are told of the
Shade or Shadow, which,
my
opinion,
;
is
only another
way
of
naming
the double
as
we
also hear of the Heart, which,

is
among
other peoples,
the seat of the

clearly defined,
moral element.
except what
Nothing
is
we know
of the nature of the

all
double, round which are grouped
the ideas
the Egyptians formed of the
life
to come.
We
now
is
inquire
what the prospects were

Old Empire, that
the
that opened up before the dead at the period
of what
called the
is,
age of the pyramid-builders.
We
have clear
enough information on
nificent
this point in the
mag-
tombs
of
the
large
cemeteries at
Ghizeh, Sakkarah, Dashour, and other places,
where something new
is
discovered every day.

in
art,
These tombs reveal a development

painting, and sculpture
unsurpassed in later
times, and present a striking contrast to the
TOMBS OF THE OLD EMPIRE
()5
remains of the Tliinite period, for which we

cannot account.
They
depict for us the hfe
of a great Egyptian lord, the owner of hu'ge

estates, with
numerous personal
call
servants,
vassals
and
having at his
crowd of
who
exercise for his benefit all the
known
industries
and
arts of the time.
We
have thus a com-
plete picture of
details,
Egyptian
civilisation, in all its
of what constituted the wealth of the
country, and of the luxury wdth which people

in high station loved to
surround themselves.
these
As
the inscriptions in
titles
tombs always
was to
inform us as to the
and the occupations

first
of the deceased, the temptation at

see in these representations, so rich
and varied
in their character, faithful pictures of

life
how
liis
had been spent, of the fortune he had at

house and
in,
his disposal, of the furnishing of his
table, of
the amusements he indulged
of
the herds of cattle and animals of every kind

that pastured in his fields or filled his stables,
and of
all
the
workmen who
toiled for him.
Mariette, w^ho
excavated a great number of
66

out several of the
these tombs, and cleared
more complete and remarkable among them,

was himself the
first
to oppose this idea.
He
was struck by the

the
titles
fact that
no matter what
were, the repre;
of the
dead
men
sentations were always the
same
they had no
often
strictly personal character, since
we can
see in
tomb
after
tomb the numbers
of the
herds of cattle repeated in quite an improbable
way.
Since Mariette's time
it
is
impossible,
then, to
regard these tomb-paintings of the

as pictures of the actual life of
Old Empire
their
owners.
They
rather
show us the
which
de-
ceased transported into an ideal world, moulded
on the model of everyday

Egyptians might
share.
It
life,
is
in
all
life,
the future
it,
such as they loved to represent

as they desired
and such
to enjoy.
It
is
thus a kind
of book, whose scattered chapters were used
wherewith
to
decorate
I
the
tombs.
\\'ith
reference to this point,
may
be permitted,
while adopting Mariette's view, to supplement

it
by one consideration which has not been
MAGIC
IN
THE TOMBS
67
taken into account.
We
have, I believe, in
these tombs a striking example of what has
been called imitative magic, the

that like
sentation
existence.
idea,
namely,
produces
of
like,
and that the repreinto
a thing calls that thing
All the wealth and splendour in
the lap of which
we
see a deceased person like
Ti or Ptahhotep
all
the riches, slaves, herds
of cattle, estates,
all
the bands of
workmen
is
employed
in his service,
all this,
it
by no
means
certain he ever enjoyed in his lifetime.
This unheard-of prosperity he never

this
knew
It
in
world
but
it
was desired
for
it.
him, his
friends wished to assure
him of
may
his
have been that they considered that

just reward
;
it
was
of
perhaps
the
affection
his
children or
attaining
deemed him worthy of such happiness. To make sure that

relations
it
he would gain
there was no
more
certain
means than to paint or carve on the

his
walls of
it
tomb the whole environment

live
in wliich
was desired he should
and move.
To
accomplish this purpose no great stretch of
68

:
imagination was required
all
the elements of
of
all
future bliss lay patent to
the eyes
Egyptians
alike, in
the broad and opulent
life
around them
as
it
was fashioned by the exand by the physical
isting degree of civilisation
and climatic conditions of the country.
Hence
we
are not surprised at the great resemblance
one tomb bears to another.

All the tombs of the Old
tolerably uniform
exterior, there
is
Empire
are
on a
plan.
To
begin with the
what
is
called the Mastaba,
generally built on the rock, a massive, heavy

structure,
rectangular
in
shape,
with
four
walls almost plain and inclined symmetrically
towards a
common
is
centre.
The
building
has the appearance of a truncated pyramid,
the top of which

form.
smooth and
is
level plat-
On
one of the sides
doorway
stele is
giving entrance to a
room
in
which a
always found
the
important feature of the
room.
This chamber
may
in
be the only one,

stele
;
and simple, with no adornment save the

or,
on the other hand, as
tombs of the fourth
THE MASTABA: CHAMBER FOR THE KA

and
fifth dynasties,
()9
there
may
be several rooms
arranged crosswise, or lying in different directions
and separated by passages.
The
roof
is
sometimes supported by columns or by
pillars,
and then
the walls
are
covered with
the
niagnificent
sculptures
of
which
we have
spoken.
Not
far
from the chamber, and very often

side,
on the south
concealed in the masonry,
a sort of recess or
cell
was
built of large stones.
This recess, to which the Arabic
name
of
serdab has been given, has no communication

of any kind with any other part of the mastaba.
It
contained only the statues of the dead man,
of which
sometimes there
is
a pretty large
number.
Here the double, the ka of the

imaofes
;
dead man, or rather the imaoê or
which ministered to
his support, lived
and to
enable the ka to enjoy the offerings brought
by
his relatives
and
friends, or the
smoke of
the incense tliey burned, a narrow aperture or

passage, connecting the serdab with the room,
was formed, and
it
was by
this passage that
70
the double had communication with the outer

world.
On
the top of the mastaba
is
the
mouth
of
a rectangular well or shaft of varying depth,
from 10 to 100
feet
is
it
has no staircase, but the help of
when
ropes,
the descent
made with
we
notice at the
bottom the entrance of

all
a narrow passage which suddenly widens in

directions into a room,
which
is
the vault or
is
mortuary chamber.
ately
This chamber
immedi-
below the large chamber of the tomb, so

were, beneath their
that the survivors assembled there would have
the deceased, as
it
feet.
The
vault
is
generally destitute of ornament

laid the stone
in a corner
was
sarcophagus pre-
viously sealed with great care, and containing

a body
embalmed
in
bitumen, but not yet

the
/wrapped up in linen bandages as was
custom
I
'
in later times.
Sometimes a head-rest
was placed beside the
itself
of
wood
;
or
alabaster
body
but in the chamber
there was no
other funerary furniture except two or three

large jars
meant
to hold
some
liquid,
and some
THE STELE
ox-bones.
LN
THE TOMB
71
laid in the sarcophagus, the entrance of the passage was walled
The body once

was
up, and the shaft
filled
with stones and
building chips and rubbish.
No
one could
now
penetrate to the dead man's body, which
was thus completely protected from violation. Though it was no easy matter to penetrate to
the vault,
left
tomb
violators
and plunderers have
us
many
a proof of their handiwork and
perseverance.
We have said that the most

of the
important part
It
is
chamber
is
the
stele.
a slab of
form of a false and bearing an inscription of ^ arying length, but having always the same general
door,
stone, frequently having the
import.
It is
is
an invocation to Anubis, the
god who
jackal,
represented under the form of a

is
and who
closely allied to the
'^
great
god
" Osiris,
considered by
Le Page Renouf,
an English Egyptologist, as one and the same person under different names. The prayer to
Anubis
is
that the deceased
tomb
in the
may have West, and that he may
good
recei\'e
72

in
offerings
great plenty on
certain festival
days.
deities
Two
who
of these days are consecrated to
play a great part in the Egyptian
Pantheon,
namely,
Thoth,
the
Egyptian
Hermes, and Min,

stele
is,
Amon
the generator.
The
on the whole, the only religious item

an Old Empire tomb
;
found
in
it
contains no
representations of deities or of worship paid to
them.
We
see
occasionally
funerary cere-
monies
for the dead,
but no act of adoration or
any offering to any divinity whatever. It does not seem as if the dead had any need of gods
at
all,
except those to
;
whom
the stele
is
addressed
and, moreover, as
M. Maspero has
is
established, the very invocation itself tional

:
condio?i
the gods are promised an offering
condition that they will obtain for the dead
all
the offerings in which they themselves share.

I
will
even go further:
it
seems to
me
that
the request in favour of the deceased for a
good
tomb
is
burial in the
in
West
does not refer to the
which the
stele stands, since the
tomb
already built and finished
but
to
an ideal
IMPORTANCE OF THE DOUBLE

tomb which he
is
73
to ha\'e in the VVêst,
and
which
will be the
double of the earthly tomb,
just as the offerings which he will receive will
be the double of those car\ ed on the walls.
From
paths
lent,
this ideal
"
:
tomb "he
will follow the

rich,
good
opu-
he will go forth to gain the

blissful existence
and
depicted on the walls.
We
thus see what an important place the
double has in the Egyptian conceptions of

the future
life.
This future
life
of theirs
is
exactly modelled on what was most attractive

in their earthly
trial in
life.
It
is
bliss entirely terresis

is
kind, in which the religious element
almost as Uttle present as the moral.
There
no thought
in
it
of the
judgment
of
to which,
according to the
Book
the
yet
Dead, the
it
deceased must submit.
And
is
certain
that the deceased becomes a divine being, for
worship
is
paid and offerings
made
is
to
him
as
to a real
clearly
god
his
double has
priests,
which
shows that the dead
man
something
more than
a simple mortal.
Here we must
note that the word for priest properly means
74
*'

"servant."
viêll
slave,"
The
gods
title
double, then,
has
servants as
class
as the
who have the same

The
of priests a
which the bilingual
inscriptions
translate
by '^prophets."
dead man, or rather

in the
his double, havino" arrived
next world,
is
a divine being, the object
of special veneration, from

living expect nothing.
It
whom, however,
is
the
not apparent that
he exercises the least influence over his descendants.
This ancestor- worship, then,
is
simple
homage
to a progenitor or antecedent
for
who
is
no more, and
is
whom
all
kinds of
is
prosperity
desired.
The
adoration offered
a sort of sequel or continuation of terrestrial

life.
Ancestors were
known and remembered
numerous witnesses were associated with them

in the various
phases of their existence
now
that they are gone from the sight of those in the
midst of
left this
whom
they
lived,
now
is
that they have
existence which had a morninsf and

quite
an evening, the supposition

that, like the
natural
sun which reappears after every

life
night, they will return to
again.
ROYAL TOMBS DIFFERENT

If
it
75
was the practice
in the case of great
personages of the Old Empire to depict the

hfe of the future in colours absolutely like
those of the present world,
it
was different
where the king was concerned.
The sovereign
appears to be of a different nature from that

of his subjects
;
he
is
not of the same race,

to another sort
and he
is
therefore
summoned
is
of future.
The king
buried in a pyramid,
and the texts graven on the walls of the

funerary chamber are in no
those
of
way
related to
the
tombs
of
the
same
epoch.
Nothing
in these
chambers
life
recalls the present,

;
or even the past,

is
of the sovereign
life
there
no allusion to a manner of
led
similar to
what he
on earth
only religious texts,
fantastically mystical in their nature
and often
all
impossible to understand, introducing us

at
once into a crowd of gods and goddesses,
of beneficent spirits
and hostile demons, of
serpents and strange animals, with which the
Egyptian
imagination
peopled
the
region
beyond the tomb.
76

There are few subjects on which so much
has been written, and about which so
many
opinions of the strangest kind have been put

forth, as the
Pyramids.
This arose partly from
the fact that the majority of the authors of

these books beheved that there was only one
pyramid, or at the most two, namely, the

great pyramids of Ghizeh
fact,
:
and
also
from the
of which
they were ignorant, that this

very popular
mode
of sepulture was
among
the kings of the Old Empire.
At
is
the present
day we know of more than seventy pyramids,

very different in height,
built with the
is it
true,
but
all
same end
;
in view.
it
A pyramid
artificial
nothing but a tomb
is
only an
eminence intended to conceal a burial chamber.
No
matter who had
it
reared,
the idea
is
always the same
the
desire to protect the
body from
possible violation,
and preserve
it
absolutely intact, so that the double might

survive in the next world and not be annihilated.
pyramid
has,
moreover, the same

;
component
parts as a mastaba
outside, the
MARIETTE^S DISCOVERY
temple, chapel, or halls where the people
77
came
to render worship to the deceased, and hring

offerings to
him
next, the long passage correshaft, leading to the

lastly,
sponding to the well or

sepulchral
vault
and
the sepulchral
vault itself situated beneath the mass of the
pyramid, wherein lay the stone sarcophagus,
which
in several instances has survived to the
present day.
The comparison may even be

;
pushed
still
further
over the vault opens out
a smaller room, connected with the other
by
a narrow passage
this
is
the serdab or recess
where the statues of the defunct king, which

were the support of
his double,
were placed.
Owing
tions,
to
the great pyramids of Ghizeh
being totally devoid of any kind of inscrip-
and of
it
all
decoration in the enclosed

all
chambers,
was long believed that

silent,
the
tell
pyramids were
and that they could
us nothing concerning the fate of those
who
were
laid within
them.
JMariette himself long
maintained this opinion, but some fragments
found at Sakkarah having aroused
his curiosity,
78

set
he
immediately to work, the
moment he
arrived in
Egypt
in 1880, in the
two half-ruined
pyramids which had been hitherto neglected.
The opening
last
of these
two pyramids was

he despatched
his
triumph.
Confined to a sick-bed from

rise,
which he was never to

friend Brugsch, the
his
German
of
Egyptologist, to
inspect
latter's
the
result
the work.
On
the
return he brought back the news that
the pyramids were opened up, and that he had
found the walls of their chambers covered with

religious inscriptions,
some portions of which

last
he had copied.
tidings
This was the
scientific
which greeted the ears of the dying
man.
The news
created a great sensation

It
among
remote
Egyptologists.
was a
at
revelation,
informing the world

as
that
an epoch as
I
the
fifth
dynasty the rehgion,
mean
The
the religious beliefs of Egypt, were then
very similar to what they wêre in later times.

principal deities
of the Pantheon were
already the object of veneration on the part

of the Egyptians
;
the magical fornmlge were
THE PYRAMID RELIGIOUS TEXTS

in existence,
79
and had the same
efficacy as
was
attributed to
them
later
the same ceremonies,

all
the same offerings were
seen there too.
And
it
was
all
described in a language whose
characters were, in general, quite the
same
as
those of
the
classic
epoch.
The Pyramid
a
Texts are a portion of the sacred literature
which had already existed
for
long time.
And
this brings us
back to the question which

:
we put
little
while ago
What had happened

produced, not an
between the Thinite epoch and the Memphite

epoch which could have
upheaval or a reversion, but a development
so rapid
and so stupendous
Five pyramids have up to the present been

opened, and they provide us with religious
texts
;
these go over the same ground, one
after the other,
but they are not
all
exactly
ahke.
It
is
clear that the copies
on the walls
are extracts from a
book or
collection (ûite
analogous to the Book of the Dead, describing

the destiny of the defunct king after death.
The following
is
the
first
fragment that was
80

first
JNI.
copied and translated,
by Brugsch, then
JNIaspero, to
by Lauth, and
lastly
by
whom
we owe
only one
the entire collection and a complete
translation of the
Pyramid Texts,
as yet the
we
possess.
What
:
am
about to
JNlerenra,
quote comes from the pyramid of

a king of the fifth dynasty before his father, he
"
He who
Horus,
stands
who
stands before Osiris

1
Merenra,
it
is
thy son,
am
am
come
to thee, thou art purified, thou art washed,

life, I
thou art restored to
have reunited thy

carried
bones, I have recovered
what the water
away,
have reunited what had been severed

for
I
I
from thee,
his father.
am
and
Horus, the avenger of
have struck down for thee him

I
who smote
thee,
have avenged thee,
my
father Osiris Merenra, on

I
him who caused
thee pain.
am come to thee as the messenger

offers thee perfumes,
Horus, he
who
my
;
father
Merenra, on the throne of

the shining guide
;
Ra Toum thou art go down in the bark of

Ra
sails.
Ra, where the gods love to enter, where they

love to go down, and where
When
THE FIRST INSCRIPTION

it is
81
is
day, Merenra alights there, for he
Ra.
Sit
down then upon
the throne of Ra,
make
the gods hsten to thy words, for thou art Ra,

the child of Nout.
Ra
is
born every day.
Merenra
is
born every day like Ra.
Take
possession of the heritage of thy father
Keb
before the nine gods of On, since
it
has been
made ready
spirits
for thee
by the eighteen gods,
the very great,

of On.
who are at the head of the The two gods, the very great,
upon the throne of Horus
thee to their abodes,
who
are at the entrance of the Fields of Aalou,
are establishing thee

.
.
.
those
who guide
excellent and pure, which they
made
for
Ra
when they
set
him upon
their thrones."
see,
This short fragment,
we
introduces us,
at the very start, into the heart of
Egyptian
differis
doctrines, such as
we
find,
with certain
ences, at all periods.
In this piece, which
one of the most
intelligible,
Horus presents
he
calls
himself before Merenra,

father Osiris,
for
whom
his
and recounts what he has done

has
him.
He
performed the
rites
of
82

for
purification
him,
to
by
means
;
of
his
which
severed
Merenra
comes
hfe again
remains, hke those of Osiris,
come together
dis-
and reconstitute
his
is
body that had been

not the dead king
of the
;
membered.
It
who
Dead the address is made to him by a god who declares to him that he has just come to hfe again, and
speaks, as in the
Book
this
god
calls
himself his son
Horus.
myth
if
is
Thus,
already
at this early epoch, the Osiris
known,
express
in
it
;
an embodied shape,
one
may
so
and
it
already forms the basis of

life
the doctrine concerning the

grave.
Osiris
is
beyond the
the son of Nout, the Celestial

is
Ocean, and of Keb, the Earth, and
the
husband of
Isis,
his sister.
is
Beguiled by the
deceit of Set, he
this
is
;
slain
and cut
in pieces
the sun descending into the
tomb
at
night
but Horus, the son of
Osiris,
avenges
magical
his father, reconstitutes his
body by
his
powers, and places him on the throne of his

father Keb.
Sometimes we have variants of the myth.
THE
OSIRIS
MYTH: VARIANTS
is
88
Horus, for instance,

appearance of
reborn
here
is
;
regarded as the
new
is
Osiris,
the form in which he
but the important thing to emphasise

the hoary reminiscence in the legend
Osiris
is
of practices long since abandoned.
not only put to death, but he
is
cut into pieces,
dismembered by Set
his son his
his
and how does Horus

?
avenge
his father
By
reconstituting
body, by bringing together and rejointing

scattered
members.
We
have
here,
assuredly, manifest traces of the dismember-
ment
practised in the primitive ages, but
now
fate
held in abhorrence.
Every dead king had

analogous to that of
to
undergo
Osiris.
He
had to pass
through death, he had also to succumb under

the blows of a mightier power than himself,
whom
his
he could not withstand.
But
lie
would
;
also share in
the same privileges as Osiris

call
son would
him back
to
life,
and pro;
cure for his double the needfid existence

this
for
end
all
the prescribed religious ceremonies
would have to be dulv celebrated, and then
84
the

divine
double,
that
is
safe
and sound, would
enjoy the
life
the portion of the gods.

Osiris himself,
is
He
why
Avould
become
and
this is
the defunct king
always called the
Osiris.
As
such he will enjoy divine power
and intelligence.
He
will
no longer be tram-
melled by the limits of

can do whatever he
human
;
nature
all
he
the
likes
assume
all
forms he pleases
allow himself
the joys
;
of earth as well as those of the world beyond

sail
in the bark of Ra, the sun in his splendour,
in short,
we cannot
very well see where
the god begins or where he ends, nor what

separates
him from any other

cited
he will be
Ra
can
himself, he will be born like

as
Ra
says.
every day,
the fragment just
He
even become a totally different god.

possibilities of the future are for
The
him without
bounds, on condition, however, that the magical

formulae,
pronounced
into
his
at the funeral rites, or
those put
efficacious,
mouth, are
all
sufficiently
and are able to crush

all
opposition
and reduce to impotence
the enemies he
PYRAMID TEXTS FOR KINGS ONLY

will
is
85
have to
face.
We
see that this doctrine
a kind of pantheism
shall find in the
very similar to what

of the Dead.
It
we
is.
Book
indeed, probable that the
same
collection
from which the Pyramid Texts were drawn
became the Book of the Dead, the book that

was meant
for all alike, for the
man
of
humble
rank as well as for the king.
It
is all
the more
curious therefore that at this period the
Book
of the Pyramids seems to have been reserved

for the exclusive use of the kings, while the
lot of all other
deceased persons, even of high
rank,
should
be depicted
as
life
totally
terrestrial in its nature,
and devoid of every

a
divine
element.
Here we have
contrast
which we are unable to explain.

Besides what the
Pyramid Texts
tell
us of
the lot reserved for the dead, they enlighten
us as to the doctrine of the city of Heliopolis,

or, as
the Egyptians called
it,
the city of
On
to
or
An.
We
closely
shall
have to study
It
this doctrine
more
this
:
immediately.
amounts
Touni, the god
who
issues
from the
86
liquid

element,
becomes Ra, the
solar
god,
the king
who
rules over Egypt.

all
Like Toum,
of his
Ra
is
the creator of
his
things,
own
members, of
son Horus
who
is
born every
morning, and who, as

his father,
we have
seen, avenges
Set.
who had fallen under the attacks of Even at this stage we find in these texts
number
of divine beings and
for the fertility of in\ ention displayed
in the
a considerable
genii
;
by the Egyptian mind

ligion
domain of
re-
and mythology
is
something incredible.
wê left,
Returning to the point
namely, the
dead and the manner in which they were treated,
we
find
at
the
beginning
of the
JMiddle
Empire (eleventh to eighteenth dynasty) the custom of embalmment, of munmiification

becoming general, and taking root
definitely.
The tomb
is
the dead man's dwelling, and the
walls, if decorated, wall
show representations
not only of the
life
assigned to
him
in the
next world, but also scenes and episodes taken
from
his
past hfe, which
is
supposed to be
thus sometimes
continued.
The
inscriptions
TEMPLES MORTUARY CHAPELS

become biographies
greater prominence;
religious
as
it is
;
87
the earthly career and
the persoiiahty of the deceased

yet with
come
that,
into
all
the
element
in
is
by no means forgotten,
of the Old
of
the beautiful tombs

texts
Empire;
and
of
the
Book
or
the
Dead
are
carved on the walls
on
the
sarcophagus.
In the case of
ties
tlie
is
kings of the great dynas-
the practice
continued of keeping the

is
recess
where the
mummy
laid distinct
from
the large halls or chapels to which their worshippers

built
were admitted.
The
great temples
on the verge of the
T'heban Desert,
INledinet
such as
Der
el-bahri, the
Ramesseum,
Habou,
are only
mortuary chapels or temples
associated with their respective
tombs hidden
away some
distance off in the wild Aalley, to
which the Arabs
have given the

el
name
I
of
Gates of the Kings (Biban
Muluk).
have
completely cleared out one of these temples,
which was built by a queen whose popular
name
is
Hatasou.
On
the walls of the terraces
88

it
of which
is
made up you have
at first the
story of her past hfe, her miraculous birth
for
who
her
Amon
himself was her father her education,
her coronation by her ftither
Thothmes
then
I.,
wished to associate her Mdth him and place her

beside
him on the throne
we have
wars noticed, her expedition to the land of
Fount
in search of incense, her buildings
and
the transport of her obelisks.
As
she was
not only of divine origin but a god, she had

instituted a cult of herself in certain
chambers
of the temple, where offerings were also

to her, quite the
made
same
as those given to her

all this wîile
deceased father.
still alive,
And
she wâs
with a reign of boundless duration
before her, according to the promises of the

gods.
No matter, her funerary cult was already

would continue
after her death.
in
established and
Last year her tomb was discovered,
the
wild valley chosen by the kings for their last

retreat.
At
the end of a passage about three

in
hundred yards
length,
excavated in the
last
mountain, the discoverers at
penetrated
THE RAMESSEUM
to her funeral
89
chamber
;
but the
mummy
texts,
had
been removed engraven
and on her sarcophagus were
only
some
kings
religious
life
with
nothing which recalled her
on
earth.
fol-
The
great
lowed her
who succeeded her example. The temple called
the
Ramesseum, which
travellers,
II.
is
excites the admiration of
the mortuary chapel of Rameses

in the
On
it,
same way,
its
builder had
his eastern
his
victorious
campaigns against
all
foes engraved, in
their
details.
But
his
tomb
texts
is
in the
same
valley,
and the represenreligious
tations found
on the walls are simply

"
taken from a book w^hich the

the
kings
affected,
Book
of
the
Lower Hemiof
sphere,' which gives us a description of the

sun's
course in the different hours
the
night.
it
is
In
tlie
case of the
tombs of the kings,

;
the same as in the Pyramids
there
is
never a reference in them to their past

at the
life,
most only some names of members of
their family.
I
have
mentioned
the
'^
Book
of
the
90

Its title in
is
Lower Hemisphere."
*'
Egyptian
is
Tlie
Book
of that which
is
in the
Douat."
The Douat
the other world, the region
the sun traverses after he disappears in the
West, and before he

region
is
rises in
the East.
This
bounded by two mountains.
As
to
it,
the locality where the Egyptians
placed
M. Maspero
regions
believes that
it
lay
on the same
plane as the visible world
but beyond any

It
known
river
to the Egyptians.
resembled
a broad valley
hemmed
in
by mountains, with
it.
a large
flowing in the middle of
Beginning at the west, the valley ran up
to-
wards the north, and

towards
the
east
after
making a long bend

at
I
it
emerged there
rose.
the
of
mountain near which the sun

" is
am
opinion, however, that the translation " lower
world
quite correct, for,
if
we may judge
from different expressions which are applied

to the Douat, and also from certain representations of
it,
we must think
of
it
as
lying
sets,
below
this world,
and of the sun, when he
as descending lower than the visible world.
[To face
jiage 91,
"THE DOUAT"
Each
in
91
religious centre represented the
Douat
to
shghtly different way, and sought
glorify its local god.
The Douat we know

one,
best
is
the
it
is
Theban
and
the
book
in
which
priests
described was composed
by the
of
Amon,
work
into
which they
have perhaps imported a certain number of

conceptions from other quarters, but in which
they above
all
magnify their own
divinity,
Amon. Though the sun is not designated by the name of Amon, he is none the less represented in the form of a man with the head of
a
ram
the
of
animal that
is
the pre-eminent
traverses
emblem
his
Amon.
The sun
the
in
Douat during the
night,
and we follow him
journey hour by hour.
At
the twelfth
hour he arrives at the place where he must
come
forth to enlighten the world again.
The book is preserved for us in two different At first it was reserved exclusively for forms.
the
use of the kings,
and reproduced with

;
pictures
on the walls of their tombs

it,
afterwards
an abridged form of
found in various papyri,
m
we
find

It
is
was made.
it
in the
tombs, however, that
in its longest form.
We
are care-
fully
warned that the particular description of
each
Hour
is
;
that
we
find
is
reproduced on the
an exact copy of
walls or in the papyrus
what
found in the most hidden part of the
Douat
we
are even sometimes told on
which
side of the mysterious
abode we can see the
original of
which we are shown the copy.

