or in a circle; ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ ‘going round on high with
the Sun.’ Hence the use of it as synonymous with ⁂, in the
expressions ⁂⁂ =⁂ ‘never’ and ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ = ⁂⁂
‘the first time, the beginning of time, _prima vice_.’ A sacrificial
cake is called ⁂⁂⁂ (_Denkm._, II, 28) on account of its shape,
like the Latin _rotundula_, also written ⁂⁂⁂.
And, like the Greek κύκλος, the word comes to signify a circle of
persons. This circle is not necessarily of gods. The Bremner Papyrus in
the British Museum (14, line 8), says an _apage_ not only to Âpepi, who
was no god, and to his soul and body, and ghost and shadow and children,
and to his kith and kin, but, also to his ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, that is
all associated with him, “ceux de son _entourage_.”
That ⁂⁂ should express the ‘feast of the New Moon’ is only
natural, though Lepsius has pointed out serious difficulties on the
subject.
But ⁂ also expresses the number nine. Whence in this relation arises
the Egyptian conception of the number nine? Is it the _round_ (we should
say the ‘square’) number, three times three? It certainly is merely a
round number in many instances, but what is still more certain is that
the same expression meaning ‘circle of gods’ and ‘nine gods,’ the circle
was supposed to consist of nine gods, and was enlarged to companies of
eighteen or twenty-seven. It is, I am sure, perfectly idle work to look
for more profound reasons for the theory of the ‘Ennead.’[18] _Every_
god of importance had his ⁂⁂⁂,[19] and the best theory that has
ever been given is that given at the beginning of Chapter 17.