The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

[Kahotep]

Already read it. That's the part where you explain away why the Egyptians have gone completely against world trends and massively changed appearance. What you have failed to do is explain why Egypt would be so different to, say, Nurestan, or China, or even Italy.

The difference is that the invaders of those other regions didn't look so different from their subjects to begin with. On the other hand, here's an ancient Egyptian mural comparing them to Southwest Asian and Mediterranean people.

This is another case of what is called 'selective referencing;' that is, referencing only those sources which agree with your point, and not those which argue otherwise. Honest scholarship involves both, then giving reasons as to why the sources which agree with you are right, and the others wrong.

At the risk of Godwinning the thread, here's a simple example: one historian says the Holocaust happened, another doesn't. The first historian is a highly respected historian with a string of successes; the second is a member of a Neo-Nazi group who have been investigated for terrorist links. The first is obviously the more reliable source. Now, explain what makes your source - which xchen08 shows is a well-known Afro-centrist, making his views less than reliable even if true - more reliable than the far more numerous sources who ssay otherwise.

Have any sources suggesting that a migration of one percent per generation couldn't alter a population's genotype over several thousand years?

Keita is not an Afrocentrist. He rejects that label. The only reason people call him an Afrocentrist is because he acknowledges "black" admixture into the Egyptian population.

I don't think anyone's denied they were darker than Mediterraneans. We're arguing that the evidence does not indicate that they were as dark as Nubians, or even Ethiopians. As mentioned previously in the thread, St Moses the Black was referred to as "Black" by Egyptians, after all. This would indicate that they had lighter skin than he did.

Just because the Egyptians were not as dark as Nubians does not mean they still weren't what we would consider to be "black" if we saw them today. There is skin tone variation even within so-called "black" people.

 

[Lord Baal]

The difference is that the invaders of those other regions didn't look so different from their subjects to begin with.

Hang on, what? Mongols don't look different from Chinese? Saracens don't look different from Italians? Other Afghans don't look different from Nurestani?

On the other hand, here's an ancient Egyptian mural comparing them to Southwest Asian and Mediterranean people.

Selective referencing strikes again. Did you not specifically mention the unreliability of judging Egyptian appearances from murals - something I agree with, by the way - in your OP essay? How then, does this mural become more reliable, when we both know that Egyptian iconography was primarily symbolic? It's almost as if something is only unreliable if it doesn't agree with you, but is magically reliable again when it does.

As a side note, I'm pretty sure I have that exact image somewhere. It might be at my parent's place, or stuffed in boxes from when I moved, but I'm sure I have it.

Have any sources suggesting that a migration of one percent per generation couldn't alter a population's genotype over several thousand years?

Actually, you're the one making the claim that it does, so you have to provide evidence to that fact. Keita does not qualify as a reliable source, and xchen08's argument, the same as mine, is that such a low migration isn't enough to radically alter phenotype. If you want to illustrate that Keita is correct, show some evidence to that fact other than Keita saying so.

And no, I don't have a source up my sleeve. Genetics isn't my area of expertise. Xchen08 might have one, and I can probably find one once I'm finished with my other window.

Keita is not an Afrocentrist. He rejects that label. The only reason people call him an Afrocentrist is because he acknowledges "black" admixture into the Egyptian population.

And I reject the label 'chubby-chaser,' that doesn't mean I've never had sex with a fat woman. The 'slave name' story that xchen08 mentions would also seem to imply, if not Afro-centrism, then at least a pinch of anti-Westernism.

And I dont' recall anyone denying such "black" admixture. In fact, admixture is exactly my argument. Why, if there was such admixture and Egyptians were black to start with, aren't they darker-skinned on average now? Egyptians today tend to be little, if any, darker than the Libyan and Gazan neighbours. For that matter, they're not much darker than many Israelis I know, but since many of them are recent migrants, it's not a suitable analogy.

Just because the Egyptians were not as dark as Nubians does not mean they still weren't what we would consider to be "black" if we saw them today. There is skin tone variation even within so-called "black" people.

Of course there's skin tone variation among 'black' people. Such variation would contra-indicate that Egyptians were 'black' by modern standards - which, as has been said many times throughout this thread, are stupid and arbitrary anyway - as it would actually imply much greater variation between Egyptians and their neighbours than elsewhere. After all, Northern Sudanese have much lighter skin than their sub-Saharan neighbours to the South. Wouldn't that suggest that Egyptians were themselves lighter-skinned, or at least comparable, to their immediate Southern neighbours?

 

[xchen08]

Egypt isn't far from the Fertile Crescent, which has a similar history of relatively high population densities. Furthermore, the cited "one percent" figure is almost certainly a very conservative estimate.

Yet, Egypt was never invaded from the fertile crescent until the Assyrians, and finally the Persians, around 500 BC. That doesn't give you much time for Egyptian phenotype to change before the time we know Egyptians weren't "black." And 1% is not at all conservative. Modern day France only gets about 4% per generation, despite 1) modern transportation, 2) not being particularly populous compared to neighbors, 3) being a wealthy modern nation with cultural links to poor former colonies, and 4) free movement within the EU.

