xvi Introduction. 



prove to be the source of the remarkable account of the 

 necessity for obtaining the dog's help to root up a man- 

 drake, and the explanation of the danger of this operation 

 to man. It is, in fact, yet one more link between the 

 beliefs associated with shells and dragons and the birth of 

 Aphrodite. 



In the appendix Mr. Jackson has collected some 

 curious information relating to the association of a dog 

 with the discovery of purple. Certain of the associated 

 legends suggest that this may be another link in the com- 

 plex chain of connexions between the beliefs regarding 

 shells and those relating to the origin of Venus. 



Another factor which may have played some part in 

 the development of this belief was the Southern Arabian 

 legend that trees might be personified, usually as women, 

 and that it was dangerous to touch them. 7 It is probable 

 that, when the use of the cowry and pearls spread from 

 the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, the elements out of 

 which the wonderful Cypriote legends were compounded 

 travelled with them. 



The earliest conception of a deity arose out of these 

 beliefs connected with the cowry. The first deities were 

 personifications of the female principle and power of re- 

 production. These ideas found expression in the most 

 primitive theologies of Egypt and Babylonia, and later in 

 those of Dravidian India and the Mediterranean. Hathor, 

 Istar, the village deities of Southern India, and Aphrodite 

 were probably sprung from a common ancestry. 



Elsewhere I have discussed 8 the events that created 



7 See on this Schoffs " Commentary on the Periplus of the Erythraean 

 Sea," pp. 130-131. 



8 "The Relationship of the Practice of Mummification to the Develop- 

 ment of Civilisation," to appear in the Bulletin of the John Kylaiids Library 

 and separately under the title "Incense and Libations" (Manchester 

 University Press). 



