the sculptures, as well as ancient authors, abundantly prove to have been one of the most sacred of all the animals of Egypt. Diodorus, indeed, shows the connection he supposes to have subsisted between the latter bird and that city, when he says, "The hawk is reputed to have been worshipped, because augurs use them for divining future events in Egypt; and some say that in former times a book (papyrus), bound round with (red) purplet thread, and containing a written account of the modes of worshipping and honouring the Gods, was brought (by one of those birds) to the priests at Thebes. For which reason the hierogrammats (sacred scribes) wear a (red) purple band and a hawk's feather in their head. The Thebans worship the eagle because it appears to be a royal animal worthy of the Deity." But though the eagle was not worshipped, it frequently occurs in the hieroglyphics, where it has the force of the letter a, the commencement of the word akhóm, its name in Coptic. Plutarchs, Clemens, and others, agree in considering the hawk the emblem of the Deity; and *Diodor. loc. cit. The words povikos and purpureus are translated purple, but it is evident that they originally signified fire colour, or red; and the "purpureus late qui splendeat unus et alter assuitur pannus" of Horace will translate very badly a "purple patch;" though it is evident, from the "certantem et uvam purpuræ," that the Latin as well as the Greek word signified also the colour we call purple. (Hor. Ars Poet. 18.; and Epod. ii. 20.) The purple continued to change in colour at different times till it arrived at the imperial hue, and that adopted by the modern cardinals. Vide Clem. Strom. vi. p. 196.; and vide infrà, on the Ceremonies. the sculptures clearly indicate the God to whom it was particularly sacred to be Re, or the Sun. Other Deities also claimed it as their emblem; and it is shown by the monuments to have belonged to Pthah-Sokari-Osiris; to Aroeris; to the younger Horus; to Mandoo; to Khonso; to HorHat; and to Kebhnsnof, one of the four Genii of Amenti; all of whom are represented with a hawk's head. There is also a Goddess who bears on her head a hawk seated upon a perch, supposed to be the Deity of the west bank of the Nile. The same emblem is given to Athor; and the name of the Egyptian Venus is formed of a hawk in a cage or shrine. The boat or ark of Pthah-Sokari-Osiris is covered by the hawk; and several of those birds are represented rowing it, while others stand upon the pillars which support its canopy: and the hawk is frequently introduced overshadowing the King while offering to the Gods or engaged in battle, in lieu of the vulture of Eilethyia, as an emblem of HorHat or Agathodæmon. Æliant says "the hawk was sacred to Apollo, whom they call Horus.” The Tentyrites §, he also states, have them in great honour, though hated by the Coptites; and it is probable that in some ceremonies performed in towns where the crocodile was particularly revered, the presence of the hawk was not permitted, being * Vide suprà, Plate 53. part ii. + Vide Plate 36., and Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 387. Ælian, vii. 9. and An. x. 14. He makes them live 700 years. Ælian's account of the two hawks being deputed by the others to go to certain desert islands near Libya, recalls the modern Arab story of the Gebel e'Tayr or "mountain of the bird," near Minieh. Vide El. ii. 43. Elian, x. 24. the type of Horus, whose worship was hostile to that animal. But this did not prevent the hawkheaded Aroeris and the crocodile-headed Savak from sharing the same temple, at Ombos. The hawk was particularly known as the type of the Sun, and worshipped at Heliopolis as the sacred bird, and representative of the Deity of the place. It was also peculiarly revered at the island of Phila*, where this sacred bird was kept in a cage, and fed with a care worthy the representative of the Deity of whom it was the emblem. It was said to be consecrated to Osiris, who was buried at Philæ; and in the sculptures of the temples there the hawk frequently occurs, sometimes seated amidst lotus plants. But this refers to Horus, the son of Osiris, not to that God himself, as the hieroglyphics show, whenever the name occurs over it. The hawk of Philæ is the same kind as that sacred to Re, and not, as some have imagined, a different species. It is therefore difficult to account for Strabo's assertion † that the bird worshipped at Philæ, though called a hawk, appeared to him unlike those he had been accustomed to see in his own country, or in Egypt, being much larger and of a different character. The only mode of accounting for his remark is to suppose he alludes to the hawk I have named Falco Aroeris‡, which is larger than the ordinary kinds of Europe and * For some reason, which I have in vain endeavoured to discover, some persons write this name Philo, though ancient writers, as well as the Greek inscriptions there, have it didai (Pidas). + Strabo, xvii. p. 562. Vide suprà, p. 121., and infrà, p. 209. Egypt, and is seldom seen even in the valley of the Nile. At Hieraconpolis, or the City of the Hawks, which stood nearly opposite Eilethyas, on the west bank, and at Hieracon, opposite Lycopolis, this bird likewise received divine honours; and the remains at the former, of the time of the first Osirtasen, prove the antiquity of that place, and argue that the worship of the hawk was not introduced at a late period. The universal respect for the Gods, of whom it was the type, rendered the honours paid to the hawk common to all Egypt; and though the places above mentioned treated it with greater distinction than the rest of the country, no town was wanting in respect to it, and no individual was known to ill-treat this sacred bird. It was one of those "confessedly honoured and worshipped by the whole nation *,” and "not only venerated while living, but after death, as were cats, ichneumons, and dogs +;" and if, says Herodotus ‡, "any one, even by accident, killed an ibis or a hawk, nothing could save him. from death." Ælian §, indeed, asserts that the Coptites showed great hatred to hawks, as the enemy of their favourite animal the crocodile, and even nailed them to a cross; but this appears improbable, since the Sun and other Deities, of whom they were emblems, were worshipped at Coptos, as throughout Egypt.|| *Plut. de Is. s. 73. + Diodor. i. 83. These sacred birds were maintained at the public expense. Every possible care was taken of them, by certain persons especially* entrusted with that honourable duty, who, calling them with a loud voice, held out pieces of meat cut up into small pieces for the purpose, until they came to take them. And whenever, like the curators of the other sacred animals, they travelled through the country to collect charitable donations for their maintenance, the universal veneration paid to the hawks was shown by the zeal with which all persons contributed. t A hawk with a human head was the emblem of the human soul, the baieth of Horapollo. The Goddess Athor was sometimes figured under this form, with the globe and horns of her usual headdress. Hawks were also represented with the head of a ram. Several species of hawks are natives of Egypt, and it is difficult to decide which was really the sacred bird. But it appears that the same kind was chosen as the emblem of all the different Gods above mentioned, the only one introduced into the sculptures besides the sacred hawk being the small sparrow-hawk, or Falco tenunculoïdes, which occurs in certain mysterious subjects connected with the dead, in the tombs of the Kings. The sacred hawk had a particular mark under the eye, which, by their conventional mode of representing it, is * Diodor. i. 83. † Vide suprà, p. 92. The origin of this inconsistent name may be a corruption of sperviero, épervier, "a hawk; or, as Johnson supposes, of the Saxon spearhawoc. |
