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]