158. Min and His Functions: A Postscript.

Author(s): G. D. Hornblower
Source: Man, Vol. 50 (Jul., 1950), pp. 99-100
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2794697
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 JULY, 1950 Man Nos. 152-I58
mostly German elements Among and
printer's errors is the misprint on p. 274: the work by
consequently presen
material for the investigators of the older and newer strata of Dionysius Fabricius was not published in I792 but in I592.
German religious traditions. AKE CAMPBELL

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

History of the Primates. By W. E. Le Gros Clark. British Museum
(Nat. Hist.), I949. Pp. II7. Price 2S. 6d.
153 This small but well illustrated booklet gives a remark-
ably succinct account of the orthodox conception of man's these changes are the menarche and the secondary sexual character-
position in respect to the rest of the living and extinct Primates.
The evidence for evolution and the role of natural selection is
admirably considered; but taxonomic problems are not so happily
dealt with. The species being the classification unit, genera are
formed by grouping species, not 'sub-divided into' species (p. 2).
Simpson's classification, admirable as it may be for mammals as a
class, has little to recommend it as far as Primates are concerned.
According to the preface (by W. N. Edwards) the book is in-
tended to replace Smith-Woodward's well-known Guide to the
Fossil Remains of Man (3rd ed., I922), now out of print; this it
scarcely does. The new discoveries of fossil forms demand a revision
and, no doubt, a work of the present type fulfils that demand, but pologists should be grateful for the solution of a problem which,
there is much in Smith-Woodward's Guide that cannot be found
here. Perhaps, however, the author is wise in his non-committal
attitude anent Piltdown Man, who is but briefly mentioned and
whose remains, so notable an item in the museum's collections, are
not figured. On the whole insufficient prominence is given to the
important material housed in the museum.
The ink drawings of recent Primates by Maurice Wilson are
life-like and attractive, albeit betraying the Japanese flavour of
most of this artist's work.
The book fills a long-felt demand for a popular authoritative
sketch of man's relations to his Primate congeners past and present
and is well adapted for enlightenment of the intelligent layman.
W. C. OSMAN HILL
Adolescent Sterility. By M. F. Ashley Montagu. Springfield, Ill.
(C. C. Thomas); distributed in U.K. by B. H. Blackwell,
I54 Oxford, I946. Pp. I57, 33 tables. Price I7s. 6d.
Ethnologists have often been puzzled by the rare occur- ences to systematic literature should be divorced from those con-
rence of illegitimate children among those societies in which
unmarried adolescents enjoy a period of sexual licence. Rivers, for
example, could find only one recorded instance of a bastard when
he was collecting pedigrees among the Eddystone Islanders, and a
similar state of affairs has been observed among the Dobuans, the
Trobrianders, the Lepchas and others; while in those societies where
a girl marries immediately after first menstruation, it is found that
several years elapse before she bears her first child.
Professor Ashley Montagu quickly disposes of the theory that a
free mixing of lovers, or an early and indefatigable sexual life, may
damage a woman's reproductive powers, and he canfindno evidence
that the 'contraceptives' occasionally used have the effects which
are attributed to them. His analysis of the problem, based on a
comparative study of adolescent sterility in man and among the
lower mammals, enables him to distinguish stages in the gradual
development of the reproductive processes, which he relates to
serial changes in the endocrine system. The first visible signs of
istics, which appear at the onset of puberty. Between this time and
the time of nubility, when ovulation first takes place and other
functions relevant to reproduction are developed, there is an interval
when the organism is functionally sterile. The length of this period
varies considerably among human beings-illegitimate children,
though rare, are not entirely unknown in societies where pre-
marital intercourse is allowed-and while girls may become
pregnant before they are fully mature, the high rates of maternal
and infant mortality which result show that the ability to conceive
is not the same thing as the ability to procreate.
Although this analysis is made in terms of physiology, anthro-
while not affecting them directly, has often caused them a certain
amount of embarrassment. FRANCIS HUXLEY
The Classification of Animals. By W. T. Calman. London
(Methuen), I949. Pp. 54, bibliog. Price 4s. 6d.
I 55 This small monograph provides an excellent intr
duction to a complex and controversial subject. Whether
a system of classification should solely provide for the accurate
identification of an animal or whether it should also give the
phylogenetic relationships of the animal is discussed in a clear and
stimulating manner. The author advocates a natural or phylogenetic
system of classification, but points out that, in many places, such a
system must be artificial because of the difficulties of assessing the
phylogenetic value of many characters. Hence it is a system which
must be constantly revised in the light of increasing knowledge. To
do this the systematist must not ignore the advances of anatomy,
physiology, ecology, etc., and the author's suggestion that refer-
cerning other aspects of the animal is to be deplored. A natural
system of classification is an integral part of zoology and not a
science in its own right. The final chapters give a brief introduction
to the methods employed by the systematist, including some
valuable remarks upon the illustration of scientific papers.
H. BUTLER
About Ourselves. By J. G. Needham, with illustrations by
Sargent. London (Allen & Unwin), I950. Pp. xi, 276. Price
This is a well informed and pleasantly written but some-
what ingenuous account of man and society in their biological
aspects. The author tends to exaggerate the influence of instinct in
man and of reason in animals. RAGLAN

