Drawn by Faucher-Gudin,
from a photograph by Gay.
The king is Amenôthes III.
The Pharaohs, therefore, are blood-relations of the Sun-god, some through their father, others through their mother, directly begotten by the God, and their souls as well as their bodies have a supernatural origin; each soul being a double detached from Horus, the successor of Osiris, and the first to reign alone over Egypt. This divine double is infused into the royal infant at birth, in the same manner as the ordinary double is incarnate in common mortals. It always remained concealed, and seemed to lie dormant in those princes whom destiny did not call upon to reign, but it awoke to full self-consciousness in those who ascended the throne at the moment of their accession. From that time to the hour of their death, and beyond it, all that they possessed of ordinary humanity was completely effaced; they were from henceforth only “the sons of Râ,” the Horus, dwelling upon earth, who, during his sojourn here below, renews the blessings of Horus, son of Isis. Their complex nature was revealed at the outset in the form and arrangement of their names. Among the Egyptians the choice of a name was not a matter of indifference; not only did men and beasts, but even inanimate objects, require one or more names, and it may be said that no person or thing in the world could attain to complete existence until the name had been conferred. The most ancient names were often only a short word, which denoted some moral or physical quality, as Titi the Runner, Mini the Lasting, Qonqeni the Crusher, Sondi the Formidable, Uznasît the Flowery-tongued. They consisted also of short sentences, by which the royal child confessed his faith in the power of the gods, and his participation in the acts of the Sun’s life—“Khâfrî,” his rising is Râ; “Men-kaûhorû,” the doubles of Horus last for ever; “Usirkerî,” the double of Râ is omnipotent. Sometimes the sentence is shortened, and the name of the god is understood: as for instance, “Ûsirkaf,” his double is omnipotent; “Snofmi,” he has made me good; “Khûfïïi,” he has protected me, are put for the names “Usirkerî,” “Ptahsnofrûi,” “Khnûmkhûfûi,” with the suppression of Râ, Phtah, and Khnûrnû.
The name having once, as it were, taken possession of a man on his entrance into life, never leaves him either in this world or the next; the prince who had been called Unas or Assi at the moment of his birth, retained this name even after death, so long as his mummy existed, and his double was not annihilated.
{Hieroglyphics indicated by [—], see the page images in
the HTML file}
When the Egyptians wished to denote that a person or thing was in a certain place, they inserted their names within the picture of the place in question. Thus the name of Teti is written inside a picture of Teti’s castle, the result being the compound hieroglyph [—] Again, when the son of a king became king in his turn, they enclose his ordinary name in the long flat-bottomed frame [—] which we call a cartouche; the elliptical part [—] of which is a kind of plan of the world, a representation of those regions passed over by Râ in his journey, and over which Pharaoh, because he is a son of Râ, exercises his rule. When the names of Teti or Snofrûi, following the group [——] which respectively express sovereignty over the two halves of Egypt, the South and the North, the whole expression describing exactly the visible person of Pharaoh during his abode among mortals. But this first name chosen for the child did not include the whole man; it left without appropriate designation the double of Horus, which was revealed in the prince at the moment of accession. The double therefore received a special title, which is always constructed on a uniform plan: first the picture [—] hawk-god, who desired to leave to his descendants a portion of his soul, then a simple or compound epithet, specifying that virtue of Horus which the Pharaoh wished particularly to possess—“Horû nîb-mâîfc,” Horus master of Truth; “Horû miri-toûi,” Horus friend of both lands; “Horû nîbkhâùû,” Horus master of the risings; “Horu mazîti,” Horus who crushes his enemies.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an illustration in Arundale-
Bonomi-Birch’s Gallery of Antiquities from the British
Museum, pl. 31. The king thus represented is Thutmosis II.
of the XVIIIth dynasty; the spear, surmounted by a man’s
head, which the double holds in his hand, probably recalls
the human victims formerly sacrificed at the burial of a
chief.