Not all cosmic doctrines, however, were con- cerned with the Heliopolitan gods; various local fods had once been regarded as creators, e.ff. ^rn772ic-Chnoubi3 who, in the clay districts near the Cataracts, had formed the world upon a potter's wheel ; and Ptah of Memphis was a similar artisan god.
Other and very ancient divinities were the local earth and harvest gods, e.g. MSn of Coptos and (perhaps) Amon of Thebes. Others, again, were water deities, e.ff. Sbk-Soachoa of the Fayyftm and Ombos — for the same god is frequently met with in several localities, though originally proper, no doubt, to but one of them. Several were guardians of the local cemeteries, e.g. Sokaris at Memphis, Anubis at Siut, 'The Lord of those in the West ' at Abydos.
The doctrines and practices of which the Osirian legend was at once the pattern and consequence are chiefly to be studied — beyond very numerous
Eassages in the Pyramid texts — in the great eterogeneous collection of incantations known to us as the ' Book of the Dead,' but to the Egyptians probably as ('the Book of) coming out from (i.e. departing from) the Day and from the Necropolis.' The work is composed of texts (' chapters'), some as ancient as those of the Pyramids, others much later, and was intended as a guide through the various difficulties, and a magical protection against the enemies to be encountered by the dead, with whom a copy of it was buried. Some of the texts seem to be remnants of primitive rituals, but all had been by the time of their definite collection (beginning of the New Kingdom) edited for the use of the dead himself. It is this more than once repeated editing which has rendered the Book for the most part unintelligible to us. It may be asserted that none of the older chapters are now available in their first simplicity. The oldest MS& (Dyn. 12, 13) already show the glosses of more than one redactor, and each successive gloss seems but to obscure the original text.
Several totally divergent views. Solar and Osirian, as to the future life are represented in the work. The soul is, according to some chapters, to take the form of a bird and quit tlie tomb, and may accompany the sun bark on its heavenly journey ; elsewhere it is regarded as appearing before Osiris, and, after the famous 'negative confession,' receiv- ing merited justice. If judged 'of true voice,' i.e. correctly pronouncing the potent ma^ic formulae, the deceased proceeds to the ' Fields of I'rw,' and spends eternity in a verr materialistic paradise, conceived upon the moael of rural life in Egypt.
The elements in man which survived death were four : b' soul, ihw spirit (?), ^' ybt shadow, and k' double. What were intended by the first three of tliese it is difficult to say ; the fourth is that of which we hear most ; for its maintenance was the object of all the funerary rites which from the earliest times occupied so much attention among all classes. The double, in appearance the exact counterpart of the man, after accompanying him
EGYPT
EGYPTIAN, THE
667
through life, lived on in the tomb so long as the corpse remained intact, and the piety of the Bursivors provided sufficient noiuishment. Hence the processes of mummification, the inscriptions whose magic could, if supplies failed, call up food, the portrait-statues into which the double could enter.
Certain of the Pyramid texts and recent ex- cavations do indeed recall an age in which funer- ary practices diO'ered much from those of his- toric times — an age in which cannibalism and human sacrifice were not extinct, and in which all but the most rudimentary embalmment was unknown.
Confusion of doctrines is not characteristic of the funerary literature alone ; it is common to all aspects of the Egyptian religion. The priestly tendency, discernible from the first TheVjan supre- macy onwards, to assimilate all secondary deities to those at the bead of the Pantheon, and, finally, to teach that all were but manifestations of the supreme deity (i.e. the sun-god), introduced, indeed, a kind of order, though for us the course of the foregoing development is thereby but obscured. The supremacy of the Theban Amon, assimilated in the farst place to the sun-god, led to his identi- fication with such a host of other deities, while the wealth and power of his priests became so threaten- ing a dauiger to the state, that Amenophis IV., urged perhaps by the ancient hierarchy of Ileliopolis, was tempted to a reform which should replace as the state religion the worship of Amon and his asso- ciated divinities by that of the sun's orb, itn, alone. This is the only conscious movement towards monotheism recorded in the religious history of Eeypt. It is not necessary to seek in it the retfexion of some of the foreign influences of the time ; the itn was a recognized aspect of the sun- god in Egypt in previous periods. The reformed doctrine contained conceptions far more lofty and enlightened than those of the ancient religion ; yet it had but an ephemeral success, and became extinct shortly after the reforming king's death.
