February 8, 19 12] 



NATURE 



475 



As the author admits, man}- of the so-called species 

 and even the subgenera of Calamites are of little or 

 no scientific value ; but the reader has placed before 

 him in a convenient and accessible form abundant 

 information from a scattered literature, from which he 

 can form his own opinion as to the value of supposed 

 specific differences, and is enabled to obtain a com- 

 prehensive view of the genus as a whole and of its 

 geographical distribution. A. C. Seward. 



EARLY EGYPTIANS AND ANCIENT 

 CIVILISATION. 



The Ancient Egyptians and their Influence upon the 

 Civilisation of Europe. By Prof. G. Elliot Smith, 

 F.R.S. (Harper's Library of Living Thought.) 

 Pp.xvi+i88. (London and New York: Harper 

 Brothers, 191 1.) Price 25. 6d. net. 

 AWE think that "The Early Egyptians and their 

 Influence on Ancient Civilisation " would have 

 been a better title for Dr. Elliot Smith's little book 

 than that which he has actually chosen, "The Ancient 

 Egyptians and their Influence upon the Civilisation of 

 Europe " ; for Dr. Smith deals only with the most 

 ancient, the earliest Egyptians, and he traces their 

 influence not only upon the civilisation of Europe, 

 but also, and in the first place, upon that of northern 

 Africa and western Asia. We may say at once that 

 Dr. Smith is less happy in his essay to trace this 

 influence than when he is simply analysing the ethnic 

 constituents of the race which exercised it. In deal- 

 ing with the complicated question of possible early 

 Egyptian influence upon the surrounding peoples, with 

 regard to which our information is of the scantiest 

 and most nebulous character, he is straying rather 

 off his own ground, whereas in dealing with the early 

 Egyptians themselves he is not only upon his own 

 ground, but upon ground which he himself has made. 

 To read him on this subject is indeed to be en- 

 lightened, and every historian must read with atten- 

 tion the remarkable conclusions to which he has been 

 led by his experience in the dissection of mummies 

 (gained in the course of his medical work at Cairo) 

 in connection with the severely scientific archaeological 

 work of Dr. Reisner and his assistants at Nag' ed- 

 Deir and in Lower Nubia. 



His discovery that a more northern race infiltrated 

 into Egypt, probably from Syria, from the time of 

 the earliest dynasties, and gradually modified the 

 Egyptian "dynastic" type from the beginning, is 

 very illuminating, as it explains the occurrence in 

 Egypt, and more especially in northern Egypt, of the 

 "stumpy," stout, rounder-faced type which we see in 

 the portrait-statues of the pyramid-builders, so 

 different from the lank- faced prehistoric Nilote of 

 prcdynastic times. Dr. Elliot Smith's arguments are 

 based chiefly upon craniological considerations. Those 

 who recall Prof. Flinders Petrie's incisive criticism of 

 the argument from craniology in his essay, " Migra- 

 tions," some years ago, may perhaps be a little scep- 

 tical of all Dr. Smith's conclusions, yet it must be 

 »id that his arguments are reasoned, and his conclu- 

 Mons consistent with themselves and with arch.'i'o- 

 NO. 2206, VOL. 88] 



logical results. The ancient portraits of the two races 

 agree with the skulls. We may, with him, regard 

 the " predynastic " Egyptian as the true Nilote, akin to 

 the desert tribes of Beja and Bisharin, to the Galla 

 and Somali, and perhaps to the .Arabs, while the new 

 "dynastic" type of the north was probably akin to 

 the high-nosed, round-headed stock of western Asia, 

 which von Luschan calls "Armenoid," because the 

 Armenians are the best representatives of it. 



The high-nosed Semites of Asia may be a mixture 

 of this stock with the true Arabians of the south, but 

 if the Sumerians of Babjionia are representatives of 

 the southern race, which spread from the Upper Nile 

 to the delta of the Euphrates, and even to India, as 

 Dr. Smith seems to hold, how does he explain their 

 remarkably high noses? I would suggest that they 

 may have been "Armenoids," not southerners, who 

 conquered the original southerners (Semites), to be 

 themselves in turn conquered by the Semites who had 

 imbibed Sumerian civilisation. There are facts which 

 point to the existence of a pre-Sumerian Semitic popu- 

 lation in Babylonia. On this view the Semitic speech 

 will belong to the southerners, the true Arabians, 

 and, if so, the very ancient Semitic elements in the 

 Egyptian language and culture will belong to the pre- 

 dynastic people, not to the northerners. But this 

 conclusion conflicts with the fact that the most Semitic 

 cults of Egypt, as, for instance, that of Ra, the sun- 

 god of Heliopolis, belong to the north ; the southern 

 cults are the least Semitic, and the predynastic culture 

 of the chalcolithic age is by no means " Semitic " in 

 appearance. 



This is a problem raised by Dr. Elliot Smith's 

 book, and it is one of great interest and importance. 

 Less important seems his view that the impulse to 

 megalithic building in northern Africa and western 

 Europe was given by the influence of the great stone 

 buildings of early Egypt. Here it is difficult to follow 

 him, and he seems to exaggerate the extent of the 

 early influence of Egypt on fhe development of the 

 surrounding civilisations. One is by no means in- 

 clined yet to attribute the whole development of early 

 European culture to Egypt ; there are many conflicting 

 facts which have to be taken into consideration. It 

 is by no means certain that Dr. Reisner's view that 

 the early Egyptians were the inventors of copper- 

 working is correct. Dr. Smith thinks the fact proved ; 

 others may doubt it. We should like to hear the 

 views of Prof. Petrie, Dr. Crtiwland. and Prof. J. L. 

 Myres on the point. Dr. Smith is dogmatic, of course ; 

 how is it possible to be otherwise in a little book of 

 less than two hundred small pages? Were one to 

 give all one's arguments pro and con in respect to so 

 nebulous a subject as this, one would write volumes. 

 .A,nd in a review it is impossible to argue at all 

 on the doubtful point-. One can only say th.it th<s<'. 

 while important, .ii.- \>v no means many, f«'r Di. 

 Smith has told us nuali ili.it seems incontrovertible, 

 and his book is one of tlu- most important recent con- 

 tributions to Egyptian archaeology. Again, one can 

 only regret its title, which does not explain the book 

 properlv. 