You might want to consider that after these invasions, there would have been population movements by people from one part of the invaders' empire into Egypt.

The Sinai isn't that big a barrier if you have a camel or horse ready, and lots of people were sailing across the Mediterranean during the period we are discussing.

In the ancient era, immigration as opposed to invasion, would only occur in anything greater than negligible numbers during rule by a foreign empire. (which rules out the Hyskos, considering their home base was in Egypt) That means that prior to the Persian conquest, the only immigration there was would have been from Nubia. And yes, there would be the odd trader from Greece or the Near East, but odds are they wouldn't settle down, and their numbers would be utterly miniscule.

Do you believe that the population magically changed from black to non-black the moment one jumps across the Egypt/Nubia border?

Hang on, what's up with this nonsequitur? Everyone here has agreed that Egyptians were darker than the people to the north, and get darker the further south they go. And during periods in which Northern Nubia was considered a part of upper Egypt, no doubt at a certain point, they get dark enough to be considered "black." What is important, is whether few enough Upper Egyptians can be considered black for them to consider a demonstratable black person to be noteworthy because of his skintone.

It's not just the invaders themselves, it's subsequent population movements.
...
The Kuhorsehockeyes did not hold Egypt as long as Eurasians collectively did.

See, that's actually untrue until the Persian conquest, after which point Egypt spent most of its time ruled by one Eurasian Power or another. Indeed, if you consider the inevitable population movements from those parts of Nubia ruled from Egypt, that would be untrue period, since the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans all periodically added parts of Nubia to Egypt, just like Native Dynasties have been doing for millenia.

Now, lets ignore all that. Let us say that magically, all immigration from Nubia ended with the Persian conquest, and that Egypt experiences 1% per generation influx from the rest of the Persian/Macedonian/Roman Empires from then on. That gives you about 900 years until Moses the Black for Egyptian phenotype to radically change. Possible?

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Actually, you're the one making the claim that it does, so you have to provide evidence to that fact. Keita does not qualify as a reliable source, and xchen08's argument, the same as mine, is that such a low migration isn't enough to radically alter phenotype. If you want to illustrate that Keita is correct, show some evidence to that fact other than Keita saying so.

And I reject the label 'chubby-chaser,' that doesn't mean I've never had sex with a fat woman. The 'slave name' story that xchen08 mentions would also seem to imply, if not Afro-centrism, then at least a pinch of anti-Westernism.

I've been watching this debate from a distance and Kahotep I know you want to sharpen your debate skills but I feel it necessary to give a comment on this.

Baal both you and Xchen08 are committing the Poisoning the Well Fallacy with your smear attacks on Dr. Keita.

Do you realize how ridiculous you sound calling a respected Biological Anthropologist an Afrocentrist and dismissing him as a credible source because he changed his name?

No, it is not anti-Westernism for an African-American to adopt an African name. No more need be read into it other than the man wanted to be connected to his African roots. Shomarka Keita is not Malcolm X. He's a scientist not a political activist and anyone who wants to be taken seriously in discussion would recognize that.

As far as his credibility is concerned we need only look at a few facts. Keita has published extensively on ancient North African biological relationships, notably Ancient Egypt and been cited by several other anthropologists. He is a leading authority on this topic.

He's such a reputed authority on the subject that National Geographic Magazine consulted him to give an authoritative statement on Ancient Egyptian biological relationships alongside Zahi Hawass who spoke on Ancient Egyptian artwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZssWb4MmGM

You call him an Afrocentrist but based on what? Saying that the Ancient Egyptians were Black and providing scientific evidence to back up the assertion? Here's Keita's rebuttal to such logic:

It is not a question of "African" "influence"; ancient Egypt was organically African. Studying early Egypt in its African context is not "Afrocentric," but simply correct - Keita

If Keita is an Afrocentrist someone should tell Professor Mary Lefkowitz, the most outspoken academic critic of Afrocentrism, because she cites him as her source on Ancient Egyptian origins.


http://www.wellesley.edu/CS/Mary/contents.html

On the Origins of the Egyptians Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54.

Keita is not an Afrocentrist. He is an objective scholar. I think he should be taken at his word until he does something that warrants questioning his objectivity.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwMvxir1n7Q

 

[xchen08]

-long rant-

Keita has always felt to me to be a clear example of he doth protest too much. He bemoans the very concept of race, particularly with regards to the black/white divide, yet bases his entire career on it. He criticizes the problematic nature of implying anything from cranial studies, or limb lengths in one paper, yet uses those studies as evidence for his thesis in another. He loudly claims himself not an Afrocentrist, yet fails to distance himself from all the craziest afrocentrists right down to the Black Cleopatra and Black Athena crowd. Reminds me a bit of Ron Paul.

