Handbook of Egyptian Religion

A HANDBOOK
OF
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
BY
ADOLF ERMAN
W I T H 130 ILLUSTRATIONS
Published in tile original German edition as r handbook, by the

Ge:r*rm/
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f the Berlin Imperial Morcums
TRANSLATED BY
A. S. G R I F F I T H
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.

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PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

THEvolume here translated appeared originally in 1904 as
one of the excellent series of handbooks which, in addition to
descriptive catalogues, are ~rovidedby the Berlin Museums for
the guida,nce of visitors to their great collections. The haudbook of the Egyptian Religion seemed cspecially worthy of a
wide circulation. It is a survey by the founder of the modern
school of Egyptology in Germany, of perhaps tile most interesting of all the departments of this subject. The Egyptian
religion appeals to some because of its endless variety of form,
and the many phases of superstition and belief that i t
represents ; to others because of its early recognition of a high
moral principle, its elaborate conceptions of a life aftcr death,
and its connection with the development of Christianity; to
others again no doubt because it explains pretty things dear to
the collector of antiquities, and familiar objects in museums.
Professor Erman is the first to present the Egyptian religion
in historical perspective; and i t is surely a merit i n his worlc
that out of his profound knowledge of the Egyptian texts, he
permits them to tell their own tale almost in their own words,
either by extracts or by summaries. His pages are particularly
free from theory, and no theory is needed to engage our
attention when the facts and views disclosed are so attractive.
The author has written a spccial preface for the English
edition, and has modified one or two points in his text as
regards the degree in which burnt sacrifice was customary. A
few of the illustrations that were in the original have been
omitted, and their places taken by others. Mr. Hilton Price
has especially to be thanked for his generosity in lending blocks
employed in the catalogue of his collection.
F. LL. GRIFFITH.
v
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
THIS book has no pretensions to erudition, neither is i t
one that will afford a systematic representation of its subject ;
still less is it exhaustive. My endeavour has been to exhibit
to a wide circle of readers the development and decay of a great
religion through snore than three thousand years, and for this
task I had only a limited space a t my disposal. Any discussion
of disputed points was thus out of the question, and I had also
to withstand the temptation to linger over ~ o i n t sof special
interest. The most important phenomena could only he
sketched in outline, and where I have cited details in order to
render the picture more intelligible, I have been forced to choose
almost at random from the abundant material which lay ready
to my hand; Other writers undoubtedly would often have
differed from mc in their choice.
A greater difficulty lay in the immature condition of these
studies. Of the religions of the ancient world there is perhaps
no other for which we possess such an amount of material, so
endless and impossible to grasp, as we do for this. I t is in fact
too great, and in addition to this our comprehension of the
ancient religious writings is still very incomplete. All thc
insight and labour devoted by Brugsch, Budge, Lange, Lefhbure,
Lepage Renouf, Lepsius, Maspero, Moret, Naville, Turaieff,
Wiedemann, and many others, to the investigation of Egyptian
religion, or to its description, have hitherto resulted in little
more than the preliminary orientation of this intricate domain,
and it will require many more decades of hard work before we
shall be able to obtain a clear view. A t the present time,
therefore, any one wlio wishes to construct a picture of Egyptian
vii
...
v111
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
religion must make the sketch complete all round, and in so

doing must call imagination to his aid more frequently than is
desirable. I must therefore ask that t,oo much importance
may not be attached to this book; I have represented the
Egyptian religion as it appears t o me after thirty years' study
of its monuments, but I am aware that I a m not in a position
to insist strongly on every feature of tlie picture.
And one more remark. I considered i t advisable to present
this sketch of Egyptian Religion as it appears to an unprejudiced observer, who knows nothing of the theories of
the modern science of religions; the reador will here find
nothing of animism, or fetishism, of chthonic deities, nor yet
of medicine men. The facts should first be established and
without prejudice, before we attempt to fit them into a
scient,ific system.
The illustrations to the German edition were drawn by Herr
Alfred Bollacber, under the guidance of Professor Schafer.
ADOLF EHMAN.
Steglitz, April 1904.
CONTENTS
CIIAPTE6
PRELIDXINARY
NOTE.
.
INTRODUCTION
REI,IOIOUB
BELIEFS
OF THE EARLY
PERIOD
.
I.
11.
111.
v.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
xvi
1
5
.
.
EARLY
PERIOD
.
RELIGIOUS
BELIEFSAND CUSTOMS
OF TIIE NEW ICING-
~ ~ E L I G I O U SCus~onrsOF THE
DO31
IV.
PAOE
39
BELIEFS
REGARDING T H E DEAD,OF TI1C EAILLY
PERIOD
AND OF TIIE NEWKI'GDON ,
.
FUNEEARY
CUSTOIXB
OF TIIE EAILLY
PEILIOD
A N D OF
TIIE NEW KINGDOM .
NAGIO .
~LELIGION
01' TIIE
LATEPERIOD
BELIEBSREGAHDING
T I I ~DBAD,AT TIIE
LATE PERIOD
THE EGYPTIAN
RELIGION
IN ADJACENT
COUNTRIES
X. THE HELLENISTIC
PERIOD
I N EGYPT.
..
XI.
THE EGYPTIAN
RELIGION
IN EUROPE
.
.
Isusx
LIST O F 1LLUSTRATIONS
FIO.
1. Crowns
.
5
2. Sceptres .
.
3. Primitive temples
.
.
4. Warrior of the primitive period
.
.
8. Mother and child of tho primitive period .
,
7
6 . The sky as a cow, supported by Shu ancl othcr gods .
7. The bark of the Sun .
.
0
8. The Sun god uf Edfu .
.
.
9. The Sun god
.
.
10. Tboth
.
.
11. Kathor
.
.
12. Neitll
.
13. East .
.
14. Sekhmet
16. The Nile .
.
16. Anubis
.
.
.
.
17. Wopwamet
18. Osiris
.
.
19. Symbols of Osiris and Isis .
.
.
20. Symbol of Anubis
.
.
21. Ptnh in his chapel
.
.
.
.
22. Sobk .
23. Min .
.
.
24. Amon
.
25. Set .
.
26. Buto and Nekhbet
.
.
xi
PAOE
6
6
6
8
10
11
12
13
13
14
14
14
15
15
16
16
16
17
17
18
19
19
20
LIST O F ILLUSTRATIONS
Isis .
Nephthys .
.
Maat
Sacred hawk
.
Apis bull .
.
Phrenix
.
The young Sun god in the lotus blossom ,
Shu supporting Nut
Isis protecting Osiris with her wings
Horns
.
Ground-plan of the Temple of Ramses III., Karnak
Temple of Abu Gurab (reconstructed)
.
Chapel from the temple at Philw .
.
Incense burner .
.
Sistrum
.
Portable shrine
The king, Pepi I., in the Hall of Jubilee .
13igh~priestof Memphis, with decoration and side lock
Amon-Re handing the sword t o the king .
.
Tablet, dedicated to Amon-lie, for hearing a pelition .
Amenophis IV. praying, the sun above him
.
Amenophis IV. with his wife and childrerl .
.
Astarte on horseback .
.
Sntekh
.
Popular deities : Thoueris, Pataikos, Bes .
Nefer-ten, .
.
Tablet dedicated to Mnevis
.
Amenophis 111. and his ka
.
The Soul .
The Field of Earu
.
Nut, with wings outstretched over Osiris .
...
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Xlll
P*OE
PI(?.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79,
80.
81.
The judgment hall of Osiris. (Papyrus of Hunnefer)

The third hour of the night. (Tomb of Seti I.) .
,
.
.
Pyramids and mortuary temples a t Abusir .
Mastabas .
.
.
Falsa door of t,omb of Ptah-betep
.
,
Table of offerings of the New Kingdom
,
.
The sons of Horus on a flower in the lake .
.
.
.
.
Model rowing boat
Ushebtis of the New Icingdom .
.
.
Model pyramid .
.
.
Pectoral
.
Amuleb for mummies
.
.
Vases to contain the intestines .
.
.
<'Hewho is in his Sun " .
.
Magical figures .
.
.
Amulet : Isis suckling Horus
.
.
Small stela : for protection against serpents
. .
Cord : with seven knots, and two labels with magic spells
102
112
118
119
120
123
129
130
141
143
144
145
146
152
167
161
161
162
,
Amulet
.
The divine wife .
Saored fish
.
Sacred snake and ichneumon
The dead Apis on a bier
.
Kbnum as a hawk
.
163
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
The wise Imhutep

.
Bronze coffin of a oat
Wooden coffin of an ibis
.
Bast .
Coffin with posts, of the late period
87. Ha\vlr, from n coffin

88. Jackal, from a coffin
.
.
. 166
170
170
. 171
. 173
174
. 177
. 178
. 179
. 186
.
.
187
187
xiv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fro.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
108.
109.
110.
111.
112.
113.
114.
115.
116.
117.
Disc for the head

.
.
Papyrus oase
Sepulchral box .
.
.
Gravestone of a Syrian woman, Akhet-ahu
.
.
,
From an ancient Cretan stone vase .
Gravestone of a Syrian Queen, from Senjirli
.
,
Jewawmelelr, king of Byblos, before the goddess of
.
.
Byhlos .
Ethiopian deity, from the Temple a t Naga .
. .
Ethiopian gravestone
.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, Arsiuoe, etc., worshipping the
Mendes ram .
.
.
,
Ground-plan of Temple of Denderah
,
The spear of Horus .
Gravestone of a man named Imhotep
.
Isis, with rudder and cornucopeia
.
.
Isis-Hathor-Aphrodite
.
.
Rarpokrates
.
.
Serapis as Zeus-Serapis
.
.
Serapis and eagle
.
.
. .
Priests carrying a statue of EIarpokrates .
Harpokrates on a goose
.
.
.
.
Harpokrates on a ram
.
,
Harpokrates carrying a jar
Isis .
,
.
Isis-Sothis on a dog .
Osiris as a mummy .
.
Isis and Osiris in a shrine
.
Bes as a protecting warrior
.
Horus as a warrior
.
.
.
The Good Shepherd ,
188
189
191
193
194
195
199
200
205
211
214
217
218
218
219
219
219
222
223
223
224
224
225
225
226
227
227
228
LIST O F ILLUSTRATIONS
PLO.
118.
119.
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128.
129.
130.
Amulets : inscribed stone .

.
Gravestone of the Roman period
.
Mummy, with painted portrait of the deceased .
End of a mummy case ; painted to represent a temple
Coffin of the children, Sensaas and Tkautbi .
.
Mummy ease of the latest period
.
Scene on the Nile : from Roman relief in terra cotta
Antinous .
Serapeum .
.
Amaryllis, priestess of Isis
Temple Festival: Isis temple a t Pompeii .
Isis statue found a t Cologne
.
Coins of Julian with Apis and Anubis
.
.
.
PRELIMINARY NOTE
ITis well known that our knowledge of Egyptian 11istor~is
very incomplete. We will here indicate the meaning of the
divisions which have been adopted in order to supply the lack
of an accurate chronology. The history of Egypt is divided
thus1. The PREHISTORIC
PERIOD.
2. The EARLIESTPERIOD,from the founding of the united
kingdom of Egypt (about 3300 B.c.). This is divided into
three dynasties.
3. The OLD lilN~Do~.-The first great period in Egypt
(about 2800-2300 E.c.), comprising Dynasties IV., V. and
VI.
4. An intermediate period of which little is known.
5. The MIDDLE KINGDOM. Dynasties XI.-XIII., including
the great period of the twelfth dynasty (cimn 2000-1800
B.c.).
G. The so-called H ~ ~ t s oPERIOD,
s
of which little is known.
7. The NEW KINGDOH,comprising Dynasty XVIII. (15801320 B.c.), the great epoch of Egyptiar~ power, and
Dynasties XIX., XX. (1320-1100 B.c.).
8. The so-called LIBYAN PERIOD,an intermediate time of
which little is known.
D. The SAITIC
PERIOD,comprising Dynasty XXVI., the time
of the Saite kings (663-525 B.c.), and the time of the
Persian domination (525-332 B.c.).
10. The "HELLENICPERIOD" in Egypt, comprising the time
of Alexander; the Ptolemaic kings (332--30 B.c.) ; and
the Roman domination (from 30 B.c.).
xvi
INTRODUCTION
FROM
time immemorial, t h e narrow valley of the Lower Nile
was inhabited by a people of African race, who pastured their
cattle on the marshes of the Delta, and grew their corn in the
cultivated land of the upper country, and i n consequence of
these peaceful pursuits attained earlier than otber nations to
an advanced stage of civilization. When, a t some later period,
the needy Bedouins of the Arabian peninsula seized the
country-an
event whiclr has been repeated in less remote
times-the
Egyptians adopted their language, but not their
civilization, and a people of mixed nationality was formed who
abandoned none of their earlier customs. To this we have a
parallel to-day in modern Egypt, where invading Bedouins, the
Arabs of Islam, have once more imposed their own language on
t h e people, while yct these Arabicspeaking Egyptians have in
no way cllanged their mode of life from that of their Christian
and pagan forefathers. For the nature of that marvellous
country is strongor than any human power.
There is, however, one point in which the modern Arabs
appear to have imposed their influence far more successfully
than the Redouin of ancient times. They have succeeded iu
giving the Egyptians a new religion, as well as a new language,
whereas there are no indications of a similar result of the
ancient invasion. I n the beliefs and conceptions of the ancient
Egyptians as me find them in the earliest literature there is
nothing that relates in any way to the characteristics of the
desert, or to the conditions of life there, while there is very
much that can only be explained by the peculiar conditions
of Egypt. The religion of Egypt must therefore be considered
to be a product of Egypt, whence in large measure i t acquired
1
INTRODUCTION
its special character. Egypt is an agricultural country, that

notwithstanding its productiveness demands hard work, and
trains its inhabitants to practical life. Their belief5 are thus
distinguished by a certain sober earnestness ; on this heavy soil
a lively fancy will not flourish, hut all ~nannerof superstitions
spring up readily. The world inhabited by these people was
a limited one, they knew only their long, narrow valley, where
each year their marvellous river deposited its wealth over the
country; beyond there was only the desert, with which mankind had no concern. One thing, however, served to raise the
mind of the Egyptian to something above llimself, as for us
to-day i t invests the Nile valley with magic: the sky, with the
glory of its sun and the indescribable splendour of its stars.
In these stars the Egyptian recognized his gods, ancl for him no
god could rank higher than the sun, which maintains all things
and which calls all things into being. Among the objects
most familiar to the Egyptian on earth wcre the animals and
birds; as an agriculturist he would daily be brought into close
contact with them, and under their forms accordingly he
frequently represented his gods.
The peculiar character of the country influeoced its religion
in another way: it divided it. Lower Egypt is cut up in all
directions by arms of the river, marshes and u~atercourses;
while Upper Egypt, the most important part of the country, is a
uniform narrow river valley where three to four n~illioninhahitants live on a strip of land which may be compared to that which
stretches from Bale to the sea. In a country of this description,
where the two divisions al;e so distinct and have but little
mutual intercourse, there must necessarily have sprung u p in
the separate provinces differences in speech, in ideas and in
religion.
Thus in each larger town of Egypt and in the country surrounding it, religion assumed a special form. The principal
gods are called by different names in the different provinces.
They have different legends and distinctive forms of worship;
besides this there is here and there a town wit11 a special
god of its own, not recognized elsewhere. So long as Egypt
was divided politically, these religious differences intensified
INTRODUCTION
from century to century; but when she was unitcd into one
kingdom a peculiar process commenced. Tlle religion of the
town that was the royal residence became the official state
religion; the te~nplewas visited from all parts of the country,
and its god recognized by all. Beforc long the wish would
arise in other cities to worship a god of such distinction.
His worship woulcl then be introduced, or i t would be discovered that the special god of the locality was in reality
the same, and the two would be blended into ono. When,
with the progress of culture among the Egyptian nation, a
life developed in art, in literature, i n
uniform i~~tellectual
sciencc, we might expect to find that it led to a uniform and
simplified religion. But this was never attained to. Neither
the stress of political circumstances, nor the i~dvancingedncation
of the people, nor the increasing intercourse with other oations,
ever brought this about. When the people of Bubastis learnt to
worship the god Amon, bccause he was the deity of the royal
city, they did not in t h e slightest degree abate their reverence
for their goddess Bast, and when they begran to realize that this
ancient goddess is identical with Sekhmet and Isis, they did not
on this account alter a fraction of their traditional conception of
her, but simply added the new to the old.
A strange curse lay on the Egyptians: they could not forget.
A t the earliest period writing had been discovered by them and
had placed them in t h e front rank of t h e nations, but the price
of this remained to be paid. Every fresh epoch of their long
existence brought them new ideas, hut the earlier ideas did not
disappear in consequence. It is possible that the latter might
fall into temporary neglect, but they were still treasured as
sacred possessions, and in another ccntury would once more
assume a prominent position. Or again, a hook that lay dormant in some temple library would one day become a living
influence. I n this way the confusion of ideas, national and
local, old and new, incrcased with every successive period, and
added to the mass of religious details that rejoiccd t h e Egyptian
theologians, hnt which we regard with horror.
Yet i t will well repay us to follow the beliefs of tlie Egyptians
through the centuries, even if the points we attempt to observe
INTRODUCTION
are precisely those which the Egyptian priest mould have held
in contempt. To notice how the Egyptian in the primitive
period believed that he could see his gods still living a natural
life; how later, when his gods, living. in their colossal temples,
had become strangers to him, he invented for himself certain
helpers whom he could treat with greater intimacy; how at one
time a ruler of the country bravely attempted to free himself
and his people from the yoke of the ancient faith; how among
all the extravagant ideas concerning life after death, the feeling
yet obtained that the righteousness of man would then be far
more powerful than forms and ceremonies-to see these things
appears to us of much greater importance than to know all
t h r names, symbols, and feast days of the gods and goddesses.
A HANDBOOK
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
CHAPTER I
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
WHEN the subject of Egyptian religion is mentioned, our

thoughts turn instinctively to the beliefs held a t the period
during which was achieved the building of the temples of Karnak
and Luxor, of lledinet Habu, and Abu Simbel, palaces mhere the
gods sat enthroned, and where their n~ayuificentfestivals were
celebrated. But this period, so well known to us, is separated
by a vast interval from the time when the Egyptian religion tirst
acquired its external forms. An examination of these external
forms will show how faitlrfully the representations of the gods
were adhered to, and bow modest and simple must have been
the conditions of the n ~ t i o nthat first created them.
The people had already learnt to carve rough figures of gods
either in human or animal form, and
these they chose to distinguish by a
variety of crowns, but as yet their imagination did not go beyond diadems
formed either of handfuls of reeds, the
horns of sheep or cows, or of ostrich
feathers. For a sceptre, their gods
FIO.I. CROWNS.
carried a staff such as every Eedouin cuts for himself a t the
present day, and their goddesses were contented with a simple
5
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
reed.
Thoir temples wero mere huts with walls of plaited

wicker work, the front of the roof was adorned
with projecting wooden beams. A few short
posts and two high masts in front of the
buildinn were added to provide further
P
decoration. The altar consisted of a reed
mat, and for t h e celebration of festivals,
simple bowers were erected.
Where the outward forms were so primitive we must expect to find the reli,'mous
conceptions even more primitive, and all that
G.
b.
F
. ,
is known to us of the ancient modes of
a. Gods'. b. Goddesses'.
thought confirms this expectation.
Those to whom the following explanation of Egyptian ideas may seem
far too simple, should remember that
for the most part they were conceived
by a race of naked, half savage peasants.
These ideas were inherited by thc
Egyptians of l~istoricaltimes, the sub.,,,..,,,,,,,
jects of Clheops, Amcnemhat and
ervcd them for us. I n order to understand
thern it is necessary to transport ourselves
to that far-distant infancy of the Egyptian
nation, when the inhabitant of the Nile
Valley gazed with awe on the ever-moving
bodies in the heavens above him, and in
those marvellous phenomena recognized
the gods who ruled the world.
Numerous are the ideas concerning the
universe, and the representations by whicl~
the people attempted to express their ideas.
In one of these the sky appears as an iminonse cow whose feet are resting on t h e
earth. I n another the sky is a woman,
Re.,
4. w ~ n m o nOF ~ l i a
,,,,,,,,,...,,,, G11o supports herself with hands and
(Berlin, 15084.)
feet on the earth. But the most usual
representation, at lcast in later times, is one where the sky is
E
,
..,,,,,,
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS O F T H E EARLY PERIOD
a sheet of water, on which t h e stars sail in boats; or again

i t rests on tile so-called fozc? pillam of henuem,
fabulous mountains, situated a t the four corners
of the earth. While the sky is usnally regarded
as being feminine, a woman, and a cow, the
earth figures as a man on whose back i t is that
vegetation grows. Apparently the grammatical
gender of the two words-pet, "sky," is feminine,
to, " earth," is masculine-led to this conception.
W e also meet with a multiplicity of ideas
regarding the sun. I n the morning i t is born,
either as a calf of the celestial cow, or as a child
of the goddess of the sky; in the evening i t is
a n old man who goes down t u the dead. It is
the right eye of a great god whose left eye is n o , 5. yoraEn
the moon, and who flies across the heavens like
a hawk. Or agaiua beetle, the great dung-beetle (Bediii, 14441.)
of Egypt rolls the sun before it, as its earthly brother is seen
rolling the ball in which i t lays its egg. Or, and this is the
most brilliant idea, the sun, moon and stars sail in ships over the
heavenly ocean. This, however, raises the question how i t is
possible for the sun which disappears every evening in the
West to reappear in the morning in the East; a question
usually solved by tbe Egyptians b y imagining a second heaven
under the earth, which the sun traverses by night. It is a
dark place, inhabited by the dead, lighted a t night by the sun
when he sails through it in his bark. For even this underworld possesses il river, a mysterious stream which also ascends
into the world of the living. A t the southern border of Egypt,
near the island of Elephantine, it rises in two whirlpools and
flows through Egypt as the river Nile.
From this we see that in the eyes of the primitive Egyptian
even the Nile did not flow outside Egypt. The cataract formed
the extreme boundary of his world. O u t of all these incongruous elements the Egyptian of historical times set himself
t o compose his picture of the universe, and mixed them
haphazard without permitting himse1,f to he disturbed by t h e
incredible nonsense which ensued. The sky was pictured as a
$%,P%,"zBT,Z
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RE1,IGION
cow; and ships sailed along her belly. It was spoken of as an

ocean; and as giving birth to the sun. The sun god was
spoken of as a beetle; and the sun was described as his eye.

And thus it is wit11 names and forms, which, originally separate
conceptions, become confused. For instance, in immediate

sequence and in one sentence t h e sun god is spoken of as
Re. Khenre., Horus. Harakhti, Atum, etc. Also
in the case of descriptions
of t h e individual gods,
which we are now about
to consider, we shall repeatedly be forced to acF ~ O 7.. IRE B A R K OF .~.iriiSUN.
cept this complexity of
ideas, as only too often we do not possess the information that
would enable us to disentangle them. There is yet another
element in this medley, the constant confusion, half serious, half
playful, between the gods and their sacred animals. Becaxse i n
primitive Egypt the water god was regarded as a crocodile, and
the moon god as an ibis, these gods wore often regarded and
represented in later times under these forms, but this did not
preclude human forms being also attributed to them. As a
rule a compromise was effected in representing them, and the
gods were sbown in human form with the heads of their
respective animals.
The Egyptian artist learnt in very early days to correct the
unnatural nature of such a fusion by clever artistic treatment,
so that in good representations of the gods we scarcely find
ourselves disturbed by it.
To the Egyptians there was no god of higher standing than
the sun god, who was regarded as the sole crcator, and ruler of
the world; from the bark in which he traversed the heavens,
the great god, the god of heaven governed all things, and whosoever in daily life merely speaks of the god, he will think of
him. All things exult when be arises, and even the apes pray
unto him ; men also raise their hands morning and evening, and
laud him thus : G l o y to thee, thou who risest in the horixo?~.. . .
"Praise to thse " say the assembled gods, " tlcozc beat~tqzblbeloved
child." When i ~ arises
o
munlcind lives, and tile people emlt on his
account. Tile gods of Neliopolis shozat to I~ina,and the gods sf
both the great cities extol him. The baboons laud him, "Praise to
thy foes.
thee" say all the beasts together. Th? serpent ove?*th~ows
10
A HANDBOOI< O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Than azultest i n th?j harlcs, thy manhood is content . . and thou

~cjozcest,lord of the gods, over that which thou hast created. They
rqbice; the ?oalers of heaven become blue i n thy pvesencc and at
thy glance the ocean glistens?
From earliest times this god had special localities devoted
to his worship, but one of these rose to such fame as to overshadow the others. This was On, or-as following the Greek
nomenclatore i t is generally called-Heliopolis, the primeval city,
sitnated not far from modern Cairo at Matariyeh. We believe
i t is evident that the Egyptian religion was greatly influenced
a t the earliest period by Heliopolis, and u p to the latest
times the priests of On wcrc credited with the possession of
great wisdom.
1110. 8.
T l i l SUN GOD
0s
EDFII.
Another important centre of tlre worship of the sun god, was

Edfii in Upper Egypt, where even now his temple stands
complete. Here originated the remarkable figure of the god
which represents him as the sun with n~nlticolouredwings as
he flies across the heavens triumphant over his enemies. This
figure of Horus of Zdfu (or, ss he was usually styled, he of Edftr)
is placed over thc gateways of the temples to keep out all evil
things.
Numerous were the names of the sun god. The most general
one, RE, denoted the sun itself. H o ~ u sor HAR-AKATE
originally stood for the god, regarded as a bird of prey with
blazing eyes, while KHEPKEdenoted t,he god in form of a beetle.
Finally the evening sun was represented by ATUMin the form
of an old man. The sun god is usually represented wit11 the
head of a sparrow-hawk suimonnted by the sun; this is encircled with its terrible servant, the fire-spitting serpent, who
destroys his enemies. For there is no lack of enemies to oppose
the progress of tlre sun, and one of these, Apophis, the cloud and
' BBook oj' the Dead.
Totb. ed. Naviile, 15 A,
RE1,IGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
11
storm serpent, is the embodiment of all that is terrible. B u t

they cannot obstruct the progress of the god, he accomplishes
in triumph his journey across the heavens,
and in the evening arrives a t the mountains of the West, where he is received
by t h e goddess of the West. Here he
quits his morning bark in which he travels
by day, and enters the evening bar76 to
begin his nightly journey through the
under-world. There he sivines fwtic for
the great god Osiris, the eternal Lord.
The dead, however, the inhabitants of the
caverns, greet him joyftclly; they 1z;ft up
their arnzs and praise him, they decla~e
anto hinz their .wishes. . . l'heir e p
open once more at the sight of him, and
their heart is jilled with joy when they see
him. He hears the prayers those who lie
i n the cofins, he cnres their pains and
drives away their sorrows. He restores
,,, ,,,,
breath to their nost?.ils.
As the winds of the upper-world can find no entrance to this
Hades, the dead fasten a cord t o the fore part of the ship and
drag i t on earth, as boats are towed on the Nile when the wind
is unfavouwble?
The part assigned by the Egyptians to the moon god, the
representatGue of Re by night, is far less important. H e is the
ibis-headed god TROTH,the bdl amo~zgthe stars, the nzoon in
heaven, as he is called in a n inscription in the Berlin colle~tion.~
A t the same time, he is the scribe of the gods, and the judge i n
heaven, who gave speech and wviling, and by his arithmetic
enabled gods and men to keep account of their possessions.
H e is the god of all wisdom and learning, and be discovered the
divine words, i. e. written characters. It is easy to see how i t was
Totb. ed. Naville, 15 B.11. For the further

see Chapter IT.
2 Berlin, 2293.
.,,
development of this idca,
12
A HANDBOOK OF EGYl'TIAN
RELIGION
that the moon god assumed this character, for he regulated time
and therefore would be the representative of all reckonings and
notes of events. The principal centre of his worship was a t
Eshmnnen i n Middle Egypt, t h e town which was called Hermopolis in Greek times. Under another
name, KHONSU,he who travels acms t h e
heavens, the moon was worshipped at
Thebes in purely human form as a child,
although this god appears to have been
little known in early times outside his own
abode. It is only in the New Kingdom
that for a time we find representations of
him appearing prominently elsewhere.
We also meet with the goddess of the
sky under various names, which prove their
development from differing conceptions of
10. Tuom.
her. As NUT, she retained her character
as t h e female representative of the sky, and
wife of the earth god KEB. This very small share is all she was
accorded in the actual religion of Egypt, and in historical times
she received scarcely any veneration. Under another name,
however, she was extremely popular as HATHOR.
Although this
abode of the sun god, directly and unname, a b z ~ s oof HOTUS,
equivocally designates her as the sky, yet an almost complete
change i n her r6le occurred early. As by her position as goddess
of the heavens she was the chief of the goddesses, she vas
also t h e divine representativo of women, who worshipped her
before all others, and thns she became the brilliant goddoss of
pleasure and of love. Other aspects must have grown out of
her characteristic of sky goddess, but to us they remain incomprehensible. She is called the eye of IZe, and she appears as the
goddess of the West; as such she stands on the mountain of the
West and receives the setting sun and the dead. I t is needless
to remark that the goddess of women would necessarily have
innumerable sanctuariks. One of the principal of these was
Denderah in Upper Egypt, where her temple still delights us
with its beauty.
The cow form of the goddess of heaven, to whicli we have
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF T H E EARLY PERIOD
13
already referred, appears originally to have been assigned exclusively to Hathor, but it is possible
that its application to this goddess
was not popular, and also that when
merely the head of the cow was
placed on her, i t was not in agreement with her later characteristics.
Therefore in very early times a
remarkable head was contrived for
her, human, yet a t the same time
animal, a broad kindly woman's
face surlounded by thick plaits of
PIU 11. HIITBOB.
From a espltal st Bilbistrs.
hair, and retaining nothing of the
cow except the ears, which preserve some trace
of the animal in her aspect. Or else she
has an ordinary woman's head, and a headdress which recalls the ancient celestial cow.
consisting of two horns between which appears
'94
the sun.
We also find the s1c.y goddess in NEITH of
1
Sais, the mother who b~oujhtf o ~ t hthe stm, who
began to b ~ i n gforth even bdo~ebeing borm.'
Like HATHOR,she is a eoddess of women. I t
is probable that a t one time she was the
national goddess of Lower Egypt, as she wears
.,, , , .,,,,,,
the red crown of that country, and holds
arrows in her hand as though she were of
warlike character. There is another great goddess of the Delta
to whom i t is natural to assign a similar origin; BAST,or as
the Greeks called her, Buhastis, is a counterpart of the joyous
Hathor, ddoghting in dancing and music. She is cat-headed,
and is usually represented with the sistrum of the dancing women
in her hand and a basket on her arm. When these attributes
are omitted i t is difficult to distinguish between the cat's
head of Bast and the lion's head of the goddess SEKHMET,
the
nzighty one. On this fact the Egyptians founded a connection
between the two. Even if the goddesses were as distinct as
m\?j
' Vatican statue of Naophare (Brugsch, iPhes., 637).
14
their two animals, yet Seklimet is a terrible goddess of war and

strife,and the question arises whether both these divinities with
F,". 1%. xmsr.

(Beniu, n354.)
PIG.
SIXXWET.
colourless naunes, She who is fi.o?n Bnst and The mighty one, did
not develop originally from such a sky goddess as we are already
acquainted with in Nut, Hathor and
Neith. For is not Hathor t h e kindly goddess of love? and yet in the legends, as
we shall see, she appears as a dreadful
goddess who slew the enemies of Re.
Another member of the group of
heavenly deities is SHU,or as he is frequently called, Onuris, aupporte~ the
l~eavens,who raises up and supports the
sky. H e is also represented as a column
of air, and in him we may well see the
god of the atmosphere which lies between
heaven and earth. (see Fig. 34).
From the great importance of the Nile
for the land of Egypt we should expect
to find this river among the principal
gods of the country. But he has to content himself with being called the father
P , ~ .16. Txz
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 15
of the gods, and with receiving offerings at the time of the

inundation, otherwise he plays no more important part i n
religion than the sky goddess Nut, or the earth god Keb. A t
times he is given a subservient part; on the sculptures he is
represented in partly female form, in the
costume of fishers and sailors, standing
before the great gods and presenting them
with gifts which his waters have prodocod.
The dark world under the earth, to
which the sun sinks in the west, and
where also the dead belong who sleep
in the earth, was more remote from mankind than were the heavens, and this may
be the reason why representations of the
lords of the under-world are yet more
confused than those of the sky. Various
localities possessed their own gods of t h e
dead, and these had no relation to each
other. The first of these were conceived
of as jaclrals, such as the ancient god of
the dead, ANUBIS,who later superintended the process of embalming, and the two gods WEPWAWET,
the guides,a well-chosen name, as i t was
they who showed the dead the paths
through their dark domain. It was perfectly natural that the jackal should he
considered the animal of the god of the
dead; in the desert where the dead were
buried, these animals might be seen every
evening, prowling about in the dusk. I n
the neighbourhood of Afempl~isa god with
the head of a sparrow-ha~vk was woranother god of the dead,
shipped, SOI~ARIS,
whose celebrated shrine Ro-Setau, the
gates of the ways, led direct to the underFm. 17. ws~wAwr;r.
Hinon
collectlan.
world. I t is possible that part of this
shrine bcs survived in the so-called
temple of the Sphinx, the colossal building which a t the
16
present day excites the wonder of visitors to the pyramids

of Gizeh.
But the glory of all these guardians of the
dead was early thrown into the shade by the
appearance of Osm~s,although originally this
god can hardly have been ruler of the underworld. He became so in consequence of the
tradition (see p. 32 et seq.) which relates that
he was put to death, and subsequently lived
again as one of the dead. Two towns were
more especially his sai~ctuaries,Dedu in the
Delta, later named Busiris, and Abydos in
Middle Egypt, where he was worshipped as t 7 ~ e
first
those who are i7z the west, e. g. king of
the dead. H e is usually represented in human
form, as a mummy, with crown, sceptre and
whip as symbols of his rank as a icing. I n
Busiris, however, he was worshipped by the
faithful under a strange figure, that of a
pillar, of which the upper part is many times
repeated. As the emblem of Osiris, this pillar
became one of the most sacred symbols of the
F,,,. lS. OSIRIS.
Egyptian religion, but what can it have been
originally ? Was it, as modern scholars have conjectured, some
ancient wooden "fetish " of the dwellers in Busiris ? or was i t
as Egyptian theologians wished
to prove it, the backbone of the
god, which was buried in that
town ? I n any caseit is worthy
of note that there are other
instances of such symbols as
FIO. 19.
this of Osiris in the same 8rxBo,,, ,,,,,,,,
locality. Both his wife Isis
0B'R13.
19L9.
and his friend Anubis have emblems which are
difficult to explain. Delight in such mystifications
is one of the characteristic features of ancient
U
w~o.20.
Egypt.
SYMBOL Or
It has not been difficult to trace the origin of most
ANUBIB.
K.1
RELIGIOUS RELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
17
of the gods we have mentioned so far. But there are many of

whorn this cannot be said, of whom some feature is comprehensible, but whose characteristics as a whole are
entirely obscure to us. I n the temple Hat-ke-ptah,
where Memphis stood later, a god was worshipped
from the earliest times; on the breast of his rude
statue we can discern two hands holding a scephre,
while the head appears to be shaven and devoid of
any ornament. This is Ptah, the divine sculptor, who gave and still gives form to all things and
a11 beings on earth. H e was regarded by artists and
artisans as their patron.
I n a similar character of creator and sculptor
of certain beings we meet with another important
god, either as a ram, or with a ram's head, Kaxunr, ~Q~;;~~E;;
worshipped in many localities. A t one of his
temples, that on the island of
Elephantine, a new characteristic
was attributed to him. Here in
the rnidst of the foaming cataract,
where i t was believed that t h e
waters gushed u p from the underworld, he figured also as the
cataract god, lord
the cool
waters, a character which certainly was not his originally. I t
must have been far earlier that
the god SOBKwas worshipped
as a water god. H e is crocodileheaded as though water were his
special element, and in no district was he more worshipped
than in the Faydrn, that region
of lake and marsh, where the land
had laborionsly to be redeemed
U
from the water.
Fro. 22. sona. Prom his temple in tile
ay rim. (Berlin, 16053.)
I f i t were owing to the position
of his temple that the god of Elephantine developed into a
2
18
A HANDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
water god, it must havc been on these same grounds t h j t two

other gods became gods of the East. In the land of Goshen,
which stretches out from the Delta eastward into the desert,
a, god was worshipped, HAR-SOPD,
who, as his name shows,
was originally connected with the ancient sun god Horus,
but who is only known to us as protector of the Eastern
desert. Another lord of the East, the god MIN, was worshipped in that part of Upper Egypt where the Nile
and the Red Sea approach each other
most closely, and which was therefore a t
all periods t h e starting point of the
caravan route to the Eastern world.
Those who pursued this route, and who
had therefore to brave the dangerous
neighbourhood of the rapacious troglodytes, naturally cornmittcd thenlselves
a t Koptos to the protection of Min, the
local god, before leaving the Nile Valley.
Thus he became also a god of t h e
Eastern desert, the l a d of foreign Zc~nds.
T l ~ earchaic statues of Min, now a t
Oxford, found by Petrie in the foundations of the temple at Koptos, prove to us
how ancient this conception was; even
those rude sculptures of the earliest
times have bivalve shell, elephants and
mountains represented on the girdles,
precisely the things to which the Koptos
road led the way. Here again this
attribute of Min is certainly not his
original one. H e is an ithyphallic figure,
Fie. 23. NIN. (Bedin, 2430.)
as if he were intended to beget the
world, as according to a myth to be quoted later (see p. 26)
the sun god is said to have done. As Min is frequently spoken
of also as Horus, i t may well be considered probable that Min
is another name of the sun god. From another point of view
also this figure is remarkable. On his head he wears two
feathers, and the right fore-arm, with which he supports a
19
scourge, is held upright. When, therefore, a few miles south of

the home of Min, we meet with another god who wears similar
lofty plumes, who is frequently represented
as ithyphallic, and who also resembles
Min in being of purely human form with
dark complexion, it is natural to regard
him as another form of Min. This god is
no other than AMONof Thebes, king of
the gods of later Egypt. I n the early
times with which we are now dealing, no
one could have foreseen the in~portance
that would one day accrue to him. He
was the obscure god of a small town, and
even his nearest neighbours, the people
of Hermonthis, worshipped anotber god,
the hawk-headed MONT. This Mont
figures as the god of war. H e conducts
defeated enemies to Pharaoh or hands hi111
F,(;. 24. I l i O N .
the ancient. sword of sickle form.
Egypt possesscd yet another god of warlike tendencies, SE'.
Few gods are so famous as he is, and yet his
origin is entirely unknown to us. Traclition
has introduced him as well as Horus, the
ancient sun god, into the Osiris myth, and has
blurred and confused both presentments. Horus
becomes the son, and S e t the wicked brother
of Osiris, who is defeated by Horus, but i t is
exactly in this apposition of the two gods, that
we find an indication of an earlier character for
Set, to which we possess other clues. When
'
we find the two divisions of the country
designated as The two halves of Ho~usand Set,
and when according t o an ancient title the
ruler of these two divisions is styled Horns and
Set, it appears that we have met with some of
F .2 . .
(Berlin, 13186.)
the numerous survivals of that far-distant time
whenEgypt was divided into two opposing kingdoms. Probably
S e t was then the protector of the kings of Upper Egypt and
go
Horus of tliose of Lower Egypt. The animal by which Set is

represented or whose liead he wears, was considered in later
times to be a donkey, although a t least i t could only l ~ a v ebeen
a caricature of one. Probably i t was intended for some animal
with which the Egyptians of historical times were not familiar.
As we find in Set and Horus the
protectors of the two ancient divisions of Egypt, so also we know their
protecting gotldcsses. I n the ancient
capital of the Upper Kingdom, the
modern El Kah, flew NEKHBETin
the form of a vulture, guarding the
king. In Buto, the lower capital,
dwelt UTO in the form of a serpent.
I n common with her city she is
usually called Buto, following a
Greek transposition.
In historical times, these two were
combined as joint patronesses of the
FIG. 2,;. n o r 0 *an ansaerr.
uuited kingdom, and we find occasional variants wliere both are represented as vultures, or both as
FIG.27, mm,
(Hiltan Price Collection.)
77x0. 28. ~ a ~ a r u ~ s .
(mltonprice ~ ~ l l ~ ~ t i ~ ~ . )
serpents. The goddess MOT of Tfiebes had also originally the
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS O F THE EARLY PERIOD
21
form of a volture, and might therefore be interchangeable with

the protecting goddcss Nelchbet. Later, when she rose to great
importance as the wife of Amon, she was represented as a woman
wearing the croxvns of Upper and Lower Egypt which she had
borrowed from the kings of hcr city.
We have no knowledge of the original nature of ISIS,the
goddess who finally superseded almost a,ll others, and appears
before us as the sole godcless of Egypt. She has met with the
same fate as her llusband Osiris, her son Horus, her sister
Nephthys and her brother S e t ; who lost all their original
characteristics when they mere interwoven in
the 0 s i l . i ~myth. Although no goddess is so
frequently mentioned as Isis, she appears before
us only as the faithful wife of Osiris, and the
devoted mother of Horus. She is merely an
adjunct to her menfolk.
Another goddess must be mentioned of whom
we may safely a f rm that she owes her existence
to no phenomenon of nature. She is entirely
a product of buman invention and is thus a ptre
abstraction. This is PIAAT, goddess of truth,
whose priests were the supreme judges, and who
was regarded as wife of the divine judge Thoth
and daughter of the supreme god Rc. As early
F,". 2s. .*LT.
(xiiton ~ r i o o
as the Old King~iomshe ranked among the godCollection.)
desses, nevertheless she is quite as much an
artificial product as are the personifications of bonz~tyor wisdom
which we frequently find cited in poetry.
iVIany readers will consider that a Tory large number of t h e
gods have alrcady been montioned, and yet these form hut a
small proportion of the deities venerated in Egypt. If a list
could be made of all those worshipped a t one time or another
in the temples and shrines of the Nile Valley, thcy would probably amount to many hundreds of divinities. No doubt many of
them are sitbstavtially identical even thong11 they wear distinct
crowns, and bear distinct names, but if these were all subtracted
there would still remain a large number of beings of sacred
character, who stand alone, and whose worship was confined to
zz
A IIANDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
one town only. They are tlie creations of simple n~inds,readyto

believe that stones, trees, and animals may be the abode of
spirits. The unknown power who thus manifests itself has gifts
and prayers offered to it, owing to the awe which i t inspires,
and in course of time when the people of the town have long
worshipped i t in private, i t finds a place in the temple and is
added to the number of oEcial divinities.
To the great group of such gods of inferior rank belong the
sacred animals, of whom traces can be found in the temples as
early as the Old Kingdom. We have already seen how the
Egyptians of the earliest times frequently conceived of their
gods in animal form. Thc sky as a cow, the sun as a sparrowhawk, the moon as an ibis, tlre god of the dead as a jackal, the
water god as a crocodile. These were symbols,
necessary to mankind when they sought to
express tlremselves metaphorically. We ourselves cannot avoid such figures of speech; we
speak of the hand of God, and the mouth of
God, and when we think of Him personally, we
instinctively think of Him in the form of an old
man. Where a divinity and an animal were
associated with each other, there was naturally
a desire to see that special animal in the temple
of the god. In the temple of Soblr there was
a tank containing a crocodile, a cat dwelt in the
FIU. 30.
8AOBrD IIAIVR.
temple of Bast. Sparrow-hawks were kept in
the sanctuary of the sun god, where they sat on perches and
peacefully pecked their food out of bowls. There were other
creatures kept in temples which mere not representations of the
god hut stood in another definite relation to them. They
belonged to them in much the same manner that the doves
belonged to Aphrodite, or the owls to Athene. This is especially
the case with some of the more wideIy known of these animals,
the heron, Phceuix, and the bull Mnevis, who dwelt in the
temple a t Heliopolis, and the bull Apis, in the sanctuary of Ptah
at Mempl~is. We cannot now trace why Apis attained to such
honour. That hlnevis should be regarded as the animal of the
sun god is not surprising, as that god was often addressed as a
RELIGIOUS RELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 23
bull, to the Egyptians the essence of all strength and virility.

With regard to the Phmnix which was b o ~ in
n the pastzcresl
of the temple and whicl~
only occasionally allowed itself to be seen there. we
are tempted to attribute its
origin to a chance. I s i t not
possible that once in those
earliest times some herons
made their nest accidentally
i n this most sacred locality,
and would not this nest form
an object of veneration and
\bp)
mindod worshippers
at the
temple ? For a long period they would see the nest occupied
each successive year, then perhaps the birds would desert i t ;
and great must have been
the joy after many years
when another Phcenix once
more found its way there, to
be a marvel to all the people
of Heliopolis.
I n the case of such a
living presentment of the
god, some of his divinity
would inevitably be transferred to t h e bird, and the
humbler classes would feel
Fro. 32. Pnrrarx.
almost more attracted by
this god who moved among them, and could be seen by his worshippers, tlian by the image which, concealed in the Temple i n
the holy of holies, was hidden from the eyes of the faithful,
and only shown at the great festivals.
Eventually tliese revered animals were recognized as sacred
by the official religion, and considered to be incarnations of the
A
Mctternich Stela 77.
24
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTlAN RELIGION
god. Thus, in Apis dwelt the soul of Ptah ; and did one of these
bulls die he transferred himself to another, and Apis lives anem.
Animal worship must have arisen in some such way, and thns
i t came into being a t a very early period. I t was a remarkable
adjunct to the Egyptian religion, but i t did not belong to its
original structure. I n later times veneration for the sacred cat,
monkey, sheep, and serpent increased greatly, and in the last
stages of the religion of Egypt, their sacred character extended
to all their kind outside the temples, but the ancient faith of the
people knew nothing of tllis craze.
The forms of these various divinities we have sketched
here do net correspond with the actnai beginnings of Egyptian
religion, for to that we have no clne, but only to a very ancient
official form which survives in the cuits, and also in the carvings
and inscriptions of the temples. But the carvings and inscriptions
contain mnch that has to be rejected for this earliest period, and
which is the result of the growth of tradition, that inevitable
process of transformation which pervaded the Egyptian religion
as it does all others.
I n its youth a nation may well be satisfied with worshipping
the gods which i t believes i t sees on earth, and with winning
their favour by means of offerings and prayers, b u t a mature
nation becomes more intimately acquainted with the deity, and
t h e more intimate it becomes, the more it discards the uotion of
his unapproachable majesty. Then it is that imagination begins
its work, and the divine is represented more and more as hurnan;
deities that appear to resemble each other, or that are worshipped
in the same locality, are grouped together into one family ; t h e
preferences or ht~tredsof gods for each other become known ;
the manner in which the world origirlated becomes clearly
defined, and also the order in which the gods reigned.
From century to century story-tellers and poets develop these
stories more fully, the details of the myth becomc richer and
more brilliant, until a t last the whole fabric of theology is
complicated and adorned by their addition and superstructure.
Thus i n speaking of Thotb, i t is no longer the moon that is
thought of, but the god who arranged the dispute in the great
Hall of Heliopolis, and justified Osiris before his foes. Anubis
RE1,IGIOUS BELIEFS O F T H E EARLY PERIOD z g
no longer means the ancient guardian of the dead, hut the

friend of Osiris who carried out his burial. I t was only in the
ritual, with its unchangeable customs, that the old ideas survived,
only partially comprehended. Brit in course of time the intlucnce
of the myths made itself felt even in the ritual, and the original
Osiris and Isis had to make way for tho traditional Osiris and
Isis, now widely known among the nations.
I t is in this period of mythology that we first lrnow anything
of t h e religion of Egypt; evcn our earliest texts aro full of
allusions to the myth. The d q w l ~ e ~ e i.n . . The night
whoein . . That god who . . these are expressions we
meet with at every turn. But numerous as these allusions are,
we understand little of them, for the stories to which they refer
are not told us in the texts. If any literature relating to these
stories ever cxistcd, i t is cntircly lost. I t is possible that actual
mythological writings never existed; i t would be quite unnecessary to write down tales familiar to all, passed on from
generation to generation by word of mouth. We are therefore
obliged to draw our knowledge of this important side of
Egyptian religion from very doubtful sources, from magic spells,
which found their rnagic charactcr on relations of similar deeds
of tho gods, from isolated inscriptions of tho latest times, or
even (and tilis is actually onr main sourco of knowledge) from
Plutarch's account of Isis and Osiris.
I t is obvious that the form taken by the stories in these texts
is not always the ancient one to which they refer, but we are
forced to depend on them, and must be satisfied when here and
there they enable us to correct or to amplify our knowledgo on
some point.
The myths of which we shall now spoak arc naturally only a
small part of the great mass of stories of t l ~ egods with which
Egypt a t one time must have been flooded, and the reader will
not be surprised to find that they do not always fit into each
other. I n cach district tradition would necessarily take a form
that would assign the most prominent part to the favourite local
deity. This is especia.lly apparent in the stories relating to the
creation of the world.
I n the beginning only chaos existed, Nun, the priineval
26
waters. Out of this in some way or other the sun god was
created. H e came into being w?Lile as yet there teas 120 heaven,
when neither serpent %M' ~eytZ.18WCLSformed. He canLe i r ~ t obeing
i n the form of Khepre (page IO), and there was ?Lathing that
was with him i n that place tohere he was . . . ~estingi n the
waters of Nun, and he found n o place where he cozcld slcwad.
Then the god bethougbt himself in
his heart to create othcr beings, and
he begat of himself and spat i t out.
And what he spat out was the god
Shn, and t h e goddess Tefnet, those
two beings who, according to Egyptian
belief, supported the heavens. Shu
and Tefnet then produced Keb and
Nut, the earth god and ~ k ygoddess,
and Keb and Nut produced Osiris and
Set, Isis and Nephthys, whose child~en
are man?/ on this ewth.
This account, taken from a late book
of magic,' is shown by numerous allusions to have been a tradition known
a t one time throughout Egypt. Yet
these allusions prove that the tradition
was variously coloured in different
localities. According to some a lotus
F I ~31.
.
Tnr vourra sulr coo inflower sprang out of the primeval
TEE LVCUI BL"SSO>I.
waters on which sat t h e young sun
god as a child. I n Eshmun&n, however, tradition told of a
mound in the waters of Dcsdes, and of an egg laid in a nest
there, from which the sun god was hatchedZ in the same
way as the waterfowl of the Egyptian marshes. Eight primeval
beings in the form of frogs and serpents took some part in
this event, and a cow (which must be connected with the
cclcstial cow) was also present; the young god seated himself
on her back, and swam across t h e water. Ahydos boasted a
l
Bodge, ??e8iamsu, p. 147 el se9.

Mag. Pap., Hmis, 6,10; Brugsch,
Orr88,
26, 23; Todt. 85. 13.
27
birthplace of the sun,' and Thebes also prided herself later

on possessing the magni$cent pl'inaeval mound.'
I n Abydos the gods who issued from the mouth of Re himself
were not Shu and Tefnet, but Shu and the frog goddess Helit,
the progenitors of the gods.3
There is a variant of the Heliopolitan tradition which is also
worthy of notice. Here the god is said to have first appeared
as the Benhen stone i n the house of the Phmnix.* That he begat
of himself may have appeared too incredible to many, and,
therefore, from the minor name Ynsau, by which the god was
distinguished at this occurrence, the name of a consort of the
god was formed, Yasas, who was actually worshipped a t
Heliopolis.
Another section of these myths shows how deeply in other
respects they had impressed themselves on t h e official religion.
It generally sets forth the family tree of the gods thus-
Sun God
Slru
ICeb
Osiris-Isis
Tefnct
Nut
Set-Neplithys
These gods, wlio connect the beginning of the world wit11

human times, had by this time become of great importance
to the people of Heliopolis, as the immediate descendants of
their great god, and they therefore grouped together this family
of R c undcr a special name, the Ennead. This namc quickly met
with universal acceptance throughout Egypt, and forthwith i t
was felt necessary to accord a similar honour to the other gods.
I n addition to the Great Ennead a Lesser group was constructed
composed of Horus, Thoth, Anubis and others. These two
groups form the eighteen gods who figure even in the earliest
texts. Later on, other great towns wished to possess ennends
London, 567 ; Idauvre, C. 3.
L.D. 111.24 d; and L.D. IV. 21 c
8 Louvre, C. 3 ; London, 567.
1 l'yr. Chap. 367 (=N. 663).
1
28
A HANDBOOIC OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
of their own, to compete with those of Heliopolis. To do

this they displaced one of the nine in order to make room
for their local deity, or they even added him to tile ennead,
undisturbed by tho fact that in this way their group of nine
actually contained-ten members.
I n connection with the tradition of the origin of the earliest
gods, another is supplicd by the magical text already quoted, of
which we wouldgladly know more, as agein and again we meet
with references to it. This is the legend of the Eye of the Sun.
Unfortunatoly i t has been so much altered by the magicians of
the late period, who themselves cannot have understood t h e
ancient texts, that we must abandon any hope of understanding
the originaL This only is apparent, that for some reason t h e
eye of tlie god had been taken away from him, and that the two
modernized gods Shu and Tefnet restored i t t o him, and it wept
on his aeeozcnt and nzanlcind came out of the tears wh,ich issz~ed
from the eye. And i t was enraged, when it ~ e t t ~ r wand
d found
that another had grown i n its place; then if I understand rightly
the god took the eye, and set i t as the serpent i n his forehead,
so that the eye of the sun now ~ ~ c l ethe
s whole wovld, for the serpent which Re wears on his forehead is verily the symbol of his
might. Any attempt to make sense of this myth is useless;
but it should be remembered that the Zye of the Sun, as we
have just seen, denoted at one time the sun itself, and a t another
time was a name of IIathor. The statement t h a t mankind
originated from his tears arose from a play on the very similar
words renl,yet,"tears," and rornet, "mankind." Similar punning
inventions play an important part in all these Egyptian myths.
They underlie tho above-mentioned story of Shu and Tefnet
being produced by spitting. This peculiarity is explained by
the importance attacbed by the Egyptians to the names of
things. The name possesses solnothing of tlie nature of the
object, and it is owing to this that the sun god, for instance,
is called his own creator because he himself formed his name.'
We have seen above how the race of Re was propagated and
how his
the god Keb and goddess Nut, were the
earth and the sky; but the earth and the sky were not yet
Totenb. ed. Ncville, 17, 6.
29
separated, and Nut still lay upon her brother Keb. Therefore
her father Shu thrust himself between them, and raised her into
the heights, and wit11 her he raised into the heights all the
gods that had hitherto been created, and Nut took possession
of them, counted them and made them into stars. Even the
sun itself was not excepted,
and now they all sail in their
ships over the body of Nut.
This was the actual beginning of our present world;
when heaven and earth
were thus separated from
each other, all thingsfell into
their present order.
If this myth just quoted
gives as a reason for the snn
happening to be in the sky,
that Shu raised u p Nut, a
S H U 3UPPORTINe NW, 01 " I i O J B 1 A O X
far stranger explanation is P"".,,,LE31. TLiE
9 " " ' ~ D*I1KS.
KEB LllJ I'ELOIY.
(Dcrli", 3.)
given by another and later
tradition. The reader will not have forgotten that there were
other conceptions of the beginning of the world, as we have
already learnt. I n this instance the sky is a cow.
Once in ancient days Re, the sun god,ruled as king over men
and gods alilce. I n course of time, however, he grew old, his
bones were silver, his limbs were gold, his hair real lapis-lazuli.
This was observed by men, and they thought blasphemously of
him, but the god was not ignorant of their thoughts, and he said
to one of his followers : "Cull to me my eye, and Shu and l'efnet,
Keeb and Nut, together with the fathers and mothers who were with
me, when I was i n the waters @ N~cn,and also the god Nun. . .
Thoz6 shalt bring them here p~cietly,that men may not see it, and
that their hearts fail lhem not. Thou shalt come with them to the
Palace, that they may give their opinion. .
These gods were
5ronght and they threw themselves on the ground btfore his Ma3esty
and said : "Speak to ZLS that we may hear." Then spake Re to
N u n : " l'hotc eldest of the goits, from whom I isst~edand progenitor of the gods. Behold the men who issued oz~tof my eye, and
. ."
30
who have conceived words against me. Tell me what ye would

do with regard to this. I willed not to cledroy them until I had
heard what ye should say thereto." The Majesty of Nun said:
" M y son Re, thou god who art gleater tha~athy fathe?. and thy
creator! Remain thou seated npon thy thro~ae; the f e a ~ of
thee is yet great,
01aly thine eye be turned Pqon those who
blasphenu thee."
And now when Re turned his eye upon them, straigl~tway
theyJ4ed into the desert,for their healts feared on accou?at of those
things which they had spolcen. The gods, however, gave him
further counsel, that he should send his eye down to the
blasphemers, in order to smite them, and Re sent his eye and
i t descended i n form of the goddess Hathor. This goddess, horoever, returned after she had slain the nzen i n the desert. Then
said the Majesty of this god, " Welcome,Hathor. . . ." Thisgoddess
made reply: " B y thy lge, I have been n~ightyamong nta7~Icind;
it rejoices my heart.''
Then Re feared that Hathor would return next day and
q~iickly
entirely destroy mankind. Therefore he said : "Sttn~n~on
to me swift messengeTs, Z U ~ Ocan T U ~ Llike spi~its.'' finnm~lu~tely
such nLessengers were brought to hina a?zd the Majesty of this god
said to them : " IIasten to Elepl~antine and h i n g nre a grecrl
quantity of didi." The god gave this didi (it ninst have been
some kind of fruit with red juice) to t h e cu~ly-hailed one of
Heliopolis and this spirit pounded it, while servant-maids
preparod beer from barley. Then the didi was stirred into the
mixture, and it became like human blood Sevea thousand jars
of beer were made and the Majcty of the icing Re came with
these gods to see this beer. When the molning bmlce whereon this
goddess would slay manlcind, he said, " I will deliver mcrnIci7ad
out of her hands. . . Carry it forth to the place where she would
slay mankind."
This was done, and the beer was poured out until the fields
were flooded four spans deep. I n the naorning the goddess sent
out, and found itpooded; he7 face was beaz~tiJzJlymiaored i n it.
She drank of it, and it pleased her, site returned i~ornedru7a7cen
and did not recognize men.
But though the aged god protected mankind from complete
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF TIXE EARLY PERIOD
31
extermination, he did not wish to rule longer over these ungrateful people. " B y my lqe," he cried, " m y hea~tis weary of
being among them." Then he once more set the aged Nun in
the midst, and summoned his daughter the cow-faced Nut : Re
placed himself on her back and she bore him u p into the
heights, where she now forins the heavens. But when Nut
looked downwards she treqnbled on account of the height. Then
Re called to Shu, saying, " M y son Shu, place thyseu under my
daz~ghterNut, place her upon thy head," and Shu did as he was
commanded, and since then he has supported the celestial cow,
on whose belly the stars glitter, and the sun sails in his ship?
The same book of magic from which this myth is taken, also
gives us its version of how the moon originated. Once, while
Re sojourned in the heavens, he said, " Call Thoth unto me," and
fovthwith he was hoz~ght. The Mqjesty of this god said to Thoth,
" B e thou i n heazen in, my place while I give light to the glorijied
ones in the under-world. . . . Thou art i n my stead, my representstioe as thozc shalt be called; Thoth the representative of Re." And
now all mariner of things were created by a punning speech of
Re. H e said to Thoth, "I will cffiz~scthe* to en~brace( y m ? ~ )
both the heavens with thy beauty and thy bennLs," so the moon was
created (yooh); and again with reference to the fact that for a
representative of Re the position held by Thoth was somewhat
lowly, "I toill send (hob) to thee, thosr that are greater tlban
thou. . . ." The?&came into being the ibis (hib), the bird of
Thoth.
Of these traditions, none was more widespread or exercised
a greater and more lasting influence on the Egyptian nation
than that which tells of the god Osiris, his faithful wife Isis,
and his brave son Horus. How tbis first arose, we cannot conjecture, for the original character of Osiris is doubtful, and that
of Isis is equally impossible to discover. That the ancient sun
god Horus should here be represented as a child, shows how
utterly everything is dislocated.
Like all Egyptian myths, these also must have existed a t
one time under very different aspects, and we have traces of a
1 According to the Book of the celestial cow, inscribed in the form of
a rnagicd text in the Theban royal tombs.
32
A HANDBOOIi OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
very different version in two ancient texts,' where not only

Sct appears as murderer of Osiris, but also the beneficent god
of the moon and of wisdom. But on the whole the endless
versions of the Osiris myth agree on the principal points, and
these are accurately reproduced, although greatly amplified in
Plutarch's Isis and Osiris.
As we have already seen, E e b the earth god and N u t the sky
goddess had four children-two sons, Osiris and Set, and two
daughters, Isis and Nephthys; Isis became the wife of Osiris,
Nephthys of S e t ; Osiris, however, ruled the world as king and
instructed mankind in all that was good. Keb gave him his
inheritance,%The governmel~tover the two Eyypts, . . he made
over to him tile gtridance of the lands to prosperity, awl gare this
land into iilis hand; ,its water, its aiir, its plants, all its hc~ds,all
that $ies and all that hovers, its reptiles and its wild beasts, were
given to the son of Nut, and the two lands were conte?ited thereat.
For Osiris was an excellent ruler, he shone forth on the throne of
liis fathers as the sun, when he arises on the ho~izon,when he
sheds light on those who were i n darkness. H e was just and
established huth i n Egypt; he was moreover (as the Greek
version also states) a great warrior, glorioz~swhen he overthrew
the enemy and powerful when he slew his foes; the fear of him
had jc~lle?~
upon his enemies and hc enlarged the botrndaries ; in the
same way he ruled excellently over the gods, as leader of every
god, with ezcellent laws, the Great Ennead prcrised him, the Lesser
Bnnead loved him. Why Set was his foe is not explained in the
Greek account, perhaps the reason was considered obvious, for
in any oriental royal family of two brothers, if one of them
succeeds to the throne, i t may be taken for granted that t h e
other will be his natural enemy. We are only told that Set
caught Osiris by means of a trick. For a long time he was
unable to injure him, owing to the devoted watchfulness of
Isis : She ,[gas his saJcgr~cwi.dafid .mrded ~ $ e f i ~ m i ~ s , f wzuus
~he
strbtle, tuith a7~ezcellent tongue, her word did notfail and she was
admi~ablein. command. Therefore Set attempted i t by craft,
1 Pyr. Chap. 14 (=W. 236); 15 (=W. 249).

"11
that follows, unless otllerwise specified, is from the hymn to Osiris
on stola 20 of the Bibliothape Nationale. (Leilraiu 21-28.)
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF T H E EARLY PERIOD 33
and 11esucceeded in cornpassing the death of Osiris; if Plutarch's

account inay be believed, 11einduced him as a jest to lay himself
i n a chest, which he then closed and flung into the sea.
S o Isis was desolate and deprived of the kingdom, and did
not knom where her husband's
body was t o bo found. She
soiaght h i m zuitlrout zuccirying;
full of motimi?~g
she t r a ~ e ~ s the
ed
lccncl, and took no r6st n i ~ t i lsl~e
found him. Then she sat down
close to tlie body with her sister
Nepl~tliys and uttercd that
lament ' wl~ichlras become t h c
nodc cl of all funerary lamentations. Co7ne to thy honse, conce
to thy hozise, oh yod On ! Conae
to thy hozcse, thma zulco hust no
enen~ies. Oh bea%~tiful
stviz,ling,
FID. 33. IilS PROI'fi:Crl\lU OSLRIS WITH HiiR
come to thy hozase that than nzayrnlbos. (nculin, S.)
est see 7ise. ?a?,&thy siste~whom
tlzozc lowest; thon si~nltnot abccnclon me. Oh beatateous yozcth, come
to thy TLOZLS~ . . . I see ti~eenot and m y 7~eccvtfeavs for thee,
nsine eyes long f o ~thee . .
Come to her who Zones thee, YDho
loves thee, We?snofia, ti~otablessed o?se. Co71~eto thy sister, conze 60
thy zuqe, t i y tlive,thou ~uhoseheart is still. Come to her who i s
~nist~ess
of thy house. I an& thy sister, burn of the sanse inother,
thou sl~caltnot be fiir frovs nze. Gods ccnrl men tta1.n their faces
tou,arcls ihee, and togelher t1be.y Zewuil thee . I call to thee and
ueey so tiiut i t is h e a d even to heaven, but thou dust no$ hear nuy
voice, and yet I am thy sister whonc thozc lovedst 2ipo11 e a ~ t h !
TiLo~clowedst none beside me, vsy brother, my b ~ o t h e ~ !
Thus she lamented, and the greatest of tlie gods had pity
his sons Ailubis down from
upon h e r ; Re sent tlze f i r t h
heaven: to bury Osiris. He joined together the body, of which
Fro111 Pnpyrus P. 3008 of Berlin, irniiwrr
" Lan~eutationsd'Isis et
. .
do NepIlthys."
"Tl~rtd in the early conceptiolls (NiLt. 511s der Oriental. Sammil. IX. 11,
17) : later Anubis figure8 as cl~ildof Osiris snrl Nephlllys.
34
the members had fallen apart, or (as the later traditions have
it) had been rent asunder by S e t ; wrapped it round with
bandages and carried out all that the later Egyptians performed
for their dead. Isis, however, cazbsed h~eaihto enter into i d , with
s , thus the dead god began to return to life, he
her w i ~ ~ gand
raised his arm, turned himself on one side, and then lifted u p
his head? Although he could not return to his former life on
earth, yet he could enter upon a second existence, and from
being king of mcn, becomo a king of the dead. B u t even upon
earth he was to triumph, for him and the
desolat,e Isis a clian~pionwas yet to arise.
While lsis hovered in tile form of a
sparro~v-hawkover the body of her hosband she became ~ r e g n a n t . ~To escape
the machinations of Set, she thereupon
fled to the swamps of the Delta, and in
this region, a t a spot where later Khemmis
stood, she gnve birth to a boy, Horus,
and nickled the el~ild i n solitzide, no
one lcnew where. The goddess Buto,
protectress of the Delta, took friendly
care of her. Many evils threatened the
child, but the watchfulness and care of
Isis averted then^ all, and there was no
picture more beloved by the Egyptians
than that of this goddess mother holding
her infant on her knco. Horus meanFLO.36. n
~
~ while
~
~grew
.
and flourislled in seclusion,
and when liis a m ?Gas st~onghe fought against Set. It was
a fearflil fight, wllicll cost Horus an eye, and Set wa,s also
severely wounded; 'Thoth, howevcr, separated the assailants
and healed them. H e spat on the eye of Horns and it became
whole ; I-Iorus, however, took the eye and-we must give the
story as it is stated in tradition-gave i t to his father to eat, and
by this offering of filial affection Osiris becan~eanimated and
Cf. the illostratians Mar. Dend. IV. G8 et seq., K8 et seq.
Pyramid. 154. (= T. 277 otc.). Sculptures at Abydos and Dcndernh
(Nar. Dend. IV. SS, 00).
2
RELIGIOUS RELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
35
mighty? So Horus triumphed, and as Isis led hinz into the hall
(fIGb the gods assembled there grcoted him joyfully: Welcome,
HOTUS,
son of Osi~is:cotc~cig~~~s,jt~st,
son of lsis and heir of Dsi~is!
Rut Set brought an action against him, and, according to the
Greek account, disputed thelegitirnacy of his birth, and with that
his right to inhorit. But the great gods held a court of justice,
they seated tl~cn~selvesin
the hall of l i e h , they tried the case, and
tnrned their backs on injustice. I t was found that the word of
N O T ~wus
S tme, the~e.rats given to him the projarty of his father,
and 7 ~ erum~tf o ~ t h cvowned, according to the eoinmand of Keb.
He tool<posscs~ionof t h go.ueriment
~
of boti~lands, and the c~owlzs
rested rbpoa /&is head. I t was a t this tribunal, of which t h e scene
is always designated as the g~eathall of Ileliopolis, that, as the
Egyptian texts col~stnntly affirm, Osiris was in some way
accused by Set and other enemies-but Thoth, god of wisdom,
had adopted his cause, and had made Osiris true of uoice; the
gods doclarcd that Set mas defeated, and Osiris placed his foot
on him. H e then ascended into heaven and now reigns i n the
height, or-when me accept a subterranean kingdom of the
dead-beloji, in the doptlis, over the dead. H e is the $rst of
those who a m in the West, i.e. the dead, while his son EIorus as
first of the living tooli over ttlo government of the earth. With
Horus the world of the present day began, for i t is on his throne
that the kings of Egypt sit as his successors.
This is only a short sketch that we have been able to give, of
t,he legend of O~iris,and there are of course other confused
ideas connected with various conceptions of this n~ultiform
myth. But the reader will not fail to discover in what respect
this legend differs from others, and what rendered it so popular
among the Egyptian people. I t is the human element, the
justification of Osiris, the wifely devotion and n~otllerlove of
Isis, the filial piety of Horus. These captivated the Egyptian
nation at a period which must have been very remote. At the
same time they formed the people's conceptions of the future
life, teaclling them that after death the just and upright were
more valued than those who had possessed authority and power
1 Pyr. 146. ( = T. 173) an 15 ( = W. 267).
is frequeutly mentioned.
Healing hy means of spitting
35
A HANDuOOI< 01; IIGYI'TIAN
RELIGION
on earth. Beginning with matters relating to the dead, these

conceptions of Osiris and Isis, of Horns and Set, extended their
influence more and more widely, until the entire religion was
under their dominion. The most ancient form of religion a t
which we can arrive had been colourcd and transformed by the
Osiris legend, so much so, that we can almost distinguish i t as
an Osirian religion distinct from the belief of prehistoric tilncs
of which we have no record.
From this Osiris legend, and from other legends of the gods
which have now disappeared, the misapplied learning of later
times constructed a history of primeval events in which the
gods are introduced as kings of q7pev and Jowev Egypt, each
one with the number of centuries and years that he reigned.
Iicb, Osiris, Set and Horus follow in order, then Thoth and
h a t ; then all manner of obscure gods, and, finally, the
human kings, the Servants of I T o 7 7 ~ s ,end the primitive period?
These absurdities were carried so far that formal titles were
invented for the gods, similar to thuse borne by earthly kings,
and as early as the beginning of the llidiile Kingdom, Osiris
appears on a gravestone "with two correctly formed royal names :
ZIorzis "who set ~ i g h the
t slaughte7. of the two morlrls," king of
Upper ancl Lower Egypt; " O s i ~ i sWcn7aofi.e."
I t rnust not be overlooked that the first of these names refers
to some part of the Osiris legend which is unlinown to us ; i t
appears as if t h e god, on entering into his kingdom, found Egypt
plunged in wareare, and brought peace to it.
This sketch of the Egyptian religion would not be complete
if we omitted a t the close to mention a being of sacred cl~aracter
who, according to our ideas, was certainly not one of the gods,
and yet in the official religion was reckoned among them from
t h e beginning ; any one reading an inscription of the Old
ICingdom, and finding i t stated that so-and-so for his merits was
beloved of his god, would naturally imagiuc that in some way the
god was intended, whom the aforesaid man, with his lio~~schold,
had served; this, however, is not the case; i t is the king who
is thus designated. And again, when reading a tomb inscripAceor,ling to thr Turin Papyrllu.
Lo,,,.~,! C. 2.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF T H E EAF.LY PERIOD
37
tion of the twelfth dynasty, we gain tlie impression that, t o the

nohles of tliis period, the king was acttially as m11cl1 a divinity s s
were any of the gods; they never weary of glorifying him, and
testifying to their reverence for him, while the gods tliemselves
are only rrientioned incidentally. B u t i t was not a t this period of
rapid al~angesthat this climax of Byzantinis~narose; tlie divinity
of the kings belongs to the primitive dogmas of E g y p t I n two
points only is the king distinguished from tlie actual gods.
While lie, Osiris or Horus arc styled great gocl, tlic king has
to conlent himself with being called good god, and i t is only
after his ilcath that he attains to the higher title. Also during
his lifetime he was accorded no fornial worship with temples,
offelings, and priests, a t any rate not in t l ~ eearly times. I t
must have beer1 a t the close of that period that the following
extravagances of poetical comparison were adopted. The king
is described as the sun god on earth, his palace is the horizon;
when h e sliows lrirnself he arises, when he dies he sets. Thus
lie wears as his diadctn the fire-spitti~lgserpent, which the
sun god boars on liis furchead, and which dcstroys his enernies.
Agnin, the king is compared to Horus, the son of Osiris,
when he sticceeiled his father on the throne as C l ~ i l f of the
living. I n this connection he is called Horzcs, tile Luld of tiie
Pal<iee,and his palace itself is called the solitzctie because Horus
grew u p in solitude. Then again, the king is called the so% of
E e ; i t might he thought t l ~ i ~this
t was only intended t o mean
that the royal house was ultimately descerided from the gods,
and therefore f r o ~ nRe. Rut this is not so; in two temples of
the New Kingdom we find illustrated texts which show 11s how
tliis divine paternity must he undcrstoo(1. When the newly-made
Queen is eslublisi~edin tile beazbty of i~erhonse, the supreme god
approaches her, having tulcen l l ~ eform of her hzidand. She i s
c~zactliedGp the szcecl scent which surrounils him, and snriles on the
god. H e goes to her ancl sl~owsi~imselfto i ~ e ri n his divine form,
and she ez?~ZLsover t l ~ eright of his beaz~tg,and after this, zvhen
t l ~ i god
s i ~ a sclone with her all that he desired, he tells l ~ e rthat
she shall give birth to a son, who shall he king over Egypt. It
1
Ceyut, LU~LXOV,
p1. 71; Neville, Deii. el nniui, pl. 47.
38
will be romen~heredthat an analogy to this extravagant craze is

to be found in the family history of the Hellenistic princes.
The sacred character of the royal house extended also to its
insignia and attrihutes. The various crowns especially appear
as sacred objects, which themselves possess divine powers, and
t h e principal functionary in charge of the royal jewellery serves
i t in the character of a priest?
I n tbe next chapter we hope to show how this deification of
the king is apparent in the temple scenes, where he appears
among the gods as the sole representative of the world.
CHAPTER I1
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
WE cannot here attempt to describe all the reli,'OlOUS

ceremonies, to discuss the various plans of the temple
buildings, or to define the distinctions between the different
orders of priests; the inlmense mass of material renders i t
impossible to do so. We must confine ourselves to a rapid
review of some of the must important characteristics of the
outward forms of the Egyptian religion.
When the Egyptian named hip temple the house of the god,
the name was a literal exprossion of his belief: the deity dwelt
in the temple, as a man lives in his house, and the priests,
t i ~ eservants of the god, who supplied him with food and attendance, wore his household servants. This appears also in the
religious ceremonies, and perhaps in the arrangement of the
temple buildings-although
in historical times this belief can
have been little more t l ~ a nan obsolete idea.
Each to~nple rnust originally have been dcdicated to one
single deity who was considered to be its lord, but owing to the
natural anxiety to secure the favour of other gods for the city
others were added as secondary deities, and in the greater
temples their numbers steadily increased in the course of centnries. Two of these, a goddcss and a god, were generally regarded
as the wife and child of the principal deity. 'rbus Ptah of
Mempliis had Sekhmet for his consort, and Xefer-tern for his son,
and Amon liad Mut assigned to him as wife, and the moon god
Khons as his child. The goddesses had at least one child : t l ~ u s
Harhor of Denderali had the boy Ehi, and BII~O
a god Horus.
Of the temples of the earliest period, which, as \ve have already
seen (p. 6), consisted merely of simple liuts, nothing has of
39
40
A HAN1)ROOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
course survi~edto our times, but of the great buildings of early

historical tirnes also very little remains, for during the long
coarse of centuries they wero so frequently rebuilt, restored,
and enlarged, that as a rule only occasional blocks of stone
remain in evidence of the original construction. Nevertheless,
from the scanty remains of these early temples which exist here
and there, we can form a correct idea of their original plan. In
appearance they were essentially the same as the groat buildings
wliich later arose in their place. Tile form anciently given to
a temple remained the model for all periods, ancl if we now
proceed to describe a temple of the New Kingdom, i t is with
the certainty that our description applies equally to one of the
early period.
A t tile present day we are acclistomed to see the magnificent
ruins of Egyptian temples situated in open spaces or on cultivated
ground, and we involuntarily picture them in ancient days among
such surroundings. I n reality, however, these temples were inside
the towns, amidst t h e medley of buildings and t h e narrow filthy
streetsof a southern city. The noisy bustle that went on around
thein was shut out by the high wall that enclosed the precincts,
and rcndarecl them pure atid peaceful spots in the midst of an
impure and noisy world. A t ono time the way to the ter~iplewas
through tile streets of t l ~ etown, but i t was necessary to make a
more open road for the converlience of the processions at festivals.
For this a straight broad load of the god \\.as carried right tlirouyh
the inhabited quarter, and lined on both sides with statues of
rams, lions, or other sacred animals, as though they were intended
to form a guard of stone to ward off the crowds from the road of
t h e god. At the point where this road reached the surrounding
wall of tlie temple, rose the great gateway, the so-called pylon,
an enormous entrance flanked by two high tonsers with sloping
walls.
Behind this gateway lay the first large space, an open court
surrounded by colonnades. Here the great festivals were
celebrated, in which a large number of' the citizens were entitled to take part. Behind this conrt there was a hall supported
by columns, the place appointed for all manner of ceremonies,
aud hehind this again lay the holy of holies, the chamber where
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 41

the statue of the god had his dwelling. I n adjoining apartments
were the statues of tire wife and son of the god. This was the
essential part of a temple; naturally thcre would be various
additional chambers to contain the sacred utensils, and for special
purposes of the religious cults. A further characteristic of every
temple is that from front to rear each apartmcnt was less lofty and
light than the preceding. Into the
court thc Egyptian sun blazed with uninterrupted spienclonr; in the hall its
light was admitted to a modified extent through the entrance and through
windows in the roof; in the holy of
holies reigned profoundest darkness.
The decorations of the temple were
essentially the same in all cases. The
walls and columns were adorned with
brilliantly coloured reliefs, and with
inscriptions no less brightly coloured ;
on tlie outside walls were represented
the deeds of the king who built the
temple; inside the scenes referred to
tlie cult of tlie god, and pictured the
events that occui~edevery day within
those walls. I n front of the pylon, on
the outside, stood the obelisks, two
stone pillars, such as no doubt i t was
tlie custom to place i n front of other pie. 87. anouaD-I~LAaur THE T P ~ , ~
buildings. Behind them, on the wells
O" R"'lsE"'li.
of the pylon, there rose four high masts, from whose summit
waved bright-coloured flags. I n front of the gateway or inside
the court therewere seated colossal statues of the king,as protector
of the sanctuary built by him. Other statues disposed in the
different parts of the temple show him worshipping the god
with prayers or offerings. Statues of other gods were often
placed in the temple, as though they were intended to serve
its great lord, such as Nile gods, who bring liim the products of thcir waters, or lion-headed Sekhmet, to ward off
liis foes.
~ E
42
A HANDBOOIC O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
The great altar, which was merely a raised space on which

food was laid, stood most usually in the centre of the colon~~aded
court; smaller tables on which food and drink could be placed
were provided in other parts of the temple.
This, as we 11ave described it, is the usual type of the Egyptian temple, which we find almost everywhere, although in
certnin cases the plan may be greatly altered owing to additional
buildings or to the peculiar conditions of the building site, or to

other special circumstances. There is, however, a snlall number
of tcmples entirely divcrgont from this type which we must not
omit to mention, as i t includes the temple of Abu Gurab, which
has so greatly enriched the Berlin hfuseum. These are the
temples of the sun of the fifth dynasty, which have been supposed,
with some degree of probability,' to be copies of t.he celebrated
temple of the sun at Heliopolis, which is lost to us. According
to tradition the kings of the fifth dynasty were descended from
a high-priest of Re, and, in fact, we find that they accorded
special honours to that god. Most of these kings built a new
sanctuary for him close to the royal city, a t wi~ichthe most
I follo~v here inforination eammunieated verhaliy by Professor
Sehifer.
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 43
important personages of the court officiated as high-priests.

These temples, which bore names sue11 as f c i ~ o t c ~ i tdwelling
e
of Be, were large open courts, at the further end of which stood
an immense obelisk on a substructure of pyramidal form ; this
was the principal part of the temple, and was no doubt regarded
as the dwelling of the god; possibly i t was a copy of the eelebrated Benben stone at IIeliopolis, whicll was of similar form.
I n front of the obelisk there stood the grcat altar of the god :
in addition the court merely contained some small offices
necessary for the cult, so that the morship of the god was
carried on in the open air. Tile decorations of the temple
on the whole did not differ greatly from those usually employed
but in one of the side passagcs which led to the base of the
obelisk the pictured scenes differed entircly : the seasons of
the year are bringing offerings to the king of all the events
of each period, both on land and water, the growth of the
plants, the inrrease of animals, the labours of mankind. I t
is possible that these lively scenes found a place in thc temple
because i t is the sun god who causes all things to live and
increase.
If these sanctuaries of Re existcd without a special cultus
statue, because the obelisk was revered as a dwelling-place
of the god; according to Egyptian idcas this in itself was a
strange departure from accepted custom, for in every other cult
the statue of' the god was the most important object in the
temple. On it rested-as later inscriptions state-the s o d of
the god when it came out of heaven, as upon its body?
Frequently, ho\\,ever, as these cultus statues are referred to, and
many as are the copies of them that we possess, both large and
small, yet not one of them appears to have survived to our day;
all seem to have fallen victims to the hatred of the Christians
at the downfall of the Egyptian religion. I n the later temples,
however, we possess descriptions and representations from which
we can form an accurate idea of them. The temple of Hathor
of Dendera possessed, among others, the following sacred
properties :
Diimicllcn, Temp. Inscr. xxv. ; Iltirniehen, Resultate, 38-41,
44
A HANDB001< OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
H a t l ~ o paiiated
~,
(1) tuoorl, eoppe~,inlaid eyes, heigl~t 3 eli.;,
4 spans, and 2 Ji~zyers.
Isis, painted acacia tuood, eyes inlaid, lzeigl~t1 ell.
IJO~ILS,
painted touorl, inlaid eyes, heiglzt 1 ell and 1 jinger.
Butu, pninted tooorl, yuld e p s , heiyl~tl ell, etc?
These ancient sacred statues wero, therefore, not of great size
-by far the greater nunlber wero only one ell, i. e. 16 inches
high, arid as a rule were made of wood. I t was imperative that
figures of the god should be drawn about a t festivals, and this it
would not be possible t o do with t h e heavy stone statues. Then
again, most of the figures of the gods were formed on the same
model, and were only distinguisl~edby the different heads,
crowlrs, and attributes. The beard was a plaited tress with t l ~ c
end turnod up, similar to that worn a t the presont day by the
tribes of Central Africa. If the clothinc was renresented.
it
L
generally consisted, in the case of
the gods, of a peculiar short garment suspeniled by straps over t h e
shoulders, while the goddesses wore
the usual female attire. I n the
case of certain figures of the primitive period, that of Ptab, for instance
(see p. 17), the clothing is not
indicated, and the figures have
much the appearance of mummies.
The usual abode of the god was
his chapel, in the last and most
sacred apartment of the temple.
This cllapcl was frequently~nadeout
of one single block of hard granite,
which surrouniled t h e sacred statue
with a n impenetrable wall; in
front a bronze framework was inserted and fitted with doublecloors.
The place where this chapel stood,
the great pl~cceas it was called, was
now tile spot where tile daily ceremonies were conrlucted.
' Dumicllen, Reatdtnte, 3 - 3 6 ;
39-40,
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF T H E IIARLY 1'EKIOI)
45
Early in the morning the officiating priest stood in front of

tlie holy of holies and commenced his performance, which in
itself might have been completed in half-an-hour, but which
must have lasted for hours, as every separate action had to be
divided into a number of different actions, and each one of these
had to be accompanied by a long speech. Would that there had
been in these long speeches some trace of feeling for the sacredness of the place, tlie nlajesty of tbe god ; but all personal feeling
had long disappeared from this ritual, and i t was celebrated in a
way that could not well have been more absurd, as though the
whole religion in every temple consisted only of the history of
Horus and Set, and that of Osiris. When the pricst loosened
the sealed cord that closed the cliapel, he had to say: The cord
is brolien, and the seal loosened-I come, and I bring to thee the
cye o j Horns, ll~ineege belongs to thee, Iior?cs. Further, when he
broke the clay of the seal, he said : the clii?j is loosclzed, the waters
of hecivelz are opened, tlie veins of Osiris are stretcl~ed out-I
do not colne to clrive cizuay tile god fronb his t l i r o ~ ~ eI; come to set
the god on his lhrone. Thou remainest on thg grent throne, god
N., I have access (?) to the gods-an offering which the king
gives-I a11b pure. H e then draws the bolt ; t l ~ ejlinger of Set
that is excellent. TIeilc$nger of
is mithdra~unfrom tho eye of HOTZLS,
Set is withdrawn frorrc tlee eye of H O I . ~ Ithat
S , is excellent. I loosen
the lcal1~erbehind tlie god. Oh god N., take lliy truo feuthe~sand
Ihy white crotun oz~tof the IIomcs eye, lire rigl~teye out of the
right eye, t l ~ elefi eye atit of t l ~ eleft eye, T h y beauty belongs tu tl~ee,
oh gocl N. ; ti~u?cnakerE one, clothe thysev . . . I am a liriest, tlze
Icing hin~selJ sends me, that I nza?j behold the god. Atid now, as
the doors open, and tlre god is revealed, the priest says, TIE
gates of heaven o22en, the gates of e a ~ t hccre nndone. IZolnage (?)was
paid to ICeh when the gods said to him, l' Tho~cd~uellest2qon thy
throne." The gc~tesof heaven are opened, calid tile nine gods appear
radiant, the god A'. is exalted upon his grent tierone, and tlee great
Ewzead is czc~lted zipon their great throne. 2 ' 1 ~beanty
~
belongs to
thee, oh god N., tl~o7a naked one, clothe tl~gsel$ . . We do not
understand all of these sentences, but what we do understand
are a l ~ ~ a ythe
s same scanty ideas; the I o m s eye as the prototype of a11 gifts (p. 34). Set, who wounded Horus in the eye,
RE1,IGIOUS CUSTOMS O F THE EARLY PERIOD 47

correct time before the god. It is well known that otherancient
nations sought to ensi~retheir offerings reaching the deity by
burning thcm, and in Egypt also this custom was not unknown,
h u t judging from the evidence of tlie later period we find i t
always rcmained the exception, and as the food ~vouidcertainly
not be allowed to be wasted, some use niust havo been found for
it. From thc grave inscriptions welearn of one method of disposing of i t which can only have been a make-believe. The dead
desired t o share in the food from the altar of the god, nfterll~egod
hr~dsati.s$ed 7~imseZjt1~e~muith.lThus i t is evident that the divine
offerings were subsetlnentiy presented to tho distinguished dead
of whom thcre was n stntne in the tenlple (cf. cllap. v.). I n
the same way a xian of the New Kingdom desired that his
body might be wrappcd in clotliing, of tiiat w i ~ i c lthe
~ god hccd
taken qf; thus the bandages in ~ v l ~ i ctho
h statue of the god was
daily wrapped could also be offered to the dead as new clothing.
B u t without doubt the ordinary use of tho offerings, and one of
which no mention is made, must have been that tlie priests
appropriated them for their own us0 and that of their honseholds, \\,lien they had lain a sufficient length of time before the
god. O n feast days the assembled crowds in the temples
shared this food and the festivals endcd with a general banquet.
A record of the New Kingdom3 also tells us that different
provision was made for the different ranks of the visitors : meals
ready arranged were brought t o t h e god of good byead, meat,
cakes, ancl jlnt loaves, and of these 15 were in s1bo.u baskets,
35 in golrl bns7ccts, and 895 in food basiccts. While these and
other good things mere enjoyed by the princes and high
officials, the ordinary visitors to the festival of many days'
duration received 90,250 ordinary loavcs as provisions.
As we have already seen, it was part of tlie regular duties of
the priests to extol the god in songs in the daily ceremonial as
well as a t great festivals. We do not know whethcr these songs
were merely reciteil or whether they were also sung; but we
Fur instance, Cairo, 20514 ; 20542.
Tomb of P a h e ~ i . BLKah. PI. ix. 4.

VIIarris Papyrus, 17a, 14 at s q . , to the crld of the list of the feast of
Medinet Habu.
49
of tile harem were accustomed to do, whcri dancing before their

lord. It w,w the same with dancing, when occasionally a t
special religious festivals the people expressed their joy by
leaping and jumping.
There was no temple whicli did not celebrate some such
festival. As a rule there were one or more principal feasts,
celebrated on appointed days, when some of the most important
events of the history of the god had occurred, perhaps the day
when he was born, or on which he had defeated his enemies.
Also they woulcl celebrate the beginning of periods of time, such
as New Year's day, or the first of the month. On these days,
when tbe wbole tomn is in fcstiunl as was said, t h e religious
ceremonies were more ornate in charactcr. The ritual was enriched with special hymns, thc temple was decorated, and there
would also be an illumination, a lighting of lamps, both there
and in the town. The offerings, as we have alreaiiy remarked,
would be so greatly increased that even the throng of guests
who had crowded to thc temnlc for the festival could be
sufficiently supplied. The
principal business on such
a day was, however, that
the people shol~ldbehold
the beauty of their. lord;
that the statue of the god
slioulcl be exhibited. It
was taken out of its chapel,
and carried out of the holy
of l~oliesin a light slirine,
accompanied by priests
bearing a number of sacred
objects and syn~bois on
sbaves. The slirine was
then set down to be razed
42. PORTABLE S X R I N B O P UBOh-Z& AND WOOD.
a+
,, a t
places in &llo F"'. Prrsent%d
A m ~ a i sto 9 Temple at Tllabes.
(sedin, 8708.)
fore-part of the temple, or
in the town, on stone pedestals, somewhat similar in form to
tbe Greek altars; incense was burnt, and prayers and offerings
made to it. At last came the great moment, when the hangings
4
0
which closed in t h e sides of the slirine were withdrawn by

the priests, and when the excited crowd could hail with shouts
tiie small statue, which in tlieir eyes was the most sacred
object in thc worlcl.
The litter on which the slirino was borne was frequently
inade in the forrn of a ship, for the Egyptians, wliose traffic,
owing to the nature of the country, was almost entirely conducted by water, looked on the ship ns the natural mode of
transpo~t. The god would also possess an actual ship, in case
lie had to cross tiie Nile for a festival, or, as so~lletimeshappened,
he had occasion to visit the fiiendly god of another city. As a
rule the processions on feast days did not travel so far; they
relnaincd in the rieighbourliood of the temple, and nlacle their
way perhaps to a second temple in the town or to some other
sacred place. The reason why such and such a place should be
visited, and that such and such customs shonld be observed
there, may be sought in the trarlitions coucerning the god, for
the festival was frequently the celebration of some special day
in his life. This led in very early times to the performance of
scenes taken from the legends of the god. Thus me learn from
a memorial stone i n the Berlin museum that a distinguished
treasurer who held office at Abydos under Scsostris III., and
who took part in the Osiris festivals, twice had the honour of
overth~owi7zgthe ene7izies of Osi~is,on one occasion on t7~eday of
the g ~ e a lst7ife. llan~scsIV., however, kindled in the same
his r~rummytuns enrbnln~cd.
place a light to Osi~ison tile day 107~en
He clrmo Set atoc~y~ + O ? I L ~ L ~ T IuL~, l ~ ehen ?uot~ldhave ~olibcdhisn of
7Lis lim,hs. Ile established 7~isson Horris as heir to his th~one.
And a t the Horus festival a t Abydos the same king spat on
his eye c f t e ~it hacl been seized by h i m who 7~adsxrbrlt~edh i m (see
p. 34). He gave hi713 the th~o71eof his fathey and 7Lis heritage in
the whole land. He made his word trz~e (see p. 35) on the
dny of gizriny judgment. He catiscd h i m to pass through Egypt
and the ~ e dland as the rep~esentative gf Ha~-af:7~te.' A t
another performance, the feast of t h e setting up of the Osiris
column (p. lC), which was originally performed a t Memphis, one
Ste1.z Ramses IV., Cairo (Mar. Ab. 11. 64-66),
Rl<LIGIOUS CUSTOMS O F THE EARLY I'ERIOII
jt
of these colunins was raised by cords until i t stood upright. I t

was Osiris who was thus raised up, after a representation of his
burial had been acted on the previous day. This ended with
performances, the rneaning of which we cannot grasp. Some
part of tlie crowd leapt and danced, others fell upon his
neighbour, and he who did so called out, I hava seized HOTUS;
again, other groups pomn~elled each other with sticks a r ~ d
fists, some represented the two towns of Pe and Dep, out
of which tlic aiicient capiti~lof Buto arose; and finally four
herds of oxen and asses were driven fnur times round the town?
We know too little of thesc legends
to be able to understand the whole
of this. I t is probable that these
were preliminaries preceding the
eutlironcnient of Horus, wliich was
performed on the following day.
As a fact tlicse performances were
later coinbilled with another, that
roferrcd to tlie coming to the throne
of the eartllly king, to his jubilee,
the celebrated Sed fe:tst, which was F,o, ,
(c,ca
, TRn
celebrated for the first time thirty ys;d.c;L,;;,il;l;i~ ot Jubilee. (Proan
years after his appointment as
szbccesso? lo tho ~ ? L T o and
~ , was then repeated every three years.
Of what a multitnde of offerings, burnings of incense, and processions this great festival consisted, which statues of the gods
were placed in their shrines, and which were carried about on
poles, what priests and what nobles of the kingdorn took part
therein, and how finally the king seated himself in a special
festal hall, first on ono throne, ant1 then on another; all this
was set forth in long rows of scenes in various temples, presuinably in that one wlicre the king in question celebrated his
festival.
I t cannot have appeared strange to an Egyptian that this
royal festival should be of s religious character, for was not his
king n god, and in the temples and in the service of the gods he
must have been accustomed to hear of the king and of the king
,.
' Bmgsch, Ti~esic~orrs,

1100 et ~ e q .
,,,,
52
only. And here we meet with one of the niost remarkable

aspects of the Egyptian religion.
From the very first the rulers of Egypt considered tl~emselves
bound to present gifts $0 the more important temples of their
dominions, and to provide for their building; this was for them
a natural obligation. Fnrthermore i t became the custom, in any
temple which had been riclily endowed by a king, to implore
the blessing of the gods upon him before all others, while the
temple inscriptions and scenes served as a perpetual reminder
of him. But, strangely enough, the fiction soon arose that every
temple was built exclusively by the king and was also supported by him, so that all that was contributed by the devout
citizens, and tile revenues belonging to the temple, were entirely
ignored. This continued througliont all periods, and even the
Greek kings and Roman emperors were pleased to figure as the
builders of all the temples tliat arose during their reigns.
But what was this fiction compared with the monstrous conception which in all the temples caused the king alone to take tlie
place of mankind. For the official religion as it was accepted in
the temples, there existed only the god and the Icing; he served
them, he built their temples, and made offerings to them, and
for
they rewarded their beloved son for his pious devotion with
ntillions of years, with victory over his enemies and everlasting
fame. The gods arc no longer the gods of the Egyptian people,
they are the gods of Pharaoh the+ son. And this relation of the
sovereign to the deities is carried yet fartl~er. If the king built
a temple he did it not so mnch from devotion to the god, as for
his own future glorification. Ee has made this as Itis monzm~ent,
thus begins every dedicatory inscription from the earliest times,
and then follows the name of the temple which t l ~ eking has
built to the god his fc~the~.Certainly these are set phrases and
inherited customs, but that s u ~ phrases
h
and custorns could have
been evolved during the growth of tlie nation, and that later no
one should have found them incongruous, is an undeniable proof
of tlie poverty of this official religion.
I t is a natural result of this idea that the temple scenes give
the i~npressionthat the priests are not present, but that t h e
king takes their place. On all the walls the offerings and cere-
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS O F T H E EARLY PERIOD
53
monies are represented as they mcro performed before the god,

but it is always the king who is officiating. Although we can
understand that the Bing on some special occasion may have
occasionally exercised priestly functions, yet that he slro~~ld
have
taken part in the ceremonies of the countless temples of his
dominions can only have been a theoretical possibility. The
acttial performers at the Egyptian ceremonies must have been
the priests, even though they represented themselves in the
rituals as nlerely the delegates of the king.'
The natural relationsliip imposed on the more important
families by tho charge of a sanctuary which had existed in their
town since the rnemory of man, prevailed i n Egypt in the
earliest times, and spin in the hfiddle Kingdom we find in the
greater temples that the priesthood remained in certain families,
whose members generally adopted i t as a secondary profession.
And here we specdily arrive a t another development; certain
priestly orders are connected with certain professions. T h ~ l s
the high judicial functionaries of the Old I<ingdom are a t the
same time priests of the goddess of trnth, the plrysicians are
priests of Sekl~met,the great artists are priests of Ptah.
A t the head of every tetnple mas a high-pricst who acted as
overseer of all the suered o$ices, lie is initinted into divine hoolis
n?~ddiviq~ctl~ingsancl gives directions to the p~iestsas ~eyulating
the festivals. H e has n lotid voice taize~zhe prnises tile yod and a
p w e hand tu7~enhe briqzgs Jvwers and offers ?uate? ancl food upon
the altacz The administration of the temple property is incumbent on him, and in war he has also to comn~ar~d
the coiltingent
provicled by his temple.
I n the great sanctuaries these high-pricsts frequently bore
special antiquated titles. Thus a t Heliopolis the high-priest
was called He taho is g ~ e a it n bcholtding, perhaps because he could
behold a t pleasure the beauty of his lord, i. e, the statue of the
god ; while a t Eslrmnn811 he was great of ti~efive. A t Mcmphis,
where Ptah the god of artificers was worshipped, the title of the
high-priest was t i ~ echief of tl~ea~ti/kers,and in the Old Kingdom
he held the position of snperintendent of scrilpture and all such
Mariotte, Aliljdos, I. 24.
Siut. I. 216-217; 237-230.
"ririffith,
54
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN KE1,IGION
artistic work; i t appears that originally this combination of

s p i r i t ~ ~ aand
l worldly offices was shared by two persons, but
towards the cnd of the Old Kingdom the king transferred evey
di&e affair, and e v e y duty that 7 0 ~ ~ins cha~geof $he two hig1~p~iests,to Teti-Sabu, because his rrrajesty trusted him especia1ly.l
The important position held by such high-priests was denoted by
the peculiar decoration worn by them, of n ctiaractcr which, as the
accompanying sketch shows, must evidently have dated from the earliest times.
I n the sn~allertemples all those acccssories were of course less insisted on, and
the dynasts of provincial towns were
generally contented with the title Shyeriiztendent of the p~iests.
These "priests" (literally divine scrvants) were not all of the same class.
There were the lC)~erLeri~eb,
whose duty
appears to liave been to read the ancient
--~rituals at the ceren~onies,and whose
TIC:. 41. XICB-ERIEST<ii l B N P R l S ( second title, ,ScTibe
di?jilLehooks,
U l T H U l C O D I T I D Y ON T l i E BREAST
A N D WITR T E I ~
LooK.
designates them clearly as learned stu( B a r l l ~ 12410.)
,
dents of the ancient sacred literature.
What were the original functions of the so-called mc'b priests
is shown by the name, which is derived from the word for "pure " ;
we find them in sacrificial scenes, after examining thc blood of
the imimal, declaring that i t is p77a7.e. Other priestly titles which
are frequently mentioned, such as that of the c h i n e falhela, offer
no explanation of their meaning.
As we have said, for the greater number of tlrcse clerics the
priesthood was only a snbsidiary occupation; they f o r r ~ ~ ethe
d
h o u ~ l ypeesthood of the temple or, as we Inay perhaps express
it, alternating priests, who were divided into four sets, and
alternately relieved each other in their duties. This a t any rate
was the system during the Middle Kingdom, when we have
clear information regarding these matters, more especially from
deeds belonging to a temple built by Sesostris 11. to Anubis, in
1
Mariette, Mnstnbus, E. 3
55
the town close to his pyramid. These papyri, which arc now at
Berlin, inform ns that in addition to eight minor officials tho
permanent staff of the temple consisted only of the prince n7~d
snpel.intende?~tof the ten%ple(i.e. the high-priest) and the cl~itf
kherl~eli,who were thus the ailnlinistrators of the temple property
and tho directors of the ceremonies; nine other priests took
of cli~sses,a teinple sc~ihe,
regular turns there ; a supe~intenrZe?~t
an o ~ d i i r a ~iiherheb,
y
etc., and each time one of these classes
entered on their duties, they took over the sanctuary and all its
contcnts from the outgoing class, and relieved thorn of their
cllarge.
It will be seen that the power of the lay element in reli,'mous
niatters was not absent, notwithsta~ldingtlie fiction of the king
as sole pricst. The laity were specially prominent in the worship of tlie goddesses; almost every lady of early timcs styled
herself a priestess either of Neit or of Hathor.
I n this active participation of the people in the religious
corcmonies there lay a security that, indopcndcntly of the official
religion, the relationsliip of individaals to their gods should not
be lost. Those who were not connected with tlie temple as
priests, might yet have i t in their power to pray and offer
sacrifices there to the god of the city.
CHAPTER I11
RELIGIOUS B E L I E F S AND CUS'I'OMS O F 'CH); NEW XINGDOhI
DURINGthat earliest period, the religious beliefs of wliicli me

sketched in our first chapter, the roligion of the Egyptian
nation hccame more and more cornpliratcd. The principal
gods of the people were worshipped as local gods undor various
names. I n the historical period this particularism came to an
h
for many
end owing to the fact that at three periods, ~ i ~ h i clasted
centuries, the whole country was united in one great commonwealth. This drew the religion into closer unity, and thus
much which originally belougcd to ono town only, became
gradually t h e common property of the whole nation. The
earliest example of such dissemination we have already (p. 27)
seen in the Osiris myth; as early as the Old Kingdom the
belief in this god of the dead prevailed from the Delta to
Elephantine, and in Memphis, Sokar, the ancient local god of
the dead, appeared only as another name of Osiris. After the
Middle Kingdom we meet with other similar comhinotions, even
among gods who originally had no connection with each other.
I n the temple at Koptos the goddess Mut of Thebes was called
a t one time Bast, and at another time Sekhmet of Memphis,'
although she was neither cat- nor lion-headed, but fignred as a
vulture. A t the same period the gocl Min of Koptos was forced
to appear merely as another name for the universnlly beloved
Horus. H e is called the son of O s i ~ i sand
, arnong other borrowed
phrases, it is related of him that ?&c chastised ?Lis foes, and
protected his father . . . seized t l ~ oc~ozun,and that the i n h e ~ i t ance of his f a t l ~ ewas
~ given to
Wit11 the sun god also,
the great ruler of t h e morld, were combined deities who
l Petrie, Roptos, X. 2 ; p 12.
Mariotte, Cat. d'Ahydos, 813.
56
BELIEFS AN11 CUSTOMS Olr NEW IClNGDOM
57
tiad nothing in common with him, possibly a t the time when

the kings of the fifth dynasty venerated R e before all other
gods; Khnum god of Elephantine, Sobk the ancient water
god, and Amon of Thebes were transforlved into Khnum-Ro,
Sohk-Re, arid Amon-Re. Few of these combinations can have
become popular, but a different
fate awaited tho most important
of them all, and for a thousand
years the hybrid Anion-Re remained tho foremost of all the
Egyptian gods.
During the early period, the
town of Thebes in Upper Egypt
was so unimportant that the ancient religious texts do not refer in
any way to i t or its gods; neither
did the ancieut chiefs of the neighbourhood revere its god Amon, but
worshipped Mont, the god of tlie
neighbouring Hermonthis. I t was
only in the Middle Kingdom, when
t,wo families came to the throne,
4" A X O W - " E P I A N D I N 0 i l l Z SICLI;I<both of
were of Theban ori- "'C.
S l l i P E D srvoiin To THE KLNO, *V,> U,<.
I"Lnrr"
N f l I O N S TO ,',,I.
gin-they bore such names as He (proln tileroKrIoN
~~~~~l~ afodiliet a s h u . )
of Amon, and Amon on ihe sumobit
-that attention was turned to Amon. I t is true that he was
not ttie god of the royal city, for that was situated in Middle
Egypt in the vicinity of the Fayum, but an immense temple was
built for him. Amon became an important provincial god, and
so did his consort Nut, who was also called Amaunet, a feminine
form of the name Amon. She came to the fore with her husband,
and, as we have already remarked, was also merged in a compound form, with Bast and Sekhmet. But the great period for
tho Theban deities dawned with the beginning of the New
Empire.
During the confusion which follott~dthe twelftb dynasty, and
during tlie foreign rule of the Hyksos, Thobes was the residence
of a princely fiamily, who worshipped Amon-Re, as he was
58
-4 HANIIBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
henceforth called. I t was this family that srlccecded in driving

out the Hyksos, and as they acquired possession of tlie wliolc of
the country, and made Thebes their royal residence, i t naturally
followed that Amon-Re, the icing of tl~egods, should fort,llmitli
become the official god of the kingdom. Fate also decreed that
these kings who had raised Amon-Re to siicli prol~linencc
should also allot him a degree of power wliicli had hitherto
been quite unexampled in Egypt. From tile Enphrates far
away to the Soudan, all countries paid tribute to tile Pharaoh,
and over the whole of this immense territory the fanie of tlie
god was spread abroad. With some of tlie wealth wliich flowed
into Egypt, these Pharaohs arid their descen~lantsalso built tlie
colussal temples of Thebes, as thanlroiTeriugs for thc victories to
which he had led them, and in other towns of thcir dominion
they built sanctuaries to him, so that in evcry place thc god of
the ruling house might be worsliipped. 'Ttius for a long time
lie was the supreme deity, although originally lie was merely an
artificial conception, and possesscd little individuality which
was riot borrowed froni other gods.
There is a hymn of the New Kingdom in which this god, toith
many nanaes tuithozcl nz~mber,' is adored, and in reading it, one
cannot fail t,o notice that, setting aside his name, and the
mention of Karnali, there is not much else wliich directly refers
to Amon. What there is consists only of various plays on his
name, as Chief of naanlzind, tulzosc name js secret (ccinon)fronz his
cl~ildrcn,and a mention of his lofty plt~mes.~What is actually
said of him belongs peculiarly to two other dcities whose nanles
are connected with him-Min and RC. When i t is said of him
that the gocls love his savour when he cornesfo7.tizflom Punt (the
land of incensc) and that he is rich i n sweet scents zohen he
.reltcrns f?:ona the Z C L I L ~ of the iMatoi, or when lie is called the
Horz~sof the .Vast ,for whom the desert provides gold and silve~,
and lapis lazuli dt his desire, all manner of incense in, the land of
the dfatoi, and fresh mywh Jor his nost~ils,these are all things
which arc said in extolling his neighbour, Min of Koptos, the
1
Hymn to Amon, Cairo, 9, 3.
All that follows where not olher>vise noted is taken from the hymn
to A~rronat Cairo.
60
Glory to thee," says every wild ereatu?e. " Pmise to thee," says
every desert. (I'hy beauty cciptivates the hearts. The love of thee
enfeebles the a?ms, and t?~?/beautift~leountnnnnee (?)eanseth the
hands to sink; the sight of thee eaz~scsthe heart to forget.
And in this cha~acterof the all-beneficent sun god, the living
lamp, u,hich ~isesfiom o2~tthe ocean o f heaven,' Amon attained
real popularity. The
officials prayed to him
for p r o m o t i ~ n , ~the
oppressed trusted in
liim,for he is the vizio~
of the 27007; who takes
no bribes, and who
also does not corrupt
the witnessos."ny
cautious person making a promise added
these words: VAnzon
pa?v&its n u t o livo.'
Nevertheless the
sun god, from wliom
Amon has borrowed
all this, does not disappear from the sight
of his people. Now,
as before, he is mentioned without hesitation in conjunction
with Amon, as a separate god, and they
Fig. 40. r a n ~ s r D, E D ~ C A T I D nu A h r ~ x.inr~;o
s
n ~ a - r r ~ m r , are represented
TO A l l O N - R E , roll IIEALIINO d P E n T I U I .
(Bellin, 7356.)
hv side. In the lnraver
"
mith which letters are commenced, the person addressed is
aI\vays committed in the first place to Re Har-akhte, and only
secondarily to Amon; also his name was employed to swear by,
and finally, in the myths, Re Har-althte remains, as; formerly,
the ruler of the world and of men.
' Paheri, 9,1. An. 4, 10, 5. Bol. 1092, 2, 3.
Turin, IF, 3.
"
BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS OF NEW KINGDOM
61
I t was only natural that the other gods of Egypt should be

somewhat thrown into the shade during this period of thc
supremacy of Amon-Re both in the State and among the people,
even if their cults were still observed to some considerable
extent. I t was inevitable that tho priests and worshippers of
the ancient gods should resent this. Had not Ptah of Memphis
and Aturn of Heliopolis previoosly been the supreme gods, when
nothing was lrnolvn of Amon, god of that obscure town of
Thebes ? Was i t right that all these other gods should be overshadowed? I t was a matter of course that snch jealousies
should arise, and had it not been for the existence of a strong party
antagonistic to the god, the great upl~eavalwl~ichwe must now
consider, and hy which the power of Re was overthcown, a t least
for a time, could only have been carried out with greatest
difficulty. This upheaval is the so-called religious reform of
Amenophis IT., the most remarkable episode we meet wit11 in
the history of ancient Egypt. Unfortunately oar information
with regard to tbis period is of the slightest ; it consists only of
what we can gather and recover from the inscriptions, and of
these the revengeful jealousy of the priests took care that little
should survive for the future. Nevertheless we may, witliout
excessive rashness, seek the cause of these events in tlle extraordinary conditions which prevailed at tbat time in Egypt.
The war against Syria was followed in thc fifteenth century by
an undisturbed period in which Egypt cxercisod her immense
power and acquired a position in the civilized world of that
time to which she had never before attained. All this would
necessarily produce an impression on the people, and in a short
time a greater change occurred in feeling and ideas than
centuries had hitherto produced. Tlle l~orizonof t.11e nation had
widened, and there began a breaking u p of the old rigid and
narrow-minded Egypt. Canaan and Syria now belonged to tile
great empire, their princes lived a t the Egyptian court, and
since commerce and communication had rendered the Egyptians
familiar wit11 their foreign ideas and language, i t was no longer
possible for them to be contemned as vile Ba~ba~ians. The
position of the kings also was radically altered; the Pharaoh
could no lo~lgerbe exrlnsively the lord qf the two Egypts, the
62
A IiANl)BOOI< OF EGYPTIAN RET,IGION
follower of Horus; he became a human king like his neighbours, the kings of Mitani and Babylonia. This appears forcibly
in the case of Amenophis 111, whose long and pcacefiil reign
was followed by the great upheaval. Although, as tradition
compelled, he is stilt represented in the temple as a deini-god,
on the great scarabs which he caused to he made to celebrate
remarkable events of his reign, he permits the entirely human
side of his career to appeal:
As tl~oughhe were no Egyptian king lie tells 11s how lie
slew 110 lions, that he chased a herd of wild oxen, and that
a daughter of the king of Mitani was sent to liim accompaniecl
by 317 maidens. But above all, he informs the world that he,
the all mighty king, has wedded Tyi, dangl~terof Yua and Tua,
the favoured child of private people, anil has madc her his
queen. When we read this, and reflect how little such statements are in accordance with the Egyptian sentiment of royalty,
we cannot doiibt that the king who chose to appear thus,
must have gone far towards deserting his national position.
Egypt then began, as we should now express it, to become a
modern State, and i t was under these circumstances that Amenophis IV. ascended the throne, and soon engaged in the conflict
which was destined for a tirne to divert all modes of thought
into other directions.
Was this his own undertaking, or did he merely carry out a
schcnie commenced by his father ? At aoy rate, he succeeded in
diverging from the paths hitherto followed. His first attempt
EELIEI'S AND CUSTOMS OF NEW ICINGDOM
63
was to reinstate the ancient sun god Re Har-akhte, who, as we

have seen, had been superseded by Amon, as supreme god of
tlre State. To this end he built new temples to him a t Tliebes,
Memphis, Heliopolis, and other cities. By doing this he no
doubt complied with the wishes of the priests of the ancient
gods; hut tlrat he himself had further views in doing so, is
shown by 11is representing the sun god under a new form, and
also introducing a new name. Instead of the old hawk-headed
figure of' tlie god, a new one now appeared, consisting of the disc
of the sun itself; from this descended rays, ending in hands
wliicll lield the sign of life. At times the orccus serpent is
hanging from its lower edke, an ullegol.ica1 addition, which
recalls an Egyptian conception. I t was a mode of represeuting
the god which could be understood by Syrians and Nnbians
alike, and we iriay well question whether snch a reason did not
lie behind its invention. For a great empire of the old world
a universal form of religion would prove a powerful bond of
union, and if i t was desired to invent such a god, i t was far
easier to introduce a colourless universal sun god, than one
whiclr was purely Egyptian, as was tlie case with Amon. If;
however, we study the new name of the god, Har-alchte tol~o
tri~~?izphs
on the ho~izo?&
in his nmne " splendou?: I ~ L Ois in the
disc of the s?L?L,"we shall see in i t the co-operation of learned
speculation. No simple-minded worshipper of Re Har-akhte
would thus have designated his god. I t is a subtle title, which
undoubtedly should be interpreted in its abstract meaning, that
i t was not the actual planet that U-as worshipped, but the being
who manifests himself therein. As later on we find the king
describing himself as the teacho of this new faith, we may perhaps
ascribe to lrim personally this theological conception. Also when
we observe among tlie circle surrounding tlie king in later years,
the Queen Mother 'l'yi, and his favourite the si~hordinatepriest
Ei, husband to the king's nurse, and takc into account the
peculiarly morbid countenance of the Pharaoh, we are tempted
to construct from all this a history which more than once in the
annals of t h e world has proved the end of a great royal house.
One thing is, however, clear, that. the introduction of the new
cult promptly met with opposition, and that this opposition
64
originated \vitIl the followers of Amon. For tlle king turned

with etnbittrred animosity against this god and determined t o
overthrow him. Nothing sllould remain in Egypt which could
call to mind Amon or his wife Mnt-not
even their names.
Wherever the word A ~ n o nappears in a temple, in a tomb, or upon
sotno object i t must be erased, even thooSh the monuments of
the king's ancestors were greatly damaged in so doing. As his
orvri nalnc Amenl~otp(Amon is content) by a most unfortunate
coincidence contained this hated word, the king discarded it, and
calleci hirneelf insteacl Ilrli-en-aton, "glory of the sun's disc."
The fai~atieismwhich is bere apparent carried him farther
in his religious work and led to consequences which he cannot
have originally intended. His sun god, who lra~ibeen refused a
position by the side of Amon, must now tako his place, and in
fi~t.urehe ioust be represented only as the sun with far-reaching
rays. The ancient name Ilar-akhte must alone be retained i n
the official titulary of the god, his ordinary name must be Aton
4%,
tlre sun's disc, a word which in sound and appearance
might appear adapted to take the place of the wonted Amon-
Re
E.
Not only was the new sun god to bo tlie supreme
deity, but 11e must be the sole one. Let those who ~vill
believe in Eta11 and Hathor, 0 s i r . i ~and Isis, b a t for the loyal
subjccts of the king there rniist hencefort11 be only the one god
whom be worsllippeil. And as an orientnl king is not accusto~ned
to lack "loyal followers," it is easy to understand tliat for ten or
twenty years the new fidith actually prevailed, a t least among
tlie upper classes of the people. The forin taken by this new
belief we can infer from a long hymn, ~vhichbeyond any doubt
obtained official standing in the cult. It runs thus:
irhoza appear.est ~esplendenton the h o ~ i z o of
? ~ the h,eavens, thou
living sun, wl~owas1 the fimt to live. Thon ar.isest on the eastern
t
horizon, and fillest the ewth with thy beaz~ty. T/Lo?aa ~ becc~(itfia1
and g~eal,~actiant,high above tha earlh. 2%y beams e?zcompass
the lands, all tlint tho?~hcist created. TiLol~art Xe . . . thou
w~bdt~est
tl~elr~
with thy luve. Thou art fur.off, yet thy beams w e
upon the eu?.th. . .
BELIEFS AN11 CUSTOMS O F NEW KINGDOM
65
W t ~ e nthozc settest on the western horizon, the earth is i n

dark~zess,as though it were dead. They sleep i n their chumbevs
uith coverer1 heads. Their nostrils are closed, and no eye sees its
fellozu. I f thcir goocls are stolen as they lie under their heads, they
do not observa it. E v e y lion issues from his den, all reptiles
bite
. the earth is silent: he who made it ~esteth on his
horizon.
Early i n the morning thou arisest on the horizon, ant1 shines2
as the sun by day. Darkness jlies when t?~ozcdost shed thy rays.
The inhabitants of Zgypt aTejoyoz~s:they azuake and stand upon
their feet wire?%t h ~ hast
c
raised thysev. They zuash their bodies
and lay hold on their garments. They raise their hands and
extol thee. The zul&ole land sets to its work.
All the flocl~sare content i n their pnsttires. The trees and herbs
become green, the b i d s jh~tter i n their nests, and lift their wings
to praise thee. All creatz~resleap upon their feet : all that flutter
and $y, live when thotr a?-isesttor them.
Ships sail dotun stream, and liicezuisa up streain; every way
openeth when thou arisest. The fish in the riwer lecip 1 ~ ~before
3
thy face; thy rays penet~uteto the depths of the watevs.
Thou who dost form boys within the wonren, and their seed i n
men; thou causest the son to live i n the wo~nbof his mother; thou
who dost pzciet hinz that he cry not, thou nwse within the womb.
Thou who dost give breath to provide lge for all his firnctions,
when ?LEcomes forth from the womb .
on the day of his birth,
than openest his naorrth and he spealcs; thou providest whatever he
needs.
The chiclc i n the egg ch,irps within the shell . thou givest it
ail. therein, that it nzay live . . . it comes forth frona the egg to
chirp . it goes forth on its feet when it comes forth.
How nazcch is it, that thou hest done! . . . Than createst the
herds and all beasts,
earth after thy will, thou alone, with n&anlcicilarl,
evelything that is on earth, that which goes on foot, and that which
soars and flies with wings.
~ d
and the land of Egypt,
The foreign lands of Syria a ~ Zthiopia
each one thou hast set i n his place, and dost create what they
need. Each one has his possessions, and the len,yth of his l@ is
reclconed; their tongues are distinct i n their speech, and their
..
..
. .
. .
66
ozstward ap11earance is i n confomnity with t h e i ~colour. Oh

discriminate?; thozc dost discri??~i?zate
between the nations.
Thon firmest the Nile i n the depths, and leadest it forth according to thy pleaszsre that it may provide for n~anlcind..
All distant lands t~rhosemainte?aa?zcc tjsuu dost ~rowide,and
didst set a Nile i n the heavens, that it might descend to them; it
casts ,loaves upon the hills like tile sea, and waters their pastures i n
their towns. How excellent are thy decrees, thozs Lord of Ete~nitg!
The Nile i n the heavens, thou dost cawse it to ?.win down for
foreiph nations, and for all wild beasts oJ the desert zvhicJ~go o e
foot, and the Nile which comes forth fromthe dept1~s;ibrEgypt.
Thozs naalcest the seasons to sustain all that thou. hast created,
the winter to cool them, the heat, i n which they taste of thee (?).
Thon formest the distant heavens that thou mayest shine on them,
that thozc nzc~yestsee all that thou h u t made, alone, and arising
i n thy countenance as the liwing szm, blazing, shining> withdrawing, and returning again.
Thou formest (the earth) for t?~?lself,
P U ~ L ~ Ceanae
~L
into being j'vona
t7~eealone, the cities, villages, tribes, roarls nnrl streams. All eyes
bej~olrlthee before them,, when thozc a ~ the
t szrn qf day over the earth.
A comparison of this magnificent hymn with the hymns to
the ancient sun god, or with those quoted above to Amon-Re,
will show the fundamental differences between them. They all
alike adore the god as creator and protector of the world and of
all living things. Bot the later hymn lrnows nothing of the
ancient name of the sun god, uf his crowns, sccptres, and sacred
cities. I t lrnows nothing of his barks and crew, nor of the
dragon Apophis. Nothing of the journey through the realms of
t h e dead, and the joy of those dwelling there. I t is a song
which might equally well be uttered bp a Syrian or by an
Ethiopian in praise of the sun. I n fact, the manner in which
these lands and their inhabitants are referred to in the hymn
suggest that i t was intended to put an end to the contempt with
which the Egyptians had looked down on the wile barbarians.
All men are children of tlre god ; he has given them different
complexions and different languages, and has se-t them in
different countries, but he cares for all alike, and if to one
he gives his Nile, to another he gives his rain.
..
..
BEJ.IEFS AND CUSTOMS OF NEW KINGDOM
67
This new faith resembles our own so closely, that we feel ollr
sympathies unconsciously drawn to its courageous founder. And
yet if wc consider dispassionatcly what Amenophis IV. actually
attempted, we shall eventually realize that justice and commonsense are rather to be sought for on the side of his opponents,
however distasteful the cause they represent may he to 11s.
For thc time had not yet come for such a religion as that of
Akhenatou, which was not national, but based on a universal
human standpoint. And again, it was a cruel injustice to overthrow the established historical belief of the people, with which
their whole life was interwoven; and to force upon thein a doctrine
devised with such bold independence. Amenophis IV. was no
reformer, he was an enlightened despot, who wished to establisl~
by force the deism of his day in place of the hereditay religion ;
such an audacious attempt could only impede the healthy
development of the new creed.
How tile people accommodated themselves to the dogma of
their king is shown in two smell monuments now in the Berlin
Museum. From the tombs all conceptions hitherto held must he
banished; that the deceased should implore the sun to grant him
the certainty of beholding him, and to give him the fresh breath
of the north wind,' was quite correct, hut of Osiris and his
kingdom no more must he heard. Those who have read the fifth
chapter, dealing with the funerary customs, and have seen how
these numerous funcrary customs were the growth of centuries,
and the many hopes and fears connected with their observance,
will realize what it would cost the Egyptians to renounce them.
The consequence was that the people did not lose sight of
them in the new religion, hut in a spirit of contradiction they
even introduced them into their new religions practices. There
was no longer an Osiris nor a kingdom of the dead, hut even
now the great scarab, which was there efficacious (p. 142),
was inscribed with a prayer to the Aton and laid near the
m u ~ n m y . ~ The pyramid that enabled the dead man to behold the sun (p. 143) is scarcely in accordance with the new
religion, and yet it was found desirable to lay this also by the side
of the deceased, only ensuring that the figure and name of the
' Lepsius DemkmMel; 107a.
Berlin, 15099.
G8
A HANDBOOR O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Aton were on it.'

Those figures intended to work for the dead
(p. 141) in the realms of Osiris could not be dispensed with,
even the grave of the monarch was provided with them, and on
them also a most incongruous prayer to the Aton is inscribed.
The king himself could not escape the anomaly that his own
position as demi-god and sole representative of mankind was a
survival of the ancient religion. From this Amenopliis IV. did
not free himself. H e remains the son f the body of the god,
and a t the close of every hymn of any length which recognizes
the god as the father of mankind, he is introdnced in these
ternis: None other lcnows thee, mcept thy son the 1cin.g. W e may
take for granted that the king was also represented in the usual
fashion as the sole representative of the god in the great temple
h e built to the god, although none of his reliefs have survived
to our time.
This great sanctuary was not situated on any of the sites
which had been consecrated places from early days, for all of
these were closely associated with recollections not to be tolerated
by the adherents of a faith that acknowlcdged a god beside
whom there was no other. The king most wisely built a new
capital for the new Egypt, the city whose rnins we now call
Tell Amama. I n this great city created by him, Ainenophis IV.
lived for orer ten years surrounded by his loyal subjects who
had hearlcmed to hG teaching. The brilliant life that was led
there during that period is shown in the tombs near the city,
On a critical examination we learn from them all that is most
characteristic of the whole episode, so that we can here pass i t
in review. As in the religion the king desired to renounce all
the dead traditions, so in art also he attempted to shake them
off, and in both cases he found it necessary to dispose of the
traditions of thousands of years by an entirely independent
creation. Here also every man must see the world with his
own eyes, and here also must every man re,joice in universal
humanity and lay more stress on that than on national life.
These scenes therefore show us the king and queen affectionately
embracing one another, or drinking wine and eating fruit
l
Berlin, 14123.
BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS O F NEW KINGDOM
69
together, and rarely are the children of the king omitted, the
young princesses ; the eldest talking to her mother, the second
amusing herself with tlie crown, and the youngest fondled in the
arms of the king and kissed by him, as we see them on a relief in
tlie Bcrlin collcction. But prettily as all this is represented,
Fie. 48. I\DIENOPAIB W . W i I X XIS W l F E AXD C n I L D I R N .

Over them is the uow form of sun god. (Berlin, 14145.)
the new art, like the new religion, was on an unsound basis, and
neither of them proved permanent.
A t the death of the king, he was followed on the throne by
va~ioussuccessors, who reigned only a short time, and who soon
considered i t incumbent on them to make their peace with
Amon, and to remove once more to Thebes. With the prince
Haremheh, who at ono time was himself a follower of the Aton,
a family succeeded to the throne which had done more than any
other for Amon of Thehes. The triumph of the ancient religion
\ I ~ S coinplete, and all the records and buildings of the heretics
were now in their turn demolished. Proudly did the followers
of Amon extol their god : Woe to him who i n j u r e s thee ! Thy city
70
endu~es,but the city of hi?n who inju?es thee hasperished. Shame

tbpon him who commits sac~ilegeagainst thee i n any land. . . .
The stm of him, who knew thee not has sot; hz~the who PU?ZWWS
thee, he shines; the sanctzanry of him wl~oinjz~redthee lies i n
darkness, and ihe whole earll~is i n ligl~t.' It was in very t i ~ l t h
darkness which descended upon the horrible blasphemer of Toll
Amaman;' every metuorial of liiin vanished, and it was only i n
modern times that Lepsius undertook to restore his name and
his deeds once again to the light of day after more than three
thousand years of oblivion.
So Amon-Re triumphed, and how magnificent was his triumph
is sliown by the immense temples erected to him during the
next ton years, and by the wealth of which he had command;
but closer examination shows tliat tho great convulsion had
not passed without leaving traces behind. The State made
peace with Amon and restored him to his rights, but i t also
supported the ancient gods of the great towns, Ptah of Memphis,
Re Har-akhte of Heiiopolis, Osiris of Abydos, etc., far more
zealously than it had done previously; never had a sovereign
built or rebuilt so many temples as did Puarnses 11.; there is
scarcely a teniple in Egypt that did not receive proofs of his
pious care, as if to counterbalance what he was doing for Amon
in Karnak and Luxor. A political force was a t work here.
]luring the latter lialf of the New Kingdom, Lower Egypt
increased greatly in importance, the royal residence was removed
to a town in the Delta, and Upper Egypt once more sank into
the subordinate position which naturally belonged to it,. And
tlius in course of time the observance of the god of Thebes
naturally declined.
I n this second half of the New ICingdom, during the nineteenth
and twentieth dynasties (about 13.50-1100 B.c.)we find theEgyptian religion niore magnificent and brilliant than i t ever was
before or after. Its gods were entl~ronedin those palatial temples
which have no rivals in any other country or a t any other
period; temples that glistened with costly vessels, and where
1 Inscriptions i n the hierat. Char. pl. xxvi. (after comparison
the original).
He is so called in a late text, A ~ Ztschr.
.
39. 16.
BELIEFS ANT) CUSTOMS OF NEW KINGDOM
71
offerings and ceremonies were carried on in greatest magnificence. The property of the principal temples was immense.
Under Ramses 111. the temple of Amon a t Thebes possessed
926 square miles of land and 81,322 serfs, as well as 421,362
head of cattle. Heliopolis had 166 square miles of land,
12,963 serfs, and 45,544 head of cattle; while the respective
numbers for Memphis, which was far behind, were nearly 11
square miles, 3,070 serfs, and 10,047 cattle. Sticb property and
such temples naturally could not be administered in the simple
fashion of earlier days, although no doubt i t still prevailed in
the smaller temples. They required a complete administrative
organization, where distinguished persons served as superintendents of the treasury, of the land, granaries, cattle, or
peasantry, with scribes and soldiers, arcl~itects, sculptors,
painters, and all classes of minor officials. The superior priests
of such a temple had immense power in their hands, and the
high-priests of Amon especially were men of almost royal rank.
The career of such a prince of the Church is described to us
by one of them, Bekenkhons, a contemporary of Ramses II., on
his statue a t Munich. H e was apparently successor of another
Bekenkhons, who was high-priest of Amon under Amenophis
IIL, and llad already livod as an i~fla7sti 7 z the ?house of Amow.
Althouglr from the first he was destined for the office of apriest,
u p to his fifteenth year he received, in common with other
youths of rank, a military training as overseer of the stables to
the king. H e then entered as we'b (p. 54) into the service
of Amon, and remained four years in this lowest rank of priesthood. H e bad then to serve twelve years as divine fathey,
fifteen years as third priest, and tweIve years as second. H e
was thus in his fifty-ninth year when the god made him, on
account of his alnclzing ~xcellence,the high-priest of Amon, an
office hc ivas destined to fill for twenty-six years, ,zs a good
father of the subordinates, wl~otrained their successors, stretched
out the hand to those i n mise~y,who f ~ dthe poor, and acted nobly
i n his temple. Also he was$& architect for the king for Thebes,
and in this capacity adorned i t with buildings and ohelisl~s;he
planted i t with trees and otherwise arranged for the lordly
equipment of Karnak.
72
I n such propitious circumstances, it is no subject for wonder

that there should be an increasing tendency among the
priests to form themselves into a separate class, distinct from
the Lity even in external appearance. However distinctive
their vestments might be, the priests also avoided the ordinary
clothing of the period. While the laity a t tliis time clothed
the upper part of the body, t h e priests merely wore the short
skirt of the Old Kiugdonl, or the longer one of tlie Middle
liingdom, as though in this way they wished to show tlieir
connection with past ages. Neither did they adopt the
elaborate hairdressing which was the fashion of t,lie day, but
shaved their heads completely, so that the office of temple
barher was so sinecure. The reason for this mnst be soughL,
where the later Egyptians themselves found it, in tlie attempt
to attain absolute cleanliness. Purity bcfore all thiugs was
demanded of the priests; i t is no empty phra,se that we find
a t the entrauco of the inner courts of the temples : Let every one
who eltters here bepure. At the cerelnony of initiation of priests
to the temple they actually bathed i n t h e IRBB that was
situated near the temple.
During the New Kingdom, one branch of religious work was
retained in the hands of t b c laity, of the women. Almost every
lady took her part in the temple ceremonies as singer, and
performed with the sistrum bcfore the bcaz~t~zd
countenance of
the god. Such singing women existed in e v e ~ ytown and
every temple, but i t is, of course, the singers of Amon whom we
meet with most fi.eq~iently,and who were united in a special
organization.
As we have already seen (p. 39), the ceremonial attendance
on a god, according to Egyptian ideas, in no way differed from
the usual service paid to a man of rank in his own house. His
servants provided his food and clothing, while the women who
performed music before him may be regarded as the hareem,
who cheered their lord with nlusic. In Thebes this fiction was
carried farther. Unlike other ladies, the wife of the high-priest
was not called a singer of Amon, but bears the title of his chicf
concubine. The queen moreover, or one of the princesses, figures
as the zozj% of the god, or as she is also called, divi~revotaress.
73
The duties of these divine wives consisted only of performing music before the god, but their position was one of the
greatest dignity, and, what was more, ensured them a large
income. As early as the beginning of the New Empire, they
appear to have played a t any rate a considerable part in
politics. As we shall see, ttiey became later actual rulors over
an ecclesiastical principality.
While we regard with astonishment the immenso development of this official religion in the New Kingdom, we shall feel
more sympathy with the faith of tho lower ancl upper classcs
of the people, which pursued its qniot \?*ayoutside the temple,
and of which we occasionally find traces. If we study the
small stela dedicated to some god by private people, or the
small figures of gods wliich stood in private houses, or road
the inscriptions carved on rocks in the desert, we become
acquainted with all manner of sacred beings who wcro not
recognized by the great temples. Among these are forainn gods
F,=. 40. A I S OX ~ U O~ B ~I P ~~ ~ ~~ ~ .
goddess of v a r is
seated on a horse, In~e'iptiunin lhedesert near Rcdosiz, dedioated by an offioer.
There is Sntekh, a god who perhaps originally arose from the
74
Egyptian god Sot, but who was introduced by the Hyksos as a

foreigner into the country, and who now appears as anotl~er,
name of tho god Baal. In the eastern Delta, where the Hyksos
had their principal city, his was actnally an official cult, and the
kings of the nineteenth dynasty, who very possibly came from
this neighbourhood, mentioned him with Amon, Re, Ptah,
anlong the groat gods after whovn they named their armies,
and to whom they dedicated their new
capital city Ramscs. Baal, Astarte and
Anat, moreover, were often introduced as
similes in the poetry of royal inscriptions: Astilrte appears in the myths,' and
eventually in a late form of the tradition of
Horus of Edfu, she appears as his wife.
Baal continued to be venerated at Memphis long after the time of the New
Empire.
I n addition to these gods who were
introduced into Egypt from abroad, we
meet at this time with others, who
arose in Egypt itself, and who obtained
a great following, principally among the
.,, ,,,,,': ,,,,, lower classes. The appearance of these
llorns tile appendage i,znging
t,o
popular deities is a manifestation which
fro,n klLe cro,,,n, a,ld
bnndson Lllo skirt elraraotoiieo
cannot be passed over without notice.
,
,
,
,
,
ig,d,it,.
8440.)
Thousands of years had passed since the
old days, when the Egyptian built a primitive temple to his local
god, and with his family sought to propitiate hiin by means of
various gifts, in order to secure him help and protection. But
this god, with whom every citizen was familiar, eventually
became the g~antgod who granted victory and power to t h e
king, and whom the king and his noblcs worshipped before
every other god. His simple temple was enlarged into a
magnificent sanctuary, his feasts were celebrated as State affairs
with the greatest splendour, and liis offerings provided for out
of the rich revenues of the king. He possessed villages and
,,
Amherst Papyri, pl. 19 et sey.
See also Harris, Magical Pappus, 6. 8.
75
lands, slavos and cattlo, his priests wore personages of irnportanco,

his high-priest a prince. I-Ie attained to a very high degree
of power and dignity. All this bad ontailed a loss on those
to whom he had first owed his position, for the higher he rose
in popular estimation, so much the more he became estranged
from the hearts of the people. So great aml lofty was he that
the humble man could not venture to trouble him with the
daily needs of body and soul; he was piacod high above the
people, like the king, to whom honour was accorded, as ruler
and govornor of all things, but who could not be confided in by
the indiviclual.
When religion developed in this direction, the necessity felt
by mankind for a superhuman helper and friend led to the
introduction of new deities. The great gods were too distant,
but there wore yet other sacred beings of lower rank, and i t was
perhaps more possible for them to share the cares of mankind.
Among the names given by the people of Abydos to their
children in the Middle Kingdom occur such as these, gzyt of ihc
Nesl~metbnrlc or of the Neshrnct bade a. son, as though in gratitude
t o the bark of t h e Osiris temple for the birth of a child; the
temple furniture, which was seen during the processions, w a
also venerated by the people of Abydos as their great god,
whom all Egypt ~ o r s h i p p e d . ~We find the same in the New
Empire, when the Egyptians of the middle classes named
their children by preference after the god Bes, and t h e goddess
Thoueris, and placed the figures of these sacred beings in their
Ilouses, notwithstanding that this handy-legged Bcs, and this
hippopotamus-shaped Thoueris, in the religion of tile priests and
of the temples were only known as inferior assistants of the
great gods.
Bes is only one of a number of male and female demons,
who may almost be compared to t h e satyrs of t h e Greeks;.
They are half animal and haif human, whose duty is to amuse
the gods with music and dancing or to tend the divine children.
They are comic beings, and their figures were used as handles
for mirrors, or as jars for cosmetics, but they also fight with
knives and bows against adversaries or strangle serpents and
From verbal information by Steindorff.
76
lions. And i t is as a protection against such evil beings that

Bes is particularly confided in. His wife is Thoueris, the
C'.
Fro. 51.
b.
POPULAR DIIIIIEE : (a)~aouenis( L ) I.AT*IKOS, (c) BES, lxolding a lute.
(Berlin, 10710, i1016, 6666.)
favourite of the people. Her name signifies merely the great one.
She is a hippopotamus standing on her hind feet.
She holds t h e hieroglyphic sign pl.otection, and thus
shows what was expected of her. We also find these
marvellous beings as constellationn.
I n the same way Onuris, " t h e support of the
heavens," who is called the God Shu in many localities, is a protector against foes and evil spirits; i n
the eyes of the people he has become a god who
hears human burdens, the "deliverer" (Shed) who
drives as a prince in his war chariot, and slays wild
animals. Nefer-tern is also of ancient origin, and
appears as the son of Ptah and Sekhmet; he
appears to have been originally regarded as a flower
and he still wears a flower as his symbol on his
head. Another son of Ptah, the wise Imhotep,
who was in fact a learned man of early times,
FIG. 82.
NEFEB-TEM.
and who began to he regarded as the patron of
Hiltoil Prieo
coll.ctio..) scribes in the New Kingdom, we shall become betber
77
acquainted with later on (p. 173). The strange deformed children

whom, following Herodotus' example, we call Pataikoi, who
Fro. 63. ~ * n n ; r D E D l r h r E n TO BXBVII BY KZX, ivho is r e p r ~ a ~ n t ein

t l the lawer part.
Above, the 1liigll.priist Prince Anlosis is olieriug incense. (Berlin,14200.)
were regarded as sons of Ptah,' must also have been close

friends of mankind.
The extent to which such sacred beings were also worshipped
1
Thus Herodotiis, 111. 37.
78
in special localities must not he overlooked; they were everywhere. A letter from the city of Thehes commends tlie person
addressed not only to the great local gods, Amon, Blut and Khons,
but also to the great gates of Belci, the eight haboons which are i n
the fo~e-cmcrt (undoubtedly statues of adoring baboons), as well
as to two trees. On the west hank of Thebes, however, where
the necropolis city of the royal residence was situated, which
gave occupation to a large population of funerary priests, stonemasons, officials employed in the administration, and police,
patron saints were found in the kings buried there in earlier
tinies, and whose tomb rites were still observed. First of these
Amenophis I. and his mother Qucen Nefret-ere were regarded as
specially gracious and helpful. Was it not their protection which
saved one of those people, who t h ~ n shis
t lcand into a hole i n which
was a great serpent ? Thus i t is seen, 11e says on the memorial
stone which he dedicated in token of gratitude, hotu powerfnl is
Amenopl~is.~There was also worshipped a special goddess of the
necropolis, Merit-seger, she who is beloved 631him who malzeth silent,
i.e. the friend of Osiris. She had her place on a mountain above
t h e necropolis ancl therefore is herself called also the western
summit. She was benevolent, but she was also addicted to
warfare, as is shown on a stone tablet where Nefer-ahu, a suhordinate official of tlie necropolis, tells ns, in an inscription of which
the orthogr;~phyis very incorrect,Vtuas a man tuitkont knotuledge,
foolislr, and knew not what is good ancl what evil. I committed
sin against the mountain snmmit. She chastised me, and I toas i n
her hand by night and by day, and I sat there . . . like those who
are pregnant. I culled out for air but i t canLe not to me. .
Behold, I say to great and small among the workmen : beware of
the western szrmmit, who is a lion i n the summit. She strikes as a
sc~vugelion st~ilccs,and pnrstres him who sins against he% But
when I called to my mistress Ifound she came to me with sweet
breath, and she was gracious unto me, when she had let me see her
hand, and she t ~ r ~ n epeacefnlly
d
to me. Xhe caused me to fovet
my illness which had befallen me. Verily the western summit is
..
Turin 48.
Bologna 1094, 10. 11 et. seq.
Maspero, Eludes de Mythologie, p. 404 et. sq., liere corrected from the
original.
BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS OF NEW IiINGDOM
79
graeiouq when. one calls 20 her. IIearlcen, all ye ears upon earth ;
beware
the western swnmit. Would any Egyptian of the
lower classes have ventured to attribute his punishment and his
deliverance to Amon-Re of Karnak ?
The importance now attached to these popular deities was
shared by the sacred animals of the temples whom we bave already
(p. 22) mentioned. A t Berlin there is a memorial tablet which
represents a temple official of Heliopolis worshipping before the
Mnevis bull,
early as the beginning of the Now Kingdom.
When the bull or the cat died, i t was buried with a certain
amount of display, and in aplace that already enjoyed t h e odour of
sanctity. W e possess the coffin of one of the sacred cats dedicated to it by Amenophis 111.' And for the tombs of tbo Apis
bulls one of the sons of Ramses II., a high-priest of :Ptah,
made most careful provision. Reverence for these tombs was
carried so far that the dead oxen were actually provided, as
though they had been human beings, with funerary figures to
work for them in the next world (p. 141).
Gladly would we know what the lower classes, who found satisfaction in these lesser divinities, actually thought of the universe
and of the gods. Some insight into this will be afforded us by
the stories of the New Kingdom, which, as in all cases, reflect
the conceptions and ideas of the lower classes, although i t may
be the more educated people who have preserved them for us:"
The principal god of the tradition is Re Har-akhte, while Amon
is actually not named. Re is lord of the world, who aids the
good people against the wicked. Accompanied by the Ennead
of the gods he descends to earth like a king with his followers, to
look after the just. Kbnum is also present and creates mankind.
At the birth of a child come the seven Hathor goddesses and
discover what fate his god bas allotted to him, and even though
a man attempt to escape his destiny the god verily does what hc
will. That there slronld be marvellous trees, and bulls of euery
beazct~ulcoloz~r,
and that i t is well to bring offerings to them, does
not appear surprising after the facts just quoted (p. 78). The
idea of the appointed fate of man seems to have been widely
' At Cairo.
a The following is from dlOrbiney and Harris Papyri 500.
80
accepted. Thus, in an official document,' death is designated as

tlze de,~tiny,and there is also a deity of this name who indeed
appears rather to bestow a happy fate.
While the people thus adjusted their own beliefs, the educated
classes pondered over their gods, and over the universe,and wi~ile
they thus analyzed and philosophized theirreligions beliefs became
less fixed. More and more theyminimized the differences between
the individual ancient gods, and the more complicstcd became
their religion. It was in thc liozese of lve, i.e. the school of the
learned, that this wisdom was acquired, hut that i t also flourished
outside the schools, among the educated classes, is shown by many
songs of this period, which prove by their freshness that they
were not composed in the house of life and which yet contain
these ideas.
We must next hear what is told us by Ramses IV. on his
memorial tablet a t Abydos of what he had learnt in the course
of his researches in the house of life anlong the books, ~ u l ~ ihe
cl~
did not cease to esteem. H e found there that tlay nature, Osiris, is
more yeeret than that of all gods. T ~ L art
~ Zthe
L moon zuhichis i n
heaven. l'i~onrejzcveiiutest ihyself at thy desi~e,thou becomest
yonng aeco~dingto thy wish. Y'i~onuppearest i n order lo dispel
darlcncss, anointed and clothed (i. e. in thy festival pomp), for
the gods and niugic conie into ezistence to illuminate thy 7najesty
and to beng thy eenesiies to tl~eslanmbles .
And ? I Z ~ ? Lreekon that
they may know the month; and zuo~l~
addition, tlhat they ?nay
Iozozu thy time.
Verily tl~ouart tlae Nile, g~eattcpon the banl~sat the tinae of the
beyi,nning of the season ; man and gods live by the ?iroistzrre which
comes from tl~ee.
I have also found thy nrc~estyas icing of the lender-world . . .
When Ae rises ez:erg dug and comes to tile ?en,der-world,i n order
to szoeey tlLis land and also the conntries, thou sittest there also
as he. Together ye shall be called Bui Denecleni. The majesty of
Y'hoth stands nigla unto you, i n order to execute the conmneands which
proceed from your n~outh.~
It will be seen that the character of god of the dead, that under
..
1
2
In the treaty of peace, Ramses 11.

Mariette, Abydos, ii. 54-55.
81
which Osiris was known and venerated by evory Egyptian, here

takes the third place, and oven then only in an unusual form.
I n its place the parts usually played by t h e moon and the Nile
are attributed to Osiris. And a song which gives uttera,nce to
similar ideas, places Osiris almost on the earth; i t represents
Osiris lying as a corpse under the earth, and, as i t were,
supporting it, with all that is on it ; thus his baclr can be regarded as the earth itself. l ' i ~ eearth lies upon thine arm, and its
corners upon thee even unto the.foz~rpillnrs of heaven. Dost thou
stir thyself, tlio eartl~trenzbles, . . and (the Nile) comes forth
from the sweat of thy hands. TJLozr providest the breath ozrt of thy
throat for the ibostrils of mankind. Everyt1~in.qzuhcreby nzan lives,
trees and herbs, barley and wl~eat,is of divine origin, and comes
from thee.-Are canals du.y
aw hozrses and temples built, are
, roclc-tombs
monuments d~aggedinto place, are &lds ZLLid m ~ tare
and ylaves hezun oz~t-they rest on thee, thou it is who makest
thwrn. They are upon thy baclc. Yet niore there is of thee than
can be z~.~itten,there is no en@y .space on thy buclc, ihey all lie on
thy 6aclc and ( t h m ~
sayest) not : I n m laden.-Thou art the father
a d moths? of ?nan,kinc,they live by thy breath, aiid they eat the
$esh of thy body.'
When this could be said in reference to one of the ancient
gods, i t may bc guessed what was done with Amon-Re, who was
a t all tinies incomprehensible. H e had a soul i n his ~igliteye, the
sun, he had another i n his l d t eye, the moon: he is Shu, the god
of tbo air, with the noble aspect i n the foz~r7cincZs. H e is Osiris.
I t is be who can invest his body with all f o ~ a ~ass he zishes, and the
gods of t h e provinces are his for~ns.~I n a document which was
drawn up at Eshmunen, i t is set forth how Amon made himself
a position everywhere, in order that his names might be many.3
His original position had been on the heights of Eslin~nnen,
where he landed from the Desdes water, when he emerged out
of the flood in a secret egg (p. 26). The goddess of heaven
stood behind him as Amannet (p. 57), and he soated himself on
this cow and grasped her horns, and swain across the flood and
...
A.2. 38. 32.

Bmgsch.
%b. 26.
Grosse Oase, S. 15-16, out of the Secret Jlooic of Amon.
82
landed wherever he pleased ; and wherever he landed there he

became the god of the locality. I n Ehnas, where he first landed,
he became the local god Harsaphes; in Mendes he is the ram
which is worshipped there ; in Sais he is the son of Neith, i.e.
Sobk ; he is the ram of Holiopolis ; he is Nun, the primeval
waters; he is the god Ptah Tenen of Memphis; he is Ptah, who
is worshipped a t Thebes ; he is Min of Koptos; he is Mont of
Thebes. The Nile, most ancient of the gods, is another form
of him, and his is heaven, earth, the under-world, water, and
air.
Where all the gods are so confused nothing really remains
of the ancient Egyptian religion except the external form;
the names and figures of the gods are still there, but what they
represent are only varying aspects of the universe, and 80 far
this teaching may actually be called pantheistic.
The sarne educated classes who held these ideas now made
another departure from tradition. Hitherto whoever prayed to
the gods, or sang hymns in their honour, had made exclusive
use of the ancient traditional formulz, which indeed contained
few ideas, but which were l~allowedby centuries of use. In the
latter half of the New Kingdom this was changed, and the new
ideas and feelings which pervaded Egyptian life a t this period
evoked a new type of religious poetry, that allowed free scope
to individual feelings and sentiments. Another proof of
its popular character is that it is no longer written in the
sacred language of the earlier literature, but is expressed jn the
later colloquial langnage. The oldest and finest example of
this poetry is the hymn of Amenophis IV. (p. 64) ; also the
hymn to Amon-Re, which we have already quoted (p. 58),
where the god is adored as creator and protector of all, and
which was already composed in the new style. A comparison of
such poems with one of the older compositions, for instance
with the hymn to Osiris (p. 48), will show a very great
change. I n the one are lifeless references to a variety of traditions, in the other there is individual feeling, and the joy of
observing the works and the goodness of God. Here the god
is a good herdsman; Amon, tl~ou.herdsman, who e a ~ l ydrivest
forth the cows, who leaded the needy to tho pastures. H e is the
83
mast who defies the storm, he is the pilot who knows the
shoals, who is longed @er i,ll him ta7bo is on the water.' Thoth
also is the fruit tree, who feeds mankind, this great dona-palm of
siccty ctehits o7b zul~ichi s f r t ~ i;
t kern818 are i n the fitbit, and wale?.
is i n the ke~nels;he is sweet sp~.i?zgsfor the tizi~styi n the desert;
he i t is who brings wutw to distant places.2 There is a personal
relationship of affection and confidence with the god : An~on-lle,
I love thee and enfold thee i n n ~ yhea~t.. . . I do not follow
anziety i n my heart, what An~on-Besaitl~,coineth to pass.3 Thus
he unhesitatingly lays before him all the troubles of his heart :
TiLoz~wilt save me p o n ~the mot~thof men in ~ ? L Lday when they
speak lies.4 H e who is slandered by some rival in order to
obtain his office, prays to the sun god, or to Osiris, to aid him ;6
and again another pleads thus : Anion, lend thine ca7 to one who
standr alone i n tlze cotcrt of justice, 2uho is poor, and his opponent
is v~ighty. The tl.ibte%nloppresseth him,; " silver and goldfor the
se~ibe,and clothes for the attenclants ! but he findeth that Amolz
cha7~gethhimself into the vizier, tohereby the pool. escape." I t is
also actually stated in this poetry that the god directly espouses
the cause of the poor; w11en all are against him, then he
remains his protector, tlie judge who receives no bribes, and
does not influence the witnesses.'
I n one of thsse songss there is also observable (as we
have already seen on the memorial tablet of Nefer-Abu) an
acknowledgment of the sinfulness of mankind. The Egyptians
of the early period cannot have been ignorant that we are all
sinners, but before their gods they made no use of this knowledge ; to them they always made assurances of their excellence.
It is otherwise with the poet of the New Empire; he knows
that he is a gt~iltyman and prays to his god : Chastise m,e not
according to my mawy sins. Also the hooks of instruction in wisdorn-which
from early times were popular in
Egypt, and which hitherto had supplied little more than a
"
' lnseription in the hier. Char., pl. xxvi.

Sallier Papyrus, I, 8, 2 et s e ~
Inscription in the hier. Char., 1,l.
A. Z. 38. 19 et sea.
Bologna, 1094. 2, Bet mil.
Gib.
"dn.
@
2. 8 . 5 et
SPO
An. 2: 10,1 et
Gp.
64
correct rule of behaviour, now took another form. Serve thy

god and avoid what he abhors. Woe to him who utters
untruths against him or otherwise does something that he hates.
If thou neglectest thy mother, so that she aceuses thee and lifts
up her hands to God, her cry will be hea~dand thou wilt be
punisl~ed.~Make offerings to him, and keep his feasts.3 But
when thou worshippest him, do i t quietly and without ostentation in the sanctuay oJ Gocl to whom cla?nour is abhor~e~it.Pray
to him with U, longiny heart, ini which all thy u ~ o ~ dre
s hidden, SO
will he pant thy request, and hear ti~atwhich thou sayest, and
acce2~t thy offe~ing.~This assurance that God loves a silent
prayer better than a loud one is found also i n tho hylnn to
Tiloth already quoted, which compares him to a well in the
desert : thou sweet sprin,q for the thi~styi n the desert; it is closed
fa7 those who spealc there, it is open for those who keep silence there.
When the silent ?nun eoraeth he $ndeth the spri.figP I n silentio et
spe sllall man seek the aid of his god. I t is tile dawn of an iuward religion with which we meet at the end of the New Empire.
A new epoch of religious conception had beoninaugurated by the
educated people of that period, tho same period whose later
develop~nentproduced the Psalms. I n Egypt itself i t came to
an end before i t attained to fnll development, and in the history
of ancient Egypt i t is thus only an episode. What were the
canses that interrupted this development we do not know, for
during the next century Egypt vanishes altnost entirely from
our view. When we see i t once more, political n~isfortunes
have broken its power ; the Egyptians had become a decaying
nation who lived only in their pnst.
1
hlsn. ~I'Anii.6. 12.
ib, 3, 2.
ib. 7. 3.
ib. 6, 12 ; 2, 3
Sallier Papyrus, 1, 8, 2 et seq.
CHAPTER I V
BELIEFS REGARDING T H E DEAD, O F THE EARLY PERIOD AND
OF THE NEW KINGDOM
IF thcre was a point on which the Egyptians differcd from

every other nation i t was in their excessive caro for the dead.
Other nations have erected buildings for the worship of the
gods, or for practical purposes, which rnay vie with the colossal
temples of Egypt, but such graves as the Great Pyramids, or
the rock tombs of Thebes, exist nowhere clse in the world.
This must also striko any one who ohscrves in our m~lseums
the immense variety of objects that wore laid in the graves for
the use of the dcceased in his future existence. The Egyptians
would not have persisted in these strenuous efforts during three
thousand years had they not possessed very special views as to
t h e future destiny of the dead, views which we can comprehend
to-day, t l m k s t o their ancient literature \vliich has come down
to us in almost immeasurable abundance.
It is true that it is not literatore in tho exact meaning of the
word, or only in the slightest degree. A t best i t consists only
of short or long formuire, which from tho earliest times wero
recited at tho graves. Of these forn~ulmthere are two great
collections, from which we gather most of our knowledge of the
subject; the so-called Pyramid texts, and the so-called Book
of the Dead. The Pyramid texts is the name given by us to
the long inscriptions in certain pyramids of the end of the Old
Kingdom, which supplied the deceased kings with something
approaching a library of ancient writings hearing on their future
destiny. The greater part of these are extremely ancient, and
were formulated at the earliest stages of Egyptian civilization.
By the Book of the Dead we mean another group of texts which
from the time of the New Kingdom were constantly written
on papyri. Among them there is much that is undoubtedly
85
X6
extremely ancient, but many new ideas are added. I t is therefore to the Pyramid texts that we must turn in the first instance
to discover what i t was that induced the Egyptians to bestow
so much care on offerings to thc dead.
The difference between the living and the non-living was
from the earliest times regarded by the Egyptians to be this,
that the former were imbued by a special active force, which
they called the ka. Every mortal received this ka a t birth, if
Re commanded it, ancl as long as he possessed it, as long as he
is lovd of a ka, and gues wi2h his ka., SO long he is ono of the
living. The lta is seen by no one, but i t
was assumed that in appearance i t mas
exactly the counterpart of the man. As
early as the timo whcn the sun god first
came into existence, and formed the two
primeval gods by spitting thein out of his
mouth (p.26), he laid his avms lrel~iadthem,
and forthwith his ka went up over them
and they lived? This stretching out t h e
arms must be specially connecied with
the investing wit11 a ka, for from the
earliest times two outstrctchcd arms signified a k a . When t h e inan died, his ka
. 4 . *MEN"I.IIIS ,XI. *S i left him, hut it was hoped that i t would
c ~ I AND
~ ~-lS,
still concern itself with the body in
(Prom the Temple Of Luxor.)
which i t had dwelt so long, and that at
any rate i t would occasionally re-animate it. And i t was
probably for the k a that thc grave was so carefully attended
and provided with food, that i t might not hunger or thirst.
I n addition to this ka, which always remained a vague and
undefined conception, notwithstanding thc constant allusions
to it, the Egyptians dreamed also of a soul, wllicll might he seen
under various forms. A t death i t left the body and flew away,
thus i t was naturally a bird, and it was only probable that when
the mourners were lamenting their loss, the dead man hiinself
might be close at hand, sitting among the birds on the trees
1
Mariette, Ahydos, Talilcan xvi.
BELIEFS REGARDING T H E DEAD
87
which he himself had planted. The thoughts of others turned

to the lotus flowers which had blossomed on t h e pool during the
night, and questioned whether the dead man might not be
there; or again to the serpent which crept out of its hole so
mysteriously as a son of the earth,
or to the crocodile that crawled
out of the river on t o the bank,
as though its true home were the
land ;who could tell whether the
soul was not able to assume any
of these f o ~ n ~and
s others also
that it rlesherl, and whether i t
did not abide here to-day and
there to-mol.row in, everg ylaee
where it woz~ld?
Further thought, moreover, as
to whether there might not be
an abode for the dead similar to
our world of the livinrr.
would
0,
*.IQ. 65. T n r sour,.
raise the question where such
(Hilt"" M C * Ooileotion.)
an abode could be situated.
Every evening the Egyptian saw the sun sink in the west, to
reappear a t dawn in the east; during the night i t must therefore have traversed an under-~vorld,asecond subterranean heaven.
It was only natural to claim this world, which was unapproachable for the living, as tho abode of the dead. The sun sank i n
the west and sojourned there in a dark country which was only
illuminated when he performed his nightly course and travelled
through it. This conception early became popular, tlre realms
of the dead were styled the West, and the dead were called the
dwellers i n the west.
It must be confessed that neither of these modes of life can
be regarded as happy. Whether a man fulfilled his destiny
under the earth, or appeared on earth i n a variety of forms,
i t was in either case a melancholy existence, and no true life.
It occurred, therefore, to some bold thinkers to doubt whether
~~~~
1 I t is impossible to doubt the extreme antiquity of this popular belief,

although we first meet with it in the Book of the Dead.
88
A IlANDBOOIi O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
all alike must share this fate. Beside the many on earth who
were poor and of small account, were there not some who were
great and mighty, and might there not be the same distinction
after death; there must surely exist better conditions and a
better abode for the kings and other distinguished souls, for
those who shoz~ld live according to the con~n%and
of the gods: and
this place was in heaven.
The Egyptian could watch the stars as they sailed a t night
in that untroubled splendour which is exhibited by the
gorgeous sky of his country. Of these hc knew several which
shone with especial brilliancy, the dog star, Orion, the morning
star, and thought these might assuredly be gods who, like the
sun god, had left the earth. But what about the innumerable
host of nameless stars that surrounded even the least of these ?
Doubtless they were the dead, happy souls, who had found
their way to heaven, and who now wandered in eternal glory
with the gods. The great god the lord of heaven (i. e, the sun god)
had held out his hand to them, or the goddess of heaven had
taken them to herself, and had ranged them among the inlperishable stars of her body. Now, perhaps, does t h e deceased
appear to us as that single star which rises on the eastern side of
the heaven^,^ and which with Orion and Sothis, the dog star,
traverses the sky.3
The imagination of the nation was actively engaged i n giving definitc form to this idea of the heavcnly existence of
the dead; how motley and contradictory was the picture thus
formed will be shown in the following sketch, supplied by the
earliest of the Pyramid texts.
Lilre a bird the dead flies up to heaven: he goes to heaven
lilce the hawlis and his feathers are like those of the geese,* he
rz~shesat heaven like a crane, he kisses heaven like the falcon, he leaps
to heaven li7ce the g~asshoppe33er.~ Thus he jlies away from you, ye
men; /LE is 1ro more zyon earth, he is i n l~eaven%ith his hrelhren
the gods, where the goddess of heaven stretches out her hands to
him. He ascends to heuveql, to thee, oh Re, with the head of a
Pyramid, 225 = P. 99.
i6. 225 = P. 99.
ih. 248 = M. 388.
Pyr. 243 = P. 157.

;b. 251 = P . 173.
i b . 248 = P. 164.
BELIEFS REGARDING T H E DEAD
89
falcon and wings of a goose . . he moves his arms as a goose, and

jlaps his zuings lilce a bird. He who .flies,jbies, oh ye nzen, and tlbis
one $es away from yozc.l In heaven, however, that goddess N u t
places him as an inaperishable star which i s upon her,%she it is
who n~alceshis lqe, she it is who gives birth to him. I n the night
he is begotten, i n the night he i s born ; he belongs to those who are
behisd Re, to those who are bcfore the naolning star.3 He journeys
to the east side of heaven, to the place where the gods are born,
and
with them, he will be born, renetued, rej2cz;enated.
H e will undoubtedly meet various gods and stars, who might
binder him, but not one will be able to stop him; there is no
god zoho arrested him, there i s no adversary who ttuvned him
baclc from his road! " Whither goes he?" asked a great bull,
who threatened him with his horn. But the answer was given :
" Ile is going to heaven full of vigour, that l ~ e
may see his fathel;
that he may see Re," and t h e terrible creature lets him pass
The sun god takes a kindly interest in the new inhabitant of
lieaven : I give thee, hc says, thy speech and thy body, ancl thozr
receivest the form of a god; he cnnses his body to become bright like
those of the heavenly ones he takes hiin as an oarsman in his
own ship," or assigns him a place in the forepart, and the crew
uho row Re, they row him also.lo Or, he even makes him the
commanding officer of his oarsmen,'l yea, he displaces his own
celestial scribe, and sets the deceased man i n his place,'2 so that
hejndges, and is arbitrator, and gives concnrands to one who isgreater
than heJ3 Thus he journeys over the heavens as companion of
the sun god, and every god rejoices when he approaches.14 Thoth
also, the moon god, takes an interest in the deceased in the same
manner. By night he takes him in his bark, and thus he t~.averses
the ?Leavens like Be, and traverses the heavens like l'hot?~.l5 The
exaggerated conceptions of the power of the illuminated dead
in heaven, which find a place in many of the quotations already
"
"b.
I'yr. 91 =W. 570 et seq.

ib. 7 = W. 197 et seq.
297 = P. 454.
ib. 206 = P. 18.

ib. 248 = P. 163.
l' ib. 262 = N. 948.
l3 ib. 193 = T. 342.
ib. 215 = P. 63.

ih. 56 = P . 171.
"b. 251 = P. 173.
So~ronnenlitn?~ei,
Mar.; Ab.,II. I?.
l" Pyr. 193 = T. 340.
lZ ib. 257 = P. 186.
ib. 252 = P. 175.
I6 ib. 6 =W. 195.
90
A HANnROOli OF EGYPTIAN RE1,IGION
given, come even more prominently forward i n others of tllrse

formulz. The dead is called a god outright; he is Thoth, the
stro7~gestof the gods,' or he is Weneg (i.c. Shu), the son of Re,
who snpptirts heaveiz, leiccls the ecirth, j7jzaclyas the godsz Well is
it with those ~ohosee him, erotuned with the headdress of RB,
with his cbpron on like Z i a t h o ~ ~He goes to heaven and jinds Re
standing there
. he places hiinsev by his side, and Re does %tit
permit hinz to east himself on the ground, for he lznozus that he is
greater than he.4 H e knows that this inzpe~ishableillzsminated
one is his son, and he sends out divine messengers to inform the
inliabitants of heaven that a new ruler has appeared for thorn.
Set a?~dNepkthys, hasten !jwoclaim to the sondhern gods and thei?
illt~??~inaled
ones : " H e comes, a7z imperishable illnn~i7aatedone !
If he wisiles that ye die, ye die ; g he wisi~esthat ye live, ye live."
Isis and Osiris must likewise betake themselves to the north,
Tliotl~to the west, and Horus to the east. I t is then said: Oh
Re Alum, thy son comes to thee, he comes to thee; thoz~pomittest
kinz to live uith thee, thou folrlest 1~imi n ttzine awns, him, the
son of thy body eternally.5
Full of alarm, the gods rouse themselves from their repose
before tize great b i d , which ctinzes fti& from tlze Nile, ihe jaclcal
god tol~iehcomes fionz (i.u.6 the la?~~arisksp
far suddenly, like t h e
bird that flutters u p out of the water, and like the jackal
who starts out of the bushes, so has the dead man appeared
in their midst.
This exaggeration is carried to its farthest extent i n the
following text,' whero a wild exuberant fancy depicts the deceased as a l~untsman,who captures the stars of heaven, and
devours the gods and the illuminated ones: heaven rains, the
stala fight, the iiownzen ,~oander about, lcnd the bones of the
A i i e ~ utremble
~
. . ~uheiztliey have see7z how he ascends, and
has a soul as a god who lives tcpon his falhers and feeds upon
his inotl~ers.. . . Zlis s]~lendouris i n heaven, his power is i n the
..
P. 454.
""
='l"
ib. 257
oCY,
The "bowmen," the Akrru, and all the otl~ernames which occur here,
obviously refer to t l ~ econstellations.
BELIEFS REGARDING THE DEAD
9'
lboriron, liice that of Atun~,,his fatl~er who hegat him; he begat

hiin as one who is stronger than I~imseEf.. . He it is who
devours men and lives on gods. The Clasper of the Heads
and the En~i-kehut~
am they tul~o capttcre ti~emfa?. h i m ; he
who is Splendid of Head guards them for him and drives than
to him, the Heri-te~ut binds them for him, the ?.zcnners with
all knives stab them for him, and draw out their entrails, tile
Sheshmu cuts them z ~ pf o ~1Lin~c~ndcoolcs p a ~ tof them i n his
evening caulclro7rs. Ice it is who devours lheir magic ancl
stuallozus their illun~inated ones. The great ones among them
are his morning meal, the middle ones are his evening meal, and
the sn~allones his night meal. The old mei~and zuomen anLon.7
them come into his oven. The great one i n heaven casts fire on, ihe
cazbld~o~z,
which eoatai?ss the thighs of tiiei? clilest. The inhabitants of heaven are his property, and what he shoots are cat~ld~.ons
with t?~eliarbs of their wives. This horrible faro is profitable to
him, for he conmnLes their full entrails and enjoys therewith
satiety; he devours their hearts and their crowns and thereby
gains their powers, so that t h e i ~magic i s i n his body; he swallows
the mderstanding of every gocl-ideas that are found even now
among cannibals.
Such extravagances are of course exceptional, and, frequently
as it occurs, even the belief that the dead could accompany
Re in his sun bark can scarcely be considered to have been
the truly popular view. According to that the illuminated had a
secure dwelling-place on the east side of heaven upon its northern
part among the inzpe?-ishable ones,' or with tl~eilltcminated, the
imperi~habletuhich are i n the north of heaven or i n the east of
heaven.3 Perhaps this referred to the position in the north-east
of t h e circumpolar stars, which might truly be called the
"imperishable," as, unlike the others, they never disappeared
from the sky.4
This abode of the blemed the people further figured t,o themselves as a series of islands, surrounded on all sides by water ; i t
is easy to imagine that the broad streak of the milky way,
whose ramifications contain dark patches, led to this conception.
Pyr. 262 = P. 203.

ib. 251 = P. 174.
ib. 292 = P. 435.

Verbal information from
I3orcba?<lt.
92
One of these islands was called the Ficld of Food, a name which
indicates that there provisions were not lacking ; on i t reposed
the gods and the imperishable ones. Even better known is the
Field of Earn, whose name perhaps means field of bullrushes,'
' Verbal inforlnation from Sethe.
93
dises t o resemble his own l a n x ~ n e e d sno explanation ; they had

water courses which, like the canals of the Nile, were opened a t
the times of inundation ; they were $fled with water and hecanle
verdant? in order t,o supply the deceased with sustenance.
For without food even the gods and the illuminated ones of
heaven cannot exist. I n the east of heaven stands that high
sycamore 25go?z which the gods sit; the tree of life by which they
live,3 wlioso fruits also feed the blessed. And the goddesses who
are in heaven provide him with food which is even more innocent. If lie comes t o N u t , or to the serpent which guards t h e
sun, either of them greets him as her son : she has pity zyon him,
and offers him her breast that he mny suck, and thus h e lives and
is once more a child.' H e comes t o ench of his two mothers, the
vzsltures with long hair nnd distended (7) breasts which sit on the
hill of Xehseh; they place their breasts to his inotcth and never do
they wean lLirn.5 But he also who cannot dispense with the
habits of this world may hope for food, and for a more normal
mode of life. He receizles his share q,f that which is i n the
granaries of the great god, he is clothed by t?~eimmortals, and has
bread and beer wl~ichcontinue eternally : he eats this his bread
quite alone and needs no one wl~ostands behind him to give him
thereof? His provision i s among tile gods, and his water is wine,
lilce that of Re.8 Whe~zRe eats, he gives to hirrc, w?~e?zAe cZ~inks,
he gizes to him. He sleeps sotcndlg every day . . . he fwes better
to-day than l/cster.dap.o Thus fortunate is thejust%>cdwith their
provided rnoz~ti~s.'~They do not require hnnge~to eat and thimt
to driizlc," and they need nevcr fear that they will be forced to
have reconrse to their own filth, that fare wliich the Egyptian
ever regarded with the utmost a b h o r r c n ~ e ? ~
It was not accorded to all, however, on the beautifial roads
uhich we i n hoaven.,1~to reach those fields of the blessed, for the
= P. 416.
ib. 292 = P. 431.
"b. 281 = P. 303.
7 ib. 294 = 1'. 443.
g ib. 3 = W . 180.
11 i b . 7 = W. 196.
'"b. 225 = P. 100.
1
Pyr. 292
ib. 231 = P. 174.

ib. 251 = P. 173 and 281 = P. 286.
0 ib. 288 = P. 395 ; 391.
8 ;b. 6 = \K 193.
10 ih. 254 = P. 178.
Ia ib. 6 = W. 189.
4
94
waters that surrounded them were difficult to pass. Some

would liopo to be carried over by favour of the divine birds,
the hawk of Horus and tlie ibis of Tlloth : Ye clatus of Xorns,
ye tuings of Thoth, e a s y hi,m over, and do not leave him zrntransp0~ted.l Others pray to fonr heavenly spirits, I-Iapi, Amset,
Duamutef, and Kebehsennf, the children of Horus, to bring
them a ferry boat: or they turn to the sun god ilimself, that he
should carry them over in his hark.3 Most, however, trust in a
ferryman, who bears the names H e who loolcs behind and Turnface, because he was forced t o turn his head when he stood
aft punting his boat. H e ferried the gods over in his
and would also render this service to the dead. Not to all of
them, however, for this ferryman of the Field of Earu only
ferried over tl~ejz~st
?oh0 hath no boat, those who wero found just
before heaven and earth, aud before t h e island
This is a
remarkable trace of ethical conceptions in this early time, and
in these pyramid texts i t does not stand entirely alone. If
among the deceased there is one of whom it can be said, "there
is no evil which he ]bath done," the saying penetrates even to the
sun god, and hc receives him kindly ;"he
deceased also profits
with regard to his reception in heaven, if he has never qolceqa evil
the icing nor slighted the gods.'
As a rule, however, i t is rather bodily cleanliness which the
gods demand of their new companion in heaven, and they themselves aid him in this respect. The goddess who presides over
the rapids of Elephantinepz~s.ijeshiin with foz~rpitchemof water,8
o~ l ~ ebathes together with ile i n the lake of E a r z ~: Horzrs dries
Ibis body, l'holh dries his feet.9 There is yet another conception
of the life after death which must be added to those already
mentioned; originally accessory to them, in course of time it
dominated them all. This is the dogma of the dead god Osiris
as king and prototype of all the dead.
We have already (p. 35) related the legend of this god, who
diod, hut roturned again to life. One of his chief abodes was a t
Ahydos, which later on acquired great fame, as possessing the
l
Pyr. 288 = P. 390.

ib. 60 = W , 489.
ib. 248 = P. 164.
ib. 295 = P. 444.

ib. 290 = P. 400.
i b 281 = P . 297.
ib. 245 = P . 160.

ib. 297 = P. 455.
"b. 112 = P. 234.
95
head of the god as a relic, and i t was very possibly here that the
idea first arose of regarding t h e murdercd god as ruler of t,he
realms of the dcad, the jimt of those w l ~ o are in tile West,
accorclingr to one conception, the king of the illuminated
according to another.
But this conception of him as king of the dead was not the
essential one: that which decided the further development
of Egyptian fnnerary beliefs was rather that the dead god was
also looked on as a prototype of dead men. The man who
was laid in the grave had actually met with the same fate as
the god. Against his will he had hid farewell to life, and
parted with wife and children ; was i t not therefore reasonable
to hope that his further career also should resemble that of t h e
god ? Even as Osiris lives, he nlso toill live; even as Osiris i s
not dead, he nlso will not d i e ; even as O s i ~ i si s ?zol destroyed, he
nlso zuill not be destroyed? Like a second Osiris he will awake to
a new and joyous life. Like a sccond Horus his son will grow
up, he will triumph over the enemy who injured his fathor in
life, even as Horns triumphed over S e t ; he will guard his house
and uphold the honour of his name.
But before all, the dead may now arise after the same
fashion in which Osiris once rose again, not as a shadowy ghost,
hut in a physical resurrection, for were not the limbs of Osiris
collected together2 by t h e gods, his head once more united to his
FIG.
67.
NUT, WLTX WLNOS O U T S T ~ ~ E P C X ~ovns

D
osxnIs. (Berlin,
losa~.)
bon,es, and his bones united to his Thead? Therefore the same
thing may happen to the human dead if he is treated as a new
Osiris. His bones still lie there crumbling and motionless, but
Pyr. 15 = W. 240 et scg.
ib. 153 = T.272.
ib. 144 = T. 158.
96
Nut, mother of Osiris, is already drawing near, to unite his bones

once more : she gives thee thy head, she brings thee thy bones, she sets
thy limbs together, and places thy heart i n thy 6ody.l All thy
parts are once more wit,h thy body : thy illzb~ninatedspirit and
thy power come to thee as to the god, the rep~esentativeof Osiris:
thy soul is within thee and thy power behind
Thy lca
(p.86) will again acco?npanythee: thy life comes to thee . . thew
con~esto thee thy illzcminated spivit, that6 $rst of the illnnzinated;
and thy st~ength,ihoa$~stof the living; thozc hast a solcl, thozc
man with U so~cl.~Around thee stand tlie gods, and call t o thee,
" ~ i s estancl
,
up,"4 and thou azuakest. Keb opens thy mouth that
thou canst speak again ; 5 Thotli and Horus raise thee u p and
place thcc in the midst of the g o k 6 Then H~rziscauses Tl~o$h
to bring up thine enemy, and sets thee tcpon his back; seat thyself
upon l~ina,rise up and seat thysev on him,? and the nine gods
call out to the foe jeeringly as he lies under thee ; carry one who
is greater than thoza?
When thou has triumphed over thy persecutor, R e and
Horus will provide a ladder for thee : one of them will stand on
this side, and another of them will stand on that side Qand thou
shalt n~ozcntz~polzit to heav~n.'~ The gate of heaven will open to
thee, and the great bolts will draw back for thee?l Thwe thmc
findest Re stationed . . he takes thee by the hand and leads thee
into the sanctuary ( l ) of heaven, and sets thee wpon the throne of
Osiri~,'~
upon this thy throne, i n o~derthat thou mugest ~ u l ethe
illumi~aated?~There sittest thou now like Osiris, with thy
scept~ei n thy hand, thnl thou mayost give contmands to the living;
with thy crook (?)and thy scouvge i n thy hand, that thou mayest
give commands to tlbose whose abodes are hidden.14 The se?vants
of the god stand behind thee and the nobles of the god stand liofore
thee and c ~ :y Come, thou god ! come, thou god ! come, t h m possessor
of the tl~roneof Osi~is! lsis spealcs to thee and Nephthys greets
thee. The illuminated come to thee and p~ostrate themselves, that
Pyr. 229 11. = P. 110.

ib. 229 11. = P. 108.
5 ib. 164 = T. 273.
ib. 160 = T. 286.
Qih. 94 = W. 579.
'l ib. 144 = T. 160.
l3 ib. 144 = 'F. 167.
l
l2
l4
P p . 206 = P. 2.
ib. 249 = P. 165.
ib. 358 = P. 186.
ib. 154 = T. 274.
ib. 259 = P. 193.
ib. 206 = P. 12.
ib. 9 = W. 206.
97
they may kiss the ground at thy feet.1 Thou standest nowprotected
and equipped as god,p~ovidedwith the form of Osi~is,on the throne
t those who are i n the West. Thou dost as he did
of t h e f i ~ s of
among the illuminated and the impe~ishable. Thy soll, ho~ever,
sits upon thy throne, provided with thy form. He does what thou
didst use to do before, ha the &rst of the living, according to the
command of Re. He cultivates barley, he cultivates spelt and gives
thee ther~of.~Thou however causest thy house behind thee to
prosper and guardest thy children from harm.3
This is the destiny hoped for by the devout, who worship
Osiris. They must of course leave the earth, but they go
not as dead, they go as living;4 in death they have not a
mere spiritual ghostly existence, but they awake to a real
renewed life, in full possession of their body and mind; they
possoss ti~eirheart, they possess their mind, they possess their feet,
they possess their mouth, they possess their a m s , they possess all
their limbs.5
W e cannot say when this belief first spread widely among the
Egyptian people; in any case i t existed a t the primitive period,
for even in the oldest form of funerary literature, in t h e pyramid
texts, we find everywhere formnlte in which the dead are
connected with Osiris. These examples taken from the pyramid
texts s r e undoubtedly only adaptations of yet more ancient
formulz. So accusto~nedwere the Egyptians to these utterancas
of the ancient dogmas, that they could not omit them from their
newer beliefs. An ancient formula which was widely in use
runs thus : Happy those who sec, and well for those who beholdsay the gods-this god ascending to heaven . . with his soul
upon him, with his knife at his side, and the magic with him
. . . thou ascendest to heaven, and dost meet l ~ i m etc.6
,
The
later adaptation runs thus : Happy he who sees the father-saith
Isis-and well for him who beholds the father-saith Nephthysto his father, to Osiris, when he ascends to heaven, among the stars,
among the immortals, with the headcloth m% the head, zaith the
h $ f e at the side, and the magic with him. He pe.s f o ~ t hto his
= P. 6.
229 I. = .'l 106
G Totenbuch, 68.
Pyr. 206
"b.
ih. 206 = P. 18.

ib. 9 = W . 206.
"yr.
95 = W. 684
98
mother Nut and nzeets her, etc.1 The first describes the journey
of the dead to heaven, who enters heaven as a new god, to the
amazement of the ancient gods (p. 90); the name of Osiris
is introduced in the second, heaven is changed into his mother
Nz,t, the gods have been altered to Isis and Nephthys, and thus a
text descriptive of the journey of Osiris to heaven has been
produced. We must confess that the change has not improved
it either in meaning or in beauty.
Yet more barbarous is the use made of an ancient formula
which extols the sky goddess who, by raising herself up, had
snatched up thegods vith her into the heights. Averse of this
formula ran thus: Nut, thou art crozoncd as king because thou
didst take possession of the gods, their souls, their inheritance,tlieir
food, and all that they po~sess.~This has been freely used as
follows: Osiris, thou art crowned as king of Upper and Lower
Egypt, because thou didst take possession of the gods, and their
souls.3 Although certainly the beneficent Osiris never carried
off the gods from the earth. I t is also noteworthy that in this
variation the old word in Lower Egypt for a king has given place
to the official Pharaonic title-a clear sign of the late origin
of the compilation.
I n other respects, again, the ancient funerary literature was
not improved by the dissemination of the Osiris beliefs.
There had previonsly been no lack of conflicting ideas, and
now the jumble was complete. Read for instance the following
text, which affords a good instance of this confusion: Awalce for
Horns and stand up against Set, mise thyself, thou eldest son of Keh.
Thm, before whonz the two Enncads tremble, for zohom the chapels
exist, for whonz theperiods of time are celebrated as festi~als .
T h m ~trave~sestAbydos i n this thy illumination: of which the
gods have eomnzanded that it should be to thea, and thou ascended to
Dnat,where Arion is. The lienve?~ly
bull seizes thy arm. Thou ecbtest
the food of the gods. . . He (Re)places thee as the morning star i n
the midst of the Field of Earu. The gate of heaven to the horizon
is open to thee, and the gods rioice ( 2 ) when thou approachest as a
star, which traverses the sea under the hody of Nut i n this thy
..
ib. 227
Pyr. 255 =P. 181.

3
0.210 =P. 61.
P. 101.
BELIEFS REGARDING THE DEAI)
99
majesty whicf~Be lzath commanded ;thou silte~tupon this thy tl~rone

of bronze as i f thou w e ~ tthe great one of Heliupolis, i n order that
thou mayest guide the illum,inated and content the in~pel.ishable?
What a muddle it is! I n t,he first sentence the dead man is
Osiris himself, in the second he travels to Orion, in the third he
is a star with Re, in the fourth he reigns as a king of the dead
and of the stars.
This was only the beginning of the confusion. During the
centuries that followed, the period when the greater number of
texts of the so-called Book of the Dead originated, these ideas
again assumed an entirely different form. We find all manner
of later ideas concerning the fate of the dead and the realms of
Osiris introduced and mixed up with them, while the earlier
traditional conceptions had by this timc become colourless, and
their meaning misunderstood. Thus the ensuing confusion was
so great that it now scarcely repays the labour of attempting to
disentangle it. There is, moreover, one point which is very
characteristic of the Book of the Dead; for the most part it was
regarded entirely as a collection of magic formula Should such
and such an event happen to the deceased, he utters a spell, in
which he identifies himself with such and such a god, in the
belief that he will by this means become possessed of his attributes. He for instance who u t t e ~ sthis spell : <' My name toas
givm me i n the great house, and the remembrance of nzy nan1.e in
the house ofjkmes, i n that night wl~enthe years weve cwicnted and
the months reclconed~ I am that one therein who sits in the east
of heazen, and ever?/ god who doth not follow me, that name I
spealc !"h6 will renzember his name i n the venlnzs of the dcad.2
This fear lest in the hereafter the dead should no longer
remember his own identity, was only one of many strange
anxieties which this magic of the Book of the Dead was
intended to relieve. He feared also lest he should have no
mouth with which to speak to the gods? and lest he should be
robbed of his heart4 His head might be cut off.5 Notwithstanding embalmment, his body might decay: hostile beings
' Pyr.
6
220 III.=DJ. 698 ; 701 et sq.; 710 et saq.

Totenbuoh, 25.
3 ib. 22.
ib. 43.
"b. 45.
ib. 27.
roo
might desire to deprive him of hisplace and throne in the realms

of the dead,l and he himself, like an unfortunate animal offered
in sacrifice, might come to the butcher's block of the gods.= Food
and drink might fail him, and he might be obliged to eat and
drink his own filth.3 I f he really has water, i t may happen to
the water to burn when he is about to drink it4 Again, his
supply of air may f a k 5 Against these and all similar perils,
the spells of the Book of the Dead are intendcd to help.
Against serpents, for instance, who can bite the dead, i t is a
safeguard to address them thus : Oh serpent, come not ! Geb and
Shu stand against thee. Thou hast eaten mice; that is loalhsome
to l20 ; tl~ouhast gnawed the hones of a putrid cat.B And against
the eating of excrement this chapter guards : I am he tol~ol~ath
bread i n Eeliopolis. My bread is i n heaven with Be, and my bread
i s upon earih with hFeb. Tile evening- and nzorning-bark of the
sun, bving it to ine from the house qf the great god of
Eeliopolis? . .
Truly fortunate were those who were provided with this
magic, and also knew how to protect themselves by means of
the spell which availed against the crocodile who would rob the
dead man of his magic? Even during life the knowledge of all
these spells was of service : Whoever readeth llbese spells daily
over himself, he is whole upon earth ; he escapes from every fire,
and never doth anything evil meet him?
All these anxieties and all this magic scarcely appear in the
Pyramid texts, with the exception of a series of spells against
snakes. While tho Book of the Dead differs so completely in
this respect from the Pyramid texts, i t shows thereby a popular
element which in other respects is very characteristic of the
later work. Here primitive conceptions once more appear
that were almost lost sight of in the Pyramid texts, as they did
not accord with the heavenly existence hoped for by these great
lords. The dead man, or rather his soul, might change himself
knto all things tl~attile heart de~iretl~,'~
into a phcenix, a heron, a
"h.
7
U
Totenbncll, 47.
53.
ih. 56.
ih. 53.
ib. 18. end.
ill. 50.
i6. 63 B.
"b. 33.
ib. 51.
'0 ib. 64.
E
101
swallow, a hawk, a worm, a crocodile, a lotus flower,' the so111

would be able to unite itself once more with the
and to
find the door of the tornb open,3 nothing would prevent it from
being able to go out liy day, in that form which i t choose^.^ It is
exactly this supreme desire of the dead man to dwell upon the
earth in the day-time, when the sun is shining, which plays so
great a part in the Book of the Dead, that later the whole book
was known as the Book of coming out by Day.
But of far greater importance than all of these is a dogma of
later origin, that of the necessary justification of the dead. We
have already seen that the dead Osiris was challenged by Set,
and that the gods assembled to judge him i n the hall of
Heliopolis, and made him true of speech, that is, found him
guiltless; we learn from the Book of the Dead; that similar
judgment halls were established in Busiris, Boto, Abydos,
Herakleopolis, in the Sokaris Temple a t Memphis, and in other
sacred places, and everywhere i t was Tboth who vindicated him.
This conception led to a desire that the dead, as representing
the new Osiris, should also be vindicated by Thoth: as Osiris
was found to be just, so the deceased desired to be found pure
and sinless in the abodes of the dead-how should he otherwise
find acceptance in the realms of that god, who himself owed his
position as ruler to his sinlessness ? I t is a question of ethics,
which in this Osiris myth thus makes its appearance in the
Egyptian belief. From henceforth i t is not the powerfill and
distinguished who will triumph after death, but the upright and
sinless.
That this conception of Osiris as judge of the dead had already
appeared in the Old Kingdom is shown by a tomb inscription
that speaks of the great god, the lord of justice! but i t was only
during the Middle Kingdom that i t acquired definite form and
general recognition. I n the great chapter of the Book of the
Dead we next find i t pictured thus : I n a large hall, whose roof
is ringed round with flames of fire and synlbols of truth, Osiris
is enthroned in a chapel ; before him is the symbol of Anubis
Toter~liueh,77-89.
ib. 92.
"b. 18-20.
l
"b. 89.'
ib. 18-64.
W ~ a r i e t t o ,Mnstabas, 11. 19.
102
A HANDBOOli OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
and the devourer of the

West,a fabulous animal
who serves as protector
to the god. Above, i.E.
farther back in the hall,
sit the forty-two judges
of the dead; below
again, i.e. in front, is
the great balance, in
which the heart of the
dead is to be weighed.
The dead will be received by the goddess
of truth on entering the
hall; l Horus and Anuhis then take his heart,
and weigh i t in the
balance to p r o v e
whether it is lighter
than truth. Thoth, the
scribe of the gods, notes
thc result upon his
tablets and communicates it to Osiris. More
remarkable, however,
than this representation is the speech required of the dead
man,%when he arrives at
this hall of the two
tmths, when he is fieed
from all evil which he
has done, and when he
beholds the face of the
1 Maat does not appear
on the accompanying illustration. (Eng.trans.)
2 Totenbuch, 125.
103
god. Thus runs his prayer: P~aisebe to thee, thou g~eatgod, thou
lord oJ the two truths. I have come to thee, oh my lord, that I may
behold thy beauty. Ilcnow thee, and know the names of the forly-two
gods who are with thee i n the hall of the two truths, who live on the
evil doers, ancl who drinJ6 t h e i ~blood each day of the reclconing
before Wennofre.
I come to thee and bring to thee truth, and chase away wrong
doing.
I have committed no sins against manlcind
I have not
done that which the gods abhor. I haw made no man evil i n the
eyes of his superior. I have not caused to hunger. I have not
caused to weep. I have dofze no murder. I have not commanded to murder. I have not occasioned g7i-rief to any. I have
not diminished the food i n the temples. I have not lessened the
bread of the gods. I have not stolen the p~ovisions of the
illumina,ted. I have not committed inzpurily i n the pure abodes
of the god of my city. I have not diminished the con& measure.
I have not diminished the cubit meanrre. I have not falsi$ed
the jield measure. I have not added to the weights of the
balance. I have not falsijied the tongue of the balance. I
/rave not stolen the millc from the month of the child. I have
nut stolen the cattle f m m his pasture. I ha.ve not snared
the birds of the gods. I have r~otcaught the jish i n their lakes.
I have not hindered the water (of the inundation) i n its time.
1 have not dammed up running water . . I have not injzLred
the herds i n the temple domains. I have not hindwed the
god i n his revenues. A second confession of the same character
then follows, in which a separate judge is appealed to for every
sin. There is no doubt that originally it was entirely separate,
and was afterwards introduced here, with the result that the
dead man has twice to testify to his innocence : Oh thou, wide
of stride i n Heliopolis, I have comlnitted no sin. Oh Clasper of
flames i n Iier-Ahau ! I have not stolen. Oh Nose i n Hermopolis !
1 have not defrauded. Oh Devourer of Shadows i n Kerert! I
have not stolen. Oh Looko. backzuard i n Rosetta! I have not
murde~ed men. Oh Dozrble lioness i n heaven! I have not
diminished the measure of corn. Oh Ifi~ife-eyedi n Letopolis! I
have done nothing dishonest. Oh Flanhe i n Khetlchet! I have
...
104
A HANDBOOlC OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
not stolen the Temyleproporty. Oh Bone-bleaker i n Heralcleopolis !

I have not lied. Among otlier sins which the dead man disowns before White-teeth, Devourer of blood, Devourev of entrails,
Wanderer, and other similar terrible beings, are the following:
I have stolen no foud. I have not slain sacred animals. I
have not lain i n wait. I have not comnbitted adultery. I was
not deaf to words of -f1?~tIb.I have not caused weeping. I have
not consumed my heart (with remolae). I have not calumniated.
I have not uttered many words. 1 have not reviled the king.
My voice was not lo.1~~1.I have not reviled the god, etc. Then
again the dead man addresses the terrible judges: May ye be
praised, ye gods. I linow you and know youv names. I shall
not fall by your stool$. This god i n whose following yo are,
reports to you nothing evil about me. YOUare not concerned
with ,me, ye spealc the truth conco-ning me before the lord of all.
For I lmve done jz~stlyi n h'gypt, I have not reviled the god, and
the Icing of the time had nothing against me.
P ~ a k e t oyou, ye gods, ye who are i n the hall gfthe two tm~ths,in
whose body is no lie, and ,who live i n trl~th
before Horus who
dwells i n his sun. Deliver nze from Bebon, who lives on the
entrails of the great ones, i n the day of the great ~eckoning.
Behold, I come to you, without sin, without em1
. I live by
truth, and feed myself with the truth of my heavt. I have done
that wl~ichman commandetl~and that wherewith the gods are
content. I have pleased the god with that whicl~he loveth. I
have given head to the Imngry, water to the thirsty, clothing to
the nalced, and a passage over the river to him who hath no
boat. I have made offerings to the god and fnnevary gifts to the
illz~minated.
Deliver me, protect me; Ye do not accuse me before the great
god. I am one who hath a clean mont?~and pure hands, one
to whom those who see them cry, " Welcome,welcome."
Another great aid to the deceased in his search for justification, namely, that he has heard that word which the ass spalce with
the eat, etc., is considered a proof that he has been a faithful
s e r v a ~of
~ tOsiris, and has taken part in the feasts and ceremonies.
If we look through these lists of sins not committed, it is
evident that the compiler found considerable difficulty in finding
...
..
'05
forty-two sins t o assign to each of the forty-two judges, whose

number was fixed by the forty-two provinces; they reappear
under different forms, or they are expressed quite generally.
Those which are forbidden are somewhat as follows: Injury to
the gods and the dead, murder, oppression, stealing, robbing
minors, fraud, impurity and adultery, lying, slander, reviling,
lying in wait (eavesdropping)-all of which are also condemned
in our scheme of morality. There is only one which exceeds
ours, the remarkable but fine command which forbids heart
eating, i.e. useless remorse.
What is elsewhere stated in the tomb inscriptions of the earlier
time as warrant of the worth of the deceased is of equally simple
character : I gave h a d to the hungry and clothes to the nalced,
and gave a passage i n my own boat to those ruho could not cross.'
I was a fathe7 to the o~phan,a h,?~shan,dto the widow, aprotection
from the wind to the sl~ive~iag
; I am one who spalce what was
good and related what was good (not a scandal monger). I
acguired my possessions i n a just r n ~ n n e r . ~
The dead who could not pass t h e test obtained no entrance
into the kingdom of Osiris, and this was sufficiently sad for
them, for now they must lie hungry and thirsty in their graves,
and neither by day nor by night can they behold the sun. B u t
a s in the case of eartlily tribunals, a special punishment is
awarded t o those who are not acquitted, so for the non-justified
dead a punishment was devised, although it was certainly a
later addition. The judges carried swords with which to chastise
the guilty, and a peculiarly terrible being, Bebon, of whom we
know nothing, was ready to tear him to pieces. B u t we do not
learn much more than this ; it was not a circumstance on which
the imagination of the Egyptians loved t o dwell.
Also with regard to the future of the blessed we do not learn
much that is clear from the Book of the Dead. IIe has his
place i n the Hall before the great god, and he knozcs every great
He goes ou2 into the Field of Earu. There is given
god
to iknb cakes and liread, and fields of barley and spelt semn
cubits high. The se~vantsof Horz~sgather i n his harvest, and he
...
Cairo, 20505,
u.o.
Hanover, I<estner Museum, No.
Cairo, 1641.
11.
106
eats of this bavley and this spelt.' Or again : IIe goes i n and out
i a the under-world, and ilzhaliits the Field of E'ccru and dwells in
the Field of Food, the great plc~ce riel~i n breezes. He is mighty
there, and is illuminated there, he ploughs there and laawcsts
there, and drinks there, and enjoys the pleasure of love thew,
and does everything that he did on ea~tlb.~
We will quote two tomb inscriptions which will show the
conceptions that prevailed during the New Icingdom as to the
existence of the blessed dead in connection with the Book of
the Dcad. In the first 3 Nachtmin, the superintendent of the
granary, desires for himself splendour i n heaven, power y o n earth
and justification i n the ?cndvr-world-to go i n and out of my
grave-that I may cool myself in its shccdow-that I may daily
drinlc water out of my pool-ticat my limbs may grow-that ihc
Nile naay bring me nozrrishment and food and all gleenplur~ts
i n its tin7.e-that I may ezercise mysev upon the horders of my
pout, daily without ceasi.ng-that my soul may hover on the
buuyhs of the trees whicl~I planted-that I may cool myseFf
under nty sycamores-that I inay eat the fruit zui~ich they
give-that I may hmue a n~ozclhzaith which I may speak like
the se7-uccnts of Hurz~s-that I may mount up to heaven, and
descend to earth, and not be hindered on the zuay-that my lca may
not be waylmid-that n8y sozcl may not be shut up--that I may be
amLony the praised, in the midst of the noble oncs-that I may
plou,gh my la?~di n the Ficld of h'ar~c-that I may ar?.ive at the
Field of Food, that they naay come out to me roithjars and loaves
-zuith all food of the Lurd of etemit?/-that I mciy receive my
pro%isionsfrom the fie& on the altar of the p a t god.
For Paheri, prince of El Kab, the following wishes are
expressed by his relatives : Thougoest i n and ozrt with a glad heart,
and with the rewards of the Lord of the gods . . Thozr becomest a
living smcl; thou hast power over bread, water and air. Thou
changed thyself into a phmn&z or a swallow, a sparrow-hawli o~ a
heron, as thou desirest. Thou dost cross i n the boat and art not
hinderecl. Thou sailest up071the water when a flood a,riseth. Thozc
livest anezv and thy soul is not partedfiom thy body. Thy soul is a
ib. 110, introduction.
Totcnbneh, 99.
Louvre, C. 65.
107
god together with the illun~inated,and the ezcellent souls speak with
tlhee. Thou art among tium and (zerily) rcceitlest zuhd is giren upon
earth; thou possessest water, possessest air, hast superabundance of
that which thozc desirest. Thine eyes are given to thee to see, and
thine ears to hear speech, thy mouth spenlceth, thy legs move, thy icands
and arms bestir themselves for thee, thy jlesh grows, thy veins clre i n
health, and thou feelest thysew well i n all thy limbs. Thozc hast
thine upvight heart i n thy possession, and thy eavlier heart belongs
to thee. Thou dost mount up to heaven, and art szammoned each day
to the libation table of Wennofre, thozc reeeivest the food which has
been offered to h i n ~and the gifts of the Lords of the necvopolis.
And there are further wishes expressed for the same individual. Thou eatest bread i n the presence of the god, on the great
staircase of the Lord of the Ennead (of Osiris in Abydos). Thou
dost exercise tl~yewthere and art friendly with the sewants of Horus
(the ancient kings who reigned there). Thou dost ascend and
descend and art not prevented. Admittance is not rehsed thee at
the gate of Duat, but the fol&ing doors of the horizon are opened to
thee, and the bolts open to thee of themselves. Thou treadest ti~ehall
of the Tzuo Truths, and the god who is i n it greets thee. Thou
seatest thgself within the lcingdom of the dead and wallcest abozct in
the "city of the Nile." Thou rejoicest when thou ploughest thy
portion of the Field of Earn. What thoz~needest isprodzcced by thy
labour, and thy haroast comes to thee as corn. A rope is fixed to the
boat for thee, that thou n~ayestsail when it pleaseth thee. Every
morning thou goest out, and every evening tl~onretumest honse. A t
night a lanbp is lighted for thee, until the szcn again sl~ineson t l ~ y
body. " Welcome" is said to thee i n illis thy hozcse of the living.
Thou beholdestXe i n the horizon of heaven, and gazest OIL Amon
when he inriseth. T h m awrckest beazctifiil hy day, all evil chased
away from thee. Thou dost traverse eternity with joyf~clness and
with the praise of the god who is i n thee (i. e. thy conscience ?).
Thoupossessest thy heart, it doth not depart from ti~ee. Thy food
is there where it shozcld be.
A careful reading of this passage scarcely affords us a clear
comprehension of the life of the dead. That the dead passes
the night in the tomb or in the under-world, that he awakes in
the morning and leaves his grave, when he sees the sun arise ;
108
that he sits like a bird on tlie trees or delights himself by intercourse with the ancient dead in Abydos; that 11o also dwells in
heaven, where he reaches the Field of Earu by means of the
boat; that he thero tills the ground, but that he is also supplied
with food by Osiris, that with all this he feels himself once
more a living man, with renewed soul and body-this is about all
that we can learn. But if we attempt to arrive a t details we
ate rebuffed by all manner of contradictions. For instance,
according to the Paheri inscription Duat is situated in heaven,
while, as we have seen, i t was usually considered as being under
the earth, and the judgment of the dead, in the inscription of
Nachtmin, is placed in the under-world, while that of Paheri
places t h e Hall of the T v o Truths in which it was held, in
heaven. Any one also who wishes clearly to understand the
relation in which body, soul and ka stood to each other-many
texts recognize the shadow of the man in addition to thesefinds even greater confusion in the later texts than he encountered
in the earlier ones, and may well wonder how an intelligent
nation could allow itself for so many centuries to be encumbered
with such a jumble.
But we are now dealing with supernatural matters, and these
no nation can define with absolute exactitude. A t first they
were vivid conceptions, to which names were given by a youthful
fresh imagination, but successive generations included new and
unforeseen ideas under this fixed nomenclature. We ourselves
spcak of "heaven" and mean little more by the word than an abode
of the blessed ; we speak of the soul, of the spirit, of the heart with
little comprehension of the original values of these expressions.
We must,therefore, concede to the Egyptians of historical times
the right to extend the use of their a&nt expressions for what
is supernatural and' intangible, regardles sof their strict meaning.
Could we to-day question an Egyptian concerning these apparent
contradictions, he would no doubt tell us that on the whole they
scarcely contained a contradiction-or else that it is advisable not
to investigate too closely into such sacred and inscrutable matters.
They possess a certain attraction for mankind which lies in this
very mystery and vagueness, and i t is only a lifeless and learned
theology that would conceive tlie idea of drawing up in Philistine
BELIEFS REGARDING THE IIEAD
109
fashion a kind of geography of the Hereafter. That the Egyptian

nation were not exempt from this is proved by the marvellous
books, which pointed out to the deceased the road they should
take, and explained to him all thevarious beings he would meet
with in the under-world.
Whoever entered the realms of the dead by the sacred place
of Ro-Setau (p. 15), had, as we learn from a map of t h e
Hereafter,' two routes open to him, which would lead him to
the land of the blessed, one by water, the other by land. Both
are zigzag, and a traveller cannot change from one to the other,
for between them lies a sea of fire. There are also by-ways, by
which lhou mzcst not t~uvel,for they lead thee into the fire, or
they are by-paths. Also before entering upon either of these
routes there is a gate of fire to be passed. This idea that
gates are placed in the road taken by the dead is also found in
the Book of the Dead.z The Field of Earu has fifteen or twentyone gates, and evil gatekeepers stand by them with knives in
their hands, and serpents also are stationed there.
The literature has developed strangely into two voluminous
books, one of which indicates the route of the dead on their
journey, while the other conveys the sun through the underworld d u ~ i n gthe twelve hours of the night. Here we find the
old idea that even the unfortunate dead in their darkness shall
be allowed once to behold the light, hut how greatly is this
beautiful conception weakened !
.According to the Book of him who i s in the under-wovldusually called Amduat-the under-world is divided into twelve
parts, which correspond to the twelve hours, and are spoken
of asfiekd,~or caverns. They have a large population of gods,
of spirits, and of the dead. I n each there is usually a town, and
each is ruled by agod. As the Pharaoh sailed through the provlnces of his kingdom, so did the sun god sail fronl one cavern to
another ; he issues his co~nnzaadsto t?he gods who are therein, and
divides the land among them. Various gods formed the esco~t
of Re, and the goddess of that special hour also acted as his
' The Zweiwegeburh, froin a sarcophagus in the Berlin Museum,

published by Count Schack.
Totenbuch, 144-1413,
110
A HANDROOI< OF EGYI'TIAN
RELIGION
guide. On this journey, however, he himself is actually a corpse,

his jZesh as the text says; this melancholy circumstance is
indicated by his now wearing the head of a ram.
During the first, hour t h e sun god journeys into the earth,
into the gateway of the westevn horizon : 120 slcenm long is the
journey until he reaches the gods of the under-wmZd. The second
hour hears the name of Wernes, i t is a field 408 skenre long and
120 skenre broad ; from this point another bark is used by the
god, which a t first is convoyed by four marvellous boats. The
field of the third hour is also of similar extent, and here Osiris
dwells, with his followers. Here also ships precede him, and he
receives a friendly welcome.
The fourth and fifth hour bring us into a strange locality, into
the 21assages, the seelet caverns of the West, wbere Sokaris, the
ancient Memphite god of the dead, has his abode. There darkness reigns, and Re does not see w h o is thc~ein,yet they hear his
voice when he gives his commands. It is a sandy desert without
water, the abode of serpents. The bark of R e must itself change
into a serpent, and thus it is drawn down through a passage, the
road hy zohieh tire bocly of Soicaris entered, through t h e mound of
sand in which Sokaris is buried, and ont of which he still thrusts
his head in order to behold the sun.
The sixth hour once inore affords water for the bark of the
sun ; and i t arrives i n this $eld near the body o j Osiris. Tbe
seventh brings him danger, for the great storm dragon Apophis,
whose placc is i n heaven, has established himself here, and lies ou
a ridge of lund which is 450 cubit.? long,and which he $Us with his
coils. But his voice guides the gods to him, and they wound
him : tluis peat god does not pass over h,in~,bnt diverts ibis way
from him. Yet this secr.et way on which the god sails i n his
splendid bade has yet another difficulty : there is not sufficient
water for it, for the dragon has drunk i t u p and the magic
of Isis and of the Elders is required to bring the ship on its way.
These caverns still belong, moreover, to Osiris, whose flesh we
here see cnthroned as kiny, while his enemies lie beheaded or
bound before him. It is yet more noteworthy that in this hour
and the following the sun god arrives a t mounds of sand, under
which various gods are buried. Atum, Re, Khepre, Sbu, Tefnut
III
and others : thus he meets himself and, moreover, actually under

his three forms !
I n the ninth hour, the rowers of the sun god land and rest i n
this cit?~;in the eleventh, where also the torture of t h e enemios
of Osiris is to be witnessed, the rope by which the ship is
dragged is changed into a serpent. I n t h e twelfth, the great
transformation occurs, which has been prepared during the
eleventh hour. I n the tenth hour a beetle had alighted close to
Re ; nowiin the cavern End of the dawn, the sun bark is dragged
through a serpent 1,300 cubits long, and when a t last he emerges
out of the jaws of the serpent, the sun god himself has become
this beetle. H e has now become Khepre, god of the morning
sun (see p. 10), his former body remains in the under-world,
and the god Shu takes the beetle in charge ; the new god comes
out from the nnder-u~orld,and seats himself i n the morning bark,
and ascends into the bosom of the goddess of heaven. The sun is
new-born and begins his new career.
These are roughly the contents of the book so far as they can
be reproduced. The innumerable quaint details with which the
confused imagination of its compilers has loaded i t cannot be
reproduced, and yet they give the book its special character.
Thus, for instance, in pictures of t h e third hour, of the
kingdom of Osiris, i n the ninety-seven figures in the illustration we see nothing, actually nothing, of all we find elsewhere
associated with the god of the Dead. Neither his table of food,
nor the fields tilled by t h e blessed dead, neither the judgment of
the dead, nor Isis and Nephtliys. Instead we find on one bank
three gods standing with sceptres, a hawk, four women who,
according to the explanatory text, weep or lament, four mummies having horns and wings on their heads, and four men who,
i t appears, represent the noble dead; then follows the rich i n
niagie, a papyrus stem on which a piece of meat is lying. Behind
is a man who brings the eye and contents the gods, Anubis with
his sceptre before him, and a mummy form provided with hands.
The ram with the sword is the slayer of his foes; the male and
female bringers appear also to be bringing eyeballs. Finally,
behind S e t and Annbis are two monkeys ; one of which is seated
in a hiding-place, the other, as stated in the inscription, is seated
RELIEFS REGARDING THE DEAD
'13
on his sand. On the other bank we find among others two gods
in long garments, one of whom signifies Orion, a god in a short
skirt, the Western, the goddess who is ,upon her &me, the goddess of birth, the fiue, five bird-headed beings with knives, and
others. Between these are two groups of four gods enthroned
wearing the crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt, and these eight
gods all represent Osiris, to whom this locality belongs, corresponding to eight different titles of the god. These are The
mightiest of the gods, ?ci,ngof Lower Eqypt, He who i s seated upon.
his throne, Bull of the West, Conquerov of Zternity, Repvesentativiva
of tho Stars, Pimt of the Westerne~s,
Lord of the West. Behind all
these again stands a man praying, and the god Khnum. When
we turn to the ships which are conducting the sun bark we find
in tbem the serpents Sparlcling of face, Five i n countenance,
Fire i?z eye, and also hawks and female hawks, with Lords
of scept7es and He who is i n the country, vith the pilots,
Flaming Face, Knge in the countenance, and Rower of rowers.
What in the world is the meaning of all this? I n vain
we search in the text for an explanation; here we are
told that those in the upper row create the ocean, make the
aclvanees of the Nile, while those below cut u p svlcls, and ensnare
shadows, and harry the enemy with fire and sword.
We are also informed that these beings worship Re; he speaks
kindly to them, and gives them drink, and when he has passed
away from them they lament. But what help does this give us
towards understanding the individual figures? And yet the
man who compiled this graud book on the basis of one similar
and more ancient, undoubtedly associated ideas with the whole
of this and took delight in all the allusions concealed in these
pictures. We need not, however, greatly lament our ignorance,
for what is incomprehensible to us here does not represent
popular ideas, nor does it contain deep speculation. I t is the
phantasy of a strange people, who have given it the form in
which we now see it, and who were nothing more than compilers
of magic spells. The titles, with which the whole book is pervaded, point to this. Whoever kno~vsthese pictures and names,
to him it is of greatest use upon earth and of use i n the great
under-world. Or: who knows them, he possesses food i n the
8
r14
n?zder-wovld,ancl is satisjied with the gifts of tl~efullozvers of

Osiris, zuhile his ~elationsupon earth also malce ygts to him. Or,
again : He is a passenger of the Bark of Re i n heaven and i n
ea~th. He, howezar, who does not lcnow these things, he cannot
cscape Apophis. Every word, every picture of the book is thus
a protection for the fortunate possessor, and without doubt it
was dearly paid for as such, to the man who first supplied it.
A supplementary hook has also survived to our times, called
by us the Book of the Gates, according to which lofty fortresses
stand between each of the hours, guarded by watchers and by
fire-breathing serpents. It retains more of the usual conceptions,
and its magic purpose is not so apparent as in the Amduat ; it
follows it, however, only too closely in its construction and
arrangement.
I n the whole of this literature there is only one point that is
of interest for us. I t is that there was a time when it was
valued and much in request. During the thirteenth and four
teenth centuries, when the kings of the nineteenth and twentieth
dynasties caused their tombs to be constructed a t Thebes, these
texts were painted on the malls and sarcophagi. As we wander
to-day through the solemn passages of these colossal tombs, the
pictured forms of the Amduat gaze down on us from all sides, as
though the ancient Egyptians had no higher ideas concerning
life after death than these absurdities. The next century also
supplied the dead of other ranks with portions of this book on
papyrus rolls to serve as a sure protection. The book, however,
never became generally popular, and remained, as it deserved, a
secret of the magic art.
CHAPTER V
E'UNERARY CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD AND OF THE
NEW KINGDOM
SINCEthe excavations of the last ten years have acquainted

us with the earliest cemeteries of Egypt, we have known that
even in that country, where such elaborate provision was made
for its dead, burial was at first a simple matter. A narrow
trench in which the body was laid with the knees drawn up to
the body on the left side. There the body decayed, and aRer a
few years any one molesting such a grave would merely find
a skeleton with the bones detached. A remenibrance, moreover,
of this oldest form of burial, in which the body decayed and fell
to pieces,influeuced the later Egyptian, without his being awa1.e
of i t ; his prayers for the dead still included the wish that the
limbs of the deceased should once niore unite themselves, and that
his head might again be attached to his body.
I n the later period, when the Egyptian Bnew how to preserve
the body from decay, by means of mummifying, he still made
use of these expressions, employing them as allusions to the
body of Osiris rent in pieces by his foes, and it is very possible
that the legend of the dismemberment of the body of Osiris may
earlier have grown out of this ancient ritual, which in its original
form referred to limbs fallen apart from each other.
At this time it was customary to place something in the hand
of the deceased,which was considered likely to be of use to him.
Thus in one hand we find a flat palette, used during his
lifetime for rubbing the green paint with which he adorned
his body, and in the other hand a leather bottle. Near the
body a large number of objects are laid, jars and bowls with
food and drink, that the deceased may not go hungry ; harpoons
"5
116
and flint knives, that he may hunt for food, and defend himself
against his focs ; a chess board, with which he may wile away the
time, hair ornaments and palettes, with which he may perform his
toilette as elaborately as in life. I n addition to these there were
others which could only have been of supernatural service to him.
Thc small clay boat should enable him to cross the lakos which,
as we have already seen (pp. 91, 94), surround the heavenly
regions of the blessed. The clay ox is for him to slay; the clay
hippopotamus will afford him good sport; the clay maidservant in the great tub will there knead with her feet and make
barley into dough for him, to provide him with his favourite
beverage of beer. And the other crouching figure of a woman
is obviously adapted to provide her lord with the joys of love,
and for this reason is she so grandly painted with various
colours, to appear as though she were decked with garlands and
decorations, and therefore are her thighs so enormously developed, a detail which a t the present day is regarded by the
African as the highest feminine beauty.
Other graves of tbis earliest time already possess elaborations
which point to an attempt a t improving the disposal of the dead.
The bodies were still laid in the crouching position, but they were
wrapped in matting or hides, or were buried in two great jars.
They would then dry u p in the arid soil, and form a kind of
natural mummy. Or the grave was dug somewhat deeper, lined
with brick, and covered over with a flat stone to protect the
contents from being crushed. I t was yet more secure when a
shalt shaft was cut in the rock, which opened below on a small
chamber, whose opening was wailed up, and a heap of stones
piled over it, safeguarding lhe corpse both from robbers and
jackals.
Another more elaborate form we find first employed for the
graves of the kings. The great tomb a t Negada, in Upper
Egypt, which was probably occupied by BIenes, the first king of
whom anything was known by the later Egyptians, is a rectangular brick building, wit11 strong walls sloping rapidly at the
top. This was covered with a slight roofing of palm stalks. I n
the centre was the chamber containing the body of the king,
surrounded by four other chambers containing the great mass of
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF T H E EARLY PERIOD
rr7
food, and of jars of beer and wine, the ivory couches, t h e magnificent stone vases, and all the other household goods whicb
would be required by the king in the hereafter. Similar graves
were constructed a t Abydos by his successors, and in one of these
we first meet with a circumstance which was destined later to
become of importance : the king was not buried alone, but i n
small ch*mbers near him rest his court; as is shown by t h e
small gravestones in these chambers, the wives of the ruler, his
body-guard, and even his court d~varfsand his dogs, are buried
around him.
But this form of grave construction did not long remain the
exclusive property of the king ; the nobles copied i t closely, and
then the kings for their part adopted a new kind of tomb, the
pyramid, which from the end of the third dynasty, about 2800
KC., became the exclusive form of t h e royal tombs.
The Pyramids, which have so often been called the nlarvels of
ancient Egyptian history, may indeed be so considered. They
bear witness to the immeasurable power and dignity to wliich
this ancient kingdom attained. Even the first known pyramid,
t h e step pyramid of Sakkara, built by King Zozer, is a colossal
building, whose walls, constructed of blocks of limestone, tower
u p for no less tlran 60 m. in height. But what is this i n
comparison with the Great Pyramid of Gizeli, the building
erected by his fifth successor, Kheops? I n order clearly to
realize its dimensions, we mnst imagine the great square of
Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the area is exactly that of the Great
Pyramid, and covering this space we mnst imagine a mass of
stone building the height of the cathedral a t Strassburg. And
this colossal building, the design for which was repeatedly
enlarged during the long reign of the king, was designed solely
to protect t h e body of the Pharaoh from injury; i t corresponded
to t h e heap of stones piled over the burial chamber. That the
king ventured to devote t h e whole resources of the kingdom to
this one object shows that the preservation of the body was at
this period considered a sacred duty; an idea obviously influenced by that hope of a possible resurrection of tbe body
which we have previously mentioned (p. 95).
But as every extravagance speedily comes to a n end, so did
118
%
.
HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
the rage for pyramid building. The two immediate successors

of Khoops built on the same gigantic scalo as their predecessor,
but all later monarchs of the Old Kingdom (and among them
were some nrho reigned long) contented themselves with pyramids of relatively small size. And we must add that these
smaller pyramids accomplished their objects quite as well, or
quite as badly, as their colossal rivals, for neither t h e one nor
the other proved able to afford lasting protection to the body.
Notwithstanding the masses of granite with which their narrow
1'-..v
i..
F,,.,. .
.
'..<..
. r :. 11
:
y l C i <'A
. l . e ~ ~ r a t ~ > ~i l k~ .c... t
'.?V.!,
r.:t
, U11 l. v.,.
.4 .il..1. :
.\'1
1111.
l,x..,~e.l~,!.
...:l,.,
passages were blocked, they were all of them pillaged in ancient

times.
As the interior of the pyramid could not be entered after t h e
burial, i t was necessary that the place set apart for the worship
of the dead monarch should be near i t on the outside ; a temple
where offerings could be brought, and also storehouses and
various chambers for preparing the food; there must also be
dwelling-houses and business offices for the priests and officials
of the pyramid. The whole formed
the pyramid a town,
and bore a name, which signified its eternal permanence and
FUNERARY CUSTOMS O F THE EARLY PERIOD
119
magnificence : Horison. of Kheops, or G ~ e n one

t of IO~cipl'L~en,
or
Pz~replaces hath Use~kaf.
Around the pyramid of the king, according to ancient
custom, were buried those who had surrounded him in life, the
princes and princesses, and all tile great noblcs of his court.
These glaves were arranged round the pyramid like a town, with
regular streets, varying greatly in size, in material, and in
decoration, but in ossentials all of one type, that which the
fellaheen of the present day prosaically, hut most aptly call
the mastaba, i. a. the bench. Externally the mastaha has the
rectangular form of the earliest royal tomb, but it combines
FIG.61. ~ ~ s ~ n s a(Reeonstruotion
s.
by Perrot-Chipies.)
with this all the precautions which had been invented in the
meantime for safeguarding the body. A vertical shaft was sunk
deep into the rock, and a small lateral chamber chiselled out a t
the end, in which the body was placed. Above this shaft a
rectangular mass of stone blocks was raised, faced with blocks
of hewn stone, so that the mastaba resembled in appearance a
stone building with sloping walls. The shaft was carried right
up to the roof, for on the day of the burial the body had to be
let down i t ; this having been accon~plished,the entrance to the
burial chamber was walled up, and the shaft filled to the top
with blocks of stone and rubbish.
~ z o
As the realms of the dead were supposed to be in the west,

or a t least to be accessible from the west (p. 87), so everything
Pia. 6%. **we Doon OF TOMB OP PIA=-REIEP.

(sakksra.)
The hieroglyph inscriptions nie omitted witii the exception
of the nallle of tile deceased.
which was done for the dead was arranged to face that quarter.
Where i t was practicable the graves were situated on the western
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF T H E EARLY PERIOD
121
bank, so that the body could be taken to the west for burial;
the place where offerings were made to the dead was on the east
side of the mastaba, in order that any one speaking to the dead
should be facing the west. These places for offerings at the
mastabas were marked by the so-called false door, the conventional imitation of a door. I t represents the entrance to the
interior of the tomb, the door through which the dead could
emerge to secure the offerings brought by the survivors. I n the
larger tombs these niches were deepened and form a chamber,
with the false door on the far wall. A t first these chambers
were of small dimensions. The chamber of Meten, now in
the Berlin Museum, and which belongs to the third dynasty, is
actually only a deep narrow niche, widened out crossways a t the
end in front of the back wall. I t just gave room for the two
priests who had to pray and sacrifice a t the grave, and also
allowed persons offering to deposit their offerings on t h e right
and left sides. The walls of this small chamber are furnished
with all manner of suitable pictures. His people are bringing
to the deceased food and houeel~oldfurniture, and his dogs (he
was a chief huntsman), and s ~ ~ p p lhim
y with game for his
offering, while the mortuary priests perform their ceremonies
on his behalf. A t the entrance two long inscriptions tell how
greatly Meten had succeeded in life, and what a fine house
and large garden he had been able to lay out.
During the reign of Kheops, several years later, we find that
more space and more complicated decoration were considered
necessary, and by the fifth and sixth dynastiesmany of the great
nobles constructed actual mansions for their mastabas. Thus
the tomb of Merernka, vizier of king Pepi, contains no fewer than
thirty-one chambers, twenty-one of which are devoted to the
deceased, six to his wife, and fo~irto his son. Here there are
also what are not found in all such tombs, representations of
agriculture, of cattle-tending, hunting and snaring birds, craftsmen and sailors, musicians and dancing women, butchers and
wine treaders, and whatever would appear interesting and
attractive to an Egyptian of the upper classes. No doubt these
representations had special reference to the tomb. The cattle,
game, fowls, the corn and wine were placed there to be utilized
122
as offerings a t the grave, the artisans work for his benefit, the
ships bring gifts to him, and with music and dancing t h e
deceased can be amused as in life. But close examination
shows that this purpose becomes increasingly only a matter
of secondary importance. If the boatmen were really only
intended to bring gifts, i t would not have been necessary to
represent liow they would fall to fighting and cudgelling eacb
other, and equally unnecessary to perpetuate on the walls of the
tombs what the butchers called out to each other, what the sower
sang, or what the swaying movements of the dancing girl were
called. I n all this we recognize an attempt to render tlie
decorations of the grave more varied and artistic, even thougli
t h e pretext for them had to be forcibly adduced. These changes,
however, could scarcely have occurred had there not also
been some change of ideas. It is probable that by this
time the idea had obtained of celebrating the feast days of
the dead as a joyous occasion. For this, tlie large chambers,
with their cheerful and artistic decorations, would be far
more suitable thau the narrow rooms with their monotonous
paintings.
But even in the Old Kingdom, everything connected with the
offerings and feasts of the dead becarne more luxnrions during
the course of centuries. Of what the earliest offering to the
dead customarily consisted can now be inferred by t h e signs
employed in writing tlie word "offering." I t consisted of a
mat, on which was placed a dish containing bread. When,
therefore, we find the deceased called npon to come out to the
voice, and to take possession of his offering, the thousand loaves,
thousand jkgs of bee?., thousand oxen, thousand geese, and all good,
pure things, i t is permissible to doubt wiletlier any one ever contributed greatly towards the realization of these words. It was
an obsoleto form, whose observance cost nothing. Ordinarily
the survivors would deposit some loaves on the table of offerings
in front of the false door, and pour water over them. A t great
festivals they wot11d p e ~ h a p sbring a haunch of beef in addition,
and they would then be considered as havingcompletely fulfilled
their duty. The long list of food, which i t was usual to inscribe
near the scene which represented the deceased man feasting,
124
A HANDBOOIC O F EGYI'TIAN RELIGION
property was made over to them. I n return they undertook to

provide the offerings to the deceased, to perform the prescribed
ceremonies, and to guard the tomb carefully. These mortuary
priests thus formed a colony a t the groat tombs, with settled
orders, of varying ranks, and with regulations of tbeir own.
I t can easily be imagined that this custom introduced by the
great nobles would soon spread among people of more moderate
means. A man who himself was only a mortuary priest has
left behind a tablet 1 on which he recounts the various persons
whom he has provided for his daughter's grave. If we may
infer his pecuniary circumstances from the roughness of this
inscription, it would not be possible for him to have made such
ample provision. Possibly the kiug came to his aid in this
matter, as he often did in the Old Kingdom.
This interposition of the king was of so remarkable a character
that we cannot well pass it over. I n the upper classes of
Egyptian society, which principally subsisted on the favour of
tlie Pharaoh,and a t Court ate what was excellent, that he gave,%it
naturally came to pass that on application to the king deserving
persons would be assisted in founding and sapport.iug.their graves.
We frequently hear of such cases ; in one ir~stancethe kiug
entirely provides for the construction of the tomb, for another
(his physician) he gives a t least the false door,3 for a third he
orders a stone sarcophagus to he p r ~ v i d e d ,and
~ yet another
hopes that i n his isgTavethe mortuaryoffering will be stqplied from
the granaries,f~onz,the treasza~ies,fron~
the wo~lcsl&ops
of the royal
jewellery . . . ancl from evely place of the Cowt f'om zaqhliich an
offering to the dead shall be provided! What was done in isolated
cases during the Old Kingdom, must have been almost the
rule a t the primitive time when the developed system of burial
was confined to a very small circle of the highest personages,
and it was then hoped, in the case of every deceased person,
that the king would supply his tonib with food.
As it was expected of Anubis, the ancient god of the dead,
that he would supply the dead with provisions, so it was
expected of the king: the offeqing that the king gives! the
Berlin, 14108.
"Vestcar,
Inscription of Unn.
7,21.
"ariette,
Mustabas, D. 12.
Wariette, Mnstabas, E. 12.
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 125
offe~ii?~g
that Annhis ,gives ! Ihozcsands of loaves, beer, ozcn, geese,
of all good things! That is the prayer uttered more frequently
than any other a t the tombs. And this petition must have
come down from a very early time, for its opening words are
almost meaningless, and it became the recognized prayer for the
dead of the Egyptians. The offering that the king gives is, for the
Egyptian, the prayer of all prayers. For thousands of years it
persisted, meaningless and distorted, hut ever with its ancient
wording, and it was even employed for the gods in the tomples.
As long as the Egyptian belief existed a t all, so long was it
inscribed on all tombs, and on all objects deposited in them.
We, therefore, meet with its hieroglyph signs
4 L
&L
from
the earliest times until we are weary of them, and would

gladly ignore them. However, if we entertain kindly feelings
towards the ancient Egyptians, we sliall not ignore this petition ;
but, on the contrary, read it aloud with emphasis, for this is
what the occupants of the tombs request from posterity. They
ask us for that heath of the mouth which is of use to the dead
andalso not difimltl for him who utters it, and charge us to do
so by all that is sacred to an Egyptian : even as we desire that
our local gods shovld love and rezua~d us, aalcd that we shoulti
bequeath on7 oficial positions to our children, or even as we love
life, and hato death.
I n other respects also the grave inscriptions often address the
future visitor. One assures us that he has every claim to the
attention of posterity, because he has been a good man who has
done no evil clgainst any one. H e has also built this tomb oJ new
material, and has talcen no man's property for
And all men
who ente~this tomb and behold what is i n it, and protect its
insc~iptions . . they shall become elders i n their city and
venerable i n their p~ovince.~Woe, however, to those who injure
the tomb; the deceased will summon him befo~ea C O Z L Tofjustice,
~
for though he can no longer appeal to earthly justice, he can point
out the evildoer to the great god near whom he dwells in death.4
Yet neither these causes nor yet their well-founded revenues
Berlin, 7311 n o .
Siut, i. 225 et sey.
ib. 15126.
Berlin, 15126 u.0.
126
A HANDBOOI< OF EGYI'TIAN RELIGION
could save the Egyptian tombs from the fate that naturally
awaited them; even the most wealthy nation cannot provide
for perpetuity a never-ending ceremonial for the benefit of its
dead. Wbat did it avail that the reigning Pharaoh intended
faithfully to fulfil his pious duty towards the royal ancestors and
all the former queens and princesses. A day would inevitably come
when his advisers would point out to him that it was already diffi.
cultto provide sufficient establishment for the tombof the Pharaoh
himself, and that it was impossible to arranse adequately for all the
relations of the king. There would therefore be no alternative
but to confiscate the endowment of some half-forgotten ancestor
to supply tho necessities of the present time. When King
Sabure expressed a wish to reward his old palace official Persen
with a permanent gift, it might well be most just to appropriate
the foundation of the ancient Queen Neferhotpes, and to bestow
on this meritorious man the two cakes and the oil which she
had secured for her grave as a daily offering from the temple
of Ptah? What could not be avoided even in the prosperous
circunistances of the royal family would necessarily be doubly
unavoidable in private families. Even the most wealthy, after
a few generations, must have been forced to employ the revenues
of the older graves for the purposes of graves of their own time.
The mortuary priests also would only trouble themselves about
the more recent graves, for which they received payment; the
earlier ones were closed and neglected. What would then
happen we cat1 learn from an instance borrowed from the modern
Egyptians. I n the fifteenth century of our era the Mameluke
Sultans a t Cairo built burial places for themselves which rivalled
in size the tombs of the ancient Egyptians. They were mosques,
and contained schools and accommodation for students. Their
maintenance and the salaries of the large staff employed there
were provided for by rich endowments. These endowments mere
confiscated a t the beginning of the nineteenth century, and
already these tomb-mosques have become melancholy ruins,
from which everything worth taking has been torn down and
stolen. Some have been inhabited by gangs of beggars, the
successors of the mosque officials who once lived there, others
1
Berlin, 11406=Mariette, Mastubus, D. 45.
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
127
have been profitably made use of by the State as magazines.

We have no ground for assuming that things were otherwise in
ancient Egypt, when disused tombs would also quickly fall into
ruins. A great number of objects found in later tombs show
how the earlier ones were pillaged; the name of the dead man
in whose grave they were first placed is erased, and that of a
new possessor substituted; coffins, statues, and all the other
grave furniture bear traces of this double usage. The tombs
themselves show this even more clearly: almost all of them
were broken into aud plundered in ancient times. We often
find that the grave inscriptions have been chiselled out and replaced by that of a new burial, and even more frequently we find
a still rougher usage of the old graves. They were pulled down,
and as much of them as could be carried away utilized as
building material. There was then nothing to prevent the
desert sand drifting into those ruined tombs, rising higher and
higher until it formed a new level on which a later generation
once more erected graves. Thus in Sakkara, near the pyramid
of King Teti, over the ruined graves of his time there are those
of the New Kingdom, and above these agznin graves were once
more built during the Hellenistic period, and all alike are shattered and pillaged. I t is a melancholy sight, which recalls tlre
pessimistic verses in which an ancient Egyptian poet lamented
the uselessness of constructing graves: he who built there i n led
granite, who constructed a hall ( l ) i n a pyramid; who supplied
there what was beautij'zal i n thisJne worlc . . his altar shall be
as enrpty as those of the wear?/,who die on the canal embankn~ent
without leaving any su~vivo~s?
Now and then a pions successor would undertake to restore
sorne such ruined grave; thus Eutef, prince of Hermonthis,
boasts, in the Middle Kingdom : Ifozand the chanrber of offerings
of the prince Nelchti-oker fallen down, its walls were old, all its
statues were brolcen, there was no one who heeded it. Thus it was rebuilt, its site was enla?ged,its statues welerenewed, and its door built
of stone, so that his place su~assedthose of othe? noble princes.2
What Entef did here was regarded altogether as a religious
Speech of a man weary of life, GO et sey.

Berlin, 13272.
128
A H A N D B O O K OF E G Y P T I A N R E L I G I O N
duty, but how few of tlrose who boast t l ~ a ttl~ey~estored that

zolLicl~they found decayed can actually have done so: i t was quite
impossible. I n fact, what could be the object of restoring
ruined graves, when the robbers, as so often happened, had
penetrated to the sarcophagus itself, and had torn the body out
and destroyed i t ? This was generally their object, for i t was
here that they found t h e objects that could be most easily
disposed of. The altar, stone casing, stands, etc., which stood i n
the chamber above, were of little value compared to the booty
which they expected to find in the coffin, and never would the
peace of the corpse have been disturbed had not these offerings
been placed with it. Notwithstanding this, the Egyptian still
continued to place his offerings in that position, and this he
must have done not merely to show his reverence for ancient
tradition, he must have considered that such offerings were of
groat importance to the well-being of the deceased; prayers and
offerings were not sufficient. These practices later became more
widely developed, but even in the early times they were
sufficiently complicated, and they are too characteristic to be
passed over without comment.
I n the treatment of the body attention was concentrated on
the attempt to preserve it, and to retain its natural appearance.
If this could be done, the soul would find its accustomed abode
there, and might once more awake; with this hope the body
was treated with natron and asphalt, and the limbs wrapped in
linen ; over t h e face was placed a mask of linen and stucco,
intended to give i t a natural appearance. The "mummy" was
then laid in a sleeping attitude on the left side, the head
supported on a head-rest, and enclosed in the coffin, a rectangular
chest of stone or wood, the sides of which were strong enough
to protect the mummy from injury. How i t was the dead
were not confined to their coffins, how they could go in and out
unhinde~ed,to see the sum, was beyond human comprehension,
and belongs to the domain of supernatural phenomena. The
Egyptians themselves, indeed, felt that there was a contradiction here, for on many coffins we find various expedients
adopted which are intended to solve the difficulty. A t the
upper end of t h e coffin, on t h e side towards which the face of
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OI? THE EARLY PERIOD
129
the mummy is turned, there is painted a pair of large eyes in

order that t h e dead body may behold the Lovd oS the Norizo?8,
when he sails across the heavens,' and a door is sometimes painted
inside the coffin upon the side, to enable the dead to come
fortb. The form of the coffin is
generally very simple. I t is a polished chest with a flat cover, or it
had in addition (and this must have
been the appearance of the coffin of
Osiris) four corner posts and an
arched cover. I n the Middle Kingdom, when the coffin was generally
brightly painted, i t was customary
to inscribe i t on the inside with
various chapters from the ancient
funerary texts; the most important
pro. 04. TIXZ some OF X ~ O I W Sox
of these were always arranged in
A FLOWER 1 6 .I'irli L l l i x by the
side of which oairis is &ting.
rows on the outside, and cornmended
(Frau~the Booir of tine Dead, &d.
the deceased to the protection of
Nsville, I, 136.)
t h e gods who guard the dead:
to Anubis, Osiris, Keb, and Nut, Isis and Nephthys, and,
before all others, to the four sons of Horns (page 94). These
four spirits arose from the water in a lotus flower, and the
water god Sobk, by command of Re, had to catch them with
a net-she, however, who produced them was I s i ~ . Without
~
doubt they succoured Osiris in his misfortunes, and saved him
from lrunger and thirst, and thus i t is their part to do the
same for the dead. This gave rise to a peculiar conception,
which had already begun in the Old Kingdom, although i t was
later that i t was universally accepted. By then1 the entrails
were prevented from causing t h e corpse any unpleasant sensations; they were taken out of the body and placed in special
boxes or jars, each of which were placed under the charge of
these spirits (p. 146). The deceased was also protected
against hunger and thirst, by the sanie methods employed in
primitive times; actual bread, meat, and drink were laid in
l Staindorff, Grabfrinde ans den Konigl. Museen zn Berlin, ii. 5.
"otenbnch,
113.
9
130
the sepulchral chamber, and further provision was made by

furnishing liim with models of a household, granaries, with
labourers wlio continually emptied sacks into them; a maidservant who ground corn for him between two stones ; another
who made bread of i t and baked it, and again a third who prepared beer for him. Other females, either richly dressed or
entirely naked, were provided for his personal scrvice. A pottery
house, u~ithall manner of food in the courtyard, was laid in the
grave fur his abode.
The ancient custom of providing ships for tlie dead, which
F I ~ 65.
.
YODEL ROWINQ BOW.
P~intcdwood.
(Hilton Price Cdlection.)
rendered him independent of the favours of thc celestial ferryman, also lasted into the Middle Kingdom. At Dahshur, near
the pyramid of the third Sesostris, real ships were buried in the
sand but ordinary morlals contented themselves with small
models. As, however, these boats have the dead laid as a
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF THE EARLY PERIOD
131
mummy under a canopy, with the mourning women and the

priests, who are reciting the ancient rituals out of their rolls,
and as a rowing boat is also provided to tow the ship bearing
the dead, it is quite clear that the original object of these boats
has been lost sight of, and that they now represent the funeral
procession crossing the Nile.
The amulets and sacred symbols which later were placed on
tlie mummies in such profusion, to protect them against injury
on the journey, play no part at the earlier period. We need
only mention here the ivory wands on which various strange
figures are engraved, tlie many amulets which guarantee protection. One of these figures is called the jighter, and appears
to be intended to protect the dead from snakes and scorpions.
How greatly these dangers were feared for the dead is shown by
the endless magic formula? against snakes in the pyramid text,
and thcre is another detail which bears witness to it. So far
was this fear carried, that it even extended to the ordinary liieroglyphsibms written in the grave. I n many graves the twoletters
f and z
X=-
and
7 we written with the head separate from
(rw) is occasionally
the body. The sign of the lion also
rendered harmless in the same manner. I n other graves the birds
were forced to forego their legs in order to carry out this idea, a
precaution whichdoes not commend itself to our modernnotions.
Tlie quantity and nature of the outfit and property given to the
dead naturally depended on the wealth and affection of the
survivors ; weapons, staves, seats and boxes, articles of toilet
and of jewellery, clothes, and scented oil, these are all found
in one or other of the graves. And with the actual objects
deposited in the mortuary chamber there were others which
were only pictorially represented. I n the earliest graves short
lists are found which recount the various kinds of oil or of linen
which the dead most have, while from the end of the Old Kingdom all that the deceased may require, such as bracelets, necklaces, sandals, staves, weapons, materials for handicrafts, and many
other objects, are painted orinscribed on the walls of the tombs.
But the most remarkable of these offerings is undoubtedly
the statue of the deceased. Its meaning can he gathered from
132
the position i t customarily occupies i n the mastaba; i t stands

in the so-called serdab, a small walled-in chamber near the
chamber of offerings, which generally cou~municateswith i t only
by a narrow slit. Thus the dead abides close to his worshippers,
if only in effigy, he hears the priests recite, and the fragrance
of the incense and the scent of the food can reach him; perhaps
i t was thought that his soul might quit his body in the mortuary
chamber, and inhabit this statue as a second body. I n graves
which are not of mastaba form, and which do not possess a
serdab, a statue is still introduced in some way; in the rockcut tombs they are often placed in the farthest chamber, while
in the smaller graves of the Middle Kingdom at least one figuro
of the dead is laid on the coffin.
Of tliese two forms of graves just mentioned, the second of
them, the rock-cut tomb, is scarcely later than the mastaba itself;
as early as the fourth dynasty the great nobles occasionally cut
their tombs in the cliffs at Gizeh, instead of building them.
But on the plateau of Memphis, where most of the largo tombs
of the Old Kingdom are placed, it was so far more convenient to
build a mastaba, that a t all periods a rock-cut tomb was exceptional. Its especial locality is i n t h e south, where high,
steep cliffs enclose the Nile valley; here i t was simplest to cut
a tomb horizontally in the cliff. These rock tombs were
decorated, like the mastabas, with inscriptions and pictures,
and in them also there was a false door, and a shaft which
terminated a t its lower end in the mortoary chamber; but this
arrangement developed in early times i n accordance wit11
another point of view. The rock tomb was looked upon as the
house of t h e dead, and, like t h e abode of the living, i t had in
front a spzcious reception court, behind was the large chamber,
and behind this again was the actual ~lwellingof the dead man,
the niche occupied by his statue.
The small brick pyramid, which from the time of the Middle
Kingdom was the usual form of grave in provincial towns, was
of course an imitation of the great royal pyramids; but they
were built by people of small means, for notwithstanding their
important appearance this form of grave was the simplest and
most convenient. A cavity in the rock served as a sarcophagus ;
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF THE EARLET PERIOD
133
this was covered over with a vaulting, and above it, on a slight
substructure, there was built a small pyramid of whitewashed
bricks. On the east side a gravestone indicated the place for
offerings; on it the deceased is shown sitting a t meat, with his
wife, and frequently this is followed by long rows of children
and relatives who pay homage to the deceased. I n the sand
before the grave lies the table of offerings on which the food
was laid and the water poured.
I n addition to all the arrangements which we have described,
greater security and happiness were ensured for the dead man
by means of the many ceremonies performed at the preparation
of the mummy a t the funeral, and a t the provisioning of the
deceased. They are similar in character to those we have
already (p. 45 et seq.) met with in connection with the worship of
the gods. Here also every separate action must be accompanied
by its proper formula which refers to its prototype in the acts
of the gods. Endless and wearisome are these texts, and by
no means beautified by the number of puns introduced into
them.
The ritual of embalming as a whole has come down to us only
in a very late form; we shall not, however, be very much mistaken if we assume that the embalmer and his assistant, the
learned Kherlleb (p. 54), here figured as the gods who anointed
the body of Osiris and wrapped him in linen bandages.
We know far more about the ritual for the ceren~oniesa t the
grave, which on the day of the funeral were first performed on
the mummy itself, and afterwards on feast days on the statue of
the deceased. The principal person a t these ceremonies was a
priest called the Sem, but the Kherheb and several other
personages also took part. Wlren the dead man had heen
sprinkled with water, and incense had heen offered before him,
three persons proceeded to the grave, and wakened the Sem,
who had swathed himself in wrappings before he laid down.
When he had slowly raised himself in the appointed manner,
the four together undertook the part of those sons of Horus
who bad taken care of Osiris (p. 129). At a further stage
of the performance, where the Sem wore a peculiar decoration over the breast, and carried a staff, he represented
134
Horus, son of Osiris. Some called o u t : Oh Isis, Horns is

eonae, that he ?nay embrace his father, and the Kherheh cried :
hasten that thou mapst see thy father. The Sem then exchanged his attire for a panther skin, and while the animal
to be sacrificed was being cut u p near him, he announced to
the deceased : I have rescued this my eye ant of his mouth. I
have cut off his thigh-thus
the Sem presented the thigh of
the animal to the deceased, as Horus once presented his own
eye, which Set had torn out (p. 34), to his father. B u t before
the deceased could devote himself to enjoying this food, the most
important of all the ceremonies must he performed on his behalf.
The opening of the mouth and of the eyes. Twice with small
oblique axes, ancl once with a chisel was the face of the deceased
touched, and when that and all else had been done, and when
the Sem with his little finger had opened mouth and eyes, the
dead man was once more enabled to receive food. The Sem
raised his staff and assigned to him his food. Finally he
anointed the dead man, and burnt incense before him, gave him
a headcloth, clothed him in bandages, and gave him a staff and
flail, similar to those carried by Osiris.
I n addition to this ceremonial there was also the actual
sacrificial ritual, those endless spells, in which the offerings were
termed the eye of Horus in accordance with the performance just
quoted : I bring thee the eye of Horns, which I have talcen away
from Set, or I b~ingthee the eye of HOTZLS,
after thoz hast cuunted
it, and so forth. I f any statement was made concerning the eye,
the names of one of the gifts offered was joined to it, for the
added word must form a pun.
I n addition to the tomb, there was another place, in the case of
an importar~tpersonage, where care was bestowed on the provisions of the deceased. During his life-time he had on feast
days been present when the offerings from the altar of the god
were distributed (p. 47), and in death also he wished to share
in this meal. Thus in the Middle Kingdom a statue of the
deceased was placed in the temple, and request was made for
him for a11 that was furnished for the altar of the god. This
matter was not entrusted solely to the prayer, but a perpetual
supply of a fixed number of loaves for the feast was prudently
purchased from the priesthood. These were laid in front of the

statue, and no doubt became the property of the mortuary
priests. This arrangement often supplied the kings with an
opportunity of recognizing faithful service, as on many a statue
hearing a priest's name, we read that i t was placed there as a
reward on the part of the Icing.
There was also a third place where the Egyptian might hope
to secure his hopes for the future life, in the sacred city of
Abydos. Since the kings of the first dynasty had rosided a t
Abydos. and were buried there, the idea had gained ground that
Osiris, $rst of the dwelle~sin the West, who was worshipped there,
was a peciiliarly benevolent and holy god. The most important
of his relics, his head, was there, kept preserved in a box, and
a t his grave the great festival of t h e god was celebrated. Lucky
indeed were the dead who were buried here, not far from the
stairs which led down to the grjve of the deity. They were
companions of the king of the dead, they were the p a t ones of
Abydos, and his court. They received a place in the ship of the
god, they took a share of his food, and to t l ~ o n"~welcon~e" was
spoken by the great ones of Abydos.
I t must therefore have been the supreme wish of every pious
Egyptian to be buried in Abydos, and in fact from the end of
the Old Kingdom, many people of all classes preferred a grave
in this sacred place to one at the Court or a t home. H e who
found it impossible to build a tomb a t Abydos,gaiued a t least
something by visiting the god a t Ahydos, and erecting a stone
on the staircase of the great god; in this way he secured a
place for himself in the midst of these privileged dead. The
Berlin Museum shows us how universal was this idea. The
greater number of snlall gravestoues and memorial slabs of the
&fiddle Kingdom are from Abydos. Many of their owners, as
they themselves inform us, went to the holy place for professional reasons, others sought it solely as pilgrims, and others
again undertook the pilgrimage for the first time after their
death. I n the tomb of the priest Khnen~hotp,a t Beni Hasan,
there is a great pictured scene which, as the inscription accompanying i t informs us, represents a voyage made by him in order
to l e ( ~ ~tonknow the tlLings of Abydos. His mummy lies on a
136
vessel under a canopy, and the Sem priest and Kherheb remain
a t his side throughout the voyage. I n the sacred town he was
placed before the god of the dead as a new vassal, and also took
part in his festival services. Then, accompanied by wives and
childrcn, he returned home once more to occupy his magnificent
tomb at Beni Hasan.
Most of these funera~ycustoms, which we have here described,

were even more widely practised in the New Kingdom, and
where occasionally some practice disappears or falls into abeyance during this period, it is only to make way for some newer
and richer conception, which is intended to be equally beneficial
for the dead.
With regrcrd to the arrangement of the tombs, the two forms
are retained which were popular during the Middle Kingdom.
Simple folk contented themselves with the small brick pyramid,
the more important ones were laid in rock chambers. The kings
also constructed these rock tombs for themselves, but the form
given to them was new. Along narrow passage, with which antechambers sometimes communicatod, led to a chamber, the gold
I~ouse,inthe centre of which stood the stone sarcophays, with the
body of tlle monarch. All the walls were covered with religious
texts and scenes, and as these are principally taken from the
descriptions of the realms of the dead (p. 109 et sep.), it has been
surmised, not without probability, that it was the underworld
itself which was in the minds of the constructors of these tombs :
a long passage, which became more and more intensely dark,
until the gold house was reached where dwelt Osiris, the king.
I n this must have consisted the only connection between these
tombs and the cult of the dead. They are situated in the
desolate western valley of Biban el Mohk. Neither their
space nor their isolated position are adapted for such ceremonies.
Apparently the ceremonies and offerings of the dead kings were
carried on in Der el Bahri, Gurneb, and in all those temples on
the western bank of Thebes, in which the kings were worshipped
in company with the Theban deities.
FUNEliARY CUSTOMS O F THE NEW ICINGDOM
137
There is also a marked change in t h e graves of the common

people. Up to this time the scenes in the tombs and on the
gravestorles were confined to the endless subject of supplies for
the dead, and the gifts brought by the survivors or the attendants, but these now drop into tlie background. In their place
we find scenes of a religious character : pictures and inscriptions from the Book of the Dead and similar texts adorn
the walls, while on the gravestones we find representations of
the dead man adoring Osiris or the sun god. Also those
pictures of life on earth, which only appear rarely in t h e
mastahas, now multiply so fast in many of the graves, that
they almost form a record of a noteworthy career. How the
occupant of the tomb conducte~l his business, how h e was
distinguished and rewarded by the king, is all clearly set forth,
and even the scenes of the funeral and funerarg worship are of
a personal character which they did not possess earlier. As in thc
religious poetry of this period individual character is permitted
to appear, so also it appears in these tombs : in them the dead
is no longer the illuminated one, whom men honour and feed
separately from themselves ; he is the beloved father and husband, the friend and man who is taken away from his relatives,
and for whom they weep and lament. I t is true that the Sem
continues to open his mouth, and the Kherheb utters his
formulae before him in prayer, as these are necessary for his
welfare. But to these formal inscriptions there is added the
cry of the wife as she embraces the mummy, before i t is
deposited for ever in the tomb : I urn verily thy sister, thou p u t
one, do not forsc~lceme. . Why is it that thon art far from me,
than who didst love to jest witi~me; thon art silent and dost not
speak. Behind her, and behind the priests, lament the relatives
of the dead, and the poor women and children whom he has
befriended : Woe, woe . . . alas this loss ! The good shepherd has
gone to the land of eternity; he who had so mnch society is now i n
opened his
the coz~ntlyui~ichloves solitude ! he who so willi~~,gly
feet to going, is now enclosed, bonnd and confined. He who had so
mn~chfine linen, and so gladly put it on, sleeps nww i n the cast-off
garments of yesterday. The distinguished persons who followed
the funeral journey of their colleague, while they took no part
138
in these lamentations, yet expressed pleasure a t the universal

sympathy. How good is this which has befccllcn him . . . he loved
his god so well tliat he permitteth him to arrive at the West
aceon~21aniedby generation after generation of his servants?
I n the meantime tables of food, and stands with jars were
brought, for the funeral feast followed the burial, and was held
either in the tomb itself, or in bowers constructed of flowers and
twigs. How i t was conducted on the day of the funeral (and
also doubtless on feast days when offerings were made to the
dead) is frequently shown on the tombs of the New Kingdom.
There sit the relatives and friends, in holiday garb, and decked
with flowers; they eat and drinlc, watch the dancing women,
and listen t o the song of the harper
How peaetful rests this
righteous pTince, the eiecellent destiny is entered upon. Since the
time of the gods the bodies enter thereon, ancl their suecessoys stand
i n their place, so long as Re shows himself i n the morning and
Atum descends on the western hill, solong as nren beget and women
conceive and all nostrils breathe air. Bu; all those to whom they
give birth, soon go down to the place appointed for them,. And
now the singer addresses the deceased himself, as though h e
were seated among the feasters, and exhorts him to enjoy this
short life with his wife : Celeelebmte the good day, prooide ointnrcnt
for thyself and fine oil for thy nostril and wreatlu and lotusjfowcrs
for the body of thy beloved sister, who sits at thy sicle. Let song
and masic come before thee. Gust all sadness behind thee, thinlc
on joy until that day comes, when man a r r i w i n the land where
tl~epeopleIceep silence. Meanwhile the dancing women leap yet
more wildly and shamelessly, and the servants offer the wine jars
with yet more eagerness : drinic until thou art dymken ; one lady
calls for more wine, because all within her is straw; another,
alas ! has progressed much further in drunkenness ; dolefully
she grovels on the ground, her robe slips from her shoulder, her
lotus flower hangs drooping over her arm, and the maidservant
who is hurriedly bringing the ominous basin arrives too late !
While the upper classes were thus so lavishly commemorative
2
Wilkinson, 111. pl. 67.

From the tomb of Neferhotp at Thebes.
Paheri, pl. 7. The following from Wilkinson, I. 392-393.
FUNERARU CUSTOMS O F T H E NEW KINGIIOM
139
of death, little would be done for people of narrow means.

Nevertheless an opportunity was afforded them of securing a
tolerably decorous burial. Since the desire for an orthodox
funeral had penetrated the lower classcs, enterprising people
had undertaken to sntisfy their demand. They procured an
old empty tomb, enlarged it, and let out places in it. There
would soon be no space left, for coffins were piled up over each
other from the floor to the ceiling, but yet it was a real tomb
which was thus available for the fisherman, the peasant, the
artisan, or the dancing girl. They were laid in real coffins,
and the survivors conld deposit their tomb equipment and
other gifts, as was done for wealthy people.
But there were again poorer people who could not hope for
a place even in such a public tomb. Where their bodies were
laid in the sand we do not know, but we believe that we can
discern their attempts at participation in the benefits of a tomb.
They fashioned small wooden dolls' remotely resembling
mummies, had them inscribed with their names, wrapped them
in a scrap of linen and laid them in a small coffin; this was
buried in front of the entrance to a large tomb, in the hopes
that by means of his wooden representatives, the deceased
would have some share in the benefits enjoyed by the occupant
of the tomb.
The importance attached to the eternals of the burial, which
is made evident by these expedients, appears also in the form of
the coffin. Up to this time the colfin had merely been what was
required for its purpose-a strong box that secured the body
from injury. But in the New Kingdom a most unnatural
fashion was adopted, and i t was made in the form of a mummy,
for to the people a t this period the form of the m u m ~ n ywas
considered something marvellous and sacred; even where the
mummy was laid for greater safety in several coffins, as from the
time of the Middle Kingdom was often done, the form of
the outer granite sarcophagus resembled its contents. A t the
beginning of this period the mummy-shaped coffin often has
the appearance of being wrapped in wings; one should he
an Egyptian to understand this. As tlie goddess Isis once
Ausfiirlll Yers., S. 184.
140
protected the corpse of Osiris by taking him between her wings,

so will she do to this new Osiris represented by the mummy.
Towards the end of the New Kingdom the attempt to give
expression to the sacredness of the mummy was made by
painting the co6n with countless religious illustrations; gods,
sacred animals and sacred symbols must figure there, and it is
easy to see how mechanically and perfunctorily this work was
accomplished by the n~anufacturers. I use the word manufacturers advisedly, for it is characteristic of the funerary customs
of the New Kingdom that the things required for them were
manufactured and offered for sale. I t is easy to prove that this
was the case. On objects where the name of the deceased must
appear in the inscriptions the manufacturers left a gap, in which
the purchaser could insert the name. As a rule this was done,
but it is omitted fairly often, and this omission shows us the
mercenary manner in which the old customs were now observed.
To this there is one exception, the portrait statue of the
deceased, the nature of which preclnded the possibility of any
such wholesale production.
This statue is rendered with great care, down to the most
delicate features of the face, the details of the clothing and also
of the inscription. All this must have been done in accordance
with the directions of the purchaser. A statue and a wooden
figure in the Berlin museum, however, prove that even this
was occasionally left unfinished.
By far the most numerous objects found in tombs of the
New Kingdom are the so-called ushebtis, the small figures of
mummy form, which to-day crowd our museluns. I n the M'iddle
Kingdom when they first occasionally appear, they afford no
clue as to the object for which they were laid in the graves;
they bear only the name of the dead. I n the New Kingdom
their duty to the dead is clearly indicated by the implements
they hold in their hands, hoes with which to work in the fields
and a basket. The inscription on them tells us more. Oh thorn
ushehti, when I awL called, and when I am required to do any
kind of work, which is done i n the underworZd . . . and am
required at any time to cause the fields to flourish, to irrigate the
banks, to conQeythe sand from the east to the west, thou shcllt say,
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF THE NEW KINGDOM
141
hem urn 1.1 The meaning of these specified labours must

remain uncertain. One thing, however, is clear, that the dead
feared lest he should be forced to undortake all kinds of rough
a.
6.
Fro. 66. usnnmrs OF THE NOW K~XUDOX. (a) T R S~C ~ ~ Bnu,

E
in the costume of a
living inan; (h) A Lnou, TAWIT ; (c) A QUEEN. (Berlin, 46k2 ; 1406 ; 8628.)
field work in the realms of the dead. It is a primitive conception which here reappears. Once upon a time, when the nation
was a nation of peasants, they dreamed of a paradise for their
dead in which barley should grow seven cubits high, with ears two
cukts in length; to be a labourer on such land was the happiest
fate conceivable. This idea lasted on, and when Osiris began to
be accepted as king of the dead, it was also considered that he
would deal with his subjects in the same way as the earthly
king did with his vassals. He u~oulddraw up lists of them,
and from this register he would call first to one, thon to another,
of the deceased, to come to work in the fields, to irrigate the land
and to construct dams. This prospect contained nothing
oncongenial to a peasant; it ensured him a continuance of the
l
Totenbuch, 6.
8 (b. 109.
142
life lie lived on earth, but i t would present a very different

aspect to a man of higher rank. The officials, priests, artisans,
soldiers, ladies, for them the prospect of rough work in the hereafter would be most unwelcome. I11 this perplexity some
ingenious brain hit on this strange alternative-to supply the
dead with these figures as substitutes, and let them undertake
the work in his place. Even the king could not dispense with
them, and any one who has observed the crowd of ushebtis of
Sethos I. in our museums, will realize that they must have been
made for him by the thousand. Among ushebtis of private
people we find some single ones of especially careful workmanship, which are almost treated as portraits of the deceased.
These would he laid with special care each in a small coffin,
while the usual rougher ones are merely placed together in wooden
boxes. As superstition increased, a new terror connected itself
with these figures ; what if t h e dead man met i n t h e hereafter
with an enemy who rendered the nshebtis disloyal to him, as
had once occurred to him with his servants during his life 1 An
especially cautions man would therefore write on his ushebbi
after the usual formula these words: Obey him only uho made
thee, do not obey l ~ i se?serny?
As the principal intention in depositing these figures was to
enable a man to escape his future destiny, so a similar result
was aimed a t in providing the so-called heart scarabs. We have
already seen how the conception of Osiris as king of the dead
led to a demand for the ethical purity of the deceased, and also
how a judgment of the dead was believed in, where the heart
of the dead was weighed in the scales. That this idea was not
universally acceptable is easily understood, bnt the means used
to escape this pressing danger is far more difficult to reconcile
with our ideas. An attempt was made to get rid of that
inconvenient witness. On the breast of the corpse, over the
position occupied hy the heart, was laid a large stone beetle,
which was a sacrod symbol representing the sun god ; on i t was
inscribed these words: Oh heart tlbat I have from n q mother!
Oh heart that belongs to my spiet, do not qlpea? against me as
witness, provide no opposition qgc~instnbe hefo~ethe judges, do not
1
Auefiirhl. Verseiehnita, S. 182.
143
cont~adictme bPJore lhirn u7~0

governs the balance, thou art my
spirit that is i n my body . . do not suffer our name to stink
. . tell no lie against me bPJorc the god.
To the other friend of the doad, the sun god, the small stone
pyramids are addressed, wbich are found in many graves of the
New Kingdom; they mere intended to enable the dead to gaze
on the sun when he ariseth, and when he settcth. On this account
this model of the tomb has two doors, in both of which the dead
Rio. F?.
PunAsro, run ~r*nnros%aIaa.pslr;sr oa aErl~nI8. (Berlin, $276.)
man is kneeling ; on the one side h e prays to the morning sun,

on the other to the evening sun. Clearly i t was hoped that,
thanks to this pyramid, the man would in future be able
actually to walk to the door of his tomb every morning and
evening. I n the real entrance passages of the tomb also there
are often found prayers to the sun, or to the sun and moon,
which the deceased are expected to recite a t that place.
I t is doubtful what was the object of the so-called pectoral on
the mummies ; they are small tablets, sinrilar to those usually
worn by the gods and tbe kings, but while the latter bear the
144
A HANIIBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
name of their wearer, we find on these the dead adoring the

sun god, or else the figures of the gods of the dead. Perhaps
they are in some way intended to express that the dead are
under the protection of
these gods. The state
of our knowledge is no
better as regards the
many objects used as
amulets, with which the
mummy was covered,
eyes, beetlcs, hearts,
sceptres, crowns, etc. It
is true that sentences in
the Book of the Dead
inform us that whoBlo. 68. PEcmna~:o n it is the bark af the Sun, on
ever wears the
Which the god in form of a beetle is adored Dy Isis
and Nophtllys. (Borlin, 1983.)
enter freely into the

realms of the dead, eat t h e food of Osiris, and he justified, or that
fi- is hung will be guarded by Isis and Horus, and

welcomed with joy. But these vague and uncertain explanations
he on whom
date from a period which was itself no longer clear as to the

original meaning of the amulets, and thus we are thrown hack
upon supposition. It is evident that the beetle, which was also
laid in the body of the mummy, as a representation of the sun
god, must bring good fortune, and i t can be seen that the
ancient symbols of Osiris and of Isis,
$I.. and fi
.., (p.
lij),
which
were frequently placed in the hands of the mummy, would

secure a welcome for the man into thc kingdom of Osiris.
Doubtless the rising sun enabled the dead man to behold it, hut
to the eye, the amulet that occurs most frequently, it is
impossible to assign a moaning; is i t the eye of Horus, t h e
model of all good gifts ? I n the case of the crowns and sceptres
we may perhaps assume that they imparted to the dead tho
divine powers which dwelt in them. The small heart may work
i n the same way a.s the heart scarab already quoted, and the
several serpent heads may serve to frighten the reptiles who
FUNERARY CUSTOMS OF T I E NEW KINGDOM
145
attacked the dead in the tombs. The small cryolite head-rest

may secure a quiet sleep for the dead. But what can be the
purpose of the level and square? and what of the stairs or
terraces, and of many other objects hung round the neck of the
mummy ? How was it possible, as a late text informs us, that
k.
i.
I*.
l,
PI". 69. A X U L E S POR x I I > L l l X S .

b. Eye. c rl. c. Crowur. f. IIeud-rest, y
3. Pai~yrussceptre
A. Lcuel. 1. Striiesre.
a. Riling San.
ofgoddess.
Square.
h. Heart.
no fewer than 104 amulets should he needed, when t h e body

was as well protected by other means as though i t were that
of Osiris himself? l
While in the graves of t h e New Kingdom the dead were
amply supplied with house plenishing and furniture, clothing
and adornments, and while, according to the primitive custom,
no hesitation was felt in adding a naked woman on a bed, the
care for their provisions which had earlier been the most
important consideration, was now gleatly overlooked. Wooden
vases, in imitation of stone jars, wooden models of roast geese,
1
10
Brugsch. Thesauros, p. 1402.
146
A HANDBOOK O P EGYPTIAN RELIGION
and of dates were occasionally laid in the graves, but on the

whole this matter was entirely entrusted to the magic powers
of the jars containing the intestines of which we have already
(p. 129) spoken, and which at this time have become some of the
most important contents of the tombs. As a rule the four vases
are of alabaster, and
each of them has the
head of one of the four
sons of Horus, so that
a man, a monkey, a
jackal, and a hawk
share in the charge of
the dead man.
Considering ail those
FIG. T
O. VASE? TO CONTAIN TEIE LIITBXTINES
With tlre h e a s of Lho four sons ol11orus.
things
as a whole, we
(Beran, ~103,7191, 7189. 7188.)
observe that the burial
customs of the New Kingdom have, to a large extent, lost
their primitive simple character, while their religious and
magical characteristics have greatly developed. This is shown
also in the changes in the fuuerary literature. We have seen
how the kings at the end of the Old Kingdom secured for
themselves a collection of these writings in the inscriptions in
their pyramids, and again later how private people had similar
documents inscribed on their coffins. I n the New Kingdom not
only the walls of the tombs were in great measure decorated
with these religious texts, but also long rolls of papyrus were
placed with the dead, containing spells, the knowledge of wi~icli
was considered specially useful for him, as is stated at the end :
he W ~ Lknioweth
O
this spell ?LE shall enjoy this or that good fortune.
These texts form the so-called Book of the Dead, of which we
have quoted so much in the fourth chapter, when describing the
later conceptions regarding the realms of the dead. By the end
of the New Kingdom other papyri are added, that Book of
Amduat, which was first compiled as a useful protection for the
royal tombs (p. 109).
All these funerary papyri were manufactured in numbers like
the other tomb requirements; with what result may easily be
guessed. The vignettes are artistic and are often coloured,
147
while the handwriting appears to be neat and regolar, but they

are full of errors and omissions; frequently the wrong vignettes
are placed with the text, or a sleepy scribe has confused the
lines of his copy as it lay before him and has written them in
wrong order. This did not prevent these Books of the Dead,
which contained so many ancient sacred sayings, from being
themselves for the next few centuries regarded as in some
way sacred, and from being treated accordingly.
Thus
further mystifications were continually introduced into the
funerary customs of the Egyptians, until by the time of the New
Kingdom we expect to find them stifled ere long in their own
absurdities. This, however, was not the case, and we shall
see that for almost another thousand years t h e religiou of the
country continued to develop on its own lines.
CHAPTER V1
MAGIC
MAGICis a barbarous offshoot of religion, and is an attempt to

influence the powers that preside over the destiny of mankind.
It is not difficult to see how the belief in such a possibility
could arise. On one occasion i t appears that a prayer has
been heard by the deity, on another it is apparently ignored;
thus the idea naturally arises that the words in wliicl~ the
prayer was uttered on the first occasion must have been
specially acceptable t o the god. This construction is therefore
accepted as the most effective, and becomes a formula which is
regarded as certainly successful and able to control destiuy.
This erroneous conclusion leads further to the adoption of
certain actions or prohibitions. To-day we have been lucky in
some particulars in which we were unlucky yesterday : obviously
we offended the deity yesterday in some way, whereas to-day
we have pleased him. Could we only discover how this was,
we might in future avoid the misfortune and secure the good
luck. He who ponders over these matters, and understands the
nature of the gods, may soon discover this point, and he who is
most intimately acquainted with the gods must necessarily be
the best magician. I n the case of the Egyptians, it was the
"chief kherheb" (p. 55), the priest who knew the sacred
writings from beginning to end, who was considered to be the
man best qualified.
When once the ideas of a nation have struck out in this
direction-and it is precisely the youthful unsophisticated
nations that are most readily attracted by i t t h e r e is no check
on it, and by the side of the noble plant of religion there
flourishes this fantastic weed of magic. With nations of limited
148
MAGIC
'49
understanding it completely stifles religion and there ensues a

barbarism, whore the magical fetish is the supreme object, and
where the sorcerer with his hocus-pocus takes the place of the
priest.
No one would wish to ascribe a similar condition of affairs to
such a youthful nation as the ancient Egyptians; i t would be
as inconpnous as it wonld be to compare the imbecility of a
childish old man with the folly of a promising youth. But the
Egyptian people shared very fully, and also a t an early period,
in this absurdity.
It is true that i t is difficult to define the limits; not
every custom that deals with the supernatural must he
immediately stigmatised as magic. To give food to the
dead, or to paint pictures for him on the walls of the tombs,
of a life of sheltered ease, is not to deal with magic, and to
recite the formula of offerings a t the grave is to offer u p a
prayer, lifeless and formal though i t may be. Apart from the
worship of t h e gods, and t h e cult of the dead, and also setting
aside the Book of the Dead and i t s magical developments of
which we have already spoken (p. 147), we shall find enough
remaining.
Various are the forms of the magic spells. The simplest
and perhaps the ~ o s tprimitive are those in which the
magician himself informs the evil principle that he will
exorcise it. One of the primitive spells against serpents, which
we find in the Pyramids, runs thus: the sc~pe?rtsinks which
comes out of the earth, thejame sinlcs which comesfo~thfrwm the
sea. Sinle down!l Or t h e sorcerer assnres t h e dead, who
have haunted a house and brought illness into it, that he can
in turn injure them; he can destroy their graves and deprive
them of their offerings2 H e explains to one malady that it would
be perilous for i t to attack this patient since there is no
member of his body which is not uncanny. The tongue in his
mouth is a serpent in its hole, his anus is the:abhorrence of the
gods, his teeth will crush t h e malady, his foot will tread i t
Pyramid texts. I<ap 28. W. 322.
Zauberspr. f. M.U. I<., p. 83. For the correct meaning I am indebted to
Count Schaek.
150
down, and in his mouth it may disappear.l And where commands, threats and warnings do not avail, the magician makes
use of gentler means, and remarks to the malady, how much
better off it would be in its harem, than here with the poor
child : come, go to sleep, and enter ioizn.8 aye t?cy beuutiJul wives,
in whose hair i s m y r h , and on whose shoulders f ~ e s hincense is
laid.2
As a rule, however, the magician deinands the aid of the
gods. H e appeals to Re, the all-seeing, that he will keep
watch on the evil spirits,%r be accuses the serpent to Re on
account of its evil deeds. It has bitten the earth, it has bitten
Keb,4 or he details to the diseases how such and such a limb of
a man is under the charge of a god. He also frequently speaks
as though he himself were a god : flozo forth, poison, come,sow
to the grozand! Hom~scommands thee, he destroys thee, he yits at
thee. Ticon canst not arise but fallest down, t7~ouart feeble, and
art not stron,~,thou art afeurd and$,qhtest not, t7~ozaart blind and
seest not, thy head hangs down and thou dost not lift up thy
face . . . owin,q to that loi~ichis spoken by Horus po?uel;iisl of
magic! Or : Thou hast not the upper hand over me, I am Amon.
I am Onnris the good zuarrior. I am the Great One, Lord of
Might!
I n such spells if the magician names this or that god, the
reason for his doing so is found in episodes that occur in the
legends of the gods; a god who himself once triumphed over
serpents must be the best protection against them, and a goddess
who had herself reared an infant would be the best help to a
dying mother. And as it was only common-sense to allude
directly to these prototypes, a form of spell was composed which
consists of an episode out of the history of the gods, from which
practical application can be drawn. This is the case with tho
following spell, which cures those who are stung by a scorpion,
by means of the goddess Bast (p. 13): Oh Ile! come to thy
daughter, wi~oma scorpion has bitten on a lonely road! Her cry
reaches even to heaven . . . poison oppresses her linzbs, and flows
' Zauborspr.f.hl. U. K., p. 13 et s q .

Gib p. 40,et seq.
Metternich Stela, 3 et sey.
' ib. p.
19.
Pyramidtexts, chap. 24=TV. 314.

"ayny. Pap., Harris. 8, 5.
MAGIC
1.51
i n herfEesh, and she tzarns her mouth to it, i.e. she attempts to
suck the injured part. Re answers her: Do not fear, do not
fear, my splendid daughter; behold, I stand behind thee. I t is I
who destroy the poison, that is i n all the linxbs of this cat?
Naturally,however, those godswere most frequently appealed to
whose lives were more especially the divine prototype of human
life-Osiris and his family group. The crocodile will retreat
in alarm vhen he is reminded how the body of Osiris lay in the
water, and was guarded by the gods : Osiris lies i n the water, the
Horus eye is with him, the great beetle spreads itself over hi??&
...
he who lies i n the water, co~nesout of i t whole; who draws near to
him i n the water, draws near to the Horzis eye. Back, beasts of
Lift not up thy face, ye beasts of the water,
the water! . .
when Osivis passes yon. . . Oh ye clwellers i n tl~ewater, yozcr
mouth shall be closed by Be, your throat shall be stopped by
Sekhmet, yozir tongue shall be czst otit by Ticoth, your eyes shall be
blinded by the god of magic. These aye the four gods that gnard
Osiris, these are they who guard him who lies i n the mter, c~ll
men and all animals who lie i n the water. This day ! It is a
safeguard against a scorpion sting to remember the unfortunate
mother who was forced to conceal herself with her child in
the swamps of the Delta. I, Isis, gave birth to Horzcs, the son
of Osiris, i n the swamps of the Delta, and ~ejoiced greatly
thereat.
. From f e a ~I hid him and lcept him secret. . . .
There however once lfound him, the beaut$zil golden Horzcs, the
fatherless child, as he bedewed the earth with the water of his e:les,
with the moistwe of his &S, his body was wdar?h his heart
th.ohbed. .
I shrielced and called out, " M y father is i n the
under-world, and my mother i n tile realms of the dead, m?]eldest
brother lies i n his cofin. . .
I will call to some one of manlcincl,
haply t h e i ~hearts will tzcrn to me." I c[slbd to the inhabitants
~
of the s w a y s , and tl~eirhearts turned at once to me. T ? Lpeople
came to me out of their houses and hastened to me at my call. They
bewailed at the greatness of my mi,fo~lune,but none of these
were able to help me. A woman came to me, the nzost ezperienced
of her city. . . She said to me, Set cannot have done this,
..
..
Rtetetternich Stela, Z. 9 et seg.

38 et sq.
"b.
152
for Set does not come into this province, ?Le does not wander tivongh
has stzi1b.y him. . . . Then
I<hehellam~is.. . . Perchr~ncea scor~?ion
Isis laid her nose to his ?no?i,tliancl nza~lzeclt7~csmell of it. . . .
She recognized the ailment of the heir of t7~egods, and found that
l ~ etoas poiso?zed. Then she tool: I~iqii,s?u%ytlyi n her arms. . . .
lIorz~sis st~ing,oh Re; thy son is S ~ Z LHOTZLS
~ Z ~ i ,s stt~ng,the
inherito?. of thp heritage." . . . Tl~encame Nephthys weepiqzg,
anrl lzer laments sozcncled th~ougkozcttl~eswcc?np. Sellcis cried :
" What has occzi~red
? Whut has oem~rred? What hath ci~anced
then will ihe
to Hamis, to t?~eson of I s i s ? P,.ag to l~ec~ven,
eon&pan?jof Re halt, and the Bade of tl~eszin will not pass by
Horz~s."
T l ~ e i zIsis mcde her voice reach n?zlo Heaven and her er?/ nnto
tile Bccrlc of Zternity. Tl~evthe snn stood still and moved nol
from ,its place. Thot?~caiire, provi[le<lwith his magic, with a peat
comnrissio7z frorn Re, and spake : " What is the mattel. ? Whut
i s the n~atter? Zsis, thou gloriozis
goddess with the skilJiLl tongtie.
Verily nothing evil kath happened
to the child Hartis? . .
I come
fionz tile s7ip of the stLn f i o n ~
his place of ?jeste~day,and daricmess has come on and light is jferl,
until Horzcs is lzealed for his
mother isis und thus for every
(otl~er)sziferer.
. . The protector of Honis is he zuho i s in his
snn, who ligi~tenshot7~lands with
Flo. 71. " R E rvao IS IX an sm."
(~rom
the T
~
~E S ~~ I ~ II, . ) ~
~hisP Keaming e p s , ancl thus he is
the protector oJ the suffering.
The protector of Horns is the Ancient one zvho is i n the lower
heaven, who gives commands to all who are there and those who
are not, and thzs he is tile protector of tl~eszcfe$n,q. . . . The
ship of the sun stands still, and the stinjo~irneysnot from his place
of yesterday, zintil Hortis is mccde wlbole for his mother, and nntil
the s~iffereralso i,3 made zuhole for his mother." l Another time
Horus had to suffer from a fire which probably consuined the
Mettornich Stoln, 168 et seq.
MAGIC
753
hut in which he lay. Then some one told Isis, " T?y son Horzcs
is burning on ti~eground. Is there water there?"-" There is no
water them-Tkre is zcater i n my month and there is a Nile
between my legs, and 1 am coming to put out the fire." A t a
later period i t was thought necessary to give a less unsophisticated form t o this spell against burns, and Isis merely
says : "Water i s i n nbg mouth and my l+s contain a clelzcge." l
Again another time Horus herded his cattle in the pasture,
and h e did not wish t o wander afar for wi!d beasts were
there. Isis and Nephthys therefore fashioned amulets for
hirn : Nay the mouths of the lions and hyenas he closed and of
all long-tailed creatz~reswho feed on flesh and drink blood, to enrse
Ihem, to rob them of their ears, to give them clarlc?~essand not to
give them light, to give them blindness, and not to give them sight,
i n every neighbozcrhood on this night. Stay, thou evil wolj! . .
go north, sotdth, east, west; the zvhole land 6 thine, and noticing
is withheld from thee. Tuvn not thy face upon nLe, turn thy face
npon the wild animals of the desert. Do not turn thy face npon
my path, tn~rnthy face upon some other.2 I n this last spell we
cannot avoid the suspicion that the magician himself invented
this pastoral life of Horus, of which we find no other trace
recorded. Horus was now established as the divine child before
all others, and all things that a mortal boy was obliged t o do in
Egypt could be ascribed to him. I n ol,her respects also the
authenticity of these references t o the legends which occur in
the spells is doubtful.
S o far as we have quoted the assistance of the gods appears
as a gift which they grant when the magician addresses them
in the correct terms, but other instances show a remarkable
reversal of natural relations; in order t o force him t o do his
will, the magician threatens the deity. Even in the ancient
funerary literature we find similar threats. Oh, ye gods of the
horizon !begins a spell whicti has come down t o us from the
pyramid texts. Verily, zjC ye desire that Atum (your lord)
should live, that ye may anoint 2/ourselves zvith oil, that ye may
put on garments, that ye mny receive your food; then take his
' A.Z.
1898. 129.
Mng. Pap., Harris, Rz. A.
154
hand, and establish him in, the Field of Food? And yet more
drastic is the wording that follows: I f lzo7ueoer thou uilt not ferry
the boat to hiw~. . . then will he iear the l ~ c ~ off
i r thy heold, like
buds on the m,argin of tlie lake.2 The magician threatens the
universe if he shall not go jorth jt~stified: then Re sl~all not
ascend into heaven, but the iEle shall mcend into lzeaven, and live
upon trzftlz,and Re shall descend into the.lunter and live uponfisl~.~
How those threats are to be fulfilled is not stated ; in other
cases the magician announces that ho knows the great secret of
t h e god, his name, in which his power lios. As i n the pyramid
texts we have already quoted, he tbreatcns to speak to men this
name, so he does in later magic. For these names of the gods
possess terrible powers. If one of them is z6ttcred on the bank of
tlic
tke torvent i s set free, and
on8 i s uttered on land
jlcislzes qf light are emitted. When a crocodile attacks the
magician who knows this name, h e will by its power cause the
eart?~to fall into tl~e~ i v etile
~ , sout?b will become n o ~ t hand
,
the
world will ttcrn r o ~ n d . ~
Where, however, did the magician learn these secret names,
on the knowledge of which he so greatly prides himself? This
question must often have been asked, for a ~ilagicaltext of the
New Kingdom undertakes to answer the question candidly. It
relates how the secret name of Re was once told. Once upon a
time, when R e still ruled on earth ooer gods and men together,
Isis was the ulost subtle of all women, more subtle than men,
gods and the illuminated one. There was nothing i n 7~eavenor
upon earth which she did not know, only she did not know the
real name of Re, who possessed so many names; she determined
however t o learn it. When the god had grown aged, his mouth
and his spittle fell to ihe ground. This Isis kneaded
with her hand together with the ec~rthwhich W ~ Lwith
S
it, and made
of it a magnqcent serpent. . . This she laid on the path by
which the great god passed when he wished to visit the two lands.
Thus when Re, followed by the gods, wallced there, as he did
every day, the serpent stung him.
The voice of his Mnjesty pierced even to heaven. I& gods said,
Pyr. 246 = P. 161
Totenbuch, 6 . 5.
ib. 293 = P. 439.

Maq. Pap., Hnrris, 7, 1 et s q .
MAGIC
'55
' l TVl~atis the matter?" and the (other) gocZ,s said, " What & the
matter?" But he could not arcswer. His lips quivered, and all
his limbs sl~oolc,and the poison penetrated his body, as the Nile
penetrates the eountv.
When be had sornewhat calmed himself, he called to his
followers : " Come, ye who were prodzceed from ?ng body, ye gods
who issued forth from me, that I ma?l tell you what hath hc~ppened
to nu. Something unwholesom ]Lath toounded m,e ; I feel it, but
mine eyes do not see it. . . . I have never mfered pain equal to
this. . . I am the prince, son of a prince, seed of a god, who
became god; I am the great one, son of a great one. M?/father and
ney mother invented my name, I am he of many names and inany
forms. 1My form is i n every god. I cine called Alum and Horus
Heken. ill%/father and my mother spolce my name for me ;since my
birth it has hen hidden i n my 60dy, and by n~enlz;.OS it no magic
power will be granted to any one who would work magic against
me. As I went forth to see what I have made, and to tmcerse the
two lands which I created, something that I do not lcnoto injured
me. It is not fire, and it is not zoater, but mg l~eartis on fire,
my body trembles, and all my limbs quiver."
Thus Re lamented and caused the divine children to he
called, those of excellent speech and learned tongue, and all drew
near sorrowfully. Also Isis came with her excellence, whose ?noutIb
is full of the breath of lqe, whose spells d ~ i v euwny disease, and
whose speech is beloved by those who have no breath. She said,
What is i t ? what is it, divine father? Behold a serpent hath
wounded thee, one of th?y children hath lifted up his head against
thee, I will overthrozu it by means of powerful magic."
The glorious god opened his mouth: " A s I was on the way, and
was talcing my walk i n Egypt and the desert, for my heart desired
to see what I had created, then was I wounded by a s e ~ e n tthat I
did not see. It is not fire, it is not water, and yet I am hotter
tl~anfireand colder than water. All my limbs are covered with
meat. . . ."
Then Isis spake to Re. "Tell me thy nanu, my divine father;
the man whose name is spolcen remains alive." The aged god
answered : ' l I am he who made heaven and earth, who heaped up
the mountains and formed what is zcpon them. I am he who n~ncle
"
156
the water and fornaerl the torrent of heaven. . . . I am he who

made the hecmens, and ?nude the horizon seoellg ; I haw6 set the
smrls of the gocls therei?z. I urn he who opens his e?/es and it
becomes bri,ght, and when he closes his eyes it hecontes dark; he at
tuliose emnmnnd the tur~te~s
of the Nile jfozu, but ihe gucls do not
7;?zowhis nchnbe. I am he who nzade the hozbrs and fcrshioned the
da.ys. I am 7 ~ luho
e ,inntbgurates the year, and forn~sthe rive~. I
am Zihcpre i ?the
~ n~orni~zg,
ancl Atum, zul~ois i n the evenin,g."
But the poison did not abate, and Isis said: " Thg Vzanze is
not among ti~osewhich thou hast spoken to me. Sag it to me, that
the poison may d e p a ~ t ;the m m whose name is ~poizen ~emccins
ulive." And the poison burnt worse than fire, so that the god
conld no longer withstand it. He said to Isis: "My name shall
pass from my body to thy body." Also, he continued, thou shalt
conceal ~ t but
,
thou mayest impart it to thy son Horns, as
mighty magic against every poison?
Here, as we see, the magician finally keeps the mysterious
name to himself, and does not confide i t to us. I t is probably
otherwise with a primitive spell which ensures for the dead t h e
use of the celestial ladder (p. 96): Come ladder (moket), come
poket, come thy nanze, ~dhichthe gods uttered may here mean
that the gods do not call the ladder moket, as men do, but polcet,
and also the strange words, more especially of the late period,
which occur repeatedly in the magic spells, were certainly for the
most part considered as the secret names of the gods. Others
in this abracadabra must be considered as foreign spells; thus
the lion spell, eder edesen edergeh edesen, unites merem edesen, unites
enzey edesen, etc., must certainly be P h ~ n i c i a n as
, farther on i t
contains the name of the god B a d 3
I n order to render these spells efficacious all manner of
observances are necessary when rociting them. Any one who
wishes to recite for himself a spell to ensure special good fortune,
must first "purify" himself for a period of nine days. H e must
then anoint himself with two kinds of oil, he must fumigatc
himself with incense, holding the vase containing the incense
behind his ears, he must purify his mouth with natron, he must
Lcfdhurc, A. Z. 1883, 27 e t seq.
Pyr. 261 = P . 201.
3 Mag. Pq.,Hamis, Rs. C.
MAGIC
757
wash himself with water from the inundation, he must put on

sandals of white leather, and two new skirts, and finally lie must
paint the sigu of truth
on h ~tongue
s
with green paint. Then,
if I understand rightly, he must step inside a circle which he
must not leave during the duration of the ceremony. I n the
case of another spell, in order to recite it successfully, a complete
picture must be painted on the floor; the figure of a woman,
a goddess, placed zlpon it i n the vlidst of it, a serpent standing on its tail, a sky, etc.1 Or a Inan paints an eye on
his hand containing a picture of the god Onuris, obvionsly
with reference to that part of the spell in which the conjuror
styles himself the god Shn, the image of Be, who is within the eye
of his f u t h e ~ . ~And again, in a spell against evil beasts,
which is recited on water, and which speaks of the sun god, who
once rose to the surface of the flood in an egg (p. ZG), as the egg
of the water, the man who sits forward i n the bout mn?cst hold a
potLe???/egg i n his hand; then the inhabitants of the w a t e ~will
believe that it is their god himself that they see, and if they
rise to the surhce they will fall back affrighted into the water.3
I t is also advisable that the spell should be recited not once
only, hut four times in succession: as was the custom from early
PIO.72.
XAOIOAL FICURBS, ~ ~ ~ T B N D '

ITD
O RL P A I ~ I E D ON A
(B001i uf
wnan nnso~oz.
the Dead, 161.)
times with many of the prayers, and that this day ! should be
added to show that i t should act at once. Or these words are
added to i t : Protection behind, p~otectiontl~atcomes, protection !
These spells must of course be uttered in a solemn voice,
"
Both from t h e Destruction des hon~mes,1. 74.90.
Mug.Pap., IIarris, 7. 1 et seq.

6
ib. B. 10 e t sey.
Z. f. M. U. K., p. 52 ; Mug. Pup., liarric, 7. 4 et seq.
ih. . . . :;a. 35.
HANDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
158
and this was already provided for by their being as a rule

composed in verse. They must also have been sung; for a
document that contains spells of the New Kingdom refers to
them as qells beautful to be sung.I
The objects for which magic was called upon to serve were as
numerous as the requirements of life. I t exorcised storms and
bad w e a t h ~ r . ~I n the desert it was required as a protection
against lions, in the water against crocodiles, and above all
against the most sinister peril of Egypt, its snakes and scorpions :
were not even the Pyramids of the ancient k ~ n g srichly stored
with spells against these pests? With magic women were
assisted in child-birth, it was employed while preparing medicine,
and by its means all poisons, wounds and diseases were combated, these latter as well as the dead, those uncanny beings
who brought them. For i t was an ancient belief of the Egyptian
people that the evil dead would forsake their graves and haunt
mankind. The gods therefore should shut up the shadow of the
An anxious mother sees
dead, and the dead who won%euil to
a ghostly woman glide into the house in the dark with averted
face, and try to busy herself about the infant as an attendant.
She says : Comest thou to kiss this child? I will not let thee kiss
hint. Comest thou to soothe this cl~Lild? I will not let thee soothe
him. Comest thou to harm this child? I will not let thee harm
him. Comest thou to talce him away? I will not let thee take
him c~zuayfrom me. And the dead renounces that for which she
came.4 This also is spoken by the mother morning and evening
over the amulet which she hangs on her baby : Thou c~risest,oh
Re, thou a~isest. I f thou hast seen this dead man, how he comes
to N., and this dead woman, the wife . . . never sl~allshe take
nzy child i n her arnls. Re, nLy lovd, rescues me. I will not give
thee Z L ~ I, will not give my charge to the man and woman, thieves
of the realms of the dead.5
The d a d man and dead woman would also haunt grownup people, and if a sick man pondered over the cause of his
illness, the possibility must often have occurred to him that one
Mag. Pap., Harris, 1. 1.
Budge, Iiesiamwt, 121 et seq.
3 Totenbuch, edition Naville, 92. 10.
'Zf.M.u.K.,p.12.
l
"b.
p. 43 et sey.
MAGIC
'59
or other of his deceased relations for some cause was now

revenging himself on him. H e would thenattempt to influence
this malevolent relation by friendly representations and would
lay a letter i n hi grave, which he could read. We know of
such letters as early as the Middle Kingdom; the most remarkable example however is a long document which an officer of
high rank, a t the end of the Ncw Kingdom, addressed three
years after her death to the acellent spirit of the lacly ET^. What
have I done wrong against thee, he says, that I am i n this evil
case i n wl~ichI am n,ow? Since the day thou wast given nze to
toif#,even to the present day-what did I c~gchinstthee that I was
fo~ced to co?zeeal? I f Iwere to spenlc once with thee htfore thegods of
the West with thc worcls of my mouth, this letter zvill iq'"orm thee i n
which my words and m?/ message are set forth. What have I
done against thee ? Thou didst beconze my zvfi when I was young
and I have been togethev with thee. I $filled nll oflees and have
been together with thee a?~dhave not forscclcen thee ccnd have not
gl-iezled thy heart. And also when Pharaoh advanced m e t o
higher rank, I did not forsake thee, and shared all gifts and
income with thee. And when moreover ti~ou?uast ill with the
ill?zcsswhicl~thou diclsclst have, I went to a physician ccnd he made
medicines for thee and he clid all tl~atthou suidst to ?km. Then
for eight months I had to follow Pharaoh to the south, and
could neither eat nor drink, and when I returned to Memphis
I wept for thee with my people. The unfortunate widower
fastened this letter to the statue of another lady, whom he could
trust to forward the message to his wife.%
There are moreover magical books which afford ~ W C and
T
strength against the foe, and diffuse terror ; $'wnxe~z$gnres of gods
and men are made, according to their directions, and smuggled
into the dwelling of the opponent, they cripple then the hand of
men.% For this last information we are chiefly indebted to the
protocol of a State trial, and these official statements show
clearly that such matters were treated with the utmost seriousness. For the protection of the king (if we dare trust the statement of a later document) a magic ceremony was performed
l
Maspero, Etudes e g ~ p t o l o ~ q ~I ~. e145

s , et seq.
Lec, 1. 4 ; Rollin, 1888. 1.
160
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RBLIGION
each morning, which safeguarded him against his foes, and the
idea prevailed that even t h e gods had recourse to magic to
influence their fate. It was kmown that Thoth read over Re
the magic formula of the celestial c0w.l I n this way mankind
could aid the sun god, by reciting at certain times the spells of
the victory over the dragon Apophis.2 These conceptions
penetrated into the cults of the gods, and their statues in the
temples were protected by nzctgic and excellent ,words, and all evil
driven out of their bodies3 How exclusively magic was employed
for the protection of the dead we have already sufficiently shown.
The maidservants, the ships, the cakes and granaries, the ivory
wands intended to ward off snakes, the ushebti figures, heart
scarabs, and discs for the head (pp. 187,188), all these objects and
many others belonged to magic or verged on it. Also the tomb
writingsreferring to the dead, as we have seen (p. loo), acquired
in course of time more and more a magical character, and in the
New Kingdom their formula appeared entirely as magic spells,
which migbt be recited to secure good fortune either for the
dead or the living.
W e find that this resort to magic was not merely practised by
individuals, hut that sorcery had its recognized representatives.
These were the Kherheh priests, the scribes of the divine writings,
and their highest positions during the Old Kingdom were filled
by duly qualified sons of the Pharaohs.
A delightful collection of folk-tales of the New Kingdom
shows us that these priests knew how to adapt their art to
secular purposes; how one of them fashioned a figure of a
crocodile in wax, which snapped u p an adulterer in the water,
while another piled u p the water of a lake to enable a lady to
recover her lost hair ornament. Further, the practice of nlagic
was part of the work of the house of 1$ee,4 t h e learned school of
Egypt, and the magic hoolts were sj~stematicallyarranged and
preserved in the royal libraries? They evidently were considered
as much a part of literature as the medical prescriptions or t h e
philosophical writings. Naturally they would all claim to be
D ~ a h r e C i o ~&Sz hornmes, 78.
Budge, A T e s i a ~p., 146.
Stela Ramses IT., Mariette, Abydos ii. 54-55, 25.

Mag. Pap., Rarris, 6.10.
Qmherst Pap. 1. 3.
ortremely ancient. One was invented by the earth god,'

another by the god of wisdom 2 ; another has been found bv a
priest of the Saitic period
in a tomb of a Mnevis b~11.3
AS a matter of fact, many
of these spolLs were of later
manufacture, mhile numbers of tbem are obviously
of the New Kingdom ; the
language in which they are
couched and their religious
conceptions leave no doubt
as to their date. The New
Kingdom appears to have
been the period wlien this
strange science was specially flourishing.
A peculiarity of the later
pI0. ia. AaruLaT.
sucncIso xonus
AIrONO TBE LOTUS PLANTS.
magic was the introduction
Figures of lour otiler dailies.
(Hilton,Price coiieetion.)
of figures and stria11 stelz,
which were set up in the house or worn on the neck for protection
against evil creatures of all kinds. Certain sacred beings had t b e reputation of
being especially efficacious against such
perils. One of thesc was the ancient
god Sbu, tlie son of Re, supporter of
the sky, and who in Abydos was called
Onuris; he was now regarded asthe noble
~ n r r i o r $, 1~~ 6de1iwer.e~(shed), and was
represented as a young prince in his
chariot slaying lions.5 A similar ~Ble
was played by the strange demi-god Bes
(p. 76), the deformed child whonl we
call Pataikos (p. $7), and, above all,
' DestTuctio?~des hommes, 68.

FIU. 74.
RYALL
STELA, PO=
mmrorrox ~o~~~~
SERPEms:
e O K U S W l T X TB*:,,li*D OP
nEs. (Berlin, 4434.)
11
'
6
Griffith, Stories o j the Higlbyviests, p. 20.

Metternioh Stela, 87.
-5Xo.g. Pap., Harris, 8. 5.
Berlin. Ausf. Verz., p. 205.
r6z
by Horus himself, whom, indeed, no evil beast could harm. For

the sake of greater security several of these gods were often
combined? To the young Horus would be given the animal
head of Bes; a combined figure wou!d be made of Khnum,
Re, Dfin and Horus ; or of Khepre, Khnuln, Thoth, IvIin,
Auubis, Osiris, Mut and Bast; a combination most gruesome
in appearance, but so much the more marvellously effective.
One such figure which scarcely contained any characteristic
of Re was called Amon-Re. It is possible that the pantheistic
theology of the New Kingdom, which jumbled together all
the gods, found expression in this nomenclature.
Thcse figures, a creation, as we have already said, of the New
Kingdom, add to the great number of amulets by which the
people from the earliest
times had attempted to
safeguard themselves. An
excellent amulet was a
cord, knotted a specified
number of times, one in
the evening and one in the
mo~ning,until them unre
seven l~nots.~Then again
F , ~ 76.
.
Gono,WIT= SEVEN KNOTS, AND
seven stone rings and
T W O LABELS WITH MAOlO BPELLS.
seven gold rings may be
(Bodin, 10826.)
threaded upon seven flaxen
threads, and seven knots may be made in them ; to this any kind
of special medicine may be attached, perhaps a small bottle containing the bones of a mouse," or a seal on which a hand and n
crocodile are r e p r e s e ~ t e d or
, ~ a plaque with figures of gods, or
some sign ensuring good luck. These last me know well in our
museums among the amulets which, as we have seen (p. 145),
were placed on the mummies. What powers were ascribed to
special amulets, and what basis there was for their efficacy, we
scarcely know, and it aould have been difficult also for the later
Egyptian to give us a clear explanation. H e would only have
For the following d Berlin. Ausf. Verz., p. 299.

2Z.f.M.u.K.,p.41.
ih. p 52.
Schifer, A. 2. xxxix. 87.
ill.p. 30.
MAGIC
"53
said that they all contained hike, that supernatural power which
the gods possess, which lies in their secret names, and by which
also certain sacred things on earth are invested, such as the abounding i l z m g i e
crowns of the kings? Some share of this
power was transmitted to men by means
of the amulets and the magic f o r m u h ; and
on i t was based the art of the magician.
We cannot enter upon the many superstitions of various kinds, i n addition to magic,
which existed in Egypt; we can only cursorily
remark that two forms of these, which sprang
u p in Egypt a t the latest period, alcheiny
and the horoscope, do not appear a t all
during the New Kingdom. The selection of
days, the belief that certain days of t h e year
are lucky or unlucky, is, on the contrary,
ancient. There exists a calendar of the
Middle Kingdom for one month which defines
eighteen days as good, nine as bad, and
Ro. 76. ~ h l m n i .
three as half good? Of the New Kingdom, ~ l e n t y - s e o o n adynasty.
(Hilton rrioo Colleotian.)
moreover, we have a voluminous papyrus,
which gives thesame information for a great part of the year, and
often attempts to give reasons for i t ; a day is lucky or the reverse
according to some episode in the lives of the gods that occumed
on that day. For example, we read that the twelfth day of the
first winter month is very bad, and on that day one should avoid
seeing a mouse, for i t is the day when he gave tlw eom?nand to
Selchmct, i.e. no doubt when Re permitted mankind to he slain
(p. 30). And the first of the fourth winter months, which isgood
entirely, and on which tlbere is U great feast i n heaven and on ea~th,
owes these merits to the fact that on this day the enemies ofSohk@ll
Tcpont h e i ~
These explanations must first have been invented
whcn i t was desired to systematize the popular s~lperstitions
concerning lucky and unlucky days and to make a science of this
1
Rrit.. -.
Mni.
4~
. .6
.7
. -.
- --
a Hahun Papyrus, pl. 25 ; test, p. 62.

"allier Papyrus, 17. 14. 2 ; 21. 2.
164
distinction of days. It is easy to perceive that it was looked upon

as a science, for the papyrus from which we gain this information
is actually a boy's school-book. H e has copied the document,
of which he obviously understood little, as practice in handwriting, hut i t would surely not have been given him to copy if
its contents had not been considered useful and profitable. Here
we have further proof that a t this period of the New Kingdom
superstition grew and flourished ;i t is no wonder that eventually
everything in Egypt was overshadowed by its luxuriant growth.
CHAPTER V11
RELIGION OF THE LATE PERIOD
THE New Kingdom was followed by a period of political

confusion in Egypt. During the eleventh and tenth centuries
B.C. Egypt was divided into a number of small and feeble states.
The high priests of Amon reigned a t Thehes, a king reigned
a t Tanis in the northern Delta, and there were also other
rulers, most of whom were probably leaders of Libyan soldiery.
Finally, about 950 B.c., one of these Libyan rulers, the powerful
Sheshonk, whose capital was a t Bubastis in the Delta, acquired
the supremacy, and his family continued some time in power.
In consequence of this, the cat-headed Bast, goddess of Bubastis,
rose to he the official deity of the kingdom and the other gods
of the Delta also profited by the favour of the monarch.
But, on the other hand, the glory of the former capital of
Upper Egypt and of its god had by no means disappeared,
and the Bubastite rulers gave proof of their devotion for Amon :
they once more resumed work a t the colossal buildings of
Karnak and thereby showed that they also were adherents of
Amon. I n doing this they must have been influenced by
practical cons~derations,for Thebes vvas a site that rewarded
any trouble expended on it. I t is true that none of the royal
houses of the later period took formal possession of Tbebes, for
a remarkable fiction had arisen during these centuries to which
they all were forced to submit. Thehes could never again
be the property of any earthly prince, for it had a divine ruler,
Amon ; and his representative in the government on earth was
not, as we should naturally suppose, his high priest, but his
divine wife,the mortal bride of the god (p. 72). Thus Thehes had
become a sort of spiritual principality,governed by a lady of high
165
166
rank, and it was the ambition of every royal house to secure

this lofty ~ositionfor one of its princesses. By rights the divine
wife should bequeath her dignities to her daughter. There was
therefore nothing incongruous in the acknowledged fact that
the reigning lady was urgently invited to adopt as her snccessor
one whom political reasons rendered advisable. This occurred repeatedly during this
century and those that followed, and it is
not without amusement that we read in
an inscription of Psammetichus I. how he
accounts for such an event. Owing to his
profound gratitude to the god Amon, he
feels compelled to present him with his
daughter Nitokris; therefore he gives her
to the divine wife Shepen-wepet as her
great daughter, and in the year 656 sends
her with great ceremony to Thebes, where
the whole population welcomes her. When
she came to the divine w(fa nepen-wepet,
she beheld her, was contented with her, c~nd
loved her?
The remarkable influence exercised by
this dominion of Amon shows itself in
another direction, in the oracles given by
him ; we meet with these declarations of
the will of Amon as early as the beginning
%m.77.
of the New Kingdom, when, contrary bo all
wrpz.
precedent, he appointed Princess Hatshepsut successor to the throne. During the following centuries
this institution appears to have further developcd, and we find the
gods interfering in the doings of mankind. Under Ramses 11. a
high official and ambassador of the king erected a memorial to
Isis because she had prophesied of him while he was the great one
of the Dlatoi, that he should rise still higher. If I understand
rightly, he was taking part in aprocession among the princes when
the sacred image in its bark halted before him and bowed to him,%
and in a letter which must date from the end of the twentieth
I
A.Z , 35. 24.
Petrie, Koptos, PI. X X .
167
dynasty we read that the writings are laid before this great god,
that he may judge them with fair juslice.l But it was in this
decadent period in Egypt, with which we are now concerned,
that the oracle in Thebes became the supreme dispenser of
advice and jodgment. When it was found necessary to fetch
wood from Lebanon to repair the temple barks, Amon said to the
high-priest, "send me," and a figure of the god specially adapted
for such a journey, the Amon of the roads, was dispatched in
charge of a temple officiaL2 Should a person of high standing wish
to arrange for the future disposal of his property, the god would
graciously accord him a command : T h m saith Amon-Be, the great
god, the great primeval being; this landed property which belongs
to N. is acquired in such a manner, and situated in such a place
-it is all carried on actively-lestablish it to hisson . . und
whoever removes this decree, which is placed in the temple, he
is a fool and far from altering mg zuord. I will immediately be
furious against him. . . . I will plunge 7Lim i n misery; his
heritage shall belong to another, and his eyes shall see it. He shall
fall on his knees teJore his enemy (?), his wve shall be carried off
when he is by-and all this shall happen to him because he halh
transpessed this command to which I have n o d d ~ d . ~
For the recall of exiles, banished during some political upheaval, the oracle was made use of thus : On a feast day there
was brought out the Mq'estg of this glo~iousgod, Lord of the gods,
Amon-Be, he came into the great court of tile Amon temple and
seated himelf there. . . . Then offerings were made to him
and he was greeted, and the high-priest laid before him how
those unfortunates were banished from the oasis, and how
that the god might forbid further banishments from the oasis,
and how this decree might be inscribed on a memorial tablet,
and to each request the great god nodded greutly, greatly.4
In another case, Thutmosis, one of the special priests ofamon,
lay under strong suspicion of having embezzled from the
granaries of the god. On the morning of a festival when the
god is to be borne in his bark (p. 50) zbpon the silverjloor of the
' Papyrus d s Turin, 126. 3.
Goleniseheff, Rec~~eil
de tvaz;uuz, xxi.; A.Z. 38. I.
A.Z., 35. 12 et seg.
Bmgseli, Iteise much der yvossen Oase, P1. 22.
168
house of Amon, two sentences are written u p in his vicinity. One

reads thus : " Amon-Re, icing of the gods, n ~ good
y lord !i t is said,
Tl~utn~osis,
this mperintendent of property, possesses something that
is missing. The other runs : Oh, Amon-Re, king of the gods, m y
good lord ! It is said, Thntmosis, this supe~in,tendent of propert?/,
possesses nothing that is ?nissing." The high-priest then inquires
of the god whether he will j~crlgewith fcbi~judqment. Tl~egrecit
god assents ftclly rxnd the two docnnzenbs are rend out before the
g ~ e a god.
t
The grent god selects the me .wlbich r u m : " Oh,, A ~ n o n Re, king of th,e gods, nLy good lorcl! i t is said, Thutmosk, this
superintendent of 23roperty, possesses notl~ing t l ~ a tis missing."
This is done once more, and again the god chooses the
acquitting sentence. On a subsequent day the high-priest lays
before the god orally another matter of which Thutmosis is
accused, and at each petition, the god, if I rightly understand,
pronounces an acquittal. By this means Thutmosis at length
obtains a general pardon, and finally the god is pressed to instal
Thutmosis in the office of a d i v i m futher of Amon, a szcperintendent of estates, superintendent of the granaries, chief scribe
of thf: commands of Amopb and overseer of the arci~ivesof the
grccnciries of the estates of Amon, and t o these propositions
also the great god assented. We Inay hope that he never had
occasion to regret his consent.'
W e thus find a theocracy in its most absurd form established
a t Thebes; i t took the place of a moribund government, and
there is no doubt that the more powerful rulers of later times
put an end to it, although the external forms of t h e rule
of Amon continued even into the I'ersian period. When we
examine into the history of the Egyptian religion in foreign
lands we shall see how this theocracy struck even deeper root in
another part of the world where i t was transplanted.
Before me leave this period of transition, another phenomenon
must be considered which becomes specially apparent a t this
time, although its beginnings belong to an early period: the
murderer of Osiris was at last overtaken by his punishment.
For thousands of years t h e Egyptians had quietly accepted the
fact that Set had ~nnrderedOsiris, and had unjustly brought an
Naville, Inswiptio,~Histol.iy?~arlc Pinodjem, 111.
169
action against him, and, nevertheless, had continued to include

him among the gods. Indeed, during the latter half of the New
Kingdom his cult received new life owing to his being considered the same as thc Hyksos god Sutekh and to the circumstance of Sethos, who was named after him, obtaining the
throne. But the evil character fastened on him by the legend
still made itself felt, and when King Sethos constructed his
great rock tomb, i t did not appear befitting that t h e name of
Set should appearin those chambers ruled overby Osiris, god of
the dead ; the king therefore arranged that in his own grave he
should not be calleil Sethos, he of Set, but he of Osiris. I t was
not long before the popular dislike of Set rose to such a pitch
that a man writing his detested name would himself erase it?
Finally, his figure and name were erased from the temple reliefs,
for the ancient god h d become a devil, the enemy of all the
gods : he had taken over the rdle hitherto played by the stormdragon Apophis.
Any one who had followed the Egyptian religion up to this
point would naturally imagine that i t was hastening to final
decay and a speedy end, and that the nation itself was powerless and out of date, a prey for foreign aggressors. And yet the
ancient nation roused itself once more, and the religion was
endued with new life; a renewed youth i t cannot be called.
Towards t h e end of the eighth century we find marked symptoms of a reaction in the ideas of the people. Until then the
reign of Ramses 11. had been looked upon as tlie culminating
period of Egypt's greatness, and served as a model in external
matters, but now the Old Kingdorn came into vogue as tlie ideal
to be followed. Everywhere in Upper Egypt where Ethiopian
kings were paramount, as well as with their neighbours, the
princes of Sais, we find this same endeavour; and when Egypt
once more became a flourishing stat,e under the house of Psammetichus, this tendency was so strong that looking a t the
monuments produced at this time we might well imagine ourselves back in the Old Kingdom. It seems as though the
ancient nation was struggling after its lost youth, when it lived
apart undisturbed by any foreign aggression, that time to the
' This is seen on the twenty-second dynasty papyrils at Berlin.
170
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN KELIGION
magnificence of which the pyramids bore witness. But, however pathetic this search after a dreamed-of ideal may appear, the
way in which i t asserted itself had an unsound element. From
the first the imitation assumed the character of learned antiquarianism, men wrote in the language of the Old Kingdom
and employed its orthography, which was fully two thousand
years out of date; the modern population was represented in
t h e antique costume, and the contemporaries of Psammotichus
were given the titles and names of t h e court of Kheops.
By this reversion to the Old Kingdom, religion received fresl~
impetus, and i t pervaded the entire life of the nation as its sole
purpose to a degree i t had never done before, so that the
Egyptians were termed the most pious of all men l and became
the wonder of their Greek contemporaries. They carefully ob-
Fro. 78. sacsrn ~rsa.
(neynu,
2750.)
FZO. 19.
S A C R ~SNAKE AND
icaxeaeoa. (nerlin, ssia.)
served all the ancient customs, which characterized them as

exclusive followers of the ancient gods, and distinguished them
from the foreigners, whom they now looked upon wit11 contempt.
With what eagerness all the deities were worshipped by the
people is shown by the innumerable bronze figures of gods and
of temple furniture which a t this time were dedicated in the
temples by the poorer people, and of which our museums are
full. I t was the strange side of the Egyptian belief, such as
t h e worship of animals, that developed most strongly during this
phase in the minds of the people. The groat time had arrived
for sacred snakes, birds, rams and cats : they were petted by the
people, and i t was a meritorious work to provide for their burial.
By far the most popular was Apis, the hull of the temple of Ptah
of llemphis; at his death the pious wear mourning garments,
RELIGION O F THE LATE PERIOI)
17'
and nothing but waler and vegetabl~senter their n%outhsfor fnlly

sixty days, till his burial is accomplished.' Pilgrimages were
made to his grave, and gravestones were erected inscribed with
the interesting biography of this bull ; when ho was born, when
he was bro?~ghtinto the temple of Ptah, and what was the entire
length of hislife; we arc also told what place it was that had the
honour of being his home, and the name of his mother. His
burial was conducted with fullest observances, for the State itself
provided for it. As Psammetichus I. informs us in the year
612 : i n the tev~pleof thy Fccther Apis . . age had seized upon
his cofins, the~efore his Jfajesty commanded that his temple

should be ?.el?aired,that it shotbld be more beaut%~tiiirlthan it had
been before. His Majesty caused all to be done that is done for a god
on the d c q of burial and all the oficials performed their parts.
The body was embalmed with oil, with wappings of Jinest linen
and the garments of every god. His cqfim were of lced wood,
mer wood, ceda?; and the most choice of all woods.2 I n the year
547 King Amasis, the light-hearted patron of the Greeks, surpassed everything that had been done hitherto for Apis, becatcse
he loved Apis more than a?zy other king. He made him a great
sarcophagus oJ red granite, whiclb his Majesty had found, meh as
never has been ntnde of stone, by any king or at any time. And
l Receuil de Tvavnt~z,
21. 68 ; 22. 176.
ih. 22, 166.
A HANDUOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
172
he fitted him out toitl~bandages, and amz~letsnncl all adornments

of gold and all precious stones; they were more beautiful than any
that had ever been made hefo~e? This was the first of those
colossal sarcophagi which we now regard with wonder in the
Apis graves a t Sakkara, formed of a single block of granite,
four metres in length, and over three metres high.
I n other ways also the Saite kings vied with each other in
their devotioll tu the gods; they commenced lavish buildings,
and provided immense revenues for the sanctuaries, especially
at the new residence of the king at Sais, where the local goddess
Neith now rose into great prominence. These Pharaohs also
restored all the monuments of ancient piety, from the pyramids
and temples to the ancient wooden tablet, of the work of the
aneesto~s,wliieh tlie worm had cater^ away, and which was now
replaced by a basalt tablet.% Priestly orders that had long disappeared, were once more reinstated, and to read an inscription
of this late time with the endless titularies of the priests fills us
with amazement a t the way in which all these details were
revived.
The ancient religious literature which had been lying neglected in the libraries of the temples were now sought out, and
thus many ideas which had long been forgotten were once more
brought to light. Even if most of this newly-acquired wisdom did
not actually penetrate among the people, yet the jumble which
already existed in t,he official religion was increased by it, surely
a most unnecessary addition. But the theologians of the late
period hailed with delight this addition to their religious possessions, for they could not have enough of these sacred matters.
To have them all collected and arranged must have been a
source of the greatest pleasure to these scholars. I say, must have
been, for their own works are lost to us, and i t is only from what
was left behind them, by their successors the priests of the
Greek period, that we can gain an idea of the wisdom of this
moribund Egyptian nation. I n the writings and temple inscriptions of the following centuries we find lists which give the
names and titles of all the gods. On the temple walls we find
records which show us how these sacred affairs were managed in
l
Reexeil de %.auawz, 22. 20.
A.Z., 3 9 , p l . l Z .
'73
each province. Notwithstanding its very different form, Lower

Egypt was divided into the same number of nomes as Upper
Egypt, and in some respects there was a remarkable similarity
between all these nomes : a god and a rolic of Osiris, a highpriest and high-priestess, a sacred ship, a sacred tree, and a
~ of these
sacred snake, an inundated land and a swamp. A I I all
had special ancient names which a man must know, and also he
must know t.he dates of the great festivals, and what was forbidden in them. What pleasure there was in ascertaining all
these details and grooping them together, and what useful
knowledge i t was!
It was not only details from the actual ancient
religion, and the actual ancient cults, which were thus collected and revived; but i t is evident that, anything was
accepted that was old and strange, no inquiry of any length
was made into its origin, or whether i t had ever been really
accepted. Offshoots of magic such as strange compound forms
of different gods were admitted into the religion,l and also
deliberate jests were not disdained. Because the gods are
often represented as birds-Horus
as a hawk, Nekhbet as
a vulture, Thoth as an ibis-a bird form can be given to the
great gods of each nome. Therefore Khnum is a hawk with
the head of a ram, Wepwawet a jackal-headed
sparrow. Bast is a cat-headed hawk, and so
forth, while in addition each of these heads
has its own proper crown.
These examples show sufficiently how this
later Egyptian theology was constituted. Here
everything that was old was worthy of honour , ,
and of resuscitation, while it can itself have Tc,n$e~o?y;*
erS.
produced little that was new.
Out of this esteem for the ancient wisdom there arose the
veneration manifested at this late time for those who had been
leaders of the nation in the primitive period. They had previously been looked upon as people of renown, now some of them
were regarded as demigods, or even as gods.
Among them is Imhotep, a man who belonged to the court of
' In El Ktlargeh : Hoskins, Visit to the Great Oasis, pl. viii.
,,,
174
A HANDBOOK 02' EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Zoser, one of the earliest of the kings of Egypt, and who

was remembered by the people as the celebrated royal architect
and as the author of ancient literature. But now it became
known that he was no son of man, hot a son of Ptah of Memphis,
horn to him by one Khroti-onkh. H e was the patron of all
who like himself dealt with learning and the secret arts. Before
the scribe dipped his pen in the water-jar he poured out a few
drops as a libation to Imhotep,' the physician venerated him as
patron of their science, and the people finally accepted him
wholly as a god of medicine, Asklepios as the Gneco-Egyptians
called him. For a long time after this the new deity bore
obvious signs of his human origin; be was represented clothed
in the ancient garments of man, of antique fashion, without
crown or sceptre, or the beard worn by the gods ; and his cult
still retained the forms of the worship of the dead, as they were
performed in the toinbs of people of rank.
I n the same way there also developed divine honours paid
to an exalted parsonage of the New Kingdom. At t h e
culminating period of Egypt's glory the highest place at the
brilliant court of Amenophis 111. was
held by the vizier Amenophis, son of
Hapu. H e tells us himself in his
inscription that he was a learned man :
l ~ ewas shown c611 the sc~cred books and
beheld the excellmcies of T h o t h ; he
undertook their secrets, and on their
account inell came to him for c o u n ~ e l . ~
And he was not only learned, but he
also achieved great things in his high
office and earned the gratitude of his
lord. The king set u p his statue in
the temple a t Karnak, and when his
tomb on the west hank of Thehes was
completed his Majesty appeared in
pro.82.
W I S ~IM~OTRP.
person and issued a decree intended
(Hilton Prieo Collcotion.)
to maintain the niortuary revenues of
his vizier to all time. We do not know the exact reason wlly
Schifer, A. Z., 36. 147.
Mariette, K<wnak,36. 28.
RELIGION O F T H E LATE PERIOD
'75
the name of this official survived through many thousands

of years, but he was regarded in late times as one of the
wise men of the past, a man, as we learn from a Greek source,l
who on aeeot~ntof his wisdom appeared to share in the divine
nature. A hook of magic was ascribed to him, and his grave
became a sacred place. Finally Ptolemy IT. completed it as
a temple to the gods of the dead, the well-known small temple
of Deir el Medineh, which, owing to its good preservation, even
now affords pleasure to the modern visitor to Thebes. I n it the
old sage whose sayings do not pass away, and Imhotep were
worshipped in company with the gods; in Karnak also he
enjoyed divine honours.
We have given here a very scanty sketch of the later religion,
and, had we only Egyptian sources to rely on, it would be
difficult to follow i t farther. While there is so much in the
inscriptions and papyri of this epoch relating to the gods and their
cults, we nevertheless learn little from them regarding the
actual belief of this time. They are reproductions of extremely
ancient ideas, and it would be a hazardous enterprise to attempt
to discover which of them all were actually believed a t this
period.
But here, where our Egyptian sources fail us, we receive for
the first time help from outside: about 450 BC. Herodotus,
an indefatigable and careful observer, travelled in Egypt. H e
observed exactly those things which are of special interest to us,
for he was convinced that these Egyptian gods were no other
than his own. Osiris and Isis are in his eyes Dionysos and
Demetcr, Horus is Apollo, Set, the enemy of the gods, is the
gigantic Typhon, Seith of Sais is Athene, Min is Pan, and
Amon %ens, while even the cat-headed Bast must reconcile herself to being Artemis. As may he expected at that time, Isis
and Osiris form in his eyes the central points of the religion ;
they are the gods worshipped by all Egyptians.2 He is proudly
conscious that a glimpse into the mysteries of the priests
was afforded him, even while he is faithful to his vow to divulge
none of them.3
L Manetho, in Josephus c. Apionem, I. 232.
2
Herodotus, 11. 42.
ib. 61.
176
A H A N D B O O K O F E G Y P T I A N KEI.IGION
The sacred animals struck him very greatly; the immense

consideration paid to them is well conveycd to us in his description. H e saw Apis in a court in front of the southern
gateway of the temple of Ptah, and knows that he was engendered by means of a ray of light from heaven; that he is
black, and has a square mark on the forehead : on his back is a
figure of an eagle, and other signs by which he is recognizod.
When a new Apis is discovered, the whole of Egypt celebrates
the event with holiday garb and festiva1s.l The Phcenix, the
sacred bird in the temple at Heliopolis, he did not see, for, as
he was informed by the priests there, i t makes its appealance
only once in 500 years to bring the body of its fathor to the
temple in an egg made of n ~ y r r h .A~ t the Lake of Moeris and in
Upper Egypt he was shown a sacred crocodile, whose ears and
fore-feet were ornamented with gold and precious stones?
But i t was not only theso single examples who inhabited the
temples, served by attendants and petted by the pions, who were
looked upon as gods ; their sacred character had long extonded
to their relatives, to cows and goats, to cats and dogs, hippopotami and crocodiles, rats and mice, hawks and ibis, perch and
eels. I n a conflagration the rescue of thc cats is of more importance than putting out the fire.* H e who is eaten by a crocodilo
is considered to be supremely fortunate in bis death;5 he, however, who intentionally kills a sacred animal has forfeited his
awn life, and in the case of an ibis or a hawk, even accidental
murder is looked upon as a capital ~ f f c n c e . ~
For each of these creatures there is a locality to which its
body must be conveyed when i t chances to die; the skeleton of
the cat is brought to Bubastis, the bodies of the mouse and
sparrow-hawk to Buto, and that of the ibis to E ~ h m u n e n . ~If
a bull dies, he is b u ~ i e d outside the town, leaving his horns
projecting above ground to mark the place; for there are pious
people from Atarbekhis in the Delta, who travel about the
conntry to collect the bones of bulls, and bury them a t home.
Herodotus, 153 ; III., 27. 28.
' ib. 69.
" ib. 90.

7
ib. 67.
ib. II., 73.

ib. 66.
ib. 65.
I77
The cows, however, which are considered the most sacred of all
animals, are not buried thus; they are thrown into the Nile?
I n thesefacts, where he might very well be suspected as exaggerating, Herodotus is certainly
correct, for everywhere in
Egypt we find such late cemeteries of sacred animals, pits
into which the cats are thrown
by hundreds of thousands,
vaults wl~erofull-grown crocodiles, their egg.s, and even
young ones recently hatched
are buried, and graves for ibis
and hawks, for serpents and
fishes. These animals are not
always buried off-hand, in
many cases they have been
most carefully mummified and
,
placed in coffins, jars, or bronze
figures. They are laid in such
immense numbers in these
rim. ss. nnonzs COFEIN OF A CAT.
graves, that modern industry
(Borlin, 2085.)
has discovered a profane use
for their bodies: the bodies of the cats at Beni Hasan have
been utilized to afford excellent manure.
Herodotus also attended festivals in the great temples of the
Delta, which bave now vanished, though the fame of their
magnificence and beauty still survives. His descriptions show
that at this time also they consisted principally of representations from the legends of the gods. At Sais, within the precincts
of the temple of Neith, there was a grave of Osiris, surrounded
by a grove with obelisks. Near it was a round lake, and here
the passion of Osiris was represented.% At another feast a
priest with his eyes bound, and wearing a garment specially
woven, is brought to the road leading to the Isis temple. Two
wolves-obviously the Wepwawet gods-lead him there, and
accompany him back again? Here and elsewhere, where Isis
Herodotus, 11. 41.
ib. 170 171.
a ib, 122.
12
178
and Osiris are in question, Herodotus does not give the reason
for such performances, possibly from a feeling of awe. But of
other gods he speaks more freely. When the god wllom he calls
Herakles once desired greatly to behold Amon, he only showed
himself to him wearing the ram's head. A t the festival of
Amon, therefore, the Thebans slaughter a ram, clothe the statue
of Amon with the skin of the creature, and place the statuo of
Herakles i n front of i t ; they then heat themselves and forthwith bury the ram.l A t Papremis in the Delta the god whom
Herodotus calls Ares once forced his way with violence into his
mother's sanctuary in order to gain possession of her as his wife.
Therefore the statue of the god is taken out of the temple on
FIG. 84.
WOOllEN COYWIX OF *W
IBIS.
Uefore him, tile lnrn who provided for llis burial is offering
(Berlin, 6958.)
inoenre.
the evening before the festival. A t sundown the priests bring i t

back on a four-wheeled cart, but find more than a thousand men
armed with clubs stationed a t the door, to prevent the entrance
of the god into the temple. The votaries of the god fight hard
and obtain an entrance for him.z I n other cases besides this we
find that the people took a greater part in the festivals than
we should imagine judging merely from the temple inscriptions.
There was one night in Sais, indeed throughout Egypt, when
there was a general illumination, when lamps were placed round
the outside of the house^.^ A t the festival of Osiris the women
wander about singing songs to the god to the accompaniment
of a flute, and carrying statues of him which have movable
phalli.4 And a t the great festival a t Bubastis 700,000 people
L
Herodatus, 11. 42.

ib. 63.
ib. G2.
ib. 42.
'79
stream into the town horn all pasts: men and wovwn sail
together, and on every shi?, there is a great crowd of thenc. Muny
of the zuonwn huve castanets which
they play, many of tile men play the
Jnte t7~roughouttl~ettihole voyage, and
the remainder of the ncen and women
sing and clup their hnnds. When
the?/ a r k e at a town they 71~oorthe
sk*. Somepcirt of the women continue
to act as I have said, and others shont
inszilts to the woncen of the place, and
others dance, and otl~ers raise their
dresses high. So they do at every town
wlbich lies on the banks. ?The?&they
arrive at Btibcatis, they celebrate the
feast with large offerings, and more
wine is const~lnedat libis feast than i n
all the rest of the year.'
I n the ceremonial of the sac1,ifices .,. ,. ,, g, nizable by
Iner eats and b?sket ; lrlonkogr
the people took part, althougtl
are rcrnrnbling on lrer shoulders.
perhaps under the superintendence
~;,:,'f,~d;c";~~~";24~44f1a~i~~g
of the priests. One of thesesurely the ancient we'b (p. 54)-first
examined the bull to
be sacrificed; if he had no black hair, if the hair of the
tail was properly grown, and the tongue showed nothing that
was proscribed, he would affix a seal to his horns and
declare him to be pure.% The animal thus marked is led to the
altar, whem the sacrifice is to be offe~ed,and a $re is lighted.
Wine is then pozired upon it, and the god invoked, ll~eb l ~ l lis slain
and the head cut 08 The men then jluy the body, but they heap
and /cope 2I~ati f any ill is about to
curses upon the head
bgall themselves or Egypt, it may fall nbpon this
On this
account the Egyptians will not eat of any head ; in towns where
Greeks are living, they are sold to them; in other places the
head is thrown into the river.
I n this avoidance of the head of the sacrificial animal, there
is surely something foreign to the Egyptian ideas, for in early
...
Heroclotua, 11. 60.
"b.
38.
ib. 39.
180
times the head and haunch of young bulls were the joints
selected to lay upon all tables of offerings. Also the partial
burning of the offering1 was certainly an innovation, brought
into Egypt by foreigners. I t is true that the earlier Egyptians
sought to supply the deity with provisions by means of burning,
but this was only in exceptional cases, perhaps for a god who
tarried far off, but now the burnt-offering had become a regular
part of the temple ceremonial. Whence the later Egyptians
had acquired this custom is shown by its name-glil-which
is
Canaanitish.
It must have been due to foreign influence that the oracle,
that played so important a part in the Greek world a t this time,
was also thoroughly established on the banks of the Nile.
Herodotus knew of no fewer than seven gods in Egypt who
spake by oracles. Of these, the most reliable was considered to
be that of Buto in the town of the same name.2 The gods also
give an intimation of their intentions by means of remarkable
events. These are carefully observed by the Egyptians, who
write down what follows upon these prodigie~.~They also
consider that the fate of a person is fixed by the day of his
birth, for every day belongs to a special god? I n every way
they are more religious than other nation^,^ to whom, however,
they imparted many of their customs and ideas. This is the
case with circumcision, which they were the first to introduce,
from motives of cleanliness? and again with their abhorrence of
swine,' which must have been connected with the wounding of
Horus by Set in the form of a hlackpig: and finally and chiefly
in their reverence for the cow, which was never eaten or sacrificed,
because thus Isis of the cow's horns would be injured. On this
account no Egyptian man or woman would kiss a Greek 07 use his
knife, his spit for ~oasting,?tor his iseaz6ldron, nor would he eat tJ~e
flesh of a (otherwise) pure oz, which had been cut with a Greelc
kn$%.O
The priests naturally are even more stringently exclusive
than the laity, and have to observe the coz~ntless zcsnges.
l
8
Herodotus, 11.40.
ib. 82 ;see also page 163.

Totenbuch, oh. 112.
ib. 83. 133. 153.

"b. 37.
9 Herodotoa, 41.
ib. 82.
ib. 36. 37.
ib. 47.
181
They inherit their offices from their fathers,l and receive

daily a generous supply of bread, beef, geese and wine. Fish
is prohibited and they may not even see beans.= They must
wash themselves twice during the night and twice in the day,
they must shave their heads every day, and the whole body
every third day. According to ancient custom they wear sandals
of papyrus and linon clothes-woollen ones are abhorrent to the
gods.3
I n reading these descriptions a t the present day it is obvious
that the Greek traveller entertained that feeling of respect for
the Egyptians which was necessa~ilyaroused by their extremely
ancient civilization, but that he regarded this religious nation
very much as we to-day consider the Chinese or the natives of
India. To him the Egyptians appeared as the survivors of a
bygone phase of humanity. They regarded other nations
round them with narrow-minded contempt as unclean, and
not so intimate with t h e gods as they themselves. I n the new
life pulsating in the world around them they neither could nor
would take their share, hut they still desired to pursue their
life in the service and under the care of their gods. So long as
this was permitted them, they cared little for anything else.
All the various rulers, who followed upon the downfall of
the Saite rulers in Egypt, endeavoured therefore to maintain a
good footing with the priests as the special representatives of
the nation. Even Kambyses, whose madness had a t first so
deeply injured the Egyptians (he had actually slain the Apis
bull with added insults), had not been able entirely to ignore
this religious faction; and they possessed a remarkably able
representative who was close to his person, in the bodyphysician Uza-hor-res-net. H e knew a t any rate how to gain
his interest for Sais; he had shown his Majesty how great is
Sais . . and how great is the temple of Neith, and had
instructed him in all the sanctuaries of Sais. H e contrived
that the Persian king in Sais himself entered into the tenbpl~of
Neith and threw hinzsey down hefore his mist~ess,as every king
had done ; he b?ong?~talso a great offering of all good things to tlie
great Neith, mother of the gods, and of the great gods of Sais, as
Herodatus, 11. 37.
2 i b 37.
ih. P1.
182
every glorious king had done. And when Uza-hor-res-net

informed Kambyses that all manner of foreigners lived upon
the ground and pavement of the temple, and that their presence
was an abomination to the pious Egyptians, the Persian king
did what the native kings had not done, he commanded that
the houses of the foreigners should be destroyed, and ordered
them to settle outside the boundary walls of the temple area.
Under Darius also tbe body-physician played his part successfully: as a physician he proved to him /LOW e~ccellentis tl~isart
of Egyptian medicine i n oder to lccep evey sufferer in 19;the
king sent him to Egypt that he might once more establish in
Sais the House of Life, as the school of the priests was called, the
former seat of medical learning. This he did, and fitted out
the scliool with all the books and appliances which, according to
ancient writings, they had once possessed. Thus Uza-hor-res-net,
in thc midst of the very great misfort~ozewhich had overtaken the
whole land, forwarded the interests of Egypt, and if he also contrived to restore his kindred to their priestly offices, and to
enrich then1 with landed property by the favour of the Persian
king, he would be readily forgiven by his fellow-co~ntrymcn.~
TheEgyptiandynasts,cqntemporaries of thePersian conquerors,
did all they could to secure assistance for the religion of t h e
country. The piety of the two Pharaohs of the fourth century,
whom we, in cornmon with the Greeks, call Nektanebus, is manifest in all parts of the country. However uncertain their
political status might be-the Persians had, in fact, subjugated
them-the
building of temples was carried on by them, as
though the ancient supremacy of the Pharaohs were as unquestioned as i t had been in the time of Amenophis and R a m s e ~ . ~
The hardest and most costly material was employed for these
buildings, and to build a temple entirely of the red granite
of Assuan, as was done by Nektanebus I. in his native town
of Behbet, was a feat unparalleled even among the Egyptians,
skilled architects as they were.
I n the inscriptions of this king also we find the same anxiety
t o continue in favour with the priesthood. At Abydos the
Statue in Vatican; for the latter part see Schiifer, A. Z., 37. 72.
Berlin. 14399.
RELIGION OF T H E LATE PERIOD
183
faithful had taken offence, because stone had been taken from
the hills surrounding the sacred town, for some building. As a
result of that complaint Nektanebus I. issued a decree in the
year 378 that any malefactor guilty of further insult to the hills
should be hewn to pieces. Also when Nektanebus 11.came to t h e
throne in 361 B.C. he immediately showed his great love for the
gods of his country, and hatred of foreigners. His predecessor
had of necessity levied a tax of ten per cent. on all imports and
manufactures, and Nektanebus himself was in no position to
forego it. But two important items of this he assigned to
Neith for her offerings : the tax on the imports from the Greek
scas and that obtained from the artisans of the Creek town
of Naukratis.' If a Pharaoh of the fourth century found it
impossible to dispense with these active, industrious and skilful
foreigners, if he could not prevent their settling on the sacred
soil of Egypt, they should at least pay a penalty to the gods.
What hatred to the foreigners on the part of the pious Egyptian
is shown here ! But i t was a powerless, senile hatred, fated soon
to perish. A few more years, and these same priests bowed
themselves humbly before the Creek rulers of the country.
THE DEAD AT T H E LATE PERIOD
185
graves of rich private personages afford abundant proof of the

way in which obligations to the dead were fulfilled a t this time.
They exceed in grandeur all earlier graves. Not one of the
royal tombs of Thebes can vie with the tomb of a certain Petamenope, who lived in Thebes during the Saitic period, and,
according to old custom, called himself a chief IOievheb. W e
enter this tomb through two forecourts, with large gateways,
behind which are two chambers supported by columns clit out
of the cliffs, and we then reach a double line of passages, halls
and chambers. A t the end of one of these we come upon a
mass of rock fifteen metres in length and ten metres wide, and
in the form of an immense sarcophagus. This indicates the
place beneatli which the dead man lay. To reach the place it is
necessary to descend a shaft leading from one of the earlier
chambers, to cross three rooms, and then to descend another
shaft. This opens into a chamber behind which is situated the
great hall, where the sarcophagus once stood.
The graves of this period which survive at Gizeh and Sakkara
are contrived with equal skill. Their snperstructure has now
disappeared, but the most important part is still there, the deep,
wide shaft, a t the bottom of which the sarcophagus stands liko
an independent edifice. No doubt the arrangements of these
graves contain weighty mysteries ; some may be models of the
under-world, while others represent the grave of Osiris in the
shaft of Ro-Setau.
The decoration of these tombs is, of course, of a religious
character, and is borrowed from the mortuary literature. I n
inany graves, also, there are series of scenes of daily life, which
we hail with joy, as we possess elsewhere nothing of any sort to
illustrate tlie daily life and occupations of the late period. But
our delight is of short duration, for these pictures of the
slaughter of sacrificial animals, or the offering of birds, with
their accompanying inscriptions, are copied from some grave of
the Old Kingdom ; in the case of the remarkable series of
liandicrafts in tlie grave of Aba a t Thebes, we can actually
recognize the original source froin which they were copied by
the later artist. H e copied them from a tomb in Middle Egypt
of a man of tlie same name, Aba, of the seventh dynasty.
186
Possibly the later Aba believed that he had discovered an

ancestor in the namesake of ancient days, and therefore had his
tomb copied from the early one. I t was the antiquarianism of
the period that painted these pictures, the same tendency that
also dominated religion and art.
The magnificence of the Saite tombs corresponds with that of
their coffins. For people of mnk, dark granite or black basalt
was considered necessary, and frequently they are positive
marvels of technical skill. Some are of mummy form, as was
customary from thc time of the New Kingdom, while others are
made in imitation of the box-like coffins of the earlier times,
but all are distinguished by a characteristic peculiarity. On the
ancient stone coffins there is little to read, but on the later
Fie. SO.
COFFIX, W1711 POSTS, Or Till. LATE PERIOD.
(Berlin, 8497.)
ones the Egyptians considered i t indispensable to inscribe whole

chapters of the mortuary hooks with their illustrations. They
must have been aware that by doing this they damaged the
appearance of these costly monuments, but i t was of supreme
importance that the dead shall have the sacred texts provided
for them in imperishable materials. How great was the demand
for such stone sarcophagi is shown by the fact that means were
found for securing them for people who could not themselves pay
for them. For them some early grave was plundered of its
coffin,the inscription erased, and another substituted in keeping
with the demand of the time. For this purpose even broken
and damaged fragments were used, and if a coffin was fitted
with a cover which did not belong to it, it was considered of no
importance.
The men who could not aspire to a stone coffin woulil
THE DEAD AT THE LATE PERIOD
187
frequently have one made in the form of a box, and, moreover,

of the special form which the coffin of Osiris must once have
been made: a box
with fonr corner-posts
which stood up above
the curved cover. On
these posts were
placed four sparrowhawks of the ancient
form, and on the cover
itself a jackal was
laid with its tail
.
.
hanging down over
the coffin: these coloured wooden figures represented tho gods
who succoured Osiris. A t the head and foot of the coffin were
figures of Isis and Nephthys
lamenting the dead husband;
while Anubis stands by, holding
the symbol of Osiris, or weeping,
and wiping his jackal eyes.
I n the inner coffin, on the
mummy, figures were laid of a
FIG.88.
flying scarab, of the fonr sons of
,,,, ,,.
,,,
Horus (p. 129), of the goddess of
heaven, and all the small amulets which had ever been
invented in Egypt. The greater the number of these
things the dead possessed, the better i t was for him, and
they were made as dainty and costly as possible. Under
the head of the mummy was laid a linen disc, painted with
weird figures (fig. 89) ; this ensured to the deceased asight of tlic
sun. An Osiris figure was occasionally laid between the legs of
the mummy; i t was made of mud, and was filled with grains of
corn, whose sprouting would typify the resurrection of the god.
Also two fingers, carved in some dark stone, were provided for
the deceased, a large model of a right eye in wax or in metal,
a heron or ibis, and a variety of other things. As, however, i t
might befall the dead to be insufficiently supplied with such
things, some provident people were also provided with stone
188
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RI3LIGION
moulds, so that in case

of need they could make
more for themselves. Tho
intestines were placed in
a box, or more frequently,
as in the New Kingdorn,
in four stone vases, the
covers of which bore the
heads of the four sons of
Horus, and which, moreover, were placed under
the protection of Isis,
Fro. 69. DrSo Pon IxEhD. British Nilseulll.
N e ~ h t h ~ s , Neith
and
(BY perrr~issiorrof tile Ploa~etyar Bibliaal
selkis,
Arcl~zology.)i
Of thc other tomb furniture nothing was forgotten, or, more accurately,
the amount was greatly increased. Thus many
tombs a t this time were supplied with a set of
steps, which may probably have been intended
to facilitate the passage of the soul u p the shaft
of the tomb, unless, in accordance with thc
ancient texts of the heavenly ladder (p. 96), it
,were intended for the climbing up into the
firmament. In other tombs we find wooden
standards surmounted by figures of sacred
animals, as they were carried a t the head of
processions, in order to prepare the ~oad.2 The
papyrus which was laid with the body was a t
this time enclosed in the pedestal a t the foot
of a wooden figure of Osiris, and
the cover that closed the aperture
was an imitation of the coffin of
the god. Thus, as its sacred
character demanded, the book
was deposited in the very coffin
of the god of death.
L
Pnblishe~lS. B. A. Proeerdings,vi. 52.

Mariette, UenrEerah, i. 9 ; iv. 16.
PAPYRUS CASE.
With FIG.90.of Pt~l,~Sokoris-osiris,
(Hilton price coileotion.)
189
The most remarkable, however, of all these tomb requisites

were the usliebti figures which, as we have already seen (p. 140),
relieved the dead from all compulsory labour. Their sanctity is
shown by an external feature : a t this time they wear the special
beard of the gods. The ordinary ones, made of bright blue
fayence, were placed by hundreds in the graves, and in such
numbers have they been found that there can be scarcely any
small collection which does not ina
clude some of these late figures. The
better kind also, carved with finished
detail in limestone, i n which the
Egyptian workman of this period was
specially adept, were provided i n
immense numbers; they were placed
in niches in t h e walls of the tomb
chamber, as the best possible assistants for its lord. I n some cases the
deceased had 365 ushebtis, so that
each of these little men served him for
one day in each year?
I t was only natural that what was
sePuLcnn A L B DX.
~minte" Irir z11c1 NeillltllYs
done by the great and wealthy for tile Wood,
protecting a muninly, s neure or
welfare of their souls should be copied
X "g&$,~~~,w",~e~C,"
as far as possible by lesser folk, and
in tile great burial places of this time burials and coffins of all
kinds are to be found. The process of mummifying varied
according to the price to be paid, and Herodotus states from
personal observation that before undertaking the treatment of a
body, the embalmers submitted to their customers wooden
models of mummies, showing the three methods employed by
them, with a corresponding scale of price^.^
The same business-like system prevailed among the people on
whom devolved the guardianship of the graves, the successors of
the old mortuary priests, whom we are accustomed to call by
their Greek appellation of choachyte. We have abundant
remains, dating from the centuries of Greek dominion, referring
A t Abusir el Melek, from information supplied by Dr. Rubensohn.
"Herodotus, 11. 86.
go
to the business transactions in the families of these peoplo. We

find from them that every dead body was actual capital for
these guardians of the dead, and brought them a specified
income. One of them had undertaken to perform certain
specified prayers and offerings for Psenasychis, his wife and
children, and in virtue of this drew a perpetual emolument;
this occupation and salary were personal property, which he
bequeathed to his children or sold to another member of the
guild? They could also borrow money on it, and i t is possible
that this gave rise to the extraordinary idea mentioned by
H e r o d o t u ~the
, ~ oft-told tale that the Egyptians would pawn the
very mummies of their fathers. However this may have been,
we must he on our guard against drawing any conclusions f'om
this statement, and from the business-like attitude of the
choachytce, as to the real sentiments entertained by t h e people
with regard to their dead. We who look back at these things
after an interval of two thousand years are constantly in danger
of judging by such external evidence as survives to us from
that far distant time. We see the tombs and their equipments,
we sec their professional guardians a t their duties and their
business, but if we wish to judge correctly of all this, we must
take into account a side of which no inscriptions and no pictures
tell us anything-that which Herodotus met with in Egypt, the
loud wailing on the day of death, when the women cast earth on
their heads, and ran through the town howling and smiting
themselves; the quiet time of mourning, when the heard and
hair were allowed to grow,S as though the mourners wished
to distinguish themselves from the joyous world around them,
and also the long, sad remembrance of which Herodotus says
nothing.
On another point also we find that we must not form our
judgment solely on the evidence afforded us by the graves. We
have already seen that the Egyptians of this period held the
ancient mortuary literature and customs in the highest esteern
and observance. B u t while doing this, did they accept all the
An inatance of such a document is pi~l~lished
in the handbook A t ~ s
den Papyms der ICtinigl. Museum, p. 103 et seg.
Ilerodotus, 11. 136.
ib. 85 ; 3G.
191
ideas involved in these customs? I n the many hundreds of

years since tho Book of the Dead or the Am Duat were
compiled, had their conceptions regarding the destiny of the soul
remained entirely unchanged ? Certainly not, but owing to their
determination to adhere strictly to tradition, we cannot trace the
changes in the beliefs of the people. Also we cannot judge
whether Herodotus was rightly informed when he asserts' that
the Egyptians, who first of all mankind realized the immortality
of the soul, also believed in a migration of the soul; that at
death i t entered upon another existence, which commenced
immediately. After three thousand years, during which i t had
experienced all the rarioris forms of life that exist on land, in
the water and in the
~ i r , i would
t
once more
re-enter a human being.
H a d the ancient conception, according to
which the soul could
manifest itself as a bird
or a fiowcr, or in e v e y
fwmb
that it clcsired,
finally developed into
this form in the
national faith ? This
idea must certainly
have diffcred in some
way from the account
given of i t by Herodotus, for had the
people believed in sncl~
an unending succession
of changes for the soul,
they must have abandoned the belief in
Osiris and his kingdom,
and yet the care of w ,82. oRAYI:SIONE OF A SYRIAN WOMAN, AKA6T-ABU,
OF h i ~ s r r ~ r482
s B.C.
souls was committed to
(Berlin, iT07.)
' Herodotua, 11. 123.
192
this protector of the dead as long as the Egyptian religion

itself endured.
We gain some slight knowledge of the popular beliefs of the
late period from t h e gravestones of foreigners living in Egypt,
who desired to be buried according to Egyptian methods.
There were Syrians buried a t Memphis in the fifth century
whose gravestones were apparently of foreign workmanship,
and bearing scenes which are not according to ancient Egyptian
tradition. There we see how the deceased prayed before Osiris,
how Anubis takes care of the mummy, and how the relatives
mourn. I n the Syrian inscription the son prays to Osiris for a
blessing for his father. What is expressed by this scene and
inscription must be, on the whole, the ideas held by the ordinary
man of that time concerning death. The innumerable hopes
and fears, all the spirits and deities, of which the old literature
was full, must long previously have been abandoned and
forgotten by the mass of the people.
CHAPTER I X
THY; EGYPTIAN ltELIGION IN ADJACENT COUNTRIES
BEFOREwe pass on to consider the last phase of Egyptian

religion we must pause for a moment to glance at its spread
into neighbouring countries during t h e long period of its prime,
and the influence it cxereised on those countries.
The earliest trace of sr~chinfluence has lately become known
to us in Crete. On a stone vase, which dates from about the
beginning of the twentieth century B.c., there is the representation of a festival celebrated i n honour of a local god of harvest.
The Cretan singers who are marching in this procession are led
by a Inan who, as shown by his attire and his sist~um,is an

Egyptian p~iest. Evidently he is officiating anlong the
barbarians as a skilled musician.
Another trace is less certain. As we havc seen, the ancient
fnnerary cults of the Egyptians were based, primarily, on the
idea that the dead must be fed by the survivors. This idea
finds expression in the principal scene in all the tombs, where
the deceased is represented eating his meals, either alone or with
his wife. I t can scarcely bo a coincidence that in the tomb
reliefs of northern Syria, which certainly date back to the
13
193
194
twentieth century, we find the same represontation, and that the

figure of the deceased eating his repast occurs also on Gre2k
tomb reliefs. Again, the idea of burying the body i n a coffin, or
even in a double coffin for extra
security, had a meaning for one
nation only, who held that before
all things i t was necessary to preserve the body of the dead; this
custom, wherever i t is found in
Europe, must consequently have
been transplanted to the north from
Egypt. The elaborate arrangements
provided by the Egyptians for their
dead would necessarily impress and
influence other nations who had
intercourse with them. Of course i t
remains very doubtful whether i t
FIG. 94. GIUVESTONE "B *
resulted
i n anything more than a
,,, , (Berlin.)
,,,, ,,,,,,,,,
superficial acceptance of a foreign
idea. I t is quite possible that the northern nations modelled their
gravestones and coffins according to Egyptian ideas without
knowing anything of the kingdom of Osiris; and this remark
applies to all that is found in Etruria, in Northern Africa, or
even in Western Asia, that is Egyptian in character. When the
Egyptian sign of life, the jackal-headed god, the winged sun, or
the crowns of the gods are employed on monuments, i t does not
follow that the poople who uied then1 had any other reason for
doing so than the supposition that symbols that satisfied the
pious Egyptians would surely prove pleasing to their own gods.
We will turn first to Palestine and Phcenicia, where we are
on firm ground, for we know for certain that Egyptian cults
existed there in certain localities u p to the end of the New
Kingdom. There the Pharaohs built temples to Amon, and for a
time Egypt dominated everything ; there Egyptian gods are
figured on the seals, and even the tombs are painted after the
fashion of Egypt? But with these nations the foreign religion
1 There is a fragment of such a tomb scene in the Keunard collection,
London.
RELIGION I N ADJACENT COUNTRIISS
'95
can never have really gained the supremacy over their national
beliefs, nor over those which had previously reached them from
Babylon; not even at the port of Byblos, which from primitive
times onward had especially
close intercourse with Egypt.
As early as 1100 B.C. or thereabouts, when the Theban
temple official, Wenamun,
travelled to Byblos, to bring
wood for a new ship for the
temple, the fact that he
had come as anlbassador of
Amon, and had brought a
statue of him, made but
Fro. 98. JawnwhrsLmi, xrso or numos,
BZrORE TllE CODUBSJ OF UYBLOS.
small impression there. I n
vain did he announce that the father and grandfather of the
prince of Byblos had regarded Amon as their lord, and that
they b~oughttheir lives to offer to him, and that the prince
himself was a seyvant of the god. The prince acknowledged all
this without hesitation, and also added that Phcenicia had
acquired art and learning from Egypt, but it did not concern
him any longer, and as Amon had omitted to send any money,
the desire of the god was nothing to him.' Undoubtedly
much survived in P h ~ n i c i afor a long period that in externals
was borrowed from the Egyptian religion, and even in 400 B.C.
the people of Byblos represented the ancient goddess of thcir
city as a Hathor.
I n the oases of the Sahara the Egyptian religion was supreme
during the New Kingdom, for Amon, the god of this epoch, was
the supreme god of their temples, and when in Egypt itself
Amon gradually decreased in importance, the Libyans of the
oases remained faithful to him, and from the fifth century his
cult once more revived here to a remarkable degree. Under
the Persian kings the building of a great temple in Khargeh
was comnlenced and the temples of other oascs also date from
A. Z., 38. 1.
Vlinorvn to the Egyptians as early as tile Middle IGngdom. Cf. Louvre,
C. 43.
196
the latest times. But as the population of these oases had

scarcely sufficient wealth to undertake such buildings on their
own resources, we must suppose that the nloney for them was supplied from Egypt. It is possible that these ~nysterioustemples
hiddon away in the desert were considered by the Egyptians to
be especially sacred, and that therefore in late times they may
have been employed in co~inectionwith the belief in oracles.
I t is certain that it was the case wit11 the oasis of Jupiter Amon,
the oasis that lies farthest from Egypt, and which is now called
Sima. The oracle of Amon which X-as situated there had an
appreciative public in the Greek colonists of Cyrenaika who
lived only a few days' journey from it, and who spread its famo
throughout the Meditcrranean world. From Asia Minor, Greece
and Carthage his advice was sought, and a special stroke of good
fortune must have rendered his fame yet more lofty.
When Alexander came to Egypt in the year 332, he was
anxious to see the place, and he undertook that journey into
the desert, which so greatly impressed the Greeks. When the
high-priest greeted Alexander on his arrival according to
Egyptian ideas as the son of the god, the king chose to regard i t
as more than a conventional phrase : to him it was an utterance
of the god, which bestowed on him the dominion of the world.
From this time forth the oracle of Jupiter Amon formed one of
the great marvels of the ancient world, with its temple and its
blazing sun, and while Amon i n consequenco was regarded more
and more by the Greeks as Zeus-already the ancient coins of
Cyrene represent him thus-the
natives themselves adhered
firmly to the Egyptian conception of him, the statue of Amon
imparted his decisions exactly as i t was done a t Thebes, the
temples were Egyptian temples, and in their graves the Ammonians depicted the scenes and texts of the Book of the Dead.
But by far the most appreciative soil and the richcst development was found by tho Egyptian religion where once i t had
been forced upon races of lowest culture and meanest endowments, the land of the Nubians and negroes.
When the Pharaohs of the Middle Iiingdom conquered Nubia
they left t h e people their god Dedwen, and associated with him
the Egyptian cataract god Khnum. I n the New Kingdom,
RELIGION I N ADJACENT COUNTRIES
'97
when conquest extended greatly to the south and N~tbiawas

organized as a province under the rule of a vizier, the religion
of Nubia was Egyptianized. The great gods of t h e Empire,
Amon, Ptnh, and 1Ze Har-akhte, were introduced into the country with Isis and Hathor, and in addition to these the Nubians
were given the Pharaohs themselves to worship as deities of the
country. A t Semneh the people were forced to worship Sesostris III., the first conqueror of their country, and also Thothmes
111. who had recently conquered them.
A t Soleb, Amenophis 111. established himself as a god; a t
Abu Simbel, Ramses 11. was enthroned with the gods in the
holy of holies in the great temple, while in like manner his
wife is worshipped in the smaller temple with Hathor.
Magnificently did the government maintain the dignity of
their gods before the eyes of the Nuhians. I n this sparsely
populated, poverty-stricken country, they built temples which
could bear comparison with the celebrated marvels of arciiitecture of Egyptian towns, and when the narrow valley could not
provide sufficient space, the cliffs themselves were hollowed out,
and thus formed the inarvellous rock temples of Abu Simbel,
Gerf I-Ius&n,or Del: Quite in the south, however, somewhere
near the place where tlie Soudau railway leaves the desert and
strikes once more into the Nile valley, at the town of Nepata
in the pure mou?~tnin,
a temple was founded which received the
same name, th~oneof the two lands, which was borne by tlle great
temple of Karnalr. It was obvious that it was intended to be
the southern counterpart of Karnak, the official temple of Nubia.
I t was a matter of course that the priesthood of this temple
should receive a corresponding endowment of land and revenues,
however little such a provision might be in accordance with the
poverty of the country.
I t is conceivable that these magnificent developments of tlie
Egyptian religion made a lasting impression on the circumscribed inhabitants of the southern lands. When at the end of
the nineteenth dynasty the bond was broken that united them
with Egypt, the Egyptian language was speedily replaced by
their native tongue; the Egyptian religion on the contrary
remained, and attained greater power among the negroes and
198
Nubians than i t had cver possessed in its own country. Among

those barbarians it attained conlpletely to that theocracy which
t h e Theban priests in their own country were only able to
achieve temporarily (p. 165 e t sep.). The special lord of Nubia
was Amon of Napata; whose oracle nominated the king, and deposed him or commanded his death,' and a t its command he
journeyed out to rescue the sacred places of Egypt from impure
hands. For the Ethiopian a t this time looked on himself as the
sole orthodox representative of the Egyptian religion. Most of
those wl~ocalled themselves Egyptians were in his eyes impure
apostates; when the defeated nobles of Egypt came to the
Ethiopian king to do homage, this barbarian only allowed one of
them all to enter his tent, for the others wore uncircu?i~cisednncl
eatem of $S?&, which is an abhor~encei n the
and in every
town overrun by his wild hordes the king visited his gods and
made offerings to them, for the gods of Emypt
were also his.
9
Thebes above a.ll enjoyed the doubtful privilege of being considered by the Ethiopians as the most sacred spot; long it remained in their possession, and Ethiopian princesses officiated
there as rlivi7ze w i v e s (p. 185).
I n the seventh century, during the glorious days of Psammechus I., however, the Ethiopians were finally driven out of
Egypt, and the valley of the Upper Nile speedily sank into
still deeper barbarism. When we read the great inscription
now in t h e Berlin Museum which recounts t h e deeds of a
certain king Nastesen, who apparently lived a t Meroe in the
time of Karnbyses, i t is difficult to decide which is most
amazing, the barbarism of the language or the barbarism of
the contents ; but this marauding, cow-stealing negro is before
all things a pious worshipper of t h e Egyptian gods, and what h e
takes back to the desert tribes from his raids he devotes in large
part to the gods. Above all is he indebted to Amon of Nepata,
who called him out of Meroe and proclaimed him as king;
but the other gods had also confirmed this decree of the
supreme god, when he visited them i n their towns after his
accession to the throne.
This kingdom of Amon which was established among Nubians
1
Diodorus, iii. 6.
Piancliy Stela, 150.
RELIGION IN ADJACENT COUNTRIES
I99
and negroes, came to an end in the third century B.c.,when a

king who had mljoyecl n G~ee76 educatiom forced his wn?/ w i t h his
soldieys iulo the I~ol?,of holies, w7~erestood the goldem el~c~pel,
and
mu~clcredthe piests,' but little change occurred in the religions
Fie. 96. ETXIOPIAN DEITY, XBOM TH6 TBPPLE AT N l o l .

IIe is olvsping the orrne of two kings "1.0 ore p r ~ ~ i nt og him
character of Ethiopia, and of the Greek cultivation of the

monarch nothing reached his peoplo.
Mero6, the principal town, now became the sacred city in place
of Napata; it lay yet further south not far north of Khartoum,
and the gods henceforth became more and more African and
200
barbaric. The paintings in the temples of Begerawiyeh and

Bennaga, in nhich savages laden with ornaments as Pharaohs
pray t o uncouth gods i n semi-Egyptian attire, show us how
low this survival of the Egyptian religion had sunk, and oven if
we could succeed i n deciphering these late Ethiopian inscriptions,
which are written in the native language and hieroglyphs, we
should hardly gain a favourable impression from them.
These barbarians also buried the dead according to Egyptian
traditions ; they gave them gravestones, and tables of otlerings,
and built pyramids of the special recognized form for their
kings. And here also, as is shown by their statues, Osiris and
Anubis, Isis and Nephthys watched over t h e dead.
The Grreco-Roman world was roused to interest in this religious nation of the far South, and
when they announced themselves as
the true Egyptians, believed readily
that i t was from them that: the inhabitants of Egypt had acquired
their religion, their art, and their
writings.' And when the Roman
satirist malrcs his great lady go on
pilgrimage to the bvundaries of Egypt,
in order to bring from thence the
water from the temple of Isis, he
places the whirlpools of Elephantine
without ado a t b ~ i g i ~Meroe,
t
which
was more interesting to his piiblic."
How long this Ethiopian religion
Fro. $17. T:rllll>PliN YRhVISTOMI:.
Tile decemsed prayiug belore Osirir lasted We do not know, hut We can
snd Isis. (Bedin, 2285.)
well imagine that paganism would
survive longer in that remote part of the world than in the
Roman Empire, although a eunuch of the Ethiopian Qucen
Caudace is known to have becn one of the first adherents of
our own religion. Certainly its national religion would survive
longest in Northern Nubia, which was under Roman rule, and
which had played an important part in the religious life of the
later Egyptians.
1 Diodoms, iii. 3.
Wuvennl, vi. 697.
RELIGION I N ADJACENT COUNTRIES
ZOI
A t the boundary between Egypt and Nubia, the district

above the first cataract, the great god Khnum, guardian of t h e
sonrces of the Nile at Elephantine, was originally worshipped.
By the advice of the learned Imhotep (p. 174) Zoser had once
presented this god with twelve tracts of land on both sides of
the river, with all their revenues and taxes, in order that he
should once more send a rich Nile into the country which
was suffering from its seventh year of scarcity. But later,
when Isis and Osiris had won the hearts of the people, they
also attained the highest rank among the Nubians, and the
temple of Isis, on the small island of Philie, which lies a t the
other end of the cataract, threw the neighbouring temple of
Elephantine into the shade. Under Ptolemy Philadelphus the
building of a new temple was begun a t Philz, which, owing to
its co~nplete state of preservation and its position in most
glorious scenery, formed one of the most beautiful objects of t h e
present day, only to be drowned by European barbarians in
a reservoir.
This temple on the boundaries of Egypt occupied a unique
position at this time, for i t served simultaneously the religious
requirements of two nations. I t s lords were the Greek kings
and the Roman empcrors, but the Ethiopians also were permittcd to make use of it. The Ethiopian king Ergamenes
built there, in conjunction with Ptolemy Philopator, a chapel
for his god Arsnuphis, and numerous inscriptions in the Nubian
writing show how indefatigably the people of the South made
pilgrimages to Philie. The gods of the barbarians also found
acceptance in this temple; Arsnuphis, and the sun god Mandulis, whuse sacred place, Talmis, was situated within the
boundary, the jIccs1~-dnrt.iny l o ~ das the Greek songs of his local
worshippers call him.
The Blemmyes also, t h e Bedouin of the Nubian deserts, made
pilgrimages to Isis of Philie, and the Roman government, ~ v h o
did much to civilize these nomads, could not hut allow them
the exercise of their religious worship in Philz. When the
Christian religion had long triumphed in Egypt, t h e Nubians
and Blemmyes of Philae preferred to continue the worship of
Isis, and when the general Haximinus made a treaty with both
202
nations in t h e year 452 A.D., thc pious Byzantine permitted

these pagans to make pilgrimages to the tcmple a t Phi]=, and
annnally a t the festival to take out its statue of Isis.
Fully a century later, when this treaty had expired, Justiniau
had the temple destroyed, its priests imprisoned, and the
statues of t l ~ egods carried to Constantinople. Thus Philz was
the last outpost of the Egyptian religion, and i t is here that we
find its latest monuments, Greek and demotic inscriptions, and
the latest hieroglyphs ever written by the Egyptians. The
people who inscribed these short devotions were obscure folk,
but we cannot withhold our sympathy and interest from the
P~opl~et
Smet and the Protostolist Smetchern, for they are the last
priests of the Egyptian gods of whom we have any knowledge.
CHAPTER X
THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD IN EGYPT
DURINGthe period when the Saite kings, the Persians, and

the dynasts opposed to them, reigned over Egypt, a new
eloment, which found its way into the East, penetrated also
into E g g p e t h e Greeks. They took service in the East as
soldiers, they settled down in its cities as merchants and
manufacturers, and prospered everywhere by their skill and
industry. They settled down quietly, exactly as they do a t the
present day, working, bargaining, and advancing money on
usury, hated hy the Orientals, and yet bound to them by a
thousand ties of business relationship. As early as the time of
Amasis it proved necessary t o found a special Greek town in
Egypt, Naukratis, the wealthy city frequented by all nationalities, and when Herodotus travelled in Egypt he found the
people completely accustomed to their foreign guests. Thus
when Alexander's campaign in 332 B.C. made the Greeks
masters of the country, i t only brought to a political conclusion
what their enterprising commercial spirit had prepared long
before. From this time the Greeks were the dominant people
in Egypt, and the government, and part of the population of
the towns were Greek. The greater part of t h e Egyptians
remained true to their nationality and abovc all to their
inherited belief. They remained, as they had ever been, the
pious Egyptians; indeed they clung more closely to their
religion than before, and when in the course of centuries
these beliefs became remodelled by contact with Greece, in
essentials they remained what they had always been, and
instead of losing ground they actually made some advance:
the Egyptian gods even gained some adherents among the
203
204
Owing to this position of affairs there was for the Greek

kings and the Roman emperors only one possible inethod of
governing the country: by maintaining a good understanding
with the religious leaders of the people. As the State took the
spiritual power under its protection and assisted i t in every
way, so i t in turn was bound to support the secular power.
This n ~ u t n a lsupport, which lasted for more than five hundred
years, secured to the Egyptian church a peaceful evening of
life; u p to the last i t dwelt in its temples in glory and
splendour, protected by the State even when its own people
began to forsake it.
An opportunity of befriending the temples presented itself
to the earlier Ptolemaic kings. I n their expeditions into Asia,
the three first Ptolemies found statues, temple furniture and
books, which had been taken away from the temples during the
Persian times, and they gladly took the opportunity o j retu~ning them to the temples fionl, tuhich they hacl been taken. Then
the temples had ancient claims to estates, and these they now
presented to them. Thus Kliabbasb, one of the opposing dynasts
of the Persian time, a t one time made a grant to the
temple a t Buto of a district in the immediate vicinity, hut when
he was overthrown by Xerxes this gift was annulled by t h e
Persian king. It is true that the gods of Buto took their
revenge on Xerxes and ordained a disgraceful end both for him
and for his son-but this did not restore the property. The loss
inflicted on them by the withdrawal of the gift of Khabhash
had never been madc good. The priests of Buto represented
t11is to Ptolemy I., and the artful Greek thongl~twell to grant
them their request. Other undertakings of the same nature
had been left behind them by the native dynasts of the
Persian time in the partly finished temple buildings. Thcy
had provided the temples with means to begin some magnificent buildings, and i t now devolved on their Greek successors, as a point of honour, to finish what they had begnn.
But when they had thus provided t h e building for one temple,
they had to consider the claims of some neighbouring god, whose
ambition was no less lofty and whose sanctuary was equally in
need of new buildings. Thus early in the Ptolemaic period
T H E HELLENISTIC PERIOD I N EGYPT
205
there began a great epoch of temple building which lasted into

Roman times; and which resulted in those mighty creations which
nt the prcsent day meet us everywhere in Egypt. Denderah,
Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae, to name only a few of these, were
built under the Ptolemaic and Roman rulers, and cover a long
period of time. At Edfii building continued with intcrruptions
from 237 to 57 B.C. A t Denderah and Kom Ombo it continued
for about a hundred years. Phila was begun under Ptolemy IL,
and in the time of Tiberius it was still unfinished. Naturally
the money for all this building came only in part out of the
royal purse, and i t certainly liappened very frequently that
FiD.
85.
PIDLSDIY PBIIADZLPXUS, ARSINOE, A N D A PElliCB W V R l n I P P l N U

THE XEXDXS RAH. (Mender
Stela.)
what was begun as the gift of the king was carried out by
means of the temple funds. But if the revenues of the gods
were so great as to enable them to carry out such undertakings,
i t must bc remembered that they owed their wealth to the
kings, who provided carefully for the gods of Egypt as the
earlier Pharaohs had done. And therefore i t is no mere cmpty
form that is employed when the Greek kings and Roman
emperors are directly specified as the builders of the temples
and when they are represented in them as pious worshippers
praying and orering sacrifices. Although to them personally
t h e crocodile god of Ombos, or t h e cow-horned goddess of
Denderah, might appear absurd or objects of indifference, yet
i t was they who, as rulers of the country, maintained these
deities in their grandeur and power. We gain a good insight
206
A HANDBOOIi O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
into this relation between the kings and t h e priests by mcans

of a great memorial tablet which the priests of Mendes, a town
in the Delta, set u p in their temple in honour of Ptolemy 11.
They state that soon after coming to the throne, he visited
thcir temple, and thns their ram was the first sacred animal
worshipped by his Majesty. H e had sailed in the hark of the
god on the waters belonging to the temple as tlze Ici?~ghad clone
who came before him, and had ft~lfilled all the ceremonies of the
visit as they ala written down. H e then observed that they
were employed at. tho temple in repairing the damage which
the flieble barbarians had done to it, and forthwith he gave comrnand to rebuild the temple. Then ibis My'esty rctz~rnrd to his
place of residence,fi~llof joy eoncerni?~gthat which 7 ~ ehad dmw
for his fathers, the u e y great living rants of illctides. When
later in the fifteenth year Queen Arsinoe died, who had been
priestess of the sacred ram, a funerary feast in her honour was
held a t Mendes, a t which there 7uas rdoicing and l~ersou2 awo7ce
near the living rum, as hcqp8ns to the souls of all the gods and
goddesses, fron~ the begilzning of the p~esent day, for Mendes is
verily their city where they Tenezu their youth. And his Lcjesty
caused her sti~tue to be set up i n all temples, tuhich zuas very
pleasing to their priests. I n Mendes the statue was carried in
procession with the sacred ram, and i t received the name "she
who is beloved hy the rum, Arsinoe Philcdelphus." This
Mendes temple also received marks of favour of a substantial
kind. When a tax on shipping was imposed on the whole
country, the province of Mendes was exempt, for the priests
said to his Mcljcsty t7zat hitherto they had neverpaid a t m , and
all thut ca7ne i n and out of t h e i ~city belonged to their god, and
that R e had formed the land for that purpose. And, moreover,
when a part of the revenues of all the nomes had to he paid into
the cxchequer, the king arranged that for the futnre Mendes
should not be required to pay its share. Then the priests
informed him that Thoth himself had given an injunction to
t h e kings of all future time that they should make provision
for the offorings to the living ram. ~Shozcl!ltl~eydiminish these
offerings an en~lless~nultitudeof misforknnes zuoz~ld arise anwng
men.
THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD I N EGYPT
207
I n the twenty-first year the temple was completed ; the ceremony of consecration, a t which the king was represented by his
son, was celebrated throughout the country. After the festival
the priests followed the court to the royal residence with
bouquets of flowers and unguents, to give pleasure to the king ;
1~i.sdfnjesty anointed hm
i &'
with myrrh, hisgarments also were
scented, and hisdfnjestg cunsed soma of them to be b~oughtto him i n
the palace, and all the p~incesdid the same as he. Finally, during
the reign, an event of great good fortune occurred for Mendes :
a new sacred ram was discovered. The king was informed of
this, in order that he might have it tested by the college of the
learned. No announced it therefore in all the temples. They
examined the ram and found that its form corresponded to the
requirements of the ancient writings. They gc~veit tlm ttile:
" living sou2 of i l e , liviaq soul of Shu, living son2 of Keb, and 1ivin.q
son1 of Osi~is,"as had been done since the time of the ancestors.
When this was reported to the king, he commmded that the
new ram should be set on his throne, and he celebrated this
king of the animals of Egypt with a great feast, a t which the
statueof Arsinoe had the honour of being placed next to that of
the ram in the procession.
While memorial tablets of this description tell us what the
kings did for the gods, others show us in what manner the
priests testified their gratitude. On special occasions the entire
body of priests assembled a t one temple, and decided in cereinonious conclave what extraordinary honours they could bestow
on the king. Apart from this high honours had already been
accorded to him. Even during their lifetime the kings were
recognized as gods, as the gods who love as bretli~en,or the
beneficent gods as was demanded by the ideas of the Hellenistic
court. Thus for instance the priests assembled in the temple
of Canopos in the year 238 B.c., and recounted what the bweficent gods, i. e. Ptolemy 111. and his consort, had done for the
temples. They have hcnejiterl the te~nplesi n the land and yrentlg
incraased the dignity of the gods. They have prcuided i7r every
way for Apis, Nnevis, and the other esteenaed sacred animals
(there must therefore have been some which were not held
in esteem) with great suvytuomess and cost. The king in
208
his wars acquired the sacred statues which hcicl boon curried awa?l
by thc Persians, and restored them to the temples. Finally he
secured peace for the inhabitants of the land, and in famine
secured them from hunger. I n recognition of all this the honour
of the king should be even more exalted in the temples and
the priests of all the temples in the land shall be called "Priests of
the bene$cent gods," and this shall thergore he written in all
writings, and upon the seal rings worn by them s l ~ c ~ ltl~ere
l
he
engraved the pricsEh,ood
the beneficent gods. Thus, in addition
to the four classes into which, according to ancient custom, the
priesthood was divided (p. 54), a fifth had now to be added of all
who had become priests under these kings, and of all their successors, and this class was to be called after the beno$cent gods.
I n addition to the three monthly festivals already established for
the beneficent gods, a great yearly festival was now to ho celebratod in tbe temples and tl~roughoutthe country, andthis was
to be on the new year's day of the ancient year. But in order
that this day may always coincide in the calendar with other
festivals as it did in this year of its appointment, the calendar
sllall be reformed and rendered permanent. Also because the
little Princess Berenike died during this conference, a statue of
this goddess shall be set upin the sanctuary of Kanopus near the
statue of Osiris; and, as she died in that month of Tybi,in which
the daughter of Re (p. 28)-he called her his serpent, and his eye
out of he-once departed from life, an event which was celebrated in most of the temples with a great procession, so, in
Tybi Berenike was to be honoured with a similar procession in
all the temples. And a golden statue inlaid with precious stoncs
must be deposited in the greater temples, and carried round with
the other divine statues, and she must have a crown of two ears
of corn and a serpent and a papyrus staff round which a serpent
shall be entwined. Another statue shall have offerings made to
it by the daughters of the priests and other maidens a t the
Osiris festival in the month Khoiakh, hymns also shall be
written in her honour and inscribed in the sacred books. And
ail this and much more must be perpetuated by being set forth
three times, in the ancient language, in the language of the
people and in Greek. What must have been the feelings of the
209
Greek king when he received such a resolution with due gratitude from the hands of the priests, and what must have been
the sensations of the faithful members of the clerical party when
they recollected that theso be?~e$centgods and all their nobles
were none other than what were formerly termed the n~iserable
northern halbarians. I t was in fact unnatural and disproportionate
that the most accomplished and educated monarchs of that time
should appear as the friends of sacred sheep and cattle, and that
the most ancient priesthood in the world should pay greater
honour to kings of a foreign nationality than they had accorded
to their own dynasts. Both sides went very much too far, and
yet both sides gained thereby.
As the priests held firmly to the antiquated forms of their
cults, so in their buildings they would make no concessions to
modem times. On the contrary, they wished that these
buildings should conform with the regulations laid down a t the
earliest times; their height must be good, thcir wiclti~co~~ect,
tIce
whole well reciconed, sspuc~~edaccording to tl~ewisclom of Thoth,
and therefore as set forth in the sacred w?itir~,gs.l Denderah was
built according to a design of the time of Kheops, and the gronndplan of Edfu was actually designed by the divine Imhotep
(p. 174). These later buildings differ from the ancient temples
only, in that they are carried out according to one scheme, while
with the others the projected plan varied with thedevelopn~ents
and changes of the centuries, the same difference which we find
between a modern cathedral and one of the middle ages. Similarly in the later work in Egyptian temples we observe deterioration in artistic feeling, exaggeration of form, and excess of
ornamentation.
Another point in which these later temples differ from the
early ones is the sub.ject of their inscriptions. If we read
through the whole of the inscriptions in a temple of the New
Kingdom a t Ahydos, for instance, and examine all the scenes
depicted there, we gain very few facts: the names of the gods
worshipped there and of special ceremonies, a list of the offerings,
and, in the hest instances, the text of the ritual employed.
210
A HANDBOOI< OF EGYPTIAN RE1,IGION
What besides took place in the temple (and in such an immense

institution much must have occurred) is concealed from us, or
rather i t is omitted as self-evident, or as a matter of no iniportance. I n this later time i t is different. The method of making
incense for the gods was no longer obvious, for outside the sacred
precincts there would now bc no merchants of spices who knew
how to prepare it. Also mhen the encmies of the nine bows arr:
mentioned in the temple an explanation must first be given of
what this meant, for in ordinary life at this time they are
referred to merely as Greeks, Romans, Syrians, and Persians.
People mnst be told what books the library contains and what
statues the temple possesses, what are the names of the days and
hours accordmg to ancient tradition, and what episodes in the
life of the god have given their names to the transactions in the
temple and its vicinity. Now for the first time the cerenionial
of the great feast is described and all the details of the cult,
when these steps are to be mounted and that door entered, at
what places a halt is to be made during the processions, all the
songs that are to be sung, and the formula to be used in
praying. However unimportant these may have been originally,
they are hallowed by the course of centuries, and future generations of priests must not deviate from them in the smallest detail.
I t is not sufficient to commit them to the perishable papy~i,
they must also be engraved in stone. Thus the walls of the
Ptolemaic temples are covered with inscriptions, which convey to
us the lrnowledge possessed by the priests, sacred and profane,
important or the reverse, an inscribed library of temple habits
and customs. The priests had little reason to fear that great
mysteries would be read by the profane, for they had replaced
the old liieroglyphs by a new form of writing, which was highly
convenient, as i t could only he read by the initiated. Thc
language also in which they wrote could only properly be understood by themselves, for with immense erudition they polished
u p the ancient written language of their forefathers. From the
literature of three thousand years they made a collection of
phrases, and now pleased themselves by making use of these
expressions, of which no one now knew anything, in their own
inscriptions. Real delight i t must have afforded them to write
211
one and tlie same inscription ten times over in succession, and
each time to employ different expressions.
From the temple of Hathor a t Denderah WC may learn how
such a sanctuary wasorganized : the great one, mistress of Dcadercrh, eye of tile szbn, latiy of heaven, niist~essof all the qotls,
~Zanghterqf Be, who k ~ tnlo~equal. She was a cheerful goddess,
lady of rejoicin,g a?zd mistress of the dancing, ZmZy of music and
?nistress of song. lady of
leaping and ?nGtress of
wreathing gavlumis.' Iler
sanctuary, the places of
cl,mnILenness, the place with
pleasant Z%j" and its other
innumerable names, remained unfinished. The
gateway and great court
were never built ; instead
of them there is an open
space laid out in front of
the temple, where the
crowds assembled for the
great festivals. The privileged guests would have
places assigned them in
the great front hall (A in
the accompanying plan)
with which the temple
begins at the present day,
and from whose fonr-andtwenty columns the kindly
FIG.8%
countenance of Hathor
GnOOSD-PLAN OP Txe TEUFLE 0s UENDERAX.
smiles down upon 11s.~
This hall was partly public, but with the next large hall (B),
the Hall of Appearings, we enter on the precincts exclusively set
apart for the religious ceremonies. I n it the processions took
place at the beautiful feasts, while the next apartment served as
Dumiohen, Resultate, 45,4.
2 The following is from information kindly given by H. Junker
212
the /lull of offe~ingson those days when they carried the god to
his repust. The next doorway leads us into the central tiall (D).
The inscriptions and pictures on the walls show that it served as
ante-chamber for the point of exit of the processions. Here we
see . t h e standard-bearers, who precede thc deities, when on
festivals they leave their dwelling-place. This sanctoary of the
festivals (E),the g?eatplnee,is a dark cnclosed chamber of sufficient
size to accommodate the shrines and the barks used to carry the
various gods, and also for the priests who here perform the
various ceremonies of the ritual as is represented by the scenes
on the walls. Behind this chamber there lies the actual holy of
holies (m) that contained the principal statue of Hathor, which
received daily veneration ; this bears the name of the g~eathouse,
and is one of the long line of chambers that surround the inner
compartments on all sides. Of these, near the 1fi111of Al~perf,?.'rigs on the left, is the place for preparing ointments and incense
(a), another chamber for flowers (h), and another to whichofferings
were taken after Hathor had delighted herself with them (c); a
door leading from this may have communicated with warehouses behind. To the right were placed, among others, the
treasury of tbc teiilple (W), and a chamber for the supply of
water (v), the outer door of which must have led to the well.
The chamber (d) was used in some way in connection with the
adjoining chamber of ofe~ings,while (e) contained the garments
and ointments of the goddess used at her toilet. The chambers
a t the back of the temple are principally holy places. Thus (g)
is the place where her mother gave birth to the goddess : the
scenes upon the .cvalls represent the king bringing milk and linen
to Hathor, gifts befitting a divine infant. The chambers (h) and
(i) are chapcls of Osiris Sokaris and of Horus, the uniter of the
Two Xands, while (0) is the abode of Re. The roomsnext to the
second holy of holies are ante-chambers to it, in (1) the statue
of the god was purified with water, the f i e house (n) served for
burning incense and for burnt offerings. Near to this are
two chambers (k and p) for themusical instruments of the cult,
for the sistra and the great neck-chains which rattled with the
movements of the dancers. Finally, three chambers (n, s, t)
form a spot of peculiar sanctity ; they are the places where the
213
great feasts of the turn of the year are celebrated, the clay of the
chzld i n the nmt, the day on which Hathor was born, the New
Year, and others. They consist of a small raised temple, where
the goddess must have been enshrined, and where she was
clothed and anointed; a court where offerings were made to
her, and an ante-chamber which probably contained the valuables
used a t this festival.
Of the stairways leading to the roof the long one was used
for the processions at festivals. Here the statue of the goddess
was carried with great ceremony on to the roof, and doposited in
a small open temple in order that the sun might behold her, and
that Hnthor might meet with her fnthe~.
On another part of the roof lay the small sanctuary of Osiris,
a t this time an essential part of every large temple, for i t was
this god who for a long period stood first in the confidence of the
Egyptians. Here in the month of Khoialih, according to an
ancient and widely diffused custom, ceremonies were observed,
representing the resurrection of Osiris. A mummy figure was
made of earth and grains of barley; this was moistened, and
before long the grain germinated and sprouted, and the inanimate figure became green and living.
There is no doubt that this place on the templc roof, which we
now invade with profane footsteps, was a spot of the deepest
mystery, but there were others even more secret which are now
open to us. I n t h e thickuess of the massive walls of the templc
narrow secret passages wero concealed, whose existence no one
could suimise from the outside. I n these secret places, zohose
eonlents no strcmger knows, and whose doors nro ~oncenled,~
were
kept the statues and sacred vessels when they were not required
for the ceremonies.
Thus these templcs with their rich adornments towered over
thc teeming streets of the Egyptian towns, and served as witness
to the crowds that centuries might come and go as they would,
but within these sacred precincts all remained unchanged ; t h e
priests daily performed their functions in the holy of holies,
as had been done for thousands of years, and on the same days
and in the same way as of old the people would see the great
1 Dnn~~chen,
Resultate, Pi. 36.
214
A IIANDBOOIC O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
deity carried out of the temple to go to some sacred spot, or to

pay a friendly visit to the divine majesty of some neighbourins
temple. Thus, for instance, Horus of Edfu l left his temple on
the day before his great festival a t his temple, accompanied by his colnpanion god Khonsu, and by the four
spears with which the god fought with Set, and
journeyed to meet the two deities who were on their
way from other cities to visit him, Horus of E l Kab,
and Hathor of Denderah. These gods were to commemorato in company, during a festival lasting rnany
days, the triumph over Set or Set's confedoratcs and
the enthronement of Horus. But i t is by no mcans
FIa. 100.
clear
that they were concerned merely with these
SPEAR
U
.
matters,
for it was a sheer unending round of cere(Amulott.
1
1
monies
that
was ordained by cz~stomfor these days.
15125.)
Thus when the gods of Edfu wished to embark on the
ship with the new arrivals in order to enter the city with due
ceremony there had first to be read the spells which p~vtectthe sl~ip,
sacrifices were offered, distributions of t u i l ~ eand distl.ibutions of
land were made, geese were sent flying as messengers, bunches
of flowers were bought, and there were many other details to be
observed. At last the voyage began, but only to be promptly interrupted. For the place of Xeb was reached, and here they had
to moor and prepure a great 6urnt offering for this ,glorious god.
Once more the ceremony for emhurlcing on the ship was performed,
and t?~eceremony zuhereby the ship is protected tuas performer1 and
the ships were launched, and a t last they sailed away to Zdfz~. I t
is further carefully chronicled which of the bigh officials of Upper
Egypt took part as representatives of the king, and what was the
correct sailing order of the ships. The musicians were on the
ship of the princes of Edfu ; on landing a t the temple i t fell to
the prince of E l Kab to grasp the forepart of the ship containing
the gods, while the prince of another town was responsible for the
stern. The prince of llenderah had with iiis people to bring gfts.
Two of the princes brought a bull for sacrifice, another supplied
five hundred loaves, one hundred jugs of beer, the haunch of
an ox and thirty goats for the supplies of the people of other
L Tho following is taken from the festival calendar of Edfu
'"l/li
215
cities who had accompanied their god to the feast. When

these had arrived, they sat down ancl dranlc, and celebratecl ca
festival for these honot~red gods; they dranlc C M L ~ anointed
themselves and shozcted very loud, together tuitl~the inhabitants of
the totun.
On the first day of this festival the group of gods with their
followers, who had passed the night near t h e temple, were led
to the upper temple, which must have been situated somewhere
on the desert level. Here all settled down on the ground
and performed offerings and ceremonies. The gods were set u p
and the scribes of the sacred boolcs performed the victory of Horus.
Four times they called out, "Horns hccs come i n triumph, and
eveqthing that tuas con~mandedhim has hem dune. His mother
Isis rejoices because he has zcndertaken this his char,qe with a glad
heart. The gods of Edfu, the living souls, sit on thei? tl~?oneand
gaze ryon the lord oj the gods and joy pervades X[vu." The
priests also say i n unswev very often, "Rejoice, ye living sozals !
HOTZLS
is t~inmphant. All that was commanded him i s aceomplisl~ed." Thus calling, the procession breaks up and goes to the
hulls of the scl~ool. First them is brot~ghtan unclean gout and an
zcnclec~nox ; the inteslines are talcen out and n grec~tburnt sncvi$ee ofired, when the helly is $fled with all munner of szueetsmelling herbs, and must and wine$ow out of it. Then there is
read the venerntion of Horza8, ?ohuse inheritance is made sure, and
four other books. . . . Offerings are made to Re, while be is
called upon i n all his naines, and there are brought to him one
hundred loaves, one hundred white loaves, five jugs of beer,
flat loaves, dates, millr, geese, and wine. Then the priests
say, " P~aise to thee, Re; praise to thee, lihe21ro, i n all these
thy beautifial names. Thou comest hitl~er strong ancl mighty
and h a t ascended beatctiful, and hnst slain the drc~gon. Incline
thy beautiful cotcntenunce to the icing !" Then again four
geese are set free to fly to the four winds, to inform the
gods that Icing Horus of Xdfia, the grent god, t h d o r d of
heuvei~, has tc~ken the w1Lite crown and has adclcled the recl
crown thereto. A man wllo figures a t the festival as the beloved
son shoots with a bow to the four quarters of heaven, and thus
slays the enemies of t h e gods. Nosegays are brought to the god,
216
an ox is slain, and his right leg is thrown among the crowd,

where CL man who is called H o ~ z ~receives
s
it. Thereupon the
retinue of Horus beat the drums. Further ceren~oniesare performed with a wax hippopotamus on which tile names of the
enemies of all the names are written, and with pottery crocodiles ;
iish arc thrown upon the ground and all the priests hack and
hew a t them with knives, saying : " Cut ye tuowr~dson your bodies,
kill ye one imotl~er; Be triz~mpl~s
over J~isenen~ies,Horns of Bdftb
triumphs over all evil ones." They then explain the meaning of
this last custom ; it is the destruction of the enemies of the gods
and of the king which they have accomplished. This ends the
ceremonies a t the school for this day : those taking part can now
rest. The people drink in, the evening before this god c~ndspend the
night gaily i n tl~isplace. Thus thirteen days are spent until at
last the strange gods depart to their homes, and those of Edfu
return to their temple and peace once more reigns in the city.
In all these proceedings there must have been much which the
crowd that took part in the festival could not understand,
notwithstanding the accompanying mennir~g; and the ancient
language employed by the priests in the singing and praying
must have been entirely incomprehensible to them. But it
must have been precisely this incomprehensibility that greatly
enhanced the general impression produced. The contrast
between the ancient piety and reverence and the profane
modern world, between the priests with their antique garb
and the Greek police and Roman officials, could only strengthen
the people in their veneration for the ancient faith. Nevertheless, as time went on the Egyptians were unable to preserve
their roligion altogether free from the influence of the foreigners
who ruled them.
The first influence that made itself felt appears to us to-day
to have been the work of an able man who acted as a connecting link between the king and the clerics. At the court of
the first two Ptolemies lived Manetho, a priest of Sehennytus
in the Delta; one of those people whose education was conducted on two entirely different lines, very similar to the upbringing of the modern effendi, who has studied in Paris. I n
order to acquaint his employers with the history of their new
217
country, Manetho compiled a Greek history of Egypt, a melancholy piece of bungling which, however,.he contrived to invest
with an air of authority by his attitude of criticism towards
Herodotus.
When the king beheld in a dream the dark god of Sinope,
who bade him convey his statue to Egypt, it was Manetho who
with the Greek Timothous knew how to interpret this marvel
correctly. The god who thus hankered after Egypt was a t home
there, even though his appearance was entirely different on the
Nile and on the Black Sea. The bearded, wavy-l~aired god
of Sinope was no otlier than Wser-hap, the deceased sacred
Apis bull, whose
grave was so greatly
venerated by all
people, and Wscrhap,or as 110 is called
in Grcek, Serapis,
was thus a god
equally sacred both
to Greeks and Egyptians, the true god
for the empire of the
Ptolemies. There is
no doubt that the
other priests accepted this explanation, for the Osiris
Apis from this time
ranked among the
greatest gods of
Egypt. That he was
originally only a
dead sacred bull was
forgotten
and be was
"
J
confused with Osiris L PI". 101. QRA" SSTOXS OF A M A N NA>,ED Z%,EOTEP.
Osiris ; belaw before Osiris-Apis.
nrltil finally Serapis A h v o he is pra7inp before(Berlin,
7301.)
became nothing
more than the s reek name for the Egyptian god of the dead.
218
His sanctuary near the Apis tombs was eventually decorated with
statues of fabulous beings and of Greek philosophers; perhaps
these last had now come to be regarded as liaving derived their
wisdom from Osiris.
At this time other members of the Osirian group also received
special forms which arose among the people. They were of
Greek origin but were diffused throughout the whole of the
nation. Thus Isis is represented as semi-Greek, in a dress
which may be seen on the statues of women of the NewKingdom.
Fie. 10%.
IS^, WITH R U D D B ~
AND 00RNUCOP61A.
(Berlin, ?SOP.)
Or, as goddess of the port of Alexandria, she appears as thc

patroness of sea-faring ; in this case she holds a rudder in
her hand, or is wearing the Greek travelling hat. Or, as IsisHathor she is compounded with Aphrodite, and then she appears
entirely unclothed. Her child, moreover, Bar-pe-khrot, " Horus
the child," as a plump sucking infant, becomes the universal
favourite Harpokrates. These compound forms were never
accepted in the ancient Egyptian temples, but with the people
they took the place of the gods more and more during the course
219
of centuries. I n the temple, the Osiris-Serapis was known as a

mummy figure with a high crown and plaited
heard, hut the small figures in t h e houses
rcpresent him in Grecian style with curly
hair and beard, and with the modius on his
head, and as this was the more beautiful
figure, the Egyptian must also have pictured
him under this form when he prayed to
him. I t was Greek art that made this
breach in ancient Egyptian ideas.
For this period we also possess the evidence
of a Greek traveller, Strabo, who visited
Egypt about t h e time of Augustus. The
country had then become for the Roman
world what i t has now become for us, a land
of great sights, where the Pyramids, the F ' o . ; I : ~ r . l ~ ! ~ ~ ~
colossi of Memnon, and the royal graves of
Thehes were to be seen, and where the tourist inscribed his name
,
.
on the monu~nentsof antiquity. What Strabo found to wonder
a t in these sights does not interest us here, but we must not pass
zzo
A HANDBOOli OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION
over otl~ermatters in his report. First there is his account of

the worship of animals. According to him they play a more
important part than wc sl~ouldgather from Herodotus, and he
professes to know that in the Egyptian temples, taken on tlie
whole, there are no statues of gods, but only of sacred animals?
The reason for this statement may possibly be that the foreigner
would naturally observe tlie most peculiar features of the
Egyptian faith, and also i t cannot be doubted that t h e veneration
of animals had actually increased and become more prominent
since tlie time of Herodotus. For this is the time when an
inscription-full
of feeling-was composed i n verse for the
gravestone of a poisonous serpent that had been slain,z in which
a Roman who had inadvertently killed a cat was put to death by
the mob, and in which the people of two neighbouring provinces
carried on a death feud because one worshipped a fisli and the
other a dog.4 I n this veneration there was much that was no
longer entirely unworldly. If the people of Denderah were able
to tame crocodiles, i t was good so long as i t was done in accordance with religious traditions ; but they wore well awaro that
money might be made of this, and that in Rome a man could
exhibit as a crocodile
I t is clear also that the sacred
animals in tho temples were regarded as sights to he exhibited.
Apis and his mother lived in small sanctuaries opening on to
a court, and people wore pern~ittedto look a t Apis through tlie
door. For strangers, however, he was allowed to go free for a.
time in the court : no doubt for substantial payment? How the
sacred crocodile was treated a t Arsinoe we will leave Strabo
himself to tell. He turnfed zuith bread, meat and wine, which are
pe?-pctt6nlly broz6,ght him by stranye~szvl~enthey come to see ~ L ~ ? I L .
OZLThost, who belonged to the upper classes, and tul~oneco?npa~~ied
its
then went zuitlz 11s to the lalce, and ?bad tnicen~?om.oto. men1 a s~nnll
cake, C L ? Z ~T O ~ S Imeat and n s??mllpiy with n clrink p~epnrecltuitlz
honey. IVe tnent up to the nni~nnlzul~olay on the m a q i n of tho
wi~ter. Thepl.iests taent up to him; one opcaed his inonlh, imcl the
othe~thmst i n Ihe C L L ~ Cc6nd
~
$ 7 ~ 6me(lt, cmJponreil the dli?rk into
L Strabo, 17. 28.
"Diadoros,
l., 84.
Stmbo, 17. 44.
A u R ~V, ~ T Zp.
. , 330.
Plntarcli, Isis and Osivis, 72.
ib. 17. 31.
221
his ili~outl~.IIc 1hc11.pluil~.(/ediil~tothe li~keancl szua?iL to the athey

siclc. A s nnotl~ersl?ccngw eanie, tuh,o JLCLCZ c~lsoh~oug11,tC ~ I Loffcl-ing,
the p~.iest rccn gtbiclily rut~ilzclthe lake with i t , and presented i t in
the scLrne mr~nil~el:'
An additional object of interest to educated Greeks was to
sec the learned priests from whom the Greeks must have learnt
so much. Straho had their houses at Heliopolis pointed out to
s
were no
him, but the plLilosophers and n s t ~ o n o m e ~themselves
longer there ; all he met were merely mc~$eers C L I L G ~ q o u n d e ~ s
to stmngers."he
Theban priests on the contrary were regarded
as sages who were a t the head of every branch of knowledge."
H e also mentions priestesses in Tl~ebes,and what he relates of
them is too remarkable to he ~ r n i t t e d . ~The most beautiful ancl
distinguisticcl of the maidens there must be nominally consecrated to t,l~egod Amon; for a whole month she may then
bestow her favours on any one she choses, after that mourning is
made for her and she is given in marriage. Instinctively WO
are reminded here of the divine wives, the chief concubines,
and the singing women who formed the household of Amon
during the New Kingdom, and we question whether this strange
account may not have had a somewhat similar basis. But who
can tell whether Strabo had not merely misunderstood the
ancient custom, for no other of our sources tells anything of this
strange institution; and of the priesthood of this latest period
we have abundant knowledge, such as we scarcely possess for
any other period; for, in addition to all the inscriptions which
these priests themselves left behind, we have the remarkable
confirmation of the Greek papyri which also illustrate this side
of Egyptian life. On their gravestones, their coffins and dedicatory inscriptions we read how they served numerous gods of
such and such a temple, and others in the vicinity, that they
were priests to this king, and that queen, and how they attended
on the divine children of the temple, and provided for the sacred
animals. And all these priesthoods connected the~nselveswith
the highest titles of the ancient Pharaonic times and proudly
state that father, grandfather, and all relations both on the
1
Strtbo, 17. 38.

ib. 17. 46.
ib. 17. 29.

ib. 17. 46.
222
pternal and maternal side were also pricsts of high rank. And
this distinguished and esteemed position, whose burden cannot
have been altogether overpowering, was donbtless combined
with a good income, for a great temple of this period was in a
position richly to remunerate its staff. This is shown, for
instance, on an inscription a t Edfu, which enumerates with great
detail lands possessed by the temple in the first century B.C.
There is much here which is incolnprehensible to us; but we
find that they consisted of a t least thirty-three square miles in
land, distributed in large or small portions over various parts of
Upper Egypt. We have also to remember that it is only the
landed estates that are here recorded ; we do not know to what
the rest of the property may have amounted, in actual gold, in
rents and tribute. I n any case in the Greek period it was no
bad fortune to belong to the priestly body of a great temple.
But if we examine the papyri' me shall
find that there were other temples
where the priests had not such a
brilliant lot. On the western border
of the Fayum, on the lake of Moeris,
was the temple of Sobic of the islund,
Soknopccios as it is called by the
Greeks. It had a high-priest who
received a small stipend of 344
drachm=, and all the other priests
together received daily about one
bushel of wheat as remuneration for
their trouble. They were not even
immune from the statute labour on
the embankments, and if these were
. lessened for them, it was owing to the
good offices of their fellow-citizens.
The revenues of the temple both in
Fro. 101. FBIES.8'8 C l R R I l B U A
~ T A T O EO X m n m m n x s .
regular incomes and what was given
( B o r l i ~ ,12417.)
in offerings, was used for the requirements of the ceremonies, for a t every festival fine linen must
"
l For the following see Erman and IIrobs, Am den Papyl'us der Kgl.
Museen, p. 178-186.
223
he provided for the clothing of the three statues of the gods,

and each time that cost 100 drachmae ; 20 drachmle were paid
on each occasion for the unguents and oil of myrrh employed
in anointing tile statues, 500 drachmae were for incense, while
40 drachn~ze were required to supply sacrifices and incense
for the bi~thdaysof the emperor. And yet these priests, who
were in the position of the peasantry and of the lower classes
of townspeople, maintained that their position in no way
diminished their ancient sanctity. Their children a t an early
age were enrolled as ~ecruitsby the various classes of priests,
and after marriage their daughters retained the rank of
their fathers. If any of them transgressed the traditional cus-
toms and wore woollen garments, or allowed his hair to grow,

the assistance of the authorities was appealed to, for hall not
linen garments and a shaven head (p. 12) been for long the
distinguishing mark of the priests ? Also the practice of circumcision, which a t one time had been universal among t h e Egyptians,
although without any great importance being ahtached to it, had
now become a custom of t h e priests; only by permission of the
high-priest might it now be performed on the children belonging to their families, and only after the elders of the classes of
priests had testified that the child had no defect that would
disqualify him as a priest. This high-priest was moreover the
224
highest religious official for a large district; in reality h e was

merely the representative of the distinguished Rornan official,
who as high-p~iestof Alexander and of all Egypt exercised
political supervision over the temples of the Nile Valley.
Whether this supervision by a Roman or a Greek was a t first
ill received by t h e nat,ion we do not know; certainly such a
feeling cannot have continued long, for in the centuries following the birth of Christ, Greece obtained increasing ascendency
over the native Egyptian ideas, and thus religion finally became
F.0. 111.
*
Oxford.)
,YTS I S
SERFBNT.
(Aihnlolean Museum,
a complete admixture of Greek and Egyptian elements. It no

longer struck any one as incongruous that there should be a
temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the ancient city of Sobk, and
that the feast of Sohk should be celebrated there in connection
with the birthday of Dea Roma. If the great temples of the
land could receive such combination without hesitation, the
people themselves would naturally not hold back. Unfortunately this latest national belief is a sealed book to us, and only
too often we are ignorant which of the gods it is who is concealed under all the new names and forms we meet with
TIIE HELLENISTIC PERIOD IN EGYPT
zzg
'
Who for instance is Thripis ? who is the god Phemnoer in the

Fayum ? and who is the great god Antaios, after whom a town
is named ?
We gain some knowledge of this religion of the people, of
which the ancient temples knew nothing, from the small pottery
figures of gods that we find in houses of the third century A.D.
They were the sacred images of the common people, and they
are often found with a lamp, which was lighted 0x1 feast-days in
honour of the god. No god was closer to tlle heart of the people
than the young Harpokrates, and the figures which represent him
as a cl~ildshow why the people took such special delight in him.
But he also appears in his character as a god. H e is enthroned

as a follower of the sun god, in the ship, or i n the flower (p. 26),
and rides armed upon the ram, which was an attribute of Amon.
The goose also, which had been venerated in Thehes since the
New Klngdoln as a sacred bird of A m ~ nwas
, ~ now assigned to
him-he rides upon it or feeds i t kindly with a turnip. When
the little god is represented as itlxyphallic, he is probably i n
this respect following Min ; but why he should also masquerade
as an old n ~ a nand carry a basket on his arm we cannot fathom.
' Berlin Gsiecli. Urk., No. 471.

15
Ansfiihrl., Verz, p. 231,
226
Occasionally, in Greek fashion, Harpokrates carries t h e cornucopeia, from which he distributes his gifts. This vessel of
romance, however, is generally replaced by a jar, which doubtless
contains the food supplied by the god for mankind.
I n the case of his mother Isis also the human side of her
character is emphasized. She is represented with her infant a t
times in an attitude which inevitably suggests our Madonna.
From the earliest times the star Sothis, whose appearance in the
eastern sky betokens inundation, had been regarded as Isis. As
the Greeks called this star the dog-star, the goddess as Isis-Sothis
now rides a dog, on whose head this star sparkles. Isis is also
represented as a serpent, the ancient guardian of Re (p. 10, 20),
and to accommodate himself to her Osiris also takes a serpent
form. The distinguishing marks of Isis are here the sistrum, the
ancient musical instrument of women (p. 48), and the vase out
of which water is poured to her in the temple; for Osiris as god
of the dead a suitable symbol is a poppy-head, which causes
men to sleep. Or, again, Osiris appears as a crowned mummy,
227
which we must acknowledge acquires more and more the appearance of a vase as time goes on. He is yet more frequently
represented as Serapis, reigning as lord of the under-world, with
Cerberus near him.
The popularity of these three great deities is shared by a
fourth, Bes, who earlier had played a
very insignificant part (p. 75). His
appearance is as grotesque as ever,
hut he frequently appears as a warrior,
with shield and sword. Other gods
of the old mythology also make their
appearance as soldiers, Anuhis, and
the jackal-god Wepwawet, who in a
figure in the Berlin Museum is represented as a bearded soldier on
horseback; with his lance he attacks
his foe, who in some cases is lying
beneath him in the form of a crocodile,
exactly sim;
ilar 'to the
St. George
of Christian
RU.115. BE8 AS A PBOTECTlh-O
WARBIOR.
art.
The
(Ashxoolean Muaeum, Oxford.)
Apis also,
and the sacred cows, monkeys, cats,
crocodiles, and hawks are not yet forgotten.
To these native deities we must now
add Zeus and Helios, Artemis and
Aphrodite, Dionysus, Heracles and
Priapus; they also are frequently
Egyptianized, and even Helios is made
to hold a crocodile in his hand. Who
w Nonus
~ *' A ~
is the winged sphinx, with paws
(k?a4in, 9085.)
resting on a wheel? Who is the naked woman with the
huge garland ? Who is her rival beauty with crippled arms ?
and who is the third in the group, the fat monster with wide'
228
spread legs grovelling on the groutld ? It is possible that this

last strange disguise corlceals a divinity who is of neither Greelr
nor Egyptian origin. For here, as everywhere in the Roman
empire, various religious propaganda had imposed their ideas,
and followers of Mithras, and other votaries of secret colts, had
penetrated into the Nile valley, as they had to the banks of the
Rhine and elsewhere in Europe. Among these rival propaganda,
i t was Christianity that eventually triumphed, and as early as
t h e third century i t had already gained a great
hold upon the population. Among the pottery
figurcs of the gods of which we have been speaking, we are already greeted by the beloved form
of the Good Shepherd.
These mixed beliefs appear in their most acute
forms in the magical texts of this period, whore
in the same breath Osiris is mentioned with
Sahaoth, the archangel, and t h e Greek gods.
Even now the sorcerer, to whoiri God is to appear
in a dream, appeals to Moses, to whom thote diclst
thyself ipon the mountain, and a t the
7 ~~zanifest
F . I . E
same time assures him that he will glorify him i n
U O O D (UBPHEID.
wound a r l ~ o n ~ Ahydos, nncl i n heaven before Ae.l
Whether the
aimilar pagan
ogures .t ~
h
spells
~
, are
~ written
~
~ i n Greck for the educated, or
1299.
in Egyptian for t h e people, their form is always
( B ~ I I ~ ,1, ,a a z
snd 14866.)
the same, and they are always full of phrases
of foreign origin which are only derived in small measure
from the ancient Egyptian magic. H e who wishes to render
an enemy powerless will take an ass's head, smear his feet
with clay, and seat himself opposite the sun, with t h e ass's
head between his feet, and anoint his hands and mouth with
ass's blood, and place his right hand in front, and the other
behind, and speak, saying: I i?lvolcethee, who art i n the ljoid air,
terrible, i?zvisible,almighty, god of gods, deal%ngclestrtcction, and
malcing desolate, oh thou who hntest a well-ordered house. When
thoze wnst cast ozet of Egypt and out of this country thou wast
entitled "Zfe that destroyeth all, and is 7mconguered." Z invoke
thee, Typhon Set! I perform thy exorcism,for I invoke thee by
1
Grifith and Thompson, Demotic M@cd Papy~ua,p. 47.
229
thy pozuerjfnl nnins, 7121 which thou ennst not rqtise to hear : Io
e~betk,Iopc~kerbetl~,
Io6ollcoseth, Iopatathnax, Iosoro, Io-ncb-ozitosoualetl~, Aktiophi, Ereslzhigal, Neb-oposoaletl~, Aberc~?irenthotc,
Le~thex-nlaax, Bkrelyoth, A'emereba, Aomina ! Come to me
and approach, nnrl strike dozm sncl~a man, 01; such a woman,
zu~thcold cinrl fever. 11s has w~onged ?as, c~nd h a shed the
blood of Typhon . tkerofo~cI do tlhcss t1~ings.l Here tho
gigantic Typhon, whoso form was assumed by Set when lie
was driven out of the couutry, is Grcek; asax has a Greek
soond. Among the Egyptian names is io, for io means an ass,
the figure by which the terrible Set was represented, and
whose head the magician had placed in front of him. But
from what a distance others of these names may have come
is shown by wes-chignl, for this is nothing else than the
. .
FIG. 118. A ~ I U L E T S :IXSCRIIII:D STONE.

(Berlin,9865, Y799, 8868, 9388.)
ancienb Sumerian name of the goddess of the under-world:

which the Bahylonian magicians must have brou,oht into Egypt.
Similar phrases are also used on the inscribed stones which were
worn as amulets. For these i t was necessary to have gods
represented, Egyptian, Greek, or strange compounds, and these
must be connected with inscriptions such as Ino Ab~asnxor It10
Sabaoth, or Ssn~esilnm, " tho young sun," or Bai n lchookl~,"the
souls of darkness."
I n addition to the foreign names and formula there were also
during this epoch new forms of superstition introduced into
Egypt, there to flourish luxuriantly. Among these were the
horoscope, alchemy, prophesying by means of dreams, and
others which appear to have had no place in the earlier magic
1
Griaith and Thompson, Demotic Magical P a ~ ~ p ~p.r 145.

s,
ib. p. 61.
Ausfiirll.
Verz., S.
3i8
et seq.
230
of the Egyptians. The principal matters dealt with are the

same as those of the ancient art, cures of diseases and
wounds, love spells, magic to secure power and importance, and
all the foreign spells which cause madness and disease. A
magician of this time could also understand the language of
birds and reptiles, he could open earth and the under-world, and
summon the dead from the under-wor1d.l According to the
belief of this time the dead could by other means return to the
world and to life; and a story explicitly tells us how Osiris,
when he was prayed to by the Prince Khamob for a sou, sent
him a dead man skilled in magic, who was born to him as his
son Si-usire. Si-usire aided his father by means of his magic,
and on one occasion took him down to the under-world. What
the prince saw there is too remarkable to he passed over.
Before the father and son entered the under-world in the
necropolis of Memphis, they saw two funerals being carried out
there; one was of a rich man, with a large following of
mourners richly bedecked, the other was of a poor man being
carried to his grave merely wrapped in a mat, and with no
follower to mourn him. As they went through the various halls
of the under-world, they saw in the fifth the glorious jzsstz$ed
ones. I n the sixth sat Osiris himself, on his golden throne, with
Anuhis and Thoth standing by his side with his counsellors.
Before him stood the balance on which the deeds of mankind are
weighed ; he wlwse evil deeds w e ?nore in number than the good,
is given do the Devoure~of the under-world; his soul and his 6ody
are dest~oyedand he shall lice no longer. He whose good deeds &are
more in number than the evil, he is received among the divine
connsellors of the Lord of the under-world, while his soul goes with
the glorious justzsed ones to heaven. And Khamoes saw also a
nnnlher of damned; some were standing in the fourth hall, and
over them hung bread and water, and they reached out for them,
hut men dug away the ground under their feet, and they could
not reach the food. And in the door of the fifth hall there was
a man whose right eye was pierced throngh by the pin of the
door soclret, so that he prayed and lamented. And Si-usire said
Grifith, Stories of the High-priests, p. 20.
ib. p. 42 et yap.
231
to his father that this condemned wretch was the rich man
whose grand funeral they had witnessed; his evil deeds had
been more numerous than the good; a t the throne of Osiris,
however, stood a distinguished man, royally clad in finest linen;
this was the poor man who had been carried to the grave in a mat ;
his good deeds had exceeded his evil deeds : therefore the outfit
of the rich man had been given to him, and he had been set
among the glo?.iozisJ.i~sti$edones as a n u n of god who accompanies
Sokhc~ris,for he who is good upon earth, to him. good i s clone i n tho
u?cder-world; but he who is evil to him evil is done. Si-usire
explained yet more t o his father, but unfortunately our knowledge is not sufficient to make us certain of the meaning of what
F10.llD.
TEE XOQ*X 1.EBI"D; TUE DEAD P R A Y I N 0

nlimRE OSlBlS I N TB": OREEX ATTITUDE.
CPIAVeSToBE O F
(Berlin. 2139.)
he says. But i t is enougtl to sbow us that t h e under-world a t

this time is very different from the under-world of the earlier
periods. Osiris still dwells there with his gods and spirits, but
now it is only the deeds of men which can decide their fate ; for
a sinner, all the coffins and amulets and nshebtis cannot avail.
The monster who dovours souls still figures in the under-world,
and it is still said that it destroys them, but at the same time
the imagination of the people has devised punishments for the
wicl<ed, which they must undergo, notwithstanding their
destruction.
232
To this change in the kingdom of the Dead, which of itself

was only a natural development, was addcd t h e transformation
caused by the influx of Greek conceptions : Osiris Serapis was
transformed into Pluto, Thoth, who weighed the heart, appears
as Hermes who carried the souls of tnen to Hades and carricd a
key.'
Others who were changed in this way are incomprehensible to us. Thus Hathor now figures as a gocldcss of t h e
dead, and a dead woman is no longer called an Osiris, hut a
Hat,hor. Bes now protects the dead, and a god who, according
to a figure in the Berlin &Iuseum, lets down a chsldron, possibly
provides the deceased with the "cool water" which a t this time
is rcgarded as the most essential gift of Osiris. Every hurialplace sl~owsthat during the Roman period the funerary customs
were still considered of great importance. I t is true that
large tombs built in the new Gwco-Egyptian compound style
have only rarely been found-by
far the most important in
Alexandria itself-but in the simple pits and shafts of cemeteries
we find mummics of great splendour. A t no time were they so
elaborately wrapped u p in bandages, and
never had the outer cases been so richly
decorated as in the Roman period.
The mask covering the face of the
dead was gilded, or else i t represented
the face of the dead painted i n Greek
style and with the natural colours.
Occasionally the headpiece is worked in
tbe round, and raised a little from the
neck, as though the dead were awaking
as Osiris once did. Also the features of
the deceased are painted on a panel, or
on a piece of linen, and laid over the
face. A t the foot of the coffin there are
sandals, on the soles of which are portrayed manacled prisoners, for like
F10.120. bruhnlu, w ~ n PAINTED
1
1'0nTP.Al.r o r i n s I J ~ ~ C Z A S B D . ~ Osiris the dead man must trcad on his
enemies. Or t h e foot of the coffin
i i represented as a temple in which the soles of the feet are
Auufiirhl. Verz., p. 3b6.
Petric, Hc~mra,pl. ix. 4.
233
depicted as sacred objects. Heaven knows on what idea this is

based ! Occasionally also the body is reprcsented clothed, the
hands and arms
richly adorned, or
holding a ~ i r e a t h
of roses. Figures
of the gods are :
frequently introduced
in such
mummies, either
upon thc cover
itself, or upon a
1'10. 121. ZED OF A M U P Y Y C'\SE.
~ a i n t c dt o represent s tornpie.
shroud in which the
(Llcriin, 13463.)
body is wrapped;
they show how Isis suckles the dead, or 110117 Annbis cmbalms
him. However atrociously they are depicted, or however little
conception the man who manufactured them had of them, yct
doubtless they would secure much happiness for the dead.
This gorgeous outfit of t h e Roman mummies is probably
connected with another peculiar custom, which may safely he
attributed to this peri0d.l The mummies of relatives were kept
a t home for some time, as though the mourners were unwilling
to part with them. For this pnrpose they mere placed in coffins
provided with a door that opened like that of a cupboard, or
they were laid on
those magnificent
biers with openwork sides which we
find in graves of
this period.
Naturally burials
on this scale were
only for the rich, but
provision was also
F'O, l J 2 , corrw o r THE CHILDREN, SENSAOB *V" rnnur,,r,
made by the governivitll a crcelr inscribltion. Second oelitury A.D.
(ucralr, 505.)
ment authorities for
the poor, that they should have befitting burial. This was not
1 Ca1.1Schmidt,~.Z., xxxii. 56.
--~
234
A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RE1,IGION
a very simple matter, for each one must be laid in the burial-
ground of his home. Thus

mummies were treated as cargo,
and addressed: To bbe nnladed
i n the harbour of Rmman, or
simply i n iYompae, and so given
to the master of a ship to bc
landed a t t h e necropolis of
Ernmau or Bompae. H e would
lay him in the sand, where
already hundreds of other
mummies were deposited, carefully arranged, and hung with
small wooden labels. I t was
a motley company which was
thus assembled in one of these
massed graves of the Roman
period. Near the priest Sansnos
and Matrona, W @ of the
physician Appollonios, lay the
carpenter, Psenthaesis and
Rpaphrys the sbve of the
philosopher, Julins Isidor?~s.l
And here again another point
strikes us when we read the
labels of such a burial-place
and observe the variety of the
short sentences which here and
there accompany the names.
Here is the Egyptian formula,
lives thy soul, and there the
Greek, grieve not, no one i s
in~mortul,or to everlasting remenzhranee. But what does i t
Fli:. 125. YuMrVV CASE OF THE LATEST
mean when we find it said of
PERIOD.
(nwlic,, nsio.)
one that he is gone to rest? or
that he is gone forth into t h:~brightness? This question we
K~.ebs.A. Z., ssxii. 36 et sep.
Cf. Car1 Schmidt, A. Z., xxxii. 56.
THE HELLENISTIC PERIOI) I N EGYPT
235
could not have answered had not t h e Christian monogram

occurred with another name, and if we had not known from
other sources that such phrases were used by the Christians
of the first century. These people, mummified according to
pagan rites, and bnried among pagnns, were yet Christians l
The customs of paganism were still scarcely relinquished by
the adherents of the new faith. When a cllange occurred in
this respect we do not know. I n any case mummifying continued for a long time in Egypt. Any one who observes the
mummy case represented here will be inclined to place i t in
the fourth century, and therefore in a period when the greater
part of the Egyptians mere Christians. Yet these gilded
designs with which i t is adorned show nothing that is Christian,
but all manner of paganism, the hark of Osiris, the ship of the
sun, and the three graces, and we must therefore consider this
to be the mummy of a pagan. I t is not improbable, for
although from the end of the third century the nation as a
whole was Christian, yet paganism lingered even after that
time. Among the higher classes and the people of Greek
education it might even yet preponderate, and in the fourth
and fifth centuries we must not imagine even the people of the
lower classes to have been all Christians. As a matter of fact,
very little that is distinct has come down to us concerning their
faith. I n Alexandria the sanctuary of Serapis was the principal
temple. I n Mempl~isthe god chiefly worshipped was Asklepios,
the god who had once been the sage Imhotep (p. 174) ; l but
who had now almost taken the place of Ptah at Memphis. A t
Abydon the little god Bes had almost superseded Osiris, and
imparted oracles which were highly prized? I n the neighbourhood of Akhmin in Middle Egypt, a god named Petbe was
worshipped, whom his Christian opponent compared to Kronos,
and to whom he ascribed all the evil that he knew of the
Greek god. I n this last phase. of Egyptian religion, the Greek
element appears almost to have had the supremacy, for the
same monk of the fifth century in his explanation mentions, in
addition to Petbe and Ptah, the goddess Rhoa, whose priests
castrate themselves ; Apollo, the unclean, obscene performer on
' Ammonius Marcell..
xxxii. 14. 7.
ih. rviii. 12. 3.
A HANI)BO011 O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
236
the lyre, Zeus and his son Ares, as though they were the gods
ordinarily worsl~ippedby his pagan fellow-countrymen. Other
things against which he dcclaims are entirely Egyptian, such as
the custom of lighting a lamp a t a t o ~ u ?festival,
~
or a house
festival, and that people call out yrectimg to the sun and victory
to the moon.'
I t was such preaching as this that brought aboot the domnfall of paganism. Notwithstanding all official prohibition it had
actually continued supreme for a length of time, its adherents
were peaceablo folk, who were quite contented to he left alone
to worship their ancient gods. But the fanatical followers of
the Christian religion stirred up the populace, and the temple
histories of four thousand years came to an end among disorderly tumnlts. The horrible scenes that brought the
ancient religion to a close in Alexandria are well known, the
street fights and the storming of tlre temple of Serapis. But
the events in the provinces of which we have any knowledge
, ~ holy man
were of the same character. There S h e n ~ t e the
famous aniong the Copts, boasted that ho himself had dest,royed
the temple of Atripe, in the neighbourhood of his cloister, and
that this deed had proved an example to other people. I n
another case t h e pagans implored his forbearance with regard
to their temple. H e however drove them out and completely
ransacked the temple; i t was a rich booty of utensils, statues
and books that he brought hack to his cloister. When the
priests summoned courage, and hrouglit an action against him
on account of his pillaging raids, such an overwhelming crowd
of Christians assemblod in the town on the day of the trial that
i t was impossible to proceed with the case. I n other places also
we find the same state of affairs, which is universal wherever a
minority is hated by a majority. Of the priests of a certain god
Kothos the Christians set abroad a report that they stole their
children and slew them, that they sprinkled the altar wit11 their
blood, and made of their guts strings for their lutes. The holy
Makarios of Tkou thereupon destroyed their temple, and burnt
on t h e same funeral pyre the god Kothos and his high-priest,
whose name was Homeros. A t that time many of the heathen
1
Leiyoldt, S~ham~te,
p. 176.
ib. p. 178 el seq.
237
allowed themselves to he baptized, hut some iied, and the

Christians entered into tlceir l~ouses? Thus paganism came
to a melancholy end; terror for their life and property led
t h e last of its adherents to abandon i t ; from this time their
temples were forsaken and were either transformed into churches
or allowed to fall into ruins. Naturally i t came about that these
ruins were haunted; thus we hear of one temple mhere there
was C L ~ L evil delnon by name Bes. Many s l ~ whim as he moved
about the t,emple, assuming all manner of forms, and many a
time he issued forth and struck a t passers by, and then they
would become blind or lame or deaf or dumb, but the holy
lloses knew how to exorcise him.2 Thus the gods of the ancient
faith had become the ghosts of the new, and the very word enter,
which once meant a god, in the language of the Christians
actually signified an evil spirit. And cven now, when they
had become abhorred of their own nation, they yet retained
a place of refuge in Egypt, albeit a melancholy one-magic.
WC have seen that the magicians dealt as they chose with
thc names and legends of the ancient gods, arld that later
they added to them the arts of the Jews and Greeks. Now
that they were Christians, they oagerly employed the names
and forms of the new faith, but they did not abandon everything of the old, of which they had so long availod themselves.
If a child had stomach-ache, the n ~ a nwho undertook to exorcise
i t still referred to the child Horus, who had to undergo so many
hardships in his forsaken condition. H e began his magic with
a long story of how the little god 'caught a bird and devoured i t
raw, and how lie thus got a pain in his stomach. H e therefore
sent the t h i ~ ds p i ~ i tAgr@pns, the one eyed and one hunded, to his
mother Isis, who was upon the hill of Heliopolis, and he told her
of her son's misfortune. She said to the spirit : If thou hadst ?hot
found me, and ty thou haclst not diseovelrrl my nanze, the true na?11,6,
that wivich d?ccws ihe s t ~ nto the zuest und the ?noon to the east, ancl
that dmws the six stews of atone?nent that have thei? pluee below
the szcn, then &f thozc hcldst conju?ed the thwe tl~oz~snndvessels
the navel, every disease and evcry ache and every
that sur~oz~nd
2
M4moire cle la Mission Arehdoloyiqt~e,iv. 112 et sec

Zoegn. Cntal. Codd. Copl. p. 533.
238
pnin which is i n the body of so and so wnuld i~nn~edintely

have
come fo~th. I who speak urn he, the Zorcl Jesur, zi,l~obestows
healing. With tlie last sentence, which does not fit in with what
precedesit, the Christian sorcerer made assurance doubly sure.
I n another spell, intended as a cure for sleeplessness, Isis and
Nephthys are alluded to, these two sisters who ure troubled and
sad.'
I n the eighth century, the people who made use of this magic
belonged apparently to the lowest classes. I t was part of their
art to bewitch dogs and loosen fetters, and if i t were possible
for any one to feel an interest in such matters as these, i t mhst
have been the man who unfortunately found himself with
manacled ankles under the care of the police.
Thus it was among quacks and thieves that the ancient gods
of Egypt found a final place of refuge; the same gods for whom
the temples of Karnak and Memphis had once been built, and
who for thousands of years had formed the spiritual influence
and guiding genius of a great nation.
CIlAPTER X I
TFIE EGYPTIAN RELIGION I N EUROPE
INits decay, the aged tree of the Egyptian Religion put forth
a sapling which was destined to overshadow foreign lands t.o a
remarkable degree; t11roughout the wide Roman empire the
worship of Isis and Osiris obtained zealous adherents.
Some knowledge of these gods had long before been introduced
by Egyptian sailors and merchants who had settled in the ports
and great towns of the Mediterranean. Here they formed
Egyptian communities, and their fellow citizens must have felt
the contagious attraction of their mysterious festivals. But
this would have had no further developlnent had not the attention of thc educated classes been arrested. They would in
the first place be drawn to the Egyptian beliefs by the vague
feeling of veneration which in those countries was accorded to
ancient culture and remarkable monuments: in the Roman
world there was scarcely any landscape so often represented as
that of Egypt with its temples, reed huts and crocodiles. It
would, moreover, be supposed that the Egyptians possessed
ancient and profound learning; and i t was believed that the
leaders of the religious world, the Greek philosophers, had
acquired the best of their learning from the Egyptian priests.
Finally-and for thoughtful minds this was the principal attraction-it was surely among this devout people that the something was to be found, the lack of which was vaguely felt by so
many. Religion itself had almost perished among the educated
classes, but in many individuals there was a quiet seeking after
the supernatural, and anything that could gratify this would be
welcome. A t the present time we can observe a similar feeling
among many of our contemporaries. They have lost the repose
239
240
A II.4NDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
of traditional beliefs, and they are looking for a substitute. The

weak-minded fall into Spiritualism, the more powerful cling to
Buddhism. Here, again, in both cases the circumstances are
similar: the educated classes do not simply accept the foreign
religion as it is, for it cannot adapt itself to their critical sense;
the "esoteric B~tddhism"of the educated woman of the present
day is in fact only a garbled philosophy in Buddhist attire, and
YID. 124.
SCEXE O x TUB NILE
FROM 13 ROMAN RELIB*
IN I E R I I A COTTi
( ~ e r i i uAutiquariurr,.)
over the Isis belief of Plutarch the priests of Memphis and

Thebes would certainly have shaken their heads.
The respect manifested by the educated classcs secured greater
prominence for the poor priests of Isis of the Greek and Italian
cities, and for their marvellous teaching, than was enjoyed by
other Eastern priesthoods who also celebrated their rites on
Roman soil.
A fi~rtherattraction was attached to the enjoyment of the
T H E EGYPTIAN RELIGION IN EUROPE
zqr
Egyptian faith. For a long time the official religion opposed it,
and senate and emperor tried to stamp out this " superstition"
by means of prohibitions and restraints. It was unavailing, for
if the people could not saorifice openly to Isis, they did so all
the more eagerly in secret, and they certainly had not long to
wait before the prohibition was withdrawn. Finally there was
no objection made when some one built a temple to Isis and
Serapis, and what had been mere tolerance became open recognition. 13y the end of the first century A.D. no obloquy attached
itself to the Egyptian gods, and by the close of another century
they were styled those deities once Egyptico~,now also Roman.'
The reign of Hadrian must have contributed much to this
development, for he himself had travelled in
Egypt, and had an enthusiastic admiration for
that country and its gods. His villa on the
Tiber contained an Egyptian pleasure-ground
which was called Canopus. Statues of the
gods in black stone in semi-Egyptian style,
and subterranean halls and a sanctuary of
Serapis were intended to remind the visitor
of the valley of the Nile. During this
journey, Antinous, the favourite of the Emperor, was drowned in the Nile, and he considered it the highest possible honour to raise
the poor lad to he throne companion of the
gods of E g ~ p t . I~n the Greek towns the new
demi-god might be represented as a melancholy-looking youth, hut in his temple in
Egypt lie appears as an Egyptian god; and
the mausoleum in Rome, which was dedicated
to him by the Emperor, was Egyptian and ' ' & ~ & i ~
bore hieroglyphic inscriptions. To this day
the graceful obelisk of Monte Pincio3 informs us that Osiris
Antinous, tho deceased, who rests in this place, which i s situated
within the boundaries of fortunate Rome, i s recognized as n god
in the smred plr~ces of Egypt. Temples are built to him, and
I
Minuc. Folix, 22. 2 .

WC.
I. C., 6007
Mitt. d. Deutsch. Archiol. Inat. R h . , Abt,ritt. xi. 113.
16
242
he is zm~s7zippecIby the superior aed infe-ior priests of Uppcr

and Lower Bgypt and also hy all Xgyptinlzs. A city has been
eallecl efter his nnnm, Greeks and Egyptians come to it, cmd
lc~ndscznd fielcls helve hoen given to them to provide hinz ?uitl~a
p r o p r o m life them. The temple of tl~ifigod, Z U J L ~ Li ~s called
Antinons, is therein, and is bnilt of good limestoize, with stntz~esof
the gocls aronnd it and statues ccnd vem/ many ~01zz17~7t.s mc7~as
uere nude ecirlier by the ancestors and stnch ca tuem mntle by the
Greelcs. And in this temple food is laid f o ~hinz y o n his altn~s,
and he is extolled by the priests and all men make pilgrimage
to him beeanse he hears the regncsts of those who c ~ yto him and
the sick mcm is healed by nLeans of n dream that he se?zcls to hi?%.
It is the founding of the Grreco-Egyptian town of Antinoe which
is thus described. This worship of the Greek youth a t their
festivals struck root, and even in the third century Antinous
was still highly revered as one who healed the sick and worked
miracles? Thus Europe, for its part, had given a god to Egypt,
and who could now call the Egyptian belief a foreign one. And
yet even now there were many who could not entirely overcome
their horror of the animal-headed gods. This is shown by the
jeers of Lucian. There sit the gods in council upon Olympus,
hut there is uneasiness among them, for the ancient gods of
Greece cannot restrain their vexation with the individuals
of dolibtful standing who have obtruded themselves into their
brilliant company, the unmannerly companies of Dionysos, the
deities from barbarous countries, and the abstract ideas, sucli as
"virtue" and "fate," invented by the philosophers. A t the
banquet a noisy crowd is assembled, little in accordance with
the tastes of the ancient gods: ambrosia runs short, nectar
becomes more and more dear; and Momus, who makes himself
spokesman for the discontented party, sets out all this grievance
in a long speech, reviling especially the barbarian horde, Attis,
Sabazios, Mithras, and all this company who knew no Greek and
did not even understand when their healths were drunk. But
he says all this 7nuy be passed over. But thou, thou dog-headed
one, thou Zgptinn torapped i7z linen, who art thou? and hozo
eanst thou, howling dog, wish to be a yud ? And wherfire doth the
1 Origen c. Celsus, 111. 36.
T H E EGYPTIAN RELIGION I N EUROPE
243
motley bull of Memphis allow liimseW to be wors7i@ped, why doth

he qcak i n orulcs, alzd hc~vepriests? Of ibises, monkeys, and
lkls iprcfel not to speak at all, nor yet of the other absurd rubbish
which somehow or other has been snzuggletl oz~tof Eggpt into hienven.
How can ye, uh gods, permit the?n to lie zuorsliiirpec2 oqually zcith
you~seIS,or better if possible ? And thozi, Zeas, hmu enlist thou
endure hcming rt~m'shorns a@ed by t?~e?ii?Zeus admits that
these Egyptian creatures are detestable, hut he adds cautiously :
Many of tl~csearc enigmas, uncl hc who is not initiatecl i n them
shall not langk at thern.1
The reply of Zeus to Momus is evidently the answer given to
scoffers by the educated adherents of Isis: You see only the
external, strange features of our belief, and cannot guess what
lies hidden behind them. Plutarch also says that he who takes
these matters literally, and does not att,empt to understand their
higher meaning, must spit and purgy his moutl~. Then who is
Osiris 7 Osiris is the principle of moisture and the fructifying
power of generation. H e is the reasoning power of the soul
and law and order in the world. Yea, he is Good itself.
But Typhon is aridity, drought, sterility ; he is the lack of sense,
the indiscretion of the soul, and disease and disorder in the
world : he is Evil. Isis has the fruitful earth as her body, she
is the feminine, the receptive half of generation in nature; the
elements for good and evil, which, in accordance with their
nature, however, incline to good.% A11 goodness and order are
the work of Isis and a figure of O s i r i ~ . ~Nothing, however, is so
pleasing to this goddess as inquiry into truth and right knowledge of the divine; she assists divine learning while Typhon
wars against it. He who lives a disciplined, temperate, and
chaste life devoted to the service of her temple, can attain to the
knowledge of the first and highest spiritual ideas, and to this
she invites us by means of her shrine.4 I t is not the linen garment and shaven head that make the Isis worshipper, although
these contain profound meanings; hut the true Isis worshipper
is he who ponders over sacred matters, and seeks therein for
hidden t r ~ t h s . ~For in these matters thcru is nothing which is
Lueian, Decorum Gonciliurn, 10.
Vlutarch, Isis et Osi~is,33,38,39,49, 53.
1
"b. 64.
* ib. 2.
ib. 3.
244
not of importance. Because t h e sistrum which is shaken before

the goddess (p. 40) is rounded a t the top and has four transverse
bars, it is to the wise a symbol of the orbit of the moon, which
embraces everything, and of the four elements which are contained within it. Also because the sistrum is frequently
decorated at the top with a cat, the profane imagine i t is on
account of the cat-headed, joyous Bast (p. 13). Plutarch, however, knows the true reason : the cat also has a significance
connected w i t h the moon, because i t is a fickle, nocturnal,
prolific animal, or because i t widens its eyes at the full moon.
Also the two female heads on the handle are Isis and Nephthys,
and signify here birth and death. Thus when the sistrum is
shaken i t is a sign that all beings must move in a settled
0rder.l
I f the belief in Isis had consisted only of such hair-splitting
ideas, it would never have attained to any degree of power, but
i t was only a small minority who considered i t necessary t o
attempt to combine their religious feelings and their philosophical views. The ideas of simple-minded worshippers of Isis are
shown in two inscriptions from the Greek islands. Both express
the same ideas, hut one copiously sets forth in Homeric verse
what t h e other expresses in prose: I am Isis, nzistress of the
whole land: I tuns instructed by Hermes, and uith Hermes I
invented the writings of the nations, i n order that not all should
write with the same letters. I gave manlcind their laws, and
o~dainodwhat no one can alter. I am the eldest daughter of
IC~onos. I anL the wge and sister of the lcing Osilis. I am she
who rises i n the dog star. I am she who is called the goddess of
women. The town of Bubastis was bnilt i n my honour. I am she
who separated the heaven from the earth. I hawe pointed out
their paths to the stccrs. I have invented seamanship. . . I
have bronght together men and women. .
I have ordained
that the elders shall be beloved by the children. With my
brother Osiris I made an end of cannibalism. I have inst~wted
mankind i n the wysteries. I have taught reverence of the divine
statzaes. I have established the temple precincts. I have overthrown
the dominion of the tyrants. I have caused men to love women.
1 Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 63.
..
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION IN EUROPE
245
I have made justice more powerful than silver c~ndgold. I hccve

cccz~sedtruth to be considered beautiSul? . . An inscription which
is said to have been placed over a grave of Isis a t Nysa in
Arabia must probably have been similar, and one on a grave of
Osiris at the same place is said to have run thus : My futher is
ICronos, the youngest of all the gods, and I am the Zfiny Osiris,
who has conducted zunr over the whole world, even to tl~ez~ninhnbited
parts of India and to the regions of the North, even to the soumes
of the Danube, and again etjen to the ocean. I um the eldest son
of Kronos, and as n germ out of n beautiftcl noble egg . . . was I
born. There is no part of the world where I haw not been, and I
gave all that I dis~overed.~
All the ideas that centred round these gods were collected in
a short hymn, which has been preserved on an inscription a t
Cius, in Bithynk3
Thee, king of all the heavens, I greet thee, ete~nalAlit~bis

W i t h Osiris thy father, sac~edone crowned with gold,
He is Zezrs, son of K~ovios,he is the rnigl~tyAmopt,
The immovtal king, highly revered as Serapis.
Thee also, blessed goddess and mother, Isis of the mr'ny names,
To tohorn the heavens gave birth on the glittering U ~ L D ~ Yof the sea,
And whom the dad~nessbegat as tlie light for all mafrlind,
W h o as the eldest dost wield the sceptre in Olympus,
And as mistress and goddess dost vule o v e ~earth, and the sea,
ZL
the whole . . . much good has thou given m u n f i d .
Of zvl~ich~ ~ L O seest
It will he seen how greatly simplified is the Egyptian religion

here : of all the deities besides Isis, there are actually only two
remaining: Osiris Serapis, who is at the same time Amon, and
Horus, who is also Anubis. Isis is the regulator of nature, and it
has become she who has associated manwith man. Osiris has fallen
into the background. Notwithstanding his triumphs, in which
his European friends acquiesced, he is in reality no more than
the deceased husband whom Isis laments. I n addition to this,
the human side of his character, which this god possessed
in earlier days, has once more gained the ascendency to such a
degree that non-believers make objection to the man O s i ~ i s . ~
l
C.I. G., xii. 5. I. p. 217.

C. I. G., 3724.
Diodoru~,I. 27.
* Locinn, Pharsal, viii. 832.
246
A IIANLIBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION
To the adoration accorded to Isis for her benevolence to

mankind was now added the gratitude that was her due from
individuals. As goddess of the port of Alexandria, she aided in
the first place the seafarers, and he who returned safely in spite
of storms would cause a votive picture to be painted for her
temple, and thus Isis provides f o ~the painters.' When her lover
is about to sail, the maiden worships Isis with redoubled
fervour, she shakes the sistrum before her, she purifies herself,
and sleeps alone; if he returns home in safety, she will go
apparelled in linen and with loosened hair to sit among the
crowd in front of the temple, and sing the praise of the goddess
twice daily.=
But Isis also punishes sinners; the embezzler fears lest she
should strike him over the eyes with the angry sistrum and
blind him.3 Or t h e lady wllo m the holy clays which ?must be
observed, has not practised continence, feels uneasy, for in the
temple i t appeared to her cm though the silver se~pent?noued his
head; it is true that the priest reassures her, for i t is to be
hoped that Osiris will pardon her if she presents him with a
goose and a cake.4 But i t was not always that the gods could
be so easily appeased, and votive inscriptions tell of real gifts of
the precious metals, of jewelled serpents, silver sistrums and
dishes ; a Spanish lady consecrates to Isis a snake witb many
precious stones, and besides other jewellery, more than seventy
poands of silver vessels?
It was naturally still more pleasing to the goddess to bave
her temple rebuilt by some devout worshipper. Thus at
Malcesina, on the Lake of Garda, one G. Menatius resto~edl~cr
tenzple and built a po~chto it cct his own c1~~crges.OA t Benevento
one Lucilius built n magnificent palace for the gl.ent Isis, the
ndslress of Benene~~to,
and to her eoa~paniolzgods, and erected to
her two obelisks qf red gynnite, which are still i n existence, with
hieroglyphic inscriptions, from which we gain this information.
For this the gods give him a long life of gladness, and as he also
timed his dedication of the temple in order to combine with it
the celebration of the happy return home of Domitian, who
P
Jnvennl, 12. 28.

i h C,. 526 et sep
Tibnll, l, 3, 23.
W. I. L.,11. 3386.
Juvenal, 13. 92.

C. I. L. V., I. 4007.
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION I N EUROPE
247
retum~edf ~ w mthe C O ~ L ~ L ~ Wnncl

J
from the conque~eclfo~eign lands
to his capital, &me, the conqueror of coqmtries, no doubt he
was well rewarded by the Emperor for his building,l so much
the more that Domitian himself was a patron of Isis and of
Serapis, to whom h e had recently built a temple in Rome. I n
P ~ m p e i i where
,~
the temple of Isis had been destroyed by an
earthquake in the year 63 A.D., the family of the Popidii rebuilt
it, and actually did so i n the name of a six-year-old boy, N.
Popidius Celsinus. Here the pious act was not free from worldly
considerations, for the temple community were compelled by
gratitude to recoive the youthful founder among their number.
Such a temple of Isis had little in common with those of
PIG.126. s~na~rnlln.
In tile eentro is sow the rrgure ~f the god ; to tbe leet, in the c o ~ ~ rat stntue
,
of sn Aliis.
(Berlin, Y717.)
Egpyt, as is shown by this temple a t Pompeii; i t is possible t h a t

i t was modelled on that of Alexandria. In a court, surrounded
by a colonnade, stood the actual temple, to which a flight of
steps led. I t consisted of a porch, supported on six columns,
and of a chambor which was the holy of holies. A snlaller
building st,ood i n one corner of t h e courtyard, and near this was
a large altar. On two sides t h e court was surrounded by
chambers which served as dwelling-places for the priests, for
storehouses, and similar uses. The decoration of this temple
and its surrounding buildings was a mixture of Egyptian and
A.Z., 34. 140 et s q .
"or
the followins cf. Lafayo, Nivtoirc du eulle &S dieur d'illerendvie,
1'. 173 et seq.
248
Greek, sacred and profane. By the side of Isis, Osiris, Harpokrates, Anuhi~,the sacred anin~alsand the priests, there were to
be seen Dionysos and Narcissus, Chiron with Achilles, and representations of the delightful stories of Ares and Aphrodite. Two
pictures which represent the history of I o effect a compromise; this unfortunate favourite of Zeus, who fled to Egypt in
the form of a cow, had long been recognized as the cow-goddess
of Egypt, and had by a strange development been credited with
giving birth to the Apis bull. The landscapes show Egypt,ian
scenes with shrines and sphinxes or sea pieces with ships, of
which Isis was the patroness. Among the marble statues of the
temple, besides Isis we find Dionysos, Aphrodite, and Priapus.
Fivo other statues have only the faces, hands, and feet of stone,
the bodies being made of wood; obviously these were the
statues which were arrayed in linen and carried in procession a t
the feasts. The largest of these wore gold earrings and carried
a sistrum.
While the buildings of the temple and the paintings on it
were thus half or entirely Greek, great importancc, on the other
hand, w a s laid on the importation of works of actual Egyptian
art. Therefore in Benevento, Pompeii, Rome, and, in fact,
wherever a. temple of Isis was built, ancient tables of offerings,
sphinxes, statues, and other sculptures were by some means prooured from the inexhaustible stores of the Egyptian temples and
tombs, and set up for the gratification of Isis. It was of no
consequence that the old inscriptions on these monuments bore
no reference to their new surroundings, for none of the people
were able to read these hieroglypbs. Thus monuments of all
periods of Egyptian history were brought across the sea; the
EgypLian priests converted what they considered the superfluous
possessions of their gods into money, and thusproved themselves
topossess as few scruples as the Italian priests of the eighteenth
century, who sold the altars of their churches to foreign countries. From this traffic we can now discern what style of sculpture was most valued. If possible, the pieces must be of black
or dark stone, colouring which, while it differed from that of
their own statuary, appeared best to express the mysterious ideas
that were ascribed to the Egyptian religion.
249
The daily rites consisted principally of simple offerings and

incense burning. According to ancient custom i t fell to the
women who were in attendance on Isis to play the sistrum before
the goddess, and sprinkling with water must also have bee11 part
of their duties, for they are represented with sistrum and water
jug.
Two of the great festivals connected with the worship of Isis
enjoyed special fame. One was the three days' feast in November, when a performance was given representing the death of
Osiris, the search for his body, and its discovery.
What an impression was made on distant
countries by these feasts is shown by the
allusion to them in literature. Thus Ovid
speaks of Osi?.is who i s never sz~flcientlysought
Juvenal mentions the shout of the
for.'
people when Osi?.is i,s found,2 and Lncan introduces us to thc clogs who are demi-gods und the
piu-compelling s i s t ~ u r n s . ~ Also from thern
arose the remarkable idea that the Egyptian
gods found their pleasures in songs of lamentation and not in joyous dances as did the Greek
d e i t i e ~ . ~It is clear that those festivals were
performed in the sight of all, although their
more secret ceremonies may have been confined
to the restricted circle of the "Isiaci," those F ~ & ~ s , : " 6 : " ~ ~ ~
true believers who formed a religious brother'"'t~,~~~:r,''l''
hood, and had their "school" close to the
"'o;>;:;,;,tone
temple.
Of the great feast that occurred in March, when Isis inaugurated navigation for the year, we have a clear account dating
from the second century. I t describes the festival as i t was
held a t Kenchrea, the eastern port of K ~ r i n t h . ~The feast was
opened by a group of mummers, soldiers and huntsmen, gladiators and philosophers, an ass as Pegasus, a slie-bear as a lady,
and a monkey as Ganymede. When the crowd had been
' Ovid, Metletarnolphoses, IX. 093.

Luean, Pharsnl., VIII. 832.
' Apuleius, Metamo~.phoses,XI. 8-17.
Juvenal, VIII. 29.

Apnleius, de deo Socratis, XIV.
250
entertained with these burlesque performances they next beheld

a procession of women, wearing white garments and crowned
with spring flowers; these strewed flowers on the road and besprinkled i t with sweet scents, or they carried combs and mirrors,
and made as though they were dressing the hair of the goddess.
Men and women followed with lamps and torches, and these again
Fca 125.
TEXVLZ FESTIVAL.
Fall painting fraln the Isis terrlple at Fompeii.
were followed by the musicians with syrinxes and flutes and a

choir of youthful choristers i n white garments, singing a song
specially composed for the feast. This modern music was followed
by the ancient sacred music : first came the flautists of Serapis,
who played a n air only used i n the temple on a flute of
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION IN EUROPE
251
special form; then came the votaries who performed on the

sistrum, men and women of every age, the men shaven, the
women with a white cloth round the hair. After six officials
carrying a lamp, an altar, and other sacred objects, there
followed the gods themselves. As was befitti~ig,the dog-headed
Anubis came first, black with a golden head, and with caduceus
and palms as his symbols. An attendant who followed with
hlissfv,l steps bore a stsnding cow, the statue of the all-productive
fruitful goddess. The casket, borne by a second attendant, contained the m?/sstc?.ies of the ylwiozcs religiom, and the third held to
his fo~ttmute5osom the s ever ad image of the sup7ems deity: i t is
the model of a very sacred relic, a small gold vase, decorated with
wonderful Egyptian figures. Behind, at the rear of the whole
procession, came the priest with a sistrum and a wreath of roses
in his hand.
Thus they make their way to the sea, where a beautiful ship,
adorned with Egyptian figures, awaits them. The high-priest
with chaste mouth utto~sa pious player urifies the ship, and deS p.
dicates it to the goddess. Its mast is trimmed and the sail, and
all the people sprinlrle i t with sweet scents. The cables which
hold i t are then cut, and as i t sails away the people gaze after i t
till i t has disappeared. The procession then returns to the
temple, and t h e priests and votaries enter the chamber of the
goddess, while the crowd waits in expectation. After a time the
scribe of the temple comes out and proclaims the health of the
emperor, the senate, the Roman nation, ships and seamen. The
crowds shout as these are proclaimed, the people decorate themselves with flowers, they kiss the feet of one of the statues of the
goddess and then disperse.
If this description sounds somewhat extravagant there is sufficient reason for it ; Lucius, the man who describes it in a romance,
was one of the fortunate people who was especially intimate with
the goddess; he had been accepted into the innermost circle of
the faithful. Isis, to whom lie owed gratitude for deliverance
from a long period of distress, had previously admonished him in
a dream to become one of her followers, but Mithras, the aged
high-priest of Kenchrea, would not agree to receive him, as he
himself had received no command from thegoddess. When this
252
h H A N D B O O K OF E G Y P T I A N RELIGION
a t len@h occurred he received the luclty novice the following

day into the temple. There he took from the holy of holies
several boolis which were inscribed with animals and wonderful
scrolls: from these he learned all that was necessary for consecration. When Lucius had purchased all that was necessary he
was led'in the company of the rgligious to the bath, and purified
by means of lustmtions. I n the afternoon, at the feet of the
goddess, he was instructed in the mysteries, and lie was enjoined
to abstain for tell days from animal food and from wine. When
this time had elapsed the faithful assembled towards evening; he
put on a thin linen garment and was taken by the priests into the
holy of holies. What took place there he can only indicate to
us : he went into the realms of the dead and returned tliroogh
all the elements. I n the middle of the night he had seen the
sun shining, and he had gazed upon the greater and lesser gods
and had prayed to them. When he came out in the morninghe
had to stand on a pedestal placed
in the middle of the temple before
the statue of Isis ; he was clothed
in bright-coloured garments decorated with figures of animals, in his
hand he held a torch, a garland of
palm leaves adorned his head, and
surrounded i t like rays of light.
Then the hangings were drawn
back, and the people saw him, as
he stood there, ado~ned like the
sun.
Later Lucius received a second
consecration i n Rome, which also
was arranged b y means of dreams.
After a ten days' fast he was
admitted by the priest Asinius
Marcellus in the Isis temple of the
FIG.129. ISIS STATUE POI'ND AT
Campus Mertius iqLto the holy
COLOUNE.
supyenLe things of the great god and
fi~t7~erof the gods, the 6nvi?~cibleO s i ~ i s . And again a third
time he received an injunction frorn the gods, who graciously
253
proposed to give him a third consecration, whereas other

people barely received t h e first. Most willingly did h e extend the preliminary fast greatly beyond the requisite time,
and also 'no expenditure was too great for him. Osiris then
appeared to him in his actual form, and received him into the
college of t h e pastophori, " t h e bearers of the divine statue,"
and also into their council. This was an ancient college, founded
in the time of Sulla, and Lucius was fortunate in belonging to it.
Henceforth, wherever he went, he prided himself on his shorn
head, which he wore without concealment, as a sign that he was
a priest of the Egyptian gods.'
I t can only have been very rarely that Isis was worshipped
with such intense enthusiasm as by this devotee, but while
others worshipped her with merely superficial devotion they added
a t any rate to the number of her adherents. There can have
been no province in the wide Roman empire wherc the Egyptian
gods were not worshipped, and Tertullian could assert tha whole
zuorld now szucnm 6y Sernpis.z We meet with them in every part
of Asia Minor. In sacred Delas, which was devoted to the service
of other gods, there were yet some \v110 worshipped IsisAstarte-Aphrodite and Eros-Harpokrates-ApoI10.~ I n Athens
we find gravestones of female worshippers of Isis. I n Northern
Africa, in Spain, in the land of the Danube, in France, and even
in England we meet with inscriptions relating to Isis and
Serapis. Among the Alps and in Germany they obtained foothold in various places. The Nonsberg, close to Botircn, as we
learn in terms of reproach from a Christian source,4 was full of
the madness of isis and the ext~awn,qnneeof Se~npis. A t Prelst, in
the Corinthian Glantal, there was a shrine of the Norican I s i ~ . ~
A t Marienhausen; in the Rhine Province, there stood an altar of
Serapis, erected by a Roman officer,B while small bronze images
of Egyptian gods are repeatedly found on the hanks of the
Rhine. The most remarkable example, however, has been preApuleius, iWetarnarpho,hoses, XI. 19 ef seq.
Tertnllian, Ad Nat., 2, 8.
S Bulletin de correspondence HelEiniq?~c,
VI. 1882, p. 473.
Acta SS.,XX.Mai, p. 44.
W. I. L., 111. 4806 et seg.
E Brambaoh, C. I. Rhen., 1541.
1
254
A HANDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN IIELIGION
served to us by the Church of St. Ursula a t Cologne, and is a

small s t a t ~ ~ofethe unconquered Isis, ivhich was adapted in the
middle ages for one of the capitals of the pillars? And when we
find not far from this cllurch the gravo of an Egyptian, Horus,
the sou of Pabek, we naturally wonder whether this man, who
had wandered from the Nile to the Rhine, may not have been a
priest of the great goddess.
Thus Isis worship flourished in Europe so long as the worship
of other pagan deities continued. And also in t h e last attempt
to revive expiring paganism Isis worship played its part.
Juliaa acknowledged the Egyptian gods, and when, in the year
392 A.D., Arbogast the Frank placed Eugenins on the throne,
and thus secured a short triumph for the pagan aristocracy, Isis
was not forgotten. I n the year 394 Nicomachus Flavianus, as
consul, celebrated thc last official festival in Rome of the Magna
Mater, and of Isis. I n the same year, however, Theodosius
triumplled and all was over.
Even then a quiot company of adherents to the Egyptian
belief existed in t h e Roman world. This was the circle of the
mystic philosophers, who, even as
late as the sixth century, taught
in the chief places of culture. They
delighted in everything that was
mystic, ecstatic and marvellous,
F I ~iao.
.
corm OF iur.mr WITX
and how could thev fail to he in
.,PIS A X D *NUBIS.
raptures with Egypt ? For was not
Egypt agodlyland, where the altars were supplied with all things,
where there were innumerable priests, who observed all the
ceremonies, and where the altars burnt continually? The
Egyptians had taught the worship of the gods to almost all the
world, irnd zue kn,o?u, says the naive author of the fourth century,
who supplies us with this information, that there the gods have
dwelt.anc1 still dzu~ll.~Thus this sacred land formed the ideal of
these mystics. One of them, Asklepiades, who lived in the fifth
century, stayed for a long time in Egypt, in order to study this
Bonn, Jahvb. Iruvi. 38.
Dcscr. totiz's mundi (ed. Li~mbroso,Accad. dei Lineci, 1808), p. 144
et seq.
ABODE af the blessed, 91, 141

Abrasax, 239
Abydos, 27, 75
pilgrimage to, 135
Alchemy, 229
Altar, 42, 247
Arnaunet, 57, 81
Amduat, 109, 146, 184, 191
Amenophis I., 78
III., 62, 79
IV., the heretic, 61, 62 et sq., 72
son of IIapn, 174
Amon, 19, 57, 68, 69, 72, 79, 81, 82,
162.. 163.. 178., 195.. 221.. 245
pol)r~lnrityof, 60
inNubia, 1D7, 198
Alnan.Re, 57, 83. See also Amon
Amulets, 131, 144, 158, 162, 187, 188,
281
rnoulds for, 188
Anat, 75
Animsl heads of gods, 8
morslrip, 24, 205, 220
Animals, incarnations of doilies, 2, 23
saorcd, 17, 20, 22, 79, 170, 176,
205, 220, 248
graves of, 79, 176, I77
Ar~laios,225
Antinous, 241, 242
Anrtbis, 15, 16, 33, 102, 111,187, 192,
227, 230, 242, 245, 249, 251,
255
in Nobin, 200
Aplirodlte, 218. 227, 248
A$, az, 24, h, 170, IPA, 176, 207,
217, 227, 243, 248, 254
tomb, 171
Apollo, 175, a s 5
'7
Apophis, 10, 50, 110, 160, 160, 184

Ares, 178, 236, 248
Arsnuphis, 201
A r t m i s , 175, 2.27
Art ofAlnenophis IV., 68
Asklepiades, 254
Asklepios, 174, 235
Astarts, 73
Athene, l i 5
Aton, 63, 64
A t u ~ n ,9, 10, 59, 61
BIAI., 73, 74
Ralaneo of Osiris.. 102., 280
Barli of sun. Sec Sun
Haat, 3, 13, 56,160, 165,173,179, 244
Bebon, 102, 231
Beetle as sun, 7, 111
on mummies, 142, 144, 187
Benben stono, 27
Bes, 75, 76, 161, 227, 232, 235, 257
Birds, 2, 88, 100, 101, 170
Butmatis, 16, 244. For goddess, see
Bast
Burial in Nubia, 200
Iluto, 20, 204
(goddess), 20, 34, 130
Byhlos, 105
CAT, 13, 70, 170, 176, 220

Chapel, 44
Choaolrytze, 189, 190
C l i r i ~ ss
t good shepherd, W8
Ci~cumcision.181. 108. 223
coffins, 127,'128, '130, '186, 232, 233
outside Egypt, 195
Cow, 12, 20, 180
celestial, 6, i,
26, 31
257
~ 5 8
INC
Crete, 193
Crocodile, 9, 176, 220
Crowns, 5, 38, 145, 163
DAYS,lucky and unlucky, 163, 180
Dead, as ghosts, 158
as Osiris, 97 ; as gods, 90
coming out by day of, 101, 128,
191
gods of, 15, 16, 04
jndgme~ltof, 101, 142, 230
offerings to, 113, 121, 122, 145
realms of, 7, 87, 109, 136, 230 ;
in heaven, 88
the Book of, 85, 90, 147. 184, 191
their anxieties.. 09., 131., 142
their fate, 11, 88 e t sq., 99, 105
Ded column, 16, 51, 144
Dedwen, Nubian god, 196
Dematei, 175
Desdes, water of, 81
Destiny, 80
Dio~~ysos,
175, 248
Disc for tlic head, 187, 188
Divine fatllem, 54
wife, 72, 165, 198, 221
Donkoy, 20, 228. 229
Foreigners, liatred of, 181, 183

Frog.
- 26
Fnnornry feasts, 122, 138
literature, 85, 86, 90, 109, 114,
172, 184, 190
priests, 133, 136, 189
stntnos, 127, 131, 140
temples, 118, 136
GODS,as kings, 36
compound forms, 162, 173
couft~sianbetween, 80, 82
families of, 39, 41
foreign, 73
legends of, 24, 37. Sec Isis,
Osiris, etc.
local. 2. 21. 27
st.tt;ss i f , k3, 178, 202, 208, 212,
214, 217, 223, 248, 251, 255
Goose, 225, 246
Goshen, 18
Granaries, as funerary offerings, 130
Graves, ceremonies at, 133 ; earliest,
115 ; Old Kingdom, 121;
Middle Kingdom, 132; New
IIingdom, 136 ; I,&to, 184 ;
Roman, 232
rcpair of, 127
ruin of, 126
substitute for, 139
Gravcstaoes, 133, 135 ; Syrian, 192 ;
Nobian, 200
E a s u , Field of, 92
Egg of sun, 26, 81, 157
Embalming, ritual of, 133
Ennead, 27, 79
Ereschigal (BabyIonian word), 229
Ethics, 94, 101, 1 o i ; of Nsrv ~ [ i , , ~ IIAonrArr, 241
dom, 83
Har-alihte (sun god), 9, 10, 70
IIareem, of the god, 72, 221
Eye, amulet, 144, 187
slin and moon as eyeu, 7, 8
Harmachis. Sco Har-akhte
Harpokrates, 218, 21
Sac cye of Horus, eye of sun
Harsaphe~,82
Fn1.s~door, 120, 121
Har-Sapd, 18
Forryman (celestial), 94
Hathor, 12, 28, 30
Festival, 49, 50, 178, 213, 214, 240
as goddess of dead, 232
of the king, 51
in Nubia, 197
Field o f Earu, Q2
of Byblas, 195
Food. Q2
of Dendsrzh, 211, 214
Fingers, smnlets, 187
Hawlc, 7, 10, 22
Pi*,, 216, 220
on the cofhus, 187
forbidden as food.. 181.. 198
sacred, 22
Faad, forbidden, 180, 181, 198
Iionrt, amnlet, 142
INDEX
Heaven, ideas concemiug, 6
subterranean, 7
supporters of, 7
Hekt, 27
Holios, 227
Heraiskus, 256
Heraklos, 178
Hernos, 232, 244
Herodotss, 175, 178, 190, 220
Hr.xon, 23
Horoscone. 229
Horus, i,
10, 20, 56, 96, 150, 151, 153,
155, 216, 227, 237, 245
of Edfil. 10. 214
of El Kab, 214
eye of, 34, 45, 134
legend of, 34
servants of, 36, 105, 106
sons of, 49, 102, 129, 187
House, modol in tomb, 130
House of Life (school), 80, 160, 182
Hyksos, 74
Inls, 9, 176, 243

Ikh-en-ston. See Amenophis IY.
Illnminated, tlre, 89 et sq., 225, 256
Illumination a t festivals, 49, U8, 256
Imhotep, 76, 173, 201, 209, 235
Incarnations of gods, 23
10,248
Isiaci, 249
Isis.. 21.. 26.. 31., 151.. 176.~.
187. 188
Greek period, 218, 226, 237, 241,
242, 243 et s q .
in Nubia, 197, 201
festivals of. 202. 249. 254
knot of. IR 144
lament of, 33
logends of, 35, 151, 154, 237, 244
of Phila?.. 201.. 202
Isis-Hathor, 218
Isis-Sothis, 226
Ivory wand, amulct, 131
JACKAC,
16
Jnbilea of kiug, 51
Judgment of the dead, 101, 111, 230
Jupitcr Amon, 196
Cspitolinos, 224
259
Justification of the dead, 101
Khepro, 9, 10, 26, 59, 110

Khel.l~eb, 54, 133, 148, 160
Khnum, l ? , 79. 201
in Nnbia, 196, 201
Ithnum-Ra 57
Icing, as a deity, 36, 37 ; worshipped,
78,. 197, 208 ; relation with the
gods, 52, 68
as priost, 52, 53
as ternplc builder, 52, 205
I<rrot of Isis. amulet. 16. 144
1Snots in magic, 162
1<optos, 1 8
Itothos, 236
limx~os,235
~
LADDERS,
or steps, to heaven, 96, 145,
1R9
-.
~
Laity, share in cults, 53, 55, 72, 179

Ida~nentof Isis and Nephthys, 33,
184
Litter far carrying statues, 50
Lotus flower, 27
ISAAl', 21
Magic, 148, 228, 237
figmes, 159 ; in tomb, 116
pictures, 157
protection for gods and the king,
159, 160; far the dead, 100,
114, 160
spells, 149 ; manner of recitation,
156, 157, 158
&landulis, 201
Manetho, 216
Mankind, origin of, 28; destruetioll
of, 29
Mastaba, 119
Hilendes, 206, 207
Merit-seger, 78
M'igration of soul, 191
Min, 18, 56, 58, 59, 82, 225
260
INDEX
Mithr~s,228
>Inovis, 22,79
Monkey (apes), 9,24, 111,243
Mont, 19,82
Moon, 7,31,81 ; as nn eye, 7
god, 11. See Thoth
Moses, 237
alummy, 116,128,139,189,190
Roman, 233,285 ; Clil.istisn, 234
Irept in the house, 233
Mnsic, 47,48,193,212,250
Mnt, 20,67,64
Nytlis. See Gods, legends of
NAME,28 ; of god4 154,156
Nefer-tem, 39,76
Nefiet.ere, 78
Neith, 13,14,172,181,188
Nekhbot, 20,21
Nephtliys, 21,27, 32,188,238
in Nubia, 200
Neshmot bark, 75
Nile.. 7.
, 80.. 81
gocl, 14,82
Nomes, 173
Nun, 25,31,82
Nut, 12,26,29, 32,89,98
O.ksrs, 166,195,196
Obelisk, 43
Offerings, 46,47,49,179
burnt, 47,180
forlnulie of, 122,124,146
funerary, 122,145
Onu~is,14,76, 161
Omole, 186,180,196,198,237
Origin of the universe, 25,28, 31
Osiris, 16,26, 27, 31, 70, 81, 82,83,
95,175,177,192,226,230,243,
245,246,253; in Ethiopia, 200
beliefs, 1,36, 45,98
festivals, 213, 249
figures, 187
legends of, 31,36,56,115,151,245
pillar of, 16,51, 144
Osilis-Serapis, 219,232
Osiris-Soliaris, 212 ; Ptah-Sokuia.
Osiris, 188
PAN,175
Pataikos. 76. ii. 160
--.
Phcenir, 23, 176

Plaque for held, 137,188
Pintarch, 25,244
Pluta, 232
Popular deitioa, 73, 75; of Roman
period, 225
Prayers of New Kinedam.. 83.
. 84
"far the d a d , l G
Priest, 39, 45, 54, 72, li2, 181,206,
220,221,222
attire of,. 54.
. 72.
, 181. 223.. 253
divine servants, 54 ; Irooily, 54 ;
Sem, 133 ; We'b, 54,71
high, 53,54, 71,79,222
. ,
mortuary, 123, 126

P!.icstess, 48
of Amon, 221. See Divine n.ife.
Primeval beinas. 26
--in Nubia, 197

Pyramid, 117,118,132, 136
in Nobin, 200
model, from a grave, 67,143
texts, 85,88 et sq., 184
BA&(,17,82,178,206,207,223
Ilamses II.,70
RC, 7, 9,57,59, 74,96,113
popularity of, 60
oornbined with other deities, 57
See Amon-Re
Re-Harakte, 60,63,70;
in Ethiopia, 197
Reform, Arnenophis IV., 62 c l s q .
Religion, prodnot of Egypt, 1
Rssurrectioa of dead, 95,97
Ilhea, 235
Ritual, daily, 45 ; of embalming, 133
1Iook tombs, 132,136
Royal ta~nbs,114,136 ; earliest, 116
Ro.Setau, 15,109,185
INDEX
SABAOTH,229
Snrooplisgns, 132, 172, 184, 185
Scarabs, 67, 142, 144, 187
Soeptres of daities, 5, 145
Schools, 80, 160, 182
Soulptures, temple, in Eurapc, 248
Sekhmet., 13.
- ,50
Selkis, 188
Sem priest, 133, 134
Seranis, 217. 219. 227, 235, 247
Serpent, of the sun, 10, 28, 37, 208,
226
-king. ". 20.. 37
as deities.. 20.
- , 28.~ 220
I ~ i and
s Osiris as, 226
Sot, 19, 20, 32, 168, 169, 175, 214
Shed. 76. 161
Sheep, 24
Shenute, 236
Sltadow, 108
Ship, iu graves, 116, 180
form of litter, 50
of the temples, 50, 75
of the sun, moon, and stars, 7. See
Sun, bark of
Shrine, 49, 50
Shu, 14, 26, 28, 29, 76, 81, 111,
161
Sinfulness, 83, 231 ; donial of, 103
Singing wamca, 48, 72, 73, 221
Sistrum, 48, 244, 246, 251
Sky goddess, 6, 7, 12
Sobk, 17, 12, 82, 129, 222
-Re, 57
Sokaris, 15, 56, 110, 185, 212,
281
- Saknopaias, 222
Songs, in the culls, 47, 81, 250
of Alnenapllis IY., 64
of New ltingdom, 82
Sothis star, 226
Souls, of men, 86, 108
of gods, 24, 43, 207, 255
migration of, 191
Spen? of Horns, 214
Sphinx, winged, 227
Standards, 188
Stars, 2, 7, 88 ; imperishable, 91
261
Strlt120, of tile doid, 1 3 1 ; in the

temples, 134, 208 ; of the gods.
Sec Gods
Steln, for p~otection,161
Strabo, 219
Sun god, 7, 8, 26, 29, 60, 63, 86
bark of, 7, 9, 11, 59, 89, 110,
l52
egg of, 26, 81, 157
eye of, 8, 12, 28, 29, 59, 81, 208
forms of.. 7.. 8
night journey of, 11, 109
of Amonophis IT. (Ikli-en.ston),
63, 64
o ~ i e i nof. 26
Temple, 42, 43
Sntekh, 73
Ssiuc. 181
TABLEof offerings, 138

Tcfnet, 26, 27
Temple, 38, 41, 182; primitive, 6 ;
in Nobin, 197
nt Pompeii, 247
building, 70, 172, 182, 205, 209;
in Europe, 246
inscriptions, 41, 43, 172 ; Hellenistic period, 209
of Denderah, 211
property, 70, 71, 222
Thoaeraoy, 168 ; in Nubia, 198
Theology of New ltingdom, 80; Lete,
172
Tlroth, 11, 31, 35, 80, 83, 90, 102
Thoneris. 76
Threats, employed in magic, 153
Thripis, 225
Tomb oiferi~lgs,115, 116, 122, 129, 145
Greek. 194 ,
: Svrinn.
193
,
Tombs. See Graves ; Royal tombs
Tree+ %%m.~d,78, 711
Truth, as a goddess, 21, 157
Tyl111oi1, 175, 228, 229
UNDER-WORLD,
7, 87, 109, 136, 230
Universe, 6, 82
Usllebtis, 68, i9, 141, 189
Uto, 20
INDEX
262
Y ~ s x sfor entrails, 129, 110, 188

Yotive offerings, 170, 246
WE'^, 54, 71
Weneg, 90
Wenn0fi.e (Osiris), 36
V\'opw?rvot, 15, 173, 177, 227
West, dme!lers in the, 87, 1211, 136

Women, attendants for t h e dead, 110,
130, 145
Yusas, 27
Zaus, 176, 190, 280, 243, 245
Richmd Clay d.San*,Li?nitrd, Lmdori uad Blingay,
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Office, author of "The Preaching of Islam."
ISLAM.
By SYEDAMEERALI, M.A., C.I.E., late of H.hI,'s Iiigh Court

of Judicature in Bengal, author of "The Spirit of Islam'' and "The
Ethics of Islam."
MAGIC AND FETISHISM. By Dr. A. C. HADDON,F.R.S., Lecturer

on Ethnology at Cambridge University.
T H E RELltilON OF ANCIENT EGYPT.
By Professor W. hI.
FLINUEKS
I'ETRITI,
F.R.S.
T H E RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. Uy THEOr a l ~ u sG. PINCHES,late of the British hluseurn.
BUDDHISM. 2 vols. Uy I'mfcssor RIIYSDavros, LL.D., late Secretary
of the Royai Asiatic Society.
HINDUISM.
By Dr. L. 1). BARNEW, of the Department uf Oriental

I'rinted Bookn and htSS., Britiih hIoseum.
SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION.
of the
'L
By W ~ l r A wA. CRAIGIE,Joint Edilor

Oxcord English Dictionary."
CELTIC RELIGION.
By Professor Anwvu~, Professor of Welsh at

University College, Al,erystwylh.
T H E MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

By C H A ~ . K S ~ u r x sauthor
,
of "The hlythology of lhe British Islnnds."
JUDAISM. By ISRAEL
A~mnnnhis, Lecturer in Talmudic Literalure in
Carnbrklge Uiiiversily, author o f " Jewish Life in the hliddle Ages."
PRIMITIVE OR NICENE CHRISTIANITY. By JOHNSUTRERLAAD

BLACK,LL.D., Joint Editor of the "Encyclopjcdia Uiblica."
SHINTO: T H E RELIGION OF OLD JAPAN. By W. G. Aslox,

C.I\l.G., author of "A llislury of Japanese Literature."
Ordrv Vol<cmci fo follow.
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE Sr CO. LTD.
Electronic publication prepared by

Kelvin Smith Library
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
for
ETANA Core Texts
http://www.etana.org/coretexts.shtml

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A HANDBOOK

Published in tile original German edition as r handbook, by the

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.

BRIIO 6Tllll&I "ILL, E.C.,

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

religion must make the sketch complete all round, and in so

The judgment hall of Osiris. (Papyrus of Hunnefer)

The wise Imhutep

87. Ha\vlr, from n coffin

Disc for the head

Amulets : inscribed stone .

its special character. Egypt is an agricultural country, that

WHEN the subject of Egyptian religion is mentioned, our

A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION

Thoir temples wero mere huts with walls of plaited

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS O F T H E EARLY PERIOD

a sheet of water, on which t h e stars sail in boats; or again

A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RE1,IGION

cow; and ships sailed along her belly. It was spoken of as an

spoken of as a beetle; and the sun was described as his eye.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD

conceptions, become confused. For instance, in immediate

A HANDBOOI< O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION

Than azultest i n th?j harlcs, thy manhood is content . . and thou

Another important centre of tlre worship of the sun god, was

' BBook oj' the Dead.

Totb. ed. Naviile, 15 A,

RE1,IGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD

storm serpent, is the embodiment of all that is terrible. B u t

Totb. ed. Naville, 15 B.11. For the further

development of this idca,

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF T H E EARLY PERIOD

' Vatican statue of Naophare (Brugsch, iPhes., 637).

A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION

their two animals, yet Seklimet is a terrible goddess of war and

F,". 1%. xmsr.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 15

of the gods, and with receiving offerings at the time of the

A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION

present day excites the wonder of visitors to the pyramids

RELIGIOUS RELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD

of the gods we have mentioned so far. But there are many of

A HANDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION

water god, it must havc been on these same grounds t h j t two

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF T H E EARLY PERIOD

scourge, is held upright. When, therefore, a few miles south of

A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION

Horus of tliose of Lower Egypt. The animal by which Set is

serpents. The goddess MOT of Tfiebes had also originally the

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS O F THE EARLY PERIOD

form of a volture, and might therefore be interchangeable with

A IIANDBOOK O F EGYPTIAN RELIGION

one town only. They are tlie creations of simple n~inds,readyto

RELIGIOUS RELIEFS OF THE EARLY PERIOD 23

bull, to the Egyptians the essence of all strength and virility.

Mctternich Stela 77.

A HANDBOOK OF EGYPTlAN RELIGION

RE1,IGIOUS BELIEFS O F T H E EARLY PERIOD z g

no longer means the ancient guardian of the dead, hut the