in her name, which seems to be identical with that of the Phoenician Athene, Onga, Onka, who was also worshipped by the Thebans and Gephyreans.248

The second goddess who must be mentioned here is the frog-headed goddess "Hek," whose name is the hieroglyphic of frog, with the addition of "Mistress." The representation with the head of the frog reminds us of a similar one of Phtah, of whom we shall shortly have to speak. She appears upon a monument of the 12th Dynasty in the British Museum as companion and consort of Kneph.

The third and last is Seti (arrow, sunbeam), the goddess with the arrow (Copt. Sate). She is represented with the upper crown and full pschent, which is encircled by cow's-horns. She accompanies Kneph in the Ex-votos at the Cataracts and in the island of Sete, now Sehéle, between Philæ and Elephantina.249 She is also sitting by him on a sandstone tablet from Thebes, formerly in Lord Belmore's possession, now in the British Museum (Champ. xix. n.). In the quarries of Elephantina, where there are inscriptions of the time of Caracalla containing the names of Jupiter Hammon, Cenubis, and Juno, those in the Egyptian language contain that of Sate. In a Latin inscription at Syene discovered by Belzoni, Jupiter Chnubis and Juno Regina are mentioned. There is also a statue at Philæ, dedicated to Chnuphis and Sati, by Ptolemy II. Euergetes. Sati is presenting Amenoph II. to Chnuphis in the temple dedicated to him in Elephantina; consequently as his ministra as it were (Champ. xix. 19. a.). On the oldest monuments (of the 12th Dynasty), however, there is by the side of Chnumis a goddess with the frog's head, whose name sounds like Hekt (the Queen). As we do not find her, however, in the great temple representations, we consider her as a symbolical form of Sate.

248 Pausan. ix. 12. Comp. Creuzer, Symbolik.

249 See Letronne, Rech. p. 341. 480.

Her emblem is the crown-as a general rule, only the upper (white) one, the symbol of the upper hemisphere, in the physical acceptation of later times

with two cow-horns coming out of its sides. As "daughter of Ra," she would more properly belong to the second order; but this may be a later addition, and Ra herself certainly belongs to the eight oldest deities. Horapollo (i. 11.) contrasts her (Hera) with Neith' (Athena), in reference to the two sides of the hemisphere. She rules over the upper, as Neith rules over the lower firmament.

She appears as a waiting-woman in the remarkable representation of Wilkinson (Mat. Hier. xvi. B.), which show a connexion with the myth of Isis-Horus.

VI. PTH, Ptah, Phthah, Vulcan.

Pth, expressed in Coptic Ptah, in Greek as Phtha, appears on the monuments with Chnuphis and Neith, and he is clearly connected in the complete Egyptian system with them both. We shall consider first of all his hieroglyphic peculiarity. His ordinary mode of representation is as a god holding before him with both hands the so-called Nilometer, or emblem of stability, which is combined with the sign of life, and Kukufa-sceptre. He wears on his head a cap peculiar to himself; his flesh is green; a string comes out of the drapery in the neck, from which is appended a bell-shaped tassel, or counterpoise of a collar: but immediately under the breast commences a mummy-like envelope, which fastens tight round the whole body down to the feet, so that the hands only appear out of it.

The Nilometer is admitted to be the symbol of sta. bility, duration. Among his titles, the most conspicuous are, "the Lord of the gracious (beautiful) countenance," and "the Lord of truth." The goddess Truth (ma) is

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standing before him as his daughter.250 The form of the pedestal also on which we often find him (the cubit, ma) expresses the character of truth. Still, according to Herodotus's statement, this was not the temple representation in the great shrine of Ptah at Memphis. It was a dwarfish figure, like the Phoenician idols, the Pataikoi, on their ships. We find such figures of Ptah in the form of Pataikoi 251-a word which corresponds in all its consonants with Ptah 252-under several types as little amulets, and also in the funereal papyri. Ptah is represented in them almost always with the skull-cap of a priest, like the pilos of Vulcan.

