Note 762 — OMPHI,

The custom of carrying the Deity in a shrine, placed in a boat, and supported by priests, was in use among the Egyptians, as well as the [762]Ammonites. It is a circumstance which deserves our notice; as it appears to be very antient, and had doubtless a mysterious allusion. We have three curious examples of it among [763]Bishop Pocock's valuable specimens of antiquity, which he collected in those parts. He met with them at Luxorein, or [764]Lucorein, near Carnac, in the Thebaïs; but mentions not what they relate to: nor do I know of any writer who has attended to their history. The accounts given above by Curtius, and Diodorus, are wonderfully illustrated by these representations from Egypt. It is plain that they all relate to the same religious ceremony, and very happily concur to explain each other. It may be worth observing, that the originals whence these copies were taken are of the highest antiquity; and, probably, the most early specimens of sculpture in the world. Diodorus mentions that the shrine of Ammon had eighty persons to attend it: but Dr. Pocock, when he took these copies, had not time to be precisely accurate in this article. In his specimens the greatest number of attendants are twenty: eighteen support the boat, and one precedes with a kind of sceptre; another brings up the rear, having in his hand a rod, or staff, which had undoubtedly a mystic allusion. The whole seems to have been emblematical; and it will be hereafter shewn, that it related to a great preservation, which was most religiously recorded, and became the principal subject of all their mysteries. The person in the shrine was their chief ancestor, and the whole process was a memorial of the deluge; the history of which must have been pretty recent when these works were executed in Egypt.