138 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, 
ont yn outlines delineated above. It may be observed, with re- 
/ \ spect to Egyptian art, that while the bas reliefs are for the 
=\q | SE most part executed with remarkable beauty and precision, 
: _@ : \ the paintings, owing to the use of a single colour, and the 
a a4 rf absence of perspective or shading, are often coarse and 
‘S [ \ noted defective; and the two annexed drawings will serve to 
: illustrate this negligent style of art. 
It is thus that we trace the Pelasgic type of feature and expression through all the 
various castes of the Egyptian population, beginning with kings and ending with pea- 
sants and plebeians. The illustrations have been purposely selected from those remote 
times wherein chronology becomes confusion, down to the later periods of recorded _his- 
tory,—a vast period of thirteen centuries, of which the latest date looks back nine hundred 
years before the birth of Christ! 
People of Pelasgic features and complexion are often seen on the monuments as pri- 
soners taken in war. One of these is copied, Plate XIV., Fig. 23. It is from Abou- 
simbel, and dates with Rameses III. The very fair skin, regular features and black hair 
seem to point to a nation of southern Europe. ‘The nose is nearly straight, and on the 
same line with the forehead, although the latter recedes more than is consistent with our 
ideas of the Grecian profile,* 
=f 
3. THE SEMITIC RACE.T 
That people of this great family were numerous in Egypt is amply attested both by 
sacred and profane history; and the proximity of their respective countries necessarily. 
brought the Semitic and Egyptian communities into frequent contact for war or for 
peace. This fact is abundantly proved by the monuments. ‘The Jewish people, how- 
ever, appears, for the most part, to have been admitted into Egypt upon sufferance; for 
the Exodus, and all subsequent annals, are conclusive on this subject. 
Those peculiar lineaments which, from very remote times, have characterized some of 
the Semitic nations, have been already noticed. How many of these nations possessed 
these physical characters, cannot now be determined; but it is probable that all partook 
of them in degree. It is in the temple of Beyt-el-Walee, in Nubia, in paintings of the 
age of Rameses II., (B. C. 1579,) that we meet with one of the earliest unquestionable 
delineations of these people. (Plate XIV., Fig. 24.) 
* Rosellini, M. R., Plate 158. 
+ The Semitic race extended from the Mediterranean sea on the west to the confines of Persia on the East, and doubt- 
less possessed great variety of feature and complexion. They derive their collective name from Shem, ‘from whom, in 
the table of nations in the book of Genesis, entitled Toldoth Beni Noah, many of them are declared to have descended,”" 
Prichard, Researches, Il., p. 208, 2d ed. The principal of these nations, adds Dr. Prichard, were those of Blam, to 
the north-west of the Persian Gulf; the Assyrians; the Chasdim, or Chaldeans, who are the ancestors of the He. 
brews and Arabs; the Lydians; and the Syrians, or people of Aram. They are also called, collectively, Syro-Arabian 
nations. 
The Jews were immensely numerous in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman epochs. Vide Josephus, Book XII., 
chap. ii—Sharpe, Egypt under the Romans, p. 13. 
