posted
Here something I wrote that shows how racism works even in terms of translation...
The Sumerians supposedly called themselves the “Black-headed people”. And all over the internet this is being misconstrued (by whites, I think, wikipedia is an example) as referring to hair or what it means is being avoided because nobody wants to deal with the implications. It cannot possibly be hair. And I shall show why.
This is indeed an odd and disingenuous construction. It seems inconsistent with (albeit) our modern perception that the main feature, hair in this argument, would then in fact make them rightfully call themselves the “dark haired” people rather than “black headed” people unless of course they suffered from black heads--a little levity there.
Saying it is just a modern perception proves nothing if we don’t find other such odd constructions but the actual words don’t support it being an odd Sumerian construction either but a translation that is in error. There are a number of Old Babylonian words for hair so it isn’t that they lacked terms for hair why they would refer to the head alone.
We should refer here to the first Sumerians and later Sumerians, perhaps the period of the earliest pottery. Miscegenation seems to have ocurred in ancient Sumeria and the Sumerians of later periods acknowledged perhaps a dark ancestry.
[I see here images of blacks in later Mesopotamian civilizations but I've not yet gotten to studies or check the sources on the literature around this, though the images are very compelling to me]
One historian says the Sumerians liked shaving their heads to avoid lice and so wore wigs. Yet we see shaven headed Sumerian sculpture. Hair is not that important to have except as wigs. So in order to prove that “black-headed” refers solely to brunettes, a dark “haired people”, it begs the question why we see Sumerians with shaved heads at all and no references or emphasis in texts of hair shaving being somehow “bad” or dark hair being a significant trait, praised, well regarded etc. among them, if hair in fact defined them as mankind, human, mortal. Animals have hair, fur, after all--it's not unique.
Dark hair is never emphasized as being unique contrasted against foreign peoples who are not dark haired—and, given the region of Irag, Turkey, and Iran today, and the assumptions of permanent whiteness there now and in ancient times, “dark hair” being something unique there is impossible, it shouldn’t stand out at all if it was the substance of their persons. Substance here is the body itself, the culture–since it defines who they are—if the emphasis is not there in other texts, why is this emphasis “head” used to describe their whole culture or their persons as a group, why would it matter to them to be described as “black-headed” with the current presumption that it means dark haired?
Their darkness had to have regional significance if they were in contact with a different group or if this term is a memory of ancestors who were in fact blacks of some sort, the first Sumerians.
Psychologically a people that is dark haired, so obsessed with coiffure, beards, wigs etc. to name their ancestor thus, wouldn’t leave the hair part out of a description like their heads, and this is ironic given the Assyrians fancy hairstyling later…it’s not logical, it doesn’t make sense, this translation is an avoidance fear of the word “person” instead of “head” as the right choice. Here is the evidence.
We have in the dictionary this: saĝgiga [HUMANKIND] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. saĝ-gig2-ga “humankind” Akk. şalmat qaqqadi …how is this related to the standard use of the phrase “black-headed”?
Here we have:
saĝ [HEAD] (3582x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. saĝ “head; person; capital” Akk. qaqqadu; rēšu
Is the semi-colon after the first there to suggest that each is a distinct term; they’re not saying the head is {head-person-capital} all as one compound word, therefore a choice here is not arbitrary, no, a sensible choice has to be made for which of the three is most meaningful, is going to be applied to the next part which is:
giggi [BLACK] (941x: ED IIIa, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, 1st millennium) wr. giggi; gi6-gi6 “(to be) black” Akk. şalmu
Which makes more sense saying black person or black headed? I don’t like to do an arm-chair psychoanalysis of individuals I don’t know but a recent study of white children, shown images of whiteness to gradations of brown to black, consistently more often than not chose the whitest for all things good and the darkest for dumb, ugly, bad…is picking “head” some knee jerk translator’s reaction against the unconscious implications of “person”/ “to be black persons–mankind” which seems like the correct translation to me but let me emphasize the words again, look carefully, further proofs will follow.
As to heads with hair we have sikipa [HEAD-HAIR] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. siki-pa “head hair” but I don’t know where the Sumerian is, if this is it or not, as a loan word or a translation so I’m not sure how this relates. I wish Sumerian scholars, even a black Sumerian scholar, would write on this phrase honestly and expose the falsity of the translation. I admit I’m not a Sumerian scholar and this may seem speculative but it is based on the Sumerian dictionary online— are these irrefutable facts?
What other types of phrases appear so similar to this one in Sumerian texts, that is, a phrase that disregards particulars, as this does skin, skull, hair and eyes while it absurdly separates one part of the anatomy, in this case, the head from the hair and the skin etc., to offer a vague description of appearance, vital here supposedly in terms of asserting Sumerian differences, that is their calling themselves “black-headed”--what does that mean? Why should it matter if, again, given the region, dark hair is not that significant a trait.
What could it mean: black hair, black scalp, black scarves, black hats? And yet this is separated from the rest of the body, it’s anomalous and feels like translation noise or ambiguity which smells of racism. Is there any wiggle room on this translation to either hair or to skin? None that I can see. What are the words for hair and skin, and types of skin if any? The PSD offer words for skin, and people, even brown, red, and yet these are not used to describe a tribe, a family, a unique group, such as “mountain people”, “plains people” etc with dark hair. What other peoples in history now or then described themselves so uniquely, significantly as black, and yet so vaguely?
I would think a fair and honest explanation of this one phrase would help provide a context for better informed debate or settle the matter.
“dumusaĝ [FIRST-BORN] (66x: ED IIIb, Lagash II, Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. dumu-saĝ “first-born”….It seems also that head is used to mean first in a series….”dubsaĝ [BEFORE] (76x: Old Akkadian, Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. dub-saĝ “first; before” Akk. mahrû; qudmu”
If I’m not mistaken, if I’m not misunderstanding the grammatical complexity here “sag” then isn’t just “head” meaning skull, face etc, the body part alone but can be “first”, first humankind? You see “sag” being used this way in other compound uses. Notice in the standard translation they don’t relate this to the word giggi…I don’t understand if salmat is related to salmu though it appears it might be or giggi relates to giga…from my limited understanding, I suspect it does mean "black mankind".
giggi [BLACK] (941x: ED IIIa, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, 1st millennium) wr. giggi; gi6-gi6 “(to be) black” Akk. Şalmu
Nevertheless to say “black-headed people” is not conclusive or necessary because there are other choices, the translator can select one of three items, “head”; “person”; “capital”; given those three choices and a fourth if “head” (capital, chief) as “sag” can also mean first, so it is foolish for people to think or assume so confidently that it means a description of “dark haired” peoples, and thus “whites”, and this assumption is all over the internet now, I’m sure even right here; as I said there are words for hair at least in the Sumerian Dictionary in terms of Sumerian versions in Akkadian and Babylonian.
To be black headed, what does black headed mean…again, when there are three choices given for Sag: head 3582x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. saĝ “head; person; capital” Akk. qaqqadu; rēšu: head;person;capital…is the choice of head over the others a substitute for “person”? Think about it. It’s not even clear if head in the accepted translation means chief or it means the skull, or “first blacks”–it’s not clear what usage of “head” is being put forward here by the traditional accepted false translation.
Are we talking about the head of the line, the head of mankind etc. so to dismiss afrocentric concerns of faulty translation in this, and other cases, is not warranted…and which makes more logical sense, person or head—why would the ancients leave out the rest of their body and why is it that there is no emphasis on hair, beards etc as in phrases such as “the dark haired” ones, the “hairy ones”, “black hairs”, the “bearded fathers” etc., these would be appropriate if the people recognized hair as their distinctive mark, brown or black…it’s dubious then that it means hair of any kind given the choices above…I think the mainstream scholars will have to explain what they think “head” itself designates to justify such a vague choice given the other two and more correct choice of “person”. The choice of first is even more profoundly threatening. They must give and answer with a criteria for this choice which seems to allow all sorts of people to assume it mean “dark haired”.
Mainstream white scholars already recognize that “sag” doesn’t mean “head and hair”… “Figurative Language in the Near East” edited by Mindlin, Geller, Wansbrough…this is from an article with the title “A Riding Tooth”…
The words for head, Sumerian saĝ, Akkadian qaqqadum and rēšum, are extremely productive in the metaphoric (catachrestic) creation of new terms. I only refer to the use of ‘head’ for ‘slave’ as in Latin, to saĝ-níĝ-GA-ra=rēš makkūrim for the ‘available capital accounted for’ on account tablets which at least once is referred to in an Old Babylonian letter (in the accusative) as qaqqadī kaspim ‘the heads of (the) silver’.8 Related to this is Sumerian dub—saĝ ‘tablet head’ for the beginning of a cuneiform tablet9, and, once more transferred, used for ‘beginning’ in general.10 The beginning of a period may be called its ‘head’ as in kaqqad ebūrim11, ‘beginning of the harvest time’. In yet another letter we find the head in the adverbial accusative rēšam, ‘in the beginning’.12 An area abounding in metaphoric terminology is the scholarly language of extispicy. On a sheep’s liver we find such structures as a city (or palace) gate with its door jambs
The first Sumerians were some sort of people that looked black or were dark skinned to the point where they percieved a difference with others in the same region.
posted
What this subject, debate needs are blacks that don’t defend or support Eurocentric racism but are not afrocentrics either. I think afrocentrism is another European imposition on African peoples, the descendents of slaves and colonized peoples, natives. I think blackness is itself a European imposition, Eurocentric ideas, which blacks have adopted, the very language they speak is often muddled in academic formulations and jargon that is European—the intellectual state of being is modern, European—the original paganism is the real culture that has been lost here, rituals, customs, traditions, social systems etc that never referenced itself being as attached to skin coloration, though the Sumerian name for themselves suggest awareness of that and seems like a contradiction.
Blackness is a self-consciousness the pagan captives would not have had if they weren’t enslaved in a white dominated world. One thing the afrocentrics have right is the idea of seeking original culture through African languages and thinking, customs, and manners, but this thinking if it is to be honestly native, traditional can’t be ideological or political, and must really be isolated from the mainstream culture here, like the Amish, a total rejection of modernity, it must be originally pagan or even Egyptian, before it can even confront the modern world, but everywhere that traditional cultures exist, they exist now as fragile societies, facing destruction or are in fact on the verge of extinction—all traditional cultures must confront the modern, so it can never be pure—some of the problems Africa faces relates to tribalism being out of touch with the idea of unified nation states--if anyone could recreate, the actual sensibility, state of mind and being of the original pagan Egyptians for blacks today that would be wonderful, too, but unlikely—modernity is Eurocentrism, it infects everything, afrocentrics are intellectuals of a European sort, to challenge it with its own rhetoric reversed.
The tribalism in Africa is now a mess of conflicted histories and peoples, the pan-african movement is a lost dream, a riff of languages, Moslem, Christian, pagan, that cannot unite at the moment so the afrocentric viewpoint is limited to an American audience, movement and not a very popular one it seems.
I don’t know if there is any such middle group of students that wants to look at the evidence or search for the evidence historically without it being a spiritual or political, messianic ideological effort, an effort to save rather than to educate people black or white on facts and possibilities.
Yet I believe given the amount of rabid racism during the heyday of science’s infancy there could’ve been a deliberate cover up or denial of things that were discovered that challenged the denigration of a whole race of native peoples. Learning is not free of politics or emotions. The odd translation of “black-headed people” above is proof enough to me.
This movement would accept the basic thesis, or hypthosis, of early african civilizations in Egypt and elsewhere based say on the current science that seems to suggest humanity emerged from Africa first, it's likely, so there was plenty of time for early migrations, and that Africans had the most diverse gene pool. The aim would not be to debunk but gather any interesting data offered by the afrocentrics and others and then applying more careful scholarship, visual, archeological, historical writings, current scientific evidence, to support the thesis of ancient black civilizations and its influence on other peoples and maybe find an explanation for the development of different cultures.
What would be excluded is all forms of chauvinism, racism, anything in fact that smacks of Eurocentric corruption, race identity now or in the past—yes to speculations, argument, discussion, facts—no cultish thinking--we data mine all the texts, images for evidence but reject any kind of supremacist, spiritual ideology that imposes itself on the ancient peoples, either white or black, our muddled racialist infected point of view, unless ancient authors explicitly express racist views in original texts.
This doesn’t mean you can’t identify with the beauty and achievements of ancient black Egyptians on a human level, but the identification won’t be about their race specifically but their humanity. There is no harm in feeling natural pride and even self-esteem in knowing that ancient blacks of one sort or another had achieved great things in the past and that the racist lie of black inferiority is false.
I wish there was a study group, with membership, like that I could join in to harness the energies and information here to help convince those on the outside of the debate, of course those with an open mind, rather than a closed and hostile one.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Horsenation racecentric terms and definitions he himself cannot define
"some nubians have the same brown color but they always have negro faces, not egyptian" What the hell is a negro face and an Egyptian face? If by Kneegroows you mean Africans with broad features then what happens when you have the above? same family of the 4th dynasty royals.. Negroes? Non Negroids or Negroes? blacks or just plain ol Africans? come on Horse, give us a definition that makes sense.
The one on the left looks familiar. Posts: 3 | Registered: Oct 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
It’s not obvious to racists that the ancient Egyptians were some sort of mixed race at a certain period in their history, in many ways they look like mixed peoples today—maybe at an early period in history they looked more negroid.
But this term negroid is the racist term for a specific type of black features that was singled out, it became the most caricatured and exaggerated in numerous cartoons, films—instead of offering jobs to black actors with less negroid features than others they emphasized what they considered the ugly and funny black type, thick lips, bugging out eyes—it seems however that blacks, Africans, have a variety of facial appearances, like Europeans themselves.
No Hollywood films emphazed a supposedly "ugly" European type and then defined that facial type as being representative of all Europeans, this is what happened to Black Americans and Africans generally, whites were made to see this type as the negro--I suspect the earliest Egyptians were maybe purely Africans rather than mixed, though it's not clear when the mixing took place, though Herodotus seems to suggests there wasn't a whole lot of mixing going on when he was there because he describes them as mostly black and whoolly haired. For Africans check out Tintin comics by Herge.
It’s obvious to me anyway that the features on these (idealized or not) pieces of sculpture are non-whites, whatever that might mean, they’re not European whites and seem more to resemble blacks, negroes, or mixed African Americans or even the types you see in Cuba or Brazil.
As to the nature of the culture of these people, their artwork suggests a totemic, "primitive" animist origins for their culture in the very use of animal figures in their art, all these animals are connected to animist Africa and maybe more early peoples in the interior, that's is my speculation.
They recently discovered a “black mummy” in the Sahara, which suggested that mumification predates Egypt, and they discussed on this show a possible intermingling of this group with a group, I suppose, to use the racist term, that would be classified as white.
The profound hatred of the negroid type is so infectious that it seems that even educated people are unwilling to even conceded that these people weren’t white whatever they were, they’re not European in body or mind—and given the science and genetics, it’s more likely than not whether they look negroid or not they were some variety of black Africans, not Semites, not Euro-Asiatics, not middle easterners, not the Arabs you find in modern Egypt, though others have pointed out that these middle eastern peoples today do in fact show traces of their black African origins, the proof of this is in Brazil and other places were you do see the result of mixing with blacks, it creates an exotic type of person, of many varieties, and even mixed with native Indians, and many of the features you see in mixed peoples you see in Egypt.
It's funny and ironic that the Romans regarded the northen Europeans as inferiors because they lived in a colder region and this is such a strange paradox when you look at the Eurocentric love of all things Roman and Greek even today. They refuse to acknowledge that all this talk is a result of their own racialist thinking and fanaticism, even in the early sciences.
My guess is the earliest Egyptians were blacks of a variety, Negroid types or not. This terminology is the result of European racism, it’s desire to classify peoples in term of classes, noble or ignoble, savage or civilized—others apparantly were not immune from this, in a study “White on Black", a study of black derogatory images in visual media from the beginning of slavery to the present, a Dutch author, who is white, claimed that Anglo Saxons in England did not regard the Celtish Irish as being white enough or white at all.
So here we have people using “negro" against blacks for trying to sort through what the features of the Ancient Egyptians might represent based on white fears, white conceptions of beauty, design, and what beauty represents in terms of civilization, culture, intelligence…blacks are forced into using absurd racist terms whites cannot acknowledge, own as their own, as causing the problem in the first place simply because they wanted to uniformly denigrate a people’s appearance by singling out what they regarded as ugly, savage, animal-like, ape-like, making that what it means to be black or african. It's a mental illness that is alas still with us.
If there are "ugly" people, in nature by design or accident, we find ugly people everywhere—it’s not even clear in terms of scholarship what the aesthetic thinking or feeling was regarding color and features in Ancient Egypt, and in its artistic uses.
They just found another African looking sculpture, in black stone this time. I’m sure the racist will dismiss that as just symbolic, aesthetic, rather than the actual reference to the ruler’s skin coloration and features.
The Hyprocracy around Herodotus and others is really fascinating, they quote them when it suits them and when it doesn't they ignore or bad mouth them for their description of ancient black Egytpians and Indians--he could've said light brown with straight hair, if he was a racist. We're lucky he wasn't anti-black.
In the above, I’m of course speaking of the time before the Ancient Egyptians became more white than black, and that is probably the time that most people perceive as being Ancient Egypt, what is that, the time of Cleopatra? I'm of course using the racist terms, the only terms we have to describe this stupid situation.
