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http://listverse.com/2015/05/10/10-intriguing-clues-about-ancient-egyptian-ethnicity/

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Mena: Another Western media article to hide the black race and African origin of the Ancient Egyptians. Scholar Cheik Anta Diop have proved scientifically that the Ancient Egyptians were Black African people.

10 Intriguing Clues About Ancient Egyptian Ethnicity

Suzanne Raga May 10, 2015



In 2014, Ridley Scott unveiled his Biblical epic Exodus: Gods And Kings and accidentally opened a very old can of worms in the process. The film features white actors playing the ancient Egyptian characters, outraging those who firmly believe that the Egyptians were black. But exactly what did the ancient Egyptians look like?

Well, the answer is that nobody knows for sure. The majority of Egyptologists insist that it doesn’t matter at all, since there’s no reason to believe that the Egyptians shared our modern conception of race. To ask the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians, they argue, is imposing a modern idea on a very old people. Still, there are some clues as to what the Egyptians might have looked like, although the only real conclusion is that we simply can’t be certain.

10Herodotus

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The Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote extensively about Egypt around 450 BC, was among the first to indirectly shed some light on the appearance of the ancient Egyptians. Writing over 100 years before Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, Herodotus argued that the inhabitants of Colchis (an area on the east coast of the Black Sea) were of Egyptian descent because, like the Egyptians, they had dark skin and woolly hair. Both groups also practiced circumcision and apparently wove linen in a similar way.

Herodotus’s short description has been the subject of endless debate. The exact words he uses are melanchroes (meaning having dark or black skin) and oulotriches (having woolly or curly hair). Some scholars believe that melanchroes could mean anyone with darker skin than Herodotus himself. Herodotus also notes that the Colchians physical appearance “proves nothing, since other peoples also have these traits,” which could imply that the Colchians didn’t look significantly different from other Asian peoples.

But while we don’t precisely know what Herodotus meant by melanchroes, it clearly implies they were darker than the Greeks, indicating that the Egyptians were probably not particularly light-skinned.



9Ramesses II

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Photo via Wikipedia

During the early 19th century, proponents of slavery and various other racists argued that ancient Egypt could only have been so advanced because it was a Caucasian civilization. They also speculated that the Egyptian ruling class was white while their slaves were black. Afrocentric historians, on the other hand, stress the sub-Saharan origins of Egyptian civilization, asserting that ancient Egyptians were black.

The truth seems to have been somewhere in between. In fact, it has been argued that ancient Egypt was something of an ancient melting pot—something that even extended to its monarchy. In 1881, the mummy of Ramesses II (an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled around 1279–1213 BC) was discovered. Nearly a century later, in 1974, archaeologists in Paris forensically examined the mummy. Their analysis indicated that he had red hair, a trait never found in sub-Saharan Africa. (Because Ramesses II was in his early nineties when he died, his white hair had been dyed red with henna, but microscopic analysis confirmed he was originally a redhead.) Because Ramesses was known to have been of Libyan descent, historians have speculated that he probably had relatively light skin, especially since ruling Egypt probably didn’t require him to go out in the sun much.

8Tutankhamun

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Modern portrayals of Tutankhamun, an Egyptian pharaoh who began his rule as a nine-year-old in the 1330s BC, are a source of contention. Some Afrocentric scholars claim that popular depictions of the pharaoh (popularly known as “King Tut”) as white are racist and egregiously inaccurate. Things became even more heated after Egyptian scientists sequenced Tut’s DNA.

While the people actually responsible for the study didn’t release any information about his race, various Neo-Nazi organizations seized on a blurry screenshot from a Discovery Channel documentary, which they insisted “proved” that Tutankhamun was white or even Nordic, since he supposedly belonged to a blood group common in European populations. Meanwhile, the Egyptian authorities were accused of trying to cover up Tut’s possible Jewish heritage due to the current tensions in the Middle East.

However, most actual genetic experts acknowledge that ancient DNA is incredibly easy to contaminate (in one famous case, DNA identified as belonging to a dinosaur turned out to be from a modern human), making any DNA study of King Tut highly suspect.

7Kmt

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Just as Germans insist on calling their country Deutschland rather than Germany, the ancient Egyptians didn’t call their country Egypt; they called it Kmt (pronounced Ke-met), which means “black.” As you’d expect, there’s plenty of debate about the specific meaning of the word kmt. The two main arguments are that the Egyptians used kmt to refer to their country as the “land of black people,” or that they used it to refer to their country as the “black land.”

