posted 26 March 2005 12:22 PM            

1. Mystery builders
2. Scale of the workforce
3. The pyramid village
4. Managing the task
5. The temporary workers
6. The industrial complex
7. Who were the pyramid builders?
8. Find out more

Who were the pyramid builders?

After comparing DNA samples taken from the workers' bones with samples taken from modern Egyptians, Dr Moamina Kamal of Cairo University Medical School has suggested that Khufu's pyramid was a truly nationwide project, with workers drawn to Giza from all over Egypt. She has discovered no trace of any alien race; human or intergalactic, as suggested in some of the more imaginative 'pyramid theories'.

'...a truly nationwide project, with workers drawn to Giza from all over Egypt.'
Effectively, it seems, the pyramid served both as a gigantic training project and - deliberately or not - as a source of 'Egyptianisation'. The workers who left their communities of maybe 50 or 100 people, to live in a town of 15,000 or more strangers, returned to the provinces with new skills, a wider outlook and a renewed sense of national unity that balanced the loss of loyalty to local traditions. The use of shifts of workers spread the burden and brought about a thorough redistribution of pharaoh's wealth in the form of rations.

Almost every family in Egypt was either directly or indirectly involved in pyramid building. The pyramid labourers were clearly not slaves. They may well have been the unwilling victims of the corvée or compulsory labour system, the system that allowed the pharaoh to compel his people to work for three or four month shifts on state projects. If this is the case, we may imagine that they were selected at random from local registers.

'Almost every family in Egypt was either directly or indirectly involved in pyramid building.'
But, in a complete reversal of the story of oppression told by Herodotus, Lehner and Hawass have suggested that the labourers may have been volunteers. Zahi Hawass believes that the symbolism of the pyramid was already strong enough to encourage people to volunteer for the supreme national project. Mark Lehner has gone further, comparing pyramid building to American Amish barn raising, which is done on a volunteer basis. He might equally well have compared it to the staffing of archaeological digs, which tend to be manned by enthusiastic, unpaid volunteers supervised by a few paid professionals.

Published: 2002-09-20
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/pyramid_builders_07.shtml

posted 26 March 2005 06:05 PM            

I have already proved that 99% of the Afrocentric Ideas are either TOTAL LIES OR HALF-TRUTHS, so you have nothing to really base your biased views on.

It is time for you and other, tainted Egyptians to come back to Egypt and accept the Full Truth, which is that Egypt is not a Black African Country. It never was and all the studies confirm the obvious facts on the ground.

I feel sorry, that you're left out in the cold with your Afrocentric Buddies, but the Truth can be quite painful at times.

BTW, Egyptians are not trying to be White People, but we're trying to keep our heritage Factual and without being tarnished by outsiders, i.e., the Black Racist Afrocentrics.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Roy_2k5:
Correct you are, but since you're white, your ancestors were not the Ancient Egyptians. The majority of Egyptians today are not white and are either Black (Upper Egypt) or Brown (Lower Egypt). Those two groups were the same people as the Ancient Egyptians, however Egypt started in Upper Egypt and before that in a region called Nubia.

---

posted 26 March 2005 10:42 PM            

The problem with this study is that it has never been published in any peer reviwed journals. The other factor is that just because the Dna matches modern people in Egypt does not necessarily mean they carry the same phenotype as that of the ancient Egyptians.

Individual Mtdna/Y-Chromsome on the Egyptian populations shows a different story as expected.

posted 27 March 2005 09:40 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ausar:

The other factor is that just because the Dna matches modern people in Egypt does not necessarily mean they carry the same phenotype as that of the ancient Egyptians.

---

posted 27 March 2005 04:11 PM            

The Majority of the Egyptians are NOT BROWN AND BLACK, where have you been, we're talking about Egypt and not the SUDAN.

The majority of the Egyptian People today live in Middle and Lower Egypt, and most of them have Olive (dark white) Complexion to Light Brown, except the small minority in the Extreme South that tend to be a little darker.

Even the Nubians, are not all Black. Most of them tend to be Medium to Dark Brown, with some that are even very light brown.

The Sudanese, on the other hand are what you said before, could be described as mostly Brown in the North and Black in the South, but still have some variety in the North with some lighter colorations.

I don't think you have even been to Egypt, but I was born and raised in Egypt.

It would be wise for you to take a trip, so that you get your facts straight.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Roy_2k5:
Correct you are, but since you're white, your ancestors were not the Ancient Egyptians. The majority of Egyptians today are not white and are either Black (Upper Egypt) or Brown (Lower Egypt). Those two groups were the same people as the Ancient Egyptians, however Egypt started in Upper Egypt and before that in a region called Nubia.

---

posted 27 March 2005 06:40 PM            

quote:

---

Another False Statement:

The Majority of the Egyptians are NOT BROWN AND BLACK, where have you been, we're talking about Egypt and not the SUDAN.

The majority of the Egyptian People today live in Middle and Lower Egypt, and most of them have Olive (dark white) Complexion to Light Brown, except the small minority in the Extreme South that tend to be a little darker.

