posted 27 February 2005 08:23 PM            

1. The figures are usually drawn the way the are to symbolize the person leading with his left side, because the heart is on the left, if he is giving something. You lead with the right if you're receiveing something.

2. The word cartouche comes from the French word which meant ammuntion. The really meaning of the cartouche is a ring stamp. The king used to stamp documents with his ring, but there came a point when there was too many things for him to stamp, so the cartouche was made to symbolize a ring.

There was alot of other interesting things, but much of the history is known by most of the people here. I highly recommend going if you get a chance.

posted 28 February 2005 08:07 AM            

1. The word cataract seems to be of Egyptian origin basically meaning obstruction. An origin in another language was not found.

posted 28 February 2005 09:35 AM            

quote:

---

2. The word Nubia may not be a Roman mistake after all. Our tour guide was Nubian and he told me some of their language. It seems that the language isn't written, so he had me write down what I heard. He used the word Noba to refer to Nubia.

---

Welcome back [to wherever you're located. ]

The word Nubia was never envisaged as "Roman", but rather Kemetian - in reference to "Nub" = gold.

posted 28 February 2005 09:50 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by rasol:
Welcome back [to wherever you're located. ]

The word Nubia was never envisaged as "Roman", but rather Kemetian - in reference to "Nub" = gold.

The Romans were the 1st to reference Nubia as a Nation. But from whom precisely did the Romans acquire this term?

---

posted 28 February 2005 10:05 PM            

Cairo is alot like any big city. The area where the president stays is pristine. But get away from his area and things change dramatically. Much of Cairo looks very gritty. It's very different from anything I've seen in the states. If you've been to the Carribean, then you have some idea of what it looks like.

BTW, don't drink the water if you're not from the area.

It goes without saying that the pyramids were awe inspiring. Just go see em. That's all I can say. They also showed some old Christian and Jewish areas of the city which were beautiful as well.

Cairo and Giza were the only Lower Egyptian cities we saw. Next we headed for Ramses II's temple at Abu Simbel. We were there on his birthday, but we missed the sunrise cerimony by about an hour. There was a group of Nubian girls that were singing a happy birthday song to Ramses. Well, I guess they were singing happy birthday. I don't speak Nubian, but our tour guide said they sing every year on his birthday. As most of you know, the temple at Abu Simbel was moved because of the rising waters from the Aswan dam. And while the modern engineers were able to preserve the sunlight effect, many of the features of the temples were lost when it was moved. The tour guide told me his grand father would often visit the temple when it was in it's original spot. It used to have an echo effect when you spoke, and it's location served as a warning to anyone sailing the Nile.

Like Giza, the monuments of Upper Egypt were awe inspiring. Please go see them. We learned many of the Egyptian myths from temples. One reason their buildings are littered with stories is because when they would write on papyrus, termites would eat them. So they wrote on the walls. And they wrote on almost every corner of the temple.

posted 28 February 2005 11:54 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
Kem-Au, what other temples or sites did you visit? Have you visited Thebes and seen the temples or the Valley of the Kings? While you were in Cairo did you visit the Cairo Museum and get to see many authentic artifacts?!

---

I visited the Luxor, Karnak, Edfu and Philae temples, Ramses III's temple in Luxor, the Valley of the Kings (we saw the tombs of Ramses IX, King Tut and 2 other kings whose names I don't remember. The line for Ramses III was really long), Hatshepsut's temple and the Aswan dams.

Yes, we did got to the Cairo museum. We saw the mummies, Tut's treasures, Akenaten's sarcophagus and a rug from one of his temples, etc. We also visited the Nubian museum in Aswn. Truth be told, though the Cairo museum had more artifacts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC was better. But Cairo's museum was still spectacular.

posted 01 March 2005 12:03 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:
BTW, two other little quickies.

1. The word cataract seems to be of Egyptian origin basically meaning obstruction. An origin in another language was not found.

2. The word Nubia may not be a Roman mistake after all. Our tour guide was Nubian and he told me some of their language. It seems that the language isn't written, so he had me write down what I heard. He used the word Noba to refer to Nubia.

