October, 1844.] 123 



that in the mere search for plunder there was no occasion to de- 

 stroy or eject the bodies of the dead ; and mutilated as they are, it 

 is possible that some of them may have pertained to a very remote 

 age. 



My friend Dr. Pickering, writing to me from Cairo about the 

 time of these explorations, observes that Dr. Lepsius expected to 

 find " the veritable remains of the primeval Egyptians ; but it was 

 discovered that they had been displaced by Greeks, &c, and that 

 there was nothing of this sort older than Psammeticus." (B.C. 550.) 

 The bodies that retained their legends may have been of Greek 

 and other comparatively modern inhabitants of Egypt; but with re- 

 spect to the seventeen skulls before us, I have no hesitation in declar- 

 ing, that but two of them could have belonged to persons of Greek 

 or any other Indo-European lineage. The others may have borne 

 Greek inscriptions, but that would not make them Greeks ; for the 

 language of the latter people was the compulsory vernacular tongue 

 during most of the Ptolemaic epoch. Moreover, the skulls in 

 question are entirely denuded of bandages and even of integuments ; 

 whence it seems evident that no inferences drawn from Greek or 

 other inscriptions could have applied to them. 



The following is an Ethnographic analysis of this series of 

 crania : 



Egyptian form, - - - - - 11 



Egyptian form, with traces of Negro lineage, 2 



Negroid form, - 1 



Pelasgic form, - - - - - - 2 



Semitic form, 1 



17 



Remarks. 



1. The Egyptian form is admirably characterized in eleven of 

 these heads, and corresponds in every particular with the Nilotic 

 physiognomy, as indicated by monumental and sepulchral evidences 

 in my Crania iEgy ptiaca, viz. — the small, long and narrow head, with 

 a somewhat receding forehead, narrow and rather projecting face, 

 and delicacy of the whole osteological structure. No hair remains, 



