Note 385 — TIT and TITH.

There was another name current among the Amonians, by which they called their λοφοι, or high places. This was Taph; which at times was rendered Tuph, Toph, and Taphos. Lower Egypt being a flat, and annually overflowed, the natives were forced to raise the soil, on which they built their principal edifices, in order to secure them from the inundation: and many of their sacred towers were erected upon conical mounds of earth. But there were often hills of the same form constructed for religious purposes, upon which there was no building. These were very common in Egypt. Hence we read of Taphanis, or Taph-Hanes, Taph-Osiris, Taph-Osiris parva, and contra Taphias, in Antoninus; all of this country. In other parts were Taphiousa, Tape, Taphura, Tapori, Taphus, Taphosus, Taphitis. All these names relate to high altars, upon which they used oftentimes to offer human sacrifices. Typhon was one of these; being a compound of Tuph-On, which signifies the hill or altar of the Sun. Tophet, where the Israelites made their children pass through fire to [385]Moloch, was a mount of this form. And there seem to have been more than one of this denomination; as we learn from the prophet Jeremiah, [386]They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. And in another place: They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal. These cruel operations were generally performed upon mounts of this sort; which, from their conical figure, were named Tuph and Tupha. It seems to have been a term current in many countries. The high Persian [387]bonnet had the same name from its shape: and Bede mentions a particular kind of standard in his time; which was made of plumes in a globular shape, and called in like manner, [388]Tupha, vexilli genus, ex consertis plumarum globis. There was probably a tradition, that the calf, worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness near Horeb, was raised upon a sacred mound, like those described above: for Philo Judæus says, that it was exhibited after the model of an Egyptian Tuphos: [389]Αιγυπτιακου μιμημα Τυφου. This I do not take to have been a Grecian word; but the name of a sacred orbicular mount, analogous to the Touphas of Persis.