Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. The
picture represents Khâmhaît presenting the superintendents
of storehouses to Tûtânkhamon, of the XVIIIth dynasty.

While hoping that his fictitious claim to universal dominion would be
realized, the king adopted, in addition to the simple costume of the old
chiefs, the long or short petticoat, the jackal's tail, the turned-up
sandals, and the insignia of the supreme gods,--the ankh, the crook, the
flail, and the sceptre tipped with the head of a jerboa or a hare, which
we misname the cucupha-headed sceptre.* He put on the many-coloured
diadems of the gods, the head-dresses covered with feathers, the white
and the red crowns either separately or combined so as to form the
pshent. The viper or uraeus, in metal or gilded wood, which rose from
his forehead, was imbued with a mysterious life, which made it a means
of executing his vengeance and accomplishing his secret purposes. It was
supposed to vomit flames and to destroy those who should dare to attack
its master in battle. The supernatural virtues which it communicated to
the crown, made it an enchanted thing which no one could resist. Lastly,
Pharaoh had his temples where his enthroned statue, animated by one
of his doubles, received worship, prophesied, and fulfilled all the
functions of a Divine Being, both during his life, and after he had
rejoined in the tomb his ancestors the gods, who existed before him and
who now reposed impassively within the depths of their pyramids.**

* This identification, suggested by Champollion, is, from
force of custom, still adhered to, in nearly all works on
Egyptology. But we know from ancient evidence that the
cucupha was a bird, perhaps a hoopoe; the sceptre of the
gods, moreover, is really surmounted by the head of a