Egyptian Myths And Legend. Donald Mackenzie
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them for residence in towns, and it may be that the distinctive character of the mythology of Memphis was due to their presence in no inconsiderable numbers in that cosmopolitan city.
There is no indication that the Dynastic Egyptians, who first made their appearance in the upper part of the Nile valley, utilized the quarries prior to their conquest of Lower Egypt. They were a brick−making people, and their early tombs at Abydos were constructed of brick and wood. But after King Mena had united the two kingdoms by force of arms, stone working was introduced into Upper Egypt. A granite floor was laid in the tomb of King Usephais of the First Dynasty. This sudden transition from brick making to granite working is very remarkable. It Is interesting to note, however, that the father of Usephais is recorded to have erected a stone temple at Hierakonpolis. Probably it was constructed of limestone. As much is suggested by the finish displayed in the limestone chamber of the brick tomb of King Khasekhemui of the Second Dynasty. Brick, however, continued in use until King Zoser of the Third Dynasty, which began about 2930 B.C., had constructed of stone, for his tomb, the earliest Egyptian pyramid near Memphis.
It is highly probable that it was the experienced limestone workers of the north, and not the brickmakers of Upper Egypt, who first utilized granite. The Pharaohs of the First Dynasty may have drafted southward large numbers of the skilled workers who were settled at Memphis, or in its vicinity. We seem to trace the presence of a northern colony in Upper Egypt by the mythological beliefs which obtained in the vicinity of the granite quarries at Assouan. The chief god of the First Cataract was Khnumu, who bears a close resemblance to Ptah, the artisan god of Memphis. (See Chapter XIV.)
We have now dealt with two distinct kinds of supreme deities−the Great Father, and the Great Mother with her son. It is apparent that they were conceived of and developed by peoples of divergent origin and different habits of life, who mingled in Egypt under the influence of a centralized government. The ultimate result was a fusion of religious beliefs and the formulation of a highly complex mythology which was never thoroughly systematized at any period. The Great Father then became the husband of the Great Mother, or the son god was exalted as "husband of his mother". Thus Ptah was given for wife Sekhet, the fierce lioness−headed mother, who resembles Tefnut and other feline goddesses. Osiris, the son of Isis and Nepthys, on the other hand, became "husband of his mother", or mothers; he was recognized as the father of Horus, son of Isis, and of Anubis, son of Nepthys. Another myth makes him displace the old earth god Seb, son of Nut. Osiris was also a son of Nut, an earlier form of Isis. So was Seb, who became "husband of his mother". That Seb and Osiris were fused is evident in one of the temple chants, in which Isis, addressing Osiris, says: "Thy soul possesseth the earth".
In Asia Minor, where the broad−headed patriarchal Alpine hill people blended with the long−headed matriarchal Mediterranean people, the Pappas god (Attis, Adon) became likewise the husband of the Ma goddess (Nana). A mythological scene sculptured upon a cliff at Ibreez in Cappadocia is supposed to represent the marriage of the two Great Father and Mother deities, and. it is significant to find that the sonaccompanies the self−created bride. As in Egypt, the father and the son were fused and at times are indistinguishable in the legends.
It now remains with us to deal with the worship of the solar disk. This religion was unknown to the early Mediterranean people who spread through Europe and reached the British Isles and Ireland. Nor did it rise into prominence in the land of the Pharaohs until after the erection of the Great Pyramids near Cairo. The kings did not become "sons of the sun" until the Fifth Dynasty.
There is general agreement among Egyptologists, that sun worship was imported from Asia and probably from Babylonia. It achieved fullest development on Egyptian lines at Heliopolis, "the city of the sun". There Ra, the solar deity, was first exalted as the Great Father who created the universe and all the gods and goddesses, from whom men and animals and fish and reptiles were descended. But the religion of the sun cult never achieved the popularity of the older faiths. It was embraced chiefly by the Pharaohs, the upper classes, and the foreign sections of the trading communities. The great masses of the people continued to worship the gods of the moon, earth, atmosphere, and water until Egyptian civilization perished of old age. Osiris was ever the deity of the agriculturists, and associated with him, of course, were Isis and Nepthys. Set, the red−haired god of prehistoric invaders, who slew Osiris, became the Egyptian Satan, and he was depicted as a black serpent, a black pig, a red mythical monster, or simply as a red−haired man; he was also given half−animal and half−human form.
