Chapter II: The Gods of Egypt (2)

*** This somewhat rare triad, noted by Wilkinson, is
sculptured on the wall of a chamber in the Tûrah quarries.

3 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette incrusted
with gold, in the Gîzeh Museum.

The persons united with the old feudal divinities in order to form triads were not all of the same class. Goddesses, especially, were made to order, and might often be described as grammatical, so obvious is the linguistic device to which they owe their being. From Râ, Amon, Horus, Sobkû, female Ras, Anions, Horuses, and Sobkûs were derived, by the addition of the regular feminine affix to the primitive masculine names--Râît, Amonît, Horît, Sobkît.[*] In the same way, detached cognomens of divine fathers were embodied in divine sons. Imhotpû, "he who comes in peace," was merely one of the epithets of Phtah before he became incarnate as the third member of the Memphite triad.[**] In other cases, alliances were contracted between divinities of ancient stock, but natives of different nomes, as in the case of Isis of Bûto and the Mendesian Osiris; of Haroêris of Edfu and Hâthor of Denderah.

* Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 7, 8, 256.

** Imhotpû, the Imouthes of the Greeks, and by them
identified with Æsculapius, was discovered by Salt, and his
name was first translated as _he who comes with offering_.
The translation, _he who comes in peace_, proposed by E. de
Rougé, is now universally adopted. Imhotpû did not take form
until the time of the New Empire; his great popularity at
Memphis and throughout Egypt dates from the Saïte and Greek
periods.

In the same manner Sokhît of Letopolis and Bastît of Bubastis were appropriated as wives to Phtah of Memphis, Nofirtûmû being represented as his son by both unions.[*] These improvised connections were generally determined by considerations of vicinity; the gods of conterminous principalities were married as the children of kings of two adjoining kingdoms are married, to form or to consolidate relations, and to establish bonds of kinship between rival powers whose unremitting hostility would mean the swift ruin of entire peoples.

The system of triads, begun in primitive times and con-, tinned unbrokenly up to the last days of Egyptian polytheism, far from in any way lowering the prestige of the feudal gods, was rather the means of enhancing it in the eyes of the multitude. Powerful lords as the new-comers might be at home, it was only in the strength of an auxiliary title that they could enter a strange city, and then only on condition of submitting to its religious law. Hâthor, supreme at Denderah, shrank into insignificance before Haroêris at Edfû, and there retained only the somewhat subordinate part of a wife in the house of her husband.[**]

* Originally, Nofirtûmû appears to have been the son of cat
or lioness-headed goddesses, Bastît and Sokhît, and from
them he may have inherited the lion's head with which he is
often represented. His name shows him to have been in the
first place an incarnation of Atûmû, but he was affiliated
to the god Phtah of Memphis when that god became the husband
of his mothers, and preceded Imhotpû as the third personage
in the oldest Memphite triad.

** Each year, and at a certain time, the goddess came in
high state to spend a few days in the great temple of Edfû,
with her husband Haroêris.

On the other hand, Haroêris when at Denderah descended from the supreme rank, and was nothing more than the almost useless consort of the lady Hâthor. His name came first in invocations of the triad because of his position therein as husband and father; but this was simply a concession to the propriety of etiquette, and even though named in second place, Hâthor was none the less the real chief of Denderah and of its divine family.[*] Thus, the principal personage in any triad was always the one who had been patron of the nome previous to the introduction of the triad: in some places the father-god, and in others the mother-goddess.

* The part played by Haroêris at Denderah was so
inconsiderable that the triad containing him is not to be
found in the temple. "In all our four volumes of plates, the
triad is not once represented, and this is the more
remarkable since at Thebes, at Memphis, at Philse, at the
cataracts, at Elephantine, at Edfû, among all the data which
one looks to find in temples, the triad is most readily
distinguished by the visitor. But we must not therefore
conclude that there was no triad in this case. The triad of
Edfû consists of Hor-Hut, Hâthor, and Hor-Sam-ta-ui. The
triad of Denderah contains Hâthor, Hor-Hut, and Hor-Sam-ta-
ui. The difference is obvious. At Edfû, the male principle,
as represented by Hor-Hut, takes the first place, whereas
the first person at Denderah is Hâthor, who represents the
female principle" (Mariette, _Dendérah_, Texte, pp. 80, 81).

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a statuette in the Gîzeh
Museum (Mariette, _Album du Musée de Boulaq_, pl. 4).

The son in a divine triad had of himself but limited authority. When Isis and Osiris were his parents, he was generally an infant Horus, naked, or simply adorned with necklaces and bracelets; a thick lock of hair depended from his temple, and his mother squatting on her heels, or else sitting, nursed him upon her knees, offering him her breast.[*] Even in triads where the son was supposed to have attained to man's estate, he held the lowest place, and there was enjoined upon him the same respectful attitude towards his parents as is observed by children of human race in the presence of theirs. He took the lowest place at all solemn receptions, spoke only with his parents' permission, acted only by their command and as the agent of their will. Occasionally he was vouchsafed a character of his own, and filled a definite position, as at Memphis, where Imhotpû was the patron of science.[**]

* For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, see
Lanzone, _Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia_, pis. ccxxvii.,
ccxxviii., and particularly pl. cccx. 2, where there is a
scene in which the young god, represented as a sparrow-hawk,
is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with
his beak.

