324 ABSTENTION FROM FISH 



Middle Kingdom instances of fish being brought to the owner 

 of the tomb, and Maspero ^ one of the New Kingdom. 



Then, again, how about the famous representations of fish, 

 both upon an altar and also on the face of an altar, in Capart's 

 work ? 2 These basalt statues (he holds) exhibit the King 

 making offerings of fish ; others regard them merely as the 

 King marching at the head of the Nile gods, and himself repre- 

 senting the great river, " the giver of all things good." 



Donations of fish were frequently made to the temples by 

 the Kings. Rameses III., for instance (as the Harris Papyrus 

 discloses) presented thousands and thousands, labelled " dressed, 

 cut up, and from the canal." ^ These gifts were not for the 

 priests, but (probably) for their employes or the populace. 



We read (in the Hammamat Stele) of " the officers of the 

 Court Fishermen " attendant on Rameses IV. Their task, 

 unlike that of a similar corps in the Chinese court whose duty 

 {inter alia) was to manage the arrangements for the Emperor's 

 sport, principally consisted in securing " a plenty of fish " for 

 the enormous entourage and servants of the monarch. 



But the Pharaohs till Cleopatra were, as far as I can gather, 

 personally as free from the sin of fishery, as the net offered to 

 the Syrian goddess in the epigram of Heliodorus.^ 



The problem as to fish being offered or not to the gods or 

 the dead may possibly be solved, if we bear in mind that 

 while fish are never mentioned in the longer versions of the 

 offering texts of the Old Kingdoms, and are not represented in 

 the pictures of the food provided for the dead before the Xllth 

 Dynasty, after that date some occasional instances to the con- 

 trary do occur. 



^ Tombeau de Nakhti (Mem. de la Mission frangaise au Caire, vol. V. 

 fasc. 3., Paris, 1893), Fig. 4, p. 480. 



* Les Monuments des Hycsos, Bruxelles, 1914. Connected with these and 

 somewhat confirming Capart appear to be two life-size figures of Amenemhat 

 III., in one of which the king is seated between two goddesses holding fish. 



' These offerings (15,500 dressed, 2,200 white fish, etc.) are named under 

 the heading, " Oblations of the festivals which the King founded for his 

 Father Amon-Re." But in the summary of the good deeds wrought for the 

 gods by Rameses III. — " I founded for them divine offerings of barley, wheat, 

 wine, incense, fruit, cattle and fowl " — observe the complete silence as to fish, 

 because these offerings were to the gods, not to the temples. Cf. Breasted, 

 Ancient Records, IV., paragraphs 237, 243, and 363. 



* Antea, p. 123. 



