26 THE EEPTILES OF EGYPT. 
among a number of earthenware figures of men and animals found in the sanctuary of 
the oldest temple at Koptos. Professor Petrie regards them as having been dedicated 
in the temple, and therefore as representing the best work of their time. One 
represents a rudely executed figure of a crocodile, more or less imperfect, while the 
other, which is much superior to it in execution, is merely a fragment of the tail of a 
crocodile-figure of still larger size, which when entire must have been a work of art, 
if the details of the scaly covering were as accurately represented in the rest of it 
as they are in this fragment. Unlike the first, it was faced with red haematite. 
The evidence collected by Professor Petrie lends its sanction to the conclusion he 
has arrived at that these figures go back to the Illrd Dynasty, a transition-period in the 
history of Egyptian art, in which modelling in clay was being gradually replaced by 
sculpturing in stone. Such considerations as these, and the fact that Koptos was one 
of the headquarters of the worship of the crocodile, taken in connection with the 
discovery of these figures in the sanctuary of a temple, render them of considerable 
interest. 
Professor Petrie and Mr. Quibell, in their discoveries in the extensive cemeteries along 
the edge of the desert between Naquada and Ballas l , have brought to light a mass of 
non-Egyptian remains of an invading people who occupied the Thebaid alone, between 
3300 and 3000 B.C., and whom their discoverers have called " the foreigners " or " New 
Race." This people, probably a branch of the Libyan race, preserved an entirely 
different culture from the Egyptians, with whom apparently they had no connection ; 
but with them they were equally impressed by the might of the crocodile, and depicted 
its capture on their pottery, in a very primitive fashion 2 . 
From the IVth Dynasty downwards to Ptolemaic times the crocodile is frequently 
represented on the monuments, on papyri, and also on other objects, such as coffins. 
Moreover, numerous representations of it are met with sculptured in stone and cast in 
metal, and a drawing on a papyrus at Turin represents it in a serio-comic attitude 
as a member of an ochestra of animals parodying a human concert. 
The most ancient representation of a crocodile, as a hieroglyph on the monuments, is 
to be found on Nefermat's tomb near the pyramid of Medum 3 of the IVth Dynasty. 
Here Nefermat stands with a son before him, and his wife, Atet, below him with 
three sons, one of whom is designated chief of the lake of the crocodile, which, 
Professor Petrie points out, is of especial interest, as it is the earliest mention of the 
Fayum. 
In hieroglyphs, the figure of a crocodile generally meant only crocodile, as, for 
example, in the tomb of Nefermat, and in the prayer in the ' Book of the Dead,' which 
1 ' Naquada and Ballas,' by Messrs. Petrie, Quibell, and Spurrell, 1890. 
'' Op. cit. pi. xxxv. 78. 
3 Medum, 1892, p. 25, pi. xviii. 