** Hence he is generally represented as seated, or
squatting, and attentively reading a papyrus roll, which
lies open upon his knees; cf. the illustration on p. 142.

But, generally, he was not considered as having either office or marked individuality; his being was but a feeble reflection of his father's, and possessed neither life nor power except as derived from him. Two such contiguous personalities must needs have been confused, and, as a matter of fact, were so confused as to become at length nothing more than two aspects of the same god, who united in his own person degrees of relationship mutually exclusive of each other in a human family. Father, inasmuch as he was the first member of the triad; son, by virtue of being its third member; identical with himself in both capacities, he was at once his own father, his own son, and the husband of his mother.

Gods, like men, might be resolved into at least two elements, soul and body;[*] but in Egypt, the conception of the soul varied in different times and in different schools. It might be an insect--butterfly, bee, or praying mantis;[**] or a bird--the ordinary sparrow-hawk, the human-headed sparrow-hawk, a heron or a crane--bi, haï--whose wings enabled it to pass rapidly through space;[***] or the black shadow--khaîbît--that is attached to every body, but which death sets free, and which thenceforward leads an independent existence, so that it can move about at will, and go out into the open sunlight.

* In one of the Pyramid texts, Sâhû-Orion, the wild hunter,
captures the gods, slaughters and disembowels them, cooks
their joints, their haunches, their legs, in his burning
cauldrons, and feeds on their souls as well as on their
bodies. A god was not limited to a single body and a single
soul; we know from several texts that Râ had _seven souls
and fourteen doubles_.

** Mr. Lepage-Renouf supposes that the soul may have been
considered as being a butterfly at times, as in Greece. M.
Lefébure thinks that it must sometimes have been incarnate
as a wasp--I should rather say a bee or a praying mantis.

*** The simple sparrow-hawk is chiefly used to denote the
soul of a god; the human-headed sparrow-hawk, the heron, or
the crane is used indifferently for human or divine souls.
It is from Horapollo that we learn this symbolic
significance of the sparrow-hawk and the pronunciation of
the name of the soul as _bai_.

4 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Naville's _Das Thebanische
Todtenbuch, vol. i. pl. civ._

Finally, it might be a kind of light shadow, like a reflection from the surface of calm water, or from a polished mirror, the living and coloured projection of the human figure, a double--_ka_--reproducing in minutest detail the complete image of the object or the person to whom it belonged.[*]

* The nature of the double has long been misapprehended by
Egyptologists, who had even made its name into a kind of
pronominal form. That nature was publicly and almost
simultaneously announced in 1878, first by Maspero, and
directly afterwards by Lepage-Renouf.

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Dûmichen, of
a scene on the cornice of the front room of Osiris on the
terrace of the great temple of Denderah. The soul on the
left belongs to Horus, that on the right to Osiris, lord of
Amentît. Each bears upon its head the group of tall feathers
which is characteristic of figures of Anhûri (cf. p. 103).

The soul, the shadow, the double of a god, was in no way essentially different from the soul, shadow, or double of a man; his body, indeed, was moulded out of a more rarefied substance, and generally invisible, but endowed with the same qualities, and subject to the same imperfections as ours. The gods, therefore, on the whole, were more ethereal, stronger, more powerful, better fitted to command, to enjoy, and to suffer than ordinary men, but they were still men. They had bones,[**] muscles, flesh, blood; they were hungry and ate, they were thirsty and drank; our passions, griefs, joys, infirmities, were also theirs. The _sa_, a mysterious fluid, circulated throughout their members, and carried with it health, vigour, and life.

** For example, the text of the _Destruction of Men_, and
other documents, teach us that the flesh of the aged sun had
become gold, and his bones silver. The blood of Râ is
mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_, as well as the blood of
Isis and of other divinities.

They were not all equally charged with it; some had more, others less, their energy being in proportion to the amount which they contained. The better supplied willingly gave of their superfluity to those who lacked it, and all could readily transmit it to mankind, this transfusion being easily accomplished in the temples. The king, or any ordinary man who wished to be thus impregnated, presented himself before the statue of the god, and squatted at its feet with his back towards it. The statue then placed its right hand upon the nape of his neck, and by making passes, caused the fluid to flow from it, and to accumulate in him as in a receiver. This rite was of temporary efficacy only, and required frequent renewal in order that its benefit might be maintained.

1 Drawn by Boudier from a photograph by M. Gay et, taken in
1889, of a scene in the hypostyle hall at Lûxor. This
illustration shows the relative positions of prince and god.
Anion, after having placed the pschent upon the head of the
Pharaoh Amenôthes III., who kneels before him, proceeds to
_impose the sa_.

