Egyptian Foundations For ...
(Top Posts - History - 012301)

... concepts impacting the development of
philosophies within Judaism and Christianity:

Disbelievers/doubters, seekers, and christians
should be enlightened regarding the nature of
the dependence on religion and worship, the
similarities to later-developed ideas of Judaism
and Christianity, and the wellspring of super-
stition from which many of the Old Testament
views of gods/devils/son of god/afterlife/resur-
rection were derived from the fertile foundations
present in Egyptian culture:

- - -

Egyptian Religion
Nature and Significance
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68283#68283.toc
Excerpt: "... There were two essential foci of public
religion: the king and the gods. Both are among the
most characteristic features of Egyptian civilization.

The king had a unique status between humanity and
the gods, partook in the world of the gods, and
constructed great, religiously motivated funerary
monuments for his afterlife. ...

The most important deities were the sun god, who
had several names and aspects and was associated
with many supernatural beings in a solar cycle
modeled on the alternation of night and day, and
Osiris, the god of the dead and ruler of the under-
world. With his consort Isis, Osiris became dom-
inant in many contexts during the 1st millennium
BC, when solar worship was in relative decline. ..."

- - -

Egyptian Religion
Sources and Limitations of
Ancient and Modern Knowledge
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68284#68284.toc
Excerpt: "... Death and the next world dominate
both the archaeological record and popular
modern conceptions of Egyptian religion. ...

Vast resources were expended on creating presti-
gious burial places for absolute rulers or wealthy
officials. ...

Some royal tombs included long passages from
religious texts, many of them drawn from non-
mortuary contexts and hence more broadly
valuable as source material.

One crucial area where religion extended beyond
narrow bounds was in the ethical instructions,
which became the principal genre of Egyptian
literature. These are known from the Middle
Kingdom (c. 1900-1600 BC) to the Roman
period (1st century AD). As with other sources,
the later texts are more overtly religious, but all
show inextricable connections between proper
conduct, the order of the world, and the gods. ...

The king was the centre of human society, the
guarantor of order for the gods, the recipient of
god-given benefits including life itself, and the
benevolent ruler of the world for humanity.

He was ultimately responsible for the cults of
the dead, both for his predecessors in office
and for the dead in general.

His dominance in religion corresponded to his
central political role: from late predynastic times
(c. 3100 BC), state organization was based on
kingship and on the service of officials for the
king. For humanity, the king had a superhuman
role, being a manifestation of a god or of various
deities on earth.

The king's principal original title, the Horus name,
proclaimed that he was an aspect of the chief god
Horus, a sky god who was depicted as a falcon.
Other identifications were added to this one, notably
'Son of Re (the sun god)' and 'Perfect God,' both
introduced in the 4th dynasty (c. 2575-2465 BC),
when the great pyramids were constructed.

The epithet 'Son of Re' placed the king in a close
but dependent relation with the leading figure in the
pantheon. 'Perfect God' (often rendered 'Good
God') indicated that the king had the status of
a minor deity, for which he was 'perfected' through
accession to his office; it restricted the extent of his
divinity and separated him from full deities.

The gods, the king, humanity, and the dead existed
together in the cosmos, which the creator god had
brought into being from the preexistent chaos. All
living beings, except perhaps the creator, would die
at the end of time. The sun god became aged and
needed to be rejuvenated and reborn daily.

The ordered cosmos was surrounded by and shot
through with disorder, which had to be kept at bay.
Disorder menaced most strongly at such times of
transition as the passage from one year to the next
or the death of a king.

Thus, the king's role in maintaining order was cosmic
and not merely social. His exaction of service from
people was necessary to the cosmos. The concept
of ma'at ('order') was fundamental in Egyptian thought.
The king's role was to set ma'at in place of izfet
('disorder'). Ma'at was crucial in human life and
embraced notions of reciprocity, justice, truth, and
moderation. ..."

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Egyptian Religion
The Gods
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68286#68286.toc
Excerpt: "Egyptian religion was polytheistic. The
gods who inhabited the bounded and ultimately
perishable cosmos varied in nature and capacity.

