Were Egyptians black or white?

[Kahotep]

I definitely think the majority of the ancient Egyptians were what we would call "black", but that doesn't necessarily mean that they looked like Yorubas, Dinka, or other broad-featured, stereotypically "Negroid" Africans. More likely they would have resembled northern Sudanese, Ethiopians, and other narrow-featured northeast Africans. In fact, here's a video showing exactly what physical type most ancient Egyptians would have had:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6jt-eSqKOk

(Some of the people in the video are Egyptians, even if they aren't necessarily typical of the modern country's phenotype)

BTW, it is in fact possible for centuries of admixture to make the pure aboriginal types of an area the minority. For example, Mexico, a much larger country than the Egyptian Nile Valley, has only been occupied by Europeans and other non-Native Americans for around five centuries, yet already more or less full-blooded Native Americans account for only 30% of the population, with mestizos making up most of the rest (60%). Imagine what 2,500 years of foreign occupation could have done to Egypt.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

He refers to his 1998 study for differences between Egyptian dental traits and other regions.

I'm looking at the full study and I don't see any references to him comparing Ancient Egyptian dental traits to Greeks or other Southern Europeans.

As far as his 1998 study, which one? Irish (2006) references four studies by himself in 1998.

And he has since then done another study which again supports that there was a foreign infiltration in the Nile Valley sometime after the Pleistocene.

And what new evidence did he present for this hypothesis? Does the study address the criticisms of Keita (1993)?

In one of my emails with Keita he did note that dental evidence may suggest things that are inconsistent with the craniometric evidence which tells him that there was tremendous variability in Africa as an evolutionary model would predict.

I think Irish makes a bit too much out of dental morphology which are not necessarily indicative of genetic relationships and I haven't seen any evidence provided by him which would suggest that he can determine that there were no significant migrations into Egypt during the Post-Dynastic period. There's also no archeological or linguistic support for his hypothesis of a population replacement in Northeast Africa during the Pleistocene.

 

[Cynovolans]

BTW, it is in fact possible for centuries of admixture to make the pure aboriginal types of an area the minority. For example, Mexico, a much larger country than the Egyptian Nile Valley, has only been occupied by Europeans and other non-Native Americans for around five centuries, yet already more or less full-blooded Native Americans account for only 30% of the population, with mestizos making up most of the rest (60%). Imagine what 2,500 years of foreign occupation could have done to Egypt.

Do you have an example of a country where a very large percentage of the native population was not decimated by disease?

 

[Kahotep]

Have you considered the idea that they may have been...... Egyptian?

"Egyptian" is a nationality, not a physical type. Furthermore, technically modern Masreyyin aren't the same ethnic group as ancient Romet (n) Kemet, even though they do share some genes.

 

[Tacitusitis]

Based on Kahotep's miraculous Christmas-season reappearance in this thread (and other factors) I think we all realize that Kahotep, Mentuhotep etc are from some other forum and only here to push the Egypt stuff. Which means this thread won't go away until it's either locked or people stop responding to them.

I'm hoping you don't think I was demeaning them. Their culture was highly prized by the Romans, not quite as much as ancient greek culture but there was a roman fascination with egyptian culture.

No I don't think you were demeaning them just wanted to clear up a potential misunderstanding.

Even by the time of the Roman Empire though, egyptians were not the same people as the ancient egyptians who built the pyramids. There was 2,000 years of trade, migration, wars and conquests etc. in between.

The folks in the World History thread (all of whom seem like 10x the scholar I will ever be on any subject) did a good job of dismantling that idea. According to the history buffs there just weren't sufficient migrations and invasions into Lower Egypt, the most densely populated bit of land on the globe at that time, to really shift the phenotype.

BTW, it is in fact possible for centuries of admixture to make the pure aboriginal types of an area the minority. For example, Mexico, a much larger country than the Egyptian Nile Valley, has only been occupied by Europeans and other non-Native Americans for around five centuries, yet already more or less full-blooded Native Americans account for only 30% of the population, with mestizos making up most of the rest (60%). Imagine what 2,500 years of foreign occupation could have done to Egypt.

Even I am smart enough to see how that is a terrible argument. The Egyptians never suffered mass genocide and plague at the hands of a colonizing empire. At best they had a few dynasties were the ruling class was of foreign extraction.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Link to video.

