Note 16 — Chapter XI · Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore

The lotus was a form of the ancient love-goddess, as was also the cowry. In Egypt the solar-god Horus emerges at birth from the lotus-form of Hathor as it floats on the breast of the Nile. Ho Sien Ku’s basket of fruit is also symbolic. “A basket of sycamore figs” was in Ancient Egypt “originally the hieroglyphic sign for a woman, a goddess, or a mother”. It had thus the same significance as the Pot, the lotus, the mandrake-apple, and the pomegranate. The latter symbol supplanted the Egyptian lotus in the Ægean area.16