16 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



painted of a black or dark colour. In the tomb 

 of Remeses III., at Thebes, he is represented 

 seated on a throne, on either side of a small 

 chamber, where it is possible that the king's min- 

 strel was buried ; and before him two figures are 

 playing the harp, as though he were the patron of 

 music. 



From Porphyry's description of Kneph, which 

 represents him of a black colour, and wearing a 

 single feather on his head, Ao has been confounded 

 with the ram-headed Deity j but this has been 

 already noticed. * 



The ingenious and much-regretted Champollion 

 supposed him to be Djom or Gom, the Egyptian 

 Hercules, though his name does not agree with 

 that of the God of Strength. In either case, 

 whether as the Moon, or as Hercules, the title 

 '^ Son of the Sun," which he always has in the 

 hieroglyphics, would accord perfectly with his cha- 

 racter ; the Moon, from its borrowing its light from 

 the Sun, being aptly considered its offspring, and 

 Hercules, from his being the power of that lu- 

 minary. For Hercules was the abstract idea of 

 strengtli, applied to it in every sense ; he was the 

 power of the Deity and the force of the Sun.t 

 " Agreeably to which notion," says Plutarch, "Her- 

 cules was supposed by the Egyptians to be placed 

 in the Sun, and to accompany liim round the 

 world, as Mercury does the Moon."} The Her- 

 cules of Egypt was called Gom ('K.cu[j.), which in 



* Vide supra. Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 240. -f Macrob. Saturn, i, 23. 

 X Plut. de Is. S.41. 



