Message #70856

[Bianca]

p. 60



the sun during the hour that precedes the dawn.

Her was the sun by day, and Tem was the setting sun; the names of these gods are of native origin.

We may conclude that the priests of Tem incorporated into their forms of worship as many as possi-
ble of the rites and ceremonies to which the people had been accustomed in their worship of the
older gods. For there was nothing strange in the absorption of one god by another to the Egyptian, the god absorbed being regarded by him merely as a phase or character of the absorbing god. The Egyptians, like many other Orientals, were exceedingly tolerant in such matters.

The monuments prove that, quite early in the Dynastic Period, there was known and worshipped in Lower Egypt another form of the Sun-god who was called RA.

Of his origin and early history nothing is known, and the meaning of his name has not yet been satisfactorily explained.

It does not seem to be Egyptian, but it may be that of some Asiatic sun-god, whose cult was introduced into Egypt at a very remote period.

His character and attributes closely resemble those of the Babylonian god Marduk, and both Ra
and Marduk may be only different names of one and the same ancestor.

The centre of the cult of Ra in Egypt was Anu, or Heliopolis, and the city must have been inhabit-
ed by a cosmopolitan population (who were chiefly worshippers of the sun) from time immemorial.

All the caravans from Arabia and Syria halted there, whether outward or homeward bound, and
men of many nations and tongues must have exchanged ideas there as well as commodities.

The control of the water drawn from the famous Well of the Sun, the 'Ain ash-Shams' of Arab
writers, was, no doubt, in the hands of the priests of Anu,