Were Egyptians black or white?

[Mentuhotep23]

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.

I don't know of any studies that have compared ancient Somali skulls to Ancient Egyptian skulls however based on the archeological record and evolutionary principles who should expect that ancient Somali looked like modern Somali.

 

[Cynovolans]

I don't know of any studies that have compared ancient Somali skulls to Ancient Egyptian skulls however based on the archeological record and evolutionary principles who should expect that ancient Somali looked like modern Somali.

Why? I have not seen a craniometry study that found strong continuity in a population for about 3-5000 years period.

 

[Holycannoli]

I don't know of any studies that have compared ancient Somali skulls to Ancient Egyptian skulls however based on the archeological record and evolutionary principles who should expect that ancient Somali looked like modern Somali.

I would agree. It depends on the history of the civilization and the area in question. It's not dissimilar to saying modern north american tribes look like ancient aztecs and mayans, because history tells us there was no mixing of races in the americas until the 1400s.

 

[Tacitusitis]

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 didn't know that he was part Roman - sorry, I would not have used the picture if I knew.

However, the fact that an "Egyptian" who is late Classical period AND part Roman still looks considerably like the ancient statue, supports the idea that there was not a tremendous phenotypic gap between Romans (of the Classical period) and Egyptians (of both the dynastic and Classical periods). Just as, for instance, people who are multiethnic between White/Latino demonstrate that there is a pretty small gap between those two ethnicities.

BTW I see no reason to demean Classical Egyptians (in comparison to their ancestors) as Egypt was still a very cultured, if not so geopolitically powerful, civilization well into the Classical period. The ethnicity of the Classical Egyptians is just as relevant to the whole "who should be proud of Egypt" question as the ethnicity of the New Kingdom Egyptians.

Classical Egypt is still important to Egypt's heritage as a nation, just like Roman Britain.

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.

There is some science brewing - that as an Egyptology fan I'm sure you're aware of - that the proto-Egyptians were actually influenced much more (culturally) by the Sahara than Ethiopia. iirc it's based on Sahara dig finds?

You are very enthusiastic about what you call the bio-anthropological evidence but as a reminder, neither language nor culture nor even heritage are determinative of appearance.

We're not really having a debate about where the Egyptians came from because a) I mostly agree with you and b) it is irrelevant to the larger question. The Egyptians as indigenous Africans obviously have a heritage leading back to somewhere inside Africa. So do the Berbers.

We're having a debate about what the Egyptians looked like and for that question, artwork of/by Egyptians, and Egyptian mummified bodies are the only direct evidence. The mummified bodies are mostly of royals who inbred considerably and had some really deformed features, like Tut's skull.

You said the Egyptians had "tropical body plans." Yeah - because body plans are considerably adaptive. Plot body plan versus longitude and see how much variation is left to attribute to heritage...

Humans can live all over the earth for a reason

The medium brown skintone they used for themselves is far darker than the average[...] modern Southern European and Southwest Asian such as Greeks, Italians, Palestinians or Arabs.

That's because modern Southern European and Mediterranean peoples are considerably lighter than their ancestors of the Classical period, for reasons that shouldn't be too hard to guess.

That said, yes the classical Egyptian was on average browner than his Roman counterpart, as the art confirms.

Also, I disagree with a few of the ethnicities you chose to compare to. Modern "Greeks" are actually considerably Turkish. Arabs are not Mediterraneans (South Europeans) but rather Semites like the Hebrews and Akkadians.

Do you see a difference in morphology?

Yes. First of all the Egyptian bust is considerably more stylized. However there are some morphological differences that are distinguishable. The Egyptian's eyes are almond shaped, his lips are fuller than the Roman's, and his nose is wider than the Roman's and is straight as compared to the Roman's slightly aquiline nose (difficult to tell from this angle).

Their cheekbones and jaw structure are about the same.