By using or transmitting it the gods themselves exhausted their _sa_ of life; and the less vigorous replenished themselves from the stronger, while the latter went to draw fresh fulness from a mysterious pond in the northern sky, called the "pond of the Sa."[*] Divine bodies, continually recruited by the influx of this magic fluid, preserved their vigour far beyond the term allotted to the bodies of men and beasts. Age, instead of quickly destroying them, hardened and transformed them into precious metals. Their bones were changed to silver, their flesh to gold; their hair, piled up and painted blue, after the manner of great chiefs, was turned into lapis-lazuli.[**]

* It is thus that in the _Tale of the Daughter of the
Prince of Bakhtan_ we find that one of the statues of the
Theban Konsû supplies itself with _sa_ from another statue
representing one of the most powerful forms of the god. The
_pond of Sa_, whither the gods go to draw the magic fluid,
is mentioned in the Pyramid texts.

** Cf. the text of the _Destruction of Men_ (Il. 1, 2)
referred to above, where age produces these transformations
in the body of the sun. This changing of the bodies of the
gods into gold, silver, and precious stones, explains why
the alchemists, who were disciples of the Egyptians, often
compared the transmutation of metals to the metamorphosis of
a genius or of a divinity: they thought by their art to
hasten at will that which was the slow work of nature.

This transformation of each into an animated statue did not altogether do away with the ravages of time. Decrepitude was no less irremediable with them than with men, although it came to them more slowly; when the sun had grown old "his mouth trembled, his drivelling ran down to earth, his spittle dropped upon the ground."

None of the feudal gods had escaped this destiny; for them as for mankind the day came when they must leave the city and go forth to the tomb.[*]

* The idea of the inevitable death of the gods is expressed
in other places as well as in a passage of the eighth
chapter of the Booh of the Dead (Naville's edition), which
has not to my knowledge hitherto been noticed: "I am that
Osiris in the West, and Osiris knoweth his day in which he
shall be no more;" that is to say, the day of his death
when he will cease to exist. All the gods, Atûmû, Horus, Râ,
Thot, Phtah, Khnûmû, are represented under the forms of
mummies, and this implies that they are dead. Moreover,
their tombs were pointed out in several places in Egypt.

The ancients long refused to believe that death was natural and inevitable. They thought that life, once began, might go on indefinitely: if no accident stopped it short, why should it cease of itself? And so men did not die in Egypt; they were assassinated. The murderer often belonged to this world, and was easily recognized as another man, an animal, some inanimate object such as a stone loosened from the hillside, a tree which fell upon the passer-by and crushed him. But often too the murderer was of the unseen world, and so was hidden, his presence being betrayed in his malignant attacks only. He was a god, an evil spirit, a disembodied soul who slily insinuated itself into the living man, or fell upon him with irresistible violence--illness being a struggle between the one possessed and the power which possessed him. As soon as the former succumbed he was carried away from his own people, and his place knew him no more. But had all ended for him with the moment in which he had ceased to breathe? As to the body, no one was ignorant of its natural fate. It quickly fell to decay, and a few years sufficed to reduce it to a skeleton. And as for the skeleton, in the lapse of centuries that too was disintegrated and became a mere train of dust, to be blown away by the first breath of wind. The soul might have a longer career and fuller fortunes, but these were believed to be dependent upon those of the body, and commensurate with them. Every advance made in the process of decomposition robbed the soul of some part of itself; its consciousness gradually faded until nothing was left but a vague and hollow form that vanished altogether when the corpse had entirely disappeared. Erom an early date the Egyptians had endeavoured to arrest this gradual destruction of the human organism, and their first effort to this end naturally was directed towards the preservation of the body, since without it the existence of the soul could not be ensured. It was imperative that during that last sleep, which for them was fraught with such terrors, the flesh should neither become decomposed nor turn to dust, that it should be free from offensive odour and secure from predatory worms.

They set to work, therefore, to discover how to preserve it. The oldest burials which have as yet been found prove that these early inhabitants were successful in securing the permanence of the body for a few decades only. When one of them died, his son, or his nearest relative, carefully washed the corpse in water impregnated with an astringent or aromatic substance, such as natron or some solution of fragrant gums, and then fumigated it with burning herbs and perfumes which were destined to overpower, at least temporarily, the odour of death.[*]

* This is to be gathered from the various Pyramid texts
relating to the purification by water and to fumigation: the
pains taken to secure material cleanliness, described in
these formulas, were primarily directed towards the
preservation of the bodies subjected to these processes, and
further to the perfecting of the souls to which these bodies
had been united.

Having taken these precautions, they placed the body in the grave, sometimes entirely naked, sometimes partially covered with its ordinary garments, or sewn up in a closely fitting gazelle skin. The dead man was placed on his left side, lying north and south with his face to the east, in some cases on the bare ground, in others on a mat, a strip of leather or a fleece, in the position of a child in the foetal state. The knees were sharply bent at an angle of 45° with the thighs, while the latter were either at right angles with the body, or drawn up so as almost to touch the elbows. The hands are sometimes extended in front of the face, sometimes the arms are folded and the hands joined on the breast or neck. In some instances the legs are bent upward in such a fashion that they almost lie parallel with the trunk. The deceased could only be made to assume this position by a violent effort, and in many cases the tendons and the flesh had to be cut to facilitate the operation. The dryness of the ground selected for these burial-places retarded the corruption of the flesh for a long time, it is true, but only retarded it, and so did not prevent the soul from being finally destroyed. Seeing decay could not be prevented, it was determined to accelerate the process, by taking the flesh from the bones before interment. The bodies thus treated are often incomplete; the head is missing, or is detached from the neck and laid in another part of the pit, or, on the other hand, the body is not there, and the head only is found in the grave, generally placed apart on a brick, a heap of stones, or a layer of cut flints. The forearms and the hands were subjected to the same treatment as the head. In many cases no trace of them appears, in others they are deposited by the side of the skull or scattered about haphazard. Other mutilations are frequently met with; the ribs are divided and piled up behind the body, the limbs are disjointed or the body is entirely dismembered, and the fragments arranged upon the ground or enclosed together in an earthenware chest.

