XII.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 481 



long-headed, of the type corresponding to Prichard's " Pelasgic," 

 i.e. Sergi's Hamitic or Mediterranean. 



M. Zaborovvski points out 1 that nobody has yet been able even 

 to suggest any part of the world, or any people, who were in 

 possession of these same elements of culture before the Egyptians. 

 He had already remarked 2 that there is absolutely no foundation 

 for the view that the Retus arrived from Asia via the Isthmus of 

 Suez. This was merely a reaction against those ancient and 

 modern writers who traced Egyptian culture to Ethiopia, and the 

 Egyptians to the Negroes. It was mainly based on the erroneous 

 idea that there was no white race except those of Asiatic origin 

 (Semites and Aryans). But we have now the Hamitic white race 

 of African origin, located in Upper Egypt, home of Osiris 3 , land 

 of Thebes, whose foundation is long prior to all history. This 

 region was divided into a number of independent petty states, 

 with an organisation recalling that of the Berber tribes, and they 

 were first welded into a compact political body by Menes, king 

 of Thini. By founding Memphis, and thus removing the centre 

 of power for the first time to Lower Egypt, Menes merely shifted 

 to this region the advanced bulwark of a civilization, which may 

 have already been threatened by predatory hordes from Asia, but 

 had in any case first taken root at some immensely remote epoch 

 in Upper Egypt. 



Of course there are Asiatic elements even in the early Egyptian 

 civilisation. Bronze art is very old, and two statuettes in this 

 metal are attributed to the 5th or 6th dynasty, while in a tomb 

 apparently earlier than the 4th Mariette found three wooden 

 panels with bas-reliefs presenting the type of the Semitic race. 

 From the 2nd or 3rd dynasty date other statues, such as that of 

 Nefer, a young girl with ornaments in the Babylonian style. Bat 

 all this merely proves that, as implied in the legendary Osirian 

 wars, Egypt had relations with Asia in the very earliest historic, 



1 BuL Soc. d'Anthrop. 1896, p. 654 sq. 



'- Les Peuples Priniitifs deV Afrique Septentrionale, in Nouvelle Revue, 1883. 



3 Osiris already belongs to the mythical age, and before his time the Retus 

 were a rude and savage people addicted to cannibalism, from which they were 

 weaned by Isis and Osiris: 'Eyw ^uera TOV d5eX0ou 'Qatpews ras dvdpWT 

 (iravov (Kaibel, Epigram. Grceca, p. xxi). 



K. 3 I 