Most modern linguists favor the “black land” meaning of the word. They argue that the Nile River’s yearly floods brought rich black soil, which ensured the country’s agricultural prosperity. As a result, the Egyptians called their land Kmt. The black soil provided a sharp visual contrast with the desert sands around the Nile, which ancient Egyptians called dsrt (“the red land”). But only the parts of Egypt closest to the Nile would have flooded with the black soil, and the Egyptians did not have any vocabulary to refer to race, so perhaps neither argument is wholly correct.

6Cleopatra’s Mother

640px-Lawrence_Alma-Tadema-_Anthony_and_Cleopatra

Photo via Wikipedia

Of course, the famous Cleopatra wasn’t especially Egyptian, being descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals. But what ethnicity was she? Most Egyptologists believe that she was a mixture of Macedonian Greek and Persian, but they don’t know for sure where her mother was from (or even who her mother was).

For political reasons, Cleopatra had Arsinoe IV, her half-sister (or full sister—they had the same father but may have had different mothers), murdered. Some scholars have asserted that Arsinoe IV was part-African, meaning that Cleopatra’s mother (and Cleopatra herself) could have been part-African as well. In the 1990s, an archaeologist claimed to have identified Arsinoe’s tomb and skeleton. However, DNA testing on the bones was inconclusive—and we’re still not even sure that they’re her bones. It seems likeliest that Cleopatra was generally Mediterranean, a mix of Greek and various other nationalities. Ultimately, most classicists dismiss the question of Cleopatra’s race, arguing that we shouldn’t focus on something as insignificant as skin color when we can focus on her great political accomplishments.


5Egyptian Art

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So let’s go straight back to the source—how did the ancient Egyptians depict themselves? Egyptian temples contain statues, wall paintings, and illustrated papyri that give us some clue as to how their creators saw themselves. The Egyptians depicted themselves with skin tones ranging from light brown, to red, yellow, or black. Men were often darker than women, probably to indicate that males did manual labor outdoors, but ancient Egyptian artwork was not realistic and most skin tones were probably symbolic rather than realistic.

For example, depictions of Egyptians with red faces or hair could have meant that they were under the spell of Set, the evil desert god. Some scholars argue that Egyptians used color in artwork to distinguish themselves from the Nubians (a people who lived in what is now Sudan), since they drew themselves with reddish or copper skin, but often painted Nubians black. Complicating the matter, a professor of African history has accused modern Egyptian authorities of tampering with ancient Egyptian artwork in order to hide their African features.

4The Great Sphinx

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With its human head and lion’s body, the Great Sphinx of Giza is massive and incredibly old (it was probably built around 2500 BC). We don’t know for sure whose face the Sphinx was modeled after, but most Egyptologists believe that it depicts the pharaoh Khafra.

In the 1780s, the French historian Count Constantine de Volney visited the Sphinx, proclaiming it “typically Negro in all its features . . . In other words, the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans.” Modern scholars consider it almost impossible to judge the Sphinx’s ethnicity, since millennia of rain, wind, and heat have worn down the statue’s face.

However, in the early 1990s, Frank Domingo used his experience as a forensic artist for the New York Police Department to take measurements of the Sphinx’s face. His model definitely didn’t look like other statues of Khafra, indicating that the Sphinx was perhaps modeled on someone else. Instead, the model contained distinctively African features, which were generally missing from other depictions of Khafra. At least one orthodontist agreed with Domingo’s model, noting that the Sphinx’s face exhibited bimaxillary prognathism, a condition in which the jaws shift forward, which is often seen in people of African ancestry.

3The New Race

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In the 1880s, the historian Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie became one of the earliest significant students of Egyptian artifacts. Petrie made a genuine contribution to Egyptology—among other things he was the first to identify the prehistoric culture that predated ancient Egypt as we know it today.

But some of Petrie’s other ideas remain controversial. For example, he insisted that the incredible civilization of early dynastic Egypt showed no continuity with the local prehistoric peoples, but was instead imported by an invading “New Race,” which had conquered the “decadent civilization of the prehistoric age.” In support of this thesis, Petrie claimed that there was no continuity between Egyptian artifacts of the prehistoric and dynastic periods, meaning that the new race must have “destroyed or expelled the whole Egyptian population.” He thought that the “New Race” might have come from Libya or Persia.

