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In this chapter are given translations of Hymns that were sung in the temples in honour of the great gods of Egypt between 1600 B.C. and 900 B.C., and of Hymns that were used by kings and private individuals. The following Hymn to Amen-Rā is found in a papyrus preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo; the asterisk marks groups of words which are equivalent to our lines in poetical compositions.
During this embrace the divine power of Amen-Rā, which was in the gilded figure at that moment, passed into the body of the king, and the divine power and wisdom, which were in the king as the god's representative, were renewed. The king then closed the doors of the shrine and left the sanctuary for a short time.
'There IS a secret, sacred name beneath the altar of Amen-Ra. Shall I call on that name? 'No, no! cried the Priest in terror. 'No, said Jane, too. 'Don't let's have any calling names. 'Besides, said Rekh-mara, who had turned very white indeed under his natural brownness, 'I was only going to say that though there isn't any name under 'There IS, said the Psammead threateningly.
The southernmost as well as latest relic of Egypt in the Sudan is the Christian church of Soba, on the Blue Mie, a few miles above Khartum. In it was found a stone ram, an emblem of Amen-Râ, which had formerly stood in the temple of Naga and had been brought to Soba perhaps under the impression that it was the Christian Lamb.
There upon that lofty pinnacle, clad in shining mail, and wearing a helm shaped like the crown of Lower Egypt, Tua stood in its glorious rays that turned her to a figure of fire set above a world of shadow. The thousands of the people watching from the streets below, and from boats upon the Nile, saw her, and raised a shout of wonder and of adoration. "The Daughter of Amen-Ra!" they cried.
And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to another quick-silver bead, Rekh-mara, Divine Father of the Temple of Amen-Ra, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the learned gentleman. And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone.
We are here reminded of the fact, already noted, that the Egyptians represented their God of Generation, Khem, or Amen-Ra Generator, as wearing a conspicuous St. Andrew's cross. And as Khem was the Egyptian Priapus it ought also to be pointed out that it was in ancient times the practice to erect wooden crosses to this conception of the Sun-God.
On page 26 Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson tells us that "Khem was considered the generating influence of the sun, whence perhaps the reason of his being connected with Amen-Ra: and in one of the hieroglyphic legends accompanying his name he is styled the sun; that is the pro-creating power of the only source of warmth, which assists in the continuation of the various created species."
Naville in 1898, was erected by Queen Hatshepsu in honour of Amen-Râ, her father Thothmes I, and her brother-husband Thothmes II, and received a few additions from Thothmes III, her successor. He, however, did not complete it, and it fell into disrepair, besides suffering from the iconoclastic zeal of the heretic Akhunaten, who hammered out some of the beautifully painted scenes upon its walls.
Amen, the local god of Thebes, becomes Amen-Ra with the political rise of his city, and even the old Crocodile-god, Sebek, soars into the sky as Sebek-Ra. The only other movement in the religion of ancient Egypt, comparable in importance to this solar development, was the popular cult of Osiris as God of the Dead, and with it the official religion had to come to terms.
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