CHAP. XV. THE HEAD OFFERED ON ALTARS. 351 



selves, and to make them fall on that head. After 

 which they either sold it to foreigners, or threw it 

 into the Nile * ; for no Egyptian would taste the 

 head of any species of animal." 



But, as I have already shown, the father of his- 

 tory is wrong in this assertion ; the heads of ordi- 

 nary victims being commonly offered on the altars 

 of the gods t, and even taken with other joints 

 to the kitchen. The head may not have been a 

 fashionable dish at a Theban dinner ; but this 

 would not imply a prohibition ; and it may be 

 said, that few people, as refined as the Egyptians, 

 are in the habit of giving it a place at their table. 



The ceremony of fixing upon a proper victim 

 was probably very similar on all occasions. He- 

 rodotus and Plutarch state that it was done by a 

 class of priests, called by the latter sphragistae 

 ("Sealers"), to whom this duty exclusively be- 

 longed.! After having examined the animal, and 

 ascertained that its appearance accorded with the 

 prescribed rules, the priest put on a mark as a 

 token of its acceptance, which was done in the fol- 

 lowing manner. Having tied a band made of the 

 stalk of the papyrus round its horns, he applied a 

 piece of fine clay to the knot, and stamped it with 

 his seal, after which an inferior functionary con- 



* Herodot. ii. 39. yElian says the Ombites gave the heads of their 

 victims to the crocodiles. De Nat. Animal, x. 21. Plut. de Is. s. 31. 

 There was a ceremony practised by the Jews, in which the head of a 

 heifer was cut off for the expiation of murder by an unknown hand, the 

 elders of the vicinity washing their hands over the body. Deut. xxi. 4. 6. 



f Vide Vol. II. (1st Series) p. 222. 379. 383. Thesculptures,^j«,Mi)H. 



j Clemens says the stolistes was required to know the jioaxoatppa- 

 yioTtica, or those things relating to the rite of slaying victims. Strom, vi. 

 p. 196. 



