The Archaeology of Race: The Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie

217 Pages·2013·6.59 MB·English

by  Debbie Challis

The Archaeology of Race
Th e Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie
Debbie Challis
Contents
Figures
Abbreviations
Foreword by Natasha McEnroe
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Races and Men: ‘All Is Race’
2 Galton and Genius
3 Fitting Aesthetics
4 Photographing Races from Antiquity
5 Greek Art, Greek Faces?
6 Peopling the Old Testament
7 Akhenaten’s Bloodline
8 The New Ancient Race
9 Flinders Petrie and Edwardian Politics
10 Heads
Afterword by Kate Sheppard
Appendix: Heads from Memphis and their Racial Types
Bibliography
Index
Copyright
Figures
Reconstruction of Robert Knox’s Study at No. 8 Surgeon’s Square in the Surgeon’s
1.1 Hall Pathology Museum, Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh. Photograph taken by
Debbie Challis, 2008.
Richard Westmacott Jr, ‘The modern Greek and the Muscovite, or Sarmatian’, Robert
1.2
Knox, Races of Men: A Fragment (1862), p. 44.
Richard Westmacott Jr, ‘Apollo: the Greek profile’, Robert Knox, Races of Men: A
1.3
Fragment (1862), p. 368.
Richard Westmacott Jr, ‘The Egyptian Sphynx’, Robert Knox, Races of Men: A
1.4
Fragment (1862), p. 146.
Richard Westmacott Jr, ‘The Egyptian Pyramid’, Robert Knox, Races of Men: A
1.5
Fragment (1862), p. 178.
Richard Westmacott Jr, ‘Bust of the Young Memnon: British Museum’, Robert Knox,
1.6
Races of Men: A Fragment (1862), p. 185.
Richard Westmacott Jr, ‘Profile of Negro, European and Orangutan’, Robert Knox,
1.7
Races of Men: A Fragment (1862), p. 404.
‘Signature of Francis Galton, age Two’, Galton Archive, UCL Special Collections:
2.1
Galton 50 © UCL Special Collections.
‘Hugo Landsberger, the amateur champion gymnast’, Penny Illustrated Paper, 11
2.2
August 1866: 81.
Craniometer belonging to Flinders Petrie, Department of Statistical Science,
3.1
University College London. Photograph by Debbie Challis, 2012.
Terracotta heads from Memphis UC48477 & UC48476 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian
3.2
Archaeology, University College London.
3.3 Flinders Petrie outside of his ‘rock tomb’, Giza.
3.4 Anthropometric Laboratory Poster © UCL Special Collections.
4.1 Image of the Nile, going north from Luxor. Photograph by Debbie Challis, 2012.
Face from Tomb Seti I No. 776, Flinders Petrie, Racial Photographs (1887) ©
4.2
Palestine Exploration Fund.
Face from Tomb Ramses III No. 777, Flinders Petrie, Racial Photographs (1887) ©
4.3
Palestine Exploration Fund.
4.4 North outside wall of Great Hall at Karnak. Photo taken by Debbie Challis.
4.5 Close up of Great Hall at Karnak.
4.6 View of the First Pylon of Medinet Habu. Photograph taken by Debbie Challis.
4.7 Inside doorway of Medinet Habu. Photo taken by Debbie Challis.
4.8 Detail of above showing people on lower line.
4.9 Detail of above showing people on upper line.
No. 174–7, Flinders Petrie, Racial Photographs (1887) © Palestine Exploration
4.10
Fund.
4.11 No. 178, Flinders Petrie, Racial Photographs (1887) © Palestine Exploration Fund.
5.1 Roman Mummy Portrait UC14692 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
‘The Typical Syrian of Egyptian Art’, Edwards (1891), Pharaohs, Fellahs and
5.2
Explorers: 82.
5.3 ‘Greek Lady’, Edwards (1891), Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers: 9.
‘Diogenes the Flute-Player’, Edwards (1891), Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers:
5.4
101.
6.1 The ‘Hebrew’ Head, UC33278 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
6.2 Part of Plate XXXVI, Flinders Petrie Memphis I (1909).
6.3 Francis Galton, ‘Jewish Face composite’© UCL Special Collections.
6.4 Cover of A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament (1891).
6.5 Frontispiece in A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament (1891).
6.6 ‘Mitanni’, A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament (1891), p. 123.
