Were Egyptians black or white?

[Mentuhotep23]

Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about:



The oldest Hindu books, again, speak of the Dasyas as a black race, and most of the internal tribes we have described are found to be very much darker than the Hindus and the Mahomedans by whom they are surrounded, which may be accepted as another proof of their antiquity, since they must have occupied their present habitations in their distinctness from time anterior to or coeval with the establishment of the Hindu and Mahomedan races around them, and refused ever after to intermix with them.

- The Wild Tribes of India - Page 209


The native races of Australia and the Polynesian groups of islands are divided into two main types known as the dark and light Polynesian. The dark type, which is black, is of a very low order, and in some of the islands still retains its cannibal habits. The aboriginal tribes of Australia are of a low-class black race, but generally peaceful and inoffensive in their habits.

- The encyclopædia britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, ...: Volume 4 - Page 607


So there's really no way to objectively draw conclusions about who fits into these categories because they are themselves subjective. They differ from region to region, person to person and change over time. What is most helpful in these discussions is to discuss "real" physical characteristics.

 

[kulade]

Stratego is an amazing amazing troll. I wish he'd come back.

yeah, you know you're doing something right as a troll when your trolls penetrate 6 years into thew future and the mods still haven't shut you down.

 

[Tacitusitis]

Stratego is an amazing amazing troll. I wish he'd come back.

??? I think I missed a reference here?

Definitions of Black and White in America differ from those in Brazil, South Africa or various Caribbean countries.

Agreed but this thread like this whole forum, is pretty Americentric.

Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about:

LOL, I don't really consider Britannica to be definitive of American culture.

Basically my point stands that dark-skinnedness encompasses a lot more culturally defined ethnicities/races than what we call Black or African-American.

If one wants to prove a connection to African-Americans - and let's face it, that is what the issue is here, because nobody would care about this if it weren't for the Afrocentric advocates - then one has more to prove than just skin color.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

If one wants to prove a connection to African-Americans - and let's face it, that is what the issue is here, because nobody would care about this if it weren't for the Afrocentric advocates - then one has more to prove than just skin color.

Like I said earlier. For me it's not about making a connection between African-Americans and Ancient Egypt but rather correcting Africa's historical record.

This controversy was created because of Eurocentrists promoting racist ideas about Africans which effected the dark-skinned people of the continent as a whole but especially African-Americans who endured slavery and institutional racism that was justified by notions of inferiority formulated around perceptions of African cultures.

It's not Afrocentric to study Early Egypt in its African context. It's simply correct.

 

[Tacitusitis]

Lay interest in that scholarship, however, has undeniable Afrocentric overtones just the same way I would pretty suspicious of any White person who went on and on about like Teutonic history or something.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Lay interest in that scholarship, however, has undeniable Afrocentric overtones just the same way I would pretty suspicious of any White person who went on and on about like Teutonic history or something.

I got involved in discussions such as this as an Egalitarian debating and refuting racists on the internet. The most popular topic among such discussions was racial disparities in human accomplishment and that is when I began to learn about the racist distortions of African history that were designed to promote the idea of Black inferiority. I had an interest in civilizations but when I found even fellow Egalitarians saying that the Ancient Egyptians weren't Black I decided to investigate the issue more in depth.


What I've come to believe is that while some Afrocentric claims are pseudohistorical there would never have been a need or desire for such as concept as Afrocentrism if it wasn't for Eurocentric distortions of the historical record.

I do think modern scholarship has advanced to the point where academically honest research on this subject is being conducted and we should be about to get past labels of "centric" for perspectives that are simply accurate.

The authors of the sources I posted are not Afrocentrists. They're mainstream, modern scholars who have presented honest research.

 

[MKGLouisville]

I understand that. The practice is fundamentally flawed.

Yeah says YOU!