In the Pataikos form he is sometimes found without any further distinguishing mark (Champ. viii. 1.); sometimes on a crocodile with a scarabæus on his head, holding two snakes, Ptah-Sokari (viii. 2.); sometimes as the letter a, with the scarabæus, and the inscription ter (cheper) (viii. 3.); sometimes as the Phallic God, holding the Priapus in his hand, and raising the other as if to seize the flagellum. Sometimes the feet are turned quite inwards, and in the Ritual Ptah is twice represented as bow-legged or bent-legged, which may or may not assimilate with the lame Hephaestos. Sometimes the head is double, that of a man on one side, and of a hawk on the other; inscription, Ptah Sokari (viii. 4—6.). There is a similar Pataikos in Birch's work 253 with a bald head, as these hideous figures are described by

252 Ptah has no Egyptian derivation, nor even any analogy with any thing. PTX, "to open," in Hebrew, differs from PTH only in being more strongly aspirated. Ptah is the great Revealer, the great Cabir, in Egyptian ūn, ūūn. How Movers (The Phoenicians, i. p. 653.) can derive the name from Taráσow, is as inexplicable as that so circumspect a critic as the investigator of the historical contents of the Books of Chronicles could make such unsound, unmethodical, untenable attempts at false, mystic, and allegoric interpretation. 253 Gallery, Pl. 7. fig. 18.

Epiphanius, who, however, is mistaken in calling them Harpocrates.

The representation as Phthah-Sokari, and Ptah-Osiri (likewise a later combination), with the hawk-face, upper crown, and Ammon's feathers, and in human form, in which case he has sometimes all the ornaments of Ammon, sometimes only the skull-cap (Wilk. Mat. Hier. xix.), is probably only an embellishment of this idol. He is then called Sokari-Osiri, or Ptah-SokariOsiri. We give one of these numerous idols from Wilkinson (xxiv. 2.). Similar representations in the funereal papyri have the inscription Ptah-Sokari-Osiri by their side. The god Sokari-Osiri is Osiris, the

Lord of the Lower World. As such he is called PtahTatanen.254 In this signification he has frequently the goat's horns, the disk of the sun, and two tall feathers. In one of these representations at Phila (of the time of the Romans), he appears simply with the skull-cap, sitting, with his legs free, on a potter's wheel, and forming an egg. 255 The inscription runs-Ptah-Tatanen, "the father of the beginnings, moving the egg of the sun and moon, first of the gods of the Upper World." He is also said, on a tablet of the 18th Dynasty (Br. Mus. 286.), to "adjust the world in his hand," or "by his hand."

Hence we may venture with Horapollo and Plutarch 256 to consider the scarabæus, one of his symbols, the image of the world and its creation, as well as the frog and other symbols of the development of man. In an inscription given by Champollion (Gr. Eg., p. 314.), Phthah is called "inventor," or rather creator, "of all things in this world." At all events Iamblichus is right in saying in the well-known passage "the god

254 Birch, Gallery of Antiquities.

255 Ros. Mon. del Culto, xxi.

256 Hor. i. 10. Plut. de Is. et Os. c. 10.

who creates with truth, is called Ptah." Lastly, also, the idea of the formation of the mundane egg by Ptah must be admitted to derive from an Old Egyptian symbol, although we find it applied originally to Ra, and not to Ptah.

The representation of the god with the scarabæus on his head (Wilk. Mat. Hier. xx.) and the name Ter-ra (Cheper-ra), or even that exhibiting a scarabæus-headed god with the same inscription (Champ. xii. 13.), is to be explained by the scarabæus and frog being the symbols of the creator of the world. A god with the sun's disk and Uræus (Wilk. xx.) is simply called Ter (Cheper). In all these we cannot do otherwise than recognise a form of Ptah.

This is no less clear in the representations of the frog-god, a god with the frog head, whose appellation is Ka (offering, the arms upraised), "the father of the fathers of the gods:" an epithet given also to the Nile.257

The frog-headed goddess 258, appears in the monuments of the 12th Dynasty as the companion of Kneph, and may therefore be a form of Sate; at all events she is no independent goddess.

His principal temple was at Memphis, built by Menes contemporaneously with the city, and afterwards enlarged and embellished by succeeding kings. Herodotus and the later Greek historians saw it still in all its pomp in their time.

VII. NT, Neith, Athena.

Neith belongs to Ptah, and is found by his side. The name is said to signify "I came from myself." 259 Isis is often so called. In as far as the Creator of the world too is considered in his original acceptation, as the minister or ministra, the organ of God, the female representation

257 Wilkinson, xxv. Comp. iv. 256., Horap. i. 25. 259 Hoov ' éμavris (Plut. de Is. et Os. c. 62.).

258 Ibid.