DERIVED FROM ANATOMY, HISTORY, AND THE MONUMENTS. 125 
l. THE EGYPTIANS. 
The monuments from Meroé to Memphis, present a pervading type of physiognomy 
which is every where distinguished at a glance from the varied forms which not unfre- 
quently attend it, and which possesses so much nationality both in outline and expression, 
as to give it the highest importance in Nilotic ethnography. We may repeat that it con- 
sists in an upward elongation of the head, with a receding forehead, delicate features, but 
rather sharp and prominent face, in which a long and straight or gently aquiline nose 
forms a principal feature. ‘The eye is sometimes oblique, the chin short and retracted, 
the lips rather tumid, and the hair whenever it is represented, long and flowing. 
This style of features pertains to every class, kings, priests, and people, and can be 
readily traced through every period of monumental decoration, from the early Pharaohs 
down to the Greek and Roman dynasties. Among the most ancient and at the same 
time most characteristic examples, are the heads of Amunoph the Second, and his mother, 
as represented in a tomb at Thebes,* which dates, in Rosellini’s chronology, seventeen 
hundred and twenty-seven years before our era. In these effigies all the features are 
strictly Egyptian, and how strikingly do they correspond with those of many of the em- 
balmed heads from the Theban catacombs! 
Fig. 1. "Fig. 2. 
A similar physiognomy preponderates.among the royal Egyptian personages of every 
epoch, as will be manifest to any one who will turn over the pages of Champollion and 
Rosellini. The head of Horus (Plate XIV., Fig. 2,) is an admirable illustration, while 
in the portraits of Rameses IV., and Rameses IX., (Plate XIV., Fig. 6 and 7,) the same 
lines are apparent, though much less strongly marked. How admirably also are they 
seen in the subjoined juvenile head, (Fig. 1,) which is that of a royal prince, copied from 
the very ancient paintings in the tomb of Pehrai, at Eletheias.f So also in the face of 
Rameses VIL, (Fig. 2,) who lived perhaps one thousand years later in time. 
* Champollion, Monumens de l’Egypte, Tom. I, plate 160, fig. 3. + Roseilini, M. C., plate CXXXIIL, fig. 3. 
VOL. Ix.—35 
