1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the
tomb of Khopirkerîsonbû. The inscription behind the urseus
states that it represents Banûît the August, lady of the
double granary.
Each temple held a fairly large number of statues representing so many embodiments of the local divinity and of the members of his triad. These latter shared, albeit in a lesser degree, all the honours and all the prerogatives of the master; they accepted sacrifices, answered prayers, and, if needful, they prophesied. They occupied either the sanctuary itself, or one of the halls built about the principal sanctuary, or one of the isolated chapels which belonged to them, subject to the suzerainty of the feudal god. The god has his divine court to help him in the administration of his dominions, just as a prince is aided by his ministers in the government of his realm.
This State religion, so complex both in principle and in its outward manifestations, was nevertheless inadequate to express the exuberant piety of the populace. There were casual divinities in every nome whom the people did not love any the less because of their inofficial character; such as an exceptionally high palm tree in the midst of the desert, a rock of curious outline, a spring trickling drop by drop from the mountain to which hunters came to slake their thirst in the hottest hours of the day, or a great serpent believed to be immortal, which haunted a field, a grove of trees, a grotto, or a mountain ravine.[*]
* It was a serpent of this kind which gave its name to the
hill of Shêikh Harîdî, and the adjacent nome of the Serpent
Mountain; and though the serpent has now turned Mussulman,
he still haunts the mountain and preserves his faculty of
coming to life again every time that he is killed.
The peasants of the district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and thought that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their fields by gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are fine single sycamores, flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a scene in the tomb of
Khopirkerîsonbû. The sacred sycamore here stands at the end
of a field of corn, and would seem to extend its protection
to the harvest.
Their fresh greenness is in sharp contrast with the surrounding fawn-coloured landscape, and their thick foliage defies the midday sun even in summer. But, on examining the ground in which they grow, we soon find that they drink from water which has infiltrated from the Nile, and whose existence is in nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil. They stand as it were with their feet in the river, though no one about them suspects it. Egyptians of all ranks counted them divine and habitually worshipped them,[**] making them offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers, vegetables, and water in porous jars daily replenished by good and charitable people.
** Maspero, Études de Mythologie et d'Archéologie
Égyptiennes, vol. ii. pp. 224—227. They were represented
as animated by spirits concealed within them, but which
could manifest themselves on occasion. At such times the
head or whole body of the spirit of a tree would emerge from
its trunk, and when it returned to its hiding-place the
trunk reabsorbed it, or ate it again, according to the
Egyptian expression, which I have already had occasion to
quote above; see p. 110, note 3.