The Religion of Ancient Egypt/Lecture IV

by Peter le Page Renouf

COMMUNION WITH THE UNSEEN WORLD.

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Sepulchral Rites.

A belief in the persistence of life after death, and the observation of religious practices founded upon this belief, may be discovered in every part of the world, in every age, and among men representing every degree and variety of culture. Classical scholars are familiar with the terms of Inferiæ and Parentalia, names given by the Romans to the propitiatory offerings which they presented to the manes of their departed ancestors. The Greeks had their ἐναγίσματα. The worship of the Fravashis by the Iranians, and that of the Pitris by the Hindu, are evidences of the antiquity in the Indo-European family of this form of religion, many traces of which remain to this day in the practices of European nations. And the celebration of rites in honour of their ancestors is perhaps the most ancient institution of the oldest civilization now in existence, that of China.

The habits of savages without a history are not in themselves evidence which can in any way be depended upon. To take for granted that what the savages now are, perhaps after millenniums of degradation, all other people must have been, and that modes of thought through which they are now passing have been passed through by others, is a most unscientific assumption, and you will seldom meet with it in any essay or book without also finding proof that the writer did not know how to deal with historical evidence. Authorities are sure to be quoted which the historian knows to be worthless, and evidence in itself irreproachable will be completely misunderstood. The universality of a belief or practice, even among savages, would of course, if proved, be a very weighty fact, tending to prove that the belief or practice in question had its origin either in reason or in tradition. It is, however, impossible to exaggerate the value of Sir Henry Maine's protest against "the very slippery testimony concerning savages which is gathered from travellers' tales." "Much," he says, "which I have personally heard in India bears out the caution which I gave as to the reserve with which all speculations on the antiquity of human usage should be received. Practices represented as of immemorial antiquity and universally characteristic of the infancy of mankind, have been described to me as having been for the first time resorted to in our days through the mere pressure of external circumstances or novel temptations."^[1]

Far more important than any single instance from the descriptions of modern savages is the ancient tomb of Aurignac. "If the fossil memorials," says Sir Charles Lyell, "have been correctly interpreted—if we have before us at the northern base of the Pyrenees a sepulchral vault, with skeletons of human beings consigned by friends and relatives to their last resting-place—if we have also at the portal of the tomb the relics of funeral feasts, and within it indications of viands destined for the use of the departed on their way to a land of spirits, while among the funeral gifts are weapons wherewith in other fields to chase the gigantic deer, the cave lion, the cave bear and woolly rhinoceros—we have at last succeeded in tracing back the sacred rites of burial, and, more interesting still, a belief in a future state, to times long anterior to those of history or tradition."^[2]

But if from pre-historic we pass to historic times, we at once meet on Egyptian ground with an entire system of notions wonderfully (indeed, almost incredibly) similar to those entertained by our Indo-European ancestors. There is, however, no confirmation of Mr. Herbert Spencer's hypothesis, that the rudimentary form of all religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors. If the Egyptians passed through such a rudimentary form of religion, they had already got beyond it in the age of the Pyramids, for their most ancient propitiation of ancestors is made through prayer to Anubis, Osiris, or some other gods. The deceased is already described in the funereal inscription as "faithful to the great God." And in no case can it be proved that the propitiation of departed ancestors preceded a belief in divinity of some other kind.

The Tombs and their Inscriptions.

"The Egyptians," we are told by Diodoros, "call their houses hostelries, on account of the short time during which they inhabit them, but the tombs they call eternal dwelling-places." The latter part of this is strictly and literally true; pa t'eta, "eternal dwelling-place," is an expression which is met with at every instant in the inscriptions of the earliest period, descriptive of the tomb. The word ānchiu, which literally signifies the "living," is in innumerable places used emphatically for the "departed," who are enjoying everlasting life. The notion of everlasting life, ānch t'eta, is among the few words written upon the wooden coffin, now in the British Museum, of king Mykerinos, of the third pyramid. Neb ānch, "Lord of life," is one of the names given to the sarcophagus. In the very ancient inscription of Una, the coffin is called hen en ānchiu, "the chest of the living." It is only evil spirits who are spoken of in the sacred writings of the Egyptians as "the dead."

The ancient Egyptian tomb^[3] consisted of three essential parts: (1) a chamber above ground, entered by a door, which appears to have always remained open; (2) a corridor, now commonly known as the serdab, in the interior of the masonry, containing statues of the deceased; and (3) a pit, sunk to a considerable depth through the rock, and communicating with the sepulchral vault hollowed in the rock, and containing the sarcophagus of the dead. The chamber (which sometimes consisted of several rooms) was the only part accessible to human foot. Its walls were often covered with pictures, but the most essential portion of it was a tablet invariably facing the east. At the foot of this, lying on the ground and made of granite limestone or alabaster, was a table for the offerings. The serdab, or corridor, was only accessible through a small aperture, through which the smoke of incense might be conveyed from the chamber to the statues which the solid walls concealed from sight. The representations upon the walls of the chamber reproduce the entire domestic and social life of the period. It is from these pictures that Sir Gardner Wilkinson has drawn up his admirable work on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, and described the Egyptian house, with its furniture, its gardens, its farm-yards, its vineyards—the occupations of its owner and the amusements of his guests—the games within and out of doors, the hunting and fishing, the agricultural operations, the numerous arts, manufactures and trades—all of which are represented to the life. Short inscriptions accompany the pictures; the names of men, animals and other objects are written over them; descriptive titles are constantly given, such as "ploughing," "mowing," "the slaughter of a young bull;" sometimes scraps of dialogue occur, generally of a very trivial character. "Hold hard," a master says to his servant; and the lad replies, art heset-ek, "Thy will be done." One man says, "This donkey is wild;" and another replies, "I will tame him." A peasant is engaged in combing flax, and he says to another who brings him a fresh supply of stalks, "If you bring me eleven thousand and nine, I will comb them." The other man rather rudely replies, "Make haste, and none of your chatter, you prince of clod-hoppers!" The tomb in which this dialogue occurs is rich in texts of the same kind. It was here that Champollion found the "Song of the Oxen." But all these representations are really subordinate to one end, and that is the worship of the departed. The slaughter of the ox or the antelope is not introduced for its own sake, but really as a sacrifice; and the pictures of men bearing joints are on the point, as they are sometimes actually represented, of offering them to the image of the deceased. An endowment was always intended to provide for the celebration of these propitiatory services, as well as for keeping the tomb in perpetual repair.

