Of that goddess whom they esteem the first of their deities, and in whose honour their greatest festival is celebrated, I shall now make more particular mention. After the previous ceremony of prayers, they sacrifice an ox; they then strip off the skin, and take out the intestines, leaving the fat and the paunch; they afterwards cut off the legs, the shoulders, the neck, and the extremities of the loin; the rest of the body is stuffed with fine bread, honey, raisins, figs, frankincense, and various aromatics; after this process they burn it, pouring upon the flame a large quantity of oil: whilst the victim is burning, the spectators flagellate themselves, having fasted before the ceremony; the whole is completed by their feasting on the residue of the sacrifice. All the Egyptians sacrifice bulls without blemish, and calves; the females are sacred to Isis, and may not be used for this purpose. This divinity is represented under the form of a woman, and, as the Greeks paint Io, with horns upon her head; for this reason the Egyptians venerate cows far beyond all other cattle. Neither will any man or woman among them kiss a Grecian, nor use a knife, or spit, or any domestic utensil belonging to a Greek, nor will they eat even the flesh of such beasts as by their law are pure, if it has been cut with a Grecian knife. If any of these cattle die, they thus dispose of their carcasses: the females are thrown into the river, the males they bury in the vicinity of the city, and by way of mark, one and sometimes both of the horns are left projecting from the ground: they remain thus a stated time, and till they begin to putrefy, when a vessel appointed for this particular purpose is dispatched from Prosopitis, an island of the Delta, nine schæni in extent, and containing several cities. Atarbechis, one of these cities, in which is a temple of Venus, provides the vessels for this purpose, which are sent to the different parts of Egypt: these collect and transport the bones of the animals, which are all buried in one appointed place. This law and custom extends to whatever cattle may happen to die, as the Egyptians themselves put none to death.
Those who worship in the temple of the Theban Jupiter, or belong to the district of Thebes, abstain from sheep, and sacrifice goats. The same deities receive in Egypt different forms of worship; the ceremonies of Isis and of Osiris, who they say is no other than the Grecian Bacchus, are alone unvaried; in the temple of Mendes, and in the whole Mendesian district, goats are preserved and sheep sacrificed. The veneration of the Mendesians for these animals, and for the males in particular, is equally great and universal: this is also extended to goat-herds. There is one he-goat more particularly honoured than the rest, whose death is seriously lamented by the whole district of the Mendesians. In the Egyptian language the word Mendes is used in common for Pan and for a goat.
The Egyptians regard the hog as an unclean animal, and if they casually touch one they immediately plunge themselves, clothes and all, into the water. This prejudice operates to the exclusion of all swine-herds, although natives of Egypt, from the temples: with people of this description, a connection by marriage is studiously avoided, and they are reduced to the necessity of intermarrying among those of their own profession. The only deities to whom the Egyptians offer swine, are Bacchus and Luna; to these they sacrifice them when the moon is at the full, after which they eat the flesh. Why they offer swine at this particular time, and at no other, the Egyptians have a tradition among themselves, which delicacy forbids me to explain. The following is the mode in which they sacrifice this animal to Luna: as soon as it is killed, they cut off the extremity of the tail, which, with the spleen and the fat, they enclose in the caul, and burn; upon the remainder, which at any other time they would disdain, they feast at the full moon, when the sacrifice is performed. They who are poor make figures of swine with meal, which having first baked, they offer on the altar.
On the day of the feast of Bacchus, at the hour of supper, every person, before the door of his house, offers a hog in sacrifice. The swine-herd of whom they purchased it, is afterwards at liberty to take it away. Except this sacrifice of the swine, the Egyptians celebrate the feast of Bacchus in the same manner as the Greeks.[b]
GIFTS AND RICHES OF TEMPLES
There are certain very practical features of the administration of the temples which Herodotus quite overlooked, but which have come to light through the efforts of modern scholarship. Some of these are admirably pointed out by Professor Erman:
Not the least of the circumstances which lent the priesthood of the New Kingdom that power which finally triumphed over royalty itself, was their wealth. For this they were indebted to gifts, and, indeed, so far as we can see, chiefly to gifts from the kings; it is only now and then that we find a private person making an endowment. From the earliest times all the rulers are busy in this fatal direction (some, like the pious kings of the Vth dynasty, were more so than others); even under the old kingdom many temples had attained such prosperity that they even possessed military forces of their own.
The golden age for the temples began with the Asiatic campaigns of the XVIIIth Dynasty. An approximate idea of the gifts which Tehutimes III made to Amen may be obtained from the remains of an inscription at Karnak; fields and gardens of the choicest of the South and North, landed property on high ground, with sweet trees growing on it, milch cows, and bullocks, and quantities of gold, silver, and lapis lazuli; then captive Asiatics and negroes,—there were at least 878 souls—men, women, and children,—who had to fill the god’s granaries, spin and weave, and till his fields for him. Finally he settled upon Amen three of the towns conquered by him, En-heugsa, Yenu-amu, and Hurenkhara, which had to pay an annual tribute to the god. Since almost every sovereign of the New Kingdom boasts in nearly the same words of having exhibited his piety in a practical fashion, one is first inclined to take this constant self-glorification of the Pharaohs, as so much in the Egyptian text has to be taken, for a conventional empty phrase. But in that case, our doubt would go too far, since at least some of the kings did make to the temples gifts which surpass all that might be considered probable. The lucky chance which has preserved for us the great Harris papyrus places us in a position to bring forward the evidence of figures. King Ramses III left behind after his death a comprehensive manifesto, in which he enumerates in detail all that he had done for the sanctuaries of his country during the thirty-one years of his reign. The numbers of these lists are evidently taken from the accounts of the state and of the different temples, and are consequently deserving of credit.
This great record, which fills a papyrus roll 1333 feet long, with seventy-nine pages of a large size, is divided into five sections, according to the recipients of the gifts. The first contains the gifts to the Theban temples, then follows the gifts to Heliopolis, those to Memphis, and those to the smaller sanctuaries of the country; finally, the fifth section contains the total of all the donations.
Taking together the similar items amongst the donations, tributes, and sacrificial offerings, we have then the chief items of the sum of the income of the Egyptian temples during one and thirty years, somewhat as follows: about 1 ton (1015 kg. 336. g.) of gold; about 3 tons (2993 kg. 964 g.) silver and the value of silver; 940 kg. 3 g. of black bronze; about 13 tons (13,059 kg. 865 g.) bronze; about 14 lbs. (7 kg. 124 g.) precious stones; 1,093,803 pieces of valuable stone; 169 towns, 1,071,780 plots of arable land; 514 vineyards and orchards; 178 ships; 133,433 slaves; 514,968 head of cattle (especially oxen); 680,714 geese; 494,800 fish; 2,382,605 fruits: 5,740,352 sacks of corn; 6,744,428 loaves of bread; 256,460 jars of wine; 466,303 jars of beer; 368,461 jars of incense, honey, oil, etc., 1,933,766 items.