First
During the
a kind
Hour
the sun passes along

is
of vestibule which
120 stadia in
length, called ariit}

tells us, " is
" This arrit,'' the text
traversed by this great god as a
ram
"
"
for
the sun
has
taken that form.

cunit,
When
he has reached this
the dead
:
who
follow
him do not go up with him

gods
he
directs his speech to the

arrit.'''
who
are in this
Thus, when the sun reaches Ament,
the West, he takes the form of a ram, which
he keeps during his whole nocturnal course.
There
1
is
also a distinction
made between
the
The
translations (French)
Le,s
which follow are taken from
M. Maspero's
hypogees royaux dc Thebes.
THE NIGHT HOURS

dead.
9'3
The
royal defunct, assimilated to Ra,
shares in
all
the privileges of the sun, and

in the
makes the same voyage

for the other dead,
boat
all
but as
they do not
of
share the
in
same
fate.
Some
them remain
the
vestibule of the First Hour, others are ranged

at various points that the sun will reach.
is
It
probable
that
what
condemns
them
is
to
remain thus
fact
in a kind of inferior state
the
that they do
not
possess
the magical
either to
formulae which would enable
them
mount the
to the
in the First
solar
bark or even to be assimilated
god himself
Hour, he
The gods whom Ra meets

will
encounter later
they
form a
sort of
bodyguard or escort who await

uraei spitting
his arrival,
dog- headed apes and

who
"
out flame to light him on his way, and the twelve goddesses
place
successively take their
bark.
to
on the
divine
:
The god thus
addresses
them
Open
me
your gates,
let
me come
into your courts {ariits), give light
unto me, make yourselves guides unto me, so

that ye be of
my
members, that
may
give
94
you of
of
my
body, that
may make you have
my
soul, that I
power. ..."
may give you of my magic And the gods make answer:

open to thee, the gates
. .
. .
" Lo, there they are
of the secret regions
lo,
there they are

"
open to thee, the gates of the other world
During the Hours that

traverses different domains.
follow,
the god
In each of them
he has enemies to overcome, and he punishes
them by handing them over
to
cruel gods
who
inflict
the most dreadful punishments on

the other hand, he rewards his
them.
On
faithful ones,
will
and
allots fields to
them which
This happens
produce the food they need.
during the Second Hour, where
we
see gods
crowned with
ears of corn,
and others holding

however,
also
:
palm
branches.
They
are,
commanded
them,
"'
to fight the enemies of
Ra
"
ye whose forms are
living," says the
god to
ye who utter your magic words, ye
who
are
pieces
armed with your swords, and cut in the enemies of Ra (Osiris), ye whose
seasons are lasting, and whose years are surely
THE NIGHT SUNS JOURNEY

established
95
....
dwell
in
your
. .
fields
.
with
your barley for bread and cakes.

lives as if
it
JNly soul
tlie
were one of you

and defend
as
you wage
fight for nie.
me
I
against
Apep, you
have
life
through
.
.
my
soul,
you draw breath by
my
body.
Cause that
may go on
to the
horizon and finish
my
passage to the East,
letter shouts of joy, ye

for
for
it is I
I
gods of the Douat,

;
that defend you
utter cries of joy,
govern your destinies."
The
difference
deities
is
between the various categories of

not very well defined.
tells
On
the one hand
Ra
these gods that they depend on

is
him and
that he
their creator,
and on the other hand

his help
he asks them to come to
and defend
particularly
him
against
his
enemies,
and
against Apep.
In the Hours from Three to Five the god

is
is,
on territory belonging to Osiris Sokar, that

the form of Osiris that was the principal
at
god worshipped
Memphis.
The book
thus
appears, as has been maintained, to be a

pilation
:
com-
the priests of
Amon
probably col-
96

they were given in several
of Egypt,
it
lected the different versions of the " Douat,"

as
cities
and made of them a single book, giving

beginning and an end.
tion of these
It
is
in the descrip-
Hours that we
see the fantastic
imagination of the Egyptians displayed.
Here
;
we meet with
have
birds'
genii,
male and female
some
;
heads and are armed with knives
others are monster serpents, sometimes with two or three heads apiece, or they are equipped
with large wings and stand on
human
legs.
One
discs
of these
serpents
has on his back no

heads, along with
fewer than fourteen
human
and
stars.
All these creatures are far Here, for example,

is
from being harmless.
what
is
said of
:
one of them belonging to the
Third Hour
"
Those who are
in this picture
and who are
in the dwelling of
Dad
(Osiris),
when this great god speaks to them they live, for when he addresses them he grants them their heart,
they worship this great god, and
and they receive

as
his
their heads at the
same time
in
discourse.
Their work
lies
the
THE SOLDIERS OF RA
Ament
(West);
it is
97
to cut
and hack souls

drag away to
falls
in pieces, to imprison shades, to
their place of annihilation their
whoever
under
hand
fires,
they dart forth flames, they bring
forth
and the enemies are beheaded by
their swords.
They shout and

this
utter bowlings
leaves
of pain
when
in the
great
god
them
behind him."
It
is
thick
of creatures hke these
Ra makes his voyage. They are soldiers of Ra and of Osiris; they fight
that
the the
o\'er
enemies of these gods while they watch
the celestial waters; they are the mysterious

souls to
whom Ra
souls
I
addresses these words

I
"
ye whose
have
liidden,
made
mysterious,
I
whose souls
have
whom
who
have sent
in the train of Osiris to

his
defend him, to escort

assail
images, to annihilate those
him
....
ye whose forms are enduring, whose

is
existence
assured by
rites,
ye
who
breathe
the air with your nostrils,

faces,
who
see with your
who wear
veils
on your heads
....
who have
returns of offerings given to you on
98

....
all,
earth by means of the priests of the god
ye whose souls are not
overthrown at
whose bodies are not overwhelmed, open your

circles
and keep to your
places, for I
am come
to see
my
bodies, to look at
;
my
images w^hich
are in the other world
and you have summoned
me
tliat
to allow
I
me
to bring
them
my
I
help, so
guide by the oar thy soul to the sky,
Osiris,
thy soul to earth

is
earth and day
behind
is
.... me I
;
mount on
traverse the
night and
my
soul
;
united to your forms

rites
during the day
perform by night the

for
which are needful
you
have created
your souls for myself so that they are behind
me, and what
have done for them prevents
you from
falling into the place of annihilation."
The nome
or
domain of the Fifth Hour
is
the heart of Sokar's territory.
The god
dwells
here in a kind of
cell,
of an elliptical shape,
surrounded by sand and guarded by sphinxes.
Sokar himself
is
very complex in form
he
is
made up
of a huge serpent with two

right
side
human
heads on the
and a single one

RE-BIRTH OF THE SUN (RA)
on
the
left
;
99
he
has
two
wings,
between
which a hawk- headed god stands
erect.
The
nine
whole
figure, the text informs us,
makes but
also
one god.
In this
Hour we
last
see
hatchets stuck in the ground, the

a
first
carrying
white crown and the
a red
crown
"
evidently an
Ennead of gods.
Before them are
the guardians of the " pool of the immersed
five
gods with human bodies and animals'
heads.
The pool
is
shown
in the sculptures,
and the immersed are genii with their heads

blazing and their bodies in the water.
We will not follow

voyage
in the
Ra
through
his Ulysses-
Twelve Hours of the

amongst
night, in
which, while the figures change, the speeches
made by Ra
moves
are so
priests could
or the gods
whom
he
monotonous that only Egyptian

stand them.
is
At
the
Twelfth
Hour
the sun
reborn in the shape of a

this
scarabêus.
For
purpose
he
is
towed
along by twelve women, and enters in at the

tail
of an enormous serpent called
" the
its
life
of the gods," and comes out again at
mouth.
100

way he
is
In this
gets to the east side of the sky,
where he
born of the goddess Nout.
He is
faith-
not alone when he enters into the serpent, for
with him are his devotees

ful souls, into this
''
:
they enter,
mysterious image of the
serpent,
and they
issue
from
it
as rejuvenated
servants or forms
are
of
Ra
every day."
the
They
of
the dead
who have won

all
right
mounting on the bark of Ra, by having exactly

fulfilled
the
magic requirements
after the
" they are born
on earth every day

is
great god, the sun,

sky."
born in the east of the
This
is
one of the rare passages which
mentions any dead persons other than the

king, for
outset.
he
Still,
is
assimilated
to
Ra from
the
we do not
very well see
these dead persons arrive at the
how Twelfth Hour

is
of the night from the earth, where they have
been
born
to
all
;
day, to join
Ra
just before he
it
is
re-
nor can
we
discover whether
aspire
open
of
everyone to
to
the
privilege
journeying through the great serpent, and of
coming
forth rejuvenated.
'
THE SERPENT, "LIFE OF THE

"
is
GODS^^
101
The Book
of that which
is
in the
Douat
one of the best examples of the incoherencies

in the rehgious ideas of the old
It
which reign
Egyptians.
would, indeed, be
difficult to
disentangle from the midst of the fantastic

scenes which pass before our eyes any unity of
conception, beyond the fact that the subject

is
the course of the sun during the night, or
rather of the king
who
has become that great

for
god.
If wê
would look
a key to the
fantastic
symbolism of the book, we should

against
contradictions,
in
continually run
against
and
conceptions which are
complete
that
antagonism to one another.

are no
I believe
we
more
called
on to try to reconcile these

old
contradictions than were the
Egyptians
themselves.
Leaving the corridors and passages where this book which we have tried to analyse is
engraved,
we come
is
to the mortuary chamber,
where there
almost always a collection of
furniture, presents,
for the
and
offerings, placed there

Ay/,
purpose of enabling the
on coming
102

were
out of the sarcophagus, to allow himself some

recreation.
also
Little figures, called us/iabti,
phiced there, with a
twofold purpose
they assisted the deceased in the labours he
was
called
on to do
in the
Elysian
fields,
and
they also enlivened his solitude.

dreaded being alone
:
The dead
This
place
an idea not peculiar to

in
Egypt,
is
for
it
is
found also
the
Greece.
to
what
prompted
all
survivors
in the
tombs
kinds of figures which

in
may
of
be picked up to-day
the
cemeteries
of the
Egypt
as
well as
in
those
Greek
islands or Tanagra.
The
is
conclusion
we draw from
this
rapid
survey of Egyptian burial in the different ages

that, in the conception of the dwellers
life
on the
Nile banks,
the double
of the
was prolonged by means of

projection, or kind of shade
that
body which was necessary

continued
to
exist
to
its
life,
and Avhich
beyond the
grave, on condition, however, that the body
was preserved from destruction.

reason
This
is
the
why
the Egyptians regarded the em-
CONCLUSION
balmment of their dead
and so successfully and
performed that
as an imperative
skilfully
103
duty
was the work
mummies
art.
several thousands of
years old survive to-day to bear witness to the

perfection of the
Ill
The
is
question, Is there an Egyptian religion
one which we must ask ourselves before

lie
entering on the study of the beliefs which

at the root of the cult
and
all
the ceremonies
If
depicted for us on the monuments.
we
understand
defined
features
by
rehgion
a
least
body of
in
clearly
doctrines -at
their
main
to
which universal adherence was

in
all
given
or a system well co-ordinated
its parts,
without inherent contradictions, and
presenting a harmonious whole,

boldly answer
religion.
then we can
no Egyptian
;
that
there
beliefs,
is
There are
\
very diverse in
there
kind and
are
ery vigorous in their nature

there
all
deities,
:
are myths,
and there are
cults
but
this
nowhere comes before us

104

THE RELIGION NOT SYSTEMATIC
our minds as when, for example,
105
with the same sort of unity which presents

itself to
we
speak of the Christian, or the JNIussulman,

religion.
For
this
state
of things there
are
many
we must notice here. And iirst, to revert for a moment to the origins, we see a certain number of tribes or clans, each with or standard, all of whom Menes its god brought together under his sceptre when he made of them a single kingdom. But when
causes which
he succeeded in subjugating
perhaps more or
less
these tribes
nomad
before his day,
and compelled them to

localities
settle in the different
which became their respective abodes,
and which formed what were subsequently

called
nomes
or provinces, he did not reduce
their particular cults

level,
and
beliefs to the
same
nor force the tribes to adopt his god,

its
whatever
name
was.
The
The
result
was that
each tribe continued to revere and worship

its
own
particular god.
deity which, at
the beginning, was the standard of the tribe
106

;
became the great god of the province

this
and
great god
bore a different
name from
that of the
neighbouring province, and was
represented by another symbol.
Side by side with this fact, and in spite of

this diversity of origin, there
was one circumand
stance which,
if
anything, was bound to force

of
the Egyptians into a kind
unity
that was the absolutely identical physical and

climatic conditions under which
all
the people,
from one end of the kingdom to the other,

lived.
Take any other
country,
Italy
or
Greece for example: the lowlander does not

live
exactly like the highlander, or like the

seaboard.
dweller on the
What
in
determines
case,
manners and
pasturage, the
tain,
customs
is,
one
the
snow that covers the moun;
the woods that clothe the slopes

it
is
in
another,
the seasons that are favourable

:
for tillage
and sowing and reaping

it is
in
still
another case,
the
sea.
the winds and the state of
But
in
Egypt, from Aswan down to
the shores of the Mediterranean, the condi-
THE SAME PHYSICAL CONDITIONS

tions
107
were absolutely
identical.
its
There was
no means of livelihood on mountains

valley,
;
entirely barren
in
life
was
only possible
the
and there only wherever the

of
fertilis-
ing
water
the
Nile came.
The
great
stream was
country,
the
absolute
his
monarch
of
the
flood
who
by
overspreading
bestowed what the land required: Egypt wâs

the gift of his bounty.
Yet the
soil
could
not bring forth except by favour of the sun,

the other king
who
ruled humanity.
These
natural phenomena, at once so simple and so
few
in
number, struck the imagination of the
primitive peoples,
who
;
instinctively
as these
referred
them
to their gods
but
gods were
not the same in different

differences in the
districts, there
were
way
in
which the pheno;
mena were
ticular, the
referred to their action
in par-
names of the
different
gods were
kept
If,
distinct.
however,
we study
the real nature of
the deities whose cult was established in the

principal
cities
of Egypt,
we
shall
see that
108

distinguishes
is,
what
the different gods from

all,
one another
above
the
name and
the
appearance with
in
which they were invested

locality
:
any particular
at Thebes,
Amon
[Photo, by Translate):
The Horns
of Edfou.
was the ram

goddess
at
;
at
Denderah, Hathor was a

ibis
;
at
Hermopolis, Thoth was an

;
Edfou, Horus was a falcon

all
but, in the
main, they
attributes,
have the same fundamental

they
are
all
because
the
same

THE EGYPTIANS COULD NOT FORGET
powers of nature
for
;
109
or, to
use a better phrase
we must
all
here a\ oid abstract terms
they
philo-
are
living beings
whose action
is
seen in
the same
says
:
natural
phenomena.
philosophy
As Cousin
is
"
Every
infant
sophy of nature, and has already a leaning

to pantheism/'
This expression
is
absolutely
It
true as applied to the Egyptian rehgion.

is
a religion of nature
the manifestations of
all
the powers of nature under

or,
their forms,
all
to use the
Egyptian expression, "

"
;
the
births
which are the gods

at
anything
may
this
become god
about
a given
moment.
But
conception has nothing fixed or determinate

it
;
there
is,
repeat,
no system at
all,
no
strict logic at
the root of this philosophy.
These ideas occurred to the mind of some

thinker, perhaps, in the far-back
past
they
go on surviving, and no one ventures to deny

their
right
to
live,
and
so
they
coexist
alongside
of others
which seem to be their
complete negation.
Hence, frequently, the

found
be-
most flagrant contradictions are
110

Add
mind
to that, to con-
tween one text and another.

the tendency of the Egyptian
serve everything
it
had ever conceived, and

the realm
at
first
we can understand how

rehgious behefs becomes
inextricable maze.
of
the
sight
an
We
thus find in the religion a tendency
entirely analogous to
what we meet with
in
other domains,
as,
for
example, in those of
language
and
art.
Examine the painting

in
and the figures found

finest
the tombs of the
period.
Side by side with a surpris-
ing
boldness
and
firmness
of
treatment,
in
and
with
an
extraordinary
cleverness
strokes
representing
by
two
or
three
the
are
characteristics of a figure or an animal,
we
confronted with huge mistakes quite intolerable to us, let alone a
Greek
artist,
even though
he were not one of the great masters.

instance,
For
you
find a
head in
profile
with a front
view of the body, or a presentation of the

shoulders which violates the elementary laws
of
anatomy
in the
most outrageous manner.
EITHER
IN
RELIGION OR IN ART
in
111
That was the way

it
which
their art
began
was the production of mere

artist
childhood,
and an
afraid
even of the fine period was not

its
of
having recourse to
it
;
methods
law
no one forbade
and so the
inflexible
of progress, which fascinated the Greek artists,

did not exist for him.
It is the
same with the
religion
there
is
no
fixed
or
is
defined doctrine,
and consequently
there
no heresy.
:
The gods themselves allow

will
this diversity
Amon
not take
it
amiss to
in the
have other divinities placed beside him

sculptures of his temple
will
;
on the contrary, he
will
receive
them
graciously, and
even
give
them a share of the

his devotees.
offerings brought to
him by
We
Egypt.
may, however, say of certain
deities
all
that they were acknowledged throughout
These were the personifications of the

:
cosmic elements
the Nile
;
Ra, of the Sun
Hapi, of
Nile
;
Osiris often also as the
and
be
Hathor, in
recognised.
whom
But
the Earth sometimes

if
may
we
closely study
any one
112
local

divinity
we
shall
find
that the
as to
same
be
epithets are apphed to
him
one of the
great cosmic gods, and that he also
may
regarded as the personification of one of these

elements.
There
is,
however, one locaUty of Egypt
where the attempt was made to reach a kind

of unity of
belief,
and even to make
it
prevail
over
called
all
the land, and that was

or
Heliopolis,
city
An
On
in
Egyptian.
That
was
and
the
certainly
one of
the oldest in Egypt,

of
religious
capital
became a kind
country.
Its
of
college
of priests
was
very
powerful, besides being very learned, and had

for
a long time a
well-deserved reputation,
all
instruction being given in

religion,
that pertained to
of which
in
medicine formed a part.
Later, however,
Roman
times,
both city
and college had completely
fallen into decay.
Strabo speaks of the place with

tempt.
much
con-
He
tells
us
that
he saw there the

in other
houses of the priests,
who
days were
philosophers and astronomers, but in his time
THE ANCIENT HELIOPOLIS

were only engaged
Chairemon, who
in
(ON)
IIB
offering the sacrifices

visitors, like
and showing the temple to
one
with
came
to
Heliopolis
JElius Gallus, pretending to great knowledge,
but
who was
fool.
generally ridiculed as a blusterer
and a
Heliopolis plays a great part in the religious

inscriptions,
and
also holds
an important place
in the mythological geography,
which
is
by no
is
means the same
as the terrestrial, for there
also a mythological
Egypt with
celestial
city.
its
cities
and
sanctuaries.
capital,
Of this
country
It
On is the
is
the outstanding
if
conse-
quently a mistake
geographical
we always
in
it
interpret a
name
occurring
religious
text in the sense that
bears in a terrestrial
map
of
the country.
\e
as
often find,
for
instance, Osiris
named
being the god of
Dadou, the
is
city of Busiris in the
Delta
and
it
thence inferred that Osiris was a divinity of

of
at
Lower Egypt. But if we consult the Book the Dead we shall see that Dadou does not
all
answer to a city
in
the
Delta, but to a 8
114

is
region in the East where Osiris
to be born
is
and receive the breath of

represented as
hfe,
and where he
the rising
sun.
Elsewhere
Dadou
is
equivalent to the East, as
Abydos
is
to the AVest.
At
a given time the cult of these
great gods was localised in this or that district
a local habitation was assigned to them to
which was given the name of one of the regions and in which, according to legend, they dwelt
;
afterwards
native to
it
was the custom to regard them
as
that particular place.
There are
in
several instances of this.
What happened
the case of Osiris happened to the goddess

Neith.
She
is
certainly
one of the deities
whom
she
is
the Horites imported with them, since
sometimes called " she who shows the
way."
She was
settled at Sais in the Delta,

there.
and her cult established

last dynasties Sais
During the
became a
city of great im-
portance, and magnificent temples were built

in
honour of the goddess
but
we must not
;
regard Sais as her place of origin
she did not
go upstream to meet
the
Horites
of
the
THE RELIGIOUS CAPITAL

Thinite epoch,
opposite direction.
It
is
Ho
her course lay rather in the
interesting to inquire
how HehopoHs
Its
came
to be the rehgious capital of Egypt.
name
of
An
to
or
On
is,
as
remarked, the same as that
we have ah-eady of the Anou whom
we beUeve
be the autochthonous or in-
digenous population, and with wîom the conquering foreigners came to be amalgamated.
An An
means
also a pillar or
column of
stone,
and
would then be the

arise
city of the
column.
That may
the god
from the
fact that in that city
Ra Toum was
worshipped under the

obelisk.
form of a pyramid or an
Be that
its
as
it
may,
it is
curious that On, wdiich in
origin
appears to be connected with the indigenous
element of the population, should become the

sole city of
Egypt
wîich exercised a certain

in
predominant power
religion.
everything relating to
The body
polis
or totality of the gods of Helio-
constituted an
Ennead
the
or
company of
?
Nine (Paut).
Why
number nine
We
116

see here a special idea as to the nature
If three
must
and influence of numbers.

sidered as the symbol of
was con-
what was complete,

repre-
from which nothing was wanting, much more

wôuld three times three, nine, be so
:
it
sented a something perfect, a rounded whole, an

irreproachable circle, hke a certain cake (Paut)
to
which this name was given.
We do not mean
in
to say that the
Ennead was always made up
the same way.
The
oldest
list
of the Nine that

is
we
"
find in the
Pyramid Texts
thus given
is
you, the great Nine of the gods which
in
Heliopohs,
Osiris,
Toum, Shu, Tafnout,

Set,
Keb,
Nout,
Isis,
Nephthys, children of
Toum, his heart expands over your births, in your name of the Nine." There is here an untranslatable play on the words "expand"
and "nine."
This
fist is
repeated absolutely
the same in the ritual of Abydos, with refer-
ence to the
gift of
the collar or necklace, in a
text, therefore, nearly
two thousand years
later
than the
first fist.
It will be noticed that in
both
lists
the
name
of
Horus
is
entirely want-
THE NINE GODS OF HELIOPOLIS

ing.
117
The
eight gods
succeeding Touni are

is
called his children, but he himself

in the Nine.
included
In the Pyramid Texts will be
found other instances in which the gods are

ten, elev en, or even twelve in
number, because
one or other has been duplicated, or mentioned
under two different natures.

the
In a chapter of
are
Book of the Dead the gods
Nine,
including
replace
Toum
the majority of the versions
Set by Horus, while some mention

Lastly,
in
Hathor instead of Nephthys.

book of which we
is
shall
speak
later,
and which
the tombs
:
found
at the entrance of
list is
almost
all
of the kincjs, the
as follows
Toum,
it
is
Khepera (Ra the

Nout,
I sis,
beetle),
Shu, Tafnout, Keb,
Nephthys, and Nou.

is
Here
Osiris that
absent
he
is
replaced by Nou,
the liquid element.
Let us now try to give some account of

the meaning
the
theologians
of
Heliopolis
attached to this Ennead.

are struck
At
the outset
we
by the
fact that wê are dealing in
the
first
place with cosmic gods
with
a very
118

description of the creation of things.
is
summary
In the beginning
Nou, the primordial water,
the Uquid element, from which emerges

the sun, the active agent
organise the world.
Toum,
and
who
will create
But
Toum
has another
name, Ra, the
first
king of gods and men.

invariably style the
single
The Pyramid Texts Ra Toum, but the

triumphed.
all
god
name Ra
finally
Ra
is
the outstanding god, over
the other gods of Egypt, acquiring such a
pre-eminence that the

last specially applied to
name
of
Toum
was
at
the setting sun.
The
rising
sun
is
Ra
forth
is
Khepera,
who comes that is, who
Ra the beetle, he from his own substance

Although
of
born from himself.
the form of the god with the
name
the
it
Ra
is
very speedily eclipsed
Toum,
latter
nevertheless the older god.
He
was who
was alone
he
in the
Nou, emerging from the Nou,

it
and connected with
so closely, indeed, that
may
be almost confounded with the
Nou
is
itself.
Here we may note that
Toum
in
general represented under
human form
only
THE CREATOR HUMAN
IN
FORM
119
thus the primordial creative agent has a
mans
form.
sidered
This does not imply that he was conas
ha\ing been a man, but simply

all
that
all
the gods,
forth
those creative beings,

or
all
who
all
bring
life
organise
existence,
those w4io assist in giving the world the

it
appearance
has,
are
not
abstract
it
beings,
but living beings, to which a form,
may be
forth.
several forms, have to be given, according to
the time
when
their
activity
is
put
Other
gods
besides
Toum would
is
get
the
it
human
The
form, but he
the
first
to possess
immediately after he emerged from the water.

<rods
who come
this
after
Toum
in the list
are represented as his children.

starting
M. Maspero,
a
from
idea, has
reconstructed
complete genealogical descent for these gods.
They were
of
not, he affirms, simply the children
Toum
they represented his entire posterity

the children
down to several generations. Thus

of
Toum
would be the
first
pair,
Shu and
deities
Tafnout,
who
in their
turn were the parents of

these
Keb and Nout; and from
two
V20

and
Xephthys.
sprang the following two couples, Osiris and

Isis,
Set
Now,
notwith-
standing the great learning with which

JNIaspero supports his demonstration,
M.
we may
of
ask
if
he has not been just a
little
too precise,
priests
and given the conceptions of the

Heliopolis a
more
definite
and exact form than
they themselves
gave
them.
The descent
in the texts.
which he constructs does not appear to be

established in an invariable
way
The
of
first
pair of children born of

is
Toum, and
god with a
Toum
alone,
Shu and Tafnout, sometimes

Shu,
also, is a
called the Twins.
human
head
the
:
form, and often wears a feather on his
he
is
called the son of
Ra, and even

function.
tirst-born.
slips in
He
has a
special
He
between two other children of

uplifts
Toum, Keb and Nout, when he

This " uplifting of Shu
sion for the firmament
" is
;
Nout,
the sky, and separates her from Keb, the earth.

the constant expresis
and the god
often
seen portrayed with both arms uplifted, bearing
up the goddess Nout, who bends over the
THE DESCENT OF THE OODS

earth like
see in
121
an arch.
air or
is
Undoubtedly we must
atmosphere
;
Shu the
for
in fact, the
is
word
air
wind
the same.
Shu
thus the
which supports the sky.
This uplifting of
is
the firmament by the action of Shu

the
first
one of
that
acts
of the creation; prior to
there was only 11a
Toum, as we learn from a text from the Rook of the Dead, where the deceased says " I ain Toum, when I come
:
forth alone
from Nou
am Ra
reign"
;
at his appear-
ance,
when he began
*'
his
to which the
commentator adds,
of Shu."
Ra began
to appear as a
king when there was not as yet the uplifting
Shu became the

Thinis in Middle
local
god of two
cities,
Egypt and Sebennytos
in
the Delta.
In the temples dedicated to him,
he bears a twofold name, Anhour Shu
that
is
is,
Shu who
carries the
upper sky.
is
He
re-
garded as a warrior god, and

with a form of Horus
confounded
who
is
also remarkable
for his bellicose character.
Shu's sister
is
Tafnout.
Her name
is
derived
122

''to spit"; she is
from a verb which means

" the spitter."
this It
is
natural therefore to see in
goddess the water of the sky, the rain
which comes down under the influence of Shu.

Tafnout
is
a Uoness-headed goddess
under her
name of Tafnout she has no special sanctuary we know of no city dedicated to her any more than to Shu, but we find Tafnout as a second name of other lioness -headed goddesses,
Sekhmet
goddesses,
in
particular,
all
the
companion
of
Ptah, and then, like

it is
other lioness-headed
not water she represents, but,

fire
on the contrary,
then
she
the destroyer, and
she
receives the epithet " the burning one,
who
lives
in
the
furnace."
We
that
thus
the
learn
from
these
two
examples
primitive
acceptation of these cosmic
deities
was
speedily
divorced
from
their
original
nature, and that there
is little
logic or fixity in
the religious conceptions.
second pair of Toum's children
is
Keb
and Nout.
M. Maspero
regards
them
as being
born of Shu and Tafnout, but even though a
THE DESCENT OF THE GODS

text of a very late period speaks of
soil
123
as the
Keb
of Shu,
his
it
is
otherwise with the goddess

is
Nout,
companion, for she

lla."
always called
are rather
"daughter of
the
Keb and Nout
two
deities
whom Shu
who
feet, so that
has separated in
uplifting the goddess,
touches the ground

her body forms a
with hands and
sort of vault over the earth.
We
is
need have
deities
;
no doubt whatever about these two

one
is
the earth, the other
the sky,
the
re-
earth being here the
masculine element,
lying on the
presented by a
man
Keb
;
ground.
in
These spouses have a numerous posterity

the Pantheon.
is
frequently called the

all,
father of the gods
not indeed of
since
several had existed before him, but of other
members of the Ennead of

the oldest father, as
in
Heliopolis.
is
Keb
is
Nout
the oldest mother,
the order of the deities.
Cosmic Nout
is
always represented as the goddess sheltering

the world by her body, and supported some-
times by the arms of Shu.

stars are
It
is
of her the
born, and
all
the denizens of the
124
Keb and Nout become the parents of the two last pairs of the Ennead first, Osiris
firmament.
:
and
I sis,
then Set and Nephthys.

is
Osiris
certainly the
;
most
interesting of the
Egyptian gods
in
the only one, as

discover
we
shall see,
whom we
anything resembling
lie is
moral character.
Here, however,
a cosmic
;
god, representing an element or a creation
and we have to
inquire what
is
;
his
nature in the
Ennead
his
is.
That he
born of earth and sky,
numerous
texts testify
but to what idea does
name correspond ? Must we not perhaps regard him as the emblem or figure of different beings
?
We would
all
readily incline to this
supposition
the more that such variety or
vagueness in the conception of Osiris would

well agree with the general tendency which
we have
beliefs.
already often noted in the religious

It
is
certain
that
Osiris
is,
at
the
beginning, the liquid element, the

this
is
Nile,
and
the reason
lists
why
he
is
replaced by
Nou
in
one of the
of the Ennead.
He
would
thus be " fertilising' water," "the water of fecun-
THE
DAI):
SKELETON OF
I
OSIRIS
125
dation," which, united to
sis
the vegetative
earth
the earth which he
helps to enrich
by
the inundation,
richness
would
bestow on Egypt her

In
this
and luxuriant vegetation.
light then, the earth,
which was the masculine
element of the couple, Keb and Nout, would
become the mother, par

the
title,
''
excellence, according to
Isis.
Great Mother," often given to
One
is
of the most
common emblems
name
is
of Osiris
the object whose

It
is
transcribed
dad or
:
dido II.
interpreted in various
;
ways
it
has been called a quadruple altar
it
has been
regarded as a row of four columns of which the

capitals only can be seen,
one over the other

it
and M. Maspero considers
as a " tree-trunk
out of which started four cross branches cut

short
near the bole."
The
texts,
however,
leave us in no doubt whatever in the matter.
The dad
the
is
a conventional representation
skeleton, or
of
human
the
backbone with
the ribs attached, and standing on two legs.
Not seldom
is
this skeleton
surmounted by a
head, sometimes with feathers added, and even
126

Now,
if this
furnished with arms and hands.

skeleton
is
that of a
human
being,
is
we may
thence conclude that Osiris

tion of the
a representa-
human male and

and
Isis
Isis
that of the
female.
Osiris
would then be the
primitive
human
beings in the cosmogony of
Heliopolis,
and become the parents of Horus,

in
who, however, does not appear
the old
JNIaspero
Ennead,
as
he
is
of later date.
M.
denies that
Osiris
ever represents the sun
but
may be
permitted to point out to
my
learned colleague that, in one of the vignettes
Book of the Dead, the didou or dad emblem stands for the rising sun (chap. xv.
of the
where the hymns to Ra

setting occur),
at
his
rising
and
and
is
there worshipped as such
by
Isis
and Nephthys.
if at
Now,
if
Osiris
is
is
the
sun,
and
the same time he
the
human
being that has come forth from the creation,
born of Keb and Nout,

led
we
are quite naturally
up
to
the
outstanding feature
viz.,
of the
Osirian
myth,
of
the assimilation between
the
life
man and
the
life
of the sun
Osiris,
To face page 126.
Isis
and Neplitliys adoring

of Hunefer. the Trustees of the
Usiris as the Rising Sun.
(From the Pai)yins
Reproduced by permission of
I'.ritish
.Museum.)
SET AND NEPHTHYS

the sun,
perishes,
127
disappears
he
falls
to
pieces
and
hke the human body

pair
is
at death.
The
final
made up
is
of
Set
and
not
I
Nephthys.
This couple
often,
but
always, at war with

inclined to think with
Osiris
JNI.
and
Isis.
am
Maspero that Set
represents the desert country, rocky, arid, and
unproductive.
it
Consequently we
may
regard
as being in a state of hostility
towards the
causes
beneficent
rich
earth
from
which
Osiris
harvests
to be gathered.
According to
to Set
this idea,
Nephthys would be assigned
as wife, for the sake of
symmetry
only,
and so
to give birth to those
who
will be called his
companions.
the
At
this point wê
note that in
the
struggle
appears.
Osiris
is
theology
Osiris
of
Heliopolis
between
and
Set
in
scarcely
The myths and legends
which
made
the
to die under the bufFetings of Set, or
in wîich
Horus wreaks vengeance on Set

his
for
murder of
father,
are
entirely the
results of later developments,

in various parts of the country.
and originated
128

represent anything else than
Now, does Set

an
astronomical
the barren desert land, and has he, like Osiris,

significance
?
We
is
might
think so from reading certain passages of the
Book
with
of the
Dead
but
there
perhaps
another resemblance to be found in dealing

this desert
god.
Just as Osiris reprebeing,

in
it
sents the primitive
human
see
appears
to
me
that
we can
Set the animal
world, and especially the wild animal world
of the desert that inhabits the land of which
Set
is
the god.
Note how frequently

of the
it
is
said in the
Book
Dead
that Set himself
and
his
companions assume animal forms: these
animals, together with the land where they

live,
compose the domain, or element, bearing
the
name
of
Set,
which was
also
born of
earth and sky.
Subsequent legends
deities did
also inform us that these
not exhaust the posterity of
Keb and
Nout.
They had
other children besides, mal-
evolent beings, creatures

called
who
;
are sometimes
still,
by the name of rebels
and others
HISTORY OF THE CREATIOxX
129
whom
the gods found
some
difficulty in con-
quering.
But here we
are getting
beyond the
Ennead.
If
now we
gather up chronologically what
we have
learned from the series of these nine
names, wê see that from Nou, the primordial

liquid element,
emerges the sun, the creator,

of
liis
Ha Toum, who
first,
own body
air
gives birth,
to
Shu and Tafnout,
and moisture;
earth
in
its
next, to another pair, Keb, the

totality
the
earth regarded as the support,

all
the foundation on which
things rest,
its
and
Nout, the sky.
The sky assumes
position
and begins to form a vault over the earth,

only
when Shu
has uplifted the goddess, and
separated her from the ground.
gods can be born, the children
Then other of Keb and

Nile
it
Nout:
first,
Osiris
and
Isis,
the
that
witli
makes the earth

vegetation,
pair, to
fruitful
and covers
primordial
likewise
the
human
;
take up their abode on the earth next come Set and Nephthys, the barren desert land,
9
nothing but stones and rocks, incapable of
130

animal world
the desert, with which
fight.
producing anything, and the
found
in
man
has
sometimes to
We
fairly
see, then, that
the
of
is
history of the creation which the
Ennead
There
fire.
Heliopohs yields
is
complete.
but one element wanting, namely,

regard
to
this
let
In
point
we may
be
ask
if
we
have
not
ourselves
rather
misled
by the etymology of the name " Tafnout," whom we have called "the spitter," as referring to the water of the sky
?
Ought we
not rather to be influenced by her appearance

as a lioness-headed goddess,
and to remember
that goddesses with such heads are generally

lire-goddesses
?
only advance this idea by

;
way
two
the
of hypothesis
first
but, according to
air
it,
the
twins would be
and
fire
and thus
none of the elements would be wanting from

list.
book extant which gives us the doctrine of HeUopolis in a more developed form than the Ennead. This book is sculptured at the entrance of all the royal tombs, and is
There
is
"
"THE ADORATION OF RA
called
131
"the adoration of
and the adoration of
Ra in the Ament, Temt in the Anient."

