Afrocentrism is many things to many people, from the insistent claims of Leonard Jeffries to the commercialism of the mainstream media. In the last five years it has pushed its way into the American consciousness, both as an academic movement and as an attitude. Several years ago I watched Eddy Murphy as Akenaton, Iman as Nfertiti, and Michael Jackson as a Trickster Imhotep in the music video "Remember the Time." MTV had met Afrocentrism? At any rate, it was an ambitious fantasy set in ancient Egypt for the delectation of Black Americans and, perhaps, the consternation of Whites.
I, a professional Africanist, had remained largely removed from the controversy surrounding Black nationalist historiography and, especially, Afrocentrism. Not that I hadn't heard about clashes. Several years ago, I could not help but be aware of charges of both racism and anti-Semitism at Hillary Clinton's alma mater, Wellesley College. Professor Tony Martin of the Africana Studies Department taught from The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, a book issued by the Nation of Islam; it argued that Jews dominated the Atlantic slave trade. Professor Mary Lefkowitz, a classicist, became one of Professor Martin's chief critics. He in turn accused her of leading a "Jewish onslaught." The president of the college became embroiled in an argument over freedom of speech, a debate with national reverberations, especially in a decade of supposedly deteriorating Black/Jewish relations.
Several months ago I met the same Mary Lefkowitz, a pleasant low-keyed woman with a scholarly face. In a course about Africa and the West, I had invited her to speak. Lefkowitz, now author of Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History, spoke in measured tones about the stories that many scholars, Black and White, had spun about the connection between Egypt and Greece. The student audience asked questions and probed the responses in the best scholarly fashion. And that should have been that.
Now, in May of 1996, I found myself on a panel at Wellesley with the opposing forces of Afrocentrism and anti-Afrocentrism. I had stepped into the minefield that surrounds Afrocentrism, "Blackness" and "political correctness" in the academy. The audience of several hundred, crammed into a small science auditorium, was a sea of black, brown and white faces. Some young, a few old, mostly female, they seemed to resonate with the kind of intense interest seldom reserved for ancient history. Indeed, I knew that they had not come for that, per se. In the past several months Lefkowitz has become the doyenne of those who wish to see the end of liberal "relativism" in the academy, including many on the Right who see her as the opening wedge in a crusade to cleanse the temples of learning of creeping multiculturalism. Conservative pundits like George Will in Newsweek are using her work as a cudgel to beat home certain ideas about standards, pedagogy and race. Not since Martin Bernal's 1987 Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, which argued for the African roots of Attic civilization, have so many nonspecialists gotten into a lather about the sons and daughters of Hellen. The discussion has little to do with Egyptology or classics; it does involve our deepest feelings of who we are and the state of contemporary Black/White relations.
Lefkowitz is a serious scholar. We also have essential points of disagreement. She and I talked over lunch about the controversy surely to follow on the heels of the publication of her book. Lefkowitz points out that some Afrocentrists state that the ancient Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt. She maintains that any idea of an Egyptian "Mystery System" is ultimately based on Greco-Roman sources which present only a partial and late version of Egyptian practice and ritual. These were worked up into a pseudohistorical pastiche in the early eighteenth century by a French cleric and then given wide currency. Lefkowitz argues that the Masons and certain twentieth century African American writers mistakenly used this work to construct a vision of ancient Egyptian religion and knowledge. However, she does not stop there. On the basis of a very slender number of examples, she set out to demolish what she construes to be "Afrocentrists" and to save young people from their clutches. She explicitly states that her work is a critique of "relativist" or "subjective" history that attempts to vindicate the past of any particular group?in this case Blacks. Indeed, her work has been partially funded by conservative groups hoping to stem the tide of such scholarship. If her tormentors have the Nation of Islam, Professor Lefkowitz has the Bradley and John M.Olin Foundations.
Until the publication of Bernal's work in the late 1980s, the White academic establishment took little notice of what was emerging as "Afrocentrism." However, Black nationalist historiography had already put down deep roots in the African American community. In the nineteenth century writers like Edward Blyden and Martin Delany pointed the way. In the twentieth century J. A. Rogers and others emphasized the Black contributions to "High Cultures" of the Old World, contributions which they argued had been for too long denied. At the same time, religious groups, like the Moorish Science Temple and, later, the Nation of Islam, created a completely alternative cosmology and narrative for African Americans. This responded to the predominant ideology of White supremacy and created a universal history in which the North American racial hierarchy was turned on its head. Blacks were the original people and whites were a devolution. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the following Black Power movement increased the need for a broader new history. Works like Chancellor Williams' The Destruction of Black Civilization and George James' Stolen Legacy became focal texts. The Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop's works were translated into English; these were taken up by many Black Studies departments and became part of the alternative Black Studies canon.
Afrocentrists argue that Blacks must see themselves through Black eyes, as agents of history, rather than as simply subjects of investigation. Their view must proceed from an "inside place." Most emphasize the civilizations of northeastern Africa, namely Kemet (Egypt), Nubia, Axum, and Meroe. Early on it was truly a "Black Thing," involving as it did its own conferences, publishing and networks. By 1978 Jay Carruthers' Kemetic Institute was established in Chicago. A year later a similar thematic course was taken by the Institute of Pan-African Studies in Los Angeles. A meeting in that city in 1984, the First Annual Ancient Egyptian Studies resulted in the organization of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations. In the same year Ivan Van Sertima's Nile Valley Civilization group held a major conference. His Journal of African Civilization became a major diffusion point in the burgeoning corpus of Afrocentric literature.
In spite of criticism (or maybe because of it), Afrocentrism (or Afrocentricity) was and is spreading. Elementary schools in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Detroit, as well as other locales, have initiated new curricula, impelled largely by the demands of parents and students. The African American Baseline Essays, created for the Portland, Oregon, school system, have had a wide impact. Covering a number of disciplines, ranging form history to mathematics, the essays attempt to topple the perceived "Eurocentrism" of the pedagogical status quo. At the same time, Afrocentrism has begun to make itself felt in higher education. The largest Afrocentric program in the United States is housed at Temple University in Philadelphia and has well-over one hundred students under the chairmanship of Molefi Asante.