If these are not blacks of some variety, the people who made these works of art sure loved making their rulers look like non-whites for some reason. It's true, that afrocentric statement, you do see African Americans walking about who look like the sculpture, I've seen faces that resemble, say, a Reggie Bush. I don't know but maybe a slave that looked like Reggie might've been acknowledged by the slave owner/buyers as being quite a handsome "negro".
posted
So much of western fantasy and imagination is tied to Ancient and modern Egypt, there is tourism, there are ruins and artifacts worth millions, there is the prestige for the modern post colonial nation states in the region, there are scholars who need and want access to these countries, money is involved here, even, perhaps poorly done or argued scholarship, that asserts alien and ancient astronaut contacts with ancient peoples--tied up with both Ancient predynastic or dynastic Egypt and Sumer, not to mention New Age spiritual ideas as well as a revival of occultism around its supposed mysteries, that the afrocentric voice is lumped in and denigrated with so called pseudo-science rather than embraced as a legitemate revisionist history that might be onto something. I’m not a debunker of these other so called “pseudo-sciences” because I think it’s a cheap and derogatory term to dismiss what might or could be true. I have my doubts about much of it but I’m not going to condemn it as pseudo-science, it’s too vague a term and I believe critics should forthrightly express their disagreement rather than call things names. Afrocentrics believe some of these other beliefs around Egyptian “mysteries” are part of the cover-up, white denial, of the truth, just other attempts to deny the obvious: attributing civilization to aliens is a way to avoid the fact that blacks gave the world its first civilizations.
I can see where white scholars who might see the facts are afraid to tackle this for reasons of both perhaps their own racist upbringing and presumptions and ignorance, the society of their peers, or just a fear of not getting access to ruins and artifacts or being ridiculed by their colleagues if they step across the sacred consensus of acceptable orthodoxy, you could lose tenure—one remarkable lesson the science fiction book Dune teaches is how orthodoxies easily tends to replace each other with a mirrored fanaticism—science has replaced religious orthodoxy with its own around evolution and the big bang, and even people who can’t explain these believe in them and tell you to believe in them without discussion—it’s what science says—so it must be true—so many people are so far removed from intellectual academic culture that we have to take their word for it—well, that should not be acceptable to science nor honest inquiry--on top of that, there are class differences, working class people and intellectual people or people with intellectual pretensions have no contact with each other, don’t associate with each other, they don’t have the same education and social life in common--there are questions of access to resources that would aide better scholarship…it’s a real shame…but blacks ought to try and convince, if not whites, other blacks, of the importance of this, not in terms of racial identity but exposing the harm racism can do and has done to the search for the truth around black contribution in history. This history needs a defense and argument that supports further and more thorough research and stronger presentation—who knows what other discoveries will confirm the truth on these matters, only time will tell, but sooner later irrefutable proof or an unarguable defense will be brought forward to the mainstream public.
What I hope to do when I get the time is to provide a reasoned defense of the study of this question—I think it must be emphasized again and again that the rabid racism of the past and today against blacks that has denigrated them, such a bombardment of hatred could explain the blowback of denial and avoidance of facts, as in the Sumerian example, and what is self-evident in the images all over this website of clearly black people, some negro looking or mixed, that seems to be deeply connected to Ancient Egypt, Pre-dynastic and later. Don’t despair because of it but don’t turn your knowledge of the truth in the defense of any kind of counter racism, which allows racist to get off the hook, which allows them to forget their rabid racist history and abuse of their own methods of science and which allows them to overlook their intellectual dishonesty.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
I’m not talking about convincing people that all ready agree, some of this approach here and elsewhere on the internet is preaching to the choir kind of discourse. There is no real attempt to convince by persuasion, the best rationales possible to capture open minds and hearts. That is if you care to. Some don't and just want to wallow in their on beliefs and sense of having found the truth. It's the same with the occultists and ancient astronaut crowd actually. They find a niche and stick to it.
You need to create popular books and websites that can use the images more effectively, for example, if you could find a black computer expert with knowledge in 3d graphics software and overlays (transparancies) you could use models of the sculptures in particular and then overlay matching features from contemporary blacks that would show how closely the noses and lips match—it’s obvious to me that we see negroid features in the comparative pictures more or less, thicker, thinner, I see for example with the negorid lips above, the same curves, more or less in disagrees of size; so in order to break through the mind-block, the unwillingness of whites and blacks to face the truth, you’ve got to develop techniques that can break the self-hypnosis, that is if you want to speak to more than your community—in some ways afrocentrics are in their own ivory towers—a test like that is repeatable and can help validate the images against attacks, just overlay them as closely as possible without distorting the original sculpture or the photographs; 3d technology could perhaps help to do this for the images and it wouldn't be like the racist influenced remaking of Tut's face all the while ignoring the obvious negroid features in the sculpture. I use negroid loosely for all that hints of blackness. I don't mean it in the racist catagory sense. The blacks that looked more appealing to whites were of course not so negroid and they separate them from the rest by classing them as what Bantu?
Do a documentary with this and any text based evidence.
There should be a website devoted to gathering and collating the evidence and writing and editing for popular reading but thoroughly documented and cited. Two much of the writing seems riddled with academic jargon and analysis that sounds two confusing, two much that is disorganized, or overbearing, the evidence must be more systemically and carefully presented in readable and understandable passages, plus explanations and introductions of methods and sources. Why is it neccessary to justify this research, why even if you disagree with afrocentrism as a social or political identity movement, why historically the research is valid on its own.
Maybe it could be some sort of wiki type encycopledia with editors and readers contributing and discusing and rewriting for clarity, clean copy and persuasiveness?
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Of course calling people out on their racism seals up ears right away so I’m wondering if even discussing racism might be counter-productive since many whites and some blacks don’t want to hear about it—well, it can’t be used carelessly as I have perhaps used it here but must be discussed with some care and diplomacy.
Perhaps the discoveries and proofs should be offered up first with sub-categories, side-bars, to explore why they haven’t been acknowledged or treated fairly, with more polite language than I have used, thus a history of the racist images and science against blacks. How to convince others that people of African appearance as a category of humans had achieved civilizations even in ancient times rather than in later ages and the Middle Ages. A wiki type set up would be good because it would be self correcting and constantly updating the info--self criticial.
There maybe no avoiding hurting the feelings of whites who don’t want to reflect on a profoundly racist recent history, just a hundred or so years ago and on up to the 1960s with racism still around even today, Obama’s treatment being a perfect example of overreaction to a black president, of mixed heritage even so.
It's striking, Obama, his daughter's achieve exactly the exotic look you see in some of the Egyptian images, proving again that what we are seeing in some of the sculpture and images are mixed blacks interbred with whites or whites intrebreeding with blacks. Note also how both parents fit the "negro" catagory but the daughters have what would be considered whiter features? Obama shows that even if whites and blacks interbred, in ancient Egypt, a black could still look more or less like the "negro" type as Obama does. So you could have whiter looking Egyptains and black negroid Egyptians living side by side. In non-racist times it probably wasn't a problem for them, culture, language, power, nobility, family history, manners might've been important to them rather than what skin color or features you had. Obama's poor half-brother had such strikingly appealing features that even Obama himself acknowledged the boy, a baby, as handsome when Obama met him once. Ironically they don't resemble each other today or their father who is an example of the dreaded "negro" type. But look at the underwear bomber (I can't spell his name). He fits the negro type but with very appealing symmetrical features which the Europeans regard highly, an aesthetic they got from the Ancient Greeks?
The ancient Roman writer calling the Celts inferior wasn't talking about their skin coloration, as far as I can tell from the quote; it was the effects of climate on their intelligence and abilities, thinking Romans benefited from the Mediterranean climate, it had a civilizing effect.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
You know what needs to be done also, some studies of interior parallels in “African” mythologies to see if there are any parallels in African societies on the periphery of Ancient Egypt—I’ve read African folklore and mythology and it's as rich and as fascinating as Europe’s, richer than what we have from Egypt—it seems it’s ignored in terms of any connection to Egypt generally, the fetish Europe has made of Ancient Egypt perhaps made people over look the similarities or connections to what is often seen as “tribal” Africa, darkest Africa—someone needs to go through all of it and compile the similarities if any to Egypt and the Sumerians—a detailed study and analysis—if the Egyptians emerged in prehistory out of early societies, so called “primitives” stone age cultures, finding similarities and connections within tribal myths and folklore could be revealing.
To my knowledge no one has done a comparative study of African pottery designs and early peoples outside of Africa. The African designs are amazing and fantastic the little I’ve seen and there is a sort of consistent look to the designs that seem to connect them to pottery outside Africa but saying so isn't enough, right. Maybe some clues and evidence can be strengthened from African pottery and fabric designs.
One white scholar of the ET hypothesis studying the Dogon and inspired by Temple’s book on the Dogon’s knowledge of the orbits of hidden stars around Sirius claims to have found similarities in the Dogon granary design or architecture and its connection to the pyramids and other sacred temples like Asian stupas. But who possessed this knowledge first, the Dogon’s or the Ancient Egyptians? I can’t even remember the author or the title of the work on the granary design and its connections to sacred geometry beyond Africa. I heard this author on Strieber’s Dreamland. I need to reread Temple's book and this other fellow's book inspired by it.
This might be worth looking into as well, if you're not afraid of such works. I think Temple reverses the discovery of the Sirius material giving it to the Dogon via Egypt rather than it being older and maybe with the dreaded “negroid” types, the Dogon first. Is this true or taking it away from the blacks because I assume Temple assumes the the earliest Egyptians were white?
Sirius was known to the Sumerians and maybe knowledge of it predates both Egypt and Sumeria and even the Dogon.
I’m skeptical of alien contact of the Gods descending sort in ancient times and favor Vallee’s thinking on the phenomenon of alien visitation and contacts today. Much of the mythology of the Sumerians and the ancient Greeks and maybe all peoples seems to be some form of ancestor worship, heroes and ancient ancestors were defied and turned into Gods, it has something to do with after life conceptions of the ancients—the gods are the ghosts of dead ancestors somehow, at some point, mythologized into divine beings, with past historical events re-imagined over time to become the narratives we find in myths. Speculation.
The subject of UFOs, however, deserves like this subject, honest, fair minded investigation rather than suspicious official debunking and ridicule. I haven’t made up my mind about current sightings.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: [QB] 8Man if you are interested in the subject visit here
Hey thanks for the list...I appreciate it...I will check it out...Someone also needs to connect these two debates with a good book, strong arguments for or against it—it seems these “pseudo-sciences” are not tackling each other in any books right now, as far as I can see--though Richard C. Hoagland and others in the ET realm mention the “black-headed” business without saying what they think it actually means-skin color or hair. Does the ancient astronaut scholarship and research theory side-track and diminish the African origins and black origins of these early civilizations because of latent and inbred racism?
Only one actual Sumerian scholar has challenged Sitchin as far as I know but he’s an interesting fellow because he’s a Christian, author of a book "The Facade" which seems to argue against the ancient astronaut theory for one that connects to satanic and end of times belief, the ufo being "devils" of some sort, if I'm not mistaken, and this Christian view of the saucers goes back to the 70s and maybe earlier; he seems to view the events in the Bible as literal history and connects it all to supernatural conflicts involving a "divine council" but avoids the earlier Sumerian texts in his analysis of the gods and human connections decribed in those more ancient texts. I'm not sure what to make of the Bible as history or myth or priestly politics right now because some say it is Egyptain history and myth mixed up which is fascinating but I haven't begun exploring that in terms of sources and facts.
This author, I forget his name, sorry, seems correct in his assessment of Sitchin’s faults as a translator or reader of Sumerian translations but I'm skeptical of his over all religious feeling and point of view, though he seems to be an honest scholar and his analysis and explanation of this "divine council" is quite fascinating. But I would recommend people read the online data-base of the actual raw translations of Sumerian texts while reading Sitchin or after reading Sitchin.
I wish someone would fairly tackle Sitchin's work in a serious critique, one without ridicule, of course it's dismised off hand as "pseuodo-science" so who cares. Yet many believe in it without question. It deserves a response of some authority and honesty.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wish you guys would move all this positive material and not waste time debating debunkers but gather and work on the research in such a way to convince others that it’s valid, true, or worth more further investigation and exploration—the beautiful work done all over this website seems wasted and it's pissed on all the time by people who don’t even realize the damage that was done to African societies and peoples by racism. They have no decency or humility or knowledge of how racist their own society was and still often is.
I don't come to website message boards much to post because too much good material is swallowed up and wasted, so please email me if you don't see me posting here much and would like to talk more.
Fascinating as Spock would say.
Reading some of the links shows some of the problems though with this research…I’m not convinced that the Sumerian translations are part of some sort of conspiracy, for example, read the translations to see how odd they are—what this material needs is greater attempts at objective analysis and presentation, while arguing for it, and defending it, we still need to be self-critical of what is known, not known etc. I agreed with some points and disagreed with others. Good stuff over all though.
I guess it was reloaded somewhere else—I’m not sure what egyptsearch reloaded means—some of the pages are locked? No longer available for discussion? Anyway—it belongs in a website with all kinds of audio-visual presentation--a massive collective project, but who will set the rules and guidelines. Wish I had the time to reorganize and critique this material, taking out the best of it and exploring what’s more speculative to either prove it or disprove it or both.
The best arguments are often ones that can offer contradiction as well as proofs, is self-critical, that can understand the limits of scholarship and the need for rigorousness, thoroughness…I wish I could do this subject the justice it deserves.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:I guess it was reloaded somewhere else—I’m not sure what egyptsearch reloaded means—some of the pages are locked? No longer available for discussion?
Yes some threads are reloaded in It's appropriate folder so we cut down on off topic discussions just click on the locked topic and it will take you there. I am one of the moderators btw, Egypt Search Reloaded is an alternative site,many people who post here post there, it has to do with a lack of moderation here where vile language is often used and trolling can get out of hand sometimes,Over there information can be stored without worrying someone putting a dead animal in your thread or making ethnic slurs.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:I guess it was reloaded somewhere else—I’m not sure what egyptsearch reloaded means—some of the pages are locked? No longer available for discussion?
Yes some threads are reloaded in It's appropriate folder so we cut down on off topic discussions just click on the locked topic and it will take you there. I am one of the moderators btw, Egypt Search Reloaded is an alternative site,many people who post here post there, it has to do with a lack of moderation here where vile language is often used and trolling can get out of hand sometimes,Over there information can be stored without worrying someone putting a dead animal in your thread or making ethnic slurs.
Thanks...I try to save these pages to come back to them...
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Again on conspiracies, they might've happened, and it is something to consider in this attempt to piece together a lost history, evidence for it could've been deliberately demaged--if the Nazis had won, no one would remember the Jews today or their history and achievements--in the case of slavery, the institution was a great success for hundreds of years—and Napoleon's treatment of Haiti is an example of the viciousness, irrationality, and destructiveness, and hypocrisy of Europeans during the period in which reason and science were then in their infancy, and though infantile, was the pride and joy of men of supposed culture and sophistication and yet they behaved very badly.
I don’t know, however, how much of it would be unconscious, in terms of Egypt and Sumeria--though there is that possibility—an outright, conscious conspiracy around the Sumerian tablets per se I would say it has to be argued more convincingly, for me anyway—there is much evidence that suggest the digs, the layers the tablets came from, at least in terms of Sumeria, were flawed and unscientific, the native laborers were untrained, not students like today, and that's not emphasized enough, but I haven’t gotten a hold of the primary sources on this question—not a primary source but “The Buried Book” by Damrosch and another source mentions that it was flawed, also the “archaeologists” came with biblical agendas, science was in fact then a form of "pseudo-science", or they came with a monetary agenda in acquiring valuable antiquities and not as true, pure scientists in terms of the modern ideals, still not fully lived up to--there is also in “The Buried Book” evidence that the actual discovery of one key ruin was the achievement of a native Iraqi who was denied recognition for it because of racism. This is new evidence of a real racist cover-up. So conspiracies are possible but I'd like things to be backed up with well reasoned arguments, not necessarily even with all the facts available but with convincing explanations of why it is possible and should be considered. Science is not free of cultural influences or biases--something that should be obvious but the opposition to flawed science shouldn't repeat the same failures?
Well, a cover-up regarding Ancient Egypt is also possible--so the idea that Napoleon's army blew the nose off the Sphinx is not unlikely given his hatred of blacks confirmed by his treatment of Haiti and Haitians, sending in attack dogs to mutilate them, psychologically it’s very plausible. And the face, despite the broken nose, does for some reason remind me of a negro woman, vaguely familiar, like I've seen a face like that somewhere before.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Well, a cover-up regarding Ancient Egypt is also possible--so the idea that Napoleon's army blew the nose off the Sphinx is not unlikely given his hatred of blacks confirmed by his treatment of Haiti and Haitians, sending in attack dogs to mutilate them, psychologically it’s very plausible. And the face, despite the broken nose, does for some reason remind me of a negro woman, vaguely familiar, like I've seen a face like that somewhere before.
Well I don't think he hated blacks per say after-all he had blacks in his armies up to the rank of general, but he was a very callous person over-all the blowing off the nose of the sphinx is an unresolved issue,some believed that the nose damaged by a Sufi Vandal The Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, writing in the fifteenth century, attributes the vandalism to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi fanatic from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose. Al-Maqrizi describes the Sphinx as the "Nile talisman" on which the locals believed the cycle of inundation depended. Btw they caught him and had him hanged http://www.scribd.com/doc/22093733/Facts-About-the-Sphinx But whatever you do keep asking questions even if people sometimes smirk sometimes an answer can be rewarding..btw signup at ESR also.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: 8Man http://www.scribd.com/doc/22093733/Facts-About-the-Sphinx But whatever you do keep asking questions even if people sometimes smirk sometimes an answer can be rewarding..btw signup at ESR also.
Hey, thanks for the education, the citation, I didn't know any of that--good stuff, I wasn’t particularly convinced by the idea that it was blown off because you don’t really see the kind of damage a canon would make if it was, and that would be a pretty good aim just to hit the nose alone—still there is a lot I need to know and read here and go back to.