which the
is
The Ament
dead go.
is tlie
Wêst, the region to
The book,
for
I
then,
the adoration of
Ra Toum,
look on the form
Temt
as
an
older form of the
name
of
Toum.
There are
seventy-five forms of Ra, to each of which the
reader makes an address, calling
him by name
thee,
and
saying,
!
''
Acclamation
to
power
supreme
"
and adding a phrase which sums
up the
chief attribute of the form addressed.

figures, which
Meanwhile, seventy-five porcelain

are the forms of Ra, are laid
on the ground.
They
in
are, then,
only forms or births of

all
Ra
he gives himself
these bodies or appearances
which we discover the different

Moreover,
these
various
cosmic
elements.
forms
or
show that he
Thus, we
possesses
certain
qualities
attributes of which each

shall
first
form
is
the emblem.
perhaps be surprised to find that
one of the
forms of
Ra
should be that of
the beetle (Kheper), but this only amounts to saying that he reproduces himself by himself
132

is
that he
his
own
is
son.
To
call
him Kheper
(beetle), therefore,
to affirm that he will have
no end, since he can be born again unceasingly from his own substance. Another form of
E.a
is
he he
is is
Tonen, one of the names of the earth at one time mentioned in two places
;
:
said to set his
gods over the world and

is
to fashion that which
in
him
at
another
time
he
is
the begetter
who
destroys his
children, thus giving
him
a certain likeness to
Kronos, the Saturn of the Greek mythology.
Ra
also
assumes the form of the

light
gi'eat
disc,
which brings the world to

illumines the Anient
in his
;
and which
he
is
therefore the sun
most
striking manifestation during the
day, and
when he
shines in the
Ament, the
earth.
West, the region beneath the
The
moon
also appears in the series.
The proof that the book

HeUopolis doctrine
is
really contains the
the fact that,
among
find the
the seventy-five forms of the god,
we
Ennead such
o'ods
as
we have
order,
described
last
it.
The
not
follow in
but the
are
THE CREATIVE WORD

arranged in
pairs, as in
135
the
lists
we have
quoted.
We have
Nout
:
Touni, Khepera, Shu, Tafnout, Keb,

is
so far tlie order

Isis
the same.
Then come
and
Set.
two goddesses,
and Nephthys, and at the

Osiris
end Horus and Nou, replacing
The
different
gods are introduced by formula?,
often vague and difficult to understand.
From
what
these formulas
we succeed
;
in determinine:
elements they represent

are personified
this
but these elements
by other forms.
We have
;
seen
it is
take place in the case of the earth
the
same
for
water and for

at the
fire.
Mention of the
Fnnead occurs
but
beginning of the book,
we very soon
perceive that the book has

di\ ided, into sections,
been composed, or rather

for purposes
of ritual.
There
is
no possible
order in these
seventy-five
acclamations of
Ra
they are said again and again over the
seventy-five figures, which appear to play the
same part
telling of
as the beads
on a string
;
but the
a laby-
them
is
quite confused
in
vâin
it is
rinth
where we look
for
a guiding
thread.
We
pass from earth to sky, from the
134

from one element to another,
mention some
if
stars to the abyss,
without being able to grasp the means of

transition.
We
can, however,
data of great interest, especially
we
seek a
comparison between the cosmogony of the
Egyptians and those of other nations.

the attribute of the
deity.
Thus
Word
This
is
assigned to the
Ra speaks, and, by this means, summons

is
beings into existence.
one of
his
funda-
mental
alludes.
qualities
to
which the book often
The
creative
word
is
one of the most

it is
effectual agents of his

his
power
also
one of
spirits
most coveted
to come.
privileges,
which the
of the blessed will share

life
when they
reach the
In these seventy-five forms of

discern clearly any appearance
or beast.
It is
Ra we do not of either man

Ra
evident that the beings which
owe
their existence to
one of the forms of
are creations of the second degree.
Thus, in
another text, the dwellers in Egypt are called

" a tear of Horus,"
is
and one of the forms of Ra
"the weeper," "he who creates the moisture
''THE LITAxW OF
which
is
THE SUN"
LS5
in
him."
1
What we
it
possess in the
book which
called
21te Juitanij for

;
of
the
Sun
when
before
translated
the
first
time, are
purely cosmic elements
it
represents the world

is
man had
appeared, and that
why we
evil are
affirm the entire absence of

in the Heliopolis doctrine. as
any moral element
Good and
There
he
is
yet things unknown.
are, indeed,
enemies of Ra, beings

to fight
;
whom
summoned
opposing
is
but the enmity consists

establish.
in
what he wishes to
The
creation
often represented as a struggle
between the
creator and the rebellious elements which he
must subjugate.
this
We
may
choose to see in
war a type of the struggle between good

evil
is
;
and
but,
if
that be so, the moral value of
good
not
certainly very
among
the
much weakened. It is cosmic gods that we find the

is
moral law, which
revealed in such a striking
way
If
in the Osirian legend.
we now
ask ourselves what
must give
to this doctrine of
call
it
name we Heliopolis, we
need not hesitate to
Henotheism, or
136

Pantheism.
All,
even
Everything,
is
the
creation or emanation of
Ra Toum, and
All
must return
to him.
For the book which we
have just rapidly analysed
the
enumeration
the the
of the seventy-five forms of
introduction
deceased,
to
long
Ra is but prayers made by
expressing the liveliest hope, and
the most ardent desire, to be assimilated to
Ra
and
identified with
Ra
in fact, to
be entirely
deity, as
one with him.

seen in
Thus the primordial

all
;
Ra, embraces
all
Ra
is
the source
are his
from which emanate

manifestations, and
the gods
who
the dead aspire only to
return to him.
This
is
certainly
what we
call
Pantheism
but
must, however, guard against affirming

is
that the Egyptian religion
pantheism, or
Its
even that
it
began
as pantheism.
pan-
theistic feature applies
only to the Heliopolis
doctrine, of the origin of
which we are ignorant.
Alongside of this very marked tendency towards
pantheism we find gods whose individual

ence seems well established
;
exist-
and we
also find
HKXOTHEISM: Px\NTHEISM
137
texts in which the personahty of the deceased
has a distinct subsistence and the great All. the outset

;
is
not merged
in
It
is
just as
we remarked
at
there
is
:
no single system, with

striking contradictions
clearly defined
lines
exist
and, altogether,
we may
affirm that the
beliefs
of
the ancient Egyptians present a

in whicli
medley of the most diverse doctrines,
we must
not look for harmony.
If
we wdsh
disis
to account for them,
we must begin by
and
localities.
tinguishing
periods
This
what we have sought to do

of the
for the doctrine

it
cosmogony
as wê find
at Heliopolis,
and of that we can say without hesitation that

it is
pantheism.
If
now we
pass on to other cities and centres,
wê shall again find the principle of the
Ennead,
but not quite so
strictly held as in Heliopolis,

it is
since in each district

at the
the local god
who
is
head of the Ennead, taking the place

Thus, at Tliebes, the
series
of
Toum.
em-
braces
more than nine gods, because

and
Isis,
pairs,
like Osiris
coiuit
only as one.
By
138

of compensation
way
Amon
is
there added in
as the outstanding god, either of the locahty or
of the great dynasties native to the place.
At
Memphis, Ptah
too,
is
the leading god, and there,
an Ennead, we believe,
may
it
is
be found
but here again, as at Thebes,
rather the
principle of a triad that prevails

consists of father, mother,
a triad that
I
and
child.
You may
perhaps be surprised that
have
is
not yet spoken of

the Egyptian god
Amon.
He,
it
is
true,
whom we
most frequently
find in the temple sculptures.

called
is
He
is
is
usually
Amon
or
Ra, which already shows that he
nothing but the great god
who
called
Ra
is
Toum,
Toum
Ra, at Heliopolis.
Amon
the deity of Thebes,
who comes
into special
prominence from the time of the eleventh

dynasty,
when
that city
became the
it
capital of
Egypt on the
power.
transference to
rise
of the royal
After the
of Thebes to greatness
and importance,
its
its
god,
whom
among
the
royal
dynasty considered
progenitor, assumed a
particularly exalted position
the other
{To face
})aijc
138.
[Pfioto by Translator.
Tliotliiiies
HI. worshippincr Anion Ra.
Hathor
Shiiiie, discoveieil
h\ Professor Naville, February 190G. (Plioto^jmphoil in alfu.)
AMON, MUT, AND KHONS

deities
1S9
in
his
of the
country;
and
it
was
honour that succeeding generations reared one

of the most gigantic temples that ever
built
â
man
lias
temple that became almost a
city in itself, in
which we
find a
summary
of
the whole history of Egypt.
An Ennead
tioned, but
of Thebes
may
indeed be menIt appears to
it is
of recent date.
it
me
probable that
was composed
for
the
sake of
symmetry with the Heliopolitan one. In the Pyramid Texts, Amon, we find, is
Min, who
hardly mentioned except under the form of

is
Amon
the Generator.
At Thebes
he
is
the head of a triad composed of himself,
the goddess
Mut, and Khons.

is
Mut means
many
mother
she
represented
under the form
of a vulture, and
instances
at
may
be regarded, in
a
least, as
symbol of the sky.
As for Khons, he is certainly a lunar deity, who duplicates himself, for there are at least two of the name at Thebes. Amon is often
called the
fies
husband of
his
mother, which signi-
that he specially represents the productive
140

like
power of generation,
the
sun and the
water in the world of nature.
Like
Osiris.
Amon
is
almost always represented as a
man
holding a sceptre, with a head-dress of two

feathers.
Hut he has an animal sacred to him,

also
whose appearance he
the ram.
assumes, namely,
That
is
why
long avenues of rams,
erroneously called sphinxes, often lead up to

his
temples.
The
of
Avord
sphinx
denotes a
complex animal, a
the
lion with the
head of a man,
emblem
Toum,
placed at the entrance
of his temples, as, for example, at Heliopolis.
The whole
later date
doctrine regarding
Amon
is
of a
than that of Heliopolis, but has at
the same time the closest relations with the

latter.
There are
being
differences,
however
some
dis-
features
peculiar
to
Thebes,
tinguishing
is
Amon
from Toum.
Thus
is
Amon
the
styled king of the gods, and this
why
Greeks made Zeus of him.
Amon
has some-
what more of the human element than Toum,

being more anthropomorphic
as
in character
;
and,
we
shall see,
he interferes of his
own
accord
AMON
in
141
human
affairs.
He
approximates rather to
certain of the deities of Greece, without,

ever, disclosing a
how-
moral side in
his character, as
Osiris does.
This intervention of the person of

affairs
the god in
human
appears to be a side
priests of
of the doctrine
which the
into
Thebes
to
brought specially
prominence, and
which they attached great importance.

the theogamy, or
Tims
union of
Amon
with the
queen mother,
is
in the
parentage of the sovereign,

like the
undoubtedly a Theban invention,

statues
also
speaking
later,
to
which we
shall
allude
as
the
part which
Amon
plays
in the
epoch of the great Theban dynasties,

in
all
when Thebes was

her
the splendour of
power,
and
when
her
god
held
the
premier place
the land.
among
the numerous deities of
And
yet, if
speak of
we Amon,
consult
if
all
the books which
without giving too

detail,
we study liis true nature, much weight to this or that
we
find that
;
Amon
resembles
Toum
or
Ra, absolutely
lie
has the same attributes, the
142

origin.
same power, the same
Nor
is
the
groundwork of the doctrine

enough and subject to what
at
different.
We
have always the same kind of pantheism, vague

I
shall call lapses
one time, creator and creature, god and
man, father and son being kept absolutely

distinct
;
at other times,
on the contrary, the
one
is
merged
in the other in such a
way
as to
make but
a single being.
We possess several hymns

inform us exactly as to
his
to
Amon, which
Here
is
nature and the idea

a
which the Egyptians had of him.
fragment of one of these hymns which must be

referred to
the
all
Theban epoch
All
" Sole form,^
producing
creates
all
things, the one, the sole one
who
beings.
human
beings have
come from his eyes, and the gods are born of He it is who creates the word of his mouth.
the herbs which feed
plants for
all cattle
is
and nourishing
brings to being
air,
men he
;
it
who
is
the
fish
of the river and the birds of the

still
and gives breath to what

1
in the
egg;
Translated into French by M. Grebaut.
HYMNS TO AMON
... he
as
it is
143
who
feeds the insects that creep,

fly,
well as those that
who
gives
what
is
necessary to the rats in their holes, and

feeds the insects of
all
who
the woods."
" Hail to
thee, author of all things, the one, the sole one,
whose arms
are
many, who, though he
rests,
rests,
yet watches over
men
w^ho,
all
though he
animals,
yet seeks after the good of
Amon
who
keeps
all
things in
life.
Toum
and Har-
machis (Hor-akhte) worship thee
in all their
words, and say to thee: Adoration to thee,

for
thou dwellest
in us
we
prostrate ourselves
to the
ground before thee who hast brought

All animals salute thee, and
all
us forth.
regions cause thee to hear their acclamations,

in all the height of the sky, in all the
width of
the earth, and in the depth of the
sea.
The
gods he down before thy majesty

the soul of their creator
;
they exalt
they are joyful before
him who has begotten them.
They
say:
all
Come
laid
in
peace,
father
of the fathers of
aloft the sky,
the gods,
who
hast
:
hung
and
back the earth
thou author of things.
144

we
creator of beings, prince supreme, chief of the
gods,
adore thy soul."

sight
At hymn
first
we might be
misled by this
into regarding
his
Amon
as a creator god,
independent of
creatures,
and providing
for their existence, as the
god of the Hebrew

it is
monotheism provided.
in other fragments he
is
But
not really so
called the
god of the
and
moon, Ani, or
still
more frequently the god
who
traverses the
Nou
all
in his
barques
one fragment ends

created humanity and
by saying that
he has
is
things because he
Now, we know who Toum is, the sole, primordial being, who emerges from the liquid element and we see, therefore,
Khepera.
;
Toum
that the identity of this doctrine with that of
Heliopolis
features.
is
complete, at least in
its
main
Another
which
kind
of
documents
which we
" Decrees,"
possess concerning the

in
god are the
Amon
and
the
grants to the dead

privileges
life.
certain
will
advantages
enjoy
in
which they
next
These
*'
Decrees
"THE DECREES OF AMOX"

often begin with a sort of
145
hymn
in lionour of
the god.
Here
are
some hnes from one of

twenty-first dynasty:
all
them dating from the
''The angust god, the master of
the gods,
Amon
Ra, the august soul
beginning, the great

the god of the
who is as at the god who lives by truth,

w^ho has engendered
first cycle,
the gods of the other cycles, and by
whom
all
all
the gods exist, the unique one

that exists
who made
when
the earth began to be at the
creation, in mysterious births, in
innumerable
forms, of which none can know^ the growth,

. . .
sovêreign
lord
of
being,
all
that
is
exists
because
he
is,
and
when he began
;
to be, there
first
was nothing but he

of the creation
from the
already
dawn
he
was
the solar disc,

radiances, he
all
prince of splendours
and of
life
whose appearance gives

^
to
human
beings."
These few
lines are
spirit
enough
to help us
to
understand the
piece.
^
which
inspires the
whole
Translated into Frencli hv M. Mas})er().
10
146

is
Anion
from
thus, here again, the unique being

all
whom
emanates, and
who
manifests
himself in his creations, such as the sun and
the moon, and

ordial water
is
at the
is
same time the primall
which
the origin of
things.
is
The
still
pantheistic character of these beliefs
better seen in a very long

as
it
hymn, of com-
paratively late date
the time
wâlls
only goes back to of Darius which carved on the

is
of the temple of the Theban
oasis.
El
Khargeh,
proper.
triad of
and
therefore
outside
of
Egypt
This temple was dedicated to the
Amon Ra
but other
deities,
Toum
and Thoth,
for instance, are also
found there.
hospitality
Not only does
Amon
give
them
are
within his sanctuary, but he identifies himself
completely with them.
Here
some
fraghis
ments
"
He
is
Ra who exists by himself;

horns are like emerald.
[Dr Birch
bones are of
lapis-lazuli,
silver, his
skin of gold, his hair of
his
He
also
viii.
Translated by Brugsch into German,
gives an English version in Records of the Past, vol.

pp. 137-144.
Translator.]
PANTHEISM AGAIN
is
147
the good god
who
rests in his
own body and

he shines
gives birth to
himself without coming forth

.
from a mother's womb.
When
on the world the cycles of the gods make

adoration before
his face,
they exalt them-
selves high as heaven,
and they direct their

children.
prayers to him, the creator of his
When
.
. .
he reveals himself in the secret world,
they celebrate him as do their companions they celebrate his royal majesty,
their
lord
who
reveals
himself in
all
all
things,
and
who who
has given names to
things,
from the
mountains even to the

dwells in
all
rivers.
For
it is
Amon
things, this revered

It
is
god who
was from the beginning.
according to
his plans that the earth exists.
He
is
Ptah,
the greatest of the gods, he
who becomes an
his
aged man, and

child, in
who renews
god
youth
like a
an eternal duration."
see that the
is
We thus
already called
Ra, with the appearance

reigns in Heliopolis, just as
later in a
of the
king
who
him
the
is,
we
shall find
also, that
myth.
He
is
Amon
148

who
dwells in
all
hidden god
things,
and
at
the same time the great god of Memphis,
Ptah the
creator.
But the hymn
also con-
tains allusions to other
gods and to myths of

dwelling from ancient
other localities
''
:
Thy
ages was on the height of Hermopolis, thou

traversest the earth
and the
oasis
when thou
wentest forth from the water as the mysterious

egg, the goddess
Amentit was by
thee.
Thou
didst
in
didst take thy seat
upon the cow, thou
lay hold of her horns,
and thou didst swim
the
water of Mehourit, when there was as
yet no green thing.
Thou
didst
is
go to the
found
;
nome
Cusse
of Cusas, there thy image
it is
that of Hershefi the god, thy august

:
ram
of
and thou
restest after tens of thousands

thee.
and thousands of gods have come out of
That which thou
didst cast forth

spit
became Shu,
the
what thou
so
at
didst
out became Tafnout,

create
that
thou
didst
Ennead,
several
"
the
beginning
he
is
of
being."
to
In
:
passages
likened
Osiris
Thy
august ram dwells in Didou, he joins together
THE DARIUS HYMN TO AMON

the four gods of the lands of Mendes."
also, like Osiris, reigns
149
He
over souls in the lower

travel over
world.
The hymn makes the god

is
the most important districts of Egypt,
and
everywhere he
the place
glad
:
said to be the great
god of
is
"
The
heart of the goddess Saosis
when thou dwellest in the territory of Heliopolis. Thou art there the water of the
inundation and the king of the great palace of
On.
in the
The land
of
Memphis opens
before thee,
form of Ptah, the

at
first-born of the gods,
he
is
who was
set
the beginning.
is
Thy
throne
up
at
Memphis, thy ram
like to that
of
Anion Ra."
the
We
:
cannot sum up more

doctrine
clearly
Egyptian
"
than in the
is
following phrase
Thy
throne
reared in
every place
wiliest
it,
thou
desirest,
and when thou
thou
dost
multiply thy names."
There
is,
then, but a single deity,
who
bears a
different
name according
is,
to the locality of his

is
abode, that
wherever
his cult
celebrated.
like
In the great cities of Egypt,
Thebes
and Heliopolis, and Memphis
too, colleges of
150
priests

were constituted, and they became a
in the state,
power
was the
his
especially
if
their
home
as
city
which the Pharaoh had chosen

or where
find
capital,
lists
he had sprung from.
The
tions
we
here
and there of dona-
made by
the king to the various temples
amply
attest the importance of these colleges

priests
and the influence the

exercise in the
were sure to
government of the kingdom.

in
The
the
priestly orders
first
Egypt
certainly held
is
rank, and to such an extent

it is
this
true that
exceedingly
uncommon
is
to find
a highly placed personage that

to the
cult
not attached
of some deity or another.
A
be
priest's title
might
in the majority of cases
only a
less
title inpartibiis,
but the holder none the

it,
clung tenaciously to
for
it
gave him a
more exalted rank, and perhaps secured certain The rehgion was likewise privileges for him.
closely
bound up with
the government, or, as

:
we
should say nowadays, with politics
and
we may
therefore ask whether, in the attempt
at a religious revolution which
xVmenhotep IV.,
To face page 151.
ATEN WORSHIP
a king of
tlie
151
eighteenth dynasty, made, he

it
was impelled to
religions motive.
from a secular or from a
The eighteenth dynasty

great kings of Egypt.
hi particular,
is
the dynasty of the
It
was that dynasty,

III.,
which produced Thothmes
the conqueror and the organiser, the monarch
who has
a just title to be called Great.
One
of
his successors
towards the fourth year of
his
reign was
idea.
suddenly possessed by a strange

his father
Like
he was named
influence
Amenall
hotep, and,
moved by some
unknown
the
to us, he resolved to destroy the cult of
gods of Egypt other than the gods of Heliopolis,
and of these
latter to assign the
first
place to the
most
brilliant manifestation of
Ra,
namely, the solar disc Aten.
This disc berepre-
comes
his sole god.
He has him always

in hands.
his
sented in the same way, as a sun shooting out
beams of
this
light
disc
ending
It
is
to
solar
he addresses
adorations
chiefly
and makes
of
fruits
his offerings,
which consist
and
\egetables.
Aten
is
never
152

is,
anthropomorphic, that
represented
disc
as
man but
with rays.
always
as
the
of the
sun
In order to estabhsh the new cult
more
securely, the king
changed
his
own name,
names
calling himself " the splendour of the solar disc
(Khu-en-aten)
";
and, moreover, had the
of the other Egyptian gods effaced from the
monuments, not sparing even

touche or
his father's, in
first place.
his
own
car-
both of which
It
Amen
Thebes
occupied the
it
seems plain that
was against the name of

;
Amon
and
at
that his wrath was excited

to believe that his hatred
this leads us
was directed not so
much
against the doctrine or the

tJie
god
himself as
against the college of
priests,
who were
attached to the service of the god, and whose
encroachments he dreaded.
In the same interest he resolved that Thebes
should no longer be his capital, and so he pro-
ceeded to found a
at a place
new
city in JNIiddle
Egypt
now called Tell el Amarna, where he set up his new cult, and built a palace of In the which remains may still be seen.
; ;
AMENHOTEP
IV.
153
neiglibouring mountain are the tombs of his
family and of the dignitaries of his kingdom
and
in
these
he
is
depicted in a
singular
fashion, in a style ahiiost approaching caricature,
though
his robes
and head-dresses are
just the
same
as those of the other kings.
His
dis-
strongly
protruding beardless chin, the
proportionate length of his limbs, the fatty
development of the whole body, together with

a kind of sickly feminine
appearance,
mark
him
but
off
from
all
the other kings of
Egypt
and, to please him, not only his whole ftimily,

all
his
court are seen represented in a
similar
fashion.
taste,
This king had certainly a
peculiar
plained.
which has not yet been excapital
His
;
endured hardly longer

descendants of the
than himself and

first
his direct
generation reverted almost immediately
to the worship of
Amon
Aten
and the other

is
deities.
The
gods
cult of the
absolutely similar
in
to that which
was celebrated
honour of the
;
whom
the king proscribed
but what
we have
here specially to note
is
some very
154

hymns
is
beautiful
in
which
the
power
of
the solar disc
extolled.
These
hymns
less
have always the same theme, more or

developed
book.
;
they are fragments of the same

is
There
certainly
much
poetry in
several of them.
Here
^
:
are
some fragments
of the longest one

" Splendid
is
thy dawning
in the horizon of heaven,

life
;
Aten, living god, principle of
When
Thou Thou
thou
fillest
risest in
the horizon of the east,
every land with thy beauty.
art beautiful
and great,
brilliant,
and exalted
above earth.
Thy beams encompass

Bestowing
life
all
lands that thou hast made,
on
all creatures.
Thou Thou
art the sun, thou bringest
them what they need.

earth,
sendest forth thy beams
upon the
And
the day follows thy footsteps.
When
The
thou
is
settest in the western horizon of heaven,

in night like the dead.
earth
Men
sleep in their dwellings,
Their heads are covered.
And no
1
one seeth who
is
beside him.
Translated into French by M. Bouriant, and hy
Mr
Breasted [and also by
Mr
Griffith] into English.
HYMN TO THE ATEN

The
lion
155
comoth from
his den,
:
And
And
serpents then bite

is
The bright heaven
darkened,
earth hes in silence.

in the west.
For he that made them has gone down
In the morning he appeareth again.
Under
his
form of Aten,
And dayhght scatters the darivness, And all the land rejoiceth.
Then men awake and stand upon their feet, They bathe their limbs, and clothe themselves,
And
And
lift
their hands in adoration.

all
Because thou lightenest
the land.
is
thev do the work that
before them.
All the cattle
lie
down
in their pastures
All trees and plants grow and flourish;
The
birds
fly
out of their nests.

. .
And spread their wings in adoring thy ka. Thy beams go down to the depth of the sea. And they give life to the child in the mother.
.''
. .
The poet then

the child to
continues
:
describes
how
the god
lulletli
;
rest, so
that
it
stops crying
und
156
"

didst
to thy will,
Thou
make the earth according When no one was by thee, Men, beasts wild and tame.
everything that
flieth
And And
The
everything that walketh on the earth.
with wings in the
air.
countries of Syria
and Kush and the land of
Egypt,
Thou
hast set every one in his place.

art the one
Thou
and only god,

all his
Who
hast gathered together
forms.
Together with those of the living
disc,
The rising sun, in all his splendour. Coming and going, all these forms are
in thee,
one and only
god."'
AVhile undoubtedly the pantheistic character

is
less
marked
it is
here
than
in
other pieces,
because
addressed to a god
who
is
never
seen represented except in one form, yet the

basis
of the teaching
is
the same
single
deity
all
who embraces
is
all
things and from
whom
things proceed,
and whose most striking
manifestation
It
the
A ten
or solar disc.
was,
tlien,
not the doctrine which the
king wished to reform.
He
desired,
above
everything, to rid himself of the
colleges of
ATEN WORSHIP AN OLD CULT

the priests
157
as a
who
stood in his
way
and,
means of
effecting his purpose, he sought to
unify rehgious worship throughout the whole
country and organise
it
in
his
own
fashion.
He
would thus wield an indisputable sway by

religion.
means of the
But
this forced unity
proved too distasteful to the Egyptian mind,
and Amenhotep IV.
failed in his enterprise,
which
was
much more
political
than a
religious revolution.
NOTE
Since
the
foregoing lecture
was
delivered,
special
attention has been drawn to

discoveries
Amenhotep
IV.
by
different
first
by the discovery of a
city
which he
Upper Nubia, and chiefly by the finding of two tombs. One of the latter contained his maternal
founded
in
grandparents, and the other a sarcophagus with a body,
which several of
own, though
my
colleagues believe to be the king's
it is
that of a very young man.
we need only refer to the part played Amenhotep IV. as a reformer. Some would fain see by in him a monotheist who alone possessed the secret of
this occasion
On
rising to the idea of a one
and only creator whose proall his creatures,
vidence watches, with loving eye, over
e\en
the very humblest.
It
is
impossible
for us to
158

We
still
adopt this point of view.
persist
in
our
opinion that the religions revolution of Anienhotep IV.

was, above everything
else, political in its origin.
It is
Anion, in an especial degree,
whom
he persecutes with
savage hatred, because the priestly college of the god
had become much too powerful,

metropolis of the cult of Anion.
self
chiefly at
Thebes, the
In order to free him;
from the
priests,
he had to abolish the god
and
this
he set himself to do by destroying the images of
the god, and instituting everywhere the Heliopolitan

cult of the
god Harmachis (Hor-akhte), one of whose

disc.
still
manifestations was the Aten, or solar

less
This cult
the no doubt developed form, but existence at Thebes, cult had already been
in in
same
as
may
be seen on monuments erected by predecessors of Anien-
hotep IV.
What,
in
our opinion, shipwrecked the work
of the reformer was the fact that he found himself in

conflict
with Thebes, which was bv that time a powerful

also because he
city
and
attempted to unify worship
throughout the whole countrv

nant to the Egyptian mind.
thing wholly repug-
Arabet el Madfouna, Upper Egypt,

l^th
March 1909.
IV
After Champollion had
ment of the
the
there his
placed in the hands
of the learned world the key to the decipherhieroglyphics, he

in
went to study
monuments
the Turin
Museum, and
by a large
attention was arrested
papyrus, almost twenty metres long, written

in vertical
columns of hieroglyphics, along the
top of which ran a row of vignettes.
He
;
also
recovered some fragments, of different lengths,

written in hieroglyphics or in
hieratic
and
seeing that the subject related to the dead and
what concerned them

called
in the
next world, he
the book 'Un Rituel Funeraire
''A
Funerary Ritual. "
The study of this important

of
document was
attracted
one
the
a
subjects
which
to
Iêpsius,
then
159
young man,
160

when he was on
his
Turin,
way
to
Rome
in
1836, to join
first
to
M. de Bunsen, who had been the urge him to devote himself to EgyptoLepsius soon perceived that
given by Champollion was not correct.
is
logical studies.
the
title
The
tain
collection
not a
ritual,
nor does
it
con-
minute prescriptions
as to the
way in which
the ceremonies of worship ought to be practised,

or, if
such prescriptions are sometimes found,

Besides, the addresses
they are only accessories.
and formulse used are not pronounced by a

priest
;
they are always put in the mouth of

Lepsius accordingly gave the
the deceased.
composition the
the Dead.
name
title,
of Todtenbuch,
Book
book
of
This
however, really gives us

;
no information
only
is
as to the nature of the

is
it
tells us,
what
perfectly correct, that
it
intended for the dead.
The
great papyrus
of Turin was published by Lepsius in 1842,
and
of
his
work has been
for long the foundation
all
the works bearing on this subject.
To
the same scholar
we owe
the numbering of the

is
chapters into which the book
divided.
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
161
if
We
should
regarded the
make a Book of
great mistake
we
its
the
Dead
as
work
with a beginning and an end, and having
different parts following a logical or regular

order.
It
is
not a unity
it is
but a collection
of pieces entirely independent of each other,
something
respect.
like the
Book
of Psalms
in
this
The presence
It
of one
chapter does
not imply the presence in another papyrus of

the next chapter.
is
rather a collection of
prayers or hymns, supposed to be words spoken
by the deceased when he has reached the world
beyond the tomb.
These pieces are of the

is
most diverse kinds, but the whole scene

in the Anient, in the region of the AVest,
laid
where
the dead
man
has arrived.
In one passage
the deceased describes the various transformations
which he undergoes
in another,
the gates
through which he must pass, on certain conditions
which are indicated to him by the warder

Again, the deceased informs us of
life
of the gate.
the malevolent genii he has to fight, or the
he leads in the Elysian
fields, in
which
11
tilling
162

in another place he appears
the ground and sailing on the canals are the

chief occupations
as
;
an incomplete being, to
is
whom
the head or
;
the heart that
wanting
is
restored
and here
we recoonise memberment
against
a vao-ue reminiscence of the dis-
of old times, as well as a protest

practice.
the
Again, he passes in
judgment before
which we
shall
Osiris, in a
famous scene to
have to return.
The whole
is
confused mingling of the most diverse doctrines,
and affords us the best picture we can obtain

of the religious beliefs of the Egyptians.
In
the book
we
are " assisting," so to speak, in
everything that
may happen
lie
to the deceased.
But there does not

turn aside
before
him any
well-
defined route or path from which he cannot

;
the metamorphoses through which
he passes, the dangers which he escapes, the

appearances which he assumes
represented as so
all
these are not
many
successive states which
he must pass through, according to a prescribed
and immutable law
no, everything
that can
happen to
him
all
the
possible
; ;
MAGIC AT
choices before
ITS
ROOT
solely
163
him
depend
well
on whether
the formulee he recites have sufficient efficacy,

or whether
he
is
acquainted with the
names he ought
to
know.
But there
is
no
necessity or external law which compels
him
to pass through these various states, nor are
we
at all certain that every soul
must appear
him
;
before Osiris in order to be judged by
there
is
neither authority nor obligation one
way
dead
or the other.
And
;
yet this book was indispensable to the

it
was copied on the walls of
their
tombs and on the

it
sides of their sarcophagi
was written on the linen bandages which

all,
swathed them, and, above
on the papyii
body-
which were
cloths.
laid within the folds of the
As no
itself,
regular order
is
followed in
the book
so these papyri differ
much
in
length and contents.
For one deceased person

suffice,
two or three chapters would

those which he or
for
liis
clearly
friends liked the best
another
be
would
much more developed text required. One man would be

a
164

another would
pleased with vignettes or illustrations drawn
with ink, like the text
itself;
wish fine pictures in colours, which were often
executed at the
the text.
cost as to
It
sacrifice of the correctness of
would be
entirely a question of
whether the papyrus would be large
or small, beautiful or otherwise.

