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.

    703/800 (page 647)
    G47 China, of which orthodox navigation may well be proud, especially now that two additional vases have been discovered since Joseph Bonorni, in his sly way, indicated the extreme rarity of such antiques at Cairo, 1843. “No. 254.—Padlock, Chinese, said to be found at Sakhara. “ No. 255.—Thirteen Chinese bottles, of the usual form, and with the inscription in the Chinese characters; and three bottles of different shape, found in Egyptian tombs, both in Upper Egypt and Sakhara. The larger portion of this collection was found in Sakhara. Bottles exactly similar may be purchased in the perfume bazaar of Cairo ; and in 1842 the Jannissary of the Prussian Mission purchased ten of them.” (295) Second. The deterration of two similar Chinese vases by Layard, one from the mound of Arban, and another from its vicinity. These are the more precious as they show the ortho- dox and primeval overland route of Egypto-Cliinese intercourse by way of Assyria, in ages preceding the discovery of the monsoons, about a. d. 45, by the Greek pilot Ilippalus.(29G) “ In a trench on the south side of the ruin, was found a small green and white bottle, inscribed with Chinese characters. A similar relic was brought to me from a barrow in the neighbourhood. Such bottles have been discovered in Egyptian tombs, and considerable doubt [not the remotest] exists as to their antiquity, and as to the date and manner of their importation into Egypt. {Note.—Wilkinson, in his ‘Ancient Egyptians,’ vol. iii. p. 107, gives a drawing of a bottle precisely similar to that described in the text, and mentions one which, according to Rosellini, had been discovered in a previously unopened tomb, believed to be of the eighteenth dynasty. But there appears to be considerable doubt on the subject.) The best opinion now is, that they are comparatively modern, and that they were brought by the Arabs, in the eighth or ninth century, from the kingdoms of the far East, with which they had at that period extensive commercial intercourse. Bottles pre- cisely similar are still offered for sale at Cairo, and are used to hold the kohl or powder for staining the eyes of the ladies.” (297) Since the conquest of Algeria, Parisian naturalists have been constantly employed by the French Government to collect every specimen of natural history that region affords. One of these enthusiastic savans, lamenting that his predecessors had exhausted the resources of the country, was supplied by the Zouaves with sundry live examples of a wild rat, the species of which was entirely'unknown at the Jardins des Plantes. The soldiers called it rat d trompe. On arrival of these novelties at t^ie Museum, (298) it was perceived that each rat was adorned by a flexible and hairy proboscis. In time these appendages hap- pening to drop off, some assistant ascertained that the malicious Zouaves had inserted an amputated tail of one species of rat into the nasal cartilage of another! It behooves archaeologists, therefore, to view any such marvels as Sinico-Nilotic “padlocks” with more than caution; for, as De Longpdrier, the Conservator of the Louvre Museum, writes to De Saulcy, Director of the Mus6e d’Artillerie, “ above all things, now-a-days, gardons nous des rats d trompe.” Chinese vases, of the genus mentioned, having been familiar things to the writer ever since his boyhood’s visit to Cairo in 1823, no less than during his official residence there from 1831 to 1841, it was against his wishes (while aiding his revered friend Morton with a few hieroglyphical indices in 1842-3) that the following passage ever saw the light without some qualifying reservation : “ That the Chinese had commercial intercourse with the Egyp- tians in very early times, is beyond question; for vessels of Chinese porcelain, with inscrip- tions in that language, have been repeatedly found in the Theban catacombs. (Wilkin- son’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 108.)” (299) But Dr. Morton relied upon the accuracy of Wilkinson, and the latter upon that of Rosellini, (300) as to the matters of fact; at the (295) Bo.vojti: Catalogue of ditto: Cairo, 1846; pp. 25, 26, 35. [Printed in London. We saw its proof-sheeta there.] (296) Punt: lib. vi. p. 26. (297) Babylon: p. 279. (298) Vide Histoire Naturdle de MM. les Profcsseurs aux Jardins des Plantes: 12mo, Paris, 1847. (299) Crania JEgyptiaca: 1844; p. 63. (300) Compare Champoluon-Figeac : flgypte Andenne: 1840; voce “Nechao,” p. 369; and Notice sur deux Grammaires de la Langue Copte: June, 1842; pp. 7-10. The perusal of these two critiques might benefit the author of llorce ^Egyptiaae.