considerable degree of
sovereign power in Egypt was exercised by a woman, Amesnofre-are, who
had shared the throne with Ames. She occupied it also with Amunoph, and,
notwithstanding the statement of Herodotus, that women did not serve
in the capacity of priests, this Queen is represented as pouring out
libations to Amon, an office which was doubtless the highest connected
with the priesthood.

Less than forty years later, it is observed that another woman,
Amun-nou-het, shared the throne with Thotmes I. and II. and that "she
appears to have enjoyed far greater consideration than either of them."
Not alone are monuments raised in her name, but she appears dressed as
a man, and "alone presenting offerings to the gods." So important a
personage was she that she is believed by many to be the princess who
conquered the country, perhaps even Semiramis herself. Her title was the
"Shining Sun."(70)

70) Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, app., book ii., ch. viii.

As these women doubtless belonged to the old Arabian, Ethiopian, or
Cushite race, the people who had brought civilization to Egypt, we are
not surprised to find them holding positions which were connected with
the highest civil and religious offices. The Labyrinth, in the country
of the Nile, is described by ancient writers as containing three
thousand chambers. Strabo says of it that the enclosure contained as
many palaces as there formerly were homes, and that there the priests
and priestesses of each department were wont to congregate to discuss
difficult and important questions of law.

According to the Greeks, the Egyptian God Osiris corresponds to their
Jupiter; and Sate, the companion of Kneph, is identical with Juno. It
is quite evident, however, that the Greeks understood little of the
true significance of the gods which they had borrowed, or which they
had inherited from older nations. It would seem that as a people their
conceit prevented them from acknowledging the dignity even of their
gods, hence, they endowed them with the attributes best suited to their
own depraved taste or pleasure, and then worshipped them as beings like
themselves.

It has been observed of the Egyptians that they were wont to ridicule
the Greeks for regarding their gods as actual beings, while in reality
"they were only the representations of the attributes and principles of
Nature." Unlike the religions which succeeded it, Egyptian mythology, as
understood by the lear