The Nile

and later, poverty or laziness made people consider the interior parts of the body to be sufficiently well guarded if figures of these genii were roughly drawn on the linen bandages. It was sometimes customary to lay a set of these figures, made of porcelain or bead-work, upon the chest of the mummy.

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 this statement, notwithstanding Prof. Owen's distinct utterance, "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 civilised conditions of cranial departure from the skull-character of such race, that race was certainly not of the Australoid type, is more suggestive of a northern Nubian or Berber basis. But such suggestive characters may be due to intercourse or 'admixture' at periods later than [the] XIIIth dynasty; they are not present, or in a much less degree, in the skulls, features, and physiognomies of individuals of from the IIIrd to the XIIth dynasties."* The character of the ancient Egyptian,

* Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. iv., p. 239. The most important scientific examinations of the skeletons of mummified Egyptians in England have been made by the late Sir Richard Owen, Prof. Sir W. Flower, and Prof. Macalister of Cambridge. Some years ago the writer collected for this last-named savant beween six and seven hundred Egyptian skulls from Thebes and Aswân (Syene). The greater part of these reached England in excellent condition, and they have been measured and examined by craniological experts. On some of them the skin of the face and neck remains in a perfect condition, and Prof. Macalister has found means whereby he is able to make these dry and withered faces fill out and resume something of the appearance which they wore in life. As all these skulls are of great antiquity, and belonged to highclass Egyptians, priests, and others, the results of his work may be anticipated with great interest by both the ethnographist and Egyptologist.

and of the race to which he belonged, has been vindicated by examinations of the skulls of Egyptian mummies.

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 absolutely unlike in every important particular. The negro is prognathous, but the Egyptian is orthognathous; the bony structure of the negro is heavier and stronger than that of the Egyptian; the hair of the negro is crisp and woolly, while that of the Egyptian is smooth and fine.

It must be pointed out clearly that the Egyptians originally took trouble to preserve the bodies of the dead because they believed that after a series of terrible combats in the underworld, the soul, triumphant and pure, would once more return to the clay in which it had formerly lived. It was necessary, then, to preserve the body that it might be ready for the return of the soul. It was also necessary to build large and beautiful tombs, in order that the triumphant soul, having revivified its ancient house of clay, might have a fit and proper abode in which to dwell. The pyramid tombs built by the kings of the earlier dynasties, and the vast many-chambered sepulchres hewn in the sides of the Theban hills during the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties, were not built to gratify the pride of their owners. This belief however, seems to have been considerably modified at a later period, for the evidence now available indicates that the later Egyptians preserved the material body in order that the spiritual body might spring from it, which result was partly due to the ceremonies performed and the words recited at the tomb by the priests and pious persons.