EGYPT^ — NEWBERRY 447 



Evans's remark, quoted at the beginning of my address, to the effect 

 that he considers the possibility of some actual immigration into the 

 island of the older Egyptian element due to the first Pharaohs. The 

 " Harpoon," it should be noted, is the prototype of the bident, and 

 later, of the trident of the Libyan god Poseidon. 



Upon the mace-head of Menes, the king is represented assuming 

 the crown of Neith of Sais. This is the earliest representation of the 

 famous Sed festival which is generally held to be a survival, in a 

 much weakened form, of the ceremonial killing of the king, its essen- 

 tial feature being regarded as the identification of the king with the 

 god Osiris. The festival was, I believe, of Libyan origin, and, at all 

 events in its origin, it was not connected in any way with Osiris. On 

 this mace-head the Upper EgjqDtian conqueror is shown seated under 

 a canopy upon a dais raised high above the ground. He is clad in a 

 long, close-fitting garment; upon his head is the red crown of Sais, 

 and in one of his hands is the so-called ilail. Behind him is a group 

 of officials, and upon either side of the dais are two fan bearers. In 

 front of the king is a princess seated in a palanquin, and behind her 

 are three men figured in the act of running. This is the earliest of 

 a long series of representations of the festival, and we can not doubt 

 that the particular ceremony here depicted was the central one around 

 which, in later times, the other ceremonies that we know were con- 

 nected with it were grouped. There is no indication here of any 

 ceremonial killing of the king, and the red crown which Menes 

 wears is not characteristic of Osiris but of the goddess Neith of Sais. 

 In the Mortuary Temple of Neuserre at Abusir, in the Temple of 

 Amenhotep III, at Soleb in Nubia, and in the Temple of Osorkon 

 III, at Bubastis, the Sed festival is represented in far greater detail, 

 but still there is no indication of the ceremonial killing of the king, 

 or of his identification with Osiris. These later scenes show that the 

 festival was a great national one that was attended by ail the great 

 dignitaries of state, and by the priests of the gods from all the prin- 

 cipal cities of Egypt. In these later representations the king's 

 daughters and the running men play an important part. Inscrip- 

 tions accompanying the scenes at Soleb ^^ and Bubastis state that the 

 king at this festival assumed the protection of Egypt and of the 

 sacred women of the Temple of Anion. The Queen at these periods 

 of Egyptian history was the High Priestess of Amon and the Head 

 of the Harim of the god. An important reference to the festival is 

 found in the inscription of Piankhy. This Ethiopian king, in his 

 triumphant march from Thebes toward the Delta, had captured 

 Hermopolis, the capital of a petty king named Namlot (a Libyan 

 Dynast), and when Piankhy made his entry into the city he was 



=« I owe my knowledge of the greater part of the Soleb scones to I'rof. Breasted, who 

 kindly showed me unpublished drawings of them when I visited hico in Chicago in 1921. 