Yet, despite all that, you do have a point. Dr. Keita's work should not be disregarded due to his picking a "African" sounding name that has little if any connection to his own heritage except insofar as the black/white divide that he so bemoans is actually true. Indeed, many anti-Afrocentrists have taken to basing their arguments on his work due to the reverence Afrocentrists hold him in.

Therefore, I withdraw any criticisms of Keita's expertise, and accept his work as written to be reliable for the purposes of debate. Now, the question becomes whether Keita's work supports the notion that recognizably black Egyptians could become recognizably non-black, even in Upper Egypt, in under a millenium given the known population densities and estimated population movements of the time and region.

By the way, nowhere does Keita claim that Egyptians were black. Indeed, he is on record as stating that modern Egyptians look much the same as they always have, though like many of Keita's statements on this issue, there's quite a bit waffling for different audiences. In particular, the implied meaning of African, and whether lower Egyptians are "genuine" keeps on changing depending on whether he is writing for a peer-reviewed journal or not.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Keita has always felt to me to be a clear example of he doth protest too much. He bemoans the very concept of race, particularly with regards to the black/white divide, yet bases his entire career on it. He criticizes the problematic nature of implying anything from cranial studies, or limb lengths in one paper, yet uses those studies as evidence for his thesis in another. He loudly claims himself not an Afrocentrist, yet fails to distance himself from all the craziest afrocentrists right down to the Black Cleopatra and Black Athena crowd. Reminds me a bit of Ron Paul.

Yet, despite all that, you do have a point. Dr. Keita's work should not be disregarded due to his picking a "African" sounding name that has little if any connection to his own heritage except insofar as the black/white divide that he so bemoans is actually true. Indeed, many anti-Afrocentrists have taken to basing their arguments on his work due to the reverence Afrocentrists hold him in.

Therefore, I withdraw any criticisms of Keita's expertise, and accept his work as written to be reliable for the purposes of debate. Now, the question becomes whether Keita's work supports the notion that recognizably black Egyptians could become recognizably non-black, even in Upper Egypt, in under a millenium given the known population densities and estimated population movements of the time and region.

By the way, nowhere does Keita claim that Egyptians were black. Indeed, he is on record as stating that modern Egyptians look much the same as they always have, though like many of Keita's statements on this issue, there's quite a bit waffling for different audiences. In particular, the implied meaning of African, and whether lower Egyptians are "genuine" keeps on changing depending on whether he is writing for a peer-reviewed journal or not.

First of all Keita's field of expertise is biological anthropology where the mainstream consensus is that there are no biological races so he has not based his career on race. What he has based his career on primarily is understanding African biological diversity. Your condescending rant against Keita's scholarship is unwarranted.

He does not identify himself with radical Afrocentrists, his involvement in the Black Athena debates was to comment on Ancient Egyptian bio-cultural relationships (his area of expertise) and he has not waffled in his reporting of research. And as far as his name is concerned I would say that adopting an African name has alot to do with his heritage given that he is of recent African descent. Where are you getting your information on Keita because your impressions do not mesh with the facts.

As far as Keita's comments on the Ancient Egyptians are concerned, no he never said that the Ancient Egyptians looked just like the modern Egyptians, what he said was that the physical diversity would have more than likely been the same. In an email correspondence he said that the typical Upper Egyptian to Nubian color would have been the model for most of the country during the Dynastic Period. He also made it clear in that National Geographic video that we must acknowledge that foreigners came into the country especially in Northern Egypt (clearly referring to population change).

This is what he says in the abstract for his paper:



http://www.springerlink.com/content/c1q2117768552415/

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.


This is what he says in the actual paper:


Saharo-tropical variant (or Africoid), as used here, refers to African populations which have the range of currently observable characteristics which can be traced back to the early holocene or earlier in Saharo-tropical Africa.....


In spite of this, even modern biologists occasionally make the error of assuming that all "black Africans" (Saharo-tropical variants) necessarily have a specific characteristic, for instance notable prognathism.....

As indicated by the analysis of the data in the studies reviewed here, the southern predynastic peoples were Saharo-tropical variants.


(Keita 1995)


Saharo-tropical African refers to the biologically indigenious peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. They are readily identifiable by their skeletal traits (cranial anthropometrics and limb proportions) which based on ecological principles would make them dark-skinned ("Black").


Several anthropologists, not just Keita, have confirmed that the Ancient Egyptian population exhibited characteristics within the range of Saharo-Tropical variation.


There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas." (Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)



SKin analysis of Ancient Egyptian mummies has also confirmed that they were dark-skinned peoples.



Now as far as the foreign migrations are concerned we do not have reliable figures for the extent to which foreign migration effected the Ancient Egyptian population. What we know is that there was a population continuity throughout the Dynastic Period that only began to show noticeable changes by the Late Period. Egypt was not nearly as densely populated as it is today. Most of the population during Dynastic times was concentrated in Upper Egypt. Lower Egypt received a population boom during the Greco-Roman period. The Fayum mummy portraits that are often cited as authentic images of Ancient Egyptian in antiquity date to the Roman period. By that time many Greeks and Romans had likely migrated to Lower Egypt.

