RELIGION.
CX1X
human powers were worshipped without any reference to special
localities. Among these universally recognized deities were Re, the
sun, Horus, the sun-god, and Thout, the moon-god. Moreover, the
belief that an evil spirit dwelt in the water and revealed itself to
human eyes as a crocodile seems to have been by no means con¬
fined to special districts. But these primaeval gods were frequently
worshipped also as local deities, as the patrons of special towns and
districts, where they were supposed to have taken a more limited
section of humanity under their special protection.
Besides the local gods there was also a considerable number of
lesser deities, daemons, and spirits, who exercised influence over
liuinan beings, helping or harming at particular junctures, and
who therefore must be propitiated. Among these rank, for example,
the different goddesses of childbirth, who assisted women and could
either cut short or protract their pangs; Bes, the god of the toilet, etc.
[n a few cases unusually distinguished mortals, revered after death
is saints, gradually came to be included among the gods, as, e.^.,
Imhotep of Memphis, Amenhotep, the son of Hapu, etc.
The ancient Egyptians originally represented these deities to
themselves under very crude forms, which recall the fetishism still
prevailing among uncivilized African tribes at the present day.
Thus Osiris of Tetu was believed to dwell in a post; a sycamore-
;ree was believed to he the abode of Hathor, and a nameless deity
was believed to dwell in an olive-tree. But the belief that gods chose
mimals as their abode and revealed themselves in the form of ani¬
mals was much more generally spread; cows, bulls, rams, croco¬
diles, cats, lions, ichneumons, frogs, certain kinds of fishes, ibises,
hawks, falcons were all believed to he thus chosen by one or other
jod. The sacred animal, in which the god inhered, was frequently
distinguished by special markings; it was kept in the temple,
worshipped as divine, and after its death was interred with all
honour, while its place in the temple was taken by another. The
best known example of this worship is afforded by the Apis, the
sacred bull of Ptah, worshipped at Memphis. The Apis was black
with white spots; on the forehead it bore a white triangle and on
the right flank a crescent. Similarly a light-coloured bull (Mnevis)
was sacred to Atum of Heliopolis, the jackal to Anubis, god of the
lead, the ibis to Thout, the sparrow-hawk to Horus, etc. At a later
jeriod, as the religion became less and less a living reality and
nore and more dependent upon external ceremonies, the worship
)f sacred animate was carried farther. Not only was the individual
mimal preserved in the temple revered as holy, but all animals of
;he same kind were regarded as divine; they might not be killed
ivithin the region sacred to them, and when they died they were
lolemnly interred in special cemeteries. The cat-cemeteries of
Subastis and Benihasan, the crocodile-graves of Ombos, the ibis
graves of Ashmunen, etc., date from this late epoch of exaggerated
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