History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 1 — 10 - Vol. 01, Ch. 02: The Gods of Egypt, pt. 2

The same stream also carried a whole crowd of gods, whose existence was revealed at night only to the inhabitants of earth.

At an interval of twelve hours, and in its own bark, the pale disk of the moon--_Yâûhû Aûhû_--followed the disk of the sun along the ramparts of the world.

The moon, also, appeared in many various forms--here, as a man born of Nûît;[*] there, as a cynocephalus or an ibis;[**] elsewhere, it was the left eye of Horus,[***] guarded by the ibis or cynocephalus.

Like Râ, it had its enemies incessantly upon the watch for it: the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the sow.

But it was when at the full, about the 15th of each month, that the lunar eye was in greatest peril.

* He may be seen as a child, or man, bearing the lunar disk upon his head, and pressing the lunar eye to his breast.

Passages from the Pyramid text of Unas indicate the relationship subsisting between Thot, Sibû, and Nûît, making Thot the brother of Isis, Sit, and Nephthys.

In later times he was considered a son of Râ.

** Even as late as the Græco-Roman period, the temple of Thot at Khmûnû contained a sacred ibis, which was the incarnation of the god, and said to be immortal by the local priesthood.

The temple sacristans showed it to Apion the grammarian, who reports the fact, but is very sceptical in the matter.

*** The texts quoted by Chabas and Lepsius to show that the sun is the right eye of Horus also prove that his left eye is the moon.

[Illustration: 123. jpg EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL CONSTELLATIONS OF THE NORTHERN SKY.

4] 4 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the ceiling of the Ramesseum.

On the right, the _female hippopotamus_ bearing the _crocodile_, and leaning on the _Monâît_; in the middle, the _Haunch_, here represented by the whole bull; to the left, _Selkit_ and the _Sparrow-hawk_, with the _Lion_, and the _Giant fighting the Crocodile_.

The sow fell upon it, tore it out of the face of heaven, and cast it, streaming with blood and tears, into the celestial Nile, where it was gradually extinguished, and lost for days; but its twin, the sun, or its guardian, the cyno-cephalus, immediately set forth to find it and to restore it to Horus.

No sooner was it replaced, than it slowly recovered, and renewed its radiance; when it was well--_ûzaît_--the sow again attacked and mutilated it, and the gods rescued and again revived it.

[Illustration: 124. jpg THE LUNAR BARK, SELF-PROPELLED, UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE TWO EYES.

] Each month there was a fortnight of youth and of growing splendour, followed by a fortnight's agony and ever-increasing pallor.

It was born to die, and died to be born again twelve times in the year, and each of these cycles measured a month for the inhabitants of the world.

One invariable accident from time to time disturbed the routine of its existence.

Profiting by some distraction of the guardians, the sow greedily swallowed it, and then its light went out suddenly, instead of fading gradually.

These eclipses, which alarmed mankind at least as much as did those of the sun, were scarcely more than momentary, the gods compelling the monster to cast up the eye before it had been destroyed.

[Illustration: 125. jpg THE HAUNCH, AND THE FEMALE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

1] 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the rectangular zodiac carved upon the ceiling of the great temple of Denderah (Dùmichen, _Resultate_, vol. ii.

pl.

xxxix.

).

Every evening the lunar bark issued out of Hades by the door which Râ had passed through in the morning, and as it rose on the horizon, the star-lamps scattered over the firmament appeared one by one, giving light here and there like the camp-fires of a distant army.

However many of them there might be, there were as many Indestructibles--_Akhîmû Sokû_--or Unchanging Ones--_Akhîmû Ûrdû_--whose charge it was to attend upon them and watch over their maintenance.

[**] ** The _Akhîmû Sokû_ and the _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ have been very variously defined by different Egyptologists who have studied them.

Chabas considered them to be gods or genii of the constellations of the ecliptic, which mark the apparent course of the sun through the sky.

Following the indications given by Dévéria, he also thought them to be the sailors of the solar bark, and perhaps the gods of the twelve hours, divided into two classes: the _Akhîmû Sokû_ being those who are rowing, and the _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ those who are resting.

But texts found and cited by Brugsch show that the _Akhîmû Sokû_ are the planets accompanying Râ in the northern sky, while the _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ are his escort in the south.

The nomenclature of the stars included in these two classes is furnished by monuments of widely different epochs.

The two names should be translated according to the meaning of their component words: _Akhîmû Sokû_, those who know not destruction, the Indestructibles; and _Akhîmû Ûrdû_ ( _Urzii_), those who know not the immobility of death, the _Imperishables_.

They were not scattered at random by the hand which had suspended them, but their distribution had been ordered in accordance with a certain plan, and they were arranged in fixed groups like so many star republics, each being independent of its neighbours.

They represented the outlines of bodies of men and animals dimly traced out upon the depths of night, but shining with greater brilliancy in certain important places.

The seven stars which we liken to a chariot (Charles's Wain) suggested to the Egyptians the haunch of an ox placed on the northern edge of the horizon.

[*] * The forms of the constellations, and the number of stars composing them in the astronomy of different periods, are known from the astronomical scenes of tombs and temples.

The identity of the _Haunch_ with the _Chariot_, or _Great Bear_ of modern astronomy, was discovered by Lepsius and confirmed by Biot.

Mariette pointed out that the Pyramid Arabs applied the name of the _Haunch (er-Rigl)_ to the same group of stars as that thus designated by the ancient Egyptians.

Champollion had noted the position of the _Haunch_ in the northern sky, but had not suggested any identification.

The _Haunch_ appertained to Sît-Typhon.

Two lesser stars connected the haunch--_Maskhaît_--with thirteen others, which recalled the silhouette of a female hippopotamus--_Rirît_--erect upon her hind legs,[*] and jauntily carrying upon her shoulders a monstrous crocodile whose jaws opened threateningly above her head.

Eighteen luminaries of varying size and splendour, forming a group hard by the hippopotamus, indicated the outline of a gigantic lion couchant, with stiffened tail, its head turned to the right, and facing the Haunch.

[***] * The connection of _Birît_, the female hippopotamus, with the Haunch is made quite clear in scenes from Philae and Edfû, representing Isis holding back Typhon by a chain, that he might do no hurt to Sâhii-Osiris.

Jollois and Devilliers thought that the hippopotamus was the _Great Bear_.

Biot contested their conclusions, and while holding that the hippopotamus might at least in part present our constellation of the Dragon, thought that it was probably included in the scene only as an ornament, or as an emblem.

The present tendency is to identify the hippopotamus with the Dragon and with certain stars not included in the constellations surrounding it.

*** The Lion, with its eighteen stars, is represented on the tomb of Seti I. ; on the ceiling of the Ramesseum; and on the sarcophagus of Htari.

[Illustration: 127. jpg OKION, SOTHIS, AND TWO HOKUS-PLANETS STANDING IN THEIR BAKKS.

2] 2 From the astronomic ceiling in the tomb of Seti I. (Lefébure, 4th part, pl.

xxxvi.

).

The Lion is sometimes shown as having a crocodile's tail.

According to Biot the Egyptian Lion has nothing in common with the Greek constellation of that name, nor yet with our own, but was composed of smaller stars, belonging to the Greek constellation of the Cup or to the continuation of the Hydra, so that its head, its body, and its tail would follow the [ ] of the Hydra, between the [ ] and [ ] of that constellation, or the [ ] of the Virgin.

Most of the constellations never left the sky: night after night they were to be found almost in the same places, and always shining with the same even light.

[Illustration: 128. jpg SAHU-ORION.

1] 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small bronze in the Gîzeh Museum, published by Mariette, in the _Album photographique du Musée de Boulaq_, pl.

9. The legs are a modern restoration.

Others borne by a slow movement passed annually beyond the limits of sight for months at a time.

Five at least of our planets were known from all antiquity, and their characteristic colours and appearances carefully noted.

Sometimes each was thought to be a hawk-headed Horus.

Ùapshetatûi, our Jupiter, Kahiri-(Saturn), Sobkû-(Mercury), steered their barks straight ahead like Iâûhû and Râ; but Mars-Doshiri, the red, sailed backwards.

As a star Bonu, the bird (Yenus) had a dual personality; in the evening it was Uati, the lonely star which is the first to rise, often before nightfall; in the morning it became Tiûnûtiri, the god who hails the sun before his rising and proclaims the dawn of day.

Sahû and Sopdît, Orion and Sirius, were the rulers of this mysterious world.

