* The first Egyptologists confounded the sign used in writing _pauit_ with the sign _kh_, and the word _khet, other_. E. de Rouge was the first to determine its phonetic value: "it should be read Pau, and designates a body of gods." Shortly afterwards Beugsch proved that "the group of gods invoked by E. de Rouge must have consisted of nine "-- of an Ennead. This explanation was not at first admitted either by Lepsius or by Mariette, who had proposed a mystic interpretation of the word in his _Memoire sur la mere d'Apis_, or by E. de Rouge, or by Chabas. The interpretation a _Nine_, an _Ennead_, was not frankly adopted until later, and more especially after the discovery of the Pyramid texts; to-day, it is the only meaning admitted. Of course the Egyptian Ennead has no other connection than that of name with the Enneads of the Neo-Platonists. When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were not at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries to preside over each of the functions essential to the regular and continued working of all things. The theologians of Heliopolis selected eighteen from among the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of Egypt, and of these they formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded as the offspring of the Ennead of the creation. The first of the two secondary Enneads, generally known as the Minor Ennead, recognized as chief Harsiesis, the son of Osiris. Harsiesis was originally an earth-god who had avenged the assassination of his father and the banishment of his mother by Sit; that is, he had restored fulness to the Nile and fertility to the Delta. When Harsiesis was incorporated into the solar religions of Heliopolis, his filiation was left undisturbed as being a natural link between the two Enneads, but his personality was brought into conformity with the new surroundings into which he was transplanted. He was identified with Ra through the intervention of the older Horus, Haroeris-Harmakhis, and the Minor Ennead, like the Great Ennead, began with a sun-god. This assimilation was not pushed so far as to invest the younger Horus with the same powers as his fictitious ancestor: he was the sun of earth, the everyday sun, while Atumu-Ra was still the sun pre-mundane and eternal. Our knowledge of the eight other deities of the Minor Ennead is very imperfect. [Illustration: 204.jpg THE FOUR FUNERARY GENII, KHABSONUF, TIUMAUTF, HAPI, AND AMSIT. 1] 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Wilkinson's _Manners and Customs_, 2nd edit., vol. iii. p. 221, pl. xlviii.