The African American Studies establishment has awakened to find itself on the defensive and university administrators find their campuses being visited by a stream of Afrocentric speakers invited in by the students. In the early 1970s Orlando Patterson of Harvard, a Jamaican-born sociologist, lambasted the incipient movement as emphasizing only "pageants, pyramids and princes." Twenty years later Newsweek carried a feature article on it; Afrocentrism was a menacing exotic growth emanating from the bowels of urban America, rapping out a lyric of Black primacy and rapping ancient history on the head. Many Whites and not a few African Americans saw it as dangerous. In 1994 the Manhattan Institute, a public policy forum, published Alternatives to Afrocentrism, a collection of highly critical essays by, among others, Lefkowitz, Gerald Early, Stanley Crouch, Wilson Moses, and Frank Yurco. Early, an African American, has been especially vitriolic, dismissing Afrocentrism as just another North American experiment in "group therapy," intellectual fast food for his less sophisticated brethren.
Lefkowitz says that her own combat with Afrocentrism began after a visit to Wellesley in the early 1990s by the longtime Afrocentrist Yosef Ben-Jochannan. Given this experience and subsequent ones, the Wellesley professor advises: "University administrators ought to ask whether we need courses in flat-earth theory ? or Afrocentric ancient history ? even if someone is prepared to teach them." This assumes an equivalence between flat earth theory and all Afrocentrism, a simplistic assumption, at best. Some of Afrocentrism's detractors connect it with everything from anti-Americanism to anti-Semitism. True, among some of its proponents these elements are all too much in evidence. Doctrines of "Sun People" and "Ice People" have emerged that simply reverse the Manichean duality of the dominant White mindset and spit it back. Melanism, "the doctrine that this pigment confers superior intelligence on Blacks, has been propounded, as have theories, too numerous to mention, which connect the origin of Blacks with the Lost Continent of Mu or Muria, a kind of sepia version of Atlantis. Indeed, like former Utopians, many tendencies branch off and make the transition from the tired Profane History of this world (and the political battles it calls for) to millenarian Never Lands which exist outside the American racial nightmare.
Many of Afrocentrism's critics have chosen to battle these straw men (and women). However, "Afrocentrists do not want," according to Asante, "to replace Greece with Egypt. They want a proper recognition of African civilization." Afrocentrism "is not, nor can it be based on biological determinism." The movement is open to "anyone willing to submit to the discipline of learning the concepts and methods. . . ." The question is not whether or not Cleopatra was Black ? Asante argues that she was not ? but about "a proper recognition of African civilization." Maulana Karenga uses the term "Afrocentricity" to avoid any perception that it has aims equivalent to the "Eurocentrism" it seeks to replace. In seeking to delimit it, he has encouraged its adherents to be autocritical. They must not "promote a static, monolithic and unreal concept of African culture which denies or diminishes its dynamic and diverse character." They must also not "overfocus on the Continental African past at the expense of recognizing the African American past and present as central to and constitutive of African culture and the Afrocentric enterprise."
Afrocentrism attracts attention in a way that new theories of the diffusion of the Indo-European languages do not. Part of this is due to the fact that Afrocentrism lends itself to a political vision. Many of its opponents, from Arthur Schlesinger to Dinesh D'Souza, see it as the historiographical groundwork for Black separatism. As it filters into the academy, it increasingly influences young African Americans who will be the leaders of tomorrow. In addition, as it filters into formerly white temples of learning, it acquires legitimacy and funding which make it harder to uproot as time progresses. To its myriad enemies, it, Hydra-like, seems to acquire new heads and new strength. Some of these new heads are White and within the Ivy League. Chief among them is Martin Bernal of Cornell. He argued that until the eighteenth century Western Europeans had seen the origins of Greek civilization in Egyptian and Phoenician colonization. In the nineteenth century this "Ancient Model" was dropped in favor of one which attributed the wellsprings of classical Greek civilization to hardy (and quite White) northerners cascading down the Balkans. Bernal labels this formulation the "Aryan Model." In it the African and Semitic roots of the West could be blotted out. Racism and anti-Semitism had triumphed, if only for a time.
Bernal's second volume of Black Athena was published in 1991 and it still causing fallout half-a-decade later. Indeed, cyberspace is whizzing with e-mailed debates between the twin peaks of the (White) debate on Afrocentrism. Lefkowitz and a colleague, Guy Rogers, have added fuel to the fire by editing a rather ponderous tome entitled Black Athena Revisited in which a wide variety of scholars hammer away at Bernal's central theses. Much of it has been heard before; much of it needs to be very seriously debated. Much of it is arcane and makes one wonder why all the media hype surrounding arguments about people who have been dead for at least twenty-five hundred years. For instance, Frank Yurco, the Egyptologist, tackles Black Athena herself and holds that Bernal's claim that the Hellenic goddess of wisdom sprang from an Egyptian prototype, Neit, is nonsense. Yurco assures us, at one point, that "H is a strongly voiced phoneme in Egypto-Coptic..[also] Greek theta does not exist in Egypto-Coptic, but it would have to derive from the final t in Egyptian Hwt." Not really the kind of thing most people, even academics, discuss at parties. It is of even less concern to the "Boyz in the Hood." So why now is this "hot stuff"? Lefkowitz is invited to speak on National Public Radio and is defended by George Will, but the recent discovery of the complex relationship between the Germanic languages and the Slavic and Celtic groups won't get five minutes or five pages in the media. The issue is race. The present wrangles have two parts: the relationship between "Black" Africa and Egypt, and the relationship between Egypt and Greece. The first is primary; the issue of Egypt's relation to Greece only takes on interest (and color) when the issue of who the ancient Egyptian actually "were" comes into play.
The assertion that the Egyptians were "Black" raises hackles. The three writers that deal with race in the Lefkowitz/Rogers collection go to considerable lengths to prove that "Blacks," however defined, are not part of the story. Indeed, Glen Bowersock, reviewing Not Out of Africa in the New York Times, had already questioned "why Egyptian origins or influences should be linked with Africans at all, except in the simple-minded geographical sense." This is the heart of the matter. It has bedeviled Western scholars for over one-hundred and fifty years and is still not resolved. Although in the nineteenth century Sir Richard Burton referred to modern Egyptians as "whitewashed niggers," and Sir Flinders Petrie referred to their ancient ancestors as being of "course mulatto stock," neither of these formulations serve to give an agreeable pedigree to the precursors of Western civilization. Indeed, it was for this reason that Giuseppe Sergi, an Italian anthropologist overcame the problem in the 1880s by divining that the ancient Egyptians were dark ? sometimes very dark ? Caucasians. He labeled his group Hamites and placed them at the intersection of Africa and Asia. Later anthropologists theorized a Hamitic or series of Hamitic languages. By the 1920s the American anthropologist, C. G. Seligman, wrote that any signs of "civilization" in Africa were the products of the penetration of these incomparable bearers of culture. A few years later, Alfred Rosenberg, chief Nazi Party ideologue, could confidently claim Egypt's ruling class for Europe's peoples - and their Aryan branch at that. By the 1960s, however, the "Hamitic Hypothesis" had fallen from grace as the established orthodoxy. The linguist Joseph Greenberg demonstrated that the "Hamitic" languages were a chimera; no such unified group could be found. The people called "Hamites" were found to belong to differing language families. As the linguistic foundations for the hypothesis fell away, so too did the idea of a conquering "Hamitic Race."
