acters. In the great majority of instances, however, the Egyptian
conformation is detected at a glance, O 1
The Egyptian skull is unlike that of any other with which I am
acquainted. This opinion, which I long since announced,* has been
fully confirmed by subsequent comparisons, and especially by the
receipt of seventeen very ancient and most characteristic crania from
tombs opened in 1842, at'the base of the Great Pyramid, by Dr.
Lepsius.f
It may he observed of these crania (for the rest of the series has
been elaborately described in the Crania Fgyptiaca), eleven at least
are of the unmixed type, and present the long, oval form, with a
slightly receding forehead, straight or gently aquiline nose, and a somewhat
retracted chin. The whole cranial structure is thin, delicate,
and symmetrical, and remarkable for its small size. The face is narrow,
and projects more than in the European, whence the facial
angle is two degrees less, or 78°. Neither in these skulls, nor in any
others of the Egyptian series, can I detect those peculiarities of structure
pointed out by the venerable Blumenbacb, in his Decades Cranio-
rum; and the external meatus of the ear, whatever may have been
the form or size of the cartilaginous portion, is precisely where we
find it in all the other races-of men. The hair, whenever any of it
remains, is long, curling, and of the finest texture.
On comparing these crania with many facsimiles of monumental
effigies most kindly sent me by Prof. Lepsius and M. Prisse d’Avesnes,
I am compelled, by a mass of irresistible evidence, to modify the
opinion expressed in the Crania JEgyptiaca—-viz.: that the Egyptians
were an Asiatic people. Seven years of additional investigation,
together with greatly increased materials, have convinced me that
they were neither Asiatics nor Europeans, but aboriginal and indigenous
inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile or some contiguous
region :J peculiar in their physiognomy, isolated in their institutions,
and forming one of the primordial centres of the human family.
Egypt was the parent of art, science, and civilization. Of these
she gave much to Asia, and received some modifying influences in
return; hut nothing more. Her population, pure and peculiar in the
early epochs of time, derived by degrees an element from Europe and
Asia, and this was increased in the lapse of years, until the Delta
became a Greek colony, with an interspersed multitude of Jews.
Effigies and portraits of Egyptian sovereigns and citizens are yet
* Crania iEgyptiaca, 1844.
f Proceedings of the Academy [of Nat. Sciences,] for October, 1844.
J This opinion, with some modifications, has been entertained by several learned Egyptologists—
Champollion, Heeren, Lenormant, &c.
preserved in monuments that date hack 5000 years,* and they conform,
in all their characteristic lineaments, with the heads from the
tombs of Gizeh and other Nilotic sepulchres.
Of the fifty-five Egyptian heads measured in the Table, it will he seen
that the largest measures but ninety-six cubic inches of internal capacity,
the smallest sixty-eight; and the mean of them all is but eighty.
This result was announced in the Crania JEgyptiaca, and has been
confirmed by the numerous additional measurements made since that
work was published. Yet, on computing, by themselves, the fifteen
crania from the ancient tombs of Gizeh, I find them to present an
average of eighty-four cubic inches. The persons whose bodies had
reposed in these splendid inausolea, were no doubt of the highest
and most cultivated class of Egyptian citizens; t and this fact deserves
to he considered in connexion with the present inquiry. To
this we may add, that the most deficient part of the Egyptian
skull is the coronal region, which is extremely low, while the posterior
chamber is remarkably full and prominent.
The Fellahs. —The Arab-Egyptians of the present day constitute a
population of more than 2,500,000 ; and that they are the.lineal descendants
of the ancient rural Egyptians,- is proved by the form of
the skull, the mental and moral character of the people, and their
existing institutions, among which phallic worship is, even yet, conspicuous.
Clot-Bey has drawn a graphic moral parallel between these
two extremes of a single race, by showing that both were sober, avaricious,
insolent, self-opinioned, satirical, and licentious. Contrasted
with these defects in the old Egyptians, were the many household
virtues, and that genius for the arts which has been a proverb in all
ages. ■
When the Saracenic Arabs conquered Egypt in the seventh century
of our era, an unlimited fusion of races was a direct and obvious con-
* Lepsius: Chronologie der Mgypter, p. 196. Dr. Lepsius dates the age of Menes, the
first Egyptian king, 3893 before Christ, or 5743 years from the present time; and yet, in
that remote time, Egypt was already possessed of her arts, institutions, and hieroglyphic
language. The researches of the learned Chevalier Bunsen furnish conclusions nearly the
same as those of Lepsius. Of the great antiquity of the Human Species there can he no
question. In the words of Dr. Prichard, it may have been chiliads of years.
The ancient Egyptians appear to have had no doubts on this subject; for a priest of Sais,
addressing Solon, spoke of ‘*the multitude and variety of the destructions of the Human
race which formerly have been, and again will b e ; the greatest of these, indeed, arising
from fire and water; but the lesser from ten thousand other contingencies.” ^Timcms of
Plato: Taylor's Trans, ii. 466.
f Dr. Lepsius did not desire to retain these crania, because they bore no collateral evidence
of their epoch or national lineage. The bones were in great measure already denuded
by time; and the appliances of mummification (which, in the primitive ages, consisted
of little more than desiccating the body,) had long since disappeared. As heretofore
observed, I judge these relics solely by their intrinsic characters.