Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/472

464 EGYPT be the "king of gods," the especial tutelar deity of Thebes ; Num or Knuphis, the god of the cataracts and oases, who in later times under the Romans was called also Ammon, and consid- ered the same as Jupiter ; Sale, his wife, who corresponded to Juno; Ptah, the Memphian deity, who symbolized the creative power ; the goddess Neith, worshipped at Sais, who may be compared to Minerva; Khem, who repre- sented universal nature, and particularly the generative principle, and whose chief temples were at Coptos and at Chemmis ; the goddess Pasht, whose worship prevailed at Bubastis, and who corresponded to the Artemis or Diana of Greek and Roman mythology ; Maut, the maternal principle ; Ra or Phrah, the sun ; Seb, the earth, who was called "father of the gods ;" ISTepte, the sky, wife of Seb, the "mother of the gods;" Mui, the sunlight; Atmu, the darkness ; Thoth, the intellect. Other noted deities were Khons, Anuke, Tame, Savak, Man- du, Set, Horus, and Athor or Hathor. A great variety of abstract principles and even of animals and vegetables were worshipped by the multitude. To each deity an animal seems to have been held sacred, which was probably regarded as his symbolical repre- sentative. Bulls were consecrated to Osiris and cows to Athor ; the sacred bull of Mem- phis, called Apis, being particularly venerated throughout Egypt. A hawk was the symbol of Ra, the ibis of Thoth, the crocodile of Savak, and the cat of Ptah. Of the doctrines of the Egyptian religion little is accurately known. The existence of the spirit after death was believed, and a future state of re- wards and punishments inculcated, in which the good dwelt with the gods, while the wicked were consigned to fiery torment amid per- petual darkness. It was believed that after the lapse of ages the spirit would return to the body, which was therefore carefully embalmed and preserved in elaborately constructed tombs. The government of Egypt was a monarchy, limited by strict laws and by the influence of powerful hereditary privileged classes of priests and soldiers. The priests were the ruling class. They were restricted to a single wife, and if polygamy was permitted to the rest of the people, it must have been very seldom practised. The marriage of brothers and sis- ters was permitted. The laws were wise and equitable, and appear to have been rigidly en- forced. Murder was punished with death, adultery by bastinadoing the man and by cut- ting off the nose of the woman, forgery by cutting off the culprit's hands. Imprisonment for debt was not permitted, but a man could pledge to his creditors the mummies of his ancestors, and if he failed in his lifetime to redeem them, he was himself deprived of burial. Women were treated with respect, and the laws and customs seem to have been so favorable to them that their condition in Egypt was much higher than in any other na- tion of antiquity. The military force of Egypt was a species of hereditary militia, which formed one of the leading classes, and in time of peace cultivated the land, of which it held a large portion. The king's guards, some few thousands in number, were the only standing army. The number of soldiers in the military class is stated by Herodotus at 410,- 000, which probably included all the men of that class able to bear arms. Their arms were spears and swords, and they were protected by large shields. They were distinguished for their skill as archers, and also used the sling. They do not seem to have been well supplied with cavalry, though they made much use of war chariots. The researches of modern in- vestigators have established the fact that the ancient Egyptians were of the Caucasian type of mankind, and not of the negro. Their lan- guage bore unmistakable affinities to the Semit- ic .languages of western Asia, such as the He- brew and the Arabic. Herodotus, it is true, speaks of them as black and woolly haired, but the mummies, of which immense numbers re- main, prove that his words are not to be taken literally. The shape of their skulls is Asiatic, not African ; and the paintings on the monu- ments show that they were neither black like the negro nor copper-colored like some of the Ethiopian tribes. The true negroes are dis- tinctly represented on the monuments, and in a style of caricature which the Egyptians would not have applied to themselves. There is, however, reason to believe that the Egyp- tians had mixed largely with the negroes, and from the positive statements of Greek and Ro- man eye-witnesses there can be no doubt that they were of very dark complexion. We have no certain knowledge of the amount of popu- lation under the Pharaohs. By some of the Greek and Roman writers the number of in- habitants at the most flourishing periods is said to have been V, 000, 000, a prodigious amount for so small a country, the average number to the square mile, exclusive of the desert, being twice as large as in the most densely peopled lands of modern times. Still, so great was the fertility of the country that the statement is not improbable. The culti- vable land is somewhat greater in extent now than it was in antiquity, owing to the wider spread of the inundation of the File ; and it is computed that if properly tilled it would yield more than is requisite for the food of 8,000,000 people, though without allowing any consid- erable surplus for exportation. Under the Pharaohs little or no corn was exported, and the land seems to have been carefully culti- vated. Another statement of the Greeks and Romans, that at the height of her prosper- ity there were in Egypt 20,000 cities, is altogether preposterous. The country con- tained several large and populous cities, the most considerable of which were Thebes, La- topolis, Apollinopolis, and Syene, in Upper Egypt; Memphis, Heracleopolis, and Arsinoe, in Middle Egypt ; Heliopolis, Bubastis, Leonto-