DNA analysis indicates that the predominate lineage in Egypt (e3b) is of East African origin and was most likely carried to the Nile Valley by Afroasiatic speakers who laid the foundations of Ancient Egyptian culture. There are also European and Near Eastern lineages in Egypt that are attributed to more recent migrations.

The microsatellite results for Egyptian and Omani samples are given in table 3. The variance, continuous expansion, and median BATWING values of the Egyptian M35 lineages are considerably larger than those of Oman. This is also true for K2-M70. However, for either the collective J-12f2 or J*-12f2, the disparity is not so large. The expansion times of collective E3b-M35 lineages of the Egyptian sample are substantially older than those of the J-12f2, whereas, in Oman, the order is reversed. On the average, the median BATWING values based on the 30-year generation time are 20% greater than those calculated using a generation interval of 25 years.

(Luis et al. 2004)


There is also a North-South cline in haplotype frequency that indicates that the further South you go into Egypt the greater the frequency of African derived genetic lineages become.

Haplotype V, sometimes called “Arabic” (Lucotte and Mercier
2003a) declines from lower Egypt (north) at 51.9%, to upper Egypt
(24.2%), and to lower Nubia (south) at 17.4%. Haplotypes VII, VIII,
XV, and XII also decline (Table 1). In contrast, haplotypes XI and IV,
called “southern,” with IV being labeled “sub-Saharan,” have their lowest
frequencies in lower Egypt (XI-11.7%; IV-1.2%), but increase in
upper Egypt (XI-28.8%; IV-27.3%); and lower Nubia (XI-30.4%; IV-
39.1%); there is no statistically significant difference between the latter
two regions (Lucotte and Mercier 2003a). Haplotypes VII and VIII are
most prevalent in the Near East, and XII and XV in Europe.


(Keita 2005)


When taking all of the anthropological, archeological, linguistic and genetic evidence into consideration it becomes apparent that the Ancient Egyptians were in fact Black Africans and that the population received gene flow from Europe and the Near East over the course of its history. Over 2000 years separate Modern Egyptians from their Phararonic ancestors. The invasions on Egypt and subsequent occupations are documented facts and the genetic evidence suggests significant foreign settlements did occur.

 

[xchen08]

He does not identify himself with radical Afrocentrists, his involvement in the Black Athena debates was to comment on Ancient Egyptian bio-cultural relationships (his area of expertise) and he has not waffled in his reporting of research. And as far as his name is concerned I would say that adopting an African name has alot to do with his heritage given that he is of recent African descent. Where are you getting your information on Keita because your impressions do not mesh with the facts.

There's a reason I brought up Ron Paul. He too is invited to White Supremacist meetings to talk about his area of expertise, and he never directly supports their racial beliefs, but he too never disputes them either.

As far as Keita's comments on the Ancient Egyptians are concerned, no he never said that the Ancient Egyptians looked just like the modern Egyptians, what he said was that the physical diversity would have more than likely been the same. In an email correspondence he said that the typical Upper Egyptian to Nubian color would have been the model for most of the country during the Dynastic Period. He also made it clear in that National Geographic video that we must acknowledge that foreigners came into the country especially in Northern Egypt (clearly referring to population change).

He said that the physical diversity would have been much the same, and also that the physical diversity of modern Egypt is primarily African with only limited influx from the outside. (less than 5% is the value he gave, I believe, though I'd have to look it up to be sure) Combined, this means that ancient Egyptians look much the same as modern Egyptians, QED. That he would imply something else in an E-mail correspondence or other informal venues is exactly the kind of waffling based on audience that I was talking about.

SKin analysis of Ancient Egyptian mummies has also confirmed that they were dark-skinned peoples.

I've heard of this. However, Diop's test was on a very small sample, at least one of which was definitely Nubian. Further attempts to conduct the test on a larger sample never came to anything as far as I'm aware, though I'd appreciate any links. At best, all that the tests as they are now prove is that Egyptians weren't "white," which is bloody obvious.

Now as far as the foreign migrations are concerned we do not have reliable figures for the extent to which foreign migration effected the Ancient Egyptian population. What we know is that there was a population continuity throughout the Dynastic Period that only began to show noticeable changes by the Late Period. Egypt was not nearly as densely populated as it is today. Most of the population during Dynastic times was concentrated in Upper Egypt. Lower Egypt received a population boom during the Greco-Roman period. The Fayum mummy portraits that are often cited as authentic images of Ancient Egyptian in antiquity date to the Roman period. By that time many Greeks and Romans had likely migrated to Lower Egypt.

Got a source for that? Cause Memphis, capital of the Old Kingdom and Pi-Ramses were both in Lower Egypt. Thebes in Upper Egypt only became really important once the Hyskos overran the core of the old Kingdom, leaving just Upper Egypt free.

