he winged disk was actually
homologized with an axe or knife as alternative weapons used by the
sun-god for the destruction of mankind.

In Dr. Seligman's account of the Dinka rain-maker (_supra_, p. 113) we
have already seen that the Soudanese Osiris was identified with a spear
and falling stars.

According to Dr. Budge[213] the Egyptian hieroglyph used as the
determinative of the word _neter_, meaning god or spirit, is the axe
with a handle. Mr. Griffith, however, interprets it as a roll of yellow
cloth ("Hieroglyphics," p. 46). On Hittite seals the axe sometimes takes
the place of the god Teshub.[214]

Sir Arthur Evans endeavours to explain these conceptions by a vague
appeal to certain natural phenomena (_op. cit._, pp. 20 and 21); but the
identical traditions of widespread peoples are much too arbitrary and
specific to be interpreted by any such speculations.

Sanchoniathon's story of Baetylos being the son of Ouranos is merely a
poetical way of saying that the sun-god fell to earth in the form of a
stone or a weapon, as a Zeus Kappotas or a Horus in the form of a winged
disk, flying down from heaven to destroy the enemies of Re.

"The idea of their [the weapons] flying through the air or falling from
heaven, and their supposed power of burning with inner fire or shining
in the nighttime," was not primarily suggested, as Sir Arthur Evans
claims (_op. cit._, p. 21), "by the phenomena associated with meteoric
stones," but was a rationalization of the events described in the early
Egyptian and Babylonian stories.

They "shine at night" because the original weapon of destruction was the
moon as the Eye of Re. They "burn with inward fire," like the Babylonian
Marduk, when in the fight with the dragon Tiamat "he filled his body
with burning flame" (King, _op. cit._, p. 71), because they _were_ fire,
the fire of the sun and of lightning, the fire spat out by the Eye
of Re.

Further evidence in corroboration of these views is provided by the fact
that in the AEgean area the double-axe replaces the moon between the
cow's horns (Evans, _op. cit._, Fig. 3, p. 9).

In King's "Babylonian Religion" (pp. 70 and 71) we are told how the gods
provided Marduk with an invincible weapon in preparation for the combat
with the dragon: and the ancient scribe himself sets forth a series of
its homologues:--

He made ready his bow ... He slung a spear ... The bow and quiver ... He
set the lightning in front of him, With burning f