These precautions were satisfactory in so far as they ensured the better preservation of the more solid parts of the human frame, but the Egyptians felt this result was obtained at too great a sacrifice. The human organism thus deprived of all flesh was not only reduced to half its bulk, but what remained had neither unity, consistency, nor continuity. It was not even a perfect skeleton with its constituent parts in their relative places, but a mere mass of bones with no connecting links. This drawback, it is true, was remedied by the artificial reconstruction in the tomb of the individual thus completely dismembered in the course of the funeral ceremonies. The bones were laid in their natural order; those of the feet at the bottom, then those of the leg, trunk, and arms, and finally the skull itself. But the superstitious fear inspired by the dead man, particularly of one thus harshly handled, and particularly the apprehension that he might revenge himself on his relatives for the treatment to which they had subjected him, often induced them to make this restoration intentionally incomplete. When they had reconstructed the entire skeleton, they refrained from placing the head in position, or else they suppressed one or all of the vertebras of the spine, so that the deceased should be unable to rise and go forth to bite and harass the living. Having taken this precaution, they nevertheless felt a doubt whether the soul could really enjoy life so long as one half only of the body remained, and the other was lost for ever: they therefore sought to discover the means of preserving the fleshy parts in addition to the bony framework of the body. It had been observed that when a corpse had been buried in the desert, its skin, speedily desiccated and hardened, changed into a case of blackish parchment beneath which the flesh slowly wasted away,[*] and the whole frame thus remained intact, at least in appearance, while its integrity ensured that of the soul.

* Such was the appearance of the bodies of Coptic monks of
the sixth, eighth, and ninth centuries, which I found in the
convent cemeteries of Contra-Syene, Taûd, and Akhmîm, right
in the midst of the desert.

An attempt was made by artificial means to reproduce the conservative action of the sand, and, without mutilating the body, to secure at will that incorruptibility without which the persistence of the soul was but a useless prolongation of the death-agony. It was the god Anubis--the jackal lord of sepulture--who was supposed to have made this discovery. He cleansed the body of the viscera, those parts which most rapidly decay, saturated it with salts and aromatic substances, protected it first of all with the hide of a beast, and over this laid thick layers of linen. The victory the god had thus gained over corruption was, however, far from being a complete one. The bath in which the dead man was immersed could not entirely preserve the softer parts of the body: the chief portion of them was dissolved, and what remained after the period of saturation was so desiccated that its bulk was seriously diminished.

When any human being had been submitted to this process, he emerged from it a mere skeleton, over which the skin remained tightly drawn: these shrivelled limbs, sunken chest, grinning features, yellow and blackened skin spotted by the efflorescence of the embalmer's salts, were not the man himself, but rather a caricature of what he had been. As nevertheless he was secure against immediate destruction, the Egyptians described him as furnished with his shape; henceforth he had been purged of all that was evil in him, and he could face with tolerable security whatever awaited him in the future. The art of Anubis, transmitted to the embalmers and employed by them from generation to generation, had, by almost eliminating the corruptible part of the body without destroying its outward appearance, arrested decay, if not for ever, at least for an unlimited period of time. If there were hills at hand, thither the mummied dead were still borne, partly from custom, partly because the dryness of the air and of the soil offered them a further chance of preservation. In districts of the Delta where the hills were so distant as to make it very costly to reach them, advantage was taken of the smallest sandy islet rising above the marshes, and there a cemetery was founded. Where this resource failed, the mummy was fearlessly entrusted to the soil itself, but only after being placed within a sarcophagus of hard stone, whose lid and trough, hermetically fastened together with cement, prevented the penetration of any moisture. Reassured on this point, the soul followed the body to the tomb, and there dwelt with it as in its eternal house, upon the confines of the visible and invisible worlds.