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

The Oromo man for sure, but that's not a very fair comparison. The "Italian" you picked has some pretty obvious non-Mediterranean heritage - as do many Italians and French people. I have been to Italy and one thing that surprised me is that Italians vary significantly in skin color from quite pale to quite dark brown.

This man is a bit closer to the average of what I saw in Italy:

although, again, I saw many Italians both lighter and darker than this.

I would say that the color the Egyptians picked to ethnically stereotype themselves is somewhere in between that man and the East African (Oromo) man.

However, keep in mind the color White people picked to ethnically stereotype ourselves is peach. How many "peach-colored" white people do you know?

By pointing to the artwork, I'm just saying the Egyptians were in the neighborhood of clay-brown, as opposed to the neighborhoods of pale Asiatic and black Nilotic.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

However, the fact that an "Egyptian" who is late Classical period AND part Roman still looks considerably like the ancient statue, supports the idea that there was not a tremendous phenotypic gap between Romans (of the Classical period) and Egyptians (of both the dynastic and Classical periods). Just as, for instance, people who are multiethnic between White/Latino demonstrate that there is a pretty small gap between those two ethnicities.

That image you chose to represent a Roman Egyptian is alot closer in phenotype to an East African in appearance than the typical Fayum mummy Portrait as are these two Romanized Egyptian brothers:

BTW I see no reason to demean Classical Egyptians (in comparison to their ancestors) as Egypt was still a very cultured, if not so geopolitically powerful, civilization well into the Classical period. The ethnicity of the Classical Egyptians is just as relevant to the whole "who should be proud of Egypt" question as the ethnicity of the New Kingdom Egyptians.

I haven't seen anyone demonize the Egyptians of the Greco-Roman period but the point I am making is that Egyptians of that period are not as representative of the native Egyptian populace the Egyptians from the Early Dynastic to New Kingdom period. By the Late Period craniometric analysis shows that Egyptians of that time are no longer representative of the typical Egyptian series.

And this discussion is simply about what the Egyptians looked like during that era not who should be proud of Egypt.

There is some science brewing - that as an Egyptology fan I'm sure you're aware of - that the proto-Egyptians were actually influenced much more (culturally) by the Sahara than Ethiopia. iirc it's based on Sahara dig finds?

Dynastic civilization has a Saharo-Nilotic base.

You are very enthusiastic about what you call the bio-anthropological evidence but as a reminder, neither language nor culture nor even heritage are determinative of appearance.

That may be but they're relevant to their bio-cultural origins.

That's because modern Southern European and Mediterranean peoples are considerably lighter than their ancestors of the Classical period, for reasons that shouldn't be too hard to guess.

What is that based on?

Also, I disagree with a few of the ethnicities you chose to compare to. Modern "Greeks" are actually considerably Turkish. Arabs are not Mediterraneans (South Europeans) but rather Semites like the Hebrews and Akkadians.

I know Southern Europeans have absorbed immigrants but I've never heard of Greeks being ethnically admixed with Turks to the point of being "Considerably Turkish."


As for the Mediterranean you said they looked like olive and brown-skinned Mediterraneans with Euro/Asiatic features which I took to mean populations that include the Semitic peoples of the Levant (modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria) which is why I included Palestinians (by which I meant ancient Syro-Palestinians) and Arabs (modern Arabized people of that region). People with a "Southwest Asian" phenotype are often called Asiatics especially when discussing the ancient Near East.

By the way I don't prescribe to the idea of a Mediterranean Race or consider racial labels to be scientifically meaningful, just to be clear on that.

Yes. First of all the Egyptian bust is considerably more stylized. However there are some morphological differences that are distinguishable. The Egyptian's eyes are almond shaped, his lips are fuller than the Roman's, and his nose is wider than the Roman's and is straight as compared to the Roman's slightly aquiline nose (difficult to tell from this angle).

Their cheekbones and jaw structure are about the same.

