Kings and gods of Egypt

Front matter

Kings and Gods

Of Egypt

Alexandre Moret tilt SlmiUiyiraj

Preface

The favourable reception given to my previous volume, In the Time of the Pharaohs, has encouraged me to continue my task of presenting the subject of Egyptology in popular form. The present essays were originally delivered as lectures before a cultured audience in the Musee Guimet, or written for the readers of the Revue de Paris.

Although as yet the results of the scholars’ labours in Eastern fields have not become part of the general knowledge of the educated classes, or even of the schools and of the historians, there is in the public mind a growing interest in the discoveries made in Eastern history and art, and also an increasing demand for first-hand information presented, in non-technical language, by the specialists themselves. I have tried to meet the requirements of the thoughtful reader as well as the need of the busy student who has insufficient time to extend his reading and to gather for himself the scattered facts necessary to bring his

IV

Preface knowledge up to date. After selecting subjects of interest I have considered these, in monographs, as exhaustively as the state of our present knowledge permits, though in a form more easily to be assimilated than the formal scholarly dissertation. While summing up the fixed points, I have pointed out certain questions that still remain unsettled, and in numerous footnotes and references I have directed the attention of the reader to the sources of information and to the discussions and comparisons of various investigations, thus securing for him a glimpse into the laboratory of research work.

My warmest thanks are extended to my wife, who has prepared the translation, and also to our common friend, Mrs. Alfred Graveson, for her kind assistance in the work of the translator. It gives me great pleasure also to acknowledge my indebtedness to my publishers of the English version, whose careful attention to all details of typography and of illustration has resulted in securing for the volume an attractive and artistic appearance.

Paris, February, 1912.

A. M.

The Great Temple at Deir-el-Bahari

II. The Incense Trees of Punt

Plate III.

Deir-el-Bahari. The Unfinished Portico ..... 14

Plate IV.

Deir-el-Bahari. Entrance to the

Subterranean Sanctuaries . 22

Plate V.

Deir-el-Bahari. Entrance to Anubis Chapel . . .30

Plate VI.

I.

Senmout, the Architect of Deir-el- Bahari

II.

