March i, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



159 



ETHNOLOGY. 

 The Races of Egypt. 



In the spring of i888, Professor R. Virchow visited Egypt in 

 order to inquire into the physical character of the Egyptians, his 

 special object being to study the influence of the climatic and other 

 conditions of the country upon man, and the other question, to 

 compare the type represented on ancient monuments with that of 

 the present inhabitants. Far-reaching conclusions have been made 

 from studies of ancient paintings and carvings, but so far no suf- 

 ficient anthropological basis existed for these studies. From this 

 point of view, Virchow's work is of special interest to the ethnolo- 

 gist. The " Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society " con- 

 tain a full report of Professor Virchow's observations, from which 

 we glean the following notes. The author says, that, although a 

 final and satisfactory solution of the question is not yet to be ex- 

 pected, the solution of it in the case of Egypt is of great importance, 

 because in that country the oldest historical data have made us 

 familiar with men of the most highly developed civilization, who, 

 through the position of their habitation, — an island in the sea of 

 desert, — appear, in the most remote times, to have been shielded 

 from foreign influences. At the time of the most ancient historical 

 king of upper Egypt, King Menes, who reigned about the year 

 6000, we find a people with all the arts of civilization, an elaborate 

 state system, a complete hierarchy, famous monuments of archi- 

 tecture and sculpture, and the rudiments of painting. But what 

 was the state of things before the time of Menes ? Here the 

 threads of history break off short : the prehistoric period is filled 

 up by later Egyptian and Greecian writers by means of a promis- 

 cuous collection of legends and myths, of which the student can 

 take no account ; although Professor Lant of Munich has en- 

 deavored, and not without success, to extract a reliable historical 

 kernel out of the myths. Since 1869, positive data have been con- 

 tinually collected, and the result is to show that there has been an 

 Egyptian stone age. But between the latter and the age of Menes, 

 which presents the arts of civilization in complete form, there ex- 

 ists a yawning gap ; and we seek in vain for a connecting link be- 

 tween any one of the oldest temples near the Sphinx, which itself 

 presents no inscriptions and decorations of the later age, and the 

 period of the stone age. As to the conventionalism of Egyptian 

 works of art, we know now some details. 



The supposition which was long held, that the ancient Egyptians 

 at the time of Menes correspond with the type of man to-day 

 existing there has been shown to be erroneous. Since the mummies 

 of the old Egyptian kings, such as Sesostris, Settri, Rameses, and 

 others, were discovered in 1870, and the crania of these conquerors 

 have furnished us with measurable data, it can be asserted with 

 safety that the existing images and statues of these rulers are not 

 portraits, but that the latter were fashioned according to a certain 

 ■conventional design. We are not, however, in the same position 

 with regard to the sculptures of the older dynasties. Of these we 

 ■only find scanty remains. Some crania, authenticated, but partially 

 ■covered by inscriptions, are the only relics which we possess of 

 that earlier time ; viz., from the fifth dynasty backwards. With 

 •these, however, the statues agree. They are the skulls of short 

 heads, while the fellaheen of to-day have long heads. This, then, 

 at least, may be taken as settled, — that a change of type in the 

 -case of the dynasties has taken place. The case is otherwise with 

 regard to the ethnological figures on the Egyptian works of art 

 which are represented beside the king. These show that in the 

 oldest historical times the different types of people, which we find 

 up to this day in Egypt and the neighboring countries, were just 

 as sharply distinguished from each other as they are now. The 

 ■question in this case, however, is not about portraits, but about 

 types, in which the essentials (such as the kind of hair, form of 

 head, etc.) remain the same, while the externals (the armor, cloth- 

 ing, etc.) change according to the periods. The oldest representa- 

 tion of a negro is found in the tomb of Una, one of the kings of the 

 sixth dynasty. In the opinion of many, especially of Lepsius, 

 the territory situated between the first and second cataracts, 

 bewteen Assuan and Wadi Haifa, which is the true Nubia or 

 Ethiopia, is the district where the change of the Central Africans 

 into the Egyptians took place. It is the same region which for four 



thousand years, down to the present time, has been the object of 

 strife between the northern and southern races. In the oldest 

 times the country which lies immediately south of Assuan was 

 called Kash (the biblical Kush). Lepsius tried to prove, from con- 

 siderations of language, that the inhabitants of Kash were negroes. 

 The investigations of Professor Virchow on the spot, however, have 

 resulted in establishing the contrary. The Nubians have, in skin, 

 hair, or shape of head, no racial connection with the Nigritians, 

 who are pure negroes. The Nubians, or, as they call themselves, 

 the Barabra (Berbers) have to look for their kinsmen in the north, 

 and not in the south. The Bedouins of the eastern deserts, the 

 Bisharin and the Ababde, resemble them very much. As regards 

 constancy of types, it is sufficient that no noteworthy changes have 

 taken place within historical times. One of the most important 

 anthropological characteristics is the color of the skin. In the case 

 of the Nigritians, this is practically inpependent of all external cir- 

 cumstances; air and light have no effect upon it ; the negro remains 

 black. Among the northern inhabitants there is an important 

 variability of coloring. Light and air exert a considerable influence 

 upon the color of the skin of the Egyptian and Bedouin. The 

 people of southern Europe also become dark in Nubia, but grow 

 pale again when they return to the north. This fact furnishes the 

 explanation of the diversity of coloring found in the old Egyptian 

 pictures, which were painted according to certain rules, and in 

 which the men appear always dark red, and the women light 

 yellow. The prime color of the one is vermilion, and of the other 

 orange. The former characterizes the man working out in the 

 open air ; and the latter, the woman working in the house, and 

 thus preserving her light skin color. Greeks of the third genera- 

 tion living in Nubia have to-day a completely Kushitic appearance. 

 This changeability of the color of the skin characterizes all the 

 peoples as far as Dongola, where the Nigritians first begin, and 

 forms the principal basis for the theory that the north and south 

 of Egypt never belonged to each other ethnologically, and that the 

 northern races of Egypt did not spring from negroes. The direct 

 anatomical proof for this assertion cannot, it is true, be adduced, in- 

 asmuch as prehistoric skulls have not been found. Craniological 

 studies point to the near relation of the Egyptians of to-day to 

 the Berbers of Morocco and the Guanches of the Canary Islands. 



Diculafoy's Excavations at Susa. — One of the most im- 

 portant archseological expeditions undertaken in western Asia is 

 that of M. and Mme. Diculafoy, who were sent by the French 

 Department of Public Instruction and of Public Works to Media 

 and Persia to explore the remains of the ancient cities of these 

 regions. Their first expedition was undertaken in 1881 and 

 1882, and their work was completed in the years 1884, 1885, 

 1886. The excavations, which were carried out with great dif- 

 ficulty, on account of the fanaticism of the inhabitants, have 

 yielded valuable results from an archseological as well as from 

 an historical standpoint. The palaces of Artaxerxes and of Darius 

 have been excavated, and it is now possible to reconstruct the 

 plans of these magnificent buildings. The objects collected during 

 these excavations have been transported to Paris, and form one of 

 the most interesting departments of the new galleries of the 

 Louvre. The collections contain polychromic bas-reliefs from 

 the royal palace, representing lion and warriors, and potteries of 

 the first or second century of our era. Besides architectural 

 remains, numerous inscribed cylinders, ivory, bronze, and clay 

 objects have been found. The palace, a model of which is being 

 made, was a magnificent building rising on a platform sixty feet 

 in height, protected by walls, and accessible only on the south side 

 by a large staircase. 



Ethnological Comparisons. — There are two methods of 

 studying ethnology, — one by studying the growth of a single culture, 

 the other by comparing isolated phenomena among a great num- 

 ber of tribes. While the former yields results of historical interest, 

 the second is of prime importance to the student of psychology, who 

 investigates the laws of the growth of human thought. R. Andree, 

 who has for a long time continued the latter course of studies, has 

 collected a series of essays on " ethnological parallels," most of 

 which have previously been published in various journals. One of 

 the most important results of such comparisons is the conclusive evi- 