---

correction,the nubian language is written today in certain areas of nubia,so maybe the tour guide is unware.as you know nubia had written scripts in the past,but the nubian script was not use anymore after the 1500's and arabic was use instead.it was told to me a few yaers ago that the nubian script was coming back and there is a dictionary already as well.

i wonder if after the 1500's by the way if the arabic letters was used a new nubian script?maybe the tour guide did not know.

posted 01 March 2005 01:01 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by multisphinx:
Kem-Au
how would u describe the ppl you seen in Egypt? What was the perspective from a vistor as your self?

---

Well as I mentioned before, they were very friendly. But to answer your question honestly, you will have to understand my perspective. I grew up in an American city, so my outlook may be a little different from yours. But I really didn't think the kindness was always ginuine. In fact, I usually felt that it wasn't. I felt like they were just trying sell me stuff for a really high price. This didn't apply to everyone though. In general, I trusted the people more if they were not trying to sell me stuff.

For those that don't know, 1 American dollar is worth almost 6 Egyptian pounds. Egyptians knew this. I gave a little girl a dollar and she was jumping up and down. They also know that 1 dollar buys you nothing in America. I was surprised at how well educated they were on foreign affairs. Their TV stations broadcasted news from all over the world like CNN, BBC, Russian news stations, and of course their own news. In America, we just get American news and that's it. Also, Egyptian newspapers cover alot of foreign stories. All this is to say that the Egyptians were smart marketers, and I felt like many of them were using their knowledge to get my money.

I didn't want to touch the race issue, but I can't be honest and avoid it at the same time. The Egyptians would say different things to me than they would to the other tourists. If you don't know, I'm an African American. And yes, I was repeatedly mistaken for a native in Upper and Lower Egypt. On about 5-10 occasions in 1 week someone approached me speaking Arabic. My wife was an obvious foreigner because of how she was dressed. So when I was with her, I too was an obvious foreigner.

My wife is considerably darker than me, so they usually just called her Nubian. But they were loving here everywhere we went. They kept telling me I was a lucky man. One guy asked me how many camels I had to give up for her, LOL!

My wife and I were the only black people on our tour, and the Egyptians definitely treated us different than the other tourists. Not better, not worse, just different. They were very nice to every tourist regardless of where they were from. But I felt it was because they wanted tourist money. The main difference was in how they talked to me and my wife. I'll give you some examples.

They would usually try to get our attention by yelling "Nubian!", "Cousin!", "Brother!", "My color!", etc. If we were just riding or walking down the streets, people would usually yell Nubian or cousin to get our attention and wave to us, but this only really happened in Upper Egypt. Cairo was much more urban and the people just went about their business unless they were selling to tourists. If we had to speak to someone in Cairo, they would say we looked Egyptian, but they wouldn't yell to us as we walked down the street.

I got the felling that many Egyptians were using the race issue as a selling point. A few of them would say things like, "I'm black like you." They would talk to me about American politics in ways that made it clear that they knew how African Americans thought in America. They would talk to me about black stars in America and so on. I felt that most of them were trying to make me comfortable so I'd buy their stuff, but some of them clearly just wanted to talk.

The bad part is that even though they were nice, some of them made it clear the Egyptians don't like Americans. This was not a surprise to me. One guy said to me "I like American people, but I don't like the American government." Some just flat out told me that they only pretend to be our friends.

posted 01 March 2005 03:08 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by multisphinx:
Thats nice to hear. And m glad you enjoyed your trip. I got one more question for you. How would u describe egypt as country in Africa, with the trip you just made? Would you describe Egypt to be a diverse African country... I konw you don't want to start any race threads but i would like to see how u precieve egyptians as lets say racially, since you had an actual first hand look at the country.

---

If the people I saw moved to the U.S. I'd say about 75% of them would be black. Most of them were darker than me, and no one would debate me being black. The rest would probably be considered Arab.

