Lybians, and Phoenico-Punici, sepulchres should be met with in which sleep the sleep of death those Semites who had changed their abodes, or their descendants. The necropolis in Tharros is, perhaps, the most conspicuous among all those found in the island of Sardinia," (p. 6). This cemetery is dug in a soft calcareous sandstone, and presents a series of sepulchral chambers of different sizes, of an oblong quadrate or cubic form, which are approached by a narrow passage, mostly occupied by a stair cut in the rock. The opening to them is not so much as five feet in height, and is closed by a large rough stone, upon which at times sculptured figures are seen. The doors of the tombs are always turned to the east, and the bodies they contain equally look towards that quarter. The number of skeletons they contain are one, two, three, and sometimes four; constantly turned to the rising sun, with arms at their sides, or female ornaments and urns of varied forms, some of which present inscriptions in Punic or Phoenician. The tomb from which the three calvaria were obtained by Sig. Cara had an entrance which opened into a narrow passage, ten feet long, and three feet and a half wide. At the extremity, by means of two steps, the sepulchre was entered where the bodies were laid in a horizontal position. It contained besides, vases of different forms. One of the bodies had on its right side a long sword, and a shorter near its feet. The sepulchre was about ten feet in length and nine in width. Near its entrance was found the inscribed stele, in the form of a little temple, already mentioned. "This inscription places the seal of certainty on the conjecture that these tombs are Phoenician, and contain the mortal remains of persons belonging to that people so celebrated in antiquity" (p. 9). The little inscribed pillar is about three feet six inches in height, and about eight inches wide in the middle of the inscription. This is in the Phoenician characters of that form used in the latter times, of the tongue and not much anterior to the Christian era. Hence the opinion of Spano, that it cannot be anterior to the second or third century before Christ, and must appertain to some Phænician family which had recently established itself in Tharros during Carthaginian times, or to the descendant of some family of remote times, namely, those of the foundation of the city.* The learned, who have studied to explain the legend on the stele, do not all agree in their versions. SPANO, who was first to give the Bull. Arch. Sardo, 1856, p. 38. VOL. II.-NO. IV. D interpretation, believed the inscription might be designed to perpetuate the love of a father, named Chatam, or Katam, towards a daughter who had perhaps died in the flower of her age, called Mistala, hence he read it and unfolded it thus: Mistala beth Chatam ben Jetzabel. To Mistala, daughter of Chatam, son of Jezbale. BOURGADE, who made this inscription the subject of his study, does not agree with Spano, and his interpretation of the Phoenician. text is as follows: Indicatio cubiculi Dr. Nicolucci, not being fully satisfied with either of these two interpretations, requested the opinion of the celebrated Roman Orientalist, the Abbé LANCI, from whom he obtained the following reading and translation, which he justly designates "The most simple and beautiful brief funereal lines :" Miscean d- Jagtham ben Jubal. Locus dormitionis Jaghtami, filii Jubalis. The place of repose of Jaghtam, the son of Jubal. From all this it is clear that the tomb at Tharros was Phoenician, and equally so that to this people the bodies found in it have belonged, and that the cranium described and figured must be accepted as Phoenician, pure and genuine ;-whether the individual of whom it made part was originally from Canaan, or the descendant of a family from that country; whether he came from Carthage, or was derived from some other colony on the Atlantic. This calvarium has belonged to a man of a little beyond sixty years of age. Regarded by the norma verticalis it presents a very regular oval; but the lateral profile does not offer the same regularity, for after an elegant elevation of the forehead, it rises more than usual to the vertex along the sagittal suture, and then descending rapidly, is elongated about the occipital protuberance, which in its turn is not curved gently to terminate at the foramen magnum, but passes with an unusual inclination to meet that foramen. The forehead is broad and high, and the superciliary region corresponding to the frontal sinuses, rather prominent. Then all the frontal region rising as far as the coronal suture dilates moderately at the sides, and by a gentle line goes to meet the superior angles of the See his letter to Spano, Bull. Arch. Sardo, an. ii, p. 88. parietals and the alisphenoids, so that the temporal fossæ are neither very spacious nor deep. The orbits, situated in a horizontal line, are large and tend more to a round than quadrate form; the nasal bones are very prominent and inserted at an angle of forty-five degrees of inclination to the frontal. The malar bones are neither large nor prominent, but extend somewhat to the sides, so that the zygomatic arch stands a little on the outside of a line which descends perpendicularly from the parietal protuberance. The superior maxillæ are not high nor broad, but well proportioned, with a rounded alveolar border, and the alveoli stand in a vertical direction. All the teeth are wanting, except the two premolars and the two first molars, on the left side. These are much worn by long use, as is commonly the case in men of advanced age. The last grinder of this side is wanting and the alveolus has wholly disappeared; on the opposite side, besides this alveolus, that of the first true molar also is absorbed. The bones of the palate are flat and not very scabrous; the mastoid processes rounded, but not large; the base of the calvarium is divided into two equal halves by the anterior edge of the occipital foramen, and if a perpendicular line were raised from that edge to the vertex, the whole calvarium is so regularly developed that the two halves which would result would be equal, without any predominance of one over the other. Dr. Nicolucci has added a copious table of measurements in millimeters, according to the elaborate method of Dr. Aitken Meigs. It is highly probable that the reader would find it both preferable and more instructive to have measurements given in English inches and tenths, the standard selected by the distinguished craniologist of St. Petersburg, Von Baer; and, also that a simpler series of measurements, verified upon the calvarium itself, should here be substituted.