Here the soul kept the distinctive character and appearance which pertained to it "upon the earth:" as it had been a "double" before death, so it remained a double after it, able to perform all functions of animal life after its own fashion. It moved, went, came, spoke, breathed, accepted pious homage, but without pleasure, and as it were mechanically, rather from an instinctive horror of annihilation than from any rational desire for immortality. Unceasing regret for the bright world which it had left disturbed its mournful and inert existence. "O my brother, withhold not thyself from drinking and from eating, from drunkenness, from love, from all enjoyment, from following thy desire by night and by day; put not sorrow within thy heart, for what are the years of a man upon earth? The West is a land of sleep and of heavy shadows, a place wherein its inhabitants, when once installed, slumber on in their mummy-forms, never more waking to see their brethren; never more to recognize their fathers or their mothers, with hearts forgetful of their wives and children. The living water, which earth giveth to all who dwell upon it, is for me but stagnant and dead; that water floweth to all who are on earth, while for me it is but liquid putrefaction, this water that is mine. Since I came into this funereal valley I know not where nor what I am. Give me to drink of running water!... Let me be placed by the edge of the water with my face to the North, that the breeze may caress me and my heart be refreshed from its sorrow." By day the double remained concealed within the tomb. If it went forth by night, it was from no capricious or sentimental desire to revisit the spots where it had led a happier life. Its organs needed nourishment as formerly did those of its body, and of itself it possessed nothing "but hunger for food, thirst for drink."[*] Want and misery drove it from its retreat, and flung it back among the living. It prowled like a marauder about fields and villages, picking up and greedily devouring whatever it might find on the ground--broken meats which had been left or forgotten, house and stable refuse--and, should these meagre resources fail, even the most revolting dung and excrement.[**]

* _Teti_, 11. 74, 75. "Hateful unto Teti is hunger, and
he eateth it not; hateful unto Teti is thirst, nor hath he
drunk it." We see that the Egyptians made hunger and thirst
into two substances or beings, to be swallowed as food is
swallowed, but whose effects were poisonous unless
counteracted by the immediate absorption of more satisfying
sustenance.

** King Teti, when distinguishing his fate from that of the
common dead, stated that he had abundance of food, and hence
was not reduced to so pitiful an extremity. "Abhorrent unto
Teti is excrement, Teti rejecteth urine, and Teti abhorreth
that which is abominable in him; abhorrent unto him is
faecal matter and he eateth it not, hateful unto Teti is
liquid filth." (_Teti_, 11. 68, 69_). The same doctrine is
found in several places in the Book of the Dead_.

This ravenous sceptre had not the dim and misty form, the long shroud of floating draperies of our modern phantoms, but a precise and definite shape, naked, or clothed in the garments which it had worn while yet upon earth, and emitting a pale light, to which it owed the name of Luminous--_Khû, Khûû_.[*] The double did not allow its family to forget it, but used all the means at its disposal to remind them of its existence. It entered their houses and their bodies, terrified them waking and sleeping by its sudden apparitions, struck them down with disease or madness,[**] and would even suck their blood like the modern vampire.

* The name of luminous was at first so explained as to make
the light wherewith souls were clothed, into a portion of
the divine light. In my opinion the idea is a less abstract
one, and shows that, as among many other nations, so with
the Egyptians the soul was supposed to appear as a kind of
pale flame, or as emitting a glow analogous to the
phosphorescent halo which is seen by night about a piece of
rotten wood, or putrefying fish. This primitive conception
may have subsequently faded, and _khû the glorious one_, one
of the _mânes_, may have become one of those flattering
names by which it was thought necessary to propitiate the
dead; it then came to have that significance of _resplendent
with light_ which is ordinarily attributed to it.

** The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published
by Pleyte is full are directed against _dead men or dead
women_ who entered into one of the living to give him the
_migraine_, and violent headaches. Another Leyden Papyrus,
briefly analyzed by Ohabas, and translated by Maspero,
contains the complaint, or rather the formal act of
requisition of a husband whom the _luminous_ of his wife
returned to torment in his home, without any just cause for
such conduct.

One effectual means there was, and one only, of escaping or preventing these visitations, and this lay in taking to the tomb all the various provisions of which the double stood in need, and for which it visited their dwellings. Funerary sacrifices and the regular cultus of the dead originated in the need experienced for making provision for the sustenance of the manes after having secured their lasting existence by the mummification of their bodies.[*]

* Several chapters of the _Book of the Dead_ consist of
directions for giving food to that part of man which
survives his death, e.g. chap, cv., "_Chapter for providing
food for the double_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxvii.), and
chap, cvi., "_Chapter for giving daily abundance unto the
deceased, in Memphis_" (Naville's edition, pl. cxviii.).

2 Stela of Antûf I., Prince of Thebes, drawn by Faucher-
Gudin from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey. Below,
servants and relations are bringing the victims and cutting
up the ox at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the dead
man, seated under his pavilion and receiving the sacrifice:
an attendant offers him drink, another brings him the haunch
of an ox a third a basket and two jars; provisions fill the
whole chamber. Behind Antûf stand two servants, the one
fanning his master, and the second offering him his staff
and sandals. The position of the door, which is in the
lowest row of the scenes, indicates that what is represented
above it takes place within the tomb.

Gazelles and oxen were brought and sacrificed at the door of the tomb chapel; the haunches, heart, and breast of each victim being presented and heaped together upon the ground, that there the dead might find them when they began to be hungry. Vessels of beer or wine, great jars of fresh water, purified with natron, or perfumed, were brought to them that they might drink their fill at pleasure, and by such voluntary tribute men bought their good will, as in daily life they bought that of some neighbour too powerful to be opposed.

