Racial Origins of Jewish Types. Presidential Address. (1920)

<plain_text><page sequence="1">Racial Origins of Jewish Types. Presidential Address (1920). By Eedcliffe N. Salaman, M.A., M.D. I should be less than modest and more than dull were I not to feel some sense of elation at the honour which you have conferred on me by making me your President. It would be enough to recount the names of thobe who have filled this chair since the foundation of the Society in 1893 to prove that it is no small honour that you do to your elect. And I would say that no President who has ever served you is more conscious of this or more aware of his own shortcomings. In my eyes, our Society is the blue ribbon of Anglo-Jewry, for let us be under no misunderstanding. The Jewish Historical Society of England is pre-eminent in Anglo-Jewry, not only because of the invaluable literary work which it has accomplished, nor for the stimulus which it has given to Jewish and Gentile student alike, but because it is the sole body in England which ministers to the higher expression of Jewish thought and science. Three years ago this position was acknowledged by the Trustees of the Arthur Davis Memorial, of whom I happen to have the honour to be one, who, wishing to establish a lectureship for the encouragement of speculative philosophy in relation to Judaism, unanimously decided to place their movement under the aegis of our Society. It is my hope and it will be my endeavour to encourage and to extend the Society's activities in this and cognate directions. Before I launch into the subject of my address, I must ask your indulgence for the apparent dissociation of my subject, the " Eacial Origins of Jewish Types," from the purview of Anglo-Je wish history. The fault is less mine than yours, for some of you at least knew of my weakness for this aspect of Jewish research. However, the dis? sociation is not so violent as it would seem, for the historic sources on which one is most dependent are English.</page><page sequence="2">164 RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. Professor Flinders Petrie in 1887 read before the British Associa? tion for Advancement of Science a paper in which he described and exhibited the wonderful series of casts of ethnic portraits he had made in Egypt?these at a cost not only of labour and fatigue, but with no small risk to his life. These were subsequently deposited at the British Museum. Professor Petrie has further most kindly allowed me to obtain a complete copy of the photographs from his original negatives. It is no exaggeration to say that this work, which has been more or less neglected for thirty years, is of fundamental importance for the con? sideration of ethnic problems in the near Middle East. Moreover, in the British Museum are to be found the originals of the only two extant portraits of Jews before the captivity, so that it is, I hope, not stretching the category of things Anglo-Jewish too widely, if I attempt to make use of these priceless treasures of England in the elucidation of our racial history. A discussion which sets out with the use of such terms as 4 4 race " and 44 type " is, from the origin, beset with difficulties and doubts. One is so accustomed to speak of a people in terms either of geography or political history, that it is very difficult to dissociate these concep? tions from the physical characteristics of the people themselves. Thus the war has set so great a gulf, political, social and ethical, between Prussia and Great Britain, that it comes almost as a shock to recognise the close racial similarity there is between the natives of the two states, for it is the hereditary physical characteristics of a people which are the criteria of race. 44 Bace," says Topinard, &lt;c in the present state of things is an abstract conception, the notion of continuity in discontinuity, of unity in diversity. It is the rehabilitation of a real but directly unattainable thing." Such a definition by its very vagueness should make those pause who would read race into all human phenomena. Indeed, the very value of the conception of race in the elucidation of human phenomena vanishes when it is allowed to usurp the position of master, and domi? nate the student s ideas of human life and progress. The theory of race is in the nature of a working hypothesis : it supposes a group of people possessing known measureable and constant characteristics, and it tacitly assumes that these are hereditary in natures</page><page sequence="3">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 165 We know that whilst in any given people there may be a varying number of persons who possess more characters in common than do those outside the group, yet it is obvious that were they in possession of identical characters they would be in the position of identical twins. Hence logically a pure race would be equivalent to a community com? posed of an equal number of identical male and female individuals, a reflection which may cause some enthusiasts for the pure race ideal to suspend their judgment and take thought. That many characteristics which are regarded as racial are in? herited is certainly true, and the work of Hurst on Eye Colour, Bryn on Head Shape, and my own on Facial Types, not only confirms this view, but proves that in these respects man does not differ from the rest of the animal creation in following the Mendelian laws of heredity. It is not necessary to discuss the direct effects of environment in the thesis with which we are dealing, as that would have been common to all the peoples taking part in the great drama of Israel's birth. It would be perhaps well to record the view, that whilst environment may call forth that which is latent both in the spiritual and physical realms, it does not of itself modify the physical type of the human race in a directly causative sense, at any rate within the compass of historic time. The expression " human type "is again one that does not admit of any rigid definition : by it is implied the existence of a group of persons who exhibit in common a given number of recognisable characters. Thus a long-headed, blue-eyed, tall type is a fact, but that it is the peculiar characteristic of any one people to-day is not; a round headed, round-featured face with long, curved nose on a short-legged individual is another type, and one that, whilst it is peculiarly common to the Armenian, Greek, and Jew, may be found less frequently but still widely distributed amongst the human race. Thus a type may be common to several peoples, and conversely a people may possess amongst its members several types. A further word may be necessary on the general question of racial purity before we proceed to our immediate problem, the origin of the Jewish people. The extensive experiments that