IYth DYNASTY b o 3400 Egyptian developments down to the
. CHRISTIAN ERA.
1st. L anguage — Only 15 articulations, developed, in the Coptic, to 31 letters.
2d. Wr it in g— Hieroglyphics,then Hieratic, next Demotic, and lastly Coptic.
3d. Architecture — Pyramids, then temples with Doric, and lastly with every
kind of column.
4th. Geography — Egypt proper, then, gradually, knowledge as extensive as
that of the Evangelists. .
5th. Zoology—No horses, camels, or com -) , , , . . . „ . I then,-every animal mon fowls, J known to Aristotle,
6th. Arts r—No chariots, .................................. then, all vehicles generally used by the ancients.
/th. Sciences — No bitumenized mummies,. then, every form, with many kinds of foreign
drugs, &c.
8th. E thnology, Native—-1st. Egyptian type, then
2d. Egypto-Asiatic,
3d. Egypto-Negroid.
Foreign— IYth dynasty — Arabs. ' •
XHth dynasty — Arabians, Libyans, Nubians, Negroes.
XYIIIth dynasty— Canaanites, Lews, Phoenicians, Assyrians,
Tartars, Hindoos, Thracians, Ionians,
Lydians, Libyans—Nubians, Abyssinians,
Negroes.
And, thence to Oriental mankind, as known to the Greeks in
Alexander’s day.
We might extend this mnemonical list through many other departments
of knowledge; hut, until these positive instances of development
he overthrown, let us hear no more fables about “ stationary
Egyptians.”
It was, however, only through alien rule, introduced in later times
by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks, that all old habits
were uprooted. Look at India and China; which countries, according
to popular superstitions, seem to have been stereotyped some
three or four thousand years ago: yet, what enormous changes does
not the historian behold in them ! Nevertheless, every type is more
or less tenacious of its habits; and we might cite how the Arabs, the
Turks, and, still more, the Jews, now scattered throughout all nations
of the earth, cling to the customs of their several ancestries: hut, as
we are merely suggesting a few topics for the reader’s meditation, let
us inquire, what was the type of that Ancient Egyptian race which
linked Africa with Asia ? This interrogatory has given rise to endless
discussions, nor can it, even now, be regarded as absolutely answered.
Eor many centuries prior to the present, as readers of R o l l in ' and of
V o l n e y may remember, the Egyptians were reputed to be Negroes,
and Egyptian civilization was believed to have descended the Nile
from Ethiopia ! Champollion, Rosellini, and others, while unanimous
in overthrowing the former, to a great extent consecrated the latter
of these errors, which could hardly be considered as fully refuted
until the appearance of Gliddon’s Chapters on Ancient Egypt, in 1843,
and of Morton’s Crania Ægyptiaea, in 1844. The following extract
presents the first-named author’s deductions : -—
“ The importance of confining history to its legitimate place — to Lower Egypt— is
evident :
“ 1st. Because it “was in Lower Egypt that the Caucasian children of Ham must have
first settled, on their arrival from Asia.
“ 2d. Because the advocates of the theory which would assert the African origin of the
Egyptians say that they rely chiefly on history for their African, or Ethiopie, predilections.
“ 3d. Because the same theorists assume, that we must begin with Africans, at the top
of the Nile, and come downward with civilization; instead of commencing with Asiatics and
White men, at the bottom, and carrying it up.
“ I have not as yet touched on ethnography' the effects of climate, and the antiquity of
the different races of the human family ; but I shall come to those subjects, after establishing
a chronological standard, by defining the history of Egypt according to the hieroglyphics.
At present, I intend merely to sketch the events connected with the Caucasian
children of Ham, the Asiatic, on the first establishment of their Egyptian monarchy, and
the foundation of their first and greatest metropolis in Lower Egypt.
“ The African theories are based upon no critical examination of early history — are
founded on no Scriptural authority for early migrations — are supported by no monumental
evidence, or hie'roglyphical data, and cannot be borne out or admitted by practical common
sense. For civilization, that never came northward out of benighted Africa, (but from the
Deluge to the present moment has been only partially carried into it — to sink into utter
oblivion among the barbarous races whom Providence created to inhabit the Ethiopian and
Nigritian territories of that vast continent,) could not spring from Negroes,-or from Berbers,
and never did.
“ So far, then, as the record, Scriptural, historical, and monumental, will afford us an
insight into the early progress of the human race in Egypt, the most ancient of all civilized
countries, we may safely assert, that history, when analyzed by common sense when
scrutinized by the application of the experience bequeathed to us by our forefathers—when
subjected to a strictly impartial examination into, and comparison of, the physical and
mental capabilities of nations — when distilled in the alembic of chronology, and submitted
to the touchstone of hieroglyphical tests, will not support that superannuated, but untenable,'
doctrine, that civilization originated in Ethiopia, and consequently among an African
people, by whom it was brought down the Nile, to enlighten the less polished, therefore
inferior, Caucasian children of Noah, the Asiatics ; or, that we, who trace back to Egypt
the origin of every art and science known in antiquity, have to thank the sable Negro, or
the dusky Berber, for the first gleams of knowledge and invention.
We may therefore conclude with the observation that, if civilization, instead of going
from North to South, came (contrary, as shown before, to the annals of the earliest historians
and all monumental facts) down the “ Sacred Nile,” to illumine our darkness; and,
if the Ethiopie origin of arts and sciences, with social, moral, and religious institutions;
were in other respects possible, these African theoretic conclusions would form a most
astounding exception to the ordinations of Providence and the organic laws of nature,
otherwise so undeviating throughout all the generations of man’s history.
“ I have already stated that Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson’s critical observations, during his
long residence in Egypt, and his comparisons between the present Egyptians and the ancient
race, as depicted in the monuments, had led him to assert the Asiatic origin of the early
inhabitants of the Nilotic valley. The learned hierologist, Samuel Birch, Esq., of the
British Museum, informed me, in London, that he had arrived at the same conclusion—
while to his suggestion I am indebted for the first idea ‘ that the most ancient Egyptian
monuments lie North.' The great naturalists, Blumenbach and Cuvier, declared,