The word netjer ('god') described a much wider
range of beings than the deities of monotheistic
religions, including what might be termed demons.

As is almost necessary in polytheism, gods were
neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. Their power
was immeasurably greater than that of human beings,
and they had the ability to live almost indefinitely,
to survive fatal wounds, to be in more than one
place at once, to affect people in visible and
invisible ways, and so forth.

Most gods were generally benevolent, but their
favour could not be counted on, and they had to
be propitiated and encouraged to inhabit their cult
images so that they could receive the cult and
further the reciprocity of divine and human. ...

Deities were grouped in various ways. The most
ancient known grouping is the ennead, which is proba-
bly attested from the 3rd dynasty (c. 2650-2575 BC).
Enneads were groups of nine deities, nine being the
'plural' of three (in Egypt the number three symbolized
plurality in general); not all enneads consisted of nine
gods.

Other numerical ordering schemas included the
Ogdoad (group of eight gods) of Hermopolis, which
embodied the inchoate world before creation and
consisted of four pairs of male and female deities
with abstract names such as Darkness, Absence,
and Endlessness.

The most common grouping, principally in the New
Kingdom and later, was the triad. The archetypal triad
of Osiris, Isis, and Horus exhibits the normal pattern
of a god and a goddess with a youthful deity, usually
male. Most local centres came to have triads, the
second and third members of which might be devised
for the sake of form.

Another important ordering of deities was syncretism,
a term with a special meaning for Egyptian religion.
Two or more names of gods were often combined
to form a composite identity; many combinations
included the name of Re. ..."

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Religious Syncretism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=64747
Excerpt: "The fusion of diverse religious beliefs and
practices. Instances of religious syncretism--as, for
example, Gnosticism (a religious dualistic system
that incorporated elements from the Oriental mystery
religions), Judaism, Christianity, and Greek religious
philosophical concepts--were particularly prevalent
during the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BC-c. AD 300).

The fusion of cultures that was effected by the
conquest of Alexander the Great (4th century BC),
his successors, and the Roman Empire tended to
bring together a variety of religious and philoso-
phical views that resulted in a strong tendency
toward religious syncretism. ..."

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Egyptian Religion - Myth
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68288#68288.toc
Excerpt: "... Religious discourse was recorded in
hymns, rituals, temple scenes, and specialized texts,
but rarely in narrative, which only slowly became
a common written genre and never had the highest
literary prestige. In addition, much religious activity
focused on constant reiteration or repetition rather
than on development.

A central example of this tendency is the presenta-
tion of the cycle of the sun god through the sky
and the underworld, which was an analogy for the
creation, maturity, decay, and regeneration of an
individual life and of the cosmos. This is strikingly
presented in the underworld books. These pictorial
and textual compositions, which probably imparted
secret knowledge, were inscribed in the tombs of
New Kingdom kings. ..."

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The World of the Dead
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68291#68291.toc
Excerpt: "... It was thought that the next world might
be located in the area around the tomb (and conse-
quently near the living); on the 'perfect ways of the
West,' as it is expressed in Old Kingdom invoca-
tions; among the stars or in the celestial regions with
the sun god; or in the underworld, the domain of
Osiris. ...

One prominent notion was of the 'Elysian Fields,'
where the deceased could enjoy an ideal agricultural
existence in a marshy land of plenty.

The journey to the next world was fraught with
obstacles. It could be imagined as a passage by
ferry past a succession of portals, or through an
'Island of Fire.'

One crucial test was the judgment after death,
a subject often depicted from the New Kingdom
onward. The date of origin of this belief is uncer-
tain, but it was probably no later than the late Old
Kingdom.

The related text, Chapter 125 of the Book of the
Dead, responded magically to the dangers of the
judgment, which assessed the deceased's conformity
with ma'at. Those who failed the judgment would
'die a second time' and would be cast outside the
ordered cosmos.

In the demotic story of Setna (3rd century BC),
this notion of moral retribution acquired overtones
similar to those of the Christian judgment after
death."

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Aton
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=10264
Excerpt: "Also spelled Aten, also called YATI, in
ancient Egyptian religion, a sun god, depicted as
the solar disk emitting rays terminating in human
hands, whose worship briefly was the state religion.