have been made on various types of animals and plants during the last 20 years allow of certain deduc? tions which may perhaps be best put as follows : If we were to assume</page><page sequence="4">166 racial origins of jewish types. a family marooned on an island, and forced to become an endogamxms group, there is no doubt that before long a very strong family likeness, i.e., a similarity of physical type, would assert itself. The greater the isolation and, within limits, the longer its period, the more intense would the uniformity become. Assuming the original parents were them? selves alike, certain considerations apart, the resulting group of people would then present a more or less identical appearance ; if the parents themselves were of diverse types, then no matter how long the isolation, supposing there was no definite selection in the mating, the group would always show some definite aberrations from a common type. The Samaritans present a somewhat analogous case in the human family. Originally complex in origin and considerable in numbers, they have dwindled down to such an extent that for the last hundred years they have not counted 200 souls?for centuries they have never married outside their own religious sect, and to-day they exist more as a family than a community. When I visited them in 1919, I was struck by the occurrence of an amazing family likeness amongst the majority? whilst at the same time there occurred not a small minority of a different type. To mention only one character, the Samaritans are predomin? antly dark-haired and sallow-complexioned, yet amongst them are some who are as blond and red-haired as the reddest-haired man in England. In the same way the Jews, originating from the most diverse stocks, and then closing their ranks about the year 500 b.c., have (with certain well-known exceptions such as the Falashas, Cochin Jews, and others) produced a dominant type which the outside world has long associated with the name " Jew." Yet the student of Jewish anthropology will soon learn that this " Jewish type " is but one of three distinct types which are to be found amongst the Jewish people. Moreover, he will find that all the three types can be brought into the clearest and most definite relation with those which characterised the races from which the Jew sprang. To-night we shall attempt to trace the origin of these types and demonstrate this continuity throughout the historic ages. Turning now to our immediate subject, we have to consider who were the various occupants of the stage in that middle eastern arena where the Jew first makes his appearance in history. Taking as our starting point Abraham, whose date may be put down as 2100 b.c., we find both in Egypt and in Mesopotamia advanced civilisations, the</page><page sequence="5">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 167 origins of which are wholly lost in the remote past. In the far west a Cretan civilisation is reaching the highest point of its magnificent pro? gress. In the nearer west are the Amorites, a war-like people living in cities and occupying under various tribal names the hills of Judah and Israel. In the north, the Hittite empire has attained no small degree of culture and a mastery of the metals. A closer survey shows that in all these regions there is a constant interplay between the various peoples, occasioned by wars and raids on the one hand and by trade on the other. Egypt, where on the whole racial continuity has been best preserved, is at one time overwhelmed through force of arms by a Semitic folk, the Hyksos ; whilst at other times it is in continuous peaceful contact with its Asiatic and Semitic neighbours, a contact which appears to have caused more racial mixture than did the con? quest by the Hyksos, and indeed Petrie states that for a certain length of time the physical type of the Egyptian was distinctly altered thereby.1 Wherever we turn we see a constant coming and going of peoples from East to West and West to East. As we study the records of these days and read the boastful inscriptions of Egyptian Pharaoh or Assyrian Emperor, we should be blind to their lesson and deaf to their pathos did we not hear?like a melody in a minor key?amidst the shouting of the soldiers and the trampling of the horses, the shrieks of the women and children, the customary prize of the victor with them no less than with the Greeks at the sack of Troy. Not all the forces, however, were on the side of mixture and fusion. Quite apart from land and nationality, religion may form a barrier, though by no means complete, which tends to segregate group from group. Perhaps more successful in this direction are peculiar habits of life inducing a strong social bond, such as is found amongst the gypsies, and in a more striking and persistent manner amongst the Bedawy Arabs, where social, religious, and blood ties are all brought into play. Indeed, in the earliest Babylonian records the Beda win are described as wanderers, feeders of flocks, and brigands by turn. These same Bedawin, a thousand years later, are known to the Egyptians under exactly the same terms and for the same characteristics. For the same cause these Bedawin were known to our ancestors of Bible times, as 1 Petrie, History of Egypt, vol. ii. p. 147.</page><page sequence="6">168 racial origins of jewish types. indeed to the Palestinian Jew to-day. It is possible to compare the portraits of the ancient Bedawin with their successors to-day, and it will be apparent that their facial type has remained as constant as their habits and occupations. One must assume that the peculiar nomadic life which the Bedawin lead has prevented them acquiring foreign wives and thus absorbing the blood of their neighbours. Notwithstanding the evidence in favour of race fusion, certain of the contending nations in the main did present very definite racial differences, and it is in a study of these that we shall trace the origin of the Jews. Abraham we first encounter residing in Ur of the Chaldees. Who then were the Chaldeans % The city of Ur was in the extreme south of Mesopotamia, in the part that was known as Sumer; the more northerly portion, including Babylon, was known as Akkad; whilst lying altogether farther north was Assyria. Sumer and Akkad together are known as Chaldea, and in this region we can, from the study of the sculptures, distinguish three distinct types : (1) The earliest a people with round, high-backed heads, large, prominent, aquiline noses, clean-shaven skull and face, short and thick of stature. Such are shown on the crude representations which date from about 3000 b.c. Later and more artistically perfect repre? sentations are to be seen in the beautiful heads found by Sarzec in Tel Lo.1 This type, which is spoken of as Sumerian, is in my opinion most clearly related to that of the Hittites,and like them is identical with the type which anthropologists call Armenoid, because of its great frequency amongst the Armenians. It is probably related to the similar type which occurs in Central Europe and is known as Alpine. (2) A people who, as far as one can see from the sculptures, are tall, have long heads and long faces, who instead of being clean shaven wear long beards, whose faces differ markedly from the Armenoid, the nose being neither unduly long, nor curved, but rather big and heavy and, if one may say so, blunt-ended.2 These people are regarded as Semites. Certain it is that they are the people who introduced Semitic civilisation into Chaldea. Very similar to the 1 A reproduction may be found in Sarzec, Dicouverte* en Chaldee, Tel Lo, vol. ii. plate 2 bis. 2 For examples of this type see L? W. King, A History of Burner and Akkad (1910), fig. 12.