SOLAR DISK (=aten=) _the sun_. It stands for Ra, the sun-god. The goose and disk mean "son of the sun," and almost invariably precede the nomen of the king, because kings were thought to be lineal descendants of the supreme solar deity. IBIS. A common bird in Egypt, resembling the crane, phœnix, and bennu. It was sacred to, and an emblem of, Thoth, the god of letters, who is usually depicted with an ibis head. As Thoth represented both the visible and concealed moon, he was fitly represented by the sacred bird ibis, which on account of its mingled black and white feathers, was an effective emblem of both the dark and illumined side of the moon. The ibis alone on a standard, as depicted on the obelisk, stood for Thoth, the first syllable of the word Thothmes. TRIPLE TWIG (=mes=) means _born_, and is a symbol of birth. Thus _ibis_ and _mes_ together form the rebus Thothmes, which name thus means, "born of Thoth." In this particular cartouche will be noticed a small scarabeus or beetle, which is an emblem of existence and immortality, and probably indicates the self-existent nature and immortality of Thothmes; but this part of the obelisk is much defaced, and what follows is well nigh obliterated. In ancient times kings and great persons were frequently named after the god they worshipped; thus among the Egyptians, Rameses from Ra, Amen-hotep from Amen, Seti from Set, etc. Similarly in Scripture we find Joshua, Jeremiah, Jesus, derived from Jehovah; Jerubbaal, Ethbaal, Jezebel, Belshazzar, and many others, from Baal or Bel, the sun-god; Elijah, Elisha, Elias, Elishama, etc., from El or Eloah, the true God. The same mode of deriving names from deities prevailed more or less among all ancient nations. On this principle Thothmes, the mighty Egyptian monarch, was named after the god Thoth. What follows on this side of the obelisk is well nigh obliterated, but the hieroglyphs were probably the same as those following the cartouche of Thothmes at the bottom of the central column on the second and fourth sides of the obelisk, and therefore would mean, "Beloved of Haremakhu, ever living." [Illustration: "Beloved of Haremakhu, ever living."] HAWK (=bak=), as has been already explained, is the emblem of any solar deity, but surmounted by the _aten_ or solar disk, and accompanied by two ovals called _khu_, which indicate the two horizons, in the east and west parts of the sky, the hawk, as here, stands for Horus, or Haremakhu, the sun in the horizon.