Well atleast you see that there is a distinction. Ancient Egyptian busts typically reflect phenotypes of the Elongated East African variety which are distinguishable from Greco-Roman art that is more representative of Southern Europeans.

The Oromo man for sure, but that's not a very fair comparison. The "Italian" you picked has some pretty obvious non-Mediterranean heritage - as do many Italians and French people. I have been to Italy and one thing that surprised me is that Italians vary significantly in skin color from quite pale to quite dark brown.

This man is a bit closer to the average of what I saw in Italy:

They range in complexion for sure but how is his heritage obviously non-Mediterranean? There are light and darker skinned Italians and I don't think either is more or less authentically Italian. It's just a gradient in skin tone. Europe has variability just like every other region.

I would say that the color the Egyptians picked to ethnically stereotype themselves is somewhere in between that man and the East African (Oromo) man.

I would say it leans considerably towards if nor overlaps with the East African.

Bare in mind the image I chose is an actual screenshot from art in a tomb.

The image you chose is a drawing based of an image from the tomb of Seti I, not authentic Ancient Egyptian art and the Egyptian on that drawing is a bit lighter than the actual tomb art.

However, keep in mind the color White people picked to ethnically stereotype ourselves is peach. How many "peach-colored" white people do you know?

But then again how many jet-Black people of African descent do you know? "Black" people aren't really jet-Black in appearance they are varying shades of brown. They're very dark brown at the extreme but never literally Black.

By pointing to the artwork, I'm just saying the Egyptians were in the neighborhood of clay-brown, as opposed to the neighborhoods of pale Asiatic and black Nilotic.

Can you give the name of some modern ethnic groups and pictures of people you think the Ancient Egyptians (from the Early Dynastic - New Kingdom period) looked like? I think that would be helpful.

My position is that on average they looked like modern peoples from tropical East Africa such as Somali and Oromo like Iman and the Oromo man I posted.

 

[Tacitusitis]

Wow the brother on the right is pretty much a textbook pic of what I said the Egyptians looked like.

I consider that pic to end this thread. "Romanized" or not that guy on the right is the lifelike portrait version of the cartoon (stylized) self portraits on Egyptian tombs.

I know Southern Europeans have absorbed immigrants but I've never heard of Greeks being ethnically admixed with Turks to the point of being "Considerably Turkish."

Yep for the same reason modern North Africans are considerably Arabic.

Can you give the name of some modern ethnic groups and pictures of people you think the Ancient Egyptians (from the Early Dynastic - New Kingdom period) looked like? I think that would be helpful.

I did that a few pages ago - came to the conclusion that modern day Ethiopians look pretty close and indeed the brother on the right could understudy for the hat-wearing guy on the left in this pic:

Are these people "Black"? Meh, not really. They're not "Black" any more than Mexicans are "Native American." The heritage is there, the conformance to ethnic stereotype is not.

By the way I don't prescribe to the idea of a Mediterranean Race or consider racial labels to be scientifically meaningful, just to be clear on that.

To me each of the ethnicities around the Med are distinct, but it's a useful shorthand as they have a lot in common compared to the populations of Northern Europe, sub Saharan Africa and Central Asia.

I don't consider races to exist at any biologically significant level but phenotypes do differ and we aggregate them (in a cultural and semi-arbitrary way) into "ethnicities."

This does have its pitfalls. For example in my like 2nd post in this thread, I posted some pics of Obama's white granddad, showing that many of the facial features that people think make him "look Black" actually come from the other side of his family. In fact Obama's kind of the spitting image of his granddad, just browner.

He totally has his granddad's chin and ears, yet I've seen people make fun of Obama's "Kenyan" ears. Just goes to show that notions of ethnicity can trip you up if you're not careful.

But then again how many jet-Black people of African descent do you know?

Of people who are completely African in heritage, I have met people who claim Senegalese, Nigerian, and Sudanese heritage and they were all very dark skinned. I don't know which of these countries has "Nilotic" heritage if any, but yeah, they were as dark as the Egyptians drew the ancient Nubians.