CORRESPONDENCE
The Relative Usefulness of Cranial Characters. Cf. MAN,
I 950, I5
J 57 SIR,-May I add to my paper published in your February
issue that in computations on skeletal materials from
different periods the possibility of a phylogenetic variability which
might prove to be distinguishable from the interracial variability
should be taken into consideration? That differences in the skull
index occur in the course of time has lately again been stressed by,
e.g., Weidenreich ('The Brachycephalization of Recent Mankind,'
Southwestern J. Anat., Vol. I, I945) and Abbie ('Headform and
Human Evolution,' J. Anat., Vol. LXXXI, I947); the same might
apply to other characteristics. Thus we shall have to do with a
phylogenetic variability of which it is by no means certain that it
shows the same absolute and relative preference to the characters
on which it acts as the interracial variability.
Royal Institute for the Indies, A. J. VAN BORK-FELTKAMP
Amsterdam
Min and his Functions: A Postscript. CJf MAN, I946, I03
SIR,-Since my original article on this subject appeared,
I 58 Dr. Elise Baumgartel has published another (Inst. franqais
d'Archeologie Orientale, Annales du Service, Vol. XLVIII,
I948), concerning the three great statues, called colossi, from
Koptos, usually taken for images of the god Min. It contains nothing
about the suggestion of the seasonal setting-up in ancient Egypt of

99

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 Nos. I58-i6i Man JULY, I950

