Types of mankind or, Ethnological researches : based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history, illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz; W. Usher; and H. S. Patterson / by J. C. Nott, and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Josiah C. Nott
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind or, Ethnological researches : based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history, illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz; W. Usher; and H. S. Patterson / by J. C. Nott, and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    the vast Satrapies of Persia, in the fifth century b. c, extended into Africa. The more certain example we allude to is found in the sculp- tures of Khorsabad, or Nineveh; 320 and probably appertains to the reign of Sargan, b. c. 710-668. It is a solitary figure of a beardless Negro with woolly hair, wounded, and in the act of imploring mercy from the Assyrians. Turn we now to Roman authority. Latin description of a Negress, written early in the second century after c. Interdum clamat Cybalen ; erat unica custos ; Afra genus, tota patriam testante figura; Torta comam, labroque tumens, et fusca colorem; Pcctore lata, jacens mammis, compressior alvo, Cruribus exilis, spatiosa prodiga planta ; Continuis rimis calcanea scissa rigebant. In the meanwhile he calls Cybale. She was his only [house-] keeper. African by race, her ■whole face attesting her father-land : with crisped hair, swelling lip, and blackish complexion; broad in chest, with pendant dugs, [and] very contracted paunch; her spindle-shanks [contrasted with her] enormous feet; and her cracked heels were stiffened by perpetual clefts. To Mr. Gustavus A. Myers, (an eminent lawyer of Richmond, Va.,; are we indebted for indicating to us this unparalleled description of a Negress; no less than for the loan of the volume in which an un- applied passage of Virgil321 is contained. Through it we perceive that, in the second century after c, the physical characteristics of a field, or agricultural, Nigger were understood at Rome 1800 years ago, as thoroughly as by cotton-planters in the State of Ala- bama, still flourishing in a. d. 1853. Time, as every one now can see, has effected no alteration, even by transfer to the New World, upon African types (save through amalga- mation) for 3400 years downwards. Let us inquire of the Old conti- nent what metamorphoses time may have caused, as regards such alleged transmutations, upwards. About the sixteenth century b. c, Pharaoh Horus of the XVIIIth dynasty records, at Hagar Silsilis, his return from victories over Ni- gritian families of the upper Nile.322 The hieroglyphical legends above his prisoners convey the sense of—KeSA, barbarian country, perverse race; expressive of the Egyptian sentimentalities of that day towards Nubians, Negroes, and foreigners generally. Egyptian delineation of a Negress, cut and painted some 1600 years before the Latin description.