TROGLODYTES (rpcay?oSurat, from rpwyXn, hole, Svw, creep)  , " cave-dwellers," a name applied by ancient writers to different tribes in various parts of the world . Strabo speaks of them in Moesia, south of the Danube (vii . 318), in the Caucasus (xi . 5o6), but especially in various parts of Africa from Libya (xvii . 828) to the Red Sea . The troglodyte Ethiopians of Herodotus (iv . 183) in inner Africa, very swift of foot, living on lizards and creeping things, and with a speech like the screech of an owl,- have been identified with the Tibbus of Fezzan . v - v —v –v - V – —v vvv v o i d vvv vvv vvv v v vv v vv u . V u - ow- - V V - V V - V V -Vv ^vv - v V -v v . According to Aristotle (Hiss . An viii . 12) a dwarfish race of Troglodytes dwelt on the upper course of the Nile, who possessed horses and were in his opinion the Pygmies of fable .

But the best known of these

African cave-dwellers were the inhabitants of the "Troglodyte country" (Tpe yXoSvruc$) on the coast of the Red Sea, as far north as the Greek port of Berenice, of whom an account has been preserved by Diodorus (iii . 31) and Photius (p . 454 Bekker) from Agatharchides of Cnidus, and by Artemidorus in Strabo (xvi . 776) . They were a pastoral people, living entirely on the flesh of their herds, or, in the season of fresh pasture, on mingled milk and blood . But they killed only old or sick cattle (as indeed they killed old men who could no longer follow the flock), and the butchers were called "unclean"; nay, they gave the name of parent to no man, but only to the cattle which provided their subsistence . This last point seems to be a confused indication of totemism . They went almost naked; the women wore necklaces of shells as amulets . Marriage was unknown, except among the chiefs—a fact which agrees with the prevalence of female kinship in these regions in much later times . They practised circumcision or a mutilation of a more serious kind . Their burial rites were peculiar . The dead body, its neck and legs bound together with withies of the shrub called paliurus, was set up on a mound, and pelted with stones amidst the jeers of the onlookers, until its face was completely covered with them .

A

goat's horn was then placed above it, and the crowd dispersed with manifestations of joy . It is supposed that the Horim or Horites, the aboriginal inhabitants of Mount Seir, if their name is correctly interpreted "cave-dwellers," were a kindred people to the Troglodytes on the other side of the Red Sea .