As we have indicated, the policy adopted by the priests of the sun was to absorb every existing religious cult in Egypt. They permitted the worship of any deity, or group of deities, so long as Ra was regarded as the Great Father. No belief was too contradictory in tendency, and no myth was of too trivial a character, to be embraced in their complex theological system. As a result we find embedded, like fossils, in the religious literature of Heliopolis, many old myths which would have perished but for the acquisitiveness, of the diplomatic priests of the sun.
The oldest sun god was Tum, and he absorbed a primitive myth about Khepera, the beetle god. After Ra was introduced into Egypt the solar deity was called Ra−Tum. A triad was also formed by making Ra the noonday sun, Tum the evening sun, and Khepera the sun at dawn.
Khepera is depicted in beetle form, holding the sun disk between his two fore legs. To the primitive Egyptians the winged beetle was a sacred insect. Its association with the resurrected sun is explained by Wiedemann as follows: "The female (Ateuchus sacer) lays her eggs in a cake of dung, rolls this in the dust and makes it smooth and round so that it will keep moist and serve as food for her young; and finally she deposits it in a hole which she has scooped out in the ground; and covers it with earth. This habit had not escaped the observation of the Egyptians, although they failed to understand it, for scientific knowledge of natural history was very slight among all peoples of antiquity. The Egyptians supposed the Scarabæus to be male, and that it was itself born anew from the egg which it alone had made, and thus lived an eternal life. . . ."
The Scarabæus became a symbol of the resurrection and the rising sun. The dawn god raised up the solar disk as the beetle raised up the ball containing its eggs ere it set it a−rolling. Similarly souls were raised from death to life eternal.
Another myth represented the new−born sun as the child Horus rising from a lotus bloom which expanded its leaves on the breast of the primordial deep. Less poetic, but more popular, apparently, was the comedy about the chaos goose which was called "Great Cackler", because at the beginning she cackled loudly to the chaos gander and laid an egg, which was the sun. Ra was identified with the historical egg', but at Heliopolis the priests claimed that it was shaped by Ptah on his potter's wheel; Khnûmû, the other artisan god, was similarly credited with the work. The gander was identified with Seb, the earth god, and in the end Amon−Ra, thecombined deity of Thebes, was represented as the great chaos goose and gander in one. The "beautiful goose" was also sacred to Isis.
Of foreign origin, probably, was the myth that the sun was a wild ass, which was ever chased by the Night serpent, Haiu, as it ran round the slopes of the mountains supporting the sky. These are probably the world−encircling mountains, which, according to the modern Egyptians, are peopled by giants (genii). Belief in mountain giants survive among the hillmen of Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Europe. The most popular old Egyptian idea was that the earth was surrounded by the ocean; the same opinion obtained in Greece. The wild ass, as we have seen, was also Set, the Nilotic Satan.
A similar myth represents the sun as a great cat, which was originally a female, but was identified with Ra as a male. It fought with the Night serpent, Apep, below the sacred tree at Heliopolis, and killed it at dawn. In this myth Set is identified with the serpent.
The cat and the wild ass enjoyed considerable popularity at Heliopolis. In the Book of the Dead it is declared: "I have heard the word of power (the magic word) which the ass spake to the cat in the house of Hapt−ra", but the "password" which was used by the souls of the dead is not given.
Another belief regarding the sun had its origin apparently among the moon worshippers. It can be traced in one of the Nut pictures. Shu, the atmosphere god, stands beneath the curving body of the Great Mother and receives in one of his hands a white pool of milk, which is the sun. In the mummy picture, already referred to, the sun disk is drawn between the breasts of