xxiv proceedings. 



The Axatomt and Psychology of the Ancient Egyptian. 

 — By John Cameron, ^NI.D., D.Sc, F.R.S.E., Professor of 

 Anatomy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N. S. 



(Read 10 April 1916) 



The wonderful civilization of Ancient Egypt has for long 

 fascinated the writer. It is, however, only during the last 

 eight years that a serious study of the language, manners and 

 customs of this remarkable race has been undertaken, the 

 stimulus to which was a request, in 1908, by Miss M. A. 

 Murray of the Department of Egyptology, University 

 College, London, to examine and make a report on the ana- 

 tomy of two mummies belonging to a royal burial of the 

 twelfth dynast3^ One gets some idea of the immensity of 

 time when one recollects that these personages had lived 

 more than two thousand five hundred years before Christ, 

 and had been buried before the advent of the biblical flood- 

 They were, therefore, antediluvian. These presented so 

 many remarkable features (some of which will be referred to 

 in the course of this paper) that thej^ stimulated the writer 

 to undertake some further researches on the anatomy and 

 mentality of the ancient Egyptian. The results of these are 

 incorporated in the present communication. 



Previous to the evolution of the civilization of Ancient 

 Egypt the river Nile ran through a barren rockbound country 

 on which authorities have estimated that nothing but primi- 

 tive man could have subsisted. With reference to the exact 

 period of time when civilization commenced and paleolithic 

 man became annihilated in Egypt, remarkable data are 

 provided by the rate at which the fertilizing Nile mud has 

 been deposited in the Delta region. Geologists have demon- 

 strated that in the Archaic Ages this mud was all poured 

 directly into the Mediterranean. Borings in that area have 

 disclosed the fact that the maximum thickness of this material 

 is thirty-three feet, and as careful calculations have shown 

 that the mud is deposited at the average rate of about four 



