tended from the earliest period to dominate the national consciousness.  As intercourse increased along the Nile Valley, centres of Sun-worship ceased to be merely local, and the political rise of a city determined the fortunes of its cult.  From the proto-dynastic period onward, the “King of the two Lands” had borne the title of “Horus” as the lineal descendant of the great Sun-god of Edfu, and the rise of Ra in the Vth Dynasty, through the priesthood of Heliopolis, was confirmed in the solar theology of the Middle Kingdom.  Thus it was that other deities assumed a solar character as forms of Ra.  Amen, the local god of Thebes, becomes Amen-Ra with the political rise of his city, and even the old Crocodile-god, Sebek, soars into the sky as Sebek-Ra.  The only other movement in the religion of ancient Egypt, comparable in importance to this solar development, was the popular cult of Osiris as God of the Dead, and with it the official religion had to come to terms.  Horus is reborn as the posthumous son of Osiris, and Ra gladdens his abode during his nightly journey through the Underworld.  The theory with which we are concerned suggests that this dominant trait in Egyptian religion passed, with other elements of culture, beyond the bounds of the Nile Valley and influenced the practice and beliefs of distant races.

This suggestion has been gradually elaborated by its author, Professor Elliot Smith, who has devoted much attention to the anatomical study of Egyptian mummification.  Beginning with a scrutiny of megalithic building and sun-worship,(1) he has subsequently deduced, from evidence of common distribution, the existence of a culture-complex, including in addition to these two elements the varied practices of tattooing, circumcision, ear-piercing, that quaint custom known as couvade, head-deformation, and the prevalence of serpent-cults, myths of petrifaction and the Deluge, and finally of mummification.  The last ingredient was added after an examination of Papuan mummies had disclosed their apparent resemblance in points of detail to Egyptian mummies of the XXIst Dynasty.  As a result he assumes the existence of an early cultural movement, for which the descriptive title “heliolithic” has been coined.(2) Starting with Egypt as its centre, one of the principal lines of its advance is said to have lain through Syria and Mesopotamia and thence along the coastlands of Asia to the Far East.  The method of distribution and the suggested part played by the Phoenicians have been already criticized sufficiently.  But in a modified form the theory has found considerable support, especially among ethnologists interested in Indonesia.  I do not propose to examine in detail the evidence for or against it.  It will suffice to note that the Deluge story and its alleged Egyptian origin in solar worship form one of the prominent strands in its composition.

     (1) Cf.  Elliot Smith, The Ancient Egyptians, 1911.