Apis

The name of the sacred bull which was worshipped by the Egyptians from the earliest times. The cult was said to have been introduced by Mena (1st Dynasty), the most ancient discoveries of his worship being at Memphis, though another story says that it was introduced into Memphis from Helio polis in the IInd Dynasty. But it was not until later times that the Apis bull became of so much importance. Renouf says: "The triumph of the symbol over the thought is most sensibly visible in the development of the worship of the Apis bull." The Apis symbolized "the second life of Ptah," the god of Memphis. He was born of a cow, to whom a deity had descended in the form of lightning or a ray of moonlight. According to Hero dot us he was black, with a square white spot on the forehead; on his back was the figure of an eagle, in the tail double hairs, and on the tongue a beetle. The priests searched for such an animal throughout Egypt, and when found he was brought first to Nicopolis, in Lower Egypt, and then with great pomp and ceremony to Memphis. When he died, the body was embalmed and put in an enormous sarcophagus. The so-called Serapeum at Sakkara is a great Apis mausoleum, where numbers of these sacred bulls were buried. The stelae that covered a large part of the walls of this vast tomb were of immense importance historically, as giving the dates of birth and burial of the bulls, that is to say the exact year in a king's reign. Apis was represented with a disk and uraeus between the horns. It was supposed that, at his death—like a human being—he became one with Osiris.