The ethnology of modern Egypt / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Charles Samuel Myers
Date:
[1907?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ethnology of modern Egypt / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    into component curves, each corresponding to an underlying ethnic type. C. Comparison of the Moslems with the Copts. The Copts are fairer in eye and in skin colour, have straighter hair and thinner lips than the Moslems. The nasal index among the Copts of Lower Egypt is lower than among those of Upper Egypt. The nasal index among the Copts is lower than among the Moslems. The Copts are less Negroid than the Moslems. General Conclusions. We have seen that in modern Egypt the Moslem population takes on increasingly Negroid characters as we proceed from the Mediterranean shores towards the First Cataract. Is this the result of more frequent intermarriage with the inhabitants of the Sudan ? In preparing to answer this question, we cannot neglect the fact that similar differences in degree of Negroid characters appear to exist among the Copts of Lower and Upper Egypt, who are known to have remained free from Sudanese admixture during the past 1300 years. If, then, an increasing amount of Sudanese admixture be thq cause of the increasing Negroid character of Upper as compared with Lower Egypt, it is clear that the inter¬ marriage must have occurred at a very remote date, and that its results have been perpetuated since then. But we may reasonably doubt whether so long a persistence of the effects of intermarriage is possible. From many different quarters we have indications that ultimately an aboriginal people absorbs and exterminates the physical characters of those who come to settle among them. The enormous migrations of Greeks into the Egyptian oasis of the Fayum, beginning about 2500 years ago and ending soon after the start of the Christian Era, have left no trace of an effect to-day on the physique of the modern dwellers in this oasis. The latter have a nasal index which is distinctly higher than that which occurs among the northern provinces of the Delta, and almost identical with the index found in the Nile Valley in the same latitude as the Fayum. There are many writers on Egyptian ethnology who believe that from time immemorial there have always been at least two races in Egypt, the one Caucasian (Mediterranean or Libyan) the other Negroid, and that to this day both these races are present throughout Egypt although prevalent in different degrees in different regions. Now we may conceivably look for support of such a hypothesis in the following directions. We should expect that the inhabitants of Middle Egypt, where presumably the two races are present in equal intensity, would
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