Torso of Young Girl

III. A Daughter of Khounaton

I. Amenophis IV — Khounaton II. Painted Pavement from the Palace of El-Amarna vii

Illustrations viii

FACING

PAGE

Plate VIII. ...... 66

I. Amenophis IV when Young, and His Wife

II. Khounaton in Later Years, and His Family

I. Osiris, Lord of the Occident II. Isis, the Divine Mother

Plate X. Funeral Vigil of Osiris — Ounne-

fer Dead .... 80

Plate XI. The Dead Resurrected in the

Form of a Sprouting Osiris 96

Plate XII. Osiris Adored by Justice —

Eruth. (Mait.) . . 140

Plate XIII. Area, Cella, Megarum in the

Temple of Isis at Pompeii . 154

Plate XIV. Roman Isis . . . .162

Plate XV. Isiaques Carrying the Hydria-

Vessel, the Vessel in the Form of a Woman’s Breast and the Sprinkler . .178

I. High Priest Offering the Holy Water to the Isiaques

II. Pantomime in the Isiaque Cult

Map

At End

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

PAGE

Plan of the Temple at Deir-el-Bahari . 5

Amon-Ra and the Queen . . . .18

Birth of the Pharaoh .... 21

Enthronement of the Pharaoh . . 25

A Village in the Land of Punt . . 35

The Chief Parihu and His Wife Ati . 36

Isis AND NePHTHYS FASHIONING AND RESUSCI- TATING Osiris ...... 84

Four Images of Osiris’s Tomb (see rectopage) ....... 92

Pompeian Isis in the Temple of Pompeii . 164

Ploughing and Harvest (XVIIIth Dynasty) 234

The Goat’s-Skin and the Man Drinking from It . . . . . . . 235

TheMan Bringing a Goblet (VIth Dynasty) 235

Harvesters (XVIIIth Dynasty) . . 236

Harvesters and Gleaning Girls (XVIIth Dynasty) ...... 236

IX

X

Illustrations

PAGE

Sheaf-Binders (Vth Dynasty) . . . 237

The Master Overseeing the Labourers . 237

Reapers (Vth Dynasty) .... 238

Vintage (between Fishing and Fowling XVIIIth Dynasty) ..... 241

Vintage and Games ..... 242

Attack of the Bull by the Lion (Vth Dynasty) ...... 246

CHAPTER I The Queen Hatshopsitu and her Temple of Deir-el-Bahar

Deir-el-Bahari, “the Convent of the North!” The Arab name conjures up only the vision of a Coptic monastery, built by Christian congregations on the north-west confines of Thebes of the Hundred Gates — in the very heart of what is for the archaeologists one of the grandest sites in the world. But the excavations of Mariette, and more especially those made under the supervision of M. Naville from 1 894-1905, 1 have caused all trace of these Coptic ruins to vanish. The gaze of the visitor no longer wanders over a picturesque but squalid jumble of towers, vaults, and cells, whose

1 Ed. Naville, Deir-el-Bahari, vol. 7 of The Egyptian Exploration Fund, 1894-1908; Davis and Naville, The Tomb of Hatshopsitu, 1906.

walls of mud and brick are crumbling in decay. To-day, beneath a glittering and luminous sky, there stand revealed a series of vast terraces and the broken ranks of white colonnades — all that remain to us of a temple of the XVII Ith dynasty, called by the Egyptians Wm Zeser Zeserou, “the Sublime of the Sublime. ”

It is one of the most interesting temples of ancient Egypt, and that, primarily, by reason of its antiquity. If we except the eastern chapels of the Pyramids of the Ancient Empire, and the Temple of the Sun, built by King Ousimiri at Abousir, of which monuments practically only the substructures remain, it is at Deir-el-Bahari that, thus far, have been found the oldest Egyptian temples; the Sublime, built about 1500 B.C., by Queen Hatshopsitu, and another sanctuary, older still by six hundred years, discovered in 1907, by M. Naville on the left side of the Sublime, for which it may have served as a model. The older structure, dating back to King Mentouhetep II, has, however, been so defaced by the ravages of time and the injuries of man that it will not bear comparison with the later temple of Queen Hatshopsitu.

This temple has a length of 750 feet and is built against a cliff of the Libyan range, which at this point assumes the form of a semicircle, of which the northern and western arcs are honeycombed with hypogea — chambers sunk deep into the earth. The rocky ground at the foot of the cliff slopes gradually to the plain. The architect Senmout, who designed this monument, might have levelled and raised this slope into an artificial platform whereon to rear the form of temple traditional in Egypt, with pylons, colonnaded courts, hypostyle halls, and a sanctuary, such as are to be seen elsewhere in this region — in Goumah, Medinet-Habou, and the Ramesseum. But Senmout preferred to avail himself of the successive elevations of the sloping site, and therefore produced an edifice of an entirely original order, and one which was unique in Egypt (Plate II, 1). Its characteristic feature is a broad central incline which rises in a gentle grade from the plain to the Libyan hill. The idea is borrowed from the funeral chapels of the Ancient Empire. A lane of sphinxes, of which but a few remain, leads the visitor to the gate of the outer wall. Beyond the pylon, he finds himself in a vast court, stretching to right and left of the central incline. In the background behind a double row of pillars — those in the front rectangular in shape, those at the back cylindrical

— rises a stately wall of fine, white, shining limestone. This is the first terrace and the outer court of the temple. Beyond it, the ground rises fifty feet, forming a second terrace on which is built a second court, likewise surrounded by a white wall with a double row of pillars — all rectangular. Here, however, the right (north) side of the court has the additional adornment of an unfinished colonnade, and at the end of each side wall there rise two small temples, complete with vestibule, hypostyle hall, and sanctuar}\ That on the left was dedicated to Hathor, that on the right to Anubis. The central incline leads to still another and higher terrace, enclosed by a colonnade with a granite door, which forms the entrance to a vestibule built against the mountain-side and leading to the Holy of Holies, hewn in the rock (Plate IV). On either side of the highest terrace a space was reserved : the one on the left, a hall of offerings for the worship of the queen ; the one on the right, a court with an altar dedicated to the god Ra-Harmakhis (Fig. i).

