CHAP. XV. ARK OF SOKARI. S97 



Greeks to suffffest the resemblance between that 

 Deity and their Bacchus j as the tambourine, the 

 ivy-bound flower or thyrsus, and the leopard skin, 

 recall the leopards which drew his car.* The spot- 

 ted skin of the nebris or fawn may also be traced 

 in the leopard skin suspended near Osiris in the 

 region of Amen ti. 



At Medeenet Haboo the procession is on a 

 more splendid scale : the ark of Sokari is borne 

 by sixteen priests, accompanied by two pontiffs, 

 one clad in the usual leopard skin ; and Remeses 

 himself officiates on the occasion. The king also 

 performs the singular ceremony of holding a rope 

 at its centre, the two ends being supported by four 

 priests, eight of his sons, and four other chiefs ; 

 before whom two priests turn round to offer in- 

 cense, while a hierogrammat reads the contents of 

 a papyrus he holds in his hands. These are pre- 

 ceded by one of the hieraphori bearing the hawk 

 on a staff decked with banners (the standard of 

 the king, or of Horus), and by tlie emblem of 

 Nofre-Atmoo, borne by eighteen priests, the figures 

 standing between the columns, over which it is 

 laid, being of kings, and the columns themselves 

 being surmounted by the heads of hawks. Another 

 peculiarity is observable in this procession, that the 

 ark of Sokari follows, instead of preceding, the em- 

 blem of Nofre-Atmoo, and the hawks are crowned 

 with the pshent or double crown of Upper and 

 Lower Egypt, usually worn by the Pharaohs and 

 by the God Horus, the prototype of royalty. 



* Vide Vol. I. p. 327. The head of the Greek th3'rsus was a pine 

 cone. 



