The mummy : chapters on Egyptian funereal archaeology / by E. A. Wallis Budge.

  • Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir, 1857-1934.
Date:
1894
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mummy : chapters on Egyptian funereal archaeology / by E. A. Wallis Budge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Asia the original home of the Egyptians. Evidence of skulls and an- tiquities. no doubt whatever. He was a Caucasian, and it would seem that he came to Egypt from an original home in Asia. He wandered, or was driven, forth from there, and travelling in a south-westerly or westerly direction, after a number of years arrived at a place to the north of the Red Sea, probably the Isthmus of Suez, the bridge of nations. Of the time occupied by the immigrant in making his way from Asia to Egypt nothing can be said ; it is quite certain, however, that when he arrived he brought a high civilization with him. Following the statement of Diodorus Siculus,^ it was the fashion .some years ago to state in books of history that the ancient Egyptian was a negro, and some distinguished historians still make the statement that the fundamental character of the Egyptian in respect of physical type, language, and tone of thought, is Nigritic. ^ That neither the Egyptian nor his civilization is of Nigritic origin is proved by the inscriptions and by the evidence of an ever-increasing number of statues of kings, and of high officials in their service, who lived during the earliest times of the rule of the invaders over Egypt. Prof. Owen's opinion on this subject is as follows: Taking the sum of the correspondence notable in collections of skulls from Egyptian graveyards as a probable indication of the hypothetical primitive race originating the civilized conditions of cranial departure from the skull-character of such race, that race was certainly not of the Australioid type, is more suggestive of a northern Nubian or Berber basis. But such suggestive characters maybe due to intercourse or'admix- ture' at periods later than [the] XHIth dynasty; they are not present, or in a much less degree, in the skulls, features, and physiognomies of individuals of from the Hlrd to the XHth dynasties.^ If the pure ancient Egyptian, as found in mummies and represented in paintings upon the tombs, be compared with the negro, we shall find that they are abso- lutely unlike in every particular. The negro is prognathous, but the Egyptian is orthognathous; the bony structure of the ' Bk. iii. 3. I. (ed. Didot, p. 128). * G. Rawlinson, Andent Egypt, 1887, p. 24. * Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland^