As successive wanderings took place mostly in times of transition and upheaval, cultural contact between dissimilar populations malleably transformed images, names and myths associated with Bes and Pygmy ancestors. The growing need for an accessible protector, healer and divine intermediary, spanning the distance from the Levant to the western Mediterranean was met by Bes, binding diverse communities into a common front against the external forces of disease and death. These views were spread by means of reciprocal gift systems, trade, migration and wars. Beliefs based upon ancient Pygmy philosophy and tenets were incorporated into Bes as a divine representative. The wanderings, which began in Nubia and Upper Egypt, continued north up the Nile into teeming markets and inns of port cities connected to the sea routes of the Mediterranean and Aegean and by land migrations west to Benin.
Interpretation of symbols and glyphs found on 1st Dynasty BCE to 18th Century CE artifacts, are a means of tracing the transformational journeys of Bes, the Egypto-Nubian deity.
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