Читать книгу The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt онлайн

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At Memphis the tribal god was the little dwarf Ptah, the European Vulcan, the blacksmith, the artificer, and the potter of the gods. In this city also, as in many other districts of Egypt, there was a sacred bull, here called Apis, who was worshipped with divine honours and was regarded as an aspect of Ptah. At Elephantine a ram-headed deity named Khnum was adored, and there was a sacred ram kept in his temple for ceremonial purposes. As Khnum had some connection with the First Cataract of the Nile, which is situated near Elephantine, he was regarded as of some importance throughout Egypt. Moreover, he was supposed by some to have used the mud at the bottom of the Nile to form the first human being, and thus he found a place in the mythology of several districts.

A vulture, named Nekheb, was the tribal deity of the trading city of Eileithiaspolis; a ferocious crocodile, Sebek, was the god of a second city of the name of Ombos; an ibis, Thoth, was that of Hermopolis; a cat, Bast, that of Bubastis; and so on—almost every city having its tribal god. Besides these there were other more abstract deities: Nut, the heavens, who, in the form of a woman, spread herself across the sky; Seb, the earth; Shu, the vastness of space; and so forth. The old gods of Egypt were indeed a multitude. Here were those who had marched into the country at the head of conquering tribes; here were ancient heroes and Chieftains individually deified, or often identified with the god whom their tribe had served; here were the elements personified; here the orbs of heaven which man could see above him. As intercourse between city and city became more general, one set of beliefs had been brought into line with another, and myths had developed to explain the discrepancies. Thus in the time of Thothmes IV. the heavens were crowded with gods; but standing above them all, the reader will do well to familiarise himself with the figure of Amon-Ra, the god of Thebes, and with Ra-Horakhti, the god of Heliopolis. In the following pages the lesser denizens of the Egyptian Olympus play no great part, save as a routed army hurled back into the ignorant darkness from which they came.