“ It must then have been a proud period for Egypt—?that is proved by these mighty
tombs alone. It is interesting, likewise, to trace in the rich representations on the walls,
which put before our eyes the high advance of the peaceful arts, as well as the refined
luxury of the great of that period; also the foreboding of that great misfortune which
brought Egypt, for several centuries, under the rule of its northern enemies. In the representations
of the warlike games, which form a characteristically recurring feature, and take
up whole sides in some tombs, which leads to a conclusion of their general use at that
period afterwards disappearing, we often find among the red or dark-brown men, of the
Egyptian and southern races, very light-colored people, who have, for the most part, a
totally different costume, and generally red-colored hair on the head and beard, and blue
eyes, sometimes appearing alone, sometimes in small divisions. They also appear in the
trains of the nobles, and are evidently of northern, probably of Semitic, origin. We find
victories over the Ethiopians and Negroes on the monuments of those times, and therefore
need not be surprised at the recurrence of black slaves and servants. Of wars against the
northern neighbors we learn nothing; but it seems that the immigration from the northeast
was already beginning, and that many foreigners sought an asylum in fertile Egypt in
return for service and other useful employments. . . . I have traced the whole representation,
which is about eight feet long, and one-and-a-half high, and is very well preserved
through, as it is only painted. The Royal Scribe, Nefruhotep, who conducts the company
into the presence of the high officer to whom the grave belongs, is presenting him a leaf of
papyrus. Upon this the sixth year of King Sesurtesen II. is mentioned, in which that
family of thirty-seven pqpsons came to Egypt. Their chief and lord was named Absha,
they themselves Aama, a national designation, recurring with the light-complexioned race,
often represented in the royal tombs of the XlXth dynasty, together with three other races,
and forming the four principal divisions of mankind, with which the Egyptians were
acquainted. Champollion took them for Greeks when he was in Benihassan, but he was
not then aware of the extreme antiquity of the monuments before him. Wilkinson considers
them prisoners, but this is confuted by their appearance with arms and lyres, with
wives, children, donkeys, and luggage; I hold them to be an immigrating Hyksos-family,
which begs for a reception into the favored land, and whose posterity perhaps opened the
gates of Egypt to the conquering tribes of their Semitic relations.”
The writer (G. R. G.), who had explored all these . localities in
1839-, with Mr. A. C. Harris, would mention, that immediately above
Beni-Hassan (at the Speos-Artemidos, overlooked by Wilkinson from
1823 to ’34), a defile through the precipitous hills leads from the Mile
into the Eastern Desert, and thence trends through the WMee-el-
Arahah to the Isthmus of Suez: as, indeed, may he perceived in
R tjsseggeb’s map,206 before us. At the Egyptian mouth of this ravine
are remains of walls, &c., that once blocked the passage; and, in
ancient times, here doubtless was a military post, to prevent nomadic
ingress into the cultivated lands without the surveillance of the police.
Owing to the intricacies of the limestone ravines in this part of the
Eastern Desert, any strangers, becoming entangled in these intersections,
would, in the end, debouche at this pass, and he at once arrested,
by the guard. I t is thus that, without speculatiye notions, we arrive
at the conclusion that these “ thirty-seven foreigners” (although the
artist has drawn but fifteen—men, women, and children) were merely
Arabian wanderers; who, motives unknown, entered Egypt during
the twenty-third century b. c. Matural history, heretofore too frequently
left aside by archaeologists, not only confirms our view, hut
indicates the Peninsula of Mount Sinai, if not as their homestead, at
least as the road by which they came. The reason we are about to
give establishes two things: 1st, the minute accuracy of Egyptian
draughtsmen in the X Llth dynasty, 4200 years ago; 2dly, the prompt
acuity of Prof. Agassiz, in April, 1853.
At the house of their friend, Mr. A. S t e in , of Mobile, the authors
were looking over his copy of the noble Prussian Denkmaler, when
Prof. Agassiz, the moment we reached this plate (ubi supra), pointed
out the “Capra Siniaca — the goat with semicircular horns, laterally
compressed,” as the first animal; and the “Antilope Saiga, or gazelle
of temperate Western Asia,” as the second: animals offered in prop
itia to r y tribute to General Mum-hotep, by Absha, the Hyk, chief, of
these Mes-segem, foreigners.
Our Eig.109 presents the likeness of the excellent governor of the
province; and the contrast, between their yellow Semitic countenances
and his rubescent Egyptian face, spares us from fears that
consanguinity will be claimed for them.
At least two types, then, of Caucasian families —the one Semitish,
and the other Egyptian — were distinct from each other, and coexistent,
4200 years ago. If two, why not more? Why not each
one of all the primitive types of humaniiy now distinguishable in
Asia., Africa., Europe, America, or Oceanica? Science and logic can
assign no negative reason: dogmatism, which excludes both, will
doubtless continue to worry the hapless “ general reader” with many.
We must span, for want of intervening ethnographic monuments,
the gulf that separates.the Xllth from the Vlth dynasty, assuming
the latter at about 2800 years b . c. Here again, however, our Caucasian
type reappears not only perfectly marked, but identical with
many of the heads we have already beheld among the royal portraits
of the XV Hth and succeeding dynaties. Lepsius’s precious Denk-
m'aler yields us the following: —
•Fig . 111.207 F ig. 112.208