Mr. Beke on the Complexion of the Ancient Egyptians. 345 



milar to the African negroes of the present day; — our know- 

 ledge, derived from all other sources of information, is, or at 

 least seems to be, diametrically opposed to such a conclusion. 



The chief of these conflicting testimonies may be thus sum- 

 marily stated. On the one side we have ; — first, a passage of 

 the poet iEschylus, in which the crew of a vessel, seen at a 

 distance, are said to be known for Egyptians by their black 

 colour: — 



Yviotat ~KtvKU<j tx, nvix'Koi^uruv ihilu. — Suppl. 727, 8. 



and, secondly, the testimony of Herodotus, who personally 

 visited Egypt, and who, consequently, must have known full 

 well the real colour of its inhabitants. It is true, that the 

 historian's opinion upon the subject is to be gathered rather 

 by inference, than from any express description given by him 

 of the complexion of the Egyptians; but this circumstance 

 only renders the inference the stronger, as we are thereby led 

 to believe that their colour was a matter of sufficient notoriety 

 among the Greeks, to make the express mention of it unne- 

 cessary. Of the two passages of this writer which are to be 

 adduced, the one is that wherein he explains the tradition 

 that the oracle at Dodona originated in a black dove which 

 had flown from Thebes in Egypt, by supposing that the oracle 

 was instituted by a Thebaean female; and that the circum- 

 stance of the bird being black, showed that the woman was of 

 Egyptian origin : ^Kolivolv $j Asyovrsj shai ryv TreAsia&x, cnj- 

 p.otlvov<Ti on AlyvnTtYi ^ yvvy yv (Euterpe, 57.) the other pass- 

 age is in the account given by him of the Colchians (Euterpe, 

 104.), in which the historian asserts his belief in their Egyp- 

 tian descent, because they were of black complexion and woolly- 

 Jieaded, xai oti [xsXay^goss e\<ri xcti ou^orpix^S- 



As opposed to the conclusion which is to be arrived at from 

 the consideration of the foregoing authorities, we have, on the 

 other hand ; — first, the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures, 

 from which testimony (although indeed it is of a negative cha- 

 racter only) it is unquestionably to be inferred, that the people 

 in whose country Joseph became naturalized, so that his 

 brethren believed him to be a native of it (comp. Gen. xlii. 

 23. 30. 33.); — with whom alliances were permitted by the 

 Israelitish lawgiver (Deut. xxiii. 7, 8.); — one of which people 

 was, in fact, the mother of the heads of two of the tribes of 

 Israel (Gen. xli. 50 — 52.), and another of whom was, at a 

 later period, the wife of King Solomon (1 Kings, iii. 1.); — 

 could not possibly have been of a much darker complexion 

 than the Israelites themselves. Had such been the case, we 

 should indubitably have met with some mention of the fact, 



Third Series. Vol. 1 1. No. 68. Oct. 1837. 2 Y 



