Creation Records Discovered in Egypt (Studies in The Book of the Dead)

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C.Orro VY. KIENBUSCH ’o6 IN MEMORY oF ALLAN Marquanp “74

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CREATION RECORDS

DISCOVERED IN EGYPT.

[STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.|

BY

GEORGE ST. CLAIR,

Member of the Society of Biblical Archeology, Member of the Anthropological Institute, and Ten Years’ Lecturer for the Palestine Exploration Fund; Author of “ Buri:d Ctties and Bible Countries.”

~-LONDON : DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND.

LONDON: HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN’S LANE.

CONTENTS.

—)—- I.—WoORDS OF THE WISE II].—-PREFACE II].—TABLE OF EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES… CHAPTER

I.—The Calendar aes sae boi Ses II.—Astronomy and the Calendar the Basis of Egyptian ae S 1. A Story in Pidtacch § 2. The Astronomical Facts ee a | I’V.—Early Attempts to Measure Time set se § 1. The Clock of the Stars ee cee § 2. The Midsummer Sun … V.—The Sun as a Fire VI.—Temples and their Orientation

_ VII.—The “ Eyes” of the Sun

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VIII.—Ptah, the Polar God : § 1. Ptah and his Seven Sons § 2.°Sekhet, the Consort of Ptah … IX.—The Seven Hathors X.—Ra, the Sun-god XI.—Shu and Tefnut XII].—Ra’s Reign and Conflicts § 1. Ra’s First Sovereignty… § 2. Ra’s Conflict with Apepi § 2. The New Route through the Gindéeword. § 4. Ra’s Abdication… ao : ae 6 2

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Iv CONTENTS |

CHAPTER PAGE XIITI.—Nu and Neith … She xs Yer = tee. 175 XIV.—The Celestial Nile aha. et te tie C33 |

XV.—Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury… 133 see .. 186 § 1. Thoth the Scribe se as ee .. 186

§ 2. Maat, the wife of Thoth ie. ae ve “201

XVI.—Seb andthe Egg __… aes a bs we 205

| XVII.—The Brood of Sebo. ee QT XVIL—Osiris eee sete teen 289 X1X.—Ra’s Second Sovereignty = bet oe sie 2253 XX.— Pyramids… iis ses wee 123 ae a 258 XXI. —Ptah and the Ark: Ptah- Seine o tees sas see, TZ ~XXII.—The Two Sacred Bulls . toes ge eg .. 289

“XXI1L—Celestial Cities 2.00… cee eee eee 298

’ XXIV.—Isis and Nephthys … seen wee 38 § 1. Isis oe eee ae, ee, eee. es 25S

$2. Nephthys … — sie at 325 XXV.—Anubis … — a oe a we “333

XXVI. —Horus … me ods vee ght. a 73A3 § 1. The two Horuses — ee? wee 343 § 2. The Annual Six Hours… me eeite aes 1340 § 3. Four Children of Horus ou seh sie B54 § 4. Horus and Ra … iss sai sas see) 365

§ 5. Horus and Thoth oe, sa oo hee ws 370

§ 6. The Followers of Horus site eshte … 376

§ 7. Horus and Ptah… … ss — ws 379 “XXVIL .—Typhon or Set … 0… c i .. 382 $1. Struggles with Osiris and Horus kes . 382 § 2. Typhon andthe Crocodile … … … 393. § 3. Typhon arid the Hippopotamus i “tes. “BOG

§ 4. Typhon’s Wife … io oe ae . 396

§ ‘5. Typhon and the Sow … oe as . 397

§ 6. Typhon and the Ass… ene © ts … 400

§ 7. Typhon as Evil Serpent |? tae 2 401

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

AXVIII.—The Gods of Thebes ia : § 1. The God Amen or Amen- Ra. § 2. The Goddess Mut or Maut § 3. Khonsu or Khons-Thoth § 4. Khnumn, the South Pole

XXI1X.—Creation, Fall, Flood, etc. § 1. Creation … Ms § 2. Fall of Angels … § 3. The Evil Serpent § 4. The Destruction of Men § 5. The Deluge

§ 6. Tower of Babel and eeaiion és Tonics:

XXX.—Menes, the First King of Egypt XXXJ.—Dates…

XXXII.—The Future Life a § 1, Egyptian Psychology … § 2. The Book of the Dead … § 3. Topography of the Underworld § 4. Funerals and Symbolic Ritual § 5. Perils of the Soul’s Journey § 6. The Divine Order § 7. The Weighing of the Soul § 8. To be as the God

Index …

b 3

WORDS OF THE WISE. ©

ore

God is hidden, and no man knoweth His form.—Egyptian Text.

¢

For Paganism, therefore, we have still to inquire, whence came that scientific certainty, the parent of such a bewildered heap of allegories, errors and confusions? How was it, what was it?—

CARLYLE’S Heroes: Odtn.

All discussion respecting the gods requires an examination of ancient opinion, and of fables, since the ancients expressed enigma- tically their physical notions concerning the nature of things, and

always intermixed fable with their discoveries.—STRABO, x.

It appears to me that exegesis is in danger of being led away by a misplaced modern repugnance to mythology. It is a loss to truth to ignore the key to many difficult expressions and narratives which the study of mythology presents. It is also an act of irreverence to the past, and a sign of ignorance of human nature.—CANON T. K.

CHEYNE.

PREFACE.

—_——

MR. CASAUBON, in Middlemarch, has become a type and a laughing-stock, because he was writing a Key to all the Mythologies; and certainly a sane man should be very sure before he claims to have solved the riddle of the ages. The author of the present treatise must not be tempted to shout “Eureka!” but had better await the judgment of his readers. Although, however, the opinion is widely entertained that myths are disconnected stories of various origin, such a preconception he thinks must be dismissed after the present investigation.

Fifteen years ago the author began the systematic study of Mythology, and these chapters are the first-fruits. His method has been the inductive one, so successful in science. The results arrived at have come out fairly and naturally ; and they include the following :—

1. The myths of Egypt are all related to one another, and are neither separate fables nor idle fancies. -

2. They reveal an astro-religious system, and tell a true story of astronomical progress, calendar correction, and theological changes, before the time of our written histories.

3. An era not far removed from the traditional date of creation was an important era in this history, but was not the Beginning. The narratives of Creation, Fall of Angels, Fall of Man, Evil Serpent, Flood, Babel, etc., appear in

Vill PREFACE.

Sa eo RT

these Records in their first and true meaning, and it ts seen on what grounds the Egyptians believed in a Future Life. -

The system of teaching existed 6,000 years ago, and the people who elaborated it were not mere savages. They had a good deal of knowledge of astronomy; they dis- covered that the earth is a globe ; and they were acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, though they did not know its cause. The magnificence of their temples bears witness to the seriousness of their piety, and the after history of the world shows how deep were the impressions made so early. Surely we may ask with Carlyle, “Why fancy that those men were children or fools?” and we must consider with him that “Pagan Religion is an Allegory.” But this Wisdom is so ancient that it had passed out of knowledge 2,000 years ago; the language was dead; the clue to the allegory was lost, and Plutarch protests against those who seek to rationalise it. Nothing could be done till the hieroglyphs were deciphered by Champollion, and the Book of the Dead was translated by modern Egyptolo- gists. Many are working at the problem now, though the present volume is almost the first effort at systematic reconstruction. |

The discovery of the key does not mean that all the doors can be unlocked at once by an unpractised hand. The author has had to toil patiently and long, and even now has left much work to be done by others. His task has been dike that of rebuilding an overthrown structure, and showing that what seemed to be only a chance’ medley of stones was the ruin of a majestic temple, The proof is in the manifest design, when the parts are put together again ; and no objection can have much force which leaves

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PREFACE. ix

the multiplied correspondences unexplained. The stones of this structure are not of my own hewing and chiselling ; and to obviate all suspicion of invention I name my sources in all instances. It is only for the reconstruction that I claim credit; but this ts a work which has not hitherto been done, and has hardly been supposed to be possible. If I am right, the study of Mythology will henceforth be no uncertain inquiry, with more or less plausible guesses about fragmentary myths; but will proceed upon sure principles of interpretation.

GEO. ST. CLAIR.

April, 1898.

x*, In this volume the Book of the Dead is otherwise called the Ritual. All references to Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge’s Book of the Dead, relate to his translation of the Amz Papyrus, and all references to By-Paths relate to the series issued by the Religious Tract Society and called By-Paths of Bible Knowledge. |

TABLE OF EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES.

ee

THE argument of this book is concerned with the mythology and religion of the Egyptians, and not with their history. We shall find indeed that their system was elaborated as early as the time of their first king; and we shall only speak of later kings because they adhered to ancient forms. It may, nevertheless, be useful to have before us a table of the dynasties, with their approximate dates. Our dates cannot pretend to be exact, because there is even yet great difference of opinion among scholars. As to the era, for example, when Mena the first king mounted the throne, while Boeckh would fix it at 5702 B.c., Bunsen favours 3623 B.C. The difference is great, and we shall here prefer to adopt, provisionally, the medium date offered by Brugsch, V1Z., 4400 B.C.

The dynasties will then stand—according to the same Egyptologist—as follows :—

Ist dynasty : of Thinis, near Abydos.

Ist king, Mena or Menes, Founder of Memphis ar ws» 4400 Seven more kings.

2nd dynasty: of Thinis i sie oes vie ive we 4133 Five kings. 3rd dynasty: of Memphis ___… “a ns rr .» 3966

Seven kings, the seventh being en ee the ae king whos name appears on contemporaneous monunients.

4th dynasty: of Memphi ve 3733

Five kings, the first being Khufu (cheap), ae built the Great Pyramid.

TABLE OF EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES.

5th dynasty: of Elephantine … tee & Ses re Eight kings, the last being Unas, the aildies of a ayia at Sakkarah.

6th dynasty: of Memphis __… ay be as one

Six kings, the third being Merira Pepi, whose name is found in many places.

7th and 8th dynasties, of Memphis; 9th and roth cael of Heracleopolis ; and 11th, of Thebes ; -

Nineteen reigns, but few records.

12th dynasty: of Thebes

Seven kings, the second being Uenises I., in Gis reign the obelisk was erected which now sands at Heliopolis. The sixth monarch, Amenhemhat III., had observations taken of the height of the Nile waters: the records remain at Semneh.

From 13th dynasty to 17th, the history is wrapped in obscurity. The gap comprises more than §00 years, and within this period the Hyksos kings reigned.

18th dynasty : of Thebes

Nine kings. The first, Aghihes crane ie Hye ia founded a powerful monarchy. The fourth, Thothmes II., was first aided and then succeeded by his sister Hatshepsu. The eighth, Amenhotep IV., changed the worship, assumed the name Khuenaten, and is called the heretic king.

19th dynasty: of Thebes

Five or six kings, the third being Ramee IL, wie is meade as the Oppressor of the Israelites; the foutihy Meneptah IT., in whose reign the Exodus occurred.

2: th dynasty: of Thebes Seven or more kings. e

21st dynasty: of Thebes and Tanis … Four kings.

22nd dynasty : of Bukastis Six kings. 23rd dynasty : of Tanis and Thebes …

Osorkon.

24th dynasty : of Sais and Memphis …

x1

B.C. 3566

3300

3100

2466

1700

1400

1200

1100

966

766

733

XI TABLE OF EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES.

25th dynasty: the Ethiopians… 26th ,, ofSais… …

Six kings, the first being Psametik (Psammeticus) I. First

settlement of the Greeks in Egypt.

27th dynasty: the Persians oe Kings Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, etc.

28th and 29th dynasties : of Mendes… 30th dynasty : of Sebennytus … 3Ist re the Persians

Conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great …

,

B. Cz 7O0O

666

527

399 378 340 332

CREATION RECORDS.

—_——.

CHAPTER I.

THE CALENDAR.

(The Julian Calendar—Signs of the Seasons—The Egyptian Calendar —The Sothic Cycle—Phoenix Periods. )

Our Christian Sabbath, and our festivals of Easter, Christmas, Michaelmas, etc., have either their fixed days in the calendar, or some relation to the course of the heavenly bodies. In addition, they are associated, in our belief, with events of Birth and Resurrection, War in Heaven, and other divine occurrences, which make them holy days. Things were much the same with the ancient Egyptians,’! whose calendar contained many feasts of the gods, and with whom every day brought special advan- tages or perils, and recalled some incident of the divine contests. The key to the Egyptian myths is to be sought in the history of the Egyptian Calendar; and we ‘shall best understand that calendar and its changes by first glancing at our own.

THE JULIAN CALENDAR.—The year consists of 365 days, § hours, 48 minutes, 48 seconds ; and these fractions of a day have been the occasion of a great deal of trouble. Had the length of the year been 365 days exactly—and still more certainly had it been only 364—calendar making would have been easier and the Egyptians would have

1 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, pp. 208-210 (S.P.C.K.). B

2 CREATION RECORDS.

had a simpler theology and fewer myths. Even a year of 365 days, neglecting the odd hours, is still not exactly , divisible by 7, but yields 52 weeks and { day over. The periodical or lunar month (27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes) is neither an exact multiple of the week nor an exact sub- multiple of the year. A lunation or synodical month consists of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and this 1s awkward again. Four weeks of 7 days are too little to cover it, and 4 weeks of 8 days too much; while again, 12 months of 294 days (= 354 days) are less than a year, _and 13 such months are more than a year. There have consequently been difficulties in framing a satisfactory calendar, and most efforts of the kind have been found to require amendment.

The Roman year, at the earliest time at which we have historical account of it, consisted of 355 days. As cor- rected by Numa Pompilius, it was still very imperfect, and ‘required frequent intercalations.’ The arrangement was left to the College of Pontiffs, as being a matter of religious, concern, and that body often abused its power, and varied the length of the year from private motives or to compass political ends.2 It was not until the time of Julius Czesar, who was Pontifex Maximus in the year 46 B.C., that anything like regularity was introduced, and the year was made to consist of 365 days, with an ad- ditional day to be intercalated every fourth year. The year 45 B.C. was the first year of the reformed calendar, and coincided in the main with the year 708 of the City of Rome. In order to start right, on the Ist January (B.C. 45) it was necessary that the previous year should be made to consist of 445 days, thus occasioning inconveni- ences which caused it to be called “the year of confusion.” In this reform Julius Caesar was aided® by the advice of

’ Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antig., art. 6 Calendarium.” 2 Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 236. | 3 Dictionary of Gieek and Roman Antigq., art. ‘* Calendarium.”

THE CALENDAR. 3 the renowned Sosigines, an astronomer of Alexandria. A mistake made by the priests in their endeavours to carry out the intentions of Julius Casar, was remedied by Augustus, and it was in acknowledgement of the services thus rendered by these two emperors that their names were given to two of the months (July and August).

The Julian Calendar was followed generally by the nations acknowledging the Roman sway; but it was still to some extent an imperfect arrangement, and con- tained the seed of future trouble. To count the year as 365 days 6 hours, was to over-estimate its length, and the excess of II minutes 12 seconds would amount to a whole day in about 128 years. Thus it came to pass that, whereas in A.D. 325, when the Council of Nice had fixed the day for Easter, the vernal equinox occurred on the 21st March, it was observed in later centuries to be slipping away from that date. In the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon! knew of the error and assigned its cause ; but although he also proposed a remedy, no steps were taken at that time. In 1580 the discrepancy amounted to 10 days, and the equinox occurred on the 11th March instead of the 21st. Then Pope Gregory XIII invited a number of mathematicians and astronomers to Rome to consider the matter, and their deliberations led to the publication of a Bul amending the calendar? It was amended chiefly in two particulars. In the first place Io days were to be omitted, and the day following the 4th October, 1582, was to be counted the 15th. Secondly, the centesimal years—as A.D. 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, etc.—were not to be leap years unless the number was divisible by 400 as well as by 4. This device was the invention of Aloysius Lilius, a learned Jesuit, and it has the effect of checking the unjustified advance of the

1 Thomson, Ast. of Chemistry. 2 Sir John Herschel, 7reatzse on Astronomy. Cabinet Cyclopedia. Also Library of Useful Knowledge, ‘* Astronomy,” chapter i, § 9.

B 2

4 CREATION RECORDS.

II minutes odd annually. Even thus the solar year and the reformed calendar year are not brought into exact accord, though the difference is inconsiderable, not amounting to more than one day in 3,000 years.

The Gregorian mode of reckoning is called the New Style, and the Julian mode which preceded it, the Old Style. The difference between Old Style and New was Io days in the time of Gregory, and so continued until 28th February, 1700. After that date it became 11 days, because the countries which adhered to the Old Style now inserted a 29th day of February, whereas by the New Style, 1700 was to be treated as a common year. In 18co the difference became 12 days, and in 1900 will amount to 13.1 England made the change from Old Style to New Style in the year 1752. It was enacted by Parliament that the day following the 2nd September should be regarded as the 14th, and that the year should begin on Ist January (instead of 25th March, as had been practised by the ccclesiastics). Of course also it was decreed that the years 1800, 1900, 2100, &c., should not be leap years. The movement in most of these reforms has come from the ecclesiastics, and the motive has been to ensure the observance of Easter and other festivals at the proper time.

PREJUDICE AGAINST THE CHANGE.—Common sense may seem to say that the New Style ought to be every- where adopted ; but it is no light thing for a Government to change dates and blot out days in opposition to an ignorant population. One can imagine, indeed, that real inconveniences as well as sentimental grievances would attend the change. If Io or 12 days are dropped out, the next quarter day comes sooner than it is wanted, the days of the present week are dislocated, and the dates of many birthdays are suppressed altogether for that year. Dated bills are sooner due, many sons come of age sooner,

1 References in Lewis, p. 240, note.

THE CALENDAR. 5

and above all, confusion ensues because many folks cling obstinately to the Old Style. The two Styles exist side by side and are in conflict. When the New Style’ was enacted in England in 1752, the populace were inflamed against the statesman who carried the bill through Parlia- ment. They believed that they had been defrauded of 11 days, and seemed to think their lives were shortened by that amount.2. In Hogarth’s prints of the “ Election,” one of the electors has a paper with the inscription, “Give us back our eleven days !”

“Near Malwood Castle? in Hampshire, there was an old tree which was believed to bud every Christmas, in honour of Him who was born on that day. The people of the neighbourhood said they would look to this venerable piece of timber as a test of the propriety of the change of style, They would go to it on the new Christmas Day, and see if it budded: if it did not, there could be no doubt that the New Style was a monstrous mistake, Accordingly on Christmas Day, New Style, there was a great flocking to this old oak to see how the question was to be determined. On its being found that no budding took place, the opponents of the New Style triumphantly proclaimed that their view was approved by Divine wisdom—a point on which, it is said, they became still clearer when, on the 5th January, being Old Christmas Day, the oak was represented as having given forth a few shoots. These people were unaware that, even if there were historical grounds for believing that Jesus was born on the 25th December, we had been carried away from the observance of the true day during the three centuries which elapsed between the event itself and the Council of Nice.”

When the Julian Calendar was reformed, and 10 days

1 The Act 24 Geo. II, cap. 29. 2 Print in the Scane Muscum. 3 Chambers’ Book of Days, i, 105,

6 CREATION RECORDS.

were dropped out of the year (in some continental countries) in 1582, Pope Gregory and his priests had been able to disarm prejudice to some extent. Miracles which took place periodically on certain days of the year, as for example the liquefaction of the blood of St. Gennaro at Naples on the 19th September, observed the New Style in the most orthodox manner, and the common people hence concluded that it was all right.

But when one Church or one sect adopts a reform and another repudiates it, there is sometimes a danger of unpleasant collision. The author of the Survey of the South of Ireland, after telling us that on Midsummer Eve every eminence in the neighbourhood of habitations blazes with bonfires, round which torches are carried, and shouting and dancing goes on, proceeds to say :— “T have, however,’ heard it lamented that the alteration of the style had spoiled these exhibitions, for the Roman Catholics light their fires by the New Style, as the cor- rection originated from a Pope, and for that very same reason the Protestants adhere to the Old.” |

This short account of the Julian Calendar, the Gregorian reform, and the results of reform, may prepare us to find that in ancient times, and among the Egyptian people, several corrections were made in the length of the year, and several changes in the method of measuring time. Nor shall we be surprised to discover that the reforms were demanded and carried through by ecclesiastics and astronomers, the priests being concerned for the due obser- vance of the festivals of the gods. The difficulty was with the ignorant multitude, and with persons whose fondness for time-honoured customs was stronger than their reve- rence for the reforming priests and rulers.

SIGNS OF THE SEASONS.—In the earliest times? the division of the year into its various seasons appears to

1 Brand, Popular Antigs., p. 168. 2 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antigs., art. “Calendarium.”

THE CALENDAR. ‘i have been very simple and rude, and it would seem that there was no other division except that of summer and. winter. To these strongly marked periods there were afterwards added the periods of transition, viz., spring and autumn, with certain sub-divisions according to the different agricultural pursuits peculiar to each of them. As, however, the seasons were of great importance in regard to agriculture, it became necessary to fix their beginning and end by connecting them with the rising and setting of certain stars. Thus Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 381) describes the tim2 of the rising of the Pleiades as the time for harvesting, and that of their setting as the time for ploughing; the time at which Arcturus rose in the morning twilight as the proper season for the vintage, and other phenomena in Nature, such as the arrival of birds of passage, the blossoming of certain plants, and the like, indicated the proper seasons for other agricultural oc- cupations.

There are Far-reaching concords of astronomy Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds.'

Our English forefathers looked upon the cuckoo as the harbinger of spring, and to be more definite, it is the popular belief in some parts of the country that the cuckoo always makes its first appearance on the 21st of April? Moreover it is helpful to our general purpose to remark that this periodical visitant was looked upon as possessing some share of supernatural knowledge, and a certain power of prediction; it was thought to be the incarnation of a god, and it was a crime to kill it. The cuckoo is not the only time-teller. According to Professor Newton, the punctuality of sea birds* in their migrations is such that they can be trusted as the almanac itself. Foul

1 R. W. Emerson. 2 Chambers’ Book of Days. April 20. 3 Rev. Canon Tristram, Brit. Assoc. Address, 1893.

8 CREATION RECORDS.

weather or fair, heat or cold, the puffins (Frater fratercula arctica) repair to some of their stations punctually on a given day, as if their movements were regulated by clockwork. In like manner, whether the summer be cold or hot, the swifts leave their summer home in England about the first week in August, only occasional stragglers ever being seen after that date. The swallow was always a harbinger of spring ;} and the subject is represented on Greek vases, where a youth exclaims, “Behold the swallow !” and another answers, “ Then it is now spring.” Homer defines three seasons, which are more or less connected with the movements of birds? :

1. Spring (éap) at whose return the nightingale trills her notes among the greenwood brakes. (Od. xix, 519.)

2. Winter (yeiuwv, yeta), at whose approach, accom- panied by deluges of rain, the cranes fly screaming away to the streams of ocean (//zad, III, 4. Comp. Hesiod, Erg. 448, and Aristoph. Av. 710).

3. Summer (@épos) to which yetua is directly opposed.

In Upper Egypt as well as in Europe the swallow heralded the spring; and the annual return of certain other birds was noted, as well as the seasonal blooming of certain flowers. The Egyptians were also favoured with the annual occurrence of a phenomenon which was still more regular and exact. During the whole course of historic time the Nile® has been found to rise and fall with absolute constancy in each year—the initial rise of the waters, some little way above Memphis, taking place very nearly at the summer solstice. The inundation was a boon to Egypt, and the day of its arrival—June 20th—was adopted as the beginning of the year. At a certain period of history the overflow of the Nile (and the beginning of the year) was heralded by the rising of the star Sirius or

1G. W., in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Book II. 22 note. 2 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antigs. ‘* Astronomia.” 3 Norman Lockyer, in ature, May 2st, 1891.

THE CALENDAR 9 Sothis, in the morning twilight, just before the sun. This is the chief star in the constellation of Canzs Major, it is called the: Dog-star, and is the brightest of all the fixed stars. The Egyptians noted its appearance with joy, and they imagined that they could augur from its colour and brilliancy the height of the approaching flood, and could thus foretell a good harvest or the reverse. THE EGYPTIAN CALENDAR.—From early times, in Egypt, the year consisted of thrce seasons of four months each, and the order was as follows?! :—

-Inundation. Thoth seg see End of June (Gregorian). Paophi sis » July . Athyr su: sas , August _,, Khoiak ‘ September ,, Seed-time. Tybi » October _,, Menchir a November ,, Phamenoth is December ,, Pharmouthi e January _,, Harvest. Pachons 2 February _,, Payni us » March : , £Epiphi ss April es Mesori 5 May "

The 12 months were of 30 days each, making 360 days in the year ; and this arrangement may possibly have been arrived at in the way suggested by Mr. Griffith? The lunar month, from new moon to new moon (or however else it may have been reckoned), is strictly 294 days: the convenient round number of 30 days lay close to it, and was of course taken as a standard month. The solar year is more difficult to observe than the lunar month, the

1 Records of the Pust. Vol. ii, p. 161. 2 Mr. F. L. Griffith, in Proc. Soc. Bib. Archa@ol., March 1, 1892, p. 261.

10 CREATION RECORDS.

intervals being longer, so that 360 days (or 12 of the months) was a very convenient and reasonable approxima- tion to it. It is remarkable, however, if my reading of the myths be right, that the year of 360 days was soon found to be very inconvenient indeed, and had even been preceded by a more accurate measure. However, the year of 360 days did come into use; and a curious custom observed at Acanthz,! near Memphis, seems to allude to it. A perforated vessel was filled with water by 360 priests on each day of the year.

In the island of Philz, again,” 360 pitchers were placed round the tomb of Osiris, for making funeral libations, and were filled every day by the priests with milk.

With 360 days in the year, the ecliptic circle of the heavens, as represented in the charts, would be divided into 360 equal parts, and we must regard it as a relic of this time that the circle is still made to consist of 360 degrees.* All nations, says Newton,‘ in making calendars for their festivals, reckoned 30 days to a lunar month, and 12 lunar months to a year, taking the nearest round numbers; whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 esrees

Another relic’ of the year of 360 days exists in the contract inscription of Asydt, of the XIIth dynasty, where it is stated that the technical meaning of “a day of the temple” was the 360th part of its annual revenue in food.

But so erroneous an estimate of the length of the year would soon be corrected by experience. In about 72 years a cycle would be accomplished in which the New Year’s Day swept through all the months. The same month, so

f Liiod., i, 9.

and Griffith’s Vana . Asytt, Tomb J, ii, ee 8 Lockyer, Nature, March, 1892, p. 489

ES ye a

THE CALENDAR. II

far as its name was concerned, would now be in the inun- dation time, now in the season of sowing, and anon in the time of harvest; and the agriculturist must have been perplexed. A text in the Papyrus Anastasi, iv (p. 1ob. I-5) appears to refer to such perplexity and may receive its explanation here. Goodwin translated it!: “May Amen deliver me from the cold season, when the sun does not shine, the winter comes instead of the summer, the month is stormy, the hours shortened.” M. Chabas’s translation of the last phrases was, “les mois deviennent retrogrades, les heures confuses ou difficiles.” It was a perplexing text, but Professor Maspero has shown that it relates to the rotation of the seasons, through the disaccord between the calendar and the natural: order. Similar confusion would overtake the religious festivals—the New Year feast, for example, coming 5 days before its proper time, and. then ten days, and so on—and it might be thought that its observance at the wrong season would displease the gods.

The year of 360 days had naturally to give way, and it ultimately did so in favour of one of 365 days.? The precise date of the change is not known, but the longer year is referred to in inscriptions of the time of Amen- emha I (czryca 2400 B.C.) and may of course have been introduced much earlier.2 When this was done, the original months were not altered,* but a “ little month” of 5 days was interpolated at the end of the year, between Mesori of one year, and Thoth of the next.

From the Middle Kingdom onwards the inscriptions inform us of a year of 365- days, which consisted of 12 months of 30 days each (making 360) supplemented by 5 days at the end.© The 5 were called “the five days added to the year,” and the last day of the 12 months

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Archeol,, xiii, 6, 307.

2 Lewis, Astron. of the Ancients, 32, 266, 2809.

3 Lockyer, ature, March, 1892, p. 489.

4 Biblical Educator, i, 245.

5 F, L. Griffith, F.S.A., in Zrans. Soc. Lib. Arch., March, 1892, p. 260.

12 CREATION RECORDS.

—the 360th day—was still called “the end of the year.” A “long year and a short year” are mentioned amongst festivals in the XIIth dynasty inscriptions of Chnemhotep II, at Beni-Hassan.

Herodotus, who was born 484 B.C., and visited Egypt after 460 B.C., found the 5 days still regarded as supple- mentary, and not fused with the 360.1. The priests told him that the Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and apportion its 12 parts, and that they obtained this knowledge from the stars.

A recognition of the year of 365 days,? and a disposition

to set it before the people in symbol, is implied in the |

declaration of the priests of Thebes that the tomb of Osymandyas had once been decorated with a circle of gold, 365 cubits in circumference, and one cubit in thick- ness, on which each day of the year was represented. They stated it to have been removed by Cambyses when he invaded Egypt.* This use of the cubit to represent a day will come before us again.

When the year of 365 days was eaapished. it was probably imagined that finality was reached. But it would not be long before the odd six hours forced them- selves into recognition.

With their perfectly oriented temples,’ the Egyptians must soon have found that their festival at the summer solstice—which festival is known all over the world—did not fall precisely on the same day of the new year, because if 365 days had exactly measured the year, that flash of bright sunlight would have fallen into the sanctuary just as it did 365 days before. But what they must have found was that after an interval of 4 years it did not fall on the first day of the month, but on the day following it.

In like manner and from the same cause, the heliacal

1 Herod., ii, 4, Sir G. C. Lewis, pp. 266, 279. 2 Sir G. C. Lewis, p. 267.

3 Diod., i, 49.

• Lockyer, Nature, May, 1891, p. 60.

THE CALENDAR. 13

rising of the Dog-star, which had heralded the rising of the Nile on the first day of Thoth, would, after four years, announcc it on the second day of the month, and after eight years on the third day. Unless intercalary days were inserted, the star would go through all the months of the calendar, and return to the first day of Thoth after 1,460 years (365 x 4 = 1460; 1460 years of 3654 days = 1461 years of 365 days).

The year of 365 days was called the vague year, or the wandering year; and though the priests knew it to be inexact, they would not allow ‘it to be altered by any system of leap years. At least there was a time in their history when this was the case. They required each Egyptian king,’ on his accession to the throne, to bind himself by an oath, before the priest of Isis in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, not to intercalate either days or months, but to retain the year of 365 days as established by the Ancients (Mommsen, Chronologze, p. 258).

Possibly their desire was simply to avoid confusion in the keeping of the feasts. Anxiety of this kind is mani- fested in the Decree of Canopus, on the Stone of San,? where an annual festival is ordained in honour of Ptolemy Euergetes I. and his queen, Berenice, and provision is made for an intercalary day to be added every fourth year, so as to keep the festival to the day of the rising of Sothis. But Mr. Lockyer thinks the priests generally were actuated by a love of power. They alone could tell on what particular day of what particular month the Nile would rise in each year, because they alone knew in what part of the cycle of 1,460 years they were ; and in order to get that knowledge they had simply to continue going every year into their Holy of Holies one day in the year, and watch the little patch of bright sunlight coming into the sanctuary.* That

1 Lockyer, Mature, March, 1892, p. 489. 2 Records of the Past, viii, 87. 3 Nature, May, 1891, p. 60.

14 CREATION RECORDS.

would tell them exactly the relation of the true summer solstice to their year, which was supposed to begin at the solstice ; and the exact date of the inundation of the Nile could be found by those who could determine observation- ally the solstice, but by no others.

It would appear, however, that the period of six hours was in some way recognised, and the existence of the hours set forth symbolically ; for Mr. Hilton Price describes in his collection “an emblem of Mahen,’ goddess of the hours, wearing the disk and cow-horns ; and upon the breast are six compartments, which have been filled up with glass and stone.”

THE SOTHIC CYCLE.—Sunrise was hailed with joy by the Egyptians, and celebrated with sacrifice—especially the sunrise of the midsummer morning which synchronised with the rising of the Nile. To make preparations for the sacrifice, it was useful to have intimation of the sun’s approach ; and this warning was given by the star Sirius or Sothis, which rose heliacally—ze. rose” visibly in the dawn before the sun. But Sothis (and the solstice) owing to the year being “vague,” wandered over all the days of the calendar, and found its right place again at the end of 1,460 years. So this period was called the “ Sothic Cycle,” and because Sirius was the Dog-star, in Canzs Mayor, the “Canicular Cycle.” Although the Canicular period? is not mentioned by Herodotus, or Aristotle, or Aratus, or indeed by any writer anterior to the Christian era, there is little doubt that the cycle was in actual use among the Egyptians from an early period. Geminus the Rhodian® (cevca 77 B.C.) has the remark that the festival of Isis [goddess identified with Sirius] traverses the whole round of the seasons in 1,460 years.

The cycle was called by some the year of God, and

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, p. 59. 2 Sir G. C. Lewis, Astron. of the Ancients, 284. 3 Biblical Educator, i, 285.- (This writer rests chiefly on Ideler and

Gumpach.)

THE CALENDAR. 15

-Solinus testifies that the day of its commencement was regarded by the Egyptians as the birthday of the world.’ That means, of course, that tradition identified creation with the commencement of some preceding cycle; and presumably with the inauguration of the year of 365 days. Syncellus cites a passage of an ancient chronicle in which mention is made of a great cosmical period of 36,525 years, a number which is made up by. multiplying 1461 by 25.? The idea of a great cosmical year, at the close of which the heavenly bodies return to their original stations, occurs in Plato, and is repeated by many subsequent authors.

It becomes a question of great interest when the Sothic Cycle was first established, because that “ Birthday of the World” is associated with some of the chief Egyptian myths. Unfortunately Egyptian history does not furnish us with dates, and there is no certain chronology earlier than the XVIITIth dynasty.

One of the most valuable pieces of evidence is that of the calendar on the verso of the Ebers Medical Papyrus.’ This records a propitious coincidence between the Sothic year and the Solar year, which can be easily identified with the help of astronomy as having taken place in the years B.C. 90-87, 1550-1547, and 3010-3007. [If we mount one cycle higher we have the date 4471-4467.] According to the papyrus the coincidence happened in the ninth year of Amenhotep I., the second king of the XVIIIth dynasty.

Lockyer says it follows from the labours of Biot, and in more recent years of Oppolzer,* that the rising of Sirius at the solstice was carefully watched by the Egyptians at Thebes, certainly as early as 3285 B.c. (the date calculated for the inscriptions in the Ramesscum), and that there is much evidence to show that some other star was used at

1 Biblical Educator, ii, 248.

2 Boeckh, Afanetho, p. 52-7; apud Sir G. C. Lewis, 282-3.

. 3 Arch. Report Egypt Explor. Fund, 1892-3, p. 18 4 Nineteenth Century, July, 1892, pp. 33, 40. ature, March, 1892, p. 489.

16 CREATION RECORDS. an earlier period. It was one of the chief duties of the priests to watch for the stars rising heliacally.

The termination of a canicular period! is mentioned by Censorinus as occurring in 139 A.D., when the first day of the Egyptian month, Thoth, coincided with the 2oth of July. The statements of Censorinus’ have been submitted to the astronomical test, and are thus stamped with the seal of truth and accuracy, for Idcler finds, by careful mathematical investigation, that the rising of the Dog-star took place about 7.0 a.m. in the year 139 A.D., under the parallel of 30°, which passes near Heliopolis and Memphis, chief seats of the Egyptian priesthood. Again, we can calculate backwards. If the first day of Thoth in A.D. 139 fell on the 20th July, it must have done so also 1,460 years previously, z.2., in B.C. 1322. For this year also Ideler has calculated the date of the heliacal rising of Sirius ; and he has even gone a period further back—to the year B.c. 2782 —and has again obtained the 2oth July as the day of the heliacal rising of the Dog-star. If we may venture to assume the coincidence for one cycle earlier still, we shall be carried to the date 4242 B.c., which coincides exactly with the Samaritan date of the Creation. We have seen that Solinus spoke of the Sothic era as the birthday of the world. Porphyry also cites the tradition of the Creation, beginning with the Sothic period. Many annals and dynasties likewise began with it, both pre-historic lines, with ruling gods and demi-gods, and others supposed to be authentic. The Sothic date 1322 B.c.,3 has been said to coincide with the first year of Meneptah,* the supposed Pharaoh of the Exodus, and is known as the era of Meneptah. Victor Rydberg reminds us that Lepsius, Bunsen and Lieblein all agree’ that the Exodus of the Israelites was in “the year of God,” or close to it.

1 Sir G. C. Lewis, p. 281. 4 + Bunsen, Egypt, ii, 580. 2 Bib. Educator, i, 264. 4 Rawlinson’s Herodotus, vol. i, p. 4 5 Comp. V. Rudling in Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., v, 1,743; and Lockyer,

Nature, June, 1892.

THE CALENDAR. 17

THE PHCENIX PERIOD.—Some writers identified the great cosmical year with the life of the phcenix. Solinus, Pliny and Horapollo,! speak of it as a well-known fact that the great year terminates at the same time as the life of the phoenix.

The story of the phoenix is found in Herodotus, Book II., where the father of history, after mentioning the fox- goose as sacred to the Nile, goes on to say:? “ They have also another bird, called the phoenix, which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed, it is a great rarity even in Egypt, only coming there, according to the ac- counts of the people of Heliopolis, once in 500 years, when the old phcenix dies. Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follows :3 the plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible : that he comes all the way from Arabia and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body, etc.”

Herodotus does not begin at the beginning, nor give a complete story. We are told by Horapollo that when a pheenix is about to die he casts himself vehemently upon the ground and is wounded by the blow, and from the ‘ichor of the wound another phcenix is born. The young bird carries its father to the city of the Sun in Egyprt, where it dies at the rising of the sun, and the priests bury it. According to another account,‘ when a phoenix has lived 500 years, it makes a nest of spices, burns itself to ashes, and comes forth with renewed life for another 500 years. Myths being stories told in allegory, the facts or truths may admit of being represented in various ways,

1 Gerald Massey, Natural Genesis, ii., 340.

2 Herod., ii., 73.

3 Comp. Pliny, in Bonwick, £gyptian Belief and Mocern Thought, p. 236°

• Biblical Educator, ii., 166.

Cc

18 CREATION RECORDS.

and the seemingly inconsistent descriptions are not necessarily contradictory. |

_ The resurrection of the phcevix came to be so generally believed in that Clement of Rome!—a disciple of St. Peter’s—uses it as an illustration and evidence of the power of God to raise up the saints. The true phcenix, however, was an astronomical cycle, of which, of course, there never could be more than one at a time, nor any break in the succession.

There was, no doubt, in the first instance a bird,? whose migratory habit and punctual return made it a herald and symbol of the returning year. The birds which came to be used as symbols were the Bennu and the Shenshen: Sir le Page Renouf?® translates the latter name by “ Hern- shaw,” and tells us that both birds are herons, and fly to a great height in spiral whirls. The next stage may have been to give the same name to some star or constellation that served the same purpose. Lundy‘ tells us that there was an Egyptian constellation called the phoenix, and that it included the Dog-star. The Dog-star of course comes round annually ; but when through the defective length of the year the Sothic Cycle was established, the same star would have a period of 1,460 years as judged by the calendar; and the phcenix might be said to live that length of time. Pliny plainly makes the phoenix period an astronomical cycle.

It was asserted from time to time that the phoenix bird had appeared again. It had been seen in Rome a year or two before the death of Tiberius Cesar. In the year 800 of the building of Rome the Emperor Claudius’ had the phoenix caught and exhibited in the Comitium, to the great delight of the citizens. It was reported to have appeared

1 Clement, 1s¢ Zpést., chapter xii.

2 Comp. Gerald Massey, Watural Genesis, li, 339.

3 Renouf, Book of the Dead, note on chapter Ixxxii; and Proc. Soc. Bid. Arch., xiv, 8, 377.

4 Lundy, Monumental Christianity, 421}. 5 Pliny and Solinus.

THE CALENDAR. 19

in Egypt in the reign of Sesostris and at other times. These statements probably refer to the recurrence of some recognised cycle, and perhaps the proclamation of it, and some rejoicing. |

There were various cycles of time,’ all of which came to be called phoenix periods, though at first the application of the term may have been more restricted. Sometimes the phcenix was said to live 340 years, sometimes 460; Josephus? says 600, and mentions it in connection with the cultivation of geometry and astronomy by the Ante- diluvians. Dexippus, the Athenian,’ speaks ofan Egyptian phoenix period of 654 years. A phoenix period of 12,960 years is referred to both by Cicero and Solinus.*| There was a lesser phoenix period of 540 years, and the greater one just mentioned was a multiple of this (540 x 24 =

2,960). And then twice 12,960 = 25,920,5 which com- prised the entire reign of the Immortals in the Eusebian account of Manetho. It was indeed the great year of the world, the precession cycle. But Tacitus® refers to the Opinion which some entertained,’ that the phcenix was wont to attain the age of 1,461 years, which is a palpable allusion to the Sothic Cycle. The same writer tells us, however, that the common persuasion was that the phoenix lived 500 years. A¢lian expressly testifies that the com- pletion of this period® of 500 years was always publicly announced by the priests of the temple of the sun at Heliopolis; upon which great rejoicings took place throughout the whole land of Egypt. The same was true also of the longer cycle, of 1,461 years, the celebration of which, on the first day of Thoth, was one of the principal festivals of the Egyptians. Men and women assembled from all parts of the country ; great feasts were spread ;

1 Gerald Massey, Vatural Genesis, ii, 339.

2 Sir Wm. Drummond, Zodiacs of Esneh and Dendera, p. 40.

3 Faber, Origin of Pagan Idolatry, i, 147. * Higgins, Anacalypsis, 219.

5 Bib. Educ., ii, 207, 248. ® Tacitus, Azz, vi, 28. 7 Bib. Educ., i, 265. 8 Bib. Educ., ii, 166.

C 2

20 CREATION RECORDS.

music, the dance, and appropriate hymns marked the respect they felt for the Deity. M. Bailly, the French astronomer, had pointed out the association of the phoenix with the Sothic Cycle; and Wilkinson, a hundred years later, had returned to the subject: “but it was reserved for Mr. Poole to discover and verify the fact of it, and to ascertain the Phcenix period from the Zodiac of the Memnonium at Thebes.”

The variety of periods assigned to the phoenix may perhaps account for the different dates at which its appear- ance was noted; but the period of 1,461 years would naturally be much favoured, as that which brought the heliacal rising of the Dog-star into coincidence with the New Year’s Day. If then we may trust the statement of Censorinus, that this coincidence occurred in the year 139 A.D., we are conducted back, as we have seen, to 1322 B.C., which may be the date of the Exodus, or near it; and to 4242 B.C., which was, in the belief of the Samaritans, the date of the creation, and the birthday of the world. “Creation,” in that case, would not signify the beginning of things but the beginning of the order of things inaugu- rated by the adoption of the year of 365 days. The Welsh people are said to date some of the events of their history before the creation; and we have the authority of M. Maspero and others for saying the same thing soberly of the Egyptians. Creation was the beginning of time, and time began when fixed years began to be recorded. In this sense there may have been more than one creation. At any rate the era of the commencement of the first Sothic Cycle—with a year of 365 days (perhaps B.C. 4242)—was preceded by a period (probably not a long one) during which the year was estimated at 360 days; and that again, as we shall sce, by a period of 500 years (in round figures) before the sun and the moon together were used ‘‘ for signs and for seasons,!for days and for years.”

1 Lundy, Monumental Christianity, 425.

CHAPTER II.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR, THE BASIS OF EGYPTIAN MYTHS.

§ 1. A STORY IN PLUTARCH. (Writers on the Track—Some Theories we Reject.)

Sik G. CORNEWALL LEWIS? says that the ancients had no scientific calendar, constructed by skilful astronomical calculators, and published under the sanction of the State, like the Nautical Almanac, which is authorised by the English Government—and the reason was that the calendar was considered a religious concern, connected with the regulation of sacrifices and holy festivals, and therefore committed to the care of sacerdotal authorities. But we have to remember that in Egypt the priests were astronomers—as Sir George himself remarks, some thirty pages further on—and there were probably no astronomers who were not priests. The heavenly bodies and their constancy commanded the admiration of men; and the endeavour to make the calendar accord with the divine order was the chief of human duties.

There is a story in Plutarch? which must convince every reader that one myth at least relates to an alteration made in the calendar, to correct the length of the year. “They tell that Helios having discovered Rhea secretly consorting with Saturn,* laid a curse upon her that her children should not be born in either month or year. Hermes was also in love with the same goddess. Hermes afterwards, playing

1 Astron. of the Ancients, p. 234. oe es 2 Plutarch, Minor Morals. 3 On Ists and Ostris, xii.

22 CREATION RECORDS.

at counters with Selene, and winning from her the seventieth part of each lunation, out of the whole composed five days, the which he added to the 360, which days the Egyptians call additional, and keep as the birthdays of the gods.” Plutarch goes on to say that on these days were born Osiris and Isis, Typhon and Nephthys, and Aroeris. |

It is generally considered that Helios and Selene are names of the sun and moon, and it is clear that Hermes and Rhea and Saturn must be divinities of the same order; they are all astronomical together. Some readjustment of the months is made and five days are added to the year, the reform being described in allegorical language as the result of a winning and losing game between Hermes and Selene. The Moon-goddess was the divinity of the months, and Hermes was the god of writing, of number and calcula- tion, whose business it was to keep a record of the years. The five days, though added to the year, are not admitted to belong to any of the months—for conservatism will not consent to enlarge the circle of 360 degrees. Remaining outside all the months they are dedicated to certain divinities, and observed, as we should say, as saints’ days or holidays. The 12 months come to an end, and five days are interposed before a new year is allowed to begin. Naturally they are dedicated to some of the chief divinitiés. Herodotus! noticed’it as a peculiar practice of the Egyp- tians to regard each month and day as sacred to some deity.

In Plutarch’s narrative Hermes stands for the Egyptian Thoth, and although he appears here to be distinguished from the lunar divinity (Selene),? yet Sir le Page Renouf regards him as a personification of the moon. Be that as it may, we take note here that this renowned Egyptologist speaks of the relations of solar and lunar phenomena as the

1 Herod., ii, 82. Sir G. C. Lewis, 5or. = Renouf, in Proc. Soc. Bib. Archaeol, April, 1892, pp. 175, 272.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 23 source Of a great deal of Egyptian mythology. No com- petent scholar, he says, has the least doubt that the earth and sky, the sun, moon and stars (certain constellations in particular), light and darkness, and the very hours of the day and of the night, were considered as gods. In short the theology of ancient Egypt, from the earliest periods known to us, is based upon the conception of the uniformity of Nature, as governed by constant, fixed and unalterable law.2 This conception was derived, Renouf believes, from the observation of the unvaried succession of physical phenomena, in the motions of the sun, moon and stars, in the year and its seasons, day and night, light and darkness. |

The impressions of M. Edouard Naville,* another eminent Egyptologist, are of the same kind. Describing a unique representation of emblems in the festival hall of Osorkon IT, at Bubastis, he says, “All the emblems which we see gathered here are connected with astronomy, or with the measurement of time. I think we may consider them as belonging to the religious observatory of Heliopolis, as being the collection of emblems which had reference to the relisiots calendar of On, and of all the land The offering of the clepsydra (or water-clock) is one of the most frequent in these inscriptions; it certainly had some reference to the astronomical meaning of the festival and to its coincidence with a date in the calendar.”

I am quoting the opinions of a few acknowledged experts, not with the idea of settling any point by authority, but in order to balance the prejudice derived from other sources, which might disincline the reader to look to astronomy and the calendar for a key to the solution of myths. The myths were really allegories told by the priests; and the priests were astronomers

} Preface to the Ani Papyrus, p. 7.

2 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, p. 201.

8 Naville, Festival Hall of Osorkon, ii, p. 24. Published by the Egypt. Explor. Fund.

24 CREATION RECORDS.

and guardians of the calendar and its feasts. Erman! remarks that the high priest of Heliopolis is called “he who is great in regarding” ; he bears also the additional titles, “he who sees a secret of heaven,” and “chief of the secrets of heaven,” as if he were the chief astronomer.

From very early times, says M. Maspero,? it was a function of the priestly colleges to found and maintain schools of astronomy. The first observatories established on the banks of the Nile, seem to have belonged to the Temple of the Sun. The high priests of Ra (the Sun-god), —who, to judge from their title, were alone worthy to behold the sun face to face—were actively employed from the earliest times in studying the configuration and pre- paring maps of the heavens. The priests of other gods were quick to follow their example; at the opening of the historic period there was not a single temple, from one end of the valley to the other, that did not possess its official astronomers, or, as they were called, “watchers of the night.”

The late Mr. R. A. Proctor,’ in his latest work, says, “I have been careful to indicate the character of the Great Pyramid as an observatory, not only, or chiefly, because of its interest so viewed, in the information it conveys, as to the marvellous skill and accuracy of the astronomers of ancient Egypt, but because light is thrown on many problems of great importance in regard to the past—aye, and the present too—of the human race, so soon as we recognise that the observation of the heavenly bodies was a matter of religion with the nations of old. We fondly imagine an origin for the religious ideas of to-day absolutely free from all the superstitions of astrology and star-worship. But these superstitions were too wide- spread, they were too intimately associated with the wholc

1 Erman, /7fe in Ancient Egypt, p. 290. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 206. 3 Proctor, Old and New Astron., Part I, p. 30.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 25

life of each nation and each individual, and they lasted too long, to have been thus evanescent in their effects. To this day the language and the symbols, the fasts and the festivals, nay, the very doctrines of the ancient star- worshippers, are extant, in the midst of nations who would reject with horror all idea of substituting the worship of created things, even the most glorious, for the worship of the Creator.”

Mr. Proctor, the editor of Knowledge, was not a fanatic. Nor will any one expect anything but sober science from Sir Norman Lockyer, the editor of Mature. Lockyer! shows that it is impossible to disconnect Egyptian mythology from astronomy. In the zodiac of Denderah, for instance, the stars are represented as different mytho- logical personages sailing along in boats, The Egyptian temples were astronomical observatories, he tells us, and the first observatorics we know of in the world. In the temple of Denderah, which is a comparatively modern temple, there is a very precious series of records which is certainly not at all modern? It represents a good many of the Egyptian constellations. The central part was in all probability the zenith point of Denderah itself; and at a certain distance from the centre point we have the zodiac represented eccentrically. Lockyer, having proved as he believes that Isis and Hathor were names of the star Sirius} adds the statement :* “ There is evidence that many of the goddesses under discussion personified stars, in exactly the same way that Hathor personified Sirius.” And after explaining the myth of Horus revenging his father Osiris. he says, “ Thus, I think, we may claim that this myth is astronomical from top to bottom.”

It is interesting to notice how many Egyptologists have observed astronomical facts and calendar arrangements

1 Ncrman Lockyer, in the Mineteenth Century, July, 1892. Also Mature, May, I89QI. 2 Nature, July, 1891. % Nineteenth Century, July, 1892.

26 CREATION RECORDS.

underlying the surface narrative of myths, like older uncial letters in a palimpsest manuscript. “The temples symbolised the universe,” says Maspero,} “their ceilings | showed the constellations.” The royal tombs also had astronomical ceilings in which the barque of the sun was represented as drawn by stars personified.?

Besides the Egyptologists, there have been several writers on mythology who have also found evidence of an astro- nomical origin for the stories we are dealing with. In 1836 appeared a work called “ Azacalypsis, or an attempt to draw aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis: By Godfrey Higgins.” Of this writer Dr. Inman says:* “His two volumes are replete with learning, and with deductions more startling than any which had appeared prior to his time ; but the subject matter is so badly arranged that it is with very great difficulty that the trains of thought which occupied the author’s mind can be discovered. His main idea is that very nearly everything in religion which appears to be mythical or mysterious, enfolds certain astro- nomical facts—such as the precession of the equinoxes, the duration of cycles of time—such as are necessary to repro- duce exactly a concordance between terrestrial and celestial phenomena.” |

I pass by Dupuis’ Origin of Religious Worship, and Volney’s Ruzns of Empires, as well-known earlier works of the same school. A later writer—Sir Wm. Drummond‘ —has written books on the zodiacs of Denderah and Esneh; and in his Gdipus Judaicus seeks to explain many things by the passage of the spring sun out of Taurus into Artes.

Sampson Arnold Mackey,®> shoemaker, of Norwich, though building on false etymologies, and assigning an incredible antiquity to the nations, may be quoted as seek-

1 Maspero, Zgy. Archeol., chap. ii, § 3.

2 E. Léfebure in Records of the Past, x, 108, note.

3 Inman, Ancient Faiths, iii, 15. * Drummond, Cdipus Judaicus. 5 Mackey, Mythological Astronomy.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 27

ing to explain certain myths as descriptive of astronomical changes.

Mr. Henry Melville) again, although he perplexes us_ by correlating actual English history with the courses of the stars, may be mentioned as expressing his conviction that all intellectual religions have had a celestial origin, and that the lost mysteries of the ancients were celestial truths. Melville could not stir the Freemasons into action, though some of that brotherhood have an idea that their symbols have more to do with the celestial vault than with Solomon’s temple. In Carlile’s Manual of Freemasonry, we read that the first principles of religion consisted of a scientific record of the sun’s path through the signs of the zodiac. But, for confirmation strong, let the reader obtain the various learned essays read before the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076, by William Simpson, M.R.A.S., etc.,® particularly the one on Zhe Orientation or Direction of Temples.’ The lodge has for its purpose the investigation of the archeology of Masonry; and Mr. Simpson is a Past Master.

In Blake’s translation of Flammarion, we are told that the gods of many nations are connected with the signs of the zodiac ; and it is recognised that allegory is the key to mythological astronomy.

Dr. E. B. Tylor,> as an anthropologist, is led to treat of mythology incidentally, and he says, “The religion of ancient Egypt is one of which we know much, yet little ; much of its temples, rites, names of deities, liturgical formulas, but little of the esoteric religious ideas which lay hidden within these outer manifestations. Yet it is clear that central solar conceptions, as it were, radiate

1 Melville, Veritas, Intro.

2 Richard Carlile, Manual of Freemasonry, vi.

3’W. Simpson, Orientation of Temples. Published by G. W. Speth, Bromley, Kent, 1897.

4 Blake’s Flammarion, pp. 28, 105.

5 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 267.

28 CREATION RECORDS.

through the Egyptian theology. Ra, who traverses in his boat the upper and lower regions of the universe, is the Sun himself in plain cosmic personality ; and to take two obvious instances of solar characters in other deities, Osiris the manifestor of good and truth, who dies by the powers of darkness and becomes Judge of the Dead, in the west- land of Amenti, is solar in his divine nature, as is also Har-p-chroti (Harpocrates) the new-born Sun of the winter solstice.”

The opinion of Sir Gardner Wilkinson’ on the star- worship of the Egyptians is expressed in the following sentence: “ Though actual Sabaism was not a part of the religion of the Egyptians, and the worship of the Sun and Moon was of a different kind, still it may have been con- nected with their earlier belief, which may be inferred from the idea of ‘ prayer’ being represented in hieroglyphics by a man holding up his hands, accompanied by a star.”

A very near approach to the truth is shadowed forth in a paper on Astronomical Symbolism of the East? which was read before the Society of Biblical Archzology, by Ernest de Bunsen, in the year 1877.

Lastly, in this connection—though by no means least in learning and insight—I will quote Gerald Massey,® author of the Natural Genesis, who says that mythology proper begins with the founding of time on the cyclic movement of the heavenly bodies. Massey’s voluminous works treat of many matters beyond our present scope—such as primi- tive sociology, and the origin of languagc—upon which I offer no opinion ; but there is no writer who more clearly recognises the astronomical reference of the Egyptian inyths, the astronomical character of the Egyptian gods, and the close association of both with the early calendar.

Having satisfied ourselves that the key to mythology is

1 Wilkinson’s third Appendix to Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Pook II. 2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Archeol., July 3, 1877. 3 Gerald Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 9°.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR, 29

to be found in astronomical facts, and in rectifications of the calendar, we shall not spend any time upon the examination of theories which we are bound to reject. Mythology is not “a disease of language,”! even though an eminent student of language should offer some ety- mologies in support of the notion. Ancient myths are not proved to have been mere nursery stories by showing that Hermes was the original of the Master Thief.2 There might seem to be more feasibility in the anthropological theory, which scours the earth for the customs and fancies of savages, and then traces a savage element in ancient myths. But while it may be admitted that both the Greeks and the Egyptians were descended from savages, and inherited from them some traditional notions and practices, it will be shown in the course of this work, that the myths imply an astro-religious system which could only have been framed by a civilised people.

The anthropological school have done good service in showing the insufficiency of the philological explanation. Nineteenth Century magazine writers, by their mutual antagonisms, make manifest that nothing is as yet con- vincingly demonstrated. The true theory of mythology, when it comes, will not long have any rivals; for it will carry conviction, instead of simply begetting the impression that perhaps there may be “something in it.”

§ 2. THE ASTRONOMICAL FACcTs,

(The Annual Phenomena—Explanation of Astronomical Terms—Precession of the Equinoxes—Precession before Hipparchus. )

An elementary knowledge of astronomy will be found necessary as our argument proceeds; and perhaps it may l Prof. Max Miiller. 2 Sir G. Cox, introduction.

3 Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth; also Myth, Ritual and Keligion.

• Compare an art. in Macmillan’s Mag., June, 1887.

30 CREATION RECORDS.

be useful to give here a statement of the chief facts and phenomena to which reference will have to be made. As the facts are not disputed, and will be taken from the text- books, detailed chapter and verse will not be needed; but the reader is referred generally to Herschel’s Zvreatzse on Astronomy, in the Cabznet Cyclopedia, Proctor’s Old and New Astronomy, Lockyer’s Elementary Astronomy and the treatise on Astronomy in the Library of Useful Knowledge.

THE ANNUAL PHENOMENA.—The sun, as the centre of the solar system, may, for the purposes of this volume, be regarded as being at rest. The earth, a planet some 92,000,000 of miles distant from the sun, has _ several motions—seven or eight, perhaps—of which we are principally concerned with three. There is, first, the rotation on its axis, from west to east, occasioning to our eyes the illusion that the sun is moving from east to west. The rotation gives us alternate night and day, and is accomplished in a period which it suits us to divide into 24 equal parts and call them hours, The second motion is one of revolution round the sun, in a path which is . elliptical, or like a circle pulled out a little in one diameter, and having therefore two foci instead of one centre. The sun occupies one of the foci, and thus our path brings us nearer to him in the winter than in the summer, while at Lady Day and Michaelmas we occupy something like a mean distance. The orbit of revolution lies in a plane, which we may conceive of as extended until it terminates all round in a great circle of the starry heavens. That circle is called the Ecliptic, and is frequently spoken of as the path of the sun. The stars which lie all along the ecliptic and within 8° on either side of it, in a zone, have been grouped into 12 constellations, which are called the Signs of the Zodiac. The earth in its revolution comes over against these signs, in succession ; though it looks to us as though it is the constellations that advance, and move in the opposite direction. The sun

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 31

appears to pass through the 12 signs in the course of the year, moving in the ecliptic circle, as before said. The signs of the zodiac are :—

It follows that if the spring sun appear to us to be in Aries, the earth is in the part of its orbit over against Aries, and is therefore in Libra. A month later, when the earth is in Scorpio, we shall say that the sun is in Taurus; and the luminary, passing through the 12 signs, will return to Aries at the end of 12 months, ready for a new begin- ning.

The third motion which we have to take account of is called the Precession of the Equinoxes ; and it has played avery important part in mythology. The ecliptic circle is divided into 360° of celestial longitude; and the time taken by the earth to traverse the circle fully and exactly, so that it faces again the same stars, is a sidereal year. But in consequence of a slow revolution of the earth’s

32 CREATION RECORDS.

orbit, the equinox retrogresses, and the earth reaches it twenty minutes before the sidereal year is completed. This is the precession of the equinoxes, which operates to anticipate the commencement of spring and to make the tropical year a little shorter than the sidereal year. Of this precession, something more will have to be said presently.

The axis of the earth’s rotation is not vertical or at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic, but inclined to it at an angle of 23° 28’—let us say 234°—and this is called the obliquity of the ecliptic. The axis, or rather the north pole of it, leans towards the sun in summer, and (con- tinuing to lean in the same absolute direction) leans away from the sun in winter. And because the axis remains parallel to itself throughout the year, there are two midway positions of the earth in which the axis is neither inclined at all towards the sun nor away from it, but inclined at right angles to it. Then one side of the earth is exposed to sunlight from pole to pole, and the other half is in darkness from pole to pole, so that the diurnal rotation gives equal day and night all over the world.

The axis being inclined 234° away from the vertical, the earth’s equator dips on that side below the ecliptic—and on the other side rises above it.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 33

The 12 signs of the zodiac are, therefore, six of them. above the eguznoctial plane, and six below it. The earth’s orbit lies in the ecliptic, and is intersected by the equi- noctial at two opposite points, called the equinoctial. points, or equinoxes, and distinguished from each other as “vernal” and “autumnal.” At the vernal equinox the. sun crosses the equator from south to north, and at the autumnal equinox he quits the northern hemisphere for the southern. The sun is 234° north of the equator at midsummer, 233° south of it at midwinter, and these are his most distant points. At these extremes he appears, for a brief space, to stand still, and then return ; and so these points are called the solstices, the summer solstice being the point of greatest northern declination, and the winter solstice the farthest point south. The parallels of latitude at these distances from the equator are the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn—Cancer the northern one, and Capricorn the southern. The intertropical band is thus 47° in breadth, and it is only within this zone that the sun can at any time be in the zenith to dwellers upon the earth. It is the middle of this broad zone—some 8° on either side of the ecliptic—which constitutes the zodiacal pelt.

THE POLES OF THE ECLIPTIC, like those of any other great circle of the sphere, are opposite points on the sphere ; and they are 90° from the plane of the ecliptic, and therefore equidistant from it in every direction. We can use the plane of the ecliptic to define the position of the stars, measuring the distance north or south of it as celestial latitude, and the distance along the circle as celestial longitude. We may, however, find it convenient to measure from the equinoctial plane ; and the latitude of a star is called its declination, while its longitude is called its right ascension. Since the equinoctial circle cuts the ecliptic circle at two points, one of these is chosen as a convenient point from which to measure longitudes, along

34 CREATION RECORDS.

ns

the circle of the ecliptic, east or west. It is called the First Point of Aries.

The pole of the ecliptic we must regard as fixed; but the pole of the equinoctial slowly moves round it, occasion- ing the precession of the equinoxes. In consequence of this movement—which again may be described as a conical motion of the earth’s axis—there is a change of declination in a star’s place, and the star will not continue to rise at the same point of the horizon. :

THE COLURES.—The great circle which passes through the poles of the ecliptic and the poles of the equinoctial is called the solstitial colure (for it must also pass through the solstitial points) and a similar circle or meridian, drawn through the equinoctial points, is called the equi- noctial colure.

RISINGS AND SETTINGS OF STARS.—If we were stationed at the earth’s pole the stars would appear to move round us in circles parallel to the horizon. If we were on the equator they would appear to rise up vertically and descend on the other side, in parallel semi- circles. In all intermediate positions of the observer, north of the equator, the stars or the sun, in rising, will cut the horizon between the east point and the pole, and set between the west point and the pole. For the latitude of London the pole will be 513° above the horizon (always the same as the latitude of the place), and all the stars within 513° of the pole will circle round it without setting. For this reason they are called circum-polar stars. But the sun and stars near the equator—in such a latitude as Thebes in Egypt—will rise and set almost vertically, and the circumpolar stars will be limited to a narrow field. Hence, in all these middle latitudes we may divide the stars into three classes:—(1) Those northern stars which never set—northern circum-polar stars. (2) Those southern stars which never rise-—-southern circum-polar stars. (3) Those stars which both rise and set.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 35

The risings and settings of the fixed stars, considered with reference to the position of the sun in the ecliptic,! present a series of phenomena which, recurring regularly every tropical year, served in the most remote ages as the sole guides for the operations of the husbandman ; and being in later times frequently appealed to by the poets, they are sometimes designated the poetical risings and settings of the stars.

We find that as early as the time of Hesiod the changes of the seasons and the more important operations of agri- culture,? were fixed with reference to the risings and settings of Orion, the Pleiades, the Hyades, Arcturus, and Sirius At the later time, tables were drawn up, and copies engraved on stone or brass were exhibited in market- places. Two catalogues of this description have been pre- served.

In regard to this matter it is necessary to attend to two facts :—(1) The time of the risings and settings of the fixed stars varies for the same place at different epochs. Thus the Pleiades,? which at Rome rose along with the sun on the 16th April, B.c. 44, rose with the sun at Rome several days earlier in the age of Meton (B.C. 432) and do not now rise with the sun at Rome until several days later. This is caused by the precession of the equinoxes. (2) The time of the risings and settings of the fixed stars is different on the same day in places whose latitude is different. Thus in the year when the Pleiades rose along with the sun at Rome on the 16th April, they did not rise — along with the sun at Athens until the 22nd April.

HELIACAL RISING OF STARS.—When a star rises a little before the sun, just becoming visible in the morning twilight, it is said to rise heliacally (Ae/zos being Greek for “sun ”) ; and when it sets a little after the sun, it sets heli- acally. Stars that rose heliacally were like sentinels that

1 Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiqs., art. ‘* Astronomia.” 2 Lbid. * Lbid. D2

36 / CREATION RECORDS.

called out, or dogs that areed| giving warning of the sun’s approach. To serve this purpose, Mr. Penrose says, it was necessary that the star’ should have so nearly the same amplitude as the sun (ze. distance north or south, along the horizon) that it could be seen from the adytum oF the temple through the eastern door.’

THE COSMICAL RISING of stars means that the star rises at the same rmoment as the sun. The achronical rising is different from the cosmic in this respect, that we have the star rising when the sun is setting.

THE PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES.-—-Long obser- vation leads to the discovery that the equinox does not preserve a constant place among the stars, but travels regularly, though very slowly, backwards along the ecliptic, in the direction from east to west, or the contrary to that in which the sun appears to move in that circle.

The amount by which it ee on the ecliptic is given by Sir John Herschel as 0° o’ 5010 per annum, an extremely minute quantity, but which by accumulating from year to year, so deranges the apparent places of the stars as to make it necessary to construct new catalogues. Since the formation of the earliest catalogue on record—- that of Hipparchus, some 2,000 years ago—the place of ithe equinoxes has retrograded already about 30°.2- The ‘period in which it performs a complete tour of the ecliptic is 25,868 years.3

Simultaneously, and as part of the same movement, the pole of the equinoctial (or the vanishing point of the earth’s axis) describes a circle in the heavens around the pole of the ecliptic as a centre, keeping constantly at the same distance of 23° 28’ from it.* . In other words the earth’s axis has a conical motion which we may realise by ponents a peg-top or a teetotum ‘when it is spinning

1 Nature, eres 1893. 2 Herschel, A.D. 1833. 3 Proctor, O/d and New Astron., p. 226. . Here, for simplicity, we neglect the phenomenon of #zfatzor.

ASTRONOMY AND THE. CALENDAR. 37 but not upright. The reader will take care not to con- found the posztzon of the earth’s axis in space with a mere shifting of the imaginary line about which it revolves, in its interior. The whole earth participates in the conical motion we are speaking of, and goes along with the axis as if it were really a bar of iron driven through it.

This. conical motion cannot happen without producing corresponding changes in the apparent diurnal motion of the starry sphere, and the aspect which the heavens must present at very remote periods of history. The pole is nothing more than the vanishing point of the earth’s axis, and this point moves in a circle, and so gives us a succession of pole-stars. The visible effect of the pre-. cession on the aspect of the heavens consists in the apparent approach of some stars to the pole, and the recess of others. The bright star of the Lesser Bear, which we call the pole-star, has not always, been, nor will always continue to be, our cynosure. At the time of the construction of the. earliest catalogues. it was 12° from the pole; it is now only 1° 24’, and will approach yet nearer, to within half a degree’ ; after which it will again recede, and slowly give place to others, which . will sieceed it in its companionship to. the pole. After a lapse of about 12,000 years, the star a Lyra, the brightest. in the northern hemisphere, will occupy the remarkable situation of a pole-star approaching within about 5° of the pole. The pole maybe conceived of as a ruler giving law to the armies that look to him; and when he forsakes his place he is like an archangel whose rebellion carries away a third part of the hosts of heaven. .

The changed aspect of the heavens for periods 12,034 years apart, may be better conceived by aid of the follow- ing figure :-— _ a4

y

1 Herschel, 1833. ; .

38 CREATION RECORDS.

The radius of the circle being 23° 28’, the diameter will be nearly 47°, and thus far apart will be the pivots of revolution of different periods; a star which has been the pole-star at one period may be 47° from the pole at another; and a star that has been on the equator may attain a declination of 47°.

THE FIRST POINT OF ARIES.—It is desirable now to point out a distinction which proves most embarrassing to the unlearned, between the signs of the zodiac and the constellations of the zodiac; and the anomaly that the sun is said to be in the sign Aries while he is actually traversing the constellation Pisces, and enters the sign Taurus before he quits the constellation Aries. The 360 degrees of the circle are counted from the “ First Point of Aries,” so that the first degree of Taurus is the 31st degree of the circle, the first degree of Gemini the 61st degree of the circle, and so on. But it is convenient to measure always from the equinoctial point, although the point is ever shifting ; and therefore by a fiction which the astro- nomers find useful, the signs Aries, Taurus, etc., are regarded as fixed in relation to the equinox, while the constellations move away from them. The vernal equinox

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 39

is always treated as the first point of Aries. In the time of Hipparchus! (about 125 B.C.) the entrance of the sun into the constellation Aries was the beginning of spring, but since that time the equinoctial points have receded 30°, so that the constellations called the signs of the zodiac are now at a considerable distance from those divisions of the ecliptic which bear their names.

Of course, therefore, the conventional Aries overlies the constellation Pisces, and the conventional Taurus has got into the place of the former Aries. “The first point of Aries” is the intersection of the ecliptic with the equi- noctial—the vernal equinox ; and the first point of Libra is the autumnal equinox—although the equinoxes move. The tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, also—those circles parallel to the equinoctial which pass through the solstices —got their names when the solstices were in the Crab and the Goat. The solstices have since got into other con- stellations, yet the old names are retained; such is the conservatism of astronomical practice. It is all very instructive in relation to our subject, and may prepare us to expect conservative practice among the priest-astro- nomers of ancient Egypt.

PRECESSION BEFORE HIPPARCHUS.—The text-books? generally say that the precession of the equinoxes was discovered by Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer, about 130 or 125 B.C., and that he arrived at it by a comparison of his own observations with those of Timocharis made 170 years earlier.

But the movement must certainly have been observed at a more ancient period; and this is beginning to be acknowledged. Seeing that the equinox has retrograded about 30° in the 2,000 years since Hipparchus, it must have done the like in the 2,000 years before Hipparchus

1 Somerville, Connexion of the Physical Sciences, Section XI.

2 Grant, Hist. of Phystcal Astron., p. 138. Somerville, Section XI. Sir G. C. Lewis, Astron. of Ancients, p. 150. Chambers (G. F.), Descrepteve and Pract. Astron., 1889. Vol. i, p. 377-

40 CREATION RECORDS. and at the beginning of that period it would be near the first point of Taurus.

The late Mr. R. A. Proctor, in the year 1888, announced that he had made an interesting discovery. He found in the poets of Greece and Rome some references to the stars, recalling old sayings in ignorance of the fact that the aspect of the heavens had altered since those sayings first came into vogue. Experience, he remarks, shows that there are few subjects in which old ideas retain their influence more tenaciously than they do in regard to the aspects and movements of the heavenly bodies. Having constructed maps for the date 3400 B.C., the date assigned to the Great Pyramid, the first glance at them served to explain several familiar passages of the classics. For instance, Virgil’s well-known lines—

‘* Candidus auratis aperit quum cornibus annum Taurus,”

imply as distinctly as possible the idea that the year began (that the sun crossed the equator at spring) when the sun was on the Bull’s horns. But in Virgil’s time the sun was not in the constellation of the Bull at all when the year began (in the old sense of the words). The point where he crosses the equator had passed out of Taurus, over Aries, and had already entered Pisces at that time. The sun in Virgil’s age was passing over the Bull’s horns in the middle of May, a time which cannot, by any astro- nomical or meteorological artifice, be regarded as the opening of the vear. “ But in my chart for 3400 B.C.,” says Mr. Proctor, “ the sun was right on the Bull’s horns at the beginning of spring.”

Another passage in Virgil finds an explanation from the same chart. In his “ Pollio,” taken from a Sibylline prophecy of venerable but unknown antiquity, we find him saying,

‘‘Tam redit et Virgo, redunt Saturnia regna,”

1 Knowledge, May, 1888.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 4!

as if there were some connection between the constellation of the Virgin and the return of the beneficent influence poured forth by the sun in summer. Pope, indeed, in his intro- ‘duction to his eclogue, “ Messiah,” goes so far as to draw a parallel between this passage and the well-known passage in Isaiah, ‘ Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” But without entering into a discussion of the Virgin birth attributed of old to sun-gods—Osiris, Horus, Mithras ‘Serapis, Adonis, and the rest (and naturally ascribed later _ to such teachers as Zoroaster, Gautama, Plato, and others) —we may, says Mr. Proctor, at once find an explanation of Virgil’s reference when we note that at the time to which all his astronomical passages must be referred, the sun—who was leaving Taurus in spring—was entering Virgo at mid-summer.

Mr. Proctor is not alone in recognising that the memory survived of a year that began with Taurus. He had even been anticipated in making the discovery. Mr. R. G. Haliburton,! in his tracts on the “ Festival of the Dead,” called attention to the passage in Virgil, and remarked : “This has by all writers been supposed to refer to a very remote period, when the sun was in the sign of Taurus at the time of the vernal equinox.” The Rev. J. H. Broome also notices it in his Astral Origin of the Emblems of the Zodiac. That the solar year of the Egyptians dates from a time when the spring equinox was in Taurus, is a conclusion which has been forced upon several students of mythology. Dupuis,’ a man of great erudition, who wrote near the end of the eighteenth century, pointed out that the ancient records and myths make very frequent reference to the Bull, indicating that the constellation Taurus occu- pied an important position at a critical time of the year— which it has not done since the equinox passed out of it

1 Haliburton ( prizted privately). 2 Broome, Astral Origin, etc., Stanford, 1881. 3 Dupuis, Orzgin of Rel. Worship.

42 CREATION RECORDS.

————_.

Sir William ._Drummond also, conceives that the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans reckoned according to the intellectual zodiac, and that the first of their signs was Taurus.’ And Gerald Massey, a writer of our own time, frequently remarks that the Egyptian myths imply pre- cessional change and the knowledge of it.?

Assuming 12 signs, of 30° each, the vernal equinox, which was in the first point of Aries, and just retrograding into Pisces, in the days of Hipparchus (125 B.c.) must have entered Taurus (from the Gemini side) about 4435 B.C.

When the Bull was in the spring sign,* the Pleiades and ruddy Arcturus joined their rays with the sun’s at the time of the vernal equinox. The midsummer sign was the Lion, the bright star Cor Leonis nearly marking the sun’s highest place. The autumn sign was the Scorpion, the ruddy Antares and the stars clustering in the head of the Scorpion joining their rays with the sun’s at the time of the autumnal equinox. And lastly, the winter sign was the Water Bearer, the bright Fomalhaut conjoining his rays with the sun’s at midwinter. It is noteworthy that all these four constellations really present some resem- blance to the objects after which they are named.

A table at the Ramesseum at Thebes‘ (which Biot refers to 3285 B.C.) makes distinct references to the Bull, the Lion and the Scorpion. -

The Lion was associated with Ra,’ the Sun, and with the inundation of the Nile.

If then the Egyptians had a religious system in which astronomy was important, and if they began with the equinox in Taurus, or at least as early as that, it was impossible that the equinox should pass into Aries without being noticed.

1 Drummond, Gdipus Judaicus, “ Notice,” xvi.

2 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii., 320.

3 Proctor, Origin of the Cons: ‘elation Figures (Myths and Marvels), p. 363.

• Lockyer, Mineteenth Century, July, 1892 5 Bonwick, Leyptian Belief, p. 228.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CALENDAR. 43

It is now beginning to be recognised by astronomers that the precession of the equinoxes was observed long before the days of Hipparchus. “It isextremely probable,” says Sir N. Lockyer, “ that the Egyptians, 3000 years B.C., had been rendered practically conversant with the result of the precession, by the fact that they had to rebuild and alter their temples from time to time, because the stars changed their declination . . . It looks as if the precession of the equinoxes was probably published by Hipparchus as the result of an examination of the untold wealth of Egyptian astronomical observations which has been unfortunately lost to the world.”

Sir Le P. Renouf,? also, in his commentary on the Book of the Dead, conceives that the Egyptians were acquainted with Precession when chapter cxv was written; and that chapter is at least as old as the XVIIIth dynasty.

After all, it is not very surprising that the Egyptians should have discovered the Precession movement and calculated the length of the Great Year. Marking the years from midsummer day to midsummer day, and noting the corresponding culmination of the stars, they would find that the stars advanced by one degree, or one day, in about 72 years.’ They then had only to multiply 72 by 360 to obtain 25,920, a near SpEroanevon to the grand cycle.

But although the Egyptians were acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, they were ignorant of its cause, and perplexed by the change it made in the declina- tion of the stars. It dislocated their catalogues, and the havoc which it wrought seemed to be so entirely mischievous that it could only be attributed to powers inimical to the Divine Order. To this notion we owe many of the myths.

1 Nature, July, 1891. Nineteenth Century, July, 1893, p. 35- 2 Book of the Dead, chapter cxv. 3 Comp. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, art. ‘‘ Year.”

CHAPTER III.

SYMBOLS.

(Symbolism a Natural Language—Its use by the Egyptians, as regards Animal Forms, Colours, Cities and Countries, Rivers and Trees. )

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.—Two things are required in order to unravel the Egyptian system of mythology, the first being a knowledge of the astronomical clues, and the second an acquaintance with the natural language of symbols, .Symbols are not quite the same as emblems, for emblems have analogical resemblance and moral fitness, while symbols are often arbitrary. A reed, used as a staff or crutch, but which splits, and sends splinters into the hand or arm, is an apt emblem of a false friend. Alpha- betic letters, which by agreement represent certain sounds, are symbols. Yet a symbol may often come near to being an emblem as well. |

.The facts and ideas of the Egyptian astro-religious system are set forth by emblems or symbols, as for example when the returning year is indicated by a migratory bird, an annual visitant ; and the repetition of cycles of time is represented as the renewal of the life of the phoenix… When the astronomical facts and phenomena are numerous and run into narrative, the symbolical relation extends itself into an allegory. The mythology of Egypt is chiefly an allegory of the heavens and the calendar.. The language of this allegory has long been lost, but it is recoverable ; ‘and the difficulty of interpretation is not so great as that which was encountered by the first decipherers of the hieroglyphics, The success of the present attempt—as of all attempts to read a lost language—must be judged by

SYMBOLS. 4S

the sense which comes out, when the principles are applied uniformly and consistently. If Champollion and the Egyptologists had been entirely wrong in the meaning and values which they attributed to the hieroglyphic signs, their interpretation of texts would not have brought out long readable stories of wars and worship. If the present writer, by a uniform method, educes meanings which show ail the chief myths to be integral parts of an astronomical system and a calendar history, the result will bear witness to the truth of his principles.

But it may be well to show, in this place, how natural to man is the language of symbols, and how easy and obvious in some instances is their interpretation.

The first language of man in many countries has been a pantomime of expressive and descriptive gestures ; and the first writing has been in the form of outline pictures, on the soil or the rock, or the bark of trees. This is sufficiently shown in Dr. E. B. Tylor’s work! on the Early History of Mankind. Gesture language is so natural that deaf-and-dumb children invent it for themselves, and the signs they adopt are pretty nearly the same in different schools and different countries. Such language is not altogether foreign to any of us, for we shrug our shoulders, we beckon with the hand, we shake the fist, we lay a finger across the lips. Missionaries landing anywhere among savages, can make their friendly intentions understood by a smile on the face and a present in the hands. On the other hand, when the Ashantees, some time in the seventies, sent messengers with a battle-axe to the Governor of the neighbouring British colony, there was | no need of words, for the language of that act was a declaration of war.

Herodotus tells us how Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes some- times required lesser kings to bring them water and earth in token of subjection—symbols, we may suppose, to

‘E. B. Tylor, Barly History cf Mankind. Also Anthropologye

46 CREATION RECORDS.

denote that they acknowledged the Persian rule over land and sea.

Emerson reminds us that particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts… An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox ; a lamb is innocence: light and darkness express knowledge and ignorance ; and a river reminds us of the flux of all things. These analogies, he says, are not capricious, but there is a ray of actual relation passing from all things to man in the centre. Hence good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories.

Our own Bible is full of figure and symbolism, in language and act, not only in proverbial phrase and religious ceremony, but in object lessons of the prophets. The words of the wise were as goads, which spurred the people to activity.2 When sins were confessed on the head of a goat,? and the animal was sent far away never to return, the people were assured that their transgressions were removed. The prophet Ahijah tore Jeroboam’s garment into twelve pieces and returned him ten of them, in token that he should have ten tribes of Israel for his subjects.‘ A great advantage of acted symbol is the fact that a whole crowd may see it at once, and understand its graphic lesson. In the New Testament, when Pilate washed his hands in public, it was not necessary that all the multitude should hear his declaration, “I am free from the blood of this just person.” Clean hands signify inno- cence. Inthe Old Testament the Lord God is a sun and shield, a rock and a fortress; in the New Testament Christ is the Light of the World. The cross, again, is perhaps the most ancient and the most deeply reverenced of all religious symbols ; and the symbols proper of Christ are the cross, the lamb, and the lion.®

1 Emerson, ature ; chapter on Language.

3 es 3 e ° . 4 e e Eccles. xii, II. Leviticus, xvi. 1 Kings xi, 30.

5 Lundy, Monumental Christianity, p. 24.

SYMBOLS. . 47

The phases of our religious life are still illustrated by symbolic acts. In baptism our sins are said to be washed away ; or if the mode be that of immersion, we are “ buried with Christ in baptism,” and rise again to newness of life. Bread and wine are at once tokens of communion and emblems of the broken body and the blood of Christ. We use a ring in marriage, and join hands in token of united lives. After the religious ceremony and service, we throw rice as a prayer for fruitfulness ; and later in the day we fling the slipper as a reminder of the wife’s subjection. At the end of life the handful of earth thrown into the grave signifies ‘ Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

In the Egyptian religion and ritual everything was symbolical. There were ceremonies—at the beginning of the year, especially—for keeping certain things in remem- brance.! They were considered as dramatic representations of what was done in the invisible world ; and one of thz.e occasions appears to be referred to in the worcs of chapter xxvi of the Ritual—“the night wherein the years are counted and the months are reckoned, one by one.”

It is a common idea that the Religion of the Egyptians was a superstitious animal worship, and therefore could not be based on astronomical phenomena, nor contain any rational teaching. But the truth is that the Apis bull, the venerated Cat, and the deities with animal heads, were symbolical representations. The Apis, we know, repre- sented Osiris ; and we shall see, by-and-bye, what Osiris himself represented. There were those in Plutarch’s day who sought to rationalise the ancient myths, and said that Saturn (or Kronos) was a symbol of Time. That he should devour his own children looked, indeed, remarkably like it. :

The rationalisers may have been, in some degree, in- correct in their guess, and yet Plutarch’s own statements tended to give them countenance. He told them that Seb,

1 Renouf, note 3 on chapter cxxiv. 2 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 66.

48 CREATION RECORDS.

the Egyptian Saturn, produced an egg, out of which came five deities, of five additional days of the year; and that. Thoth (Mercury) won the days from Selene the Moon- goddess. Another Egyptian divinity was Anubis the jackal; and we shall find that he is connected with the star Sirius, called the Dog-star, and so called for a good reason. When we find the god Amen ram-headed we may suspect that he is connected with the Ram constellation, and that what is stated concerning Amen will be found true of Aries, if we know how to interpret it. The language of symbolism may be read: but it presents difficulties and pitfalls for the beginner, just as do the hieroglyphics them- selves and the cuneiform writing of Assyria.

Among the sacred animals of the Egyptians was the Scara- bzeus,a beetle common in the country. But the Egyptians did not worship the beetle itself, they only reverenced it as asymbol of the sun, or as being in some other wayan emblem of time. When the overflow of the Nile was coming, the prescient creature rolled its ball of eggs higher up the bank, to be safe from the waters ; and it thus became a fore-teller of the inundation, like the Dog-star. Horapollo says that the beetle deposits its ball in the earth for the space of 28 days, in which number of days the moon passes through the twelve signs of the zodiac.!. It was also said that the beetle lives six months underground and six above. (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.)

In the imagery of ancient symbolism the world above had its counterpart below. Egypt represented the heavens Upper and Lower Egypt standing for the upper and nether hemispheres ; and the Pharaoh was the living image and vice-gerent of the Sun-god who reigned in both.2 The language of flattery was apt to run in a form like the fol- lowing :—“ Thou [Rameses IT] art like the Sun in alJl that

1 Massey, Watural Genesis, i i, 119. | 2 Comp. Goodwin, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ii, 2, 359. Also Records of Past, vi, 74, 101. .

SYMBOLS. 49

thou doest. Thy heart realises all it wishes. Should you wish to make it day during the night it is so forthwith, &c.”!

At the triumphal ceremony at Medinet Abou (perhaps a coronation service) when Rameses III crowns himself with the emblem of his dominion, the high priest lets fly four birds, to proclaim the fact to the four quarters of the world.”

Egyptian temples were symbolical of the heavens, and sometimes had the constellations depicted on the ceiling. To add to the resemblance, each temple had its Great House and its House of Flame as most sacred adyta at the extremity opposite to the entrance.* The former occupied a central position, like the Ladye Chapel in our cathedrals, and the latter stood by the side of it.

Renouf states also that the ceremonies of the religious worship were symbols of what was supposed to pass in th world of the gods.* |

Among ourselves it is represented that “ Justice is blind ” and holds the scales fairly poised. The Egyptian goddess of Justice had her eyes closed. There were statues at Thebes of judges without hands, with their president having his eyes turned downwards, signifying, as Plutarch says, “that Justice ought neither to be accessible to bribes nor guided by favour and affection.”

Mr. John Macdonell, in his Royal Institution lectures on “ Symbolism in Ceremonies, Custom and Art,” shows how the-poets use epithets of colour as emblematic of certain ideas and qualities. Milton had spoken of “celestial rosy. red, love’s proper hue”; and Tennyson associates white with purity when he speaks of the “white flower of 2 blameless life.”

In the Engadine, if an accused man is able to justify

1 Records of Past, viii, 77. 2 Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt, 217. 3 Renouf, in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 2, 69.

• Papyrus of Ant, p. It, note. 5 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, abridged edition, ii, 206.

E

“50 CREATION RECORDS.

himself, it is a custom that on the day of his liberation, a beautiful girl shall present him with a white rose, called the Rose of Innocence.’

We need not be surprised, therefore, that the ee piane made some use of the symbolism of colours ; and we need not despair of discovering what they meant. They called Egypt “ Khem,” the “black ” land ; but that is supposed to - be in allusion to the dark soil, and may not be symbolism at all? Egyptologists find that a red crown was the emblem of Lower Egypt and a white crown the emblem of Upper Egypt.2 After this, when we find that Typhon, the enemy of Osiris, has red hair, we may suspect that his relations are with Lower Egypt and the Nether Hemisphere.

It may seem a strange thing to connect a colour with a country or a point of the compass ; but it is not unknown elsewhere. In N. America, in almost all Indian tribes, the number 4 is sacred, and the cardinal points are denoted by different colours.t Among the Navajos of New Mexico these colours are—white for the east, yellow for the west, black for the north, and blue for the south; whilst among the Zunis the east is white, the west black, the north yellow, and the south red. Compare also what is said by William Simpson in his essay on the Ovzentation of Temples, p. 17, note, and p. 21.

In the Egyptian papyrus Ani, plate 36, we ive the “four rudders of heaven” (north, west, south and east), and in the same register with each (and therefore four times over) “‘a triad of gods” representing (Renouf tells us) the gods by whose agency Heaven, Earth and the Nether World are kept in order and harmony. These gods, he says, are respectively wzée for the earth, ved for the nether world, and green for heaven. But I notice that the white

1 Howitt’s Pictorial Calendar (Bchn’s Library), p. 301.

• Budge, By-Paths of Bible Knowledge, p. Ba Brugsch, Zeypft under Pharaohs, i., 1, 10 : ; King S Cleopatra’ s Needle, By-Paths of Bible Knowledge, p. 70. A. W. Buckland, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, May, 1893.

SYMBOLS. 51

has a middle position between the red and the green, ¢wece over, as the sun passes the equinox twice in the course of the year. We appear therefore to have four points repre- sented, rather than three regions ; and the two equinoctial points are both white, while red symbolises the winter solstice, and green the summer solstice.

The colours of the vestments of the gods were prescribed in sacred canons.”

Bonwick says that “some gods are blue, scme green, &c.” We see now that the throne of the green gods is likely to be in the solstitial height of the summer sky.?

“The red colour was sacred to Typhon ;” and Typhon’s associations are with the winter solstice and the nether world.®

Perhaps blue belongs to the twilight.4 Macrobius affirms that the sun is of a blue colour below the horizon. The copy of the Ritual at Parma mentions King Menkeres (IVth dynasty), builder of the third pyramid, and attributes to him a prayer, which speaks of souls passing through the gate to reach the blue sun at the foot of Thoth.®

CITIES AND COUNTRIES were contemplated as both celestial and terrestrial. The rule of symbolism which made a temple ceiling resemble the vault of heaven, and Egypt in its two divisions to represent the upper and lower hemispheres, did not end there. It was probably extended so as to link foreign countries with corresponding regions of the sky; and it was carried into such detail as to associate particular cities with special points in the zodiac or other regions of the starry spaces. There were celestial places called Heliopolis, Hermopolis and Abydos, to which the earthly cities of those names stood related; and there was a celestial Nile, which was regarded as the real divine and holy river.

Massey remarks that Egypt was confessedly laid out

1 Budge, By- Paths, p. 143.

• Bonwick, Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, p. 211.

3 Jbid., p. 376. + Jbid., p. 286. 5 Jbid., p. 185. E 2

52 CREATION RECORDS.

like the heaven ;} and he thinks that the celestial regions ‘were mapped before the geographical.? We need not be greatly astonished if this was so. There is a need for astral charts as well as geographical maps ; and the only ‘strange thing is the effort to make them correspond. But in broad outlines this may be done. We have to do with a sphere in both cases; and the astronomer defines the place of a star by its right ascension and declination, just as the geographer locates an island by its latitude and longitude. The boundaries of constellations resemble coast-lines ; the zodiac is as obvious a zone as the inter- tropical region of the globe; the equinoxes and solstices occupy well-known places. The First Point of Aries is the recognised point from which to measure stellar longitudes, just as telluric longitudes are measured from Greenwich. The First Point of Aries is the Greenwich of the sky. Moreover, conspicuous stars have their special names; and when these stars are worshipped, it is not unnatural that the earthly city devoted to that worship should receive the same name as the star.

At any rate, in reading the sacred writings of Egypt we ameet with many names of places which are shown by the connection to be localities in Heaven or in Hades, though their counterparts may exist on earth. As this circumstance is important in the interpretation, I will quote passages and writers in proof; for I am desirous that all the facts upon which I build shall be within the reader’s power to verify. -

The Nomes or counties in Egypt seem to have corres- ponded in number to the known constellations, viz.: 36. Herodotus, we admit, mentions only 18; and on the other hand we sometimes get a list of 42. But in the time of Sesostris there were 36 ; and Strabo the geographer assigns 10 to the Thebaid, 10 to the Delta, and 16 to the inter- amediate province.®

1 Natural Genests, i, 70. 2 Book of Beginnings, ii, 186. 3G. W.’s note in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Book II, chapter 164.

SYMBOLS. 53

According to the account given ina papyrus, the division into 36 districts rests on a particular view, which connected the terrestrial division into nomes with the 36 ruling houses of the heavens (in astrology).! In the celestial Egypt, as in the terrestrial, the first Nome—in this case that of the First Ruler—was dedicated to the goddess of the star Sothis (Sirius).

Renouf says: “It must be remembered that many of the geographical localities named in the Book of the Dead have their counterparts in the Egyptian heaven.”

There was a celestial Abydos, the city of Osiris; and Thebes comes in as superseding Abydos.®

Heliopolis, Heracleopolis, and other cities, also have their celestial places, which we shall identify in a future chapter, when we want them.

It has become customary to repeat the traditionary state- ment that the ancients imagined the earth to be a flat disk surrounded by an ocean river. But if this was their notion originally, it must have been discarded at a much earlier time than is commonly supposed; for the knowledge of the: nether sky is “as old as Adam.”

The universe of the Egyptians comprises Heaven, Earth, and the World below (Look of the Dead, chapter xviii, and Introduction ).*

The Lower World might be in some sense an “ abyss,” but was otherwise conceived of as land, traversed by 2 canal. The sun passed through it in his boat, and the divisions and localities of the Underworld were known and described.

Mr. Poole and other Egyptologists say that one of the most common names for the Underworld was Amenti,* connected under the Empire with the root “amen” to con-

1 Brugsch, Zeypt under Pharaohs, vol. i, p. 15. 2 Proc. Soc. btb. Arch., March, 1892, p. 218.

3 Massey, Book of Beg., i, 44.

4 Renouf, in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch , xv, 1, 4.

5 Contemp. Review, July, 1881, p. Eo.

54 CREATION RECORDS.

ceal. I have thought sometimes that Amenti might be only the first region of the Underworld. There were, at any rate, other names for the Nether World as a whole; and one was the Tuat or Cherneter. This is defined in the British Museum Guide as a portion of the universe lighted by the sun between his setting and his rising—the divine Netherworld, the lower hemisphere, or Hades.

The entrance to Hades was situated in the west, and was indicated by a mountain upside down, denoting a reversed country.

The river Nile commanded much reverence from the Egyptians, as the representative of a celestial stream. Another stream, corresponding to the Greek Styx, was the river of death to mortals on one side of it, but a Jordan to those who contemplated “sweet fields beyond the swelling flood.” The Nile corresponded, I think, to the ecliptic circle, and part of its course as a celestial river was through the Hades.

There are certain trees also which are important symbols, as the Egyptologists now recognise. “The ever-green sycamore, which is the most beautiful tree of Egypt, the persea, the olive, and the tamarisk, are the principal trees of the mythology.”? This statement leaves out the palm, which is a prominent symbol in Egypt as in Greece. The god Thoth, who kept the record of time, numbered the years by notches of a palm.? A palm branch, remarks Wilkinson, was a symbol of astrology and a type of the year.*| So when Horus defends himself against Set with a palm branch, we may guess that the quarrel was about the measurement of time, the number of days, the length of the year.

There are two palm trees in the mythology, because there were two rival New Year’s Days, in fact, and it was long

1 Brit. Mus. Guide, p. 72.

2 Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 217.

3 Murray’s Handbook to Egypt, p. 91. 4 Ancient Egyptians, i, 256. 5 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 127.

SYMBOLS. ogg

undecided whether the year should begin in spring or 1a autumn. |

As there are two palm-trees, so there are two sycamores, one ascribed to Nut in the east, the other to Hathor in the west. As the west, where the sun goes down, is connected with the idea of death and Hades, so the east is the side of resurrection and heaven. ‘There is a well-known vignette . in the Ritual which represents the goddess Nut in a tree, pouring out water of life to the deceased.1 On a vase in the Louvre the goddess says that she gives water to every mummy, breezes to the breathless, and unites the deceased to his soul.?

Sycamore wood was appropriately used for mummy coffins.® |

For coffins indeed the sycamore was principally employed. It had the additional recommendation of a fruit to which the Egyptians were very partial ; and a religious prejudice claimed for it and the persea the name and rank of sacred fruit trees.*

The persea tree seems to mark the place of sunrising on midsummer day. There is an inscription on a sepulchral tablet which reads: May the priests, possessors of persea trees, come to thee at the staircase with garlands, in the first month of summer, at the end of the month, when the ut’at (or “eye of the sun ”) is full.’

Curiously there was a “great cat” connected with this persea tree of the summer solstice; and the cat is explained in the seventeenth chapter of the Ritual to be Ra himself. Ra is the Sun, and every month, and every day in turn, is associated with Ra himself. If the summer sun was in the constellation of the Lion, as it would be 6,000 years ago, a great cat close by may almost pass for a leo minor. It

1 Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 28. Comp. Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 8, 379.

2 Renouf, 7vans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 218. 8 Budge, By-Paths, 162.

4 Wilkinson’s Zeyptians, ii, 110. 5 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 3, 323.

56 CREATION RECORDS.

might be the symbol of “the little month,” the supple- mentary five days; or it might be an intercalary inde- pendent of that addition. We shall discuss this question when we comne to treat of Pasht.

Other trees also have their place in the myths, for example the cedar, the cypress and the olive. “ The god who is under his olive” already in the earliest monuments, is no other than Ptah, the Opener, the Egyptian Vulcan.! (See Burton, Excerpta, pl. 56, or Champollion, Modices, ii, p. 904, and Denkm,, iv, 22.)

We shall find, as we proceed, that Ptah was the god of Fire, who opened the year at the summer solstice, in the earliest times. We shall therefore regard the celestial olive tree as planted at that point in the circle.

. So much for symbols, just now.

The reader will understand that nothing is fully dis- cussed or confidently asserted in this chapter. It is only sought to show that the mythic stories are told in sym- bolical language, and that it may not be impossible to discover the clues and interpret the records.

[The student may consult Richard Payne Knight’s Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology, and Dr. Thos. Inman’s Aunczent Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism. The present chapter, however, has been prepared without reference to those works. |

1 Renouf, in Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arckh., viii, 2, 219.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE TIME.

§ 1. THE CLOCK OF THE STARS.

(Periodical Phenomena—The Polar Clock—Egyptian Constellations—The _ Clock out of Gear.)

IT is well-known that in quite early times means had been found of dividing the day and night into 12 hours. In the day shadows cast by the sun might be used, but how about the night? The method would be to note the positions of the circumpolar stars (those which never set) or the setting of stars which move in wider circles. It was quite early discerned that the heavens appear to rotate on an invisible axis, of which the north pole is the pivot. The pole, indeed, assumed paramount importance as a central spot and only place of rest, and for voyagers, whether by land or sea, its star was the beacon light and guide.!

It is popularly known that the Phcenician sailors shaped their course by the stars of the Little Bear, a constellation which thence came to be called Phcenike?

The same constellation might be utilised, if we had no better means, to indicate the hours of the night. Our present pole-star is called Cynosura—etymologically “ tail- of-the-dog ” (though now of the Lesser Bear). Those poets who regarded the Great Bear as Callisto, represented the Little Bear as her dog. With the Egyptians, in ancient times, the constellation was the Jackal. The Little Bear, as though pinned by the tail, swings round in the course of every 24 hours, At any season, therefore, when it was

1 O’Neill, Might of the Gods, passim. 2 Dictionary of Greek and Koman Antigs., art. ** Astronomia.”

58 CREATION RECORDS.

uppermost at midnight, it would have the horizontal posi- tion six hours later.

’ The latitude of London being 51° the elevation of the pole is also 51°, and stars which lie within that distance of the pole do not set, but sweep round without descending below the horizon. Taking Thebes, with its latitude of 26°, as representing Egypt, the area of stars always visible was about one-fourth of that visible to us.!

It is possible that observations of these stars might have been made in such a way that at the beginning of the evening a particular position of y Dvraconzs, for instance, might have been noted with regard to the pole-star, and with this as a starting point, the circle of stars might be used as the dial of a sort of celestial clock. “May not this really have been the clock with which they have been credited? However long or short the day, the star which was at first above the pole star, after it had got round so that it was on a level with it, would have gone through a quarter of its revolution.”

