Apis
Egyptian · deity · old kingdom · deity
Apis is a god you could feed. One bull at a time, identified by markings, housed at Memphis, consulted as an oracle, mourned nationally when it died and replaced after a search — and then mummified and put in a granite sarcophagus in a rock-cut gallery at Saqqara with all its predecessors. The Serapeum is the result: a corridor of enormous stone boxes, one god per box. Of the three great bull cults this is the largest and the best documented, and the registry had none of them.
Domains
- divination
- kingship
Powers
- to answer a question by which of two stalls the bull walks into
Relations
- subordinate to: Ptah
Sources
- Reference treatments of the Apis bull, of the Egyptian bull cults and of the Serapeum.