posted
Often in various debates on this forum or others people contend that Coptic Christians are the pristine represenatives of the ancient Egyptians but ignore the Syrian, Armenian and Greek admixture they have contracted through the years because of close contact with these groups. The other argument that Egyptians never intermingled with local Ptolemic Greeks does not hold water for I have an excerpt which diminishes this theory. Here is my evidence for the intermingling of Greek and Egyptian population in Alexandria during Ptolemaic times:
Monimos is, as far as I know , the first alexandrian [or desendant of an Alexandrian] of whom we know that he married an Egyptian woman. Fraser's suggestion that Alexandrian immigrants in the chora '' are unlikely to have contracted marriages with Egyptian women''[because this would endanger the civil status of their offspring[Fraser 1972,pp.71-72] is here for the first time disproved. And I doubt if Alexandrians living in the chora really behaved differently from other Greeks at all.
Monimos was certainly not the only Greek in the village or town to marry an Egyptian girl, the same census document substantially auguments the number of mixed families known for the third century B.C.; Stephanos, son of 3my3.t,Protarchos and Diodoros are moreover married to Egyptian women themselves. Perhaps the scarcity of mixed marriages in our third century documentation is for a large part due to the types of documents on which modern surveyance is based[in the Zenon archive for instance ''irregular'' filiation are totally absent from the 1700 Greek documents, but two are found in the twenty-odd Demotic texts].
One last point should be stressed in this text; though he belongs to an Alexandrian family, Monimos has to pay the poll tax[salt tax] at the rate of one drachma just like other Greeks. Egyptians have to pay an extra obol[ the one obol tax] as is clear both from Demotic Papyrus Lille III 101 and from CPR XII 1 and 2, recently published by Harrauer[1987]. This is an important new element , as we have here for the first time clear proof of offical discrimination against the Egyptian part of the population. Such a discrimination , even if the payment involved was very small,necessitated seperate offical registers of Greeks and Egyptians. Thus being a Greek or an Egyptian was not just a matter of personal and community feeling[''ethnicity''], but also offical policy; being Greek involved some privileges that an Egyptian could not claim[pace Goudriaan 1988].
page 52
Some Greeks in Egypt
Willy Clarysse Katholieke Universiteit ,Leuven
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Over the centuries there was a steady influx of foreigners, often driven by drought or overpopulation in their homelands:
* Nubians entered Egypt during the the First Intermediate Period. * Canaanites, and among them probably Israelites, sojourned by the Nile many times during the second millennium BCE. They were referred to as Asiatics by the Egyptians. * Enslaved people were displaced during the expansionary phase of the empire in Asia and Africa (Middle and New Kingdom) * The Hyksos, a Middle Eastern people, conquered Lower Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. * The Sea Peoples tried to do so in the 12th century. * Libyans settled in the eastern Delta. * Jews, led by Jeremiah, found a safe haven in Egypt after the Assyrian conquest of Judah.
They can have added but relatively little to the population size: the Hyksos were mostly expelled at the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the Sea Peoples, apart from those who were enslaved or became mercenaries, were repulsed . More peaceful was the presence of Phoenician traders in Lower Egypt probably since earliest times. Before the advent of the Greeks in Egypt, Phoenician ships carried much of Egyptian overseas trade and were never completely replaced by their European rivals.
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what you have is anecdotal information, nothing providing estimates of population numbers or proportions
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posted
Well lioness, I was not attempting to debate with you. I don't believe I resorted to ad hominem either considering I never tried to destory your credibility by name calling. I simply stated you should cite your references.
During the Ptolemic period I believe there is reliable census information between settled foreign populations and indigenous Egyptians. Unfortunately, I am not privy to this information. This was never my claim.
