ness is older than Light," as Plutarch says.270 The fact of this mouse being worshipped in Athribis, the city of the lioness-headed goddess 271, proves a connexion between them, as well as that representation.

The character of Mut seems, therefore, that of a primitive goddess, the conceptive principle in the cosmogonic system. The oracle and prophecy agree very well with the idea of such a mother (Ge, Dē-mētēr). There is also another proof of the Theban origin of this representation-its very frequent occurrence at Thebes with Ammon-ra, who, as we have seen, took the place of Khem.

The consort of Kneph is a goddess represented in a primeval form, wearing the lower crown, and upon it a peculiar head-gear. Birch considers the stalks, which are in the form of feathers, and spread out like a fan, to be hemp stalks. The appellation sounds like Ank, and the Greek inscription near the Cataracts calls her "Anukis, which is also Hestia." Thus we have the pronunciation and the meaning. Not only does this translation show her to be a primeval goddess, but also her position in that representation. She comes immediately after Kneph and Sati, and precedes Osiris, Seb, and Thoth. She has even the upper crown, encircled by two horns (consequently, like Sate). Her wings are bent under her, and cover the lower part of the body.272 She is never, like the other deities of the second Order, called the Daughter of Ra or any other god. The proof of her very old The

270 From the inscriptions on the pedestals of the bronze figures of this animal, one in the British Museum, the other belonging to Dr. Lee, it would appear that they were sacred to Horus, lord of the region of xem, "the closed region," "or region of annihilation."B. Plut. Symp. iv. Qu. 5.

271 Strabo, xvii.

272 Champ. Panth. Anuke. [Wings do not appear attached under the older dynasties to figures of the gods; they were introduced from Assyria or Chaldæa, as they appear earlier than the Persian invasions.-S. B.]

ban and Egyptian origin may also perhaps be found in her name, which seems to be identical with that of the Phoenician Athene, Onga, Onka, who was also worshipped by the Thebans and Gephyreans.273

The second goddess who must be mentioned here is the frog-headed goddess "Hek," whose name is the hieroglyphic of frog, with the addition of " Mistress."274 The representation with the head of the frog reminds of a similar one of Ptah, of whom we shall shortly have to speak. She appears upon a monument of the 12th Dynasty in the British Museum as companion and consort of Kneph.

The third and last is Seti (arrow, sunbeam), the goddess with the arrow (Copt. Sate). She is represented with the upper crown and full pschent, which is encircled by cow's-horns. She accompanies Kneph in the Ex-votos at the Cataracts and in the island of Sete, now Sehéle, between Philæ and Elephantina.275 She is also sitting by him on a sandstone tablet from Thebes, formerly in Lord Belmore's possession, now in the British Museum (Champ. xix. n.). In the quarries of Elephantina, where there are inscriptions of the time of Caracalla containing the names of Jupiter Hammon, Cenubis, and Juno, those in the Egyptian language contain that of Sate. In a Latin inscription at Syene discovered by Belzoni, Jupiter Chnubis and Juno Regina are mentioned. There is also a statue at Philæ, dedicated to Chnuphis and Sati, by Ptolemy II. Euergetes. Sati is presenting Amenoph II. to Chnuphis in the temple dedicated to him in Elephantina; consequently as his ministra as it were (Champ. xix. 19. a.). On the oldest monuments (of the 12th Dynasty), however, there is by

273 Pausan. ix. 12. Comp. Creuzer, Symbolik.

274 [On the early tablets of the 5th Dynasty Hek is constantly mentioned, Lepsius, Denkm., ii. 62.; and also on those of the 12th, as the companion of Khnum,-Sharpe, Eg. Inscr. pl. 78.-S. B.]

275 See Letronne, Rech. p. 341. 480.

the side of Chnumis a goddess with the frog's head, whose name sounds like Hek.t (the Queen). As we do not find her, however, in the great temple representations, we consider her as a symbolical form of Sate.

Her emblem is the crown-as a general rule, only the upper (white) one, the symbol of the upper hemisphere, in the physical acceptation of later times -with two cow-horns coming out of its sides. As "daughter of Ra," she would more properly belong to the second order; but this may be a later addition, and Ra herself certainly belongs to the eight oldest deities. Horapollo (i. 11.) contrasts her (Hera) with Neith (Athena), in reference to the two sides of the hemisphere. She rules over the upper, as Neith rules over the lower firmament.

She appears as a waiting-woman in the remarkable representation of Wilkinson (Mat. Hier. xvi. B.), which shows a connexion with the myth of Isis-Horus.