The pharaoh Akhenaton (reigned 1353-36 BC) rein-
stituted the supremacy of the sun god (see Re) with
the startling innovation that the Aton was to be the
only god.

In opposition to the Amon-Re priesthood of Thebes
(see Amon), Akhenaton built the city Akhetaton (now
Tell el-Amarna) as the centre for the Aton's worship.

The most important surviving document of the new
religion is the Aton Hymn, which was inscribed in
several versions in the tombs of Akhetaton. Like some
other hymns of its period, the text focuses on the world
of nature and the god's beneficent provision for it.

The hymn opens with the rising of the sun: 'Men had
slept like the dead; now they lift their arms in praise,
birds fly, fish leap, plants bloom, and work begins.
Aton creates the son in the mother's womb, the seed
in men, and has generated all life. He has distinguished
the races, their natures, tongues, and skins, and fulfills
the needs of all. Aton made the Nile in Egypt and rain,
like a heavenly Nile, in foreign countries. He has a
million forms according to the time of day and from
where he is seen; yet he is always the same. . .'

The only person who knows and comprehends the
god fully is said to be Akhenaton, together with his
wife, Nefertiti. The hymn to the Aton has been
compared in imagery to Psalm 104 ('Bless the Lord,
O my soul'). ...

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Egyptian Religion
Influence on Other Religions
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=119918&tocid=68292#68292.toc
Excerpt: "Egyptian culture, of which religion was an
integral part, was influential in Nubia as early as pre-
dynastic times, and in Syria in the 3rd millennium BC.

During the New Kingdom, Egypt was very receptive
to cults from the Middle East, while Egyptian medical
and magical expertise were highly regarded among the
Hittites, Assyrians, and Babylonians. The chief periods
of Egyptian influence were, however, the 1st millennium
BC and the Roman period.

Egypt was an important centre of the Jewish diaspora
starting in the 6th century BC, and Egyptian literature
influenced the Hebrew Bible.

With Greek rule there was significant cultural inter-
change between Egyptians and Greeks. Notable among
Egyptian cults that spread abroad were those of Isis,
which reached much of the Roman world as a mystery
religion, and of Sarapis, a god whose name probably
derives from Osiris-Apis, who was worshiped widely
in a non-Egyptian iconography and cultural milieu.

With Isis went Osiris and Horus the child, but Isis was
the dominant figure. Many Egyptian monuments were
imported to Rome to provide a setting for the principal
Isis temple in the 1st century AD.

The cult of Isis was probably influential on another
level. The myth of Osiris shows some analogies with
the Gospel story and, in the figure of Isis, with the
role of the Virgin Mary.

The iconography of the Virgin and Child has evident
affinities with that of Isis and the infant Horus. Thus,
one aspect of Egyptian religion may have contributed
to the background of early Christianity, probably
through the cultural centre of Alexandria.

Egypt also was an influential setting for other religious
and philosophical developments of late antiquity such
as Gnosticism, Manicheism, Hermetism, and Neopla-
tonism, some of which show traces of traditional
Egyptian beliefs. Some of these religions became
important in the intellectual culture of the Renaissance.

Finally, Christian monasticism seems to have origin-
ated in Egypt and could look back to a range of
native practices, among which were seclusion in
temple precincts and the celibacy of certain priest-
esses. Within Egypt, there are many survivals from
earlier times in popular Christianity and Islam."

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Osiris
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=58983
Excerpt: "Also called USIRI, one of the most
important gods of ancient Egypt. The origin of
Osiris is obscure; he was a local god of Busiris,
in Lower Egypt, and may have been a personifica-
tion of chthonic (underworld) fertility, or possibly
a deified hero.

By about 2400 BC, however, Osiris clearly played
a double role: he was both a god of fertility and the
embodiment of the dead and resurrected king. This
dual role was in turn combined with the Egyptian
concept of divine kingship: the king at death became
Osiris, god of the underworld; and the dead king's
son, the living king, was identified with Horus, a god
of the sky.

Osiris and Horus were thus father and son. The god-
dess Isis was the mother of the king and was thus the
mother of Horus and consort of Osiris. The god Seth
was considered the murderer of Osiris and adversary
of Horus.

