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Author Topic:   The Ancient Egypt "Race" Issue!!
rasol
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posted 14 February 2005 08:17 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
If Herodotus' description of Egyptians as Melanochroes meant they were literally "black-skinned", then I wonder why other classical writers didn't describe them the same way

They did. Scroll your eyes up the thread and answer Lamin's questions please. Unless you can't.

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rasol
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posted 14 February 2005 08:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ooops......they did it again!

Plato and his Dialogues, by Bernard Suzanne.

In his Histories, II, 103-105, Herodotus suggests that Colchis was conquered by an Egyptian Pharao named Sesostris (either Sesostris I or Sesostris III, of the XIIth dynasty, who lived in the XIXth century B. C.) and that the people of Colchis were the descendants of Egyptians who stayed there at the time, but modern history has no knowledge of such an expedition by any Egyptian pharaoh, although Black communities are known to have existed in the area.
http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/loc/colchis.htm 1998 Bernard SUZANNE - Cities and Locations of Ancient Greeece.

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rasol
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posted 14 February 2005 08:51 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Here the term Ethiopians (= Greek "burnt face", denoting very dark skin)

Rasol wrote:

quote:
The Church Fathers St. Jerome and Sophronius, writing in the late fourth century, referred to Colchis as the `second Ethiopia' because of its black population. - Richard Poe, Black spark/White fire.
- Looking forward to your 'explanation'.

Still waiting.

On the meaning of Ethiopia:

quote:
Altakuri wrote: Aethiops was the Greeks best try garbled pronunciation of one of the variants of Ethaosh.

quote:
Wally wrote: The Egyptian Frontier

Although, historically the borders of Egypt were constantly changing, the African lands beyond its southern borders were called "Ethaosh"("Ethoshi";"Ethaoshu"), and earlier scholars give this term as the etymology of the word "Ethiopia".
It took extreme linguistic gymnastics to come up with "Aithen(?)" + "ops" to get to the Greek "burnt faces", even in light of Martin Bernal's revealing the substantial amount of words of Egyptian origin in the Greek language.
Herodotus, in his histories, only referred to a people's color when he used it to compare the Black Egyptians to the Black Colchians in order to establish what he felt to be a connection, mentioning in passing that there were other Black nations as well. He didn't write other Ethiopian nations. In fact, the only physical comparisons regarding Ethiopians was when he informs us that the Ethiopians of Asia and those of Libya resembled one another, except that the Asian Ethiopians have straight hair while those of Libya had the wooliest hair he'd ever seen.
In essence, Herodotus, as well as the other ancient authors, uses the term "Ethiopian" in the same manner the Egyptians used the word "Ethaoshi"...


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kenndo
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posted 14 February 2005 10:49 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for kenndo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
IT IS MENTION BY ROMAN AND GREEKS SCHOLARS THAT THOSE SOUTH OF EGYPT had/have the wooliest hair they ever saw.

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Evil Euro
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posted 15 February 2005 08:14 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Evil Euro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by rasol:
They did.

No, they didn't:

"The Ethiopians stain the world and depict a race of men steeped in darkness; less sun-burnt are the natives of India; the land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields: it is a country nearer to us and its moderate climate imparts a medium tone."
-- Manilius, Astronomica 4.724

quote:
- Looking forward to your 'explanation'.

Looking forward to the day your brain starts working. My explanation is that Richard Poe is a pseudo-scholar, Bernard Suzanne is a dilettante, and you're a moron who doesn't bother to check his sources.

[This message has been edited by Evil Euro (edited 15 February 2005).]

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rasol
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posted 15 February 2005 08:28 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
My explanation is that Richard Poe is a pseudo-scholar

Ad hominem # 1, does not address St. Jerome and Sophronius, writing in the late fourth century, referred to Colchis as the `second Ethiopia' because of its black population. - Patrick T. English, Cushites, Colchians, and Khazars, Journal of Near Eastern Studies

quote:
Bernard Suzanne is a dilettante

Ad hominem # 2, does not address Black communities are known to have existed in the area - Dmitri Gulia, History of Abkhazia

quote:
and you're a moron

Ad hominem # 3, reveals your anger and vacuity and fail to hide the fact that you have no answers.