VI. PTH, Ptah, Phthah, Vulcan.

Pth, expressed in Coptic Ptah, in Greek as Phtha, appears on the monuments with Chnuphis and Neith, and he is clearly connected in the complete Egyptian system with them both. We shall consider first of all his hieroglyphic peculiarity. His ordinary mode of representation is as a god holding before him with both hands the so-called Nilometer, or emblem of stability, which is combined with the sign of life, and Kukufa-sceptre. He wears on his head a cap peculiar to himself; his flesh is green; a string comes out of the drapery in the neck, from which is appended a bell-shaped tassel, or counterpoise of a collar: but immediately under the breast commences a mummy-like envelope, which fastens tight round the whole body down to the feet, so that the hands only appear out of it.

The Nilometer is admitted to be the symbol of stability, duration. Among his titles, the most conspicuous

are,

"the Lord of the gracious (beautiful) countenance," and "the Lord of truth." The goddess Truth (ma) is standing before him as his daughter.276 The form of the pedestal also on which we often find him (the cubit, ma) expresses the character of truth. Still, according to Herodotus's statement, this was not the temple representation in the great shrine of Ptah at Memphis. It was a dwarfish figure, like the Phoenician idols, the Pataikoi, on their ships. We find such figures of Ptah in the form of Pataikoi277-a word which corresponds in all its consonants with Ptah278-under several types as little amulets, and also in the funereal papyri. Ptah is represented in them almost always with the skull-cap of a priest, like the pilos of Vulcan.

In the Pataikos form he is sometimes found without any further distinguishing mark (Champ. viii. 1.); sometimes on two crocodiles with a scarabæus on his head, holding two snakes, Ptah-Sokari (viii. 2.); sometimes as the letter a, with the scarabæus, and the inscription kheper (viii. 3.); sometimes as the Phallic God, holding the Priapus in his hand, and raising the other as if to seize the flagellum. Sometimes the feet are turned quite inwards, and in the Ritual Ptah is twice represented as bow-legged or bent-legged, which may or may not assimilate with the lame Hephæstos. Sometimes the 276 Wilkinson, xxiii. 5. Birch, p. 13. 277 Champ., Panth. viii.

278 Ptah has no Egyptian derivation, nor even any analogy with anything. PTx " to open" in Hebrew differs from PTH only in being more strongly aspirated. Ptah is the great Revealer, the great Cabir, in Egyptian, un,ūūn. How Movers (The Phoenicians,' I. p. 653, can derive the name from aráσow, is as inexplicable as that so circumspect a critic as the investigator of the historical contents of the Book of Chronicles could make such unsound, unmethodical attempts at false, mystic and allegoric interpretation. [The name of Ptah is derived from an old Egyptian word Ptah, "to open." Confer Brugsch, H. Zeitsch. d. Morgenl. Gesellsch., 1854, Bd. x. Taf. iv. No. 14, which differs only from the Hebrew Patakh in being less strongly aspirated.-S. B.]

head is double, that of a man on one side, and of a hawk on the other; inscription, Ptah Sokari(viii. 4—6.). There is a similar Pataikos in Birch's work279 with a bald head, as these hideous figures are described by Epiphanius, who, however, is mistaken in calling them Harpocrates.

The representation as Phthah-Sokari, and Ptah Osiri (likewise a later combination), with the hawk-face, upper crown, and Ammon's feathers, and in human form, in which case he has sometimes all the ornaments of Ammon, sometimes only the skull-cap (Wilk. Mat. Hier. xix.), is probably only an embellishment of this idol. He is then called Sokari-Osiri, or Ptah-SokariOsiri. We give one of these numerous idols from Wilkinson (xxiv. 2.). Similar representations in the funereal papyri have the inscription Ptah-Sokari Osiri by their side. The god Sokari-Osiri is Osiris, the

Lord of the Lower World. As such he is called PtahTatanen.280 In this signification he has frequently the goat's horns, the disk of the sun, and two tall feathers. In one of these representations at Phila (of the time of the Romans), he appears simply with the skull-cap, sitting, with his legs free, on a potter's wheel, and forming an egg. 281 The inscription runs-Ptah-Tanen, "the father of the beginnings, creating the egg of the sun and moon, first of the gods of the Upper World." He is also said, on a tablet of the 18th Dynasty (Br. Mus. 286.), to "adjust the world in his hand," or "by his hand."282

Hence we may venture with Horapollo and Plutarch 283 to consider the scarabæus, one of his symbols, the image

279 Gallery, Pl. 7. fig. 18.

280 Birch, Gallery of Antiquities.

281 Ros. Mon. del Culto, xxi.

282 [In a hieratic papyrus at Berlin it is said, "that gods and men came out of his mouth," which connects him with the other demiurgoi. Lepsius, Denkm., vi. 117.-S. B.]

283 Hor. i. 10. Plut. de Is. et Os. c. 10.