From what I've seen, I'll say this. It was sometimes hard for me to tell a Sa3eadi from an Arab in Cairo. I didn't realize there were so many Sa3eadi in Cairo. In general I could tell, but there were some Sa3eadi I thought were Arab. The Sa3eadi were sometimes similar in complexion and hair texture to Arabs I saw in Cairo. Also, Egyptians tended to have straighter hair than mine. It was still very curly, and would grow into an afro if they they didn't keep it cut. They kind of reminded me of the Toureg people when it came to their hair. I'm not sure if that was natural or if they put something in their hair to straighten it, because that style was popular with African Americans at one point. Some of them did have very nappy hair.

In Upper Egypt, the Nubuans were typically darker than the Sa3eadi, but not always. Some Nubians were fair skinned, and some Sa3eadi were very dark. Again, this made it hard to distinguish them. Some tourists in my group got lost in a Sa3eadi village in Luxor and thought the people were Nubian because they were so dark.

And yes, the people were diverse, but there was a group of African tourists that looked like they were from a West African country. In other words, they stood out from the Egyptian population, and this was in Upper Egypt.

I think the reason that some people feel that they can say Egyptians are not black is because they don't really resemble the darkest Africans, like the Dinkas for example. However, most Africans are brown, and not as dark as the Dinkas. It would be silly to say Egyptians don't look like other Africans because that would imply that there is an overall African look. If you look closey at the people of Kalahari, you would see that they really don't at all resemble the Yoruba for example. Both are black by Western standards. The idea is the same with Egyptians. When they spoke to me, they called themselves black. And to make it clear, I never brought up the subject. They would approach me and say they were black like me. This happened in both Upper and Lower Egypt. Though in Lower Egypt, the people who said this also said they were Sa3eadi or Nubian when I asked them. I took a picture with a Sa3eadi and if it weren't for the clothes, you wouldn't be able to tell which one was me, and which was the Sa3eadi.

So I would say that yes, Egypt is clearly an African country, but it does resemble a middle eastern country in many ways due to the religious roots. For example the people no longer dress the same as the people depiced on the ancient ruins, though some people in Africa still dress this way. Many Egyptians wear the traditional Arab robes and go to Mosques. The ancient Egyptian impression is still present though, especially on the modern mud brick homes.

posted 01 March 2005 01:52 PM            

Why the hell are you asking a tourist to tell you about your people?

Are you that weak minded or just so insecure that you need an African American to tell you that you look Black or White?

quote:

---

Originally posted by multisphinx:
Thats nice to hear. And m glad you enjoyed your trip. I got one more question for you. How would u describe egypt as country in Africa, with the trip you just made? Would you describe Egypt to be a diverse African country... I konw you don't want to start any race threads but i would like to see how u precieve egyptians as lets say racially, since you had an actual first hand look at the country.

---

posted 01 March 2005 02:01 PM            

quote:

---

All of people were friendly though, regardless of what they looked like. Hope this answers your question.

---

Most Egyptians I've met are friendly.

Many of the mean people on the web who claim to be Egyptians are probably not, or they have gone to the West and eaten too much pork and Hamburger while watching too much television and forgotten how to behave.

posted 01 March 2005 02:04 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ABAZA:
Multisphinx, I hate to tell you this, but your question shows that you're full of B.S. and nothing more.

Why the hell are you asking a tourist to tell you about your people?

Are you that weak minded or just so insecure that you need an African American to tell you that you look Black or White?

---

posted 01 March 2005 04:07 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by multisphinx:
I was asking for his perspective of Egypt ABAZA, nothing else, i was seeing how a tourist sees Egyptians to be. Nothing wrong with that. Its nice to see he enjoyed it. I was not asking him for my benifit but for the benifit of the forum because other ppl do see and read this. Because Egypt now a dayz is given a lot of false lables and not until ppl visit these areas will these false lables be dropped. Kem-Au who just visited egypt found it out for himself how egypt is today.

---

posted 15 March 2005 07:11 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:

From what I've seen, I'll say this. It was sometimes hard for me to tell a Sa3eadi from an Arab in Cairo. I didn't realize there were so many Sa3eadi in Cairo. In general I could tell, but there were some Sa3eadi I thought were Arab. The Sa3eadi were sometimes similar in complexion and hair texture to Arabs I saw in Cairo.