The usual form of inscription over the lintel of the tomb, and which is often repeated within the chamber, is as follows:

"A royal table of propitiation grant Anubis, who dwells within the divine house. May sepulture be granted in the nether world, in the land of the divine Menti,^[4] the ancient, the good, the great, to him [the departed] who is faithful to the great God. May he advance upon the blissful paths upon which those advance who are faithful to the great God. May the funereal oblations be paid to him at the beginning of the year, on the feast of Tehuti, on the first day of the year, on the feast of Uaka, on the feasts of the Great and of the Small Heat, on the apparition of Sechem, at the feast of Uāh-āch, at the feasts of each month and the half-month and every day."

Such is the ordinary formula, which however admits of variations and additions, especially in the later inscriptions. I will mention one or two not more recent than the sixth dynasty. One of them consists in the repetition of the words em hotep, "in peace," like the בֹשלם of the Hebrew and the In pace of the Christian funereal inscriptions. It is extremely frequent in Egyptian texts, and may really be the origin of the Jewish and Christian form of petition for the departed, though the primitive signification has been altered.

There is also a petition that the departed may "traverse the firmament" "in company with the perfect spirits of the nether world." The word ba, which I translate firmament, properly signifies "steel."^[5] The notions of blue and of steel seem to have been associated in the Egyptian mind, and the colour of the sky suggested the notion of a metallic firmament. The word spirit is given as the translation of the Egyptian chu, but this name for the dead signifies "glorified one."

A third petition is, that the deceased should be proclaimed glorified, or, as we should say, canonized (sechut), by the ministers of religion, the cher-heb or the smer, priestly officials who are frequently named in the inscriptious, especially in connection with the rites of the dead. A considerable number of priests bearing these and other titles, representing various functions, took part in these ceremonies, but the presence of a priest was not always indispensable. The offerings might be made, or rather had to be made, by the sons and daughters and other members of the family of the deceased. The pictures in which no minister of religion is seen (and they are perhaps the most numerous), all either directly represent religious rites or preparations for them. The very games and dances are religious ceremonies. In the tomb of Tebahen, the statue of the deceased is represented as standing within a shrine, before which a table of propitiatory offerings is laid. Men are advancing up the inclined plane which leads to it, bearing fowls and legs of oxen. On one side, other men are kneeling, with sacrificial cakes or vases of water in their hands; whilst on the other side, women are performing a solemn dance, also in presence of a table of offerings. In the great tomb of Nahre-se-Chnumhotep at Benihassan, women are tumbling in presence of a solemn religious service, in which libations are being poured by the "ka-minister." The words written over the scene are part of a prayer which is supposed to be recited, "Let the gates of heaven be opened that the god may enter!"

The later form of the sepulchral inscriptions, as found on the tablets of our museums, is, more or less fully, as follows:

"A royal table of propitiation grant Osiris, dwelling in Amenti, Lord of Abydos [or of Tattu]:" other divinities are often added. "May he [or they] grant the funereal oblations, bread, beer, oxen, geese, wine, milk, oil, incense, wrappings, all gifts of vegetation, whatever heaven gives or earth produces, to enjoy the Nile, to come forth as a living soul, to come in and go out at the Ristat, that the soul may not be repulsed at the gates of the nether world, to be glorified among the favoured ones in presence of Un-nefer, to receive the aliments on the altars of the great God, to breathe the delicious breezes of the north wind, and to drink from the depth of the river." Then follows the name of the person, generally accompanied by that of his mother; but on almost all tablets after the time of Amenemhāt I., these celestial gifts are said to be given not to the person, but to the ka of the person,—an important expression which has been misunderstood till quite lately.

This prayer is called the Suten-hotep-tā, from its first words; and as we speak of saying an "Our Father," the Egyptian texts speak of "a son making a Suten-hotep-tā." The great tablet of Abydos has for title, "The making of a Suten-hotep-tā" &c., to the kings of Egypt by king Seti.

The greatest importance was attached to the permanence of the tomb, to the continuance of the religious ceremonies, and to the prayers of passers-by. We constantly find men praised for having made to live again the names of their father and mother or of their "fathers." There is a very common formula stating that the person who raised the tablet "made it as a memorial to his fathers who are in the nether world, that he built up what he found imperfect, and renewed what was found out of repair." In the great inscription at Benihassan, Chnumhotep says, "I made to flourish the name of my father, and I built the chapels for his ka. I caused my statues to be conveyed to the holy dwelling, and distributed to them their offerings in pure gifts. I instituted the officiating priest, to whom I gave donations in lands and peasants. I ordered funeral offerings for all the feasts of the nether world, at the feast of the New Year, at the beginning of the year, at the feast of the Little Year, at the feast of the Great Year, at the feast of the great joyful feast, at the feast of the Great Heat, at the feast of the Little Heat, at the feast of the five supplementary days of the year, at the feast of Shetat, at the feast of the Sand, at the twelve monthly feasts, at the twelve half-monthly feasts, at all the feasts of the plain and the mountain. If it happens that the priest or any other cease to do this, then may he not exist, and may his son not sit in his seat."

The great inscription of Rameses II. at Abydos minutely relates the provision made by that sovereign for the worship of his father, Seti I.

"The most beautiful thing to behold," says Rameses, "the best thing to hear, is a child with a thankful breast, whose heart beats for his father. Wherefore my heart urges me to do what is good for Mineptah. I will cause them to talk for ever and eternally of his son who has awakened his name to lie. My father Osiris will reward me for this with a long existence, like his son Horus. Let me do what he did, let me be excellent as he was excellent, for my parent, I, who am a scion of the sun-god Rā." …

"Awake," he says to his father, "raise thy face to heaven, behold the sun, my father Mineptah, thou who art like God. Here am I who make thy name to live. I am thy guardian, and my care is directed to thy temple and thy altars which are raised up again. … I set apart revenues for thee for thy worship daily, to be just towards thee. … I appoint for thee the priests of the vessel of holy water, provided with everything for sprinkling the water on the ground. … I dedicated to thee the lands of the south for the services of thy temple, and the lands of the north they bring to thee their gifts before thy beautiful countenance. I gathered together the people of thy service one and all, assigning them to the prophet of thy temple. … I dedicated to thee ships with their freight on the great sea. … I fixed for thee the number of the fields … great is their number according to their valuation in acres. I provided thee with land-surveyors and husbandmen, to deliver the corn for thy revenues."

