Alazonians, Hyperboreans, and other the most northern regions, which the Amonians possessed. In some of the temples women officiated, who were denominated from the Deity they served. The Scholiast upon Callimachus calls the chief of them Upis; and styles her, and her associates, Κορας 17 Υπερβορέας, Hyperborean young women. The Hyperboreans, Alazonians, Arimaspians, were Scythic nations of the same family. All the stories about Prometheus, Chimæra, Medusa, Pegasus, Hydra, as well as of the Grupes, or Gryphons, arose, in great measure, from the sacred devices upon the entablatures of temples.

107 Scholia in Callimach. Hymn. in Dianam. v. 204. Ωπιν, και Εκαεργην - εκ των Υπερβορέων. Pausan. l. 5. p. 392. Metuenda feris Hecaerge,

Et Soror, optatum numen venantibus, Opis.

Claudian in Laudes Stilic. 1. 3. v. 253.

TAPH, TUPH, TAPHOS.

THERE was another name current among the Amonians, by which they called their xogo, or high places. This was Taph; which at times was rendered Tuph, Toph, and Taphos. Lower Egypt being a flat, and annually overflowed, the natives were forced to raise the soil, on which they built their principal edifices, in order to secure them from the inundation: and many of their sacred towers were erected upon conical mounds of earth. But there were often hills of the same form constructed for religious purposes, upon which there was no building. These were very common in Egypt. Hence we read of Taphanis, or Taph-Hanes, Taph-Osiris, Taph-Osiris parva, and contra Taphias, in Antoninus; all of this country. In other parts were Taphiousa, Tape, Taphura, Tapori, Taphus, Taphosus, Taphitis. All these names relate to high altars, upon which

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burn their sons

And in another

they used oftentimes to offer human sacrifices. Typhon was one of these; being a compound of Tuph-On, which signifies the hill or altar of the Sun. Tophet, where the Israelites made their children pass through fire to Moloch, was a mount of this form. And there seem to have been more than one of this denomination; as we learn from the prophet Jeremiah. They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to and their daughters in the fire. place: They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal. These cruel operations were generally performed upon mounts of this sort; which, from their conical figure, were named Tuph and Tupha. It seems to have been a term current in many countries. The high Persian bonnet had the same name from its shape: and Bede mentions a particular kind of standard in his time; which was made of plumes in a globular shape, and called in like manner, + Tupha, vexilli genus,

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1 2 Kings. c. 23. v. 10. 2 Chron. c. 28. v. 3.

C. 7. v. 31. and c. 19. v. 5. There was a place named Tophel (Toph-El) near Paran upon the Red Sea. Deuteron. c. 1. v. 1. 3 Zonar. vol. 2. p. 227. Τεφαν καλει ὁ δημώδης και πολύς ανθρωπος.

* Bedæ. Hist. Angliæ. 1. 2. c. 16.

*

ex consertis plumarum globis. There was probably a tradition, that the calf, worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness near Horeb, was raised upon a sacred mound, like those described above: for Philo Judæus says, that it was exhibited after the model of an Egyptian Tuphos: 5 Αιγυπτιακο μιμημα Τυφε. This I do not take to have been a Grecian word; but the name of a sacred orbicular mount, analogous to the Touphas of Persis.

The Amonians, when they settled in Greece, raised many of these Tupha, or Tapha, in different parts. These, beside their original name, were still farther denominated from some title of the Deity, to whose honour they were erected. But as it was usual, in antient times, to bury persons of distinction under heaps of earth formed in this fashion; these Tapha came to signify tombs and almost all the sacred mounds, raised for religious purposes, were looked upon as monuments of deceased heroes. Hence TaphOsiris was rendered rapos, or the burying place of the God Osiris: and as there were many such

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5 De legibus specialibus. p. 320.

The Greek term rupos, fumus, vel fastus, will hardly make sense, as introduced here.

Plutarch. Isis et Osiris. v. 1. p. 359.