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.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1860
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.

    702/800 (page 646)
    waves of a homogeneous population. These opinions, long avowed by the authors, are confirmed by the views and new facts of Layard.(291) But we finish with orthodoxy’s “Chinese” :— From a previously small feod of the Celestial Gates, called Thsin, given by Iliao-Wang, about b. c. 909, to one of liiB jockeys, issued a line of princes whose constant acquisitive- ness had enabled them, by the year b. c. 249, to incorporate a fifth part of the Chinese realm, and to extend over it their patronymic title of Thsin. Out of this stock sprung Thsin- Chi-Hoang-Ti, at once the Augustus and the Napoleon of China—founder of the fourth or Thsin dynasty, whose name signifies “ the first absolute sovereign of the dynasty of Thsin.” About B. c. 221, all the principalities of China were consolidated under his supreme sway; and, as a consequence, the name Thsin became, in common parlance, synonymous with the whole empire. Proud of his mighty exploits, although detesting the individual, the Chinese, from and after his day, adopting the word Thsin as typical of China itself, origi- nated the Hindoo appellative “ Tchina,” whence we inherit our corrupt designation “ China.” Under these circumstances we tender to future sustainers of Chinese in Scrip- ture a many-horned dilemma: — Either the Prophet Isaiah (whose meaning is so naturally explained above) by the word SINIM does not refer to the Chinese, or inasmuch as the Chinese empire was not called Thsin previously to b. c. 221 — which is about 450 years after Isaiah wrote — the verse 12 of chapter xlix of the book called “Isaiah” cannot possibly have been penned by Isaiah, but is the addition of some nameless interpolator: who must have lived, too, later than the first century after Christ, when the existence of China first became known, under its recent name Thsin, to nations dwelling west of the Euphrates. The writers called the “Seventy” knew nothing of this absurd Chinese attribution, as their “Land of the Persians ” attests. Were it not for them who thus had paraphrased SINIM between b. c. 260 and 130, the interpolation of a mere verse, after the year a. d. 100, in a prophetic book wherein whole chapters had been previously interpolated', would excite small surprise among biblical exe- getists. “ If, for example,” writes the great Hebraist of the “ Biblioth&que Imp^riale,” (292) “ in a prophetic book, bearing the name of Isaiah, they speak to you of the return from Babylonish exile ; if they go so far as even to name Cyrus, who is posterior to Isaiah by about two centuries, be assured that it is not Isaiah who speaks.” And if that explanation does not satisfy theological exigencies, then let some people bear in mind that the word SINIM occurs in the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah; and that, according to the highest biblical critics of Germany, whose mouth-piece is the eminent Professor of Theology at Basle,(293) “ the whole of the second part of the collection of oracles under Isaiah’s name (xl. —lxvi.) is spurious.” But they say Chinese vases have been found in tombs of the Mosaic age in Egypt; and,* ergo, that China was known some 3300 years ago to the ancient Egyptians. The archaeological interest of this alleged fact has been revived in the present year by two new phases :— First. The presence at New York, among a variety of Egyptian antiquities, less authentic, of— “No. 626.—A Chinese vase, with 17 others of different forms. All found in tombs. Some from Thebes; others from Saklmrah and Ghizeh. “ These vases are curious, inasmuch as they prove the early communication between Egypt and China. Vide Rosoleni [sic for Rosellini] ; Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs; Sir John Davis’s Sketches of China, p. 72, and Revue Archoeologique, by Mr. E. Prisse. “ No. 627.—A Chinese padlock, found in the tombs at Sakharah.” (294) This last bijou is a confirmation of ancient intercourse between Pharaonic Egypt and (291) Op.cit.; pp. 373, 3S3-3S6. I (292) Munk: Palestine; p. 420. (293) Df. Wf.tte: Parker’s trail si. ii. p. 336; and also IIenxeia: Origin of Christianity; 1S45; pp. 354, 355. (294) “Catalogue of a Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, the property of Ilenry Abbott, M. D., now exhibiting at the Struyvesant Instituto, No. 659, Broadway, New York”; 1853; p. 44.