At least until Black Athena Revisited. On the whole, the book hedges on the race issue. Guy Rogers says, in summation that "It would be inaccurate to describe the ancient Egyptians as either black or white; the population of ancient Egypt was one of mixed pigmentation." The assertion is mild, but in the land of Colin Powell it seems more disingenuous than myopic. We live in a society of races, which few classicists have expressed any desire to declassify. W. E. B. Du Bois was right when he said: "We cannot if we are sane, divide the world into whites, yellows, and blacks, and then call blacks white." He might have said that it would be equally as strange to call them "Mediterranean," "Hamitic," or a hundred other euphemisms. One assumes that these various authors in Black Athena Revisited have seen, if not met, an African American. And here lies the rub ? the very catholicity of the term "Black" in the North American context. The "social "construction of race in America does not rely on skin color. "African Americans," as Asante notes, " constitute the most heterogeneous group in the United States biologically, but perhaps one of the most homogeneous socially." Hypodescent, the "One Drop Rule," has molded and still molds discussions "Blackness." And, it is still maintained. As Wilson Moses points out, "Even today, this . . . reasoning remains the basis for classifying appreciable numbers of people as 'black' despite their blue eyes and blond hair." While Cheikh Anta Diop did argue for a West African phenotype for the ancient Egyptians, leading Afrocentrists do not insist upon it. In fact they are quiet explicit. Karenga notes that it "is . . . playing Europe's racial game to concede that Egyptians are white or Asian if they don't look like a Eurocentric version of a West African." Furthermore, "Ethiopians and Somalis, perhaps, resemble the ancient Egyptians and ancient Nubians more than any other peoples and they are, even by Eurocentric standards, African." Unless we revive the hoary "Hamitic" Myth, they are.
One need not argue that the ancestors of African Americans rafted to the Americas on papyrus boats to make the Afrocentrists' point. The issue is that if they had "Black" African ancestry, it would clearly place them in a subordinate caste in the United States. Or, as Wilson Moses has put it, "In fact many of the Pharaohs, if transplanted across time and onto the Chattanooga Choo-Choo in 1945, would have a hard time obtaining a Pullman berth or being seated in a dining car." It might be pointed out that the ancient Egypt did not see themselves as "Caucasoid" or "Negroid." The issue of imposing our racial taxonomies on the ancient Egyptians is a specious one. To call the Hittites or the Trocharians "Indo-Europeans" is to impose terminology on peoples who never themselves used it. The process of classifying and aggregating is well-known to most social scientists ? witness the evolution of the 1970s ethnic neologism "Hispanic."
For those anti-Afrocentrists truly concerned with the Black in Black Athena, there is a way out. One of the writers in the attack on Bernal has it. Not only were the ancient Egyptians not Black, their nearest relatives are Europeans: "It is obvious that both the Predynastic and Late Dynastic Egyptians are more closely related to the European cluster than they are to any of the other major regional clusters in the world." In one fell swoop, he drives a stake through the heart of Bernal's argument, those of the Afrocentrists, and not a few Africanists. Relying on skulls, but not blood groupings or DNA, Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, tells us that heads do talk and that the ancient Egyptians were closer, at least head-wise, to Germans and Danes than they were to Somalis, Ethiopians, Nubians or Berbers. He dismisses the term "race" and then revives it cleverly disguised within the term "cluster." There are several of these; the two of most interest to him just happen to be the "European" and the "African." And the Egyptians definitely belong with the former. Brace' s article is by far the longest and most detailed of the three in the book that deal with specifically with race. It would also vindicate much late nineteenth century racial thought on the "Egyptian Question."
One of the authors in Black Athena Revisited, Kathryn Bard, does note that some craniometry is pretty old-fashioned. The dean of African-American classicists, Frank Snowden, in his contribution, advises Afrocentrists to give up Egypt and focus on Nubia as the first great Black civilization. Brace's contribution, far more radical than it seems at first glance, would deny even this concession. Nubians, like the Egyptians, are not part of the African head cluster. Brace's argument is admittedly clever, for it avoids any claims that might arise based on the American "One Drop Rule." The Egyptians and their neighbors to the south in Nubia and the Horn are, according to a series of impressive cranial geneologies, adaptations to climate. And the African "cluster" is not in the mix; the ancient Egyptians were people with European skulls whose epidermises gradually adapted to the rigors of a subtropical sun.
Of course, Dr. Brace is not the final word. The field of physical anthropology has progressed somewhat beyond the phrenology and craniometry of the nineteenth century. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, to many the present authority in the field, has said that we must look to gene frequencies, blood groupings and a host of other data before we construct our "racial" genealogies. Homo sapiens has had the annoying habit of being able to interbreed; unlike Brace, Cavalli-Sforza believes that the population of the Horn of Africa is clearly the result of a fusion of black African and non-African elements. The Italian geneticist, a former Princeton professor and one of the authors of the Human Genome Project, is hardly a radical in matters racial. At the same time, he, more than some of his American confrerès, is willing to admit to the infinite variety of human experience and the human hybridity that may have been the past of the race and which may be its future.
Where "race" has been legally enforced for over nine generations, we must take it, however socially constructed, very seriously. And here is the both the hope and the warning. Lefkowitz, the scholar, acknowledges that "If you go by the American 'one-drop rule,' the Egyptians would be black." In spite of any craniofacial legerdemain, the Egyptians and their neighbors to the south were "people of color." Hopefully, the sterile debate on whether Northeastern Africa was really within or without Africa will soon be closed. In the late 1980s an Ethiopian student, Mulugeta Seraw, was stomped to death by a group of skinheads in Portland, Oregon. They crushed his skull. Dr. Brace's measurements were irrelevant.
posted
I understand "centrism" to be seeing the world largely through one's own perspective. So if you add "afro" to it, I would guess that it means seeing things (here, history), largely from an African perspective. Is there more to it than that? What are the specifics?
Does afrocentrism amount to racism? If so, in what sense? Specifically, what does an afrocentric person believes in to make that person a racist? By racism, I understand the term to mean believing in and propagating the superiority of one's own race (if there's any), as well as using that belief as a basis for subordinating or demeaning people of other races.