Incidently, your long list of excerpts from Keita's papers showing how much (modern) Egyptians are related to East Africans, and not related to what we would normally consider "white" peoples is not exactly helping the OP's idea that ancient Egyptians were recognizably black, but centuries of invasions somehow took that away.

Let us accept Keita's work as true, as I suggested previously, and without some of the qualifications he used. This means that Ancient Egyptians are more or less identical with modern Upper Egyptians. Yet Upper Egyptians are not black. Some of them are black, many more than in Lower Egypt. Few are "white" or Mediterranean, much fewer than in Lower Egypt. The majority are somewhere in between. The average is considerably lighter than in the Sudan or Ethiopia. So how does one reach the conclusion that Ancient Egyptians were black?

 

[Kahotep]

Hang on, what? Mongols don't look different from Chinese?

Not that I've noticed. They're both "Mongoloid" East Asians, aren't they?

Saracens don't look different from Italians?

How long did the Saracens occupy any part of Italy?

Other Afghans don't look different from Nurestani?

Where is your evidence that Nurestani have always looked the way they do?

Selective referencing strikes again. Did you not specifically mention the unreliability of judging Egyptian appearances from murals - something I agree with, by the way - in your OP essay? How then, does this mural become more reliable, when we both know that Egyptian iconography was primarily symbolic? It's almost as if something is only unreliable if it doesn't agree with you, but is magically reliable again when it does.

To be honest, you make a great point. I apologize for my error.

And I dont' recall anyone denying such "black" admixture. In fact, admixture is exactly my argument. Why, if there was such admixture and Egyptians were black to start with, aren't they darker-skinned on average now? Egyptians today tend to be little, if any, darker than the Libyan and Gazan neighbours. For that matter, they're not much darker than many Israelis I know, but since many of them are recent migrants, it's not a suitable analogy.

Do you consider Libyans and Gazans to be "Mediterraneans"? If so, your assertion that Egyptians are the same skin color contradicts your earlier admission that they would have been darker than "Mediterraneans".

Of course there's skin tone variation among 'black' people. Such variation would contra-indicate that Egyptians were 'black' by modern standards - which, as has been said many times throughout this thread, are stupid and arbitrary anyway - as it would actually imply much greater variation between Egyptians and their neighbours than elsewhere. After all, Northern Sudanese have much lighter skin than their sub-Saharan neighbours to the South. Wouldn't that suggest that Egyptians were themselves lighter-skinned, or at least comparable, to their immediate Southern neighbours?

Are non-Arab northern Sudanese really lighter-skinned than southern Sudanese? Do you have any photos to support your assertion?

And xchen08, considering the genetic evidence for significant admixture with Eurasians in the modern Egyptian gene pool, where do you think said Eurasian genes came from, if not from post-pharaonic invasions?

 

[Cynovolans]

Not that I've noticed. They're both "Mongoloid" East Asians, aren't they?

Of course there is a difference between Mongols and Chinese, just because they're both East Asian doesn't mean they are the same. That is like saying all Africans have the same features and skin tone.

 

[Kahotep]

Of course there is a difference between Mongols and Chinese, just because they're both East Asian doesn't mean they are the same. That is like saying all Africans have the same features and skin tone.

Good point, but looking through some images of Mongolians on Google Image Search, I don't see a dramatic difference between them and the Chinese people I've seen.

 

[Kahotep]

Got a source for that? Cause Memphis, capital of the Old Kingdom and Pi-Ramses were both in Lower Egypt. Thebes in Upper Egypt only became really important once the Hyskos overran the core of the old Kingdom, leaving just Upper Egypt free.

From http://www.faiyum.com/html/area_contexts.html

The 10m of alluvial accumulation mentioned by Butzer (1976, p.25) was deposited over a period of some 6000 years and inhibits the location of predynastic sites. However, Butzer suggests that even in Pharaonic times the Delta was under-populated when compared with Upper Egypt and that settlements were highly dispersed. He suggests on the basis of various evidence that “specialised forms of agriculture were far more prominent than in the Nile Valley, while pastoralism retained much of its prehistoric significance, at least through the Ptolemaic era” (1976, p.95). He speculates that this may be due to “excessive water and malaria” (1976, p.96).

 

[Mansa Musa]

To be honest, I've quickly skimmed through the thread and Afro-Centrism is basically the belief that Blacks have been denied their place in history and it's up to Afro-Centrists to bring that revisionism into "popular history". I don't think many Egyptologists are denying the fact that Ancient Egypt or Kemet was essentially an African civilization. The thing I don't like about Afro-Centrists is that they forget that most Blacks in the Americas don't from North Africa...they hail from West Africa! West Africa is ignored by Afro-Centrists. Ironic isn't it?

