Sub Saharan origins for pharaohs (new DNA studies)

[Crezth]

I only claimed that the by and large considered as the European founding civilizations of antiquity (Greece and Rome) cannot be said to have been "stealing" from Egypt or other non-European civilizations at the archaic time, and even more so from a "Black Egypt". You know just because 'leucophobia'* is not regarded as racist, does not mean it is not arguably an equally unscientific position as hatred/fear of black people

*literally the term means "fear of white", and usually it means fear of the color white. I used it somewhat in jest

You were reacting to a phantom. Nobody here is trying to rob the whites of their glory, even less so the Greeks and Romans. Your post comes off as a bit defensive in light of this.

 

[Kyriakos]

You were reacting to a phantom. Nobody here is trying to rob the whites of their glory, even less so the Greeks and Romans. Your post comes off as a bit defensive in light of this.

Surely you are not going as far as to accuse me of actually being...'a bit defensive', are you?

 

[Lone Wolf]

But something I've never understood is who the Hell cares about Cleopatra? I mean what feat did she accomplish that makes some folks equate Egyptian history with her? She was the last pharaoh of a dying African civilization.

Classicist romanization.

It was created during her lifetime, and probably at 40-30 BC (Cleopatra was born at 69 BC and died at 30 BC). It obviously does not look black/african.

Dunno, an Ethiopian with such features wouldn't be unusual.

 

[Kyriakos]

Dunno, an Ethiopian with such features wouldn't be unusual.

I think you should provide some peer-reviewed source on that one. I think i am not alone in thinking that ancient Ethiopians did not look at all like the sculpture of Cleopatra in the Berlin museum.

 

[Asante90]

I think that the claims of one modern egyptologist are not that much to support the belief that Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII) was partly black.

Well it was actually Hike Thuere of the Austrian Academic Academy that made the discovery and a TEAM of reputed researchers who found her sister's skeleton to be very African.

Queen Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy, the Macedonian general who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great.

But remains of the queen's sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicate that her mother had an "African" skeleton.

Experts have described the results as "a real sensation."

The discovery was made by Hilke Thuer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

"It is unique in the life of an archaeologist to find the tomb and the skeleton of a member of Ptolemaic dynasty," she said.

"That Arsinoe had an African mother is a real sensation which leads to a new insight on Cleopatra's family and the relationship of the sisters Cleopatra and Arsinoe."

link

It was created during her lifetime, and probably at 40-30 BC (Cleopatra was born at 69 BC and died at 30 BC). It obviously does not look black/african.

While I don't invest too much into making biological inferences based solely on art, I will say that based on the facial structure alone these famous mulatto twins wouldn't look too different in structure:

They both have a somewhat hooked nose as well.

 

[Asante90]

I think you should provide some peer-reviewed source on that one. I think i am not alone in thinking that ancient Ethiopians did not look at all like the sculpture of Cleopatra in the Berlin museum.

Certain Ethiopians and East African populations are to have more gracile facial features in relation to many other surrounding African populations. Somalis for one has higher and thinner noses then Nordic Europeans. East Africans are also less prognathic then northern European populations. The point is indigenous tropical Africans have physical variability that engulfs almost all of the world populations combined. Therefore looking at statues and saying "oh well that nose or those lips cannot be black African" is completely false and indicative of a severe lack of knowledge on that person's part.

Oh and by the way I am still waiting on YOU to tell me which studies I've presented have been falsified.

 

[Asante90]

Classicist romanization.

True!

 

[Kyriakos]

Asante, i do not at all agree with you at your points about supposedly there being such extremely wide variation of Sub-Saharans in the archaic age that they pretty much could pass as Europeans.

According to the Philosopher Xenophanes, a Greek from Ionia (specifically from Colophon, north of Ephesus): "The Thracians make their gods like them, with blue eyes and fair (or red) hair, while Ethiopians make their gods like them, black".

