This describes the successive hours of the night,
each hour fenced off with gates which are guarded by monsters. At each
gate the right spells must be uttered to subdue the evil powers, and so
pass through with the sun. The older beliefs in Seker, the god of the
silent land, and Osiris, the king of the blessed world, are fitted in
to the newer system by allotting some hours to these other realms as a
part of the solar journey. A variant of this work is the _Book of
Gates_, describing the gates of the hours, but omitting Seker and
making Osiris more important. These books represent the fashionable
doctrines of the kings in the Ramesside times, and are mainly known
from the royal tombs on which they are inscribed.

Another branch of the sacred books survives in the formal theology of
the schools which grouped gods together in trinities or enneads. These
were certainly very ancient, having been formed under the Heliopolitan
supremacy before the rise of the first dynasty. And if the artificial
co-ordinating of the gods of varied sources is thus ancient, we have a
glimpse of the much greater age of the Osiride gods, and still further
of the primitive gods Seb and Nut, and the earliest worship of animals.
{80} The great ennead of Heliopolis consisted of Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut,
Osiris, Isis, Set, Nebhat, and Horus; there were also secondary and
tertiary enneads of lesser gods. When the sun-god Atmu became
prominent, Horus was omitted and the eight other gods were called
children of Atmu, who headed the group, as in the Pyramid texts. The
nine are not composed of three triads, but of four pairs and a leader.
This is on the same type as the four pairs of elemental gods at
Hermopolis under the chief god Tahuti. The triads were usual at most
cities, but were in many cases clearly of artificial arrangement, in
order to follow a type, the deities being of very unequal importance.
At Thebes, Amon, Mut, and Khonsu; at Memphis, Ptah, Sekhet, and the
deified man Imhotep; and in general Osiris, Isis, and Horus, were the
principal triads.

{81}

CHAPTER XIII

PRIVATE WORSHIP

A people so deeply imbued with religious ideas as the Egyptians
doubtless carried their habits of worship beyond the temple gates. But
unfortunately we have no graphic or connected view of their private
devotions. At the present day a few natives will scrupulously follow
the daily ritual of Islam; many keep up some convenient portion, such
as