as attached to Atmu, at Thebes attached to Amen.
These facts point to Ra having been introduced into Egypt by a
conquering people, after the theologic settlement of the whole land.
There are many suggestions that the Ra worshippers came in from Asia,
and established their rule at Heliopolis. The title of the ruler of
that place was the _heq_, a Semitic title; and the _heq_ sceptre was
the sacred treasure of the temple. The 'spirits of Heliopolis' were
specially honoured, an idea more Babylonian than Egyptian. This city
was a centre of literary {52} learning and of theologic theorising
which was unknown elsewhere in Egypt, but familiar in Mesopotamia. A
conical stone was the embodiment of the god at Heliopolis, as in Syria.
_On_, the native name of Heliopolis, occurs twice in Syria, as well as
other cities named Heliopolis there in later times. The view of an
early Semitic principate of Heliopolis, before the dynastic age, would
unify all of these facts: and the advance of Ra worship in the fifth
dynasty would be due to a revival of the influence of the eastern Delta
at that time.

The form of Ra most free from admixture is that of the disk of the sun,
sometimes figured between two hills at rising, sometimes between two
wings, sometimes in the boat in which it floated on the celestial ocean
across the sky. The winged disk has almost always two cobra serpents
attached to it, and often two rams' horns; the meaning of the whole
combination is that Ra protects and preserves, like the vulture
brooding over its young, destroys like the cobra, and creates like the
ram. This is seen by the modification where it is placed over a king's
head, when the destructive cobra is omitted, and the wings are folded
together as embracing and protecting the king.

{53}

This disk form is connected with the hawk-god, by being placed over the
head of the hawk; and this in turn is connected with the human form by
the disc resting on the hawk-headed man, which is one of the most usual
types of Ra. The god is but seldom shown as being purely human, except
when identified with other gods, such as Atmu, Horus, or Amon.

The worship of Ra outshone all others in the nineteenth dynasty.
United to the god of Thebes as Amon Ra, he became 'king of the gods';
and the view that the soul joined Ra in his journey through the hours
of the night absorbed all other views, which only became sections of
this whole (see chap. xi). By the Greek times th