1 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., p. 145. 2 Lockyer, Mature, August, 1893. Also Dawz of Astron., p. 343.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE TIME. 59

It appears that the Great Bear as well as the Lesser Bear has been used as a clock-hand ; and perhaps the two hands were consulted at the same time.

“ Pythagoras calls the two Bears the two hands of the Genetrix.”1 The Genetrix herself, we may conjecture, would be the divinity of the pole, generating all things by the constant rotation. Helicé, the Greek name for the Great Bear, shows that her participation in this rotation was her most noted characteristic.

By Homer the Great Bear was called Ap«tos, the She Bear, and referred to as never plunging into Ocean’s baths. (Lhad, xviii, 487; Od. v, 275.)°

Even in modern times, and with our own people, the peasantry tell the hour of night approximately by the position of the stars. Hence the remark of the carrier in Shakespeare, “ An’t be not four by the day, I’ll be hanged. Charles’s Wain is over the new chimney and yet our horse not packed ! 8

With ourselves, again, the return of the swallow « or the coming of the cuckoo, afford a rough indication of the renewal of the seasons, as do also the budding of certain trees, the flowering of certain plants. Everywhere and always it has been much the same. As remarked by Sir G. C. Lewis, the succession of seasons forms a natural cycle which must, from the earliest formation of civil communities, have led to the establishment of a customary annual period, defined with greater or less exactness. The cultivation of the soil, the breeding of sheep and cattle, and the hunting of wild animals, were dependent on the season.*

The return of the seasons was marked by the general phenomena of animal and vegetable life, and by certain special and local phenomena which were different in

1 Massey, Watural Genesis, ii, 290. 2 Dictionary of Greek and Roman A ntigs., art. ** Astronomia.” 3 Henry IV, Act 2, Sc. 1. 4° Astron. of the Ancients, p. 10.

60 CREATION RECORDS.

different localities. Such were certain winds called by the Greeks the Etesian, and the inundation of the Nile, and the migrations of certain birds. Hesiod speaks of the annual cry of the crane as marking the time for ploughing and the winter season.

To the Hottentots the time of the rains has been announced by the rising of the Pleiades, whose reap- pearance has been the occasion of an annual festival. The first missionary to the Khoi Khoi, George Schmidt (1737), relates that ‘““as soon as these stars appear above the eastern horizon, mothers will lift their little ones on their arms, and running up to elevated spots will show to them those friendly stars, and teach them to stretch their little hands towards them. The people of a kraal will assemble to dance and sing according to the old customs of their ancestors. The chorus always sings: ‘O Tiqua, our father above our heads, give rain to us, that the fruits (bulbs, &c.), uientjes, may ripen, and that we may have plenty of food, send a good year.’ ”?

The circumpolar stars also—the same that showed the hour of the night—could be made to tell the season of the year. In fact, their nightly time-telling would have been deceptive if the season were not taken into account. A star which to-day culminates at 6 o’clock will in 15 days culminate very nearly at 5 o’clock, and will lose about 6 hours in position in a quarter of a year.2 The Little Bear would therefore indicate the seasons of the year as well as the hours of the night. “When the tail of the Great Bear points to the west at nightfall, the Chinese say it is autumn.” There was a period, 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, remarks Massey, when the Great Bear, having the stars of the tail much nearer to the pole, was better fitted to indicate the hour of the night or the season of the year than it is now.

1 Quoted by Massey, Vatural Genesis, ii, 269. 2 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., iii, 2, 402. 3 Massey, Nat, Gez2., ii, 2.

EARLY ATTEMPTS 70 MEASURE TIME. 61

[For the Chinese, compare further, Dr. Edkins in Proc. Soc. Bib. Archeol, 7th December, 1886, and John O’Neill, Night of the Gods, ti, 940.]

EGYPTIAN CONSTELLATIONS.—The Great Bear, 6,0c0 years ago, in Egypt, was not called the Great Bear; none of the constellations had the same names as now, and what is worse for us, they may not have included the same groupings of stars. We must try, nevertheiess, to get some idea, of those which filled the northern sky.

A temple at Denderah has a circular zodiac depicted on its ceiling, and there we find the constellation of the Jackal located at the pole. Lockyer says, “it obviously represents the present Little Bear.” The seven stars in Ursa Minor make a very good jackal, with pendant tail, as generally represented by the Egyptians. They form the nearest compact constellation to the pole of the ecliptic.

The planisphere of Denderah may be seen in the volume called Mazzaroth, by Miss Rolleston, and the central portion in Lockyer’s Dawn of Astronomy (p, 18)?

There was also a “Jackal of the South.” It seems likely that it would be in some relation with the Jackal of the Pole, and I think the relation was this: in earliest time the polar jackal announced the seasons, and in later time (under an altered system) this was done by the Jackal of the South. The Jackal of the South was Sirius, the Dog-star, which was perhaps figured as connected with the pole by a string, and pacing round.

O’Neill thinks the name Xeépios (Sirius) can be deduced immediately from aespd, a cord.2 The legend of Dhruva describes the stars as circling round the pole, and says, “for all the celestial lights are in fact bound to the polar star by aerial cords.”

In the great temple at Karnak, phrases ged in the

1 Nature, September, 1893. 2 Mazzaroth, Frances Rolleston, Rivington. 1852. 3 Night of the Gods, i, 504.

62 CREATION RECORDS.

laudation of Seti I, refer incidentally to attributes and characteristics of the gods. Among these, Seti is likened to “the Jackal, who paces circling round this land in the morning,” and the “ Jackal of the South, whose steps circle

| | |

THE CONSTELLATIONS OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND THIGH, FROM THE CENTRE OF ‘HE ZODIAC OF DENDERAH.

round the land in the hour.”! This seems to imply an

activity methodical and regular, like that of a clock-hand,

getting over the prescribed distance of ground hour by hour. 1 Trans, Soc. Bib, Arch, Vi, 2, 514.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE TIME. 63

The Jackal constellation, we judge, served as the hand -of the stellar clock, in the way that the Little Bear is ‘figured above. The Jackal will come before us in a future chapter as the god Anubis, whose office had been to measure time.

Close by the Jackal, in the Zodiac of Denderah, we have a large hippopotamus, occupying in the higher latitude the degrees corresponding to the Scorpion, Archer, and Goat in the zodiac. Lockyer identifies the Hippopotamus con- stellation with a part of the present Draco.’

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 represent our constellation of the Dragon, thought it was probably included in the scene only as an ornament orasanemblem.2 The present tendency is to identify the Hippopotamus with the Dragon and with certain stars not included in the constellations surrounding it.

Lockyer says he had come to the conclusion that the Hippopotamus had been replaced on our maps by part of Draco before he found that Brugsch and Parthey had expressed the same opinion.®

The Hippopotamus will come before us in the wars of Horus against the adversaries of Osiris. The battle royal ‘was between Horus and Set (otherwise Typhon). Ta-urt, the Thoueris of the Greeks, was identified as the wife of Set or Typhon.*’ Her common titles are “Mistress of the gods.” and “ Bearer of the gods.” She is depicted in the form of a hippopotamus standing on her hind legs, with distended paunch and hanging breasts . . . Some- times she has the head of a woman, but she always wears .the disk, horns, and plumes.

Since the modern constellation Draco is the old Hippo-

1 Nineteenth Century, Ju’y, 1892, Nature, September, 1893. Maspero, Dawn of Civilisatioit, p. 95: note. 3 Dawn of Astron., p. 216. + Budge, Book of the Dead, exxii.

64 CREATION RECORDS.

potamus we can readily understand Plutarch’s statement that “ Ta-urt presides over the birth of the sun,”! and why Ta-urt, or Mut, should be called the Mistress of Darkness (Rawlinson, i, 337).

Not very far from the Jackal, on the other side, is the constellation of the Thigh. Lockyer identifies the Thigh constellation with Ursa Major.2. Gerald Massey had already said, “The Thigh of the Northern Heavens is identified with the Great Bear in the Ritual.”$

O’Neill points out that the hieroglyph of the thigh resembles in outline the best-known portion of the Great Bear.‘

In an inscription recording the foundation of a temple at Edfu, oriented to the Thigh constellation, the king says, “TI cast my face towards the course of the rising constella- tions ; I let my glance enter the constellation of the Great Bear (the part of my time stands in the place of his hour- clock): I establish the four corners of thy temple.” This translation is by Brugsch,® and the phrase in parentheses is differently interpreted by Dumichen, who renders it thus: “representing the divider of time (Thoth) at his measuring instrument.”

The Thigh, the Hippopotamus, and the Jackal, represent our present constellations of the Great Bear, Draco, and the Little Bear—constellations which neither rose nor set at the time of the inscription of the zodiac at Denderah.®

We need not now speak of any other constellation, except the Leg: in addition to the Thigh there is a Leg spoken of, and as it is called the Leg of Ptah, it may be important to our subject. Chapter xcviii of the Book of the Dead is addressed to the Leg in the Northern Sky, and it is there said to be “in that most conspicuous and inac-

1 Lockyer, Daum of Astron., p. 344.

2 Lockyer, Nature, January, 1892, September, 1893.

3 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 27. Night of the Gods, i, 85. 5 Lockyer, Dawz of Astro, p. 179. 8 Jbid., p. 146.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE TIME. 65

cessible stream.” Renouf identifies the constellation with Cassiopceia, and says that the stream is the Milky Way. Whatever the stream, it seems that it really was not inac- cessible, for lower down the speaker says, “I bear that which repelleth mischief, as I make my voyage over the Leg of Ptah.” And as to the Leg, may it not be the leg which is attached to the thigh, and forms with it one limb and one constellation? In the chapter on symbols we found reason to locate the Olive tree at the summer solstice in Leo. Due north of Leo, in our Denderah chart, we come to the Leg; and in the following passage of the Ritual the two are brought into connection: “‘I came to a place north of the Olive.’ ‘What, prithee, didst thou see there?’ ‘A thigh and a leg.’””?

THE DIAL DISLOCATED.—The dial of the polar clock was a circle of 26° radius at Thebes, of 30° at Memphis, which never dipped below the horizon. Some particular line of stars—leg of Ptah, or snout of Jackal—would serve as a clock-hand ; and the pole was the pivot. But in the course of time the precession movement would shift the pole to a new place, and when it was no longer near the centre of the old dial the clock would be thrown out of gear.

The effect of precession is extremely striking on the constellations near the pole, and the changes in the apparent position of the stars would become obvious there, comparatively soon. 5000 years B.C. the stars in Draco were circumpolar, and only one star of the Great Bear, whereas at 2000 B.C. the stars in Ursa Major were the circumpolar ones, and the chief stars in Draco rose and set.?

These things could not fail to be observed by a people who were nightly watching the stars, and the phenomena were perplexing. The Divine Order appeared to be

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvii, 8, 275. 2 Lockyer, Mineteenth Century, July, 1892.

66 CREATION RECORDS. | -

broken up; the cause was mysterious, the results were highly inconvenient, and it was natural to say, “An enemy hath done this !” |

§ 2. THE MIDSUMMER SUN.

(Finding the Place of the Solstice—Recurrence of the Longest Day—Use of | Wells and Caves.)

The failure of the Polar Clock would give increased importance to any other method which existed for marking the seasons and measuring time, provided that this alterna- tive method had not the same defect. It is possible that the observation of the summer or winter solstice had been carried on during the same period as the reading of the polar clock.

To determine the four cardinal points of the compass is not so very difficult. Biot supposes they were originally determined by observing the places of the rising and set- ting of the sun on some one particular day—any day.’ The bisection of the angle made by lines drawn from these points to the place of the spectator, would give the south and north, with a close approach to accuracy. A line <at right angles to this would show the east and west; and when the east and west points were known, the equinoxes might be determined by watching the days when a wall running due east and west cast no shade at sunset and sunrise.

Noonday shadows cast by a pole or pillar of a given height, would be shortest on the day of the summer solstice, and longest on the day of the winter solstice. On the shortest day, the point of sunrising is farthest south ; on the longest day it is farthest north; and the direction of these points might be marked, from the posi- tion of the observer. By the solstices, the year is divided

1 Lewis, Astron. of the Ancients, p. 16.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE TIME. 67

into two approximately equal parts, during one of which the points of rising move southwards, and during the other northwards.” |

WELLS.—There was also another method, especially available at the latitude line of the tropic (23° 28”), where the sun would be vertical on the day of the solstice. The bottom of a well situated on the tropic of Cancer would be fully illuminated on the longest day only. Strabo, the Greek geographer, describing his travels in Egypt, says: “At Syene is a well which indicates the summer solstice, because these places lie under the tropical circle. For on proceeding from the places in our country—in Greece, I mean—the sun is there first overhead, and occasions the gnomons to be without shadows at noon. When the sun is vertical to us, it must necessarily cast its rays down wells, however deep they may be, to the water; for we ourselves stand in a perpendicular position, and wells are dug perpendicularly to the surface.”* Pliny and Arrian both mention this well: and Eratosthenes, a distinguished member of the scientific School of Alexandria (276 B.C. to 176), accepting the proof that Syene was under the tropic of Cancer, made use of the fact in computing the circum- ference of the earth.® |

The object of sinking the well at Syene was probably to obtain water; and the astronomic use was an accidental advantage attending it. The solstice could have been as well ascertained by a cylindrical funnel; and when the place was not under the tropic, the funnel could be adapted to the latitude by being fixed at a due angle. Only that Prometheus was a mythical personage, we might ask,— Was this the artifice which he adopted, and did he steal fire from heaven, or only light? Hesiod says that

1 Lockyer, Wineteenth Century, July, 1892.

? Strabo, Book XVII, chapter i, § 48.

8 Lewis, Astron. of the Ancients, p. 198. Linnington, Compend. of Astron. (Whitaker, 1830), p. 25.

F 2

68 CREATION RECORDS.

he “stole the far-seen splendour of untiring fire in a hollow fennel-stalk.”!_ Yet this may relate to friction of sticks.

CAVES.—Natural caves might sometimes be so situated as to receive the rays of the rising or the setting sun, on the longest day or the shortest day, or the day of the equinox, or on intermediate days, according to the aspect of the cave’s mouth. The sun rises due east on the day of the vernal equinox, and on subsequent days rises at points more and more north of east, attaining its greatest amplitude on the day of the summer solstice. A cave so situated as to receive its first rays on that day, would become noted, and useful, as an indicator of the season. The purpose would be served if the back of the cave were illuminated by rays from the front; and it might be assisted’ by any wall or screen, with an aperture, con- verting the inner part of the cave into anadytum. Equally well would the purpose be served if a person sat in the far end of the cave, and looked out through the narrow entrance and observed the sun rise.

The New Year sun, being thus first observed by its image in a cave, might be said figuratively to be born in a- Gave.

Caves, in the most remote periods of antiquity, were - consecrated ‘to the gods, before temples were erected to them.? Hence the Curetes in Crete dedicated a cavern to Jupiter; in Arcadia a cave was sacred to the moon and to Lyczan Pan, and in Naxos to Bacchus. Wherever Mithra was known they propitiated the god in a cavern. But this cave was adorned with the signs of the Zodiac— Cancer and Capricorn. The summer and winter solstices were chiefly conspicuous, as the gate of souls descending into this life, or passing out of it in their ascent to the gods. But the equinoxes also were gates.

The feast of Mithra, “the birthday of the unconquered

1 Hesiod, 7heogony, 565, 566. 2 Lundy, Monumental Christianity, p. 164.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE TIME. 69

Sun,” was the 8th of the Kalends of January, z.e, the 25th Decémber (just after the winter solstice).

Apollo was born in a cave at early dawn. Hermes was born early in the morning, in a cave or grotto of the Kyllenian hill. Bacchus is said to have been born in a cave, or placed in one shortly after his birth, Mr. Doane, in his learned work, gives many other instances? ; and Jacob Bryant, in his Analysis of Ancient Mythology, has a chapter on worship paid at caverns. One may quote Bryant sometimes for his classical references and his facts, without being supposed to follow him in his theory.’

It is remarkable that the Greeks suppose almost every event in sacred history which they commemorate to have been transacted in a grotto or rock.‘

In Egyptian mythology there is a highly mysterious cavern, which may have the like significance with the cavern of Mithra, etc.5

These two methods of determining the solstice, viz., the method of shadows and the method of observation in caves —would continue to show the recurrence of the solstice during long periods, with sufficient accuracy. But then the solstice itself moves backward along the ecliptic, in correspondence with the retrograding equinox, and its change of place among the stars would sooner or later become known. The midsummer day might still be ascertained by. the short shadow, or by the place of sun- rising observed from a cave, but the star which once heralded the day by its heliacal rising was gradually ceasing todo. The sun and the stars were out of accord, and it was clear that if the sun was to be trusted, the stars were not. |

1 Bible Folklore, p. 326.

2 Bible Myths, es T. W. Doane (New York), p p- 156. 3 Jacob Bryant, 4 New System, etc., London, 1775.

• Calmet, Dict. Fragment, ceviii.

5 Robert Brown, Junior, Kosmic Order, p. 64.

CHAPTER V.

THE SUN AS A FIRE. (The Fire-drill—The Fire God—Fire Worship—Midsummer Bonfires.)

Mr. JOHN O’NEILL, in his two large volumes called Zhe Night of the Gods, abundantly establishes the fact that the fathers of mankind were greatly impressed by the solemn, stately, regular revolution of the starry sphere round the pole. Night by night the orderly march proceeded, and ‘day by day the sun moved in a nearly parallel path. It -was Divine Order. Homer describes the sun as rising out of ocean, and as plunging into ocean again, and passing under the earth ; but in earlier time it seems to have been regarded as a fire, lighted anew every morning.’ Then it occurred to the imagination of men, that the daily revolu- tion of the universe, round the central axis, was like the twirling of a drill such as they used in producing fire. Perhaps they even believed that the turning of the drill by ‘the Polar Divinity was the vera causa that produced the solar fire.

The primitive means of making fire is, everywhere, the fire-drill, Charles Darwin, in the charming story of his ‘voyage round the world, tells us how he saw it made by the Tahitians?:—*“A light was procured by rubbing a blunt- ‘pointed stick in a groove made in another, as if with the intention of deepening it, until by the friction. the dust became ignited. The Gaucho in the Pampas uses a different method: taking an elastic stick about 18 inches long, he presses one end on his breast, and the other

1 Iliad, vii, 422. Od., iii, 13 xix, 3 Darwin, Journal of a Naturalist de ake Beagle):

THE SUN AS A FIRE. 71

pointed end into a hole in a piece of wood, and then rapidly turns the curved part, like a carpenter’s centre-bit.”

Dr. E. B. Tylor says: “The friction of two pieces of wood may perhaps be the original means of fire-making used by man; but between the rudest and the most artificial way in which this may be done, there is a considerable range of progress . . . . Bya change in the way of working, the stick-and-groove becomes a_fire-drill, by which the natives of Australia produce fire. A stick is pressed upon a piece of flat wood, and turned nimbly between the hands, fire being thus obtained in less than two minutes.”! |

In Ceylon, the wild part of the race of Veddas—a people dwelling in caves or bark huts, and living by hunting—still produce fire with the simplest kind of fire- drill twirled by hand.

In Mexico the friction-fire was solemnly made before the image of the fire-god in his sanctuary ; and the game brought in at the great hunt which began the festival, was cooked at the sacred fire, for the banquets that ended it.®

Where fire-sacrifice prevailed, Professor Robertson Smith points out that the altar was above all things a hearth, that is a fire-place.s The hearth-stone, and the fire on it, were at the centre of the archaic round hut, the central opening, right over .the fire, being the chimney hole. Thus the stone of the hearth was a navel, as well as the stone of the altar was, and when the father of the family was its priest as well, both stones were identical— hearth and altar were blended.® |

Mr. O’Neill has accumulated evidence to show that the ancients conceived of the sun as a fire, brought into existence by the twirling of the universe-axis. If this was the fact, we have in it the explanation of the puzzle that

~ 1 Tylor, Early Hist. of Mankind, p. 237. 2 Tylor, Primitive Cuiture, i. 45. comp. 68, and Zarly History, 244. ° Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, 253.

• O’Neill, Might of the Gods, i, 362. 5 Jbid., pp. 362-363, and 270, 280.

72 CREATION RECORDS.

while the fire is the sun, and the sun makes its appearance on the horizon, the Egyptian god of fire has his seat at the north pole. It was there that the motion of the fire- drill appeared to originate and to be controlled.

It will be useful to bear in mind that the stick which is turned in the hollow piece of wood to obtain fire is con- stantly compared in the Vedas to a phallus.'

Kalisch says that an old and intelligible conception assigns to the Deity the attributes of fire, and declares the nature of both to be entirely kindred. He thinks it arose among tribes which worshipped the sun, because they considered it as the central fire of the universe, or as the great god himself.?

Our idea is somewhat different ; or at least the idea of Kalisch does not apply to the very early phase of thought we are at present considering. While the sun was only a fire produced in the morning and extinguished in the evening, it could not command the same reverence as the power that worked the drill. The first Great God was the Divinity of the North Pole.

THE FIRE-GOD.—The god of fire, best known by his Roman name of Vulcan, was by the Greeks called Hephaestus, and by the Egyptians Ptah. The Greek writers themselves identified Ptah with their own Hephae- stus, as the god of fire and inventor of the arts.®

We seem to see now why a star-group near the pole might without incongruity be called the Leg of Ptah. But when Ptah was represented in image and picture he was shown as an upright mummy, standing upon a pedestal, and wearing a closely-fitting cap ; his neck was adorned with a large and beautiful collar, having a counterpoise at the back ; and his hands, which alone were free, held a sceptre. The sceptre was compounded of the ¢e¢ or emblem of stability, the ankh or emblem of life, and the wser or emblem of power.*

1 O’Neill, Night of the Gods, p. 593. 7 Kalisch, On Leviticus, chapter vi. 3 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 150. + Murray, Handbook for Egypt.

THE SUN AS A FIRE. 73

There was a meaning in all these things ; and the mummy form may have been intended to signify that he had in some sense passed through death. The representation therefore belongs to a later time, when he was no longer the Living God in the sense that he once had been in Egyptian estimation.

In the hieroglyphic texts Ptah was called the Father of Beginnings, the Creator of the Egg of the Sun and the Egg of the Moon, and in common with many other divini- ties, the Lord of Life. Syncellus has preserved from Manetho a table which makes the Fire God precede the sun. He is called the First of the Gods of the Upper World, the Creator of all things in this world.?

Adoration to Ptah might be suitably paid every night, when one gazed with awe at the sublime spectacle of the circling stars. It would again be called forth in the morning, in gratitude for the newly created fire of the sun. And his annual festival might appropriately be held on Midsummer Day, when the return of the solstice com- pleted one year and opened another in splendour.

In fact the earliest of all years that we know of in history began at the summer solstice. One of the oldest temples at Thebes in Egypt is oriented to sunset at the summer solstice ; and it appears to have been built more than 3000 B.c. “And I think there is little doubt that Stonehenge was built by people who began their year with the summer solstice, which is the time of year in which, in many countries, it is the custom still to light fires upon hills,”?

It will be argued in a future chapter that the establish- ment of the solar year dates from the entrance of the vernal equinox into Taurus (about 4435 B.c.). But the method of marking the return of the year by empirical

1 Cooper, Archate Dict. 2 Bunsen’s Zgypt’s Place, i, 384. Cory’s Ancient Fragments. 3 Lockyer, Nature, March, 1892.

74 CREATION RECORDS.

observation of the summer solstice, appears to have been earlier than the systematic mapping-out of the months and days. Thus Ptah preceded the true solar god, and summer solstice customs were earlier than any recognition of the sun as ruler of all the seasons of the year. This may be the meaning of the tradition which Manetho records, that Ptah was celebrated as the discoverer of fire, and that from him sprung the sun.’ “ All things came into existence after he existed. He is the Lord of Truth and the King of the Gods.”? He is the chief of the society of the gods, and he created all Being. Thus it is written on the walls of the temple of Denderah.

When the equinox was in Taurus, the summer solstice was in Leo; and so we look for the association of Ptah with Leo, if not with Virgo, the sign preceding. Gerald Massey’s impression, from his Egyptian studies, is that Ptah was “a kind of pre-solar sun-god, located in the Lion.” He is called Ptah the Opener—perhaps as the god who, like Janus, opens the year; still more probably because, as we shall see, he opened up the nether world.

FIRE-WORSHIP.—The fire of the sun, even when supposed to be daily produced afresh by the drill of Ptah, was of such might and marvel as to command admiration. But the fires which man produced in imitation would be rather in honour of the Fire-god than of the sun itself. - If fire-worship represented sun-worship, as Tylor says it did, it was because the sun stood for the fire-drill god who gave it birth* At least it would be so in the remote period we are speaking of.

In the elaborately systematic religion of Mexico, there appears, in his proper place, a Fire-god, closely related to the Sun-god in character, but keeping, well marked, his proper identity.’ Great honour was paid to this god Fire,

1 Bonwick, Zgy. Bel., p. 276. 2 Brussch, Zoypt under Pharaohs, i, 28. 3 Natural Genesis, i, 488. 4 Primitive Culture, ii, 262. 5 Primitive Culture, ii, 253. ao %

THE SUN AS A FIRE. 75

who gives them heat, and bakes their cakes, and roasts their meat. Therefore at every meal the first morsel and libation were cast into the fire, and every day the deity had ‘incense burnt to him.

The fire, nevertheless, is representative of the sun, and the sun commands more intelligent reverence than the fire. Every morning the Brahmin worships the sun, looking towards the east and saying :—‘ He rises, wonderful, the eye of the sun, of water, and of fire, collective power of gods; he fills heaven, earth, and sky, with his luminous net ; he is the soul of all that is fixed or locomotive. . . That eye, supremely beneficial, rises pure from the east; may we see him a hundred years,” etc.?

In Northern Arabia the people pray as the first ray of the sun rises above the horizon, and so continue till his whole disk is clear, and again in the evening, reversing the order of course. This is a ritual which is stringently for- bidden in the Koran.?

Parsees in India “disclaim the worship of fire, but pay it a certain observance” (in their own words) “as the terres- trial image of the Supreme Being,” and therefore when engaged in prayer, they rene before the fire, or direct their face towards the sun.®

“ By the Egyptians,” says Herodotus, “ fire is held to be a living beast, devouring all it can lay hold of, and then expiring with what it has consumed.” That may be: but fire-worship, wherever it has existed, has been representative of sun-worship, and the sun was at first regarded as the creation of the god Ptah. :

MIDSUMMER BONFIRES.—lIn confirmation of our view that the Fire-god and his worship have always been con- nected with the midsummer solstice, we may cite. the still existing customs of the season.

1 Frimitive Culture, ii, 266. . - Gifford Palgrave. Quoted in Stones Crying Out, by L. N. R., p. 154- % Stones Crying Out, by L. N. R., p. 419. Calmet, Dict., p. $64, 4 Herodotus, iii, 16. 5 Primitive Culture, ii, 262.

76 CREATION RECORDS.

In the festival rites of Midsummer Eve, bonfires are lighted, and a lighted wheel is rolled down a hill, to signify, according to Durandus, that the sun, having reached his highest place, is beginning to descend.! Gebelin says that the origin of this fire, which is still retained by so many nations, is very simple. It was a feu de jote, kindled the very moment the year began; for the first of all years, and the most ancient that we know of, began at this month of June.

These customs are probably still kept up in some places, though the following very good description relates to more than a century ago. .The Rev. Donald McQueen, of Kil- muir, in the Isle of Skye, writes in the Gentleman’s Magazine for February, 1795, and says—“I was so fortunate in the summer of 1782 as to have my curiosity gratified by a sight of this ceremony, to a very great extent of country. At the house where I was entertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of Fzves in honour of the Sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear; and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw, on a radius of 30 miles all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a further satisfaction in learning, from undoubted authority, that. the people danced round the fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass through the fire; and. the whole was conducted with religious solemnity.”? |

In Sir John Sinclair’s Statestecal Account of Scotland, parish of Mongahitter, it is written—“ the Midsummer Eve Fire, a relic of Druidism, was kindled in some parts of this county.” SBorlase, in his Antiquities of Cornwall, says— “At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and make their perambula-

1 Brand, Popular Antigqs. 2 Ibid.

THE SUN AS A FIRE. 77

tions round the fires, and go from village to village carrying their torches before them, and this is certainly the remains of the Druid superstition.”

Other instances of these Beltane Fires are given in Calmet’s Dictzonary of the Bible, under the article “ Baal,” and in Taylor’s Fragments appended to the same work. Both there and in Brand it will be seen that the Fire customs have an ancient lineage, and an unmistakeable reference to the Sun (and therefore to the Fire-drill of the Universe, and the Fire-god of the North Pole).

Other summer solstice customs relate to the carrying of dragons and giants in procession, and the divination of predestined marriages.2 These we need not pursue at present. But we shall have soon to consider, almost as the foundation of our subject, how the Fire-god was treated when it was found that his north pole throne was not stable. The precession movement displaced the pole: how long was it before the displacement was dis- covered? A Fire-god who could not keep his seat was not immutable: how long will he be endured? We anticipate that the Pole will go out of favour; but in what way, and under what new arrangements for Time- keeping, will Solar worship succeed to Polar worship ?

1 Calmet, Zhe Fragments, numbers LI, CVIII, and DCCXL. 2 Calmet, Aaa/, and Brand.

CHAPTER VL

TEMPLES AND THEIR ORIENTATION.

(Orientation—Caverns—Pointer-stones—Obelisks–The First Temples— - Temples of Egypt.)

CAPTAIN SILAS TAYLOR says, that in days of yore, when a church was to be built, they watched and ‘prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and took that point of the horizon where the sun arose, for the east, which makes the variation that so few stand true, except those built between the two equinoxes.! .I have experimented with. some churches, he says, and have found the line to point to that part of the horizon where the sun rises on the day of that saint to whom the church is dedicated.

[The “line” here spoken of must be the line down the central aisle—the axis of the church.]

Orientation, says Dr. Tylor,? was recognised in 1 classic. Greek religion, not indeed in slavish obedience to a uniform law, but as a principle to be worked out in converse ways. Thus it was an Athenian practice for the temple to have its entrance east, looking out through which entrance the divine image stood, to behold the rising sun. This rule it is that Lucian refers to, when he talks of the delight of gazing toward the loveliest and most longed-for object of the day, of welcoming the sun as _ he peeps forth, of taking one’s fill of light through the wide-open doors, even as the ancients built their temples looking forth. Nor was the contrary rule, as stated by Vitruvius, less plain in meaning ; the sacred houses of the

1 Chambers, Book of Days, October 13. 2 Tylor, Prim. Cult., ii, 386.

TEMPLES AND THEIR ORIENTATION. 79

immortal gods shall be so arranged that if no reason - prevents and choice is free, the temple and the statue erected in the cell shall look toward the west, so that they . who approach the altar, to sacrifice and vow and pray, may look at once towards the statue and the eastern sky, | the divine figures thus seeming to arise and look upon them. - Altars of the gods were to stand toward the east. CAVERNS.—It is not difficult to see how caverns, accidentally oriented to the sun rising, may have been the origin of temples, with their inner sanctuaries ae avenue approaches. | Natural caverns might seldom have the ight: aspect to- catch the first rays of the rising sun of midsummer ; but chambers and passages could be constructed for the very . purpose. Besides the practical utility of such structures. religious interest belonged to them; and no labour was considered too great in building these primitive temples, The megalithic ruin at Stonehenge is still a marvel. STONEHENGE.—Mr. Flinders Petrie (Stonehenge : Plans, Descriptions and Theories, 1880, p. 20) concludes that Stonehenge existed as early as 2000 B.C. Structures more or less similar to Stonehenge are found along a line from the east on both sides of the Mediterranean (Fergusson, Rude Stone Monuments). Stonehenge, there is little doubt, was so constructed that at sunrise at the summer solstice, the shadow of one stone fell exactly on the stone in the centre: that observation indicated to the» priests that the New Year had begun; and possibly also fires were lighted to flash the news through the country.? In Wiltshire the legend runs that on the longest day of the year, the sun, as observed from the Altar Stone, may . be seen to rise immediately over the summit of an isolated monolith popularly known as the Friar’s Heel. This monolith stands at some distance outside the enclosure, and is so planted that it occupies the centre of the space

1 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., p. 91.

80 . CREATION RECORDS.

seen through the entrance columns, whilst its highest point is just level with the distant sky-line. It is an unhewn stone, 16 feet in height.

Emerson, in his English Traits, relates how he visited Stonehenge with his friend Mr. C., and engaged Mr. Brown the local antiquary to show them what he knew of the “ astronomical ” and “sacrificial” stones. “I stood on the last, and he pointed to the upright, or rather, inclined stone, called the ‘astronomical, and bade me notice that its top ranged with the sky-line. ‘Yes.’ Very well. Now, at the summer solstice the sun rises exactly over the top of that stone; and at the Druidical temple at Abury there is also an astronomical stone, in the same relative position.”

On 20th June, 1891, Rev. J. M. Bacon, F.R.A.S., made a midnight pilgrimage to Salisbury Plain, accompanied by Mr. Thomas B. Howe, a professional photographer, and when the sun rose, soon after 3 o’clock, a successful picture was secured. The camera was placed on the altar stone, and the spectator in the photograph is looking down the north-eastern avenue, by which the great series of tri- lithons is approached. The picture—reproduced in the Leisure Hour—shows that the sun still rises over the gnomon called the Friar’s Heel.? (Precession does not carry the solstitial point away from the temple axis, but moves both together to a new place among the stars). The writer goes on to say, without adopting the solar theory of Stonehenge in its extreme form, it may be said that sun-worship, or homage, in a greater or less degree, seems to be suggested by an arrangement which thus provided, with wonderful accuracy, for the entrance of the sun’s beams along the axis of the temple and its approaches.®

‘1 Emerson’s Works, Bohn, 2 The Letsure Hour, November, 1891. 3 For more on Stonehenge see Journal of Anthrop. Institute, August and November, 1881. Also Barclay’s work on Stonehenge.

TEMPLES AND THEIR ORIENTATION. 81

POINTER-STONES.— Pillars corresponding to the Friar’s Heel, were set up for the same purpose, as a common prac- tice. The Abbot Daniel (whose pilgrimage to the Holy Land is supposed to have been made in the 12th century) when he gives the direction of a place, usually refers to the position of the sun at the winter or summer solstice— “which seems almost like a reminiscence of the remote days when pointer-stones were set up to mark the sun’s furthest ‘deviation north and south; and general rejoicing announced the day when the point of sunrise commenced to return northwards.”

Major Conder, speaking of menhirs and other rude stone monuments, says, “These shrines, whether called cromlechs, gilgals or hazeroth, are always connected among Celts, Dravidians or early Semitic tribes, with the adora- tion of the rising sun; and often serve to mark the seasons, by the direction of the shadow of the central. menhir at sunrise.”

Two such pillars, showing the direction of the rising sun and the setting sun on the longest day, would be to the north-east and the north-west of the observer. A cor- responding pair for the shortest day would be south-east and south-west. These four being joined by cross-lines would make a symmetrical figure; and the angles of this figure being bisected would indicate the four cardinal points. Possibly it is in this way that we get the 8-rayed star, the symbol of Assur.

} Quart. Stat. of Pal, Explor. Fund, January, 1888, p. 37. 2 Conder, Syrian Stone Lore, p. 71. te

G

82 CREATION RECORDS.

Manu, in describing the creation of the golden egg, says it was divided into two halves, and out of these he formed heaven and earth, between them the middle sphere, the eight points of the horizon, and the eternal abode of the waters. (7he Laws of Manu, i, 13. Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv, p. 6.)

In Maspero’s opinion the obelisk so common in Egypt was originally a menhir. He tells us also that the true place of all obelisks was in front of the colossi on each side of the main entrance of a temple.?

Heliopolis, the “city of the sun,” was called in Egyptian An, and John O’Neill quotes Pierret to the effect that the name Am means simply pillar.®

It is quite possible, however, that pillars or obelisks may have served more than one purpose. Obelisks were actually adored ; and O’Neill quotes passages to show that they symbolised first the universe-axis or fire-drill, and proceeded naturally to represent the phallus. We shall return to obelisks in chapter viii.

THE FIRST TEMPLES.—At Stonehenge the pointer- stone called the Friar’s Heel, does not stand solitary and independent. It would not serve its purpose without an avenue leading to a temple, with its altar stone. The rising sun, on the longest day, sends its rays along an avenue to the altar, or a point above it; while from the altar the pointer-stone may be seen, and the sun rising over it.

It is quite possible that the avenue of the Stonehenge temple was covered and made virtually into a telescopic tube for the transmission of the direct rays. We have some evidence, at least, that such covered avenues were not unknown in connection with such temples. Charles Taylor, the learned editor of Calmet, describes a Druidical temple

1 Simpson, Praying Wheel, p. 276. 2 Maspero, Zeyptian Archeology, p. 104. = O’Neill, Night of the Gods, i, 200.

TEMPLES AND THEIR ORIENTATION. 83

found in Jersey, near St. Helier’s, of which an account and plan were communicated to the Antiquarian Society. This temple—which in all its dimensions was on a small scale— consisted of a circle of about 20 feet diameter, formed by rude unhewn stones set upright, and when entire had within _it six cromlechs. To this circle, on the south-east side, [towards the rising sun of the winter solstice] is attached a covered entrance, the uprights composed of many rough stones set parallel to the diameter, and covered at the top by four stones equally irregular. This passage measuring (within) 5 feet 3 inches in breadth, and 4 feet 4 inches in height, is about 15 feet in length. About 5 or 6 feet south- east of the entrance is a single stone that seemingly belonged to the temple.

_ TEMPLES OF EGyPT.—Such a people as the ancient Egyptians would have no difficulty in building temples to face the rising or the setting sun accurately, at the solstice or the equinox, as they might desire.

The foundation of an Egyptian temple was associated with a series of ceremonies which are repeatedly described ; and are illustrated, for example, by inscriptions on the walls of the temples of Karnak, Denderah and Edfu. The king proceeded to the site; accompanied mythically by the goddess Sesheta, who is styled “the mistress of the laying of the foundation stone.”2 Each was armed with a stake; the two stakes were connected by a cord; and the temple- axis was fixed by a process called “the stretching of the cord.” The line being correctly ascertained, and the stakes driven into the ground, one boundary wall of the temple was built along this line, and was thus parallel to the main axis of the temple. If the moment of sunrise was chosen for the stretching of the cord, and the alignment was towards the sun, the light of the sun would stream along

1 Calmet, Fragments, DCCXXXV, and Plate LX XIX. ‘2 Lockyer gives results from Chabas, Brugsch and Diimichen. ature, January, 1892. : G2

84 CREATION RECORDS,

the axis of the temple thus built. We learn from Chabas that the Egyptian word which expresses the idea of found- ing or laying the foundation stone of a temple, is Sezzz,a word which still exists in Coptic. But in the old language another word has been traced—the word Put-ser—and it has been established that xs means to stretch, and Ser means cord.

A leather roll of the XIIth dynasty describes the founda- tion of a temple of the sun, in the reign of Amen-emha and his son Usertesen I, who shared the throne. The king was crowned with the double crown ; and his counsel- lors were present. “The king said, ‘I will make monuments and erect carved columns to the Double Harmachis!’ Arose the king, attired in his necklace and the feather crown, all men following him. The Kolchyt read the holy book during the stretching of the measuring cord and the laying of the foundation stone on the spot to be occupied by the temple, ”!

It is stated in another inscription that the four corners of the temple of Abydos were fixed with accuracy by the four supports of heaven ; and this is supposed to imply that cither the sides or the angles were directed to the four cardinal points. When we look at such a planisphere as that of Denderah, where the four supporters are figured, we judge by their relation to the ecliptic signs that the cardinal points are intended.

Egyptian temples may be arranged architecturally in two main groups. The first, of which Edfu is the most perfect example, are characterised by having a pylon, consisting of two massive structures right and left of the entrance. That end of the temple at which the pylons are situated is open, the other closed. At that other end is the Sanctuary or Holy of Holies. Then from one end to the other we find the axis marked out by narrow apertures

1 Ludwig Stern, in Records of Past, vol. xii, p. 57. Comp. Lockyer, who quotes from Nissen, (Na/ure, January, 1892.)

TEMPLES AND THEIR ORIENTATION. 85

in the various pylons; and many walls with doors cross the axis. In the chief temple at Karnak there are 17 or 18 of these apertures, limiting the light which falls into the Holy of Holies, in much the same way that light is limited by a series of diaphragms in a telescope tube. And apparently they were for the same purpose, viz., to ensure that all the light of the entrance should be kept pure, and guided to the shrine, as all the light from the object-glass of a telescope is made to fall on the cye-piece, without loss, or reflection by the tube.

Mr. Lockyer—in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries, May, 1891—showed reason for believing that the temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak was built in such a manner that at sunset at the summer solstice—z.e., on the longest day of the year—the sunlight entered the temple and penetrated along the axis (more than a quarter of a mile in length) to the sanctuary.’

Maspero’s description of an Egyptian temple assumes that it is oriented east and west and the worshipper faces the east. He says, “The sun, travelling from east to west, divided the universe into two worlds, the world of the north and the world of the south. The temple, like the universe, was double, and an imaginary line passing through the axis of the sanctuary, divided it into two temples—the temple of the south on the right hand, and the temple of the north on the left.”

Many facts of orientation have remained unrecognised until lately, through the accident that the French Com- mission in 1798, and the Prussian Commission in 1844, made their observations with reference to the magnetic north, which is subject to variation, and not to the true north. Lockyer, making the necessary corrections, finds that the amplitude of the point to which the axis of the great temple at Karnak is directed is 26° north of west—

1 Lockyer, Nature, May, 1891. 2 Nature, January, 1892. 3G. Maspero, Manual of Egyttian Archeol., p. 96.

86 CREATION RECORDS.

which is precisely the amplitude of the place of sunset at the summer solstice. And the amplitude of the point to which the axis of the small temple is directed is 26° south of east—exactly the position of sunrise at the winter solstice. The direction of the temple at Karnak is quite independent of the Nile or any other feature of the land- scape. Moreover, we have temples of the same ampli- tude in different localities up and down the Nile Valley, parallel to each other but variously related to the course of the stream.!

Some temples—the temple of Denderah, for example— do point very far away from the sun; and yet they have the same arrangements for receiving rays of light along an axis, corresponding to a telescopic tube with diaphragms. Such temples would be constructed for the observation of particular stars. In some of these temples we get exactly the same amplitudes in different localities—for example at Karnak, at Denderah and Abydos. In many cases there is a rectangular arrangement, of two temples, so that if the sun were observed in one temple and a star in the other, there would be a difference of 90° between the positions of the two bodies at that moment.?

Confining ourselves, for the present, to observations of the sun, it is easy to understand that the great luminary looking along the avenue of a temple, would form an image of himself over the altar; and in temples that were oriented for the solstice, the perfect formation of the image —the full eye— would be ocular proof and demonstration that the solstice had arrived.

1 Nature, May, 1891. 2 Jbid., June, 1891.

CHAPTER VIL.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN.

(Sun Reflected in Temple—Shows the Year Completed—Signification of Two Eyes, Four Eyes, Seven Eyes, Eye of Ra.)

EGYPT is frequently designated the Land of the Holy Eye; and Thothmes III, at the dedication of a temple, uses the expression: “The sun in Hermothis, whose eye shines in this land.”!

The Egyptian sacred writings attribute to the “Eye of the Sun” such power and efficacy that it becomes desirable to inquire what is meant by the expression. The syn itself may be conceived of as an eye, as when Milton makes Adam and Eve, in their morning hymn, say,—

** Thou Sun ! of this great world both eye and soul, Acknowledge him thy greater ; sound his praise.”?

In Madagascar the sun is called the Eye of Day. To Hesiod the luminary was the “all-seeing eye of Zeus”; in the Rzg- Veda he is the eye of Mitra, etc.

It is natural to speak of the sun as the eye of Heaven ; but if this were all that the Egyptians meant, it would hardly be correct to speak of “the eye of the sun.”

THE SYMBOLIC EYE.—Dr. Birch has stated that one of the most common objects of the toilet in Egypt is the symbolic eye, w¢a, consisting of an eye with two appen- dages—the one in front called “the drop,” attached to a spiral line resembling a lituus ; the two being called az.® The greater number of these symbolic eyes are composed

1 Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 113 ii, 381. 2 Paradise Lost, Book V, 171. 3 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, 59.

88 CREATION RECORDS.

of blue porcelain, though some are of granite, lapis lazuli, and carnelian. The important point for our inquiry is that these eyes are symbolic.

Their use and reference would appear to date from the age of the Fire-god Ptah. Mr. Hilton Price says that the most remarkable of the symbolic eyes in his collection is a rectangular plate of blue porcelain, with a right eye.) In the centre of the pupil is a figure of Ptah- Socharis-Osiris, as a pygmy-dwarf. On the right side of the pupil, in the tunic of the eye, are two hawks ; and on the left side of it some object too indistinct to make out. Upon the drop of the eye is an Ibis in the attitude of walking upwards. Another specimen has the figure of Sekhet the wife of Ptah, standing, lion-headed, wearing the disk of the sun, arms pendent. A third is similar, with the exception that it has the basket of Nephthys beneath the drop of the eye, in addition to the figure of Sekhet on the right hand side. |

Sekhet, “the striker,” and Neith, “she who shooteth,” are both called the Eye of the Sun; and this is why Hathor at Denderah is called, among her other names, Sekhet-Nit, Eye of Ra, in a well-known passage.?

Egyptologists agree in telling us that Ra is the sun. How then can Sekhet, who is the wife of Ptah, be the sun also? Yet this should be so if Sekhet is the Eye, and the eye is the sun itself. No, at the courts of ancient kings there was a high officer called “‘ the King’s Eye,” and it was probably his business to see and report everything to the king. What he saw, the king would know ; for he was the king’s deputy or double. Renouf tells us that the office is often referred to by Greek writers.2 May we not suspect that “the Eye of the Sun” is in some sense the represen- tative or double, the reflection or other self, of the Solar Orb?

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, 60. 2 Renouf in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 8, 461. 3 Renouf on chapter cxxv, Book of the Dead.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN. 89

THE EYE OF THE SUN.—Our impression is that “the Eye of the Sun” is the reflection of the sun, seen over the altar in the inner sanctuary of the temple which is properly oriented to receive it. It would be seen there, almost as in a mirror ; and perhaps actually in a mirror. In Japan the mirror is surrounded with a halo of glory, and certain forms of it are preserved, covered up, as a very sacred relic in the temples.. Professor Sylvanus Thompson, in a lecture on the Magic Mirrors of Japan, has stated that the mirror enters largely into Japanese mythology. One myth tells us of a certain goddess looking out of a cave into the mirror,

Dupuis mentions that a temple at Heliopolis, in ancient Egypt, was flooded all day long with sunlight by means of a mirror.*

I am indebted to Gerald Massey for the suggestion that the eye is a symbol of reproduction, made such by the circumstance that it reflects in miniature the face of the person who looks into it. This recalls the curious Hebrew circumlocution for the pupil,—‘ little man, daughter of the eye.” The eye in fact is a mirror, and a circular mirror is an eye, and all the more so when the circular image of the sun is reflected in it—the face of the sun reproduced.

In chapter xvii of the Book of the Dead the expression occurs, “Let not your offerings be hurtful to me, O ye who preside over your altars, for I am among those who follow after Neb-er-tcher according to the writings of Khepera.” And on this the Scholiast says :—“ They who preside at the altars are the similitude of the Eye of Ra and the similitude of the Eye of Horus.”

The image of the sun, produced full in the adytum, would show that the year was completed—that the sun had been his annual circuit and come round to the same place, and was looking in at the same door. To secure

1 Dupuis, Origine des Cultes, vol. i, p. 450. Lockyer, Dawz, p. 180. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 288.

90 CREATION RECORDS.

this image, and to be sure of this fact, the temple was oriented and the avenue was constructed.

De Rouge says, “The principal sense attached to this much revered emblem appears to have been the epoch of the accomplishment of astronomical periods. The Eye figured with an appendage below the globe was called utat, which indicates the equilibrium and accomplishment of the phases of the lunar and solar periods. The fate of man being assimilated to that of the stars, the return of the sun to its “Zaz, z.e. to say, to the initial point of its diverse periods, was the emblem, and as if the perpetual pledge, of the resurrection of his soul after it had got through thc infernal periods.”!

Two- EvyEs.—At Annu or Heliopolis, where the temple was oriented to receive the beams of the sun at the vernal equinox, the image was formed in the “ Benben Chamber,” and it was a privilege to see it. The spirit of the deceased might assume to be so favoured, but a living man might almost as well hope for admission to the Hebrew Holy of Holies. “Iam the nostrils of the lord of the winds, who maketh all men to live on the day when the eye of the sun becometh full in Annu, in the second month of the season of coming forth until the end thereof, in the presence of the lord of this earth. I behold the eye of the sun wax full in Annu.” (Chapter cxxv, Intro.)?

King Piankhi, the Ethiopian conqueror of Egypt, made a great offering at Heliopolis, opposite the rising sun. He then went through the prescribed form of purification, and was received into the temple, where he ascended the step or stairs to the great window, to look at the Sun-god Ra, in his Benben Chamber, in the house of the Obelisk. The king stood there all alone. He drew back the bolts, opened the doors, and beheld his father Ra in the splendid Benben Chamber ; both the morning barque of Ra and the

1 O’Neill, Might of the Gods, i, 465.

• Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 346.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN. gt evening barque of Tum. After this he shut the doors and sealed them.!

Perhaps this was a high-handed proceeding on the part of the conqueror, acting as though he were a high priest entitled to enter the Hloly of Holies and look upon the shechinah. The description seems to imply that there were two avenues oriented for the rising and the setting sun (Ra and Tum); and the king, having seen one image at the time of sun-rise, must have waited till sun-set to see the other.

King Khuenaten also—the heretic—accompanied by his wife, conducted his mother Thi into the temple at Tel-el- Amarna, “to behold her sun-shadow.”?

The inscription of Sheshonk, at Abydos, tells us that the statue of his son was set down in the splendid royal chamber of the Holy of Holies of the Right Eye of the Sun.’

Right and left eyes of the sun might relate to east and west images—of the rising and the setting sun—as the observer faced north or south. In one ancient writing we have a passage which plainly connects the eye with the sanctuary oriented for the setting sun. In the Book of Flades, Ra says to the twelve men his worshippers, “I am satisfied with what you did for me, whether I was shining in the eastern heavens, or whether I was setting in the sanctuary of my Eye.”

It ought to be plain that the two eyes of the sun cannot

be the sun and moon: the two great lights may be

eyes of heaven, but not eyes of the sun. Yet the

error is so much cherished that it may be well here

to try and dissipate it. If the passages speaking of the

two eyes referred to the sun and moon, what would

be meant by the fulness of the eye? In the case of the

moon the eye would be full once a month, and in the case

of the sun the fulness would be constant. But ina passage

Brugsch, Egypt under Fharaohs i, 129 5 : li, 243. : 2 bid, i, 451 ah j F roid, i 200. Records of the Past, x, 117. el gS me Ae GC he

92 CREATION RECORDS.

like the following the fulness of the Eye is seen to be an annual event, and to be witnessed in the City of the Sun: ““On the day when the Eye is full in Annu, on the last day of Mechir” (which is the sixth month)! Renouf, in his Note on this passage, says, “The moon, which is always represented as full on the 15th of the month, cannot be full on the 30th. It must be the other eye, the sun.” He proceeds to show that “the last day of Machir” in the text was intended to denote the winter solstice. Then he adds: “If the Eye, considered as the sun, is said to be full at the winter solstice, it was most probably spoken of in the same way not only at the summer solstice, but also at the two equinoxes. And this is the most probable reason why, in the pictures representing the Four Rudders of Heaven (North, South, East and West) an Eye is attached to each rudder.”

Now let us suppose that we face the East: then the right and left eyes of the sun may be his images, reflected in tempies oriented for the summer and winter solstices. In ancient Egypt the summer solstice would occur on the first day of Thoth (the first month), and the winter solstice on the first day of Phamenoth (the seventh month). Plutarch® notices, under first Phamenoth, “the entrance of Osiris into the moon,’ and upon this ‘Krall remarks that these are festivals connected with the celebration of the winter solstice and the filling of the Uza-eye on the 30th Machir (6th month).* Krall also remarks that on the 6th Pachons (which took the place of Thoth by the decree of Tanis) the Uza-eye is filled, “a mythical act which we have, in another place, referred to the celebration of the solstice, and ‘everything ts performed which is ordained’ in the book ‘on the Divine Birth.’ ”*

1 Book of the Dead, chapter cxxv, end of Part I

2 Renouf cn chapter CxxV, Note 2. .

3 Plutarch, /sis and Osiris, c. 43 b.

4 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., p. 284. | 5 Nature, January, 1893.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN. 93

With these facts before him, Lockyer has not hesitated to say that the Two Eyes of Ra, which look in different directions, are the two extreme points of the sun’s amplitude north and south (at summer and_ winter solstice).'

“ Now see,” says Lockyer, “ how these were observed, and how naturally they suggest an Eye. The temple sanctuary was dark, and the beam of light came through the pylons and traversed the long passage and lighted up the shrine of the god, on those days of the greatest amplitude of the sun—on those particular days, because the temple was oriented to catch the first or last rays of the sun on the day of the summer solstice. The beam of sunlight would flash into the sanctuary and light up the shrine for about a couple of minutes, and then pass away. The flash would be a crescendo and diminuendo, but the whole thing would not last above two minutes or thereabouts and might be considerably reduced by arrangements of curtains.”?

All this helps our conception: but what Lockyer fails to point out is that such a beam of light, so received, through apertures which might be square or irregular in shape, would nevertheless, by the laws of light, throw a sun-image, circular like an eye. The great length of the avenue would lend perfection to the effect; for the law with regard to light passing through apertures is this—that an image of the aperture itself will be produced when the screen is rather close, but an image of the source of light when the screen is at a considerable distance. Thus the sunlight through a window gives an image of the aperture of the window on the wall or floor of the apartment, but would give an image of the sun if the wall were a mile away

The Two Eyes are a most frequent symbol on all funereal monuments, on the most ancient coffins, on mummy cases

1 Lockyer, Nineteenth Century. Also Nature, January, 1893. 2 Nature, May, 1891. 3 Ccmp. Tyndall, Six Lectures on Light, p. 10.

904 CREATION RECORDS.

generally, and on funeral tablets. This may be verified in the cemeteries of Memphis and Thebes.'

Mention of the Two Eyes is also frequent in the Ritual ; and that they relate to the two solstices is confirmed by the fact that they are identified with Isis and Nephthys, while we shall find reason to associate those goddesses themselves with the solstices.

In chapter cxxv, the deceased on entering the Hall of Righteousness, addresses Osiris as “Thou of the Pair of Eyes.” Renouf explains this by referring to chapter xxxvii, which begins with an invocation to the Sister Pair of God- desses Merta—“ Merta” signifying Two Eyes, and the divine sister pair being Isis and Nephthys.?

Down to the latest periods the Sisters were known as Eye of the Southern (or left) side—z.e. Isis; and Eye of the Northern (or right) side—ze. Nephthys. On countless coffins and sarcophagi these goddesses are represented on opposite sides, in kneeling attitude, holding in their hands a ring which is the symbol of the circuit of the heavens, and of the yearly recurring flow of the Nile.

“Many goddesses will be found bearing the title of Eye of Ra. There is not one of these who is not identified with Isis or Nephthys.”* That is to say, in the course of time, when the solstitial points have shifted, other divinities take the place of the earlier goddesses ; and they are in a sense the same goddesses, because they are divinities of the solstices.

‘“‘ He lightens up the earth with his two eyes,” is a frequent expression in the texts. |

The sun-image at the two solstices may be received in the adytum either at sun-rise or sun-set, according as the temple is oriented ; and, consequently, there will be two eyes of the evening sun Tum, as well as of the morning sun Ra. In the fifteenth chapter of the Book of the Dead,

1 Records of Past, iv, 97. 2 Renouf on Book of the Dead, chapter cxxv. 3 Renouf on chapter cxxv. | $ Jbid.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN. 95

the god Tum is called “the lightener of the Tuat with his Two Eyes.”!

With all this evidence before us we feel assured that the Two Eyes of the Sun are the two images of his disk pro- duced by reflection, over the altars of temples oriented -for the two solstices. To identify the Two Eyes with the sun and moon appears to be a mistake. The mistake, however, has not originated in modern times. The Egyptian system is so ancient that the meaning of its symbolism was partly forgotten, even two or three thousand years ago. An inscription of an eminent priest, a contemporary of Alex- ander the Great, says, ‘““O thou Lord of the gods, Khnum —thou king of Upper and Lower Egypt, thou prince of the land—at whose rising the world is enlightened, whose right eye is the sun’s disk, whose left eye is the moon, etc,””?

Some modern Egyptologists have accepted this interpre- tation, naturally, but too readily, as I think.’

FOUR EYEs.—If the Two Eyes were the Sun and Moon, it would not be easy to explain the four eyes, of which we sometimes read. But if they are reflections of the sun at the solstices, there may be a pair for the rising and the setting sun of each solstice.

We have already found Isis and Nephthys called the Two Eyes, and we shall show that they aré connected with the two solstices. The two appearances observed by Piankhi, the Ethiopian, on the same day must have been those of the rising and the setting sun at one and the same solstice. Indeed he beheld the barque of Ra (the morning sun) and the barque of Tum (the evening sun). We may compare the statement with a passage in the Nebseni papyrus, “Thy right eye is in the sekfe¢ boat, and thy left. eye is in the atet boat.”* We can fancy

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. c

2 Brugsch, Lyypt under Pharaohs, i ii, 308. 3 Trans. Soc. Bib., Vv, 1, 3193 Vi, 2, 418. .* Budge, Book of the Dead, P- 359-

96 CREATION RECORDS.

that perhaps the boats were painted over the altars, and at the critical impressive moment the image (or “eye ”) of the Sun-god appeared in the boat.

A chief official of the Court of Khuenaten has left us a prayer to the Sun, in the course of which he says, “ The whole island of Egypt and all peoples repeat all thy names at thy rising, to magnify thy rising in like manner as thy setting. Thou O God, who in truth art the Living One, standest before the Two Eyes.”!

Mr. Hilton Price, describing his specimens, says, “ The combinations of four symbolic eyes upon one plate, joined inversely, facing outwards, are interesting, as Dr. . Birch states that these were the four eyes, according to the Ritual (chapter cxlviii), each assigned to one of the four paddles of the south, north, west, and east. On one of these plates, between the pairs of eyes, are two papyrus sceptres, the heads pointing inwards. [These “paddles” are the rudders shown in the Papyrus Anz, plate 36, accompanied each by three gods, which Renouf connects with Heaven, Earth, and the Nether World. The white “god” seems to me to represent the sun, in his four positions of upper and nether solstice, and two equinoxes on the mid-line. The four eyes then, being “assigned to the paddles,” are thus con- nected with the two equinoxes and two solstices. |

SEVEN EYES.—Our studies will by-and-bye show us that the soul of a deceased person, if righteous, was believed to - become like the Sun-god, and to have a like experience and destiny.

A passage occurs in which the elements of a person, disparted at death, are enumerated, not as body and soul merely, but as five in number at the least.2 They are as follows :—A body (called Ze#), a soul (da), ghost (£2), shade (yazb¢), and the mummy (sakz). “Purification twice to

1 Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 449. 2 Trans. Soc. Btb., ix, 1, 61. 3 Dr. Birch, in 7rans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 3, 391.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN. 97

eidolon thine, to spirit thine, soul thine, to shades thine, to mummy thine.” Attached to the Ja, and also to the 4a or ezdolon, was the shade, called yaibt and represented by a parasol.

Thus it appears that besides the body, which is the material person, and the mummy, which is the same when the life has left it, there are in this psychology the soul and the spirit, each attended by a shade. The spirit is called £a. Wiedemann says that the 4a of a man was his individuality as embodied in his name—the picture of him which was or might have been called up in the minds of those who knew him, at the mention of his name.? But there are representations of the 4a which suit well with the idea that it stands for what we should call the man’s spirit or ghost or double. In bas-reliefs which represent the birth of Amenophis III, his 4a is born at the same time as the king, and both are presented to Amen-Ra, as two boys exactly alike, and blessed by him. A man lived no longer than his 4a remained with him, and it never left him until the moment of his death. The a could live without the body, but the body could not live without the ka (p. 16).

Is it not likely that the form of the 4a, as the double of the man, was suggested by the image or likeness reflected in a mirror, or in another person’s eye? The a of a man would then correspond, in a way, to the reflected image of the sun called the Eye of Ra.

The Pyramid texts show that even in the times of the Vth and VIth dynasties, Thoth, Set, Horus, and other gods, were recognised as having kas. The statues of the gods represented and embodied divine as.*

We find occasional mention of the Ka of the East and the Ka of the West (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, and

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., December 2, 1884, p. 47. . , Wiedemann, Egyptian Doct. of Immort. of Soul, p. 11. 3 Jbid., pp. 21, 22.

H

98 CREATION RECORDS.

ed. III, pp. 200, 201): and Wiedemann says they are to be considered as being the éas of the deities of the east and of the west, and not as sas of the abstract conceptions: of east and west. That, indeed, seems probable; and may. . they not be the reflected disk of the sun, over the altar, i in as temple ?

’ A ka image of the sun, in the srasiee is spoken of in the time of Amenophis.’ ,

’ But while, in the case of man, there appears to have been only one soul and’ one spirit, the Sun is stated to have seven da (souls) and fourteen fa (eidola or phan- tasms), two such images being attached to each soul.® The statement must have appeared to be inexplicable, but it is not likely to have been made without meaning, and when we are on the track of truth, things begin to fall into their right places? In what sense can the sun—the real being and body of the sun—have seven souls? We shall learn by-and-bye that there were seven steps recog- nised, each marking off one precession day of 72 yéars, and corresponding to one degree of the circle, and one common day of calendar change in the commencement of the year. The solstice indeed might be regarded as tixed, in’the sense that the same cave or the same temple continued to receive the midsummer beam; but the sun’s place had shifted a whole degree among thé stars, and this occurred seven times before the system was changed. The sun has had seven abodes, it has been like seven suns, has had seven existences, seven souls, each of which has had its day. These, perhaps, are the seven da or souls of the sun; and each da, in its time, has reproduced its own image or phantasm in the temple of morning and the temple of evening, making fourteen 4a or ghosts, or reflec- tions of rising and setting suns.

It is interesting to get this glimpse into the ancient

1 Comp. Lepsius. 2, Birch, Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 3, 388. 8 Comp. Maspero, D..wz of Civilisation, 108 note, for other references.

THE “EYES” OF THE SUN. 99

psychology, which attributes to man a body, soul, and spirit. There is the Sun-god himself, who is worshipped, and man is like him. Naturally there sprang up a doctrine of the seven souls of man.

The reproduction of the Eye of the Sun, in the properly oriented temple, showed the year completed and enabled the calendar to be kept right. The slightest error in orien- tation would mar the perfection of the eye; and when temples were oriented for particular stars, Precession— attributed to the creeping of a serpent—would render them useless,

The U¢a or sacred eye, tied to the wrist or the arm by a slender string, protected against the evil eye, against words spoken in envy or anger, and against the bites of serpents.’

1 Comp. G. Massey, Lecture on Seven Souls of Man. 2 Maspero, Lgyptian Archeology, 248.

CHAPTER VIII.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD.

§ 1. PTAH AND HIS SEVEN SONS.

(Ptah and Pole—Obelisks—Seven Pygmy Sons—The Crocodiles—Stars Un- trustworthy—-The Great Year—Two Hebdomads— Description of Ptah.)

OUR present hypothesis is that the fire-god Ptah was a divinity of the North Pole at a date upwards of four thousand years B.c. We also suppose that among the Egyptians of that time the seasons of the year were determined by the courses of the stars and the recurrence of the solstices. To meet the doubt that may arise whether any primitive people can have had so much astronomical knowledge, it may be as well to quote evidence that even the natives of Australia have a better acquaintance with the stars than the average of English- men. See for example a paper by Mr. A. W. Howitt, on the “ Australian Class Systems” in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, for August, 1888, especially from p. 62 onwards. Vambery also, in his Zvavels of a False Dervish, describes the Turcoman caravans as steering their night marches through the pathless desert by the pole-star, which the Tartars call the iron pivot.? ‘In an article descriptive of the “new-fire ceremony” of the Pueblo Indians of Tusayan, Mr. J. W. Fewkes says that although these Indians can neither read nor write and are ignorant of our almanacs and calendars, they manage to make the performances begin on the same date within a day or two, every year, the time of year being obtained by 1 O’Neill, Might of the Gods, i, 509.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. 101

observation of the stars. Another instance of the astrono- mical knowledge of such rude people as the Tusayan Indians is afforded by the fact that the culmination of the Pleiades is used to determine the proper time for the beginning of certain rites (Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist., vol. XXV, pp. 422-458, February, 1895.)!

The Egyptian system, of the time we are speaking of, would be called Sabzean, for it paid more regard to the stars than tothe sun. Though the mid-summer sun and the mid-winter sun were both important, it was on starlight nights that the heavens were best observed and the points of the compass made out. The polar pivot was manifest as the centre round which all revolved, remaining still itself—the throne of Ptah—and from that steadfast centre the universe appeared to be held up. A mid-winter feast celebrated the impressive fact; and the solstitial ceremony before referred to—namely, the filling of the Uza-eye on the 30th Mechir—was followed the same night — or the next day by the “festival of the suspension of the sky by Ptah.”?

OBELISKS.—Mr. O’Neill conceives that the obelisk represents the axis of the universe, the fire-stick of the fire-god, whose twirling created the sun as a daily fire. In that case the obelisk would naturally become a symbol of the god.

Obelisks were dedicated to the sun, as was observed both by Faber and Bunsen.3

The “temple of the sun” is also the “house of the obelisk” ; and when Piankhi the Ethiopian, at Heliopolis, ascended the flight of steps to the great shrine, it was to behold Ra in the temple of obelisks.

Pliny says, that the first king who erected an obelisk was Mitres, who held his court at Heliopolis, the city of

1 Nature, March, 1895. 2 See Lockyer, quoting Krall, ature, January, 1893. 3 Faber’s Cadirt, ii, 168. Bunsen’s Zgyft’s Place, i, 334.

102 CREATION RECORDS.

the sun-god, to whom they were dedicated ; as to Amen at Thebes.!

Some writers are very confident that obelisks are symbolical of fire. Their connection with the sun is shown in the fact that Thothmes III erected his obelisk to Ra and Tum, deities of the rising and setting sun ; and the fine obelisk now in Paris was dedicated by Rameses II to the god Horus, calling him “the sun Horus with the strength of the Bull.’”?

They were regarded as habitations of deities because they had become symbols of Ptah’s abode, or throne. On certain scarabzei we see a man adoring an obelisk.’

Offerings were made to them of bread and beer.‘

That gods might inhabit stones (in the popular belief) is shown in Sanchoniathon.®

Anaxagoras stood his trial for blasphemy because he said the sun was a stone.®

Obelisks in Egypt are nearly always on the eastern side of the Nile, and this might be supposed to have reference to the rising sun, and would be satisfactory enough to Mr. O’Neill. It is less in accord with his hypothesis that we should find them always in pairs, and often of unequal height.’ It occurs to me that there might be some fitness in this if the obelisks were preserved in the front of temples, as relics of the time when menhirs were used as pointer-stones—one for the summer solstice and one for the winter.

There were two pillars at Hierapolis, which, Lucien says, some supposed to be connected with the deluge of Deucalion.6 By-and-bye, when we have considered the place of the Deluge in Mythology, the meaning of this reference may become plain.

1 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, abridged edition, ii, 312.

2 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 300-2. 3 [bid., p. 302.

• Birch, History from Monuments, p. 98. ° Conder, Heth and Moab, 197.

6 Plutarch, Afinor Morals. Bohn, p. 270. 7 Maspero, Zgypft. Arch., new ed., p. 1043 p. 101. & Nat. Genesis, ii, 205.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. 103

Great importance must have attached to the obelisks as symbols, or else so much labour would not have beeri expended on the quarrying and transport. Those at Thebes and Heliopolis vary in size from 70 feet to go feet in length, and have been transported from the quarries at Syene, at the First Cataract. They are each one single stone ; and the largest in Egypt, which is that of the great temple of Karnak, Wilkinson calculates to weigh about 297 tons. This was brought about 138 miles from the quarry, and those taken to Heliopolis were conveyed more than 800 miles.’ The skill of the Egyptians was not confined to the mere moving of these immense blocks ; their wonderful knowledge of mechanism is shown in the erection of the obelisks, as well as in the position of large stones raised to a considerable height, and adjusted with the utmost precision.

THE SEVEN PYGMIES.—But if Ptah the Fire-god was fitly represented by the fire-stick and the long pole, the round pillar and the tall obelisk, his seven sons were mere pygmies in size. Our supposition is that since Ptah represents the pole of the heavens, his seven sons stand for seven successive positions of the pole brought about by Precession. We shall have to find out why there were only seven, and how they could be fittingly described as pygmies,

Pliny describes pygmies as being three spans in height (Pliny, vii, 2). But we shall find that their mythological stature was one cubit.

There were, no doubt, actual tribes of dwarfish stature known to the ancients. Homer mentions the pygmies; and a pygmy race dwelling in Nubia was described by Strabo and others.’ Aristotle says they are crooked and ill-formed, like the figures drawn in drinking houses. To

1 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, small ed., ii, 3¢9. 2 Tylor, Early History of Mankind, 234. 3 Jliad, iii, 4. Calmet’s Dict. Fragments (vol. iii, p. 587).

104 CREATION RECORDS.

this Ctesias adds that they have their members thick and large in the joints, and have no junctures to their feet. The pygmies are said to have been destroyed by cranes.’ They have usually been regarded as a fabulous race—and no doubt some amount of myth is mixed up in the above accounts—while, on the other hand, some of these classic references appear to be supported by H. M. Stanley’s discovery of a dwarfish people in the African forest.

There were also real dwarfs known to the Egyptians. Pepi II, of the VIth dynasty, ordered Herd-Khidf, the governor of Elephantine,-to bring him one from the interior of Africa, to dance before the king.2?— Dwarfs are often represented on Egyptian tombs beside their master, in company with his pet dog, or a gazelle, or with a monkey which they sometimes hold in leash, or sometimes are engaged in teasing. Sometimes the Pharaoh bestowed his friendship on his dwarfs and confided to them occupa- tions in his household. One of them—Knimhotpi—died superintendent of the royal linen. An image of this stunted person is preserved in the museum at Gizeh and figured in Maspero’s book, the Dawz of Civilisation’

The pygmy sons of Ptah, however, are crooked bits of ugliness, and their place must be sought in mythology. They were represented with big heads, crooked legs, very long arms, and, long moustaches. They may possibly be modelled on the dwarfish race of Nubia, by fabricators who knew how “to better the instruction”; but as having relation to the God of Fire they are mere images, symbolical of some fact or truth. The name “ pygmy ” has been derived from the word sruypy) or awuyov, the cubit.1 Pygmies were said to be of one cubit in stature. The seven sons of Ptah, according to this, should be seven cubits, in some intelligible sense, if the right antitype can be found for the cubit. The connection is indicated by

1 Liddell and Scott, Greeh Lexicon. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, xxv. 3 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 280. * Eustathius, lib. i.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. 105

the following curious fact. There is a statue of the Nile- god found at Herculaneum (it requires some imagination to personify the Nile); and he has 16 children about him —alluding to his waters rising 16 cubits.’ There are also 16 or 17 crocodiles about the base, besides reeds, etc., and pygmies in boats. Here the children cf old father Nile are so many cubits ; and why not also the sons of Ptah? Be it remembered, also, that the Nile inundation synchronises with the day of Ptah—the day of the summer solstice—and the same star heralds both events. Moreover, the worship of the Nile-god seems to be linked with the worship of Ptah, for on the Gebel Silsileh tablets the king is offering a drink-offering to Harmachis, Ptah and Hapi—and Hapi is the Nile.

How came the seven sons of Ptah to be seven cubits ? The Egyptian monarch Osymandyas made a golden circle 365 cubits in circumference, on each cubit of which was inscribed a day of the year, together with the heliacal risings and settings of the stars. Probably it was not the first time that it had been done. We may conjecture that there had previously been a circle of 360 cubits, as there was a year of 360 days. The radius of such a circle would be about 60 cubits, a reasonable distance for the pointer- stone from the altar, in a temple to the god of the solstice. Thus in the circle one cubit corresponds to one degree, and symbolises oneday. The seven sons of Ptah are corre- Jated with seven cubits, or seven degrees, or seven days.

In the Papyrus of Ant we have some hymns to the Sun- god.’ The Rubric at the end of the 133rd chapter gives directions that the chapter be repeated on the first day of the month, over a boat of seven cubits in length, with details about a green board with the stars upon it, and about images of Ra and the deceased.

Ptah himself necessarily becomes associated with the cubit. Representations of Ptah, as in the Great Harris

1 Calmet, Frag., Ixv. 2 Published by the British Museum.

‘106 CREATION RECORDS.

Papyrus, show the god wearing a skull cap, etc., and stand- ing in a reticulated garment on a pedestal zx the shape of a cubzt, bracelets on his wrists, and holding the was sceptre, the emblem of life (azkh), and of stability (¢az) before him by both hands.}

Herodotus says that Cambyses made great sport of the image of Vulcan (Z.e., Ptah), for it was very like the Pateci of the Phoenicians, wherewith they ornament the prows of their ships of war. “If persons have not seen these, I will explain in a different way—it is a figure resembling that of a pygmy.” The pygmy figures of Ptah-Sokari are often found in Egypt, principally, as might be supposed, about Memphis.?

Now we seem to see reason enough why the sons of Ptah should be described as pygmies; on the circle of 360° they mark 7° of retrocession (or “ precession”). The circle marked out by the pole of the heavens, in the course of 25,868 years, is a smaller circle than that of the ecliptic, but it comprises 360° all the same; and the pole has shifted 7°. This corresponds to 7 days of the Great Year —7 “days” of 72 years each; and therefore 504 years or thereabout.

It is just possible that this conception of pygmies was suggested by the “little man, daughter of the eye,” the reflected image or “double” of the person gazing. Describing a collection of symbolic eyes, from Bubastis, Mr. F. G. Hilton Price, as related before, described the most remarkable example as being a rectangular plate of porcelain with a right eye, and in the centre of the pupil a figure of Ptah-Socharis-Osiris as a pygmy. The reflection of the sun, in the properly oriented temple, or cave, would be the eye of the sun, the double, the reproduction, the son of the sun. Although this reflection would remain nearly the same, notwithstanding precession—the temple moving

’ Dr. Lushington, in Records of Past, viii, 5. 2 G. W., note on Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Book III, chapte: 37.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. 107

with the earth—yet it might be truly conceived of as coming from a sun-in-seven-pkaces, and being or having been seven images. It would be like seven in one ; and perhaps this fact is referred to in the chapter of Safeguards of the barque of Ra,! where it says, “O Ra, in that thy name of Ra, since thou passest through an Eye of seven cubits, whose pupil is of three.” At any rate, there would be seven steps on the ecliptic circle, corresponding with the seven in the northern heavens, and both the solstices and the equinoxes would be found to have retrograded 7°.

THE CROCODILES.—At the time we are speaking of, the Pole was in the constellation Draco—in that part probably which Lockyer identifies with the Egyptian constellation of the Hippcpotamus. The pole, through the precession movement, passed to another part of the same constella- tion, and went on shifting continuously, until 7° were passed. It may possibly be a reminiscence of this that we have mention of “the seven-headed Draco, each head forming a star of the Little Bear.”® The Little Bear was the Egyptian constellation of the Jackal, mythically called Anubis, director of the “hand” of the polar clock—a hand which took, successively, seven positions.

The pole being first in Draco—z.e., the Hippopotamus— it is consistent doctrine that the Hippopotamus was “ the mother-goddess of the revolutions.”* But behind the Hippopotamus in the Egyptian charts, stands a Crocodile, erect and overshadowing, as though a new group of stars had superseded the old. This-is seen on the ceiling of the Ramesseum, and is figured by Maspero in his Dawn of Crvilisation.s This Crocodile probably embodies the starry space adjacent to the Hippopotamus—the region into which the slowly-moving pole was found to be migrating.

The mythological crocodile is called Sebek or Sevekh, a

’ Chapter ci. 2 Bonwick, Jrésk Druids, p. 184. 3 Massey, Vatural Genests, i, 349; ii, 93-. 4 Maspero, Dawn, p. 92.

108 CREATION RECORDS.

name which signifies “number seven” or the “seventh.”! The god Sebek is representeal with a crocodile’s head and

ram’s horns.?

EGYPTIAN POLAR CONSTELLATIONS.

The seventh son of Ptah is identified in some way with the Crocodile ; and if, as we surmise, the sons of Ptah are successive pole-stars, or positions of the pole, this is only what we might expect. It appears that Sebek the Crocodile was regarded as the son—Massey says the first- born son—of the Polar divinity, the mother-goddess of the revolutions, the constellation which was first found useful as containing the pivot of a polar clock.® The unruly movements of this beast—the eccentric working of the clock—had, however, upset the first plan of time-keeping ; and after each new setting it was upset again.

As the seventh of the sons of Ptah, Sebek is naturally “the youngest of the gods.’* But in the seventeenth chapter of the ook of the Dead, all the seven together are called the crocodiles. Possibly the term “crocodile” was applied indifferently to the seventh, to any of the seven or to the whole seven together ; and this would not unnatur- ally be the case if the seventh pole-star (after Ptah) and some of the preceding poles also, were all in the Crocodile constellation.®

1 Massey, Vatural Genesis, i, 287 ; ii, 312. % Bunsen, Zgypi’s Place, i, 405. 3 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 349; ii, 93, 94. 4 Bunsen, Zgypt’s Place, i, 405. 5 Natural Genesis, i, 349.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. Coxe)

Now the pygmy sons of Ptah—which we consider to be the seven degrees of arc, through which the pole had shifted from its first place—come before us in association with the two constellations, the Hippopotamus and the Crocodile. Calmet gives a plate, reproducing prints from a great work on the antiquities found at Herculaneum, published under the authority of the king of Naples. Of the figures in this plate, No. 1 shows a large crocodile, his mouth opened as if yelling, and on his back a pygmy, holding in each hand cressed reeds. A little higher is a duck, floating on the water ; and above are two hippo- potami, each among reeds, and each with his mouth open as if bellowing. No. 3 also shows the association of crocodiles and hippopotami. A fourth instance is more decidedly mythical, and is the famous statue of the Nile, mentioned before, with the 16 children about him, signi- fying the 16 cubits of his water’s rising, while pygmies also appear in boats, and the crocodile and hippopotamus ornament the base.

According to Aristotle (st. Anim. lib. v) the croco- dile brings forth 60 eggs, of a white colour, and sits on them for 60 days. Iamblicus (Ox the Mysteries, Sect. iv, chapter viii) refers to this assumption of the number 60 in the crocodile, as adapted to the sun in connection with sacrifice? Plutarch gives the same particulars, and adds that the longest-lived crocodiles live just 60 years, which number is the first of the measures employed by those who are conversant with the heavenly bodies (Plutarch, Of Ists and Osiris).

If Plutarch had said the crocodile lived for 72 years, it would have suited our theory; but we do not see the meaning of the 60 years, the 60 days, or the 60 eggs; though 60, as the first of astronomical measures, may, as before stated, be 60 cubits as the radius of a circle representing the ecliptic.

1 Calmet, Fragment, \xv. 2 Jamb/icus, by T. Taylor, pp. 235-237.

110 CREATION RECORDS.

THE CROCODILE OF THE ECLIPTIC.— Simultaneously with the shifting of the pole to the extent of 7° there has been a slipping back of the equinoxes and solstices, in the same proportion on the ecliptic circle. It would not be unnatural, therefore, to use similar phrases in describing the change, nor surprising if it were said that the crocodile appeared on the sun’s path.

In fact, the astronomical chart of the Ramesseum, which represents the great crocodile overshadowing the hippo- potamus, depicts also a second crocodile by the side of a lion which may be the Leo of the zodiac. At the time we are speaking of—upwards of 4000 years B.C.—the summer solstice was in Leo, and it would move out of Leo into this Crocodile, keeping step with the pole.

One of the names of the Sun-god is Sebek.!

The elevated position of the northern crocodile seems to be referred to in a verse of chapter Ixxi of the Rztua/, “Sebek standeth erect, surrounded by his high places, and Neith standeth erect in the midst of her alluvial grounds.” On the other hand, a crocodile’s eye is said to have been painted by the Egyptians as a symbol of the morning ; and this symbolism is made to look natural by Horapollo, who tells us that the creature’s eyes repre- sented sunrise, because they glared conspicuously from the deep.®

In chapter Ixxxvili of the Aztua/l the expression occurs, “T am the Crocodile god . . . whocarrieth off with violence.”

In the thirty-second chapter the deceased prays for protection from four crocodiles who devour the dead. ‘Back, thou Crocodile of the West,” he says, “who livest on the setting stars.”*

Sebak, we are told in chapters cviii and cxi, is the Lord

1 See Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 287. 2 Proc. Soc. Bib., xvi, 3, 65. 3 Dr. G. Vance Smith, on /od, p. 148 note. Massey, Book of Beg., ii, §3- 4 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., XV, 4, 156.

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. TIT

of the mountain of Buchat in the Eastern sky, and he has" a temple of crystal here.!

There was a city called Crocodilopolis, with a temple to the god Sebek. Usertesen III and his successors rebuilt. the structure.. The sacred lake contained a family of tame crocodiles, the image and incarnation of the god, whom the faithful fed with their offerings of cakes, fried fish, and drinks sweetened with honey.?

‘We: must not imagine that all this was pure ignorance and idolatrous worship of the reptile; for really it was a symbolical setting forth of certain facts and truths of the astronomical system. The pole had got into the Crocodile constellation behind the Hippopotamus, the solstice had got into a position 7° removed from the initial point in Leo; and these were celestial events which profoundedly affected the lives and destinies of men’ —at least, so it was: believed.

STARS UNTRUSTWORTHY.—Ptah, the Divinity of the Pole, had obtained reverence because his throne appeared to be stable, and at the same time the centre from which all motion proceeded. Observation had now shown that the pole itself was shifting, so that all the circles con- centrated with it were dislocated. The stars of. night revolved around a new pivot, and the stars of dawn and sunset were noticeably displaced with reference to the sun. The star which once rose heliacally had now ceased to do so, and was superseded by another. After 72 years the solstice had gained a full day upon’ the stars; and this had been done seven times over, so that the gain (or loss) | was now a full week.* . Ptah and his sons had reigned for 500 years, and there was no more stability in the sons than in the father. It was time to make some change and artempt some rou but why the system was allowed

ad Reacul. in Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vill, 2, 215. eae Maspero, ‘Dawn of Civilisation, p. BIT, .-° Perhaps.on the other hand this was the origin of the week.

112 CREATION RECORDS.

to last 500 years and no more, it is difficult to say. We can only say that it seems to have been so as a matter of fact, if we may judge from the frequent mention of the 7 sons of Ptah, and the adoption of 500 years as a cycle of time—a phoenix period (7 x 72 = 504. Again 504 x 52 = 26,208 for a great year. The true length being 25,868, we see that 72 years is slightly in excess—and therefore, 504 slightly in excess.)

THE GREAT YEAR.—The Cycle of Precession would by this time be easily calculable. It was clear that there was no accident about that first retrocession of the solstice (and of the equinox) by one degree: for another degree had been added every 72 years since. The displacement now amounted to 7 days, an entire week, and 52 such weeks would make up a great year of nearly 26,000 ordinary years. It was clear that the retrocession was going to be carried all round the circle ; the solstice would visit everyone of the 360 degrees in succession.

This Great Year is spoken of by various writers, and it is sometimes called “the Great Year of the World ” and “the Year of God.”

THE Two HEBDOMADS.—Not only had the Pole shifted by seven degrees, but as already remarked, there was a corresponding displacement of the equinoxes and solstices. Among the Egyptians sunrise was hailed with joy and celebrated with sacrifice, especially the sunrise of the day of the summer solstice, which brought with it the flood of . Nile waters and the promise of fruitfulness. It was useful to know when the sun was near its rising, so as to get the sacrifice ready ; and it was one of the chief duties of the priests to watch for the stars that heralded the dawn. But as time went on, it was found that the star which had been relied upon for this purpose, no longer rose heliacally, but was delayed in its rising, falling back and yielding place to another. Meantime it had become equally apparent that the winter solstice, as indicated by “the eight-rayed star,”

‘PTAH THE POLAR GOD. “113

had changed its position correspondingly. There was, of course, a change of equal measure, at all the “four corners.” But ‘what we desire to observe at present is—that both the rising and the setting sun had shifted place by 7° along the ecliptic. If then we could imagine the equinoxes to be fixed, the stars have moved relatively by 7°; and the practical effect is that on the side of the vernal equinox they have risen above the equator, and on the autumnal side have gone down.

These 7 degrees of ascent and of descent are seven steps, and they correspond to the positions of the “seven eyes of the sun,” and therefore to the seven urzi, seven feathers, etc., which sometimes take the place of the eyes in the symbolism.

“In the seventeenth chapter, in the Scholia, the Two Feathers, the Two Urei, the Two Eyes, and the Two Kites (or Vultures) are identified with the Sister pair Isis and Nephthys,” and the sisters stand for the two solstices.

In chapter 1xxxiii the speaker says, “ I am the four yester- days of those seven Urzus deities who are born in Amenta ”—Amenta being a name for the Underworld.”

Chapter xvii alludes to Seven Shining Ones, who are among the followers of their lord Sepa.’

Anubis appointed their place, on the day “ Come thou hither ” (words which Ra spake unto Osiris in the day when their two souls became one). The meaning of the words of Ra will be shown in the proper place: the thing to remark now is that the Jackal timekeeper of the polar region fixes the place of the Seven—which must be equally true, whether they be the seven pole stars or the seven which have arisen out of Amenta into light. One move- ment involves all.

In the writings of the Gnostics and elsewhere we have mention of two Hebdomads (or groups of seven), one

! Renouf on chapter cxxv. 2 Proc, Soc. Bry. Arch.. xvi, 7, 179. Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 28€.

l

xT4 CREATION RECORDS.

——- 7 >

group being called Inferior and the other Superior. I think they are those which have risen above the equator, on the eastern side of the heavens, and those which have sunken on the west.

The Gnostics held that there were seven mundane demons, which they term the Inferior Hebdomad, who also oppose and resist the human race.’

Hippolytus, in describing the heresies of Basilides, seems to apply the term Hebdomad to the vegzon of the 7°, and represents it as having a ruler called the Demiurgus ; while on the other side there is a region of eight (the Ogdoad) having also its ruler. Thus :—“ By this time every creature of the Hebdomad was enlightened, and had the Gospel preached unto them.”? For in this division (the region below the zther) also, there is an infinite creation of powers, principalities and dominions (concerning whom Basilides has a lengthy dissertation). King shows that Hippolytus regarded the Basilidan theory as the mere adaptation to present requirements cf an ancient esoteric doctrine belonging to the Egyptian priesthood. It was pirt of the scheme of Basilides that his two rulers of the upper and lower worlds—the Great Archon of the Ogdoad, and the Demiurgus of the Hebdomad—were Architects and creators of all things, and the Demiurgus at least was assisted by his son.®

This reminds us that in the Egyptian doctrine Ptah him- self was the Great Architect ; and the seven sons of Ptah, who stand by their father’s side, are called the Khnumu (modellers or builders) because they helped in the making of the world.‘

The sense underlying the Egyptian conception was this, —that the astronomical reconstruction which followed the

1 Gerald Massey, Natural Genests, ii, 114. a ® King’s Gnostics, p. 78. 3 Jbid., p. 76. 4 See Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Ezyptians, p. 137. Budge, By-Patks,

P: 53

PTAH THE POLAR GOD. 115

system of Ptah and his sons was called the Creation (as we shall see) ; but the earliest known system was due to the seven (or eight) pole-stars.

In the Book of Enoch the Superior Hebdomad are. called the Seven White Ones.’

Massey says, “Perhaps it is these which become the Seven Spirits which become Seven Breaths.”

The Seven Kas of the Sun, which we have shown to be probably the same as the Eyes, or reflected images, corres- ‘ ponding to the seven degrees of arc, do seem to be the Seven Spirits of God.®

With equal suitability the seven degrees may be the seven steps or stairs, whose keepers are addressed in the Ritual as a Bethel-ladder by which one might ascend to | heaven. That degrees may be spoken of naturally as stairs, we see when Isaiah asks Hezekiah, “Shall the shadow go forward ten degrees?” for in that passage the Hebrew word moluth, signifies steps, stairs, or risings.

Celsus (Jewish War, ii, 17) described among the secret symbols of the higher Mithraic doctrine, the ladder just referred to, as having seven gates, and overhead an eighth gate.© The mysteries had seven degrees. There is, in Iphigeneta in Tauris, a “ Brauronian sacred stair” which climbs or mounts upward . . . On the Aventine hill was shown the subterranean stone stairs called the Ladder of Cacus.

William Simpson, the artist traveller, notices the con- nection between the seven steps and the wheel which represents the sun revolving in his ecliptic circle.®

’ DESCRIPTION OF PTAH.—Ptah is customarily repre- sented as a man with shaven head, wrapped up as a mummy. The features are usually very fine; and he was surnamed “ Ptah with the handsome face.”” The pedestal

1 Book of Enoch, chapter Ixxxix. 2 Natural Genesis, i, 287. 3 See Renouf, Hzbbert Lectures, 1879, PP. 149, 164. “ Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 50. 5 ONeill, Night of the Gods, 1006.

.-8 Simpson, Zhe Praying Whee., p. 43. 7 O’Neill, Might ofthe Gods, ii, 791. I 2

116 CREATION RECORDS.

upon which he stands is shaped like a cubit rod, which is the sign for truth and just measurement. Generally he wears a tassel hanging from the back of his neck. A bas-relief at Philz, with an accompanying and explanatory inscription, displays him in his composite form of Ptah-Tatunen turning the egg of sun or moon upon a potter’s wheel.!

The Potter’s wheel is the wheel of the revolving heavens ; and Ptah is addressed in a form which agrees very well with the idea that the perpetual gyration of the wheel generates all things: “QO God, Architect of the World, thou art without a father, begotten by thine own becoming; thou art without a mother, being born through repetition of thyself”?

Nevertheless, Porphyrius, who was well-informed on Egyptian matters, tells us that the god came forth from an egg which had issued from the mouth of Kneph.?

This is not a contradiction, but only a different concep- tion, and as legitimate as the other if Kneph be the expanse of air or ether constituting the firmament of heaven. A possible deeper meaning will be considered further on.

“Mine is the radiance in which Ptah floateth over his firmament.”* (Book of the Dead, chapter Ixiv.)

As the Spirit of God that moved on the face of the waters, the Deity was Kneph, NQ or Num; over whom the asp, the emblem of royalty and of the good genius, spread itself as a canopy, while he stood in his boat.

Ptah is distinguished from Kneph by being shown of a green colour, while Kneph is blue.®

He appears on the monuments with Neith as well as Num (ze, Kneph). Neith is commonly said to be the sky; so here again is nothing contradictory.’

3} Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancien! Egyptians, p. 132. 2 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 118. 3 Wiedemann, Kel, of Ancient Egyptians, p. 131. 4 Prac. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 1, 3. 5 Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, small ed.. i, 327. _ 8 Bonwick, Zgyptian Belzef, p. 108. 7 Bunsen, Zegyft’s Place, i, 382.

PTAH THE POLAR GO?) 117

Eusebius informs us, on the authority of Porphyry, that the Egyptians worshipped Kneph, in a statue of human form and dark blue complexion, and regarded him as an uncreated and immortal being. His temple was in the island of Elephantine, on the confines of Egypt and Ethiopia.!

§ 2. SEKHET, THE CONSORT OF PTAH.

Ptah had a consort named Sckhet, of whom the following description is given.

Sekhet was represented as a lion-headed woman, having upon her head the lunar horns and solar disk, and holding in her hands either the crux ansata and the papyrus staff of the goddesses, or else a kind of shield or zgis and a basket.?

The Great Harris Papyrus gives a representation of Ptah standing on a pedestal. Behind him stands Sekhet lion-headed, waving a disk of the sun and a ureus serpent, etc. She is called “Sekhet, greatly beloved of Ptah.”*

Sekhet, “loved of Ptah,” is often mentioned in connec- tion with fire* It is said of her that she sendeth forth flames of fire in the face of foes; whoever approaches sinks to ruin; she sendeth fire to burn their limbs… On this account Renouf says that she “is simply the fiery dawn.” We should like to supplement this to the extent of saying that it must be the dawn of the midsummer day. Still more exactly, Sekhet is the summer solstice in Leo. Ptah is the Fire-god at the Pole, and Sekhet is the Fire- goddess at the place of production of the fire. The two have the harmonious relation of lord and consort.

1 Higgins, Anacalypsis, Amer. ed., p. 167.

• Cooper, Archaic Dict. % Kecords of Last, viii, 6. 4 Lbid., ii, 75. 5 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 208.

118 CREATION RECORDS.

The summer solstice of that day was in Leo; and the emblems of Sekhet are the lion and the hedgehog.”

Of course as consort of Ptah she has the status and dignity of a queen; and earthly monarchs will be likely to claim descent from her. The Pschent—the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt?—was called in ancient times the Sekhet crown. See the Hymn to Amen-Ra, where it says :—

‘* Egypt, the kingly land, and the two urzi, are his. He 1s adorned in his palace with the Sekhet crown.”

As Ptah may be said to have stepped backward 7°, in the person of his sons—the Pole having shifted from the Hippopotamus constellation into the adjacent Crocodile— the solstice goddess was bound to keep pace, and retire along the ecliptic circle. Thus Sekhet also becomes associated with the Crocodile. Lockyer refers to a drawing which exists, giving her both a crocodile’s head and a lion’s head.* Again we find that Sekhet was the lady of the land, or the lake, called Seshet, which seems to have been the Moeris Lake, in the Fayim, a district where the crocodile was worshipped, and the capital of which was Crocodilopolis. Dr. August Eisenlohr, of Heidelberg, describes a statue at the Palais at Brussels, and says that like most of the Sekhet statues, it bears the two cartouches of Amenophis III, “ beloved of Sekhet, the lady of the land (or lake) Seshet.’*

Further, as that Crocodile of the North succeeded to the Hippopotamus which had been the Great Mother and Sow—the “mother of the revolutions” which generated all things—so Sekhet followed the Sow-Goddess; and indeed she is herself spoken of as the Great Mother, who engenders the gods of the North (Records of the Past, xiv.

1 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 228. 4 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p p. 113. 3 Nineteenth Century, July, 1892. 4 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xi, 7, 257.

PTAH THE POLAR GQD. 119

55). Massey here indeed is speaking of Pasht, not Sekhet ; but he considers them to be the same.!

In the inscriptions at Denderah, Sekhet of Memphis is given as one out of a number of variants, equivalent to Hathor of Denderah. Lockyer quotes this fact from Dumichen; and Lockyer himself thinks that Sekhet, Pasht, Mut, and Ta-urt, are all equivalents of one another, and probably all symbolise the star y Draconts.’ In the temple of Mut at Thebes, there is a marvellous collection of the statues of Sekhet, all of them _ lion- headed. If Sekhet stands for the summer solstice in Leo, as we contend, she cannot be the star gamma Draconis ; but our own view of her relations to Hathor, Mut, etc., cannot well be stated till we come to treat of these other goddesses in their place.

e

1 Massey, Book of Beginnings, i, 324. 2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., pp. 211, 290.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SEVEN HATHORS.

(Hathor an Eye of the Sun—Associated with the Autumn Equinox and with Sunset—Seven Hathors, corresponding to Seven Positions of the Equinox —Seven Cows—Hathor correlated with the Hippopotamus, 2.¢, the Equinox with the Pole—The Hathors correspond to the Fates.)

WHEN we learn that there were seven Hathors, Eyes of the Sun, we feel prepared, by our previous studies, to say that they belong to the age of Ptah and his seven sons, and must be correlated either with the solstice or the equinox.

Budge says that Hathor—Het-heru, the “house of Horus”—was a goddess of the sky wherein Horus the Sun-god rose and set. She is often depicted in the form or a woman having disk and horns upon her head; and at times she has the head of a lion surmounted by a urzeus.*

Her name was often written Athor. She was repre- sented on the monuments with the ears, and sometimes with the face, of a cow. The cow was sacred to her. One of her usual emblems is the sistrum.

Hathor was called the Eye of the Sun, which appears to be a designation for a solstitial or equinoctial point, because the sun, from those points, sent his rays straight along the telescopic entrance - passage to the inner sanctuary, there to form an image of himself. In her principal character, Hathor is the pupil of the Sun’s Eye.?

An inscription discovered by Professor Dumichen, in

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, page cxix. 2 Mariette, Af uments of Upper Egypt, p. 140.

THE SEVEN HATHORS. 121

the temple of Tentyra, reads thus: “ King Thothmes III has had this building erected in memory of his mother the goddess Hathor, the Lady of An (Tentyra), the Eye of the Sun, the Heavenly Queen of all the gods.”! It is stated in this inscription that the ground-plan of the temple—an ancient drawing on leather—had been found in the interior of the brick wall of the temple, in the reign of King Pepi.

Seeking to fix definitely the season of the year when Hathor served as Eye of the Sun, we remember that the Egyptian year began at midsummer, and the third month was called Athyr.

In the ancient month table at the Ramesseum, Hathor is set down against the month Athyr.?

At that season the sun was passing through Scorpio, as remarked by Plutarch.2 The fourth month was Khoiak, and in a calendar, of the date 1200 B.C., we find the inser- tion, “1st Khoiak, Feast of Hathor.’* This corresponds to the autumnal equinox.

An equinoctial position is also indicated by the fact that © she is associated with the sycamore fig at the place of Two Truths.°

It would appear further that we are to connect Hathor with sunset rather than sunrise; for in chapter cviii of the Ritual the speaker says, “I know the powers of the West; they are Tmu, Sebak, the Lord of Bachan, and Hathor, Mistress of Sunset.” In this chapter it is stated that heaven rests upon the Hill of Bachan, which may mean that at the time the chapter was written, the autumn equinox had become the pivot of the astronomical system. This hill has for its determinative an eye, and in the later texts either a woman or a cow in the act of parturition. The place of birth should be the part of the circle where the year begins.

1 Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, i, 402. 2 Nature, January, 1893. 3 Plutarch, sts and Osiris, xiii. 4 Brugsch, Pharaohs, ii, 156. 5 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 377.

122 CREATION RECORDS.

Hathor is termed “ La maitresse du commencement de lan.” (Mariette, Denderah, p. 207.)

Naville says that Hathor was pre-eminently the goddess of the mountain; she it was who emerged from the mountain of the West, and to her the deceased made adoration. At Abu Simbel, as in most of the Nubian temples, the sekos is not blank, but on the inner wall is carved the fore part of the sacred cow, represented as emerging from the mountain, beneath her is the figure of the king. A similar group is sculptured on the side walls of the speos of Deir el Bahari.

She is Mistress of Amenta, and that is the West or the Lower World, which is entered by the setting sun.® |

According to one myth (TZod?t. 99, 22), the Sun-god once stretched forth his hand to reach her when he was in his evening boat.*

The symbolism accords with all this when Athor is spoken of as resident in Uas or Western Thebes.®

THE SEVEN HATHORS.—Seven new positions of the Pole, each removed 1° from the last, involved as_ its corollary seven positions, not only of the solstice, but of the equinox. In those early ages, when the stars were used for time-telling, “the evening and the morning” expressed the order of the day, and the place of the setting sun was of great importance. As time went on, and each precession day (of 72 years) made another step of difference in the sun’s place, the stars which had formerly set heliacally were succeeded by others; and the Sun’s Eye, reflected in the temple, corresponded to the next degree of the ecliptic circle. The successive equinoctial suns were somany Hathors. The first Hathor will synchro- nise with Ptah himself, and her offspring with the sons of Ptah ; and there will be seven or eight altogether before

1 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., 197 note.

