The extraordinary resemblance of form between the Egyptian and Babylonian sacred dwarfs, as represented in art, raises the question whether the Babylonian dwarf was not an importation from Egypt, since the ape with which he was confounded was a native of the Sudan. This was the view to which I was long inclined, but there are certain considerations which make it difficult to be accepted. The Khnumu of Memphis were not the only dwarfs who were represented by the Egyptian artists. Still better known was Bes, who became a special favourite in the Roman period, when he was made a sort of patron of childbirth. But Bes, it was remembered, had come to Egypt from the southern lands of Somali and Arabia, like the goddess Hathor or the god Horus. Hathor is, I believe, the Babylonian Istar, who has passed to Egypt through her South Arabian name of Athtar; however this may be, Ptah of Memphis, whose followers were the Khnumu dwarfs, bears a Semitic name, and must therefore be of Semitic derivation. He belongs, that is to say, to the Egyptians of the dynastic stock, and is accordingly one of the few Egyptian divinities who is depicted in human form. On the other hand, the Sumerian dwarf Nu-gidda is the companion of Istar. On the Egyptian side, therefore, the dwarfs of Ptah are associated with a god who has come from Asia, while the dwarf Bes was confessedly of foreign extraction. On the Babylonian side the dwarf Nu-gidda was the associate of Istar, the counterpart of Hathor, and of Sin, the Moon-god, who was adopted by the people of Southern Arabia, and whose name was carried as far as Mount Sinai on the borders of Egypt. All this suggests that the sacred dwarf came to the valley of the Nile from Babylonia and Arabia like the name of Ptah, the creator of the world. In this case it would have come with the dynastic Egyptians before the age of history begins. But, on the other hand, there is the ape, and the ape is figured along with the dwarf on the Babylonian seals, It is true that the ape is equally foreign to Egypt and Babylonia, but the Sudan is nearer Egypt than Southern Arabia is to Babylonia. The actual date and path of migration, therefore, of the sacred dwarf must be left undecided. Whether he was brought to Egypt at the dawn of history, or whether he travelled to Babylonia in the historical age remains doubtful. All we can be sure of is that the sacred dwarfs of Babylonia and Egypt were originally one and the same, and that they testify to an intercourse between the two countries of which all literary record has been lost.[111]