THE LEGEND OF HERU-BEHUTET AND THE WINGED DISK.
The text of this legend is cut in hieroglyphics on the walls of the
temple of Edfu in Upper Egypt, and certain portions of it are
illustrated by large bas-reliefs. Both text and reliefs were published
by Professor Naville in his volume entitled Mythe d'Horus, fol., plates
12-19, Geneva, 1870. A German translation by Brugsch appeared in the
Ahandlungen der Gottinger Akademie, Band xiv., pp. 173-236, and another
by Wiedemann in his Die Religion, p. 38 ff. (see the English
translation p. 69 ff.). The legend, in the form in which it is here
given, dates from the Ptolemaic Period, but the matter which it
contains is far older, and it is probable that the facts recorded in it
are fragments of actual history, which the Egyptians of the late period
tried to piece together in chronological order. We shall see as we
read that the writer of the legend as we have it was not well
acquainted with Egyptian history, and that in his account of the
conquest of Egypt he has confounded one god with another, and mixed up
historical facts with mythological legends to such a degree that his
meaning is frequently uncertain. The great fact which he wished to
describe is the conquest of Egypt by an early king, who, having subdued
the peoples in the South, advanced northwards, and made all the people
whom he conquered submit to his yoke. Now the King of Egypt was always
called Horus, and the priests of Edfu wishing to magnify their local
god, Horus of Behutet, or Horus of Edfu, attributed to him the
conquests of this human, and probably predynastic, king. We must
remember that the legend assumes that Ra, was still reigning on earth,
though he was old and feeble, and had probably deputed his power to his
successor, whom the legend regards as his son.
PLATE I.
Horus holding the Hippopotamus-fiend with chain and spear. Behind
stand Isis and Heru Khenti-Khatti.
PLATE II.
Horus driving his spear into the Hippopotamus-fiend; behind him stands
one of his "Blacksmiths".
PLATE III.
Horus driving his spear into the belly of the Hippopotamus-fiend as he
lies on his back; behind stands on of his "Blacksmiths".
PLATE IV.
Horus and Isis capturing the Hippopotamus-fiend.
In the 363rd year of his reign Ra-Harmakhis[FN#23] was in Nubia with
his army with the intention of destroying those who had conspired
against him; because of their conspiracy (auu) Nubia is called "Uaua"
to this day. From Nubia Ra-Harmakhis sailed down the river to Edfu,
where Heru-Behutet entered his boat, and told him that his foes were
conspiring against him. Ra-Harmakhis in answer addressed Heru-Behutet
as his son, and commanded him to set out without delay and slay the
wicked rebels. Then Heru-Behutet took the form of a great winged Disk,
and at once flew up into the sky, where he took the place of Ra, the
old Sun-god. Looking down from the height of heaven he was able to
discover the whereabouts of the rebels, and he pursued them in the form
of a winged disk. Then he attacked them with such violence that they
became dazed, and could neither see where they were going, nor hear,
the result of this being that they slew each other, and in a very short
time they were all dead. Thoth, seeing this, told Ra that because
Horus had appeared as a great winged disk he must be called "Heru-
Behutet," and by this name Horus was known ever after at Edfu. Ra
embraced Horus, and referred with pleasure to the blood which he had
shed, and Horus invited his father to come and look upon the slain. Ra
set out with the goddess Ashthertet (`Ashtoreth) to do this, and they
saw the enemies lying fettered on the ground. The legend here
introduces a number of curious derivations of the names of Edfu, &c.,
which are valueless, and which remind us of the derivations of place-
names propounded by ancient Semitic scribes.
[FN#23] i.e., Ra on the horizon.
PLATE V.
Horus standing on the back of the Hippopotamus-fiend, and spearing him
in the presence of Isis.
PLATE VI.
The "Butcher-priest" slicing open the Hippopotamus-fiend.
In gladness of heart Ra proposed a sail on the Nile, but as soon as his
enemies heard that he was coming, they changed themselves into
crocodiles and hippopotami, so that they might be able to wreck his
boat and devour him. As the boat of the god approached them they
opened their jaws to crush it, but Horus and his followers came quickly
on the scene, and defeated their purpose. The followers of Horus here
mentioned are called in the text "Mesniu," i.e., "blacksmiths," or
"workers in metal," and they represent the primitive conquerors of the
Egyptians, who were armed with metal weapons, and so were able to
overcome with tolerable ease the indigenous Egyptians, whose weapons
were made of flint and wood. Horus and his "blacksmiths" were provided
with iron lances and chains, and, baying cast the chains over the
monsters in the river, they drove their lances into their snouts, and
slew 651 of them. Because Horus gained his victory by means of metal
weapons, Ra decreed that a metal statue of Horus should be placed at
Edfu, and remain there for ever, and a name was given to the town to
commemorate the great battle that had taken place there. Ra applauded
Horus for the mighty deeds which be had been able to perform by means
of the spells contained in the "Book of Slaying the Hippopotamus."