Modern historians have suggested that Petrie’s theories owed more to 19th-century European colonial ideas than reality, suggesting that the dynastic race he identified were actually just native Egyptians. Interestingly, Petrie himself eventually acknowledged that he was wrong, grudgingly interpreting discoveries by the 19th-century geologist Jean-Jacques De Morgan to mean that artifacts “temporarily assigned to a New Race” could actually be traced back to the pre-dynastic period.

2The Eastern Desert

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In the early 2000s, the Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson published a study of rock drawings found in the ancient Eastern Desert, the area of the Sahara between the Red Sea and the Nile. The rock carvings, dating from the early fourth millennium BC, depict typical Nile Valley imagery—boats, crocodiles, hippos—as well as images of humans wearing headdresses and wielding maces. This imagery has significant parallels with the later artwork of the dynastic Egyptians, leading Wilkinson to conclude that they originated in the Eastern Desert.

According to Wilkinson, the ancestors of the dynastic Egyptian peoples were semi-nomadic cattle-herders who moved between the riverbanks and the dry areas of the Eastern Desert. The desert in question covers parts of modern-day Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, providing a compelling clue as to the origins of the Egyptian people. However, Wilkinson’s theory has not been conclusively proven, and he himself admits that it is difficult to precisely date rock art.

1Teeth

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Can studying the teeth of ancient Egyptians shed any light on their origins and what they looked like? In 2006, a study of dental remains from almost 1,000 Egyptian skeletons found that Egyptian teeth remained similar throughout ancient history—in other words, the ancient Egyptian population probably remained remarkably homogenous between the pre-dynastic period and the early Roman Empire, with the most notable outlier coming from the isolated southern cemetery at Gebel Ramlah. The teeth mostly exhibited “simple mass-reduced dentitions” that strongly resembled teeth from contemporary populations throughout North Africa, with a lesser resemblance to teeth from Europe and Western Asia.

Interestingly, the study’s author, Joel D. Irish, suggests the dental records actually reflect a blend of “many biologically distinct peoples, including Saharan, Nilotic, and Levant groups.” However, he argues that this blend occurred in the pre-dynastic period, before the golden age of ancient Egypt. Once Egyptian civilization was flourishing, the population remained genetically similar, thanks to the extensive trade links that existed throughout the country, which largely outweighed any external influence. However, it is worth noting that dental measurements can vary widely even among closely related populations.

http://mailstar.net/diop.html

Cheikh Anta Diop argues that many Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans; the Greek debt to Egypt. Peter Myers, July 6, 2002; update September 12, 2005. My comments are shown {thus}. Write to me at contact.html.

You are at http://mailstar.net/diop.html.

The argument that Ancient Egypt was African deserves to be put.

Of course, there was also mixing with the Semitic-speaking peoples (the Akkadians, Phoenicians and Hyksos, the people of Babylonia and Assyria, and later the invading Arab armies) and with Indo-Europeans (elements of the Mitanni, Hyksos, Hittites and Sea Peoples; the invading Persian Empire, the Greeks that came in Alexander's wake; then the Romans).

(1) Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization (2) G. K. Osei, a black American (3) DIODORUS OF SICILY (4) Herodotus Histories: the Egyptians (2.35-91) (5) Martin Bernal puts the case for African/Semitic influence on the formation of Greek culture and institutions (6) Cyrus H. Gordon on race-mixing in Egypt (7) Donald B. Redford enters the Afrocentrist debate

(1) Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, edited and translated by Mercer Cook, Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago 1974.