.
The
title
of the book as
commonly given
It
is
is
one with which we do not agree.
generally rendered "
The Book
of the
Coming
Forth by
Day
or during the Day."
A
to
pro-
longed study of these texts has led

a rather different translation
:
"
make The Book of

is,
me
the
Coming Out from The deceased's day."

day,
the Day,'' that
''the
his
hfe
of a
man
is
with a morning and an evening;

his
and
"to come out from

" to
day" does not mean

sense
that
quit
life "
in
the
of
losing
his
existence.
We
life,
know
several
elements
go to the making up of a human being and

maintain
particularly
his
double.
is
*'
To
come out from the day,"
therefore,
to be
delivered from that decreed and determined
BOOK OF "COMING OUT FROM THE DAY^^
165
duration of time pertaining to every earthly

life,
and to have an existence, with neither

"
beginning nor end, and without Hmits in time
and space.
Coming out from

all
the day
" is
to
be dehvered from
is
these limits.
Hence
there
frequently added to the phrase " coming out

"
from the day
the complementary expression
"under
wishes."
all
the
forms which
the
deceased
The book
of a
title,
is
divided into chapters, differing

;
greatly in length
in general, a chapter consists
a vignette, and a text,
more
or less
developed, followed
indicating at
is
sometimes
by a rubric
what
particular time the chapter

effect the reading will
to be read, or
what
have on the
lot of the deceased.

titles
:
The
follow-
ing are specimens of the

of
"
The Chapter
coming
forth from the
day and of living
again after being dead," "
doing work in
The Chapter of not the lower world," " The Chapter

the
of going into and coming out of the lower

world,"
" of
preventing
deceased from
being eaten by serpents in the lower world,"
166
" of repulsing the crocodile that wishes to rob
the deceased of his magical power," " of giving

breath,"
" of
drinking water," " of

" of
opening
to
the
mouth,"
giving
is
heart
the
deceased."
Then
there
the entrance into
the Hall of the Truths, where the judgment

takes place.
Let
it
not be supposed that the text

of the
is
a
is
description
way
is
in
which
what
mentioned
in the title
titles are
done or ought to
happen
the
the words to be said by
the deceased on the required occasion, and

their
magical virtue ought to produce the
desired result indicated
by the
titles.
is
The
first
result to be achieved
that the
deceased
may become what

M. Maspero
the Egyptians call
md
kherou, which has been for long translated

interprets the
;
"justified."
words
by "just or true of voice"

ability of the deceased to
that
is
to say, the
pronounce with a just
or true voice the incantations which will give
him the mastery over

this
his enemies.
consider
meaning too
restricted in its scope.
There
ORIGIN OF
are
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

for translating the
167
grounds
words rather
is
differently.
voice that
The voice here commands what

;
alluded to
the
the voice utters

to
live
;
the
dead
man
thereby causes
it
he
to
thereby makes
reality,
he causes
it
become
" truth "
in
other words,
when he
into
I
addresses his enemies, he possesses the power
of immediately putting his

force,
commands
and from them they cannot escape.
think, then, that the expression " conqueror,"
the ''victorious" or "triuuiphant one," suits

the Egyptian idea better.
Before
we
begin to examine the contents of

its origin.
the book, let us inquire into
Several
of the chapters are attributed to a king of the
Old Empire, and even to Ousaphais,

prince, the fifth after
a Thinite
for
:
Menes.
AVe have,
example, at chapter
'*
Ixiv.,
the following rubric
This chapter was discovered in the founda-
tions of
Hounnou (a temple of Osiris) by mason who was building a wall in the time
King Ousaphais, the
is
Am
of
victorious.
is
This com-
position
secret
it
not to be seen or
168

at."
looked
Another version
attributes
it
(rubric) of the
same chapter
to
King Mycerinus
" This
(JMen-Kau-ra) of the sixth dynasty, with one

of the Heart Chapters, in these words
:
chapter was found at
Eshmoun (Hermopohs)
in
on a plaque of metal of the south, engraven

time
prince,
true lapis lazuli, under the feet of this god
(Thoth),
victorious
in
;
the
of
King Mycerinus,
found
it
the
Hortetef,
when he was
travelling to
make
the inspection
of the temples."
Another papyrus, instead of

the writing was the god's own.
teUing us that the text was inlaid with lapis

lazuli, says that
Other
texts, later
than those we have cited,

It
also attribute these chapters to Ousaphais.
seems then
that,
on
this point, there

;
was a
all
well-established tradition
and
it
is
the
more
are
to be trusted because these statements

in papyri
made
which came from Thebes,

is
while
Ousaphais
Thinite
It
is,
king
and
Mycerinus a Memphite.
then, quite
probable that a portion at least of the Book of

the
Dead goes back
to a very remote epoch.
OLD EMPIRE FRAGMENTS

to the
first
still.
169
Memphite
dynasties,
if
not further
in
is
back
Some fragments
assign
It
is
occur
the the
Pyramid Texts, and

same,
as the doctrine
we may common origin.

that
the two books to a

curious, however, to
note
while
these
Pyramid Texts
are
reserved exclusively for royal use, at least at
the epoch
when
these piles were reared, the

at the
all
tombs of private persons, executed

time, with their beautiful pictures,
same
relating
mundane of the Book

to
later period.
life,
do not contain a single wôrd
of the Dead, as was the case at a
Some fragments
of the time of the
served.
of the
Book
of the
Dead
pre-
Old Empire have been
A
us
few years ago the discovery of

ele\
tombs of the
supplied
enth and twelfth dynasties

quite
a
large
wîth
is is
number.
Chapter
xvii.
it
especially frequent in these
fragments:
one of the most important,
carrying us back at once into the very heart

of the Heliopolitan cosmogony.
Its text
;
is
much
shorter than
it
afterwards became
but
170

this
even at
epoch the meaning of the text

lost,
was beginning to be
as
is
proved by
the glosses and commentaries introduced into

it.
A sentence
is
is
?
often broken by the question,
" \Vhat
replies
that
" to
which the commentator
by an explanation.
AVith the eighteenth dynasty the
we
witness
emergence of texts
also
in
great
numbers,
on papyrus and
on the walls of tombs.

in a style of
These papyri are written

writing
hand-
midway between pure

writing
are
hieroglyphics
and the cursive

hieratic.
erroneously styled
They
of very unequal length,
and generally contain only a selection of the

chapters of the book as published by Lepsius.
Accordingly,
if
we wished
in
to reconstruct the
whole of the book

version
collate
conformity with the
of the period,
we
should
have
to
more than twenty-four
papyri,
and
all
yet
we should have not brought
together
the chapters current in the Saite epoch.
On
the other hand, there are other chapters which
were dropped
in
later
times.
No
order of
THE SAITE RECENSION

any kind
can say
is
171
found
in these papyri
all
that
we
is
that nearly every one ends with

all
the same chapter, but they
have a different
beginning, and the judgment scene, one of the
most important,
is
sometimes found even

is
in
two
places,
one of which
quite
at
the
beginning of the text.

is
Frequently too there
hymn
to Osiris as an introduction.
is,
In the Saite epoch, that

seventh century before our
towards the
era, a revision
and
a complete codification of the
Book
of the
Dead was made;
a definite order
was adopted,
to which the copyists did not adhere strictly,
but only in a general way.
\"arious chapters
were added to the text, especially those that

appear
last in
the Turin papyrus, containing
fantastic
and strange words.
We
might
also
say that a text was then settled, from which

as Httle deviation as possible
this
lost
was made.
But
work was done by men who had certainly the meaning of what they wrote, and a
large
number
of
glosses
were
introduced
which usually render the text only the more
172

Though
copies
a comparison of the fideUty
obscure.
of the
is
with that
it
of
is
Hebrew
Saite
JNISS.
out of the question,

of variants
in
certain that
the
is
number
the
version
much fewer than in the Theban texts. Anyone who is famihar with the Book of the Dead is struck at the first glance with the
difficulty
of
translating
it
a
we
difficulty
of
precisely the
same nature
For
is
as
find in the
Pyramid Texts.
reasons.
this there are
various
There
first
the inaccuracy of the
who worked for the dead were mere craftsmen, who displayed all
text
itself.
The
copyists
the more carelessness in proportion to their
very
common
ignorance of what they were

if
writing.
correct,
Besides,
the manuscript was not
nobody
would
it
would
suffisr
:
be
it
:
prejudiced,
no
interest
by
nobody would
in the
ever see
again
it
would be hidden
in the
tomb, perhaps even wrapped up
band-
ages round the deceased, and no one would

ever trouble himself to read
it.
Next, the
religi-
question
may
be asked whether these
DIFFICULTIES OF
THE BOOK
173
ous texts, composed a thousand years perhaps

before the date
when they had
to be repro-
duced, had not become enigmas as insoluble

to
these
unlettered
men
as they are to us.
Many
all
of the words put in the mouths of the
defunct are magical words, which would be

the more efficacious the less they were
understood.
able
Moreover, there
is
consider-
number of
allusions to mythological fticts
with which
we
are only imperfectly acquainted.
All this does not help the translator in his

task
far
from
it.
It
is
not the grammar that

it is
is
the stumbling-
block
generally very simple.

is
The meanit
ing of the words, too,
plain,
is
and yet
often
happens that a phrase which
easy to translate
yields a fantastic idea with quite a childish, not
to say a nonsensical, look.

ever, be sure that
in this way.
it
We
cannot, how-
struck the old Egyptians

this
Beneath
first
strange
mode
of
speech, which at
sight
makes us
smile,
there
may
lie
hidden elementary truths and
ideas of the greatest simplicity.
We have not
174

we
are not yet suffi-
discovered them, because
ciently well acquainted with the
Egyptian way
it
of expressing abstract ideas.
Evidently
was
by metaphors, and
to
until
we have found
the key
them we
are compelled to adhere to the
literal
meaning, which
may
lead us astray, or
leave us in ignorance of the true
meaning^the
the senses or
transla-
meaning,
sion
viz.,
as clothed in a figurative expres-
drawn from what
strikes
from the material world.

tion of the
Thus the
Book
of the Dead, like that of the

is still
Book
in
of the Pyramids,
only provisional
many
respects, for, so far,

it.
we have only got
the general drift of
Several of the old papyri begin with a

to Osiris, the text of which often varies.
is
hymn
Here
one of the most complete.

is
Osiris, a figure
in black,
seated in a sanctuary, while the

his
deceased
address
and
wife
approach
him and
god,
him thus:
"Hail,
venerable
great and
beneficent prince of eternity,

is
he
is
whose dwelling
in the Sektit bark.

;
He
acclaimed in heaven and on earth
he
is
exalted
RECONSTITUTION OF OSIRIS
175
by the people of the past and of the present.

Great
is
the fear which he inspires in the hearts
of men, of the shining ones, and of the dead.
His soul has been given to him at Didou,

strength at Hanes,
liis
his
image
at
On,
his
power
1
over
all
forms, in
;
tlie
double sanctuary.
am
come
to thee
my
heart contains truth,

;
my
heart contains no falsehood
grant
me
to be
among
in
the living, to go up and
down
the river
is
thy train."
as
We
a
note here that Osiris
represented
stituted
god that has been recon;
or
reconstructed
and the different

personality
elements
constituting
localities.
is
his
come
from various
His chief
attribute,
;
according to this text,

it is
to inspire fear, dread
in tliis quality that
he was adored, especi-
ally at Heracleopolis, a city in JNIiddle
Egypt,
with which can be associated several featiu'es

of the Osiris myth.
The chapter
in the
that
is
numbered
I.
in the
Turin
text also occupies frequently the same position
Theban text
called
'*
indeed, the title mentions

"
;
that
it is
the day of the burial
and
176

it
the vignette illustrating

procession on the
in the
shows the funeral
way
to deposit the
mummy
Western Desert.
these
The deceased speaks

:
to Osiris in
words
"
Bull of the
Ament,
there.
I
it
1
is
Thoth, the king eternal
who
is
am
the great god in the divine bark.

I
have fought for thee.
am
one of the gods,

triumphant over
the powers,
his enemies,
who make
is,
Osiris
on the day of the weighing of the

the day of the judgment).
I
wôrds (that
am
of thy family, Osiris.
am
one of these
gods, children of Nout,
who
slay the enemies
of Osiris and M^ho chain up his adversaries in

his
defence.
am
I
of thy family,
I
Horus
have battled for thee;

in
have come forward
thy name.
am
Thoth,
who makes
Osiris
victorious over his enemies, on the
day of the
weighing of wôrds
in the
I
house of the prince
who
is
in
Hehopolis.
am
Didou, son of
at
Didou, conceived at Didou, and born
Didou;
Didou
sisters
is
my
name.
am
with the weeping
make mourning for Osiris at Rekhit, and who make Osiris victorious over his
w^ho
THE DEAD MAN THE SPEAKER

enemies.
to
It
is
Ra who
has
commanded Thoth
:
make Osiris victorious o\ er his enemies a command carried out by Thoth on my behalf."
So
far,
the deceased
is
represented as being
himself, or Thoth, or one of the children of
Nout, or even
however,
lie
Didou that
tell
is,
Osiris.
Now,
is
goes on to
us that he
priest, and that
he performs various duties which

:
the cult prescribes
" I
am
with Horus on the

festivals of Osiris,
day of the celebration of the
when they make
great offerings to Ra, on the
festival of the sixth
day of the month, and on
the festival of the seventh day at Heliopolis.

I
am
the priest in Didou, and

is
magnify him
who
I
on the height.
am
the prophet in
is
Abydos, on the day when the earth
raised.
who beholdeth the mysteries of Restau. I am he who reciteth tlie liturgies of the Spirit who is at Didou. I am the Sej/i
he
priest
in
all
am
that
pertaineth to
:
his
office."
Then comes an
ye bring along
invocation
"
ye
who guide
beneficent souls into the house of Osiris, do
with
you
the soul of the

12
178

;
deceased into the house of Osiris

see as ye see
;
let
him
let
him understand
as
as
ye under;
stand
sit as
let
him stand up
sit,
ye stand up
Osiris.
let
. .
him
.
ye
in the
house of
ye
who open
open
the ways and
who
prepare the
paths for
Osiris,
beneficent souls in the house of
ye the ways and prepare the
paths for the soul of the deceased
who
is
with
in
you
let
him enter
boldly,
and go forth
peace,
without being opposed
and without
being repulsed.
pleases,
is
Let you
him
and
enter
when
;
he he
and go forth when he wishes

;
for
victorious with
will
let
that be done
Osiris.
:
which he
command
lias
in the
house of
in
No
transgression
is
been found
him
the
balance
him."
free
of everything that concerns
In later papyri the following rubric

to this chapter
earth, or
:
is
added
"
He who knows
coffin
it
this
book on
on whose
lias
been written,
lie
may come
out from the day when

his dwelling,
pleases,
and again enter

repulsing him.
without anyone
And
there shall be given to
Magical virtue of the words

him
bread, beer,
179
much
;
flesh
meat, upon the
altar-table of
Ra
he shall receive allotment
of land in the garden of Aalou, and there shall
be given to him grain, and he shall grow green

(flourish) again, like
what he was upon
earth."
We
had.
now
It
is
see
what
sort of eflicacy the

if
book
it
enough
the deceased
knew
when he was
it
alive in this world, or if
he has
to put
painted on his coflin
when he
dies,
him
in full possession of the privileges

life
and the
blessed
awaiting him
in the
gardens of
Aalou.
Such was the magical
virtue of the
words of the book, whose composition the old Egyptians attributed to Thoth.
The chapter we have

correct idea of the
discussed gives a fairly

as a
book
whole
there
is
the same vagueness and indeterminate nature

in its teaching.
is
In one place the dead
man
Tlioth (Hermes)
Osiris
he who has
the power of
his
making
in
triumphant over
is
enemies
another he
Osiris himself, he of
Didou,
East
he to wliom
a
little
life
comes back again

is
in the
further on, he
only a priest, or even
180

who
addresses the
souls
in
a suppliant,
the
house of Osiris and earnestly entreats them to
open the road
for him.
He
comes out of the

''
judgment
scathless, since the balance
is
free
of everything that concerns him."

SAviftly
He changes
from pos-
from one
state to another,
sessing the
might of Thoth to the condition

to him, and
of the unfortunate deceased begging for pity

to be
shown
all
this
without the
slightest hint as to the reasons for such
sudden
and
total transformations.
;
The whole appears

mattered
little
rather incoherent
but
it
to the
Egyptian
other
;
if his
ideas
clashed with
one an-
what he dreaded was

Osiris
is
rules or system.
this
The myth of grown, as we

Osiris
is
;
by
time
full-
see
from
for
several
allusions.
is
a dead
is
man
whom mourning
his son
made
as
he
avenged by
Horus, and
is
offerings are
made
is
to him.
is
He
spoken of
one whose heart
without movement
;
besides, he
conceived and born in Didou
mention
is
also
made
of the
day when words

This
are weighed, or the day of judgment.
MYTH OF
will refer to
OSIRIS
Osiris
181
the day
;
when
triumphs
over his eneinies
probably they will be conwill receive their death
demned, when they

sentence
a sentence which we never

we have
see pro-
nounced against the deceased.

lives
;
Thus, Osiris
seen
in
:
he seems to be, as
speaking of the Ennead, the primordial
man
and he
dies.
Is
it,
then,
man
that
is
thus
;
likened to the sun which sets and disappears

or,
on the contrary,
is it
the sun which perishes
like a
human
being, after having been seen

?
by
the inhabitants of the earth the question, but

I
We
may put
if
doubt much
the old
Egyptians themselves could give us a definite

answer.
Close to chapter
i.
we sometimes
;
find the
at other
scene of the weighing of the soid
times
hymns
to the
is
to the rising
and the setting sun

affinity
are found.
These have some
with the Next,
hymn
there
Aten of Amenhotep IV.
sometimes a well-defined group of
passages, that of the Transformations, bearing
a general
title,
''
The Beginning
of the Trans-
182

Osiris, to the
formîons of
end that
his soul
may hve and
his
body be renewed
eternally."
These Transformations are eleven
in
number
''
but the whole of these are not often found

together, the
first
being rather rare
'i'o
take
the
the form of the god which gives
liglit
in
darkness
"
an evident reference to
which
]M.
the moon.
Then
follow in succession the chapters of the

bird,
Benmm
may
head
Loret
calls
the ash-
coloured or blue heron; of the soul, which
be either a ram or a bird with a

;
human
of Ptah, not the
god of Memphis, but
a cosmic deity born of
Keb
of the falcon of
;
gold and the powerful falcon

of the serpent
lotus.
;
of the swallow
;
of the crocodile
and of the
in
These chapters, which vary much
length, are
certainly the relics of a doctrine
of metempschyosis or transmigration of souls,
which has none of the

of similar doctrines
strictness or sharpness
religions.
in other
By
assuming these forms the dead
man
hopes to
succeed to the attributes or privileges peculiar

to each of these creatures.
Here, for'instance,
GARDEN OF AALOU: THE "ANSWERERS"

is
183
what
is
said
of the
serpent
''I
am
the
serpent (hterally, the son of the ground), whose

years are long
;
he down and
am
born every
day;
earth
;
am
I
the serpent at the

I
ends of the
born,
I
he down, then
I
am
am
re-estabhshed,
grow young again every day." The description of the garden of Aalou
geography of these Ely-
initiates us into the
sian fields,
where the dead devote themselves
chiefly to agricultural pursuits, assisted
by the
Answerei^s
these
little
statues
in
which are
the tombs,
found sometimes by hundreds

carrying the implements of
calls
toil.
on them to
The deceased be always ready when he

^'
requires
them, and the figures reply.

callest
Lo,
here
am, whenever thou

xvii.,
me."
Chapter
one of the most important,

out of the water, and
This
is
opens with the cosmogony of Heliopolis the

birth of
Toum coming
the uplifting of the firmament.
cer-
tainly a bit of the theology of Hehopolis, like
the greater part of the
Book
of the
Dead.
Else
we might look
for
a different place of
184
origin
to
Abydos,
for instance, since every-
thing relating to the
myth
of Osiris
it is
comes
from
that
there.
is
Yet undoubtedly
Heliopolis
I
the reputed scene of what
consider
to be the heart of the
Book
is
of the Dead, the
Judgment.
esting of
in
all,
This part
also the
most
inter-
because
it is
almost the only one
which a moral element appears.

point,
as
Up
to
are
this
we have
seen,
;
the gods
deities
more
or less cosmic
is
they are divinities

strongly marked,
whose nature-character
and whose
relations with
man
are
precisely
the same as those which he holds with natural
phenomena.
Consequently, the conception of
good and
evil,
and everything connected with
conscience, are entirely absent.

it,
How
comes
then, that, side
by
side with such strongly
accented pantheistic tendencies,
moral code
as well,
which
for
we have a loftiness may
well be placed beside others which claim our
admiration?
We
are here in
is
presence of a
contradiction w^hich
not peculiar to Egypt
a something inherent in the nature of
man
THE JUDGMENT OF THE SOIL

and again, and always
185
namely, conscience, which always appears again

will assert itself as the
standard of right and wrong.

for
xVs Osiris stood
the primeval man,
he
could
not be a
stranger to those feelings which govern

in relation to his
man
conduct
it
is
man
himself
who must be his own judge. The scene of the Judgment occupies chapter One of the longest, it cxxv. of the book.
is
also
one of the commonest.
Indeed,
value
for
it
of
all
others
had the
greatest
the
deceased, and
summed up
it
the whole book for

chapter
i.,
him.
it
is
Frequently
follows
but
found more often near the end of the

It
book.
consists
of three parts,
titles,
with an
introduction bearing different
one of
which
the
is
**
\Vords said when one approaches
Hall of the
Two
Truths,
or
the
Two
Justices, to the
end that one
may
be delivered
from
It
it.
his sins
and see the faces of the gods."
is
curious that Truth, or, as
Justice,
should
Renouf renders be represented by two

alike
;
goddesses,
absolutely
and one of the
186

them
is
texts informs us that one of
at the
East and the other at the West.
They keep
guard, therefore, over the two extremities of

the Hall or Seat of Osiris.
singular
^Ve have here a

or nature ideas
minghng of cosmic
altogether
relative to the course of the Sun, with a scene
which
is
human
all,
in its character,
and implies, above

entirely
an
order
of
ideas
apart from
nature.
;
draws near with

hands raised
in
his wife
The dead man the two have their

before entering, he
adoration
makes
his
addresses to Osiris,
who
come
;
is
in his
hall or pavilion,
and he says:
''
Hail to thee,
to thee,
I
mighty God, Lord of Justice.
my
Lord, to
I
behold thy beauties
know
know the name of the two-and-forty gods who are with thee, who de\'our those who meditate evil, who drink their blood the day when a man gives account of himself before Unnofer. Truly thy name is He whose two
thee,
:
eyes are those of Justice.
Behold me,
have
come
I
to thee,
bring the truth to thee, and

all
will
put aside
lying."
Then he begins
REPUDIATION OF FAULTS
confession
enters
187
which he repeats
Hall:
I
'^
Uiter
when he
evil to
the
;
have not done
any
who put to death his kindred I am not one who telleth lies in place of truth. ... I am not a doer
man
am
not one of those

;
of that which the gods abhor;
have not
done wrong to a servant

master;
I
in the eyes of his

I
have not caused famine;

1
have
not caused weeping;

I
am
not a murderer;
have not given commands for murder; 1 I have not have not caused men to suffer
;
diminished the temple offerings
have not
;
lessened the bread given to the gods
have
;
not robbed the dead of their funeral offerings I have not diminished I am not an adulterer
;
the grain measure

palm's length.
I
I
have not shortened the

have not pressed
;
...
down
not
the
arm
of the balance
have not
I
falsified
the tongue [of
the
balance];
have
snatched away the milk from the

children
;
mouth of
some
and
have not driven off the cattle
from
their
pastures."
Then
follow
delinquencies
which have a purely Egyptian
188

:
smack
" I
have not stopped the water at

;
its
appointed time
of water in
have not diverted a runnel

Obviously, water,
life, is
its
course."
being in Egypt the producer of
regarded
it
with a veneration and respect that
could
not have in a country not wholly dependent
on a large
are
also
river
and on inundation.
with
reference
There
to
trespasses
the
gods.
We
have seen above that the dead
man
denies that he had diminished or stolen

;
the offerings
other transgressions refer
to
the ceremonies, hke the following, the last in
the
list
" I
have not put myself
in the
way
is,
of the god
when he cometh
is
forth," that
when the god

temple at
the dead
led forth in procession in the
his festival.
And
''
:
at the very
end
man exclaims I am pure, I am pure .... let no harm come to me in this land, in the Hall of Justice, because I know the name of all the gods who make their
appearance in
it."
is
The foregoing
fession
only a preliminary con;
made
at the gate
it
is
not enouoh to
THE WEIGHING BEFORE

justify the deceased.
OSIRIS
189
Anubis comes and takes

leads
him by the hand, and

of Justice.
him
of
into the Hall

Osiris,
At
the
is
end
it
the
supreme judge,
enthroned in a pavilion;
as and sometimes with him are four judges In points. assessors, the gods of the cardinal tongue of front of the judge is a balance, the
which Thoth
verifies,
(in
the frontispiece
it
is
Horus)
while round about him are forty-two
deities to
whom
the deceased has referred as
drink being ready to devour the guilty and

his blood.
These gods seem quite

terror.
fit
to in-
spire
is
him with
Sometimes
also there
the
Enemy par
excellence,
"he who
eats
composite body the dead,"â monster with a lion, and a of three animals, a crocodile, a
hippopotamus.
ino-
But what completes the

is
chill-
terror of the deceased

is
that he feels his

it
heart
no longer
in himself; he sees
before
him
one of the scales of the balance, and His first the goddess of Justice in the other. Heart cry is to it " O Heart of my mother.
in
:
of
my
birth,
Heart that was mine on
earth,
190
rise
not up as a witness against me, be not my adversary before tlie Divine Powers, let not the scale weigh against me in presence of the guardian of the Balance do not say,
;
'See there what he has done, in truth he has done it do not suffer wrongs to
;
arise against
me
in
presence
of the
great
his
god
of
the
Ament."
Then he begs
heart to
come
back to him, and to be joined to him anew.

heart listens to his request, and it is found to be neither too heavy nor too light. Yet, all the same, the deceased must make
his defence
;
The
and
for this
purpose he challenges
deities
by name each of the forty-two

assist in
who
the
judgment the same

if
that are
ready to devour him
he
is
found guilty
and he
calls
each of them to witness that he
has not committed any of the forty-two sins

entail his condemnation: "O thou who stridest with long steps, and who makest thine appearance in Heliopolis, I am not a doer of wrong. O thou
which would
who
boldest
in
the
fire,
and who makest thine appearance
EGYPTIAN CODE AND THE DECALOGUE

Kheraha,
1
191
have not been a robber.
thou
god (Thoth) with the long beak (beak of the

ibis),
and who appearest
in
Eshmoun,
am
not evil-minded," and so on through the fortytwo.
He
thus repeats in greater detail the
confession
made
at the entrance.
When we
its
analyse this confession

lofty character
we
are struck with
and the development of the

it
moral sense that

it
reveals.
with the Decalogue, in
we compare those commandIf
ments, for instance, which govern the relations
between man and man, we

adultery,
find that murder,

in
and theft are
forbidden
is
both
codes
false witness-bearing
forbidden also
in the
Egyptian law under the calumny of
" doing
wrong
to a servant in the eyes of his

if
master"; and
covetousness
is
not specially
named, the Egyptian law, on the other hand,

accentuates
very forcibly the forbidding of

P^gyp-
lying and deceit, a prohibition which

tians
forget.
of
the
present
is
day appear often to

banned, as
well
as
Blasphemy
words spoken against the king.
192
THE OLD ECxYPTIAN FAITH
Certain obligations imposed are interesting, like the following: - I have not been deaf to the words of justice (righteousness)." I
was
saying that covetousness
is
not specially cited,
at least not so clearly as in the
Hebrew
law,
meant by the sentence which Renouf translates thus: -I have no strong

it is
but perhaps
desire but for
my own
property."
is
During the confession Thoth

heart,
as to the state
wei^hino- the
and afterwards he reports to the judge

of the balance.
I
translate
:
from a papyrus written

princess
in
is
for a princess
"
The
triumphant
she has been weighed
the balance before the guardian Anubis, under the command of the god of Hermopohs
himself, in presence of the
of Justice.
No
is
powers of the Hall fault has been found in her:
her heart
according to truth, her members
body is free from evil, the tongue of the balance shows true there is no doubt: all her members are perfect." Then
;
are pure, her whole
comes the decree of
Osiris, the eternal
god
"Let
her go forth victorious, to enter into
THE SENTENCE: CONSCIENCE

every place
slie pleases,
193
spirits
and be with the
and the gods.
She
will
not be repulsed by the
guardians of the gates of the

her food, offerings, drinks
of fine linen
to her.
"
:
West .... and

is
grant
clothes
whereupon her heart
restored
Here, then,
we have
the Egyptian concepterrible
tion of conscience.
Thus the most
accuser of
man
he who
his
can most effectually
bring
down on
head the punishment he

assertions
has earned,
skill
he
whose
is
no one has
his
to
gainsay,
man
himself,
own
heart, that
knows too well that he has broken

moral law which he
a hundred times that
knows
perfectly.
When
wills.
the dead
man emerges
he
enters
triumphantly
from the Hall of Justice, he goes wherever he
Sometimes
;
a hall
is
called
"
The Great "
he declares that he
to
whom
those
who
see
him
say, "
man Come in
the
peace."
Every part of the

its
hall asks
him
if
he know^s
name, the door, the

is
floor, etc.,
and everywhere he
allowed to pass.
Iâter,
13
194^

or, as
he goes to see the fourteen abodes,
M.
Maspero
transhites the words,
"the fourteen
islands of the
West."
In one of these are the
two green sycamores between which the sun

passes as he rises in the firmament
:
in another
we
see the Nile issuing
from the caverns of

far as
Elephantine and running as
Hehopolis,
where
it
was supposed to
find a fresh source,
for in the
Egyptian mythology there are two

is
Niles.
It
at this
point the
Book
of the
Dead
of the
Theban period usually

is
ends, with
the words, "It
finished."
We
now
leave
the dead
his,
man
in this ill-defined existence of

is
in
which he
at
one time the double
of his earthly personality, at another a god,

Osiris or
Ha
himself, at another
still,
a bird
or
a lotus
an
existence
in
which he can
contend with
assume any form he

malignant
spirits,
pleases, or
or devote himself to working
in the fields of the gardens of
Aalou, where he
has numberless courses open to him, without following any definite line or complying with
any
obligation.
All this body of ideas,
we
FUTURE
BLISS
195
repeat, represents the conceptions the
Egyptian
no
possi-
had of the future
hfe,
but there
is
bihty of discovering in
doctrine.
it
a systematic or settled
We
life
have seen that under the Old Empire
the deceased goes joyfully forth to enter on a
beyond the tomb modelled on the
lines of
the present world, in the lap of wealth and
we have that life described for us, in which the human being becomes a god, and may even be called Ra or
prosperity
;
at a later period
Osiris,
and enjoy
all
the privileges which
fall
to the lot of the gods.
We
have witnessed
Osiris not only absolving the deceased, but
com-
manding him
was nothing
the deceased.
to be treated as a god.
There
at all in such a future to terrify
On
life
the contrary, some
who
they
I
were tired of
brilliant
were fascinated
before
by the
prospects
them,
and
;
clamoured
for death with loud cries

it
but, if
may
or
use the expression,
was
is,
for a " correct
"proper" death, that

due fulfilment of
all
one followed by
the
the relioious cere-
196

obsequies
agreeable to
all
monies and
prescriptions
the
for
and
conditions
necessary
entering into the joys and pleasures of the
West.
Finally,
it
was
essential
that
the
various elements which

personality should
all
made up
the
human
:
agree to the step
the
union between them had to be maintained.

