GOAT. IBEx. According to Herodotus, the Goat was sacred in the Mendesian nome, where great honours were paid to it, particularly to the male. In that province, even the goatherds themselves were respected, notwithstanding the general prejudice of the Egyptians against every denomination of pastor. The same consideration was not extended to these animals in every part of the country; and some of the inhabitants of Upper Egypt sacrificed them; as the Mendesians offered to their God sheep, which were sacred in the Thebaïd. † Ælian states, that at Coptos the she-goat was sacred, and religiously revered, — being a favourite animal of the Goddess Isis, who was particularly worshipped there; but this feeling did not prevent their sacrificing the males of the same species. Herodotus also tells us that the goat was sacred to Pan, who was worshipped in the Mendesian nome; but he appears to have confounded that Deity, who in reality corresponded to the Khem of Egypt, with Mandoo, and to have described the God of Generation under a form which was given to no one of the Egyptian Pantheon.§ When a he-goat died, the whole Mendesian nome went into mourning; and Strabo || and Diodorus ¶ also mention the veneration in which it was held, in some parts of Egypt, as the emblem of the generative principle. It is, therefore, sin *Herodot. ii. 46. Ælian, x. 23. † Herodot. ii. 42. Vide suprà, 32.; and Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 260. ¶ Diodor. i. 88. and 84. * gular that the horns of the goat were not given to Khem, who answered to that attribute of the divine power. Plutarch pretends that the Mendesian goat was called Apis, like the Sacred Bull of Osiris ; but this is very questionable, as I have already observedt; and, unfortunately, little remains of the monuments in the Mendesian nome to guide us respecting the true character of the presiding Deity of that province. The Ibex, or wild goat‡ of the desert, was not sacred. It occurs sometimes in astronomical subjects; and is frequently represented among the animals slaughtered for the table and the altar, both in the Thebaïd and in Lower Egypt. THE SHEEP, AND KEBSH. The Sheep was sacred in Upper Egypt, particularly in the vicinity of Thebes and Elephantine. The Lycopolites, however, sacrificed and ate this animal, "because the wolf did so, whom they revered as a God §;" and the same was done by the people of the Mendesian nome; though Strabol would seem to confine the sacrifice of sheep to the nome of Nitriotis. In the Thebaïd it was considered not merely as an emblem, but ranked among the most sacred of all animals. It was dedicated to Neph, one of the greatest Deities of the Thebaïd, who was represented with the head of a ram (for, as I have already *Vide suprà, p. 56. † Suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 72. § Plut. de Is. s. 72. observed*, this was not given to Amun, as the Greeks and Romans imagined); and the inhabitants of that district deemed it unlawful to eat its flesht, or to sacrifice it on their altars. According to Herodotus, they sacrificed a ram once a year at Thebes, on the festival of Jupitert, the only occasion on which it was permitted to kill this sacred animal; and after having clad the statue of the God in the skin, the people made a solemn lamentation, striking themselves as they walked around the temple. They afterwards buried the body in a sacred coffin. The sacred boats or arks of Neph were ornamented with the head of a ram; and bronze figures of this animal were made by the Thebans, to be worn as amulets, or kept as guardians of the house, to which they probably paid their adorations in private, invoking them as intercessors for the aid of the Deity they represented. Their heads were often surmounted by the globe and Uræus, like the statues of the Deity himself. Strabo §, Clemens ||, and many other writers, notice the sacred character of the sheep; and the two former state that it was looked upon with the same veneration in the Saïte nome, as in the neighbourhood of Thebes. The four-horned sheep mentioned by Ælian ¶, which, he says, were kept in the temple of Jupiter, are still common in Egypt. * Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 237. 241. 249. + Plutarch seems to think all the priests abstained from it, as from swine's flesh, s. 5. 74. Herodot. ii. 42. Clem. Orat. Adhort. p. 17. Strabo, xvii. p. 552. 559. ¶ Ælian, Nat. Hist. xi. 40. Numerous mummies of sheep are found at Thebes; and, as I have already observed, large flocks were kept there.* For though it was neither required for sacrifice, nor for the table, the wool was of the highest importance to them; and much care seems to have been bestowed upon this useful animal, whose benefits to mankind Diodorus + supposes to have been the cause of its holding so high a post among the sacred animals of Egypt. The ram was chosen to represent the sign Aries, in the zodiacs of Egypt; but these partake too little of the mythology of the country to be of any authority respecting the characters of the animals they contain. Of the Kebsh, or wild sheep of the desert, I have already spoken, in treating of the animals chased by the Egyptians.‡ Ox, Cow. The Ox and Cow were both admitted among the sacred animals of Egypt. All, however, were not equally sacred; and it was lawful to sacrifice the former, and to kill them for the table, provided they were free from certain marks, which the priests were careful to ascertain before they permitted them to be slaughtered. When this had been done, the priest marked the animal by tying a cord of the papyrus stalk round its horns, fastened by a piece of clay, on which he impressed his seal. It was then pronounced clean, and taken to the * Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 20. + Diodor. i. 87. Vide suprà, Vol III p. 226. altar. But no man, on pain of death, could sacrifice one that had not this mark.* "All the clean oxen were thought to belong to Epaphust,' who was the same as the God Apis. Herodotus says that a single black hair rendered them unsuitable for this purpose; and Plutarch affirms that red oxen were alone lawful for sacrifice. But the authority of the sculptures contradicts these assertions, and shows that oxen with black and red spots were lawful both for the altar and the table, in every part of Egypt. This I shall have occasion to notice more fully, in treating of the religious ceremonies. It will suffice for the present to observe, that certain marks were required to ascertain the sacred bulls, as the Apis, Mnevis, and Basis; and that the Cow of Athor was recognised by peculiar signs known to the priests, and doubtless most minutely described in the sacred books. The origin of the worship of the bull was said to be its utility in agriculture §, of which Clemens considers || it the type, as well as of the earth itself; and this was the supposed reason of the bull being chosen as the emblem of Osiris, who was the abstract idea of all that was good or beneficial to man. Though oxen and calves were lawful food, and adapted for sacrifice on the altars of all the Gods, cows and heifers were forbidden to be killed, being consecrated, according to Herodotus, to Isis; or rather, as he afterwards shows, and as *Herodot. ii. 38. Vide infrà, on the Sacrifices. + Herodot. ii. 38. and iii. 27. Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 348. 350. Plut. de Is. s. 31. Diodor. i. 88. ¶ Herodot. ii. 41. |