The Great Sphinx had a negro head: diop1.jpg

King Narmer, long regarded as the first Pharaoh - with negro features: diop5.jpg

Pharaohs Zoser and Cheops: diop6-7.jpg

Pharaohs Mycerinus and Mentuhotep I: diop8-9.jpg

Pharaoh Sesostris I: diop10.jpg

Pharaohs Tuthmosis III and Taharqa: diop12-13.jpg

Egyptian women - note their wavy braided "Afro" hair: egypt-women.jpg

Another painting of Egyptian women - 18th Dynasty, c. 1400 B.C. - from The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson (The British Museum Press, London 1995; pocket edition 2002), p. 193: egypt-women-2.jpg

Egyptian women's braided wigs: diop25-6.jpg

I'm not trying to polemicise history, as Martin Bernal is in his Black Athena series. Bernal keeps accusing other scholars of "Anti-Semitism", making out that Jews are the saviors of the Black movement today. Yet he ignores the Jewish Bible's responsibility for giving Ancient Egypt - its Pharaohs, its religion, its achievements - a bad reputation. What else does "Exodus" mean, but escape from Pharaonic Egypt? The Jewish Bible's enmity towards Ancient Egypt was later taken up by Christians who stamped out the Egyptian religion, and Moslems who pillaged the pyramids.

Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, edited and translated by Mercer Cook, Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago 1974.

{p. 1} What Were the Egyptians?

In contemporary descriptions of the ancient Egyptians, this question is never raised. Eyewitnesses of that period formally affirm that the Egyptians were Blacks. On several occasions Herodotus insists on the Negro character of the Egyptians and even uses this for indirect demonstrations. For example, to prove that the flooding of the Nile cannot be caused by melting snow, he cites, among other reasons he deems valid, the following observation: "It is certain that the natives of the country are black with the heat. ..." {endnote 1: The History of Herododus, translated by George Rawlinson. New York. Tudor, 1928, p. 88.}

To demonstrate that the Greek oracle is of Egyptian origin, Herodotus advances another argument: "Lastly, by calling the dove black, they [the Dodonaeans] indicated that the woman was Egyptian. ..." {endnote 2: Ibid., p. 101.} The doves in question symbolize two Egyptian women allegedly kidnapped from Thebes to found the oracles of Dodona and Libya.

To show that the inhabitants of Colchis were of Egyptian origin and had to be considered a part of Sesostris' army who had settled in that region, Herodotus says: "The Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair. ..." {endnote 3: Ibid., p. 115.} Finally, concerning the population of India, Herodotus distinguishes between the Padaeans and other Indians, describing them as follows: "They all also have the same tint of skin, which approaches that of the Ethiopians." {endnote 4: Ibid., p. 184.}

Diodorus of Sicily writes:

{quote} The Ethiopians say that the Egyptians are one of their colonies which was brought into Egypt by Osiris. They even allege that this country was originally under water, but that the Nile, dragging much mud as it flowed from Ethiopia, had finally filled it in and made it a part of the continent. ... They add that from them, as from their authors and ancestors, the Egyptians get most of their laws. It is from them that the Egyptians have learned to honor

{p. 2} kings as gods and bury them with such pomp; sculpture and writing were invented by the Ethiopians. The Ethiopians cite evidence that they are more ancient than the Egyptians, but it is useless to report that here. {endquote} {endnote 5: Histoire universelle, translated by Abbe Terrasson. Paris, 1758, Bk. 3 p. 341.}

If the Egyptians and Ethiopians were not of the same race, Diodorus would have emphasized the impossibility of considering the former as a colony (i.e., a fraction) of the latter and the impossibility of viewing them as forebears of the Egyptians.

In his Geography, Strabo mentioned the importance of migrations in history and, believing that this particular migration had proceeded from Egypt to Ethiopia, remarks: "Egyptians settled Ethiopia and Colchis." {endnote 6: Bk. 1, Chap. 3, par. 10.} Once again, it is a Greek, despite his chauvinism, who informs us that the Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Colchians belong to the same race, thereby confirming what Herodotus had said about the Colchians. {endnote 7: The Colchians formed a cluster of Negroes among white populations near the Black Sea ... }

The opinion of all the ancient writers on the Egyptian race is more or less summed up by Gaston Maspero (1846-1916): "By the almost unanimous testimony of ancient historians, they belonged to an African race [read: Negro] which first settled in Ethiopia, on the Middle Nile; following the course of the river, they gradually reached the sea. ... Moreover, the Bible states that Mesraim, son of Ham, brother of Chus (Kush) the Ethiopian, and of Canaan, came from Mesopotamia to settle with his children on the banks of the Nile." {endnote 8: Gaston Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient. Paris: Hachette, 1917, p. 15, 12th ed. (Translated as: The Dawn of Civilization. London, 1894; reprinted, New York: Frederick Ungar, 1968.)} ...

