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                            CRANIA ÆGYPTIACA


                                  OR,

                 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY,

                              DERIVED FROM

                  ANATOMY, HISTORY AND THE MONUMENTS.


                                   BY

                      SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D.,

   AUTHOR OF “CRANIA AMERICANA;” MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL
     SOCIETY; VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF
                        PHILADELPHIA, ETC. ETC.


 From the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. IX.


                           ------------------


                             PHILADELPHIA:
                    JOHN PENINGTON, CHESTNUT STREET.

                                LONDON:
                    MADDEN & CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
                                 1844.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       WILLIAM S. YOUNG, PRINTER.




------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                   TO

                        GEORGE R. GLIDDON, ESQ.,

  LATE UNITED STATES CONSUL FOR THE CITY OF CAIRO; AUTHOR OF “ANCIENT
                                EGYPT;”

                              &c. &c. &c.,

          THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,

                              AS A MEMENTO

                    OF THE ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP OF

                                                             THE AUTHOR.


    Philadelphia,
    February 23, 1844.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              OBSERVATIONS

                                   ON

                         EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY,

                              DERIVED FROM

                  ANATOMY, HISTORY AND THE MONUMENTS.

                           ------------------

   _Read before the American Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia,
         December 16, 1842, and January 6, and April 6, 1843._

                           ------------------




                         INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.


Egypt is justly regarded as the parent of civilization, the cradle of
the arts, the land of mystery. Her monuments excite our wonder, and her
history confounds chronology; and the very people who thronged her
cities would be unknown to us, were it not for those vast sepulchres
whence the dead have arisen, as it were, to bear witness for themselves
and their country. Yet even now, the physical characteristics of the
ancient Egyptians are regarded with singular diversity of opinion by the
learned, who variously refer them to the Jews, Arabs, Hindoos, Nubians,
and Negroes. Even the details of organic structure have been involved in
the same uncertainty,—the configuration of the head, the position of the
ear, the form of the teeth, the colour of the skin, and the texture of
the hair; while the great question is itself undetermined—whether
civilization ascended or descended the Nile;—whether it had its origin
in Egypt or in Ethiopia. These conflicting opinions long since made me
desirous to investigate the subject for myself; but the many
difficulties in the way of obtaining adequate materials, compelled me to
suspend the inquiry; and it is only within a recent period that I have
been able effectively to resume it. It gives me great pleasure to state,
that my present facilities have been almost exclusively derived,
directly or indirectly, from the scientific zeal and personal friendship
of George R. Gliddon, Esq., late United States consul for the city of
Cairo. During a former visit to the United States, this gentleman
entered warmly into my views and wishes; and on his return to the East,
in 1838, he commenced his researches on my behalf; and in the course of
his various travels in Egypt and in Nubia, as far as the second
Cataract, he procured one hundred and thirty-seven human crania, of
which one hundred pertain to the ancient inhabitants of Egypt. Of these
last, seventeen were most obligingly sent me, at the instance of Mr.
Gliddon, by M. Clot Bey, the distinguished Surgeon in chief to the
Viceroy of Egypt. They are arranged by the latter gentleman into two
series, the Pharaonic, and the Ptolemaic; but without availing myself of
this classification, I have merely regarded them in reference to their
national characters.

Mr. Gliddon’s residence for the greater part of twenty-three years in
Egypt, and his varied official and other avocations, together with his
acquaintance with the people, and their languages, have given him
unusual facilities for collecting the requisite materials; while their
authenticity is amply vouched for by one who blends the character of a
gentleman with the attainments of a scholar.

The object of this memoir, therefore, will be to throw some additional
light on the questions to which I have adverted, and to ascertain, if
possible, the Ethnographic characters of the primitive Egyptians; or, in
other words, to point out their relative position among the races of
men.

It is necessary, however, to premise, that the materials in my
possession, were collected without the slightest bias of opinion on the
part of Mr. Gliddon, who, at the period in question, had paid no
particular attention to Ethnography; and indeed very many of these
crania were received by me in their original wrappings, which were first
removed, after the lapse of ages, by my own hands.

It is farther requisite to bear in mind, that, with a few exceptions I
have no clew whatever, whereby to ascertain or even to conjecture, the
epoch to which these remains have belonged. The Egyptian catacombs do
not always contain their original occupants; for these were often
displaced and the tombs re-sold for mercenary purposes: whence it
happens, that mummies of the Greek and Roman epochs have been found in
those more ancient receptacles which had received the bodies of Egyptian
citizens of a far earlier date. The bodies thus displaced, however,
_were not destroyed_; and the Egyptians of at least twenty-five
centuries before our era, though for the most part mingled without
regard to rank or epoch, are still preserved in their interminable
cemeteries.

I disclaim all knowledge of hieroglyphic literature; but I may express
my conviction that the past discoveries and pending researches of Young,
Champollion, Rosellini, Wilkinson, Lepsius, and some other illustrious
men, are destined to unravel much that has hitherto been regarded as
mystical in Egyptian history; while the invaluable disclosures which
they have already made, entitle them to the lasting gratitude of the
student of Archæology.

A few words in reference to chronology. Rosellini places the accession
of the Sixteenth dynasty of Egyptian kings at 2272 years before Christ.
Champollion adopts a nearly similar arrangement. The learned Dr. Wiseman
admits that there are monuments in Egypt as old as 2200 years before our
era; and Dr. Prichard dates the accession of Menes two centuries earlier
in time. The veneration with which these authors regard the Sacred
Writings, has given me the greater confidence in their opinions, which I
therefore adopt in general for the distant landmarks of time; especially
as the latter come fairly within the range of the Septuagint chronology,
which places the epoch of the Deluge at 3154 years B.C., and thus gives
room for the most ancient of the Egyptian monuments. In respect to later
and subordinate dates, I have been governed exclusively by the published
system of Professor Rosellini, which is regarded by competent judges as
more complete than any other.

I have great pleasure in stating, that for the unrestricted use of the
first copy of Rosellini’s splendid work which was brought to the United
States, I am indebted to an accomplished traveller, Richard K. Haight,
Esq., of New York; a gentleman who devotes his leisure hours and opulent
income to the promotion of archaeological knowledge.

To John Gliddon, Esq., United States consul at Alexandria, to the Rev.
George W. Bridges, and to M. E. Prisse, now in Egypt, I also take this
occasion to express my sincere acknowledgments for the practical zeal
with which they have aided my researches.

I have been enabled to make extensive and satisfactory comparisons by
means of nearly six hundred human crania, which form a part of my
private anatomical collection. The numbers in brackets refer to
corresponding numbers on the skulls themselves, and in my printed
catalogue; and will serve as a future test of the accuracy of my
observations, which, embracing as they do, such a multitude of details,
may require some revision and correction.

How far the following observations may assist in solving a problem
which, until lately, has been clothed in equal obscurity and interest,
is not for me to determine; but I trust they will at least, have the
effect of inciting others to researches of a similar nature.


                         ---------------------


                         EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY.

“Vix quidem monitu opus est in tanta seculorum serie qua mos
cadavera balsamo condiendi in Ægypto solemnis fecit, inque tam
variorum ejus terræ dominorum et incolarum vicissitudine magnam
mumias intercedere debere variatatem tam quod ad conditurse variam
rationem et materiem; quam quod ad craniorum in mumiis gentilitiam
formam et speciem.”—BLUMENBACH, _Decad. Cran._ p. 12.

It was remarked fifty years ago by the learned Professor Blumenbach,
that a principal requisite for an inquiry such as we now propose, would
be “a very careful, technical examination of the skulls of mummies
hitherto met with, together with an accurate comparison of these skulls
with the monuments.” This is precisely the design I have in view in the
following memoir, which I therefore commence by an analysis of the
characters of all the crania now in my possession. These may be referred
to two of the great races of men, the CAUCASIAN and the NEGRO, although
there is a remarkable disparity in the number of each. The Caucasian
heads also vary so much among themselves as to present several different
types of this race, which may, perhaps, be appropriately grouped under
the following designations:—


                            CAUCASIAN RACE.

1. The [1]_Pelasgic Type_. In this division I place those heads which
present the finest conformation, as seen in the Caucasian nations of
western Asia, and middle and southern Europe. The Pelasgic lineaments
are familiar to us in the beautiful models of Grecian art, which are
remarkable for the volume of the head in comparison with that of the
face, the large facial angle, and the symmetry and delicacy of the whole
osteological structure. Plate III., Fig. 6, and Plate X., Fig. 8, are
among the many examples of this conformation.

2. The _Semitic Type_, as seen in the Hebrew communities, is marked by a
comparatively receding forehead, long, arched, and very prominent nose,
a marked distance between the eyes, a low heavy broad, and strong and
often harsh development of the whole facial structure. Plate XI., Fig.
2.

3. The _Egyptian_ form differs from the Pelasgic in having a narrower
and more receding forehead, while the face being more prominent, the
facial angle is consequently less. The nose is straight or aquiline, the
face angular, the features often sharp, and the hair uniformly long,
soft, and curling. In this series of crania I include many of which the
conformation is not appreciably different from that of the Arab and
Hindoo; but I have not, as a rule, attempted to note these distinctions,
although they are so marked as to have induced me, in the early stage of
the investigation, and for reasons which will appear in the sequel, to
group them, together with the proper Egyptian form, under the
provisional name of _Austral-Egyptian_ crania. I now, however, propose
to restrict the latter term to those Caucasian communities which
inhabited the Nilotic valley above Egypt. Among the Caucasian crania are
some which appear to blend the Egyptian and Pelasgic characters: these
might be called _Egypto-Pelasgic_ heads; but without making use of this
term, except in a very few instances by way of illustration, I have
thought best to transfer these examples from the Pelasgic group to the
Egyptian, inasmuch as they so far conform to the latter series as to be
identified without difficulty. For examples of this mixed form, I refer
especially to Plate XI., Fig. 1, and Plate III., Fig. 7.


                              NEGRO RACE.

The true _Negro_ conformation requires no comment; but it is necessary
to observe that a practised eye readily detects a few heads with
decidedly mixed characters, in which those of the Negro predominate. For
these I propose the name of _Negroid_ crania; for while the osteological
development is more or less that of the Negro, the hair is long but
sometimes harsh, thus indicating that combination of features which is
familiar in the mulatto grades of the present day. It is proper,
however, to remark in relation to the whole series of crania, that while
the greater part is readily referrible to some one of the above
subdivisions, there remain other examples in which the Caucasian traits
predominate, but are partially blended with those of the Negro, which
last modify both the structure and expression of the head and face.

We proceed, in the next place, to analyze these crania individually,
arranging them, for the purpose of convenience, into seven series,
according to their sepulchral localities, beginning with the Necropolis
of Memphis in the north:

First series, from the Memphite Necropolis.

    A.  Pyramid of five steps.
    B.  Saccàra, generally.
    C.  Front of the Brick Pyramid of Dashour.
    D.  North-west of the Pyramid of Five Steps.
    E.  Toora, on the Nile.

  Second series, from the Grottoes of Maabdeh.
  Third series, from Abydos.
  Fourth series, from the Catacombs of Thebes.
  Fifth series, from Koum Ombos.
  Sixth series, from the Island of Beggeh, near Philæ.
  Seventh Series, from Debod in Nubia.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             FIRST SERIES.

           TWENTY-SIX SKULLS FROM THE NECROPOLIS OF MEMPHIS.


  This vast Necropolis extends from the Pyramids of Gizeh to the
  southern limit of Saccàra, a distance of about fifteen miles. The
  tombs are cut in the solid rock, and frequently communicate with one
  another, forming a vast subterranean labyrinth. Memphis is well known
  to be one of the oldest, if not indeed the oldest of the Egyptian
  cities; and among the tombs now extant Professor Rosellini has found
  some which bear inscriptions of a date nearly 2300 years before
  Christ, at which period Memphis must have been a large and flourishing
  city. The simpler catacombs were probably constructed before the
  pyramids; for these last could only result from centuries of
  civilization, and next to the catacombs, are the oldest existing
  monuments of the human race.


                   A.—FROM THE PYRAMID OF FIVE STEPS.

  In the month of August, 1839, Mr. J. S. Perring, the distinguished
  Engineer, discovered a _fourth_ entrance to this pyramid, which was
  found to communicate with a recess at the south-western corner of a
  large apartment described in his narrative. This communication is a
  horizontal gallery one hundred and sixty-six feet long, and the recess
  is seventy feet above the floor. “The southern end of the gallery,”
  observes Colonel Vyse, “was stopped up with sand; but for the length
  of one hundred and sixty feet from the interior it was open, and did
  not seem to have been previously visited, as nearly thirty mummies
  were found in it apparently undisturbed. They had neither coffins nor
  sarcophagi, nor, with the exception of three or four, any painted
  decorations. They crumbled to pieces on being touched, and could not
  be removed. Mr. Perring, therefore, proceeded to examine them. He
  found them enclosed in wrappers, with pitch and bitumen; but he did
  not meet with any of the objects usually deposited with mummies,
  excepting some of the common stone idols upon the body of the female.
  He therefore concluded that they were the bodies of persons employed
  in the building.”[2]

  Fortunately for my inquiries, Mr. Gliddon was at hand when these
  relics were brought to light, and obtained them of Mr. Perring as a
  contribution to my researches. With the utmost care on Mr. Gliddon’s
  part, two of three reached me in safety, but the third was broken into
  numberless fragments. In fact, the consistence of these bones is but
  little firmer than unbaked clay, and the animal matter is nearly
  obliterated. If Mr. Perring’s opinion be correct, that the persons to
  whom these bodies belonged were coeval with the construction of the
  pyramid, we may with safety regard them as the most ancient human
  remains at present known to us. Whether, as that gentleman suggests,
  they pertained to workmen employed in building the pyramid, I will not
  pretend to decide; but although they present indifferent intellectual
  developments, their conformation is that of the Caucasian race.

  Plate I., Fig. 1. (Cat. 838.) An oval head with a broad but rather low
  forehead, moderately elevated vertex, and full occiput. The
  superciliary ridges are prominent, the orbits oblong-oval, the nasal
  bones large, salient and aquiline, the teeth vertical and the whole
  facial structure delicate. The head of a woman of about forty
  years.[3]—I. C. 90 cubic inches. F. A. 81°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate I., Fig. 2. (Cat. 837.) A large and ponderous skull, with, a
  broad but low forehead, and very prominent superciliary ridges. The
  vertex is elevated, the occipital region remarkably full, and the
  parietal diameter large. The bones of the face are delicately formed,
  the nose long and aquiline, the orbits rounded, the teeth vertical.—I.
  C. 97 cubic inches. F. A. 83°. _Pelasgic form._

  This is the skull of a man who may have reached his fiftieth year. The
  teeth are much worn, and parts of the sutures nearly obsolete. This
  person, long antecedent to his death, had received a severe wound over
  the right orbit, beginning at the nasal bone and extending upwards and
  outwards nearly two inches, fracturing and depressing both tables of
  the skull. The consequent deformity is manifest, although the
  cicatrization is complete.


                    B.—FROM THE MEMPHITE NECROPOLIS.

  Eleven skulls from various mummy pits in the great Necropolis of
  Saccàra. In Mr. Gliddon’s memoranda he remarks that these heads were
  mostly taken from the mummies themselves, and from the best
  constructed pits; and that having been enclosed in coffins painted and
  otherwise ornamented with different degrees of care, they probably
  pertained to the higher class of Egyptians.

  Plate II., Fig. 1. (Cat. 808.) A large elongate-oval head, with a
  broad, high forehead, low coronal region, and strongly aquiline nose.
  The orbits nearly round; teeth perfect and vertical.—I. C. 97 cubic
  inches. F. A. 77°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate II., Fig. 2. (Cat. 815.) A beautifully formed head, with a
  forehead high, full, and nearly vertical, a good coronal region, and
  largely developed occiput. The nasal bones are long and straight, and
  the whole facial structure delicately proportioned. Age, between
  thirty and thirty-five years.—I. C. 88 cubic inches. F. A. 81°.
  _Pelasgic form._

  Plate II., Fig. 3. (Cat. 812.) Skull of a woman of twenty years? with
  a beautifully developed forehead, and remarkably thin and delicate
  structure throughout. The frontal suture remains.—I. C. 82 cubic
  inches. F. A. 80°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate II., Fig. 4. (Cat. 806.) A thin cranium, of a short-oval form;
  the forehead is broad, the coronal region low, and the whole face
  prominent. Age, about thirty years. I. C. 83 cubic inches. F. A. 77°.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate II., Fig. 5. (Cat. 814.) Cranium of a man of eighty or ninety
  years, with a full but rather receding forehead, and strongly
  developed cranial structure.—I. C. 97 cubic inches. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate II., Fig. 6. (Cat. 810.) An admirable conformation, as seen in
  the broad, high forehead, full occiput, and gently aquiline nose.
  Probably a female of twenty years.—I. C. 86 cubic inches. F. A. 78°.
  _Egyptian form?_

  Plate II., Fig. 7. (Cat. 805.) A narrow, elongated head, with an
  indifferent frontal region. A man of fifty?—I. C. 79 cubic inches. F.
  A. 83°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate II., Fig. 8. (Cat. 807.) A large, thin, oval cranium, with a
  broad, receding forehead, tumid occiput, a long and very aquiline
  nose, and remarkably prominent face. The frontal suture remains
  entire. Probably a man of thirty years.—I. C. 88 cubic inches. F. A.
  74°. _Semitic form._

  Plate III., Fig. 2. (Cat. 809.) A female head, with a somewhat
  receding forehead and low coronal region.—I. C. 81 cubic inches. F. A.
  78°. _Egyptian form._

  Plate III., Fig. 1. (Cat. 811.) A small head, with a narrow frontal
  region, receding forehead, and broad parietal diameter. A female? of
  about twenty-five years.—I. C. 73 cubic inches. F. A. 76°. _Egyptian
  form._

  (Cat. 813.) Skull of a child of eight years, with a finely developed
  forehead, tumid occiput and full facial angle. _Pelasgic form._


      C.—FROM THE FRONT OF THE NORTHERN BRICK PYRAMID OF DASHOUR.

  Three skulls exhumed by Mr. Perring from the above mentioned locality
  in the Memphite Necropolis. They were discovered in the month of
  August, 1839, in the process of trenching to find an entrance to the
  pyramid. The following extract from Col. Vyse’s admirable work
  embraces all the information we possess in relation to these remains,
  merely premising that none of the _mummied_ heads alluded to has come
  into my possession.

  “At the depth of about four feet six inches, above fifty bodies were
  found, ten of which were mummies, embalmed and deposited in the usual
  manner. The others were much decayed, and had been buried in their
  clothes, and in some instances were bound round with common cord and
  laid in wooden coffins, or among a few branches of date trees. Some of
  the clothes were woollen, others coarse linen, with a fringed border
  of bright scarlet worsted. The heads were covered with bright red
  network. Mr. Perring imagined that these bodies had belonged to a
  pastoral people, probably to Bedouins, and that they had been
  interred, together with the mummies, at a very early period, before
  the introduction of Christianity.” VYSE, Pyramids, III., p. 60.

  These crania, which are remarkably small, possess much of the Egyptian
  form, and are well represented in the following outlines.

[Illustration]

  (Cat. 795.) An oval cranium with a receding forehead, full coronal
  region, strongly developed upper maxilla, and prominent face.—I. C. 75
  cubic inches. F. A. 76°.—_Egyptian_ blended with the _Negroid form_?

  (Cat. 796.) A small oval head, low forehead, and salient and very
  aquiline nose. Facial bones thin and delicately proportioned.—I.C. 80
  cubic inches. F.A. 75°. _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 797.) A small, thin, irregularly formed head, with a full
  forehead and salient nose. The alveoli are absorbed by age. A woman of
  70 years?—I.C. 76 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._


  D.—FROM THE NECROPOLIS OF MEMPHIS, NORTH-WEST OF THE PYRAMID OF FIVE
                                 STEPS.

  Nine skulls of mummied Egyptians, taken by Mr. Gliddon from a large
  pit which had just been opened by the Arabs. Mr. G. remarks that No.
  803 is a male, and 804 a female, both unwrapped by his own hands.
  “These mummies were all of a superior order, and enclosed in wooden
  cases. The pit was opened in my presence, and consisted of a deep
  shaft cut through the solid rock, with two or three chambers filled
  with undisturbed mummies.”

  Scarcely any integuments remain on these heads, the removal of the
  wrappings leaving the bone for the most part completely denuded.

  Plate III., Fig. 3. (Cat. 804.) A remarkably beautiful female head,
  not exceeding the age of twelve years. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate III., Fig. 4. (Cat. 799.) A ponderous skull, with a fine
  frontal, and full coronal region. Probably a man of 35 years.—I.C. 87
  cubic inches. F.A. 82°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate III., Fig. 5. (Cat. 816.) A beautifully oval and finely arched
  cranium, with a high, prominent forehead, tumid occiput, aquiline
  nose, and oblong orbitar cavities. A man of 45?—I.C. 92 cubic inches.
  F.A. 78°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate III., Fig. 6. (Cat. 798.) A delicately proportioned and finely
  arched head. The cheek bones are small, and the nose strongly
  aquiline. Age, about 45 years.—I.C. 84 cubic inches. F. A. 80°.
  _Pelasgic form._

  Plate III., Fig. 7. (Cat. 802.) A finely developed cranium, with a
  delicate, but rather prominent face, and strongly arched nose.
  Probably a female of 50 years.—I.C. 81 cubic inches. _Egypto-Pelasgic
  form._

  Plate III., Fig. 8. (Cat. 803.) A large, oval head, with a broad,
  receding forehead, low coronal region, and salient nose. A man of 45
  or 50 years.—I. C. 92 cubic inches. F.A. 82°. _Pelasgic form._

  (Cat. 800.) Skull of a child of 10 years, with a receding forehead,
  narrow, projecting face, and salient teeth. _Negroid form._

  (Cat. 801.) A juvenile head, heavy, but beautifully proportioned,
  especially in the frontal region. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate III., Fig. 9. (Cat. 825.) A large and remarkably intellectual
  head, of the finest proportions throughout. The hair is in part
  preserved, and is long, smooth and of a dark-brown colour.—I. C. 93
  cubic inches. F. A. 81°. _Pelasgic form._


                      E.—FROM TOORA, ON THE NILE.

  Plate II., Fig. 9. (Cat. 840.) Skull of a man from the ancient
  quarries at Toora, opposite Memphis, on the east bank of the Nile,
  about seven miles above Cairo. From this place the stones were
  obtained for building the Pyramids of Gizeh, and many later
  structures, down to the epoch of the Ptolemies. Mr. Gliddon was
  present at the exhumation of several of these crania, yet, owing to
  their extremely fragile state, but one reached me in safety, and for
  this I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Mash. They were found in
  rude sarcophagi of limestone, and wrapped in coarse matting. These
  remains, which were discovered in 1837-38, are supposed to have
  pertained to the master-quarrymen.

  The head figured is of an elongated oval form, with a moderate frontal
  development and low coronal region. The nose is strongly salient and
  aquiline, and the whole cranial structure thin and delicate.—I. C. 89
  cubic inches. F. A. 79°. _Pelasgic form._

  _Remarks on the preceding series of Crania._—A mere glance at this
  group of skulls will satisfy any one accustomed to comparisons of this
  kind, that most of them possess the Caucasian traits in a most
  striking and unequivocal manner, whether we regard their form, size,
  or facial angle. It is, in fact, questionable whether a greater
  proportion of beautifully moulded heads would be found among an equal
  number of individuals taken at random from any existing European
  nation. The entire series consists of sixteen examples of the Pelasgic
  and seven of the Egyptian form, a single Semitic head, one of the
  Negroid variety, and one of mixed conformation. Of the antiquity of
  these remains there can be no question; and with respect to a part of
  them, those from the Pyramid of Five Steps, we have evidence of a more
  precise character.

  These most ancient mummies appear to have been prepared with but
  little bitumen, and to have undergone desiccation by some primitive
  and simple process of embalming; such, for example, as first
  saturating the body in natron, and then subjecting it to heat in an
  oven. It is also to be remarked, that in these two heads the brain has
  not been removed through the nostrils, according to the general
  custom, for the ethmoid bone is unbroken; and the cranial contents
  could therefore only have been withdrawn through the foramen magnum at
  the base of the skull.

  This last remark also applies to sixteen other heads of this series;
  whence I was at first led to suppose that they could not pertain to a
  very remote epoch. But when we find that the oldest remains are
  similarly characterized, and bear in mind that the removal of the
  brain through the nose was a conventional part of the more perfect art
  of embalming, may we not suppose that this imperforate state of the
  cranium points to an early epoch of Egyptian history, before mankind
  had resorted to those elaborate methods of preserving the dead body
  which are so remarkable in the _Theban_ catacombs? It has been
  conjectured, that the proximity of the Natron Lakes to the city of
  Memphis gave rise to the custom of embalming; and it is not an
  improbable supposition that the profuse employment of bitumen was a
  subsequent refinement of the art. This suggestion derives some support
  from another fact; namely, that in every instance in which I have
  observed the brain to have been removed through the nose, the bones
  and integuments are much more charged with bitumen than in the
  imperforate crania.