I can see you're never going to actually talk about the problems with genetic migration tracking,

Up until now I've NEVER seen anyone dispute the modern practice of studying genetics. Again the primary reason for the use of Y-DNA is to track human Evolution and migration patterns throughout history. Let me say that again OOA has for the most part been confirmed through tracking Y-DNA. I mean seriously the reason why I'm ignoring parts of your post is because what I find you attempting to debate (which is not even the subject at hand) is pretty much absurd (IMHO) and is not something that I'm willing to entertain at this point. For goodness sakes what other scientific practice do you take issue with when it comes to determining the answer to the OP, I mean you really ran down the list?

and instead we'll get more of the same

Peer reviewed research and authoratative statements to end such foolery.

Nah. I have a problem with connecting linguistics and genetics as though the language you speak has any impact on the color of your skin, or vice versa.

The entire point of me posting Ehret's map and research (in it's simplest form) was to show you and others that the spread of Afro-Asiactic (which originated in Sub Saharan East Africa) points to a population from the South moving and settling into the Nile Valley and across Northern Africa prior to populations from Near East or Europe. As far as the skin color issue goes just ask yourself this simple question would a population from Tropical Africa have dark brown skin or not (obviously former)?

The point of me posting the map showing the spread of M-35 originating in Sub Saharan East Africa moving and settling into the Nile Valley and mutating into a subset of M-35 and spreading Westward into Northern Africa where it further mutated is to show you that it is the EXACT SAME as Ehret's proposal for the migration of Afro Asiactic. Do genetic and linguistics always run parallel with one another NO (as Keita stated in his lecture below), but in this case THEY DO!

I'd like to make a correction in which I mistakenly stated earlier the M35 was apart of PN.

I have a problem with attempting to use genetic markers to show most migratory trends entirely independent of the lack of a necessary connection between genetics and language. I also have a problem with most use of linguistics to indicate migratory activity, mostly because the whole exercise can plausibly lead in so many different directions from a single data point that coming to almost any sort of conclusion in many cases is intellectually dishonest.

All of these issues that you find "concerning" when trying to connect these dots between linguistic origins and migration as well as cordination with Y-DNA migratory patterns has been addressed by Keita in this lecture that I posted earlier.


Link to video.

If he didn't address your specific concerns regarding linguistics then please specify what you problem is with using this practice.

 

[MKGLouisville]

If one wants to prove a connection to African-Americans - and let's face it, that is what the issue is here

The issue about a connection towards African Americans is the only thing that seems to be on the minds of those who deny that the fact ancient Egyptians would be consider "black". When we have posters who go out of their way to attempt to make authoratative statements such as "West Africans had no cultural connection or contact with Egypt or Northeast Africa" void of any scholarship it creates an issue (at least with me). As if they are suggesting that there was never any migration between Africans on the continent, which is ridiculous and quite simply looney. As it's been demonstrated through numerous lines of evidence that Egypt owes a great dept to the ancient Saharans who migrated to the Nile AND into Western and Central Africa after desertification. This at least points to both African populations on the opposite ends on the continent coming from a common culture. It's as if some are grasping at baby hairs just to deny the possible connection.

because nobody would care about this if it weren't for the Afrocentric advocates - then one has more to prove than just skin color.

All this talk about Afrocentrism, but never any disscussion (prior to Mentuhoptep's post) as to how Afrocentrism came to be...cough (overtly racist Eurocentrism)! I wonder now that some people have obviously been informed about this issue will they still label some arguing Egypt's inner African origins as "Afrocentric"?

 

[Tacitusitis]

You shouldn't really cast stones given you started your involvement in this thread with an image

That proved to be a falsification. I then googled your source for this image (Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, 1913) and only saw it cited in Afrocentric sites like here.

I dunno about Mentu but your allegiances are pretty clear.

 

[MKGLouisville]

You shouldn't really cast stones given you started your involvement in this thread with an image

That proved to be a falsification.

