Lecture IV. The Sun-God And The Ennead. 81
column of wood,^58 in which some have seen an emblem of the
sun-god, like the sun-pillars of Semitic faith. But the name of
On was not confined to Egypt. There was another Heliopolis in
Syria, called On of the Beka'a by Amos (i. 5), where the sun-god
was worshipped under the form of a stone. And in Palestine
itself Beth-el,“the house of God,”was known in earlier ages as [087]
Beth-On. It is true that the name of On may have been carried
into Asia in the days when the Hyksos dynasties ruled over
Egypt, but it is more probable that both Beth-On and the On near
Damascus go back to an older date. In any case they testify to
some kind of contact between the sun-worship of Heliopolis in
Egypt and that of Syria and Palestine.^59
Between Tum, the sun-god of Northern Egypt, and Horus, the
sun-god of the South, there was one notable difference. While
Horus was a hawk, Tum was a man. In this respect, again, he
resembled the gods of Babylonia, who are always depicted in
human form. It is difficult to find any other Egyptian deity who
was similarly fortunate. Osiris, indeed, was originally a man,
but at an early date he became confounded with his symbol, the
ram, in his title of“lord of Daddu.”Professor Maspero thinks
that Khnum at the Cataract may also have been originally a man;
but if so, he too became a ram before the beginning of history.
Pta%of Memphis and Anher of This are the only other gods who
appear consistently in human shape, and Pta%is a mummy, while
Anher, like Tum, was the sun.^60
With the adoption of the Ennead and the cosmological ideas
it embodied, a new element entered into the theology of the
(^58) See Petrie,Medum, p. 30.
(^59) The existence of other cities of the name in Upper Egypt,“On of the south,”
now Erment, and On, now Dendera, shows that it must go back to the earliest
epoch of Pharaonic Egypt. I believe that it is the Sumerianunu,“city,”and
that the column which represented it hieroglyphically denoted“a foundation”
or“settlement.”
(^60) It will be shown in a future lecture that Osiris was the mummified Anher.
One is tempted to ask whether Pta%is not similarly the mummified Tum?