Tradition runs that the old custom was to deck a young virgin in gay
apparel and throw her into the river as a sacrifice to obtain a
plentiful inundation. Whether that was so or not, the intention of
the practice appears to have been to marry the river, conceived as a
male power, to his bride the cornland, which was so soon to be
fertilised by his water. The ceremony was therefore a charm to
ensure the growth of the crops. In modern times money used to be
thrown into the canal on this occasion, and the populace dived into
the water after it. This practice also would seem to have been
ancient, for Seneca tells us that at a place called the Veins of the
Nile, not far from Philae, the priests used to cast money and
offerings of gold into the river at a festival which apparently took
place at the rising of the water.
The next great operation of the agricultural year in Egypt is the
sowing of the seed in November, when the water of the inundation has
retreated from the fields. With the Egyptians, as with many peoples
of antiquity, the committing of the seed to the earth assumed the
character of a solemn and mournful rite.
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