He proceeds to enumerate the barks with their crews, labourers for the felling of wood, herds of all kind of cattle, tributes of birds, fishermen. The temple is provided with all kinds of guilds of handicraftsmen, men-servants and women-servants working in the fields.

"But I obtain by my prayers the breath of life at thy awaking. … So long as I stay on earth, I will offer a sacrifice to thee. My hands shall bring the libations for thy name to thy [remembrance] in all thy abodes."^[6]

It is only natural to suppose that the religious endowments here mentioned must in the course of years come to an end. There is, however, in the Louvre a monument which shows the astonishing length of time during which institutions continued to be respected. The kings who built the Pyramids endowed a priestly office for the purpose of celebrating the periodical rites in their behalf. The same priest often officiated for several departed kings. The tablet of the Louvre shows that Psamtīk, son of Ut'ahor, who lived in the time of the twenty-sixth dynasty, was priest of Chufu or Cheops of the great Pyramid, and of two other sovereigns of the same period, who certainly had lived and endowed his office more than two thousand years before his time. We have actually the tombs of some of his predecessors who filled the office almost immediately after the death of the sovereign.

Innumerable inscriptions call upon the passers-by to invoke the gods in behalf of the departed. "O all ye who are living upon earth," "who love life and hate death," "you who are in the service of Osiris or of Anubis," "priest, prophet, scribe, spondist, ministrant, male or female, every man and every woman passing by this tomb, statue, tablet or shrine, whether you be passing northwards or southwards—as you desire to enjoy the favour of the king—or as you desire your names to remain upon earth, or to transmit your dignities to your children—or as you love and obey the gods of Egypt, or as you wish to be blest by the gods of your cities, or by your wish to possess a part of the divine abode of Osiris who dwells in Amenti—or to be faithful to the great God—or as you wish to flourish upon earth and pass on to the blessed—say a Suten-hotep-tā," the entire formula being repeated, or merely (as an abbreviation) "thousands of oxen, geese, bread, beer," &c.

Such is the burden of all these funereal tablets. No one tablet contains all that I have quoted, and no two tablets are exactly alike, but all are made upon the same model and contain some portions of the whole. Many centuries after the construction of a tomb, Egyptian travellers have left a record upon its walls of the splendour of the sacred abode, of the abundance of the materials which they found provided for the fulfilment of the rites for the departed, and of their own repetition of the funereal formula.^[7] The Suten-hotep-tā was supposed to have been delivered by divine revelation. An ancient text speaks of a "Suten-hotep-tā exactly corresponding to the texts of sacrificial offerings handed down by the ancients as proceeding from the mouth of God."^[8]

It was most important that a man should have a son established in his seat after him who should perform the due rites and see that they were performed by others; that he should, as it is expressed, "flourish in the children of his children." The duty of performing these rites comes immediately after that of worshipping the gods, in the enumeration of virtuous actions. It is enforced in the moral writings as well as in the theology of ancient Egypt.

"Give the water of the funereal sacrifice to thy father and mother who repose in the tomb; renew the water of the divine oblations. … Neglect not to do it, even when thou art away from thy dwelling. Thy son will do it for thee in like manner."

These words are taken from the Maxims of Ani.

We find the following among the good wishes made for a person: "Mayst thou receive the lustral water from the hands of thy son each tenth day. … May every heir who offers the libation to his own father, contribute his offering of water to thy ka; and as he propitiates his father or buries his mother, may thy name be uttered together with his own father."^[9]

On the other hand, the wish that a man may not have a son after him is the most terrible of imprecations.

"Whoever shall preserve this inscription," we read, "in the temple of Amon Rā, the Lord of Senneferet, he shall be favoured by Amon Rā, and his son shall be established in his place; but whosoever shall remove this inscription from the temple of Amon Rā, Amon Rā will curse him, and his son shall not be established in his place."^[10]

Another text says:

"Whoso destroys this inscription, Bast, the great goddess of Bubastis, will annihilate him for ever; he will never have a son after him."^[11]

The trustees of a religious foundation are threatened with the most tremendous penalties in case of their not carrying out the intentions of the founder; they are to "be delivered over to Sutech in the day of his wrath, whose serpent diadem will spit out flames of fire upon their heads, annihilating their limbs and consuming their bodies. May they not receive the reward of righteousness; may they not partake of the feast of the blessed; may the water from the spring of the river not refresh them; may it not come to pass that their posterity should sit in their place." But to faithful trustees the most splendid prospects are held out, one of which is, "Son of son, heir of heir, will be born to him." "May your bodies," they are finally told, "rest in the nether world of Amenti after a course of a hundred and ten years, and may the sacrificial gifts likewise be multiplied to you."

The inscription of Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, in the fourth century before Christ, ends as follows:^[12]

"The land of Buto, whoever tries to plan the removal of any part thereof, may he incur the ban of those gods who are in Pe, may he be accursed by those who are in Tep, may he be in the flame of Aptaui in the day of her terrible wrath, may he have no son or daughter to give him the lustral water."

One of the most recent of the Ptolemaic tablets records the fulfilment of a promise made in a dream by the god I-em-hotep to Pasherenptah with reference to the birth of a son, and it contains the invocation, "Oh, all ye gods and goddesses who are unnamed, let a child remain in my place for ever and ever … keeping alive the name of my house."

The lustral water offered upon earth to the dead had its counterpart in the other world. The most usual representation of this is the picture in which the goddess Nut pours out the water of life to the deceased, from the interior of a sycamore-tree. In a picture published by M. Chabas,^[13] the deceased kneels before Osiris, and receives from him the water of life from a vessel under which is written ānch ba, "that the soul may live." The picture is taken from the mummy of a priest who lived twelve hundred years before Christ. But the same idea occurs in a Greek inscription found at Saqāra by Mr. C. Wescher. "She lived twenty-five years," the inscription says, "and Osiris beneath the earth gave her the refreshing water."^[14]

Now let me remind you that the oblation of cakes and water is one of the five great ceremonies of the Hindus, and, as Professor Max Müller told you last year, that "without a son to perform the funeral rites, a Brahman believed that he could not enter into heaven." Here is undoubtedly a most remarkable coincidence between two religions which never came into contact. Nor can any even indirect influence of one upon the other be considered admissible. It is the logical process which has taken the same direction in both, and it can be traced in other branches of the Indo-European family.

