The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

42 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

accordingly continued to be represented as a man, even though
the symbolism of the hieroglyphs united with the creed of the
prehistoric races of Egypt in giving him the head of a hawk.
At first the ruler of each of the small kingdoms into which
prehistoric Egypt was divided, was honoured as a god, like
Gudea in Babylonia. When the kingdoms became, first, vassal
principalities under a paramount lord, and then nomes, the old
tradition was still maintained. Divine titles were given to the
nomarchs even in the later times of the united monarchy, and after
[044] their death worship continued to be paid to them.^13 Christian
writers tell us how at Anabê particular individuals were regarded
as gods, to whom offerings were accordingly brought; and Ptah,
the tutelary deity of Memphis, was pictured as a man in the
wrappings of a mummy, while to Anhur of This the human
figure was assigned.
With the coalescence of the smaller principalities into two
kingdoms, the deification of the ruler was confined within
narrower bounds. But for that very reason it became more
absolute and intense. The supreme sovereign, the Pharaoh as
we may henceforth call him, was a veritable god on earth. To
his subjects he was the source, not only of material benefits,
but of spiritual blessings as well. He was“the good god,”the
beneficent dispenser of all good things.^14 The power of life and
death was in his hand, and rebellion against him was rebellion
against the gods. The blood that flowed in his veins was the
same as that which flowed in the veins of the gods; it was even
communicated to him from time to time by his divine brethren;
and the bas-reliefs of a later age, when the traditional belief had
become little more than a symbolical allegory, still depict him

(^13) Wiedemann, in theProceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, iv.
p. 332.
(^14) The title of“good god”went back to a very early date, and stands in contrast
to that ofnefer mât-kher,“good and true of voice,”applied to the ordinary
individual on early seal-cylinders.