CHAP. XV. NO HUMAN SACRIFICI':S. 343 



where the King occurs, as if in the act of slaying 

 his prisoners in the presence of the God. But 

 a strong argument against this being commemo- 

 rative of a human sacrifice, is derived from the 

 fact of the foreigners he hokls in his hand not 

 being bound, but with their hands free, and even 

 holding their drawn swords *, plainly showing that 

 it refers to them in a state of war, not as captives. 

 It is therefore an allegorical picture, illustrative 

 of the power of the King, in his contest with the 

 enemies of his country. 



Indeed, if from this any one were disposed to 

 infer the existence of such a custom in former 

 times, he must admit that it was abandoned long 

 before the erection of any existing monument t, 

 consequently ages prior to the accession of the 

 Amosis, whose name occurs in the sculptures ; 

 long before the Egyptians are mentioned in sacred 

 history ; and long before they were that people we 

 call Egyptians. For it is quite incompatible with 

 the character of a nation, whose artists thought 

 acts of clemency towards a foe worthy of record t. 



of the kings appear to be either Neophytes, who were required to " pass 

 under the knife of the priest," previous to initiation, and a new life ; or 

 those condenmed to a particular fate hereafter. Vide Vol. I. (1st Series) 

 p. 267. 



* Vide Plate 81. 



■\ The learned Prichard (p. 363.) thinks that a subject described 

 from the temple of Tentyra proves this custom to have existed in Egypt- 

 But that temple is of late Ptolemaic and Roman date, and " the Jigure 

 of a man, with the head and ears of an ass, kneeling, and bound to a tree, 

 with two knives stuck into his forehead, two in his shoulders, one in 

 his thigh, and another in his body," can scarcely be an argument in 

 favour of a human sacrifice, unless 7)ieti of that descrijition were proved 

 to have lived in those days. 



X Vide sujn-d. Vol. I. p. 392. and 398. 



z 4 