Readers of ecclesiastical history will remember the fierce persecutions to which the first converts to Christianity were subjected in Persia, chiefly in consequence of the doctrines they held on the subject of virginity and celibacy, so much at variance with a religion which considered children as "a bridge leading to heaven;" but as this religion has special grounds of its own for condemning celibacy, over and above those which it derives from the Indo-European traditions, it is instructive to read Dr. Hearne's remarks on the traditions of Greece and Rome.

"The personal motives which led to marriage were in the early world very strong. The popular sentiment is emphatically expressed by Isaios when he says, 'No man who knows he must die can have so little regard for himself as to leave his family without descendants, for then there would be no one to render him the worship due to the dead.' A remarkable illustration of this sentiment occurs on a memorable occasion in Grecian history. When Leonidas arrived at the scene of his desperate defence of Thermopylæ, he was accompanied, says the historian, 'by the 300 men which the law assigned him, whom he had himself chosen from among the citizens, and who were all of them fathers with sons living.' According to modern notions, a forlorn hope would naturally be composed of men who had not given hostages to fortune. Such, however, was not the light in which the latter presented itself to the Greek mind. The human plant had flowered. The continuance of the house was secure. It was therefore comparatively of little moment what befel the man whose duty to his ancestors had been fulfilled. In the aspect of the case now before us, the fact that a man married or that he remained single, was not a matter which affected himself alone. The condition of his ancestors, the permanence of his household, depended upon his conduct. We cannot, therefore, doubt that celibacy was regarded as a deadly sin. Even the State, although it was slow to interfere in matters merely privati juris, lent its aid to enforce this primary duty. Solon prohibited celibacy. The laws of the Dorians, the most conservative of the Hellenes, contained similar provisions. Criminal proceedings might be taken, both at Athens and at Sparta, against those who married beneath them, and against those who did not marry at all. There is evidence that a prohibition to the same effect existed in early Rome."^[15]

I have thought it well to insist upon this feature of the Egyptian religion, in consequence of the importance attached to the celibate life in later times in four different religions; first, in the great system of Buddhism; secondly, in Judaism; thirdly, in Christianity; and fourthly, in Manicheism. Christian monasticism, as is well known, first grew up in Egypt, and was introduced into Europe through Christians from Egypt. But the monastic life and the word monastery already existed before Christianity among the Jewish ascetics, whose mode of life is described by the Alexandrian Philo.^[16] It certainly was not from the Egyptian religion that monastic institutions were derived.^[17]

It is no doubt extremely natural, when phenomena are discovered which bear close resemblance to each other, to look out for some historical connection between them. But in the history of human thought, the supposition of such a connection frequently proves to be an illusion. No historical connection can possibly be admitted between the Egyptian and the Indo-European doctrines of the necessity of marriage, and all the doctrines in favour of religious celibacy may very probably turn out to be historically independent of each other. The late Professor Baur, of Tübingen, wrote an exceedingly able work, in which he endeavoured to trace the Manichean system to Buddhism.^[18] His arguments were admitted by Neander and many other learned men; among others, by Dr. Pusey in this country. Admirable, however, as Baur's analysis of the Manichean system must be confessed to be, his conception of Buddhism was radically false. This is not to be wondered at, for the book was written before any authentic information on the subject of Buddhism was yet accessible, and the principles which in the Gnostic and Manichean systems were wrongly ascribed to Buddhism were taken from the Platonic, Neo-Pythagorean or some other Hellenic philosophy. And all attempts to discover Buddhist influences in Jewish or Christian theologies will, I am sure, prove equally abortive. What they have in common is human reason, working according to the same natural laws. The question, however, is one which should be decided upon strictly historical evidence, independently of all dogmatic prejudice. Not a trace of the philosophic theories peculiar to the Buddhist canon has yet been discovered in any of the philosophic or religious systems of the Western world, and why should we be alarmed if it could be proved that the sublime precepts of humanity, purity, charity and unworldliness, inculcated by the moral code of Sâkya Muni had historically paved the way for Christianity?^[19]

I now come to another very remarkable point of coincidence between the Egyptian and the Indo-European religions.

The Ka or Genius.

When we speak of a man of genius, of a genius for poetry or for warfare, or of being inspired by the genius of the place, we are often forgetful of the original use of the word genius. The genius was a god, "sanctus et sanctissimus deus," as Servius calls him, in the religion of the Romans, worshipped with libations, incense and garlands of flowers. Every man had his own genius, which was to be propitiated by sacrificial offerings, and so had every god and even every locality. The genius was a sort of spiritual double of each individual. Men swore by their own genius, by the genius of Rome, of the gods, or of the emperor. Very similar facts are to be found in the Greek and in the Persian religions. The Fravishis in the religion of Zoroaster were heavenly types of created things, whether gods, men, mountains, streams or other objects, and formed a divine society, the guardian angels, as it were, of the good creation. Each individual thing was furnished with its Fravishi. On the Persian monuments, especially those of Persepolis, the king's Fravishi is represented standing close to the king, just as the royal ka is represented on Egyptian monuments down to the times of Vespasian. The notion was deeply rooted in all the branches of the Indo-European family, and has been preserved in many of the superstitions still current among us. You remember how in the novel of Waverley the Highland chieftain saw his own wraith. The water-wraith would in classical language be called the genius of the stream or of the billows, and this not in mere poetical phraseology, but in the severe prose of every-day life. The belief itself is not limited to the Egyptian and Indo-European families, but is nearly universal. "Everywhere," as Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us,^[20] "we find expressed or implied the belief that each person is double; and that when he dies, his other self, whether remaining near at hand or gone far away, may return, and continues capable of injuring his enemies and aiding his friends." But the development of his belief among the Egyptians is in many of its details surprisingly similar to the corresponding process among Indo-Europeans.

The Egyptian word corresponding to the Latin genius is ka. Its original signification, as I have recently endeavoured to show, in a paper read before the Society of Biblical Literature,^[21] is image. The use of the Greek εἴδωλον and the Latin imago in the sense of ghost is well known.^[22] The oblations which in the funereal formulæ are made to the ka of the departed are really made to his image. It is quite true that, as Dr. Hincks pointed out many years ago, the word ka was not introduced into the Suten-hotep-tā till the twelfth dynasty; but the word itself in its religious signification is as old as the language, as far back as we can trace it, and it enters with that signification into a large number of proper names of the earliest times;^[23] so that at all events no new doctrine or practice was introduced when idolatry in the strictest sense of the term, namely, the worship of idola, was in so many words made part of the religious prayers of the Egyptians.

It is not to be supposed that so intelligent a people as the Egyptians were ignorant of the absurdity of propitiating the wooden or stone images of their ancestors or of themselves. It is the living image which is said to be worshipped, and was supposed to reside in the wood or stone. There is an ancient text^[24] which, in reference to Ptah, the chief divinity of Memphis, whom the Greeks identified with Hephaestos as the inventor of the arts, distinctly speaks of the gods as being made through his agency to enter into their bodies, namely, their images of wood or stone.

When enumerating the experiences which tend to generate the belief in a double personality, Mr. Herbert Spencer speaks of the shadow which, following a savage everywhere and moving as he moves, suggests to him the idea of his duality, the shadow being perhaps considered as a specific something which forms part of him; and he adds:

"A much more decided suggestion of the same kind is likely to result from the reflection of his face and figure in water, imitating him as it does in his form, colours, motions, grimaces. When we remember that not unfrequently a savage objects to have his portrait taken, because he thinks whoever carries away a representation of him carries away some part of his being, we see how probable it is that he thinks his double in the water is a reality in some way belonging to him."

I quote these words in order to suggest to you the kind of impression made upon a people who must have worked through a long course of years before they produced such marvels of life-like reality as some of the portrait sculptures of the age of the Pyramids. The art of sculpture was intimately connected with their religion, and its merits and demerits arise from this connection. It is not true, as is commonly supposed, that the Egyptians were not able, like the Greeks, to represent in sculpture motion and activity. They did this, and they did it wonderfully well, as small statues in the Museum at Bulaq abundantly show; but most of the statues of this description have perished, like the private houses to which they belonged. But the statues of the gods and ancestors were intended to represent, not the concrete activity of a single moment, but the abstraction and repose of eternity.

As the Iranian Fravishi is represented accompanying the Persian king, so is the Egyptian ka, or royal living image or genius, depicted in numberless representations. As the Roman swore by the genius of the emperor, so did the Egyptian by the ka of his king. As the Roman appeased his genius, so is the Egyptian king frequently sculptured in the act of propitiating his own ka. Votive tablets are addressed to the royal ka in company with Ptah or other gods. Each of the gods had his ka or genius. And as the Persians, Greeks and Romans, had their local genius, so had the Egyptians. The kau, like the genii, manes and lares (who are radically identical), formed a whole class of divine beings, who are mentioned in thousands of inscriptions as "the kau who live everlastingly." A well-known and interesting tablet contains the prayer, "May I journey upon the everlasting road in company with the kau and glorified ones."^[25]

Not the least curious coincidence between Egyptian and European thought is the use of the words genius and ka to express mental gifts. "Genius" is not used in this way in classical Latin, but by being made synonymous with spirit, and spirit being used as in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah ("the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, of the fear of the Lord"), genius has come to signify a divine gift. Now the Egyptian word ka had certainly acquired this secondary signification as early as the time of Rameses II.,^[26] and I have but little doubt, though the proof is not absolute, that this signification already existed in the earliest times known to us.

Souls, Shadows, Apparitions.

The anthropology of the Egyptians was very different from that recognized in our modern systems of philosophy. We are in the habit of speaking of man as consisting of body and soul, the soul being considered the immaterial part of man. We should be astonished at a person calling himself a Christian and yet denying the immateriality of the soul. Yet this belief was not always recognized by the defenders of Christianity as a true one. M. Guizot shows, in his sixth Lecture on the History of Civilization in France, that the earliest doctors of the Church were strongly impressed with the conviction of the material nature of the soul, and that it was only by slow degrees that the opposite opinion prevailed. God alone was thought to be immaterial by nature, and it was only as relative to gross matter that angels, spirits and souls were allowed to be called immaterial or corporal.^[27]

The disembodied personality of each individual was therefore supposed by the Egyptians to be provided with a material form and substance. The soul had a body of its own, and could eat and drink. We are unfortunately prevented, through want of materials, from accurately determining the relation between a man's soul and his ka. His shadow was also considered an important part of his personality, and was restored to him in the second life. The Book of the Dead treats the shadows as something substantial.

We shall not be surprised to find the belief in apparitions of the dead. There is a letter in one of the papyri of the Museum of Leyden in which a man complains bitterly of the persistent annoyance caused to him by his deceased wife.^[28]

Possession.

The most terrific form, however, of annoyance is that caused by what we commonly call possession. We are accustomed to hear of possession by evil spirits only, but this is because from a Christian point of view possession by spirits is necessarily incompatible with the goodness of the spirits; but the Greek δαίμων was not necessarily an evil spirit, nor was the Egyptian chut. There is an interesting inscription now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the translation of which was first given by Dr. Birch.^[29] It records the possession by a spirit of the princess of Bechten, an Asiatic country which has not yet been satisfactorily identified. She was connected by marriage with the court of Egypt. Her sister had been married to one of the kings of the twentieth dynasty. She had fallen ill, and an Egyptian practitioner who, at her father's request, had been summoned to see her, declared that she was possessed by a spirit (chut) with which he was himself unable to cope. The image of the god Chonsu,^[30] one of the divine triad of Thebes, was solemnly sent in his ark, accompanied by a talisman of the same god under a different title, for the purpose of exorcising the princess, and the spirit yielded at once to the superior divinity of such a god, who, speaking through his prophet, ordered that a sacrifice should be offered to propitiate the spirit. The inscription assures us that during the time that the god and the spirit were in presence of each other, the king of Bechten and all his army were in a state of excessive terror. The result, however, was so satisfactory, that he kept the Theban god by him for upwards of three years, and would probably never have allowed him to return, had he not been terrified by a dream; in consequence of which the god was sent back to Egypt with presents of great value.

Dreams.

The belief in dreams, as revelations from a world quite as real as that which we see about us whilst waking, was shared by the ancient Egyptians. The great tablet which is buried in the sand before the great Sphinx at Gizeh, records a dream in which the god appeared to Tehutimes IV. whilst yet a prince, spoke to him as a father to a son, and promised him the kingdom, the white and the red crown, with the throne of Seb, and the earth in its length and breadth. This promise was made on the condition that Tehutimes should clear away the sand which then as now encumbered the mighty image of the god. King Mer-en-Ptah II. was encouraged by the god Ptah in a dream, and directed in his warfare against the northern invaders of Egypt.

