The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

[MKGLouisville]

Weren't the black Nubian Pharoahs unusal because they were black as opposed to the Egyptians?

It would be nice if you would have read the plethora of research presented on this page (19) as well as the previous page, which actually shows that the "black nubians" were who the Ancient Egyptians were ethnically the closest to. So since you called the Nubians 'Black' then it only makes sense to call the Ancient Egyptians 'Black' as well

I'm reasonably sure the AE themselves didn't class themselves as black but its hard to tell.

Just as the Ancient Nubians and other Africans probably didn't consider themselves 'Black', or like the Ancient Greeks and Romans probably didn't consider themselves 'white'!

I have seen pictures on Egyptian ruins with everything thing from pale skin through to black.

Just as Black Africans and Near Easterners were present in Ancient Greece and Rome, are we to think that they weren't 'white' due to that fact? Ancient Egypt became a melting pot during the later dynasties and no one disputes that fact. With various people from Eurasia entering the nation at substantial numbers, but that does not change the fact that the early Ancient Egyptians were 'Black' Northeast Africans.

They seemed to portray themselves as bown skinned as opposed to black.

So I guess that if you're not pitch Black then you're not 'Black' ! The pitch black portraits were probably portraying the pitch black Sudanese people that still inhabit the region today as well as the brown skinned people that have always inhabited the region.

Look at the Nubians in this scene some are brown some are black, just like the various other regions of Africa!

Some of the rulers woulod have been mixed race and its not impossable they were part black/greek/caucasian/whatever.

Greeks came during the fall of the Egyptians empire! However as noted by Keita since the dynastic period small scale migration has been noted in Egypt, before the massive and numerous Eurasian invasions during the latter periods. It's very probable that there were some rulers who weren't 100% African and or were from Asia, but for the most part anaylsis of royal crania not surprisingly found that they were closest to Nubian crania.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

As a matter of interest what does DNA evidence say from mummies? I don't think the ancient egyptians were black or white as such but with the timeframe involved several groups ruylesd the Egyptians at onbe point or another.

There haven't been too many DNA studies on Ancient Egyptian mummies themselves. Infact the Egyptian government has prohibited large scale DNA testing on the mummies with a few exceptions such as the recent testing on King Tut. I know of no comprehensive DNA study that compared the DNA profiles to a wide range of populations.

There are few studies of ancient DNA from Egyptian remains and none so far of southern predynastic skeletons. A study of 12th Dynasty DNA shows that the remains evaluated had multiple lines of descent, including not surprisingly some from "sub-Saharan" Africa (Paabo and Di Rienzo 1993). The other lineages were not identified, but may be African in origin. More work is needed. In the future, early remains from the Nile Valley and the rest of Africa will have to be studied in this manner in order to establish the early baseline range of genetic variation of all Africa. The data are important to avoid stereotyped ideas about the DNA of African peoples.

Source: The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians, Egypt in Africa, (1996), pp. 25-27

Nordic, Alpine, Medditerranean would be more 19th century way to define whites normally followed by XYZ subgroup is better usually by that advocates sub group he belongs to. Weren't the black Nubian Pharoahs unusal because they were black as opposed to the Egyptians? I'm reasonably sure the AE themselves didn't class themselves as black but its hard to tell. I have seen pictures on Egyptian ruins with everything thing from pale skin through to black. They seemed to portray themselves as bown skinned as opposed to black.

Some of the rulers woulod have been mixed race and its not impossable they were part black/greek/caucasian/whatever.

I can't say for sure if the Ancient Egyptians classified themselves as Black. Both Cheikh Anta Diop and Jean-François Champollion, the scholar who deciphered the Rosseta Stone, as well as others believed that the word KMT ("The Black Land"), which the Ancient Egyptians called their nation, referred to the ethnicity of the people and that they were defining themselves by their skin color. This is an idea rejected by most Egyptologists and Linguists who instead believe KMT referred to the soil (black silt).

The Nubians have been accepted as Black by mainstream scholars but the truth is that they were the closet ethnicity to the Ancient Egyptians culturally and biologically.
Some people assume that because the Nubians were depicted as black-skinned in art that the Egyptians were making a racial distinction between themselves and them.

