Abstract
New publication and discussion of two fragmentary stone objects of Protodynastic date in the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire in Brussels, together with a further fragment from one of them, found a few years ago in the excavations of the DAIK at Umm el-Qa'ab. The carved decoration of both includes representations of the click beetle (Agrypnus notodonta Latr.), sacred to Neith. From their iconography, it is suggested that the bilobate cult-sign of Neith originally consisted of the image of two click beetles, flanking two crossed arrows attached to a pole.
Three different symbols of Neith can be distinguished during the Protodynastic Period: the bilobate object, two crossed arrows, and two bows tied together. The original meaning of the bilobate object seems to have been forgotten before the end of the Old Kingdom, and during the Middle Kingdom it lost its original form and was henceforward depicted as an oval. The significance given to it at that time remains open to discussion, but its traditional identification as a shield is most probably the result of the far more recent assimilation of Neith to the Greek goddess Athena.
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