Chapter 10 (part 13)

In turn it was identified with all the gods of Egypt, new or old, and its influence was so great upon the minds of the Egyptians that from the earliest days they depicted to themselves a material heaven wherein the Isles of the Blest were laved by the waters of the Nile, and the approach to which was by the way of its stream as it flowed to the north. Others again lived in imagination on the banks of the heavenly Nile, whereon they built cities; and it seems as if the Egyptians never succeeded in conceiving a heaven without a Nile and canals. The Nile is depicted in the form of a man, who wears upon his head a clump of papyrus or lotus flowers; his breasts are those of a woman, indicating fertility. Lanzone reproduces an interesting scene in which the north and south Nile gods are tying a papyrus and a lotus stalk around the emblem of union to indicate the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt, and this emblem is found cut upon the thrones of the kings of Egypt to indicate their sovereignty over the regions traversed by the South and North Niles. It has already been said that Hapi was identified with all the gods in turn, and it follows as a matter of course that the attributes of each were ascribed to him; in one respect, however he is different from them all, for of him it is written an mehu en aner tut her uah set sexet aarat He cannot be sculptured in stone; in the images on which men place crowns and uræi an qemuh entuf an baka an xerpu tuf an he is not made manifest; service cannot be rendered nor offerings made to him; not [1. Dizionario , tav. 198.] seset-tu em setau an rex-tu bu entuf an can he be drawn from [his] mystery; not can be known the place where he is; not qem tephet anu. is he found in the painted shrine. Here the scribe gave to the Nile the attributes of the great and unknown God its Maker. In the pyramid texts we find a group of four gods with whom the deceased is closely connected in the "other world"; these are the four "children of Horus" whose names are given in the following order:-- Hapi , Tua-mautef , Amset and Qebhsennuf . The deceased is called their "father." His two arms were identified with Hapi and Tuamautef, and his two legs with Amset and Qebhsennuf; and when he entered into the Sekhet-Aaru they accompanied him as guides, and went in with him two on each side. They took away all hunger and thirst from him, they gave him life in heaven and protected it when given, and they brought to him from the Lake of Khemta the boat of the Eye of Khnemu. In one passage they are called the "four Khu 's of Horus", and originally they represented the four pillars which supported the sky or Horus. Each was supposed to be lord of one of the quarters of the world, and finally became the god of one of the cardinal points. Hapi represented the north, Tuamautef the east, Amset the south, and Qebhsennuf the west. In the XVIIIth dynasty the Egyptians originated the custom of embalming the intestines of the [1. For the hieratic text from which this extract is taken see Birch, Select Papyri , pll. 20 ff. and 134 ff.