Those same people disregard the fact that the Ancient Egyptians distinguished themselves from white-skinned Libyans and yellow-skinned Asiatics as well. They depicted themselves uniformly as reddish-brown.

Ancient Egyptian art was highly stylized. They used conventions in art such as depicting women as yellow and the Gods as various colors including Blue and Green. The dead were painted black.

I personally believe that in the mural above the colors were meant to symbolize average skin colors for the populations. The Ancient Egyptians generally depicted themselves as brown-skinned in artwork that depicts ordinary life (vs. religious settings).



Link to video.

It has to be remembered that Saharo-tropical Africans very naturally in skintone without admixture from foreigners.

As far as the rulers are concerned the native rulers were the same ethnicity as the majority of the populace. In later times foreigners did rule (even earlier with the Hyksos who were driven out) such as the Ptolemies, who were of, Macedonian descent, but when I speak of "Ancient Egyptian Civilization" I'm generally talking about native Egyptians from the Early Dynastic to the New Kingdom period, before permanent decline. We know that in later periods foreigners made permanent settlements in the country.

 

[Zardnaar]

Reddish brown isn't black though (or white). As I said they most probably resembled modern arabs the most. The black skinned people in the other mural could be nubian mercenaries, or southern Egyptians which were probably darker skinned. The paint clours seem slightly off but they seem to know the differenece Egyptian/Phoencian and Nubian.

Were they African? Probably, were they black not in the modern sense of the term. Hell they could have been a mixture of middle east, nubian and a smattering of white?

 

[MKGLouisville]

Reddish brown isn't black though (or white).

Guess again, You don't have to be pitch black in order to be 'Black'. Heck if that was the case then 90% of African Americans and 60-70%% of SSA aren't "Black" they're "Brown" or "Brownish Red"!

As I said they most probably resembled modern arabs the most.

As we've proven you're wrong, Anthropology proves that they were closest to more Southernly Black skinned African populations, NOT ARABS they came later!

Were they African? Probably, were they black not in the modern sense of the term. Hell they could have been a mixture of middle east, nubian and a smattering of white

Bottom Line: The Ancient Egyptians especially Southern Egyptians (which is where Egypt originated) during it's early dynasties were ethnically the closest to Black skinned Africans and there hasn't been an iota of evidence presented sugguesting otherwise, nothing but wishful thinking!

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Reddish brown isn't black though (or white). As I said they most probably resembled modern arabs the most. The black skinned people in the other mural could be nubian mercenaries, or southern Egyptians which were probably darker skinned. The paint clours seem slightly off but they seem to know the differenece Egyptian/Phoencian and Nubian.

Were they African? Probably, were they black not in the modern sense of the term. Hell they could have been a mixture of middle east, nubian and a smattering of white?

What modern sense are you talking about? By modern Western standards they would definitely be considered Black. You don't have to be jet black-skinned to be considered Black by Western standards and many Saharo-tropical African populations have medium-brown skin.

Again in my view what the Ancient Egyptians are portraying in art is merely an average gradient in skin tone. They were likely lighter on average than very dark brown (nearly jet black) Sudanese but much darker than your average European or Near Eastern population.

Like this:


Ancient Egyptian

Nubian

They don't resemble modern Arabs the most. The ancestors of Arabs were a nomadic people living at the Southern end of the Arabian Peninsula at the time. Their closest relative to the Egyptians being Levantine people. Skeletal studies show Ancient Egyptians to be more similar to Nubians than Asiatics.

 

[Kahotep]

They don't resemble modern Arabs the most. The ancestors of Arabs were a nomadic people living at the Southern end of the Arabian Peninsula at the time.

It depends on which Arabs you're talking about. Perhaps the first people who spoke Arabic came from the southern end of the Arabian peninsula, but a lot of those who identify as Arabs today are descended from non-Arabs who adopted the Arabic language. For instance, Palestinians are Arabized Hebrews, Lebanese are Arabized Phoenicians, and Iraqis are Arabized Babylonians.

 

[Zardnaar]

What modern sense are you talking about? By modern Western standards they would definitely be considered Black. You don't have to be jet black-skinned to be considered Black by Western standards and many Saharo-tropical African populations have medium-brown skin.