One of the many valuable tablets found by Mariette Bey at Gebel Barkal is well known under the name of Stèle du Songe. It belongs to the Ethiopian period, and records an event which happened in the first year of a king (Nut) of the seventh century before Christ. "His Majesty had a dream in the night. He saw two serpents, one at his right hand and the other at his left. And when he awoke he found them not. Then he said, 'Let these things be explained to me at once.' And they explained them, saying, 'The land of the South is thine, and thou shalt seize the land of the North, and the two crowns shall be set upon thy head. The earth is given to thee in all its length and its breadth.'" The tablet proceeds to describe the accomplishment of the dream, and the king's gratitude as testified by his splendid donations.

I have already quoted the Ptolemaic tablet which speaks of the fulfilment of a dream in which the god I-em-hotep promised a son to Pasherenptah.

Oaths.

The Egyptians invoked their deceased fathers and the gods in attestation of the truth of their assertions. Oaths were resorted to in legal investigations. The primitive sense of the word ārqu, which signifies to swear, is "bind." To "clear one's-self by an oath" is a recognized form of speech,^[31] and it was no empty form, for the presence of the gods was strongly impressed upon the Egyptian mind. Even when the original meaning of a myth had not been entirely lost, the god was no longer identified with the physical phenomenon, but was supposed to be a living personal power connected with it. The absence of the sun was compatible with the presence of the sun-god Rā.

Presence of the Gods.

The presence of the gods is everywhere taken for granted, but the calendar of lucky and unlucky days contained in the Fourth Sallier papyrus, and translated by M. Chabas, supplies a large amount of evidence as to the popular belief in the immediate intervention of the gods in human affairs. The days of the year are marked as lucky or unlucky according as they commemorate events in the legendary history of the war between the powers of Light and those of Darkness. But there are incessant cautions about leaving the house or looking at certain objects on days when certain gods are visiting the earth. Whatever was seen on some days was sure to be of prosperous omen; on other days, the sight of a flame or of a rat, the touch of a woman or the getting into a boat, might prove fatal. "Do not go out of thine house at eventide" on the 15th Paophi; "the serpent that comes forth at even, whoever sees him, his eye is injured on the spot." On the 23rd of the month Choiak, a man is blinded if the eyes of certain deities fall upon him. On the 28th day of the same month it is unsafe to eat fish, because on this day the gods of Tattu assume the form of a fish. On the 11th Tybi, "Approach not any flame on this day; Rā is there for the purpose of destroying the wicked." On the 9th Pharmuti, "Do not go out by night; Rā is coming forth on his way to Haï-ren-sen." On the 24th Pharmuti, "Do not pronounce the name of Set aloud." The superstition of the Evil Eye naturally arose from a doctrine which led to such prescriptions. The Egyptian proper names bear distinct witness to the existence of this superstition.

Angels.

Our word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, which is the literal rendering of the Hebrew malāch, a messenger or envoy. This latter word is used in the Bible not only for human envoys, either of private individuals or of the king, but of supernatural beings sent by God to accomplish His purposes. The Egyptian language has a word (aput) which is used exactly in the same manner. It occurs repeatedly in the Book of the Dead, particularly in the sense of messenger of divine vengeance. The Maxims of Ani speak of the Angel of Death.

Destiny.

The notion of Destiny, which plays so important a part in Greek mythology, does not appear to have been foreign to Egyptian thought. In two of the romantic tales which have reached us, the Hathors appear in the character of the Fates of classical mythology, or the Fairies of our own folk-lore. In the tale of the Two Brothers, they foretel a violent death to the newly-fashioned spouse of Bata. In the tale of the Doomed Prince, "when the Hathors came to greet him at his birth, they said that he would either die by a crocodile, a serpent or a dog." Hathor, in the more recent theology of the texts of Dendera, is not only the Sun himself with feminine attributes, but the universal God of Pantheism. Mythologically, however, she is, even in these very texts, the daughter of Rā and mother of Horus. Like Isis, she is in fact the Dawn, which from different points of view may be considered either as the daughter or mother, sister or spouse, of the Sun. The Hathors, as represented in the pictures, have the appearance of fair and benevolent maidens; they are not the daughters of Night, like the Erinyes, but they are names of one and the same physical phenomenon, and are spoken of in very much the same relation to human destiny.

The Homeric poems constantly speak of the μοῖραι together with the ἡεροφοῖτις ἐρινύς. The Greek Moira has its counterpart in the Egyptian Shai. In the pictures of the Psychostasia which occur in many copies of the Book of the Dead, two personages are seated together; the male is called Shai, the female Renenet. They clearly preside over the meschen, or, as we should say, the cradle, of the infant. Several important texts, which he has quoted in his recent translation of the tale of the Doomed Prince, have induced M. Maspero to translate Shai fate, and Renenet fortune. I believe that the word sha means "divide, portion out;" hence shai, "the divider," and intransitively "the division, part, lot, fate." Renenet, as quoted by M. Maspero, may fairly be translated "fortune," but it has several other well-known meanings. It is used in the sense of "young" and "maiden;" and Renenet is the name of the goddess of the eighth month and of harvest. All these meanings can be harmonized if we think of the Greek ὥρα, ὡραῖος. Hora is the time fixed by natural laws,^[32] the fitting time; it is also used in the sense of the spring or prime of life; ἡ ὡραία is the season of corn and fruit-ripening. The name Renenet is surely well chosen for a goddess presiding over birth. But she is also represented as suckling the infant Horus. And in whose lap can the Sun be nursed more fitly than in that of the Dawn?

The King's Divinity.

I must not quit this part of my subject without a reference to the belief that the ruling sovereign of Egypt was the living image and vicegerent of the sun-god. He was invested with the attributes of divinity, and that in the earliest times of which we possess monumental evidence. We have no means of ascertaining the steps by which the belief came to be established as an official dogma. It was believed in later times that the gods formerly ruled in Egypt; the mortal kings before Mena were called the "successors of Horus." But the kings who built the Pyramids and all the kings after them took the title of the "golden Horus;" Chāfrā and all after him were called "son of Rā" and nutar āa, "great god." The sun in his course from east to west divides the earth and sky into two regions, the north and the south. The king of Egypt, as son and heir of the Sun, assumed the title of King of the North and of the South; not, as has generally been thought, with reference to Egypt, but, as Letronne contended and as M. Grébaut has convincingly shown, with reference to the universe.