It
might happen, however, that one of them,

die.
the soul, would not consent to
papyrus
preserved in Berlin affords a curious example

of
this.
Unfortunately, nearly the whole of

it is
the beginning of
lost.
There we read of
an unhappy
beseeches
at first
it
man who
to allow
addresses his soul and

to die
;
him
but the soul
remains deaf to his prayers.
Some
his
words
let fall
by the poor fellow
in his misery,
wearied of
condition.
life,
give us an inkling of
calls
He
is
himself a gentle, sweet
man
are
he
not of those proud fellows

;
who
always successful
when one day miswas forsaken of

his
fortune
it
seems to have been a sore disease
overtook him, and he

brethren and friends
;
no one stood
faithfully
DIALOGUE OF A MAN WITH HIS SOUL

by him
;
197
what he had done yesterday, everyin a
body was
hurry to forget
and
his very
name had become loathsome to all. The unfortunate wretch now opens his mouth and replies to some words spoken by his soul. The conversation takes place in
presence of witnesses, but
who and how many
they were
his soul
we do
not know.
He
reproaches
with having forsaken him in the day
of misfortune, and with giving
him the wicked

last rites.
counsel of urging him to cast himself into the

fire
instead of paying
him the
She,
the soul, ought to have refused to keep a

hopeless
led
man
in
life,
and should rather have
him
to his death and opened
up to him
the pleasant West, that
West where he would

some words
absolutely
in
be under the guardianship of the gods.
The
which
soul at
first
replies in
she
seems
to
refuse
to
accompany him;
immediately
but
the
unhappy
he
will
man
no
answers
that
on
account go alone to the tomb.

his soul with
He
will take
him, for his
lot,
and hers
too.
198
is

name
alone ought to exist
his
to die, and his
the
West ought
as
to
become
dwelhng-place.
;
She has nothing,

as
besides, to fear
is
she will be
happy
he
who
in his
pyramid, and as
he to
whom
a living
man on
earth has rendered
funeral honours;
souls
''
she will
not be like other
that suffer weariness, heat, or hunger.
If thou wilt guide
me
so to death, thou wilt
never regret being lodged in the West.
So,
my
soul,
my
brother, be the one to pay
me
the last honours, to
make
the funeral sacrifices,
to keep by the bark on the day of the funeral
and to prepare the funeral bier.' Then my soul opens her mouth and replies to what I
have
said:
it
is
^f
thou
art
thinking
is
of
thy
funeral,
only
affliction, it
that w^hich
makes
and distresses human beings, and causes a man to rush out of his house and throw himself on the ground thou wilt then no more rise again to behold the light
tears flow,
;
of the sun.
1
Those who build with granite

piece
The whole
has
been translated by Professor
Erman.
DIALOGUE OF A MAN WITH HIS SOUL

and
erect
their
})eautifiil
199
pyramids
with
splendid work,
those who surround themselves

their
.
with walls as do the gods,

offerings are as
tables
of
empty
good
as those of the
.
.
wretch
that dies
to
on the canal bank.

is
Hearken
hearken
aside thy
me
it
for
man
to
celebrate
cares.
''
. .
a
.'
happy day, and throw

open
Then
what
my mouth
has
said."
and
reply thus
to
my
soul
The unhappy
man now
I
begins to speak in language which

call poetry, if
suppose we ought to
its
we may
judge from
" Behold ye,
constantly repeated refrains:

is
my name
is
odious
behold ye,
more than the odour of

day when the sky
ye,
birds on a
summer
Behold
burning hot.
my name
is
more odious than the odour
of a fisherman coming from the marsh after

fishing.
Behold ye,
my name
is
more odious
Behold ye,
than the odour of a crocodile.
my name
of.
is
more odious than the woman to
her husband
when
she has been spoken falsely

I
To whom
shall
speak to-day?
JNly
200

are
brothers
perverted,
and the friends of
to-day are no longer faithful.

1
To whom
full
shall
speak to-day
Hearts are
his
of pride, and
each
one
seizes
neighbour's goods.
?
To
whom shall I speak to-day

to his to
all
The mild man goes
ruin,
and the violent man has access

?
To whom shall I speak to-day The wretched man is faithful while the brother who is with him becomes his foe. To whom
men.
shall I
speak to-day
People have no remem;
brance of yesterday
is
that which I have done
in a
moment
shall
I
as if it
had not been.

I
To
of
T'o
whom
whom
earth,
speak to-day?
am
full
misery, and the faithful

shall I
man
?
is
no more.
speak to-day
is
Evil smites the

it.
and there
no end to
Death
is
before
me
is
to-day, even as the return of health
to the sick,
when one
escapes from sickness.
Death
the
before
me
to-day, like the perfume
of myrrh, like sitting

sail
down
in the shelter of
is
on a windy day.
Death
before
me
to-day, like the smell of the lotus, and like

reclining
on the bench
in the land of intoxica-
DIALOGUE OF A MAN WITH

tion.
HIS
SOUL
201
Death
is
before
me
to-day as he
who
yearns to see his
home
again after he has spent
long years in captivity.

is
He who
who
is
over there
mighty
as a
hving god who punishes crime

has committed
it.
in the
person of him
is
He who
of
11a,
over there will be kept in the bark

will offer choice victims
and
in
the
temples.
He who is over there is like a wise man whom no one hinders from directing his
speech to Ra.
"
Then
my
soul says to
if
I
me
'
:
Cease thy
complaints
far,
....
have refused thee so
thou wilt yet reach the West.

will
Thy
1
members
go into
the
ground,
will
remain there after thou shalt have found thy

rest.
Let us together make an abode.'
"
Thus
the soul
who appeared
so inexorable at the
outset consents to yield, and the hopeless

attains the much-desired rest.
man
We
have here travelled a long way from
the brilliant descriptions of the other-world
dehghts of an older time.

going we
Yet
in the fore-
find, in the soul's first
utterances,
202
the echo of a tendency which
may be traced through the whole course of Egyptian history.
From
a
the most remote epochs

different
totally
school of
style
we can detect thought one

or
which we should
materialistic,
pessimistic
is
''
:
even
is
whose
maxim
life
;
There
nothing but the present
let
us enjoy the
present hour, for after death
we have
tendency
only
runs
misery
to
expect."
This
parallel with the teaching of the
Book of the
remarkable
Dead, and
point.
it
shows
itself
at
On
or
the funeral day the relatives and
friends of the defunct are seated at a
banquet
the
more
less
sumptuous, according to
deceased
;
rank of the
harpers
sing
are
and
to
musicians and
the
feast
summoned
to
and
play.
We
song,
have
several versions
in
it
is
of the harper's
differing
date
a
by
almost three thousand years;

therefore,
text,
which might be called canonical, and the root idea is always the same, ca?^pe diem,
" seize the passing hour," " enjoy hfe," for in
the next world there
is
nothing to look forward
EGYPTIAN PESSIMISM
to but sadness
203
is
and deception.
Here
the
us,
oldest
version that has
come down
'' '
to
dating from the time of King Antef, nearly

three thousand years before our era
:
Whilst
one body decays, others live on, since the time The gods who existed aforeof the ancestors.
timethey
are
like
the
mummies and
the
Dwellshades that are lying in their tombs. no ings were built for them, but now there is
more place
become?
I
for
them.
See
what have they

people sing
have hstened to the words of
Imhotep and of Hortetef,

and celebrate on every
side
whom
:
look at the place
where they were
its
wâlls are in ruins, their

if
place no longer exists, they are as
they had
never been, no one comes to celebrate what

they were, to celebrate
incline our heart to let
their
opulence, to
us to the
them conduct
place
whither they have gone.
Pacify thy
heart by
making
it
forget,
and be happy by
livest.
following thy heart as
long as thou
;
Put perfumes on thy head

1
array thyself in
Translated by M. Maspero.
204

make
use of w hat
is
fine linen,
most precious
Spare not to
in
what
is
offered to the gods.
enjoy thyself.
heart,
Do
not cease to follow thy
not thy heart so long as thou on earth, until the day arrive when lament will be made for thee and when he whose
afflict
and
art
heart beats no
tions.
more hears not the lamentaTears can in no way revive the heart
is
of
him who
in the
tomb.
So celebrate a
it.
joyful day, and do not depart from
l.o,
no
one
is
permitted to carry away his goods with
him;
yea,
no one returns again who

another instance, of a
it
is
gone
thither."
Here
is
much
;
later
time, since
it
is
dates from the
Greek kings
I
but
still
more poignant,
would even say
It treats of a woman who was happy and keeps telling us so. She recounts on her large funerary stele that when she was
more
tragic.
fourteen years of age her father gave her in
marriage to the high priest of Ptah.

she
Thrice
son,
became a
m.other, but she had
no
no
one
to succeed her
husband
in his high offices.
A WOMAN'S WAIL FROM THE TOMB

Then the
205
pair addressed their petition to the
god Inihotep, son of Ptah, who hears prayers

and grants sons to those who have none.
The
god appeared to the
priest in a
dream, and
ordered him to do certain pieces of work in the

god's sanctuary, in return for which he (the
god) would give him a son.

the high
priest
On
awakening,
his
immediately assembled
subordinates and the most skilful
workmen he
could
find.
fifth
on the
The work was accomplished, and of the month Epiphi the priestess
gave birth
''
to a son,
who was
called Imhotep.
I
Four years afterwards came the day when

carried
was
to
the tomb.
My
husband the
high priest laid
me in
the cemetery, he granted
me
all
the
laid
rites,
he gave
me
a splendid funeral,
and he
me
in his
tomb, behind Alexandria."
After this
recital of the story of her life
and
her sumptuous burial, let

last exhortations,
us
now
hear her
:
addressed to posterity
"
Father, Husband, Relative, Priest, cease not to

drink, to eat, to drain the cup of pleasure
and
of love,
and to hold joyous
festival
follow
'206
thy heart day and night, and suffer not sorrow

to pierce thy heart through
shalt
all
the years thou

A^êst
is
spend on earth.
For the
a land
of sleep and darkness, an oppressive abode for

those
who
dwell in
it.
They
they
sleep,
they are
motionless forms; they never wake again to
look on their brethren

father or their
know not
The
their
mother
their heart yearns not
for their spouses or their children.
living
water which earth holds for any one

inhabits
it,
who
I
is
for
me
but a stagnant pool.

I
if
... came
no longer know where

into
this
am
I
since
valley.
;
Oh
oh
I
had only
face ^vere
running water to drink
if
my
but turned towards the breeze of the north on

the water's brink.
Perchance
it
would
refresh
forth.
my
heart and quiet

in
my torment,"
and so
So there were
Egypt some
desolate hearts
who
could not behold, without terror, the day
approaching when they should have to leave

this world.
I
love
to
think, however, that
they were few in number, and that the vast

majority of the people were more ready to
A BETTER HOPE
repeat
these
207
other
words,
full
''
:
of
I
hope,
to
addressed to Ra, the great god

thee,
I
come
follow with thee to behold thy disc

I
every day.
repulsed.
am
not shut
are
in,
am
at
not
the
JNIy
members
renewed
all
splendour of thy beauties, like

ones,
for
1
thy faithful
am
one of those who are thy

I
favoured ones on earth.

land of the ages,
I
am come
to the
rejoin the land of eternity.
Thou,
for
Ra, behold what thou hast wished

I
me
that
may
be even as a god
-Do not expect from Egypt charming myths hke those that we find in the Greek poetry.
Myths
several
all
there are, and
we
are acquainted with
which have been preserved to us in their details but a large number betray
;
their existence only in scattered allusions in
the Pyramid Texts or in the
Book
of the
Dead.
As, however,
we
find
but a single
feature or a phrase indicating their presence,
impossible to reconstruct the whole from such slender material. Indeed, it would be
it is
surprising
for they
if
there were no
myths
in
Egypt,
answer to one of the characteristics of the Egyptian mind. man of the time
of the
Thothmes family
or of the Ramessides
was not a sad mortal,
for ever preoccupied with
EGYPTIAN MYTHS
the thought of his death and burial, as
are
209
we
was
sometimes tempted to think.

;
He
not afraid of gaiety and merriment
he loved
music
and
dancing
and
in
literatiu'e
he
appreciated the tale with a historical kernel,

or,
more
frequently,
it.
with
dash
of
the
marvellous in
Thus we can understand

would
lend
itself
how
his
imao-ination
life
it,
to
fashion the
to garnish
of the gods and invent episodes
or adventures which
so,
might
befall
them.
And
as
said at the beginning,
though these
legends
in
possess
none
of the
charm of those
Homer
or in Hesiod, they
are yet very interesting, because they bring
the anthropomorphic
character
of the gods
into bolder relief than do the
hymns
or the
magical formulae.
The legends are of two kinds
one
men
;
dealing with the relations of gods with
the other, with the sayings and doings
of the gods
among
themselves.
Let us begin
with the
first
category, from which
we
shall
gain some knowledge of the feelings which the
gods at times evinced towards
human
beings. 14
210
THE OLD EGYPTIAN

myths
FAITPI
One
these
of the longest and most complete of

is
that
gods.
of the Destruction
It is
of
Mankind by the
dynasties.
found
in
two of
the royal tombs of the nineteenth and twentieth
We
are transported to Heliopolis,
the religious capital of Egypt.
There, the
first
King Ra has reigned

yet he has not
true lapis
for
many
long years,
is
grown
grey, for his hair

as blue
of
lazuli.
Now,
was
in
Egypt
the conventional colour for black, this means

that the hair of his head was
still
the colour
of ebony
his
bones were of
silver,
and
his
flesh of gold.
He
suddenly learns that
men
says
have uttered blasphemous words against him.
Then
he
addresses
to
his
court
and
"Summon
my
presence
Shu,
Tafnout,
Keb, Nout, and the fathers and the mothers
who were with me when Nou, and 1 charge Nou to

panions with
him.
was
still
in
bring his com-
Bring them softly that

it,
men may
not
not notice
and their heart be
terrified.
You
will
go with them into

shall
the great temple
when they
have given
THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND

their
211
consent.
at
..."
When
the gods
had
in
arrived
the place, they
bowed down
presence of his majesty, and they said in his

presence
nriay
''
:
Speak unto us thy words that we

hve and move
beings, who,
their fear.
hear them."
see here that tlie gods
We
about on the earth hke

at times, can see
human
gods,
them and manifest

of
The assembly
family council,
Heliopolis.
the
or rather the
is
held in the great temple of

is
?
What
Ra
to
going to be the result
of their deliberations
Said by
Nou
!
"
T
Thou, the eldest

born
;
of the gods, of
ancestral
whom
am
and ye
gods, lo
mankind, who were born

Tell
from mine eye, utter words against me.
me what
I
ye would do
I
in this
matter
Behold
them,
Said
have waited, and

I
have not
slain
before
had heard what ye had to

:
say."
by the majesty of Nou
"
O my
son Ra, thou
who
art greater
than he that made him, and

him, thy throne
is is
than those
who formed
stabUshed sure, and great
the fear thou
212

let
dost inspire;
thine eye alone, be turned
upon
those
who
conspire
against Thee."
Said by
the majesty of
Ra
" Behold they flee to the
mountains, and their hearts are dismayed by

reason of what they have said."
Then spake
eye go
they (the gods) with one voice in the presence

of the majesty of
forth
;
Ra
''
:
Only
let thine
it
will
overcome those who hatch base
designs against thee
....
the
let it
descend in
the form of Hathor."

of the
In this fashion the eye
god
becomes
goddess Hathor.
When
the goddess returns after slaying man-
kind on the mountains, the majesty of this
god says
"
Come
replies
in peace,
:
Hathor !"....
art alive
;
The goddess
over
it."
"
Thou
when
triumphed over mankind,
my heart has rejoiced

that
for
But she proceeds with her work of

it
is
destruction, for
stated
several
nights she
starting
wades
in the
blood of mankind,
from Heracleopohs.
is
Ra
begins to be
afraid that the massacre
only too complete,
and
bestirs
himself to save the residue of

is
mankind, and here
the means to which he
THE DESTRUCTIOxN OF MANKIND

has recourse
*'
:
213
to
Said by
Ra
'
:
summon
me
like
messengers light and swift
let
them speed
"
wind
."
Tiie messengers arrived at

said to
once.
His majesty
them
let
Let them
run to Elephantine, and
them bring me
mandrakes
in
great
number."
When
the
mandrakes were brought, they were sent on

to the grinder, or miller
polis,
who
while
dwells in Helio-
to
grind them,
the priestesses
crushed barley to
make
filled
a drink, the fruits were
put into the vessels with the
human
blood,
and there were

thousand
'
with this drink seven
jars.
Then came the majesty

this
of
Ra
with his
gods to see
drink, after he
had spoken
Said
I
to the goddess about slaying mankind.
by the majesty of Ra
your voice on
slay
'
It
is
well
am
Give
going to protect mankind with

this.
I
this.
will
no more bid her to
mankind."
it
But the goddess had already

appears
it
departed, and
was not possible to
stop her
at
is
least she
must be made harmless,

resorted
to
:
and
this
the
device
The
214

Ra gave
orders to pour out the
jars,
majesty of
water which was in these

night, and the fields
under cover of
were covered with the
water to the depths of four pahns, according

to the will of the god.
The goddess comes
in
the morning and finds the fields flooded with
water
she
admires her beautiful face in

satiety
;
it,
and begins to drink to
she went about
intoxicated, and she recognised
mankind no
'
:
more.
Said by the majesty of
peace, charming goddess.'"
Ra And
in
Come in memory
is
of this
event
were instituted various cereHathor.
monies
in the cult of
Such
tlie
stratagem.
himself;
Ra
does not dare to stop Hathor
he provides her with the means of
getting intoxicated, and then she does not see
mankind, and so they escape.

Behold, then,
pose, with his
Ra
satisfied, as
;
one would sup-
work
he had decided to take
vengeance on mankind, and he succeeded so

well that he had to interpose to prevent their
total destruction.
Nothing then seems to be

;
wanting to
his satisfaction
quite the contrary,
ORIGLN OF SACRIFICE
he
is
^15
more discontented than
ever.
Said by
the majesty of
Ra:
"I have
sharp pain
is
which torments me;

with
is
what, then,
ahve, but
wrong
heart
I
me
Truly
am
;
my
weary of being together with men.

it is
have
not destroyed them
not destruction that

Said by the gods
"
my
who
might has dealt them."

are of
;
liis
following
Away
all
:
with thy
that thou
weariness
thou hast obtained
didst desire."
But Ra
insists
" INIy
members
I
have been
unable
to
in
pain a long time, and

until
I
am
to
walk
get
another
help me."
Then Nou commands Shu and Tafnout

come
to his help;
to
and on the recommenda-
tion of her father,
to carry
Nout the goddess resolves Ra on her back. For this purpose
she takes the form of a cow.
At
this
juncture
sally
night comes on, but in the morning

forth,
;
men
bow in hand and it is probable that they make an offer to Ra to fight his enemies. The god also delivers himself of these interestm(y words: "Your sins are behind you
216

;
(forgiven)
arise
slaughter averteth slaughter, hence

If this
sacrifices."
interpretation
of a
phrase in which several signs are wanting be

correct, the conception
which led to the

the Egyptians
instiis
tution of sacrifice
among
the
same
as
among
the
Hebrews or the Greeks

JNIen
slaughter averteth slaughter, death removes or
puts away death.

their lord
;
had rebelled against
they are then doomed to destruc-
tion
but some of them obtain pardon by
putting to death those that persist in rebellion
and henceforth
sacrifices arise to
commemorate
total
the event which saved

destruction.
therefore,
lies
mankind from
uncouth
Under
an
this
apparel,
idea
which
deserves
to
be taken into consideration.
Ra
reaches the sky borne on the cow, and
in order to testify to his gratitude to her
he
gives free scope to

first
his
creative
power.
He
calls
into existence the Field of Aalou,

in
it
;
and makes plants grow

in
it
then he places
as its inhabitants beings of every kind,

stars.
which hang from the sky, even the
CREATION OF SKY AND STARS

*'
i^lT
Then Nout begins
to tremble, because of the
height."
Ha, addressing Shu, says to him:
*'Take with thee
my
daughter
Nout,
live
and
the
watch over the multitudes who

nightly sky
;
in
be their
them upon thy head and Shu and Nout thus foster-father."
place
all
become the guardians of

sky
;
the beings of the
and
is
this
is
the reason
why
the
cow
of
"
:
Nout
called
the
" multitude of beings

sort of Atlas, holding
and Shu becomes a
up
with his two hands and head the body of the
cow carrying
all
the stars.
By
the
this
strange myth, then,

:
cosmogony of Heliopolis
is
we return to Ra springs
Shu and
is
from Nout, but he
the father of
Nout; the
latter
is
the sky, and she
suphelps
ported by the powerful arms of Shu,

her in bearing the burden of
all
who
stars.
the
Next,
Ra
addresses
Keb, bidding him to

reptiles of land
watch with care over the

water
;
and
his
finally,
he speaks to a god
who
is
favourite,
and
who
does not figure in the
Ennead
of Heliopolis,
namely, Thoth.
He
218
tells
or.

Thoth that he
will
become
it,
" his abode,"
as
Erman
translates
" his
deputy
"
it
will be his
duty to give
light to the lower sky,
standing therefore for the moon.

allots
e.g.
Ra
then
various
ibis,
symbols
to
the god
Thoth,
the
the dog-ape, the lunar disc, and
the crane.
Here, then,
we have
a story which begins
with an account of the rebellion of mankind

against Ra, and ends with the creation of the
heavens and the moon.

of the incoherence
conceptions.
that
It
is
a good example
in
reigns
Egyptian
is
The book,
besides,
very
holy book, and ought not to be read by any-
one without preparatory ceremonies.
"He
and
who
utters these words,"
it
is
said, "
ought to
anoint himself with
balm and
hands
"
;
fine oil,
have a censer
in
his
and
after other
:
minute prescriptions the rubric adds
"
When
and
Thoth wishes
and
to
read this book for Ra, he

purifications,
purifies himself
by nine days'
priests
men ought
to do the same."
is
It is
probably for this reason that the book
found
MAGICAL USE OF MYTHS

hidden away in
the tomb,
little
219
niches at the back
of
in places certainly
not easily got at
by the
first
comer.
Now,
as
to this feature alone
we might
point
constitiitino'
a fundamental
difference be-
tween
myth.
the
Egyptian
myth and
is
the Greek
The Egyptian myth

for all the
not a story
meant
world to read, or intended

:
to be a subject for the play of a poet's fancy

it is,
on the one hand, a sacred book, and thereon

a magical text
fore the object of special veneration, and,
the other hand,
it
is
endowed
with peculiar virtues, to wîich
we
shall after-
wards
allude.
comparison has been made
between the Egyptian story of the Destruction of
Mankind and other

In the latter case
legends, or even
in the
is
with the story of the Deluge

Genesis.
to
it
Book
of
not possible
establish
any
real
resemblance.
earth
is
In the
Egyptian
myth
the
covered with
water, not for the purpose of destroying the
human race, but, on the contrary, of saving it. The one feature common to both stories is the
220

God
to destroy his
desire of the Creator
own
is,
work, which, in the Egyptian narrative,
as
Ra
says, the
work of
his eye.
But
in another story, taken
from the Book
of the Dead,
we
find a closer analogy with the

It
Biblical story of the Deluge.
occurs in a
very rare chapter, of which very incomplete versions.

in
it
we have only two Probably we have

of a dialogue
divinities,
myth
originating in Heracleopolis, in
It
Middle Egypt.
consists
between the deceased and various

especially
Toum.
To one
of the deceased's
questions
I
Toum
replies in these
words
I
'
:
Lo
am
about to deface that which
have made.
The
earth will
it
become water through an inunat the beginning.

I
dation, as
was
left
shall
be
the only one
remaining along with
Osiris,
and
will take the
form of a
little
serpent
see.
I
which no man knows and no god can
am
going to benefit Osiris
will give
him
son
power over the lower
world,
and
his
Horus
will inherit his throne in the island of
flames."
AN EGYPTIAN DELUGE
Here we have
a
real
2^1
deluge,
that
is,
destruetion of everything
upon the earth by

is
;
the action of water, and this water
not an
it
uninterrupted rain lasting

all
many days
like
will
at
once
rise
up of
itself
mighty
an
be
will
like
inundation,
ocean.
and
conêrt the earth into

surviving
The
sole
being
will
Toum, who
hide,
will
not be king himself.
He
and conceal himself from observation

serpent
;
little
it
is
Osiris
who
will
become
king, and his throne will be so surely established that he will
Horus,
his
son.
hand on the sovereignty to Osiris will be able to do

earth, so
what he
wills
sit in
on
that
Horus
will will
come
to
his place,
and he himself
rest.
take possession of his place of
The
cos-
mogony
the
first
here
is
somewhat
different
;
from that
of Heliopolis.
place
;
Toum
the
his son,
disappears
Osiris takes
human
Osiris dies,
and to
him succeeds
Horus.
All this clearly
shows that we have to do with a myth of Heracleopolis, whose great god was Osiris
surnamed "the
terrible."
This
is
the reason
222

the
why
The
Greeks
translated
his
name by
Arsaphes).
lines
Heracles (Hershefi, the
terrible,
rest of the piece consists of

;
broken
without beginning or end

contest with Set;
they point to a
is
mention
made
of
'*
the
blood which flows at Heracleopolis," and

speaks to Osiris:
''Great
I
is
Ra
the fear which
thou dost
inspire.
have increased the terror
which thou causes t."
One
it
is
fact
this:
stands
that
out
from
this
myth, and
Toum
himself, at the beginning, destroyed
what he
had created,
in order to
is
make way
for Osiris.
Here, again,
another myth, which explains
why swine why two of

of
are
not sacrificed to Horus, and
his sons are allotted to the
North
in
Egypt and two
to the South.
The myth
happens
this case has
no connection with cosmogony,
but
with worship.
in
disaster
to
Horus
on
consequence of some presumption

towards
his ftither, in
his part
wishing to
be his equal.
The myth comes from the Book of the Dead. The deceased speaks as follows " Do you know for what purpose the North
:
SACRIFICE OF SWINE FORBIDDEN

has been given to
2'2S
not
in
know
it.
amends
for
know it, if ye do It was Ra who gave it to him the wound which Horus received
Horus
?
in the eye, in this wise
Horus spoke thus
to
Ra,
'
Suffer
me
to see the beings which thine
eye has created, as
Ra
:
himself sees them.'

