EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES. 61 



Sun-god was caged, or was placed there during 

 great festivals ; it was screened from the gaze 

 of the worshippers until a certain moment by- 

 doors, the bolt-sockets of which still remain. 

 Strabo, the geographer, records that he saw a 

 hawk in a pining condition in a shrine at Philse. 



Presented by the Egyi^tian Government. 



2. Coffin of Ta-ah-titi, a priestess of Amen-Ka at 



Thebes. 



3. Coffin of Bak-en-Mut, a " divine father " of Amen- 



Ra at Thebes. 



4. Outer and inner coffins of Thent-hen-f, a priestess 



of Amen-Ra at Thebes. 



5. Coffin of Ta-usert-em-suten-pa, a priestess of 



Amen-Ra at Thebes. 



6. Two coffins of priestesses of Amen-Rii ; the spaces 



left for their names by the artist have not been 

 filled. 



The above coffins were exhumed from a 

 pit at Derel-Bahari, on the west bank of the 

 Nile, opposite the site of ancient Thebes, by 

 M. Grebaut, formerly Director of the Egyptian 

 Museum at Gizeh, in 1891. In the same place 

 MM. Maspero and Brugsch discovered the mum- 

 mies of Thothmes III., Seti I., Rameses II., and 

 of several other kings, in 1881 ; and it seems 

 that they, and the mummies of the priests and 

 priestesses of Amen-Ra, were removed there 

 hastily, when, owing to loss of influence and 

 power, the confraternity of Amen was compelled 

 to take refuge in Nubia, in the ninth century 

 before Christ. It is not possible to fix an exact 

 date for the establishment of the brotherhood of 

 the priests of Amen, but it is certain that they 

 gained power during the reign of Amenophis I., 

 B.C. 16GG, and that for about six hundred years 

 this power increased until they made themselves 

 sacerdotally and politically the strongest influ- 

 ence in Egypt. The high priests of Amen 

 became eventually kings of Thebes, but they 

 soon found their position untenable, and the 

 funeral furniture of the members of the brother- 

 hood is all that now remains to mark their rule. 

 The archiTeological importance of the coffins of 

 the priests of Amen is very great ; and this 

 group helps to fill a gap in the national collec- 

 tion. 



0.107. 7. Ninety-two 