The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils which death so plentifully bestows upon men. Their bodies suffered change and gradually perished until nothing was left of them. Their souls, like human souls, were only the representatives of their bodies, and gradually became extinct if means of arresting the natural tendency to decay were not found in time. Thus, the same necessity that forced men to seek the kind of sepulture which gave the longest term of existence to their souls, compelled the gods to the same course. At first, they were buried in the hills, and one of their oldest titles describes them as those "who are upon the sand,"[*] safe from putrefaction; afterwards, when the art of embalming had been discovered, the gods received the benefit of the new invention and were mummified.

* In the _Book of Knowing that which is in Hades_, for the
fourth and fifth hours of the night, we have the description
of the sandy realm of Sokaris and of the gods _Hiriû Shâîtû-
senû_, who are on their sand. Elsewhere in the same book we
have a cynocephalus _upon its sand_, and the gods of the
eighth hour are also mysterious gods who are on their sand.
Wherever these personages are represented in the vignettes,
the Egyptian artist has carefully drawn the ellipse painted
in yellow and sprinkled with red, which is the conventional
rendering of sand, and sandy districts.

Each nome possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead god: at Thinis there was the mummy and the tomb of Anhuri, the mummy of Osiris at Mendes, the mummy of Tûmû at Heliopolis.[*] In some of the nomes the gods did not change their names in altering the mode of their existence: the deceased Osiris remained Osiris; Nit and Hâthor when dead were still Nît and Hâthor, at Saïs and at Denderah. But Phtah of Memphis became Sokaris by dying; Uapûaîtû, the jackal of Siût, was changed into Anubis;[**] and when his disk had disappeared at evening, Anhûri, the sunlit sky of Thinis, was Khontamentît, Lord of the West, until the following day.

* The sepulchres of Tûmû, Khopri, Râ, Osiris, and in each
of them the heap of sand hiding the body, are represented in
the tomb of Seti I., as also the four rams in which the
souls of the god are incarnate. The tombs of the gods were
known even in Roman times.

** To my mind, at least, this is an obvious conclusion from
the monuments of Siût, in which the jackal god is called
Uapûaîtû, as the living god, lord of the city, and Anûpû,
master of embalming or of the Oasis, lord of Ra-qrirît,
inasmuch as he is god of the dead. Ra-qrirît, _the door of
the stone_, was the name which the people of Siût gave to
their necropolis and to the infernal domain of their god.

That bliss which we dream of enjoying in the world to come was not granted to the gods any more than to men. Their bodies were nothing but inert larvae, "with unmoving heart,"[*] weak and shrivelled limbs, unable to stand upright were it not that the bandages in which they were swathed stiffened them into one rigid block. Their hands and heads alone were free, and were of the green or black shades of putrid flesh.

* This is the characteristic epithet for the dead Osiris,
Urdu Mt, he whose heart is unmoving, he whose heart no
longer beats, and who has therefore ceased to live.

2 Drawing by Faucher-Gudin of a bronze statuette of the
Saïte period, found in the department of Hérault, at the end
of a gallery in an ancient mine.

Their doubles, like those of men, both dreaded and regretted the light. All sentiment was extinguished by the hunger from which they suffered, and gods who were noted for their compassionate kindness when alive, became pitiless and ferocious tyrants in the tomb. When once men were bidden to the presence of Sokaris, Khontamentîfc, or even of Osiris, "mortals come terrifying their hearts with fear of the god, and none dareth to look him in the face either among gods or men; for him the great are as the small. He spareth not those who love him; he beareth away the child from its mother, and the old man who walketh on his way; full of fear, all creatures make supplication before him, but he turneth not his face towards them." Only by the unfailing payment of tribute, and by feeding him as though he were a simple human double, could living or dead escape the consequences of his furious temper. The living paid him his dues in pomps and solemn sacrifices, repeated from year to year at regular intervals; but the dead bought more dearly the protection which he deigned to extend to them. He did not allow them to receive directly the prayers, sepulchral meals, or offerings of kindred on feast-days; all that was addressed to them must first pass through his hands. When their friends wished to send them wine, water, bread, meat, vegetables, and fruits, he insisted that these should first be offered and formally presented to himself; then he was humbly prayed to transmit them to such or such a double, whose name and parentage were pointed out to him. He took possession of them, kept part for his own use, and of his bounty gave the remainder to its destined recipient. Thus death made no change in the relative positions of the feudal god and his worshippers. The worshipper who called himself the _amakhû_ of the god during life was the subject and vassal of his mummied god even in the tomb;[*] and the god who, while living, reigned over the living, after his death continued to reign over the dead.

* The word _amakhû_ is applied to an individual who has
freely entered the service of king or baron, and taken him
for his lord: _amakhû khir nibuf_ means _vassal of his
lord_. In the same way, each chose for himself a god who
became his patron, and to whom he owed _fealty_, i.e. to
whom he was _amakhû_--vassal. To the god he owed the service
of a good vassal--tribute, sacrifices, offerings; and to his
vassal the god owed in return the service of a suzerain--
protection, food, reception into his dominions and access to
his person. A man might be absolutely _nib amahkît_, master
of fealty, or, relatively to a god, _amakhû khir Osiri_, the
vassal of Osiris, _amakhû khir Phtah-Sokari_, the vassal of
Phtah-Sokaris.