Nice video Kahotep.


As I've said before though, I don't think it's useful to argue over whether the Ancient Egyptians would be considered Black. I think Tacitusitis reasoning is flawed because he is clinging to a definition of Blackness that is more in line with the old anthropological concept of the "True Negro" rather than what most modern Americans consider a Black person to be today.

Let's not forget that while Westerners considered Greco-Roman civilization to be part of their cultural heritage Southern Europeans like Italians and Greeks for a time period were not considered to be "True Whites" in America so going by Tacitusitis logic it would be erroneous to label Greeks and Romans as White in an American social context because they do not fit the Nordic ideal that traditionally defined Whiteness in America.

Greeks and Italians did not become White in America until Americans warmed up to the idea of welcoming immigrants from all over Europe into the country and even today many dark-skinned Southern Europeans are questioned about their ancestry based on appearance and even speculated to not be racially pure (the standard for Whiteness) in America. So you could argue that Ancient Greeks and Italians "pass" out of the White category.

So I'm not going to fixate on insisting that the Ancient Egyptians be viewed as Black or declare how they would be viewed. That distracted from the issue of what the evidence shows they actually looked like in the other thread. Social race categories are subjective. Arguing over it is pointless.

The folks in the World History thread (all of whom seem like 10x the scholar I will ever be on any subject) did a good job of dismantling that idea. According to the history buffs there just weren't sufficient migrations and invasions into Lower Egypt, the most densely populated bit of land on the globe at that time, to really shift the phenotype.

For the record I addressed this issue on the previous page. Consider that subject open for debate!

 

[Kahotep]

Do you have an example of a country where a very large percentage of the native population was not decimated by disease?

Exactly how many Spaniards settled in Mexico during the 1500s? Because there were still a few million Native Americans in the area even after those diseases.

Even I am smart enough to see how that is a terrible argument. The Egyptians never suffered mass genocide and plague at the hands of a colonizing empire. At best they had a few dynasties were the ruling class was of foreign extraction.

Where is the evidence that there was any genocide in Mesoamerica? The Spanish often exploited the natives brutally, yes, but I've never heard of any deliberate attempt to wipe them out.

 

[Kahotep]

NM Double Post

 

[Tacitusitis]

One more thing that disturbed me slightly was, in the other thread, when Mentu was pressed on how exactly members of the African Diaspora could feel kinship with Egypt given that they are culturally not related at all, and genetically related only very, very distantly, he put forward the idea that African-Americans could choose to feel what he called bio-cultural kinship with Ancient Egyptians.

Now I don't know what bio-cultural kinship is, especially in the hilariously obvious absence of cultural kinship and with only very distant biological kinship. And I may be misunderstanding the concept.

But it seems like the only way a member of the African Diaspora could feel kinship with or special pride for the Egyptians is by saying that the distant genetic kinship is relevant to the Egyptian culture and thus creates cultural kinship.

In other words, saying that the Egyptians' Africanness in general, or a speculative Negroid origin, was determinative of the greatness of their civilization.

To me, that is a racist concept. You have only to flip it around to derive that good ol' racist story about how Europeans built the world's greatest civilization by virtue of having great big White brains. It insults and demeans the accomplishments of that civilization or any other to say that its greatness was biologically fated.

 

[Tacitusitis]

Here is what Mentu posted, just so I'm not misrepresenting him:

African-Americans who are educated on the subject of the bio-cultural origins of Egypt do not claim descent from Egypt but rather a bio-cultural kinship with Ancient Egyptians since Egypt was an African Civilization and they regard Africa as their heritage.

I am talking about biological and cultural relationships. Ancient Egypt was an African culture and its people were African biologically.

The bio-cultural kinship I spoke of were similarities in material culture and biological affinities of the people themselves.

Mentuhotep has avoided saying things like that in this thread. I find these statements very revealing.

 

[Kahotep]

As I've said before though, I don't think it's useful to argue over whether the Ancient Egyptians would be considered Black. I think Tacitusitis reasoning is flawed because he is clinging to a definition of Blackness that is more in line with the old anthropological concept of the "True Negro" rather than what most modern Americans consider a Black person to be today.