Osiris was not only ruler of the dead but also the
power that granted all life from the underworld, from
sprouting vegetation to the annual flood of the Nile
River.

From about 2000 BC onward it was believed that
every man, not just the deceased kings, became
associated with Osiris at death. This identification
with Osiris, however, did not imply resurrection,
for even Osiris did not rise from the dead. Instead,
it signified the renewal of life both in the next world
and through one's descendants on Earth.

In this universalized form Osiris' cult spread through-
out Egypt, often joining with the cults of local fertility
and underworld deities. The idea that rebirth in the
next life could be gained by following Osiris was
maintained through certain cult forms. ...

The oldest known depiction of Osiris dates to about
2300 BC, but representations of him are rare before
the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BC), when he was
shown in an archaizing form as a mummy with his
arms crossed on his breast, one hand holding a crook,
the other a flail. On his head was the atef-crown, com-
posed of the white crown of Upper Egypt and two
ostrich feathers. ..."

- - -

Isis
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=43869
Excerpt: "Isis hid her son, Horus, from Seth, the
murderer of Osiris, until Horus was fully grown and
could avenge his father. ... Despite her variable
temperament, she and Horus were regarded by
the Egyptians as the perfect mother and son. The
shelter she afforded her child gave her the character
of a goddess of protection.

The cult of Isis spread throughout Egypt. In Akhmim
she received special attention as the 'mother' of the
fertility god Min. She had important temples through-
out Egypt and Nubia. By Greco-Roman times she
was dominant among Egyptian goddesses, and she
received acclaim from Egyptians and Greeks for her
many names and aspects.

Several temples were dedicated to her in Alexandria,
where she became the 'patroness of seafarers.' From
Alexandria her cult was brought to all the shores of
the Mediterranean, including Greece and Rome. In
Hellenistic times the mysteries of Isis and Osiris
developed; these were comparable to other Greek
mystery cults."

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Horus
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=42049
Excerpt: "... From the 1st dynasty (c. 2525-2775 BC),
Horus and the god Seth were perpetual antagonists
who were reconciled in the harmony of Upper and
Lower Egypt. In the myth of Osiris, who became
prominent about 2350 BC, Horus was the son of
Osiris. ..."

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Sarapis
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=67428
Excerpt: "Also spelled Serapis, Greco-Egyptian deity
of the sun first encountered at Memphis, where his
cult was celebrated in association with that of the
sacred Egyptian bull Apis (who was called Osorapis
when deceased).

He was thus originally a god of the underworld but
was reintroduced as a new deity with many Hellenic
aspects by Ptolemy I Soter (reigned 305-284 BC),
who centred the worship of the deity at Alexandria.

The Sarapeum at Alexandria was the largest and best
known of the god's temples. ... Among the Gnostics
(early Christian heretics who believed that matter is
evil and the spirit is good) he was a symbol of the
universal godhead. The destruction of the Sarapeum
at Alexandria by the patriarch Theophilus and his
followers in AD 391 signaled the final triumph of
Christianity not only in Egypt but throughout the
Roman Empire."

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Ptolemies - Religion
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108489&tocid=22346
Excerpt: "The Ptolemies were powerful supporters of
the native Egyptian religious foundations, the economic
and political power of which was, however, carefully
controlled. A great deal of the building and restoration
work in many of the most important Egyptian temples
is Ptolemaic, particularly from the period of about
150-50 BC, and the monarchs appear on temple
reliefs in the traditional forms of the Egyptian kings. ..."

- - -

Ptolemies - Culture
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108489&tocid=22348
Excerpt:"The Great Library of Alexandria (together with
its offshoot in the Sarapeum) was indispensable to the
functioning of the scholarly community in the Museum.
Books were collected voraciously under the Ptolemies,
and at its height the library's collection probably num-
bered close to 500,000 papyrus rolls, most of them
containing more than one work. ...

Also notable was the cultural influence of Alexandria's
Jewish community, which is inferred from the fact
that the Pentateuch was first translated into Greek at
Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period. ..."

