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Apis |
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In Egyptian mythology, Apis (or Hapi-ankh) The "living deceased one" or Osiris incarnate in the sacred white Bull. One of his titles was “Lord of Horns.” A fertility symbol, the sacred bull, considered the “glorious Ba” (soul) of the god Ptah. In a funerary context, the Apis was a protector of the deceased, and linked to the pharaoh. This animal was chosen because it symbolized the king’s courageous heart, great strength, virility, and fighting spirit. The Apis bull was considered to be a manifestation of the pharaoh, as bulls were symbols of strength and fertility, qualities which are closely linked with kingship (“strong bull” was a common title for creator gods and pharaohs). Sometimes the Apis bull was pictured with the sun-disk between his horns. The Apis bull is unique as he is the only Egyptian god represented solely as an animal, and never as a human with an animal's head.
The Apis bull was a real, living animal, selected from the herd and worshiped as a god. The Bull had special markings which set him apart as sacred from the herd. The Apis bull had to be black with a white triangular mark on his forehead, a pattern like the wings of a vulture on his back, double hairs on his tail, a crescent moon on his right flank, and a scarab mark under his tongue. The Apis bull was described as “high of horns, beautiful of names, far-seer and wide-ranger.” The cult of the Apis bull started at the very beginning of Egyptian history, probably as a fertility god connected to grain and the herds.
The heifer that produced the bull was venerated as a form of the mother goddess Isis, and was worshiped as well. The heifer was believed to have conceived by a flash of lightning from the heavens, or from moonbeams. There was only one Apis bull at any time. He was kept in a special temple with his own oracle, and provided with a harem of cows. There was even a “window of appearance” for him, just like for the pharaoh. It was believed that prophecies could be divined from the Apis bull’s movements, and that its breath cured diseases. On certain holidays the Apis bull was led through the streets of the city, bedecked with jewelry and flowers. By walking ceremoniously through the city, the Apis was believed to bless all those who lived there with fertility, be they human or animal.
Apis was the bull-god that, on reaching the age of twenty-eight, the age when Osiris was killed by Set, was put to death with a great ceremony. His cult was associated at first with Ptah, and the underworld (Duat) When the Apis bull died, he was mourned and given a burial like that of a pharaoh, and the search started among the herds for a new Apis.
There is evidence that parts of the body of the Apis bull were eaten by the pharaoh and his priests to absorb the Apis’s great strength. Sometimes the body of the bull was mummified and fixed in a standing position on a foundation made of wooden planks. Bulls’ horns embellish some of the tombs of ancient pharaohs, and the Apis bull was often depicted on private coffins as a powerful protector. It was believed that to be under the protection of the Apis bull would give the person control over the four winds in the afterlife.
By the New Kingdom, the remains of the Apis bulls were interred at the cemetery of Saqqara. The earliest known burial in Saqqara was performed in the reign of Amenhotep III by his son Thutmosis; afterwards, seven more bulls were buried nearby. Rameses II initiated Apis burials in the Serapeum, an underground complex of burial chambers at Saqqara for the sacred bulls, a site used through the rest of Egyptian history into the reign of Cleopatra VII.
The Serapeum was discovered by Auguste Mariette, who excavated most of the complex. Unfortunately his notes of the excavation were lost, which has complicated the use of these burials in establishing Egyptian chronology. The problem with these series of sacred burials is that from the reign of Rameses XI through the 23rd year of Osorkon II -- a period of about 250 years -- only 9 bulls are known: this number includes 3 burials not actually found, but assumed to exist by Mariette in a chamber he felt was to dangerous to excavate. Egyptologists believe that there should be more burials, but even after redating four burials Mariette dated to the reign of Ramesses XI, and recalculating the dates, there is still a gap of 130 years that needs accounting for. Some Egyptologists, such as David Rohl, have seized on this discrepancy, and argued that the dating of the Twentieth dynasty should be redated some 300 years closer to the present in time; others assume that there are more burials of these sacred bulls waiting to be discovered and excavated.
Unlike the cults of most of the other Egyptian deities, the worship of the Apis bull was continued by the Greeks and after them by the Romans, and lasted until almost 400 A.D.
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