By who? Again this is from Ramses III tomb in Lepsius' Denkmaler plate 48

I then googled your source for this image (Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, 1913) and only saw it cited in Afrocentric sites like here.

I dunno about Mentu but your allegiances are pretty clear.

OK First of all the first time I ever seen this mural was in Basil Davidson's documentary regarding Egypt's origin;


Link to video.

starting at 4:20 and the explanation that followed. If it wasn't a legit representation I doubt that this highly respected late African historian would risk his reputation by including it in his scholarly work.

Secondly "Allegiances" .... please save it! YOUR opinion of my analysis of this issue is of the least concern to me, based on your unwillingness to accept the obvious. As far as "allegiances" go it wouldn't be a stretch to say that your mindset probably isn't to far from those who actively participate on the site that kick started my interest in this topic (won't mention it).

 

[Tacitusitis]

By who? Again this is from Ramses III tomb in Lepsius' Denkmaler plate 48

The late Egyptologist, Dr. Frank Yurco, visited the tomb of Ramses III (KV11), and in a 1996 article on the Ramses III tomb reliefs he pointed out that the depiction of plate 48 in the Erganzungsband section is not a correct depiction of what is actually painted on the walls of the tomb. Dr Yurco notes, instead, that plate 48 is a “pastische” of samples of what is on the tomb walls, arranged from Lepsius' notes after his death, and that a picture of a Nubian person has erroneously been labeled in the pastiche as an Egyptian person. Yurco points also to the much-more-recent photographs of Dr. Erik Hornung as a correct depiction of the actual paintings.

But why let facts get in the way of something that supports your POV

Someone actually responded to you with an example of the way the Egyptians really did depict different ethnicities:

I guess you forgot

 

[Tacitusitis]

BTW, in regards to that painting, I made the point earlier in this thread that every culture has an idea of the "default human" and depicts outsider ethnicities by marking them as deviants from the "default human."

This is inherently pretty darn racist, but you can see it at work in the art of every culture. For example, a stick figure in our culture represents a white male - you would need to add a detail such as a skirt to "mark" a woman:

Or racially stereotyped features to mark an Asian, a Black, etc. - as for example you can see in newspaper or TV cartoons that depict non-White characters - they are never depicted with a "basic cartoon human" but always with an added feature that marks their race, such as hairstyle or eyes.

Here's an interesting thing to compare. In Western art Asians are almost always depicted with epicanthic folds. Asian anime for Asian audiences often doesn't even bother to depict epicanthic-fold eyes - but that same Asian anime depicts nearly every American as a blue-eyed blonde with a long, straight nose.

In each culture, certain ethnic stereotypes are used to "mark" the outsider. This is less about the culture being bigoted and more about marking the outgroup - the stranger to the culture - by whatever differences most clearly define him as "exotic". As you can see, you can have two different cultures doing it to each other at the same time...




Here's how this is relevant?

In the Egyptian painting, the artist introduces stereotypes to mark what his culture saw as the defining ethnic differences between Egyptians and others.

Let's zoom in on the Nubian and Egyptian faces.

The Egyptian artist marks the Nubian with the stereotypes of jet-black skin, broad nose, and prognathous jaw precisely because these traits were not common among the Egyptians.

In other words the Egyptians were not Blacks.



Now to be fair, Mentu has argued against that by saying basically that Blackness is truly defined as pan-African or even supra-African so the Egyptians were "Black" by virtue of having African heritage.

Well first that is a tautology: we all agree the Egyptians were African yet still disagree whether they were Black, so it's clear there's a distinction.

Secondly you don't even have to go out of Africa to find non-Black "Blacks" - which supports the idea that Mentu's definition of Blackness is way too broad. What about the Berbers for starters... are they Black?

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Tacitusitis,

The problems I have with your argument is that you are thinking in absolutist terms about the artwork, trying to apply a universal standard of artwork interpretation to the images and trying to define "Black" in some objective context.