I’m not an expert on this at all. I'm not sure about posting too much messages though, for one think I can be long winded--I should rather hold my tongue and read more which I hope to do at some point—I’ve been just too busy, but I keep coming back to this subject and this place, partly because it touches slightly on something I’m working on currently--I still prefer a more organized approach, though, where people are working together to construct a clear history and articulation of all this in some other organized online format besides message postings and debates, say, “an encyclopedia of…”
Ah, Napoleon, a fascinating figure, some called him an anti-christ, and his personal feelings towards blacks would also make a fascinating discussion and analysis, having blacks in your army is one thing, having them marry your daughter is another, but a helpful expert on Napoleon interested in his racial feelings and thinking could contribute to a section on Haiti and the Haitian revolution and the Sphinx’s missing nose "mystery"—but I think the above history you quoted sounds like a reasonable explanation--of course Napoleon was also a monster to other Europeans, too—but the ruling elites then were all human monsters of one sort or another, as well as their underlings and henchmen, but I won’t deny them their humanity, we all potentially can be monsters, given the circumstance, the push in the wrong direction.
Still because of this intense racism and hatred of blacks and others throughout this period, anything seems possible regarding blowing up sculpture, falsifying texts, hiding texts, I just found in a scholarly work an author repeating the idea that "dark headed" means “dark haired”, in “Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia” but I think it’s more her ignorance of their vocabulary rather than anything intentionally conspiritorial. If the elite British Victorians hid Ancient Greek gay sculpture and images from their own common folk as well as Greek images of blacks, Snowden's "Black's in Antiquity"...who can say for sure--some of this is just suspicion and paranoia of course heightened because of very real dishonesty in the past but you did the correct thing in pointing out another possible historical explanation or account of what happened to that nose.
And isn't there new speculation that it might've been underwater or half submerged, during some flooding in the region?"
Just a word on Snowden's book, until I read that book I never knew the Ancient Greeks had any images of blacks in their art--you never saw blacks in those old Hercules movies, for example, nor in school book illustrations, either as slaves or heroes. So that maybe an example of a deliberate cover up in terms of even showing to the general public the art work you see in Snowden's book, maybe academics had access to it but not the general reader, viewer.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Recent studies find the ancient Egyptians had a tropical body plan like sub-Saharan 'black' Africans and were not cold-adapted like European type populations. Tropical body plans also indicate darker-skin.
QUOTE: "The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the "super-Negroid" body plan described by Robins (1983).. This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003). "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (3): 219-229.
a 2008 Study puts the ancient Egyptians closer to US Blacks than whites:
Quotes:
"Intralimb (crural and brachial) indices are significantly higher in ancient Egyptians than in American Whites (except crural index among females), i.e., Egyptians have relatively longer distal segments (Table 4). Intralimb indices are not significantly different between Egyptians and American Blacks... Many of those who have studied ancient Egyptians have commented on their characteristically ''tropical'' or ''African'' body plan (Warren, 1897; Masali, 1972; Robins, 1983; Robins and Shute, 1983, 1984, 1986; Zakrzewski, 2003). Egyptians also fall within the range of modern African populations (Ruff and Walker, 1993), but close to the upper limit of modern Europeans as well, at least for the crural index (brachial indices are definitely more ''African'').. In terms of femoral and tibial length to total skeletal height proportions, we found that ancient Egyptians are significantly different from US Blacks, although still closer to Blacks than to Whites.
Comparisons of linear body proportions of Old Kingdom and non-Old Kingdom period individuals, and workers and high officials in our sample found no statistically significant differences among them. Zakrzewski (2003) also found little evidence for differences in linear body proportions of Egyptians over a wider temporal range. In general, recent studies of skeletal variation among ancient Egyptians support scenarios of biological continuity through time. Irish (2006) analyzed quantitative and qualitative dental traits of 996 Egyptians from Neolithic through Roman periods, reporting the presence of a few outliers but concluding that the dental samples appear to be largely homogeneous and that the affinities observed indicate overall biological uniformity and continuity from Predynastic through Dynastic and Postdynastic periods.
Zakrzewski (2007) provided a comprehensive summary of previous Egyptian craniometric studies and examined Egyptian crania from six time periods. She found that the earlier samples were relatively more homogeneous in comparison to the later groups. However, overall results indicated genetic continuity over the Egyptian Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, albeit with a high level of genetic diversity within the population, suggesting an indigenous process of state formation. She also concluded that while the biological patterning of the Egyptian population varied across time, no consistent temporal or spatial trends are apparent. Thus, the stature estimation formulae developed here may be broadly applicable to all ancient Egyptian populations.." ("Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature." Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, (Am J Phys Anthropol. 2008, Jun;136(2):147-55
Older limb studies find the same:
"In this regard it is interesting to note that limb proportions of Predynastic Naqada people in Upper Egypt are reported to be "Super-Negroid," meaning that the distal segments are elongated in the fashion of tropical Africans.....skin color intensification and distal limb elongation are apparent wherever people have been long-term residents of the tropics." (C.L. Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters..")
"An attempt has been made to estimate male and female Egyptian stature from long bone length using Trotter & Gleser negro stature formulae, previous work by the authors having shown that these rather than white formulae give more consistent results with male dynastic material... When consistency has been achieved in this way, predynastic proportions are founded to be such that distal segments of the limbs are even longer in relation to the proximal segments than they are in modern negroes. Such proportions are termed "super-negroid"...
Robins (1983) and Robins & Shute (1983) have shown that more consistent results are obtained from ancient Egyptian male skeletons if Trotter & Gleser formulae for negro are used, rather than those for whites which have always been applied in the past. .. their physical proportions were more like modern negroes than those of modern whites, with limbs that were relatively long compared with the trunk, and distal segments that were long compared with the proximal segments. If ancient Egyptian males had what may be termed negroid proportions, it seems reasonable that females did likewise." (Robins G, Shute CCD. 1986. Predynastic Egyptian stature and physical proportions. Hum Evol 1:313-324. Ruff CB. 1994.)
The ancient Badarians were quite representative of ancient Egyptians as a whole and showed clear links with tropical Africans to the south. They have been sometimes excluded in studies of the ancient Egyptian population, which shows continuity in its history, not mass influxes of foreigners until the late periods.
Quotes: "As a result of their facial prognathism, the Badarian sample has been described as forming a morphological cluster with Nubian, Tigrean, and other southern (or \Negroid") groups (Morant, 1935, 1937; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Nutter, 1958, Strouhal, 1971; Angel, 1972; Keita, 1990). Cranial nonmetric trait studies have found this group to be similar to other Egyptians, including much later material (Berry and Berry, 1967, 1972), but also to be significantly different from LPD material (Berry et al., 1967). Similarly, the study of dental nonmetric traits has suggested that the Badarian population is at the centroid of Egyptian dental samples (Irish, 2006), thereby suggesting similarity and hence continuity across Egyptian time periods. From the central location of the Badarian samples in Figure 2, the current study finds the Badarian to be relatively morphologically close to the centroid of all the Egyptian samples. The Badarian have been shown to exhibit greatest morphological similarity with the temporally successive EPD (Table 5). Finally, the biological distinctiveness of the Badarian from other Egyptian samples has also been demonstrated (Tables 6 and 7).
These results suggest that the EDyn do form a distinct morphological pattern. Their overlap with other Egyptian samples (in PC space, Fig. 2) suggests that although their morphology is distinctive, the pattern does overlap with the other time periods. These results therefore do not support the Petrie concept of a \Dynastic race" (Petrie, 1939; Derry, 1956). Instead, the results suggest that the Egyptian state was not the product of mass movement of populations into the Egyptian Nile region, but rather that it was the result of primarily indigenous development combined with prolonged small-scale migration, potentially from trade, military, or other contacts.
This evidence suggests that the process of state formation itself may have been mainly an indigenous process, but that it may have occurred in association with in-migration to the Abydos region of the Nile Valley. This potential in-migration may have occurred particularly during the EDyn and OK. A possible explanation is that the Egyptian state formed through increasing control of trade and raw materials, or due to military actions, potentially associated with the use of the Nile Valley as a corridor for prolonged small scale movements through the desert environment. (Sonia R. Zakrzewski. (2007). Population Continuity or Population Change: Formation of the Ancient Egyptian State. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 132:501-509)
Ancient Egyptians most related to other Africans and are part of a Nilotic continuity rather than something Mediterranean or Middle Eastern
"Certainly there was some foreign admixture [in Egypt], but basically a homogeneous African population had lived in the Nile Valley from ancient to modern times... [the] Badarian people, who developed the earliest Predynastic Egyptian culture, already exhibited the mix of North African and Sub-Saharan physical traits that have typified Egyptians ever since (Hassan 1985; Yurco 1989; Trigger 1978; Keita 1990.. et al.,)... The peoples of Egypt, the Sudan, and much of East African Ethiopia and Somalia are now generally regarded as a Nilotic continuity, with widely ranging physical features (complexions light to dark, various hair and craniofacial types) but with powerful common cultural traits, including cattle pastoralist traditions.." (Frank Yurco, "An Egyptological Review," 1996 -in Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers, Black Athena Revisited, 1996, The University of North Carolina Press, p. 62-100)
African peoples are the most diverse in the world whether analyzed by DNA or skeletal or cranial methods. Attempts to deny this are rooted in racism and error. African people, particularly SUB-SAHARAN Africans, vary the most in how they look, more so than any other population in the world.
"Estimates of genetic diversity in major geographic regions are frequently made by pooling all individuals into regional aggregates. This method can potentially bias results if there are differences in population substructure within regions, since increased variation among local populations could inflate regional diversity. A preferred method of estimating regional diversity is to compute the mean diversity within local populations. Both methods are applied to a global sample of craniometric data consisting of 57 measurements taken on 1734 crania from 18 local populations in six geographic regions: sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, East Asia, Australasia, Polynesia, and the Americas. Each region is represented by three local populations.
Both methods for estimating regional diversity show sub-Saharan Africa to have the highest levels of phenotypic variation, consistent with many genetic studies." (Relethford, John "Global Analysis of Regional Differences in Craniometric Diversity and Population Substructure". Human Biology - Volume 73, Number 5, October 2001, pp. 629-636)
"The living peoples of the African continent are diverse in facial characteristics, stature, skin color, hair form, genetics, and other characteristics. No one set of characteristics is more African than another. Variability is also found in "sub-Saharan" Africa, to which the word "Africa" is sometimes erroneously restricted. There is a problem with definitions. Sometimes Africa is defined using cultural factors, like language, that exclude developments that clearly arose in Africa. For example, sometimes even the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea) is excluded because of geography and language and the fact that some of its peoples have narrow noses and faces.
However, the Horn is at the same latitude as Nigeria, and its languages are African. The latitude of 15 degree passes through Timbuktu, surely in "sub-Saharan Africa," as well as Khartoum in Sudan; both are north of the Horn. Another false idea is that supra-Saharan and Saharan Africa were peopled after the emergence of "Europeans" or Near Easterners by populations coming from outside Africa. Hence, the ancient Egyptians in some writings have been de-Africanized. These ideas, which limit the definition of Africa and Africans, are rooted in racism and earlier, erroneous "scientific" approaches." (S. Keita, "The Diversity of Indigenous Africans," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Clenko, Editor (1996), pp. 104-105. [10])
Modern DNA studies find even though some African peoples look different, they are genetically related through the PN2 transition clade of the Y-chromosone. Haplogroup E links numerous peoples together even though they don't look exactly the same.
"But the Y-chromosome clade defined by the PN2 transition (PN2/M35, PN2/M2) shatters the boundaries of phenotypically defined races and true breeding populations across a great geographical expanse. African peoples with a range of skin colors, hair forms and physiognomies have substantial percentages of males whose Y chromosomes form closely related clades with each other, but not with others who are phenotypically similar. The individuals in the morphologically or geographically defined 'races' are not characterized by 'private' distinct lineages restricted to each of them." (S O Y Keita, R A Kittles, et al. "Conceptualizing human variation," Nature Genetics 36, S17 - S20 (2004)
"Recall that the Horn-Nile Valley crania show, as a group, the largest overlap with other regions. A review of the recent literature indicates that there are male lineage ties between African peoples who have been traditionally labeled as being ''racially'' different, with ''racially'' implying an ontologically deep divide. The PN2 transition, a Y chromosome marker, defines a lineage (within the YAPþ derived haplogroup E or III) that emerged in Africa probably before the last glacial maximum, but after the migration of modern humans from Africa (see Semino et al., 2004). This mutation forms a clade that has two daughter subclades (defined by the biallelic markers M35/215 (or 215/M35) and M2) that unites numerous phenotypically variant African populations from the supra-Saharan, Saharan, and sub-Saharan regions.." (S.O.Y Keita. Exploring northeast African metric craniofacial variation at the individual level: A comparative study using principal component analysis. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 16:679-689, 2004.) keita2004neanalysis.htm
"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages.. Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world." (Tishkoff SA, Williams SM., Genetic analysis of African populations: human evolution and complex disease. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2002 Aug (8):611-21.)
DNA of some modern Egyptians found a genetic ancestral heritage to East Africa: "The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of 58 individuals from Upper Egypt, more than half (34 individuals) from Gurna, whose population has an ancient cultural history, were studied by sequencing the control-region and screening diagnostic RFLP markers. This sedentary population presented similarities to the Ethiopian population by the L1 and L2 macrohaplogroup frequency (20.6%), by the West Eurasian component (defined by haplogroups H to K and T to X) and particularly by a high frequency (17.6%) of haplogroup M1. We statistically and phylogenetically analysed and compared the Gurna population with other Egyptian, Near East and sub-Saharan Africa populations; AMOVA and Minimum Spanning Network analysis showed that the Gurna population was not isolated from neighbouring populations. Our results suggest that the Gurna population has conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. The current structure of the Egyptian population may be the result of further influence of neighbouring populations on this ancestral population." (Stevanovitch A, Gilles A, Bouzaid E, et al. (2004) Mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in a sedentary population from Egypt.Ann Hum Genet. 68(Pt 1):23-39.)
Tishkoff et al on Africa having the most genetic diversity:
"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages (see online link to Ethnologue). Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world(TABLE 1).However,most studies report only a few markers in divergent African populations, which makes it difficult to draw general conclusions about the levels and patterns of genetic diversity in these populations (FIG. 1). Because genetic studies have been biased towards more economically developed African countries that have key research or medical centres, populations from more underdeveloped or politically unstable regions of Africa remain undersampled (FIG. 1). Historically, human population genetic studies have relied on one or two African populations as being representative of African diversity, but recent studies show extensive genetic variation among even geographically close African populations, which indicates that there is not a single 'representative' African population." -- Tishkoff NATURE REVIEWS | GENETICS VOLUME 3 | AUGUST 2002
"Genetic studies that attempt to recover the biological history of the species have generally found that there is a split between their restricted African samples and "the rest of the world." These approaches conceptualize human population history as a series of bifurcations with each node being relatively uniform. The "Africans" usually used are either the short statured Aka or Mbuti, Khoisan speakers, or West African stereotype s, in keeping with a socially, not scientifically constructed concept of African. Studies using individuals as the unit of analysis evince a different pattern. A select subset of Africans called the "group of 49" forms a unit versus the rest of humankind. However the latter individuals ("rest of humankind") also includes non-East African sub-Saharans. Hence there is no "racial" split. As has been stated, the idea that human variation can be described as being structured by subspecies(races) that are treated as lineages is fundamentally false. In actuality, also, although averages are used, the gene studies usually give us histories that are not necessarily the same as population histories." Writing African History Chapter 4, Physical Anthropology and African History, Shomarka Keita University of Rochester Press p.134
Continent wide African DNA linkages "The most extensive pan-African haplotype (16189 16192 16223 16278 16294 16309 16390) is in the L2a1 haplogroup. This sequence is observed in West Africa among the Malinke, Wolof, and others; in North Africa among the Maure, Hausa, Fulbe, and others; in Central Africa among the Bamileke, Fali, and others; in South Africa among the Khoisan family including the Khwe and Bantu speakers; and in East Africa among the Kikuyu. Closely related variants are observed among the Tuareg in North and West Africa and among the East African Dinka and Somali." (-- Bert Ely , Jamie Lee Wilson , Fatimah Jackson and Bruce A Jackson. (2006). African-American mitochondrial DNAs often match mtDNAs found in multiple African ethnic groups. BMC Biology 2006, 4:34)
"It is of interest that the M35 and M2 lineages are united by a mutation - the PN2 transition. This PN2 defined clade originated in East Africa, where various populations have a notable frequency of its underived state. This would suggest that an ancient population in East Africa, or more correctly its males, form the basis of the ancestors of all African upper Paleolithic populations - and their subsequent descendants in the present day." (--Bengston, John D. (ed.), In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology. 2008. John Benjamins Publishing: pp. 3-16)
Egyptian Y-chromosome haplotypes show preponderance is with African clusters not Europe or the Near East
Recent DNA studies of the Sudan show genetic unity and linkage between the Sudanic, Horn, Egyptian, Nubian and other Nilotic peoples, confirming earlier skeletal/cranial studies and historical data. (Yurco (1989, 1996), Keita (1993,2004, 2005) Lovell (1999), Zakrewski (2003, 2007) et. al). Of note is that DNA data shows that some peoples linked to one of the oldest Egyptian populations, the original Copts, have a significant frequency of the B-M60 marker, indicating early colonization of Egypt by Nilotics in the state formation period.