figures representing, almost sacramentally, the divine coupling firmly established in the title Kamutef ('Bull of his Mother') noted
held to be of prime necessity for the country's wellbeing, but strong in my previous article.
reasons are given for the conclusion that the statues were not of so The plain title of 'Bull' symbolized 'strength', especially pro-
early a date as was at one time supposed and that they did not creative energy (ibidem), and as such was applicable to many gods,
represent the god himself. but was, especially so to Min; it has induced Dr. Baumgartel to
A former theory of prehistoric date is, in the light of modern signalize Min as a 'bull-man.' She further derives the divine idea of
scholarship, obviously inadmissible; my article in MAN (I946, I03) the animal from Assyria, where, very naturally, the bull had the
suggested that the statues had taken the place of figures of clay and same symbolical value as in Egypt. In these smaller details and one
rubble some time after the substitution in royal buildings of or two others she is perhaps hardly persuasive, but the determina-
Zoaer's time of stone for the more perishable materials of former tion of the very probable date of the great statues of Koptos has a
days. Dr. Baumgartel places the probable date in the First Inter- real value for a general view of ancient Egyptian history, as, I trust,
mediate Period; a first basis for this conclusion lies in archxological the observations set down above will show.
finds pointed out by Sidney Smith and backed by sculptures Penzance G. D. HORNBLOWER
from Khafajeh excavated by Frankfort (see Baumgartel's article,
p. 535), which are dated to the late Early Sumerian Age (coeval Anthropology and Disease
with the Egyptian First Intermediate Period-c. 2300 to 2I30 B.C., SIR, -Comparatively little attention has been bestowed by
according to the latest authority). The head of one of the statues is 159 anthropologists upon the etiology of disease, although it
indeed so badly mutilated (Baumgartel, Plate III) that it seems is essentially an anthropological matter. Science has such a
difficult to accept it, except for the side beard, as a valid material way of burying its own children! Over forty years ago the late
piece of evidence, but lateral evidence, derived from other features Dr. Ales Hrdlicka called attention to data which proved, almost
observable in the bodies, bears much weight, especially the well- conclusively, that certain maladies, common today in the Old
known points of resemblance with Mesopotamian figures, which World, had no existence in the New before the time of Columbus
were noted in detail by Dr. Baumgartel and myself. (see Hrdlicka, Bur. Am. Eth., Bull. 34, I908, pp. i9iff.). If this be
Little is known of the fall of the Old Kingdom, except that it was admitted, then it follows that modern medicine will have to be
the result of a very thorough revolution which was bitterly lamented revolutionized.
in the famous Admonition of Ipuwer (see Blackman's translation of More recently, in a valuable article contributed to the J. Amer.
Erman in Ancient Egyptian Literature, pp. 92-I08); the salient Med. Assoc. (Vol. XCIX, I932, Pp. i66i-i666), Hrdlicka supple-
features of the revolution as recorded in this lament are astonishinglymented his findings by stating that before Columbus America was
like those reported of the uprising in Russia in I9I7. It is generally the healthiest of continents. There were no areas depopulated by
concluded that the disturbances coincided .with foreign invasion and disease, no epidemics of purely American origin. Important scourges
the country suffered for many generations under the rule, or mis- were unknown. There was no rachitis, no tuberculosis, no patho-
rule, of foreigners, with the backing, it may be gathered, of native logic microcephaly, probably no cancer, no cholera, no typhus and
officials or notables, often self-seeking and ambitious. The country, no measles. Thus if these findings be also substantiated we must look
however, did not constantly remain submissive to this state of elsewhere for the etiology of disease. It is easier to ignore evidence
things and it came to an end with the rise of the Eleventh Dynasty. than face it. As Dr. Hrdlicka said, 'Facts sometimes have a hard task
The invaders appear to have come from Mesopotamia, entering to prevail over opinions.'
by the Wadi Hammamat; they must have been very sensible of the More recently Dr. T. D. Stewart, of the U.S. National Museum,
value of the hierogamous figures set up to procure divine protection concluded that the osseous remains attributed to one disease alone
for the land and they thought to assure their durability by replacing (syphilis) are extremely uncommon, if not absent in the oldest
them in stone. The new statues were evidently objects of great skeletal remains (Smithsonian Inst., Misc. Coll., Vol. C, I940). These
consideration, even veneration; they were placed at Koptos, by the facts, but not these facts alone, tend to kill the current myth of the
head of the wadi which led to the sea road of communication with association of this disease with the New World. But in science, as
the invaders' land of origin; the city commanded that road and was elsewhere, myths live while facts die.
probably the capital of the foreign lords. A mark of the great honour London EDWARD LAWRENCE
in which they were held lies in the stone of which they were hewn, Early Iron in Iraq. Cf. MAN, I950, 4
for it was transported from the distant quarries of Tureh which SIR,-Mr. Burton Brown's remarks on the early occur-
provided the Memphite kings with the fine limestone for their
royal buildings; lastly they were chiselled in the style of their own
J6 rence of iron call for a rectification. The iron knife blade
from Tell Asmar was dated by us to 2700 B.C. before
heroes, and the artists were doubtless of Mesopotamian origin. Professor Sidney Smith had demonstrated, in Alalakh and Chrono-
Towards the end of the First Intermediate Period the country logy, that the reign of Hammurabi fell from I792 to I750 B.C. This
must have beeln in a state of great turmoil, during which the statues brings down Sargon of Akkad's accession to about 2340 B.C. The
were cast down and abandoned, as a sign of rebellion against the temple service-a closed find-to which the knife belongs, was
invaders and their minions, and were later used by the peasants for buried at the very end of the Early Dynastic Period, say between
their small domestic needs, as suggested by Leeds (see MAN, I946, 2450 and 2340 B.C.
I03). Dr. Baumgartel seems to infer that the statues belonged to It is relevant that this blade of terrestrial iron was mounted in an
temples, though the position in which they were found hardly openwork handle of bronze while the other objects of the hoard,
supports that view; she concludes also that they did not represent some 75 pieces, were made of copper. The knife may therefore not
the god Min, in spite of his symbol being pecked out on one of them. have been of local manufacture. The analyses made by Professor
The latter conclusion seems to be well founded, for the rustic Cecil H. Desch were published in the Third Preliminary Report
figures from which the statues seem to have developed would not of the Iraq Expedition, Oriental Institute Communications, No. I7
bear any such specific nomenclature. Yet it was almost inevitable
(Chicago, I934), PP. 58-62.
that an intimate connexion with Mn should be conceived by the The Warburg Institute, London H. FRANKFORT
followers of that great god; their divine head, responsible for their
prosperity, and the newer version of the male ritual figure would Correction: MAN, 1950, 47
accordingly be marked with his symbol. The connexion of Min Dr. A. S. Breathnach has drawn the attention of the Hon.
with Horus dealt with in my previous article has lately been found J Editor to an error in the original drawing of one of the line
at a very early date; a copper representation of the Falcon God illustrations to his article on 'The Measurement of Palatal
perched on a Min symbol was found by Seton Lloyd in his exca- Height and Length by Means of the Travelling Microscope' in the
vations on a First Dynasty site by Helouan, not far to the south from April issue of MAN. In the right-hand sketch (B) of fig. 2, the
Cairo (Illustrated London News, 5 June, I948). This is a noteworthy positions of the letters Z and A should be transposed so that Z lies
discovery, throwing back the beginnings of later syncresis to a much to the right and A to the left. The Hon. Editor regrets that this slip
earlier date than has hitherto been found. This syncresis is shown was not noticed in the course of editing.

IOO

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