f priests
and people; they acquired such authority over the native gods that
they persuaded them to metamorphose themselves almost completely into
Egyptian divinities.

[Illustration: 109.jpg RASHUF ON HIS LION]

Drawn by Paucher-Gudin, from a photograph reproduced in
Clermont-Ganneau.

One finds among the majority of them the emblems commonly used in the
Pharaonic temples, sceptres with heads of animals, head-dress like the
Pschent, the _crux ansata_, the solar disk, and the winged scarab. The
lady of Byblos placed the cow's horns upon her head from the moment
she became identified with Hathor.* The Baal of the neighbouring
Arvad--probably a form of Bashuf--was still represented as standing
upright on his lion in order to traverse the high places: but while, in
the monument which has preserved the figure of the god, both lion and
mountain are given according to Chaldaean tradition, he himself, as the
illustration shows, is dressed after the manner of Egypt, in the striped
and plaited loin-cloth, wears a large necklace on his neck and bracelets
on his arms, and bears upon his head the white mitre with its double
plume and the Egyptian uraaus.**

* She is represented as Hathor on the stele of Iehav-melek,
King of Byblos, during the Persian period.

** This monument, which belonged to the Peretie collection,
was found near Amrith, at the place called Nahr-Abrek. The
dress and bearing are so like those of the Rashuf
represented on Egyptian monuments, that I have no hesitation
in regarding this as a representation of that god.

He brandishes in one hand the weapon of the victor, and is on the point
of despatching with it a lion, which he has seized by the tail with
the other, after the model of the Pharaonic hunters, Amenothes I. and
Thutmosis III. The lunar disk floating above his head lends to him,
it is true, a Phonician character, but the winged sun of Heliopolis
hovering above the disk leaves no doubt as to his Egyptian antecedents.*

* The Phonician symbol represents the crescent moon holding
the darkened portion in its arms, like the symbol reserved
in Egypt for the lunar gods.

[Illustration: 110.jpg A PHOENICIAN GOD IN HIS EGYPTIAN SHRINE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Renan.

The worship, too, offered to these metamorphosed gods was as much
changed as the deities themselves; the altars assumed something of the
Egyptian form, and the tabe