128 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, 
The most recent of these last four venerable monuments of art, dates at least 1450 
years before our era: the oldest belongs to unchronicled times; and the same physical 
characters are common on the Nubian and Egyptian monuments down to the Ptolemaic 
and Roman epochs. 
The peculiar head-dress of the Egyptians often greatly modifies and in some degree 
conceals their characteristic features; and may at first sight lead to the impression that 
the priests possessed a physiognomy of a distinct or peculiar kind. Such, however, was 
not the case, as a little observation will prove. Take, for example, the four following 
drawings from a Theban tomb, in which two mourners have head-dresses and two 
priests are without them. Are not the national characteristics unequivocally manifest 
in them all? * 
In addition to the copious remarks already made in re- 
ference to the hair, we cannot omit the annexed picture 
from a tomb in Thebes, which represents an Egyptian wo- 
man in the act of lamentation before the embalmed body 
of a relative, while the long, black hair reaches even below 
the waist. + 
It is thus that we trace this peculiar style of countenance 
in its several modifications through epochs and in localities 
the most remote from each other, and in every class of the 
Egyptian people. How different from the Pelasgic type, 
yet how obyiously Caucasian! How varied in outline, yet 
how readily identified! And if we compare these features 
with those of the Egyptian series of embalmed heads, are 
we not forcibly impressed with a striking analogy not only in osteological conformation, 
but also in the very expression of the face? Compare, for example, the head on page 109. 
Observe, also, the six figured skulls, Plate VII; Plate XIL, Fig. 4; Plate X., Fig. 4; 
Plate VIII, Fig. 9, and the numerous accompanying illustrations, and no one, I con- 
ceive, will question the analogy I have pointed out. This type is certainly natéonal, 
and presents to our view the genuine Egyptian physiognomy, which, in the Ethnographic 
* Rosellini, M. C, Plate 132, Fig. 1. } Idem. Plate 127, Fig. 1. 