Sahû consisted of fifteen stars, seven large and eight small, so arranged as to represent a runner darting through space, while the fairest of them shone above his head, and marked him out from afar to the admiration of mortals.

[Illustration: 129. jpg ORION AND THE COW SOTHIS SEPARATED BY THE SPARROW-HAWK.

1] 1 Scene from the rectangular zodiac of Denderah, drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken with magnesium light by Dûmichen.

With his right hand he flourished the _crux ansata_, and turning his head towards Sothis as he beckoned her on with his left, seemed as though inviting her to follow him.

The goddess, standing sceptre in hand, and crowned with a diadem of tall feathers surmounted by her most radiant star, answered the call of Sahû with a gesture, and quietly embarked in pursuit as though in no anxiety to overtake him.

Sometimes she is represented as a cow lying down in her bark, with tree stars along her back, and Sirius flaming from between her horns.

[*] * The identity of the cow with Sothis was discovered by Jollois and Devilliers.

It is under this animal form that Sothis is represented in most of the Græco-Roman temples, at Denderah, Edfû, Esneh, Dêr el-Medîneh.

Not content to shine by night only, her bluish rays, suddenly darted forth in full daylight and without any warning, often described upon the sky the mystic lines of the triangle which stood for her name.

It was then that she produced those curious phenomena of the zodiacal light which other legends attributed to Horus himself.

One, and perhaps the most ancient of the innumerable accounts of this god and goddess, represented Sahû as a wild hunter.

A world as vast as ours rested upon the other side of the iron firmament; like ours, it was distributed into seas, and continents divided by rivers and canals, but peopled by races unknown to men.

Sahû traversed it during the day, surrounded by genii who presided over the lamps forming his constellation.

At his appearing "the stars prepared themselves for battle, the heavenly archers rushed forward, the bones of the gods upon the horizon trembled at the sight of him," for it was no common game that he hunted, but the very gods themselves.

One attendant secured the prey with a lasso, as bulls are caught in the pastures, while another examined each capture to decide if it were pure and good for food.

This being determined, others bound the divine victim, cut its throat, disembowelled it, cut up its carcass, cast the joints into a pot, and superintended their cooking.

Sahû did not devour indifferently all that the fortune of the chase might bring him, but classified his game in accordance with his wants.

He ate the great gods at his breakfast in the morning, the lesser gods at his dinner towards noon, and the small ones at his supper; the old were rendered more tender by roasting.

[Illustration: 131. jpg AMON-RÂ, AS MÎNÛ OF COPTOS, AND INVESTED WITH HIS EMBLEMS.

1] 1 Scene on the north wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak;

drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger, taken in 1882. The king, Seti I. , is presenting bouquets of leaves to Amon-Mînû.

Behind the god stands Isis (of Coptos), sceptre and _crux ansata_ in hand.

As each god was assimilated by him, its most precious virtues were transfused into himself; by the wisdom of the old was his wisdom strengthened, the youth of the young repaired the daily waste of his own youth, and all their fires, as they penetrated his being, served to maintain the perpetual splendour of his light.

The nome gods who presided over the destinies of Egyptian cities, and formed a true feudal system of divinities, belonged to one or other of these natural categories.

In vain do they present themselves under the most shifting aspects and the most deceptive attributes; in vain disguise themselves with the utmost care; a closer examination generally discloses the principal features of their original physiognomies.

Osiris of the Delta, Khuûmû of the Cataract, Harshâfitû of Heracleopolis, were each of them, incarnations of the fertilizing and life-sustaining Nile.

Wherever there is some important change in the river, there they are more especially installed and worshipped: Khnûmû at the place of its entering into Egypt, and again at the town of Hâûrît, near the point where a great arm branches off from the Eastern stream to flow towards the Libyan hills and form the Bahr-Yûsuf: Harshâfitû at the gorges of the Fayûm, where the Bahr-Yûsuf leaves the valley; and, finally, Osiris at Mendes and at Busiris, towards the mouth of the middle branch, which was held to be the true Nile by the people of the land.

Isis of Bûto denoted the black vegetable mould of the valley, the distinctive soil of Egypt annually covered and fertilized by the inundation.

[*] * In the case of Isis, as in that of Osiris, we must mark the original character; and note her characteristics as goddess of the Delta before she had become a multiple and contradictory personality through being confounded with other divinities.

