THE GROUPS OF GODS. ANIMAL-HEADED GODS
In a country which has been subjected to so many inflows of various
peoples as in Egypt, it is to be expected that there would be a great
diversity of deities and a complex and inconsistent theology. To
discriminate the principal classes of conceptions of gods is the first
step toward understanding the growth of the systems. The broad
division of animal gods and human gods is obvious; and the mixed type
of human figures with animal heads is clearly an adaptation of the
animal gods to the later conceptions of a human god. Another valuable
separator lies in the compound names of gods. It is impossible to
suppose a people uniting two gods, both of which belonged to them
aboriginally; there would be no reason for two similar gods in a single
system, and we never hear in classical mythology of Hermes-Apollo or
Pallas-Artemis, while Zeus is compounded with half of the barbarian
gods of Asia. So in Egypt, when {29} we find such compounds as
Amon-Ra, or Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, we have the certainty that each name in
the compound is derived from a different race, and that a unifying
operation has taken place on gods that belonged to entirely different
sources.
We must beware of reading our modern ideas into the ancient views. As
we noticed in the first chapter, each tribe or locality seems to have
had but one god originally; certainly the more remote our view, the
more separate are the gods. Hence to the people of any one district
'the god' was a distinctive name for their own god; and it would have
seemed as strange to discriminate him from the surrounding gods, as it
would to a Christian in Europe if he specified that he did not mean
Allah or Siva or Heaven when he speaks of God. Hence we find generic
descriptions used in place of the god's name, as 'lord of heaven,' or
'mistress of turquoise,' while it is certain that specific gods as
Osiris or Hathor are in view. A generic name 'god' or 'the god' no
more implies that the Egyptians recognised a unity of all the gods,
than 'god' in the Old Testament implies that Yahvah was one with
Chemosh and Baal. The simplicity of the term only shows that no other
object of adoration was in view.
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We have already noticed the purely animal gods; following on these we
now shall describe those which were combined with a human form, then
those which are purely human in their character, next those which are
nature gods, and lastly those which are of an abstract character. The
gods which belonged to peoples who did not conquer or occupy Egypt must
be ranked as foreign gods.
+Animal-Headed Gods+.--Beside the worship of species of animals, which
we have noticed in the last chapter, certain animals were combined with
the human form. It was always the head of the animal which was united
to a human body; the only converse instance of a human head on an
animal body--the sphinxes--represented the king and not a god.
Possibly the combination arose from priests wearing the heads of
animals when personating the god, as the high priest wore the ram's
skin when personating Amon. But when we notice the frequent
combinations and love of symbolism, shown upon the early carvings, the
union of the ancient sacred animal with the human form is quite in
keeping with the views and feelings of the primitive Egyptians. Many
of these composite gods never emerged from the animal connection, and
these we must {31} regard as belonging to the earlier stage of theology.
+Seker+ was a Memphite god of the dead, independent of the worship of
Osiris and of Ptah, for he was combined with them as Ptah-Seker-Osiris;
as he maintained a place there in the face of the great worship of
Ptah, he was probably an older god, and this is indicated by his having
an entirely animal form down to a late date. The sacred bark of Seker
bore his figure as that of a mummified hawk; and along the boat is a
row of hawks which probably are the spirits of deceased kings who have
joined Seker in his journey to the world of the dead. As there are
often two allied forms of the same root, one written with _k_ and the
other with _g_,[1] it seems probable that Seker, the funeral god of
Memphis, is allied to
+Mert Seger+ (lover of silence). She was the funeral god of Thebes,
and was usually figured as a serpent. From being only known in animal
form, and unconnected with any of the elaborated theology, it seems
that we have in this goddess a primitive deity of the dead. It
appears, then, that the gods of the great cemeteries were known {32} as
Silence and the Lover of Silence, and both come down from the age of
animal deities. Seker became in late times changed into a hawk-headed
human figure.
Two important deities of early times were +Nekhebt+, the vulture
goddess of the southern kingdom, centred at Hierakonpolis, and +Uazet+,
the serpent goddess of the northern kingdom, centred at Buto. These
appear in all ages as the emblems of the two kingdoms, frequently as
supporters on either side of the royal names; in later times they
appear as human goddesses crowning the king.
+Khnumu+, the creator, was the great god of the cataract. He is shown
as making man upon the potter's wheel; and in a tale he is said to
frame a woman. He must belong to a different source from that of Ptah
or Ra, and was the creative principle in the period of animal gods, as
he is almost always shown with the head of a ram. He was popular down
to late times, where amulets of his figure are often found.