  It may, perhaps, be conjectured by some that the Pelasgic heads of
  this series belong to the Ptolemaic epoch, and hence pertain to the
  Greek inhabitants of that age: but it must be remembered that the rule
  of the Ptolemies lasted but about three hundred years; whereas the
  Egyptians were themselves the masters of Memphis, and entombed their
  dead in its necropolis more than two thousand years before either the
  Persians or Greeks effected the conquest of the country, no less than
  during the period of and after these epochs of foreign domination.

  Of the sixteen adult Pelasgic skulls in this series, two or three are
  small; yet the whole number gives about 88 cubic inches for the
  average internal capacity of the cranium, or size of the brain, while
  the mean of the facial angle is 80°. The seven Egyptian crania have a
  mean internal capacity of 80 cubic inches, and a facial angle of 77°.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             SECOND SERIES.

    FOUR HEADS FROM THE GROTTOES OF MAABDEH, NEAR MAGARAT-ES-SAMÒUN.

  This is the name of a series of sepulchral grottoes in Middle Egypt,
  on the limestone hill opposite Manfaloot, and near the modern village
  of Maabdeh. It is within the ancient nome of Heracleopolis. This
  cemetery is a natural cavern, which was chiefly dedicated to embalmed
  crocodiles, but in some measure, also, to man. Mr. Gliddon observes
  that the human mummies are of the common order, and adds: “I brought
  them from a measured distance of 438 feet under ground, horizontally,
  averaging about twenty feet below the surface.”

  Plate IV., Fig. 1. (Cat. 833.) A large, oval head, with a very low,
  receding forehead, and large, aquiline nose. A man of 35 years? The
  hair is long, soft, and curling, and the beard is partially preserved
  on the lower jaw. _Pelasgic form?_

  This person has been much disfigured by ulceration of the cartilage of
  the nose and the adjacent integuments; part of the upper lip has been
  removed by the disease, which appears partially on the lower jaw, and
  may account for the beard not having been shaved. The embalming
  process has been very carefully conducted. Large lozenge-shaped
  patches of gold-leaf are seen on the centre of the forehead and over
  each eye, with smaller pieces dispersed in other places, and
  especially on the _bone_ and _teeth_ of the upper jaw, where these
  have been denuded or exposed by ulceration.

  Plate IV., Fig. 2. (Cat. 834.) A female head, of a short, oval form,
  with a narrow, receding forehead, prominent nose, and very protruding
  maxillæ. The teeth, which are salient, indicate a person of 25 or 30
  years of age; and the lower jaw, which is very angular, has a
  remarkable downward projection. The hair was long, but harsh, and was
  necessarily removed with the integuments, on account of the imperfect
  nature of the embalmment, which appeared to have been effected with a
  soft or tar-like bitumen. _Negroid form._

  Plate IV., Fig. 3. (Cat. 835.) A woman of 30? with a long, narrow
  head, slightly salient nose, and very projecting face. The hair is
  eight or ten inches long, harsh, but not wiry. _Negroid form._ I.C. 71
  cubic inches. F.A. 73°.

  Plate IV., Fig. 4. (Cat. 836.) A female head of a fine oval form, with
  a broad, convex forehead, low coronal region, and strongly aquiline
  nose. This head retains a profusion of long, fine, curling hair, and
  the face is gilded over the eyes and lips. This is a striking example
  of the _tumid face_ which is not unfrequently seen on the monuments.
  _Egyptian form._

  _Remarks._—The two Negroid heads belong, obviously, to the lower class
  of people, for the bodies have been hastily and imperfectly embalmed,
  without mummy cases, and in ordinary wrappings. The two latter remarks
  apply to the other individuals of this series, which have,
  nevertheless, been much more carefully embalmed.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             THIRD SERIES.

                        FOUR SKULLS FROM ABYDOS.

  The city of Abydos, the second in size in the Thebaid, was on the west
  bank of the Nile, and, like Thebes, possessed a palace of Rameses
  III., and a temple of Osiris, the guardian divinity of the city.

  Plate V., Fig. 1, (Cat. 819.) An elongated head, with an indifferent
  frontal and low coronal region, straight nose, small orbits, and
  prominent upper jaw.—I. C. 85 cubic inches. F. A. 79°. _Egyptian
  form._

  Plate V., Fig. 2. (Cat. 820.) A large and finely moulded cranium, with
  a broad, full forehead, and long, but abruptly salient nose. The upper
  jaw has a remarkable downward elongation, which reduces the F. A. to
  76°.—I. C. 96 cubic inches. A man of 40. _Egyptian form._

  Plate V., Fig. 3. (Cat. 817.) A large, beautifully developed cranium,
  of harmonious proportions, but somewhat ponderous structure.—I. C. 89
  cubic inches. F. A. 80°. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate V., Fig. 4. (Cat. 818.) A small head, narrow and retreating,
  with a tumid occiput, very large, aquiline nose, and delicate,
  prominent face.—I. C. 69 cubic inches. F. A. 77°. _Semitic form._

  _Remarks._—In a memorandum accompanying these skulls, Mr. Gliddon
  observes that “they were obtained from a mummy-pit behind the temple
  of Rameses III., and they belong to the best class. Among the relics
  found in the same pit were a scarabæus, bearing the prenomen of
  Thotmes IV., and a piece of stamped pottery, (apparently enclosed with
  a mummy to denote the epoch,) which bore the nomen of Rameses III. It
  may, therefore, be reasonably conjectured, that these remains belong
  to the eighteenth Diospolitan dynasty, fixed by Professor Rosellini
  between the years 1822 and 1874, B.C.”

  The four heads are entirely denuded, but little appearance of bitumen
  remaining; nor is the ethmoid bone perforated. The bones bear the
  impress of age, and, in one instance, have become softened, and almost
  friable, from decomposition.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             FOURTH SERIES.

             FIFTY-FIVE HEADS FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.


  The greater part of this extensive and singularly perfect and varied
  series of heads, was collected by Mr. Gliddon during two visits to
  Thebes. They were all taken from the catacombs at _El Gourna_, on the
  western bank of the Nile. If we may judge by the different degrees of
  care manifested in the embalming process, they embrace individuals of
  every class excepting the highest and lowest; for the latter,
  according to the testimony of Herodotus, were never embalmed in the
  proper sense of that word; and the former were deposited in more
  elaborate sepulchres.

  Plate VI., Fig. 1. (Cat. 860.) A man of fifty, with a small but well
  proportioned cranium. The bones of the face are small, and the whole
  osseous structure very thin.—I. C. 80 cubic inches. F. A. 82°.
  _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 853.) Head of a man of fifty, with a low coronal region,
  receding forehead, full occiput, aquiline nose, and remarkable
  flatness beneath the temporal muscles.—I. C. 95 cubic inches.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate VI., Fig 2. (Cat. 865.) An oval head with a full but retreating
  forehead, a large, aquiline nose, and angular, prominent face. The
  eyes are embalmed open. _Semitic form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 3. (Cat. 893.) A singularly thin cranium, especially
  in the lateral parietal regions. The forehead is moderately expanded
  and the nose straight.—I. C. 85 cubic inches. F. A. 81°. _Pelasgic
  form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 4. (Cat. 850.) A large oval cranium, with a voluminous
  forehead, a small aquiline nose, and rounded orbits. Age, seventy to
  eighty years?—I. C. 86 cubic inches. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 5. (Cat. 859.) An octogenarian female, with a small
  but well proportioned head, and delicate facial bones. This cranium,
  which is remarkable for its tenuity, retains a very little smooth,
  long hair.—I. C. 82 cubic inches. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 6. (Cat. 881.) Skull of a female not exceeding
  seventeen years of age, with a beautifully developed forehead, and
  delicate facial bones, yet possessing an obvious downward elongation
  of the upper jaw, as in the Hindoo.—I. C. 71 cubic inches. F. A. 80°.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 7. (Cat. 889.) A well formed, oval head, with a
  remarkably prominent nose and chin.—I. C. 83 cubic inches. F. A. 83°.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 8. (Cat. 870.) A long oval cranium, with a broad,
  receding forehead, tumid occiput, very long aquiline nose, and sharp
  features. The hair, which is cut close, is brown and silky.—I. C. 79
  cubic inches. A man of thirty? _Semitic form._

  Plate VI., Fig. 9. (Cat. 876.) A small, but oval male head, with hair
  of a fine texture and brown colour.—I. C. 83 cubic inches. _Egyptian
  form._

  Plate VII., Fig. 1. (Cat. 851.) A narrow, elongated cranium, with a
  retreating forehead, and rather produced maxillæ. The whole osseous
  structure is remarkably delicate. A woman of thirty-five?—I. C. 79
  cubic inches. F. A. 80°. _Egyptian form._

  Plate VII., Fig. 2. (Cat. 861.) Skull of a man of fifty, large and
  massive: forehead and coronal region but moderately developed; face
  projecting, with a small, aquiline nose.—I. C. 91 cubic inches. F. A.
  78°. _Egyptian form._

  Plate VII., Fig. 3. (Cat. 857.) A female cranium, long, narrow, and
  much flattened at the sides, and rather ponderous. The whole face is
  long, angular, and prominent, with a slight yet manifest negro
  expression. A little hair remains, long, black, and smooth.—I. C. 83
  cubic inches. F. A. 77°. _Egyptian, blended with the Negro form?_

  Plate VII., Fig. 4. (Cat. 848.) A female head, with a narrow but
  elevated and finely arched frontal region, which forms, with the
  straight nose, something of a Grecian profile. The face, however, is
  not in keeping with the head, being much produced.—I. C. 82 cubic
  inches. F. A. 80°. _Egyptian form._

  Plate VII., Fig. 5. (Cat. 847.) A small head, narrow and laterally
  compressed, with a well formed forehead, and full occiput. The nose is
  very large and salient, and the maxillary structure much produced. A
  woman of thirty.—I. C. 68 cubic inches. F. A. 76°. _Egyptian form._

  Plate VII., Fig. 6. (Cat. 854.) A small but well proportioned cranium
  of a female not exceeding fifteen years of age. The forehead is full
  (by an oversight inadequately represented in the drawing,) and the
  whole of the osseous structure extremely delicate. _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 849.) Skull of a man of twenty-five years, finely oval, with a
  broad receding forehead, and full coronal region. Facial bones
  broken.—I. C. 81 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 894.) A beautiful juvenile head, with a broad high forehead,
  large, prominent nose, and oval orbits. _Pelasgic form._

  (Cat. 887.) A child of twelve or fourteen years, with a finely turned
  forehead, long, aquiline nose, and vertical teeth. A little long, fine
  hair remains on the occiput. _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 868.) Skull of a child of beautiful organization, excepting a
  slight inequality in the occipital region. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate VIII., Fig. 1. (Cat. 878.) An elongated head, with a broad
  receding forehead, long and nearly straight nose, and prominent chin.
  This person has been most carefully embalmed, with a profusion of
  gilding on various parts of the face. The hair is soft and curling,
  and of a dark-brown colour. A man of fifty?—I. C. 77 cubic inches.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate VIII., Fig. 2. (Cat. 879.) A man of fifty, admirably embalmed. A
  broad and full, but receding forehead, a large aquiline nose, and
  strong maxillæ. _Pelasgic head_ of the Roman conformation.

  Plate VIII., Fig. 3. (Cat. 839.) A short-oval cranium, with a full but
  retreating forehead, straight nose, and large prominent maxillæ.—I. C.
  74 cubic inches. F. A. 78°. _Egyptian blended with the Negro form?_

  Plate VIII., Fig. 4. (Cat. 871.) A juvenile female head, with a full
  but receding frontal region, long nose, sharp features, tumid occiput,
  and rounded orbits. _Egyptian form._

  Plate VIII., Fig. 5. (Cat. 866.) A small, juvenile, female head, with
  a convex but retreating forehead, and the whole face remarkably sharp,
  projecting, and repulsive. This head is elaborately gilded, and
  retains a portion of long, fine, smooth hair. _Egyptian form?_

  (Cat. 873.) An oval cranium, with a good frontal region, and salient
  nasal bones. The alveoli have been almost destroyed by absorption
  consequent to advanced age.—I. C. 88 cubic inches. _Pelasgic form?_

  Plate VIII., Fig. 6. (Cat. 883.) A well-developed cranium, with a long
  straight nose. A man of forty?—I. C. 82 cubic inches. F. A. 81°.
  _Egyptian form._

[Illustration]

  (Cat. 888.) Head of a man of thirty-five years? most carefully
  embalmed, with a high frontal region, and very long prominent angular
  face.—I. C. 85 cubic inches. _Egyptian_ blended with Negro or Malay
  lineaments? The conformation of this head is not unlike that of some
  modern Nubians.

  Plate VIII., Fig. 7. (Cat. 880.) A female head? of a fine oval form,
  long, straight nose, and quadrangular orbits. The angles of the lower
  jaw are remarkably expanded. The hair, which is cut short, is fine,
  and of a dark-brown colour.—I. C. 85 cubic inches. F. A. 80°.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate VIII., Fig. 8. (Cat. 867.) A large head with a broad convex
  frontal region, and full occiput. The nose is large and remarkably
  salient, and the maxillary bones projecting and ponderous. A little
  soft, dark-brown hair is attached to some remaining fragments of the
  scalp.—I. C. 86 cubic inches. F. A. 78°. _Egyptian form._

  This person has evidently undergone decapitation, and in order to
  attach the head again to the body, a ball of mummy cloth has been
  formed on the end of a piece of reed _within the cranium_, and the
  other end has been thrust between the spine and adjacent muscles, and
  confined there by bandages. There is also an excision of the occipital
  protuberance, by means of an axe or other sharp instrument, seemingly
  made by an unskilful effort to sever the head from the body.

  Plate VIII., Fig. 9. (Cat. 855.) Head of a female not exceeding
  eighteen years of age, with a finely developed forehead, very long
  aquiline nose, small but prominent face, and very peculiar features.
  Hair, dark-brown, and extremely fine. The face is gilded.—I. C. 78
  cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 874.) Head of a child of nine or ten years, closely shaved and
  elaborately gilded, with a high, full forehead, projecting jaws, and
  oblique teeth. _Egyptian blended with the Negro form?_

  (Cat. 48.) Skull of a child of eight years, with a fine frontal
  region, but rather prominent face. Hair long, and of a dark-brown
  colour. _Egyptian form._

  Plate IX. (Cat. 856.) A cranium of harmonious proportions, with a fine
  forehead, gently aquiline nose, delicate facial bones, and perfect
  teeth. A man of thirty?—I. C. 92 cubic inches. F. A. 80°.
  _Egypto-Pelasgic form._

  Plate X., Fig. 1. (Cat. 844.) A finely formed female head, with a
  straight nose, and delicate facial bones. Hair abundant, soft, and
  curling.—I. C. 68 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 2. (Cat. 872.) A woman of fifty?—with a low receding
  forehead, and prominent facial structure. Hair abundant, long, and
  very fine, of a light brown or auburn colour, and elaborately curled
  and platted.—I. C. 72 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 3. (Cat. 862.) Head of a man of sixty, with a broad
  receding forehead, salient nose and light facial bones. Hair, long,
  soft, and curling.—I. C. 79 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 4. (Cat. 843.) Head of a woman of thirty? most
  carefully embalmed; with a full forehead, very long, straight nose,
  and sharp delicate features, but prominent face. There is a profusion
  of long, brown, curling hair.—I. C. 74 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 5. (Cat. 877.) Head of a man with a broad receding
  forehead, salient nose, and delicate features. Hair, dark-brown,
  smooth and curling. The beard, though short, is preserved.—I. C. 89
  cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 6. (Cat. 60.) Head of a female not exceeding eighteen
  years of age, with a low forehead, long, straight nose, and rather
  prominent face. Hair long and fine. This style of head is very common
  on the Egyptian monuments. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 7. (Cat. 882.) Head of a young girl, with a very
  prominent nose, and long, smooth, curling hair: gilding on the eyelids
  and nose. _Egyptian form._

  Plate X., Fig. 8. (Cat. 884.) Head of a woman of thirty, of a
  faultless Caucasian mould. The hair, which is in profusion, is of a
  dark-brown tint, and delicately curled. _Pelasgic form._

  Plate X., Fig. 9. (Cat. 875.) A small female head, of seventy? years,
  with a fine frontal development, straight nose, and large oval orbits.
  The long, curling hair is of a yellowish colour, but has probably been
  gray, and dyed by _henna_.—I. C. 73 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate XI., Fig. 1. (Cat. 846.) Head of a youth of about eighteen
  years, with a remarkably broad and lofty forehead, a small straight
  nose, and delicately formed face. A little smooth, dark hair remains,
  and the whole has been elaborately embalmed, with a profusion of
  gilding on the face.—I. C. 87 cubic inches. This is one of the most
  perfectly formed heads that have ever come under my notice, yet the
  eyes are widely separated, the distance between the nose and mouth is
  remarkable, and the chin is short and receding. _Egypto-Pelasgic
  form._

  Plate XI., Fig. 2. (Cat. 842.) Head of a man of about fifty years of
  age, with a broad but very low and receding forehead. The nose is very
  large, and strongly aquiline, the teeth vertical and much worn, the
  cheek bones prominent, and the whole face remarkable for harshness of
  expression. A little brown hair remains on the occiput.—I. C. 85 cubic
  inches. _Semitic form._

  This head possesses great interest, on account of its decided Hebrew
  features, of which many examples are extant upon the _monuments_.

  (Cat. 886.) Head of a man of fifty? small but well proportioned
  throughout. The teeth, which are vertical, are remarkably worn by
  attrition.—I. C. 76 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate XII., Figs. 1, 2. (Cat. 845.) An oval head with a full forehead,
  and long aquiline nose. The orbits are far apart, and the balls
  replaced with bone, on which the iris is distinctly painted. The hair,
  which is cut short, is fine and straight.—I. C. 73 cubic inches. This
  head has something of the _Semitic_ character, both as respects
  configuration and expression, and I class it, though with some
  hesitation, with that series.


                  TWO HEADS OF LUNATICS, FROM THEBES.

[Illustration]

  Wood-cut 1. (Cat. 841.) An elongated head, with a very receding
  forehead, long, aquiline nose, and large, ponderous jaws, which
  project so as to reduce the facial angle to about 65°. This person has
  been embalmed with evident care, but with the mouth open, the tongue
  protruded, and the eyelids raised, giving a frightfully vacant
  expression to the whole countenance, and leaving no reasonable doubt
  that this is the head of an idiot. A little hair remains, which is
  remarkably fine, and encroaches on the eyebrows.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

  Wood-cut 2. (Cat. 863.) Another idiotic head, embalmed also with the
  mouth open and the tongue partially protruded. The cranium is long,
  the forehead low and receding, the face remarkably prominent, and the
  whole expression, as in the former instance, to the last degree vacant
  and repulsive. I presume that no one accustomed to comparisons of this
  nature can examine these heads, without agreeing with me in opinion as
  to their position in the intellectual scale. It may appear, and,
  indeed, is surprising, that two idiotic heads should be found among
  one hundred taken at random from the catacombs; and I can only explain
  the fact by supposing that a particular tomb was reserved for this
  unfortunate class of persons; and that the Arab servant employed by
  Mr. Gliddon, in his explorations at Thebes, invaded by chance this
  very sanctum. It is well known that idiotic persons have, in all ages,
  been regarded with a certain degree of veneration in the East; and
  hence their remains would be likely, in Egypt, to be carefully
  preserved after death. In examining Professor Rosellini’s plates, I
  find a solitary example of an idiot, whose head is represented in the
  annexed diagram; and it is curious to remark, that the sagacity of the
  Egyptian artist has admirably adapted this man’s vocation to his
  intellectual developments, for he is employed in stirring the fire of
  a blacksmith’s shop. This singular effigy is seen at Thebes.


                             NEGROID HEADS.

  In addition to the two heads of this class from Maabdeh and one from
  Memphis, I subjoin descriptions and outline drawings of five others
  from Thebes, which are here grouped for the advantage of more ready
  comparison.

[Illustration]

  Fig. 1. (Cat. 864.) A female cranium, of a narrow oval form, with a
  low, receding forehead, small nose, and protruding face. There is much
  of the Negro _expression_ in the bony structure of this head.—I. C. 77
  cubic inches. F. A. 75°.

  Fig. 2. (Cat. 858.) A large and rather ponderous cranium, with a well
  developed forehead, salient nose, jaws powerfully developed and
  protruding, and the upper teeth presenting obliquely outwards.—I. C.
  87 cubic inches. F. A. 77°.

  Fig. 3. (Cat. 885.) An oval head, with a convex frontal region, small,
  depressed nose, and very projecting face.—I. C. 77 cubic inches. F. A.
  76°.

  Fig. 4. (Cat. 852.) A small head, with a low, receding forehead, and
  strong, small nose, projecting maxillæ, and obvious Negro expression.
  A little hair remained, which was cut short, and was coarse without
  being woolly.—I. C. 77 cubic inches. F. A. 75°.

  Fig. 5. (Cat. 869.) An oval head, with a good frontal development,
  salient nose, and very projecting face.—I. C. 88 cubic inches. F. A.
  76°.

  In the preceding five crania, the Negro features and expression
  greatly predominate; at the same time there is an evident mixture of
  Caucasian characters. Two of them might pass, perhaps, for genuine
  Negroes, but for the comparatively fine texture of the hair. I
  therefore regard them as Mulattoes, to which class, also, may be
  referred a large proportion of the modern COPTS.

                  *       *       *       *       *

  (Cat. No. 1044.) The subjoined wood-cut illustrates a remarkable head,
  which may serve as a _type_ of the genuine EGYPTIAN conformation. The
  long, oval cranium, the receding forehead, gently aquiline nose, and
  retracted chin, together with a marked distance between the nose and
  mouth, and the long, smooth hair, are all characteristic of the
  monumental Egyptian.

[Illustration]


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             FIFTH SERIES.

                      THREE HEADS FROM KOUM OMBOS.

  The remains of this once celebrated city are seen on a sandy hill on
  the eastern bank of the Nile, to the south of Thebes. The Ombites were
  celebrated for the worship of the crocodile, which they embalmed with
  care and deposited in the catacombs. The three following heads were
  obtained by Mr. Gliddon from the Ombite necropolis.

  Plate XII., Fig. 3. (Cat. 830.) A female head of 30 years, with a low,
  narrow forehead, straight nose, and sharp, prominent features. The
  hair, which is in profusion, is long, fine and curling.—I. C. 77 cubic
  inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate XII., Fig. 4. (Cat. 831.) Head of a woman of 30 years?, with a
  narrow, but high and convex forehead, strong aquiline nose, and sharp
  facial structure. The hair is abundant, long, fine and curling.—I. C.
  68 cubic inches. _Egyptian form._

  Plate XII., Fig. 5. (Cat. 832.) An oval, thin skull, with a good
  frontal development, salient nose and delicate facial bones.—F. A.
  81°. _Egyptian form._

  It is remarkable that two of the preceding skulls (the third being too
  much broken for measurement) give an average internal capacity of less
  than 73 cubic inches.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             SIXTH SERIES.

          FOUR HEADS FROM A TUMULUS NEAR THE ISLAND OF PHILÆ.

  Philæ was the ancient boundary between Egypt and Nubia, and this
  little island contained several of the most venerated shrines of the
  Egyptian deities. The island of Beggeh (the ancient Senem) was also a
  consecrated spot, and is immediately contiguous to Philæ. It contains
  a funereal tumulus, which is supposed to have been the common
  sepulchre of those pilgrims who died during their sojourn, and hence,
  as Mr. Gliddon remarks in his memoranda, “they may have been of any
  nation or of any epoch.”

  Plate XII., Fig. 6. (Cat. 821.) A finely moulded head, with a good
  frontal development, aquiline nose, and delicate facial bones.—I. C.
  74 cubic inches. F. A. 79°. _Pelasgic form._

  (Cat. 822.) A juvenile head, of perhaps 12 years, thin and
  inequilateral, with a good forehead, and broad, inter-parietal
  diameter. The face is broken, and the ethmoid bone imperforate.
  _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 824.) A very narrow, infantile head, with brown, soft, curling
  hair. The face is deficient, and the head is rather desiccated than
  embalmed. _Egyptian form?_

  Plate XII., Fig. 7. (Cat. 823.) An unmixed _Negro_, with a narrow,
  elongated head, well-developed forehead, short and flat nasal bones,
  everted upper jaw, and short, gray, woolly hair. This appears to be
  the cranium of a woman of at least 60 years of age. The bones are
  thin, and the whole structure remarkably small.—I. C. 73 cubic inches.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            SEVENTH SERIES.

                   FOUR SKULLS FROM DEBOD, IN NUBIA.

  Debod or Deboud is about twelve miles south of Philæ, on the left bank
  of the Nile, and in north latitude 24°. It was the site of the ancient
  Parembole, and yet possesses some ruins of a once splendid temple of
  Ammon.