My claim was that Greeks and other foreign groups during the Ptolemaic period added to the diversity of the local population. Whether or not they changed the phenotype of the local population if hard to prove. However, we can show that a good portion of where modern groups like the Coptic Christians live also had large groups of foreigners such as Greeks. Here is more sources about intermarriage between Greeks and local Egyptians:
5.0105 CLARYSSE, W., Greeks in Ptolemaic Thebes, in: Hundred-Gated Thebes, 1-19. (fig., tables). On the basis of a database (whose building-up is still in progress) which registers all Greeks attested in Ptolemaic documents from Thebes the author concludes that the Greek-speaking or Greek-named section of the population belonged to the upper layers of society. This small elite was so narrow that name identity (except for the most common) is often indicative of family relationship or even personal identity. They had close links with the native upper class. From the 3rd century B.C. onwards Egyptian scribes took up learning and writing Greek, marrying off their children to immigrants, so that in the late Ptolemaic Period the Greek-speaking upper class was ethnically thoroughly mixed with native families. Culturally they could act two ways: as Greeks in the administration, as Egyptians in the temple and in the family.Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness: ^^^ad hominem attempt
what you have is anecdotal information, nothing providing estimates of population numbers or proportions
LMAO
Do you even know what the phrase 'ad hominem' even means?? How did Ausar attack you? He merely pointed out your bad habit of posting info without citing the sources they come from!
Ausar, don't mind lyinass. She's just mad that this thread upsets her personal views is all. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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My claim was that Greeks and other foreign groups during the Ptolemaic period added to the diversity of the local population. Whether or not they changed the phenotype of the local population if hard to prove. However, we can show that a good portion of
"a good portion of" is vague. A good portion of what? and what is a good portion? You provide this:
quote:Originally posted by ausar: 5.0105 CLARYSSE, W., Greeks in Ptolemaic Thebes, in: Hundred-Gated Thebes, 1-19. (fig., tables). On the basis of a database (whose building-up is still in progress) which registers all Greeks attested in Ptolemaic documents from Thebes the author concludes that the Greek-speaking or Greek-named section of the population belonged to the upper layers of society. This small elite was so narrow that name identity (except for the most common) is often indicative of family relationship or even personal identity. They had close links with the native upper class. From the 3rd century B.C. onwards Egyptian scribes took up learning and writing Greek, marrying off their children to immigrants, so that in the late Ptolemaic Period the Greek-speaking upper class was ethnically thoroughly mixed with native families. Culturally they could act two ways: as Greeks in the administration, as Egyptians in the temple and in the family. [/QB]
It is speculated that "good portion" of the "This small elite" of Greeks intermarried.
This speaks little to the general population of Egypt or even a particular city, ethnicity, what the proportion is
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posted
I mentioned that a good portion of modern Coptic Christians live in areas which were heavily populated by Greeks and Egyptians living side by side. We donot have exact ratio of Greeks and Egyptians living side by side but we do have marriage documents which show intermarriage was common between the two groups.
Modern scholars see the Coptic Christians as being pristine represenatives of the ancient Egyptians. My contention is that Coptic Christians are indigenous Egyptians but heavily mixed with Greeks,Armenian and Syrian Christians.
In regards do the particular cities we have documentation that Greeks founded settlements not only in Alexandria but also parts of Middle and Upper Egypt. All my citations and references point to the exact locations of Greek settlements in Ptolemaic Egypt.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Modern scholars see the Coptic Christians as being pristine represenatives of the ancient Egyptians.
which modern scholars?
quote:Originally posted by ausar: In regards do the particular cities we have documentation that Greeks founded settlements not only in Alexandria but also parts of Middle and Upper Egypt. All my citations and references point to the exact locations of Greek settlements in Ptolemaic Egypt. [/QB]
No one disputes this
quote:Originally posted by ausar: My contention is that Coptic Christians are indigenous Egyptians but heavily mixed with Greeks,Armenian and Syrian Christians.
you have not provided data to support your claim of heavy mixture. So far you have quoted sources with anecdotal information about the elite class who were a small minority to begin with
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Lioness, I don't believe I ever mentioned the degree of admixture the Greeks or that it was soley the Greeks who left a large genetic imprint upon the modern Egyptian population. Not enough study has gone into this to make a conclusion.
