EGYPTIAN MYTH AND LEGEND

With Historical Narrative, Notes on Race Problems, Comparative Beliefs, etc.
by

Donald Mackenzie

Gresham Publishing Co., London

[1907]

CHAPTER VI

The City of the Elf God

The London of Ancient Egypt–Ptah Chief of Nine Earth
Spirits–God of a Military Aristocracy–Palestine Cave–dwellers and Alpine “Broad
Heads”–Creation Artificers of Egyptians, Europeans, Indians, and Chinese–Sun
Egg and Moon Egg–The Later Ptah–Neith as a Banshee–Sokar, God of the Dead–Earliest
Memphite Deity–Ptah and Osiris—-Manetho’s Folk Tales–A Famous Queen–The First
Pyramid.

Now, when there was corn in Egypt “as the sand of the sea”, traders from foreign
countries crossed the parched deserts and the perilous deep, instructed, like
the sons of Jacob, to “get you down thither and buy for us from thence”. So wealth
and commerce increased in the Nile valley. A high civilization was fostered, and
the growing needs of the age caused many industries to flourish.

The business of the country was controlled by the cities which were nursed
into prosperity by the wise policy of the Pharaohs. Among these Memphis looms
prominently in the history of the early Dynasties. Its ruling deity was, appropriately
enough, the artificer god Ptah, for it was not only a commercial but also an important
industrial centre; indeed it was the home of the great architects and stone builders
whose activities culminated in the erection of the Pyramids, the most sublime
achievements in masonry ever accomplished by man.

To-day the ruins of Old Memphis lie buried deep in the sand. The fellah tills
the soil and reaps the harvest in season above its once busy streets and stately
temples, its clinking workshops and noisy markets. “I have heard the words of
its teachers whose sayings are on the lips of men. But where are their dwelling
places? Their walls have been cast down and their homes are not, even as though
they had never been.” Yet the area of this ancient city was equal to that of modern
London from Bow to Chelsea and the Thames to Hampstead, and it had a teeming population.

O mighty Memphis, city of “White Walls”,
The habitation of eternal Ptah,
Cradle of kings . . . on thee the awful hand
Of Vengeance hath descended. . . . Nevermore
Can bard acclaim thy glory; nevermore
Shall harp, nor flute, nor timbrel, nor the song
Of maids resound within thy ruined halls,
Nor shouts of merriment in thee be heard,
Nor hum of traffic, nor the eager cries
Of merchants in thy markets murmurous;
The silence of the tomb hath fallen on thee,
And thou art faded like a lovely queen,
Whom loveless death hath stricken in the night,
Whose robe is rent, whose beauty is decayed–
And nevermore shall princes from afar
Pay homage to thy greatness, and proclaim
Thy wonders, nor in reverence behold
Thy sanctuary glories . . .

Are thy halls
All empty, and thy streets laid bare
And silent as the soundless wilderness?
O Memphis, mighty Memphis, hath the morn
Broken to find thee not?

Memphis was named after King Pepi, 1 and is called
Noph in the Old Testament. Its early Dynastic name was “White Walls”, the reference
being probably to the fortress erected there soon after the Conquest. Of its royal
builder we know little, but his mother, Queen Shesh, enjoyed considerable repute
for many centuries afterwards as the inventor of a popular hair wash which is
referred to in a surviving medical papyrus.

After Egypt was united under the double crown of the Upper and the Lower Kingdoms,
and the Pharaoh became “Lord of the Two Lands”, the seat of government remained
for a long period at Thinis, in the south. The various nomes, like the present-day
states of North America, had each their centres of local administration. Pharaoh’s
deputies were nobles who owed him allegiance, collected the Imperial taxes, supplied
workmen or warriors as desired, and carried out the orders of the Court officials
regarding the construction and control of canals. The temple of the nome god adorned
the provincial capital.

Ptah, the deity of Memphis, is presented in sharp contrast to the sun god Ra,
who was of Asiatic origin, and the deified King Osiris, whose worship was associated
with agricultural rites. He was an earth spirit, resembling closely the European
elf. The conception was evidently not indigenous, because the god had also a giant
form, like the hilltop deities of the mountain peoples (see Chapter XII). He was
probably imported by the invaders who constituted the military aristocracy at
Memphis in pre-Dynastic times. These may have been the cave-dwellers of Southern
Palestine, or tall and muscular “broad heads” of Alpine or Armenoid type who prior
to the Conquest appear to have pressed southward from Asia Minor through the highlands
of Palestine, and, after settlement, altered somewhat the physical character of
the “long heads” of the eastern Delta.

Allowance has to be made for such an infusion in accounting for the new Dynastic
type as well as for the influence exercised by the displacement of a great proportion
of the mingled tribes of Libyans. The Palestine cave-dwellers may have been partly
of Alpine origin.

