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H. seems right in denying that human sacrifices were performed in Egypt in his day; no exact representations of them have been found on the monuments, and the massacre of captives before a god after a victory is only a partial parallel. There are, however, traditions as to them in the past; cf. Diod. i. 88 (there were human sacrifices τὸ παλαιόν at the tomb of Osiris) and Porph. De Abstin. ii. 55 (Amosis put down the custom at Heliopolis). Manetho (in Plut. Is. et Os. 73) speaks of human sacrifices ‘in the dog-days’, but uses the past tense; cf. Frazer, G. B. ii. 255, for their meaning. More valuable evidence still is given by the figures of slaves (Ushabti ‘answerers’) found in the tombs of the wealthy. (For a fine collection of these in the Ashmolean cf. Guide, p. 87.) No doubt originally the slaves themselves were killed with their masters.

Probably the ‘Nile bride’, a noble maiden, who is said to have been thrown into the Nile annually before the canals were opened (Maspero, i. 24 and n.), was a similar symbolic representation of an old custom.

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