Such, in broad outline, is the plan of this temple. Whereas all others are characterised by a succession of halls, either covered or open, each one forming, as it were, a screen to intercept our view of the one beyond, here, on the contrary, we have

Fig. i. — Plan of the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari, after Clarke. (Ed. Naville, Dcir-cl-Bahari, vi, pi. 169.)

light is harmoniously distributed over the whole structure ; and there are more open spaces than in other temples. All the parts, being terraced, are visible at a glance. Moreover, as the development of the colonnades makes for breadth rather than height, the necessity for huge blocks of stone three successive terraces, their porticoes and colonnades showing afar off all the details of their superposed structures.’ There obtrude upon the eye no pylons of colossal height, no hypostyle halls with ponderous ceilings and gigantic columns;

is obviated, and the choicest material could be employed. The visible parts are, consequently, built of limestone of finest • texture and the most dazzling whiteness, from which the red and blue paintings stand out in bold relief. The colonnades with their rectangular, hexagonal, or sixteensided columns are artistically suited to the positions they occupy and to their place in the general scheme of the structure. All the dimensions are balanced and harmoniously proportioned, all the decoration is sober and restrained. The pillars bear resemblance to Doric columns, to which, in fact, they have been compared (Plate III). There is no trace here of that colossal and exaggerated style that often spoils the temples of the Ramesside dynasties. It has often been stated that it was the Greeks who first understood the art of building peripteral edifices with external colonnades, whereas, on the contrary, the Egyptians were master-builders of monuments of colossal scale, with majestic pillars, ponderous capitals, and gigantic architraves. This example of the Sublime is evidence that, previous to the Greeks the Egyptians fully appreciated the delicate and harmonious grace of the peristyle. But it must be confessed that the architect Senmout had no disciples, and that after him Egypt furnishes

I. The Great Temple at Deir-el-Bahari.

II. The Incense Trees of Punt. (Maspero, Hist., II, p. 253).

Plate II.

scarcely another example of porticoes such as are found at Deir-el-Bahari (Plate V).

Another characteristic of the work of this innovator was to bring landscape-gardening within his architectural scheme, obtaining thereby effects of verdure rare in Egypt. For special reasons (which will be explained later), the Sublime was regarded as a kind of Garden of Eden for gods and kings. Therefore, its wide terraces and the length of its outer wall were planted with incense trees, brought at great expense, from the distant country of Punt. As may be imagined, nothing remains of these gardens save the stone basins pierced with drainage-holes, which were built into the ground and filled with soil to receive the transplanted incense trees. But if the verdure has perished, there remains, engraved for all time upon the bas-reliefs of the terrace, a tracery of these little trees with their short-stalked, crowded foliage (Plate II, 2). To-day the terraces are dismantled, no odorous foliage affords them grateful shade, yet our hearts beat with emotion as we gaze upon their pure and gracious outlines, standing forth sharp and clear against that Libyan cliff, which rises perpendicular for four hundred feet and dazzles with a burnished brilliancy, under a glowing sun. What glory must have enveloped it in times of yore, this temple of Hatshopsitu, with its “gardens of Amon” breathing forth sweet odours upon the murmuring breeze, throbbing their notes of green and gold into the symphony of colours, through which flashed the piercing white of the pillars, the deep tones of the paintings, and the reverberant russet of the rock, beneath a triumphant sky of fathomless blue!

Hitherto wTe have been concerned solely with the external appearance of the temple. In the porticoes and buildings adjoining it, we find bas-reliefs, from which we learn that it was constructed about 1500 b.c., by a woman, Queen Hatshopsitu, a daughter of Thotmes I of the XVIIIth dynasty, the conqueror of the Syrian provinces. The period is the most glorious in the history of Egypt. Victorious over her invaders, the Hyksos, Egypt in her turn makes conquests outside her own territory, carrying her sword and her civilisation into Nubia and Asia, as far as the banks of the Euphrates. If only because it dates from this brilliant epoch this temple would have interest for us. But it has, in addition, a greater claim upon our attention. Its inscriptions reveal that it belongs to the class of funeral temples, and that it served as a chapel to the tomb of Queen Hatshop-

