How to See the British Museum in Four VisitsJerrold, Blanchard
History
How to See the British Museum in Four Visits
Jerrold, Blanchard
British Museum
interesting fragments from mummies, including plain scarabaei and
other symbolic amulets, and ornaments inscribed with the names of
early Egyptian kings. Having noticed these revelations of Egypt's
sepulchres, the visitor should turn at once to the eastern wall cases
in which he will find a vast collection of
EGYPTIAN DEITIES.
The innumerable little figures scattered throughout the first seven
cases are all Egyptian deities with their appropriate symbols,
including those in porcelain and stone with holes bored in them for
the purpose of attaching them to mummy bandages; those in wood which
were carved generally to decorate tombs, and those in bronze which
were the household gods. It would be impossible for the general
visitor to examine this collection in detail, but he may notice the
chief deities with the extraordinary jumble of human and brute life
which they present. First of all the visitor will remark, in the first
division of the first case, a sandstone figure, seven inches high,
seated upon a throne with lotus sceptres, and attendant deities; this
is Amenra, the Jupiter of the Egyptians; and in the same case Phtah,
the Vulcan of the Egyptians, with a gour, or animal-headed sceptre in
both hands, and an oskh, or semi-circular collar, about his neck; the
Egyptian Saturn, Sabak, with the head of a crocodile, with the shenti
about his loins; and Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury, with an ibis head
surmounted by a crescent moon. In the second division, or case, amid
the strange figures, the visitor should remark the Egyptian Juno,
Mout, or mother, represented in the act of suckling, and wearing the
pschent, or cap, worn only by deities and Pharaohs; the Egyptian
Minerva, Nepth, on a throne, with the teshr, or inferior cap on her
head; a human form with a goat's head, wearing a conical cap
ornamented with two ostrich feathers, and disk on goat's horns,
representing Num, or water, called Jupiter Chnumis by the Greeks;
Khem, the Egyptian Pan, standing on nine bows; a youthful figure with
one lock of hair, and supporting the lunar disk, representing Chons,
or the Egyptian Hercules; an Egyptian Venus, Athor, in gold,
cow-headed; Ra, the sun, seated, and hawk-headed; Nefer Atum, with the
lotus flower and plumes for head ornaments, from Memphis, and
reverenced as the guardian of the sun's nostril; and the Egyptian
Diana, Pasht, or Bubastis, a bronze female figure with the head of a
cat. The third division includes a group, in vitrified earth,
representing Amenra seated on a feathered throne; a triad, in blue
porcelain, of Amoun Mout, the mother, and Chons, or Hercules; a figure
in lapis-lazuli of the Egyptian Minerva, Nepth; Num, ram-headed,
walking; Ptah-Socharis standing upon two crocodiles, and supporting
two hawks on his shoulders; and Pasht, the Egyptian Diana,
lion-headed. The third and fourth cases are filled with more specimens
of ancient Egyptian deities. In the first division the visitor should
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