BIMANA. 



Negro race ; namely, a black complexion, and woolly hair.* Other 

 writers, as ^Eschylus and Lucian, describe the Egyptians as being black ; 

 the latter, in the description of an Egyptian belonging to the crew of a 

 vessel trading at the Piraeus, pictures a genuine Negro, black, with 

 projecting lips, very slender legs, and with the hair and curls bushed up 

 behind, the indication of a state of slavery. But it may be conjectured 

 that the individual, though, perhaps, Egyptian by birth, was of a tribe very 

 different from the true Egyptians, a tribe held in a state of bondage. 

 Ammianus Marcellinus calls the Egyptians subfusculi, or brownish, and 

 atrati, or .blackened ; and in certain documents of a commercial nature, 

 which are still extant (the fac-simile of one of these is at Berlin ; the 

 original of the other, at Paris), one individual is described (for the 

 external appearances, of the buyers and sellers are noted) as being 

 /ieAayxpws, of a black or dusky complexion ; the other, /AeAi'xpws, of a 

 tawny, or honey colour. The shape of the nose, and the general cast of 

 the features, are also detailed, but not in terms applicable to the Negro. 



In the paintings and sculptures of the ancient Egyptians, which may 

 be at least regarded as national representations, nothing can be dis- 

 covered positively indicative of the Negro cast of physiognomy, though 

 its expression and contour are peculiar. The colour of the face is 

 usually painted of a bronze red, or light chocolate, verging to tawny 

 yellow in the females. The figures of the men are slender, but well 

 proportioned ; while those of the females are graceful and delicate. 

 Indeed, in the figures, both of the males and females, we are strongly 

 reminded of those of the Hindoos. That other people, besides the 

 true Egyptians, are portrayed and sculptured on the relics of Egyptian 

 antiquity, cannot be doubted. Blumenbach considers that three distinct 

 varieties of physiognomy are to be seen in these works, which may be 

 reduced to an Ethiopian, an Indian, and a Berberine type. The first, in 

 his opinion, coincides with the descriptions given of the Egyptians by 

 the ancients : it is chiefly distinguished by prominent maxillae, turgid 

 lips, a broad flat nose, and protruding eye-balls. The second is cha- 

 racterized by a long narrow nose ; long thin eye-lids, which incline 

 upward from the bridge of the nose to the temples ; ears placed high 

 on the head ; a short, slender, bodily contour, and very long shanks : 

 this he regards as resembling the Hindoos. The third class of Egyptian 



* Herodotus, speaking of the Colchians, says, they plainly appear to be Egyptians, " not merely 

 because] they are black in complexion, and have woolly hair, for the same may be said of some other 

 nations ; but rather because, of all men, none but the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, 

 originally practised circumcision; for the Phoenicians and Syrians of Palestine themselves acknowledge 

 that they learned this custom of the Egyptians." Respecting the origin of the oracles of Dodona and 

 Ammon, they are attributed, by the same writer, to two Egyptian females, allegorized, as the Dodo- 

 nian prophetess related the account, by two black pigeons, which flew from Egyptian Thebes, and 

 which, after a time, spoke with a hmnan voice. The colour of the pigeons is indicative of that of the 

 Egyptian people. 