Some debates I have encountered here the debaters tend to state the Greeks never intermingled with their colonial subjects. I posted evidence to the contrary which prove Greeks intermingled with the the colonial subjects.
You cannot call my evidence anecdotal simply because it was not to attest to the degree of Greek admixture in modern Egypt but simply that the Ptolemaic Greeks mixed with the local populations. This was quite common place as attested by marriage documents and tax records.
I will emphasize that the genetic impact Greeks left on the modern Egyptian population is something that can be quantified by examing tax records, marriage records and also skeletal remains. Also by examining census on local villages against the overall population of foreigners including the Greeks. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor resources to reserch information.
I will invite you to personally email Egyptologist about the Coptic Christians. Some in particular David O'Connor, Bruce Trigger and Bob Brier all contend that Coptic Christians are pristine examples of the ancient Egyptians. I invite you to email all three and more Egyptologists.
Again: raw data such as tax census and marriage documents shows Egyptians and Greeks married each other. Texts written during this period show offspring.
Questions: How much of a genetic impact did these Greek populations leave on modern Egypt? Were the settlements of Greeks outnumbered by local Egyptians or vice versa.
Conclusion: Local Egyptians and Greeks intermarried with each other.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Ausar, do you still have that source which claims that the Ptolemies practiced segregation within the city of Alexandria?? Was this out of fear of rebellion or coup because I highly doubt it was anything racial since recent evidence shows a sister of Cleopatra and perhaps Cleopatra herself had native African ancestry.
Also, let's not forget about the Roman period after the fall of the Ptolemies, in particular the Fayum Portraits
Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits is the modern term given to a type of realistic painted portraits on wooden boards attached to mummies. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. In fact, the Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived.
Mummy portraits have been found across Egypt, but are most common in the Fayum Basin, hence the common name. "Fayum Portraits" is generally thought of as a stylistic, rather than a geographic, description. The Fayum mummy portraits were an innovation dating to the Coptic period on time of the Roman occupation of Egypt from the late 1st century BC or the early 1st century AD onwards. This highly prestigious tradition of the classical world was continued into Byzantine and Western traditions in the post-classical world, including the local tradition of Coptic iconography in Egypt and then in the famous Slavic (Russian, Bulgarian) icons.
The portraits covered the faces of bodies that were mummified for burial. Extant examples indicate that they were mounted into the bands of cloth that were used to wrap the bodies. Almost all have now been detached from the mummies. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest, viewed frontally. In terms of artistic tradition, the images clearly derive more from Greco-Roman traditions than Egyptian ones....
Social status
The patrons of the portraits apparently belonged to the affluent upper class of military personnel, civil servants and religious dignitaries. Not everyone could afford a mummy portrait; many mummies were found without one. Flinders Petrie states that only one or two per cent of the mummies he excavated were embellished with portraits...
It is not clear whether those depicted are of Egyptian, Greek or Roman origin, nor whether the portraits were commonly used by all ethnicities. The name of some of those portrayed are known from inscriptions, they are of Egyptian, Greek and Roman origin. Hairstyles and clothing are always influenced by Roman fashion. Women and children are often depicted wearing valuable ornaments and fine garments, men often wearing specific and elaborate outfits. Greek inscriptions of names are relatively common, sometimes they include professions. It is not known whether such inscriptions always reflect reality, or whether they may state ideal conditions or aspirations rather than true conditions. One single inscription is known to definitely indicate the deceased's profession (a ship owner) correctly. The mummy of a woman named Hermione also included the term Grammatik. For a long time, it was assumed that this indicated that she was a teacher by profession (for this reason, Flinders Petrie donated the portrait to Girton College, Cambridge, the first residential college for women in Britain), but today, it is assumed that the term indicates her level of education. Some portraits of men show sword-belts or even pommels, suggesting that they were members of the Roman military.
This supports everything Ausar has said, and also refutes the notion that Coptic = indigenous since by the time Christianity was already introduced, there were significant foreign populations in the Delta!
