The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

[98] Evidence from other sources, no less than the monuments, confirms these accounts of Diodorus and Plutarch. The monuments exhibit the Apis with the sun's disk and the royal serpent between his horns, and Greek papyri tell us that the keeper with whom the Apis was placed was known as the "Herdman of Osorapi," i.e. of Osiris-Apis (Osarhapi).[99] We may assume that this Osorapi was the Serapis or Sarapis of the Greeks, and the temple of Serapis a temple of Osorapi. The sphinxes buried in sand at Memphis have been discovered on the plateau on which the inhabitants buried their dead to the west of the ruins of this city. They are found here in two rows as often before the entrance of temples between Abusir and Sakkarah. It is by following this path of sphinxes that the discoverers were recently enabled to find the ruins of the temple of Serapis, i.e. the temple of the grave of Osiris-Apis, and the sepulchral chambers of the Apis-bulls hewn in the rocks around it. The oldest of the tombs hitherto opened belongs, according to the inscriptions, to an Apis buried in the time of Amenophis III. (1524–1488 B.C.). Above ground rises a massive structure, truncated at the top, and decorated with reliefs. This is the mortuary chapel. A sloping passage, the entrance to which lies before this structure, leads beneath the earth to a sepulchral chamber, where stands a sarcophagus with the mummy of the Apis. The relief on the structure above exhibits the king bringing a drink-offering to the Apis. Beside the picture of the bull we read, "The living Osiris, the lord of the sky: he is Tum (p. 51): his feathers are upon him: he gives life for evermore." On the sarcophagus of an Apis buried in a similar tomb in the reign of Horus (1455–1443 B.C.), we read:—"Apis-Osiris, the great deity who dwells in Amenti, the ever-living lord." King Ramses II. (1388–1322 B.C.), in the second half of his reign, caused a broad gallery to be excavated under the rock, on both sides of which chambers of about twenty feet high were subsequently cut out as occasion required; in these were placed the remains of the dead Apis-bulls in sarcophagi of basalt or granite. When the gallery of Ramses was no longer sufficient, Psammetichus I. caused a gallery still larger and more beautiful to be excavated, and provided with handsome cells. After Darius had extended this second gallery, the bodies of the bulls were buried in the chambers of it down to the times of the latest Ptolemies. As yet sixty-four tombs in all have been discovered; but of these only four were uninjured. All the rest had been already opened by the Arabs, plundered, and in part destroyed. The inscriptions on the tombs in the galleries give the same representation of the Apis as the older sepulchres. He is "the Osiris again restored to life," the "revived Apis of Ptah," "the living Apis, which is Osiris abiding in Amenti," the "second Ptah." On a sarcophagus we read:—"Here is Osiris Apis, who dwells in Amenti, the great God, the eternal Lord, the ruler for all time." Another inscription remarks "that he had been sought for three months in the valleys of Upper Egypt, and on the islands of Lower Egypt. When found he had been brought to his throne in the temple, to his father Ptah, in such and such a year, on such and such a day. The happy duration of his life had been six-and-twenty years; then the deity had been carried to burial, as he had established himself in the good Amenti in order to unite himself on his eternal throne with the house of centuries." Or, as it is said in another inscription, "the holiness of Apis has been brought to unite himself with the good Amenti."[100]

      By this constantly renewed incarnation in the form of a bull, the emblem of generation, the god of life gave the Egyptians a guarantee for the continuance of his grace, and the perpetuation of their life in this world and the next. Whether other forms of incarnation beside this were ascribed to the god cannot be determined.

At the time when the Nile began to rise, or shortly before it, there appeared in Egypt from year to year a peculiar kind of heron, distinguished by two long feathers on the back of the head.[101] This was known to the Egyptians as Bennu. This bird, which announced or caused the fertilisation or new life of the land, could not but belong to the god of life. The whole race, or a select specimen, appears in special connection with Osiris, and the temple at Heliopolis. In the oldest portions of the Book of the Dead, which belong to the time of the Amenemha and Sesurtesen, we find, "I am that great Bennu of On" (Heliopolis); and the commentary adds, "Bennu is Osiris, viz., the Osiris in On."[102] The inscriptions say of the great Bennu that "it was self-begotten," that "it caused the divisions of time to arise."[103] This production of himself signifies the creative power of Osiris, and the origin of the seasons might well be attributed to the bird which regularly appeared announcing the return of the period of fertilization. With the cultus of the Bennu at Heliopolis is connected the story of the phœnix. Herodotus tells us that he was informed by the inhabitants of Heliopolis that a bird, which, if it resembled the pictures, was gold-coloured and red, and like an eagle in shape and size, came from Arabia to their city once in every 500 years, and buried the corpse of his father in myrrh in the sanctuary of the sun-god.[104] From later accounts we learn that the phœnix, on reaching the age of 500 years, prepared a funeral pile of spices, and burned himself upon it; then he recreated himself, and carried the remains of his old body to Heliopolis.[105] Tacitus says: "In the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius (i.e. in the year 34 A.D.) after a lapse of centuries, the phœnix appeared in Egypt. This bird, which was sacred to the sun, returned after an interval of 500 years, according to the most common accounts; according to others after an interval of 1461 years. The first phœnix appeared in the reign of Sesostris; the second under Amasis; the third in the time of the third Ptolemy; and as there was only a lapse of 250 years between this Ptolemy and the reign of Tiberius, some regarded the last phœnix as a spurious one."[106] Ælian remarks: "The Egyptians are not agreed when the 500 years are completed; and the priests were at variance whether the bird would appear then or later, and when he ought to come; but amid their dissensions the bird suddenly appeared at the right time."[107] Pliny informs us that the cycle of the great year was connected with the life of this bird, and with his return the stars came again into their old position.[108] Horapollo maintains that the phœnix was a symbol of the sun, and signified one who returned after a long time from a far country.[109] There is no doubt, therefore, that the alleged appearance of the phœnix signified to the Egyptians the close of an astronomical period. On the monuments the planet Venus is described as the "star of Bennu-Osiris." As the morning star announced the day, the light returning out of darkness, it could easily be appropriated to Osiris, and that period might be connected with the cycles of the planet Venus.[110]

The selected cats of the sun-god and his daughter, the goddess of Bubastis, the hawk of Horus, the ibis of Thoth, the vulture of Mut, were regarded by the Egyptians with no less veneration than the bulls of Osiris. In a hymn to a male cat, which was kept for Ra at Heliopolis—the hymn is to be found on a memorial pillar of the fourth century B.C.—we read: "Thy head is the head of the sun-god; thy nose is the nose of Thoth, the twice mighty lord of Hermopolis. Thy ears are the ears of Osiris, who hears the voice of all who call upon him; thy mouth is the mouth of the god Tum, the lord of life, he has preserved thee from every stain. Thy heart is the heart of Ptah; he has purified thee from every stain of evil in thy members: thy teeth are the teeth of the god Chunsu (the moon-god). Thy thighs are the thighs of the god Horus, the avenger of his father Osiris, who has retaliated upon Set the mischief he purposed against Osiris."[111] Selected crocodiles—and even the crocodile was worshipped, at least in some regions, as in the Thebais and around the lake of Moeris—were to be found at Thebes and Arsinoe. "For both these animals," says Herodotus "(and they are so tame that they allow