This was first of all a single room, circumscribed, gloomy, covered in by a slightly vaulted roof, and having no opening but the doorway, which was framed by two tall masts, whence floated streamers to attract from afar the notice of worshippers; in front of its façade [*] was a court, fenced in with palisading.
* No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to
our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we
have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the
word temple in texts of the Memphite period.
2 A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gîzeh Museum,
drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are
copied from those of similar figures on stelæ of the
Serapeum.
Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood, or metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was every day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of chambers increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs, precious vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode; until that which had once constituted the whole temple became no more than its sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in body,[*] and the fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several cities did not prevent his being present in all of them at once. He could divide his double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he pleased, and these bodies might be human or animal, natural objects or things manufactured—such as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**] Several of the gods were incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitû at Heracleopolis, Khnûmû at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their temples, and allowed to gratify any fancy that came into their animal brains. Other gods entered into bulls: Râ at Heliopolis, and, subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minû at Thebes, and Montû at Hermonthis. They indicated beforehand by certain marks such beasts as they intended to animate by. their doubles, and he who had learnt to recognize these signs was at no loss to find a living god when the time came for seeking one and presenting it to the adoration of worshippers in the temple.[***]
* Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hâthor
likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed
sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine
cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other
instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in
thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life
to the statues and images which they made, and believed
(especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit
haunted images of itself."
** Maspero, Études de Mythologie et l'Archéologie
Égyptiennes, vol. i. p. 77, et seq.; Archéologie
Égyptienne, pp. 106, 107; English edition, pp. 105, 106.
This notion of actuated statues seemed so strange and so
unworthy of the wisdom of the Egyptians that Egyptologists
of the rank of M. de Rougé have taken in an abstract and
metaphorical sense expressions referring to the automatic
movements of divine images.
*** The bulls of Râ and of Phtah, the Mnevis and the Hapis,
are known to us from classic writers. The bull of Minû at
Thebes may be seen in the procession of the god as
represented on monuments of Ramses II. and Ramses III. Bâkhû
(called Bakis by the Greeks), the bull of Hermonthis, is
somewhat rare, and mainly represented upon a few later
stelæ in the Gîzeh Museum; it is chiefly known from the
texts. The particular signs distinguishing each of these
sacred animals have been determined both on the authority of
ancient writers, and from examination of the figured
monuments; the arrangement and outlines of some of the black
markings of the Hapis are clearly shown in the illustration
on p. 167.
And if the statues had not the same outward appearance of actual life as the animals, they none the less concealed beneath their rigid exteriors an intense energy of life which betrayed itself on occasion by gestures or by words. They thus indicated, in language which their servants could understand, the will of the gods, or their opinion on the events of the day; they answered questions put to them in accordance with prescribed forms, and sometimes they even foretold the future.
