84 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



claims the title of God of War. He is some- 

 times represented with a spear in his hand ; some- 

 times bearing in his left hand a spear and shield, 

 while with the other he wields a battle-axe, as if in 

 the act of striking : a quiver full of arrows being 

 suspended at his back.* He wears the helmet 

 or crown of the Upper Country, in front of which 

 projects, in lieu of the usual asp, the head of an 

 oryx, a gazelle, or a goat. He sometimes occurs 

 with a Goddess, who, standing on a lion, or on two 

 crocodiles, holds out towards him two emblems re- 

 sembling snakes with one hand, and with the other 

 a bundle of lotus flowers, apparently as an offer- 

 ing to the God Khem.t Connected with this group 

 are figures in the act of fighting, which would 

 imply that the subject was emblematic of war. 



It may reasonably be supposed that the Egyptian 

 Mars did not hold a very high rank in their Pan- 

 theon. His character was not connected with the 

 operations of the Deity ; nor did a God of War 

 present any abstract notion of a divine attribute, 

 unless it were as the avenging power. This, in-, 

 deed, appears, as already stated, to have been re- 

 presented by Mandoot, — in which character he 

 probably answered to the Mars Ultorof Rome, and 

 to the Apr^g mentioned by Hermapion in his in- 

 scription translated from the Obelisk of Remeses. 

 Ranpo occurs on tablets, but not in any of the tem- 

 ples of Egypt. 



* Vide Plate 69. fig. 1. 



t Plate G9. fig. 3. See the subject in the British Museum. 



j Vide si/prri, p. .'i4. 