He dwelt in the city near the prince and in the midst of his subjects: Râ living in Heliopolis along with the prince of Heliopolis; Haroêris in Edfû together with the prince of Edfû; Nît in Saïs with the prince of Sais. Although none of the primitive temples have come down to us, the name given to them in the language of the time, shows what they originally were. A temple was considered as the feudal mansion--hâît,--the house--_pirû, pi_,--of the god, better cared for, and more respected than the houses of men, but not otherwise differing from them. It was built on a site slightly raised above the level of the plain, so as to be safe from the inundation, and where there was no natural mound, the want was supplied by raising a rectangular platform of earth. A layer of sand spread uniformly on the sub-soil provided against settlements or infiltration, and formed a bed for the foundations of the building.[*]

* This custom lasted into Græco-Roman times, and was part of
the ritual for laying the foundations of a temple. After the
king had dug out the soil on the ground where the temple was
to stand, he spread over the spot sand mixed with pebbles
and precious stones, and upon this he laid the first course
of stone.

This was first of all a single room, circumscribed, gloomy, covered in by a slightly vaulted roof, and having no opening but the doorway, which was framed by two tall masts, whence floated streamers to attract from afar the notice of worshippers; in front of its façade [*] was a court, fenced in with palisading.

* No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to
our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we
have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the
word _temple_ in texts of the Memphite period.

2 A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gîzeh Museum,
drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are
copied from those of similar figures on stelæ of the
Serapeum.

Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood, or metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was every day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of chambers increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs, precious vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode; until that which had once constituted the whole temple became no more than its sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in body,[*] and the fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several cities did not prevent his being present in all of them at once. He could divide his double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he pleased, and these bodies might be human or animal, natural objects or things manufactured--such as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**] Several of the gods were incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitû at Heracleopolis, Khnûmû at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their temples, and allowed to gratify any fancy that came into their animal brains. Other gods entered into bulls: Râ at Heliopolis, and, subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minû at Thebes, and Montû at Hermonthis. They indicated beforehand by certain marks such beasts as they intended to animate by. their doubles, and he who had learnt to recognize these signs was at no loss to find a living god when the time came for seeking one and presenting it to the adoration of worshippers in the temple.[***]

* Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hâthor
likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed
sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine
cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other
instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in
thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life
to the statues and images which they made, and believed
(especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit
haunted images of itself."

** Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et l'Archéologie
Égyptiennes_, vol. i. p. 77, et seq.; _Archéologie
Égyptienne_, pp. 106, 107; English edition, pp. 105, 106.
This notion of actuated statues seemed so strange and so
unworthy of the wisdom of the Egyptians that Egyptologists
of the rank of M. de Rougé have taken in an abstract and
metaphorical sense expressions referring to the automatic
movements of divine images.

*** The bulls of Râ and of Phtah, the Mnevis and the Hapis,
are known to us from classic writers. The bull of Minû at
Thebes may be seen in the procession of the god as
represented on monuments of Ramses II. and Ramses III. Bâkhû
(called Bakis by the Greeks), the bull of Hermonthis, is
somewhat rare, and mainly represented upon a few later
stelæ in the Gîzeh Museum; it is chiefly known from the
texts. The particular signs distinguishing each of these
sacred animals have been determined both on the authority of
ancient writers, and from examination of the figured
monuments; the arrangement and outlines of some of the black
markings of the Hapis are clearly shown in the illustration
on p. 167.

And if the statues had not the same outward appearance of actual life as the animals, they none the less concealed beneath their rigid exteriors an intense energy of life which betrayed itself on occasion by gestures or by words. They thus indicated, in language which their servants could understand, the will of the gods, or their opinion on the events of the day; they answered questions put to them in accordance with prescribed forms, and sometimes they even foretold the future.

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the
tomb of Khopirkerîsonbû. The inscription behind the urseus
states that it represents _Banûît the August, lady of the
double granary_.

Each temple held a fairly large number of statues representing so many embodiments of the local divinity and of the members of his triad. These latter shared, albeit in a lesser degree, all the honours and all the prerogatives of the master; they accepted sacrifices, answered prayers, and, if needful, they prophesied. They occupied either the sanctuary itself, or one of the halls built about the principal sanctuary, or one of the isolated chapels which belonged to them, subject to the suzerainty of the feudal god. The god has his divine court to help him in the administration of his dominions, just as a prince is aided by his ministers in the government of his realm.

This State religion, so complex both in principle and in its outward manifestations, was nevertheless inadequate to express the exuberant piety of the populace. There were casual divinities in every nome whom the people did not love any the less because of their inofficial character; such as an exceptionally high palm tree in the midst of the desert, a rock of curious outline, a spring trickling drop by drop from the mountain to which hunters came to slake their thirst in the hottest hours of the day, or a great serpent believed to be immortal, which haunted a field, a grove of trees, a grotto, or a mountain ravine.[*]

* It was a serpent of this kind which gave its name to the
hill of Shêikh Harîdî, and the adjacent nome of the Serpent
Mountain; and though the serpent has now turned Mussulman,
he still haunts the mountain and preserves his faculty of
coming to life again every time that he is killed.

