at Palermo;[1] a golden patera, now in the British Museum, was found at Agrigentum, which has, in chased work, a series of four bulls gradient, round the omphalos or boss; having at one part a dotted crescent before the bulls,[2] This patera, however, exhibits not only a certain softness of form, mingled with archaic treatment, which distinguishes oriental art, but also the peculiar type of the oriental bull,—the horn thrust forward. This type, the bronze found in Cornwall does not exhibit; but, on the contrary, has the horns and general treatment more resembling Egyptian art. It will be necessary to consider it first in relation to the arts of Egypt.
According to the Egyptian annals, the worship of Apis Mnevis and the Mendesian goat was introduced into the cultus in the reign of Kaiechoos, or Cechous, second monarch of the second Egyptian dynasty.[3] Although the name of this monarch has been discovered in the tombs near the pyramids of Gizeh,[4] till the appearance of the work of Lepsius, it is not possible to determine whether on a contemporaneous monument. The singular fact, however, that the tombs of the fourth dynasty do not present any figures of deities, although the names of several are mentioned on them,—such as Phtha, Athor, Neith, Ra, and Anubis,[5]—would prevent our deciding whether the worship then prevailed. At the mine of the Wady Magara,[6] discovered and opened in the reign of Seneferu, king of the third dynasty, divinities are represented; yet they continue to be found on public monuments till the twelfth, and then but seldom. No instance of animal worship, indeed, occurs till the eighteenth dynasty, when the idolatry of the worship was thoroughly established. The name of Apis is conferred on a private individual, who lived during the twelfth dynasty,[7] but no monument representing him has been found of an earlier date than the Ptolemies. The small bronze and stone votive figures of Apis, found in the different museums of Europe, do not appear to be earlier. Apis was, however, a part of that great circle of animal wor-
- ↑ Gerhard. Ueber die Kunst der Phönicier, 4to, Berlin, 1848, s. 14, n. 54.
- ↑ From the collection of Sir W. Hamilton. Engraved Houel Voyage Pittoresque, folio, 1787, t. iv., p. 48, Pl. 237, fig. 2.
- ↑ Africanus in Syncello, pp. 55, 56; Eusebius apud Syncell. Idem ex interprete Armenio; Bunsen, Egypt's Place. Lond., 1848, vol. i., pp. 612, 613.
- ↑ Bunsen, Aegyptens Stelle. Bd. II, s. 106; the name reads Ka-Kau.
- ↑ Cf. Burton's Excerpta, pl. xxvii.
- ↑ Leon de Laborde. Voyage dans L'Arabia Pétrée,fo. Paris, 1830, Pl. Ouadi Magara.
- ↑ Prisse. Mon. pl. vii.
