I observe among the Egyptian crania, some which differ in nothing from the Hindoo type either in respect to size or configuration. I have already, in my remarks upon the ear, mentioned a downward elongation of the upper jaw, which I have more frequently met with in Egyptian and Hindoo heads than in any others, although I have seen it occasionally in all the races. This feature is remarkable in two of the following five crania, (A, B,) and may be compared with a similar form from Abydos. (Plate [V]., Fig. 2.)
The Hindoo head is also remarkable for its small size, its narrow form, especially in front, and often, also, for the delicacy of the osteological structure. The bones of the face, however, project more than those of the European, and there is not unfrequently a manifest eversion of the upper jaw. (B.) The nose is rather small, and the bones are variously aquiline, straight, or moderately compressed. My observations have been made on thirty-seven crania, for which I am indebted to Drs. Burrough and Carson, of this city, and to Dr. Martin and Mr. H. Piddington, of Calcutta. Of these, twenty-four are adult, varying from eighteen to eighty years of age, and give an average internal capacity of but eighty cubic inches; the largest head measuring ninety cubic inches, the smallest only sixty-nine.[[79]] They pertain, for the most part, to low-caste Bengalees.
It is in that mixed family of nations which I have called Austral-Egyptian that we should expect to meet with the strongest evidence of Hindoo lineage; and here, again, we can only institute adequate comparisons by reference to the works of Champollion and Rosellini. I observe the Hindoo style of features in several of the royal effigies, and in none more decidedly than in the head of Asharramon, as sculptured in the temple of Debod, in Nubia. The date of this king has not yet been ascertained; but as he ruled over Meroë, and not in Egypt, (probably in Ptolemaic times,) he may be regarded as a good illustration of at least one modification of the Austral-Egyptian type.
Another set of features, but little different, however, from the preceding, is seen among the middling class of Egyptians as pictured on the monuments, and these I also refer to the Hindoo type. Take, for example, the four annexed outlines, copied from a sculptured fragment preserved in the museum of Turin. These effigies may be said to be essentially Egyptian; but do they not forcibly remind us of the Hindoo?[[80]] The mummied head figured Plate [X]., Fig. 6, has the same general form and cast of features.
The Hindoos are also represented on the monuments as prisoners and tribute-bearers to the kings. My drawing, Plate [XIV]., Fig. 21, is copied from the “Grand Procession” of Thotmes IV. The man leads a bear; an indication that he is of a foreign country, for there are no bears indigenous to Africa. Moreover, the characters of the animal, as delineated in Rosellini, are not unlike those of the celebrated grotesque species of India called by naturalists Ursus labiatus, which has been, in all ages, a favourite with Hindoo mountebanks. The man himself has an aquiline and pointed nose, thin beard, receding forehead, and comparatively fair complexion, which assimilate him to some Indo-Semitic or Indo-Persian tribe.
In the same celebrated scene I notice another head of the same general cast, but of a darker complexion and more delicate features, who answers yet more accurately to the type of the northern Hindoos. He wears a light dress and grass hat, and moreover leads an elephant, all of which point to a warm climate. Mr. Hoskins remarks that “the elephant must be from Ethiopia: if, therefore, they [the attendants] are Scythians, as some suppose, they must be employed as slaves bringing the produce of Ethiopia.” And he concludes by suggesting that they may be white slaves of the latter country, sent as a present to the Egyptian king. This appears to me to be an involved and unsatisfactory explanation. The elephant, like the bear, is obviously an Asiatic animal, (for the Egyptians made no use of the living native species,) and it is evident that this group is merely typical of some conquered Hindoo nation, or proximate and cognate tribe.