The meaning of the Egyptian is quite plain, but the readings most probably through the absence of determinatives in the oldest style are somewhat different. Horhotep and other texts have ⁂⁂⁂⁂, apparently as one word (compounded of _tmu_ and _unen_), which may signify the ‘closer and opener,’ but Sebek-āa and later texts have ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. The papyrus of Nebseni has ⁂⁂, in the third person, which does not alter the meaning, but this is quite an isolated reading. The later recension, as represented by the Turin _Todtenbuch_ and the Cadet papyrus, has ⁂⁂, which only prominently brings forward, what is implied in all the other texts, that the Opener is a god.[27] The absence of the determinative ⁂ after ⁂ is no objection to the sense ‘opener,’ especially after ⁂⁂. It is absolutely necessary when dealing with mythology to look to physical rather than to metaphysical meanings. I have sufficiently discussed the meanings of the word ⁂ in my essay on the Myth of Osiris Unnefer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PLATE III. BOOK OF THE DEAD. CHAPTER XV. [Illustration: Horus at the Look-out of the Ship.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The later recensions add an interpolation (not without very different readings) to the effect that the Sun made his first appearance when Shu raised the Sky from the height of Chemennu, where he destroyed the ‘Children of Failure’ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. The raising of the Sky by Shu is very frequently represented in pictures. Seb (the Earth) and Nut (the Sky) have been sleeping in each other’s arms during the night; Shu (Daylight at sunrise) parts them, and the sky is seen to be raised high above the earth. ⁂⁂⁂, Shu, who is of course the son of Râ, is in consequence of this act called ⁂⁂ _Ȧn-ḥeru_, ‘The Lifter up of the Heaven.’ _Chemennu_ is the geographical name of the town called by the Greeks Hermopolis. The mystical Chemennu, however, is alone referred to in this place. The word itself means Eight, and Lepsius sees here a reference to eight elementary deities. (We must remember that the passage itself is an interpolation, of which there is no trace in the older texts.) The ‘children of _Failure_’ (⁂⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂ _deficere_, _dissolvi_, _deliquium_[28]) are the elements of darkness which melt away and vanish at the appearance of Day. This mythological expression here found in an interpolated passage is met later on in a genuine portion of the older text. 2. It would be impossible to find a more emphatic assertion of the doctrine of _Nomina Numina_; and that more than 3000 years before Christ.