CHAPTER IX
THE FOREIGN GODS
Besides the incorporation into purely Egyptian usage of all the gods that we have noticed, there were others who always retained a foreign character. It is true that Bast, Neit, and Taurt are counted by some as foreign; but deities who are found from the pyramid times to the Roman age, and who were the patrons of capitals and of dynasties, must be counted as Egyptian; and of Taurt we do not know of any foreign source, nor should we look for any, as the hippopotamus abounded in Egypt itself.
Bēs, though figured from the eighteenth dynasty to Roman times, yet retained a foreign character. He is a dwarfish, clumsy figure, wearing a feline skin on his back, with the tail hanging down to his heels. A female figure wearing the feline skin similarly is known from the twelfth dynasty. Rarely female forms of Bēs occur in late times. The source of this type is the Sudany dancer, such as may still be seen performing in Egypt, and we know that even in the fifth dynasty dancers called Denga (=Dinka tribe?) were brought as curiosities to Egypt. Bēs was often figured as dancing with a tambourine; he was the god of the dance, and protected infants from evil and witchcraft; hence he appears on the imposts of the capitals of the birth-house at Dendereh. The animal whose skin he wears is the cynaelurus guttatus, whose name is bes. Possibly Bastet, the feline goddess, was originally a female form of Bēs.
Dedun was a Nubian god, who appears to have been a creative earth-god. He was unified with Ptah, and is often named in the nineteenth dynasty.
Sati was a goddess of the cataract region, similar to Hathor, with cow's horns. She is called queen of the gods, and seems to have been the great deity of a frontier tribe.
Anqet was the goddess of the cataract island of Seheyl, and is figured wearing a high crown of feathers.
Sutekh must not be confounded with the purely Egyptian god Set or Setesh, though the two were identified. Probably they were one in prehistoric ages; but Set was the god known to the Egyptians, while Sutekh was the god of the Hittites from Armenia, where he was worshipped in their home cities.
Baal was another Syrian god also identified with Set, and sometimes combined with Mentu as a war-god in the nineteenth dynasty, when Syrian ideas prevailed so largely in Egypt.
Reshpu, or Reseph, was occasionally worshipped as a war-god in the Syrianised age; but no statues or temples are known to him or to Baal.
Anta, or Anaitis, was a goddess of the Hittites, who appears fully armed on horseback in the Ramesside times. Ramessu II called his daughter Bant-anta, 'daughter of Anta.'
Astharth, Ashtaroth, or Astarte, was another Syrian goddess, who was worshipped mainly at Memphis, where the tomb of a priestess of hers is known. Ramessu II named a son of his Merastrot, 'loved of Ashtaroth.'
Qedesh, 'the holy one,' is shown as a nude goddess standing on a lion; she may be a form of Ashtaroth, as patroness of the qedosheth girls attached to her service. The position on a lion is a well-known one of Hittite goddesses.
Figures of foreign goddesses are often found in Egypt; they are of pottery, coarsely made, nude, and with the breasts held in the hands. They probably represent Ashtaroth.
We may also here mention some theories about the foreign connections of the Egyptian gods. The early Sumerians of Babylonia worshipped Asari, 'the strong one,' 'the prince who does good to men.' This has a strong resemblance in name and character to Asar, Osiris, of Egypt. But the connection which is proposed, from both names being written with the signs of an eye and a place, seems baseless, as the syllabic values of the signs were reversed in the two languages; either the writing or the sound of the name must be only a coincidence. Istar, another Sumerian deity, became softened in Semitic speech to Athtar, the moon-goddess of Southern Arabia; and the connection of this moon- and cow-goddess with the similar Hathor of Egypt seems very probable. Ansar was another Sumerian god, meaning 'the sky,' or the spirit world of the sky; and this might have passed into Anhar, the sky-god, known both in Upper and Lower Egypt. These connections are all with Sumerian gods, but may have been derived through their later Semitic forms. They have a general probability from the names and nature in each instance; but until we can trace some point of connection in place and in period, we can only bear these resemblances in mind as material for some larger view of early history.