More of Petrie's thoughts on Race

Differences between neighbouring places in
their fundamental beliefs are not mere
senseless vagaries ; they imply a difference
between the people that is, a difference in
race. According to most Egyptologists the
variety of gods was determined by the
different beliefs of every petty capital of
every province of Egypt. Yet these authorities
avoid the conclusion that these gods
belong to different ancestries. Let us just
see what this position requires of us. If the
gods arise without difference of ancestry in
their worshippers and it is admitted that
all the principal gods are far prehistoricthen
we have the view that there existed in
Egypt a unified mass of population, which
had mingled without having any previous
mythologies ; and subsequently in Egypt
they evolved different gods at many different
centres. This is what is generally tacitly
assumed, even by Maspero, who sees the
perspective of the history of mythology far
more than any other authority. But such
a view requires us to believe that for long
ages, while these gods were being evolved
and brought into contact in Egypt, not a
single serious immigration of foreign races
had taken place. In short, that though the
known history of Egypt shows a great influx
of neighbouring people every few centuries,
we are asked to suppose that such mixtures
were quite insignificant in all the far longer
prehistoric ages, while the gods were in
course of evolution. Such a view, thus
reduced to historic parallelism, is an insult
to our sense of probability.
20. That great mixtures of race had taken
place in the prehistoric ages, probably oftener
than once in a thousand years, is practically
certain, when we view the known history.
And as such mixtures always produce local
diversity, we should expect to see differences
and incongruities between the beliefs of all
the principal, and even the minor, centres of
population. In one town the A tribe would
be strongest ; in the next the B tribe still
remained in power ; on the opposite side the
C tribe had later thrust themselves in. Such
is the view which is forced upon us by the
historic probabilities of the country. Hence,
local differences are only another name for
tribal differences and diversities of origin.
It may be said that we do not see such
new gods being introduced by the migrations
during historic times, and hence we should
not expect these changes to result from the
prehistoric migrations. This is a very partial
view. In the first place new gods were needless,
because almost every race that could
burst into Egypt had already come in and
planted their gods, hence reconquests by the
same race a second time merely brought
forward their already-present god. To take
an acknowledged instance, the Libyan conquest
by the XXI Ind and XXVIth Dynasties
forced Neith, the Libyan goddess, into prominence,
after she had almost disappeared in
Egypt. When a really fresh race came in
their gods then appear also as new gods
in Egypt, such as the Syrian gods and the
Greek gods. Then, moreover, when once
the religion had become fixed by written
formulae and types of worship on monuments,
the beliefs already figured on the
spot held their ground against the unwritten
faith of the moving immigrants.
While, therefore, fully recognizing that the
diversities of belief were local, and that the
prominence of a deity was largely due to the
political importance of his centre of worship,
yet we must logically see behind these local
differences the racial and tribal differences
by which they were caused ; and behind the
political power of a place we must perceive
the political power of the race who dwelt
there, and whose beliefs were spread around
by their political predominance. Amen-worship
spread from Thebes, or Neit-worship
from Sais, not merely because those places
were the seat of power, but because the
people of those places who worshipped Amen
and Neit extended their power and dwelt as
governors and officials in the rest of the
country. It is race and not place that is
the real cause of change.