382 
Museum ; another as fine in hard wood was formerly in the Hay 
collection, and has lately gone to Boston, in the United States. 
A variety of these cippi, at that time supposed by Denon, 
Wilkinson, and others to be astronomical, are engraved in 
the “ Memoires 33 accompanying the Description de l 3 Egypt 
(fig. 108); and the discoveries of later Egyptologists have 
Fig. 108. Talismanic shrine of Horus, the stopper of snakes. On one side stands the 
staff and quadrangular feathers of the deity Atum, the god of darkness, and on 
the other the papyrus, staff, and hawk of Horus-Ra. In the centre stands Horus 
himself, treading upon the heads of two crocodiles, emblems of typhonic power, 
and in either hand he h<3lds snakes and savage beasts, as restraining their 
violence. Above him is the head of Set or Baal, whose superhuman power 
Horus is supposed to have assumed. The usual long lock of hair (accidentally 
reversed by the artist) hangs over the left shoulder of the deity. (Denon, 
Description de VEmjpte.) 
proven, beyond all doubt, from tbe hieroglyphics themselves, 
that these objects were universally adopted in ancient Egypt 
as preservatives against the attacks of all venomous or dan- 
Fig. 109. Porcelain amulet (exact size). The snake Nuhab making an offering of wine 
to the gods. 
gerous reptiles by the benevolent protection of Horus, and were 
even by the Gnostic Christians dedicated to Jehovah as the 