Again in my view what the Ancient Egyptians are portraying in art is merely an average gradient in skin tone. They were likely lighter on average than very dark brown (nearly jet black) Sudanese but much darker than your average European or Near Eastern population.

Like this:


Ancient Egyptian

Nubian

They don't resemble modern Arabs the most. The ancestors of Arabs were a nomadic people living at the Southern end of the Arabian Peninsula at the time. Their closest relative to the Egyptians being Levantine people. Skeletal studies show Ancient Egyptians to be more similar to Nubians than Asiatics.

The top lady may be dark skinned but she isn't exactly negroid? The AE artwork they seemed to portray themselves very differently from nubians.

 

[Plotinus]

What about him?

I raised this early in the thread. Abba Moses was a monk in Egypt in the fourth century CE, who apparently came from Nubia. His black skin was a subject of frequent comment by both his fellow monks - who would have been mostly indigenous Egyptians, with some immigrants from elsewhere in the Roman empire - and later writers. See here. This, to my mind, is pretty good evidence that, in the fourth century CE, black skin was a rare sight in Egypt, even in the rural areas, which were largely Coptic.

Having a long term residence in the tropics means that they were substantially dark-skinned. They were a dark-skinned (medium to dark brown pigmentation) African people which gives us an idea of what they looked like.

Again, I don't think anyone here is disagreeing with that. I just don't think that makes them black! Indians have medium to dark brown pigmentation but I wouldn't call them black. I'm sure that ancient Egyptians looked more like people I would call black than Indians do, but surely you can see that there is vagueness here, not a cut-and-dried fact of the matter that they should definitely be called black.

They're all people of recent African descent. Noone is saying the Ancient Egyptians looked like a stereotypical West African population. to consider only a person who is Black one who looks like a West African invokes the "True Negro" myth.

I don't know what that is, but my point was related to the fact that the early posts in this thread mainly presented African Americans as examples of "black" people to illustrate what the ancient Egyptians looked like.

LOL I mean are you seriously asking this question? I mean what else has to be presented for you people to accept that the Ancient Egyptians were a local Northeast African population who's crania are in the same cluster with more Southernly Black skinned Africans populations;

LOL yourself: I haven't said I don't accept that, have I?

Based on Principal that means that they had Dark/Black skin;

Your first passage seems to me just conjectural as far as this goes. The second passage is much better, but still, all you can conclude from any of this is that the Egyptians had dark skin to some degree. I haven't seen evidence presented that they had dark enough skin to be considered "black"; and as I indicated above, I think there's evidence that they didn't. Again, this is entirely a matter of definition. It doesn't seem to me that anyone is much disputing what the ancient Egyptians actually looked like. The dispute is about whether people who look like that should be labelled "black" or not! It's all very well to appeal to "the western standard", whatever that is, but that's just too vague.

LOL OK now you're just being silly and according to that opinion 90% of African Americans (who are about 85% African) aren't Black looking.

I wish I were as merry as you, laughing out loud almost constantly. But I'm not being silly. That woman doesn't have "black" features at all; the only thing that makes her "black" is that she has relatively dark skin (compared to white people) although she is pretty pale (compared to most Africans). To call her simply "black" seems to me to reflect old-fashioned western standards, according to which anyone who isn't completely white is "black". She looks just as white, or possibly Asian, to me as she does black.

I do think a lot of African Americans aren't black looking, or more accurately, they are black looking to a variety of degrees.

If that woman isn't black then this Woman isn't black either

No, the two cases are not identical. This woman has more black features than the other, but they're still not that pronounced.

My thing is that if you (not saying that you do) are willing to accept that Nordic, Alpine, and Medditerranean are all variations of what we all refer as white then you (again not saying that you do subscribe to race) and/or people who believe in the concept of race should have no problem recognizing that people who are referred to as 'Black' (Africans) come in different shapes, forms, and hues not just the West African Bantu look, considering that people we refer to as 'white' have variation.

