en-Nuktah”, or Night of the Drop”, because ‘‘it is believed that a miraculous drop then falls into the Nile and causes it to rise An interesting ceremony used to be performed at “the cutting of the dam” in old Cairo. A round pillar of earth was formed, and it was called the “bride”, and seeds were sown on the top of it. Lane says that an ancient Arabian historian “was told that the Egyptians were accustomed, at the period when the Nile began to rise, to deck a young virgin in gay apparel, and throw her into the river, as a sacrifice to obtain a plentiful inundation”.
When the ancient Egyptians had ploughed their fields they held a great festival at which the moon god, who, in his animal form, symbolized the generative principle, was invoked and worshipped. Then the sowing took place, amidst lamentations and mourning for the death of Osiris. The divine being was buried in the earth; the seeds were the fragments of his body. Reference is made to this old custom in Psalm cxxvi: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him”.
When harvest operations began, the Egyptians mourned because they were slaying the corn spirit. Diodorus Siculus tells that when the first handful of grain was cut, the Egyptian reapers beat their breasts and lamented, calling upon Isis. When, however, all the sheaves were brought in from the fields, they rejoiced greatly and held their “harvest home”.
Both Osiris and Isis were originally Identified with the spirits of the corn. The former represented the earth god and the latter the earth goddess. But after the union of the tribes which worshipped the human incarnations of ancient deities, the rival conceptions were
