Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
The Egyptians, while they painted themselves red-brown, represented the
nations of Palestine as yellow-brown, and the Libyans yellow-white. The
present inhabitants of Egypt range from a yellow color in the north
parts to a deep bronze. Tylor is of opinion ("Anthropology," p. 95) that
the ancient Egyptians belonged to a brown race, which embraced the
Nubian tribes and, to some extent, the Berbers of Algiers and Tunis. He
groups the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Andalusians,
Bretons, dark Welshmen, and people of the Caucasus into one body, and
designates them as "dark whites." The Himyarite Arabs, as I have shown,
derived their name originally from their red color, and they were
constantly depicted on the Egyptian monuments as red or light brown.
Herodotus tells us that there was a nation of Libyans, called the
Maxyans, who claimed descent from the people of Troy (the walls of Troy,
we shall see, were built by Poseidon; that is to say, Troy was an
Atlantean colony). These Maxyans painted their whole bodies red. The
Zavecians, the ancestors of the Zuavas of Algiers (the tribe that gave
their name to the French Zouaves), also painted themselves red. Some of
the Ethiopians were "copper-colored." ("'Amer. Cyclop.," art. Egypt, p.
464.) Tylor says ("Anthropology," p. 160): "The language of the ancient
Egyptians, though it cannot be classed in the Semitic family with
Hebrew, has important points of correspondence, whether due to the long
intercourse between the two races in Egypt or to some deeper ancestral
connection; and such analogies also appear in the Berber languages of
North Africa."
These last were called by the ancients the Atlanteans.
"If a congregation of twelve representatives from Malacca, China, Japan,
Mongolia, Sandwich Islands, Chili, Peru, Brazil, Chickasaws, Comanches,
etc., were dressed alike, or undressed and unshaven, the most skilful
anatomist could not, from their appearance, separate them." (Fontaine's
"How the World was Peopled," pp. 147, 244.)
Ferdinand Columbus, in his relation of his father's voyages, compares
the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders (an Atlantean race),
and describes the inhabitants of San Domingo as still more beautiful and
fair. In Peru the Charanzanis, studied by M. Angraud, also resemble the
Canary Islanders. L'Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg imagined himself
surrounded by Arabs when all his Indians of Rabinal were around him; for
they had, he said, their complexion, features, and beard. Pierre Martyr
speaks of the Indians of the Parian Gulf as having fair hair. ("The
Human Species," p. 201.) The same author believes that tribes belonging
to the Semitic type are also found in America. He refers to "certain
traditions of Guiana, and the use in the country of a weapon entirely
characteristic of the ancient Canary Islanders."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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