THE RELIGIONS OF THE ANCIENT WOULD.
22
Aten the sun's disk, Har, or Har-em-aku (Horus or Harmachis), the sun at his rising ; Turn (or Atum) the same luminary at his setting; Khepra was the life-giving power of the sun; while Mentu was a provincial sun-god, adopted into the general pantheon. Athor, moreover, the mother of Ra, and Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris, were in some sort sun-goddesses, and bore upon their heads the disk of Ra, to mark their close connection with the great luminary. sun's light,
THOTH.
Compared with the worship of the sun, that of th-e moor, was quite secondary and insignificant. Two gods only, Khons and Thoth, had properly speaking, a lunar character.* Of these Khons was the moon-god simply, while Thoth combined with his lunar aspect, somewhat curiously, the character of " the god of letters." He was represented with the head of an ibis and the ibis and cynocephalous ape were sacred to him. Both he and Khons commonly bear on their ;
heads a crescent and disk, emblematic respectively of the
new and
the full moon.
Representations of
"Guide
to
Museum,"
are purely abnormal.
are found as Osiris-Aah (Birch, or " Osiris, the moon god ;" but these
Osiris
p. 15),