184 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
people is preserved on his famous Slate Palette; here the Upper Egyp- 
tian 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 accompanying 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. Several centuries after 
Menes, Sahure, a king of the Fifth Dynasty, captured in Tehenu- 
land 123,440 oxen, 283,400. asses, 232,413 goats, and 243,688 
sheep. Senusret I. also captured in the same region ‘ cattle of all kinds 
without number.’ This again shows how fertile the country must have 
been at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. ‘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 hardly any information about 
it. What was happening 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 as 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 pottery are figured boats 
with cult-objects raised on poles. Altogether 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 
corner of the Delta. Twenty-two boats bear the ‘Tree’ ensign, 
which was the early cult-object of the people of Herakleopolis, a city 
just south of the Fayim. Ten bear the ‘Thunderbolt’ ensign of 
Ekhmim. The ‘ Faleon’ on a curved perch appears on three boats, 
and this ensign undoubtedly represents the Falcon deity of Hierakon- 
polis. At the beginning of the historic period the cult-objects of the 
people of the north-western Delta included (1) 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 
>» = aw we i es 
ee a. 
