The study of ancient religious beliefs is beset with difficulties because we do not know with absolute certainty what the peoples who inhabited the Near East in very ancient times really intended to convey by the designs they depicted. That those designs were not merely decorative but had a special symbolic or apotropaic value seems to be beyond question. In consequence of this ignorance of ours there is a tendency to accept explanations which seem to afford fairly satisfactory interpretations of many of these problems, and also an endeavour to expand them to the utmost to make them cover, directly or indirectly, as wide a field as possible. When an example occurs which cannot be forced to conform to the rules laid down by the explanations, it is said to be a peripheral work, or the mistaken rendering of an ignorant craftsman, or even a forgery.

From time to time, however, a book appears which deals with the subject of the religion of the ancients in some or all of its aspects, and which is fulL of new ideas, sometimes of a revolutionary character. Whether all the views enunciated by the author are accepted or not such a work has the salutary effect that it compels the reader to revise his preconceived ideas and to study carefully the opinions expressed in order to determine whether they should be rejected or accepted as a whole or with modifications.