Edwards, Amelia B.: Pharaohs, fellahs and explorers (New York, NY, 1892)

102

PHARAOHS, FELLAHS, AND EXPLORERS.

was a votary of Isis, Isai'ous being a somewhat clumsy tran-
scription of Ixi-ari-s, or Ast-ari-s—a name which is found in
its original Egyptian form upon a funerary tablet in the
Museum of the Louvre, and which signifies " Isis made her."
Another name composed with that of Isis is " Ision;" and
another, evidently derived from Ari-n-Amen (" made by
Amen''), is " Ammonarin." ki Sarapis " (misspelled, of course,
for "Serapis") was written on the breast of one of the finest
of these portrait-mummies, both mummy and portrait being
now in the national Egyptian collection. It is interesting to

note how Isis and Amen were
always the Egyptian deities
most in favor with the Greeks
and Romans, and how they
identified Apis, under the name
of "Serapis," with Zeus and
Jupiter. "Ta-Ast," an Egyp-

tian name signifying the

'gift

of Isis," became a favorite
Greek and Roman name under
the form of " Isidora," and it
survives to this day in the
French " Isidore."

kSome of the panel portraits
found on these Hawara mum-
mies are surrounded by a dec-
orative border of gilt stucco,
representing vine-tendrils and
grapes. This bordering, as a
rule, is modelled on the panel,
romax ttkar though in some instances it is

found to be moulded on a can-
vas ground and laid round the picture. The portraits thus
decorated are among the earliest in date, beginning, that is to
say, about 130 b.c. In our two first examples, a young Greek
gentleman and a plebeian-looking boy (pp. 97, 98), in whose
saucy eyes, open nostrils, thick lips, and swarthy skin I cannot