DERIVED FROM ANATOMY, HISTORY, AND THE MONUMENTS. 97 
FIRST SERIES. 
TWENTY-SIX SKULLS FROM THE NECROPOLIS OF MEMPHIS. 
This vast Necropolis extends from the Pyramids of Gizeh to the southern limit of 
Saccara, a distance of about fifteen miles. The tombs are cut in the solid rock, and 
frequently communicate with one another, forming a vast subterranean labyrinth. Mem- 
phis is well known to be one of the oldest, if not indeed the oldest of the Egyptian cities; 
and among the tombs now extant Professor Rosellini has found some which bear inscrip- 
tions of a date nearly 2300 years before Christ, at which period Memphis must have 
been a large and flourishing city. The simpler catacombs were probably constructed 
before the pyramids; for these last could only result from centuries of civilization, and 
next to the catacombs, are the oldest existing monuments of the human race. 
A.--FROM THE PYRAMID OF FIVE STEPS. 
In the month of August, 1839, Mr. J. S. Perring, the distinguished Engineer, discovered 
a fourth entrance to this pyramid, which was found to communicate with a recess at the 
south-western corner of a large apartment described in his narrative. This communica- 
tion is a horizontal gallery one hundred and sixty-six feet long, and the recess is seventy 
feet above the floor. “The southern end of the gallery,” observes Colonel Vyse, “was 
stopped up with sand; but for the length of one hundred and sixty feet from the interior 
it was open, and did not seem to have been previously visited, as nearly thirty mummies 
were found in it apparently undisturbed. ‘They had neither coffins nor sarcophagi, nor, 
with the exception of three or four, any painted decorations. They crumbled to pieces 
on being touched, and could not be removed. Mr. Perring, therefore, proceeded to exa- 
mine them. He found them enclosed in wrappers, with pitch and bitumen; but he did 
not meet with any of the objects usually deposited with mummies, excepting some of 
the common stone idols upon the body of the female. He therefore concluded that they 
were the bodies of persons employed in the building.” * 
Fortunately for my inquiries, Mr. Gliddon was at hand when these relics were 
brought to light, and obtained them of Mr. Perring as a contribution to my researches. 
With the utmost care on Mr. Gliddon’s part, two of three reached me in safety, but the 
third was broken into numberless fragments. In fact, the consistence of these bones is 
but little firmer than unbaked clay, and the animal matter is nearly obliterated. If Mr. 
Perring’s opinion be correct, that the persons to whom these bodies belonged were 
coeval with the construction of the pyramid, we may with safety regard them as the 
most ancient human remains at present known to us. Whether, as that gentleman 
suggests, they pertained to workmen employed in building the pyramid, I will not pre- 
tend to decide; but although they present indifferent intellectual developments, their 
conformation is that of the Caucasian race, 
Plate I., Fig. 1. (Cat. 838.) An oval head with a broad but rather low forehead, 
moderately elevated vertex, and full occiput. The superciliary ridges are prominent, 
the orbits oblong-oval, the nasal bones large, salient and aquiline, the teeth vertical 
* Explorations at the Pyramids, Vol. III., p. 44. 
VOL. IxX.—28 
gute a ey 
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