136 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, 
The oldest identified human effigy now extant is that 
on the Tablet of Wady Haifa, preserved in the gallery 
of Florence.* This venerable relic, which has been 
satisfactorily proved to date more than two thousand 
two hundred years before the Christian era,t repre- 
sents Osortasen the First in the form of Ammon, and 
receiving from the god Monthou (Mars) the people of 
Lybia bound with cords as captive nations. 
The features of the king are strictly Pelasgic; and 
the facial angle, (allowing for the unnatural elevation 
of the ear,) measures upwards of eighty degrees. It is 
also remarkable that this head is strikingly like those 
of the Ptolemaic sovereigns of Egypt, and especially 
corresponds in every feature with the portrait of Ptole- 
my Huergetes II., although eighteen centuries elapsed 
between their respective reigns. We therefore recur 
‘to our proposition, that whether this effigy be a portrait 
/\ ib \ or not, it at least. proves that the artists of those prime- 
\ val times derived their ideas of the human countenance 
from Caucasian models. 
The next of these heads which can be identified with its epoch, is that of Amunoph I. 
This again presents a fine cast of Huropean features; such, in fact, as would embellish a 
Grecian statue; and yet this monarch reigned in the valley of the Nile, and held his 
court in Memphis more than eighteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. (Plate 
XIV., Fig. 1.) Andif from this remote period we trace the physiognomy of the kings 
and queens of the subsequent reigns, we perceive among them many equally beautiful 
models, some of which are not inferior to the beau ideal of classic art. . Take, for example, 
the heads of Menepthah and Rameses III., in the character of priest,—Rameses X., 
Rameses XI., and Amenmeses,—the queens Nofre-Ari, and Nitocris, and the daughter 
of Phisham (or Pihmé,) the regent priest, and let me ask among what people we shall 
find more graceful facial lines, or more varied intellectual expression? (Plate XIV.) 
It may be suggested that in some of these heads the Pelasgic character is not wholly 
unmixed, and especially in reference to Amunoph the First. In this instance there is 
something of the Egyptian, or, as Professor Blumenbach would express it, the Hindoo 
physiognomy. I wish it to be understood, however, that I do not assert all these sove- 
reigns to have been of the Pelasgic or Japetic stock; for some of them, as Rameses the 
Third, and Menepthah the First, are on other occasions represented with decidedly 
Egyptian features. These mixed and varied Caucasian lineaments may perhaps have 
been derived from the antecedent Hellenic kings, who in giving place again to the native 
Egyptians, must doubtless have left their national characteristics more or less blended 
with those of the indigenous families. 
* Champollion, Monuments, Tom. I., Plate I. The annexed figure is greatly enlarged from Champollion’s drawing. 
See also Rosellini, M. R., Plate XXV., in which the eye is wanting. 
+ Champollion Figéac, Egypte, p. 293. 