Honestly, I don't see how pointing out the fact that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans amounts to racism. It's an historical fact.
posted
Pointing out that the Ancient Egyptians, were Black is only part of the problem.
The main issue with afrocentrism, is that it is being taught, without regard to overall accuracy and academic scrutiny.
Even some Native Black Africans, have voiced their opinions and objections to the aims of this afrocentric movement, which is not about Africans or Egyptians at all.
In order to correct the mistakes of the past two hundred years, one should not resort to making another set of faulty assertions.
quote:Originally posted by kembu: I understand "centrism" to be seeing the world largely through one's own perspective. So if you add "afro" to it, I would guess that it means seeing things (here, history), largely from an African perspective. Is there more to it than that? What are the specifics?
Does afrocentrism amount to racism? If so, in what sense? Specifically, what does an afrocentric person believes in to make that person a racist? By racism, I understand the term to mean believing in and propagating the superiority of one's own race (if there's any), as well as using that belief as a basis for subordinating or demeaning people of other races.
Honestly, I don't see how pointing out the fact that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans amounts to racism. It's an historical fact.
quote:Pointing out that the Ancient Egyptians, were Black is only part of the problem.
It's more 'your' problem than anything else.
quote: The main issue with afrocentrism, is that it is being taught, without regard to overall accuracy and academic scrutiny.
Can you give use specific examples in the lack of accuracy in Ibrahim Sundiata work? And whom would you cite as being more accurate?
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Pointing out that the Ancient Egyptians, were Black is only part of the problem.
The main issue with afrocentrism, is that it is being taught, without regard to overall accuracy and academic scrutiny.
Even some Native Black Africans, have voiced their opinions and objections to the aims of this afrocentric movement, which is not about Africans or Egyptians at all.
In order to correct the mistakes of the past two hundred years, one should not resort to making another set of faulty assertions.
I wonder why you viciously attack so-called Afrocentrism but avoid to mention early Egyptologist like Petrie,Grafton Smith,and others who did more harm to indigenous Egyptians than many Afrocentrist will ever do. Grafton Smith made racist remarks about modern Egyptians being mongrels unworthy of ancient Egyptian civlization. Various other Egyptologist denied Egyptian Egyptologist from even studying their own history.
What about the Dyanstic race theory proposed by Petrie and others saying that indigenous Egyptians were not capable of building ancient Egyptian civlization.
Ancient Egypt was an African civlization with African cultural traits. Sure the northern population of Egypt had non-Africans since probably the dyanstic but this does not mean it was not African.
Nobody complained about the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians untill the whole debate about Egypt's influce over Greece. The Africaness of the ancient Egyptians was never questioned,but recently it has been because of the possible influce on the cradle of Western civlization. Matter of fact Leftowtiz herself does not one time question the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians.
Believe me the ancient Nubian civlization used to be attribute to non-black people as well. Don't believe me then read early anthropologist like Roland Dixion and Carl Seligman. Did you know even one time white anthropologist said the Bantus were hamitic cuacasoids?
When you attack something at least take the time to learn more about it. Look at things from an unbiased perpective instead of pulling strawmen.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
First, as I have said before and continue to say, I'm not a fan of either camp, the eurocentrics or the afrocentrics.
What I and many others desire, is for the truth to come out, rather than more of the same biased views and selective information.
Most of those Eurocentric Egyptologists are Dead, and I don't support their views.
Also, from what you said, you're assuming that all Africans are Black, and I don't agree with you on this point for several reasons. Many people believe, as I do a well, that humans (mankind)emerged out of Africa and probably spread to other parts of the world. This would mean, that as people drifted farther and farther from equatorial Africa, they started to adapt to their new environments and as a result they became different racially.
A great example, is the Nile Valley, which clearly depicts such a natural process. If you were to take a journey down the Nile River, from the source of the Nile and follow the river all the way to Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, you'll notice the gradual change in people's skin color and facial features. You start out with very dark Black Africans and then move on to more Hamitic Africans, and finally when you reach Cairo and Alexandria, you run into the lighter Mediterranean people of the Northern Egyptian cities.
Are all these people Africans, I would have to say, Yes, without question.
Are there Europeans and Asians, who settled in Egypt and other parts of Africa, the answer would also be a clear, Yes.......
Therefore, being African, does not mean being Black.
I'm not disputing the fact that AE had Black Africans, living side by side with non-Black Africans, but the problem comes when people attempt to say that all AE was entirely Black African.
All the historical evidence, that I have looked at and read, points out,that that was not the case. Why should we judge AE, by African American standards, that are faulty to begin with?
quote:Originally posted by ausar: I wonder why you viciously attack so-called Afrocentrism but avoid to mention early Egyptologist like Petrie,Grafton Smith,and others who did more harm to indigenous Egyptians than many Afrocentrist will ever do. Grafton Smith made racist remarks about modern Egyptians being mongrels unworthy of ancient Egyptian civlization. Various other Egyptologist denied Egyptian Egyptologist from even studying their own history.
What about the Dyanstic race theory proposed by Petrie and others saying that indigenous Egyptians were not capable of building ancient Egyptian civlization.
Ancient Egypt was an African civlization with African cultural traits. Sure the northern population of Egypt had non-Africans since probably the dyanstic but this does not mean it was not African.
Nobody complained about the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians untill the whole debate about Egypt's influce over Greece. The Africaness of the ancient Egyptians was never questioned,but recently it has been because of the possible influce on the cradle of Western civlization. Matter of fact Leftowtiz herself does not one time question the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians.
Believe me the ancient Nubian civlization used to be attribute to non-black people as well. Don't believe me then read early anthropologist like Roland Dixion and Carl Seligman. Did you know even one time white anthropologist said the Bantus were hamitic cuacasoids?
When you attack something at least take the time to learn more about it. Look at things from an unbiased perpective instead of pulling strawmen.
[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 17 January 2005).]
[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 17 January 2005).]
quote:Originally posted by ABAZA: First, as I have said before and continue to say, I'm not a fan of either camp, the eurocentrics or the afrocentrics.
You could have fooled me, when you claimed that Egyptians are "Caucasians".
quote:Abaza: What I and many others desire, is for the truth to come out, rather than more of the same biased views and selective information.
Well, if the truth is what you truly desire, then it has been plainly put on the table on this board long ago. We often find ourselves repeating it for people like yourself. I have reiterated some unbaised truths in my last post (established here and elsewhere long ago), specially for you to now tell us what you consider the truth based on the points you disagree with. Of course, if you disagree, you should know that this would automatically mean backing yourself with peer-reviewed authoritative sources.
quote:Abaza: Most of those Eurocentric Egyptologists are Dead, and I don't support their views.
Which is amazing, since you still hold their outdated and scientifically debunked notion of "Caucasian" Africans.
quote:Abaza: Also, from what you said, you're assuming that all Africans are Black, and I don't agree with you on this point for several reasons.
Who said all Africans are black? What was said, is that "indigenous" Africans were tropically adapted and so were Ancient Egyptians. In other words, the indigenous Ancient Egyptians were "black" (in our social terms), and shared physical features and elements of culture found in many black populations.
quote:Abaza: Many people believe, as I do a well, that humans (mankind)emerged out of Africa and probably spread to other parts of the world. This would mean, that as people drifted farther and farther from equatorial Africa, they started to adapt to their new environments and as a result they became different racially.
If you are aware of this, why then are you advocating Ancient Egyptians not being indigenous to Africa. Why are you implying that the Nile Valley was some unpopulated waistland that only became populated with the back-migrating groups to the Nile, only to eventually develop a complex culture. This is just absurd. Also, indigenous Egyptians having been tropically adapted as their sub-Saharan East African ancestors, would have to look like those ancestors. Egypt isn't that far away a landmass, to justify over-adaptation to the point of becoming something else. And even if this were the case, that wouldn't still in any way justify them being "Caucasian". Moreover, different look of various modern Egyptians, is nothing more than a reflection of foreign invasions over the years.
quote:Abaza: A great example, is the Nile Valley, which clearly depicts such a natural process. If you were to take a journey down the Nile River, from the source of the Nile and follow the river all the way to Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, you'll notice the gradual change in people's skin color and facial features. You start out with very dark Black Africans and then move on to more Hamitic Africans, and finally when you reach Cairo and Alexandria, you run into the lighter Mediterranean people of the Northern Egyptian cities.
And you claim to not take dead racist 19th century Egyptologists seriously! What a joke.
quote:Abaza: All all these people Africans, I would have to say, Yes, without question.
Well, indigenous Egyptians are indigenous in a different sense from that of outsiders, who then settled in the region. The idea that when people come to a place and settle there for many years, they become indigenous, is what makes many other Egyptians, who would otherwise be unable to trace much ancestry to "indigenous" ancient Egyptians, "indigenous".
quote:Abaza: Are there Europeans and Asians, who settled in Egypt and other parts of Africa, the answer would also be a clear, Yes.......
You aren't correcting anyone on this fact. This is why it would be a mistake to think that indigenous Ancient Egyptians looked like those outsiders!
quote:Abaza: Therefore, being African, does not mean being Black.
Back-migrators who adapted to a whole new environment will not necessarily remain tropically adapted as their African counterparts. If you socially define some othese groups as not being black, that is to your discretion. However, indigenous Egyptians weren't among those who lost those tropically adapted traits.
quote:Abaza: I'm not disputing the fact that AE had Black Africans,
Nor can you.
quote:Abaza: ...living side by side with non-Black Africans, but the problem comes when people attempt to say that all AE was entirely Black African.
As long as you are aware that the "non-black" ones weren't "indigenous" Egyptians, but the result of foreigners who came in later.
quote:Abaza: All the historical evidence, that I have looked at and read, points out, that was not the case. Why should we judge AE, by African American standards, that are faulty to begin with?
Well depending on sense of ancestry among Egyptians, it is to their individual discretion what they identify with. However, it would be incorrect for an Egyptian to say that the indigenous forebearers were something other than "black" or "tropically adapted" Africans.
[This message has been edited by supercar (edited 17 January 2005).]
posted
The Out-of Africa theory vs. Multi-regional theory has no bearing on the conversation about the origins of the ancient Egyptians. This was a gradual process that occured over a time period not revelvent to the formation of the ancient Egyptian soceity.
No one here has claimed that all Africans were black,and I do acknowleadge that some costal Africans were non-black. Notice that I said in my post that the Delta populations in Lower Egypt probably did include non-black groups.
Most geological record show that the Nile Valley was impassable and filled with swamps untill about 7000 B.C. It was only after this time period when portions of the Nile Valley was populated. Most likely these populations did come from further south or within the Sahara before it became a desert.
Look at archaeological sites like the Dahkla Oasis and Nabta Playa. Look at the remains of the ''black mummy'' found around the Eastern sahara desert. The precussor to Nile Valley civlization are found within these regions.
What will lead us further to the truth is genetic studies on ancient remains. So far very little studies except for a few ABO blood typing studies done by Morant and others have lead us to any definite answers.
What I mean is that ancient Egyptian culture and religious pratices have much in common with so-called sub-Saharan people. Even early Egyptologist like Budge,Cyril Aldred,and Petrie found these within ancient Egyptian culture.
You have circumcision rites,the belief in the rain maker king,divine kingship,and ancestor veneration. One other factor is ancient Egyptian soceity was never urbanized in city states like Mesopotamia or other surrounding civlizations. Most of the nomes[sepat] in Egypt were nothing more than towns or villages.
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supercar
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In my opinion, the peopling of the Nile Valley, along with linguistics and study of culture is essential to understanding of the development of Nile Valley civilization.
Reflections on what has been seen here before:
"Keita's use of Multiple Discriminant Functions II & III in his phenograms (Keita, 1988, 1993) help demonstrate that the basic population might have been different than that shown by the highly discriminant Function I. In analyzing the First Dynasty royal tomb remains, unknown analysis is used comparing the crania with other known series. This is one of the best approaches to the problem and supports the theory of Keita, Hassan (1988) and others tha in the early dynastic period,the dominant South had engaged in political marriages with nobility from northern Egypt to consolidate their control of the region. Unknown analysis compares individual crania in a series with other known series, rather than using the whole series as a type. With this approach, Keita found that 57% of the First Dynasty Abydos royal tomb crania had affinities with Nubian and Sudanese populations. None of Keita's work suggests the penetration of West Asian or European types being a factor in the creation of Dynastic Egypt. Both Keita (1993) and Hassan (1988) have suggested that Saharan elements played a role in the modification of Badari and early Nakada types during the late Nakada period. These Saharan elements cannot be identified simply as "Caucasoid" though. Keita and Hassan see them as indigenous African variants among whom gene flow from outside Africa played only a minimal role. Keita classes these Saharans with northern Egyptians and calls them "northern coastal" types. These were by no means homogenous. The late Nakada series preceding the formation of Dynastic Egypt was closest to the Nubian series at Kerma. Starting with the first dynasty, a trend toward hybridization of southern and northern types began, but with occasional anomalies. For example, the Third Dynasty and the Old Kingdom Giza remains are primarily of "Southern" affinity (Keita, 1992, 1993).