A people seldom remember their early history, but they rarely forget their
tribal beliefs. That being so, the god Ptah is of special interest in dealing
with the tribal aspect of mythology. Among all the gods of Egypt his individuality
is perhaps the most pronounced. Others became shadowy and vague, as beliefs were
fused and new and greater conceptions evolved in the process of time. But Ptah
never lost his elfin character, even after he was merged with deities of divergent
origin. He was the chief of nine earth spirits (that is, eight and himself added)
called Khn the modellers. Statuettes of these represent them as dwarfs, with
muscular bodies, bent legs, long arms, big broad heads, and faces of intelligent
and even benign expression. Some wear long moustaches, 2 so unlike
the shaven or glabrous Egyptians.

At the beginning, according to Memphite belief, Ptah shaped the world and the
heavens, assisted by his eight workmen, the dwarfish Khn He was also the creator
of mankind, and in Egyptian tombs are found numerous earthenware models of these
“elves”. who were believed to have had power to reconstruct the decaying bodies
of the dead. As their dwellings were underground, they may have also been “artisans
of vegetation”, like the spirits associated with Tvashtar, the “master workman”
of the Rig-Veda hymns and the “black dwarfs” of Teutonic mythology. A particular
statuette of Ptah, wearing a tight-fitting cap, suggests the familiar “wonder
smith” 3 of the Alpine “broad heads” who were distributed
along Asiatic and European mountain ranges from Hindu Kush to Brittany and the
British isles and mingled with the archaic Hittites in Asia Minor. The Phnician
sailors carried figures of dwarfs in their ships, and worshipped them. They were
called “pataikoi”. In the Far East a creation artificer who resembles Ptah is
Pan Ku, the first Chinese deity, who emerged from a cosmic egg.

Like Ra, Ptah was also believed to have first appeared as an egg, which, according
to one of the many folk beliefs of Egypt, was laid by the chaos goose which came
to be identified with Seb, the earth god, and afterwards with the combined deities
Amon-Ra. Ptah, as the primeval “artificer god”, was credited with making “the
sun egg” and also “the moon egg”, and a bas-relief at Philshows him actively
engaged at the work, using his potter’s wheel.

A higher and later conception of Ptah 4 represents
him as a sublime creator god who has power to call into existence each thing he
names. He is the embodiment of mind from which all things emerge, and his ideas
take material shape when he gives them expression. In a philosophic poem a Memphite
priest eulogizes the great deity as “the mind 5 and tongue of
the gods”, and even as the creator of other gods as well as of “all people, cattle,
and reptiles”, the sun, and the habitable world.

Thoth is also credited with similar power, and it is possible that in this
connection both these deities were imparted with the attributes of Ra, the sun
god.

According to the tradition perpetuated by Manetho, the first temple in Egypt
was erected at Memphis, that city of great builders, to the god Ptah at the command
of King Mena. It is thus suggested that the town and the god of the ruling caste
existed when the Horite sun worshippers moved northward on their campaign of conquest.
As has been shown, Mena also gave diplomatic recognition to Neith, the earth goddess
of the Libyans, “the green lady” of Egypt, who resembles somewhat the fairy, and
especially the banshee, of the Iberians and their Celtic conquerors.

The Ptah worshippers were probably not the founders of Memphis. An earlier
deity associated with the city is the dreaded Sokar (Seker). He was a god of the
dead, and in the complex mythology of later times his habitation was located in
the fifth hour-division of night. 6 When sun worship became
general in the Nile valley Sokar was identified with the small winter sun, as
Horus was with the large sun of summer. But the winged and three-headed monster
god, with serpent body, suffers complete loss of physical identity when merged
with the elfin deity of Memphis. Ptah-Sokar is depicted as a dwarf and one of
the Khn Another form of Sokar is a hawk, of different aspect to the Horus
hawk, which appears perched on the Ra boat at night with a sun disk upon its head.
7

Ptah-Sokar was in time merged with the agricultural Osiris whose spirit passed
from Pharaoh to Pharaoh. Ptah-Osiris was depicted as a human-sized mummy, swathed
and mute, holding firmly in his hands before him the Osirian dadu (pillar) symbol.
The triad, Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, gives us a combined deity who is a creator, a judge
of the dead, and a traditional king of Egypt. The influence of the sun cult prevailed
when Sokar and Osiris were associated with the worship of Ra.

Memphis, the city of Ptah, ultimately became the capital of United Egypt. It
was then at the height of its glory; a great civilization had evolved. Unfortunately,
however, we are unable to trace its progress, because the records are exceedingly
scanty. Fine workmanship in stone, exquisite pottery, , indicate the advanced
character of the times, but it is impossible to construct from these alone an
orderly historical narrative. We have also the traditions preserved by Manetho.
Much of what he tells us, however, belongs to the domain of folklore. We learn,
for instance, that for nearly a fortnight the Nile ran with honey, and that one
of the Pharaohs, who was a giant about 9 feet high, was “a most dangerous man”.
It is impossible to confirm whether a great earthquake occurred in the Delta region,
where the ground is said to have yawned and swallowed many of the people, or whether
a famine occurred in the reign of one pharaoh and a great plague in that of another,
and if King Aha really engaged his leisure moments compiling works on anatomy.
The story of a Libyan revolt at a later period may have had foundation in fact,
but the explanation that the rebels broke into flight because the moon suddenly
attained enormous dimensions shows how myth and history were inextricably intertwined.

