Budge, Ernest A. Wallis [Oth.]: The book of the dead: the Papyrus Ani in the British Museum ; the Egyptian text with interlinear transliteration and translation, a running translation, introd. etc. ([Text]) (London, 1895)

THE GODS OF THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.

cxxm

Beb, Bebti, Baba, or Babu, J J J J J J or

J Jj’ ment'oned three times in the Book of the Dead, is the

“ firstborn son of Osiris,” and seems to be one of the gods of generation.

Hapi « ~ “"fXS is the name of the great god of the Nile who was worshipped
in Egypt under two forms, i.e., “ Hapi of the South,” and “ Hapi

of the North,”

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; the papyrus was the emblem of the one, and the

lotus of the other. From the earliest times the Nile was regarded by the Egyptians
as the source of all the prosperity of Egypt, and it was honoured as being the type
of the life-giving waters out of the midst of which sprang the gods and all created
things. In turn it was identified with all the gods of Egypt, new or old, and its
influence was so great upon the minds of the Egyptians that from the earliest
days they depicted to themselves a material heaven wherein the Isles of the Blest
were laved by the waters of the Nile, and the approach to which was by the way
of its stream as it flowed to the north. Others again lived in imagination on the
banks of the heavenly Nile, whereon they built cities ; and it seems as if the
Egyptians never succeeded in conceiving a heaven without a Nile and canals.
The Nile is depicted in the form of a man, who wears upon his head a clump of
papyrus or lotus flowers ; his breasts are those of a woman, indicating
fertility. Lanzone reproduces an interesting scene1 in which the north and south
Nile gods are tying a papyrus and a lotus stalk around the emblem of union

to indicate the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt, and this emblem jHg

is found cut upon the thrones of the kings of Egypt to indicate their sovereignty
over the regions traversed by the South and North Niles. It has already been
said that Hapi was identified with all the gods in turn, and it follows as a matter
of course that the attributes of each were ascribed to him ; in one respect, however
he is different from them all, for of him it is written ;—

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an mehu, en dner tut her uah set seyet darat

He cannot be sculptured in stone ; in the images on which men place crowns and ursei

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dn qemuh entuf an baka an yerpu tuf an

he is not made manifest; service cannot be rendered nor offerings made to him ; not

1 Dizio?ia?-io, tav. 198.