Horus then associated with himself the goddesses Uatchet and Nekhebet,
who were in the form of serpents, and, taking his place as the winged
Disk on the front of the Boat of Ra, destroyed all the enemies of Ra
wheresoever he found them. When the remnant of the enemies of Ra, saw
that they were likely to be slain, they doubled back to the South, but
Horus pursued them, and drove them down the river before him as far as
Thebes. One battle took place at Tchetmet, and another at Denderah,
and Horus was always victorious; the enemies were caught by chains
thrown over them, and the deadly spears of the Blacksmiths drank their
blood.
After this the enemy fled to the North, and took refuge in the swamps
of the Delta, and in the shallows of the Mediterranean Sea, and Horus
pursued them thither. After searching for them for four days and four
nights he found them, and they were speedily slain. One hundred and
forty-two of them and a male hippopotamus were dragged on to the Boat
of Ra, and there Horus dug out their entrails, and hacked their
carcases in pieces, which he gave to his Blacksmiths and the gods who
formed the crew of the Boat of Ra. Before despatching the
hippopotamus, Horus leaped on to the back of the monster as a mark of
his triumph, and to commemorate this event the priest of Heben, the
town wherein these things happened, was called "He who standeth on the
back ever after."
The end of the great fight, however, was not yet. Another army of
enemies appeared by the North Lake, and they were marching towards the
sea; but terror of Horus smote their hearts, and they fled and took
refuge in Mertet-Ament, where they allied themselves with the followers
of Set, the Arch-fiend and great Enemy of Ra. Thither Horus and his
well-armed Blacksmiths pursued them, and came up with them at the town
called Per-Rerehu, which derived its name from the "Two Combatants," or
"Two Men," Horus and Set. A great fight took place, the enemies of Ra
were defeated with great slaughter, and Horus dragged 381 prisoners on
to the Boat of Ra, where he slew them, and gave their bodies to his
followers.
PLATE VII.
Horus of Behutet and Ra-Harmakhis in a shrine.
PLATE VIII.
Horus of Behutet and Harmakhis in a shrine.
PLATE IX.
Ashthertet ('Ashtoreth') driving her chariot over the prostrate foe.
PLATE X.
Left: Horus of Behutet spearing a Typhonic animal, and holding his
prisoners with rope.
Right: Horus of Behutet, accompanied by Ra-Harmakhis and Menu, spearing
the Hippopotamus-fiend.
Then Set rose up and cursed Horus because he had slain his allies, and
he used such foul language that Thoth called him "Nehaha-her," i.e.,
"Stinking Face," and this name clung to him ever after. After this
Horus and Set engaged in a fight which lasted a very long time, but at
length Horus drove his spear into the neck of Set with such violence
that the Fiend fell headlong to the ground. Then Horus smote with his
club the mouth which had uttered such blasphemies, and fettered him
with his chain. In this state Horus dragged Set into the presence of
Ra, who ascribed great praise to Horus, and special names were given to
the palace of Horus and the high priest of the temple in commemoration
of the event. When the question of the disposal of Set was being
discussed by the gods, Ra ordered that he and his fiends should be
given over to Isis and her son Horus, who were to do what they pleased
with them. Horus promptly cut off the heads of Set and his fiends in
the presence of Ra and Isis, and be dragged Set by his feet through the
country with his spear sticking in his head and neck. After this Isis
appointed Horus of Behutet to be the protecting deity of her son Horus.
The fight between the Sun-god and Set was a very favourite subject with
Egyptian writers, and there are many forms of it. Thus there is the
fight between Heru-ur and Set, the fight between Ra and Set, the fight
between Heru-Behutet and Set, the fight between Osiris and Set, and the
fight between Horus, son of Isis, and Set. In the oldest times the
combat was merely the natural opposition of light to darkness, but
later the Sun-god became the symbol of right and truth as well as of
light, and Set the symbol of sin and wickedness as well as of darkness,
and ultimately the nature myth was forgotten, and the fight between the
two gods became the type of the everlasting war which good men wage
against sin. In Coptic literature we have the well-known legend of the
slaughter of the dragon by St. George, and this is nothing but a
Christian adaptation of the legend of Horus and Set.
After these things Horus, son of Ra, and Horus, son of Isis, each took
the form of a mighty man, with the face and body of a hawk, and each
wore the Red and White Crowns, and each carried a spear and chain. In
these forms the two gods slew the remnant of the enemies. Now by some
means or other Set came to life again, and he took the form of a mighty
hissing or "roaring" serpent, and hid himself in the ground, in a place
which was ever after called the "place of the roarer." In front of his
hiding-place Horus, son of Isis, stationed himself in the form of a
hawk-headed staff to prevent him from coming out. In spite of this,
however, Set managed to escape, and he gathered about him the Smai and
Seba fiends at the Lake of Meh, and waged war once more against Horus;
the enemies of Ra were again defeated, and Horus slew them in the
presence of his father.
PLATE XI.
Horus of Behutet and Thoth spearing human victims with the assistance
of Isis.
PLATE XII.
Horus of Behutet and Thoth spearing Set in the form of a crocodile.