I've been very clear on my position with this line of reasoning. Social race labels like "Black" and "White" are arbitrary. They vary from region to region and person to person. They can even change within a culture over time. So arguing over whether the Ancient Egyptians should be considered "Black" is useless. What I am stressing is that we can identify their "real" physical characteristics and biological affinities through an analysis of the Bio-Anthropological research.


Refer back to Keita's view of using artwork as evidence for the physical characteristics of the Ancient Egyptians:


Art objects are not generally used by biological anthropologists. They are suspect as data and their interpretation highly dependent on stereotyped thinking.


The key words there are stereotyped thinking. That is what you are doing with the artwork when you make assumptions such as the Ancient Egyptians not having the physical characteristics they portray the Nubians to have. Infact we know that in some art the Ancient Egyptians depict themselves with jet black skin and broad craniofacial features:

And then again in other art they use the exact same skintone for some Nubians as they do Egyptians:

So it's clear that Ancient Egyptian art pieces are in some cases use conventions and symbolism and they left no written instructions on how to interpret their art. These are not life-like portraits and therefore should not be taken as an absolute depiction of reality.

I have given my theories on what these conventions mean but I think the author of this webpage provides a reasonable suggestion on the artwork:


http://www.catchpenny.org/race.html


It is apparent that the ancient Egyptians did not make racial distinctions themselves, but rather ethnic distinctions based on nationality. Tomb paintings depicting captive Nubians may show them as being very dark, but this is an artistic convention stereotyping a nationality, and to conclude there were therefore no very dark Egyptians would be a non sequitur. Similarly, the skin tones in art depicting the Egyptians themselves adhere to convention rather than an absolutely accurate description of reality. Tutankhamun is variously shown as being black as in the guardian statues found in his tomb, and brown or beige as in the lotus bust.


Now about the definition of Blackness. Let me make this clear, Tacitusitis. I am not suggesting a broad definition I am saying that it is not helpful to even argue over the definition because it is subjective. Social definitions of race differ from biological definitions of race and social definitions as I said tend to change.


What you appear to be doing is applying the biological race concept of the "True Negro" then arguing that that is the appropriate social definition of Black in America and that we should use that standard to answer the question about whether or not the Ancient Egyptians can be considered "Black."

This is highly problematic for the simple reason that it makes no sense to make objective declarations that are based on subjective labeling and your claim is inaccurate anyway. Americans generally do not define Blackness by the "descendant of the True Negro" concept. Dark-skinned Africans and people desended from them regardless of ethnicity or geographic proximity on the continent are generally considered to be Black by the average American especially in the African-American community. Iman? Black. Nelson Mandela? Black. Anwar Sadat? Black. Barack Obama? Black.

IMO you're applying a flawed line of reasoning that is similar to the arguments Debra Dickerson made on the Colbert Report about Obama not being authentically Black:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/81955/february-08-2007/debra-dickerson

What I propose is that we get past this subjective argument over a social construct and actually talk about what is most useful. Discussing what the Ancient Egyptians actually looked like. If we can agree on that then the debate is pretty much done. People can decide for themselves how they want to label others.

Recently I edited a reply on Answers.com to a question similar to that of the OP, check it out:


http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Were_the_ancient_egyptians_black

 

[MKGLouisville]

But why let facts get in the way of something that supports your POV

You are too much! The fact is that the ancient Egyptians were indigenous Northeast Africans most closely related to more Southerly "black" Nubians and other Africans than anyone else. This 2009 study finds the Nubians were ethnically the closest population to the ancient Egyptians not Europeans or Middle Easterners, confirming Egyptologist Frank Yurco's data from the late 1980s.
Quotes:

"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians. Table 3 lists the Mahalanobis D2 distance matrix... In some cases, the statistics reveal that the Egyptian samples were more similar to Nubian samples than to other Egyptian samples (e.g. Gizeh and Hesa/Biga) and vice versa (e.g. Badari and Kerma, Naqada and Christian). These relationships are further depicted in the PCO plot (Fig. 2).

