128 martin bernal

Celtic words and Teutonic words descend, including the English, ‘case’, ‘chest’ and ‘cist’, is generally acknowledged to be a loan from κστη, probably through Etruscan. The only possible Indo-European cognate for κστη is the dubious Old Irish ciss, ‘basket’. This too is more likely to be a loan from cista.41 In any event, the better attested Irish word ciste must be a borrowing. Given the religious context this would seem more likely. Chantraine is uncertain and concludes that it may be a loan. It is possible that there is also ambiguity between box, hamper or basket on the Afroasiatic side. Orel and Stolbova postulate a root *kic,ˇ ‘basket’ or ‘container’, found in West Chadic and Central and East- ern Cushitic.42 Whether or not it is related, the Egyptian qrst, ‘burial’, qrsw,‘coffin’, and qrstt, ‘funeral equipment’, are all written with « (Q6). In Late Egyptian there is qrst,‘coffin, box-shaped sarcophagus’. qst is ‘burial’ and ‘embalmment’ in Demotic. qrsw,‘coffin’ is written kaise, kese (S) and kaisi (B) in Coptic. Vycichil reconstructs a sequence *qirsat *qiasat. qrst, ‘burial’, became k¯o¯os, suggesting an original /a¯a/;¯ its quali- tative or completed form is k¯es.43 Thus either, at some point in the Late Bronze Age when the final /-t/ was still pronounced, provides good etyma *ke/ist for kist¯e.

Εμ λπδαι and Κ ρυκες: Eumolpids and K¯erukes

It is well known that compared to Egypt Greece had fewer priests and less priesthoods. At , however, there were two important priesthoods—the Εμ λπδαι, Eumolpids, and the Κ9ρυκες, K¯erukes.I believe that the first had an ultimately Semitic name and the second an Egyptian one. For the ancients there was no doubt that the cult of and the mysteries associated with her, came from abroad. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter portrays the goddess arriving at Eleusis to be welcomed by the local notables including Eumolpos, the epony-

41 Even accepting the form ciss or cess, a loan is more likely. Final vowels fell away very early in Old Irish and final -st became -s, which was uncertain in Ogam inscriptions and disappeared in later Irish. See Thurneysen, [1949] 1993, 110 §177. Thus the preservation of the geminated -ss would seem to indicate a borrowing from the Latin cista. 42 Orel and Stolbova 1995, 317 §1454. 43 k¯o¯os appears in Greek as γ ς (H) ‘funeral, lament’ from which the verb γ 0ω, ‘lament’ derived. Chantraine distinguishes this from 0ω, ‘call’, and tries to link γ ς to *kaujan, a Germanic form for ‘name, call’. egyptians in the hellenistic woodpile 129 mous founder of the family of the Eumolpids, who with the less impor- tant clan of the Kerykes provided priests for the cult throughout antiq- uity.44 On the other hand, Plutarch, Pausanias and Lucian claimed that Eumolpos had come from Thrace to Eleusis to found the cult.45 Apol- lodoros maintained that he was brought up in Ethiopia.46 Against these, Diodorus’ Egyptian informants told him that the Eumolpids derived from Egyptian priests, and the Kerykes from the lesser rank of the pastophoroi. They also claimed that the mysteries had been introduced to Eleusis by Erekhtheus, whom they saw as the Egyptian king of Attika during his reign c. 1409/8BCE.47 The Parian Marble agreed with this date. Apollodoros, however, put the arrival of Demeter and Dionysos somewhat earlier, during the reign of king Pandion.48 Either date would fit the apogee of the eighteenth dynasty. Despite these differences of opinion, there was no dispute over the identification of Demeter with Isis, and Dionysos with Osiris. To return to Eumolpos and the Eumolpids, despite the widespread attribution of their Thracian origin, they themselves believed they had Egyptian origins and had preserved Egyptian traditions. The significance of these traditions in summoning of the Eumolpid Timotheus for consultation on the formation—or reformation—of the cult of Serapis has been mentioned above. Connections between Eumolpos and Egypt are strengthened by the clearly Egyptian origin of Μελ0μπoυς. Taking away the prefix eu,and the common nasal dissimilation pmp, leaves the same consonantal structure mlp. The two men also had remarkably similar legendary functions. Melampus, thought to mean ‘black foot’, was associated with μελ0μ ρ τες, ‘negroes’. The view of Egypt as a land of magic and medicine was almost universal in antiquity. Thus Melampus as an Egyptian may well be the legendary ancestor of the hero in the who was a skilled diviner and understood the language of animals.49 According to Pherekydes and Herodotos, it was through his

44 Homeric Hymn to Demeter 151–155. 45 See Plutarch De exilio 17; Pausanias 1.38,2 and Lucian Demonax 34. 46 Apollodoros 3.15.4. 47 Diodoros 1.29.4. 48 Apollodoros, 3.14.7. For a discussion of the dates, see Burton 1972, 125. Consis- tently with her general inclination, she prefers a northern origin for the mysteries to one from Egypt or Crete. 49 Odyssey 15.225–226,and11.291–294.