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:
1854
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.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    701/796 (page 649)
    subjoined. In his work, The Chinese, under the article Porcelain, Gov. J. F. Davis, of Hong-kong, refers to the exceptions taken by the Quarterly Review, citing Wilkinson and Rosellini for the fact of the discovery of such vases in Egyptian catacombs. M. Letronne, when giving account, in the Journal des Savans, (Nov. 1844, p. 665,) of the work of Mr. Wilkinson, thus expresses himself: ' The author believes in the Chinese origin of certain porcelain vases, found in the tombs at Thebes, of which one is of the XVIIIth dynasty. He gives the figures of four of these vases, with Chinese inscriptions, which Mr. Davis flatters himself with having read. We know that other sinologues doubt this origin. The fact deserves to be cleared up by a contradictory discussion. . . . There is nothing in it impossible, but it seems little verisimilar. . . . Yet, if these inscriptions are really Chinese, the fact must be accepted. All lies in that.' It is merely justice to Morton's memory here to remark that his Crania iEgyptiaca had appeared in the spring of 1844, at Philadelphia. Nor is his discrimination amenable, on questions alien to his special studies, to the charge of hastily adopting, in good faith, that which Parisian science had not begun to ventilate for six months later. After stating that no sinologist doubted that these vases are really and purely Chinese''' M. Pauthier holds that all the question does not lie in that; and then eliminates the facts as follows:— 1. The inscriptions upon these vases are in the cursive Chinese character called thsao. 2. This cursive character was not invented in China until the second century after Christ. Hence it is materially impossible that vases, bearing inscriptions in that writing, could have been manufactured and transported to Egypt in the time of the XVIIIth dynasty; that is to say, about 1800 years before the said epoch ! Gov. Davis, well versed in the study of the vulgar Chinese (language), seems, like some other sinologues, to have completely neglected the study of Chinese archeology. Nevertheless, on the vase published by him (No. 4 of Wilkinson, and of M. Prisse), one reads easily :— 3. 11 Ming youe soung tchoung tchao: 'the brilliant moon is resplendent through the pines.' 4. This is a line from a strophe composed by Wang-gan-chi, who lived under the Soung dynasty, in 1068 of our era; and corrected in the last syllable by Sou-toung-po, who flourished fifty years later. 5. The highest antiquity of the cursive character on these vases being 200 years after Christ, and the verse written upon them being from an author who lived early in the twelfth century of the same era — it follows that the vases in question have been transported into Egypt since the year 1100 a. d. M. Pauthier gives reasons, from Chinese history, why some of them may have been brought back from China by Ara- bian embassies in the fifteenth century after Christ; to which age probably belong the two specimens recently exhumed from the Khabour mounds by Dr. Layard. But, as the writer, and Mr. Bonomi, and M. Prisse, and others, have known for these twenty years, such vases abound in Egypt; especially after the annual return of the Hadj, or Mecca pilgrims, to Qosseyr and Cairo. The Mosaic Theban tombs are supplied through the former ; the ante-Abrahamic catacombs of Memphite Saccara through the latter mer- cantile channels; while the drug bazaars of Cairo and of Qenneh have always a stock on hand — price fluctuating, according to the demands of antiquaries, between two and a half and three and a half cents apiece, retail. Arab curiosity-mongers are thus enabled to fur- nish imbecilities travelling along the Nile with Sinico-jEgyptian vases even of ante-diluvian antiquity, on application. In the meanwhile, archaeologists are aware of the sort of proofs of early communication between Egypt and China the New York collection embraces. To close the digression. The reader will duly take note that the New York catalogue, above cited, refers to the Revue Archceologique, by Mr. E. Prisse. The proprietor of the invaluable Revue Archeologique is M. Leleux; but while the author of the cata- logue aforesaid mentions both the work and the savant whose inquiries, seven years ago, demonstrated a Chinese vase with 17 others to be, as antiquities, spurious; readers of that document need not wonder at the appropriate association, in the same unique cabinet, of similia similibus. 82