u. And many years afterwards, when this
lock, which had thus belonged to Sibu, was brought back to Piarit
in Ait-nobsu, and cast into the great lake of Piarit whose name is
_Ait-tostesu_, the dwelling of waves, that it might be purified, behold!
this lock became a crocodile: it flew to the water and became Sobku,
the divine crocodile of Ait-nobsu." In this way the gods of the solar
dynasty from generation to generation multiplied talismans and enriched
the sanctuaries of Egypt with relics.

[Illustration: 244.jpg THREE OF THE DIVINE AMULETS PRESERVED IN THE
TEMPLE OF AIT-NOBSU AT THE ROMAN PERIOD. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Griffith. The
three talismans here represented are two crowns, each in a
naos, and the burning fiery uraeus.

Were there ever duller legends and a more senile phantasy! They did not
spring spontaneously from the lips of the people, but were composed at
leisure by priests desirous of enhancing the antiquity of their cult,
and augmenting the veneration of its adherents in order to increase
its importance. Each city wished it to be understood that its feudal
sanctuary was founded upon the very day of creation, that its privileges
had been extended or confirmed during the course of the first divine
dynasty, and that these pretensions were supported by the presence
of objects in its treasury which had belonged to the oldest of the
king-gods. Such was the origin of tales in which the personage of the
beneficent Pharaoh is often depicted in ridiculous fashion. Did we
possess all the sacred archives, we should frequently find them quoting
as authentic history more than one document as artificial as the
chronicle of Ait-nobsu. When we come to the later members of the Ennead,
there is a change in the character and in the form of these tales.
Doubtless Osiris and Sit did not escape unscathed out of the hands of
the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend
concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there
in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of
imagination such as are never found in those of Shu and of Sibu.
This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them
strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world.
Shu was the stay, Sibu the material foundation of the world; and so long
as the one bore the weight of the firmament without bending, and the
other continued to s