and sacrifices, he placed “by special permission"** a statue of himself on a votive stele in the part of the temple reserved for this purpose,—­in a courtyard, chamber, encircling passage, as at Karnak,*** or on the staircase of Osiris as in that leading up to the terrace in the sanctuary of Abydos; he then sealed a formal agreement with the priests, by which the latter engaged to perform a service in his name, in front of this commemorative monument, a stated number of times in the year, on the days fixed by universal observance or by local custom.

* See the “Poem of Pentauirit” for the grounds on which Ramses II. bases his imperative appeal to Araon for help:  “Have I not made thee numerous offerings?  I have filled thy temple with my prisoners.  I have built thee an everlasting temple, and have not spared my wealth in endowing it for thee; I lay the whole world under contribution in order to stock thy domain....  I have built thee whole pylons in stone, and have myself reared the flagstaffs which adorn them; I have brought thee obelisks from Elephantine.”

** The majority of the votive statues were lodged in a temple “by special favour of a king “—­em HOSItu nti KUIr suton—­as a recompense for services rendered.  Some only of the stelae bear an inscription to the above effect, no authorization from the king was required for the consecration of a stele in a temple.

*** It was in the encircling passage of the limestone temple built by the kings of the XIIth dynasty, and now completely destroyed, that all the Karnak votive statues were discovered.  Some of them still rest on the stone ledge on which they were placed by the priests of the god at the moment of consecration.

For this purpose he assigned to them annuities in kind, charges on his patrimonial estates, or in some cases, if he were a great lord, on the revenues of his fief,—­such as a fixed quantity of loaves and drinks for each of the celebrants, a fourth part of the sacrificial victim, a garment, frequently also lands with their cattle, serfs, existing buildings, farming implements and produce, along with the conditions of service with which the lands were burdened.  These gifts to the god—­“notir hotpuu”—­were, it appears, effected by agreements analogous to those dealing with property in mortmain in modern Egypt; in each nome they constituted, in addition to the original temporalities of the temple, a considerable domain, constantly enlarged by fresh endowments.  The gods had no daughters for whom to provide, nor sons among whom to divide their inheritance; all that fell to them remained theirs for ever, and in the contracts were inserted imprecations threatening with terrible ills, in this world and the next, those who should abstract the smallest portion from them.  Such menaces did not always prevent the king or the lords from laying hands on the temple revenues:  had this not been the case, Egypt would soon have become a sacerdotal country from one end to the other.  Even when reduced by periodic usurpations, the domain of the gods formed, at all periods, about one-third of the whole country.*