The Egyptian Book of the dead by P. Le Page Renouf and Edouard Naville

[Illustration: Horus at the Look-out of the Ship.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The later recensions add an interpolation (not without very different readings) to the effect that the Sun made his first appearance when Shu raised the Sky from the height of Chemennu, where he destroyed the ‘Children of Failure’ ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. The raising of the Sky by Shu is very frequently represented in pictures. Seb (the Earth) and Nut (the Sky) have been sleeping in each other’s arms during the night; Shu (Daylight at sunrise) parts them, and the sky is seen to be raised high above the earth. ⁂⁂⁂, Shu, who is of course the son of Râ, is in consequence of this act called ⁂⁂ _Ȧn-ḥeru_, ‘The Lifter up of the Heaven.’ _Chemennu_ is the geographical name of the town called by the Greeks Hermopolis. The mystical Chemennu, however, is alone referred to in this place. The word itself means Eight, and Lepsius sees here a reference to eight elementary deities. (We must remember that the passage itself is an interpolation, of which there is no trace in the older texts.) The ‘children of _Failure_’ (⁂⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂ _deficere_, _dissolvi_, _deliquium_[28]) are the elements of darkness which melt away and vanish at the appearance of Day. This mythological expression here found in an interpolated passage is met later on in a genuine portion of the older text.