Neith

He replied, There is at the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile divides, a city and district called Sais.

The city was the birthplace of King Amasis, and is under the protection of the goddess Neith or Athene.

The citizens have a friendly feeling towards the Athenians, believing themselves to be related to them.

Hither came Solon, and was received with honor, and here he first learned, by conversing with the Egyptian priests, how ignorant he and his countrymen were of antiquity.

Timaeus by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett, Introduction and Analysis, Section 3 Plato's account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative and partly literal.

Not that either he or we can draw a line between them or say, This is poetry, this is philosophy, for the transition from the one to the other is imperceptible.

Neither must we expect to find in him absolute consistency.

He is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground.

Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and where Solon heard the story.

He replied: There is at the head of the Egyptian delta, where the river Nile divides, a city and district called Sais; the city was the birthplace of King Amasis, and is under the protection of the goddess Neith or Athene.

The citizens have a friendly feeling towards the Athenians, believing themselves to be related to them.

Hither came Solon and was received with honour; and here he first learned, by conversing with the Egyptian priests, how ignorant he and his countrymen were of antiquity.

Plato's account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative and partly literal.

Not that either he or we can draw a line between them or say, this is poetry, this is philosophy, for the transition from the one to the other is imperceptible.

Neither must we expect to find in him absolute consistency.

He is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground.

Sometimes it was.

The goddess is depicted as saying, for example, in Egypt, the goddess Neith at her temple in Sa'ith, she says, I give birth to the sun and no mortal has lifted my cloak.

And that is a cloaked way of saying that she is virginal.

She is a primeval creator, androgynous, who needs no male, and she engages in what is called parthenogenesis.

And I think that that story of Atlantis that we get from Solon is, it's not just about Atlantis.

I think it's about what you're talking about, bloodlines and lineage, where it's like Solon meets with these Egyptian priests of Sais b- i- in the temple of the goddess Neith.

And, and there's all these clues within that.

Like, the, even the fact that it's a temple to a goddess is a clue because I think they associated her with Naamah, who we talked about earlier.

Yeah.

'Cause they sense, they s- they send Solon where they send him for a reason.

And, and they send him to these priests who are priests in this goddess temple of Neith because they believe that, well, Neith is associated with Athena as well, and they think that Naamah is associated with that so that, 'cause it, 'cause it was the goddess who helped kinda preside over this knowledge being, you know-

Mm

Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and where Solon heard the story.

He replied: There is at the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile divides, a city and district called Sais; the city was the birthplace of King Amasis, and is under the protection of the goddess Neith or Athene.

The citizens have a friendly feeling towards the Athenians, believing themselves to be related to them.

Hither came Solon and was received with honor; and here he first learned, by conversing with the Egyptian priests, how ignorant he and his countrymen were of antiquity.

Plato's account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative and partly literal.

Not that either he or we can draw a line between them or say, this is poetry, this is philosophy, for the transition from the one to the other is imperceptible.

Neither must we expect to find in him absolute consistency.

He is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground.

the chaybet is a later idea which probably belongs to the system of animism and witchcraft where the shadow gave a hold upon the man the ren name belongs partly to the same system but also in the germ of the later philosophy of idea the purpose of religion to the egyptian was to secure the favor of the god there is but little trace of negative prayer to avert evils or deprecate evil influences but rather of positive prayer for concrete favors on the part of kings this is usually of the jacob type offering to provide temples and services to the god in return for material prosperity the egyptian was essentially self-satisfied he had no confession to make of sin or wrong and had no thought of pardon in the judgment he boldly averred that he was free of the forty-two sins that might prevent his entry into the kingdom of osiris if he failed to establish his innocence in the weighing of his heart there was no other plea but he was consumed by fire and by a hippopotamus and no hope remained for him chapter two

chapter three the future life the various beliefs of the egyptians regarding the future life are so distinct from each other and so incompatible that they may be classified into groups more readily than the theology thus they serve to indicate the varied sources of the religion the most simple form of belief was that of the continued existence of the soul in the tomb and about the cemetery in upper egypt at present a hole is left at the top of the tomb chamber and i have seen a woman remove the covering of the hole and talk down to her deceased husband also funeral offerings of food and drink and even beds are still placed in the tomb a similar feeling without any precise beliefs doubtless prompted the earlier forms of provision for the dead the soul wandered around the tomb seeking sustenance and was fed by the goddess who dwelt in the thick sycamore trees that overshadowed the cemetery she is represented as pouring out drink for the baa and holding a tray of cakes for it to feed upon in the grave we find this belief shown by the jars of water wine and perhaps other liquids the stores of corn the geese haunches and heads of oxen the cakes and dates and pomegranates which were laid by the dead in the early king's tomb there might be many rooms full of these offerings there were also the weapons for defence and for the chase the toilet objects the stores of clothing the draughtsmen and even the literature of papyri buried with the dead the later form of this system was the representation of all these offerings in sculpture and drawing in the tomb this modification probably belongs to the belief in the ka which could be supported by the ka of the food and use the ka of various objects the figures of the objects being supposed to provide the kas of them this system is entirely complete in itself and does not presuppose or require any theologic connection it might well belong to an age of simple animism and be a survival of that in later times The greatest theologic system was that of the kingdom of Osiris.

