THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

WHO WERE THE MAKERS? 219
Epaphus, the son of lo the cow. This coincidence is rendered
still more curious by the fact that these people were forbidden
to eat the flesh of cows. In a later chapter we shall discuss the
question whether in lo we have a totem ancestress, but for the
present it is enough
to call attention to this combination of
facts, which are rendered all the more striking by the discovery
at Naquada, and Ballas (both on the Libyan side
of the Nile),
of the remains of an early people, almost certainly Libyan.
Similar antiquities have since been found in other parts of
Egypt and especially at Abydus, where they were in a remarkable
conjunction with remains of the 1st and iind Dynasties.
Finally, at the present day, according to competent observers
there is a very distinct and easily recognizable Berberine or
Libyan element in the population of Egypt. All this goes to
show that there is a considerable Libyan element at the base of
Egyptian civilization. The indications given in the statements
of Herodotus and in the oldest legends are thus in keeping
with modern discoveries.
It may be worth while to examine the date assigned in
the traditional chronology to Danaus, whose return to Argolis
may be taken as marking a })eri(jd
when there was a considerable
contact between Greece and Egypt. Proetus seems to
have lived four generatitjns before the Trojan war (1](S4 B.C.),
that is about LSOO B.C. Proetus and Acrisius were third in
descent from Danaus, whose date
1400 ]',.c.
may be roughly placed about
But this coincides to a rt'inarkable degrei.' with the date
assigned by Prof Petiie to certain finds of Mycenean pottery
made in
the scarabs found
Egypt, the basis for such dates ])eing
in the same strata (]).
77 ).
It mav Well be that about that time there was some invasion
and that
of Egypt bv Libvans such as took ])lace in later reigns,
its ovei'tlirow is diuily outlined fni- us in the story of the defeat
and flight of Danaus, who ruleil in Libya, in the stni-y of
Epaj)hus we niav hear the taint echo of ;i still earliei' invasion,
which had proved
su