The Egyptian deities served in a double capacity, as gods of the dead as well as of the living, and no exception could be made in favour of the deified Osorkon; while yet living he became an Osiris, and his double was supposed to animate those prophetic statues in which he appeared as a mummy no less than those which represented him as still alive.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Naville.
Another temple of small size, also dedicated to Bastîfc or Pasht, which had been built in the time of Ramses II., was enlarged by Osorkon I., and richly endowed with workshops, lands, cattle, slaves, and precious metals: Tumu-Khopri of Heliopolis, to mention but one of the deities worshipped there, received offerings of gold in value by weight.£120,000, and silver ingots worth £12,000.*
* This is the small temple afterwards described by Herodotus
as being dedicated to Hermes.
A country which could afford to indulge in extravagances of this nature must have been in a flourishing condition, and everything goes to prove that Egypt prospered under the rule of the early Bubastite kings.
The very same causes, however, which had ruined the Ramessides and the Tanites were now openly compassing the downfall of the Bubastite dynasty. The military feudalism from which it had sprung, suppressed for a time by Sheshonq I., developed almost unchecked under his successors. They had thought to break it up and turn it to their own advantage, by transferring the more important religious functions and the principal fiefs to their own sons or nephews. They governed Memphis through the high priests of Phtah; a prince of the blood represented them at Khmunu,* another at Khninsu** (Heracleopolis), and others in various cities of the Delta, each of them being at the head of several thousand Mashauasha, or Libyan soldiers on whose fidelity they could entirely rely.