Lecture IV. The Sun-God And The Ennead. 75
case with Anupu or Anubis.^50
But though the name of Khar or Khur is and must remain
Egyptian, Horus has much in common with the Babylonian sun-
god Nin-ip. They are both warrior-gods; and just as the followers
of Horus were workers in iron, so Nin-ip also was the god of
iron. One of his titles, moreover, is that of“the southern sun”;
and on a boundary-stone the eagle standing on a perch is stated
to be“the symbol of the southern sun.”^51
The goddess with whom Horus of Nekhen was associated
was Nekheb with the vulture's head. Her temple stood opposite
Nekhen at El-Kab on the eastern bank of the Nile, and at the end
of the long road which led across the desert from the Red Sea. It
was at once a sanctuary and a fortress defending Nekhen on the
east. But Nekheb was the goddess not only of Nekhen, but of all
Southern Egypt. We find her in the earliest inscriptions on the
sacred island of Sehêl in the Cataract, where she is identified with
the local goddess Sati. We find her again at Thebes under the
name of Mut,“the mother.”Her supremacy, in fact, went back
to the days when Nekhen was the capital of the south, and its
goddess accordingly shared with it the privileges of domination.
When Nekhen fell back into the position of a small provincial
town, Nekheb also participated in its decline. Under the Theban
dynasties, it is true, the name of Mut of Karnak became honoured
throughout Egypt, but her origin by that time had been forgotten.
The Egyptian who brought his offering to Mut never realised that [081]
behind the mask of Mut lay the features of Nekheb of Nekhen.
Mut, however, continued to wear the vulture form, and the
titles assumed by the king still preserved a recollection of the
time when Nekheb was the presiding goddess of the kingdom of
the south. From the days of Menes onward, in the title of“king of
(^50) Cf. Sayce,TSBA., Nov. 1898. In one case the name of the god is written
Kha-ar. InWAI.ii. 55. 36, Khur-galzu,“Horus, thou art great!”is given as the
name of a Sumerian goddess.
(^51) Nin-ip was identified with the planet Saturn, like“Horus the bull.”