420 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 



survives, like that of Adonis, in a river of Phoenicia, tlie Tamyras. 

 Hitzig insists on the connection of the Sanscrit Tamara and tama 

 with water ;*^ and both of them we find as names of rivers, or as 

 forming the base of such names, in India, Palestine, Spain, Britain, 

 and indeed throughout the whole of the Indo European and Semitic 

 areas.^^ Herodotus informs us that Thamimasadas is the Scythian 

 name for Neptune, and all are agreed that while masadas stands for 

 ruler or god, thami is water or the sea.'* Strabo quotes Polybius as 

 his authority that the people at the head of the Adriatic called the 

 river Timavos the " mother of the sea f^'" and from Pliny we learn 

 that the Scythians named the Maeotis Temarunda, which meant the 

 same.^^ In the language of the ancient Irish, who claimed Scythian 

 ancestry, tavih signified the ocean, and in an old Assyrian dialect 

 it is TAMTU. We have thus presented to us a word of Egyptian 

 origin, designating a god, applied to a water plant, and conveying the 

 idea of water, especially as found in rivers, in many different forms? 

 the principal of which are Thom, Athom, Pithom. The loss of the 

 initial vowel need be no more a subject of surprise than the prefix of 

 the Coptic article. Strabo tells us that the Thessalian Ithome was 

 originally called Thome but acquired in some way another syllable.'^ 

 This is possible, but it is more than likely that the two forms came 

 from Egypt, where Thom and Athom were interchangeable from a 

 very early period. Without entering more into detail, or pushing 

 our researches for the present beyond the bounds of the Greek 

 language, this paper may fittingly come to a close with a fourfold 

 illustration or proof of the transference of Coptic words, article 

 included, into languages of the European family. The word Patumos, 

 which Herodotus gives as a Greek form of Pithom, is the same as 

 potamos, a river, for which such far-fetched derivations a,s potimon Iiudor 

 have been proposed; and thus the ancient name of the Nile, which, in the 

 forms of the English Thames and Tamar, gives brotherhood to many 



M Hitzig, die Philistaer, 230. 



88 Sucli are the Tomerus of Arrian or Tonberos of Pliny ; the Wady Taamirah that runs to the 

 west of the Dead Sea ; the Tamaris of Spain ; the Tamarus and Thamesis of Britain. Vide 

 Arriani Indica xxiv. ; Plinii Hist. Nat., Lib. vi., 25 ; Bitter's Comparative Geography of Pales- 

 tine, vol. iii. 135 ; Pomponii Melae De Situ Orbis, Lib. iii. 1, 81 ; Six Old English Chronicles- 

 Richard of Cirencester on the Ancient State of Britain, and Appendix, Bohn. 



9* Rawlinson's Herodotus, Appendix, Book iv., Essay ii. 7. 



as Strab. vi., 1, 8. 



95 Plinii Hist. Nat., Lib. vL 7. 



8' Strab. ix., 5, 17. 