LITERATURE.— (il) Obnbrai, -.—Dftcript. de Tigy^te. k colossal publication, the result of the Napotcoiiic expedi'liou, con- toining monographs upon many branches of K|^^)-ptolo^, ancient and modem TlSOO and lbl7); Wilkinson, Mann, ami Oust., ed. Birch(1878); Erman, .HgupUn u. Jigi/pt. Lelim (1SS5 IT.), super- sedes in most respects the foregoing worit; Ebers, C'«:ero7i«(lHStJ) ; Baedeker, by Stcindorfl (1897). (B) Land :— On Geology, Zittel, in Baedtker, [/nteraiji/ptenS by Ebere (18S5) ; first part of De Kor^n, Itecht. I. Uj Originen de V&g. (189(5) ; chaps, in Fl. I'ctne, Ten Vearg' Digging, Uiutory I. and in Ninth Or. Congr. (1893). On Metals, Lcpsius, IHe Melalle (1872), and articles by Montelius, M. Berthelot, etc (C) Fau.va and Flora :— The respective chapters in Baedeker (1886 and 1897); articles by V. Loret In liec. de Trav. (Paris); chapters of the works under A (above). — (D) Etiinoloot: — J. de Morgan, Re^hs. t. lee OrUfinee (1899); Sergi, Anthrop. de la Slirpe CainUica (1897); U. ilarl- mans, V6tker A/rikae (1879) ; Amt^lineau, Notiv. fouxl. d'Ahydoi (1896): articles by Virchow; chapters by Schweinfurth in Baedeker; chapters tn the works of Ennan, Mospero. Ed. Meyer, Petrie. (ii") Lanouaob :— Ennan, A]gypt. Oram. (1894), em. for classical periods ; do. Neruig. Gram. (1880), for the New Kingdom; Brug8t:h, Oram. d^nctiqueiX^U), works and articles by Kevillout, Krall, W, Max Muller, J. J. Hess, for language of Saite and following epochs ; O. Steindorff, Kapt. Oram. (1894), for language of Christian epoch ; Dictionary, Brugsch, IHct. hiingl. (1807 fl.). For Semitic afflnitifs, Erman in XDilG xlvi. ; Bondi, Dem Ilebr, Spracfuw. angph. Lehnvorter (\SHf)) ; llommel in Beitr. i. Aesyr. ii., and in Ni/ith Or. Congr. (isii;), cf. Mrdnnow in Z. Ae». viii.). For African atllnities, I'nuLurius Beilr. i. .\ttyr. U. (/•') PaorANH LiTKRAti'aB i— Chapters in the work.s of Ennan, Maspero ; Maspero, Contre pope. (1889) ; Petrie, E^iyp. TaUe (1890) ; Ani61incau, Conlee de dig. ehrH. (1888). (',) t;nRONui.ouy :— Le|«iu8, Kuuiytlmch (ISiW); Bnigsch-Iiouri- ant, Liore J/-« Aow (1887) ; Wislicenus, vidlron. C'Arwwi. (189.')) ; articles by Mahler in J<g. Z. rxvU. xxviii, xxxii., and Der I'harao d. Ezod. (189«) ; article* by Petrie and chapters in his Uietory; O. Torr, lletnphit and Myeenas (189fl, cf. Myres In Vlnet. Rev. 1897) ; for Manctho, Ungor, Chroiwt. d. Man. (1867). (//) UiBTORT :— Maspero, lliet. anc. d. peiip. de COr. clatt. (2 vole. 189.^-90, transl. SPCK) ; Ed. Meyer, Geech. d. Allert. i. ii. ri884, 1893); do. QacK d. Alt. ^n. (1887); Erman, ^igypten 'paetim) ; Petrie, Hist, of Kg. 1. U. (1894, 1890) ; Wiedemann, £qypt. Gexh. (1884 f!.) ; do. Queh. v. Attdg. (1891), with special