The texts show us several insects, notably the scarabmus -h^etXe, regarded, especially in later times, as a symbol of eternity and of the sun-god, and the bee, associated in writing from the remot- est times with royalty in Lower Egypt.
Fish are often represented. The most peculiar is the oxyrrhynchus, the badge of the 19th nome of Upper Egypt. Fish were much eaten ; some of the oldest frescoes depict them speared in the marshes, landed in drag-nets, and then split for drying ; while texts equally ancient tell of the construction of fish-ponds.
iv. Flora. — Egypt is remarkably poor in variety of vegetation. Many of the cultii ated plants most common now — cotton, sugar, rice— are modem im- portations.
In prehistoric ages the valley was no doubt con- siderably wooded ; but to-day, with the exception of the various palm species, trees occur only singly or in small groups. The representations of the flora — of trees especially — in the frescoes, carv- ings, or hieroglyphics are generally too far conven- tionalized to be instructive. More can be learned from extant remains of edible grains or funerary floral wreaths (from the New Kingdom onwards), or of woodwork (from all periods). From these it is clear that the native vegetation has altered very little during the course of history. The Egyptians
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were at all times ill oir for workable woods, and were compelled — where the stalks of river plants would not serve — to make the best of their own BTcomore or acacia (the latter especially in the older epochs), or to imiiort yew from C'ilicia (?) and ebony from Nubia. More than one Pharaoh of the New Kingdom brought specimens of trees and vegetables from Syria or the Ked Sea coasts, either as curiosities or with a view to their propagation. From the nature of the soil, agriculture must always have been the main occujiation of the population, and we learn from the monuments the names of several cereals, of which wheat and bar- ley were the commonest, dhurah being well known since the New Kingdom. Gardens were laid out, and much interest was shown in them since the 4th Dynasty. Many vegetables are represented in the frescoes and as hieroglyphic signs, e.specially the bulbous sorts — onions, leeks, etc. (of. Nu xi. 5). The vine was always largely cultivated, and from the Delta came several famous wines of Greek and Koman times. The fig, too, is early represented. Many plants were valued medicinally, as can be shown from the numbers occurring in the medical works, notably in the Papyrus Ebers : others were nsed for dyeing. The most important of all plants to the Egyptians was the papyrus, which, unknown now in the Delta, grew there once in vast thickets where the nobles hunted, and whence was obtained the material, not only for writing, but also for numerous other purposes, decorative and useful. A« the papyrus became one of the pictorial emblems of Lower Egypt, so the lotus was often that of the southern country, although a sort of water-reed seems also to have been so employed. y. Ethnology.— The problem of the origin and relationships of the Egj'ptian race is still unsolved. Its solution is to be sought in the evidence of (I) philology ; (2) mytholoCTT ; (3) physical anthro- pology ; and (4) material culture. Investigations in these various fields have hitherto given results partially discordant. (1) The most ancient lin- guistic documents point to an undeniable though already very remote relationship with the Semitic languages (see below). (2) The divinities and myths familiar to the earliest texts were, until recently, accepted as ^owths of the Egyptian soil, the inclination bemg to recognize in extraneous ele- ments, if any, the influence of neighbouring Afri- can races. Hommel indeed invites us to take other considerations into account by pointing out certain coincidences between the ancient religions of Egj'pt and Babylonia. (3) Racial types, SM depicted on the monuments, and the measurements, etc., of mummies, have led to no uniform results. Formerly, anthropologists saw in the sculptures and paintings one race, identical with the Copts of to-day ; now they generally discern various types among the most ancient portraits, and seek on such evidence to distinguish at least two races. Few mummies remain from the oldest epochs — one of the most ancient is that from MedQm, at present in the Koyal College of Surgeons, London, — and tliose from later times point apiiarently to a short-skulled, while the modem Egyi>tian is of a long -skulled typo. Prob- ably the oldest group of remains (from Abydos, 1895-96) seems to point to a long-skulled, orthogna- thous, smooth-haired race ; but the type there is not homogeneous, neither is that of ttie MedQm mummies, and their relationship to the race of historic Egypt is not yet clear. (4) There is cer- tainly evidence of African elements, whether due to primitive kinship or to mere proximity, in some branches of the material civilization, sucn as dress, weapons, possibly circumcision. On the other hand, Hommel seeks to show that a very earlj' form of religious or sepulchral architecture (pyra-
mid) is derived from Babylonia. It must be owned that the oldest remains of Me.sopotainian civiliza- tion appear to exceed in antiquity aui' hitherto brought to light in Egypt.
Most are agreed that, whatever be the case with their forerunners, the Egyptians from the 3rd or 4th Dynasty onwards were not a negroid race ; that they came, on the contrary, from Asia. But the questions of their previous home there and the route by which they reached the Nile, — whetlier b3' Bab el-Mandeb and Abyssinia or the Wady Ham- mamat and Coptos, or by the Syrian desert and the Isthmus, — are as yet unanswered. The route b. Arabia-HainiiiAmat-Coptos has for it the eviilence (a) of prehistoric remains at Coptos, pointing to a people coming direct from the Ked Sea ; (6) of certain facts — physical resemblance, peaceful rela- tions, and the ajiparently reverential attitude of the Egyptians — which have been held to point to Ptont, I.e. the country about the southern end of the Red Sea, as a former home of the race. To this maj' be added the tradition that the founders of the monarchy came from Tliinis, a town not far distant from Coptos — a tradition which has been confirmed by the recent discovery of the First Dj-nasty tombs in the same neigh- bourhood (Abydos). No reminiscence has been discerned in the literature of a prehistoric immigration. The people apparently considered themselves aborigenes, and called themselves merely R6me(t), ' men ' par excellence. Traces of a stone age, undeniable though compli- cated by the long historic survival of flint-work- ing, show that the country has been inhabited since the Pliocene period. Palaeolithic remains are rare, but some half-dozen stations are said to have been recognized. Considerable evidence has been adduced (though contested) to demon- strate a New Stone age. That a Hebrew writer of the 6th or 7th cent, speaks (Gn 10«) of Mizraira as related to Cush (Ethiopia), Put (S. Arabia, Pumt), and Canaan, is not a fact of much ethnological importance. By the earlier annalist (i6.'") eight names — mostly unidentifiable — are given which may preserve a then current Hebrew view of Egypt's ethnological relationships.