This was a counterpart of the earthly life, but was reserved for the worthy.

All the dead belonged to Osiris and were brought before him for judgment.

The protest of being innocent of the forty-two sins was made, and then the heart was weighed against truth, symbolized by the ostrich feather, the emblem of the goddess of truth.

from this feather the emblem of lightness being placed against the heart in weighing it seems that sins were considered to weigh down the heart and its lightness required to be proved thot the god who recorded the weighing then stated that the soul left the judgment hall true of voice with the heart and members restored to him and that he should follow osiris in his kingdom this kingdom of osiris was at first thought of as being in the marshlands of the delta when these became familiar it was transferred to syria and finally to the north-east of the sky where the milky way became the heavenly nile the main occupation in this kingdom was agriculture as on earth the souls ploughed the land sowed the corn and reaped the harvest of heavenly maize taller and fatter than any of this world in this land they rode on the heavenly streams they sat in shady arbours and played the games which they had loved but the cultivation was a toil and therefore it was to be done by numerous serfs in the beginning of the monarchy it seemed that the servants of the king were all buried around him to serve him in the future from the second to the twelfth dynasty we lose sight of this idea and then we find slave figures buried in the tombs these figures were provided with the hoe for tilling the soil the pick for breaking the clods a basket for carrying the earth a pot for watering the crops and they were inscribed with an order to respond for their master when he was called on to work in the fields in the eighteenth dynasty the figures sometimes have actual tool models buried with them but usually the tools are in relief or painted on the figure this idea continued until the less material view of the future life arose in greek times then the deceased man was said to have gone to osiris in such a year of his age but no slave figures were laid with him this view of the future is complete in itself and is appropriately provided for in the tomb a third view of the future life belongs to an entirely different theologic system that of the progress of the sun gotra according to this the soul went to join the setting sun in the west and prayed to be allowed to enter the boat of the sun in the company of the gods thus it would be taken along in everlasting light and saved from the terrors and demons of the night over which the sun triumphed no occupations were predicated of this future simply to rest in the divine company was the entire purpose and the successful repelling of the powers of darkness in each hour of the night by means of spells was the only activity to provide for the solar journey a model boat was placed in the tomb with the figures of boatmen to enable the dead to sail with the sun or to reach the solar bark this view of the future implied a journey to the west and hence came the belief in the soul setting out to cross the desert westward we find also an early god of the dead kent amenti he who is in the west probably arising from the same view this god was later identified with osiris when the fusion of the two theories of the soul arose at abydos cantamenti only is named at first and osiris does not appear until later times though that cemetery came to be regarded as specially dedicated to osiris Now, in all these views that we have named, there is no occasion for preserving the body.

It is the ba that is fed in the cemetery, not the body.

the ra worship was associated specifically with heliopolis and may have given rise to the union with ra also before the dynasties when heliopolis was probably a capital of the kings of lower egypt the boats figured on the prehistoric tomb at herakonpolis bear this out in the first dynasty there is no mummy known funeral offerings abound and the ku and ka are named our documents do not give any evidence then of the osiris and ra theories in the pyramid period the king was called the osiris and this view is the leading one in the pyramid inscriptions yet the ra theory is also incompatibly present the body is mummified but funeral offerings of food seem to have much diminished in the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties the ra theory gained ground greatly over the osirian and the basis of all the views of the future is almost entirely the union with ra during the night and day the mummy and amulet theory was not dominant but the funeral offerings somewhat increased the twenty-sixth dynasty almost dropped the ra theory the osirian kingdom and its population of slave figures is the most familiar view and the preservation of the body by amulets was essential offerings of food rarely appear in these later times the dominance of osiris leads on to the anthropomorphic worship which interacts on the growth of christianity as we shall see further lastly when all the theologic views of the future had perished the oldest idea of all food drink and rest for the dead has still kept its hold upon the feelings of the people in spite of the teachings of islam chapter chapter four of the religion of ancient egypt animal worship the worship of animals has been known in many countries but in egypt it was maintained to a later pitch of civilization than elsewhere and the mixture of such a primitive system with more elevated beliefs seemed as strange to the greek as it does to us the original motive was a kinship of animals with men much like that underlying the system of totems each place or tribe had its sacred species that was linked with the tribe the life of the species was carefully preserved excepting in the one example selected for worship which after a given time was killed and sacramentally eaten by the tribe this was certainly the case with the bull at memphis and the ram that it was the whole species that was sacred at one place or another is shown by the penalties for killing any animal of the species by the wholesale burial and even mummifying of every example and by the plural form of the names of the gods later connected with the animals heru hawks cnumu rams c in the prehistoric times the serpent was sacred figures of the coiled serpent were hung up in the house and worn as an amulet similarly in historic times a figure of the agatha demon serpent was placed in the temple of a third at bena in the first dynasty the serpent was figured in pottery as a fender round the hearth the hawk also appears in many pre-dynastic figures large and small both worn on the person and carried as standards The lion is found both in life-sized temple figures, lesser objects of worship, and personal amulets.