Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/742

718 the sin; as Amen-ra ka-mut-f, " the husband of his mother," he takes those of Miu or Khein, the productive principle. Rarely he has the ram-headed form that Greek notions would lead us to expect. Sehek, the crocodile-headed god, seems to have held a similar place to Seth. There may have been a time when he was reverenced throughout Egypt, but in the Gneco-lloman period he was a local divinity so disliked in most parts of Egypt that, as already noticed, the Arsinoite nome where he was worshipped docs not appear in the geographical lists. His sacred animal the crocodile was held in abhorrence and hunted wherever Sebek was not reverenced (cf. Brugsch, Hist., 2d. ed., 106, 107). Thoth, or Taunt, is the head of the second cycle in the two principal forms of the cycles. As the chief moon-god he thus takes an inferior place corresponding to that of Ra. He is generally represented as ibis-headed, and frequently bears the disk and crescent of the moon. He is the god of letters and of the reckoning of time, and thus sometimes lias solar attributes. The ibis and the cynocephalus were sacred to him. As the deity of wisdom he aids Horus in his conflict with Seth, and records the judg ment of the deceased before Osiris. He appears in Phoenician mythology, though not at a period early enough for us to infer that his worship was not borrowed from Egypt. Yet it is not impossible that here, as in the case of Phtha, we have a trace of early Eastern influence. It is at least remarkable that the great seat of las worship, Hermopolis Magna, bearing in. ancient Egyptian the civil name Sesenuu, also Pe-seseunu and Ha-sesennu, Eight, or the Abode, or House of Eight, is called in Coptic cyjUOYff , 01 ( = CIf<XY, two), where the numeral eight ap proaches the Semitic form (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., i. 219). Was the change in the Coptic numeral due to an ancient form of the name of this celebrated city ? Ma-t, the goddess of truth, succeeds Thoth in a fragment of the list of the dynasties of the gods in the Turin chronological papyrus. She is characterized by the ostrich -feather, the emblem of truth, upon her head. She thus corresponds to Shu, holding the corre sponding place. Thoth is called her husband (Lepsiu.s, Konigsbuch, taf. iii. 22), but she is not his consort at Hermopolis (Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr., i. 220). She is the daughter of the sun. Her place in the myth of Osiris is very important, for it is in her hall, where she is called the Two Truths, that the deceased are judged. Anubis, or Anup, jackal-headed, probably held in one system the next place to Ma-t. He belongs to the family of Osiris, being called the son of that divinity. He presided over mummification. In the earliest sepulchral inscriptions the divinity addressed is Anubis, not Osiris. No reason has yet been discovered for this. There can be little doubt that Osiris was always intended, and that the earliest inscriptions, for some reason connected with the Egyp tian reticence as to this divinity, address Anubis. The four genii of Amenti were inferior divinities connected with embalming. They were called Amset, Hapi, Tiu-mut-f, and Kebh- senuf. The vases found in Egyptian tombs which bear covers in the forms of the heads of these genii were intended to contain the viscera of the mummy, as it was held to be of importance that every part of the body should be preserved. The rest of the principal Egyptian gods may now be noticed as far as possible in the order of their importance. It must, however, be remembered, that we are likely to be misled by the abundant monuments of Upper Egypt, and the scantiness of those of Lower Egypt, and that therefore we cannot yet decide which were insig nificant members of the Pantheon. Chnuphis, or Khuura, represented with a rani s head, and to whom the ram was sacred, is the soul of the universe, and thus is spoken of as the creator (Mariette, Musee Boulaq, 113). He was specially worshipped in Nubia, and at the First Cataract, with his consort Sati, the goddess of the inundation (Brugsch, Gcogr. Insch., i. 150, seqq). He is closely connected with Amen. The Egyptian Pan, the god of Panopolis, or Chernmis, was Min, or Khcm, the productive principle, a form of Osiris. He was worshipped at Panopolis with a form of Isis as his consort (Brugsch, ibid., 212, scqq.) It is remarkable that he was connected with Amen at Thebes, for the myth of Amen and that of Osiris are singularly apart. Mendes, or Ba-neb-tet, is merely a local form of Osiris, lord ot Mendes, connected with the worship of the sacred ram, or Mende- sian goat (Brugsch, ibid., 267, 268, 271, 272 ; llccords of the Past, viii. 91). Neith, or Nit, worshipped at Sa is, identified by the Greeks with Athena, is one of the few goddesses who held the first place in local worship. From the idea of a supreme being, single and self- producing, arose that of a female aspect of this being. Thus Khnum is called, as representing this being, "the father of fathers, the mother