d sacred. Thus at Bubastis, where the cat-headed Bast (Ubasti) was
worshipped, vast cemeteries of mummified cats have been found; and
elsewhere similar funerary cults were accorded to crocodiles, lizards,
ibises and many other animals. In Elephantine Khnum was supposed to
become incarnate in a ram, at whose death the divinity left him and took
up his abode in another. So too the bull of Apis (a black animal with
white spots) was during its lifetime regarded as a reincarnation of
Ptah, the local god of Memphis, and similarly the Mnevis and Bacis bulls
were accounted to be "the living souls" of Etom of Heliopolis and of Re
of Hermonthis respectively; these latter cults are certainly secondary,
for Ptah himself was never, either early or late, depicted otherwise
than in human form, as a mummy or as a dwarf; and Etom and Re are but
different names of the sun-god. The form of a snake, attributed to many
local goddesses, especially in later times (e.g. Meresger of the Theban
necropolis), was borrowed from the very ancient deity Outo (Buto); the
semblance of a snake became so characteristic of female divinities that
even the word "goddess" was written with the hieroglyph of a snake.
Other animal shapes particularly affected by goddesses were those of a
lioness (Sakhmi, Pakhe) or a cow (Hathor, Isis). The primitive animal
gods are not to be confused with the animal forms ascribed to many
cosmic deities; thus when the sun-god Re was pictured as a scarabaeus,
or dung-beetle, rolling its ball of dung behind it, this was certainly
mere poetical imagery. Or else a cosmic god might assume an animal shape
through assimilation with some tribal god, as when Re was identified
with Horus and therefore depicted as a falcon.

With the advance of civilization and the transformation of the tribal
gods into national divinities, the beliefs held about them must have
become less crude. At a very early date the anthropomorphizing tendency
caused the animal deities to be represented with human bodies, though as
a rule they retained their animal heads; so in the case of Seth as early
as the IInd Dynasty. The other gods carry their primitive fetishes in
their hands (like Neith, who is depicted holding arrows) or on their
heads (so Nefertem [Iphthimis] with his lotus-flower). At the same time
the gods began to acquire human personalities. In a few instances this
may have come about by the emphasizing of a really primitive trait; as
when the wolf Ophoi