But the earth in general, as distinguished from the sky--the earth with its continents, its seas, its alternation of barren deserts and fertile lands--was represented as a man: Phtah at Memphis, Amon at Thebes, Mînû at Coptos and at Panopolis.

Amon seems rather to have symbolized the productive soil, while Mînû reigned over the desert.

But these were fine distinctions, not invariably insisted upon, and his worshippers often invested Amon with the most significant attributes of Mînû.

[Illustration: 133. jpg ANHÛRI.

1] 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze of the Saïte period, in my own possession.

The Sky-gods, like the Earth-gods, were separated into two groups, the one consisting of women: Hâthor of Denderah, or Nît of Sais; the other composed of men identical with Horus, or derived from him: Anhûri-Shû of Sebennytos and Thinis; Harmerati, Horus of the two eyes, at Pharbaethos;

Har-Sapdi, Horus the source of the zodiacal light, in the Wâdy Tumilât;

and finally Harhûdîti at Edfû.

Râ, the solar disk, was enthroned at Heliopolis, and sun-gods were numerous among the nome deities, but they were sun-gods closely connected with gods representing the sky, and resembled Horus quite as much as Râ.

Whether under the name of Horus or of Anhûri, the sky was early identified with its most brilliant luminary, its solar eye, and its divinity was as it were fused into that of the Sun.

Horus the Sun, and Râ, the Sun-Cod of Heliopolis, had so permeated each other that none could say where the one began and the other ended.

One by one all the functions of Râ had been usurped by Horus, and all the designations of Horus had been appropriated by Râ.

The sun was styled Harmakhûîti, the Horus of the two mountains--that is, the Horus who comes forth from the mountain of the east in the morning, and retires at evening into the mountain of the west;[*] or Hartimâ, Horus the Pikeman, that Horus whose lance spears the hippopotamus or the serpent of the celestial river; or Harnûbi, the Golden Horus, the great golden sparrow-hawk with mottled plumage, who puts all other birds to flight; and these titles were indifferently applied to each of the feudal gods who represented the sun.

* From the time of Champollion, Harmakhûîti has been identified with the Harmachis of the Greeks, the great Sphinx.

[Illustration: 134. jpg THE HAWK-HEADED HOKUS.

2] 2 A bronze of the Saïte period, from the Posno collection, and now in the Louvre; drawn by Faucher-Gudin.

The god is represented as upholding a libation vase with both hands, and pouring the life-giving water upon the king, standing, or prostrate, before him.

In performing this ceremony, he was always assisted by another god, generally by Sit, sometimes by Thot or Anubis.

The latter were numerous.

Sometimes, as in the case of Harkhobi, Horus of Khobiû,[*] a geographical qualification was appended to the generic term of Horus, while specific names, almost invariably derived from the parts which they were supposed to play, were borne by others.

The sky-god worshipped at Thinis in Upper Egypt, at Zarît and at Sebennytos in Lower Egypt, was called Anhuri.

When he assumed the attributes of Râ, and took upon himself the solar nature, his name was interpreted as denoting the conqueror of the sky.

He was essentially combative.

Crowned with a group of upright plumes, his spear raised and ever ready to strike the foe, he advanced along the firmament and triumphantly traversed it day by day.

[**] The sun-god who at Medamôfc Taûd and Erment had preceded Amon as ruler of the Theban plain, was also a warrior, and his name of Montû had reference to his method of fighting.

He was depicted as brandishing a curved sword and cutting off the heads of his adversaries.

[***] * _Harkhobi, Harâmkhobiû_ is the Horus of the marshes (_khobiû_) of the Delta, the lesser Horus the son of Isis, who was also made into the son of Osiris.

** The right reading of the name was given as far back as Lepsius.

The part played by the god, and the nature of the link connecting him with Shû, have been explained by Maspero.

The Greeks transcribed his name Onouris, and identified him with Ares.

*** Montû preceded Amon as god of the land between Kûs and Gebelên, and he recovered his old position in the Græco- Roman period after the destruction of Thebes.

Most Egyptologists, and finally Brugsch, made him into a secondary form of Amon, which is contrary to what we know of the history of the province.

Just as Onû of the south (Erment) preceded Thebes as the most important town in that district, so Montû had been its most honoured god.

