[FN#16] Papyrus de Turin, pll. 31, 77, 131-138.

[FN#17] A. Z., 1883, p. 27 ff.

[FN#18] Die Religion, p. 29.

[FN#19] Aegypten, p. 359 ff.

[FN#20] Les Origines, V. 162-4.


[FN#21] First Steps in Egyptian, p. 241 ff.



It has already been seen that the god Ra, when retiring from the
government of this world, took steps through Thoth to supply mankind
with words of power and spells with which to protect themselves against
the bites of serpents and other noxious reptiles. The legend of the
Destruction of Mankind affords no explanation of this remarkable fact,
but when we read the following legend of Ra and Isis we understand why
Ra, though king of the gods, was afraid of the reptiles which lived in
the kingdom of Keb. The legend, or "Chapter of the Divine God," begins
by enumerating the mighty attributes of Ra as the creator of the
universe, and describes the god of "many names" as unknowable, even by
the gods. At this time Isis lived in the form of a woman who possessed
the knowledge of spells and incantations, that is to say, she was
regarded much in the same way as modern African peoples regard their