---

posted 15 March 2005 08:53 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ayazid:

What do you mean by the word "Arab"? Northern Egyptians? Arab-looking people? Arabs from the Gulf? Itīs not any surprise that many Sa3ayeda(I think that most of them)look rather Middle Eastern. El Sa3eed(Upper Egypt)is everything between Beni Suef and Aswan, and most people in Beni Suef,el Minya or Asyut look very close to Saudis and Yemenis.

---

posted 15 March 2005 09:31 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:
By Arab I mean people who are most likely descended from people who came to Egypt after the Arab invasions.

---

And could I know how did you recognize such person from an "original" Egyptian? Especially in Delta where most people look Middle Eastern and "Arab"?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:

And I wouldn't say most Sa3ayeda look "Middle Eastern". At least not from what I saw, though I only visited a few cities. There were some Sa3ayeda individuals that looked "Middle Eastern" to me, but I definitely wouldn't say most.

---

And which part of Upper Egypt did you visit? I guess itīs the area between Luxor and Aswan,right ... Itīs obvious that most people there look rather "mulatto" than Middle Eastern, but the fact is that more Upper Egyptians live in Beni Suef,el Minya,Asyut or Sohag, where most people look rather Middle Eastern and only few tourists go there.

There are some photos from these places:

Beni Suef:

posted 15 March 2005 09:49 AM            

You can also compare the singer Hakim, who is originally from el Minya and therefore he is technically Sa3edee, with African-American James Brown:

posted 15 March 2005 11:25 AM            

Also in areas like Fayoum and Beni Suef there is influence from Berber tribes that settled in that region.

So when you say Sai'idi you have to be specific if you mean Middle Egypt or further south or Deep Sa3eed.

posted 15 March 2005 11:32 AM            

quote:

---

As you can see most of these people could easily pass for Saudis,Kuwaytis or Yemenis. They look mostly Middle Eastern and Arab with only a little negroid admixture and they are average people and not any "elite Egyptians" or something like this. I want again give notice that most Sa3ayeda live in the area between Beni Suef and Qena and not between Luxor and Aswan.

You can also compare the singer Hakim, who is originally from el Minya and therefore he is technically Sa3edee, with African-American James Brown:

---

But you forget that Saudi,Yemen,Kuwait and other Gulf Arab countries have experianced a mass influx of African pilgrims and slaves. The favoriet concubines of most Saudis were Ethiopian[Habesha] women. Even before this Mecca was flooded with Habesha mercenaries.

Southern Yemeni are not even like other Arab groups amd the Mahara are more like eastern Africans than northern Arabs.

posted 15 March 2005 11:41 AM            

read this Ayazid:

The authority of central governments in Upper Egypt was cemented through clientelist ties with leading families of the ashraf and arab groups. Even the Nasserist regime did not substantially undermine this political-administrative arrangement. Although land reform benefited peasant farmers to a degree, members of the landed classes used a variety of means to retain much of their holdings. [b]Cairo continued to staff the higher ranks of the local police and security apparatus with personnel from the ashraf and arabs.(29)

Religion was central to the development of Upper Egyptian society. The ashraf claimed direct descent from the Prophet, while the arabs traced their lineage to a group of tribes from Arabia. On the other hand, the status of the fellahin rested on the belief that they descended from Egypt's pre-Islamic community and had converted to Islam, a history that placed them inescapably beneath both the ashraf and arabs.(30) Copts have occupied an ambivalent position in the social scale; as Christians they are considered inferior to Muslims but their individual status effectively depends on more material criteria.[/b]
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_3_21/ai_57476490/pg_3

posted 15 March 2005 08:15 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:
This guy just baited me into a picture spam thread. We've seen those images countless times. Anyway, I visited Cairo, Abu Simbel, Aswan, Edfu and Luxor. As mentioned before, the images posted, like the testament of what I saw, don't support any argument. What I saw was what I saw, nothing more.

If I spammed the board with a bunch of images taken in Newark, NJ, you might get the wrong impression of what most people in America look like. The Egyptians I saw were diverse, in every city I visited.

---

Tsk Tsk
Kem-Au,
You have been finessed by an Arab Nationalist-Colonialist sympathizer, and for that;

a) go directly to http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/Forum8/HTML/001734.html

b) do not pass GO, do not collect $200

posted 15 March 2005 08:34 PM            

Peoples from India, mostly merchants and traders, have been migrating to Indonesia for centuries, but Indonesians are still of [I hate this term btw]"Mongoloid" stock.

posted 15 March 2005 09:03 PM            

All these pictures are of average Egyptains and therefore, represent the majority of the people of Egypt. BTW, most of people look like Egyptian Peasants, except for the students.

The only people who are not true Egyptians, are the Nubians (Aswan area), Beduins (Sinai & Deserts), Berbers (Siwa), and the various European Minorities that live in Cairo and Alexandria.

I'm a native born Egyptian, and I should know my own people better than any person who is a passing tourist or who has never been to Egypt before>

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
Ayazid, I could post thousands of pictures of Indian-looking people from Indonesia, that does not mean that typical Indonesians are Indian-looking!

Peoples from India, mostly merchants and traders, have been migrating to Indonesia for centuries, but Indonesians are still of [I hate this term btw]"Mongoloid" stock.

Egypt is in Africa, but has experience a very large influx of Arabs... so..

---

posted 16 March 2005 02:56 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:
This guy just baited me into a picture spam thread. We've seen those images countless times. Anyway, I visited Cairo, Abu Simbel, Aswan, Edfu and Luxor. As mentioned before, the images posted, like the testament of what I saw, don't support any argument. What I saw was what I saw, nothing more.

If I spammed the board with a bunch of images taken in Newark, NJ, you might get the wrong impression of what most people in America look like. The Egyptians I saw were diverse, in every city I visited.

---

Your response is really pathetic. The picks which I posted are a representative sample of Upper Egyptian population.These people are not any "elite" Arabs or something. They are ordinary Upper Egyptian peasants and most of them could pass for Gulf Arabs or Yemenis.People who live in Luxor,Edfu or Aswan are the darkest and the most negroid Sa3ayeda. However most Upper Egyptians live in el Minya or Asyut and not Luxor or Aswan.

posted 16 March 2005 03:09 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ausar:
You forget that during the Middle Ages many Arabs were brought into regions like Minya,Beni Suef,Asyut,and other regions in Middle Egypt.

So when you say Sai'idi you have to be specific if you mean Middle Egypt or further south or Deep Sa3eed.

---

Ausar, donīt forgett that most Sa3ayeda live in the area between Beni Suef and Qena. With Arab admixture or without it, they look mostly Middle Eastern. I know that there are some mulatto looking people in Middle Egypt(BTW, this is western and not traditional Egyptian term, in Egypt the whole area is called just el Sa3eed), but most Middle Egyptians look practically indistinguishable from Gulf Arabs.

posted 16 March 2005 04:48 AM            

quote:

---

Ayazid, Kem-au simply shared his experience in Egypt; are you prepared to debate him on what he may or may not have seen? LOL.

---

I've ignored this thread since Ayazid (and Abobo) piped in but contrary to the wishes and hopes of many, i've found that ignoring ignorance does not, in fact, make it go away, so....

* Ayazid isn't a bad person, but he suffers from a much less hateful version of the same syndrome effecting "Evil Euro".

* EE wants to create a fantasy Mediterranean race in order to hide himself from the fact of the heterogeneous origins of southern Europe.

* Ayazid wants to believe in a fantasy Arab race.

* There isn't one.

* Arab's are at root, a combination of Africans and West Asians.

* In places like Syria they are mostly of West Asian origin.

* In places like Sudan they are mostly of African extraction.

Ayazid writes: compare the singer Hakim, who is originally from el Minya and therefore he is technically Sa3edee, with African-American James Brown - they don't look like brothas.

Considering the likes of Colon Powell and Andrew Young, you might be surprised at what passes for 'brotha' in the United States, or 'mulatto' in Brazil or 'coloured' [increasingly becoming known as Black] in South Africa.

By contrast....good luck passing him off as white in Sweden for example, where he might also be taken for an African American.

