Wooden figure of the Nubian god Bes playing a tambourine
From Thebes, Egypt
18th Dynasty, around 1300 BC
The Nubian god Bes (also known as Bisu) was particularly associated with protection of the home. Figures like this one were placed inside houses, often on the domestic shrine, or images of the god might be painted on interior walls.
Bes was imported from Nubia during the period of the Middle Kingdom. He was the protector of the pharaohs and a god of children, pleasure, and music. Despite his appearance, he was a beneficent deity and his appearance was meant to scare off evil spirits. He bore swords and knives to ward off evil spirits, as well as musical instruments which he used to create a din which would frighten them off. Bes aided the hippopotamus goddess Taweret in childbirth. He was originally the protective deity of the royal house of Egypt, but came to be a popular household deity throughout Egypt. The Egyptians kept cats to kill harmful snakes, amongst other things. His name is connected with African words for cat.
The oldest known fossil remains, according to Dr. Louis Leakey, were found in the Olduvai Gorge region in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. These first "small stature" people were known as the "Twa", who worshipped the God Bes, a primitive human form of Horus I, being the earliest form of Ptah the God of Gods. The Twa, are modern humans or Homo sapiens sapiens. They are a diminutive Africoid people residing in the rain forests of Central Africa. Related groups live in South and Southeast Asia.
We also find this same black God, Ptah, symbolized in the mystery system in Egypt. The Twa are said to have migrated the four thousand one hundred miles of the Nile river, establishing what was later to become the Egyptian civilization.
