primitive men of the Nile were engaging themselves with the study of 

 astronomy, and using effective astronomical instruments, which indicates 

 a high state of civilisation ; and this is further borne out by the fact that, 

 at the commencement of the first Egyptian dynasty, about the year 

 B.C. 5000, when Menes reigned over Egypt, there was every appearance 

 of a very advanced civilisation that had lasted for centuries. From the 

 " Book of the Dead " and the Prisse Papyrus (most of the former written 

 at latest prior to B.C. 4000, and the latter very soon after) we derive a 

 tolerably accurate notion of the mythological system of the Egyptians 

 during the first portion of the Old Empire, and probably many hundreds 

 of years previously ; while, from the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, 

 Plutarch, and Manetho, we learn the progress the religion made during 

 the 4,000 following years. 



The " Book of the Dead " treats principally of the refining processes 

 through which the spirits of dead people passed in the under-world, or 

 Cher Nuter, before being purified sufficiently to inherit a state of bliss 

 and become spirits of light (Chu) to be absorbed into the sun at the 

 point where it is born, and taken within it to An, the celestial Heliopolis. 

 Before the time of Menes the religion of Egypt was animistic, blended 

 with a vague kind of sun-worship, the supreme deity being, at Thinis- 

 Abydos, the ancient capital, called Osiris, the god of gods, son of Seb, 

 god of earth, and Nu, goddess of the heavenly ocean, and grandson of 

 Ra. Osiris was the sun-god of the daily and annual circle, who enjoyed 

 his spouse, Isis, the great mother, during the summer months and the 

 daytime, after which he was overcome by the evil Set-Typhon and his 

 wife Nephthys, and tortured in the under-world, until released by his 

 son Horus, the conqueror sun-god, who rose into the upper world as 

 the avenger of his father's defeat, and liberated the soul of Osiris from 

 torture, to be absorbed by, and for ever shine forth in the constellation 

 Orion, as the soul of Isis shines for ever in Sirius. At Heliopolis, An. 

 On, or Para, the city of the sun, Ra was worshipped as supreme god, 

 who as Turn, the hidden god, fought the demon of darkness, the serpent 

 Apap, in Amenti, and who rose again from the under-world as Har- 

 machis. Later, when Menes reigned as the first monarch of the Old 

 Empire (circa B.C. 5000), Memphis, or Mennefer, was the capital city, 

 in which Phtah was worshipped as the supreme god or creator of the 

 world (called Sekru, the slain god, when in the lower world), together 

 with Ma, goddess of righteousness, and Imhotep, the chief of priests, 

 whose name signified " I come in peace," and who formed the third 

 part of a kind of trinity, with Phtah and Ma. All these, and other 

 minor deities, such as deified kings, etc., were represented on earth by 

 incarnations in the shape of animals, Ra, Osiris, and Phtah, the supreme 

 gods, being manifested in the sacred bull Apis, representing the sun at 



