The Sphinx, a lion with human head, was an embodiment of Ra-Harmachis, who is represented in this manifestation-form by the great Sphinx of Gizeh. The Sphinx, further, represents more generally the form assumed by various deities
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when they descend to the earth as watchers. The figures representing sphinxes generally have the features of the dedicator of the particular sphinx, i.¢., for the most part, the features of a king. The majority of sphinxes are of the male sex. But if the deity portrayed should be female, and the dedicator of the monument a woman, the sphinx may also have a female form. The sphinx was originally unwinged; it was only under Asiatic influence that it came to assume wings.
The cow was an embodiment of Hathor and of other maternal deities.—The serpent was the form of embodiment of several deities of the tomb dis- tricts—above all, of Mer-seker (see above, p. 189+), as well as of harvest deities like Rennut and many others.
(f) In the Nile valley there is less frequent men- tion of the worship of plants and trees than one might expect in the case of an essentially agri- cultural people. This deficiency of statement is explicable on the ground that the cult of vege- table life was part of the popular religion, and only found occasional admittance into the temple cult. Even when the latter was the case, one can always see clearly how loose was the connexion of the cult of plants with that of the great gods, and how little, in consequence, this connexion was main- tained.
Thus, a religiously important tree is the sycomore which stood in the West on the way to the world beyond, and from which a goddess, who is more or less identified with the tree, supplied the dead with food and drink for their wanderings. This notion took its rise from the actually existing isolated trees growing at the commencement of the desert, in small hollows where water is found. Under the shadow of these the shepherd or the huntsman would seek rest, and express his grati- tude by paying veneration to them. A great deal of vacillation is shown as to the particular deity with whom this sycomore is to be brought into relation. The one usually selected was Hathor, the mistress of the West, but besides her we find Isis, Selkit, Neith, Nut (ef. Wiede- mann, fec. de trav.:rel. a CEgypt. xvii. 10f.). Within the sacred domain of the temples there were groves, the trees of which were occasionally venerated in the same sense as everything else connected with the temple. In the Ptolemaic period an attempt was made systematically to establish this veneration in the case of all temples, and thus to include the various Species of sacred trees in the lists of materia sacra. Thus in 24 nomes we find the Nile acacia, in 17 the Cordia mye (2), in 16 the Zizyphus Spina Christi, in 1 or 2 the sycomore, the Juniperus Pheenicea, and the Tamarix Nilotica. In all, 10 species of trees appear as sacred. Of these as many as 3 are some- times venerated in the same nome (Moldenke, Veber die in altigyp. Teaten erwihnten Baume, 8 ft.). So far as we know, the only tree that played a con- siderable réle in the temple cult was one that grew at Heliopolis near the spot where the sun-cat killed the Apepi serpent. From this tree the Phoenix took flight, and on its leaves Thoth or Safech inscribed the name of the king in order thus to endue him with everlasting life (cf. Lefé- bure, Sphina, v. 1 ff., 65 ae)
The most surprising cireumstance in connexion with the whole subject of plant worship is that the tree which is most characteristic of the Nile valley, namely the palm, makes its appearance only very rarely in the cultus inscriptions. Thus, the palm is found instead of the sycomore of Nut upon a relief now at Berlin (No. 7322); and a stele at Dorpat (PSBA xvi. 152) mentions the goddess Ta-urt of the Dum palm ; but such notices are only exceptional.
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With greater frequency than sacred trees we encounter the special gods of corn, who, as noted above, are sometimes assigned to the train of the Nile god. Also the dogma of the resurrection of Osiris is brought into connexion with plant life, and Osiris awakening to new life is portrayed as a mummy lying upon its back, and with corn sprout- ing from it (Papyr. Louvre, v. 27, in Pierret, Dogme de la resurrection ; relief at Phils, in Rosellini, Mon, det culto, p. 23). Allusions to this doctrine are found as early as the Middle Empire (Birch, Coffin of Amamu, pl. 276), and then repeatedly in the Book of the Dead. Even in the Osiris festivals of late times the sprouting of grains of corn from the figure of Osiris still plays a part; and in a tomb of the time of Amenophis II. proof has been discovered by Loret (cf. Sphinaz, iii. 106 f,) that it was occasionally the practice then, in connexion with burial, to make corn grow from an image of Osiris as a kind of pledge of human immor- tality.
(g) Of city divinities there must have been a con- siderable number, but only one of them is men- tioned somewhat frequently, namely the goddess of Thebes, who was conceived of as an armed woman, and who appears in two forms, namely Uas-t ‘Thebes,’ and ‘she who is there in sight of her lord’ (originally the necropolis of Drah abu Neggah ; cf. Maspero, Et. de myth. ii. 403). As yet, we know nothing of temples erected in honour of such personifications. Even a foreign city deity found admittance into the Egyptian pantheon, namely the goddess Kadesh, who derived her name from a Syrian city on the Orontes, and who comes before us as queen of heaven, mistress of all gods, daughter of Ra. She is portrayed, with a front view, as a woman standing upon a lion. To what foreign deity she originally answered, whether a Semitic Astarte in her local form as worshipped at Kadesh, or a Hittite god- dess, cannot be determined, but the fashion of her portraiture makes the latter supposition the more probable.