18 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy; 



steatopygous yellow Bushman type. These were pushed back and conquered 

 by an invasion of Libyans from the west. The arrival of the Libyans was 

 probably very gradual, and commenced by an infiltration along the coast of a 

 Libyan people who entered Egj'pt on the western side of the Delta perhaps 

 about 8000 B.C. (Petrie). The Libyaut; appear to have sacrificed and made gods 

 of the former inhabitants, as female figures of this type are found in the 

 early graves, but disappear about B.C. 7600, by which time the type had retired 

 south. In these figures we probably see the first beginnings of the worship of 

 Isis. No remains of Pygmies have yet been found in Egypt ; but the ancient 

 Egyptians were from early times well acquainted with a Pigmy race, 

 which occupied the Sahara and stretched eastwards to the Land of Punt, 

 as we hear of a representative of the race being brought from there in 

 the time of King Assa ; and about 2500 B.C. one of the expeditions from 

 Elephantine brought back a dwarf from the land of Ghosts, which at that 

 time extended north nearly as far as the Second Cataract. L^'pon hearing of 

 the capture, the boy Pharaoh, Pepy II, wrote to the Prince of Elephantine, 

 saying : " My Majesty desires to see this Pigmy more than the gifts of Sinai 

 and of Punt." 



This western invasion does not appear to have spread much further south 

 than the Delta ; but there was no stop to the influx of populations, which 

 passed eastwards along the coast of the Mediterranean' and down both shores 

 of the Eed Sea, and established themselves in central and southern Arabia 

 and the mountainous regions of the African coast, which were afterwards 

 known by the general name of the Land of Punt. At this time the 

 country around the Eed Sea must have been less arid than we now find 

 it. The fertiUty of Punt is frequently mentioned in Egyptian inscrip- 

 tions ; and it seems probable that the high table-lands in central Arabia, 

 Yemen, the African coast, and Abj'ssirria were in !N"eolithic times one 

 fertile region, due perhaps to the central African and Asian seas ha\'ing 

 not completely dried up. This country was inhabited by the primitive yellow 

 Palaeolithic people, with whom the immigrants mixed, as, in the descriptions 

 of Punt, we read of men with beards and very fat women seated at bee-hive 

 huts. 



The people on both sides of the Eed Sea, to which they gave its name, were 

 known as Himyarites, or Eed Men ; they developed shipping, and kept in 

 touch with each other and with Egypt, and claimed to be of older and purer 

 stock than other Semites (from whom they differ sHghtly), and to have had 

 an African origin. Their name indicates their position as well as their 



ljLus, Buok 11, cLa^'. ii. 