The clustering of the Nubian and Egyptian samples together supports this paper's hypothesis and demonstrates that there may be a close relationship between the two populations. This relationship is consistent with Berry and Berry (1972), among others, who noted a similarity between Nubians and Egyptians.

Both mtDNA (Krings et al., 1999) and Y-Chromosome data (Hassan et al., 2008; Keita, 2005; Lucotte and Mercier, 2003) indicate that migrations, usually bidirectional, occurred along the Nile. Thus, the osteological material used in this analysis also supports the DNA evidence.

On this basis, many have postulated that the Badarians are relatives to South African populations (Morant, 1935 G. Morant, A study of predynastic Egyptian skulls from Badari based on measurements taken by Miss BN Stoessiger and Professor DE Derry, Biometrika 27 (1935), pp. 293–309.Morant, 1935; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Irish and Konigsberg, 2007). The archaeological evidence points to this relationship as well. (Hassan, 1986) and (Hassan, 1988) noted similarities between Badarian pottery and the Neolithic Khartoum type, indicating an archaeological affinity among Badarians and Africans from more southern regions. Furthermore, like the Badarians, Naqada has also been classified with other African groups, namely the Teita (Crichton, 1996; Keita, 1990).

Nutter (1958) noted affinities between the Badarian and Naqada samples, a feature that Strouhal (1971) attributed to their skulls possessing “Negroid” traits. Keita (1992), using craniometrics, discovered that the Badarian series is distinctly different from the later Egyptian series, a conclusion that is mostly confirmed here. In the current analysis, the Badari sample more closely clusters with the Naqada sample and the Kerma sample. However, it also groups with the later pooled sample from Dynasties XVIII–XXV.

The reoccurring notation of Kerma affinities with Egyptian groups is not entirely surprising. Kerma was an integral part of the trade between Egypt and Nubia.

However, the archaeological evidence actually showed slow change in form over time (Adams, 1977) and the biological evidence demonstrated a similar trend in the skeletal data (e.g. Godde, in press; Van Gerven et al., 1977). These conclusions negate the possibility of invasion or migration causing the shifts in time periods. The results in this study are consistent with prior work; the Meroites and X-Group cluster with the remaining Nubian population and are not differentiated.

Gene flow may account for the homogeneity across these Nubian and Egyptian groups and is consistent with the biological diffusion precept. Small geographic distances between groups allow for the exchange of genes.The similarities uncovered by this study may be explained by another force, adaptation.. resemblance may be indicative of a common adaptation to a similar geographic location, rather than gene flow
Egypt and Nubia have similar terrain and climate. Because of the similarity between and the overlapping of the two territories that would require similar adaptations to the environment, common adaptation cannot be discounted.

-- Godde K. (2009) An Examination of Nubian and Egyptian biological distances: Support for biological diffusion or in situ development? Homo. 2009;60(5):389-404.

As you can see from this study as well as others run parallel in their conclusions Nubians and Egyptians overlapped with one another biologically.

Someone actually responded to you with an example of the way the Egyptians really did depict different ethnicities:

Did you not see that the same poster asserted that the portrait above was fake until I revealed to him where it was found, in which he admitted that he was mistaken.

Please educate YOURSELF before you attempt to educate..cough(mislead) others.

 

[Tacitusitis]

MKG by not admitting when you were wrong you kind of leave the impression that you were being deliberately deceptive. You compound that by continuing to insist that the portrait you posted is an accurate representation. It's not; see Hornung's photographs of the actual tomb. Your posts have crossed the threshold of "worth responding to."

Will reply to Mentu in a separate post.

 

[Tacitusitis]

@ Mentu.

Yes, what really matters is what the Egyptians LOOKED LIKE.