  The following heads were all obtained from a single pit, and from the
  rude manner in which they were embalmed and wrapped, Mr. Gliddon (who
  obtained them with his own hands) supposes them to have pertained to
  people of the lower order.

  Plate XII., Fig. 8. (Cat. 829.) Skull of a woman of 50? with a low but
  convex forehead, with which the nasal bones have formed a nearly
  straight line. The coronal region is low, and the whole osseous
  structure strong and rather harsh.—_Egyptian form._ I. C. 70 cubic
  inches. F. A. 85°.

  Plate XII., Fig. 9. (Cat. 827.) Skull of a man of 40, which strongly
  resembles the preceding. The forehead is low, but broad and vertical,
  the whole cranium long, the coronal region compressed, the orbits
  large, and the upper maxillæ slightly everted.—I. C. 82 cubic inches.
  _Egyptian form._

  Plate XIII. (Cat. 826.) A fine oval head, with a broad, high, convex
  forehead, large, straight nose, and rather prominent maxillæ. On one
  side is a mass of long, black hair, much curled, and of a fine
  texture.—I. C. 74 cubic inches. F. A. 77°. _Egyptian form._

  (Cat. 828.) An elongated, infantile head, with a narrow but vertical
  forehead, delicately formed face, very full occiput, and (what is not
  uncommon in children) a F. A. of 90°. _Egyptian form._

  _Remarks._—In addition to the preceding details, it remains to offer
  some general observations on the size and configuration of the head,
  together with a tabular view of the whole series of crania, arranged
  in the first place, according to their sepulchral localities, and, in
  the second, in reference to their national affinities.


     _Ethnographic Table of one hundred ancient Egyptian Crania._[4]

         ┌────────────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
         │Sepulchral  │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │    │
         │Localities. │ No.│Egyptian.│Pelasgic.│Semitic.│Mixed.│Negroid.│Negro.│Idiot.│
         ├────────────┼────┼────┬────┼────┬────┼────┬───┴┬────┐
         │Memphis,    │  26│   7│  16│   1│   1│   1│    │    │
         │Maabdeh,    │   4│   1│   1│    │    │   2│    │    │
         │Abydos,     │   4│   2│   1│   1│    │    │    │    │
         │Thebes,     │  55│  30│  10│   4│   4│   5│    │   2│
         │Ombos,      │   3│   3│    │    │    │    │    │    │
         │Philæ,      │   4│   2│   1│    │    │    │   1│    │
         │Debod,      │   4│   4│    │    │    │    │    │    │
         ├────────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
         │            │ 100│  49│  29│   6│   5│   8│   1│   2│
         └────────────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘


  The preceding table speaks for itself. It shows that more than eight
  tenths of the crania pertain to the unmixed Caucasian race; that the
  Pelasgic form is as one to one and two-thirds, and the Semitic form
  one to eight, compared with the Egyptian: that one twentieth of the
  whole is composed of heads in which there exists a trace of Negro and
  other exotic lineage:—that the Negroid conformation exists in eight
  instances, thus constituting about one thirteenth part of the whole;
  and, finally, that the series contains a single unmixed Negro.

  To these facts I shall briefly add the results of the observations of
  some authors who have preceded me in this inquiry. “I have examined in
  Paris, and in the various collections of Europe,” says Cuvier, “more
  than fifty heads of mummies, and not one amongst them presented the
  characters of the Negro or Hottentot.”[5]

  Two of the three mummy heads figured by Blumenbach, (Decad. Cran.,
  Figs. 1 and 31,) are unequivocally Egyptian, but the second, as that
  accurate observer remarks, has something of the Negro expression.[6]
  The third cranium delineated in the same work, (Plate 52,) is also
  Caucasian, but less evidently Egyptian, and partakes, in Professor
  Blumenbach’s opinion, of the Hindoo form. Of the four mummies
  described by Söemmering, “two differed in no respect from the European
  formation; the third had the African character of a long space marked
  out for the temporal muscle; the characters of the fourth are not
  particularized. The skulls of four mummies in the possession of Dr.
  Leach, of the British museum, and casts of three others, agree with
  those just mentioned in exhibiting a formation not differing from the
  European, without any trait of the Negro character.”[7]

  The two heads figured in the great French work, are both decidedly
  Egyptian, but the second and smaller one is the most strongly
  marked.[8]

  _Internal Capacity of the Cranium._[9]—As this measurement gives the
  size of the brain, I have obtained it in all the crania above sixteen
  years of age, unless prevented by fractures or the presence of bitumen
  within the skull; and this investigation has confirmed the proverbial
  fact of the general smallness of the Egyptian head, at least as
  observed in the catacombs south of Memphis. Thus, the Pelasgic crania
  from the latter city, give an average internal capacity of eighty-nine
  cubic inches; those of the same group from Thebes give eighty-six.
  This result is somewhat below the average of the existing Caucasian
  nations of the Pelasgic, Germanic, and Celtic families, in which I
  find the brain to be about ninety-three cubic inches in bulk. It is
  also interesting to observe that the Pelasgic brain is much larger
  than the Egyptian, which last gives an average of but eighty cubic
  inches; thus, as we shall hereafter see, approximating to that of the
  Indo-Arabian nations.

  The largest head in the series measures ninety-seven cubic inches;
  this occurs three times, and always in the Pelasgic group. The
  smallest cranium gives but sixty-eight cubic inches, and this is three
  times repeated in the Egyptian heads from Thebes. This last is the
  smallest brain I have met with in any nation, with three exceptions,—a
  Hindoo, a Peruvian, and a Negro.

  The Negroid heads, it will be observed, measure, on an average, eighty
  cubic inches, which is below the Negro mean; while the solitary Negro
  head (that of a person advanced in years,) measures but seventy-three
  cubic inches.[10]

  As this, however, is a question of much interest and some novelty, it
  may, perhaps, be better illustrated in a tabular form:—


             ┌────────────┬────────┬────┬───────┬────────┬─
             │Ethnographic│        │ No.│Largest│Smallest│    │Mean│
             │Division. │Locality.│  of│Brain.│Brain.│Mean│  C.│
             │          │        │Crania.│    │    │    │  I.│
             ├──────────┼────────┼────┬──┴─┬──┴─┬──┴─┬──┴─┐
             │          │Memphis.│  14│  97│  79│  89│    │
             │Pelasgic  │Abydos. │   1│  89│  89│  89│    │
             │Form.     │Thebes. │   5│  92│  82│  86│  88│
             │          │Philæ.  │   1│  74│  74│  74│    │
             ├──────────┼────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
             │          │Memphis.│   1│  88│  88│  88│    │
             │Semitic   │ Abydos.│   1│  69│  69│  69│  82│
             │Form.     │Thebes. │   3│  85│  79│  79│    │
             ├──────────┼────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
             │          │Memphis.│   7│  83│  73│  79│    │
             │Egyptian  │Abydos. │   2│  96│  85│  90│    │
             │Form.     │Thebes. │  25│  95│  68│  80│  80│
             │          │Ombos.  │   2│  77│  68│  73│    │
             │          │Debod.  │   3│  82│  70│  75│    │
             ├──────────┼────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
             │Negroid   │Maabdeh.│   1│  71│  71│  71│    │
             │Form.     │Thebes. │   5│  88│  71│  71│  79│
             ├──────────┼────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
             │Negro.    │Philæ.  │   1│  73│  73│  73│  73│
             └──────────┴────────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘


  _Facial Angle._—I have carefully measured the facial angle in all
  those _adult_ skulls which are sufficiently denuded for that purpose,
  and have obtained the following results:—


             ┌────────────────────────┬───┬────┬────┬────┐
             │ Ethnographic Division. │No.│    │    │    │
             │                        │Measured.│Largest.│Smallest.│Mean.│
             ├────────────────────────┼───┬────┬┴───┬────┤
             │Pelasgic form,          │16 │83° │73° │80° │
             │Egyptian form,          │20 │83° │76° │78° │
             │Semitic form,           │ 2 │77° │74° │75° │
             │Negroid form,           │ 6 │77° │73° │75° │
             └────────────────────────┴───┴────┴────┴────┘


  It is stated by M. Virey, that the numerous mummies which have been
  brought to Europe present the full facial angle of the Caucasian race.

  _The Structure of the Cranial Bones_ is as thin and delicate as in the
  European, and a ponderous skull is of unfrequent occurrence. I make
  this remark with the more satisfaction because it enables me to
  contest one of the observations of Herodotus; who tells us, that on
  visiting the field of battle whereon the Egyptians had fought with the
  Persians, he saw the bones of the latter lying on one side, and those
  of their enemies on the other. He then adds, that “the skulls of the
  former were so extremely soft as to yield to the slightest impression,
  even of a pebble; those of the Egyptians, on the contrary, were so
  firm that the blow of a large stone would hardly break them.” The
  historian then explains the reason of this difference, by stating that
  the Egyptians have thicker skulls, because their heads are frequently
  shaved and more exposed to the weather: while the Persians have soft
  skulls, owing to the habitual use of caps which protect their heads
  from the sun.

  These reveries are wholly untenable in a physiological point of view,
  and derive not the smallest support from anatomy itself; nor can there
  be a question that the confiding historian received his impressions
  through the ignorance or imposition of others. I have in my possession
  eight skulls of Fellahs, or modern Egyptian peasants, who habitually
  shave the head, and wear a thin cap; and yet their skulls, which are
  of various ages from early youth to senility, are without exception
  thin and delicate.

  Some modern authors have also attributed to the mummy skulls a
  _density_ which is not characteristic, but which is adventitiously
  acquired by the infiltration of bitumen into the diplöic structure
  during the process of embalming.

  _Hair._—The hair is fortunately preserved on thirty-six heads, in some
  instances in profusion, in others scantily, but always in sufficient
  quantity to enable us to judge of its texture. Thirty-one of these
  examples pertain to the Caucasian series, and in these the hair is as
  fine as that of the fairest European nations of the present day. The
  embalming process has changed it, with a few exceptions, from a black
  to a dark-brown colour. There are also several instances of gray hair,
  and two in which it is of a true flaxen colour: it is more than
  probable, however, that the latter hue has been produced
  artificially,—a practice still in use among the Saumaulies south of
  Adel.

  The preceding remarks on the texture of the hair accord with those of
  other observers, as well as with the monumental evidences of every
  epoch. Belzoni obtained plaited hair from the Theban catacombs
  eighteen inches in length; and M. Villoteau mentions another instance,
  from the same tombs, in which the tresses must have reached to the
  waist. Entire wigs of the same character are preserved, as every one
  knows, in the British and Berlin museums; and I also possess, through
  the kindness of Mr. Gliddon, a portion of a similar relic from Thebes,
  which is elaborately wrought into a great number of long and most
  delicate tresses.

  These facts lead to a few observations on the celebrated passage of
  Herodotus, who, when speaking of the Colchians, gives, among other
  proofs of their Egyptian lineage, that they “were black, and had short
  curling hair.” [Greek: Melanchroes kai oulotriches]. The above
  translation, which is that of the learned Beloe, expresses, in respect
  to the mode of _wearing_ the hair, precisely what is verified by my
  observations; for in nearly all the Caucasian heads on which it has
  been allowed to grow, it is remarkable for a profusion of short curls
  of extreme fineness,—a character which is preserved in several of the
  accompanying delineations.

  Herodotus farther tells us that the Egyptians kept their heads shaved;
  or perhaps he might have said with more precision, closely cut. But
  while the priests conformed to this rule, we are certain, from the
  foregoing facts, that there was a diversity of usage among the other
  classes, which is also proved by another passage in the same
  historian; for he assures us that “you see fewer bald in Egypt than in
  any other country.” Now if the Egyptians of all classes kept their
  heads shaved, it would be difficult to ascertain, and yet more
  difficult to _see_ whether they were subject to natural baldness or
  not. Again, if Herodotus had not been accustomed to observe the
  Egyptians _wearing_ their hair, how could he have compared them in
  this respect to the people of Colchis?

  The same author informs us that the inhabitants of Egypt permitted
  their hair to grow as a badge of mourning; an observation which is
  every where corroborated in monumental funereal scenes. This
  observation, however, was probably for a comparatively short period,
  and will not account for the frequent occurrence of long hair among
  the mummies of all classes. It is mentioned in history that among
  other indignities which Cambyses offered to the embalmed body of King
  Amasis, was that of tearing the hair from his head.

[Illustration]

  The monuments afford abundant proof that among the Egyptians, from the
  highest to the lowest castes, it was not unusual to wear the hair
  long. The marginal drawing represents a rustic, (one of six on the
  monument,) who is engaged in a wrestling match. And it is hardly to be
  supposed that the profusion of hair with which his head is covered,
  can be any other than the natural growth.[11] A man thus occupied
  would find a difficulty in keeping a wig on his head.

  So also with another from a tomb at Thebes, wherein a carpenter of
  pleasing but rather effeminate physiognomy, is engaged in the labours
  of his art.[12]

  Another example, that subjoined (No. 1,) is derived from a funereal
  procession at Thebes,[13] but granting, what is quite possible, that
  the woman in this instance, wears only a head-dress, the contrary can
  be insisted on in reference to another painting, of a group of five
  women engaged in athletic exercises, in the midst of which, one of
  them holds and partially sustains the other by her long, straight
  hair; showing that the latter could be no other than the natural
  growth. (No. 2.) It is also interesting to remark, that this picture
  dates back into “the night of time,”—that remote period antecedent to
  the eighteenth dynasty, of which this is one of the many remains yet
  preserved in the celebrated tomb of Novotpth, at Beni-Hassan.[14]

[Illustration:

  No. 1          No. 2          No. 3          No. 4
]

  Again, among the funereal processions at Thebes are several boat
  scenes, from one of which I derive the above drawing, representing an
  Egyptian woman in the act of lamentation, while her hair falls in long
  and graceful ringlets below her shoulders. (No. 3.)

  Another effigy, (No. 4,) that of an Egyptian lady from a painting in
  the Theban catacombs,[15] has the hair dressed in the same manner in
  which it is worn by the modern Nubian girls, as represented in one of
  the beautiful sketches by Mr. Wathen in his work on Egyptian
  architecture.

  These instances have been selected out of hundreds of a similar
  character which every where meet the eye on the Nilotic monuments, and
  which present a most satisfactory accordance with the evidence derived
  from the catacombs.

  Hamilton, in his Ægyptiaca, when describing the paintings at
  Elytheias, says that “the labourers are dressed in a kind of
  skull-cap, and have very little if any hair on their heads; while that
  of the others who superintend them spreads out at the sides, as with
  the Nubians and Berabera above the cataracts,”—and yet among these
  very labourers the hair of some is represented so long, that it
  projects beneath the cap and falls upon the shoulders.[16] If I may
  judge from the heads that have come under my notice, I should infer
  that the women, as a general rule at least, allowed their hair to
  grow; but that the practice was much less frequent among the men.

  In the heads of every Caucasian type in the series now before us, the
  hair is perfectly distinct from the woolly texture of the Negro, the
  frizzled curls of the Mulatto, or the lank, straight locks of the
  Mongolian.

  Of the eight Negroid heads, four are more or less furnished with hair,
  one is closely shaved, and two are entirely denuded. In those which
  retain the hair, it is comparatively coarse, and in one instance
  somewhat wiry. The hair of the solitary Negro head possesses the
  characteristic texture.

  I find a short beard (perhaps half an inch in length,) on three Theban
  heads of the Caucasian part of the series. (Plate IV., Fig. 1, Plate
  VIII., Fig. 1, and Plate X., Fig. 5.) The Egyptians habitually shaved
  the beard; but on their statues and paintings we frequently see a
  _beard-case_ which, as Rosellini remarks, appears to be merely
  emblematical of the male sex and of manhood.


  _The Teeth._—Professor Blumenbach, in his Decades Craniorum, long ago
  pointed out what he considered a peculiarity in the conformation of
  the teeth in some Egyptian mummies; namely, that the crowns of the
  incisors are very large, thick, and cylindrical, or obtusely conical,
  in place of having the characteristic chisel-like form.[17] I have
  given especial attention to this supposed peculiarity; but although
  the incisors remain more or less perfect in forty-five crania,
  embracing upwards of two hundred teeth of this class, I have not been
  able to confirm the preceding observation. On the contrary, there does
  not appear to be the smallest deviation from the ordinary form or
  structure; and I feel confident, that the learned and accurate
  Blumenbach was deceived by the worn condition of the crowns of the
  teeth, obviously resulting from the habitual mastication of hard
  substances. Mr. Lawrence expresses the same opinion, from personal
  observation; Dr. Prichard inclines to a similar view of the case, and
  remarks, that “the most satisfactory method of obtaining information
  is by inspecting the mummies of children.” Here, again, I have been so
  fortunate as to examine the crania of three children from one year old
  to five years, and five others between the ages of five and ten years.
  The result is entirely confirmatory of the opinion I have already
  advanced, and also coincides with the observations of Mr. Estlin.[18]

  What the masticated substances were, has not been ascertained; but the
  teeth of some Hindoos, even in early life, are as much worn away as
  those of the Egyptians. The latter, as a general rule, are remarkably
  free from decay, and in a number of instances the whole set remains
  unbroken. There are various examples in which the teeth appear to have
  been extracted; thus reminding us of the statement of Herodotus, that
  there was a class of physicians whose attention, like that of our
  modern dentists, was bestowed exclusively upon these organs.


  _The Nose._—A review of the preceding Anatomical details, and a glance
  at the accompanying delineations, will serve to show that the form of
  the nose in the Caucasian series was straight, or slightly aquiline,
  as in the Hindoo; more prominent, as in the Pelasgic tribes; and long,
  salient, and aquiline, as in the Arabian race, and more especially in
  the Semitic nations of that stock.

  It may be here observed, that the nasal bones have in many instances
  been more or less broken in forcing a passage through the ethmoid
  bone, for the purpose of removing the brain. This operation, which
  appears to have been almost uniformly practised at Thebes, was
  comparatively unusual at Memphis; for of the twenty-six heads from the
  latter necropolis, five only are perforated; while of the fifty-five
  Theban crania, all are perforated but two; and in a third the ethmoid
  is so little broken that the brain could not have been removed through
  the orifice. I moreover detect three instances of complete perforation
  of the nose, in which the brain had been extracted through the foramen
  magnum, by cutting the neck half across behind; the bandages being
  folded over the incision. The absence of the ethmoidal perforation in
  the oldest heads from Memphis, and in many others of a later date from
  the same necropolis, leads me to suppose that the brain may have been
  primitively removed through the foramen magnum; and that its
  extraction through the nose, as already suggested, may have been a
  subsequent refinement of the embalming art. Again, the different
  provinces of Egypt may have had peculiar and conventional details in
  this as in other usages; for all the heads from Ombos and Maabdeh have
  the ethmoidal opening; all those from Abydos and Debod are without it;
  while of the four from Philæ, one is perforated and three are not.

  Denon long ago pointed out a peculiarity of the Egyptian profile, as
  seen in the remarkable distance between the nostrils and the teeth.
  This feature, with a small receding chin, is of frequent occurrence
  both in the mummies and on the monuments.


  _Position of the Ear._—Every one who has paid the least attention to
  Egyptian art, has observed the elevated position which is given to the
  ear; and I have examined my entire series of heads, in order to
  ascertain whether this peculiarity has any existence in nature, but I
  can find nothing in them to confirm it. The bony meatus presents no
  deviation from the usual relative arrangement of parts; but the
  cartilaginous structure being desiccated, and consequently contracted,
  may not afford satisfactory evidence. Clot Bey and other authors have
  remarked an elevation of the ear in some modern Copts; and the
  traveller Raw, quoted by Virey, notices the same feature in the
  Hindoos, and it is said also to exist in degree in the Jews. There
  may, therefore, be _some_ foundation for this peculiarity of Egyptian
  sculpture and painting; but I feel confident that in nature it is
  nothing more than an upward elongation of the auricular cartilages,
  without any modification of the bony meatus. It has also occurred to
  me that the appearance in question may be sometimes owing to the
  remarkable vertical length of the upper jaw in some heads (those
  represented Plate IV., Fig. 2, and Plate V., Fig. 2, for example,) in
  which it is manifest that the ear would possess a remarkable elevation
  in respect to the maxillary bones, without being any nearer to the top
  of the head than usual. These hints may possibly afford some clew to a
  satisfactory explanation of an almost invariable rule of Egyptian art.

  Dr. Prichard (Researches Vol. II., p. 251,) has given an abstract of
  some observations made by M. De La Malle, on the mummies contained in
  the Museum of Turin. “In the skulls of these [six] mummies, as well as
  in many others brought from the same country, although the facial
  angle was not different from that of European heads, the meatus
  auditorius, instead of being situated in the same plane with the basis
  of the nose, was found by M. De Malle to be exactly on a level with
  the centre of the eye”! Unless M. De Malle is an anatomist, and
  accustomed to comparisons of this kind, I can imagine that he might be
  deceived by the mere position in which the head was placed for
  inspection; for the more the face is drawn downward, the higher will
  be the relative position of the ear, until it may be brought on a
  level either with the nostrils or the eye, at option. I am the more
  disposed to offer this suggestion because we are told that in the
  mummies in question “the facial angle was not different from that of
  European heads.” I need hardly remark, however, that the higher the
  external meatus of the ear, the less will be the facial angle; so that
  M. De Malle’s two observations manifestly contradict each other.

  In the annexed plates the reader will find seventy-four accurate
  delineations of mummied heads, among which he will search in vain for
  the alleged peculiarity of the Egyptian ear. It is equally absent in
  the Pelasgic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Negroid forms: and yet the
  Egyptians, on their monuments, bestowed it alike on the people of all
  nations, of all epochs, and of every condition in life. See Plate XIV.


  _Complexion._—On this point our evidence is, perhaps, less conclusive
  than on most others connected with Egyptian ethnography. Yet, meagre
  as it may seem, we cannot pass it by without a few remarks.

  Herodotus, in the passage already cited, (p. 115,) speaks of the
  colour of the Egyptians as if it were black; yet this is evidently a
  relative, and not an absolute term. This remark applies, also, to the
  hackneyed fable of the two black doves, who are said, in mythological
  language, to have flown from Egypt, and established (at least one of
  them) the oracle of Delphi. Here, again, Herodotus supposes that
  because the doves were black, they must have represented Egyptian
  personages. But the Greeks, observes Maurice, called every thing black
  that related to Egypt, not excepting the river, the soil, and even the
  country itself; whence the name [Greek: Ermochymios]—the black country
  of Hermes.

  Again, in reference to the statement of Herodotus, on which I have
  already, perhaps, too largely commented, it may be well to give the
  evidence of another eye-witness, that of Ptolemy the geographer, who
  is believed to have been born in Egypt. He wrote in the second century
  of our era, and his observations must consequently have been made
  something more than five hundred years later than those of Herodotus.
  His words are as follow:—“In corresponding situations on our side of
  the equator, that is to say, under the tropic of Cancer, men have not
  the colour of Ethiopians, nor are there elephants and rhinoceroses.
  But a little south of this, the northern tropic, the people are
  _moderately dark_, ([Greek: êrema tynchanousi melanes],) as those, for
  example, who inhabit the thirty Schæni, (as far as Wady Halfa, in
  Nubia,) above Syene. But in the country around Meroë they are already
  sufficiently black, and _there we first meet with pure Negroes_.”[19]

  Here is ample evidence to prove that the natural geographical position
  of the Negroes was the same seventeen centuries since as it is now;
  and for ages antecedent to Herodotus, the monuments are perfectly
  conclusive on the same subject. I could, therefore, much more readily
  believe that the historian had never been in Egypt at all,[20] than
  admit the literal and unqualified interpretation of his words which
  has been insisted on by some, and which would class the Egyptians with
  the Negro race.

  On the monuments the Egyptians represent the men of their nation red,
  the women yellow; which leads to the reasonable inference that the
  common complexion was _dark_, in the same sense in which that term is
  applicable to the Arabs and other southern Caucasian nations, and
  varying, as among the modern Hindoos, from comparatively fair to a
  dark and swarthy hue. “Two facts,” says Heeren, “are historically
  demonstrated; one, that among the Egyptians themselves there was a
  difference of colour; for individuals are expressly distinguished from
  each other by being of a darker or lighter complexion: the other, that
  the higher castes of warriors and priests, wherever they are
  represented in colours, pertain to the fairer class.”

  That the Ethiopians proper, or Meroïtes, were of a dark, and perhaps
  very dark complexion, is more than probable; and among other facts in
  support of this view, we find that the mother of Amunoph III., and
  wife of Thotmes IV., who was a Meröite princess, is painted black on
  the monuments. Thus the different complexion of the great divisions of
  the Egyptian nation must sometimes have been blended, like their
  physiognomical traits, even in the members of the royal family.

