middle twenty-five to thirty-three inches wide. From the religious
scene over such a recess it seems that these were the foci for family
worship.

The abundance of little statuettes of gods of glazed pottery, and often
of bronze, silver, and even of gold, show how common was the custom of
wearing such devotional objects. Children especially wore figures of
Bes, and less commonly Taurt, the protecting genii of childhood.

Another feature of popular religion was the {84} harvest festival. The
grain was heaped, the winnowing shovels and rakes stuck upright in it,
and then holding up the boards (which were used to scrape up the grain)
in each hand, adoration was paid to Rannut, the serpent-goddess of the
harvest.

The observance of lucky and unlucky days was prevalent. The fragment
of a calendar shows each day marked good or evil, or triply good or
evil.

The household amulets in the prehistoric days were the great serpent
stones with figures of the coiled serpent; much suggesting an earlier
use of large ammonites. In later times the image of Horus subduing the
powers of evil seems to have been the protective figure of the house.

When we reach Roman times we have a fuller view of the popular worship
in the terra-cotta figures. At Ehnasya, for instance, we find the
following proportions--five of Serapis, five Isis, twenty-four Horus,
four Bes, one goddess of palm trees. It was especially the worship of
Horus that was developed in this line. The kind of shrines used in the
houses are also shown by the terra-cottas. These were wooden framed
cupboards, with doors below, over them a recess between two pillars to
hold the image, and a lamp burning {85} before it, and the whole
crowned with a cornice of uraei. Smaller little lamp holders were also
made to hang up, and very possibly to place with a lamp on a grave. At
present mud hutches are made to place lamps in on holy sites in Egypt.

The terra-cottas have also preserved the forms of the wayside shrines.
These were certainly influenced in their architecture by Greek models,
but the idea is probably much older. The shrines were sometimes a
little chamber, with a domed top, like a modern _wely_ or saint's tomb,
or sometimes a roof on four pillars with a dwarf wall or lattice work
around three sides. Such were the places for wayside devotions and
passing prayers, as among the Egyptians of the present day.

{86}

CHAPTER XIV

EGYPTIAN ETHICS

Fort