</page><page sequence="7">racial origins of jewish types. 169 Chaldean figures of Semites are the Egyptian portraits of the Semitic Bedawin or Habiru. (3) "We find amongst the somewhat later monuments, especially in bronze, and in the beautiful diorite sculptures, people of another type, apparently round-headed, with a broad, short face and small, rounded features, small nose, and somewhat projecting cheekbone.1 These people may be the Kassites, whose place of origin is uncertain. It has been suggested they may have come from India, but inasmuch as they introduced the horse into Mesopotamia, it is more reasonable that their place of origin should be sought in Central Asia. It is Highly probable that in the Babylonian state these races readily blended, and there are sculptured heads which clearly show a mixture of the Semitic and Armenoid characteristics.2 In addition to this we know that Semitic merchant settlements existed as suburbs in the great Chaldean cities. These merchants probably brought copper and other metals from the mines in the Taurus which Contenau3 has shown were worked by a Semitic-speaking group of people as early as 2400 b.c. To which, if any, of these groups did Abraham belong ? Fortunately the question is more or less answered for us in the Bible itself ; for in Genesis xiv. 13 Abraham is distinctly described as a Hebrew. Who, then, were the Hebrews ? It has been definitely shown by Burney, in his Schweich Lectures, that the word " Hebrew " is exactly equivalent to the Egyptian Habiru, and by Habiru and Shassu alike the Egyptian recognised the Bedawin Arabs. The Bible makes Eber a descendant of Shem, and thus both tradition and ethnology claim the Bedawin as the earliest known Semites. We may therefore picture Abraham as a merchant Sheikh of the Habiru, whose family were temporarily settled in Ur of the Chaldees. His migration from thence to Haran in north-west Syria, and the fact that his steward was a man of Damascus, are indications that he was only retraversing the familiar route which the more settled portions of the Habiru race 1 For examples see Sarzec, op. cit. vol. ii. plate 24 bis, and L. Heuzey, Les Origines Orientales de VArt, plate 5. 2 See L. Heuzey, Catalogue des Antiguites Chaldeennes, Musee Nationale du Louvre (1902), p. 217, No. 79 ; p. 233, No. 93. 3 Trentes Tablettes Cappadociennes, Paris, 1919.</page><page sequence="8">170 RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. used for the commercial intercourse that existed between the Semites of northern Syria and the people of Chaldea. Amongst the Petrie casts there are several pictures of the Arab Beda win of Syria. Nos. 42 and 43 of Petrie's series, shown in Pt. I. fig. 1, are perhaps the most typical. They all, however, picture people with fairly long heads, at least in comparison to the Hittites, of whom we shall talk later, with a strong face, bold features, high arched skull, sloping forehead and prominent eyebrows, outstanding nose, rather long and heavy, but not rounded, and quite distinct from what is known as the Jewish type. If we compare these with some living Arabs (Pt. II. figs. 2-5), we see exactly the same type, and these, be it noted, are Arabs who have left their native home for several centuries and have settled in Africa. A female head of the same tribe shows the same characteristics, in all a rather wild, fierce look about the eyes, an expressive if somewhat coarse mouth with well-marked lips, and a strong, rather long and heavy, but not curved nose. If we turn to the wandering Arab Bedawy of Syria of to-day, we see the same type. It would, however, be conveying a wrong impression if one were to imagine that all the Bedawin Arabs are of this type. Certainly the majority of them, as well as the majority of the true Arabs of Syria and north Arabia, would appear to be so. In southern Arabia considerable numbers are met in whom the skull is less long, and in whom the nose, instead of being merely big and heavy, is big, heavy, and curved, and assumes the so-called Jewish character. This type of Arab was known to the Egyptian artist as he is known to the anthropologist to-day. The earliest Egyptian representation of Semites is to be found on a mural painting of the XII. Dynasty in the tomb of Prince Chuemhotep at Beni-Hasan. Here a desert prince with thirty-six followers from the NT.E. of Egypt is bringing tribute. Amongst the party is a group of women and children. The strangers are called Aamu, and they are clothed in the most elaborate mantles, which Professor Petrie thinks are the far-famed Babylonish garments of Joshua vn. 21 (Plate III.).1 The heads of all are noticeably long, the colour of the skin is brown, the eyes, beard, and hair are black. 1 A large scale reproduction is to be found in Newberry's Beni-Hasen, Pi i, Archaeological Survey of Egypt. Egypt Explor. Fund. Kegan Paul &amp; Tr?bner, 1893, where the facial details can be more accurately studied.