African Egyptians Mod

[Kahotep]

This is a simple mod I'm working on which changes the ethnicity of the Egyptian civilization from Mediterranean to African, since it's supposed to represent the indigenous Egyptian (that is, African) culture and people. So far, I have actually been able to make some changes, but they're more obvious in the game's interface than the unit graphics themselves.

This is the "before" image, with the default Mediterranean Egyptians...



...and this is the "after" image with the mod enabled, thereby changing the Egyptian units' ethnicity to African.


This is the text of my mod's .sql file.

UPDATE Civilizations SET Ethnicity='ETHNICITY_AFRICAN' where CivilizationType='CIVILIZATION_EGYPT' ;

So far, the change seems most noticeable in the units' icons in the lower right corner rather than the unit graphics themselves. I am unsure why that is at the moment. Still, I'm glad I was able to make any visible changes at all.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Indigenous Egyptians have their own ethnicity, unrelated to the rest of Africa, but more related to their presence for millennia along the Nile. There was a north/south Nile difference, but the ethnicity has become homogeneous over time. Culturally, the Sahara would have proved a significant barrier to any type of Pan-African cultural connections. The cultural connections would have been far stronger to the various Mediterranean peoples. I think the setting is adequate as it is... Egypt is quite ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of Africa. That being said, do as you like... it's your mod. Just don't think you are rectifying an error.

 

[Agent327]

The reason the Sahara became 'a significant barrier' precedes the occupation of the Nile valley. I.e. it used to be rather fertile, and the drying up or desertification pushed people out of it - among others towards the Nile valley.

 

[Kahotep]

Indigenous Egyptians have their own ethnicity, unrelated to the rest of Africa, but more related to their presence for millennia along the Nile. There was a north/south Nile difference, but the ethnicity has become homogeneous over time. Culturally, the Sahara would have proved a significant barrier to any type of Pan-African cultural connections. The cultural connections would have been far stronger to the various Mediterranean peoples. I think the setting is adequate as it is... Egypt is quite ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of Africa. That being said, do as you like... it's your mod. Just don't think you are rectifying an error.

Having a degree of commerce and cultural interaction with other civilizations in the Mediterranean basin isn't mutually exclusive to the ancient Egyptians being (primarily) of native African origin though. And they weren't the only African civilization to have links with areas outside the continent. You also have Islamic influences on the East African Swahili and the West African Sahel, along with South Arabian and even Judeo-Christian influences on Ethiopia, for example. That doesn't change the fact that their people and culture have African origins though.

EDIT: As an aside, is there a way to change the game's "art defines" files through a mod?

 

[Kahotep]

OK, figured out how to change the unit graphics (as opposed to interface icons) by adding edits to the Cultures.artdef file to my mod.


This is my code in the Cultures.artdef file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<AssetObjects::ArtDefSet>
    <m_Version>
        <major>4</major>
        <minor>0</minor>
        <build>238</build>
        <revision>243</revision>
    </m_Version>
    <m_TemplateName text="Cultures"/>
    <m_RootCollections>
        <Element>
            <m_CollectionName text="UnitCulture"/>
            <Element>
                <m_Fields>
                    <m_Values>
                        <Element class="AssetObjects::CollectionValue">
                            <m_eObjectType>INVALID</m_eObjectType>
                            <m_eValueType>ARTDEF_REF</m_eValueType>
                            <m_Values>
                                <Element class="AssetObjects::ArtDefReferenceValue">
                                    <m_ElementName text="CIVILIZATION_EGYPT"/>
                                    <m_RootCollectionName text="Civilization"/>
                                    <m_ArtDefPath text="Civilizations.artdef"/>
                                    <m_CollectionIsLocked>true</m_CollectionIsLocked>
                                    <m_TemplateName text="Civilizations"/>
                                    <m_ParamName text="Civilizations001"/>
                                </Element>
                            </m_Values>
                            <m_ParamName text="Civilizations"/>
                        </Element>
                    </m_Values>
                </m_Fields>
                <m_ChildCollections/>
                <m_Name text="SouthAfrican"/>
                <m_AppendMergedParameterCollections>false</m_AppendMergedParameterCollections>
            </Element>
        </Element>
    </m_RootCollections>
</AssetObjects::ArtDefSet>

That said, the default Egyptian spearmen had pretty authentic-looking cowhide shields that seemed to be unique for that civ. I'll have to figure out a way to combine that style of spearmen with the "SouthAfrican" unit culture. I could possibly do it by creating a whole new unit culture called "Egyptian" that mixed in "NorthAfrican" and "SouthAfrican" unit styles, but as of now I don't know how to do that yet.

 

[Agent327]

Having a degree of commerce and cultural interaction with other civilizations in the Mediterranean basin isn't mutually exclusive to the ancient Egyptians being (primarily) of native African origin though. And they weren't the only African civilization to have links with areas outside the continent. You also have Islamic influences on the East African Swahili and the West African Sahel, along with South Arabian and even Judeo-Christian influences on Ethiopia, for example. That doesn't change the fact that their people and culture have African origins though.

Having African origins (which is indisputable) doesn't mean they were black though. Perhaps more importantly, ancient Egyptians didn't consider themselves Africans, nor Asians, They considered themselves something distinct and in between. Lastly, I don't know of any civilization that would depict its members in a skin colour that they didn't have. If ancient Egyptians were black, why would they consistently depict themselves as not being black? It simply makes no sense.

 

[Kahotep]

Having African origins (which is indisputable) doesn't mean they were black though. Perhaps more importantly, ancient Egyptians didn't consider themselves Africans, nor Asians, They considered themselves something distinct and in between. Lastly, I don't know of any civilization that would depict its members in a skin colour that they didn't have. If ancient Egyptians were black, why would they consistently depict themselves as not being black? It simply makes no sense.

For what it's worth, this appears to be how the ancient Egyptians painted themselves in comparison to other nations.



The Egyptians are the dark reddish-brown people in white loincloths. I'll grant that they aren't quite as dark as the Kuhorsehockyes from Sudan, who are depicted as jet-black, but they are certainly darker than the pale Libyans or the olive-toned Asiatics. And these Egyptians are certainly darker than plenty of people who still get admitted into the "black" club. Take Obama for example:



That said, I don't think the color schemes in African art are always to be taken at face value. A lot of it is symbolic and stylized rather than realistic. Take for instance these quilts from Dahomey (modern Benin), wherein the Dahomeans are depicted as red-skinned and their enemies as literally black:

 

[Agent327]

Ancient Egyptians also sometimes appear as black or blue - symbolic of death and rebirth, and males were habitually portrayed darker skinned than females. I'm not sure what your point is. As already mentioned, they saw themselves as distinct from either black Africans or Asians (Asiatics, as they called them), as well as Libyans. Now, the latter two would have been completely redundant if ancient Egyptians were actually black.

Apart from that, not all black Africans are actually black. They range from dark brownish to indeed jet black. (Posting a picture of Barack Obama isn't really relevant here - except for the fact that he is 'black' because he is seen as black - so that is more about racism than skin pigmentation. He has also been called 'an Arab', so that doesn't help much either.)

 

[Kahotep]

Ancient Egyptians also sometimes appear as black or blue - symbolic of death and rebirth, and males were habitually portrayed darker skinned than females. I'm not sure what your point is. As already mentioned, they saw themselves as distinct from either black Africans or Asians (Asiatics, as they called them), as well as Libyans. Now, the latter two would have been completely redundant if ancient Egyptians were actually black.

You were the one appealing to ancient Egyptian art by claiming they depicted themselves as "not being black". It's curious how you turn around admit it's symbolic when presented with ancient Egyptian imagery that portrays them as a shade of dark brown. I'll grant that "black" as a racial category tends to mean different things to different people, which is why I actually avoided using the term in my OP. But if you insist on taking Egyptian art at face value and then claim it shows them as "not black", you have to admit most shows Egyptians as having dark brown skin well within the range of the people commonly called "black". It certainly looks darker than what they used for the Mediterranean or Middle Eastern people you're (presumably) trying to identify them with.

 

[Agent327]

Taking art at face value (never a good idea when unaware of how it is meant) and pointing to symbolic use of colours are two different things. I'm sure you can find a picture or two to substantiate your belief that ancient Egyptians were black. (As mentioned, that they were African in origin isn't really in dispute.) But once again, if they actually were black, shouldn't they at least acknowledge this themselves? We have no conclusive evidence for this - neither textual nor pictorial.

 

[Kahotep]

Taking art at face value (never a good idea when unaware of how it is meant) and pointing to symbolic use of colours are two different things. I'm sure you can find a picture or two to substantiate your belief that ancient Egyptians were black. (As mentioned, that they were African in origin isn't really in dispute.) But once again, if they actually were black, shouldn't they at least acknowledge this themselves? We have no conclusive evidence for this - neither textual nor pictorial.

Obviously people living several millennia ago aren't going to refer to themselves using modern racial terminology. Race as a social construct didn't exist back then. You do have the ancient Greeks describing Egyptians as melas which literally translates to "black", but they seem to have used that word for all darker-skinned peoples (e.g. Indians as well as Africans).

