374 
and the Ritual of the Dead was used and written in ancient 
Egypt for more than thirty centuries.* 
37. Apart, however, from the Ritual, the trail of the serpent 
is as conspicuous on the monumental history of Egypt as it is 
Fig. 88. The solar orb with the emblematic figure of the goddess Thmei, or Truth, 
between the sacred ursei. (Cassell. ) See fig. 40. 
in the archseographic. Every sepulchral stele or funereal slab 
bore at its upper extremity the usual winged disc of Ra, with its 
pendent basilisks (fig. 88), wearing the alternate crowns ol 
Upper and Lower Egypt and the cross of life. Not infrequently 
the god Ra, and even the King himself, as that deity s incarna- 
tion, is represented, as a globe surroundedbya serpent, whose tai 
* Lenormant’s Ancient History of the East , vol. i. section vii. 
