We next proceed to examine tlie Asiatic class; but it should be
remembered that we are about to trace retrogressively, into the very
night of antiquity, various races — say, an indefinite point of time,
more than 5000 years anterior to our age; and that languages, together
with the names of people and of places, have so changed, that it
is in these days impossible to identify, in several instances, either the
nations or their habitats, except en masse.' Often, the type alone,
which has never altered, remains to guide us. It were irrational to
be surprised at these difficulties. We must ever bear in mind the
confusion of races and countries seen among the Hebrew, Greek, and
Homan historians, and even in our geographies of much later ages.
If classical topography be so often vague, that of the primeval hieroglyphics
may well be still more so.
Most of our illustrations are taken from the great works of Rosel-
lini and Lepfeius; but we subjoin references to other hierological
commentators.
This head (Eig. 72), one of several similar,
js taken from the Nubian temple of Aboosim-
bel, by Lepsius placed in the fourteenth century
b. c. They appear on a tableau wherein
Ramses H., during the fifth year of his reign,
attacks a fortress in Asia, which, it is believed,
belonged to a tribe of people called
the Romenen, ReMeNeN, near the “ land of
Omar;” 1® probably mountaineers of the
Tauric range, and, in any case, not remote
from Mesopotamia.
The Romenen are a branch of the Lodan-nou, or “ Ludim,” Lydians;
by which general designation are known, on the monuments, divers
Asiatics inhabiting Asia-Minor, Syria, Assyria, and adjacent countries;
probably, Rosellini thinks, this side of the Euphrates: but we incline,
with Morton, to consider that Eig; 72 “ represents ancient Scythians,
the easternmost Caucasian races; who, as history informs us, possessed
fair complexions, blue eyes, and reddish hair.” Contrasted
with the other Asiatics, grouped in Eig. 71, it affords a very distinct
type. The lower and most salient of the latter profiles presents, as
Morton has duly noted, “ a finely-marked Semitic head, in which the
forehead, though receding, is remarkably voluminous and expressive.”
1® An additional reason for supposing that Fig. 72 does not
belong to Semitic races on the Euphrates, is the fact that it offers no
resemblance to the true Ohaldsean, or indigenous type, beheld on the
royal monuments of Nineveh or Babylon; but may possibly be
recognized among their prisoners of war or foreign nations.
Fig. vs. Allowance made for difference between
Egyptian and Assyrian art, coupled
with the proviso that the Ninevite
sculptors were by no means so precise
in ethnic iconography as those of Egypt,
we reproduce here a head (Eig. 78),
from the sculptures of BhorsabM, by
way of comparison: noting the identity
of the head-dress, which is a leathern
cap. ( Vide infra, page 128).
West of the Euphrates, more or less
of the Jewish type prevailed. The
heads, of which Eig. 72 is a specimen,
represent a race which, some 1400 years b. c., was distinct from contemporaneous
Mesopotamian families. People with yellowish skins,
blue eyes, and reddish hair, are, certainly not of Semitic extraction ;
and, judging from the physiognomy of this man and his associates,
these were probably cognate Scythian tribes, inasmuch as they do not
differ among themselves more than individuals of any Caucasian
nation of our day. It is known that Scythic tribes settled in Syria,
and even at Scythopolis, in Judaea; nor do we employ the term
“ Scythian” here in a sense more specific than as distinct from
“ Semitic” and from “ Hamitic” populations.
Osbubn figures this head, classing it as one of the Canaanitish
“ Zuzim;” but we certainly should not regard blue eyes, ted hair,
eye-brows, and beard, as characteristic of Canaanites, nor of any
other Hamitic families situate in this region of country, west of the
Euphrates. The same author calls our Asiatic, Eig. 71 bis, a “ Moabite
of Rabbah,” and describes him among the Eittites; but he likewise
has classed our Eig. 98 as a Hittite; and we cannot imagine how
heads so entirely different could be deemed identical by an ethnologist.
F ig . 74.160
This head (Eig. 74) is taken from the celebrated tomb of Seti-Me