2 Naville, Deir el Bahari; Introductory Memoir, p. 20.

3 Bunsen, Zegypt’s Place, i, 400. oa 4 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 211. 5 Jbid., p. 146.

THE SEVEN HATHORS. 123

we come to the days of Shu and the lifting of the firma- ment.

The first Hathor no doubt gave perfect satisfaction for a time, but the beginning of trouble is indicated when the Sun-god “cut the foot of Hathor, in stretching a hand to bring her to him in his evening boat.” (Todt. 92, 22.)’ This seems to imply that the old equinoctial point and the sun’s new place did not exactly coincide. When the width of the severance amounted to a whole degree, there would have to be a new Hathor. This process was repeated until there were seven offspring, the original goddess making eight. |

“Hathor is likewise a goddess of the eighth region, or the region of the Eight, represented on the mount of the seven stars, constellations, steps or stairs, now described as reaching to the moon.”

THE SEVEN Cows.—Now Hathor was worshipped as a spotted cow.? At Deir el Bahari, according to Mariette, Hathor appears under the form of the most beautiful cow that Egyptian bas-reliefs can show us.‘

Naville’s Bubastts, pp. 11, 12, and plates, show Hathor as a woman with a broad face, and the ears of an heifer.

It will be remembered that we begin with the Pole in the Hippopotamus constellation, and that not far from it was the constellation of the Thigh, corresponding to Charles’s Wain. Ina celestial chart on the ceiling of the Ramesseum, in place of the thigh we have the full figure of a bull.® In the case of the temple of Hathor at Denderah, the inscriptions state that the king, while stretching the cord, had his glance directed to the ak of the constellation of the bull’s thigh, and so established the temple of th goddess, “ as took place there before.’”® _

We see, then, what the relation was or might be.

’ 1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vii, 2, 211. 2 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 48.

Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, p. 110.

. * Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt, p- 232. 5 See cut, p. 108. Lockyer, Nature, January, 1892.

124 CREATION RECOKDS.

Just as the Pole in the constellation Hippopotamus was Ptah, the god of the Fire-drill, and Sekhet, his consort, had her couch at the place of production of the fire, so when the Pole is found by the guiding stars of the northern bull, there is a consort Hathor at the place of the birth of cows. In a plate of the Papyrus Ant, the seven cows are coming out, one after another, from the western hill.

In the Book of the Dead—chapter cxlviii—mention is made of the seven cows and their bull. Renouf suggests the Great Bear and Arcturus; but the explanation arrived at above seems preferable.’

The first of the divine cows is the Xa of the Lord of All; and the others in their turn would be likely to inherit the same character.2 Now the da is the ghost or double ; and we have shown, in the chapter on the Eyes of the Sun, that the seven sas or seven “souls” of the sun, are reflections or images in the temple sanctuary.

CORRELATED WITH THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.—“ One of the most ordinary forms of Hathor presents us with the horns and disk surmounting a Hippopotamus.”® This is natural, because Hathor, as Eye of the Sun and equinoctial point, was moving in consonance with the shifting pole. The pole was in the Hippopotamus constellation until Precession carried it into the Crocodile. The “ Hippo- potamus,” according to Lockyer, has since been broken up into Draco, etc.*

The Papyrus Anz ends, like other papyri of the Theban period, with a picture ot Hathor as a Hippopotamus, having upon her head a solar disk with horns, and in her right hand an object which Renouf says it would be difficult to identify (it looks like a long glove with three fingers), while the left hand holds a cvux ansata (usually said to be the symbol of life). Behind the hippopotamus the same goddess in the form of a divine Cow, which bears the name

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2. 209. 2° Jésd., vi, 2, 507. “= 5 Lockyer, Vature, February, 1892. ‘* Comp. Nature, September, 1893.

THE SEVEN HATHORS. 125

of Meh-urit, looks out from the mountain of Amenta. The Inscription names Hathor, Mistress of Amenta and the Land of Sunset, and Mistress of Ta-sert, Eye of the Sun and at the head of his prow, of beautiful face in the Solar Barque of Eternity, etc. Now the Gate of Sert (Ta-sert) is the gate of the pillars of Shu, the northern gate of the Underworld (Scholiast on chapter xvii). The pillars of Shu support the heavens, and are crowned by the pole. '

The Hippopotamus goddess is named Ta-urt, and is represented as a hippopotamus standing on her hind legs. Occasionally the figure of Ta-urt is human-headed, or altogether that of a woman, surmounted with the cow’s horns and the disk ; while Hathor also wears a cow’s head with horns and disk. Ta-urt was regarded as the mother and nurse of the gods, and assisted at the birth of gods and kings alike. In the cult of the dead the functions of Ta-urt coincided with those of the Hathor Cow, and she was supposed to be the guardian of the Mount of the West, through which the road to the realm of the Dead lay. A picture from a rock-tomb of Anibeh—time of Rameses VI—shows Ta-urt at the foot of a mountain from which the Hathor Cow is emerging.?

In all these things we seem to have brought before us the close accord of Pole and Equinox moving in corre- spondence. And only by this accord between polar and equinoctial movement can we reconcile the description of Hathor:as mistress of sunset, with the fact that her temple at Denderah. points.very far away from the sun, and the sun’s light could never have enfiladed it. Again, sheis the Eye of the sun—which appears to mean the sun’s own image —and yet seems to. be sometimes a star, for “ the rising of Hathor ” is mentioned distinctly.*

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 284. 2 Wiedemann, Fel. of Egyptians, p. 169. 3 Lockyer, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 160. 4 Lbid., p. 194

126 - CREATION RECORDS.

THE HATHORS CORRESPOND TO THE FATES, WHO PRESIDE OVER BIRTH AND DESTINY.—Gerald Massey says that Apt or Ta-Urt, the hippopotamus goddess of the North, was represented as the gestator. As Apt she was the crib, the cradle of new life.?

Two divinities generally represented on thé cornices or on the entrances of Birth Temples, are the dwarf god Bes, and the female hippopotamus called either 7hueris, Rertt, Apt or Apet? At Luxor, in the scene of the birth of Amenophis III, there are a few words left of a text which referred to the lighting of a flame, symbolical of birth. It must have been very like chapter cxxxvii of the Book of the Dead, a chapter which at the time of the XVIIIth dynasty was written in two different versions. The vignette which accompanies one of these shows a female hippopota- mus called “ Api, the goddess of protection,” lighting a lamp with the symbol of fire which she holds in one of her paws.

Correspondingly Hathor also is the Divine Genetrix, out of whom the Sun daily takes his renewed birth. “She was supposed specially to preside over the birth of princes, the female toilette and the production. of precious stones: while in Egyptian mythology the seven Hathors are seven deities, also called the seven cows, who attended upon the birth of children and in a certain degree foretold their destinies., Their analogues were the Race (or. Fates) of the Greeks.”*

In the scenes which represent the birth of Hatshepsu, in the temple at Deir el Bahari, two cow-headed Hathors are seen: suckling two infant boys, .one Ot whom pears ve queen’s name, the other being her Ka.® In the Story of the Doomed Prince, when the shila is

1 Massey, Matural Genesis, i, 436.

2 Naville, Deir ef Bakers, Part II, p. 17.

. Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt, p. 133.

• Cooper’s Archaic Dict.

5 Naville, Der ef Bahari, Introd., p. 11, and Part II, p. is.

THE SEVEN HATHORS. 127

born, the Hathors come to decree for him a destiny. It was fated that he should come to his death by a crocodile, a serpent, ora dog. Petrie says that this variety points to the Hathors predicting as seers, rather than to their having control of the future. Yes, and the fore-knowledge itself would seem to have been originally astronomical prevision, the result of calculation, founded on a knowledge of the true place of the equinox.

In the tale of the Two Brothers (Anpu and Bata), in the XIXth dynasty, the seven Hathors came to see the woman who was created to be the wife of Bata, and they said with one mouth that she would die a violent death.? But this sort of thing is an aftergrowth of worthless weeds; the earliest prophecies would appear to have been astro- nomical predictions ; and in all the great mythologies it is the god of the closing and the opening year who records the past and foretells the future.

1 Goodman, in Records of Past, ii, 145 . * bid.

CHAPTER X.

RA THE SUN-GOD.

THREE ASPECTS OF THE SUN.

(A Solar Year to succeed the Stellar—Three Aspects of the Sun—These Three are One —The Boat of the Sun—The Sphinx Symbolises the Unity —Four Quarters—Twelve Signs—The Circle of 360°.)

TulE Polar Clock is found to be untrustworthy, although the cause of the dislocation is not known. The sun and the stars get more and more out of accord, and a choice will have to be made between thetwo. The preference is given to the sun, and he presently begins his reign under the name of Ra. One reason for preferring the sun is that a new importance has been imparted to him by the discovery that he is not a mere fire, created on the earth’s rim every morning, but the same body night and . morning, and far distant from the earth at all times.

The evidence of the change of system meets us on both sides ; for there are no more than seven cows of Hathor, and there are but seven sons of Ptah. Instead of an eighth Mahurit cow, the god Ra is born ; and in place of another son of Ptah, the god Thoth is introduced, who belongs to a new family though he is called “the Eighth.”

As to Hathor’s new progeny, we have, on a hypo- cephalus found with a mummy at Luxor, a picture of a cow at rest; and the inscription says, “It is Hathor the Mistress of the Divine Netherworld. The Divine Cow is protecting her son Ra, the Sun-god, at his setting.”

(Todt. 162. 9.) 1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xix, 4, 144.

RA THE SUN-GOD. 12g

In chapter xvii of the Ritual it is said, “I beheld Ra, who was born yesterday from the buttocks of the cow Mch-urt.”? On this the Scholiast says, “It is the figure of the Eye of Ra, at his daily birth.” Hathor was called the Eye of Ra—and we know what that means, But is it only the daily birth which is depicted? The Scholiast was often wrong in his interpretation of ancient texts, and we think it is to be understood of the original birth of Raasagod. In the other direction, Thoth is continually described as Lord of Hermopolis, the City of the Eight, and is ever at the right hand of Ra.

It was not obvious to men in the first instance that the morning sun was the same body as the sun of the previous evening. Zhat had gone down into the earth or into the sea, and appeared to be extinguished. Homer describes the sun as rising out of the ocean, and ascending the heaven ; again as plunging into ocean, passing under the earth, and producing darkness, The ancients inform us that the Iberians supposed themselves to hear the hissing of the sea when the burning sun plunged into the western ocean.2 Naturally its fires would be extinguished, and require to be re-kindled the next morning as by a fire- drill. When the sun was thought of as rising out of the earth or the waters like a living thing, its natural symbols | were the beetle and the frog.

Some species of the Coleoptera—as the Melasoma or black-bodied bectles—tive in the ground, beneath stones, or in the sand.2 The larvz of the Cockchafer, which is a beetle, live for three or four years beneath the ground. The larva of the Rose-bectle, after about three years in the ground, makes itself a sort of cocoon, in which it passes the winter, to emerge the following summer in its perfect form. The Scarabzeus, the sacred beetle of the Egyptians, is the e@teuchus sacer, common in Mediter-

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 285. 2 Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 6. ° Carpenter, Zoology.

K

130 CREATION RECORDS.

ranean countries. The female lays her egg in a cake of dung, rolls this in the dust and makes it smooth and round so that it will keep moist and serve as food for her young, and finally she deposits it in a hole which she has scooped out in the ground, and covers it with earth. In due time the beetle emerged from the ground, and became a symbol of the sun and an emblem of the resurrection. Haliburton says that the Tau or crux ansata, the symbol of life, is a natural mark on the Egyptian beetle.*

The sun, like the beetle, seemed to come up out of the earth. The god Ptah—whom we take to be the divinity of the Pole, the worker of the fire-drill, and therefore closely associated with the fire produced, z.e., the sun—is pourtrayed as beetle-headed and frog-headed. Sometimes he is represented on a crocodile, with the scarabzus on his head.? In fact, according to Herodotus, he ad had a scarabzeus on his head.

The morning sun was called Khepera, that is, the Beetle. In chapter xxiv of the Ritual (a very ancient chapter) the Sun is made to say, “I am Khepera, the self-produced, on his mother’s thigh” ; and frequent pictures of the goddess Nut as the sky, show the divine scarab in the position described.* Perhaps the beetle was all the better an emblem of the sun because, besides coming up out of the ground, it could then rise above the ground, being winged. The picture of the Babe, lifted up into the upper world by two divinities, speaks for itself. Of the birth of the sun asa winged scarab at the beginning of the first hour of the day, Maspero says, in his description of the text : “Jl est salué a ton apparition par les huit. . . . les esprits d’Orient, dieux du ciel, des terres, des pays étrangers, de la montagne d’horizon orientale qui est On’.”®

1 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 285.

2 R. G. Haliburton, Festival of the Dead, p. 76.

3 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 319. Bunsen, Egype’s Place, i, 383.

• Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 64. 5 Jbid., p. 222, note.

RA THE SUN-GOD._ . 13!

The importance which must at some period have attached to this aspect of the sun, is indicated by the vast number of scarabs which are found with the mummies, either within them or lying upon the breast just above the position of the heart. In the British Museum every important type of the funereal scarabis represented! They are made of green basalt, green granite, white limestone, light green marble, black stone, blue paste, blue glass, and purple, blue or green glazed faience. They vary in size from 5 inches to 2 inches in length. On the hard stone examples the text of the Chapter of the Heart, more or less complete, is usually cut on the base tn outline ; but it is sometimes traced in red ink, or in gold.

While the rising sun was thus personified as ighepera: the setting sun had a separate name and character. With reference to the morning sun, that of the evening was obviously the same body; but with reference to the sun of to-morrow morning, there was no evident identity. The setting sun was called Tum or Tmu, and is the subject of very frequent reference.

The god’ Tmu, seated within the sun-disk in the boat of the setting sun, facing’a table of offerings, is one of the vignette illustrations of chapter xvii.?

Tum was generally represented as a man wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt ; and when associated with other solar deities, he is usually placed after Ra- Harmachis but preceding Khepera.®

He was the son of Ptah (Massey’s Book of Beginnings,

69), while according to Wiedemann’s Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (p. 138) the local myths represent him as a son of Sekhet. That is to say, he owed his existence to the Fire-god and his Consort; he was the evening sun of the same era, the period of the Lion solstice.

1 Budge, Book o (§ is Dead, p. 262. 2 [bid., p. 280.

§ Wiedemann, of Ancient Egyptians, p. 32. K 2

132 CREATION RECORDS.

But if the sun was a beetle in the morning, it would remain a beetle till the evening; and what is to prevent the beetle from burrowing down in the west and emerging next morning in the east ?

The lotus is a flower of the waters, and was the emblem of the Nile of Northern Egypt.’ It would seem to be especially fitted to serve this purpose. The white water- lily disappears at night, leaving no trace of where it bloomed, and reappears again in all its beauty the next morning.?, Tum (who is also called A-tum) is depicted with a lotus on his head, or his head appears cmerging from the flower. Thisseemsto mean that Tum, descending in the west, and disappearing in the evening, comes up in the east next morning. In chapter xvii he says, ‘J am Tum, I am the only One, in the primordial water Nu.”

Tum is thus seen to be the same as Khepera—or Khepera perpetuates Tum. Tum unites the setting sun and the rising sun; and of course, therefore, he blends their “Eyes” or their Urzi. Rameses III prays on behalf of his son, “ Establish him as king on the throne of Horus . . . May he have joined the two ure, like Tum.”

In a hymn headed “ Adoration to Tmu, as he setteth in the Land of Life,” the speaker says, “Be thy fair face propitious to the Osiris N., O Khepera, Father of the gods,” whereas a few verses earlier it is Tmu who is addressed as Father of the gods.’

The mid-day sun is called Ra, and in the legend of Ra and Isis Ra is made to say, “I am Khepera in the morning, I am Ra at noon, and I am Tum at even.”*

The symbol of the god Ra isa circle with a dot in the centre ©; and O’Neill is of opinion that this is not the sun’s disk, but more likely a heavens-wheel with polar

1 See Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxxiii. 2 Book of Days, ii, 151. 3 Massey, Book of Beg’s., of. Budge, cxxi. 4 Records of the Past, iii, 38. 5 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 27. 6 Eudge, Bock of the Dead, p. xci.

RA THE SUN-GOD. 133

pivot. The circle may represent the sun’s path rather than the sun.?

With the recognition of the fact that the same Sun continues always in being, and revolves (to all appear- ance) perpetually, and at the same distance from the earth, the theory of Ptah and his fire-stick is quite upset. The divinit#? Tum, having made his way round from the place of sunset, and identified himself with the sun at his rising, is regarded as the originator of the revolution of the sun, the author of motion and the Father of the gods.

There is a passage in which Ra is incidentally referred to as having come forth from the eye of Atmu (z.e., Tmu or Tum) “when Ra rose for the first time,” ze, when the Sun was first recognised as a heavenly body and not a mere fire, when it was seen that the rising sun proceeded from the sun that set.

The expression occurs, “Tum is in his sun-disk.” Otherwise said: “Ra is in his sun-disk, which rises on the eastern horizon of heaven.”

Now one early idea was that there were waters under the earth—a great abyss—so that to make the passage from west to east, one must either tunnel the earth or breast the wave. The god Tum was supposed to have taken the latter course, as appears from the following legend :—

Tum rather than Ra, was placed by the Heliopolitan priests at the head of their cosmogony as supreme creator and governor. Several versions were current as to how he passed from inertia into action, from the personage of Tum into Ra. According to the version most widely received he had suddenly cried across the waters, “Come unto me!”’ and immediately the mysterious lotus had unfolded its petals, and Ra had appeared at the edge of its open cup as a disk, a new-born child, or a disk-crowned sparrow-

1 Night of the Gods, p. 611. . 2 Wiedemann, Kel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 257.

134 CREATION RECORDS.

hawk. De Rouge says it was on this account that the Egyptians named the first day of the year the Day of Come-unto-me !!

THE BOAT OF THE SUN.—The passage of the waters required to be accomplished daily; and the Egyptians attributed to the Sun a morning and an evening boat. In these vessels the god Ra was represerfted seated, accompanied by Khepera and Tum.? In the Pyramid texts the soul of the deceased makes its way to where Ra is in heaven, and Ra is entreated to give it a place in the “barque of millions of years” wherein he sails over the sky. The waters below the earth and the waters above the firmament appear to be continuous, and the circum- navigation goes on with endless repetition. “Those who row Ra up into the heavens, row the deceased also, and those who row Ra beneath the horizon row the deceased also.”?

The discovery of the identity of the sun of to-day with the sun of yesterday carried with it corollaries of revolu- tionary import. The persistence of the Sun, and his perpetual revolution round the earth, suggested that the earth. itself must be globular, and that during the night of one hemisphere the great luminary is lighting up the other. The place of sunset for us is the place of sunrise for that new world. So now we begin to read about Two Lands, | Upper and Lower Egypt, Two Truths, Two Horizons.

“TI am the maker of heaven and the mysteries of the two-fold horizon.”*

And yet it was difficult to dissociate the nether world from ideas of darkness and blackness. Tum is the manifestor of the Two Truths: and his manifestations are Ka the black Sun in the abyss, and Hu the white Sun in the heavenly height.®

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 140. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxi. 3 Tbid,, \xxvii. — 4 Massey’s Natural Genesis, ii, 31. — ? Lbid.

RA THE SUN-GOD. 135

THE SPHINX.—The Sun had three aspects, and three names—Khepera, Ra and Tum—but these three were one, and their unity is represented by the Sphinx. The three names and three characters of the Sun were interchange- able, as for example in the Hymn of Praise, where Ra in his boat is presently spoken of as Khepera in his boat. And again, it is said of Ra at Edfu, “He setteth in the west,” although the setting sun is usually spoken of as Tum?

The Sphinx best known to us is that large statue of a seated human-headcd lion, situated near the Great Pyramid in the desert near Cairo. It is said to represent the deity Ra-Harmachis ; but Harmachis was a name of the rising sun, Ra a name of the sun at noon, and it appears to us that the sphinx symbolises the sun in his three aspects. In a dream the Sphinx says to Thothmes, “I am thy father Harmachis—Khepera, Ra, Tum: will be given to thee thy kingdom.” “Then the form of the Sphinx of Khepera reposed in this place; the greatest of spirits, worthy in honour, rested upon it.’”?

We must not suppose that monstrous animals such as the chimzra, the minotaur and the sphinx were fanciful inventions without a purpose, nor yet that they were pro- ducts of imagination working on travellers’ tales. They deliberately combined diverse species of creatures, to set forth in symbol some truth of the astro-religious system. The Sun was Khepera at his rising, Ra at noon, and Tum at his setting; and the Sphinx deity Harmachis was the trinity in unity. The great sphinx in the desert has the body of a lion; and the summer solstice of that day was in Leo. Sir G. Wilkinson says, that “besides this form of the sphinx there was one with the head of a ram, another with the hawk’s head and lion’s body, and furnished with wings. The winged sphinx is rare in Egypt, but a few instances occur on monuments and scarabzi.”*

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 329. 2 Chapter cli. 3 Records of the Past, xii, 46. * Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians.

136 CREATION RECORDS.

THE FOUR QUARTERS OR CARDINAL POINTS.—The temple of the Sphinx is in the form of a cross, and a cross fitly symbolises North, South, East and West, or the two solstices and the two equinoxes. Under the Ptah régime the solstices have been most important, but under the reign of Ra it will be the equinoxes. It is at the equinoxes that the equality of the two hemispheres is best recognised.

From this time forth the gods of Egypt congregate at the four quarter points of the ecliptic circle. In later time we have the following reference to their continued occupa- tion. On the shrine-bearing statue of a nobleman of the time of Cambyses in Egypt, the author says that he acquainted the Persian conqueror with the high import of the chambers of Neith, etc., “and the high importance of the South chamber, of the North chamber, of the chamber of the morning sun Ra, and of the chamber of the evening sun Tum. These are the mysterious places of all the gods.”

About 6,000 years ago, the spring sun would be entering Taurus; and the four quarter signs would be the Bull, the Lion, the Scorpion, and the Waterman, though some of these signs might be otherwise named. In memory of that early arrangement—which in many ways lett its mark—devices on rings were, for example, a scorpion, a lion, a hawk and a cynocephalus ape.!

The solstice being still in Leo, the equinox is in Taurus ; and now the equinoctial sun is to lead the year. It is on this account that the ancient records and myths, as remarked by Dupuis, make such frequent reference to the Bull?

The Hindoos, both of ancient and modern times, and the Persians also, have always associated the sign of the Bull with the origin of time.’

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 313. 2 Lockyer, Mineteenth Century, July, 1872. 8 Haliburton, Festival of the Dead, p. 49.

RA THE SUN-GOD. 137

Sir William Drummond says, “There is scarcely a corner of Asia where we do not find traces of the adoration offered to the sun under the form of a bull . . . The sacred bulls of Egypt were all types of the Sun in the constellation Taurus ”! (and he quotes Macrobius in proof).

With the four quarter points clearly ascertained, and made.the datum points from which to measure, while their meridian lines were carried upwards to meet in the pole of the ecliptic, the reformed system seemed to be firmly established. That the heavens were regarded as being supported by four pillars, see Records of the Past, vol. vi, p. 72, and Maspero’s Dawn of Czviltsation, p. 87.

The pillars were important enough to have distinctive names. Khi was one of the four supports of Heaven.’

There were four houses, of which the presiding divinities were Seb, Nu, Isis, and Nephthys.®

There were four Egyptian goddesses—at the North, South, East, and West—who supported the heavens of the zodiac.*

Four pairs.>

Four gods of the elements and their wives.®

Gerald Massey, in his Natural Genesis, vol. ii, pp. 207, 212, has clearly discerned the importance of the Four Quarters ; and so has William Simpson, in his Masonic essay on Orientation. |

SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.—From the four quarters we pass to the Twelve Signs. Between each two quarter signs two other signs were inserted. The planisphere of the temple of Denderah shows four gods supporting the heavens at the four quarter points corresponding to the Bull, the Lion, the Scorpion, and the Waterman; and shows eight other divinities in pairs, one on either side of each pillar, making up the 12. The 12 columns of the

1 Drummond, on Zodiacs, gp. 85, 87.

2 Massey, Book of Beg’s., i, 3523 ii, 68. 5 Budge, By-Paths, p. 114. 4 Bonwick, Lgyptian Beltef, p. 325. ’ 5 Jbid., p. 99.

6 Renouf, Aibbert Lect., p. 232.

138 CREATION RECORDS.

temple of Denderah were dedicated each to a particular month of the year.) This arrangement with 12 months seems to have been instituted when the Lion was nearest the zenith.’ If the 12 signs were instituted in this manner, and it was thought desirable that all of them should comprise an equal number of days, we can understand why a year of 360 days was introduced—I2 x 30 = 360, whereas I2 xX 31 would come to 372 and be more in excess than the other was deficient.

At any rate, for some reason or other, the re-modelled year is made to consist of 360 days only. One would fancy that the error would be found out in ashort time: yet apparently it lasted so long that the circle became established as consisting of 360° beyond alteration. One would fancy that previous experience—under the Ptah dynasty—must have shown that the number of days was 365; but, per- haps, while the recurrence of the longest day was noted, the number of days in the year had never been counted. At all events the New Year’s Day would now go all round the circle in 72 years (72 x 5 = 3060). |

As determined by the Calendar, the Sun of the New Year’s Day will annually anticipate by 5°, and occupy 72 places. Accordingly we find that Ra is addressed under 72 names.’*

Ra is the god of the circle or body of the year, and the 12 months are his limbs. The 12 signs have their distinctive names, but these become his names when he passes through them. In the Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, he is stated to be the great god, self-produced, who “gives rise to all his names, the divine Pant as gods”; and the gloss tells us that Ra is the author of the names of his limbs, which have become the gods who follow in the train of Ra. At the beginning of chapter xvi Ra says, “JT am he who closeth and he who openeth, and I am but

1 Mariette, Monuments of Egypt, p. 131. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisateon, p. 9%. 3 Budge, By-Paths, p. 129.

RA THE SUN-GOD. 139

One ;” in which words he seems to claim the year from beginning to end.}

We are informed by “the Father of History” that in Egypt there were Eight Gods who existed before the rest, then Twelve Gods of the second order, and afterwards a number of gods of the third order.2 The Eight would appear to be Ptah and his sons; and now the Twelve seem to be the 12 divinities of the Signs of the Zodiac. The Egyptians, says Herodotus, discovered to which of the gods each month and day is sacred: and upon this “G. W.” remarks that “this may partly be traced in the names of some of the months, as ‘ Thoth,’ ‘ Athor,’ and ‘Pachons’; besides which, on a ceiling of the Memnonium . at Thebes, ‘and on another at Edfu, ach month has a god to which it belongs,.”®

The year of 360 days seems to me to have continued through two cycles before the system was changed— 72 X 2 = 144—and possibly through three. But even if supplemented by an intercalary month every six years, it would still be deficient.

THE BOAT OF THE SUN AGAIN.—The Sun appears to make the circuit of the ecliptic, passing through all the signs every year; and now it is realised that even while still in the same sign, he performs the circuit of the upper and nether sky every 24 hours. The Underworld has been regarded as an abyss of waters; and in the Hymn to Ra-Harmachis there are lines which ascribe to him a boat.*

Indeed the sun was represented from the earliest times (as we may see in the Pyramid texts) as performing his celestial journey in a boat, which in the morning was called the Atit or Ma-atit, and in the evening the Sektit.’

1 Renouf, Prec. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 377, 385.

2 See Rawlinson’s Herod., Book II, chapter 145 and the note.

3 Herod., Book II, chapter 82. 4 Records of the Past, viii, 13.

Renouf, Book of the Dead, chapter xv. Proc. Soc, Bib. Arch., 1892, pp. 352, 358.

140 CREATION RECORDS.

It is the “barque of millions of years” and Ra is the “mighty sailor, self-existing, traversing paths in the divine vessel,”

With a year of only 360 days, Ra is bound to circum- navigate the heavens in 72 years. He is half his time in Ahe Lower World.

“Ra is the god of the two horizons,” though he may deserve the title on other accounts as well as this.”

In the Hymn to Ra-Harmachis, immediately after the gate of the western horizon is open, and Ra is embraced by his mother Nut, it is added, “ Thy soul is approved by the tenants of the lower heaven ; the divine spirits rejoice at the twofold season of brightness.” “QO blessed Ra- Harmachis, thou hast raised heaven to elevate thy soul, the lower sky has hidden thee in thy mystic forms.’

One of the names for the nether world is the Tuat, and in a Litany of the Ritual, Ra is spoken of as the god who lightens up the Tuat with his glories: “Great is thy love to those who dwell in the Tuat.” This litany is to be said when Ra sets in the Land of Life, with hands bent down- ward.*

It is said of Ra again, “ Thou completest the hours of the night, and (then) day dawneth. Thou presentest thyself at thy place as Ra, as thou risest from the horizon.”

In these visits to the Shades, and this voyaging in a boat or ark, Ra anticipates Osiris.

1 Records of the Past, viii, 134. 2 Tbid., 120, 3 Tbid., 133.

• Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., May, 1892, p. 355. 5 Lbid., p. 352.

CHAPTER XI.

Suu AND TEFNUT.

§ 1. CELESTIAL CITIES,

e

(Celestial Cities: Hermopolis–Shu, the Divinity of the New Pole—Slu raises the Sky and creates the Firmament, supporting it on Four Pillars — Opens up the Underworld—Is the God of Air and Breath—Shu the Ape that succeeds the Crocodile, z.e., the Eighth that followed the Seventh— Tefnut the Goddess of the New Era—Shu and Tefnut twin Lion Gods. )

[N the mythic allegory, trees and rivers, cities and countries, are all .heavenly—as much so as Bunyan’s Celestial City, or St. John’s New Jerusalem. The Nile which fertilized Egypt was but the terrestrial representative of a heavenly river which flowed under the throne-chair of Osiris. Isis was Queen of Heaven, and Hcrus succeeded Ra as Sun-god ; so we may guess that the city of Chemmis, where Isis gave birth to Horus, was no place in this world. Among the cities of the sky we find Memphis, Hermopolis, Heliopolis and Sutenhenen ; and the earthly cities of these names were made after the pattern of things in the heavens. It must not for a moment be imagined that we deny the existence of the cities in the land of Egypt, for they were real and were seats of worship; yet each corresponded to a celestial place, and it is the latter which figures in the myth.

For example, chapter cvi of the Ritual is about the largess which is to be presented at Memphis; but, says Renouf, “as in so many other places, it is not the earthly city which is meant. M. Naville has pointed out that the

1 Book of the Dead, chapter cxxv, Plate.

142 CREATION RECORDS.

words ‘in the Netherworld’ are added in the papyrus of Nebseni.”

It will greatly help our inquiry if we can accurately locate one or two of the principal cities in the countries of the sky. We may reasonably suppose that some of them will be situated on the Ecliptic, the high-road of the Sun; and not unlikely at the quarter-points. Then also, as the circle comprises 360 degrees, and each degree almost corresponds to a day of the year, a particular day may indicate a particular place. Thus in chapter cxxv we read of “the King who resideth within his own Day,” and “ the God who abideth in his own Hour.”

HERMOPOLIS.—Now that Ptah is in a sense superseded we may expect that his sacred city—if he ever had one— will lose some of its importance. The Sun, which is now known to be a heavenly body, underived and ever-existing, is preferred to the Pole—Ra is greater than Ptah. Ra must have his house or houses, in the double form of the Equinoxes and of Temples to represent them; while around the temples sacred cities will spring up, as always happens. The cities responding to this demand are Heliopolis and Hermopolis.

Renouf says that although there was a real city of Hermopolis it is a celestial city which is figured to us in the sacred texts. “Chemunnu (or Hermopolis) is surely not the Hermopolis of Egypt, but the place of the Eight gods, four to the left and four to the right of the vzseng sun, who hail his coming and help him to rise; where Shu, according to MSS. of the seventeenth chapter, raises up the sky, and where ‘the children of failure’ (z.e., shades of darkness, says Renouf) are exterminated. It is not simply of Hermopolis, nor yet of Lake Moeris that one may say ‘it is the place of the eight deities where Ra riseth.’””

The place of sunrise was of course very important, and it should not surprise us that it was thought of as a city of

1 Renouf, Book of the Dead, chapter cxxv.

SHU AND TEFNUT. 143

the sun. “In the mythical texts (says Renouf) the Sun- god is said to be born in Tattu, An, Sechem, or other ‘ localities, which in this connection are not to be considered as geographical realities, but are points on the horizon varying according to the season of the year.” We may accept Renouf’s assurance that the localities are not geo- graphical without pinning ourselves to his precise explana- tion of what they are. It may be only or chiefly equinoctial and solstitial points which are called cities.

We have to speak presently of the raising of the sky by Shu, who is represented as lifting the goddess Neith (generally regarded as the starry heaven) from the body of the earth (called Seb) on which she had been resting. We may know that the event belongs to this period, because we have just done with the Seven, and because Chemunnu —where this task of Atlas is undertaken—is the city of the Eight.

The celestial locality of Hermopolis we shall learn when we discover the place of Shu, who there lifted up and supported the sky. It was apparently at the place of the rising sun, of the era when Ra began his reign ; and if we had to take the midsummer sun, it would be eight degrees from the original solstice ; but we probably have to take the sun of the autumn equinox.

THE GOD SHU AND HIS WORK.—Shu is stated to be the Jackal, and the Jackal is the polar constellation. It is said in chapter lv of the Ritual, “I am the Jackal of jackals, I am Shu, who conveys breezes in presence of the glorious one, to the ends of the sky, to the ends of the earth, etc.”

Let us assume at once (and prove presently) that Shu supports the new Pole, eight degrees from the original place of Ptah. During all the 504 years since beginning with Ptah, the same pole-star has served, though it has become increasingly evident that the true pivot of the

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 6, 351.

144 CREATION RECORDS.

heavens has been all the while shifting. A rectification is to be made at last: Ptah has had seven sons, if degrees or “days” are to be so counted, and now the pole is definitely shifted to the eighth place. Shu is in this sense the successor of Ptah, or of Sebak the seventh son; only the Pole is not to be the dominating power of the new system, but the Sun rather, and Shu will be the Atlas to hold up the heavens asa canopy for Ra.

The heavens are to be raised in a double sense, initially . by taking the eighth-degree point of the northern circle and lifting it to the position of the Pole; secondly, and in consequence, by changing the horizon and recognising that the heavens are not really in contact with the earth at that circumference, but at the same elevation above the earth there as elsewhere. It is part of the reformed plan to postulate four pillars, based possibly at the solstitial and. equinoctial points and arching up to unite at the pole.

It occurs to us, however, that if the four pillars were all based on the ecliptic circle they ought to be carried up to the pole of the ecliptic, rather than the pole of the heavens. But perhaps really they were all based on the equinoctial circle—East, West, North, and South—and then the equinoctial points would be doubly important as belonging to both circles. One of the pillars from the equinoctial point to the pole of the heavens would be an admirable datum line to measure from; whether the vernal equinox or the autumnal. The latter seems to be especially the column of Shu, and in a sense Shu himself, although al} the pillars are said to be his.

Like all Egyptologists, Brugsch now admits that these pillars were always placed at the four cardinal points. (Religion und Mythologie, pp. 201-2)… They were by-and-. bye superseded by four lofty peaks, rising at the four cardinal points, and connected by a continuous chain of mountains.

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisaticn, p. 17 note.

SHOU AND TEFNUT. 145

Regarding Shu as the Atlas pillar, his place might be

described as either the pole or the equinox ; but strictly,

Shu and Tefnut are probably the two equinoxes, on which

the important pillars are based. In an incantation of the

Magical Papyrus it is said, “I am Shu, the image of Ra

who sits. in his eye.” (Pap. Mag. Harr. 7, 1.)! The

eyes of the sun are only likely to be at equinoxes or

solstices ; and at any rate will not be at the pole. In

chapter cxxx, where it is commanded that the Gates of

East, West, North and South be thrown open, it is said,

“ Opened to him be the doors of the Sektit boat .

open . . . the portals of the Maatit, as he scenteth

Shu and setteth in motion Tefnut.”? The boats are those

of the morning and evening sun,and here they are con-

nected with East and West. Again—to quote an early

Pyramid text,—They have assembled, they have placed

Shu at thy East side, Tefnu at thy West, Nu at thy South,

Nut at thy North.°

The name Hermopolis does not seem to be given to the

new pole, but to the new equinox, which is also the eighth.

It was narrated at Hermopolis (the geographical city)—

and the legend was ultimately universally accepted even

by the Heliopolitans—that the separation of Neith and

Seb had taken place at a certain spot on the site of the

city, where Shu had ascended the mound on which the

feudal temple was afterwards built in order that he might

better sustain the goddess and uphold the sky at the

proper height (Book of the Dead, Naville’s ed., pl. xxiii,

chapter xvii, 1, 3, e¢ seg.). Other texts also state that it

was in the Hermopolite nome that “ light began when thy

father Ra rose from the lotus.”* This we take to signify

that immediately upon the discovery that the morning sun

was not a new fire, but the sun of the previous evening—of

1 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 354:

• Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xix, 2, 65. 3 Tbid., 1881, p. 113.

• Maspero, Dawz7 of Civilisation, p- 146 note.

L

146 CREATION RECORDS.

all previous evenings and seemingly eternal—it was re- cognised as the Light-giver, the Great Light; and this took place in connection with the autumnal equinox, which for some reason was regarded as a mound or mount.

We will assume for the present—and prove in a future chapter—that as Hermopolis is the autumnal equinox, so Heliopolis is the vernal equinox (at least at this stage of things).

“The first act of Tmu (Tum) was to create from his own body the god Shu and the goddess Tefnut ; and afterwards Seb the earth and Neith the sky came into being.”!. That is to say, as soon as Tum the evening sun, proved him- self to be a god by rising as the morning sun, the two equinoxes were recognised, earth and sky were discrimi- nated and the four pillars established. In this sense Shu has Tum for his father. But since Tum has blended with Khepera, and Khepera has become Ra, and the reign of Ra is now to follow immediately upon the passing away of the seventh cow of Hathor, it is said that Shu is the first-born son of Ra and Hathor.?

SHU CREATES THE FIRMAMENT.—The reader will pardon a certain amount of repetition, as the author tries to straighten out this confused and confusing tangle. Although we have spoken of Shu’s work already, it seems necessary to enlarge upon it.

The conception of the universe was profoundly altered when the sun was recognised as a heavenly body, and displaced the Pole-star as an object of worship. The fiery orb does not ascend out of the earth, but circles round and round it; he is not kindled anew every morning, but is from everlasting to everlasting. The difference is so important that this first recognition of the sun as a god is spoken of as the first appearance of the god; and the first realisation of the sky as everywhere elevated, is regarded as the raising of the firmament.

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. xcviii.

• Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 72.

SHU AND TEFNUT. 147 The raising of the sky by Shu is very frequently represented in pictures, Seb (the earth) being pourtrayed as a recumbent figure sleeping,’ while Nut or Neith (the sky) is bent above him, her arched body dotted over with stars.2 (See Flammarion’s Astronomical Myths, p. 243.)

Uplifted is the sky, which he maintains with his two arms.®

A good plate in M. Paul Pierret’s Panthéon Egyptien shows Shu, the Atlas-god, supporting Nut the heavens, over Seb the earth. Shu is assisted in his function by the four props, which are the same that are also seen in the common hieroglyph for the upheld heavens.‘

Shu is usually depicted in the form of a man, who wears upon his head a feather or feathers, and holds in his hands the sceptre. At other times he appears in the form of a man with upraised arms. . . . He is often accompanied by the sign for the four pillars of heaven.?

Mr. Hiltotri Price, who possesses a collection of objects found at Tell Basta, finds Shu always represented as a man kneeling on the right knee, and elevating on his head the disk of the sun. On our celestial globes it is Heracles who is kneeling on one knee ; so that these figures appear to represent the second work of this kind. “The Kneeler” is more than once referred to by Aratus in his description

of the skies’ :— ‘<The Kneeler Dips his whole body but his knee And left foot in the waves of ocean.”

The pillars of Shu, are, I think, the originals of sacred trees—other than the Universe Tree, which is the axis-tree of the universe, in John O’Neill’s sense. The earliest columns used by the builder would be poles. The myths have much to say about sacred trees, which seem to be

1 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch.

2 Lockyer, Nineteenth Century, July, 1892. *% Records of the Past, x, 138.

• O’Neill, Might of the Gods, 1,549. ° Budge, Book of the Dead, p. exii. 6 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, 51. 7 Aratus, Zhe Skies, line 590.

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148° CREATION RECORDS.

planted at the four quarter points. The attributes of sacred trees, as enumerated by Mrs. Philpot, agree with my supposition, for (1) there is -a god in the tree; (2) oracles are obtained from it ; (3) a human race originated from it; (4) the sacred tree marks the site of Paradise ; (5) May-pole customs are suggestive of the bridal of earth and sky at the spring equinox ; and (6) tree worship has prevailed from China to Peru.1 Some other features described suit rather the axis-tree, for it is a world-tree and bears twelve manner of fruits. Later, the tree-poles are superseded by stone pillars or columns. The four columns at the four quarter points have each two sup- porters, one on either side, making up the 12 months. This is shown in the Zodiac of Denderah, though not always reproduced, and also in the two supporters of each leg of the cow of heaven, when Shu raises the heaven a second time.*?, Hence the Sacred Tree with two worshippers or supporters, on Assyrian cylinders, with all the variants developed afterwards, may probably stand for the equinox pillar (and corresponding month) and the month on either side.®

The new arrangement is regarded as the first definite arrangement made at all for recording the years—the ‘Beginning of Time, the creation of the firmament, the dividing of the waters from the waters; also, after the inauguration of a lunar-solar year, the calling into existence of two great lights, and their appointment to mark the times and the seasons, and measure out the days and the years. In this view of things Shu may be spoken of as the first god and the creator.

In the new system—if we are right in our reading—the two pillars based at the east and west points, will be more important than those of the North and South.

1 Mrs. Philpot, 7he Sacred Tree. 2 See Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. vi. 3 See Mrs. Philpot’s Sacred Tree, chapter i.

SHU AND TEFNUT. 149

In pictures which represent Shu uplifting Nut (the sky

represented as a female figure) the feet of the goddess rest on the East and her hands on the West ; as is shown by the scene wherein Shu is accompanied by two female figures who have on their heads the hieroglyphs for East and West respectively.! It seems to be recognised now that the equinoctial points are cross-roads, and gateways between two hemi- spheres in which the phenomena correspond, and which are in all respects equal. Rev. J. Williamson, M.A., says that on the Egyptian Zodiac, where it comes in contact with the equator, the cross is actually represented.2 The equinoctial is the dividing plane; and the observers, as though they were actually on the equator, looking diverse ways upon two equal domains, speak of what is south of them as Upper Egypt, and of the north as Lower Egypt. Of the geographical Egypt the dividing line may not be the equator, but it is so with the “ Egypt” of the myths, of which the other is but representative.

When Shu is called the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, it means that he is Ruler of the Upper and Nether Hemispheres, because by lifting the sky off the earth at the horizon he has shown that there are two hemispheres.’ In token of his dual sway he wears a double-teathered crown ; and from this time forth the actual mortal kings of Egypt do the same.

Shu supports the heaven of Night and becomes the cuardian of those who live in the nocturnal sky. One of the four pillars would of course be in the north, rising up as from the winter solstice to the Pole. The pillars also extend right through, and support the south pole as well.

In one of the later explanations of a passage in chapter xvii of the Ritual, Shu is said to have raised up heaven

1 Budge, Avok of the Dead, p. cii. 2 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 220. 3 Records of Past, x, 139.

• Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 113, 254 and 265.

150 CREATION RECORDS. from the Gate T’eser (Te-sert?)! It is said by the Scholiast, now the Gate of Sert is the gate of the pillars of Shu, the northern gate of the Under-world, which the god Tmu_ passeth when he goeth forth [from his western abode] to the eastern horizon of heaven.?

And still, in a conventional way of speaking, while the solstitial points were in the sky the equinoctial points touched the earth. In chapter lv it is said, “I am Shu. I draw in the air in the presence of the god of Sunbeams, as far as the uttermost ends of heaven [the solstices], as far as the ends of the earth [the equinoxes]—as far as the bounds of Shu.”® Thomas Taylor (Notes to Pausanius, iii, 310) quotes Homer :—

‘ Atlas her sire, by whose all-piercing eye The depths of every sea are clearly seen ; And who the lofty pillars strenuous rears, Which every way divide the earth from heaven.’

Having lifted the sky and given the universe ample spaces, Shu is spoken of as the god of Air and Breath. In the Nebseni Papyrus it is said, “Breath hath been given unto thee by Shu.”® i

SHU AND THE APE.—The seventh place of the Pole was associated with the crocodilc, as well as with the youngest son of Ptah. Had there been any more offspring of the Fire-god, the eighth son would, for some reason, have been associated with an Ape. One of the names of Shu is Repeller of Crocodiles: his name of An-her is a talisman for the soul that has to encounter the reptile.® Shu is symbolised by the Ape, and it is apparently with reference to his occupying the eighth degree, and supersed- ing the Crocodile which summed up the seven, that he is called the Ape of Seven Cubits who dwells in a shrine of seven cubits and is transferred into one of eight cubits.’

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 387. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 284. 3 Jbtd., p. 311. 4 O’Neill, Wight of the Gods, i, 509.

5 Comp. Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cii, and p. 359.

6 Records of Past, x, 140. 7 Massey, Watural Genesis, ii, 129, 238.

SHU AND 1EFNUT. 151

In a previous chapter we have seen that the sons of Ptah are called pygmies, and figured as ugly squat dwarfs, while Pliny (vii, 2) describes pygmies as being three spans in height. In the last verse of chapter xlii of the Ritual, the deceased is made to say, “I am the golden cyno- cephalus (ape), three palms in height, without legs or arms, in the temple of Ptah, and my course is the course of the golden cynocephalus.” In this passage the ape seems to come in as an eighth pygmy son of Ptah.

One object in view in reforming the older system and establishing Shu instead of another son of Ptah, was to get a more accurate measurement of time. A symbolical acknowledgment of this was the adornment of the water- clock with the ape’s picture, Horapollo had told us that the Egyptians engraved on their clepsydra a crouching ape; and now M, Naville has found in the Festival Hall of Osorkon the actual representations.}

SHU WITH TEFNUT.—Maspero says that as Tum-Ra could have no fellow he stood apart in the first rank, and it was decided that Shu should be his son, whom he had formed out of himself alone, on the first day of creation, by the simple intensity of his own virile energy. Shu, reduced to the position of divine son, had in his turn be- gotten Seb and Nut, the two deities whom he separated . .

The wife found for Shu was Tefnut, his twin sister, born in the same way as he was born…. The texts describe her as the pale reflex of her husband. Together with him she upholds the sky, and every morning receives the new-born sun as it emerges from the mountain of the east; she is a lioness when Shu is a lion, a woman when he is a man; she is angry when he is angry, appeased when he is appeased.”

Bunsen says that Tefnut is a lioness-headed goddess, wearing the sun’s disk. She has also sometimes the

1 Naville, Hall of Osorkon, p. 9. | ~ Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 141.

152, CREATION RECORDS.

urzus.’ In faience figures the twin brother and sister have

each a lion’s head. The two equinoxes might naturally

be regarded as twins: and the sun has been so long

associated with Leo of the oe that two lions are now'

posited at the equinoxes.

Several texts connect Shu with the east and the rising sun ; but that does not contradict his connection with the autumn equinox.

Tefnut seems plainly to inherit the characters of Sekhet, who was wife of Ptah,and represented the summer solstice

a little earlier. For example, the Harris Magical Papyrus

identifies Shu with the sun travelling upwards at the

prime of morning, whilst Tefnut seated upon his head

darts her flame against his adversaries.2 Tefnut is des- cribed as a fiery and even bloodstained divinity. It is fire that she spits against the adversaries. “Iam Tefnut,” she says, “ thundering against those who are eee on the earth, who are annihilated for ever.”

Gerald Massey finds that Tefnut and Sckhet constitute ‘a double lioness, twin sisters who gave birth to the sun. They are called, he says, the two eyes of the sun.’ According to our interpretation this may be so, Tefnut being the sun’s place at the equinox ynite Sekhet was his piace at the solstice.

Let us not forget that the appearance of Shu is simul- taneous with ‘the appearance of Ra, and both of them with the dismissal of the Ptah dynasty. Those eight successive changes of the Pole have dislocated the heavens, and made the’ stars eccentric in their course, so that their risings and settings could no longer be depended upon. There have been’ seven pasitions. of the solstice, seven positions of the “equinox, and nothing stable. These “ children of failure” must be swept aye like angels

ee pt’s Flace, i, 404.

1 2 Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 207. . Massey, Book of Beginnings, i, 273. |

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SHU AND TEFNUT. 153

which kept not their first estate they must be cast down into Tartarus.

An interpolation in the Book of the Dead (chapter xvii) explains that the sun Ra made its first appearance when Shu raised the sky, from the height of Khemennu, where he destroyed the Children of Failure. Khemennu is Hermopolis, the eighth place of the autumn equinox, and the representatives of the previous seven have to be destroyed ; their appearance in the calendar is an anti- quated imposture.2 In the Magic Papyrus it is said, “uplifted is the sky, which he maintains with his two arms. The sun.commenced with thy commencement, in thy name which is Shu-si-Ra.”

1.Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 384.

CHAPTER XII.

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS.

§ 1. Ra’s FIRST SOVEREIGNTY.

(Ra, the Sun in the Sky, called the First God—He sails all round the Sphere —He has Seventy-Five Forms—The Litany of Ra.)

THE Sun-god Ra reigns and abdicates and reigns again, a mystery which will be cleared up as we go along. In the dynasties of the gods, Ra succeeds Ptah as his son.’ But this is only because the seven of the house of Ptah admit of being regarded as one—the Polar divinity, the Fire-god. Ra follows the seven. The sun is no longer thought of as

a mere fire, for he is known to be in the sky, like the Pole- _

star itself. In the Ritual the acknowledgment is made, “ After being concealed from men thou presentest thyself at the dawn of each day.”

The sign of the god Ra is ©; and this may possibly indicate the apparent revolution of the sun round a centre.* “ The sun sails over the pillars of Shu.”*

Ra is not produced by gestation or development in the earth ; he owes nothing to the Beetle or the Lotus; he has celestial parentage. He was born from the side of his mother, the ethereal Nut or Neith, the sky goddess. An inscription testifies that he was enfanted by her, but not engendered—he had a mother but no father.’ Ptah is called his father, but that is in another sense, and relates

1 Bunsen, Zeyft’s Place, i, 387.

Proc. Soc. Bib, Arch., xiv, 7, 352. Budge, By-Paths, p. 124. Brugsch, Zeypt under the Pharaohs, 1, §6.

Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 190.

Bunsen, i, 387. Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, 107.

a cd © te

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 155

to mere succession. Ra represents a new order of things, and is even called the first god, or the first-born son. An Egyptian nobleman of the time of Cambyses, tells us that he made known to the Persian king the greatness of the city of Sais, as the city of Neith; and his words are, ‘“‘ Neith the great Mother, who gave birth to the Sun-god Ra: he was the first-born, no (other) being was yet born.”!

In chapter iB, of the Ritual it is said of the deceased, “ He is Ra, the first-born of the gods. His mother suckleth him ; she giveth her breast from the sky.”?

Although born into life and visibility on the thigh of Neith the sky-goddess Ra came up out of the waters which are under the earth. The abyss there was called Nu, and personified as a divinity and having a masculine corre- lative, Nun. Ina Hymn of Praise to Ra it is said, “Thou art born from the water, thou art sprung from Nu…. Thou goest forth over heaven and earth, made strong each day by thy mother Nut.”®

At the same time, since circles have neither beginning nor end, Ra is from everlasting to everlasting, and has not had any parent at all. The seventeenth chapter of the Ritual—that ancient text which is two thousand years older than Moses—begins with the announcement, “I am he who closeth and he who openeth [the day?] and I am but One, I am Ra at his first appearance. I am the great god self-produced.” The later texts add an interpolation to the effect that the sun made his first appearance when Shu raised the sky from the height of Khemennu, where he destroyed the Children of Failure. Renouf remarks that the mystical Khemennu is alone referred to in this place, and not the geographical Hermopolis.‘

This first appearance of the sun—nis first recognition as a heavenly body and ruler of the year—was afterwards

1 Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, ii, 294. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 274. 3 Tbid,, p. 251. 4 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 43.

156 CREATION RECORDS.

looked back upon as the beginning of time. When the Egyptians were desirous of falling back upon the remotest past in search of an age of felicity, they would say that the like of such a person or thing had not been known since the time of Ra.

Our supposition is that with the change of system, the New Year’s Day is changed from the summer solstice to the autumn equinox. The opening up of the underworld would seem to demand this change; because at the equinoctial point the sun, for one day, looks on the two hemispheres equally.

Mr. R. S. Poole finds a symbol of the autumnal equinox as one of the divinities of the first month, and of the vernal equinox as the seventh.?

We suppose also it is with the accession of Ra that the year of 360 days is instituted. Krall remarks (p. 17), “It is probable that the year of 360 days dates from a time before the immigration into the Nile Valley, when the Egyptians were unguided by the regular recurrence of the Nile flood.” Lockyer agrees with Krall that the Egyptians may have come from another country; and considers it more likely that they brought the lunar month with them, taking it roughly as 30 days (30 x 12=360) than that they began in Egypt with such an erroneous length of the year.’ It is the greatness of the change from the worship of the northern stars to a solar-lunar year and equinoctial reckoning, which seems to Lockyer to show the immi- gration of a new race; but to us it appears to be accounted for by the discovery of the southern hemisphere and the all-surrounding firmament.

There was, at any rate, a year of 360 days; and the conservatism of the priests for ever after retained a tra- dition of it. In one of the contracts made with the

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 160. 2 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 330. 3 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 243.

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 157

priests by Hapd’efa’e, a monarch of Siout in the time of the Middle Empire, it is written: “A temple day is xtyth of the year.”! Even at Philz, in late times, in the temple of Osiris there were 360 bowls for sacrifice, which were filled daily with milk by a specified rotation of priests.2 At Acanthus there was a perforated cask into which one of the 360 priests poured water from the Nile daily.

But when each year dropped five and a quarter days, it is evident that the New Year’s Day of the calendar would be carried through all the months and complete the circuit in about seventy years. Ra is associated with the New Year’s Day, and this passage all round the circle, both above and below the equator, is represented as the voyage of Ra. Below the earth had always been the abyss of Nu; and the work of Shu in lifting the sky had not destroyed those waters, but only shown that they were waters above the firmament. To pass over them one required a boat.

For the boat of Nu see plate 22 illustrating chapter cxxxiii of the Ritual. In the vignette to chapter xv, Ani is standing adoring Ra hawk-headed and seated in a boat floating upon the sky.

The boat of the sun ere. and the great god advanceth in peace.‘

Hail, ye gods, who row in the boat of the lord of millions of years, who tow it above the underworld, who make it pass over the ways of Nu.’

Of course these descriptions apply in the first instance to the daily voyage of the sun ; as it is said in chapter xv, “Contemplate Ra within his ark, and do thou propitiate his orb daily.” But even this implied a recognition of the Two Hemispheres ; so clearly indeed as to realise that

1 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 146. 2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., p. 248. % Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 328. 4 Book.of the Dead, chapter Ixxxix. 5 bid.

158 CREATION RECORDS.

when the sun sets for the so-called Upper World he rises for the Nether. In the Papyrus Ani we are called upon to praise Ra as he veseth in the atet boat (which is the boat of the evenzmg sun); and it is added: “They who dwell in the heights and they who dwell in the depths worship thee.” In another version of the chapter, Ra is addressed as the creator of those who dwell in the heights, and of those who dwell in the depths.!

But it is also clear to us that with a year of 360 days there will be a backward movement of the boat, carrying it through all the months. “My soul seeth the great god within the boat of Ra on the Day of Souls. My soul is in the front among those who tell the years.””

Ra is addressed under 72 names, says Budge’; and. this number, it will be seen, corresponds to the position of the

New Year’s day is going round the circle ( 513° . It is /

somewhat puzzling however to find, in the Solar Litany, that Ra is invoked as a Power manifesting itself in 75 forms. Each phase is addressed as “Ra supreme of power,” and then some attribute of the deity is mentioned and connected with his name.* We should have antici- pated only 70 or 72 manifestations.

It seems quite impossible that an arrangement which caused the New Year’s Day to sweep so rapidly through all the seasons could long remain unnoticed and unrecti- fied. We may therefore expect to find that it was compensated, as it might be, by an intercalary month once in six years.

THE LITANY OF RA.—Very nearly connected with the Book of the Dead is the Litany of Ra, a writing found in several of the largest of the tombs of the Kings at Thebes —for example, the tomb of Seti I. The title is, “ The Beginning of the Book of the Worship of Ra in the

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 250. 2 Tbid., p. 319. : 3 Budge, By-Paths, p. 129. 4 Renouf, on chapter cxxvii

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 159

Ament.” Ament or Amenti is the name of the Under- world.

Among other things it is said of Ra—He descends into the spheres of the Ament ; his form is that of Tum.

When he arrives in the good Ament, the spirits of the empyrean rejoice at sight of him.

Supreme power, the light that isin the infernal regions.

The god with the numerous shapes in the sacred dwelling ; his form is that of the Beetle.

He who opens the earth and shows the interior of it.

Homage to thee O Ra of the sphere …. Ra Keschi big They sing praises to thy honour, spirit Keschi in thy 75 forms which are in thy 75 spheres.

§ 2. Ra’S CONFLICT WITH APEPI.

(Apepi the Evil Serpent—The Worm and the Tunnel—The Serpent—The Conflict between Ra and Apepi.)

An intercalary month of requisite length and duly inserted might compensate for the short length of the calendar year ; but there was another cause of confusion at work which was not so well understood, and could not be so easily remedied. After detecting the shifting of the solstice and rectifying the place of the pole, and aban- doning the old method entirely by substituting the equinox for the solstice, and supplanting Ptah by Ra, still all was not done. The friends of the new system were probably surprised to find that the equinox was receding on the ecliptic as the solstice had done of old. The Sun-god was . removed from his calculated place, and the stars of the morning were proving as faithless as their predecessors. Of course the pole also was displaced, and the change there would be more easily observed because it was pre- cisely of the same sort as had occurred before. Suppose

1 Records of Past, viii, 105.

160 ~ CREATION RECORDS.

Ra had ruled for 216 years and circumnavigated the heavenly sphere three times ; the pole would have shifted by three degrees, and the equinox would have kept pace. There would be reason for Shu to raise the heavens a second time, although only so far as the rectification of the pole was concerned (with its corollary, the lifting-up of the spring equinox), and not the creation of a firmament, which had been done once for all.

We have seen that the under-world journey of Ra was represented as a voyage over the waters of Nu. But by reverting to an earlier conception it might be conceived of aS a progress in some way through the bowels of the earth itself. The effect of precession would be that the emer- gence would not be at the same point ; it would seem that the sun had come by-a divergent underground path or tunnel.

All the difficulty of this kind is attributed to an evil serpent called Apep, Apepi, or Apophis.

Apepi is the enemy of Ra, by whom he is vanquished fora time. Renouf regards Apepi as a personification of the stormcloud, but our idea is different.1 It is said that heaven rests on the hill of Bachau [in the West]. Sebak the lord of Bachau is at the east of the hill, and his temple is upon it. . There is a serpent on the brow of that hill 500 cubits in length, and 3 cubits of his forefront are pierced with swords. The serpent, we find, is Apepi; at the close of the day the barque of the sun stands still, and the serpent swallows 3 cubits of the great water, but after- wards these are disgorged. Remembering that a cubit is the symbol for a degree of the circle and a day of the year, we may read in this picture the operation of an inimical Powers capture of three days, and their subsequent recovery?

THE WORM AND THE TUNNEL.—We have seen that in very early times the rising sun was supposed to be a new

1 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Brb., April, 1892. 7 Book of the Dead, chapter cviii.

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RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 161

fire, lighted every morning, to move across the sky and become quenched in the evening in the earth or the ocean. Afterwards he was pictured as a Beetle issuing from the ground and rising on wings. Again, he sprang from a lotus which grew in the water. There was still another form of conception and representation, according to which the sun had passed through the ground as a worm.

The short chapter Ixxxvii says: “I am Seta (Earth- worm) at the confines of the earth. I lay myself down [at evening, in the West], I restore myself and I renew myself daily.”“4. Renouf says there are several pictures at Denderah representing the Sun-god in the form of the worm rising out of the Lotus of Dawn.? (See pl. xxiii, from Mariette Dend., i, 47 and 48.)

The worm working its way through the earth would leave a hollow track. The hieroglyphic sign for the earth is a hollow tube, a reed, flute or pipe. It is already used as a determinative of the divine name Seb, in the Pyramid texts. Ina picture taken from the tomb of Rameses [V {and reproduced in Proc. Soc. Bb. Archeol., xv, 8), a tunnel extends through the earth from the place of sunset to the place of sunrise. Each end of it has a sphinx-like form ; and it is through the paws of the sphinx that the galley of the Sun-god enters on the western horizon and comes out on the eastern. At one end is written, “Fair entrance,” and at the other, “ Fair exit.”

In the first instance this tunnel would be imagined to be

fixed and rigid, the definite pathway of the sun, say at the

season of the equinox. But here as elsewhere change and

havoc would be brought by the precession movement, while

the cause was not known. In a little more than two

centuries—when the New Year’s Day has made the round

of the seasons three times over—the equinox will have

’ Budge, Book the of Dead, p. 337. 2 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 157; and Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 7, 184; and on chapter cCxxv, note 17. 3 Renouf, in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 8, 385.

M

162 CREATION RECORDS. receded three degrees, and the “ Fair exit ” will be removed -from its former place. The tunnel would seem to have got twisted ; and it would be natural to say: “An enemy hath done this | !”

’ THE SERPENT APEPI.—It was represented that the mis- chief was wrought by an Earth-serpent called Apepi. Close by the lotus was a serpent’s hole, and one of the vignette illustrations of chapter xvii represents the serpent Uatchit coiled round the lotus flower.1 The serpent we now have to do with—whether the same or another—is called Apepi, and it is stated that he makes a chine which is dangerous to sun and stars. Through the precession change the stars are altered in their declination, dislocated with reference to the place of the equinox, and there is a gap between the former equinoctial point and the present ‘one. “QO thou who sailest the ship of Nu over that chine which is void . . . . that chine of Apepi ‘, This place is empty into which the starry ones fall down headlong upon their faces and find not aught whereby they can raise themselves up.”” Renouf bids us compare chapter xliv, on the cavern where the dead fall into the darkness.

The serpent or dragon Apepi is described in the texts as “having no eyes, nose, or ears, but roaring as it comes along.” Ra seems to be in a flutter. “Seb standeth still in terror, the company of the mighty gods is in a quake.”> It is just possible that the “ quake” may have reference to the precession slip, for that movement though really constant and gradual, was only recognised at long intervals, and was thought of as sudden and considerable. If we were writing –a book on comparative mythology, something might be said: here concerning Poseidon the earth-shaker.

Chapter cviii of the Ritual relates to the struggle

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 280. 2 Book of the Dead, chapter xcix. See also chapter vil. 3 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 215.

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 163

between Ra and Apepi. The serpent says: “I carry away thy might, that I may come and ‘seize upon the Turinels of Ra.”

Peacefully the barque of Ra glided along the celestial river amid the acclamations of the gods who dwelt upon its shores. But occasionally Apepi, a gigantic serpent, like that which hides within the earthly Nile and devours its banks, came forth from the depth of the waters and arose in the path of the god. ‘As soon as they caught sight of it in the distance the crew flew to arms and entered upon the struggle against him with prayers and spear thrusts.

Upon this Maspero remarks that “the character of Apepi and of his struggle with the sun, was from the first excellently defined by Champollion as representing the conflict of darkness with light.” It is a natural idea—but too easy an explanation—to think that because the Sun is a great Light his foe must always be the Darkness of Night. Even when darkness is concerned, the struggle may not always take place in the twilight hours of evening and morning; the imagery would serve as well for a conflict between summer and winter. Sometimes, indeed, the antagonism is between the two hemispheres, and the battleground is the equinoxes; and, further, the warfare attains an epic grandeur in the invasion of one hemisphere by the other through precession.

The struggle of Ra with Apepi sets forth certain aspects of the perplexity introduced by Precession. In chapter vii of the Ritual—called the “Chapter of passing through the chine of Apepi””—it is assumed that this serpent has power to paralyse by his venom. But the speaker assumes the character of Tum and says: “I am the One who presideth over the Pole of Heaven, and the powers of all the gods are my powers.” He threatens to paralyse ‘or render motionless Apepi, in his turn. The control of the Pole would carry with it the control of the Equinox ; for if the

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 91. M 2

164 CREATION RECORDS.

vagaries of the former could be stayed, the latter would continue fixed, and the “fair exit of the tunnel” would remain where it was. In the passage just quoted Tum seems to speak as though he were Shu and could raise the pole again to its right place. Then also the equinox would be raised, and this rectification of the charts and the calendar would be represented as the uplifting of Ra anda victory over the evil power.

Ra appears to have come off victorious. Apepi is over- come by the fire and flinty sword of the Sun-god; he is forced back into his cavern, and over him, according to the text at Denderah, is placed a stone of 40 cubits, while the devouring flame preys upon his bones. In chapter xxxix the serpent Rekrek is repulsed in the Netherworld. The chapter begins with: “ Back ! down with thee, stabber from Apepi ! (the text is uncertain).”. The dark demon makesa sword to flash. Ra and others take part in the conflict. “ Apep falleth down ; the enemy of Ra.” Ra comes forth through the gates of the horizon “fainting from his wounds.” “ Apep is fallen and is in bonds. The gods of the South, the North, the West, and the East bind him ; their bonds are upon him.” This may mean that the four points of the compass are accurately fixed afresh, and this, it is hoped, will prevent further ravage. “ Ra is satisfied, Ra maketh his progress peacefully.” “Nut saith, He cometh forth and findeth his path, and maketh captures of the gods ; he hath the first place in the two houses of Nut.” In the Litany of Ra—which describes the journey of the Sun-god through the Nether-hemisphere—it is declared that Ra “traverses the empyrean with joy, for he has struck Apep.”

There is a tone of confidence also in the song of triumph in the Anz Papyrus: “ Thine enemy is given to the fire, the evil one hath fallen ; his arms are bound, and his legs hath

1 Records of the Past, viii, 115.

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 165 Ra taken from him. The children of impotent revolt shall never rise up again! ”?

§ 3. THE NEW ROUTE THROUGH THE UNDERWORLD.

(Meaning of Ra’s Victory—The Book of Hades—Twelve Divisions of the Netherworld—Re-adjustment of the Astronomy to the changes wrought by Precession. )

The conflict described in the last section was really the Opposition between the old route of the Sun-god through the Underworld, and the new route. If Ra is to claim the victory, it can only be by becoming established in the new path and discarding the old traditionary path as belonging to the enemy. The “fair entrance” and “ fair exit” of the Sun have shifted ; and of course the line which joins the two points is different throughout its course. The two lines, however, cross in the middle, at the point corres- ponding to the midnight hour : and this we shall find to be of great interest. It is there that the Sun-god’s chief battle with Apep is likely to take place, because it is there that the Serpent’s track crosses the King’s highway. The souls of deceased persons also, which are supposed to follow the course of the Sun, though they may begin in the right way and enter Hades by the proper gate, may be perplexed when they reach the cross-roads. They may miss the right way, they may be enticed out of it, or they may have to fight with emissaries of Apepi. If we find these things assumed and described in the texts we may consider that our view of the myth is confirmed by a crucial test.

It is something to the point when we read as follows :— The sixth hour in the Tuat is the “ Hour of the overthrow of the Sebau.”? In the sixth division of the Netherworld Ra arrives at the posts of Seb, and punishment is inflicted on the wicked. “Let them not escape, watch over the mass-

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 247. 2 Book of the Dead, chapter Ixiv.

166 . CREATION RECORDS.

acre!”* Again, in the adventures of the individual soul, the deceased receives final instructions ere he crosses over the eternal waters which separate the purgatory from the Elysium, and across which he has to be ferried amidst horrible beings which encircle his way, and leap about, crawl over, and try to upset the vessel. Dangers of the most subtle and insidious kind await him then; a false boatman, the emissary of Typhon, endeavours to seduce him into the wrong boat.2 The deceased detects the treachery, and he and the false guide reproach each other in true Homeric fashion. At length the true pilot appears, with the real barque of souls, and the delivered one joyfully exclaims? :— | ‘© T go to pass from earth to heaven, To go along to the ever-tranquil gods, When they go to cut the Apophis.” | THE Book OF HADES.—The Underground journey of Ra is described in the Book of Hades, inscribed on the sarcophagus of Seti I, which is in the Soane Museum. It is obscure in its pictures and allusions ; and as to any clue to its meaning, investigators have kept themselves off the track by supposing that it relates only to the nightly journey of the sun. The elaborate descriptions, the special judg- ments, and the indications of a new regime, point rather to some procession of the Sun-god of rare significance and not often repeated. It is—there is hardly room to doubt—the record of a royal progress undertaken for the purpose of re-adjusting the constellations to the new Precession route. The stars of course remain fixed and it is the sun rather that has changed its solstitial and equinoctial points ; but the astronomers may not have known that. It is repre- sented that the Sun is changeless, and it is the stars which have fallen away rebelliously, like angels which kept not their first estate. In the royal progress here described the

’ 1 Book of Hades. : 2 Egypt and the Pentateuch, by W. R. Cooper, p. 70. , See also Bonwick, Z.gyptiar Belief, p. 197. 4

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 167

faithless stars are variously sentenced and damned, while others now more favourably placed are taken into service. With this as the right clue it may be possible some day to interpret all the allusions of this complicated narrative ; but it could only be done by an astronomer knowing the Ritual thoroughly ; and for our present purpose it is not necessary. It would be tedious to the reader to trouble him with even an abridgment of the entire story ; and it will

suffice to remark briefly on its more prominent features. The Book of Hades has 12 divisions, corresponding to the Netherworld itself, with several scenes in each division, accompanied by legends descriptive of the scenes. The first picture represents 12 gods of the Earth, marching towards a mountain, shown upside down, and so symbolising the reversed hemisphere. Underneath is the boat of the solar disk, enclosing a scarabzus; and it passes to the entrance. The progress of Ra through the several divisions presents a lengthy succession of acts, some of which appear to be of great importance, such as passing sentence on prisoners and decreeing a happy fate to the righteous—acts of judgment not requiring to be repeated every night. No, there has been rebellion in the celestial kingdom, and there has to be exemplary punishment and the appointment of new dignitaries and officers of state. There is, besides, a ceremony of passing through the gates—12 in succession— and reaching every time a place called the Retreat, leaving behind the gods of the pylon, who had hoped for the Sun- god’s continuance with them. Our idea is that the pylons and their gods who are forsaken are the old stations and the stars of the 12 hours on the antiquated equatorial circle, or on the chart of the night sky for a particular season. The Retreat is the new place or path to which the sun has betaken himself, although it is assumed that: the separation has been the cs way, and the stars have. ‘de- leas from ma eee ee a 3 Records of the Fast, x, 88. >;! Stes

168 CREATION RECORDS.

ae

It may be useful here to aid our conception by a diagram. All the porches or doors are made on the same plan, and each contains a passage horizontal above, but afterwards

descending vertically.

a 3; 4 _5e 6/™ 8 10 tf 42 _ 1D -

In the diagram following, the dotted line shows the altered position of the equinoctial, and its effect on the divisions of Hades, though to make the matter clearer, the amount of change is here exaggerated.

Moreover we are not dealing with plane surfaces, but with lines on a sphere, and so the conception is more difficult. But it will suffice if our idea is clear enough to enable us to follow the general course of the argument.

According to the Book of Hades, the first division is without a gate, while the last has two ; and this would seem to be because the precession movement has raised the place

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 169 of sunset above the old entrance, creating a new first division ; while on the side of the rising sun the old 12th division has thus become a 13th (though more strictly, it is raised into the upper hemisphere).

In the 3rd division the gods of Ra’s cycle repulse Apep : he is to approach the barque of Ra no more. Fire issues from the Retreat against that Enemy, he is judged and is to perish, They say—the gods who fascinate Apep— “The earth is open to Ra, the earth is closed to Apep.”

Fasl

Sunrise

There is something ambiguous about the sixth gate, for in the tombs of Seti I and of Merenptah I, its pictures and its legends differ entirely from those in other tombs, and on the sarcophagus of SetilI.!. Perhaps we can divine how this confusion comes about. If a semicircle be made to repre- sent the Underworld journey, and be divided into 12 equal sections, the half-way position, corresponding to midnight,

1 Records of the Past, x, 81.

170 CREATION RECORDS.

will coincide with the seventh gate. But by the creation of a new first gate in the west, what was the sixth, becomes the seventh. It is there accordingly that Ra now finds the “posts of Seb” which we may suppose naturally marked the midway position, the place of deepest descent, the depth from which one might hope to climb up to morning light, and mount into heaven. It is called the place of reckoning, and here the wicked are punished, the enemies are massacred, :

al !

PX

Nothing need detain us now till we reach the ninth division ; but here an extraordinary thing occurs, for the god Ra whose progress we have been viewing is here said to be born. He is born in the Retreat and shines in the concealed abode! Even this startling paradox, however, yields easily to our interpretation, and confirms our belief that we are following a true clue. The. ninth division of the night has become the tenth and is the new place of sunrise. The rising sun is still naturally spoken of as the sun new-born ; but owing to the precession movement his morning birthplace is removed from the spot where he used to shine of old: he now “illuminates the place of concealed things.” | | |

After these things, in the tenth division, Apep appears to

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 171

—

be. destroyed and Ra is assisted to rise into heaven by those who are with him in the two sanctuaries. We have sen- tences also which may be intended to describe the changes in the circumpolar heavens corresponding to those along the ecliptic circle. In the 11th division, which has become the 12th, proclamation is made of the accomplishment of Ra’s transformations.

It is remarkable, however, that in the 12th division Ra leaves the Refuge or Retreat and places himself in the bosom of Nu. The goddess holds the solar disk over a scarabzus placed in a boat. The god places himself in the boat. The boat is supported by Nun, whose arms issue from the water and bear him up. The entire scene is sur- rounded by the waves of Nun. .

On the eastern side of the heavens precession has eaea the vernal equinox (and the sun’s “ abode”) backward and downward into the waters of Nu. When Ra issues from these transformations—which are a re-adjustment to the truth of Precession—his “lifting up” must at once follow, or rather must be effected in the same moment.

The story we have been following is antiquated and fanciful in its imagery ; but the entire description shows that it was perfectly well known in “the days of Ra” not only that the sun during the night traversed the “ nether” heavens, but that some power had altered his track in a way that could be exactly traced. That power or cause, we Say, was the precession of the equinoxes, but the Egyp- tians, regarding it as abnormal, called it Apepi and attri- buted it to an Evil Serpent.

§ 4. Ra’s ABDICATION.

The lifting-up of Ra is the rectification of the sun’s place,—at the equinox, and therefore, of course, at the solstice—and the corresponding elevation of the pole is

172 CREATION RECORDS.

the ascension of Shu. It is a second effort of the Egyptian Atlas; but this time the raised heavens are represented, not by the arched body of Neith, but by a divine Cow, whose four legs are the new pillars. Shu is the agent in two creations, and each creation is consequent upon a destruction, as the old order changeth.

We have seen that simultaneously with the accession of Ra the seven antiquated positions of the solstice were dis- carded, and the seven old-time pole-stars were suppressed as being wanting in permanency and therefore “children of failure.” The Great Year had gained on the ordinary year to the extent of seven days, and both the solstice and the equinox occurred seven days earlier than of old. To bring things right, seven days had to be blotted out from the calendar ; and the new position of the autumn equinox was recognised as Heracleopolis. This at least, as we shall try to show, was the conclusion and arrange- ment and decree of the priests and rulers. But the common people, we may suppose, were ignorant and clung to the old ways. It was found that the old calendar was kept in vogue, and the old feasts were observed instead of the new, just as with ourselves Twelfth day might be celebrated instead of Christmas. The rightful rule of Ra, the Sun-god, was thus set at defiance; and it was imagined at first that if this rebellion were suppressed all would be right. It was not yet recognised that since the seven failed there had been further failure of the same kind ; and that, although Apepi had been scotched, he was continuing his ravages.

The “ failure” of the pole-stars was a fall of angels, for the stars in these legends are celestial beings. But fic- titious days in the calendar are the artifice of men, and their suppression will only be a defeat for men themselves. The Inscription of the Destruction of mankind—which reads as though it were the destruction of one race and the creation of another—is engraved on the four walls

RA’S REIGN AND CONFLICTS. 173

of a small chamber in the tomb of Seti I. Egyptologists have doubts whether it relates to human beings at all ; and it seems to us that it describes in symbolic language one of the changes made in order to rectify a disorganised calendar. The destruction may not be that of men at all, unless in some symbolical sense; and the sense may be that of calendar days, corresponding to so many super- seded equinoctial points. This may seem far-fetched, but let us think of Seb as the earth, in the sense of the equinoctial, which alone comes into contact with the ecliptic, and then the equinoctial points may pass for inhabitants of the earth.

Perhaps the superseded points are the Pait, who are spoken of as men of the past whose ‘place is in the Tuat; and the further points on the circle, destined to have their turn, are the Hamemit, men of the future, unborn genera- tions, circling round the sun [should it be “circling round with the sun?”]! We are told in this connection that Seb has in his keeping all those who are buried. And we are told, that although Ra created another race, men are mortal since the time of Ra. By our canons of interpreta- tion this may mean that the experience of “ failure” in the time of Ra—the observation of the continual precession of the equinoctial points—established the fact that they have their day and cease to be.”

Our idea is that the year of 360 days had continued through two cycles if not three (of 72 years each) and the equinox was shifted by 2°,even after making correction for the 7. On the supposition that the old calendar chart had remained in use, this recession of the Spring equinox would appear as a downward movement or sinking into the abyss. This accounts for Ra’s exclamation that he will be lifted up! which speaks the word of reform.

Reform, however, takes the shape of Ra’s retirement,

1 See Renouf, in Proc. Soc. Bib., xii, 7, 360. Also chapter xxix of this book.

• Budge, By-Paths, 124.

174 , CREATION RECORDS.

and the accession of Osiris. The solar year of 360 days is discarded, and a lunar year of 364 days takes its place. In an Egyptian picture relating to this time, the new heaven is represented as a cow, which is held up by Shu ; and Ra, having destroyed ‘“‘ mankind,” retires to rest on the back of the cow, naming Thoth as his deputy.!

! See Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 269. Also Maspero’s Dawn of Civilisation, p. 169.

CHAPTER XIII.

.. NU AND NEITH.

(Regarded as the Abyss below and the Sky above—Parents or Creators of Beings and All Things—Neith more specifically the Ecliptic Circle, in which are always the Equinoxes and Solstices, and the place of Sunrise— Neith as Weaver—Neith as Mother of Crocodiles.)

NU, THE ABYSsS.—Before it was known that the earth was a globe suspended in space, it was imagined that it was a large island, and that the ocean, or abyss, extended not only around it but beneath it. The sun and stars appeared to come up out of the waters, and as the heavenly bodies were said to be brought into being when they first appeared, the Abyss was the pintipiace of the gods, and the fruitful womb of life.’

Ani speaks of the earth itself springing into being pom the watery abyss.?

Maspero says: “ The latent germs of things had always existed, but they had slept for ages and ages in the bosom of Nu—of the dark waters . . . In the eastern cities of the Delta it was conceived that in the beginning Earth and Sky were two lovers lost in the Nu, fast locked in each other’s embrace, the god lying beneath the goddess. On the day of creation a new god, Shu, came forth from the primeval waters, and separated them, lifting Neith above his head with outstretched arms.® |

The god Nu is the personification of the Abyss. His chief titles are: “ Father of the gods” and “ Begetter of the great company of the gods.” He is depicted in the

1 See e.g., Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, 101.

• Book of the Dead, chapter clxxv. 3 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, p. 129.

176 CREATION RECORDS.

form of a seated deity, having upon his head the disk and plumes. There is also a goddess Nut, and Budge calls her the female principle of Nu. She is depicted with the head of a snake surmounted by a disk, or with the head of a cat. Budge distinguishes Nut from Neith; but this is not done by all writers.}

NEITH REGARDED AS THE SKy.—When the god Shu raised the heavens, it was the goddess Neith whom he lifted up and supported. The starry body of the goddess extended in an arch from east to west—her head being to the west—while her feet and hands hung down to earth. These were the four pillars of the firmament under another form ; and four gods of four adjacent principalities were in charge of them.? (Book of the Dead, Naville’s edition, pl. xxiii, chapter xvii.)

Neith, like Nu, was from everlasting, and gave being to the other divinities. She “was born the first, in the time when as yet there had been no birth.” She is “the divine mother, the Lady of Heaven, the mistress of the gods.”® In the Pyramid texts she appears as the mother of Sebek ;* and the god Ra is stated to be born from the side of his mother Neith, whilst he says of himself, “I am Ra who proceedeth from Nu.”

It would be easy to slide into the theory that Neith is the expanse of sky above us, continuous with the expanse of sky below. Lockyer says, “Sometimes there is a line of stars along her back, which clearly defines her nature.” Yes, to a certain extent ; yet “a line of stars” is not a vault of stars, it may rather be the belt of the zodiac,® and perhaps more narrowly, the circle of the ecliptic.

_ NEITH, THE ECLIPTIC CIRCLE.—The Egyptologists themselves put us on the track. Budge says that Neith,’

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cvii.

2 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, p. 128. 3 Tbid., p. 102.

4 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxx. > Jb¢d., chapter Ixxxv.

6 Flammarion, dstronomical Myths, p. 243. 7 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxx.

NU AND NEITH. — 177

ike Meh-urt, personifies the place in the sky where the sun rises. The goddess is called “the Opener of the Sun’s paths in all her stations.” Renouf suggests that the stations change according to the season, as the sun rises at different points of the horizon. He says, “If the true nature of Neith is once understood, as a personification not simply of the sky but of the sky giving birth to the sun, it will not be difficult to arrive at a satisfactory etymology. The Sun-god is not the son of the Noon- day sky nor of the Midnight sky; it is that part of the sky only where he is born that is his mother.”!

This is so far reasonable, vet it does not seem to be all that is wanted. It confines the goddess to a point and givés no room for “a line of stars”; affords no reason for the picture which represents her arched body as extending from east to west. Nor is it merely the upper semi-circle that must be claimed for Neith. In the hieroglyphics the determinative for the sky is the figure — ,, which might be a conventional form of the arched body of the goddess. In a footnote to a passage in the Book of the Dead, Renouf says that “in many places the divine name Nut has for its determinative the sign n=. Is this an oversight on the part of the scribe, or is it one more proof that the Egyptians certainly believed in a sky below the horizon? If so, I have never seen it misplaced.’

The two signs together seem to represent a complete circle of the sphere, and in our view the Ecliptic. Revert- ing to Renouf’s remark that it is the part of the sky only where the Sun-god is born that is his mother—we would in one way limit it and in another way extend it. True that the idea may seem to receive support from the sepul- chral canopy, on which the goddess says, “I come at dawn and at sunset daily”; and from a papyrus in the Louvre which tells us that “the Sun-god Ra rises at the gates of the horizon at the prime portals of Neith.” The birth-

1 Proc. Soc, Bib. Arch., xii, 6, 351. 2 Jbid., 1892, p. 353.

N

178 CREATION RECORDS.

—

place of the Sun, however, would not seem to relate to the place of the daily rising of the sun, but only to the equinoctial points and especially to the Sun’s “ first appear- ance” there. It is there only that the ecliptic crosses the equinoctial, there that Heaven and Earth may be said to come in contact and the “bridal of earth and sky” takes place. The god Ra would be born at the equinoctial point, the place of contact and crossing between the equator and the ecliptic; and yet his mother Neith would be not that single point of the sky which was his birthplace, but the entire ecliptic circle. Successive points of that circle meet the equinoctial as precession continues, and in that way other gods are born.

It is quite in consonance with this that the goddess Neith should be “the Eye of the Sun,” for that means the image of the sun formed over the altar of the new temple now built and oriented for the equinox. To call Neith the sun’s eye if she were the broad expanse of the sky in which the sun shines would be reversing all natural. symbolism.

In confirmation of the view that Neith is not simply the place of sunrising in the east, we observe that she has “chapels” (no doubt first in a celestial sense) in the north and the south. In the Magic Papyrus. some one is addressed thus, “O thou who art in the Northern Chapel of Neith, in the hall of oral examination.” And on the sepulchral tablet of Ahmes-mes, who was a royal scribe, “ President of the Mysteries of Heaven and. Earth. and Hell,” we read of the southern as well as the northern chapel and the things done there under the direction of the. priestesses of Neith.

On the Pastophorus of the Vatican we have seen how Cambyses caused the libations to be offered to the Ever- lasting One, in the house of Neith.2. On the bottom of the

1 Records of the Past, x, 153. 2 Records of the Past, x, 50. Brugsch, Zeypt under Pharaohs, ii, 294.

NU AND NEITH. 179

sarcophagus of Scti I.—that splendid receptacle for a king’s coffin, now in the Soane Museum—Neith tells us that she is “the mother, of whom no one is master.”? She is the mother of the gods, and if the gods are stars and constellations, they are born at the equinoctial point, the place of crossing, where the stars pass from the nether side of the equator to the upper.

NEITH AS WEAVER.—Neith being the Ecliptic Circle, she represents not merely the place of sun-rise but the entire course of the sun. The body of the sun is like a shuttle which is daily thrown overhand from east to west, and underhand from west to east. With one double throw every day there is a gradual advance of the texture from the tropic of Capricorn to that of Cancer, as the fabric of the months is woven.

The goddess is frequently represented on the monu- ments as in the act of shooting, or holding a bow and arrows.2. Her determinatives are a shuttle and cross arrows; or, as Wiedemann puts it, “The ideogram for her name is the weaver’s shuttle.”* The Greeks identified her with Athene, who was also celebrated for her skill in weaving.

NEITH, THE MOTHER OF CROCODILES.—Sebak, the Crocodile, was otherwise the seventh son of Ptah; and the wife of Ptah was Sekhet, whom we have identified with the summer solstice in Leo. Renouf tells us that Sekhet is distinctly identified with Neith in the Ritual.* Some connection at least is indicated when chapter Ixvi opens with the words, “ I know that I have been conceived by Sekhet, and that I am born of Neith, I am Horus, etc.” Sebak is a son of Neith’s as early as the Pyramid texts. At a place called Ant she and her son Sebak were worshipped together with other divinities.’

1 Records of the Past, xii, 24. 2 Bunsen, Zeypt’s Place, i, 386. 8 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1890, p. 351. 4 Trans. Soc. Bib., viil, 2, 208. 5 Froc.. Soc. Bib, Arch., xii, 6, 350.

N 2

180 CREATION RECORDS.

Well, we have seen that there was a “crocodile of the west,” corresponding to the crocodile of the Pole, in the arrangement immediately preceding the accession of Ra. Neith is mother of Ra, and there should be no marvel in her being the mother of his predecessor, Sebak. The -crocodile of the west was said to swallow down the stars; but it had now become recognised that, for people in the ‘southern hemisphere, the stars would disappear in the east. It is proper, therefore, to pretend two crocodiles if any at all. Between them they occupy the full ecliptic circle ; and indeed it is the precessional movement of the ecliptic on the cquinoctial which causes the “swallowing of the stars.” It is Neith who nurtures the crocodiles.

A Hymn to the Nile speaks of the crocodiles as the children of Neith; and Dr. Birch observes that the goddess is often represented with two crocodiles sucking her breasts.!

1 Records of the Past, iv, 1103 xv, 50, note. Bunsen, ZgyAt’s Place, i, 386. -

i a

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CELESTIAL NILE.

(The Nile of Egypt—The Celestial Nile—Nile the Father of the Gods-—Nile Calculations. )

THE RIVER NILE.—Wilkinson tells us that on the inundation of the Nile depended all the hopes of the peasant ; it affected the revenue of the government, both by its influence on the scale of taxation, and by the greater or less profits on the exportation of grain and other produce ; and it involved the comforts of all classes.’ For in Upper Egypt no rain fell to irrigate the land: it was a country which did not look for showers to advance its crops. The result of a favourable inundation was not confined to tangible benefits ; it had the greatest effect on the mind of every Egyptian by long anticipation; the happiness arising from it, as the regrets on the appearance of a scanty supply of water, being far more sensibly felt than in countries which depend on rain for their harvcst, where future prospects are not so soon foreseen.

During the whole course of historical time the Nile has been found to rise and fall with absolute constancy in each year, the initial rise of the waters some little way above Memphis taking place very nearly at the summer solstice.? The flood attains its greatest height, and begins to decline near the autumnal equinox. By the winter solstice the river has again subsided within its banks and resumed its blue colour. Seedtime has occurred in this interval.

1 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, abridged ed., ii, 250. 2 Lockyer, Mature, June, 1892.

182 CREATION RECORDS.

The sacred texts assert the dependence of the Nile upon Osiris and Isis. In a hymn to Osiris it is said, “ From him the heavenly Nile derives its waters.”! The sources of the Nile are far off in Central Africa ; they were, per- haps, not known, and a fertile fancy might easily busy itself about the place and mode of origin. The Nile was personified as a divinity—the supreme god, uncreated, the father of the gods and of all else, into whose secrets none could penetrate.? He was enshrouded in mystery near the two whirlpools. His water proceeded out of two chasms.* He is represented as bringing vases of water and flowers as his gifts to the country. He is hermaphrodite, and wears a girdle like that worn by sailors and fishermen.

Pausanius tells us that the Egyptians spoke of the Nile at the beginning of the inundation as being swollen by the tears of Isis for Osiris® The mysteries of Isis were per- formed in a cavern at Philz on the Nile.®

THE CELESTIAL NILE.—The earthly Nile symbolised the heavenly, and the celestial Nile appears to be the route of the sun-god’s barque. Rameses II calls him Father of the gods . . . the Nun-loving Nile—and the translator of the passage explains that Nun (Nu) is the Oceanus, or the abyss of waters on which the barque of the Sun is believed to sail.’ But the course of the sun is the ecliptic circle; and thus it would seem that the celestial Nile is the ecliptic. The identity of the river with the sun’s course seems to be asserted in such a passage as the following: “So are thy methods accom- plished, Q Lord of Eternity! thou who art thyself the celestial Nile.”®

It is shown also in the following passage from Wiede- mann®: The 12 divisions of the Tuat [ze the Underworld

1 Records of the Past, iv, 99. 2 Tbid., xv, 47. 3 [bid., iv, 113, note. 4 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 425. ° Records of the Past, vi,51 note. Proc. Soc, Bib. Arch., xiii, 1, 9. *Bonwick, Zgyptian Belief, p. 345. 7 Records of the Past, X, 41.

8 Wiedemann, el. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 41. lbid., p. 84.

THE CELESTIAL NILE. 183

route of the Sun, and the soul] were designated fields, cities, or dwellings, and each was entered by a door. They were connected by a river running through their midst upon which the Sun-god in his barque journeyed from West to East, while upon its banks dwelt all manner of spirits and demons.

‘It is true that the geographical Nile flows from the south and pursues a course northward, and so we might expect that the celestial Nile would be the solstitial colure ; but such a conjecture requires to be tested. In a hymn to the Nile the line occurs: “ The way of heaven descending,” and Canon Cook is led to say: “The Nile- god traverses heaven ; his course there corresponds to the river on earth.”!. The colure being a great circle extends through both hemispheres ; and the Nile is “ Lord in both regions,’ and wears the double crown; but the ecliptic also extends through both hemispheres.” As we could not say this of the equator, we may dismiss the idea that the celestial Nile is the equator. Yet we seem to find it at the equinoctial points, where the ecliptic crosses the equator—a crucial test !

The water of the celestial river flows under the throne- chair of Osiris, as shown in the illustration to chapter cxxv of the Ritual. In the Hymn to Osiris it is said: “From him the heavenly Nile derives its waters,’’® and we shall find reason in a future chapter for locating Osiris at the equinox.

The Nile cometh out of the Underworld to Egypt.* None knows whence he is. He gives light on his coming from darkness.®

The place of sun-rising, being, of course, in the ecliptic, is also in the celestial Nile. One of the sacred hymns has the ascription : “ Adoration to thee, who rises in the river

1 Records of the Past, iv, 107.

2 Sbid., iv, 109. 3 Jbid., iv, 99. 4 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 41.

5 Budge, By-Paths, 110.

184 . CREATION RECORDS.

of heaven and enlightens the two countries after he has come forth!”

That the celestial Nile is neither the solstitial colure nor any meridian, but a great circle passing through the equinoctial points, is indicated also in other ways. ’ For example, the Egyptians employed Nilometers, to measure the height of the rising waters, and it was part of the duty of the priests to keep the record. We read of “ Registers of the Nile which are appointed in the pool of Kabh, in the temple of Ra and Harmakhu,” and “ The Books of the Nile which are appointed in the temple of Anuf, Lord of Sapt, in Neran.”? On the thirteenth of the month Epiphi, when the river was thought to come forth from its two chasms, a festival was held.? On the first of Khoiak was observed the solemnity of laying aside the Nile-Book, in which the daily records had been made. These registers and books are connected with Harmachis as well as Ra, and are mentioned as offerings made to Tum at Heliopolis. Heliopolis, as a celestial city, is located in the first instance at the vernal equinox.

Again, figures of the Nile-god were commonly made of sycamore wood, and we have seen in our chapter on symbols that sycamores are associated with the equinoxes.*

THE NILE CREATOR OF RECORDS.—As_ remarked already the Nile is called the Father of the gods.®

He was also the originator of records, calculations, and measurements. It is said of him that “he created all works, all writings, all sacred words, all his implements in the north.” The river taking its rise in the south, flowed northward to Thebes and Memphis. At Silsilis and other places Nilometers were set up; in temples, as at Anup, “books of the Nile” were kept to record the daily changes. These observations and measurements impressed the

1 Erman, Life 2 Ancient Egypt, p. 390.

3 Records of the Past, vi, 66. 3 Jbid., x, 38.

4 Jbid., vi, 69; viii, 20, 45. 5 Jbid., vi, 66.

Ibid., iv, 111. Budge, By-Paths, p. 111.

THE CELESTIAL NILE. 185

priests with the idea of natural law, which was at the same time divine law. In a hymn to the Nile the wor- shipper sings—

‘© Thy law is established in the whole land, In the presence of thy servants in the North.”

Wilkinson says also that the accurate observations re- quired for fixing the seasons, and the period of the annual return of the inundation contributed greatly to the early study of astronomy in the valley of the Nile . . ? Astronomy, geometry, and other sciences are said to have been known in Egypt in the time of the hierarchy which preceded the accession of their first king Menes.

In this way, perhaps, it was that the Nile and the Nile- god Hapi came to be associated with Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes or Mercury, the god of writing. The Nile “causes

all writings and divine words.” He inspires Thoth the Scribe.’

1 Records of the Past, iv, 110. 2 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, abridged ed., ii, 251. 3 Records of the Past, xv, 51.

CHAPTER XV.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY.

§ 1. THOTH THE SCRIBE.

(Associated with the Nile—and with the Moon—Himself is Measurer and Recorder—Contemporary with the Osiris year of 364 days and an inter- calary month—Associated with Sirius and the Solstice—The Ibis of Thoth is the Intercalary Month—Thoth is “ the Eighth ” and the Ape, like Shu —His sign is the Palm—-Inventor of Letters, God of writing and Speech, Word of God, Prophet—Guide of the Dead.)

THOTH was generally depicted in the form of an ibis- headed man, usually crowned with the solar disk and with the lunar crescent, inasmuch as he was a god of time.’

Bronze and faience figures of the god represent him with the head of an ibis and holding a z/chat inhis hands. The utchat is the symbolical Eye of the Sun.’

If Thoth is to be the recorder of time he is bound to come into relation with the Nile, whose rising synchronises with the solstice and the New Year’s Day of a former era. We find in fact that the Nile is likened to Thoth in the Ritual*; and again Thoth and Hapi the Nile-god are referred to as the divine twin sons of heaven.*

THOTH AND THE OSIRIAN YEAR.—Renouf says that “Thoth is a personification of the moon, and the relations of solar and lunar phenomena are the sources of a great deal of Egyptian mythology.”5 But there are difficulties in the way of regarding Thoth as the moon exactly:

1 Wiedemann, Fel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 226.

2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 257. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 7, 179. 4 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 310.

5 Renouf, Book of the Dead, on chapter viii.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 187 for example, in a story in Plutarch Thoth plays counters with the lunar goddess and wins from her an additional five days to be added to the 360 of the year of Ra. By that story he appears to have relations with the moon without being identified with the moon; and by his head-gear, which includes the solar disk as well as the lunar crescent, he seems to be concerned with both orbs alike. Our argument will go to show that the solar year of 360 days was given up in favour of a year of 364 days, in which the moon as well as the sun was used for measuring time ; and Thoth is the god who is supposed to calculate | the months and years and keep a record. He holds in his hands the symbolical Eye of the sun; which is not the moon, but that reflected image of the sun whose well- defined formation in the temple sanctuary showed that the year was completed.

The birth and parentage of Thoth are given us in symbolical language, setting forth the astronomical circum- stances which called the new mode of reckoning into existence. In the divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegis- tus (Book IV, v. 14) Thoth is called the son of Seb.’ Seb is the Earth, but especially that part of it which was thought to touch heaven—namely, the equinoctial point, where the circles crossed each other. When the Polar Fire-god was discredited, the midsummer pillar was abandoned as a mode of reckoning, and the Sun-god Ra was enthroned at the equinox. It would appear that Thoth was introduced at this time, to count and record the years, the new year’s day being fixed at the autumnal equinox. That is Thoth’s place, and so he is a son of Seb. He founds a city of Hermopolis, which is terrestrial in Egypt, and celestial at the equinoctial point. He—or at least Hermes, who is the Thoth of later time—carries a winged wand, on which two undulating serpents face one another. These serpents may not unfitly represent the two halves

1 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 99.

‘188 CREATION RECORDS.

of the ecliptic circle, divided by the equator, kept apart by the equinoctial points; and it is the office: of Thoth to keep either from encroaching on the other. Thoth as Time-keeper, may perhaps be allowed to move all round the ecliptic to see that things are right. |

The year of 360 days proved so unstable that it was abandoned—Ra abdicated or was temporarily deposed, his “first sovereignty” was ended—and a soli-lunar year of 364 days was devised, with the hope of keeping the calendar in harmony with the seasons.

The year of 364 days (28 x 13 = 364) comprises 13 lunar months, or exactly 52 weeks. There is some con- venience in adding four days rather than five.

Number 4 is sacred to Hermes—said to have been born on the 4th day of the month (though this may be a later guess at a reason).!

THE DATUM LINE OF CALCULATION.—To measure and count the years requires a place of beginning, a datum line, and we have to inquire whether it was an equinox or a solstice.

The month named Thoth—the first month of the year — began with the summer solstice. The new year and the inundation of the Nile began together ; and the heliacal rising of the Dog-star Sirius heralded the double event. This seems to be a simple and sufficient explanation of the association of Thoth with Sothis and the East. Plutarch had told us that the Dog seems to have been called ‘Hermes.? The great day of Egypt was the roth of the first month, dedicated to Thoth, when folks partook of honey and figs repeating the words, “A sweet thing is the truth.” |

In the Pyramid texts also, the prayer on behalf of Unas seems to identify the path of Thoth with the path of the

_ } Plutarch, Syms., viii; Quas., iii. 2 “Birch, Hist. from Monuments, xxi and 145. Cn Isis and Osiris, xi. 3 Plutarch, On /sis and Osiris, xviii.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 189

n: “May he revolve in the sky like Ra, and may he pass over the sky like Thoth.”* It is true that this text might bear the sense that Thoth is the moon ; but then it would. be in conflict with the other passages just now quoted.

There are indeed passages which taken alone would perhaps suggest an equinoctial position—as when Thoth is called Lord of the Horizon, Divider of the Earth, Teller of the Two Lands—but even these may refer rather to the uplifting of the sky and the consequent recognition of the two hemispheres : or (as we shall a) Thoth may change his place.

We find at any rate that Thoth, surviving the year of 360 days, is contemporary with Osiris, the god who comes on next after Ra, and represents, in our view, a year of 364 days. Inthe Pyramid texts Thoth is mentioned as the brother of Osiris® ; which we only notice now as a point of connection. Again we have a principle called madzt, personified as a goddess, but referring apparently to the true measurement and divine order established by Thoth ; and it is said in the Prisse papyrus—Great is madt, the mighty and unalterable, and it hath never been broken since the time of Osiris.‘

“THE [BIS OF THOTH.”—There was some convenience in having a year of 52 weeks exactly ; and in passing from 360 days to 364 it would be easy to add one day to each quarter, and make it a holiday without altogether breaking up the people’s calendar. But the priest-astronomers must have known that the solar year comprised 365 days, and they would no doubt make some provision for an inter- calary. If they were under the impression that they were losing only one day a year, it might occur to them that the

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. c

2 Book of the Dead, chapters Ixii ead cxxv. Vebsent Papyrus, chapter cxxv. Budge, p. 352. Proc. Soc. Bib., xvii, 8, 276.

3 Budge, p. cxvili. 4 Jbid., p. cxix.

190 CREATION RECORDS. deficiency could be made up by inserting a 14th lunar month every 28th year.

_The months have names, and the divisions of the zodiac have their animal hieroglyphics ; and it would be natural to assign some animal name and sign to this intercalary month. My conjecture is that it was called the Ibis; and, of course, as it is under Thoth’s government of the year, this would be “the Ibis of Thoth” which became so sacred an institution.

The emblem of Thoth was the Ibis. In the monuments and papyri he appears in the form of a.man with the head of an ibis, which is sometimes surmounted by acrown or by disk and horns.'

When experience has shown that 12 months do not fill out the year, Ra says to Thoth, “Thou shalt be called Thoth!” and there arose the Ibis.2 Brugsch connects the name Thoth with a word tekh which means the ibis, and means also to measure, to complete, to weigh, “and as this god is called the counter of the heavens and the stars, and of all that therein is, the connection of the name Thoth with tekh is evident.”

Naturally in our view “the Ibis of Thoth” (the 14th month) is at the same time identified with the moon, although Thoth himself was not the moon, but was the Measurer in a larger sense. “Aah” was the Egyptian name of a god whom the Romans called Lunus.®’ He was represented as an ibis-headed man with the lunar horns and disk upon his head; or else as a man kneeling on one knee and supporting a disk above his head with both hands.

The ibis, being sacred to Thoth, was an object of worship, and it was forbidden to kill the bird. The sacred- ness of the symbol is accounted for by the importance of the intercalary month in keeping the years right. To kill

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, cxviii. 2 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 93, 279. 3 Cooper, Archaic Dict.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN. MERCURY. 19]

an ibis would signify symbolically to suppress the inter- calary and throw the calendar into confusion. Even as late as the Greco-Roman period the temple of Thoth at Khmunu contained a sacred Ibis, which was the incarnation of the god and said by the priests to be immortal.’ Such care was taken of the birds that Cuvier discovered the left humerus of a mummied ibis fractured and_ reunited, evidently through the intervention of human art.°

In Calmet’s Fragments (No. cxxvili), some curious particulars are given about the Egyptian ibis as found sculptured on ancient altars. They are shown standing on the altar itself or lying down close to it, even while the sacred fire is burning, and the sacred ceremonies are being performed by the priests. Diodorus Siculus is quoted as reporting that the Egyptians were very severe on those who killed a cat or an ibis, whether purposely or inadver- tently. The populace would attack them in crowds, and put them to death by the most cruel means, often without observing any form. of justice. This. coupling of.the Cat. with the Ibis is important to our argument, since the Cat also symbolises an intercalary month, as we shall see when we come to consider the goddess Pasht.

M. Naville, exploring in. the Nome of Thoth, in the Delta, and at the place where Thoth was. worshipped, describes a large mound and then a smaller one not. far from it. There the fellaheen have been digging for years, until parts of the mound have completely disappeared. It was a necropolis of sacred ibises, and the spot has long supplied. the shops of antiquity dealers in Cairo with bronze heads and figures of the sacred bird. “All over. the tell lay heaps of bones of the bird of Thoth, and the figures were thrown among them exactly as in the case of the cats of Bubastis.”

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 92. ? Wilkinson, Ancient Eeyptians. . §% Ahnas el Medineh, Zeyft Exploration Fund, p. 22.

192 CREATION RECORDS.

Of course the Ibis is given to Thoth for some fitness of symbolism. Herodotus says, “ The ibis is a bird of a deep black colour, with legs like a crane; its beak is strongly hooked, and its size is about that of the land-rail.”! This is a description of the black ibis, which contends with serpents. The commoner sort has the head and the whole throat bare of feathers; its general plumage is white, but the head and neck are jet black, as also are the tips of the wings and the extremity of the tail. Wilkinson says that this is the one so frequently found embalmed in Egypt. It was particu- larly worshipped at Hermopolis Magna.

The Egyptians say that this black and white plumage of the bird symbolises the light of the sun and the shadow of the moon.?’ Massey, founding on Plutarch, thinks it was representative of the double lunation.? Bonwick considers that the black wings had reference to chaos. It might seem equally applicable to suggest that the white parts of the bird were likened to the ordinary months of the year, and the black to the intercalary, dark until its time came.

But perhaps the following fact sufficiently accounts for the connection of Thoth and the Ibis without any reference to the plumage at all. We learn from M. Savigny that this bird begins to frequent the borders of the Nile about the time of the summer solstice, and consequently at the commencement of the inundation. A new month inserted at that season thus has its symbol suggested without seeking.®

THOTH RELATED TO SHU.—We have not yet advanced a great way beyond the seven sons of Ptah, though if we are right in crediting Ra with three circumnavigations, the seven. should have become ten. We find, a little to our surprise, that Thoth is called the Eighth, or the Lord of the City of the Eight, that is to say, Hermopolis.®

1 Herodotus, ii, 76. 2 Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

3 Book of Beginnings, ii, 562. 4 Egyptian Belief, p. 236. 5 Drummond, Zodiacs, p. 162. Also Journ. Anthrop. Inst. Nov. 1897,

p. 213. 6 Bunsen, Zeypt’s Place, i, 392. Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 473; i, 42.

gee ead oe eee

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 193

It is said of Pianchi, the Ethiopian conqueror, that he sacrificed oxen, calves and birds to his father Thoth, the Lord of the City of the Eight, and to the eight deities in the temple of the eight deities.!

But this is much like what we have read of Shu, who raised the heavens at Hermopolis. Shu was also the Ape of 7 cubits who entered into a shrine of 8 cubits. According to Maspero there were eight divinities of Hermopolis who became associated with Thoth, and they were often repre- sented as eight baboons surrounding the chief baboon? Thoth is represented under the form of a cynocephalus, having the horns and globe of the moon upon its head and a tablet in its hand. Monkeys are the emblems of Thoth as Time.®

The ape, in the first instance, may have gained his place and importance through phenomena of periodicity ; and in that way also became associated with the moon: and then Thoth was brought into connection with both.‘

The Egyptians, says Horapollo (lib. i), wishing to signify the moon, paint a cynocephalus, because this animal is variously affected by the course of the moon.>

Mr. Hilton Price, among the objects brought from Tell Basta, has some figures of apes with the lunar disk upon their head.®

“In the judgment scene, an ape, the emblem of equi- librium, often sits on the top of the balance.” The posthumous Rameses III is made to say that he made for Tum at Heliopolis a splendid balance, with Thoth sitting above it as a great splendid baboon.’ In the Papyrus Ant also—plate 3—the cynocephalus on the top of the balance is the symbol of Thoth.® It seems

1 Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, ii, 237; Records of the Past, ii, 20.

2 Dawn of Civilisation, p. 142.

3 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, ii, 382.

• Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 226.

5 Taylor, Jamblicus, p. 236 note. 8 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, 55. 7 Bonwick, Lgyft’s Place, p. 421. 8 Records of the Past, vi, 54. ® Ani Papyrus, Renouf’s Preface, p. 9.

O

194 CREATION RECORDS.’

natural that the same divinity who records the years should also measure whatever is weighed in scales, his office being to prevent excess or defect and secure a just equipoise in both cases.

At present, however, our object is to note that Thoth has some of the same characters as Shu, and seems to belong to the same time, being “the eighth.” This would make him contemporary with the accession of Ra and the year of 12 months, instead of following Ra and bringing in the year of 13 months for Osiris.

Budge says, “It has been thought that there were two gods called Thoth, one being a form of Shu, but the attributes belonging to each have not yet been satisfac- torily defined. Thoth is mentioned in! the Pyramid texts as a brother of Osiris, but whether he is the same Thoth who is called the ‘Lord of Khemennu’ and the ‘ Scribe of the gods,’ is doubtful.”?

Perhaps the reconciliation is that he did come in with Ra but became more prominent afterwards under Osiris : in other words, from the time of Ra’s accession—the adoption of the year of 360 days—a record of the years was kept, and a divinity of Time was recognised, though the transcendent importance of his work was not yet seen.

When Shu lifted the sky, and the kingdom was given to the Sun-god, the months were only 12, There is a temple scene in which Thoth addresses 12 seated deities on behalf of Tirhakah, and the accompanying inscription says, “ The lords of Hermopolis, the lords of the circle of the gods say to the king of Upper and Lower Egypt,” etc.?

THOTH AND THE PALM BRANCH.—Thoth carried ‘a palm branch. The date palm was the tree of Thoth, and the palm branch the book of Thoth?

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxviii. 2 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vil, 2,201. ~ 3 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 129, 3823 ii, 339.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 195

A palm branch has nodes along its surface, as useful for counting as knots in a string.’

Thoth makes notches in counting.? A shoot of a palm tree with one notch is the sign for a year.®

In the Festival Hall of Osorkon, at Bubastis, we have Thoth following the king, and marking on a stick the years which he gives him. The god says, “I write for thee the .Sed periods of Ra and the years of Tum.”

The primitive character of this symbolism appears to testify that the calculations attributed to Thoth began with a simple counting of the years and making notches on a stick.

THOTH AS THE GOD OF LETTERS, LEARNING, AND ALL WISDOM.—The practice of recording months and years, might easily develop into a custom of keeping annals, and prove to be the beginning of historical chronicle. The register daily kept of the height of the Nile waters would also assist to lay a basis of this kind. Besides being the reckoner of time Thoth is the inventor of letters and learning.® Heis the Scribe of the gods. By the aid of the Hymn to Shu we learn that Shu also was the divine scribe: his works were included in the records of Thoth, Lord of Seven, and treasured up in the royal palace of On.* This statement agrees very well with our supposition that Thoth is a later phase of Shu, and Shu an earlier phase of Thoth, so that even to identify them is no great anomaly. Thoth is sometimes depicted holding his ink-jar and the crescent moon, and sometimes he appears in the form of an ape holding a palette full of writing reeds.’ Among his titles are “ Lord of Writing,” “ Master of papy- tus,” “ Maker of the palette and the ink-jar,” “ The mighty speaker,” “the sweet-tongued.” He is styled Lord of Divine Books. Manetho, the priest of Heliopolis, ascribes to him 36,525 books. That is to say, the beginning of

1 Murray’s Handbook of Egypt, p. 91. 2 Budge, By-Paths, p. 181. 3 King, By-Paths, p. 94. + Naville, Osorhkon, p. 26. 5 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 117.

® Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii; 281, 285. 7 Budge, p. xxvi, cxviii.

O 2

196 CREATION RECORDS.

book writing was the record of the days of the year, multi- plied a hundred times.'

What did those books contain? Nile records and the numbering of the days—careful measurements which could not be departed from without penalty—gave the idea of law and of laws. The laws of the Egyptians were handed down from the earliest times, and looked upon with the greatest reverence. They had the credit of having been dictated by the gods themselves ; and Thoth was said to have framed them for the benefit of mankind.’

Thoth wrote the Ritual with his own finger.2 Appended to chapter lxiv of the Book of the Dead is the statement that it was written by the finger of the god Thoth, the manifestor of truth and goodness.‘

Clemens gives an account of an Egyptian procession, which is transcribed for us by Wilkinson :> “In the solemn pomps of Egypt the singer generally goes first, bearing one of the symbols of music. They say it is his duty to carry two of the books of Hermes, one of which contains hymns of the gods, the other precepts relating to the life of the king. The singer is followed by the Horoscopus, bearing in his hand the measure of time (hour-glass) and the palm (branch), the symbols of astrology (astronomy), | whose duty it is to be versed in (or recite) the four books of Hermes, which treat of that science. Of these one describes the position of the fixed stars, another the con- junctions (eclipses), and illuminations of the sun and moon, and the others their risings. Next comes the Hierogram- -mat (or sacred scribe), having feathers on his head, and in his hands a book (papyrus), with a ruler (palette), in which is ink, and a reed for writing. It is his duty to understand what are called hieroglyphics, the description of the world, geography, the course of the sun, moon, and planets, the

1 Taylor’s Jamblicus, 300. ? Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, ii, 207. 3 Birch, Hestory from Monuments, p. 39.

4 Nineteenth Century, December, 1876, 114 note.

5 Ancient Evyptians, i, 274.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 197 condition of the land of Egypt and the Nile, the nature of the instruments or sacred ornaments, and the places ap- pointed for them, as well as weights and measures, and the things used in holy rites,” etc.

This passage shows incidentally the importance attach- ing to the work and office of Thoth. Maspero tells us that astronomy, divination, magic, medicine, writing, drawing— in fine, all the arts and sciences emanated from him as their first source.. He had taught mankind the methodical observation of the heavens and of the changes that took place in them, the slow revolutions of the sun, the rapid phases of the moon, the intersecting movements of the five planets, and the shapes and limits of the constellations which each night were lit up in the sky.

Thoth is the god of speech. In chapter xxiii of the Ritual there is a prayer, “Let my mouth be opened by Ptah . . . Then let Thoth come, full and equipped with words of power.”

By conferring the “ correct voice,” and other secrets, he gave power to magicians. He had revealed himself to man as the first magician : he became in like manner for them the first physician and the first surgeon.? The “correct voice” we may conjecture, was at first the speaking of the truth as learned from astronomical observation. Thoth, was the god of right and truth, wherein he lived, and whereby he established the world and all that is in it.

He had accomplished the creation, not by muscular effort, but by means of formulas, or even of the voice alone, the first time, when he spoke in the Nu. “In fact” says Maspero, “the articulate word and the voice were believed to be the most potent of creative forces, not remaining 1m- material on issuing from the lips, but thickening, so to speak, into tangible substances.”*

1 Dawn of Civilisation, p. 204.

2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 207, 215. 3 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxvili.

4 Maspero, Dawa of Civilisation, 145.

198 CREATION RECORDS.

Was not the meaning rather that the true word was that which told the true measurement of the year and estab- lished a stable system? The establishment of the solar year was spoken of as creation, the inauguration of reckon- ing and record was regarded as the beginning of time. Thoth represented the true word, the word of God; and by the word of God were the heavens made. That the true word represents the true measurement, the exact adjust- ment, is shown by the stele of Mentuhotep, where it is said that the king is as just andas true as Thoth supreme in dividing words, putting things in their fit place ; a scroll of Thoth was on his tongue, exact beyond the per- fect index of the balance.'

With this compare Erman:—The princes said to Pharaoh . . . Thy lips are more exact than the little tongue on the balance of Thoth !?

• Yes, Thoth is even called the Word or Logos.* Seeking to explain the Logos, theologians go back from the Fourth Gospel to the writings of Philo; but Philo is at best a transmitter, and the original Logos is Thoth.

Following naturally upon what has gone before, we find Thoth to be the god of singing and the inventor of the lyre. According to Plutarch he made the instrument out of Typhon’s sinews—whereby, of course, hangs a tale. Architecture and geometry are attributed to Thoth. When once a beginning is made with Number, we may expect all the Nine Muses to group themselves about the same god.

• The allocation of the Fine Arts to Thoth would be assisted by another circumstance. The four days added to the year (afterwards five) were not included in any of the months, but were regarded as birthdays of the gods and probably kept as festivals. The holiday spirit, combined with the religious spirit, would favour the recital of hymns and compositions relating to the deeds and characters of

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vil, 3, 355+ 2 Erman, Life in Ancient “Egypt, p. 71. * Bonwick, Leyptian Belief, p. 404.

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 199

the gods. The record of days would develop into chronicles, annals and history. Competition of poets and writers would follow, with prizes for the best. In short, it is conceivable that the festival would become a national Eisteddfod, under the guardianship of Thoth.

We must remember that in ancient times poetry and song supplied the want of writing to record the details of events ; and tradition handed down the glorious achieve- ments of a conqueror, and the history of past years, with the precision and enthusiasm of national pride. The poetry was recited to the sound of music; whence the same expression often implied the “ode” and the “song ” ; and as laws were recorded in a similar manner, the word nomos signified, as Aristotle observes, both a “law” and a “song.”?

The god who measures the year exactly, and knows the law of Nature as to the recurrence of the seasons, can fore- tell what is coming, as well as chronicle what is accom- plished. The function of the Prophet goes with that of the Singer who accompanies his voice with the lyre. From simple prediction of the inundation of the river and the course of the seasons, of the phases of the moon and the recurrence of eclipses, prophecy would extend its province to human affairs as it regarded earthly things as shadows of the heavenly. “Ata period far beyond authentic history a belief arose that a mysterious connection subsisted be- tween the relative position and movements of the heavenly bodies and the fate of man . . . Few doubted that by observation and deep study persons might acquire the power of expounding these appearances, that the destiny of the child might be predicted with certainty by those who were skilled to interpret the language of the stars, and that the result of any undertaking might be foretold from the aspect of the firmament when it was commenced.”

1 Wilkinson, Anctent Egyptians, ii, 271. 2 Dict. of Greek and Koman Antigqs., art. ‘‘ Astrologia.”

200 CREATION RECORDS.

A part of the poem of Aratus (beginning at line 733) consists of a collection of the various appearances which enable an observer of Nature to predict the weather. This might be legitimate, and although empirical yet not unsound. But the astrological prediction had for its ground the unwarranted assumption that events on earth follow an order determined by the stars. Gerald Massey is no doubt right in connecting the prophecy of fate with the celestial birthplace. It was at the hour of birth that the — three sisters, the Fates of Greek mythology, determined or announced the fortunes of the child! And there is a part of the sky—a point in the ecliptic circle—which is the celestial birth-place. It is the place where the years them- selves come into being, and where the god who keeps the record of the past looks into the future. What the Egyptians came to imagine they could predict is told us by Diodorus, and included epidemic diseases, earthquakes and floods; but the original matter of prophecy was probably more purely astronomical and founded on a conviction of eternal law.? In the magical formule there are things threatened against the gods themselves, but they are simply those things which are destined through the cycling of the stars.’

THOTH AS CONDUCTOR OF SOULS.—One of the functions of Thoth—like that of Hermes or Mercury afterwards—was to act as Psychopompus, or conductor of the souls of the dead.‘

The dead were supposed to go the way of the sun, descending into Hades by the Gate of the West; and if all went well, ascending into heaven by-and-bye at the place of sunrise. One would expect to find the guide of souls at the autumnal equinox, where the sun descends from the northern hemisphere to the southern, whereas we have placed Thoth at the solstice. But as already intimated,

1 Natural Genesis, i, 392. 2 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, i, 321. 3 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 212. * Bunsen, Zgypl’s Place, i, 436,

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 201

there seem to be two stages in Thoth’s career—one beginning with the accession of Ra (the year of 360 days), and the second with the installation of Osiris (the year of 364 days). Our idea is that when the abdication of Ra confessed the failure of the solstitial reckoning, the place of calculation was transferred to the equinox. Thoth goes there with Osiris.

It is represented in the Egyptian books that the heart of a deceased person is weighed in scales against the feather which is the emblem of truth. Thoth is called Secretary of the gods, and is always present at the last judgment. From the needle of the balance indeed (which is called Techu) he gets his name of Techuti.?, Usually he stands on one side of the scales, holding a tablet in his hand, on which he records the result of the weighing of the heart— he is so represented in plate 3 of the Papyrus Anz—and this tablet he afterwards presents to Osiris.

Thus much for the present concerning Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes or Mercury ; but we have by no means done with him.

§ 2. MAAT, THE WIFE OF THOTH.

(Maat described — Daughter of the Sun—Located at Abydos, at Heracleopolis —Associated with Thoth, the Ape and the Balance—Her feather the Emblem of Truth, both Physical and Moral.)

The character and function of Thoth, as the god of true measure and of truth, may be supported by considering those of Maat, who is sometimes associated with dass and is said to be his wife.

It is said to Ra, “ For thee Thoth is the Seibe and Maat, each successive day.” In the function of weighing hearts Maat is associated with Thoth. It is her feather

1 Murray’s Handbook of Egypt. ° Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, pp. 116, 194. 3 Ant Papyrus, Preface 9.

202 CREATION RECORDS.

which is put into the scale, and against which the heart. of the deceased is weighed.’ She is found along with Thoth at the side of the ship of Horus. Like Thoth she is associated with the ape and with the moon.’

Maat is depicted in female form, with the feather emblematic of truth on her head—or with the feather alone for a head—and the sceptre in one hand, the sign of life in the other. She is called the daughter of the Sun, the Lady of Heaven, and Queen of the gods.®

LOCATED AT THE AUTUMN EQUINOX.—I believe it is the equinoxes and solstices especially which are called children of the sun ; and so we have only to choose among four positions for the place of Maat. Nor are we left in doubt which of the four we must fix upon, because the scholion on chapter xvii places her at Abydos, and other passages at Heracledpolis.* As to the celestial Abydos, Egyptian tradition made the sun to end his daily course at Abydos and to enter the Tuat at this place through a gap in the mountains.’ Maat would thus be at the place of the setting sun ; and more specifically we shall satisfy ourselves in a future chapter that Heracleopolis is a celestial city of the autumn equinox.

Yet as a goddess of measurement and adjustment she may not be confined to one place, since the year may be measured from either of the quarters. At either of the equinoctial points the position would be good for an equal glance into both hemispheres. “ Maat, daughter of Ra, is mistress of the two countries.” The expression in the Papyrus of Anz is, “the goddess Maat embraceth thee at the two seasons.”

While the exact length of the year was as yet un- ascertained, there would be some difficulty in making ends ‘meet at the place of beginning and ending; and the

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxxx. * /bid., chapterxv. ° Jédd., p. 246. 4 Renouf, note 4 on chapter cxvii. 5 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. exxxiii. 8 Jbid., pp. 260, 266. |

THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN MERCURY. 203 perplexing discrepancy finds quaint expression in the myths. In the case of Hathor, the Sun-god hurt her foot in pulling her towards him and into his boat; and in the case of Maat the goddess has to be “ borne over the Arm,” “by him who reckoneth it out.” This occurs at Hermo- polis (the equinoctial point), and is effected by a messenger of Ra, who is taught by Thoth. But the passages are obscure.”

ASSOCIATED WITH APE AND BALANCE.—In the British Museum papyrus ggoI the goddess Maat is seated on the centre of the beam of the balance (where at other times the dog-headed ape is found). The double Maat goddesses are at times represented standing beside the balance to watch the result of the weighing, and at the same time [the feather of] Maat is also placed in the scale to be weighed against the heart of the deceased . . . .2 Another vignette shows Horus holding [the feather of ] Maat in his hand, weighing the heart in the presence of the Maat goddesses ; and Anubis, holding the deceased by the hand, presents the heart to Osiris, while Isis and Nephthys in the form of apes sit near.

‘REPRESENTS TRUTH CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT.— Budge thinks there is no one word which will exactly describe the Egyptian conception of Maat both from a physical and from a moral point of view; but the funda- mental idea of the word is “straight”; and from the Egyptian texts it is clear that maat means right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast, unalterable, etc.®

Among all nations the idea of righteousness is sub- limated from that of physical straightness, transgression is over-stepping, and sin or error is missing the mark. “The full-length statues or portraits of Maat the Truth-goddess show her naked, as may be seen from the illustration of her

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, chapters cxiv, cxvi. 2 Jhid., p. 256. 3 Jbid., p. cxix.

204 CREATION RECORDS.

given by the late Prof. Ebers in Baedeker’s Lower Egypt (p. 127). O’Neill recognises that Truth here must also be understood as trueness, justness, in a mechanical sense, as we Say a weight is just and true, a number or count is true, a line or a plumb is true. He thinks the idea is derived from the Pole of the Heavens, seemingly unwavering. Mr. Hewitt also considers Maat to be “the pole-star Vega” of many thousand years ago.? But our view is that the goddess sits at the equinoctial point, to adjust the end of one year to the beginning of the next. In this physical adjustment is the root idea of all exactness, truth and righteousness.

M. Grébaut, in treating of the Hymn to Amen-Ka, says that in the Egyptian system Truth or Maat conveys the idea of the harmony of the universe, maintained from day to day in equilibrium. Truth (he adds) is double; there is a Maat of the north and a Maat of the south, and this double truth is sometimes identified with the Two Eyes. O’Neill takes the two eyes to be the two poles®: but they are more naturally the reflected images of the equinoxes, as shown in our chapter on the Eyes of the Sun. Maat, like Thoth, has the guidance of the dead, and the dead were supposed to go the way of the sun, not of the pole- star. In many papyri Maat is represented as leading the deceased into the Hall of Double Maat, where his heart is to be weighed against her emblem.*

“ According to the line of Maat” is an expression which means with undeviating accuracy.’ Then it 1s easy to pass from physical rectitude to moral, good men being straight- forward, while froward men are crooked in their paths, “ Maat, daughter of the sun, and queen of the gods, is a personification of righteousness and truth and justice.”®

A aes) Nee is fe oe 1, 493. » O’Neill, Wight of the Gods, i, ag2 2 West. Rev., April, 1896. eill, Wight of the Gods, i, 492. ‘ Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 246. ° Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. $7. 6 Budge, /éid., p. 246.

CHAPTER XVI.

SEB AND THE EGG.

(Seb not the Earth but the Earth-plane, z.¢., the Equinoctial—Called Founder of Dynasty of Kings—Keeps the Gates of the Underworld, #:e., the Equinoxes—Seb the Prototype of Cronos—His Symbol a Goose; Im- portance of the *‘ Egg.”’)

SEB THE EQUINOCTIAL.—I shall seek to show that as Neith is not the sky in general, but the heaven of the sun’s path, z.e., the ecliptic circle, so Seb is not the earth as a globe, but the earth-plane, regarded as coinciding with the equinoctial. The conjunction of these two, at the place of crossing, defines the equinoctial point and gives birth to the gods.

“ Seb or Qeb was the son of Shu and husband of Nut” (Neith) ; married to Neith (the ecliptic) at the equinoctial point of conjunction, and first receiving a name to live when Shu lifted the heavens.!

Seb is the Father of the gods; and yet he is also designated the youngest of the gods. Myths may be paradoxical without being contradictory. Standing with Neith the great Mother at the beginning of the years, Seb is the great Father; and yet as the current equi- noctical point he is also the latest born.?

The equinoctial point has this peculiarity, that it seems to touch the earth as well as heaven; and Seb sitting on that throne reigns like an earthly king. The mortal kings of Egypt afterwards speak of Seb as the founder of their dynasty. In the dream of Thothmes IV, the

1 Budge, p. cxii. 2 Petrie, Zazzts, ii, 25. Bunsen, i, 407

206 CREATION RECORDS.

throne of Egypt is called the throne of Seb! Rameses I], again, in the great historical inscription of Abydos, says,— I was solemnly inducted as the eldest son into the dignity of heir to the throne, on the chair of the earth-god Seb.’ And Rameses III says,—He designated me crown-prince on the seat of Seb. Seb is divine, or he would not be Father of the gods; and yet his throne is distinctly con- ceived of as being on the earth. The deceased king, the “royal Osiris” as he is called, has his dwelling in the heavens like Ra, and his throne upon the earth like Seb (Litany of Ra).

Thus it seems to us that Seb is god of the equinoctial plane, regarded as the surface of the earth, and especially of the equinoctial point, conceived of as uniting earth and heaven. Yet we must not adopt this view without further evidence; for the accepted teaching is that Seb represents the earth itself; and if we depart from this we must show cause.

Renouf says in so many words, “Seb is the earth.”*

Seb is frequently figured lying on the ground, his limbs covered with leaves . . . He is expressly called the god of the earth, and the reason is not known to Eg’ypto- logists.°

In several scenes plants are seen growing on his body. The expression upon the back of Seb is frequent in the texts, especially in those belonging to the Ptolemaic period.®

Brugsch also tells us that in documents and monuments of priestly origin Seb appears as the personified earth. Yet, says he, it is a striking fact that the etymological sense of the word Seb, which in old Egyptian denotes

1 Records of the Past, xii, 45, 48. 2 Brugsch, Zgypt under Pharaohs, ii, 24. Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., i, 2,

3 Records of the Past, viii, 128. 4 Hibbert Lecture, p. 110. 5 Massey, Natural Genesis, li, 57. 6 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 129 note. Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch.,

1892, p. 362.

ee ee!

SEB AND THE EGG. 207

both “star” and “time,” is in manifest opposition to the character attributed to him as the earth-god.!

The difficulty vanishes when we associate Seb with the equinoctial point and the reformed year. Brugsch, with a notion of “the four elements” in his mind, makes Ptah represent fire, Shu, air, Osiris, water ; ‘and then there remains only earth for Seb. Certainly Ptah is the Fire- god, Shu is the “god of breath,” and the ark of Osiris floats on the waters; and reasons could be found for correlating them with summer, spring, and winter. That would leave earth and autumn to be claimed by Seb; and would not be opposed to our argument that he is located at the autumnal equinox.

“Let the two doors of heaven be opened to me, let the two doors of earth be opened to me; let the bolts of Seb open to me, and let the first mansion be opened to me.”?

Robert Brown says,—Seb, the time-marking earth-god, keeps the two gates or entrances to the Underworld.®

Renouf regards the two gates of Seb as the two places on the horizon where the sun rises and sets. See the picture of the god in plate xiv. Ina paper on the gods Akar and Seb he quotes from the Pyramid texts of Pepi I, that the two gates of Akar are synonymous with the two gates of Seb: and these he explains are the opposite ends of a tunnel extending through the earth, from the spot where the sun sets to where he rises.* In a picture taken from the tomb of Rameses IV, “ Fair entrance” is written at one end of the tunnel, “ Fair exit ” at the other.

We see no difficulty in any of these statements, for they are all consistent with our view that Seb reprcsents the earth where it touches heaven—the heaven of Neith—at

1 Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 30. * Book of the Dead, chapter Ixviii. 3 R. Brown, Junior, Uxicorn, p. 73. 4 Proc. Soc. Bib., x, 5, 223; xv, 8, 385.

208 CREATION RECORDS.

the two equinoxes, and more especially at that of the autumn.

His abode, says Massey, is at the balance of the sun. The equinox is the station assigned to Seb, and this was represented by. a hill.

It will be remembered that Shu stood upon a hill to raise the heavens. According to one account this was done at Heracleopolis—perhaps on the second occasion of “lifting ”’—and it is at Heracleopolis we find the Egg of Seb (of which Egg more presently)?

SEB THE PROTOTYPE OF CRONUS.—Seb, from his characteristics, is identified with the Greek Kronus, popu- larly regarded as the god of Time. Bunsen says that the star which is the symbol of Seb signifies Kronos.’ We may regard the identification as made out. Isis, who was a daughter of Seb, is said by some to be a daughter of Saturn (z.e., Kronos). As the author’s studies have shown him that the Greek Kronos is associated with the autumn equinox in Scorpio, he is confirmed in his view that Seb occupies the same station. _

SEB AND THE GOOSE.—Along with autumn has been associated from time immemorial the Michaelmas goose. Seb had a goose for his symbol, and is represented with a goose on his head.® “The identification of Seb with the earth is recognised in the Ritual of the Pyramids. But the word is also the name of a goose on pictures of the same early period.”®

Our view that Seb represents the equinoctial, leads us to look for a constellation of the Goose at the place of the equinox. In the astronomical calendar discovered by Cham- pollion, and commented upon by M. Biot in the twenty- fourth vol. of the Wémozres de l Académie des Scrences,'

1 Natural Genesis, i, 5293 ii, §7, 202, 207.

2 Book of the Dead, chapters lvi and lix. 3 Egypt’s Place, i, 407.

• Bell’s Pantheon. 5 Proc. Soc. Bib., March and May, 1885.

6 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1885, p. 153. 7 Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., iii, 2, 407.

\

SEB AND THE EGG. 209

among the constellations mentioned is the Goose. It must have covered some 15° of the circle, since it appears that the head and the rump culminated at an hour’s distance from one another. We observe that in the calendar this Goose is between the Bull and the Ram—though Renouf identifies a Avietis with its head—and we shall have to show in the next chapter how it comes into such close relation with autumn and the Scorpion. |

In the mythology the laying of a certain cgg by this goose was an event of first-class importance. Seb hatches the egg, and makes so much fuss that he is called the Great Cackler (Rz¢ua/, chapter liv).!

Of this egg all sorts of explanations have been offered. It has been said that Ra is in the egg (Todt. 17, 50). The great cackler was supposed to have laid the egg from which the world sprang. But the Rztual says, “I watch over the great Egg which Seb hath parted from the earth.” Renouf contends, with some show of reason, that the egg of Seb is a myth of sunrise. Men saw the disk of the sun rise up at the extremity of the earth, and they said that Seb had laid an egg.*

It will nevertheless be shown in our next chapter that the production of Seb—whose place is on the circle of 360°—was an arc of 5°,a period of five days, which it was discovered by his equinoctial time-reckoning must be added to the 360 days to fill out the year. This is likea new birth of time, and as its mother (as we shall see) was the Goose constellation, the production is consistently called an egg.

It is among the mysteries of hieroglyphic language that “Seb” should signify not only “earth” and “ goose” but also number “ five.” Renouf tells us that number five has the phonetic value Sed.’ Yet the god Seb is later than

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxii.

2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., November, 1891. 3 Budge, cxii. 4 Papyrus of Ani, Preface, p. 8.

5 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 7, 364.

P

210 CREATION RECORDS.

the seven sons of Ptah, later than Sebak, whose name is

“ Seven,” and so can hardly be the fifth. The mystery is.

solved when we find that five gods are contained in the Egg and five days are at this time added to the year. The egg was hatched at Hermopolis ; it was at the City

of the Eight that the Five new gods were brought forth..

It is said in the Magic Papyrus, “ Hail to. you, O Five Great Gods, issuing from Hermopolis.”’ The conception of a Creative Council of Five Gods had so far prevailed at Hermopolis that from this fact the city had received in remote antiquity the name of the “ House of the Five” ; its temple was called the “ Abode of the Five” down toa late period of Egyptian history, and its prince, who was the hereditary priest of Thoth, reckoned as the first of his official titles that of “Great One of the House of the Five.”

1 Records of the Fast, x, 142.

~

em a a gre ee

CHAPTER XVII.

THE BROOD OF SEB.

(The Story in Plutarch, shown in Detail to be an Allegorical Narrative of the Addition of Five Days to the Year.)

AS an example of what may be done to interpret myths, let us take the story in Plutarch, and see how it may be unravelled. That it is worth the attempt may be sup- ported by the opinion of Maspero, who says, “ All that remains to us of this legend is its Hellenised interpretation as given in De [sede et Ostrtde. But there can be no doubt that it was taken from a good source, like most of the tales included in this curious treatise.”?

Wilkinson also says, “That the five days called the Epact were added at a most remote period may be readily credited ; and so convinced were the Egyptians of this that they referred it to the fabulous times of their history, wrapping it up in the guise of allegory.”? This is what Plutarch says: “They tell us that Helios (ze. Ra) having discovered Rhea (ze. Neith) secretly copulating with Saturn (ze. Seb) laid a curse upon her that she should not bring forth a child in either month or year: that Hermes (ze. Thoth) being in love with the goddess, copulated with her; and afterwards playing at counters with Selene and winning from her the seventieth part of each one of her lights, out of the whole composed five days, the which he added to the 360, which days, now, the Egyptians call ‘additional,’ and keep as the birthdays of

. 1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 173 note. 2 Ancient Egyptians, ii, 254.

212 CREATION RECORDS.

the gods ; that on the first of these was born Osiris, and that a voice issued forth with him in the birth, that “the the Lord of all is entering into light.” But some relate that a certain Pamyle, when drawing water out of the Temple of Jupiter at Thebes, heard a voice ordering her to proclaim with a loud cry, “A great king, beneficent Osiris, is born,” and for this cause she nursed Osiris, when Saturn put him into her hands; and also the festival “Pamylia” is celebrated in his honour, resembling in character the phallic processions. On the second was born Aroeris, whom some call Apollo, some the elder Horus. On the third, Typhon, neither in due time, nor in the right place, but breaking through with a blow he leaped out through his mother’s side. On the fourth was Asis born, in very wet places. On the fifth was Nephthys, ‘the same as the “End” and “ Venus,’ whom some call Victory. They say that Osiris was begotten by Helios, -as also Aroeris ; by Hermes, Isis ; by Saturn, Typhon and Nephthys ; that Osiris and Isis fell in love with each -other and copulated under the cloak of darkness in the ‘womb; some say that in this manner was Aroeris_ be- gotten, and therefore is called by Egyptians the elder Horus ; by the Greeks, Apollo! Plutarch continues :—

That when Osiris reigned over the Egyptians he made them reform their destitute and bestial mode of living, showing them the art of cultivation and giving ‘them laws, and teaching them how to worship the gods. Afterwards he travelled over the whole earth, civilising it; far from requiring arms, he tamed mankind through persuasion and reasoning, joined with song of all kinds -and music which he brought over ; wherefore he is held by the Greeks to be the same with Bacchus. That Typhon -during his absence did not rebel, because Isis was on her :guard and able to keep watch upon him vigorously ; but ‘after Osiris returned, Typhon laid a plot against him

1 Plutarch’s Morals, on Isis and Osiris, xii.

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THE BROOD OF SEB. 213

having taken 72 men into the conspiracy, and having for helper a qucen coming out of Ethiopia, whom they call Aso. That she secretly measured the body of Osiris and made to the size a handsome and highly ornamented coffer which he carried into the banqueting room. And as they were all delighted with its appearance and admired it, Typhon promised in sport that whoever should lie down within it and should exactly fit, he would make him a present of the chest ; and after the others had tried, one by one, and nobody fitted it, then Osiris got in, and laid himself down ; thereupon the conspirators running up shut down the lid, and fastened it with spike-nails from the. outside and poured melted lead over them, and so carried. it out to the river, and let it go down the Tanaite branch into the sea; which branch on that account is hateful and unlucky for Egyptians to name. These things are said to have been done on the 17th day of the month Athor, when the sun is passing through the Scorpion, Osiris then being in the eight-and-twentieth year of his reign. Some have it that he had /ived not rezgned such a time. .

We need not quote more of this curious story now. Here the references to the Sun in Scorpio, to the Moon and the winning of five days, lead us to suspect at once that the story has to do with Astronomy and the Calendar, and perhaps with such a rectification of the calendar as was implied in adding five days to a year of 360 days. The year was too short, and the discrepancy became manifest. Hermes—(that is Thoth)—the god of writing, of record, and calculation—noted the fact, and by clever dealing with the Moon as a measurer of time, he secured an addition of five days to the calendar year. A parallel account asso- ciates the days with the loves of Neith and Seb, Neith and Ra, etc.; and a further variation derives them from the ege of the Goose.

The year in vogue—ze. the solar year of 12 months,

’ 214 CREATION RECORDS.

under the First Sovereignty of Ra—began with the Autumn equinox, and the stars which marked the return of Spring belonged to the constellation of the Goose. But the year consisted of 360 days only; and so, any and every festival, such as New Year’s Day, would come 5 days too soon in the first revolution, 10 days too soon in the second, and return to its original place after 72 years (360 ~ 5 = 72), ormore strictly 73 years. In half that time (363 years) the New Year’s Day of the calendar would be half a circle advanced. It would be as though the ist of January with us fell at midsummer, and the Lady Day of our calendar came to coincide with Michaelmas. In a sense the two equinoxes would coincide, and their divinities would be brought into one house. This accounts for the association of Neith with Seb, and Seb with the Goose at the same time. The autumn equinox festival of the inaccurate calendar, anticipating by six months, fell to the spring equinox of the heavens, and its _ divinity was born out of due time. Viewing the thing in another aspect, the Scorpion constellation of. the false calendar overlaps the Bull of the true, and all the stars of Taurus and Scorpio are in one bed. The scandal of this confusion led to the rectification of the reckoning, and the reform consisted in adding four days, and afterwards a fifth, to the calendar year of 360 days. But we are made acquainted with this fact in allegorical language. The divinity of the equinoctial point is Seb, and his wife’s name is Nutpe or Neith, who is identified with the Greek goddess Rhea, the consort of Kronus. In this affair Seb is associated with Hermes or Thoth, the scribe of the gods, who records the passage of the stars, and of the days of the year, which is much the same thing. Hermes finds that more days are being generated than are taken account of in the tale of 360: there are five which have no place in the calendar, and have not been associated with any star, or held sacred to any god. As to the cause of their generation, Neith, the wife of Seb, is brought into con-

THE BROOD OF SEB. 215

junction, not only with Seb himself, but with Hermes the recorder and with Helios (or Ra) as the sun of the spring equinox (among the Greeks the feast of Rhea was cele- brated on what is now called Lady Day)!—her meeting with Seb being at the place of the autumn equinox; and with Helios, only in the fictitious calendar. As the stars of the two constellations (Scorpio and Taurus) lie inter- mingled, the five days get assigned, some to one constella- tion, some to the other. Osiris, as son of Ra, belongs to Taurus, and therefore properly to the spring equinox. At the equinoctial position we can imagine his gaze directed alternately to the heaven above and the abyss beneath. Plutarch regards the name as compounded of ’Oatas (the things of hell) and tepa (the things of heaven).? Typhon, ason of Kronus (or Seb) belongs properly to Scorpio of the autumnal equinox, but since he makes his appearance associated with the stars of the spring, he is said to be born neither in due time nor in the right place. Isis is the child of Hermes (Thoth) the recording divinity, and ap- pears to have close relations with the Dog-star Sirius, which is not far removed from Taurus, but also heralds the summer solstice and the Nile inundation. Nephthys is the wife of Typhon, and is sazd to be the same as Aphrodite, goddess of the Dog-star. But that would only be in appearance, and while the two equinoxes were con- fused together, for the Dog-star is rather the star of Isis.

Thus it appears that two days are added at the time of the spring equinox, and two at the autumn equinox, or perhaps by subsequent rearrangement, one at each of the four quarters, to eke out the year, under the Lunar system ‘now introduced.

There was another child hatched from’ the Ege of the Great Cackler, but there is something peculiar about him, and he may not come’ immediately into the active drama.. I suspect that the year was first

. Lecky,:- Rattonatisms, i, 230° °° 2 Jsts and Ostrts, xi, = *

216 CREATION RECORDS.

increased to 364 days, and the remaining day was not for some time recognised, though the myth takes account of 5 days which had been wanting. 364 days would be 13 months of 28 days each—52 weeks exactly, and such an arrangement might naturally suggest itself. Hermes gained 4 days, and afterwards another 1, but in the sum- mary statement they are named together as 5. When the year of 13 such months had been tried and found wanting -—when the former anomalies still recurred, though at a slower pace—the 365th day was added. Until then the 365th day was a god “lame and lying in darkness,” with no place in the bright circle of the year.

The name associated with the 365th day is Aroeris, and this divinity is a son of Helios, belonging therefore to the spring equinox in Taurus, and is said to be the same as the Greek Apollo (who has, as we shall find, the same date and place). Yet Aroeris, son of the Sun and, further, hatched in the egg of Seb, the Father of the Five, owes his birth to the intercourse of Osiris and Isis in the womb. That is to say, the two additional days of those names, by overlapping through the defective calendar, showed the need of another day still to fill out the year; and the last is later than the two in being recognised.

But when, through the shortness of the year, the Calendar Scorpio has retreated to the place of the true Taurus, the false Taurus has of course gone to the real Scorpio at the autumn equinox. That was the Theban arrangement, viz., that the year should begin with the autumn equinox zz Zaurus, which however was only the Taurus of the false chart. Hence the birth of Osiris, son of Ra, and divinity of the spring equinox, is revealed to Pamyle in the temple of Zeus at Thebes, and Pamyle becomes the nurse of Osiris.

Osiris, at this stage, represents the Lunar Year of 364 days (28 x 13), and succeeds to the throne of Ra (Greek Helios) the God of the Solar Year of 360 days. In the

THE BROOD OF SEB. 217 island of Philz, as we learn from Diodorus, 360 pitchers for making funeral libations were placed round the tomb of Osiris, and were filled with milk every day by the priests! The circle of 360°, and the year of 360 days, remained in a sense unaltered? It would have been inconvenient to upset the festivals of the months, and so the extra days were called “additional” and kept as birth days of the gods.

The proper place of Typhon was at the autumn equinox, which at that time was in Scorpio. It was a purely con- ventional arrangement whether the year should begin in spring or in autumn: one season was as good as the other for the purpose. Typhon in his essential nature was as good as Osiris ; and at one time he was in as good repute. There is a statue on which it is stated that he was a good god of two worlds.? His worship was as ancient as any.* Bunsen remarks that down to the time of Rameses, B.C. 1300, Typhon was one of the most venerated and powerful of the gods, a god who pours blessings and life on the millions of Egypt.°

If the year had been accurate as to length, Osiris and Typhon, when once adjusted by Thoth, would have kept their respective places. There might be some emulation if the year was made to begin with the spring in one city, and with the autumn in another; but there would be no conflict. Since, however, the year was still too short, by at least one day, Typhon would again usurp Osiris’ place, though notin soshort a period as 36 years. While Typhon and Osiris are changing places, the movement, may be ascribed to either, and so it is said that Osiris goes forth on his travels. He traversed the civilised world from one horizon to the other before he returned to the banks of the Nile (the “ Nile” being the Ecliptic, from which the equinox

1 Diodorus, ii, 22. 2 Cornewall Lewis, 266. ° Bonwick, Leyptian Belief, p. 132. 4 Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 115.

• Apud Bonwick, p. 135.

218 . CREATION RECORDS.

divinity ought never to wander), and while on his journey he visited the dwelling-place of Typhon. We understand, of course, that Osiris, identified with the true New Year’s Day, of the Spring, appears by the false calendar to mount upward, and pass by way of the summer solstice to reach the autumn. Having arrived there, another step will carry it below the horizon (of the chart), and into the conven- tional abyss, which extends under the world from one horizon to the other—from the west to the east. It is stated that Typhon shuts Osiris in an ark or coffer and thrusts him on to the waters. The discrepancy of one day between the Calendar and the Circle of the Heavens cor- responds approximately to one degree of arc ; and this arc is destined to revolve, moving now on the face of the waters.

In the ceremony afterwards observed, and called the Burial of Osiris, some wood was cut down and made into a coffer or ark, and the coffer had to be crescent-shaped, so far resembling the arc of a circle.’

The number of conspirators, which is given as 72, would be easier to account for if the treachery had taken place when the year consisted of 360 days only; because then they would represent the 72 conventional places of the New Years Day (360+5= 72). The 12 Signs were sub-divided into what Sir Wm. Drummond calls dodecans —of 5° each—of which there would be 72 in a circle of 360°. Pliny speaks of the 72 constellations, and 1,600 stars that may be counted therein (lib. 1i).2 With a change in the number of conspirators, the story would be equally true as an allegory, whether told of one period or the other, and probably it was told of both. With 72 con- spirators the story seems to be a reminiscence of the year of Ra, when the god Ptah, the earlier solar god, was sent revolving in the same way.

“These things were done on the 7th of the month

1 Plutarch on J/sés and Osiris, xlii. | 2 Higgins, Anacalypsis, American edition, p. 310.

THE BROOD OF SEB. 219

Athor, when the sun is passing through Scorpio.”! The place of Scorpio at the time was, by our hypothesis, the autumn equinox, from which point, as the season advances, the darkness increases, “the day growing shorter than the night,” as Plutarch says. From that equinoctial point the descent beneath the equinoctial plane was regarded as a plunge into the abyss of waters. I find that the equinoctial position is represented in mythology by triune symbols of various sorts, as being the point where heaven, earth and the abyss are in a manner united. A curious Egyptian tablet pictures one gate of Amenti (the Underworld) as guarded by three deities, with the respective heads of a crocodile, a lion and a dog.? Set (ze, Typhon) is a triple deity with the Hittites.® Hecate, a lunar equinoctial goddess in Greece, was repre- sented with three heads. When, therefore, in accordance with this symbolism, we have it stated that a trefoil adorning the head of Osiris fell off at the moment of his death, we may regard it as corroborative proof that the place of his disappearance was near the equinoctial point.‘

Osiris is said to have been 28 years of age when the disaster occurred. It has been suggested that this is perhaps a reference to the fact that the lunar month consisted of 28 days. But it may be better to adhere more nearly to the tradition which speaks of 28 years With the year of 364 days the 28th year would bring a crisis, because the days omitted would now be at least enough to make another month, and the true beginning of the year would be a whole month antedated. This served to emphasise the error, for every month was now in the bed of its neighbour; and the Osiris year of 13 months ‘had become one of 14.

The 17th day of Athor arrives, and the tragedy is enacted. Judging by the Calendar and the conventional equinoctial

1 Plutarch, /szs and Osiris, xiii. 2 Bonwick, Exyptian Belief, 49. ® Conder, Altatc Hieroglyphics, 200, 201. 4 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, 242.

220 CREATION RECORDS.

plane of the charts, Osiris was now below the earth-plane, and the ark that enclosed him was voyaging on the abyss. The first to discover the mischief were the Pans and Satyrs, says Plutarch, giving us the names of creatures of Greek mythology, whose associations we shall find to be always with the intercalary days of one of the equinoxes. Their place in the Egyptian chart is here called the country round Chemmis. | :

If Osiris can travel or go a-voyaging, so can Isis. The ark which is called the urn of Osiris is called also the ship of Isis, for it suits the myth to represent that Isis follows her consort without incurring his fate Isis went in search of Osiris. She comes to the place of Nephthys, which must be Typhon’s house at the autumn equinox in Scorpio, and she discovers that Osiris had arrived previously and slept with Nephthys; ze. through the confusion wrought by the false Calendar chart, Osiris had come to the opposite equinox, and naturally mistook Nephthys for Isis? The proof of this coming of the spring to autumn’s place, is the presence of a garland of Melilote flowers—perhaps typical spring flowers proper to Osiris, but strange to the autumn.® By these Typhon discovered the injury done to his bed, and by these Isis knew that Osiris had married her sister Nephthys. Isis sought for the child, dogs guiding her to the place, and after she had nursed him as her own, he grew up to be her guard and minister. He was called Anubis, a name which we already know as that of the Jackal concerned in indicating time ; and he used to keep watch for the gods just as dogs do for men.* It appears that Horus was born to Isis at about the same, and, as Horus has the important function of setting forth true time, there seems to be a parallelism between the two infants. Nor can we fail to connect these statements

1 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 221. 7 Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 112. 3 Plutarch, of /sts and Osiris, xiv and xxxviii.

• Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 147.

THE BROOD OF SEB. 221

with the fact that the Dog-star is called the star of Isis, and was for a long time the herald of the new year. The child Anubis belongs‘to Osiris, and is fitly nursed by Isis, for it cannot legitimately claim Nephthys as its mother, only being assigned to her in the false calendar.

“Anubis claims both the goddesses as mother”; but probably ‘only through this confusion of the two equinoxes.

Osiris, moving thus from one equinox to the other, is said to live six months with Isis and six with Nephthys, and also to die twice a year (leaving one hemisphere for another).?. As he goes down below the equinoctial plane, he becomes the nocturnal sun. He reigns in the Lower World; and although this can happen but once really, it is made to occur a second time by the six months’ dis- placement of the false calendar.®

In the Upper. World he has proved himself, like Ra, incompetent to rule, although he has kept his place longer. After 182 years, or less, he went into. the Lower World ; and when, after an equal length of time, he came up again, it was abundantly clear that a year of 364 days was too short, and another day must be added. This additional day makes up the five which Hermes won from Selene. But a year of 365 days (ce. 28 x 13 + 1) will not be a Lunar Year, but Solar ; and so Osiris does not reign in the Upper World any longer.

Isis learned that the chest which enclosed Osiris had been washed up by the sea at a place called Byblus, and that the surf had gently laid it under an erica tree. In another account the ark is caught and stopped in a growing palm.* Trees are symbolical in the mythology, and special trees_have their places at the quarter points, being rooted at the equinoxes and solstices to set forth that the four points themselves are fixed and do not revolve. The constellations sweep past them—conventionally and rapidly

1 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, 32-3. 2 Jbid., 151-5. 3 bid., 70. . , * Jbid., 165.

222 CREATION RECORDS.

in the charts, and really though slowly through the precession of the equinoxes—but it is found advantageous. ~ to assume fixed equinoxes to measure from, just as we assume a first meridian or a first point of Aries. This erica tree must be looked for at the spring equinox and the eastern side of the heavens, because it is there that an ark which took the waters in the west will be bound to come ashore. |

Here at the vernal palace, this palm tree gives place to the coffer, which becomes a pillar set up to support a roof! —the roof being really the dome of heaven, and the pillar a meridian, rising from the earth-plane upwards, and regarded as fixed, so that celestial longitudes may be measured from it. It is one of Shu’s pillars, and corrés- ponds in place and meaning to the oak of Dodona and the Atlas pillar of the Greeks. The king of the country is named Malacander; the Queen is Astarte, who is a goddess connected with the star Sirius.

Isis arrives and becomes nurse of the royal infant; but while she is taking means to make it immortal, the curiosity and alarm of the Queen frustrate her effort.. This curious story may perhaps set forth the birth of the 305th day, and an ineffectual attempt to give it a perma- nent place in the calendar. Apparently it cannot be established in connection with the luni-solar year and the spring equinox at this time ; and Isis takes her flight. Or it may be that the child is a 14th month, which it is sought to introduce as an intercalary month (to be inserted: once in 28 years), but the endeavour to give life to the arrangement fails of success. The two sons of the king also die, the younger first ; and these may possibly be the. full day and the quaiter of a day, which are necessary to. complete the year, but. which fail to take hold at this time.: One thing which seems to support the idea that the elder. boy may stand for the 365th day, is the statement that he

1 Plutarch, on Jszs and Osirés, xv.

THE BROOD OF SEB. 223 was the Maneros whom the Egyptians sang about at their feasts. For Plutarch associates his name with the inven- tion of Music, and with drinking and keeping holiday, and these are characters which suggest some alas of Apollo, and therefore of Aroeris. Aroeris was said to be Apollo, and as the Elder Horus, he is, I believe, the representative of the 365th day.

After this, Typhon, being out a hunting by moonlight, finds the coffer which contains the body of Osiris, and tears the corse into 14 pieces. This means that the year of 13 lunar months is destroyed; a 14th part would be necessary ; and this discovery is made by aid of the moon as measurer. Isis collected the limbs and parts; but alas! there was one missing, which means, I imagine, that the year of 364 days was one day short. The lost part was the genital member, of which, however, Isis made a model and consecrated it, and in honour of which the Egyptians held a phallic festival. This sounds strange, and one does not at first see the fitness of the symbol; but let us remember that the lingam is called a tongue—so named, for instance, in Scripture, where Achan stole a “ tongue” of gold’—and let us recall the “tongue of the balance ” which shows true measure and speaks the true voice of Thoth. The 365th day, completing the year, gave the true voice— was the true tongue. Plutarch says that the proper worship of the gods dated from Osiris, and it was he who introduced music and song to such an extent that he was held by the Greeks to be the same with Bacchus. The phallic festival was held to be very important, and the phallus of Osiris became a popular symbol.’

The failure of Isis to reconstitute the body of Osiris, or to complete the year even by adding another day, only means that the /zzar year could not be resuscitated. The calendar was of course rearranged, and the year was made to consist of 365 days; but this was a solar year. Osiris

1 Joshua vii, 21, 24. 2 Plutarch, xviii.

224 CREATION RECORDS.

was relegated to the shades, and Ra was recalled from his exile.

It was imagined that the year was now accurate, and would not need any further alteration. The priests used to conduct the Pharaoh into. the temple of Isis, into the Holy of Holies, and bid him swear that he would not alter the year of 360 days and the 5 epagomene.’ The priests themselves took an oath that they would not add by intercalation to the year of 365 days.”

Nevertheless the year was still short by nearly six hours, and we know that without some provision for a Leap-year, the festivals would still revolve through the seasons and the calendar would again get into disorder. But the cycle now would extend over 1,460 years (= 4 x 365); and it came to be called the Sothiac Cycle, because the Dog-star, Sirius or Sothis, was brought round to the same place—or rather the New Year’s Day came round to the star.

Nevertheless the quarter of a day appears to have been early taken account of, and was personified as Horus— the second Horus—the child of Osiris and Isis, who was destined to revenge his father against Typhon, and turn the scale of battle.

. Osiris was never forgotten. The lunar year had en- deared itself by custom before the solar year was re- established, and there was something solemn and pathetic in its dethronement. Osiris is always described as the universal god of the Egyptians ; and each Nome possessed a local Osiris.2 But truth and accuracy are necessary, and Osiris gives place to Horus (who represents the quarter of a day and the completed year), and to Ra, the solar god.

Horus as a solar divinity might be suitably located at the summer solstice, because the addition of the six hours

1 Lepsius, vol. ii, p. 71. Apud Massey’s Matural Genesis, ii, 326. ? Cornewall Lewis, ANTOROIY of the Ancients, 266-7. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, i ii, 255.

Mariette, p. 137.

THE BROOD OF SEB. 225

restored the year to the length it had in the reign of Ptah, the first sun-god.

It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the elder Horus and the younger. The elder Horus, Plutarch told us, was the same as Aroeris, whom we take to repre- sent the 365th day, whereas the younger Horus is the odd six hours.!. The first is styled the great god, the second is represented as a child. They have this in common, that they were both added to the lunar year of 364 days, to make, if possible, an adequate solar year. Mythically they were both the children of Osiris and Isis ; for although Aroeris was one of the five hatched in the egg of Seb, “Some say that Osiris and Isis fell in love with each other” even there, and Aroeris was born to them.? The generation of the younger Horus was equally mysterious and secret; and naturally so, as the existence of the quarter-of-a-day escaped notice, until the growing bulk of this unconsidered trifle at length demanded recognition.

The odd hours, while growing into a day, would be “Horus the child.” In Egypt the boy or girl wore a peculiar lock of hair at the left side of the face, until they reached the age of puberty, or until the parent died. Even princes and princesses were not exempt ; and Horus wore this lock, the type of childhood.2 The adytum, or most sacred place in an Egyptian temple, was called the birth- place of Horus. This, however, might be, not on account of its secrecy, but because the temple was so oriented as to receive the sun’s image most perfectly on the intercalary day (every fourth year). And there Horus became the True Voice, true word or oracle, announcing the true length of the year.‘

When Osiris comes from the shades to train Horus in the art of war, it is the younger Horus that is meant, and

1 Plutarch, Ov [sts and Osiris, xii. 2 Jhid. § Birch, History from the Monuments, xv. Massey, Book of Begiunings, i, 27 3. Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, 365. Massey, Book of Beginnings, i, 353-

Q

226 CREATION RECORDS.

not Aroeris. The battle is to be to avenge his father, and turn the tables on Typhon by giving reverse motion to the circulation of the festivals. Aroeris could not do this, since the 365th day still left the year too short and thus only made defeat slower, but could not turn the tide of battle. Osiris is surprised to hear Horus say that he prefers the horse to the lion for going to battle with.1 The surprise of the reader will be the other way, unless it is borne in mind that we are dealing with allegory, and with figured animals of the starry sphere. In an allegorical tale, a lion may fight a unicorn, or carry a rider to tilt against a horseman. The horse and the lion both have a place among the constellations. There were other lions in the sky at that time, and there were also other horses. In a zodiac given by Drummond in his Gdipus Judaicus, we see in the constellation Leo, an ass bridled, and a man leading a horse.

Horus, then, is solstitial, not equinoctial like Osiris ; and his accession is made the occasion for introducing a new practical method of determining or verifying the solstice.

Typhon, who has prevailed against Osiris, will now be repelled. Typhon had flung away the masculine organ of Osiris ; but now, they say, the statue of Horus at Coptos grasps in his hand the genitals of Typhon.? Hitherto, owing to the year being too short, the seasons have revolved through the calendar, or the calendar festivals through the seasons, but always in the same direction. They will now be made to recede, and even to revolve in the reverse way The establishment of a Leap Year (one year in four) would not only recover the lost ground but carry the war into the enemy’s country. This would be so, if only because six hours annually is really a little too much, and if never omitted from the calendar must make the year too long. But perhaps it was not yet known that the six hours would be an excess; and the arrangement may have been as

1 Plutarch, xix, 2 Plutarch, lv.

THE BROOD OF SEB. 227

follows. Starting fair, it is decided to intercalate a day at the end of the second year, and afterwards always, similarly, in the middle of the four-year period. In that case, the length would be deficient, and the deficiency growing, for the first two years, and then, with the day inserted, be for two years in excess. This would be like a tug of war in which Typhon and Horus would alternately have the advantage. Typhon advances like iron to the magnet, and then suddenly drops away as though the opposite pole had been presented. Plutarch says, that “ they call a loadstone Bone of Osiris, but iron Bone of Typhon (as Manetho relates), for just as the iron, often, like something alive, follows after the loadstone, but is often repelled in the opposite direction, so is it with the respective forces of Osiris and Typhon.” Horus gains ground ; numbers come over to his side, and even Thueris, and concubine of Typhon, comes over, a serpent pursuing the woman. But the battle was tough. At one time Horus is wounded in the eye; at another time Typhon might seem to be destroyed, but they were brought into agreement at last, and Thoth assigned to them the two lands—which were popularly supposed to be Upper and Lower Egypt, but were regarded by the initiated as the Upper and Lower Hemispheres ; and in another aspect the two halves of the year. Thueris was the female hippopotamus (Naville, Deir el Bahari, Part II, p. 17). The Pole, in the constella- tion Hippopotamus, had moved in consonance with the equinox. The meaning seems to be that the Horus arrangement was strengthened by observation of the position of the pole.

THOTH’S RELATION TO THE FIVE.—Thoth as the god who measures time, was bound to have close relations with the moon ; but he was not thereby merged in the moon, though some have thus confounded him. He was also

1 Plutarch, Ixii. Murray’s Zgyft, 204. 2 Bunsen, Leyfpt’s Place, i, 426 note.

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228 CREATION RECORDS.

concerned in the production of the egg of Seb; but that does not identify him with Seb nor with any of Seb’s brood. He could not very well play counters with Selene and win five days, and be at the same time the god Aroeris born on one of those days. Yet in that sense he has been spoken of as the brother of Osiris. Passages from the Pyramid text of Unas (lines 236, 240-252) make Thoth the brother of Isis, Nephthys and Set (Typhon).’ It is a little puzzling, but it probably only means that while Aroeris is the 365th day, as we have seen, the addition of that day was a triumph for Thoth, it became the tongue of Thoth speaking true words, and his name was especially associated with it.

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 92 note, quotes Brugsch, Budge, pp. Ixxiii, CXVI1.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OSIRIS.

(Description of Osiris—Synchronous with Seb, associated with Thoth— Represents the Year of 364 Days—Osiris Lost and Found; the Ark or Coffin; the Mourning ; the Resurrection—The Year Re-constituted ; the Missing Member—Osiris as the Phoenix-bird—Fusion of Osiris with Ra— Osiris becomes God of the Dead. )

OSIRIS, although spoken of as a king of Egypt, who travelled abroad and returned home; who was murdered but arose from the dead, and was worshipped ; was not really a man who was deified. He was a celestial being or character, who was personified as a human being, after the Egyptian manner. The benefits which he conferred upon the earth and upon mankind are sung in hymns. .

. . “But in the original Egyptian texts it is distinctly to Osiris as the sun, and not to a deified king, that all the benefits are ascribed.”!_ So Renouf says.

The story of Osiris is nowhere found in a connected form in Egyptian literature ; but everywhere, and in texts of all periods, the life, sufferings, death and resurrection of Osiris are accepted as facts universally admitted.?

Our fullest account of the myth of Osiris and Isis is that given by Plutarch in a work composed about I00 A.D.* It is clear that in some points he errs; but this was excusable in dealing with a series of traditions already some four thousand years old.‘

There is a remarkable Hymn to Osiris, the latter part

1 Renouf, 7rans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 2, 284. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. xlix.

3 Plutarch, De /side et Osiride, cap. xii-xix.

• Budge, Book of the Dead, x\ix.

230 CREATION RECORDS.

of which agrees with what Plutarch tells us, and may have been one of his sources of information.!

In. the Hymn to Osiris, when the worshipper says, ‘Thy body is of gold, thy head is of azure, and emerald light encircleth thee ’—he is perhaps describing the statue that occupied the shrine.2 Generally speaking, Osiris is represented in the form of a mummy wearing a crown and holding in his hands the emblems of sovereignty and power. Ina vignette of the Papyrus Anz he is enthroned on the right within a shrine in the form of a funereal chest, and the side of the throne is painted to resemble the doors of the tomb.

, THE PERIOD OF OSIRIS.—Egyptologists have not felt able to assign any definite date to Osiris, but they are confident as to his great antiquity. Whatever may have been the foundation of the legend of Osiris, says Budge, it. ts pretty certain that his character as a god of the dead was well defined long before the versions of the Pyramid texts known to us were written.* The opinion of Renouf is’ still more strongly expressed, for he says that at the earliest date to which it is possible to refer any Egy ptian monuments his worship already appears as of immemorial antiquity.* Chapter Ixiv of the Ritual appears to relate to Sekaru Osiris, and the rubric says it was discovered on a plinth of the god, by a master builder of the wall in the time of King Septa. Septa belonged to the first dynasty, and has been identified with the Usaphais of Manetho.

But the Ritual plainly enough reminds us of the relative place.of Osiris, making the speaker say, “I am Osiris, the eldest of the Five Gods and heir of his father Seb.”> He is the “eldest son whom Seb-hath engendered, first-born of the womb of Nut” ;°® while at the same time Thoth is called his father.’ It is all reconcilable when we remember

1 Records of the Past, iv, 99; and Budge, Book of the Dead, hii.

2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 254, and cxiii. 8 Jbid., p. exii.

• Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 2, 282. ® See Renouf on chapter Ixix 6 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 3, 338. 7 Bunsen, Lgyft’s Place, i, 392.

OSTRIS. - 231

the story of the Egg of Seb, how Thoth also was concerned in its production, and Osiris was the first of the brood of five. Osiris dates from the time of the Epact, when Ra retired and the year of 360 days was abandoned.

Of course therefore the myths connect him closely with Ra, and also with Thoth and Seb; and even with Shu, who had, a second time, to lift the sky (ze. readjust the pole) at the moment when the Egg of the Cackler was hatched and Osiris was born.’ |

In chapters lvi and lix of the Ritual, Seb’s Egg appears to be at Heracleopolis. And many late texts, says Brugsch, locate the raising of the firmament at Heracleo- polis? Shu knelt on one knee to raise the heavens or support the new pole, even as Hercules (Heracles) does on our present astronomical globe, and it is said in chapter cxxv of the Ritual that the knee of Shu is lent for the support of Osiris.®

Osiris is born from the egg of Seb—from the egg of the goose which offers the additional five days to the year, and occasions Ra’s retirement. Seb orders offerings to be presented to Osiris‘ ; and Wilkinson (vol. v, p. 353) shows that the favourite offering of Osiris was a goose.°

The god Thoth is particularly associated with Hermo- polis—a celestial city marking the autumnal equinox at the time of Ra’s accession. And we find in a Hymn to Osiris—called Adoration by the Steward of the Flocks— that Osiris is addressed as Lord of the great dwelling in Hermopolis.° The Ibis bird, devoted to Thoth at Hermo- polis, was the messenger of Osiris.’ So close was the connection of these two divinities that Diodorus (i, 15, 16) represents Osiris with the help of Thoth as having origin- ated language, music, astronomy, and the worship of the gods.®

1 Ante, p. 209. 2 Naville, Ahanas, p. 8. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib., xvii, 8, 276. * Records of the Past, iv, 100. 5 Hislop, 72vo Bab bylons, p. 163. 8 Records of the Past, iv, 99:

7 Bonwick, 236. | 8 Lewis, Astronomy of Ancients, ;. 260.

232 CREATION RECORDS.

If we are right in understanding the Ibis of Thoth to be an intercalary month we need not be surprised to find that Osiris, like Thoth, has some of the characters of a lunar divinity… Plutarch, speaking of the Pythagoreans, says that “by the wood they cut down at the so-called burials of Osiris, constructing therewith a crescent-shaped coffer, they signify that the moon when she approaches the sun becomes crescent-shaped and hides herself.” This may be a mistaken explanation; yet it shows that tradition connected Osiris with the moon. Indeed, Plutarch says that the festival of the god was held on the new moon of the month Phamenoth, and was called the entrance of Osiris into the moon, being the commencement of spring.? In the second chapter of the Book of the Dead he is invoked as the Only one, shining from the moon. The best illustration of this ancient text is the picture at Karnak of all the principal gods in adoration of Osiris, who is represented as standing in the moon-disk with the sceptre in his hand and the royal crown upon his head. Over him is written his kingly name Unnefer.*

Notwithstanding this close association, Osiris is not the moon itself. It might just as easily be made to appear that he was the sun. Budge says indeed that “ originally Osiris was a form of the sun-god, and generally speaking he may be said to have represented the sun after he had set, and as such was the emblem of the motionless dead. Later texts identify him with the moon.”

We have to remember that in Plutarch’s time, and even two thousand years earlier, these legends were already ancient, and their’first meaning in part forgotten. It can only be recovered now by interpretation of symbols and the careful induction of texts.

OSIRIS REPRESENTS THE LUNAR YEAR.—Our own conclusion is that when the solar year of 360 days was

1 Records of the Past, x, 112 note. 2 Of Ists and Osiris, xiiii. 3 Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib., ix, 2,284. * Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxiii.

ee

OSIRIS. 233

abandoned (12 months of 30 days each), a year of 364 days was tried (13 months of 28 days), and Osiris was god of the New Year’s Day, and thus had his being bound up with this form of the year.

The festival of Osiris extended over four days, beginning with the 17th of Athor; and the number of days would not be arbitrarily fixed.’

Osiris and the lunar year are so ancient that some writers have thought there was no earlier arrangement. Mr. Haliburton says, “ The fact that a month is represented in hieroglyphs by a moon, may serve to show that the months of the Egyptians were originally lunar.” In this he does but follow Wilkinson. But the continued exis- tence of the circle of 360 degrees is equally good evidence of a different arrangement, and dates, as we believe, from still earlier time.

OSIRIS LOST AND FOUND.—As we read the story, Osiris is the soli-lunar year, and more specifically the New Year’s Day of that year. It had been intended, we think, that the year should begin at the spring equinox; but through the defective length of the year the spring equinox is anticipated in the calendar until it comes at the winter solstice, and at length coincides with the true autumn equinox. Conversely, if we take the calendar as our datum, the spring equinox of the heavens travels by the reverse route and reaches the autumn equinox of the calendar.

As one result we find Osiris associated with both equinoxes. At that distant period the spring equinox was still in the constellation Taurus; and Osiris is again and again spoken of as the Bull, the Good Bull, the Bull in the fields, the Bull of the west.2 “O Bull of the West, I have come to thee . . . I am Aat, the eldest son of Osiris; the type-of-evil god is in his eye in Annu

2 Wilkinson. Festival of the Dead, p. 64. 3 Renouf, Aibbert Lecture, p. 205.

234 CREATION RECORDS.

(Heliopolis).”1 Here we seem to see that while Osiris is in the west something bad is happening to the eye of the sun in the east; the year is inaccurate, and the reflected image of the New Year sun is not duly formed. This appears to show that the ascription “Bull of the West” does not relate to the position of the sun in the evening of the day, and the descent below the horizon, but to the sun of the autumn season descending below the equator. Or rather, through the false calendar, it is the sun of the spring equinox that seems to be brought to the place of the autumn equinox. The daily descent of the sun was too frequent an occurrence to have created surprise, to have seemed tragical, to have called for wailing, and it would not have given origin to festival rites which must be observed at the time of the autumn equinox. :

When Osiris is lost it is not simply that the evening sun goes down, nor merely that the autumn sun descends below the equator, but that the New Year’s Day was consigned to death and the lower regions. Osiris, the First of the Five Days, was specifically the New Year’s Day of the Soli-Lunar Year, with its proper place at the spring equinox in Taurus; but the equinoctial point in Taurus has now gone half-way round the calendar chart, and arrived at the descending node, the gate of Hades. The powers of darkness now lay hold of it, and Osiris is lost. The mischief is attributed to Typhon, the brother divinity who has become identified with the autumn equinox and thus with Hell’s Gate and the Netherworld. The antagonism may be regarded as that of the two hemispheres, the Dark and the Light, and parallel to the Persian feud between Ormuzd and Ahriman.

That Osiris has been caused .to wander from one equinox to the other seems indicated again by the story of the shamrock. This trefoil was the emblem of the

1 Bonwick, p. 195 (quoting Ritua, chapter Ixv).

OSTRIS. 235

vernal: equinox with the Druids. It was the three-leaved wand of Hermes ; it adorned the head of Osiris, and fell off at the moment of his death.! It will be remembered also that Isis found evidence of his visit to Nephthys in the presence of the melilotus flower, z.2, the Zvrzfolium Melilotus Indica, this very shamrock.? “It grows every- where,” says Pliny; and therefore Plutarch’s reference must be rather to the season than the place: it marked the equinox.’ A large number of passages connect Osiris with the west. He is styled “ Osiris living in the West, Lord of Abydos.’”* The lamentations of his sisters for him are made “in the house of Osiris who resides in the west.” Lockyer says that the temples of Osiris at the pyramids invariably pointed to the westward.’ Osiris is identified with Tmu, the setting sun’; and Tmu appears with the sceptre of Osiris.®

When Osiris disappeared at the descending node of the sun, it was of course the season of the autumn equinox. Plutarch says, “on the 17th of the month Athor, when the sun was passing through Scorpio.”® It was said that Typhon murdered him by shutting him in an ark or coffer; and set the ark afloat on a branch of the Nile. That this wickedness was of a nature to confuse chrono- logy, or confound the seasons, seems to be indicated by an address in the Anz Papyrus. “O Thoth! what has become of the children of Nut? [Osiris and Typhon and their wives were children of this goddess.]| They have stirred up hostilities . . . they have perpetrated murder ‘ . Thou seest not the iniquities, thou art not pained at their attacks upon the years and their invasions of the months, because they have done the mischiefs in secret.’?°

1 Bonwick, Jrtsk Druids. 2 Plutarch, Ox Jsts amd Osirts, xiv. 3 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 21, 32. 4 Records of the Past, iv, 103, 126. 5 Jbtd., ii, 119. 8 Nineteenth Century, July, 1892. 7 Book of the Dead, chapter xvii. 8 Bunsen, Zgyft’s Place, 1, 397.

Of Ists and Osiris, xili, xiv and xxxix. Renouf, Papyrus Ant, p. 16.

236 CREATION RECORDS.

After the autumnal equinox the Egyptians celebrated the fast called the Disappearance of Osiris. The statement that the 17th Athyr was kept as the anniversary of his murder is confirmed by a reference in a XIXth dynasty papyrus giving the date for the mourning of Osiris in Sais. The fast continued for 3 more days; and after 179 days— on 19th Pachons—they held 3 days’ festival. Three days of fasting and 179 days of passage through the Underworld make 182 days, the half of 364, so that the second festival no doubt celebrates the re-emergence of the ark, at the vernal equinox, the rightful place of Osiris.

Referring to the 17th day of Athyr as the date of the disappearance (confirmed by the Sallier Papyrus IV, Plate vii, 11, 4-6), Maspero says:—Every year, on this day, the tragedy that had taken place in the earthly abode of the god seemed to be repeated afresh in the heights of heaven. Just as at the moment of the death of Osiris the powers of good were at their weakest, and the sovereignty of evil everywhere prevailed, so the whole of Nature, aban- doned to the powers of darkness, became inimical to man. Whatever he undertook on that day issued in failure. If he went out to walk by the river-side a crocodile would attack him, as the crocodile sent by Set (Typhon) had attacked Osiris. If he set out on a journey it was a last farewell which he bade to his family and friends ; death would meet him by the way. To escape this fatality he must shut himself up at home, and wait in inaction until the hours of danger had passed and the sun of the ensuing day had put the evil one to flight.?

Plutarch describes Isis going in search of the body of Osiris through the fenny country, in a barque made of papyrus, whence it was supposed that persons using boats of that material were never attacked by crocodiles, out of fear and respect to the goddess.

1 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 212. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 210.

OSIRIS. 237

There were religious ceremonies on the 17th of Athyr and three days following, commemorating what they called the Joss of Ostrzs, when the priests exposed to view a gilded ox, covered with a pall of the finest black linen, the animal being looked upon as the living image of Osiris.!

Six months later—on the 19th of Pachons—there were great rejoicings. They marched in procession towards the sea-side, whither likewise the priest and other officers carried the sacred chest, inclosing a small boat or vessel of gold, into which they first poured some fresh water, and then all present cried out with a loud voice, “Osiris is found.” This ceremony being ended, they threw a little fresh mould, together with rich odours and spices, into the water, mixing the whole mass together, and working it up into a little image in the shape of a crescent.

Thus, plainly, we have religious ceremonies commemora- tive of Osiris associated with the two equinoxes. A little difficulty has been caused by the fact that most of the Egyptian texts place the death and resurrection at the end of the month Khoiak, near the time of the winter solstice.’ But if the mistake was first made (in later times) of con- founding Osiris with the sun, then it would be an easy thing to fix upon the longest night of the year as the precise time of his death, and a day or two after, when the light lengthened again, as the day of his resurrection Plutarch says, that “about the winter solstice they lead the sacred Cow seven times in procession around her temple ; calling this the searching after Osiris, that season of the year standing most in need of the sun’s warmth.”*

_ But to regard Osiris as the Sun would require us to ignore all those parts of the legend which ascribe to him lunar characters, whereas all the main features of the story agree with our interpretation that Osiris is the luni-solar

1 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians. 2 Wilkinson. 3 Wiedemann, Zegyptian Doctrine of Immortality, Preface. 4 Of Isis and Osiris, iii.

238 CREATION RECORDS. |

year, neither Sun nor Moon, but having close relations with both. When Clemens mentions the custom of carrying four golden figures in the festivals of the gods, he may not improbably be referring to festivals of Osiris. The figures were, “two dogs, a hawk, and an ibis, which, like the number four, had a mysterious meaning. The dogs repre- s ented the Hemispheres, the hawk the Sun, and the ibis the Moon.”? |

Osiris cannot be the sun of the winter solstice, or else we should not have him lost and found at the equinoxes ; nor can he be the sun of the equinoxes, or he would hardly be represented as “standing in the moon disk.” Regard him

s “the Bull of the West ”—the equinox in Taurus, which has wandered half way round the calendar circle ; the luni- solar year which is too short and causes the wandering— and nearly everything seems to fit its place and be consistent. :

THE ARK OR COFFER.—“ At the annual ceremony of burying Osiris, an ark was made in the shape of a crescent, in which the image of Osiris was concealed for a time, and then brought forth with shouts of joy.”? This seems to me to refer to a small arc of acircle, corresponding to one day, an arc which descends below the equator at the place of the sun’s descending node.

The remains of Osiris were said to have been enclosed by Isis “in a bull of wood,” z.e., a chest in the shape of a a bull (Dzod. i, 85).2 This seems to intimate that “the Bull of the West ” will float over the waters and come up in the East, the true place of Taurus.

Nevertheless, Osiris is Lord of the New-moon festival. He is Lord of the boat and barge.‘

Haliburton quotes the parallel of Adonis, who was enclosed in an ark for a year and a day.®

1} Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, i, 301.

2 Bryant, ii, 332. Lundy, Monumental Christianity, Pp. 307.

3 R. Brown, Dionystak Myth, ii, 239. 4 Records, ii, 132. 5 Festival of the Dead, p. 99. .

OSIRIS 239

The ark became a very sacred symbol. Maspero, describing Egyptian temples (Egyptian Archeology, p. 63), says: We will begin with the Sanctuary. This is a low, small, obscure rectangular chamber, inaccessible to all save Pharaoh and the priests. It habitually contained neither statue nor emblem, but only the sacred barque, or a tabernacle of painted wood, placed on a pedestal . . 1 We know from pictures that these Egyptian arks were often a combination of a boat and a box, and that the boat was often the one in which the soul was wafted to the Elysian Fields.*

I came to the conclusion that the ark was symbolical . . . . and that its symbolism must refer to the highest attributes of the Deity . . . . I pronounced the ark to be a symbolical coffin.?

At either end of the voyage is an equinoctial point, and consequently an Eye of the Sun. Accordingly we read in Wilkinson : The lotus was one of their favourite devices, as on their furniture, the ceilings of rooms, and other places, and it was very common on the blade of the rudder, where it was frequently repeated at both ends, together with the eye of Oserts. But the place considered peculiarly suited to the latter emblem was the bow of the boat; and the custom is still retained in some countries to the present day. In India and China it is very general ; and we even see the small barques that ply in the harbour of Malta bearing the eye on their bows, in the same manner as the boats of ancient Egypt. The Egyptians, however, appear to have confined it to boats used in the funeral ceremonies.’

THE YEAR RECONSTITUTED.—Long before Osiris had -circumnavigated the sphere, or the New Year’s Day gone all round the seasons, several things became evident. One was that the year of 364 days was too short, and must be lengthened by one more day at least: 13 lunar

1 William Simpson, Worship of Death, p. 19. 2 Jbid., p. 4. 3 Ancient Egyptians, ii, 127.

240 CREATION RECORDS.

months did not make a complete year, there was another day, a portion small but necessary to give vitality to the arrangement.

Typhon, hunting by moonlight, came upon the body of Osiris, and tore it into 14 pieces, the outrage being perpetrated when Osiris was 28 years of age. A day had been lost annually, so that in 28 years an inter- calary month was called for, making that year to consist of 14 months, while any ordinary year might be said to be composed of 13 months f/us one day = 14 parts, though one part was diminutive.

In the neighbourhood of the Great Sphinx was found a colossal Osiris composed of 28 pieces—as though they would say that the luni-solar year consisted of 28 half- lunations.’. So far did they carry their symbolism. Diodorus in one place makes the number of pieces to be 42; and that would be dividing each lunation into three parts.2 The 28, however, refers more likely to the years.

THE MISSING MEMBER.—Osiris is the Pelops of Egypt, whose body is cut into 14 pieces, and then reconstituted after some trouble about the missing part. Isis collected the scattered members of her husband, but there was one part which she could not find, and the missing part is stated to be the phallus. Typhon had thrown it into the Nile, and one of the three sacred fishes swallowed it. Akin to this is the tradition reported by Elian that the fish oxyrhynchus, translated to heaven, was born of the blood of Osiris. The members of the body of Osiris were fished out of the Nile by a net.3

Isis made a likeness of the phallus out of sycamore wood and brought the whole to Abydos for burial. Observe that the celestial city of Abydos would seem to have its position at the equinox, of which the sycamore tree—the tree of Neith is a symbol. Isis and her sister

1 Bonwick, Zeyptian ee P- 293. * Jbid., p. 178. 3 Jbid., p. 26.

OSTRIS., 241

now stood over the corpse (the dead luni-solar year) weeping, and chanting the songs of the dead. Such was the power of these tears and prayers that the wooden model (of the desiderated day) assumed vitality, and ultimately Osiris rose to life altogether (as a year of 365 days). Nevertheless we hear no more of him as king of Egypt (a year of 365 days is not established, or not established at this time). Osiris is known in future as the God of the Underworld and the Judge of the Dead.

In honour of the rod of sycamore wood which Isis made and consecrated—or of the missing member of Osiris, which had gone to feed the lepidotus, the phagrus and the oxyrhynchus—the Egyptians used to hold a festival. Maspero, speaking of the member devoured by the oxy- rhynchus, subjoins in a note,—this part of the legend was so thoroughly well known that by the time of the XIXth dynasty it suggested incidents in popular literature.” When Bata, the hero of the Zale of the Two Brothers, mutilated himself to avoid the suspicion of adultery, he cast his bleeding member into the water, and the oxyrhyn- chus devoured it.

The phallic element is not so important in our eyes as in the view of some ; but it has its place and must be treated in its degree. In mythology the phallus is a symbol which at first had nothing indelicate about it, although in the observance of religious rites it afterwards led to gross abuses. Writers are apt to assume that it was from the first regarded as a symbol of the mysterious reproductive power of Nature: but here in the Osiris myth it is not simply that, nor that exactly. It is, in our view, the additional day—the 365th—without which the new year cannot be brought into being.

In many places, says Plutarch, they exhibit a statue of Osiris in the human shape, erecting the phallus [or setting

1 Plutarch, Of /sts and Osiris, xviii. 2 Dawn of Civilisation, p. 196. R

242 CREATION RECORDS.

up the 365th day].’. At the feast of Pamylia, which was a phallic one, they carried about an image with the member three times the natural size.

’ Herodotus describing the festival says——They also use, instead of phalli, another invention, consisting of images a cubit high, pulled by strings, which the women carry round to the villages . . . . They give a religious reason for the peculiarities of the image.’

Here, in the mention of the cubit, we seem to see why this curious symbol was considered apt for its purpose. When the attempt is made to reconstruct the year, it is not a month that is missing, but a day, corresponding to 1° of the circle, and represented by a cubit. This symbolism of the cubit was shown in our chapter on Ptah and his sons. The sons of Ptah were themselves represented as phallic pygmies,® a fact which again connects the ,phallus with the cubit and therefore with the day.

The day which completes the year and holds the balance even between the two hemispheres, is naturally suggestive of the tongue of the balance which the Egyptians used for equipoising their scales. The phallus again exhibited such similarity to that pendant weight that the term tongue was naturally applied to it, as we see in the Scriptural record, of Joshua vii, 21, for the “ wedge of gold” which Achan was tempted to take is called in the Hebrew a “tongue” of gold, and is supposed to have been a phallus in form. Then how natural to pass from the tongue of the balance which showed the true weight, to the appended day which told the true length of the year; and from both of them to the truth-speaking tongue in the head of man. If the process was the reverse way, still the resemblance and connection would be the same. Thoth was the Timekeeper, and the added day was as the tongue of the balance for his office: “the tongue” of the balance

1 Of [sts and Osiris, li. 2 Herolotus, Book II, c. 84. 7 R. Brown, Lyonisiac Myth, i, 230 note.

OSTRIS. 243

of Thoth became the ideal of truth and exactness.!| The princes said to Pharaoh, “ The words of thy mouth are like the words of Harmachis, thy tongue is a balance, and thy lips are more exact than the little tongue on the balance of Thoth. . . . The god of taste is in thy mouth, the god of knowledge in thy heart, thy tongue is enthroned in the temple of truth, God is seated upon thy lips.”?

The Egyptian deities generally hold in the hand the Crux Ansata or Tau cross (or St. Anthony’s cross), which is regarded by all Egyptologists as the emblem of life, while the nature of the object and the reason of its symbolism are unknown, Is it not, with slight modifi- cation, a form of this tongue of the balance? It was symbolically laid on the lips of the mummy to revive it, or poured over the king at his mystical baptism.’ But the object which revived the body of Osiris was the phallus ; by which also Isis conceived without the aid of her husband.* Isis perceiving that she is pregnant ties an amulet round her neck; and, in the philosophy which Plutarch describes, this charm was interpreted as “A true voice.”

In the month Mesori they serve up pulse, repeating, “The Tongue is Fortune, the Tongue is a deity” ; and of all the plants growing in Egypt they say the Persea is the most sacred to the gods, because its fruit resembles a heart and its leaf a ¢ongue.®

As the tongue of the balance tells the true weight, so that which shows the true length of the year is the tongue or phallus of Osiris. It renews the year too, like the life- creating phallus of the Fire-god.’

Osiris revived is the year of 365 days; and if he is to be localised, his place will be the 365th day, where he is brought again into the society of Neith and of Ra, Yet in

1 See Erman, Life in Anctent Hey, iP 88. | 2 lbid., p. 71. 3 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary, ** Ankh

• Plutarch, of Js#s and Ostres, \xv. 5 Tbid., \xviii.

~~ bid, Ixviii. 1 Cf. Might of the Gods, p. 593.

R 2

244 CREATION RECORDS.

the story there seems to be something shadowy about Osiris after his resuscitation: he does not reign again ; but seems on the one hand to become merged in Ra, and on the other hand to descend into Hades to be the god of the dead. Is not the interpretation this—that the revived year is no longer a luni-solar year, but solar, like the year of Ra; and Osiris as god of the dead year is dead himself. Mummies were made in the form of Osiris.” Yet the so-called dead were alive in the Underworld ; and Osiris, who has so fully explored that world, may suitably have it for his kingdom. Henceforth he reigns as Judge of the Dead, holding his court in the Hall of Two Truths.

In one account Osiris, in the 365th year of his reign, came from Nubia to chase Typhon from Egypt,? a story which seems to mean that after making the circuit of the heavens, and sojourning in distant parts, he returns to the place whence he set out and combats the influence which threatened the integrity of the year. This is what the New Year’s Day would do if the year were just one day short of what it should be if 365 days were a full year; but that is not the fact, and the story seems only to be based O11 a paper comparison of 364 days with 365. Still, it tends to confirm our view that Osiris stands for the year of 364 days.

OSIRIS AND THE PHCNIX-BIRD.—The ark of Osiris was stopped by a palm-tree® ; and since the palm-tree is a symbol of the spring equinox, it is signified that the king who went forth on his travels has come home to the country from which he started. There is a picture which is designated, “ Osiris who encloses Tuat,’ and appears to set forth graphically that he has completed the circuit: it depicts Shu uplifting the sun-barque, while Neith, who reaches down to receive the orb, has her feet on a figure which forms a circle by touching its head with its feet.‘

1 Wilkinson. 2 Bonwick, Zegypizan Belief, p. 171. 3 Jbid., p. 165. 4 Wiedemann, Kel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 101.

OSIRIS. 245

We have seen before that an apt ernblem of a completed cycle of time is the bird of passage returning in its season. Then as the new year or the new age begins in the moment that its predecessor expires, it was said of the pheenix-bird that its dying day is its birthday, it is renewed from its own ashes.!

This was now the case with Osiris, and accordingly the Bennu-bird is his hieroglyphic, and signifies his resurrection? The Bennu was a species of heron; and we may take it with De Rouge as representing the return of Osiris to light.*

The place in which this resurrection occurs is called Annu or the city of Heliopolis ; and by our interpretation of the facts must be identified as the vernal equinox of the date now arrived at—292 years after the establishment of the year of 364 days (365 days divided by 14=292).

The Papyrus Ant, plate 7, shows a heron, of which the legend says, “I am that great Heron who is in Heliopolis, who is concerned with the arrangement of all that is, and all that arises”: and the gloss tells us that the heron is Osiris.*

Maspero says that the persistence with which the Bennu is associated with Heliopolis and the gods of that city shows that in this also we have a secondary form of Ra.5

Osiris, as the New Year’s Day which has been the circuit of the seasons, has come round to the place of Ra. Osiris as the resuscitated year is no longer the year of 364 days, but of 364+ 1—the missing member is added, the phallus, the tongue of the balance, the tongue of truth, which tells correct time. Inatext quoted by Brugsch the Bennu is said to have created itself. It was worshipped in two sanctuaries, and it was asserted that the thigh of Osiris was preserved

1 Lundy, Monumental Christianity, p. 421. 2 Bunsen, i, 516. Massey, Book of Leginnings, i, 109. 3 Bonwick, p. 236. 4 Book of Dead, chapter xvii. Comp. Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p- 259. Maspero, Dawzn of Civilisation, p. 88. $ Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 277.

ne ren ne eg en ——— Tee a

246 CREATION RECORDS.

in one of its sanctuaries and his phallus in another. In the text of Ani on which this is a comment, it is said, “ Who then is this? Osirisitis. Otherwise said: Ra is his name; or the phallus it is of Ra which uniteth with himself.”?

It seems to be plainly indicated that the addition of one day (a degree, a cubit, a phallus a cubit in length), has made the year of Osiris equal to the former year of Ra.

We remarked just now that the ark-voyage of Osiris terminated at a palm-tree._ The soul of Osiris is under a tree, says Wilkinson (Ancient Egyptians, 2nd Series, iii, 349). The word phcenix, besides meaning a Pheenician, and the purple-dye of the Phcenicians, means also the palm-tree of Phoenicia. The place of the symbolical palm was the vernal equinox ; but the tree of that equinox was also frequently said to be a tamarisk. In a picture taken from the tomb of Hou, the Bennu bird is seated on the branches of a tamarisk, and by him is written the words “ The soul of Osiris.” The Egyptian texts from the Book of the Dead, down to the latest times, assert that “ Ra is the soul of Osiris.”4

THE FUSION OF OSIRIS WITH RA.—The stories of the gods have been the more difficult to interpret because of their seeming contradictions ; and they must for ever have remained unintelligible without the astronomic clue and the calendar key. But if the allegory is what we take it to be, there is no inconsistency in representing that Osiris,. who was begotten pf Ra, at last merges his individuality in his father, so that they become one soul. When the year of 365 days is re-established it is at once the revival of Osiris and the recall of Ra. Ra enters upon a Second Sovereignty, and Osiris goes to the Shades: yet it is the dead Osiris who goes to the world of the dead, while the revived Osiris coalesces with the Lord of Light.

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p, 31. Comp. Bonwick, Zgyptian Belief, p. 192. 2 Comp. Plutarch, de Jséd., 21.

3 Gladstone, Juventus Mundi, p. 123.

• Renouf, in Zrans. Soc. Bib., viii, 2, 219. —

OSIRIS. 247

It could be foreseen, and must have admitted of easy prediction, that the year of 364 days would have to be abrogated. By carrying the New Year’s Day all round the seasons it was digging its own grave. We read in the Book of the Dead, “Osiris knoweth his day, and that it is in his lot that he should end his being and be no more” —a fateful sentence, upon which Renouf remarks, “ This is one of the most difficult passages in the Book of the Dead, but I do not see how it can be grammatically understood otherwise.”!

Another mysterious passage, with the later gloss upon it, seems also to receive its explanation here. In the Azz Papyrus, plate 7, two male lions are sitting back to back, with the rising sun between them, while over them ex- tends the sky. (In the Leyden papyrus of Kenna each lion has the sun-disk upon his head.) The lion on the right is called “ Yesterday,” the one on the left “To-morrow.” In chapter xvii it is said, “I am Yesterday, I know To- morrow.” After the word “To-morrow” the Turin copy has the comment of the scholiast, “Whatisthat? Yesters day is Osiris, To-morrow is Ra.”? The papyrus of Nebseni and all the subsequent texts give the same explanation.® Such passages might seem to justify the statement that “Osiris is the sun which set yesterday and has risen again as Ra:” but we must remember that they have only me authority of a gloss.‘

The picture of the two lions, which are yet the same sun, may date from the time when it was discovered that the rising sun is the same with that which set yesterday— that Khepera was the same as Tum. In a later stage ‘of things it could be adapted to set forth that Ra is the same as-Osiris. But that would be in the large sense that the solar year of Ra succeeds the luni-solar year of Osiris. If

1 Book of the Dead, chapter vii. : fie, DEE

2 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient eaehes p. 258. . son

3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch, ii, 8, 386. | | 4 Jbid., May, 1884, December, 188%, fx, & a: tag

248 CREATION RECORDS.

Osiris is yesterday, it is not as the day just past, but as the year of 364 days discarded: he is not the sun hidden for a few hours, but the superseded divinity merged in Ra and yet gone to the shades. The vignette of the two lions may be seen in the great hieroglyphic papyrus of Trinity College, Dublin; and the deceased is in adoration before them.! The coffin of Osiris follows the two lions; anda head which rises out of the coffin is stated to be the head of Ra. Could anything more plainly indicate that Ra is the resurrected Osiris? And of course it is Ra II, for the first sovereignty of Ra preceded the reign of Osiris. After the death and dismemberment of Osiris—the breaking up of the year of 13 months, the revived body of the year is not Osiris any longer, but Ra—the solar year again.

But of course this new revolution in the calendar is not accomplished without dust and heat, and “ garments rolled in blood.” In chapter xvii, Osiris, after declaring that he is Yesterday and the kinsman of To-morrow, goes on to say that “ascene of strife arose among the gods when I gave the command.”? On a later line the scholiast says, “There was conflict in the entire universe—in heaven and upon the earth—at the time of the defeat of the Children of Failure at Elephantine.” Comparing the Turin copy it appears that strife was made by Ra commanding that Osiris should be Lord of the Mount of the West. This we may interpret to mean that the entrance to Hades was to be‘his throne: in the upper world he was superseded, his calendar was abrogated ; and these changes were of a revolutionary nature.®

The experiment of a luni-solar year has failed, and it is resolved to return to things as they were before it was tried or to some modification of them. The coincidence of the revived year—(of 365 days)—with that which had

© Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 393 2 Jbid., xiv, 8, 377. 3 Wiedemann, Fel. of Anctent Egyptians, p- 258.

OSIRIS. 249

been formerly discarded—the intimate blending of the two divinities when the New Year’s Day came round to its old place—is shown in a passage of the Book of the Dead, which tells us that “ Osiris came to Tattu, and found the soul of Ra there: each embraced the other, and became as one in two souls.”! Plate 9 of the Anz Papyrus shows the souls of Osiris and Ra as two birds met between two tats. The text says, “I am this soul in twins”; and the gloss explains it as follows: It is Osiris who came to Tattu and found the soul of Ra. They united together and became the Souls in the bosom of the twin pair. In the words of the sacred text, “ Ra is the soul of Osiris, and Osiris is the soul of Ra.”

Renouf gives instances in which the names of Ra and Osiris are united in prayers addressed to one divinity.?

The words occur, “I am he whose soul resideth in a pair of gods.”$ ;

The place where this union took place seems to have been on the top of a staircase. Ani is stated to have “a portion with him who is upon the top of the steps.” The Nebseni Papyrus has the remark, “ Osiris, lord of Restau, is the being who is on the top of the steps.”"* “ Ha, Osiris, thou hast received thy sceptre, thy pedestal, and the flight of stairs beneath thee.”> We have seen reason, in a previous chapter, to place seven steps at each equinox—steps one degree or one cubit in height, occasioned by successive displacements of the pole, under the Ptah régime. Lockyer says, “that on a zodiac at Denderah we see Osiris repre- sented by the moon, and by an eye at the top of 14 steps, which symbolise the 14 days of the waning moon.® In that case Osiris would be the full moon, and the fitnesses we have found for a different interpretation would be accidental ;

1 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 113. 2 Trans. Soc. Bib, Arch., ix, 2, 283. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., ii, 379. * Budge, Book of the Lead, p. 274. 5 Book of the Dead, chapter cxxviii. 3

8 Nineteenth Century, July, 1892. -

250 CREATION RECORDS.

but if we are right in other things, then we should expect the steps to mark stages of precession.