An Afro-Centrist would have more credibility in my eyes if they tried to uncover Islamic and Pre-Islamic kingdoms in West Africa and even brought to the light the horrors that the slave trade brought to West Africa. A blight that robbed millions from that part of Africa due to Chiefs who preferred muskets and rum to modern day concepts of human rights. But..such is history I suppose.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

There's a reason I brought up Ron Paul. He too is invited to White Supremacist meetings to talk about his area of expertise, and he never directly supports their racial beliefs, but he too never disputes them either.

I seem to recall Ron Paul denouncing racism on CNN. In any case Keita is not an Afrocentrist and none of you criticizing him have provided a valid reason to question his objectivity.

He said that the physical diversity would have been much the same, and also that the physical diversity of modern Egypt is primarily African with only limited influx from the outside. (less than 5% is the value he gave, I believe, though I'd have to look it up to be sure) Combined, this means that ancient Egyptians look much the same as modern Egyptians, QED. That he would imply something else in an E-mail correspondence or other informal venues is exactly the kind of waffling based on audience that I was talking about.

You'll have to show me a source for this. I have read several of Keita's papers and never come across such a claim.

I've heard of this. However, Diop's test was on a very small sample, at least one of which was definitely Nubian. Further attempts to conduct the test on a larger sample never came to anything as far as I'm aware, though I'd appreciate any links. At best, all that the tests as they are now prove is that Egyptians weren't "white," which is bloody obvious.

A very recent test that was conducted concluded that the Ancient Egyptian melanin levels were consistent with Black African populations.


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. In the dermis, the hair follicles, hair, and
sebaceous and sweat glands were readily apparent
(Fig. 2). Blood vessels, but no red blood cells,
and small peripheral nerves were identified
unambiguously (Fig. 3).


Source: Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and
staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft
tissues

Incidently, your long list of excerpts from Keita's papers showing how much (modern) Egyptians are related to East Africans, and not related to what we would normally consider "white" peoples is not exactly helping the OP's idea that ancient Egyptians were recognizably black, but centuries of invasions somehow took that away.

How so? Keita has established that the Ancient Egyptians overlap with tropical Africans and DNA analysis shows that the Eurasian lineages in Egypt are of fairly recent origin consistent with the theory that Egypt began as a Black African population and was eventually overrun by foreigners.

Let us accept Keita's work as true, as I suggested previously, and without some of the qualifications he used. This means that Ancient Egyptians are more or less identical with modern Upper Egyptians. Yet Upper Egyptians are not black. Some of them are black, many more than in Lower Egypt. Few are "white" or Mediterranean, much fewer than in Lower Egypt. The majority are somewhere in between. The average is considerably lighter than in the Sudan or Ethiopia. So how does one reach the conclusion that Ancient Egyptians were black?

Many Upper Egyptians today have some Eurasian ancestry but they are primarily of tropical African descent so how do you come to the conclusion that they are not Black? If Keita's research is the truth then the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans (within the range of Saharo-tropical variation). If Africans-Americans who have upwards to 20% European admixture are considered to be a Black population that why not modern Upper Egyptians?

To be honest, I've quickly skimmed through the thread and Afro-Centrism is basically the belief that Blacks have been denied their place in history and it's up to Afro-Centrists to bring that revisionism into "popular history". I don't think many Egyptologists are denying the fact that Ancient Egypt or Kemet was essentially an African civilization. The thing I don't like about Afro-Centrists is that they forget that most Blacks in the Americas don't from North Africa...they hail from West Africa! West Africa is ignored by Afro-Centrists. Ironic isn't it?

An Afro-Centrist would have more credibility in my eyes if they tried to uncover Islamic and Pre-Islamic kingdoms in West Africa and even brought to the light the horrors that the slave trade brought to West Africa. A blight that robbed millions from that part of Africa due to Chiefs who preferred muskets and rum to modern day concepts of human rights. But..such is history I suppose.

I don't agree with your contention that studying early Egypt in it African context is Afrocentric. Some Afrocentric scholars do have a Nilocentric outlook on African history, focusing too much on Nile Valley Civilization at the expense of other African cultures but there are many books that have been written about West African and other African cultures by Afrocentric historians.

The fixation on Ancient Egypt is two fold.

1. It was the most advanced civilization in Africa with a rich source of material to study

2. Eurocentric Egyptologists tried to de-emphasize its African bio-cultural roots


Even today if you hear Egyptian Egyptologists like Zahi Hawass speak on Ancient Egypt's connection to the rest of Africa they will only go so far as to acknowledge that Egypt was African in geography only. Hawass has gone on record to say that not only were the Ancient Egyptians not Black but Egypt is not even an African civilization even if it is geographically on the African continent.

Many experts on Africa history disagree. They recognize that the bio-cultural roots of Ancient Egyptian Civilization are fundamentally African.

 

[Verbose]

Funny how in all this no one is really discussing the specifics of the ancient Egyptian civilisation anymore. Kind of a waste.

 

[Cynovolans]

Good point, but looking through some images of Mongolians on Google Image Search, I don't see a dramatic difference between them and the Chinese people I've seen.