‘Heads of Hittites from Armenia, Amorites from Syria, Philistines from Crete’,
6.7
facing p. 56, Flinders Petrie, Egypt and Israel (1911).
7.1 Plate 1, Flinders Petrie, Tell el Amarna (1894).
Cast of ‘Man from Mitanni’ UC24322 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology,
7.2
UCL.
No. 81a, Flinders Petrie, Racial Photographs (1887) © Petrie Museum of Egyptian
7.3
Archaeology, UCL.
Plaster cast of Akhenaten’s mask, UC24321 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian
7.4
Archaeology, UCL.
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie by Philip Alexis de László (1934). © National
8.1
Portrait Gallery, NPG 4007.
Black-top red-ware vase, Naqada. UC5713. © Petrie Museum of Egyptian
8.2
Archaeology, UCL.
8.3 Section of Naqada and Ballas (1896), Plate VI.
Photograph of Flinders Petrie in Abydos 1899/1900. Photographer unknown.
8.4
Photograph album belonged to Margaret Murray.
9.1 Flinders Petrie and his son John, 1909. Petrie Museum Archives.
‘The grave Stele of Hegeso. Athens’, Petrie (1911), Revolutions of Civilization,
9.2
Plate I.
10.1 Drawer of ‘Memphis “Race” Heads’, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.
10.2 ‘Hebrew’ head, UC48515 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.3 ‘Aryan’ head, UC8457 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.4 ‘Macedonian’ head, UC48248 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.5 ‘Karian’ head, UC48452 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.6 ‘Persian’ head, UC8981 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.7 ‘Egyptian’ head, UC33611 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.8 ‘Iberian’ head, UC48454 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.9 ‘Indian’ head, UC33607 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.10 ‘Mark Antony’, UC48173 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
10.11 ‘The Kurd’, UC48501 © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.
Abbreviations
BAAS British Association for the Advancement of Science
EEF Egypt Exploration Fund
ILP Independent Labour Party
NGA National Gallery Archive
NOA National Olympian Association
NHM Natural History Museum
PEF Palestine Exploration Fund
PMA Petrie Museum Archive
RGS Royal Geographical Society
SRBM Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man
UCL University College London
Foreword
With a passion for measurement verging on the obsessive, Francis Galton (1822–1911)
possessed all of the Victorian enthusiasm for classification and improvement. However, rather
than seeking to classify natural history specimens, or to restore ancient churches, Galton’s
focus was on improving human populations and selective breeding. His interest in geography
and travel led to mapping sections of the African interior in the early 1850s on a tour that was
self-funded but had the support of the Royal Geographical Society – an expedition that gave
many opportunities for testing his eccentric inventions designed to make life easier for the
gentleman explorer. Inspired by his tour of Africa, Galton’s considerable energies and private
wealth were then concentrated on seeking ways to improve the human race and his activities
around measurement had this end in view.
Galton’s influence on nineteenth-century society is tightly interwoven with wider fears of
degeneration of the population, over-crowding and the growth of the criminal classes. Coining
the word ‘eugenics’ for the first time in 1883, much of his work was focussed on finding laws
of heredity, and examining physical ‘types’ from groups within the population, and involved
collecting vast amounts of personal data. Galton collected photographs and physical and
behavioural information from hundreds of individuals, ranging from Jewish schoolboys,
inmates of Bethlem Lunatic Asylum, women suffering from tuberculosis and convicted
murderers. Perhaps inevitably, his assumptions about race and class can be perceived in his
findings.
Galton’s collection and archives are held at University College London (UCL), where
Galton re-located his Anthropometric Laboratory in 1904, forming the Eugenics Records
Office. An earlier version of this laboratory opened as part of the 1884 South Kensington
International Health Fair. Many of the measuring tools, including head callipers and other
apparatus designed to categorize individuals into types, are preserved as part of a research
collection, along with extensive archives of photographs and forms showing anthropometric
measurements. This collection is available to the public by appointment and remained little
known until the preparations to celebrate the 2011 centenary of Galton’s birth began at UCL.