{p. 3} Besides, Herodotus was not a credulous historian who recorded everything without checking; he knew how to weigh things. When he relates an opinion that he does not share, he always takes care to note his disagreement. Thus, referring to the mores of the Scythians and Neurians, he writes apropos the latter: "It seems that these people are conjurers; for both the Scythi- ans and the Greeks who dwell in Scythia say that every Neurian once a year becomes a wolf for a few days, at the end of which time he is restored to his proper shape. Not that I believe this, but they constantly affirm it to be true, and are even ready to back up their assertion with an oath." {endnote 10: Herodotus, p. 236.}

He always distinguishes carefully between what he has seen and what he has been told. After his visit to the Labyrinth, he writes:

{quote} There are two different sorts of chambers throughout - half under ground, half above ground, the latter built upon the former; the whole number of these chambers is three thousand, fifteen hundred of each kind. The upper chambers I myself passed through and saw, and what I say concerning them is from my own observation; of the underground chambers I can only speak from report, for the keepers of the building could not be got to show them, since they contained, as they said, the sepulchers of the kings who built the Labyrinth, and also those of the sacred crocodiles. Thus it is from hearsay only that I can speak of the lower chambers. The upper chambers, however, I saw with my own eyes and found them to excel all other human productions. {endquote} {endnote 11: Ibid., pp. 133-134.}

Was Herodotus a historian deprived of logic, unable to penetrate complex phenomena? On the contrary, his explanation of the inundations of the Nile reveals a rational mind seeking scientific reasons for natural phenomena:

{quote} Perhaps, after censuring all the opinions that have been put forward on this obscure subject, one ought to propose some theory of one's own. I will therefore proceed to explain what I think to be the reason of the Nile's swelling in the summertime. During the winter, the sun is driven out of his usual course by the storms, and removes to the upper parts of Libya. This is the whole secret in the fewest possible words; for it stands to reason that the coun-

{p. 4} try to which the Sun-god approaches the nearest, and which he passes most directly over, will be scantest of water, and that here streams which feed the rivers will shrink the most. To explain, however, more at length, the case is this. The sun, in his passage across the upper parts of Libya, affects them in the following way. As the air in these regions is constantly clear, and the country warm through the absence of cold winds, the sun in his passage across them acts upon them exactly as he is wont to act elsewhere in summer, when his path is in the middle of heaven - that is, he attracts the water. After attracting it, he again repels it into the upper regions, where the winds lay hold of it, scatter it, and reduce it into a vapor, whence it naturally enough comes to pass that the winds which blow from this quarter - the south and southwest - are of all winds the most rainy. And my own opinion is that the sun does not get rid of all the water which he draws year by year from the Nile, but retains some about him. {endquote} {endnote 12. Ibid., pp. 88-89.}

These three examples reveal that Herodotus was not a passive reporter of incredible tales and rubbish, "a liar." On the contrary, he was quite scrupulous, objective, scientific for his time. Why should one seek to discredit such a historian, to make him seem naive? Why "refabricate" history despite his explicit evidence?

Undoubtedly the basic reason for this is that Herodotus, after relating his eyewitness account informing us that the Egyptians were Blacks, then demonstrated, with rare honesty (for a Greek), that Greece borrowed from Egypt all the elements of her civilization, even the cult of the gods, and that Egypt was the cradle of civilization. Moreover, archeological discoveries continually justify Herodotus against his detractors. Thus, Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt writes about recent excavations in Tanis* {footnote: Tanis, the Biblical Zoan, at the mouth of the eastern branch of the Nile Delts}: "Herodotus had seen the outer buildings of these sepulchers and had described them. [This was the Labyrinth discussed above.] Pierre Montet has just proved once again that 'The Father of History did not lie.'" {endnote 13: Sciences et Avenir, No. 56, October 1951.} It could be objected that, in the fifth century B.C. when Herodotus visited Egypt, its civilization was already more than 10,000 years old and that the race which had created it was not necessarily the Negro race that Herodotus found there.

