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Antiquities of the same primitive period and even of an earlier date had been discovered by Prof. Flinders Petrie, as has already been said, at Koptos, at the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat. But though Prof.
This geographical distribution of the prehistoric remains fits in curiously with the ancient legend concerning the origin of the ancestors of the Egyptians in Upper Egypt, and supports the much discussed theory that they came originally to the Nile valley from the shores of the Red Sea by way of the Wadi Hammamat, which debouches on to the Nile in the vicinity of Koptos and Kus, opposite Ballas and Tûkh.
It may, however, eventually prove necessary to modify it. For reasons given above, it may well be that the Neolithic population was itself not indigenous, and that it reached the Nile valley by way of the Wadi Hammamat, spreading north and south from the mouth of the wadi.
The gold-mines of Hammamât were worked in the eastern desert, and Egypt became the California or Australia of the ancient world. The eastern frontier was defended against the Asiatic tribes, while campaign after campaign was carried on in the south, resulting in the conquest of the Sudan. The Thirteenth dynasty came to an end in the midst of internal troubles.
In order to reach the diorite and grey granite quarries of the Hammamat Valley, the Pharaohs caused a series of rock-cut cisterns to be constructed along the line of route. Some few insignificant springs, skilfully conducted into these reservoirs, made it possible to plant workmen's villages in the neighbourhood of the quarries, and also near the emerald mines on the borders of the Red Sea.
Immediately opposite Den-dera, where, according to the legend, the battle between the Mesniu and the aborigines took place, lies Koptos, at the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat. Here, in 1894, underneath the pavement of the ancient temple, Prof. Petrie found remains which he then diagnosed as belonging to the most ancient epoch of Egyptian history.
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.
In any case we have in these statues, two of which are in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, probably the most ancient cult-images in the world: This theory, which would make all the Neolithic inhabitants of Egypt one people, who were conquered by a Semitic race, bringing a culture of Sumerian origin to Egypt by way of the Wadi Hammamat, is that generally accepted at the present time.
The supposition, however, that the "Smiths" were the Semitic conquerors, and that they won their way by the aid of their superior weapons of metal, may be provisionally accepted. In favour of the view which would bring the conquerors by way of the Wadi Hammamat, an interesting discovery may be quoted.
The Mesniu are closely connected with the Sky-god Horus, who was possibly of Semitic origin, and another Semitic wave, quite distinct from that which entered Egypt by way of the Isthmus, may very well also have reached Egypt by the Wadi Hammamat, or, equally possibly, from the far south, coming down to the Nile from the Abyssinian mountains.
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