THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 19 J 



his feet cowhide sandals and an ostrich feather fan. At his feet is 

 buried a ram, with ivory knobs on the tips of its horns to prevent goring. 

 Around the bed he a varying number of bodies, male and female, all 

 contracted on the right side, head east. Among them are the pots and 

 pans, the cosmetic jars, the stools, and other objects. Over the whole 

 is spread a great ox-hide. It is clear they were all buried at once. The 

 men and women round about must have been sacrificed so that their 

 spirits might accompany the chief to the other world. ... I could not 

 escape the belief that they had been buried alive. Who are these people? 

 There are, it is true, a few negroes among the women; but the chief 

 men are all broad-headed and straight-haired. If they are Egyptian, 

 whence comes the strange pottery and the awful burial custom ? It 

 is hoped to submit the bones to Prof. Elliot Smith, who will without 

 doubt be able to say whether the men were Egyptians or not. If 

 they are neither Egyptians nor negroes, then there are many possi- 

 bilities — Arabs, Libyans, a mixed band of adventurers from the north, 

 or even Hyksos. The name of Sheshy, supposed to be a Hyksos king, 

 is found on several of the seal-impi-essions. But it is not possible at 

 present to reach any safe conclusion on the race of the men of Kerma. ' 



These free quotations from Professor Eeisner's report admirably 

 and most lucidly explain the nature of the problems I am asked to solve. 

 There is one possibihty, not mentioned by Dr. Eeisner, that at once 

 suggests itself, especially when one examines the excellent photographs 

 that illustrate the report. Seeing that this very spot had been occupied 

 by an Egyptian town and fortress nine centuries earlier, and then again 

 later on for several centuries before the time of the people whose 

 identity is under consideration, obviously the first explanation which 

 suggests itself is that we may have to deal with the descendants of the 

 old colony of Pepy's time reinforced with fresh Egyptian blood by 

 new immigrations ranging from the time of Sesostris I. to Amenemhat 

 III. at least. 



For the statement that these people were ' not using Egyptian 

 furniture nor Egyptian burial customs ' is apt to be misleading. The 

 furniture and the burial customs, it is true, are not exactly identical 

 with those of Egypt at any period : but no one who studies the burial 

 customs and funerary equipment of other peoples can hesitate for one 

 moment in deciding that these things and the Egyptian customs and 

 furniture must be assimilated into the same generic group. My meaning 

 will be made clear if we examine the archfeological evidence. Burial 

 upon a bed of the type found in these graves was not an Egyptian 

 custom in 1700 B.C.; but it was so at the time when the first Egyptian 

 settlement occurred at Kerma, perhaps a millennium previously ; and 

 the legs of the chairs and beds are characteristically Egyptian in 

 design (see Eeisner's fig. 20) ; so are the head-rests and the sandals, 

 and the Egyptian military decoration (' order of the fly '). The 

 exquisite black-topped, red-polished pottery is equally characteristically 

 a proto-Egyptian ware, but carried to a much higher pitch of perfection 

 by eighteen centuries of practice after the Egyptians themselves had 

 been using their most expert craftsmen for other purposes. The 

 barbarous addition to the burial customs of the Egyptians is the well- 