Here's more on the second Ethiopia, the Black Colchians, and another chance for you to hide behind whiney ad hominem straw attacks since you have no answers:

"Passing for the first time through the Abkhazian community of Abzhiubzha......curly-headed Negro children played on the ground and a Negro woman passed by grandly carrying a bundle on her head. Black-skinned people wearing white clothes in the bright sun resembled a picture of some African scene." - Allison Blakely http://www.hupress.howard.edu/depot/russia.htm

Lamin writes:

quote:
To: Evil Euro
So how then would you translate the following from Roman author Ammanius Marcellinus?

"Aegypti plerique subfusculi et atrati sunt" My translation is: "Most Egyptians are very dark and blackish in colour". Do you have an alternative literal translation?

And what about these observations from Aristotle:

From Aristotle's PROBLEMATA(Physiognomica)(chapter 6, 812a):

"Too black a hue marks a coward, as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians[Nubians?], and so does too white a complexion, as you may see from women. So the hue that makes for courage must be intermediate between these extremes. A tawny colour indicates a bold spirit, as in lions: but too ruddy a hue marks a rogue, as in the case of the fox...."

And from Book 14, PROBLEMATA(Physignomica),paragraph 4.

"Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair too supports this theory;for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were crookedness of the hair"


But note that when discussing skin colour and hair Aristotle could easily have made his point without reference to the Egyptians as he does in this passage: (PROBLEMATA, Physiognomica, 812b)

"...when the hair of the head stands up stiff it signifes cowardice, by congruity for fright....and very woolly hair also signifies cowardice, as may be seen in Ethiopians[Nubians?]. Thus extremely bristly and extremly woolly hair alike signify cowardice, and so hair gently curling at the end will make for boldness of spirit, as is to be seen in lions....[/i"

So quite clearly for the Greeks the people with the darkest complexions and woolliest of hair were the blacks of Africa--whether Egyptian or Nubian. In other words the extremes of skin colour and hair curl were to be found exclusively with the indigenous people of Egypt and Nubia. Simple logic!

It would seem to me then that the most accurate description of the Egyptians and Nubians would be how the Egyptians and Nubians portrayed themselves when they did so [i]realistically as during the Amarna period and how those who actually saw them described them. That would be the Greeks and Romans.


Looking forward to the day that EuroDisney learns to debate, and not just hate.

[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 15 February 2005).]

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Evil Euro
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posted 16 February 2005 08:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Evil Euro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Your contemporary sources are untrustworthy, and your interpretations of classical sources are ludicrous.


On Colchians:

Of course Afrocentric diehards might claim that Colchians too were black Africans, but such a theory runs into trouble when one considers the observations of Hippocrates, who wrote that the Colchians in Phasis "are large and corpulent in body. Neither joint nor vein is evident. They have a yellow flesh, as if victims of jaundice" (Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places 15). Nothing in Hippocrates' description suggests that Colchians look anything like sub-Saharan Africans and this further weakens the Afrocentric argument that Egyptians and Colchians must have looked like "blacks" on the basis of Herodotus' words.


All Lamin's passages say is [1] that Egyptians were darker than Romans (subfusc means "dark, brownish, dusky", and atratus means "clothed in black" which is ambiguous); and [2] that they had, on average, "curlier" (vague comparative) hair than Greeks and other peoples.

Words like "dark", "black" and "curly" have varied usages, esp. in classical writing. But the language and color hierarchy used in this passage here are unambiguous. Why do you avoid it? I wonder . . .

"The Ethiopians stain the world and depict a race of men steeped in darkness; less sun-burnt are the natives of India; the land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields: it is a country nearer to us and its moderate climate imparts a medium tone."
-- Manilius, Astronomica 4.724

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rasol
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posted 16 February 2005 08:18 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Your contemporary sources are untrustworthy


Audrey De Selincourt, George Rawlinson, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, Bernard Suzanne, Ammanius Marcellinus, Aristotle, Richare Poe, Allison Blakely, Patrick T. English, as well as Black Colchian historian Dmitri Gulia all essentially concur with Herodotus's comments regarding "Black skinned and woolly haired" Egyptians and Colchians.

