d perpetual sacrifices on his
behalf.[*] In course of time these accumulated gifts at length formed
real sacred fiefs--_hotpu-nutir_--analogous to the _wakfs_ of Mussulman
Egypt.[**] They were administered by the high priest, who, if necessary,
defended them by force against the greed of princes or kings. Two,
three, or even four classes of prophets or _heiroduli_ under his orders
assisted him in performing the offices of worship, in giving religious
instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal
rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind
of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his
maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was
to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses
they held the chief rank, and were called _hierodules_, or priestesses,
_hierodules_ of Nit, _hierodules_ of Hathor, _hierodules_ of
Pakhit.[***]

* As regards the Saite period, we are beginning to
accumulate many stelae recording gifts to a god of land or
houses, made either by the king or by private individuals.

** We know from the _Great Harris Papyrus_ to what the
fortune of Amon amounted at the end of the reign of Ramses
III.; its details may be found in Brugsch, _Die
AEgyptologie_, pp. 271-274. Cf. in Naville, _Bubastis, Eighth
Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund_, p. 61, a
calculation as to the quantities of precious metals
belonging to one of the least of the temples of Bubastis;
its gold and silver were counted by thousands of pounds.

*** Mariette remarks that priests play but a
subordinate part in the temple of Hathor. This fact, which
surprised him, is adequately explained by remembering that
Hathor being a goddess, women take precedence over men in a
temple dedicated to her. At Sais, the chief priest was a
man, the Tcharp-haitu; but the persistence with which women
of the highest rank, and even queens themselves, took the
title of prophetess of Nit from the times of the Ancient
Empire shows that in this city the priestess of the goddess
was of equal, if not superior, rank to the priest.

The lower offices in the households of the gods, as in princely
households, were held by a troop of servants and artisans: butchers to
cut the throats of the victims, cooks and pastrycooks, confectioners,
weavers