In the meantime, while we might not have "conclusive evidence" that ancient Egyptians self-identified as "black", we do know that at least in the beginning they had close biological affinities with people in Sudan and the Horn of Africa:

Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000–3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kuhorsehockyes, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians [referring to a Late Period series from 664–341 BC] or ancient or modern southern Europeans.

— S.O.Y. Keita and AJ Boyce, “ The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians”, Egypt in Africa (1996: pp. 25–27)

To be fair, younger and more northerly Egyptian remains tend to show a more "diverse" pattern, which shouldn't be surprising given northern Egypt's border with the Levant (it's a bit like how Ethiopians and Somalis have some admixture with Arabs across the Red Sea). But what we think of as "ancient Egyptian civilization" had its roots in the southern part of the country during the predynastic period, so it should be safe to say the people living there at that time represent the closest thing to the "original" Egyptians.

Whether those people would be what you would call "black", given their affinities to Sudanese and Horn Africans, is up to you of course.

 

[Agent327]

Obviously people living several millennia ago aren't going to refer to themselves using modern racial terminology. Race as a social construct didn't exist back then. You do have the ancient Greeks describing Egyptians as melas which literally translates to "black", but they seem to have used that word for all darker-skinned peoples (e.g. Indians as well as Africans).

Yes. Only by that time a significant influx of Nubians would have taken place already. Ancient Egypt started roughly two millennia before anyone ever heard of Greek civilization. So 'ancient Greeks' is a bit relative in this case.

You could have mentioned an older external source though: the Bible. Very specific about black-coloured people, and especially Exodus is quite anti-Egyptian in its views. and yet, strangely, not a single mention of these New Kingdom Egyptians being darker skinned than the Hebrew authors.

In the meantime, while we might not have "conclusive evidence" that ancient Egyptians self-identified as "black", we do know that at least in the beginning they had close biological affinities with people in Sudan and the Horn of Africa:

Not really. What we have is genetic evidence that ancient Egyptians were closer to sub-Saharan Africans than to Mediterranean populations. Now, the interesting thing about that is the closer to. It's not the same as identical with. Since ancient (pre-)Egyptians would have come from the Sahara - not the Sudan or Somalia (the inhabitants of which they considered peculiar enough to send some specimens to pharaoh), that merely suggests the Sahara was populated from the south rather than the north.

Biological affinities is a bit of a euphemism here. Ultimately, all humans are the same species. Geneticists estimate that at some point homo sapiens consisted of a mere 10,000 specimen. Isn't it wonderful we have gotten such diversity from that?

To be fair, younger and more northerly Egyptian remains tend to show a more "diverse" pattern, which shouldn't be surprising given northern Egypt's border with the Levant (it's a bit like how Ethiopians and Somalis have some admixture with Arabs across the Red Sea). But what we think of as "ancient Egyptian civilization" had its roots in the southern part of the country during the predynastic period, so it should be safe to say the people living there at that time represent the closest thing to the "original" Egyptians.

No, it doesn't. What we know is that ancient Egypt was united from the south. Not that northern Egyptians are less Egyptian than southern Egyptians, which is, frankly, nonsensical..

Whether those people would be what you would call "black", given their affinities to Sudanese and Horn Africans, is up to you of course.

No, it's not.

So, summing up, you have a quote from a book published in 1998 as 'evidence' that ancient Egyptians were Africans. Interestingly, we already knew that. The claim that ancient Egyptians were 'of Sudanese or Somalian' descent suggests rather a lack of knowledge of the actual origins of the ancient Egyptian habitation pattern.

But hey, it's your mod. You can make as many 'African' civilizations as you like. Just keep in mind that the evidence for this Black Egypt myth is rather thin, to put it mildly.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Hello. This is my first post on the forum. I'm not particularly interested in this game however I would like to join the debate.....

Having African origins (which is indisputable) doesn't mean they were black though. Perhaps more importantly, ancient Egyptians didn't consider themselves Africans, nor Asians, They considered themselves something distinct and in between. Lastly, I don't know of any civilization that would depict its members in a skin colour that they didn't have. If ancient Egyptians were black, why would they consistently depict themselves as not being black? It simply makes no sense.

If you look at the "Mural of Races" from the Tomb of Seti I that Kahotep posted you see the the Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as uniformly brown in contrast to lighter-skinned and dark-skinned neighbors. We know that the people south of Egypt in the Sudan were very dark and the people east and west of them were very light so it stands to reason that this was an attempt to portray realistic skintones and not symbolic.

Obviously Ancient Egyptian art was stylized. They did not have proper portraits and some of the art is obviously not realistic including skin color (ex. blue and green skin) however one observation that can easily be made is that medium or reddish brown was the shade the Ancient Egyptians chose for themselves in contrast to their neighbors. They did have a convention of depicting Egyptian men as brown and women as yellow however during the Amarna period both genders were painted as brown showing that the earlier difference in art was a convention.

This video shows a variety of Egyptian tomb paintings from different periods showing that most of the artwork depicted the Egyptians as brown:

Now what relevance does this have to whether the ancient Egyptians were Black? Dark-skinned Africans have a range of complexions from the very dark brown Sudanese, to the medium brown Somali and Ethiopians to the light brown Khoisan. Many Sub-Saharan African populations have dark brown skin. Black is a reference to their skin color which was very dark compared to Europeans who called them Black but no African population has literally jet black skin.

Now can you answer this question honestly. Looking at the skin tone from the art in the video and the mural which man is closer to the brown color the Ancient Egyptians chose for themselves?

This man?



Or this man?

Ancient Egyptians also sometimes appear as black or blue - symbolic of death and rebirth, and males were habitually portrayed darker skinned than females. I'm not sure what your point is. As already mentioned, they saw themselves as distinct from either black Africans or Asians (Asiatics, as they called them), as well as Libyans. Now, the latter two would have been completely redundant if ancient Egyptians were actually black.

Apart from that, not all black Africans are actually black. They range from dark brownish to indeed jet black. (Posting a picture of Barack Obama isn't really relevant here - except for the fact that he is 'black' because he is seen as black - so that is more about racism than skin pigmentation. He has also been called 'an Arab', so that doesn't help much either.)

The Ancient Egyptians didn't have a concept of "African" or "Asian."

They identified people by their nationality, language and culture and had their own words for these groups.

If the Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as brown then why can't we consider that a clue as to what their actual complexion was? On a side note Obama being called an Arab was famously done during a Town Hall meeting with John McCain by an elderly White woman who said she read about him on the internet and didn't trust him because he was an Arab. This is obviously a racist statement rooted in Islamophobia and I believe the source of her accusation is an article I read which claimed Obama was an Arab-American because his ancestry legally made him so. This was a total and complete lie as Obama's father was a member of the Luo tribe in Kenya and had no known Arab ancestry. The article provided no sources and was clearly a deliberate attempt to spread rumors about Obama's ancestry to encourage racial hatred against him which was insulting to both Obama and real Arabs. As for Obama being called Black this is a tradition that is rooted in the American One Drop Rule which certainly has a racist origin but has been embraced by the African-American community because of the history of having partial Sub-Saharan African defining how people are labeled and treated (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were fairly light-skinned themselves due to mixed ancestry even though both of their parents were African-Americans but if you tried to deny they were Black based on this most Americans would think you are crazy).

I believe Kahotep's point about Obama is that he has mixed ancestry but is considered to be Black yet he is lighter-skinned than the Ancient Egyptians' depictions of themselves. So why wouldn't the Ancient Egyptians fit in to the classification of Black going by Western standards?

Taking art at face value (never a good idea when unaware of how it is meant) and pointing to symbolic use of colours are two different things. I'm sure you can find a picture or two to substantiate your belief that ancient Egyptians were black. (As mentioned, that they were African in origin isn't really in dispute.) But once again, if they actually were black, shouldn't they at least acknowledge this themselves? We have no conclusive evidence for this - neither textual nor pictorial.

The pictorial evidence is substantial if you accept the reality that the Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as brown-skinned in most of their art. The textual evidence may not be significant because the Ancient Egyptians did not have the modern concept of race we have today. They saw differences in skin color and facial features among other biological characteristics that everyone can readily observe but they didn't necessarily associate it with their or any group's identity. You can find translations of Ancient Egyptian text that appear to reference skin color depending on the translator but these translations are suspect given that modern scholars did not live during the time period of the Ancient Egyptians and didn't know the meaning of their language. The Ancient Egyptian language was considered dead for centuries until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone which helped scholars translate hieroglyphs using Ancient Greek text. The modern Coptic language is also a descendant of Ancient Egyptians but if you didn't grow up in the culture you don't exactly know what the meaning behind the text is.

A Senegalese scholar named Cheikh Anta Diop spent a great amount of time trying to prove the Black Egyptian hypothesis and claimed that the Ancient Egyptians referred to themselves as Black (Kmemou=Black people, Kmt nu = Black nation - the name of Ancient Egypt). Other scholars disagree and claim that Kmt refers to the black soil of the land not to the ancient Egyptians as Black people in a racial context.

I personally feel there isn't a definitive answer to this which is why I prefer to stick to the artistic and scientific evidence.

Yes. Only by that time a significant influx of Nubians would have taken place already. Ancient Egypt started roughly two millennia before anyone ever heard of Greek civilization. So 'ancient Greeks' is a bit relative in this case.

You could have mentioned an older external source though: the Bible. Very specific about black-coloured people, and especially Exodus is quite anti-Egyptian in its views. and yet, strangely, not a single mention of these New Kingdom Egyptians being darker skinned than the Hebrew authors.

I don't consider either the Ancient Greek text nor the Bible to be reliable either for the same reasons I gave about the Ancient Egyptian text. People living today did not grow up in those cultures and even though we have translations of ancient texts the context is often difficult to understand. Classical Greek civilization developed after native Ancient Egyptian civilization had already fell lasting for thousands of years. I consider the Bible to be a book of faith and religion that is not necessarily historically or factually accurate.

There are very few passages in the Bible that reference skin color at all and the Hebrew (assuming the story in The Book of Exodus is even true) would not necessarily have cared to make observations about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians. The scripture by the way is less anti-Egyptian and more pro-Hebrew in that the Hebrew are portrayed as victims of an oppressive Pharaoh who had them enslaved when they came in to the land of Egypt although originally the Hebrew and Egyptians got along fine. The Egyptians are portrayed as harsh to the Hebrew and discriminated against them but this isn't exactly a derogatory portrayal taken at face value.

I should note that in the Table of Nations there are texts that suggest that the Ancient Egyptians were closely related to other African people as they are considered descendants of Ham however that tells us nothing about skin color.

Not really. What we have is genetic evidence that ancient Egyptians were closer to sub-Saharan Africans than to Mediterranean populations. Now, the interesting thing about that is the closer to. It's not the same as identical with. Since ancient (pre-)Egyptians would have come from the Sahara - not the Sudan or Somalia (the inhabitants of which they considered peculiar enough to send some specimens to pharaoh), that merely suggests the Sahara was populated from the south rather than the north.

The genetic and other biological evidence suggests that the Ancient Egyptians had close biological affinities to their more Southerly neighbors in Africa rather than Southern Europeans and Southwest Asians (so-called Mediterraneans). The Ancient Egyptian explorations in to interior Africa were primarily concentrated to a land called Punt which modern archeologists and historians believe was located around Somalia and Eritrea. What is interesting is that the Ancient Egyptians called this place "The Land of The Gods" and considered it their ancestral homeland. Many linguists postulate that Afroasiatic language family of which the Ancient Egyptian language forms its own branch along with Coptic (dubbed "Egyptian") originated in the Horn of Africa region. What the archeological and linguistic evidence indicates is that the ancestors of the Ancient Egyptians came to the Nile Valley from tropical East Africa which is consistent with the Ancient Egyptian's own historical records and biological evidence.

Biological affinities is a bit of a euphemism here. Ultimately, all humans are the same species. Geneticists estimate that at some point homo sapiens consisted of a mere 10,000 specimen. Isn't it wonderful we have gotten such diversity from that?

That's irrelevant to the point though. Yes, we are the same species however the term biological affinity is used by Biological Anthropologists to make inferences about population relationships within the human species. In other words which populations were the Ancient Egyptians most biologically similar to among their neighbors? What physical characteristics did they have which differentiate them from other populations?
This term is preferred by many Anthropologists over traditional racial classification which relies on stereotyped thinking.

This is a good paper to read on the subject:

Title: Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships
Journal: History in Africa Volume 20 January 1993, pp. 129-154
Download Link: https://mega.nz/#!XMN0wDZL!8-muaVuTg71a3oFC8ItYEHMeA6FZAoNzxHajzvPZsl0

No, it doesn't. What we know is that ancient Egypt was united from the south. Not that northern Egyptians are less Egyptian than southern Egyptians, which is, frankly, nonsensical..

I don't think that is what Kahotep is saying, only that the Northern Egyptians may have been more phenotypically diverse than the Southern Egyptians and that the architects of Ancient Egyptian civilization came from the South.

No, it's not.

So, summing up, you have a quote from a book published in 1998 as 'evidence' that ancient Egyptians were Africans. Interestingly, we already knew that. The claim that ancient Egyptians were 'of Sudanese or Somalian' descent suggests rather a lack of knowledge of the actual origins of the ancient Egyptian habitation pattern.

But hey, it's your mod. You can make as many 'African' civilizations as you like. Just keep in mind that the evidence for this Black Egypt myth is rather thin, to put it mildly.

I think you should read the paper for yourself. The evidence for the Ancient Egyptians having a strong biological connection to their neighbors to the South is substantial. If the date of those articles is considered to be too old for you you should know that Dr. Shomarka Keita was consulted by National Geographic Magazine around the time of the controversy surrounding the reconstruction of King Tut and gave the following statements in this video on race and genetics as it concerns the Ancient Egyptians.

He also gave a presentation at The University of Cambridge on the bio-cultural origins of Ancient Egypt which you can find segments of on Youtube.

I also spoke to Dr. Keita by email for clarification on his conclusions about what the Ancient Egyptians looked like. Here are some key quotes:

Question: Were the Ancient Egyptians predominately dark-skinned throughout the Dynastic period and were they predominately African biologically (a pictorial reference to modern populations to illustrate what the majority looked like would be helpful)?

Keita: No one can say exactly what colour they were, but one might reasonably say that the typical Upper Egyptian to Nubian color would have been the modal colour in most of the country.

Question: What is your basis for stating that the Ancient Egyptian statuary is "Somali-like" in appearance?

Keita: Best way to think of this is in terms of parallelism or microconvergent evolution. Somali males are predominantly of E group lineages; African in origin. Look for yourself at the Egyptian statuary for the architecture of faces if you trust the statuary, and look at Greek or Roman statuary. Go over the faces point by point, of course there is variability, but look for a distillation. Look at faces of Oromo, a range of Nilotic folk etc, and you might be able to see what I mean.

I think I see what he means. Do you?

King Tut Bust



Somali Man



Alexander the Great Bust

 

[Agent327]

This video shows a variety of Egyptian tomb paintings from different periods showing that most of the artwork depicted the Egyptians as brown: (...)

Now what relevance does this have to whether the ancient Egyptians were Black? Dark-skinned Africans have a range of complexions from the very dark brown Sudanese, to the medium brown Somali and Ethiopians to the light brown Khoisan. Many Sub-Saharan African populations have dark brown skin. Black is a reference to their skin color which was very dark compared to Europeans who called them Black but no African population has literally jet black skin.

Hm.

The Ancient Egyptians didn't have a concept of "African" or "Asian."

They identified people by their nationality, language and culture and had their own words for these groups.

They referred to people from West Asia as 'asiatics' (aamu), they identified Libyans, as well as Nubians (from nub, gold) and Hyksos (rulers from foreign lands). None of which are nationalities.

I believe Kahotep's point about Obama is that he has mixed ancestry but is considered to be Black yet he is lighter-skinned than the Ancient Egyptians' depictions of themselves. So why wouldn't the Ancient Egyptians fit in to the classification of Black going by Western standards?

Because Western standards don't apply here. Nor should they. What matters - and should matter only - is if ancient Egyptians considered themselves black. Which they didn't.

The pictorial evidence is substantial if you accept the reality that the Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as brown-skinned in most of their art. The textual evidence may not be significant because the Ancient Egyptians did not have the modern concept of race we have today. They saw differences in skin color and facial features among other biological characteristics that everyone can readily observe but they didn't necessarily associate it with their or any group's identity. You can find translations of Ancient Egyptian text that appear to reference skin color depending on the translator but these translations are suspect given that modern scholars did not live during the time period of the Ancient Egyptians and didn't know the meaning of their language.

That's simply nonsensical. That words (or characters, or pictograms such as hieroglyphs) can have different meanings is nothing special.

The Ancient Egyptian language was considered dead for centuries until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone which helped scholars translate hieroglyphs using Ancient Greek text. The modern Coptic language is also a descendant of Ancient Egyptians but if you didn't grow up in the culture you don't exactly know what the meaning behind the text is.

Ancient Egyptian was already a dead language by the time of the New Kingdom. Coptic derives from hieratic, which is a cursive from of hieroglyphic writing.

A Senegalese scholar named Cheikh Anta Diop spent a great amount of time trying to prove the Black Egyptian hypothesis and claimed that the Ancient Egyptians referred to themselves as Black (Kmemou=Black people, Kmt nu = Black nation - the name of Ancient Egypt). Other scholars disagree and claim that Kmt refers to the black soil of the land not to the ancient Egyptians as Black people in a racial context.[/QUOTE]

Actually, most scholars disagree with this notion. (Once again, nation is a modern concept). Cf. Nubia, which derives from nub't = goldland. Among scholars it's pretty much common knowledge that kmt nu refers to the land, not the people living on that land.

