minent, and have a very deep notch at their junction with the forehead or frontal bone. This peculiarity Dr. Prichard says he has observed in Australian and Polynesian skulls; but another head that I removed from the left-hand chamber of this tomb, wants this, and possesses more of the Chinese feature; and he also says, that he has seen Esquimaux heads, that they very much resembled, and that in some particulars they are like those artificially-shaped craniæ brought from Peru; but a glance at this skull, and at one of those altered by artificial means, will at once explain the difference. The orbits preserve much of this Mongul peculiarity, being long, large, deep, set widely apart, and having the lower edge on a plane, posterior to the upper. I know not whether the remark be original, but it has struck me as being extraordinary, that the knob at the top of this skull, which is so characteristic of the pyramidal heads to which this belongs, and which might be adduced as one of the characteristic distinctions of particular races, is chiefly found among those nations who shave the scalp, except a long tuft of hair left at top, growing from this part of the crown of the head. Such is the practice, and such the heads among the Chinese, Kalmucs, and Turks, who are descendants of the Turcomans, a true Mongul race. Homer mentions that the Thracians, another Turanian people, wore the hair only on the crown of the head. I have frequently observed in the barber's shops in the east, that the heads of young boys did not possess this knob, even comparatively with the men; and from this circumstance I am inclined to suppose, that their wearing this tuft on the top of their heads, is partly the cause of the protuberance, especially as, when uncovered, they are constantly pulling and twisting it in their fingers. The peculiarities of the base are expressed in the plate, and do not require enumeration for anatomical or scientific readers. To enter into a more minute detail of all the anatomical characters of these heads, would be foreign to a work such as this. |
