Identifier: struggleofnation00maspuoft (find matches)
Title: The struggle of the nations - Egypt, Syria, and Assyria
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Maspero, G. (Gaston), 1846-1916
Subjects: History, Ancient Egypt -- History Syria -- History and antiquities Assyria -- History and antiquities
Publisher: London : S.P.C.K.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
passed awayand the light disappeared with it. The souls who were devotees of the sunescaped this melancholy existence ; they escorted the god, reduced though hewas to a mummied corpse, on his nightly cruise, and were piloted by him safeand sound to meet the first streaks of the new day. As the boat issued fromthe mountain in the morning between the two trees which flanked the gateof the east, these souls had their choice of several ways of spending the day onwhich they were about to enter. They might join their risen god in his coursethrough the hours of light, and assist him in combating Apophis and his accom-plices, plunging again at night into Hades witliout having even for a momentquitted his side. They might, on the other hand, leave him and once more enterthe world of the living, settling themselves where they would, but always bypreference in the tombs where their bodies awaited them, and where tliey couldenjoy the wealth which had been accumulated there: they might walk within
Text Appearing After Image:
548 THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE. their garden, and sit beneath the trees they had planted; they could enjoy theopen air beside the pond they had dujr, and breathe the gentle north breeze on itsbanks after the midday heat, until the time when the returning evening obliged them to repair once moretoAbydos.and re-embarkwith the god in order topass the anxious vigils ofthe night under his pro-tection. Thus from theearliest period of Egyp-tian history the life be-yond the tomb was aneclectic one, made up ofa series of earthly enjoy-ments combined together.The Pharaohs hadenrolled themselves in-stinctively among themost ardent votaries ofthis complex doctrine.Their relationship to thesun made its adoption aduty, and its professionwas originally, perhaps,one of the privileges oftheir position. Ra in-vited them on boardbecause they were his children, subsequently extending this favour to thosewhom they should deem worthy to be associated with them, and thus becomecompanions of the ancient

Note About Images