any room for doubt that all: these representations, and the
temples in which they are displayed, feeloiig to the age of Ethiopian
queens, when successive princesses bearing the name of
•Candace ruled over Meroë,! and had their residence at'lfapata,
in the ruins^ of which place these historical sculptures have
been discovered. The period of this dynasty of queens, one
of whom was visited by the armies of Augustus and another
is mentioned'in the Acts of the Apostles, extended from the
Macedonian times down to nearly 400 years after the Christian
era.
A circumstance which tends strongly to confirm this*opinion
respecting the period of history to which the remains
found in Upper Nubia belong, is the fact that the Egyptian
arts of architecture and sculpture are known to have been
spread nearly in the same ages through other African countries
in a southerly direction from Egypt: The remains found
at Axum in Abyssinia, consisting of obelisks and inscriptions,
belong to the fourth century of the» Christian era : they display
indeed no hieroglyphics; nor anything that can be-considered
as a trace of remote antiquity, | Similar remains, and
of the same period, have been found by voyagers on the Red
Sea, at the port of Azab, and even at Adulis.:
The remains of Lower Nubia are of a widely different character!
They are closely associated in the style ôffsèùlp-
ture, in the architectural type which they display and in the
character of their hieroglyphic inscriptions^rnd ternple oma-
ments, with the most splendid and perfect architecture of
Thebes or Diospolis. Every thing connects them historically
in the closest manner with the second or middle period of
the Egyptian monarchy, when, after the calamities undergone
during Centuries of invasion by the nomadic nations, the kingdom
of the Pharaohs rose “-to new power and dignity. It is
probable, and indeed historically recorded, that the sovereigns
of the hundred-gated Thebes, held at least temporary and occasional
sway over part of Ethiopia, r The circumstance that
the temples found at Ibsambul, and other parts of Lower Nubia,
have so frequently the character of grottoes or excavations,
rather than of erections on the surface of the ground, is
sufficiently explained, as Muller remarks, by the narrowness
in many placea.Qf tJbe Nile valley, which leaves not sufficient
apace for buildings; of a different sort, and the incomplete state
in which manyiqfthese Nubian temples have been found, may
be referred with .great probability, to the uncertain, and often
fluctuating.relations of the^Egyptian monarchy with Ethiopia.”
... On a review ,of.||liisjVauhjeat it appears that the researches»
which have been made in the countries above Egypt, are far
brom Imngipg ’ any new proof of* the superior-antiquity of the
Ethiopian people, when compared with the Egyptians. There
is nothing which »gfgep- back beyond the middle period of
the■ Egyptian monarchy., Even that is more ancient, however,
than the Homeric times^ and sucji a .degree: ofrantiquity will
suffice for giving to Ethiopia a place in the early poétryofthe
Greeks.
That the Egyptians and Ethiopians-were kindred*tribes, or
branches of. one. ancient; stock, the earliest- known position of
which is almost between the two countries, or at .least! in the
southern region,,of Egypt, while the middle and dpwer» tracts
were perhaps, as Herodotus intimâtes,? yet scarcely habitable,
0,r at least but little inhabited,^iH remains an historical
fact. . »It may be doubted whether those* original founders
of the throne of the Pharaohs, who dwelt near Thebes and
Elephantine, might more properly be termed Egyptians or
Ethiopians. In their physical characters the natives of that
region.of the Nile valley were probably of much darker colour,
and might be termed black when .compared with the paler
and redder inhabitants of middle..and lower Egypt. : Some
travellers have thought that they discovered a memorial of this
fact, in some singular representations in the temples ;öf Upper
Egypt. Several of these are groupes of'figures,' or single
figures, some of which are painted red, and others black.
The red figures have been supposed l y Hamilton, and others
who have described them, to be meant, for Egyptians, and
the black for Ethiopians. In some instances the groupes of
black figures represent captives or slaves, and they are led in
procession, tied with chains or bonds. But in many places it
is manifest that these paintings werd designed to typify or
commemorate the relation which the black caste bore to the
red. Both sets of figures have the Egyptian costume and the