Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

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Modifications in the shape
also in Indian^ religion. The Greeks, therefore, who took lightning
to be made of the same fiery substance as the sun^ might well
acquiesce in a lotiform thunderbolt. Moreover, the sky-god's older
weapon, the double axe of immemorial sanctity, had been combined
in most intimate union with the three-petalled lily^ Small wonder
that its successor, the classical keraiinds, retained at least a trace of
the former affinity^.
which was still wrapped in darkness' (H. Brugsch op. cit. i. 121, citing A. E. JMariette
Denderah Paris 1880 I, 55, a). Another text at Denderah says: 'The sun, which was
from the beginning, rises like a hawk from the midst of its lotos-bud. When the doors of
its leaves open in sapphire-coloured brilliance, it has divided the night from the day ' (H.
Brugsch op. cit. i. 103. citing his Geographische Inschriffen aUcigyptischer Denkmaler
Leipzig 1884 p. 764 no. 55). Many monuments show the hawk, the embodiment of Horos
{supra i. 241, 34r), supported on a lotos (Goodyear op. cit. p. 6 f. pis. i, 5 ; 5, 5— 7 ; 43,
3, 9 ; cp. 44, 2, 6), Thothmes iii is portrayed presenting lotos-flowers and geese to a
hawk-headed Ra at Amada (Goodyear op. cit. p. 6 pi. i, 8). Amenophis iii similarly
presents lotos-flowers to Amen {supra i. 347) at Thebes (Goodyear op. cit. p. 6 pi. i. 6).
The third member of the Memphitic triad, Nefer-Tem, a god of the rising sun, was from
the earliest times connected with the lotos. In the text of Unas, a king of the 'fifth
dynasty, the dead ruler is compared (392
Great .Sekhem, and it is said :
ff. ed. Maspero) to a lotos at the nostrils of the
' Unas hath risen like Nejer-Tem from the lotus to the
nostrils of Ra, and he goeth forth from the horizon on each day, and the gods are sanctified
by the sight of him ' (E. A. Wallis Budget?/, cit. i. 520 f ). Nefer-Tem is commonly
represented with a lotos-flower on his head (Lanzone