  It is not, however, to be supposed that the Egyptians were really
  _red_ men, as they are represented on the monuments. This colour, with
  a symbolic signification, was conventionally adopted for the whole
  nation, (with very rare exceptions,) from Meröe to Memphis. Thus,
  also, the kings of the Greek and Roman dynasties are painted of the
  same complexion.[21]

  Professor Rosellini supposes the Egyptians to have been of a brown, or
  reddish-brown colour, (rosso-fosco,) like the present inhabitants of
  Nubia; but, with all deference to that illustrious archæologist, I
  conceive that his remark is only applicable to the Austral-Egyptians
  as a group, and not to the inhabitants of Egypt proper, except as a
  partial result of that mixture of nations to which I have already
  adverted, and which will be more fully inquired into hereafter.

  The well known observation of Ammianus Marcellinus, “Homines Ægyptii
  _plerique subfusculi_ sunt, et atrati,” is sufficiently descriptive,
  and corresponds with other positive evidence, in relation to the great
  mass of the people; and when the author subsequently tells us that the
  Egyptians “blush and grow red,” we find it difficult to associate
  these ideas with a black, or any approximation to a black skin.[22]

  The late Doctor Young, in his Hieroglyphical Literature, has given a
  translation of a deed on papyrus of the reign of Ptolemy Alexander I.,
  in which the parties to a sale of land at Thebes are described in the
  following terms:—“Psammonthes, aged about 45, of middle size, dark
  complexion and handsome figure, bald, round-faced and straight-nosed;
  Snachomneus, aged about 20, of middle size, sallow complexion,
  round-faced and straight-nosed; Semmuthis Persinei, aged about 22, of
  middle size, sallow complexion, round-faced, flat-nosed, and of quiet
  demeanour; and Tathlyt Persinei, aged about 30, of middle size, sallow
  complexion, round face and straight nose, the four being children of
  Petepsais of the leather-dressers of the Memnonia; and Necheutes the
  less, the son of Azos, aged about 40, of middle size, sallow
  complexion, cheerful countenance, long face and straight nose, with a
  scar upon the middle of the forehead.” In another deed of the same
  epoch, also translated by Dr. Young, an Egyptian named Anophris is
  described as “tall, of a sallow complexion, hollow-eyed and bald.”

  Independently of the value of the other physical characters preserved
  in these documents, the remarks on complexion have a peculiar
  interest; for they show that among six individuals of three different
  families, one only had a dark complexion, and that all the rest were
  sallow.

  From the preceding facts, and many others which might be adduced, I
  think we may safely conclude, that the complexion of the Egyptians did
  not differ from that of the other Caucasian nations in the same
  latitudes. That while the higher classes, who were screened from the
  action of a burning sun, were fair in the comparative sense, the
  middle and lower classes, like the modern Berbers, Arabs, and Moors,
  presented various shades of complexion, even to a dark and swarthy
  tint, which the Greeks regarded as black in comparison with their own.
  To these diversities must also be added others incident to a vast
  servile population, derived from all the adjacent nations, among which
  the sable Negro stood forth in bold and contrasted characters.

  Dr. Wiseman, after a critical examination of the evidence in reference
  to this mooted question, has arrived at the following philosophical
  conclusion;—“It is not easy to reconcile the conflicting results thus
  obtained from writers and from monuments; and it is no wonder that
  learned men should have differed widely in opinion on the subject. I
  should think the best solution is, that Egypt was the country where
  the Greeks most easily saw the inhabitants of interior Africa, (the
  Negroes,) many of whom, doubtless, flocked thither and were settled
  there, or served in the army as tributaries or provincials, as they
  have done in later times; and _thus they came to be confounded by
  writers with the country where alone they knew them, and were
  considered part of the indigenous population_.”[23]


  _External Configuration._—On this subject I have nothing to add but
  the following external measurements,[24] (taken with my own hands,)
  derived from each group, and embracing all the denuded adult crania
  excepting two of the Semitic form.


                        _Table I. Pelasgic Group._

 ┌──────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬───────────┬─────┬─────┐
 │      │     │      │     │     │     │     │           │     │     │
 │      │ No. │      │     │     │     │     │           │Occipito-Frontal│     │
 │      │ in  │Plate.│Longitud.│Parietal│Frontal│Vertical│Inter-mastoid│Arch.│Horizontal│
 │      │Cat. │      │Diam.│Diam.│Diam.│Diam.│Diam.  Line.│     │Periphery.│
 ├──────┴┬────┴┬─────┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬─────┬────┴┬────┴┬────
 │Thebes,│856  │IX.    │7.5  │5.6  │4.5  │5.2  │15.1 │4.2  │15.6 │21.  │
 │Thebes,│859  │  VI.,│7.1  │5.1  │4.3  │5.3  │14.1 │4.1  │14.5 │20.  │
 │      │     │    5.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Thebes,│850  │  VI.,│7.4  │5.3  │4.3  │5.4  │15.  │4.3  │15.3 │20.5 │
 │      │     │    4.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Thebes,│893  │  VI.,│7.2  │5.4  │4.4  │5.3  │14.6 │4.1  │14.7 │20.3 │
 │      │     │    3.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Abydos,│817  │V., 3.│7.1  │5.7  │4.5  │5.4  │15.6 │3.9  │15.3 │20.5 │
 │Memphis,│803  │ III.,│7.5  │5.6  │4.3  │5.   │14.8 │4.   │14.9 │20.8 │
 │      │     │    8.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│808  │  II.,│7.4  │5.7  │4.8  │5.1  │15.  │4.   │14.9 │21.  │
 │      │     │    1.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│816  │ III.,│7.4  │5.1  │4.3  │5.5  │15.  │4.   │15.1 │20.6 │
 │      │     │    5.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│802  │ III.,│6.8  │5.2  │4.3  │5.4  │13.9 │4.2  │14.  │19.  │
 │      │     │    7.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│812  │  II.,│6.8  │5.5  │4.5  │4.8  │13.6 │4.   │14.1 │19.9 │
 │      │     │    3.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│815  │  II.,│7.   │5.2  │4.1  │5.4  │14.6 │3.9  │15.  │19.9 │
 │      │     │    2.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│799  │ III.,│7.2  │5.7  │4.2  │5.   │14.9 │3.7  │14.8 │20.4 │
 │      │     │    4.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│814  │  II.,│7.3  │5.8  │4.6  │5.2  │15.4 │4.3  │15.5 │20.8 │
 │      │     │    5.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│805  │  II.,│7.4  │5.   │3.9  │5.3  │14.4 │3.9  │15.  │19.8 │
 │      │     │    7.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│838  │I., 1.│7.5  │5.5  │4.4  │5.5  │14.7 │4.   │15.  │20.7 │
 │Memphis,│837  │I., 2.│7.8  │5.7  │4.6  │5.7  │15.  │4.1  │15.6 │21.2 │
 │Memphis,│798  │ III.,│6.9  │5.5  │4.4  │5.1  │14.2 │4.1  │14.5 │19.5 │
 │      │     │    6.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│825  │ III.,│7.5  │5.7  │4.3  │5.3  │15.  │4.2  │15.  │20.7 │
 │      │     │    9.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Memphis,│840  │  II.,│7.3  │5.4  │4.6  │5.2  │14.8 │4.1  │15.  │20.6 │
 │      │     │    9.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Philæ,│821  │ XII.,│6.9  │5.2  │4.4  │4.9  │14.  │4.   │14.  │19.5 │
 │      │     │    6.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 ├──────┴─────┴──────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤
 │  Highest in the   │7.8  │5.8  │4.8  │5.7  │15.6 │4.3  │15.6 │21.2 │
 │series,            │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │  Mean,            │7.25 │5.44 │4.38 │5.25 │14.6 │4.05 │14.85│20.33│
 │  Lowest in the    │6.8  │5.1  │3.9  │4.8  │13.6 │3.7  │14.  │19.  │
 │series,            │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 └───────────────────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┘


  The _frontal diameter_ is taken between the anterior inferior angles
  of the parietal bones.

  The _vertical diameter_ is measured from the fossa between the
  condyles of the occipital bone, to the top of the skull.

  The _inter-mastoid arch_ is measured, with a graduated tape, from the
  point of one mastoid process to the other, over the external table of
  the skull.

  The _inter-mastoid line_ is the distance, in a straight line, between
  the points of the mastoid processes.

  The _occipito-frontal arch_ is measured by a tape over the surface of
  the cranium, from the posterior margin of the foramen magnum to the
  suture which connects the os frontis with the bones of the nose.

  The _horizontal periphery_ is measured by passing a tape around the
  cranium so as to touch the os frontis immediately above the
  superciliary ridges, and the most prominent part of the occipital
  bone.




                       _Table II. Egyptian Group._

 ┌──────┬─────┬────────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┐
 │      │     │        │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │      │ No. │        │     │     │     │     │Inter-mastoid│Inter-mastoid│Occipito-Frontal│     │
 │      │ in  │        │Longitud.│Parietal│Frontal│Vertical│     │     │     │Horizontal│
 │      │Cat. │ Plate. │Diam.│Diam.│Diam.│Diam.│Arch.│Line.│Arch.│Periphery.│
 ├──────┴┬────┴┬───────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬─────
 │Thebes,│857  │VII., 3.│7.   │5.   │4.   │5.3  │14.6 │3.8  │14.9 │19.6 │
 │Thebes,│849  │        │7.1  │5.5  │4.4  │5.2  │14.8 │3.9  │14.6 │20.1 │
 │Thebes,│860  │ VI., 1.│7.   │5.4  │4.4  │5.3  │14.7 │4.   │14.2 │20.  │
 │Thebes,│848  │VII., 4.│7.1  │5.2  │4.1  │5.   │14.2 │3.7  │15.  │20.  │
 │Thebes,│847  │VII., 5.│6.8  │4.8  │3.9  │5.   │13.5 │4.   │13.9 │18.8 │
 │Thebes,│851  │VII., 1.│7.   │5.3  │4.5  │5.   │14.  │4.   │14.  │19.7 │
 │Thebes,│853  │        │7.5  │5.6  │4.3  │5.   │15.5 │4.1  │15.  │20.7 │
 │Abydos,│820  │  V., 2.│7.5  │5.5  │4.   │5.5  │15.2 │3.9  │15.7 │20.9 │
 │Abydos,│819  │  V., 1.│7.3  │5.3  │4.   │5.   │14.6 │4.   │14.6 │19.8 │
 │Memphis,│806  │ II., 4.│6.6  │5.9  │4.   │4.8  │14.6 │4.2  │13.6 │19.7 │
 │Memphis,│811  │III., 1.│6.9  │5.5  │4.   │4.8  │14.5 │3.7  │14.4 │19.5 │
 │Memphis,│809  │III., 2.│7.3  │5.3  │4.2  │4.9  │14.3 │3.9  │14.5 │20.6 │
 │Memphis,│795  │        │7.   │5.3  │4.1  │5.1  │14.9 │3.9  │14.4 │19.5 │
 │Memphis,│796  │        │6.7  │5.4  │4.3  │4.8  │14.3 │3.9  │13.9 │19.5 │
 │Memphis,│797  │        │6.8  │5.2  │4.4  │5.1  │14.5 │4.   │14.2 │19.4 │
 │Debod,│827  │XII., 9.│7.3  │5.2  │4.5  │4.9  │13.7 │4.2  │14.9 │20.5 │
 │Debod,│826  │XIII.    │7.   │5.1? │4.   │5.4  │14.  │4.   │14.5 │19.  │
 │Debod,│829  │XII., 8.│7.   │5.1  │4.3  │5.   │13.7 │3.6  │13.7 │19.5 │
 │Thebes,│867  │  VIII.,│7.8  │5.4  │4.3  │5.5  │15.  │4.3  │15.5 │21.4 │
 │      │     │      8.│     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Thebes,│861  │VII., 2.│7.3  │5.3  │4.4  │5.5  │14.7 │4.2  │15.2 │20.3 │
 │Memphis,│810  │ II., 6.│7.2  │5.5  │4.4  │5.2  │14.7 │3.8  │15.2 │20.7 │
 │Thebes,│889  │ VI., 7.│7.5  │5.2  │4.4  │5.8  │14.4 │4.3  │15.2 │20.5 │
 │Ombos,│832  │XII., 5.│7.4  │5.4  │4.5  │5.   │15.  │4.2  │14.9 │20.5 │
 ├──────┴─────┴────────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤
 │Highest in the       │7.8  │5.9  │4.5  │5.8  │15.5 │4.3  │15.7 │21.4 │
 │series,              │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │     │
 │Mean,                │7.15 │5.32 │4.21 │5.14 │14.5 │4.   │14.6 │20.1 │
 │Lowest in the series,│6.6  │4.8  │3.9  │4.8  │13.5 │3.6  │13.6 │18.8 │
 └─────────────────────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┘




                       _Table III. Negroid Group._

 ┌──────┬────┬────────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬───────────┬────────────
 │      │No. │        │     │     │     │     │           │Occipito-Frontal│     │
 │      │ in │Page or │Longitud.│Parietal│Frontal│Vertical│Inter-mastoid│Arch.│Horizontal│
 │      │Cat.│Plate   │Diam.│Diam.│Diam.│Diam.│Arch.    Line│     │Periphery.│
 ├──────┴┬───┴┬───────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬─────┬─────┬┴────┬┴────
 │Thebes,│864 │Page 17,│7.   │5.1  │4.2  │5.4  │14.4 │3.3  │14.6 │19.6 │
 │Thebes,│885 │"   "   │7.   │5.5  │4.5  │5.1  │14.4 │3.5  │14.8 │19.7 │
 │Thebes,│858 │"   "   │7.4  │5.3  │4.5  │5.   │14.6 │4.4  │14.6 │20.5 │
 │Thebes,│852 │"   "   │7.2  │5.1  │4.4  │5.2  │14.  │4.3  │14.3 │19.5 │
 │Thebes,│869 │"   "   │7.4  │5.4  │4.1  │5.5  │13.9 │4.3  │15.5 │20.  │
 │Maabdeh,│834 │IV., 2  │6.4  │5.5  │4.2  │5.1  │13.8 │4.   │13.8 │18.7 │
 ├────────┴────┴──────┬─┴───┬─┴───┬─┴───┬─┴───┬─┴───┬─┴───┬─┴───┬─┴───┐
 │Mean,               │7.05 │5.3  │4.3  │6.2  │14.2 │4.   │14.6 │19.6 │
 └────────────────────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┘

  These measurements, it must be confessed, possess merely an isolated
  interest until they can be compared with those derived from the other
  races of men.[25] Meanwhile I give them as I find them, and in the
  hope of being able to institute the desired comparisons on some future
  occasion.


  _Stature._—Mr. Pettigrew’s measurements seem to prove, what the size
  of the head also indicates, that the Egyptians were of the middle
  stature. He met with no instance which, even enveloped in its
  bandages, would measure more than five feet six inches. Perhaps,
  however, sufficient allowance has not been made for the contraction of
  the joints, and especially of the intervertebral substance, which in a
  state of complete desiccation, would diminish the length of the body
  at least two inches. In the year 1833, I purchased of the heirs of the
  late Senior Lébolo, a dilapidated mummy from Thebes, of which I
  prepared the skeleton, now preserved in the Anatomical Museum of the
  University of Pennsylvania. It measures about five feet ten inches,
  and is in every respect beautifully developed excepting the cranium,
  which is small in proportion and of indifferent conformation.[26]


  _Age._—It is a familiar fact that the mummies of children are rarely
  found in the Egyptian catacombs, at least in comparison with those of
  adults; a circumstance which has not been satisfactorily explained.

  Champollion Figeac observes that the Egyptians were a long-lived
  people, as proved by their funereal inscriptions which frequently
  speak of the dead as having passed the age of fourscore years; a
  remark which derives some confirmation from the following table,
  wherein the crania in my possession are proximately classed according
  to their respective ages:—

                     From one year old to         3
                     five,

                     From five to ten,            5

                     From ten to fifteen,         4

                     From fifteen to twenty,      9

                     From twenty to thirty,      27

                     From thirty to forty,       25

                     From forty to fifty,        18

                     From fifty to sixty,         2

                     From sixty to seventy,       2

                     From seventy to eighty,      3

                     From eighty to ninety,       2

                                                 ——

                                                100

  Having thus identified, in the catacombs, the remains of the various
  people who constituted the Nilotic family, we proceed in the next
  place to trace them on the monuments of Egypt and Nubia; and as the
  value of this comparison must depend on the fidelity of the artists
  who have copied the paintings and bas-reliefs, we shall derive the
  following illustrations, with one or two exceptions, from the
  admirable works of Champollion, Rosellini, and Hoskins.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           1. THE EGYPTIANS.

  The monuments from Meroë to Memphis, present a pervading type of
  physiognomy which is every where distinguished at a glance from the
  varied forms which not unfrequently attend it, and which possesses so
  much nationality both in outline and expression, as to give it the
  highest importance in Nilotic ethnography. We may repeat that it
  consists in an upward elongation of the head, with a receding
  forehead, delicate features, but rather sharp and prominent face, in
  which a long and straight or gently aquiline nose forms a principal
  feature. The eye is sometimes oblique, the chin short and retracted,
  the lips rather tumid, and the hair whenever it is represented, long
  and flowing.

  This style of features pertains to every class, kings, priests, and
  people, and can be readily traced through every period of monumental
  decoration, from the early Pharaohs down to the Greek and Roman
  dynasties. Among the most ancient and at the same time most
  characteristic examples, are the heads of Amunoph the Second, and his
  mother, as represented in a tomb at Thebes,[27] which dates, in
  Rosellini’s chronology, seventeen hundred and twenty-seven years
  before our era. In these effigies all the features are strictly
  Egyptian, and how strikingly do they correspond with those of many of
  the embalmed heads from the Theban catacombs!

[Illustration:

  Fig. 1.                Fig. 2.
]

  A similar physiognomy preponderates among the royal Egyptian
  personages of every epoch, as will be manifest to any one who will
  turn over the pages of Champollion and Rosellini. The head of Horus
  (Plate XIV., Fig. 2,) is an admirable illustration, while in the
  portraits of Rameses IV., and Rameses IX., (Plate XIV., Fig. 6 and 7,)
  the same lines are apparent, though much less strongly marked. How
  admirably also are they seen in the subjoined juvenile head, (Fig. 1,)
  which is that of a royal prince, copied from the very ancient
  paintings in the tomb of Pehrai, at Eletheias.[28] So also in the face
  of Rameses VII., (Fig. 2,) who lived perhaps one thousand years later
  in time.

[Illustration:

  Fig. 1.                Fig. 2.
]

  I observe that the priests almost invariably present this physiognomy,
  and in accordance with the usage of their caste, have the head closely
  shaven. When coloured they are red, like the other Egyptians. The
  subjoined drawing, (No. 1,) which is somewhat harsh in outline, is
  from the portico of one of the pyramids of Meroë,[29] and is probably
  one of the oldest human effigies in Nubia. They abound in all the
  temples of that country, and especially at Semneh, Dakkeh, Soleb,
  Gebel-Berkel, and Messoura.[30]

  From the numberless examples of similar conformation, I select another
  of a priest from the bas-relief at Thebes, which is remarkable for
  delicacy of outline and pleasing serenity of expression.[31] (No. 2.)

  So invariably are these characters allotted to the sacerdotal caste,
  that we readily detect them in the two priests who, by some
  unexplained contingency, become kings in the twentieth dynasty. Their
  names read Amensi-Hrai-Pehor and Phisham on the monuments; and the
  accompanying outline is a fac-simile of Rosellini’s portrait of the
  latter personage, who lived about eleven hundred years before the
  Christian era.[32] In this head the Egyptian and Pelasgic characters
  appear to be blended, but the former preponderate. (No. 3.)

  The last outline, (No. 4,) represents a modification of the same type,
  that of the _Harper_ in Bruce’s tomb at Thebes. The beautiful form of
  the head and the intellectual character of the face, may be compared
  with similar efforts of Grecian art. It dates with Rameses the IV.[33]

[Illustration:

       1.                            2.
         3.                                 4.
]

  As I believe this to be a most important ethnographic indication, and
  one which points to the vast body of the Egyptian people, I subjoin
  four additional heads of priests from a tomb at Thebes, of the
  eighteenth dynasty. We are forcibly impressed with the delicate
  features and oblique eye of the left hand personage, and with the
  ruder but characteristic outline of the other figures, in which the
  prominent face, though strongly drawn, is essentially Egyptian.[34]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

  The annexed outlines, which present more pleasing examples of the same
  ethnographic character, are copied from the tomb of Titi, at Thebes,
  and date with the remote era of Thotmes IV.[35] They represent five
  _fowlers_ in the act of drawing their net over a flock of birds. The
  long, flowing hair is in keeping with the facial traits, which latter
  are also well characterized in the subjoined drawings, derived from
  monuments of different epochs and localities.

[Illustration:

       1.                            2.
         3.                                 4.
]

  Fig. 1, is the head of a _weaver_, from the paintings in the very
  ancient tomb of Roti and Menoph at Beni-Hassan, wherein the same cast
  of countenance is reiterated without number.[36]

  Fig. 2, a _wine-presser_, is also from Beni-Hassan, and dates with
  Osortasen, more than 2000 years before the Christian era.[37]

  Fig. 3, is a _cook_, who in the tomb of Rameses the Fourth, at Thebes,
  is represented with many others in the active duties of his
  vocation.[38]

  Fig. 4. I have selected this head as an exaggerated or caricatured
  illustration of the same type of physiognomy. It is one of the
  _goat-herds_ painted in the tomb of Roti, at Beni-Hassan.[39]

  The most recent of these last four venerable monuments of art, dates
  at least 1450 years before our era: the oldest belongs to unchronicled
  times; and the same physical characters are common on the Nubian and
  Egyptian monuments down to the Ptolemaic and Roman epochs.

  The peculiar head-dress of the Egyptians often greatly modifies and in
  some degree conceals their characteristic features; and may at first
  sight lead to the impression that the priests possessed a physiognomy
  of a distinct or peculiar kind. Such, however, was not the case, as a
  little observation will prove. Take, for example, the three following
  drawings from a Theban tomb, in which two mourners have head-dresses
  and two priests are without them. Are not the national characteristics
  unequivocally manifest in them all?[40]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

  In addition to the copious remarks already made in reference to the
  hair, we cannot omit the annexed picture from a tomb in Thebes, which
  represents an Egyptian woman in the act of lamentation before the
  embalmed body of a relative, while the long, black hair reaches even
  below the waist.[41]

  It is thus that we trace this peculiar style of countenance in its
  several modifications through epochs and in localities the most remote
  from each other, and in every class of the Egyptian people. How
  different from the Pelasgic type, yet how obviously Caucasian! How
  varied in outline, yet how readily identified! And if we compare these
  features with those of the Egyptian series of embalmed heads, are we
  not forcibly impressed with a striking analogy not only in
  osteological conformation, but also in the very expression of the
  face? Compare, for example, the head on page 17 . Observe, also, the
  six skulls figured, Plate VII., Plate XII., Fig. 4; Plate X., Fig. 4;
  Plate VIII., Fig. 9, and the numerous accompanying illustrations, and
  no one, I conceive, will question the analogy I have pointed out. This
  type is certainly _national_, and presents to our view the _genuine
  Egyptian physiognomy_, which, in the Ethnographic scale, is
  intermediate between the Pelasgic and Semitic forms. We may add, that
  this conformation is the same which Prof. Blumenbach refers to the
  _Hindoo_ variety in his triple classification of the Egyptian
  people.[42] And this leads us briefly to inquire, who were the
  Egyptians?

  It is in the sacred writings only that we find any authentic records
  of the primeval migrations of our species. “In the general allotment
  of territories to the offspring of Noah,” observes Mr. Gliddon,
  “Egypt, by the concurrent testimony of all Biblical commentators, was
  assigned to Mizraim, the son of Ham, as a domain and for an
  inheritance;” whence Egypt has, from the remotest times, been called
  by the names of Mizraim and Ham, or _Khemé_. Mr. Gliddon adds, that
  “although the name of Mizraim has not yet been found in hieroglyphic
  legends, there is abundant scriptural evidence to prove that the
  country was called Mizraim and Mitzar by the Jews; while at the
  present day throughout the east, Egypt and Cairo are universally known
  by the cognate appellation of _Muss’r_.”[43]

  Entering Africa by the Isthmus of Suez,[44] the children of Ham were
  ushered into the fertile valley of the Nile, a region prepared by
  nature for settled communities and a primeval civilization. In a
  country bounded by the Red Sea on the one side, and by a wilderness on
  the other, and presenting but a narrow strip of land for its
  inhabitants, laws would at once become necessary for mutual
  protection; and we may suppose that while one portion of the
  Mizraimites embraced these social restrictions, another, impatient of
  control, passed beyond the desert barrier on the west, and spreading
  themselves over the north of Africa, became those nomadic tribes to
  which the earliest annals give the name of LIBYANS.[45] It follows
  from this view of the question, that we suppose the Egyptians and
  Libyans to have been cognate people; that the former were the
  aboriginal[46] inhabitants of the valley of the Nile; and that their
  institutions, however modified by intrusive nations in after times,
  were the offspring of their own minds.