I personally feel there isn't a definitive answer to this which is why I prefer to stick to the artistic and scientific evidence.

As well one should.

I don't consider either the Ancient Greek text nor the Bible to be reliable either for the same reasons I gave about the Ancient Egyptian text. People living today did not grow up in those cultures and even though we have translations of ancient texts the context is often difficult to understand. Classical Greek civilization developed after native Ancient Egyptian civilization had already fell lasting for thousands of years. I consider the Bible to be a book of faith and religion that is not necessarily historically or factually accurate.

Scholars tend to find the so-called historical books a valuable source of information - especially if corroborated from other sources.

There are very few passages in the Bible that reference skin color at all and the Hebrew (assuming the story in The Book of Exodus is even true) would not necessarily have cared to make observations about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians. The scripture by the way is less anti-Egyptian and more pro-Hebrew in that the Hebrew are portrayed as victims of an oppressive Pharaoh who had them enslaved when they came in to the land of Egypt although originally the Hebrew and Egyptians got along fine. The Egyptians are portrayed as harsh to the Hebrew and discriminated against them but this isn't exactly a derogatory portrayal taken at face value.

I'm not quite sure what you are arguing here. Either Exodus is a source of information or it isn't. The point is that nowhere in the Bible is there any reference as Egyptians as descendants of the black tribe. Surely, if they were indeed black there would be at least one reference to that, as it's rather hard to miss. It follows then that the Hebrews didn't consider Egyptians as being black. Which completely conforms with how Egyptians saw themselves.

I should note that in the Table of Nations there are texts that suggest that the Ancient Egyptians were closely related to other African people as they are considered descendants of Ham however that tells us nothing about skin color.

Nor does 'closely related' tell us much. According to the Bible all tribes are originally closely related.

The genetic and other biological evidence suggests that the Ancient Egyptians had close biological affinities to their more Southerly neighbors in Africa rather than Southern Europeans and Southwest Asians (so-called Mediterraneans). The Ancient Egyptian explorations in to interior Africa were primarily concentrated to a land called Punt which modern archeologists and historians believe was located around Somalia and Eritrea. What is interesting is that the Ancient Egyptians called this place "The Land of The Gods" and considered it their ancestral homeland. Many linguists postulate that Afroasiatic language family of which the Ancient Egyptian language forms its own branch along with Coptic (dubbed "Egyptian") originated in the Horn of Africa region. What the archeological and linguistic evidence indicates is that the ancestors of the Ancient Egyptians came to the Nile Valley from tropical East Africa which is consistent with the Ancient Egyptian's own historical records and biological evidence.

Actually, it isn't. Palaeoarchaeology suggests rather, as mentioned, that the Nile valley (the entirety of it) was populated only after the Sahara got a lot drier. And that, in turn, suggests a habitation from the East rather than the South. That doesn't imply that these populations couldn't be closely related though.

I don't think that is what Kahotep is saying, only that the Northern Egyptians may have been more phenotypically diverse than the Southern Egyptians and that the architects of Ancient Egyptian civilization came from the South.

Which is still incorrect. Egypt was unified from the south. Whether their architects were from South or North Egypt doesn't seem particularly relevant.

I think you should read the paper for yourself. The evidence for the Ancient Egyptians having a strong biological connection to their neighbors to the South is substantial. If the date of those articles is considered to be too old for you you should know that Dr. Shomarka Keita was consulted by National Geographic Magazine around the time of the controversy surrounding the reconstruction of King Tut and gave the following statements in this video on race and genetics as it concerns the Ancient Egyptians. (...)

I also spoke to Dr. Keita by email for clarification on his conclusions about what the Ancient Egyptians looked like. Here are some key quotes: (...)]

There have been at least two CFC threads on this topic. Mr. Keita was extensively quoted. There really is nothing new being mentioned here. Genetic research showed that ancient Egyptians were more closely related to sub-Saharan groups. It was concluded from that that 'ancient Egyptians were black'. Sadly, ancient Egyptians thought otherwise about themselves. As you mentioned, racism is a modern concept. That doesn't mean it didn't exist. But ancient Egyptians didn't identify themselves with black people. Primarily they identified themselves as Egyptians. I think any honest scholar should honour that. Egypt was a unique civilization.

Now, if someone wants to make (ancient) Egyptians more dark-brown coloured and less 'European' looking, that's perfectly fine. They weren't Europeans, and they weren't Asians. They were African. But mostly, they were Egyptians.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Hm.


View attachment 462766

Although not a real picture many Africans do look like that and it is still very dark brown, not quite jet black.

They referred to people from West Asia as 'asiatics' (aamu), they identified Libyans, as well as Nubians (from nub, gold) and Hyksos (rulers from foreign lands). None of which are nationalities.

Asiatic is a European term. Like I said they identified people by their nationality, language and culture. You could add ethnicity and region to that list as well. The point is that they didn't have modern ideas about race (e.g. groups defined by external physical characteristics).

Because Western standards don't apply here. Nor should they. What matters - and should matter only - is if ancient Egyptians considered themselves black. Which they didn't.

What matters to me in this discussion is what they actually looked like. When you try to say that we should only label the ancient Egyptians by their own classification schemes and ignore Western standards of racial classification you are playing fast and loose with terms. If you concede that the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned Africans with the medium to dark brown complexion they chose for themselves in their art then we are in agreement and the discussion is over.

That's simply nonsensical. That words (or characters, or pictograms such as hieroglyphs) can have different meanings is nothing special.

The point is that our interpretation of what the text are saying may not be accurate. That is very relevant to discussion since you brought up textual evidence.

Ancient Egyptian was already a dead language by the time of the New Kingdom. Coptic derives from hieratic, which is a cursive from of hieroglyphic writing.

The Ancient Egyptian language certainly underwent changes over the centuries in written form but was still in use during the New Kingdom. The point is that we don't know the exact proper interpretation of what is being said in ancient hieroglyphs which is why modern translations are suspect at best. I say this because there are some translations floating around by James Henry Breasted and others that White Supremacists are putting on their sites claiming that the Ancient Egyptians were racist against the Nubians and considered themselves to be a different race.

Actually, most scholars disagree with this notion. (Once again, nation is a modern concept). Cf. Nubia, which derives from nub't = goldland. Among scholars it's pretty much common knowledge that kmt nu refers to the land, not the people living on that land.

I haven't heard enough scholars talk about this to know what is reliable information but the point is that scholars have interpreted the translations of the text differently.

Scholars tend to find the so-called historical books a valuable source of information - especially if corroborated from other sources.

Certainly, but do you know of any source that corroborates the story of Exodus outside of the Bible?

Archeologists and historians say they can't find any evidence of the Hebrew being slaves in Egypt.

I'm not quite sure what you are arguing here. Either Exodus is a source of information or it isn't. The point is that nowhere in the Bible is there any reference as Egyptians as descendants of the black tribe. Surely, if they were indeed black there would be at least one reference to that, as it's rather hard to miss. It follows then that the Hebrews didn't consider Egyptians as being black. Which completely conforms with how Egyptians saw themselves.

There is no black tribe described in the Bible. The only reference I am aware of to a group's skin color is a verse about Ethiopians being unable to change the color of their skin.


Jeremiah 13:23 - Can an Ethiopian[a] change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. (NIV)

Footnote:

a. Hebrew Cuhorsehockye (probably a person from the upper Nile region)

Source: Biblegateway.com

Now if we assume that this is accurate it stands to reason that the Hebrew did not have the same skin color as the Ethiopians (Cuhorsehockyes) who if they are referring to people of the Upper Nile were clearly dark-skinned ("Black").

What is interesting to note though since you invoked the Bible is that the Bible says that Egypt and Cush are closely related. Their patriarchs were brothers and sons of Ham. Egypt is actually referred to as the land of Ham.

Genesis 10:6 - The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan. (NIV)

Psalm 105:23 - Then Israel entered Egypt; Jacob resided as a foreigner in the land of Ham. (NIV)

Now again I personally find the Bible suspect as a source mainly because of the supernatural aspects which I am very skeptical of but also the lack of corroborating evidence from outside historical sources. However since you brought up the Bible never referring to the Ancient Egyptians as Black or descendants of a Black tribe I should bring up that many Christian scholars consider the Hamites to be Black Africans (although some Eurocentric historians revised their views to say the Hamites were White which you would be aware of if you're familiar with the Hamitic Hypothesis). So we can't conclusively say that the Ancient Egyptians were not dark-skinned based on the Bible. The authors of the Bible did not seem to be fixated on skin color and did not have modern concepts of race. They clearly noticed these differences as they encountered people with different complexions but they didn't give social importance to them and probably wouldn't make a point to talk about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians no matter what they looked like.

Nor does 'closely related' tell us much. According to the Bible all tribes are originally closely related.