</page><page sequence="9">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 171 The nose in some is distinctly aquiline, bnt in others, as, for example, in the man driving the ass, it is long and blnnt-ended, and aMn to that of the Habiru. But even amongst the Habiru we occasionally find a head approaching that seen in the Aamu group. In Pt. I. fig. 2, a head of this type is shown in which a slight rounding in the outline of the nose and a more marked nostrility convert what is otherwise a typical Habiru head into a dignified but sympathetic Jewish one. The same type is met with again in several of the Babylonian records, and it is still found in the living, amongst the inhabitants of southern Arabia and elsewhere (Pt. II. figs. 3-5). If it is correct, as would seem probable, to regard the type of face which has been already described and illustrated in Pt. I. fig. 1; Pt. II. figs. 1-2 as the original and typical Semitic countenance, then the modified form in which the nose is curved and " Jewish " must be regarded as due to an Armenoid infection of a once pure Semitic stock. One might dispose of the whole problem of the origin of Jewish types by suggesting that Abraham and Sarah and the whole patriarchal group were of this type, and that there never was any marriage out? side the charmed circle. Such, of course, would be baulking the whole question. Nor would it explain the problem in hand satis? factorily ; for whilst it might account for the presence at least of one type amongst Jews, it would fail to account for the others. There is a danger of assuming that the whole of the Jewish people sprang from the family of the patriarchs, forgetting that there were a very large number of followers. Abraham himself commanded 318 men of war, Jacob had so large a gathering of flocks and men that he divided them into two parties when he met his brother Esau, and surely it would be foolish to imagine that all these people were strictly of one particular brand and breed. It is therefore necessary to consider who were the people from whom these followers were likely to have been drawn. We are necessarily very much in the dark, but not entirely so. We know that there were many tribes of wandering Arabs who would have been a kindred and probably very similar people to the Habiru or Hebrews. We know further that there were two powerful peoples who alternately swayed Syria?the Hittites in the far north and the Amorites in the Lebanon and extending with a more or less firm hold down to Beer-Sheba in the south.</page><page sequence="10">172 racial origins of jewish types. The Amorites are a people who have given rise to no little con? troversy and speculation. Lately Clay1 has postulated for them a great empire which extended at one time to Babylonia. Certain it is that the first Babylonian dynasty about 2000 b.c. arose as a result of the conquest of Akkad by the Amorites. From 1500 b.c. to 1100 b.c. the Egyptians were waging almost continuous war with the Amorites alone, or against the combined forces of Amorites and Hittites. The great reliefs at Karnak depicting the triumphs of the Pharaohs from Thotmes III. in 1500 b.c. to Sheshank in 800 b.c. give us numerous repre? sentations of both Amorite and Hittite. Plates IV. and V. represent Amorite warriors. Here we have a long-headed, long-faced type, practically identical with that of the Habiru or Bedawin. Heads of Amorites are shown coming from definite centres and sculptured at very different times. One interesting head is of a man of Tabor in northern Samaria, but a few miles from Shechem which Jacob himself said he wrested from the Amorites with his sword and his bow (Gen. xlviii. 22). There is a feature about the records of the Amorites on which much stress has been laid, and that is the fact that in some of the Egyptian monuments and tomb paintings people resembling the Amorites in type, and depicted as coming from Syria, are shown as white skinned, blue-eyed, and in some cases fair-haired. The evidence as to who the actual people so depicted were is not altogether satisfactory, but it is quite certain that the Egyptians did recognise a fair people in northern Syria, and that they represented them of a type in many cases similar to the Amorites. Now the Bedawy of northern Arabia is a man who is usually deeply sunburnt, but he is not in any sense a black man. The skin is generally wheaten in colour, but it may be safely said that he is never fair-haired or blue-eyed. The Amorites are generally spoken of as western Semites. Sayce would identify them with Berbers and relate them to the Kabyle.2 To-day fair skinned and reddish-haired individuals are not unknown in Syria amongst the peasantry, whilst amongst the Samaritans, who certainly have no modern European blood in their veins, bright red hair and light-coloured eyes are of frequent occurrence. Although it is impossible 1 A. T. Clay, Amurru, the Home of the Northern Semites (Philadelphia, 1909). 2 Races of the Old Testament, p. 12.</page><page sequence="11">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 173 with certainty to say from whence this strain was acquired, the evidence for fair hair and complexion amongst the Amorites is at least sufficient to allow them to be regarded as the most probable source of the blond type in the Middle East. The source of the fair complexion and red hair which is so common a feature amongst Jews would probably be the same as that from which the Samaritans obtained it, and thus both stand indebted to the ancient Amorites. Of the Hittites we have the advantage of possessing not only very numerous representations on the Egyptian triumphal reliefs, but sculptured portraits by their own hands and within their own land. In addition, the British Museum possesses two beautiful plaques from Tel el Yehudieh representing Hittite princes captured by Kameses III. These figures are executed with the greatest delicacy and skill.1 Pt. X. fig. 1. The Hittite monuments depict a type which is so peculiar that it might be thought to have been inspired by some ancient and prophetic anti-Semite, intent on caricaturing the Jew before he was evolved, for many of these portraits antedate the Exodus (Pts. VI., VII., and XII.). Here we see short, thick-set men with the large rounded heads, short necks, full, rather puffy, faces, adorned with a rounded nose showing marked nostrility. In the portrait of a warrior of Boghaz-Keui2 the type is equally evident, though perhaps less grotesque. In Luschan's Huxley Lecture may be seen heads of Hittite gods which, though rather crude, not only show the characteristic nose, but also, and very clearly, another feature which we shall see in the Egyptian portraits, viz. a very round head with an extraordinarily high flat occiput. In Pt. VI. fig. 2 is shown a'series of Hittite heads from the Egyptian monuments, some of which are markedly Jewish and show the characteristic nose, and some the typical Armenoid head shape. It should be noted that these people, although they are depicted with rather a gross type of face, have small mouths, refined lips, and, as we shall see later, can present a type of beauty which, whilst not departing from the general Hittite characteristic, is one which is celebrated in the East and has many admirers in the West. 1 They may be seen in the British Museum, Egyptian Room V., case 229. 2 See Wissenschaftliche Ver?ffentlichungen, der Deut. Orient. Gesellschaft,, vol. xiv. (1912), Tai 19.