HIEROGLYPHICS (EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY.) 



735 



Meiamoun, the grandfather of Ramses Sethosis, so 

 well known by the ancients under the name of Sesos- 

 tris.' The image of this goddess occurs in many tem- 

 ples of Upper Egypt and of Nubia ; in the temple of 

 Elephantina, she is exhibited as receiving offerings 

 from Amenophis II., and presenting this prince to Am- 

 mon Chnouphis, who sits upon a throne. The frequent 

 occurrence of her image near to that of Ammon, to 

 whom she is in this way addressing some service, 

 proves that she was an important personage in his 

 family. Her emblems and titles are very splendid. 

 The following is an example of the latter : ' Sate, the 

 living goddess, the daughter of the sun, the queen of 

 the heavens and of the earth, the ruler of the inferior 

 region [which here designates Lower Egypt, ac- 

 cording to Spineto], the protectress of her son, the 

 lord of the world, the king of the three regions 

 [Upper, Middle, and Lower Egypt, according to the 

 same], son of the sun, Phtainen Ousirei.' Cham- 

 pollion describes her characteristic emblem as the 

 upper part of a head-dress, called Psheut, adorned 

 with two long horns. This is placed upon the head 

 of an image, which represents a woman with the 

 sign of divine life in her hands. Sme is another 

 goddess of the first rank among Egyptian divinities, 

 whose employment seems chiefly to have been in the 

 Egyptian Amenti. Spineto thus describes her: 

 ' She was called by the Greeks AA.0n, and answers 

 to Themis, the goddess of justice and truth. These 

 attributes evidently show her to have been another 

 representation of the infinite Power, who continued 

 to influence and to act upon the destinies of men, 

 even after death, in a future life ; for we find this 

 goddess almost invariably represented on the monu- 

 ments exhibiting the ceremony of funerals, perpetual- 

 ly leading the soul to the balance, where the deeds 

 and actions of its life were to be weighed, previous 

 to its being introduced to Osiris. She is figuratively 

 represented by the image of a woman, holding the 

 sign of divine life, and having her head decorated 

 with a feather, which is the peculiar distinction of all 

 her images. Symbolically, she was exhibited by the 

 great serpent, who was the emblem of immortality 

 and of wisdom.' (Lect. iv.) Such are some of the 

 principal gods and goddesses in the Egyptian Pan- 

 theon. The most important of the second rank are 

 the goddess Isis, and her brother and husband Osiris, 

 to whom, following the selection of Spineto, we shall 

 devote a few details. Osiris was the chief god of the 

 Egyptian Amenti, answering to the Pluto of the 

 Greeks and Latins. By some, Osiris is said to have 

 been the Sol inferus, that is, the sun when it passed 

 into the lower hemisphere, and through the autumnal 

 and wintry signs of the zodiac, in opposition to the 

 Sol superus, or sun when it passed through the upper 

 hemisphere, and through the summer signs of the 

 zodiac. Jablonski attempts to establish this supposi- 

 tion, though he errs in confounding the name of 

 Serapis with Osiris (Pantheon Egypt., lib. ii. cap. 5). 

 But whether this was the case, or whether Osiris is 

 to be regarded as an entirely distinct divinity, we 

 have not now the means of determining ; it is suffi- 

 cient for our purpose to know where his dominion 

 was exercised. This was over the souls of men after 

 their decease a fact which is revealed by almost 

 every legend and painting relating to the dead. 

 Spineto furnishes a description of a representation of 

 this kind in his fifth lecture (pp. 150, 156). Osiris 

 was phonetically exhibited, according to Spineto 

 (Lect. iv. p. 141), ' by a sceptre, with the head of a 

 species of wolf, which denotes the vowel O ; the 

 crooked line, S ; the oval, an R ; the arm, an E, or 

 an I, which gives Osre, the abbreviation of Osire or 

 Osiri.' Isis, according to Jablonski (Pantheon Egypt. , 

 lib. iii, cap. 1 and 2), represented the moon; and, as 



the Egyptians adored a Sol superus and Sol inferus, 

 so they worshipped a Luna supera and in/era, or hit 

 ccelestis and terrestris. Besides officiating in the 

 Egyptian Amenti, she was recognised in a variety of 

 capacities ; among others, as the inventress of agri- 

 culture, the divinity who contained within herself 

 the seeds of productive nature (Plutarch de Jside, p. 

 372), and as the inventress of sails and of navigation. 

 (The elevation of a ship formed one feature in her 

 mysteries ; Spineto, p. 140.) She seems to have been 

 the prototype of a large number of Grecian divini- 

 ties ; among the rest, of Proserpine and Ceres ; par- 

 ticularly of the latter, whose adventures and mysteries 

 her own strongly resemble. (See Recherches du 

 Paganisme, by De Sacy, vol. i, p. 150, seq.) She 

 was symbolically represented by a throne, a half 

 circle, and an egg, which last sign denoted her 

 gender as feminine ; figuratively, by a disk and a 

 pair of horns. The Amenti of the Egyptians, corre- 

 sponding to the Hades of the Greeks, and to the Tar- 

 tarus of the Latins, was the place of the dead. It 

 was governed by Osiris as chief, and by many sub- 

 ordinate divinities. The following quotations from 

 Spineto (Lect. iv.) will show where the souls of men 

 were distributed after death. ' The Egyptians 

 divided the whole world into three zones. The first 

 was the earth, or the zone of trial ; the second was the 

 zone of the air, perpetually agitated by winds and 

 storms, and it was considered as the zone of temporal 

 punishment ; and the third was the zone of rest and 

 tranquillity, which was above the other two. Again, 

 they subdivided the first zone, or the earth, into four 

 regions or departments : the second, or the zone of 

 the air, was divided into two only ; the first of these 

 was subdivided into four regions, and the second into 

 eight, making twelve altogether ; these, being added 

 to the four regions of the first zone, made sixteen 

 and, lastly, the third zone of the tranquil atmosphere 

 contained sixteen more regions ; so that the sum 

 total of the regions in which the souls of the dead 

 were to be distributed, was in fact thirty-two.' 

 There is an evident variation between the divisions 

 made by Spineto, and those made by Champollion in 

 his letter. It would seem more probable that there 

 were twenty-four principal zones, corresponding to 

 the twenty-four hours of the day twelve for the 

 upper hemisphere, through which the sun passed 

 during the twelve hours of light, and twelve for the 

 lower hemisphere, through which the sun passed 

 during the twelve hours of darkness. But the sub- 

 ordinate zones may have been more or less numerous 

 (Champollion makes seventy-five zones in the lower 

 world); and hence arises the variation between 

 Champollion and Spineto. This circumstance, how- 

 ever, would not affect the division of the world into 

 the three general portions, which Spineto announces ; 

 and, as the minor divisions are comparatively unim- 

 portant, we shall continue to quote from this author. 

 ' The god Pooh was supposed to be a perpetual 

 director a sort of king of the souls, which, after 

 having parted from the body, were thrown into the 

 second zone, to be whirled about by the winds 

 through the regions of the air, till they were called 

 upon either to return to the first zone, to animate a 

 new body, and to undergo fresh trials in expiation of 

 their former sins, or to be removed into the third, 

 where the air was perpetually pure and tranquil. 

 It was over these two zones, or divisions of the 

 world, situated between the earth and the moon, that 

 the god Pooh exercised the full extent of his power. 

 He liad for his counsel the god Thoth, who presided 

 over that portion of the second or tempestuous zone, 

 which was divided into eight regions, and was only a 

 temporary dwelling of the dead. This was, in fact, 

 nothing else but the personification of the grand 



