EGYPT 



None cometh from thence . . . 

 That he may tell how they fare . . 

 Until we depart 



To the place whither they have gone. 

 Encourage thy heart to forget it 

 Making it pleasant for thee to follow 



thy desire . . . 

 Until that day of lamentation cometh 



unto thee . . . 

 There is also the song of the man 

 who is weary of the world : 

 Death is before me to-day, 

 Like the recovery of a sick man, 

 Like going forth into a garden after 



sickness. 



Death is before me to-day, 

 Like the odour of myrrh, 

 Like sitting under the sail on a windy 



day. 



Death is before me to-day, 

 As a man longs to see his house 

 When he has spent years in captivity. 



The Gods of the Egyptians 

 The earliest belief about gods 

 eo far as is known, is tribal 

 monotheism, of which traces re- 

 main in the early historical writ- 

 ings. Each tribe in the Nile valley 

 seems to have had a separate 

 divinity. As the tribes amalga- 

 mated in prehistoric ages, they 

 joined in worshipping two gods, 

 as husband and wife, or father and 

 son, or three gods as a triad. 

 Later, in historic times, when the 

 relationships were already settled, 

 fresh gods were brought in by com- 

 pounding names, as Ptah-Sokar- 

 Osiris, belonging to three different 

 sources of population. This pro- 

 cess was not complete till the 

 XVIIIth dynasty. 



Four great classes of gods can 

 be distinguished, the animal gods 

 of the earliest population, the 

 Osiride gods in human form of 

 western origin, the Solar gods of 

 eastern introduction, and the 

 abstract gods, as the Father god, 

 Mother goddess, Creator god, 

 goddess of Truth, etc. All these 

 classes had been mixed in Egypt 

 before the historic times. The 

 belief in passing over a water of 

 death was as old as before the first 

 prehistoric civilization, as the 

 king is said to do so on a float of 

 reeds, whereas boats were usual in 

 the second age. The myths of 

 hunting and killing the gods and 

 feasting on their cooked limbs is 

 older than the Osiris worship, as he 

 is expressly said to have led the 

 Egyptians from cannibalism and 

 violence. From various such in- 

 dications it is possible to restore 

 several stages in the growth of 

 beliefs long before the date of 

 records that we have. Certainly 

 there was a firmly accepted belief 

 in a ritual for the dead, as from 

 the earliest graves known until 

 historic times the position is al- 

 ways the same, and the funeral 

 offerings do not alter but only in- 

 crease as time goes on. There must 

 have been a generally accepted 

 ritual for the position of most of 



2820 



the offerings, which proves settled 

 and continuous beliefs. 



In historic times the principal 

 gods were ,the baboon and 

 the ibis of Hermopolis, lions in 

 some Delta towns, cats at Bubastis, 

 bulls at Memphis, Heliopolis, 

 Kanobos (Canopus), Hermonthis, 

 rams at Mendes and Thebes, cro- 

 codiles in the Fayum, hawks at 

 Hierakonpolis and Koptos, ser- 

 pents at Buto, and several kinds of 

 fish. The principal animal-headed 

 gods were Khnumu the creator and 

 Hershefi, both ram-headed, Bast 

 of Bubastis, Anubis jackal-headed, 

 Thoth ibis-headed, and Horus 

 hawk-headed. The purely human 

 gods were Osiris, Isis, Nebhat, 

 Horus ; Amen, Mut and Khonsu 



EGYPT 



open along the front. The next 

 stage is to have a store chamber at 

 the back, then a way to the roof ; 

 after that more chambers and then 

 a roof chamber forming an upper 

 storey. This was no doubt the 

 growth of the superior house also, 

 and as the temple was the house 

 of the god, it is the plan of 

 the temple. In the latest of the 

 temples the old verandah remains 

 as the vestibule hall open in front, 

 the courtyard is the temple court, 

 the store chambers come behind 

 the hall. The peristyle court is an 

 expansion of the verandah around 

 the front court. The hypostyle 

 hall, farther in, is the usual inner 

 hall of the dwelling house. It has 

 also been proved that the course 



Egypt. Bird's-eye view of the ancient fortress of Semneh, as restored 

 Charles Chipiez 



From A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, 0. Perrolt and C. Chipiez, by courtesy of 

 Chapman <fc Hall, Ltd. 



the triad of Thebes, and Neit of the 

 Delta. The cosmic gods are Ra 

 the sun, also called Aten, Anher 

 the sky, Sopdu the zodiacal light, 

 Nut heaven, Geb earth, Shu 

 space, Hapi the Nile. The abstract 

 gods were Ptah the Creator, Min 

 the Father, Hathor the Mother, 

 Maat Truth, Safekht of writing, 

 Nefertum of vegetation. 



One great break in the religion 

 must be mentioned, the entire 

 dominance of a scientific worship of 

 the radiant energy of the sun, called 

 the Aten or "lord," to the exclusion 

 of all other gods. This hardly 

 survived the life of its founder, 

 Akhenaten (1383-1365 B.C.). 

 ' Art and Architecture 



The simplest beginnings of archi- 

 tecture are seen in the models of 

 the peasants' huts that were placed 

 on the graves for the spirits. The 

 essential is a verandah with an 

 enclosed court before it, perhaps 

 developed from the Bedawi tent, 



of daily worship of the priest was 

 directly copied from the domestic 

 service to a noble. 



The great growth of the temples 

 was generally due to successive 

 additions by different kings, as in 

 London the building of West- 

 minster Abbey extended over four 

 or five centuries, although on a 

 single plan. Beside the house 

 temple, just noticed, there were 

 shrine temples, copied from the 

 hut shelters put over the sacred 

 ark of a god ; these were open front 

 and back, so that a procession 

 could pass through them to *ake 

 up the ark or deposit it. 



The earlier temples are very 

 simple and plain, but of massive 

 structure. The earliest columns 

 of the pyramid age and the Xllth 

 dynasty are monoliths of red 

 granite from 16-20 ft. high. The 

 hardness of the granite enabled 

 the spacing to be made wide and 

 airy. When soft sandstone was 