Horus, it seems, now ceased to fight for some time, and devoted himself
to keeping guard over the "Great God" who was in An-rut-f, a district
in or near Herakleopolis. This Great God was no other than Osiris, and
the duty of Horus was to prevent the Smai fiends from coming by night
to the place. In spite of the power of Horus, it was found necessary
to summon the aid of Isis to keep away the fiends, and it was only by
her words of power that the fiend Ba was kept out of the sanctuary. As
a reward for what he had already done, Thoth decreed that Horus should
be called the "Master-Fighter." Passing over the derivations of place-
names which occur here in the text, we find that Horus and his
Blacksmiths were again obliged to fight bodies of the enemy who had
managed to escape, and that on one occasion they killed one hundred and
six foes. In every fight the Blacksmiths performed mighty deeds of
valour, and in reward for their services a special district was
allotted to them to dwell in.
The last great fight in the North took place at Tanis, in the eastern
part of the Delta. When the position of the enemy had been located,
Horus took the form of a lion with the face of a man, and he put on his
head the Triple Crown. His claws were like flints, and with them he
dragged away one hundred and forty-two of the enemy, and tore them in
pieces, and dug out their tongues, which he carried off as symbols of
his victory.
Meanwhile rebellion had again broken out in Nubia, where about one-
third of the enemy had taken refuge in the river in the forms of
crocodiles and hippopotami. Ra counselled Horus to sail up the Nile
with his Blacksmiths, and when Thoth had recited the "Chapters of
protecting the Boat of Ra" over the boats, the expedition set sail for
the South. The object of reciting these spells was to prevent the
monsters which were in the river from making the waves to rise and from
stirring up storms which might engulf the boats of Ra and Horus and the
Blacksmiths. When the rebels and fiends who had been uttering, treason
against Horus saw the boat of Ra, with the winged Disk of Horus
accompanied by the goddesses Uatchet and Nekhebet in the form of
serpents, they were smitten with fear, and their hearts quaked, and all
power of resistance left them, and they died of fright straightway.
When Horus returned in triumph to Edfu, Ra ordered that an image of the
winged Disk should be placed in each of his sanctuaries, and that in
every place wherein a winged Disk was set, that sanctuary should be a
sanctuary of Horus of Behutet. The winged disks which are seen above
the doorways of the temples still standing in Egypt show that the
command of Ra, was faithfully carried out by the priests.
PLATE XIII.
Horus of Behutet in the form of a lion slaying his foes.
V.
LEGEND OF THE BIRTH OF HORUS, SON OF ISIS AND OSIRIS.
PLATE XIV.
The Procreation of Horus, son of Isis.
The text which contains this legend is found cut in hieroglyphics upon
a stele which is now preserved in Paris. Attention was first called to
it by Chabas, who in 1857 gave a translation of it in the Revue
Archeologique, p. 65 ff., and pointed out the importance of its
contents with his characteristic ability. The hieroglyphic text was
first published by Ledrain in his work on the monuments of the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris,[FN#24] and I gave a transcript of the
text, with transliteration and translation, in 1895.[FN#25]
[FN#24] Les Monuments Egyptiens (Cabinet des Medailles et Antiques),
In the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1879-1882,
plate xxii. ff.
[FN#25] First Steps in Egyptian, pp. 179-188.
The greater part of the text consists of a hymn to Osiris, which was
probably composed under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when an extraordinary
development of the cult of that god took place, and when he was placed
by Egyptian theologians at the head of all the gods. Though unseen in
the temples, his presence filled all Egypt, and his body formed the
very substance of the country. He was the God of all gods and the
Governor of the Two Companies of the gods, he formed the soul and body
of Ra, he was the beneficent Spirit of all spirits, he was himself the
celestial food on which the Doubles in the Other World lived. He was
the greatest of the gods in On (Heliopolis), Memphis, Herakleopolis,
Hermopolis, Abydos, and the region of the First Cataract, and so. He
embodied in his own person the might of Ra-Tem, Apis and Ptah, the
Horus-gods, Thoth and Khnemu, and his rule over Busiris and Abydos
continued to be supreme, as it had been for many, many hundreds of
years. He was the source of the Nile, the north wind sprang from him,
his seats were the stars of heaven which never set, and the
imperishable stars were his ministers. All heaven was his dominion,
and the doors of the sky opened before him of their own accord when he
appeared. He inherited the earth from his father Keb, and the
sovereignty of heaven from his mother Nut. In his person he united
endless time in the past and endless time in the future. Like Ra he
had fought Seba, or Set, the monster of evil, and had defeated him, and
his victory assured to him lasting authority over the gods and the
dead. He exercised his creative power in making land and water, trees
and herbs, cattle and other four-footed beasts, birds of all kinds, and
fish and creeping things; even the waste spaces of the desert owed
allegiance to him as the creator. And he rolled out the sky, and set
the light above the darkness.