_ Now Ra, as the Light to whom temples were oriented, had ‘“‘ Eyes ”—two especially, of rising and setting—and as he was an equinox god, the eyes would be in the East and West, and therefore at opposite ends of the same diameter. When Osiris is resuscitated with the 365th day added, and is brought right up to the equinox to coincide with Ra, his temple will be Ra’s temple, and the beam sent into it will be Ra’s “Eye.” Hence the Litany, chapter ii, says, ““O ‘Ra, place the royal Osiris in thy train . . . . . Osiris is powerful through thy two eyes.”? And it is said of Osiris the god, that “he is rich in Ka in Tattu,” the ka of the sun being, as we consider, his reflected image or “ eye.”

Osiris being merged in Ra, his own light is put out, his voice hushed, he becomes dead or as the dead. It is said in a Hymn to Ra, “ Osiris, the scribe Ani, is silent, and becometh the second of Ra.” (Book of the Dead, chapter CXXxXiv.)

OSIRIS AS GOD OF THE DEAD.—Although the luni-solar year is discredited, and the year of Ra is revived, Osiris is neither dead nor disgraced. He cannct rule the calendar, and reign in the place of Ra, but there is another throne for him. If he went down into the grave he is risen again ; and if he cannot rule the Upper World, he has discovered and explored the Lower. The Lower World is better known, and the Resurrection of the Dead becomes a firmer doctrine, from the time of the voyage of Osiris. Osiris is henceforward recognised as the God of the Underworld, called Amenta::he is Lord of Amenta, and Judge of the Dead who have descended into Hades.’

The figure of the god was drawn as that of a man, generally swathed in mummy wrappings to show that he was a god dead and buried: only the hands, grasping a

1 Records of Past, viii, 118. ? Ibid., new series, iv, 17, 3 Proc. Soc. Bib., 1892, p. 275. Bursen, i, 398.

OSIRIS. 251

sceptre, were left free, and the green face adorned with the long stiff beard which denoted the dead who had become as gods. His head-dress consists of the crown of Upper Egypt and the two feathers of Truth. He is the great mummy.’

It may be as well to remark that Upper Egypt is not the upper hemisphere ; geographically it is a southern land, and symbolically it is the Underworld.

In the passage of the sun through the 12 hours of the night, the 6th and 7th compartments of the Underworld were especially dedicated to Osiris.2 He establishes the truth in the double land.* He has right to command in the place of double justice. Seated on his throne he pro- nounces the final judgment, after the heart of the deceased has been weighed in the balances.6 His throne as judge has nine steps.’ -

May not these 9 steps be the 9 degrees by which the sun has been displaced by the precession movement—raised at one equinox and depressed at the other—namely, 7 corres- ponding to the 7 sons of Ptah, and 2 measuring the days of Ra before Osiris? As past positions of the sun they were £as, now as dead as mummies ; g in the west, but 18 if we count west and east ; and those in the west marking the entrance to Hades which has now become the realm of Osiris. The following passages seem to admit such a reading without violence :—

There is a group of nine gods frequently referred to.®

The Nine are spoken of as located in the west. Rameses III says concerning his father,—He set in his horizon like the nine gods. . . . He descended to his eternal house in the west of Thebes.®

1 ‘Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 217.

2 Records of the Fast, viii, 124. 3 Comp. Jbid., x, LIT.

4 Jbid., new series, iv, 19. 5 Records of the Fast, iv, 99- $ Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 382.

7 Dr. Birch, Rede Lecture, p. 84.

8 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 129.

®° Trans. Soc. Bib., vol.i, Part 2, p. 37_.

252 CREATION RECORDS.

We have seen that the sun’s image reflected in the sanctuary was a £a or double; and we read of “Tum who nourishes the doubles, first of the Divine Ennead, perfect ghost among the ghosts.”?

In the description of Ra’s passage through the Under- world we find, in the third division, behind the interior side of the passage of the porch, nine mummies leaning against the wall, one above another. Inside the fourth porch, nine mummies again (as also inside the fifth) ; and in one of the scenes is shown a long chapel in which rest, each in his own compartment, nine mummies, the gods, followers of Osiris, who are in their tombs.’

As the Greek gods, the children of Ouranos and Gaea, are 18 in number, so the Egyptian hieroglyph for the “two cycles of the gods” is 18 axes.®

1 Records of the Past, xvi, 18. 2 Ibid., X, 95, 100, 106. 3 See Budge, p. 43.

CHAPTER - XIX.

RA’S SECOND SOVEREIGNTY.

Four f/us one completes the number of “ additional” days, and is supposed to make the year accurate; a year of 365 days is recognised—There had been a Scene of Strife—The Solar Year now reverted to, still has the Solstice in Leo—Ra is ‘‘ lifted up ”—Anubis fixes the Seven—Ra and the Obelisk—Peril to the Eye of Ra. His final Retirement; or rather his Union with Horus—The Retirement of Ra synchronises with the Mythical Deluge. )

WE have seen that the Za¢—a pillar with four bars— is associated with Osiris, the god of the year of 364 days ; and also that the symbol for one day is a cubit. There is one instance of a Tat put on a pedestal which has a cubit, the symbol of truth, standing in front of it! This may be a way of saying that 364 must be supplemented by one in order to make the year accurate ; and it may be that the cubit became the symbol of truth on this account. |

At any rate a year of 365 days came to be recognised very early in Egyptian history, although the circle of 360° was not broken in order to take in the additional five. The legend in Plutarch says that Rhea’s children were to be born on days not belonging to any month or year. In the Harris Magic Papyrus they are called “these five gods « « « who are neither in heaven nor upon earth, and who are not lighted by the sun.”?_ The sun traverses the ecliptic ; and the ecliptic circle comprises only 360°, so that the 5 are not in it. The allusions to the Osirian legend met with in the Pyramid texts, prove that the days

1 Bonwick, Esyptian Belief, p. 212. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 147 note.

254 CREATION RECORDS.

were added long before the time when these inscriptions were cut.’. As the wording of the texts comes down from prehistoric times, Maspero thinks it likely that the inven- tion of the epagomenal days is anterior to the first Thinite and Memphite dynasties. A later recognition of them is found in the surcoats given by Amasis, one to the Lacedzemonians, and the other to the temple of Athena at Lindos; they were of linen embroidered with figures of animals in gold thread and purple, each thread consist- ing of 365 distinct filaments.’ | |

OSIRIS ABSORBED AND BURIED.—When Osiris had circumnavigated the sphere, he came round to the place of Ra and was absorbed. The Sun-god is said to be the owner of “the two twin souls” of Ra and Osiris.®

Ra said to Osiris, “Come thou hither!” and the coales- cence took place. It was equivalent to decease so far as Osiris was concerned ; the year of 364 days is defunct, and has to be buried. On the day of “ Come thou hither!” Anubis fixed the places of Seven Glorious Ones who followed after “the Coffined One”; and the coffined one is Osiris, as is plainly stated in the later scholia* The scholia add the information that the seven glorious ones are in the constellation of the Thigh. The Thigh constel- lation covers the seven conspicuous stars of the Great Bear; and it has been easy to fancy that these are “ the glorious ones”; but I take the reference to be to the seven superseded places of the Pole. They may seem to be remote from the path of Osiris; but then, as we have seen again and again, they had their counterparts on the ecliptic in seven superseded equinoctial points, associated, in their time with glorious sun images. Anubis fixed their places in the day when Osiris was merged in Ra; and of course their places on any chart required readjustment,

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 208 note.

2 Maspero, Lyyptian Archaeol, (4th ed.), p. 302.

3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 3,64. | * Renouf, Book of the Deal, p. 37. 5 Ritual, chapter xvii (Birch). Massey, Matural Genests, ii, 463.

RA’S SECOND SOVEREIGNTY. 255

as compared with their places when the Osirian régime began. | | ——

THE NEW SOLAR YEAR; SOLSTICE STILL IN LEO.— The readjustments all round occasioned a scene of strife among the gods. In chapter xvii the scholiast says, “Amenta is the scene of strife among the gods”; but elsewhere it is represented as _ being universal. The confusion was in the Calendar and the Chronology, and the places of the starry gods. To prove this again we may quote the opening lines of chapter clxxv of the Ritual, “ Hail, Thoth! What is it that hath happened unto the holy children of Nut [z.e, Osiris, Typhon and their sisters, offspring of Neith]? They have done battle ; they have upheld strife ; they have done evil, they have created the fiends; they have made slaughter, they have caused trouble . . . Grant that that which the god Tmu hath decreed (may be done). And thou regardest not evil, nor art thou provoked to anger when they bring their years to confusion, and throng in and push to disturb their months.”

This battle being over, it seems to have been resolved not only to revert to the solar year, but to make it begin at midsummer as of old. This is conceived of as the raising of the sun from his low equinoctial position to the height of Olympus. Ra resolves to be lifted up, not merely from the old equinox to the new, but to the solstice. He will then be more manifestly the Supreme ; and his seat, it is hoped, will be beyond the disturbing influences which beset the equi« noxes.?. Thesolstice is the place of one of the pillars of Shu; and there Ra is in his obelisk. Obelisks are sacred to Ra.®

PERIL TO THE EYE OF RA.—If the solstice can be depended upon as fixed—if Ra can continue stable in his place—the Eye of the Sun will remain single and sound, the reflected image of the sun will be full-formed in the

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 342. 2 Records of Past, vi, 105. Nat. Gen. ii, 260. 3 Cf. Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 406. Bunsen, i, 371.

256 CREATION RECORDS.

central spot over the sanctuary altar. At the equinox this does not appear to have been always the case, without occasional re-adjustment. In the Book of Hades, tenth division, in the third scene, there is represented a large sacred eye on a bracket, with the statement, “It is the Uta of Ra; this god unites it to him, and it rejoices in its place in the boat.” It was perhaps imagined that it was all owing to the erroneous length of the year, and would not occur again now that the Osirian 364 days was discarded in favour of 365, and the place of measurement changed to the solstice. But we may guess that there will soon be a recurrence of the difficulty, unless the reform is made more thorough by the recognition of the odd six hours. The year of 365 days and a guarter will be the year of Horus; and the following passage seems to tell of the inevitable retirement of Ra in favour of Horus.

In a legendary narrative it is represented that Ra has been bitten by a venomous serpent. He tells Isis, “I am trembling all over; my eye is without strength, I can no longer distinguish the sky ; the water rises up to my face as in the season of summer.” Isis was a sorceress, but she would not use her spells to relieve him till he had told her his name. When he had consented to do this, he disappeared during the process from the sight of all the gods, and his place in the solar barque of millions of years was vacant (literally wzede). But when Isis had accom- plished her purpose she uttered the words, “ Flow, venoms, flow! come forth out of Ra. Eye of Horus come out of the god, and shine forth out of his mouth.”

Yet Ra remains in honour just as much as Osiris does, while his rule is not transferred to the Shades, but seems to be blended with that of Horus. This may be because the ordinary year must of course continue to be only 365 days in length, and the year of Horus only makes itself felt

1 Records of the Past, xii, 5, 9. 2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1885, p. 167.

= oe a

RA’S SECOND SOVEREIGNTY. 257

as an intercalary. They were both solar years, and the one was only a modification of the other. After Osiris, Ra had been restored, and Horus was like another name for him. It was almost indifferent now whether one said that Horus reigned, or Ra.

The close of the second sovereignty of Ra (if we may call it the close) seems to have synchronised with a mythical Deluge. Hence the words of Ra’s speech, “ The water rises up to my face.”

The Deluge was the seeming irruption of the waters of the underworld abyss, on the eastern side, as the earth sank, relatively, through the precession movement. It went down to the extent of 7° before Ra’s first appearance ; and now it had gone down by several more.

CHAPTER XxX.

PYRAMIDS,

oS cg are Tombs, with Mastabas associated—Are also Oriented and _ have an Astronomical Purpose—Description of the Great Pyramid—lIts Latitude 30°—Pyramids all West of the Nile, a Sacred River—Arrtificial Mounts associated with the Equinox—Islands Fixed or ‘‘ Floating ” had Similar Significance—Measurement in Cubits seems to Set Forth the Year’s Length in Days—Their razson d’étre a Change of Worship—The Older Temples Closed—Bear Relation to a Mythical Deluge—The Sphinx

and the Pyramids.)

THE primary object of a pyramid has been to serve as the tomb and monument of the king who erected it. It is the equivalent in stone or brick of the tumulus of heaped earth which was piled over the body of the warrior chief in pre- historic times. The plan of the pyramid is that of a mastaba tomb, with chapel, passage, and sepulchral vault. The practice of erecting pyramids extended through thirteen or fourteen centuries; and more than seventy of them once existed, though the greater number have been destroyed almost to the foundation. Each of these monu- ments had its enclosing wall, its chapel, and its college of priests, who performed there for ages sacred rites in honour of the deceased prince, while its property in mortmain was administered by the “ priests of the double.””

The best known structure of this kind is the Great Pyramid, built by King Khufu (or Cheops) of the [Vth dynasty.2 It is situated on an artificially levelled plateau of limestone rock to the west of the site of Memphis (which is some 14 miles south of Cairo), at a place now known by

1 Maspero, Zgyptian Archeology, p. 131. .2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 386. * Cooper, Archaic Dictionary.

PYRAMIDS. 259 the name of Ghizeh. It contains several vaults and air passages, and a large funereal chamber, which was once pro- tected by a stone portcullis. In this chamber, it is sup- posed, the body of Khufu was interred in the massive sarcophagus which still remains there. There -are, po inscriptions or decorations used in the massive structure; but on the opening of one of the upper chambers, some years ago, the name of Khufu was found rudely painted on one of the walls in red ochre, thus confirming the concur- rent statements of Greek and Egyptian tradition as to the date of its erection. The external slope of the outer angles is about 51° 50’, and the area covered by its base is! one- seventh larger than the entire width of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, when measured from the walls of the houses. (Bonomi.) The total structure is formed of more than 200 steps, or layers of enormous blocks. When entire it was 480 feet high, nearly double the elevation of the towers of Notre Dame in Paris. A second chamber is situated almost exactly below the first, and a third at a great depth below, excavated in the rock and forming no part of the building. The orientation of this gigantic monument is perfect, .its four sides exactly facing the four cardinal points (Lenor- mant). The casing of outer surface of the pyramid -was finished by filling up the masonry with smaller stones of a rectangular form, and then smoothing from the apex, the masons hewing away the edges of each row of stones as they descended to the base. When finished the faces were perfectly smooth, and the .top inaccessible. Simple in shape, the pyramid was eternal in duration, and exhibited a perfect mathematical knowledge of the square and the triangle (Birch).

The statement of Herodotus, that I0 years were neces- sary to draw the stones from the quarries and to arrange the base and underground chambers of the pyramid of Khufu, is extremely probable.’ |

1 Brugsch, Legypt under Pharaohs, i, 75.

260 CREATION RECORDS.

THE ASTRONOMICAL REFERENCE OF THE PYRAMIDS. —The fact that the pyramids were first of all tombs, did not prevent their having also another object and serving another purpose. A cross on a modern tomb is not alone a memorial of the dead person, but a reference to his Christian belief and hopes. The Egyptian religion was based on the teachings of astronomy, and the pyramids were so built as to set forth symbolically some main articles of the creed. In Wilkinson’s note to Herodotus it is stated that they face the four cardinal points so exactly that the variation of the compass may be ascertained from them.! This accuracy can hardly be claimed for them all ; yet there was clearly an intention to give them such orien- tation, and in the mastabas of the tombs it is more. carefully done.” |

Mr. R. A. Proctor, in his latest work, declares that the pyramids, especially those of Ghizeh, are built by astronomers, for astronomers; and that every astronomer perceives it.’ Egyptologists may be right in contending that their chief purpose was to serve as tombs, and that they may have been temples as well, but in addition, they possess features as significant to an astronomer’s eye as the Great Meridian Circle at Greenwich.

We are told by Proclus that the priests observed from the summit of the pyramid when the structure terminated at the top ina platform. The arrangements for observing the heavenly bodies when passing across the meridian were effective in the extreme, and no astronomer can doubt their significance. The entrance to the Great Pyramid is the prolongation of a tunnel cut into the solid rock to a point below the pyramid’s base. This tunnel, Proctor says, bore on the pole-star of the period, the star Thuban (our @ Draconts), when on the meridian line below the pole, and

1 Herodotus, ii, 125.

• Maspero, Zgyptian Archeology, p. 133-8, and Dawn of Civilisation,

1- e

• Proctor, Old and New Astronomy, p 23. * Jbid., p. 24.

PYRAMIDS. 261

doubtless served for a perfect orientation of the building. Higher up within the structure begins the finest pre- telescopic transit instrument ever made, a grand gallery, bearing directly upon the meridian. It was about 156 feet long (four times the length of the great Rosse telescope), 28 feet high, and in its widest part 6 feet 10 inches wide— a magnificent transit tube, lined with the finest and most beautifully polished stone.

It would seem that the builders of the Great Pyramid were anxious to place it in latitude 30°, as closely as their means of observation permitted.1_ The pole of the heavens varies in position according to the latitude of the observer. At the north pole it is exactly overhead ; at the equator the poles are both on the horizon; and as the observer travels from the equator towards the north or south pole of the earth, the corresponding pole of the heavens rises higher and higher above the horizon. In latitude 30° north, or one-third of the way from the equator to the pole, the pole of the heavens is raised one-third of the way from the horizon to the point vertically overhead. The face of the Polar Clock would have a diameter of twice 30°, and con- sequently the stars which touched the northern horizon without dipping below it, would be the stars which had an altitude of 60° in their upper course. From these to the zenith would be another 30°. Thus, whether intentionally or not, the celestial measurements might be simplified, by building the observatory in latitude 30°.

PYRAMIDS WEST OF THE NILE.—While obelisks are all, or nearly all, on the east bank of the Nile, the pyramids are, with scarcely an exception, on the west. We can hardly doubt that there was some significance in this ; and when we remember that the cemeteries also were generally on the west we are naturally led to connect the two facts. Certainly as the pyramids were tombs we should expect to

1 Proctor, Afyths and Marvels of Astronomy, p. §7.

262 CREATION RECORDS.

-e

find them in the cemeteries ; but the cemeteries themselves aré wést of the river, because the western horizon is the “Gate of Hades.”

‘ PYRAMIDS ARE ARTIFICIAL MOUNTS, AND ASSOCIATED WITH ‘THE HORIZON.—The hieroglyph for the horizon is the disk of the sun between two hills. That a hill some- times ‘represented the place of sunset is shown on the sarcophagus of Seti I, where the entrance to the Under- world is marked by a mount reversed. Brugsch (Z.A. 1864, p.‘73, etc.) gives Bech as the name of the eastern hill of sunrise, and Manu as the name of the opposite height. In the inscription of Darius it is said that Amen-Ra confines the winds under the boat of Manu when he goes to’ the unknown regions of the morning.

In the Papyrus of Ant the picture of the Elysian Fields (Plate 35) shows a mount of seven steps, like the section of half a pyramid. The pyramid of Sakkarah—supposed to be the earliest—has seven ascending steps, and reminds us in that respect of the temple of Nebo at Borsippa. The pyramid itself is a hieroglyph of No. 7.”

We have seen reason in previous chapters to recognise seven steps at the equinoctial position, representing seven positions of the equinoctial point, at distances of one degree apart’ co-eval with the seven sons of Ptah. The stars of the ecliptic circle, ascending above the equator plane by seven degrees at the vernal equinox, those on the opposite side would descend to the same extent. The movement might just as truly be represented conversely as the sinking of the ground at the place of spring, and the rising of the ground at the place of autumn. When it is recorded that the god Shu stood on a mound in order to raise the sky, it would appear that this autumn-equinox elevation is referred to. It was a mount of seven steps. Affiong the many /aience amulets which are found in

1 Records of Past, viii, 133 and 138. 2 Massey, Natural Genests, ii, 205.

PYRAMIDS. 263

tombs there are two sorts which have reference to Shu‘ and one of them is “the little models of steps, typifying the steps upon which Shu rested the ! sky in Khemennu.” This we may | take to refer to the re-adjustment of the: Pole, at the close of the Ptah régime, when seven days of the Great Year had passed. The new equinoctial point of autumn would be seven degreés above the original.

In chapter xcviii of the Ritual, the | . speaker says, “I sail across the sky and Shu:standeth erect, and the achmzu stars are instantly active in raising the steps which lift the setting stars away from destruction.”

The presumption is strong that the pyramid symbolises the mount of seven steps, on which Shu took his stand to lift the heavens, at the commencement of the first sove- reignty of Ra. ,

On the other side of the heavens the seven steps would be steps of descent, though one could also conceive of. their use as a means. of rising out of the abyss into the Elysian Fields, at the place of sun-rising—like the sun himself. A pyramid of the Vth dynasty north of Abusir, was called the Sha da or Rising Soul pyramid.’

The summit of Mount Moriah at Jerusalem has tradi- tions attached to it: like those which belong to symbolic equinox mounts; and the cave in it is regarded as the mouth of Hades. On a visit in 1887, I saw under the Dome of the Mosque two columns. (which I regarded as equinox pillars) with seven or eight inches of space. between them, and some ironwork intervening. The: tradition related is much like one at Cairo, namely, that . people who passed through were safe for Paradise; but:

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxii. 2 Birch, History from Monuments, p. 47: 3 Quart. Statement of Pal. Explor. Fund, April, 1889.

264 CREATION RECORDS. some person of importance failed, and it was thought well to prevent more attempts.

Further to connect the pyramid with the equinoxes, Dr. E. B. Tylor says that “the day of the equinox can be taken by observing the sunset across the face of the pyramid; and the neighbouring Arabs still adjust their astronomical dates by its shadow.” ‘“ Between the autumn and the spring equinoxes the rays of the rising and the setting sun illuminated the southern face of the pyramid ; whereas during the other six months they illuminated the northern face.”?

Associated with these pyramids we find, on their eastern sides some distance away, and on a line passing through their centres at right angles to the meridian line, temples facing due west, the clearest possible indication, as Mr. Lockyer thinks, of equinoctial worship. At sunset at the equinox the sepulchral chamber and the sun were in line from the adytum.* Mr. Lockyer says further that the orientation of the Prussian surveyors (1844), shows beyond question that the pyramids of Ghizeh are just as true to the sun rising at the equinoxes as the temples at Abydos and Karnak were to the sun rising and setting at the solstices.*

ISLANDS AT THE QUARTER POINTS HAVE SIMILAR SIGNIFICANCE.—In that picture of the Elysian Fields in the Papyrus of Anz (Plate 35) the half-pyramid mount of seven steps stands in one place on an island, and in two other instances in boats. The boats may be regarded as floating islands ; or the island as a ship turned to stone and made a fixture. The reader will recall the floating islands of the Greeks, and the true island called the ship of Ulysses in the bay at Corfu; while the writer’s studies have led him long ago to attribute to the Greek floating

1 Tyler, Anthsopology, p. 21. 2 Proctor, A/yths and Marvels, p. 89. 3 Nature, May, 1893, p. 56.

• /bid., May, 1891, p. 58. Maspero, Lgyptian Archeology, p. 129.

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islands the meaning which he will now propose for the ‘Egyptian. The precession movement shifts the place of the equinoxes and solstices among the stars; but it is matter of doubt or choice whether the movement belongs to the four points or to the starry sphere. The starry sphere is otherwise an ocean, with waters above the firma- ment. The four points are islands. Do the waters sweep past the islands, or is it the islands that float and drift ?

Cofinecting Greek and Egyptian myths, we have the stories relating to the city of Buto—a city named after the heavenly place where Horus was nursed… As Bakhd and Mand (= “mountain of birth” and “ region of life”) were the most frequent expressions for the extreme east and west, so Nekhabit and Bato designated the south and the north. Buto, the north, was near the ponds of the Delta ; and it should be the earthly representative of the summer solstice. Herodotus describes a temple of Latona celebrated for its oracle ; and says it is in a great city called Buto, which contains also temples to Apollo and Diana.’ Close by the temple was a lake, in the middle of which was the island Chemmis, “and the natives declare that it floats” . . .-. It has a grand temple of Apollo built upon it . . . . Palmtrees grow on it in great abundance, and many other trees. (Latona is Leto the mother of Apollo, and Apollo was born on a floating island. The elder Horus was identified with Apollo.)’

At the present day the water of the Nile fills the central chamber of the Hawara pyramid and covers the sarco- phagus. Maspero suggests that this was perhaps foreseen, and that the builders counted on the infiltration as an additional obstacle to depredations from without.*’ He says further in a note: “Indeed it should be noted that in the Greco-Roman period the presence of water in a certain

1 Plutarch, of [sts and Osiris, xviii. . 2 Herodotus, ii, chapter 155. 3 Plutarch, of Js¢s, xii.

• Maspero, Dawzy of Civili:ation, p. 521. |

266 CREATION RECORDS.

number of the pyramids was a matter of common know- ledge ; and so frequently was it met with, that it was even supposed to exist in a pyramid into which water had never penetrated, viz., that of Khufu.” Herodotus relates that according to the testimony of the interpreters who acted as his guides, the waters of the Nile were carried to the sepulchral cavern of the Pharaoh by a subterranean channel and shut it in on all sides, like an island.!

May we not suspect a practice of placing the® body, symbolically, on an island—the island representing the place_of safety after the passage of the waters, the true equinox, and place of entrance into heaven? Concerning the temple of Bubastis, Herodotus says that, excepting the entrance, the whole forms an island.2 Two artificial channels from the Nile, one on either side of the temple, encompass the building, leaving only a narrow passage by which it is approached.

PYRAMID MEASUREMENTS SET FORTH THE LENGTH OF THE YEAR.—The fundamental theory of the pyramid- alists (Piazzi Smyth and his school) is that the sacred cubit was exactly the 20,000,000th part of the earth’s polar: diameter, and that the side of the base contained 3654 cubits, corresponding to the number of days in the tropical year. This requires that the length of the side should be 9,140 inches. The best recent measures, says Mr. Proctor, writing in 1880, gave respectively 9,110 inches and 9,130; and Piazzi Smyth exclaims against the unfair- ness of Sir H. James in taking the mean (9,120) as therefore probably the true length.» Two measures by Col. Howard Vyse and the French savants gave 9,168 and 9,163 inches. The pyramidalists consider 9,140 inches a fair mean from these four measurements.

But two things have here to be considered (1) that ihe

1 Herodotus, ii, 124, Compaie Bunsen, ii, 158; Bonwick, Pyramid Facts, p. 52; Murray’s Guide, p. 244. Py Herodotus, ii, 138. 8 Proctor, Myths and Marvels, p. 67.

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pyramid base is not now in a condition to be satisfactorily measured in inches ; (2) it is not certain that the sacred cubit bore any reference to the earth’s dimensions.

The British Ordnance Survey, under Wilson and Palmer, determined the base of the Great Pyramid with great precision at 760 feet. Brugsch says that this unquestionably represents 500 Egyptian cubits." But this is taking the cubit to be about 18 inches. A cubit symbolises a day, or a “day” of precession (= 72 years) ; and 72 x 500 = 36,000, which was one estimate of the length of the Great Year, though very erroneous. It seems tolerably well made out that the sacred cubit was about 25 inches in length, and that the line of the pyramid base contained 25 inches for every day in the year. The’ Ordnance Survey measure—760 feet—is as nearly as need be 365 cubits of 15 inches.? Mr. Proctor remarks that relations such as these are precisely what we might expect to find in buildings having an astrological significance.® We must not forget, however, that the base is broken, and there is some degree of uncertainty.

WHY THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT.—Brugsch tells us that the Great Pyramid, the sepulchral monument of King Khufu, bore the name of honour Khut, z.e., “the Lights,” and this word frequently appears as an addition to the royal name of Khufu! In the Proceedings of the Soczety of Biblical Archeology, Brugsch Pasha seeks to connect the pyramid and the god Khut with the zodiacal light.’ Gerald Massey had already written, “ The Eighth one, the manifestor of Seven, was also Har-Khuti, the Lord of Lights, the god whose sign is the pyramid figure of 7.”°

If the pyramid is thus closely associated with the Seven

1 Egypt under Pharaohs, appendix. 2 Proctor, Myths and Marvels, p- 69. For a different estimate of the Egyptian cubit see Quart. Statement of Pal. Explor. Fund, July, 1897. Myths and Marvels, p. 102. 4 Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 7 3. ® Proc. Soc. Bib, Arch., xv, §, 236, and March, 1893 ; also xv, 8, 6 Massey, Seven Souls of Man, p. 17.

268 CREATION RECORDS.

or rather with the Eighth who succeeded the Seven consistency would seem to demand that the first pyramid should have been built when the seven sons of Ptah were discarded, and the reign of Ra began with Thoth as Lord of Hermopolis, the city of the Eighth. In other words, its date should synchronise with the introduction of the solar year and equinoctial. reckoning. At least the reference © should be to that event even if the pile was not constructed till some time later.

At the era we refer to, Shu raised the heavens, standing on the mound or mount of seven steps. Shu is associated with Memphis—which was “the seat of the god Shu from the beginning of things”’—and Memphis is called in a papyrus “the land of the Pyramid.”

Lockyer argues that pyramids are associated with east and west and with equinoctial worship. Taking the maps of Lepsius, we find at Memphis, Sais, Bubastis and Tanis, east-and-west walls, which at once stamp these cities as differing in origin from Annu, Abydos and Thebes.® Associated with the cities with east-and-west walls—and with these pyramids—are temples facing due east, and fit therefore to receive the rays of the morning sun rising at an equinox.

The greatness of the change from solstitial worship to equinoctial, leads Lockyer to surmise the incoming of another race, such as the Chaldean. But why may not the Egyptians themselves have discarded one mode of reckon- ing for another? In our view they abandoned the Mid- summer Day method of shadows, because they discovered the solstice to be shifting among the stars, and because it was associated with the Polar Clock which had got dislocated. They discovered also that the starry heavens are a sphere, not a mere hemisphere, and that the vault of heaven does not rest upon the ground. The sun became a

1 Brugsch, Hist., ii, 420. 2 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 96. 3 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, pp. 333) 337-

PYRAMIDS. 269

heavenly body, and then naturally it claimed more regard than any mere star and demanded a reformation in the ritual. That the Egyptians themselves passed from the one mode of worship to the other is indicated in all the circumstances of the transition. When the Seven are forsaken, the new divinity 1s called the Eighth; and the continuity is never lost sight of.

THE CLOSING OF THE OLDER TEMPLES.—The change from solstitial reckoning to equinoctial required that new temples should be built, with east-and-west orientation, to receive the Sun’s image and exhibit his Eye. Of course the older buildings, oriented for the solstices, were as much superseded as the sons of Ptah themselves.

This may perhaps explain one of the difficulties of the most ancient history. ‘ When the pyramids were being built the temples of the gods were closed.”! This record has been regarded as proof of the impiety of Khufu and Khephren, the builders of the two great pyramids at Ghizeh ; but the idea is hardly consistent with their zeal in erecting structures which had, in part, a religious object. Is it not more likely that their work of reform, involving a reconstruction of the calendar and the closing of the old temples, was misunderstood by the populace ?

RELATION OF PYRAMIDS TO THE MYTHICAL DELUGE. —As with the Tower of Babel, the building of the pyra- mids follows quickly upon the Flood. The steps of the pyramid of Sakkhara seem to be a feature connecting it with the Borsippa “Tower of Babel,’ which is in seven stages. There had, no doubt, been occasional devastating floods in Mesopotamia, but the Deluge commemorated by the Temple of Nebo was mythical. The actual inunda- tions may have supplied the imagery and suggested the symbol; but the literal irruption of waters stands to the thing signified as the city of Hermopolis to the eighth cquinoctial point. The event which was to be set forth

1 Birch, History from Monuments, p. 39.

270 CREATION RECORDS.

may be thus explained :—-It was an early notion that the habitable earth was an island, surrounded by an ocean- river, and that the waters extended under the earth as a fathomless abyss. The precession movement, proceeding during the Ptah dynasty, had seemed to raise the earth, on one side, to the height of the mound or mount on which the god Shu stood to raise the sky, and plunged it to a corresponding depth in the waters on the other side. In Eabylonia, in the flat country subject to inundations, the cities are built on artificial mounds, and by the decay of their mud walls they raise the foundation higher still. Hence, perhaps, in mythology, to be raised above the cosmical abyss is to be a city ona mound. The mount of Shu was Hermopolis or Heracleopolis. Shu was the god of breath, and Massey finds reason for placing him at the spot where the Deluge ends.’

Tradition has connected the pyramids with a flood, whether literal or not. According to Arab tradition they were built in order to preserve the writings against the Deluge [against another deluge ?]. Murtadi, who wrote at Tehe, in 1584,says that the Mage Saiouph made his abode in a maritime pyramid along with Noah.?

THE SPHINX AND THE PYRAMIDS.—We saw just now that the Great Pyramid bore the name of Khut. The Sun was styled Harmakhuti, z.2, the Horus of the two moun- tains, referring to his coming forth from the mountain of the east in the morning, and retiring in the evening to the mountain of the west.’ And from the time of Champollion, Harmakhuti has been identified with the Harmachis of the Greeks—the great Sphinx. __

Mariette found in the temple of the Sphinx a diorite statue of Khephren, a king of the [Vth dynasty, the builder of the Second Pyramid of Ghizeh* But it is

1 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 200; Book of Beginnings, ii, 235.

2 Massey, Vatural Genesis, ii, 225, 226; and Bonwick, Pyramid Facts, p. 114. 3 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 100.

4 Jbid., p. 379-

PYRAMIDS. 271

believed that the Sphinx was already old in his time. Maspero and Mariette attribute it to the times before Menes, the first king of Egypt. In the days of Menes the hieroglyphic system of writing was in use, for his name in hieroglyphics has been found in his tomb,! but the temple of the Sphinx is bare of writing. Ancient tradition affirmed that the earliest Egyptian temples contained neither sculptured images, inscriptions, nor symbols.2. We must allow,. however, that the art of writing might exist without being used in the temple of the Sphinx.

The Sphinx is oriented due east, and Lockyer thinks it could only have been sculptured by a race with an equi- noctial cult.®

We are inclined to think that sphinxes originally sym- bolised the union of Tum and Chepera, the identity of the morning sun with that of the previous evening. They might be used for the purpose of indicating the place of sunrise ; and then, if oriented east-and-west, would point to sun-rise at the equinox. This orientation, therefore, would be an easy adaptation to the Pyramid cult; while the pyramids themselves would represent the. heavenly mount and commemorate the work of Shu.

But let it not be forgotten that the heavens were lifted twice. The scene of the labour was different, and two cities contended for the honour. Shu was first an Atlas and then a Heracles. The pyramids may have reference to two eras.

1 The Times newspaper, November 22, 1897. 2 Maspero, Egyptian Archeology, pp. 64, 89, 206. 3 Dawn of Astronomy, p. 337.

CHAPTER XXL.

PTAI] AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS.

(Ptah is pictured as a Mummy—Ark mysteries are connected with Ptah—He Opens up the Lower World, and becomes Artificer and Creator—There was a Ceremony of the Barque of Sekru, at the Winter Solstice—In these things Osiris and Ptah are united—The Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris’ ‘arrange- ment takes account of the Missing Day—Intercalary Months are Intro- duced, as the Sed Festival in the 30th Year, and the Pasht Festival in the 120th Year —The latter called also the Feast of the Tail—Pasht the Cat is to be distinguished from Sekhet the Lioness—is a Truth-Teller.)

THE Fire-god Ptah, although superseded, was not dis- graced: for notwithstanding that the axis of the universe had shifted, there was still an axis upon which everything turned. The polar clock, though found eccentric and unreliable for long periods, had still a pivot which seemed stationary from one year to another. Solstice shadows would continue in use through the force of custom ; and they had the advantage of indicating accurately the solar year. In addition, it was now proved by experience that Osiris could not keep time any better than Ra; and these were the only two experiments which had been tried since the days of Ptah. Whether for these reasons or for others more difficult to guess, we find in fact a cult of Ptah again. But it is Ptah in association with Osiris; and the meaning of that partnership we shall have to inquire into. | | DESCRIPTION OF PTAH-SOKHARIS, OR PTAH-SOKHAR- OsIRIS.—In the Hypostyle Hall of the Shrine of Anubis, “ Sokaris the great god, the lord of the sky,” is repre- sented under the form of a man with a hawk’s head!: and 1 Naville, Deir ef Bahari, Part ii, p. 11.

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. 273

this is the usual form. Sometimes he has two heads— man and hawk—on one pair of shoulders. The shrine of Osiris usually rests upon a base made in the shape of a cubit. This is a point of connection with Ptah, who, in the Great Harris Papyrus, is represented standing on a pedestal having the shape of a cubit. The pygmy figures of Ptah-Sokari are often found, and these recall to our minds the sons of Ptah, whom we found to be, for reasons of symbolism, one cubit in height. In G. W.’s note on Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Book III, chapter xxxvii, the illus- tration shows a dwarf Janus figure—human and bird— with feet directed opposite ways.

It is easy to show that Ptah is connected with the scarabzus, and Osiris with the hawk; and then that the bird and the beetle are united to set forth the close association of the two gods. Wilkinson tells us that the god Ptah was sometimes figured with the body of. a scarabzeus and the head and legs of his usual human form? Budge again says,“ A large number of /aience figures of this triune god are found in graves, and speci- mens exist in all museums. He 1s represented as a dwarf standing upon a crocodile, and having a scarabzeus upon his head.” Then, for the other part, Plutarch says, “ They frequently represent Osiris by the figure of a hawk, for that bird excels all others in acuteness of sight and swift- ness of flying.” Further, as connecting the two. “The pygmy figures of Ptah-Sokari are often found He usually had a scarabzeus on his head. He was also figured as a man with a hawk’s head (—he, the same god).”* Cooper, in his Archaic Dictionary, under Pthah, says, “On his head was generally figured a scarabzus ; he holds two serpents against his chest, and treads like Horus upon two crocodiles; sometimes also a hawk rests upon:

~ 1 Bunsen, Zegypt’s Place, i, 384. 2 Wilkinson, Ascrent Egyptians, abridged, b 255. 2 Bae, Book of the Dead, p. cviii. 4 Plutarch, of /s¢s avd Ostris, hi. 5 G. W.’s Note on Herodotus, iii, 37. P

T

274 - CREATION RECORDS.

each shoulder. In this form and with these attitudes Pthah was called Phtah-Sokari-Osiris. This was the representation of the god as he was adored at Memphis.” In his Axceent Egyptians, Wilkinson says, “ The scara- bzeus of the sun appears with the head of a man as well as a hawk.” Dr. A. Wiedemann, describing the Geo- graphical Papyrus of Tanis, says, “The quadrupeds are followed in the papyrus by the birds, in the middle of which appears the scarabzus, therefore looked upon as a bird. .The animal was adored at Mendes, where it will haye. been, as well as the ram, considered to be a mani- festation of Osiris, who appears as a scarabzeus also in texts, relating to Abydos and to Abalon near Philz.”!

. PTAH IS REPRESENTED AS A MUMMY, AND SO IS OsIRIS.—This suggests to us that Ptah as well as Osiris had visited the world of the dead. “One form of Ptah— that .in which he was venerated in Upper Egypt—repre- sented the god as an upright mummy, standing upon a. pedestal, and wearing a closely-fitting cap.” Osiris also wore a closely-fitting skull-cap.?

‘ We have to inquire in what way Ptah can be said to have visited the Shades—to have died and risen again like Osiris.. Renouf says that Sokaru signifies the coffined one, and Ptah Sokaru is only a form of Osiris.. But the coffin of. Osiris was an ark or chest, for the legend states that Typhon and his co-conspirators shut the lid of such an ark upon Osiris, and set it afloat on the Nile The sacred Nile as we have already shown, symbolised the ecliptic circle—the way of the solar barque—and the ark of Osiris circumnavigated the sphere because the year of 364 days was too short. The New Year’s Day, coming: at least a day too soon, went the round of the seasons ; and, the god was especially associated with the day.

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiii, 1,39. | | “ Cooper, Archatc Dictionary. Bunsen, i, 382. Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. tek. ® Renouf, Book of the Dead, i, note 21. _

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. 275

Meantime the true New Year’s Day was made to circu- late in the opposite direction, through the falsity of the calendar: and this day was the day of Ptah. Osiris and Ptah alike went round the heavens and through the Under- world, but in contrary directions. “Ptah is shown with his feet turned backward, as indicative of his retrograde movement.”? It is even said that Ptah made the ark in which Typhon enclosed Osiris. (Drummond, 96.)

Is it not with reference to his thus exploring the Shades, and revealing Hades, that Ptah is called “the Opener” ? Certainly it is represented that the mouth of the mummy is opened by Ptah, using an iron tool?: but to open up the Underworld would be more important. It is stated in the great Harris Papyrus (Plate 44, lines 4-6) that Ptah the Opener formed the abyss of the Underworld, so that the sun could pass through as a revivifier of the dead.® He is called the Living Lord of the Upper and Lower World, and seems to be regarded as the creator of what he has discovered. He “combines the sense of opening, or rather laying open, with that of artistic work.”®

Ptah was the image-maker of the gods, the divine artificer.®

On the walls of the temple of Isis at Philz it is said of the same god, that it is he who created all Being, who formed men and gods with his own hands.’ The gods might be said to be created by the revolutions, as seems to be indicated in chapter Ixiv, which from the rubric appears to relate to Sokari: “I am Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow, for I am born again and again. Mine is the unseen force which created the gods. I am the Lord of Resurrections who cometh forth from the dusk and: whose birth is from the House of Death, etc.”

1 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 648. _

2 Budge, Book of the Dead, pp. 264, 267, 306. |

3 see Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 59, 61.

• Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 231. 5 [bid., p. 178.

6 Book of Beginnings, li, 319. 7 Brugsch, Zeypl under Pharaohs, i i, 28.

T 2

276 CREATION RECORDS.

THE CEREMONY OF THE BARQUE OF SEKRU.’—At the festival of Sokaris at Memphis, the ark or barque of thc god was borne on a sledge in solemn procession round the temple and the walls of the city.? Details of the ceremony will be found in the plates of M. Mariette’s Adydos, i, plate 36,and following. The following is from Wilkinson, —At Medeenet Haboo is a remarkable instance of the ceremony of carrying the sacred boat of Ptah-Sokari- Osiris, which may represent the funeral of Osiris.‘ It is frequently introduced in the sculptures; and in one of the tombs of Thebes this solemnity occurs, which, though on asmaller scale than on the walls of Medeenet Haboo, offers some interesting peculiarities. First comes the boat, carried as usual by several priests, superintended by the pontiff, clad in a leopard skin ; after which two /zerophori, each bearing a long staff, surmounted by a hawk; then a man beating the tambourine, behind whom is a flower with the stalk bound round with ivy (or the periploca, which so much resembles it). These are followed by two /zerophori (or bearers of holy emblems), carrying each a staff with a jackal on the top, and another carrying a flower, behind whom is a priest turning round to offer incense to the emblem of Nofre-Atmu. The latter is placed horizontally on six columns, between each of which stands a human figure, with uplifted arms, either in the act of adoration, or aiding to support the sacred emblem; and behind it is an image of the king kneeling, the whole borne on the usual staves by several priests, attended by a pontiff in his leopard-skin dress.

_ The coffin of the god was supposed to rest in the barque ; and in that circumstance we see what is signified by the procession. It symbolises the ark voyage of Osiris round the sphere—the circulation of the New Year’s Day owing to the defective length of the year. We see, too, how

? See Rawlinson’s Herodotus, iii, 37. 2 Ani Papyrus, p. 11, note. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1892, p. 214. 4 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 214.

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. 277

fittingly Ptah is joined with Osiris in these ceremonies, since the two gods went the same journcy, at an equal pace, though in opposite directions.

CONNECTION WITH THE WINTER SOLSTICE.—In our chapter on Osiris we saw that although the rites of that god are naturally associated with the autumn and spring, there was also a certain fitness in celebrating them at the winter solstice, and an actual practice of the kind. Corre- spondingly we have Ptah-Sokaris festivals in the month Khoiakh (October) and in Phamenoth (January). The autumn solemnities extended over ten days, the 26th Khoiakh being the principal day of the whole festival, while on the 30th the pillar of Ded was erected. The Ded or Dad was a form of*the Tat cross, a pillar with four cross-bars, as it appears, or a stand with four shelves, as others take it, and regarded as an altar. We have found it to be associated with Osiris; and now we must recognise that it was also a special emblem of the god | Ptah, suspended round his neck, and the necks of his favourite animals.’

Erman found in a Theban tomb a description of this festival which was celebrated on the morning of the royal jubilee. The festivities begin with a sacrifice offered by the king to Osiris, the “Lord of Eternity’”—a mummied figure, wearing on his head the pillar Ded. The Pharaoh then repairs with his suite to the place where the “noble pillar” lies on the ground, and they draw it up with ropes. Six singers join in a song to celebrate the god, and four priests bring in the usual tables of offerings to place them before the pillar which is now erect.?

The Egyptians employed the Ded as a symbol for the backbone of Osiris, that part of .his body which was kept as a sacred relic in the city of Busiris in Lower Egypt.* The backbone gives stability and firmness ; and the setting

1 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 2 Erman, Life in Ancient Egy ht, 2. 279. 3 Wiedemann, A’el. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 289.

278 CREATION RECORDS.

up of the backbone of Osiris was one of the most important functions of the restoration of his body after its dismember-

ment.

In the Book of the Dead the Tat is con- stantly mentioned in connection with Osiris. Ptah-Osiris as “dweller in Amenti” is hatted with the four stages of the Tat, which are again surmounted by: the two-feathered sphere.! The god himself thus permutes with the pillar portion of the Tat which for Mr. O’Neill indicates a pillar-axis or an Atlas.

With reference to the winter festival of Ptah-Sokari-Osiris, Lockyer quotes from Krall an inscription common to Edfu and Esne, which is as follows :—‘“ Ist Phamenoth. ~

_ Festival of the suspension of the sky by Ptah by the side of the god Harschaf, the master of Heracleopolis Magna.” . . . “Under the Ist Phamenoth,’ Plutarch (De /stde et

Ostride, c. 436) notices “the entrance of Osiris into the

moon.” These are festivals connected with the celebration of the winter solstice and the filling of the Uza-eye on 1 the 30th Menchir [the day of the solstice].®

_ The Egyptians called the sun of the shortest day the

“little sun”; and there is a text which states—The sun is

great as Horus, the sun is little as Sokaris.*

“Sokaris” is “the coffined” one; and it is at the winter solstice that Osiris is deepest buried; or regarded as an ark-voyager, has got into deepest waters. This circum- navigation would not have taken place at all if the luni- solar year had been of accurate length; but it was only of 364 days instead of 365. The omitted day, the missing member of the year, was the missing member i Osiris ;

; O’Neill, Might of the Gods, i, 214. 2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 284. 3 See also Simpson, Praying-Wheel, p. 121.

• Wiedemann, Kel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 1 ae.

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. -279

and the Egyptian ark, according to Clement of Alexandria, contained only the phallus of Bacchus, that is of Osiris. Sometimes Ptah is represented as a phallic god.?. The embryonic Ptah of Memphis was a naked deformed dwarf, with twisted legs and swollen abdomen; usually standing priapus in hand, upon two crocodiles, having a scarabzus on his head.? .

THE THIRTY-YEAR FESTIVAL, CALLED Sep, AN INTERCALARY MONTH.—To reconcile Osiris with: Ptah, that missing day must be taken into account, and it would be an obvious device to insert an extra month every 30 years. Typhon had torn the body of Osiris into I. pieces. ce

That there was a thirty-year celebration, called ithe Sed festival, is evident in the inscriptions:. but ‘the Egyptologists have hardly known what to make of it. Erman says, “ The day of a king’s accession was kept as a yearly festival, and celebrated with special splendaur on the 30th anniversary. Naville in his Osorkon takes the same view ; and Brugsch also speaks of the thirty. years’ jubilee of Rameses II, But this can hardly have been all that is meant, and is more likely to have been a secondary celebration modelled on a great one, Qn an obelisk of Queen Hatshepsu’s, at Karnak, we read,—She has. cele- brated in honour of Amen the first Sed festival… Navilke is puzzled, because on no supposition can he make this celebration to have taken place later than the 16th year of her reign (not the 30th). Besides, we may remark that she holds the feast in honour of her gd, and not as vee own jubilee. . De Pe

Brugsch favours the hypothesis of a fesmneds German: Mr. Gensler, “that the cycle of .30 vague vears served to regulate, according to a fixed rule of numbers, the coinci,

1 Bonwick, Zgyptian Belief, p. 222, See eng a i, 383, rs , 3. Bonwick, 108. 4 Life in n Ancient Fnb» p.65. - yi) 5 Naville, Deir ef Bahari, Intro. Memoir, p. 19. 8s ce qu

280 CREATION RECORDS.

dent points of the solar and lunar years by means of a great period of 11 synodic months intercalated in the years O, 4, 7, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 26, 30 (= 0) of the cycle.” But the “Lord of the Thirty-year Festival” was Ptah ; and in Ptah’s day “the vague year” (of 365 days) was not yet introduced.

Our own suggestion is simpler and at the same time more adequate, for the periodical insertion of a 14th month would be easy, and a 30-day festival every 30th year would be an event to look forward to in every generation, while the kings would be very likely to mark their own 30th year by imitative celebrations.

The objection will be made that the arrangement would fail, through neglecting the odd six hours of every year; but it need not fail, if only it be supplemented. Every fourth Sed festival would require to be treated as a leap- year, and have two months intercalated instead of one, and then the arrangement would work as well as the Julian Calendar before Pope Gregory’s rectification. _The Egyptians actually had some festival recurring at intervals of 120 years, besides the Sed festival after 30 years.?

The Persians also had a cycle of 120 years ; and Renouf suggests that it was in order to gather up the annual fractions of 6 hours each, and make a month of them.’ They would not insert a day into any of their months, for fear of disturbing the order of their festivals, and of their lucky and unlucky days. They waited until they could intercalate an entire month, at the end of 120 years, and then the year was once more brought into harmony with the course of nature.*

[ shall now illustrate and support the contention that with the Egyptians a 14th month added to the 30th year ‘was the Sed festival, and a 15th month added to the 120th

at h, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 102, 402. | 2 Grifhth, in 7vans. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1892, p. 263. 3 Ibid., p. 264

• Comp. also Renowf, in: Proc, Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv,’ §.

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. 281

-year was the festival of Pasht. These arrangements would bring the year of Osiris into unison with the year of Ptah and Sekhet : and it will be seen that our argument explains both the likeness and the difference between Sekhet and Pasht. Osiris and Ptah are united in the celebrations of Ptah Sokaris ; and Pasht periodically supports Sekhet as a lesser Leo or Cat. That *Pasht is not Sekhet would appear from such a text as the following, in which they are discriminated. The reference is to Isis-Hathor :— “ Kindly is she as Pasht, terrible is she as Sekhet.”!

THE FESTIVAL OF THE TAIL—The Thirty-year ‘festival was regarded also as a subordinate section ot the Feast of the Tail. This seems to tell us that the Polar Clock is still in use, and that the tail of one of the Bears, serving as indicator, is somehow marking 30-year intervals.

In the 18th year of the reign of King Pepi (who was prok- ably the second monarch of the VIth dynasty), mention is «made of the renewal of //2b-se¢ or the first section of the Feast of the Tail. On the Rosetta Stane the term Hib-set in the Egyptian text, is represented-in.the Greek as “ period of 30 years.” If then a 30 years’ period is one section of ‘the Feast of the Tail, we may suspect that four such sections (120 years) will complete the cycle.

The diagram in Lockyer’s Dawn of Astronomy shows that the star in the extremity of the tail of Ursa Major was at its nearest to the (then) pole, about 4500 B.c.2 ~The snout of the Bear might in that case serve as indicator ; or perhaps the fore-paw. The calendar year being made to consist of 364 days, the clock-hand is displaced with reference to the calendar, at the rate of 14° annually— corresponding to 1} omitted days. This amounts to 150° (corresponding to 150 days, or 5 months) in the course.of 120 years. One month is intercalated in the years 30, 60 go, and two months in the year 120: the one-month

? ‘Wiedemann, el. of Ancient Egyptians, p. P. 38. Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 102. * Dawn of Astronomy, p. 127.

282 CREATION RECORDS.

holidays are Sed festivals, and the two-menths’ holiday is the festival of Pasht.

This arrangement is so simple and so useful that it takes hold as an institution, and lasts long. We have frequent mention of the Sed festival in the course of Egyptian history. 7

In the alabaster quarry of Hat-nub an inscription tells us that Amenemhat, son of Nehera, was sent in the thirtieth year of Usertesen I, on the day of the Sed festival, to get alabaster for the king.’

The grateful people of the desert region where Seti I had made a road and sunk a well, pray that he may cele- brate the 30-years’ festivals like Tum, and flourish like Horus of Apollinopolis. [Tum here, as the Sun in 1 the West, is identified with Osiris. |?

Ptah addresses Rameses II as Master of the 30-years, like Totunem (22. like Ptah himself).® Rameses, in his reply, says, “I have enlarged thy abode in Memphis . . , I have opened for thee a court on the north side, with a double staircase . . . Thy festival of 30 years is celebrated there as thou hast prescribed it to me thyself.”

See also Records of Past, viii, 4, for Rameses III; Naville’s Festeval Hall of Osorkon Il, p. 5,21; Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, i, 425, 437, 470. |

PASHT AND THE 120-YEARS’ FESTIVAL.—We are told that Ptah, Sekhet, and Pasht were the Memphite triad. Here Pasht would seem to be distinguished from Sekhet, who was the wife of Ptah. But in the British Museum ali the lion-headed or cat-headed figures which.a few years -ago were labelled “ Pasht” are now called Sekhet. : Mr. ‘F. G. Hilton Price, in describing some small. figures found at Tell-Basta, says, therefore, that “ Pasht” is found to be wrong. Yet apparently he himself notices.a difference, for

“1 W. Fraser in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xyi, 3, 80.’ Ra ee laa ok, at

• Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, vi, 31. ‘3 Records of the Past, xii, 85 and 90. oe’ + © Alsa Brugsch, ii, 87: 5 Records of the Past, vi, 137 note. re 6 ee sy

PTAH AND THE ARK; PTAH-SOKARIS. 283

he says, a few pages further on—in describing the figure of a cat, “Emblem of the goddcss Bast, and of Sekhet, but the latter is always represented lion-headed, whilst Bast has always the head of a cat.” Is no distinction to be made between the Cat and the Lion in mythology?

May not the Egyptians have treated the cat as a lesser lion, if ever there was any reason to represent a lesser lion in their symbolism? I think there was such a reason in setting forth the place and relation of the intercalary months. When the year began at the summer solstice and the solstice was in Leo, the first month of the year would be the Lion month. If the year consisted of 13 months, and a 14th were added in the 30th year, it would come after the 13th in the circle and be side by side with the 1st. It would be a second Leo (and would actually coincide in part with the Leo constellation), and yet would require to be distinguished from the first. Let it be the Cat, and call it Pasht. To connect her with the solstice, Pasht is represented with the sun’s disk, over a cat’s head or the head of a lioness.”

Two cats sitting back to back, and looking round towards each other, with an emblem of the goddess Hathor between them, seems to have been a favourite device on gold rings.® Possibly we have a reference to the same device, in the Negative Confession, where the asseveration occurs, “O thou who turnest backwards, who makest thine appearance in Bubastis, I am not an eavesdropper.”*

It is certainly very curious that when our argument has Jed us to accept Pasht as a Cat, and to identify her with the double festival of the 120th year, which crowns the four smaller ones, we should meet with the following illustrative item :—The Egyptian Exploration Fund, at its annual meeting (1894) decided to hand over to the British Museum a fine bronze from Bubastis, inscribed

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, i, 48, and 56. 2 Bunsen, iv, 399. 3 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 339.. 4 Book of the Dead, cxxv, part ii, 16.

284 CREATION RECORDS.

round the base, and representing the cat-headed goddess Bast and four kittens.’

These objects are found so plentifully at Bubastis be- cause Pasht or Bast was the goddess of Bubastis, and her temple was there. There is a considerable space in the mound of Tel Basta, which is nothing but a cemetery of cats—rectangular pits made of raw bricks, which are full of bones of these animals, among which some bronzes have been thrown, representing either cats or the god Nefer- Tum (called the son of Bast), a god with a human form wearing as head-dress a lotus flower, over which are two feathers? The cemetery of cats has been known for many years to the fellaheen, who dug it out entirely, and sup- plied the dealers in Cairo-with the bronze cats which fill their shops “. . . It is very likely,” says M. Naville, “that the holy cat of Bubastis was not the ordinary domestic cat, but some larger animal of the feline tribe, either the wild cat or a kind of lynx.”

M. Naville further says that the foundation of Bubastis carries us back to the beginning of the historical times of Egypt, and is contemporary with the pyramids, its oldest monuments. We’‘have unearthed the standard of Cheops, and the standard and name of Chephren, the constructors of the two great pyramids, who have both written their name in the temple of Bubastis. All this agrees well with our argument.

There. is still another kind of reference connecting Pasht with the moon and the correction of error; and thus with Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris and the device of intercalary months. The Cat of Bubastis was a symbol of the moon (or month).* Ovid calls the cat the sister of the moon, and says that -Pasht took the form of a cat to avoid Typhon. Mr. Hyde Clarke remarks that there are phenomena of periodicity in

1 Acad*my, 3rd November, 1894. 2 Naville, at Victoria Institute, July 5,. ate p. 24. 3 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 227.

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. 285 the cat, which are supposed to have given rise to its relationship with the moon. He thinks the probability is that it was the she-cat alone which was dedicated to Pasht, and not the he-cat or the cat in general. According to Plutarch a cat placed in a lustrum denoted the moon. It is a night animal, and its eyes glisten in the dark.

Typhon, above-mentioned, was the evil brother who murdered Osiris by putting him in the ark or coffer. He is the adverse power who obtains an advantage when the year is not accurate. Hunting by moonlight and finding the body of Osiris (the year of 13 lunar months) he tore it into 14 pieces. And even after that, the years would still be defective if Pasht did not give us a 15th month in the 120th year. Only by the device of that 15th month— that Pasht goddess, that Cat—is the power of Typhon evaded.

Mr. Hyde Clarke quotes a legend which says that two animals came out of the ark which never went into it, and those two animals were the hog and the cat. Noah passed his hand over the back of the /zon, it sneezed, and the cat came forth from its nostrils? Here again it is indicated that the Cat of the myths is a Leo minor. In- stead of Noah let us work with Osiris and 4zs ark, and instead of the Scriptural Flood, take the Deluge in Egypt. There was no cat before the Deluge, but there was a cat afterwards ; it originated in the ark: before the ark-voyage of Osiris there was no intercalary month, to be called Pasht, the Cat ; it arose out of that omitted day which was the ark of Osiris. It was also a supplementary Leo; as the Assyrians, besides their month Adar, periodically intercalated a 13th month and called it Ve-adar.

(The ecliptic circle has its changes reflected in the circle of the poles; and as a corollary to the birth of the Cat from Leo, there is the birth of a hog or a sow from the

1 Hyde Clarke, in 7rams. Soc. Bib. Arch., v, 1, 319. 2° Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vi; 1, 318.

286 CREATION RECORDS.

Hippopotamus. Accordingly the cat and the pig are coupled together in the legend.)

The escape from Typhon effected by Pasht, seems to be @therwise described in the following from chapter xvii of the Ritual, “I am the great Cat who frequenteth the Persea tree in Heliopolis, on the night of battle wherein is effected the defeat of the Sebau, and that day upon which the adversaries of the Inviolate god are exterminated.” Renouf says that the “Inviolate” is a name given to Osiris when restored after being dismembered.! Osiris, as the year, is only fully restored by the Pasht intercalary ; and it would seem that the defeat of the Sebau coincides with ‘the baffling of Typhon. a

As these legends about the Lion and the Cat are of some importance to our argument for intercalary months, we may be allowed to quote the Greek parallel, in which a lion fell out of the moon. The Greek Pelops, like the Egyptian Osiris, was cut into 14 pieces;‘and when the parts were gathered up in order to restore the body, one piece was missing.. Again, Oenomaus king of Pisa, possessing swift horses, proclaimed chariot races ‘and would have all suitors for the hand of his daughter contend with him. If they failed they were to be put to: death: and when Pelops presented himself he saw there the heads of his conquered predecessors, to the number of 13. The chariot of Oenomaus, however, was defective, and: Pelops contrived to win. the race, Oenomaus being upset and’ killed. Pelops is identified with Apis of Argos, king of the ‘Peloponnesus, and he-was the first. in-the. Peloponnese to build a temple to Hermes.?: In fact the new solar-year circle inaugurated by- Pelops, corresponding to the Ptah- Sokaris stage, or the restoration of Ra, is mythically called the’ Peloponnesus ; and the. earthly periinsula takes its name from the celestial region.. Hence: Pelops is said to

’ Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 47. Be ha See ate 2 Proc, Soc. Bib, Arch., 1887, p- 185, Pausanius, ‘Bohn’s Ed., i, 303.

PTAH AND THE ARK: PTAH-SOKARIS. 287

revive the Olympic Games—solar-chariot races—and yet not for his own credit, but in honour of Olympian. Zeus.. '

So many points of coincidence can hardly be accidental ; and then to crown all, a lion fell out of the moon into the Peloponnese, a recorded miracle which perplexed ‘Plutarch, but which is reasonable and instructive when read symboli- cally.!. Pelops, like Osiris, represents the Lunar year of 13 months; and out of that arrangement comes a 14th month, a supplementary Leo, an intercalary, which restores the true length of the year and causes it to coincide with the solar year—the year of Zeus or Ra. |

THE CAT A TRUTH-TELLER.—Because the intercalary month of Pasht makes the year true, the Cat is called a Sayer of great words in the Hall of the Two Truths:? :The speaker in chapter cxxv, in the Nebseni papyrus, says in. his own behalf, that he has heard the speech which the Ass. held with the Cat in the House of Hept-re . . . ‘and he has beheld the dividing of the peed: trees withim Re-stau.?

It may be that the 14th month (the Sed festival) was called the Cat, and the 15th month (the feast of Pasht, in the 120th year) the Great Cat ; and it may be that when it was conceived of in the heavens, or spaced in a diagram of the ecliptic, it was called the Pool of Persea. The sun in passing through the Pool of Persea becomes the Great Cat or leopard (Rztua/, chapter xvii, Birch).

We have also passages like the following :—‘“ The Great Cat is in the Persea tree in Heliopolis on the night of the battle when Sebau is defeated and the adversaries of the inviolate god are exterminated ” (Book of the Dead, chapter xvii). On this the ancient scholia say that he who frequenteth the Persea tree is he who regulateth the children of failure and that which they do.

1 Plutarch, On the Face in the Moon, xxiv.

2 Massey, Book of Beginnings, i, 322.

3 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 351. Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvii, 8, 274. + 4 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 379.

288 CREATION RECORDS.

It was in the shape of a Cat that Ra made the likeness of Seb, in his transformation when he was reborn in the Pool of Two Truths, the place of the beginning of years.!

It may have occurred to the reader that the purpose to be served by the Sed festival was already provided for by the “ Ibis” of Thoth; and again that the Sed and the Pasht feasts would both be unnecessary when the Vague Year (of 365 days) was in use, supplemented by the Sothic Cycle. It would be a just remark ; and I can only reply that different calendars may have been in use in different parts of Egypt at the same time. After the failure of the year of 364 days—the luni-solar year pure and simple—it was retained in use at Memphis, supple-. mented by the Sed and Pasht intercalaries. Simultaneously, at Heliopolis, a solar year of 365 days was adopted, supplemented by the device of the Sothic Cycle. The era of the first Sothic Cycle thus synchronises with the date of King Menes, the founder of Memphis and first king of Egypt.

1 Massey, Matural Genesis, ii, 339.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE Two SACRED BULLS.

(Mnevis and Apis, how distinguished—The Worship Ancient—Tombs cf the Mummied Bulls-—They represented Osiris (1) in the World of Darkness (2) Returned to Light—They lived 25 years, and bodied forth a Lunar Cycle—Osiris’ connection with the Week—Serapis and Pluto—Apis and the City of Memphis.)

IT was explained in the previous chapter that in the compound name Ptah-Sokaris, the word Sokaris signifies “the coffined one,” z.e., Osiris. Seker (Sokaris) is also said to be the name of the incarnation of Osiris in the Apis bull at Memphis.’

Two Sacred Bulls were kept,—a black one called the Mnevis at Heliopolis, the city of Ra; and a white one called the Apis, at Memphis the city of Ptah.2 Maspero remarks that the bulls of Ra and Ptah—the Mnevis and the Apis—are known to us from classic writers; and he goes on to name the writers.* He also figures a sculptor’s model from Tanis, now in the Ghizeh Museum, with marks copied from similar figures on stele of the Serapeum, and this model shows black and white of almost equal extent. |

But Mnevis is descrited by most writers as of a dark colour‘ ; and according to Eusebius (prep. ev. iii, 13) the animal was quite black.’ On the other hand, to Apis belonged all the clean oxen, chosen for sacrifice, the necessary requisite for which, according to Herodotus, was

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cviii. ° 2 Bell’s Pantheon. 3 Lawn of Civilisation, p. 119 note. 4G. W.’s note on Hero.totus, iii, 28. ° Prec. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiii, 1, 38.

U

290 CREATION RECORDS.

that they should be entirely free from black spots, or even a single black hair.1 It would be a simpler matter for consideration if one of the bulls were always black and the other always white: but this does not appear to have been SO.

This Apis, says Herodotus, is the calf of a cow which is never afterwards able to bear young? The Egyptians say that fire comes down from heaven upon the cow, which thereupon conceives Apis. The calf which is so-called has the following marks :—He is black, with a square spot of white upon his forehead, and on his back the figure of an eagle ; the hairs of his tail are double, and there is a beetle upon his tongue. We find, however, in images of the Apis found in bronze, that the spot on the forehead is triangular, and the bird: on the back is a vulture. A black bull with a white crescent or spot on his shoulder, is found in the tombs carrying a corpse; and this was a form of Apis in the character of Osiris as god of the dead.* Strabo describes Apis as having the forehead and some parts of the body of a white colour, the rest being black. On the whole we seem justified in regarding the Mnevis as a black bull, and the Apis as white in comparison.

THE WORSHIP WAS ANCIENT.—Perhaps we ought not to say that the bulls were worshipped, for the animals were only symbols ; but they were honoured, and the common people would very likely think more of the symbol than of the thing symbolised. —

Of the discovery of a new Apis, A®lian gives the follow- ing account :—As soon as a report is circulated that the Egyptian god has manifested himself certain of the sacred scribes, weil versed in the mystical marks, known to them by tradition, approach the spot where the divine cow has deposited her calf, and then (following the ancient

1 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 299. 2 Herodotus, iii, 28. 3 Comp. Wiedemann, Kel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 180. 4G. W.’s Note on Herodotus, iii, 28.

THE TWO SACRED BULLS. 291

ordonnance of Hermes) feed him with milk during four months, in a house facing the rising sun. When this period has passed, the sacred scribes and prophets resort to the dwelling of Apis, at the time of the new moon, and placing him in a boat prepared for the purpose, convey him to Memphis, where he has a canvenient and agreeable abode, with pleasure grounds, and ample space for wholesome exercise! Female companions of his own species are provided for him, the most beautiful that can be found, kept in apartments to which he has access when he wishes. He drinks out of a well or fountain of clear water, for it is not thought right to give him the water of the Nile, which is considered too fattening.

Renouf says that the worship of Apis is as old as the Pyramids ; and the devotion increased immeasurably in later times.?. Brugsch also testifies that the ritual of the holy bulls makes its official appearance under the 4th king of the first dynasty, and the Ist king of the second dynasty. (History of Egypt,i,59.)®> This is a good while before king Khufu, the Ist king of the fourth dynasty, who built the Great Pyramid ; and suggests (what we shall find to be confirmed) that Apis synchronises with Menes, the Ist king of Egypt.‘

TOMBS OF THE SACRED BULLS.—From whatever cause the death of Apis took place, the people performed a public lamentation, as if Osiris had died ; and this mourning lasted until the next Apis, his successor, had been found. They then commenced the rejoicings, which were celebrated with an enthusiasm equal to the grief exhibited during the previous mourning.

The burial place of the sacred bulls was discovered by Mariette, in 1851, close to the pyramids of Aboosir, near Memphis. Every visitor to Egypt goes to see these

1 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 293. 2 Hibbert Lecture, p. 287. 3 Quoted by A. Lang, A%yth, Ritual and Rel., ii, 94. 4 Comp. Bonwick, Lgyptian Belief, p. 232.

U 2

292 CREATION RECORDS.

tombs, and many wonder why the ancient Egyptians should have held the Apis in such reverence as to embalm it, and bury it in a granite coffin. Mariette found that some of the sarcophagi still contained the mummies of the bulls, and one of the tombs which he opened had been left absolutely undisturbed from the time that it had been closed after the interment of the Apis. The footprints of the last Egyptian who had left the chamber 3,000 years ago were still visible.’ Petrie refers to the strange fact that in three undisturbed Apis burials which Mariette discovered, there were only fragments of bone, and in one case a head, carefully embalmed with bitumen, and magnificent offerings of jewellery. He thinks the divine Apis was eaten as a sacred feast.®

Memoria! stones found in the Serapeum, indicate by their inscriptions with what honour the Apis was treated. “In the 20th year, the month Mesori, the 20th day, under the reign of King Psametak I, the Majesty of the living Apis departed to heaven. This god was carried in peace (to his burial) to the beautiful land of the West.”

BOTH BULLS REPRESENT OSIRIS.—It is admitted that both Apis and Mnevis represented Osiris, and were “ wor- shipped” as Gods throughout Egypt. But why were there two bulls, one dark and one light ; and honoured in cities which were not founded at the same date, nor stood for precisely the same form of worship? Our impression is that they represent Osiris in two aspects of his character, or rather in two successive phases of his history. And there were but two great phases of his history,—one when he was identified with the year of 364 days, and one when identified with 365. The former took him into the Nether- world, whose symbol is blackness; the latter’ saw his resurrection into light and his absorption into Ra the sun- god.

1 Wiedemann, p. 191. 2 Petrie, Zovftian Tales, ii, 81.

• Brugsch, Feypt under Pharaohs, ii, 285. *G. W.’s Note on Herodotus, iii, 28.

THE TWO SACRED BULLS. 293

Our general argument requires that Heliopolis should have been founded before Memphis ; and now we have a little bit of evidence that Mnevis antedates Apis.’ Ac- cording to Plutarch, Mnevis was dedicated to Osiris, and honoured with a reverence next to that paid to Apis, whose sire some suppose hint to be… We may interpret this by saying that the year of 364 days preceded, and gave birth to that of 365.

Osiris, in his newer phase, coalesces with Ra, and is scarcely distinguishable from Horus; accordingly “the Jair Horus, son of the d/ack Osiris, is a new incarnation of Osiris ” (Hislop’s Zwo Babylons). For the Egyptians relate that Typhon was red in complexion, Horus white, and that Osiris was black-skinned.2?- At the dismal rites com- memorating the disappearance of Osiris, the priests cover a gilt ox with a black veil of linen, and exhibit it in mourning for four days.

Black, denoting Hades, marked some figures: the black Osiris and black Isis were mysteries.®

Osiris was honoured in Mnevis; and yet there seemed a certain inconsistency in showing any reverence for a calen- dar year discarded for its inaccuracy. “Ona tablet found at Thebes is read a curse pronounced against Mnevis.”*

On the other hand the revived and risen Osiris is “ the soul of Ra,” and the two merge their being because each represents the truth. Plutarch calls the Apis the beautiful image of the soul of Osiris.’

THE APIS REPRESENTED ALSO A LUNAR CYCLE OF 25 YEARS.—Plutarch remarks that the number Five produces when squared the number of letters in the Egyptian alphabet, and also the number of years that Apis lived. As this would not always happen naturally—that the bull should die punctually when the time arrived, some

1 Of Ists and Osiris, xxxiii, 2 Piutarch, xxxiii. 3 Bonwick, Zerptian Belief, p. 151. 1 Jbid., p. 23}. 5 Of Isis and Osiris, xx, xx’x. 6 Jbid., \vi.

204 CREATION RECORDS.

little management was necessary to bring fact into accord with theory. The inscriptions in the Serapeum show that the bulls mostly lived from 17 to 20 years, though some- times longer. The sacred books prescribed that the Apis was not to live longer than 25 years ; and when the time was fulfilled, the priests led him to the fountain, and drowned him with ceremony.!

It was the theory, then, that was important; and the keeping of the Apis was a symbolical means of setting forth some truth. Remember that Apis represents Osiris ; and suppose a lunar cycle of 25 years, with recurring feasts, and then it will be seen that the visible embodiment of the cycle may be a useful reminder. The birthday of the Apis would be remembered, the growing age of the animal would be universally known, and the remaining years of the cycle could be deduced. It was much easier than any calculation of a Golden Number ; and the life of the Apis was as useful for reference as a standard yard-measure is useful. It was mainly for the benefit of the common people, and in accordance with the usual practice of in- structing them by symbol and drama—something which they could see. It was so far from being necessary for the priests that it would have miscarried if they had not drowned the Apis punctually, being better taught by their sacred books. Even as it was, they ‘seem to have been caught napping on one occasion, for one memorial stone in the Serapeum states that “the full life-time of this god amounted to 26 years.”

If we pay but a little attention to the character of the vague year, we are convinced in a short time that the same lunar phases returned after every 25th year.

The length of the lunar month is 29'5 306 days, and that of the lunar year is consequently 12 times as long, or

1 Pliny and Ammianus, quoted by Wilkinson. 2 Brugsch, Ligypt under Pharaohs, ii, 221, 223. 8 Zrans. Soc. Bib, Arch., iv, 2, 234. .

THE TWO SACRED BULLS. 295

354°373 days, the deficiency as compared with the Egyp- tian year being 10°627 days. From these figures it will be seen that the accumulated deficiencies of 25 years differ from 9 lunations by only 2 hours.’ In other words, after 25 years the moon has returned to nearly the same position, and its phases recur with so great exactness that a day’s error would only arise in three centuries.

Now 25 Egyptian (vague) years are equal to 309 lunar revolutions as determined by the most recent astronomers, with an excess of only 68 mznutes.2— Here then is a lunar cycle of astonishing accuracy. It does not deviate from the truth by more than a day in 500 years. And even of this error the Egyptians were possibly aware, and took means for its rectification.

To the same effect is Dr. Lauth of Munich, in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archeology (vol. iv, Part 2, p. 234); and Dr. E. Mahler, who read a paper at the Vienna Academy, and showed that the enthronement of the Apis always took place on the day of the full moon. (See Mature, July 12th, 1894.)

REFERENCE TO THE WEEK OF SEVEN Days.—The year of Osiris had the advantage that the number of its days was exactly divisible by 7; there are Just 52 weeks in 364 days.

The festival of Apis lasted 7 days, on: which occasion a large concourse of people assembled at Memphis. The priests then led the sacred bull in solemn procession, all people coming forward from their houses to welcome him as he passed ; and Pliny and Solinus affirm that children who smelt his breath were thought to be thereby gifted with the power of predicting future events.*

The same authors mention a superstitious belief in Memphis, that during the seven days of the feast no one

1 D. R. Fotheringham, in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xviii, 3:

2 Biblical Educator, i, 315.

3G. W.’s Notes on Herodotus, ii, 109 ; iii, 28. Wilkinson, abridged, i, 291.

296 CREATION RECORDS.

was in danger of being attacked by crocodiles, though bathing carelessly in the river! But it could no longer be done with impunity after the sixth hour of the eighth day ; the hostility of that animal to man was then observed invariably to return, as if permitted by the deity to resume its habits, On the supposition that the feast took place on the last seven days of the year, this superstition would seem to claim that six hours more should be included before the old year really passed away.

SERAPIS AND PLUTO.—Serapis is Osiris-Apis. Plutarch calls him Pluto. The colossus of Pluto being brought from Sinope to Alexandria, having Cerberus and the Serpent, was there pronounced to be Serapis.? This is because Osiris was finally recognised as Ruler of the world of the dead.

APIS AND MEMPHIS.—Memphis being the city of Ptah, Apis is of course connected with that god. “The Apis was called the second life of Ptah’’; “and incarnation of _ Ptah the creative deity.” This, we can hardly doubt, was because Osiris revived restores the year as it was in Ptah’s day. Then with the true year the lost wisdom is recovered, and with accurate measurement of the revolutions the power to predict. AZlian says that Apis inspires with a divine impulse boys who play round his stable, enabling them to pour forth predictions in perfect rhythm.®

Apis, or Hapi, the bull deity of Memphis, had his temple close to the temple of Vulcan (2.2 Ptah, the Fire-god). Strabo, xvii, p. 555.°

Herodotus has a bit of history, which bears much resemblance to myth, and between the lines of which we may read that the first king who united all Egypt under his rule, dwelt at Memphis and was contemporary with Apis. He tells of a priest of Vulcan, after whom the

1 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 295.

2 Bunsen, i, 432. Plutarch, of /szs, e¢c., »xviii. |

3 Renouf, Arbbert Lecture, p. 239. 4 Cecper, Archate Dicttonary. 5 G. W.’s Note on Herodotus, iii, 28. 6 Jbid., ii, 153.

THE TWO SACRED BULLS. 297

country was divided into 12 districts! [time of Ra I] whose kings ruled some time in perfect amity.2, They make a Labyrinth [which we may take to represent the Heavens of ‘12 houses, in two sets of six; of two hemispheres, half above and half below ground]. But 11 of these 12 kings are swallowed up by onc, who then builds the southern gateway of the temple of Vulcan in Memphis, and alse-a court for Apis.2 [Ptah as the god of the Iire-drill, with pivot at the Pole, originally commanded most attention by night; his worshippers would see him on his northern throne. But the year of Ptah-Osiris would have more direct reference to the sun of the summer solstice, seen in the south. Hence, perhaps, the tradition that the first king of all Egypt built the southern gateway of the temple of Ptah. Possibly, however, the reference is to the opening up of the nether hemisphere and the recognition of the south pole.]

1 Ferodctus, ii, 141. * Jotl., ii, 147. 3 Jbid., ii, 153.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CELESTIAL CITIES.

(Sesennu—Memphis—Heliopolis—Heracleopolis—Abydos—all on the Ecliptic. )

IN the chapter on SHU and TEFNUT it was sufficiently shown that certain cities, besides having a real existence in the land of Egypt, were conceived of mythically as having places in the ecliptic circle. Indeed, the heavenly places were the Houses of the Sun, and the earthly cities were only representative. In that chapter it was argued that Hermopolis, the City of Hermes or Thoth, and also styled the City of the Eight, represents the autumnal equinox of the era of Ra’s accession, when the Seven of Ptah were superseded. It will help us now if we try and locate the celestial Memphis, Heliopolis and Heracleopolis, and suggest a place for Abydos.

A few words first about Sesennu. “Sesennu ” reads6 + 2 and may be exactly the same as Hermopolis; but I suspect not, for the Egyptian name of Hermopolis Magna was Un, and the name of Hermopolis the Lower was Sah.” The dictionary says :—“Se-sen-nu, the Egyptian name of the town which was called by the Greeks, Hermopolis,” but we must ask, Why this name, in addition to the name Un?

On page 3 of the Magic Papyrus we have the address, “Hail to you, O Five Great Gods issuing from Sesoun, who not being in heaven, not being on earth, not existing

1 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 83 ; i, 265.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 299

Shu have been the morning light, Come to me!”? There is some obscurity in the lines as thus translated: yet the reference is plainly to the Five gods conceived by Neith, who were to be born, but not on any day of any month.? We have identified them with the five days which were added to the year of 360 days, but still stood outside the circle and were called “additional.” The 360° of the ecliptic circle were never converted into 365, to give them a place. How mysterious it sounded. “Not being in heaven, not being on earth.” They seemed to be “not existing”; and yet what influence they had!

“The conception of a Creative Council of five gods had so far prevailed at Hermopolis that from this fact the city had received in remote antiquity the name of the ‘ House of the Five’; its temple was called the ‘ Abode of the Five’ down to a late period in Egyptian history, and its prince, who was the hereditary priest of Thoth, reckoned as the first of official titles, that of ‘ Great One of the House of the Five’”

Our suggestion is that the 5° of the circle, “ not existing ” in the ecliptic, but which ought to have found a place between the 360th of one year and the first of the next, constituted Sesennu. Sesennu would then be distinguish- able in thought from Hermopolis, though marked at the same point on the chart. In the inscription of Darius (to Amen) we have mention of “the jackals hauling the boat in the hidden gap of the land of Sesen, and the Spirits of the West adoring thee” (Records of the Past, viii, 138). The “gap” may be what is required to complete the year—the interval to be filled up by the five additional days.

THE CELESTIAL MEMPHIS.—The seat of the worship of Ptah was Memphis, a city situated about 14 miles from the modern Cairo, in latitude 30°, and having the two great Pyrainids and the Sphinx close by. Herr Emil Brugsch-

1 Records of the Past, x, 142. 4 Plutarch, Of lsis and Osiris, xii.

300 CREATION RECORDS.

Bey, when Curator of the Ghizeh Museum, reported under date 18th May, 1893, that excavations were begun at Memphis in May, 1892, and among the objects found were two statues, representing the god Ptah standing, inscribed with dedications in the name of Rameses II]. They are about 12 feet high, and sculptured out of compact sand- stone. They were found in what appears to have been a small temple, to the north of the hut containing the rc- cumbent figure of Rameses."

Memphis, according to Thucydides (i, 104) consisted of three parts, the innermost of which was strcngly fortified, and was called the White Wall. It is called by the same name in the Stele of the Dream.? Pianchi-Mer-Amon, after capturing Memphis, made sacrifices to Father Ptah of the Southern Wall. There was probably some sym- bolism in the very structure.2 We have to find out, if we can, whether the reference is to Ptah, the Fire-god, with his throne at the Pole ; or to the same god, as kindling the fire of the sun at the solstice ; or to the combined divinities Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris.

A sacred name of Memphis was Ha-ka-Ptah— House of the Ka of Ptah—as we find in the Retual, chapter xxvi, and as remarked upon by Budge, in his Book of the Dead, pp. cvii and 308.4 The a is the double, the reflected self, and seems to rcquire a temple avenue for the production of the image. The temple would have to be oriented for the purpose ; and the aspect given to it, whether to the pole-star or the equinoctial sun, will be a guide to us. The city itself is called the Citadel of Sebak (the . Crocodile) and its great sacred staircase is spoken of.* Ptah himself is identified with the structure. Rameses III says to Ptah, “ Thou elevatest thy heart greatly in the citadel of Sebak, in thy great mysterious form of the

1 Egypt Explor. Fund, Archeological Refort, 1892- -3, p. 24. 2 Records of the Pa-t. iv, 84. Ibid., ii, 96. 4 Jbid., viii, 76, and note. 5 Jbid., viii, 8.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 301

southern wall’”!; and he is referred to, on the Obelisk of the Lateran as “him who is the Southern Rampart.”

The geographical Memphis had been named after a celestial Memphis, of which heavenly city it was no doubt made as representative as possible. It contained the earthly temple, or house of Ptah, as the astronomical Memphis was the heavenly place of his abode. Our first guess might be that it stood as the symbol of the Pole, or contained such a symbol as an object of reverence, to set forth visibly the conception of the Divine Power at the pivotal centre of the universe. We have seen in a previous chapter that when the Fire-god is spoken of, the reference is to the kindling of fire by the primitive fire-stick : and in further proof we may refer to Robert Brown’s paper in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, February, 1890 (p. 189). But the citadel of Memphis is the citadel of Sebak, and this Crocodile god is intimately connected with the seventh son of Ptah and the seventh position of the Pole. But not alone with the Pole, for we found that there was also a Crocodile of the West, and that divinity would have close relation with the setting sun of the same period. The sun, whether rising or setting, would be the fire which was produced by Ptah. But in the time of the seventh son, the Ptah régime was worn out and ready to vanish away. The new system will base itself on the equinoxes. A southern wall will be built on a line east and west, and at sunrise and sunset, at the season of the equinox, it will be illuminated on both sides, a white wall with no shadow. Is it possible that this is perhaps the meaning and the solution? Sekhet, the wife of Ptah, is called the Mistress of the Double White Palace (in the story of the Destruction of Mankind).

In favour of the equinoctial reference is the fact that “Ptah, Chief of the Southern Wall,” is also called “Lord,

1 Records of the Past, viii, 9, 14 note. 2 Lbid., iv, 16, and note.

302 CREATION RECORDS. vivifying the Two Lands,” otherwise “ Ptah, who is the South Wall, the Living Lord of the Two Countries.”!

Lockyer, using the maps of Lepsius, says,—We find at Memphis, Sais, etc., east and west walls, which at once stamp those cities as differing in origin from Annu, Abydos and Thebes, where the walls trend either north-east and south-west, or north-west and south-east.2- Associated with these cities having east-and-west walls, and with the pyra- mids, are temples facing due east, and fit therefore to receive the rays from a star on the equator, or rays of the morning sun rising at an equinox.

From autumn equinox to spring, the rising and setting sun illuminated the southern face of the pyramid, the other six months, the northern.? And there is also that remark of Biot’s that the equinoxes might be known by watching for the days when a wall running due east-and- west cast no shade at sunset and sunrise.‘

In strong support of all this we have the record that Memphis was founded by Menes, the first king of Egypt, who, according to Herodotus, also built the southern gate- way of the temple of Ptah.> Our studies have led us to the conclusion that the era of Menes synchronises with that of Osiris revived and with the soli-lunar year, which had reference to the equinoxes, and neither to the solstice nor the pole, though it had to be supplemented by intercalary months.

The celestial Memphis, then, should be coeval with the Ptah-Osiris arrangement, which again coincides with the era of the vague year.. There had been an Osirian year of 364 days, but it had to be abandoned. While it lasted, it was perhaps generally followed ; but from this point the road forked, and two cities at least went different ways.

1 Records of the Fast, vi, 23. Comp. viii, 15. 2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, pp. 333, 337- 3 Proctor, AZyths and Marvels of Astronomy, p. &9.

4 Lewis, Astronomy of Ancients, p. 16 note. 5 Herodotus, ii, 99. Josephus, Antzg., vili, 6, 2.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 303

The people of Heliopolis adapted their worship to a calendar year of 365 days, supplemented by the Sothic Cycle ; while at Memphis the year of 364 days was retained, and eked out by intercalary months devoted to Sed and to Pasht. The year at Memphis probably began at the autumnal equinox, yet the place of the celestial Memphis was not quite coincident with Hermopolis, because it was several centuries later, and precession had shifted the equinox by several degrees.

Yet there is one possible reminiscence of the earlier cult of Ptah, suggesting that the site of Memphis had been sacred to him from of old. Maspero says it appears that at the outset the site on which Memphis subsequently arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbihazi—the white wall—which was dependent on Heliopolis, and in which Ptah possessed a sanctuary. Afterwards the “white wall” was separated from the Heliopolitan principality to form a nome by itself. |

The new Memphis, recalling Hermopolis, was for that reason reminiscent of Shu, who, at that City of the Eight, lifted the sky the first time. The inscription of Piankhi says:—When his majesty had reached the city of Memphis, he sent it a summons to this effect: Shut not (your gates); fight not; thou seat of the god Shu from the beginning of all things !?

THE CELESTIAL CITY OF HELIOPOLIS.—There was, as we know, a city of Heliopolis in the Delta—the Biblical city of On, where Moses received his priestly education and learned all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But Renouf, in commenting on chapter xvii of the Ritual, remarks that “ Cher-abat and Heliopolis, like all the localities here men- tioned, are in heaven, not upon earth.”

Annu, the Heliopolis of the Greeks, and the capital of the 13th nome of Lower Egypt, was called the House of the

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 233. 2 Brugsch, Zgypt under Pharaohs, ii, 240.

304 CREATION RECORDS.

Sun (Ra); Hebrew, Beth-shemesh and On.! The Aradic is

Ain-shems, spring, or well, or eye of the sun. It was situ- ated about 24 miles N.E. of Memphis.

In the Litany of chapter xviii it is stated that the great circle of gods in Heliopolis is composed of Tmu, Shu and Tefnut: but others also are named (see Budge, xxvil). Tum was the head of the company and is said to have been the earliest, although as early as the time of the pyramid texts we find Ra united with Tum.®

The foundation of the great temple of Ra dates from the time of the XIIth dynasty (before 2500 B.C.), as is related in a poetically embellished description of the event written on leather and preserved at Berlin. This, however, remarks Wiedemann, was not the first sanctuary built in the city, for the same MS. mentions that on the occasion of the new foundation the great house of Tum in Heliopolis was enlarged.*

According to our reading of things the relation of Ra to Tum was the foliowing :—In the ancient days, before it was known that the rising sun was the same body that had previously set, the evening sun was called Tum, and the morning sun Khepera or sometimes Ra. As soon as it was recognised that the same sun which sets passes through the underworld (the waters of Nu) and reappears in the morning, Tum could claim to be the rising sun, and the only sun. The evening and the morning were the first day Accordingly it is said in chapter xvii of the Ritual, “I am the god Tum in rising; I am the only One. I came into existence in Nu. I am Ra who rose in the beginning.” Tum so entirely becomes Ra that the names seem interchangeable. The last clause of chapter cxv is: “I know the Powers of Heliovolis; they are Ra, Shu, and Tefnut.”5

1 See Budge, Boot of the Dead, p. xavii. ® Drummond, Zodtaes, p. 133. 3 Tudge, cx. ‘Wi 2derrann, Ke’. of Ancient Exyttians, p. 17. 5 Budge, Beok of the Dead, p. 281. :

CELESTIAL CITIES. 305

The place where Tum thus becomes Ra, is the celestial city of Heliopolis ; and the earthly city which represents it is naturally sacred to both forms of the divinity. A temple might be constructed with avenues directed op- posite ways (or at the proper angle) to receive the “eye of the sun” at his rising and at his setting. Pianchi the Ethiopian, ascended the steps to the great chamber “to behold Ra in the Hat Benben [House of the Obelisk]. There stood the prince alone . . . he beheld his father Ra in the sacred Hat Benben, the madet, barque of Ra, and the se&zz, barque of Tum.”!

We do not know all the contrivances there were in the temples for securing reflected images of the sun, by means of water or otherwise. The sacred spring of the god Ra (ain-shems), has lasted longer than his monuments. About 730 B.c., when King Pianchi arrived at Heliopolis on his triumphal march through Egypt, he washed his face, as he relates, in the pool of fresh water in which Ra was wont to lave his divine countenance. The Arabs still call it the spring of the sun.

Heliopolis, as the city of Tum who has become Ra, is of course at the place of sun-rising in the east. On the mention of Annu in chapter cxxv, Renouf says: “ Does this mean Heliopolis of Egypt? On referring to an im- portant text in Mariette’s Monuments Divers, Plate 46, it will be seen that Annu is the Eastern Solar Mountain, where the sun rises, and where he is saluted by the Powers of the East,” etc. Again, and as showing that the refer- ence is to the time of Tum and Khepera:—There cannot be a more striking illustration of “the Divine Babe who maketh his appearance in Annu,” than the picture I refer to ; the picture of the Babe lifted up into the upper world by two divinities speaks for itself. Of the birth of the sun as a Winged Scarab at the beginning of the first hour of the day, M. Maspero, in his description of the text, says :

1 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 21. ».¢

306 CREATION RECORDS.

“T] est salué a ton apparition par les huit . . . les esprits d’Orient, dieux du ciel, des terres, des pays é¢tran- gers, de la montagne d’horizon orientale qui est On.”

Our idea is that On was coeval with Hermopolis, and represented the vernal equinox of the first sovereignty of Ra—the era of the year of 360 days. It would in that case be considerably older than Memphis. The city of Heliopolis was accounted by its inhabitants to be older than any other city of Egypt (2Dzodorus, v, 56).! Accord- ing to Maspero and other high authorities, the temple of Annu or Heliopolis existed before the times of Mena and the pyramid builders. Before Mena, “On et les villes du Nord avaient en la part principale dans le developpement de la civilisation Egyptienne. Les priéres et les hymnes qui formérent plus tard le noyan des livres sacrés, avaient été réligés 4 An.”? The “ Grand Priest of Annu ” was also called the great Observer of Ra and Atmu” (ze, Tmu or Tum). The priest Padou-amen, whose mummy was found in 1891, bore these among his other titles.

It is important to ascertain, if we can, whether Annu stands for the rising sun of every day, or only for the equinox or solstice, and which of those. The first act of Tum was to create the god Shu and the goddess Tefnut ; and afterwards Seb the earth, and Nut the sky, came into being.* We have interpreted Shu to be the Atlas of the rectified heavens, the eighth position of the pole; and this makes Heliopolis to be contemporary with Hermopolis, but does not show us yet its definite place in the ecliptic circle. It does, however, occur to us, that if Hermopolis represents the autumn equinox, Heliopolis may perhaps stand for the spring equinox ; temples built for one equinox would answer equally well for the other, whereas an equinox and a solstice would not agree. We

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 137, note. 2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 326. 3 Jbid., p. -340. 4 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. xcviii.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 307

remark too that Shu, who lifted the sky, standing at Hermopolis, is closely associated with Heliopolis also as one of its chief gods. The expression “the two lands of An,” seems to accord better with two hemispheres viewed from the equator than two heaven vaults viewed from the solstices.’ The date we favour coincides with the first installation of Ra and the year of 12 months; and this may find some slight confirmation in the following fact :-— Kircher cites a passage from Artaphus, an Arabian author, and translates it thus: Fuit autem Heliopoli templum Solis, et in eo xii columnz significantes xii signa zodiaci, et elementorum arcana.”

There are, however, one or two facts which seem to militate against the equinoctial reference of Heliopolis, favouring on the contrary the solstitial; and these we must consider. In chapter cxxv of the Ritual, which contains the Negative Confession, the passage reads, “On the day when the eye is full in Annu, on the last day of Mechir . . . I am one who sees the fulness of the eye in Annu, let no harm come to me in this land, in the Hall of Righteousness.” The last day of Mechir, it must be confessed, brings us to the winter solstice. |

Lockyer also, following Maspero, not only makes the city of On to be older than the pyramids (as we also do), but to represent a solstitial worship.* He is able also to cite a curious fact in support of his view. - Although the temple of On has entirely disappeared, we may gather from the remains of the mounds that it lay in the line of the solstices—south-west and north-east.t One solitary obelisk now exists there, the north and south faces of which bear 13° north of west, and 13° south of east. In another place he makes it 14°.

1 Records of the Past, vi, 23. £ Drummond on Lodiacs, p. I 34 3 Nature, May, 1893. 4 Jbid., August, 1893. 5 Lockyer’s Dawn of Astronomy, p. 77.

x. 2

308 CREATION RECORDS.

We have no wish to dispute the facts, but we think we can show that they find a place consistently in our own theory. Ra reigned twice, and during his second sove- reignty the solstitial cult was brought into vogue. The existing mounds at Heliopolis mark the aspect of the second temple and not of the first. The first sovereignty of Ra followed immediately upon the abandonment of the cult of Ptah; the second began when Osiris finished his ark voyage. Formerly Ra had been at the equinox ; but on his restoration he said, “I will be lifted up’ & é., raised to the solstice).

In support of this explanation we must be aiiowed to quote one or two passages, First, the place in which the resurrection of Osiris occurs is called Annu. The day when Osiris triumphs is the day of the weighing of words in the house of the prince, which is in Heliopolis. (On this passage Renouf says, “House of the Prince,” is the name of the great Sanctuary at Heliopolis. It must be remembered, however, that many of the geographical localities named in the Book of the Dead, have their counterparts in the Egyptian heaven.)’ Osiris became one of the great gods of Heliopolis, along with Tum, Shu, Tefnut and others ; and festivals of Osiris were held in that city on the sixth and seventh days of the month.’ Time and experience had shown reason for departing from the original equinoctial cult of Tum-Ra. The luni-solar year of Osiris also started from the equinox and has failed. Let a solar year be tried again, but of 365 days instead of 360, and let it begin with the summer solstice.

We have also a clinching bit of evidence to show that Annu, the city of the sun, after Osiris comes to it, is to stand for a solar year of 365 days, supplemented by the Sothic Cycle. The story of the phoenix makes that

1 Budge, Bock of the Dead, chapter i. 2 Tbid., p. xxvii.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 3¢9

mythical bird renew its youth in the city of Heliopolis, where there was even a phoenix temple. On Cleopatra’s Needle—an obelisk originally. set up at Heliopolis, by Thothmes III—the name of the city of On and its phoenix temple (Ha-Bennu) are expressly mentioned. The Bennu bird of On had two feathers on the back of the head.2_ The Bennu is explained to mean Osiris, and the two feathers the two urzi crowns upon the head of his father Tum.? Further, in reference to the phcenix rising anew out of its ashes, chapter xvii of the Ritual says, “I am the great

god creating himself . . . I am the great phoenix which is in Annu”; and then comes what must be a gloss of the commentator:—‘ The Bennu is Osiris, who

is in Annu.”*

When Osiris, in completing his circumnavigation, came round to the place of Ra, and fused his being with Ra, it was of course in the city of the Sun-god at the place of the spring equinox. Although he had passed through the world of the dead, he arose again into life, and this entitled him to be called a phoenix. He revived, however, as a solar year, of 365 days—the year of Ka’s second sove- reignty—and this made Ra a phoenix also. It might be 500 years since Ra’s first accession, and this may possibly account for 500 years being sometimes assigned for the life of the phoenix. Different periods, however, were assigned, and one of them implicates Osiris with the Sothic Cycle. It is sufficient to take the following from Cooper.

“Phoenix. The Greek name of the mystical bird Bennu, the lapwing, or the soul of Osiris. It was the emblem alike of the soul and of the great solar astronomical cycle of 1,461 years, the recurrence of which formed a national epoch called the return ot the Phoenix.”

1 Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 401, 405. 2 King, By-Haths, p. 91. 3 Budge, By-Paths, p. 172. 4 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 191. 5 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary.

310 CREATION RECORDS.

This shows us that Osiris at Heliopolis was identified with the Vague Year, which began when the Nile rose, at the summer solstice, and was heralded by the heliacal rising of the Dog-star, for the length of the Sothic Cycle is 1,460 (or 1,461) years.

Osiris goes with Ra from the spring equinox to the summer solstice, although there he is, in a way, succeeded by his son Horus. It would only be consistent if other divinities of the spring equinox went with him, and Shu apparently does so. In the prayer of Pepi II occurs the following, “If the name of Shu,.the lord of the celestzal shrine in Annu flourisheth, then Pepi shall flourish. ‘ If the name of Tefnut, the lady of the terrestrial shrine in Annu endureth, etc.”! Howcomes it that the shrine of Shu is celestial if he has not been raised to the heavenly place of the solstice, leaving Tefnut on the earth-plane?

We conclude then that Heliopolis, a vernal equinox city coeval with Ra’s Ist sovereignty and the year of 360 days, continued a vernal equinox city not only during Ra’s first reign, but also all through the Osirian or luni-solar period when the length of the year was 364 days; for then also the equinoxes continued to be used. On this account, we may suppose, the black bull Mnevis was kept at Heliopolis, where it became sacred to Ra, although com- memorative of the underworld Osiris? It also came to be said that Apis was sacred to the moon and Mnevis to the sun.$

HERACLEOPOLIS.—The Egyptian city of Hunensuten or Sutenhenen was called by the Greeks Heracleopolis, which shows that they connected it with the labours of Heracles (Hercules), who on one occasion relieved Atlas of his task and held up the heavens for him. Egyptologists have identified the mounds of Ahnas, 73 miles south of Cairo,

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. xxviii. 2 Budge, By-Paths, p. 136. 3G. W.’s Note on Herodotus, iii, 28.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 311

with the Heracleopolis of Greek historians and geographers, and perhaps the Hanes of the Bible. :

It is not, however, with the geographical city that we have now to do. Renouf says that Heracleopolis was mythologically one of the places where the sun rises.?

We have seen that Shu is recorded to have raised the heavens, standing on a height at Hermopolis. But many late texts locate this raising of the firmament at Heracleo- polis.* The event was commemorated there by a solemnity called akh pet, which took place, according to Brugsch, on the first day of the month Phamenoth, which corresponds to the 16th of January, and might suggest to us the winter solstice.‘

It is the same claim in another form when it is asserted that the Sun-god Ra first appeared on the hill of Suten- -henen, bringing light and order into the world.’