QUOTES:
"Haplogroup E-M78, however, is more widely distributed and is thought to have an origin in eastern African. More recently, this haplogroup has been carefully dissected and was found to depict several well-established subclades with defined geographical clustering (Cruciani et al., 2006, 2007). Although this haplogroup is common to most Sudanese populations, it has exceptionally high frequency among populations like those of western Sudan (particularly Darfur) and the Beja in eastern Sudan... Although the PC plot places the Beja and Amhara from Ethiopia in one sub-cluster based on shared frequencies of the haplogroup J1, the distribution of M78 subclades (Table 2) indicates that the Beja are perhaps related as well to the Oromo on the basis of the considerable frequencies of E-V32 among Oromo in comparison to Amhara (Cruciani et al., 2007)...
These findings affirm the historical contact between Ethiopia and eastern Sudan (1998), and the fact that these populations speak languages of the Afroasiatic family tree reinforces the strong correlation between linguistic and genetic diversity (Cavalli-Sforza, 1997)."
"Genetic continuum of the Nubians with their kin in southern Egypt is indicated by comparable frequencies of E-V12 the predominant M78 subclade among southern Egyptians." [Hassan et al. Y-chromosome variation.." Am J. Phy Anthro. v137,3. 316-323
"The Copt samples displayed a most interesting Y-profile, enough (as much as that of Gaalien in Sudan) to suggest that they actually represent a living record of the peopling of Egypt. The significant frequency of B-M60 in this group might be a relic of a history of colonization of southern Egypt probably by Nilotics in the early state formation, something that conforms both to recorded history and to Egyptian mythology." Source: (Hisham Y. Hassan 1, Peter A. Underhill 2, Luca L. Cavalli-Sforza 2, Muntaser E. Ibrahim 1. (2008). Y-chromosome variation among Sudanese: Restricted gene flow, concordance with language, geography, and history. Am J Phys Anthropology, 2008. Volume 137 Issue 3, Pages 316 - 323)
Older research notes the physical makeup of the original Copts, now confirmed by recent DNA data above: "In Libya, which is mostly desert and oasis, there is a visible Negroid element in the sedentary populations, and at the same is true of the Fellahin of Egypt, whether Copt or Muslim. Osteological studies have shown that the Negroid element was stronger in predynastic times than at present, reflecting an early movement northward along the banks of the Nile, which were then heavily forested." (Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. "Populations, Human")
Haplogroup E3A and E3B represent more than 70% of the Y-chromosones on the African continent, with varying proportions found in different parts of the continent. In some African populations for example, E3B exceeds 80%. Migrations out of Africa, are responsible for the spread of E3b to Europe. Non-Africans thus acquired a sub-set f African genes through this migration.
"In Europe, the overall frequency pattern of haplogroup E-M78 does not support the hypothesis of a uniform spread of people from a single parental Near Eastern population... The Y chromosome specific biallelic marker DYS271 defines the most common haplogroup (E3a) currently found in sub-Saharan Africa. A sister clade, E3b (E-M215), is rare in sub-Saharan Africa, but very common in northern and eastern Africa. On the whole, these two clades represent more than 70% of the Y chromosomes of the African continent. A third clade belonging to E3 (E3c or E-M329) has been recently reported to be present only in eastern Africa, at low frequencies.. The new topology of the E3 haplogroup is suggestive of a relatively recent eastern African origin for the majority of the chromosomes presently found in sub-Saharan Africa."
"In conclusion, we detected the signatures of several distinct processes of migration and/or recurrent gene flow associated with the dispersal of haplogroup E3b lineages. Early events involved the dispersal of E-M78d chromosomes from eastern Africa into and out of Africa, as well as the introduction of the E-M34 subclade into Africa from the Near East. Later events involved short-range migrations within Africa (E-M78? and E-V6) and from northern Africa into Europe (E-M81 and E-M78ß), as well as an important range expansion from the Balkans to western and southern-central Europe (E-M78a). This latter expansion was the main contributor to the present distribution of E3b chromosomes in Europe."
(Cruciani, F, et. al. (2004) Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa, Am J Hum Genet. 74(5): 1014-1022.)
Somalis link much more heavily with African populations such as those in Kenya and Ethiopia than Middle Eastern or European ones according to DNA evidence. Eurasian genes only accounted for about 15% of the mix among Somalis, typically associated with recent Arab influence. On such key common DNA markers as E3b1, Europeans only weighed in at 5%, and Middle Easterners at approximately 6%. The overwhelming link of Somalis- over 85% of the total is with Africans. Kenya and Ethiopia are located in "sub-Saharan" Africa.
"The high frequency (77.6%) of haplogroup E3b1 was characteristic of male Somalis. The frequency of E3b1 was significantly lower in Ethiopian Oromos (35.9%), Ethiopian Amharas (22.9%), Egyptians (20.0%), Sudanese (17.5%), Kenyans (15.1%),10 Iraqis (6.3%), Northern Africans (6.1%), Southern Europeans (0.5-5.1%) and sub-Saharan populations." (Sanchez et al.,(2005) High frequencies of Y chromosome lineages characterized by E3b1, DYS19-11, DYS392-12 in Somali males, Eu J of Hum Genet (2005) 13, 856-866)
\\\\\
-------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Simplistic "race percentage" models are dubious in Africa which has the highest genetic diversity in the world. That diversity proceeded from deeper sub-Saharan Africa, to East and N.E. Africa, then to the rest of the globe. All other populations, including Europeans and "Middle easterners" carry this diversity which was built into Africa to begin with. Africans thus don't need any "race mix" to look different. Their diversity is built-in and supplied the whole globe. Any returnees or "backflow" to Africa looked like Africans. (Brace 2005, Hanihara 1996, Holliday 2003).
"These studies suggest a recent and primary subdivision between African and non-African populations, high levels of divergence among African populations, and a recent shared common ancestry of non-African populations, from a population originating in Africa. The intermediate position, between African and non-African populations, that the Ethiopian Jews and Somalis occupy in the PCA plot also has been observed in other genetic studies (Ritte et al. 1993; Passarino et al. 1998) and could be due either to shared common ancestry or to recent gene flow. The fact that the Ethiopians and Somalis have a subset of the sub-Saharan African haplotype diversity and that the non-African populations have a subset of the diversity present in Ethiopians and Somalis makes simple-admixture models less likely; rather, these observations support the hypothesis proposed by other nuclear-genetic studies (Tishkoff et al. 1996a, 1998a, 1998b; Kidd et al. 1998) that populations in northeastern Africa may have diverged from those in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa early in the history of modern African populations and that a subset of this northeastern-African population migrated out of Africa and populated the rest of the globe. These conclusions are supported by recent mtDNA analysis (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999)." [Tishkoff et al. (2000) Short Tandem-Repeat Polymorphism/Alu Haplotype Variation at the PLAT Locus: Implications for Modern Human Origins. Am J Hum Genet; 67:901-925]
Data on Ethiopian peoples like the Oromo are underreported even though they make up the largest group percentage wise in the Ethiopian population, (50%) and are often pooled with others, hiding and obscuring their overall contribution to the Ethiopian gene pool.
"This difference, not revealed in the study by Passarino et al. (1998), in which the Oromo were underrepresented, might reflect distinct population histories." (--Semino, et al. (2002). Ethiopians and Khoisan Share the Deepest Clades of the Human Y..")
"These data, together with those reported elsewhere (Ritte et al. 1993a, 1993b; Hammer et al. 2000) suggest that the Ethiopian Jews acquired their religion without substantial genetic admixture from Middle Eastern peoples and that they can be considered an ethnic group with essentially a continental African genetic composition." (Cruciani, et. al Am J Hum Genet. 2002 May; 70(5): 1197-1214. "A Back Migration from Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa Is Supported by High-Resolution Analysis of Human Y-Chromosome Haplotypes)
"An earlier generation of anthropologists tried to explain face form in the Horn of Africa as the result of admixture from hypothetical “wandering Caucasoids,”.. but that explanation founders on the paradox of why that supposedly potent “Caucasoid” people contributed a dominant quantity of genes for nose and face form but none for skin color or limb proportions." --CL Brace, 1993
[Afrocentric critic Mary Leftokwitz says Egypt was peopled by persons from sub-Saharan Africa:
"Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54. (Mary Lefkotitz (1997). Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. Basic Books. pg 242) [/QB][/QUOTE]
In Black Athena Revisited, Lefkowitz finds similarity between Egyptians and Sudanics and recommends the work of conservative anthropologist Nancy Lovell for more research on the subject.
Quote: "not surprisingly, the Egyptian skulls were not very distance from the Jebel Moya [a Neolithic site in the southern Sudan] skulls, but were much more distance from all others, including those from West Africa. Such a study suggests a closer genetic affinity between peoples in Egypt and the northern Sudan, which were close geographically and are known to have had considerable cultural contact throughout prehistory and pharaonic history... Clearly more analyses of the physical remains of ancient Egyptians need to be done using current techniques, such as those of Nancy Lovell at the University of Alberta is using in her work.."
Lefkotitz cites Keita 1993 in Not Out of Africa. Here is Keita on the Jebel Moya studies?
"Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Jebel Moya, Ashanti) context) the affinity is with the Africans. The Sudan and Palestine are the most appropriate comparative regions which would have 'donated' people, along with the Sahara and Maghreb. Archaeology validates looking to these regions for population flow (see Hassan 1988)... Egyptian groups showed less overall affinity to Palestinian and Byzantine remains than to other African series, especially Sudanese." [/img] S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54
Hereis the work of the anthropologist so strongly recommended by Lefkowitz, Nancy Lovell:
"There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas." (Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)
and
"must be placed in the context of hypotheses informed by archaeological, linguistic, geographic and other data. In such contexts, the physical anthropological evidence indicates that early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage, but exhibiting local variation. This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection, influenced by culture and geography." ("Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999). pp 328-332)
Obviously, this shows that the Egyptians were completely white, and how foolish the Afrocentrists are to reject this notion. After all Afrocentric critic Mary Lefkowitz recommends Lovell's research..
The same Nancy Lovell recommended by Lefkowitz studied dental traits among some high status persons of the key Egyptian Naqada group and found that they resembled the peoples of Nubia.
T. Prowse, and N. Lovell "Concordance of cranial and dental morphological traits and evidence for endogamy in ancient Egypt" American journal of physical anthropology. 1996, vol. 101, no2, pp. 237-246 (2 p.1/4)
A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at Predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently non-elite cemeteries and that the non-elite samples are not significantly different from each other. A comparison with neighboring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, which is more closely related to populations in northern Nubia than to neighboring populations in southern Egypt.
Lefkowitz warns against Eurocentric "racial" analysis as to the Egyptians and Nubians.
Quote: "The Nubian tribute-bearers are painted in two skin tones, black and dark brown. These tones do not necessarily represent actual skin tones in real life but may serve to distinguish each tribute-bearer from the next in a row in which the figures overlap. Alternatively, the brown-skinned people may be of Nubian origin, and the black-skinned ones may be farther south 9Trigger 1978, 33). The shading of skin tones in Egyptian tomb paintings, which varies considerably, may not be a certain criterion for distinguishing race. Specific symbols of ethnic identity can also vary. Identifying race in Egyptian representational art, again, is difficult to do- probably because race (as opposed to ethnic affiliation, that is, Egyptians versus all non-Egyptians) was not a criterion for differentiation used by the ancient Egyptians...
Northern Egypt shows more physical variation than the south, but not necessarily as part of any significant 'race' mix, but local, built-in variation. They were closer to southerners than any other peoples. In comparisons with "Middle Eastern" populations of the same ancient period, the Egyptians link more closely with other Africans than the Middle Easterners. Africans vary in how they look because they have the highest built-in molecular diversity to begin with.
QUOTE(s): "..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." (Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)
"Individuals from different geographical regions frequently plotted near each other, revealing aspects of variation at the level of individuals that is obscured by concentrating on the most distinctive facial traits once used to construct ''types.''The high level of African interindividual variation in craniometric pattern is reminiscent of the great level of molecular diversity found in Africa." (S.O.Y Keita. Exploring northeast African metric craniofacial variation at the individual level: A comparative study using principal component analysis. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 16:679-689, 2004.)
Quote on northern Egypt analysis- the Qarunian (Faiyum) remains (c. 7000 BC) "The body was that of a forty-year old woman with a height of about 1.6 meters, who was of a more modern racial type than the classic 'Mechtoid' of the Fakhurian culture (see pp. 65-6), being generally more gracile, having large teeth and thick jaws bearing some resemblance to the modern 'negroid' type." (Beatrix Midant-Reynes, Ian Shaw (2000). The Prehistory of Egypt. Wiley-Blackwell. pg. 82)
Modern studies show diversity in how people look is heavily based on distance from sub-Saharan Africa, not merely climate. In genetically diverse Africa, broad-nosed people live on the cool or cold mountain slopes of East Africa or the hot, dry Sahara, and narrow-nosed peoples like many Fulani like in the wet tropics of West Africa. Yellowish-skinned San tribes live in the hot zones of Southern Africa.
"The relative importance of ancient demography and climate in determining worldwide patterns of human within-population phenotypic diversity is still open to debate. Several morphometric traits have been argued to be under selection by climatic factors, but it is unclear whether climate affects the global decline in morphological diversity with increasing geographical distance from sub-Saharan Africa. Using a large database of male and female skull measurements, we apply an explicit framework to quantify the relative role of climate and distance from Africa. We show that distance from sub-Saharan Africa is the sole determinant of human within-population phenotypic diversity, while climate plays no role. By selecting the most informative set of traits, it was possible to explain over half of the worldwide variation in phenotypic diversity. These results mirror those previously obtained for genetic markers and show that 'bones and molecules' are in perfect agreement for humans." (Distance from Africa, not climate, explains within-population phenotypic diversity in humans. (2008) by: Lia Betti, François Balloux, William Amos, Tsunehiko Hanihara, Andrea Manica, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, 2008/12/02)
Analysis of skeletal and cranial remains reveals that the ancient Egyptians of the early Dynastic and pre-Dynastic phases, link closer to nearby Saharan, Sudanic and East African populations than Mediterranean and Middle Eastern peoples. Greeks, Romans, Hyskos, Arabs and others were to appear later in Egyptian history. Craniometric studies generally place ancient Upper Egyptian populations closer to the range of tropical Africans in the Nile Valley and East Africa than to Mediterraneans, or Middle Easterners.
QUOTE(s): S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54
"Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Kebel Moya, Ashanti) context) the affinity is with the Africans. The Sudan and Palestine are the most appropriate comparative regions which would have 'donated' people, along with the Sahara and Maghreb. Archaeology validates looking to these regions for population flow (see Hassan 1988)... Egyptian groups showed less overall affinity to Palestinian and Byzantine remains than to other African series, especially Sudanese." (Keita 1993)
"When the unlikely relationships [Indian matches] and eliminated, the Egyptian series are more similar overall to other African series than to European or Near Eastern (Byzantine or Palestinian) series." (Keita 1993)
"Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant."(Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa, by Joseph O. Vogel, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California (1997), pp. 465-472 )
"Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans." (S. O. Y and A.J. Boyce, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 20-33)
"There is no archaeological, linguistic, or historical data which indicate a European or Asiatic invasion of, or migration to, the Nile Valley during First Dynasty times. Previous concepts about the origin of the First Dynasty Egyptians as being somehow external to the Nile Valley or less native are not supported by archaeology... In summary, the Abydos First Dynasty royal tomb contents reveal a notable craniometric heterogeneity. Southerners predominate. (Kieta, S. (1992) Further Studies of Crania From Ancient Northern Africa: An Analysis of Crania From First Dynasty Egyptian Tombs, Using Multiple Discriminant Functions. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 87:245-254)"
"The predominant craniometric pattern in the Abydos royal tombs is 'southern' (tropical African variant), and this is consistent with what would be expected based on the literature and other results (Keita, 1990). This pattern is seen in both group and unknown analyses... Archaeology and history seem to provide the most parsimonious explanation for the variation in the royal tombs at Abydos.. Tomb design suggests the presence of northerners in the south in late Nakada times (Hoffman, 1988) when the unification probably took place. Delta names are attached to some of the tombs at Abydos (Gardiner, 1961; Yurco, 1990, personal communication), thus perhaps supporting Petrie's (1939) and Gardiner's contention that north-south marriages were undertaken to legitimize the hegemony of the south. The courtiers of northern elites would have accompanied them.
Given all of the above, it is probably not possible to view the Abydos royal tomb sample as representative of the general southern Upper Egyptian population of the time. Southern elites and/or their descendants eventually came to be buried in the north (Hoffman, 1988). Hence early Second Dynasty kings and Djoser (Dynasty 111) (Hayes, 1953) and his descendants are not buried in Abydos. Petrie (1939) states that the Third Dynasty, buried in the north, was of Sudanese origin, but southern Egypt is equally likely. This perhaps explains Harris and Weeks' (1973) suggested findings of southern morphologies in some Old Kingdom Giza remains, also verified in portraiture (Drake, 1987). Further study would be required to ascertain trends in the general population of both regions. The strong Sudanese affinity noted in the unknown analyses may reflect the Nubian interactions with upper Egypt in predynastic times prior to Egyptian unification (Williams, 1980,1986)..." (S. Keita (1992) Further Studies of Crania From Ancient Northern Africa: An Analysis of Crania From First Dynasty Egyptian Tombs, Using Multiple Discriminant Functions. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 87:245-254)
"When the Elephantine results were added to a broader pooling of the physical characteristics drawn from a wide geographic region which includes Africa, the Mediterranean and the Near East quite strong affinities emerge between Elephantine and populations from Nubia, supporting a strong south-north cline. (Barry Kemp. (2006) Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. p. 54)
Gene flow into the Nubian area during the Neolithic was not from reputed "wandering Caucasoids" but from tropical, Sub-Saharan types.
