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Scenes on a cippus of Horus.

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ant were mythological fishes which accompanied the boat of the Sun.

CIPPI OF HORUS.

These curious and interesting objects are made of basalt and other kinds of hard stone, and calcareous stone; they are in the shape of a rounded tablet, and vary in size from 3 in. x 2 in., to 20 in. x 16 in.; the Metternich stele is, however, very much larger. The scenes engraved upon them represent the triumph of light over darkness, the victory of good over evil, and cippi were used as talismans by those who were initiated into the mysteries of magic, to guard them from the attacks of noxious beasts, and from the baneful influence of Set, the god of all evil. To give an idea of these magical objects, a description of an example, in a good state of preservation, now in the British Museum (No. 957a) is here appended.1 On the front, in relief, is a figure of Horus, naked, standing upon two crocodiles, which are supported by a projecting ledge at the foot of the stele. Horus has the lock of hair, emblematic of youth, on the right side of his head, and above him, resting on the top of his head, is a head of Bes, also in relief. His arms hang at a little distance from his sides; in the right hand he holds two serpents, a scorpion, and a ram or stag, and in the left two serpents, a scorpion, and a lion. On the right is a sceptre, upon which stands the hawk of Horus. wearing horns, disk and feathers, and on the left is a lotusheaded sceptre with plumes and two menats (see p. 265). To the right and to the left of the god, outside the sceptres, are eight divisions; those on the right represent:

A

1. Oryx, with a hawk on his back, in front is inscribed

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"Horus, lord of

"Horus, lord of Hebennu," i.e., the metro

polis of the sixteenth nome of Upper Egypt.

1 A faulty copy is given in Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III.,

pl. XXXIII.

2 The inscription reads

The inscription reads,

78, "Beḥutet, great god."
59.

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Chemennu, lord of divine words," and the god Her-shef

hawk-headed, wearing the triple crown

3. “Ḥeka, lord of enchantments,"

hawk

headed, holding a serpent in each hand; "Neith, mighty lady, divine mother, lady of Sars" **

x.

4. Hawk-headed god, mummified, wearing disk and holding a serpent in each hand; the inscription is

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holding a snake; on her head she wears a disk and horns.
6. Ptah, in the form of a squat child standing on a
pedestal with four or five steps; the inscription is

Ptaḥ ser aa," Ptaḥ, prince, mighty..

"

7. The goddess Serqet, scorpion-headed, holding a serpent

with both hands; the inscription is of "Serqet,

lady of life."

8. Goddess, wearing disk and serpent, a, on her head, Scenes on standing between two serpents; the inscription reads

"Nebt hetep."

The eight scenes on the left hand side of Horus repre

sent:

I. Goddess, having a disk and two scorpions on her head, which is in the form of two serpents' heads, standing on a crocodile; she holds a serpent in her right hand, and a serpent and a scorpion in the left; on the crocodile's head is a bird. The inscription reads,

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2. Crocodile, with disk and horns, on a stand; behind it

a serpent Usert, The inscription reads,

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“great

3. Isis suckling Horus among papyrus plants, under a

canopy formed by two serpents, called Nechebet ↓ 1 =

and Uatchet, wearing the crown of Upper and Lower

a

cippus of

Horus.

Late date of cippi of Horus.

Egypt respectively; under each serpent is a scorpion. The

inscription reads JY,

4. Crocodile-headed god Sebek

"Isis, lady of Cheb."

seated. This

scene is rendered incomplete by a break in the cippus.

5. Hawk-headed god wearing the crown of Lower Egypt,

and holding a serpent in his hands; he is called N Ammo, , "Horus, son of Osiris, born of Isis.”

6. Hawk of Horus, wearing horns and plumes, standing on ; behind him is Q śen, and a goddess, wearing disk and horns, and having the body of a scorpion, called "Isis-Serqet"

7. Horus, in the form of a boy, holding over his left shoulder, seated on a crocodile, under a canopy formed by two serpents; the inscription reads,

8. The goddess Uatchet, wearing crown of Lower Egypt, on a papyrus sceptre; behind her Hu and Sau , each holding a knife.

Above the two crocodiles on which Horus stands are two small scenes in each of which is a crocodile, one being on a stand; that to the right of Horus has on his head and that on the left ; the former is called

"Hidden is his name," and the latter
in Uu."

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@, "Horus

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The inscription, which covers the front and base of the pedestal and back and sides of the cippus, contains an invocation to the god from whom the person for whom it was made seeks to gain power.

Cippi of Horus belong probably to the period which followed soon after the end of the rule of the XXVIth dynasty over Egypt, and the inscriptions on them are badly executed. They are generally found broken in half, or if not broken, the head of Horus has been hammered to deface the features; these injuries probably date from ancient times.

stele.

The largest and finest specimen of the cippi of Horus is The Metthat preserved in the Museum of Metternich Castle at Königs- ternich warth in Bohemia. It was found in the beginning of this century at Alexandria during the building of a fountain in a Franciscan convent there, and was given to Prince Metternich by Muhammad 'Ali in 1828. It is made of a hard, darkgreen stone upon which the figures of the gods and the inscriptions are finely and beautifully cut. The inscriptions have much in common with the magical texts inscribed upon papyri in London, Turin, and Paris, and are of great interest; this stele was made for Nectanebus I., about B.C. 370. A fac-simile of the stele and the text was published with a German translation and notes by W. Golenischeff, Die Metternichstele.... zum ersten Mal herausgegeben, Leipzig, 1877. A long article is devoted to the consideration of the cippi of Horus by Lanzone, Dizionario, pp. 583-594; and see Birch in Arundale and Bonomi, Gallery of Antiquities, p. 39 ff.

THE EGYPTIAN YEAR.1

2

The ancient Egyptians had:-I. The vague, or civil year, which consisted of 360 days; it was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, and five intercalary days were added at the end. II. The Sothic year of 365 days. The first year of a Sothic period began with the rising of Sirius or the dog-star, on the 1st of the month Thoth, when it coincided with the beginning of the inundation. III. The solar year, which was practically the same as the civil year, and which was a quarter of a day shorter than the Sothic year, an error which corrected itself in 1460 fixed years or 1461 vague years. The true year was estimated approximately by the conjunction of the sun with Sirius. Dr. Brugsch

The whole subject of the origin of the Egyptian year has recently been discussed with excellent results in Nature, Vol. XLV., 1892, p. 487, by Prof. N. Lockyer; and Vol. XLVI., p. 104 ff.

2 Called in Egyptian

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"five days over the year." The

first was called the "birth of Osiris," the second "the birth of Horus," the third "the birth of Set," the fourth "the birth of Isis," and the fifth the "birth of Nephthys." The Greeks called these days, erayóμevai iμipai névre, and the Copts &от NKOVI, "the little month."

thinks (Egypt under the Pharaohs, Vol. II., p. 17) that as early as B.C. 2500 four different forms of the year were already in use, and that the "little year" corresponded with the lunar year, and the "great year" with a lunar year having intercalated days. The divisions of time of the Egyptians were ant, "one-sixtieth of a second,"

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O

hat, "second,"

"hour," Ohru, “day,"

"year,"

"period,"

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abet, “month," rempit,

sed, “period of thirty years,”hen, heḥ, "millions of years," 808 heḥ, and tetta, "immeasurable time," or "eternity.”

Egyptian week consisted of ten days on.

1 See Lepsius, Die Chronologie der Aegypter, p. 147 ff.

The

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