issuing from it. As the name for head tep (also tap or tpa, and apt _cf._
pta), signifies chief, or beginning, we must accept this as another
variant of the previous signs.

Deferring the discussion of the so-called "birth" and cult of the diurnal
sun, as one form of Amen-Ra, let us now rapidly survey the following
figures copied from Mr. Goodyear's work.

Pl. VII, 9. A circle encloses a group consisting of the five-petalled
lotus between two buds and the hawk-headed sphinx, which has already been
met with in the astronomical texts and, according to Egyptologists,
represents Horus, the sun, "who lights the world with two eyes" and is
addressed as "a powerful lion," "the master of double force."(115) I need
scarcely recall here that the combination of a bird and quadruped would
naturally symbolize air and earth, the Above and Below and that the
hawk-headed sphinx, seated on four petals, clearly expresses the idea of
the "lord of Heaven and Earth, the father and mother of all, the ruler of
the Four Quarters and lord of the circle."

Pl. VII, 10. The plain circle or disk, supported by two uplifted arms=ka,
arising from (akh) the ankh sign, is another ingenious mode of expressing
the idea of the Middle, the circle, duality and life.

No. 13 constitutes as charming and ingenious a play upon the word
ankh=life as can be imagined, and a close examination reveals its subtle,
hidden and deep significance. It exhibits, in the first case, the ankh
sign combined with the flower=ankh, which might, at a first glance, be
taken as an example of purely decorative art. But the ever-present thought
of the duality of nature manifests itself in the arrangement of the two
flowers towards each other and enclosed in the open ring of the ankh sign,
and it is evident that the artist took pains to draw the central petal of
the lower blossom in the form of a triangle, below which an oblong square
and a square may be distinguished.

After the foregoing attempt to show how, even with my rudimentary and
limited knowledge of their language, the sacred symbols of the Egyptians
become intelligible and full of significance when studied as examples of
pole-star symbolism and primitive rebus writing, I draw attention to the
limited number of syllables employed in the astronomical texts; to the
ingenuity displayed in expressing the same sound over and over again by
means of different words possessing the same sound and to the fact I shall
hereafter set