The last paragraph of the text contains an allusion to Isis, the sister
and wife of Osiris, and mentions the legend of the birth of Horus,
which even under the XVIIIth Dynasty was very ancient, Isis, we are
told, was the constant protectress of her brother, she drove away the
fiends that wanted to attack him, and kept them out of his shrine and
tomb, and she guarded him from all accidents. All these things she did
by means of spells and incantations, large numbers of which were known
to her, and by her power as the "witch-goddess." Her "mouth was
trained to perfection, and she made no mistake in pronouncing her
spells, and her tongue was skilled and halted not." At length came the
unlucky day when Set succeeded in killing Osiris during the war which
the "good god" was waging against him and his fiends. Details of the
engagement are wanting, but the Pyramid Texts state that the body of
Osiris was hurled to the ground by Set at a place called Netat, which
seems to have been near Abydos.[FN#26] The news of the death of Osiris
was brought to Isis, and she at once set out to find his body. All
legends agree in saying that she took the form of a bird, and that she
flew about unceasingly, going hither and thither, and uttering wailing
cries of grief. At length she found the body, and with a piercing cry
she alighted on the ground. The Pyramid Texts say that Nephthys was
with her that "Isis came, Nephthys came, the one on the right side, the
other on the left side, one in the form of a Hat bird, the other in the
form of a Tchert bird, and they found Osiris thrown on the ground in
Netat by his brother Set." The late form of the legend goes on to say
that Isis fanned the body with her feathers, and produced air, and that
at length she caused the inert members of Osiris to move, and drew from
him his essence, wherefrom she produced her child Horus.
[FN#26] Pepi I., line 475; Pepi II., line 1263.
This bare statement of the dogma of the conception of Horus does not
represent all that is known about it, and it may well be supplemented
by a passage from the Pyramid Texts,[FN#27] which reads, "Adoration to
thee, O Osiris.[FN#28] Rise thou up on thy left side, place thyself on
thy right side. This water which I give unto thee is the water of
youth (or rejuvenation). Adoration to thee, O Osiris! Rise thou up on
thy left side, place thyself on thy right side. This bread which I
have made for thee is warmth. Adoration to thee, O Osiris! The doors
of heaven are opened to thee, the doors of the streams are thrown wide
open to thee. The gods in the city of Pe come [to thee], Osiris, at
the sound (or voice) of the supplication of Isis and Nephthys. . . . .
Thy elder sister took thy body in her arms, she chafed thy hands,
she clasped thee to her breast [when] she found thee [lying] on thy
side on the plain of Netat." And in another place we read:[FN#29] "Thy
two sisters, Isis and Nephthys, came to thee, Kam-urt, in thy name of
Kam-ur, Uatchet-urt, in thy name of Uatch-ur . . . . . . . Isis and
Nephthys weave magical protection for thee in the city of Saut, for
thee their lord, in thy name of 'Lord of Saut,' for their god, in thy
name of 'God.' They praise thee; go not thou far from them in thy name
of 'Tua.' They present offerings to thee; be not wroth in thy name of
'Tchentru.' Thy sister Isis cometh to thee rejoicing in her love for
thee.[FN#30] Thou hast union with her, thy seed entereth her. She
conceiveth in the form of the star Septet (Sothis). Horus-Sept issueth
from thee in the form of Horus, dweller in the star Septet. Thou
makest a spirit to be in him in his name 'Spirit dwelling in the god
Tchentru.' He avengeth thee in his name of 'Horus, the son who avenged
his father.' Hail, Osiris, Keb hath brought to thee Horus, he hath
avenged thee, he hath brought to thee the hearts of the gods, Horus
hath given thee his Eye, thou hast taken possession of the Urert Crown
thereby at the head of the gods. Horus hath presented to thee thy
members, he hath collected them completely, there is no disorder in
thee. Thoth hath seized thy enemy and hath slain him and those who
were with him." The above words are addressed to dead kings in the
Pyramid Texts, and what the gods were supposed to do for them was
believed by the Egyptians to have been actually done for Osiris. These
extracts are peculiarly valuable, for they prove that the legend of
Osiris which was current under the XVIIIth Dynasty was based upon
traditions which were universally accepted in Egypt under the Vth and
VIth Dynasties.
[FN#27] Mer-en-Ra, line 336; Pepi II., line 862.
[FN#28] I omit the king's names.
[FN#29] Teta, line 274; Pepi I., line 27; Mer-en-Ra, line 37; and Pepi
II., line 67.
[FN#30] Pyramid Text, Teta, l. 276.
PLATE XV.
PLATE XVI.
The Stele recording the casting out of a devil from the Princess of
Bekhten.
The hymn concludes with a reference to the accession of Horus, son of
Isis, the flesh and bone of Osiris, to the throne of his grandfather
Keb, and to the welcome which he received from the Tchatcha, or
Administrators of heaven, and the Company of the Gods, and the Lords of
Truth, who assembled in the Great House of Heliopolis to acknowledge
his sovereignty. His succession also received the approval of Neb-er-
tcher, who, as we saw from the first legend in this book, was the
Creator of the Universe.
VI.
A LEGEND OF KHENSU NEFER-HETEP[FN#31] AND THE PRINCESS OF BEKHTEN.