  It will, however, be very naturally objected that among the Egyptians
  no gradations are apparent between barbarism and refinement, “It is a
  remarkable fact,” says Sir G. Wilkinson, “that the first glimpse we
  obtain of the history and manners of the Egyptians, shows a nation
  already advanced in the arts of civilized life; and the same customs
  and inventions that prevailed in the Augustan era of that people,
  after the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, are found in the remote
  age of Osortasen, the contemporary of Joseph.” How then could a branch
  of the Libyan race, a people so comparatively obscure, have become the
  mighty Egyptian nation? How could families of mankind so widely
  different in their intellectual manifestations, have been derived from
  a cognate stock? To which we reply, that the Egyptians and Libyans
  were not in this respect more widely separated than were the Saracens
  under the Caliphs, and the wandering Bedouins; yet, both these were
  branches of the Arabian race. Egypt may perhaps be regarded as the
  intellectual centre of the posterity of Ham.

  The evidences of these opinions, it must be confessed, are as yet few
  in number. That the Libyan or Berber speech was once the language of
  all northern Africa has long been maintained by Ritter, Heeren and
  Shaler, and by Mr. Hodgson in his very interesting Letters from
  Algiers, during the period in which he held the United States
  consulate in that regency.[47] Prof. Ritter (whose work I have not
  seen) asserts that the Amazirgh, or Berber language, as detected by
  certain prefixes and affixes peculiar to it and the Coptic tongue, is
  to be found across the whole breadth of the continent, from the Red
  Sea to the Canary Isles; and he supposes, too, that the Hazorta
  tribes, like the old Bejas and modern Bishareens, were originally of
  the same parent stock. To these evidences we may add those of Prof
  Vater, who traced some affinity between the Berber and the Coptic and
  Amharic, but not sufficient to lead to satisfactory results.

  I have before me an obliging communication from Mr. Hodgson, in which
  he informs me, that he also discovered what he believed to be
  incontrovertible evidence of the Berber origin of the Bishareen
  language, before he had read the work of Prof. Ritter; and in an essay
  just published on the Foulahs of central Africa, he reiterates the
  opinion early expressed by him, that the Berber or Libyan tongue was
  spoken in the valley of the Nile, prior to the existence of the Coptic
  or monumental language; a theory which, he further remarks, is in
  accordance with the nature of things and the probable course of
  events.

  “Whilst the positive records of modern history,” observes Mr. Hodgson,
  “show that the Coptic tongue has been obliterated from the map of
  Egypt within the short period which has elapsed since the Saracenic
  invasion, need we wonder that so few traces remain of the language of
  that country in primeval and unrecorded times? These vestiges,
  however, have been detected by me, and, I think, with a strong degree
  of probability, in the mythologic and geographical names transmitted
  to us from the earliest periods of Egyptian history. The meaning of
  Ammon, Thebes, Themis, and Nile, and of Heliopolis (Tadij) and
  Apollinopolis (Etfu) have been explained from the modern Berber
  language; and the very name of _Hykshos_, who were called shepherds,
  means also shepherds in Berber.[48]

  “These etymologies serve, at least, as tokens of the existence of the
  Libyans in the valley of the Nile, at a period anterior to that of the
  monumental Egyptians. I have, also, found grammatical affinities
  between the Coptic and the Berber, which suggest that the monosyllabic
  elements of the former have been imposed upon the Berber syntax, and,
  therefore, that the Coptic is posterior in nationality to the Berber.”

  Leaving this important and difficult philological inquiry to the abler
  hands of Mr. Hodgson, (for it involves some points on which I am not
  qualified to judge, and therefore offer no opinion,) we may merely
  remark, that the Berber theory is farther countenanced by various
  mythological considerations, among the most remarkable of which is the
  supposed Libyan origin of several Egyptian divinities.

  Particular communities of the Libyans are familiar in history by the
  names of Mauritanians, Numidians and Getuli. Respecting the physical
  characteristics of these people, history is nearly silent; yet there
  is sufficient evidence to prove, that they possessed those features
  which are now called Caucasian, independently of any modifications
  that may have resulted from their long intercourse with Phenician
  colonies, and the Romans, Arabs and Vandals in later periods of time.
  The Libyans were a nomadic and warlike people; they were habitually
  employed in the Carthagenian armies, and in the earlier ages contended
  with the Egyptians themselves; for we learn from a passage in Manetho,
  (CORY, Frag. p. 100,) that in the remote age of Necherophes, of the
  third dynasty, the Libyans revolted from the Egyptians, but were soon
  again subdued. The monuments record similar triumphs in the reigns of
  Osortasen 1st., Thotmes 1st., Rameses the 3d, and indeed in almost
  every dynasty down to the Ptolemaic epoch, when Libya continued to be
  an Egyptian province. In fact, the Libyans hung upon the skirts of
  Egypt as the Goths did upon Rome; and until the researches of the
  hierologists identified the Hykshos or shepherd kings with an Asiatic
  people, there was strong presumptive evidence that these ruthless
  invaders were, at least in part, no other than the Libyans
  themselves.[49]

  The Libyans are represented in our day by the various and motley
  Berber tribes, who under the names of Tuaricks, Kabyles and Siwahs,
  inhabit both north and south of Mt. Atlas; and in their physical
  characters combine the Caucasian physiognomy with various shades of
  complexion, from a fair skin to a dark and tawny hue.

  “The Kabyles,” says Mr. Shaler, “are a white people, of middle
  stature, muscular, athletic and active, but never corpulent; and are
  of lively, social manners and of ingenious dispositions. Many of them
  are of light complexions, with hair approaching to flaxen, resembling
  rather the peasants of the south of Europe than the inhabitants of
  Africa.”[50] Then come the darker Tuaricks, men of fine mould and
  adventurous spirit, but nomadic, unfeeling and vindictive.

  Dr. Oudney, who saw them in great number, describes them in nearly
  similar terms, but assures us that under favourable circumstances
  their good, sound sense, would soon render them “a shining people.” It
  is curious, also, to note the following remark of the same intelligent
  traveller: “On almost every stone, in places they frequent, the
  Tuarick characters are hewn out. It matters not whether the letters
  are written from right to left, or _vice versa_, or horizontally,” a
  singular accordance with the graphical system of the ancient
  Egyptians.[51] It would therefore appear, that these roving
  descendants of the Libyan race possess, even now, some vestiges of
  that innate love of sculpture which was cultivated on so grand a scale
  by the temple-builders of the Nile.

  Yet farther south are the darker Berber tribes called Siwahs or
  Shouas, who are said by Major Denham to have “free open countenances,
  with aquiline noses and large eyes; their complexion is a light copper
  colour. They possess great cunning with their courage, and resemble,
  in appearance, some of the best favoured Gypsies in England.” Dark as
  they are, he remarks that “in comparison with the Negresses they are
  almost white.” They are vastly numerous throughout all Soudan, Houssa
  and Bornou, and the Sultan of the latter country has no less than
  15,000 of them in his army.[52]

  In other instances, although they are few in comparison, the Berbers
  assimilate more to the Negro on account of the proximity of the two
  races; a remark which is especially made by Dr. Oudney in reference to
  the Tuaricks of Mourzouk, who have black and curling hair, but which,
  “from a Negro mixture, is inclined to be crispy.”[53]

  Here then are the various gradations of the Caucasian type which
  appear to have marked the ancient Egyptians, together with a degree of
  that intermixture of the Negro race which is revealed in the
  catacombs, and perpetuated in the modern Coptic population.

  In connexion with this subject, it is curious to remark that the
  Guanches of the Canary Islands were a branch of the Berber or Libyan
  stock; and the singular perfection to which they brought the art of
  embalming, long since led to the supposition that they might have been
  affiliated with the Egyptians. The only Berber skull in my possession
  is of this insular branch of that race, and like the one figured by
  Professor Blumenbach, bears a striking resemblance to the Egyptian
  conformation.[54]


  THE ETHIOPIANS.—Every one who has paid the slightest attention to the
  present inquiry, is aware of the entire vagueness of the name
  _Ethiopia_ (Cush) as used by the ancients; which, like _India_ in
  modern times, was applied to countries very remote from each other,
  and whose inhabitants were remarkably dissimilar. Thus
  Austral-Egyptians, Hindoos, Arabs, and Negroes, and even the Egyptians
  themselves, have each in turn been embraced in this designation.

  Our present inquiry, however, relates to that people who occupied the
  valley of the Nile, from Philæ to Meroë, and perhaps yet farther
  south; a region at the present time inhabited by the Nubians, Senàaree
  and the Abyssinians, with all those endless varieties of race which
  necessarily result from immemorial proximity to the Negro countries.
  It is a point of great interest and importance to ascertain the
  physical characteristics of the _aboriginal_ communities of this
  branch of the Nilotic family; but they become at an early period so
  blended with exotic nations that their distinctive features must be
  chiefly derived from the monuments, unless the catacombs of Meroë
  should hereafter throw additional light on the subject. Of the
  monumental evidence we have already spoken: we have seen that the
  proper Egyptian physiognomy, the same which abounds at Thebes, is
  every where conspicuous on the tombs and temples of the Meröite[55] or
  monumental Ethiopians. That these people had no affinity, even in the
  remotest times, to the Negro race, would appear from the evidence
  already adduced, and also from other facts which remain to be noticed.
  Among the paintings of the Grand Procession (epoch of Thotmes IV.,) at
  Thebes, Mr. Hoskins remarks that the Negro is represented with all the
  characteristic features of his race, but that the Ethiopians are
  painted red like the Egyptians, having their hair dressed in curls
  above their foreheads, and in ringlets upon their shoulders.[56]
  (Plate XIV., Fig. 22.) So also in the voyage of Scylax, B.C. 360, the
  Ethiopians are described as a beautiful people, with long hair and
  beard; and the distinguished English traveller just quoted remarks
  that the heads sculptured on the pyramids of Meroë have a nearly
  European profile. Two of these, which are associated with the same
  legend, are represented by the subjoined figures.[57] The one to the
  left hand (that of an unknown king) has mixed lineaments, neither
  strictly Pelasgic nor Egyptian; while the right hand personage, who
  appears to be a priest doing homage, presents a countenance which
  corresponds in essentials to the Egyptian type, although the profile
  approaches closely to the Grecian.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

  The annexed head, also of a king, and bearing some resemblance to the
  one above figured, is copied from Mr. Waddington’s[58] drawing of a
  group over the portico of the Fifth Pyramid at Djebel Birkel (the
  ancient Armada?) supposed to be among the oldest sculptures in Nubia.

  We have already alluded to the opinion of Prof. Ritter and others,
  that the old Bejas and the modern Bishareens were derived from the
  Berber or Libyan stock of nations. I am ready to go farther and adopt
  the sentiment of the learned Dr. Murray, that the Egyptians and
  monumental Ethiopians “were of the same lineage, and probably
  descended from a Libyan tribe.”

  This view of the case at once reconciles the remark of Champollion,
  Rosellini, Heeren and Rüppell, that they could detect the present
  Nubian physiognomy every where on the monuments; but at the same time
  it supersedes the necessity of their inference that Nubia was the
  cradle of civilization, and that the arts, descending the river, were
  perfected in Egypt. The latter question cannot be definitively settled
  until the archæologists decide on the relative antiquity of the
  Egyptian and Nubian monuments. In the present state of the discussion,
  however, the preponderance of facts is greatly in favour of Egypt.[59]

  Without attempting to discuss this intricate question on the present
  occasion, I will merely add my conviction that the original Meröites
  were neither Arabs nor Hindoos, (although, as we shall explain, they
  became greatly modified by these nations in after time) but that they
  formed an unequivocal link in the Libyan chain of primitive Caucasian
  nations.


  THE FELLAHS.—These people, also called Arab-Egyptians, are found every
  where in the valley of the Nile, of which they are the principal
  cultivators. “Their heads,” observes Mr. Lane, “are a fine oval, the
  forehead of moderate size, not high, but generally prominent; their
  eyes are deep sunk, black and brilliant; the nose is straight and
  rather thick; the mouth well formed; the lips are rather full than
  otherwise; the teeth particularly beautiful, and the beard is commonly
  black and curly, but scanty.”[60] They have a yellowish complexion,
  and are, in general, a strong, well formed people. There can be little
  question that the Fellahs are a mixture of the Arab stock with the old
  rural population of Egypt; an amalgamation which dates chiefly from
  the seventh century of our era, (A. D. 640,) when the Saracens under
  Amrou conquered the country, and separated it from the Greek empire.
  The constant influx of Arab population from that time to the present
  must have more or less modified the features of the previous
  inhabitants; and yet even now we are assured by Jomard and others,
  that the Fellahs of upper Egypt present a striking resemblance, in all
  respects, to the monumental paintings and sculptures. “A l’aspect des
  hommes du territoire d’Esné, d’Ombos, ou d’Edfoû, ou des environs de
  Selsélé, il semblerait (pour emprunter une image du plus célèbre des
  ecrivains modernes) que les figures des monuments de Latopolis,
  d’Ombos, ou d’Apollinopolis Magna, se sont détachées des murailles, et
  sont descendues dans la campagne.”[61]

  Mr. Gliddon’s kindness has furnished me with eight Fellah skulls, of
  which five are represented in the subjoined wood-cuts. Three of them
  only are adult, and all are small, and present a remarkable prominence
  of the face (termed _prognathous_ by Dr. Prichard;) a feature which
  appears exaggerated in the following outlines, on account of the
  occiput and teeth being drawn on the same plane.

[Illustration]

  The large receding forehead,[62] so characteristic of both Arabs and
  Fellahs (and, as we have seen, of the several links of the great
  Semitic chain of nations,) is well marked in most of these crania,
  together with the long and salient nose.

  That several of them are in feature more Arab or even Hebrew than
  Egyptian (A, C,) is obvious, and the reason has been already given;
  yet how far the Fellahs will compare, in the details of physical
  character, with the true Libyan or Berber tribes, remains for future
  investigation. When this shall have been accomplished, it may be found
  that the Fellahs preserve the nearest approximation to the ancient
  Egyptians of any people now inhabiting the valley of the Nile.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       2. THE PELASGIC RACE.[63]

  The proofs that people of the Pelasgic stock were in early times the
  rulers of Egypt is attested by history and the monuments. Manetho
  states that the XVI. dynasty was composed “Of thirty-two Hellenic
  shepherd kings, ([Greek: poimenes Ellênes basileis],[64]) who reigned
  five hundred and eighteen years.” It is not to be supposed that the
  number of either kings or years is accurately given: all that is
  necessary to our purpose is the main fact of Hellenic dominion in
  Egypt, which is moreover sustained by monumental evidence; for happily
  the tombs and temples preserve the portraits of the Nilotic
  sovereigns, executed with so much individuality of feature and
  expression, as to leave little doubt of the general fidelity of the
  likenesses. These effigies, which are now indelibly preserved in the
  great works of Champollion and Rosellini, present the following
  interesting results.[65]

[Illustration]

  The oldest identified human effigy now extant is that on the _Tablet
  of Wady Halfa_, preserved in the gallery of Florence.[66] This
  venerable relic, which has been satisfactorily proved to date more
  than two thousand two hundred years before the Christian era,[67]
  represents Osortasen the First in the form of Ammon, and receiving
  from the god Monthou (Mars) the people of Lybia bound with cords as
  captive nations.

  The features of the king are strictly Pelasgic; and the facial angle,
  (allowing for the unnatural elevation of the ear,) measures upwards of
  eighty degrees. It is also remarkable that this head is strikingly
  like those of the Ptolemaic sovereigns of Egypt, and especially
  corresponds in every feature with the portrait of Ptolemy Euergetes
  II., although eighteen centuries elapsed between their respective
  reigns. We therefore recur to our proposition, that whether this
  effigy be a portrait or not, it at least proves that the artists of
  those primeval times derived their ideas of the human countenance from
  Caucasian models.

  The next of these heads which can be identified with its epoch, is
  that of Amunoph I. This again presents a fine cast of European
  features; such, in fact, as would embellish a Grecian statue; and yet
  this monarch reigned in the valley of the Nile, and held his court in
  Memphis more than eighteen hundred years before the birth of Christ.
  (Plate XIV., Fig. 1.) And if from this remote period we trace the
  physiognomy of the kings and queens of the subsequent reigns, we
  perceive among them many equally beautiful models, some of which are
  not inferior to the _beau ideal_ of classic art. Take, for example,
  the heads of Menepthah and Rameses III., in the character of
  priest,—Rameses X., Rameses XI., and Amenmeses,—the queens Nofre-Ari,
  and Nitocris, and the daughter of Phisham (or Pihmé,) the regent
  priest, and let me ask among what people we shall find more graceful
  facial lines, or more varied intellectual expression? (Plate XIV.)

  It may be suggested that in some of these heads the Pelasgic character
  is not wholly unmixed, and especially in reference to Amunoph the
  First. In this instance there is something of the Egyptian, or, as
  Professor Blumenbach would express it, the Hindoo physiognomy. I wish
  it to be understood, however, that I do not assert all these
  sovereigns to have been of the Pelasgic or Japetic stock; for some of
  them, as Rameses the Third, and Menepthah the First, are on other
  occasions represented with decidedly Egyptian features. These mixed
  and varied Caucasian lineaments may perhaps have been derived from the
  antecedent Hellenic kings, who in giving place again to the native
  Egyptians, must doubtless have left their national characteristics
  more or less blended with those of the indigenous families.

  The following heads, which are all of strictly Caucasian proportions,
  are _fac simile_ copies from Rosellini. They are derived from groups
  of figures engaged in various mechanical and other operations, as
  represented in the tombs and temples of Thebes, and various other
  parts of Egypt.

[Illustration]

  The annexed head, (1) that of a reaper, is one of a great number
  executed in bas-relief in the celebrated tombs of Eilethyas, which
  possess a greater interest and value in ethnography on account of
  their venerable antiquity; for they date with and before the
  eighteenth dynasty, and consequently are at least three thousand six
  hundred years old.[68] The great French work, (Déscription de
  l’Egypte,) contains an extended series of illustrations from the same
  remarkable tombs in which a similar cast of features is almost every
  where apparent.[69]

[Illustration]

  The same style of face is not less decidedly expressed in another head
  (2) from Rosellini,[70] of which the original painting is preserved in
  the Royal Gallery at Florence. It represents an artisan. How admirably
  do the features conform to the Grecian type!

[Illustration]

  I repeat the remark, and yet more emphatically, in reference to the
  admirable battle scene at Abousimbel, of the age of Rameses the Third,
  wherein eighty soldiers are depicted in a single group, each one
  bearing a shield and spear.[71] Are they mercenaries from one of the
  Hellenic tribes? I select the two subjoined examples; (3) for a close
  resemblance pervades them all. Here again every line is Grecian; and
  yet when these paintings were executed, the wandering Pelasgi had
  hardly begun to associate themselves in civilized communities, and the
  arts of Greece were unknown.

[Illustration]

  Paintings of a similar ethnographic character are seen in profusion at
  Beni-Hassan, whence is derived the annexed outline, representing one
  of the leather-dressers of that group. The straight line for the nose
  and forehead is strictly Pelasgic, and conforms in most respects to
  the other facial traits. (4)

  The same general physiognomy is often much more rudely expressed, as
  in the tomb of Imai, at Gizeh, which is of the age of Shufo, of the
  fourth dynasty, and consequently the period of disputed chronology.
  Rude as these figures are, and identified with an humble sphere of
  life, they have the Caucasian form, and partake of the same
  ethnographic lineaments with the more elaborately finished

  outlines delineated above. It may be observed, with respect to
  Egyptian art, that while the bas-reliefs are for the most part
  executed with remarkable beauty and precision, the paintings, owing to
  the use of a single colour, and the absence of perspective or shading,
  are often coarse and defective; and the two annexed drawings will
  serve to illustrate this negligent style of art.

[Illustration]

  It is thus that we trace the Pelasgic type of feature and expression
  through all the various castes of the Egyptian population, beginning
  with kings and ending with peasants and plebeians. The illustrations
  have been purposely selected from those remote times wherein
  chronology becomes confusion, down to the later periods of recorded
  history,—a vast period of thirteen centuries, of which the latest date
  looks back nine hundred years before the birth of Christ!

  People of Pelasgic features and complexion are often seen on the
  monuments as prisoners taken in war. One of these is copied, Plate
  XIV., Fig. 23. It is from Abousimbel, and dates with Rameses III. The
  very fair skin, regular features and black hair seem to point to a
  nation of southern Europe. The nose is nearly straight, and on the
  same line with the forehead, although the latter recedes more than is
  consistent with our ideas of the Grecian profile.[72]


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                        3. THE SEMITIC RACE.[73]

  That people of this great family were numerous in Egypt is amply
  attested both by sacred and profane history; and the proximity of
  their respective countries necessarily brought the Semitic and
  Egyptian communities into frequent contact for war or for peace. This
  fact is abundantly proved by the monuments. The Jewish people,
  however, appears, for the most part, to have been admitted into Egypt
  upon sufferance; for the Exodus, and all subsequent annals, are
  conclusive on this subject.

  Those peculiar lineaments which, from very remote times, have
  characterized some of the Semitic nations, have been already noticed.
  How many of these nations possessed these physical characters, cannot
  now be determined; but it is probable that all partook of them in
  degree. It is in the temple of Beyt-el-Wàlee, in Nubia, in paintings
  of the age of Rameses II., (B.C. 1579,) that we meet with one of the
  earliest unquestionable delineations of these people. (Plate XIV.,
  Fig. 24.)

  An additional illustration is that given in the margin. It is also
  preserved in the temple of Bey-el-Wàlee, and is of the same date as
  the head above described. These people are generally represented as
  enemies or bondsmen; nor have I any doubt that the figures in the
  celebrated _Brickmaker’s scene_, in the tomb of Rekshari, at Thebes,
  of the age of Thotmes IV., are those of a Semitic nation, and, in all
  probability, Hebrews. Their features obviously correspond with those
  of the latter people; and their scanty beards, which have been made an
  objection to this view of their nationality, may be regarded as a
  compulsory badge of captivity. Perhaps the most Hebrew _portrait_ on
  the monuments is that of Aahmes-Nofre-Ari, Queen of Amunoph I., who is
  said by the hieroglyphists to have been by birth a Meröite. (Plate
  XIV., Fig. 13.) Semitic features, as we have already shown, are
  occasionally found among the embalmed heads from the catacombs; in
  proof of which I refer, with confidence, to Plate XI., Fig. 2; and
  also, though less strongly marked, to Plate II., Fig. 8, Plate VI.,
  Figs. 2 and 8, and to Plate XII., Figs. 1 and 2.

[Illustration]

  My studies have not qualified me for philological comparisons and
  inferences, but I cannot forbear introducing the following views of
  the learned Dr. Lepsius, on account of their direct bearing upon this
  interesting question. Speaking of the Egyptian and Coptic tongues, he
  says:—“I have now discovered, in the essence of the language itself,
  not only that there is no appearance whatever of any grammatical
  change, and that it possesses, perhaps in a higher degree, that
  principle of stability so peculiar to the Semitic dialects, but also
  that it has preserved in its formation traces of a higher antiquity
  than any Indo-Germanic or Semitic language wherewith I am acquainted,
  which traces will therefore be most unexpectedly important even for
  these two families. At the same time the Coptic cannot be termed
  either Semitic or Indo-Germanic. It has its own peculiar formation,
  though, at the same time, _its fundamental relationship with these two
  families_ is not to be mistaken.”[74]


  THE ARABS.—The southern or peninsular Arabs are a people of middle
  stature, with a complexion varying from a sallow hue to a very dark
  colour. They have sharp, bold features, a rather prominent face, and a
  straight or gently aquiline nose. The head is, moreover, comparatively
  small, and the forehead rather narrow and sensibly receding; to which
  may often be added a meagre and angular figure,[75] long, slender
  limbs, and large knees. Some tribes are also remarkable for the small
  stature of the men, which, according to Burckhardt, does not exceed
  five feet two or three inches; while, with a thick head of hair, they
  possess a short, thin, and pointed beard.[76]

  Such are some of the Bedouins; but the most formidable Arab tribes
  have always been the Hemyarites of Yemen; a restless and enterprising
  people, whose migrations have been chiefly directed to Africa, and
  especially to the valley of the Nile; a region which they have invaded
  and more or less occupied from the earliest times, through the reigns
  of the Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and Cæsars, down to a recent period of our
  own era. What language can be stronger than that of Juba, (about the
  commencement of our own era,) that the inhabitants of the valley of
  the Nile, from Philæ to Meroë, were not Ethiopians, but Arabs? So,
  also, in the days of Strabo, half the population of _Coptos_ itself
  was made up of the same people.

  The cranial resemblances between the Arabs and ancient Egyptians
  impressed me forcibly from the commencement of my inquiries; which
  last I have been able to prosecute in a more satisfactory manner by
  means of a series of Arab skulls, obtained in Egypt by Mr. Gliddon. I
  subjoin outline drawings of five of them, in order that the reader may
  judge for himself.