Let's not forget that while Westerners considered Greco-Roman civilization to be part of their cultural heritage Southern Europeans like Italians and Greeks for a time period were not considered to be "True Whites" in America so going by Tacitusitis logic it would be erroneous to label Greeks and Romans as White in an American social context because they do not fit the Nordic ideal that traditionally defined Whiteness in America.

Greeks and Italians did not become White in America until Americans warmed up to the idea of welcoming immigrants from all over Europe into the country and even today many dark-skinned Southern Europeans are questioned about their ancestry based on appearance and even speculated to not be racially pure (the standard for Whiteness) in America. So you could argue that Ancient Greeks and Italians "pass" out of the White category.

So I'm not going to fixate on insisting that the Ancient Egyptians be viewed as Black or declare how they would be viewed. That distracted from the issue of what the evidence shows they actually looked like in the other thread. Social race categories are subjective. Arguing over it is pointless.

Which is why it would be better to say that they were tropically adapted Northeast Africans than to simply say that they were "black". Unfortunately "black" is more concise and familiar to the layman.

As for the question of whether African Diaspora people can claim kinship with the ancient Egyptians...to be honest, I don't think people should claim to be related to ancient cultures simply because they're classified as the same race, since race doesn't really exist. Yes, the ancient Romans were light-skinned Europeans whom we might call "white" were we to see them today, but that doesn't mean a person of Germanic heritage such as myself can claim kinship with Rome (unless my DNA has some Italian genes which I don't know about). Likewise, even if the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned Africans whom we might call "black", that doesn't necessarily mean someone of Mandinka or Bantu descent can claim Egyptian civilization as part of their heritage. The only Africans who can claim any kinship with the Egyptians are Nilotes and Afrasians.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Mentuhotep has avoided saying things like that in this thread. I find these statements very revealing.

Bare in mind that that debate was several months ago and I have since re-thought how best to explain my position on the subject. Notice in that thread that I initially also claimed that Keita proved the Ancient Egyptians were Black and insisted that they would be considered Black in a modern Western context.

That approach gave opponents opportunity to attack strawmen and distract from the real point I was making that they were Biologically African, tropically adapted and would have looked like indigenous Northeast Africans such as the ethnic groups we have been discussing.

Keita in an email correspondence with Robert Pounder made similar arguments to the one I was making.

And no I am not in any way saying Egypt's greatness is due to its Africanity.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Claiming racial heritage does not make much sense, especially for those of African decent. Genetic diversity in Africa is vast. If I recall correctly there are African ethnicities living in relatively close proximity to each other who are still further removed from each other genetically than the English are from the Thai. Europeans are much less genetically diverse than Africans, but still considerably more diverse than Asians, who are in turn still more diverse than Native Americans. I remember reading somewhere that the genetic differences between first cousins from the same European ethnicity is often greater than the differences between any Native American tribes. This genetic homogeneity is a major factor that made the natives of the New World so vulnerable to disease. Plagues spread much faster when everyone is predisposed to be weak to the same illnesses. (On the other hand, Native Americans had the lowest

Also, a lot of blacks in America are more European than African. Genetic studies can reveal even fairly dark blacks to be mostly Irish.




Does anyone else have trouble taking Kahotep seriously because he is using an avatar depicting Cleopatra as black, despite common knowledge of the Ptolemaic pedigree?

That reminds me, a relatively recent episode of the Colbert report featured a guest promotion a book about Cleopatra. While of course quick to mention her Greek/Macedonian ancestry, she also claimed that what few depictions we have of the queen from her own time (her coins) seem to show more Semitic features. Apparently she had a large and somewhat hooked nose, quite which I haven't seen in depictions of Egyptians from antiquity but which seems quite common among Copts.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Using an avatar depicting the Queen of a Greek/Macedonian Dynasty of Egypt as a black woman makes me take you much less seriously.


That reminds me, a relatively recent episode of the Colbert report featured a guest promotion a book about Cleopatra. She claimed that what few depictions we have of the queen from her own time (her coins) seem to show Semitic features. Apparently she had a large and somewhat hooked nose, quite unlike anything I've seen in depictions of any actual Egyptians in antiquity but not unlike some Copts I know.

I don't think he is trying to make a claim about Cleopatra being Black. You should refer to my comments about Cleopatra on the previous page.

