of Hathor sometimes has the cow's head,
and often has cow's ears. The myth of Horus striking off the head of
his mother Isis and replacing it by a cow's head, points to the Horus
worshippers uniting Hathor with Isis. Statuettes of Hathor are not
common; the head was used for an architectural capital and in the form
of the sistrum, a rattle which was employed in her worship.

+Maat+ was the goddess of truth. She is always of human form, and
shown as seated holding the _ankh_, emblem of life, in her hands. She
was never worshipped, and had no temples or shrines, but was
represented as being offered by the kings {61} to the gods. She also
occurs in the names of several kings, and appears in the judgment scene
of the weighing of the heart. She was the only idea of the older
religion which was preserved by Akhenaten in his reformation; he always
names himself as 'living in truth,' but as an abstraction and without
the notion of any actual goddess. She is linked with Ptah, Th[=o]th,
and Ra, on different occasions.

+Nefertum+ is a god of late times, in human form, as a youth with a
lotus flower on his head. He appears to have represented growth and
vegetation; and is systematised as a son of Ptah and Sekhet. No temple
of his remains; but his figures, usually of bronze, are common.

+Safekh+ was the goddess of writing. She is named in the pyramid
times, and appears in scenes of the eighteenth and nineteenth
dynasties. Four pairs of elemental gods were worshipped at Hermopolis,
each pair male and female; _Heh_, Eternity; _Kek_, Darkness; _Nu_, the
heavenly ocean; _Nenu_, the Inundation. They are shown as human
figures with the heads of frogs and serpents. There were also
personifications of Seeing, Hearing, Taste, Perception, Strength, and
the 'true voice' necessary to intone the magic formulae.

{62}

CHAPTER IX

THE FOREIGN GODS

Besides the incorporation into purely Egyptian usage of all the gods
that we have noticed, there were others who always retained a foreign
character. It is true that Bast, Neit, and Taurt are counted by some
as foreign; but deities who are found from the pyramid times to the
Roman age, and who were the patrons of capitals and of dynasties, must
be counted as Egyptian; and of Taurt we do not know of any foreign
source, nor should we look for any, as the hippopotamus abounded in
Egypt itself.

+B[=e]s+, though figured from the eighteenth dynasty to Roman times,
yet retai