[FN#31] In the headlines of this section, p. 106 ff., for Ptah
Nefer-hetep read Khensu Nefer-hetep.
The text of this legend is cut in hieroglyphics upon a sandstone stele,
with a rounded top, which was found in the temple of Khensu at Thebes,
and is now preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris; it was
discovered by Champollion, and removed to Paris by Prisse d'Avennes in
1846. The text was first published by Prisse d'Avennes,[FN#32] and it
was first translated by Birch[FN#33] in 1853. The text was republished
and translated into French by E. de Rouge in 1858,[FN#34] and several
other renderings have been given in German and in English since that
date.[FN#35] When the text was first published, and for some years
afterwards, it was generally thought that the legend referred to events
which were said to have taken place under a king who was identified as
Rameses XIII., but this misconception was corrected by Erman, who
showed[FN#36] that the king was in reality Rameses II. By a careful
examination of the construction of the text he proved that the
narrative on the stele was drawn up several hundreds of years after the
events described in it took place, and that its author was but
imperfectly acquainted with the form of the Egyptian language in use in
the reign of Rameses II. In fact, the legend was written in the
interests of the priests of the temple of Khensu, who wished to magnify
their god and his power to cast out devils and to exorcise evil
spirits; it was probably composed between B.C. 650 and B.C. 250.[FN#37]
[FN#32] Choix de Monuments Egyptiens, Paris, 1847, plate xxiv.
[FN#33] Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, New Series,
vol. iv., p. 217 ff.
[FN#34] Journal Asiatique (Etude sur une Stele Egyptienne), August,
1856, August, 1857, and August-Sept., 1858, Paris, 8vo, with plate.
[FN#35] Brugsch, Geschichte Aegyptens, 1877, p. 627 ff.; Birch,
Records of the Past, Old Series, vol. iv., p. 53 ff.; Budge, Egyptian
Reading Book, text and transliteration, p. 40 ff.; translation, p.
xxviii. ff.
[FN#36] Aeg. Zeit., 1883, pp. 54-60.
[FN#37] Maspero, Les Contes Populaires, 3rd edit., p. 166.
The legend, after enumerating the great names of Rameses II., goes on
to state that the king was in the "country of the two rivers," by which
we are to understand some portion of Mesopotamia, the rivers being the
Tigris and Euphrates, and that the local chiefs were bringing to him
tribute consisting of gold, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, and logs of wood
from the Land of the God. It is difficult to understand how gold and
logs of wood from Southern Arabia and East Africa came to be produced
as tribute by chiefs who lived so far to the north. Among those who
sent gifts was the Prince of Bekhten, and at the head of all his
tribute he sent his eldest daughter, bearing his message of homage and
duty. Now the maiden was beautiful, and the King of Egypt thought her
so lovely that be took her to wife, and bestowed upon her the name "Ra-
neferu," which means something like the "beauties of Ra." He took her
back with him to Egypt, where she was installed as Queen.
During the summer of the fifteenth year of his reign, whilst Rameses
II. was celebrating a festival of Amen-Ra in the Temple of Luxor, one
came to him and reported that an envoy had arrived from the Prince of
Bekhten, bearing with him many gifts for the Royal Wife Ra-neferu.
When the envoy had been brought into the presence, he addressed words
of homage to the king, and, having presented the gifts from his lord,
he said that he had come to beg His Majesty to send a "learned man,"
i.e., a magician, to Bekhten to attend Bent-enth-resh, His Majesty's
sister-in-law, who was stricken with some disease. Thereupon the king
summoned the learned men of the House of Life, i.e., the members of the
great College of Magic at Thebes, and the qenbetu officials, and when
they had entered his presence, he commanded them to select a man of
"wise heart and deft fingers" to go to Bekhten. The choice fell upon
one Tehuti-em-heb, and His Majesty sent him to Bekhten with the envoy.
When they arrived in Bekhten, Tehuti-em-heb found that the Princess
Bent-enth-resh was possessed by an evil spirit which refused to be
exorcised by him, and he was unable to cast out the devil. The Prince
of Bekhten, seeing that the healing of his daughter was beyond the
power of the Egyptian, sent a second envoy to Rameses II., and besought
him to send a god to drive out the devil. This envoy arrived in Egypt
in the summer of the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Rameses II., and
found the king celebrating a festival in Thebes. When he heard the
petition of the envoy, he went to the Temple of Khensu Nefer-hetep "a
second time,"[FN#38] and presented himself before the god and besought
his help on behalf of his sister-in-law.
[FN#38] Thus the king must have invoked the help of Khensu on the
occasion of the visit of the first envoy.