Heer Wiedemann thinks the name related to that of Amon and derived from it, with the addition of the final _tû_.

Each of the feudal gods naturally cherished pretensions to universal dominion, and proclaimed himself the suzerain, the father of all the gods, as the local prince was the suzerain, the father of all men; but the effective suzerainty of god or prince really ended where that of his peers ruling over the adjacent nomes began.

[Illustration: 136. jpg THE HOEUS OF HIBONÛ, ON THE BACK OF THE GAZELLE.

] The goddesses shared in the exercise of supreme power, and had the same right of inheritance and possession as regards sovereignty that women had in human law.

[*] Isis was entitled lady and mistress at Bûto, as Hâthor was at Denderah, and as Nit at Sais, "the firstborn, when as yet there had been no birth."

They enjoyed in their cities the same honours as the male gods in theirs; as the latter were kings, so were they queens, and all bowed down before them.

The animal gods, whether entirely in the form of beasts, or having human bodies attached to animal heads, shared omnipotence with those in human form.

Horus of Hibonû swooped down upon the back of a gazelle like a hunting hawk, Hâthor of Denderah was a cow, Bastit of Bubastis was a cat or a tigress, while Nekhabit of El Kab was a great bald-headed vulture.

[**] Hermopolis worshipped the ibis and cynocephalus of Thot; Oxyrrhynchus the _mor-myrus_ fish;[***] and Ombos and the Fayûm a crocodile, under the name of Sobkû,[****] sometimes with the epithet of Azaï, the brigand.

[v] * In attempts at reconstituting Egyptian religions, no adequate weight has hitherto been given to the equality of gods and goddesses, a fact to which attention was first called by Maspeeo (_Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie Égyptiennes_, vol. ii.

p. 253, et seq.

).

** Nekhabît, the goddess of the south, is the vulture, so often represented in scenes of war or sacrifice, who hovers over the head of the Pharaohs.

She is also shown as a vulture-headed woman.

*** We have this on the testimony of classic writers, Steabo, book xvii.

p. 812, _De Iside et Csiride_, § vii.

, 1872, Paethey's edition, pp. 9, 30, 128. ^Elianus, Hist, anim.

, book x. § 46. **** Sobhû, Sovkû is the animal's name, and the exact translation of Sovû would be crocodile-god.

Its Greek transcription is [ ].

On account of the assonance of the names he was sometimes confounded with _Sivû, Sibû_ by the Egyptians themselves, and thus obtained the titles of that god.

This was especially the case at the time when Sit having been proscribed, Sovkû the crocodile, who was connected with Sit, shared his evil reputation, and endeavoured to disguise his name or true character as much as possible.

v Azaï is generally considered to be the Osiris of the Fayûm, but he was only transformed into Osiris, and that by the most daring process of assimilation.

His full name defines him as _Osiri Azaï hi halt To-sit (Osiris the Brigand, who is in the Fayûm)_, that is to say, as Sovkû identified with Osiris.

[Illustration: 138. jpg THE CAT-HEADED BAST.

4] 4 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a green enamelled figure in my possession (Saïte period).

We cannot always understand what led the inhabitants of each nome to affect one animal rather than another.

Why, towards Græco-Roman times, should they have worshipped the jackal, or even the dog, at Siût?

[**] How came Sit to be incarnate in a fennec, or in an imaginary quadruped?

[***] Occasionally, however, we can follow the train of thought that determined their choice.

** Uapuaîtû, the _guide of the celestial ways_, who must not be confounded with Anubis of the Cynopolite nome of Upper Egypt, was originally the feudal god of Siût. He guided human souls to the paradise of the Oasis, and the sun upon its southern path by day, and its northern path by night.

*** Champollion, Rosellini, Lepsius, have held that the Typhonian animal was a purely imaginary one, and Wilkinson says that the Egyptians themselves admitted its unreality by representing it along with other fantastic beasts.

This would rather tend to show that they believed in its actual existence (cf.

p. 112 of this History).

Plbyte thinks that it may be a degenerated form of the figure of the ass or oryx.

The habit of certain monkeys in assembling as it were in full court, and chattering noisily a little before sunrise and sunset, would almost justify the as yet uncivilized Egyptians in entrusting cynocephali with the charge of hailing the god morning and evening as he appeared in the east, or passed away in the west.