** This conception of the primitive Egyptian world is clearly implied in the very terms employed by the author of The Destruction of Men. Nuit does not rise to form the sky until such time as Râ thinks of bringing his reign to an end; that is to say, after Egypt had already been in existence for many centuries. In chap. xvii. of the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 11. 3-5) it is stated that the reign of Râ began in the times when the upliftings had not yet taken place; that is to say, before Shu had separated Nûît from Sibû, and forcibly uplifted her above the body of her husband.
Nevertheless in this first attempt at a world there was vegetable, animal, and human life. Egypt was there, all complete, with her two chains of mountains, her Nile, her cities, the people of her nomes, and the nomes themselves. Then the soil was more generous; the harvests, without the labourer's toil, were higher and more abundant;[*] and when the Egyptians of Pharaonic times wished to mark their admiration of any person or thing, they said that the like had never been known since the time of Râ.
* This is an ideal in accordance with the picture drawn of the fields of Ialû in chap. ex. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's edition, vol. i. pis. cxxi.~ cxxiii.). As with the Paradise of most races, so the place of the Osirian dead still possessed privileges which the earth had enjoyed during the first years succeeding the creation; that is to say, under the direct rule of Râ.
It is an illusion common to all peoples; as their insatiable thirst for happiness is never assuaged by the present, they fall back upon the remotest past in search of an age when that supreme felicity which is only known to them as an ideal was actually enjoyed by their ancestors. Râ dwelt in Heliopolis, and the most ancient portion of the temple of the city, that known as the "Mansion of the Prince"--Haït Sarû,--passed for having been his palace. His court was mainly composed of gods and goddesses, and they as well as he were visible to men. It contained also men who filled minor offices about his person, prepared his food, received the offerings of his subjects, attended to his linen and household affairs. It was said that the _oîrû maû_--the high priest of Râ, the _hankistît_--his high priestess, and generally speaking all the servants of the temple of Heliopolis, were either directly descended from members of this first household establishment of the god, or had succeeded to their offices in unbroken succession.