The Mongols have a much more Central Asian influence in them, their facial hair is much more pronounced than a Han Chinese, and their skin is darker. Also because of intermixing with other Central Asian tribes, it is not to uncommon for a Mongol to be born with brown, red, or even blonde hair. The only surviving account of Genghis Khan's looks is that he had red hair and green eyes.

How long did the Saracens occupy any part of Italy?

The Emirate of Sicily existed for over a hundred years, and other parts of Italy were rule at times by Arabs.

 

[Mansa Musa]

I seem to recall Ron Paul denouncing racism on CNN. In any case Keita is not an Afrocentrist and none of you criticizing him have provided a valid reason to question his objectivity.





You'll have to show me a source for this. I have read several of Keita's papers and never come across such a claim.




A very recent test that was conducted concluded that the Ancient Egyptian melanin levels were consistent with Black African populations.


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. In the dermis, the hair follicles, hair, and
sebaceous and sweat glands were readily apparent
(Fig. 2). Blood vessels, but no red blood cells,
and small peripheral nerves were identified
unambiguously (Fig. 3).


Source: Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and
staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft
tissues





How so? Keita has established that the Ancient Egyptians overlap with tropical Africans and DNA analysis shows that the Eurasian lineages in Egypt are of fairly recent origin consistent with the theory that Egypt began as a Black African population and was eventually overrun by foreigners.



Many Upper Egyptians today have some Eurasian ancestry but they are primarily of tropical African descent so how do you come to the conclusion that they are not Black? If Keita's research is the truth then the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans (within the range of Saharo-tropical variation). If Africans-Americans who have upwards to 20% European admixture are considered to be a Black population that why not modern Upper Egyptians?



I don't agree with your contention that studying early Egypt in it African context is Afrocentric. Some Afrocentric scholars do have a Nilocentric outlook on African history, focusing too much on Nile Valley Civilization at the expense of other African cultures but there are many books that have been written about West African and other African cultures by Afrocentric historians.

The fixation on Ancient Egypt is two fold.

1. It was the most advanced civilization in Africa with a rich source of material to study

2. Eurocentric Egyptologists tried to de-emphasize its African bio-cultural roots


Even today if you hear Egyptian Egyptologists like Zahi Hawass speak on Ancient Egypt's connection to the rest of Africa they will only go so far as to acknowledge that Egypt was African in geography only. Hawass has gone on record to say that not only were the Ancient Egyptians not Black but Egypt is not even an African civilization even if it is geographically on the African continent.

Many experts on Africa history disagree. They recognize that the bio-cultural roots of Ancient Egyptian Civilization are fundamentally African.

I would argue that the Kingdoms in the Sahel region of Africa were the most advanced for the knowledge they gleamed from Islamic scholars. Furthermore, Afro-centrists deny other histories involving Africa because they believe that Ancient Egypt is the standard of African civilization. Ancient Egypt was not the High-Water mark. Earlier, someone posted Ancient Egyptian diagrams of their skin colour in relation to Libyans, Semites, themselves and Nubians. Clearly Ancient Egyptians looked more like Anwar Sadat than Lebron James. When Afro-Centrists say there were "Black"... they did not look West Africa. Yes, they were dark-skinned and some had full lips and coarse hair, but i'm quite sure a majority did not. Especially considering some Ethiopian populations today lack those characteristics and Egypt was further up in Africa. In the context of Africa history, saying that since a population has been diluted doesn't make it "Un-African".

I would even say that the Boer/Afrikaners are specifically in African culture too. Maybe not indigenous to the continent but their ethnogenesis occured in Africa. Same with the Malagasy in Madagascar. Does that logic make a Berber more African than an Arab who's ancestors had been living in North Africa since the 700s AD? Maybe so, maybe not, but we must realize our version of Black and what the Ancient Egyptians actually look liked is radically different. Even the darkest skinned Egyptian today would not fit our perspective of Black...even if they had not intermarried with communities that had come to Egypt since the Ptolemies.

 

[luiz]

As long as the OP does not realize that the distinction between "white" and "black" does not really exist (human colors form a continuum, there is no clear frontier), this discussion is going nowhere. Ancient Egyptians were surely darker than Greeks, but they were also surely lighter than Nubians. Is this so hard to accept?

 

[Verbose]

The OP and subsequent discussion makes me thing of Zugmunt Bauman's observation that as conceptual constructs "races are nations without borders". I.e. if we were discussing Egyptian nationality, ancient and current, the whole OP would be beside the point since, well, it's actually Egptian. But the OP is entirely about race, with hardly a reference to the actual ancient Egyptian society and culture.

I also find "bio-cultural" to be a nice word, which I would like to use in conversation.

 

[Lord Baal]

Not that I've noticed. They're both "Mongoloid" East Asians, aren't they?

