Part 9

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]

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: