Chapter III: Part 3

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.

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.

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.

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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]

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.

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]

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!

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.

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.

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]

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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.

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.

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]

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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.)

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.

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.

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.

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]

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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.

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]

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.

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?

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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.)

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.

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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]

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8. THE NEGROES.