Queen Ilatshopsitu and Her Temple 9

situ. The tomb was discovered quite recently, by Mr. Davis, in the depths of the cliff. Although officially dedicated to Amon-Ra and his companion gods, Hathor and Anubis, the real divinity, whose glory the temple was intended to commemorate, was the Queen herself. The most elaborate pictures and longest inscriptions are, therefore, devoted to an account of the life of the Queen, to the description of her birth, coronation, and the most memorable event of her reign — an expedition to the land of Punt, whence were brought the incense trees planted on the terraces. Other monuments, — two obelisks and a sanctuary in the great temple of Kamak, also an inscription in a chapel of Stabel-Antar, — have thrown some light upon the glorious reign of Queen Hatshopsitu, but Deir-el-Bahari is in relation to her what the temples of Abydos and Gournah are to Seti I ; what the Ramesseum is to Ramses I, and Medinet-IIabou to Ramses III — the place selected to commemorate the life and might of the Pharaoh. But in this case the Pharaoh of Deir-el-Bahari happens to be a woman. In the long line of sovereigns who ruled Egypt for over four thousand years, other women will appear who governed independently, in their own right, but the first of whom we have knowledge is Hatshopsitu, the first queen in history. Hence, apart from its artistic interest, Deir-el-Bahari is of inestimable worth as a source of information upon one of the most curious figures of the Pharaonic civilisation.

Strange, to say, in spite of her long reign of over twenty years and the imperishable monuments that reign bequeathed to us, we search in vain for the name of Hatshopsitu upon the official tables of Egyptian kings inscribed at Abydos or Sakkarah, written on the Turin papyrus, or drawn up by Manetho. The Pharaohs seem to have expunged her name from their chronological records ; the state archives ignore her, merely stating that Thotmes I, father of Hatshopsitu, was succeeded by two of his sons, Thotmes II and Thotmes III. If now, the modern historian, amazed at the silence of the royal documents, returns to the monuments in order to wrest from them the truth he fails to derive from official sources, he finds that all the inscriptions relating to Hatshopsitu’s reign are hammered out; he can read them only by conjecture. In the bas-reliefs the face of the queen is always completely destroyed; her name effaced, mutilated, or, worse still, replaced by that of another sovereign, sometimes that of her father Thotmes I, sometimes that of her brothers, Thotmes II and Thotmes III.

Queen Hatshopsitu and Her Temple n

From this, we conclude that Queen Hatshopsitu was the object of a veritable persecution. Why were her father and her brothers successively leagued against her? The presence of her father, whom she outlived, among her persecutors, indicates that the family strife began before his death, that she emerged from it triumphantly, but that her sovereignty was not acknowledged by her successors. The reign of Hatshopsitu presents itself to us as an historical enigma, the key to which is to be found in the ruins of Karnak and Deir-el- Bahari.1 Let us try to follow the changing fortunes of her life, the phases of the obscure struggle in which she was now successful, now defeated, and, in which finally, she was entirely victorious.

The contest between the Thotmes and Queen Hatshopsitu sprang from a question of dynastic rights. According to the Egyptian belief, the Pharaohs were the authentic sons of the Sun Ra, in the direct line. To avoid the contamination of the solar blood by alliance with a stranger, it became an established custom for the sons and daughters of the kings, brothers and sisters, to

marry among themselves ; and the children of such marriages alone were regarded as the true sons of the gods, legitimate heirs of the throne. Sometimes, however, it happened that, owing to degeneration of the race or to some other reason, the sons and daughters of the kings had to take a consort, one in whose veins did not flow the solar blood. Such a case occurred at the beginning of the XVIIIth dynasty. King Thotmes I was born from such an inferior union. His mother, Senousenb, bore the title “mother of the king,” not “spouse of the king”; she seems, therefore, to have been only a concubine.1 But Thotmes I, himself, married a legitimate princess, who had the power to confer upon her husband her regal rights. It was through these rights that Thotmes I occupied the throne on behalf of and together with his wife, Queen Ahmasi. Thotmes I and Queen Ahmasi had four children, two sons and two daughters. The two sons, Amenmes and Ouazmes, 2 died young; so the heir to the throne was the elder daughter, our future Queen Hatshopsitu. But Thotmes had also two bastard sons: one, whose mother bore the title of “royal

1 See the rescript of the accession of Thotmes I, Aegyptische Zeitschrift, xxix, p. 117.

1 Mentioned in a funeral chapel at Gournah, pub. Grcbaut, Musee Egyptien, i, PI. 6.

Queen Ilatshopsitu and Her Temple 13

wife”1 (that is to say, a queen of an inferior rank, never named ‘‘chief spouse of the king”) became, later, Thotmes II; the other, born of a simple concubine (“Gsit, wife of the king,” yet not ‘‘chief spouse of the king”) is known to history as Thotmes III.2