Xenophanes lived in the 5th century BC. It is also usefull to note that to the Greeks of the era, as to the later Romans, the term "Ethiopian" did not only mean what currently is Ethiopia, but more generally anything Sub-Saharan. It is not really in contest that the ancient Greeks, before the Hellenistic age, already knew of Sub-Saharan peoples (probably through some sort of slave-trade through Egypt). That the Sub-Saharans were black seems widely accepted.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sorry for posting this in a new post, but i was not aware of it and it is i think very crucial to the debate as to whether Ethiopians of the archaic era were black or not.

I now read that even the ancient Greek term for any person from Ethiopia would be Ethiops (Αιθίο&#968, which literally means "of blackened complexion".

So yeah, i guess this is somewhat strong reason to think the ancient Ethiopians were black, and notably unlike Cleopatra.

 

[cachibatches]

No no one did...I don't think anyone even brought her up. Though it is interesting that recently Egyptologist Sally Ann Aston had a documentary aired which insist that Cleopatra was of mixed ancestry (Greek and black African). This is based on the discovery of her sister's skeletal remains indicating African ancestry. Below is her lecture at the University of Manchester about the issue:

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But something I've never understood is who the Hell cares about Cleopatra? I mean what feat did she accomplish that makes some folks equate Egyptian history with her? She was the last pharaoh of a dying African civilization. Why not focus on actual Egyptian pharaohs like Tiye or Hapshepsut.

More lies.

Skeletal remains that nobody can prove are Arsinoe. Nor do we know if Arsinoe is Cleopatra's full blooded sister. Nor do skeletal remains prove anything, as skeletal lengths represent phenoytpical development and are not indicative of anyone's race or color.

There is no reason to think that she is anything but Greek with a little Persian. Again, we see some of the strange justifications on here...she could have been Ethiopian? Why would you think that she was?

Still waiting for a body of genetic tests that would overturn the scientific consensus on this matter. But I am not going to get them, am I?

 

[Asante90]

Asante, i do not at all agree with you at your points about supposedly there being such extremely wide variation of Sub-Saharans in the archaic age that they pretty much could pass as Europeans.

So you're basically admitting that you have a general lack of knowledge on this subject on Africans and African history? If you don't even know this fact then have no business trying to debate ANYONE on anything pertaining to this:

"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages (see online link to Ethnologue). Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world (TABLE 1). However,most studies report only a few markers in divergent African populations, which makes it difficult to draw general conclusions about the levels and patterns of genetic diversity in these populations (FIG. 1). Because genetic studies have been biased towards more economically developed African countries that have key research or medical centres, populations from more underdeveloped or politically unstable regions of Africa remain undersampled (FIG. 1). Historically, human population genetic studies have relied on one or two African populations as being representative of African diversity, but recent studies show extensive genetic variation among even geographically close African populations, which indicates that there is not a single 'representative' African population."
-- Tishkoff NATURE REVIEWS | GENETICS VOLUME 3 | AUGUST 2002

or

"Estimates of genetic diversity in major geographic regions are frequently made by pooling all individuals into regional aggregates. This method can potentially bias results if there are differences in population substructure within regions, since increased variation among local populations could inflate regional diversity. A preferred method of estimating regional diversity is to compute the mean diversity within local populations. Both methods are applied to a global sample of craniometric data consisting of 57 measurements taken on 1734 crania from 18 local populations in six geographic regions: sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, East Asia, Australasia, Polynesia, and the Americas. Each region is represented by three local populations.

Both methods for estimating regional diversity show sub-Saharan Africa to have the highest levels of phenotypic variation, consistent with many genetic studies."
(Relethford, John "Global Analysis of Regional Differences in Craniometric Diversity and Population Substructure". Human Biology - Volume 73, Number 5, October 2001, pp. 629-636)

What I'm saying is that when you take an all alabaster statue of Cleopatra and say oh well based on here facial features she could not have had African ancestry that's bs. Tia and Tamera Lowery who are themselves of black and white ancestry would have very similar facial structure and hair style as Cleopatra if they were statues. As proven however external non African ancestry is not at all necessary to explain the physical variation in the form of hair, skin tone or facial structure seen in many tropical African populations across the continent.