similarity in ABO serology between modern Haratin populations and those of ancient Egyptians. These Haratin are considered to be "Negroid" in physical type (Livingstone, 1967). Other serological tests have shown close affinity of certain Berber-speaking groups with tropical Africans in the high rates of cDe, P and V, and low Fy^a antigens(Keita 1990, Mourant et al., 1976, Chamla, 1980). They also group close with West Africans in the high incidence of HbC, HbS and the sickle cell condition (Livingstone, 1967). However, in terms of phenotype and culture, the Southern Egyptians and Nubians are most closely related to Nile River peoples in the Sudan and to other peoples in adjacent regions. These peoples are, in turn, a blending of the same Saharan type with the type found in the Badari and early Nakada cultures that would fit into the so called "authentic African" typology. However, Keita (1993) rightly rejects such an idea of the authentic African, and similar terms like "Forest Negro," "True Negro," etc. He notes that the rejection of relationship between types not both meeting the "True Negro" standard, would be as invalid as rejecting relationships between Europeans who were non-Nordic, or for that matter, who were not of a type resembling W.C. Fields or Jimmy Durante. Indeed, the suggestion by Brace et al., of genetic relationships between Nordics, Somalis and Asian Indians, based primarily on nasal factors is the height of bad anthropology, and this work belongs to the 1990's rather than the beginning of the 20th century. The very fact that narrow noses can be found over practically the entire globe among large populations who are highly variant in other ways should suggest that this is not a good choice for a genetic trait. However, early hyperdiffusionists saw it in a different light; one in which quite fantastic racial claims of a "white" origin for all civilization could be made. As mentioned before, blondism and light eye color are far more restricted in numbers and geography and would appear to be more genetically discriminant than nose structure. However, as this would be anti-hyperdiffusionist (in the "Caucasoid culture-bearer" sense) these traits were brushed aside. So, while the Badari and early Nakada were clearly Africoid in character, even the neolithic Saharan element that came to cast more and more influence on Southern Egypt could also be characterized as African variants. In fact, in most cases, these hetergenous peoples were strongly "Negroid." (Gabel 1966, Keita 1993). "
Also Thought2 provided this earlier a while back, concerning the impact of climatic and environmental changes that on the peopling of Africa, including the Nile Valley, but it is still very relevant: http://iceage.umeqs.maine.edu/pdfs/653.pdf
posted
Ausar, Afrocentricism is really just plain old dishonesty. As Dr Roth stated, Egyptologist aftern ask, "why not Nubia' and of coarse the answer is obvious. These people are attempting to attain through a phony scholarship what their ancestors were unable to attain in reality.
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: Ausar, Afrocentricism is really just plain old dishonesty. As Dr Roth stated, Egyptologist aftern ask, "why not Nubia' and of coarse the answer is obvious.
Yes Horemheb, The answer is obvious. Why claim/argue Nubia is black civilization when everyone accepts it as one?
quote:As Dr Roth stated, Egyptologist after ask, "why not Nubia'. The answer is obvious..
Actually Dr. Roth's answer was that Nubia: did not build pyramids and temples that impressed the classical writers of Greece and Rome with their power, antiquity, and wisdom And it has been pointed out in many critiques of her article that this answer is wrong. Nubia actually has more pyramids than Egypt and Dr. Roth should be embarrassed to make such an obvious gaffe.
Horemheb: you claim you can't understand why an African (such as Ausar) would not restrict his history to 'Nubia' - literally Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan, and leave the rest of 'Ancient Egypt' as a part of....your European, Western history?
The answer is indeed obvious. Ancient Egypt was an African civilisation. It was not a European civilisation. It was not a western civilisation. You may covet Africa as you like. You may resent Africans for re-claiming our history, just as the whites in SADC resent us for reclaiming our lands. Too bad. Your crocodile tears are merely pathetic and illicit no sympathy whatsoever.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 18 January 2005).]
quote:Why claim/argue Nubia is black civilization when everyone accepts it as one?
Not everyone does. For example Arthur Schlesinger Jr claims the original Nubians were not Black.
This claim is silly of course, but it is ultimately essential to the Eurocentric enterprise, so deeply intertwined is Nile Valley civilisation. Ultimately they need to remove Ta Seti (Nubia) from Africa as well.
But the reality is that Eurocentric claims to African history has been pushed back to the Nile delta and is in danger of falling tail-end first into the Meditteranian. That is why the Eurocentrics sound so desparate and bitter these days. They are fighting to sustain what they can of their apartheid perversion of history. And...they are losing.
posted
There is a major difference is mistakes that may have been made by early Egyptologists and the distortions but current Afrocentric advocates. whatever maistakes were made by 19th centry scholars can be attributed to lack of knowledge. Keep in my that Egyptology is still very young. The Afrocentrics are simply making up history for political reasons. They are people of questionable character who have yet to figure out that they are simply running in place.
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posted
Here is the problem rasol...lets put aside for the moment what is the right or wrong argument...what these people are doing simply is not going to work. Ancient egypt is not going to be accepted as a black african society, nor is greek philosophy ever going to be viewed as having African roots. I think many Africanists feel that if they scream loud enough that people whill change their minds...its simply not going to happen. I'll mention what Dr Roth did in her essay, "why not Nubia?" Its a place where anyone interested in Africa could make some of the same points and be on much firmewr ground. Also, it is a field which is much newer and a place where a talented scholar could still carve out a great reputation and make a substantial contribution. You guys are wasting your time with Egypt.
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posted
You are not going to get anywhere by condeming the entire body of a discpline such as Egyptology. i do agree with the comment about Schlesinger, that is a bizarere ststement on his part. he is an old limosuine liberal who usually writes about American history.
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quote:Also, it is a field which is much newer and a place where a talented scholar could still carve out a great reputation and make a substantial contribution.
African history is African history. Your aparthied divisions are a legacy of the 19th century ignorance you obviously are still mired in.
quote:You guys are wasting your time with Egypt.
And yet here you are, once again engaging in intellectually inept special pleading on behalf of a dieing Eurocentric ideology.
