98 
EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. 
[UPPER 
I. RELIGIOUS SECTION. 
The Egyptian Pantheon, which was very complex, compre- 
hended a large number of divinities, of which the most im- 
portant were connected with the sun in his annual or diurnal 
course, and the lesser were his attendant satellites. The relative 
importance of the divinities depended in some measure on the 
power and wealth of the cities in which they were principally 
worshipped, each city having a distinct group, formed of the 
local god, his wife, and child, with occasionally a fourth divinity 
added. In the representations of the deities, their heads are 
generally exchanged for those of the animals sacred to 
them. 
The figures in Cases 1—11 are arranged simply as illustrations 
of mytholog}^, and without reference to their original purpose. 
Those which are of wood and stone were found generally 
in tombs and temples ; those of bronze and silver were prin- 
cipally votive ; whilst the small figures in gold, porcelain, 
and other materials, were worn as amulets, employed in 
private worship, or attached to the mummies of the dead. 
The upper row in the Cases contains generally the figures in 
stone or wood, the next those in bronze, the third those in 
porcelain, and in the lowest are the larger figures in various 
materials. Among them may be noticed the following : — 
Cases 1, 2. Amenra (Jupiter), the principal deity of Thebes; Ra 
(The Sun), the god worshipped at Heliopolis, or On ; Phtah (Vulcan), 
the divinity of Memphis ; the goddess Pasht (Bubastis) ; and Neith 
(Minerva), the goddess of Sais, whence her worship is supposed to 
have been carried to Athens. Cases 3-5. Thoth (Mercury), the god 
of knowledge, and the reputed inventor of writing; Osiris, the judge 
of the dead, his wife Isis, and their son Horus, three divinities who 
were worshipped throughout Egypt. Case 7. Anubis, the god of 
Embalming, and Typhon, the impersonation of the principle of Evil. 
Cases 8-11. Representations of animals sacred to the various divini- 
ties, anl which were also themselves worshipped, though the reverence 
paid to some of them varied considerably in different parts of the country. 
In Cases 8, 9, are quadrupeds, such as the Bull Apis, the jackal of 
Anubifl, the cat of Pasht, the cynocephalus, the lion, the goat, &c. In 
10, 11, birds, fishes, and reptiles, such as the hawk of Horus, 
the ibis of Thotb, fishes of various kinds, the crocodiles of Sebak, and 
the cobra di capello snake, or urseus. There are also sacred emblems, 
• ii' h as those of Life, Stability, &c. 
