408 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



in the triad (so often found in the tombs made of 

 blue pottery or other composition), consisting of 

 Isis, Neplithys, and Harpocrates, which I suppose 

 to signify the beginning, the end, and reproduc- 

 tion after death. * It may also be traced in what 

 Macrobius says of the mode of representing the 

 Sun by an image having a lock of hair, on the 

 right side of its head, which was emblematic of the 

 reappearance of that luminary f after it was con- 

 cealed from our sight at its setting ; or of the 

 return of the Sun to the solstice."! But this seems 

 rather to apply to the God Ehoou. 



In some monuments of the late date of the 

 Ptolemies and Caesars, Harpocrates is represented 

 seated on a throne, supported by lions, and even 

 placed upon the backs of those animals§; which 

 cannot fail to call to mind the remark of Horapollo ||, 

 that "tlie Egyptians put lions under the throne of 

 Horus, — this being their name for the Sun:" 

 though he is wrong in supposing the Sun to be the 

 same as Horus. Harpocrates is called " Horus, 

 the son of Isis and Osiris ; " but there is no trace 

 of the termination pocrates in the hieroglyphic 

 legends. 



The notion respecting his being the God of Si- 

 lence appears to be of Greek origin : for, as I have 



* The supposed connection in Hebrew between Mout, " death," and 

 Maut, " mother," is an erroneous notion ; since the latter is Om or Am, 

 and not Maut. 



-j- INIacrob. Saturn, i. 2G. " Rursum einergendi uti capillos habere 

 substantiani." 



J Macrob. Saturn, i. 26. " Rursus emergens ad Eestivuni haemisphae- 

 rium tanquam enascens in augmenta porrigitur." 



$ Firfe Rosellini, PL 18. || Horapollo, i. 17. 



