The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)Duncker, Max
History
The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)
Duncker, Max
History, Ancient
Herodotus calls the goddess of Bubastis Artemis: her Egyptian name was
Bast and Pacht; and the city was called after her Pa-Bast, _i.e._ "abode
of Bast." On monuments this goddess has the sun's disk upon her head,
or, in the place of a human head, the head of a cat, which animal was
sacred to her. At Heliopolis there was a picture of Ra in the form of a
he-cat;[46] and in the inscription Pacht is called the daughter of Ra.
Ra was invoked to come to the help of his daughter, the holy she-cat,
who was panic-stricken by the snake which approached heaven in order to
tread upon the path of the sun-god, and to defile the limbs of the holy
she-cat.[47] In the sketches in the "Book of the Dead" we find a
she-cat, with the right forefoot upon the head of a serpent, and in the
left a broad knife, with which she is cutting off the head of the
serpent.[48] The account given by Herodotus of the customs observed at
the festival are confirmed from other sources. The monuments exhibit
musicians, whose music is accompanied by the audience with clapping of
the hands; and Plutarch describes the castanets of the Egyptians adorned
with the figure of a human-headed she-cat, the sound of which was
intended to scare away the evil spirit.[49]
In the upper country other deities were worshipped. At Thebes, Amun,
known to the Greeks as Ammon, took the place occupied by Ptah at
Memphis. Hecatæus of Abdera relates that the Egyptians identified their
supreme god with the universe, but the god was invisible and
concealed.[50] Amun, as a fact, signifies "the concealed" or "veiled."
The monuments of Thebes exhibit him as a creative god with the Phallus,
as a ruling deity either standing or sitting on a throne; on his royal
head-dress are two upright feathers, which to the Egyptians were the
symbol of dominion over the upper and under world, and in his hand are
the sceptre and the symbol of life. His colour is blue. By his side
stands the goddess Mut; the "mother," the "lady of darkness," as the
inscriptions[51] style her. She wears on her head the vulture, or the
crown of Upper Egypt. She is also found on inscriptions with the head of
a vulture, the bird sacred to her, instead of a human head; and in
pictures of battles the vulture of Mut hovers over the Pharaoh as the
symbol of protection. The son of Ammon and Mut is Shu (Sosis, Sos), the
spirit of the atmosphere, "the bearer of heaven," as the inscriptions
name him.[52] This (Thinis) and Abydus were the chief seats of his
worship. In Manetho's list the reign of Shu follows on those of Ptah and
Ra.
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