are found to occupy a respectful attitude towards the priests throughout the whole course of Egyptian history, from first to last; and this respectful attitude Is especially maintained towards the great personages in whom the hierarchy culminates, the head officials, or chief priests, of the temples which are the principal centres of the national worship—­the temple of Ra, or Tum, at Heliopolis, that of Phthah at Memphis, and that of Ammon at Thebes.  According to the place where the capital was fixed for the time being, one or other of these three high-priests had the pre-eminence; and, in the later period of the Ramessides, Thebes having enjoyed metropolitan dignity for between five and six centuries, the Theban High-Priest of Ammon was recognized as beyond dispute the chief of the sacerdotal order, and the next person in the kingdom after the king.

It had naturally resulted from this high position, and the weight of influence which it enabled its possessor to exercise, that the office had become hereditary.  As far back as the reign of Ramesses IX., we find that the holder of the position has succeeded his father in it, and regards himself as high-priest rather by natural right than by the will of the king.  The priest of that time, Amenhotep by name, the son of Ramesses-nekht, undertakes the restoration of the Temple of Ammon at Thebes of his own proper motion, “strengthens its walls, builds it anew, makes its columns, inserts in its gates the great folding-doors of acacia wood.”  Formerly, the kings were the builders, and the high-priests carried out their directions and then in the name of the gods gave thanks to the kings for their pious munificence.  Under the ninth Ramesses the order was reversed—­“now it is the king who testifies his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and maintenance of the older ones.”  The initiative has passed out of the king’s hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is passive; all the glory is Amenhotep’s; the king merely comes in at the close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain dignity to the final ceremony.

[Illustration:  HEAD OF HER-HOR.]

Under the last of the Ramessides the High-Priest of Ammon at Thebes was a certain Her-hor.  He was a man of a pleasing countenance, with features that were delicate and good, and an expression that was mild and agreeable.  He had the art so to ingratiate himself with his sovereign as to obtain at his hands at least five distinct offices of state besides his sacred dignity.  He was “Chief of Upper and Lower Egypt,” “Royal son of Gush,” “Fanbearer on the right hand of the King,” “Principal Architect,” and “Administrator of the Granaries,” Some of these offices may have been honorary; but the duties of others must have been important, and their proper discharge would have required a vast amount of varied ability.  It