All the North Africans I know are Jews, so that doesn't count.

They range in complexion for sure but how is his heritage obviously non-Mediterranean?

For starters I would be willing to bet money that he is part French. I don't know why, but I am very familiar with both French and Italian folks and that jumped out at me.

Anyway, modern Southern Europeans of all stripes are ethnically different from the people who lived on that land 2000 years ago (just like Egyptians) because of empires and migrations. In the case of Italy for example: the Goths, the Lombards, the Normans, the Illyrians and Slavs, the Turks and Arabs all came and lived (and screwed and had kids) at some point.

understand I am not making the case that "Roman Italians" were representative of some kind of ethnically pure Mediterranean exemplar race or anything - Ancient Rome was just as much a cosmopolitan ethnic crossroads as Renaissance Italy - I'm just saying the mix of genes has changed from then to now.

Anyway this was a fun thread

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Are these people "Black"? Meh, not really. They're not "Black" any more than Mexicans are "Native American." The heritage is there, the conformance to ethnic stereotype is not.

If you're saying populations such as Ethiopians and Somali are a good representation of the Ancient Egyptians then we have no argument.

Arguing over socially constructed, arbitrary terms like Black is not of interest to me.

 

[Tacitusitis]

I guess we both agree that Stratego is the best pot-stirring drama-baiter ever for making us debate this like six years after he got banned, then :shakehands:

 

[Dachs]

The only reason this catfight went back over into this thread is because Plotinus locked the ones in the World History forum, IIRC.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

I guess we both agree that Stratego is the best pot-stirring drama-baiter ever for making us debate this like six years after he got banned, then :shakehands:

I'm greatful for it whether he was trolling or not.


I was disappointed that the other thread got closed although I feel that I made my main points and it was for the most part productive.

I think debates like this can be conducted in a civil manner if people try.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Exactly what time period are you considering Ancient Egypt, and what region? Most of your evidence tends to point to rather early Upper Egypt, where I would not be surprised at all to find people who resembled other East Africans. The people of Lower Egypt were likely lighter though, and even early on would have had some interbreeding with Asiatics.

I don't have a problem saying that early Egyptians were rather black, but it bothers me when someone tries to go so far as claim that is true of a figure like Cleopatra whose heritage was mostly Macedonian.




For much of Egyptian history though, I'd expect Egyptians to look more like some Copts I know

Spoiler :

I was thinking my Coptic friend was a bit too light to match the Egyptian self portraits, but then I went though his vacation pics and found that with a slight summertime tan his skin tone matched the murals almost perfectly. Florida is at the same latitude as Lower Egypt so the way he looked during summer vacation is probably how his people normally look in their homeland. The Egyptians may have considered themselves red because their skin was just barely light enough for sunburn to be noticeable.


Of course, the statues and paintings do tend to show noses more like those of some Somailis and Eritreans I knew back in high school.




When you say Romanized Egyptian, I presume you mean Egyptians under the Roman empire, not those of Roman blood, right? Because I don't think interbreeding with actual Romans was common, whereas Greek, Macedonian, Phoenician, and Arab cross breeding had been happening for a while by the time that the Romans took over. Also, I believe that nearly all the depictions of Roman era Egyptians we have are from Alexandria or the Delta area, not so much from Upper Egypt.



As for why that blue-grey eyes Italian is not a good representative of ancient Mediterraneans, I would think that was obvious. His phenotypes are clearly those brought to Italy by invaders such as the Goths, Vandals, and various Germanic tribes. Much of Italy was long ruled by the Lombards and the Normans, both groups of Scandinavian origin. These peoples came from a very different climate, nearly as far north of Italy as Ethiopia ans Somalia are south or Egypt. Ancient Romans did not consider these Northern Europeans as members of the same race as themselves. (On the other hand, Germanus is also Latin for brother, and the Sabines were stereotypically red haired just as Germans were.)

