There is no fact in history more familiar than the rule of the Hykshos or shepherd kings in Egypt. The word Hykshos is the same as we have seen (p. 38,) both in the Egyptian and Berber or Libyan tongues, and signified a _shepherd_ or a wanderer. It was applied to all those foreigners who at different times displaced the native dynasties,—Scythians, Hellenic tribes, Phenicians, and others. Reserving some remarks for a future part of this memoir, we shall briefly observe that there is no monumental record of more than one of these sovereignties, namely, that which was expelled by Amunoph the First of the eighteenth dynasty, about eighteen centuries before Christ. These people, whose name was held in execration by the Egyptians, are said by Herodotus and other historians to have possessed a fair complexion, blue eyes, and reddish hair. That they were of the Caucasian race there is no question; but the preceding traits apply equally to the Scythians, the Phenicians, and the Edomim or Edomites, and it is probable that the shepherd dynasties of Manetho embraced kings from all these sources.[89] The portraits of these intrusive kings, as recently discovered in various parts of Egypt, not only present a physiognomy entirely different from that of the legitimate monarchs, but the symbol of their religion is also different, being “the sun, whose rays terminate in human hands,” while the accompanying hieroglyphic legends make no allusion to the Egyptian deities. “Their features,” observes Mr. Perring, from whom I derive these facts, “do not at all resemble the Egyptian; and, though much defaced, are evidently the same as those found on the propyla of Karnak, where we may recognise a similarity with the tall, white, slender, blue-eyed, and red-haired race, painted on the soles of the Egyptian sandals, and appearing also on the monuments, where they are emphatically called the _wicked race of Scheto_.”[90] One of these effigies is found only on fragments of stone which had pertained to temples antecedent to the eighteenth dynasty, which structures were overturned by the legitimate kings of that and the succeeding reigns, and the _materials_ used in erecting those splendid Pharaonic monuments of which they yet form a part. The three following heads are copied from Mr. Perring’s very interesting memoir. [Illustration] No. 1, the portrait of a king whose name is read _Skai_ by Champollion, copied from his tomb in the western valley near Thebes. The bold, heavy features, and harsh expression are very remarkable, and Mr. Perring observes that this personage is represented of a much lighter red than is usual with the Egyptians. No. 2. Head of another king of this exotic dynasty, with long sharp features, whose name reads _Atenre-Backhan_ on the monuments, copied from a stone in the second propylon of Karnak.