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sacrifices were offered (in one case of a white sheep; cf. DB, iv. 629). With this should be connected possibly the horses and chariot of the sun mentioned in 11 Kings xxiii. 11 (ut sup., I., § 3). But the worship of Shamash was not confined to these places. He represents the beneficent power of the sun and the ethical side of life. He was portrayed on the monuments and seals in two postures, sitting and standing, the latter including his posture as he is represented as emerging from the gates of day (cf. W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, Washington, 1910; H. Gressmann, Altorientalische Texte and Bilder, ii. 12, cf. p. 57, Tubingen, 1909). Sometimes he journeys in a boat, and once is figured as stepping on a human-headed bull. He wears a tiara, sometimes rayed, and rays of light and sometimes streams of water proceed from his shoulders or other parts of his body. He carries a serrated sword, or a club, or both, and occasionally a battle ax. He is spoken of in the inscriptions as supreme judge, avoucher of truth, giver of oracles, bestower of life and health. The metal particularly associated with him was gold, as silver was with Sin, the moongod. In the course of history this deity became so important that he absorbed into his own personality the sun-gods of minor cities. The worshiper often brings a goat or an antelope as a sacrifice. Some noble hymns to him are extant (cf. M. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898; Germ. ed., issued in parts, Giessen, 1902 sqq.). His consort Aa often appears, sometimes as intercessor. While Marduk appears as a sun-god, his part in this sphere is unimportant. Another deity related to this luminary was Ninib, associated especially with the sun of early morning and of spring, a god of fertility and the guardian of boundaries, as well as a war-deity. In the case of Ninib, as of Shamash, the process of coalescence with other gods was protracted, so that in his person were summed up many early local gods of the field, in later theology regarded as his manifestations. Nergal was specifically the sun of high noon and of summer, hence the sun which brought destroying heat, fever, pestilence, and death, therefore belonging also to the deities of the nether world. Associated with the sun as fire was Girru, known in Assyria principally as Nusku; testimonies to him are derived mainly from the magical texts, a fact which shows what was regarded as his chief concern. In the Assyrian Asshur there was originally seen a solar deity, but his position at the head of the pantheon of the warlike Assyrians led to the entire obscuration of this significance. Nevertheless, this origin is perhaps to be discerned in his symbol, the disk, winged and surmounted by the figure of a warrior discharging an arrow (remember the Greek figure of the rays of Apollo shooting his arrows, in the first book of the Il,,ad). For Tammuz as a solar deity see the article on the subject. It may be added that Semitic solar deities seem in large part to have gained the ascendency over Sumerian lunar gods, Sin being the one marked exception.

3. Egypt: It is demonstrable that in this country worship of the sun is prehistoric. Besides the disk, plain and winged (for a fine example of the latter cf. A. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient

Egyptians, p. 75, New York, 1897), aSymbol largely employed was the obelisk, and pyramids and mastabas (truncated pyramids) served the same purpose. The great center of sun-worship was On (q.v.), the Greek Heliopolis and the Hebrew Beth-shemesh; there is the sacred spring connected with the Holy Family as a resting-place on their flight into Egypt, still known as " the spring of the sun." In Egypt the great importance of the Nile led to the conception that the gods made their journeys on boats over the Nile of the heaven, and the solar deity was supposed to have two, the " Madet " boat for the morning and the " Sektet " boat for the afternoon or night, and these figure largely on the monuments.

The sun-god most noted of all, and indeed the chief deity of Egypt, was Ra, portrayed as a hawkheaded man, or as a hawk, and he wears a disk encircled by the urxus or the serpent Khut. In his journeys on his boats the course was kept by numerous other gods. His nightly travel involved a conflict with the serpent Apepi, and the story of the first conflict quite closely parallels that of the conflict of Marduk with Tiamat (see BABYLONIA, VIL, 3, § 4), excepting the creation of the firmament out of Tiamat's split corpse. As in Japan, the early dynasty claimed descent from the sun. In the process of amalgamation of deities so noteworthy in Egypt, Ra became combined with various other sun-gods, whose names he took. Apparently he had different names in the various parts of his daily course: " 0 thou who art Ra when thou risest and Temu when thou settest " . . . " I am Khepera in the morning, Ra at noonday, and Temu in the evening " (E. A. W. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, i. 335, 352, London, 1904). For hymns of praise to him cf. Budge, ut sup., pp. 335-348, and Wiedemann, ut sup., pp. 40-42, 44-51, 111-118, 136. Myths concerning him are numerous, the most famous being that of Isis and the serpent (see NAMES, I., § 1). Hathor was originally the female counterpart of Ra, and in the religious texts wears on her head horns and the solar disk. She was also connected with the star Sothis (Sirius), " the second sun in heaven." Bast was identified with Rat (the feminine form of Ra), and symbolizes the heat of early and late summer. Of Horus it is difficult to speak, since one can not say how many deities of that name there were. Over twenty forms of Horus are noted by Budge. In some of these, or, to express it in another way, in some of his phases Horus was solar, and appears both as the rising and as the midday sun, often wearing in the texts the solar disk. He was also represented in the more philosophic texts as one of the chief forms of Ra, is given a hawk's head, and is reported as transforming himself into the winged disk with the ura~us. His temples were apparently in all parts of the country. Next to Ra is Amen-often united with Ra as Amen-Ra, whose attributes he possesses, two hymns speaking of his " rays (shining) on all faces " and of his " sailing over the sky in peace " (Budge, ut sup., ii. 5, 7); as a crown he wears horns and the double disk. Similarly he is lord of the,Sektet boat and is said to shine in the eastern and the western horizons. Apparently, however, it was only by this union with Ra that he was associated