- - -

Egypt
Society, Religion, and Culture
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108489&tocid=22352#22352.toc
Excerpt: "... Alexandria continued to develop as a
spectacularly beautiful city and to foster Greek culture
and intellectual pursuits, though the great days of
Ptolemaic court patronage of literary figures had
passed. But the flourishing interest in philosophy,
particularly Platonic, had important effects.

The great Jewish philosopher and theologian of the
1st century, Philo of Alexandria, brought a training
in Greek philosophy to bear on his commentaries
on the Old Testament. This anticipates by a hundred
years the period after the virtual annihilation of the
great Jewish community of Alexandria in the revolt
of AD 115-117, when the city was the intellectual
crucible in which Christianity developed a theology
that took it away from the influence of the Jewish
exegetical tradition and toward that of Greek philo-
sophical ideas.

There the foundations were laid for the teaching of
the heads of the Christian catechetical school, such
as Clement of Alexandria. And in the 3rd century
there was the vital textual and theological work of
Origen, the greatest of the Christian Neoplatonists,
without which there would hardly have been a
coherent New Testament tradition at all.

One development that did have an important effect
on this pagan religious amalgam, though it was not
decisive until the 4th century, was the arrival of
Christianity. The tradition of the foundation of the
church of Alexandria by St. Mark cannot be sub-
stantiated, but a fragment of a text of the Gospel
According to John provides concrete evidence of
Christianity in the Nile Valley in the second quarter
of the 2nd century AD.

Inasmuch as Christianity remained illegal and subject
to persecution until the early 4th century, Christians
were reluctant to advertise themselves as such, and
it is therefore difficult to know how numerous they
were, especially because later pro-Christian sources
may often be suspected of exaggerating the zeal and
the numbers of the early Christian martyrs.

But several papyri survive of the libelli submitted in
the first official state-sponsored persecution of
Christians, under the emperor Decius (ruled 249-251):
these were certificates in which people swore that
they had performed sacrifices to pagan gods in order
to prove that they were not Christians. ...

Egypt's role in the Byzantine Empire

Diocletian was the last reigning Roman emperor to
visit Egypt, in AD 302. Within about 10 years of his
visit, the persecution of Christians ceased. The end
of persecution had such far-reaching effects that
from this point on it is necessary to think of the
history of Egypt in a very different framework.

One other event that had an enormous effect on
the political history of Egypt was the founding of
Constantinople on May 11, 330.

First, Constantinople was established as an imperial
capital and an eastern counterpart to Rome itself,
thus undermining Alexandria's traditional position
as the first city of the Greek-speaking East.

Second, it diverted the resources of Egypt away
from Rome and the West. ...

The key to understanding the importance of Egypt
in this period lies in seeing how the Christian Church
came rapidly to dominate secular as well as religious
institutions and to acquire a powerful interest and
role in every political issue. ...

For the patriarchs of Alexandria, it proved impossible
to secure the approval of the imperial authorities in
Constantinople and at the same time maintain the
support of their power base in Egypt. The two made
quite different demands, and the ultimate result was
a social, political, and cultural gulf between Alexandria
and the rest of Egypt, and between Hellenism and native
Egyptian culture, which found a powerful new means
of expression in Coptic Christianity. ..."

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Coptic Orthodox Church
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=26639
Excerpt: "Also called COPTIC CHURCH, principal
Christian church in predominantly Muslim Egypt. The
people of Egypt before the Arab conquest in the 7th
century identified themselves and their language in
Greek as Aigyptios (Arabic qibt, Westernized as Copt);
when Egyptian Muslims later ceased to call themselves
Aigyptioi, the term became the distinctive name of the
Christian minority.

From the 5th century onward, these Christians belonged
to a Monophysite church (acknowledging only one
nature in Christ), calling themselves simply the Egyptian
Church. ... In the 4th and 5th centuries a theological
conflict arose between the Copts and the Greek-speaking
Romans, or Melchites ('Emperor's Men'), in Egypt over
the Council of Chalcedon (451), which rejected Mono-
physite doctrine. ..."