In chapter xvii of the Ritual, where the speaker says, among other things, “I am Ra who rose in the beginning,” the Scholiast asks, “ Who then is this?” and replies, “It is Ra who rose for the first time in the city of Sutenhenen, crowned as a king in his rising.”® The pillars of Shu were not yet created when he was upon the high place of him who is in Khemennu.

The reconciliation of the two claims may probably be found in the fact that the heavens were raised twice, at epochs many years apart. The first work of the kind was at the era of Ra’s first accession. The place of the pole was rectified after 8° of precession had displaced it; and of course the equinoctial points were shifted to correspond. The 8th position of the autumnal equinoctial point was recognised as Hermopolis, and called the city of the eight. The “ points” had seemed to rise on that side of the earth,

1 Egypt Explor. Fund, Special Extra Report, 1890-1, p. I.

2 Renouf, Papyrus of Ant, p. 11, note.

3 Brugsch, quoted by Naville, Adzas, p. 8. 4 Naville’s Ahnas, p. 9.

5 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 25; and Brugsch, Dict. Géographigue, vol. i, p. 604. 6 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 281.

312 CREATION RECORDS.

eight steps higher on the ecliptic, making a mound for Shu to stand upon, as he lifted the goddess Neith from the body of Seb.

The second labour of the kind was a similar work of rectification, at the era of Ra’s abdication, and rendered necessary by precession change which had continued all the while that he had reigned. Simultaneously the year is made solar, to consist of 13 months, and the rule of Osiris is inaugurated. It is not Neith who is raised this time with the stars studding her body but Ra, and the stars are supported on the back of a celestial Cow. The god who accomplishes the work is Shu again, but the scene of the action is Heracleopolis—as in Greek story this second task of Atlas is performed by Heracles himself. Osiris was crowned at Heracleopolis.!

We do not know at what date Heracleopolis was founded; but, very anciently, it was one of the important cities of Egypt. Manetho says that the [Xth and Xth dynasties were Heracleopolitan.?

We are only required now to locate the celestial Hera- cleopolis. Our argument, our evidence, so far, would lead us to expect a new Hermopolis, the scene of the second work of Shu as the Egyptian Atlas. We are confirmed in this by finding that it appears to be the place of the Five who proceeded from the Egg of Seb. This is clear in the Look of the Dead, chapters lvi and lix, where the speaker says, “It is I who hold that great station which is in the heart of Heracleopolis. I watch over that Egg of the Great Cackler.” This place of the Five is Sesennu, which is so difficult to distinguish from Hermopolis itself.

An equinoctial position is also favoured by the fact that the city was built on an island and close to a river which was said to flow through the heart of the country. The chief islands of mythology appear to be the equinoctial points and solstices, and the chief river the ecliptic. The

1 Naville, Ahnas, p. 8. 2 Lbid., p. 1.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 313

two authorities on which we must chiefly rely, Strabo and Ptolemy, agree in stating that the zoe lay in a great island. The island of Heracleopolis was formed by a division in the river itself, and the city was built on the western stream. This stream was said to be pecoyetos.

Heracleopolis is also fixed at the autumn equinox by the circumstance that the gate of Hades is there. Naville says, “ The entrance through which the deceased went down into the lower world was supposed to be the southern door of Anaaref, the sanctuary where Osiris was buried ; and Anaaref is the spelling employed in the older texts for the sanctuary of Heracleopolis.”?

Anaaref (in the later text Anrudef) is also the name of a divinity, and the god to whom it applies is either a man standing, wearing the Azef head-dress and holding a sceptre, or more properly: Osiris in the form of a mummy, having in his hands the emblems of judgment.®

Yet the tutelary divinity of Heracleopolis, to whom the great temple of the city was dedicated, was a peculiar form of Osiris called Hershef. The Greeks transcribed it “Apoadys, a name which, according to Plutarch, means bravery. We remember that some connection existed between Osiris and Mars.

The equinoctial position is further indicated by the connection of Heracleopolis with the two hemispheres. In the Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, occurs this sentence, Shu has beaten the two earths in Sutenhenen.

The only puzzling thing is that Heracleopolis claims the Phoenix, the same as Heliopolis does ; and if the phoenix 1s Osiris revived, we might not expect to see him revived in two such different places.t Yet, why may it not be sor— the cycle of time begins again, as a solar year, at Heliopolis, with the summer solstice ; and begins at Memphis with the autumn equinox and as a luni-solar year. It may even be

A , Naville, Ahnas el Medineh, pp. 4, 5. 2 Jbid., pp. §, 9. 3 Jbid., p. 7. 4 Jbid., p. 9.

314 CREATION RECORDS.

that the people of Heracleopolis devised a third expedient, combining features of the other two, by beginning their year in the autumn and yet making it solar. In that case we shall find less difficulty in the following texts :—

“My purity is that of the Great Bennu in Sutenhenen, for 1 am the Nose of the Lord of Air (Shu) who giveth life to all mortals, on the day when the Eye is full in Annu, on the last day of Mechir.” (Book of the Dead, chapter cxxv, end of Part I.)}

According to the Book of the Dead, it was at Hera- cleopolis that the royal crown was given to Osiris on the day when he was ordained to the leadership of the gods, which is the day when the two earths were joined.2— Horus also was ordained to succeed his father on the day of the burial of Osiris, the beneficent soul which resides in Hunen- suten.

In the Hymn to Osiris, of the XVIIIth dynasty, the god is addressed as, “Thou Soul of Ra, thou very body of Ra, who restest in Sutenhenen.”? The union of Osiris with Ra, the solar god, carries us to Heliopolis; and there, also, we shall find reason to think Horus begins his reign: and yet Osiris, by the Memphite arrangement, may reside at Heracleopolis. We read that there were great rejoicings in Hunensuten and Anaaref when Horus inherited the throne of his father and became lord of the whole earth.

There can hardly be any doubt about the era intended. We shall adduce evidence to associate Horus closely with the 365th day, which was added to the Osirian year, to make the solar year. Osiris becomes merged in Ra, and in a sense, or for a moment, is acknowledged as lord of the solar year; but his place should rather be at Mem phis, in partnership with Ptah, and for Heliopolis he is hence- forth a Black Bull. It is Horus his son who reigns at

Heliopolis, and is acknowledged at Heracleopolis. ‘Se 1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xviii, 1, 15. 2 Naville, Ahnas, p. 8. 3 Records of the Past, iv, 99. i

‘ lj i

CELESTIAL CITIES. 315

when it is stated in the commentary on chapter xvii that he who was crowned at Sutenhenen is Osiris, a later scholiast says it is Horus who is appointed to rule! The first commentator mentions that the coronation was on the day of the union of earth with earth in the presence of Neb-e-tcher ; and the second explains that the mingling of earth with earth is in the coffin of Osiris, the soul that liveth in Suten-henen.

THE CELESTIAL ABYDOS.—There was a geographical Abydos, which was the chief seat of the Osiris worship in Upper Egypt, as was the town of Busiris in Lower Egypt. Osiris was said to have been born in Abydos, and here was supposed to be the head of the god, and his burial-place. Abydos was very much venerated, even in Greek times, by the pious pilgrims who were accustomed to visit the mysterious place of the tomb of Osiris. Dis- tinguished Egyptians from Pataros liked, after their decease, to be placed in the neighbourhood of the King of the West and of the Dead, so as to await their happy second birth in a pure beam of light.2 At Abydos also, on the 3rd of Phamenoth, the holy Seshun barque of Osiris was brought through the fields and placed on the lake, amid mysterious ceremonies. The festival of the water procession of the god was celebrated in the stillness of night.

Seeing that Osiris was a god, and never a man with a mortal body, we are led to look for some celestial city as the scene of his birth and burial. Remembering that his first connections were with the Bull—ey., Nephthys says, “OQ fructifying Bull, come to Anap, Beloved of the Adytum, come to Kha,”’’—and considering that his circular voyage brought him back to the same place, we are in- clined to look for Abydos in the constellation Taurus. Yet if by “the same place” we mean the vernal equinox,

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 290. 2 Brugssh, Zeypt under Pharaohs, i, 377. 3 Records of the Past, ii, 123.

316 CREATION RECORDS.

of course the equinox would have shiftcd, through pre- cession. A year of 364 days, instead of 3654, would have a cycle of 292 years, and the equinoctial point would have receded about 4°. The new Abydos would not be exactly wherc the old one was, and it ought to have a distinctive name. We are tempted to correlate this conclusion with the recorded fact that Abydos was formerly called Tini, which the Greeks converted into This or Thinis. It would seem that even geographically they were not quite the same, though some say that Tini was probably only one of the quarters of Abydos. But the fact that while at Abydos Osiris was worshipped, the god worshipped at Tini was Anhur, would suggest equally that the places were a little different and the gods very nearly alike. The Greeks and Romans identified Anhur with Mars ; and our own study of Greek mythology leads us to identify Mars with Aldebaran, in Taurus, the star which is called the Bull’s eye.

In support of the equinoctial position for Abydos we may claim the tradition that Isis made a likeness of the phallus of Osiris out of sycamore wood, and brought the whole body to Abydos for burial. The sycamore of Neith is the symbol of the equinox ; yet perhaps of one equinox as much as the other.

We confess to some perplexity, because the addition of the phallus rendered complete the body of the year, of 365 days; and when that was done Osiris was assigned his place as god of the dead. The entrance to Hades is at the place of the autumn equinox, and Osiris is addressed as living in the West, Lord of Abydos. That the temples at Abydos should be oriented for the solstices proves nothing. For at Heliopolis Osiris merged with Ra and became solstitial.

THE ABTU FIsH.—The Hymn to Osiris, in the Anz Papyrus, says,—Thou art crowned lord of Tattu and ruler

1 Records of the Last, iv, 103, 126.

CELESTIAL CITIES. 317

in Abtu. If it be the case that Abt is the Egyptian name of the lunar disk, and that Abtu was one of the mytho- logical fishes of the Egyptian mysteries, we may not be wrong in connecting the fish with the crescent-shaped ark of Osiris. The Abtu fish may be Osiris passing through the waters of the Underworld; and the egg of the fish (in the ark or womb) may be the omitted day, which is other- wise the phallus and results in renewed life. In chapter cli the Perfected Soul saith,—‘ I am a perfected soul in the holy egg of the Abtu fish. I am the great cat which dwelleth in the seat of right and truth wherein riseth the god Shu.”? The Great Cat is the intercalary month, made up at last by adding together the omitted days (see our chapter on Ptah and the Ark): the annual day-and-a- quarter was the seed which brought forth Pasht, and established right and truth. The place of the additional month, in the Circle, was at the end of the year, the place of the god Shu.

Finally to connect Abydos with the place of sunrise and the entrance into heaven, Osiris is stated to have posses- sion of Restau; and it is said in chapter cxix, “ Osiris raiseth thee up in thy power in Restau, and in thy might in Abydos.”® The staircase of the great god at Abydos is frequently mentioned on the funeral stele ; and plate 11, illustrating Renouf’s chapter xxii, shows nine stairs to the staircase, and a god on each.

1 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 352. 3 Jbid., chapter cxix.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ISIS AND NEPHTHYS.

§ 1. Isis.

(Isis, Sister of Osiris—Considered First as associated with the Osirian Year, and thus with East and West, with Taurus and Scorpio—Secondly as associated with the Vague Year and so with the Solstice, the Nile inunda- tion and the Dog-star—Hence she is a Goddess of Truth—The Per- plexity of her Confusion with Hathor.)

ACCORDING to Plutarch, Isis was a sister of Osiris, and she became his wife. As it was not infrequent for Egyptian kings to marry their sisters, and the religious teachers saw no objection to the practice, the analogy © would be readily applied to celestial beings. Brother and sister were two of the five children of Neith, born outside her covenant with Ra; and were otherwise part of the brood of the Egg of Seb. With less of allegory they are described as divinities of days added to the year, over and above the 360 dcknowledged by Ra during his first Sovereignty. Plutarch says that Osiris was born on the Ist day of the five, and Isis on the 4th. The inscription of Men-Khepera—of the line of the priest-kings—mentions the birthday feast of Isis as occurring on the 4th inter- calary day.! |

Isis is usually depicted in the form of a woman, witha head-dress in the shape of a seat, the hieroglyph for which forms her name. The animal sacred to her was

1 Brugsch, Egypt unas; Pharaohs, ii, 195.

ISIS AND NEPHTHYS. 319

the cow; hence she sometimes wears upon her head the horns of that animal, accompanied by plumes and feathers. She is, however, most commonly represented as a mother, suckling her child Horus ; and figures of her in this aspect, in bronze and /aience, exist in thousands.’

We expect, of course, to find Isis astronomically asso- ciated with Osiris, and therefore the subject of a varied and eventful history. It will be convenient to glance at her story in two successive phases of it—first as she appears during the Osirian or Luni-solar period ; and then in her accommodation to the Vague Year of Ra or Horus.

ISIS DURING THE OSIRIAN PERIOD.—We have satisfied ourselves that Osiris in his birth was associated with the constellation Taurus, and never ceased to be represented by a Bull. It is only consistent therefore that Isis, his sister and wife, should wear the horns of a cow.2 We made out that the vernal equinox was in Taurus in that distant age, and that the Goose constellation was close by, but that through the deficient calendar of 360 days, it got carried round to the autumn. Osiris was a traveller, and equally at home at both equinoxes. Isis went in search of him, and made acquaintance with the same places. The myths seem to connect her alike with the spring and the autumn. The allegorical festival of “the delivery of Isis” was cele- brated immediately after the vernal equinox, to com- memorate the beginning of harvest.* Isis, says Maspero, is the “ Lady of the Pyramid *: and Lockyer assures us that the temples at Ghizeh are just as truly oriented to the east and west as the pyramids themselves. We have either temples of Osiris pointing to the sunset at the equinox, or temples of Isis pointing to the sunrise at the equinox, but in either case built in relation to the pyramids.®

Of course when the vernal equinox was in Taurus, the

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxiv. Bell’s Pantheon.

2 Bunsen, Zgyft’s Place, i, 417. 3 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 53. 4 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, p. 306.

5 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 82.

320 CREATION RECORDS.

autumnal equinox was in Scorpio: and Plutarch, we remember, describing the murder of Osiris, says, “ These things were done on the 17th of Athyr, when the sun was passing through Scorpio.” Isis, in one aspect, is identified with the goddess Selk or Serq, and she then has upon her head a scorpion, the emblem of that goddess. Selk occasionally appears as a scorpion with a woman’s head surmounted by a disk and horns.}

Lockyer says, “It seems quite certain that the star symbolised as Isis in the pyramid worship was the star Antares (Serk) heralding the autumnal equinox.”? Antares is in Scorpio, and is opposite to Ares (z.e., to Aldebaran, in Taurus), which is the more to be observed when we remember the identification of Osiris with Ares. “About 3500 B.C., Antares rose heliacally at the autumn equinox

. . at that date its rising took place due east

In pyramid times Neith and Serk were both worshipped, and the goddesses under whose protection the Canopic vases were supposed to be—Isis, Nephthys, Neith and Serk, may have symbolised the two solstices and the two equinoxes.” This idea, however, would seem to require that we should put Isis and Nephthys at the solstices, an arrangement which we will consider presently.

At the place of the equinox in Scorpio or in that neigh- bourhood, we ought not to be surprised if we find seven scorpions, because in that place we have already seen seven Hathors, and there we have located Hermopolis, the city of the Eight, which followed after the Seven. When Isis fled into the swamps of the Delta after the murder of Osiris, “seven scorpions escorted her,” if we are to believe Plutarch ; and one of the scorpions stung the child of the mistress of the house of the women there. This child was perhaps the 365th day, which could not be nursed into life

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, pp. cxiv and cxxii. 2 Dawn of Astronomy, pp. 289, 308. 3 Erman, Life in Anctent Egypt, p. 270.

ISIS AND NEPHTHYS. 321 under the arrangement which was adopted at Memphis, where it was decided to persevere with the year of 364 days, and supplement it by intercalary months. Horus, who was born there—in the swamps—was also stung, but Thoth restored him. Horus was the quarter-of-a-day, and Thoth gave him life and place in the solar year, simul- taneously adopted at Heliopolis—and the summer solstice.

ISIS AND THE SECOND REIGN OF RA.—It is repre- sented by Plutarch that Isis was instrumental in reconsti- tuting the body of Osiris, by substituting the missing member. We have identified this missing member, the phallus, with the omitted day; and we understand that the assistance of Isis was required in the establishment of the Vague Ycar at Heliopolis—the year of 365 days. This day—called Aroeris, or the Elder Horus—was in a sense her brother, being one of the Five of the brood of Seb; but she was also the mother of Horus the quarter-of- a-day, necessary to the complete solar year. The new solar year will begin at the summer solstice, when the Nile rises, and will be heralded by the heliacal rising of the Dog-star Sirius. Isis in this system becomes Sirius or Sothis,

In one aspect she is united to the star Sothis, and then a star is added to her crown.

Isis declares upon her monuments, “ I am in the constella- tion of the Dog.”? This was one of her most celebrated sayings. The spirit of Isis was said to be in Sirius; and Isis-Sothis was a deity often invoked.? The Greeks called the Dog-star the soul of Isis; and it was sacred to her.‘ The star in the Dog’s head is still called Isis. Sirius is the water-carrier of Isis. Those initiated into the mysteries of Isis wore, in the public processions, masks representing heads of dogs.®

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. cxiv. ? Bonwick, Zegyptian Belief, p. 146. 3 Jbid., p. 313. + Plutarch, Of /s/s, ete., xxii. ° Plutarch, xxxviii. 8 The Serpent in Myth, p. 27.

y

322 CREATION RECORDS. Entirely accordant with these statements are Lockyer’s recent conclusions, as given in Nature, February, 1892, and in the Wzneteenth Century, July, 1892. Lockyer says, “The Isis temples of Denderah were certainly oriented to Sirius; and in the inscriptions there we find the star Sirius represented by a cow in a boat. The other fact, that New Year’s Day in the Nile Valley was deter- mined for thousands of years by the heliacal rising of that star, is among the most familiar in the domain of Egyptology.”

The Dog-star, which heralded New Vers Day— Mid- summer Day-also gave warning of the Inundation ; and hence the following pretty poetic legend. Pausdnius tells us that the Egyptians spoke of the Nile, at the beginning of the inundation, as being swollen by the tears of Isis for Osiris? This is unquestionably a genuinc Egyptian tradition. Isis and Nephthys are called “the weepers” in the Book of the Dead, and there are numerous texts in which the rise of the Nile is ascribed either to Isis by name, or to a goddess like Sothis, who is identical with Isis.’ And it is a most interesting fact that, down to the present day, both Christians and Moslems in Egypt hold that on the 11th of the Coptic month of Banneh, a miraculous drop falls into the Nile and causes it to rise. This night is called “ Night of the Drop.” (See Lane, Modern Egyptians, ii, p. 255.)

As usual with divinities who mark the beginning of the year, the renewal of life is attributed to this goddess; and since the year is supposed to be of true length at last, she speaks the true word with all authority. In the Hymn to Osiris, on the stele of Amenemhait, “clearness of utter- ance” is attributed to Isis; she is “ most potent of tongue and unfailing of speech”; and one of her chief names is “Mighty in Words of Power.” Wisdom is ascribed

\ 1 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 304. 2 Pausanius, x, 32. 3 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiii, 1, 9. * Renonf, on chapter cxxv.

ISTS AND NEPHTHYS. 323

to her and her word gives life to those who no longer breathe.! .

The rising of the Nile took place on the Ist of the month Thoth ; and with the Egyptians, says Plutarch, the symbol of Hermes (Thoth) was a Dog. Many have made out that Isis was the daughter of Hermes, others of Prometheus. At Hermopolis, which was the city of Hermes, the fore- most Muse was called Isis.?

IsIS RESEMBLES HATHOR.—Isis agrees in so many particulars with Hathor that she is frequently said to be the same goddess under another name. Isis was the mother of Horus, and Hat-hor is by her name the House of Horus.® MHat-hor’s coiffure was a naos enclosing Horus. The cow was sacred to both.‘

Lockyer says, “We have it on the authority of Plutarch that Isis is Maut, and is Hathor” ;° and this is sufficiently clear from the symbols of these goddesses without his authority. At Denderah, in the temple of Hathor, one inscription begins, Elle est la Sothis de Denderah. (Mariette’s Denderah, vol. i, p. 156.)®

Yet Mariette points out that the temple of Isis at Denderah is not oriented the same as the temple of Hathor, but at right angles to it. It is called in the in- scriptions “the place of the birth of Isis”; its portal is turned to the east, and the sun shines on its portal when it rises to illuminate the world. (Mariette, i, 263.)

The facts would seem to indicate a close connection without actual identity. |

One of the most ordinary forms of Hathor is a hippo- potamus. Hathor takes us back to the days of the seven sons of Ptah, when the Pole was shifting gradually through the constellation Draco. In Nature for February, 1892,

1 Turin Papyrus, quoted by Erman, Lzfe in Egypt, p. 265.

2 Plutarch, Of Js¢s and Ostris, iii, xi, xil, xxi.

3 See Bunsen, i, 419, 434. Budge. R. Brown, Dionysiack Myth, p. 198.

• Bonwick, Zeyptian Belsef, pp. 111, 227. Nature, Feb. 1892. 6 Lockyer, Dawn of Astron., p. 211,

M2

324 CREATION RECORDS.

Lockyer endeavours to show that Hathor at Denderah is to be identified with the star gamma Draconis. Hence, through the close connection of the two goddesses, “the temple of Isis at Denderah presents so many emblems thought to relate to the worship connected with y Draconis that it was named ‘the Typhoneum’ by the French Com- mission.”?

But there is another symbolism which is quite different, and instead of a hippopotamus we deal with a cow. In the inscriptions of Denderah we find the star Sothis repre- sented by a cow ina boat. “If we go to Thebes we pass there from the cow Isis-Sothis to Isis-Hathor, and there we find the mythology retains the idea of the cow, the cow gradually appearing from behind the western hills.”

Now we seem to be on the track. In correspondence with the seven positions of the pole, there were seven positions of the equinox, seven Hathor cows, born out of the earth at intervals of 72 years. That régime of Ptah and his sons came to an end, and the reign of Ra succeeded. Ra was said to be born at the duggets of the cow, and he filled the place of the eighth. Isis did not come in with Ra I, but she is the herald of the year under Ra II, and sO may seem to enter upon the inheritance of Hathor.

Lockyer suggests that with a change of cult, the star Sirius succeeded historically to the function of y Draconts. He thinks that about the year 3200 B.C., observations of the star Sirius replaced, or were added to, those previously made of y Draconis; and then, mythologically, a new Hathor was born.® The series of temples with high northern amplitudes at Denderah, Thebes, and possibly other places were, he says, almost certainly founded before the time at which the heliacal rising of Sirius, at the solstice, was the chief event of the year, watched by priests, astronomers, and agriculturists alike* Now we

1 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 300. 2 Jbid., p. 218. 8 Nature, Feb. 1892. 4 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 209.

ISIS AND NEPHTHYS. 325

know, from Biot’s calculations, that this became possible, circ. 3285 B.C.

Under all the circumstances it becomes difficult to know what praise given to one goddess may not be better deserved by the other. The following, though said con- cerning Hathor, may be due rather to Isis. Mariette says, “She personifies Truth, as well as beauty. In the temple of Denderah the king presents to her the image of Truth and says, ‘I offer to thee Truth, O god- dess of Denderah, for truth is thine own work, for thou art Truth itself’?!

It need only be added concerning Isis, that although she was thus adopted into the Heliopolitan system, it was difficult to forget her at Memphis, for she was the sister and wife of Osiris. And yet when she goes to them from Heliopolis she goes as the representative of the solar year of 365 days, and not to adapt herself to the Memphite intercalary months of Sed and Pasht. There came a time when each Egyptian king, on his accession to the throne bound himself by oath before the priest of Ists in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, not to intercalate either days or months, but to retain the year of 365 days as established by the Ancients. (Mommsen, Chronologie, p. 258.)

§ 2. NEPHTHYS.

(Nephthys, Sister of Isis: Their Parallel Characters—End and Beginning— The Two Solstices—Eyes of the Sun—Two Urei—Two Apes—Their Office in Relation to the Year and the Calendar—Nephthys, Mistress of the Writings—Nephthys as Protectress of the Dead.)

NEPHTHYS is the sister of Isis, and her companion in all her troubles. She assists Isis in the search for the lost Osiris ; her grief for his death is as great as that of the wife ; and she takes part in the measures necessary for his resuscitation.*

1 Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt, p. 142. 2 Records of the Past, il, 119.

326 CREATION RECORDS.

Like Isis, she is represented standing with wings out- spread in protection of the mummy. For the rest she is in human form, and wears her ideogram as a head-dress,

this alone distinguishing her from Isis.

Sometimes she

wears the cow-horns and sometimes a solar disk.! The parallel presented by the two sisters is strikingly shown on the sepulchral tablet of Rema, of the XVIIIth

dynasty :—

Behind Osiris stands /s2s. Wearing a throne upon her head. She has her right hand uplifted, and holds in the other the symbol of life. The inscription is, — Isis, mother divine avenging her brother, Lady of the Two

Behind Isis stands Nephthys. Wearing a house upon her head. She has her right hand raised ; and in her left she carries the symbol of life. The inscription is, — Nephthys, Empress of the road of the West.

Earths.

With such similarity of characters we may expect to find them astronomically a natural pair. Nephthys is a daughter of the sun and Mistress of the Two Worlds.’ Children of the Sun appear to be especially the equinoctial and solstitial points ; and as we have found that Isis is first associated with East and West, and afterwards with the summer solstice, we may look, in the case of Nephthys, for the same or corresponding connections.

Renouf says, “In the vignettes of the seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Dead, the goddesses Isis and Nephthys twice appear together, once on the Eastern and once on the Western direction of the barque of the Sun- god.”> Again, Isis is said to give birth to the Sun-god Horus, and Nephthys to nurse him. This is of course on the eastern horizon. Yet both Isis and Nephthys are called goddesses of the West . . . In the more recent texts the hieroglyphic sign representing the rising sun

1 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egsplians, p. 220. ? Bonwick, Agyptian Beltef, p. 149.. 3 Foy. Myth. in Trans. Soc. Bib, Arch., viii, 2, 204.

_

ISIS AND NEPHTHYS. 327°

between Isis and Nephthys, is ideographic of the word tuau, morning.

There is a curious phrase in Plutarch which connects Nephthys with the end or extremity of the earth :— On the fifth day was born Nephthys, the same as the ‘ End,’ and ‘Venus,’ whom some call ‘ Victory’) A globe hardly has any point which can be called the beginning or the end; but a semi-circle of the equator or the ecliptic may have both. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, speaking of the names Amenti (Hades) and Ament (the West), says the resemblance is remarkable: “the West was looked upon as the end, as the East was the beginning of the world.”

The mysteries of Osiris were celebrated at the autumnal equinox, corresponding to the descent into Hades, and also at the vernal equinox, corresponding to resurrection out of it. The funeral obsequies of deceased kings and others would be made to conform in their symbolism to the lost and dead god. Behind the hearse at a funeral stood the images of Isis and Nephthys. They were, says Wilkinson, the emblems of the Beginning and the End, and were thought to be always present at the head and feet of the dead who had led a virtuous life, and who were deemed worthy of admission into the regions of the Blessed.°

Remembering that the Equinoctial is conceived of as the earth-plane, in the ancient system, we recognise that its junction with the Ecliptic is its extremity or boundary, And again Plutarch says, Nephthys they call the remotest ° parts and boundaries of the land, and those contiguous to the sea; for which reason they style Nephthys the End, and say that she is the consort of Typon.t

The place of Typhon was at the autumnal equinox, and it was there where he shut down Osiris in the coffer. But Nephthys was only there through the error in the calendar, and properly her place was at the winter solstice. Al-

1 Of Ists and Osiris, xii. 2 William Simpson, Orient. of Temples, p. 34. 3 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 370. Of Isis and Osiris, xxxvili.

328 CREATION RECORDS.

though the five days added to the year (four only while Aroeris was in abeyance) were all in “Sesennu” or at the part of the circle where the year ended, there must have been an early arrangement which distributed the four divinities to the four quarters.

IsIs AND NEPHTHYS, THE Two SOLSTICES.—In the first section of this chapter we have seen reason to give Isis a place at the summer solstice ; and if we now locate Nephthys at the winter solstice, we shall find the sisters to be a natural pair.

“In the emblematical processions the Bull (Osiris) walked between Isis and Nephthys.”! If we might suppose the Bull here to be the equinox in Taurus, the attendant sisters would be in their appropriate places.

In the bandaging of mummies, in which the bandages are named after the gods, the bandage of the left hand is consecrated to Isis of Koptos; that of the right hand bore the image of Nephthys. On one bandage there was a drawing in ink of Isis, over the ieft ear, and of Nephthys over the right.’

In a vignette to the Papyrus of Ani, Osiris is enthroned

Behind him stand Nephthys on his right hand, and Isis on his left. Facing him, and standing on a lotus flower, are the four children of Horus.’ Isis is described as Great Lady, Divine Mother ; and Nephthys as the Mistress of the Underworld. Nothing could better agree with our idea that Isis stands for the midsummer sun, and Nephthys that of midwinter.

Two EYES OF THE SUN.—We have had ample evi- dence that the solstices and equinoxes became associated with “ Eyes of the Sun,” and when we find that the two sisters are called Eyes we are confirmed in our impression of thefr position. Hilton Price mentions that Nephthys

1 Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, p. 233. 2 Journal of Anthrop. Institute, Nov., 1893, pp. 114 118. 3 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 259.

ISIS AND NEPHTHYS. 329

was sty!ed the Eye of the Sun as well as Regent of the Gods and Mistress of Heaven and of women.’ Nor is Isis any the less an eye than Nephthys. Chapter xxxvii of the Ritual begins, “ Hail, ye pair of goddesses, Merta—Sister Pair, Merta!” And Renouf tells us that this word “merta” signifies two eyes, and that the pair of goddesses are Isis and Nephthys.?

Down to the latest periods the Sisters were known as Eye of the Southern or Left side (Isis), and Eye of the Northern or Right side (Nephthys). On countless coffins and sarcophagi these goddesses are represented on oppo- site sides in kneeling attitude, holding the © in their hands, like the equinoctial Vultures of the North and South, with their claws, and the Urzi on their bodies. The meaning of the sign © is well known. It is a vzmg, and .is applied to the circuit of the heavens made by the sun‘and other heavenly bodies.’ It is also applied to the yearly recurring flow of the Nile [the celestial Nile being the ecliptic circle]. It is an emblem of Osiris, the Lord of Years, the King of Eternity.

Two URA&1.—The reader will remember how frequently in Egyptian pictures the solar disk is supported on either side by a serpent. A serpent may possibly represent half the ecliptic circle, regarded as a sinuous line, and the heads of these lines naturally meet at the equinoctial point, and thus become associated with the sun. When the morning sun was proved to be that of the previous evening, it was made evident that there was an under as well as upper path of the sun, combining to form one circle. Hence it is said,“ Let him . . . have joined the two urzi like Tum.”* The Bennu-bird (phoenix) of An, has two feathers on the back of his head; and it is

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, §3.

2 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 85. Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 4, 163. 3 Renouf, Sook of the Dead, p. 226.

4 Records of the Past, viii, 14.

330 CREATION RECORDS.

explained that the Bennu is Osiris, and the feathers those of his father Tum.?

The feathers of Tum are equivalent to the urzi serpents. The equinoctial sun is supported by the two serpents ; and then, since he is supported also on either side by the sol- stices—so that their stability is his stability—the sisters Isis and Nephthys become associated with the urei. In a scholion to a passage in chapter xviiof the Ritual, Horus, “the avenger of his father,” calls his father not Osiris but Tmu.? The two feathers on the head of Amsu or Horus in this passage are stated in the same scholion to be the urzi upon the forehead of Tmu. A later text says “his two eyes are the two feathers”; but the favourite interpre- tation is, “Isis and Nephthys, who have risen up as two kites.” It is all the same, for Isis and Nephthys are the feathers, the urzi, the Eyes, the solstices. According to the papyrus Hunefer they represent the North and the South.? It would appear to be Isis and Nephthys who are referred to on Queen Hatshepsu’s obelisk as the two mothers of the sun, the two urzus goddesses in the divine ship.‘

Two APES.—“One of the illustrations of chapter xvii shows two apes, emblematic of Isis and Nephthys.” The scholiast on one passage of chapter xvii says, “The watchers who give judgment are the apes Isis and Nephthys.”®

To be “apes” may perhaps simply relate them to Thoth the Time-keeper, who was symbolised by an ape.

Vignettes in the great papyrus La of Leyden represent the rising and the setting sun. The rising sun is saluted by six cynocephalus apes.

1 Budge, By-paths, p. 172. 2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 377, 387.

3 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 32. 4 Records of the Past, xii, 134.

5 Budge, Look of the Dead, pp. 280,290. Also Prec. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 395: :

ISIS AND NEPATHYS. 331

He is also saluted by two goddesses who, in the papyrus of Hunefer, say, “I am thy sister Isis,” “I am thy sister Nephthys.” The Tat which is between them is [Renouf says) a symbol both of Osiris and of the east.

NEPHTHYS AS RECORDER.—As Eyes of the sun, which can only show their full round orb on the proper day of the year, in temples properly oriented, the solstice god- desses might become recorders of the years. At the summer solstice Thoth himself would attend to this busi- ness ; while at the winter solstice—for those who reckoned from that time of the year—it was attended to by Neph- thys. Or perhaps it was at an earlier date, and under a different arrangement—and in fact at the autumnal equinox—that the counting was done. There may even have been an earlier goddess, and Nephthys simply came into her inheritance.

Thoth had a consort called Seshait, which signifies the Scribe.1. Champollion found a doorway in the Ramesseum, at Thebes, adorned with figures of Thoth as God of Letters, and Seshait with the title, Lady President of the Hall of Books. (Lettres Egypt., xiv, Paris, 1868.)?

“The consort of Thoth has seven horns.” This seems to put her back to the days of the sons of Ptah?

The older Egyptologists called her Sefekh, which signi- fies No. 7. It is she who in Plutarch is called Selene, and with whom Hermes (Thoth) played the game of dice.* She is known in the [Vth dynasty, and wears a palm leaf, and horns on her head.’ The palm is the symbol of Thoth as god of writing, while the horns may suggest the cows of Hathor. In some copies of chapter cv of the Ritual the name “Nephthys” is written, where in other copies Hathor appears. Now when Thoth played the game with Sefekh

1 Renouf, Book cf the Dead, p. 112.

. Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1878, p. 114, note.

$ Bunsen, i, 395. Cf. Massey, Natural Genests, ii, ats Book of Beygin-

mings, ii, 85, 141, 372. Bonwick, Zegyptian Belief, p. 4 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 311. 5 Bonwick, Enyptian Belief, p. 91.

332 CREATION RECORDS.

or Seshait it was to win portions of time and create five more days, and Nephthys was one of the days whose creation was thus still in the future. He would seem more likely to play with Hathor:!

However, the name Seshait is given to Nephthys, and this goddess is called She who draws: in her horns, Mistress of Writings, Mistress of Buildings, the Lady of Libraries. Her connection with letters, says Renouf, has till now been chiefly known through the fact that when Sut ceased to be honoured as a god, Thoth was put in his place by the side of Nephthys.

Was Sut (or Set or Typhon) displaced from the autumnal equinox when Thoth founded Hermopolis, at the end of the Thoth régime, or not until the failure of the Osirian year ?

It is by her place at the autumnal equinox—the Gate of Hades—that Nephthys is first of all a goddess of the dead, though afterwards at the nether solstice. Nephthys is always found in some part of the coffin, and often with outspread wings at the bottom of the inner case, where she appears to receive the body into her embrace.®

1 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Btb. Arch., Feb. 1887. 2 Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib, Arch., ix, 2, 303. 3 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 397.

CHAPTER XXV.

ANUBIS.

(Anubis, Offspring of Osiris yet earlier than Thoth—A Circumpolar Star, belonging to the Jackal Constellation of Ptah’s Time, and Parallel to the Greek Lycaon—As ** Hand ” of the Polar Clock he Indicated the Seasons and Solstices—Was thus Herald and Prophesier—Superseded by Thoth when Ra came in, bringing the Year of 360days—Adjuster of the Balance of Thoth—Like Thoth he is Guardian of the Dead—Associated with the Dog-star and with Isis.)

ANUBIS was depicted in the human form, but with the head of his sacred animal, the jackal. Wiedemann says that this animal was mistaken by the Greeks for a dog; and hence it was as a dog that Anubis was introduced into Roman Isis worship. From time to time the Egyptians themselves had fallen into this mistake, and _ isolated mummies of dogs have occasionally been found in the jackal cemetery at Lycopolis.1 There is at first something puzzling about the place and character of Anubis, for things are told of him which might seem to be inconsistent with any view whatever of his nature and functions. On the one hand he is the son of Osiris and Nephthys, offspring of an unintended union; on the other he is a predecessor of Thoth, who out of fragments of time formed the five days, simultaneously with which Osiris came into existence.? He is described as the Word of the gods, revealing the things of heaven; and he is spoken of as a Messenger out of favour and superseded? But mythic symbolism is often paradoxical on the surface, while the crux itself suggests the clue to a consistent explanation.

1 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p, 229. 2 Plutarch, Of Js’s and Osiris, xxxviii. 3 Jbid., Ixi.

334 CREATION RECORDS.

Tradition had it that Nephthys had made Osiris drunken, drawn him to her arms without his knowledge, and borne him ason. The child of this furtive union was the jackal Anubis. But another legend has it that Isis and not Nephthys was the mother.’ Let us look for the place of this jackal, before we attempt to understand how the same child can have two mothers.

THE JACKAL A POLAR CONSTELLATION.—Anubis is always represented with a jackal’s head: and Anpu (Anubis) is apparently, as Mr. Goodwin says, the ancient Egyptian name for a jackal.”

In the exact centre of the circular zodiac of Denderah we find the jackal located at the pole of the equator ; and it obviously represents the present Little Bear.®

Theon, annotating Aratus, said that the Lesser Bear was also called the Dog, whence Cynosura (xivos + dupa) for the dog’s tail, and so for the polar star, and then generally for any great pont demire.* The Dictionary of Antiqutttes thinks the name for the constellation was suggested by the circular sweep of three of the stars, resembling the up- turned curl of a dog’s tail.’

The poets who regarded the Great Bear as Callisto, represented the Little Bear as her dog.

It seems likely from the analogy of Hermopolis, Heliopolis, etc., that the polar point—like the equinoctial or the solstitial point—would be spoken of as a celestial city.

Anubis seems to have been generally called “ Apheru,

the Lord of Lycopolis ” (z..e, Wolf-town, the capital of the

13th Nome).® Ap-uat, ze, Ways-guide, was a title of Anpu

(Anubis), in the Nome of Siout especially. The classic

name of Siout was Lycopolis ; which clearly shows that the

jackal was then considered to be a wolf by the foreigner.’

ee

aD Renee Bone Lore aan

• Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 361.

• O’Neill, Might of the Gods, ii, 940. 5 Art. ‘* Astronomia.” 5 Brugsch, i, 194. 7 O’Neill, Night of the Gods, p. 1004.

ANUBIS. 335

We may compare here the Greek story of the foundation of the city of Lycosura by Lycaon. The Arcadians (avctos the Bear) insisted that Lycosura was the most ancient of all cities, and the first which Helios (the sun- god) had ever beheld.!

ANUBIS THE HAND OF THE POLAR CLOCK.—We have argued in a previous chapter that, in the days of Ptah the Fire-god, the polar dial was used to tell the hour of the night and the season of the year. The pole itself was the pivot of the hands; but things will become plainer if we may assume that Anubis was not the pole-star, but a star on the hand of the clock, pointing to the equator. It might thus—at midnight, say—tell the seasons by its direction, and give notice of the solstice, for example.

Several circumstances seem to connect the Jackal with the two solstices, though it may be possible to fancy the two poles are meant.

O’Neill quotes some interesting facts which led M. de Rougé to say distinctly that one celestial jackal is qualified as the “ guide of the North celestial ways,” the other as “ guide of the Southern ways” (De Rougé, WVotice, 71).2 On the summit of a (Louvre) stela, before the XVIIIth dynasty, is the sphere, between the two eyes and the two (black) jackals (zdzd., 90). On another stela of the XVIIIth dynasty the summit is occupied by “the vase” with two lotus-flowers on an altar, flanked right and left by the two jackals (101). On this, O’Neill remarks that “since two jackals often replace the wings of the winged sphere, as do _ also the two Eyes, this directly connects the two Jackals with the two Eyes.” Yes, but while O’Neill supposes the Eyes to be pole-stars, we have shown in our last chapter that they represent the solstices. Again, “ The Denderah ‘zodiac’ or chart, shows in the centre—which Biot, no doubt rightly, says is the north pole—one divine jackal.

1 Sir G. W. Cox, Letroduction to Mythology, p. 40. 2 Night of the Gods, p. 1005.

336 CREATION RECORDS.

Two similar jackals serve to fix the North and South in certain monuments which it was desired to adjust to the points of the compass (Pierret, Dzcz.,571):so that nothing can be much more likely than that eyes, wings and jackals have all reference to the two extremities of the universe axis.” Eyes, wings and jackals are no doubt connected, and so we may claim them for Isis and Nephthys at the two solstices.

Further to connect Anubis with the solstice,—At Bubastis, in the Festival Hall, a jackal representing Anubis is carried ona pedestal.’ He is here called Apuat, “he who opens the ways.” ‘There are two jackals—the Apuat of the South, and the Apuat of the North, and Brugsch regards them as symbols of the two solstices. Naville approves this, and assumes that Apuat of the South is the winter solstice. Anubis is “ Father Apheru of the South, Lord of Sais.”2. It is also said, “ I am Anubis, who inhabits the Divine Chapel,” and we shall find his chapel to be at the winter solstice.®

The Egyptian Provost of the Temples, who entered into the service of Cambyses, explained to the Conqueror the grandeur of the House of Neith at Sais, as being a heaven in its plan; explained also the doctrine of the grandeur of the South Chapel, the North Chapel, the House of Ra and the House of Tmu, as being the mysterious abodes of all the gods.* If we take Tmu to be the setting sun, who became Ra in his rising, we have here the four quarter points represented in the temple by four chambers. Further, when we remember that Neith is not the ‘goddess of the heavens generally, but of the ecliptic circle ; not of the vaulted sky but of the sun’s path through the zodiac; we see that the four points must be the equinoxes and solstices. Tum and Ra are at the equinoxes, and Anubis is “ Father Apheru of the South.”

ANUBIS AS HERALD OR PROPHET.—After the time of

1 Naville, //all of Osorkon, p. II. 2 Records of the Fast, viii, 26. 3 Lbid., x, 87. 4 Jbid., xX, 50.

ANUBIS. 337

Mena (synchronous with Ra IJ and Horus), Anubis came to be the recognised divinity of the writings. But Sut- Anubis belonged to a time before the invention of writing and being a jackal he uttered his prophecies by barking.! He announced the rising of the Nile, which synchronised with the summer solstice; and since a clock-hand moves all round the dial, he declared also the arrival of the winter solstice. On this foundation arose the superstition that the dog’s bark is a form of prophecy.

THOTH SUPERSEDES ANUBIS.—When the Ptah dynasty ended, and Ra came in with the year of 360 days, the Polar Clock was discredited and discarded, and Anubis fell out of favour. Sut (otherwise Set or Typhon) was the evil spirit who caused the stars to fail in their duty, and perhaps it was on that account that the jackal of the Pole was called the Jackal of Set, or Sut-Anubis. At any rate, when the pole shifted, the clock-hand gave false indications, and after being convicted of seven or eight successive deceptions, the false prophet was thought to be in league with the devil.

In the Shrine of Anubis at Deir el Bahari was a repre- sentation of Queen Hatshepsu standing before Anubis Amut. The god is in the form of a skin on a pole, a very frequent emblem, as shown on Plate 1x in Naville’s Deir el Bahari. This skin might not unfitly symbolise a deceased polar divinity.’

Thoth comes into the office of Anubis, but is located at the autumnal equinox instead of at or near the pole. It is hoped that the equinox will prove stable, and afford a reliable datum point from which to measure and count the years,

In the story of the murder of Osiris, Sut himself (Typhon) is located at the autumnal equinox. Perhaps there may sometimes be a little confusion between Sut

1 Cf, Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 49). 2 Deir e! Bahari, part ii, p. 10. Z

338 CREATION RECORDS.

and Sut-Anubis. In the more recent documents we find the name of Thoth where that of Sut occurs in ancient times. If Thoth succeeded to the office of Anubis, it is only putting the thing the other way to say that ‘“‘ Anubis was the earliest form of Mercury (= Hermes = Thoth). The transition was marked by Hermanubis, a title as- signed to Thoth in the zodiac attributed to the second Hermes.” .

Herm-Anubis, says King, is the deity so frequent on Gnostic talismans, bearing the caduceus of Hermes and accompanied with the Cock. To Anubis people sacrifice the white cock, to Herm-Anubis the saffron-coloured one. King says that the saffron colour typified infernal flames.®

To show that Thoth superseded Sut as recorder and prophetic minstrel, he is said to. have cut out Typhon’s sinews and made lute-strings of them. This is just as in Greek legend. Hermes constructed a lyre by putting strings across the shell of a tortoise.

The close connection of Anubis with Thoth is indicated by one form of representation, in which Anubis with a jackal’s head is holding a palm branch in one hand, and the caduceus-wand with its two wings and two serpents in the other.® Perhaps this was after he returned to office and favour.

ANUBIS RECALLED TO OFFICE.—One advantage of a true theory is that it enables one to predict. Being on the right track in our study of the myths, we can often tell what is before us. Since Anubis fell into disrepute at the same time with the dynasty of Ptah the fire-god, he ought to come into favour again along with Ptah-Sokaris- Osiris. This was the Memphite system, set up after the

1 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., Feb. 1887, p. 93.

2 Massey, Matural Genesis, ii, 351.

Notes to Plutarch, Of /sis and Ostrés, Ixi.

5

Plutarch, lv. Bunsen, i, 435. Bell’s Pantheon.

ANUBIS, 339

failure of the Osirian year. Is this why we read that Osiris was swallowed by Anubis, his son ?!

It must have been at Memphis, or at some city which, like Memphis, supplemented the year of 364 days with a Sed festival, that they “made procession on the Thirty- years’ Festival in the House of Apheru”— Father Apheru” being Anubis.?

The Osirian year of 364 days, being short by one day and a quarter, that little arc of the circle was bound to go on its travels and pass through Hades. It was easy to imagine that Osiris himself was in it; and on that account, as we suppose, he was called the Coffined One. This was the coffin or ark into which Typhon and the other con- spirators shut him down. In chapter xviii of the Book of the Dead there is mention of seven bright ones who follow their Lord. An illustration is given in Papyrus Anz, and in the same plate the souls of Osiris and Ra become one.® One god had said to the other, “Come thou hither!” their places coincided and they became One. The vignette shows Isis and Nephthys kneeling on either side of the coffin—the coffined one is Osiris—but the head which rises out of the coffin is that of Ra. Osiris has become Ra; the year of 364 days becomes a solar year of 3654.

The chapter tells us that on the day of “Come thou hither,’ Anubis fixed the places of the Seven Bright Ones. The scholia say that those seven are to be looked for in the constellation of the Thigh in the northern sky. This is that portion of the Great Bear formed by the seven conspicuous stars. Yet we must understand (as we have argued before) that the seven intended in the original text were the seven successive positions of the pole, made and superseded by precession. But there was precession of the equinoxes also fart passu with that of the poles; and this

1 Budge, Ai, Pref., p. 8. 2 Records of the Past, viiiy 30.

3 Papyrus Ani, plate 9. 4 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiv, 8, 389.

Z2

340 CREATION RECORDS.

kind of error has proceeded further, all through the period of Ra I, and the period of the Osirian year. The years of Ra I and of Osiris were defective by an error of the calendar, but it will not be sufficient now to amend that error ; for precession has wrought mischief as well. The year of Ptah cannot be restored quite as it was; it will be necessary to take account of the wandering of the pole. So the necessary allowance is made and registered by the new time-keeper ; and this, we take it, is what is meant by the places of the seven being fixed.

Anubis has been recalled, because the old year of Ptah has been vindicated and shown to be of right length; and experience has proved that the method of the Polar Clock was as fairly reliable as any other. Anubis can at least assist Thoth. Thoth, besides recording the years, stands by the scales in which the heart of a deceased person is weighed, and writes down the result. Anubis is also there as director of the weight; and in Plate iii of the Papyrus of Ani, for example, we see him examining the indicator of the balance. It is natural to connect counting and weighing, and it is much the same work to direct the tongue of the balance as to direct the hand of aclock. In the Papyrus of Qenna, the picture of the balance has the head of Anubis on the beam.

ANUBIS AS PSYCHOPOMPUS.—Anubis is like Thoth again, in being the conductor of the souls of the dead. He is “chief of the mountain,” and he resides at the infernal gate.2 He was lord of sepulture ; and his art, transmitted to the embalmers, was the regular means of transforming into mummies all bodies which it was desired to preserve. The earthly embalmer was the representative of Anubis, who is pictured on almost every mummy-case of the better class as performing with his cwn hands the operations of the preservation and enwrapping of the body, and who

1 Pudze, Book of the Dead (Ani), p. 256. 2 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 377. 3 Budge, Ay-faths, p. 139. Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, p. 121.

ANUBIS. 341

takes the credit and responsibility of the task.’ ° This is often expressed in the inscriptions on the cartonnage or coffin. A stele in Vienna (No. 55) has the inscription, ‘“Anubis himself hath made the mummy.” In the Rhind papyrus he is called “ Anubis the Bandager.” He receives the mummy at the door of the tomb: he is addressed as the Divine Door (whether of the tomb or of Hades), and he is guardian of the mummied bodies.?

One cannot be confident why the Jackal of the pole should be guardian of the dead. If Anubis was at the extremity of the clock-hand, it is possible that he would nightly dip below the horizon, and rise again. But it might be that through being brought into connection with the winter solstice he was associated with Osiris. The winter solstitial point would be the centre of the nether- world, and the throne for the god of that world. In the papyrus of Hunefer, the legend runs, “ Hail, Osiris, the Chief of Amenta, the Lord of Eternity . . . and hail, Anubis [dweller] in the tomb, great God, chief of the holy dwelling.”

ANUBIS AND THE DOG-STAR.—It may be, after all, that Anubis is regarded as the conductor of souls through the Shades, chiefly through his association with the star Sothis, which in the calendar of the Vague Year (365 days only) made the Underworld voyage like Osiris, though in longer time (1,460 years).

According to M. Maspero, the god Anubis led the souls of the dead to the Elysian Fields in the Great Oasis.

It is made out that there were two jackals ; and perhaps the second one was identified with Sothis because the heliacal rising of that star prophesied or proclaimed the solstice, as the Jackal of the pole had been made to do of old.

Budge distinguishes between Anubis proper, and the

1 Dr. A. Macalister, Journ. of Anthrop. Institute, Nov. 1893, p 2 Bonwick, Zey. Bel., p. 383. ° Budge, Book of the Dead ay p. 265.

342 CREATION RECORDS.

god Ap-uat, the “Opener of the Ways,’ who also was depicted in the form of a jackal. “On sepulchral stelz and other monuments two jackals are frequently depicted. One of these represents Anubis, and the other Ap-uat, and Budge thinks they probably have some connexion with the northern and southern parts of the funereal world.”

ANUBIS AND IsIs.—If the Dog that prophesies is thus naturally translated from the Pole into the star Sothis, it is easy to see how Anubis may become assigned to Isis as her son. Sometimes Anubis is the child of Nephthys, but is nursed by Isis; and sometimes he is the son of Osiris by Isis herself. We remember how, through the erroneous length of the year, all the stars of the two equinoctial constellations were brought into one bed ; and Sothis was not far from Taurus. Naturally Anubis claims both the goddesses as mother. Anubis accompanied Isis in her wanderings in search of Osiris.?

It is true that it seems incongruous to identify both Isis and Anubis with the same star; and perhaps we ought rather to look for them nigh together and yet distinct. It might suit the requirements of the story if Isis were Sirius, while Anubis was Aldebaran. Professor Hommel, in his explanation of the Euphratean Tablet of the Thirty Stars, finds one of the asterisms to be the Hyena or Jackal, and regards it as Aldebaran.* Mars is “the luminary reigning over the constellation of the Hyena” (W. A. J, iii, 57, 62, ap. Sayce) : and we have already seen reason to associate the star Aldebaran (in Taurus) both with Mars and Osiris

1 Budge, Book of the Dead (Antz), p. cxvii. ” Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, p. 32. | 3. Brown, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvii, 8, 290.

‘CHAPTER XXVI. HORUS.

THE casual reader would be at a loss to know which was the supreme god of the Egyptians—whether Ra, Osiris or Horus—but this perplexity, like many others, is smoothed away by our theory. Ra is the Sun-god, the god of the solar year; Osiris is god of the luni-solar year of 364 days, and merges in Ra when the year is reconstituted, to be of proper length; and Horus represents the added part, and thus the accurate year.

§1. THE Two HORUSES.

(364 days Insufficient—Two Horuses—The Elder, Aroeris, Blind—Horus, the Child, Silent, Mysterious, Prematurely Born.)

ADDITION TO THE OSIRIAN YEAR.—The year of 364 days having been found deficient, it was sought to complete it by the addition of another day, and to this was quickly added the odd six hours, by some device for an intercalary. These complements to the Osirian year are represented by the two Horuses.

Plutarch tells of an elder Horus and a younger. We shali find it to be the second Horus who has the true voice, while the first is not an accurate time-keeper.

THE ELDER HORUS WAS AROERIS.—Plainly stated by Plutarch to be one of the Five Days added to the year of 360 days. Aroeris does not come into prominence, because during the Osirian year of 364 days he is ignored, while at the end of that period the day is appropriated to give new life to Osiris. And quickly following upon this

314 CREATION RECORDS.

the second Horus is enthroned—the full solar year of 3653 days. The year of 365 days hardly had a moment’s recognition apart from some intercalary to supplement it. It might be said to be still-born ; or as a hidden untimely birth, never to have been. Aroeris was described as blind.

In a papyrus quoted by Wiedemann, the name Her- Khent an-ma appears in place of Aroeris ; and this name is rendered by the author, “ Horus, Lord of Not Seeing.”? Among the animals sacred to Aroeris was the shrew-mousc, which, according to Plutarch, received divine henours in Egypt because it was blind, and because darkness was older than light.

HORUS THE CHILD.—When the five days were added to the year, they were assigned to five gods, who were brothers and sisters. In the variant representation, the five were contained in the egg of Seb. Only five are spoken of, because there were not six ; yet we may say that the odd quarter of a day was there by implication, and so it is said that the younger Horus also found a place in the egg, as the offspring of Osiris and Isis.

There was an annual festival of the birth of Horus, on the 1st of Thoth, the New Year’s Day, at Denderah. A peliminary celebration before the feast was gone through in the suite of three chief festal chambers in the temple of Hathor.2 This was on the fourth intercalated day, on the night of which the closing festival of the Old Year began. The occasion was called “the day of the Night of the Child in his cradle.” The fourth intercalated day was the day of Isis; or else it might seem that the child t» be born was the fifth day, or Aroeris. But Aroeris was one of the Five and, therefore, brother to Isis.

Yet the interpretation is sometimes difficult. Budge says that the two Horuses very early became confounded. Massey quotes from Brugsch (Geog. /uschr., i, 247) to the

1 Rel. of Ancient Egy pitans, p. 32 note, and 28. 2 ONeill, Mi, ht of the Geds, i, +66.

HORUS. 345

effect that the elder Horus was the child of the mother, born, but not begotten ;’ and states on his own account that the first is Horus, the son of Isis alone, the second, the anointed son of Osiris.

A FOURTH-YEAR INTERCALARY Day.—While the priests at Heliopolis arranged for a Vague Year and a Sothic Cycle, it is not impossible that in some other city every fourth year might be made a Leap-year, as with ourselves. At Heliopolis also it would be taken account of in the esoteric wisdom. The system of reckoning based on the vague year had drawbacks as well as advan- tages. The tetramenes (four-month seasons) with their special symbols—of flood, seed-sowing and harvest—over- took each others’ places. The “winter season” of the calendar occurred in the height of summer, and so on; and probably only the priests could clearly understand the situation, and know when the inundation was to be expected. Each festival, if observed on the same calendar date, would sweep through the seasons; if kept at the right season would sweep through the calendar. Agriculturists and others would be greatly dependent on the priests.

But even if a fourth year intercalary day were arranged for, the “day” would be in abeyance until the fourth year arrived. If, with a view to equal distribution the day were inserted in the middle of the four-years period, it would be two years growing unseen, and then be recognised in the calendar two years before it was a full day.. Perhaps on this account Horus the child is spoken of as silent, mysterious and prematurely born.‘

After the death of Osiris her husband, Isis again be- came with child by him, and brought forth the boy Harpocrates (z.¢., Horus the Child), who was prematurely born, and weak in his lower limbs.

1 Book of Beginnings, i, 549. 2 Natural Genesis, ii, 412, 132. 3 See Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 274. 4 Smith’s Dictionary, Horus. : Plutarch, Of Isis and Ostris, xx

346 CREATION RECORDS.

This singular creature of mythology is represented as an infant with a long lock of hair pendant over his left side, and with the fore-finger of his right hand pointing to his lips.

Hilton Price describes some figures of Harpocrates found at Bubastis: a child, naked, seated as though in his mother’s lap, wearing the pschent, a lock of hair on the right side of his head, and with the index finger of his right hand to his mouth.? Also another figure of the same deity, naked as before, only represented walking, with the disk, horns and urzus upon his head, and finger on his mouth. Mr. Price has also a figure of Harpocrates in the attitude of squatting on the ground. Upon his head are two lotus buds, and the lock of hair on his right side; under his left arm he is holding a goose, whilst with his right hand he holds up a bunch of grapes.®

We shall learn more about some of these things in the next section. It is sufficient here to have made it clear that there were two Horuses,

§ 2, HORUS THE ANNUAL SIX HOURS.

(Horus born in the Inner Sanctuary—Represents the Quadrennial Intercalary Day, which grows up in secret—A Festival on the 6th day (of the ‘* Additional Days ” ?)—Houus, son of Osiris, born in the House of Seb— Said to be the Child of Hathor—His Lock of Hair—The Silent Child attains “True Voice ”—Horus at Heliopolis, the Solar Year and Solstitial Commencement. )

RECOGNITION OF THE SIX HouRS.—If there was ever

any idea that the true length of the year was 365 days, the dream of finality must soon have vanished. In a properly oriented temple the flash of bright sunlight would not form the Eye in the sanctuary so perfectly as

1 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 2 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, 53. 3 [bid., p. 68.

——_— _

HORUS. 347

it did 365 days before; and after four years it would not be formed on the first day of the month but on the second. The omission of the quarter of a day, and the confusion thence arising ; then the introduction of the quarter of a day, and the order thence resulting ; the mistake of cal- culating that it was exactly a quarter, whereas it was II minutes short of it—these things, and the alternate lengthening and shortening of the year, are the facts upon which are founded the drama of the birth and fortunes of Horus. |

Renouf says that the name Horus (Heru in Egyptian) is exactly equivalent to the Greek Hyperion (Tzrepécov).} With no greater paradox I may say that there are grounds for comparing Horus with the Hore, and looking for the origin of both in the Six Hours, needed to fill out the length of the Vague Year. It is just possible that we have the six hours represented in the six cynocephali who adore the rising sun, in plate 2 of the Papyrus of Ant. According to an inscription in the tomb of Rameses VI, these cynocephali are the Spirits of the East, who raise Ra by opening the door at each of the four portals of the eastern horizon.?

A QUADRENNIAL INTERCALARY Day.—The Vague Year might be supplemented by the Sothic Cycle, the priests alone keeping account and issuing yearly practical almanack information for the guidance of agriculturists. Or a whole month might be intercalated at the end of 120 years; or every fourth year might be allowed one extra day as with curselves. There are indications that the latter plan found favour in some places. Horapollo says that when the Egyptians wish to indicate a year they say “a fourth,” “because they report that from one rising to another of the star Sothis, a fourth part of a day is to be added, as the year of the god is of 365 days. Where- fore the Egyptians reckon an additional day every fourth

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 6, 347. 2 Renouf, Azt Preface, p. 9.

348 CREATION RECORDS.

year.4 He says that in writing or painting the present year, they write or paint the fourth part of an acre.

Lockyer, having argued that a Sothic Cycle began in 3192 B.C., goes on to say, “ There is ample evidence to show that by this time the priests were fully acquainted with the true year, and that every four years an additional epact was interpolated, though the vague year was in common use.”?

Brugsch (Matériaux pour servir & la Reconstruction du Calendrier, p. 29) shows that a special sign was employed to mark the first year of each series of four.°

But this Fixed or Sacred Year, says Lockyer, was only used for ecclesiastical purposes: the population used the vague year of 365 days, which resulted in the Sothic Cycle. Apparently it was not until the year 238 B.c. that the fourth-year intercalary day was offered to the world of business. The decree of Tanis added a sixth day to the epact every four years, thus replacing the vague year by the sacred.

This intercalary day would naturally be the festival of Horus. Osiris is called “ Lord of the Festival of the Sixth Day”; but it is also said, “I am with Horus on the day of the festivals of Osiris, making the offerings on the sixth day of the festival.” At the festival of Ra there was a ceremony of the god sailing in his boat. The boat is pictured with chapter cxxxiv; and in the course of the hymn it is referred to as the boat of Ra-Horus.’ In the rubric it is directed that the chapter of the Sektet boat shall be recited on the sixth day of the festival.

Horus, SON OF OSIRIS, BORN IN THE HOUSE OF SEB.—Horus is said to be born of Isis and the revivified Osiris, as the year of Horus, 365} days, arises out of that of 365.6 In one myth Horus is formed from the scattered

1 Drummond, Zodzacs, p. 160.

2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 262. 3 Tbid., p. 259. 4 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. 272. 5 bid., p. 329. 8 Records of the Past, New Series, iv, 21 note.

HORUS. 349

members of Osiris (Records of Past, ii, 123 note) ;! but that suits better the elder Horus, the year of 365 days without addition.

Horus as the quarter of a day, must be regarded as included in the addition made to the year, the product of the egg of the Goose, the great cackler, Seb. When Isis causes Horus to grow, “his arm becomes strong in the great dwelling of Seb.’

HORUS, CALLED THE CHILD OF HATHOR.—Although plainly his mother was Is’s, yet a passage occurs in which Nephthys says, “Ptah hath thrown down thy foes, and thou art Horus, the son of Hathor” (chapter cli). We remember the close connection, in one aspect, between Hathor and Isis. But Hat-hor is also, by hcr name, the “ House of Horus”; and William Simpson would under- stand this in the sense of motherhood. The adytum, or most holy place in an Egyptian temple, was called the Birth-place of Horus.2 O’Neill suggests that “house” is used in the astronomical sense ; and he quotes a magical text translated by Birch, that “the four houses are Jsis, Nephthys, Seb and Nu. Isis is placed in one, Nephthys in another, Horus in one, Thoth in another, at the four angles.”* Hathor is called “the Lady of Horus,” “the dwelling of Horus,” and in the scene of the weighing of the heart, in the Azz Papyrus, where 12 gods are seated in pairs, Horus “the great god” is coupled with Hathor, “lady of Amenta.”® But again, at Denderah, Hathor had Aroeris for her husband and Horus for her son, and the triad received acommon worship ;’7 so perhaps Hathor and Aroeris are here the duplicates of Isis and Osiris. We need only remark that when Horus is born in the inner sanctuary, the symbolism seems to suit very well the hidden cradle of the Six Hours.

1 A. Lang, Myth, Rit. and Rel., ii, 119. 2 Hymn to Osiris. 3 Bonwick, Zevptian Belt:f, p. 365. 4 Nicht of the Gods, i, 159. 5 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 6 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 205.

7 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 105-107.

350 CREATION RECORDS.

THE YOUTHFUL Lock.—Horus as divinity of the Six- hour period, increasing to a full day at the end of four years, is like a youth growing up, and therefore the characteristics are assigned to him which belonged to the heir apparent of the Egyptian throne.’

Wilkinson says, “ He wears the lock of hair emblematic of ason, Although the Egyptians shaved the head and wore wigs or other coverings, princes were distinguished by a badge hanging from the side of the ‘head, which en- closed or represented a lock of hair, and served to show that they had not yet (during the life-time of their father) arrived at kinghood.””

Erman is a later writer, and he says, “Many children wore the short plaited lock on the right side of the head.

I cannot say whether all children of a certain age wore this lock, or whether originally it was worn as a mark of distinction by the heir, as the pictures of the Old Empire would lead us to believe.’ Renouf’s opinion is very nearly the same, for he says of the lock that it is borne by Horus, and princes and princesses as well as by other priests and priestesses, in honour of Horus.* _

There is something mysterious about the lock of hair, both in chapter cxv and chapter cxxxvili ;> but we may rest now in the tentative conclusion that it marks out Horus as the heir to Osiris—the year of 3654 days is destined to be established when its inaccurate predecessor is dead or dethroned.

THE CHILD ATTAINS MANLY VOICE AND SPEAKS TRUTH.—There are many bronzes of juveniles, members of the royal family of Egypt, attired in the garb and invested with the emblematic coronet and sceptre of Horus, especially in that form of the divinity in which he was represented as a child, having the finger directed to

1 Cf. R. Cooper, Zgypt and Pentateuch, p. 55. 2 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 312. | % Erman, Life in Ancient Egyft, p. 163. 4 Renouf, on Book of the Dead, chapter cxv, note 2..

“5 Cf. Renouf, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 213.

HORUS. 351

the mouth.’ In this form he was called Har-pa-khrut—z.e., “Horus the infant”—whence the Harpocrates of the Greeks, called by them “the god of silence.” Mr. Cooper considers that silence was not intended,. but only the childish habit of putting the finger in the mouth.

Wilkinson had already said the same, and stated that the Egyptian mode of indicating silence was clearly shown, by certain scenes, to have been by placing “the hand to the mouth” (as in Job xxix, 9).?

On the other hand, O’Neill reminds us that what a baby does is not to point its finger to its mouth, but to plunge it into it, for purposes of suction. He asks whether “ the infant Horus” does this? The determinative of words relating to speech is a figure pointing the hand to the mouth.* It is also said to determine names of foods, and words relating to tasting and feeling. In the case of Horus, O’Neill thinks the gesture may perhaps refer to the birth of The Word, the Adyos, the word of truth.

And after all, O’Neill does but guide us back to Gerald Massey, who put the thing shortly thus,—The Horus child was represented as silent or dumb (Kart, Egy.), whose virile or Zvue Votce came with puberty. Khem- Horus was the adult Horus who could open his mouth — and had got his virile voice, hair or beard.

After Isis has nursed Horus and he had grown up strong “in the great dwelling of Seb,” the Divine Ennead, the Lords of Truth, being seated there, itis declared that “Horus has been found of just voice; to him has been given the office of his father.’”

Thoth, who is the recorder of deliverances on the subject of time, “writes down the words of Horus,” which are found to be the expression of truth and Jjustice.®

1 R. Cooper, Zeypt and the Pentateuch, p. 56

2 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 183. 3 O’Neill, Wight of the Gods, ii, 799. 4 Massey, Matural Genesis, i, 210. 5 Records of the Past, xvi, 21.

6 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 472.

352 CREATION RECORDS.

The signification of all this appears to us to be that the annual six-hours, growing up into a day, completes the year and expresses true time: and when the year is cor- rectly kept, the order of nature is followed, the Evil Power is frustrated, and confusion is obviated in the affairs of men. This result was never so completely attained until Horus—the Hours-period—was brought into the reckoning. Henceforth it will be the ambition of princes to be like Horus.

Egyptian children occasionally wore a dud/a or charm, suspended in the centre of a necklace of beads; and a bulla of this kind was worn by the youthful deity Harpo- crates.’ It was the symbol of truth and justice, and is usually found in the balance of the Judgment scenes. It was supposed to prompt the wearer to virtue and wisdom, to keep off the evil eye, or to avert misfortune ; and super- stition induced many to appeal to them in danger, and derive from them omens of forthcoming events.

We seem to have it revealed here incidentally, that the Evil Eye, about which so much has been written, is the eye of Set, which will usurp the place of the Eye of Horus in the sanctuary, if true reckoning be not kept. The Evil Eye showed confusion, proved misreckoning, and foreboded trouble.

HORUS AT HELIOPOLIS, THE SOLAR YEAR AND SOLSTITIAL COMMENCEMENT.—According to the tradition recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Dead, Horus came to the throne on the day of his father’s burial. We have seen in our chapter on Celestial Cities that the crown was given to Osiris at Heracleopolis ; and there were great rejoicings in the same city when Horus inherited the throne of his father. That might be because

• Heracleopolis adopted the solar year of 365 days (plus an intercalary) the same as Heliopolis did. But we shal expect to find Horus at Heliorolis.

1 Wilkinson, ekriiged, ii, 331.

HORUS. 353 Heliopolis, we argued, was first identified with the spring equinox and afterwards with the summer solstice, carrying Osiris with it in the change. The following reference to the Eyes of Horus seems to show that Horus also had first the equinoctial position. In the funeral cere- monies it is said of Unas,—Thou hast gotten possession of the two eyes of Horus, the white and the black: thou hast taken them unto thyself and they illuminate thy face (The rubric says, Here bring two black and white pitchers)! A white eye and a black would fittingly symbolise the solstices.

Indeed the allegorical festival of “the delivery of Isis ” was celebrated immediately after the vernal equinox.

Yet, as the new solar year at Heliopolis is to begin at midsummer, Horus like Osiris is at once elevated to the solstice. The 1st month of the year is called Thoth, and the 12th is Mesore; and Mesore would touch Thoth at the solstice but for the intervening five “additional days,” and in the Leap-year a 6th. These five or six days might be regarded as lengthening out the month Mesore ; and the means by which Horus made the year to be true.

In the month Mesore they offered the first-fruits of their lentils to the god Harpocrates, calling out at the same time, “ The tongue is Fortune, the tongue is God!”

Dr. Lauth of Munich, writing to Mr. Bosanquct con- cerning the date of the Nativity of Christ, says, “I have proved that the name of the month Mesore is to be decom- posed into mes, which means ‘birth,’ and //orz,‘of Horus.’ I have stated that in this month’s name is revealed a great dynastic festivity, Horus being the type and model of all legitimate successors or crown-princes. In another treatise I have shown that theserpent held by Horus in an emblem proper to this youthful god, who, like Hercules, even in his cradle overthrows all fiendish reptiles. Now this em-

1 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. cxl. 2 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 53.

3 Lbid., li, 53.

2A

354 CREATION RECORDS.

blem of Horus is always met with in his hand as sym- bolical of the month Mesore.”

At the summer solstice the sun has attained his furthest point north: and Naville tells us that in the Shrine of Anubis at Deir el Bahari, the hawk of Horus is an emblem of the North.’

I need only repeat that the Egyptians called the solstices the “great sun” and the “little sun” ; and while they held the festival of Ptah-Sokaris at the winter solstice, it is stated in one of the texts that “the sun is great as Horus, the sun is little as Sokaris,’”

§ 3. FOUR CHILDREN OF HORUS.

(Horus has Four Children in His Lock of Hair—The Tat with Four Bars is Their Symbol—They are the Four Six-hour Periods; and the Fourth completes the Day, and merges into Horus himself—They are not the Four Pillars—They all have their Place in the East—The Four in Two Couples—The Four Columns of Shu—The Four of Horus reflected in the Northern Sky—Relation of Horus to Anubis. )

The first chapter of the Ritual, in the older MSS., is commonly entitled a “Chapter of coming to the Divine Powers attached to Osiris.” The throne of Osiris, in pictures of the Psychostasia, rests upon water, out of which there springs a lotus flower ; and upon this flower stand the four children of Horus* (See Vignettes to chapter cxxv.)

As another example, four small figures stand on a lotus flower before Osiris in the judgment scene in Plate cxxxvi Ag. of Naville’s Des Thebanische Todtenbuch?

Their names are given as Amsta, Hapi, Tuamautef, and

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ww, 2, 232.

2 Naville, Detr e Bahari, part ii, p. 9.

3 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 135.

• Renouf, on chapter cxvii. 5 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 189.

HORUS. 355

Qebehsenuf. The spelling is not invariable; and we may take them as follows :—

Amset, who is human-headed. Hapi, a cynocephalous ape. Tuamautef, jackal-headed. Kebesenuf, hawk-headed.’

These four are also the urn-gods, and genii of the dead. They are painted in coffins near the head of the mummy ; and they are modelled as hollow figures—‘ Canopic vases,” which contain the heart and other viscera, which are preserved separately.

These mysterious genii of the dead, attached to Osiris, yet children of Horus, we may guess to be the four quarters of a day, or the four years of the Quadrenniad, though several writers allocate them to the four points of the compass.”

FOUR CHILDREN OF HORUS, FOUR STAGES OF GROWTH OF THE INTERCALARY Day.—When we see, as in the Papy- rus Anz, Plate 4, Osiris enthroned, and in front of him a lotus bearing all the four children of Horus on its expanded flower, we must confess that all the four are in one place, and not distributed to the four quarters of the world. By the lotus, which is the flower of dawn, they are all asso- ciated with the East. And to connect them unmistak- ably with the years during which Horus was a child, they are bound up with that lock of hair which marked his immaturity. In chapter xxx we have, “ Hail to you, ye gods who are on the side lock!” and Renouf quotes a passage from the Pyramid Texts :—They bring to Unas (line 479), the four Glorious Ones who are on the side lock of Horus, who stand upon the Eastern side of Heaven, and who are conspicuous through their sceptres.*

1 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary, ‘* Canopic Vases.”

2 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 390.

3 Book of the Dead, chapter xxx, A. Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., XV, 3, 105. © 2A2

356 CREATION RECORDS.

Sometimes Horus and his four children are seen together, as at Thebes, where the adytum of the Ptolemaic temple of Dayr el Medieneh, besides having the four genii of Amenti on the lotus flower, has a figure of Harpocrates seated on the crook of Osiris between the scales and the entrance of the divinc abode, which is guarded by Cerberus.

AMSET MERGES IN HORUS.—But seeing that the fourth six-hour period completes the day, which then finds its place in the calendar, and is the day of Horus, it should be no marvel if this particular son is mistaken for his father. Horus is called Amsu in the Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, where we read, I am the great Heron who its in Heliopolis . . . “I am Amsu in his manifestations. There have been given to me the Two Feathers upon my head.’”* The scholiast tells us that this is Horus, the avenger of his father, and the two feathers are the Urzi upon the forehead of his father Tmu.

Horus appears also to be called Kebsenef, and claims in that character to be the son who joins together his father’s bones. This is on the sarcophagus of Seti.’

THE FOUR CHILDREN AND THE TAT SYMBOL.—When an Englishman wants to know how far the current year is removed from a leap year, he divides the figures by four, and looks at the remainder. MHorapollo says that the Egyptians pictured one year as the fourth part of an acre; and it occurs to us that they might keep the picture of an acre before them and fill in the years as they passed. But they may have had other methods. Perhaps a Tat pillar would serve the purpose, if they added bars to itone by one. This object looks like a stand with four shelves, and is said now to have been an altar, though it is often called a Nilometer. But it was the emblem of stability, and a part of the figure of Osiris-Tat as “ The

1 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 3&2. 2 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 46. 3 Records of the Past, x, 87.

HORUS. 357

Resident in Amenti.”! Osifis is often represented as a living Tat cross with eyes.®

It is not a little significant, says Bonwick, that the Tat should be seen accompanied by the four genii of the dead, or the four gods in charge of the remains (the children of Horus).® Renouf confirms this in describing Plate 34 of the Papyrus of Ani:—The Tat with four bars stands in the upper register of the sepulchral scene, in which the four genii of the dead, the children of Horus, occupy the corners. “The Tat is also a symbol of the East,” he says in one of the Notes of his Preface. The vignette of the rising sun, in the great Papyrus Za of Leyden, shows the crux ansata or Sign of Life rising out of a Tat, and hold- ing the sun higher with two hands. That might not inaptly signify the maintenance of. the sun a little longer, to complete the year. This is not only in the eastern sky, but at the spring equinox, as appears from the following :— On the right hand side of the Tet is the goddess Nephthys, and on the left is Isis; each goddess raising her hands in adoration of the Tet, and kneeling upon the emb!em aa¢ or hemisphere. Above is the emblem of the sky. This vignette belongs properly to the Hymn of the Rising Sun.*

The Tet amulct layeth its two hands upon’ me and assigneth me to its sister, and the custody of its mother, Kehkehit, who setteth me upon the Eastern path of Heaven upon which Ra ariseth and mounteth on high each day (chapter ]xxv).°

Dr. Birch says, “The four horizontal bars of the emblem represented the four foundations or establishments of all things.”® This is quite consistent with our idea, because, in the estimation of the ancients, the whole of the astro- religious system rcsted on the basis of the accurate

1 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 2 Renouf on chapter cxxv. 3 Eeoyptirn Belief, p. 212. 4 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. 252.

Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 3, 7%. 8 Trans. Soc. Bib, Arch., Vv, 1, 125.

358 CREATION RECORDS.

measurement of the year. In the Euphratean systems the vernal equinox was the “stone of foundation.”

The Tat was also an emblem of Ptah, and would be appropriate because the year of the fire-god must automa- tically have absorbed the six-hour period. The emblem is said to have been designed by Thoth and given to Ptah.! In inscriptions of Shabaka (Chabas, J/e/anges, etc.), the god Ptah is portrayed in a four-fold character, and de- signated “Ptah in his four divine forms.” Beneath are four figures in the mummy shape, holding the Tat-cross.?

There were solid Tats of stone, two or three feet high.* A fine collection of Tats is exhibited in the Fourth Egyptian Room - of the British Museum. Chapter clv of the Ritual is to be cited over a tat of gold, with the result that the deceased is to pass in through the doors of the Underworld, and be set in his place on the Day of the New Year among the followers of Osiris.‘

At’the close of the festival of Ptah-Sokaris- Osiris, on the last day of the month Khoiak, there was a great solemnity of setting up the Tat, and it is said to have been as the symbol of Osiris. Erman alludes to this ay pillar as representing the sacred back-bone of

Osiris (Life on Egypt, p. 356). The tablets of Pasheren-ptah, high priest of Ptah at Memphis, speak of this great dignitary as the King’s Second or Deputy in “raising the Tat.” But Brugsch has published a picture (Thesaurus, v, 1190), copied by Erman from a tomb of the XVIIIth dynasty, in which Amenophis III himself helps to raise the Tat, and the queen Ti and the royal princesses take part in the ceremony. The procession is

1 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 508. 2 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 417. - 3 Bonwick, Ley. Bel, p. 213. “ Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), 1). 357.

HORUS. 359

.

described as marching round the sanctuary of Ptah- Socharis-Osiris four times. The number four is emphasised in all the ceremonies of the Tat.

Thus Erman says—At the feast of the erection of the

pillar Dad (Tat) on the 30th Khoiak, six singers cele- brate the god, and four priests bring in offerings. Four priests with their fists raised, rush upon four others, who appear to give way; two others strike each other, and one standing by says of them, “I seize Horus shining in truth.” Then follows a great flogging scene in which 15 persons beat each other. In the closing ceremonies four herds of oxen and asses are driven four times round the walls.

• The night seems to be “the night of battle,” when the Sebau, the associates of Set, are defeated. That is to say, Set or Typhon is the Evil Power, inimical to divine order, causing stars to wander from their path (though only in semblance), and bringing the seasons into confusion (through the inaccurate calendar). The intercalary day of Horus defeats these devices ; and the establishment of the day is symbolised by the setting up of the Tat.

The scene of these events is called Tattu, and seems to be analogous to Sesennu. As Sesennu is the Joca/e of the seven extinct equinoxes, or of Five Days which have no place in the Circle of 360°, so Tattu is the place of the Sixth Day. Possibly the name Tattu may sometimes cover the whole six days. Osiris is in Tattu, and is Lord of Tattu. The circle of Gods in Tattu comprises Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Horus (all born in Sesennu; all off- springs of the Egg of Seb).?- Thoth makes Osiris triumph- ant over his adversaries before the great circle of gods in Tattu, on the night when the Tat is set up in Tattu.

After the setting up of the Tat comes “the night of erecting the flag-staffs of Horus and establishing him as heir of his Father’s property.”® 7

1 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 279. 2 Litany of chapter xviii. 3 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. §2.

360 CREATION RECORDS.

If we are right in regarding Horus as the god of the complete year, of 365} days—and especially associated with the four six-hour periods—may it not be that the Tat pillar represents the 365th day, which had to be established before Horus could reign? Now, that day we have previously shown to be the missing member of Osiris; and therefore the Tat pillar would seem to be the phallus and neither a Nilometer nor an altar.

Budge himself is disposed to identify the ceremony of setting up the Tat with the festival celebrated in honour of the model which Isis made of the lost member of Osiris.

The four “bars” may possibly have been collars or rings with which the pillar was decked, in agreement with the four years during which the intercalary day was grow- ing up. We know that the Tat was sometimes clothed as a fetish ; and as the dressed figure is represented in Maspero’s work it might be an idol. But it reminds us that when pillars were set up in the Jerusalem temple, the idolatrous women wove hangings for them (2 Kings xxiii, 7, 14).

THE FOUR PILLARS ARE NOT FouR TATS.—Some 50 years ago M. Reuvens expressed his belief that the Tat represented the four quarters of the world; and according to Maspero it unites in itself the four pillars which support the sky and Osiris, whom they preserve from chaos. Budge quotes this, and in another place says on his own account, “ The Tat represents four pillars, z.e. the four quarters of heaven, or the whole universe.” And the four children of Horus he states to be the gods of the cardinal points.

There are, no doubt, some facts and statements in the Egyptian system which seem to support this view. For example, one of the ceremonies of the great heb or pané- guris of Amen was to call four wild geese by the names of

1 Buage, Book of the Dead, p. li, note. 2 Ibid. (Ant), p. 357, and cxxxviii note, also p. 259.

HORUS. 361

the four funereal genii, and then let them fly towards the four points. of the horizon.

‘Again, in the Anz Papyrus—in the vignette to chapter cxlviii—besides Ani adoring Ra, there is a range of seven cows and a bull ; behind them four rudders which the text connects with the four ‘quarters of heaven; and on the extreme right four triads of gods. Inthe Turin papyrus the four children of Horus take the place of these triads.

Nevertheless it appears to us that the cardinal points are not the children of Horus; though, owing’ to there being two sets of four, and one of them of a mysterious character, they have become confounded. The confusion seems evident in the following paragraph from Budge :—

The Egyptians regarded the sky as rectangular and supported at each corner by a pillar ; and in this idea we have, as Maspero has observed, a survival of the roof-tree of very primitive nations. Ata very early date the four pillars were identified with “the four ancient Aus who dwell in the hair of Horus,’ who are also said to be “the four gods who stand by the pillar sceptres of heaven.” These four gods are “children of Horus,” and their names are Amset, etc. They were supposed to preside over the four quarters of the world, and subsequently were acknow- ledged to be the gods of the cardinal points.®

It seems unlikely that four genii, lodged in the lock of Horus, should represent four columns supporting the heavens ; and unfitting that they should all be found in one place on a lotus leaf. We will therefore show again, and by further evidence, that the children of Horus are all congregated in one place, in the East.

We have seen how closely they are associated with the Tet ; and Budge himself calls the Tet the emblem of the

1 O’Neill, Might of the Gods, p. 159. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead (Anz), ci. Comp. Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 128; and Birch, Gallery of Antiquities (in Simpson, Orzentatzon of Temples,

p. 24). 3 Comp. also O’Neill, Aighd of the Gods, p. 1004.

362 CREATION RECORDS.

Fast and of the God Osiris. In vignette 1, plate 2, of the Anz Papyrus, the Tet stands upon the horizon, with the goddesses Isis and Nephthys on either side of it.’ Some lines in the Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, are illustrated by a funeral chest from which Ra is emerging.’ The chest is called aat Adtu,“the district of Abydos,” or the “burial place of the Zas?,” and it has upon its side figures of the four children of Horus. Further, the soul of the good man goes to the Field of Peace—which we think was the place of sun-rise—and enters with two of the children of Horus on one side of him, and two on the other.’

THE FOUR IN Two COUPLES.—It seems not unlikely— as suggested before—that with a view to the just measure- ment of time, or as near an approximation as practicable, the intercalary day was inserted at the end of the second year of the four. Two six-hour periods preceded and two followed ; so that Horus, when identified with the Day itself, might be said to have two of his children on one side of him and two on the other. It is curious, at any rate, that there are texts which might be reasonably ex- plained on such a supposition.

Chapter cxii tells us how Horus asked Ra to give him two brothers in Pu and two in Nachen. He received them, and their names were Emsta and Hapi, in Pu, and Tuamautef and Kebhsenef in Nachen; and his name became that of Horus upon his column. As to Pu and Nachen, their geographical situation does not now concern us, for we are evidently dealing with celestial places. It is in Pu that Horus is established as heir to his Father, and on the same night the pillars or flag-staffs of Horus are set up. This we learn from chapter xviii of the Litany ; and we remember that the erection of the flag- staffs followed the raising of the Tat. Nothing more is wanted to show us that Pu is in Tattu, and that we are

1 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. 252. 2 Jbid., pp. 38, 278. 3 [bid., p. civ.

HORUS. 363

dealing with the celestial locality of the 366th day, the quadrennial intercalary. The pillars are erected when Horus saith to those who follow him, “ Let the pillars be erected there.”

Why Horus made the request for four brothers is also told us, and it is a curious story. Ra said to Horus, “ Look, pray, at that black swine.” He looked, and a grievous mishap afflicted his eye. Horus said to Ra, “Lo, my eye is as though the eye of Set had made a wound in my own eye.” . . . It was Set who had taken the form of a black swine, and he wrought a wound which was in the eye of Horus. And Ra said to the gods, “The swine is an abomination to Horus; may he get well!” And the swine became an abomination to Horus. Then Horus petitioned for the four brothers to be with him.

The reader will almost interpret the story for himself. Before Horus obtained these brothers or sons, he was Horus of the 365th day, or the year of 365 days without an intercalary supplement. The inaccuracy showed itself in the mutilation of the sun’s image in the temple sanc- tuary : the Eye of Horus, single and sound, was not there, but the evil eye of Set. Typhon or Set is here a black swine. ’ THE FouR COLUMNS.—Nothing that we have said contradicts the fact that the cardinal points were impor- tant, and the vault of heaven was mythically supported by four columns. Only the four columns were the pillars of Shu, who lifted the sky, while the four genii of the dead were children of Horus, who filled out the year, Each group might be called Brothers of Horus, and hence perhaps the confusion. The four genii are called his brothers when given to him in Pu and Nachen; and the four pillars might be his brothers, as they are a family of brothers in the Greek story of Atlas—or rather in the Pheenician tradition of Sanchoniathon.?

THE FOUR IN THE NORTHERN Sky.—After fixing the

1 Proc, Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 1, 5. 2 Cory’s Ancient Fragments.

364 “CREATION RECORDS.

four children in the East, and connecting them with the rising sun, it may be at first a little perplexing to be told that they are “behind the Thigh ”—which was a northern constellation… But this is only another instance of the parallelism between the equator and a higher circle. Horus as the complete year is like Ptah, the Polar god revived: in the ancient days when the year was measured from longest day to longest day, the six-hours crept in unperceived—they were there somewhere. They must be there now, in any circle traversed by the clock-hand of Anubis. In the inscription of Shabaka (Chabas, Melanges, etc.) the god Ptah is portrayed in a fourfold character, designated “ Ptah in his four divine forms.” Beneath are four figures in a mummy shape, holding the Tat cross. (The mummy shape, it may be remarked, is sometimes given to the four figures in the lock of Horus.)

RELATION OF HORUS TO ANUBIS.—In the old days of the Fire-god Ptah, Anubis was the Jackal to give warning of the inundation, the clock-hand to point out seasons and solstices. Horus has restored that ancient year and brought Anubis again into favour; and indeed, is himself the true adjuster of Time. There is in this way a parallelism between the two gods. Horus was born of Isis, and we find that Anubis, though born of Nephthys, claimed Isis as his mother. Nephthys seems to count the two boys as one, when, in an invocation to Osiris she says, “Thy son Horus, the child of two sisters, is before thee !

We are not surprised, therefore, to find them performing the same office in matters of weighing and measuring. In the judgment scene of the royal scribe, Osiris seated on his throne awaits the report from Horus, who is directing the balance in the place of Anubis. Before the door of his palace are the four genii of Amenti (the children of Horus).*

1 Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, line 92. 2 Massey, Wat. Geit., i, 417. 3 Rec.rds of the Fast, ii, 123. 4 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 381.

HORUS. 365

§ 4. HORUS AND Ra.

(Horus, completing the yar, blends with Osiris and with Ra—Is Lord of the Two Horizons—Is addressed as the Bull—Horus is the Hawk and not the Phcenix. )

As Osiris on his resurrection coalesced with Ra, it may be expected that Horus, as the perfected solar year, will blend with both. But it was union and not opposition. Probably the old forms of worship were too dear to the people to be safely displaced, and it was considered best to represent that the relations of the gods were harmonious. Horus the god of truth and justice (achieving more exact measure than had been done by his predecessors) becomes the supreme ruler of gods and men. Neither Osiris nor Ra could have prevented his accession ; but then they did not try, they did not wish.?

Osiris sat on a throne of nine steps, and he had nine companions ; but “the Divine Ennead rejoices when the Son of Osiris comes, even Horus with the firm heart, with the just voice.”? These Nine are concerned for scientific accuracy; only through cxact time can there be harmony ; and they are as much desirous of harmony as the Nine Muses could be. They are called the Chiefs of Truth, and they acknowledge Horus as the universal Master, as though he were their Apollo. The Lords of Truth col- lected there, cast sin [ze, inaccuracy] afar from them, seated in the vast dwelling-place of Seb, to establish the dignity of him who is their Master, the royalty of justice who resides there. Horus has been found of just voice ; to him has been given the office of his father. The diadem has come to him by the order of Seb; he has assumed the dominion of the double land, the white crown being established on his head. :

1 Records of the Past, ii, 124. 2 Jbid., New Series, iv, 21. 3 Jbid., iv, 21.

366 CREATION RECORDS.

In the following passage Horus seems to be identified with Osiris:—O my lord, Osiris, yent Amenti, Horus triumphant, lord of eternity, eldest son, whom Seb hath engendered, first-born of the womb of Neith, lord of Tattu, ruler of Abydos.’

Even more thoroughly is his individuality interfused with that of Ra. In the second Hymn of chapter xv the deceased “adores Ra, the Horus of the two horizons,” and says, “ Adoration to thee, O Ra!” Horus is addressed as “Ra, the eldest of the gods,” while still he is the child at the breast of Isis, a paradox which no clue except the one we are following would enable us to explain.

We could multiply the evidence that Horus blends with Ra, but there is no need. Hilton Price describes a figure of the god Ra found at Tell Basta, as “a form of Horus, hawk-headed.”? And Maspero says, “ Horus the Sun and Ra the Sun-god 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 Ra had been usurped by Horus, and all the designations of Horus had been appropriated by Ra.”

HORUS, LIKE OSIRIS, RESTS A LITTLE AT THE EQUINOX BEFORE BEING EXALTED TO THE SOLSTICE. —The reason of this we assume to be because the solar year of Ra I began at the equinox, and after the resump- tion of the solar year there was a short period of hesitation before shifting the New Year’s Day. Heliopolis was the seat of the solar worship at both eras.

The evzdence for Horus at the equinox must be briefly cited. Renouf taught for many years before his death, that certain royal titles—represented. by two urzi—indicate the sovereignty claimed by Egyptian kings over East and West, just as others assert the claim over North and South. It has been shown in our own chapters that the two urei are the two semi-circles of the ecliptic, meeting at the 1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 3, 338. 2 Tbid., ix, i, 51.

HORUS. 367

equinox, and become the snakes on the caduceus of Mercury (Thoth) who at the equinox keeps them balanced and peaceful. The titles, it appears, belong to Horus and to Hathor, and do not refer to political divisions of Egypt, but to the whole universe.?

Seated at the equinox, Horus would have the summer and the winter solstice on either side. The Pyramid texts have the conception of the Two Eyes of Horus, one white and one black (Unas 37).?

“ Horus, the uniter of North and South,” is one of his designations ; and he is ucauenty addressed as Lord of the two horizons.®

Maspero says that Hatainchis whose name was given to the Sphinx, is “ Horus, the sky of the two horizons, z.e., the sky of the day-time and the night sky. When the celestial Horus was confounded with Ra, and became the sun, he naturally also became the sun of the two horizons, the sun by day, and the sun by night.” To us it seems that all such allusions suit best the equinoctial position.

So also do the passages in which he is addressed as the Bull—if we think of the constellation Taurus; although a little later the Mnevis bull is held sacred at Heliopolis after that city has exchanged the equinox for the solstice.

By chapter cix of the Ritual, one knows the powers of the East ; and they are Horus of the Solar mount, the Calf in presence of the god, and the Star of Dawn.

Horus is spoken of in his form of a black bull, and as a powerful bull, a mighty bull giving birth to the gods. He is Horus the powerful Bull, crowned in Vas.’

The hawk and the Mnevis bull were sacred to Ra at Heliopolis.®

1 Proc. Soc. Bib, Arch., xvi, 3, 66. 2 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 135. 3 Budge, Book of the Dead (Anz), p. cxv and 323. Records of the Past, viii,

7

4 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 138, note. 5 Petrie, Zanzs, 17, 19, 31. Records of the Past, ii, 373 and Second Ser’ es, lili, 40. 8 Budge, By paths, pp. 136 and 387.

368 CREATION RECORDS.

HORUS THE HAWK BUT NOT THE PHCNIX.—With the vague year, of 365 days without any intercalary, the New Year’s Day began at once to be dissociated from Sirius, and returned to its place after 1460 years. This was the Sothic Cycle, and it was one of the phoenix periods. It would seem to belong properly to Osiris when restored by the addition of the missing member; or to Aroeris, the god of the 365th day. Accordingly we find Maspero saying that the phoenix is “a fabulous bird derived from the golden sparrow-hawk, which was primarily a form of Aroeris ; and of the sun-gods in the second place only.”!

Still, when a phcenix temple is erected for Osiris at Heliopolis, Horus can hardly avoid coming into possession. The persea-tree in the temple of the phoenix at Heliopolis was sacred to Horus.?

It is not however the Bennu-bird but the Hawk which is assigned to Horus in the texts. Horus is addressed as the Akhem in his boat, and Mr. De Horrack tells us that Akhem is the name of the mummified hawk? In chapter Ixvi the speaker says,-I am Horus. . . . and I come forth like the hawk, which soareth aloft and resteth upon the brow of Ra at the prow of his barque in heaven.‘

On the paraphernalia of a mummy unrolled at Stafford House, Dr. Birch found a hawk-headed mummied deity holding two swords, evidently a type of Horus, but also occurring as that of the guardian of the 14th gate of the Aahlu.e For representations of Harpocrates, the child Horus, Maspero refers us to Lanzoni, particularly plate cccx, 2, where there is a scene in which the young god, as a sparrow-hawk, is nevertheless sucking the breast of his mother Isis with his beak.® .

Our idea is that the Hawk represents the recurring period of four years—that it is an emblem of the 366th

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 136, note.

2 King, Cleopatra’s Needle, p. 83. 3 Records of the Past, xii, 121. 4 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 2, 28. 5 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vv, 1, 125. 8 Dawn of Civilisation, 107.

HORUS. 369

day, and may stand also for the separate quarters of it. The genti of those six-hour periods, of the Ist, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year respectively, are Kebehsenuf and Tuamutef, Hapi and Amset, and the localities of the couples are called Pu and Nachen. Now we are assured that the Greek name Hieraconpolis—city of the Hawks (in the Thebaid, east of the river Nile) is derived from the three hawk-headed divinities who were called the spirits of Nachen, and are said in chapter cxiii of the Ritual to be Horus, Tuamutef and Kebehsenuf. Horus, the chief of the gods, was worshipped here under the form of a hawk, etc.! 7

It was only because Horus brought the intercalary day to remedy the deficiency of the year, that he was thought worthy to succeed Osiris. In chapter Ixvi a speaker says, “ And I display myself as the Sacred Hawk whom Horus hath invested with his soul, for taking the possession of his inheritance from Osiris at the Tuat.”? “His deficiencies are removed and he alights upon his. land.” “Iam the four yesterdavs of those seven urzus deities who are born in Amenta; Horus who giveth light by means of his own body,” etc.*

The heavenly place where the Tat was set up and the deficiencies of the year compensated, so that the cycle of four years could begin again, was called Tattu. It is naturally a place favourable to growing young again, and’ becoming a young hawk if not a phoenix. Chapter Ixxviii- shows in the vignette a green hawk holding a flail and standing on a pylon-shaped pedestal. It is concerned with changing into the Sacred Hawk; and it begins,— | Hail, thou mighty one, come unto Tattu . . . make me to renew myself and make me to wax strong.

Of course the hawk becomes also the emblem of Ra,. with whom Horus had coalesced. Wiedemann says it is

1 Proc. Soc. Bib, Arch., x, 1, 73. ® Book of the Dead, 3 Chapter xvii. + Chapter Ixxxiii.

2B

370 CREATION RECORDS.

the characteristic sign of all solar deities that they are hawk-headed; though he thinks we have no information as to how the hawk came to be associated with the sun.’ The Pharaohs become hawks, as regards their 4a, or soul ; and when the king dies, the expression is, ‘“‘ The hawk has soared,” “the follower of the god has met his Maker.”

§ 5. HORUS AND THOTH.

(Horus associated with the Eye of the Sun, and so with the Solstice—The Two Eyes were not Sun and Moon, and the Peril was not Eclipse—Thoth the Time-Keeper restores the Eye—Horus holds the Palm-branch, like Thoth—-Is Crowned in the Region of the City of Thoth.)

HORUS AND THE EYE.—The eye of the sun being the sun’s image or reflection, formed over the altar in temples properly oriented to receive it, the inclusion of the six hours in the corrected year would seem to ensure the reproduction of the Eye at the year’s return, as regularly and perfectly as was ever possible in the old days of Ptah. With Horus therefore is eminently associated the Eye of the Sun. In chapter viii of the Look of the Dead the speaker says—I call upon the Eye of Horus, which gleams as an ornament upon the brow of Ra the father of the gods. Chapter cxl is a prayer to the symbolic eye.

There are two eyes at least, for such expressions occur as—May the Gods, the Eycs, who are in Suten-henen, be favourable to his reverence !*

In our chapter on Eyes of the Sun we rejected the specious idea that the two eyes are the sun and moon— an idea however which it must be acknowledged has the sanction of some of the later texts. For instance, the Neapolitan stele, an inscription of the: Persian period,

1 Wiedemann, Wel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 26. 2 Petrie, Zgyptian Tales, i, 84. 3 On Symbolic Eyes, see Brit. Afus. Guide. 4 Records of the Past, iv, 68

HORUS. 371

translated by Goodwin, contains an address to the Lord of Gods, Khnum, king of the double land, whose right eye is the solar disk, whose left eye is the moon, whose spirit is Shu, etc.? |

But the matter is not quite so simple as this inscription

assumes. Renouf says,—The symbolism of the U¢-at, or

Eye of Horus, is extremely important but very difficult

‘The eye of the Sun,’ as the word at first means, may signify either Day-break or Sunset, or the Beginning of the Year, or the Solstice, or the Equinox. In every case it marks a stage in the sun’s progress.?

What it appears to us to mark is the sun’s image in the oriented temple, received there at sunrise or sunset, of solstice or equinox, and so marking the return of the year.