True. However the verses I quoted create a conundrum for those trying to argue that the Ancient Egyptians couldn't be Black because the Bible doesn't say so considering they recognized that the Cuhorsehockyes had a different skin color to Hebrew and the Bible says that Cush and Egypt (Mizraim) were brothers. You could argue that maybe they weren't Black at the time but that's really creating a huge mess that is probably not worth getting in to. I prefer to look at the artistic and scientific evidence as I said and I am glad you agree.

Actually, it isn't. Palaeoarchaeology suggests rather, as mentioned, that the Nile valley (the entirety of it) was populated only after the Sahara got a lot drier. And that, in turn, suggests a habitation from the East rather than the South. That doesn't imply that these populations couldn't be closely related though.

This idea has actually been challenged by recent archeological research which indicates that the Ancient Egyptian civilization was fundamentally African and populated by southern pastoralists. I discussed this with Keita once by email and he sent me this paper on the subject:

Abstract

The African origins of Egyptian civilisation lie in an important cultural horizon, the ‘primary pastoral community’, which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese parts of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BC. A re-examination of the chronology, assisted by new AMS determinations from Neolithic sites inMiddle Egypt, has charted the detailed development of these new kinds of society. The resulting picture challenges recent studies that emphasise climate change and environmental stress as drivers of cultural adaptation in
north-east Africa. It also emphasises the crucial role of funerary practices and body decoration.

Source: Cultural convergence in the Neolithic of the Nile Valley: a prehistoric perspective on Egypt’s place in Africa Antiquity Publications Ltd. ANTIQUITY 88 (2014): 95–111

Link

There have been at least two CFC threads on this topic. Mr. Keita was extensively quoted. There really is nothing new being mentioned here. Genetic research showed that ancient Egyptians were more closely related to sub-Saharan groups. It was concluded from that that 'ancient Egyptians were black'. Sadly, ancient Egyptians thought otherwise about themselves. As you mentioned, racism is a modern concept. That doesn't mean it didn't exist. But ancient Egyptians didn't identify themselves with black people. Primarily they identified themselves as Egyptians. I think any honest scholar should honour that. Egypt was a unique civilization.

Now, if someone wants to make (ancient) Egyptians more dark-brown coloured and less 'European' looking, that's perfectly fine. They weren't Europeans, and they weren't Asians. They were African. But mostly, they were Egyptians.

I agree that Egypt was a unique civilization but it did have connections to its neighbors and its bio-cultural origins seem to lie with areas south of Egypt. From the beginning you seem to be equating "Black" with jet black skin color which neither I nor Kahotep ever argued. What we both agree on is that the Ancient Egyptian people were dark-skinned Africans who physically resembled ethnic groups in the Sudan and Horn of Africa as well as modern Southern Egypt around areas such as Luxor and Aswan rather than modern Northern Egyptians around areas such as Cairo (because Cosmopolitan Lower Egypt is the region where most immigration over the centuries since the New Kingdom period occurred following various invasions of Egypt).

Although his language is very racial we are essentially saying what this Egyptian man is saying:

This video also gives interesting insight on racial identity and the Ancient Egyptians from an Egyptian:

If you are agreeing with Keita's research then there is nothing further to discuss. I will leave you with a response from Keita on how Egypt was connected to its neighbors rather than having nothing to do with the rest of Africa as Zahi Hawass insisted.

Last month I contacted Dr. Shomarka Keita to ask him to comment on the statements made by Zahi Hawass in the media on the race of the Ancient Egyptians, particularly his comments about the work of Cheikh Anta Diop in a short audio interview that was put on the internet.

I provided Keita with a transcription of the interview which I will post below. If you click the link below and go to the bottom of the page you can hear Hawass himself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/3chapter5.shtml


Question: How would you describe your reaction to the views of Diop?

Hawass: Of course Cheikh Anta Diop was completely wrong. This is a kind of theory that he developed, it doesn't mean...look at the features of the people, the Black, in Egypt today. Their nose, their lips is completely different from the Negro. And therefore Cheikh Anta Diop's theory, he did it I think at a time to please the Black Americans who really feel they are a minority and wanted to be connected with this place, with a civilization like Egypt. After Cheikh Anta Diop did make his theory there was a conference made by UNCESCO and the recommendation at the end of the conference that this cannot be accepted and they said we need more work in prehistoric times to understand more about the origin of the people.


Question: So how would you define the ancient Egyptians? They were people who came, who were indigenous to this area...

Hawass: I believe that those people settled in the Nile Valley since the old Stone Age, more than 100,000 B.C. and they settled by the Nile. Those people when they went to the desert to hunt animals and to make their own tools and to invent fire and they really always come to the Nile. Then they looked at the Nile and they used this source to make their civilization. And if you look at their religious belief it's unique. From the predynastic period they found out for a king to become a God he has to do certain things in his life: build a tomb, temples for the worship of the Gods, smiting the enemies of Egypt, unification of the two lands, giving offering to the Gods; if you do that you will become a God. And therefore I say all the time that pyramids built Egypt. Because building the tombs made the Egyptians to create technology and astronomy and architecture.


Question: So how do you react to people who say that Egypt is an African civilization?

Hawass: I really do not believe that Egypt is an African civilization. I believe that Egyptian civilization was unique. Egypt is in Africa but Egyptian civilization has nothing to do with the African cultures. Because of many, many, many features if you look at the Pharonic period it's completely different from anything. If you look at the production or the technology that the Egyptians left it's completely different from any belief at any time. If you look at the Egyptian from the Anthropological point of view they are different from the African. And this is why I believe that Pharonic Egypt is completely unique, they have no connection with the African or even the Arabs; completely independent. And this is why even today Egyptians are Egyptians, That really doesn't mean that we speak Arabic that we can be Arabs. We are really, I feel personally, that we are related even today to the Pharaohs.


Keita asked me to summarize my familiarity with his work and how I felt his views differed from Diop and Hawass based on what I'd already read before giving a direct answer.

This was his response after I provided my summary....

Shomarka Keita:

Your summary is fair. Egypt emerged in Africa. Its people had connections to folks west and south and no doubt east, but the mix emerged in Africa. Linguistically and culturally it is connected to where it is. Hawass is Egyptocentric and implies no wider connections at any time depth which is narrow minded. The early Egyptians seen as a nationality were physically and probably linguistically diverse.

The issue is now genealogical connections and process/change for all biological and cultural dimensions. Modern Egyptians, specifically males, clearly are related to E group African populations in the main, but some also have B group.

Bottom line:

Diop wrote without benefit of the most recent work. His use of black and his inconsistencies are problematic. The skin from one mummy cannot be generalized. Hawass seems to equate African with black instead of speaking to connections.


Keita also recommended the following book to me on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Early-Egypt-Transformations-North-East/dp/0521835860

The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformations in North-East Africa, c.10,000 to 2,650 BC (Cambridge World Archaeology)

 

[Agent327]

Although not a real picture many Africans do look like that and it is still very dark brown, not quite jet black.

That's just one example. There actually are tribes that actually are jet black. But feel free to pretend otherwise.

Asiatic is a European term. Like I said they identified people by their nationality, language and culture. You could add ethnicity and region to that list as well. The point is that they didn't have modern ideas about race (e.g. groups defined by external physical characteristics).

Actually, 'asiatic' is the literal translation of aamu. And I wouldn't use nationality in the first place, as it's a modern term.

What matters to me in this discussion is what they actually looked like. When you try to say that we should only label the ancient Egyptians by their own classification schemes and ignore Western standards of racial classification you are playing fast and loose with terms. If you concede that the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned Africans with the medium to dark brown complexion they chose for themselves in their art then we are in agreement and the discussion is over.

You are aware that 'Western standards of racial classification' aren't based on biological characteristics? And as to what they looked like:

The point is that our interpretation of what the text are saying may not be accurate. That is very relevant to discussion since you brought up textual evidence.

Well, name some actual examples of things that might be wrongfully interpreted. If not, you're just being rather vague.

The Ancient Egyptian language certainly underwent changes over the centuries in written form but was still in use during the New Kingdom.

No, it wasn't. You can easily google this.

The point is that we don't know the exact proper interpretation of what is being said in ancient hieroglyphs which is why modern translations are suspect at best. I say this because there are some translations floating around by James Henry Breasted and others that White Supremacists are putting on their sites claiming that the Ancient Egyptians were racist against the Nubians and considered themselves to be a different race.

Excellent example. Unfortunately. the persons you name aren't egyptologists. Perhaps try again.

I haven't heard enough scholars talk about this to know what is reliable information but the point is that scholars have interpreted the translations of the text differently.

Well, it may surprise you to know scholars rarely agree on anything. This is why the term scientific consensus is used, and why, when you actually try to research something you may find things like 'most scholars'agree' and the mention of dissenting opinions.

Certainly, but do you know of any source that corroborates the story of Exodus outside of the Bible?

It's not the story of Exodus that is historically accurate, but certain specific details that are mentioned - and others that are blatantly absent. Exodus isn't one of the historical books though, so that's not a particularly good example.

