ON PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 269 
1909-1910 by Professor Hermann Junker, and described by Dr. Derry,! 
to which reference will be made later) belonged to a later period, Fourth 
to Sixth Dynasties, and revealed undoubted evidence of considerable 
alien admixture, such as does not occur, except in rare sporadic 
instances, in the earlier remains from Upper Egypt. The problem for 
solution was the determination of when and how this process of racial 
admixture began. 
The contemporary and earlier material found by Professor Junker 
upon the opposite (east) bank of the river and a little further north was 
in a very bad state of preservation, and no adequate photographic record 
was obtained to permit of exact comparisons with other collections. 
But Dr. Derry’s report, which seems to suggest that the alien element, 
in these poorer graves, did not become certainly appreciable until the 
time of the Third Dynasty, served to add to the interest of Mr. 
Quibell’s material and to make it more than ever desirable to secure 
and preserve a collection of such crucial importance for the investiga- 
tion of the problems of Egypt’s anthropological history. 
The chief difficulty that faced the Committee was how satisfac- 
torily to deal with a collection of most fragile bones, a large proportion 
of which were certain to become damaged more or less severely during 
transport. As there was no anthropologist on the spot to measure and 
make descriptive notes on the material, it was proposed to employ 
experts to photograph each skull and other important bone before they 
were treated with size or other strengthening agent in preparation for 
transport to England. 
But while preparations were being made for carrying out this 
scheme, most of the difficulties were removed by the fact that the 
Egyptian Government requested the Chairman of this Committee to 
go out to Egypt in connection with the work of the Archeological 
Survey of Nubia, and it thus became possible for him to visit Mr. 
Quibell’s excavations in person, to examine and measure all the 
material on the spot, to supervise the work of photographing and pack- 
ing it for transmission to England. It was possible to do so much in 
the short time at his disposal, because Mr. Quibell and his trained 
workmen afforded every help, and Mr. Cecil M. Firth and his native 
photographic assistant, Mahmud Shaduf, of the Nubian Survey, volun- 
teered to help. Mr. Firth took about a hundred and thirty photographs 
of the material. Every help was also given by the Egyptian Survey 
Department in the loan of instruments and other apparatus. Further- 
more, the authorities at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 
in London offered to take charge of and repair the material on its 
arrival, and to grant the Committee every facility for its investigations. 
They have borne all costs of transport. 
Full notes and photographs were obtained of all the human material 
rescued by Mr. Quibell, consisting of the remains of thirty-nine indi- 
viduals of the Second and Third Dynasties, most of which is now safely 
housed in the Royal College of Surgeons’ Museum. It will take some 
time to complete the investigation of this material for the purposes of 
a final report; but it may be stated that the material closely resembles 
? Denkschr. d.k. Akad. d. Wissensch. in Wien, 1912. 
