ds.

The gods of the pre-dynastic period may be divided into two chief
groups, the tribal or local divinities and the cosmic or explanatory
deities. At the beginning each tribe had its own particular god, who in
essence was nothing but the articulate expression of the inner cohesion
and of the outward independence of the tribe itself, but who outwardly
manifested himself in the form of some animal or took up his abode in
some fetish of wood or stone. In times of peace this visible emblem of
the god's presence was housed in a rude shrine, but in war-time it was
taken thence and carried into the battlefield on a standard. We find
such divine standards [HRG: R12] often depicted on the earliest
monuments, and among the symbols placed upon them may be detected the
images of many deities destined to play an important part in the later
national pantheon, such as the falcon Horus [HRG: G5:R12], the wolf
Wepwawet (Ophois) [HRG: zAb:R12], the goddess Neith [HRG: R25:R12],
symbolized by a shield transfixed with arrows, and the god Min [HRG:
R23:R12], the nature of whose fetish is obscure. In course of time the
tribes became localized in particular districts, under the influence of
a growing central authority, and their gods then passed from tribal into
local deities. Hence it came about that the provincial districts or
nomes, as they were called, often derived their names from the gods of
tribes that settled in them, these names being hieroglyphically written
with the sign for "district" surmounted by standards of the type above
described, e.g. [HRG: E15:R12], "the nome of the dog Anubis," the 17th
or Cynopolite nome of Upper Egypt. In this way a large number of deities
came to enjoy special reverence in restricted territories, e.g. the ram
[HRG:] Khnum in Elephantine, the jerboa or okapi (?) [HRG: E20] Seth in
Ombos, the ibis [HRG: G26] Thoth in Hermopolis Magna, and of the gods
named above, Horus in Hieraconpolis, Wepwawet in Assiut, Neith in Sais,
and Min in Coptos. As towns and villages gradually sprang up, they too
adopted as their patron some one or other of the original tribal gods,
so that these came to have different seats of worship all over Egypt.
For this reason it is often hard to tell where the primitive cult-centre
of a particular deity is to be sought; thus Horus seems equally at home
both at Buto in the Delta and at Hieraconpolis in Upper Egypt, and the
earliest worship of Seth appears to have been claimed no less