942 



NA TURK 



1923 



Thin tr«e-name only occurs in inscriptions of the 



( titioncd as h wood that was 



111 \iirious othtr articles of 



I ,1.1 irotii t lie !'\r;inii«i 



■| , ' h i'MiijHT. iirul till- 



1. it all 



|, i<icnce 



r numerous 



:...i .:-;;:^ ..... I . i,;.n<.n 



tree, as we set 



.,|.;l, 0. in. ,,,, '■•"! '">-; 



.111(1 W .1 -^ r\ idflU 1 



li(PU(\rr. ;irt' kimwii iiniii 1 -.[i! : i;.i m/ w i h m ; iii;:>l, 

 tlicrctnrc, li;i\f Imtii h! tuni-n inipiirtnliuii. As it. is 

 incntiuiird with iunipcf. wlm h uc kimu (arm- tu logvpt 

 from S\ii.i, it i> |)(i»ililt' that it lamc iroiii tlir same 

 rr-iim. Aiiiuiil; the tncs (if the l.chanon there are 

 liiiii tliat lia\c li(iri/(iiU.ill\ .spn adiiiL: hranche.S. These 

 are the ced.ii (Cidnis libani), the CiUcian fir, Pinus 

 laricio, and tin lun i/oiital-hranched cypress (Cupressus 

 sempennt /: \ar. /:"i ; _,'ii/iiles). 



Mucli iniMuiucpUon at present exists with regard to 

 the Lebanon Cedar, because the name " cedar " is 

 applied to a larij:e number of woods whirh are quite 

 (li>tiii(t Irom it. and the wood which ue iicnerally call 

 cedar {e.g. the cedar of our " cedar '" pencils) is not 

 true cedar at all, but Virginian juniper. The wood of 

 Cedrus libani is light and spongy, of a reddish-white 

 colour, very apt to shrink and warp badly, by no means 

 durable, and in no sense is it valuable. Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, who visited the Lebanon in i860, notes that 

 the lower slopes of that mountain region bordering the 

 sea were covered with magnificent forests of pine, 

 juniper, and cypress, " so that there was little induce- 

 ment for the timber hewers of ancient times to ascend 

 6000 feet through twenty miles of a rocky mountain 

 valley to obtain cedar wood which had no particular 

 quality to recommend it. The cypress, pine, and tall, 

 fragrant juniper of the Lebanon, with its fine red heart- 

 wood, would have been far more prized on every account 

 than the cedar." The sd-tree was, I believe, the 

 horizontal-branched cypress, which is common in the 

 wild state. In the Middle Ages this tree was believed 

 to be the male tree, while the tapering conical-shaped 

 cypress was considered to be the female. This is an 

 interesting fact, because there is some evidence to 

 show that the tapering ^a^i^t\ was the symbol of 

 Hathor-Isis, while the horizontal-branched one was 

 the symbol of Osiris. 



Not far from the city of Osiris in the Delta w-as 

 Hebyt, the modern Behbeyt el Hagar. Its sacred 

 name was Neter. The Romans called it Iseum. It 

 was the ancient seat of Isis-worship in Egypt, and the 

 ruins of its temple to that goddess still cover several 

 acres of ground in the neighbourhood. On the analogy 

 of other sacred names of cities the primitive cult-object 

 here was the n/r-pole. This was not an axe, as has so 

 often been supposed, but a pole that was wrapped 

 around with a band of coloured cloth, tied with cord 

 half-way up the stem, with the upper part of the band 

 projecting as a flap at top. Dr. Griffith conjectured 

 that it was a fetish, e.g. a bone carefully wound round 

 with cloth, but he noted that " this idea is not as yet 

 supported by any ascertained facts." As a hierogh^ph 

 this wrapped-up pole expresses ntr, " god," " divine," 



in which sense it is very common from the earlie <• 

 times ; gradually it became determinative of di 

 and of the divine names and ideographic of di 



.XiHitlxr I ideograph of "god" in tlje Old 



Ki!' 1 rn I alcon (Ilorus) upon a perch, and 



t Ai^ al-.o employed as a determinative of 



di Mid of the nam<s of individual gods ; it even "[ 



sometimes o((urs as a < live sign of the rttr- 



pole, e.g. P>r. Texts. 1 . use of the Falcon 



indi(at( -. that in tin- early <!■. na>ti( , the influence of the 

 Upper Eg\ !■'• ••' I- I' -■' ')(!( ih.ri:-! was paramount. 



There i mi. Imi hilieving that the 



ntr-po\c cuii 1 ... inriod been the pre- 



dominant one [people of the Delta ; 



this, I ' ' riable use of the ntr- 



jx>le .-1 '«-«/r, god's servant) 



and temple (/. lioui>c;. Now, on a label of 



King Aha ot t i >vnastv there is a representa- 



tion of the Icliiplr -,■ two poles 



with Iriangul.ir lla- ^ ■ iiher side of 



the entrance. Later figures 01 the same temple show 

 these poles with the redm il ir flags precisely as we 

 find in the «/r-sign. At iie temple of Hershef 



on the Palermo Stone si ;ioles with triangular 



flags, while a Fourth J' rawing of the .same 



temple shows the same poies with rectangular flags. 

 We see, therefore, that the triangular-flagged pole.^ 

 ecjuals the rectangular-flagged one, and that the ntr 

 is reall\ a pole or mast with flag. 



Poles of this kind were probably planted before the 

 entrances to most early Egv^ptian temples, and the great 

 flag-masts set up before the pylons of the great temp! 

 of the Eighteenth and later dynasties are obviou>i 

 survivals of the earlier poles. The height and straight 

 nessof these poles prove til' ♦ i1wm- ,• .r,r-.,,t Ko,-.. iw...r, r.. 



duced from any nati\( ' 



flag-sta\"cs were regulariv unpoi uu Jioni .^\ n.t in, 

 probahli , ilmcfore, that in the earlier times thev \\tr< 

 introduced from the same source. A well-known nan;, 

 for Syria and the east coast of the Red Sea, as well a 

 of Punt, was Ta-ntr. " the land of the «/r-pole." Tin 

 was the region in whicli the primitive Semitic goddt- 

 Astarte was worshipped. In Canaan there 

 goddess Ashera whose idol or symbol was t'l' 

 pole. The names of Baal and Ashera ari 

 coupled precisely as those of liaal and A.>.... 

 many scholars have inferred that Ashera wa 

 another name of the great Semitic goddess .\ 

 The ashera-pole was an object of worship, i 

 prophets put it on the same line with the sacr 

 symbols, such as Baal pillars ; the ashera was, theri 

 fore, a sacred symbol, the seat of a deity, the mark 

 of a divine presence. In late times these asherim did 

 not exclusively belong to any one deit\- : they were 

 erected to Baal as well as to Vahw. They wen -i_n- 

 posts set up to mark sacred places, and thc\ 

 moreover, draped. They correspond ( \.u tlv 

 n/r-poles of Egyptian historic times. 



I have noted that these «//'-polc:> ..wc Util an'! 

 straight. What tree produced them ? In Egypt i.Ki 

 inscriptions there is often mentioned a tree named 

 ir.t. It was occasionally planted in ancient I-",gyptian 

 gardens, and specimens of it were to be seen in tlu 

 Temple garden at Heliof>olis. The seeds and sawdust 

 were employed in medicine, and its resin was one ci 



NO. 2826, VOL. I 12] 