[Illustration]

  These skulls are all adult, and though comparatively small, give a
  mean internal capacity of eighty-four cubic inches, which is above the
  Egyptian average. The analogy, however, is greater in form than in
  size, as may be observed by comparing the above outlines with several
  of the embalmed heads from the catacombs, and especially that figured
  Plate VI., Fig. 7. In fact, the resemblance between the Egyptian and
  Arab head is so striking, that nothing but a faithful study of the
  monuments has satisfied me that the two nations were primitively
  distinct from each other; and that what I at first believed to be the
  _Austral-Egyptian_ conformation, is no other than the Egyptian itself.
  Some very ancient paintings, copied by Rosellini from the temple
  decorations at Beyt-el-Wàlee, in Nubia, appear, also, to pertain to
  the Arab physiognomy. (Plate XIV., Figs. 19, 20.) In these the
  yellowish-red complexion indicates, we might suppose, some affinity
  with the Egyptian nation, while the small, pointed beard, and sharp,
  prominent face, point to the Arabian stock of nations. Their name
  reads _Tohen_ on the monuments; and they pertain to the age of Rameses
  II., and illustrate the conquests of that monarch 1579 years before
  Christ.

  Without entering into a philological discussion, it is worthy of
  remark, that the Gheez or Ethiopic language, the oldest of the known
  tongues of Abyssinia, is directly allied to the Arabic and Hebrew. The
  period of its introduction into Africa is unknown, though it probably
  dates far beyond our era. Moreover, among the ruins recently
  discovered at Hasan Ghorâb, (170 miles east of Aden,) at Sanaa, and at
  other places in Yemen, inscriptions have been abundantly found in the
  old Ethiopic tongue, which, in the opinion of the late Professor
  Gesenius, is a modification of the parent Hemyarite language.

  These few facts, with others which will be adduced hereafter, go to
  prove that the Egyptian people must have been more or less blended
  with the Arabian race; nor can there be a question that the Meröite or
  Austral-Egyptian communities were composed, at least in part, of an
  Indo-Arabian stock engrafted on the aboriginal Libyan population.

  An able but anonymous author not only asserts the Arab origin of the
  monumental Ethiopians, but endeavours to prove, by an ingenious series
  of facts and reasonings, that they were the “Blemies of history, a
  Bejáwy branch of the Arabian family;” that they were broken and
  finally dispersed by the policy of the Roman government, which, in the
  reign of Dioclesian, introduced Negro colonies from Kordofan; and,
  finally, that the Nubians of our day are not, as a nation, descended
  from the ancient stock. The last proposition, as a general rule, is
  undeniable; but the preceding conclusions are not yet susceptible of
  proof.[77]

  Convinced as we are that the Egyptians were a distinct and aboriginal
  people, the sentiment of M. Jomard may yet become, to a certain
  extent, an axiom in ethnography:—“L’Arabie à été de tout temps, et
  elle est encore de nos jours, l’aliment de la population
  Egyptienne.”[78]


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            4. THE HINDOOS.

  I observe among the Egyptian crania, some which differ in nothing from
  the Hindoo type either in respect to size or configuration. I have
  already, in my remarks upon the ear, mentioned a downward elongation
  of the upper jaw, which I have more frequently met with in Egyptian
  and Hindoo heads than in any others, although I have seen it
  occasionally in all the races. This feature is remarkable in two of
  the following five crania, (A, B,) and may be compared with a similar
  form from Abydos. (Plate V., Fig. 2.)

[Illustration]

  The Hindoo head is also remarkable for its small size, its narrow
  form, especially in front, and often, also, for the delicacy of the
  osteological structure. The bones of the face, however, project more
  than those of the European, and there is not unfrequently a manifest
  eversion of the upper jaw. (B.) The nose is rather small, and the
  bones are variously aquiline, straight, or moderately compressed. My
  observations have been made on thirty-seven crania, for which I am
  indebted to Drs. Burrough and Carson, of this city, and to Dr. Martin
  and Mr. H. Piddington, of Calcutta. Of these, twenty-four are adult,
  varying from eighteen to eighty years of age, and give an average
  internal capacity of but eighty cubic inches; the largest head
  measuring ninety cubic inches, the smallest only sixty-nine.[79] They
  pertain, for the most part, to _low-caste_ Bengalees.

[Illustration]

  It is in that mixed family of nations which I have called
  Austral-Egyptian that we should expect to meet with the strongest
  evidence of Hindoo lineage; and here, again, we can only institute
  adequate comparisons by reference to the works of Champollion and
  Rosellini. I observe the Hindoo style of features in several of the
  royal effigies, and in none more decidedly than in the head of
  Asharramon, as sculptured in the temple of Debod, in Nubia. The date
  of this king has not yet been ascertained; but as he ruled over Meroë,
  and not in Egypt, (probably in Ptolemaic times,) he may be regarded as
  a good illustration of at least one modification of the
  Austral-Egyptian type.

[Illustration]

  Another set of features, but little different, however, from the
  preceding, is seen among the middling class of Egyptians as pictured
  on the monuments, and these I also refer to the Hindoo type. Take, for
  example, the four annexed outlines, copied from a sculptured fragment
  preserved in the museum of Turin. These effigies may be said to be
  essentially Egyptian; but do they not forcibly remind us of the
  Hindoo?[80] The mummied head figured Plate X., Fig. 6, has the same
  general form and cast of features.

  The Hindoos are also represented on the monuments as prisoners and
  tribute-bearers to the kings. My drawing, Plate XIV., Fig. 21, is
  copied from the “Grand Procession” of Thotmes IV. The man leads a
  bear; an indication that he is of a foreign country, for there are no
  bears indigenous to Africa. Moreover, the characters of the animal, as
  delineated in Rosellini, are not unlike those of the celebrated
  grotesque species of India called by naturalists _Ursus labiatus_,
  which has been, in all ages, a favourite with Hindoo mountebanks. The
  man himself has an aquiline and pointed nose, thin beard, receding
  forehead, and comparatively fair complexion, which assimilate him to
  some Indo-Semitic or Indo-Persian tribe.

[Illustration]

  In the same celebrated scene I notice another head of the same general
  cast, but of a darker complexion and more delicate features, who
  answers yet more accurately to the type of the northern Hindoos. He
  wears a light dress and grass hat, and moreover leads an elephant, all
  of which point to a warm climate. Mr. Hoskins remarks that “the
  elephant must be from Ethiopia: if, therefore, they [the attendants]
  are Scythians, as some suppose, they must be employed as slaves
  bringing the produce of Ethiopia.” And he concludes by suggesting that
  they may be white slaves of the latter country, sent as a present to
  the Egyptian king. This appears to me to be an involved and
  unsatisfactory explanation. The elephant, like the bear, is obviously
  an Asiatic animal, (for the Egyptians made no use of the living native
  species,) and it is evident that this group is merely typical of some
  conquered Hindoo nation, or proximate and cognate tribe.

  Winkelman, Blumenbach, and other authors, have also been struck with
  these cranial resemblances; and certain physical analogies were
  familiar to the writers of antiquity. They are especially recorded by
  Strabo and Arrian, who compare the southern Hindoos to the Ethiopians,
  and the northern Hindoos to the Egyptians. Various shades of
  complexion, as we have remarked, were common to both countries,
  together with a small stature and slender limbs.

  History, mythology and the arts discover various additional analogies
  between these venerable nations. Apis, the Egyptian bull, was the
  symbol of Osiris; and the white bull is the animal on which Siva is
  represented on the Indian pagodas: worship was bestowed alike on the
  Ganges and the Nile; both nations paid homage to the sun and the
  serpent; and even at the present time, the objects held in greatest
  veneration by the Hindoos of the Vishnu sect are the ape, the monkey,
  the bird called garruda, and the serpent capella. Among the symbols of
  superstition in each are the sphinx, the lotus, the lingam, and the
  cross. “The dog, sacred to Bhairava, a form of Siva, and the jackall
  of Durga, remind us of the barking Anubis, the companion of Osiris.
  The dogs of Yama, one of which was termed Cerbura, or spotted, and was
  feigned to have three heads, corresponds remarkably, as Mr. Wilford
  has observed, with the three-headed Cerberus, the dog of Pluto.”[81]

  This affinity is also recognised in their almost exclusive vegetable
  diet, and by the singular institution of castes. Analogies are,
  moreover, traced in the architecture of the two nations, whether in
  their monolithic temples and subterranean sanctuaries, or in the
  statuary and minor decorations of their stupendous temples.[82]

  That there was extensive and long-continued intercourse between the
  Hindoos and Egyptians is beyond a question; and history speaks, also,
  of conquest and migration. Which was primitively the dominant power?
  The Egyptians very naturally decided this point in their own favour;
  for they assert that Osiris crossed Arabia to the utmost inhabited
  parts of India, and built many cities there. “He left, likewise,” says
  Diodorus, “many other marks of his being in these parts, which have
  induced the inhabitants to believe and affirm, that this god (Osiris)
  was born in India.”[83] Thus it appears that, in the age of Diodorus,
  the Hindoos not only worshipped, but claimed as original to
  themselves, the principal divinity of the Egyptians. There is,
  moreover, a passage in Syncellus which directly asserts that the
  Hindoos, who, as we have observed, are sometimes called Ethiopians in
  ancient history, formed colonies in Egypt. “Æthiopes ab Indo fluvio
  profecti, supra Ægyptum sedem sibi eligerunt.” Heeren, from whom I
  derive this quotation, remarks, that as the Hindoos would necessarily
  arrive by sea, they would establish themselves on the coast. We grant
  it; but a commercial and migratory people would soon find their way to
  the great mart of Meroë, and thence to every part of the Egyptian
  provinces. It has been observed by Mr. Bonomi, that the affiliation of
  the Hindoos with the people of the upper Nile is confirmed by the
  affinity which exists between the Ethiopic and Sanscrit systems of
  writing, as pointed out by Dr. Wall and Mr. Tudor.[84]

  Dr. Prichard, whose profound investigations into this and all other
  questions in ethnography, command our highest respect, while he admits
  that great difficulties present themselves in the present inquiry,
  remarks “that a common origin, if not of the races themselves, at
  least of the mental culture characteristic of both of them, has been
  proved; and that the people of India and of Egypt derived from one
  source the first principles of all their peculiarities of thought and
  action, of their religious and social observances, and civil and
  political institutions; and that these principles had even been
  developed to a considerable extent, before the nations themselves were
  entirely cut off from communication with each other or with a common
  centre.”[85]

  It has been proved by the philosophic Heeren, that Meroë was the grand
  emporium of the trade between the richest and most productive portions
  of the earth; the gold countries of eastern Africa, the spice lands of
  India, and the region of frankincense and precious stones in southern
  Arabia. He has shown that the communication between these countries
  was established in the most ancient periods, and continued without
  interruption through successive ages of time; that the ruins of Adulé,
  Azab, and Axum, yet mark the caravan routes between Meroë and Arabia
  Felix; and that Yemen, though separated from India by an open sea, is
  yet connected with it by nature in an extraordinary manner. “One half
  of the year,” he adds, “from spring to autumn, the wind regularly sets
  in and wafts the vessels from Arabia to India; the other half, from
  autumn to spring, it as regularly carries them back from India to
  Arabia.”[86]

  In truth, what Diodorus says, in general, of early Egyptian commerce
  and conquest by sea, need be no longer regarded as fabulous, although
  the details, like much that we glean from the remote history of all
  heathen nations, are to be received with circumspection. He tells us
  that Sesostris (Rameses III.) fitted out a fleet of four hundred ships
  in the Arabian gulf, with which he conquered all the countries
  bordering on the Erythrean sea, as far as India, whence he led an army
  beyond the Ganges until he again reached the ocean. This account is
  not likely to be _all_ fable, especially since it comes from a Greek
  historian; and we may safely regard it as an indication of that
  extensive maritime enterprise in which the Egyptians engaged with the
  southern nations of Asia. When the Romans under the guidance of
  Hippalus, eighty years after their conquest of Egypt, began to trade
  with India by way of the Red Sea and Malabar, they only re-established
  the ancient route, which had been long forgotten amidst the chaos of
  political revolutions. In fine, if the Egyptians had been their own
  historians, we should probably learn that they were as familiar with
  India in ancient as the English are in modern times.[87]

  While we conclude, therefore, that the Egyptians were a distinct
  people from either the Arabs or Hindoos, we cannot deny those
  resemblances which are too obvious to be mistaken, yet not to be
  accounted for without difficulty; nor can there be a reasonable doubt
  that the people of both these nations formed an important part of the
  once multitudinous population of Egypt.[88]


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            5. THE HYKSHOS.

  There is no fact in history more familiar than the rule of the Hykshos
  or shepherd kings in Egypt. The word Hykshos is the same as we have
  seen (p. 38,) both in the Egyptian and Berber or Libyan tongues, and
  signified a _shepherd_ or a wanderer. It was applied to all those
  foreigners who at different times displaced the native
  dynasties,—Scythians, Hellenic tribes, Phenicians, and others.

  Reserving some remarks for a future part of this memoir, we shall
  briefly observe that there is no monumental record of more than one of
  these sovereignties, namely, that which was expelled by Amunoph the
  First of the eighteenth dynasty, about eighteen centuries before
  Christ. These people, whose name was held in execration by the
  Egyptians, are said by Herodotus and other historians to have
  possessed a fair complexion, blue eyes, and reddish hair. That they
  were of the Caucasian race there is no question; but the preceding
  traits apply equally to the Scythians, the Phenicians, and the Edomim
  or Edomites, and it is probable that the shepherd dynasties of Manetho
  embraced kings from all these sources.[89]

  The portraits of these intrusive kings, as recently discovered in
  various parts of Egypt, not only present a physiognomy entirely
  different from that of the legitimate monarchs, but the symbol of
  their religion is also different, being “the sun, whose rays terminate
  in human hands,” while the accompanying hieroglyphic legends make no
  allusion to the Egyptian deities. “Their features,” observes Mr.
  Perring, from whom I derive these facts, “do not at all resemble the
  Egyptian; and, though much defaced, are evidently the same as those
  found on the propyla of Karnak, where we may recognise a similarity
  with the tall, white, slender, blue-eyed, and red-haired race, painted
  on the soles of the Egyptian sandals, and appearing also on the
  monuments, where they are emphatically called the _wicked race of
  Scheto_.”[90] One of these effigies is found only on fragments of
  stone which had pertained to temples antecedent to the eighteenth
  dynasty, which structures were overturned by the legitimate kings of
  that and the succeeding reigns, and the _materials_ used in erecting
  those splendid Pharaonic monuments of which they yet form a part.

  The three following heads are copied from Mr. Perring’s very
  interesting memoir.

[Illustration]

  No. 1, the portrait of a king whose name is read _Skai_ by
  Champollion, copied from his tomb in the western valley near Thebes.
  The bold, heavy features, and harsh expression are very remarkable,
  and Mr. Perring observes that this personage is represented of a much
  lighter red than is usual with the Egyptians.

  No. 2. Head of another king of this exotic dynasty, with long sharp
  features, whose name reads _Atenre-Backhan_ on the monuments, copied
  from a stone in the second propylon of Karnak.

  No. 3. Another effigy of the same king, from the grottoes of El Tell,
  of which Mr. Perring remarks, that having been copied in haste it is
  somewhat in caricature.

  El Tell, or Tel-el-Amarna, appears to have been the stronghold of
  these “foreign marauders,” respecting whom Mr. Gliddon, after
  suggesting the probability that the sovereigns may have been of
  Arabian origin, inquires—“whether the present inhabitants, whose
  village occupies the once warlike camp or city of _Atenre_, have in
  their views and in their physical conformation, some vestiges of that
  early tribe of heterodox conquerors? And may not then the cause of the
  almost instinctive terror with which the natives of other parts of
  Egypt regard this vicinity, proceed from vague traditions of ancient
  predatory habits,—some fitful legend that has outlived thirty-five
  centuries?”[91]

[Illustration]

  There are many effigies of the same general character of the age of
  the fourth Rameses. One of them, a captive, is figured in the margin.
  Wilkinson reads their name Tochari on the monuments; Rosellini
  translates it Fekkaro. To my view they have the lined and hardy
  features of the Celts or Gauls, of whom, however, we have little
  knowledge at that remote date, (B.C. 1400,) although even then they
  occupied a large part of southern Europe. They perhaps rather pertain
  to the Phenician branch of the Caucasian race.

[Illustration]

  There are other paintings, especially some at Abousimbel of the age of
  Rameses III., which correspond in every particular with the Scythian
  physiognomy as recorded in history;[92] and the name of _Scheto_, by
  which they are designated on the monuments, confirms the suggestion of
  the hieroglyphists that they represent a Scythian or Scytho-Bactrian
  people.[93]

  The researches of Lord Lindsay seem to prove that the Assyrians were
  also among the Hykshos conquerors of Egypt; and the shepherds who
  invaded Egypt before the time of Abraham are called _Cushim_ by the
  ancients, which means Ethiopians or Babylonians; for the country on
  both sides of the Persian Gulf was called _Cush_.[94]

  Plutarch, quoting Manetho, asserts that Tiphonean or red-haired men
  were sacrificed in the temples of Eletheias, and their ashes scattered
  to the winds. Was this done in commemoration of the hatred which the
  Egyptians bore to the red-haired Hykshos?


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             6. THE COPTS.


  From various antecedent remarks it will be perceived that I regard the
  Copts as a mixed community, derived in diverse proportions from the
  Caucasian and the Negro; and this diversity of origin may explain the
  dissimilar characteristics which travellers have ascribed to them.

  Denon, for example, described them as having “flat foreheads, eyes
  half closed, and raised up at the angles, high cheek bones, a broad,
  flat, and short nose, a large, flattened mouth, placed at a
  considerable distance from the nose, thick lips, a little beard, a
  shapeless body, crooked legs, without expression in the contour, and
  long, flat toes.”[95] Denon even thinks that these features
  correspond, in a remarkable manner, with the human face and figure as
  represented in Egyptian painting and sculpture! And Sonnini, after
  describing them in nearly analogous terms, adds the moral reproach,
  that while “they are the ugliest of men, they are the filthiest and
  most disgusting.”[96]

  If we compare these seemingly exaggerated descriptions with those of
  Brown, Lane, and some other travellers, the discrepancy is so great
  as, at first thought, to baffle all explanation. Brown, for example,
  “was not struck with any resemblance to the Negro features or form;”
  and he saw nothing remarkable in the texture of the hair.[97] “The
  eyes of the Copts,” says Mr. Lane, “are generally large and elongated,
  slightly inclining from the nose upwards, and always black. The nose
  is straight, excepting at the end, where it is rounded and wide; and
  the lips are rather thick, and the hair is black and curly.”[98]
  Madden adds that they are characterized by a remarkable distance
  between the eyes. Belzoni observed among them some as fair as
  Europeans; Rosellini assures us that they are largely mixed with
  Jewish and Roman blood;[99] and D’Avezac, like Depauw, discovers in
  them a partial Chinese ancestry. These, and numberless other opinions
  which might be cited, prove that the Copts differ greatly among
  themselves; and that they are, physically and morally, a mixture of
  all the nations which have successively held dominion in Egypt, or
  swelled its varied population—Egyptians of various castes, Greeks,
  Romans, Arabs, Hebrews, Negroes, and some others Such was, at least in
  part, the opinion of Pugnet, (whose memoir I have not seen,) for he
  separates them “into two divisions; those whose ancestry has been
  intermixed, and partly of Greek and Latin descent, and a class of
  purely Egyptian origin.”[100] But, after all, perhaps the traces which
  are most invariable in the Copt are derived from the Negro; and they
  are manifest in the very bones of the head and face.

  “The inhabitants of the towns of Arabia and Egypt,” says Burckhardt,
  “are in the daily habit of taking in wedlock Abyssinian as well as
  Negro slaves;”[101] and, in a subsequent part of his travels, the same
  intelligent author describes a class of people in Nubia who are the
  direct offspring of this mixture of race, and who seem, from his
  description, to answer the characters of the Copts themselves. “The
  Nouba slaves (among whom must be reckoned those who are born in Senaar
  of male Negroes and female Abyssinians) form a middle class between
  the blacks and the Abyssinians. Their features, though they retain
  evident signs of Negro origin, have still something of what is called
  regular; their noses, though smaller than those of Europeans, are less
  flat than those of Negroes their lips are less thick, and the cheek
  bones less prominent. The hair of some is woolly but among the greater
  part it is similar to the hair of Europeans, but _stronger_, and
  always curled.” Another, and yet more striking example of the Negroid
  conformation is seen in the vast Foulah or Fellatah population of
  central Africa, which is now spread over a region of fifteen hundred
  miles from east to west, and five hundred miles from north to south.
  That they are a mixed progeny of Arabs, Berbers and Negroes, no longer
  admits of a reasonable doubt. Such is the opinion of D’Avezac and
  Hodgson, Vater, Adelung, and most other inquirers. “In the midst of
  the Negro races,” observes M. D’Avezac, “there stands out a métive
  population, of tawny or copper colour, prominent nose, small mouth,
  and oval face, which ranks itself among the white races, and asserts
  itself to be descended from Arab fathers and Taurodo mothers. Their
  crisped hair, even woolly, though long, justifies their classification
  among the _Oulotric_ (woolly-haired) populations; but neither the
  traits of their features, nor the colour of their skin, allow them to
  be confounded with Negroes, however great the fusion of the two types
  may be.”[102] These and other facts derived from the slave trade, when
  considered in connexion with the Negro colonization of Nubia in the
  reign of Dioclesian, will account, I may repeat, not only for every
  blending of race observable in that country, but also assists us in
  tracing the origin of the Copts;—not to a _period_ of time, it is
  true, but to circumstances which have been in operation for ages, and
  which were once, in all probability, far more active than they are at
  present.

  By the kindness of Mr. Gliddon I possess three Coptic skulls, two of
  which are adult, and are accurately sketched in the subjoined
  drawings, (A and B.)

[Illustration]

  In A the cranium is elongated, narrow, but otherwise mediately
  developed in front, with great breadth and fulness in the whole
  posterior region. The nasal bones, though prominent, are broad, short,
  and concave, and the upper jaw is everted. There is, also, a
  remarkable distance between the eyes. The facial angle measures 81°,
  the internal capacity 85 cubic inches.

  In the second head, B, the head is long and narrow, with a receding
  forehead, flat or concave nasal bones, and short, everted upper
  maxilla. Facial angle 78°; internal capacity 77 cubic inches.

  A glance at these two crania will satisfy any one that they possess,
  in degree, both the conformation and expression of the Negro.

  The third skull, that of a child of two years of age, corresponds in
  general form with the preceding, without having the African
  characteristics quite so obviously expressed.

  It therefore follows, from all the evidence we possess in relation to
  the Copts, that, as a people, they partake sensibly, and sometimes
  largely, of Negro lineage.

  An inspection of the royal portraits preserved in Rosellini, shows
  several heads which are obviously of the Coptic form; those, for
  example, of Sabakon and Tirhaka, of the Ethiopian dynasty, and of the
  queen Metumva, of an earlier epoch. (Plate XIV.) The same lineaments,
  though in less degree, are also obvious in the effigies of Sheshonk
  (Shishak) and Osorkon II., of the twenty-second dynasty, and in a few
  others of different periods of time. I wish it to be understood that I
  do not say these sovereigns were of Coptic lineage; but merely that
  their physiognomy, as expressed on the monuments, has the Coptic
  character. The history of the Copts remains an enigma in Egyptian
  ethnography.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            7. THE NUBIANS.


  It seems necessary, in further elucidation of this subject, to submit
  a few additional facts and observations in reference to the Berbers,
  or present inhabitants of Nubia, in order to show their relative
  position to the ancient occupants of that country. As the celebrated
  Burckhardt saw them in almost every locality, we shall mainly content
  ourselves with his graphic delineation. The Berbers, says he, are of a
  dark red-brown complexion, “which, if the mother is a slave from
  Abyssinia, becomes a light brown in the children; and if from the
  Negro countries, extremely dark. Their features are not at all those
  of the Negro, the face being oval, the nose often perfectly Grecian,
  and the cheek bones not prominent. The upper lip, however, is somewhat
  thicker than is considered beautiful among northern nations, though it
  is still far from the Negro lip. Their hair is bushy and strong, but
  not woolly.” The same intelligent traveller subsequently speaks of
  their language, respecting which he was certainly well qualified to
  judge; he assures us that the people south of Siout are ancient
  Bedouin tribes, who speak a very pure Arabic; and he makes a nearly
  similar remark respecting those who inhabit the river banks from
  Dongola to Senaar, and thence westward to Bornou, although they speak
  many different dialects.[103]

  It is well known, however, that there are whole tribes in Nubia whose
  language is not derived from the Arabic; and these may be more nearly
  allied to the primitive population. “The inhabitants of Dar Dongola,”
  says Dr. Rüppell, “are divided into two principal classes, namely, the
  Barábra, or _descendants of the old Ethiopian natives of the country_,
  and the races of Arabs who have emigrated from the Hedjar. The
  ancestors of the Barábra, who, in the course of centuries have been
  repeatedly conquered by hostile tribes, must have undergone some
  intermixture with people of foreign blood; yet an attentive inquiry
  will enable us to distinguish among them the old national physiognomy
  which their forefathers have marked upon colossal statues, and the
  bas-reliefs of temples and sepulchres. A long, oval countenance, a
  beautifully curved nose, somewhat rounded towards the tip,
  proportionately thick lips, but not protruding excessively, a
  retreating chin, scanty beard, lively eyes, strongly frizzled but
  never woolly hair, a remarkably beautiful figure, generally of middle
  size, and a bronze colour, are the characteristics of the genuine
  Dungolawi.”[104] He adds, that the same traits of physiognomy are
  generally found among the Ababdé, the Bishareen, and partially among
  the people of Shendy and Abyssinia.

