322 



NATURE 



\August 2, 1888 



with ugly protrusive profile, and Mongoloid features, the 

 hair being arranged at the back of the head in a sort of 

 " pig-tail." The Amaur or Amorites, on the other hand, 

 are a handsome people, tall, and dolichocephalic, with 

 large sub-aquiline noses, and a short pointed beard at the 

 end of the chin. The defenders of " the fort of Amaur" 

 are represented as having been burnt a light pink-red by 

 the action of the sun. Otherwise the skin is white or 

 "sallow." 



We learn, then, from the ancient monuments of Egypt 

 that a portion of Palestine was occupied by a white race 

 before its conquest by the Israelites. And they further 

 inform us that this white race continued to exist in the 

 country after the conquest. The physical characteristics 

 of the captives taken by Shishak in the time of Rehoboam 

 from the cities of Judah have Amorite and not Jewish 

 features. There is nothing in common between them and 

 the tribute-bearers of Jehu, who are depicted on the black 

 obelisk from Nimroud, now in the British Museum, with 

 faces of a most typically Jewish cast. In the tenth 

 century before our era, consequently, the bulk of the 

 population in the southern part of Judaea must have been 

 of Amorite origin. 



It is not wonderful, therefore, if we find traces of the 

 same population still surviving in Palestine. There is no 

 need of explaining their existence by a theory of their 

 descent from the Crusaders. The survival of the ancient 

 white race of Palestine is parallel to the survival of the 

 ancient white race of Northern Africa, now generally 

 known among French writers under the name of Kabyles. 

 The Kabyles were at one time imagined to be the 

 descendants of the Vandals, but we now know that they 

 have inhabited the southern coast of the Mediterranean 

 since the later Neolithic age. They are the Libyans of 

 antiquity, represented on the Egyptian monuments, 

 like the Amorites, with white skins, blue eyes, and 

 dolichocephalic skulls, and similarly described by classical 

 writers. They extended into Teneriffe and the Canary 

 Islands, and their long-headed skulls have been disinterred 

 from the dolmens of Northern Africa. 



To the traveller who sees them for the first time 

 the Kabyles offer a striking appearance. Their clear 

 white skins, covered with freckles, their blue eyes and 

 light hair, remind him of the so-called " Red Kelts" he 

 has met with in an Irish village. They bear a high 

 reputation for physical courage and love of independence, 

 though at the same time they seem to be an orderly 

 people. But they have two characteristics which they 

 share with the white race of Northern Europe. They are 

 mountaineers, the climate of the African plains being 

 apparently too hot for them, and they are distinguished 

 by their tall stature. 



These were equally the characteristics of the Amorites 

 of ancient Palestine. The Jews declared that their 

 " height was like the height of" the cedar," the Semitic 

 tribes by the side of them seeming to be but " grass- 

 hoppers," and the iron couch of Og, the Amorite king of 

 Bashan, preserved at Rabbath, afterwards the capital of 

 Ammon, excited the wonder of later generations on 

 account of its size. 



The Amorites also occupied the whole of the moun- 

 tainous district of Syria and Palestine from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Kadesh in the north to the desert southward 

 of Judah, and on the eastern side of the Jordan they 

 founded the two kingdoms of Bashan and Heshbon. In 

 the mountains of Moab and Seir they formed the abori- 

 ginal population, partially dispossessed by the Semitic 

 tribes of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and the name of 

 Horile under which they went in Edom is best explained 

 as meaning " white," in contradistinction to the Semitic 

 Edomite or "red-man." A passage in the Pentateuch 

 (Numbers xiii. 29) expressly states that along with the 

 Hittites and Jebusites they inhabited the mountainous 

 region, while the Canaanites dwelt on the coast and the 



valley of the Jordan. That Jebusite simply means a 

 cross between Hittite and Amorite is clear from the 

 statement of Ezekiel (xvi. 3, 4, 5) that Jerusalem, whose 

 old name of Jebus gave rise to that of Jebusite, was born 

 of a Hittite mother and an Amorite father. The Egyp- 

 tian monuments bear witness to the same " interlocking " 

 of Hittite and Amorite. 



There is yet a third characteristic which has been 

 ascribed to the white race of Northern Europe. It has 

 been brought into close connection with the dolmens 

 which cover so large a part of its territory. Faidherbe 

 and others have traced a continuous line of dolmens of 

 similar construction along the northern coast of Africa, 

 through Spain, Portugal, and France, into the British 

 Isles. No one, indeed, who has examined the famous 

 dolmens of Roknia, in Algeria, can fail to be struck by 

 their resemblance to the sepulchral cromlechs of our 

 own country. If they are really due to the genius and 

 influence of a single race, it would seem that the race 

 moved from north to south, since the objects found in 

 the dolmens of the south of France betray a more 

 advanced stage of culture than those found in the 

 north. 



The chief objection hitherto raised against ascribing 

 these dolmens to the white race with whom they are 

 associated has been that similar megalithic monuments 

 exist in Palestine. Over 700 have been discovered in 

 Moab on the eastern side of the Jordan. Major Conder 

 has drawn attention to others in the basaltic region in 

 the neighbourhood of the ancient Dan, and though none 

 have as yet been observed in Judah, this is probably due 

 to the fact that the attention of travellers has not been 

 called to them. I have myself come across a fine 

 specimen on a hill to the south of Jenin which had been 

 overlooked by the Palestine Survey, and that megalithic 

 structures once existed in Judah is evident from the 

 occurrence in the Old Testament of names like Gilgal or 

 " Stone-circle," and Ai or "cairn" (Joshua viii. 29). It 

 will be noticed that they are especially plentiful on the 

 eastern side of the Jordan, where the two chief Amorite 

 kingdoms once flourished. Just as the dolmens of 

 Northern Africa were the burial-places of the ancestors of 

 the Kabyles, so tradition affirmed that the Amorite king 

 of Ai had been buried beneath a cairn of stones. 



The discovery that the Amorites of Palestine were 

 racially allied to the ancient Libyans opens up ethnolo- 

 gical and archaeological questions of considerable interest. 

 These cannot be touched upon here, but must be reserved 

 for a future occasion. It is sufficient for the present to 

 have drawn attention to a new and curious ethnological 

 fact. A H. Sayce. 



ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 



A T a time when so much is being said about the need 

 J ^*- for technical education, especially in engineering, 

 the following letter will be read with interest : — 



Engineering School, Trinity College, Dublin, 

 June 1888. 



Dear Lord Ashbourne,— As you have requested me 

 to draw up a statement of the claims of engineering 

 schools to be recognized by the Civil Service Com- 

 missioners as affording part at least of the technical 

 training required of candidates for engineering Civil 

 Service appointments, I send you the following account. 



Allow me, in the first place, to state that I am not 

 advocating the claims of our Engineering School here as 

 in any way distinct from that of many other excellent 

 engineering schools that exist. For instance, the Indian 

 Government is so fully convinced of the absolute necessity 

 for a proper technical school training for engineers that 

 it requires all candidates for Indian engineering appoint- 