That these illegitimate sons could seize the throne and gain official recognition to the detriment of the claims of the rightful heir, their sister, Queen Hatshopsitu, can, to my mind, be explained only by the existence of an opposition party at the Egyptian court. This party would not, on any terms, entrust to a woman, incapable of bearing arms or of commanding an army in the field, the destinies of Egypt, at a time when she had entered upon a career of conquest and was striving for an expansion of her dominions beyond their present limits. The result was that the question of women’s rights arose and was fought out between two parties, one struggling to support the legiti-

1 She is the “wife of the king, mother of the king,” Moutnefrit, known by a statue that her son Thotmes II consecrated to her. Aegyptisclie Zeitsclirift, 1887, p. 125.

2 According to this hypothesis, Thotmes II and Thotmes III were half-brothers of Ilatshopsitu (London, Statue of Anebni, where Thotmes III is called brother of the queen, ap. Lepsius, Auswahl, PI. n). Ed. Naville, on the contrary, following a text at Kamak and the inscription of Anna, considers Thotmes II as father of Thotmes III. Cf. post, p. 29.

mate claims of Hatshopsitu, the other trying to bring about her downfall.

The struggle began on the death of the Queen Ahmasi. Illegitimate by birth, king only while he was the husband of a queen, Thotmes I, was now an interloper on the throne. The legitimist party, though they owed a debt of gratitude to the great king who had achieved so much for the glory of Egypt, compelled him to abdicate and yield the power to Hatshopsitu. She married and placed upon the throne as joint ruler her halfbrother Thotmes (the one we call Thotmes III), probably the elder of the two illegitimate sons of the deposed King. According to the royal tables, which we know have been falsified, it is Thotmes II who succeeded Thotmes I, and there are still a few Egyptologists who accept the statement. But if we refer to the monuments, it is quite clear that Hatshopsitu and Thotmes III were crowned on the same day1 and reigned together prior to the Thotmes who is described on the tables as Thotmes II. Of the first two years of their joint reign, little is known, save that the queen during this period

1 The “day of the enthronement” of Thotmes III and of the queen is on the 4th Pakhons; positive proof, says Sethe (§17-18) of the common accession of brother and sister. The accession of Thotmes II, whom other scholars regard as the husband of the queen, is on the contrary on the 8th of Paophi.

Deir-el-Bahari. The Unfinished Portico.

Plate III.

appears in the subordinate position of a consort. Her title is the one common to all queens . 1 On certain monuments, such as the temple of Semneh,2 the name of Thotmes III appears alone. There is no mention of the Queen, neither her presence nor her name. The King acts without her.

This is not fair play and we are led to think that the truth is not fully revealed. It seems indeed as if Thotmes III had occupied the throne even before the accession of the legitimate heir, Hatshopsitu. Was this due to a conspiracy on the part of the priests of Amon? Let us hear what the king himself had to say upon the subject :

As a young man I was in the temple before I was raised to the dignity of a prophet. ... I played the part of Anmoutef , 3 like the young Horus of Khemmis ; I stood upright in the northern part of the hypostyle. There was held a great festival of heaven and earth,

. . . during which the god received (on) his altar in the temple the wonderful gifts of the people (offered by the king). . . . His Majesty placed before the god incense on the fire and offered to him a great oblation of oxen, calves, and mountain goats. The god paced along two sides of the hypostyle; the heart of those walking before him understood not what he

1 Sethe, §31, “spouse of the god; chief spouse of the king.”

3 Dated from the year 2. (Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii, 55 a.)

3 Priest of the royal worship.

i6 did, while he was seeking My Majesty everywhere. When the god recognised me he halted. ... I prostrated myself in his presence. He caused me to stand in front of him, and lo ! I was put in the Place of the King. He was amazed to see me . . . and then were revealed to the people the secrets that lay in the heart of the god and were known to none. ... He opened for me the portals of the horizon of Ra. I soared to heaven, like a divine falcon beholding his own shape in the skies; I adored His Majesty. ... I saw the glorious form of the god of the horizon on his mysterious paths in the heaven.1 Ra himself established me (king) ; I was consecrated with the diadems which were upon his head, and his uraeus was placed (on my brow) ... I received the dignities of a king . . . and my great royal names were given me. 2

In spite of this divine sanction, bestowed upon him by the priests of Amon, Thotmes III could not make valid his claim to the throne otherwise than by marriage with the legitimate heir, Hatshopsitu. But she was ambitious and found partisans to support her rights. A plot of the priestly and anti-feminist party was met by a counter-plot of the legitimist party. This came to pass between

1 Amon-Ra is a solar god who dwells in the sky. Hence the terms the sky, the horizon of Rd are used as mystical designators of the sanctuary where dwells the statue of Amon-Rfi before which the royal candidate is brought; he is then supposed to be carried up to heaven like a falcon (Horus) soaring to the sun.

