he twelve hours of the night.
_The Book of Gates_ treats of the same topic from a more theological
standpoint. _The Litanies of the Sun_ contain the acclamations with
which the sun-god Re was greeted, when at eventide his bark reached the
entrance of the nether world. Another treatise relates the destruction
of mankind, and the circumstances that led to the creation of the
heavens in the form of a cow.

(d) Among the _later religious books_ one or two deserve a special
mention, such as _The Overthrowing of Apophis_, the serpent enemy of the
sun-god; _The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys_ over their murdered
brother Osiris; _The Book of Breathings_, a favourite book among the
later Theban priests. Several of these books were used in the ritual of
feast days, but all have received a secondary funerary employment, and
are therefore found buried with the dead in their tombs.

(e) The _Ritual texts_ have survived only in copies not earlier than the
New Kingdom. The temple ritual employed in the daily cult is illustrated
by the scenes depicted on the inner walls of the great temples: the
formulae recited during the performance of the ceremonies are recorded
at length in the temple of Seti I. (XIXth Dyn.) at Abydos, as well as in
some later papyri in Berlin. The whole material has been collected and
studied by Moret. The funerary ritual is known from texts in the Theban
tombs (XVIIIth-XXth Dyn.) and papyri and sarcophagi of later date; older
versions are contained in the Pyramid texts and _The Book of the Dead_.
Schiaparelli has done much towards gathering together this scattered
material. The ritual observed during the process of embalmment is
preserved in late papyri in Paris and Cairo published by Maspero.

(f) The _magical_ documents have been comparatively little studied, in
spite of their great interest. They deal for the most part with the
hearing of diseases, the bites of snakes and scorpions, &c., but
incidentally cast many sidelights on the mythology and superstitious
beliefs. The best-known of these books is the _Papyrus Harris_ published
by F. J. Chabas, but other papyri of as great or greater importance are
to be found in the Leiden, Turin and other collections. A curious book
published by A. Erman contains spells to be used by mothers for the
protection of their children. A papyrus in London contains a calendar of
lucky and unlucky days. A late class of stelae, of which the best
specimen has been published by