656 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



the Negroes, at a time when Negro influence was so slight that no considerable 

 amount of intermarriage had occurred. A custom which if it were not originally 

 Egyptian would have introduced a totally new outlook on the world, and would 

 have been intensely unpopular with the ruling powers. 



With regard to the mode in which Egyptian influence was exerted on the 

 Sudan there are three main routes along which we might expect to find its traces. 

 The first is southwards along the Nile, the other two are to the west; one route 

 at first following the Mediterranean coast but broadening westward as con- 

 ditions become more favourable, the other running south-west through the oases 

 and so communicating with Darfur and the Chad basin. Yet another route has 

 been suggested by Sir Harry Johnston, namely, through Abyssinia and Somali- 

 land, presumably reaching them via the Red Sea (8, 487). Perhaps it was by 

 this route that the sistrum, still used in the church festivals, reached 

 Abyssinia, 



The extension of Egyptian rule up the Nile Valley can be traced from the 

 earliest times to the XVIII. dynasty. But although after this Egyptian domina- 

 tion becomes less marked, Egyptian influence had become so firmly established 

 that the culture of the states in the Nile Valley had a predominantly Egyptian 

 tinge ;' first Napata, then Meroe, and then further south the states which we 

 know later as the Christian kingdoms of Dongola and 'Alwah. 



On a priori grounds the Nile route might be expected to be the most worn and 

 the easiest to trace. For thousands of years Egyptian and Negro were in 

 contact on the middle reaches of the great river, so that at least one great negroid 

 kingdom arose ; and though to this day a Negro dialect is spoken as far north 

 as Aswan, yet at the present time there does not seem to be a single object or 

 cultural characteristic which unequivocally can be said to have reached the zone 

 of luxuriant tropical vegetation by way of the Nile Valley. The evidence for 

 the earliest spread of Egyptian influence is set forth in the Reports of t/ie 

 Arcluvological Survey of Nubia, and, referring as it does to the country north of 

 Wady Haifa, is outside the scope of this address. Yet I cannot leave it alto- 

 gether unnoticed, since it is intimately related to the discoveries recently made 

 by Professor Reisner at Kerma in Dongola Province beyond the Third Cataract. 

 (17.) In the Reports, Professor Elliot Smith shows that beyond Aswan, as far 

 south as exploration has proceeded, the basis of the ancient population from the 

 earliest times to the end of the Middle Empire was essentially of proto-Egyptian 

 type, and that this type became progressively modified by dynastic Egyptian 

 influence from the north, and Negro and Negroid influence from the south. As 

 a result the Nubians contemporary with the New Empire present such pro- 

 nounced Negroid characteristics as to form a group (the C-group) which stands 

 apart from its Nubian and Egyptian predecessors (2. Bulletin iii. 25.) The 

 recent discoveries at Kerma, which include fragments of alabaster jars with the 

 names of kings of the VI. and XII. dynasties and also seal impressions of the 

 Hyksos period, have shown that here was a fort or trading post certainly occu- 

 pied during the Hyksos period, and probably as far back as the VI. dynasty. 

 It is the remains of the Hyksos period that are especially interesting. Professor 

 Reisner describes a people who razed the buildings of their predecessors, and 

 buried their dead in the debris, who battered the statues of Egyptian kings of 

 the XII. dynasty, and whose funerary customs were entirely un-Egyptian. Each 

 burial pit contains a number of graves in every one of which several bodies had 

 been interred. The chief personage lies on a carved bed ; ' under his head is 

 a wooden pillow ; between his legs a sword or dagger ; beside his feet cowhide 

 sandals and an ostrich-feather fan. At his feet is bui'ied a ram, often with 

 ivory knobs on the tips of the horns to prevent goring. Around the bed lie a 

 varying number of bodies, male and female, all contracted on the right side, 



" The early Ethiopian kings used the Egyptian language and writing for 

 their records; it was only towards the end of the ]Meroitic period, after the down- 

 fall of Egypt, that the Meroitic language was written. A special hieroglyphic 

 alphabet founded on the "Egyptian may date back to the third century B.C., but 

 the actual Meroitic script is later than this ; Crowfoot indeed argues for so' late 

 and short a range as from the middle of the second to the fourth century a.d. 

 (Griffith, The Meroitic Inscriptions of Shablul and Karanog, chap. ii.). 