3 From an inscription carved on the outer side of the south wall of the sanctuary at Kamak — lately published with commentary by Breasted, A New Chapter in the Life of Thutmose III, 1900.

Queen Ilatshopsitu and Her Temple 17 the years 2 and 5 of the reign about the time when Hatshopsitu began to build the temple of Deir-el- Bahari. From this date onward, Hatshopsitu, who up to the present has been known only as “chief wife of the king,” assumes all the designations that are the prerogative of the king. She is called “female Horus,” “female Ra” ^ ; and the full title of a king is bestowed upon her | , the double cartouche and the usual fourfold

names, as can be seen in the two series of bas-reliefs relating to the birth and enthronement, that she caused to be engraved in her temple of Deir-el- Bahari.

These bas-reliefs were intended to remind her people that of the royal pair, it is she alone who, as the direct offspring of Amon-Ra, has the actual right to sit upon the throne. The theory of the solar descent can be traced back to a very remote past. The first evidence we have of its practical application dates from the years of the Vth dynasty, when the kings assumed the title of “sons of the Sun” ^ , a title, which from that time on was constantly borne by them. But to our knowledge, Hatshopsitu is the first sovereign who had the circumstances of the royal birth set forth pictorially, and wfith elaborate detail, on the walls of a temple. Testimony to her divine origin would help her to enforce her rights. Therefore, to convince the people of her legitimacy, she caused to be engraved upon the walls of the middle terrace of the temple a picture showing

the carnal union of the god Amon-Ra with her mother Ahmasi (Fig. 2).

The god and the queen are represented sitting face to face, their legs crossed, on a state bed ornamented with the head and feet of a lion. The queen receives from her husband the symbols of life and strength the two goddesses, Neit and Selkit, protectors of conjugal unions, support

Fig. 2. — Amon-Ral and the Queen.

the feet of the royal pair, and guard their persons from all evil. The lyric text, inscribed around the picture, leaves no doubt regarding the material nature of the union.

These were the words of Amon-Ra, king of the gods, lord of Karnak, he who rules at Thebes, when he took upon himself the form of that male, the king of the South and of the North, Thotmes I, giver of life. He found the queen sleeping amidst the splendours of her palace. The perfume of the god awoke her, and, when His Majesty marched straight towards her, knew her, laid his heart against hers, and made himself known unto her in his godly aspect, she marvelled greatly ! And when he had revealed himself, she was enraptured by the knowledge of his beauties; her love for the god coursed through her being and the odour of the god and of his breath were fragrant with all the fragrance of Punt.

And these were the words of the spouse of the king, the mother of the king, Ahmasi, in the presence of the majesty of this august god, Amon, lord of Karnak, master of Thebes: “Twice great are thy souls! It is a noble thing to view thy face when thou knowest My Majesty in the fulness of thy grace! Thy dew flows through all my members!’’ Then, when the majesty of the god had accomplished all his desire with her, Amon, the god of the two lands, thus spoke unto her: “She who unites herself with Amon, the first of the beloved, 1

behold ! such shall be the name of the daughter who shall open thy womb, since those are the words that have fallen from thy lips. She shall exercise a beneficial power over all this land, for my soul is hers, my will is hers, my crown is hers, verily ! that she may govern the two lands and guide all the living doubles. 1

‘ Deir-el-Bahari, ii, PI. XLVII, text completed by that of Luxor ( Recueil de travaux, ix, p. 84). The Egyptians tried to remember the words that the mother uttered at the moment of conception (they are the words underlined in the text) and made from them a name of good omen for the child. Cf. A. Moret, Du caractere religieux de la royaute pharaonique, p. 50 el seq. ( Annates du Musee Guimel, Bibliotheque d' etudes, t. xv).