390 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XTII. 



vine honours at Atarbechis, and other places de- 

 voted to the worship of Athor. The geographer* 

 also speaks of the sacred Cow of *' Aphroditopolis, 

 the capital of a nome of the same name on the 

 Arabian side of the river,'* which he describes of 

 a white coloiu' ; and Pliant says, that "at the 

 small but elegant village of Chusge, in the Hermo- 

 politan nome, they worshipped Venus under the 

 name Urania (heavenly), and paid honours to a 

 Cow, which animal was thought to appertain more 

 particularly to that Goddess." It must, however, 

 be observed, tliat the "latuit nivea Saturnia 

 Vacca," of Ovid, does not suffice to establish any 

 analogy between Juno and the Egyptian Venus ; 

 and the monuments disprove the opinion of the 

 learned Prichard, that " the Goddess Nephthys was 

 sometimes called Urania, or the dark or nightly 

 T^enusy at otiier times Juno or Saturnia," and 

 *' that a white Cow was the sacred animal or living 

 symbol of that Goddess.*' t 



Atarbechis, or the city of Athor, a part of 

 Thebes called Pathyris, already mentioned, and 

 several other places, vied with each other in the 

 honours paid to the Egyptian Aphrodite ; and at 

 Dendera, the ancient Tentyris, a magnificent 

 temple still remains, erected to her in the reigns of 

 the last Ptolemies, and completed under Tiberius, 

 where she is represented nursing her son, the third 

 member of the Triad of the place. This is the 

 temple of Aphrodite mentioned by Strabo. The 



* Strabo, xvii. p. 556. 



f ^lian. An. x. 27. f Prichard, p. 148. 