Your denial is unconvincing. Your counter-argument merely consists of red herrings, strawmen, and ad hominmen and is so dismissed as utterly falacious.

[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 16 February 2005).]

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lamin
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posted 16 February 2005 12:07 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for lamin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
To: Evil Euro

The term "atrati" comes from the adjective ater-atra-atrum which means dark, black, gloomy. The term for "clothing" is "vestis" and the the verb is "vestio", "vestire" "vestitum". So obviously the term "atrati" would refer to the colour "blackish" with reference to their skin colours. For clothing Marcellinus would have used some derivation of "vestio".

On the hair of the Egyptians and Ethiopians

Note that Aristotle describes their hair as being "the curliest of allnations--not just the Greeks. But again my point is that there was no need for Aristotle to lump the Egyptians together with the Ethiopians in terms of hair and colour unless there was a firm basis for so doing

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Evil Euro
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posted 17 February 2005 07:58 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Evil Euro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
"[Colchians] are large and corpulent in body. Neither joint nor vein is evident. They have a yellow flesh, as if victims of jaundice."

-- Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places 15


"The Ethiopians stain the world and depict a race of men steeped in darkness; less sun-burnt are the natives of India; the land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields: it is a country nearer to us and its moderate climate imparts a medium tone."

-- Manilius, Astronomica 4.724


In a study involving detailed microscopic investigation of hair samples taken from several ancient Egyptian mummies, most were determined to have been naturally straight, wavy, or gently curled, with a roundish cross-section typical of modern Eurasian and North African peoples.

(Titlbachova and Titlbach, Hair of Egyptian Mummies 1977)

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Horemheb
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posted 17 February 2005 08:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Horemheb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Evil, interesting info but you must remember that what these political radicals do is pick and choose the studies that support their views or studies that can be twisted in that direction and simply ignore the others. Since history and scholarship are of no interest to them facts become less important. Their comments on the Greeks are always good for a laugh. They have not a single classical scholar to back up their positions. If you look into the background of almost everyone they quote they are either a radical left wing political nut, a scholar who is writing out of their field of speciality or a person who had no credentials at all save this radical black political agenda.

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EGyPT2005
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posted 17 February 2005 11:01 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for EGyPT2005     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Horemheb:
a scholar who is writing out of their field of speciality

Sounds like you "Professor of American History (Civil War)."

Maybe you should leave the debating on this board, to people who have actually studied Ancient Km.t, and who's field of specialty is Egyptology, or includes it.

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lamin
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posted 17 February 2005 12:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for lamin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
To Evil Euro:

It seems that the discussions are just splitting hairs.

1)The Manilius quote doesn't say much except to confirm the point about the pigmentation of the AE's and Ethiopians.

Indians from India could very dark in colour too--millions are as dark as the Dinka of the Sudan. No one denies that the Dinka and most Sudanese are blacker in colour than say the Ibo of Nigeria or the Xhosa of South Africa. Even in a place like Senegal where the Wolof are supposedly quite dark one will note much variation on the colour theme. So take a trip to Africa when you can.

You s eem to operate with the assumption that all the indigenous people of Africa are jet black in colour. That maybe because you have never visited Africa. Perhaps the best way you can get some idea of what Africans look like is to read magazines that discuss Africa and take a look at the photographs. You will note that colours range from yellow to very dark.

On the hair of the Egyptian mummies:

Well, you didn't say what period and from where the mummies came.

I prefer empirical and publicly confirmable evidence such as the wigs the AE's wore, the way they depicted their hair on their murals and the kinds of combs they used.

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Horemheb
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posted 17 February 2005 12:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Horemheb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
2005...most of what I argue on this board has to do with the way we approach scholarship and the motives behind Afrocentricism, I have never claimed to be an Egyptologist. That said, I am always interested in discussing the civil war.

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Keins
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posted 20 February 2005 10:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Keins     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by lamin:
To Evil Euro:

It seems that the discussions are just splitting hairs.

