An investigation into the earliest evidences for Egyptian religion demonstrates that it is in style and character markedly different from the religion of the early dynastic and later periods. Comparison with other early Near Eastern and south eastern European cultures yields interesting correlations and similarities between some early predynastic (that is, neolithic) Egyptian symbols, and those of neighboring cultures.

Michael A. Hoffman has said that the predynastic peoples of Upper Egypt showed an interest in attending to the needs of the dead, by burying with the deceased the paraphernalia of daily life: knives and scrapers, grinding palettes, awls, and other tools, as well as shell and stone bead ornaments and pottery ware (Hoffman 1979:110). There are also found

more enigmatic artifacts that throw light on individual differences and personal preferences, like baked clay figurines, amulets, and carved ivory plaques--objects often relegated by the archaeologist to the mystical category of "ceremonial objects" (Hoffman 1979:110).

A number of female figurines have been found in connection with predynastic sites. An Amratian figurine from Naqada I (ca. 4000-3500 B.C.) stands with arms upraised and hands curving inwards, reminiscent of wings. She has prominent breasts and buttocks, but schematic, undifferentiated legs and a beaked or beak-masked face. (figure 1) Several other figurines of this type have been found in Egypt. Three baked clay figurines were found in Tomb 186 at Ma'amerieh, possibly an Amratian site. Two have the same beaked head, though on one of them the arms are here broken off (figure 2), and on the other, which is missing her legs, the arms were not represented, but left schematized angular stumps. (figure 3) The third figurine also has schematized arms; her head is missing. (figure 4) Two lovely figurines from Tomb 2 at Ma'amerieh are of the same type as the figurine from Naqada: upswept arms, emphasized breasts and buttocks, and beaked or masked head. (figures 5 and 6) These last two were found near the head of a contracted skeleton. Málek has published a beautiful photograph of a "predynastic statuette" from the British museum (sadly, with no information as to its place or date of origin); she shows most beautifully the beaked head. (figure 7)

Amratian burials are typically individual, the body contracted into fetal position, with the head to the south, facing west. (Hoffman 1979:109-10) West is the direction of the lands of the dead in many of the mythologies of the ancient Near East and Europe. In Sumerian mythology, for example, Magan, a land to the west of Mesopotamia, is variously identified with Egypt, Arabia, or the underworld. (Sandars 1985:122) Maltese temples and Minoan palace-temples had an east-west alignment which can be associated with a symbolic dichotomous relationship between life and death, and the paraphernalia found in eastern and western sections of the temples are distinct with respect to rituals of birth, or or death and regeneration. (Gimbutas {1989}: ¤¤ 10.3, 12.0) The islands of the blessed in Celtic mythology (Irish Tír na nÓg, Breton Inis gWenva ) are in the west. What is implied here is that the religions of Mesopotamia, predynastic Egypt, and Neolithic and Copper Age Europe share in common a symbolic system in which the rising and setting of the sun is associated with ritual notions of birth and death.

Elsewhere in the ancient world a bird goddess is associated with the concepts of birth, death, and regeneration. In Neolithic and Copper Age Old Europe,

she appears typically with a beak or a pinched nose, a long neck, female breasts, either wings or wing-like projections, and protruding female buttocks outlined in the shape of the body of a duck or swan. She has no mouth but has sometimes a hairdo or crown. She has an erect posture, but the upper part of her body is often bent forward like a bird's. Symbols found most frequently on her are meanders and chevrons; these are found both on objects that are associated with her and as decorations of her image. Multiple chevrons and a beak-and-eyes symbol are typical decorative designs on vases. She often has exaggerated breasts.

Figures 8 through 15 illustrate typical Old European Bird Goddesses. As Death Wielder and Regeneratrix, the Goddess appears on a burial urn from early Bronze Age Troy in western Anatolia (ca. 3000-2500 B.C.) with owl eyes and beak, breasts, upraised wings, and a pronounced vulva. (figure 8) Ornithomorphic masks are common motifs on figurines of the Vinca culture of central Yugoslavia. The Goddess' arms are often schematic wings or stumps, and her eyes are very large, as seen in a figure from the late Vinca culture, ca. 3800-3500 B.C. (figure 9) From Borodin in southern Yugoslavia comes a chimney-shaped figurine originally part of a shrine model. She has a clearly delineated bird mask with prominent beak, large eyes, and mouth. (Gimbutas 1982: Pl. 34) (figure 10) While none of these bird masks is stylistically reminiscent of the faces of the Amratian figurines, still the ornithomorphic features are clear in each, though the specific expression differs. The posture of the predynastic figurines, however, is almost identical with that of a representative Classical Cucuteni figurine from northern Moldavia, ca. 4000 B.C. This figurine is identifiable as a Bird Goddess through the repetition of its chevron design. (figure 11)

