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On the field where this battle was fought I saw a very wonderful thing
which the natives pointed out to me. The bones of the slain lie
scattered upon the field in two lots, those of the Persians in one
place by themselves, as the bodies lay at the first - those of the
Egyptians in another place apart from them. If, then, you strike
the Persian skulls, even with a pebble, they are so weak, that you
break a hole in them; but the Egyptian skulls are so strong, that you
may smite them with a stone and you will scarcely break them in. They
gave me the following reason for this difference, which seemed to me
likely enough: The Egyptians (they said) from early childhood have
the head shaved, and so by the action of the sun the skull becomes
thick and hard. The same cause prevents baldness in Egypt, where you
see fewer bald men than in any other land. Such, then, is the reason
why the skulls of the Egyptians are so strong. The Persians, on the
other hand, have feeble skulls, because they keep themselves shaded
from the first, wearing turbans upon their heads. What I have here
mentioned I saw with my own eyes, and I observed also the like at
Papremis, in the case of the Persians who were killed with
Achaeamenes, the son of Darius, by Inarus the Libyan.
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