172
of Amunoph-Jfmwora. Ethnologically, Ms strange countenance
attests very mixed blood; but nothing of the Negro in either parent.
His face is Asiatic, typifying no especial race; but it is one of those
accidental deviations from regularity that anatomists are familiar with,
especially among mongrel breeds. We have seen in our Pharaonic
gallery that Amunoph HI. (Pig. 53) himself was not of pure Egyptian
stock. '
We now take along and portentous stride in Egyptian history;
viz.: from the XVHth back to the XHth dynasty, a period obscure
for about four centuries. The country during this hiatus seems to
have been greatly disturbed by wars, conquests, by Ify&sos-migra-
tions of population, and other agitating causes; and hence arises the
lack of monuments to guide our investigations. In ethnographical
materials, especially, there is almost an entire blank. But with the
XHth dynasty, one of the most effulgent periods of Egyptian history
bursts upon u s ; and we can again, with ample documents, take up
our Caucasian type, and pursue it upwards along the stream of time.
According to Lepsius, the XHth dynasty closed about the year
2124 b . c. If we add to this the summation for the eight Mngs, given
in the Turin Papyrus, of “ 213 years, 1 month, and 15 days,” 198 this
dynasty commenced about the year 2337 b . c. ; which is only some
eleven years after Usher’s date for the Deluge, when most good Christians
imagine that but cz^Ai*adults, four men and four women (with a
few children), were in existence! The monuments of this dynasty
afford abundant evidence not only of the existence of Egypto-Cauca-
sian races, but of Asiatic nations, as well as of Negroes and other
African groups, at the said diluvian era.
Eio. 108.
F io . 109.
L_____— / ^
“ 1’hirty-seom Prisoners” o f Beni-Hassan. General Nevotph : now, Num-hotep.
Let us dispose first of Pig. 110. . It is one of three recently published
by Lepsius; characterized by red hair, and distinct from No.
108, whose hair is black. We refer to
the DenkmälerW9 for their colored portraits,
adding Lepsius’s comments
below.
The head (Fig. 108)200 on the preceding
page, from the celebrated tombs of
Beni-Hassan, so often alluded to by
Egyptologists, represents one of a group
of personages, generally known as the
“ thirty-seven prisoners of Beni-Hassan.”
The scene has been repeatedly and variously
explained, by Champollion, Ro-
Fio. HO.
Asiatic, from Beni-Hassan.
sellini, Wilkinson, Champollion-Figeae, Birch, and Osburn—leaving
aside the trashy speculations of mere tourists; for, as usual, there
have been printed many extravagant theories as to the country and
condition of these “ thirty-seven prisoners.” They were, indeed, supp
o s e d , by orthodox credulity, to represent the visit of Abraham to
Egypt, or else the arrival of Jacob and his family. More critical authorities
have beheld in them Israelitish wanderers, Ionian Greeks, Hyksos,
and what not. But, alas! all Jewish partialities received a deathblow
when it was proved, through the discovery of the XHth dynasty,
that this tableau had been painted at Beni-Hassan several generations
before Abraham’s b irth ! The first rational account, in English, of
this scene was put forth by Mr. Birch, in 1847. He says: —
“ An officer of Use-t-sen I., as recorded in his toinb at Benihassan, received in the sixth
regnal year of that monarch, by royal command, a convoy of thirty-nine (37) Mes-segem,
foreigners, headed by their hytc, or leader, Ab- sha. These were of the great Semitie
family, called, by the Egyptians, “ Aamw.” 201
This lection he confirms in 1852 —
“ The Mes-stem foreigners, who approach the nomarch Neferhetp, come through the Ara-
bian Desert on asses.” 202
Lepsius had described the impressions made upon Mm, at first
sight of this unique series: —
“ In these remarks, I am thinking especially of that very remarkable scene, on the
grave of AeAera-se-NuMHETEP, which brings before onr eyes, in such lively, colors, the
entrance of Jacob with his fapiily, and would tempt us to identify it with that event, if
chronology would allow us, (for Jacob came under the Hyksos [¿. e., centuries later]), and
if we were not compelled to believe that such family immigrations were by no means of rare occurrence.
These were, however, the forerunners of the Hyksos [and of the Israelites], and
doubtless, in many ways, paved the way for them.” 203
From the excellent translation of Lepsius’s Briefe by Mr. Kenneth
B. H. Mackensie,204 we extract the following particulars, referring at
the same time to the Prussian Denkmäler205 for exquisite plates of
these splendid sepulchres: —