Crania Ægyptiaca: Or, Observations on Egyptian Ethnography Derived from Anatomy, History and the Monuments — John Shaqi
Crania Ægyptiaca: Or, Observations on Egyptian Ethnography Derived from Anatomy, History and the MonumentsMorton, Samuel George
History
Crania Ægyptiaca: Or, Observations on Egyptian Ethnography Derived from Anatomy, History and the Monuments
Morton, Samuel George
Craniology -- Egypt; Ethnology -- Egypt
_Ethnographic Table of one hundred ancient Egyptian Crania._[4]
┌────────────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
│Sepulchral │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Localities. │ No.│Egyptian.│Pelasgic.│Semitic.│Mixed.│Negroid.│Negro.│Idiot.│
├────────────┼────┼────┬────┼────┬────┼────┬───┴┬────┐
│Memphis, │ 26│ 7│ 16│ 1│ 1│ 1│ │ │
│Maabdeh, │ 4│ 1│ 1│ │ │ 2│ │ │
│Abydos, │ 4│ 2│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │ │
│Thebes, │ 55│ 30│ 10│ 4│ 4│ 5│ │ 2│
│Ombos, │ 3│ 3│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Philæ, │ 4│ 2│ 1│ │ │ │ 1│ │
│Debod, │ 4│ 4│ │ │ │ │ │ │
├────────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┤
│ │ 100│ 49│ 29│ 6│ 5│ 8│ 1│ 2│
└────────────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘
The preceding table speaks for itself. It shows that more than eight
tenths of the crania pertain to the unmixed Caucasian race; that the
Pelasgic form is as one to one and two-thirds, and the Semitic form
one to eight, compared with the Egyptian: that one twentieth of the
whole is composed of heads in which there exists a trace of Negro and
other exotic lineage:—that the Negroid conformation exists in eight
instances, thus constituting about one thirteenth part of the whole;
and, finally, that the series contains a single unmixed Negro.
To these facts I shall briefly add the results of the observations of
some authors who have preceded me in this inquiry. “I have examined in
Paris, and in the various collections of Europe,” says Cuvier, “more
than fifty heads of mummies, and not one amongst them presented the
characters of the Negro or Hottentot.”[5]
Two of the three mummy heads figured by Blumenbach, (Decad. Cran.,
Figs. 1 and 31,) are unequivocally Egyptian, but the second, as that
accurate observer remarks, has something of the Negro expression.[6]
The third cranium delineated in the same work, (Plate 52,) is also
Caucasian, but less evidently Egyptian, and partakes, in Professor
Blumenbach’s opinion, of the Hindoo form. Of the four mummies
described by Söemmering, “two differed in no respect from the European
formation; the third had the African character of a long space marked
out for the temporal muscle; the characters of the fourth are not
particularized. The skulls of four mummies in the possession of Dr.
Leach, of the British museum, and casts of three others, agree with
those just mentioned in exhibiting a formation not differing from the
European, without any trait of the Negro character.”[7]
The two heads figured in the great French work, are both decidedly
Egyptian, but the second and smaller one is the most strongly
marked.[8]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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