I'm pretty sure though that coins aren't the only images of her from her time period. Her busts are said by scholars to have been made during her lifetime.

 

[Tacitusitis]

As for the question of whether African Diaspora people can claim kinship with the ancient Egyptians...to be honest, I don't think people should claim to be related to ancient cultures simply because they're classified as the same race, since race doesn't really exist. Yes, the ancient Romans were light-skinned Europeans whom we might call "white" were we to see them today, but that doesn't mean a person of Germanic heritage such as myself can claim kinship with Rome (unless my DNA has some Italian genes which I don't know about). Likewise, even if the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned Africans whom we might call "black", that doesn't necessarily mean someone of Mandinka or Bantu descent can claim Egyptian civilization as part of their heritage. The only Africans who can claim any kinship with the Egyptians are Nilotes and Afrasians.

It's not a good comparison because Western civilization flows directly from the Romans. Americans can certainly claim the Romans as their cultural heritage - whether they're white OR black OR brown, being part of America means being part of the West and cultural heir to the Roman tradition as well as the Greek, Jewish and Christian traditions.

African-Americans making a genetic OR cultural claim on Egypt is too sad to be very funny. The ancestors of modern African-Americans were estranged from East Africans thousands of years before the first pyramid was built. They created their own distinct culture in West Africa... which they were then violently kidnapped from and forced to adopt the culture of their enslavers and forget their old traditions, such that even modern attempts to revive their West African heritage smack of being more of a reconstruction than a return.

As a Jew I am ten thousand times more "kin" to Egypt - because hey, my ancestors have actually been there

But the only people who I would really consider to be able to claim kinship to ancient Egypt without LOL are the actual modern Egyptians, and the Copts who live among them.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

It's not a good comparison because Western civilization flows directly from the Romans. Americans can certainly claim the Romans as their cultural heritage - whether they're white OR black OR brown, being part of America means being part of the West and cultural heir to the Roman tradition as well as the Greek, Jewish and Christian traditions.

African-Americans making a genetic OR cultural claim on Egypt is too sad to be very funny. The ancestors of modern African-Americans were estranged from East Africans thousands of years before the first pyramid was built. They created their own distinct culture in West Africa... which they were then violently kidnapped from and forced to adopt the culture of their enslavers and forget their old traditions, such that even modern attempts to revive their West African heritage smack of being more of a reconstruction than a return.

This doesn't address my point about Blackness and Whiteness. This discussion is about what the Ancient Egyptians actually looked like not African-Americans claiming cultural and genetic connections to Egypt remember?

Edit:

Oops I thought you were quoting me. Nevermind.

As a Jew I am ten thousand times more "kin" to Egypt - because hey, my ancestors have actually been there

Are you claiming that Exodus was a real historical event?

But the only people who I would really consider to be able to claim kinship to ancient Egypt without LOL are the actual modern Egyptians, and the Copts who live among them.

Modern Egyptians obviously have a cultural and genetic heritage that descends from Ancient Egypt.

The point I want to make in this discussion is that we can ascertain what the Ancient Egyptians actually looked like. My interest in the subject is not to claim Egypt as my heritage or distance it from modern Egyptians but to correct the historical record on Africa.

 

[Dachs]

That reminds me, a relatively recent episode of the Colbert report featured a guest promotion a book about Cleopatra. While of course quick to mention her Greek/Macedonian ancestry, she also claimed that what few depictions we have of the queen from her own time (her coins) seem to show more Semitic features. Apparently she had a large and somewhat hooked nose, quite which I haven't seen in depictions of Egyptians from antiquity but which seems quite common among Copts.

You can read anything you like into millennia-old portraits on coins that are less than an inch in diameter. Numismatists can pull some amazing stuff out of the coins they work with, but they'll be the first to tell you that outside of identifying a given monarch (and that's usually less by the portrait than by the legend) they can't really say anything about the portraits on coins. Drawing ethnic inferences from them seems like wishful thinking more than serious numismatics.

 

[Kahotep]

Does anyone else have trouble taking Kahotep seriously because he is using an avatar depicting Cleopatra as black, despite common knowledge of the Ptolemaic pedigree?

I wasn't aware that my Cleo avatar (which comes from Civ: Revolutions) was supposed to be black, and yes, I do know that she was Macedonian rather than a native Egyptian.