Well, that seems fair enough. But equally you should accept that these terms are all vague, and there is no definitive right or wrong answer about how to class many people.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

It depends on which Arabs you're talking about. Perhaps the first people who spoke Arabic came from the southern end of the Arabian peninsula, but a lot of those who identify as Arabs today are descended from non-Arabs who adopted the Arabic language. For instance, Palestinians are Arabized Hebrews, Lebanese are Arabized Phoenicians, and Iraqis are Arabized Babylonians.

Like I said, the closest relatives to Arabs in the Egyptian world, the people of the Levant, were not as closely related to the Ancient Egyptians as the Nubians were. The Ancient Egyptians depicted them in artwork as yellow-skinned on contrast to their brown-skins.

People always like to talk about the Ancient Egyptians depicting the Nubians differently from themselves but fail to recognize the Egyptians depicting themselves much darker than white or tan-skinned populations. Medium Brown skin is well within the range of Saharo-tropical variation.

The top lady may be dark skinned but she isn't exactly negroid? The AE artwork they seemed to portray themselves very differently from nubians.

The top lady is Iman, a Somali supermodel. Her people are equally as Biologically African as any African population with Broad ("Negroid") features. The Ancient Egyptians had both Broad and Elongated facial features. Look at the features of the Sphinx and the features of Nerfertiti's bust for comparison. There is no true Black African phenotype. There's wide variation in African so even if the Nubians had broader features than the Egyptians both were biologically African populations.

I raised this early in the thread. Abba Moses was a monk in Egypt in the fourth century CE, who apparently came from Nubia. His black skin was a subject of frequent comment by both his fellow monks - who would have been mostly indigenous Egyptians, with some immigrants from elsewhere in the Roman empire - and later writers. See here. This, to my mind, is pretty good evidence that, in the fourth century CE, black skin was a rare sight in Egypt, even in the rural areas, which were largely Coptic.

By the 4th century CE the Egyptian population had been invaded by the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans all contributing immigrants to the gene pool especially the Greeks and Romans. Even before that there were immigrants coming to Egypt during the New Kingdom and Late Period. These were small migrations over an extended period of time and their birth rates began to drastically change the demographic of the population.

The Fayum mummy portraits give us pictorial evidence that the population had already changed significantly as you see light-skinned Egyptians wearing Roman clothing.

So it doesn't surprise me that Abba Moses would standout during this time period.

Again, I don't think anyone here is disagreeing with that. I just don't think that makes them black! Indians have medium to dark brown pigmentation but I wouldn't call them black. I'm sure that ancient Egyptians looked more like people I would call black than Indians do, but surely you can see that there is vagueness here, not a cut-and-dried fact of the matter that they should definitely be called black.

As I've said over and over in this thread Blackness is arbitrary so whether they would be considered Black is less important than what they actually looked like and what their biological and cultural affinities were.

I don't know what that is, but my point was related to the fact that the early posts in this thread mainly presented African Americans as examples of "black" people to illustrate what the ancient Egyptians looked like.

I don't recall that. I recall posting a picture of Eddie Murphy and Iman (not an African-American) dressed as Egyptians from a music video to demonstrate a RANGE of characteristics the Ancient Egyptians had. They had both broad and elongated craniofacial features. Dark-skinned African-Americans would not have looked out of place during the early periods of Dynastic Egypt.

But I'm not saying the Ancient Egyptians looked like the average African-American. They looked like tropical East Africans.

 

[Plotinus]

By the 4th century CE the Egyptian population had been invaded by the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans all contributing immigrants to the gene pool especially the Greeks and Romans. Even before that there were immigrants coming to Egypt during the New Kingdom and Late Period. These were small migrations over an extended period of time and their birth rates began to drastically change the demographic of the population.

The Fayum mummy portraits give us pictorial evidence that the population had already changed significantly as you see light-skinned Egyptians wearing Roman clothing.

So it doesn't surprise me that Abba Moses would standout during this time period.

I don't know about the Assyrians and Persians, but the Greeks and Romans certainly did not penetrate very much into the Egyptian countryside. In the fourth century, ethnically Greek/Roman people predominated in the big cities, above all Alexandria, but this was a world apart from the rural areas even close by. They spoke different languages, had different traditions and customs, and would almost never even meet. Antony the Great is said to have visited Alexandria - where he did not speak the language - only once in his incredibly long life, and that with reluctance. Alexandrians referred to their city as "Alexandria next to Egypt", in defiance of geography but in recognition of the fact that they were so different.

