Chapter II

) seemed to offer an explanation of the confusion. Brugsch, Naville, Maspero, Erman, and in fact most Egyptologists, seemed to be agreed that the magical substance from which the Egyptian elixir of life was made was the mandrake. As there was no hint[365] in the Egyptian story of the derivation of its reputation from the fancied likeness to the human form, its identification with Hathor seemed to be merely another instance of those confusions with which the pathway of mythology is so thickly strewn. In other words, the plant seemed to have been used merely to soothe the excited goddess: then the other properties of "the food of the gods," of which it was an ingredient, became transferred to the mandrake, so that it acquired the reputation of being a "giver of life" as well as a sedative. If this had been true it would have been a simple process to identify this "giver of life" with the goddess herself in her role as the "giver of life," and her cowry-ancestor which was credited with the same reputation.

But this hypothesis is no longer tenable, because the word _d'd'_ (variously transliterated _doudou_ or _didi_), which Brugsch[366] and his followers interpreted as "mandragora," is now believed to have another meaning.

In a closely reasoned memoir, Henri Gauthier[367] has completely demolished Brugsch's interpretation of this word. He says there are numerous instances of the use of _d'd'_ (which he transliterates _doudouiou_) in the medical papyri. In the Ebers papyrus "_doudou_ d'Elephantine broye" is prescribed as a remedy for external application in diseases of the heart, and as an astringent and emollient dressing for ulcers. He says the substance was brought to Elephantine from the interior of Africa and the coasts of Arabia.

Mr. F. Ll. Griffith informs me that Gauthier's criticism of the translation "mandrakes" is undoubtedly just: but that the substance referred to was most probably "red ochre" or "haematite".[368]

The relevant passage in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind (in Seti I's tomb) will then read as follows: "When they had brought the red ochre, the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded it, and the priestesses mixed the pulverized substance with the beer, so that the mixture resembled human blood".

I would call special attention to Gauthier's comment that the blood-coloured beer "had _some magical and marvellous property which is unknown to us_".[369]

In his dictionary Brugsch considered the determinative [Symbol: circle over three vertical lines] to refer to the fruits of a tree which he called "apple tree," on the supposed analogy with the Coptic [jiji (janja iota janja iota)], _fructus autumnalis_, _pomus_, the Greek [Greek: opora]; and he proposed to identify the supposed fruit, then transliterated _doudou_, with the Hebrew _doudaim_, and translate it _poma amatoria_, mandragora, or in German, _Alraune_. This interpretation was adopted by most scholars until Gauthier raised objections to it.

As Loret and Schweinfurth have pointed out, the mandrake is not found in Egypt, nor in fact in any part of the Nile Valley.[370]

But what is more significant, the Greeks translated the Hebrew _duda'im_ by [Greek: mandragoras] and the Copts did not use the word [Coptic: jiji] in their translations, but either the Greek word or a term referring to its sedative and soporific properties. Steindorff has shown (_Zeitsch. f. AEgypt. Sprache_, Bd. XXVII, 1890, p. 60) that the word in dispute would be more correctly transliterated "_didi_" instead of "_doudou_".

Finally, in a letter Mr. Griffith tells me the identification of _didi_ with the Coptic [Coptic: jiji], "apple (?)" is philologically impossible.

Although this red colouring matter is thus definitely proved not to be the fruit of a plant, there are reasons to suggest that when the story of the Destruction of Mankind spread abroad--and the whole argument of this book establishes the fact that it did spread abroad--the substance _didi_ was actually confused in the Levant with the mandrake. We have already seen that in the Delta a prototype of Artemis was already identified with certain plants.

In all probability _didi_ was originally brought into the Egyptian legend merely as a surrogate of the life-blood, and the mixture of which it was an ingredient was simply a restorer of youth to the king. But the determinative (in the tomb of Seti I)--a little yellow disc with a red border, which misled Naville into believing the substance to be yellow berries--may also have created confusion in the minds of ancient Levantine visitors to Egypt, and led them to believe that reference was being made to their own yellow-berried drug, the mandrake. Such an incident might have had a two-fold effect. It would explain the introduction into the Egyptian story of the sedative effects of _didi_, which would easily be rationalized as a means of soothing the maniacal goddess; and in the Levant it would have added to the real properties of mandrake[371] the magical virtues which originally belonged to _didi_ (and blood, the cowry, and water).

In my lecture on "Dragons and Rain Gods" (