</page><page sequence="12">174 racial origins of jewish types. It is unnecessary here to outline the history of the Hittites. One need only say that they formed an empire so strong as seriously to threaten Egypt and for centuries to rival Assyria. They alternately waged war and contracted alliances with the Amorites, in conjunction with whom they occupied Syria and Palestine. We know how Abraham met both Hittite and Amorite as far south as Hebron, and how Esau took unto himself two wives of the Hittites, and if he, the eldest son of the Sheikh, married Hittite wives, we may be sure that the lesser men of the tribe did likewise. The centre of their empire was originally at Boghaz-Keui in the Taurus Mountains. Later it was shifted to Carchemish, the modern Jerablus on the Euphrates. Their sway extended over the eastern half of Asia Minor to the Euphrates. Un? like the Amorites, who have left no obvious successors, the Hittite is as well represented to-day as he was in ancient times. In the modern Armenian is to be found the present-day Hittite. His characteristic and peculiar head shape, his rounded features, were seen in nearly every individual in a camp of Armenian refugees of 3000 strong, whilst the Jewish nose, though not universal, was certainly present as a well-marked feature in the great majority. The actual origin of the Hittite, as of the Armenian, is unknown. He has been claimed as an Aryan, he has been rejected as a Semite *, he is probably neither. But one thing is sure : he is a white man. Both in the Egyptian tomb-paintings and in the living Armenian he is a white-skinned individual, with uniformly dark hair and dark eyes. In the Pentateuch we meet frequent references to Hivites, Jebusites, and Perizzites, but if we correlate the references it will be found that those who are described as Hivites in one place are described as Amorites in another, and the same is true of the Jebusites. It may be assumed that the basic population of Palestine was composed, at least in Abraham's time, for the most part of Amorites, and that the Perizzites, Hivites, and the like, are tribal groups of the same stock. The Hittites were already in the land, as we know, but they were there as conquerors, governors of provinces, and officials. In the Egyptian portraits of Syrians, the heads dating from Thotmes III., 1500 b.c., are of the Amorite type, even as far north as Damascus. Two hundred years later, both Amorite and Hittite types are depicted as from north Syria, whilst a little later still, four figures are given of persons</page><page sequence="13">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 175 from the town of Askelon, which is on the coast south of Jerusalem. Of these heads, three, including a female, are typically Hittite in character, whilst one is equally characteristic of the Amorite race.1 It is clear that the Egyptians record a mixed population of Hittites and Amorites, besides the Shassu or Arabs whom they encountered in the Syrian campaigns. In patriarchal times, therefore, we must picture the Israelites as an offshoot of an Arab Hebrew race settling now by means of the peaceful penetration of commerce, and now by the sword and the bow, in a land which was inhabited by two distinct races : the Hittites, a white people with black hair and eyes and the aquiline, strongly Jewish nose, and the Amorites, a people akin to themselves, but who were probably light-skinned and had amongst them a number of fair-haired persons. In the Bible we see the chief of the Hebrew clan going back to Aramea in the north to seek a bride of his own people, but it would be contrary to all human nature if we imagine that the rank and file went beyond their immediate surroundings for the same object. Moreover, at the time of which we are speaking, we know of no ordinance preventing marriage outside the clan, nor is a tribe passing from the nomadic status to a settled one likely to raise objection to. its members marrying the women of the country. How long and to what extent the Israelites were settled on the land before the entry into Egypt is not certain. According to the Biblical account the period from Abraham to Jacob's death is 215 years. When Joseph is in the prison in Egypt, he describes himself as being 44 stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews," which clearly points to his people being no more of the wandering section of the Habiru, but one settled in a land of their own. This is not the place to discuss the vexed question whether residues of any or all of the tribes were present in Canaan during the period of the sojourn in Egypt. There is a mass of evidence both archaeological and Biblical by which Professor Burney supports the affirmative of this thesis. If it be true, as seems highly probable, that during the whole period of the Egyptian sojourn there were Israelites in Palestine, living without any close bond to each other, and without any common 1 Casts of the types referred to may be seen in the British Museum.</page><page sequence="14">176 RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. leaders in the midst of an alien population, one may be sure that they would have sought alliance with their neighbours. In fact there is no question but that Judah absorbed several clans of the Negeb into its fold such as the Kenites and the Jerahmeelites, whilst the evidence that this tribe separated off from the main body before Joshua's time is very strong, and that it remained isolated in the south from the re? mainder is shown by the absence of all reference to it in Deborah's song. In Egypt the Israelites lived under entirely different conditions : here they were from the first mere sojourners, and very soon that status was exchanged for that of bondsmen, segregated both in their work and their home. It is not therefore in Egypt that one should look for further miscegenation, nor is it at all certain that the numbers of the people that took part in the Exodus are anything like as great as the account states. Petrie 1 argues with great ingenuity that the total number who took part in the Exodus was under 6000. The reference in the Bible to the mixed multitude that accompanied the children of Israel might be assumed to be evidence of wide intrafusion of blood in Egypt, but this is not justified?a mixed multitude implies a rabble (German Gesindel), a term of contempt, not of magnitude. Possibly one of this group is referred to in Leviticus xxiv. 10, where two men quarrel : one an .Israelite, the other a half-breed with an Egyptian father : the latter blasphemes and his case is brought to Moses. The account would never have specially mentioned the fact of his being a half-breed if there were really a multitude of such mixed people. Following the Bible tale we find the Israelites settling under great stress in Palestine, and notwithstanding the provisions both in Exodus and Deuteronomy against intermarriage we find frequent evidence of mixture on a large scale, thus : Judges iii. 5, " the children of Israel dwelt amongst the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods." What the custom of the country was is clearly shown in Judges v. 30, when Deborah puts into the mouth of one of Sisera's handmaidens the words : " Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil ? A damsel, two damsels to every man ? " 1 Egypt in Israel, p. 40.