Now someone like Abba Moses would have spent his whole time in the countryside. The texts I linked to mentioned a council at Scetis, which was in the "outer desert" or more remote regions. The monks in places such as this would have been predominantly ethnic Copts, often recent converts from traditional Egyptian religion. Greeks and Romans, usually theological sophisticates from the city or from elsewhere in the Roman world, would have formed a minority in such places. These two groups, the Copts and the Greco-Romans, were quite distinct, and the cultural differences between them flared into violence in the First Origenist Crisis at the end of the fourth century, the complicated history of which I shall not rehearse here.

So I'm not convinced by this claim that, by Abba Moses' day, the indigenous Egyptians had become ethnically changed to a significant degree, at least by the influx of Greeks and Romans. This may have been true in Alexandria and perhaps some of the other cities down the Nile, but not in the rural population at large, and certainly not in the monasteries of Scetis and the like. The fact that Abba Moses stuck out among groups of indigenous Copts surely suggests that, at this time, these people had relatively light skin - at least, light enough that a Nubian could stand out and even suffer from discrimination on the basis of his skin colour, as indicated by those texts. It's worth noting that the archbishop - presumably the patriarch of Alexandria - appears in those texts as the worst culprit in this regard, and he would almost certainly have been a Greco-Roman rather than a Copt, but nevertheless the fact that he is portrayed as singling out Abba Moses from among a bunch of other monks indicates that his appearance was quite distinctive among the monks.

The Fayum mummy portraits certainly provide evidence that there were relatively light-skinned Egyptians during this period - indeed, they are so light-skinned that one would say they look just like southern Europeans today. Whether that is evidence that the ancient populations had really changed owing to intermarriage, or been replaced by immigrants, or had always looked like that, though, is another matter. Personally I find the first of these three options pretty implausible: just how overwhelming would the migration and intermarriage have to be to turn a people with very dark skin, akin to the Nubians, into a people who look like Italians and Greeks?

 

[Masada]

I was told that the Western standard of 'black' was factual. I didn't think it was. After all both terms are seemingly arbitrary. (What exactly constitutes the West and what constitutes a standard of that as yet undefined entity?) Apparently I was right. Blackness is arbitrary it isn't a fact.

The standards of Blackness in the West is a fact. Based on the biological evidence the Ancient Egyptians would fit into the category of Black based on Western standards.

As I've said over and over in this thread Blackness is arbitrary so whether they would be considered Black is less important than what they actually looked like and what their biological and cultural affinities were.

So what are we dealing with. Whatever the hell you seemingly want it to be. Neither Plotinus or I as representatives of the West were accepted as being part of the standard. Both of us were derided as being non-standard. Well, gosh, doesn't that show you that there is no single definition of black? Nevertheless the blackness or lack thereof was clear to you. Despite the fact that it wasn't clear to anyone else. Even your confederate Kahotep seems to agree because he considers Melanesians to be black. But whatever, we can keep playing around with a term which has no intrinsic meaning and which varies from person to person. In any case if you wont give it up I'll nominate the standard, adapted from Apartheid South Africa since they were the experts at dividing people into arbitrary racial constructs:

1. Characteristics of the person's head hair
2. Characteristics of the person's other hair
3. Skin color
4. Facial features
5. Home language and especially the knowledge of Afrikaans oppressors language
6. Area where the person lives, the person's friends and acquaintances
7. Employment
8. Socioeconomic status
9. Eating and drinking habits

All the science and industry of white civilization could only turn out... a horrible arbitrary construct dependent on judgment with utterly no empirical basis. Huzzah! I'll also be willing to grab one of those delightful books which allowed the police to check someones color at a moments notice complete with delightful names: 'chocolate brown' 'ace of spades' etc.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

The Fayum mummy portraits certainly provide evidence that there were relatively light-skinned Egyptians during this period - indeed, they are so light-skinned that one would say they look just like southern Europeans today. Whether that is evidence that the ancient populations had really changed owing to intermarriage, or been replaced by immigrants, or had always looked like that, though, is another matter. Personally I find the first of these three options pretty implausible: just how overwhelming would the migration and intermarriage have to be to turn a people with very dark skin, akin to the Nubians, into a people who look like Italians and Greeks?

