The Apis bull was the most sacred animal of ancient Egypt — a living bull worshipped as the earthly incarnation of a god (associated with Ptah and Osiris), chosen by sacred markings, pampered in a temple at Memphis, consulted as an oracle, and given a magnificent royal burial. The divine bull made flesh, the Apis is the most famous of all Egypt's sacred animals.
The Living God
The Apis (Egyptian Hapi-ankh) was a real, living bull kept at Memphis and worshipped as a sacred incarnation of the divine. The Apis was regarded as the living manifestation (the ba, or earthly form) of the great creator-god Ptah of Memphis, and was associated with fertility, strength, and the power of the king. A single bull at a time was the Apis, and at its death a new Apis was sought and installed — so the divine bull was continuously incarnate in a succession of living animals across the centuries.
The Chosen Bull
An Apis bull could not be just any bull: it had to be identified by specific sacred markings — a black bull with particular white markings (a white triangle or diamond on the forehead, a vulture- or eagle-shape on the back, a scarab-mark under the tongue, and other signs). When an Apis died, the priests searched throughout Egypt for the calf bearing these divine marks, and when it was found, it was installed with great ceremony as the new Apis. The chosen bull was then kept in luxury in its temple at Memphis, pampered and venerated, attended by priests, and given a harem of cows. It was, in effect, a god living in a stall, worshipped by all who came to it.
The Oracle and the Funeral
The Apis served as a powerful oracle: its movements and behaviour were interpreted as divine messages, and people came to consult it about the future, reading omens in the bull's actions (which stall it entered, whether it ate from an offered hand, and so on). When the Apis bull finally died, it was treated with extraordinary honour: its death was mourned throughout Egypt, and its body was elaborately mummified and given a magnificent funeral, buried in a massive stone sarcophagus in the great underground galleries of the Serapeum at Saqqara, alongside the mummified bodies of previous Apis bulls. In death, the Apis was identified with Osiris (as “Osiris-Apis,” which gave rise to the later god Serapis), uniting the living bull of Ptah with the lord of the dead.
The Sacred Bull of Memphis
The Apis endures as the most famous and sacred of all Egypt's sacred animals — the living bull worshipped as the incarnation of Ptah and, in death, of Osiris, chosen by divine markings, consulted as an oracle, and given royal burial in the Serapeum. It embodies the Egyptian practice of venerating the divine made present in a living animal, and the deep belief that a god could be incarnate in a chosen beast; and it stands as the divine bull of Memphis — a god living among men in the form of a magnificent bull, pampered, worshipped, consulted, and finally entombed with the honours of a king.
A living god in the form of a bull, chosen by sacred markings and pampered in his temple — the most sacred animal of Egypt, consulted as an oracle and entombed at last with the honours of a king.
