EGYPTIAN FISHING* 
CHAPTER XXIII 
“THE NILE IS EGYPT” 
Tus terse epigram seems foreshadowed by Homer, who calls 
the river (6)Alyumroc, and the country ()Ai’yurroc, thus 
indicating correctly that Egypt is only the Nile valley.” 
The all importance of the river to the country meets early 
and general recognition. In a hymn it is lauded as “ the 
creator of all things good’’: solemn rituals from the earliest 
down to Mohammedan times implored ‘‘a good Nile”’: temples 
in its honour existed at Memphis, Heliopolis, and Nilopolis : 
at Silsileh ceremonies and sacrifices,4 from time immemorial, 
welcomed its annual rise ; magnificent festivals were universal 
throughout the land.® 
b 1 The illustration is reproduced by the kind permission of Prof, Flinders 
etrie. 
1 The data for this essay had been collected and half of it written, when 
I heard of an article on Ancient Egyptian Fishing by Mr. Oric Bates, in Harvard 
Afvican Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1917. While somewhat dis- 
appointed of not being the first to write in English on the subject, I was quickly 
reconciled by the fact that the task had fallen to an experienced Egyptologist, 
whose monograph, while making necessary the recasting of this chapter, 
bequeathed to me some new, if not always convincing theories, and much 
technical and other data, the frequent use of which I gladly acknowledge. 
2 Od., IV. 477, and XVII. 448. In Th. 338 of Hesiod, who, though not a 
contemporary, flourished shortly after Homer, 6 Ne?Aos first appears. The 
Egyptians called it Hapi, but in the vernacular language Yetor, or Ye-or=the 
River, or Yavo=the great River. 
8 Papyrus Salliey, II. On the other hand, another hymn speaks of the 
unkindness of the Nile in bringing about the destruction of fish, but it is the 
river at its lowest (first half of June) that is meant. See Records of the Past, 
being English translations of ancient monuments of Egypt and Western Asia 
oe S. Birch, vols. I.—XII. 1873-81), IV. 3, and ibid., new series (A. H. Sayce), 
. 51. 
4 The yearly sacrifice of a virgin at Memphis may be doubted—at least 
for the Christian age of Egypt, to which Arab writers wish to attribute it. 
5 The NetAda are described by Heliodorus, IX. 9. 
30t X2 