By the way, I can't help but laugh at the statement in the last paragraph where the author says it's not clear what ethnicity those depicted on the portraits show. It should be clear to anyone familiar with ancient Egyptian art, or rather yet Egyptian people that the people in these portraits are clearly a mixture of Egyptian and European!
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by AGÜEYBANÁ(Mind718): Lmao, this lyianass character never fails. Pure plagiarist.
Good info in the O.P. Ausar btw.
Not only is she a plagiarist, but she is also a pathetic fool who now squirms with discomfort over the thought that her fair-skinned Egyptians may be the result of admixture. As if this wasn't obvious in itself.
quote:Originally posted by the lyinass: you have not provided data to support your claim of heavy mixture. So far you have quoted sources with anecdotal information about the elite class who were a small minority to begin with
As usual you put words in other folks' mouths. Ausar didn't say anything in regards as to how much the admixture was let alone "heavy". The fact is there was admixture. It wasn't just elites who immigrated to Egypt but other people like soldiers, traders, etc. This continued long after the Ptolemies under the Roman empire.
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: Modern scholars see the Coptic Christians as being pristine represenatives of the ancient Egyptians. My contention is that Coptic Christians are indigenous Egyptians but heavily mixed with Greeks,Armenian and Syrian Christians.
I find this strange considering how most scholars in the past acknowledge the Copts at least those of the Delta to be mixed or even "mongrels", while identifying the Fellahin especially those of Upper Egypt as the most pristine.
“The first tribes that inhabited Egypt that is, the Nile Valley between the Syene cataracts and the sea, came from Abyssinia to Sennar. The ancient Egyptians belonged to a race quite similar to the Kennous or Barabras, present inhabitants of Nubia. In the Copts of Egypt we do not find any of the characteristic features of the ancient Egyptian population. The Copts are the result of crossbreeding with all the nations that have successively dominated Egypt . It is wrong to seek in them the principal features of the old race.”-- Egyptologist Champollion Figeac 1867
quote:In regards do the particular cities we have documentation that Greeks founded settlements not only in Alexandria but also parts of Middle and Upper Egypt. All my citations and references point to the exact locations of Greek settlements in Ptolemaic Egypt.
There were three main cities-- Alexandria and Naukratis in the Delta and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt. However, there were many small towns and settlements mainly in the Delta but also in the northern oases like Fayum and Bahariya (where the mummy portraits were found).
Also, I came across this passage from wikipedia on the Ptolemaic Kingdom:
The Ptolemaic kingdom was diverse in the people who settled and made Egypt their home on this time. During this period, Greek troops under Ptolemy I Soter were given land grants and brought their families encouraging tens of thousands of Greeks to settle the country making themselves the new ruling class. Native Egyptians continued having a role, yet a small one in the Ptolemaic government mostly in lower posts and outnumbered the foreigners. During the reign of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs, many Jews were imported from neighboring Palestine by the hundred thousands for being renowned fighters and established an important presence there. Other foreign groups settled during this time and even Galatian mercenaries were invited. Of the aliens who had come to settle in Egypt, the ruling race, Greeks, were the most important element. They were partly spread as allotment-holders over the country, forming social groups, in the country towns and villages, side by side with the native population, partly gathered in the three Greek cities — the old Naucratis, founded before 600 BC (in the interval of Egyptian independence after the expulsion of the Assyrians and before the coming of the Persians), and the two new cities, Alexandria by the sea, and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt.
Although wiki is not always reliable as a source, I can't help but to think such info is based on something historical.
Here is something else interesting I came across..
Note that the study mainly deals with the Fayum area, but its findings are quite telling.
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Djehuti, I read that the native Egyptians were segregated in Alexandria from a book entitled Egypt After the Pharoahs by Alan K Bowman. I don't recall if segregation was implemented under the Greek occupation or Roman ocupation of Alexandria. I believe it was the Romans who institued segregation in the city of Alexandria.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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^ The Roman period would make more sense since Egypt was a vassal state and after Cleopatra's death there were no more pharaohs so I believe it was likely the Romans since they had more to fear from the general public.
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