  It must be acknowledged, however, that we can hardly expect to find
  the genuine Egypto-Ethiopian lineaments in any considerable number
  among the modern Nubians. Placed as the former were, between the
  Egyptians on the north, the Indo-Arabian nations on the east, and the
  Negroes on the south and west, and this, too, through the long period
  of several thousand years, their features must have become sensibly
  modified, even in the earliest times, by that blending of race which
  was inseparable from their position; and as the Koldagi and other
  Negro tribes have, at different times, established themselves in large
  bodies in Nubia, we need be at no loss, I conceive, in accounting for
  any traces of Negro lineage in some Barábra communities of the present
  day.

  Dr. Prichard considers “the descent of the modern Nubians, or Barábra,
  from the Nouba (a Negro nation) of the hill country of Kordofan, to be
  as well established as very many facts which are regarded as certain
  by writers on ethnography.” With every deference to that distinguished
  ethnographer, we may inquire, what became of the pre-existing
  inhabitants when the tribes of Kordofan colonized Nubia? Were they
  destroyed or expelled? History makes no mention of either; and we are
  justified in the opinion that an amalgamation of races took place,
  whence some of those diversities of organization observable in the
  modern Nubians. That this intermixture of races has continued to the
  present time, the reader will find abundant evidence in other parts of
  this memoir; yet I cannot here refrain from adding an observation from
  Cailliaud, who, remarking on the shortness of life among the people of
  Senaar from disease and dissipation, declares that the number of
  Negroes which pours into the country, and the fruitfulness of the
  women, are the resources which serve to repair the vast and continual
  waste of population.[105] I may be told that this is proving too much.
  A sensible writer, and one who has ingeniously and instructively
  investigated the Nubian question, remarks as follows:—“The Arab tribes
  near Shendy may still, perhaps, justly boast of the purity of their
  blood; but, generally speaking, within the limits mentioned above, the
  slave or Negro population is about a sixth of the whole, and
  continually amalgamating with it. While nature kindly endeavours to
  wash out the stain, every caravan from the south or west pours in a
  new supply of slaves, and restores the blackening element.”[106]

  This author, however, in his desire to ascribe to climate the chief
  agency in the transformation of the Negro into the Nubian, seems to
  overlook the fact that while the Negroes flow into the country on the
  one side, the migratory Arabs invade it on the other, thus furnishing
  inexhaustible materials for the blending of the two races. I fully
  acquiesce, as before hinted, in the accuracy of the following opinion,
  as applied to a large proportion of the modern Nubians; namely, “that
  they are descended, not from the possessors of Ethiopia in its
  flourishing period, but from the prædial and slave population of the
  country, increased by colonists, and raised into a nation by peculiar
  circumstances between the third and sixth centuries of the Christian
  era.”[107]


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            8. THE NEGROES.

  We have the most unequivocal evidence, historical and monumental, that
  slavery was among the earliest of the social institutions of Egypt,
  and that it was imposed on all conquered nations, white as well as
  black.[108] So numerous was this unfortunate class of persons, that it
  was the boast of the Egyptian kings, recorded by Diodorus, that the
  vast structures of Luxor and Karnak were erected by the labour of
  foreigners alone. Of Negro slavery, in particular, the paintings and
  sculptures give abundant illustration. “Black people,” says Sir G.
  Wilkinson, “designated as natives of the _foreign land_ of Cush, are
  generally represented on the Egyptian monuments as captives or bearers
  of tribute to the Pharaohs;” and the attendant circumstances of this
  inhuman traffic appear to have been much the same in ancient as in
  modern times. It is curious, also, in a numerical point of view, to
  observe that Arrian, who wrote in the second century, gives three
  thousand as the number of Negroes annually brought down the Nile in
  his time; while Madden, writing in our own day, and consequently
  sixteen hundred years later than Arrian, estimates the present number
  in nearly the same words. If it be allowable to make these data the
  basis of calculation for the past thirty-five centuries, it will
  follow that upwards of ten millions of Negroes have been brought as
  bondsmen into Egypt during that period. This I regard a reasonable
  calculation; for in the present wasted and depopulated condition of
  the country, the demand for servants and slaves must be far below what
  it was in the flourishing epoch of the Pharaohs.[109]

  This vast influx of Negroes into the valley of the Nile must
  necessarily have left its impression on the physical traits of the
  Egyptians themselves; in modern times, as seen in the Copts, and in
  more distant periods, as proved by the Negroid heads, in which both
  the configuration and expression are too obvious to be mistaken. But
  it may be inquired, how does it happen that Negroes or their
  descendants should be found in the catacombs, if they constituted a
  menial or slave-caste in Egypt? In reply, it may be observed that
  persons of this race have been capable, in all ages, of elevating
  themselves to posts of distinction in the east, and especially and
  proverbially those who have belonged to the class of eunuchs.[110] It
  is also important to observe, that so tenacious were the Egyptians of
  the rights of their offspring, that they admitted them to equal
  privileges with themselves, _even when the mother was a slave_; and
  these usages extended to inheritance.[111]

  The preceding facts, without multiplying more on the same subject,
  amply account for that interminable amalgamation of the Caucasian and
  Negro races which has been going on in Egypt from the remotest times;
  while they also explain that incidental social elevation of the Negro
  caste, to which the monuments and catacombs alike bear witness.

  This blending of races is farther illustrated in the present
  population of Nubia. The traveller Burckhardt remarks, that the slaves
  sent down the Nile, and those transported to Arabia, bear but a small
  proportion to the number kept by the Mahommedans of the more southern
  countries of Africa. At Shendy, for example, from one to six are seen
  in every family; and the custom prevails as far as Senaar, and
  westward to Kordofan, Darfour and Bornou. All the Bedouin tribes who
  inhabit or surround these countries are well stocked with slaves, nor
  does the number diminish in the very remote provinces of Houssa and
  Begarmeh; and we are told by the same intelligent observer, that the
  result of this promiscuous intercourse is a mixed progeny, which
  blends the characteristics of the Arab with those of the Negro.[112]

  Negroes are abundantly represented on the pictorial delineations of
  the Egyptian monuments of every epoch. Complexion, features, and
  expression, these and every other attribute of the race, are depicted
  precisely as we are accustomed to see them in our daily walks: indeed,
  were we to judge by the drawings alone, we might suppose them to have
  been executed but yesterday; and yet some of these vivid delineations
  are nearly three thousand five hundred years old! and, moreover, as if
  to enforce the distinction of race by direct contrast, they are placed
  side by side with people of the purest Caucasian features.

  The delineations of the Negro which are supposed to be of the most
  ancient date have not yet been identified with the epoch to which they
  belong. Such are those in a tomb at Thebes of the age of Amontuonch,
  an “unplaced king,” who is supposed to date prior to the sixteenth
  dynasty, and consequently more than two thousand years before
  Christ.[113] There is, however, a difference of opinion on this point;
  but we can refer with confidence and certainty to the celebrated
  “Procession” of the age of Thotmes the Fourth, at Thebes, in which
  Negroes are represented as tribute-bearers to that monarch at a period
  which dates about seventeen hundred years before our era.[114]

  Sir G. Wilkinson describes a painting in a catacomb at Thebes of the
  age of Amunoph the Third, in which that personage, seated on his
  throne, receives the homage and tribute of various nations. Among
  these are represented several “black chiefs of Cush, or Ethiopia,”
  whose presents consist of rings of gold, bags of precious stones, “a
  camelopard, panthers, skins, and long-horned cattle, whose heads are
  strangely ornamented with the hands and heads of Negroes.”[115] The
  author justly adds, that the latter effigies were probably artificial;
  for the people of Cush would scarcely have decapitated their own
  people to adorn their offerings to a foreign prince: yet at the same
  time these melancholy symbols were obviously designed to express the
  most abject self-abasement and vassalage.

  Other Negro delineations which can be identified with the age to which
  they belong, are found on the monuments of Horus, Rameses the Second,
  Rameses the Third, &c. in various places in Egypt and Nubia; and the
  first of these kings, (who dates with the nineteenth dynasty,) is
  represented standing on a platform which is supported by prostrate
  Negroes.[116]

  For the purpose of illustration, we select a single picture from the
  temple (hemispeos) of Beyt-el-Wàlee, in Nubia, in which Rameses the
  Second is represented in the act of making war upon the Negroes; who,
  overcome with defeat, are flying in consternation before him. From the
  multitude of fugitives in this scene, (which has been vividly copied
  by Champollion[117] and Rosellini, and which I have compared in both,)
  I annex a fac-simile group of nine heads, which, while they preserve
  the national features in a remarkable degree, present also
  considerable diversity of expression.

[Illustration]

  The hair on some other figures of this group is dressed in short and
  separate tufts, or inverted cones, precisely like those now worn by
  the Negroes of Madagascar, as figured in Botteller’s voyage.

  In the midst of the vanquished Africans, seated in his car and urging
  on the conflict, is Rameses himself; whose manly and beautiful
  countenance will not suffer by comparison with the finest Caucasian
  models. The annexed outline, (for all the figures are represented in
  outline only,) will enable the reader to form his own conclusions
  respecting this extraordinary group, which is believed to date about
  fifteen hundred and seventy years before the Christian era.

[Illustration]


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           9. THE MONGOLIANS.

  It has been contended by Depauw, and others that the ancient Egyptians
  were of the Mongolian race. I find nothing like Mongolian features in
  any embalmed head in my collection, unless some general resemblance
  can be traced in a solitary instance from Thebes, (Plate XII., Figs.
  1, 2,) which, however, partakes more obviously of the Semitic form.
  This observation sustains the opinion of Professor Blumenbach, who in
  comparing the Egyptians with the several races of men, asserts, that
  “they differ from none more than from the Mongolian, to which the
  Chinese belong.”[118]

[Illustration]

  That the Chinese had commercial intercourse with the Egyptians in very
  early times, is beyond question; for vessels of Chinese porcelain,
  with inscriptions in that language, have been repeatedly found in the
  Theban catacombs.[119] Yet in every instance wherein we detect
  Mongolians on the monuments, they are represented as foreigners and
  enemies. The annexed wood-cut, with the small and somewhat depressed
  nose, shaven head, and crown-lock, scanty beard, moustache, and sallow
  complexion, seems clearly to indicate a man of that race. It is copied
  from a drawing in Rosellini, in which Rameses the Third is represented
  fighting against the _Sheto_ or Scythians, among whom the Mongols
  appear to be allies or mercenaries.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                REMARKS.

  Since the physical characteristics of the ancient Nilotic population,
  as derived from history and the monuments, coincide in a remarkable
  manner with the facts derived from anatomical comparison, it becomes
  in the next place necessary to offer some explanation of these
  results; or, to show at what periods and under what circumstances
  several different branches of the Caucasian race were blended into a
  single nation possessing more or less the characteristics of each, and
  this again modified in degree by another race wholly different from
  either. It is in the first place necessary to recur to the fact of the
  very long occupation of Egypt by successive dynasties of Hykshos or
  shepherd kings, and that these were not of one but of several
  nations—Phenicians, Pelasgi, and Scythians; while to these followed,
  at a long interval, an Ethiopian or Austral-Egyptian dynasty. Each of
  these great revolutions must have tended in turn to the amalgamation
  of the Egyptians with other nations; and this result may be referred
  to three principal epochs, independently of several subordinate ones.

  THE FIRST EPOCH embraces the dynasty of the Hykshos or shepherd kings,
  commencing before Christ two thousand and eighty, and having a
  duration of two hundred and sixty years.

  It is important, however, to observe, that Josephus quoting Manetho,
  makes the Hykshos dynasty last five hundred and eleven years; and the
  learned Baron Bunsen, whose work has not yet appeared, extends it to
  1000, beginning B.C. 2514.[120] The shorter period is that of
  Rosellini; but the longer one is perhaps most consistent with facts,
  and at least makes room for those various dominations which, in the
  lists of Manetho, precede the eighteenth dynasty; which last, headed
  by Amunoph the First, drove out the intrusive kings. During this long
  period the legitimate sovereigns were exiled into Ethiopia; and it is
  evident, that had Meroë been any other than a province or dependency
  of Egypt, it is hardly probable that the Egyptians,—kings, priests,
  and people,—could have found a safe asylum in that country during the
  long period of their exile. It is expressly stated by Josephus that
  the shepherd kings lived at Memphis, “and made both the upper and
  lower country pay tribute.” It would appear, however, that during the
  greater part of the Hykshos dynasty, the Egyptians retained possession
  of the Thebaid: nevertheless the occupation of Lower Egypt by their
  enemies, must have effectually precluded all communication with other
  countries excepting Ethiopia, southern Arabia and India; which fact
  will account for a vast influx of population from those countries,
  (and consequently from the slave-regions of Africa) into the Upper
  Nilotic provinces.

  It is moreover reasonable to suppose that even after the expulsion of
  the Hykshos, multitudes of Egyptians would remain in Ethiopia,—that
  country wherein whole generations of their ancestors had lived and
  died; at the same time that great numbers of Meröites, influenced by a
  variety of motives and especially by social alliances, would descend
  the Nile into Egypt.

  It is moreover evident that while the Egyptians became thus
  fraternized with the nations of southern Asia, and the motley races of
  the Upper Nile, the provinces of Lower Egypt would be overrun with the
  Caucasian tribes of Europe and western Asia; for these, either as
  cognate with the Hykshos or as allies in their service, must have been
  in immense number to have conquered so populous a country, and
  especially to have kept possession during so long a period. It is to
  these events, then, that we attribute that blending of nations which
  appears to have been coeval with the early ages of the Nilotic Family,
  and which amply accounts for the ethnographic diversities every where
  manifest on the monuments.

  THE SECOND EPOCH is comprised in the Ethiopian Dynasty of three kings,
  which lasted forty-four years, beginning B.C. 719.

  These Meröite or Austral-Egyptian kings, during their intrusive
  occupation of Egypt, would naturally, and indeed necessarily engage
  the neighbouring tribes, and especially such as were hostile to Egypt,
  as mercenary soldiers; and there are more than conjectural grounds for
  believing that the Negroes themselves were thus employed. We are told
  in the Sacred Writings (2 Chron. Chap. xii.) that when Shishak king of
  Egypt, who is identical with Sheshonk of the monuments,—went up
  against Jerusalem, he took with him “1200 chariots, and three-score
  thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with
  him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims and the Ethiopians.” Of
  this multitude we may presume that the horsemen, and people in
  chariots were part of the Egyptian army; the Lubims and Sukkiims are
  by most commentators regarded as Libyans and Meröites, while, as the
  Ethiopians are placed last on the list, and are designated in the
  Hebrew original by the name of _Cush_, it is not unreasonable to
  suppose that they were Negroes. This view is sustained by a passage in
  Herodotus,[121] who states that in the army of Xerxes which invaded
  Greece was a legion of _Western Ethiopians_, “who had hair more crisp
  and curling than any other men.”[122] Now if the army of Xerxes
  embraced a legion of African Negroes, it would not be remarkable if
  the Egyptian troops should have been composed in part of the same
  people; which, indeed, with respect to the Ethiopian dynasty, may be
  assumed as a thing of course: for the Meröites would naturally avail
  themselves of every expedient to establish their power by augmenting
  the number of their exotic confederates, and by extending to them
  those privileges which had once been sacred to particular castes. For
  these and other oppressive acts, the Meröite kings were hated by the
  Egyptians; and no sooner were they expelled than their names were
  erased from the monuments.[123]

  THE THIRD EPOCH dates from the conquest by Cambyses, B.C. 525, and
  continues through the whole of the Persian dynasty, or, in other
  words, until the Ptolemaic era, B. C. 332,—a period of nearly two
  hundred years.

  Every one knows that the Persian dominion in Egypt was marked by an
  utter disregard of all the established institutions. No occasion was
  omitted which could humble the pride or debase the character of the
  people. The varied inhabitants of Europe, Asia and Nigritia poured
  into the valley of the Nile, abolishing in degree the exclusiveness of
  caste, and involving an endless confusion of races.

  The prelude to these changes and misfortunes can be traced to the
  reign of Psammeticus the First, who permitted to foreigners, and
  especially to the Greeks, a freedom of ingress which the laws and
  usages of the country had previously denied them. The same policy
  appears to have been fostered by the subsequent kings of the same
  dynasty, until its consummation by Amasis; (B.C. 569) when, in the
  language of Champollion-Figéac, Egypt became at once Egyptian, Greek,
  and Asiatic; her national character was lost for ever; her armies were
  filled with foreign mercenaries; the throne was guarded by European
  soldiers, and continual wars completed the destruction of a tottering
  kingdom.[124]


                           ------------------




                              CONCLUSIONS.

  1. The valley of the Nile, both in Egypt and in Nubia, was originally
  peopled by a branch of the Caucasian race.

  2. These primeval people, since called Egyptians, were the Mizraimites
  of Scripture, the posterity of Ham, and directly affiliated with the
  Libyan family of nations.

  3. In their physical character the Egyptians were intermediate between
  the Indo-European and Semitic races.

  4. The Austral-Egyptian or Meröite communities were an Indo-Arabian
  stock engrafted on the primitive Libyan inhabitants.

  5. Besides these exotic sources of population, the Egyptian race was
  at different periods modified by the influx of the Caucasian nations
  of Asia and Europe,—Pelasgi, or Hellenes, Scythians and Phenicians.

  6. Kings of Egypt appear to have been incidentally derived from each
  of the above nations.

  7. The Copts, in part at least, are a mixture of the Caucasian and the
  Negro in extremely variable proportions.

  8. Negroes were numerous in Egypt, but their social position in
  ancient times was the same that it now is, that of servants and
  slaves.

  9. The national characteristics of all these families of Man are
  distinctly figured on the monuments; and all of them, excepting the
  Scythians and Phenicians, have been identified in the catacombs.

  10. The present Fellahs are the lineal and least-mixed descendants of
  the ancient Egyptians; and the latter are collaterally represented by
  the Tuaricks, Kabyles, Siwahs, and other remains of the Libyan family
  of nations.

  11. The modern Nubians, with a few exceptions, are not the descendants
  of the monumental Ethiopians, but a variously mixed race of Arabs and
  Negroes.

  12. Whatever may have been the size of the _cartilaginous_ portion of
  the ear, the osseous structure conforms in every instance to the usual
  relative position.

  13. The Teeth, differ in nothing from those of other Caucasian
  nations.

  14. The Hair of the Egyptians resembled, in texture, that of the
  fairest Europeans of the present day.

  15. The physical or organic characters which distinguish the several
  races of men, are as old as the oldest records of our species.


                  *       *       *       *       *


  NOTE.—I have taken frequent occasion to quote the opinions of the late
  Professor Blumenbach, of Göttingen, whose name is inseparably
  connected with the science of Ethnography; but I have to regret that
  up to the present time I have not been able to procure either in this
  country or from Europe, the last two memoirs which embrace his views
  on Egyptian subjects, and especially the work entitled, “Specimen
  historiæ naturalis antique artis operibus illustratæ.” His views,
  however, as previously given to the world, have been repeatedly
  adverted to in these pages; and his matured and latest observations,
  as quoted by Dr. Wiseman, appear to have confirmed his original
  sentiments. “In 1808,” says Dr. Wiseman, “he more clearly expressed
  his opinion that the monuments prove the existence of _three distinct
  forms_ or physiognomies among the ancient inhabitants of Egypt. Three
  years later he entered more fully into this inquiry, and gave the
  monuments, which he thought bore him out in this hypothesis. The first
  of these _forms_ he considers to approach to the Negro model, the
  second to the Hindoo, the third to the Berber, or ordinary Egyptian
  head. (_Beträge zur Naturgeschichte_, 2 _ter Th._ 1811.) But I think
  an unprejudiced observer will not easily follow him so far. The first
  head has nothing in common with the _Black race_, but is only a
  coarser representation of the Egyptian type; the second is only its
  mythological or ideal purification.” _Lectures on the Connexion
  between Science and Revealed Religion, 2d edit. p. 100._

  I thus place side by side the opinions of these learned men. With
  respect to Professor Blumenbach, I may add that when he wrote on
  Egyptian ethnography there were no _fac simile_ copies of the
  monuments, such as have since been given to the world by the French
  and Tuscan Commissions; and again, that learned author had not access
  lo a sufficient number of embalmed heads to enable him to compare
  these with the monumental effigies. With these lights he would at once
  have detected _an all-pervading physiognomy which is peculiarly and
  essentially_ EGYPTIAN; and in respect to which all the other
  forms,—Pelasgic, Semitic, Hindu and Negro are incidental and
  subordinate; sometimes, it is true, represented with the attributes of
  royalty, but for the most part depicted as foreigners, enemies and
  bondsmen.

  With Egyptian _statuary_ I am little acquainted. The only four years
  of my life which were spent in Europe were devoted almost exclusively
  to professional pursuits; and the many remains of Egyptian art which
  are preserved in the British and continental museums, have left but a
  vague impression on my memory. How invaluable to Ethnography are the
  two statues of the First Osortasen, now in the royal cabinet of
  Berlin! These I have not seen, nor the memoir in which Dr. Lepsius has
  described them.

  I have, for the most part, omitted any remarks on the intellectual and
  moral character of the Egyptians, because they would have extended my
  work beyond the limits prescribed by the present mode of publication.
  I have also avoided, as much as possible, those philological
  disquisitions which have of late years combined so much interest and
  discrepancy, but which are all-important to Egyptian ethnography, and
  are daily becoming better understood, and therefore of more practical
  value. For an instructive view of this question, and many collateral
  facts and opinions, the reader is referred to the third volume of Dr.
  Prichard’s _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_; a work
  which commands our unqualified admiration both in respect to the
  multitude and the accuracy of the facts it contains, and the genius
  and learning with which they are woven together.

  I look with great interest to the researches of Dr. Lepsius at Meroë;
  as well as to those of my friend Dr. Charles Pickering, who is now in
  Egypt for the sole purpose of studying the monuments in connexion with
  the people of that country. And finally, it gives me great pleasure to
  state that the profound erudition of the Baron Alexander de Humboldt
  is at this moment engaged in a work which will embrace his views on
  Egyptian ethnography, and give to the world the matured opinions of a
  mind which has already illuminated every department of natural
  science.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                ERRATA.


  Page 36,—fifth line from the bottom, for “page 109,” read _page_ 17.
      "   36,—fourth line from the bottom, for “six figured skulls,”
     read _six skulls figured_.
      "   41,—fifth line from the bottom, for “Armada,” read _Armada?_
      "   43,—fourth line from the top, for “Semitic” read _Hebrew_.
      "   45,—eighth line from the bottom, for “are” read _is_, and
     “conform” read _conforms_.

  [Transcriber’s Note: These changes have been made in the electronic
  versions of this book. June, 2019]




------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. I.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE PYRAMID OF FIVE STEPS
  AT SACCARA.
  T. Sinclair’s Lith. Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. II.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE NECROPOLIS OF MEMPHIS.
  T. Sinclair’s Lith. Phil^a.
]


------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. III.

  _J. T. French del._

  FROM THE NECROPOLIS OF MEMPHIS.
  T. Sinclair’s Lith. Phil^a.
]


------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. IV.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE GROTTOES NEAR MAABDEH.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. V.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM A TOMB AT ABYDOS.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. VI.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. VII.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.
  T. Sinclair’s Lith. Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. VIII.
  _J. T. French del._

  FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.
  T. Sinclair’s Lith. Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. IX.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. X.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. XI.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM THE CATACOMBS OF THEBES.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. XII.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  _Figs. 1. 2._ Catacombs of Thebes.
  _Figs. 3. 4. 5._ Tombs of Koum Ombos.
  _Figs. 6. 7._ From a Tumulus at Philæ.
  _Figs. 8. 9._ From Deboud.in Nubia.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. XIII.
  _M. S. Weaver del._

  FROM A TOMB AT DEBOD IN NUBIA.
  Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a.
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Illustration:

  Pl. XIV.
  _Drawn from Rossellini by R. H. Kern._ _On stone by M. S. Weaver_

  _Figs. 1. to 18._ (inclusive) _Portraits of the Kings and Queens of
    Egypt._
  _Figs. 19. to 24._ (inclusive) _People of various Nations._
  _Lith. of T. Sinclair, Phil^a._
]


------------------------------------------------------------------------

                               FOOTNOTES


-----

Footnote 1:

  I do not use this term with ethnographic precision; but merely to
  indicate the most perfect type of cranio-facial outline.

Footnote 2:

    Explorations at the Pyramids, Vol. III., p. 44.

