y the
Egyptians. No doubt the Babylonian method was less perfect than the
Egyptian, but the comparison is an interesting one, when taken in
connection with the other points of resemblance mentioned above.

We find, then, that an analysis of the Egyptian language reveals a
Semitic element in it; that the early dynastic culture had certain
characteristics which were unknown to the Neolithic Egyptians but are
closely parallelled in early Babylonia; that there were two elements in
the Egyptian religion, one of which seems to have originally belonged to
the Neolithic people, while the other has a Semitic appearance; and that
there were two sets of burial customs in early Egypt, one, that of the
Neolithic people, the other evidently that of a conquering race, which
eventually prevailed over the former; these later rites were analogous
to those of the Babylonians and Assyrians, though differing from them
in points of detail. The conclusion is that the x or conquering race
was Semitic and brought to Egypt the Semitic elements in the Egyptian
religion and a culture originally derived from that of the Sumerian
inhabitants of Babylonia, the non-Semitic parent of all Semitic
civilizations.

The question now arises, how did this Semitic people reach Egypt? We
have the choice of two points of entry: First, Heliopolis in the North,
where the Semitic sun-worship took root, and, second, the Wadi Hamma-mat
in the South, north of Edfu, the southern centre of sun-worship, and
Hierakonpolis (Nekheb-Nekhen), the capital of the Upper Egyptian kingdom
which existed before the foundation of the monarchy. The legends which
seem to bring the ancestors of the Egyptians from the Red Sea coast have
already been mentioned. They are closely connected with the worship
of the Sky and Sun god Horus of Edfu. Hathor, his nurse, the "House of
Horus," the centre of whose worship was at Dendera, immediately opposite
the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat, was said to have come from Ta-neter,
"The Holy Land," i.e. Abyssinia or the Red Sea coast, with the company
or _paut_ of the gods. Now the Egyptians always seem to have had some
idea that they were connected racially with the inhabitants of the Land
of Punt or Puenet, the modern Abyssinia and Somaliland. In the time of
the XVIIIth Dynasty they depicted the inhabitants of Punt as greatly
resembling themselves in form, feature, and dress, and as wearing the
little turned-up beard which was worn by the Egyptians of th