 

[Tacitusitis]

Ooh wow I found the other thread independently and someone there made an excellent point that I am kind of an idiot for not making, which is that the Copts are basically fossilized Egyptians. Two other very smart points are made in that thread: first, Egypt is at the crossroads between Asia and Africa so the delta (the good bit) would likely have been settled from both regions. Second, Egypt was the most densely populated region of the earth in the ancient world so the theory that invasions and immigrations would have significantly "admixtured" the native population doesn't hold much water.

In general that thread is much better than this one for example it only took to the third page for Plotinus and Transkar to point out there's an important distinction between dark skinned and "Negroid" as seen with Indians etc. I think I was the first person to make that point here and it was on like page 16.

Seems to have gone downhill after that...

For people who are inclined to continue the discussion I pretty much agree with everything Verbose and Plotinus and Transkar posted in the locked thread, but my involvement here is done

 

[Dachs]

Second, Egypt was the most densely populated region of the earth in the ancient world so the theory that invasions and immigrations would have significantly "admixtured" the native population doesn't hold much water.

Well, it's a start. I'm probably not going to get anything better in this thread.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Exactly what time period are you considering Ancient Egypt, and what region? Most of your evidence tends to point to rather early Upper Egypt, where I would not be surprised at all to find people who resembled other East Africans. The people of Lower Egypt were likely lighter though, and even early on would have had some interbreeding with Asiatics.

When I speak of the "Ancient Egyptians" I'm referring to the native people who founded and sustained the Ancient Egyptian state. This would exclude Hyksos and foreign immigrants. When I say they generally looked like tropical East Africans the time period I'm talking about is from the Early Dynastic to New Kingdom period. After that anthropologists have observed change in the craniometric patterns of Egyptian skulls that suggest they began to blend significantly with foreigners.

I would expect the Lower Egyptians during this period to have also been dark-skinned given that they were tropically adapted. It also seems that their cranial affinities were not similar to Palestinians during the same time period so there was no significant cross-breeding with Asiatics.


From Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization

From Egypt: Child of Africa

I don't have a problem saying that early Egyptians were rather black, but it bothers me when someone tries to go so far as claim that is true of a figure like Cleopatra whose heritage was mostly Macedonian.

I agree. Cleopatra was not a native Egyptian. Alot of people claiming she was Black don't really know that because she is promoted as being a prominent Egyptian Queen. However I do think the "purity" of the Ptolmaic bloodline may be exaggerated.
My professor for Western Civilization in college claimed that Cleopatra did not have a single drop of Egyptian blood. There appears to be some evidence that this is not exactly true:


Link to video.


It shouldn't be surprising. Although the Ptolmaic royal family was incestuous and culturally xenophobic they did live in Egypt for several generations by the time Cleopatra VII was born. It's not out of the question that they could have intermingled to a degree with native Egyptians. However what that says about her phenotype I don't know. Her bust resembles those in Classical Greece.

For much of Egyptian history though, I'd expect Egyptians to look more like some Copts I know

Spoiler :

Of course, the statues and paintings do tend to show noses more like those of some Somailis and Eritreans I knew back in high school.

As far as Copts are concerned it is commonly claimed that they are more directly descended from the Ancient Egyptians than are the Arab/Muslim Egyptian majority because there was a tradition of the two populations not intermarrying. However bare in mind that today Copts are considered to be Egyptians whose ancestors converted to Christianity. Christianity was introduced to Egypt during the Roman period somewhere between 42 AD and 200 AD. By then Egypt had blended with many immigrants.

When you say Romanized Egyptian, I presume you mean Egyptians under the Roman empire, not those of Roman blood, right? Because I don't think interbreeding with actual Romans was common, whereas Greek, Macedonian, Phoenician, and Arab cross breeding had been happening for a while by the time that the Romans took over.

