to be found among the
representations on the ancient monuments of Egypt is at first glance
very striking. Nearly every illustration in the works of Egyptologists
brings before us the figure of some deity receiving with an impassive
countenance the prayers and offerings of a worshipper. One would think
that the country had been inhabited for the most part by gods, and
contained just sufficient men and animals to satisfy the requirements of
their worship.

[Illustration: 108.jpg THE GODDESS NAPKIT, STAPIT.1]

1 The goddess Naprit, Napit; bas-relief from the first
chamber of Osiris, on the east side of the great temple of
Denderah. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.

On penetrating into this mysterious world, we are confronted by an
actual rabble of gods, each one of whom has always possessed but a
limited and almost unconscious existence. They severally represented a
function, a moment in the life of man or of the universe; thus Naprit
was identified with the ripe ear, or the grain of wheat;[**]

** The word _naprit_ means _grain_, the grain of wheat. The
grain-god is represented in the tomb of Seti I. as a man
wearing two full ears of wheat or barley upon his head. He
is mentioned in the _Hymn to the Nile_ about the same date,
and in two or three other texts of different periods. The
goddess _Naprit_, or _Napit_, to whom reference is here
made, was his duplicate; her head-dress is a sheaf of corn,
as in the illustration.

*** This goddess, whose name expresses and whose form
personifies the brick or stone couch, the child-bed or
-chair, upon which women in labour bowed themselves, is
sometimes subdivided into two or four secondary divinities.
She is mentioned along with Shait, _destiny_, and Raninit,
_suckling_. Her part of fairy godmother at the cradle of the
new-born child is indicated in the passage of the Westcar
Papyrus giving a detailed account of the births of three
kings of the fifth dynasty. She is represented in human
form, and often wears upon her head two long palm-shoots,
curling over at their ends.

Maskhonit appeared by the child's cradle at the very moment of its
birth;[*] and Raninit presided over the naming and the nurture of the
newly born.[*] Neither Raninit, the fairy godmother, nor Maskhonit
exercised over nature as a whole that sovereign authority which we are
accustomed to consider the pri