The sovereign of Egypt is always said to be seated upon the throne of Horus, and he claimed authority over all nations of the world. He was the "emanation" of the sun-god, his "living image upon earth." "All nations are subject to me," says queen Hatasu on her great obelisk at Karnak. "The god hath extended my frontiers to the extremities of heaven;" "the whole circuit of the sun he hath handed over (mā-nef) to her who is with him." "I have ordained for thee," says the god to Tehutimes III., "that the whole world in its length and in its breadth, the east and the west, should be thy mansion." Amenophis II. is the "victorious Horus, who has all nations subject to him, a god good like Rā, the sacred emanation of Amon, the son whom he begot; he it is who placed thee in Thebes as sovereign of the living, to represent him." The king himself says, "It is my father Rā who has ordained all these things. … He has ordained for me all that belonged to him, the light of the eye which shines upon his diadem. All lands, all nations, the entire compass of the great circuit [of the sun], come to me as my subjects." "He made me lord of the living when I was yet a child in the nest. … He hath given me the whole world with all its domains." The royal inscriptions are full of similar language, and in the temples all the gods are represented as conferring upon the kings whatever gifts they have to bestow. There is a long inscription which appears first in honour of Rameses II. at Ipsambul, and is again found elsewhere, but set up to glorify Rameses III. The god says to the king, "I am thy father; by me are begotten all thy members as divine; I have formed thy shape like the Mendesian god; I have begotten thee, impregnating thy venerable mother. … Around thy royal body the glorious and mighty assemble festively, the high goddesses, the great ones from Memphis and the Hathors from Pithom; their hearts rejoice and their hands hold the tambourine and hymns of homage when they see thy glorious form. Thou art lord like the majesty of the sun-god Rā; the gods and goddesses are praising thy benefits, adoring and sacrificing before thine image." "I give to thee the sky and what is in it; I lend the earth to thee and all that is upon it." "Every creature that walks upon two or upon four legs, all that fly or flutter, the whole world I charge to offer her productions to thee."^[33] The same texts assign to the king the fourteen kas of Rā. I have already explained the meaning of ka, which corresponds in this place to our word "spirit." But Rā was said to possess seven souls (baiu) and fourteen kas.^[34] This explains the true meaning of the expression, "the souls of the king," which has puzzled many scholars. It is very frequently found and at a very early period. The king had the seven souls of Rā.^[35]

That the sovereign in his official utterances should proclaim his divinity, is less to be wondered at than that private individuals should speak of him in the same style. But the doctrine was universally received. "Thou art," says an ode translated by M. Chabas and Mr. Goodwin, "as it were the image of thy father the Sun, who rises in heaven. Thy beams penetrate the cavern. No place is without thy goodness. Thy sayings are the law of every land. When thou reposest in thy palace, thou hearest the words of all the lands. Thou hast millions of ears. Bright is thy eye above the stars of heaven, able to gaze at the solar orb. If anything be spoken by the mouth in the cavern, it ascends into thine ears. Whatsoever is done in secret, thy eye seeth it. Baenra Meriamen, merciful Lord, creator of breath." Mr. Goodwin, whose version I have been quoting, judiciously observes:^[36] "This is not the language of a courtier. It seems to be a genuine expression of the belief that the king was the living representative of Deity, and from this point of view is much more interesting and remarkable than if treated as a mere outpouring of empty flattery."

It must not be forgotten that the kings are frequently represented in the humblest postures of adoration before the gods. And they are also represented as worshipping and propitiating their own "genius."

The doctrine of the king's divinity was proclaimed by works of art even more eloquently than by words. Dean Stanley writes as follows:^[37]

"What spires are to a modern city—what the towers of a cathedral are to its nave and choir—that the statues of the Pharaohs were to the streets and temples of Thebes. The ground is strewn with their fragments; there were avenues of them towering high above plain and houses. Three of gigantic size still remain. One was the granite statue of Rameses himself, who sat on the right side of the entrance to his palace. By some extraordinary catastrophe, the statue has been thrown down, and the Arabs have scooped their millstones out of his face; but you can still see what he was—the largest statue in the world. Far and wide that enormous head must have been seen, eyes, mouth and ears. Far and wide you must have seen his vast hands resting on his elephantine knees. You sit on his breast and look at the Osiride statues which support the portico of the temple, and which anywhere else would put to shame even the statues of the cherubs in St. Peter's—and they seem pigmies before him. His arm is thicker than their whole bodies. The only part of the temple or palace at all in proportion to him must have been the gateway, which rose in pyramidal towers, now broken down, and rolling in a wide ruin down to the plain.

"Nothing which now exists in the world can give any notion of what the effect must have been when he was erect. … No one who entered that building, whether it were temple or palace, could have thought of anything else but that stupendous being who thus had raised himself up above the whole world of gods and men.

"And when from the statue you descend to the palace, the same impression is kept up. … Everywhere the king is conquering, worshipping, ruling. The palace is the Temple, the king is Priest. But everywhere the same colossal proportions are preserved. He and his horses are ten times the size of the rest of the army. Alike in battle and in worship, he is of the same stature as the gods themselves. Most striking is the familiar gentleness with which—one on each side—they take him by each hand, as one, of their own order, and then in the next compartment introduce him to Ammon and the lion-headed goddess. Every distinction, except of degree, between divinity and royalty, is entirely levelled, and the royal majesty is always represented by making the king, not like Saul or Agamemnon, from the head and shoulders, but from the foot and ankle upwards, higher than the rest of the people.

"It carries one back to the days 'when there were giants on the earth.' It shows how the king, in that first monarchy, was the visible God upon earth. No pure Monotheism could for a moment have been compatible with such an intense exaltation of the conquering king."

