human hands and arms, perched in an attitude of adoration on the sign which represents a solemn festival; or kneeling prisoners tied to the stake in couples, each couple consisting of an Asiatic and a negro (fig. 101).  Male and female Niles (fig. 102), laden with flowers and fruits, either kneel, or advance in majestic procession, along the ground level.  These are the nomes, lakes, and districts of Egypt, bringing offerings of their products to the god.  In one instance, at Karnak, Thothmes III. caused the fruits, flowers, and animals indigenous to the foreign lands which he had conquered, to be sculptured on the lower courses of his walls (fig. 103).  The ceilings were painted blue, and sprinkled with five-pointed stars painted yellow, occasionally interspersed with the cartouches of the royal founder.  The monotony of this Egyptian heaven was also relieved by long bands of hieroglyphic inscriptions.  The vultures of Nekheb and Uati, the goddesses of the south and north, crowned and armed with divine emblems (fig. 104), hovered above the nave of the hypostyle halls, and on the under side of the lintels of the great doors, above the head of the king as he passed through on his way to the sanctuary.  At the Ramesseum, at Edfu, at Philae, at Denderah, at Ombos, at Esneh, the depths of the firmament seemed to open to the eyes of the faithful, revealing the dwellers therein.  There the celestial ocean poured forth its floods navigated by the sun and moon with their attendant escort of planets, constellations, and decani; and there also the genii of the months and days marched in long procession.  In the Ptolemaic age, zodiacs fashioned after Greek models were sculptured side by side with astronomical tables of purely native origin (fig. 105).  The decoration of the architraves which supported the massive roofing slabs was entirely independent of that of the ceiling itself.  On these were wrought nothing save boldly cut inscriptions, in which the beauty of the temple, the names of the builder-kings who had erected it, and the glory of the gods to whom it was consecrated, are emphatically celebrated.  Finally, the decoration of the lowest part of the walls and of the ceiling was restricted to a small number of subjects, which were always similar:  the most important and varied scenes being suspended, as it were, between earth and heaven, on the sides of the chambers and the pylons.

[Illustration:  Fig. 105.—­Zodiacal circle of Denderah.]

These scenes illustrate the official relations which subsisted between Egypt and the gods.  The people had no right of direct intercourse with the deities.  They needed a mediator, who, partaking of both human and divine nature, was qualified to communicate with both.  The king alone, Son of the Sun, was of sufficiently high descent to contemplate the god in his temple, to serve him, and to speak with him face to face.  Sacrifices could be offered only by him, or through him, and in his name.  Even the