Footnote 3:

    The letters I. C., denote the internal capacity of the cranium.—F.
    A., the Facial Angle. The skulls of persons under sixteen or
    eighteen years of age are seldom measured, and never admitted into
    the computations of this memoir.

Footnote 4:

    It will be observed, on comparing this table with the original one
    published in the _Proceedings_ of the Society for December, 1842,
    (and since republished in Mr. Gliddon’s _Ancient Egypt_,) that there
    is a great difference in the relative number of Pelasgic and
    Egyptian heads; which fact has been already adverted to, and
    explained, (page 4.) I have been governed in the present
    classification, by the manifest presence of the Egyptian
    physiognomy, even in those instances in which it appears to be
    blended with an equal and even preponderating Pelasgic character. It
    will be observed, however, that _the whole number of Caucasian
    heads_ is nearly the same in both tables; and that the relative
    proportion of Semitic, Negro and Negroid crania is unaltered.

Footnote 5:

    Lawrence’s Lectures on Zoology, &c., p. 347.

Footnote 6:

    Decas Quarta, p. 6.

Footnote 7:

    Lawrence, ut supra, eighth edition, p. 325.

Footnote 8:

    Description de L’Egypte, Antiq. II., pl. 49, 50.

Footnote 9:

    In my Crania Americana, p. 283, I have described an ingenious method
    of measuring the internal capacity of the cranium, devised by my
    friend Mr. John S. Phillips. The material used for filling the
    skull, as there directed, was white pepper seed, which was chosen on
    account of its spheroidal form, and general uniformity of size.
    Finding, however, that considerable variation occurred in successive
    measurements of the skull, I substituted leaden shot one tenth of an
    inch in diameter, in place of the seeds. The skull must be
    _completely filled_ by shaking it while the shot is poured in at the
    foramen magnum, into which the finger must be frequently pressed for
    the same purpose, until the various sinuosities will receive no
    more. When this is accomplished, the shot on being transferred to
    the tube, will give the _absolute_ capacity of the cranium, or _size
    of the brain_, in cubic inches.

Footnote 10:

    I have in my possession seventy-nine crania of Negroes born in
    Africa, for which I am indebted to Doctors Goheen and M’Dowell,
    lately attached to the medical department of the Colony at Liberia,
    in western Africa; and especially to Don Jose Rodriguez Cisneros, M.
    D., of Havana, in the island of Cuba. Of the whole number,
    fifty-eight are adult, or sixteen years of age, and upwards, and
    give eighty-five cubic inches for the average size of the brain. The
    largest head measures ninety-nine cubic inches; the smallest but
    sixty-five. The latter, which is that of a middle-aged woman, is the
    smallest adult head that has hitherto come under my notice.

Footnote 11:

    Rosellini, M. R. Plate 102, Fig. 47.

Footnote 12:

    Idem, M. C. Plate 43, Fig. 45.

Footnote 13:

    Rosellini, M. C., Plate 128, Fig. 2.

Footnote 14:

    Idem, Plate 101, Fig. 2.

Footnote 15:

    Rosellini, M. C. Plate 127.

Footnote 16:

    Description de L’Egypte, Antiq. T. I. pl. 68, fig. 114.—HAMILTON,
    Ægyptiaca, p. 55.

Footnote 17:

    “Dentes vegrandes, et incisorum quoque coronæ crassé cylindricæ
    magis aut obtusé conicæ, quam scalpriformes.” _Decas prima_, p. 12.
    See also Trans. Royal Soc. of London, 1794.

Footnote 18:

    _Prichard_, Researches, Vol. II., p. 250.

Footnote 19:

    Ptolemæi Geog. Lib. I., cap. ix., as quoted in Edinburgh Review,
    Vol. LX. p. 312.

Footnote 20:

    Did any one ever read the EUTERPE for the first time without some
    misgivings of this kind? I ask this question with a profound respect
    for the venerable historian and traveller.

Footnote 21:

    It is a curious fact observed by Rosellini and others, that the
    Greeks painted some of their divinities red, as Jupiter and Pan; and
    even Venus herself appears to have been sometimes represented of the
    same colour. _Monumenti Civili_, II., p. 169.

Footnote 22:

    “By saying that the Egyptians, _for the most part_, are of a
    brownish or somewhat brown colour, and of a tanned and blackened
    hue, the writer shows that this was not the case equally, at least,
    with all of them; and the expression _subfusculi_ and _atrati_ are
    very different from _nigri_ or _atri_.”—PRICHARD, Researches, II.,
    p. 232.

    “Tra le specie d’uomini non affatto neri di pelle, e di fattezze
    diversi da quelli che noi siam soliti chiamare Africani, furono gli
    antichi Egizi: e quando Erodoto afferma che i Colchi erano una
    colonia d’Egitto, perché dessi pure avevano nero colore, non vuolsi
    già intende rigorosamente di quel colore, che proprio è dei Neri; ma
    tale ci lo chiama per rispetto al colore dei Bianchi e dei Greci
    stessi; e perché veramente l’incarnato degli Egiziani al nero in
    qualche modo si avvicinava. Noi lo diremmo con più giustezza color
    fosco; e questo epiteto diedero anche i Latini agli abitanti
    dell’Egitto, come si legge in Properzio: “An tibi non satis est
    _fuscis_ Egyptus alumnis?””—ROSELLINI, Mon. Civ., II., p. 167.

Footnote 23:

    Lectures on the connexion between Science and Revealed Religion, p.
    102, 2d edit.

    These remarks will also serve to explain why Aristotle has placed
    the Egyptians and Negroes in the same national category; which is
    not more surprising than his referring the Thracians to the
    Mongolian race, and attributing to them a _red_ complexion.

Footnote 24:

    The _longitudinal diameter_ is measured from the most prominent part
    of the os frontis, between the superciliary ridges, to the extreme
    end of the occiput.

    The _parietal diameter_ is measured between the most distant points
    of the parietal bones, which are, for the most part, the
    protuberances of these bones.

Footnote 25:

    I have been engaged for several years past in obtaining and
    arranging a series of measurements of the nature here indicated,
    under the title of Craniometrical Tables; but it will be readily
    conceived that the difficulty of procuring the requisite materials,
    renders the progress of such an undertaking extremely slow and
    uncertain.

Footnote 26:

    I have reason to believe that this cranium, which I obtained
    separate from the rest of the mummy, belonged to another Egyptian
    skeleton subsequently procured from the same source.

Footnote 27:

    Champollion, Monumens de l’Egypte, Tom. II., plate 160, fig. 3.

Footnote 28:

    Rosellini, M. C., plate CXXXIII., fig. 3.

Footnote 29:

    Hoskins’ Travels in Ethiopia, plate XI.

Footnote 30:

    Cailliaud, plate XVI. to XX. For the use of the only copy of this
    work now in the United States, I am indebted to the politeness of
    Colonel Pleasanton, of this city.

Footnote 31:

    Rosellini, Monumenti, M. C., plate CXXXIII.

Footnote 32:

    Champollion-Figeac, Egypte Ancienne, p. 356.

Footnote 33:

    Rosellini, M. C., plate XCVII., and Wilkinson’s Topography of
    Thebes, p. 109.

Footnote 34:

    Rosellini, M. C. Plate 126.

Footnote 35:

    Idem. Vol. 1, Plate 4.

Footnote 36:

    Idem. M. C. Plate 41.

Footnote 37:

    Idem. M. C. Plate 37.

Footnote 38:

    Idem. M. C. Plate 86.

Footnote 39:

    Idem. M. C. Plate 29.

Footnote 40:

    Rosellini, M. C. Plate 132, Fig. 1.

Footnote 41:

    Idem. Plate 127, Fig. 1.

Footnote 42:

    Trans. Royal Society of London, 1794, passim, and Plate 16, Fig. 2,
    of that work.

Footnote 43:

    Ancient Egypt, p, 46, 47.

Footnote 44:

    The learned Dr. Beke reverses the route, and supposes that the
    “Cushite descendants of Ham” first settled on the western side of
    the Arabian Peninsula, crossed thence into Ethiopia, and descending
    the Nile, became the Egyptians of after times.—Origines Biblicæ, 1,
    p. 162.

Footnote 45:

    I use the terms Libyan and Ethiopian as they are handed down to us
    from antiquity. “Speaking with all the precision I am able,” says
    Herodotus, “the country I have been describing is inhabited by four
    nations only; of these _two are natives_ and two are strangers. The
    natives are the _Libyans_ ([Greek: Dibyes]) and the Ethiopians,
    ([Greek: Aithiopes]); one of which possesses the northern, the other
    the southern parts of Africa. The strangers are the Phoenicians and
    the Greeks.”—Melpomene, 197. In the days of Herodotus nomad Libyans
    still inhabited the vicinity of Avaris.

Footnote 46:

    I use the word _aboriginal_ in this place with some reservation. It
    has been supposed by learned authorities that Africa was peopled by
    Negroes before the Hamitic tribes entered that country. I do not
    suppose Ham to have been the progenitor of the Negro race; and, with
    Dr. Wiseman, Mr. Lawrence and many others, I regard as a
    “conjecture” in Science, that doctrine which would attribute the
    physical gradations between the white man and the Negro to any other
    natural process than that of direct amalgamation.—Lawrence, Lectures
    on Zoology, 8th edit. p. 264. Wiseman, Lectures, 2d edit. p. 158.
    Beke, Origines Biblicæ, Tom. I., p. 162.

Footnote 47:

    These Letters, which are addressed to Peter S. Duponceau, Esq., are
    contained in the fourth volume of the Transactions of this Society;
    and to this source the reader is referred for a mass of interesting
    details which is necessarily excluded in this place. The valuable
    communications of Mr. Shaler, also addressed to Mr. Duponceau, are
    published in the second volume of the same work.

Footnote 48:

    “The phrase _a shepherd fed his flock_, is thus rendered in that
    language:—_amiksa iksa thikhsi_. These words, moreover, constitute a
    beautiful illustration of the genius of the language. In _amiksa_ we
    have the formative particle _am_; and in _thikhsi_ there is the
    feminine prefix _th_, a peculiarity alike of the Berber and the
    Coptic. The prefixes and suffixes _t_, _th_, are Berber indications
    throughout the whole extent of north Africa.” Vide also Hornemann,
    Voyage, Vocab. p. 431.

Footnote 49:

    In Jeremiah Cush and _Phut_ are names of African nations; while in
    hieroglyphics Libya is called _Nephaiat_, the “country of the nine
    bows.” The root of Nephaiat being _Phut_ (in Coptic a bow) connects
    the Libyans with _Phut_, the son of Ham, (Gen. x. 6,) and confirms
    the affiliation of the Libyans and Egyptians. See Gliddon, Anc.
    Egypt, p. 25, 27, 41.

Footnote 50:

    Sketches of Algiers, p. 91. Capt. Lyon’s observations are to the
    same purpose. _Trav._ p. 109.—Denham and Clapperton, p. 73.

Footnote 51:

    Denham and Clapperton, Introd. p. 67. To give some idea of the
    number of the Tuaricks, these gentlemen mention that no less than
    two thousand were executed at Sackatoo, in Houssa, on a single
    occasion, for a predatory irruption into the territories of the
    Negro sultan of that country.—_Journey from Kano to Sackatoo_, p.
    107.

Footnote 52:

    Ibid. p. 941, 213, 237, 263, 315.

Footnote 53:

    Denham and Clapperton, p. 50. See also Hornemann, Voy. en Afrique,
    p. 147.—All the Tibboo tribes appear to be Negroes modified by
    intermixture with the Arabs and Berbers who surround them.

Footnote 54:

    For the funereal rites of the Guanches as compared with those of the
    Egyptians, see Bertholet, “Mémoires sur les Guanches,” in Mémoires
    de la Société Ethnologique de Paris, Tome I.—See also Blumenbach,
    Decad. Cran. Tab. XLII.

Footnote 55:

    I use the word _Meroë_ in a comprehensive sense for all the ancient
    civilized region south of Egypt.

Footnote 56:

    Travels in Ethiopia, p. 329. Wilkinson, M. and C. Vol. I., Plate
    LXII.

Footnote 57:

    Idem. Plate X.

Footnote 58:

    Travels in Ethiopia, Plate XIV. See also Cailliaud, Voy. à Meroë,
    and Hoskins, Plate XXIX.

Footnote 59:

    See Gliddon, Ancient Egypt, _passim_.

Footnote 60:

    Modern Egyptians, Vol. II., p. 32.

Footnote 61:

    Jomard, apud Mengin, Hist, de l’Egypte, p. 408. To this valuable
    memoir the reader is referred for various additional analogies which
    are unavoidably omitted on the present occasion.

Footnote 62:

    “Le front haut et large, découvert et un pen fuyant.”—Jomard.

Footnote 63:

    In addition to the few remarks already made in reference to my use
    of this term, I may observe that the Pelasgi were generally regarded
    as the aboriginal inhabitants of Thessaly; but their warlike and
    roving propensities led them to extend their migrations in various
    directions, until we find it difficult, if not impossible, to
    distinguish between them and the affiliated tribes of Dacians,
    Macedonians and Thracians. At one period they ranged nearly the
    whole country from Illyria to the Black Sea, and gave the name of
    Pelasgia to all Greece; and, as every one knows, the Greeks or
    Hellenes were their lineal descendants. See Prichard, Researches,
    Vol. III., and Mrs. Gray’s History of Etruria, Vol. I., p. 86.

Footnote 64:

    Cory, Frag. p. 114.

Footnote 65:

    For the proofs that these effigies are really portraits of the
    persons represented, the reader is referred to Rosellini’s chapter
    entitled, “Iconografia dei Faraouni e dei re Greci de ’Egitto,” in
    his _Monumenti_, M. S., Vol. II., p. 461. Portraits of the same king
    sometimes differ very considerably from each other, I grant, but the
    instances are few in comparison, and may have been intended to
    designate different periods of life; nor are these differences
    greater than we are accustomed to see in the physiognomy of modern
    kings, as represented on their respective coins and medals. But even
    if it could be demonstrated that the Nilotic paintings are not
    portraits, it would not diminish their ethnographic value, for they
    at least delineate the characteristic physiognomy of the Egyptians.
    See also, Champollion, “Lettres écrites de l’Egypte et de la Nubie.”

Footnote 66:

    Champollion, Monuments, Tom. I., Plate I. The annexed figure is
    greatly enlarged from Champollion’s drawing. See also Rosellini, M.
    R., Plate XXV., in which the _eye_ is wanting.

Footnote 67:

    Champollion-Figéac, Egypte, p. 293.

Footnote 68:

    Rosellini, M. C., Plate 33.

Footnote 69:

    Antiquités, Tom. I., Plate 68.

Footnote 70:

    Rosellini, M. C., Plate 13.

Footnote 71:

    Idem. M. R., Plate 96.

Footnote 72:

    Rosellini, M. R., Plate 158.

Footnote 73:

    The Semitic race extended from the Mediterranean sea on the west to
    the confines of Persia on the East, and doubtless possessed great
    variety of feature and complexion. They derive their collective name
    from Shem, “from whom, in the table of nations in the book of
    Genesis, entitled Toldoth Beni Noah, many of them are declared to
    have descended.” Prichard, Researches, II., p. 208, 2d ed. The
    principal of these nations, adds Dr. Prichard, were those of Elam,
    to the north-west of the Persian Gulf; the Assyrians; the Chasdim,
    or Chaldeans, who are the ancestors of the Hebrews and Arabs; the
    Lydians; and the Syrians, or people of Aram. They are also called,
    collectively, Syro-Arabian nations.

    The Jews were immensely numerous in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and
    Roman epochs. _Vide_ Josephus, Book XII., chap. ii—Sharpe, Egypt
    under the Romans, p. 13.

Footnote 74:

    Letter to the Chev. Bunsen. See Wiseman’s Lectures on Science and
    Revealed Religion, 2d edit., p. 62; and a note at the end of that
    most learned and instructive work, “on the conformity between the
    Semitic and the Indo-European grammatical forms.”

Footnote 75:

    “Toutes leurs formes sout anguleuses,” says Denon; “leur barbe
    courte et à mèches pointues.” Voyage en Egypte, I., p. 92.

Footnote 76:

    Bedouins and Wahabys, p. 28.—Clot Bey, Aperçu generale de l’Egypte,
    I., p. 161.

Footnote 77:

    Edinburgh Review, Vol. LX., p. 297.

Footnote 78:

    _Apud_ Mengin, Hist. de l’Egypte, III., p. 406.

Footnote 79:

    I have stated, in my “Crania Americana,” that the Hindoos appear to
    have the smallest heads of any existing people; and that in the Inca
    Peruvians the brain was but a fraction larger. Later observations,
    however, have led me to believe that the _Nigritos_, or aboriginal
    Negro race of the Indian archipelago, present a nearly parallel
    example.

Footnote 80:

    Rosellini, M. S. H. II, p. 174, 238.

Footnote 81:

    Prichard, Egyptian Mythology, p. 35.

Footnote 82:

    Crania Americana, p. 37.

Footnote 83:

    Bibliotheca, B. I., C. 2. “Khem, of whom Osiris is a form, is the
    great deity corresponding to the Indian Siva; Phthah, of whom Horus
    is another form, is the Indian Brahma; and Kneph is the counterpart
    of Vishnu.” Cory, in Harapollo, Pref., p. x.

Footnote 84:

    Trans. Roy. Soc. of Literature, I., p. 173. (London.)

Footnote 85:

    Prichard, Researches, Vol. II., p. 218.

Footnote 86:

    Ancient African Nations.—That the Indo-European race (of which the
    Hindoos are a branch,) has been among the most enterprising and
    widely distributed nations of the earth, is incontestably proved by
    the prevalence of the Sanscrit tongue as an element of many
    languages from Hindostan westward to the shores of Iceland, and
    eastward to the Polynesian Isles.—Malte Brun, Geography, Vol. I., p.
    660.

Footnote 87:

    It is curious to observe that although the Hindoos in our day have
    little intercourse with Nubia and the adjacent provinces, the
    circumstance is owing to a want of those incentives to commerce
    which existed in antiquity; but Burckhardt describes the remains of
    Indian traffic as now seen in Mecca and Djidda, in Arabia, where the
    Hindoos yet sell the manufactures and other productions of their own
    country.—Travels in Arabia, p. 14, 119.

Footnote 88:

    The opinions of Sir G. Wilkinson are eminently entitled to respect
    on all Egyptian questions; and I need not apologize for quoting his
    opinions (however they may differ from those just given,) as briefly
    expressed in the following passage. “In manners, language, and many
    other respects, Egypt was certainly more Asiatic than African; and
    though there is no appearance of the Hindoo and Egyptian religions
    having been borrowed from one another, which many might be induced
    to conclude from their great analogy in some points, yet it is not
    improbable that these two nations may have proceeded from the same
    stock, and have migrated southward from their parent country in
    central Asia.”—Ancient Egypt, Vol. I., p. 3.

Footnote 89:

    St. Augustine states that the Punic or Phenician tongue was in _his_
    day (the fifth century) a living language, and very like the Hebrew;
    and that the _Canaanitish_ language was _mediate_ between the
    Egyptian and the Hebrew. Mrs. H. Gray. Hist, of Etruria, p. 124.

Footnote 90:

    Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol. I., p. 140.

Footnote 91:

    Appeal to the Antiquarians of Europe on the destruction of the
    monuments of Egypt. By George R. Gliddon. p. 27. The portrait of
    Atenre-Backhan, another of these Hykshos kings, will be found in
    Wilkinson, second series, Plate XXX.

Footnote 92:

    Prichard, Researches, Vol. III., p. 441.

Footnote 93:

    Champollion, Monumens, Tom. I., Plate XXXVI.

Footnote 94:

    Mrs. H. Gray, History of Etruria, Vol. I., p. 31, 39.

Footnote 95:

    Voyage en Egypte, I., p. 206.

Footnote 96:

    Trav. in Egypt, II., p. 168. See also Volney, Voyage, I., p. 70.

Footnote 97:

    Trav. in Africa, p. 77.

Footnote 98:

    Modern Egyptians, II., p. 310.

Footnote 99:

    Monumenti, M. C. II., p. 77.

Footnote 100:

    Prichard, Researches, II., p. 238.

Footnote 101:

    Trav. in Nubia, p. 217.

Footnote 102:

    For ample details of this interesting question, see D’Avezac,
    Esquisse générale de l’Afrique, p. 55; and Hodgson on the Foulahs of
    Central Africa, p. 5, _et passim_.

Footnote 103:

    Trav. in Nubia, p. 353.

Footnote 104:

    Prichard, Researches &c. vol. II. p. 174.

Footnote 105:

    Voyage à Meroë, II., p. 276.

Footnote 106:

    Edinburgh Review, Vol. LX., p. 311.

Footnote 107:

    Idem., p. 307. The antiquity of the name Nubia, is of some
    importance in this discussion. Heeren and others state that it first
    occurs in history during the epoch of the Ptolemies; but Rosellini
    has now discovered that it is at least as old as the age of
    Menepthah I., (B.C. 1600,) on whose monuments it is found.

    Since the above note was written, Mr. Gliddon has obligingly
    furnished me with the following interesting memorandum: “The name
    Nubia, with its derivatives of Nouba and Noubatæ, may be readily
    traced to _Noubnoub_, a Nubian divinity in the hieroglyphical
    legends of Menepthah I. and Rameses II. and III., and may possibly
    be derived from the root _noub_, gold, from the proximity of Nubia
    to the Ethiopian gold countries. The word _Berber_, as applied to
    the people of Nubia, (now called Berabera in the plural, from
    Berberri, the singular,) is without question derived from the
    hieroglyphical name _Barobaro_, by which at least one tribe
    inhabiting Nubia was known to the Egyptians of the 18th dynasty.”

Footnote 108:

    Clot Bey states the present black population of Egypt to be twenty
    thousand; and he adds that Negresses form the greater number of
    women in almost every harem. Aperçu Générale de l’Egypte, I., p.
    329.

Footnote 109:

    Sir G. Wilkinson observes that “no difficulty occurred to the
    Ishmaelites in the purchase of Joseph from his brethren, nor on his
    subsequent sale to Potiphar on arriving in Egypt.” Ancient
    Egyptians, I., p. 404.

Footnote 110:

    A passage in Manetho establishes at the same time the antiquity and
    the power of eunuchs in Egypt; for he relates that king Ammenemes,
    of the twelfth dynasty, was slain by them. This event will date, by
    the received chronology, upwards of twenty-two hundred years B.C.
    Cory, Frag., p. 110. Eunuchs appear, also, to be figured on the
    monuments. Vide Rosellini, M. C. III., p. 133.

Footnote 111:

    Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, II., p. 64.

Footnote 112:

    Notwithstanding this mixture of nations, Mr. Hoskins observes, that
    the higher classes of modern Ethiopians (Nubians,) pay great respect
    to the distinctions of race; that they esteem nothing more than a
    light complexion, which the petty kings or chiefs make a
    prerequisite to the selection of wives; and that, with this class,
    “all mixture with the Negro blood is carefully shunned.”—Travels in
    Ethiopia, p. 357.

Footnote 113:

    Rosellini, Appendix, No. 13.—Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III.

Footnote 114:

    Hoskins, Travels in Ethiopia. Procession, Part First.

Footnote 115:

    Topography of Thebes, p. 136.

Footnote 116:

    Champollion, Monumens de l’Egypte, Plate CX.

Footnote 117:

    Vide Champollion, Monumens de l’Egypte, Tom. I., Plate LXXI.,
    LXXII.; and Rosellini, Monumenti, M. R., Tav. LXXV. A glance at
    these illustrations will convince any one that the slave-hunts or
    _ghrazzies_, as now practised by the Arabs, Tuaricks and Turks, and
    which are so feelingly described by Cailliaud, and by Denham and
    Clapperton, were in active operation, with all their atrocities, in
    the most flourishing periods of Pharaonic Egypt.

Footnote 118:

    Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1794, p. 193.

Footnote 119:

    Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III. p. 108.

Footnote 120:

    See Mrs. Hamilton Gray’s History of Etruria, Vol. I., p. 29.

Footnote 121:

    In my _Crania Americana_, Note p. 29, I have employed this passage
    to show, that those _Colchians_ whom Herodotus mentions as forming
    “part of the troops of Sesostris,” might have been Negroes acting as
    mercenary or auxiliary soldiers. I am now satisfied that such
    explanation is at least unnecessary, and I, therefore, take this
    occasion to withdraw it.

Footnote 122:

    Polhym. Cap. lxx.

Footnote 123:

    Among the meager facts which history has preserved in relation to
    these intrusive kings, the following is the most remarkable:
    “Sabakon (the first king of the Ethiopian dynasty) having taken
    Boccoris (the legitimate sovereign) captive, burnt him alive.”
    Manetho _apud_ Cory, Frag. p. 126. Could any circumstance have
    rendered the Ethiopians more detestable in the eyes of the Egyptians
    than this first act of barbarian policy?

Footnote 124:

    Egypte Ancienne, p. 207.


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  ● Transcriber’s Notes:
     ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
     ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
     ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
       when a predominant form was found in this book.
     ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).







End of Project Gutenberg's Crania Ægyptiaca, by Samuel George Morton