Note 106 — Chapter IV · THE RELATION OF BABYLONIAN TO EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION

I have called Upper Egypt the seat of the first Pharaohs, not only because the earliest dynastic monuments we possess come from thence, but also because it was of Upper Egypt and its ruling caste that the hawk-god Horus was the guardian deity. From Upper Egypt he was carried to Lower Egypt and its nomes, presumably through conquest, as is monumentally attested by the “palette” of Nar-Buzau discovered at Hierakonpolis (Capart, Débuts de l’Art en Égypte, p. 236). So, too, the anthropomorphic Osiris—the duplicate of Anhur—made his way from the south to the north. That Southern Arabia should have been the connecting-link between Babylonia and Egypt was the result of its being the source of the incense which was imported for religious use into both countries alike at the very beginning of their histories. That this foreign product should have been considered an indispensable adjunct of the religions of the two civilizations is one of the best proofs we have of their connection with one another. Dr. Schweinfurth has shown that the sacred trees of Egypt—the sycamore and the persea—which needed artificial cultivation for their preservation there, came from Southern Arabia, where he found them growing wild under the names of Khanes, Burra and Lebakh (Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft für Erdkünde zu Berlin, July 1889, No. 7).