6 2 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cephaly to be most prevalent in Tkessaly and Attica; while broad- 

 headedness, so characteristic, as we shall see, of the Albanians and 

 other Slavs, is more accentuated toward the north, especially in 

 Epirus. About Corinth also, where Albanian intermixture is com- 

 mon, the cephalic index rises above 83. The Peloponnesus has prob- 

 ably best preserved its early dolichocephaly, as we should expect. In 

 Thessaly alone are the modern Greeks as purely Mediterranean as in 

 classic times. There can be no doubt that in Asia Minor at least, the 

 word Greek is devoid of any racial significance. It merely denotes a 

 man who speaks Greek, or else one who is a Greek Catholic, converted 

 from Mohammedanism. Greek, like Turk, has become entirely a 

 matter of language and religion, as these people have intermingled. 

 Thus in the southwest of Asia Minor, where Semitic influences have 

 been strong, von Luschan * makes the pregnant observation that the 

 Greeks, in the main, look like Jews and speak Turkish. Hero, then, is 

 proof positive that no Greeks of pure Mediterranean descent remain 

 to represent the primitive Hellenic type in that region. But it is 

 equally certain that in the main body of the Greeks at home in Greece, 

 the original racial traits are still in the ascendant. The smoothly oval 

 and long faces in our two Greek portraits are surely of Mediterranean 

 type. To this, the ideal form, the purest elements in the nation still 

 tend to revert. 



Whatever may be thought of the ancients, the modern Greeks are 

 strongly brunet in all respects. Ornstein ('79) found less than ten per 

 cent of light hair, although blue and gray eyes were characteristic of 

 rather more than a quarter of his seventeen hundred and sixty-seven 

 recruits. This accords with expectation, for among the Albanians, 

 next neighbors and most intrusive aliens in Greece, light eyes are 

 quite common. Weisbach's ('82) data confirm this, ninety-six per cent 

 of his Greeks being pure brunets.f In stature these people are inter- 

 mediate between the Turks and the Albanians and Dalmatians, which 

 latter are among the tallest of Europeans. In facial features JSTico- 

 lucci's early opinion seems to be confirmed, that the Greek face is 

 distinctively orthognathous — that is to say, with a vertical profile, the 

 lower parts of the face being neither projecting nor prominent. The 

 face is generally of a smooth oval, rather narrow and high, especially 

 as compared with the round-faced Slavs. The nose is thin and high, 

 perhaps more often finely chiseled and straight in profile. The facial 

 features seem to be well demonstrated in the classic statuary, although 

 it is curious, as Stephanos observes, that these ideal heads are dis- 

 tinctly brachycephalic. Either the ancient sculptors knew little of 



* 1889, p. 209. 



f Neophytos finds 82.5 per cent of dark-brown or black hair, only five per cent blond or 

 red ; while seventeen per cent of the eyes were dark among two hundred individuals. 



