X. Kklioion. — Our sources of information on this subject are very numerous, but at the same time very inadequate. Egyptian texts not bear- ing, even indirectly, upon some aspect of the religion are in an extremely small minority; yet some primary questions remain un.solved for lack of explanatory documents. Since it is wholly owing to the supremo importance attached to the preparation tor a future life that Egyptian antiquitj' has come again within our reach, it is natural that the side of religious life upon which we are best informed should be that dealing with the dead. Of the everyday religion of the [jcople we know practically notliing. W» have the names of many deities, and can enumerate their functions, attributes, and temples ; but we are quite ignorant as to the way in which they were worshipped. It has been mentioned that llomnkol
* On the still less demonslrahle assumption that the Ilehrow inimi^,'ration hod been a part of the Hyksos invasion, Mahtet lia.s<.-8 calculations which (five lllll.'i (t.r. Ramses ll.) oa tlio year, and, with the help of Itabhinical tradition, March 27 ae the da; of the Exmlus {Der Pharao dtt Hzodu*, 1806).
t See Ed. Meyer In FetUchr./. Eliirt, 75.
J Ed. Meyer, Ouch. jKg 278; WUckcn in Ftittehr./. Sbtrs 146.
I See StelndorfT, .iKg. Zeiltchr. xxvil. 41.
II See Spieifelberg In Sot. el Bxtr. xxxiv. 261.
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EGYPT
la eager to demonstrate a Babylonian origin for the civilization of E"ypt. One of his chief conten- tions is that some of the principal Egyptian deities can be proved identical with those of Babylon, from the identity of their attributes, distinctive animals, legends, etc. It is, however, as yet in many cases impossible to recognize what were the original roles and functions of the Egyptian gods, and it seems more probable that, should a pre- historic immigration from Mesopotamia ever be demonstrated, the invaders will be found to have at most adopted certain of the native divinities and combined them with corresponding figures from their own Pantheon.
No religious document of the earlier ages com- pares in importance with the great body of texts — some 4000 lines — collected and copied on the interiors of the otli and 6th Dynasty Pyramids, but in partial use, too, in all succeeding ages. Some of the documents thus brought together belong »in- doubtedly to a far earlier period, and give evidence that the official religion was even then completely developed, many of the gods having already the roles by which they are characterized throughout history, and several of the most popular myths— notably that of Osiris — being referred to as already current. Certain of the gods are con- spicuously absent from the Pyramid texts ; Amon, for exainple, who being originally but the local god of Thebes, remained obscure until hia city rose (Dyn. 11) to political importance.
Indeed the local divinities as such play a remark- ably small part in these texts. Yet the local cults were the real basis of the popular religion, which did not, so far as we can see, recognize any single unifying element before the various tribal districts had been united under the first historic Dynasties. The nomes (see above) corresponded to independent cults, each centred in the shrine of the local god, who revealed himself to his worshippers in an anincal, tree, or other material object — perhaps once the tribal totem. One aspect of the advance from this primitive stage of fetish worship can be seen in the semi-human and finally completely human representations of certain of"^ the gods in art. Yet the sacred animal was revered side by side with the anthropomorphic god, receiving, as we know, much honour even in Greek and Roman times.
Beyond the famous story of Osiris and many otherwise unknown legends, the Pyramids contain countless allusions to that cycle of myths which subsequently produced the doctrines of the other great school of theology. For as Abydos appears very early — though probably not originally — as the home of the Osirian legend and of the all- important views of future life and retribution attached to it, so does Heliopolis ('ily, I'm) become the centre of the solar theology represented by the myth of Re', the sun-god, and his daily contest with the dragon of darkness.
A number of tlie gods — many merely local deities once — had been gradually drawn within the cycles of Osiris or of Re'. The chief actors in the former story are, besides Osiris himself (whose original locality and character are very obscure), his brother S6t-Typhon, regarded now as the impersonation of darkness (when Osiris is a solar god), now as the god of the barren desert (when Osiris is the fruitful river- valley ) ; Isis, wife of Osiris, a goddess (from the Delta or Phila;) of merely mythological im- portance until the base epochs ; Horus, his son and avenger, a puzzling figure owing to the variety of his local forms ; and Thouth, the god of Hermopolis, the ally of Uorus.
The myths of the sno-god are concerned either with the phases of the sun s daily and also supposed nightly, invisible journeys, or with cosmic plieno-
mena. In the former, Horus again plays a part, now as the son of Re'; in the latter, local divinities such as Jim (Turn) of Heliopolis, or elemental gods, as ^h, Ntct, Sw, Tfnwt, are introduced. Cosmic speculations produced a variety of myths. In one heaven and earth are female and male ; in another the sky is a cow with spotted hide (the stars) ; another held the earth to be a box, with the sky for its raised lid, supported on the encircling hills or on four tree-stems. The goda and goddesses associated with Re' are 9 in number (Ennead), and are regarded as a related family, just as later tlieology grouped several of tlie local deities into family ' triads.'