Even the Nubians, are not all Black. Most of them tend to be Medium to Dark Brown, with some that are even very light brown.

The Sudanese, on the other hand are what you said before, could be described as mostly Brown in the North and Black in the South, but still have some variety in the North with some lighter colorations.

I don't think you have even been to Egypt, but I was born and raised in Egypt.

It would be wise for you to take a trip, so that you get your facts straight.

---

This ultimately depends which part of Egypt you visit. Most people in areas like the Delta can range from southern European looking to even Medium brown. Some people in the Eastern Delta even look like Asiatic Arabs.

One thing that distiguishes even ''lighter'' Egyptians from other groups in northern Africa and even southern Europe is their somewhat wider nose. Infact, Egyptians tend to have a lower nasal sil than Arabs or other northern Africans. Also many lighter Egyptians even in the Delta have wavy[please note the hair texture is distinct from Europeans in its thickness] to kinky hair textures.

Know in areas like Middle Egypt around Asyut you have people that are mostly a medium brown tone with varying degrees of hair texture. Some people in regions like Beni Suief and Minya are people that can sometimes look like people from the Delta. Most tend to be medium brown.

Everywhere south of Asyut tend to be medium to dark brown in apperance. During pharaonic times it was mostly areas south of Asyut that had the highest population density.

The northern Nubians around Aswan are even sometimes Western African looking,and so are some Egyptians from around this area. There are some Nubians like the kushaf and Magaraab that have foreign admixture from Turkish or Albanian people.

The darkest people of the Nile Valley are the Shilluk,Dinka,Nuer people in southern Sudan. They are literally ''black'' in apperance.But even the Shilluk,Dinka,and Nuer sometimes have straighter noses and wavy hair.

Roy, I am not sure about Abaza except that he has been exposed to way too much racial politics in America. His negative attitudes towards black people might stem from his encouters in America. I will tell you there is some racism direct towards darker southern Sudanese and Western/Central African people in parts of Cairo. This is mainly because many of these immigrants are often stealing jobs from lower-class Egyptians.

Believe me there is also discrimination in the upper eschelons of Egyptian society which tends to often be Circassian/Turkish people. The others are afrangi Egyptians living in places like Zamalek and Maadi which are very close to British Europeans. These elite groups look down on the predominately brown skinned baladi people living in slum like neighboorhoods in Cairo.

Otherwise, most common Egyptians could care less about the color of a person's skin as long as you are Egyptian. When I say common I mean the Fellahin and Baladi,or non-Arab Saidi people. It's the elite in Egyptian society that cares about these things,and not the common people.

I wish I could say the same about Egyptian immigrants but it seems like America's racial politics has rubbed off on them. Of course, most of the Egyptian immigrants here in America tend to be from elite circles,and not from the lower classes.

posted 27 March 2005 11:04 PM            

The fact is most Egyptians have Caucasian Facial Features, regardless of the their complexion.

Even the Nubians are not Negroid in facial features, with few exceptions.

You'll even be hard pressed, if you start calling the Northern Arab Sudanese, Negroid or Black. They will not even talk to you, if you insult them by calling them Black Africans, because they don't see themselves as such people.

Ausar, I know the Egyptian People a lot longer than you'll ever imagine. Being a Native Born and raised Egyptain, I can certainly speak for my people, and most of them will laugh at your Afrocentric Ideas and attempts are insulting them.

posted 27 March 2005 11:32 PM            

quote:

---

Ausar, you have to get over this knit-picking.

The fact is most Egyptians have Caucasian Facial Features, regardless of the their complexion.

---

This is simply not true. Most Egyptians tend to have flatter noses on usual than Magrebian northern Africans and Arabs.

Your nose form come from enviromental adaptation. You can enviromental adapt a 'caucasoid' type nose without being caucasoid. You don't seem to understand this.

quote:

---

Even the Nubians are not Negroid in facial features, with few exceptions.

---

See above statement.

quote:

---

You'll even be hard pressed, if you start calling the Northern Arab Sudananese, Negroid or Black. They will not even talk to you, if you insult them by calling them Black Africans, because they don't see themselves as such people.

---

Well, I don't think you should speak for northern Sudanese people since you have never meet any. What you are describing is what anthropologist call folk taxtonomy. They have little relevence outside of social circles.

quote:

---

Ausar, I know the Egyptian People a lot longer than you'll ever imagine. Being a Native Born and raised Egyptain, I can certainly speak for my people, and most of them will laugh at your Afrocentric Ideas and attempts are insulting them

---

What is Afrocentric about my ideaology? I simply believe ancient Egypt was started and run by African people and is/was an African culture. Most scholars including Yurco whom you quote agree with this.

Your nose shape is caused by climatic factors and not from racial admixture!

