Note 286 — Chapter VII

With respect to the figures in the famous Egyptian caves of Abou-Simbel, M. Pouchet says (‘The Plurality of the Human Races,’ Eng. translat. 1864, p. 50), that he was far from finding recognisable representations of the dozen or more nations which some authors believe that they can recognise. Even some of the most strongly-marked races cannot be identified with that degree of unanimity which might have been expected from what has been written on the subject. Thus Messrs. Nott and Gliddon (‘Types of Mankind,’ p. 148) state that Rameses II., or the Great, has features superbly European; whereas Knox, another firm believer in the specific distinction of the races of man (‘Races of Man,’ 1850, p. 201), speaking of young Memnon (the same person with Rameses II., as I am informed by Mr. Birch) insists in the strongest manner that he is identical in character with the Jews of Antwerp. Again, whilst looking in the British Museum with two competent judges, officers of the establishment, at the statue of Amunoph III., we agreed that he had a strongly negro cast of features; but Messrs. Nott and Gliddon (ibid. p. 146, fig. 53) describe him as “a hybrid, but not of negro intermixture.”