862 
enters on a series of transformation, more and more elevated, 
assuming the form of, and identifying himself with, the 
noblest divine symbols. He is changed successively into a 
hawk, emblem of Horus-Ra (chap, lxxvii.) ; an angel, or a 
divine messenger (chaps, lxxix., lxxx.) ; into a lotus (lxxxi.) ; 
the “ pure lily which comes out of the fields of the sun ” ; into 
the god Pthah (lxxxii.), in which hypostasis he declares “ he is 
stronger than the lord of many years ” ; into a kind of crested 
heron°, the sacred bird of Osiris, called Bennu (chap, lxxxm.), 
whose residence is on the boughs of the tree of life ; into a 
crane, ora species of nycticorax (chap, lxxxiv.) ; into a human- 
headed bird,* the most usual of all emblematic representations 
of the soul, a bird, moreover, occasionally represented as fur- 
nished with human hands, which it holds up in adoration to 
the sun (chap, lxxxv.); into a swallow (chap, lxxxvi.), in which 
latter form the soul utters this remarkable expression, 0 
great one, I have dissipated my sins ; I have destroyed my 
failings, for I have got rid of the sins which detained me upon 
earth ” ; next into a serpent, the soul of the earth ; and here, 
although in one form the serpent of the earth is confounded 
with Apophis, in another it is distinct, a circumstance which 
has misled many students in comparative mythology. As the 
chapter (lxxxvii.) is a short one, it will be as well to re-msert 
it entire. 
“ I am the serpent Ba-tat ( not Apophis), [or ‘ Sata (the serpent) of long 
years, in the extremities of the earth.’— Renouf,] soul of the earth, whose 
length is years, laid out and born daily ; I am the soul of the earth in the 
parts of the earth ; I am laid out and horn, decay and become young daily. 
(See supra, fig. 39.) 
28. The last transformation of the Osirian is into another 
reptile ; the first of those which on entering Hades he over- 
came, viz. a crocodile (chap, lxxxviii.) no longer <f the eater ot 
filth and the opposer of the souls,” but the crocodile who 
dwells in victories, whose soul comes from men, the great fish 
(or rather reptile) of Horus.” Up to this time the soul of the 
deceased has been making its journeys alone, it has been 
merely a sort of rfSaAov (eidolon), that is an image— a shade 
with the appearance of the body which yet lay torpid and. 
sensationless. After these transformations, the soul becomes 
reunited to the body which it will need for the rest oi its 
journey. This theory it was which rendered the process oi 
mummification so important, for it was indispensable that tne 
* The souls of kings are generally furnished with crowns, as vide numerous 
examples in the Hay collection, 
f Bata, Brass of Earth. — Dr. Birch. 
