the first colonisation of Egypt as well as of all other ancient kingdoms. These we now proceed to consider.
§ 1. FIRST COLONISATION OF EGYPT.
The monumental indications of the fact, that Egypt was first colonised from the north east, are very apparent.
The city of Heliopolis, stood near the apex of the Delta, and in the place where most probably the first spot of habitable ground would have been met with on the banks of the Nile, by travellers from the north east; for at first, the arid sands of the desert were bounded by the pestilential swamps formed by the branches of the Nile, along the entire eastern boundary of the Delta.[1] This city was accounted the most ancient in Egypt: it had been long deserted in the times of Diodorus and Strabo, which nearly coincide with the Christian era. The obelisks with which Rome was decorated by the Caesars, were all brought from the ruins of Heliopolis.[2] Singularly enough, the tutelary deity of Heliopolis was (as its name imports) Athom[3]
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the setting sun. The great sin of the builders of Babel would appear to have consisted in the dedication of their vast edifice to the worship of Baal or the sun; and nothing is more probable
- ↑ The first great work of benevolence ascribed to Osiris, was the draining of the marshes to the east of the Delta. Plutarch de Iside et Osiride. Diod. Sic. i. 19.
- ↑ This is mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus. It also appears from the inscriptions on the obelisks themselves. See the translation of the Flaminian obelisk, by the bishop of Gibraltar. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. vol. i. (2nd series), p. 176, seq. 9.
- ↑ I am disposed to think that Athom is אֶדֹם red; the colour of the setting sun.