Then the priests of Khensu Nefer-hetep carried the statue of this god
to the place where was the statue of Khensu surnamed "Pa-ari-sekher,"
i.e., the "Worker of destinies," who was able to repel the attacks of
evil spirits and to drive them out. When the statues of the two gods
were facing each other, Rameses II. entreated Khensu Nefer-hetep to
"turn his face towards," i.e., to look favourably upon Khensu. Pa-ari-
sekher, and to let him go to Bekhten to drive the devil out of the
Princess of Bekhten. The text affords no explanation of the fact that
Khensu Nefer-hetep was regarded as a greater god than Khensu Pa-ari-
sekher, or why his permission had to be obtained before the latter
could leave the country. It is probable that the demands made upon
Khensu Nefer-hetep by the Egyptians who lived in Thebes and its
neighbourhood were so numerous that it was impossible to let his statue
go into outlying districts or foreign lands, and that a deputy-god was
appointed to perform miracles outside Thebes. This arrangement would
benefit the people, and would, moreover, bring much money to the
priests. The appointment of a deputy-god is not so strange as it may
seem, and modern African peoples are familiar with the expedient.
About one hundred years ago the priests of the god Bobowissi of
Winnebah, in the Tshi region of West Africa, found their business so
large that it was absolutely necessary for them to appoint a deputy.
The priests therefore selected Brahfo, i.e., "deputy," and gave out
that Bobowissi had deputed all minor matters to him, and that his
utterances were to be regarded as those of Bobowissi. Delegates were
ordered to be sent to Winnebah in Ashanti, where they would be shown
the "deputy" god by the priests, and afterwards he would be taken to
Mankassim, where he would reside, and do for the people all that
Bobowissi had done hitherto.[FN#39]
[FN#39] Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 55.
When Rameses II. had made his petition to Khensu Nefer-hetep, the
statue of the god bowed its head twice, in token of assent. Here it is
clear that we have an example of the use of statues with movable limbs,
which were worked, when occasion required, by the priests. The king
then made a second petition to the god to transfer his sa, or magical
power, to Khensu Pa-ari-sekher so that when he had arrived in Bekhten
he would be able to heal the Princess. Again the statue of Khensu
Nefer-hetep bowed its head twice, and the petition of the king was
granted. The text goes on to say that the magical power of the greater
god was transferred to the lesser god four times, or in a fourfold
measure, but we are not told how this was effected. We know from many
passages in the texts that every god was believed to possess this
magical power, which is called the "sa of life," or the "sa of the
god,".[FN#40] This sa could be transferred by a god or goddess to a
human being, either by an embrace or through some offering which was
eaten. Thus Temu transferred the magical power of his life to Shu and
Tefnut by embracing them,[FN#41] and in the Ritual of the Divine
Cult[FN#42] the priest says, The two vessels of milk of Temu are the "sa
of my limbs." The man who possessed this sa could transfer it to his
friend by embracing him and then "making passes" with his hands along
his back. The sa could be received by a man from a god and then
transmitted by him to a statue by taking it in his arms, and this
ceremony was actually performed by the king in the Ritual of the Divine
Cult.[FN#43] The primary source of this sa was Ra, who bestowed it
without measure on the blessed dead,[FN#44] and caused them to live for
ever thereby. These, facts make it tolerably certain that the magical
power of Khensu Nefer-hetep was transferred to Khensu Pa-ari-sekher in
one of two ways: either the statue of the latter was brought near to
that of the former and it received the sa by contact, or the high
priest first received the sa from the greater god and then transmitted
it to the lesser god by embraces and "passes" with his hands. Be this
as it may, Khensu Pa-ari-sekher received the magical power, and having
been placed in his boat, he set out for Bekhten, accompanied by five
smaller boats, and chariots and horses which marched on each side of
him.
[FN#40] Text of Unas, line 562.
[FN#41] Pyramid Texts, Pepi I., l. 466.
[FN#42] Ed. Moret, p. 21.
[FN#43] Ibid., p. 99.
[FN#44] Pepi I., line 666.
When after a journey of seventeen months Khensu Pa-ari-sekher arrived
in Bekhten, he was cordially welcomed by the Prince, and, having gone
to the place where the Princess who was possessed of a devil lived, he
exercised his power to such purpose that she was healed immediately.
Moreover, the devil which had been cast out admitted that Khensu Pa-
ari-sekher was his master, and promised that he would depart to the
place whence he came, provided that the Prince of Bekhten would
celebrate a festival in his honour before his departure. Meanwhile
the Prince and his soldiers stood by listening to the conversation
between the god and the devil, and they were very much afraid.
Following the instructions of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher the Prince made
a great feast in honour of the supernatural visitors, and then the
devil departed to the "place which he loved," and there was general
rejoicing in the land. The Prince of Bekhten was so pleased with the
Egyptian god that he determined not to allow him to return to Egypt.
When the statue of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher had been in Bekhten for three
years and nine months, the Prince in a vision saw the god, in the form
of a golden hawk, come forth from his shrine, and fly up into the air
and direct his course to Egypt. Realizing that the statue of the god
was useless without its indwelling spirit, the Prince of Bekhten
permitted the priests of Khensu Pa-ari-sekher to depart with it to
Egypt, and dismissed them with gifts of all kinds. In due course they
arrived in Egypt and the priests took their statue to the temple of
Khensu Nefer-hetep, and handed over to that god all the gifts which the
Prince of Bekhten had given them, keeping back nothing for their own
god. After this Khensu Pa-ari-sekher returned to his temple in peace,
in the thirty-third year of the reign of Rameses II., having been
absent from it about eight years.
VII.
A LEGEND OF KHNEMU AND OF A SEVEN YEARS' FAMINE.
The text of this most interesting legend is found in hieroglyphics on
one side of a large rounded block of granite some eight or nine feet
high, which stands on the south-east portion of Sahal, a little island
lying in the First Cataract, two or three miles to the south of
Elephantine Island and the modern town of Aswan. The inscription is
not cut into the rock in the ordinary way, but was "stunned" on it with
a blunted chisel, and is, in some lights, quite invisible to anyone
standing near the rock, unless he is aware of its existence. It is in
full view of the river-path which leads from Mahallah to Philae, and
yet it escaped the notice of scores of travellers who have searched the
rocks and islands in the Cataract for graffiti and inscriptions. The
inscription, which covers a space six feet by five feet, was discovered
accidentally on February 6th, 1889, by the late Mr. C. E. Wilbour, a
distinguished American gentleman who spent many years in research in
Egypt. He first copied the text, discovering in the course of his work
the remarkable nature of its contents and then his friend Mr. Maudslay
photographed it. The following year he sent prints from Mr. Maudslay's
negatives to Dr. Brugsch, who in the course of 1891 published a
transcript of the text with a German translation and notes in a work
entitled Die biblischen sieben Jahre der Hungersnoth, Leipzig, 8vo.
The legend contained in this remarkable text describes a terrible
famine which took place in the reign of Tcheser, a king of the IIIrd
Dynasty, and lasted for seven years. Insufficient Nile-floods were, of
course, the physical cause of the famine, but the legend shows that the
"low Niles" were brought about by the neglect of the Egyptians in
respect of the worship of the god of the First Cataract, the great god
Khnemu. When, according to the legend, king Tcheser had been made to
believe that the famine took place because men had ceased to worship
Khnemu in a manner appropriate to his greatness, and when he had taken
steps to remove the ground of complaint, the Nile rose to its
accustomed height, the crops became abundant once more, and all misery
caused by scarcity of provisions ceased. In other words, when Tcheser
restored the offerings of Khnemu, and re-endowed his sanctuary and his
priesthood, the god allowed Hapi to pour forth his streams from the
caverns in the Cataract, and to flood the land with abundance. The
general character of the legend, as we have it here, makes it quite
certain that it belongs to a late period, and the forms of the
hieroglyphics and the spellings of the words indicate that the text was
"stunned" on the rock in the reign of one of the Ptolemies, probably at
a time when it was to the interest of some men to restore the worship
of Khnemu, god of the First Cataract. These interested people could
only have been the priests of Khnemu, and the probability that this was
so becomes almost a certainty when we read in the latter part of the
text the list of the tolls and taxes which they were empowered to levy
on the merchants, farmers, miners, etc., whose goods passed down the
Cataract into Egypt. Why, if this be the case, they should have chosen
to connect the famine with the reign of Tcheser is not clear. They may
have wished to prove the great antiquity of the worship of Khnemu, but
it would have been quite easy to select the name of some king of the
Ist Dynasty, and had they done this, they would have made the authority
of Khnemu over the Nile coaeval with Dynastic civilization. It is
impossible to assume that no great famine took place in Egypt between
the reign of Tcheser and the period when the inscription was made, and
when we consider this fact the choice by the editor of the legend of a
famine which took place under the IIIrd Dynasty to illustrate the power
of Khnemu seems inexplicable.
Of the famines which must have taken place in the Dynastic period the
inscriptions tell us nothing, but the story of the seven years' famine
mentioned in the Book of Genesis shows that there is nothing improbable
in a famine lasting so long in Egypt. Arab historians also mention
several famines which lasted for seven years. That which took place in
the years 1066-1072 nearly ruined the whole country. A cake of bread
was sold for 15 dinanir, (the dinar = 10s.), a horse was sold for 20, a
dog for 5, a cat for 3, and an egg for 1 dinar. When all the animals
were eaten men began to eat each other, and human flesh was sold in
public. "Passengers were caught in the streets by hooks let down from
the windows, drawn up, killed, and cooked."[FN#45] During the famine
which began in 1201 people ate human flesh habitually. Parents killed
and cooked their own children, and a wife was found eating her husband
raw. Baby fricassee and haggis of children's heads were ordinary
articles of diet. The graves even were ransacked for food. An ox sold
for 70 dinanir. [FN#46]
[FN#45] Lane Poole, Middle Ages, p. 146.
[FN#46] Ibid., p. 216.
The legend begins with the statement that in the 18th year of the reign
of King Tcheser, when Matar, the Erpa Prince and Ha, was the Governor
of the temple properties of the South and North, and was also the
Director of the Khenti men at Elephantine (Aswan), a royal despatch was
delivered to him, in which the king said: "I am in misery on my throne.
