December 29, 1923] 



NATURE 



941 



The chief god of the eastern nomes of the Delta in the 

 Pyramid Age was Anzety, a pastoral deity who was 

 the prototype of Osiris. He is represented as a man 

 holding in one hand the shepherd's crook, and in the 

 other the goatherd's ladanisterion. There can be little 

 ioubt, therefore, that in the Eastern Delta there lived 

 pastoral people who possessed flocks of sheep and 

 |;oats, and this is evidence of a certain amount of grass- 

 id. In the Central Delta at the same period there 

 Bved a series of clans, among which a Bull Clan was 

 'predominant. In historic times in Egypt the ox is 

 often figured roaming in papyrus and reed marshes, 

 and it may be that the Central Delta marshes supported 

 herds of domesticated cattle. 



Much more is known about the western side of the 

 Delta at the time of Menes. It formed, I believe, part 

 of what was called Tehenu-land ; at all events this name 

 was given to the region immediately to the west of the 

 Canop'ic branch of the Nile. There can be no doubt 

 that this part of the country was a very fertile and 

 prosperous region in the period immediately preceding 

 the First Dynasty. Its name signifies " Olive-land," 

 and we actually see these trees figured, with the name 

 of the country beside them, on a pre-dynastic Slate 

 Palette ; on this Palette, above the trees, are shown 

 oxen, asses, and sheep of the type later known as 

 ser-sheep. It was Menes, the Falcon-king of Upper 

 Egypt, who conquered the people of Tehenu-land. 

 This conquest is recorded on a small ivory cylinder 

 that was found at Hierakonpolis. Another record of 

 the southerner's triumph over these people is preserved 

 on his famous Slate Palette ; here the Upper Egyptian 

 king is depicted smiting their chieftain, while on the 

 verso of the same Palette is the scene of a festival at 

 the Great Port, which was perhaps situated near the 

 Canopic branch of the Nile. The mace-head of Menes, 

 which is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, has 

 a scene carved upon it which shows the king assuming 

 the Red Crown of Sais, and the inscription accompany- 

 ing it records that he had captured 120,000 prisoners, 

 400,000 oxen, and 1,422,000 goats. This immense 

 number of oxen and goats is clear evidence that the 

 north-western Delta and the region to the west of it 

 (Tehenu-land) must have included within its boundaries 

 very extensive grass-lands. 



The history of this part of the Delta is most obscure. 

 During the period that elapsed from the end of the 

 Third Dynasty to the beginning of the Twenty-third, 

 when Tefnakht appears upon the scene, we have 

 scarcely any information about it. What was happen- 

 ing at Sais and other great cities in the north-west of 

 Egypt during the period from 2900 to 720 B.C. ? There 

 is an extraordinary' lacuna in our knowledge of this 

 part of the country. The people living there were 

 certainly of Libyan descent, for even so late as the 

 time of Herodotus the inhabitants deemed themselves 

 Libyans, not Egyptians ; and the Greek historian says 

 that they did not even speak the Egyptian language. 

 The pre-dynastic people who inhabited the greater 

 part of the Lower Nile Valley were apparently of the 

 same stock as these Libyans. There is a certain class 

 of decorated pottery which has been found in pre- 

 dynastic graves from Gizeh in the north to Kostamneh 

 in the south. On this decorated potter>' are figured 

 boats with cult-objects raised on poles. Altogether 



NO. 2826, VOL. I 12] 



some 170 vases of this type are known, and on them 

 are 300 figures of boats with cult-signs. Of these, 124 

 give the " Harpoon " ensign ; 78 the " Mountain " 

 ensign ; and 20 the " Crossed Arrows " ensign. These 

 cult-objects all survived into historic times ; the 

 " Harpoon " was the cult-object of the people of the 

 Mareotis Lake region ; the " Mountain " and " Crossed 

 Arrows " were the cult-objects of the people dwelling 

 on the right bank of the Canopic branch of the Nile. 

 Thus it will be seen that out of 300 boats figured on 

 vases found in graves in the Lower Nile Valley south 

 of Cairo, 222 belong to cults which can be located in 

 the north-western comer of the Delta. At the begin- 

 ning of the historic period the cult-objects of the people 

 of the north-western Delta included (i) the " Harpoon," 

 (2) the figure-of-eight " Shield with Crossed Arrows," (3) 

 the " Mountain," and probably (4) the " Double Axe," 

 and (5) a " Dove " or " Swallow." With the exception 

 of the " Harpoon " all these cult-objects are also found 

 in Crete, a fact which is significant in view of Sir Arthur 

 Evans's remark to the effect that he considers the 

 possibility of some actual immigration into Crete 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. Here in this western side of Lower 

 Egypt is an almost wholly unexplored field for the 

 anthropologist. 



I have already referred to the pastoral deity Anzety, 

 who, in the Pyramid Age, was chief of the nomes of 

 the Eastern Delta. Among all the nome-gods he is 

 the only one that is figured in human form ; he stands 

 erect holding in his right hand the shepherd's crook, 

 and in his left the goatherd's ladanisterion. On his 

 head is a bi-cornate object that is connected with goats. 

 In the Pyramid Texts, Anzety is entitled " Head of 

 the Eastern nomes," and these included the ancient 

 one of the Oxyrrh>Tichus-fish, where, later, the ram or 

 goat was the chief cult-animal. Neither the domestic- 

 ated sheep nor the goat can be reckoned as Egyptian 

 in origin ; they both came into Egypt from Western 

 Asia. We have, therefore, in this pastoral deity 

 Anzety evidence of immigration from the west. 



Among the cult-objects of the cities over which the 

 god Anzety presided were two which, I believe, can 

 definitely be referred to trees that were not indigenous 

 to the soil of Egypt but to Syria. One of these cult- 

 objects is the so-called Ded-column. This was one 

 of the holiest symbols of the Egyptian religion. It 

 has four cross-bars at the top like superposed capitals. 

 Sometimes a pair of human eyes are shown upon it, 

 and the pillar is draped : sometimes a human form is 

 given to it by carving a grotesque face on it, robing 

 the lower part, crowning the top with ram's horns, 

 and adding two arms, the hands holding tiie crook and 

 ladanisterion. Frazer has suggested that this object 

 might very well be a conventional representation of a 

 tree stripped of its leaves. That it was, in fact, a 

 lopped tree is. I believe, certain. In the Pyramid 

 Texts it is said of Osiris, " Thou receivest thy two oars, 

 the one of juniper {iian), the other of ^i-wood, and 

 thou fcrricst over the Great Green Sea." The deter- 

 minative sign of the word sd is a tree of precisely the 

 same form as the Ded-column that is figured on early 

 EgjTJtian monuments, i.e. it has a long, thin stem. 