</page><page sequence="15">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 177 If intermarriage took place, as it no doubt did, on the scale which is suggested during the interval between the Exodus and the Kingdom, it would probably account for the very large amount of Hittite and Amorite blood which the Hebrew must have absorbed. If, however, the tribes were settled in pre-Exodus days, it would add to the oppor? tunity for race mixture. But if that theory in its entirety be not accepted, but only the one of the earlier settlement of Judah, it would allow of Judah having contracted alliances with his neighbours on an extensive scale before Joshua and the main body came up. The conquest of Palestine was not achieved at one stroke. It was only by isolated victories on the one hand and peaceful penetration and amalgamation on the other that the Israelites gained control over the local Hittites and Amorites of Palestine, and that control brought in its train a very large degree of fusion with the racial element of the country. It is generally agreed that the date of the Exodus is 1225 B.c., and if that be so, it took place but thirty years before the arrival of the Philistines on the coast of Syria. It was in 1196 that Barneses III. routed the great federation of sea tribes and Hittites which, attacking by land and sea, had threatened to overwhelm Egypt. As a result of the successful strategy of Barneses, the allied troops were defeated, and the Philistines sought refuge on the coast of Palestine, and estab? lished themselves in the plain of Sharon. They were a vigorous people, trained to arms, and very soon established their local supremacy. The invasion of the Israelites, coming just as the Philistines were consolidating their power, led to serious conflicts. Before the Kingdom, the Philistine power was on the whole in the ascendant. After David, their power gradually waned. In the Pentateuch, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, continual mention is made of them, in the Prophets scarcely any at all. The Philistines who gave their name to the country vanish from history apparently without a trace. Surely it is one of the most extra? ordinary cases of the disappearance of a people, seeing that the history of their immediate neighbour, the Israelite, with whom they were in constant relation, runs continuously from, say, 1200 B.c. to the present day. There is only one way in which the Philistine can have dis? appeared, for we know that they were not exterminated in war, and VOL. IX. N</page><page sequence="16">178 RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. that is by the loss of their distinctive cultural characters and by fusion with their neighbours. And that doubtlessly took place. In the pas? sages quoted below one sees some reflection of the process. Thus in Zechariah ix. 6, " And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. And I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his detestable things from between his teeth, and he also shall be a remnant for our God : and he shall be as a chief in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite." The passage in Isaiah ii. 6, " For they (the house of Jacob) are replenished from the east, and with sooth? sayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the brood of aliens,,: points equally to this absorption of alien blood not only of the Philistines from the west but others from the east. It is more? over interesting to observe how the Philistine, who in the early books was always a warrior and a redoubtable foe, had lost caste in the process of time. It is indeed a curious fact that Modin, the birthplace of the national hero Maccabaeus, situate on the lower hills between Ludd and Beth Horon, is in the very heart of the old Philistine country. Who then was the Philistine ? The Bible answers with no un? certain voice that he was brought up from the Isle of Caphtor, and the Philistines are spoken of as Cherethites, which is another form for the men of Caphtor. In the Egyptian inscriptions the Philistines are spoken of as Keftiu, the meaning of which is not altogether certain. It is said to be a Minoan term meaning " from the back of beyond "? a term generally employed by the Egyptians for the Mycenean people. We find representations of these men of Keftiu at dates considerably earlier than their incursion into Palestine painted on the walls of the tombs and bearing rich tribute in the shape of beautiful Mycenean vases and objects of undoubted Cretan origin. Hence it is not sur? prising to find that Macalister, in his Schweich Lectures, 1911, con? siders that the evidence in favour of the Cretan origin of the Philistines is almost conclusive. The men shown on these frescoes are characterised by their delicate classic features, their very narrow waist, and their dress, which consists of highly ornamental short kilts in the men and the Watteau-like European dress of the women. The campaign in which Barneses III. finally conquered the Philistines was commemorated by him in large sculptural groups showing crowds of Philistine prisoners.</page><page sequence="17">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 179 Of these the Petrie collection reproduces several. In Pt. VIII. flg. 1 the very finely chiselled features are at once evident. The nose and brow are in one more or less vertical line, the chin is small but well formed, the mouth and lips delicate, the head is clearly a long one, and is surmounted by a curious crown of feathers which the Cretans borrowed from their masters the Carians. Similar heads with similar feathered crowns are to be seen in the Phaestos disc which, found in Crete, is either Cretan or Cyprian in origin.1 The characteristic delicacy of these people and their grace of movement seems to have particularly attracted the attention of the Egyptians. Recent excavations at Knossos and Hagia Triada in Crete have brought to light several frescoes which portray to us the Cretan in his own home. The out? standing point of interest is that the type depicted is almost exactly the same as that on the Egyptian tombs, and is quite identical with that of the sculptures of Medinet Habu. In Pt. VIII. fig. 2 is repre? sented the most beautiful of all the Cretan paintings, the figure of the Cup-bearer at Knossos. In all these Philistine representations there is an extraordinarily close family likeness, whether portrayed by the Egyptian or by the Cretan. For will the likeness between this type and that we are accustomed to in the heroic statuary of the best Greek period be lost sight of. In all we see the athletic type of figure with an extremely small waist, long-shaped head, regular and delicate features, with nose and brow in continuous contour. The hair is black and the eyes also. In the Rekhmara tomb the men of Keftiu are represented with red skins, but in the Knossos paintings they are a white-skinned people. In portraying the Philistines the Egyptians made no mere slavish copies of a conventional type, variations from the characteristic small and finely chiselled features are to be found. In Pt. IX. we have a head in which whilst the nose is larger than the normal and exhibits some degree of roundness in its outline as well as a moderate development of nostrility, the face does not depart altogether from the general type common to both Egyptian and Cretan representations of these people. 