from the Bubaline Period have been dated between 9200 BP and 5500 BP. The cultural practice of circumcision may have spread from the Central Sahara, toward the south in Sub-Saharan Africa and toward the east in the region of the Nile. Based on engraved evidence found on walls and evidence from mummies, circumcision has been dated to at least as early as 6000 BCE in ancient Egypt. Some ancient Egyptian mummies, which have been dated as early as 4000 BCE, show evidence of having undergone circumcision. Evidence suggests that circumcision was practiced in the Middle East by the fourth millennium BCE, when the Sumerians and the Semites moved into the area that is modern-day Iraq from the North and West. The earliest historical record of circumcision comes from Egypt, in the form of an image of the circumcision of an adult carved into the tomb of Ankh-Mahor at Saqqara, dating to about 24002300 BCE. Circumcision was done by the Egyptians possibly for hygienic reasons, but also was part of their obsession with purity and was associated with spiritual and intellectual development. No well-accepted theory explains the significance of circumcision to the Egyptians, but it appears to have been endowed with great honor and importance as a rite of passage into adulthood, performed in a public ceremony emphasizing the continuation of family generations and fertility. It may have been a mark of distinction for the elite: the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes the sun god Ra as having circumcised himself. Circumcision features prominently in the Hebrew Bible. The narrative in Genesis chapter 17 describes the circumcision of Abraham and his relatives and slaves. In the same chapter, Abraham's descendants are commanded to circumcise their sons on the eighth day of life as part of a covenant with God. In addition to proposing that circumcision was taken up by the Israelites purely as a religious mandate, scholars have suggested that Judaism's patriarchs and their followers adopted circumcision to make penile hygiene easier in hot, sandy climates; as a rite of passage into adulthood; or as a form of blood sacrifice. Historical campaigns of ethnic, cultural, and religious persecution frequently included bans on the practice as a means of forceful assimilation, conversion, and ethnocide. Alexander the Great conquered the Middle East in the fourth century BCE, and in the following centuries ancient Greek cultures and values came to the Middle East. The