Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/738

714 714 EGYPT [KELIGION. is, indeed, reason to suppose that the practice of shoving the head was universal, except among the soldiers. All the hair of the face was also shaven, except in the cases of kings and great persons, who had a small formal beard, possibly artificial, beneath the chin. The king was distinguished from his subjects by the richness of his apparel. His head-dress was sometimes his own hair, or the wig, alone; and at others he wore the high crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, the former being a kind of conical helmet, and the latter a short cap with a tall point behind, worn outside the other. He is also occasionally represented with another form of high cap. The figure of an asp, the emblem of royalty, is often tied just above his forehead. His beard was about three inches long, and one inch broad and deep, and formally plaited. The simplest royal dress was a kilt, usually reaching nearly to the knees, rather full in front, having a girdle above, from which hung before a broad band, richly ornamented, and peculiar to the king, like the lion s tail (natural or artificial) which was attached to it behind, and reached nearly to the ground. Sometimes a large and full shirt was worn over the kilt, descending almost to the ankles, and having wide sleeves reaching to the elbow : this outer dress is occasionally simply a skirt. Both these dresses were usually of white linen, and the outer dress was apparently very fine and transparent. Sandals were worn on the feet, and the ornaments were armlets, bracelets, both flat and broad, and deep necklaces. The ordinary costume of men of the upper and middle classes was ths same as that of the king, the short kilt, with sometimes the long shirt or skirt of fine linen above it, tied in various forms. Their beards were very short, scarcely exceeding an inch in length, and of a formal square shape, and they wore the full hair or wig, or a skull-cap. They generally went barefoot, but sometimes used sandals. The priest was occasionally clad in a leopard s skin, either tied or thrown over the shoulder, or worn as a shirt, the fore-legs forming sleeves. Military personages are often represented with helmets, and sometimes with short coats or corslets of plate-mail. The royal princes were dis tinguished by a side lock apparently curiously plaited. The men of the lower class wore the kilt and girdle alone, or, especially when engaged in laborious work, went altogether naked. They shaved the head and face, and had no head-covering but the skull-cap. The soldiers had kilts of different kinds, and coats or corslets of plate-mail, and either wore full hair or helmets. The dress of the queen consisted of a tight skirt, descend ing to the ankles, supported by shoulder-straps, and bound at the waist by a girdle, with long ends falling in front. Over this was usually worn a full shirt of fine linen, with wide sleeves reaching below the elbows, and having a broad skirt falling to the ground. It much resembles the upper dress of the king, or of men of the richer classes. The queen was distinguished by her head-dress, which was in the form of a vulture with outspread wings, the bird s head projecting over the forehead, and the wings falling on either side, while the tail extended behind. Sometimes the queen is also known by the royal asp above her forehead, and at other times she is represented with various forms of head-dress. The queen also wore sandals. (For illus trations of royal dress see COSTUME, vol. vi., p. 457-8.) The dress of ladies was the same as that of the queen, without the distinguishing ornaments, but they frequently appeared in the under garment or skirt alone. The women of the lower class wore that garment only, and some times it was much shorter than that of the ladies, parti cularly when they were engaged in manual labour. The women s hair was worn in the same manner as the men s, but it was of greater length, usually reaching about half way from the shoulders to the waist, being rarely longer, and sometimes much shorter. It was ornamented in various ways, but the general form was always the same. The children of all ranks were very simply dressed, when clad at all, though those of rich persons were some times attired as their elders. Boys were distinguished by the side-lock, which the princes, as before mentioned, wore in a peculiar fashion. Religion. The credit which the Egyptian priests enjoyed in antiquity for a knowledge of philosophy led to the expectation among modern scholars that, when hieroglyphics were read, the world would recover a lost body of human speculation. The first results disappointed this expectation, but later studies have gone far to justify it. The state ment of what those studies have achieved may be divided into the two main subjects the teaching as to the gods and that as to man s duties and destinies, rites and ceremonies coming under both heads. Had the Egyptians any idea of one God 2 in other words, is their religion a complex structure raised upon a recognized monotheistic foundation 1 The Egyptian religious writings are held by M. de Rouge&quot; to give an affirmative answer to this question. They speak of one supreme being, self-existent, self-producing, the creator of heaven and earth, called the double god or double being, as the parent of a second manifestation. From the idea of a supreme deity, at once father and mother, producing a second form, probably originated a first triad like the triads of father, mother, and son frequent in Egyptian mythology. To the local divinities the attributes of th s supreme deity are given, as though they were mere persouii-cutions : that they were originally so is, however, not certain. Ra, the sun, is indeed spoken of as this supreme being, but this appears to have been a later phase of opinion. (De Rouge, &quot; Etudes sur le Rituel Funeraire,&quot; Itev. Arch., n.s., i. 356 seqq.) It was probably an attempt to substitute a popular materialistic belief for a philosophical creed. A significant instance of this tendency is perhaps seen in the endeavour of a king of Dynasty XVIII. to abolish all wor ship but that of the solar disk sun-worship in its most material form. A very ancient moral tract, the papyrus of Ptah hotep, composed under Dynasty V., although a purely Egyptian work, mentioning Osiris and a divinity who may be a form of Osiris, yet speaks constantly of God as if the author had the idea of one God. 1 It also appears from one remarkable fact that this idea prevailed in Egypt before the conversion of the nation to Christianity. The Copts took care to eliminate from their vocabulary all the words connected with the religion of their forefathers, substituting for them Greek equi valents. Their term for God is, however, not Greek but Egyptian, ffOVf&quot;, the hieroglyphic neter. They also used it for heathen objects of worship, god or goddess. These uses must therefore have been prevalent in the vulgar dialect when it was first written in Coptic. Though it cannot reasonably be doubted that the Egyptians had a distinct idea of monotheism, this idea was mixed up with the basest polytheism. The double character which we perceive in the race and the language, both partly Nigritian, partly Semitic, is equally evident in the religion. Every town in Egypt had its sacred 1 &quot; L idee abstralte de la Divinite intervicut fWquemment dans 1 texte, comme si 1 auteur avait la notion de 1 uiiite et de 1 indivisibilite divine. Mais cette maniere de parler n appartient pas excluaivement a cet antique document. On la rencontre frequemment dans les textes plus modernes et notammcnt an Hituol. D ailleurs le nom d Osivis ct celui de Dieu double crocodile suflisc-nt pour notis dcmoutrer que nous avons affaire i un monument de pure origine I gypticnne.&quot; Chabas, &quot; Lc plus aiicinn livre du rnon&amp;gt;le,&quot; llcv. Arch. xv. 10.