[791] Yet compare the Scriptural prohibition, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk,” which appears to have been one of the commandments included in the earliest Decalogue. Sir J. G. Frazer discusses this curious injunction in _Folklore in the Old Testament_, vol. III. p. 111 ff. [792] Vol. I. pl. 10, f. 11. [793] Petrie, _Medum_ (1892), Pl. XI. A good example (Vth Dynasty) of a Net heaped up in a boat is found in N. de G. Davies, _Ptahhetep_ (London, 1901), Pl. VI., in the right-hand column of the hieroglyphs. [794] See my Assyrian Chapter, p. 368. The Gilgamesh representation dates _c._ 2800 B.C. [795] N. de G. Davies, _The Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrawi_ (1902), Pt. II. Pl. V. [796] P. 259. The reason assigned is not convincing: “No lead weights are depicted on the monuments, for by the time they were introduced the artist was devoting himself to mythological and religious scenes.” Petrie, _Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara_, p. 34, however, assigns some weights of lead from Kahun to XVIIIth Dyn. [797] Cf. Petrie, _Abydos_ (London, 1902), pl. 41. [798] J. J. Tylor, _The Tomb of Paheri_ (London, 1895), Pl. VI., probably XVIIIth Dyn. [799] Petrie, _Kahun_, p. 28. [800] _Ibid._, p. 34. [801] Illustrations of both kinds can be found in Steindorf’s _Das Grab des Ti_, Pls. CX. and CXI. CHAPTER XXV ABSTENTION FROM FISH The statement, “the Nile contains all sorts and kinds of fish,”[802] must in an age of scientific enumeration be taken with several grains of salt. The total for the whole country, riverine and marsh, reaches but seventy-one species, of which only two, _Mormurops anguillaris_ and _Haplochilus schælleri_, are peculiar to Egypt.[803] A score or so find representation in ancient times; but identification is far from easy, and is in some cases, _e.g._ the Mullets, only possible generically. In scenes of the return of Hatshepsut’s expedition from the land of Punt the drawings of the fishes are so characteristic that Prof. Doenitz has been enabled to determine their species, and identify them as belonging to the Red Sea. The powers of observation in the artists accompanying the ships demonstrate careful training. But I cannot, since the eyes of the _Solea_ are similar, endorse the eulogism bestowed in the case of a sole, unless it were a freak, “one eye is drawn larger than the other, showing a fine observation of Nature!”[804] The priests, the King, and the commonalty in some cases eschewed fish.