Indeed, without Thoth to assist him, who could have raised the two great statues of the late Pharaoh, over seven hundred tons in weight. Who could have lifted above the court the stupendous architraves of his Mortuary Temple, two hundred tons of stone, and, finally, who could have perfected the huge stone tablet, thirty feet in height, and covered it with gold and gems? None but the God Thoth, of course!
But, would Thoth willingly stop the Sunboat and descend to earth merely to raise for men monuments that should rival the very halls of the gods themselves?
Not unless compelled thereto by the fact that his _Names_ were known to mortals, his stolen _Talismans_ in the possession of some inhabitant of earth.
One object alone on earth contained those Hidden Names and Talismans, together with the “Utterances” which could compel both Thoth and Set to leave their appointed places in the sky and descend to earth.
This series of irresistible “incantations,” these compelling “utterances” which could thus drag the very gods from heaven, were all contained in the “Luminous Book of Thoth.”
Herein were inscribed the Hidden Names of all the Gods, the Triads, the Enneads of the Sky. Herein were the Mysterious Names of the Keepers of the Double Gates of Heaven; of the Serpents that guard the approaches of Duat, of Ra in his Boat, of Osiris on his Throne!
So awe-inspiring a hold upon the imagination of the Thebans had the legend of this mysterious Book that its name was never mentioned. Rarely, indeed, was it alluded to by the priests.
Like that of Pharaoh, the sun-god manifest in the flesh, like that of the Unseen Statue of the Great Temple of Amen, like that of the abhorred Crocodile God of Ombos, its name was never taken upon the lips.
When the architect Amenhotep, son of Hap, was gathered to his fathers, Pharaoh commanded that he should be buried beneath a little temple which stood somewhat to the south of his own stupendous mortuary temple.
Here, for a time, Unis had acted as lector, intoning the prayers and offering to the hidden _ka_-statue of the dead architect the various portions of meat, bread and wine with which Pharaoh had endowed the tomb, out of taxes received from the nearby town of Onit. In so doing, Unis stood immediately above the subterranean chamber in which the mummy of Amenhotep lay.