in Egypt.§$
ihe banndation (which is perhaps referred to in Am 85 9°) was never understood by the Egyptians themselves, who attributed it to some mystic, divine agency, the tears of Isis’ yearly sorrow for Osiris being in one view its origin.||\| Herodotus (ii. 22) rejects the one explanation, among those he had heard,—and that from a Greek source,— which approximated to the truth. Subsequently Ptolemy gave this same explanation—that the river rose owing to melted snow. The Christian Fathers if had learned the true one, viz. the annual rains in Ethiopia.
* Ant. 1. i. 3. ἡ Paradies, 71.
: AAT 8140, § Cf. Lucian, Jup. Trag. 42.
| He was, however, specially honoured under the New ing. dom at Silsilis. Of. Lepsius, Denkm, ili. 175a, 200c, d, 218d,
etc.
“ Cf. Maspero, Hist. anc. i. 98.
** The best known in Pap. Sallier, ll. ; see Guiesse in Rec. de Trav. xiii.
tt Heliodorus, ix. 9. For later times see Lumbroso, L' Egitto2, 1ff., and Lane, Mod, Eg. ti. ch, xiii.
tt Tuki, Missale (S. Basil.), 71; Leyden, Catal, 129; Brightman, Liturgies, 208. The river’s rise is thought to be due to the in- tercession of St. Michael; see Amélineau, Contes, L 17.
§§ G. Margoliouth in JRAS, 1896,
Ht Pausan x. 82; cf. Brugsch, Thes, 293.
41 ἐγ. Athanasius, Vita Ant. (Pat. Gr. 26, 891).
meee tee eee
NIMRIM, THE WATERS OF δ5]
The source of the river was equally mysterious One theory, with which the Odyssey seema acquainted (iv. 477), regarded it as a branch of a heavenly Nile, from which it separated to form the earthly stream somewhere in the Cataract district. Two deep springs (Xrti) in that region, or two rocks (cf. Herod. ii. 28), were spoken of as the point whence the waters flowed. *
The height of the river’s annual rise—a matter of vital importance to all dwellers on its banks— was officially registered from an early period (at Semneh, 12th Dyn.),+ and recently similar in- scriptions of a later age (22nd-26th Dyn.) have been found at Thebes.¢ The regulation of supplies of water for irrigation was one of the functions of the crown itself. Among the newly discovered remains of the earliest monarchy (1st-2nd Dyn.) at Hieraconpolis is a relief showing the king opening (?) an artificial canal. Of the numer- ous Nilometers of more recent times, the oldest extant—probably of Ptolemaic origin, and in its modernized form still in use—is at Elephantine, though tradition assigned to that which existed at Memphis a much higher antiquity.|| Abu Salih (quoting Ibn ‘Abd el-Hakam) attributes it to
Joseph. 7 The story of the seven years’ famine in Gn 41, due to an insufficient inundation, finds a parallel in a
text discovered in 1891, which, though written at earliest under the Ptolemies, purports to give an account of a drought of like duration under the 3rd Dynasty. **
A curious legend in the Targum describes the burial of Joseph’s coffin in the Nile, and its re- discovery by Moses.tt The Egyptians, of course, never used the river in this way.
See, further, art. EGyPt, in vol. i. p. 653.
W. E. Crum.
NIMRAH.—See BETH-NIMRAH and NIMRIM.
NIMRIM, THE WATERS OF (ΟἿ; τὸ ὕδωρ τῆς Νεμί(η)ρείμ (Is 165), B Νεβρείν, A 'ESplu (Jer 48
(Gr. 31]*); Aqua Nemrim).—Mentioned only in Isaiah (15°) and Jeremiah (48). Gesenius (Lex) Nimrah or
pres the meaning (the same as of eth-nimrah) ‘limpid or wholesome water,’ but the word is more probably held to indicate the place of the nimr or leopard (Bochart, Hieroz. li. 107, ed. Rosenmiill.).
Nimrim need not, however, be confounded with Nimrah or Beth-nimrah (Nu 395. *, Jos 1357), which seem to have been located on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. It is mentioned in connexion with Zoar, Luhith, and Horonaim in such a manner as to indicate its location south of the river Arnon at the south-eastern end of the Dead Sea. The Zoar denounced here by the prophets may be quite distinct from the refuge of Lot, which is by many located on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Josephus, however, states that Zoar (to which Lot fled) existed in his day, and places it together with Sodom and Gomorrah south of the Dead Sea (Ant. I. xi. 4, XIV. i. 4; BU Iv. viii. 4). Eusebius also places Zoar at the southern end of the Dead Sea, and Jerome appears to en- dorse this. In the Middle Ages Zoar was identi- fied under the name of Segor in the same locality, and it is now accepted by many as represented by Dra’a at the mouth of the Wady Karak on the south-east shore of the Dead Sea. The posi-
* The most ignorant notions on this question may be still fou νὰ among the natives; see Luttke, Aegyptens neue Zeit, ti. 356. t Lepsius, Denkm., ii, 189, ete. t Legrain in 2g. Z. xxxiv. § Egyp. Expl. Fund's Report for 1897-98, p. 7. Π τ Δ, κακαὶ i, 86. « Ed. Evotts, (. 184 ** Brogsch, Die bibl. 7 Jahre, Of. above, vol. ii. p, 774
note ἡ. tt Bondi, LeAnwdrter, 129.
)
NIMROD
tion of Luhith can only be surmised.
days of Eusebius it was known as Luith, and la
between Areopolis (Rabbath Moab) and Zoar. It may therefore have been the name of the pass leading down the Wady Beni Hamid from Areo- polis to Zoar; while Horonaim, ‘ the two caverns,’ may have been the name of the fort or forts com- manding the pass leading down from Kir of Moab