Isis and Nephthys, as we have seen, were associated with the two eyes of the sun at the solstices ; and Horus owes his existence to these two sisters, who called him into being after reuniting the limbs of Osiris’s body.®

In the history of Horus we find that there was at one time great peril to his eyes. Ifthe eyes were the sun and moon it would be natural to speak of the eyes being put out when the luminaries suffered eclipse. Ra’s eye had been threatened by a black boar; though in another account it is the eye of Horus.

Renouf thinks there can be na doubt that this attack in the one hundred and twelfth chapter, and the disaster mentioned in the one hundred and fifteenth, have reference to eclipses. The two eyes, however, are not called the eyes of the sky, but the eyes of the sun, and Ra’s eye was in peril in the sense that the image was not duly formed in the temple, on the calendar New Year’s Day. The event probably occurred during the currency of the Osirian year, or at least while the year was still short of the quarter-of-

1 Records of the Past, iv, 67. 2 Preface to nz Papyrus, p. 12.

Records of the Past, \i, 123, note. * Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1885, p. 164.

2B 2

‘ 372 CREATION RECORDS. a-day ; and the blackness of the boar shows the agency of Typhon, the enemy of divine order.

The Book of the Dead has repeated allusions to disasters occurring to the Eye of the Sun-god ; and Renouf thinks that some of them have reference to the daily disappear- ance of the sun, but others to eclipses. “The Eye of Horus in its failure” (Zodt. 80. 4) is a case in point; and Lefébure had expressed the same opinion. Not very dis- similar is the idea entertained by Maspero, who considers that the sun and moon were regarded as the two eyes of the divine face, or of heaven. That face (if he understands the Egyptian conception) is subject to maladies, as is the human face—and naturally to those maladies of the human face which are most frequent in Egypt, viz.: maladies of the eyes. Of the two eyes, that of the sun was ordinarily in good condition, and not suffering from eclipse: the moon on the contrary was attainted with a periodic malady, owing to the progressive decrease of light.’

But if the two eyes of Ra (which, by the way, are not called the eyes of the divine face or of heaven) are to be regarded as the sun and moon, what shall we make of the eyes of Typhon or Set? The eye of Horus is contrasted with the eye of Typhon. The papyri make frequent allusions to the production of created things from the eye of Ra or of Horus; while noxious things were supposed to be produced from the eye of Set or Typhon.?

There is not only contrast, but there is conflict, between Horus and Set; and while on the one hand the eye of Horus was hurt, on the other the testicles of Typhon were emasculated. A text of the Pyramid of Unas (1. 532 et 614) says, “ L’oeil d’Horus est tombé, les testicules du taureau sont enlevés: tombé, chatré” [So understood by Lefébure].® “ Ainsi, suivant la légende, Typhon avait été émasculeé par Horus, dont Ja statue, 4 Coptos, tenait en main le trophic

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1892, p. 316. 2 Goodwin, AHecords of the Past, ii, 131.. 3? Pree. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiii, 6, 343.

HORUS. 373

de sa victoire, ces dudota de Typhon—qui, a en croire les listes ptolémaiques d’Edfou, etaient conservés dan le I9¢ nome de la Haute Egypte.”

In the conflict Horus is temporarily blinded, and he is spoken of as “ Horus, prince of blindness,” though others might translate it, “resident in the realm of darkness.’ M. Pierret renders it “le dieu qui est sans yeux.” Horus was worshipped specially under this title in the town of Seshem, named by the Greeks Letopolis, and under this title he was called the Lord of Seshem.’ Yet the title underwent a curious transformation and was often written Prince of Sight or of Two Eyes, instead of Blindness.

We dismiss the idea of eclipse of sun or moon, and believe rather that the Eye of Horus suffered by the marring of its perfect reflection in the oriented temple, as had previously been the case with Osiris and Ra. The cause was a discrepancy between the calendar and the true length of the year. Accordingly the physician who brings healing is Thoth, the god whose special business it is to secure correct time.

THE EYE OF HORUS AND THE SOLSTICE.—Before describing the service rendered by Thoth, let us show the connection of the Eye with the summer solstice, and thus with the year’s beginning and end. This would be the obvious place for the intercalation of the additional day ; and to the summer solstice the temple of Horus would be oriented. Renouf, after remarking that Horus, according to the Pyramid texts, has two eyes, a light one and a dark one, goes on to say, “But ‘the Eye of Horus’ is most frequently spoken of in the singular number. It is certainly meant for the sun,” etc? The light eye and its image in the temple would be associated with the summer solstice. At that season there was a feast in celebration of the new birth of the sun or of the year, and a ceremony of

1 Renovf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1886, p. 156. 2 Renouf, note 2, on chapter cxxv.

374 CREATION RECORDS.

making the eye full. The continued use of the vague year without an intercalary would anticipate the New Year’s Day by one day in four years, and by a whole month in 120 years. In the course of time the difference came to be four months ; and so by the Decree of Tanis. the month Pachons was made to take the place of the old Thoth, which began the year. Then, in one of the feast calendars of the Ptolemies, the first five days of Pachons are dedicated to the celebration of the victory of Horus over his enemies ; and on the sixth day the solstice was celebrated. “ The Uza-eye is then filled . . . andeverything is performed which is ordained in the book ‘ on the Divine Birth.’ ”*

This victory, celebrated .at the time of the solstice, signified that the true length of the year was established, despite the evil powers which wrought insidiously to dis- place sun and stars and bring confusion. Maspero gives, as one name of the sun, Hartima, or Horus the Pikeman— that Horus whose lance spears the hippopotamus or the serpent of the celestial river—and says in a footnote, Har- tima has long been considered as a Horus making truth by the destruction of his enemies.?

It was this Eye—this true solstitial sun and its reflected image—which was liable to be hurt or displaced. If the year was any too short it went one way, if the year was too long it went the other. Even with the excellent device of an intercalary day, it was mostly a little out of place. You might fancy that two genii were trying to drag it opposite ways. A speaker in the Book of the Dead says, “I embrace the sycamore, I am united to the sycamore. | part the two deities cf morning that I may come to hold the Eye, and cause it to rest in its place.”*

THOTH RESTORES THE EYE.—According to the ancient myth, Sut or Set deprived Horus of his Eye ; but Thoth says the Book of the Dead, b:ings back the Eye, living,

1 Krall, quoted by Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 275. 2 Dawn of Civilisation, p. 109. 3 Book of the Dead, chapter 1x.v.

HORUS. 375

safe, and sound, without damage, to its master Later texts repeat this ; and it is said at Denderah, for example, that Thoth, coming forth victoriously, hath restored the Eye to its master. In another text, published by Dr. von Bergman (plate 52) Thoth restores the Eye of Horus to his master, and protects the Ut-at from the one who would extinguish it.?

Hilton Price has one figure of Thoth, of a type not common, in which the god is holding up the left mystic Eye with both hands below his beak. When Thoth holds up the symbolic eye he means to say that he shows the true length of the year.®

HORUS AND THE PALM OF THOTH.—Horus completed the year, which Thoth as Time-reckoner was bent upon making accurate. Their interest and function was so closely allied that one would expect to see some degree of interchange. Thoth used to keep record with an iron stylus, and with a notched stick or a palm branch. Horus is represented hawk-headed, holding in his right hand a palm branch ina slanting position. “A symbol of many years,” says Petrie ; more exactly, we should say, of years counted and recorded.®

HORUS CROWNED AT HERMOPOLIS, THE CITY OF THOTH.—In our chapter on Celestial Cities we have associated Hermopolis with the autumnal equinox at the time of Ra’s accession. The seven cows of Hathor were done with, and Ra took the place of the eighth. Hermopolis—city of Hermes or Thoth—was the city of the Eight or the Eighth. In the same locality we have Se-sennu or Smen; and Gerald Massey says, “Smen is the region of the Eight Gods, and Thoth is the Lord of it."° Se-sennu reads 6 + 2, and is the region of the 8.

Thoth is Lord of Se-sennu, great god, lord of heaven.’

1 Book of the Dead, chapter xvii. 2 Proc, Soc. Bib. Arch., 1885, p. 166. 3 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 1, 52. 4 King, Cleopatra’s Needle, p. 11. 5 Petrie, Zandés, ii, 114. 6 Massey, Book of Beginnings, i, 265; ii, 83. 7 Petrie, Zanis, p. 101.

376 CREATION RECORDS,

In our view, however, Thoth the recorder, though called into being and office at this time, is not confined to the eighth equinoctial point, but is frec to range all round the ecliptic circle, to adjust the points. Shu had just lifted the heavens, and the ecliptic circle was now first recognised and was assigned to Thoth.

In the same hour “ Ra began to exercise his sovereignty on the height of Am-Chemun ” (or Am-Smen).!

When the government of Ra fails (because the year has been made of only 360 days) Seb the Cackler hatches five more days. The scene is the same, the locality is still Sesennu, and Smen is another name for Seb and signifies “Goose.”

The next régime is that of Osiris, during whose reign Thoth is Lord of Smen.

Lastly, when Osiris gives place to Horus, it is in Smen that the son is annually established in the seat of the father.®

That would be consistent at Memphis, where the autumn equinox was retained as the beginning of the year. But it seems to require that Smen should always include the equinox, although the point recedes along the ecliptic.

§ 6. THE “ FOLLOWERS OF HORUS.”

(Tke Ilor-Sheshu before Menes—Not Historical but Mythic—To be identified first with the Four Children of Horus, and then with their Unacknow- ledged Predecessors—Conceived of as in Elysium.)

_ When Horus did battle with Typhon, he was aided by

the Hor-Sheshu, the “followers” or “worshippers” of

Horus. It is not easy to make out who these followers

were. In the first place they were very ancient, dating 1 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 198.

2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1837, p. 93. 3 Masse y, Book of Beginnings, li, 36, 833 i, 265.

HORUS. 377 before the time of Menes. Tradition said that the temple of Abydos was built by the Followers of Horus, before the time of Menes.1 At the Denderah temple an inscription in one of the crypts states that the ground-plan was found in old writings on parchments of the time of the Followers of Horus, preserved in the walls of the palace during the reign of King Pepi (of the VIth dynasty).? Most of the famous sanctuaries, Edfu, etc., were founded before Mena by these Servants of Hor. Miss Edwards, in a’ note to Maspero’s Egyptian Archeology, tells us that they are mentioned in the Turin papyrus as the predecessors of Mena, and are referred to in the monumental inscriptions as representing the prehistoric people of Egypt.’ It is to the Hor-Sheshu that Professors Maspero and Mariette attri- bute the making of the Great Sphinx.

Lockyer says that these people are almost prchistoric, even in Egyptian history. He thinks they represent possibly the old sun-worshippers, at a time when as yet there was no temple of the sun.‘ Maspero also says that, like the reign of Ra, the time in which the Followers of Horus were supposed to have lived, was for the Egyptians of classic times the ultimate point beyond which history did not reach.’

Yet they followed Horus during the Typhonian wars. Each had an iron lance and a chain in his hand, and they smote the crocodiles and hippopotami, the enemies of Ra.‘}

Shall we be wrong if we look for them in mythology rather than in history ?

How many of them were there? Budge makes them to be three beings in human form, round the pan of the balance in the judgment scene.’ It appears that they assist at the birth of children ; and they remind us of the

1 Budge, By-Paths, p. §3.

• Lockyer, Mature, Keb. 1892. Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 402.

3 Egyptian Archeology, p. 64. 4 Dawn of Astronomy, p. 150.

• Dawn of Civilisation, p. 182 note.

® Wiedemann, Re/. 07 Ancient Eeyptians, p. 71.

7 Budge, Book of the Dead (Anz), p. CXxv.

378 CREATION RECORDS.

Destinies or Fates. In the Anz Papyrus the prayer has been offered that Ani may be like unto the Followers of Horus forever: Ani becomes a great one among the gods in the train of Horus; and the scholiast says they are Mestha, Hapi, Tuamautef and Kebehsenuf. We are familiar with these four as the six-hour genii who assisted Horus to overthrow Typhon and establish correct time. Then, in the Ani text, they are spoken of as holy ones who stand behind Osiris, who utterly do away with sins and crime. That is, in our view, they rectify errors of time and measure- ment, for thus physical was the idea of sin in the first instance. It seems to us, then, that Chassinat is not wrong when he identifies the véxves, who according to Manetho preceded Menes, with the Egyptian akhu, who, according to the Book of the Dead, are certain gods otherwise known as the sons of Horus, Khent, Khety (Rec. de Tr. xix, 23).

Yet some answer should be given to the question, how they come to be before Menes, when our general inquiry makes Horus to be contemporary with Menes, and also how the impression arises that they must have been more numerous? Well, the year had always been of the sanre length although it was not acknowledged, and generations of six-hour genii must have been passing on, unrecognised, ever since the régime of Ptah. What had become of them? They might be conceived of as “gone to glory,” their life hid somewhere in celestial regions, so that it would be felicity to be as they. In Papyrus Anz the deceased is promised that meat offerings and entrance into the presence of the god Osiris shall be granted unto him, together with a homestead for ever in Sekhet-hetepu, as unto the Followers of Horus. To similar effect is chapter xcix of the Book of the Dead, and the rubric to chapters cl and clvi.

We have found a sense then in which the Followers of Horus were ever of old; and indeed in the same sense Horus, though the child of Isis, had existed from the

1 Egypt Exbloration Fund Archaeol. Report, 1896-7, p. 43. |

HORUS. 379

beginning, We can understand in this way that “the lotus sprung from the watery abyss of Nu, on the morning of creation; and Horus is represented springing from the lotus,”?

§ 7. HORUS AND PTAH.

(The year being restored to its original length, Horus assumes some of the characters of Ptah— Pillars are again set up—Horus is called Master of the Thirty-Year Festival—Is associated also with Pasht—The Four Children of Horus are the blacksmiths of the Fire-god.)

In the old days of Ptah the Fire-god, the sun was thought of as a fire kindled anew every morning. It can only have been a little later, we think, if later at all, when he was spoken of as the Beetle (Khepera) emerging from the ground. In those times, the years being measured from one Midsummer Day to another, the six-hour periods could not fail to be included ; and the same result is now con- sciously attained under Horus. The reversion is perceived, and it seems to account satisfactorily for some of the names and characters of the latter god. In a Hymn of Praise to Ra, in chapter xv, of the Ritual, the address 1s,— Homage to thee, O Horus of the two horizons, who art Khepera the self-created. Similarly in chapter Ixxviii he has equipped himself with the powers of Tum.

Horus is called the Column of the Great Company of the gods (Mariette, Adydos, i, p. 34); and a monolith is his dwelling-place.? The pillars of Horus are erected where Horus is established as heir of his father’s property.’

HORUS AND THE SED FESTIVAL.—At the time when Horus comes in, the Osirian year has just been abandoned, but the new practice is not uniform throughout Egypt. At Heliopolis a year of 365 days is adopted, supplemented by

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 136. .

2 Proc. Soc. Bib, Arch., xv, t, 8. Grant Duff, Cosdtemp. Rev., Feb. 1874. 3 Book of the Dead, chapter xviii.

380 CREATION RECORDS.

the fourth year intercalary day. At the same time the intercalary is not popularly used, and the neglect of it gives rise to the Sothic Cycle. Meantime the people of Memphis retain the year of 364 days, with a month inter- calated in the thirtieth ycar, to make up for the omitted days, and an added month after four such Sed periods, to gather up the quarters.

Gerald Massey finds that Horus becomes the typical adult of 30 years! On the Tablet of 400 years we have the ascription—-The Living Horus, the Living Sun, the Powerful Bull beloved of Truth, Lord of Festivals of Thirty Years, like his father Ptah.2 In the inscription of Harem- hebi the festival is called Triakonterides of the Sun, the years of Horus as king.’

Horus AND PASHT.—When Horus is recognised in the Sed festival he cannot be neglected in that of Pasht, which gathers up the six-hour fragments and makes a month of them in the 120th year. The Osirian year of 13 months (28 x 13 = 364) was supplemented by a 14th at intervals of 30 years, and by a 15th in the 120th year. The ark of Osiris contained the phallus, which was the missing day, and the quarter of a day in addition. They were Horus the Elder and Horus the Child. They would be acknow- ledged by-and-bye in the Sed festival and the Pasht festival. Now the ark or chest is called the aat Adbtu, and it has on its side figures of the four children of Horus, which we have identified with the six-hour fragments of time.* The believer pictures himself going the same voyage with Osiris ; and in chapter cli he says, “ I am a perfected soul in the holy egg of the adtu fish; I am the Great Cat which dwelleth in the seat of right and truth,” etc. The Great Cat is Pasht, bringing the calculation right, and the measurement true by that device of a fifteenth month, made up of the six-hour fragments which belong to Horus. So

1 Natural Genesis, ii, 412. 2 Records of the Past, iv, 35- 3 lbid., X, 34. - 4 Chapter xvii.

HORUS. 381 in chapter Ixvi, the Osirified soul feels able to say, “I am Horus! I know that I was begotten by Pasht and brought forth by Neith.”

The city of Pasht was Bubastis; and Bubastis is also her name: sometimes Buto, and it is at Buto that we find Isis with her child Horus.!. The city of Bubastis was also anciently called Habu; and Hab is the sacred name of the Ibis, as the messenger of Thoth.? This brings Pasht and the Ibis into a certain parallelism, and supports our view that both of them are intercalary months.

THE BLACKSMITHS OF PTAH.—The Fire-god Ptah, the Vulcan of the Romans, was not without the help of sons of the forge. The fact now emerges that these black- smiths are the four little men, the six-hour genii, the sons of Horus. They must of course have belonged to the year of Ptah, measured from solstice to solstice, although they may have escaped notice, lost in the blaze of the fire.

But when Osorkon, sitting in a shrine of the North, and wearing the crown of Lower Egypt, was keeping the thirty- year festival’of Ptah, he had before him the religious em- blems called Horshesu, the “followers of Horus.”? In the legend of the Winged-sun-disk the servants of Horus were in his following as workers with weapons of metal.* Indeed, according to an ancient tradition the warrior priests of Horus called themselves Masnztiu, t.e. blacksmiths. The word “masnit” at first meant the place where the black- smiths worked the forge ; it then became the sanctuary of their master at Edfu, and by extension the sanctuary of the celestial Horus in all those towns of Egypt where the god received a worship analogous to that of Edfu. Brugsch has shown that these masnit, or divine forges, were four in number in Egypt.

1 Plutarch, Of /sis and Osiris, xviii. 2 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 3 Naville, Osorkon, p. 39 and Plate xviii, 9. + Wiedemann, p. 71. Maspero, Dazwz of Civilisation, p. 202.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TYPHON OR SET.

§ 1. STRUGGLES WITH OSIRIS AND HORUS.

(Mythic Combats—Ty phon represents the Autumnal Equinox, then the Underworld Abyss—The uncertain length of the Year causes a Libration of the Lower Hemisphere, the Incursion of an Evil Power—The Prota- gonists of the Upper World are in succession Ra, Osiris, Aroeris, and Horus—Horus, the Avenger of his Father, Osiris—Fortunes of the Fight —Victory for Horus—Reconciliation by Thoth. ) |

“Now in the year 363 of Harmakhis, the Typhonians reopened the campaign. Beaten at first near Edfu, they retreated precipitately northwards, stopping to give battle wherever their partizans predominated, at Zatmit in the Theban-nome, at Khait-nutrit to the north-east of Den- derah, and at Hibonu in the principality of the Gazelle. Several bloody cotnbats, which took place between Oxyrhynchus and Heracleopolis Magna, were the means of driving them finally out of the Nile Valley. They rallied for the last time in the eastern provinces of the Delta, were beaten at Zalu, and giving up all hope of success on land, they embarked at the head of the Gulf of Suez, in order to return to the Nubian Desert, their habitual refuge in times of distress. The sea was the special element of Typhon, and upon it they believed themselves secure. Horus however followed them, overtook them near [Shas-hirit, routed them, and on his return to Edfu, celebrated his victory by a solemn festival,” etc.! | 1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 200.

TYPHON OR SET. 383

Many of the traditionary “wars” of history were not military struggles, but religious controversies ; and the designation of the combatants as Typhonians and Osirians might only be meant to describe them as of different religious faith or practice. Other narratives of conflict are not even that, but allegorical descriptions of celestial antagonisms and irreconcilable calendars.

Maspero says that the history of the world for Egypt was only the history of the struggle between the adherents of Osiris and the followers of Set; an interminable war- fare, in which sometimes one and sometimes the other of the rival parties obtained a passing advantage, without ever gaining a decisive victory till the end of time.

In this so-called warfare an advantage gained by Osiris might simply mean that the calendar year of 364 days was corrected, so that the months belonging to the Light half of the year should not be encroached upon by the Dark.

An idea does exist that Typhon is an evil power, a sort of Devil of Darkness indeed, but that the conflict between him and Osiris is a struggle between light and darkness simply, taking place in the twilight of evening and morning, or in the mid-winter season, or at the equinoxes.. But no attempt is made to show how the many curious incidents of the warfare could in that case have sense and meaning. And in fact the story means much more.

Let us picture to ourselves the two hemispheres, Upper and Nether, divided by the equinoctial plane, and regard the lower region as a dark abyss of waters. The sun, making the circle of the zodiac, passes below at the time of the autumnal equinox, and that begins the annual success of the dark power. But when the legend says that Typhon murdered Osiris in the autumn, and sent his body floating on the waters, something different from this is meant. Suppose the year to begin at the equinox, but to be estimated at 364 days; then the New Year’s Day will be anticipated at each round, and the calendar equinoxes

384 CREATION RECORDS.

will become more and more dislocated from the real equinoxes. On one side of the heavens the dark hemis- phere will seem to advance upon the light one; and this may be described as an irruption of the sea over the land, or a victory of Typhon over Osiris. The disaster would not be retrieved in six months, like the annual resurrec- tion of the sun at Easter time, but would last for 292 years, or as many times as one and a quarter go into 365.

It is a curious thing that 363 years would suffice for one circuit to be made by Ra and one by Osiris (71 + 292 = 363), while it is said to have been in the 363rd year of Harmakhis (the Sphinx) that the Typhonians were driven out by Horus.

The victory would come by restoring the full length of the year ; but if at any time—by an intercalary or other- wise—the lengthening was excessive, the war would be carried into the enemy’s country, or the Typhonians would be driven to sea and pursued.

The dark mysterious netherworld was to the Egyptians at one time an abyss—the waters under the earth; and Typhon was identified with the sea, or with waters apt to overflow. There lay the crocodile, with just his head peeping out on the bank; there plunged the hippopotamus, and there sported apophis the great sea-serpent. All these animals become symbols of Typhon. Plutarch says that the sea is called Typhon, The salt of the sea was termed the froth of Typhon. And Typhon’s wife was the goddess of the sea.

The underworld was also calied Amenta; and as the Greeks applied the term Hades both to the Unseen World and its Ruler, so the Egyptians used the name Set for both. Renouf says that Set is the abode of the dead —an abbreviation for Set-Amenta.? The Greeks identified Set with Typhon.*

1 Comp. Faber, Cadirt, ii, 247. Kalisch, Zevztzcus, ii, 28. Bonwick, p. 140. 2 Renouf, dz, Preface, p. 9. 3 Hecords of the Past, ii, 68 ncte.

7YPHON OR SET. 385

The struggle of Osiris himself against Set was un- availing ; Osiris was slain and his limbs scattered—a year of only 364 days was bound to be broken up. And even when reconstituted, with the missing member added— 365 days—it could not make headway. But Horus the Six-hours god will turn the tide of battle; he is born to avenge his father. Osiris had been crowned at Heracleo- polis; and there were great rejoicings there when Horus inherited the throne of his father and became lord of the whole earth. Afterwards it is said that Set arrived, his head drooping, and he prostrated himself in seeing what Ra had done. But this seems to have been after Horus’s. victory ; and before enlarging upon it, we will glance at the campaign itself.

Osiris had been dismembered, and, according to a line in the Book of the Dead, Set devoured his head. His left arm was afterwards deposited at Letopolis while the other limbs were dispersed throughout the cities of Egypt. In chapter i. of the Ritual the deceased says,—I am with Horus, as the avenger of that left arm of Osiris which is in Sechem (Letopolis).

Plutarch says that when Osiris asked his son what animal he considered most useful to people going to battle? he replied “the horse,” though Osiris expected he would say the lion.’ Gerald- Massey points out that in Plates 3 and 16 of Drummond’s azpus Judatcus, we may see in the constellation Leo an ass bridled, and a man leading a horse, to tether it to the vine, whose branch reaches over from Virgo. May the meaning perhaps be that the horse belonged to Leo and had now become the solstice ?? We get glimpses of the fight. It may seem: rivial to say that Horus defended himself from Sut with a palm-branch, but this stick on which the years are notched, shows that Thoth the Time-keeper is on the side of Horus.’ It is less

1 Of Ists and Osiris, xix. 2 Book of Beginnings, ii, 246.

% Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 212. Massey, Matural Genesis, i, 127.

2C

386 CREATION RECORDS.

pleasant to learn from the scholiast on chapter xvii that Sut flingeth his filth upon the face of Horus, and Horus seizeth upon the genitals of Sut. Not only is the face of Horus marred, but his eye is injured; it is as if Anubis had wounded it (Lepsius, Zod¢. p. 112).! It is even gouged out and carried away ; though after a time Thoth recovers it, and it is as sound and serviceable as ever. Here we seem to see the sun’s image marred in the temple sanc- tuary while efforts are made to adjust the year, with varying success. The emasculation of Typhon was a very serious injury inflicted on the other side.2, Horus holds in his hand the trophy of victory. Perhaps it is only a token that he has conquered,—compare David’s achievement in 1 Sam. xviii, 25,—yet when we remember the similar symbolism in the case of Osiris, it may be intended that Horus wrenches from Typhon a whole day of time (day = degree = cubit = phallus). This he might be said to do when the 365th day was added to the year, or when, at each quadrennium, a 366th day was rejoiced over. The warfare would not be ended till that intercalary was adopted.

When Horus, at one stage of the warfare, brought Typhon to Isis as a captive, and she let him go, Horus tore the royal diadem from her brow; but Hermes gave her, instead, a bull’s skull for a helmet.®

There was alternate success and failure, and we may attribute it, perhaps, to more than one cause. First, if the intercalary day was brought in at the middle of the quad- rennium, the reckoning would be alternately behind and in advance. Secondly, to reckon the fragment of time as six-hours was to overestimate it by 11 minutes. Thirdly, and however accurate the measurement, Precession, like a serpent, was always creeping along and displacing the equinoxes. © |

1 Massey, Natural Genests, ii, 314. 2 Plutarch, lv. Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1891, pp. 338 and 343. 3 Plutarch, Of /szs and Osiris, xix. Budge, li and note.

TYPHON OR SET. 387

Two statements of Plutarch’s may perhaps be instructive if brought together.1 He says in one place-—And the name Seth, by which they call Typhon, signifies that which tyrannises and constrains by force, it likewise signifies a return, and again an overleaping. Bebacon again, some say, was one of the companions of Typhon, whilst Manethos asserts that Typhon was called Bebon, and that the name signifies a holding back, and hindrance—implying that the power of Typhon stands in the way of things going on regularly and towards their proper end.

The other passage, to the same effect, contains a sug- gestive addition. But Typhon, as above stated, is called Seth, Bebon, and Syn—these names being meant to declare a certain forcible and impeding check, opposition, and turning upside down.’ Besides, they call a loadstone “ Bone of Osiris,” but iron of Typhon (as Manetho relates), for just as the iron is often, like something alive, attracted to and following after the loadstone, but often turns away and is repelled from it in the opposite direction, in like manner the salutary good and rational motion of the world often attracts by persuasion, draws to itself and renders more gentle that harsh and Typhonian force ; and again when it has been driven back into itself, it upsets the latter and plunges it once more into helplessness.

Here we see, not only the tendency of physical concep- tions to become ethical, but we have it plainly suggested that originally Osiris was associated with motion in the right direction, and Typhon the reverse. But there was, in Osiris’s time, just that libration of the two hemispheres which we have described ; for it seemed as though Osiris, like a loadstone with two poles, pulled Typhon forward and then thrust him back.

Besides this to-and-fro motion, the result of errors in the calendar, there was, as already mentioned, the insidious mischief of Precession. To this we think we find a reference

1 Of Isis and Osiris, xlix. 2 Ibid. xii. 2C 2

388 CREATION RECORDS.

in the recently discovered Apology for Christiantty by Aristides (edited by Professor Rendell Harris).’. When Osiris was killed by Typhon, Isis fled with her son Horus to Byblus, and was there for a certain time until her son was grown. The monumental text known as the Met- ternich Stela tells us that it was at Byblus, and soon after Horus was born, that he was stung by a scorpion and bitten by a serpent. The Byblus of this story, though stated to be the town in Syria, is no doubt a -celestial city on the ecliptic circle.

The child Horus survived these perils and grew up to avenge his father Osiris. The Egyptian story says that Horus was born in winter, and brought up secretly in the Isle of Buto for fear of his uncle Typhon.? In this way is made known to us the quiet growth of the unregarded Hours. The six-hour period was nursed into a full day, and was put into the calendar, as the last and greatest of the immortals. The story says that Horus, in his battles with Typhon, was aided by the Hor-shusu, the “ followers of Horus,” z.e., these very genii of the hours. Typhon has allies also. But once, at least, the principals engaged in single combat. In the 4th Saler Papyrus we are told that the battle took place on the 26th of the month Thoth ; and in the calendars that day is marked as thrice deadly. Horus and Set fought in the form of two men; but they afterwards changed themselves into two bears, and they passed three days and three nights in that form. Victory inclined now to one side, and now to the other, and the heart of Isis suffered bitterly.

In the drawings of the temple of Edfu, Horus is repre- sented in a boat killing a hippopotamus with ten darts, the beast being ultimately cut up into eight pieces. This carries us to the Hippopotamus constellation of the north- ern sky, and shows us again that the warfare of Horus had

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1892, p. 371. 2 Renwick Leyttian Beltef, p. 158. 3 Budge, Book of the Dead (Anz), li.

TYPHON OR SET. 389

several phases. In restoring order to the kingdom he had to suppress revolt at the pole as well as at the equinoxes. The hippopotamus was one form of Typhon, as we shall presently see.

It is true that the great enemy takes a good deal of killing ; and Typhon after being speared or cut to pieces is very apt to show himself in a new field: but Horus triumphs at last. ‘Horus is in command of his barque. There hath been given to him the throne of his father, and Set the son of Neith is under the grappling hooks which he made for him.”?

Then every fourth year, or perhaps annually, there were public celebrations, with dramatic representations of the chief incidents in this great “war in heaven.” The Litany addressed to Thoth appears to describe annual ceremonies symbolical of the resuscitation of Osiris (z.e., the reconstruc- tion of the year). There is a night of battle, in which the Sebau, the associates of Set, are defeated. The night of battle was also the night of the Eve’s provender or evening meal, a supper in which minor deities were devoured.®

Set and his companions had arrived, and taken the form of goats. But they were all slain, their blood ran down, and the blood was ploughed into the ground.t’ Two black cows had been put under a yoke of dm wood, the plough was of tamarisk wood, and the share of black bronze.® The plougher went behind, with a cow led by a halter. A little child with the side lock attached to its head, was to scatter the seed in the field of Osiris. Barley was sown at one end, spelt at the other, and flax between the two; and the Cher-heb-in-chief recited the Office for the Sowing of the Field. The massacre took place at Heracleopolis ; and the celebration was the great festival of ploughing, or the great hoeing in Tattu. Judgment was passed upon

1 Book of the Dead, chapter Ixxxvi. 2 Jbid., chapter xviii. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 1, 4. 4 Naville, dhnas, p. 8. 5 Renouf, Book of the Dead, p. 57.

390 CREATION RECORDS.

the Children of Failure—the erring poles and equinoxes, or the stars which wandered from their places and led astray the children of men.

There was a grand night in which the Tat was set up, the pillar which was the emblem of Osiris, and represented, in our view, the missing member, and thus the additional day now added to the 364.1 The place where the tat is set up is Tattu; and Osiris is the august being residing in Tattu.3 , |

It was the king’s office to raise the Tat; and the high- priest of Ptah at Memphis was the king’s deputy in the business. The procession (at least in the XVIIIth dynasty) marched four times round the sanctuary of Ptah- Sokhar-Osiris.

All these things are supposed to be done before the circle of gods about Ra, and about Osiris, and the Great Circle of Gods in Heliopolis ; and the gods in Sechem, the gods in Tattu, the gods in Pu and Tepu.®

There is a day of the weighing of words, and it is the day of Osiris’s triumph over his adversaries.* Nevertheless it was Horus who was found to be of just voice, and he was inducted to the throne of his father, and crowned amid great rejoicings. A question was raised as to the legitimacy of Horus, of his right to reign—that is, we take it, objection was raised to the adoption of the intercalary day—but Thoth the Timekeeper pleaded as his counsel, and the’ gods confirmed Horus in his position. Thoth calls him- self the “Justifier of the words of Horus against his enemies, on the day of weighing words in the great abode of An.” (Ritual, chapter i.)°

So the Calendar was rendered correct at last; and there was no need of further change. There were no more days or hours to be taken into the year, and no more gods to be

1 Book of the Dead, chapter xviii. 2 Records of the Past, iv, 99. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 1, 4.

4 Book of the Dead, chapter i, and chapter xviii.

5 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 95.

TYPHON OR SET. 391

born. Diodorus says that Horus was the last of the gods who reigned over Egypt (i, 25).!

The conflict had been waged mainly in the region of the equinoxes, and had for a chief object to fix those points and properly adjust the two halves of the year north and south of them. Allusions to the equinoctial position are not wanting in these accounts. Brugsch has pointed out, in the text of an Edfu inscription, that Horus, when trans- formed into the winged sphere to combat the armies of Set, has the three-pointed spear for his weapon (Migration des Symboles, 314)2; and our own contention is that the trident is a symbol of the equinox and the sea.

Yet, as we have said before, as soon as it was decided to adopt the full solar year, Horus was translated to the summer solstice. In the Denderah planisphere he is a Lion with a Virgin’s face*; and under the form of a lion he was worshipped at Sekhem.*

As Typhon, though often killed in these battles, was soon on his legs again, it is net surprising that the final satisfactory adjustment is represented as a treaty of peace between the combatants. Prosaically speaking it was the correct balancing of the two halves of the year, the summer and winter semicircles of the sun’s path, the upper and lower hemispheres in which they lay. So we read that Seb terminated the war between Horus and Typhon, assigning to the one combatant Lower Egypt, to the other Upper Egypt, fixing with precision the limit of their domains. Again, it is stated that Thoth acted as arbitrator, and adjudged the kingdom to be divided between Horus and Set. As gods of the South and the North, they are some- times called the Two Horuses. It is declared of Thoth that he has equally balanced the Divine Pair, put a stop to

1 Lewis, Astronomy of Ancients, 33 note.

2 O’Neill, Night of the Gods, i, 71. 8 Bonwick, pp. 159, 228.

4 Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 272. 5 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 8, 424. © Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 178. Comp. Renouf, on chapter cx.

392 CREATION RECORDS.

their strife, and ended their complaints. ‘I have rescued the Afu from his backward course.”? Renouf says that Azz is a mythological fish, following the barque of Ra, and by the motion backward he is confident that Precession is meant.

That Thoth the arbitrator was in the ecliptic circle is shown in chapter lxxv, where, after a reference to the Eastern path of Heaven upon which Ra (the sun) ariseth and mounteth on high each day, the speaker says, “ May I too arise . . . and let them set me upon the noble path whereon Thoth travelleth when he appeaseth the Two Combatants, as he goeth to Pu and advanceth to Tepu.” And that the locality of the reconciliation was the equinox we may judge from the fact that the 27th of Athyr was remembered as the day when Horus and Set concluded peace together and divided the world between them.?

In an ancient version Horus and Set stand on opposite eminences, in the character of two land surveyors, and solemnly agree respecting the natural boundaries of each other’s domains; and each pronounces the formula, “ The land of An is the boundary of the land.”* Just as the lion and the unicorn, although opponents once, are combined in heraldry, so Set and Horus were united as a two-headed god, and the monuments exhibit such a being with the ass-head facing one way and the hawk the other.* Again, this double deity has the heads of two birds—the black vulture and the gold hawk, the colours being symbolical of the two hemispheres.’ “ Black and crystal are the faces of _ those attached to him,” says the Inscription of Darius (line 42). Of course the kings must follow suit ; and Rameses II, among other titles, calls himself, “ Lord of the thrones of the Two Countries,” and also “ Horus and Set.” Queen Hatshepsu says, on the Karnak obelisk, “ I bear the white

1 Book of the Dead, chapter cxxiii. 2 Erman, Lifein Ancient Egyft, p. 351- 3 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 483. Also Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 8.

4 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 345. 5 Natural Genesis, i, 473, 490. 8 Records of the Past, viii, 75.

SS

TYPHON OR SET. 393

crown, I am diademed with the red crown; the two Horus gods have united for me the two divisions. I rule over the land like the son of Isis, I am victorious like the son of Neith.”!

Mr. R. S. Poole tells us that Sothis, the Dog-star, was considered sacred to Typhon as well as to Isis and Osiris.’ Horus and Set are alike healers, giving efficacy to drugs and strength to invalids (chapter xvii). They were both adored throughout Upper and Lower Egypt, and were considered part of the same divine system.* As early as the Pyramid texts Set is mentioned with Horus and the other gods of the Heliopolitan company in terms of rever- ence.®

§ 2, TYPHON AND THE CROCODILE.

The Egyptians had come to see that upper and under make one sphere, that darkness and light are harmonious, and their difficulties with the calendar had been mainly the result of their own ignorance. So Typhon was rehabilitated and worshipped; and yet, through the force of tradition, something of his former reputation clung to him. In the struggle with Horus, Typhon was associated with several brute animals ; he was either aided by them or he took their form. One of these was the crocodile.

Wilkinson tells us that the people of Apollonopolis ate the crocodile upon a certain occasion, in order to show their abhorrence of Typho, the evil genius, of whom it was an emblem.° They had also a solemn hunt of this animal, upon a particular day set apart for the purpose, at which time they killed as many of them as they could, and afterwards threw their dead bodies before the temple of

1 Records of the Past, xii, 134. 2 Lundy, A/on. Christianity, p. 423.

3 Budge, Look of the Dead, p. 250. 4 Wilkinson, abridged, 1, 330. 5 Budge, Book of the Dead, cxvi. 6 Wilkinscn, abridged, i, 241.

394 CREATION RECORDS.

their god, assigning this reason for their practice, that it was in the shape of a crocodile Typho eluded the pursuit of Horus.?

We have already made acquaintance with Sebak the Crocodile, as the seventh of the sons of Ptah, and perhaps a general name for the whole seven, as a northern constella- tion, through which the pole was moving. The Seven owed their genesis to the precession movement, shifting the pole, anticipating the solstice, and causing the stars to be swal- lowed up in the west. It was probably further mischief of the same kind which formed part of the insurrectionary movement which Horus was called upon to quell. It was dificult in that early age to discriminate between the displacement of the equinox due to precession, and dis- placement owing to a defective caléndar; and Typhon was charged with both. The various corrections of the length of the year brought it at last to what seemed to be exactness; but the equinox was still subject to pre- cession. However exactly the sun’s image may be formed over the temple altar, the image of the star that rises heliacally will become displaced. It may be on this account that the Crocodile is said to injure the eye of the sun, or it may be conceived differently : “Une scene des hypogées royaux montre le Crocodile qui expectore l’ceil du soleil.”

In an ancient Egyptian planisphere the Crocodile Sign appears at the place of the autumn equinox, close by the scorpion, lying across six decans of the zodiac. So says Massey, quoting Drummond, after Kircher. This is no doubt because the equinox wanders in correspondence with the pole. We read of the Crocodile of the West which fed upon the setting stars* Through the precession movement the stars went down one after another into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell. Amt, the Devourer

1 See Plutarch, Of Jsts and Osiris,1. 2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 8, 450. 3 Natural Genesis, i, 344. 4 Renouf, Azbbert Lecture, p. 108.

TYPHON OR SET. 395

in Hades, is depicted with the head of a crocodile, the fore-part of the body of a lioness, the hind quarters of a hippopotamus.! Mako, the dreaded crocodile of Hades, is a son of Set—Set being a name for Hades itself.

At Arsinoe the crocodile was dedicated to Set and Sebak. Horus, although he once assumed the shape of a crocodile, to dive for the members of Osiris, held the crocodile as a foe, and ultimately triumphed over it. “He treads on serpents and crocodiles.”*

§ 3. TYPHON AND THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

The hippopotamus also, says Plutarch, was an emblem of Typhon; the hippopotamus, on which stands the hawk fighting with a serpent.‘

This we can understand when we remember that the circumpolar constellations shifted relatively to the pole, and so disturbed the divine order. In the Calendar of Astronomical Observations found in royal tombs of the XXth dynasty, the Hippopotamus comes in for attention.® In the planisphere of Denderah we see it to be a circum- polar constellation; and Lockyer identifies it with the Little Bear, or some stars of the constellation Draco.°

It was too near the pole to dip below the horizon, unless the observer were in a low latitude; but Lockyer thinks that the tribe who worshipped the hippopotamus, or used it as a symbol, probably came from very far south, since the animal was never indigenous in the lower reaches of the river. In that case the name might be an apt one for the constellation, the river-horse being amphibious.

Up there in the north, among the stars of night, there has been revolt and mischief, attended by a dislocation of

1 Natural Genesis, i, 320. 2 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 115.

3 Records of the Past, New Series, iii, 16 note. 4 Of Ists and Osiris 1; 5 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., iii, 2, 460. 8 Nineteenth Century, July, 1892.

396 CREATION RECORDS.

the Dial that told the time. If it is not Typhon who is up there, he must have some confederate who works hand in hand with him. We have already connected the Hippo- potamus with the Lesser Bear. Now the bear was sacred to Typhon, and his soul was called by the Greeks the Bear! Set for his evil purpose took the body of a red hippopotamus.2- And it was of course only from its mythic relations that the hippopotamus was in bad repute, as the animal that slew its father and did violence to its mother in her temple.®

Horus chains up and pierces the red hippopotamus (the pig in some designs), and cuts him in pieces, thus revenging Osiris, who had been cut in pieces by Set. This may be seen in the inscriptions of Edfu.

Since Horus was eventually victorious, a hippopotamus bound represented the victory over Typhon, and was stamped upon cakes offered to Isis at the féte of her return from Phoenicia.‘

§ 4. TYPHON’S WIFE.

Since Typhon is first found at the equinox, where Pre- cession is such a disturbing power, perhaps the polar constellation, which reflects every change of the equinox, may be fitly thought of as married to him. The Hippo- potamus should be Typhon’s wife rather than Typhon himself.

We do read indeed of Typhon’s wife, Ta-ur, a hippo- potamus, though with the feet and claws of a lioness, who in early times was the Nurse of the gods.> Gerald Massey rests upon Dr. Birch in saying :*° “The Genetrix as Ta- Urt is designated the Mother of Beginnings, Mother of

1 Bunsen, i, 428. Plutarch, xxi. 2 Lang, J7yth, etc., ii, 119.

3 Plutarch, xxxii. Herodotus, ii, 63, 171, 4 Wilkinson. . ® Bonwick, Zeyptian Belief, p. 140. 8 Natural Genests, i, 457-

TYPHON OR SET. 397

the fields of heaven, and the Mother of gods and men . . . .’ She is celebrated in the Ritual as the Only One. It is said, “Glory to thee! Thou art mightier than the gods! The forms of the living souls which are in their places, give glory to the terrors of thee, their mother: thou art their origin.” (Book of the Dead, chapter cxlv.)

All this is because the revolution of the universe, with the pole for the pivot, generates days and years and all things ; and the successive positions of the pole gave rise to the phases of mythology. Massey tells us that one of the names of the Hippopotamus goddess i is Kheb-ti, which means number seven.

§ 5. TYPHON AND THE Sow.

There are passages which show that Typhon could assume the form of a Boar, and then his wife would be a mythic Sow.

Plutarch says of the gods, that their souls shine in heaven as stars—that of Isis, the Dog-star that of Typhon, the Boar.2. The Boar, therefore, would appear to have been a star; and perhaps the Sow was another. It would only be reasonable to look for the Boar near the equinox, and the Sow near the pole, but they are not always clearly distinguished. The Eryman- thian boar was killed by Hercules ; and Erymanthis was a surname of Callisto, whose history carries us to the Bear. The Bear and the Sow will not be far apart; and the Sow will often be called a boar or a pig. The star /amdda in Draco is called “the boar” ; and the star ye “the snout as of swine.”3 The Hyades, seven stars in Taurus, were called by the Romans “ Pigs.”

1 Book of Beginnings, i, 314. 2 Of Isis and Osiris, xi. 3 Higgins, Arabic Names of Stars.

398 CREATION RECORDS.

The hippopotamus was an apt example of a water- beast coming up sometimes on to the land; the boar was an equally good example of the land animal ploughing up the ground. As to the use to which such types could be put, let us take the period when the year still wants the Six-hours to make it complete. For the lack of this fragment, the equinox is anticipated factitiously by six hours, as by precession it is anticipated actually by 20 minutes. On one side it is as though the waters of the abyss made an irruption over the land ; on the other side as though the ground rose up in a heap. The tearing up of the ground might figuratively be the depredation of a boar.

A pig was believed to have suggested the first idea of ploughing.! The plough was apparently suggested by the pig’s snout. Plutarch derives the name of the ploughshare from that of the boar? The Great Bear is called the Plough. Moreover it is a fact—though it may not have entered into the consideration of the myth-makers—that the pig is allied to the hippopotamus, and the latter might be called a gigantic pig.* Conversely the pig is a smaller hippopotamus, as the cat is a lesser lion.

That is a curious tradition of the Jews, that two animals came out of the ark who never went into it—and these two animals were the cat and the pig. The story is exactly to our purpose just now. We have shown that Pasht the Cat represents the intercalary month, made up of 120 six- hour periods ; and these were latent in the ark of Osiris, thought not made patent till his voyage was finished. We shall proceed to show that the pig also appears to have been connected with the month.

fEneas, when in Italy, was said to have built his town (one of our celestial cities) where he saw a sow with 30 sucklings.‘ This number suggests a month of 30 days,

1 Kalisch, Levzticus, ii, 55. 2 Massey, Matural Genesis, ii, 11. 8 Carpenter, Zoology. 4 Bonwick, /risk Druids, p. 229.

TYPHON OR SET. 399

connected with the Sow. In Egypt also the month by which the Osirian year (of 13 months) was defective, was connected in idea with the sow; for Typhon was pursuing a swine by moonlight when he came upon the body of Osiris and tore it into 14 pieces. The Egyptians repeated this legend as they sacrificed the pig and ate it at new moon.! | |

The supplementary month was needed, and the work of Typhon in that way was useful. It was the trouble- some experience which works out wisdom and reform. Meantime Typhon was in bad repute, and all his associ- ates—Crocodile, Hippopotamus or Boar—were confounded with him, and cursed. The pig was regarded as an unclean animal, and swineherds were forbidden to enter a temple without previous purification.’

Herodotus says: “They do not offer swine in sacrifice to any of their gods excepting Bacchus and the Moon, whom they honour in this way at the same time, sacri- ficing pigs to both of them at the same full moon and afterwards eating their flesh.”

The Greek Dionysus (Bacchus) was a parallel to Osiris, and the phallus was carried in his processions in the same ‘way. It signified, as we have seen, the resuscitation of the year with a day added; the giving of new life to it by intercalating a month. The life of the solar year was not assured till the six-hour fragments were somehow incor- porated. One method of taking them in was by the Pasht festival, the Cat-month ; and it seems to us not unlikely that the Pig was a corresponding conception, applied to. the northern circle. |

In the Book of the Dead, chapters cxii and cxiii, it is the Sow which tears out the Eye of Horus; but it is stated that it was Set who had assumed the form of a swine. The eye was restored after some days; and it was to prevent the recurrence of such attacks that the four g3) Plutarch, Of /szs and Osiris, viii. 2 Herodotus, ii, 47.

400 CREATION RECORDS.

brothers were given to Horus—z.e., the four six-hour periods added to the year.

§ 6. TYPHON AND THE ASS.

The Pig, which we have seen to be associated with Typhon, was connected with the Ass.’ So also was the Hippopotamus, Typhon’s wife, for sacrificial cakes were impressed with the image of a tied ass or a fettered hippo- potamus.?

The ass was his emblem, and he was ass-headed himself.* The colour of his hair was compared with that of a red- haired ass, and on that account the ass was sacred to him. (De Istde et Osiride, §§ 22, 30, 31.)*

Among the small groups of stars mentioned by Ptolemy, having particular names, we find the Asses. Pliny’s enumeration includes the “Two Asses.”®

Were there two asses in the sense that there were two lions (the lion month and the cat intercalary month)? “The head of the ass is a hieroglyphic determinative, with a numeral value of 30’%; and this seems to us analogous to the sow with 30 sucklings.

There is, of course, some reason for the symbolism of the Ass, and the meaning was probably piain when the symbol was first used. One meaning of the word “ass” was a windlass crane or pulley; perhaps because an ass wound the rope by going round and round.’ There might some- times be over-winding ; and there was a picture, described by Pausanius, in which Oicus weaves a rope, and an ass devours it as fast as it is produced. A calendar circle of 13 months, over-winding till a fourteenth month was coiled upon it, would seem to be like a windlass ass devouring the

1 Calmet, Dictionary, Ass. 2 Kalisch, Zevtticus, i, 205.

3 Plutarch. Wilkinson. 4 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 174 note.

® Dictionary of Antiquities, ** Astronomia.” 6 Massey, Natural Genesis, ii, 450. 7 Isiddell and Scott, Lexicon, Grog. Sf

TYPHON OR SET. 401

rope. Again, that fourteenth month—omitted from the calendar, ignored and formless—seems to tell us why the phrase “an ass’s shadow” should signify nothing at all. The ass is depicted at the place of beginning and ending of the Egyptian sacred year.’

The fourteenth month not being inserted in the calendar, was claimed by Typhon. Osiris was attempting to rule with a circle of 13 months; but in the twenty-eighth year he was over-run by Typhon (to the extent of one month). The body of the Osirian year was dismembered ; another day must be added to the 364 to revive it, and this day was symbolised by a phallus. Herodotus tells us that the Greeks, in the festival of Bacchus—who corresponds to Osiris, and who crossed the Euphrates on an ass—carried phalli, for which the Egyptians substituted images a cubit high.?

We read in the Ritual, chapter cxxv, that great words are spoken by the Ass ; and the deceased, who is making his good confession, claims as a merit that he has listened to the words which were spoken in the house of Hept-ro by the Ass and the Cat. So here again the Ass and the Cat are brought into conjunction as though they assisted in the same work of telling the truth about Time and the calendar.

It is part of the story of battle that Typhon mounted on an ass pursued Horus. There were some who said that Typhon fled out of the battle during seven days, upon an ass, and after escaping begot Hierosolymos and Judzus.*

§ 7, TYPHON AS EVIL SERPENT.

Apophis of the waters was a serpent of the Underworld. He is identified with the Ass and the Hippopotamus.®

• | Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 266.

• Herodotus, ii, 48. 3 Bonwick, £g3 ptian Belief, p. 140. 4 Piutarch, On2 s and Osiris, xxxi. 5 Bunsen, i, 427.

2D

402 CREATION RECORDS.

Typhon also is a Serpent, who is opposed to Osiris ; and Typhon ts the ass.!

Osiris, passing through the Underworld in the 12 hours of the night, has a mortal struggle with Apophis in the seventh hour.?

In chapters vii and xxxix of the Ritual, he is known as Apap the Devourer. He carries off souls, devours hearts, comes to carry off the light.®

Wilkinson calls him a snake-giant, and says “he is a symbol of sin.”* But before there was any recognition of moral transgression or short-coming, there was mistake in measurement, and error in finding one’s way.

On the threshold we meet with a paradox. Typhon is the Serpent and Typhon is the Ass; yet the serpent devours the ass. We must first distinguish between the serpent of Precession, who changes the under-earth path for the sun and the soul, as we showed in chapter xii ; and the serpent of the ecliptic, the winter semi-circle of the sun’s path, which encroaches when the year is of too short a length. Although Typhon was sometimes ass-headed, the ass was rather the omitted month, which became his by being left out of the calendar. It was appropriated by him, it was eaten by the serpent. The ass is really one of the names belonging to the Sun-god in the solar Litany, as the sun is the lord of all the months. “In one very ancient form of the legend the sun is represented by a wild ass running round the world along the sides of the moun- tains that uphold the sky ; and the serpent which attacks it is called Haiu.”®

Chapter xl of the Ritual is to be recited to keep back the Eater of the Ass; and the plates show that the eater of the ass is a serpent. The deceased is seen (in the character of Horus, we may suppose) spearing a serpent

1 Bonwick, Leyptian Belief, p. 268. 2 Massey, Natural Genesis, iii, 43%. 3 Bonwick, Leypiian Belief, p. 133. 4 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 330. 5 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 91 note.

TYPHON OR SET. | 403

which has sprung on to the back of an ass. The meaning is the same when the Cat cuts off the serpent’s head, as represented in a scene in the Papyrus of Hunefer ;! for the Cat (Pasht) is the 15th month, composed of the Hours which belong to Horus, though for 120 years swallowed by the Serpent.

The Ass then is not essentially Typhonic or bad. We take it to be the intercalary month, which when omitted is seized and ridden by Typhon, or may be conceived of as eaten by the serpent. When, on the other hand, it is recognised and observed, having its due place in the calen- dar, it is a month of light, an ass that serves the gods.

When pierced by the lance of the Eye of Horus, the Serpent was made to disgorge what he had swallowed ; an expression which suits the recovery of the many lost hours by means of the intercalated month.? And “the Ass at times carried the ark, and headed processions,” because (we may guess) the ark of Osiris contained the phallus, the omitted day, constituent of the Ass month.

1 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. 280. 2 Lbicl., CXXIX. 3 Bonwick, Zyyftian Belief, p. 228.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE GODS OF THEBES.

WE have now done with the progeny of the Egg of Seb; but we still have to consider a little group of divinities standing apart. These are Amen, Mut and Khonsu, often spoken of as the Triad of Thebes, or the Trinity of Ethiopia ; although we shall have to add a fourth, namely, Khnum. Budge tells us that the Theban triad have nothing whatever to do with the Book of the Dead ;} and from this we may suspect that they were either “gods newly come up,” or gods of foreign derivation. For some good reason the orthodox Egyptian of the old school kept them out of his Sacred Books. They were divinities of Thebes, and that city was hundreds of miles south of Heliopolis ; they were “the trinity of Ethiopia ” and not of Egypt. What if they belonged to the southern hemisphere, the Underworld, and were the duplicates of a trinity in the north ??, Would there not be heresy in accepting them— disloyalty to Ra himself in the worship of Amen-Ra? King Khuenaten erased the name and figure of Amen from the temples, and worshipped the solar disk; he is called the heretic king ; but may not his passionate anta- gonism to the Amen worship have shown his zeal for an older tradition ?°

1 Budge, Book of the Dead, cxxvi. 2 Records of the Past, iv, 93- 3 Naville, Det» e/ Bahari, Introduction, ii.

THE GODS OF THEBES. 4C5

§1. THE GOD AMEN OR AMEN-RA.

{Amen and the Ram Constellation, or the Equinox in Aries—Amen the Sun in the Southern Hemisphere—the Lord of Both Hemispheres—Has Relation with the South Pole—Yet is associated with Solstitial Worship, First the Winter Solstice in the Goat—Appropriates the Full Year of Horus (3653 days), and several of the Characters of Horus, and of Ra— Becomes the True Speaker—Is brought into Connection with the Sed and Pasht Festivals. )

AMEN AND THE EQUINOX IN ARIES.—Let us first consider the connection of Amen with the Ram.

After Ptah and his sons, whose dynasty we have reckoned to cover 500 years, we have the history of Ra I, Osiris and Isis, Ra II, Horus and the conflicts with Typhon—all com- prised within another 500 years. Horus came to terms with Set ; and since the year was now fairly accurate, there should have been no further difficulty were it not for the pre- cession movement, never-ceasing though but ill-understood. On the supposition that the Ptah dynasty began when the equinox entered the Zaurus constellation, there would still remain more than half that constellation to be traversed before it arrived at Avzes: and the evidence indicates that the dynasty exded at that point. The Ram, however, would be reached at length.

When this occurred (about B.C. 2410), the Bull would no longer seem appropriate as a symbol of the deity ; and in fact the entire question would arise of readjusting the worship. Reserving the question whether the Theban worship, in the same form, is not really older, there are many facts which connect Amen with the Ram.

“ Amen-Ra is generally figured in human form; he holds the sceptre alone, or the sceptre and symbol of life, in his _ hand, and is crowned with the sun disk and two long feathers, which rise either from a stiff cap or else from a patr of raim’s horns.” “He was sometimes coloured blue Green in the tombof Seti I), and ke has the horns of a ram.”

1 Wiedemann, Rel, of Ancient Egyptians, p. 118.

406 CREATION RECORDS.

The dromos of the temple of Amen was flanked along its length on both sides by colossal rams with coiled horns, which guarded the approach to his sanctuary as represent- ing the animals sacred to him.

Amen is called Amen-Ra, by which we may Judge that he represents some period or aspect of the solar god or the solar year. He is spoken of as “rising in the eastern horizon and setting in the western horizon”; so that some have guessed him to be the sun simply… But we have advanced too far in our studies to believe that any Egyptian god is ‘simply the sun.” We ask, what aspect of the sun? what arrangement of the year? what period of develop- ment? in what relation to other divinities ?

In our view, Amen with the ram’s horns (Jupiter Ammon) represents the equinoctial sun in the Ram con- stellation. In a sense, the Bull now gives place to a successor ; and so it is said that Ra begat Amen.? Ina sense it is a new birth of the same sun-god ; and we read in the Inscription of Darius, “‘O, thou Hawk of Heliopolis

thy first birth is established in the face of the darkness ; thy second birth thou hast appointed there after thee to overthrow thine enemies at their rising.”’ Amen Ra is a re-incarnation, and we find it said to him, “Thou art youth and age,” “ Thou art the youth and the old one

in the great house of An.” The sun-god of the equinox in Avzes is still the ancient god Ra, but he is Ra with a distinction ; he puts on the ram’s horns.

“From Waddington and Hanbury’s voyage up the Nile, I think it appears that in Egypt, as in Syria, the emblems of the conjoined sun and moon, the cycle, the crescent and the disk, which are found on the oldest Tauric monuments, were taken from the Bull and removed to the Ram.”

It is true that Amen himself appears to be of earlier

1 ¢¢ Hymn to Amen-Ra,” Records of the Past, ii, 134. 2 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 162. 3 Records of the Past, viii, 142. 4 Landseer, Sadezn Researches, p. 228.

THE GODS OF THEBES. 407

date ; but I think not as Amen-Ra. He was a god of the South who had not yet asserted his claim over the North. The founding of the first shrine of the god recorded in history took place at Thebes during the XIIth dynasty. From that time (which might not be earlier than 2410 B.C.) until the close of the XVIIth dynasty Amen was the chief god of Thebes, and nothing more. When, however, the last kings of the XVIIth dynasty had succeeded in expelling the so-called Hyksos, and had delivered their country from the yoke of the foreigner, their god assumed an importance hitherto unknown, and his priests endeavoured to make his worship the first in the land. This is Budge’s statement ; but he also says that the name of Amen as a local god is as old as the time of Unas, B.C. 3333.3

AMEN THE SUN OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.— Our principles of interpretation guide us to the conclusion that Amen was the sun-god of the southern hemisphere ; and his worship may have originated south of the equator. He might be called the Ra of the Nether world, only the southern hemisphere would be the upper world to those who lived in it, while to the Egyptians it was Amenta and the abyss. But what could the Egyptians of Heliopolis say when the equinox entered Avzes? Here was a con- stellation which had belonged wholly to their Amenta, and yet was now entering upon their upper world. The sun illuminated it, the Ram had gotten a golden fleece; it was made clearer than ever that the constellations revolve, and no part of the circle or the sphere belongs to Set. The Ram has become the abode of Ra: “the ram of Mendes is sometimes Osiris, and sometimes the soul of Osiris.”? It is time to unite Amen of the South with Ra of the North; and in the Hymn to Amen we have the simple form of address, “ Hail to thee, Ra, Lord of Truth.”® <A fine hymn preserved in the Ghizeh Museum begins:—Praise to

1 Budge, Book of the Dead (Anz), xciv, cxxvi. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 131. 3 Records of the Past, ii, 131.

408 CREATION RECORDS.

Amen-Ra, lord of the throne of the two lands, dwelling in Thebes.

All the northern domain of Ra was now claimed for Amen. “So close was the new worship to the oldest at Annu that, at the highest point of Theban power, the third priest of Amen took the same titles as the Grand Priest of Annu, ‘who was the head of the first priesthood in Egypt.”

It might be argued that the northerners had virtually admitted his claim, for they themselves had assigned the two hemispheres to “the two Horuses,” and called them a Divine Pair. They had made one figure represent them both, giving it two heads ; and in some of those images, while one head was that of a hawk, for Horus proper, the other was sometimes a vulture, a symbol of the nether hemisphere. By-the-bye, the two heads had to face Opposite ways, because one of the birds—one of the Horuses, the Sun-god in the southern hemisphere—would of course move the reverse way from the sun north of the equator. When Scorpio was the place of the setting sun for northerners, it would be the place of the rising sun for southerners. If the northerners wanted to adopt Amen- Ra, in place of that Typhon who was joined with Horus, they would have to show by some _ contriv- ance that he moved the opposite way from Ra of Heliopolis. Nowit is “a curious circumstance, not hitherto explained, that repeatedly in the inscriptions the hiero- glyphics for the word ‘ Amen’ are made to face the wrong way.”

But this is only consistent with other facts where the southern hemisphere is concerned. Devéria says that the manuscripts of the Book of the Lower Hemisphere, found in the Egyptian tombs, are almost all retrograde, and certain illustrations depict the dead upside down. On the sarco-

1 Lockyer, Dawz of Astronomy, 339. 2 Benwick, Zeyptian Belief, pp. 125, 128. 3 Nicht of the Gods, p. 979:

THE GODS OF THEBES. 409

phagus of Seti, the mountain at the entrance to Hades is upside down. Dr. Birch, in his Look of the Dead, makes Amenta to be the “inverted precinct” ; and Tiele calls it the reversed world.

It seems clear that Amen is the Ra of the southern hemisphere, and Khnum the Ptah. It is a question which was the earlier, the northern gods or the southern, or whether they were contemporary ; but there is a statement that Ptah was the offspring of Kneph, and Kneph is hardly distinguishable from Nu the nether abyss. This fact suggests that the entire mythology may have originated south of the equator. Compare what we have said on p. 116 of the present work, and also Wiedemann’s Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 131, and Bonwick’s Egyptian Beleef and Modern Thought, p. 108.

“One chief aim of the confraternity of Amen was to abolish the worship of Set.” Surely they had a good case. The Heliopolitans, after contending for centuries against Typhon or Set, had discovered that no such evil worker existed, but the difficulties arose through their own errone- ous calendar. Set was as good as Horus, and was his counterpart ; they were Two Horuses and worthy of equal worship. The worship of Set had come in, through this reconciliation of the Two Combatants. But would it not be equally true for the Heliopolitans to say that there was no Set—he was an imaginary devil—and all the universe was governed well by Ra? With equally good logic the Thebans could say that both hemispheres were ruled by Amen; Amen was their Ra, let the two be combined as Amen-Ra! .

Another long-standing enigma may also find its solution here ; the name of the god Amen signifies the Concealed One, and none could tell why, especially as such a term seemed the reverse of applicable to the Sun.? But it is 1 Leckyer, Nature, Aug. 1893. 7 Plutarch, ix. Records of the Past, ii, 132.

410 CREATION RECORDS.

applicable enough to the Sun in Amenta, the analogue of which we still call the Unseen World. Compare the Ritual cxxxili, where it is said that “Ra maketh his appearance at the mount of glory . . . the strong one issueth from his hidden abode.” In the same chapter the Osiris N., te. the deceased, who is like Osiris or like Ra, and has risen from below, “hath not told what he hath seen . . . in the house of the god who hideth his face.”

The name Amen is derived from Amenta—the Under- world, the hidden region. Perhaps, also, it was because the sources of the Nile were south of the equator, and the celestial Nile was conceived of as flowing from the place of the winter solstice, that the source of the river was said to be a hidden cave.!

AMEN-RA IS LORD OF BOTH HEMISPHERES.—The lists given by Brugsch (vol. i, p. 27) make Amen-Ra in the Theban doctrine correspond to Ra, son of Ptah, in the Memphian doctrine. The double crown is his head-gear ; he wears the red crown, benignly he receives the atef crown ; on whose south and on whose north is love Thy love is over the southern heaven, thy heart is not unmindful of the northern heaven.?

AMEN’S RELATION TO THE POLE.—In the old days of the Fire-god, the axis on which the universe turned had two pivots or poles, though the dwellers in the north only recognised their own. But afterwards, when all came to be known, it might be said that there were two Fire-gods, Ptah ; that the pillars of Shu extended in both directions from the equinoctial to the poles, and soon. And this is what we seem to find. In the Inscription of Darius it is said of Amen-Ra, “He has not come out of a womb, he has come out of cycles. Thou hast made the two countries in the town of the White Wall as Ptah. Thou hast placed thy throne in the life of the two countries as Amen-Ra.

1 See Brugsch, Zgypt under Pharaohs, ii, 251.

• Records of the Past, ii, 130.

LHE GODS OF THEBES. 4I1

Thy soul is the ark and four pillars of the two heavens.”! An inscription of Edfu speaks of the children of Ptah as engendered to take the North and the South, to create in Thebes and in Memphis; the creators of all creation.?

ASSOCIATED WITH SOLSTITIAL WORSHIP.—From the analogy of Ra at Heliopolis we may expect to find Amen- Ra established at the solstice. It ought to be our winter solstice for his original kingdom of the southern hemi- sphere; but it may sometimes be the summer solstice, since he claims to rule over both hemispheres.

The great temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes is the most majestic ruin in the world; and is oriented to the setting sun at the summer solstice. Amen may have been at the equinox first, and thus identified with the Bull, before being exalted to the summer solstice, the abode of Isis. At Heliopolis, at all events, he is addressed as the Bull in An, chief of all gods, twice-turbaned Bull of his mother, and so on.?

On the other hand the winter solstice is made prominent by the goat of Mendes. At the period when the spring equinox was in the Ram, the winter solstice would be in the Goat. The coins of Mendes bear a he-goat just as clearly and distinctly as the ram of Thebes.* Herodotus, Strabo—all the Greek and Roman authors—call the sacred animal there a goat. This creature is represented with four horns, viz., two ram’s horns like those of Amen which go round the ear and turn downwards, and two horizontal horns, diverging in a spiral line from a knot at the top of the head. The latter, it is thought, may be conventional horns of a he-goat.

ASSOCIATED WITH THE FULL YEAR OF HORUS.—We can see that Amen, by the northern characters he claims, is at least as late as Horus, and the completed year of

1 Records of the Past, viii, 137. 2 O’Neill, Might of the Gods, i, 166. 3 Records of the Past, ii, 129. 4 Naville, Ahanas, p. 20.

412 CREATION RECORDS.

365¢ days. He is actually called Amen-Horus.’ Harpo- crates was worshipped at Mendes, with the holy “ram” or goat ;? an arrangement which seems to us to unite the two solstices. The intercalary day must have been adopted in the south, and connected with the recognition of the “children of Horus,” those genii of the six-hour periods. For we find Amsu associated with Amen-Ra, and said to represent the power of reproduction ; both of them in fact were ithiphallic.* Amsu, or “Khem,” was represented by a phallic pig. The leaf of the fig-tree always occurs on his altar.*

The name was first read Khem, and then Min, but it has been proved that the correct reading is Amsu. We have seen Amsu identified with Horus at the summer solstice ; and now we find that the. goat (of the winter solstice) is sacred to him at Mendes.®

Amen, like Horus, is the hawk, “the Hawk created at first,” “the great Hawk.”

Mendes represents the winter solstice in Capricorn, yet the Egyptian name of the city was Tattu, which means the place for setting up the Tat (or phallus of Osiris) on the intercalary day.’ The Ram is the lord of Tattu, the same as Osiris is.

Everything goes to show that the southerners had adopted the corrected year—365} days—thus attaining to the truth about Time. In the Hymn to Amen, the god is called “King Ra, true speaker, chief of the earth.”® “Lord of Wisdom, whose precepts are wise.”!° Amen also, just the same as Ra, sat in the great hall and judged the dispute between the Twins (ze Horus and

1 Birch, History from Monuments, p. §9. 2 Naville, Anas, p. 19.

3 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ani), p. 283.

4 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, 99 note. Third Appendix to Herodotus, Book ii.

5 Bonwick, Eeyptian Belief, p. 227.

8 Records of the Past, viii, 433 ii, 135.

7 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ix, 2, 285. 8 Budge, Book of the Dead. p. 272.

9 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., ii, 2, 253. 10 Records of the Past, ti, 13.

THE GODS OF THEBES. 413

—

Set) ;! for what is done by Ra is done by Amen, the Sun of the Two Hemispheres is one god, Amen-Ra.

Naville, describing his discoveries at Tel Basta, tells us that Osorkon II held a great festival in the temple there, and though he celebrated it in honour of Amon, he com- pleted the dedication to the goddess Pasht. Naville remarks, “It is not impossible that this great festival— which, as I said, was based on an old tradition—had some- thing to do with the calendar.”* We think so too; for the Pasht month gathered up the six-hour fragments of 120 years, and that was one method which the northerners had of making the reckoning accurate for Ra. The Pasht festival, being a 15th month, implied the use of the Sed festival, which was the fourteenth ; and therefore we look to find Amen acknowledged somewhere at the feast of thirty- years. On a memorial tablet inscribed by an architect to King Sheshonk I, the king is stated to have done service to Amon-Ra, and it is added, “May he grant him the thirty-years’ jubilee-feasts of Ra, and the years of the god Tum. May the king live for ever!”® Again, Seb was the owner of the Egg which produced the Five Days ; and Pasht, the Cat, by her 15th month, supplied the odd quarter of a day. Onastela belonging to Dr. Wiedemann, Amen-Ra is represented as a goose.* Maspero also gives a representation of the Goose-god ¢éte-a-téte with the Cat- goddess, and says this is not the goose of Seb, but the goose of Amen, which was nurtured in the temple of Karnak and was called Smen. Facing it is the Cat of Mut, the wife of Amen.® In our view it all goes to show that the Five Days and the Six Hours were added to the year of Amen, the Sun-god of Thebes, the Ra of the South.

1 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Ecypiians, p. 116. 2 Address at Victoria Institute, 1839.

3 Brugsch, Lgyft under Pharaohs, ii, 212.

4 Wiedemann, Pel, of Ancient Egyptians, p. 121. 5 Maspero, Daw of Civilisation, p. 87.

414 CREATION RECORDS.

§ 2. THE GODDESS MUT OR MAUT.

(Consort of Amen—A Daughter of Ra, an Eye of the Sun-—Counterpart cf Sekhet, the Wife of Ptah—The Great Mother—Related to the Hippo- potamus—A Vulture her Emblem.)

The position we have assigned to Amen, as the Ra of the Southern Hemisphere, is confirmed by a study of the divinities associated with him. Amen has a consort and her name is Mut (a/zas Maut and Ma). She is calleda daughter of Ra; which in our estimation places her in the ecliptic circle, at one of the four quarter points. She is Lady of Heaven, and Queen of the gods, as Isis might be. But the fact which comes out most plainly is that she is the Eye of Ra.’ Tirhakah built a temple of good white stone to his mother Mut, the Eye or pupil of the Sun, and mistress of Anhar.?

This daughter of the Sun exhibits considerable likeness to Sekhet the wife of Ptah, who was another daughter. Votive statues represented the goddess with the head of a lioness*; and her temple at Karnac was adorned with 500 statues all lioness-headed—a wonderful sight to-day.* Even if we think them to be statues of Sekhet, yet their introduction into the temple of Mut would argue close affinity between the two goddesses.

Further, as Sekhet the Lion month had a younger sister in the Cat of Pasht, so it would seem that Mut had Ma in similar relation. Ma is mentioned in chapter cxl of the Ritual; the word means Truth and means also the Cat, and it has not been known why it should be applied to the sun as it is in chapter xvil.® But Ma as a lesser Leo is an intercalary month given to the sun: it makes the year accurate, and causes the calendar to speak the truth. In

1 Records of the Past, iv, 88, 93.

2 Birch, Zrans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vii, 2, 201. 3 Wiedemann, p. 122. 4 Mariette, A/onuments of Upper Egypt, p. 186.

5 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary.

THE GODS OF THEBES. 415

the Egyptian pictures the kings present the goddess Ma to Amen; and the act may probably signify that they intend to observe the Pasht festival. One of the titles of Pasht is Mut.?

Mut is also the mother; and is called Mistress of Dark- ness,? a title which suggests that the solstitial throne on which she sits must be that of the nether hemisphere. She was, however, considered the Mother-goddess par excellence ; perhaps because she was as ancient as Sekhet and Ptah and the Hippopotamus. Ta-urt, the hippopotamus god- dess, was the Great Mother in the arctic sky; and it would seem as though Mut had a relation of that sort in the antarctic. Mut was represented at Thebes by a hippo- potamus. The Hippopotamus constellation is now known as Draco,t and Lockyer finds that the temple of Mut at Thebes would allow the star y Draconzs to be seen along its axis about 3200 B.c.® Possibly this was an adaptation, after her husband Amen claimed both hemispheres, and she herself became “the Protectress of the two regions.”® Properly, we think, she belongs to the nether-world ; and the name Ament, which is given to her in three temples at Medinet Habu, confirms that opinion.’ In any case the word Mut means Mother ; and the ideographic sign used, to write her name, the image of a vulture, is at the same time the sign for the word mother.®

Maut, the Mother, whose emblem was a vulture.® The goddess has a vulture’s head, with prominent eyes. The two birds Hawk and Vulture seem to belong to Horus and Mut as divinities of the two solstices. In the shrine of Anubis at Deir el Bahari, the Vulture of Upper Egypt holds in its claws the Q, as does the Hawk of Lower Egypt. Brugsch again says that the Upper and the

1 Records of the Past, iv, 88, 94. 2 Bunsen, i, 399. 3 Jbid., p. 378.

4 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, pp. 216, 244. 5 Jbrd., pp. 191, 319. 8 Records of the Fast, xii, 121. 7 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 222.

8 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 123. ® Wilkinson. 10 Naville, Detr e/ Bahari, plates 36 and 37. . :

416 CREATION RECORDS. Lower Lands, for whatever reason, had for their symbols the urzeus serpent and the vulture. In chapter xvii of the Ritual, in the scholia, the two urzi, two eyes, two vultures, are identified with the sisters Isis and Nephthys, who for northerners represented the two solstices.*

The Egyptians painted on the ceilings of their homes and tombs the outspread wings of a vulture, and regarded it as a maternal emblem of protection and preservation. Mr. Flinders Petrie says, “There is perhaps no sight in the animal world more imposing than one of these birds stretched out with a span of some g or 10 feet, hanging overhead in the air; and not being hurtful, the vulture came to be honoured asatype of maternal care.” (Egyptian Decorative Art, p. 111.)8

Why the Vulture should be an appropriate symbol for the Great Mother is further suggested by O’Neill. He says,—The Hawk is obviously proper to gods—to the male principle; but the Vulture, according to Egyptian belief, produced its young by parthenogenesis. A vulture cap was worn by Isis.

§ 3. KHONSU OR KHONS-THOTH.

(Khonsu the Time-god of the Southern Hemisphere—Ram-Headed like Amen—Has the Characters of Thoth—As Master of the Accurate Year, he is also Assimilated to Horus—For the same reason he comes into Relation with Swine.)

Amen-Ra is “Chief of all gods”; Mut is Queen of the gods, Lady of Heaven; and Khons is associated with them to make up the trinity of Ethiopia. Khonsu is called the son of Amen and Mut.* He,is represented as ram-headed ; and his temple, close to that of Amen, but at

1 Evypt under Pharaohs, i, 253. 2 Cf. Renouf on chapter cxxv.

3H. Colley March, Journ. of Anthrop. Institute, Nov. 1897, p. 214. 4 Records of the Past, iv, 93.

THE GODS OF THEBES. 4I7

right-angles, is approached through an avenue of gigantic ram-headed sphinxes.

The Southern Hemisphere must have its time-keeper, and since his business will lie in the ecliptic circle, he is likely to bear resemblance to Thoth. In one representa- tion he holds a palm-branch and marks the years with a stylus, while on his head is the full moon.!’ Lockyer says, “With the moon we find two gods connected—Thoth- lunus and Khons-lunus—though the connection is not a very obvious one.”?. At Hermopolis and Edfu the two deities were occasionally fused into one, under the name of Khonsu-Thoth.? Cynocephali and apes were kept in the temple of Khons. He was the divine healer par excellence, especially as the caster-out of evil spirits. To complete the characters which assimilate him to Thoth, he is “the god of good counsel,” and the giver of oracles in Uas.4

As time-keeper, lord of the accurate year, he is also assimilated to Ra and to Horus, especially the latter. He wears the side lock of hair (in which the four genii of the Hours were lodged), and he holds the Tat (the symbol of the phallus and thus of the intercalary day.) Harpocrates, the child Horus, has the hawk for his emblem, and Khons has the same—a hawk of gold.

On account of the same resemblance of characters he comes into relation with the swine. MHis festival was determined by the full moon of Easter, when the pig was sacrificed to him; and in the planisphere of Denderah he holds a pig in his hand. To the northerners the pig repre- sented Typhon, and it was this mischief-maker, as a black sow, who put out the eye of Horus; but Horus and Set were reconciled after that, and it was doubtless found that the Pig served a purpose as useful as “the harmless, neces-

1 Bunsen, i, 392. 2 Lockyer, Dawn of Astronomy, p. 28.. % Wiedemann, Kel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 124.

• Recorts of Past, 2nd Series, iii, 39.

Z2E

418 CREATION RECORDS.

sary Cat.” Dr. Lauth of Munich claims to have proved that the month Pa-chons was named from the festival of Chons, held on the night of the full moon.!

§ 4. KHNUMN, THE SOUTH POLE.

Khnumn, a fourth important divinity of the South, is styled Lord of Nubia ; and is called by Maspero the Niie- god of the cataracts.?, Khnumn was called Builder of men Maker of the gods, the Father from the beginning, Creator of things which are, or shall be, etc. He supported the . heaven upon its four pillars in the beginning ; the earth, air, sea and sky are his handiwork.

Our idea is that Khnumn is the divinity of the South Pole, and contemporary with Ptah. The axis on which the universe turned had two pivots, and the southern god contributed to the work of creation as much as the northern god. We are told that Khnumn laboured with Ptah in carrying out the work of creation ordered by Thoth ; and again that Ptah was assisted in his work by the seven Khnumu or Architects. We remember the seven sons of Ptah.

Ptah, besides being the Fire-god, turning a drill and creating the flame of the sun, was conceived of as a Divine Potter, having power over the clay, and shaping things on his wheel. Ptah had modelled men with his own hands, and Khnumn had formed them on a potter’s table.® At Philze and at Denderah Ptah is represented as piling upon his potter’s table the plastic clay from which he is about to make a human body.’ According to Bunsen he is even stated to have formed on his wheel the divine limbs

1 Trans, Soc. Bib. Arch., iv, 2, 234. 2 Records of the Past, iv, 81. 3 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. 258, cix.

4 O’Neill, Might of the Gods, p. 610.

5 Birch, History from Monuments, viii.

6 Budge, By-Paths, p. 142. 7 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, p. 156.

THE GODS OF THEBES. ALY

of Osiris. Khnumn is sometimes represented as moulding the Egg of the Universe out of the matter furnished by Ptah.

He was not a god of fire—he could hardly be so con- ceived while his abode was supposed to be in the depths of the abyss—but “he was regarded as presiding in some special way over water, and he has a position among the gods of the lower world.” Occasionally he is hawk-headed, and in one representation he holds the emblem of water -in each hand.?

Some writers describe him as having a ram’s head and horns ; but this seems to be a mistake, for the horns are not curved like those of Amen, but horizontally extended, and it seems probable that the head and horns are those of a goat. In that case the horns of Khnumn may signify that although he is the Ptah of the Nether Hemisphere, and originally contemporary with the Fire-god of the North, he has had to adapt himself to the winter solstice in the Goat (contemporary with the spring equinox in the Ram). The earlier solstice had been in the Waterman ; and Khnumn “was regarded as presiding in some special way Over water,” etc.

1 Lockyer, Dawz of Astronomy, p. 385. 2 Budge, Book of the Dead (Ant), p. cix.

2E 2

CHAPTER XXIX.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC.

MANY nations have preserved legends relating to the - creation of the world and the origin of mankind, which can neither be received literaily, nor easily understood as allegories. They bear a surface appearance of being gro- tesque fancies; and yet they are so similar in widely separated centres as to suggest either a common origin or a foundation in the facts of Nature. On the supposition of derivation from one source, we may hope that investigation will show which version is nearest to the original. That large inquiry, however, is not before us now, but only the task of explaining the meaning of these stories in Ancient

Egypt.

§ 1. CREATION.

(Meaning of the Term in Mythology—Gods before Creation, Creators— Creation of the Firmament by Shu—Of Men and Things by the Sun-god, from his Eye—Traditionally at the Autumn Season—Summary. )

In the Egyptian cosmogony, creation means the ap- parent generation of sun or stars by the revolution of the heavens which brings them into view; or the birth of stars into the upper hemisphere through the precession of the equinoxes ; or again, the inauguration of new eras and time systems, with divinities to preside over them.! The celestial deities who were in being before the first astro- nomical reform or calendar change were regarded as self-

1 Comp. Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 125.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 421 existent. Ptah, seated at the pole, and causing the revolutions, was Father of the gods, “ Chief at first,” and “first of the first order.”! In the hieroglyphic texts Ptah is called the Father of Beginnings, the Creator of the Eggs of the Sun and Moon, and in common with many other divinities, the Lord of Life? The old Egyptian Chronicle, in giving the dynasties of the gods, refers to Hephaestus (z.e., Ptah) as preceding all reckoning.®

It is said that men came forth from the mouth of Ptah‘; though sometimes the imagery is different, and he builds them, moulds them, fashions them out of clay upon a potter’s wheel.’

Khnumn or Kneph did the same kind of work, in the same way.° But as his realm was the abyss, he was also a Spirit moving on the face of the waters of the unformed world.” He is called in the inscriptions the Maker of gods and men; and on the earliest monuments mankind appear as a red or dusky race.®

Amen also is spoken of as the god who Sextea himself— was not born, but came out of cycles,—and his wife Maut was the Mother.

This order of gods, being first, are fathers and mothers of those who come after. Tum also, in the opening verse of chapter Ixxviii, is called the great god, self-produced, and is addressed as Lord of Heaven, who givest motion to all things which come into being. He is the creator of men and things; men proceed from the apple of his eye. In the sepulchral inscription of Panehsi, Ra, Tum, Har- machis, are addressed as “one god living by truth, maker of beings, author of existences, of beasts and men, pro- ceeding from thy eye.”®

Something more distinctive characterises the work

1 Records of the Past, viii, 6. 2 Cooper, Archaic Dictionary. 3 Cory, Ancient Fi cagmuents, “ Budge, By-Faths, p. 13 5. 5 Records of the Past, viii, 6. 6 Bunsen, i, 377. 7 Murray’s Guide, Eg ips. 8 Birch, History from Monuments, ix

® Records of the Past, xii, 141.

422 CREATION RECORDS.

attributed to Shu, the Egyptian Atlas. Shu and Thoth are associated with that stage of discovery and reform when the Egyptians recognised that the sun did not rise out of the earth, but was always at an elevation above it. Then it began to be seen also that there are two hemi- spheres each equal to the other, and constituting a complete hollow sphere. The passage of time could be measured by the revolutions of the sun and moon. It is Shu, there- fore, who lifts the heavens, so creating a firmament ; the two great lights are appointed for signs and for seasons, for days and for years, and Thoth receives his office as Time-keeper. Time now begins, coincident with order produced out of chaos. Maspero, in a paper read before the London Congress of Orientalists, 1891, stated that the Egyptian creation was considered to endure only so long as the heavens, separated from the earth, should remain solidly upheld by four pillars.

Our inquiry has shown us that the work of Shu followed quickly upon the accession of Ra, if it did not coincide with it. Manetho gives us Hephaestus as reigning over the Egyptians first; and then gives us Helios, son of Hephaestus (z.¢., Ra, son of Ptah) as the first king of the First Dynasty ; so that Ptah precedes systematic record. Maspero discusses the matter, and concludes that the mythical creation comes between Ptah and Ra, or coincides with the accession of Ra.!

The effect of the work of Shu was to establish the Sun as Ruler, under the name of Ra. It also showed that the sun was not a new fire created every morning, but had been ever of old. “All agreed that the sun’s disk had existed in the Nu before ‘creation.’”? It is only consis- tent therefore when the legend of Ra and Isis,in the Turin Papyrus, begins as follows, “Chapter of the divine god who created himself, maker of heaven and earth, of the breath of life, of gods and men, etc.”

1 Proc. Soc. Bib., xii, 8, 420. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 138.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 423

The gods go out from Ra or from his eye. This is an expression which requires some elucidation. .When the year was accurate, and its days had run out, the reflection of the sun was a full round image—the Eye was full. Just then the New Year was born; and in that sense there would be endless celestial births from the eye of Ra. The place of the year’s renewal, the mysterious inner sanctuary where Horus was born, was the birtheplace in the most sacred sense. There was a deity for every hour… I am indebted to Gerald Massey for the suggestion that the eye is a symbol of reproduction. Looking into his wife’s eye, aman sees his own image there in miniature—the “ little man ” which the Hebrew phrase calls the “ daughter of the eye.” This would be one of the earliest mirrors, and may have actually suggested the circular form for the metallic mirrors of the Greeks, which with their handles are so suggestive of the crux ansata 9. The mirror becomes an eye, and a circular mirror over the temple altar, reflecting the circular image of the sun, would have a double right to be called the Eye of the Sun. In Japan, sacred mirrors are still preserved in the temples. From the Eye again, in the Egyptian system, everything depended ; just as, in another conception, the whole fabric rested on the Founda- tion-stone of the World, the rock of the fixed equinox.

Goodwin remarks that frequent allusions are made in the texts to the production of created things from the eyes of Ra or of Horus.?. Noxious things, on the other hand, were supposed to be produced from the eye of Set or Typhon. Now, if the eye of Horus is the full and true image of the sun at the solstice or the equinox, the eye of Typhon may be the marred image when the year is not accurate, or when precession has moved the equinox back- ward among the stars. Again, recalling the combats of Horus and Set as a struggle between the two hemispheres,

1 Renouf, Hibbert Lecture, p. 85. 2 Trans. Soc. Bib. A7rch,, ii, 2, 261.

42 CREATION RECORDS.

it may be that the eye of Horus is made full on the longest day, and that of Set on the shortest day. Compare the creation of good things and evil things by the Persian deities of Light and Dark, who also represent the two hemispheres.

Another question remains, and that regards the creation of mankind from the eye. We can understand that the years should be so born; and in the same moment we “ring out the old, ring in the new.” Some of the gods also may be identified with years and months and days ; and those that have a permanent place in the calendar may be considered immortal. Is not the story of Isis trying to nurse the royal child into immortality, an alle- gory of the effort to introduce an additional day into the circle—an effort abortive at that time? That day proved mortal. Have we not here the difference between mortals and immortals, as the terms arc to be understood in mythology ?

Yet this may not be the only sense in which men or mankind are named in this symbolic system. Stars, and ’ star-groups, “created” in the sense described above—per- haps brought up by the precession movement out of the abyss—would be “destroyed” when again cast down to Tartarus. Then the tribes of men who had adored those stars might be said to be destroyed also. And so they might be if they were adherents of any special Calendar and were called by the corresponding name—Osirians, Typhonians or Heliopolitans; when their calendar was abolished they might be said to share its fate. In this view of things, the creation of men by Ra or Horus might be the calling into existence of their adherents, the attrac- tion of worshippers to their cult.

The tradition among the Hebrews that the world was created in the season of autumn, was, according to Miss F. Corbaux, borrowed from Egypt; though her evidence seems simply to be that only in that country is autumn the

i

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 425

season of renewal! The inundation had then subsided and the land emerged from the waters ; the seed was sown and the flowers appeared. To this we may add, on our own account, that although, in the period of history, the New Year’s Day was the day of the summer solstice, our reading of the myths has shown that it had formerly been at the autumn equinox. Egyptian tradition seems to have associated the commencement of Time with the two great lights, the month beginning as well as the year. In the days of Rameses IT], one of the general holidays was the 29th of every month, “the day on which it was assumed that the conjunction of the sun and moon took place, and on which the world was created.”

Thus it appears that the primordial deity Ptah is self- existent; and the creation of the sun and moon, of gods and men, is naturally attributed to him. But every great solar god in succession is the creator of men, and things, the fountain of life, a lord of existences ; so that creative acts may seem to be of different dates, though not covering many “days” of the Great Year. Yet among all the deities there is one whose work is singular, and whose task was accomplished once for all: several gods are credited with creating men and things, but only one lifted the sky and made a firmament. Shu did this, and appointed the sun and moon, starting from the point of their conjunctior, to act in concert—parting and meeting again, like two voices in harmony—and so to measure out the seasons and the years.

§ 2. FALL OF ANGELS.

AGAIN and again in the Egyptian legends we find references to the Children of Failure, or the Children of Defeat. These are not men but “angels,” and the angels

1 Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Bcok II, 3rd App. 2 Brugsch, ii, 155.

426 CREATION RECORDS.

themselves are stars. The first sovereignty of Ra was preceded; by a period of some 500 years, during which seven successive positions of the pole had been noted, and seven corresponding positions of the equinoxes and solstices. As the Pole itself moved, compelled by “precession,” the appearance was as though the former pole-star fell away from it, and carried others in its train. It was like an archangel in revolt, and impressing his will on the common crowd to make them disobedient. In the course of time there were seven of these unfaithful ones ; and that was the stage of rebellion which had been reached when Ra was called in to suppress it. The Polar Clock was dis- located, the stars no longer told the same story by their risings and settings, the whole realm was in confusion.

In the Book of Enoch the unfaithful stars that fell are primarily seven in number. In the sooth year of the life of Enoch—in the 7th month, on the 14th day of the month -——“the high heavens shook, the angels were agitated.”

It is recorded that Shu destroyed the Children of Failure, at the height of Chemennu (or Hermopolis), the city of the Eighth. The suppression of the Seven was followed at once by the establishment of an Eighth, who was at the same time the first of a new order.

This revolt of the stars, through Precession, was a very different thing from the factitious troubles arising from errors in the calendar. Maspero warns us that the Children of Defeat are distinct from the followers of Set, the enemies of Osiris. They had the dragon Apepi at their head. Simultaneously with discarded allegiance at the pole, there were disturbances at the equinoxes, and assaults’on Ra while making his underworld journey. “Pierced with wounds, Apepi the Serpent sank into the depths of ocean at the very moment when the New Year began.”

1 Book of Enoch, chapter lix, and Massey, Matural Genests, ii, 108. -2 Maspero, Dawn of Crviltsation, p. 159.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 427

§ 3. THE Evi_ SERPENT.

In the old temples of Egypt tame serpents were kept, and suffered to coil about the sacred loaves, the consecrated bread eaten by the faithful.! A divine serpent was wor- shipped in every Nome in Egypt. A serpent is often carried in long mystical procession.?

This Serpent is probably a symbol for the ecliptic circle, creeping on by the precession movement, and with something of an undulating motion in its effect upon the constellations. It may then be called Apepi. But a similar insidious motion might also manifest itself through an error in the length of the year, and then the movement would be in one direction or the other according as the year was too long or too short. If the year began at the equinox, there would be an encroachment of one hemi- sphere on the other ; and it would be natural to conceive of two serpents, face to face at that point.

On the stele of the Dream, the Pharaoh (who symboli- cally sat on the throne of the Sun-god) beheld in his vision two snakes, one to his right, the other to his left ; and the interpreters said, “Thou wilt have the Southern lands and seize the Northern, and the two crowns will be put upon thy head.”* The snakes belong to the hemis- pheres, the dominions of Horus and Set respectively, and looked defiance at one another across the boundary. The autumn equinox was in the Scorpion, where the Gate of Hades was, and it is observable in some of the Egyptian writings that where one text presents a serpent, others have a scorpion.* The river Nile symbolises the ecliptic circle, and it may be conceived of as flowing towards the tnrone of the god from both sides. Sometimes, at least, the Nile is supposed to proceed from two sources, and

• 1 Bonwick, Zgypt. Bel. p. 264. 2 Proce. Soc. Bib, Arch., Nov., 1890. 3 Records of the Past, iv, 81. 4 Pleyte, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiii, 1, 17.

428 CREATION RECORDS.

these sources are frequently represented by two serpents, front to front, with the water streaming from their mouths.”

While Horus and Set were at enmity, one urzus was a good serpent and the other bad. There was a sacred ureus in front of the ark; and that would be a good serpent ; but the serpent whose place could be taken by a scorpion would be an evil serpent. When Horus after- wards makes a treaty of peace with Set, the two urzi be- come amiable to one another, and unite to adorn his crown.

M. Lefébure, in 1875, gave the following account from the sarcophagus of Seti I,3—We see to the left hiero- cephalic Horus supported on a long staff. Twelve personages carrying, as a cord,a long serpent—symbol probably of the march of time.*

It seems quite natural to represent a serpent by a rope; and we have seen in the chapter on Typhon how the rope of the year may be over-wound and “eaten by the ass.” But in the tomb of Seti is a scene in which the Devourer himself is a serpent. The rope is one from which the hours issue, and the Devourer is compelled to disgorge all that he has swallowed.

§ 4. THE “DESTRUCTION OF MEN.”

(Men or Mortals are Symbolically days—Created from the Eye of Ra—They date from Seb, because there was no Artificial Calendar before. In the Legend we may Distinguish Three Stages (1) Seven days are expunged from the Calendar. (2) The Reform is carried further by the suppression of two more. The position of the Pole is rectified to correspond, and this is the ‘‘ Completion of the Creation” by Shu. (3) Ra, grown decrepit, Abdicates in favour of the House of Seb. On ‘the Re-constitution oi things a 13th month is added, which is the ‘‘ Ibis of Thoth.”)

In the Egyptian records there is a singular story which the translators have put before us as the Destruction of

1 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xiii, 1, 10. 2 Bonwick, p. 221. 3 Thid., p. 57. 4 Comp. Wake, Serpent Worship, p. 142. 5 L?.cords of the Past, xii, 30.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 429

Men, though not always without expressing their doubts. The text is defective and the meaning is obscure. Never- theless, if we will give to the term “men” the symbolical meaning already suggested, we may be able to make out the general scnse.1 “ Men” are mortals, and “ mortals” are those days in the calendar which cannot live for ever, because their being is factitious. Some time or other there comes a calendar reform, and they are blotted out of existence, as surely as when Zeus destroyed men by a flash of lightning.

“Mankind” in this sense date from the time of Seb; because previously there was no calendar with numbered days, or at least there were no factitious days among them. Seb, the earth, and Neith, the mother, were the Adam and Eve whose meeting at the equinox gave birth to certain offspring doomed to destruction, as we shall see.

Contemporary with Seb was Ra, the Sun-god, at whose accession the calendar of 12 months was introduced. In the remarkable cosmogony known as the Evolutions of Ra —in Budge’s edition of the Nesi-Amsu papyrus, the god says, “Shu and Tefnut brought to memy Eye … I wept . . . and men and women sprang into existence from my Eye.”

The “men” spoken of in the Egyptian writings are not always those who are regarded as living at the time, nor even the dead, but certain of the unborn whose coming is foreseen. They seem to be thought of as existing in some sense already. Renouf says that the. Pazt are human beings, men of the past, whose place is in the Zwa¢ or Angerta ; and the Hamemzt are the men of the future, unborn generations circling round the sun.* How and when they are destined to be born, we may perhaps gather from the following:—Queen Hatshepsu, on her obelisk, when speaking of the younglings of the god Shu—men of

1 Records of the Past, vi. 2 O’Neill, Might of the Geds, p. 467. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 7, 370.

430 CREATION RECORDS.

a future generation—connects them with the period of 120 years.| Throughout that period the days are growing up which are to constitute the Pasht month. Their existence is hidden and mysterious, like that of the children of Horus ; but they have a right to a place in the calendar, and in the fulness of time they shall be numbered with the living.

On the other hand, in the time of Ra, there were certain days in the calendar which it was necessary to blot out: We have seen how, at the accession of Ra, the seven superseded polestars, the Children of Failure, had to be suppressed. Shu lifted the sky, and lodged it on ‘its proper pivot in the eighth place. At the same time the position of the equinox was rectified, and established as Hermopolis, the city of the eighth. This must have necessitated the suppression of seven superseded equi- noctial points, which would also be children of failure or. children of revolt. But the story we are now dealing with seems to imply that a calendar was in use which retained the equinox factitiously in its ancient place, although it now occurred seven days earlier. Consequently seven days were popularly recognised which were really xox est, gone into “the custody of Seb.” Through this anomaly a mischievous confusion is brought into the solar year of Ra, and calls for remedy.

The god Ra summons to his presence the divinities concerned in the necessary changes, namely, Shu and Tef- nut, Seb and Nut, and his father Nun, to ask counsel of them. He tells them that the “men” born of himself utter seditious words against him, and he thinks to destroy them. The gods advise that he should send his Eye, and thereby accomplish the massacre of the rebels. The goddess Hathor was summoned—for she was the Eye of the Sun —and having received the commission to destroy the men, she became Sekhet for that purpose. Now Sekhet was the consort of Ptah—she was the Lion solstice,as we have

| 1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 6, 282.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 431

argued—and Hathor was the goddess of those seven cows which we have identified with the superseded eyes of the sun, in the west. Hathor, as the Eye of the Sun, must have shifted her position, as compelled by precession ; and the action now to be taken depended on the present true position of Hathor. Her worshippers were adhering to her ancient star. About the true place of Sekhet there could be no mistake, because the year of Ptah was measured from longest day to longest day. So Sekhet, the true solstice, will fix the true equinox, and show how many days are to be blotted out.

Hathor smote the men; and during several nights Sekhet trampled the blood under feet.!. The work con- tinued from the 5th of the month Tybi to the 12th— seven days. Ra felt considerable satisfaction. Hathor was honoured; but the 5th and the 12th of Tibi were henceforth extremely unlucky days.

This is the first act of the drama.

But it is plain that this reform does not go far enough if, as we suppose, Ra himself has reigned for two days of the Great Year when the story begins (72 x 2). By this time there would be two more superseded equinoctial points, two more days that required suppression. Ra discovers that the men are not (all) destroyed; and the work of vengeance goes on. The slaughter was continued as far as Heracleopolis, the true autumnal equinox of the current time. In another place it is said that the children of rebellion were destroyed on the staircase at Heracleopolis.? Shu stands on the steps of the abyss, and while holding up the sun, afflicts the race of the wicked on the steps of the residents in Smen.® In the Ritual there is a group of avengers or punishers attached to Shu. These steps we have previously identified as so many degrees of Precession.

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., March, 1885. 2 Wiedemann, Rel. of Ancient Egyptians, p. 257. 3 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii; 89, 238, 259. + Ritual, chapter xc.

432 CREATION RECORDS.

Ra “resolved to be lifted up.” This may possibly mean that the spring equinox, which has seemed to sink in the waters of the abyss, shall be raised—a rectification only in consonance with the work of Hathor and Sekhet—or it may be an expression which anticipates the transference of the New Year’s Day to the solstice. There are two sides to the phenomenon, and we may either say that the equinox sinks down or the stars rise up. Their ascension into the upper hemisphere of the sky gives rise to the fields of Aalu, the Egyptian Elysium. Ra takes notice of them and commends them to the care of Shu and Tefnut.

