Again, in reference to the statement of Herodotus, on which I have already, perhaps, too largely commented, it may be well to give the evidence of another eye-witness, that of Ptolemy the geographer, who is believed to have been born in Egypt. He wrote in the second century of our era, and his observations must consequently have been made something more than five hundred years later than those of Herodotus. His words are as follow:—“In corresponding situations on our side of the equator, that is to say, under the tropic of Cancer, men have not the colour of Ethiopians, nor are there elephants and rhinoceroses. But a little south of this, the northern tropic, the people are moderately dark, ([Greek: êrema tynchanousi melanes],) as those, for example, who inhabit the thirty Schæni, (as far as Wady Halfa, in Nubia,) above Syene. But in the country around Meroë they are already sufficiently black, and there we first meet with pure Negroes.”[[19]]
Here is ample evidence to prove that the natural geographical position of the Negroes was the same seventeen centuries since as it is now; and for ages antecedent to Herodotus, the monuments are perfectly conclusive on the same subject. I could, therefore, much more readily believe that the historian had never been in Egypt at all,[[20]] than admit the literal and unqualified interpretation of his words which has been insisted on by some, and which would class the Egyptians with the Negro race.
On the monuments the Egyptians represent the men of their nation red, the women yellow; which leads to the reasonable inference that the common complexion was dark, in the same sense in which that term is applicable to the Arabs and other southern Caucasian nations, and varying, as among the modern Hindoos, from comparatively fair to a dark and swarthy hue. “Two facts,” says Heeren, “are historically demonstrated; one, that among the Egyptians themselves there was a difference of colour; for individuals are expressly distinguished from each other by being of a darker or lighter complexion: the other, that the higher castes of warriors and priests, wherever they are represented in colours, pertain to the fairer class.”
That the Ethiopians proper, or Meroïtes, were of a dark, and perhaps very dark complexion, is more than probable; and among other facts in support of this view, we find that the mother of Amunoph III., and wife of Thotmes IV., who was a Meröite princess, is painted black on the monuments. Thus the different complexion of the great divisions of the Egyptian nation must sometimes have been blended, like their physiognomical traits, even in the members of the royal family.
It is not, however, to be supposed that the Egyptians were really red men, as they are represented on the monuments. This colour, with a symbolic signification, was conventionally adopted for the whole nation, (with very rare exceptions,) from Meröe to Memphis. Thus, also, the kings of the Greek and Roman dynasties are painted of the same complexion.[[21]]
Professor Rosellini supposes the Egyptians to have been of a brown, or reddish-brown colour, (rosso-fosco,) like the present inhabitants of Nubia; but, with all deference to that illustrious archæologist, I conceive that his remark is only applicable to the Austral-Egyptians as a group, and not to the inhabitants of Egypt proper, except as a partial result of that mixture of nations to which I have already adverted, and which will be more fully inquired into hereafter.
The well known observation of Ammianus Marcellinus, “Homines Ægyptii plerique subfusculi sunt, et atrati,” is sufficiently descriptive, and corresponds with other positive evidence, in relation to the great mass of the people; and when the author subsequently tells us that the Egyptians “blush and grow red,” we find it difficult to associate these ideas with a black, or any approximation to a black skin.[[22]]
The late Doctor Young, in his Hieroglyphical Literature, has given a translation of a deed on papyrus of the reign of Ptolemy Alexander I., in which the parties to a sale of land at Thebes are described in the following terms:—“Psammonthes, aged about 45, of middle size, dark complexion and handsome figure, bald, round-faced and straight-nosed; Snachomneus, aged about 20, of middle size, sallow complexion, round-faced and straight-nosed; Semmuthis Persinei, aged about 22, of middle size, sallow complexion, round-faced, flat-nosed, and of quiet demeanour; and Tathlyt Persinei, aged about 30, of middle size, sallow complexion, round face and straight nose, the four being children of Petepsais of the leather-dressers of the Memnonia; and Necheutes the less, the son of Azos, aged about 40, of middle size, sallow complexion, cheerful countenance, long face and straight nose, with a scar upon the middle of the forehead.” In another deed of the same epoch, also translated by Dr. Young, an Egyptian named Anophris is described as “tall, of a sallow complexion, hollow-eyed and bald.”
Independently of the value of the other physical characters preserved in these documents, the remarks on complexion have a peculiar interest; for they show that among six individuals of three different families, one only had a dark complexion, and that all the rest were sallow.
From the preceding facts, and many others which might be adduced, I think we may safely conclude, that the complexion of the Egyptians did not differ from that of the other Caucasian nations in the same latitudes. That while the higher classes, who were screened from the action of a burning sun, were fair in the comparative sense, the middle and lower classes, like the modern Berbers, Arabs, and Moors, presented various shades of complexion, even to a dark and swarthy tint, which the Greeks regarded as black in comparison with their own. To these diversities must also be added others incident to a vast servile population, derived from all the adjacent nations, among which the sable Negro stood forth in bold and contrasted characters.