You think Shomarka Keita or Ibrahim Sundiata care about your whining? Truth is, you are here out of frustration and fear, and you wasting your time.
posted
Nobody is listening to those Afrocentric scholars rasol. In fact there is an obvious backlash well underway. Blaming all of your problems on Eurocentric scholars of the past is the talk of losers. You know as well as I that africa has been on the outskirts of civilization since the beginning of recorded history. You would have us believe that this great civilization was created and after that the contient simply sank into a mud hole with nothing of noted but disease, tribal genocide and famine. people ask today what will become of Africa, can it even survive? It is falling further and futher behind the rest of civilization with no relief in sight. Out of that mudhole we have the Afrocentrics saying "give us a great civilization" "give us a place at this table." The operative word here is 'give' because that is what it will have to be. Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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supercar
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What’s obvious is that racists like you, Horemheb, with a very badly bruised ego, have a need to fantasize being related to a people, who remotely have anything to do with your folk. Fact is a painful one and a clear one; African civilizations have blossomed without European interference. Africa was able to borne civilization, while savagery was the order of the day in Europe. The fact that Africans had been involved in trade affairs that Europeans were until much later on cut off from, completely shatters racist European lies about Africans being just some kind of wanderers at the time of coming of Europeans. If Europeans were responsible for any civilization on the continent, or elsewhere for that matter, why was Europe one of the very last places to borne civilization? Wouldn’t Europeans at least have the gumption to develop their own backyard first, before being too concerned for others? They certainly don’t show such traits now, why would one believe that they ever had it? This alone shows how pathetically desperate neo-nazis have become. Indeed, with as much time you spend spewing twisted demagogic geopolitical views, if you deny African orientation of ancient Egypt, why do you not present substantiated and up-to-date authoritative data to back you up? There reason is clear; crackpot science is baseless, and needs no substantiation. I dare you to ever substantiate your politically driven gibberish here.
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posted
I don't have to prove it supercar, the Egyptologists prove it for me. I am giving you the views held by the overwhelming majority of scholars in the field. This tired old 'racist' charge gets old. Everytime someone disagrees with some of you people they must be a racist. Africa is a mess, you know that.
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posted
Horemheb, not only suffers from a bruised ego but is also badly out of touch. He asks questions about when 'Blacks' first settled the Nile valley that could easily be answered if he would pull his head out of the Eurocentric hole he hides it in, and avail himself of the current archeology, anthropology, linguistics, molecular genetics and anthropology, of scholars such as Keita, Ehret, and Shaw. He will only avail himself of that which keeps him ignorant. Too bad.
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supercar
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: I don't have to prove it supercar, the Egyptologists prove it for me. I am giving you the views held by the overwhelming majority of scholars in the field. This tired old 'racist' charge gets old. Everytime someone disagrees with some of you people they must be a racist. Africa is a mess, you know that.
Yes "dead" 19th century racist driven European Egyptologists prove your points for you. And indeed, I am not surprised that you couldn't address the simple questions I asked of you about ancient Europeans. Fact is that, light has been shed via linguistics, archeological discoveries, modern bio-anthropological studies, and studies of culture, that Ancient Egypt was the work of indigenous Africans and not Europeans, proves intellectual bankruptcy of Eurocentric neo-racists. The mess you are calling Africa, has to do with the fine work of "Western" imperialism.
posted
Supercar, you know better than that. the only support you have are political Afrocentric scholars who make outlandish claims that are not accepted by the broad base of Egyptologists. You have simply bought into this racist non scholarship put out by people who are trying to leach on to the acomplishments of others.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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supercar
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: Supercar, you know better than that. the only support you have are political Afrocentric scholars who make outlandish claims that are not accepted by the broad base of Egyptologists. You have simply bought into this racist non scholarship put out by people who are trying to leach on to the acomplishments of others.
Blabbering is not a substitute for backing up your wild assertions. The authoritative sources that have been referenced here time and again, are all within the scientific communities. If you dispute their findings, well then, we will be glad to see how so. Science has been changing, while Eurocentrics continue to hang onto their social and mental backwardness. Self-respecting scientists can no longer risk clinging onto outmoded racist 19th century European garbage. Food for thought.
posted
Are you living in a mental institution Supercar....these Eurocentrics you mention ARE the leading scholars in the world. I think you are a dishonest person trying to leach on to the acomplishments of others for your own selfish political reasons.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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supercar
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: Are you living in a mental institution Supercar....these Eurocentrics you mention ARE the leading scholars in the world. I think you are a dishonest person trying to leach on to the acomplishments of others for your own selfish political reasons.
Yes I am the doctor, here to take care of mental psychopaths like you Horemheb. Mental and social backwardness will not get you anywhere. And I keep stressing this, but basic education a key to rational thinking. You and I both know, Horemheb, that you could use one.
quote:Nobody is listening to those Afrocentric scholars rasol. In fact there is an obvious backlash well underway. Blaming all of your problems on Eurocentric scholars of the past is the talk of losers. You know as well as I that africa has been on the outskirts of civilization since the beginning of recorded history. You would have us believe that this great civilization was created and after that the contient simply sank into a mud hole with nothing of noted but disease, tribal genocide and famine. people ask today what will become of Africa, can it even survive? It is falling further and futher behind the rest of civilization with no relief in sight. Out of that mudhole we have the Afrocentrics saying "give us a great civilization" "give us a place at this table." The operative word here is 'give' because that is what it will have to be.
The same analogy can be used for Northern and Western Europe. Why is that only in the Mediterranean portions of Europe developed civlization? Why is most of the progress of Mediterranean European civlization was only around this area and not in the Nordic or Apline countries of Northern and Western Europe? Have you not forgotten that most Greco-Roman writers thought people living to the north of them were inferior barbarians?
In the first recorded history Africa is mentioned in much esteem by Homer,and earlier in Mesopotamian history Melukha and Magan[Egypt and modern Sudan] are mentioned as trading partners.
During the Middle Ages many parts of Africa were much more prosperous than they were today. It's a known fact that most of the gold used in Europe came from trade with Sahelian Africans in Mali and other regions. Even parts of Western and Central Africa had centralized states with sophisticated tax system,judical systems,and even a census. You also had the sucessful Swahili people in Eastern Africa.
What occured in Europe was the diffusion of Asiatic technology via Arab Muslims. Western and Northern Europeans during the Middle Ages came to Islamic learning centers across Cordova and toledo Spain. Ask yourself why Germany was the last country to industrialize but Portugal and Spain the first to explore the world? Simple because Portugese and Spainards got most of the nautical technology from Islamic Arabs.
Look at modern day Greeks,and many are simple goat herders in one of the most backwards European countries in all of Europe. Look at modern day England which were nothing but a bunch of primitive cheiftains. Would you say the modern day Greeks are not the direct desendants of the Grecians of the past just because their civlization is not like it was?
