Description of a deformed, fragmentary human skull : found in an ancient quarry-cave at Jerusalem : with an attempt to determine, by its configuration alone, the ethnical type to which it belongs / by J. Aitken Meigs.

  • Meigs, James Aitken, 1829-1879.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Description of a deformed, fragmentary human skull : found in an ancient quarry-cave at Jerusalem : with an attempt to determine, by its configuration alone, the ethnical type to which it belongs / by J. Aitken Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    very prominent; nasal bones arched with a depression at their root.* Hamil- ton Smith on the other hand speaks of the beautiful spherical cranium of the Jews, as fine as the Arabian or Circassian ;f and in a recent work on the Condition of Women and Children among the Celtic, Gothic and other nations, it is asserted that the Jews have, generally speaking, crania like the Saxons and Goths—short and broad, p. (69). This statement is certainly erroneous. The Jewish crania in the Academy's collection are, as we have just seen, long and ovoidal, with a comparatively receding forehead, and as Morton long ago observed, a strong and often harsh development of the whole facial structure. In his interesting work, entitled Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Baby- lon, Layard figures a bas-relief disinterred from Sennacherib's palace at Kou- yunjik, and representing certain Jewish captives from Lachish. These cap- tives, he says, were undoubtedly Jews, their physiognomy was strikingly indicated in the sculptures. A glance at these figures is sufficient to show that they belong, not to the short, but the long-headed races of men. The Jews are justly classed, therefore, by Retzius among the Asiatic Dolichokephalae.t The Arab skulls in the collection, with the exception of No. 780, are entire- ly different from the fragment under consideration. No. 1296 is an oval, dolicho-kephalic head. No. 781 is an oblong head with the occipital region flattened superiorly, as in the Norwegian and Swedish§ skulls, an 1 the oc- cipital protuberance quite prominent. No. 784 is a long head approximating the oval form. Behind the mastoid processes it is quite broad, and the oc- cipital region is full and rounded. No. 780 is a shorter head than the other. The crown exhibits the triangular form of that of the fragment from Jerusa- lem, but the triangle is longer. The occiput though flattened is not so de- cidedly flat as in the fragment. This fragment differs also entirely from the Fellah skulls in the collection, not only in length but also in the configuration of the crown and the occiput. Upon comparing it with the series of Egyptian skulls, I find that we cannot ascribe to it an Egyptian origin. It is a curious fact, however, and one worthy of mention in this connection, that among the figures in Crania iEgyptica, selected from Rosellini's great work by Dr. Morton to illustrate the Egyptian type of head, there are several which I am strongly inclined to think are not at all Egyptian. Two of these (Fig. 4, p. 34, and Fig. 3, p. 35) are evidently brachykephalic heads. In both, the hind head is vertically flattened. The former resembles the square or round-headed German, the latter calls to mind the Peruvian form. The first outline is that of the Harper in Bruce's tomb at Thebes; the second is a cook, who in the tomb of Rameses the Fourth, at Thebes, is represented with many others in the active duties of his vocation. Before proceeding further in the attempt to determine the race to which the Jerusalem skull belongs, it will be useful to enumerate the very different races of men that have at different times occupied Jerusalem and its vicinity. From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that during the first century of the Christian era, there were assembled at Jerusalem, besides the Jews, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, natives of Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya about Cyrene, Rome, Crete and Arabia. Long after this we know that crowds of pilgrims were attracted to Jerusalem from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most distant coun- tries of the East. Among these pilgrims, Jerome, cited by Gibbon,|| mentions the Britons and the Indians. Three centuries later, (A. D. 614,) the Holy * Op. Cit. p. 80. tNat. Hist, of the Human Species. Amer. Edit. p. 377. JOpusi-. cit. sup. p. 9. \ See Catalogue of Human Crania, pp. 19, 20. Also Cranial Characteristics of the Races of Men in Indigenous Races, pp. 290, 291. [Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Chap. 23. 1859.]