Fig. 72.—Lotus flowers and bud, painted on the coffin of a mummy from the Necropolis of Thebes, Twentieth Dynasty; after Prisse d’Avennes.
Fig. [72] is a detail taken from a plate in the second volume of the magnificent atlas by Prisse d’Avennes;[69] it is part of the offerings on an altar before Osiris, who is crowned with the solar disc. Osiris is the sun in the Lower World—i.e., during the night, and the father of Horus. Horus is sometimes depicted seated on a lotus.
The various animals which were symbolic of the sun or associated with sun-divinities are also placed in direct connection with the lotus, as if to emphasise its solar significance; for example—
The solar-bull is well recognised in Egyptian mythology, the Bull-god Apis being an incarnation of Osiris, and an offspring of the Sun-god, Ptah of Memphis. Similarly also for Assyria, Merodach, “the Bull of Light,” was originally a Sun-god; his Syrian equivalent was Baal. The Phœnician Moon-goddess, Astarte, had the bull as her symbol, and the bull of Europa was its counterpart. The Taurus of the Chaldean Zodiac commenced the year.
The lion was another sun-animal both in Egypt and in Chaldea and Assyria.
Among birds the hawk and the eagle were sun symbols, especially the former, and it is sometimes depicted standing on a lotus. The solar-goose is also important in its association with the lotus. (Fig. [129], G.)
In early Cyprian pottery we find lotus derivatives grouped with the solar cross and other symbols of the sun. (Fig. [129], F.)