Historical. 7 



N. lottts rather than N. caerulea, but it is too much conventionalized to 

 offer any conclusive argument (Fig. i, 6). 



Since the leaves of the blue species are entire and its petals acute, 

 whereas the white one has sharply dentate leaves and broad petals 

 rounded at the apex, the difference is usually evident even in very crude 

 representations (Fig. 2). We recognize the blue one easily in manifold 

 applications. It occurs, according to Schweinfurth (1883 b), on all the 

 ancient monuments of Egypt. The use of its tuberous rhizome for food, 

 is said to have been given to the people by Menes, or perhaps even by 

 Isis (Pickering ; Diodorus). At convivial meetings a flower of the blue 

 lotus was presented to each of the guests, and in feasts for the dead, the 

 feasters delighted themselves with the color and odor of this lotus 

 (Buckley). In a carving figured by Wilkinson, the guests are distin- 



w 



Fig. 2. Egyptian lotus (designs 

 after Wilkinson). 



Fig. 3. Pleasure boat in a pond of lotuses (after 

 Wilkinson). 



guished from the hosts and servants partly by their lotuses (see page 1, 

 underneath title). In most of these picturings the flowers are considerably 

 conventionalized, but Schweinfurth saw them in the temple of Ramses II 

 at Abydos, and on coffins of the Ptolemaic period, distinctly painted blue. 

 One of Champollion's figures shows a lotus with green sepals, blue outer 

 petals and red inner petals, all of the parts being tipped with black ; the red 

 and black must have been inserted for love of variety ! An interesting 

 Theban picture shows a pleasure boat, being towed round a pond by three 

 slaves ; the water is represented by the characteristic wavy lines, and is 

 made more vivid by a liberal sprinkling of lotuses, both leaf and flower, 

 over the water-surface 1 (Fig. 3). 



Just as the blue lotus appears in figures of social life and in 

 recreation, it occurs as a favorite flower in religious observances. It is 

 figured among offerings to the gods in the IV dynasty (Pickering ; 



1 This lotus has also been found depicted on the pavement of the palace of Sardanapalus, but 

 has evidently been copied by the Assyrian artists from Egyptian sources (Bonavia, 1894). 