'
Then Ra rephes
to
Horus
Look then yonder

Then Horus
at that bhick pig.'
He
eye
is
looked, and behold a
grievous mishap afflicted his eye.

says to
Ra
'My
me by
as
though a blow had
been given
ally)
*
Set,'
'
and (translating hter-
he ate his heart
that
to
is,
he regretted
bitterly his foolish or
imprudent request made

the gods
:
to Ra.
Then Ra
his
says
;
"
Lay
Horus upon
bed
perchance he will recover.'
It was, of course,
Set
who had taken
the form
of a black pig, and he caused a smarting

in the eye of
wound
to
Horus.
Then Ra spoke thus

Hence
it
the gods
'
The
pig will be an abomination to

well.'
Horus
the pig
if
is
he gets
comes that
an abomination to Horus.
'
:
And
all
the gods round about him said
time that Horus was a child they
From the made sacri-
224
fices

of gazelles and pigs to
him
the pig will
now
be an abomination to the gods
who
is
are
round about him.

father
is
As
to
to the four gods
whose
Isis,
Horus and whose mother
Horus spoke thus
Ra
;
Give
me two
of
;
them
for
for the
North and two

body
let
for the
South
they are of
my
is
them be with me
an eternal duration.'"
the reason
This, then,
why
swine are no
lono-er sacrificed to
Horus
because
lets
he once
imprudently asked of
his father to see, as his
father saw, the beings

created.
trial,
whom
his father
had
Ra, very wisely,
him have a
;
inviting
him
to look at a black pig
but
the unlucky Horus feels a violent pain in his

eye.
The
pig
was simply Set
in
disguise,
and poor Horus could do nothing but repent

bitterly of having
wished to exalt himself to
the height of Ra. of the
The Egyptian conclusion

to
myth
is
that since that day swine were
no longer
sacrificed
Horus.
it,
We
from a
might
fable,
almost extract a moral from
as
on the dangers of presumption.
MYTH OF HA AND
ISIS
225
We
have just discussed
two cosmogony
myths which deal with great events
the
one
accounting for the creation of the sky and the

stars,
or the
;
transformation of the face of
the earth
the other giving us the reason
why
certain victims
were proscribed
in
sacrifice.
Let us now take a myth of another kind, one

which treats of magical or rather medical performances.
effect of a
It
is
intend.ed
to
enhance the
remedy.
Something happens to
Ra
I
and, as
we
shall see, the
myth shows
that
the gods have no great respect for one another.

sis
has no scruple in playing a trick on the

in order to
Lord of the World,

position,
better her
which seems to have been very much
like that of
any
"Now^
Isis
woman living on earth. was a woman clever of speech,
and her heart being weary of the multitude of

mankind, she preferred the multitude of the
gods, and she highly esteemed the multitude
of the
spirits
:
might she not be the equal
of
Ra
in the
1
heavens and the earth, and be

Translated by Lefebure.
15
226

of the world
mistress
so
she meditated in
her heart
knew the name of the venerable god ? " This name was a secret, a mystery and we shall see why she was so keen to know it. " Now Ra came every day
if
she only
at
the head
of his
boatmen, and
installed
himself on the throne of the two horizons.
But the god had grown

ran
it
old,
and
his saliva
down
to the ground.
And
Isis
kneaded
it,
with her hand, together with the earth on

this she
and of
made
a sacred serpent, to which

It did
;
she gave the shape of a dart.

erect
not stand
left it
and living before her face
she
lying
upon the road on which the great god

pass, according to the desire of
was wont to
his heart, in his

''
double realm.
of
as
bit
The venerable god went forth, the gods Then he walked this Pharaoh in his train.
he did every day, and the sacred serpent
him.
. . .
The god opens

said
'
his
mouth, and the
cry of his majesty reached unto the heavens.
His divine cycle

his
gods cried out,
What What is
'
is
that
?
?
'
and
there
'
But
THE DEVICE OF
Ra
all
ISIS
227
could not answer

his
his
;
jaw-bones rattled
the
members
shivered
venom took
the great god
possession of his flesh, as the Nile takes possession of his domain.
When
had strengthened
in his following
:
his heart,
'
he cried to those
Come
to me, children of
my
members, gods that came forth from me, that

I
[
may
cause you to
know what
has happened.
have been pierced through by something
malignant
my
know
felt
heart
it,
knoweth that
but
my
I
eyes have not seen

it,
my
hand has not done

I it
;
and
not what
pain like
ought to do.
there
I
is
have never
nothing
more malignant than

god
this.
am
a prince,
the son of a prince, the being sprung from

a
;
am
great, the son of a great
one
I
my
he
tude
god.
father
thought
out
my name
exists
am
who
has a host of names, and a multi;
of forms
my
being
in
every
Toum and Horus have addressed their my father and my mother praises to me uttered my name, but it was concealed in my breast by him who begat me, so that no
;
228

may
I
magician
his
gain the mastery over
me by
enchantments.
'
"
Lo
had gone forth from

I
my
dwelHng
to behold
in the
what
had made, and was walking

I
world which
I
had created, when somenot what
thing stung me,

fire,
it
is
know
it
is
not
not water, and yet
pan of
fire,
my
flesh quivers,
I
my heart is a and my members
are seized with shaking.
beseech you bring
me
those of
my
children
and of the gods

is
whose words are kind, whose mouth

and whose
over him
skill
wise
his
reacheth the sky.'
When
children came, each of the gods present

;
wept
with
but
I sis
came with her

of the breath of
afflictions,
live.
:
sorceries,
life,
with her mouth
full
her incantations to heal
and her
words to make dead throats

'
She says
is
What
is it,
then, divine father
what
into
this
serpent has
sent
suffering
thee;
creature of thine has lifted up
liis
head against
thee
Truly he
shall
I
be overwhelmed by
will
rays.'
my
beneficent
at
charms.
of
the sight
thy
make him yield The aged one
THE DEVICE OF
begins to
tell
ISIS
229
o^'er
again what had befallen

all
him
he describes afresh
'
the
'
ills
that tor-
ment him.
Â'ater,'
he says,
streams
my
face as in the
summer
time.'
down Then Isis

called
says to
Ra
'
:
Tell
me
then thy name, divine
father, for that person lives

his
who
is
by
name.'
We
see that
the crafty goddess

is
does not forget what she
aiming at getting.
;
Hut Ra does not
yield all at once
he
tries to
reply evasively, and he begins a speech which

is
not wanting in a kind of poetry
'
am
he
who made
thing that
the heavens and the earth, w^ho
reared aloft the mountains and created everyis
upon
it.
am
he
who made
I
the
water and created the great deep.
am
he
who
created the heavens and hidden in
them
the two horizons, and placed therein the souls
who when he opens his eyes produces the light, and when he closes them produces darkness who makes the waters of tlie Nile to rise, when he givetli the
of the gods.
I
am
he
command.
name.
I
But the gods do not know^
his
am
he
who makes
the
hours and
230

;
gives birth to the days

festivals of the year
I
it
is
who open
the
and create the inundation.
am
he
who
causes the flame of hfe to rise so

field.
as to
permit the labours of the

in the
am
and
Khepera
morning,
Ra
at his noon,
Toum
his
in the evening.'
The god
effect
;
ceases, but
is is
words are without

its
the poison
not arrested in
not relieved.
progress, and the
god
;
I sis
has no pity for him
she
remains implacable.
'Thy name,'
she says,
'has not been mentioned in what thou hast

just said
;
tell it
to me, and I will expel the

is
poison, for he
who
called
by
his
name
it
Hves.'
fiercer
Yet the poison burned

majesty of
out by
Isis
;
like fire,
was
than the flame of a furnace.
Thus spake the

to
Ra
into
'I consent
shall
be searched
forth
my name
her
come
from
my
body
body.'
Then the god
became
invisible
in the
before
the gods, his place
was empty
bark of millions of years.

his
When
the time
came that
heart,
which
concealed the mysterious name, went forth,

the goddess said to her son Horus
'
:
Bind
THE DEVICE OF
two
ISIS
231
the god by an oath that he will also give

his
eyes.'
me
the
"
When
god,
his
name was taken away from

the
great
'
I sis,
great
magician,
said
;
Run
out, poisons,
come
forth
forth
from
Ra
Eye
of Horus,
come
from the god and

It
is I
sparkle outside his mouth.
who have
name
worked,
it is I
who
caused the mighty poison

Aêrily the
to descend to the ground.
of the great god hath been taken from him.
Ra
is
alive,
and the poison

story,
is
dead.'"
Here ends the

whether
I sis is
and we do not know
content with the place she has
conquered for herself among the gods
she
is
who
more
alone succeeded in healing Ra.

is
Nothing
which
told us, for
we
are
now
introduced to
some words of magic, the

given in the tale
So-and-so, will
is
'
:
origin of
So-and-so, son of Mistress
live,
I
the poison will die
that
;
what the great
sis,
queen of the gods, says

his
she
who knew Ra by
own name."
whose virtue
These
will
are the important words
be
beneficent, to be said over images of
Toum,
232
Isis,

and Horus.
The
fact
of having pro-
nounced these words

the Egyptian has
it,
in their presence or, as
" over them," will impart
to these images the power of dispelhng the
poison of serpents
they are amulets or tahs-
mans whose
be
infallible.
curative virtues or properties will
But
it
is
not only the images

will
whose power the
words
increase; the
effects.
:
remedies used will show their good
For
it,
this
is
the prescription at the close

it
"
Put
having written
down, into a liquid to

Inscribe
linen,
it
be swallowed by a person.
in the
it
same way on a piece of

his
and lay
on
neck.
It
is
an effectual remedy.
Make
a drink of beer or of wine to be
drunk by the
person
afflicted.
It
is
the destruction of the
poison, perfectly and for ever."

I
said
above that
this tale
has a medical
purpose, as
words.
we are informed, indeed, in so many The first myth was rehgious in its
meant
to be used for the benefit
nature, and
of a deceased person, so that,
when
it
was read
and
all
tlie
prescribed ceremonies were per-
MAGICAL USE OF MYTHS
233
formed, the favour of the gods was probably

secured for
hiui.
The same myth
also gives
us information on the origin of several ceremonies.
The
other
myth we have considered

element
;
contains no religious
a magician's
charlatan's.
it
is
simply
say, a
myth ^we
It
is
might almost
for the use of " So-and-so,
son of So-and-so
"
any person whatever.

preserves the chief features
And
of the
yet
it
still
same
sort of pantheistic teaching
which
we have
noticed
elsewhere.
:
quite anthropomorphic
I sis
The gods are is a woman, Ra

;
an old man, with

nevertheless,
all
is
the infirmities of age the creator of

;
he
still
all
things
his
his
being exists in every god

itself
and
power manifests
in
all
his
works,
all
which embrace the whole world and

it
that
contains.
The myth
of
I sis
healing
Ra
is
very ana-
logous to others found on amulets and designed

for the protection of their
evils,
owner from
different
especially
from the
bite of serpents or
of scorpions.
These are the
specially magical
234

In general the subject
is
myths.
I sis
and
the
the death of her son Horus,
who was
victim of one of these perfidious reptiles.

is
This
the tale as
^
:
it
was told
in the
time of King
Nectanebo
" I
am
;
Isis
conceived and brought forth

I
Horus
the goddess,
brought Horus into
the world, the son of Osiris, in the marshes

of Athou.
1
rejoiced greatly, for I

his father's place.
I
saw that
hid
he would take
him
I
carefully for fear that he should be stung.
went to the
old,
city of
Am
I
was hailed
as of
and
delayed to look for the child and

his food.
I
to bring
him
and
returned to embrace
Horus
gold,
found
my
if
Horus,
my
precious
;
my
new-born, as
he were no more
he had wet the ground with the tears of his

eyes and the froth of his lips
stiff;
;
his
body was
his
"
his heart
1
was
'
still;
no muscle of
:
limbs moved.
is I, it is 1
.
.
uttered a cry of despair

"
It
what she
said
is
so
much
.
.
destroyed that
^
it
cannot be translated.
Translated by Golenischeff and Brugsch.
MORE
"
I
IvfAGICAL
MYTHS
me
:
235
then siinmioned some people, and verily

;
they turned their hearts to
summoned
and they
also the inhabitants of the marshes,
came about me immediately

to
the people
came
me from
their houses,
and they drew near,
hearing
over
my voice. They too uttered laments my great misfortune, but none of them
for every
opened the mouth to speak,
one of
them showed
a great grief, but none of

life.
them
knew how
"
to restore the
And
to
there
came from the
city a
woman,
:
well
known and
of rank in her district

life,
she
came
me
to restore the
her heart was
quite full of that, but
my
;
son Horus remained
motionless."
It
is
difficult to
it
understand the
as if
words that come next

there
would seem
was a conversation between the two

in discovering that
child.
;
women, and they succeed

a scorpion
had stung the
The poor
she puts
find out
mother's despair
her nose in the

if
knew no bounds mouth of her son to

it
he
still
breathes;
she opens the wound,
and discovers that
contains poison; then
236
THE OLD EGYPTfAN FAITH
she takes the child in her arms, and begins

to skip about
^we
fire,
should say,
like
mad-
woman but
the Egyptians say, like a fish

shrieking,
;
thrown on the
stung, thy son
"'
Ra, he
is
Horus
he
is
stung, thy son
he
is
stung, the heir of heirs, the master of the
royal diadem, the innocent, the child of the gods,

for
whom
was getting what was needful."

is
The poor mother

in her
moving, even eloquent,
sorrow
"
Then came Nephthys and

too,
wept, and her lamentations resounded through

all
the land
'
and Selk
who
asked again
and again,
son Horus
What
then has happened to thy

direct thy prayer to the
Isis,
heavens, and then the boatmen

stop,
of
Ra
it
will
and the bark of

;
Ra
will
go forward no
will
more
for the sake of
thy son Horus
come
to a halt.'"
Isis lifts
up her voice
to
the heavens, and she entreats the eternal bark.
The sun came

its
to a standstill
when the
request
reached him, and the bark did not

place,
stir
from
but Thoth arrived equipped with

his
his
enchantments, carrying
formula
of
MIRACLE OF HEALING BY THOTH

victory,
257
and says
is
"
Isis,
glorious goddess,
whose mouth
to no
ill,
wise, thy son
Horus has come

belongs to the
to-day from the
for his
I
protection
bark of Ra.
am come
disc,
bark of the solar

it
from the place where
was yesterday when night came and when

the end that
I
light disappeared, to
might
heal
Horus
for his
mother, and every other
like sufferer."
Then
Isis
the goddess
is
spake
thus
"
Thoth, great
thy heart
;
but hast thou not
delayed in thy purpose
comest thou equipped
with
all
thine enchantments, and carriest thou
the formula which will triumph over anything,

for
one knows not the number of
?
.
"
" Fear
I
not,
O goddess Isis
lament not, Nephthys.
am come from the sky

to his mother.
to restore the child alive

be
thij Jieart
Horus ! Horns !
saved, like
strengthened,
poison.
his disc,
and succumb not

is
to the /Ire
of the
is
Horus
him who
in
and who enlightens the land with the

;
splendour of his eyes

sufferer.
saved, too,
is
every
Saved
is
Horus the
first-born of the
23H
sky, he

who
gives their forms to those that are
and that
shall
be
"
;
and the god goes on to give
utterance to appropriate formulas whose effect

will be the revival of the child.
The
last lines
of the text are obscure, but they contain, however, these

Isis
''
:
words which Thoth addresses to
am Thoth, the eldest of the sons of Ra. Toum and the cycle of the gods have charged me to give Horus back safe and sound
I
to
his
mother, and to heal likewise
every
suffering being.
is
Horus
Horus
thy double
is
thy protector, and thy form

;
thy
its
safeis
guard
the
venom
is
dead,
and
fire
destroyed."
Then
extend
Isis,
in gratitude, requests
Thoth to
his benefits to the inhabitants of the
region of Buto, as they had begged with strong

supplications that the son should be restored to
his
mother
life
and
also that
they should share in
the
and healing which the power of Thoth
could bring.
Thoth grants her
petition.
''
bring joy," he says, " to those
who
are in the
Sekti bark, the solar bark which was stopped.
ANTHROPOMORPHIC MYTHS
Horus has been given back
Isis,
239
alive to his
mother,
and Hkewise every sick person

his
will be given
is
back ahve to
mother, for the poison

is
dead,
and
its
strength
gone."
These
last lines reveal to us

:
the aim and
purpose of the myth
it
is
a talisman for the
people of Buto against the stings of scorpions
and
serpents.
If
anyone has
it
in his house,
it vîll
engraved on a
stele or other
monument,
be the best preservative against the bites of

these formidable creatures.
We thus
itself,
see that
the Egyptian
myth
in It
is
not an independent story

for its literary
which one enjoys

or artistic value.
and for
is
always motived by some-
thing
it is
it
goes along with a ceremony of which

it
the explanation, and

is
has a magical value.
This
why
it is
to be read, or
it
why
people must
have the text of

them.
in their houses or
about
But anthropomorphism, though seen

in the
chiefly
myths,
is
found elsewhere
direct action of the divine
The powers on human

also.
beings,
and their intervention
in the
life
of
240

in
man, are not seen exclusively
magic
the
vîll
gods have other means of making their
known.
They hold converse with men

;
in
many ways
dreams
is
they are fond, for instance, of
revealing themselves in dreams.

as a channel of divine
The
belief in
communication
and
in
present indeed in almost
all religions,
Egypt
as
there were interpreters of dreams who,

as
well
the
magicians,
priests.
belonged to the
college
of
the
There are
stories
extant of several dreams in which kings heard

the voices of the gods and received divine
directions.
is
For
instance.
King Thothmes IV.

Ghizeh
hunting
in the desert, opposite Heliopolis,
in the district
which we now
call
and
being overcome by the heat of the sun and

fatigue,
he
falls
asleep
at
midday
in
the
shadow of a gigantic monument, which

the wonder of travellers, the great
is still
Sphinx.
The
story runs
"
And his majesty found that

own The
the god was speaking to him with his
mouth,
as a Either speaks to his son."

1
Translated by Maspero.
THE COMPLAINT OF THE SPHINX

god
is
^41
tlie
the Sphinx himself, the

;
emblem
of
god Harmachis
Thothmes,
and
1
it
:
is,
then, the statue which
speaks to the king

for
I
"
See thou me,
my
son
am
thy father Harmachis, be king on
will grant thee to
my throne,
a prince
among
the living, wearing the red

as the chief of the
crown and the white crown,

gods possessing the land
in all its length
and
breadth, the splendour of the eye of the lord

of
all
things.
I
all
will
place at
thy disposal
revenues from
tribute,
the land of Egypt, abundant

years, during
and a period of
which
for
thou shalt be the chosen one of

face will be turned towards thee,
will be
Ra
my
and thy face
turned towards me, and thy heart will
be inclined towards me.

fate
!
Now
look at
my
so that thou
mayest be able to protect
my beautiful
on which
I
members.
The sand
of the desert
am
has surrounded
me
I
is
ha^ e
in
decreed that thou shalt execute what

heart,
my
for
thou art
;
my
son,
;
m}' protector.
Come near When the
am
with thee
am
thy father.'
16
prince heard these words he was
242

this god."
greatly astonished, and he perceived that they
were the words of
Unfortunately,
is
the stele containing this text
broken here,
and the narrative ends.

This
tale,
for
it
is
one,
is
interesting in
many
god
is
respects.
It
shows us what kind of
relations existed
between gods and men.

in the
The
nowhere shown
imposing majesty
we
Sun
his
should expect to find in the case of the

:
no, he
is
quite
humble
he appeals to
son like a suppliant.

as
The poor Sphinx
was then,
now, unceasingly threatened with
the enveloping sand of the desert, covering
enormous body, and only allowing his head and back to be seen. He would like well to
his
be disencumbered of his covering, and to

play himself in
all his
dis-
splendour
and
for this
he must supplicate the king to construct some

defensive
his
work
to keep off the sand.
This
is
dearest
it
wish, but
he liardly ventures to
indeed to appeal to
;
make
the
known.
affection
He
tries
filial
due to him from Thothmes
yet he must needs begin by making magni-
A BARGAIN-MAKING GOD
ficent promises
:
24S
he himself will place him upon
the throne
he will grant him a long and

;
glorious reign
all
the riches of
Egypt and of
In
foreign lands will flow into his treasury.
return for this brilliant future which he pledges
himself to secure to Thothmes, the latter must
undertake to clear the sand away entirely from

the image of the god, and prevent
its
invasion
from hiding from Imman view a large portion

of the divine one's person.
The two
sides of
the bargain,
it
will be seen, are
not equal, for
Thothmes has
characteristic
certainly the lion's share.
The
spirit
thing
is
the
mercantile
which governs the relations of gods and men.
god does not

to
believe,
apparently, in his
right
ask anything from man, unless he

will
gives, I
not say the equivalent, but far

in return.
more than he gets

on
his part, will
]Man, however,
not hesitate to put forward
claims based simply on the feeling of gratitude
which the god ought to have towards him.
We have a curious example of the same thing

on another occasion, when
Amon
goes to the
244

of the
king.
It
is
assistance
piece
of
writing which
called a
its first
;
translator, E.
certainly,
de Rouge,
poem
and
though we are
unacquainted with the rhythm of Egyptian

verse, the style of the piece, its
imaginative
power, and the richness and exuberance of

certain of
its
descriptions
fully
warrant the
name.
Its subject
is
Rameses
II.,
a prince
who
has
long enjoyed a
fictitious prestige.
For long
he has been regarded as the greatest of the

kings of Egypt, surpassing in power
other sovereigns.
all
the
But the better we learn to
know him, his halo of glory fades the more, and we can safely affirm that Rameses was a
pompous, ostentatious monarch, whose
well as his contemporaries
sole
aim seems to have been to dazzle posterity

;
as
and
also,
that his
too prolonged reign was really the beginning

of Egyptian decadence.
We
must thank him,
however, for having

poet Pentaour,
to
left
us the
work of the
which he attached great
importance, since not only had he the work
A BARGAINING PRAYER
copied
245
it
on papyrus, but
also caused
to be
It
engraved several times on temple

tells
walls.
how he was
part,
at
war with the
Klieta, a
people of Syria.
Whether from
incapacity
on
his
or through a stratagem of the
enemy, he
finds himself
suddenly surrounded
by countless hosts of the Kheta, including
two thousand
off*
five
hundred chariots cutting

is
his
retreat.
He
quite
alone in
his
chariot, except for his charioteer.
The king
is
then
calls
on Anion, and the god
not deaf
;
to his appeal.
He
comes
;
to his aid hi person
he speaks to the king
he shows himself to
Rameses and imparts

enemies,
to
him the aspect of
god, thus striking terror into the hearts of his
who
are put to rout.

itself
How
?
;
does the
\AMiat
is
voice of the
god make
?
heard
the god like
We
is
do not know
let us re-
member
makes.
that
it is
poetry
we
are reading.
But
or
:
the curious thing

It
is
the invocation
a
l{ameses
not
cry
of distress,
an
he
appeal to the helpful kindness of the god

rather
makes much of
his rights,
and counts
246

at great length, at
up
such a
critical
moment,
the claims he believes he has on the gratitude
and recognition of the god, and only quite

near
tlie
end of
his petition
does he allude to
for him.
It
the love which

is
Amon
might have
the same spirit that animated
Thothmes IV.
to
when
''Then
Harmachis
his
made
*
appeal
him.
majesty says:^
Who
art thou,
O
{
my
son
?
father
Amon
I
does a father forget his
Have
I
then done aught without thee

staid, at
Have
not stept or
thy word
have
I
?
not transgressed thy commands.
Have
not
I
consecrated numberless offerings to thee
have
I
filled
thy holy abode with thy prisoners
have built thee a temple for millions of

:
years
I ha^'e
:
given thee
I
all
my
goods for thy
storehouses
have offered thee the whole

I
world to enrich thy domains.

ficed before thee thirty
have
sacriall
thousand
I
cattle,
with
wood
of sweet scent.
...
their
have built for thee

I
pylons of stone, on to their completion, and
myself have
1
set
up
masts.
brought
Translated by E. de Rouge.
RAMESES
tliee obelisks
II.
CLAIMS ON AMON
;
247
from Elephantine
'tis I
who had
eternal stones carried (for thee)

sailing
Galleys are
on the sea
for
thee
they convey to
()
thee the tributes of the nations.

a
verily
wretched fate
(is
reserved)
;
for
him w^ho
opposes thy purposes
happiness awaits him
who knows
Anion
thee
for
I
thy deeds come from a

call
heart full of love.

!
on thee,
O my
father
Behold
to
unknown
no other
me in me all
;
the midst of multitudes

nations are banded toI
gether against me, and

is
am
alone by myself,
soldiers
with me.
My many
my
But
have
deserted me, none of
chariotry look at me,
and when
listens to
call to
them not one

I find
of
them
is
my
voice.
that
Anion
worth more to
me
than a million of
soldiers,
than a hundred thousand of chariots, more

than a myriad of brothers and children, were
tliey all
gathered in one.
:
No works
tlieni.
of
I
many
lune
men
avail
Anion
will
exceed
done these things by the counsel of thy mouth,
Anion, and
have never transgressed thy have

I
counsels.
Lo
not glorified thee to
248
tlie

furthest ends
far as
:
of the
earth
:
The
I
:
voice
at
rang as
Hermonthis
Amon
hand.
came
raise
'
my
call
he gives
;
me
his
shout of joy
he called to
me
behind
!
am
running to thy help, Rameses

thee
;
I
is
am
with
it is I,
thy father
my
hand
with thee,
and
am
worth more to thee than hundreds

I
;
of tliousands.
lovinof
am
I
sovran lord
of night,
is
valovu'
have found a heart that
courageous, and
shall
am
well pleased.
JNIy will
be accomplished.
Like
;
Month, on the
left I
right, I let fly
my
I
arrows
on the
over-
whelm them.
before them.
chariots
am
like
Baal in his hour,

five
The two thousand

surround
hundred
in
that
before
me
"
are
broken
pieces
my
mares.'
Rameses then
describes the slaughter which he
made
" It
is
of his
enemies, in whose eyes he appears to be a god.
They
say the one to the other
is
not a
mortal
man who
is
in
it
amongst
is
us. it
Sutekh,
the mighty warrior,
Baal in bodily form.
These are not the doings of a man, the things

that he does
;
alone, all
alone he hurls back
SPEAKING AND HEALING IMAGES

hundreds
without
of
249
thousands, without
his
chiefs,
his soldiers."
Here, then, we have instances of direct

intervention hy a god in the doings of a king.
It
must be noted that these

the
narratives are
not taken from rehgious books properly so

called
:
first
is
found
in a tale,
and the
other in a poem.
We have seen, in our discussion of the myths,

that they were read before statuettes or
figures
little
which thereby acquired a supernatural

figures
power; these
of healing
to
then became mediums

recourse was
or
sickness.
which
had
for
the cure of
wounds
still
But the
Egyptians went
further than this.
Not
only did they allow that the gods conversed
with
them, not
which
if
only did they read the in-
cantations
utter, as
Thoth
was
supposed
to
the god himself were speaking,

also
but
they
made
statues
speak
they
possessed oracular or prophetic statues which
intervened on
many
occasions in their
lives.
This kind of statue was chiefly found at
250

the temple of Khons.
for
Thebes, and in one of the holy places of the

city,
This sanctuary
dates
the
most part from the time of
the
last
Ramesside kings, the twenty-first

the
dynasty,
dynasty
of
the
priest-kings,
the high priests of

well in
Amon who
succeeded so
establishing themselves
by the
side
of the king that they ended by dislodging
him from the throne and occupying

selves.
it
themson
of
Khons
and
was
;
originally
the
Amon
Mut
his
worship
was
closely
bound up with that of

employed the
Amon
and we
may
well suppose that the priests of

art let us call
Amon
it
readily
the fraud
of making statues speak, for the purpose of
enhancing the prestige of their god, and consequently

of themselves.
At
the
close
of
the twentieth
dynasty they invented a tale
which was ascribed to the reign of Rameses

II.,
and which
relates
how
a request
was
made
to one of the gods to
go and exorcise
a princess in
Mesopotamia.
What
is
at
once
stamps the story as an invention
the fact
To fare
pat/r 250.
THE POSSESSED PRINCESS

that, at the
in the
251
II.
beginnmg,
it
places
Rameses
country of the Naharin, in JNIesopotaniia,
where we are told the princes of the whole
bow themselves in his presence and to implore his favour. Now, according to what we know of his reign and campaigns,
earth
came
to
Rameses never went
so far as
Mesopotamia
he never got beyond Palestine and Syria.
However
that
may
his
be,
we
are told that,
while he was thus
engaged, the prince

daughter, a
of
of
Bakhtan brought
woman
very great beauty, to him, and the Pharaoh
took her to Egypt as

the
his wife
and gave her
name of Ra-neferou (the beauties of Ra). Now, one day at Thebes, when he was holding a great festival in honour of Amon, he was
informed of the arrival of an envoy from the
prince of Bakhtan, bearing rich presents,
who
and
came
sister,
to tell
him that Queen Ra-neferou's

ill,
the
young Bentresht, was very

to ciu'e her.
to say that the prince
begged Rameses to send
man
of
skill
Rameses assembled
sacred
scribes,
all
the
wise
men, the
the
252

them
to choose from
magicians, and desired

their
number
choice
set
a skilful
The
fell
on a
for
man to go to Bakhtan. man named Thothemheb,

the
spirit.
who
out
Bakhtan, and found
princess possessed
by a
He
him
is
obliged
to confess his inability.
Yet we must beheve

for trying
that sufficient time was given

all
likely remedies, for
it
is
only nine years
after the dispatch of the first
messenger that a
second arrives urgently requesting the

to send a
King
god
this time.
Then the King goes
into the temple of
Khons Neferhotep, one of
the triad of Thebes, son of
Amon
:
and Mut.
M. de Rouge
by
'
translates the
"
name Neferhotep
it
quiet in his perfection
might
also be
rendered " good and peaceable."
The
epithet
indicates that the characteristic of the

tranquillity, repose
like
:
god
is
he does not leave
his abode,
others
he
We
in
is
not a warlike god.

his
He
Olymof
issues his decrees
without forsaking
shall
pian
calm.
keep to
his
name
Neferhotep
what
follows.
Rameses asks from him authority
to allow

another
253
or
god
Khoiis,
''
He who
makes
executes plans and drives out rehels," to go to
Bakhtan, and requests the god to signify
his
consent by nodding his head, which the god
immediately does, two several times.

also asks the
Rameses
with
I
god
" to send his protection
him
"
on the journey
a " protection " w^hich,

forth
believe,
would be put
by the double of
the god, who, though invisible, wôuld always
be behind him, and the traveller would also

receive the
cess.
power required
''
for healing the prin-
Khons,
who-executes-plans," appears
to
me
to be an emanation of the other Khons,
perhaps a portion of his body, which has taken

the form of the god.
In the
myth
of the
Destruction of Mankind
we saw
that the
god
the
Ka
sent forth
his
eye,
which assumed
appearance of Hathor.
plans
is
Khons- who-executesthe agent, he makes
something analogous, with reference to

:
Khons Neferhotep
he
is
journeys, and the other god despatches
him
when
his powder
must be put
forth at a distance.
We
may
suppose that Khons-who-executes-
254

said over
plans was a statue on which a magical virtue
had been bestowed by certain words

it
or before
it,
hke those which protected from
or healed the bites of serpents.
The
special
power of the statue was probably that of an

exorcist, as appears
from the other

is,
epithet, " he
who
expels the rebels," that
he
who
expels
everything opposed to the will of the gods.
The god
carried
sets
out in his
:
bark,
in the
which
bark
or
is
is
on men's shoulders
contains escorted
the shrine which
his
statue
five
his
emblem.
He
East.
is
by
smaller
boats, a chariot
and numerous horses of the
West and
any
We
if
are not favoured with
details as to the events
of the journey,
which was happy
not rapid
for
it
lasted a
year and live months.
As
the god approached
his destination the prince of
Bakhtan, with
his
nobles and soldiers,
came
to
meet him
he
threw himself on the ground before him, and

bade him welcome.
Khons
repaired at once
to the house of the princess, imparted to her

his healing virtue,
probably by laying
his
hand
255
four times on her neck, and the princess was

instantly relieved.
But the
her did
spirit
spirit or
the
demon
that possessed
^
not depart without a word.

in lier said, in the
-
The
which dwelt
-
presence
-
of
"
Khons - who
executes
plans
in
Thebes
Welcome, thou great god who

:
drivest out
is
the rebels
the city of Bakhtan

I
I
thine, its
I will
people are thy slaves,
am
thy
slave.
go to the place whence
came, to satisfy thy
heart concerning the matter of thy journey.
Let thy majesty be pleased to command that

a festival be celebrated in
my
honour by the
to his
prince of Bakhtan."
priest,
The god nods
saying
"It behoves that the prince of

rich offering to this spirit."
Bakhtan make a
While these things were happening, and while Khons - who - executes - plans - in - Thebes was
talking with the
spirit,
the prince of Bakhtan
stood with his army, seized with a very great

fear.
He
caused a rich offering to be
made
to
Khons as
well as to the spirit, and he celebrated

1
Translated bv E. de
Roiio;e.
256
THE OLD EGYPllAN FAITH
a festival in their honour, whereupon the spirit
departed peaceably whithersoever he wished.
Great joy was
in all the land at the deliverance
of the princess, so
much
so that the prince
determines to keep beside him this beneficent

god, and not to permit him to return to Egypt;
and indeed Khons remained three years and

nine months in Bakhtan, and had no thought
of returning to Thebes.
We
for
must suppose that

is
at the
end of that
period the god
seized with home-sickness,
one night,
as the prince of
Bakhtan was
sleeping on his bed, he saw in a
dream the god
leaving his shrine in the form of a falcon of
gold and flying skyward in the direction of
The prince awoke sorely troubled he summoned the priest of Khons and said The god desires to return to Egypt let his
Egypt.
:
*'
chariot depart to that country."

say,
Needless to
he did not
rich
him with
first,
him depart without loading The journey, like the presents.

let
lasted
more than
a year, and at the end of
that time Khons-who-executes-plans
entered

his
^57
temple again safe and sound.
He
had the
all
generosity to keep nothing for himself of
the presents
made
to
him
at
Bakhtan, but to
give everything up to Khons-Neferhotep.
In this
last
touch
we may
the
or
discover the
It
motive in
clear
composing
the
statue
tale.
seems
that
emblem
of
Khons
was to be used
in effecting
miraculous cures.
other journeys
Khons would have

not so far afield
failed to
to
make
besides the one to Bakhtan,

;
though probably
and the presents w^hich never
be made to the god would be gener-
ously surrendered by
him
to the temple of the
great god Khons-Neferhotep, which possessed
an important and
priests.
well -endowed
college
of
It
is,
indeed,
hard not to believe
that herein
we have
is
the aim and motive of the product of a comIt
the story, which

paratively
late
time.
was,
if
may
be
excused
the
familiar
expression,
''pufF"
advertisement for the god Khons, whose cures
were marvellous,
so old, since
it
like this
one which was not

17
happened under the Rameses
258
from
taken
whom
its
the dynasty then in power had
name.
in
Khons-Neferhotep loved to mix

affairs.
human
An
inscription of ahiiost
the same
epoch
as the foregoing tale
supplies us with
another example.
It appears there
had been
temple
some embezzlement going on

of
in the
Amon,
to such an extent that the festivals
of the god had to be interrupted.
A
of
major-
domo named Thothmes was

promised,
gravely
com-
and
the
high
priest
Amon,
For
Pinodjem, was particularly anxious to clear
him of the charge

this
laid
against
him.
purpose he applied to Khons-Neferhotep,
the third
this
member
of the
Theban
triad.
When
he was
god was intended to give a

pavement.
sign,
deposited in a part of the temple where there
was a
that
it
silver
can easily believe
was a place where some mechanism was
arranged for the purpose of making the limbs

of the statue move, and that this
mechanism
was concealed by a metal
floor.
When
the
high priest arrived, the god nodded vigorously,
SPEAKING STATUES
259
and during the whole interview the god never

stopped making signs of approval
;
he did
even more.
Pinodjem
laid
before
him two
writings, probably
two scrolls, one of which bore

said that there are matters
in the
the words
*'
:
It
is
which should be investigated
case of
Thothmes," and the other, words to the contrary effect.
Twice over Pinodjem displays the documents before Khons, who takes
and
rejects
the latter
the former
and the god thus

he abandons the
declares
by
this choice that
accusation against the superintendent.

that
is
But
also
not enough.
Thothmes appeared
before
Amon, and
fines
the god not only remits
the penalty of death which he had deserved,
and
all
and
punishment
which
he
it
should have incurred, but he also makes
known by
signs
that
Thothmes should be
and
created " divine father," chief overseer of the

granaries, accountant, chief guardian,
inspector.
first
And
so
the
official
is
who was
supposed to be unfaithful
not only wholly
260

than
exculpated, but promoted to fur higher dignities
those
he
had
formerly enjoyed.
This shows us the purpose served by these

statues
thus
endowed
;
with
wê
movement
or
even with speech
and
can well undera diligent use of
stand that the priests

this
made
in
means of persuasion
imposing on the
credulity of the crowd.

