APIS

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 169 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ANC-APO

APIS or HAPIS, the sacred

bull

of Memphis, in Egyptian Hp, Hope, Hope. By

Manetho

MANETHO (Mav40cov in an inscription of Carthage; MaveBees in a papyrus)

his

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

is said to have been instituted by IIalechos of the Second Dynasty. Hape is named on very early monuments, but little is known of the. divine animal before the New Kingdom. He was entitled " the renewal of the life " of the Memphite god Ptah: but after death he became Osorapis, i.e. the Osiris Apis, just as dead men were assimilated to Osiris, the king of the underworld. This Osorapis was identified with Serapis, and may well be really identical with him (see SERAPIS) : and Greek writers make the Apis an incarnation of Osiris, ignoring the Connexion with Ptah. Apis was the most important of all the sacred animals in Egypt, and, like the others, its iinportance increased as time went on. Greek and Roman authors have much to say about Apis, the marks by which the black

bull

-calf was recognized, the manner of his conception by a ray from heaven; his

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

at Memphis with court for disporting himself, the mode of prognostication from his actions, the mourning at his death, his costly 'burial and the rejoicings throughout" the country when a new Apis was found. Mariette's excavation of the Serapeum at Memphis revealed the tombs of over sixty animals, ranging from the time of Amenophis III. to that of

Ptolemy

PTOLEMY (
CLAUDIUS
PTOLEMAEUS)

Alexander. At first each animal was buried in a separate tomb with a chapel built above it. Khamuis, the priestly son of Rameses II. (c. 1300 Inc.), excavated a

great

GREAT

gallery to be lined with the tomb chambers; another similar gallery was added by Psammeti chus I. The careful statement of the ages of the animals in the later instances, with the regnal

dates

DATES

for their

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

, enthronization and death have thrown much light on the chronology from the XXIInd dynasty onwards. The name of the mother-cow and ' the place of

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

are often recorded. The sarcophagi are of immense size, and the burial must have` entailed enormous expense. It is therefore remarkable that the priest's contrived to bury one of the animals in the fourth year ofCambyses.
See Jablonski, Pantheon, ii.; Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 35o; Mariette-Maspero, Le Serapeum de Memphis. (F. Li- G.)

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