irs), and in Babylonia symbolical emblems are attached to the
shoulders (e.g. the rays of the sun-god, stalks, running water). Long
garments ornamented with symbolical designs (stars, &c.) are worn by
Marduk and Adad. The custom of clothing images is well known in the
ancient world, and at the restoration of an Egyptian temple care was
taken to anoint the divine limbs and to prepare the royal linen for the
god. The ceremonial clothing of the god on the occasion of festal
processions, undertaken in Egypt by the "master of secret things," may
be compared with the well-known Babylonian representations of such
promenades. The Babylonian temples received garments as payment in kind,
and the Egyptian lists in the Papyrus Harris (Rameses III.) enumerate an
enormous number of skirts, tunics and mantles, dyed and undyed, for the
various deities. A priest, "master of the wardrobe," is named as early
as the VIth Dynasty, and later texts refer to the weavers and laundry
servants of the temple. It is probable that 2 Kings xxiii. 7 originally
referred to the women who wove garments for the goddess in the temple at
Jerusalem.

Royal costume.

In Egypt the king was regarded as the incarnation of the deity, his son
and earthly likeness. The underlying conception shows itself under
differing though not unrelated forms over western Asia, and in their
light the question of religious and ceremonial dress is of great
interest. Throughout Egyptian history the official costume was
conventionalized, and the latest kings and even the Roman emperors are
arrayed like their predecessors of the IVth Dynasty. The crook which
figures among royal and divine insignia may go back to the
boomerang-like object which was a prominent weapon in antiquity (Muller,
123 sq.). It appears in old Babylonia as a curved stick, and, like the
club, is a distinctive symbol of god and king. It resembles the sceptre
curved at the end, which was carried by old Hittite gods. The Pharaoh's
characteristic crown (or crowns) symbolized his royal domains, the
sacred uraeus marked his divine ancestry, and he sometimes appeared in
the costume of the gods with their fillets adorned with double feathers
and horns. In Babylonia Naram-Sin in the guise of a god wears the
pointed helmet and two great horns distinctive of the deities.[10] This
relationship between the gods and their human representatives is
variously expressed. Khammurabi and the sun-god Shamash, on the former's
fa