I imagine that the Fayum portraits represent both replacement and admixture between native Egyptians and Southern Europeans. Some of them look like this:

Since there was alot of immigration during this time many of them likely had no native Egyptian ancestry at all. They were just culturally assimilated immigrants.

In any case if you wont give it up I'll nominate the standard......

You're beating a dead horse. There's no point in arguing over the arbitrariness of Blackness. The evidence presented in this thread in support of the OP's thesis has established what the Ancient Egyptians looked like, what their biological affinities were and what their bio-cultural origins were. There's no need to constantly talk about social labels like Black. How many times have I said this?

 

[MKGLouisville]

LOL yourself: I haven't said I don't accept that, have I?

But you're saying that regaurdless of rather or not modern Black skinned Africans (who are labeled 'Black' in the social sense) resemble the Ancient Egyptians the most, they were not "Black" in the social sense! Oooh gee

all you can conclude from any of this is that the Egyptians had dark skin to some degree.

We can conclude that the Ancient Egyptians had dark brown skin; were indigenous to Africa; and were ethnically the closest to African populations labeled Black! So why the fuss when Egypt is called 'Black'?

I haven't seen evidence presented that they had dark enough skin to be considered "black";

That woman doesn't have "black" features at all; the only thing that makes her "black" is that she has relatively dark skin (compared to white people) although she is pretty pale (compared to most Africans).

You're right you just seen evidence that states that the human remains from this indigenous African population were "packed with melanin", and were ethincally the closest to Black skinned populations ...... The dots are there you're just refusing to connect them! Then again as you stated earlier you feel that the term 'Black' is too vaugue and you feel that reguardless of if an individual is indigenous to Africa and has black skin, if their nose isn't the widest, their lips are the thickest, and their skin isn't the blackest then they aren't 'Black'! You do however recognize that the Ancient Egyptians were biologically African and were most closesly related to more Southernly African populations.

To call her simply "black" seems to me to reflect old-fashioned western standards, according to which anyone who isn't completely white is "black". She looks just as white, or possibly Asian, to me as she does black.

So my question is since according to you 'Black' refers to the darkest Africans with the most broadest of features, what is the true defintion of 'White'... The Nordic, the Slav, The Celt, the Southern Italian, the Turk?

No, the two cases are not identical. This woman has more black features than the other, but they're still not that pronounced.

But Gabriel Union is no where near as dark as this Sudanese woman, but Gabriel's nose is flatter and wider than her's. So which one is Black?

These Southeast African Zulu warriors aren't as tall or Dark as these Dinka soccer players, so which one is 'Black'?

 

[Kahotep]

Plotinus, can you quote us some Coptic text pertaining to this Abba Moses character? I ask this because I know some Egyptic words that have been translated as "black" really don't mean that. For instance, European Egyptologists used to translate the Egyptic word "Nehesi" to "black" when the word really referred to a specific ethnic group in Nubia. Also, the ancient Egyptians called their nation "Kemet Niwt" ("black nation") and themselves "Kememou" (black people). I don't think the Egyptians would describe an appearance unusual to them using an adjective they regularly applied to themselves. That would be like a European tribe calling itself "the white people" distinguishing someone for being white.

 

[Plotinus]

But you're saying that regaurdless of rather or not modern Black skinned Africans (who are labeled 'Black' in the social sense) resemble the Ancient Egyptians the most, they were not "Black" in the social sense! Oooh gee

You should laugh less and apply logic more. The fact that one group of people is more closely related to a group we call "black" does not, in itself, entail that the former group is black. Birds are more closely related to reptiles than they are to any other animal group, but nevertheless, birds are not reptiles. What your arguments show is that the ancient Egyptians were more closely related to the various mentioned African groups than to other people - but that doesn't make them the same as those other groups, any more than the fact that I'm more closely related to my sister than anyone else makes me a woman.