Yet Manetho’s history contains important material.

His list of early kings is not imaginative, as was once supposed, although
there may be occasional inaccuracies. The Palermo Stone, so called because it
was carried to the Sicilian town of that name by some unknown curio collector,
has inscribed upon it in hieroglyphics the names of several of the early kings
and references to notable events which occurred during their reigns. It is one
of the little registers which were kept in temples. Many of these, no doubt, existed,
and some may yet he brought to light.

Four centuries elapsed after the Conquest ere Memphis became the royal city.
We know little, however, regarding the first three hundred years. Two dynasties
of Thinite kings ruled over the land. There was a royal residence at Memphis,
which was the commercial capital of the country–the marketplace of the northern
and southern peoples. Trade flourished and brought the city into contact with
foreign commercial centres. It had a growing and cosmopolitan population, and
its arts and industries attained a high level of excellence.

The Third Dynasty opens with King Zoser, who reigned at Memphis. He was the
monarch for whom the first pyramid was erected. It is situated at Sakkara, in
the vicinity of his capital. The kings who reigned prior to him had been entombed
at Abydos8 , and the new departure indicates that the
supremacy of Memphis was made complete. The administrative, industrial, and religious
life of the country was for the time centred there.

Zoser’s preference for Memphis had, perhaps, a political bearing. His mother,
the wife of Khasekhemui,’ the last of the Thinite kings, was probably a daughter
of the ruling noble of “White Walls”. It was the custom of monarchs to marry the
daughters of nome governors, and to give their sons his daughters in marriage
also. The aristocracy was thus closely connected with the royal house; indeed
the relations between the Pharaoh and his noblemen appear to have been intimate
and cordial.

The political marriages, however, were the cause of much jealous rivalry. As
the Pharaoh had more than one wife, and princes were numerous, the choice of an
heir to the crown was a matter of great political importance. The king named his
successor, and in the royal harem there were occasionally plots and counterplots
to secure the precedence of one particular prince or another. Sometimes methods
of coercion were adopted with the aid of interested noblemen whose prestige would
be increased by the selection of a near relative–the son, perhaps, of the princess
of their nome. In one interesting papyrus roll which survives there is a record
of an abortive plot to secure the succession of a rival to the Pharaoh’s favourite
son. The ambitious prince was afterwards disposed of. In all probability he was
executed along with those concerned in the household rebellion. Addressing his
chosen heir, the monarch remarks that “he fought the one he knew, because it was
unwise that he should be beside thy majesty”.

It may be that these revolts explain the divisions of the lines of early kings
into Dynasties. Zoser’s personality stands out so strongly that it is evident
he was a prince who would brook no rival to the throne. His transference of the
seat of power to the city of Ptah suggests, too, that he found his chief support
there.

With the political ascendancy of Memphis begins the great Pyramid Age; but
ere we make acquaintance with the industrial and commercial life in the city,
and survey the great achievements of its architects and builders, we shall deal
with the religious conceptions of the people, so that it may be understood why
the activities of the age were directed to make such elaborate provision for the
protection of the bodies of dead monarchs.

Footnotes

1 The Greek rendering of “Men-nofer”, the name of Pepi’s pyramid.
Another Egyptian name was Hiku-ptah, or, according to Budge, “Het-Ka-Ptah, ‘House
of the Double of Ptah’, from which the Greek name of Egypt is derived”.
2 The suggestion that these represented serpents is
not supported by anything we know about Ptah worship. There was a winged serpent
goddess in the Delta named Uazit. The Greeks called her Buto, and identified her
with their Leto.
3 Ptah has been compared to the Greek Hephtos (Vulcan).
He was not a fire god. His consort Sekhet symbolized fire and sun heat, but his
association with her was arbitrary.
4 Eighteenth Dynasty.
5 The poet says “heart”, which was believed by the Egyptians
to be the seat of intelligence. At the judgment of the dead the heart is weighed
in the balance.
6 See Chapter I.
7 Osiris-Sokar is “the brilliant one”, “lord of great
fear and trembling”, “the mysterious one, he who is unknown to mankind”, and “enlightener
of those who are in the underworld”.–The Burden of Isis, Dennis, p. 52-54 (Hymn
to Osiris-Sokar).
8 This king’s brick tomb at Abydos contains a limestone
chamber, which suggests the employment of the Memphite artisans.