Viewed as a controversial figure in UCL’s history, the Galton Centenary raised the level of
awareness of his influence on twentieth-century bio-medical research at UCL. As the plans for
the centenary began, it became evident that the legacy of Galton and the associated Nazi taint of
his early work in eugenics were by no means dead to the collective memory. Colleagues from
departments varying from Geography, Art History and Archival and Information Studies
entered into discussions with UCL Museums & Collections and the Library Services about
how to manage the centenary, with the aim to acknowledge fully any of the university’s history
now deemed unsavoury.
As custodians of the artefacts and archives relating to Galton’s life and work, both the
Galton Collection, of which I acted as a Curator during this time, and my colleagues within the
Museums department and that of the Library Services had a unique responsibility for the
ethical challenges thrown up by the Galton centenary. Despite the interest provoked by
Galton’s work, a more traditional ‘celebration’ seemed inappropriate – yet, neither did it seem
justified to shy away altogether from the difficult questions being raised, indeed to do would
be a lost opportunity. Eventually, the two primary projects chosen to focus on were the project
of digitizing UCL’s extensive history of genetics material (in association with the Wellcome
Trust), and to examine Galton’s influence on his contemporaries, especially that of the most
famous of archaeologists, Flinders Petrie. Providing digital access to information created
further ethical challenges, especially involving placing online personal and medical
information about people who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and a
consultation on this issue is ongoing as the digitization of the history of genetics continues at
UCL. Examining the eugenic thinking of Flinders Petrie at his own museum proved that
museums can provoke discussion by providing a more balanced space for debate, even when
current archaeological discourse is being challenged.
Examining the elements of Galton’s work that provokes uncomfortable responses in a
modern audience allows us both to get a clearer understanding of the works of other eminent
Victorians, and to situate them within the complexities of nineteenth-century thought. Unlike
Galton’s cousin, Charles Darwin, and his cousin-by-marriage, Florence Nightingale, Galton
had little sympathy with the dignity or rights of the individual, which he would not hesitate to
sacrifice for the common good. This book examines the relationship between Galton and Petrie
for the first time, uncovering the connections between the development of modern eugenic
thought in the work of Petrie, and Petrie’s own contribution to the research on eugenics and
biometrics at University College London, where the legacy of these two compelling
personalities still reverberates strongly today.
Natasha McEnroe
Director, Florence Nightingale Museum
Acknowledgements
A number of people assisted with Archaeology of Race and Typecast, the exhibition on which
it is partially based, and there is only room to list some of them here. Natasha McEnroe,
Stephen Quirke, Kate Nichols, Sally-Ann Ashton and Gemma Romain have given thoughtful
advice on my ideas and on the ethical implications of some of the ideas in this study. I am
grateful to Carole Reeves, Amara Thornton, June Challis and Kate Sheppard for reading and
discussing parts of this book with me.
Alice Williams was indispensable at assisting with research in the Egypt Exploration
Society archives. Felicity Cobbing (Palestinian Exploration Fund), Tine Bagh (Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek), Peter Brand (Memphis University), Jaromir Malik (formerly of the Griffith
Institute, Oxford) and Nicholas Donaldson (National Gallery) have also helped with archive
enquiries and shared their time and expertise. I am also grateful to them for allowing
references to their respective archives or work in this book.
Colleagues from UCL Museums – in particular Jack Ashby, Mark Carnall, Subhadra Das,
Sally MacDonald and Nina Pearlman – and the team at the Petrie Museum – Tracey Golding,
Susi Pancaldo, Edmund Connolly and Tonya Nelson – supported the original exhibition idea.
Margaret Serpico, Jan Picton and Ivor Pridden pointed me in the way of important information
and source material. Staff from UCL Library Services made the Galton centenary constructive,
particularly Gill Furlong, Kate Chaney and Elizabeth Lawes. Sarah Chaney, Phoebe Harkins,
Niall Boyce, Caroline Bressey and Matthew Sweet all assisted with making the Galton
Centenary memorable and thought provoking.
Natasha McEnroe and Kate Sheppard have generously contributed to the writing of the book
with their respective Foreword and Afterword, while Alice Williams assisted with the
compiling of the table for Appendix A. Any faults are my own.
I would like to remember the academic Dominic Montserrat, who died in 2004 and whose
work has deeply influenced me and this book.
Archaeology of Race is dedicated to Simon Guerrier.