* The Ka, or double name, represented in this illustration is that of the Pharaoh Khephren, the builder of the second of the great pyramids at Gizeh; it reads “Horu usir-Haiti,” Horus powerful of heart.

On the other hand, the royal prince, when he put on the diadem, received, from the moment of his advancement to the highest rank, such an increase of dignity, that his birth-name—­even when framed in a cartouche and enhanced with brilliant epithets—­was no longer able to fully represent him.  This exaltation of his person was therefore marked by a new designation.  As he was the living flesh of the sun, so his surname always makes allusion to some point in his relations with his father, and proclaims the love which he felt for the latter, “Miriri,” or that the latter experienced for him, “Mirniri,” or else it indicates the stability of the doubles of Ra, “Tatkeri,” their goodness, “Nofirkeri,” or some other of their sovereign virtues.  Several Pharaohs of the IVth dynasty had already dignified themselves by these surnames; those of the VIth were the first to incorporate them regularly into the royal preamble.

[Illustration:  027.jpg PAGE IMAGE]

There was some hesitation at first as to the position the surname ought to occupy, and it was sometimes placed after the birth-name, as in “Papi Nofirkeri,” sometimes before it, as in [—­] “Nofirkeri Papi.”  It was finally decided to place it at the beginning, preceded by the group [—­] “King of Upper and Lower Egypt,” which expresses in its fullest extent the power granted by the gods to the Pharaoh alone; the other, or birth-name, came after it, accompanied by the words [—­].  “Son of the Sun.”  There were inscribed, either before or above these two solar names —­which are exclusively applied to the visible and living body of the master—­the two names of the sparrow-hawk, which belonged especially to the soul; first, that of the double in the tomb, and then that of the double while still incarnate.  Four terms seemed thus necessary to the Egyptians in order to define accurately the Pharaoh, both in time and in eternity.

Long centuries were needed before this subtle analysis of the royal person, and the learned graduation of the formulas which corresponded to it, could transform the Nome chief, become by conquest suzerain over all other chiefs and king of all Egypt, into a living god here below, the all-powerful son and successor of the gods; but the divine concept of royalty, once implanted in the mind, quickly produced its inevitable consequences.  From the moment that the Pharaoh became god upon earth, the gods of heaven, his fathers or his brothers, and the goddesses recognized him as their son, and, according to the ceremonial imposed by custom in such cases, consecrated his adoption by offering him the breast to suck, as they would have done to their own child.

[Illustration:  028.jpg THE GODDESS ADOPTS THE KING BY SUCKLING HIM]