However. You are not being intellectually consistent or honest when you berate me for using artwork, say that I am leaping to conclusions about whether it is lifelike or realistic, but then are content to put forward a piece of art that supports your own view.

You can always point to the exceptions. I pointed one out myself, the Sphinx's prognathous jaw. The question is what is the balance of evidence.

In artwork after artwork the Egyptians refer to themselves as being clay-brown. They ethnically stereotype the Nubians as being jet-black (just as they ethnically stereotype those north of them as being lily-pale). They also indicate in their art that prognathous jaws were exotic to them, just as epicanthic folds are exotic to Whites, by deliberately stereotyping artwork of Nubians with those features.

It takes some chutzpah to say that Egyptian art is not lifelike. What about Roman art?

Will you deny that these Roman artworks are as true to life as any post-Renaissance portrait? Do these portraits look "symbolic" and "opaque to interpretation" to you or do they look like careful, unstylized studies of real people that speak to their individuality?

The last one is of an Egyptian (during the Classical period naturally). I think you previously said it is not representative of "real ancient Egypt." Let's compare that portrait with the jet black statue you posted.

You can of course dismiss anything I say as subjective but it should be clear to impartial observers that the shapes of these two faces are the same.

They BOTH contain widely spaced almond-shaped eyes; full, downturned lips; and a triangular nose.

The jet-black statue does not depict "broad craniofacial features." We kind of know how the Egyptians drew "broad craniofacial features," on for example these Nubian slaves:

So we have a contradiction between the statue and the portrait (as well as between the statue and the broad mainstream of Egyptian self-portraiture). Yet at the same time, skin tone aside, the statue conforms to the facial features of the Egyptians as they drew themselves and as others portrayed them.

Which is more likely, that the jet-blackness of the statue is nonrepresentative or symbolic in some way, or that the blackness is lifelike portraiture and EVERYTHING ELSE about the statue isn't?






Why does this matter? Because - let's not lose sight of what's at issue here in this debate - this whole thing is about AFRICA.

Having the Egyptians be dark skinned is not exactly fricking mind blowing news to anyone who was born after 1950. We all know that a far darker group of dudes were building a civilization just as glorious around the Indus valley. West of the Indus civilization was being built by Mediterraneans and Semites. Impartially viewed, White people especially Northern Europeans are sitting on the sidelines of history until the early Medieval period. As late as Chaucer, Britain was to Europe what Scythia was to the Roman Empire - a barbarian outpost.

It's not like history is denying that world civilization was born in the hands of far darker-skinned folks than now sit atop the globe's various thrones.

But that's not enough for you - you can't accept my evidence-backed position that whatever their origin, the Egyptians basically LOOKED LIKE brown Mediterraneans. You want to make some sort of case that based on genetics and migration the Egyptians "must have looked like" ex-Nubians. In other words - even though we both agree that the Egyptians were indigenously African - you want to make Egypt a uniquely Black, ex-tropical civilization, an outlier among the civilizations that clustered around the Mediterranean.

This is baaaaasically allied with the Afrocentric position of Black Athena or the Black Supremacist position of the Isis Papers - you know the story, tropical blacks brought civilization to the Med, then eeeevil white people (aka "albino mutants" lol) stole it.

After studying the balance of the evidence I arrive at the conclusion that the Egyptians looked like dark brown Mediterraneans. They didn't look like Mrs. Isis Papers!

 

[Verbose]

About ancient Egyptian statues represented with black skin. Interpretations of black skin in the context of mortuary statues would seem to be representative of life/rebirth/fecundity, not necessarily realistic depiction. That's not to say Ancient Egyptians might not have been jet black. (Well, personally I think that would be a matter of individual exception rather than a generalizable rule.)