The peasants of the district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and thought that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their fields by gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are fine single sycamores, flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a scene in the tomb of
Khopirkerîsonbû. The sacred sycamore here stands at the end
of a field of corn, and would seem to extend its protection
to the harvest.

Their fresh greenness is in sharp contrast with the surrounding fawn-coloured landscape, and their thick foliage defies the midday sun even in summer. But, on examining the ground in which they grow, we soon find that they drink from water which has infiltrated from the Nile, and whose existence is in nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil. They stand as it were with their feet in the river, though no one about them suspects it. Egyptians of all ranks counted them divine and habitually worshipped them,[**] making them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers, vegetables, and water in porous jars daily replenished by good and charitable people.

** Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
Égyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 224--227. They were represented
as animated by spirits concealed within them, but which
could manifest themselves on occasion. At such times the
head or whole body of the spirit of a tree would emerge from
its trunk, and when it returned to its hiding-place the
trunk reabsorbed it, or _ate_ it again, according to the
Egyptian expression, which I have already had occasion to
quote above; see p. 110, note 3.

Passers-by drank of the water, and requited the unexpected benefit with a short prayer. There were several such trees in the Memphite nome, and in the Letopolite nome from Dashûr to Gîzeh, inhabited, as every one knew, by detached doubles of Nûît and Hâthor. These combined districts were known as the "Land of the Sycamore," a name afterwards extended to the city of Memphis; and their sacred trees are worshipped at the present day both by Mussulman and Christian fellahîn.[*]

* The tree at Matarîeh, commonly called the _Tree of the
Virgin_, seems to me to be the successor of a sacred tree of
Heliopolis in which a goddess, perhaps Hâthor, was
worshipped.

The most famous among them all, the Sycamore of the South--_nûhît rîsit_--was regarded as the living body of Hâthor on earth. Side by side with its human gods and prophetic statues, each nome proudly advanced one or more sacred animals, one or more magic trees. Each family, and almost every individual, also possessed gods and fetishes, which had been pointed out for their worship by some fortuitous meeting with an animal or an object; by a dream, or by sudden intuition. They had a place in some corner of the house, or a niche in its walls; lamps were continually kept burning before them, and small daily offerings were made to them, over and above what fell to their share on solemn feast-days. In return, they became the protectors of the household, its guardians and its counsellors. Appeal was made to them in every exigency of daily life, and their decisions were no less scrupulously carried out by their little circle of worshippers, than was the will of the feudal god by the inhabitants of his principality.

1 Bas-relief from the temple of Seti I. at Abydos; drawn by
Boudier, from a photograph by M. Daniel Héron. Seti I.,
second king of the XIXth dynasty, is throwing the lasso; his
son, Ramses II., who is still the crown prince, holds the
bull by the tail to prevent its escaping from the slipknot.

The prince was the great high priest. The whole religion of the nome rested upon him, and originally he himself performed its ceremonies. Of these, the chief was sacrifice,--that is to say, a banquet which it was his duty to prepare and lay before the god with his own hands. He went out into the fields to lasso the half-wild bull; bound it, cut its throat, skinned it, burnt part of the carcase in front of his idol and distributed the rest among his assistants, together with plenty of cakes, fruits, vegetables, and wine.[*] On the occasion, the god was present both in body and double, suffering himself to be clothed and perfumed, eating and drinking of the best that was set on the table before him, and putting aside some of the provisions for future use. This was the time to prefer requests to him, while he was gladdened and disposed to benevolence by good cheer. He was not without suspicion as to the reason why he was so feasted, but he had laid down his conditions beforehand, and if they were faithfully observed he willingly yielded to the means of seduction brought to bear upon him. Moreover, he himself had arranged the ceremonial in a kind of contract formerly made with his worshippers and gradually perfected from age to age by the piety of new generations.[**] Above all things, he insisted on physical cleanliness. The officiating priest must carefully wash--_ûâbû_--his face, mouth, hands, and body; and so necessary was this preliminary purification considered, that from it the professional priest derived his name of _ûîbû_, the washed, the clean.[***]

* This appears from the sacrificial ritual employed in the
temples up to the last days of Egyptian paganism; cf., for
instance, the illustration on p. 173, where the king is
represented as lassoing the bull. That which in historic
times was but an image, had originally been a reality.

** The most striking example of the divine institution of
religious services is furnished by the inscription relating
the history of the destruction of men in the reign of Râ,
where the god, as he is about to make his final ascension
into heaven, substitutes animal for human sacrifices.

*** The idea of physical cleanliness comes out in such
variants as _ûîbû totûi_, "clean of both hands," found on
stelae instead of the simple title _ûîbû_. We also know, on
the evidence of ancient writers, the scrupulous daily care
which Egyptian priests took of their bodies. It was only as
a secondary matter that the idea of moral purity entered
into the conception of a priest.