Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-10-10
ARIlSHC SAVAGES
IMPORTANT DISCOVERY MADE
BY TWO ENGLISHMEN.
FIERCE AND POWERFUL FOLK
Relics of an Unknown Race Found
by Explorers in the Nile Valley
Though Wonderfully Skiufdl Me-
chanics, They Are Cannibals-Liyed
Before the Egyptians.

A new race in Egypt in the Ions
ago and almost at the very dawn O.
history is the surprising discovery tina
mas just been made by band of Eu
ropean scientists who have been ex
pIorlng and eXcayating in the south
| ern part of that country. Of whar
| type or section of the human family
this race was Il part has not yet beer
settled, but this much at least is Ger
tain: that these people must have beer
! essentially nOn-Egyptian, for their pot
! terry. their statuettes, their mode OF
burial, their beads. and even them.
selves, as can be plainly deduced, were
| completely different. The honors OF
this discovery, the particulars OF
| which have only just come to London
are due to two gentlemen of that re.
| Gently established English institution
! known as the Egyptian Research Ac.
| count-a Mr.. Quibell and w. NJ. Film
| ders Petrie. who have been constantly
| III Africa for six months past.
They have not only explored and
i eXhumed, but they have summarized
| their data and made careful deduc-
| lions, so that the value of the dis
covery is already apparent. By a
careful study of dates and other COM
PARSONS they have proved, fairly con-
clusively, that this new-or old-race
lived and had power between the sew
enth and ninth dynasties of royal
Egypt, or about 5000 B. G.
Over 1000 graves have been opened.
, and hundreds of skulls and skeletons
have been collected, and with a great
mass of implements and relics made
ready for shipment to England Yet
| in all these tombs and excavations
there has not been found a single ar
ticle that bore the marks of Egyptian
civilization in the slightest degree, or
solitary mummy.
That these peopla we're not merely
a local variety or even a provincial
division of the Egyptians is certain
from the fact that remains Of them
We're found over a stretch of more
than hundred miles of country, from
Abydos to Gebelen. Side by side with
the novel relics and strange bodies
have been found Egyptian tombs,
Egyptian pottery, and ruins of Egyp-
tian towns of the fourth, twelfth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth dynasties
of Egypt. AS the explorers have re-
corded in the memorial they have
presented, 1.-THE stra ia of Egyptian
civilization was therefore uniform over
the whole country" This newly dis
, covered race must have been a tribe
Of invaders settling in this section of
southern Egypt between the days of
the seventh and ninth dynasties.
The carvings ard the bodies that
have been eXhumed show that these
new people must have been a fierce
and powerful folk, with strong fea-
lures, hooked noses, long pointed
boards, and brown, wavy hair Set
thing a point that otherwise might
be disputed, they show no trace what
soever of the negro type. In general
contour of feature and form they have
a strange resemblance to the Lybian
and AmOrite races, and the strong
robability is that they came on from
the west by way of the western and
great GASES. This fact is strength
ened by the historic certainty that dur
ing the seventh and eighth Egyptian
dynasties the seat of Egypt was Men,
phis, and no people had thrust them
selves up the Nile valley. Curious
characteristics of the unknown race
are made known from the detail and
arrangement of the tOmbs that have
resemble those in the circle at My
cenae. They are square open pits,
rooted with beams Of wood. Always
by preference in shoals Of water
courses, they show that this race came
from rocky country, where excava-
ton was impossible, except in allu-
vium. The bodies in the tombs have
a great development in legs, this point
ing to the former stronghold of these
people having been a hill country and
not a coast region. Forked hunting
lances predominant among the instru-
ments that time has left, proving their
habit of chasing the gazelle.
In the graves the bodies lay con-
tracted and not mummified, always
with the head to the south and the
face to the west The evidence is not
lacking that the bodies were generally
mutilated before they were buried,
and a yet more startling Characters
tic is conveyed from the fact that
seems to be proven that these people
were anthropophagists, that is, can
nibals. In one large and important
tomb four skulls were found placed
between stone vases on the floor, a
separate heap Of loose bones of -sev.
eral bodies together, and but a little
distance away bones broken open at
the ends and scNnped out. All Of these
were distinctively human bones. 1t
does not need ali expert in ethnology
to Judge thiE, to be cannibalism pure
and simple.
Commercially speaking, these un-
knowns must have been Of Importance,
for even when set side by side in COM
parison with the Egyptians, their
workmanship shows forth as little
short of remarka bic. With both met
ais and flint they We're experts. In
flint especially they must have been
possessed Of wonderful skill, for flint
articles have been found agnifcently
worked, far more eXquisitely and with
a grea ter degree of elaboration than