Archeologists and historians say they can't find any evidence of the Hebrew being slaves in Egypt.

I don't see how that's relevant here.There is also no evidence of a pharaoh drowning while pursuing fleeing Hebrews.That's equally irrelevant though.

There is no black tribe described in the Bible. The only reference I am aware of to a group's skin color is a verse about Ethiopians being unable to change the color of their skin.

You mentioned one specific other example in your previous post. The tribe, according to the Bible, from which all black people descend.

Now if we assume that this is accurate it stands to reason that the Hebrew did not have the same skin color as the Ethiopians (Cuhorsehockyes) who if they are referring to people of the Upper Nile were clearly dark-skinned ("Black").

What is interesting to note though since you invoked the Bible is that the Bible says that Egypt and Cush are closely related. Their patriarchs were brothers and sons of Ham. Egypt is actually referred to as the land of Ham.

Genesis 10:6 - The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan. (NIV)

Psalm 105:23 - Then Israel entered Egypt; Jacob resided as a foreigner in the land of Ham. (NIV)

You are aware that this would be the New Kingdom era? Possibly even later? And I wouldn't use the Bible as a source on genetic relations to begin with. Which is illustrated by yourself:

Now again I personally find the Bible suspect as a source mainly because of the supernatural aspects which I am very skeptical of but also the lack of corroborating evidence from outside historical sources. However since you brought up the Bible never referring to the Ancient Egyptians as Black or descendants of a Black tribe I should bring up that many Christian scholars consider the Hamites to be Black Africans (although some Eurocentric historians revised their views to say the Hamites were White which you would be aware of if you're familiar with the Hamitic Hypothesis). So we can't conclusively say that the Ancient Egyptians were not dark-skinned based on the Bible. The authors of the Bible did not seem to be fixated on skin color and did not have modern concepts of race. They clearly noticed these differences as they encountered people with different complexions but they didn't give social importance to them and probably wouldn't make a point to talk about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians no matter what they looked like.

This idea has actually been challenged by recent archeological research which indicates that the Ancient Egyptian civilization was fundamentally African and populated by southern pastoralists. I discussed this with Keita once by email and he sent me this paper on the subject:

The idea has been challenged - again, by Keita. That doesn't mean it has been superseded.

I agree that Egypt was a unique civilization but it did have connections to its neighbors and its bio-cultural origins seem to lie with areas south of Egypt. From the beginning you seem to be equating "Black" with jet black skin color which neither I nor Kahotep ever argued. What we both agree on is that the Ancient Egyptian people were dark-skinned Africans who physically resembled ethnic groups in the Sudan and Horn of Africa as well as modern Southern Egypt around areas such as Luxor and Aswan rather than modern Northern Egyptians around areas such as Cairo (because Cosmopolitan Lower Egypt is the region where most immigration over the centuries since the New Kingdom period occurred following various invasions of Egypt).

You are now simply misrepresenting what I said. But apart from that, the souhern neighbours of Egypt would be primarily Nubia. Even if we extend that further, there is no sign of anything on the scale of Egypt's civilization to be found there. In fact, Nubia for a very long time was influenced by Egyptian civilization. Which, to be true, is hardly surprising, since there isn't anything like Egyptian civilization in the entirety of Africa. The wealth of the Old Kingdom was such that silver was valued over gold, because it was rarer.

If you are agreeing with Keita's research then there is nothing further to discuss. I will leave you with a response from Keita on how Egypt was connected to its neighbors rather than having nothing to do with the rest of Africa as Zahi Hawass insisted.

It's not Keita's research I disagree with, but his conclusions.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

That's just one example. There actually are tribes that actually are jet black. But feel free to pretend otherwise.

You could post pictures to illustrate your point. I'm not denying that there are very dark Africans however just like Europeans don't literally have White skin dark-skinned Africans are varying shades of brown albeit very dark brown but not jet black.

Actually, 'asiatic' is the literal translation of aamu. And I wouldn't use nationality in the first place, as it's a modern term.

Aamu is the name that the Ancient Egyptians used for their eastern neighbors and is generally associated with Near Eastern cultures however "Asiatic" is a modern term that scholars have used for ancient cultures of the Middle East. The Ancient Egyptians did not have a concept of "Africa" or "Asia" as we understand those terms.

You are aware that 'Western standards of racial classification' aren't based on biological characteristics?

Western standards of racial classification are socially constructed and associate biological characteristics with cultural characteristics assuming a common link. This is a good article on the subject.

Conceptualizing human variation Nature Genetics 36, S17 - S20 (2004)

'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context.The term is often used colloquially to refer to a range of human groupings. Religious, cultural, social, national, ethnic, linguistic, genetic, geographical and anatomical groups have been and sometimes still are called 'races.' In anthropology, the meaning of race became formalized for humans and restricted to units based on biological variation in keeping with general zoological practice8, 9. Classifications were based on somatic traits.

And as to what they looked like:

View attachment 462787

Aesthetically speaking the facial features of the bust of Nefertiti is consistent with the physical characteristics of tropical East African ethnic groups such as Somali which is exemplified by the Somali model Iman's portrayal of an Ancient Egyptian Queen in Michael Jackson's music video "Remember the Time" using Nefertiti's "Berlin Bust" as the basis for her character design.



The paint on the bust appears to be faded which is not unusual for Ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Well, name some actual examples of things that might be wrongfully interpreted. If not, you're just being rather vague.

There's no point in interjecting quotes that may be wrongly interpreted in to this conversation. I've already referenced text by Breasted on the Ancient Egyptian view of Nubians which you can easily find on the internet.

No, it wasn't. You can easily google this.

What language did they speak during the New Kingdom then? Provide a source.

Excellent example. Unfortunately. the persons you name aren't egyptologists. Perhaps try again.

Breasted was actually a very prominent Egyptologist. There are others who have translated Ancient Egyptian text and drawn conclusions from them including those they claim had racial implications. During the 19th century racial theories concerning the Ancient Egyptians were very popular and this continued in to the 20th century with Western Egyptologists making very racist claims about Ancient Egypt.

Well, it may surprise you to know scholars rarely agree on anything. This is why the term scientific consensus is used, and why, when you actually try to research something you may find things like 'most scholars'agree' and the mention of dissenting opinions.

I'm well aware of this. My point is that the Egypt = Land of the Blacks vs. Black Land (soil) issue hasn't been given that much attention recently. I don't know of any modern scholars who talk about it any more.

I don't see how that's relevant here.There is also no evidence of a pharaoh drowning while pursuing fleeing Hebrews.That's equally irrelevant though.

My point is that if there is no evidence for the story how can we trust anything they said?

You mentioned one specific other example in your previous post. The tribe, according to the Bible, from which all black people descend.

Well keep in mind that that is a modern interpretation. The Hebrew mention the skin color of the Cuhorsehockyes being distinct but say nothing about the descendants of Ham all being Black.

You are aware that this would be the New Kingdom era? Possibly even later? And I wouldn't use the Bible as a source on genetic relations to begin with. Which is illustrated by yourself

Based on what I've read Joseph is believed to have entered Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period.

My point about the Table of Nations and genetic relations is that they depend on your interpretation. The verse I quoted about Ethiopians being unable to change their skin is one of the only clear references to skin color that I am aware of and it can be argued that if Cush and Egypt were brothers then they had the same skin color.

The bottom line is that the authors of the Bible say nothing about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians so we can't use the book to make an assessment of their skin either way. Skin color wasn't important to the Hebrew so if they were Black they wouldn't necessarily make a point to mention that.

The idea has been challenged - again, by Keita. That doesn't mean it has been superseded.

We can associate this with more disagreement in the academic community among scholars. The point is that this view has been challenged so you can't exactly say the archeological evidence lends no support to the bio-cultural origins of Egypt being in southern regions.

You are now simply misrepresenting what I said. But apart from that, the souhern neighbours of Egypt would be primarily Nubia. Even if we extend that further, there is no sign of anything on the scale of Egypt's civilization to be found there. In fact, Nubia for a very long time was influenced by Egyptian civilization. Which, to be true, is hardly surprising, since there isn't anything like Egyptian civilization in the entirety of Africa. The wealth of the Old Kingdom was such that silver was valued over gold, because it was rarer.

How am I misrepresenting what you have said? What did the ancient Egyptians look like in your opinion? That is a simple question. Never mind the definition of Black. Just provide a picture or list ethnic groups you think they looked like.

As for Egyptian civilization and how unique it was clearly as a civilization nothing in Africa outside of Nubia resembled Egypt just like nothing in Europe resembled Ancient Greece until Roman colonization. My point is that they had biological and cultural connections to their neighbors especially those south of Egypt.

It's not Keita's research I disagree with, but his conclusions.

What conclusions do you disagree with?

 

[Kahotep]

You are aware that 'Western standards of racial classification' aren't based on biological characteristics? And as to what they looked like:

Didn't you admit earlier that Egyptian art isn't to be taken at face value? If so, why post one bust of Nefertiti as an example of "what they looked like"?