Yes, that's what I mean. They were citizens of the Roman empire and adopted many Roman customs including style of dress. By that time they had blended with many immigrants following the various conquests and this immigration was concentrated to Lower Egypt.

As for why that blue-grey eyes Italian is not a good representative of ancient Mediterraneans, I would think that was obvious. His phenotypes are clearly those brought to Italy by invaders such as the Goths, Vandals, and various Germanic tribes. Much of Italy was long ruled by the Lombards and the Normans, both groups of Scandinavian origin. These peoples came from a very different climate, nearly as far north of Italy as Ethiopia ans Somalia are south or Egypt. Ancient Romans did not consider these Northern Europeans as members of the same race as themselves. (On the other hand, Germanus is also Latin for brother, and the Sabines were stereotypically red haired just as Germans were.)

Admittedly I could have chosen an image more representative of native Italians. I just searched around for a photogenic face pic of an Italian man.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Ooh wow I found the other thread independently and someone there made an excellent point that I am kind of an idiot for not making, which is that the Copts are basically fossilized Egyptians. Two other very smart points are made in that thread: first, Egypt is at the crossroads between Asia and Africa so the delta (the good bit) would likely have been settled from both regions. Second, Egypt was the most densely populated region of the earth in the ancient world so the theory that invasions and immigrations would have significantly "admixtured" the native population doesn't hold much water.

In general that thread is much better than this one for example it only took to the third page for Plotinus and Transkar to point out there's an important distinction between dark skinned and "Negroid" as seen with Indians etc. I think I was the first person to make that point here and it was on like page 16.

Seems to have gone downhill after that...

For people who are inclined to continue the discussion I pretty much agree with everything Verbose and Plotinus and Transkar posted in the locked thread, but my involvement here is done

I've thought about this myself. It's one thing to assume that invasions brought in foreign immigrants and another to provide historical evidence that this is the case.


With that in mind in the Keita & Boyce article I posted they did provide plausible reasons for this to be the case based on population genetics theory:


The information from the living Egyptian population may not be as useful because historical records indicate substantial immigration into Egypt over the last several millennia, and it seems to have been far greater from the Near East and Europe than from areas far south of Egypt. "Substantial immigration" can actually mean a relatively small number of people in terms of population genetics theory. It has been determined that an average migration rate of one percent per generation into a region could result in a great change of the original gene frequencies in only several thousand years. (This assumes that all migrants marry natives and that all native-migrant offspring remain in the region.) It is obvious then that an ethnic group or nationality can change in average gene frequencies or physiognomy by intermarriage, unless social rules exclude the products of "mixed" unions from membership in the receiving group. More abstractly this means that geographically defined populations can undergo significant genetic change with a small percentage of steady assimilation of "foreign" genes. This is true even if natural selection does not favor the genes (and does not eliminate them).


Also I've encountered a post that claims to document the population history of Egypt and notes that high birth rates of the Lower Egyptian populace during Urbanization could easily explain why so many more Egyptians today are lighter-skinned like their foreign ancestors rather than darker like the native Egyptians:


Sanjub_Saraswati on demographic shifts in Egypt

Not quite, we just need to look at the massive population growth in lower Egypt since the islamic period to get an understanding of what happened.

During Mohammed Ali pasha's Ottoman Egypt the whole country was populated by merely 5.6 million people, and when Napoleon entered a century before Egypt had only 3 million.

The population boom during the 19th century exploded in the Delta region and to a lesser extent in middle egypt but stagnated in villages at upper Egypt.
Today Egypt is one of the most populas country in Africa with some 75 million people an acceleration of 600% growth in less than 100 years with the northern urban cities responsible for the majority of this growth.
This population boom completly shifted the indigenous ethnic make up of the country since it took place at the traditionally asiatic part of Egypt, Alexandria, Port-Said, Beheira, Cairo (cairo had already levantine mass settlers during the middle ages, being the seat of the Fatimid Chaliphate it had astonishing 500 000 people as early as the 12th century.)