1 A copy of the Phaestos disc may be seen in the Ashmolean, Oxford. See also Macalister, R. A., Philistines, their History and Civilisation. Schweich Lecture, 1911, p. 84.</page><page sequence="18">180 racial origins of jewish types. In 1910 I published the results of a research on the heredity of facial types amongst the Jews of to-day, and in that work1 reference is made to the occurrence of a type which is akin in character to the heroic Greek, and which is there referred to as pseudo-gentile. This type is often thought to be due to the recent influx of Nordic or Teutonic blood. I have, however, proved that the facial character, which is termed pseudo-gentile, reacts hereditarily in a precisely opposite manner to that in which the Nordic does, and hence cannot be due to Teutonic intermixture. This pseudo-gentile type, which occurs amongst Jews to the extent of about 20 per cent., is in all proba? bility derived from the inclusion of the Philistines amongst the Israelites. This view is further strengthened by the fact that whilst the Hittite (Armenoid) type is dominant, i.e., superposes itself above the pseudo-gentile (Philistine, Cretan, proto-Greek) amongst the Jews, an exactly parallel phenomenon can be observed amongst the Greeks of to-day, where the Armenoid (Hittite) type has equally superimposed itself above the old Heroic Greek type (pseudo-gentile), which now is only found in a small percentage of the people. We have now traced the sequence by which the original Hebrew amalgamated first with the Amorite, then with the Hittite, and how later he absorbed the Philistines, all this taking place before the return from Babylon in 500 b.c. Nothing has been said of the Assyrian, mainly because he does not break in on the scene till the Israelite is well established, when by his removal of the ten tribes he ceased to have any action on those that were left behind, from whom the Jews of to-day descend. More? over, the Assyrian had so much both of the Armenoid Hittite as well as Semitic blood that it is improbable that he brought any fresh factor into the complex out of which the Jew has crystallised. With the return under Ezra a new phase took place in the history of the Jew. The remnant that returns is composed of the hetero? geneous elements we have discussed, but, from that day on, it remains an inbreeding closed community. Only one notable influx of fresh blood is chronicled on a large scale before the destruction of the second Temple. This was the forced conversion of the Idumeans by Alexander Jannaeus. 1 Journal of Genetics, vol. i.</page><page sequence="19">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 181 In this case, however, the two peoples were probably closely related. Before leaving this portion of our subject, reference must be made to the three sets of representations of Israelites which exist. The originals of two and the cast of the third are to be found in the British Museum. Taking them in point of age we have : 1. Figures of governors of towns in Judea on the Triumph of Sheshank, who invaded Rehoboam's kingdom in 973. Unfortunately, all these heads of Sheshank are remarkably alike, and all of them are of a very pronounced Amorite type. They further bear a very distinct resemblance to the similar uniform series of Syrian heads that date from Thotmes III.'s invasion of Syria. It is of course just possible that the governors of the Judean towns were, if not Amorite Jews, of pure Amorite blood; but even so it is very unlikely that they would be so much alike as we find them, and that no Armenoid types should occur, although in Askelon 300 years earlier the Egyptian portrayed very clearly both Amorite and Hittite types. The more probable explanation is that Sheshank committed the vulgarism of magnifying his own exploits by slavishly copying the records of his far greater predecessor. 2. A black alabaster stele set up by Shalmaneser II., king of Assyria 860-825, on which King Jehu is doing homage and Israelites are bearing tribute : in this the type of face is outspokenly Hittite, indeed we seem already to have attained the level of the caricaturists of to-day when they wish to stigmatise the Jew. It must be remembered, how? ever, that the Assyrians show extraordinarily little variety in the type of face they depict on the sculptures, whether portraying friend or foe. They represent themselves as pronouncedly Armenoid, yet even so it is hardly likely that had the Israelites of the northern kingdom been of the Amorite type, as shown in the Sheshank reliefs of the Judeans, the Assyrian sculptors would have gone out of their way to make them so pronouncedly Hittite. I think the probability is that both Northern and Southern Jewish groups absorbed much blood from their neigh? bours, the former mainly from the Armenoid-Hittites, the latter from the Semitic Amorites. Hence during the formative period the Shal? maneser stele may not be far out in its portraiture (Pt. X.). 3. The Layard reliefs in the British Museum which represent the</page><page sequence="20">182 racial origins of jewish types. capture of Lachish, a town in Judea, by Sennacherib, 701 b.c. This re? production is of very great interest because, although it is Assyrian, it is clear that the type is not nearly so exaggeratedly Hittite as were the Jehu figures from the northern kingdom. It is true that the figures are more or less conventionalised, still the two women and the little children are both natural and delicate. Unsatisfactory though these portraits be, they are the last representations we have of either Judeans or Israelites till the Middle Ages. PL XL It is not proposed in this lecture to deal in any detail with the influences which may have played their part on the racial character of the Jewish people since the commencement of the Christian era. It need only be said that in the writer's view no modification in physical type affecting the main body of European and American Jews has taken place commensurate with those which affected