is,
Khnumu in the neighbourhood of the first cataract--they were quite
willing to allow, at the same time, that these appellations were but
various masks for one face. Phtah, Hapi, Khnumu, Ra,--all the gods, in
fact,--were blended with each other, and formed but one deity--a unique
existence, multiple in his names, and mighty according to the importance
of the city in which he was worshipped. Hence Amon, lord of the capital
and patron of the dynasty, having more partisans, enjoyed more respect,
and, in a word, felt himself possessed of more claims to be the sole god
of Egypt than his brethren, who could not claim so many worshippers. He
did not at the outset arrogate to himself the same empire over the dead
as he exercised over the living; he had delegated his functions in this
respect to a goddess, Maritsakro, for whom the poorer inhabitants of the
left bank entertained a persistent devotion. She was a kind of Isis or
hospitable Hathor, whose subjects in the other world adapted themselves
to the nebulous and dreary existence provided for their disembodied
"doubles." The Osirian and solar doctrines were afterwards blended
together in this local mythology, and from the XIth dynasty onwards the
Theban nobility had adopted, along with the ceremonies in use in the
Memphite period, the Heliopolitan beliefs concerning the wanderings
of the soul in the west, its embarkation on the solar ship, and its
resting-places in the fields of Ialu. The rock-tombs of the XVIIIth
dynasty demonstrate that the Thebans had then no different concept of
their life beyond the world from that entertained by the inhabitants
of the most ancient cities: they ascribed to that existence the same
inconsistent medley of contradictory ideas, from which each one might
select what pleased him best--either repose in a well-provisioned tomb,
or a dwelling close to Osiris in the middle of a calm and agreeable
paradise, or voyages with Ra around the world.*

* The Pyramid texts are found for the most part in the tombs
of Nofiru and Harhotpu; the texts of the Book of the Dead
are met with on the Theban coffins of the same period.

[Illustration: 060.jpg DECORATED WRAPPINGS OF A MUMMY]

The fusion of Ra and Amon, and the predominance of the solar idea which
arose from it, forced the theologians to examine more closely these
inconsistent notions, and to eliminate from them anything which might be
out of harmony with the new views. The devout serv