At any rate, i'm sure KemAu's keen observations are also genunine; Ayazid, should learn a lesson from Evil Euro's personal failures - trying to persuade people of that which is unreal, you will succeed only in proving your own very real fear and obsessions.

ps - If you stop picture spamming....I'll go back to ignoring you. Deal?

posted 16 March 2005 07:13 AM            

1)most Sa3ayeda live in so-called Middle Egypt, where few tourists go and not in Luxor-Aswan area

2)most Middle Egyptians look Middle Eastern and they are hardly distinguishable from Gulf Arabs

posted 16 March 2005 07:27 AM            

quote:

---

Considering the likes of Colon Powell and Andrew Young, you might be surprised at what passes for 'brotha' in the United States, or 'mulatto' in Brazil or 'coloured' [increasingly becoming known as Black] in South Africa.

---

This man doesnīt look like an average Afro-American at all. He doesnīt have any visible signs of negroid admixture(contrary to Colin Powell and Andrew Young).

quote:

---

By contrast....good luck passing him off as white in Sweden for example, where he might also be taken for an African American.

---

I didnīt say that this man is "white", however he is non-negroid and looks clearly caucasoid. He is different from North Europeans, but if you compared him with Greeks or Southern Italians the difference is not so big

quote:

---

At any rate, i'm sure KemAu's keen observations are also genunine;

---

KemAuīs observations that 75% of Egyptians look "black" or that most Upper Egyptians donīt look like "Arabs" are anything, just not "keen".

posted 16 March 2005 07:48 AM            

quote:

---

This man doesnīt look like an average Afro-American at all.

---

Sorry but he does look like many African Americans, or Dominican or Peurto Rican or Brazilian to me, and he would to most others as well, and you're kidding yourself if you think he can be visually identified as 'Arab' based on that image.

Indeed, what proof to you have that the man above actually has specifically Asiatic-semitic ancestry?

quote:

---

he looks clearly caucasoid

---

posted 16 March 2005 08:40 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ayazid:

Your response is really pathetic. The picks which I posted are a representative sample of Upper Egyptian population.These people are not any "elite" Arabs or something. They are ordinary Upper Egyptian peasants and most of them could pass for Gulf Arabs or Yemenis.People who live in Luxor,Edfu or Aswan are the darkest and the most negroid Sa3ayeda. However most Upper Egyptians live in el Minya or Asyut and not Luxor or Aswan.

---

Ayazid, I don't understand what the problem is. We've all seen the images you've posted over and over again. I never argued with you about the phenotype of modern Egyptians. Read what I said:

If the people I saw moved to the U.S. I'd say about 75% of them would be black. Most of them were darker than me, and no one would debate me being black. The rest would probably be considered Arab.

posted 16 March 2005 09:17 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by rasol:
Sorry but he does look like many African Americans, or Dominican or Peurto Rican or Brazilian to me, and he would to most others as well, and you're kidding yourself if you think he can be visually identified as 'Arab' based on that image.

Indeed, what proof to you have that the man above actually has specifically Asiatic-semitic ancestry?

---

I am sorry, but this man looks clearly Middle Eastern and if you donīt see it, thatīs your problem.He could pass everywhere in the Middle East or North Africa, however he would greatly stand out in Subsaharan Africa, including East Africa. I am sure that he is genetically much closer to West Asian/semitic populations than to Subsaharan Africans.

posted 16 March 2005 09:19 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by rasol:
I've ignored this thread since Ayazid (and Abobo) piped in but contrary to the wishes and hopes of many, i've found that ignoring ignorance does not, in fact, make it go away, so....

* Ayazid isn't a bad person, but he suffers from a much less hateful version of the same syndrome effecting "Evil Euro".

---

I agree with you that Ayazid is not a bad person. I think the problem is that he feels that African Americans are trying to steal Egyptian heritage, when that really is not the case at all. But no one person can speak for an entire country.

I seriously hope you all get a chance to go to Egypt one day. I will put all of the nonsense to rest. Rasol, You should've seen the way they would single out black Americans. Usually, it was to sell something, but it was clear that they recognized a difference between black and white Americans. Like I said, they're very smart people. It almost seemed like they felt that I was in Egypt to find my identity (I wasn't), and they were willing to give it to me for a price.

