[78] Alan H. Gardiner, Davies and Gardiner, op. cit. p. 59.
[79] F. Ll. Griffith, "A Collection of Hieroglyphs," 1898, p. 60.
[80] Aylward M. Blackman, "Some Remarks on an Emblem upon the Head of an Ancient Egyptian Birth-Goddess," Journal of Egyptian Archæology, Vol. III, Part III, July, 1916, p. 199; and "The Pharaoh's Placenta and the Moon-God Khons," ibid. Part IV, Oct., 1916, p. 235.
[81] "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 52. Breasted denies that the ka was an element of the personality.
[82] For an abstruse discussion of this problem see Alan H. Gardiner, "Personification (Egyptian)," Hastings' Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, pp. 790 and 792.
[83] Op. cit. supra.
[84] Mr. Blackman is puzzled to explain what "possible connexion there could be between the Pharaoh's placenta and the moon beyond the fact that it is the custom in Uganda to expose the king's placenta each new moon and anoint it with butter."
To those readers who follow my argument in the later pages of this discussion the reasoning at the back of this association should be plain enough. The moon was regarded as the controller of menstruation. The placenta (and also the child) was considered to be formed of menstrual blood. The welfare of the placenta was therefore considered to be under the control of the moon.
The anointing with butter is an interesting illustration of the close connexion of these lunar and maternal phenomena with the cow.
The placenta was associated with the moon also in China, as the following quotation shows.