562 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
It is usual now to speak of pre-Menite kings. I believe this to be 
a mere hypothesis. The tradition of Menes having been the first 
king rests on Egyptian monuments, and is recorded by Greek authors. 
When a sovereign like Rameses II engraved on a temple a list of his 
predecessors I can not help thinking that he began with the first, 
and he would not have put aside the kings who were before Menes, 
especially when their graves or their funeral chapels were only a 
short distance from the temple where he engraved his list. 
As for Menes, except for the scanty information which we get 
chiefly from the Greek authors, we are reduced to conjectures. 
Undoubtedly he belonged to the race of the conquerors, to the civil- 
izers, but I should not think that he was the leader of the conquest. 
The tribe of Horus must have been settled in the country some cen- 
turies before-him. They must have had time to develop the civiliza- 
tion which we find under the first dynasties. He probably was the 
first to unite the whole country under his rule, and thus he was the 
founder of the Egyptian kingdom. 
One may fancy that the native stock, the Anu, consisted of various 
tribes, each having as its central point the village where, as we see 
on the potteries, the symbol or god of the tribe was put up on a pole 
as a standard. These symbols are the only religious element, the 
only trace of worship which we notice on the drawings of the pot- 
teries. The tribe of Horus did not eradicate the local cults. As 
time went on the standards became the great divinity of each nome 
or province. I believe this is the explanation of the great number 
of local gods which we find in Egypt. They were at first the tutelary 
divinity of a small clan of aborigines. The conquerors seem to have 
preserved the religious traditions of their subjects; for instance, one 
of the most ancient cities of Egypt, its religious capital, where was 
taught a cosmogonic doctrine, which was adopted more or less in the 
whole land, Heliopolis, is called An. It has the name of the Anu. 
These ancient natives appear in later times in religious ceremonies 
such as the Sed Festival celebrated by Osorkon II, of the twenty- 
second dynasty at Bubastis. There does not seem to have existed 
between conquerors and subjects an irreconcilable religious feud such 
as there was later between the Hyksos and the Egyptians. It would 
have prevented their mixing together and becoming one nation. 
The relics of the first three dynasties show an extraordinary 
development of all ceremonies and customs concerning religion. Be- 
sides Horus, the faleon, which is the symbol of the king, the royal 
god, there are other divine animals, lke the jackal, the god Apuatu, 
the god who shows the ways; and also a bull, or rather, judging from 
the nature of the animal, a buffalo. The hierarchy of priests is 
already fixed; court employments are mentioned, and festivals which 
will go through the whole of Egyptian history, ike the Sed Festival, 