"Prior to the Neolithic, populations of the Nile Valley in Nubia are very robust, and, because of a gap in the fossil record, it is difficult to connect them to later populations. Some have postulated a local evolution, due to diet change, while others postulated migrations, especially from the Sahara area. But between 5000 and 1000 BC, many cemeteries have supplied a large amount of skeletons, and the anatomical characters of Nubian populations are easier to follow-up. Twenty-seven archaeological samples (4 at 5000 BC, 5 at 4000 BC, 10 at 3000 BC, 3 at 2000 BC, 5 at 1000 BC), and 10 craniofacial measurements, have been considered. While cerebral skull is fairly stable, facial skull displays several regular modifications, and specially a reduction of facial and nasal heights, a broadening of the nose, and an increase of prognathism, while bizygomatic breadth is unchanged. These features illustrate a trend towards a growing resemblance with populations of Sub-Saharan Africa living in wet environments. However, paleoclimatological studies show that Nubia experienced an increasing aridification during that period. It is then unlikely that such a morphological change could be related to any local adaptive evolution to environment. Random drift is also unlikely, because the anatomical trend is relatively uniform during these millennia. It then seems more plausible that these changes correspond to the increasing presence of Southern populations migrating northward." -- Froment, A. (2002) Morphological micro-evolution of Nubian Populations from, A-Group to Christian Epochs: gene flow, not local adaptation. Am J Phys Anthropol [Suppl] 34:72.
Afrocentric critic Froment also notes: "Black populations of the Horn of Africa (Tigré and Somalia) fit well into Egyptian variations." (Froment, Alain, Origines du peuplement de l’Égypte ancienne: l’apport de l’anthropobiologie, Archéo-Nil 2 (Octobre 1992), 79-98)
Afrocentric critic C. Loring Brace's 2005 study groups ancient Egyptian populations like the Naqada closer to Nubians and Somalis than European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern populations. Brace's study shows that the closest European linking with Africans in Egypt or Nubia are Middle Stone Age Portugese and Neolithics, OLDER populations more closely resembling AFRICANS than modern Europeans. Early Neolithic populations, like the Nautifians, in what is now Israel, show sub-Saharan 'negroid' affinities. (Brace, et al. The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 January 3; 103(1): p. 242-247.)
"The Niger-Congo speakers, Congo, Dahomey and Haya, cluster closely with each other and a bit less closely with the Nubian sample, both the recent and the Bronze Age Nubians, and more remotely with the Naqada Bronze Age sample of Egypt, the modern Somalis, and the Arabic-speaking Fellaheen (farmers) of Israel. When those samples are separated and run in a single analysis as in Fig. 1, there clearly is a tie between them that is diluted the farther one gets from sub-Saharan Africa" (Brace, 2005)
"The surprise is that the Neolithic peoples of Europe and their Bronze Age successors are not closely related to the modern inhabitants, although the prehistoric/modern ties are somewhat more apparent in southern Europe. It is a further surprise that the Epipalaeolithic Natufian of Israel from whom the Neolithic realm was assumed to arise has a clear link to Sub-Saharan Africa... Interestingly enough, however, the small Natufian sample falls between the Niger-Congo group and the other samples used. Fig. 2 shows the plot produced by the first two canonical variates, but the same thing happens when canonical variates 1 and 3 (not shown here) are used. This placement suggests that there may have been a Sub-Saharan African element in the make-up of the Natufians (the putative ancestors of the subsequent Neolithic), .. When canonical variates are plotted, neither sample ties in with Cro-Magnon as was once suggested. The data treated here support the idea that the Neolithic moved out of the Near East into the circum-Mediterranean areas and Europe by a process of demic diffusion but that subsequently the in situ residents of those areas, derived from the Late Pleistocene inhabitants, absorbed both the agricultural life way and the people who had brought it." (Brace, 2005)
Both skeletal/cranial and DNA studies by other authors confirm that some Neolithics did not derive from the Near East. They most likely resembled African populations. Hence comparisons using older European Neolithics versus Africans are comparisons with older prehistoric Europeans who looked more like Africans, than modern 'white' Europeans, as shown by Brace (2005), and Hanihara (1996) also, who states "Early West Asians looked like Africans."
"The absence of mtDNA haplogroup J in the ancient Portuguese Neolithic sample suggests that this population was not derived directly from Near Eastern farmers. The Mesolithic and Neolithic groups show genetic discontinuity implying colonisation at the Neolithic transition in Portugal." (CHANDLER, H.; SYKES, B.; ZILHÃO, J. (2005) - Using ancient DNA to examine genetic continuity at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Portugal, in ARIAS, P.; ONTAÑÓN, R.; GARCÍA-MONCÓ, C. (eds.) - «Actas del III Congreso del Neolítico en la Península Ibérica», Santander, Monografías del Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria 1, p. 781-786.)
"Early Europeans still resembled modern tropical peoples - some resemble modern Australian and Africans, more than modern Europeans.. Nor does the picture get any clearer when we move on to the Cro-Magnons, the presumed ancestors of modern Europeans. Some were more like present-day Australians or Africans, judged by objective anatomical observations." (Christopher Stringer, Robin McKie (1998). African Exodus. Macmillan, p. 162)
Early Europeans, as recently as 6,000-9000 years ago, looked somewhat like Africans in terms of retained 'tropical' characteristics. Cold adaptation was to bring about several physical changes over time from the initial Out of Africa migrations to Europe. Retained traces of 'tropical' characteristics, indicate a "large African role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans." (Holliday and Churchill 2003).
"Body proportions covary with climate, apparently as the result of climatic selection. Ontogenetic research and migrant studies have demonstrated that body proportions are largely genetically controlled and are under low selective rates; thus studies of body form can provide evidence for evolutionarily short-term dispersals and/or gene flow. Replacement predicts that the earliest modern Europeans will possess "tropical" body proportions (assuming Africa is the center of origin), while Regional Continuity permits only minor shifts in body shape, due to climatic change and/or improved cultural buffering. .. results refute the hypothesis of local continuity in Europe, and are consistent with an interpretation of elevated gene flow (and population dispersal?) from Africa, followed by subsequent climatic adaptation to colder conditions." (Holliday, Trenton (1997) Body proportions in Late Pleistocene Europe and modern human origins. Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 32, Issue 5, 1997, Pages 423-447)
".. while the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans have significantly higher (i.e., tropically-adapted) brachial and crural indices than do recent Europeans, they also have shorter (i.e., cold-adapted) limbs. The somewhat paradoxical retention of "tropical" indices in the context of more "cold-adapted" limb length is best explained as evidence for Replacement in the European Late Pleistocene, followed by gradual cold adaptation in glacial Europe." (Holliday, Trenton (1999) Brachial and crural indices of European Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans. Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 36, Issue 5, May 1999, Pages 549-566)
"Stature, body mass, and body proportions are evaluated for the Cheddar Man (Gough's Cave 1) skeleton. Like many of his Mesolithic contemporaries, Gough's Cave 1 evinces relatively short estimated stature (ca. 166.2 cm [5' 5']) and low body mass (ca. 66 kg [146 lbs]). In body shape, he is similar to recent Europeans for most proportional indices. He differs, however, from most recent Europeans in his high crural index and tibial length/trunk height indices. Thus, while Gough's Cave 1 is characterized by a total morphological pattern considered 'cold-adapted', these latter two traits may be interpreted as evidence of a large African role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans." (TRENTON W. HOLLIDAY a1 and STEVEN E. CHURCHILL. (2003). Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): an assessment of body size and shape, Bulletin of the Natural History Museum: Geology, 58:37-44 Cambridge University Press)
More data showing early Europeans were tropically adapted types like Africans "Body proportions are under strong climatic selection and evince remarkable stability within regional lineages. As such, they offer a viable and robust alternative to cranio-facial data in assessing hypothesised continuity and replacement with the transition to agro-pastoralism in central Europe. Humero-clavicular, brachial and crural indices in a large sample (n=75) of Linienbandkeramik (LBK), Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age specimens from the middle Elbe-Saale-Werra valley (MESV) were compared with Eurasian and African terminal Pleistocene, European Mesolithic and geographically disparate recent human specimens. Mesolithic Europeans display considerable variation in humero-clavicular and brachial indices yet none approach the extreme "hyper-polar" morphology of LBK humans from the MESV. In contrast, Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age peoples display elongated brachial and crural indices reminiscent of terminal Pleistocene and "tropically adapted" recent humans. These marked morphological changes likely reflect exogenous immigration during the terminal Fourth millennium cal BC. Population expansion and diffusion is a function of increased mobility and settlement dispersal concomitant with significant technological and subsistence changes in later Neolithic societies during the late fourth millennium cal BCE." -- Gallagher et al. "Population continuity, demic diffusion and Neolithic origins in central-southern Germany: the evidence from body proportions." Homo. 2009;60(2):95-126. Epub 2009 Mar 4.
Early West Asians looked like Africans. Thus any ancient returnees or "backflow" from West Asia back to Africa is by people who look like Africans to begin with. Brace 2005 shows this as to Europeans. Hanihara 1996, demonstrates this below as to West Asians (i.e. 'Middle easterners'). Also see above.
quote: "Distance analysis and factor analysis, based on Q-mode correlation coefficients, were applied to 23 craniofacial measurements in 1,802 recent and prehistoric crania from major geographical areas of the Old World. The major findings are as follows: 1) Australians show closer similarities to African populations than to Melanesians. 2) Recent Europeans align with East Asians, and early West Asians resemble Africans. 3) The Asian population complex with regional difference between northern and southern members is manifest. 4) Clinal variations of craniofacial features can be detected in the Afro-European region on the one hand, and Australasian and East Asian region on the other hand. 5) The craniofacial variations of major geographical groups are not necessarily consistent with their geographical distribution pattern. This may be a sign that the evolutionary divergence in craniofacial shape among recent populations of different geographical areas is of a highly limited degree. Taking all of these into account, a single origin for anatomically modern humans is the most parsimonious interpretation of the craniofacial variations presented in this study." (Hanihara T. Comparison of craniofacial features of major human groups. Am J Phys Anthropol. 1996 Mar;99(3):389-412.)
Older studies often show misclassification or exclusion of Nile Valley remains deemed 'negroid'. Although clearly of the "African" type, such remains were frequently relabeled "Mediterranean."
"Analyses of Egyptian crania are numerous. Vercoutter (1978) notes that ancient Egyptian crania have frequently all been lumped (implicitly or explicitly) as Mediterranean, although Negroid remains are recorded in substantial numbers by many workers... "Nutter (1958), using the Penrose statistic, demonstrated that Nagada I and Badari crania, both regarded as Negroid, were almost identical and that these were most similar to the Negroid Nubian series from Kerma studied by Collett (1933). [Collett, not accepting variability, excluded "clear negro" crania found in the Kerma series from her analysis, as did Morant (1925), implying that they were foreign..." (S. Keita (1990) Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 83:35-48)
Different features among Africans, particularly EAST AFRICANS, like narrow noses are not due to different "race" mixes but are part of the built-in physical diversity and variation of African peoples. Narrow noses appear in the oldest African populations for example, in Kenya's Gamble Cave complex. East Africans like Somalians or Kenyans do not need any outside race "mix" or migration to make them look the way they do.
QUOTE(s): ".. all their features can be found in several living populations of East Africa, like the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi, who are very dark skinned and differ greatly from Europeans in a number of body proportions.. There is every reason to believe that they are ancestral to the living 'Elongated East Africans'. Neither of these populations, fossil and modern, should be considered to be closely related to the populations of Europe and western Asia.. In skin colour, the Tutsi are darker than the Hutu, in the reverse direction to that leading to the caucasoids. Lip thickness provides a similar case: on an average the lips of the Tutsi are thicker than those of the Hutu." [Jean Hiernaux, The People of Africa (1975), pgs 42-43, 62-63)
"In sub-Saharan Africa, many anthropological characters show a wide range of population means or frequencies. In some of them, the whole world range is covered in the sub-continent. Here live the shortest and the tallest human populations, the one with the highest and the one with the lowest nose, the one with the thickest and the one with the thinnest lips in the world. In this area, the range of the average nose widths covers 92 per cent of the world range: only a narrow range of extremely low means are absent from the African record. Means for head diameters cover about 80 per cent of the world range; 60 per cent is the corresponding value for a variable once cherished by physical anthropologists, the cephalic index, or ratio of the head width to head length expressed as a percentage....." - Jean Hiernaux, "The People of Africa" 1975 p.53, 54
"Prehistoric human crania from Bromhead's Site, Willey's Kopje, Makalia Burial Site, Nakuru, and other localities in the Eastern Rift Valley of Kenya are reassessed using measurements and a multivariate statistical approach. Materials available for comparison include series of Bushman and Hottentot crania. South and East African Negroes, and Egyptians. Up to 34 cranial measurements taken on these series are utilized to construct three multiple discriminant frameworks, each of which can assign modern individuals to a correct group with considerable accuracy. When the prehistoric crania are classified with the help of these discriminants, results indicate that several of the skulls are best grouped with modern Negroes. This is especially clear in the case of individuals from Bromhead's Site, Willey's Kopje, and Nakuru, and the evidence hardly suggests post-Pleistocene domination of the Rift and surrounding territory by "Mediterranean" Caucasoids, as has been claimed. Recent linguistic and archaeological findings are also reviewed, and these seem to support application of the term Nilotic Negro to the early Rift populations." (Rightmire GP. New studies of post-Pleistocene human skeletal remains from the Rift Valley, Kenya. Am J Phys Anthropol. 1975 May;42(3):351-69. )
"....inhabitants of East Africa right on the equator have appreciably longer, narrower, and higher noses than people in the Congo at the same latitude. A former generation of anthropologists used to explain this paradox by invoking an invasion by an itinerant "white" population from the Mediterranean area, although this solution raised more problems than it solved since the East Africans in question include some of the blackest people in the world with characteristically wooly hair and a body build unique among the world's populations for its extreme linearity and height.... The relatively long noses of East Africa become explicable then when one realizes that much of the area is extremely dry for parts of the year." (C. Loring Brace, "Nonracial Approach Towards Human Diversity," cited in The Concept of Race, Edited by Ashley Montagu, The Free Press, 1980, pp. 135-136, 138)
"The .... excavations at Gogoshiis Qabe (Somalia) uncovered eleven virtually complete and articulated primary burials...Closest morphological affinities are with early Holocene skeletons from Lake Turkana, Kenya...and Lake Besaka, Ethiopia.." (S. Brandt, (1986) The Upper Pleistocene and early Holocene prehistory of the Horn of Africa. Journal African Archaeological Review. Volume 4, Number 1, Pages 41-82 )
"The role of tall, linearly built populations in eastern Africa's prehistory has always been debated. Traditionally, they are viewed as late migrants into the area. But as there is better palaeoanthropological and linguistic documentation for the earlier presence of these populations than for any other group in eastern Africa, it is far more likely that they are indigenous eastern Africans. ... prehistoric linear populations show resemblances to both Upper Pleistocene eastern African fossils and present-day, non-Bantu-speaking groups in eastern Africa, with minor differences stemming from changes in overall robusticity of the dentition and skeleton. This suggests a longstanding tradition of linear populations in eastern Africa, contributing to the indigenous development of cultural and biological diversity from the Pleistocene up to the present." (L . A . SCHEPARTZ, "Who were the later Pleistocene eastern Africans?" The African Archaeological Review, 6 (1988), pp. 57- 72)
Recent study shows ancient Egyptians physically more like tropically adapted Black Americans than White Americans, confirming older studies that show today's Egyptians in general are closer to US blacks than Northern Europeans, and Southern Europeans as well.
QUOTE(s): "We also compare Egyptian body proportions to those of modern American Blacks and Whites... Long bone stature regression equations were then derived for each sex. Our results confirm that, although ancient Egyptians are closer in body proportion to modern American Blacks than they are to American Whites, proportions in Blacks and Egyptians are not identical... Intralimb indices are not significantly different between Egyptians and American Blacks. ..brachial indices are definitely more 'African'... There is no evidence for significant variation in proportions among temporal or social groupings; thus, the new formulae may be broadly applicable to ancient Egyptian remains." ("Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature." Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, (Am J Phys Anthropol. 2008, Jun;136(2):147-55
Africa is the most genetically diverse region in the world with the original man being from East Africa according to conservative scholars:
"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages.. Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world." (Tishkoff SA, Williams SM., Genetic analysis of African populations: human evolution and complex disease. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2002 Aug (8):611-21.)
" In other words, all non-Africans carry M168. Of course, Africans carrying the M168 mutation today are the descendants of the African subpopulation from which the migrants originated.... Thus, the Australian/Eurasian Adam (the ancestor of all non-Africans) was an East African Man." (Linda Stone, Paul F. Lurquin, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Culture, and Human Evolution: A Synthesis, Wiley-Blackwell: 2006, pg 108)
The Natufians, early inhabitants of the Sinai - Israel- Palestine area, and reputed pioneers of several Neolithic agricultural and technological developments, appear to have had "Negroid" affinities. Important Natufian sites include Mt. Carmel, Jericho and several others.
"Against this background of disease, movement and pedomorphic reduction of body size one can identify Negroid (Ethiopic or Bushmanoid?) traits of nose and prognathism appearing in Natufian latest hunters (McCown, 1939) and in Anatolian and Macedonian first farmers, probably from Nubia via the unknown predecesors of the Badarians and Tasians....". (Biological Relations of Egyptians and Eastern Mediterranean Populations during pre-Dynastic and Dynastic Times. J. Lawrence Angel. Journal of Human Evolutiom. 1972:1, 1, Pg 307)
"The Mushabians moved into Sinai from the Nile Delta, bringing North African lithic chipping tecniques." ("Pleistocene connections between Africa and Southwest Asia: an archaeological perspective. O. Bar-Yosef. African Archaeological Review. 5 (1987) Pg 29)
"It is a further surprise that the Epipalaeolithic Natufian of Israel from whom the Neolithic realm was assumed to arise has a clear link to Sub-Saharan Africa... Interestingly enough, however, the small Natufian sample falls between the Niger-Congo group and the other samples used... This placement suggests that there may have been a Sub-Saharan African element in the make-up of the Natufians (the putative ancestors of the subsequent Neolithic.." (C.L Brace, et. al. 2005. The Questionable contribution of the Neolithic...)
