CHAP. XIII. NEPHTHYS OPPOSED TO ISIS. 437 



observed, this notion probably arose from her being 

 placed in opposition to Isis, particularly in funereal 

 subjects, where Isis stands at the head and Nephthys 

 at the feet of the deceased. She represented the 

 end, as Isis the beginning, of all things ; but she 

 was not opposed to her sister in a bad sense, as 

 Typho to Osiris. In the regions of Amenti, a triad 

 was composed of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys ; and 

 another consisted of Isis, Nephthys, and Harpo- 

 crates.* 



In the fabulous history of Osiris t, she may have 

 been considered as the sea-shore, and the confines 

 of Egypt, from being opposed to Isis, who was 

 that part of the land irrigated by the inundation 

 of the Nile; without the idea of her possessing 

 the injurious nature which was attached to Typho. 

 Even in this character, her inferiority miglit be of 

 a negative kind, not that of a positive agent of 

 evil, being merely the representative of a barren 

 soil, whose unproductiveness was owing to its not 

 having received the fertilising influence of the in- 

 undation. Like Isis in her mysterious character, 

 Nephthys was principally employed in offices con- 

 nected with the dead ; and she is represented as- 

 sisting her sister to perform the last rites to Osiris, 

 when he quitted the Earth to assume his duties in 

 Amenti as judge of the dead. She is, therefore, 

 appropriately styled "rectrix of the lower regions, "i 

 Her name, written Neb-thy, or Neb-tei, signifying 



* Vide supra, p. 408. ; and itififi, p. 439. 



t Plut. de Is. s. 38. % Plate 35. Part 2. 



F F 3 