It is not really in contest that the ancient Greeks, before the Hellenistic age, already knew of Sub-Saharan peoples (probably through some sort of slave-trade through Egypt). That the Sub-Saharans were black seems widely accepted.

That's very ignorant of you to say and yet not surprising seeing your earlier comments in regards to black Africans. Trying to explain every piece of evidence indicating a black African presence outside of "where they are suppose to be" as revolving around some form of slavery is just dumb! Especially when the Greeks had such high aspirations for the said "Aeithiopians" whom the Greeks described as the beautiful and oldest people on Earth.

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Heck not to mention that a third of modern day Greece's Y-Dna IS African and I don't recall any mention of an African "slave trade" during that time or region in history. Do you?

 

[cachibatches]

Didn't you make a whole post explaining how the blackies didn't accomplish anything, and in fact it was the glorious white man?

Clearly you need to go read post #91.

Yes, Post 91, post 91, post 91.

My goal is that anyone who stumbles on this thread seeking truth sees the scientific consensus, so sarcasm or no, thank you for the reference.

It is really sad that Asante does not want to study the glory OF HIS OWN ancestors, but would rather try to steal someone else's.

 

[cachibatches]

So you're basically admitting that you have a general lack of knowledge on this subject on Africans and African history? If you don't even know this fact then have no business trying to debate ANYONE on anything pertaining to this:



or



What I'm saying is that when you take an all alabaster statue of Cleopatra and say oh well based on here facial features she could not have had African ancestry that's bs. Tia and Tamera Lowery who are themselves of black and white ancestry would have very similar facial structure and hair style as Cleopatra if they were statues. As proven however external non African ancestry is not at all necessary to explain the physical variation in the form of hair, skin tone or facial structure seen in many tropical African populations across the continent.



That's very ignorant of you to say and yet not surprising seeing your earlier comments in regards to black Africans. Trying to explain every piece of evidence indicating a black African presence outside of "where they are suppose to be" as revolving around some form of slavery is just dumb! Especially when the Greeks had such high aspirations for the said "Aeithiopians" whom the Greeks described as the beautiful and oldest people on Earth.

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Heck not to mention that a third of modern day Greece's Y-Dna IS African and I don't recall any mention of an African "slave trade" during that time or region in history. Do you?

And more lies, and more lies, and more lies.

This video breaks down the lie about Greek DNA. Greeks are Indo Europeans. That is all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY-yJTDcOmc

jump to about 2:10, or even 3:45.

 

[Kyriakos]

By now i am a bit more inclined to just hear what Cachibatches claimed, Asante. Your sources either seem to me to be largely irrelevant (like presenting a couple of modern authors who spoke of genetic variety in Africa, but not in ARCHAIC Africa which i was talking about), or to write unfounded claims such as that the ancient Greeks regarded Ethiopians as the "beautiful and oldest" people. Even if they did (which i really doubt they did) what does that have to do with the information that Ethiopians were black? As i stated even the very name Ethiopian means of darkened skin.

I could also refer to a fable by Aesop, about an Ethiopian slave who his master thought as being black because his last master was not having him washed. So yes, it stands to logic, and to historic fact, to claim that Ethiopians were black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_the_Ethiopian_white (fable by Aesop).

(Ironically some even have claimed that Aesop himself was Ethiopian, black, and a slave. They seem to base this largely on the accounts of Aesop's very ugly body, which by themselves are only from later aeons, and maybe are suspect. At any rate it is obviously nasty to claim that one was black based on the view that he looked bizarre and ugly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop)

Edit: And, of course, it goes without saying that the Ethiopians being certainly black does not support the controversial theory that the Egyptians were black.

 

[cachibatches]

By now i am a bit more inclined to just hear what Cachibatches claimed, Asante. Your sources either seem to me to be largely irrelevant (like presenting a couple of modern authors who spoke of genetic variety in Africa, but not in ARCHAIC Africa which i was talking about), or to write unfounded claims such as that the ancient Greeks regarded Ethiopians as the "beautiful and oldest" people. Even if they did (which i really doubt they did) what does that have to do with the information that Ethiopians were black? As i stated even the very name Ethiopian means of darkened skin.