Early inhabitants of the general Natufian Israel area show limb proportions suited to tropical peoples- similar to sub-Saharan's homeland
"However, the real revelation came when Erik [Trinkhaus] inserted his data on the Cro-Magnons of Europe and the Skhul-Qafzeh skeletons from Israel into the equations. In this case, he got a figure of 85 percent for the shinbone-thighbone ratio. Not only were they unlike the Neanderthals, but these people actually fell at the other extreme in their readings on the limb thermometer. The predicted average temperature of origin for folk with an 85% shin-thigh fraction, indicating much longer extremities relative to trunk length - was about 20 degrees higher than the Neanderthals', suggesting a subtropical- if not tropical- homeland!" (African Exodus By Christopher Stringer, Robin McKie, McMillan: pg 79-83)
The 1993 'Clines and Clusters' study by C.L. Brace, et. al. has been used to minmize or downplay the realtionship between Egypt and its African neighbors. For example it:
--Created an "African" or "sub-Saharan" group, but excluded the Maghreb (including parts of the Sahara and Sahel), the Sudan and the Horn area (Ethiopia and Somalia) even though these latter two are BELOW the Sahara, and thus "sub-Saharan".
--Excluded the Badari, and Naqada I and II, key Egyptian groups, thus obscuring the Sudanic/Saharan character of numerous early samples, noted in several earlier analyses. Ignored the formative range of the Saharans on Egypt, from the megaliths and cattle cults of the Nabta Playa to early mummification practices was ignored.
--Excluded the Nubian population of the Badari and early Naqada period, including the rich remains of the well documented Qustul culture, near the present Sudanese-Egyptian border, again obscuring the close relationship between the two peoples.
--Created a vague "Bronze Age" grouping of Nubians, and a "modern" group of medieval samples, an era long after the dynasties and when Nubia had experienced more gene flow of that and the later Arab incursions, beginning in the 700s. Sampling thus ignored the early Badari/Naqada Nubians, jumped the 25th Dynasty era, and shifted to the medieval era in the age range of the Arab conquests. Used Somalian samples that were modern, and thus within the range of recent gene flow (such as the Arab era), particularly on the coast.
--The result was a "comparison" finding that the ancient Egyptians had no relationship "at all" to other "sub-Saharan" peoples and were relatively distant from the Nubians and Somalians. peoples. This finding has been undermined by the subsequent research of several scholars, including limb proportion studies.
QUOTE(s):
"However, Brace et al. (1993) find that a series of upper Egyptian/Nubian epipalaeolithic crania affiliate by cluster analysis with groups they designate "sub-Saharan African" or just simply "African" (from which they incorrectly exclude the Maghreb, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa), whereas post-Badarian southern predynastic and a late dynastic northern series (called "E" or Gizeh) cluster together, and secondarily with Europeans. In the primary cluster with the Egyptian groups are also remains representing populations from the ancient Sudan and recent Somalia. Brace et al. (1993) seemingly interpret these results as indicating a population relationship from Scandinavia to the Horn of Africa, although the mechanism for this is not clearly stated; they also state that the Egyptians had no relationship with sub-Saharan Africans, a group that they nearly treat (incorrectly) as monolithic, although sometimes seemingly including Somalia, which directly undermines aspects of their claims. Sub-Saharan Africa does not define/delimit authentic Africanity." (S.O.Y. Keita. "Early Nile Valley Farmers from El-Badari: Aboriginals or "European" Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data". Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 191-208 (2005)
Brace carefully excluded the Badari- a key native pre-dynastic group that led into the dynasties, and suggested possible European immigration to ancient Egypt. Keita put this to the test and found that the excluded group matched up more closely with Africans than Europeans.
"An examination of the distance hierarchies reveals the Badarian series to be more similar to the Teita in both analyses and always more similar to all of the African series than to the Norse and Berg groups (see Tables 3A & 3B and Figure 2). Essentially equal similarity is found with the Zalavar and Dogon series in the 11-variable analysis and with these and the Bushman in the one using 15 variables. The Badarian series clusters with the tropical African groups no matter which algorithm is employed (see Figures 3 and 4).. In none of them did the Badarian sample affiliate with the European series."(S.O.Y. Keita. Early Nile Valley Farmers from El-Badari: Aboriginals or "European" Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data. Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 191-208 (2005)
More on the biased and skewed 'true negro' model
"Another example of the use of a socially constructed typological paradigm is in studies of the Nile Valley populations in which the concept of a biological African is restricted to those with a particular craniometric pattern (called in the past the 'True Negro' though no 'True White' was ever defined). Early Nubians, Egyptians, and even Somalians are viewed essentially as non-Africans, when in fact numerous lines of evidence and an evolutionary model make them a part of African biocultural/biogeographical history. The diversity of 'authentic' Africans is a reality. This diversity prevents biogeographical/biohistorical Africans from clustering into a single unit, no matter the kind of data." (The Persistence of Racial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence, S. O. Y. Keita, Rick A. Kittles, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 534-544)
"..presents all tropical Africans with narrower noses and faces as being related to or descended from external, ultimately non-African peoples. However, narrow-faced, narrow-nosed populations have long been resident in Saharo-tropical Africa... and their origin need not be sought elsewhere. These traits are also indigenous. The variability in tropical Africa is expectedly naturally high. Given their longstanding presence, narrow noses and faces cannot be deemed `non-African."(S.O.Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993), page 134 )
"Another example of the use of a socially constructed typological paradigm is in studies of the Nile Valley populations in which the concept of a biological African is restricted to those with a particular craniometric pattern (called in the past the 'True African' though no 'True White' was ever defined). Early Nubians, Egyptians, and even Somalians are viewed essentially as non-Africans, when in fact numerous lines of evidence and an evolutionary model make them a part of African biocultural/biogeographical history. The diversity of 'authentic' Africans is a reality. This diversity prevents biogeographical/biohistorical Africans from clustering into a single unit, no matter the kind of data." ---Keita and Kittles. "The Persistence of Racial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence." American Anthropologist 99, no. 3 (September 1997): 534-544
Hair and the 'true negro' "Strouhal (1971) microscopically examined some hair which had been preserved on a Badrarian skull. The analysis was interpreted as suggesting a stereotypical tropical African-European hybrid (mulatto). However this hair is grossly no different from that of Fulani, some Kanuri, or Somali and does not require a gene flow explanation any more than curly hair in Greece necessarily does. Extremely "wooly" hair is not the only kind native to tropical Africa.." (S. O. Y. Keita. (1993). "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54)
Sampling bias and the true negro. In some Nile Valley research sampling bias persists such as drawing samples from the far north of Egypt, boscuring the region's genetic complexity. The stereotypical "true negro" type is still used to artifically separate related peoples and obscure a fuller, more accurate picture of African genetic diversity. Sampling bias appears both in DNA studies (noted by Keita) and in cranial studies (noted by Egyptologist Barry Kemp).
QUOTE(s):
Keita on DNA studies drawing samples from the far north, an area with more foreign settlement and gene flow
"However, in some of the studies, only individuals from northern Egypt are sampled, and this could theoretically give a false impression of Egyptian variability (contrast Lucotte and Mercier 2003a with Manni et al. 2002), because this region has received more foreign settlers (and is nearer the Near East). Possible sample bias should be integrated into the discussion of results." (S.O.Y. Keita, A.J. Boyce, "Interpreting Geographical Patterns of Y Chromosome Variation1," History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246 )
Egyptologist Barry Kemp on the worldwide CRANID database that used northern samples near the Mediterranean as "representative" of the ancient Egyptians, and classifying them in a "European" direction, while excluding key historic sites further south..
"If, on the other hand, CRANID had used one of the Elephantine populations of the same period, the geographic association would be much more with the African groups to the south. It is dangerous to take one set of skeletons and use them to characterize the population of the whole of Egypt." (Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation, Routledge: 2005, p. 55)
Modern anthropology shows that the ancient Egyptians are well within the range of tropical Africa, contradicting older research in the 1990s that sought to deny any relationship. The anthropologist below, Nancy Lovell was recommended by Mary lefkowitz in Black Athena Revisted.
"There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas." (Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)
One of the oldest remains from Upper Egypt, shows strong sub-Saharan affinities, and early northern Egypt also shows sub-Saharan affinities through cultural traits- the 'Nubian complex' of technology and production.
"The morphometric affinities of the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet Khater, Upper Egypt are examined using multivariate statistical procedures.. The results indicate a strong association between some of the sub-Saharan Middle Stone Age (MSA) specimens, and the Nazlet Khater mandible. Furthermore, the results suggest that variability between African populations during the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods was more pronounced than the range of variability observed among recent African and Levantine populations." (PINHASI Ron, SEMAL Patrick (2000). The position of the Nazlet Khater specimen among prehistoric and modern African and Levantine populations. Journal of human evolution. 2000, vol. 39, no3, pp. 269-288 )
"..Middle Paleolithic and the transition to the Upper Paleolithic in the Lower Nile Valley are described... the Middle Paleolithic or, more appropriately, Middle Stone Age of this region starts with the arrival of new populations from sub-Saharan Africa, as evidenced by the nature of the Early to Middle Stone Age transition in stratified sites. Throughout the late Middle Pleistocene technological change occurs leading to the establishment of the Nubian Complex by the onset of the Upper Pleistocene." (Van Peer, Philip. Did middle stone age moderns of sub-Saharan African descent trigger an upper paleolithic revolution in the lower nile valley? Anthropologie. vol. 42, no3, pp. 215-225)
Dental studies provide evidence that the ancient Egyptian population maintained a high degree of continuity into the early, mid and late Dynastic periods. A key ancient group, the Badari, found to link to tropical African metrics, was excluded by such studies as Brace (1993) but dental research shows they link well with later pre and Dynastic populations. J. Irish's 2006 dental study examined the ancient Badarian people excluded by Brace and found that they were a "good representative of what the common ancestor to all later predynastic and dynastic Egyptian peoples would be like." His dental results show that:
QUOTE:
"Despite the difference, Gebel Ramlah [the Western Desert- Saharan region] is closest to predynastic and early dynastic samples from Abydos, Hierakonpolis, and Badari.."
the Badarians were a "good representative of what the common ancestor to all later predynastic and dynastic Egyptian peoples would be like"
"A comparison of Badari to the Naqada and Hierakonpolis samples .. contradicts the idea of a foreign origin for the Naqada (Petrie, 1939; Baumgartel, 1970)"
Evidence in favor of continuity is also demonstrated by comparison of individual samples. "Naqada and especially Hierakonpolis share close affinities with First-Second Dynasty Abydos.. These findings do not support the concept of a foreign dynastic ''race''"
"Thus, despite increasing foreign influence after the Second Intermediate Period, not only did Egyptian culture remain intact (Lloyd, 2000a), but the people themselves, as represented by the dental samples, appear biologically constant as well."
(Joel D. Irish (2006). Who Were the Ancient Egyptians? Dental Affinities Among Neolithic Through Postdynastic Peoples. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2006 Apr;129(4):529-43.)
Africans have the highest dental diversity "Previous research by the first author revealed that, relative to other modern peoples, sub-Saharan Africans exhibit the highest frequencies of ancestral (or plesiomorphic) dental traits... The fact that sub-Saharan Africans express these apparently plesiomorphic characters, along with additional information on their affinity to other modern populations, evident intra-population heterogeneity, and a world-wide dental cline emanating from the sub-continent, provides further evidence that is consistent with an African origin model." (Irish JD, Guatelli-Steinberg D.(2003) Ancient teeth and modern human origins: an expanded comparison of African Plio-Pleistocene and recent world dental samples. Hum Evol. 2003 Aug;45(2):113-44. )
Ancient Egyptian civilization was indigenous with continuity among its peoples, not an influx of Middle Easterners, Europeans or other outsiders like Arabs until relatively late in history
QUOTE(s): "Some have argued that various early Egyptians like the Badarians probably migrated northward from Nubia, while others see a wide-ranging movement of peoples across the breadth of the Sahara before the onset of desiccation. Whatever may be the origins of any particular people or civilization, however, it seems reasonably certain that the predynastic communities of the Nile valley were essentially indigenous in culture, drawing little inspiration from sources outside the continent during the several centuries directly preceding the onset of historical times..." (Robert July, Pre-Colonial Africa, 1975, p. 60-61)
"overall population continuity over the Predynastic and early Dynastic, and high levels of genetic heterogeneity, thereby suggesting that state formation occurred as a mainly indigenous process." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2007). "Population continuity or population change: Formation of the ancient Egyptian state". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132 (4): 501-509)
"the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. They included peoples from the Afroasiastic linguistic group and the second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). Thus the earliest domestic cattle may have come to Egypt from these southern neighbors, circa 6000 B.C., and not from the Middle East.[148] Pottery, another significant advance in material cultural may also have followed this pattern, initiatied "as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East." (Christopher Ehret, "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 25-27)
X-ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies show some to be linked physically to Nubian types, and some documented royal officials are clearly "Negroid' like Pepi-seneb, an eminent scribe c. 2745 BC. Some royal New Kingdom mummies also show melanin frequencies consistent with Negroid origin.
"In terms of head shape, the XVIV and XX dynasties look more like the early Nubian skulls from the mesolithic with low vaults and sloping, curved foreheads.The XVII and XVIII dynasty skulls are shaped more like modern Nubians with globular skulls and high vaults." (An X-ray atlas of the royal mummies. Edited by J.E. Harris and E.F. Wente. (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980.) Review: Michael R. Zimmerman, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 56, Issue 2 , (1981) Pages 207 - 208)
"While the Upper Nile Egyptians show phenotypic features that occur in higher frequencies in the Sudan and southward into East Africa (namely, facial prognathism, chamaerrhiny, and paedomorphic cranial architecture with specific modifications of the nasal aperature), these so-called Negroid features are not universal in the region of Thebes, Karnak, and Luxor." (Kennedy, Kenneth A.R., T. Plummer, J. Chinment, "Identification of the Eminent Dead: Pepi, A Scribe of Egypt," In Katherine J. Reichs (ed.), Forensic Osteology, 1986.)
German Institute for Archaeology -excavation of the tombs of the nobles in Thebes-West, Upper Egypt. In several of the noble specimens: "The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin." (Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues", Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005, 80(1): 7_/13) Nubians are no "prequisite" for dark skin in ancient Egypt.
Nubians were ethnically the closest people to the Egyptians. Conflict between the two were typical clashes between kingdoms without the simplistic "racial" models drawn by some 20th century writers. Quote 1: "The ancient Egyptians referred to a region, located south of the third cataract the Nile River, in which Nubians dwelt as Kush.. Within such context, this phrase is not a racial slur. Throughout the history of ancient Egypt there were numerous, well documented instances that celebrate Nubian-Egyptian marriages. A study of these documents, particularly those dated to both the Egyptian New Kingdom (after 1550 B.C.E.) and to Dynasty XXV and early Dynasty XXVI (about 720-640 BCE), reveals that neither spouse nor any of the children of such unions suffered discrimination at the hands of the ancient Egyptians. Indeed such marriages were never an obstacle to social, economic, or political status, provided the individuals concerned conformed to generally accepted Egyptian social standards. Furthermore, at times, certain Nubian practices, such as tattooing for women, and the unisex fashion of wearing earrings, were wholeheartedly embraced by the ancient Egyptians." (Bianchi, 2004: p. 4)
'It is an extremely difficult task to attempt to describe the Nubians during the course of Egypt's New Kingdom, because their presence appears to have virtually evaporated from the archaeological record.. The result has been described as a wholesale Nubian assimilation into Egyptian society. This assimilation was so complete that it masked all Nubian ethnic identities insofar as archaeological remains are concerned beneath the impenetrable veneer of Egypt's material; culture.. In the Kushite Period, when Nubians ruled as Pharaohs in their own right, the material culture of Dynasty XXV (about 750-655 B.C.E.) was decidedly Egyptian in character.. Nubia's entire landscape up to the region of the Third Cataract was dotted with temples indistinguishable in style and decoration from contemporary temples erected in Egypt. The same observation obtains for the smaller number of typically Egyptian tombs in which these elite Nubian princes were interred. (Bianchi, 2004, p. 99-100)
- Robert Bianchi ( 2004). Daily Life of the Nubians. Greenwood Publishing Group
One of Egypt's greatest dynasties, the 12th, originated from dark-skinned Nubian stock, according to conservative Egyptologist F. Yurco (1989). The 12th Dynasty ruled approximately 1000 years BEFORE the well known "black" 25th Dynasty. Quote 2:
"the XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region.4 As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of Kush), except such as came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract. Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into Egyptian territory? Because the Egyptian rulers of Nubian ancestry had become Egyptians culturally; as pharaohs, they exhibited typical Egyptian attitudes and adopted typical Egyptian policies."