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Greece and rome have been over run many times since their glory years ausar. To what extent their population is the same as it was then i will leave for modern Greek specialists. You really have to look and the rise of Europe in two phases. read rubensteins book , 'Aristotle's Children.' It deals with the infusion of ancient Greek knowledge into medieval Europe and what impact it had. In terms of norther Europe, more specifically, there are some very interesting theories out there. For years historians have asked why both North and South America were conqueored and settled by Europeans at about the same time, one becoming an economic and social backwater and the other an industrial and technical giant. Oddly enough many point to language saying that the Germanic languages of northern Europe were much more condusive to the formation of technology than the declention languages of southern Europe. i think there is something to that as well. Obviously the protestant reformation in the north removed business and science from control of the Catholic church. All of these things come into play when looking at the interaction of northern and southern Europe during a 3000 year period.
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posted
Everyone getting this? Professor Horemheb implies Greeks, like Seligman's Egyptians, are really deginerate from the pure Aryan races who built their civilisation. I am glad that Horemheb has run out of false excuses and now out of frustration is made to reveal the core racism that drives his laughably twisted and childish view of history.
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supercar
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quote:Originally posted by rasol: Everyone getting this? Professor Horemheb implies Greeks, like Seligman's Egyptians, are really deginerate from the pure Aryan races who built their civilisation. I am glad that Horemheb has run out of false excuses and now out of frustration is made to reveal the core racism that drives his laughably twisted and childish view of history.
Horemheb rationalizes that the great distortions of reality by 19th Century European historians and anthropologists alike, are "whatever maistakes were made by 19th centry scholars can be attributed to lack of knowledge." Well, it appears that Eurocentrics' mental processing have stopped at the knowledge capacity, where those now dead 19th century folks left off. No progress in sight whatsoever!
posted
Most would think supercar that if AE were an African civilization they would have been composed of black people. That obviously was not the case.
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supercar
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: Most would think supercar that if AE were an African civilization they would have been composed of black people. That obviously was not the case.
Most would think, Horemheb, that if Eurocentrics were open-minded and perceptive, that they would easily see that indigenous Ancient Egyptians were black people.
posted
I guess they just missed it Supercar. since you seem more interested in race than history maybe nubia ias the field for you.
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supercar
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: I guess they just missed it Supercar. since you seem more interested in race than history maybe nubia ias the field for you.
That is precisely the problem; while everyone else has seen the necessity to keep up with current developments in the acquisition of knowledge, in the same sense as science has moved on, Eurocentrics have just drifted backwards. Indeed, perceptive people immediately realize the futility of seperatly viewing "Nubia" from Kemet, which it was part of. Perceptive folks immediately realize that "Nubia" is just but one of the many terminologies given to the southern nome of Kemet. It is safe to state that perceptiveness has escaped Eurocentrists.
[This message has been edited by supercar (edited 18 January 2005).]
quote:Most would think, Horemheb, that if Eurocentrics were open-minded and perceptive, that they would easily see that indigenous Ancient Egyptians were black people.
...as the Ancient Greeks did, but supposidly modern Horemheb cannot. I think degeneracy is perhaps more of a personal issue for Horemheb than a collective problem for modern Greece. Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
This point is correct, in the sense that the people who live in Greece at this time, are not the actual descendants of the Ancient Greeks and Macedonians.
The people who live in Greece currently, are mostly Slavic People and many are actually Turks......
This is why the Greek Government is very critical of anyone who says the truth.
They have a big cover up campaign underway in Greece to prove that they're actually descended from the AG's.
quote:Originally posted by rasol: Everyone getting this? Professor Horemheb implies Greeks, like Seligman's Egyptians, are really deginerate from the pure Aryan races who built their civilisation. I am glad that Horemheb has run out of false excuses and now out of frustration is made to reveal the core racism that drives his laughably twisted and childish view of history.
[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 18 January 2005).]
[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 18 January 2005).]
posted
The Macedonians of ancient times actually spoke a Slavic tongue. The modern Greeks are both Slavic and Turk as you said. Keep in mind that Ancient Greece originated in Crete, and the population are the so called Black 'Caucasians'. They are similar to the indigenous, non-Caucasoid people of the Near East.
[This message has been edited by Roy_2k5 (edited 18 January 2005).]
quote:This point is correct, in the sense that the people who live in Greece at this time, are not the actual descendants of the Ancient Greeks and Macedonians.
The people who live in Greece currently, are mostly Slavic People and many are actually Turks......
This is why the Greek Government is very critical of anyone who says the truth.
They have a big cover up campaign underway in Greece to prove that they're actually descended from the AG's.
Know how would you know something like this? Plenty of modern anthropological studies connect the modern Greek population to the ancient one. What about the rural Greeks living in the mountains?
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Ausar,. You know how many times southern Europe has been run over by invasions and migrations, mostly from the north and west. This means the population of these areas has been drastically altered.
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: Ausar,. You know how many times southern Europe has been run over by invasions and migrations, mostly from the north and west. This means the population of these areas has been drastically altered.
Excuse me, but what the HELL do you think we have been discussing and debating, ALL this time, on this board, in regards to AE?
It amazes me, that people such as ABAZA, on one hand, can state that modern Egyptians look and appear exactly the same as the AE's. Physical Characteristics and all, and nothing about them or their appearance has been drastically altered over time. Despite the wave of invasions and migrations into Egypt over the millennia's.
But, then in the same breath, state that modern Greeks, because of foreign infusion, i.e., Turks. Are not the direct descendants of the Ancient Greeks and Macedonians.
So, if modern day Greeks are not the descendants of the Ancient Greeks and Macedonians, because of foreign influx into Greece.
Then why, does this not apply to most modern day Egyptians as well?
Hypocrisy seems to be running rampant on this board lately!
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supercar
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Egypt2005, as you already know, white supremacists don't know zip about ancient history (nor do they care to), which involves a wide variety of fields in science so as to corroborate findings, because of the distance of timeframe. The only thing they are capable of: wild white supremacist folklores, and making themselves feel good by simply insulting civilized folks.
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quote:Originally posted by supercar: Egypt2005, as you already know, white supremacists don't know zip about ancient history (nor do they care to), which involves a wide variety of fields in science so as to corroborate findings, because of the distance of timeframe. The only thing they are capable of: wild white supremacist folklores, and making themselves feel good by simply insulting civilized folks.
Agreed!
Posts: 115 | From: South Bend, Indiana, US | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Poor victimized blacks, have to draw out that emotion and call anyone who disagrees with them a white supremist. His so predictible its almost funny. Can't stand on my own two feet, goota blame the white man. The evil eurocentric white man did this too me. Sad,
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posted
No, what they just proved was how much of a nuch of Hypocrites you and Abaza are...not like we didn't know that already though. But it's nice to catch the mule with its head up its ass.
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