176 



indeed, the story of Apollo slaying the Python is palpably 

 Egyptian, and alludes to the rays or arrows of the sun dispelling 

 the mists and fogs exhaled from the slimy inundations of the river. 

 Ceres is another name for Isis, and is pourtrayed with sheaves 

 and a sickle in a precisely similar manner; but Isis is also the 

 prototype of Venus, under the Egyptian name of Ken; and is 

 in Assyrian, Astarte, the emblems and attributes being identical. 

 Hercules was one of the Generals of Osiris ; and I might pursue 

 these comparisons to a wearisome length. The narrative, 

 however, of the death of Osiris, caused by Python, and his 

 resurrection as typified in a picture on a mummy cloth in Paris, 

 is evidently symbolical of the ruin caused by the inundation of 

 the Nile; his rescue by the returning seasons under the stars 

 of Leo ; his period of repose and final resurrection. This 

 accounts in the simplest possible way for the whole mythical 

 story. 



I must briefly allude to a few other prevalent Egyptian 

 symbols frequently recurring in Art, before leaving the subject. 

 Of these the Sphinx is the most important. There are many 

 suggestions as to its meaning : one is that it is a combination of 

 the constellations of Virgo and Leo. This is, however, an error, 

 so far as Egypt is concerned, because the Egyptian Sphinx is 

 never female, but always male, and sometimes human headed, but 

 frequently hawk headed or ram headed. The Sphinx, however, is 

 as common in Greek art as in Egyptian, with this difference — that 

 the Greek Sphinx is exactly the reverse of the Egyptian ; it is 

 3\\idi.ys female, and it is winged, which the Egyptian never is.* I 

 believe the true solution will be a symbolical one, viz. — that it is 

 intended to convey to the Egyptian mind a type of God's provi- 

 dence and guardian care, combining, in a manner most highly 

 figurative to them, the human intellect with the courage and power 

 of the lion ; whilst its immense proportions convey — in a manner 

 congenial to the Egyptian mind, the idea of superhuman and 

 supernatural endowments. The variety of heads given to the 

 oracle may be accounted for in a manner suggested in the earlier 

 * See Sir Gardner Wilkinson's Egyptian Antiquities. 