- (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)
"Among the foreigners, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians. In the late predynastic period (c. 3700-3150 B.C.E.), the Nubians shared the same culture as the Egyptians and even evolved the same pharaonic political structure." - (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)
Ancient Egyptian religion closer to the religion of African regions than to Mesopotamia, Europe or the Middle East
QUOTE(s): Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508 "A large number of gods go back to prehistoric times. The images of a cow and star goddess (Hathor), the falcon (Horus), and the human-shaped figures of the fertility god (Min) can be traced back to that period. Some rites, such as the "running of the Apil-bull," the "hoeing of the ground," and other fertility and hunting rites (e.g., the hippopotamus hunt) presumably date from early times.. Connections with the religions in southwest Asia cannot be traced with certainty." "It is doubtful whether Osiris can be regarded as equal to Tammuz or Adonis, or whether Hathor is related to the "Great Mother." There are closer relations with northeast African religions. The numerous animal cults (especially bovine cults and panther gods) and details of ritual dresses (animal tails, masks, grass aprons, etc) probably are of African origin. The kinship in particular shows some African elements, such as the king as the head ritualist (i.e., medicine man), the limitations and renewal of the reign (jubilees, regicide), and the position of the king's mother (a matriarchal element). Some of them can be found among the Ethiopians in Napata and Meroe, others among the Prenilotic tribes (Shilluk)." (Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508)
Egyptian dynastic civilization based from the 'darker' south (Upper Egypt) not the north (Lower Egypt)
QUOTE(s): "While not attempting to underestimate the contribution that Deltaic political and religious institutions made to those of a united Egypt, many Egyptologists now discount the idea that a united prehistoric kingdom of Lower Egypt ever existed."
"While communities such as Ma'adi appear to have played an important role in entrepots through which goods and ideas form south-west Asia filtered into the Nile Valley in later prehistoric times, the main cultural and political tradition that gave rise to the cultural pattern of Early Dynastic Egypt is to be found not in the north but in the south.": The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 1, From the Earliest Times to c. 500 BC, (Cambridge University Press: 1982), Edited by J. Desmond Clark pp. 500-509
"..the early cultures of Merimde, the Fayum, Badari Naqada I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of the ancient Egyptian way of life." (Source: Shaw, Thurston (1976) Changes in African Archaeology in the Last Forty Years in African Studies since 1945. p. 156-68. London.)
Egyptian state founded from the south, and indigenous in character. Egyptians dominated Palestine in some eras.
"What is truly unique about this state is the integration of rule over an extensive geographic region, in contrast to other contemporaneous Near Easter polities in Nubia, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Levant. Present evidence suggests that the state which emerged by the First Dynasty had its roots in the Nagada culture of Upper Egypt, where grave types, pottery and artifacts demonstrate an evolution of form from the Predynastic to the First Dynasty, This cannot be demonstrated for the material culture of Lower Egypt, which was eventually displaced by that which originated in Upper Egypt. Hierarchical society with much social and economic differentiation, as symbolized in the Nagada II cemeteries of Upper Egypt, does not seem to have been present, then, in Lower Egypt, a fact which supports an Upper Egyptian origin for the unified state. Thus archaeological evidence cannot support earlier theories that the founders of Egyptian civilization were an invading Dynastic race from the east.."
"Egyptian contact in the 4th millennium B.C. with SW Asia is undeniable, but the effect of this contact on state formation is Egypt is less clear... The unified state which emerged in Egypt in the 3rd millenium B.C. however, was unlike the polities in Mesopotamia, the Levant, northern Syria, or Early Bronze Age Palestine- in sociopolitical organization, material culture, and belief system. There was undoubtedly heightened commercial contact with SW Asia in the 4th millennium B.C., but the Early Dynastic state which emerged in Egypt is unique and religious in character." (Bard, Kathryn A. 1994 The Egyptian Predynastic: A Review of the Evidence. Journal of Field Archaeology 21(3):265-288.)
"From Petrie onwards, it was regularly suggested that despite the evidence of Predynastic cultures, Egyptian civilization of the 1st Dynasty appeared suddenly and must therefore have been introduced by an invading foreign 'race'. Since the 1970s however, excavations at Abydos and Hierakonpolis have clearly demonstrated the indigenous, Upper Egyptian roots of early civilization in Egypt.
Contact between northern Egypt and Palestine was overland, as evidence in northern Sinai demonstrates.. Israeli archealogists suggest that this evidence represents a commercial network established and controlled by the Egyptians as early as EBA Ia, and that this network was a major factor in the rise of the urban settlements found later in Palestine EBA II. Naomi Porat's technological study of ceramics from EBA sites in southern Palestine clearly demonstrates that in EBA Ib strata many of the pottery vessels used for food preparation were probably manufactured by Egyptian potters using Egyptian technology but local Palestinian clays. In EBA Ib strata there are also many storage jars made from Nile silt and marl wares, which must have been imported from Egypt. Not only did the Egyptians establish camps and way stations in northern Sinai, but the ceramic evidence also suggests that they established a highly organized network of settlements in southern Palestine where an Egyptian population was in residence." (Ian Shaw ed. (2003) The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt By Ian Shaw. Oxford University Press, page 40-63)
Much older scholarship shows cultural similarities between ancient Egypt and the rest of Africa, contradicting claims of Middle Eastern inspiration.
--Specific central African tool designs found at the well known Naqada, Badari and Fayum archaeological sites in Egypt (de Heinzelin 1962, Arkell and Ucko, 1956 et al). Shaw (1976) states that "the early cultures of Merimde, the Fayum, Badari Naqada I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of the ancient Egyptian way of life." Pottery evidence first seen in the Saharan Highlands then spreading to the Nile Valley (Flight 1973). Art motifs of Saharan rock paintings showing similarities to those in pharaonic art. A number of scholars suggest that these earlier artistic styles influenced later pharaonic art via Saharans leaving drier areas and moving into the Nile Valley taking their art styles with them (Mori 1964, Blanc 1964, et al)
--Earlier pioneering mummification outside Egypt. The oldest mummy in Africa is of a black Saharan child (Donadoni 1964, Blanc 1964) Frankfort (1956) suggests that it is thus possible to understand the pharaonic worldview by reference to the religious beliefs of these earlier African precursors. Attempts to suggest the root of such practices are due to Caucasoid civilizers from elsewhere are thus contradicted by the data on the ground.
--Several cultural practices of Egypt show strong similarities to an African totemic clan base. Childe (1969, 1978), Aldred (1978) and Strouhal (1971) demonstrate linkages with several African practices such as divine kingship and the king as divine rainmaker.
--Physical similarities of the early Nile valley populations with that of tropical Africans. Such connections are demonstrated in the work of numerous scholars such as Thompson and Randall Mclver 1905, Falkenburger 1947, and Strouhal 1971. The distance diagrams of Mukherjee, Rao and Trevor (1955) place the ancient Badarians genetically near 'black' tribes such as the Ashanti and the Taita. See also the "Issues of lumping under Mediterranean clusters" section above for similar older analyses.
--Serological (blood) evidence of genetic linkages. Paoli 1972 for example found a significant resemblance between ABO frequencies of dynastic Egyptians and the black northern Haratin who are held to be the probable descendants of the original Saharans (Hiernaux, 1975).
--Language similarities which include several hundred roots ascribable to African elements (UNESCO 1974)
--Ancient Egyptian origin stories ascribing origins of the gods and their ancestors to African locations to the south and west of Egypt (Davidson 1959)
--Advanced state building and political unity in Nubia, including writing, administrative apparatus and insignia some 300 years before dynastic Egypt, and the long demonstrated interchange between Nubia and Egypt (Williams 1980)
--Newer studies (Wendorf 2001, Wilkinson 1999, et al.) confirm these older analyses. Excavations from Nabta Playa, located about 100km west of Abu Simbel for example, suggest that the Neolithic inhabitants of the region were migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, based on cultural similarities and social complexity which is thought to be reflective of Egypt's Old Kingdom
--Other scholars (Wilkinson 1999) present similar material and cultural evidence- including similarities between predynastic Egypt and traditional African cattle-culture, typical of Southern Sudanese and East African pastoralists of today, and various cultural and artistic data such as iconography on rock art found in both Egypt and in the Sudan.
Assorted demic diffusion theories holding a mass influx of Europeans or Middle Easterners to Africa bringing cattle and agriculture to the natives is not supported by credible evidence. Indigenous development is most likely.
"Furthermore, the archaeology of northern Africa DOES NOT SUPPORT demic diffusion of farming from the Near East. The evidence presented by Wetterstrom indicates that early African farmers in the Fayum initially INCORPORATED Near Eastern domesticates INTO an INDIGENOUS foraging strategy, and only OVER TIME developed a dependence on horticulture. This is inconsistent with in-migrating farming settlers, who would have brought a more ABRUPT change in subsistence strategy. "The same archaeological pattern occurs west of Egypt, where domestic animals and, later, grains were GRADUALLY adopted after 8000 yr B.P. into the established pre-agricultural Capsian culture, present across the northern Sahara since 10,000 yr B.P. From this continuity, it has been argued that the pre-food-production Capsian peoples spoke languages ancestral to the Berber and/or Chadic branches of Afroasiatic, placing the proto-Afroasiatic period distinctly before 10,000 yr B.P."
Source: The Origins of Afroasiatic Christopher Ehret, S. O. Y. Keita, Paul Newman;, and Peter Bellwood Science 3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1680
When claims of European or 'Mediterranean' migrant influx to ancient Egypt before the Hyskos/Greek/Roman era are analyzed research data conclusively debunks them. Quote from "Early Nile Valley Farmers From El-Badari"
Male Badarian crania were analyzed using the generalized distance of Mahalanobis in a comparative analysis with other African and European series from the Howells?s database. The study was carried out to examine the affinities of the Badarians to evaluate, in preliminary fashion, a demic diffusion hypothesis that postulates that horticulture and the Afroasiatic language family were brought ultimately from southern Europe. (The assumption was made that the southern Europeans would be more similar to the central and northern Europeans than to any indigenous African populations.) The Badarians show a greater affinity to indigenous Africans while not being identical. This suggests that the Badarians were more affiliated with local and an indigenous African population than with Europeans. (S.O.Y. Keita. "Early Nile Valley Farmers from El-Badari: Aboriginals or "European" Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data". Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 191-208 (2005)
The Sahara and the Sudan seem to have provided a major source for the genesis of Egyptian civilization contributing many of its unique elements.
QUOTE(s): "a critical factor in the rise of social complexity and the subsequent emergence of the Egyptian state in Upper Egypt (Hoffman 1979; Hassan 1988). If so, Egypt owes a major debt to those early pastoral groups in the Sahara; they may have provided Egypt with many of those features that still distinguish it from its neighbors to the east." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17, 97-123 (1998), "Nabta Playa and Its Role in Northeastern African Prehistory," Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild.
"Over the last two decades, numerous contemporary (Khartoum Neolithic) sites and cemeteries have been excavated in the Central Sudan.. The most striking point to emerge is the overall similarity of early neolithic developments inhabitation, exchange, material culture and mortuary customs in the Khartoum region to those underway at the same time in the Egyptian Nile Valley, far to the north." (Wengrow, David (2003) "Landscapes of Knowledge, Idioms of Power: The African Foundations of Ancient Egyptian Civilization Reconsidered," in Ancient Egypt in Africa, David O'Connor and Andrew Reid, eds. Ancient Egypt in Africa. London: University College London Press, 2003, pp. 119-137)
"Sub-Saharan" genetic elements found as far afield as the Turkish and Greek regions
F. X. Ricaut, M. Waelkens. (2008). Cranial Discrete Traits in a Byzantine Population and Eastern Mediterranean Population Movements Human Biology - Volume 80, Number 5, October 2008, pp. 535-564
"A late Pleistocene-early Holocene northward migration (from Africa to the Levant and to Anatolia) of these populations has been hypothesized from skeletal data (Angel 1972, 1973; Brace 2005) and from archaeological data, as indicated by the probable Nile Valley origin of the "Mesolithic" (epi-Paleolithic) Mushabi culture found in the Levant (Bar Yosef 1987). This migration finds some support in the presence in Mediterranean populations (Sicily, Greece, southern Turkey, etc.; Patrinos et al.; Schiliro et al. 1990) of the Benin sickle cell haplotype. This haplotype originated in West Africa and is probably associated with the spread of malaria to southern Europe through an eastern Mediterranean route (Salares et al. 2004) following the expansion of both human and mosquito populations brought about by the advent of the Neolithic transition (Hume et al 2003; Joy et al. 2003; Rich et al 1998). This northward migration of northeastern African populations carrying sub-Saharan biological elements is concordant with the morphological homogeneity of the Natufian populations (Bocquentin 2003), which present morphological affinity with sub-Saharan populations (Angel 1972; Brace et al. 2005). In addition, the Neolithic revolution was assumed to arise in the late Pleistocene Natufians and subsequently spread into Anatolia and Europe (Bar-Yosef 2002), and the first Anatolian farmers, Neolithic to Bronze Age Mediterraneans and to some degree other Neolithic-Bronze Age Europeans, show morphological affinities with the Natufians (and indirectly with sub-Saharan populations; Angel 1972; Brace et al 2005), in concordance with a process of demic diffusion accompanying the extension of the Neolithic revolution (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994)."
"Following the numerous interactions among eastern Mediterranean and Levantine populations and regions, caused by the introduction of agriculture from the Levant into Anatolia and southeastern Europe, there was, beginning in the Bronze Age, a period of increasing interactions in the eastern Mediterranean, mainly during the Greek, Roman, and Islamic periods. These interactions resulted in the development of trading networks, military campaigns, and settler colonization. Major changes took place during this period, which may have accentuated or diluted the sub-Saharan components of earlier Anatolian populations. The second option seems more likely, because even though the population from Sagalassos territory was interacting with northeastern African and Levantine populations [trade relationships with Egypt (Arndt et al. 2003), involvement of thousands of mercenaries from Pisidia (Sagalassos region) in the war around 300 B.C. between the Ptolemaic kingdom (centered in Egypt) and the Seleucid kingdom (Syria/Mesopotamia/Anatolia), etc.], the major cultural and population interactions involving the Anatolian populations since the Bronze Age occurred with the Mediterranean populations form southeastern Europe, as suggested from historical and genetic data."
""In this context it is likely that Bronze Age events may have facilitated the southward diffusion of populations carrying northern and central European biological elements and may have contributed to some degree of admixture between northern and central Europeans and Anatolians, and on a larger scale, between northeastern Mediterraneans and Anatolians. Even if we do not know which populations were involved, historical and archaeological data suggest, for instance, the 2nd millennium B.C. Minoan and later Mycenaean occupation of Anatolian coast, the arrival in Anatolia in the early 1st millennium B.C. of the Phrygians coming from Thrace, and later the arrival of settlers from Macedonia in Pisidia and in the Sagalassos territory (under Seleucid rule). The coming of the Dorians from Northern Greece and central Europe (the Dorians are claimed to be one of the main groups at the origin of the ancient Greeks) may have also brought northern and central European biological elements into southern populations. Indeed, the Dorians may have migrated southward to the Peloponnese, across the southern Aegean and Create, and later reached Asia Minor."
Ancient Egyptian language is part of the Afrasian or Afroasiatic group which has its origins in Africa, and together with other archaeological evidence firmly makes it an African culture. Acording to mainstream research:
QUOTE(s):
"Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots. The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food." (Christopher Ehret (1996) "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture." In Egypt in Africa Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press)
"Ancient Egypt belongs to a language group known as 'Afroasiatic' (formerly called Hamito-Semitic) and its closest relatives are other north-east African languages from Somalia to Chad. Egypt's cultural features, both material and ideological and particularly in the earliest phases, show clear connections with that same broad area. In sum, ancient Egypt was an African culture, developed by African peoples, who had wide ranging contacts in north Africa and western Asia." (Morkot, Robert (2005) The Egyptians: An Introduction. Routledge. p. 10)
Mummification actices and dyeing of hair Hair studies of mummies note that color is often influenced by environmental factors at burial sites. Brothwell and Spearman (ref in Fletcher's works-1963) point out that reddish-brown ancient color hair is usually the result of partial oxidation of the melanin pigment. Other causes of hair color "blonding" involve bleaching, caused by the alkaline in the mummification process. Color also varies due to the Egyptian practice of dyeing hair with henna. Other samples show individuals lightening the hair using vegetable colorants. Thus variations in hair color among mummies do not necessarily suggest the presence of blond or red-haired Europeans or Near Easterners flitting about Egypt before being mummified, but the influence of environmental factors. --------
Egyptian practice of putting locks of hair in mummy wrappings.
Racial analysis is also made problematic by the Egyptian practice of burying hair, in many "votive or funerary deposits buried separately from the body, a practice found from Predynastic to Roman times despite its frequent omission from excavation reports." (Fletcher 2002) In examining hair samples Fletcher (2004) notes that care is needed to determine what is natural scalp hair, versus hair from a wig, versus hair extensions to natural locks. Tracking the exact source of hair is also critical since the Egyptians were known to have placed locks of hair from different sources among mummy wrappings. (The Search for Nefertiti, By Joann Fletcher, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 93-94, 96; Joann Fletcher, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HAIR AND WIGS, THE OSTRACON THE JOURNAL OF THE EGYPTIAN STUDY SOCIETY, VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2; SUMMER 2002) -------------------------------------------------------------
Hair for wigs often obtained through trade not mass waves of "Caucasoid" migrants.
