BUDGE, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis - From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt

Publisher: Oxford University Press, London, 1934.  First edition. In-4, xii & 545 pages. Publisher s Original green cloth. Lower corner bumped, otherwise a bright near-fine copy. This is the first edition, in the FIRST STATE binding (first state binding has the full gilt image on the front cover). This is Budge s classic work on the religion of the predynastic portion of Egyptian history as well as the cults, theological systems and religions of the dynastic period. The book is in two parts. Part one contains the principal facts about the religious beliefs and thoughts of the Egyptians, and their conception of God and the gods , their enneads and triads, the religions and systems of the great cities, etc. Magic, the cult of animals, the cult of Osiris, and the Tuat, or Other World, are treated at some length. Part two of this work is devoted to a series of revised English translations of a considerable number of fine hymns; myths, both ritual and aetiological; legends of the gods, and a few miscellaneous texts. The aetiological myths, i.e. those which were invented to account for some existing condition, are of special interest for myths constructed in the same way exist in Babylonian literature.