I
have dwelt at some length on the myths

priests
it
and on the use to which the

or
put vocal
moving
statues, because
is
appears to
me
that
much hght
thereby thrown on the
rehgion of the people, as distinguished from

the beUefs of the priests and the doctrines,
more
or less mysterious, recorded in the books
whose composition was attributed to Thoth. In the myths and the statues we seem to
grasp the
conceptions
which
the
common
crowd formed of divinity and the influence which the deity had on their lives. The fellah
of the time of Cheops or of
Rameses wor-
shipped above
deity whose
all
the god of his
own
city,
the
sanctuary he saw at his door.
THE FELLAH^S RELIGION

That deity might be
place,
261
in
it
called
in
it
Horns
;
one
Amon
or
it
or
Hathor
;
another
might
assnme various forms

sons
;
had one or more

deities.
had created other
The
great god of the temple, or one of the second-
ary deities sprung from him, was, in the eyes
of the peasant, the incarnation of the forces or
the
the
phenomena
soil,
of nature, especially the sun,
and
the
Nile,
on
which
his
life
depended.
Now
the
this belief
was not forced on
the people because there was a single form of

religion
in
country,
but
because
all
Egyptians lived under absolutely the same

conditions, physical
and climatic, and consea
quently were led to form

divinity alike in
all
conception of
respects,
in.
whatever part of
the country they lived
those beings that were far
The cosmic gods did off from them
not satisfy them
they required to have gods
brought nearer to them, and surrounded by

conditions
more akin
to those in
which they
themselves lived,
in a
word, they needed more
human
gods.
Besides, they
had arrived at
262

making
for
the stage of
themselves
gods
wholly anthropomorphic in their nature, or
even able to assume the forms of the animals

they saw every day around them.
Hence
arose these myths, in which the gods not only
speak and act like

liable to the
human
beings, but are also

as
same weaknesses
men, and to
quite
avoid.
mundane mishaps which they cannot

These myths
tell
us that a god might
be sometimes a falcon of gold or a black pig,

or a
cow supporting thousands

which
of stars.
The
home,
gods were also represented by small figures or

statuettes
it
was good to have
at
for they could preserve
you from the
bites of
serpents
or
the stings of scorpions, without
mentioning other means
they possessed
of
exercising their protection over the inhabitants
of the house.
Such,
it
appears to us,
is
the religion of the
poor and obscure

rich with his
ficent
man
not the religion of the
sumptuous funeral and magniartisan,
tomb, but of the peasant or the

body,
w^hose
when mummified, was thrown
A NATURE-CULT
into the
common
trench.
It
is
a nature-cult;
above
all, it is
the worship of the
Sun and the

to
Nile, the
two elements which

and brought
for
fructified the
life
third, the Earth,
human
beings,
and which,
everyday
existence, to
assumed
all terrestrial
forms.
As
knowing
whether these three gods were one, or whether

they were three emanations or creations of
one and the same person
this
was a question
which the Egyptian

found
it
of
the
common
herd
needless to put, and to which he was
probably incapable of giving an answer.
VI
The
death
or
king did not become a god only after

in a
when his body was shut up hidden away in the depths of

;
pyramid
a rock-hewn
tomb
he was divine
all his life, in
every act
his
he performed
in
war when he routed
enemies, as well as in peace
when he
laid
the foundations of a temple.

birth he
From
:
his very
was a divine being

given him
life
it
was Anion
;
who had
himself
at the first
father.
is
the god
divine
was
his
real
The
parentage of the sovereign

in detail in the case of
narrated for us
two monarchs of the
eighteenth dynasty
the queen whose popular

III.
is
name
for us
is
Hatasou, and King Amenhotep
In both instances the whole legend

264
unfolded
el
on the walls of the temples of Der
QUEEN HATSHEPSU^S DIVINE BIRTH

Bahri and Luqsor.
^65
Although
it
is
first
made
most
have
known
to us at this epoch
that
is,
at the
brilhant period of Egyptian history
no doubt, however, that the legend goes back
much
further
and
it
was kept up
till
a very
late age,
not only in the case of the kings, but
of the gods themselves, for

in
we
find
it
again
the
temple of Esneh, which dates from

times.
Roman
'i'he
following
is
an analysis of the most
complete version we possess

of
that of the temple

not with the birth
II.,
Der
el
Bahri.
It deals,
of a king, but of a princess, who, from the

fact
that
her husband,
Thothmes
to
died
young,
and
owing
also
her
nephew,
with
her
Thothmes
power
III.,
being
associated
while he was
still
a child, held the sovereign
entirely in her
own
hands, and was not

for
simply queen, but king
she has herself
always represented as a man.

opens
Avith
The legend
:
an assembly of the gods

convenes
Amon,
all
the great god of Thebes,
the
great gods, and announces to
them
that he
^66

who
will eclipse all the
will beget a princess
sovereigns
who have been
before her.
Then
Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes, conducts

to the queen.
Amon
telling
is
He names
is
her to
Amon,
him that she

more
called
Aahmes, and that she
beautiful than any
woman.
Amon visits
The scene
the queen
the queen, and finds her asleep.

that follows shows us
Amon making
breathe the sign of hfe.
Khnoum,
the potter,
Then he summons and commands him to

and
after that
fashion on his Avheel the body of the princess
and that of her double

see
we
Queen Aahmes, who

the princess,
;
has just given birth
to
holding
the
child
on her
knees
the goddess
Hathor
will
will
tlien,
suckle her
herself,
and the sacred cows
take
care
of her doubles.
that the princess
There
is
is,
no doubt
;
a divine being
is
it
is
not
Thothmes
in
I.,
but
Amon, who
and,
will
her father.
Henceforth her divine birth

her whole
existence
after
;
will be reflected
like
her,
the
kings
their
who come
origin
love
to
recall
by a
picture,
often
found
in
{To ^ ace yage 266.
[Photo
bij
Translato)
The Hatlior Cow, The King, Ameiihotep
after leinoval
II.,
Shrine, February 1906. being suckled by the Cow.

tVuiii
THE ENTHROxVEMENT
the temples,
goddess. of
their
267
being
suekled
by a
Following the nativity, we have the en-
thronement of the son of the gods by the

gods themselves.
promises
reignty
place
is
They had
:
to
fulfil
all
the
made
to the child
an eternal sove;
predicted for him
they must
he, in his
him on the throne, and
now own
person,
must assume the duties which
are the
counterpart of the divine favours.

in
The
duties
which Amon, Ptah, or Ra take an interest
are naturally those which concern themselves
and their temples.
The
ritual
of enthrone:
ment
first,
is
made up
of a succession of ceremonies
the purification and the presentation of

it
the royal child to the gods, and
must be
allowed that in
all
these ceremonies the ofods
themselves
officiate.
All the elaborate ritual the temple sculptures

;
depicted for
really carried
us
in
is
through
it
is
no make-believe.
The gods
deities.
are priests dressed
up
in
the costume,
\
the headgear, and the insignia of the
arious
is
The
distinctive
mark they assume
268

;
generally the head alone
but in some cases a
more complete
for
disguise
was resorted
to, as,
example, when the grotesque dwarf named
Bes, or the goddess Api,
who had
a hippo-
potamus body, was represented.
All this pre-
supposes great credulity on the part of the
Egyptians, but, at the same time, profound

veneration for the divine element, since even
such a tra^'esty was sufficient

holy awe within them.
It
to
inspire
never entered the

ridicule a cere-
Egyptian mind to turn into
mony
see the
which, in certain
;
respects,
was only a
masquerade
they knew
how
to look for and
meaning that lay hidden under a show

was
performed
which sometimes must have been grotesque.
The
deities
purification
by two
pouring water over the head of the
king.
At Der
el
Eahri
it is
Horus and Amon,

''
and they say to the

and thy double also,
the King of
princess,
in this
Thou
art pure,
solemn investiture of
"
;
Upper and of Lower Egypt
after
which naturally come promises of a long and
happy
life
and of a reign without end.
Then
PRESENTATION TO THE PEOPLE

she
is
^f)9
presented to the gods
Amon
;
takes her
on
his
knees and embraces her
and next he
shows her to the cycle of the gods of the South and the North.
When
people
see her
once the gods acknowledge her, the

are to be her subjects
who
must
also
is
and do homage.
The ceremony
presided o\'er by her father, the reigning king,
who, being himself divine, plays the part of the
god Ra.
(princess)
He is in a whom he
pavilion, with the prince

is
about
to
associate
with him in the government standing before
him
then he takes
his heir in his arms, in full his
view of the crowd, and places him on

throne.
of the
The assembly of the great officers kingdom prostrate themselves on the
ground, and the king directs them, not only

to be obedient and submissive henceforth to
her
whom
become
he has just installed in

;
his place,
but even to worship her

has
divine,
" for
my
daughter
and the gods fight for her

her,
and are behind her every day to protect

according" to
what the
sovereiH"n lord of tlie
270

Thus the
father affirms
gods has decreed."
formally before his assembled

divine character of his heir
necessitates paying the
subjects
the
a character
it
which
as
same honour to her

is
to the gods.
Moreover,
not a thing to
surprise or shock his subjects to see a king
worshipping himself, and taking a place

divinities to
among
whom
he renders divine honours,
or even to range his bark in a temple-sanctuary

side
by
side with those containing the
emblems
not
of the gods.
Has he not been taught from

it
childhood that he was a god, and has
been publicly proclaimed in the hearing of the

people of the kingdom
then, to prevent
?
Is
there anything,
his
him from claiming on
own
?
account the same privileges as other deities
Amongst
the
company assembled
to
make
is
the acquaintance of the princess, there

class of priests
charged with determining and

''
proclaiming " the great name," or rather

royal name."
the
This name, which
is,
properly
speaking, an entire sentence or paragraph, consists
of different parts
first
comes the name
DETERMINING THE ROYAL NAMES

of the
Jxd
271
or
the double, of which
we have
is
ah'eady spoken in connection with the Thinite

kings,
and which determines that the king

is,
Horus, that
that
he belongs
to the old conquering race
whose
standard was a falcon.

is
This falcon
perched on a dwarfed representa-
tion of the door of a
tomb through
death.
which the deceased's double passes

in
and out
after
his
On
îzi
the lintel of this

signs,
door are some
UU
hoius name
of
which usually represent an
epithet
forming the
name
of
is
of the
double.
In the case
Queen
''She
Hatasou, her ka
name
-Shila'!"'^'
who
is
rich in kas, or powerful
through her Am-";

Bull beloved
her father's was
"
The powerful
of Maat, the goddess of Truth or Justice."
After the ka name, whicli

standard
or
is
often called the
banner name, comes a second epithet, introduced by these words, " Lord of
the two crowns," that
of the West.
is,
those of the East and

epithet
is
The Queen's second
272
"

in
Abounding
takes
years," or
sometimes " She

all
who
possession
of
title
lands
"
"
her
father's
corresponding
was
He who
This
rises like a flame,
the very courageous."
part of the
name was not

is
absolutely fixed, but
capable of variations, like the third part of the
name, which
"
always introduced by the group
The Golden Horus."

She who
Here
again, in the case

:
of the Queen,
"
is
we have two
Her
different versions
'*
divine in her risings," and
She
who
vivifles hearts."
father had several
Golden- Horus names, one of which was "
He
who
smites the barbarians."

title
After these came the royal

so-called
:
properly
it
serves usually to
"
designate the
person of the sovereign,
the King of
Upper
car-
and of Lower Egypt," followed by two
touches separated by the words " Son of Ra."
cartouche
is
an oval enclosing a certain
number of
the
signs forming the
name
two
of the king.
in
The cartouches
first
are generally
is
number,
at
of wliich
the
name given
the
enthronement, and always contains the word
THE ROYAL TITULARY

Ra, the Sun
;
273
it
is
the solar prenomen, the
one that connects the prince with the great

god.
That
(/xci)
of
(the
Hatasou means
" the
true
double
true image) of Ra." of
After
the words
"Son
Ra" comes
the second
cartouche, containing the ordinary
king which he received at birth.
name of the We now give

The Horus, of the two
the
the complete style of the Queen, which would
be inscribed on the
monuments
in
"
powerful through his kas, lord
crowns who abounds
years,
Golden
Horus
ka
of
who
Ra),
vivifies
hearts,
the
King
of
LTpper and of
Lower Egypt, Ka-ma-Ra

Son of the
Sun,
(true
Hatshepsut
joined
to
Khnoumit
Amon)."
Amon
(Hatshepsut
We
thus see that the divine char-
acter of the king or
queen
is
distinctly
stands
out in this protocol, which

and,
duly proclaimed,
we should
say, registered
by the priests
assembled on the occasion.

After the king or the queen has received
these names, various ceremonies complete the
coronation,
the
most
important being that

18
274
in

which the queen
is
conducted into two
pavilions
where there are gods who place on her head successively the diadem of the South and that of the North. Then the monarch goes
round a walled enclosure,
called the
Northern
Hall, near the hall in which he received the
crowns.
He
is
accompanied
in this
round by
the great god of the locality,
who embraces
him, thereby transmitting to him authority

over the whole land and over the territories
belonoinof to the
Nine Bows or the Barbarians.

one of themselves
his
Throughout the ceremony the gods always

treat the king like
assert
;
they
and consecrate
is
divine
character,
but
it
not wholly gratuitously.

it
He
must
is
acknowledge
in
some way, and do what
pleasing to them.
He
enters into obligations

fulfil,
towards them which he will have to
as
Horemheb, the
dynasty, did, of
last sovereign of
the eighteenth
:
whom
it
it
is
said
"
From
the
day the king took possession of

reorganised
it
this land
he
as
was
in the
time of the god
Ra.
He
restored
the temples of the gods:
ROYAL DUTIES TO THE GODS

he renewed
all
275
their divine statues in greater
number than they had been

place.
before
what
its
the king found in ruins, he set up again in
He made one hundred of costly stone. He visited all

all
statues life-size,
the cities where

this
the gods had buildings, in
land,
and
endowed them
beoînninff,
just as they had been at the

for
and he established
them
all
their daily offerings,
and
all
the vessels neces-
sary for their buildings, wrought in gold and

in
silver
;
he equipped
them
with
priests,
;
officiating ministers,
and picked
in writing
soldiers
he
made
cattle,
it
gifts to
them
them
of fields and
and supplied them with everything that

for
was meet
in
to have."
This was the
way
which the gods asked to be recompensed.

matter in hand was the founding of
it
If the
a building, say a temple,
was carried out

;
with the co-operation of the gods
the cere-
monies were regulated by a book called " The
Book
Gods
begun
of the Foundation of Temples for the

of
tlie
First
Ennead."
The work was

might deter-
at night, so that the king
276

axis of the
mine the
and
temple by the
stars.
He
took four stakes, and a surveying hne or cord,

first
marked out the four corners of the
building.
He
was
assisted in
this
operation
'
by a goddess Safekhaboui or
Seshait,
She
who watched
also
over the house of the books,"
the divine keeper of the records
she
who
fruit
wrote on a palm-branch or on the
of the sacred tree the years of the king.

four corners
The
marked
out, the king then provided
himself with a hoe, with which he traced the
boundary of the temple

outline
then he marked
it,
its
by pouring out some sand on
which
soil.
made the marks stand out on the black Then he moulded a brick for each of the
corners
four
of the
building,
but under one of
the corners he placed the foundation deposits
which are often found
in
the
excavations.
Although the
deposits
" are
texts
bricks
inform us
of
that
these
gold and
precious
it
is
stones
for
the
corners of the temple,"
seldom that
this
statement
is
completely
corroborated by the discoveries
made
in our
FOUNDING OF A TEMPLE
time.
Til
The foundation
of the king
deposits often consist
of small plaques of gold or of enamel bearing
the
but,
name
for
who founded
the temple,
the
most
part,
hov/ever,
they
are
simply small models of the tools used in the

construction.
stone,
place.
Then the king

point,
lays the first

its
which he pushes with a IcAcr into
At
this
probably
before
the
laying of the stone, a sacrifice had to be
made
of a
the only one that

decapitated bird
;
we meet with is that but we may admit that
here
we have
practice,
the mild survival of a very ancient
found among other nations, which

the
first
required that the laying of
stone
should be sprinkled with

It
human
blood.
appears that upon the occasion of the
building the king had a small model of a house

or a pylon
made
and then came the question

to the god.
of consecrating
it
For
this
pur
pose the king scattered various kinds of incense
round about, and when he was offering
it
to
the god, he changed the model into a divine
thing by touching
it
with
his
mace
a certain
278

of times.
number
At
the laying of a foundainvariably a scene
tion stone,
we have ahnost
is
presented to us which
its
by no means clear in
holds in one hand an
meaning.
The king
like
oar,
and
in
the other a tool or instrument

a
which looks
mason's
as
if
square
in
he
is
making
running.
a great
stride,
the act of
this
As
companion picture to
we
have generally another scene quite similar

the king
making the same

a
stride,
but holding
31. JNIoret,
all
now
to
rites,
a libation vase in each hand.
whom we owe
learned study of
the
from which we have borrowed much,

scenes
as
regards these
consecration,
fire
the
water of the vases and the
of the solar
emblems symbolising the

structure.
I
purification of the
rather think that the striding or
running takes place quite at the beginning of

the foundation ceremony, and that the king
is is
stepping out the
site
on which the building
to be erected, and of which he wishes to
make
a gift to the gods.
Be
that as
is
it
may, the
king in
all
these ceremonies
acting as a
THE SED FESTIVALS

divine being
;
279
he
is tlie
son of Anion, to
it
is
whom
he dedicates the temple, and paying the homage due to a
as a son
fatiier
that he
himself handles the tool which will be used in

the construction of the building.
Besides the coronation,
there
were other
great festivals in which divine honours were
paid to the king.

called the
One
of
them
in particular,
Sed
festival, often
supposed to be
the anniversary of the king's accession to the

throne, was usually celebrated at an interval
of about thirty years. period as being

fiscal
consider the
its
Sed
its
is,
in
nature, and
inaugural festival as an indiction date
that
the date on which the taxes and dues leviable
on the inhabitants of the country were imposed for a stated number of years; and since the
foundation of every impost was the tenth or
tithe that
amount paid for worship and everything connected with it there is nothing
is,
the
surprising in the fact that the Festival of the
Indiction had a specially religious
character.
As
such
we
already find
it
represented on the
280

of the Thinite epoch
;
monuments
and
it
con-
tinued to be so
down
to the
Roman
period.
At
this festival the
king comes out of an
apartment, reserved for him in the temple,

called the sanctuary
;
then he ascends into a
pavilion open at the four sides, with four staircases leading
up to
it.
Carrying the emblems
of Osiris in his hands, he takes his seat on a

throne, and turns to the four cardinal points,
one after the other
each time he does

raise their
this,
two gods or goddesses

his
hands above
head and repeat

is
at each of the four times,

'*
"
The South
united to the North," or

It
is
The
heavens are joined to the earth."

second enthronement.
a kind of
Then the king

is
presents
himself before the principal deity of the temple.
During
carry
his progress
he
escorted by the genii
of the South and the North, who sometimes even
him
in a palanquin.
of the hall where the

visit resides, a
On god whom
the threshold
he
is
going to
deity
makes him
a libation of
welcome.
The god embraces him.
Thoth and
Safekhaboui draw up in writing the record of
DEIFICATION OF THE KING

the festival, determine for him an infinite ber of years of reign, or inscribe his
281
numname on
the
the fruit of the sacred tree of HeUopohs.
On
leaving that hall he passes
into
banqueting-room, where
pavilions
may
all
be seen several
each
containing a statue of a god,
before
whom
are
heaped up
kinds of offerstatue of the

;
ings and victuals.
Not seldom the
king himself stands
among
This
the other statues

as a priest
last
and sometimes the king acts

offerings
making
to
himself.
act
may
be
regarded as the climax of the deification of the

king.
He
is
so
much
so
a god, he partakes to
is
such an extent in the divine nature, he
deemed
to possess
completely the power
and the privileges of
divinity, that
he does not
offerings
hesitate to worship himself, to
make
to himself, and
above
all
to
take his
place
among
the gods to
whom
other priests besides
himself offer worship.
This fact has often been regarded as a proof

of the haughty presumption characteristic of
Rameses
IT.
When,
for
instance, at
Abu
282

his statue at the far
Simbel we see
end of the
sanctuary, along with three of the great gods
of
Egypt
offering
or w4ien
we
read his
name on
the
bas-rehefs alongside of the deities to

is
whom
he
wine or milk, we are apt to think,
at first sight, that this

his,
was a personal freak of
an exhibition of a mania for greatness on

part pushed to an extreme.
II.
his
Nothing of
the kind: Rameses
was by no means the
only one of the kings of Egypt to

ship
whom
worin
was given.
There
is
no presumption
all this,
nor any trace of impiety, on his part.

it
This procedure was perfectly legitimate:
was but the outcome of the conception which

the Egyptians formed of the king, and was
accepted by universal consent.
Begotten by
a god, suckled by goddesses, and receiving at

their
hands at
his coronation all the privileges
and attributes of
divinity, the
king
is
one of
themselves, he belongs to their cycle, and he
can lay claim, as well as they, to the honours

paid to them.
In the great temples there was
usually a bark in
which stood a tabernacle
CULT OF THE IJVING KING

containing
locality
:
^83
the
emblem
of the god
of the
the king had also his bark contain-
ing his emblem.
This emblem,
believe,
was
a fan, one of the symbols of the double, which

also represents the royal person
in
the pro-
cessions
where we see
it
placed on a throne.
The
real distinction
is
between the king and

:
ordinary mortals
this
they become gods
only after death, by assimilation to or fusion
with Osiris
all his life,
he,
is
on the other hand,

so
is
god
he
from birth
consequently,
during
all his
life
he can lay claim to have
divine worship paid to him, over and above
the great festivals and special ceremonies which
bring
his
divine
nature into special
relief.
We
can show, as
we have
already seen, the
existence of a regular cult of the sovereign in
the sculptures on the temple of
Der
el
Bahri.
There we
find a
chamber which was

the
in
specially
consecrated
to
queen, and
lier
which was
dedicated to her
lifetime.
She
sits
there before an altar, while a long procession
of priests bring offerings of
all
kinds to her
284

chapters
and on the walls of the room are engraved

certain
from
the
Pyramid Texts.
and
is
The whole seems

to
to bear a close resemblance

;
funerary service or cult
in
the
chamber beside the queen's, which

to the deceased
sentations
this case,
dedicated
Thothmes
I.,
we
see repre-
which are
almost
is
identical.
In
however, there
is
no possible doubt
But, in
is
that the cult
paid to a dead man.

it
the case of the queen's chamber,
quite
this
otherwise
she was
still
full
;
of
life
when
still
chamber was decorated

years of rule
before
she had
her.
Now,
all
as
many we can
later,
hardly suppose that she had

the cult that was to
the details of
be paid to her
in
executed and painted
advance,
we must
admit that already

of divine
in her lifetime these acts
homage were
paid to her as to a
divine being.
After her death the cult would

;
continue
nothing would be changed

priests,
there
would be the same

the
the same offerings,
same
this
religious
and
magical
leads
formulse.
And
consideration
me
to
adopt
PRIESTHOOD OF THE KING

a
different
285
I
conclusion from
M.
JNIoret's
believe that the cult of dead kings
was only
the continuation of what was accorded them

in their
lifetime.
In
my
;
opinion the gods

I
were not
at
first
dead
on the contrary,
living,
believe they
were at
first
on whose
behalf was continued to be paid, perhaps in a
modified or a developed form, the cult or

service they enjoyed during their
life.
Besides the cult of
the king, there was
another which was addressed to the numerous

divinities of the
ritual
Pantheon, with a complicated

necessitated a large
of
its
own which
number
a
of various
offices.
We
walls
to
know
of
this
is
from the temple of Abydos, where there

record engraved
on
the
seven
chambers, each
deity.
consecrated
texts
different
These
were
reproduced
on
us.
papyri
which
have
come
of
down
ritual
to
are
Scattered
to be
fragments
the
also
met with on the temple
walls of every
epoch.
They give us the

service
priest,
or,
daily service
as
done
by the
he was called
286
in

Egyptian, *Mn
for
his
day," as
the
king's
substitute,
theoretically
the
king
alone
was worthy to appear before the gods and to

discharge the sacred
offices.
But
as
it
was
all
obviously impossible for him to do this in

the temples of the land, or even to
tie
himself
down
to the very strict duties which the cult
of a single deity involved, he had of course to

delegate the duty to a priest
substitute.
who became
idea that
his
Yet the
original
the
priesthood
belonged essentially to the king

In the numberacts
persisted to the latest times.

less pictures
we have
of religious
it
it.
per-
formed before a god,
is
always the king
who
also
is
supposed to do
The thought may
have been present that there was no better
means of honouring the god than by showing that the only personage worthy of serving
him was
his descendant, his son,
he
who was
of the same race as himself, and his equal.
The
Thebes
crusted
ritual of
Abydos
to
the
same
as that of
in-
refers
statues
of gilt- wood,
with
precious
stones.
They were
RITUALS OF ABVDOS AND THEBES

placed in a
or
stone,
iiaos,
^8T
or a tabernacle of
officiating
It
is
wood
alone
which the
priest
had the right of opening.

portion of
tlie
thus but a
is
ceremonial
that
contained
in this ritual.
statues
The gods were not always some of them were represented by

like a
emblems
falcon.
sistrum, or an animal like a
Rules and prescriptions existed for
the ceremonies performed in their honour, as

well as for
all
those
ceremonies which took

as
place outside the
temples, such
its
carrying
the sacred boat wîth

place.
naos from place to

is
The
ritual
we
The
possess
the ritual
observed in the cult of the statues celebrated

wdthin the temple.
a papyrus of
is,
title
of the book on
"
The beginning
of the chapters
the divine rites done in the temple of
Amon
vice."
Ra, king of the gods,
in
the course
of every day, by the high
priest of the ser-
The
cult of the statue included precise
gestures,
accompanied by formulae which are

:
often very obscure
they explain to us what

subjoin
the priest has to do, and
magical
288

we
phrases or allusions to myths of which
have only an imperfect knowledge.
The
nacle
priest
is
is
in the sanctuary;
the taber-
still
closed;
he must begin with
purifications,
by
fire,
by fumigation, and by
fire,
water.
He
kindles a
chiefly to light
in
up
the
hall,
which otherwise would be

then
com-
plete
darkness;
he
takes
the censer,
for burning the incense on the censer, and sprinkles some grains of incense on the flame and advances towards the holy place. Each of these acts is accompanied
places the
bowl
by formulae
in
which the
priest
is
from the out-
set poses as a
god
but he
not alone in this
respect, for each of the articles he uses has a
divine
'^
name "that
and
is
is
is,
it
has a divine per-
sonality,
addressed as a divinity.
Here,
for
instance,
what
is
said to
the censer:
"
Homage
upon
to thee,
censer of the gods
who
two
;
are of the following of are
Thoth
my
;
two arms
thee, like those of
Horus
my
hands are upon thee,

fingers are
like those of
Thoth
my
upon
thee, like those of Anubis,
THE DAILY SERVICE

chief of the divine shrine slave of
:
289
I
I
am
the Hving
Ra;
am
pure, for
have purified
myself, and
my
purifications are the purifica-
tions of the gods.'^
These words, spoken to
the
censer,
are
the
same which
himself.
will
be
addressed
to
Amon
The
divine
nature
is
thus like an emanation, an effluent,

transmitted
priest,
which
is
from the god to the

from him to
all
officiating
and
the
objects he touches and uses.
The second
act of the ritual
is
the entry of
the priest into the naos, where he must purify the statue and take
it
in his arms.
He
breaks
the
seal,
removing the clay
sealing, for the
naos was tightly closed; then he sHps back

the bolt
of Set
statue.
"
as the text and finds himself in

or,
calls
it,
''
the finger
presence of the
The
slightly
statue
is
covered, according to
I
an interpretation which
to
a
think
may
be given
ambiguous
phrase,
with
;
an
the
animal's skin, which he begins to

face of the
remove
god
is
thus unveiled, and the priest
can behold him.
To
see a god, or rather to 19
290

is
look at him,
a privilege granted only to a

;
king, or to his deputy, a priest

is
and the act
beholder not without danger, either to the look or glance or even to the god, since the
which
god.
falls
on him
is
that of a
king that
is,
The power
of the eye
is
acknowledged
a
and
power which may often be formidable

e^
en destructive,
priest
as
the speech of the
officiating
testifies:
;
"My
is
face
is
pre-
served from the god
the god
it
is
preserved from
my
it
is
divine face
for
for
the gods
I
who have
walk, and
made
god/'
me
the road whereon
the king
who
has sent
me
to behold the
risk.
Thus
''
neither of the
two runs any
Next, the priest bows low to the

literally
flat
groundhes
is
smells the ground
"and then
his
:
on
his
stomach.
Each of
like these
acts
accompanied by words
to thee,
"
Homage
down on
Amon Ra
Thou
I
art well established
in thy great dwelling.
have
lain
my
stomach out of dread of thee, for I exthou perience fear before the terror which
dost inspire
;
embrace Keb and Hathor, so
THE DAILY SERVICE

that
I
^^91
may
be strong and that
may
not
fall
a victim of the sacrifices of this day."
Then
All
in
he
rises up,
is
while uttering other words.

the same as what
occurs
this
much
mosques
at the
hour of prayer
from time to
time, while he repeats the words, the de\'otee

prostrates
himself and touches
the
ground
with his forehead; then he recovers himself;

again,
he
:
raises
his
arms.
There
is
this
difference
he has no statue before him, like
the Egyptian priest.
When
a
the latter regains his feet he utters

in praise of the
hymn
god
"
Homage
to
thee,
Amon
Ra, Lord of Thebes, the young
man who is the ornament of the gods! All men rejoice at sight of thee him who is the lord of terror, who calms fear, the prince of all
the gods, the great living god, the well-beloved
who
pleases the gods
by
his
words, king of the
sky, the creator of the stars, the gold of the
gods who traverses the horizon and who

the gods into being
calls
when he
speaks.
lioht,
Amon
Ra, the lord of the beams of
the creator
^92

."
.
of the hosts, the god of the upUfted plumes,
the king of the gods.
He
next proceeds to
make
the offerings and
the fumigations, and presents the statue with

a perfume
made
of honey, followed
by
incense.
:
Finally, the priest

real
embraces the statue

difficult
in a
embrace, not
to
;
do,
since the
limbs of the statue are jointed

priest retires
for
after this the
the
first
time.
Entering
again, he
makes the same
gestures, prostrates
himself again, chants fresh
hymns
is
in
honour
of the god, and offers a small figure represent-
ing the goddess Maat.

