they used in building monuments; but they never made
great conquests. Foreigners came more to Egypt than Egyptians went
abroad.

=Religion of the Egyptians.=--"The Egyptians," said Herodotus, "are
the most religious of all men." We do not know any people so devout;
almost all their paintings represent men in prayer before a god;
almost all their manuscripts are religious books.

=Egyptian Gods.=--The principal deity is a Sun-god, creator,
beneficent, "who knows all things, who exists from the beginning."
This god has a divine wife and son. All the Egyptians adored this
trinity; but not all gave it the same name. Each region gave a
different name to these three gods. At Memphis they called the father
Phtah, the mother Sekhet, the son Imouthes; at Abydos they called them
Osiris, Isis, and Horus; at Thebes, Ammon, Mouth, and Chons. Then,
too, the people of one province adopted the gods of other provinces.
Further, they made other gods emanate from each god of the trinity.
Thus the number of gods was increased and religion was complicated.

=Osiris.=--These gods have their history; it is that of the sun; for
the sun appeared to the Egyptians, as to most of the primitive
peoples, the mightiest of beings, and consequently a god. Osiris, the
sun, is slain by Set, god of the night; Isis, the moon, his wife,
bewails and buries him; Horus, his son, the rising sun, avenges him by
killing his murderer.

=Ammon-ra.=--Ammon-ra, god of Thebes, is represented as traversing
heaven each day in a bark ("the good bark of millions of years"); the
shades of the dead propel it with long oars; the god stands at the
prow to strike the enemy with his lance. The hymn which they chanted
in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly,
thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest
the heavens on high, thine enemies are laid low. The heaven is glad,
the earth is joyful, the gods unite in festal cheer to render glory
to Ra when they see him rising in his bark after he has overwhelmed
his enemies. O Ra, give abounding life to Pharaoh, bestow bread for
his hunger (belly), water for his throat, perfumes for his hair."

=Animal-Headed Gods.=--The Egyptians often represented their gods with
human form, but more frequently under the form of a beast. Each god
has his animal: Phtah incarnates himself in the beetle, Horus in the
hawk, Osiris in the bull. The two figures often unite in a man with
the head of an