INTRODUCTION
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head of the Sêth animal, while the goddesses usually hold a flowering lotus stalk; the appearance of weapons as insignia is comparatively rare. In this same way the animal shapes of most Egyptian divinities and the genesis of the animal cult itself, such fetish-like receptacles as the one worshipped at This, the strange local divine symbols which remind us of totemistic emblems, etc., all become easily intelligible when considered as a survival from the barbaric age, which we shall endeavour to reconstruct in the next chapter.