I could also refer to a fable by Aesop, about an Ethiopian slave who his master thought as being black because his last master was not having him washed. So yes, it stands to logic, and to historic fact, to claim that Ethiopians were black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_the_Ethiopian_white (fable by Aesop).

(Ironically some even have claimed that Aesop himself was Ethiopian, black, and a slave. They seem to base this largely on the accounts of Aesop's very ugly body, which by themselves are only from later aeons, and maybe are suspect. At any rate it is obviously nasty to claim that one was black based on the view that he looked bizarre and ugly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop)

Brother, he lied to you about Egyptian DNA, he lied to you about Greek DNA, and he lied to you about Cleopatra's sister.

He lies about Keita's conclusions, even after he has been repeatedly shown.
If you look on other forums he posts on under the names Asante, Unbreakable, or Sir Shawn, he posts blurry pictures of a hill in Niger and claims that it is a "pyramid."

He posts noted cranks like Robert Bauval as "evidence."

The premise of this thread is a lie, and he posted links showing that he has been told any number of times.

The man is a habitual and pathological liar, pure and simple.

Moderator Action: Infracted for flaming (here and throughout the thread).
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, i have heard far worse than that (sadly). It seems there are many Turks that actually believe Homer, of the ancient Epics Iliad and Odyssey, was a proto-Turk, called "Omar". So yeah, nothing actually amazes me anymore in such bizarre theories

 

[cachibatches]

Well, i have heard far worse than that (sadly). It seems there are many Turks that actually believe Homer, of the ancient Epics Iliad and Odyssey, was a proto-Turk, called "Omar". So yeah, nothing actually amazes me anymore in such bizarre theories

On a side note, I have spent wonderful afternoons reading those books.

A couple of years back, my girl had to read The Odyssey, and she needed help because she is Peruvian and it was an English translation. So we read it together. I had not read it in over ten years.

I have also read Herodotus and several other ancient authors. One thing that Asante is telling the truth about (yes, a stopped clock tells time right twice a day) is that Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus had good things to say about the Nubians, who the ancients referred to as Ethiopians.

The Nubians were no joke. They were a great people in their own right. Really, they still have very little to do with Asante, who's origins lie in West Africa. But They are a worthy and interesting people in and of themselves.

 

[Asante90]

By now i am a bit more inclined to just hear what Cachibatches claimed, Asante.

I (and I'm sure a couple of folks following this thread) am more inclined to believe that you (or folks with your view point) never had any intention on listening to what I had to say in the first place. The fact that you would rather listen to a guy who post the same largely debunked/ignored, UNcontextualized wall of spam from "post 91" who also disregards the contemporary scholars at Oxford, Fitzwilliam, Manchester, Yale (authorities) as wrong on the subject (because they all agree that the ancient Egyptians were indeed black) speaks more about YOU and YOUR motives in my opinion.

Your sources either seem to me to be largely irrelevant

What claim are you talking about and which source(s) are you referencing? Please be specific.

(like presenting a couple of modern authors who spoke of genetic variety in Africa, but not in ARCHAIC Africa which i was talking about)

Do you have any clue as to what you're talking about? The vast genetic diversity of Africans has been present since BEFORE there were non Africans or the first successful wave of Africans populated the planet around 50,000 years ago. Hence the population of East Africa which is the source for non Africans represented a "SUBSET" of already present diversity of African populations:

" These studies suggest a recent and primary subdivision between African and non-African populations, high levels of divergence among African populations, and a recent shared common ancestry of non-African populations, from a population originating in Africa. The intermediate position, between African and non-African populations, that the Ethiopian Jews and Somalis occupy in the PCA plot also has been observed in other genetic studies (Ritte et al. 1993; Passarino et al. 1998) and could be due either to shared common ancestry or to recent gene flow. The fact that the Ethiopians and Somalis have a subset of the sub-Saharan African haplotype diversity and that the non-African populations have a subset of the diversity present in Ethiopians and Somalis makes simple-admixture models less likely; rather, these observations support the hypothesis proposed by other nuclear-genetic studies (Tishkoff et al. 1996a, 1998a, 1998b; Kidd et al. 1998) that populations in northeastern Africa may have diverged from those in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa early in the history of modern African populations and that a subset of this northeastern-African population migrated out of Africa and populated the rest of the globe. These conclusions are supported by recent mtDNA analysis (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999)."
[Tishkoff et al. (2000) Short Tandem-Repeat Polymorphism/Alu Haplotype Variation at the PLAT Locus: Implications for Modern Human Origins. Am J Hum Genet; 67:901-925]

