The vessels went from the Nile by an ancient water-way, partly canal, into the Red Sea, and it would seem that we are to understand (for much of the whole inscription has broken away) that for some special cause they were diverted and went first across the sea to the coast of Arabia, a proceeding doubtless of some temerity, but that happily they escaped danger, and went on to their original destination, and brought thence the myrrh and the actual trees of Ana-sycamore, the coveted odoriferous trees, the chief object of the voyage being to secure the costly incense for the service of the white Temple built by the Queen. It seems to me that Queen Hatasu’s words “the Divine Land” point to her belief that there in Arabia, and beyond, to that far eastern horizon where the white mountains meet the blue heavens, there, was the true home of the Gods, the earlier home whence came her race. Maybe she cherished the names of Anu and Ishtar, and knew that these old deities of Chaldæa were those she worshipped under Egyptian names.
The common course of newer nations is thus, to take and to rename the old gods. Herodotus considers that the names of nearly all the gods of Greece are derived from Egypt. To each of the ancient nations it would seem that the old solar myth was newly told in parable, the esoteric meaning of it known only to their priests.
That wonderful piece of wall sculpture may be seen to-day; time and the tourist have destroyed some portions, yet enough endures to tell the story which the great Queen left there three thousand four hundred years ago. Just as it was in the old Chaldæan temples, the sanctuary, “the Holy of Holies,” is cut in the rock itself, far within, there light was not needed, “for the gods see everywhere.” This beautiful white temple rises in three terraces cut out of the limestone cliff, and once had an avenue of sphinxes three miles long, leading down to the blue river.
Looking at the plan of the Temple one sees that the thought of it was Chaldæan, it is so like the terrace temple of the God Bel by the Euphrates, and I cannot but think that the three-string lyre hung on the mast of the ship she sent to “the coast of Arabia” had a meaning to her own heart, was a simple token that would be understood by all of her royal race, to show by this symbol that the lyre originally came from that “divine land” whither her thoughts went, as a child turns to its mother.
| The Early three-stringed Lyre of the Egyptians. |
Fig. 1. The same Lyre as pictured slung on the mast of Queen Hatasu’s ship.
CHAPTER II.
In the Land of Myth.
THE PURSUIT OF THE GODS.
IN the land of Myth there occur many landmarks that project their shadows into dim distances, telling with no uncertain indications that the land of Fact is a much more extensive region, that it environs both the land of myth and the land of tradition that borders it, and yields to the explorer many evidences much earlier in racial history, when as yet the mind of man had not imagined