It was indeed this couple who were now called upon to render him special help. Shu, in time past, had lifted the pole into the &th place; and now it wants raising to the 10th. Ra has desired to retreat to an inaccessible place. Nu sees no other way out of the difficulty than by setting to work to complete the creatzon—1z.e., by supplement- ing the former work of Shu, in rectifying the position of the pole. At the bidding of Nu, the goddess Nut changed herself into a cow and placed the Majesty of Ra upon her back. The cow rose, supported on her four legs as pillars ; and her belly, stretched out above the earth like a ceiling, formed the sky. This is a replacing of the pillars of Shu. But first Ra was reconciled to the survivors among men, on their repentance, and their offering of human sacrifices (z.e., after the sacrifice of those unneeded days). Shu was called upon to uphold the cow with his hands, in the way that, in the other legend, he sustained Neith. Shu succeeds. The Majesty of Shu was the excellent king of the sky, of the earth, of Hades, of the water, etc., governing with a true voice according to the precepts of his father Ra- Harmakhis. Only the children of the serpent Apepi, the impious ones who haunt the solitary places and the deserts, disavowed his authority.

If we are right, the first creation by Shu involved the

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 433 rectification of the pole by 7°, with corresponding change at the equinox, and the suppression of seven days from the calendar. The second labour of Shu, called the completion of the creation, was a supplemental work of the same kind, requiring the suppression of two more days. Is if a mere coincidence when we find it recorded that Shu, tired of reigning, reascended into heaven in a nine days’ tempest ??

But there is that ominous statement that the children of the serpent Apepi continued to disavow the authority of Shu. No rectification of the calendar could stay the insidious progress of the Precession movement, which made its effects manifest at the pole and the equinox, and changed the sun’s under-world path. This is the serpent which bites the god Ra and deprives him of the healthy firmness required in a ruler. Ra feels the poison working in _his limbs. It is decided that he shall retire from power, and an altogether different arrangement be tried, under Osiris and Isis. The abdication of Ra, and the inaugura- tion of the soli-lunar year of 364 days, is the subject matter of the third part of this curious story, As Osiris and Isis and Horus are part of the brood of the Egg of Seb, it may be said that the house of Seb come to the throne; and perhaps there is no other meaning in the statement that Seb was enthroned as Shu’s successor. Yet possibly we are to understand that in future, instead of watching the shifting pole, attention will be given to the precession of the equinox, Ra says to Seb, “ Be the guardian of thy serpents which are in thee” (ze. the two urei, which should be kept in equipoise). The Egyptians were ignorant of the true cause of precession, and probably thought that by a reconstruction of the calendar year the effects could be obviated for the future.

That the legend belongs to the period we are speaking of—when the year of 12 months (of 30 days) was to be changed for a year of 13 months (of 28 days) is indicated

1 Maspero, Dawzt of Civilisation, p. 170. 2F

434 CREATION RECORDS.

by the fact that the inscription (concerning the “Destruction of Mankind”) is engraved in the chamber called that of the Cow, in the tomb of Seti I, and so called because accompanied by a picture in which the cow is being held up. The cow represents the rectified heavens, and the four legs of the animal serve as the four pillars of Shu at the quarter points of the circle of the year. Two divinities supporting each leg, one on either side, stand for the other eight months of the year; while a 13th figure under the belly holds up the body of the beast. This 13th figure, necessary for the support of the system, must surely be a 13th month. Above his hands are 12 stars, and a little in front a 13th.) In two places, in the outskirts of the picture, the god Shu is kneeling and holding up his hands.

Ra says to Thoth, “Come, let us leave the sky . . . because I wish to make a luminary in the inferior sky and in the deep region. Thou art mine abode. Thou shalt be called Thoth the abode of Ra.” . . . and there arose the Ibis of Thoth . . . and there arose the two wings of the Ibis of Thoth. “TI shall give thee to embrace the two parts of the sky, with thy beauty and with thy rays” ; and there arose the moon-crescent of Thoth. This I take to mean that the 13th month, called the Ibis, was now instituted. “I shal! give thee to turn thyself towards the northern nations”; and there arose the Cynocephalus of Thoth (the sacred ape). This may mean that the same 13th month is reflected in the circumpolar region, where times and seasons are told by the stars. Or since Shu was the Ape and the 8th place of the pole, perhaps the Ape in his new place, which is now the loth, is the Cynocephalus of Thoth.

At any rate it seems plain that days and hours were spoken of as divinities, and those which have an abiding place in the circle of the year are immortals. In the days

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., iv, I.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 435 of the Fire-god Ptah—when the year was measured from longest day to longest day—all the days appeared to be of this description. But with the accession of Ra and the introduction of an artificial calendar, the year was some- times too short, and then by intercalaries was made, too long. Ra destroyed “men,” and although he created another race, “ men are mortal since the time of Ra.”!

§5. THE DELUGE.

(The Deluge sets forth figuratively the Irruption of the Waters of the Abyss— Said to be called for by the Sins of Men, but in a like figurative way—lIt occurred after the failure of the Seven, and again after the failure of two more, and so coincided with the ‘‘ Destruction of Mankind ”—It is also associated with Osiris, who floated over the Waters in his Ark—It has been connected in Tradition with a Change in the Earth’s Axis.)

The “Destruction of Mankind” synchronises with the Deluge ; though the earlier destruction of the Children of Failure was also attended by a flood. The Egyptian priests told Solon that while the Greeks only record a single flood, there had really been a great many. Manetho, as reported by Africanus and by Syncellus’ expressly speaks of a Deluge as an event which inter- vened between the reigns of the Immortals and those of the mortal kings beginning with Menes. Eusebius also specially chronicles “the Egyptian Deluge,” adding that it was the same with that of Ogyges.

But the only waters required for these floods were those of the mythical abyss. The Abyss was conceived of as filling the Underworld, up to the level of the equinoctial plane. The spring equinox receding to the region that had been below, it might be conceived conversely that the abyss on that side had risen above the land and submerged

1 Budge, By-Paths, p. 124. 2 Massey, Natural Genests, ii, 185. 2 ke eZ

436 CREATION RECORDS.

it. Chapter Ixxix, which is addressed to Tum and other

gods, contains the line, “ Homage to you, O ye gods who dwell in the flooded lands.” We need not be surprised that the story calls for this allegorical interpretation. As Sir William Jones suggests that many Hindoo myths will be found to be astronomical truths, veiled under the garb of mystery, so is it with these Egyptian legends. Hali- burton, who began his inquiry with quite different ideas, was led to the conclusion that the ancient story of the Deluge was not history, but astronomy in a figure.! Speaking of the Sabzan period of Ptah, Gerald Massey says, “ That world was submerged by the Deluge”; “the Seven everywhere precede the Deluge”; and he connects the event with the 5ooth year, or the conclusion of seven precession “days” of 72 years each.? This agrees with our reading that the first Deluge synchronises with the Destruction of the Children of Failure, and represents the tilting of the pole by 7°, relatively to its “original” position. Following upon this deluge, we have a new beginning, with Hermopolis the city of the Eight, and Thoth the Eighth personage, as Noah was “the Eighth person.” It is remarkable also that while, in one genealogy, Noah is the 10th person, so in the Egyptian records, when we have counted two more “ children of failure,’ we are brought to the period of the “destruction of mankind” in a deluge of blood. Precession was the cause, in the second case as in the first, and it was the stars or angels that were in revolt; but by this time there were also errors in the man-made calendar, and factitious days inimical to the divine order. In some legends it is represented that the Deluge was called for by the sins of mankind. In the Book of Enoch it is the fallen angels that lead men into sin. Men went astray through following the stars, after the stars had ceased to be trustworthy. Even if the astronomcrs

1 Haliburton, Festival of the Dead, pp. 50. 85, 100. 2 Book of Beginnings, ti, §02. Natural Genesis, ii, 321.

CREATION, FALL, FI.OOD, ETC. 437

were wise enough to correct the Calendar, the people were stupid enough to walk in the old paths.

The Deluge again, is connected in myth with the legend of Osiris, and definitely associated with the 17th day of Athyr, or the time of year at which Osiris in the ark or coffer was set floating on the waters.1 The writer in the Biblical Educator argues for the coincidence of the date with that of the Babylonian account, and that of the Hebrew narrative.? Osiris might be said to be shut up in a small arc of 14°, in which he moved on the face of the waters, and was landed at last at the foot of the tree where Isis found him.

Higgins tells us that the Deluge, taken literally, has been thought by many to have resulted from a change in the direction of the earth’s axis, and a consequent change of the length of the year from 360 days to 365.° Here we sce how traditions persist,and yet become inconsistently mixed up. Before Osiris the calendar year was of 360 days; afterwards of 365; and the legend of Osiris is connected with the Deluge. The mythic deluge again results from the dip of the earth’s axis through precession, and the consequent irruption of the waters of the abyss; but neither was the earth’s period of revolution altered, nor was there any change in the axis of rotation. How little the earth’s axis has ever changed, within any period worth considering, may be judged from Professor Chandler’s investigation, the results of which were published in 1893.4. Sir Robert Ball says, “It seems perfectly certain that at any time within the last 10,000 years the north pole might have been found within a region on the earth’s surface not larger than Hyde Park . . . . It is very _likely that the north pole at the glacial epoch was practi- cally indistinguishable from the north pole now.”

1 Halhburton, p. 99. 2 Biblical Educator, ii, 267. 8 Anacalypsis, chapter i. 4 Fortnightly Review, Aug. 1893.

438 CREATION RECORDS.

In chapter cxvi of the Ritual Seb appears in the ark, and is called the Great Inundator ; and “the bow of Seb,” in chapter cxxiv, seems further to connect him with the Flood. This is because the arc of Osiris is included in the Egg of Seb, that is, the Five. Days ; and the Five Days as a whole are an additional arc, not included in the circle of 360°.

§ 6. TOWER OF BABEL AND CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

(The Waters come in on one side, a Mound or Tower is raised on the other— Such Towers and Pyramids are traditionally connected with the Deluge— Before the Pyramids there were Obelisks, for record—The Confusion of Tongues was the Tumult attending the Change of System—With the Second Rectification of the Pole, and with the New Calendar Year, it was imagined that Stability was attained at last.)

When the earth was imagined to sink down on its eastern side, it was supposed to rise and stand higher out of the waters on the western side; for this was part of the same conception. On the one side the waters rush in; on the other the ground swells into a dry bank, or men raise a mound or build a tower. That the Tower which men build as a refuge from the waters is also called a mound, is shown by Simpson in his paper on the Tower of Babel. Whether mound or tower, it was of seven steps, as repre- senting so many successive places of the equinoctial point.’

The steps of the pyramid of Sakkhara, supposed to be the earliest of the Egyptian pyramids, support our con- clusion that these structures in Egypt have corresponding meaning to the Babel tower on the Tigris. They com- memorate the Deluge, and represent the equinoctial mound Or mount or staircase. And as it was the Deluge in which occurred the “destruction of mankind,’ they synchronise with the abdication of Ra and the inauguration of Osiris. They mark a new era, in which the astronomical reckoning

1 W. Simpson, Zyazs. Soc. Bib., ix, 2, 188.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 439

is to be different, and the calendar new; and they will be the depositories of the new records. After the ark-voyage of Osiris they will contain recorded observations of great value in the next reformed system.

The tradition was that the pyramids were built to preserve the writings at the Deluge.’ According to Arab tradition they were built to preserve the wisdom and keep the chronology.?, Murtadi, who wrote at Tehe in Arabia, in 1584, says that the Mage Saiuph made his abode ina maritime pyramid along with Noah. Manetho ascribes to Hermes (Thoth) 36,525 books ; which no doubt means that the astronomical records related to every day of the year—3653.3 And then the Arabians have a tradition that Hermes deposited his books—or rather tables of brass or stone—in one of the pyramids before the deluge. “This is asserted distinctly by Salamis Kandaathi, in the history of Egypt collected by Geraldinus; and it is, I believe, universally credited among the learned Arabians.”*

Before the pyramids there were obelisks, on which, apparently, observations were inscribed. Manetho, speak- ing of the second Hermes, says that he took his history from the columns placed in the Siriadic land, which had been inscribed by Thoth, the first Hermes, and which were translated out of the hieroglyphic letters into Greek by Agathodzemon, the son of the second Hermes, after the Deluge.> These columns are referred to by Josephus as having been inscribed by the sons of Seth.® Again it is said that the ancient pillars of Hermes were concealed prior to the Deluge, in certain caverns, not far from Thebes.’ The second Hermes interpreted these pillars. Such tradi- tionary statements as these have long been enigmatical ; but they seem to mean that notwithstanding the destruction of the old calendar, and the change in the form of worship,

1 Bonwick, Pyramid Facts, p. 114. 2 Massey, Natural Genests, ii, 225. 3 Taylor’s Jamblicus, p. 300. 4 Drummond.

5 Cory’s Ancient Fragments, E. R. Hodges, p. 109.

8 Antiquities of the Jews, i, 2. 7 Taylor’s Jamblicus, Add. notes, p. 337.

440 CREATION RECORDS.

the earlier records survived, and were found useful for comparison with the new calculations. |

Something of the kind took place everywhere, and is recognised in all the mythologies. Xisuthrus, the hero of the Babylonian Deluge legend, buried the ancient records for safety at Sippara. The sacred Vedas of India in like manner were lost and recovered.

But there would be great difficulty in squaring the old observations with the new. The position of the pole had’ been rectified, and the standpoint was entirely different. The year was no longer solar, but lunar, or luni-solar, and the season of its commencement was changed. Moreover, a certain number of days had been expunged from the calendar, and the number of days in the year was hence- forth to be different from heretofore. It is a question whether the astronomers would know exactly where they stood, or would altogether agree with one another. And it is still more likely that great numbers of the people would obstinately cling to the old state of things. Such a hubbub would exist as might not inaptly be described as a Confusion of Tongues; and I am of opinion that this is the kind of fact which underlies that curious tradition. The notion of a literal confusion of dialects, and the origin thence of the diverse tongues of mankind, has nothing to support it in the facts of language. But it is intelligible that a sweeping reform in science and religion, misunder- stood by the masses, and causing grave differences of opinion among the priests, should constitute an era, and be an event never to be forgotten. Pole and pole-star were changed, time-honoured divinities were displaced, ancient writings were discarded as erroneous, new teach- ings were brought into vogue, a destroying flood had occurred. In the minds of the most competent astro- nomers the reform was absolutely necessary, made so through the chaos brought into the old system by the 7 1 Moor, Hindu Pantheon, p. 108.

CREATION, FALL, FLOOD, ETC. 441

mysterious precession movement; and in every change they made they were seeking stability.

It is just possible that the confusion of tongues con- sequent on the adoption of the year of Osiris, is referred to in the Book of the Dead, chapter xvii, in the passage which says that a scene of strife arose among the gods at the speaking of Osiris. The scholiast remarks that “ Amenta is the scene of strife among the gods.” -

When the position of the pole had been rectihfed a second time—completing the creative work of Shu—it was probably thought that stability was attained. The length of the year had also been accurately ascertained ; and under the rule of Horus, and the arrangement for intercalary days, it was supposed that no repetition of the Deluge was likely to occur. In chapter Ixiv of the Ritual the speaker says, “I am not exhausted; I become the Lion-god, and the palm flowers of Shu are upon me. I am not one who drowneth. Blessed are they who see the bourne; beautiful is the god of motionless heart who causeth the stav of the Overflowing.” This might seem to refer to the inundation of the Nile; but that motionless heart, the fixed centre which prevents a flood, appears rather to have an astronomical reference.

It was vain however to imagine they had obviated the effects of precession. In one legend the child Horus was said to be drowned in the passage of the waters.’ Again, in the Magic Papyrus, “ Horus has cried out, ‘ Subsidency of the country !’

1 Massey, Natural Genests, ii, 206. 2 Recorcs of the Past, x, 156.

CHAPTER XXX.

MENES, THE FIRST KING OF EGYPT.

(Menes probably Historical, his Tomb lately found—Leaving Thinis he founded Memphis—Synchronous with the Era of tte Vague Year, he shows Points of Connection with Osiris—Associated with the Sacred Bulls, the Vague Year and the Sothic Cycle—Fused the Two Egypts into One—Said to have been killed by a Hippopotamus.)

HISTORIANS have had reason to complain of the obscurity

of early Egyptian history, with its dynasties of gods and

demigods, and its lack of chronological data. When we come to the first king of Egypt, so many seemingly mythi- cal characters attach to him that we half doubt whether we have even yet arrived at the domain of history. But we incline to accept King Menes as historical, and our mythical studies have at least paved the way for fixing his relative date. His era is the same as that of the Vague

Year and the commencement of the first Sothic Cycle, and

therefore may be set down provisionally as 4242 B.c.

Herodotus reports from the priests that Menes was the first king of Egypt… “G. W.” remarks on this that Manetho, Eratosthenes, and other writers agree with Herodotus ; and the statement is confirmed by the lists of the Memnonium, or Ramcsseum, at Thebes, and by the Turin papyrus.

His name—given as Min, Menis, Meines, etc., by classic authors—was in the native language Mena, meaning “ the constant.” Similar names occur in the early history of other countries—as Manes, the first king of Lydia, the Phrygian Manis, the Minos of Crete, the Indian Menu—and some have said that his personal existence is to be doubted. But he was believed to be a real person by the Egyptians

1 Herodotus, ii, 99. 2 Brugsch, Zeypt under Pharachs, i, 39.

MENES, THE FIRST KING OF EGYPT. 443

themselves ; and the events of his reign were accepted as undoubted facts.1. In recent years doubts have been ex- pressed by Erman and others; but they seem. now to be disproved by the discovery of the royal tomb and the name in hieroglyphics. Dr. Borchardt, a member of the International Commission which is engaged in cataloguing the contents of the Ghizeh Museum, has made the import- ant discovery that the royal tomb found in the spring of 1897 at N’gada, by M. de Morgan, is that of King Menes, the founder of the first dynasty.? Calcined fragments of his body are now in the museum, with obsidian vases, a dog carved in ivory, and the broken pieces of an ivory plaque which when joined together show the 4a name “ Aha,” and attached thereto the name “ Menes.” These were all found in the tomb. They show that the hieroglyphic system of writing was already fully developed, and that Menes was styled king of Upper and Lower Egypt.

The city of This or Thinis, where Menes at first resided, was near Abydos, in Upper Egypt and west of the river, and was revered as the burial place of Osiris. But the tradition is strong that Menes laid out the ground of the future city of Memphis, and that the later descendants of his house kept court in Memphis and not in Thinis.?

There are many points of association between Menes and Osiris ; not however implying coincidence, but all consis- tent with the idea of immediate succession. Osiris revived has become god of the Dead, but is to be reverenced in the bulls Apis and Mnevis. He is merged in Ra at Helio- polis, where the Vague Year begins, supplemented by the Sothic Cycle; and he is associated with Ptah at Memphis, where the ark mysteries will be performed. This is the era of Menes, who is credited with being the founder of Memphis.*

1 Rawlinson’s Herodotus, val. ii, p. 286. 2 Times, Nov. 22nd, 1897 ; and Pro-. Soc. Bib. Arch., xx, 2, 96.

3 Brugsch, Aeypt under Pharaohs, i, 56. 4 Herodotus, i, 99. Josephus, Azntzy., viii, 6, 2.

444 CREATION RECORDS. There are statements to connect him with both the sacred bulls. Indeed his own name may seem to be the same as Mnevis, as suggested both by Bunsen and by Birch ; and one tradition says that Memphis was built by Apis, King of Argos.!. Elian credits Menes with the intro- duction of the worship of Apis (7st. Anim., xi, 10).

There is also a fact connecting Menes definitely with the era of the Vague Year (of 365 days). A certain Saites is mentioned by Manetho as the inventor of the Vague Year —according to the report of Eusebius and of the scholiast on Plato; and Saites is chronologically identified with Menes by the celebrated Erathosthenes.?

The author of the Book of the Dog-star—ascribed to Manetho by Syncellus, but regarded by some as a forgery —makes the reign of Menes commence with the beginning of the Sothiac Cycle.‘

Tradition ascribes to Menes of Thinis the honour of having fused the Two Egypts into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of human dynasties.’ The fusion of the two countries, in a mythical sense, was effected when Horus made a treaty with Set, and was claimed earlier—as soon indeed as the southern sky was discovered. The tradition here agrees well enough with the fact that Menes is called, in his tomb inscription, King of Upper and Lower Egypt.

It is only traditions which we have here brought together regarding Menes ; but there is this strong point about our presentment, that we show all the traditions to meet in the same era. The foundation of Memphis, the institution of the Apis, the establishment of the Vague Year, and the commencement of the Sothic Cycle, are all associated with Menes and are all coincident in date.

1 Bunsen, ii, 58. Birch, History from Monuments, 23.

2 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., May, 1887, p. 184.

3 Biblical Educator, ii, 205. 4 Jbid., i, 285. 5 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 220.

MENES, THE FIRST KING OF EGYPT. 445

Menes, having rendered his name illustrious by improv- ing his country—and it is mentioned among other things that he induced his people to conform to the institutions of Thoth—was killed by a hippopotamus. In another form of the story he was devoured by a crocodile at the mouth of the Nile. In the Egyptian astrology the manner of a person’s death depended on the day of his birth, and the incident with which it was connected in the history of the gods. To perish by the jaws of a crocodile was the destined fate of the child born on the 23rd of the month Paophi. Death by either of these amphibious beasts might easily befall anyone bathing in the Nile. But there is no certainty as to the manner of the death of Menes, for according to other ancient authorities he was saved by a crocodile and built the city of Crocodilopolis.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DATES.

(The Record of Time—Supposed Date of Creation—The Beginning with the Equinox in Taurus—Difficulty in fixing the precise date—Origin of the Signs of the Zodiac—Hipparchus and the Precession of the Equinoxes— The Date of Menes—Commencement of the Sothic Cycle—Facts and Statements bearing on the General Subject.)

MUNGO PARK tells us that among the negro tribes of the Niger the years are not numbered, but are named after some remarkable event. The year of his travels would be remembered among them as “the year the white man passed.” As is well known, the Romans dated their acts and documents by the names of the two consuls for the year. The Assyrians had a similar custom: each year an officer who is called a /#snmu was appointed, and his name was cited inall documents. Careful lists of these limmi were kept, so that there should be no doubt as to dates. The Egyptians had a Sothic Cycle of 1460 years; and so long as the commencement of a king’s reign had been referred to its proper place in the cycle, the events of the reign might be recorded in vague years, and days, reckoned from the 1st of Thoth of the year of accession. Unfortunately there is no better chronology ; and even if there were, we could hardly expect it to give authentic records of the Beginning.

When did Time begin? We measure time by the earth’s revolutions ; but no one can say when the earth began to revolve. In days when it was believed that all creation dated from about six thousand years ago, it was not inconsistent to date our years as Anno Alundz, witha

DATES. 447

starting point about 4004 B.C. But it now appears that the date handed down, or the era remembered, as the Beginning of Time, was only intended as the commence- ment of the systematic measurement and record of the years. This appears to have been when the year of 12 months was instituted, and a beginning was made in the use of the sun and moon for signs and seasons. And there was a second beginning when the Vague Year was estab- lished, supplemented by intercalary days or by the Sothic Cycle. The event marks an important stage in human progress, but the era was not that of the creation of the world, nor the beginning of human history.

The date of Creation has been variously given, as under :—

Ussher’s chronology … ae w+» 4004 B.C. Samaritan text… airs ee sam sA205. a Septuagint — sé — 6 5390 ,, Josephus sy re ie … 5688 ,, Maimonides __… ioe ee … 4058 ,, Modern Jews … oe ae he 3701. ss

Our previous chapters direct us to seek especially for the dates of two great eras in the past, viz. (1) the first accession of Ra, or the adoption of a year of 360 days; and (2) the accession of Horus, the adoption of the year of 3654 days, after earlier experiments had failed. The accession of Ra appears to have coincided with the passage of the spring sun out of Gemini into Taurus; and the later date to coincide with the commencement of the first Sothic Cycle.

These are not accidental coincidences, but necessary incidents of the history ; for it was because the Sothic Cycle was instituted that the Vague Year came into use ; and it was probably because the sun was adopted in place of the pole-star, that the signs of the zodiac were invented, and the place of the sun among the stars was made the

448 CREATION RECORDS.

starting-point. We have no space here to discuss the origin of the signs of the zodiac; but numerous passages in the ancient texts imply a Beginning with the equinox in Taurus and the summer solstice in Leo. The fact of there being 12 signs of the zodiac seems to connect them with Ra’s year of 12 months ; and nothing is more evident than the association of the sun-god with the Bull.

The Hindoos, both of ancient and modern times, and the Persians also, have always associated the sign of the Bull with the origin of time! Greswell tells us that all over the globe we can find traces of the great lunar cycle of 600 years, called in Egypt the Apis cycle, z.2., the cycle of the Bull. This cycle, Greswell says, so venerable for its antiquity, is coeval with the origin of human society.

When the Circle was made, and the first four cardinal points were established, the Lion was keeper of the corner where the sun was, at the beginning of the year of the Inundation.?

The Sphinx, which combines in symbol the three forms of the sun, ought to date from the accession of Ra, when the morning sun was proved the same as that of the last evening ; and in the zodiac of Esneh it is placed between Virgo and Leo. Drummond says,—Now this symbol seems to indicate the period when the sun at the summer solstice was retrograding, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, out of the constellation Virgo into that of Leo.’ The symbol answers to the sun’s place at the summer solstice in the year 730 after the creation according to the chronology of the Ixx.

Maspero tells us that the sphinx has an astro-religious significance, and dates before the pyramids.‘

But although we are confident in placing Ra’s accession, and the beginning of years and months, at the era of the

1 Haliburton, Festival of the Dead, pp. 49, 99. 2 Massey, Book of Beginnings, ii, 108. § Drummond cn Zodiacs, p. 140. 4 Masvero, Leyptian Archeology, p. 201.

DATES 449

spring equinox in Taurus, we find it difficult to fix the exact date. Strange to say the astronomers are unable to help us much. They have long ago divorced the “ signs ”’ of the zodiac from their proper constellations. By their present convention the spring equinox is always “the Ist point of Aries,” although it has ceased to be in the con- stellation Aries for some two thousand years past. It is not known exactly when the equinox passed out of Aries, because the constellations are uncertain in outline ; and calculation backwards is unsatisfactory, because we are not sure that the zodiacal constellations ever covered just 30° each. It seems, however, most reasonable, to infer that when the circle was made to consist of 360°, and the year to be of 12 months, 30° would be assigned to each month uniformly. No reason can be urged for any irregularity in this respect. Not, as now, the varying outline and uneven dimensions of the constellation figures ; because ex hypothest the figures were formed to fit the divisions. Assuming then that the system started with 12 equal signs, of which Taurus and Gemini flanked the spring equinox on either side, we ought to be able to get at the date if we knew when the equinox passed out of Aries, or if we knew its precise whereabouts in the present year, The great Year of Precession is 25,868 ordinary years; and this divided by 12 gives 2155 years 8 months for the passage of the equinox through one of the signs. Astronomers tell us that “the Ist point of Aries” was the Ist point of the Ram constellation in the days of Hipparchus. The equinox, quickly after, must have re- ceded into the Fishes; and ata period about 2156 years earlier, it must have been on the dividing line between the Ram and the Bull. But “the days of Hipparchus” is a rather indefinite indication of time. Hipparchus was a celebrated astronomer of Alexandria, who is credited with having discovered the precession of the equinoxes, and does at least deserve praise for approximating closely to 2G

450 CREATION RECORDS.

its real amount. He said it was not greater than 59 seconds annually, nor less than 36 seconds; while its real amount is 50 seconds, requiring 72 years to make adegree. He found the equinox to have arrived at the Ist point of Aries ; but unfortunately we do not know the exact date of his discovery. ‘“ The life-time of Hipparchus may be placed on conjecture from 190 to 120 B.C.,” and his discovery “about the middle of the second century before Christ.” Professor Grant says he arrived at it about the year 125 B.C. by a comparison of his own observations with those of Timocharis, made about 170 years earlier.

Cassini, the astronomer, gives 255 B.C. as the date of the entrance of the equinoctial colure into the sign of the Fishes. Cassini is followed by Sir William Drummond and Gerald Massey. Gerald Massey wrote to the Astron- -omer-Royal to inquire when the vernal equinox coincided ‘with the first star of the Ram constellation (the last in the backward movement before passing into the Fishes), and received the following answer:

ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH. DEAR SIR, July 23rd, 1877.

It appears from our computation that the vernal equinox passed through the star y Avzetzs about B.C. 400,° subject to an uncertainty of three or four years, or perhaps more. The uncertainty of observations at that epoch might easily produce an apparent error of 30 or 40 years in the observed date of such a conjunction.

I am, Dear Sir, Yours faithfully, W. H. M. CHRISTIE.

It appears then that we have the advantage and the disadvantage of some little latitude ; and if we provision- 1 Cornewall Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancients, chapter iv.

2 Grant, History of Physical Astronomy, p. 318. | 3 Massey, Book of Beginnings, i, 47.

DATES. 451

ally follow Cassini’s date of 255 B.C. we shall be at liberty to depart from it if we find reason. B.C. 255 for the Fishes, would give us B.C. 2411 for the Ram, and 4567 for the Bull. It is somewhere in the neighbourhood of this latter date that we may expect to find the Creation by Shu, the accession of Ra, the invention of the circle of 360°, the inauguration of the year of 360 days, the foundation of Heliopolis, the Beginning of Time.

The régime of Ptah and his sons was before that, and extended over 504 years, or seven precession days. Mas- pero and other Egyptologists are quite right in regarding Hephaestus the Fire-god—z.e., Ptah—as coming before the mythical Creation.’

The date of the equinox in Taurus is otherwise given as 4698 B.c.,? and this is followed by Bonwick and by Robert Brown.’

Our idea is that when Ra has reigned for two precession days (144 years), the Deluge occurs, Ra abdicates in favour of Osiris, and the pyramids begin to be built; or at least seem to be called for, as memorials of the Flood, and symbols of equinoctial reckoning and worship.

The Osirian year, of 364 days, would carry the New Year’s Day all round the circle in 292 years; and at the close of this period would come the Vague Year and the Sothic Cycle, Memphis and King Menes.

According to Manetho, the date of Menes was 5702 B.C.* The dates favoured by modern Egyptologists are greatly various ; and serve to show how little approach to certainty has been attainable.

Boeckh… bee wae ner -» 5702 B.C. Unger … see ic oe … 5613 ,, Maspero ion ae sue »»» 4500 ,, Brugsch a sae ois -. 4455 ,,

1 Maspero, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 8, 422. 2 Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 232. 3 Brown, Academy, July, 1893.

• Lewis, dstronomy of Ancients, 327. Birch, Kede Lecture, p. 14.

2G 2

452 CREATION RECORDS.

Lauth 000… eee peewee HBT B.C. Lepsius ae ive dee .»- 3892 ,, Bunsen… doa be dose “ee 3023: 4;

Compare with these the date we should ‘be guided to if we take the vernal equinox in Taurus at 4698 (with Bonwick and Brown), and deduct 144 for Ra, and 292 for Osiris. The date would then be 4262 B.c. This differs by only 20 years from 4242 B.C., a date at which we shall arrive by another route.

We have it on the authority of Censcrinus that a Sothic Cycle was completed in 139 A.D. Oppolzer discussed all the statements made by Censorinus, and came to the conclusion that his account is to be depended upon. He then calculated previous dates for Memphis as follows :—

Julian Year. Historical Year. 1316 B.C. sie 1317 B.C. 2774 » wee 2775» 4235 » oe 4230 ,,

In the Bzblecal Educator, the learned writer argues that the date was the 20th July in A.D. 139, B.C. 1322, and B.C. 2782. The same data would conduct us: to B.C. 4242 as the commencement of the first Sothic Cycle, and the Vague Year—the accession of Horus at Heliopolis, and the date of Menes at Memphis. It is remarkable that Manetho’s date for Menes—5702 B.C.—exceeds 4242 by the exact amount of one Sothic Cycle. It will be remem- bered that B.c. 4242 is the Samaritan date of Creation: and the suggestion of the present writer is that it is the genuine era of the commencement of the Vague Year. In support of this may be cited again the references given in our first chapter. The Sothic Cycle was called the Year of God, and Solinus testifies that the day of its com- mencement was regarded by the Egyptians as the Birth- day of the World. Porphyry also cites the tradition that Creation began with the Sothic period. Many annals of

DATES. | 453%

dynasties likewise began with it, both pre-historic lines with ruling gods and demi-gods, and others supposed to be authentic. The great cosmical period of 36,525 years spoken of by Syncellus, is made up by multiplying the Sothic period (1461 years) by the Apis period (25), and is. otherwise the 3653 multiplied by 100. At the close of it the heavenly bodies were to return to their see a and there was to be a new beginning.

The suggestions in this chapter are made, not without some knowledge of the difficulties of the subject, but in the belief that they point in the right direction.

If the subject were pursued, it might be worth while - to take note of some facts and statements that are often passed over. Among these may be mentioned the following :—

A PROBABLE REFERENCE TO THE INVENTION OF THE SIGNS OF THE ZopIAc.—In chapter | of the Ritual the deceased speaks of the four fastenings of the hinder part of his head, and says that they “were fastened by Nu, on the first day of my beholding the Law in virtue of which the gods and their symbols came into existence.”

THE EQUINOCTIAL POINT EARLY RECOGNISED.—Biot showed that the month tables found in the Ramesseum at Thebes relate to the spring equinox of 3285 B.c. He further suggested that in all probability one of the mytho- logical figures might be a representation of the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator in the constellation Taurus at the date mentioned.

A FIGURATIVE CHASM.—Manetho says that under the first king of the second dynasty, a chasm opened near Bubastis, in which a great many people lost their lives. This may mean a gap between the end of one year and the beginning of the next, a hiatus in the calendar, oc- casioned by the neglect of intercalaries, until, in the 120th year, it could only be filled by inserting an entire month— which was the month of Pasht (Bubastis).

454 CREATION RECORDS.

MYTHICAL CHILDREN OF THE SUN.—In Hordedef’s Tale, three children are born to Ra, each a cubit long ; and the date of birth is the 25th of Tybi.2 And this is in the reign of Khufu, to enable him to reproduce in his pyramid the designs of the dwelling of Thoth—which are said to be already in the plan-room at Heliopolis.

It reads like so much fairy-tale nonsense ; but we re- member that cubits are degrees, and degrees are days, and days are children of the sun; and we suspect that three days were added to the year in the reign of Khufu; they were inserted next after the 25th of Tybi, and the object was to bring the calendar into accord with the require- ments of Thoth, the god of Time.

1 Petrie, Egyptian Tales, pp. 25, 31.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE FUTURE LIFE.

(Egyptian Psychology—The Book of the Dead—Topography of the Under- world—The Amenta, the Tuat, etc., the Celestial Nile, Lakes, Islands, and Trees—I’unerals and Symbolic Ritual—Perils of the Soul’s Journey —The Divine Order—The Weighing of the Soul—To be as the god.)

§1. EGYPTIAN PSYCHOLOGY.

THE basis of the Egyptian Religion was Astronomy and the Calendar ; the Divine Order in the heavens suggesting the rule for the life of man. Whatever had been the thoughts of savages, the men who framed this system had ceased to be savages and_ had attained to considerable knowledge in observational astronomy. They may have received an inheritance of custom and fancy from savage ancestors, and continued to use the language arid ideas of it to some extent, but a higher revelation had come to them through the study of the stars. Hence the early astronomers became priests, and the religion of mankind was lifted to a higher platform than that of mere animism.

A leading idea was that the earth and earthly things were made after the pattern of heaven and things in heaven. There were two Egypts—Upper and Lower—as there were two celestial hemispheres. The sun was king above, and the Pharaoh was a god below. As the sun went down in the west, but arose again in the east and ascended into the heavens, so also would it be with the soul of every good man.

Yes, man possessed a soul or a spirit, or a double or

456 CREATION RECORDS.

reflection of himself—or all of these—as the sun had reflected images in the temple sanctuaries. The Egyptian psychology indeed is complicated, and our enumeration of “body, soul and spirit” is quite insufficient as a parallel. The natural body was called Ahat,;: and it could be changed into a spiritual body, Sahu, by prayers and ceremonies on the day of burial. In close connection with these stood the heart, the fountain of good and evil thoughts (44), and the image or double or Ka, which could move freely from place to place apart from the body. The ka dwelt in a man’s statue; the statue was placed in the tomb, and funeral offerings, with smell of incense, were made to it. To that part of man which we should be inclined to call the soul, because it was believed to enjoy an eternal existence in heaven in a state of glory, they gave the name Za. It is depicted in the tombs as a human- headed hawk, which came to reanimate the body. In connection with the 4a and the Ja must be mentioned the Ahazbzt or shadow of the man, which the Egyptians regarded as part of the human economy. It was supposed to have an entirely independent existence, and to be able to separate itself from the body. Another important and apparently eternal part of man was the A/w, which has often been translated “shining one,” and which is fre- quently depicted in the form of a mummy. Even these hardly exhaust the list; but it may be said that the whole man consisted of a natural body, a spiritual body, a heart, a double, a soul, a shadow, an intangible ethereal spirit, a form, and a name.’

The destiny of the double was to continue to lead the: shadow of its terrestrial life, and fulfil it in the chapel (of the tomb) ; the destiny of the soul was to follow the sun across the sky, and it therefore needed the instructions which it read on the walls of the vault, or found in the. papyrus buried with the mummy.

1 Budge, Boo. of the Dead (.4n2), 1xix. Wiedemann, Egypt. Doct. of Immort.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 457

§ 2. THE Book of the Dead.

The inscriptions in the tombs are mostly chapters from the Ritual which modern scholars speak of as the Book of the Dead. No copy of the book contains all the chapters, which in the ancient copies differ greatly in the order of succession. The chapters, though occasionally falling into groups, are as independent of each other as the Hebrew Psalms, and were probably composed by different men at different times. They do not form parts of a Ritual, nor a book of private devotion. Even the Book of the Dead is a misleading title, since there were other books of. the class, for instance, the Lztanzes of Ra. Certain short: chapters relating to the heart were written upon gems, and served as amulets: the 26th was upon lapis-lazuli, the 27th upon green felspar, 29 B upon carnelian, and 30 upon serpentine. Others are found upon innumerable scarabs on coffins. Sarcophagi, pyramids and temples exhibit these inscrip- tions, and they were also written on papyri to be buried with mummies. These funereal papyri were generally written as articles of trade and embellished with vignettes, blank spaces being left for the names and titles of the persons for whom they were purchased. The Papyrus of Ant, with coloured vignettes among the most beautiful and interesting of their kind, was obtained for the British Museum in 1888, anda facsimile published by the trustees in 1890. : |

The Book of the Dead has not been found on any papyrus earlier than the XVIIIth dynasty; but coffins of the Xth and XIIth dynasties have inscriptions from it, and it appears that even thus early it required explanations. The scribes of that age copied from different originals, and. sometimes after giving one reading they incorporate another, with the words “ otherwise said.” Chapter Ixiv has a rubric attached, stating that it was discovered in the time of King

458 CREATION RECORDS.

Septa of the first dynasty’; or in another recension, dis- covered at Hermopolis upon a slab of alabaster, at the time of King Menkaura, the king of the third pyramid. The seventeenth chapter is one of the most ancient in the collection, and some of the papyri have short legends explanatory of the pictures in the vignette. The chapter begins with a Series of utterances by the god Tum; these are felt to be obscure, and so the question is asked, What is that? and an answer is given, or even a choice of answers; and these in some copies are written in red. Renouf says that the text, the scholia and the commentaries are all of extreme antiquity—some two thousand years before any probable date of Moses. The chapters are so ancient that the scribes of the VIth dynasty did not under- stand the texts they were drafting. The evidence derived from the enormous mass of new material discovered by Maspero? proves that the greater part of the texts comprised in the Book of the Dead are far older than the period of Menes.

The central idea of theology in the Book of the Dead is that of Regularity, whether in permanence or change.* Those things alone are divine which abide unceasingly or which recur in accordance with undeviating ree. The purpose of the chapters was to give might to the departed, and enable him to make his way safely through the world beyond the grave, and enjoy the privileges of his new life. The first chapter is headed, in the older manuscripts, “Chapter of coming to the Divine Powers attached to Osiris.” And the advantage to the deceased of having the sacred writings with him, and reciting them, is indicated at the close of chapter cxxv. The chapter is to be written on a clean brick of clay, and then “he shall not be cut off at any gate of Amenta, but he shall be conveyed along

1 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 1, 6. 2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, 398 ncte. Budge, Azz, xii. 3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xv, 4, 156.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 459

with the kings of North and South, and make his appear- ance as a follower of Osiris.”

§ 3. TOPOGRAPHY OF THE UNDERWORLD.

The Egyptian imagination peopled the Underworld with terrible monsters, and made the path perilous for the soul. But the foundation of the teaching was not mere fancy, and the luxuriance of detail was not an idle and unbridled growth. There was a meaning in everything ; and in the first instance everything was symbolical and founded on the astronomical theory. The soul would go the way of the Sun-god, and Ra himself had encountered enemies, especially the terrible reptile Apepi.

The main divisions of Egypt were “the Upper and Lower regions,’ and every monarch at his coronation © assumed the title of “ Lord of the Two Regions” or “the Two Worlds.” These were symbolical of the divisions of the celestial sphere. Renouf says: “ The Sun-god’s path from East to West was supposed to divide space into two Worlds, that of the South and that of the North. The king of Egypt as son and heir of the Sun-god claimed to be ruler of the Two Worlds. The two hemispheres had been claimed respectively by Horus and Set; anda stone inscription says of Rameses I], “he is the lord of the two crowns of Hor and of Set.”? The two crowns—the white upper one and the red lower one—signified that the Pharaoh was ruler in heaven and hell.* On the Rosetta Stone, Ptolemy Epiphanes is “like the sun, great king of the Upper and Lower regions.” |

The nether hemisphere was the world of the dead. Temples were representative of the universe ;* and so they were made double, with gods of the south and of the north; and the royal homage had to be rendered in both. —

1 Records of the Past, xii, 128. 2 Brugsch, Zgypt under Pharaohs, ii, 80.

Bonwick, p. 208. Brugsch, i, 13. 4 Maspero,. Zeyptian Archeology, p. 93.

460 CREATION RECORDS.'

AMENTA.—The land of the gods of the South, the. world of the dead, is commonly called Amenta. In the late Dr. Birch’s Book of the Dead, Amenta is the “inverted precinct.” Tiele calls it the reversed world. The manuscripts of the Book of the Lower Hemisphere found in the Egyptian tombs, are, says Devéria, almost all retrograde, and certain illustrations depict the dead and the Mountain upside down ; while the dead attaining the second life, exultingly say, in the Ritual, “I.do not [any longer] walk upon my head.”

The Christian Egyptians or Copts used the’ word Amenta to translate the Greek word Hadcs, to which they attributed all the ideas which their heathen ancestors had associated with the Amenta of the Book of the Dead. But while lakes of fire are not absent from Amenta, there is at the same time nearly as much variety of suffering as used. to be conceived of in the Purgatory of the Middle Ages.

Figures and hieroglyphics constituting a Book of Hades are carved on the sarcophagus of Seti I, which is now in the Soane Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.1__ In this descrip- tion the sun navigates the infernal regions, which are divided into twelve sections, each having its gate of entrance guarded by a serpent. As the Sun-god passes along, he has generally at his right hand the blessed, and at his left the damned. The names of the serpents of the gates are given: andin some accounts we have monsters ‘ Snake-headed,” “ Crocodile-headed,” “ Stone-face, boiling the wicked,” etc. Ten or twelve localities are named, and include Re-stau, Annu, Tattu, Sekhem, FPe-and-Tep, Rekhit, Abtu, a second Tattu, Naarutef, and a second Re-stau. All these are likely to be in the sun’s path—on the ecliptic circle or not far removed on either side—but . there is no need now to fix them exactly.

The. burial ground by the pyramids was called the “Door to the Underworld.”? The West was the sym-

F Records of the Past,x,80. | * Brugsch, Egypt under Pharaohs, i, 414.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 461

bolical direction of the Underworld, and therefore when possible the tombs were on the western side of the Nile. ~The spot where the Sun-god nightly left the earth to descend into Hades was somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of Abydos, and was reached through a narrow gorge or cleft in the Libyan range, whose mouth opened in front of the temple of Osiris Khentamentit a little to the north-west of the city.’ At the time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all parts of the valley ; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in order to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khentamenti.

In other accounts, or at other times, the souls make their descent into the netherworld by means of a ladder. In either case, says Budge, their destination was a region in the Tuat, and was supposed to lie tothe north of Egypt Maspero also lends his authority to the notion that the world came to an end towards the lagoons of the Delta, whose inaccessible islands were the sojourning place of souls after death. Professor Lauth is credited with being the first to show that this was the Egyptian belief. In our view the souls, having gone down into Amenta in the west, are only found in the north en route to the fields of Aarru in the east. They shared the fortunes of the Sun- god, and went onward in his wake.

THE TuAat.—Nearly all Egyptologists regard the word Tuat as meaning the place of departed souls, and use it as equivalent to Amenta. In chapter cxxvii the speaker addresses certain gods who are door-keepers of the Tuat, ‘and uses the phrase, “Guide me, and let the gates of Heaven, Earth and the Tuat be opened to me.”

Neverthcless, while a general parallel must be admitted, it is not unreasonable to look for some point of distinc- tion, and this may possibly be found in the circumstance _that there were different paths through the Underwerld,

• 1 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, pp. 196, 232.

462 CREATION RECORDS.

Precession had made it necessary to readjust everything down there ; the discarded places were now dungeons, and the faithless stars were prisoners. “In the Tuat lived all manner of fearful monsters and beasts; and here was the country through which the sun passed during the twelve hours of the night.” In chapter lxxxv the deceased says: “T am the Lord of Daylight and I execrate death. Let me not enter into the dungeons of the gods of the Tuat.” The object of the chapter is “to keep the soul out of the dungeon and make it imperishable.” Some other passages also would very well bear the meaning that the Tuat is the older path, which has become the false path, through the Underworld. Thus in chapter |xxviii, “ Hail to you, ye Gods of the Tuat, ye of repellent face and aggressive front, who tow along the stars which set … A gracious pass grant they to me, the gods of the Tuat as many as there are who preside over their caverns and have charge of the House of Osiris.” It must be admitted that other passages may seem to bear another meaning ; but even if the Tuat was the same as the Amenta, there were two paths through the Netherworld, and there was danger of going wrong at the cross-ways. In our view, the path being the highway of the sun must be the ecliptic circle, and the ecliptic is the celestial Nile on which the barque of the Sun-god sails. But owing to Precession the streams cross and fork. In the Egyptian sacred writings the boat which contains the gods is almost overturned by Apepi the serpent, though ultimately it attains to the extreme limit of the horizon and disappears in the heavenly region.?, The followers of the god fare no better ; a false Charon tries to take the soul east instead of west ; but the true pilot takes him across to the Elysian fields.® It is on an island of the Amenta Nile that the new birth

takes place.

1 Budge. Book of the Dead (Ani), p. civ. 3 Cooper, Serpent Myths, p. 41. 3 Bonwick, ZLeyptian Belief, pp. 197, 46. Cooper, Lecture, 70 note.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 403

FROM RE-STAU TO RE-STAU.—It is not merely at the junction that peril is encountered; there are enemies at every stage, and danger to the soul of being allured or compelled to leave the right path.

Some of the perils are indicated by the chapter headings; ég., ixili, A, is a “chapter whereby one is not burnt with fire, but drinketh water in the Netherworld”; and by chapter Ixiii, B, “one is not boiled in water.” <A chapter which M. Naville inserts as I.B. opens with the invocation, “Hail to thee who art in the sacred region of Amenta, the Osiris [that is the deceased] knows thee and thy name. Defend him from those Worms which are in Restau, who live upon the flesh of men and swallow their blood.” Chapter cxvii is for taking the blissful path at Restau, which is described as a gate south of Anaaref and north of the Domain of Osiris.

The deceased made his way to Annu, where souls were joined unto bodies in thousands, and where the blessed dead lived on celestial food for ever… Yet Annu is given as the Ist or the 2nd of 10 or I1 stages passed through by Osiris. The next locality is Tattu, in which Thoth was born. In the third locality, called Sekhem, we find the Crocodile god, who carrieth off with violence. The left arm of Osiris was in Sekhem, and the adversaries of the god were annihilated there. Pu-Tepu or Pe-Tep represents a fourth locality or stage of battle between Osiris and his adversaries ; and the struggle was on the night of erecting the pillars of Horus and of establishing him as heir of his father’s property and kingdom. In the Louvre text of chapter Ixxii the deceased prays,—Let me not be destroyed in the place Mesgqet, let not the Fiend get the mastery over me, for I have eaten bread in Pe and I have drunken ale in Tepu. The scholiast says that Mesqet is a place of scourging in Sutenhenen. The Two Shores of Rekhit are next reached by the deceased, as he pursues the path of

} Book of the Dead, chapters xviii, lxxxiii, Ixxxviii.

464 CREATION RECORDS.

Osiris. A struggle took place there on the night when Isis lay watching in tears over her brother Osiris.

If we count Io localities, of which Rekhit is the fifth, ‘it may be that the two shores of Rekhit indicate the dividing stream, midway on the journey ; and still more fitly if it is the sixth out of 11. Perhaps it is here that the soul comes to the region of Thoth, and receives from that wise deity a book of instructions to guide him for the rest of his journey.! In chapter xxiii Thoth supplies the deceased with words of power. The road lics through Abydos, though the same division is called Ammehit ; and this again is like Amenta, a name for the Netherworld generally. It is in this sixth division that Ra in his voyage comes to the Posts of Seb, the place of reckoning, where the enemies are counted after the examination of the words in the Amenta. Tum says to the posts,—Guard the enemies, punish the wicked !

The wicked ones appear to have spoken falsely, as was the case with stars which had forsaken their true place, wandering through precession. The next locality is the Highway of the Damned, and there “the struggle took place on the .night when judgment is passed upon those who are no more, z.¢, when the things are shut up (when the suit is closed) against the souls of the Children of Failure.”?

The eighth locality is Tattu. Osiris is there, and Lord of Tattu is one of his designations. It is in Tattu that Osiris finds the soul of Ra, and they blend into one. In plate 9 of the Anz Papyrus the two souls converse, and the illustration shows a Tat on either side. Thoth made Osiris triumphant over his adversaries before the Great Circle of gods in Tattu. In chapter cxxiv the deceased says, “My soul buildeth for me a hall in Tattu, and I flourish in Pu.” Concerning this “hall” Renouf says it is the first room of atemple or palace. He adds that pictures and inscriptions on mummy cases identify the term mytho-

1 Bonwick, p. 197 (cn chapter xc). 2 Iroc. Soc Bib. Arch., xv. 1, 6.

“ a ee ST |

THE FUTURE LIFE. 465

logically with that portion of the sky whence the first rays of the rising sun are visible. The deceased goes on, “ Let me have my will there of the bread and beer with the gods, that I enter through the sun-disk, and that darkness and night may be terrified before me in Mehit-urit, by the side of him who is in his sanctuary. And lo, I am here with Osiris !”

After Tattu comes Anaaref, the ninth locality, and it was there that the struggle took place on the night of hiding him who is supreme in attributes [the night of putting Osiris into the coffer], which is when there are at the coffin, the thigh, the head, the heel, and the leg of Unnefcru [ze., Osiris]. The entrance through which the deceased went down into the Lower World was supposed to be the southern door of Anaaref, the sanctuary where Osiris was buried.’ In the middle of Anaaref was a pond of fire, over which a monster with a dog’s head kept watch.

At length every good soul who follows in the way of Osiris, arrives at Restau, and salutes the god,—Hail to thee, Osiris, who hast possession of Restau! And itis replied to him,—Osiris raiseth thee up in thy power in Restau, and in thy might in Abydos, that thou mayest go round heaven with Ra, and survey the human race !

When Thoth effects the triumph of N (the deceased) before these ten great circles of gods, the heart of Horus rejoiceth, the heart of Osiris is glad, and the two parts of heaven are satisfied. All the adversaries of N are destroyed, and all that was wrong in him is also destroyed.

CELESTIAL RIVERS, LAKES, AND ISLANDS.—Frequently in mythology there are four celestial rivers, issuing from the north.2. The Hindoos believe that Lake Mansarowar in the Himalayas—a spot most sacred to Buddhists and Brahmins*—has four rivers flowing from it, which issue through the heads of four different animals. Massey‘

1 Naville, Ahnxas, p. 9. 2 Mivht of the Gods, i, 129.

3 Simpson, Orientation of Temples, p. 27. 4 Book of Beginnings, ii, 28 2H

466 CREATION RECORDS.

recognises that the rivers of mythology are celestial, and argues that the Nile is the analogue of Gihon.

Comparing the Greck, the solstitial colure corresponds with the Styx, and the soul which crosses it renews its life. One prayer is in the form,—O Water, father of the gods, turn thy face towards me. Thou art the water which makes eternally young again.1 The Egyptians placed the Nile among their gods, giving it the face of a man, with regular features, and a vigorous and portly body. The inscriptions call him Hapi, father of the gods, lord of sustenance, who maketh food to be, and covereth the two lands of Egypt with his products. It was told in the Thebaid how the god dwelt within a grotto or shrine in the island of Biggeh, whence he issued at the inundation. <A bas-relief from Philz represents blocks of stone piled one above another, the vulture of the south and the hawk of the north, each perched on a summit, and the circular chamber wherein Hapi hides himself, crouched, and clasping a libation vase in either hand. A hymn to the Nile-god speaks of the nine gods who accompany him.

The celestial topography includes lakes, which are not always lakes of fire. In chapter xvii, the speaker says: “TI am purified at the two great and mighty lakes of Sutenhenen, which purify the offerings which living men present to the great god who is there.” The commentator asks, “Who is that?” and answers, “It is Ra himself.” “Which are the two mighty lakes?” “ The lake of Natron and the lake of Maat.” In chapter xcvii, “Let me be purified in the lake of propitiation and of equipoise, let me plunge into the divine pool beneath the two divine sycamores of heaven and earth.”

Islands also have their place. They tell that Horus was nursed by Jsis in the marshes round Buto, just as Apollo was reared in Delos by Leto? It seems probable that Buto represents one of the equinoxes, and Eileithyia the

1 Ronwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 382. 2 Plutarch, Of sis, etc., xxxviii.

THE FUTURE LIFE. — 467

other. Ona tablet called the Great Mendes stele, which has the winged disk above, the two snakes are called Neheb of Eileithyia, and Uati of Buto.’

Nor must we pass over Trees as important marks of celestial locality. They may seem to be remote from astronomy and the calendar, but when we remember the pillars of Shu, and how probably the earliest pillars would be poles or tree-trunks, we shall see that the symbolism would naturally take this form. The Scandinavians observed the circling movement of the heavens, and wondered and worshipped. They formed the conception of the universe as a great tree, the ash Ygegdrasil, with roots in the Underworld, and branches high overhead. They seem also to have conceived of four great boughs rising up at the quarter points of the compass, as main supports of the starry sky. Sometimes they thought of these as four separate trees; and of course the eastern tree was associated with the spring of the year. In their way of thinking the spring had its ash-tree, which was thought of as ever living, or always renewing its life, everlasting like the universe itself. The ash is one of the most valuable of trees ; it flourishes in a greater variety of soils and situa- tions than any other tree producing equally good timber. Moreover, nothing is equal to it for poles and ladders, in which strength and elasticity are required in combination with lightness.2. It would, therefore, most likely be used as. a corner prop in any early temple whose dome represented. the sky.

The sycamore of dawn is repeatedly mentioned in the Book of the Dead*® The Pyramid texts also speak of the tall sycamore of Set in the eastern sky, on which the gods congregate and sit, in expectation of the arrival of the glorified one. In chapter lviii a vignette shows Ani kneeling beside a pool of water, where grows a sycamore

1 Records of the Past, viii, 92. 2 Carpenter, Vegetable Fhysiology.

3 Renouf, Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., xvi, 1, 10.

2H 2

468 CREATION RECORDS.

tree, and in the tree appears the goddess Nut pouring water from a vessel into Ani’s hands. “There is a palm tree which grows 100 cubits high . . . The author of the prayer in the Sallier Papyrus I. identifies it with Thoth the god of letters and eloquence.” After Osiris had been murdered and set floating on the waters, Isis found the chest near the mouth of the river under the shadow of a gigantic acacia. In chapter cxxv the deceased expects tu behold what the persea tree covereth in Restau. It is on the leaves of the persea tree that the goddess Safekh, the consort of Thoth and mistress of the sacred writings, inscribes the names of those who become immortal. It is in a persea tree that the Great Cat sits, ready to crush the head of the Serpent (in chapter xvii). There is also, besides an olive, a cedar, and a tamarisk, a Tree of Two Truths which stands in the place of the Judgment Hall. The text states that on the 30th day of Tybi, the great Inspectors came out to the end of the dais under the Trees of Life and Perseas.?

§ 4. FUNERALS AND SYMBOLIC RITUAL.

According to Diodorus the Greek representation of Hades was copied from the ceremonies of Egyptian funerals.®

After the embalmment the body was returned to the family in its coffin. Many months often elapsed before the actual burial, and during this period liturgies were performed before it in the house. Affection was gratified by thus retaining the dear departed ; and it also gave time to the family to prepare a tomb. Yet it was never done without assigning some plausible reason for it, since the Egyptiaris deemed it a great privilege to be admitted to

the repositories of the dead, as their final resting-place.

1 Maspero, Dawz of Civilisation, 121 note. 2 Massey, Natural Genesis, i, 398. 3 Jbid., ii, 432- y , 39 5) ~

THE FUTURE LIFE. 469

At length on the day of the funeral the mummy had to be taken across the Nile—steered to the west, to the land of the justified—or if the cemetery was on the same side of the river, the crossing was performed symbolically by traversing the sacred lake which was always attached toa city of the dead. Previously, however, there was a judg- ment scene before forty-two assessors, in imitation of what the soul would have to expect in the unseen world. The most influential person could not be admitted to the tomb he had built for himself, until acquitted before that tribunal which sat to judge his conduct during life.

At the tomb a ceremony was gone through which was intended as a reproduction of what was supposed to have taken place round the coffin of Osiris. The mouth was opened that the mummy might speak, and the eyes that it might see; a bull was slaughtered that the dead might have food to hand, rites were performed to enable it to make use of garments, unguents, and many other things— in fact to make it in all things like a living human body.

The cemeteries were nearly always west of the Nile. When the Egyptians saw the sun disappear behind the western mountains it was natural that they should imagine that in the west lay the entrance into the hidden land. The tomb contained a chamber in the south-east corner, to which the friends could bring offerings for the ka of the deceased, and could recite the necessary formule for him. Funeral feasts were held in this chapel, and meats and drinks were placed on tables so that the doubles of the offerings might gladden and satisfy the doubles of the deceased. In fact, the friends having taken their departure, the double of the deceased was supposed to come out of his house and feed. The deceased even prays that feasts may be made for him, including bread and ale and wine, oxen and ducks, incense, wax, and all the good and fair and pure things whereby the gods do live. |

The peasants believed that man, after death, went to the

470 CREATION RECORDS.

fields of Aarru where the barley and the spelt grew to the height of 7 cubits; that here he would plough the land and reap the harvests, and when tired in the evening he would sit under his sycamore and play draughts with his companions. In the Azz Papyrus, plate vii, we see Ani and his wife in the se# hall; and Ani is moving a piece on a draught-board. The Egyptian conception of the Fields of the Blessed was that of an arable country of peculiar fertility, where ploughing and reaping, watering and carrying away the soil went on just as in the fields on earth. As this land was most productive, the idea of having to cultivate it was attractive enough to the peasantry who formed the bulk of the nation; but the great lords, who had never followed the plough, did not like the prospect. Small statuettes were therefore buried with them, representing slaves, in large numbers, and these, by a fiction of the imagination, were supposed to do the work for them.

§ 5. PERILS OF THE SOUL’S JOURNEY.

Tombs were constructed on the model of the world of night, and the constellations of the sky were figured on the ceiling. The ceilings of the pyramid chambers were sprinkled over with stars. These surroundings indicated the region which must be traversed. The deceased, having undergone the rites of the Opening of the Mouth and the Eyes, was supposed to be reanimated ; and after being equipped with formulas and amulets, the same as Osiris had been, he set forth to seek the Field of Reeds. The way was long and arduous, strewn with perils to which he must have succumbed at the very first stages had he not been carefully warned beforehand and armed against them.! A papyrus placed with the mummy in its coffin contained

1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 183.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 471 the needful topographical directions and passwords, in order that he might neither stray nor perish by the way. The wiser Egyptians copied out the principal chapters for themselves, or learned them by heart while yet in life, in order to be prepared for the life beyond. Those who had not taken this precaution studied after death the copy with which they were provided ; and since few Egyptians could read, a priest or a relative of the deceased, preferably his son, recited the prayers in the mummy’s ear, that he might learn them before he was carried away to the cemetery. If the double obeyed the prescriptions of the Book of the Dead to the letter, he reached his goal without fail.

The text of the Litany is more allusive than descriptive, and must seem vague to those who have no previous knowledge of the topography of Hades; but we gather enough to feel the terrors of the place. The perils the deceased expected to encounter may be gathered from his prayers—e.g., in the seventeenth chapter, “ Deliver me from those Wardens of the passages with hurtful fingers, attendant upon Osiris. May your knives not get hold of me, may I not fall into your shambles.” In chapter ii, Ra is besought to deliver the deceased “ from the crocodiles which frighten the spirits like geese. May Osiris never fall into their furnaces, may their nets never entangle him!” After this, “Deliver the royal Osiris from the agile demons furnished with legs, from the cruel gods who pluck out hearts and throw.them into their furnaces.” The deceased feared all the same adversaries as had assaulted Osiris, and hoped to be delivered from them in . the same way. In chapter |xx1i, he prays that he may not perish at the Mesget, which is a place of scourging ; and he learns chapter cxxxiv, so that he may not die a second time in the Netherworld, but may eat by the side of Osiris. |

The Egyptians attached importance to ritual, ceremony, and the repetition of prayers. For example, at the end of

472 CREATION RECORDS.

the Lztany of Thoth (chapter xviii) the rubric says, “ Let the person say this chapter, and he will be purified and come forth by day after his death, and take all forms for the satisfaction of his will; and if this chapter be recited over him, he will be prosperous upon earth, he will come forth safe from every fire, and no evil thing will approach him. With undeviating regularity for times infinite.”

And yet it was also taught that it was necessary to lead a good life; and it was distinctly set forth that after death there will be judgment.

§ 6. THE DIVINE ORDER.

When the god Ptah is declared to have established unending and unvarying right and truth upon the earth, it is probably meant that his measurement of time was exact. The recurrence of midsummer day was unmistak- able, and it was ever a day of rejoicing. Nothing was wrong in that simple calendar, and no evil would have found its way into that Paradise but for the insidious serpent of precession. Wickedness was figured as Apep, “the giant,” who in the form of a serpent, the enemy of gods and of mankind, was at length pierced by the spear of Horus.

When Thoth became the god of Time, with the special duty of recording the years and keeping them of the proper length, ideas of truth and justice were transferred to him, and the divinities associated with him in the same work. The accurate fixing of the equinoctial point, securing the exact equipoise of the two hemispheres, was like the true adjustment of a pair of scales. In the Egyptian balances the beam was suspended by a loop or ring from a bracket projecting from the stand. Then below the beam a long tongue was attached—not above

1 Wilkinson, abridged, i, 330.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 473

the beam as with us.2. To test the Jevel of the beam, a plummet hung down the tongue, and it was this plummet which was observed, to see if the tongue was vertical and the beam horizontal. The tongue of the balance told the truth and showed whether the scales were equally balanced. Correspondingly, when the two hemispheres were duly adjusted, the divinity who secured the accurate balance of the year was said to be “of true voice.” On the 19th day of the 1st month, which was the feast of Thoth, the Egyptians eat honey and figs, saying to each other, “ How sweet a thing is truth!’? The figure of a baboon, the emblem of the god Thoth, was frequently placed on the top of the balance, because Thoth was the regulator of measurement.

Maat was the wife of Thoth, and her feather was the emblem of truth, both physical and moral. The glyph used in writing her name was the standard cubit of Egypt, the legal true measure.* Moral conceptions have generally had their basis in physical facts. enouf observes that Maat is the regularity of stellar motion and other pheno- mena—the law and order by which the universe exists— and that the application of Maat to Truth and Justice comes afterwards. At first it is as directly connected with the notion of sad, to stretch out, hold out straight, as the Latin vegere, regula, rectus,and our own rule and right, with arg, the Indo-European equivalent of mad.‘

The effort to arrive at an accurate year made accuracy a virtue. It was felt that there ought to be exactness in all measures, and a correspondence of speech with fact. When the astronomers failed to measure the year truly, the seasons got dislocated from the calendar. When the stars wandered and spoke falsely, the good order of heaven and earth was disturbed. The regularity of Nature was the ideal,and the duty of man was to conform to it.

1 Petrie, A Season in Egypt, p. 42. 2 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 53. 3 Night of the Gods, p. 493. 4 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 202.

474 CREATION RECORDS.

Truth and Justice became cardinal virtues with the Egyptians.!. In the Law-courts, when a case was brought for trial, it was customary for the arch-judge to put a golden chain round his neck, to which was suspended a small figure of Truth.

Light and Darkness, Upper and Lower, Horus and Set, had fought out their battle in the neighbourhood of the equinox, and there at last the true claim was made out and the boundary fixed. It was there that Thoth had spoken truth, and all other professions and prognosti- cations were proved false. The Hall of the Two Truths was there established, and the scales set up for the weighing of souls and the judgment of Osiris. All the divinities of Time, and gods of the opening year, would be gathered there—Ra and Horus as well as Osiris. It was the place of Maat because she was the wife of Thoth; and her place also if the mind ever reverted to the physical conception to which she owed her being as a goddess. In later recensions of chapter i. of the Ritual the deceased asks that he may be allowed to attain to the region of Maat ; and in the introduction to chapter xviii he prays, “ Grant me bread, the right of appearance at the tables of the Lords of Maat, entering in and going out of the netherworld.” Doubtless his prayer would be answered if he could say of himself what was said of Mentuhotep, chief judge under Usertesen I, that “the writings of Thoth were on his tongue, and he surpassed in righteousness the little tongue of the balance !”

§ 7. THE WEIGHING OF THE SOUL.

We spoke of the judgment of the deceased before a jury of forty-two of his fellows, before burial was allowed. Even monarchs had to submit to this ordeal ; so that the

1 Wilkinson, abridged, ii, 205.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 475 voice of the people could punish a refractory tyrant at his death. They were allowed to accuse him of misgovern- ment, and to inflict the disgrace of excluding his body from interment in his own tomb. It must never be forgotten that all such ceremonies were dramatic, and symbolical of the acts performed by the gods. The forty-two assessors had divine titles and represented forty- two divinities. The figure of Justice without a head, and the scales of Truth or Justice at the gate of Amenta, occur in the funereal subjects of the Egyptian tombs. The true judges are the forty-two assessors of Osiris, and some of them bear rather alarming names:—Eater of Shades, Fyes of Fire, Breaker of Bones, Eater of Blocd.

In the Book of Respirations, the deceased appears to begin his Netherworld journey by reaching the Hall of the Two Truths, where Osiris sits as Judge, and the determi- natives are two urzi or two ostrich feathers. The physical basis of the conception seems to us to be, that the throne of the god is fixed at the equinoctial point, where he keeps things balanced exactly, the two equal hemispheres on either side of him. The ostrich feathers are said to be the type of the Two Truths because they are of equal length.” From this physical conception the thought passes on to moral truth, equity, and justice, these ideas becoming so prominent that Renouf calls this Judgment Hall the Hall of the Two-fold Maat—maat representing law and regu- larity. Budge says the locality is that part of the sky wherein the sun rises? _

In this Hall of Righteousness, at the further end, Osiris was seated in mysterious twilight within a shrine. Behind him stood Isis and Nephthys, watching over him with uplifted hands, bare bosoms, and bodies straitly cased in linen. Forty-two jurors who had died and been restored to life like their lord, and who had been chosen, one from each of those cities of Egypt which recognised his authority,

1 Massey, Natural Genesis,i,146. 7 Buige, Book of the Dead( Ant), cxx.

476 | CREATION RECORDS.

squatted right and left, and motionless, clothed in the wrappings of the dead, silently waited until they were addressed. The soul first advanced to the foot of the throne, carrying on its outstretched hands the image of its heart or of its eyes, agents and accomplices of its sins and virtues. Inthe middle of the hall a great pair of scales is erected, and everything about it is symbolical. A cynocephalus, the emblem of Thoth, sits perched on the upright and watches the beam. The cords which suspend the scales are made of alternate ¢ats and cruxes ansate. Truth squats upon one of the scales, or the feather which is the emblem of truth is placed in it. Thoth, ibis-headed, places the heart in the other, and always merciful, bears upon the side of Truth, that judgment may be favourably inclined. Anubis acts as director of the weight, adjusting the tongue of the balance; Thoth writes the result on a tablet to present to Osiris, and is watched by the Devourer, a monster who waits to carry off the condemned. A beautiful picture of the scene is given in plate 3 of the Azz Papyrus, and a good representation, with description, in Maspero’s Dawz of Civilisation, p. 188.

The deceased approaches the assessors, and protests that he is not the doer of this or that sin, of which the god he addresses is the avenger. This is called the Negative Confession. Inthe Papyrus of Ani the Ist god is told :— I am not a doer of what is wrong, I am not a plunderer, Iam not a robber, I am not a slayer of men, I do not stint the quantity of corn, I am not a niggard, I do not seize the property of the gods, I am not a teller of lies, I am not a monopoliser of food, I am no extortioner, I am not unchaste, I am not the cause of others’ tears, I am not a dissembler, I am not a doer of violence, I am not of domineering character, I do not pillage cultivated land, I am not an eaves-dropper, I am not a chatterer, I do not dismiss a case through self-interest, I am not unchaste with women or men, I am not obscene, I am not an exciter

THE FUTURE LIFE. 477

of alarms, I am not hot in speech, I do not turn a deaf ear to the words of righteousness, I am not foul-mouthed, I am not a striker, Iam not a quarreller, I do not revoke my purpose, I do not multiply clamour in reply to words, I am not evil-minded or a doer of evil, I am nota reviler of the king, I put no obstruction upon the water, I am not a bawler, Iam nota reviler of the god, Iam not fraudu- lent, Iam not sparing in offerings to the gods, I do not deprive the dead of the funeral cakes, I do not take away the cakes of the child or profane the god of my locality, I do not kill sacred animals.

This pure standard of abstinence from wrong-doing is supported by the assertion of positive well-doing, which shows that the ideal of character was a very high one. I have done that which man prescribeth and that which pleaseth the gods. I have propitiated the god with that which he loveth. I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a boat to the ship- wrecked . . . I am one whose mouth is pure, and whose hands are pure, to whom there is said, “Come, come in peace,” by those who look upon him, etc.”

But all this may be mere profession, and meantime the heart of the deceased is being weighed in the balances, and may perhaps be fcund wanting. He bethinks him, and prays,—Let there not be a fall of the scale against me! Happily, in most instances, we may suppose, the verdict was favourable. Thus saith Thoth, lord of divine discourse, scribe of the Great Ennead, to his father Osiris, Lord of Eternity :—Behold the deceased in this Hall of the Double Truth, his heart has been weighed in the balance in the presence of the great genii, the lords of Hades, and has been found true. No trace of earthly impurity hath been found in his heart. Now that he leaveth the tribunal true of voice, his heart is restored to him, as well as his eyes and the material cover of his heart, to be put back in their

1 Chapter cxxv.

478 CREATION RECORDS.

places each in its own time, his soul in heaven, his heart in the other world as is the custom of the Followers of Horus.” The form of words is not always the same. In the case of Ani, the cycle of the great gods reply to Thoth: — Unalterably established is that which proceeds from thy mouth. Righteous and just is the Osiris, Ani, the trium- phant. He is without offence and without rebuke before us. Let not Amemit (the Devourer) prevail over him. Let there be given to him cakes, the (right of) appearance before Osiris, and a permanent allotment in Sekhit-hotepu, like the Followers of Horus.

Of the punishment of the wicked little is said. Renouf is of opinion that it consisted in annihilation, and that the passages which seem to imply continuous suffering refer to mythological beings the enemies of Ra or Osiris. By the efficacy of chapter xliv, “one dieth not a second time” ; and chapter | is a “chapter whereby one cometh not to the divine block of execution,” so that really a second death without resurrection seems to be contemplated. But the manner of death may be various. The Devourer, Amemit, a monster, part crocodile, part lion, part hippo- potamus, waits by the side of the scales to consume the hearts that are found wanting. Another kind of fate is spoken of in chapter xvii :—Deliver me from the Watchers who bear slaughtering knives, and who have cruel fingers. There are also hell-fires in the Netherworld. “The Fiery Lake is in Anrutf, hard by the Shenit chamber. The unclean man who would walk thereover doth fall down among the knives.”* In a kind of caldron, in the tombs of the kings, are seen the souls, bodies and shades of the wicked, held up by the two hands, and it is said, “ Burnt are the souls and bodies and shades of the accusers.”? Scorpions, vipers, and winged monsters are abundant, if we are to believe the Book of what 1s in the Tuat, several copies of which have come down to us inscribed upon

1 Budge, Azz, p. 289. 3 Birch, Zrans. Soc. B1b. Arch., viii, 3, 392-

THE FUTURE LIFE. 479

tombs, coffins, and papyri of the XVIIIth and following dynasties. Budge remarks that, from the descriptions which accompany the scenes, it is evident that the Egyptians of those days regarded the Tuat from a moral as well as a physical point of view. Apep, the emblem of evil, was here punished and overcome, and here dwelt the souls of the wicked and the righteous, who received their punishments or rewards, meted out to them by the decree of Ra and his company of gods. The chief instruments of punishment employed by the gods were fire and beasts, which devoured the souls and bodies of the enemies of Ra. Budge adds, very suggestively, that we may see from the literature of the Copts, or Egyptians who had embraced Christianity, how long the belief in a hell of fire and torturing fiends survived. Thus in the Life of Abba Shenuti, a man is told that the executioners of Amenti will not show compassion on his wretched soul ; and in the history of Pisentios, a Bishop of Coptos in the seventh century of our era, we have a series of details which reflect the Tuat of the Egyptians in a remarkable manner. Another picture of the torments of Hades is given in the Martyrdom of Macarius of Antioch, wherein the saint, having restored to life aman who had been dead six hours, learned that when he was about to die he was surrounded by fiends, some of whom had the faces of dragons, others of lions, others of crocodiles, and others of bears. They tore his soul from his body with great violence, and they fled with it over a mighty river of fire, in which they plunged it to a depth of 400 cubits. Then they took it out and set it before the Judge of Truth. After hearing the sentence of the Judge, the fiends took the soul to a place of outer darkness, and cast it into the cold, where there was gnashing of teeth.

We may suggest again that the Tuat was perhaps the old and discarded path through the Underworld, where the

1 Budge, Boot of the Dead (Ant), cxxx.

480 CREATION RECORDS.

stars, which were once in the right way, kept not their first estate but became fiends and tempters. The danger to the human soul, passing through Hades, was that it should get decoyed on to this Highway of the Damned ; but by virtue of sacred writings and passwords, and the good offices of Hathor, Thoth, and other divinities, the deceased, who had been acquitted when his heart was weighed in the balances, finally reached the Elysian Fields, or as the Egyptians might say, “ Anru.”

§ 8. To BE AS THE GOD.

The King of Egypt was son of the Sun, his living image, and whatever was true of the Sun-god might be asserted of the Pharaoh. He was the “great god,” the “golden Horus,” and claimed authority over “the sky and what is in it, the earth and all that is upon it.” When he was called Lord of the Two Earths, King of the South and the North, the reference was not to Upper and Lower Egypt, but to the Upper and the Nether Hemisphere.’ On the Rosetta Stone he is “like the Sun, the great king of the regions above and the regions below.” The sign © of the god Ra is an essential element in the composition of Pharaonic names. | .

At death, quitting his body, the Pharaoh departed heavenward to join himself with his father the Sun. In the story of Sanehat the king’s decease is announced in the terms, “A hawk has soared with his followers” (and joined the Sun-god, of which the hawk was an emblem).

Yet in another view of things the deceased monarch went to be with Osiris rather than with Ra. Rameses II says of his deceased father, “Thou restest in the deep like Osiris, while I rule like Ra among men.”? Dr. Birch says that monarchs were honoured with the appellation of

1 Renovf, Proe. Soc. Bib. Arch., xii, 7, 356. 2 Brugsch, ii, 40.

THE FUTURE LIFE. 481

“Qsiris” on their funeral tablets, as early as the IVth dynasty.!

At a later period the doctrine of equality was preached, the title was given to “good men” of all ranks, and the body was bound up to resemble Osiris.? Osiris was to every Egyptian the great deity of the Future State. The people believed that Osiris had been murdered by Set and avenged by his son Horus, and that afterwards he rose to new life. A similar fate was to be desired for each mortal man. Those who were left behind hoped that, like Osiris, the deceased would rise to new life ; and that in his son, who took care of his tomb and honoured his memory, as worthy a successor would arise as Horus had been to Osiris. With this object the magical formule recited in the tomb were composed like those used by Horus to his father Osiris, in the belief that thus it would go as well with the deceased as formerly with the god who had been slain. This faith, which we meet with everywhere in the — beginning of the Old Empire, gave the characteristic form to all the customs of funerary worship. From the time of. _ the Middle Empire the deceased is addressed directly as the Osiris N.N., as if he were a god himself, and the epithet is always added, “of true words,” because formerly the words of Osiris had been found true in the dispute with his enemies. Anubis is represented holding his body as he had held that of Osiris, and Isis and Nephthys weep for him as if he himself had been the husband of Isis.

The royal sepulchres in the valley of Bzban el Meluk, at Thebes, have their walls adorned with pictures which generally represent the course of the sun through the Underworld. The deceased is supposed to become identified with Osiris and to follow the god on his journey. In chapter i of the Ritual it is said—O ye who bring beneficent souls into the house of Osiris, do

1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., viii, 2, 149. 2 Wilkinson, ii, 329. 3 Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 308. 21

Se uP, les Pees ae ce oe - Ca ae a Ee ee ke ee Te ee oan

482 CREATION RECORDS.

ye. bring the soul of N together with you into the house of Osiris ; let him see as you see, let him hear as you hear, let him stand as you stand, and sit as you sit. O ye who give bread and beer to beneficent souls in the house ot Osiris, do you give bread and beer at two periods to the ~ soul of N who is with you. O ye who unclose the ways and open the roads … . let him enter at his pleasure and go forth at his will, triumphantly with you; and let that be executed which he shall order in the house of Osiris.

_’ The Gardens of Hotepit and Aarru are the Paradise, Elysian Fields and Islands of the Bléssed of the Egyptian imagination. They were supposed to be situated in the neighbourhood of the rising’sun. Mention is made in the Pyramid texts of a ladder in the East, leading’ up to this heaven ; and plate 35 of the Anz Papyrus is a picture of the Elysian Fields which shows a mount of seven steps on an island. The island, we may suppose, was in the first instance the equinox, and the seven steps were the seven degrees by which the equinoctial point had moved when Shu stood on a mount of seven steps to lift the heavens.

In chapter xxii it is said,—I am Osiris, the Lord of Restau, the same who is at the head of the Staircase. Upon this Renouf remarks,—See the picture of Osiris at the head of the Staircase, which is represented on the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, in the Soane Museum. The gods on this Jacob’s ladder are called “the Divine Circle about Osiris.” The “ Staircase of the great god” at Abydos is frequently mentioned on the funereal stele.

The chief features of the Egyptian religion remained unchanged from the earliest period down to the time when the Egyptians embraced Christianity. The doctrine of eternal life and of the resurrection of the glorified or trans- formed body, based upon the anciént story of the resurrec- tion of Osiris, was the same in all periods. The life which the deceased leads is not a stationary life in the Under- world ; but is said to be generally that of him “who

THE FUTURE LIFE. 483

entereth into the west of the sky and who cometh forth from the east thereof.” The Book of the Dead, according to the title of its first chapter, contains “ words which bring about Resurrection and Glory.”

INDEX.

PAGE Abtu fish ae ag a es bee a dies we 316

Abydos, a celestial city a oi a ang MG a wee 315 -Abyss of Netherworld… oe eo ‘ihe sate ds shee .. 384 Amen, the Theban Ra ae dex a wee sats ae wee 405

»» faces the reverse way… ae sei a ee aah … 408

9, called the Concealed One _… ats om si oe .» 409 Amenta, the Underworld wil ois Se ee8 she ths 384, 460 Amset, child of Horus si os she bs ay 2g 356 A

Angels, fall of … cae sas a a, ae ied 17, 425, 436 Animals as symbols… es aot se ie ‘3 47 Annu. See Heliopolis. Also 0 463.

Anthropology, not the clue wee he a iis che we = 29 Anubis, characters of . oui is ees - Bes as ws 333

, child of Nephthys Sox be we uh ne Stes … 220 »» andthe Dog-star… si wit ede eas = we 341 » and Horus … ate oes , =e sg o66 w. 364 », and Isis sive Gey as ht es si we 220, 332 », Guide of the ways… Be ne ee! ae ws 334, 340 »» Jackal ofthe Pole… a3 i es ek ie 334

prophesier_… sist sie wid. fy, tab aa 337, 339

Apepi, evil serpent… baa sei sae sae Bike 159, 162, 427 Apis bull : 5 in ia see ne sak … 289 ig ee a lunar cycle tas — fect ee as eae ws 293 Aries, First point of … ee a a4 Jee aa ..» 38, 52, 449 Aroeris . sa - oe ne ae ao 216, 225, 343 Ass, symbolism of sak os so a $24 ne a i 403 Astronomy, basis of myth _… sa Ses sis Ga tise 21

• facts and terms … a is tae aa 7 w= «29

Babel, Tower of ae wa ee ‘ies ae ae oe dete 437 Bacon, Roger … ss be ae oe ose aes es 3 Bear, sacred to Typhon we sas ve re wish due 396

»» Great… wi ae pis sis soe see 595 339 » Little… re 365 is a se ak 107, 334

Beetles, live in the ground dis bas is wit oe w. =129 », emblem of the sa sacred … see bat ae abs … 130 Bennu, a pheenix bird.. ‘

Birch, Dr., on the Tat. a Rie se ae ih ae oe) 357 9» 93 On the symbolic eye bs Ms ss See footnotes, passzm. Birthplace, the celestial ae bas is or re by ga 77 Blacksmiths of Ptah … nae as si se kiss _ w= 387 Boar, a star, and Typhon _… ie ae ae wa sh wes 397

INDEX.

Bonfires.. wi Bonwick, James, on the Tat . See footnotes, passim. Book ‘of the Dead, described . re »» Quoted, passim. Brugsch.. See footnotes, passz. Budge, Dr., on Hathor ss See footnotes, passim.

Bull, leading sign of Zodiac … Bulls, two sacred - er

»» represent Osiris

Bunsen, Christian C. J., footnotes, passim.

»» Ernest de

Calendar, Julian a Egyptian <5 concerned in myths Calmet’s Dictéonary, footnotes, passim. Cardinal points, to find - Pr »» not * children of Horus” », places of gods Cat, “regarded as a lesser lion.. », came out of the Ark », @ Truth-teller Caves Celestial rivers and islands Children of Failure sa ei ss »» 9ee also Stars. Chronology Cities, celestial Confusion of tongues … Constellations, Egyptian Creation, traditions of… ee ‘ and the Sothic era. ‘5 date of : meaning in Mytholog y Crocodile, and the Pole rr and the ecliptic

• and the son of Ptah Cronus … ae Cross on Egyptian Zodiac Crux ansata… as Cubit, symbolism of ..

Dates

Deluge ..

De Rougé . Draco, 03, seven-headed Drummond, Sir W. Dupuis … aay Dwarfs …

Easter, when fixed Ecliptic…

“153; 426, 436

447 St, 141, .

• 59, 61 Pig rete

. 16, 20, 424 i AS

447

420

107

109

108

208, 214

149

o ss 243 105, 401, 454

446 435 go se … 107 Bs 26, 137, 218 fad 26, 89 104

3 32

No son den ae IN)

486 INDEX.

Eight-rayed star Equinox in Aries

Pr in Taurus

5 precession of rr Erman. See footnotes, passim. Evil Eye Eyes as symbols

», of the sun…

Fates

Fire-drill

Fire-god

Fire-worship… fs

Five gods of five days .

Four genii of the dead 5» pillars, etc.

Funerals and ritual

Gesture language

Hades, entrance in West »» 12 divisions 3, ook of… Haliburton Hathor, eye of sun yy seven cows of », and hippopotamus », and the Fates

employed to destroy tebe…

Heaven: raised by Shu Hebdomads Heliopolis, ancient

‘5 coeval with Hermopolis. ii

ey a celestial city

Heracleopolis, a celestial me Higgins, Anacalypsis .. Hilton Price… Hipparchus and precession Hippopotamus, a constellation Hogarth’s election print Horus, in Plutarch

»» the Child =

»» his youthful lock oA

», called child of Hathor

», Truth-speaker… ;

, the Intercalary day

», and the solar year

», reigns at Heliopolis …

», transferred to the solstice

», wo Horuses…

5, Children of Horus

»» Followers of Horus

, and Ptah

, and Ra…

PAGE

idee. Ol 405, 449 ve GSE 31, 36, 39

352, 372

74

“210, 212, 248 w= 3355

137, 144

.. 468

45

54 107 160

233, 238; 436

oes

., 88, 96, 106, “147, 283, 346

39» 449 03, 107

vex, 225

225, 344

ww. 350

349

350

345

352

ae ree oes =6314 .» 353, 366, 375, 391 ; 343, 391, 408

INDEX. 487

PAGE

Horus and Anubis… 0. cee ees we 364

• 4, and Thoth _… aus a Si te MG | nace 13 375; 38s », and the Sed festival … ses 2a ee

», and Pasht ee Ake eee, kes, Aue - hoes se: ei

» ..the Hawk _… A aon, Fak Sd cee “Wag 368

», andthe Eye … a — in ee les 379, 3755 399 yy . Conflict with Set oa dale ov hie sides « 372 386, 38 88

», Turns the tide of battle on, oth is . 385

»» . Treaty with Set aed a cae eax on ane ws 391 his legitimacy .. sme. H+ tt a be, .. 390 Howitt, Australian class systenis at ve oa ih eel ..- 100 Iamblicus, on the crocodile … ae oui we se. eed .. 109 Ibis of Thoth … as a ae’ 1, Med nt sa eh. -dae-, LOS ee five days … Bae ake ise bie val 22

9 day.. re ee 13, 224, 355, 390 9 month, Ibis, Pasht, » Pigs € etc… ais ae 190» 282, 398, 403

Isis, in Plutarch si Neus ar aes 220, 318 », and Osiris… a = Mii <n + se as . 220, 318 “5, and Ra… ha ei os Leet, Ses ai wee 321 _y) Eye of the sun, Ureus … wea ss sly: ae a) sys. “328 », the solstice tg ve re ines ts ois oe .. 328 », resembles Hathor oF ee ek Salis». ae wes», ae’ 323 », and Nephthys _… oe ae ne ee ae. «= tae 25 », and the Dog-star… —… a Lise cle |e Jess ahs ae 325 », andthe star Antares… an eae a. © She mee ve

and Nephthys, Two Fyes eo a ae “ORAS Islands, celestial and floating = a a ius 264, 465, ae

Jackal, a constellation me ee es si a , 61, 334

©9ee Anubis. ~~ Japan, sacred mirrors … ae sag ae leet tks sae .. | 89

Judgment sca = = aes i a wa fim ae AT Ka or Double … seg i ed mt baa or se 95, 456

» of the sun … giles aes se os 7, vee awe O4, TG Khem … ace o fei a es vee 412 ‘Khepera, the sun as a Beetle. ses bin, Mau, Viget “Waite “tage: “E30

Khnumn, the Theban Ptah … seas. . oxtes ae st Me 409, 418 ‘Khons, the Theban Thoth … aa Steal, se oe, eee) Khuenaten and the sun-shadow beg ee ae seas ae.» geet? “OI Kneph, parent of Ptah os cas ie oe ae oe we 116

Labyrinth cae ba aye. a aiciaes Segs® * ee 207 -Lockyer, connects myth with astronomy we: | ae ee eae SP ee oe 2G “yy ~+thinks the Egyptians pamnlereot Suk. Sakae se» 2 tae E56

• 53 on Eyes of the Sun.. i <a ~ we | PMs foe 6408

nn See acti passim. 7

‘Lotus, emblem of sun.. ee bee see EE “8255230 ‘Maat, wife of Thoth … eee, toa cea et tai, Yaa 201 5, +~=—«represents truth ae a we eee de”, 203, 473 ‘Mackey, shoemaker “ie toy… ae as sé meds” 26 Mankind, creation of… _ … sit i Sei it a we «= 424

‘is destruction of __… 25 As, ak vee ane © 173, 428

488 INDEX.

Maspero, M., on Egyptian history… é si as ae .. 383 3 “yy Says priests were astronomers wate “oy a ae 24 -» _ See footnotes, passim. Massey, Gerald, sees astronomy in myths … ies sa ae see e128 ae », onthe Deluge oe nan - ae - .. 436 . y» on symbolism of the Eye … és aba ee 89, 423 ; »» onthe Fates oe oe — ee eg “Beers SOO

• »» onHorus … ea oe . i a 351, 380 »» on prophecy of fate ee ua ie ed «2 200 ig »» on Sekhet and Tefnut bags we an sad wee =<15§2 i », on Sesennu or Smen “at jae sty ae see 375. Ue - See footnotes, passin. Melilote flowers wks “es oP sid ek ies as 220, 235 Melville’s Verttas set ee 25 we ie aad ge sas 27 Memphis, a celestial city _… i a se i say ‘4. 299 Menes, Ist king of Egypt a ne ade ae ees ee ws 442 1» date of… ~ agi me es a .. 451 Mnevis bull _… eh ass sy ses be en … 289 Months, Egyptian… fir oo. get Bag oe 7 me fui 9 ed See Intercalary. Mut or Maut, goddess at Thebes… so ae ia ei we «414

Naville, sees astronomy in myths… oe ae sg sats sso «= 23. See footnotes, passzm. Neith, the Ecliptic … ae ; ae oe a oT w. 176. », Chapels of Ee ae or aoe 453 ia a .. 178 »» mother of crocodiles aes oo 7 ae se a wee 179 »» as Weaver sae dee eek see sak sida se eo =179 Nile, rise of… or - iy ra ute ed .. I8E »» creator of records dhe se a vid aa ve | 184 », celestial . ahs Bes ns he Pa S04 … 54, 182, 466- Nine, the Divine se eis be ds Bie bie sae .» «351 ’ 4, steps, and gods… aes Ga is de ster, TQUE 251, 365. Nomes, number of __… ai aie , Je4 ee iss .. §2 Nu or Nun, the abyss… sh ae ‘3 ae sae a 175, 430

Obelisks os dee dios or Sus Hea: | De IOI, 439 O’Neill, on obelisks … ges sis es sk sta oak … IOI »» onthe Polar god … 3 or bd ale xP ey 1° See footnotes, passim.

Order, Divine … Na ate wen es oF nes ee 458, 472. Osiris, in Plutarch … wes ne a me set i oe «212.

• description of … a ss sey see Sutil wee 229

», date of… us bas sae ae seh eae he wee 230

.» murder of sie as bak es bes yard iss wea, 235

», resurrection of… us as “a Gas a a ae 2 239

», the missing member … ee ve ‘ate “wis = we 240

»» represents the lunar year… sis sie ae aes we we ©6232

» arkof … ea ay es ee ae sa5 ste ws 238

»» lost and found… Sif = sah sa a eis es 233,

»5 fusion with Ra… se “ ae bee. i rhe sty 246, 254

», and the phcenix oe ee os oe a rrr ee | god of the dead sa ‘as ba a aa Sa .» 250 Osmandyas a tes Suis ie Sex ite Se w 105

INDEX.

Pasht, festival of « … Phallus, a symbol Pharaoh, Vice-gerent of Sun- -god . Phoenix periods 33 Philpot, Mrs., on sacred trees Piankhi, the Ethiopian Pig and plough 3 95 came out of Ark … Pillars or columns, four F Plutarch, rationalises myths … a a eae from Pointer-stones . Polar clock Pole shifting… Pope Gregory and the Calendar Precession of equinoxes *) caused perplexity … oo Proctor, R. A., pyramid an observatory = », and Virgil ds 5 See footnotes, Aasszm. Prophecy, astronomical we Psychology of Egyptians Ptah, the Fire-god 9, and the Pole 93 architect and creator », the Tat his emb!em »» asa mummy yy and the ark (Ptah- Soka) sons of … Ptah- Sokaris, barque of Pu and Nachen, and Tepu, celestial places… Pygmies ss iis ais a Pyramids, are tombs … 3 astronomical reference ig why built … a3 and the Deluge

Ra, the Sun-god, realised as a heavenly Peay 9» succeeds the seven Hathors see »» had no father ‘ »» his first reign se », and the twelve months », has 72 names »» Litany of . 99 conflict with Apepi »> his abdication »» his second sovereignty »» inperil… lifted to the solstice ti Renouf, Le Page, sees astronomy in my ths… ‘3 re on celestial cities .

• See footnotes, passin. Restau, a celestial place ba Resurrection, doctrine of

we

48g

PAGE ae ot 413

58, 65 IIt

Bs 3 w. 36, 43, 103 ‘WM, 159, 165s 17%, 4335 441

a 97, 455 72, 115 73, 114 “100, 104, 114

“362, 369, 392 sa we 103

490 INDEX.

Retreat, the, new place of the sun Rivers, celestial or

Scarabzeus, symbol of Sun

Seasons, signs of

Seb, in Plutarch : »» the earth-plane, equinoctial plane »» prototype of Cronus se »» and the goose »» posts of

Sed festival

Sekhet, wife of Ptah .

» Eyeofthe sun

x, and the crocodile

»» not the same as Pasht Serpent Apepi..

” Typhon : i Sesennu or Smen, a celestial place ess Seshait, consort of Thoth Set, comes into favour

9» ¢€ Typhon. Seven Bright ones

m See Steps, Ptah’s sons, and ‘Hebdomad.

Shu, the Egyptian Atlas », succeeds the Seven

»» raises heaven, creates the firmament ses

»» lifts the sky a second time », as jackal .. ve ‘ »» asape

brother to Tefnut Simpson, W., Orientation

1 - 5, ON the seven steps 99° +, on the four rivers 99 93 on Babel towers

See footnotes, passzm. Sothic Cycle, noted by Censorinus … ee te ae at cai ae

Soul weighed … a3 os

»» glorified … Soul’s perils after death Sphinx … Stars, rising and setting

», used as time-tellers

., faithless . ee Steps, stairs, ladder

» etc. See Hathor, Hebdomad, i, Seven.

Stonehenge ‘ Strife among the gods… Style, Old and New

Tail, festival of

Tat, the.. sea »> and Children of Horus aa

Tattu, place of Tats ses

… 144, 146, 149, 160

283 162, 427 wee GOI 298, 376 sa “333

409

113, 339 145, 422

14. 16, 452 288, 308

1354 170, 448 xe ue 34 58, 60

i IIT, “159, 172, 426 | 431, 438, 461, 482

79, 83 255) 441 = 4

… 278, 330, 358, 39¢ ; 356

“359s 369, 464

INDEX. 491

PAGE Ta-urt, hippopotamus goddess as. a Sees. dies sae ee 2 gata SE2G Taylor, T., quotes Homer… a site Sig sas ss . 150 Tefnut, sister and wife of Shu ads ie sh sae sos ree 2

», a lioness like Sekhet… ae sib Sts ved bes ie -152

Temples, the first — aie ‘aie ns ie ae ian .. 82 », Of Egypt… eae a a set ne we 83 oe orientation of bs a ane a ae - 78, 85 Thebes, gods of sui bug ihe re Bos ihe we wes 404 Thigh constellation … wb ae ing sea vane oe sce, (04 Thoth, Egyptian Mercury… ne Tn oe ae … 186

», godof letters andlearniny .. _… Be. Flees he we 195 », the Word, or Logos … ae ets GES see we 198 3 Conductor of Souls … eae PBs eg a Kee ves 200

»» supersedes Anubis… sia Mes oe ie oe ws 337 »» andthe palm branch… _ … ie wags Py we 194

‘y, ~~ +~and the Osirian year … oe oe bei bie eee ee «186 »» andthe Ibis’ …. ns cm. habe Se ee Ui . 189

», and the Five … ae eee send ss sae bas .s 227

», and Shu the ape ae se ae a ‘See aos see: 192

»5 and the Dog-star ais sie sg ssf sn … 188 arbitrates between Horus and Set… a an at ws 392

Time, early attempts to measure… sou “as dees as ww. «57

Beginning of … on as aie sie th 148, 156, 446 Trees, symbols… bi ae ae er iat oe «++ 54, 148, 467

» and pillars of heaven … a an ee — 68 147, 222 Tuat, the Underworld ve oe ae et ee - 461, 479 Tum or Tmu, the setting sun ms ia as oa a ise 131

», becomes the morning sun oe ens re sts a 132, 304

»» his feathers ae or ues Aa se dui oa wee 3320

+» creates Shu aa one Bi es or ise dant … 146 Tunnel for the sun _… iy, = tues eas see ae a 160, 207 Twelve gods … lak sae ue seh ad ee ; 139

Two Truths… ss tla ies 134 474, 475 Tylor, Dr. E. B., solar deities of Egypt are om sii 27 Typhon, in Plutarch … aes ee age ia 213, 223

• the Evil Power ae Sie site - - 383, 401 », Struggles with Osiris and Horus… ot if ws: 372, 382

Bd at the autumn equinox he ini ae Sig se ous «217 », andthe loadstone … a a op vat = we 387 _ S92 TASS* gaa — wes ae 4s Pa sa; 400, 402 3 » crocodile… te mh Sis sh ae ws 393 59 si hippopotamus oa er sink ice — wee 395

» SOW… Seu hey sah sh its a .» 399 Typhon’s wife … “a9 gon wie as se ages sais see 396

Underworld opened up i ae me ae we 149

• new route of the sun… do bak se ee ws 165

9 topography of … — aa ae ae gs ws 459 Universe of Egyptians se oe 52s be as 28 ae. 153

Virgil and the seasons.. es ai - see i as we 40 Vulture, emblem of Mut… ae sal ee al 6s we 416 Week, and Osirian year be ae ai ts bas vee 295

Wicked, punishment of oak wr tte tee gees. 478

492 INDEX.

. PAGE Wells… és aay = ae he oe oe .. 67 Wiedemann on the ka. we ; se ee a aa n’y {

See footnotes, passim, Wilkinson, Sir G., star- -worship ae re nei sist ae 1. «=—28 ‘3 See footnotes, pass7zm. Worm and tunnel =e ‘ice a sas ees on a … 160 Year, solar. See Ra, Horus. », its beginning changed … wae oe sf be ik dee 150 », of Confusion he Re ani oa ae », Of 360days~ ., eS ag 10, 138, 156, a », Of 364 days… = 216, 221, 233, 254, 292, 302, 321, 339, 343 »» Of 365 days… si - II, 216, 224, 240, 253, 308 », the Vague ot ae ei on ae 13, 310 », of God or Great Year dais sa ae de 14, 106, III, 172, 452

Zodiac, signs of re ee - aie Wis + 33, 137, 448, 453

HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN’S LANE,

cs, os

Princeton University Library

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Princeton University Library

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This Book is Due

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