For a description of the most remarkable antiquities of E., see ABOUSAMBUL, ALEX ANDRIA, EDFOU, MEMPHIS, THEBES; also NILOMETER, OBELISK, PYRAMID, CIC.
The population of the country must have been large at the earliest period, as 100,000 men were employed in the construction of the great pyramid alone during the 4th dynasty. It has been placed at 7,000,000 under the Pharaohs, distributed in 1800 towns, which had increased to 2,000 under Amasis, 525 B.C., and upwards of 3,000 under the Ptolemies. In the reign of Nero, it amounted to 7,800,000. The pop. in 1844 was 2,500,000; in 1859, 5,125,000; and in 1879, including Nubia, Darfur, and other depend encies, nearly 17,000,000, of whom 5,200,000 inhabited E. proper. The great bulk of the inhabitants consist of native Mohammedans; the Copts (q.v.) are estimated at 150,000; and the rest are composed of Bedouin Arabs, Negroes, Abyssinians, Turks, Syrians, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and western Europeans. The original population appears, both from the language and the physical conformation of the mummies, to have been of Asiatic origin, afterwards blended with Ethiopian by subsequent irruptions and con quests; but there appears to have been an aboriginal race at an early period, of copper color, fair proportioned, although with rather thin legs, large feet, rather high cheek bones, and large lips. According to Herodotus, Diodorus, and Plato, the system of castes prevailed in Egypt. The first of these authors says there were seven eastesof priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds, innkeepers, interpreters, and pilots. Diodorus makes only five—priests, soldiers, cultivators, shepherds, and artisans; and Plato the same. The evidence of the monuments, however, shows that these were rather condi tions of society than castes, as the different orders not only intermarried, but even, as in the case of priests and soldiers, held both employments. As in all bureaucracies, the sons often obtained the same employments as their fathers.
Egyptian religion was a philosophical pantheism, the various attri butes of the deity-being divided amongst the different gods of the Pantheon. Unlike the Greek, where a god was honored in a separate temple, each Egyptian divinity was accompanied by a put or "company" of companion-gods. The principal nomes and cities had each a family group of gods, consisting of a parent deity, a wife and sister, and a son. Thus Ptah or Vulcan, the eponymous and principal god of Memphis. formed a circle with the goddesses Pasht and Bast; and his son Nefer Turn, Amen Ra at Thebes, was allied with Mu, Nit, and Klionsu. These tetrads, or rather triads, for the female principle was dualized, were often accompanied by inferior deities; and personifi cations of the elements, passions, and senses, and feelings were introduced. The worship of some triads, however, became universa1=--that of OSiriS, Isis, and HMI's being found all over E. at the earliest period. The gods, indeed, are stated by the Greeks to have been divided into three or more orders. The first contained eight gods; the second twelve; the third, an unknown number. The eight gods of the first order were Ptah, Ea. Shu, Seb, Osiris, Set or Typhon, and Horns, according to the Memphite; and Amen, Mentu, Atum, Shu, Seb, Osiris, Set, Horus, and Sebak, according to the Theban version. Great uncertainty prevails about the gods of the second and third order, and still greater difficulty about the genesis and nature of the gods, different doctrines prevailing at different times and places; and the tendency to fuse different gods into one, particularly at a later period: Amen Ra, for example, being identified with Horus; and Horns, Ra, Chnum, Mentu, and Turn being merely considered the sun at different periods of his diur nal course. Very little light is thrown on the esoteric nature of the deities by the monu ments, and the classical sources are untrustworthy; but the antagonism of good and evil is shown by the opposition of the solar gods and the great dragon Apap, a type of darkness, and the hostility of Osiris and Set or Typhon. Some of the gods were self
existent, others emanated from a father, and some were born of a mother only, and others were the children of greater gods. Their energies and powers differed, and their types, generally with human bodies, have often the heads of the animals which were their living emblems, instead of the human. A few foreign deities became at the close of the 18tli dynasty engrafted into the religious system—as Bar, Baal; Ashearate, Ash taroth; Ante, Anaitis; Ken, Kiun; .Pes/pu, Reseph; Set, Satan. All the gods had human passions and affections, and their mode of action was material; they walked on earth, or sailed through ethereal space on boats. The principal deities are Ptah, the opener, represented as a bow-legged dwarf or fetus; the Phenician Pataikos, the creator w of the world, the sun and moon, out of chaos (ha) or matter (Jfu), to whom belong Pasht, " the lioness," and Bast, Bubastis, lion-headed goddesses presiding over fire, and Nefer Toni, his son, a god wearing a lotus on his head. Next in the cosmic order is Kimum—worshiped at Elephantine—the ram-headed god of the liquid element, who also created the matter of which the gods were made; and connected with him are the goddesses Ileka the Frog, or primeval formation, Sati, or " sunbeam," and Anuka, alluding to the genesis of the cosmos. The Theban triad comprised Amen Ra, " the hidden" power of the sun, the Jupiter; Mu, the " Mother" goddess or " Matter," the Juno; Nat, the " Shuttle," the Minerva; and Khonsu, " Force" or Hercules, a lunar type. A subordinate type of Ammon is Kliem, "the enshrined," who, as Harnekld, or Powerful Horns, unites beginning and end, or cause and effect. The solar worship comprises Re, the Sun, who traversing the 'sba, or empyreal space of Gates, passes each hour a separate region, and as he descends behind the w. hills of the horizon, becomes Atum, also a demiurge; while as Mentu, a hawk-headed god, he is Mars, and as Khepra, a scarab-headed god, the male creative or existent principle, and is identified with Amen, Klinum, and other deities. Day and night, Ra and his satellites pursue the Apap or " Giant" Darkness with alternate success. The souls of the blessed come off from earth, and entering the boat of Ra, there enjoy the perpetual streams of light which emanate from his orb. From Ba or Helios spring Shu and Tef the Gemini, Athor and Ma. Seb or "Time," and Nu or the "Firmament," gave birth to Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, and the elder Horus, a group of terrestrial and infernal deities. The myth of Osiris destroyed by his brother Set, hewn in pieces, recovered by Isis, and avenged by Iforus his son, embalmed by Anubis and the genii of the dead, and defended by Thoth, the Egyptian Logos, at the " great judgment" before his accusers, Set and the conspirators, was the type of the judgment and future destiny of man, and all deceased were called by his name. See Osinis. Numerous inferior deities, such as Hapi, the Nile, appear either as other forms of the superior deities or local varieties of the myths. Each deity had its sacred animal, which received a local worship, and which was considered to be the " sec ond life" of the deity it represented. The special animal selected was installed in the adytum of the temple, and gave oracular responses. The most remarkable of these ani mals was the Apis bull of Memphis, whose worship had a national extension. The Egyp tians believed in the transmigration of souls, and all not sufficiently pure to be admitted into the courts of the.sun, or whose bodies had perished before the expiration of 3,000 years, passed from body to body (see EMBALMING), having first descended to the Hades, and passed through the appointed trials and regions, endeavoring to reach the mani festation to light. In this progress, the soul was required to know and tell the names of the doors, regions, and their guardian demons through which it had to pass.