It's not even the only ancient image of Nefertiti out there:



But you know what, I didn't start this thread calling the ancient Egyptians "black" in reference to the modern racial construct. I said they were African, and made a mod changing the Civ VI Egyptians' appearance from Mediterranean to native African. You don't seem to disagree with Egyptians being African to begin with, so the whole quibble over whether they would have personally identified as "black" in a pre-racial age is pointless.

These mental gymnastics of yours are just bizarre. Be honest, for some reason I can't completely fathom, you have some kind of aversion to ancient Egyptians being considered "black" in any sense of the word. Why is that?

 

[Agent327]

Didn't you admit earlier that Egyptian art isn't to be taken at face value? If so, why post one bust of Nefertiti as an example of "what they looked like"?

It's not even the only ancient image of Nefertiti out there

No, it's not. But the Amarna period introduced a more naturalistic style than had ever seen before in Egyptian art. That's why. And, unlike Akhenaten's 'heresy', this art style was basically kept as the new standard.
:

But you know what, I didn't start this thread calling the ancient Egyptians "black" in reference to the modern racial construct. I said they were African, and made a mod changing the Civ VI Egyptians' appearance from Mediterranean to native African. You don't seem to disagree with Egyptians being African to begin with, so the whole quibble over whether they would have personally identified as "black" in a pre-racial age is pointless.

These mental gymnastics of yours are just bizarre. Be honest, for some reason I can't completely fathom, you have some kind of aversion to ancient Egyptians being considered "black" in any sense of the word. Why is that?

Because they weren't. There's a difference between being African and being black. Indians are supposed to be white, but there are Indians that have darker skin pigmentation than quite a few blacks. Consider why president Obama is considered black (even though he's fairer skinned than quite a few 'whites'. The phenotype doesn't match our idea of what a 'white' person should look like. So basically, racism.

Contrary to what you claim, I've repeatedly stated there's no problem with portraying ancient Egyptians as Africans. Because that's what they were. What they were not, however, was black. Nubians were black. And ancient Egyptians knew very well that they were different from Nubians or 'Ethiopians' (originally an Egyptian generic term for anyone from south of Egypt). Not because of racism, however. But because of identity. What defines ancient Egyptians is not whether they were black or white, but that they were Egyptians, and belonged to a civilization unmatched anywhere in the ancient world.

You could post pictures to illustrate your point. I'm not denying that there are very dark Africans however just like Europeans don't literally have White skin dark-skinned Africans are varying shades of brown albeit very dark brown but not jet black.

As I've shown you're wrong with that last statement. It's understandable, as I also originally thought there's no such thing as an actual jet black African. But it's quite easy to find photos disproving that notion.

Aamu is the name that the Ancient Egyptians used for their eastern neighbors and is generally associated with Near Eastern cultures however "Asiatic" is a modern term that scholars have used for ancient cultures of the Middle East. The Ancient Egyptians did not have a concept of "Africa" or "Asia" as we understand those terms.

That's a matter of perspective. Our own terms Asia and Africa literally derive from the Roman provinces of that name.

Western standards of racial classification are socially constructed and associate biological characteristics with cultural characteristics assuming a common link.

'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context..

Which seems to be the problem with race. Biology doesn't recognizes races, as the characteristics of the various 'races' simply aren't significant.

The paint on the bust appears to be faded which is not unusual for Ancient Egyptian artifacts.

I'm quite aware of that. It's a bit different though when you actually see the Nefertiti bust in Berlin.

What language did they speak during the New Kingdom then? Provide a source.

We don't actually know. What we have is hieroglyphic script and the derived hieratic script. What we do know is that ancient Egyptian (like ancient Hebrew and Punic) doesn't use vowels. This makes the pronunciation a matter of conjecture (or educated guess, if you like). For instance, the southern capital which we know as Thebes was called Iwnw (where the I equals more or less the Hebrew iota).

Breasted was actually a very prominent Egyptologist. There are others who have translated Ancient Egyptian text and drawn conclusions from them including those they claim had racial implications. During the 19th century racial theories concerning the Ancient Egyptians were very popular and this continued in to the 20th century with Western Egyptologists making very racist claims about Ancient Egypt.

This is quite unsurprising, since racism coincided very much with the heyday of Western imperialism. That, however, doesn't mean that today its gone. It does mean one should be very cautious whenever the word 'race' pops up, since it has no scientific basis.

I'm well aware of this. My point is that the Egypt = Land of the Blacks vs. Black Land (soil) issue hasn't been given that much attention recently. I don't know of any modern scholars who talk about it any more.

That's because it's a non-issue. The name derives from the fertile (black) soil which was the necessary prerequisite of Egyptian civilization. It's simply a different type of term than aamu, which is indicative of people rather than land. And that's just basic egyptology.

My point is that if there is no evidence for the story how can we trust anything they said?

As I said, there are actually elements in Exodus that are historical. Such as the city of Pi-ramesse and the fact that Moses is an Egyptian name. And then there plenty of non-historical details, which makes the story as a whole untrustworthy. It is certain that, at some point, Hebrews entered Palestine. But the first ever mention of Hebrews is on the Mernemptah stele, where they are referred to as a tribe. Before that Egyptians had never heard of them.

Well keep in mind that that is a modern interpretation. The Hebrew mention the skin color of the Cuhorsehockyes being distinct but say nothing about the descendants of Ham all being Black.

Alright. But it is worth noting there is no mention of the skin colour of Egyptians.

Based on what I've read Joseph is believed to have entered Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period.

That's several centuries too early. The Mernemptah stele dates from ca.1213 to 1203 BC; that's the first ever mention of Hebrews.

My point about the Table of Nations and genetic relations is that they depend on your interpretation. The verse I quoted about Ethiopians being unable to change their skin is one of the only clear references to skin color that I am aware of and it can be argued that if Cush and Egypt were brothers then they had the same skin color.

The bottom line is that the authors of the Bible say nothing about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians so we can't use the book to make an assessment of their skin either way. Skin color wasn't important to the Hebrew so if they were Black they wouldn't necessarily make a point to mention that.

I would argue that if the Hebrews mention the skin colour of Kuhorsehockyes, it's odd that they do not when discussing Egyptians. You might surmise from that they were brothers that they were also black. But the opposite is far more probable. Hebrews were familiar with Egyptians - very much so. The fact that they mention that Kuhorsehockyes were black rather suggests Egyptians were not. That would be the logical conclusion.

How am I misrepresenting what you have said? What did the ancient Egyptians look like in your opinion? That is a simple question. Never mind the definition of Black. Just provide a picture or list ethnic groups you think they looked like.

I would stick with Nefertiti as a typical representation of an actual Egyptian woman. Apart from that, I think they looked like Egyptians (ancient ones, not modern ones).

As for Egyptian civilization and how unique it was clearly as a civilization nothing in Africa outside of Nubia resembled Egypt just like nothing in Europe resembled Ancient Greece until Roman colonization. My point is that they had biological and cultural connections to their neighbors especially those south of Egypt.

I woudl rather say that Nubians had connections with their northern neighbours. Nubian civilization was as Egyptian as it gets. and, once again, there was nothing like the first dynasties in Nubia. There are various explanations for that (one being that the fertile Nile was primarily restricted to Egypt), but it's a fact nonetheless. and since you mention Greece: Greece architecture. art and science was heavily influenced by Egypt (and to a somewhat lesser extent by Sumeria).

What conclusions do you disagree with?

That ancient Egyptians were black. As in 'of black race'. It doesn't logically follow from his research and it's contradicted by what we already know about ancient Egypt. It's simply not a scientifically sound conclusion.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Because they weren't. There's a difference between being African and being black. Indians are supposed to be white, but there are Indians that have darker skin pigmentation than quite a few blacks. Consider why president Obama is considered black (even though he's fairer skinned than quite a few 'whites'. The phenotype doesn't match our idea of what a 'white' person should look like. So basically, racism.

What do you mean by Indians are supposed to be White? That they are Caucasian? Europeans have never considered Indians to be White although they did try to steal the culture of India by developing the Aryan Invasion theory. Obama has light brown skin and there are some Southern Europeans who approach that complexion but most White Americans are much lighter. While the One Drop Rule has its roots in racism African-Americans have turned it in to a positive by being more inclusive of who is considered to be Black.

I think Obama has the right idea about his racial identity. How we treat one another is more important than how we are labeled:

Contrary to what you claim, I've repeatedly stated there's no problem with portraying ancient Egyptians as Africans. Because that's what they were. What they were not, however, was black. Nubians were black. And ancient Egyptians knew very well that they were different from Nubians or 'Ethiopians' (originally an Egyptian generic term for anyone from south of Egypt). Not because of racism, however. But because of identity. What defines ancient Egyptians is not whether they were black or white, but that they were Egyptians, and belonged to a civilization unmatched anywhere in the ancient world.

Ethiopian was actually an ancient Greek word referring to dark-skinned Africans (Αἰθίοψ = Aithiops = "burnt face").

The Ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as brown-skinned in contrast to jet-black Nubians, so if taken at face value the art indicates that they were slightly lighter than the darkest Africans but much darker than the Asiatics or Libyans who they depicted with lighter skin tones.

This conclusion is also backed up by science:

Skin sections showed particularly good tissue preservation, although cellular outlines were never distinct. Although much of the epidermis had already separated from the dermis, the remaining epidermis often was preserved well (Fig. 1). The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin.

Source: Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005, 80(1): 7-13

I believe this is a reasonable interpretation of what the skin colors in their mural was depicting:

Egyptian



Nubian

As I've shown you're wrong with that last statement. It's understandable, as I also originally thought there's no such thing as an actual jet black African. But it's quite easy to find photos disproving that notion.

I will address the argument in this way....there are certainly populations in Africa with dark skin that approach jet black but are still very dark brown and not literally black. As an example Wesley Snipes is considered to be a dark-skinned Black man by African-American standards but does not have jet-black skin.



Notice his complexion vs. his black coat. Can you find a picture of an African man with skin as dark as Wesley's coat? I searched the term "jet black skin" in google and this is the best picture I found of a very dark-skinned African.



Certainly he is very dark-skinned but still brown and not as dark as the coat.

That's a matter of perspective. Our own terms Asia and Africa literally derive from the Roman provinces of that name.

And those are Roman concepts not Egyptian ones. I don't think the Ancient Egyptians were aware of the entire continent of Africa and certainly not Asia although ancient people were more well traveled than historians traditionally thought considering some of their writings and the artifacts they gathered from different regions. But I don't think there is evidence they thought of interior Africa and the Levant as belonging to separate continents as to them these were just regions with different people and their ideas about geography and the known world were different to what we know today.

Which seems to be the problem with race. Biology doesn't recognizes races, as the characteristics of the various 'races' simply aren't significant.

I agree that race is a social rather than biological construct although certainly there are physical characteristics that are different between populations which are biological and heritable. Anthropologists have tried to classify humans in to groups but the history of racial classification has been problematic due to disagreements about definitions and what criteria to use as well as beliefs about what characteristics define a group. I have been involved in discussions about race and intelligence for example and while that is a different topic this video features an excellent presentation by an anthropologist named Todd Disotell who explains the problems with the race concept at the beginning of the video.

We don't actually know. What we have is hieroglyphic script and the derived hieratic script. What we do know is that ancient Egyptian (like ancient Hebrew and Punic) doesn't use vowels. This makes the pronunciation a matter of conjecture (or educated guess, if you like). For instance, the southern capital which we know as Thebes was called Iwnw (where the I equals more or less the Hebrew iota).

Your claim was that Egyptian was a dead language by the New Kingdom period. But they still used hieroglyphics and spoke the language during that period. So how could it be dead? Certainly it underwent changes as language often does but it was still in use many centuries after the New Kingdom period.

This is quite unsurprising, since racism coincided very much with the heyday of Western imperialism. That, however, doesn't mean that today its gone. It does mean one should be very cautious whenever the word 'race' pops up, since it has no scientific basis.

Reading about Breasted myself it was also apparent that he held White Supremacist views. Although he was a respected scholar he was a man of his time. That's why I say that these translations are suspect.

Alright. But it is worth noting there is no mention of the skin colour of Egyptians.

Yes, but there are very few passages referencing the skin color of anyone at all.

I would argue that if the Hebrews mention the skin colour of Kuhorsehockyes, it's odd that they do not when discussing Egyptians. You might surmise from that they were brothers that they were also black. But the opposite is far more probable. Hebrews were familiar with Egyptians - very much so. The fact that they mention that Kuhorsehockyes were black rather suggests Egyptians were not. That would be the logical conclusion.

They don't even mention the color of the Kuhorsehockyes only to say that they they can not change the color of their skin. So presumably the Hebrew did not have the same skin color as the Kuhorsehockyes who we know to be dark-skinned but that doesn't mean that other countries did not also have dark skin including the Ancient Egyptians which both art and science indicates they had. There are also Greek texts that indicate that the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned (ex. Aristotle states that both the ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians have black skin and Herodotus says the Ancient Egyptians were black-skinned and wooly haired). We should consider that while ancient people saw differences they didn't make a big deal out of them and they were not interested in classifying people.

The descriptions and terms of ancient Greek writers have sometimes been used to comment on Egyptian origins. This is problematic since the ancient writers were not doing population biology. However, we can examine one issue. The Greeks called all groups south of Egypt "Ethiopians." Were the Egyptians more related to any of these "Ethiopians" than to the Greeks? As noted, cranial and limb studies have indicated greater similarity to Somalis, Kuhorsehockyes and Nubians, all "Ethiopians" in ancient Greek terms.

Source: The Geographical Origins and Population Relationship of Early Ancient Egyptians. In Egypt in Africa, edited by Theodore Celenko, Indianapolis: Indianapolis Musuem of Art in copperation with Indiana University Press, 1996.

I would stick with Nefertiti as a typical representation of an actual Egyptian woman. Apart from that, I think they looked like Egyptians (ancient ones, not modern ones).

Of course that begs the question of what you think ancient Egyptians looked like. I'm sure some looked like Nefertiti and others like your average rural southern Egyptian. The Ancient Egyptians left behind a lot of art. Nefertiti's Berlin Bust is one artifact that can be used as evidence of what the ancient Egyptians looked like. There are others.

Examples:

Queen Tiye



King Tut



King Amenhotep III

I woudl rather say that Nubians had connections with their northern neighbours. Nubian civilization was as Egyptian as it gets. and, once again, there was nothing like the first dynasties in Nubia. There are various explanations for that (one being that the fertile Nile was primarily restricted to Egypt), but it's a fact nonetheless. and since you mention Greece: Greece architecture. art and science was heavily influenced by Egypt (and to a somewhat lesser extent by Sumeria).

Certainly over time the Nubians became an Egyptianized people and when they conquered Egypt and began the 26th Dynasty they thought of themselves as cultural revivalists. There is also evidence that the culture of ancient Egypt derived from areas to the south of Egypt in Nubia and other parts of Northeast Africa which the Wengrow article outlined. As for Egyptian influence on Greece that is true and there are some interesting theories about that as well.

That ancient Egyptians were black. As in 'of black race'. It doesn't logically follow from his research and it's contradicted by what we already know about ancient Egypt. It's simply not a scientifically sound conclusion.

I think there is some confusion on your end on what Keita's conclusions actually are. Keita is a Biological Anthropologist who does not endorse the concept of race. I posted two videos where you can hear the man speak for himself but some people have trouble interpreting what he is saying. To put it simply Keita believes that modern Southern Egyptians are more representative of what the Ancient Egyptians looked like than modern Northern Egyptians and that they had biological and cultural connections to the south while recognizing that there was diversity in physical and cultural characteristics. Southern Egyptians tend to be darker-skinned then Northern Egyptians and Keita believes that Northern Egyptians were influenced genetically by admixture with foreigners who immigrated to Egypt during the Greco-Roman and Islamic periods.

The abstract of his paper outlines his reasoning and the evidence supporting it:

Abstract

A review of studies covering the biological relationship of the ancient Egyptians was undertaken. An overview of the data from the studies suggests that the major biological affinities of early southern Egyptians lay with tropical Africans. The range of indigenous tropical African phenotypes is great; and this range of variation must be considered in any discussion of the Nile Valley peoples. The early southern Egyptians belonged primarily to an African descent group which gained some Near Eastern affinity through gene flow with the passage of time.

Source: A brief review of studies and comments on ancient Egyptian biological relationships International Journal of Anthropology April 1995, Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 107–123

Here is an interpretation of his conclusions by the author of a book who I think summarized his arguments eloquently:

Were the Ancient Egyptians black? That is entirely up to you. But were they biologically African? It would seem that they were. After considering the full range of anatomical, linguistic, cultural, archeological and genetic evidence, Shomarka Keita feels confident in concluding that the original Egyptians by which he means the pre-dynastic people of Southern Egypt, who founded Egyptian civilization evolved entirely in Africa. Both culturally and biologically, he says, they were more related to other Africans than they were to non-Africans from Europe or Asia.

Through the years, Keita believes, the Egyptians appear to have blended with many immigrants and invaders, many of whom were lighter-skinned and more Caucasoid in appearance than the original Egyptians. Libyans, Persians, Syro-Palestinians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans all left their imprint on the faces of Egypt. But Egyptian civilization remained profoundly African to the very end.

Keita himself rarely resorts to such crudely racial expressions as black and white. But if we might be forgiven a momentary lapse into everyday speech, it would probably not hurt to conceive of Keita's theory as the polar opposite of the Hamitic Hypothesis. Whereas the Hamitic theorists saw Egypt as a nation of white people that was gradually infiltrated by blacks, the biological evidence seems to suggest that it was more like a black nation that was gradually infiltrated by whites.

Source: Black Spark White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? - Chapter 77. Black, White or Biologically African? pg. 471