Justice, Truth,
She
the goddess of
it
and
Law
and
appears to
me
that, in offering this
emblem
to a god, he
who
presents the offering gives the god to
understand that he grants him the right of
imposing law on him, and that he

the god henceforth
as
his
is
will regard
judge, to whose
decrees and pleasure he

It
is,
ready to submit.
in
my
opinion, a
means of rendering
lord
homage
offerer,
to the god, of declaring that he, the
recognises
the god as his
and
To
fare,
page 292.
I'hotu
bit
Translator.
Sety
I.
otlering
Maat
(Trutli) to Osiris,
Abydos.
THE DAILY SERVICE

master:
the
293
is
emblem
the
of the goddess
but
the pledge of
act
of
submission.
JNlaat is
So
this offering of the
image of
made,
always
after
amongst
entering.
the
first
very
soon
The
But
statue
it
must now be dressed

in various vases
it;
in
full.
first
has to submit to sundry washings

;
with water contained
then
after
more incense
white
his
is
burnt again to
and
First
that the god's clothes are put on.

fillets
;
two
are given
him
for
wrapping round
head
these band lets are rolled

is
up
after
which the same thing

coloured
bandlet,
done with a greenof

red.
and a third one

is
Then
the body of the deity

stuff,
wrapped round
with a piece of
and
different kinds of
face-paint or perfumes, the nature of which
we do not
exactly know, are given to liim.

offerings
is
Each of these
allusions
accompanied by
symbolical or magical formuke, in which occur
which
in
many
cases
we do not
be unintelli-
understand.
Moreover,
it is
the characteristic
to
of every magical expression
294
gible
:

without that quahty
it
would
certainly
lose its efficacy.

tions, the
After several more purificais
ceremony
at an
end; the
is
priest
comes out of the

and a
shrine, the
it.
door
shut close,
seal is affixed to
briefly, is
Such,
the complicated ceremonial,
teeming
Avith
repetitions,
and taking up so
if
it
much time
could
that
we
are
tempted to ask
every
day.
really
be
celebrated
M.
Moret
sees in all this ceremonial the cult of
who, a defunct person paid to a mortal being

like
Ra, dies every day, and is exposed at all times to the attack of a typhonian god. The
object of the cult in
Egypt would then be the
protection of the god from possible death, by performing over him the rites which availed
to
resuscitate
Osiris
and
deceased
persons.
it
is,
We
have already stated above that
in
our opinion, too sweeping an assertion to make,

in that every kind of Egyptian cult originated It seems to us rather the cult of the dead. the that the cult of the dead is, in a sense, of the Hfe the desire to con-
prolongation
THE DAILY SERVICE

titiue existence to
295
the person
who
has left this
world, and that under a form which was not
always the same.
During the Old Empire,

life
men's thoughts ran on a

of this world
;
wholly like that
later,
they dreamt of a condition

divinity.
It
more nearly approaching that of

is
impossible for us to recognise any system or

ritual, or
coherency in this
any fructifying idea

:
devêloping logically to a conclusion

rather, a reflection
we
find,
of the most diverse con-
ceptions which the Egyptians formed regard-
ing the gods.
Sometimes the god addressed
by the
that
is,
priest
as a
may
is
be regarded as an Osiris,
is
dead god who
to be resuscitated
as, for
at other times, he
quite alive,
instance,
at the
moment
fjital.
the priest enters the shrine,
when
a simple glance cast at
him by the god

not,
might be
The
ritual
is
any more
than the Book of the Dead, the expression

of
a
single
and well-defined conception of
divinity.
Before
leaving
the
ritual,
one
question
remains to be put.
What
part did sacrifice
296

;
play in the Egyptian cult
and, in particular,
?
were there hvnnan

certain
:
sacrifices
One
thing
is
in the representations of the cult
we
has
very frequently see the slaughter of a bull or
an antelope. been
cut,
is
The
animal, wîose throat

its
lying on
;
side
its
four legs are

it
tied together
butchers are cutting
up,
who
;
begin by severing the forelegs, then the head
then they take out the heart, and lastly they
remove the great hind-quarters.

pictures
The numerous
sculptors
are
where
this is seen are
almost identical
the
first
operation which the

is
fond of showing
forelegs
;
the removal of one of the

a sacrifice solely because
but
all this is
priests figure in the scene
and do the work

is
the meaning of the operation

rehgious.
is
not essentially
The
intention,
above everything,
to
procure for the god an offering to be
laid
on
his altar
for all the pieces prepared,
called " the choice parts," are brought to
him
by the
priests.
It
is,
however, probable that
we have
here a remote reminiscence of the
death of enemies whose bodies, or spoils taken
SACRIFICE
from them, were
of the
offering
offered.
297
Doubtless the idea
the
food or nourishmentit
is
brought to the god, just as
brought to
;
the double, plays the principal part

less
neverthe-
the original idea recurs again and again
for
example, in the phrase of the

I
official
in
bringing the heart, "

heart of thy enemy."
have brought thee the
This offering
is
made not only
to the gods
but to the dead.
For them,
too, bulls, gazelles,
and birds were immolated, being regarded

enemies
;
as
for, as
JNI.
Lefebure brings out, the
object of this ceremony was the appropriation
and absorption of the

the recipient.
life
of the victims by
This would necessarily imply
that these victims were substitutes for

beings.
human
offer
Sometimes
it
wâs sufficient to
;
the deceased the head of an ox

cases, the victim that
or, in
in
other
was placed
the
tomb
was mummified, so that the

sacrifice
effect
of the
should have the same eternal duration

for the
as
was desired
body of the deceased.

of the Destruction
We
found
in
the
myth
298

Mankind what the
priests of
of
Thebes
in the
nineteenth dynasty regarded as the origin of

sacrifices.
When
Ra, weary of the society of
men, prepares to be raised to the sky by Nout,

he
still
notices
;
some men who had escaped

and
in the
the slaughter
morning, when these
men
and
sally forth
offer,
with their bows and arrows,
as
we
:
suppose,
"
to
sins
destroy
are
his
enemies, he replies
Your
as
behind
you
hence
This
(forgiven)
slaughter averts
slaughter,
come
sacrifices,"
the
text
adds.
explanation does not
define
the kind
;
of sacrifices instituted on this occasion
but
it
the logical conclusion to be drawn from

is
that
human
sacrifices
are
in
question.
avails to
If the death of the enemies of
Ra
pardon men
for rebelling against their king
if
this
death
has
it
an expiatory value
it
would seem that

being the
equal
should be the death of a
of
him who thus escapes him
condemnation, and not the death of a mere
ox or a gazelle substituted
for
at
least
so long as these animals are not regarded as
HUMAN
SACRIFICE IN EGYPT
Osiris.
299
forms of Set, the enemy of
\\ê
know
;
that Set often assumes the forms of animals
but as this god

of the
is
not
named
in the
myth
Destruction of Mankind,
we cannot
accept this explanation as satisfactory.
There
is,
indeed, in the Egyptian texts a

;
reminiscence of human sacrifices
there
is
even
more.
king of the eighteenth dynasty,

TL, returning
''
:
Amenhotep
from
Syria,
re-
counts the following
His ^Majesty returned
with joy of heart to his father Anion, and slew

with his
own mace
this
the seven princes."
M.
Lefebure sees in
It
barbarous act a
sacrifice.
seems to
me
that here
we have
rather an
in other
example of a custom widely prevalent
countries as wêll as in Egypt, of putting the

chiefs
of
conquered enemies to death

foes,
and
not only conquered

foreigner,
but
e\'ery class of
who was
instinctively regarded as an
is
enemy.
our
This feeling
also
sliown even in
peoples.
own day amongst

tell
uncivilised
Several Greek authors

tians
sacrificed
us
how
but
the Egyp-
strangers;
Herodotus
300

this only to
mentions
contradict
it,
and he
informs us that the Egyptians offer in sacrifice
only swine, geese, sheep, bulls, or calves (such

of them as are clean), and he asks, "
they, then, sacrifice
How should
"
?
human
beings
There
exists in a
Theban tomb
a series of
very strange representations of an almost unique
Man
(From Tomb
in
Skin on Sledge,
of Paheri (eighteenth dynasty) at El Kab.)
kind.
in
The subject
is
a funerary
rite,
celebrated
honour of a great personage, who was not,
however, of royal race, and could not therefore

claim special honours.
We
see
him seated on
a stool
pit
before
him two
;
priests are digging a
in
the ground
foiu'
then he stands up and
looks at
servants dragging a
man who
:
is
lying on a hurdle, face dowuAvards
fifth
HUMAN
lying
INI.
SACRIFICE IN EGYPT
301
servant spreads out a large hide.
The man
following
down
is
called
Tehen,
or,
JNIaspero's vocalisation,
Tihanou.
Another
in the
still
tomb shows
skin, lying
us the
man wrapped up
I
on a
sort of stool, with face
turned earthwards.
this
am
inclined to see in
does, a
ceremony, as
INI.
Maspero
symbol
of the
new
birth.
The man
passes through
the skin of an animal, and this brings

life
him to
again, in the
same way that we have seen

be born again.
is
the sun passing through a gigantic serpent in the Twelfth
Hour
in order to
cannot think that the

for in the
Tihanou
sacrificed,
same scene we
see a sacrificer taking
off the heads of a
cow and
a gazelle, and this
does not happen to the

hurdle.
man
lying on the
Further on, the sledge reappears, carried on

the shoulders of two
men who,
we
it
is
said, are
;
going to throw
it
into the place of destruction
and, as a matter of fact,
see a sledge in the
hole that has been

at the side
dug
in the
ground.
Quite
two men
are lying, face
downwards.
302

;
on the ground
they are swathed up and

hands.
support themselves merely by their
The
text calls
in
them Nubians, Anou, the people

opinion
who
our
were
Egypt.
the
If
primitive
African population of
refer to the oldest
now we
documents which have been

of
preserved
find
it
those
the
:
Thinite epoch
we
there
mentioned once
" the bringing of tlie

"
;
heads of the
is
Anou
into the sanctuary
also a festival
which was continued
in later
times, called " the festival of the smiting of
the Anou."
in the picture
It
is
indisputable that there are
we
are discussing the remains of

;
a very old tradition
and
it
appears, indeed,
that in former days they resorted on great
occasions to
human
sacrifices,
when
the victims
were those vanquished people over

Horites had established their sway.
whom
the
But
to return to the Nubians in the tomb.
little
further on
we
see
them unswathed
officials
and on their knees between two
who
have put a rope round their necks and appear

to strangle them.
Above
the heads
of the
To face
pruje 302.
HUMAN
Nubians
which
is
SACRIFICE IN EGYPT
the
crenelated
303
we
see
enclosure
the sign of foreign peoples, and in
a cartouche
two characters
Avhich read Kcsui,
a
it
word of various meanings. Here, I think, ouoht to be translated "the two swathed
is,
ones." that
the personages who,
little
before, are seen lying face
downwards, withshall find, a little
out a sign of motion.

further on, the
characters
We
same crenelated cartouche with

read
" black
hairs "
;
w^hich
also,
a ditch or trench into wîich have been thrown
the hide of the
Tikanou, the
hair,
the leg,
and the heart of the cows

to
sacrificed, in order
be burned.
All this leads

is
me
to think
that the question here
not that of a real

fictitious
human
sacrifice.
sacrifice,
but
I
or
sham
Indeed,
do not believe that the
Tikanoii and the Nubians were
men whom
fiction.
I
they would readily subject to such a
believe that the swathed figures were puppets
or lay figures which
they made a show of
strangling before they were thrown into the

hole, to be destroyed
by
fire.
On
this point I
feJ04

not able to agree with M. JVIaspero
;
am
to
do
not believe that they were

this
made
to submit
treatment in order to send to the

slaves or
dead
man
in
companions to wait on
him
be
the next world.

this
The
it
ushabtj figures
answered
laid
if
end
thousands of them could

;
in the
tombs
would be enough
even
they were represented on the walls.
These puppets had formerly been enemies

what, therefore, was required was not
perpetuation of their
life,
the
but,
on the contrary,
some
tion
action which
would ensure the destrucit
of
their
double and prevent
from
coming
into conflict with that of the deceased.
Here, then, as on so
the
sacrifice
many
and
other occasions,
recalls
commemorates a
very probable that
are speaking of
victory of long ago.
Yet
it
appears to
me
this sacrifice in the

is
tomb we
is
only a fictitious ceremony.

in the
The
strangling
of the Nubians here

as the clubbing
same category
by the
king, at a single blow,
of a bunch of enemies
whom
he holds by the
COUNTERFEIT SACRIFICE
hair of the head
sentations.
I
:
305
both are symbohc repretliat
do not pretend to say

sacrifice
the
Egyptians did not

certain
human
this
victims on
solemn occasions,
as,
;
for instance, at
a time of national calamity
was the case
[Photo
h]i
Translator.
Man
in Skin.
at Thebes.)
(From Sen-nofer's Tomb
among
also, at
all
nations of antiquity
and no. doubt,

accomof
the beginning,
human
for
sacrifice
panied festivals held

brilliant
the
in
celebration
triumphs.
But
later
times the
.
human
victim was replaced by animals.
We
liave proof of this in
an Edfou inscription of
It describes a
the Ptolemaic epoch.
solenm
^0
306

commemorate the
his
festival held to
victories of
Horus.
We
are told that
victories
are
accomplished, that
he
has
smitten
;
to
the
in
death
all
enemies, even the Asiatics

is
and
remembrance there
brought
forth,
not a
[I'lwto
bii
TranAlatin-.
Man
in Skin.
of Meinia at Tliebes.)
Man
in Skin.
(From Tomb
human
live
being, but a hippopotamus, and not a

either,
one
be
but one of paste or dough,
to
sacrificed,
and we see
sacrificing
priest
plunging
!
his knife into the hide of the

so, since
creature
And
they had reached the
point of giving up even animal sacrifice and
of being content with
an
artificial
victim,
A PTOLEMAIC FICTION
they had
all
,507
the stronger reason for abandon-
ing the practice of

in
human
that
sacrifice,
at
least
re-
the
customary
worship,
which was
put
in
gulated
by
rules
were
force
every day.
No doubt
any one
it
is
sometimes
of a
dangerous
to
build on the absence
representation of
fact in order to conclude therefrom

itself;
the non-existence of the fact

case before us
it
yet in the
if
would be extraordinary,
had
really existed
if
human
find
sacrifices
had formed part of the usual

a single
rites,
they not to
instance
of
them among the

which adorn
innumerable religious
the temple walls.
pictures
The only one met with

is
up to the present day

just described,
that which
it
is
have
and assuredly
difficult to
regard
If
it
as being very conclusive.

tlie
now we cast a glance over religion, we perceive that what

its
Egyptian
appears to be
dominant
feature, especially in later times,
is its
wealth of ceremonies, and the

its
pomp and
splendour of
manifestations.
It certainly
308

life
held a large place in the

Its great
ritual, so
of the nation.
;
festivals, continually recurring
its
complex
in its nature
the innumerattri-
able statues of deities
whose names and
butes are incessantly changing
all
this
must
make
a great impression on the visitor
who
;
sets his foot in the
country for the

to
this
first
time
and when we add
the
mysterious
language used by the priests
in the ceremonies,
the magic power to which they laid claim,
with results apparently analogous
to
those
at
which Indian
present day,
travellers
tell
us
of
the
the
we
shall
understand
how
Egyptians had acquired, outside their own

country, a reputation for
wisdom and know-
ledge such as had no parallel in any other

nation.
This reputation, too, must have had
a real foundation before such lofty spirits as
Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato
deemed
to
it
in-
cumbent on
imbibe
this
them
at
in
to
come
and
personally
to
knowledge,
a time
undertake
the journey
when
certainly the
country was
decadence, and
when the
THE LATEST CULTS

meaning of the
ally of the
,309
religious
books,
and especi-
symbolism, was probably perishing
rapidly.
In the Greek period, under the ^laeedonian

kings,
it
was the entirely external
side of the
cult that predominated.
The ceremonies and

in
the ritual which
had already,
the
nine-
teenth dynasty,
at
grown
so rich and exuberant
Abydos and Thebes, now became much more so under the Ptolemies. These kings,
as well as the
Romans, knew well that the

their
best
means of securing
sway over the

pro-
country was to constitute

tectors of
its
themselves
religion,
and to be benefactors
of the temples and of everything pertaining

to
the
cult.
It
was
the
period
when
the beautiful
temples of Denderah, Edfou,

Phila?,
Ombos, and
this
which have survived to
day,
were
built.
And
they
are
all
constructed on one regular plan, the original

of which can be traced back to ancient times,
to the days
of Cheops,
the builder of the
Great Pyramid, or even to the time of
the
310

of
followers
cessors of
Horus/'
the
legendary prede-
Mena.
Several inscriptions inform
us of considerable
endowments bestowed on
by the kings
;
particular sanctuaries
and, in
return, the grateful priests willingly devoted
themselves to institute and regulate the cults

of those kings or queens who, like the old
Pharaohs, gave out that they were of divine

birth.
All this was only in

rules
harmony with the

no innoall,
and customs inherited from the most

above
distant ages, for the Ptolemies were

vators, either in the civil sphere or,
in the religious
domain.
Yet the
from
are,
inscriptions
on these temples
ancient
edifices
fuller.
:
differ
those on
for
the
they
one thing,
III. or
infinitely
I.
AVhen
Thothmes
Sety
had the walls of

no doubt had
their temples decorated, they
religious scenes portrayed
but the inscription
was
brief
it
simply indicated the nature of

offering, to
the rite or of the
which were
added promises, wearisomely repeated, made
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OLD AND

to
NEW
311
the king by the god.
At
battle
other times,
longer texts relate some episode in the king's

Hfe, or a
successful
war
scenes, too,
and
prisoners
brought
back to Egypt are

in
frequent subjects.
structures
historic
But
is
the
Ptolemaic
this,
there
:
nothing of
there
are
all
no
scene
if
wars,
they are
Set.
those which
Horus waged with

is
To
make up
minute
worship.
its
for this, however, there
a profusion
of regulations and prescriptions of the most
kind
for
everything
pertaining
to
Every chamber of the temple has

its
name, and
purpose
is
explained to us
if it
happens to be a room for the vestments
of the god or goddess,
we
are told
what these
the place
in
vestments are made of;
if it is
;
the library, the
books
in it are
mentioned
if it is
where the drugs are prepared, we are told

detail
is
how
it is
done
if it is
a staircase
which
will
used on a great festival day, the walls
show us the order of the

cession
;
priests in the pro-
if
it
is
the great Hall of Entrance,
called the " Hall of the Sky," the ceiling will
31^

celestial
be a kind of
map, giving us the names

change has been
of the day and the night hours.
A reason
for this notable
alleged, namely, the fact that the
knowledge
of everything relating to religion was being
gradually
lost,
and therefore
it
became
still
necesfor
sary to fix in stone what was
known,
I
the instruction of future generations.
should
rather believe that the change was due to a
modification in the religion itself

its
It
had
lost
spiritual character
thintr
and was now nothing

ceremonies.
but a
just
of forms and
And
in
proportion
in
as these
forms and cere-
monies increased
number, they always grew
more
detailed,
and demanded an ever-increas-
ing staff to perform them.
The Ptolemaic
its
tomb, again,
is
no longer the abode of the

occu-
dead, to be decorated with a view to
pation by the deceased in the
life
after death.
The kings no more have funerary built in connection with a tomb

some distance
off;
chapels
situated
and even religious books,
properly so-called, like the Pyramid Texts or
EXCESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF MAGIC

the
313
Book of
the
Lower World, no longer

after,
appear to be sought
of the
with the exception

often very
Book of the Dead, of which

copies are
still
incorrect
scribes
met
with,
made by
who
did
not understand what they
wxre writing.
about them
;
People are no longer concerned

such books are forgotten, except,
however, those devoted to
magic a
subject
heart.
which was always dear to the Egyptian
To
such a pitch was the devotion to magic
carried, that in
Rome
as
the Egyptian religion
was often regarded

and
first
its
nothing but sorcery,

In the
a
priests
had an
evil reputation.
centuries of the
all
Christian era
fusion
took place, above
in
Egypt
for I
do not
speak here of any other country,
of Greek or
;
Roman
and
this
deities
with the old Egyptian gods
mixture produced a crop of small
terra-cotta figures, of
which we possess a very

Gra^cised
sufficiently
large
number, representing these

deities,
Egyptian
each with a
name
its
modified, so as to allow of
pronunciation
are acquainted
by a Greek tongue.
Thus we
SI
witli a

crowd of forms of Harpocrates, who
" Horus-the-child
"
;
is
none other than

Greeks took him
is is
and
as,
childHke, he held his finger in his mouth, the

for the
God
of Silence
;
Isis
often seen suckling her son

a serpent, as Osiris
is
sometimes he
is
too
and Horus
seen
all
on horseback transfixing
his enemies.
In
these figures, what are called the old conventional forms have been
abandoned
a freedom
of treatment
unknown
to the old artists has

is
come
in
but the mixture
hardly happy,
being neither Egyptian nor Greek, but a com-
pound hybrid, the

pleasing to behold.
effect of
which
is
seldom
also
Other elements are
introduced, from the Semitic world.
Traces of
Semitic influence are found on the stones that
were used
as
amulets
in fact, all the super-
stitions of foreign lands,
and
all
charms and
magic
in
arts
seem to have been concentrated

time Christianity made
itself
Egypt.
But
felt.
in a short
It
was not established without violence,

iconoclasts
like
for
fanatical
Shenouti and
DAWN
St
OF CHRISTIANITY
destruction
old
315
Macaire
spread
among
the
religious
edifices
spirit
of
Egypt.
But the
many a long day, for example, in the mode of burial. I found in the temple of Der el Bahri mummies
survived
as,
Egyptian
which were undoubtedly Christian.

linen in which they were
On
the
wrapped might be
seen the cup, the ear of corn, the bread and

the wine, the symbols of the Last Supper, side
by
side with other
emblems derived from the
religion of the old Pharaohs.
And
Gnosticism,
which plays so great a part

is
in Christian
Egypt,
certainly
product of the old religious
conceptions.
The
of old
latest
books which
reflect
the beliefs
Egypt
are those attributed to
Hermes
Trismegistus, and hence called the Hermetic
Books.
ority.
They have long enjoyed high authThey consist of different fragments

Poimandres
or
written in Greek, fourteen of which have been

collected under the title of
;
others
are
cited
by the scholiasts
the fathers,
;
Stobaeus, Cyril, Lactantius, and Suidas
lastly,
316

is
there
a dialogue called Asclepius, which
we
to
know
only through a Latin translation errone-
ously attributed to Apuleius.
M. Menard,
whom we owe
surviving
a brilliant study and a transla-
tion of these books, regards
them
only
as the sole
monuments known
although
they
It is true that
of the Egyptian
philosophy,
appear
in
Greek.
doctrine
here and there in the
we
find a great analogy
between
it
and the doctrines revealed

old
literature
is
:
in portions of the
we
read,
life,
for
instance,
that
God
the universal
the
All of
whom
is
individual beings are but parts, "
God
all,
everything
is
full of
is
him
there
is
nothing in
the universe that

in
not God.
of the
All names m-eet

universe."
him
:
as the
father
is
Or
again
is all:
" Everything
a part of
God
so
in creatinor he creates himself."
God If we
substitute for "
God," that
is,
a fragment of
God " the old expression " this Amon, we fancy we are reading a hymn composed in the time
That there
are present in the
of Rameses II.
Hermetic Books Jewish and even Christian
THE HERMETIC BOOKS

influences,
ever,
317
are,
no one can deny.
There
howbeen
portions which
appear to
have
written by an adept in the old rehgion

of these
ône
men who,
to the very
hist,
tried to
maintain the behefs and the ceremonies of the

old priests, in certain remote spots like the
Island
of
Philae,
where the Egyptian cult
survived to the days of the
Emperor Theodosius
The author of the discourse named Asclepius, which we know only in a

(379-395
A.D.).
Latin translation,
souls
is
one of these
;
last faithful
whom
nothing could shake
and
in
words
of true eloquence he takes a prophetic farewell
of that religion which had endured for
more
than four thousand years, and whose destruction
would
be
the
forerunner
of
terrible
calamities that
" Vet,
as
is
would smite the whole world.
wise
men ought
it
to
foresee
all
events,
it
a thing
which you must know

will
a time will
come when
all in
seem
and
as if the
Egyptians had
vain fulfilled the worship
of the gods with so

their
much
piety,
as if all
holy invocations had been
barren and
318

The
divinity will
unheard.
abandon the earth

and
and
will ascend again to the heavens, utterly
forsaking
Egypt
his ancient abode,
leav-
ing her widowed
of religion,
bereft
of the
filling
all
presence of the gods.
^Vith foreigners
the heavens and the earth, not only will
holy things be neglected, but, wdiat

still,
is
harder
religion, piety,
worship of the gods will
be proscribed and punished by law.

this land,
Then
and
made
sacred
by
so
many
shrines
temples, will be covered with tombs and the

dead.
to
O Egypt
which
Egypt
there will remain
thee nothing of thy religions but vague

after ages will not belie\ e
;
tales
nothing
but words graven on stone, telling of thy

piety.
The Scythian
or the Indian, or
some
other barbarian neighbour, wdll inhabit Egypt.
The Divine One

again, and
pletely out,
will ascend to the
heavens
humanity abandoned
and Egypt
wîll
will die
com-
be a desert, and
wddowed of men and

"
1
gods.
address
I
myself to thee,
foretell
most holy
Tides of
Stream, and
thy future.
A FAREWELL LAMENT
blood, polluting thy divine waves, will
319
()\'er-
flow thy banks
the
number
;
of the dead will

if
exceed that of the living

tants remain, they will
their
their
and
any inhabi-
be Egyptian only in
speech, but
they will be foreigners in
ways.
will
will
Dost
thou weep,
sadder
Asclepius
There
herself
evils.
be things
fall
still.
Kgypt
into
apostasy, the depth of
She, in other days the Sacred Land,
beloved of the gods for her devotion to their

service,
will
be the perversion of the holy

of piety will become the
ones
this
school
model of every
no
violence.
" Then, full of the disgust of things,

will
man
longer
have
for
the world either
admiration or lo\e."
These
studies, in w^hich, as far as possible,
we have allowed
themselves,
the Egyptians to speak for
could
not
have a more
fitting
close than this pathetic
and
thrilling farewell
addressed to the past by an Egyptian of the

old school.
320

PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES
Amelineau
(E.)^
Les nouveUes
la
fouilles cVAbydofi.
foui/les
Paris.
el
Bouriant (L,),
Deux jours de
JReise
Tell
Ai mama
I.
(Memoires de
Mission archeologique
fra?iâis),
p.
1.
Brugscb (H.),
Leipzig,
]
nach
der grossen
Oase el-Khargeh.
Bruxelles,
878,
Capart (Jean),
1904.
Les debuts de fart en
Egiipie.
Erman
(A;),
Gesprdch
eines Lehensm'uden mit seiner
Seele.
Acad, des Sciences, Berlin^ 1896. Golenischeff (VV.), Die Metternichestele.

Grebaiit
(E.),
Leipzig, 1877.
Hymne
livre
Ammon-Ud.
Bibliotheque
Paris, 1875.
de
I'Ecole des Hautes-Etudes, fasc. 21.

Jeqiiier (G.),
Le
de ce quit y a dans F Hades.
Paris,
1894.
Lefebure
(E.), Zeitsch.
fur
aeg. Spraclie.
1883.
Rites egyptiens.
Paris, 1890.
''
Mariette (A.), " Les tombes de lAncien Empire
(extrait
de
in
la
Maspero
(G.),
Revue archeologique, 868). The Life and Monuments of Thoutmosis IV.

1
London, 1904. Th. Davis, The Tomb of T. IV. Etudes de mythologie et dWircheologie egyptiennes.
1.
Vols.
et
ii.
Paris.
Les inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqarah.

1894.
Paris,
Le
double
et
les
i.
statues
prophetiques.
Etudes
de
la
mythologie.
Vol.
Les momies royales de Deir

Mission archeologique
el
Bahari (^Memoires de
594.
1
fran<;ais), I. p.
Menard
Moret
(L.),
Hermes
Trismegiste.
Paris,
867.
(A.),
Du
caractere religieux de la royaute pharaonique.
Paris, 1902.
Le
rituel
du
culte dirin journalier.
Paris,
902.
PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES
Morgan
(J.
321
de r Egypte.
de),
Recherchcs sur
les
origines
Paris,
'
L'dge de
la pierre ct les
wctaux.
î)^).
Ethnographic prchiMorlque
Paris, 1897.
tomheau
roipil
de Necradah *
Vols.
ii.
Naville
(E.), The Temple of Dcir and iii. The Festival Hall of Osorkon Bubastis. London, 1897,
el-Bahari.
II.
in
the
Temple of
La
destruction
des
hommes par
in
les
dieux (Trans
of
S.B.A., 1875).
A Mention of a Flood ofS.B.A., 1904).

Le
chapitre
the
Book of the Dead (Trans

Etudes dediees
112 du Livre
des Morts.
a Leema)is.
Das
aegyptische
Todtenhuch
der
X JTII.
his
XX.
Dynastic, Einleitung.
Inscription historicpie dc
Berlin, 1886.
1
Pinodjem III. Paris, 88.S. Les plus anciens monuments cgyptiens {Rccueil de travaux
a la philologie
ct
relatifs
U archeologie egyptiennes
et
assyrienncs, vols, xxi., xxiv.,
and
l,
xxv.).
Petrie (Flinders), Royal Tombs, Abydos. I., IL, 1902-3.
IL
London, I90O. London, 1901-2.
Quibell
(J. E.), Hicraconpolis.
L, 11.
Rouge
(E. de), Etude sur unc stele cgyptienne, appartenant a la bibliothccpie imperiale. Paris, 1858.
Le Page Renouf (P.), The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Translation and Commentary, continued by E. Naville.
Wiedemann
(A.),
Religion
of
the
Ancient
Egyptians.
London, 1897.
MenschenDcrgotterung
ini
Alien
Aegypten,
Urquell,
Bd. VII.
The same author in Morgan,
Recherchcs, etc.
PRINTED BY NKILL AND
CO., LTD.,
EDINBURGH.
21
DATE DUE
BL2441 .N326
The
old Egyptian faith,
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library
1012 00031 3264
'
v;

E. Naville. The Old Egyptian Faith

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Crown Theological Library

THE OLD EGYPTIAN FAITH

The Forty-two Gods, who avenge the

Amniit, "The Eater" (of the condemned).

Forty-twtj Trespasses, adored

from a Ptolemaic Pap.

Anuhis and Horus watching the Balance.

minister OF DUNDEE PARISH

LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

compose the present

vobime were the

that were instituted at

covers too wide

a field and raises

many different questions to permit us make a complete study of it in so small

to which this religion has given

six principal topics, the

development of which appeared to

omissions which the shortness of the time at

in this general review, intended

not been able to

M. Maspero and M. AViedemann.

will recognise in the following pages,

personal opinions, the

of their labours and discoveries, which

now become common

desire being, as far as possible, to

hearers with the spirit of the people whose

allowed the Egyptians to speak for themselves

hence the large number of translations to be

have mentioned the authors.

show who the Egyptians were,

and what their origin was

an examination of the results of recent

appearance of the excellent works of

Wiedemann, Erman, Budge, and

English, on the Egyptian Religion, there was

for another exposition of the

for permission to translate

the Lectures into English

he most cordially granted.

can only hope

pleasant labours, as pre-

sented in the following pages, will not only

introduced more than a quarter of a century

and revered teacher, the

the comprehension of perhaps the most wonderful

can hardly be called a system

beliefs that the

Professor Naville's work, either in

the domain of religion or of Egyptology gener;

have been only a "sitter at

history of Egyptian thought and civilisa-

tion can never be truly presented to the world

without assigning to him a foremost place in

be allowed here to state that this

any other work

go a long way to explain

and illuminate the origin and the growth of

which seem to many other

ordinary reader, will find their explanation in

be found that the author