hen world might advance, in deducing from the contemplation of all
around them more correct views of the goodness and wisdom of an
all-ruling power, these were ideas far too refined for the mass, who
felt the want of something more apparent to the senses--something on
which the mind could repose from vain imaginings and real fears. Hence
the Deity was invested with various forms of familiar objects, under
which he was venerated as a protector and friend, or feared as an
avenging and angry power. Under the form of a ram, and the name of
Ammon, we find a deity worshipped along the banks of the Nile, from
the temple of the ancient Meroe to the sand-girt oasis of Siwah. The
mild and benignant expression of the sacred ram would indicate the
diffusion of tranquillity and peace, nor would the essential value of
the symbol be changed by finding the head of the ram placed on human
shoulders, or attached to the body of a lion. In the first case it
would, in accordance with the Egyptian tradition of gods having
assumed the forms of animals, commemorate, as in the Hindoo mythology,
an incarnation of the superior power; and in the second, the union of
strength and courage with mildness and the arts of peace. The
crio-sphinx, then, belongs to the Ammonian mythology, and is a
distinct symbol from the andro-sphinx and female sphinx, which,
probably, are connected with the worship of Osiris and Isis."
Something of the effect may be comprehended from the two large red
granite lions which mark the southern boundary of the saloon (1-34.)
They are of the time of the third Amenophis, and were discovered at
Mount Barkal by Lord Prudhoe, in 1829. As specimens of the mechanical
skill of ancient Egyptian sculptors, they are worth particular remark.
Here there is little of that angular stiffness characteristic of the
statues the visitor has already examined. And now, making one more
progress through the saloon, the visitor may rapidly notice the
varieties of strange animal forms--all of which, in ancient Egypt, had
their religious meaning. They were, at all events, symbols of divine
instincts, and for this reason a deep interest rises in the modern
mind in the contemplation of their proportions and expression. The
figure numbered 7 is a colossal head of a ram, emblematic of Amen-ra;
that numbered 8, is Hapi, the god of the Nile of the period of the
22nd dynasty, with allegorical waterfowl and plants hanging from the
altar he is holding; two strang