of mothers" (Mariette, Musee Boulaq, 113). This would suggest the personification of a female principle. This principle geems specially represented by the higher goddesses, like Neith, who is called " the mother who bare the sun, the first born, but not [RELIGION. begotten, born" (Brugsch, Gcocjr. Inschr., i. 247). She wears the crown of Lower Egypt, where she was principally worshipped. Pakht, or Sekhet, and Bast, are two forms of one goddess diffi cult to distinguish. They are both usually lioness-headed, though sometimes they have the head of the cat, their sacred animal. Pakht was worshipped at Memphis as the consort of Phtha ; Bast seems to have held a place at her city Buhastis like that of Keith at Sais. The monuments identify Hathor with Bast, and Isis with both Pakht and Bast, Hathor being called " Lady of Bubastis," while Isis is spoken of as "bringing misfortune as the goddess Pakht, bringing peace as the goddess Bast" (Champ., Not. Man. 192, ap. Brugsch, Gnxjr. Inschr., i. 276). Pakht and Bast thus represent a double nature, not unlike the two principles in the Osiris myth (Mariette, Musee Boulaq, 1106 ; Brugsch, Gcogr. Inschr., i. 275, 276). Pakht and Bast were identified with Artemis (Brugsch, ibid., 224, 275). Mut, the "mother/ consort of Amen-ra at Thebes, is, as her name implies, another embodiment of the female principle, though not in so important a form as Neith, so far as our present knowledge goes. Khuns, worshipped at Thebes as the son of Amen and Mut, is a lunar divinity wearing the disk and crescent of the moon, his hair being plaited in the side-lock of a child. Sometimes he is hawk- headed, and thus connected with the sun. As a divinity mainly lunar his inferior place is accounted for. The goddess Suben, identified with Eileithyia or Lucina, was worshipped at the town Eilethyia. She w:is especially the mother- goddess, and the goddess of southern Egypt; her symbol, that of maternity, was the vulture (Mariette, Musee Boulaq,~Vl). The goddess corresponding to Suben was Uati, or Buto, who was the protector of the north, and whose emblem was the ura-us serpent. Onuris, or Anher, was the local deity of the ancient city of Thinis. His functions are not clearly defined. Imhotep, identified by the Greeks with ^Esculapius, was the son of Ptah and Pakht, and with them formed the triad of Memphis. He is probably the god of the sciences, and similar to Thoth (Mariette, ibid. 117, 118). The Nile as a divinity bears the same name as the sacred Mem- phite bull, Hapi, probably meaning "the concealed." He is represented as a man with pendent breasts, to indicate the fertility of the river. A hymn to the Nile by Enna, who flourished under Menptah, the successor of Ramses II. (Dyn. XIX.), shows how completely even an inferior Egyptian divinity was identified with the supreme god, and with the principal members of the Pantheon (Select Papyri, xx.-xxiii., cxxxiv.-cxxxix. ; Maspero, llymm an Nil, a critical edition, and Records of the Past, iv. 105, scqq., an elegant translation by the Rev. F. C. Cook). The Egyptian divinities were frequently associated in triads, temples being dedicated to one of these lesser cycles, consisting of father, mother, and child. The child is almost always a son. It is extremely difficult to make out a local triad in several cases, where there were two chief local divinities, or where the chief divinity was a goddess. At Thebes the triad was Anieu-ni, Mut, and Khuns ; at Memphis, Ptah, Pakht or Sekhet, and Imhotep : at Ombos there were two triads, Sebek, Hathor, and Khuns, and Haruer, Taseu-nefert, and Pnebto-pkhrut ; the triad of Nubia and at Elephantine was Num, Sati, and the goddess Ank-t ; at Apollino- polis Magna, Har-Hut, Hat-liar, and Ilar-pkhrut ; at Latopolis, Num, Nebuut, and Har-pkhrut; at Hermonthis, Munt, Ra-ta, ami Har-pkhrut ; and Osiris, Isis, and Horus, throughout Egypt. The third member of the triad always belongs to an inferior rank, and is sometimes a child-god (khrut), as will be observed in the t!nc cases in which Har-pkhrut (Harpocrates) occurs, and the similar instance of Pnebto-pkhrut. Much of our knowledge of the Egyptian triads is founded on late documents of the Ptolemaic and Roman temples, and it is possible that the idea may have not been as much developed in earlier times. The whole subject requires a careful investigation. The Egyptian notions as to the cosmogony are too closely identified with mythology to be very clearly defined. It seems, however, that they held that the heavenly ab} ss was the abode of the supreme deity, who there produced the sun and the moon as well as the rest of the Pantheon. Yet it is stated in one gloss in the Ritual that the abyss itself was the supreme deity, (cf. De Rouge, " Etudes," litv. Arch., n.s., i. 235, seqq.}. The aspect of the passages of the liUaal in which these ideas are developed seems as if due to the attempt to introduce philosophical ideas into the mythology, as though the Egyptians had some notion of the origin of things independent of that mythology.

The worship of the Egyptian deities was public and