The population growth of the 19th century however was not as impressive at the traditional Indigenous Egyptian part of Egypt, Asyut the biggest city in Upper Egypt has today 3.3 million people (it's the most northern city of upper egypt and could technically be reffered as a Lower Egyptian city) and the second biggest city in Upper Egypt is Aswan which has merely 1.1 million people.

Compare this to lower Egyptian Delta cities like Cairo with 7.7 million, Giza 6.2 mill, Sharqia 5.3 million, Dakhalia 4.9 mill, Beheira 4.7 mill, Qalyubia 4.2 mill, Alexandria 4.1 m, Gharbia 4 m, Minya 4 m, Sohag 3.7 m.

Only in the eleventh place comes the first upper egyptian city Asyut with 3.3 m and the next (genuine) upper egyptian city ranked at the 16th position, Aswan with 1.1 million people. Luxor ranks at the 21st position with population as low as 361k.

This clearly shows that upper Egyptians/indigenous Egyptians are an almost extinct group and have during the last few centuries been completly overunned demographically by the Asiatic part of Egypt that is the Lower/delta part of Egypt which has experienced a non-stop influx of foreigners since the Assyrian era and these are continuing peaking at our time through excessive fertility rate relative to Upper Egypt and today Iraqis and Palestinians pouring into the delta like tsunami.

Mind you during the dynastic period, lower egypt was almost barren in comparison to upper egypt where the population density was entirely concentrated and also the seat of the Pharaos.
The population shift didn't happen through genocide or eviction of the indigenous elements, but through uneven birth rates and continues migration to the delta, also known as the Asiatic part of Egypt since the time of Hyksos incursion.

An Egyptian friend of mine told me that a lot of the historical settlements by foreigners are documented in this book:


http://www.amazon.com/Egypt-After-Pharaohs-332-BC-AD/dp/0520205316

 

[Holycannoli]

I didn't know that he was part Roman - sorry, I would not have used the picture if I knew.

However, the fact that an "Egyptian" who is late Classical period AND part Roman still looks considerably like the ancient statue, supports the idea that there was not a tremendous phenotypic gap between Romans (of the Classical period) and Egyptians (of both the dynastic and Classical periods). Just as, for instance, people who are multiethnic between White/Latino demonstrate that there is a pretty small gap between those two ethnicities.

BTW I see no reason to demean Classical Egyptians (in comparison to their ancestors) as Egypt was still a very cultured, if not so geopolitically powerful, civilization well into the Classical period. The ethnicity of the Classical Egyptians is just as relevant to the whole "who should be proud of Egypt" question as the ethnicity of the New Kingdom Egyptians.

Classical Egypt is still important to Egypt's heritage as a nation, just like Roman Britain.

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.

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2009/07/egyptian-mummy-portraits.html is where I found that picture. Both pictures can be considered a good depiction of what egyptians of the time looked like, with obvious variances one would expect to find in the center of the world and the crossroads of civilizations.

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.

My family on my mother's side is from southern Italy - Naples. There's blonde hair and blue eyes that for a long time puzzled us, until I learned it's from the norman migration, which is ultimately scandinavian/viking. The people of southern Italy are not the same as the people of ancient roman Naples, and those people were not the same as the greeks who inhabited the area even earlier.

That's the point of a lot of us in this thread though, right? That ancient egypt was so long ago that it's foolish to think any one people alive today look like they did?

EDIT: Sorry, that person in the mummy portrait might be greek/egyptian, not roman/egyptian. I'm reading about the history of the area on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits

There's even more pictures, and it makes it plainly obvious that the people of egypt are not just mixed now, but have been mixed for millenia.

