The Ancient Empires of the East, Herodotus I

310 APPENDIX I.
The type of features presented by the monuments of the Old Empire
is essentially different from that presented by the monuments of a
later period; and while Egyptian skulls earlier than the sixth dynasty
are dolichocephalic, those subsequent to the close of the Old Empire
are brachycephalic. The physiological type of the Egyptian of the
Old Empire— of the founders, that is, of Egyptian art and civilisation—
is that of a somewhat short, thick-set man, with massive, good-
tempered mouth, smooth hair, full nostrils, broad forehead, and reddish-
brown comjilexion. He belongs to what ethnologists have vaguely
termed the Caucasian or Mediterranean stock. Up to the last the
Egyi^tian showed no resemblance whatsoever to the negro, and the
colour of his skin alone would effectually mark him off from the
Nubian. On the other hand, the monuments draw a careful distinction
between him and the Libyans, who are painted white or pale yellow.
Language casts no light on the question, since linguistic relationship
proves nothing more than that races speaking allied forms of speech
were once in social contact with one another. Moreover, the philo-
logical position of the Old Egyptian language presents many difficulties,
though it seems probable that either it or its parent -speech was the
sister of the parent-speech of the modern Libyan, Haussa, and Galla
dialects on the one side, and of the parent-speech of the Semitic idioms
on the other. We may, if we like, class the Egyptians and their
language as " Hamitic," but nothing is thereby explained. In fact, so
far as our present materials and knowledge are concerned, the Egyptians
were as autochthonous and isolated as their own civilisation.
Geographi/. — Egypt naturally falls into tAvo divisions : the Delta,
formed by the mouths of the Nile, in the north ; and the land fertilised
by the Nile, between the Delta and the First Cataract, in the south.
Below Syene and the First Cataract we are in Nubia. At the apex
of the triangle formed by the Delta stood Memphis, built by Menes
upon the ground he had reclaimed from the Nile by constructing a
dyke,—that of Kosheish,—the remains of which may still be detected
near Mitrahenny, and so confining the river to its western channel.
Older than Memphis was Tini or This, the birthplace of Menes, and in
after times a mere suburb of the younger Abydos. Here was the
tomb of Osiris, in the neighbourhood of which every Egyptian of
sufficient wealth and dignity desired to be buried. The accumulated
graves formed the huge mound now known as the Kom es- Sultan.
About one hundred miles southwards of This and Abydos stood Thel^es,
which under the Middle Empire became the metropolis of Egypt, and