But the whole history of Egypt, as we shall see, shows that the

{p. 5} mixture of the early population with white nomadic elements, conquerors or merchants, became increasingly important as the end of Egyptian history approached. According to Cornelius de Pauw, in the low epoch Egypt was almost saturated with foreign white colonies: Arabs in Coptos, Libyans on the future site of Alexandria, Jews around the city of Hercules (Avaris?), Babylonians (or Persians) below Memphis, "fugitive Trojans" in the area of the great stone quarries east of the Nile, Carians and Ionians over by the Pelusiac branch. Psammetichus (end of seventh century) capped this peaceful invasion by entrusting the defense of Egypt to Greek mercenaries. "An enormous mistake of Pharaoh Psammetichus was to commit the defense of Egypt to foreign troops and to introduce various colonies made up of the dregs of the nations." {endnote 14: Cornelius de Pauw, Recherches philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois. Berlin, 1773, II, 337.} Under the last Saite dynasty, the Greeks were officially established at Naucratis, the only port where
foreigners were authorized to engage in trading.
After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, under the Ptolemies, crossbreeding between white Greeks and black Egyptians flourished, thanks to a policy of assimilation: "Nowhere was Dionysus more favored, nowhere was he worshiped more adoringly and more elaborately than by the Ptolemies, who recognized his cult as an especially effective means of promoting the assimilation of the conquering Greeks and their fusion with the native Egyptians." {endnote 15: J. J. Bachofen, Pages choisies par Adrien Turel, "Du Regne de la mere au patriarcat." Paris: F. Alcan, 1938, p. 89.}

These facts prove that if the Egyptian people had originally been white, it might well have remained so. If Herodotus found it still black after so much crossbreeding, it must have been basic black at the start.

{p. 27} Before examining the contradictions circulating in the modern era and resulting from attempts to prove at any price that the Egyptians were Whites, let us note the astonishment of a scholar of good faith, Count Constantin de Volney (1757-1820). After being imbued with all the prejudices we have just mentioned with regard to the Negro, Volney had gone to Egypt between 1783 and 1785, while Negro slavery flourished. He reported as follows on the Egyptian race, the very race that had produced the Pharaohs: the Copts.

{quote} ... all have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, thick lips; in a word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says: "As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair. ..." In other words, the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans. That being so, we can see how their blood, mixed for several centuries with that of the Romans and Greeks, must have lost the intensity of its original color, while retaining nonetheless the imprint of its original mold. We can even state as a general principle that the face is a kind of monument able, in many cases, to attest or shed light on historical evidence on the origins of peoples. {endquote}

After illustrating this proposition by citing the case of Normans who still resembled the Danes 900 years after the conquest of Nor- mandy, Volney adds:

{quote} But returning to Egypt, the lesson she teaches history contains many reflections for philosophy. What a subject for meditation, to see the present barbarism and ignorance of the Copts, descendants of the alliance between the profound genius of the Egyptians and

{p. 28} the brilliant mind of the Greeks! Just think that this race of black men, today our slave and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, ana even the use of speech! Just imagine, finally, that it is in the midst of peoples who call themselves the greatest friends of liberty and humanity that one has approved the most barbarous slavery and questioned whether black men have the same kind of intelligence as Whites! {endquote} {endnote 7: C. F. Volney, Voyages en Syrie et en Egypte. Paris, 1787, I, 74-77.}

{p. 28} In 1799 Bonaparte undertook his campaign in Egypt. Thanks to the Rosetta stone, hieroglyphics were deciphered in 1822 by Champollion the Younger, who died in 1832. He left as his "calling card" an Egyptian grammar and a series of letters to his brother, Champollion-Figeac, letters written during his visit to Egypt (1828-1829). Thesc were published in l833 by Champollion-Figeac. From then on the wall of the hieroglyphics was breached, unveiling surprising riches in their most minute details.

{p. 46} Let us start with the oldest of these theses, that of Champollion the Younger, set forth in the thirteenth letter to his brother. It concerns bas-reliefs on the tomb of Sesostris I, also visited by Rienzi. These date back to the sixteenth century B.C. (Eighteenth Dynasty) and represent the races of man known to the Egyptians. This monument is the oldest complete ethnological document available. Here is what Champollion says about it:

{quote} Right in the valley of Biban-el-Moluk, we admired, like all previous visitors, the astonishing freshness of the paintings and the fine sculptures on several tombs. I had a copy made of the peoples represented on the bas-reliefs. At first I had thought, from copies of these bas-reliefs published in England, that these peoples of different races led by the god Horus holding his shepherd's staff, were indeed nations subject to the rule of the Pharaohs. A study of the legends informed me that this tableau has a more general meaning. It portrays the third hour of the day, when the sun is beginning to turn on its burning rays, warming all the inhabited countries of our hemisphere. According to the legend itself, they wished to represent the inhabitants of Egypt and those of foreign lands. Thus we have before our eyes the image of the various races of man known to the Egyptians and we learn at the same time the great geographical or ethnographical divisions established during that early epoch. Men led by Horus, the shepherd of the peoples, belong to four distinct families. The first, the one closest to the god, has a dark red color, a well-proportioned body, kind face, nose slightly aquiline, long braided hair, and is dressed in white. The legends designate this species as Rot-en-ne-Rome, the race of men par excellence i.e., the Egyptians. There can be no uncertainty about the racial identity of the man who comes next: he belongs to the Black race, designated under the general term Nahasi. The third presents a very different aspect; his skin color borders on yellow or tan; he has a strongly aquiline nose, thick, black pointed beard, and wears a short garment of varied colors; these are called Namou. Finally, the last one is what we call flesh-colored, a white skin of the most delicate shade, a nose straight or slightly arched, blue eyes, blond or reddish beard, tall stature and very slender clad in a

{p. 47} hairy ox-skin, a veritable savage tattooed on various parts of his body; he is called Tamhou. I hastened to seek the tableau corresponding to this one in the other royal tombs and, as a matter of fact, I found it in several. The variations I observed fully convinced me that they had tried to represent here the inhabitants of the four corners of the earth, according to the Egyptian system, namely: 1. the inhabitants of Egypt which, by itself, formed one part of the world ...; 2. the inhabitants of Africa proper: Blacks; 3. Asians; 4. finally (and I am ashamed to say so, since our race is the last and the most savage in the series), Europeans who, in those remote epochs, frankly did not cut too fine a figure in the world. In this category we must include all blonds and white-skinned people living not only in Europe, but Asia as well, their starting point. This manner of viewing the tableau is all the more accurate because, on the other tombs, the same generic names reappear, always in the same order. We find there Egyptians and Africans represented in the same way, which could not be otherwise; but the Namou (the Asians) and the Tamhou (Europeans) present significant and curious variants. Instead of the Arab or the Jew, dressed simply and represented on one tomb, Asia's representatives on other tombs (those of Ramses II, etc.) are three individuals, tanned complexion, aquiline nose, black eyes, and thick beard, but clad in rare splendor. In one, they are evidently Assyrians, their costume, down to the smallest detail, is identical with that of personages engraved on Assyrian cylinders. In the other, are Medes or early inhabitants of some part of Persia. Their physiognomy and dress resemble, feature for feature, those found on monuments called Persepolitan. Thus, Asia was represented indiscriminately by any one of the peoples who inhabited it. The same is true of our good old ancestors, the Tamhou. Their attire is sometimes different; their heads are more or less hairy and adorned with various ornaments; their savage dress varies somewhat in form, but their white complexion, their eyes and beard all preserve the character of a race apart. I had this strange ethnographical series copied and colored. I certainly did not expect, on arriving at Biban-el-Moluk, to find sculptures that could serve as vignettes for the history of the primitive Europeans, if ever one has the courage to attempt it. Nevertheless, there is something flat-

{p. 48} tering and consoling in seeing them, since they make us appreciate the progress we have subsequently achieved. {endquote} {endnote 3: Champollion-Figeac, Egypte ancienne. Paris: Collection l'Univers, 1839, pp. 30-31. ...}

For a very good reason, I have reproduced this extract as Champollion-Figeac published it, rather than take it from the "new edition" of the Letters published in 1867 by the son of Champollion the Younger (Cheronnet-Champollion). The originals were addressed to Champollion-Figeac; therefore his edition is more authentic.

{p. 49} Champollion's conclusion is typical. After stating that these sculptures can serve as vignetles for the history of the early inhabitants of Europe, he adds, "if ever one has the courage to attempt it." Finally, after those comments, he presents his opinion on the Egyptian race:

{quote} The first tribes that inhabited Egypt, that is, the Nile Valley between the Syene cataract 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. {endquote} {endnote 4: Champollion-Figeac, ibid., p. 27.}

{p. 50} Champollion's opinion on the Egyptian race was recorded in a memoir prepared for the Pasha of Egypt, to whom he delivered it in 1829.

