Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (1915), No. 10. 49 



thus became indissolubly connected with sun-worship, 

 simply from the accident of the invention of the art of 

 building in stone — of erecting stone tombs, which were 

 also temples of offerings — by a people who happened to 

 be sun-worshippers and whose ruler's tomb became the 

 shrine of the sun-god. I have already explained the close 

 gepetic connection between the practice of mummification 

 and megalithic building. 



The fact that the dominance of the sun-god Re was 

 attained in the northern capital, which was also the seat 

 of serpent-worship, led to the association of the sun and 

 the serpent. ,J From this purely fortuitous blending of the 

 sun's disc with the uraeus, often combined, especially in 

 later times, with the wings of the Horus-hawk, a symbolism 

 came into being which was destined to spread until it 

 encircled the world, from Ireland to America. For an 

 excellent example of this composite symbolism from 

 America see Bancroft, 3, Vol. IV., p, 351. A more striking 

 illustration of the completeness of the transference of a 

 complex and wholly artificial design from Ancient Egypt 

 to America could not be imagined. [For the full discus- 

 sion of the original association of the sun and the serpent 

 see Sethe's important Memoir (74).] 



The chance circumstances which led to the linking 

 together of all these incongruous elements — mummifica- 

 tion, megalithic architecture, the idea of the king as son 

 of the sun, sun and serpent worship and its curious 

 symbolism — were created in Egypt, so that, wherever 

 these peculiar customs or traditions make their appear- 

 ance elsewhere in association the one with the other, it 

 can confidently be regarded as a sure token of Egyptian 

 influence, exerted directly or indirectly. 



'■> For an account of the geographical distribution of serpent-worship 



and a remarkable demonstration of the intimacy of its association with 

 distinctive " heliolitbic " ideas, see Wake, 103. 



