The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari .. - NYU | Digital Library ...

of her mother. Ihr iiaino is enclosed in a car-
touclio. Her titles are 1 ^^^ I "^ 1 '^
" the royal daughter, the royal sister, the divine
wife, the ? " These last words show that
she is connected with the worship of Anion.
She is not mentioned among the daughters of
Thothmes whose names are inscribed in his
tomb. This is the only princess of that name
in the XVIIIth Dvnastv.
The end repi'esentation had suffered much at
the hands of Amenheteji IV. Amon had been
erased, but the restorations have been made
with great care ; we do not know by whose
orders, ])ut they are very different from the
careless work done by Raraescs If. in the Great
Temple.' Amon is sitting on his thi'one ; before
him Thothmes III. brings frankincense, and
pours fresh water ou two altars. The god
ansAvers with the usual promises of long life and
felicity. There are many graffiti on the vacant
surfaces of this scene ; they are in hieratic of
the XlXth Dvnastv, and belong to an official
called I'liraemhcb, Avho occurs in other parts of
the temple.
The chapel was not dedicated to Hatlior
alone. Although the goddess takes the promi-
nent place in it, Amon is not forgotten. She is
the mother, but Amon is the father.
We cannot suppose that there Avas anything
else in the cha])cl besides the cow ;
TIIK IIATHOK SHRINK. 65
1
the room is
too narrow. There are no traces even of any
sacred furniture, the only things we found in the
small heap of rubljisli which was before her
feet were a few wooden phalli and a fragment of
a stele (of the same type as that illustrated in
ri. XXV. e, which was found the year before) on
Avhich the cow is seen issuing from a mountain.
She suckles a king, who is also represented under
her head, but there is no name. She is called
' In PI. xxviii. d, f, wc see that in the inscription a
sketch for the hieroglyphic picture of Amon has been
made on Akhenaten's erasure, but the cutting of it was
never carried out.
llaihur, ihu ludy of Zeser, who resides at
Akhu-aset, the princess of the gods."
The cow, like the slabs of the chapel, is of
sandstone ; that is the reason why the legs have
not been detached. She has been cut in an
enormous piece of stone of the full thickness of
the animal, and sufficiently high to reach to the
top of the plumes on its head. She is of natural
size, and in her shape is a perfect likeness of the
cows of the present day. Her colour is a
reddish brown, with spots which look like
a four-leaved clover. These spots are found
exactly in the same form in the pictui'es of
Chapter CLXXXVI. of the Book of the Dead,
where the cow is seen coming out of the
mountain. In some other texts these spots are
replaced by stars. However, they must not be
considered as conventional representations of
stars, they are copied from nature. It seems
that there ai'e animals with this particular
colour and spots. Probably this was the sign
that they were the incarnation of the goddess,
just as some peculiar marks distinguished the
Apis bull, the incarnation of Osiris. It is quite
possible that the Egyptians valued that par-
ticular coat because the spots reminded them of
stars, and could be considered as star-emblems,
appropriate to the celestial goddess. The head,
neck, and horns of tliis cow were certainly
oriirinallv covered Avith gold, faint traces of it
may be seen in the nostrils and on the horns
but the gold must have been very thin, like
the very delicate coating which covers some
statuettes, and Avhich is metal beaten so thin
that the sculpture is made Avith the same care
as if the coating did not exist. It is the case
Avith the coAv ; the sculpture of the head is as
perfect as if it had not been covered by any-
thing, and the taking aAvay of the gold has not
injured it in the least.
In only one place does the image look as if it
had suffered ; the face of the king under the
coAv's head is damaged, apparently. But
evidentlv the goddess wore a menat, a heavy
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