 

[Cynovolans]

I noticed that some of the studies of S.O.Y. Keita have reported that Ancient Egyptian skulls are very close to modern Somali skulls, does his study mention ancient Somali skulls? I'd consider a comparison with two different populations in the same time period more valuable than a comparison between two different populations in different time periods.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Tacitusitis,

My point is that you are using stereotyped thinking to make generalizations about the art. You say prognathous jaws were exotic to Egyptians even though I've pointed out that in art Egyptians depict themselves with such a jaw structure.

The Fayum mummy portraits from the Roman period obviously qualify as realistic portraits.

However take note that even though you can find a Romanized Egyptian portrait with the same features as King Tut's statue that doesn't mean that that is precisely the way Tut would have looked in the flesh. His skin could be much darker or atleast as brown as his other busts.

Also even though I have carefully explained my position you still don't seem to get it. I'm not saying that Ancient Egyptians looked like the typical West African or even "ex-Nubians" but rather they were a blend of the original people who settled the Nile Valley which included aboriginal Saharans (like the Haratin), Northeast Nilotic (various Sudanese groups) and Horn Africans (Somali, Oromo, Eritrean etc). The evidence seems to indicate that the Horn African phenotypes were predominate which is not surprising considering that the Ancient Egyptians spoke an Afroasiatic language closely related to Somali.

Let's also not overlook the fact that I am not basing my view solely on art but rather mainstream, modern scholarship in fields such as Biological Anthropology, Archeology, Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology.

The Ancient Egyptians themselves recorded their origins as being a place called Punt which was said to be South of Egypt (a claim consistent with Archeological, Linguistic and Cultural Evidence) and a place they actually traded with during Dynastic times by traveling South by boat through the Red Sea. Most modern scholars, based on the items they documented were taken from Punt point to the Horn of Africa as Punt's location.

This claim is consistent with accounts of the origins of the Egyptians by more Southerly Africans which were mentioned by Diodorus Siculus:


They say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris having been the leader of the colony.

- Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Books II.35


Now you've come to the conclusion that the artwork suggests that the Ancient Egyptians looked like "Brown Mediterraneans". Before you described them as being "olive-skinned with Euro/Asiatic features." I think that even if we take a hard line interpretation of the artwork as literal and reliable even the art doesn't support such as position if by such a description you mean that they looked like modern Southern Europeans and Southwest Asians such as Greeks, Italians, Palestinians or Arabs.

The medium brown skintone they used for themselves is far darker than the average person from any of those ethnic groups and more consistent with ethnic groups from the Horn of Africa. The statues morphologically distinguishable from Greek or Roman statuary with traits the fit East African populations.


Let's refer again to an email by Keita who discusses doing comparisons between statuary and modern populations:

Alright Dr. Keita comparison done:

Do you see a difference in morphology?

Which man above has a complexion closer to the skin color the Ancient Egyptians used for themselves?

I think it's pretty obvious that the Ancient Egyptians did not look like the people you are suggesting they did but rather their appearance was consistent with what the anthropological evidence suggests. Their crania cluster with East Africans not Southern Europeans are Southwest Asians. They had tropical body plans. Histological analysis of the skin indicates that they were much darker than "olive" complexion of those regions. Modern Egyptians look the way they do today because they absorbed immigrants from Europe and the Near East.

The body of evidence overwhelming indicates this.

 

[Holycannoli]

@ Mentu.

Yes, what really matters is what the Egyptians LOOKED LIKE.

However. You are not being intellectually consistent or honest when you berate me for using artwork, say that I am leaping to conclusions about whether it is lifelike or realistic, but then are content to put forward a piece of art that supports your own view.

You can of course dismiss anything I say as subjective but it should be clear to impartial observers that the shapes of these two faces are the same.

I posted a picture of this person earlier in the thread. He's a roman-egyptian, not an ancient egyptian, so he's not a good depiction of what an ancient egyptian would have looked like. There's a good 2000 years in between the ancient egyptians and roman-egyptians (roughly). What's more important is he's Tiger Woods.

I still find it amusing that people will think someone from 2010 will look like someone from 2000 BC.