Neolithic and Copper Age Bird Goddess effigies with beaked heads or masks are usually marked below the neck, above the breasts, or at the pubic triangle with a V or chevron sign and an X across the chest. (cf. figure 9) These specific signs we associate with the Bird Goddess, as Birth- and Life-Giver, whose epiphany is a waterbird and whose domain is water. The V derives from the vulva or pubic triangle, one of the earliest symbols known from palaeolithic art. It is the symbolic association of the V as pubic triangle and the V of the eyes-and-beak symbol which help us to connect the Bird Goddess as carrion bird with the Old European concept of regeneration. Bird motifs connected with death ritual, whether on burial urns, carved inside megalithic passage graves, or found in graves (as in the Egyptian finds), further support this view. Broad wings appear on a Vinca figurine from Gradesnica in northwestern Bulgaria (ca. 5000-4500 B.C.) Again, the Bird Goddess' chevron is displayed, this time in a meander on the figurine's belly. (figure 12)

Upraised arms as wings of the Bird Goddess continue as a motif in later periods. From Limassol, site on Cyprus dating to the 11th century B.C., several bell-shaped figurine with chevrons, nets, and triangles, symbols of regeneration, was found. Her face appears to have been schematic: just two eyes and a pronounced nose, typical of the Bird Goddess. (figure 13) A second figurine from the same site has a clearer bird face. A figurine from Ormidhia, of uncertain date, (but somewhere between 1200 and 600 B.C.), has the same broad, upraised arms, but here a more anthropomorphic face. (figure 14) Seen from the side, however, the nose is a good deal higher than the rest of the face, suggesting that this too is a representation of the Bird Goddess. Perhaps the most obvious example of a Bird Goddess with wings upraised comes from Prosymna in Greece, ca. 1300-1100 B.C. (figure 15) Here the eyes are outlined in red, the color of blood and regenerative power of the womb; meanders or energy symbols in red run down the torso.

We have seen a remarkable similarity between the form of several predynastic Egyptian figurines and that of a number of figurines from other ancient Near Eastern and European cultures. The Amratian masked goddess with upraised or schematic arms and pronounced buttocks and breasts can be identified with the Bird Goddess of neolithic Anatolia and Balkan Europe. The reconstructed significance of this deity to prehistoric religion as Giver of Life and Wielder of Death in those cultures may provide for us a key to the nature of the religion of the people of predynastic Egypt.

It does not seem to me that the predynastic Egyptian figurines are mysterious miscellanea of uncertain and unascertainable significance. Formally, they are connected with the greater symbolic system of the Near East. That they are ritual objects is certain, since they are found in burials, and it is, I believe, safe to suppose that the predynastic Egyptians were acquainted with a symbolic and semantic system which emphasized the cyclical nature of life: life energy manifest in birth, death, and regeneration. If we take this hypothesis as given, then we may proceed to investigate the development of Egyptian religion into the elaborate preoccupation with death which is known from later periods. It is interesting, for example, to note that the Egyptian word mwt, means 'mother' as well as 'the Goddess Mut', and is written with a vulture. Perhaps the associations of the Life-Giving and Death-Wielding Mother may give us a clue as to the origin of this written convention.

A greater understanding of the roots of Egyptian religion in the Neolithic may enable us to learn what elements of Egyptian religion are native inheritances from the Neolithic, which are native innovations, and which elements, if any, are a result of the influence of foreign cultures and ideas. Our appreciation of the complexities of the dynamics Egyptian religion and its effects on the Egyptian worldview must thereby be enhanced.

References

Gimbutas, Marija. 1982. The goddesses and gods of Old Europe, 6500-3500 B.C.: myths and cult images. 2nd edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Gimbutas, Marija. 1986. "Birds, animals, amphibians, and insects of the Old European Goddess of Death and Regeneration", in Cultural attitudes to anomals including birds, fish, and invertebrates, volume 2, The World Archaeological Congress, 1-7 September 1986, Southampton and London: 1-45.

Hoffman, Michael A. 1979. Egypt before the Pharaohs: the prehistoric foundations of Egyptian civilization. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Karageorghis, Vassos. 1978. The goddess with uplifted arms in Cyprus. (Scripta Minora 1977-78: 2) Lund: Gleerup.

Málek, Jaromir. 1986. In the shadow of the pyramids: Egypt during the Old Kingdom. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Sandars, N. K. 1985. The epic of Gilgamesh: an English version with an introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Ucko, Peter J.. 1968. Anthropomorphic figurines of predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete, with comparative material from the prehistoric Near East and mainland Greece. London: Andrew Szmidla.

Zahlhaas, Gisela, et al. 1985. Idole: frühe Götterbilder und Opfergaben. Prähistorische Staatssammlung München, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.

Illustrations

Figure 2. Ucko 1968:44

Figure 3. After Ucko 1968:460

Figure 4. Ucko 1968:46

Figure 5. Ucko 1968:47

Figure 6. Ucko 1968:48

Figure 7. After Málek 1986:26-27.

Figure 8. Gimbutas 1986: Fig. 3.1

Figure 9. After Gimbutas 1982: Pl. 120

Figure 10. After Gimbutas 1982: Pl. 34

Figure 11. After Gimbutas 1982: Pl. 129

Figure 12. Gimbutas 1986: Fig. 7

Figure 13. Karageorghis 1978:29, 45

Figure 14. After Karageorghis 1978:35

Figure 15. After Zahlhaas 1985: Fig. 35a