The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-03-13
EGYPT'S OLDEST NAN.
TFrom the Sphere.l

The Egyptian gallery at the British
museum has just come into possession
of the mummy of a man which may well
be the oldest known body of any human
being. The facts concerning it are
briefly summed up in the following in
scription reproduced from the case con-
tanning the mummy:
Body of a. man who was buried in a
shallow oval grave followed out of
sandstone on the west bank Of the Nile
in Upper Egypt Before burial the body
was treated with a preparation Of BIZ
tunen and was arranged in the posture
in which it noW lies, on its left side,
with the hands before the face and the
knees drawn up nearly on a level with
the chin. The grave (Which has been
roughly initiated by the model here ex-
hibited) was covered with slabs of I'M
worked stone, and in it beside the body
were disposed flint knives and a num-
Der of vases partly filed with the re-
mains and dust of funeral offerings. The
man probably belonged to a fair
skinned, light haired race, which may
be regarded as one of the original stocks
Of Egypt, whose settlements are usually
found on the west bank of the Nile. The
style of the flint implements found in the
grave indicates that the man lived in
the later neo1ithic period of Egypt, that
is, in remote ages long before the rule
of Menes, the first historic king OF
Egypt
The grave was first seen by q wander
ing Arab; he reported his discovery to
a British official. who Immediately sent
q couple of Egyptian soldiers to guard
it day and night until it could be safely
removed The body is not a mummy of
the ordinary historic Egyptian period
such as that of Rameses II, the father
of the Pharaoh Of the Exodus. It was
never bound up in linen or cased in any
painted coffin, but was merely coated
with preparation of bitumen the
Arabic word for which is numia; hence
our word mummy. To reach the period
when this man hunted along the banks
Of the Nile it Is necessary to travel back
ward in time through the modern Pc
Rod since Elizabeth, through medieval
Europe, through the whole history OF
Rome and Greece, past the time of the
earliest rnummied king the museum
possesses, past even Menes, the earliest
king to which Egyptian records make
reference, who. according to Marietta,
ruled about 1904 3. G. Then we are
among two prehistoric races, one the
conquerors and the other the conquered
out of which spTang the Egyptian race
of the earliest dynasties. It is with these
remote stocks that this man is con-
nected. Considering the conditions IN
which he was found it is evident that he
was associated with a late period of the
new Stone Age of Egypt. He is buried
in a Enthusiastically neolithic grave
(flle graves OF this period are covered
with rude slabs of stone), and has neo-
lithic pots and flint implements beside
him They are like other ne0lithic pots
and ch1ppGd mint weapons ana KNIVES
found in other parts Of the world. The
fine, thin flint knives were perhaps
placed in the grave as part of a funeral
ritual They should be compared with
the Egyptian fiints in the prehistoric
section of the museum; they are almost
identical with those found in the grave
There is. of course, no inscription of
any kind on the pots knives or grave.
all having been made long before the in
vention of a written language. Tt is
curious to note that certain ancient
Egyptian documents mention traditions
of a race called the Trehennu, who had
red hair and blue eyes. This man has
distinctly auburn hair. He was buried
on the western shore. In later times
every Egyptian was buried on that side
Of the river, and Egyptian models of the
death boats on which the bodies were
ferried over the stream may be seen in
the Egyptian gallery