ORIGIN OF EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION—NAVILLE. 559 
Egypt, on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, at the fortress of Zar, now 
Kantarah. This narrative seems certainly a late remembrance of an 
establishment in the valley of the Nile of a warlike race coming from 
the south. 
In the monuments of the first dynasties which have been discovered 
at Abydos and elsewhere there is a record of the conquest and of the 
subjection of the native stock. It is a festival called the festival of 
Striking the Anu. 
The oldest representation of it is on the large slate found by Mr. 
Quibell at Mieraconpolis. The king, preceded by the queen and by 
four standard bearers, is shown entering a hall where his enemies are 
seen lying down with their heads cut off and put between their feet. 
The proofs that the enemies of the king are the Anu is the ivory blade, 
which we quoted before, on which a prisoner is seen coming from the 
country of the cataracts, which we know was inhabited by the Anu; 
also a tablet found by Mr. Petrie ¢ on which we read that “ the heads 
or the chiefs of the Anu are brought to the great hall.”(?) And 
lastly, another tablet on which the signs are more doubtful, but which 
speaks perhaps of the defeat of the Nubians.’ 
On the other side of the slate palette we see the same king holding 
his enemy by a tuft of hair and striking him with his mace. This 
scene is also engraved on a small ivory tablet belonging to King Den, 
and on ivory cylinders, where the king striking his enemies is repeated 
many times. We have already mentioned the sculpture of King 
Khufu at Sinai, where he is seen striking in the same way the Anu of 
Sinai. It seems to have been the typical and conventional way of rep- 
resenting the victory of the invader over the native inhabitants, and 
it occurs several times in the old empire. Later on it changed. In- 
stead of one single enemy we see a great number of various races. The 
king holds them bound together by their hair and fells them at a 
blow. This, in my opinion, does not record victories which the king 
himself has achieved; it is a conventional and symbolical way of in- 
dicating that he belongs to the predominant race, that he can trace 
his descent to the conquerors of the Anu. The cluster of enemies held 
together is only a modification of the original scene, which may be 
invested with a ceremony at the coronation. 
The festival of the Striking of the Anu is mentioned in the Palermo 
stone, a document of the old empire, showing that the tradition per- 
sisted. Even as late as the eighteenth dynasty, this festival was cele- 
brated by Thothmes ITI.¢ 
The monuments of the first dynasties found at Abydos and Hiera- 
conpolis give us an idea of the civilization of the foreign invaders. 
@Royal Tombs, I, pp. 16, 20. 
OMipides pli para. 
¢Leps., Denkm., III, p. 55. 