- - -

Melchite
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=53167
Excerpt: "Also spelled MELKITE, any of the
Christians of Syria and Egypt who accepted the
ruling of the Council of Chalcedon (451) affirming
the two natures--divine and human--of Christ.

Because they shared the theological position of the
Byzantine emperor, they were derisively termed
Melchites--that is, Royalists or Emperor's Men (from
Syriac malka: 'king')--by those who rejected the
Chalcedonian definition and believed in only one
nature in Christ (the Monophysite heresy).

While the term originally referred only to Egyptian
Christians, it came to be used for all Chalcedonians
in the Middle East and finally, losing its pejorative
tone, came to designate the faithful of the patri-
archates of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and especially
Antioch. ..."

- - -

Monophysite
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=54745
Excerpt: "In Christianity, one who believed that Jesus
Christ's nature remains altogether divine and not human
even though he has taken on an earthly and human body
with its cycle of birth, life, and death.

Monophysite doctrine thus asserted that in the Person
of Jesus Christ there was only one (divine) nature rather
than two natures, divine and human, as asserted at the
Council of Chalcedon in 451. ..."

- - -

Council of Chalcedon
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=22605
Excerpt: "The fourth ecumenical council of the Christian
Church, held in Chalcedon (modern Kadiköy, Tur.) in
451. Convoked by the emperor Marcian, it was attended
by about 520 bishops or their representatives and was
the largest and best-documented of the early councils.

It approved the creed of Nicaea (325), the creed of
Constantinople (381; subsequently known as the Nicene
Creed), two letters of Cyril against Nestorius, which
insisted on the unity of divine and human persons in
Christ, and the Tome of Pope Leo I confirming two
distinct natures in Christ and rejecting the Monophysite
doctrine that Christ had only one nature. The council
then explained these doctrines in its own confession
of faith. ..."

- - -

Gnostic Writers
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108315&tocid=67678#67678.toc
Excerpt: "Hardly had the church thrown off its early
Jewish-Christian idiosyncrasies when it found itself
confronted by the amorphous but pervasive philo-
sophical-religious movement known as Gnosticism.

This movement made a strong bid to absorb Chris-
tianity in the 2nd century, and a number of Christian
Gnostic sects flourished and contributed richly to
Christian literature. Although the church eventually
maintained its identity intact, the confrontation forced
it to clarify its ideas on vital issues on which it differed
sharply from the Gnostics.

Almost the entire vast literature of Gnosticism has
perished, and until recently the only original documents
available to scholars (apart from extracts such as those
already mentioned, which were preserved by orthodox
critics) were a handful of treatises in Coptic contained
in three codices (manuscript books) that were discov-
ered in the 18th and late 19th centuries. ...

Since 1945, however, this meagre store has been richly
supplemented by the discovery near Naj' Hammadi, in
Egypt on the Nile about 78 miles northwest of Luxor,
of 13 codices containing Christian Gnostic treatises in
Coptic translations. ..."

- - -

Monasticism
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=108304&tocid=67516#67516.toc
Excerpt: "Monasticism, an institution based on the
Christian ideal of perfection, has its roots in New
Testament Christianity, in which the baptized were
designated as the 'perfect ones.' ...

By the 4th century, monasticism had become an esta-
blished institution in the Christian Church. This was
not because of the decadence of the people of late
antiquity, as has often been asserted, but rather
because monasticism was sustained by the resilient
and culturally unexhausted rural populations of Egypt
and Syria, who had developed an enthusiasm for
asceticism itself.

Out of the desire for still further advanced isolation,
ascetics moved from areas in proximity to inhabited
places and established themselves in tombs, aban-
doned and half-deteriorated human settlements, caves,
and, finally, into the wilderness areas of the deserts.

The main task of the ascetics--i.e., struggle with the
demons--thereby underwent a heightened intensifica-
tion: the desert was considered the abode of the
demons, the place of refuge of the pagan gods falling
back before a victorious Christianity.

Hence, the expansion of Christianity in the cities of
Egypt and the rise of Egyptian desert monasticism in
the 4th century occurred both because the masses
streamed into the churches as a result of the official
imperial toleration and support policies and because
ascetics striving for perfection left the cities and
moved into the desert in significant numbers. ..."

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