It wouldn't be fair to say that about everyone though. Some of the people who had nothing to sell me would just come up to me and start talking. One guy was telling me how he loved Usher and Will Smith. He had Usher music for his cell phone ring tone. A few guys showed me that they knew hand shakes that black people use in America. I asked one of them where he learned that, and he said that black American tourists would show them when they visited Egypt. Admittedly, this was usually in the Upper Egypt, from Luxor down. In Cairo, things like this would only happen in one of their markets.

posted 16 March 2005 09:21 AM            

quote:

---

I am sorry, but this man looks clearly Middle Eastern and if you donīt see it, thatīs your problem.

---

posted 16 March 2005 09:26 AM            

I'm not surprised that the Egyptian people were genuinely kind to you.

I'm also not surprised that Ayazid and Abaza feel a bit threatened, and so are spreading soured grapes all over your post.

posted 16 March 2005 09:50 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:
Ayazid, I don't understand what the problem is. We've all seen the images you've posted over and over again. I never argued with you about the phenotype of modern Egyptians.

These were the people that I saw. As I mentioned, I did not visit the whole country, and even if I did I wouldn't be qualified to make a statement about the entire population.

---

I just donīt agree with some of your statements, for example that dark Egyptians consider themselves to be black:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:

Most Egyptians I saw were black by their standards and mine.

---

And also with your definition of the "Arab" Egyptian as opposite to the "original" Egyptian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kem-Au:

From what I've seen, I'll say this. It was sometimes hard for me to tell a Sa3eadi from an Arab in Cairo. I didn't realize there were so many Sa3eadi in Cairo. In general I could tell, but there were some Sa3eadi I thought were Arab. The Sa3eadi were sometimes similar in complexion and hair texture to Arabs I saw in Cairo.

By Arab I mean people who are most likely descended from people who came to Egypt after the Arab invasions.

---

I presume that you asked those "Arabs" about their origin, because I canīt understand how did you recognize that they are of foreign ("Arab")origin.

Obviously you recognized it from their non-negroid look,but then the word "arab" must be a synonyme to Northern Egyptian, because the overwhelming majority of Northern Egyptians (30-40 of milions people) look Middle Eastern and non-negroid.

Do you think that Middle Eastern looking Northern Egyptians are descendants of people who came to Egypt after the Arab invasions?

posted 16 March 2005 10:31 AM            

quote:

---

Do you think that Middle Eastern looking Northern Egyptians are descendants of people who came to Egypt after the Arab invasions?

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Well, during the Middle Ages Cairo[Al-Fustat] was awash with very different people mostly Syrians,Kurds,Berbers,bedouin Arabs,and sedentary Egyptians. In the Delta you had various Bedouin tribes that were settled in with the Fellahin population.

Lower Egypt was one of the first areas to be Arabized and Islamicized. Even the Christians in Lower Egypt intermingled with Armenian and Syrian Christians brought to Egypt over the centuries by the Fatimids.

Add to this you have white slaves coming from the Circassian. You also had Persians,Turks,and Arabs serving in the armies of the Abbasid calip called Khurasanis.

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And also with your definition of the "Arab" Egyptian as opposite to the "original" Egyptian:

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The northern Egyptians have the ancestry of the ancient Egyptians,but it has been diluted by the migrations of Greeks,Arabs[mostly Syrian Arabs],Libyans[Berbers],and Syro-Palestineans,and Turks.

Even before the wave of migration of Greco-Romans you also had Libyans[Berbers] that moved into the Delta areas like Zagazig[Tell Basta] and other areas. After all, the 22nd dyansty was of Libyan origin.

posted 16 March 2005 10:41 AM            

I never said that dark Egyptians consider themselves to be black. I was told by a few Egyptains that they are black. None of the ones that said this were as dark as say, Wesley Snipes. In fact most of the people that said this to me would be called yellow by African Americans.

