Dr. Blumenbach's Observations 
190 
expected that we should be able to draw any just inferences 
from the mere style, and the contents of the painted integu- 
ments of the mummies we may have opportunities to examine. 
Still less can we infer aught from the sculpture or paintings 
on the sarcophagi, as to the contents of the mummies sent us 
into Europe ; Maillet having about sixty or seventy years 
ago detected the fraud of the Arabs, who he says are in the 
practice of breaking in pieces the mummies contained in the 
catacombs in the more ornamented sarcophagi, for the sake of 
the idols they expect to find in them, of replacing them with 
tolerably preserved common painted mummies (such as I have 
called soft), and thus offering them for sale. 
The osteological properties which I have had opportunities 
to observe in the skulls of mummies, are most of them men- 
tioned in the description of my collection of the skulls of diffe- 
rent nations above quoted ; and will, I hope, prove useful to 
others for further comparisons. 
As to the different national physiognomies of the ancient 
Egyptians, I shall here advert only to what, in my physiolo- 
gical study of the varieties in the human species, I have de- 
duced from my comparisons of these skulls with the artificial 
monuments found in Egypt. For I am wholly at a loss to 
conceive how learned writers, not only of the stamp of the 
author of the Recherches sur les Egyptiens ;* but even profes- 
sional antiquaries, such as Winkelmann,^ and the author of 
the Recherches sur I’Origine des Arts de la Grece\ could ascribe 
to the artificial monuments found in Egypt one common cha- 
* T. I. p. 237. 
-|- In his description des Pierres gravces de Stoscb. p. 10, and in other works of his. 
t T. I.-p. 300. 
