Changes

===Psamtek I and Egyptian Religious Cults===

Perhaps the most important policies Psamtek I enacted were in regards to the maintenance and patronage of two ancient Egypt’s most important religious institutions in the Late Period – the Apis cult and the God’s Wife of Amun. Apis was the name of a living, sacred bull that the Egyptians believed was the living incarnation of Osiris, the god of the dead. The bull was provided with luxurious living quarters while it was alive and after it died it was mummified and interred with previous Apis bulls in a subterranean burial chamber known as the Serapeum. <ref> Shaw, Ian and Paul Nicholson. <i>The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt.</i> (London: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), p. 36</ref> The cult probably dated back as far as the Second Dynasty, but it was not until the New Kingdom when the Serapeum began being used. Psamtek I patronized the cult and began construction of the “Great Burial Chamber” of the Serapeum, which would continue to be used for centuries by later dynasties. <ref> Gomaà, Farouk. <i>Chaemwese Sohn Ramses II und Hoherpriester von Memphis.</i> (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973), p. 39</ref>