* No Egyptian temples of the first period have come down to our time, but Herr Erman has very justly remarked that we have pictures of them in several of the signs denoting the word _temple_ in texts of the Memphite period.
[Illustration: 167.jpg THE SACRED BULL. 2]
2 A sculptor's model from Tanis, now in the Gîzeh Museum, drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Emil Brugsch- Bey. The sacred marks, as given in the illustration, are copied from those of similar figures on stelæ of the Serapeum.
Within the temple were pieces of matting, low tables of stone, wood, or metal, a few utensils for cooking the offerings, a few vessels for containing the blood, oil, wine, and water with which the god was every day regaled. As provisions for sacrifice increased, the number of chambers increased with them, and rooms for flowers, perfumes, stuffs, precious vessels, and food were grouped around the primitive abode; until that which had once constituted the whole temple became no more than its sanctuary. There the god dwelt, not only in spirit but in body,[*] and the fact that it was incumbent upon him to live in several cities did not prevent his being present in all of them at once. He could divide his double, imparting it to as many separate bodies as he pleased, and these bodies might be human or animal, natural objects or things manufactured--such as statues of stone, metal, or wood.[**] Several of the gods were incarnate in rams: Osiris at Mendes, Harshafitû at Heracleopolis, Khnûmû at Elephantine. Living rams were kept in their temples, and allowed to gratify any fancy that came into their animal brains. Other gods entered into bulls: Râ at Heliopolis, and, subsequently, Phtah at Memphis, Minû at Thebes, and Montû at Hermonthis. They indicated beforehand by certain marks such beasts as they intended to animate by. their doubles, and he who had learnt to recognize these signs was at no loss to find a living god when the time came for seeking one and presenting it to the adoration of worshippers in the temple.[***]
* Thus at Denderah, it is said that the soul of Hâthor likes to leave heaven "in the form of a human-headed sparrow-hawk of lapis-lazuli, accompanied by her divine cycle, to come and unite herself to the statue." "Other instances," adds Mariette, "would seem to justify us in thinking that the Egyptians accorded a certain kind of life to the statues and images which they made, and believed (especially in connection with tombs) that the spirit haunted images of itself."