CHAP. XV. OTHER RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. 289 



Medeenet Haboo, which took place during several 

 successive days of each month, and were even re- 

 peated in honour of different Deities every day 

 during some months, and attended by the king in 

 person. 



Another important rehgious ceremony is often 

 alluded to in the sculptures, which appears to be 

 connected with the assemblies just mentioned. In 

 this the king is re2:)resented running, with a vase 

 or some emblem in one hand, and the flagellum 

 of Osiris, a type of majesty, in the other, as if 

 hastening to enter the hall where the panegyrics 

 were held; and two figures of him are frequently in- 

 troduced, one crowned with the cap of the Upper, 

 the other with that of the Lower country, as they 

 stand beneath a canopy indicative of the hall of as- 

 sembly.* The same Deities, who usually preside on 

 tlie anointing of the king, present him with the sign 

 of Life, and bear before him the palm branch, on 

 which the years of the assemblies are noted. Before 

 him stands the Goddess Milt, bearing on her head 

 the water plants, her emblem ; and around are nu- 

 merous emblems appropriated to this subject. The 

 monarch sometimes runs into the presence of the 

 God bearing two vases, which appears to be the 

 commencement of, or connected with, this cere- 

 mony ; and the whole may be the anniversary of 

 the foundation of the temple, or of the sovereign's 

 reign. An ox (or cow) is in some instances repre- 

 sented running with the king on the same occasion. 



* Vide Plate 79. ; and Woodcut, No. 382., Vol. III. p. 282. 

 VOL. II. — Second Series. U 