We can conclude that the Ancient Egyptians had dark brown skin; were indigenous to Africa; and were ethnically the closest to African populations labeled Black! So why the fuss when Egypt is called 'Black'?

Because those things aren't the same as being black, at least, not in everyone's eyes. Once again, this isn't an argument about what the Egyptians looked like so much as an argument about what to call them, and I don't see how you can be so prescriptive about that.

You're right you just seen evidence that states that the human remains from this indigenous African population were "packed with melanin", and were ethincally the closest to Black skinned populations ...... The dots are there you're just refusing to connect them!

Provide evidence that they were "packed" with as much melanin as modern people we can all agree to call "black" and you're in a position to connect those dots.

By the way, if I see the "roll eyes" smiley again I'll pull out the moderator stick. That smiley is nothing more or less than trolling. More generally I think you should moderate your tone here.

Then again as you stated earlier you feel that the term 'Black' is too vaugue and you feel that reguardless of if an individual is indigenous to Africa and has black skin, if their nose isn't the widest, their lips are the thickest, and their skin isn't the blackest then they aren't 'Black'!

I didn't say that. I think that racial categories such as "black" and "white" have vague boundaries, but like all categories with vague boundaries, there are certain criteria for being unambiguously within the category. Someone who has moderately dark skin and no typically black facial features at all is not black, in my book - or rather, is black to only a certain degree.

So my question is since according to you 'Black' refers to the darkest Africans with the most broadest of features, what is the true defintion of 'White'... The Nordic, the Slav, The Celt, the Southern Italian, the Turk?

Since I don't hold the opinion you attribute to me, there's no need for me to answer that question, which would be irrelevant even if I did hold it.

But Gabriel Union is no where near as dark as this Sudanese woman, but Gabriel's nose is flatter and wider than her's. So which one is Black?

These Southeast African Zulu warriors aren't as tall or Dark as these Dinka soccer players, so which one is 'Black'?

I don't see the value of these rhetorical questions. I didn't say that only the "blackest" people "count" as "black", any more than only the tallest people count as tall.

Plotinus, can you quote us some Coptic text pertaining to this Abba Moses character? I ask this because I know some Egyptic words that have been translated as "black" really don't mean that. For instance, European Egyptologists used to translate the Egyptic word "Nehesi" to "black" when the word really referred to a specific ethnic group in Nubia. Also, the ancient Egyptians called their nation "Kemet Niwt" ("black nation") and themselves "Kememou" (black people). I don't think the Egyptians would describe an appearance unusual to them using an adjective they regularly applied to themselves. That would be like a European tribe calling itself "the white people" distinguishing someone for being white.

I don't believe there are any Coptic texts about Moses - all the ones which refer to him are Greek, and written by non-Egyptians. But I will have a look next time I can get my hands on those texts and see what the word is.

 

[Kahotep]

Birds are more closely related to reptiles than they are to any other animal group, but nevertheless, birds are not reptiles.

Actually I have encountered scientists who consider birds to be true reptiles. Their reasoning is that if Reptilia is to be considered a monophyletic clade, it would include all animals descended from members of the reptile branch of the amniotes, which includes birds. Therefore, birds are reptiles.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

If alligators are reptiles and snakes are reptiles, then birds are reptiles, cladistically speaking.

That just demonstrates the problem with labels, and it would be worse if ducks and crocodiles could reproduce.

 

[Plotinus]

Yes, I'm aware of cladistic taxonomy. But (a) they're not reptiles on non-cladistic grounds, and (b) cladistically speaking we're all fish, which indicates that while the concept of clades is useful when considering issues of descent, it's not so handy for other categorisation purposes. But this is by the by: you understand the point I was making, whether one accepts the accuracy of the illustration or not.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

If one were to try to use clades to describe human races, we'd all be black anyways.

 

[Kahotep]

Provide evidence that they were "packed" with as much melanin as modern people we can all agree to call "black" and you're in a position to connect those dots.

If you look at the study being cited, it states that the mummies' skin cells were "packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid [i.e. tropical African] origin". That they're likening the melanin content to that of tropical African specimens implies that ancient Egyptian skin tones fell within the tropical African range.