dined to adopt, that there were different raeés of people in
the same country, and all included under the com'mon national
designation of Bgyptfans. It is probable that in Egypt,
as elsewhere, the higher classes were fairer than the common
people; but this is a conclusion derived rather from analogy*
of other nations, than known as a matter-of fact in rëspect to
the Egyptians themselves.
Section III.—-Of Mummies.
We have an authentic source of information respecting the
physical characters of the Egyptian race, in the innumerable
mummies in which the mortal remains of that people are
preserved.
It may be remarked, that Egyptian mummies belong' to
various ages. At what time the practice of embalming was
first adopted we have no information; but it appears to have
-heen in use in the time" of the patriarch Joseph. It cÖiï-
tinued evén after Christianity was established, and was Wot
obsolete in the time of St. Augustin.f- The interval between
these periods, according to Dr. RusselTs computation of
scripture chronology, is about twenty-two centuries.
Mr. Lawrence has collected a variety of facts and statements
relative to the form of the head in the mummies deposited in
the museums in several countries, or described by anatomical
writers. He observes that in the mummies of females seen by
Denon, in those from the Theban catacombs, desöribed and
figured in the great French work on Egypt, and in several
skulls and casts in the possession of. Dr. Leach, the osteologi-
cal character is entirely European, and he adduces the testimony
of Cuvier to the same effect.^
M. Cuvier declares that he has examined, either at Paris
or in other parts of Europe, more than fifty heads of mum-
* Professor K. Ottfided Muller has drawn this conclusion rather more strongly,
as it appears to me, than is warranted by positive information on thé subject,
Handbuch der Archäologie, locis cit.
+ Blumenbach, Bey träge zur Naturgeschichte, s. 124. There is a memoir by
Walch, in the third volume of the Commentaries of the Royal Society of Gottingen,
on Christian Mummies.
J Lectures on the Natural History of Man.
mies, and that not presented the characters
either of the NegM® the Hottën^L^ Hl^lonoludes that the
Egyptians belonged to thé' same race pfmen as the Europeans ;
that their cranium and ‘ forain^was1* equally voluminous with
jaurs ; “ qtr’en un mot, ileiffê»ffafisoient pas ‘exception à cette
loi cruelle qui semblé avoir CQndamné^ un© éteraele infériorité
les races k crâne déffrimé. etïpbmprimé. ’
We may observe that M/0t^iefe’s4iidëa or definition ofthe-
Negro i& plainly restricted toM&ëk men whà havâ very narrow
and compressed skulls. ’ This will ëjjielude not only
the Egyptians, but. a,very great number of the black and
woolly-haired natives of Africa, Avhoffiav’ff expanded foreheads
and well-formed* features^ The skullS'WEgÿptian^mummies
bave the oval figure which prevails amO.ngjiië ‘Ijcdo^Atlantic
nations ; but there are some inst^ifeM in< which ithjsffbrm
varies,! and approximates, in a, slight®degree,-towards the
African.
-,*• There is ah Egyptian skull in th^nuseum ^ofi «the,t Golfpge
of Surgeone which, in .weight- and density ,$^§ehtblbskthe
heavy skulM* of some Guinea Negroes.v* Its formais European,
except that the alveolar-edge of the upper jaw is rather
more prominent than usual. This!, with a corresponding-structure
offthe soft parts, might have gi^ent-to the countenance mu ch
of the Negro character. Soemmerring has5described the heads
of four mummies examined by him : two of them differed dn
no respect from European skulls: the third, as he^sàys, represented
the African form, in having the space,marked, out by
the insertion of the temporal muscle more extensive than in
European heads.J Blumenbach has published'engravings of
* Extraits «^Observations sur le Cadavre d’une Femme connue' sous le nom
de la Venus Hottentotte. Par M. G, Cuvier, Mem. du Muséum d’Hist. Nat.
Nothing can be more vague and conjectural than Baron Cuvier’s notices of
African ethnography. He not only considers thé limitations of races as much more
strongly and permanently defined than they really are, but makes the most singular
mistakes in grouping and identifying tribes. He represents the Bushmen as an entirely
distinct race from the Hottentots, and separates them even in geographical position $
and he identifies the former with the Galla, a people as unlike to them in every respect
as are the Carribees to the Australians.
$ “ Formam Airicanam, alte progrediente vestigio insitionis musculi temporalis,
repræsentat.” But he Adds-Ai“;Vertex non est. compresses, neque ossa faciei ro-
bttsdora sunt ossibus Europæoïum.”—Soemmerring de Corp. Hum. Fabiicf.