NAJA HAJB. 321 
The principle of administering special preparations of the officinal viper (Cerastes 
vipera) as an antidote to snake-poisoning is one of great antiquity in medicine. 
I have not been able to obtain any statistics as to the number of deaths in Egypt 
attributable to snake-bites. 
As the cobra was sacred throughout ancient Egypt and entered largely into the 
beliefs of the people and into the mysteries of their religion, it is profusely represented 
on the monuments and tombs. If the tomb of Seti I., for example, be examined, it 
will be found that the serpents so frequently depicted on it, in a variety of scenes 
and a diversity of attitudes, some invariably occupying certain positions, are all 
apparently cobras. In every one of them there is the same conventional pattern 
in the arrangement of the colour-markings ; but many of them, according to the 
parts they play in the different rituals, have distinctive names so numerous that 
they recall ^Elian's statement that there were 16 kinds of asps. However, if 
they are compared with the magnificent figure of a cobra by Savigny ', it will be 
seen that the conventional pattern of coloration probably originated from cobras of 
the type represented by the distinguished French savant. The figures of snakes on 
the monuments have, however, not always been regarded as representing one and the 
same species. Champollion, for example, in his ' Pantheon Egyptien,' considered the 
serpent he regarded as the emblem of the " Bon Genie Cnouphis " to be quite distinct 
from the Urceus asp, or cobra, with which he held it had nothing in common ; but the 
figure he gives of the serpent of the Bon Genie, supported on two human legs, in no 
way differs from some of the figures on the tomb of Seti I., all of which are seemingly 
intended for the JJrceus asp, and conform to one type of colour-ornamentation, which 
would not have been the case had more than one species of snake been represented. 
Some of the conventional figures of the cobra with distended head in Seti's tomb 
and similar monuments are of special interest, as they are represented as ejecting fluid 
from their mouths, so that it would appear that the ancient Egyptians believed in the 
spitting habit of the cobra, or ptyas. 
Naja haje, which Cuvier says is incontestably the serpent which the ancients described 
under the name of the aspic of Egypt, was sacred to Khnum (Chnoumis) and Rannu. 
It was known to the Egyptians as dra, the Greek ovpuloc, and was the determinative or 
emblem of all goddesses ; and, as a sign of royal power, along with the sun's disk, formed 
part of the headdress of all solar deities. It was also an emblem of the physical sun. 
Asp-formed crowns were the particular head-dress of Egyptian kings and queens. 
Towards the twentieth dynasty, when it became a custom to preserve animals, it 
was embalmed at Thebes and at Sakkarah. The subject, however, is too complex to 
be dealt with by anyone save a master in Egyptology. 
The dilatable neck of the cobra and the erect attitude assumed by the anterior part 
of the body when the animal is excited, probably originated the myth about the 
existence of flying serpents in Egypt, mentioned by Herodotus and other authors, ancient 
1 Descr. de l'Egypte, Rept. Suppl. pi. iii. 
2 T 