I'll change it if you like.

EDIT: Avatar changed.

It's not a good comparison because Western civilization flows directly from the Romans. Americans can certainly claim the Romans as their cultural heritage - whether they're white OR black OR brown, being part of America means being part of the West and cultural heir to the Roman tradition as well as the Greek, Jewish and Christian traditions.

African-Americans making a genetic OR cultural claim on Egypt is too sad to be very funny. The ancestors of modern African-Americans were estranged from East Africans thousands of years before the first pyramid was built. They created their own distinct culture in West Africa... which they were then violently kidnapped from and forced to adopt the culture of their enslavers and forget their old traditions, such that even modern attempts to revive their West African heritage smack of being more of a reconstruction than a return.

Fair enough.

As a Jew I am ten thousand times more "kin" to Egypt - because hey, my ancestors have actually been there

Being of the Jewish faith doesn't mean you're necessarily of Hebrew descent.

 

[Tacitusitis]

My interest in the subject is not to claim Egypt as my heritage or distance it from modern Egyptians but to correct the historical record on Africa.

You should be clear that you not only disagree with the 19th century dynastic race theory that the Egyptians were white, you also disagree with the consensus of modern scholarship (as demonstrated by the citations in the World History thread) that the Nile was settled from all sides in other words from Asia as well as from Africa. So you are not really "correcting" the "historical record" are you, more like "disputing" the "scholarship".

As for your interest, cmon, you both came here from another forum that is dedicated to arguing this topic (I have a few hunches which one ).

You say you refined your position, ok let's examine in good faith what you wrote:

"Biologically African, tropically adapted and would have looked like indigenous Northeast Africans such as the ethnic groups we have been discussing."

Biologically African - a virtually meaningless label, given the genetic diversity of Africa and given that Egypt, like Spain, exists both geographically and demographically at the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia. Also we are all exclusively "Biologically African" if one traces back to the nth generation.

tropically adapted - misleading in that all peoples which live at tropical latitudes have become "tropically adapted." Body plan says comparatively little about origin.

indigenous Northeast Africans - pointedly ignoring the Near East contribution that was cited in the WH thread

I find you substantively saying the same thing, defining the Egyptians as "African" such that non-African sources of the Egyptian ethnicity are denied or downplayed.

When I take that into account together with what you said about bio-cultural kinship, basically you come across as having an emotional investment in postulating a uniquely and exclusively African origin for the Egyptians in order to preserve an extremely tenuous connection with Black members of the African Diaspora that can then be augmented with cultural elements like supposed "connections" between Egyptian and West African religious practices.

You advance that agenda to differing degrees depending on what forums you post at but it's preeeetty clear you are a one issue poster and this is your issue.

Being of the Jewish faith doesn't mean you're necessarily of Hebrew descent.

But I am, I'm a Levite.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

You should be clear that you not only disagree with the 19th century dynastic race theory that the Egyptians were white, you also disagree with the consensus of modern scholarship (as demonstrated by the citations in the World History thread) that they were Afro-Asiatic. In other words you are not really "correcting" the "historical record" are you, more like "disputing" the "scholarship".

Afroasiatic is a language family. I'm citing sources that have made breakthroughs in correcting the historical record and I've addressed every argument that has come my way on this message board.

As for your interest, cmon, you both came here from another forum that is dedicated to arguing this topic.

So?

How does that change my interest in the topic?

You say you changed your mind, ok let's examine in good faith what you wrote:

"Biologically African, tropically adapted and would have looked like indigenous Northeast Africans such as the ethnic groups we have been discussing."

For the record I said I've changed how I approach the topic not my interpretation of the scholarship.

Biologically African - a virtually meaningless label, given the genetic diversity of Africa and given that Egypt, like Spain, exists both geographically and demographically at the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia.

It's not biologically meaningless. It's significant to establish that the phenotypes of the Ancient Egyptians evolved within the continent of African given the history of ideas that have tried to separate Ancient Egyptian people biologically from the African continent as well as imply that they had origins elsewhere.

tropically adapted - misleading in that all peoples which live at tropical latitudes have become "tropically adapted." Body plan says comparatively little about origin.

