Chapter 43 (part 71)

the walls of tombs, stelæ, and papyri of the XVIIIth dynasty; and these prove that the Egyptians ascribed the attributes of the Creator to the creature. The religious ideas which we find in these writings in the XVIIIth dynasty are, no doubt, the outcome of the religion of earlier times, for all the evidence now available shows that the Egyptians of the later periods invented comparatively little in the way of religious literature. Where, how, and in what way they succeeded in preserving their most ancient texts, are matters about which little, unfortunately, is known. In course of time we find that the attributes of a certain god in one period are applied to other gods in another; a new god is formed by the fusion of two or more gods; local gods, through the favourable help of political circumstances, or the fortune of war, become almost national gods; and the gods who are the companions of Osiris are endowed by the pious with all the attributes of the great cosmic gods--Ra, Ptah, Khnemu, Khepera, and the like. Thus the attributes of Ra are bestowed upon Khnemu and Khepera; the god Horus exists in the aspects of Heru-maati, Heru-khent-an-maa, Heru-Khuti, Heru-nub, Heru-behutet, etc. , and the attributes of each are confounded either in periods or localities: Tmu-Ra, and Menthu-Ra, and Amen-Ra are composed of Tmu and Ra, and Menthu and Ra, and Amen and Ra respectively, and we have seen from the hymn quoted above (p. lii.) that already in the XVIIIth dynasty the god Osiris had absorbed the attributes which belonged in the earlier dynasties to Ra alone. History of the god Amen. Still more remarkable, however, is the progress of the god Amen in Egyptian theology. In the early empire, i.e. , during the first eleven dynasties, this god ranked only as a local god, although his name is as old as the time of Unas; and [1. E.g. , the litany from the tomb of Seti I., published by Naville, La Litanie du Soleil , Leipzig, 1875, p. 13 ff. 2. E.g. , Hymn to Amen-Ra, translated by Goodwin from papyrus No. 17, now preserved in the Gizeh Museum (see Les Papyrus Égyptiens du Musée de Boulaq , ed. Mariette, Paris, 1872, pll. 1-13; Records of the Past , vol. i., p. 127 f., and Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch. , vol. ii., p. 250), and by Grébaut, Hymne à Ammon-Ra , Paris, 1874); Hymns to Amen , translated by Goodwin (see Records of the Past , vol. vi., p. 97 f.; Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch. , vol. ii., p. 353), and Chabas ( Mélanges Égyptologiques , 1870, p. 117); Hymn to Osiris , translated by Chabas ( Revue Archéologique , t. xiv., Paris, 1857, p. 65 ff.), and Goodwin ( Records of the Past , vol. iv., p. 97 ff.). The various versions of the XVth Chapter of the Book of the Dead, which consists of a series of hymns, are given in the Theban edition by Naville ( Todtenbuch , Bd. I., Bll.