Mr. P. F. Bellamy on two Peruvian Mummies. 97 



hair black and silky, but both much discoloured by the putre- 

 factive process, and the soft tissues melted down to a brown- 

 coloured unctuous kind of matter, by which means the face 

 was so distorted that not a feature was discoverable. This one 

 however displayed the manner in which the body was ar- 

 ranged for interment. 



The principal object appears to have been to give to it a 

 sitting or crouching attitude ; for this purpose the thighs were 

 pressed up against the abdomen and the legs flexed upon 

 them, and then secured by a bandage made to encircle the 

 trunk and the bent limbs two or three times. In addition to 

 this, the arms were brought across the body and tied together 

 at the wrists by a piece of cord, and the head was pressed 

 down upon the chest so as to throw the occiput uppermost. 



From each mummy I selected the bones of the skull, and 

 by a little mechanical contrivance restored them to their na- 

 tural position. 



On examining these skulls it will be found that the face is 

 short and projecting, the chin square and protruding, the ma- 

 lar bones large and prominent, the nostrils large and open, 

 the orbits large and squared, and the orbital margins thick 

 and rounded; but the crania, from the singularity of their 

 form, deserve the most marked attention : the frontal bone is 

 narrow, recedes at once from the superciliary ridges, and pre- 

 sents a flattened aspect as far as the coronal suture ; the pa- 

 rietal bones rise for about two-thirds of their length till they 

 reach the vertex, at which point they suddenly round off to 

 form the occiput ; and the occipital bone, which is irregularly 

 flattened, forms principally the under part of the skull, only a 

 small portion of it occupying the back of the head, and that 

 being turned up rather suddenly to meet the parietal bones. 

 Thus it will be observed that the whole skull is thrown back, 

 has a remarkably large posterior development, and is of an 

 ovoid form, with its long axis from before to behind. 



Corresponding with this configuration, all the large bones 

 of the skull are considerably elongated ; and this will be bet- 

 ter displayed by contrasting them with those of an infant of 

 the Caucasian variety, whose cranium is of the ordinary glo- 

 bular figure ; thus the frontal bone, measured from its junc- 

 tion with the nasal to its line of junction with the parietal, is 

 in the Caucasian 4 inches, in the Peruvian 4 l inches ; the pa- 

 rietal, from the extremity of the angle in the temporal fossa to 

 the postero-superior angle in the Caucasian, is 5| inches, whilst 

 in the Peruvian it is 6^ inches ; and the occipital, from its 

 junction with the sphenoid to the apex of the lambdoidal suture 

 in the Caucasian, measures 5 inches, and in the Peruvian 5f 



Ann. $ Mag. N, Hist. Vol. x. H 