The use of wigs made of varying hair also complicates attempts at 'racial' analysis. Fletcher (2002) shows that many Egyptian wigs have been found with what is defined as straighter 'cynotrichous' hair. This however is hardly a marker of massive European or Near Eastern presence or admixture. Fletcher notes that the Egyptians often eschewed their own personal hair, shaving carefully and using wigs widely. The hair for these wigs was often obtained through trade. Indeed, "hair itself being a valuable commodity ranked alongside gold and incense in account lists from the town of Kahun." Egyptian trading links with other regions is well known, and a prized commodity like straighter 'cynotrichous' hair could have been easily obtained via the Sahara, Levant, the Maghreb, Mediterranean contacts, or even the hair of Asiatic war captives or casulaties from Egypt's numerous conflicts. -------------------------------------------------------------
Red-headed Ramses- routine for genetic variability in Africa not "whiteness"
Rameses came along comparatively late in Egyptian history, when outsiders toEgypt like the Hyskos were increasing in the region. Detailed microscopic analysis during the 1980s (Balout 1985) identified some of the hair of Egyptian Pharoah Rameses II as being a yellowish-red. Such a finding should not be surprising given the wide range of physical variability in Africa, the most genetically diverse region on earth, out of which flowed other population groups. Indeed, blondism and various other hair shades are not unknown in East Africa or Nubia, particularly in children, nor are such hair color variants uncommon in dark-haired or dark skinned populations like the Australians. (Hrdy 1978) Given the range of genetic variability in Africa, a red-haired Rameses is hardly unusual. Rameses' reign, in the 19th Dynasty, came over 1,500 years after the Egyptian state had been established, and after the Hyskos interlude. Such latecomers to Egypt, like the Hyskos, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs etc would add their own genetic strands to the nation's mix. Whatever the blend of genes that occurred with Rameses, his hair offers little supposed "proof" of a "white" or "Nordic" Egypt. If anything, X-rays of several royal mummies by mainstream scientists show that the Egyptians pharoahs and other royals had several uncomfortable 'Negroid' leanings. (http://www.geocities.com/nilevalleypeoples/xraymu mmies1.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------
Red hair can be readily produced by dark-skinned populations- just check out Australia and pheomelanin
The finding of Rameses "red" hair also deserves further scrutiny. The analysis found evidence of dyeing to make the hair yellowish-red, but some elements were untouched by the dye. These elements of yellowish-red hair in Balout's study, were established on the basis of the presence of pheomelanin, a red-brown polymeric pigment in the skin and hair of humans. However, pheomelanin can also be found in persons with dark brown or even black hair as well, which gives it a reddish hue. Most natural melanins contain sulfur, which is typically associated with pheomelanin. In scientific tests of melanin, black hair contained as much as 5% sulfur, 3% lower than the 8.8% found in Irish red hair, but exceeding the 2.3% found in Scandinavian blond hair. (Jolles, et al. 1996) Thus the yellowish-red hair discovered on Rameses is well within the range of human variation for dark haired people, whatever the exact gene combination that led to the condition.
As noted above, such variation began with ancient African populations. Most red hair is found in northern and western Europe, especially in the British Isles, and even then it appears in minor frequencies in Europe- some 4% of the population. It is unlikely such populations had any major contact or influence in the ancient Nile Valley. The analysis on Rameses also did not show classic "European" red hair but hair of a light red to yellowish tinge. Black haired or dark-skinned populations are quite capable of producing such yellowish-red color variants on their own, as can be seen in today's east and northeast Africa (see child's photo above). Nor is such color variation unusual to Africa. Native dark-skinned populations in Australia, routinely produce people witn blond or reddish hair. .
The analysis also found Rameses' hair to be cymotrich or wavy, again a characteristic quite within the range of overall African or Nile valley physical and genetic diversity. A "pure" Nordic type of straight hair was thus not established for Rameses. Hence the notion of white Europeans or red-headed Caucasoids from other areas flowing into ancient Egypt to add hair variation is dubious. Inflows occurred during the Greek and Roman eras but reddish or brown hair is within the range of African variation. Genetic studies (Tishkoff 2009, 2000) show Africans have the highest diversity in the world. Skeletal/cranial studies confirm the pattern. Relethford (2001) shows that ".. methods for estimating regional diversity show sub-Saharan Africa to have the highest levels of phenotypic variation, consistent with many genetic studies." (Relethford, John "Global Analysis of Regional Differences in Craniometric Diversity and Population Substructure". Human Biology - Volume 73, Number 5, October 2001, pp. 629-636) Hanihara 2003 notes that [significant] "..intraregional diversity are present in Subsaharan Africans.." While ancient Egypt had gene flow in various eras, hair variations easily fall under this pattern of built-in, indigenous diversity, as well as the above noted cultural practice of using wigs with hair from different places obtained through trade.
-----------------------
Joann Fletcher, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HAIR AND WIGS, THE OSTRACON THE JOURNAL OF THE EGYPTIAN STUDY SOCIETY, VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2; SUMMER 2002
The Search for Nefertiti, By Joann Fletcher, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 93-94, 96
Brothwell. D., and R. Spearman 1963 The hair of earlier peoples. In: Science in Archaeology. D. Brothwell and E. Higgs, eds. Thames and Hudeon, London, p. 427-436
Daniel Hrdy 1978- Analysis of Hair Samples of Mummies from Semna South, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, (1978) 49: 277-262)
Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa," American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 83:35-48 (1990
Hair Styles and History, by Cyril Aldred, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 15, No. 6 (Feb., 1957), pp. 141-147)
L. Balout, C. Roubet and C. Desroches-Noblecourt, and was titled La Momie de Ramsès II: Contribution Scientifique à l'Égyptologie (1985).
Formation and Structure of Human Hair: Biology and Structure, By Pierre Jollès, Helmut Zahn, H. Höcker, Birkhäuser, 1996, pp. 200-225
>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>> >>
NUBIA AND EGYPT- Nubians and Egyptians were so close in various eras that they were virtually indistinguishable
“The ancient Egyptians referred to a region, located south of the third cataract the Nile River, in which Nubians dwelt as Kush.. Within such context, this phrase is not a racial slur. Throughout the history of ancient Egypt there were numerous, well documented instances that celebrate Nubian-Egyptian marriages. A study of these documents, particularly those dated to both the Egyptian New Kingdom (after 1550 B.C.E.) and to Dynasty XXV and early Dynasty XXVI (about 720-640 BCE), reveals that neither spouse nor any of the children of such unions suffered discrimination at the hands of the ancient Egyptians. Indeed such marriages were never an obstacle to social, economic, or political status, provided the individuals concerned conformed to generally accepted Egyptian social standards. Furthermore, at times, certain Nubian practices, such as tattooing for women, and the unisex fashion of wearing earrings, were wholeheartedly embraced by the ancient Egyptians." (Bianchi, 2004: p. 4)
'It is an extremely difficult task to attempt to describe the Nubians during the course of Egypt's New Kingdom, because their presence appears to have virtually evaporated from the archaeological record.. The result has been described as a wholesale Nubian assimilation into Egyptian society. This assimilation was so complete that it masked all Nubian ethnic identities insofar as archaeological remains are concerned beneath the impenetrable veneer of Egypt's material; culture.. In the Kushite Period, when Nubians ruled as Pharaohs in their own right, the material culture of Dynasty XXV (about 750-655 B.C.E.) was decidedly Egyptian in character.. Nubia's entire landscape up to the region of the Third Cataract was dotted with temples indistinguishable in style and decoration from contemporary temples erected in Egypt. The same observation obtains for the smaller number of typically Egyptian tombs in which these elite Nubian princes were interred. (Bianchi, 2004, p. 99-100)
- Robert Bianchi ( 2004). Daily Life of the Nubians. Greenwood Publishing Group
Integration of Nubian and egyptian elites in some eras
"the XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region.4 As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of Kush), except such as came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract. Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into Egyptian territory? Because the Egyptian rulers of Nubian ancestry had become Egyptians culturally; as pharaohs, they exhibited typical Egyptian attitudes and adopted typical Egyptian policies." - (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)
The pharaohs that forbid the movement of certain Nubian tribes into Egypt were themselves of negroid origin according to conservative mainstream Egyptologist Frank Yurco..
Quote:
"the XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of Kush), except such as came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract. Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into Egyptian territory? Because the Egyptian rulers of Nubian ancestry had become Egyptians culturally; as pharaohs, they exhibited typical Egyptian attitudes and adopted typical Egyptian policies."
- (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)
Applying a consistent 'race' model that interprets war between Egyptians and Nubians as 'racial' the Egyptians also pursued 'racial' wars against whites from the Middle East.
[IMG]http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/edward s/pharaohs/207.gif[/IMG] RAMESES II. SLAYING THE "whites" BEFORE RA, THE TUTELARY DEITY OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ABÛ-SIMBEL..
THE DISCOURSE OF AMEN-RA, LORD OF THRONES.
Thou hast struck off the heads of the Asiatics, and their children cannot escape from thee. Every land illuminated by thy diadem is encircled by thy might; and in all the zone of the heavens there is not a rebel to rise up against thee. The enemy bring in their tribute on their backs, prostrating themselves before thee, their limbs trembling and their hearts burned up within them."
Campaign against "white" Mittani in parts of Lebanon:
"He is a king valiant ... Naharin which its lord had deserted out of fear ... I hacked up its towns and villages and I set fire to them ... I carried off their inhabitants ... also their herds of cattle ... I felled all their plantations and their fruit trees ...I had many vessels ... built on the mountains of God's Land in the neighborhood of the Lady of Byblos ... then on that mountain of Naharin, my Majesty erected my stela, carved out of the mountain on the western side of the Euphrates.."
Conquest against and tribute from "white" Palestine:
"Tribute of the princes of Retenu, who came to do obeisance ... to the souls of his majesty... Now every harbor at which his majesty arrived was supplied with loaves and with assorted loaves, with oil, incense, wine, f[ruit] ---- abundant were they beyond everything ...
Tribute from 'white' Lebanon:
The chieftains, lord of Lebanon, construct the royal ships in order that people may sail south in them to bring all the marvels of the "Garden" to the palace. LPH. ... The chieftains of Retjenu (Retenu) who drag the flagpoles by means of oxen to the shore, it is they who come with their dues to the place where his majesty is, to the Residence in ...... bearing all the fine products brought as marvels of the south and being taxed for tribute annually as (with) all bondsmen of his Majesty."
Operations against more 'white' 'Troglodytes':
"Then my Majesty made them take their oaths of allegiance as follows: never again shall we do anything evil against Menkheperre (another name for Thutmose III), may he live forever ... Then my Majesty had them set free on the road to their cities*). They went off on donkeys for I had seized their chariotry. I captured their inhabitants for Egypt and their property likewise." [W. Helck transl. by B. Cummings (1982), `Urkunden der 18. Dynastie', `Egyptian Historical Records of the Later 18th Dynasty']
"His majesty proceeded northward, to overthrow the Asiatics (Mntyw-Stt). His majesty arrived at a district, Sekmem (Skmm) was its name. His majesty led the good way in proceeding to the palace of `Life, Prosperity, and Health (L.P.H.,' when Sekmen had fallen, together with Retenu (Rtnw) the wretched, while I was acting as rearguard." [Breasted, `Records', Vol. I, Sec. 680] Time of Seti the Great - Presentation of Syrian Prisoners and Precious Vessels to Amon
"Smiting the Troglodytes, beating down the Asiatics (Mn·t·yw), making his boundary as far as the `Horns of the Earth', as far as the marshes of Naharin (N-h-r-n)." [Ibid., Vol. III, Sec. 118;]
"Slaying of the Asiatic Troglodytes (Ynw-Mn·t·yw [Menate, Manasseh]), all inaccessible countries, all lands, the Fenkhu of the marshes of Asia, the Great Bend of the sea (w'd-wr)."
Booty seized from "white" Caananites:
".... 340 living prisoners; 83 hands; 2,401 mares; 191 foals; 6 stallions; ... young ...; a chariot, wrought with gold, (its) pole of gold, belonging to the chief of `M-k-ty' (as the land around Jerusalem was called); .... 892 chariots of his wretched army; total, 924 (chariots); a beautiful suit of bronze armor, belonging to the chief of Jerusalem; .... 200 suits of armor, belonging to his wretched army; 502 bows; 7 poles of (mry) wood, wrought with silver, belonging to the tent of that foe. Behold, the army of his majesty took ...., 297 ...., 1,929 large cattle, 2,000 small cattle, 20500 white small cattle." [JBRE, `Records', Vol. II, Sec. 435; See also the following sections.]
Tribute from "white" Assur/Assyria "The tribute of the chief of Assur (Ys-sw-r): genuine lapis lazuli, a large block, making 20 deben, 9 kidet; genuine lapis lazuli, 2 blocks; total, 3; and pieces, [making] 30 deben; total, 50 deben and 9 kidet; fine lapis lazuli from Babylon (Bb-r); vessels of Assur of hrrt- stone in colors, ---- very many." "Tribute of the chief of Assur: horses ---. A ---- of skin of the M-h-w as the [protection] of a chariot, of the finest of --- wood; 190(+x) wagons --- --- wood, nhb wood, 343 pieces, carob wood, 50 pieces; nby and k'nk wood, 206 pieces; olive oil, ------.." [BREASTED, Vol. II, Sec. 446, 449]
"Whites" put to slave labor in Egypt.
from Project Guttenberg full text of: A HISTORY OF EGYPT FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PERSIAN CONQUEST BY JAMES HENRY BREASTED, II, 760-1, 773. 2 II, 761.
Inscription "the Asiatics of all countries came with bowed head, doing obeisance to the fame of his majesty."
book text:
"Thutmose's war-galleys moored in the harbour of the town; but at this time not merely the iceaUh of Asia was unloaded from the ships; the Asiatics themselves, bound one to another in long lines, were led down the gang planks to begin a life of slave- labour for the Pharaoh (Fig. 119). They wore long matted beards, an abomination to the Egyptians ; their hair hung in heavy black masses upon their shoulders, and they were clad in gaily coloured woolen stuffs, such as the Egyptian, spotless in his white linen robe, would never put on his body.
Their arms were pinioned behind them at the elbows or crossed over their heads and lashed together ; or, again, their hands were thrust through odd pointed ovals of wood, which served as hand-cuffs. The women carried their children slung in a fold of the mantle over their shoulders. With their strange speech and uncouth postures the poor wretches were the subject of jibe and merriment on the part of the multitude ; while the artists of the time could never forbear caricaturing them. Many of them found their way into the houses of the Pharaoh's favourites, and his generals were liberally rewarded with gifts of such slaves; but the larger number were immediately employed on the temple estates, the Pharaoh's domains, or in the construction of his great monuments and buildings."
Conservative Egyptologist Frank Yurco, shows that the 12th Dynasty was of the negroid type, of Upper Egyptian and Nubian origin. The 12th Dynasty is one of Egypt's greatest, and was in place approximately 1000 years before the 25th dynasty. Yurco also shows that the Nubians were ethnically the closest people to the Egyptians.
Quote: "the XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of Kush), except such as came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract. Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into Egyptian territory? Because the Egyptian rulers of Nubian ancestry had become Egyptians culturally; as pharaohs, they exhibited typical Egyptian attitudes and adopted typical Egyptian policies."
- (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)
"Among the foreigners, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians. In the late predynastic period (c. 3700-3150 B.C.E.), the Nubians shared the same culture as the Egyptians and even evolved the same pharaonic political structure." - (F. J. Yurco, 'Were the ancient Egyptians black or white?', Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol 15, no. 5, 1989)
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm sorry, but I just HAD TO bump this thread as the video was too hilarious and too EASY to refute with clearly cherrypicked images of the Ancient Egyptians, using decolored statues as proof for whiteness( ) and finally using the debunked R1b study.
These "Ancient Egyptians were not black" on youtube are a dime and dozen and yet never cease to be funny.
Posts: 1891 | From: NY | Registered: Sep 2014
| IP: Logged |
Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Horsenation why don't you stop mucking about you know all this nonsense about a Caucasoid white Kemet is just that nonsense since non hails from Caucasia spoke no Indo European language practiced no Indo-European Culture at best you will find "some" Kemites with less woolly hair and angular features, but that is not the result of incoming Caucacs..those were local African developments And folks like you keep projecting your own state of mind on others,do really know how this mess all started any way? read up on Nott and Gliddon.
Racial anthropology, pejoratively also scientific racism[1] is the use of scientific, or ostensibly[2] scientific, findings and method to investigate differences among the human races, specifically in a historical context of ca. 1880 to 1930.
As a term, scientific racism denotes the contemporary and historical scientific theories that employ anthropology (notably physical anthropology), anthropometry, craniometry, and other disciplines, in fabricating anthropologic typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races.
Racial or physical anthropology was most common during the New Imperialism period (ca. 1880s–1914), in the second half of the 19th century, wherein theory conflated with racial supremacism in justifying white European imperialism. Since the end of the Second World War (1939–45) and the occurrence of the Holocaust, scientific racism in theory and action[clarification needed] was formally denounced, especially in The Race Question (18 July 1950), the UNESCO moral condemnation of racism and official debunking of scientific racism: "The myth of ‘race’ has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years, it has taken a heavy toll in human lives, and caused untold suffering".[3] Beginning in the later 20th century, scientific racism has been criticized as obsolete, and as historically used to support or validate racist world-views, usually based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories — typically with a hierarchy of superior and inferior races.[4]
Neither this guy
This didn't make the cut for your video now did he? Gliddon was influenced by the racial theories of Samuel George Morton (1799–1851), one of the inspirators of physical anthropology. Morton collected hundreds of human skulls from around the world and tried to classify them. Influenced by the common racist theories of his time, Morton claimed that he could judge the intellectual capacity of a race by the cranial capacity (the measure of the volume of the interior of the skull). A large skull meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. By studying these skulls he decided at what point Caucasians stopped being Caucasian, and at what point Negroes began. Morton had many skulls from ancient Egypt, and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were not African, but were instead Caucasians. Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science, studied from a historical perspective these craniometric works in The Mismeasure of Man (1981) and concluded that Morton had fudged data and "overpacked" the skulls with filler in order to justify his racist opinions. Other historical studies alleging a black-white difference in brain size include Paul Broca, 1873, Bean (1906), Mall, (1909), Pearl, (1934) and Vint (1934). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gliddon They were distortion junkies from the beginning they had to jump through all kinds of hoops replace basic definitions to arrive at a certain conclusion but even then that was only an illusion,easily debunked by anyone who cared you are a continuation of Morton and Gliddon.
Posts: 8179 | From: the Tekrur straddling Senegal & Mauritania | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic