Many books have been written on religion in ancient Egypt. This brief overview is meant only to explain some of the basic concepts and to introduce some of the gods. Religion in ancient Egypt was not unlike modern times. Today, not everyone believes in the same way, or of the same god. Egypt was no different. Individual kings worshipped their own gods, as did the workers, priests, merchants and peasants. Pre-dynastic Egypt had formulated the ideas and beliefs of a "greater being", which was expressed in pictures, but some scholars suggest that "writing" was invented in order to communicate spiritual thoughts to the masses. Now the pictures had ideas, and took on human traits. The gods lived, died, hunted, went into battle, gave birth, ate, drank, and had human emotions. The gods reigns overlapped, and, in some instances, merged. Their was no organized hierarchy structure of their reign. The dominance of the gods depended on the beliefs of the reigning king. Their area of dominance depended on where the king wanted his capital. Likewise, the myths changed with the location of the gods, as did their names. Names in ancient Egypt were very mystic and powerful. It was thought that if you inscribed your enemies' name on something, then broke it, that enemy would either be afflicted, or possibly die. If you knew a name you had power. In the same respect, using a name could be beneficial. Each god had five names, and each was associated with an element, such as air, with celestial bodies, or were a descriptive statement about the god, such as strong, virile or majestic.

The creator of all things was either Re, Amun, Ptah, Khnum or Aten, depending on which version of the myth was currently in use. The heavens were represented by Hathor, Bat, and Horus. Osiris was an earth god as was Ptah. The annual flooding of the Nile was Hapi. Storms, evil and confusion were Seth. His counterpart was Ma'at, who represented balance, justice and truth. The moon was Thoth and Khonsu. Re, the sun god, took on many forms, and transcended most of the borders that contained the other gods. The actual shape of the sun, the disk (or, aten), was deified into another god, Aten.

As stated earlier, certain gods were worshipped in different areas. Local cities or villages, known as nomes, often had unique gods that were known only to that region. On occasion, these gods attained country -wide recognition and became the myths and legends that were passed on from century to century. Below is a listing of the main gods and their primary place of worship.

Amaunet - A female counterpart to Amon and one of the primordial gods of the Hermopolitian Ogdoad (group of eight gods). She was also worshipped at Thebes along with Amon and Mut.

Amon - Usually associated with the wind, or things hidden, and was also of the Hermopolitian Ogdoad. At Thebes he became Amon-Re, king of the gods. He was part of the Theban Triad, along with Mut and Khonsu.

Antaios - He was originally a double god, "the two falcons", that was later joined to create one, probably that of Horus.

Anuket - Worshipped at Elephantine, she was associated with the gazelle.

Apis - Seen as the bull with a solar disk between its horns, Apis was associated with Osiris and Ptah.

Aton - Also known as Aten, he was worshipped at Tell 'Amarna.

Atum - A primordial god that was represented in the form of a human and a serpent. He was the supreme god in the Heliopolitan Ennead (group of nine gods) and formed with Re to create Re-Atum.

Hathor - The goddess of love, dance and alcohol was depicted as a cow. At Thebes she was also the goddess of the dead. She was worshipped at Dendera as the consort of Horus and Edfu, and was associated with Isis at Byblos.

Horus - The earliest royal god was the shape of a falcon, with the sun and moon as his eyes. The sky-god was the ruler of the day. The many forms of Horus are; Re-Harakhti, Harsiesis, Haroeris, Harendotes, Khenti-irti, Khentekhtay (the crocodile-god), and Harmakhis, which is Horus on the horizons, in which the Sphinx of Giza is considered to be his aspect.

Isis - The mother of Horus and sister and consort of Osiris was worshipped at Philae. Associated with Astarte, Hathor, Nut and Sothis, she was later worshipped over the entire Roman Empire.

Khnum - Resembling a human with a rams head, he was worshipped in Hypselis, Esna, Antinoe and Elephantine.

Khonsu - the moon god was the son of Amon and Mut. The main temple at Karnak is dedicated to him.

Min - God of fertility coalesced with Amon and Horus. Min was mainly worshipped at Coptos and Akhmim.

Mut - Worshipped at Thebes, she was a consort of Amon and part of the Theban Triad (group of three gods).

Nut - Mother of the sun, moon and heavenly bodies.

Osiris - He is regarded as the dead king that watches over the nether world and is rejuvenated in his son Horus. As the symbol of eternal life he was worshipped at Abydos and Philae.

Ptah - Worshipped in Memphis, he coalesced with Sokaris and Osiris.

Re - He was the sun god of Heliopolis. From the fifth Dynasty onwards he becomes a national god and is combined with the supreme deity Amon.

Serapis - He was mainly worshipped in Alexandria and was later worshipped by the Greeks as Zeus. He was never fully accepted by the Egyptians in the Ptolemaic period.

Sekhmet - She was part of the Memphite Triad with Ptah and Nefertem. She was the mistress of war and sickness.

Seth - The son of Geb and Nut in the Heliopolitan Ennead was in the form of an animal that has no zoological equivalent. This powerful god was regarded as god of the desert, making him a god of foreign lands.

Shu - He was an ancient cosmic power and was regarded as the god of the air and the bearer of heaven.

Sobek - He was a crocodile god and was worshipped at the Faiyum and Ombos. During the middle Kingdom he coalesced with Re, Sobek-Re, and was worshipped as primordial deity and creator-god.

Thoth - He was worshipped as a baboon in Hermopolis. He was the god of sacred writings and wisdom.

The kings of ancient Egypt were an integral part of religion. They formed a bridge over the chasm dividing the people and the gods. In pre-dynastic times the kings were considered to be gods. In later times, around the third dynasty, the kings became "transformed into" gods. This was a crucial part of the governing of the people. The heirs to the throne were not kept out of public display. At a young age they were known to many, and were known as children, not future gods. A king may have had many heirs and may not have known who would assume the throne until a much later time. In order for the people , (and the future king), to accept the transformation, certain procedures had to be worked out. This dilemma was beautifully solved by the ritual that merged the king with the god. Belief was that all future kings had two aspects of his being, his physical being and his "ka." The ka was his spiritual counterpart that was part of the king at birth and remained with him throughout his life. Before assuming the throne a ritual was performed that united the king's ka and his person. The king and his priests would enter a temple, perform the ritual, and emerge as a god. All of the people would wait outside to witness the miracle of the transformation when the king re-emerged from the temple. In this way was the new king accepted as a god and his word was accepted as law.

Concerning religious matters, directly under the king were the priests. Their duty was to take care of the images of the gods. They also prepared the statues, or images, for the religious festivals. It was the priests role to read the scrolls before religious events. In later dynasties the priests were the voices of the oracles. Special compartments, called priest holes, were strategically placed inside the temple. The priests were able to speak from these holes unseen by the person asking questions or favors of the gods. Oracles were considered the pinnacle of the decision of the gods. The priests were in charge of the temple riches and granaries. They were on a rotation schedule and might work officially one week out of the month. Their laboratories were in the temples, where they prepared incense and healing potions. What we think of as wizards originated with the priests. Shrouded in mystery, they were seldom seen by the common people unless they were reading magical texts or performing religious rituals. Inside the temple sanctuaries they were seen only by the king.. During the 21st 'Dynasty tomb robbing was systematically done by the priests themselves. Throughout history tomb robbing had been a problem, but had generally been done by common thieves. The priests claimed that by removing the bodies, and stripping off all of the precious metals, that they were, in fact, saving the desecration of the bodies by the common thieves. Of course the priests re-wrapped the bodies and buried them in different tombs to help protect the corpses. Some of the stolen gold and silver went into the temple treasuries, but a large portion of it went to the purchase of wood and iron, resources that were not native to Egypt and were most costly. Thirdly, some of the riches went into the current kings' tomb, making the robberies sanctified by the throne.

The ancient Egyptians were extremely devout in their beliefs. They were dedicated to their gods and worshipped daily in many different ways. Their way of life revolved around these beliefs. They had a strong sense of justice and endeavored to do that which was right. Just like our society today, the common people abhorred adultery, stealing, murder and lying. They were a highly sophisticated society with values and morals not unlike our own. Magic was commonplace for them as is demonstrated by the wearing of amulets to ward off evil. Magical texts were written in tombs to protect against would-be robbers. Many spells against snakebite have been discovered. Magical spells, rituals and concoctions were used to treat the sick or injured. If the magic did not work it was considered a will of the god, and not a failure of the magic. The peoples calm acceptance of the strange and unusual allowed them to reconcile themselves to either natural phenomena or to those things unseen. Every occurrence had spiritual meaning and had a unique god assigned to the act.

In the 1st dynasty (2950 - 3110 B.C.E.) Menes, the king who is considered by many to be Ay or Narmer, united upper and lower Egypt. He created his capital at Memphis and dedicated a temple to the god Ptah. Existing beliefs at that time were revised to explain these events, and almost all other myths of gods came from this event. Over a period of time all of the surrounding local gods were brought into this scheme, creating a sort of order of the hierarchy of the gods. All of the gods were included in one story or another, so no one was offended. This composition of the gods was like laying bricks for a building and, in essence, created the foundation for history's longest lived civilization.

The Four Sons of Horus:

Guardian of the:

Among the gods who were known to the Egyptians in very early times were Amen and his consort Ament, and their names are found in the Pyramid Texts, e.g., Unas, line 558, where they are mentioned immediately after the pair of gods Nau and Nen, and in connection with the twin Lion-gods Shu and Tefnut, who are described as the two gods who made their own bodies, and with the goddess Temt, the female counterpart of Tem. It is evident that even in the remote period of the Vth Dynasty Amen and Ament were numbered among the primeval gods, if not as gods in chief certainly as subsidiary forms of some of them, and from the fact that they are mentioned immediately after the deities of primeval matter, Nau and Nen, who we may consider to be the equivalents of the watery abyss from which all things sprang, and immediately before Temt and Shu and Tefnut, it would seem that the writers or editors of the Pyramid Texts assigned great antiquity to their existence. Of the attributes ascribed to Amen in the Ancient Empire nothing is known, but, if we accept the meaning "hidden" which is usually given to his name, we must conclude that he was the personification of the hidden and unknown creative power which was associated with the primeval abyss, gods in the creation of the world, and all that is in it. The word or root amen, certainly means "what is hidden," "what is not seen," "what cannot be seen," and the like, and this fact is proved by scores of examples which may be collected from texts of all periods. In hymns to Amen we often read that he is "hidden to his children, "and "hidden to gods and men," and it has been stated that these expressions only refer to the "hiding," i.e., "setting" of the sun each evening, and that they are only to be understood in a physical sense, and to mean nothing more than the disappearance of the god Amen from the sight of men at the close of day. Now, not only is the god himself said to be "hidden," but his name also is "hidden," and his form, or similitude, is said to be "unknown;" these statements show that "hidden," when applied to Amen, the great god, has reference to something more than the "sun which has disappeared below the horizon," and that it indicates the god who cannot be seen with the mortal eyes, and who is invisible, as well as inscrutable, to gods as well as men. In the times approaching the Ptolemaic period the name Amen appears to have been connected with the root men, "to abide, to be permanent;" and one of the attributes which were applied to him was that of eternal. Amen is represented in five forms: 1. As a man, when he is seen seated on a throne, and holding in one hand the scepter, and in the other the symbol of "life." In this form he is one of the nine deities who compose the company of the gods of Amen-Ra, the other eight being Ament, Nu, Nut, Hehui, Hehet, Kekui, Keket, and Hathor. 2. As a man with the head of a frog, whilst his female counterpart Ament has the head of a uraeus. 3. As a man with the head of a uraeus, whilst his female counterpart has the head of a cat. 4. As an ape. 5. As a lion couching upon a pedestal.

From the hieroglyphic texts of all periods of the dynastic history of Egypt we learn that the god of the dead, par excellence, was the god, whom the Egyptians called by a name which was commonly known to us as "Osiris." The oldest and simplest form of the name is written by means of two hieroglyphics, the first of which represents a "throne" and the other an "eye," but the exact meaning attached to the combination of the two pictures by those who first used them to express the name of the god, and the signification of the name in the minds of those who invented it cannot be said. In the late dynastic period the first syllable of the name appears to have been pronounced Aus or US, and by punning it was made to have the meaning of the word usr, "strength of the Sun-god Ra. This meaning may very well have suited their conception of the god Osiris, but it cannot be accepted as the correct signification of the name. For similar reasons the suggestion that the name AS-ar is connected with the Egyptian word for "prince," or "chief," ser, cannot be entertained. It is probable that the second hieroglyphic in the name As-ar is to be understood as referring to the great Eye of Heaven, i.e., Ra, but the connection of the first with it is not clear, as we have no means of knowing what attributes were assigned to the god by his earliest worshippers the difficulty is hardly likely to be cleared up. The throne or seat, is the first sign in the name of As-t, who is the female counterpart of Osiris, and it is very probable that originally the same conception underlay both names. It is useless to argue that, because the dynastic Egyptians at a late period of their history substituted the disk of Ra, for the god hymns in which they identified him as the source of light and as Ra, therefore As-ar, and because they addressed to the god hymns in which the priests resorted to whenever they attempted to find etymologies for the names of their gods.

In comparatively late time Osiris was called Un-nefer, in religious and mythological texts, and the priests {like modern Egyptologists} tried to explain the name. The writer of a hymn quoted by Dr. Brugsch derived the word from un, "to open, to appear, to make manifest," and neferu, "good things," and when he wrote, "thy beauty {or goodness} "maketh itself manifest in thy person to rouse the gods to life in "thy name Un-nefer," it is clear that he was only making a play of words on the name "Un-nefer' ; and again when he wrote, "Thou comest as the strength {usr} of Ra in thy name of Asar than to afford a trustworthy derivations of the name of Osiris. We may note in passing that modern derivation and explanations of the name Un-nefer are equally unsatisfactory. The truth of the matter seems to be that the ancient Egyptians knew just as little about the original meaning of the name As-ar as we do, and that had no better means of obtaining information about it than we have.

Passing now to the consideration of the original charcterteristics and attributes of Osiris we find that the oldest religious texts known to us refer to him as the great god of the dead, and throughout them it is tacitly assumed that the reader will understand that he once possessed human form and lived upon earth, and that by means of some unusual power or powers he was able to bestow upon himself after the death a new life which he lived in a region over which he ruled as king, and into which he was believed to be willing to admit all such as had lived a good and correct life upon earth, and had been buried with the appropriate ceremonies under the protection of certain amulets, and with proper recital of certain "divine words" and words of power. The worship of Osiris is, however, very much older than these views, which is clear, could only belong to a people who had advanced to a comparatively high state of civilization and mental development.

The oldest authorities for the religious views of the ancient Egyptians are the "Pyramid Texts," which are known to us from copies made in the IVth, Vth and VIth Dynasties, that is to say, in the remote time the period of their highest development ; even at this remote time the priests of Annu had composed a system of theology which was supported by the authority of the king and his high officials, and there is no doubt that it was based upon older systems of religious thought and belief. What these may have been it is useless to speculate, and all that is certain about the Heliopolitan system is that, while proclaiming the supremacy of their local god Tem or Ra-Tem, its priests took care to include in it as many of the ancient provincial gods as possible, and to adopt, wherever they were able to do so, the ancient beliefs and traditions concerning them. Among such gods Osiris held a very prominent place, in fact he was in respect to the dead and the Underworld what Ra, or Ra-Tem was to the living and to this world, and in some passages he is referred to simply as "god," without the addition of any name. No other god of the Egyptians was ever mentioned or alluded to in this matter, and no other god as any time in Egypt ever occupied exactly the same exalted position in their minds, or was thought to possess his peculiar attributes.

In connection with the god Horus and his forms as the god of the rising sun and the symbol and personification of Light must be mentioned a comparatively numerous class of small rounded stelae on convex bases, on front of which are sculptured in relief figures of the god Horus standing upon two crocodiles. These curious and interesting objects are made of basalt and other kinds of hard stone, and of calcareous stone, and they vary in height from 3 ins. to 20 ins.; they were used as talismans by the Egyptians, who placed them in their houses and gardens, and even buried them in the ground to protect themselves and their property from the attacks of noxious beasts, and reptiles, and insects of every kind. In addition to the figures of Horus and of the animals over which are sculptured upon cippi of Horus, the backs, sides, and bases are usually covered with magical texts. The ideas suggested by the figures and the texts are extremely old, but the grouping and arrangement of them which are found on the stelae under construction are not older than the XXVIth Dynasty; it is doubtful if this class of objects came onto general use very much earlier than the end of the period of the Persian occupation of Egypt. The various museums of Europe contain several examples of cippi, but the largest , and finest, and most important, is undoubtedly that which is commonly known as the "Metternich Stele, it was found in the year 1828 during the building of a cistern in a Muhammad monastery in Alexandria, and was presented by Muhammad "Ali Pasha to Prince Metternich. We are, fortunately, enabled to date the stele from the name of Nectanebus I. The last one of the narrative kings of Egypt, who reigned from B.C. 378 to B.C. 360, occurs on it, and it is clear from several considerations that such a monument could have been produced only about this period. On the front of the stele {see page 271} we have the following figures and scenes:----

1. The solar disk wherein is seated the four-fold god Khnemu, who represents the gods of the four elements, between, which is supported on a lake of water; on each side of it stand four apes, with their paws stretched out in adoration. No names are given to the apes here, but we may find them in a text at Edfu where they are called:

1. AAAN
2. BENTET
3. HETETSEPT
4. QEFTEN
5. AP
6. ASTEN
7. KEHKEH
8. UTENNU

The Bentet apes praised the morning sun, and the Utennu apes praised the evening sun, and the Sun-god was pleased both with their words and with their voices. On the right hand side is a figure of king Nectanebus kneeling before a lotus standard, with plumes and menats, and on the left is the figure of the god Thoth holding a palette in his left hand.

2. In this register we have (a) Ptah-Seker_Asar standing on crocodiles, the gods Amsu and Khepera standing on pedestals, Khas, a lion -headed god, Thoth, Serqet and Hathor grouped round a god who is provided with the heads of seven birds and animals, and four wings, and two horns surmounted by four uraei and four knives, and who stands upon two crocodiles. (b) Taurt holding a crocodile by a chain or rope which a hawk-headed god is about to spear in the presence of Isis, Nephthys, and four other deities, etc.

3. Isis holding Horus in her outstretched right hand, and standing on a crocodile. Standard of Nekhebet. Horus, with a human phallus, and a lion, on a lake (?) containing two crocodiles. Seven halls or lakes, each guarded by a god. A lion treading on a crocodile, which lies on its back, four gods, a lion standing on the back of a crocodile, a vulture, a god embracing a goddess, and three goddesses.

4. Horus spearing a crocodile which is led captive by Ta-urt. The four children of Horus. Neith and the two crocodile gods. Harpocrates seated upon a crocodile under a serpent. A lion, two scorpions and an oryx, symbols of Set. Seven serpents having their tails pierced by arrows or darts. A king in a chariot drawn by the fabulous AKHEKH animal which gallops over two crocodiles. Horus standing on the back of the oryx, emblem of Set.

5. A miscellaneous group of gods, nearly all of whom are forms of the Sun-god and are gods of reproduction and regeneration.

6. A hawk god, with dwarf's legs, and holding bows and arrows. Horus standing on an oryx (Set). A cat on a pedestal. An-her spearing an animal. Uraeus on the top of a staircase. The ape of Thoth on a pylon. Two Utchats, the solar disk, and a crocodile. Ptah-Seker-Asar. The Horus of gold. Serpent with a disk on his head. A group of solar gods followed by Ta-urt and Bes.

7. In this large scene Horus stands with his feet upon the backs of two crocodiles, and he grasps in his hands the reptiles and animals which are the emblems of the foes of light and of the powers of evil. He wears the lock of youth, and above his head is the head of the old god Bes, who here symbolizes the Sun-god at eventide. The canopy under which he stands is held up by Thoth and Isis, each of whom stands upon a coiled up serpent, which has a knife stuck in his forehead. Above the canopy are the two Utchats, with human hands and arms attached, and within it by the sides of the god are:

1. Horus-Ra standing on a coiled up serpent.
2. A lotus standard, with plumes and menats.
3. A papyrus standard surmounted by a figure of a hawk wearing the crown.
 

On the back of the Stele we have a figure of the aged Sun-god in the form of a man-hawk, and he has above his head the heads of a number of animals, e.g., the oryx and the crocodile, and a pair of horns, and eight knives. He has four human arms, to two of which beings are attached, and in each hand he grasps two serpents, two knives, and "life," "stability," and "power," ; and numbers of figures of gods. His two other human arms are not attached to wings, and in one hand he holds the symbol of "life," and in the other a scepter. From the head of the god proceed jets of fire, and on each side of him is an Utchat, which is provided with human hands and arms. The god stands upon an oval, within which are figures of a lion, two serpents, a jackal, a crocodile, a scorpion, a hippopotamus, and a turtle. Below this relief are five rows of figures of gods and mythological scenes, many of which are taken from the vignettes of the Book of the Dead. The gods and goddesses are for the most part solar deities who were believed to be occupied at all times in overcoming the powers of darkness, and they were sculptured on the Stele that the sight of them might terrify the fiends and prevent them from coming nigh unto the place where it was set up. There is not a god of any importance whose figure is not on it, and there is not a demon, or evil animal, or reptile who is not depicted upon it in a vanquished state.

The texts inscribed upon the Stele are as interesting as the figures of the gods, and relate to events which were believed to have taken place in the lives of Isis, Horus, etc. The first composition is called the "Chapter of the incantation of the Cat," and contains an address to Ra, who is besought to come to his daughter, for she has been bitten by a scorpion; the second composition, which is called simply "another Chapter," has contents somewhat similar to those of the first. The third text is addressed to the "Old Man who becometh young in his season, the Aged One who maketh himself a child again." The fourth and following texts contain a narrative of the troubles of Isis which were caused by the malice of Set, and of her wanderings from city to city in the Delta, in the neighborhood of the Papyrus Swamps. The principal incident is the death of her son Horus, which took place whilst she was absent in a neighboring city, and was caused by the bite of a scorpion; in spite of all the care which Isis took in hiding her son, a scorpion managed to make its way into the presence of the boy, and it stung him until he died. When Isis came back and found her child's dead body she was distraught and frantic with grief, and was inconsolable until Nephthys came and advised her to appeal to Thoth, the lord of words of power, She did so straightway, and Thoth stopped the Boat of Millions of Years in which Ra, the Sun-god, sailed, and came down to earth in answer to her cry; Thoth had already provided her with the words of power which enabled her to raise up Osiris from the dead, and he now bestowed upon her the means of restoring Horus to life, by supplying her with a series of incantations of irresistible might.

These Isis recited with due care, and in the proper tone of voice, and the poison was made to go forth from the body of Horus, and his strength was renewed, his heart once more occupied its throne, and all was well with him. Heaven and earth rejoiced at the sight of the restoration of the heir of Osiris, and the gods were filled with peace and content.

The whole Stele on which these texts and figures are found is nothing but a talisman, or a gigantic amulet engraved with magical forms of gods and words of power, and it was, undoubtedly, placed in some conspicuous place in a courtyard or in a house to protect the building and its inmates from the attacks of hostile beings, both visible and invisible, and its power was believed to be invincible. The person who had been stung or bitten by a scorpion or any noxious beast or reptile was supposed to recite the incantations which Thoth had given to Isis, and which had produced such excellent results, and the Egyptians believed that because these words had on one occasion restored the dead to life, they would, whensoever they were uttered in a suitable tone of voice, and with appropriate gestures and ceremonies, never fail to produce a like effect. A knowledge of the gods and of the magical texts on the Stele was thought to make its possessor master of all the powers of heaven, and of earth, and of the Underworld.

Nebt-het, or Nephthys, was the daughter of Seb and Nut, and the sister of Osiris, and Isis, and Set, and the wife of Set, and the mother of Anpu, or Anubis, either by Osiris or Set. The name "Nebt-het" means the "lady of the house," but by the word "house" we must understand that portion of the sky which was supposed to form the abode of the Sun-god Horus; in fact "het" in the name of Nebt-het is used in exactly the same sense as "het" in the name "Het-Hert," or Hathor, i.e., the "house of Horus." In the earliest times Nephthys was regarded as the female counterpart of Set, and she was always associated with him; nevertheless she always appears as the faithful sister and friend of Isis, and helps the widowed goddess to collect the scattered limbs of Osiris and to reconstitute his body. In the Pyramid Texts she appears as a friend of the deceased, and she maintains that character throughout every Recension of the Book of the Dead; indeed, she seems to perform for him what as a nature goddess she did for the gods in primeval times when she fashioned the "body" of the "Company of the Gods," and when she obtained the name Nebkhat, i.e., "Lady of the body {of the Gods}." The goddess is represented in the form of a woman who wears upon her head a pair of horns and a disk which is surmounted by the symbol of her name, or the, " symbol only; and her commonest titles are, "dweller within Senu," "lady of heaven," "mistress of the gods," "great goddess, lady of life," "sister of the god, eye of Ra, lady of heaven, mistress of the gods," "lady of heaven, mistress of the two lands," "sister of the god, the creative goddess who liveth within An," etc. The chief centres of her worship were Senu, Hebet, (Behbit), Per-mert, Re-nefert, Het-sekhem, Het-Khas, Ta-kehset, and Diospolites.

In the vignettes of the Theban Recension of the book of the Dead we find Nephthys playing a prominent part in connection with isis, whose efforts it seems to be her duty to second and to forward. She stands in the shrine behind Osiris when the hearts of the dead are weighed in the Great Scales in the presence of the god; she is seen kneeling on, by the side of the Tet, from which the disk of the Sun is thrust upwards by the "living Ra," at sunrise; she is one of the "great sovereign chiefs in Tettu," with Osiris, Isis, and Heru-netch-hra-f; and she kneels at the head of the bier of Osiris and assists him to arise. In the address which she makes (Chap. cli.A), she says, "I go round about behind Osiris. I have come that I may protect thee, and my strength which protecteth shall be behind thee for ever and ever. The god Ra hearkeneth unto thy cry; thou, O son of Hathor, art made to triumph, thy head shall never be taken away from thee, and thou shalt be made to rise up in peace." Like Isis, Nephthys was believed to possess magical powers, and Urt-Hekau, i.e., "mighty one of words of power," was as much a title of the goddess as of her husband, Set-Nubti, the great one of two-fold strength. Nephthys also, like Isis, has many forms, for she is one of the two Maat goddesses, and she is one of the two Mert goddesses, and she is one of the two plumes which ornamented the head of her father Ra. In her birth-place in Upper Egypt, i.e., Het-Sekhem, or "the house of the Sistrum," the goddess was identified with Hathor, the lady of the sistrum, but the popular name of the city, "Het," i.e., the "House," seems to apply to both goddesses. In the Serapeum which belonged to the city, or the House of the Bennu, Osiris was re-born under the form of Horus, and Nephthys was one of his "nursing mothers." The form in which Osiris appeared here was the Moon, and as such he represented the left eye of the Bennu or Ra, and as he thus became closely associated with Khensu and Thoth, to his female counterparts were ascribed with attributes of Sesheta and Maat, who were the female counterparts of Thoth. Nephthys, as the active creative power which protected Osiris, the Moon-god, was called Menkhet, and in allusion to her beneficent acts in connection with him the names of Benra-merit and Kherseket were bestowed upon her; and the former appears to belong to the goddess when she made herself manifest under the form of a cat.

From Plutarch's treatise on Isis and Osiris we may gather many curious facts about the Egyptian beliefs concerning Nephthys. Thus he tells us that the Egyptians call the extreme limits of their country, their confines and sea-shores, Nephthys (and sometimes Teleute, a name expressly signifying the end of anything), whom they suppose likewise to be married to Typho. Now as the overflowings of the Nile are sometimes very great, and extend even to the remotest boundaries of the land, this gave occasion to that part of the story, which regards the secret commerce between Osiris and Nephthys; and as the natural consequences of so great an inundation would be perceived by the springing up of plants in those parts of the country, which were formerly barren, hence they supposed, that Typho was first made acquainted with the injury which had been done his bed by means of a Mellilot-garland which fell from the head of Osiris during his commerce with his wife, and afterwards left behind him; and thus, they say, may the legitimacy of Orus the son of Isis be accounted for, as likewise the spuriousness of Anubis, who was born of Nephthys. So again, when they tell us, that it appears from the tables of the successions of their ancient kings, that Nephthys was married to Typho, and that she was at first barren, if this indeed is to be understood, not as spoken of a mortal woman, but of a goddess, then is there design to insinuate the utter infertility of the extreme parts of their land, occasioned by the hardness of the soil and its solidity." Plutarch tells us, moreoever, that "on the upper part of the convex surface of the sistrum is carved the effigies of a Cat with a human visage, as on the lower edge of it, under those moving chords, is engraved on the one side the face of Isis, and on the other that of Nephthys." The face of Isis represents Generation, and that of Nephthys Corruption, and Plutarch says that the Cat denotes the moon, "its variety of colours, its activity in the night, and the peculiar circumstances which attend its fecundity making it a proper emblem of that body. For it is reported of this creature, that it at first brings forth one, then two, afterwards three, and so goes on adding one to each former birth till it comes to seven; so that she brings forth twenty-eight in all, corresponding as it were to the several degrees of light, which appear during one of the moon's revolutions. But though this perhaps may appear to carry the air of fiction with it, yet may it be depended upon that the pupils of her eyes seem to fill up and to grow larger upon the full of the moon, and to decrease again and diminish in their brightness upon its waning--as to the human countenance with which this Cat is carved, this is designed to denote that the changes of the moon are regulated by understanding and wisdom."

From the above paragraphs it is clear that Nephthys is the personification of darkness and of all that belongs to it, and that her attributes were rather of a passive than active character. She was the opposite of Isis in every respect; Isis symbolized birth, growth, development and vigour, but Nephthys was the type of death, decay, diminution and immobility. Isis and Nephthys were, however, associated inseparably with each other, even as were Horus and Set, and in all the important matters which concern the welfare of the deceased they acted together, and they appear together in bas-reliefs and vignettes. Isis, according to Plutarch, represented the part of the world which is visible, while Nephthys represents that which is invisible, and we may even regard Isis as the day and Nephthys as the night. Isis and Nephthys represent respectively the things which are and the things which are yet to come into being, the beginning and the end, birth and death, and life and death. We have unfortunately, no means of knowing what the primitive conception of the attributes of Nephthys was, but it is most improbable that it included any of the views on the subject which were current in Plutarch's time. Nephthys is not a goddess with well-defined characteristics, but she may, generally speaking, be described as the goddess of the death which is not eternal. In the Book of the Dead (Chap. xvii. 30), the deceased is made to say, "I am the god Amsu (or Min) in his coming forth; may his two plumes be set upon my head for me" In answer to the question, "Who then is this?" the text goes on to say, "Amsu is Horus, the avenger of his father, and his coming forth is his birth. The plumes upon his head are Isis and Nephthys when they go forth to set themselves there, even as his protectors, and they provide that which his head lacketh, or (as others say), they are the two exceeding great uraei which are upon the head of their fahter Tem, or (as others say), his two eyes are the plumes which are upon his head."

This passage proves that Nephthys, although a goddess of death, was associated with the coming into existence of the life which springs from death, and that she was, like Isis, a female counterpart of Amsu, the ithyphallic god, who was at once the type of virility, and reproduction, and regeneration. Isis and Nephthys prepared the funeral bed for their brother Osiris, and together they made the swathings wherewith his body was swathed after death; they assisted at the rising of the Sun-god when he rose upon this earth for the first time, they assisted at the resurrection of Osiris, and similarly, in all ages, they together aided the deceased to rise to the new life by means of the words which they chanted over his bier. In late dynastic times there grew up a class of literature which is now represented by such works as the "Book of Respirations," the "Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys," the "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys," the Litanies of Seker," etc., works which supply us with the very words which were addressed to Osiris and to all those who were his followers. The goddesses were personified by two priestesses who were virgins and who were ceremonially pure; the hair of their limbs was to be shaved off, they were to wear ram's wool garlands upon their heads, and to hold tambourines in their hands; on the arm of one of them was to be a fillet inscribed "To Isis," and on the arm of the other was to be a fillet inscribed "To Nephthys." On five days during the month of December these women took their places in the temple of Abydos and, assisted by the Kher Heb, or precentor, they sang a series of groups of verses to the god.

Isis, though worshipped all over Egypt, was specially venerated in certain cities, and the following are among the most common of her titles: --"The great lady, the God-mother, lady of Re-a-nefer; Isis-Nebuut, lady of Sekhet; lady of Besitet; Isis in Per Pakht, the queen of Mesen; Isis of Ta-at-nehepet; Isis, dweller in Netru; Isis, lady of Hebet; Isis in P-she-Hert; Isis, lady of Khebt; Usert-Isis, giver of life, lady of Abaton, lady of Philae, lady of the countries of the south," etc. From a list of title of the goddess collected by Dr. Brugsch, it is clear that Isis was called Usert, in Thebes, Aat, in Heliopolis, Menkhet, in Memphis, God-Mother, in Coptos, Hert, in Letopolis; and "Hent," i.e., "Queen," in every nome; and another important list tells us that Isis was called Ament, in Thebes, Menhet, in Heliopolis, renpet, In Memphis, Sept, in Abydos, Hetet, in Behutet, Hurt, in Nekhen, Thenenet, in Hermonthis, Ant, in Dendera, Sesheta, in Hermopolis, Heqet, in Hibiu, Uatchit, in Hipponus, Mersekhen, in Herakleopolis, Renpet, in Crocodilopolis, Neb-tept, in Arsinoe, That, or Tchetut, in Aphroditopolis, and Shetat, in Bubastis. Among her general titles may be mentioned those of "the divine one, the only one, the greatest of the gods and goddesses, the queen of all gods, the female Ra, the female Horus, the eye of Ra, the crown of Ra-Heru, Sept, opener of the year, lady of the New Year, maker of the sunrise, lady of heaven, the light-giver of heaven, lady of the North Wind, queen of the earth, most mighty one, queen of the South and North, lady of the solid earth, lady of warmth and fire, benefactress of the Tuat, she who is greatly feared in the Tuat, the God-mother, the God-mother of Heru-ka-nekht, the mother of the Horus of gold, the lady of life, lady of green crops, the green goddess (Uatchet), lady of bread, lady of beer, lady of abundance, lady of joy and gladness, lady of love, the maker of kings, lady of the Great House, lady of the House of fire, the beautiful goddess, the lady of words of power, lady of the shuttle, daughter of Seb, daughter of Neb-er-tcher, the child of Nut, wife of Ra, wife of the lord of the abyss, wife of the lord of the Inundation, the creatrix of the Nile flood."

From a number of passages in the texts of various periods we learn that Isis possessed great skill in the working of magic, and several examples of the manner in which she employed it are well known. Thus when she wished to make Ra reveal to her his greatest and most secret name, she made a venomous reptile out of dust mixed with the spittle of the god, and by uttering over it certain words of power she made it to bite Ra as he passed. When she had succeeded in obtaining from the god his most hidden name, which he only revealed because he was on the point of death, she uttered words which had the effect of driving the poison out of his limbs, and Ra recovered. Now Isis not only used the words of power, but she also had knowledge of the way in which to pronounce them so that the beings or things to which they were addressed would be compelled to listen to them and, having listened, would be obliged to fulfill her bequests. The Egyptians believed that if the best effect was to be produced by words of power they must be uttered in a certain tone of voice, and at a certain rate, and at a certain time of the day or night, with appropriate gestures or ceremonies. In the Hymn to Osiris it is said that Isis was well skilled in the use of words of power, and it was by means of these that she restored her husband to life, and obtained from him an heir. It is not known what the words were which she uttered on this occasion, but she appears to have obtained them from Thoth, the "lord of divine words," and it was to him that she appealed for help to restore Horus to life after he had been stung to death by a scorpion.

In the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead is found a Chapter (No. clvi.) which was composed for the purpose of bestowing upon the deceased some of the magical power of the goddess. The Chapter was intended to be recited over an amulet called thet, made of carnelian, which had to be steeped in water of ankhami flowers, and set in a sycamore plinth, and if this were laid on the neck of a dead person it would place him under the protection of the words of power of Isis, and he would be able to go wheresoever he pleased in the Underworld. The words of the Chapter were: -- "Let the blood of isis, and the magical powers (or spirits) of Isis, and the words of power of Isis, be mighty to protect and keep safely this great god (i.e., the deceased), and to guard him from him that would do unto him anything which he abominateth."

The symbol of Isis in the heavens was the star Sept (Sirius), which was greatly beloved because its appearance marked not only the beginning of a new year, but also announced the advance of the Inundation of the Nile, which betokened renewed wealth and prosperity of the country. As such Isis was regarded as the companion of Osiris, whose soul dwelt in the star Sah, i.e., Orion, and she was held to have brought about the destruction of the fiend Apep, and of his hosts of darkness by means of the might of her words of power. As the light-giver at this season of the year she was called Khut, as the mighty earth-goddess her name was Usert, as the Great Goddess of the Underworld she was Thenenet, as the power which shot forth the Nile flood she was Sati, and sept, as the embracer of the land and producer of fertility by her waters she was Anqet, as the producer and giver of life she was Ankhet, as the goddess of cultivated lands and fields she was Sekhet, as the goddess of the harvest she was Renenet, as the goddess of food which was offered to the gods she was Tcheft, and lived int he Temple of Tchefau, and as the great lady of the Underworld, who assisted in transforming the bodies of the blessed dead into those whrein they were to live in the realm of Osiris, her name was Ament, i.e., the "hidden" goddess. In this last capacity she shared with Osiris the attribute of "giver of life," and she provided food for the dead as well as for the living; as Ament also she was declared to be the mother of Ra. In fact, at a comparatively early period in Egyptian history Isis had absorbed the attributes of all the great primitive goddesses, and of all the local goddesses such as Nekhebet, Uatchet, Net, Bast, Hathor, etc., and she was even identified as the female counterpart of the primeval abyss of water from which sprang all life. From what has been said above it is manifestly impossible to limit the attributes of Isis, for we have seen that she possesses the powers of a water goddess, an earth goddess, a corn goddess, a star goddess, a queen of the Underworld, and a woman, and that she united in herself one or more of the attributes of all the goddesses of Egypt known to us.

For three days and for three nights the fight between them raged, and Horus gained the victory over Set, but when Isis saw that Set was being overpowered her heart was touched on his account, and she cried out and ordered the weapons which her son was wielding against her brother to fall down, and they did so, and Set was released. When Horus saw that his mother had taken his adversary's part he raged at her like a panther of the south, and she fled before his wrath; a fierce struggle between Isis and Horus then took place, and Horus cut off his mother's head. Thoth, by means of his words of power, transformed her head into that of a cow which he attached to her body straightaway.

Horus says to the king, "I will give thee a life like unto that of Ra, and years even as the years of Tem," and Set says, "I establish the crown upon thy head even like the Disk {on the head of} Amen Ra, and I will give thee all life, and strength, and health;" in his character of giver of life each god holds in his hand the notched palm branch, symbol of "years," which rests upon a frog, and the emblem of the Sun's path in the heavens and of eternity. In yet another scene we find Set teaching Thothmes III the use of the bow in connection with the emblem of the goddess Neith, whilst Horus instructs him how to wield some weapon, which appears to be a staff. According to Dr. Brugsch, Set was the god of the downward motion of the sun in the lower hemisphere, in a southerly direction, and for this reason he was the source of the destructive heat of summer; and since the days began to diminish after the summer solstice, it was declared that he stole the light from Horus or Ra, and he was held to be the cause of all the evil, both physical and moral, which resulted. The light which Thoth brought with the new moon was withdrawn by Set as soon as it was possible for him to obtain power over that luminary, and he wa, naturally thought to be the cause of clouds, mist, rain, thunder and lightning, hurricanes and storms, earthquakes and eclipses, and in short of every thing which tended to reverse the ordinary course of nature and of law and order. From a moral point of view he was the personification of sin and evil.

The mythological and religious texts of all periods contain many allusions to the fight which Set waged against Horus, and more than one version of the narrative is known. In the first and simplest form the story merely records the natural opposition of Day to Night, or Night to Day, and the two Combatant gods were Heru-ur, or Horus the Elder, and Set. In its second form the two Combatant gods are Ra and Set, and the chief object of the latter is to prevent Ra from appearing in the East daily. The form which Set assumed on theses occasions was that of a monster serpent, and he took with him as helpers a large number of small serpents and noxious creatures of various kinds. The name of the serpent was Apep, or Aaapef, but he was also called Rerek, and since he was identified with a long series of serpent monsters he had as many names as Ra. The weapons with which Apep fought were cloud, mist, rain, darkness, etc., and Ra, his opponent, was armed with the burning and destroying heat of the sun, and the darts and spears of light. The result of the fight was always the same; Apep was shriveled and burnt up by Ra, but he was able to renew himself daily, and at the end of each night he collected his fiends, and waged war against Ra with unabated vigor. In the third form of the story the combatant gods are Osiris and Set, and we have already seen how Set slew his brother and persecuted his widow and child, and how he escaped punishment because Osiris had, at the time of his death, none to avenge his cause. In the fourth form of the story the Combatant gods are Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, and Set, and the avowed intention of Horus is to slay him that slew his father Osiris.

The two gods fought in the forms of men, and afterwards in the forms of bears, and Horus would certainly have killed Set, whom he had fettered, had not Isis taken pity upon her brother and loosed his bonds and set him free. The fight between Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, and Set, had a very important bearing on the destinies of the dead, for to it was attached the moral idea of the victory of Good over Evil, and the deceased was believed to conquer Set even as Osiris had done. Thus in the Book of the Dead (ix. 3) he says, "I have come, I have seen my divine father Osiris. I have stabbed the heart of Suti" (i.e., Set); and from Chapter xviii.H 1 ff., we may see that although the fiends of Set changed themselves into wild beasts on the night of the breaking and turning up of the earth in Tattu, Osiris, by the help of Thoth, slew them, and mixed their blood with the sods. In Chapter xxiii. 2, we find the deceased praying that Thoth will come to him, and will by means of his words of power loose the bandages wherewith Set has fettered his mouth; and in Chapter xxxix. 15, we find him declaring that he is Set who "letteth loose the storm-clouds and the thunder in the horizon of heaven, even as doth the good Netcheb-ab-f. Elsewhere (xl. 1 ff.) Apep is called both Hai, and Am-aau, i.e., the "Eater of the Ass," and he is declared to be a being abominable both to Osiris and to the god Haas, or; the Ass referred to here is, of course, Ra; the Ass was regarded in one aspect as a solar animal because of his great virility. On the other hand, certain passages prove that even in the XVIIIth Dynasty Set was regarded as a god who was friendly towards the deceased, for we read (xvii. 131), "Tem hath built thy house, Shu and Tefnut have founded thy habitation; lo! drugs are brought, and Horus purifieth and Set strengtheneth, and Set purifieth and Horus strengtheneth." In the Chapter of the deification of members, the backbone of the deceased is identified with the backbone of Set (xlii. 12), and elsewhere the deceased says (1.B 2) "Suti and the company of the gods have joined together my neck and my back strongly, and they are even as they were in the time that is past; may nothing happen to break them apart." But in Chapter lxxxvi. 6, the deceased says, "Set, son of Nut, {lieth} under the fetters which he had made for me;" and elsewhere (cviii. 8), he is said "to depart, having the harpoon of iron in him," and to have thrown up everything which he had eaten and to have been put in a place of restraint.

A statement in Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride ( 62), informs us that Typhon was called Seth, and Bebo, and Smy, "all of them words of one common import, and expressing certain violent and forcible restraint and withholding, as likewise contrariety and subversion; we are, moreoever, informed by Manetho that the lodestone is by the Egyptians called the 'bone of Horus,' as iron is, the 'bone of Typhon.'" This information is of considerable interest, for it makes the identity of Set and Typhon certain, and it is, moreover, supported by the evidence of the inscriptions. The name Seth is, of course, Set; Bebo is the Egyptian, Baba and Smy is Smai, the well-known Egyptian name for Set as the Arch-Fiend. The associates of Set were called Smaiu, and the determinative, shows that the idea of "violence" was implied in the name. That iron was connected with Set or Typhon is quite clear from the passage quoted by Dr. Brugsch in which Thoth is said to have obtained from Set the knife with which he cut up the bull.

It has been said above that the serpent and the Set animal were the common symbols of Set, but instances are known I which he is represented in the form of a man, wearing a beard and a tail, and holding the usual symbols of divinity. In the example figured by Lanzone the god is called "mighty-one of two-fold strength," and is accompanied by Nephthys, who wears upon her head a pair of horns and a disk Now, as Set was the personification of the powers of darkness, and of evil, and of the forces of the waters which were supposed to resist light and order, a number of beasts which dwelt in the waters, or at least partly on land and partly in water, were regarded as symbols of him and as beings wherein he took up his habitation. Among these were the serpent Apep, the fabulous beast, Akhekh, which was a species of antelope with a bird's head surmounted by three uraei, and a pair of wings, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the pig, the turtle, the ass, etc. These animals were, however, not the only ones which were regarded as types of Set, for as Dr. Brugsch has rightly observed, every creature which was snared or caught in the waters of hunted in the desert, was treated as an incarnation of Set; and animals with red, or reddish-brown hair or skins, and even red-haired men were supposed to be especially under the influence of Set. On the other hand, the animals which were used by man in the chase, i.e., dogs, cheetas, etc., and certain other animals, e.g., lions, cats, etc., were held to be sacred to the gods, and according to Plutarch (De Iside, 72), "the gods, through a dread of Typhon, metamorphosed themselves into these animals, concealing themselves as it were from his purpose in the bodies of ibises, dogs and hawks." The sacrifice of certain animals associated with Set played a prominent part in the ritual of the Egyptian religion, and at the seasons of the year when Set's influence was supposed to be the greatest earnest attempts were regularly made to propitiate him by means of offerings.

Thus in order to drive away Set from attacking the full moon of the month Pachons an antelope was sacrificed, and a black pig was hacked in pieces upon an altar made of sand, which was built on the bank of the river. On the twenty-sixth day of the month, Choiak, which was the time of the winter solstice, an ass was slain, and a model of the serpent-fiend was hewn in pieces. On the first day of Mesore, which was the day of the great festival of Heru Behutet, large numbers of birds and fish were caught, and those which were considered to be of a Typhonic character were stamped upon with the feet, and those who did this cried out, "Ye shall be cut in pieces, and your members shall be hacked asunder, and each of you shall consume the other; thus doth Ra triumph over all his enemies, and thus doth Heru-Behutet, the great god, the lord of heaven, triumph over all his enemies." On such occasions, we learn from Plutarch (De Iside, 63), sistra were shaken in the temples, for, say they, the sound of these Sistra averts and drives away Typhon; meaning hereby, that as corruption clogs and puts a stop to the regular course of nature, so generation, by the means of motion, loosens it again, and restores it to its former vigor."

The kingdom of Set was supposed to be placed in the northern sky, and his abode was one of the stars which formed the constellation of Khepesh, or the "Thigh," which has been identified with the Great Bear, and it was from this region that he made use of his baleful influence to thwart the beneficent designs of Osiris, whose abode was Sah or Orion, and of Isis, whose home was Sept, or Sothis. A little consideration will show that the northern sky was the natural domain of Set, for viewed from the standpoint of an Egyptian in Upper Egypt the north was rightly considered to be the place of darkness, cold, mist, and rain, each of which was an attribute of Set; and we may note in passing that the Hebrews called the region of darkness, or the winter hemisphere, Sephon, a name which appears to be connected beyond a doubt with Saphon, "North." The chief opponent of Set was the hippopotamus goddess Reret, who was believed to keep this power of darkness securely fettered by a chain; this goddess is usually represented with the arms and hands of a woman which are attached to the body of a hippopotamus, and in each she holds a knife. Her temple was called Het-Khaat. The duty of the goddess was to keep in restraint the evil influence of Set and to make clear a way in the sky of the birth of Heru-sma-taui, whom Dr. Brugsch identified with the spring sun; the texts, however, make it clear that Reret was nothing but a form of Isis.

Nephthys gave birth to a son called Anpu, or Anubis, and that his father was, according to some, Set; from another point of view he was the son of Ra. The animal which was at once the type and symbol of the god was the jackal, and this fact seems to prove that in primitive times Anubis was merely the jackal god, and that he was associated with the dead because the jackal was generally seen prowling about the tombs. His worship is very ancient, and there is no doubt that even the earliest times his cult was general in Egypt; it is probable that it is older than that of Osiris. In the text of Unas {line 70} he is associated with the Eye of Horus, and his duty as the guide of the dead in the Underworld on their way to Osiris was well defined, even at the remote period when this composition was written, from we read, Unas standeth with the Spirits, get thee onwards, Anubis, into "Amenti {the Underworld}, onwards, onwards to Osiris." In the lines that follow we see that Anubis is mentioned in connection with Horus, Set, Thoth, Sep, and Khent-an-maati. From another passage of the same text we find {line 207 ff} that the hand, arms, belly, and legs of the deceased are identified with Temu, but his face is said to be in the form of that of Anubis. The localities in which Anubis was especially worshipped are Abt, the Papyrus Swamps, Sep, Re-au, Heru-ti, Ta-hetchet, Saint, {Lycopolis}, Sekhem, {Letopolis}, etc. In the Theban Recesion of the Book of the Dead he plays some very prominent parts, the most important of all being those which are connected with the judgment and the embalmed the body of Osiris, and that he swathed it in the linen swathing which were woven by Isis and Nepthys, that it resisted the influences of time and deacy. In the vignette of the Funeral Procession the mummy is received by Anubis, who stands by the Book of the Dead the god is seen standing by the side of the mummy as it lies on its bier, and he lays his protecting hands upon it. In the speech which is put into the mouth of Anubis, he says, "I have come to protect Osiris." In the text of Unas {line 219} the nose of the deceased declares, My lips are the lips of Anpu." From various passages it is clear that one part of Egypt at least Anubis was the great god of the Underworld, and his rank and importance seem to have been as great as those of Osiris. {See Chapter liii.}

In the Judgment Scene Anubis appears to act for Osiris, with whom he is intimately connected, for it is he whose duty it is to examine the tongue of the Great Balance, and to take care that the beam is exactly horizontal. Thoth acts on behalf of the Great company of the gods, and Anubis not only produces the heart of the deceased in the act of receiving a necklace and pectoral from Anubis, who stands by grasping his scepter; in the vignette of the Chapter on the Papyrus of Nebseni Anubis is seen presenting the heart itself to the deceased, and in the text below Nebseni prays, saying, "May Anubis make my thighs firm so that I may stand upon them." In allusion to his connection with the embalmment of Osiris the god Anubis is called Am Ut, i.e., "Dweller in the chamber of embalmment;" as the watcher in the place of purification wherein rested the chest containing the remains of Osiris he was called Khent Sehet, i.e., "Governor of the Hall of the god;" and one of his names as the god of the funeral mountain was "Tep-Tu-f," i.e., "he who is upon his hill." In the cxlvth Chapter of the Book of the Dead the deceased says, "I have washed myself in the water wherein the god Anpu washed when he had performed the office of the embalmer and bandager;} and elsewhere the deceased is told that "Anpu, who is upon his hill, hath set thee in order, and he hath fastened for thee thy swathings, thy throat is the throat of Anubis {clxxii. 22} and thy face is like that of Anubis" {clxxxi. 9}.

DUTIES OF ANUBIS

The duty of guiding the souls of the dead round about the Underworld and into the kingdom of Osiris was shared by Anubis with another god whose type and symbol was a jackal, and whose name was Ap-uat, i.e., the "Opener of the ways;" formerly Anubis and Ap-uat were considered to be two names of one and the same god, but there is no longer any reason for holding this view. In the vignette to the cxxxviiith Chapter of the Book of the Dead we find represented the scene of setting up the standard which supports the box that held the head of Osiris at Abydos. On each side of it are a standard with a figure of a jackal upon it and a pylon, on top of which lies a jackal; and as it is quite clear from the groups of objects on each side of the standard that we are dealing with symbols either of the South and North, or the East and the West, we are justified in thinking that one jackal represents Ap-uat and the other Anubis. Moreover, from the cxlvth Chapter we find that the xxist Pylon of the House of Osiris was presided over by seven gods, among whom were An-uat and Anpu, and as in the xviiith Chapter {F.,G.} we have both gods mentioned, and each is predicated in the form of a jackal-headed man, we may conclude that each was a distinct god of the dead, although their identities are sometimes confused in the texts. The function of each god was to "open the ways," and therefore each might be called Ap-uat, but, strictly speaking, Anubis was the opener of the roads of the North, and Ap-uat the opener of the roads of the South' in fact, Anubis was the personification of the Summer Solstice, and Ap-uat of the Winter Solstice.

ANUBIS

Anubis is called in the texts Sekhem Em Pet, and is said to be the son of Osiris, and Ap-uat bore the title Sekhem Taui, and was a form of Osiris himself. When, therefore, we find the two jackals upon sepulchral stelae, we must understand that they appear there in character of openers of the ways of the deceased in the kingdom of Osiris, and that they assure to the deceased the services of guides in the northern and southern parts of heaven; when they appear with the two Utchats thus, they symbolize the four quarters of heaven and of earth, and the four seasons of the year. On the subject of Anubis Plutarch reports {44, 61} some interesting beliefs. After referring to the view that Anubis was born of Nephthys, although Isis was his reputed mother, he goes on to say, "By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisible, to which they give the name of Isis; and this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both--and from this circumstance arose that resemblance, which they imagine between Anubis and the Dog, it being observed of this animal, that he is equally watchful as well by day as night. In short, the Egyptian Anubis and the Dog, it being observed of this animal, that he is watchful as well by day as night. In short, the Egyptian Anubis seems to be of much the same power and nature as the Grecian Hecate, a deity common both to the celestial and infernal regions. Theirs again are of opinion that by Anubis is meant Time, and that his denomination of Kuon does not so much allude to any likeness, which he has to the dog, though this be the general rendering of the word, as to that other signification of the term taken from breeding; because Time begets all things out of it self, bearing them within itself, as it were in a womb. But this is one of those who are initiated into the worship of Anubis. This much, however, is certain, that in ancient times the Egyptians paid the greatest reverence and honor to the Dog, though by reason of its devouring the Apis after Cambyses had slain him and thrown him out, when no animal would taste or so much as come near him, he then lost the first rank among the sacred animals which he had hitherto possessed." Referring to Osiris as the "common Reason which pervades both the superior and the inferior regions of the universe," he says that it is, moreover, called "Anubis, and sometimes likewise Hermanubis {i.e., Heru-em-Anpu}; the first of these names expressing the relation it has to be superior, as the latter, to the inferior world. And for this reason it is, they sacrifice to him two Cocks, the white one,as a proper emblem of the purity and brightness of things above, the other of a saffron color, expressive of that mixture and variety which is to be found in these lower regions."

Strictly speaking, Anubis should be reckoned as the last member of the Great Company of the gods of Heliopolis, but as a matter fact his place is usually taken by Horus, the son of Isis and of Osiris, who generally completes the divine part; it is probable that the fusion of Horus, with Anubis was a political expedient on the part of the priesthood who, finding no room in their system for the old god of the dead, identified him with a form of Horus, just as they had done with his father Set, and the double god possessed two district and opposite aspects; as the guide of heaven and the leader of souls to Osiris he was a beneficent god, but as the personification of death and deacy he was a being who inspired terror. From an interesting passage in the "Golden Ass" of Apeleius {Book xi.} we find that the double character of Anubis was maintained by his votaries in Rome even in the second century of our era, and in describing the Procession of Isis he says, Immediately after these came the Deities, condescending to walk upon human feet, the foremost among them rearing terrifically on high his dog's head and neck----that messenger between heaven and hell displaying alternately a face black as night waving aloft the green palm branch. His steps were closely followed by a cow, raised into an upright posture----the cow being the fruitful emblem of the Universal Parent, the goddess herself, which one of the happy train carried with majestic steps, supported on his shoulders. By another was borne the coffin containing the sacred things, and closely concealing the deep secrets of the holy religion."

This extract shows that even in the second century at Rome the principal actors in the old Egyptian Osiris ceremonial's were represented with scrupulous care, and that its chief characteristics were preserved. The cow was, of course, nothing less than the symbol of Isis, "the mother of the god," and the coffin containing the "sacred things" was the symbol of the sarcophagus of Osiris which contained his relics. Before these marched Anubis in his two-fold character, and thus we have types of Osiris and his mysteries, and of Isis who revivified him, and of Anubis who embalmed him. Had Apuleus understood the old Egyptian ceremonies connected with the Osiris legend and had he been able to identify all the characters who passed before him in the Isis procession, he would probably have seen that Nephthys and Horus and several other gods of the funeral company of Osiris were duly represented therein. On the alleged connection of Anubis with Christ in the Gnostic system the reader is referred to the interesting work of Mr. C.W. King, Gnostics and their Remains, Second Edition, London, 1887 {pp. 230,279}

In connection with the Sun-gods of Egypt and with their various forms which were worshipped in that country must be considered the meager facts which we possess concerning Aten, who appears to have represented both the god or spirit of the sun, and the solar disk itself. The origin of this god is wholly obscure, and nearly all that is known about him under the Middle Empire is that he was a small provincial form of the Sun-god which was worshipped in one little town in the neighborhood of Heliopolis, and it is possible that a temple was built in his honor, in Heliopolis itself. It is idle to attempt to describe the attributes which were orginally ascribed to him under the Middle or Early Empire, because the texts which were written before the XXIIIrd Dynasty give us no information on the subject. Under the XVIIIth Dynasty, and especially during the reigns of Amen-Ra-Heru-khuti, Horus, etc., but it does not follow that they orginally belonged to him. In the Theban Recesion of the Book of the Dead, which is based upon Heliopolitan, we find Aten mentioned by the deceased thus :--- "Thou, O Ra, shinest from the horizon of heaven, and Aten is adored when he resteth {or setteth} upon this mountain to give life to the two lands. Hunefer says Ra, Hail, Aten, thou the lord of beams of light, {when} thou shinest all faces {i.e., everybody} lives. Nekht says Ra, O thou beautiful being, thou doest renew thyself and make thyself young again under the form of Aten; Ani says Ra, Thou turnest thy face towards the Underworld, and thou makest the earth to shine like fine copper. The dead rise up to thee, they breath the air and they look upon thy face when Aten shineth in the horizon;------I have come before thee that I may be with thee to behold thy Aten daily: O thou who art in thine Egg, who shinest from thy Aten," etc.

These passages show that Aten, at the time when the hymns from which they are taken were composed, was regarded as the material body of the sun wherein dwelt the god Ra, and that he represented merely the solar disk and was visible emblem of the great Sun-god. In later times, coming to protection afforded to him by Amen-hetep III, the great warrior and hunter of the XVIIIth Dynasty, other views were promulgated concerning Aten, and he became the cause of one the greatest religious and social revolutions which ever convulsed Egypt. After the expulsion of Hyksos, Amen, the local god of Thebes, as the god of the victorious princess of that city, became the head of the company of the gods of Egypt, and the early kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty endowed his shrine with possessions, and gave gifts to his priesthood with a lavish hand. In spite of this however, some of these kings maintained an affection for the forms of the Sun-god which were worshipped at Heliopolis, and Thothmes IV, it will be remembered, dug out the Sphinx from the sand which had buried him and his temple, and restored the worship of Ra-Harmachis. He was not the only monarch who viewed with disamy the great and growing power of the priests of Amen-Ra, the "king of the gods" at Thebes.

Amen-hetep III, the son of Thothmes IV, held the same views as his father in this respect, and he was, apparently, urged to give effect to them by his wife Thi, the daughter of Iuaa and Thuau, who was a foreigner and who was in no way connected with the royal house of Egypt. Having married this lady, he gave her as dowry the frontier city of Tcharu, and her natural ability, coupled with the favor of her husband, made her chief of all the royal wives, and a great power in the affairs of the government of the country. It has been thought by some that she was a native of the country near Heliopolis, and it is possible that she herself was a votary of Aten, but be that as it may, she appears to have supported the king in his determation to encourage the worship of the god. At an early period in his reign he built one at Thebes, quite close to the great sanctuary of Amen-Ra, the priests of whom were, of course, powerless to resist the will of such an active and able king. Soon after his marriage with Thi, Amen-hetep III, dug, in his wife's city of Tcharu, a lake, which was about 6000 feet long by 1000 feet broad. On the day of the festival when the water was allowed to flow into it, he sailed over it in a boat called "Aten-neferu, i.e., the "Beauties of Aten ;" the name of the boat is a clear proof of his devotion to the god Aten. Amen-hetep IV, the son of Amen-hetep III. by the foreign lady Thi, not only held the religious views of his father, but held them very strongly. His life shows that he must have been from his youth of an adherent of the worship of Aten; it is supposed, and with much probability, that the intensity of his love for Aten and his hatred for Amen-Ra were due to his mother's influence.

Amen-hetep IV succeeded his father without difficulty, even though his mother was not a member of the royal family of Egypt, and for the first few years of his reign he followed the example of the earlier kings of his dynasty, and lived at Thebes, where he no doubt ruled according to his mothers wishes. He offered up sacrifices to Amen-Ra at the appointed seasons, an was, outwardly at least, a loyal servent of this god, whose name formed a part of his name as "son of the Sun." We may note in passing, that he adopted on his accession to the throne the title "High-priest of Ra-Heru-khuti, the exalted one of the horizon, in his "name of Shu who is in Aten," which is clear proof that he was not only a worshiper of Ra-Harmachis, another of the forms of the Sun-god Heliopolis, but also that he endorsed the views and held the opions of the old College of Priests at Heliopolis, which assigned the disk {Aten} to him for a dwelling-place. Amen-hetep's titles as lord of the shrines of the cities of Nekhebet and Uatchet, and as the Horus of gold also prove his devotion to a Sun-god of Heliopolis. During the early years of his reign at Thebes he built a massive Benhen, in honor of Ra-Harmachis at Thebes, and it is probable that he took the opportunity of restoring or enlarging the temple of Aten which had been built by his father. At the same time we find that he worshipped both Amen and Aten, the former in his official position as king, and the latter in his private capacity. It was, however, impossible for the priests of Amen -Ra to tolerate the presence of the new god Aten and his worship in Thebes, and the relations between the king and that powerful body soon became strained. On the one hand the king asserted the superiority of Aten over every god, and on the other the priests declared that Amen-Ra was the king of the gods. As, however, Amen-Ra was the center of the social life of Thebes, and his priests and their relatives included in their number the best and greatest families of the capitol city, it came to pass that the king found himself at the worship of Aten wholly supported by the great mass of its population, whose sympathies were with the old religion of Thebes, and by those who gained their living in connection with the worship of Amen-Ra. The king soon realized that residence in Thebes was becoming impossible , and the fifth year of his reign he began to build a new capitol on the east bank of the Nile, near a place which is marked to-day by the Arab villages of Haggi Kandil and Tell el-Amarna ; he planned that it should include a great temple to Aten, a palace for the king, and houses for those who were attached to the worship of Aten and were prepared to follow their king there.

While the new capitol was in the process of building the dispute between the king and the priests of Amen-Ra became more severe, and matters were much aggravated by Amenhetep IV. At length the king left Thebes an took up his abode in his new capitol, which he called "Khut-Aten," i.e., "Hotizon of Aten," and as a sign of the entire severance of his connection with traditions of his house in respect of Amen-Ra he discarded his name "Amen-hetep" and called himself Khut-Aten i.e., "Glory of Aten," or, "Spirit of Aten." At the time he changed his Horus name of "Exalted One of the double plumes" to "Mighty Bull, beloved of Aten" {or, lover of Aten}, and he adopted as lord of the shrines of Nekhebet and Uatchet the title of "Mighty one of sovereignity in Khut-Aten," and as the Horus of gold he styled himself, "Exalter of the name Aten."

In connection with the history of the god Osiris mention must be made of Asar-hapi or Serapis, and in many provinces of the Roman Empire after that country had passed under the authority of the Caesars. The second part of the name, "Hapi, was that which was given to the famous bull which formed the object of worship at Memphis very early in the dynastic period of Egyptian history, and which is commonly known as the "Apis Bull," while the first part is, of course, nothing but the name of Osiris in its Egyptian form. The Greeks fused the names of the two deities together under the form Zaparrus, and, although the exact nature of the attributes which they assigned to Osiris and Apis united is not quite clear, it seems tolerably certain that they regard Serapis as the form which Apis took after death. According to the hieroglyphic texts which were found on stelae and other objects in the Serapeum at Sakkara, Apis is called "the life of Osiris, the lord of heaven, Tem {with} his horns {in} his head." and he is said to "give life, strength, health, to thy nostrils for ever." Elsewhere Apis-Osiris is described as, "the great god, Khent, Amentet, the lord of life forever," and this text belongs to the 18th Dynasty, we see that even at the beginning of the New Empire Apis and Osiris were joined together by the priests of Memphis, and that the attributes of Apis had been made to assume a funeral character, and that he was at that time recognized as a god of the Underworld. On a monument of the 19th Dynasty, Apis is said to be "the renewed life of Ptah," And in an inscription of the 25th Dynasty he is called the "second Ptah." In the same text we have a mention of the "temple of Asar-Hapi," i.e., of Serapis, and we may learn from this fact that Apis had finally made a god of the Underworld, and that his identity had been merged in that of Osiris. The identification of Apis with Osiris was easy enough, because one of the most common names of Osiris was "Bull of the West," and the identification once made the shrines of Osiris were regarded as the proper places at which the worship of the double god should be paid. Apis was, in fact, believed to be animated by the soul of Osiris,and to be Osiris incarnate, and the appearance of a new Apis was regarded as a new manifestation of Osiris upon earth; but he was also an emanation of Ptah, and he was even called the "son of Ptah," The double god Asar-Asar, is depicted in the form of a bull, which has the solar disk and a uraeus between its horns.

And, behold, the "heart of the women who had not opened her doors to me was "sad, for she knew not whether her son would live, and although "she went round about through her city uttering cries of lamentation none came at her call. But mine own heart was sad for the "child's sake, and I wished to restore to life him that had "committed no fault. Therefore upon I cried out to the noble lady, "Come to me. Come to me, for my speech hath in it the power "to protect, and it possesseth life. I am a women who is "well known in her city, and I drive the evil out of thy son by one "of my utterances,which my father taught me, for I was the "beloved daughter of his body."

The noble lady presumably listened to the words of Isis, who, it seems, either went to her house, or had the dead child brought "into her presence, for the narrative continues, "Then Isis laid her hands upon the child to restore to life him that was without "breath (literally 'him whose throat was foul'), and said, 'O poison of Tefen, come forth, and appear on the ground; come not in, approach not! O poison of Befent, come forth, and appear on the ground! for I am the goddess, and I am the lady of words of power, and most mighty are {my} words! O all ye reptiles which sting, hearken unto me, and fall ye down on the ground! O poison of Mestet, O poison of Mestetef, rise not up! O poison of Petet and Thetet, enter not here! {O poison of} Maatet, fall down!'" Next in the narrative we have the words of the "Chapter of the stinging {of scorpions}" which Isis the goddess and great enchantress at the head of the gods, spoke on the occasion, and it is said that she learned her method of procedure from Seb, who had taught her how to drive out poison. At the dawn of the day she uttered the words, "O poison, get the back, turn away, begone, retreat," and added "Mer-Ra:" and at eventide she said, "The Egg of the Goose" cometh forth "from the Sycamore." Then turning to the Seven Scorpions she said, "I speak to you, for I am alone and am in sorrow which is greater than that of anyone in the nomes of Egypt. I am like a man who hath become old, and who hath ceased to search after and to look upon women in their houses.Turn your faces down to the ground, and find ye me straightway a way to the swamps a way to the hidden places in Khebet. Following this passage come the exclamation, "The "child liveth and the poison dieth: the Sun liveth and the poison dieth, and then the wishes, "May Horus be in good case for his mother Isis" The fire in the house of the noble lady was extinguished and heaven was satisfied with the words which the goddess Isis had spoken. The narrative is continued by Isis in these words: "Then came the lady who had shut the doors against me, and took possession of the house of the fen-women because she had opened the door of her house unto me, and because of this the noble lady suffered pain and sorrow during a whole night, and she had to bear {the thought} of her speech, and that her son had been stung because she had closed the doors and had not opened them to me. Following this come the words, O, the child liveth, the poison dieth! Verily, Horus shall be in good case for his mother Isis! Verily, in like manner shall he be in good case who shall find himself in a similar position ! Shall not the bread of barley drive out the poison and make it to return from the limbs? Shall not the flame of the hetchet plant drive out the fire from the members?"

"Isis, Isis, come to thy child Horus, O thou whose mouth is wise, come to thy son: thus cried out the gods who were near her after the manner of one whom a scorpion hath stung, and like one whom Behat, whom the animal Antesh put to flight, hath wounded. Then came Isis like a women who was smitten, in her own body. And she stretched out her two arms, {saying}, I will protect thee, O my son Horus. Fear thou art, O son, my glorious one. No evil thing whatsoever shall happen unto thee, for in thee is the seed whereof things which are to be shall be created. Thou art the son within the Mesqet, who hast proceeded from Nu, and thou shalt not die by the flame of the poison . thou art the Great Bennu who was born on the Incense Trees in the House of the Great Prince in Heliopolis. Thou art the brother of the Abtu fish, who does arrange that which is to be, and who was nursed by the Cat within the House of Net. Reret, Hat and Bes protect thy limbs. Thine head shall not fall before him that is hostile to thee. The fire of that which hath poisoned thee shall not have dominion over the limbs. thou shall not fail on land, and thou shalt not be in peril on the water. No reptile that stingeth shall have the mastery over thee, and no lion shall crush thee or gain the mastery over thee. Thou art the son of the holy god and does proceed from Seb. Thou art Horus, and the poison which is in thy limbs shall not have the mastery over thee. And the four noble goddesses shall protect thy limbs."

From the above we see that the gods informed Isis that her son Horus had been stung by a scorpion, and from what follows we see in what condition Isis found her son. She says, ", Isis conceived a man child, and I was heavy with Horus. I, the goddess, bare Horus, the son of Isis, within a nest of papyrus plants {'or, Island of Ateh'} I rejoiced over him with exceedingly great joy, for I saw in him one who would make answer for his father. I hid him, and I concealed him, for I was afraid lest he should be bitten. Now I went away to the city of Am, and the people thereof saluted me according to their wont, and I passed the time in seeking food and provision for the boy: but when I returned to embrace Horus, I found him, the beautiful one, of the golden boy, the child, unert and helpless. He had bedewed the ground with the water of his eye, and with the foam of his lips; his body was motionless, and his heart was still, and his muscles moved not, and I sent forth a cry...... Then straightway the dwellers in the swamps came round me, and the fen men came out to me from their houses, and they drew nigh to me at my call, and they themselves wept at the greatness of my misery. Yet no man there opened his mouth to speak to me because they all grieved for me sorely and no man among them knew how to restore Horus to life. Then there came unto me a women who was well known in her city, and she was a lady at the head of her district, and she came to me restore {Horus} to custom, but the child Horus remained motionless and moved not. The son of the goddess-mother had been smitten by the evil of his brother. The plants {where Horus was}were concealed, and no hostile being could find a way into them."

"The word of power of Tem, the father of the gods, who is in heaven, acted as the maker of life, and Set had not entered into this region, and he could not go round about the city of Kheb {Khemmis}: and Horus was safe from the wickedness of his brother. But Isis had not hidden those who ministered unto him many times each day, and these said concerning him, Horus liveth for his mother; they found out where he was, and a scorpion stung him, and Aun-ab {i.e., Slayer of the heart} stabbed him."

"Then "Isis placed her nose in the mouth of Horus to learn if there was any breath in him that was in his coffin, and she opened the wound of the divine heir, and she found poison therein. Then she embraced him hurriedly and leaped about with him like a fish when it is placed over a hot fire, and she said, Horus is stung, O Ra, thy son is stung. Horus, the child of the Papyrus Swamps, the child in Het-ser is stung; the Beautiful Child of Gold is stung, and the Child, the Babe, hath become a thing of nothingness. Horus, the son of Un-nefer, is stung,' etc. Then came Nepthys shedding tears, and she went about the Papyrus Swamps uttering cries of grief, and the goddess Serqet said, 'What is it ? What is it ? What hath happened to the child Horus? O Isis, pray thou to heaven so that the sailors of Ra may cease rowing, so that the Boat of Ra may not depart from the place where the child Horus is.' Then Isis sent forth a cry to heaven, and addressed her prayer to the boat of Millions of Years; and the Disk stood still, and moved not from the place where he was. And Thoth came, and he was provided with magical powers and possessed the great power which made {his} word to become Maat {i.e.,Law}, and he said: O Isis, thou goddess, thou glorious one, who hast knowledge how to use thy mouth, behold, no evil shall come upon the child Horus, for his protection cometh from the Boat of Ra. I have come this day in the Boat of the Disk from the place where it was yesterday. When the night cometh the light shall drive {it }away for the healing of Horus for the sake of his mother Isis, and every person who is under the knife {shall be healed} likewise." In answer to this speech Isis told Thoth that she was afraid he had come too late, but she begged him, nevertheless, to come to the child and bring with him his magical powers which enabled him to give effect to every command which he uttered. Thereupon Thoth besought Isis not to fear, and Nepthhys not to weep, for said he, "I have come from heaven in order to save the child for his mother," and he straightway spoke the words of power which restored Horus to life, and served to protect him afterward in heaven, and in earth, and the Underworld.

The region where all these things took place was situated in Delt, and the Island in the Papyrus Swamps, where Isis brought forth the child and hid him, was near the famous double city of Pe-Tep, which was commonly called Buto by the Greeks. It is impossible to assign a date to the composition of the story briefly narrated above, but it is, no doubt, as old as the legends about the death and resurrection of Osiris, and it must from an integral portion of them, and date from the period when Libyan gods and goddess were worshipped in the Delta and in certain parts of Upper Egypt before the great development of Sun-worship. The chief importance of the story consists in the fact that it makes Isis to be both woman and goddess, just as the story of Osiris makes that deity to be both god an man, and it is quite conceivable that in the predynastic times the sorrow of Isis, like those of Osiris, formed the subject of miracle plays which were acted annually in all entres of the worship of Isis. Isis as the faithful and loving wife, and the tender and devoted mother won the hearts of the Egyptians in all periods of their history, and we can only regret that the narrative of the wanderings an sorrow of the goddess is not known to us in all its details. Her persecution by Set after her husband's death was favorite theme of ancient writers, who delighted in showing how the goddess outwitted her terrible adversary; thus on one occasion she was so hard pressed by him that she changed her body into that of the cow-goddess Heru-Sekha, and her son Horus into an Apis Bull, and went away with him to the Apis temple, in order that she might see his father Osiris, who was therein.

Another great human element in the story of Isis which appealed to the Egyptians was the desire of the goddess to be avenged on the murder of her husband, an it is this which is referred to in the words of Isis, who says, "I rejoined over him with "with exceedingly great joy, for I saw in him one who would make "answer for his father." The manner in which Horus "made answer for his father." The manner in which Horus "made answer for " avenged his father is told in the Sallier Papyrus {translated by Chabas,} where it is said that Horus and Set fought together, standing on their feet, first in the forms of men and next in the forms of two bears.

The goddess Nut was the daughter of Shu and Tefnut, and the wife of Seb, the Earth-god, and the mother of Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys, she was the personifaction of the heavens and the sky, and of the region wherein the clouds formed, and in fact of every portion of the reign in which the sun rose, and travelled from east to west. As a goddess of the late historical period in Egypt Nut seems to have absorbed the attributes of a number of goddesses who possessed attributes somewhat simular to those of herself, and the identies of several old nature goddesses were merged in her. In the Pyramid Texts {e.g., Unas, line 452} Nut appears as the regular female counterpart of Seb, who is described as the "Bull of Nut" i.e., he was either the father, or husband, or son, of the goddess ; her name is sometimes written without, the determinative for sky, e.g., in Pepi I, line 242, where it is said, "Nut hath brought forth her daughter Venus," Properly speaking, Nut, is the personifaction of the Fay-sky, i.e., of the sky which rests upon the two mountains of Bakhau and manu, that is, the Mountain of Sinset, but the Pyramid Texts prove that the Night-sky, and it seems as if this goddess and her male counterpart were entirely different beings from Seb and Nut, and had different names. In the text of Unas {line 557} we find mentioned the two gods Nau and Naut, who are, however, regarded as one god and there mentioned addressed accordingly. Thus it is said, "thy cake is to "thee, Nau and Naut, even as one who uniteth the gods and who "maketh the gods to refresh themselves beneath their shadow." In this passage {teta, line 218} we read of the "star Nekhekh in the Night-sky " on the other hand too much stress must not be laid upon the derterminative, because in the word, which seems to mean the "firmament strewn with the stars," the determinative is that of the Day-sky.

At a very early period, however, the difference between the Day-sky and the Night-sky was forgotten, at least in speaking , and it is chiefly from good funeral texts that we learn that a distinction between them was made in writing. In the Papyrus of Ani are several examples of the name Nut written, or, and the latter form is several times found in the Papyrus of Nu, which dates from the first half of the period of the XVIIIth Dynasty ; whenever one or other of these forms is found in good papyri it is the Night-sky which is referred to in the text. We have already seen in the paragraphs on the god Nu that he had a female counterpart called Nut, who represented the great watery abyss out of which all things came, and who formed the celestial Nile whereon the Sun sailed in his boats ; this watery path was divided into two parts, that whereon the Sun sailed by day, and that over which he passed during the night, The goddess Nut, whom the texts describe as the wife of Seb, is for all practical purpose the same being as Nut, the wife of Nu ; this fact is proved by her titles, which are, "Nut, the mighty one, the great lady, the daughter of Ra" ; Nut the lady of the heaven the mistress of earth gods" "nut, the great lady, who gave birth "to the gods" ; "Nut, who gave birth to the gods, the lady of "heaven, the mistress of the Two Lands." The shrines of the goddess were not very numerous, but there was a Per-Nut, in Memphis, and a Het-Nut, in the Delta, and three portions of the temple territory in Dendera were called respectively Ant-en-Nut, Per-mest-en-Nut, and Per-netch-Nut-ma-Shu, and. The goddess is usually represented in the form of a women who bears upon her hand a vase of water, which has the phonetic value Nu, and which indicates both her name and her nature; she sometimes wears on her head the horns and disk of the goddess Hathor, and holds in her hands a papyrus sceptre and the symbol of "life." She once appears in the form of the amulet of the buckle, from the top of which projects her head, and she is provided with human arms, hands and feet ; sometimes she appears in the form which is usually identified as that of Hathor, that is a women standing in a sycamore tree and pouring out water from a vase, for the souls of the dead who come to her. The sycamore tree of Nut," is mentioned in Chapter lix. of the Book of the Dead, and the vignette we see the goddess standing in it.

On a mummy-case at Turin the goddess appears in the form of a woman standing on the emblem of gold. Above her head is the solar disk with uraei, and she is accompanied by the symbols of Ne-khebet, Uatghet, and Hathor as goddess of the West ; by her feet stands two snake-headed goddess of the sky, each of whom wears the feather on her head. The goddess herself wears the vulture crown with the uraei, and above are the uraei of the South and North and the hawk of Horus wearing the white crown. Below her is the sycamore tree, her emblem, and in it sits the great cat of Ra who is cutting off the head of Apep, the god of darkness and evil. In the form in which she appears in this picture Nut has absorbed the attributes of all the great mother of the gods and the world.

On coffins and in many papri we find her depicated in the form of a woman whose body is bent round in such a way as to form a semi-circle; in this attitude she represents the sky or heaven, and her legs and arms represent the four pillars on which the sky was supposed to rest and mark the position of the cardinal points. She is supposed to have lifted her up from the embrace of Seb, and at last-named god is seen lying on the ground, with one hand raised to heaven and the other touching the earth. On each side of Shu is a hawk ; one represents the rising and the other the setting sun. According to one myth Nut gave birth to her son the Sun-god daily, and passing over her body he arrived at her mouth, into which he disappeared, and passing through her body he was re-born, the following morning. Another myth declared that the sun sailed up the legs and over the back of the goddess in Atet, or Matet Boat until noon, when he entered the Sket boat and continued his journey until sunset. In accompanying picture we see Ra in his boat with Shu and Tefnut {?} sailing up through the watery abyss behind the legs of Nut, in the Atet Boat, and sailing down the arms of the goddess in the Seket Boat into the Tuat or Underworld ; the whole of the body and limbs of the goddess are bespangled with stars. In another remarkable picture we see a second body of a woman, which is bent round in such a way to form a semi-circle. Within that of Nut, and within this second body of a man which is bent round in such a way as to form an almost complete circle. Some explain this scene by saying that the outer body of a woman is the heaven over which Ra travels, and that the inner body is the heaven over which the Moon makes her way at night, while the male body within them is the almost circular valley of the Tuat ; others, however, say that the two women are merely personifications of the Day and nIght skies, and the view is, no doubt, the correct one. The raising up of Nut from the embrace of Seb represented the first act of creation, and the great creative power which brought it about having separated the earth from the waters which were above it, and set the sun between the earth and the sky, was now able to make the gods, and human beings, animals etc. The Egyptians were very fond of representations of this scene, and they had many variants of it, as may be seen from the collection of reproductions given by Lanzone. In some cases of those we find Shu holding up the boat of Ra placed side by side on her back, the god in one boat being Khepera, and the god in the other being Osiris. Shu is sometimes accompanied by Thoth, and sometimes by Khnemu ; in one instance Seb has a serpant's head, and in another the goose, which is his symbol, is seen standing near his feet with its beak open in the act of cackling. The Egyptian artists were not always consistent in some of their details of the scene, for at one time the region wherein is the head of Nut is described as the east, and at another to the west. Finally, the goddess appears holding up in her hands a tablet, on which stands a youthful figure who is probably intended to represent Harpocrates, or one of the many Horus gods ; in this example she is regarded as the Sky-mother who has produced her son, the Sun-god. According to another myth Nut was transformed into a huge cow, the legs of which her body was supported by Shu, as the body of Nut when in the form of a women was borne up by this
god.

From a large number of passages found in this text of all periods we learn, from first to last, Nut was always regarded as a friend and protector of the dead, and the deceased appealed to her for food, help, and protection just as a son appeals to his mother. In the text of Teta {line 175}, it is said to the deceased, "Nut hath set thee as a god to Set in thy name of 'god,' and thy "mother Nut hath spread herself out over thee in her name of "Coverer of the sky," and in line 268 we have, "Nephthys hath united again for thee "thy members in her name of Sesheta, the lady "pf the buildings through which thou hast passed, and thy mother "Nut in her Qersut, hath granted that she "shall embrace thee in her name Qersu, and that she "shall introduce thee in her name of 'Door.'" In the text of Pepi I. {line 256} it is said, "Pepi hath come forth from Pe with "the spirits of Pe, and he is arrayed in the apparel of Horus, and "in the dress of Thoth, and Isis is before him and Nephthys is "behind him ; Ap-uat hath opened unto him a way, and Shu "lifteth him up, and the souls of Annu make him ascend the steps and set him before Nut who stretcheth out her hand to "him." In the Book of the Dead are several allusions to Nut and to the meat and drink which provides for the deceased, and a chapter {lix.} is found which was specially composed to enable him to "snuff the air, and to have dominion over the waters in the "Underworld." The texts reads :------ "Hail, thou sycramore of the "goddess Nut! Grant thou to me of the water and of the air "which dwelleth in thee. I embrace the throne which is in Unnu "{Hermipolis}, and I watch and guard the egg of the Great "Cackler. It groweth, I grow it liveth, I live ; it snuffeth the air, I snuff the air." To make sure that the recital of these words should have the proper result they were accompanied by a vignette, in which the goddess is seen standing in a tree, out of which she reaches to the deceased with one hand a table covered with bread and other articles of food ; with the other she sprinkles water upon him from a libation vase as he kneels at the foot of a tree.

The sycamore of Nut is situated at Heliopolis, and is often mentioned in mythological texts. According to the Book of the Dead {cix.4} there were two turquoise-coloured sycamores at Heliopolis, and the Sun-god passed out between them each morning when he began his journey across the sky, and "strode forward "over the supports of Shu {i.e., the four pillars, which bore "up the sky} towards the gate of the East through which Ra "rose." The sycamore of Nut was probably one of these, however, Apep, the personifaction of darkness and evil, was slain at its foot by the Great Cat Ra, and the branches of this tree became a place of refuge for weary souls during the fiery heats of summer noonday. Here they were refreshed with food whereon the goddess herself lived, and here they participated in the life of the divine beings who were her offspring and associates. Since the mythological tree of Nut stood at Heliopolis and was a sycamore tree under which tradition asserts that Virgin Mary sat and rested during her flight to Egypt, and there seems to be little doubt that many of the details about her wanderings in the Delta, which are recorded in the details about her wanderings of a similar class, are borrowed from the old mythology of Egypt. Associated with the sycamore of Nut were the plants among which the Great Cackler Seb laid the Egg of the Sun, and these may well be identified with the famous balsan trees, from which was expressed the oil which was so highly prized by the Christians of Egypt and Abyssina, and which was used by them in their ceremony of baptism ; these trees were always watered with water drawn from the famous "Ain Shems {a name really meaning the Eye of the Sun"}, i.e.,the well of water which is fed by a spring in the immediate neighborhood, and is commomly called the Fountain of the Sun." We may note in passing another legend, which was popular among the Copts, to effect that the Virgin Mary once hid herself and her Son from the enemies in the trunk of the sycamore at Heliopolis, and that is based upon an ancient Egyptian myth recorded by Plutarch which declared that Isis hid the body of Osiris in a tree trunk.

In the later times of Egyptian history the priests of Dendera asserted that the home of Nut was in the city, and in an inscription on their temple they recorded that it was the birthplace of Isis, and that it contained the birth-chamber, wherein Nut brought forth the goddess in the form of a dark-skinned child, whom she called "Khnemet-ankhet, the lady of love, on the fourth of the five epagomenal days. When Nut saw her child, she explained, "As {i.e., behold}, I have become thy mother," and this was the orign of the name Ast, or Isis. In Thebes Nut was identified with Isis, the god-mother, the lady of Dendera, the dweller in Ant, the goddess Nubt, who was born in Per-Nubt, and gave birth to her brother Osiris in Thebes, and her son Horus {the Elder} in Qesquest and to her sister Nephthys in Het-Seshesh, and in the same city she was regarded as a form of the goddess Apet, or Api, i.e., the hippopotamus goddess Ta-urt, and also of the local city goddess Apet, and also she also became a form of Hathor. The identifaction of Nut with Api the hippopotamus goddess is very ancient, for the text of Unas {line 487 ff.} we read, "Come Shu, come Shu, come Shu, for"Unas is born on the thighs of Isis, and he hath sunk down "on the thighs of Nephthys, having been brought fourth. O "Temu, thou father of Unas, grant that Unas himself may be "set among the number of the gods who are perfect, and "have understanding, and are indestructible ; O Api, mother of Unas, give thou thy breast to this Unas in order that he "may convey it to his mouth, and that he may suck milk there-"from." Another form of Nut was Heqet, a goddess who was, strictly, the female counterpart of Sebek-Ra of Kom Ombo.

As the children of Nut were not all brought forth in one place so they were not all born on the same day ; her five children, i.e., Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys, were born on the five epagomenal days of the year, or as they are called in Egyptian, "the five days of the year. On the first , the birth of Osiris, on the second, was born Heru-ur, on the third was born Set, on the fourth was born Isis, and on the fifth was born Nephthys. The first, third, and fifth of the epagomenal days were unlucky, the second is not described as either lucky or unlucky, but the fourth is said to be a "beautiful festival of heaven and earth," The part which Nut played in the Egyptian Underworld was a very prominent one, and from numerous passages in the Book of the Dead we can see that without her favour life would be imposible for those who have left the world, and have begun their journey throughout the Tuat. The care and protection which Nut exibited towards her son Osiris caused her to be regarded as a tender and pitiful mother, and every pious Egyptian prayed that she might do for him even as she had done for Osiris, and hoped that through her he might shine in heaven like the star Sept{Sothis} when it shines in the sky just before sunrise.

The favor of Nut gave the deceased the power to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra rose from the Egg which was produced by Seb and Nut, and it enabled him to journey with the sun-god each day from sunrise, and to pass through the dreary habitations of the Tuat in safety. So far back as the time of Men-kau-Ra {Mycerinus} the Egyptians delighted to inscribe on the cover of the coffins of their head a portion of the following extract :------ Spreadeth herself thy mother Nut over thee in her name of coverer of heaven, she maketh thee to be as a god without thine enemy in thy name of god, she withdraweth thee from thing every evil in her name of Defender from every evil, great lady and from Ura whom she hath brought forth;" and whenever it was possible they painted on them figures of the goddess, who was represented with her protecting wings stretched out over the deceased, and with the emblems of celestial water and air in her hands. They believed that the dead were safely under the protection of the goddess when a picture of her was painted on the cover of the coffin above them, and they rarely forgot to suggest her presence in one form or the other.

The following passages from the text of Pepi I. {line 100 ff.} illustrate other aspects of the goddess:---- "Hail, Nut, in whose "head appear the two eyes {i.e., Sun and Moon}, thou hast taken possesion of Horus and art his Urt-hekau {i.e., Sky of Heliopolis}, decree thou that this Pepi shall live, and that he may not perish. O Nut, who hast risen as a queen that thou mayest take possession of the gods and their doubles, and their flesh and their divine food, and of everything whatsoever which they have, grant thou that he may be without opposition, and that he may live, and let thy life, O Nut, be the life of Pepi. Thy mother cometh to thee and thou movest not. The Great Protectress cometh to thee and thou movest not, but as soon as she bestowed her protection upon thee thou dost move, for she hath given thee thy head, she hath brought thee thy bones, she hath collected thy flesh, she hath brought to thee thy bines, she hath brought thee thy heart in thy body, thou livest according to thy precepts, thou speakest to those who are before thee, thou protectest thy children from grief, thou purifiest thyself with the purifications of all gods, and they come to thee with their doubles."

TEM, SHU, TEFNUT

1.Tem
Tem was a form of the Sun-god, and was the great local gods of that place. His name is connected with the root tem, or temem, "to be complete," "to make an end of," and he was regarded as the form of the Sun-god which brought the day to an end, i.e., as the evening or night sun . He is always depicted in the human form. The attributes of the god have been already described in the section which treats of the forms of the god Ra.

2. Shu, or 3. Tefnut
Shu and his female counterpart Tefnut may be considered together, at all events in the texts of the later periods. The name Shu appears to be derived from the root shu, "dry, parched, withered, empty," and the like, and the name Tefnut must be connected with tef, or teftet, "to spit, be moist," and the like; thus Shu was a god who was connected with the heat and dryness of sunlight and with the dry atmosphere which exists between the earth and the sky, and Tefnut was a personification of the moisture of the sky, and made herself manifest in various forms. The oldest legend about the origin of the gods is contained in the text of Pepi I., wherein it is said {line 465} that once upon a time Tem went to the city of Annu and that he there produced from his own body by the irregular means of masturbation his two children Shu and Tefnut. In this circle form the myth is probably of Libyan origin, and it suggests that its inventors were in a semi-savage, or perhaps wholly savage, state when it was first promulgated. In later times, as we have already seen the Egyptians appear to have rejected certain of the details of the myth, or to have felt some difficulty in believing that Shu and Tefnut were begotten and conceived and brought forth by Tem, and they therefore assumed that his shadow, khaibit, acted the part of wife to him; another view was that the goddess Iusaaset was his wife.

The old ideas about the origin of the twin gods, however, maintained their position in the minds of the Egyptians, and we find them categorically expressed in some of the hymns addressed to Amen-Ra, who under the New Empire was identified with Tem, just as at an earlier period Ra was identified with the same god. In two hymns quoted by Brugsch we have the following : "O Amen-Ra, the gods have gone forth from thee became Shu, and that which was emitted by thee "became Tefnut; thou didst create the nine gods at the beginning "of all things, and thou wast." The Lion-gods are of course, Shu and Tefnut, who are mentioned in the Book of the Dead in several passages. In the second hymn to Amen-Ra it is said, "SHU AND TEFNUT, "Thou art the One god, who didst form thyself into two gods, "hou art the creator of the Egg, and thou didst produce thy Twin-gods." In connection with the production of Shu and Tefnut. Dr. Brugsch refers to the well-known origin of the gods of Taste and Feeling, Hu, and Sa, who are said to have sprung into being from the drops of blood which fell from the phallus of Ra, and to have taken up their places among the gods who were in the train of Ra, and who were with Temu everyday. {Book of the Dead, xvii 62}.

Shu is represented in the form of a man who wears upon his head one feather, or two, or four, the phonetic value of the sign is shu, and the use of it as the symbol of the god's name seems to indicate some desire on the part of the Egyptians to connect the word shu, or shau, "feather," with shu, "light, empty space, dryness," etc. As the god of the space which exists between the earth and the sky, Shu was represented under the form of a god who held up the sky with two hands, one supporting it at the place of sunrise, and the other at the place of sunset, and several porcelain figures exist in which he is seen kneeling upon one knee, in the act of lifting up with his two hands and the sky with the solar disk in it. when Shu wears no feather he bears upon his head the figure of the hind-quarter of a lion, prh; in mythological scenes we find him both seated and standing, and he usually holds in one hand the scepter, and in the other. In a picture given by Lanzone he grasps in his left hand a scorpion, a serpent, and a hawk-headed scepter. The goddess Tefnut is represented in the form of a women, who wears upon her head the solar disk encircled by a serpent, and holds in her hands the scepter, and; she, however, often appears with the head of a lioness, which is surmounted by a ureah, and she is sometimes depicted in the form of a lioness.

Shu
An examination of the texts shows that Shu was a god of light, or light personified, who made himself manifest in the beams of the sun by day, and in the light of the moon by night, and his home was the disk of the sun. Viewed in this connection it is easy to understand the scene in which the god appears rising up from behind the earth with the solar disk upon his head, and his hands supporting that upon which it rests. In text at Edfu published by Bergmann, the creator of Shu is called Tauith, and to him the king who caused the words to be inscribed is made to say, "Thou hast emmitted {asheh} Shu, and "he hath come forth from thy mouth...He hath become a "god, and he hath brought for thee every good thing; he hath toiled for thee, and and he emitted for thee in his name of Shu, "the royal double. he hath labored for thee in these things, and he beareth up heaven upon his head in his name of Shu, and Tauith giveth the strength of the body of heaven "in his name of Ptah. He beareth up for thee "heaven with the hands in his name of Shu the body of the "sky." It must be noted that the same word asheh is used to express both the idea of "pouring out" and "supporting," and it is difficult to reconcile these totally different meanings unless we remember that it is that which Tem. or Ra-Tem, has poured out which supports the heavens wherein shines the Sun-god. That which Tem, or Ra-Tem, has poured out is the light, and light was declared to be the prop of the sky.
From a number of passages examined by Dr. Brugsch we find that Shu was a personification of the rays which came forth from the eyes of Ra, and that he was the soul of the god Khenmu, the great god of Elephantine and the First Cataract; he also represented the burning, fiery heat of the sun at noon, and the sun in the height of summer.

In another aspect his abode was the region between the earth and the sky, and he was a personification of the wind of the North; Dr. Brugsch went so far as to identify him with the "spiritual Pneuma in a higher sense," and thought that he might be regarded as the vital principle of all living beings. He was certainly, like his father Tem, thought to be the cool wind of the North, and the dead were grateful to him for his breezes. Shu was, in fact, the god of the space which filled with the atmosphere, even as Ra, was the god of the heaven, and Seb the god of the earth, and Osiris the god of the Underworld. From the Book of the Dead {xvii. 16} we learn that Shu and Tefnut were supposed to possess but one soul between them, but that the two halves of it were identified with the soul of Osiris and the soul of Ra, which together formed the great double soul which dwelt in Tattu. The gate of the pillars of Shu" {xvii. 56}, and Shu and Tefnut laid the foundations of the house in which the deceased was supposed to dwell. From the xviiith Chapter of the Book of the Dead we find that the princes of Heliopolis were Tem, Shu, Tefnut, Osiris, and Thoth, and that Ra, Osiris, Shu, and Bebi were the princes of the portion of the Underworld which was known by the name of Anrut-f. We may note in passing that Bebi, or Baba, or Baba or Babai, was the first-born son of Osiris. According to Dr. Brugsch, Baba was personified in the form of some Typhonic mythological animal, and was the god who presided over the phallus; the blood which fell from his nose grew into plants which subsequently changed into cedars. Dr. Pleyte has rightly identified Bebi or Baba with the Bebwv or Bebwva of Plutarch {De Iside, 62} and with the Babus of Hellanicus. Bebon was a name of Typhon, i.e., Set, and that he was represented by an animal is proved by the hieroglyphic form of his name, which is determined by the skin of an animal, In chapter xxiii. the deceased prays that his "mouth may be unclosed by Shu with the iron knife wherein he opened the mouth of the gods." From Chapters xxxiii. and xxxv. we learn that Shu was believed to possess power over the serphants, and he it was who made the deceased to stand up by the Ladder which would take him to heaven {xcviii. 4}. That souls needed a ladder whereby to mount from earth to heaven was a very ancient belief in Egypt. The four pillars which held up the sky at the four cardinal points were called the "pillars of Shu" {cix. 5, cx. 13}, and Shu was breath of the god Ra {cxxx. 4}. The deceased was nourished with the food of Shu, i.e., he lived upon light; and in the Roman period Shu was merged in Ra, the god of light. The part played in Egyptian mythology by Tefnut is not easily defied, and but little is known about her. In the text of Unas {line 453} she is mentioned together with the two Maat goddesses, and with Shu, but curiously enough, she seems to appear as the female counterpart of a god called Tefen. The passage reads, "Tefen and Tefnet have weighed Unas, and the "Maat goddesses have hearkened, and Shu hath borne witness," etc. In the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead she is mentioned a few times in connection with Shu {Chapters xvii., cxxx, etc.} and she is one of the group of gods who form the divine company and the "body and soul of Ra" {cxl.7}, but she performs no service for the deceased beyond providing him with breath. She was originally a goddess of gentle rain and soft wind, but at a comparatively late period of Egyptian history she was identified with Nehemauit at Hermopolis, with Menhit at Latopolis, with Sekhet in Memphis, and with Apsit in Nubia.

Unlike most of the gods of Egypt, Shu and Tefnut do not appear to have had set apart for them any special city or district, but at the same time titles were given to certain cities which presupposed some connection between them and these gods. Thus Dendera was called Hinu-en-Shunefer, and Edfu was the "Seat of Shu, and Memphis bore the name of "Palace of Shu," Similarly, one portion of Dendera was known as the "House of Tefnut," or the "Aat of Tefnut," or. Whether there were statues of Shu and Tefnut in these cities cannot be said, but it is very probable that they were worshipped in the sanctuaries under the forms of lions, and in connection it is worthy of note that Aelian records {De Nat, Animal. xii. 7 that the people of Heliopolis worshipped lions in the temple of Helios.

It has already been mentioned that Shu was the sky-bearer par excellence, and we may note in passing the interesting myth which the Egyptians possessed about him in this capacity, and the explanation which they gave of his occupying this portion. According to the text which found in the tomb of Seti I. in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, in very remote times, when Ra ruled over gods and men and had his throne established in the city of Suten-henen, or Henen-su, mankind began to utter seditious words against him, and the great god determined to destroy them. He summoned Hathor, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, and Nut into his presence, and having told them what men, who had proceeded from his eye, had been saying about him, he asked them for their advice, and promised that he would that he would slay the rebels until he had heard what the first-born god" and the "ancestor gods" had to say on the matter. In answer to this the first-born god Nu, advised him to let his daughter Hathor, "the eye of Ra," go forth and slay men; Ra accepted the advice straightway, and Hathor went forth and slew all mankind, and when she returned Ra was pleased with her. Soon after this he became wearied with the earth, and the goddess Nut having been turned into the cow he mounted upon her back and remained there, but before long the cow began to shake and to tremble because she was very high above the earth, and when she complained to Ra about it he commanded Shu to be a support to her, and to hold her up in the sky. In the picture of the cow which accompanies the text we see her body resting upon the head and the two raised hands and arms of the god. When Shu had taken up his place beneath the cow and was bearing up her body, the heavens above and the earth beneath came into being, and the four cardinal points; and thus it came to pass that the god Seb and his feamle counterpart Nut began their existence.

SEB
Seb was the son of Shu and Tefnut, and was the brother and husband of Nut, and the father of Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys, and some say of one of the Horus gods; according to the late Dr. Brugsch his name should be read Geb or Keb, or Gebb, or Kebb, and in every early times this undoubtedly seems to have been the correct form of the god's name. He is usually represented in the form of a man who bears his head either the white crown, or the crown of the North, to which is added the Atef crown, or a goose, or the peculiar species called seb. This bird was sacred to him because he believed to have made his way through the air in its form. Seb was the god of the earth, and the earth formed his body and was called the "house of Seb," just as the air was called the "house of Shu," and the heaven the "house of Ra," and the Underworld the "house of Osiris," As the god of the surface of the earth from which spring up trees, and plants, and herbs, and grain he played a very prominent part of the earth beneath the surface of the ground he had authority over the tombs wherein the dead were laid. In hymns and other compositions he is often styled the erpat, i.e., the hereditary, tribal chief of the gods, and he plays a very important part in the Book of the Dead. Thus he is one of the company of the gods who watch the weighing of the heart of the deceased in the Judgement Hall of Osiris, and on his brow rested the secret gates which were close by the Balance of Ra, and which were guarded by the god himself {xii. 2}

The soul of Seb was called Sham-ur, {xvii. 116} The righteous who were provided with the necessary words of power were able to make their escape from the earth wherein their bodies were laid, but the wicked were held fast by Seb {xix. 14}; Seket and Anpu were great helpers of the deceased, but it was Seb whom he asked to open wide his two jaws for him, whom he begged to open his eyes, and loose his legs which were bandaged {xxvi. 1}. And of him the deceased said, "My "father is Seb, and my mother is Nut" {xxxi. 5}. Like Shu the god Seb was appealed to by the deceased for the help against serpents {xxxiii. 2}, and he was never tired of boasting that his cakes were "on the earth with the god Seb" {lii. 4}, and that the gods had declared that he was "to live upon the the bread of Seb" {lxviii. 9}. In a burst of joy, Nu, the overseer of the house of the overseer of the seal, is made to say, "The doors of heaven are opened for me, the "doors of earth are opened for me, the bars and bolts of Seb are "opened for me" {lxviii. 2}, and I exchange speech with Seb, the "lord of the earth, and the protector therein. The mine" {lxxx,11,12}

The religious texts show that there was no special city or district set apart for the god Seb, but a portion of the temple estates in Apollinopolis Magna was called the "Aat of Seb," and a name of Dendera was "the home of the children of Seb,". The chief seat of the god appears to have been at Heliopolis, where he and his female counterpart Nut produced the great Egg from which sprang the Sun-god under the from of a phoenix. Because if his connection with this Egg Seb is sometimes called the "Great Cackler," Kenken-ur,. Thus the deceased says. Hail, thou god Tem, "grant unto me the sweet breath which dwelleth in the nostrils. "I embrace that great throne which is in the city of Hermopolis, "and I keep watch over the Egg of the Great Cackler {or, "according to another reading, I am the Egg which is in the Great Cackler, and I watch and guard that mighty thing which "hath come into being wherewith the god Seb hath opened the "earth}, I germininate as it germinateth; I live as it liveth; and "{my} breath is {its} breath" {Book of the Dead, Chapters liv., "lvi., lix.}.

The name of the phoenix in Egyptian is "Bennu," and this bird played a very prominent part in mythology, but the texts do not bear out the extraordinary assertions which have been made about it by classical writers. According to the story which Herodoyus heard at Heliopolis {ii. 73}, the bird visited that place once every five hundred years, on its father's death; when it was five hundred, or fourteen hundred and sixty-one years old, it burnt itself to death. It was supposed to resemble an eagle, and to have red and gold feathers, and to come from Arabia;. Before its death it built a nest to which it gave the power of producing a new phoenix, though some thought that a worm crept out of its body before it died, and that form it the heat of the sun devloped a new phoenix. Others thought that it died after a life of seven thousand and six years, and another view was that the new phoenix rose from the burnt and decomposing remains of his old body, and that he took these to Heliopolis where he burnt them. All these fabulous stories are the result of misunderstandings of the Egyptian myth which declared that the rerewed morning sun rose in the form of a Bennu, and the belief which declared that this bird was the soul of Ra and also the lining symbol of Osiris, and that it came forth from the very heart of the god. The sanctuary of the Bennu was the sanctuary of Ra and Osiris, and that it came forth from the very heart of the god. The sanctuary of the Bennu was the sanctuary of Ra and Osiris, and was called Het Benben, i.e., the "House of the Obelisk," and remembering this is easy to understand the passages in the Book of the Dead, "I go in like the "Hawk , and I come forth like the Bennu, the Morning Star {i.e., "the planet Venus} of Ra " {xii. 2]; "I am the Bennu, which is in "Heliopolis" {Xvii.27}, and the scholion on this passage expressely informs us that the Bennu is Osiris. Elsewhere the deceased says, "I am the Bennu, the soul of Ra, and the guide of the gods "in the Tuat; {xxix.c 1}; let it be so done unto me that I may come forth like Bennu, "the Morning Star" {cxxii.} On a hypocephalus quoated by Prof. Wiedemann, the deceased to transform himself into a Bennu bird if he felt disposed to do so; in it he identifies himself with the god Khepera, and with Horus, the vanquisher of Set, and with Hhensu.

It has already been said that Seb was the god of the earth, and the Heliopolitans declared that he represented the very ground upon which their city stood, meaning that Heliopolis was th birthplace of the company of the gods, and in fact the work of creation began there. In several papyri we find pictures of the first act of creation which took place as soon as the Sun-god, by whatsoever name he may called, appeared in the sky, and sent forth his rays from the heights of heaven upon the earth, and in these Seb always occupies a very prominent position. He is seen lying upon the ground with one hand stretched out upon it, and the other extended towards heaven, which position. seems to be referred to in the text of Pepi I. lines 338,.339, wherein we read,

SEB AND NUT
"Seb throws out his {one} hand to heaven and his {one} hand "towards the earth," By his side stands the god Shu, who supports on his upraised hands the heavens which are depicated in the form of a women, whose body is bespangled with stars; this women is the goddess Nut, who is supposed to have lifted up from the embrace of Seb by Shu when he insinuated himself between their bodies and so formed the earth and the sky. This was the act of Shu which brought into being his heir Seb, and his consort Nut, and it was the heirship of this god which the kings of Egypt boasted they had received when they sat upon their thrones.

Seb was the hereiditary tribal chief of the gods, and his throne represented the sovereignty both of heaven and of earth; as a creative god he was identified with Tem, and so, as Dr. Brugsch pointed out, became the "father of his father." As an elementary god he represented the earth, as Ra did fire, and Shu air, and Osiris water. In some respects the attributes of Nut were assigned to him, for he is sometimes called the lord of the watery abyss, and the dweller in the watery mass of the sky, and the lord of the Underworld. He is also described as one of the porters of heaven's gate, who draws back the bolts, and opens the door in order that the light of Ra may stream upon the world, and when he set himself in motion his movements produced thunder in heaven and quaking upon earth. He was akin in some way to the two Akhru gods, who were represented as a lion with a head at each end of its body; this body was a personifaction of the passage in the earth through which the sun passed during the hours of night from the place where he set in the evening to that where he rose the next morning. The mouths of the lions formed the entrance into and the exit from the passage, and as the head of one lion sympolized the morning and the east, in later days each lion's head was provided with a separate body, and the one was called Sef, i.e., "Yesterday," and the other was called Tuau, i.e., "Today" {Book of the Dead, xvii, lines 14, 15}. though he was god of the earth Seb also acted as a guide to the deceased in heaven, and he provided him with meat and drink; numerous passages in the Book of the Dead refer to the gifts which he bestowed upon Osiris his son, and the deceased prayed fervently that he had bestowed upon him the same protection and help which he had bestowed upon Osiris.

In two passages in the Book of the Dead {Chapter xxxi. 3 of the Saite Recension; and Chapter lxix.7, Theban Recension} we appear to have an allusion to a myth concerning Seb which is otherwise unknown. In the former the deceased says, "I even I, am Osiris, who shut in his father Seb together with his mother "Nut on the day on the day of the great slaughter. My father is Seb and my mother is Nut"; and the latter he says, "I even I, am Osiris, "who shut in his father together with his mother on the day of "making the great slaughter," and the text adds, "now, the father is Seb, and the mother is Nut." The word used for "slaughter" is shat, and there is no doubt whatsoever about its meaning, and according to Dr. Bruhsch we are to understand an act of self-mutilation on the part of Ra, the father of Osiris, simular to that which is referred to in the Book of the Dead, Chapter xvii, line 61. According to this passage the gods Ammiu, sparng from the drops of blood which fell from Ra after the process of mutilation, and Dr. Brugsch compared the action of Osiris in shutting in, his father Seb with the punishment which Kronos inflicted upon his father Uranus because he threw the Cyclopes into Tartarus, and the Ammiu gods had an origin somewhat simular to that of the Erinnyes.

The principal female counterpart of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, in the New Empire was Mut, whose name means "Mother." and in all her attributes we see that see was regarded as the great "world-mother." who conceived and brought forth whatsoever exists. The pictures of the goddess usually represent her in the form of a woman wearing on her head the united crowns of the South and of the North, and holding in her hands the papyrus scepter and the emblem of life. Elsewhere we see her in female form standing upright, with her arms, to which large wings are attached, stretched out full length at right angles to her body. She wears the united crowns, as before stated, but from each shoulder there projects the head of a vulture; one vulture wears the crown of the North, and the other two plumes, though sometimes each vulture head has upon it two plumes, which are probably those of Shu or Amen-Ra. In other pictures the goddess has the head of a women or man, a vulture, and a lioness, and she is provided with a phallus, and a pair of wings, and the claws of a lion or lioness. In the vignette of clxivth Chapter of Book of the Dead she is associated with the two dwarfs, each of whom has two faces, one of a hawk and one of a man, and each of whom has an arm lifted to support the symbol of the god Amsu or Min, and wears upon his head a disk and plumes. In the text which accompanies the vignette, though the three-headed goddess is distinctly called "Mut" in the Rubric, she is addressed as "Sekhet-Bast-Ra, a fact which accounts for the presence of the phallus and the male head on a women's body, and proves that Mut was believed to possess both the male and female attributes of reproduction.

The third member of the great triad of Thebes was Khensu, who described to be the son of Amen-Ra and Mut, and who was worshipped with great honor at Thebes. According to Dr. Brugsch, the name "Khensu" is derived from the root khens, "to travel, to move about, to run," and the like, and Signor Lanzone renders the name by "il fugatore, il persecutore' ; for both groups of meanings there is authority in the texts, but the translations proposed by the former scholar represent the commonest meaning of the word. Khensu was, in fact the "traveler," and as he was a form of Thoth and was identified by the Thebans with the Moon-god the epithet was appropriate. As far back as the time of Unas the motion of Thoth as the Moon-god in the sky was indicated by the Thebans with the Moon-god the epithet was appropriate. As far back as the time of Unas the motion of Thoth as the Moon-god in the sky was indicated by the word khens, for in line 194 we read, "Unas goeth round about heaven like Ra, and travelleth "through heaven like Thoth." In the passage of the text of the of the same king {line 510} which describes how he haunted, and killed, and ate the gods, mention is made of the god "Khensu the slaughter," who cut their throats for "the king, and drew out their intestines for him," and he is described as the "messenger whom he sent out to meet them." Khensu the slaughter and the messenger can, then, be no other than Khensu the Moon-god of later times, and thus we see that, under the early Empire, Khensu occupied a very important position in the mythology of the period as the "messenger" of the great gods, and the "traveler" who journeyed through the sky.

It has already been said above that the god Osiris was probably in predynastic times a river-god, or a water-god, and that in course of time he became identified with Hap, or Hapi, the god of the Nile ; when such an identification took place we have no means of knowing, but that such was undoubtedly the case is apparent from large numbers of passages in texts of all periods. The meaning of the name of the Nile-god has not yet been satisfactorily explained, and the derivation proposed for it by the priests in the late dynastic period in no way helps us ; it is certain that Hep, later Hap, is a very ancient name for the Nile and Nile-god, and it is probably the name which was given to the river by the predynastic inhabitants of Egypt. One of the oldest mentions of Hep is found in the text of Unas {line 187}, where it is said, "Keep watch, O messengers of Qa, keep watch, O ye who have lain down, wake up, O ye who are in Kenset, "O ye aged ones, thou Great Terror, {Setaa "ur}, who comest forth from Hep, thou Ap-uat, who "comest forth from Asert Tree, the mouth of Unas "is pure." It is important to note that Hep is mentioned in connection with Kenset, now Kenset here means the first nome of Egypt, in which were included the First Cataract and its Islands Elephantine,, Sahel, Philae, Senmut, etc., and thus it would seem as if the Nile-god Hep, and Ap-uat, "the opener of the ways," were even in the Vth Dynasty connected with the places in which in later times the Nile was thought to rise. In the lines which Unas is to eat in the Underworld, and to the Sekhet-Aaru, or Elysian Fields, where he is to live, and it is clear that the Nile-god and Ap-uat were exhorted to send forth the waters of the river from Kenset in order that they might produce grain for the needs of the king. IN another passage {Unas, line 431} the destroying power of Hep is referred to, and it is said that the houses of those who would steal away the king's food shall be given to the thieves {?}, and their habitations to Great Hep,. Hep, or Hapi, is always depicted in the form of a man, but his breasts are those of a women, and they are intended to indicate the powers of fertility and of nourishment possessed by the god. As the Egyptians divided their country into two parts, the South and the North, so they divided the river, and thus there came into being the god of the Nile of the South and the god of the Nile of the North. An attempt has been made to show that the Nile of the South was that portion of the river which flowed from the Sudan to Philae, but this is not the case, for the Egyptians believed that the Nile rose in the First Cataract, in the Qerti, or Double Cavern," and the Niel of the South was to a place some little distance north of the modern Asyut. The god of the South Niel has upon his head a cluster of lotus plants, the former is called Hap-Reset, and the latter Hap-Meht,. When the two forms of Hep or Hapi are indicated in as single figure, the god holds in his hands the two plants, papyrus and lotus, or two forms which he has believed to pour out the two Niles. By a pretty device, in which the two Nile-gods are seen tying in a knot the stems of the lotus and papyrus round, the emblem of union of the South and North, and as light modification of the design, was cut upon the sides of the thrones of kings, from very early times, to indicate that the thrones of the of South and North had been united, and that the rule of the sovereigns who sat upon such thrones extended over Upper and Lower Egypt. When once Hapi had been recognized as one of the greatest of the Egyptian gods he became rapidly identified with all the great primeval, creative gods, and finally he was declared to be, not only the maker of the universe, but the creator of everything from which both it all and all things therein sprang. At a very early period he absorbed the attributes of Nu, the primeval watery mass from which Ra, the Sun-god, emerged on the first day of the creation ; and as a natural result he was held the father of all beings and things, which were believed to be the results of his handiwork and his offspring. When we consider the great importance which the Nile possessed for Egypt and her inhabitants it is easy to understand how the Nile-god Hapi held a unique position among the gods of the country, and how he came to be regarded as a being as great as, if not greater than Ra himself. The light and heat of Ra brought life to all men, and animals, and to every living being would perish. There was, moreover, something very mysterious about Hapi, which made him to be regarded as a different nature from Ra, fro whilst the movement of the Sun-god was apparent to all men, and his places of rising and setting were known to all men, the Egyptians, it is true, at one period of their history, believed that the source of the waters of the Nile-god was unknown. The Egyptians, it is true, at one period of their history, believed that the Nile rose out of the ground between two mountains which lay between the Islands of Elephante and the Island of Philae, but they had no exact idea where and how the Inundation took place,and the rise and fall of the river were undoubtedly a genuine mystery to them. The profound reverence and adoration which they paid to the Nile, as found in a papyrus of the XVIIIth or XIXth Dynasty, it reads :---"Homage to thee, O Hapi, thou "appearest in this land, and thou comest in peace to make Egypt "to live. Thou "art the Waterer {or Fructifier} of the fields which Ra hath "created, thou givest life into all animals, thou makest all the "land to drink unceasingly as thou descendest on thy from "heaven. Thou art the friend of bread and of TCHABU, {i.e., the god of corn}, thou lord of fish ' when the Inundation riseth, the water-fowl do not alight upon the fields "that are sown with wheat. Thou art the creator of barley, and "thou makest the temples of endure, for millions of years repose "of thy fingers hath been an abomination to thee. Thou art the "lord of the poor and needy. If thou were overthrown in the "heavens the gods would fall upon their faces, and men would "perish. He causeth the whole earth to be opened by the cattle, }and princes and peasants lie down and rest ......... Thy form is "that of Khensu. When thou shinest upon the earth shouts of "joy ascend, for all people are joyful, and every mighty man "receiveth food, thou art the mighty one of meat and drink, "thou art the creator of all things, the lord divine meat, pleasent and choice......Thou makest the "herb to grow for the cattle, and thou takest heed unto what is "sacrificed unto every god. The choicest incense is that which "fplloweth thee, thou art the lord of the two lands. Thou fillest the "storehouses, thou heapest high with corn the granaries, and "thou takest heed to the affairs of the poor and needy. Thou "makest the herb and green things to grow that the desires "of all may be satisfied, and thou art not reduced thereby. Thou 'makest thy strength to be a shield for man." The following passage is of particular interest, fro it proves that the writer of the hymn felt how hopeless it was to attempt to describe such a mighty and mysterious god of the Nile. "He "cannot be sculptured in stone, he is not seen in the images on "which are set the crowns of the South and North and the "uraei, neither works nor offerings can be made to him. He "cannot be brought forth from his secret abodes, for the place "wherein he is cannot be known. He is not to be found in "inscribed shrines, there is no habitation which is large enough "to contain him, and thou canst not make images of him in thy "heart ....... His name in the Tuat is unknown, the God doth "not make manifest his forms, and idle are images concerning "them." From this passage it is clear that the Egyptians paid peculiar honor to Hapi , and that he was indeed regarded as the "Father of the gods," and the creator of things which exist, and that the epithet of "Vivifier, was especially suitable to him. It must be noted too that in one aspect Hapi was identified with Osiris, i.e., Osiris-Apis, or Serapis, in late dynastic times, when every sanctuary of this double god was called a "Serapeum," Hapi was held to be included among the forms of the god. From a number of passages found chiefly in comparatively late texts we learn that the festival of the annual rise of the Nile was celebrated throughout Egypt with very great solemnity, and statues of the Nile-god were carried about through the towns and villages that men might honor him and pray to him. When the inundation was abundant the religious ceremonies connected with it were carried out on a scale of great magnificence, and all classes kept holiday. The ancient Egyptian festival has its equivalent among the Muhammandans in that which is celebrated by them about June 17, and is called Lelet al-Nukta, i.e., Night of the Drop, because it is believed that night a miraculous drop falls from heaven into the Nile and makes it to rise. It has been said above that Osiris was identified with Hapi, and this being so, Isis was regarded as the female counterpart of Hapi, but there is little doubt that in very early dynastic times other goddesses were assigned to him as wives or sisters. Thus of Hapi of the South the female counterpart was undoubtedly Nekhebet, but then this goddess was only a form of Isis in dynastic times, whatever she may have been in the predynastic period. In the north of Egypt the ancient goddess Uatch-Ura, appears to have been the equivalent of Nekhebet in the South. But Hapi was also identified with Nu, the great primevil water abyss from which all things sprang, and as such his female counterpart was Nut, or one of her many forms. The oldest form of this goddess appears to be Mut, or Mutt, or Mauit, who is mentioned in the text of Unas {line181}. The text generally shows that the deceased king is identified with Hapi the Nile-god, and thus became master of the Nile-goddess of the South and North, for it is said, "O Ra, be thou good to Unas this "day as yesterday. Unas has been united to the goddess Mut, "and he hath breathed the breath of Isis, and he hath been joined "to the goddess Nekhebet, and he hath been the husband of the "Beautiful One,". The mention of Mut, Isis, and Nekhebet in this connection proves that all these three goddesses that even when the text of Unas was written the ancient goddesses Mut and Nekhebet were identified with Isis long before the copies of the Pyramid Texts which were written.
 

Khnemu, the first member of the great triad of Abu, or Elephantine, is the oldest god of Egypt, and we find him mentioned in the text of Unas in such a way as to show that even at the remote period of the reign of that king his cult was very old. The views which the Egyptians held concerning this god changed somewhat in the course of their long history, but the texts show that Khnemu always held an exalted position among the ancient gods of their country, and we know from Gnostic gems and papyri that he was a god of great importance in the eyes of certain semi-Christain sects fro some two or three centuries after the birth of Christ. It is probable that Khnemu was one of the gods of the predynastic Egyptians who lived immediately before the archaic period, for his symbol was the flat-horned ram, and that animal appears to have been introduced into Egypt from the East ; he disappears from the monuments before the period of the XIIth dynasty. In the text of Unas the name of khnemu is found in a section which contains twenty-five short paragraphs, the greater number of which must certainly date from a period far older than the reign of this king, for the forms of the words and the language are very archaic, and few names of the serpents which are addressed in them occur in later texts. Khnemu is represented on the monuments in the form of a ram-headed man who usually holds in his hands the scepter, and the emblem of life of life. He wears the White Crown, to which are sometimes attached plumes, uraei, etc.; in one example quoted by Lanzone he has the head of a hawk, which indicates that he possessed a solar aspect. As a water-god he is seen with outstretched hands over which flows water, and he somtimes seen with a jug, above his horns, which indicates his name. The name of Khnemu is connected with the root khnem, "to join, to unite," and with khnem, "to build"; astronomically the name refers to the "conjuction" of the sun and moon at stared seasons of the year, and we know from the texts of all periods that Khnemu was the "builder" of gods and men. He it was who, according to the statements which were made by the priests at Elephantine, the chief seat of the worship, made the first egg from which sprang the sun, and he made the gods, and fashioned the first man upon a potter's wheel, and he continued to "build up" their bodies and maintain their life. The portion of Egypt in which the worship of Khnemu was supreme from Thebes to Philae, but the principal sanctuaries of the god were at the two ends of the First Cataract, i.e., on Elephantine on the north and on Philae and the adjoining islands on the south. He was the god par excellence of First Cataract, throughout which, with his female counterpart Satet and local Nubian goddess Anqet, he was worshipped from the earliest dynasties ; the goddess Satet was identified as a form of the star Sept, of Elephantine and of Menhet, lady Latopoilis. An examination of the texts makes it clear that khnemu was originally a water or river god of the Nile-flood, and as such he bore the name Qebh, and appeared as the ram-headed god,. In the passages quoted by Signor Lanzone and Dr. Brugsch he is called the "builder of "men and the maker of the gods and the Father who was in the "beginning," maker of "things which are, creator of things which shall be, the source KHENEMU-RA "of things which exist, Father of fathers, and Mother of mothers," "Father of the fathers of the gods and goddesses, lord of created things from "himself, maker of heaven, and earth, and the Tuat, and water, "and mountains;" and "raiser up of heaven upon its four pillars and "supporter of the same in the firmament," Khnemu united within himself the attributes of the four great gods Ra, Shu, Qeb, and Osiris, and in this aspect he is represented in pictures with four rams' heads upon a human body ; according to Dr. Brugsch these symbolize fire, air, earth, and water. When depicted with four heads Khnemu was the type of the great primeval creative force, and was called Sheft-Hat,. The first ram's head was the face of Shu, and symbolized Khnemu of Elephantine ; the second was the head of Shu, and symbolized Khnemu of Latopolis ; the third was the head of Seb, and symbolized Khnemu of Het-urt ; and the forth was the head of Osiris, and symbolized Khnemu was the lord of Hermoplois Magna and of Thmuis, and possessed all the attributes which have been enumerated above, From another text we learn that the four rams also symbolized the life of Ra, the life of Shu, the life of Seb, and the life of Osiris, and the ram of Ra gave him sovereignty over the South and North, and identified him with the Ram of Mendes, Ba-neb-Tettu. The principal shrines of Khnemu-Ra were situated at Sunnu, the modern Syene, on the Island of Abu, the modern Elephantine, and the Island of Senmut, the modern Biggeh, which marked the frontier of Ta-kens, or Nubia. He appears in these as the lord of all the South of Egypt, and is associated with Isis, the great goddess of the South, and in fact is to the South of Egypt exactly what Ptah-Tanen, who was associated with Nepthys, was to the Delta an the North of Egypt. To him was ascribed every attribute of Ra, and thus he is described as the god who existed before anything else was, who made himself, and who was the creative power which made and which sustains all things. When the cult of Khnemu-Ra became general in the south his priests increased the importance of their god by identifying him with Nu, the great primeval god of the watery abyss, and from being the local river-god of the Niel in the First Cataract he became the god Hap-ur, or the Nile of heaven ; in the latter aspect he was said to dwell in the Island of Senmut. The views which were held about Khnemu-Ra as god of the early Niel are best illustrated by the famous inscription which was discovered on a rock on the Island of Sahal in 1890 by the late Mr. Charles Wilbour. According to it, in the xviiith year of king Tcheser, who has been identified with the third king of the IIIrd Dynasty, the whole of the region of the south and the Island of Elephantine, and the district of Nubia were ruled by the high official Mater, The king sent a dispatch to Mater informing him that he was in great grief by reason of the reports which were brought to him into the palace as he sat upon his throne, and because for seven years there had been no satisfactory inundation of the Nile. As the result of this grain of every kind was very scarce, vegetables and garden produce of every kind could not be found, and in fact the people had very little food to eat, and they were in such need that men were robbing their neighbors. Men wished to walk out, but could not do so for want of strength ' children were crying for food, young men collapsed through lack of food, and the spirits of the aged were crushed to the earth, and they laid themselves down on the ground to die. In this terrible trouble king Tcheser remembered the god I-em-hetep, the son of Ptah of the South Wall, who, it would seem, had once delivered Egypt from a similar calamity, but as his help was no longer forthcoming Tcheser asked his governor Mater to tell him where the Nile rose, and what god or goddess was its tutelary deity. In answer to this dispatch Mater made his way immediately to the king, and gave him information on the matters about which he had asked questions. He told him that the Nile flood came forth from the Island of Elephantine whereon stood the first city that ever existed ; out of it rose the Sun when he went forth to bestow life upon man, and therefore it is also called "Doubly Sweet Life,". The spot on the island out of which the river rose was the double cavern {?} Qerti, which was likened to two breasts, from which all good things poured forth ; this double cavern was, in fact, the "couch of the Nile," and from it the Nile-god watched until the season of inundation drew nigh , and then he rushed forth like a vigorous young man, and filled the whole country. At Elephantine he rose to height of twenty-eight cubits, but at Diopolis Parva in the Delta he only rose seven cubits. The guardian of this flood was Khnemu, and it was he who kept the doors that held it in, and who drew back the bolts at the proper time. Mater next went on to describe the temple of Khnemu at Elephante, and told his royal master that the other gods in it were Set {Sothis}, Anuqet, Hapi, Shu, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Horus, Isis,and Nephtys, and after this he enumerated the various products that were found in the neighborhood, and from which offerings ought to be made to Khnemu. When the king heard these words he offered up sacrifices to the god, and in due course went into the temple to make supplication before him ; finally Khnemu appeared before him, and said, Iam Khnemu the Creator. My hands rest upon "thee to protect thy person, and to make sound thy body. I ?"gave thee thine heart ......... I am he who created himself. I am "the primeval watery abyss, and I am Nile who riseth at his will " give health for me to those who toil. I am the guide and "director of all men, the Almighty, the father of the gods, "Shu, the mighty possessor of the earth." Finally the god promised that the Nile should rise every year, as in olden time, and described the good which should come upon the land when he made an end of the famine. When Khnemu ceased to speak king Tcheser remembered that the god had complained that no one took the trouble to repair his shrine, even though stone lay near Elaphante should be set apart for the endowment of the temple of Khnemu, and that certain tax should be levied upon every product of the neighborhood, an devoted to the maintenance of the priesthood of the god ; the original text of the decree was written upon wood, and as this was not lasting, the king ordered that a copy of it should be cut upon stone stele which should be set in a prominent place. It is nowhere said that the god kept his promise to Tcheser, but we may assume that he did. The form of the narrative of the Seven Years' Famine summarized above is not older than the Ptolemic period, but the subject matter belongs to a much older time and very probably represents a tradition which dates from early Empire. We have seen that the spirit, or soul, of Khnemu pervaded all things, and that god whose symbol was a ram was the creator of men and gods, and in connection with this must be noted the fact that , together with Ptah, he built up the edifice of the material universe according to the plans which he had made under the guidance and direction of Thoth. As the architect of the universe he possessed seven forms which are often alluded to in texts ; they are sometimes represented in pictures, and their names are as follows :------- Khnemu Nehep,"Khnemu the Creator." Khnemu Khenti-Taui, "Khnemu, the governor of the two lands."

In the text of Pepi I. Sati is mentioned {line 297} under the form Sethat, possessed a temple at Elephantine. The dweller in Tep, is said to have aided the king, who "has cleansed himself and performed his ceremonies of purification with the vessel of wine, "which hath come from the vine of the god .... Seb stretcheth "of heaven, a god in his beautiful place, a god in his place, and behold Sethat washeth "him with the water which is in her four vases in Abu" {Elephantine}. The mention of Tep shows that there was some connection between the goddess of the city of Per-Uatchet and the goddess of Elephantine long period of the VIth Dynasty. In the preface to the cxxvth Chapter of the Book of the Dead the deceased enumerates the various sacred places which he has visited, and says, "I have been in the waters of the stream, and I "have made offerings of incense. I have guided myself to the "Shentet Tree of the {divine} children, and I have been in Abu "{Elephantine}in the Temple of Satet,. This is the only mention of Sati, or Setet, in the Theban Recension of the book of the Dead, but it is of great importance as showing that the temple of the goddess at Abu was regarded as one of the principal holy places in Egypt. It has already been said that Sati was connected by the Egyptians with the star Spt, wherein dwelt the soul of Isis, and from this point of view Sati was a form of Isis, and become in consequence a female counterpart of Osirsi ; this fact will account for the mention of Sati in the Book of the Dead. The center of the worship of Sati appears to have been the Island of Sahal, which lies about two miles to the south of Elephantine, in the First Cataract.

Anqet, was the third member of the triad of Elephantine, which consisted of Khenmu, Sati, and Anqet, and she seems to have possessed many attributes of her sister-goddess Sati. In pictures Anqet is represented in the form of a women who holds in her hands the scepter, and the emblem of "life," ; she wears on her head a crown of feathers which are arranged in such a way as to suggest a savage origin. She appears to have been originally a goddess of some island in the First Cataract, but in early dynastic times she was associated with Khnemu and Sati, and her worship was common throughout Northern Nubia ; later the center of her worship was at Sahal, and she was regarded as a goddess of that t island,a nd was called "lady of Setet,",Nebt Satet. Her temple there seems to have been named "Amen-heri-ab," but it is clear from the appearance of amen's name in its title that it cannot be older than the XVIIIth Dynasty. At Philae another temple was built in her honor, and it bore the name of "Pa-mer," and it seems that from this island southwards she was identified with Nepthys. In very early times Osiris, Isis, and Nephtys were associated in a triad, and as Osirsi was a form of Khenmu, and Khenmu a form of Osiris,a nd Isis and sti were sister goddesses, it followed as a matter of course that Anqet should be identified with Nephtys. According to Dr. Brugsch, the name "anqet is derived from the root word anq, "to surround, to embrace," and the like and has reference to the goddess as the personification of the waters of the Nile which embrace, and nourish, and fructify the fields. Among the pictures of Anqet reproduced by Signor Lanzone is one in which the goddess is seen seated in a shrine with a table of offerings before her; the shrine is placed in a boat, at each end of which is an aegis of a goddess, who wears on her head a disk and horns, and is probably Isis :the boat floats on a stream from which runs a small arm. The goddess is styled "Anqet, lady of Satet {i.e.,"the Island of Sahal}' lady of heaven, mistress of all gods,". In another picture she is seen suckling a young king whose neck she embraces with her left arm, and in a text which accompanies another representation she is described as the "giver of life, and of all power, and of all "health, and of all joy of heart," we have now to consider two very important forms of Khnemu, that is to say,.