Very early
in Egyptian history the Heliopolitans gained the upper hand, and the
Ra-worship (under the Vth Dynasty, the apogee of the Old Kingdom) came
to the front, and for the first time the kings took the afterwards
time-honoured royal title of "Son of the Sun." It appears then as a
more or less foreign importation into the Nile valley, and bears most
undoubtedly a Semitic impress. Its two chief seats were situated, the
one, Heliopolis, in the North on the eastern edge of the Delta,--just
where an early Semitic settlement from over the desert might be expected
to be found,--the other, Edfu, in the Upper Egyptian territory south
of the Thebaid, Koptos, and the Wadi Ham-mamat, and close to the chief
settlement of the earliest kings and the most ancient capital of Upper
Egypt.
(4) The custom of burying at full length was evidently introduced into
Egypt by the second, or x race. The Neolithic Egyptians buried in the
cramped position. The early Babylonians buried at full length, as far
as we know. On the same "Stele of Vultures," which has already been
mentioned, we see the burying at full length of dead warriors. [* See
illustration.] There is no trace of any _early_ burial in Babylonia in
the cramped position. The tombs at Warka (Erech) with cramped bodies
in pottery coffins are of very late date.
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