Among Ms captives is the Negress already portrayed (Fig. 17T) ; to
whose bas-reliefed effigy we have merely restored one of the colors now
effaced by time. We present (Fig. 178) a head indicative of hèr male
companions, traced upon Rosellini’s size ; our
Fig. 178. reduction of her full-length figure being taken
from the Prussian Denkmäler.323
Here, then, is a Negress, sculptured and
painted in Egypt about b. c. 1550, whose effigy
corresponds with Virgil's description at Rome a
little after a . d . 100 ; which female is identical
with living Negresses, of whom American States,
south of “Mason and Dixon’s line,” could produce many hundreds
in the present year, 1858. f p
Have 3400 years, or any transplantations, altered the NEGRO race?
When treating of the “ Caucasian” typé, we were obliged to jump
from the XVHth back to the XHth dynasty, owing to the lack of intervening
monuments, since destroyed by foreign invaders. The same
difficulty recurs with regard to Negro races. In fact, our materials
here become still more defective ; for, although in the XHth dynasty
abundant hieroglypMcal inscriptions attest the existence of Negro
nations, no portraits seem to he extant, of this epoch, upon whose
coetaneous date of sculpture we can rely. That Negroes did, however,
exist in the twenty-fourth century B. c., or contemporaneously
with Usher's date of the Flood, we shall next proceed to show.
Aside from the Tablet of Whdy Haifa, cut by Sesourtasen I., of*
the XHth dynasty, {supra, p. 188,) we quoted from Lepsius (supra,
p. 174), a paragraph illustrative of the diversity of types at this early
period, of which the following is a portion rendered from his Briefe :
“ Mention is often made on the monuments of this period of the victories gained by the
kings over the Ethiopians and Negroes, wherefore we must not be surprised to see black
slaves and servants.”
Mr. Birch kindly sent us, last year, an invaluable paper, wherein
the political relations of Egypt with Ethiopia are traced by his masterly
hand, from the earliest times down to the XlXth dynasty. The
“ Historical Tablet of Ramses II.,” from which the most recent facts
are drawn, dates from the sixteenth year of a reign,^ that lasted
upwards of sixty years.324 The subjoined extract is especially important,
not only because demonstrative of the existence of Negroes as far
hack as the XHth dynasty, hut also because it established the extended,
intercourse which Egypt held at that remote day (b . c. 2 4 0 0 -2 1 0 0 )
with numerous Asiatic and African races.
“ The principal inducements which led the Pharaohs to the south were the valuable products,
especially the minerals, with which that region abounded. At the early period of
the IVth and Vlth Egyptian dynasties, no traces occur of Ethiopian relations, and the
frontier was probably at that time Eileithyia (El Hegs). So far indeed from the Egyptian
civilization having descended the cataracts of the Nile, there are no monuments to show
that the Egyptians were then even acquainted with the black races, the Nahsi as they
were called.325 Some information is found at the time of the Xlth dynasty. The base of
a small statue inscribed with the name of the king Ra nub Cheper, apparently one of the
monarchs of the Xlth dynasty, whose prenomen was discovered by Mr. Harris on a stone
built into the bridge at Coptos, intermingled with the Enuentefs, has at the sides of the
throne on which it is seated Asiatic and Negro prisoners. Under the monarchs of the
XHth dynasty, the vast fortifications of Samneh show the growing importance of Ethiopia,
while the conquest of the principal tribes is recorded by Sesertesen I. at the advanced
point of the Wady Haifa. The most remarkable feature of this period are the hydraulic
observations carefully recorded under the last monarchs of the line, and their successors
the Sebakhetps of the XHIth dynasty. A tablet in the British Museum, dated in the reign
of Amenemha I. has an account of the mining services of an officer in .¿Ethiopia at that
period. ‘ I worked,’ he says, ‘ the mines in my youth: I have regulated all the chiefs of
the gold washings; I brought the metal penetrating to the land of Phut to the Nahsi.’ It
is probably for these, gold mines that we find in the second year of Amenemha IV. an officer
bearing, the same name as the king, stating that he ‘was invincible in his majesty’s heart
in smiting the Nahsi.’ In the nineteenth year of the same reign were victories over the
Nahsi. At the earliest age .¿Ethiopia was densely colonized, and the gold of the region
descended the Nile in the way of commerce; but there are no slight difficulties in knowing
the exact relations of the two countries.
“ The age of the XVIIIth dynasty is separated from the XHth by an interval during
which the remains of certain monarchs named Sebakhetp, found in the ruins of Nubia,
show that they were at least .Ethiopian rulers. The most important of the monuments of
this age is the propylonvof Mount Barkal, the ancient Napata, built by the so-called S-men-
ken, who is represented in an allegorical picture vanquishing the Ethiopians and Asiatics.
The XVIIIth dynasty opened with foreign wars. The tablet of Aahmes-Pensuben in the
Louvre records that he had taken ‘ two hands,’ that is, had killed two Negroes personally
in Kish or Ethiopia. More information, and particularly bearing upon the Tablet of
Rameses, is afforded by the inscription of Eilethyia, now publishing in an excellent memoir
by M. de Roug£, in the line, ‘ Moreover,’ says the officer, ‘ when his majesty attacked the
Mena-en-shaa,’ or Nomads, ‘ and when he stopped at Penti-han-nefer to cut up the Phut,
and when he made a great rout of them, I led captives from thence two living men and
one dead (hand). I was rewarded with gold for victory again; I received the captives for
slaves.’ During the reign of Amenophis I., the successor of Amosis, the Louvre tablet
informs that he had taken one prisoner in Kash or Ethiopia. At El Hegs, the functionary
states, £ I was in the fleet of the king — the sun, disposer of existence (Amenophis I.), justified
; he anchored at Kush in order to enlarge the frontiers of Kami, he was smiting the
Phut with his troops.’ Mention is subsequently made of a victory, and the capture of
prisoners. It is interesting to find here the same place, Penti-han-nefer, which occurs in
a Ptolemaic inscription on the west wall of the pronaos of the Temple of Philae, where Isis
is represented as ‘ the mistress of Senem and the regent of Pent-han-nefer.’ From this it
is evident that these two places were close to each other, and that this locality was near
the site more recently called Ailak or Phil®. The speos of this monarch at Ibrim, the
chapels at Tennu, or the Gebel Selseleh, show that the permanent occupation of Nubia at
the age of the XVIIIth dynasty extended beyond Phil®. Several small tesser® of this
reign represent the monarch actually vanquishing the Ethiopians.
“ The immediate successors of Amenophis occupied themselves with the conquest of E th iopia.
There is a statue of Thothmes I. in the island of Argo, and a tablet dated on the
15 Tybi of his second year at Tombos. The old temple at Samneh was repaired and dedicated
to Sesertesen III., supposed by some to be the Sesostris who is worshipped by Thoth