You really need to have a look in textbooks about race, before basing arguments upon 30 year old definitions. There's no such thing as "Monglooid" anymore. For that matter, there's no such thing as 'Negroid' or 'Caucasoid,' with 'Caucasian' now being used to describe Europeans.

And there is a rather large difference between the Chinese and Mongols.

Chinese people:

Spoiler :

(Incidentally, you'd be shocked at how much porn turned up in a google image search of the word "Chinese.")

Mongols:

Spoiler :

Now, those Mongols obviously look more Chinese than you or I, but they're hardly the same people. And that's despite centuries, if not millenia, of interbreeding, especially in the North.

How long did the Saracens occupy any part of Italy?

Upwards of 100 years, and one of the reasons Southern Italians were looked down on by Northern Italians - particularly during the Fascist period - was that they were seen as "Tunisian."

Where is your evidence that Nurestani have always looked the way they do?

I don't see why this matters. They have a very similar appearance to Europeans, and there certainly aren't a tonne of Europeans in the area. I believe that the survey team that Rudyard Kipling based his knowledge of their appearance on was the first group of Europeans to visit the area since the Greeks. One theory is that they're descended from the Greeks, but would still beg the question of why Grecian genetic influence was greater than that of their far more numerous Afghan neighbours. When they started to look like this isn't the question, it's why they don't look like everyone else in their region.

To be honest, you make a great point. I apologize for my error.

Admitting you're wrong! On the internet! What's the matter with you?

Do you consider Libyans and Gazans to be "Mediterraneans"? If so, your assertion that Egyptians are the same skin color contradicts your earlier admission that they would have been darker than "Mediterraneans".

Nope, I wouldn't consider either to be "Mediterraneans." I think 'Mediterranean' is more of a cultural group anyway, not an ethnographic one.

Are non-Arab northern Sudanese really lighter-skinned than southern Sudanese? Do you have any photos to support your assertion?

They seem to be, in my experience. I don't have any photos - a quick Google image search produced nothing one way or the other; "Northern Sudanese" only produced Arabs, and "Southern Sudanese" only produced Black - but there are a lot of Sudanese refugees living in my area. You can tell what part of the country their parents came from from their appearance. The ones the furthest South are almost the colour of wood-smoke.

As long as the OP does not realize that the distinction between "white" and "black" does not really exist (human colors form a continuum, there is no clear frontier), this discussion is going nowhere. Ancient Egyptians were surely darker than Greeks, but they were also surely lighter than Nubians. Is this so hard to accept?

(bolding mine)

Apparently so. That's pretty much what I said in my 1st post.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

I would argue that the Kingdoms in the Sahel region of Africa were the most advanced for the knowledge they gleamed from Islamic scholars. Furthermore, Afro-centrists deny other histories involving Africa because they believe that Ancient Egypt is the standard of African civilization. Ancient Egypt was not the High-Water mark. Earlier, someone posted Ancient Egyptian diagrams of their skin colour in relation to Libyans, Semites, themselves and Nubians. Clearly Ancient Egyptians looked more like Anwar Sadat than Lebron James. When Afro-Centrists say there were "Black"... they did not look West Africa. Yes, they were dark-skinned and some had full lips and coarse hair, but i'm quite sure a majority did not. Especially considering some Ethiopian populations today lack those characteristics and Egypt was further up in Africa. In the context of Africa history, saying that since a population has been diluted doesn't make it "Un-African".

I would even say that the Boer/Afrikaners are specifically in African culture too. Maybe not indigenous to the continent but their ethnogenesis occured in Africa. Same with the Malagasy in Madagascar. Does that logic make a Berber more African than an Arab who's ancestors had been living in North Africa since the 700s AD? Maybe so, maybe not, but we must realize our version of Black and what the Ancient Egyptians actually look liked is radically different. Even the darkest skinned Egyptian today would not fit our perspective of Black...even if they had not intermarried with communities that had come to Egypt since the Ptolemies.

Mansa Musa, your perspective of Black appears to be very limited and stereotypical. Infact it is a throwback to the True Negro myth. There is no authentic African look. Ethiopians and Somali are as biologically African as any West African population. The Ancient Egyptians, consisting of Saharan and tropical East African populations would have had a range of characteristics. Broad to Elongated craniofacial features, medium to dark brown skin and tightly curled to wavy hair. Many of them would have looked like your typical African-American including people like Wesly Snipes and Lebron James. Many others would look more like Iman.

That's what the biological evidence indicates.

The OP and subsequent discussion makes me thing of Zugmunt Bauman's observation that as conceptual constructs "races are nations without borders". I.e. if we were discussing Egyptian nationality, ancient and current, the whole OP would be beside the point since, well, it's actually Egptian. But the OP is entirely about race, with hardly a reference to the actual ancient Egyptian society and culture.

I also find "bio-cultural" to be a nice word, which I would like to use in conversation.

Bio-cultural is indeed a good term. Check out Keita's lecture and listen to how he applies it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS3yFCoIdXc