temples and palace was kept up until the
30th or last day of the month. In the most ancient Egyptian calendars the
"lighting of light" at the same period is also recorded (Brugsch, _op.
cit._ II, p. 470) and, according to Herodotus, the festival was named "the
lighting of lamps" and was observed throughout all Egypt. He adds that "a
religious reason is given why this night is illuminated and so honored"
(II, 61 and 62).

The influence of increasing astronomical knowledge likewise shows itself
in the joint observation of the movements of sun, moon and stars and the
determination of the relative positions of the latter to the sun at the
periods of the equinoxes and solstices. Without taking period or sequence
into consideration for the present, I merely note that we find evidence
that, at one time, images of sun and moon, of the right and left eyes of
Ra, or statues of Hathor-Isis and Osiris, replaced their living images in
religious ceremonies.

Sometimes the entire ritual seems to have consisted in the union of water,
the produce of heaven, with seeds, the produce of earth; the ensuing
germination and production of young shoots being deemed sacred and
symbolical of the renewal of life. The fact that statuettes of Osiris have
actually been found, made of paste containing various seeds, distinctly
shows that, like the Babylonian Baal, the Egyptian male divinity was
identified with the earth. Another indication of this is furnished by the
descriptions of the feast of Pan, which fell at the period of the spring
equinox. At this period the crop of dura, which had been sown by the king
in the sacred fields at Denderah, at the time of the "Osiris mysteries,"
immediately after the inundation had receded and "the earth was laid
bare," became ripe. The ceremony of cutting the first sheaf of dura was
performed by the king, with the silex sickle=khepes.

While Osiris was thus directly associated with the produce of the earth
there are also evidences that, just as Isis became identified with birth
and life, her consort became the lord of death and of the underworld.
Mysterious rites and human sacrifices seem to have been instituted in his
honor. According to obscure myths Osiris himself had been foully murdered,
his body cut into fourteen pieces and cast over the length and breadth of
the land. His head was supposed to be preserved at Abydos, the chief
centre of his worship, and shrines were erected over the other portions of
his