So NOW what is your issue? Clearly you have to find some frivolous issue with this information because you coming to grips with facts like these is simply out of the question.

or to write unfounded claims such as that the ancient Greeks regarded Ethiopians as the "beautiful and oldest" people.

You're essentially calling me a liar because of your own lack of knowledge on this subject.

"The fame of the ancient Ethiopians (ancient Kushites) was widespread in ancient history. Herodotus described them as the tallest, most beautiful and long-lived of the human races, and before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering language, described them as the most just of men, the favorites of the gods. The annals of all the great early nations of Asia Minor full of them. The Mosaic records allude to them frequently;
Lady Lugard/Flora Shaw Lugard, Asa G. Hilliard, III, A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan With an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Nigeria, Black Classic Press (1996)

I can't help it if you don't know a thing about this subject, but please do some OBJECTIVE research before you attempt to engage in a debate with someone else (especially when you invoke doubts of the opposing party's integrity).

Edit: And, of course, it goes without saying that the Ethiopians being certainly black does not support the controversial theory that the Egyptians were black.

So the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (authorities on the matter) who outright states that the ancient Egyptians were "black" is STILL not enough for people like YOU to accept that fact. To bad we can't evoke motive on this forum

 

[Asante90]

Some unknown voice invoked that there was no relationship between Nubia and West Africa:

“Ancient Sudanic civilization extended as far as West Africa,” says Faraji. “You can still see some of these cultural traditions in West Africa today. One is the building of sacred mounds on the palaces of royalty. I’ve seen these mounds in northern Ghana and other traditions that I can pinpoint as emerging in both ancient Nubia and West Africa.”

California St. University

Don't know why it's so important for this individual to separate African Americans from Nile Valley civilization (also African and of the similar ancient Saharan origin), but it's clear that this unknown voice has clear vendetta against that group of people.

 

[Kyriakos]

@Asante: From the second book of Herodotus' histories, which you can read online at http://www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com/herodotus/book02.htm

"...for Memphis too is in the narrow part of Egypt; and outside the city he dug round it on the North and West a lake communicating with the river, for the side towards the East is barred by the Nile itself. Then secondly he established in the city the temple of Hephaistos a great work and most worthy of mention. 100. After this man the priests enumerated to me from a papyrus roll the names of other kings, three hundred and thirty in number; and in all these generations of men eighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and the rest were men and of Egyptian race: and the name of the woman who reigned was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris."

So you see that even Herodotus clearly states that Ethiopians and Egyptians were not of the same race.

Hm, i kept searching for the ellusive quote by Herodotus your sources mentioned, and found this:

"The Ethiopians to whom this embassy was sent are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in thewhole world. In their customs they differ greatly from the rest of mankind, and particularly in the waythey choose their kings; for they find out the man who is the tallest of all the citizens, and of strengthequal to his height, and appoint him to rule over them . . . The spies were told that most of them livedto be a hundred and twenty years old, while some even went beyond that age --- they ate boiled flesh,and had for their drink nothing but milk"

So yeah, if you want to believe that they were said to be tall and handsome, i guess you also believe that some of them were more than 120 years old.

As for your claim to know what was happening in African populations at 48.000-50.000 BC, well, sorry but i think it just is wrong.

Edit: Also it is worth noting that although Herodotus was the first to write a History, he is not considered to have been a scientifically-based historian. Only his successor, Thucydides , is the one first regarded as an actual historian, since in the work of Herodotus there many passages which present rather strange bits of info.