That's not true. This is significant from an evolutionary perspective and informative about the biogeographic origin of the people. Being tropically adapted indicates that the ancestors of the Ancient Egyptians came to the Nile Valley from the tropics where they resided long enough to evolve adaptive traits among which would be dark skin color (based on ecological principles) which tells us something about their phenotype.

indigenous Northeast Africans - pointedly ignoring the Asiatic contribution that was cited in the WH thread

I'm not aware of such a contribution. Present it here so it can be addressed.

I find you substantively saying the same thing, defining the Egyptians as "African" such that non-African sources of the Egyptian ethnicity are denied or downplayed.

The Ancient Egyptians were African. There is no non-African source for their culture or biology. Gradually over time they did gain some Near Eastern affinity view gene flow however these contributions do not reflect the primary ancestry of the architects of the civilization.

When I take that into account together with what you said about bio-cultural kinship, basically you come across as having an emotional investment in postulating a uniquely and exclusively African origin for the Egyptians in order to preserve an extremely tenuous connection with Black members of the African Diaspora.

You advance that agenda to differing degrees depending on what forums you post at but it's preeeetty clear you are a one issue poster and this is your issue.

I'm just relaying facts about the bio-cultural origins of the Ancient Egyptians. What I said about bio-cultural kinship was in relation to how African-Americans and many people of African descent feel about Ancient Egypt which is something you have been rather insensitive towards with your condescending rhetoric about it being hilariously sad that African-Americans would try to claim any sort of kinship with Ancient Egyptians.

Who are you to tell people what cultures they can admire and identify with?

You were in error with your arguments over what Black means in an American social context and I tried to shift the debate strictly towards what they actually looked like which we seemed to have gained a consensus on but yet here you are trying to question my motives as if I'm not being objective on the matter. You seem alot more interested in emphasizing a disconnection between African-Americans and Ancient Egyptians than ascertaining what they actually looked like and what their bio-cultural origins were. I noticed this early on and the same is true for alot of other posters in the thread but still I try to argue in good faith and stick to debating the scholarship presented.

I attended the Millions More Movement in 2005 because my family wanted to go. One of the guest speakers was Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan. At nearly 90 years old he was
barely able to stand on his own two feet. But with some help he went to the podium (at the Capitol Building) and told the audience to "turn around and look up." What he was telling us to look at was the Washington Monument. He said that "your people" built this (referring to the connection between the architecture of the monument and Egyptian obelisks). He said that what Black people have done in the past Black people can do in the future. THAT is what Ancient Egypt means to people of African descent because for decades "Black" people were taught to be ashamed of their heritage. Taught that not only did they come from nothing but that they were incapable of civilization.

To understand the mentality that was motivated to alleviate this psychological damage that was done to people of African descent you have to understand the history of racist ideas that were perpetuated against all African cultures but most obsessively Ancient Egypt. Now yes, Afrocentrists did invent several myths along the way that were pseudohistorical however the Ancient Egyptians being a dark-skinned indigenous African people was not one of them. It doesn't matter that most African-Americans are primarily descended from West Africans and Egypt is in East Africa. It doesn't matter that Northeast Africans on average have a narrower face and nose than the West African ancestors of African-Americans. THAT DOES NOT MATTER!!!!

What matters is that the historical record of Africa has been distorted in order to promote racists myths of African inferiority. I got into these discussions as an Egalitarian debating racists and that is where I learned about all of this racist garbage they were saying about Africa which was actually promoted at one time as mainstream by Western academics. My primary interest in this debate is to fight racism. Along the way my mindset has evolved past racial thinking which I am very greatful for.

But among your many erroneous ways of thinking about this subject don't let the perception that this is an exclusively African American or African Diaspora thing be one of them. Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga were Africans. Moustafa Gadalla and Ahmed Saleh are Egyptians! Shomarka Keita is not the only scholar who has dedicated a great deal of his professional life towards eradicating myths about African cultures and emphasizing the Africanity of the Ancient Egyptian Civilization.

Do I have an emotional investment in refuting racist myths about Africa and its people? Absolutely! About as much as a Jewish person does in refuting Holocaust Denial!

But that doesn't stop me from being objective. If you've got some counter sources to the idea that Ancient Egypt was not primarily a bio-culturally African civilization than I'm prepared to discuss that.