 

[Cynovolans]

When you say Romanized Egyptian, I presume you mean Egyptians under the Roman empire, not those of Roman blood, right? Because I don't think interbreeding with actual Romans was common, whereas Greek, Macedonian, Phoenician, and Arab cross breeding had been happening for a while by the time that the Romans took over. Also, I believe that nearly all the depictions of Roman era Egyptians we have are from Alexandria or the Delta area, not so much from Upper Egypt.

Actually they mummy portraits you have posted are from the Fayum Oasis, and there was a study into who these people were and it was found they had much more in common with Ancient Egyptians than with the Greeks or any other incoming European immigrants.

 

[Mentuhotep23]

Actually they mummy portraits you have posted are from the Fayum Oasis, and there was a study into who these people were and it was found they had much more in common with Ancient Egyptians than with the Greeks or any other incoming European immigrants.

The study you're referring to by Joel Irish was on Ancient Egyptian dental morphology.

Irish notes a continuity from the predynastic to Post Dynastic period. However he did not compare Ancient Egyptian teeth to that of Greeks or outside populations to determine that there was a difference in dental patterns. We would not necessarily observe a difference in dental morphology between Egyptians and Greeks because there is evidence that dietary change spawned by the Neolithic revolution could lead to microevolutionary changes in morphology.

Irish wrote several years earlier about what dental analysis indicates about the peopling of the Nile Valley and Keita issued some criticisms in his 1993 paper:


Recently Irish and Tumer (1990) and Tumer and Markowitz (1990) have
suggested that the populations of Nubia and Egypt of the agricultural periods
were not primarily descendants of the geographical populations of
mesolithic/epipaleolithic times. Based on dental morphology, they postulate
an almost total replacement of the native/African epipaleolithic and neolithic
groups by populations or peoples from further north (Europe or the Near
East?) A similarity in dental traits is noted between epipaleolithic Nile valley
peoples and modern West Africans and also found for craniometric traits
(Strouhal 1984). They argue that the rate of evolutionary change required to
achieve the later dentitions would be greater than that for epipaleolithic to ne-
olithic dental changes in other parts of the world, and see no reason why this
should be true in the lower Nile valley. They take issue with the well-known
post-Pleistocene/hunting dental reduction and simplification hypotheses which
postulate in situ microevolution driven by dietary change, with minimal gene
flow (admixture) (see Carlson and Van Gerven 1979).


However, as is well known and accepted, rapid evolution can occur. Also,
rapid change in northeast Africa might be specifically anticipated because of
the possibilities for punctuated microevolution (secondary to severe micro selection and drift) in the early Holocene Sahara, because of the isolated com-
munities and cyclical climatic changes there, and their possible subsequent
human effects. The earliest southern predynastic culture, Badari, owes key
elements to post-desiccation Saharan and also perhaps “Nubian” immigration
(Hassan 1988). Biologically these people were essentially the same (see above
and discussion; Keita 1990). It is also possible that the dental traits could have
been introduced from an external source, and increased in frequency primarily
because of natural selection, either for the trait or for a growth pattern requir-
ing less energy. There is no evidence for sudden or gradual mass migration of
Europeans or Near Easterners into the valley, as the term “replacement” would
imply. There is limb ratio and craniofacial morphological and metric continu-
ity in Upper Egypt-Nubia in a broad sense from the late paleolithic through
dynastic periods, although change occurred.

 

[aneeshm]

Were egyptians black or white? To me they don't look black or African, but they don't look white either.

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

 

[Cynovolans]

The study you're referring to by Joel Irish was on Ancient Egyptian dental morphology.

Irish notes a continuity from the predynastic to Post Dynastic period. However he did not compare Ancient Egyptian teeth to that of Greeks or outside populations to determine that there was a difference in dental patterns. We would not necessarily observe a difference in dental morphology between Egyptians and Greeks because there is evidence that dietary change spawned by the Neolithic revolution could lead to microevolutionary changes in morphology.

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

Irish wrote several years earlier about what dental analysis indicates about the peopling of the Nile Valley and Keita issued some criticisms in his 1993 paper:

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.