Lecture IX. The Popular Religion Of Egypt. 193
who had to attend to the funeral arrangements of the dead, and
consequently lived in the neighbourhood of the necropolis, were
more exposed to the chances of snake-bite than the inhabitants of
the cultivated land. The necropolis was invariably in the desert,
and the nature of their occupation obliged them to excavate the
sand or visit the dark chambers of the dead where the snake [210]
glided unseen. It is not surprising, therefore, that the veneration
of the snake was especially strong among the population of the
cemeteries. Those who inhabited the necropolis of Thebes have
left us prayers and dedications to the goddess Mert-seger, who is
represented as a cobra or some equally deadly serpent, though at
times she is decently veiled under the name of an official deity.
Once her place is taken by two snakes, at another time by a dozen
of them. She was, in fact, the tutelary goddess of the necropolis,
and hence received the title of“the Western Crest”—that is
to say, the crest of the western hills, where the earliest tombs
of Thebes were situated. Professor Maspero has translated an
interesting inscription made in her honour by one of the workmen
employed in the cemetery.“Adoration to the Western Crest,”it
begins,“prostrations before her double! I make my adoration,
listen! Ever since I walked on the earth and was an attendant in
the Place of Truth (the cemetery), a man, ignorant and foolish,
who knew not good from evil, I committed many sins against
the goddess of the Crest, and she punished me. I was under her
hand night and day; while I cowered on the bed like a woman
with child, I cried for breath, and no breath came to me, for I
was pursued by the Western Crest, the mightiest of all the gods,
the goddess of the place; and behold I will declare to all, great
and small, among the workmen of the necropolis: Beware of the
Crest, for there is a lion in her, and she strikes like a lion that
bewitches, and she is on the track of all who sin against her! So
I cried to my mistress, and she came to me as a soft breeze, she
united herself with me, causing me to feel her hand; she returned
to me in peace, and made me forget my troubles by giving me