338 
on the sarcophagus of Hapimen, a great functionary of the 
nineteenth dynasty, and on that of Oimenepthah I., a monarch 
of the same period. (Fig. 36.) 
“To represent the mouth they depict a serpent, because the serpent is 
powerful in no other of its members except the mouth alone. 
Fig. 35. Jewel in bronze, representing the serpent of goodness i or the 
G-reco-Egyptian period. (From the original m the Hay collection.) E 
This latter assertion is not borne out by the hieroglyphics, 
where the serpent urseusrj* is simply the phonetic of the le er 
g j and the asp, or coluber, of the letter/, or a sound ana o- 
Fig. 36. The goddesses of Heaven as urai resting by the side of the river of Amenti. 
(Sar. Oimen.) 
gous to the Greek f alone. Possibly it was an error for the 
name of another snake, Ru, which is the determinative 
graph for mouth.* This identification of Pharaoh with .he 
seroent of goodnessS gives a wonderful significance to the 
bitter apostrophe of the Jewish prophet, who from the river of 
Chebarf foreseeing the final subjection of 
by the Chaldeans, terms the sovereign of Thebes the great 
* Horauollo lib i cap. 45. t S. Drach. * Bunsen, vol. i. p. 545, note. 
5 The first king of Abyssinia is traditionally said to have been a serpent. 
Is this^a misunderstood iyth derived also from Egypt, whose dongs, unuer 
the nineteenth dvnasty, invaded, if they did not conquer, Abyssinia . 