Israel in its early days. It is of greater interest to see how, throughout these latter ages, the Gentile world has answered for itself a problem over which Jews are not only unduly sensitive but always in doubt. To the question Is there a Jewish type ? whilst the Jew is always inclined to say "No," the Gentile world has answered with an unequivocal affirmative, and in a continuous series of paintings and drawings from the 12th century to the 20th in every country of Europe, has depicted the Jew as a man with strong Armenoid (Hittite) features. Examples may be seen, of the 12th century, in Herrade de Landsberg.1 There are also two cari? catures on legal rolls of the 13th century, one of which will be found in Joseph Jacobs' Jews of Angevin England, and the other was recently discovered by a Member of the Council, Mr. Hilary Jenkinson.2 In the 14th century good examples may be seen in a manuscript of the Canon Law.3 In the 15th century an excellent drawing, sympathetic and free from all exaggeration, is to be found in a German MS.4 In later centuries drawings of Jews by Gentiles are legion, and it is only necessary to refer the enquirer to Bodenschatz, Picart, and others. In all of these drawings the Jew is represented as a man of the Armenoid type of face. An exception, however, is to be found in the few ancient 1 Hortus Deliciarum,, Strassburg, 1901. 2 Anno xxiv. Hen. III. 3 British Museum, Reg. 6 E. VII., pi. 200, 341. 4 British Museum, E. 8, 25, 886.</page><page sequence="21">RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. 183 Hebrew illuminated Hagadas of European origin, where the illustra? tions do not present this type but the normal European one, a fact which, though full of interest, we must not deal with to-night. Dr. Haddon says: " We may accept the conclusion that the Jews have remained a persistent type for thousands of years, and that though they do now present variations in their features, these are due not so much to subsequent miscegenation as to a primitive complexity of origin as is partly evidenced by the Assyrian reliefs."1 This we may now amplify by stating that the Jews are sprung from an original Semitic Arabic stock, the Habiru, that they freely mixed with the Amorites, the Hittites, and the Philistines, and that of these three races, whilst the first is probably Semitic, the latter two are definitely non Semitic. The Hittite possessed characters which dominated the others, and as a result the majority of Jews to-day present more or less com? pletely the Hittite or Armenoid type. In the continuous interchange of characters which occurs throughout the generations within a group of mixed origin no type is ever lost, and each one finds due representa? tion at any moment within the racial group according to the laws of heredity modified by selection whether conscious or environmental. It is this interchange of characters which brings about the recon? struction of the original types which built up the race. There are certain questions which we have dealt with to-night in all too cursory a manner. To these questions the world has accustomed itself to give answers which are as dogmatic as they are vulnerable, and as satisfying as they are unsound. We are told that the Jews are a pure race par excellence. I would tell you that, so far from being pure they are made up of four chief strains?Arab, Amorite, Hittite, and Philistine. We are told that the Jews are Semites, yet of these four peoples two are undoubtedly not Semites, and of the remainder only one is certainly so ; and further it is the non-Semitic Hittite who has stamped his type indelibly on the majority of Jews. We are told by some that Jews are so alike that they can be identified anywhere. It may be shown, however, that there are amongst Jews types as distinct as were the Assyrians of old from the Heroic Greeks. Others tell us that the Jews have so many different types that it can only be assumed 1 The Study of Man, p. 29 ; 1898.</page><page sequence="22">184 RACIAL ORIGINS OF JEWISH TYPES. that they have mixed freely with the European peoples amongst whom they have lived during the Christian era. To me it seems that what these critics mistake for a European type is but the old Philistine within us asserting his immortality. I do not flatter myself that I have solved a tithe of the problems that confront the scientific investigator who would deal with the ethnic problems of the Jewish people. I shall be satisfied if I have but shown the dogmatist that the subject is worthy of more study and thought than has as yet been expended upon it. December 14, 1920.</page><page sequence="23">Plate I. FIG. 1.?Prof. Flinders Petrie's casts, Nos. 42 &amp; 43, from Karnak Great Hall N. Side. Transliteration of hieroglyphs = Shasu, equivalent to the modern Bedawin. FIG. 2.?Prof. Flinders Petrie's cast, No. 40 from Karnak Great Hall N. Side. Transliteration of heiroglyphs=Shasut {To face p. 192</page><page sequence="24">Plate IL fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 5. Heads of Kababish Arabs of Kordofan reproduced by the kind permission of Prof. 0. G. Seligman and the Editor of the * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society ' from the article * Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo Egyptian Sudan,' vol. xliii., p. 593, 1913. FIGS. 1 &amp; 2.?Front and side view of the most typical of the tribe, exhibiting the long head, retreating forehead, long uncurved nose and wide nostrils, large mouth and coarse lips peculiar to the pure Semitic people. FIGS. 3 &amp; 4.?Front and side view of an aberrant type in which the head is round and the nose more rounded; in other respects similar to Figs. 1 &amp; 2. Fig. 5.?Side view of a man whose head is long but whose nose is hooked and Armenoid in type.</page><page sequence="25">Plate III. _ : : i L?_-1 a</page><page sequence="26">Plate IV,</page><page sequence="27">Plate V. Fig. 2. Prof. Flinders Petrie's casts, Nos. 63-64, from Karnak Great Hall N. Side. Transliteration=Amar, i.e. Amorite.</page><page sequence="28">Plate VI. ^^^^^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^^^ Jij ^</page><page sequence="29">Plate VII. ^^^^^</page><page sequence="30">.Plate VIII. '1 -si * o " Ji? *T ill . ,- f] ??&amp; ^^^^^ ^ ^ ^ ^</page><page sequence="31">Plate IX. Prof. Flinders Petrie's cast No. 182, from the Court in Medinet Habu. Transliteration=Pulista, i.e. Philistine.</page><page sequence="32">Plate X. FIG. 2.?A panel from the ' Black Obelisk ' in the British Museum circa 850 B.C. Followers of Jehu bearing tribute to Shalmaneser.</page><page sequence="33">Plate XI. From the Layard bas-reliefs in the Nimrud room in the British Museum. Prisoners of war captured at Lachish in Judea circa 701 B.C.</page><page sequence="34">Plate XII. [To face p. 193</page></plain_text>