re
clear by the following detached passages translated by Brugsch, which
merit careful study. "An inscription at Abydos makes the goddess Safkhet
say to the king: 'thou didst appear as king upon thy throne on the feast
hib-seb; like the god Ra at the beginning of the year.' " "The high-priest
of Ptah at Memphis was charged with the celebration of the Sed festival,
which was a general festival throughout the land." "The annual going of
the Hathor of Denderah to Edfu took place in the month Epiphi." "The
goddess Hathor-Isis of Denderah is frequently called the second female sun
next to the sun's disk, the many colored, feathered goddess, and is
identified with Isis-Sothis."

According to an extremely ancient belief it was the goddess Hathor
Isis-Sothis who caused the inundation of the Nile which, according to the
inscriptions, coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius. Owing to this
circumstance she is called, "Isis the great, the mother of god, who causes
the Nile to overflow when she shines at the commencement of the year," or
"the female sun who appears at the beginning of the year in the heaven as
the divine Sothis star, the queen of the decan stars, whose rays
illuminate the earth like those of the sun which appears in the morning.
She is the mistress of the commencement of the year, who draws the Nile
out of its source and thus confers life upon living human beings."
Elsewhere she is termed "the mistress of the commencement of the year, who
makes the Nile rise at its period." It is likewise said of her "on her
beautiful feast of beholding her father, the heaven unites itself with the
earth and the right eye unites itself with the left eye, at the beginning
of the year." She is described as Isis the great, the mother of god, the
lady of Adut in Anet, the mistress of the beginning of the year, the
monarch of the Sema? who appears on New Year's day to usher in the new
year. (She is) the goddess Ament (the hidden one) in Thebes, Menat (the
nurse) in Heliopolis, Renpit (_i. e._ the year) in Memphis, the divine
star Sothis in Elephantine, the radiant one in Apollinopolis magna, etc.

In another passage Hathor-Isis is spoken of as "the goddess Mehen-net of
the light-god and his Ar-hatef=(she who acts as pilot) in the boat sektet,
which eternally passes through the heaven over the head of her father." On
the north wall of the Prondos of the Denderah temple Isis-Hathor is called
"Hathor, the lady of Anet; Isis herself; th