August 11, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



193 



some measure to seem to justify the preva- 

 lent conviction that they were independent 

 expressions of a common human instinct. 



It was the merest chance that the people 

 amongst whom this remarkable culture- 

 complex was gradually being built up 

 should have been sun-worshipers, and that 

 the particular group amongst whom the 

 royal family of Egypt originated regarded 

 the Horus-hawk as the symbol of their roy- 

 alty. It was no less fortuitous that the seat 

 of the capital after the first unification of 

 Egypt should have been in a place (Buto) 

 where the urteus-serpent was venerated. 

 Thus there is the clearest evidence that the 

 complex symbolism of the Sun-god — the 

 sun's disc, the serpent and the hawk's 

 wings — is purely a chance association which 

 was established in Egypt. The intimate 

 connection of sun-worship and its peculiar 

 symbolism with megalithic monuments, 

 with mummification, and with the concep- 

 tion of the king as the son of the god are 

 equally fortuitous associations. 



It was no less a chance that this distinc- 

 tive culture-complex was built up amongst 

 an agricultural people who by force of cir- 

 cumstances were expert in a peculiar 

 method of irrigation. 



In the times of the New Empire (from 

 B.C. 1,600 onward) a great variety of acci- 

 dental accretions were made to this compli- 

 cated type of civilization which for long 

 centuries had been growing up in Egypt. 

 Such practises as piercing the ears, and a 

 remarkable series of new tricks in the em- 

 balmer's technique, are examples of the 

 innovations, some of which are so definite 

 as to enable us to state that the type of 

 Egyptian culture-complex which was dis- 

 tributed so widely in the world could not 

 have started on its wanderings before b.c. 

 900 at the earliest. It was probably at least 

 a century later before the great migration 

 left the African shores. 



It reached the Persian Gulf by various 

 routes. The fact that it passed up the Nile, 

 through Nubia and the Soudan, thence by 

 East Africa and the Arabian coast, is 

 proved by a large series of Ethiopian accre- 

 tions to and modifications of Egyptian 

 practises when they appear in India and 

 farther east. There are historical reasons 

 for believing that a good deal of intercourse 

 took place via the Red Sea and the Arabian 

 littoral. 



The transmission of a number of Medi- 

 terranean customs, such as the use of pearls, 

 Purpura and conch-shell trumpets, and cer- 

 tain peculiar modifications of embalming 

 indicate the influence of the Levant. The 

 use of the Swastika-symbol, the peculiarly 

 distinctive Black Sea type of dolmen, and 

 the Armenian custom of skull deformation, 

 are further tokens of the part taken by 

 western Asia in adding to and modifying 

 the purely Egyptian contributions to the 

 strange cargoes these ancient mariners car- 

 ried to India. There are also manifold wit- 

 nesses of the influence of Babylonia, not 

 only in modifying the Egyptian architec- 

 tural ideas of the wanderers, but also in 

 contributing new ideas and beliefs. An ex- 

 ample is the greater definiteness assumed 

 by the story of the creation, the deluge, the 

 destruction of the sons of men by petrifac- 

 tion, and the perpetuation of the chosen 

 race by incestuous unions. 



This cultural stream from the Persian 

 Gulf to the Indian coast probably began at 

 the end of the eighth century B.C. and per- 

 sisted for many centuries; and the Pre- 

 Aryan population of India became thor- 

 oughly leavened with its potent influence. 

 Ceylon and further India, Burma and the 

 Malay Archipelago, in turn were brought 

 within the sphere of its activities, probably 

 as early as the sixth and fifth centuries b.c. 



Prom Indonesia the whole eastern Asiatic 

 littoral and all the neighboring islands were 