1)The Manilius quote doesn't say much except to confirm the point about the pigmentation of the AE's and Ethiopians.

Indians from India could very dark in colour too--millions are as dark as the Dinka of the Sudan. No one denies that the Dinka and most Sudanese are blacker in colour than say the Ibo of Nigeria or the Xhosa of South Africa. Even in a place like Senegal where the Wolof are supposedly quite dark one will note much variation on the colour theme. So take a trip to Africa when you can.

You s eem to operate with the assumption that all the indigenous people of Africa are jet black in colour. That maybe because you have never visited Africa. Perhaps the best way you can get some idea of what Africans look like is to read magazines that discuss Africa and take a look at the photographs. You will note that colours range from yellow to very dark.

On the hair of the Egyptian mummies:

Well, you didn't say what period and from where the mummies came.

I prefer empirical and publicly confirmable evidence such as the wigs the AE's wore, the way they depicted their hair on their murals and the kinds of combs they used.


The hair sample was probably from the roman and persian dominated dynasty. You cannot quote general study without qualifying it to what was happening in AE at that time.
You are right Lamin.

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ABAZA
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posted 20 February 2005 12:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ABAZA     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here is the commentary about Ancient Egyptian's Hair, that was studied.
=================================================================

Hair
Numerous mummies with hair still attached to the skulls show that straight, wavy, or lightly curled hair types were common in ancient Egypt. For example, in a study (Titlbachova and Titlbach, 1977) involving detailed microscopic investigation of hair samples taken from several ancient Egyptian mummies, most were determined to have been naturally straight, wavy, or gently curled, with a roundish cross-section typical of modern Eurasian and North African peoples. Only a minority showed evidence of structural characteristics traditionally called "Negroid"; even in these the "Negroid" elements were weakly manifested.

Joann Fletcher, a consultant to the Bioanthropology Foundation in the UK, in what she calls an "absolute, thorough study of all ancient Egyptian hair samples" — relied on various techniques, such as electron microscopy and chromatography to analyze hair samples (Parks, 2000). She discovered that most of the natural hair types and those used for hairpieces were made of what she calls "Caucasian-type" hair, including even instances of blonde and red hair. Fletcher surmises that some of the lighter hair types may have been influenced by the presence of ancient Libyans and Greeks in ancient Egypt. However, this type of hair was also found to be present in much earlier times.

Home
==================================================================

quote:
Originally posted by Keins:
The hair sample was probably from the roman and persian dominated dynasty. You cannot quote general study without qualifying it to what was happening in AE at that time.
You are right Lamin.


[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 20 February 2005).]

[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 20 February 2005).]

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rasol
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posted 20 February 2005 01:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rasol     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Keins:
The hair sample was probably from the roman and persian dominated dynasty. You cannot quote general study without qualifying it to what was happening in AE at that time.
You are right Lamin.


The sad part is that this entire thread is a mindless repettition of a previous Abaza debacle which was put out of it's misery by Ausar who closed it.

quote:
Originally posted by ABAZA:
This hair is being studied by Dr. Joann Fletcher. Most of the hair samples are cynotrichous (Caucasian) in type as opposed to heliotrichous (Negroid).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
Thought Writes:

Dr. Fletcher has since revised her position on this matter.


quote:
Prompting Abaza to panic and contradict himself:

Dr. Fletcher has also been banned from doing any scientific work on Egyptian Mummies!!


quote:
Rasol writes:
Make up your mind Abaza. Are you quoting her as an expert? Are you attacking her as a fraud? Essentially you repeat a notorious MISQUOTE of her, then reject a serious assessment of her work.

Read her book: Search For Nefertiti, she asserts that Nefertiti often wore her hair in a 'nubian' style. She concurs that the facial reconstruction done by forensic scientists [which she had no influence over], does in fact bear a resemblance to the known iconography.

Don't just quote from white race myth websites. [which make you look bad, and don't upset anyone here] Instead take the time to read and learn. At least you will have something pseudo-substantive to base your racist views on, and the game will possibly be of some 'passsing' interest.


http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/Forum8/HTML/001414.html

[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 20 February 2005).]

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