+Tahuti+ or +Th[=o]th+ was the god of writing and learning, and was the
chief deity of Hermopolis. He almost always has the head of an ibis,
the bird sacred to him. The baboon is also a frequent emblem of his,
but he is never figured with the {33} baboon head. The ibis appears
standing upon a shrine as early as on a tablet of Mena; Th[=o]th is the
constant recorder in scenes of the judgment, and he appears down to
Roman times as the patron of scribes. The eighteenth dynasty of kings
incorporated his name as Th[=o]thmes, 'born of Th[=o]th,' owing to
their Hermopolite origin.
+Sekhmet+ is the lion goddess, who represents the fierceness of the
sun's heat. She appears in the myth of the destruction of mankind as
slaughtering the enemies of Ra. Her only form is that with the head of
a lioness. But she blends imperceptibly with
+Bastet+, who has the head of a cat. She was the goddess of Pa-bast or
Bubastis, and in her honour immense festivals were there held. Her
name is found in the beginning of the pyramid times; but her main
period of popularity was that of the Shishaks who ruled from Bubastis,
and in the later times images of her were very frequent as amulets. It
is possible from the name that this feline goddess, whose foreign
origin is acknowledged, was the female form of the god Bes, who is
dressed in a lion's skin, and also came in from the east (see chap. ix).
+Mentu+ was the hawk-god of Erment south of Thebes, who became in the
eighteenth to {34} twentieth dynasties especially the god of war. He
appears with the hawk head, or sometimes as a hawk-headed sphinx; and
he became confused with Ra and with Amon.
+Sebek+ is figured as a man with the crocodile's head; but he has no
theologic importance, and always remained the local god of certain
districts.
+Heqt+, the goddess symbolised by the frog, was the patron of birth,
and assisted in the infancy of the kings. She was a popular and
general deity not mainly associated with particular places.
+Hershefi+ was the ram-headed god of Herakleopolis, but is never found
outside of that region.
We now come to three animal-headed gods who became associated with the
great Osiride group of human gods. +Set+ or +Setesh+ was the god of
the prehistoric inhabitants before the coming in of Horus. He is
always shown with the head of a fabulous animal, having upright square
ears and a long nose. When in entirely animal form he has a long
upright tail. The dog-like animal is the earliest type, as in the
second dynasty; but later the human form with animal head prevailed.
His worship underwent great fluctuations. At first he was the great
god of all Egypt; but his worshippers were gradually driven out by the
followers of Horus, {35} as described in a semi-mythical history. Then
he appears strongly in the second dynasty, the last king of which
united the worship of Set and Horus. In the early formulae for the
dead he is honoured equally with Horus. After suppression he appears
in favour in the early eighteenth dynasty; and even gave the name to
Sety I and II of the nineteenth dynasty. His part in the Osiris myth
will be noted below.
+Anpu+ or +Anubis+ was originally the jackal guardian of the cemetery,
and the leader of the dead in the other world. Nearly all the early
funeral formulae mention Anpu on his hill, or Anpu lord of the
underworld. As the patron of the dead he naturally took a place in the
myth of Osiris, the god of the dead, and appears as leading the soul
into the judgment of Osiris.
+Horus+ was the hawk-god of Upper Egypt, especially of Edfu and
Hierakonpolis. Though originally an independent god, and even keeping
apart as Hor-ur, 'Horus the elder,' throughout later times, yet he was
early mingled with the Osiris myth, probably as the ejector of Set who
was also the enemy of Osiris. He is sometimes entirely in hawk form;
more usually with a hawk's head, and in later times he appears as the
infant son of Isis entirely human in form. {36} His special function
is that of overcoming evil; in the earliest days the conqueror of Set,
later as the subduer of noxious animals, figured on a very popular
amulet, and lastly, in Roman times, as a hawk-headed warrior on
horseback slaying a dragon, thus passing into the type of St. George.
He also became mingled with early Christian ideas; and the lock of hair
of Horus attached to the cross originated the _chi rho_ monogram of
Christ.
We have now passed briefly over the principal gods which combined the
animal and human forms. We see how the animal form is generally the
older, and how it was apparently independent of the human form, which
has been attached to it by a more anthropomorphic people. We see that
all of these gods must be accredited to the second stratum, if not to
the earliest formation, of religion in Egypt. And we must associate
with this theology the cemetery theory of the soul which preceded that
of the Osiris or Ra religions.
[1] For instance the words _sek_, to move; _seg_, to go; _sek_, to
destroy; _sega_, to break; _kauy_, cow; _gaua_, ox; _keba_ and _geba_,
sky, etc.
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