My heart is very sore because of the calamity which hath happened, for
the Nile hath not come forth[FN#47] for seven years. There is no
grain, there are no vegetables, there is no food, and every man is
robbing his neighbour. Men wish to walk, but they are unable to move;
the young man drags along his limbs, the hearts of the aged are crushed
with despair, their legs fail them, they sink to the ground, and they
clutch their bodies with their hands in pain. The councillors are
dumb, and nothing but wind comes out of the granaries when they are
opened. Everything is in a state of ruin." A more graphic picture of
the misery caused by the famine could hardly be imagined. The king
then goes on to ask Matar where the Nile is born? what god or goddess
presides over it? and what is his [or her] form? He says he would like
to go to the temple of Thoth to enquire of that god, to go to the
College of the Magicians, and search through the sacred books in order
to find out these things.
[FN#47] i.e., there have been insufficient Nile-floods.
When Matar had read the despatch, he set out to go to the king, and
explained to him the things which he wished to know. He told him that,
the Nile rose near the city of Elephantine, that it flowed out of two
caverns, which were the breasts of the Nile-god, that it rose to a
height of twenty-eight cubits at Elephantine, and to the height of
seven cubits at Sma-Behutet, or, Diospolis Parva in the Delta. He who
controlled the Nile was Khnemu, and when this god drew the bolt of the
doors which shut in the stream, and smote the earth with his sandals,
the river rushed forth. Matar also described to the king the form of
Khnemu, which was that of Shu, and the work which he did, and the
wooden house in which he lived, and its exact position, which was near
the famous granite quarries. The gods who dwelt with Khnemu were the
goddess Sept (Sothis, or the Dog-star), the goddess Anqet, Hap (or
Hep), the Nile-god, Shu, Keb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Horus.
Thus we see that the priests of Khnemu made him to be the head of a
Company of Gods. Finally Matar gave the king a list of all the stones,
precious and otherwise, which were found in and about Elephantine.
When the king, who had, it seems, come to Elephantine, heard these
things he rejoiced greatly, and he went into the temple of Khnemu.
The priests drew back the curtains and sprinkled him with holy water,
and then he passed into the shrine and offered up a great sacrifice of
bread-cakes, beer, geese, oxen, and all kinds of good things, to the
gods and goddesses who dwelt at Elephantine, in the place called "Couch
of the heart in life and power." Suddenly he found himself standing
face to face with the god Khnemu, whom he placated with a peace-
offering and with prayer. Then the god opened his eyes, and bent his
body towards the king, and spake to him mighty words, saying, "I am
Khnemu, who made thee. My hands knitted together thy body and made it
sound, and I gave thee thy heart." Khnemu then went on to complain
that, although the ground under the king's feet was filled with stones
and metal, men were too inert to work them and to employ them in
repairing or rebuilding of the shrines of the gods, or in doing what
they ought to do for him, their Lord and Creator. These words were, of
course, meant as a rebuke for the king, who evidently, though it is not
so stated in the text, was intended by Khnemu to undertake the
rebuilding of his shrine without delay. The god then went on to
proclaim his majesty and power, and declared himself to be Nu, the
Celestial Ocean, and the Nile-god, "who came into being at the
beginning, and riseth at his will to give health to him that laboureth
for Khnemu." He described himself as the Father of the gods, the
Governor of the earth and of men, and then he promised the king to make
the Nile rise yearly, regularly, and unceasingly, to give abundant
harvests, to give all people their heart's desire, to make misery to
pass away, to fill the granaries, and to make the whole land of Egypt
yellow with waving fields of full ripe grain. When the king, who had
been in a dream, heard the god mention crops, he woke up, and his
courage returned to him, and having cast away despair from his heart he
issued a decree by which he made ample provision for the maintenance of
the worship of the god in a fitting state. In this decree, the first
copy of which was cut upon wood, the king endowed Khnemu with 20
schoinoi of land on each side of the river, with gardens, etc. It was
further enacted that every man who drew water from the Nile for his
land should contribute a portion of his crops to the god. Fishermen,
fowlers, and hunters were to pay an octroi duty of one-tenth of the
value of their catches when they brought them into the city, and a
tithe of the cattle was to be set apart for the daily sacrifice. The
masters of caravans coming from the Sudan were to pay a tithe also, but
they were not liable to any further tax in the country northwards.
Every metal-worker, ore-crusher, miner, mason, and handicraftsman of
every kind, was to pay to the temple of the god one-tenth of the value
of the material produced or worked by his labour. The decree provided
also for the appointment of an inspector whose duty it would be to
weigh the gold, silver and copper which came into the town of
Elephantine, and to assess the value both of these metals and of the
precious stones, etc., which were to be devoted to the service of
Khnemu. All materials employed in making the images of the gods, and
all handicraftsmen employed in the work were exempted from tithing. In
short, the worship of the god and his company was to be maintained
according to ancient use and wont, and the people were to supply the
temple with everything necessary in a generous spirit and with a
liberal hand. He who failed in any way to comply with the enactments
was to be beaten with the rope, and the name of Tcheser was to be perpetuated in the temple. |
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