""....Nose form is function largely of climatic factors,such as temperature and mositure content of the air,rather then a simple result of racial affinities. The nose serves moisten the inspired air,so in the drier regions of thwe world people have noses which pocess the greatest surface area of the moucous membrane,a condition achieved by the longer ,more narrow nose form;so among desert and mountain peoples the narrow nose is predominant.[7] Even in cold and drier climates the Eskimos have a narrow nasal aperature,which provides an effiecent mechanism for warming as well as moistening the inspired air. It is simple matter of fact that a high narrow nasal opening can warm and mositen air more effeciently than a short borad one,and in climates where the moisture content of the air is very low ,selective forces act on this particular nose form ,wheather the dryness is due to intense heat or intense cold[Table 3-8]

Since face form is due to the interaction of the growth processes of several facial bones,and single feature is interacting forces. This is especially true of nose form,whose width is correlated with climate,as noted above ,but also with the size and proportion of the upper dental arch.As the palate gets wider,the nasal aperature becomes broader. The case of the Austrlian Aboriginees is a good example;though they live in a very dry area of the world,their noses are extremely broad ,and this dimension is related to the chewing process exerted on the velop. Also,prongnathism tends to be associated with a short borad nose,and significant correlation is found between the length of the skull base and nasal width.

These factors of climatic influence and structural interrelationship suggest that human face form is extremely complex,numerous varible being invovled in growth and development. Conclusions should not be drawn about relationships between two populations on the basis of a similairty in structure ,because face form[like the small statue in pgymies and Negritos discussed above] develops according to local factors of natural selction. It is not ncessary to postulate migrations and intermixtures to explain similairites between populations,as once was done for the Nilotic face form found in groups like the Nuer,Shilluk,and others in Eastern Africa. At one time their long striaght noses were believed to be due to contact and interbreeding with caucasoid groups form Western Asia. subsequent genetic studies donot borne this theory out . No doubt,over a period of thousand years,contact with Western Asia populations has taken place and some interbreeding has resulted,but people with Nilotic face are the result of local selective forces acting on the population;it is not merely a matter of interbreeding between races......."""""

Page 63-64

Race,Types,and Ethnic Groups
the problem with human variation
Stephen Molnar

posted 27 April 2005 06:20 AM            

Yet there is even more racism in Sudan than in Egypt, in fact, even though the range of coloring there is smaller than in Egypt.
First of all, nearly all Sudanese are 100% black or mostly black, regardless of whether they like it or not or admit it to you or not. It is very true what Abaza says--Northern Sudanese in particular absolutely loathe being called black; they want to be considered Arabs, but their Arab ancestry is usually minute. Afrocentricists, I suggest you discover Kola Boof; she lives in the U.S. now and has dedicated her life to addressing the atrocious, unimaginably cruel racism inflicted by the Northern Arab elite on inferior 'abid' (Arabic for nigger) of the South. She herself is half Egyptian and half Somali, but in her writings she speaks of Egypt and the rest of N. Africa as something very separate
from black Africa. Like Abaza, she realizes that Egypt's geographical location in Africa does not make it racially or culturally kin to the rest of the continent, especially sub-Saharan African nations from which black Americans descend. In fact, I would say that Boof goes a little too far in her efforts to, in fact SEPARATE Egpyt from Africa, regarding it only as a Middle Eastern nation!

posted 27 April 2005 07:17 AM            

Marie, I know there is racism in modern Egypt. You also misunderstood exactly what I meant,and clearly you didn't read my citation. Could you define exactly what you mean by ''caucasian'' features?

Modern Egyptians within northern Egypt are not exactly pristine as the pre-dyanstic Egyptians,and obvious there have been migrations from the Dyanstic period down to the modern era.

I would also like to hear more about this linguistic,cultural, and ethnic connection with the Mediterranean. Tell me what exactly this area shares in common with ancient Egypt or modern Egypt other than the fact that Greeks and Romans occupied Egypt.

Also northern Sudan is a very complex political case. The people of the northern Sudan have some Arab admixture,and some like the Nubians around Dongola have some Bosnian,Albanian,and Hungarian admixture.

Kola Boof is a nice person that sometimes makes a valid point,but also is binded by her own reality. Her father was not really a full Egyptian himself but actually a kushaf Nubian from Aswan. In case you don't know kushafs are actually mixed Nubians with Turkish people. Also Kola Boof is actually from Ethiopia related to the Omo people. She is not Somali. Her father is a hybrid Turk/Nubian from Aswan.

posted 29 April 2005 08:27 AM            

I don’t consider modern Egyptians Black and definitely not White, though some have White features. I think of modern Egyptians as mixed, Black, Greek, Asian (Arab), etc. Is this assumption incorrect?

The Egyptians I’ve met didn’t have Caucasian features though I know some Egyptians do. They also identified themselves as African and were proud of it. I know not all Egyptians feel this way.

Herodotus described the Egyptians of his day as “black-complexion”. Did his eyes deceive him? What did he mean by “black-complexion”? Was he describing a deferent group of people? Is Herodotus a quack?

posted 01 May 2005 04:32 AM            

Oh, really? Considering all the times that you've been refuted by ausar and the other guys...