Ayazid wrote:
And also with your definition of the "Arab" Egyptian as opposite to the "original" Egyptian:

Again, I don't understand what the problem is here. Not every modern Egyptian is a descendant of the ancient Egyptians. This is a fact. That doesn't mean that modern Egyptians are not Egyptians. I've never debated this. Egypt was invaded by Arabs, as well as Greeks, Persians, etc. No one would argue with me if I said most modern Americans are not descended from Native Americans.

At the same time, there are descendants of ancient Egyptians in modern Egypt who would not look like an ancient Egyptian. I am a descendant of Africans and Native Americans, and as a result, I really don't resemble either as they would've looked before contact with each other. However they are still my ancestors. I've always tried to be specific in my definitions. I'm saying the same thing now that I've been saying for the past two years. When I say Arab, I don't mean foreign. It is just a short way of saying modern Egyptians who came to Egypt from the Middle East after the Arab invasion of the 7th century. Arab is just shorter to write.

Ayazid wrote:
I presume that you asked those "Arabs" about their origin, because I canīt understand how did you recognize that they are of foreign ("Arab")origin.

In Cairo, I saw many people who would be considered Arab in the US. No surprises there. But while in Luxor, I also saw many people who would be considered Arab in the US. A man in a store told me that everyone in the area was Sayaedi. So I assumed the people I thought were Arab were really Sayaedi. This is why I said I sometimes had a hard time distinguishing Arabs from Sayaedis.

Ayazid wrote:
Do you think that Middle Eastern looking Northern Egyptians are descendants of people who came to Egypt after the Arab invasions?

posted 16 March 2005 10:46 AM            

Also, the same can be said about many of the other foreign groups or elements that settled in Egypt. Egypt has always had a larger population in comparison to its neighbors.

I think the one thing that most people don't realize is that the Native Egyptians probably got darker as they had more and more contact with people from Nubia and the Sudan, rather than the other way around.

That is why the Black admixture can easily be seen in many parts of Egypt, especically in the Upper Sa'eed, but other parts as well.

If you start out with a native Black African stock, there is no way you'll get Caucasoid looking people with small Black admixture, but you will get is people like the Modern Nubians, Northern Sudanese, Somalis, and Eithiopians. Now, on the other hand, when you start out with Caucasoid stock or Middle Eastern people if you like, you'll get people like the Modern Egyptians, Libyans, Saudis, Syrians, Moroccans, etc.

People in the Northern Mediterranean countries have some Black African and Middle Eastern heritage as well, as an admixture, but because they're closer to the rest of Europe, the effects are quite small.

posted 16 March 2005 10:58 AM            

This was intensified in later times around the Ramesside era with Rameses III settling defeated Libyans in parts of the Delta. In Some areas like the eastern Delta you have people with strong bedouin background.

The bedouins are not just confined to the Delta either and many were spread to parts of Middle and Upper Egypt.

Many people don't know but al-Zawahri,Ossama's seond in commend, originated from the Arabian peninsula.

Could this disparity have affected Ayman al-Zawahri in his younger years?

[Azzam mosque plaque] The Azzam clan originated in the Arabian Peninsula. Like many other nomadic tribes they settled all over the Fertile Crescent (Greater Syria, Palestine and Egypt) some two or three centuries ago. The modestly wealthy Egyptian branch established itself in El-Shoubek El-Gharbi, Giza--some 18 kilometers south of the thermal town of Helwan--where family loyalty and tribal vendettas are still very present. One such vendetta survived several generations of Azzams and was only settled a few years ago.

Claiming ancestry to Prophet Mohammed the Egyptian Azzams produced several learned al-Azhar graduates. An excellent example is Ayman's maternal grandfather, the late Dr. Abdelwahab Mohammed Azzam bey born August 1894.

As a young man Sheik Abdelwahab Azzam accompanied a group of students on scholarship to the U.K. where he became the appointed preacher at the Egyptian Embassy in South Audley Street. Obtaining a degree from London's School of Oriental Studies, where he studied under Thomas Arnold, Abdelwahab Azzam authored several books on Islam and famous Sufi luminaries. The sheik-turned-professor became Cairo University's Dean of School of Literature in 1945 at which time he was elected to the distinguished Arabic Language Academy.

http://www.egy.com/people/01-11-01.shtml