and the Ritual of the Dead was used and written in ancient Egypt for more than thirty centuries.*

37. Apart, however, from the Ritual, the trail of the serpent is as conspicuous on the monumental history of Egypt as it is

Fig. 88. The solar orb with the emblematic figure of the goddess Thmei, or Truth, between the sacred uræi. (Cassell.) See fig. 40.

in the archæographic. Every sepulchral stelè or funereal slab bore at its upper extremity the usual winged disc of Ra, with its pendent basilisks (fig. 88), wearing the alternate crowns of

Fig. 89. The royal and sacred head dresses united.

Upper and Lower Egypt and the cross of life. Not unfrequently the god Ra, and even the King himself, as that deity's incarnation, is represented, as a globe surrounded by a serpent, whose tail

Lenormant's Ancient History of the East, vol. i. section vii.

is twisted tightly against the solar disk. The serpent decorated the monarch's crown (fig. 89) and fringed the extremities of his

Fig. 90. Royal girdle fringed with jewelled uræi. From figure of K. Seti
Menepthah I. (Arundale.)

girdle (fig. 90). In another instance a sphinx, emblem of regal power, under the title, "Lord of the Horizon" (fig. 91), is represented as supported by, or standing between, two procumbent

Fig. 91. Top of an Egyptian standard Sphinx and uræi, implying heavenly victory. (Leemans.)

uræi.* Sometimes, as on the Soane sarcophagus (one of the most wonderful of all Egyptian sarcophagi, originally executed

Fig. 92. The beetle of Chefer Ra, in the Solar orb, surrounded by the serpent Ranno. Possibly the Egyptian original, as far as the Mythos was concerned, of the Orphic figure, No. 28. (Sar. Oimen.)

about the time of Moses, for Oimenepthah or Seti Menepthah I.), the serpent of eternity environs (fig. 92) the disk of the

sun with seven involutions,* and the circle is completed by the tail of the reptile being placed in its mouth, as in the Greek

Fig. 93. Double snake-headed deity. (Sar. Oimen.)

interpretation.† In the Museum specimen, however, the Coluber, and not the Naja or Cobra, is the species of snake

Fig. 94. Single snake-headed deity wearing the crown of Lower Egypt. (Sar. Oimen.) adopted. Again on the same work of art is a long vignette representing a number of deities, many of these again being

Fig. 95. Quadruple snake-headed deity holding forth a knife to slay the Apophis. (Sar. Oimen.)

* A similar representation at the foot of the sarcophagus of Naskatu, at the British Museum, gives nineteen involutions to the same symbolic serpent. † See Bonomi's Sarcophagus of Oimenepthah I., plate 5.

snake-headed (fig.93), with ropes and slings (figs. 94, 95, 96, 97),

Fig. 96. Single snake-headed deity bringing a rope to bind the Apophis.
(Sar. Oimen.)

Fig. 97. The deities binding Apophis from above. (Sar. Oimen.)

Fig. 98. Another vignette representing the same subject. (Sar. Oimen.) snaring the Apophis* (fig. 98). Another vignette shows the

56666

Fig. 99. Apophis bound below with chains and bronze staples. (Sar. Oimen.)

hand of the Eternal holding the enchained monster; another, Apophis chained to the ground by four chains, symbolizing the four races of mankind, fighting against the evil one (fig. 99);* another, Apophis writhing in agony between the assembled gods, who have transfixed him with many knives; another,† Apophis in the mystic. lake folded in twenty-eight convolutions; and lastly, Apophis brought

Fig. 100. The serpent "Fire-face" devouring the wicked; the avenging deities are standing upon his folds to restrain his violence within due bounds. (Sar. Oimen.)

prisoner to Horus Ra and slain by that merciful divinity.§ These, as the Ritual has shown, all belong directly to the myth

Fig. 101. One of the twelve serpent warders of the twelve doors of Hades. (Sar. Oimen.)

of Apophis; but on the same alabaster sarcophagus is engraven another subject, viz. a troop of wicked men with their hands and

* See Bonomi's Sarcophagus of Oimenepthah I., plate 9.

+ Ib., plate 15.

Ib., plate 7.

Ib., plate 11.