Notes

1. "Village Communities," p. 17.
2. "Antiquity of Man," p. 193, 1863. I leave the words of the above passage as they were delivered. I was not aware at the time that the evidence of M. Lartet had been contested, and that Sir Charles Lyell had in his last edition admitted this evidence to be doubtful. See the article of Mr. W. B. Dawkins, on "The Date of the Interment in the Aurignac Cave," in Nature, Vol. IV. p. 208.
3. The most complete account of early Egyptian tombs is found in M. Mariette's article, "Sur les tombes de l'ancien empire qu'on trouve à Saqqarah," in the Revue Archeologique, 1869, Vol. I. pp. 7—22, 81—89, much of which is repeated in his admirable description of the Museum of Bulaq. See also Duemichen, "Ueber die Tempel und Gräber im alten Aegypten," the very interesting text of his Photographische Resultate, and Brugsch, "Die Aegyptische Gräberwelt."
4. In later times this name was written Amenti, and was supposed to be derived from the word amen, "conceal." This meaning is implied in the royal tombs at Bibān-el-molūk. But in the oldest tombs the name is distinctly written Menti, and the name of the presiding divinity χent menti. See Denkmäler, ii pl. 45, 48, 101.
5. Cf. the Homeric σιδήρεον οὐρανὸν, Od. xv. 329, xvii. 565. We have already met with another conception of heaven, namely, as an ocean upon which the sun travels in his bark.
6. Brugsch Bey, "History of Egypt," Vol II. pp. 36, 40, English transl.
7. Champollion, Notices, Vol. II. pp. 423—425.
8. Denkm. iii pl. 13.
9. Louvre, Inv. 908.
10. Zeitschrift f. ägypt. Sprache, 1871, p. 60.
11. Zeitschrift f. ägypt. Sprache, 1871, p. 60.
12. Ib. p. 8.
13. Revue Arch. 1862, Vol. I. p. 370.
14. Ib. 1864, Vol. II. p. 222.
15. "The Aryan Household: an Introduction to Comparative Jurisprudence," p. 71.
16. Tom II. p. 475, 15. Ἐν ἑκάστῃ δὲ οἰκίᾳ ἐστὶν οἴκημα, ἱερὸν, ὃ καλεῖται σεμνεῖον καὶ μοναστήριον, ἐν ᾧ μονούμεναι τὰ τοῦ βίου σεμνοῦ μυστήρια τελοῦνται.
17. The Greek papyri speak of a class of persons called οἱ ἐν κατόχῃ, οἱ κατεχόμενοι who led a cloistered life; that is to say, they were restricted to the precincts of the temple to which they were attached. But they were not ascetics or necessarily celibates.
18. I have discussed this question at length in an article on "Orientalism and Ancient Christianity," in the Home and Foreign Review, July, 1863, p. 151.
19. "Le bouddhisme réformé, établi au Thibet sous la suprême direction du grand lama, a vivement excité la curiosité des Européens. Les premiers missionaires qui en eurent connaissance au dix-septième siècle, ne furent pas peu suipris de retrouver au centre de l'Asie des monastères nombreux, des processions solennelles, des pé1érinages, des fêtes religieuses, une cour pontificale, des colléges des lamas supérieurs, élisant leur chef souverain ecclésiastique et père spirituel des Thibétains et des Tartares en un mot un organisation assez semblable à celle de l'eglise romaine." Huc, "Le Christianisme en Chine en Tartarie et au Thibet," tome 11. p. 9. The French philosophers of the last century inferred from this that Christianity was derived from Buddhism, and "que le culte catholique avait été calqué sur les pratiques lamaïques." But M. Huc shows that the most striking points of resemblance are owing to changes in the Tibetan worship since the time of Kubla Khan, in the thirteenth century, who had had frequent relations with Christian missionaries, and may have wished to imitate their institutions. The intercourse between the Mongolian conquerors and Western Christendom was very active at this period. Mongolian envoys repeatedly visited Rome, and some were present at the great Council of Lyons. Some points of resemblance are certainly more ancient, but it is worthy of notice that the resemblances are much more numerous as regards the Latin than as regards the Eastern churches. This would not be the case if Buddhism were the fountain-head. On matters such as spiritual direction, both religions have developed very similar methods quite independently one of the other. In regard to the subject of the development of dogma, no history is more instructive than that of Buddhism.
20. Fortnightly Review, May 1, 1870, p. 537.
21. Transactions, Vol. VI. pp. 494—508.

22. τῆλέ με εἴργουσι ψθχαὶ, εἴδωλα καμόντων.
    	Iliad, xxiii. 72.
    Εἴδωλον Ἄργου γηγενοῦς. Æsch. Prom. 568.
    Infelix simulacrum atque ipsius umbra Creusae Visa mihi ante oculos, et nota major imago.
    	Æn. ii. 772.
    Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago.
    	Ib. vi. 464.

23. The hen ka, or minister of the ka, is represented on the oldest monuments. In Denkmäler, ii. pl. 23, he occurs three times presenting offerings. In pl. 25 he is at the head of a procession of persons, each bearing offerings; he himself is pouring lustral water. Elsewhere he is represented offering incense; in pl. 58 he is doing so to statues of the departed.
24. Sharpe, "Egyptian Inscriptions," Vol. I. pl. 30.
25. Denkm. iii. 114.
26. Ib. iii. 194.
27. Compare Petavius, De Angelis, I. iii. 12.
28. "L'époux se plaint des mauvais procédés de l'épouse défunte dont à ce qu'il parait la mort ne l'a pas suffisamment debarassé." M. Chabas, in his Introduction to the Papyri of Leyden, p. 71.
29. The inscription has been repeatedly translated. See "Records of the Past," Vol. IV. p. 53. A still more recent translation is that of Brugsch Bey, in his "History of Egypt."
30. Chonsu is the moon, and one of his attributes is hesb āhā, the reckoner of time.
31. See Brugsch, Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 73.
32. Compare the Hebrew עֵת "tempus … spec. (1) de anni tempore (gr. ὥρα) … (2) de tempore vitæ humanæ, max. de juvenili aetate puellæ … Cf. עֲדִי juventus … (3) tempus justum, ut gr. καιρός … (4) tempus alicijus, i.e. dies alie … ie. tempus supremum fatale alie, interitus ejus." Gesenius. One of the kindred words is יָעַד, "indicavit, definivit, constituit," and the corresponding Arabic verb u'ada, "praesignificavit aliquid, pec. boni, sed passim etiam minatus est aliquid mali."
33. I quote, with slight alteration, the excellent English version given in Madame Duemichen's translation of the "Flotte einer ägyptischen Königin."
34. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol. VI. p. 501.
35. It is quite true, as M. Grébaut says, Mélanges d'Arch. Vol. III. p. 60, "que le singulier [ba] variait avec la forme [baiu] pour l'expression de la même idée et dans les mêmes formules." This is also the case with ka and the plural kau.
36. "Records of the Past," Vol. IV. p. 102.
37. "Sinai and Palestine," p. xxxv.