* A. Internal capacity in ounces avoirdupois, of dry Calais sand B. Horizontal circumference, taken about an inch above the fronto-nasal suture, round the most prominent part of the occiput C. Fronto-occipital arch a. Frontal portion 5.1 in. b. Parietal portion 5.1 in. c. Occipital portion 4.8 in. 20.6 inches. 15. By the great kindness and liberality of the eminent Neapolitan anthropologist, this very rare and interesting craniological relic has now been added to the collection of the writer. D. Inter-mastoid arch, taken from the tip of one mastoid process to that of the other Length, or anterio-posterior diameter F. Greatest breadth, which is inter-temporal a. Frontal breadth 4.7 in. b. Parietal breadth 15 inches. 5.6 G. Height, taken from the plane of occipital foramen to the vertex a. Frontal height 4.7 in. b. Parietal height I. Face, width of, at zygomatic arches. J. Proportion of breadth to the length, taken at 100, 76 K. Proportion of height to the same, 76 5.3 Hitherto, the only cranium known and described as Phoenician, is the one in the Mortonian collection, so much commemorated, and procured by M. Fresnel in the Necropolis of Ben Djemma, in the Island of Malta. This skull is figured in the "Indigenous Races of the Earth", where it is carefully described by Dr. Aitken Meigs, and again in his excellent edition of Morton's Catalogue of skulls. It is regarded by Dr. Meigs as, in the form of its face sui generis, and is dolicho-cephalic and prognathous. Fresnel, in the note with which the skull was accompanied when he sent it to Morton, spoke only doubtfully of its ethnic origin, saying "that it appeared to have belonged to an individual of the same race which occupied the northern coast of Africa and the adjacent isles, in the most ancient times." No doubt, taken literally, this would be the aboriginal race, or races, of these countries, which were replaced by the Phoenician colonists. But it is even uncertain whether this were the meaning of Fresnel. However this may be, Dr. Niccolucci, without venturing to contradict the authority of Morton, is disposed at least to regard its Phœnician origin as not confirmed, and to believe that this Tharros specimen may and ought to be considered, up to this time, as the only authentic skull which represents the cranial type of that people so celebrated in antiquity.t *Page 314, Fig. 36. + M. Beule, a fortunate explorer of the ruins of Carthage, has not been able to rescue a single skull from the necropolis of that city. He says: "Les os que l'on retire des niches encore fermées sont gouflés par humidité, et mous comme une pâte; peu-à-peu le contact de l'air les dessèche, ils deviennent friables, et le doigt les réduit en poudre. C'est pourquoi il m'a été impossible de recueillir un crâne entier, et de rapporter un specimen de la race Carthaginoise." Journ. des Savans, 1860, p. 568. The Mortonian cranium differs much from that here described; for whilst the Tharrenian head has all the characters which place it among the most perfect dolicho-cephali orthognathi, the Maltese, on the contrary, is peculiar, and is decidedly prognathous. Dr. Nicolucci says, that, if there be any skull with which this cranium of Morton's may be compared, it is that of the indigenous inhabitants of the Atlantic Coast, the descendants of the Lybians of antiquity, who spread from the confines of Egypt as far as the Fortunate Isles, and from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Sahara. In these, also, he affirms the cranium is narrow and long, the jaws prominent, but the teeth so placed in the alveoli, that, as in the Maltese skull, they approach the vertical direction. He adds, the same conformation is observable likewise in the crania found in the burial places of the ancient Guanches, inhabitants of the Canary Islands. By such comparisons it is easy to infer, that the skull, believed by Morton to have belonged to an individual of the Phoenician race, ought only to be regarded as purely Lybian, its form being similar both to that of the heads of the the Guanches of the Lybian stock, and of the Berber tribe of the present day, the legitimate descendants of the aborigines of Northern. Africa.* Dr. Nicolucci declines to discuss the question, whether the Lybians of antiquity might have occupied the Island of Malta before any other people. Still, since the Phoenicians colonised and ruled over this island for a long time, he thinks it not improbable that they might also gather colonies there from the neighbouring African coast, where their power was so extensive; and that precisely to one of these, or their descendants, this head, which Morton believed to belong to the Phoenician race, may be referred. Finally, the author speaks of the resemblance of this calvarium from Tharros to the skulls of Arabs and of Jews. He affirms that it is The Guanches have usually been regarded as allied to the Lybian tribes. It would probably be very difficult to decide this point craniologically, from a want of sufficient materials even, were there not other causes. The writer, from an examination of about thirty skulls of Guanches from the sepulchral caves of Teneriffe, is disposed to look upon them as of a peculiar type, it may be distinct from all others. As far as his observation goes, they do not present any remarkable similarity to the Mortonian skull from Ben Djemma. Dr. Garbiglietti showed the error of the strange opinion, that the Guanches were a race of giants. (Nicolucci, Razze Umane, i, 295.) And Dr. Hodgkin has gone much farther. He has collected evidence to prove that they were of very moderate stature, even of less than the medium stature of Europeans; in fact, diminutive. (Ethnological Journal, 1848, i, 167, " On the Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands.") The prominent acquiline nose, raised on elevated nasal processes of the superior maxillary in this Tharros calvarium, are unquestionable approximations to Jewish features. |