Crania Aegyptiaca, or, Observations on Egyptian ethnography derived from anatomy, history and the monuments / by Samuel George Morton.

  • Morton Samuel George, 1799-1851.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Crania Aegyptiaca, or, Observations on Egyptian ethnography derived from anatomy, history and the monuments / by Samuel George Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and the whole facial structure delicate. The head of a woman of about forty years.*— I. C. 90 cubic inches. F. A. 81°. Pelasgic form. Plate I., Fig. 2. (Cat. 837.) A large and ponderous skull, with a broad but low forehead, and very prominent superciliary ridges. The vertex is elevated, the occipital region remarkably full, and the parietal diameter large. The bones of the face are delicately formed, the nose long and aquiline, the orbits rounded, the teeth vertical.— I. C. 97 cubic inches. F. A. 83°. Pelasgic form. This is the skull of a man who may have reached his fiftieth year. The teeth are much worn, and parts of the sutures nearly obsolete. This person, long antecedent to his death, had received a severe wound over the right orbit, beginning at the nasal bone and extending upwards and outwards nearly two inches, fracturing and depressing both tables of the skull. The consequent deformity is manifest, although the cicatrization is complete. B.—FROM THE MEMPHITE NECROPOLIS. Eleven skulls from various mummy pits in the great Necropolis of Saccara. In Mr. Gliddon's memoranda he remarks that these heads were mostly taken from the mum- mies themselves, and from the best constructed pits; and that having been enclosed in coffins painted and otherwise ornamented with different degrees of care, they probably pertained to the higher class of Egyptians. Plate II., Fig. 1. (Cat. 808.) A large elongate-oval head, with a broad, high forehead, low coronal region, and strongly aquiline nose. The orbits nearly round; teeth perfect and vertical.—I. C. 97 cubic inches. F. A. 77°. Pelasgic form. Plate II., Fig. 2. (Cat. 815.) A beautifully formed head, with a forehead high, full, and nearly vertical, a good coronal region, and largely developed occiput. The nasal bones are long and straight, and the whole facial structure delicately proportioned. Age, between thirty and thirty-five years.—I. C. 88 cubic inches. F. A. 81°. Pelasgic form. Plate II., Fig. 3. (Cat. 812.) Skull of a woman of twenty years? with a beautifully developed forehead, and remarkably thin and delicate structure throughout. The frontal suture remains.—I. C. 82 cubic inches. F. A. 80°. Pelasgic form. Plate II., Fig. 4. (Cat. 806.) A thin cranium, of a short-oval form; the forehead is broad, the coronal region low, and the whole face prominent. Age, about thirty years. I. C. 83 cubic inches. F. A. 77°. Egyptian form. Plate II., Fig. 5. (Cat. 814.) Cranium of a man of eighty or ninety years, with a full but rather receding forehead, and strongly developed cranial structure.—I. C. 97 cubic inches. Pelasgic form. Plate II., Fig. 6. (Cat. 810.) An admirable conformation, as seen in the broad, high forehead, full occiput, and gently aquiline nose. Probably a female of twenty years.— I. C. 86 cubic inches. F. A. 78°. Egyptian form ? Plate IL, Fig. 7. (Cat, 805.) A narrow, elongated head, with an indifferent frontal region. A man of fifty?—I. C. 79 cubic inches. F. A. 83^. Pelasgic form. * The letters I. C, denote the internal capacity of the craniura.-^F. A., the Facial Angle. The skulls of persons under sixteen or eighteen years of age are seldom measured, and never admitted into the computations of this memoir.