{p. 63} In Les Egyptes, a volume published around 1880, Marius Fontanes attacks the same problem:

{quote} Since the Egyptians always painted themselves red on their monu- ments, partisans of the "southern origin" had to point out a great number of interesting peculiarities likely to help solve the ethno-graphical problem. Near the Upper Nile today, among the Fulbe, whose skin is quite yellow, those whom contemporaries consider as belonging to a pure race, are rather red; the Bisharin are exactly of the same brick-red shade used on Egyptian monuments. To other ethnographers, these "red men" would probably be Ethiopians modified by time and climate, or perhaps Negroes who have reached the halfway mark in the evolution from blackness to whiteness. It has been noted that, in limestone areas, the Negro is less black than in granitic and plutonic regions. It has even been thought that the hue changed with the season. Thus, Nubians were former Blacks, but only in skin color, while their osteology has rcmained absolutely Negritic. The Negroes represented on Pharaonic paintings, so clearly deline- ated by engravers and named Nahasou or Nahasiou in the hiero- glyphics, are not related to the Ethiopians, the first people to come down into Egypt. Were the latter then attenuated Negroes, Nubians? Lepsius's canon gives ... the proportions of the perfect Egyptian body; it has short arms and is Negroid or Negritian. From the anthropological point of view, the Egyptian comes after the Polynesians, Samoyeds, Europeans, and is immediately fol- lowed by African Negroes and Tasmanians. Besides, there is a scientific tendency to find in Africa, after excluding foreign influences, from the Mediterranean to the Cape, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, nothing but Negroes or Negroids of various colors. The ancient Egyptians were Negroes, but Negroes to the last degree. {endquote} {endnote 20: Marius Fontanes, Les Egyptes (de 5000 a715). Paris: Ed. Lemerre, n.d., pp 44-45.}

http://www.africanamerica.org/topic/10-arguments-that-prove-ancient-egyptians-were-black

10 Arguments That Prove Ancient Egyptians Were Black

October 25, 2013 | Posted by A Moore
Tagged With: ancient egypt, ancient egyptians are black, black egypy, Cheikh Anta Diop


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Even today, a significant number of mainstream Egyptologists, anthropologists, historians and Hollywood moviemakers continue to deny African people’s role in humankind’s first and greatest civilization in ancient Egypt. This whitewashing of history negatively impacts Black people and our image in the world. There remains a vital need to correct the misinformation of our achievements in antiquity.

Senegalese scholar Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) dedicated his life to scientifically challenging Eurocentric and Arab-centric views of precolonial African culture, specifically those that suggested the ancient civilization of Egypt did not have its origins in Black Africa.

Since some people continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence that indicates ancient Egypt was built, ruled, and populated by dark-skinned African people, Atlanta Blackstar will highlight 10 of the ways Diop proved the ancient Egyptians were Black.



Egyptian mummy with negroid hair

Physical Anthropology Evidence
Based on his review of scientific literature, Diop concluded that most of the skeletons and skulls of the ancient Egyptians clearly indicate they were Negroid people with features very similar to those of modern Black Nubians and other people of the Upper Nile and East Africa. He called attention to studies that included examinations of skulls from the predynastic period (6000 B.C.) that showed a greater percentage of Black characteristics than any other type.

From this information, Diop reasoned that a Black race existed in Egypt at that time and did not migrate at a later stage as some previous theories had suggested.



mummy-scan

Melanin Dosage Test
Diop invented a method for determining the level of melanin in the skin of human beings. Melanin is the chemical responsible for skin pigmentation and it is preserved for millions of years in the skins of fossil animals.

Diop conducted the melanin test on Egyptian mummies at the Museum of Man in Paris, and determined the levels found in the dermis and epidermis of a small sample would classify all ancient Egyptians as “unquestionably among the Black races.”



hqdefault

Osteological Evidence
According to Diop, osteological measurements (analysis of bones) are perhaps the least misleading of the criteria accepted in physical anthropology for classifying the races of men. A first study of this kind was completed by a German archeologist Karl Richard Lepsius at the end of the 19th century. The Lepsius canon, which distinguishes the bodily proportions of various racial groups, categories the “ideal Egyptian” as “short-armed and of Negroid or Negrito physical type.”



queen tiye

Evidence From Blood Types
Diop found that even after hundreds of years of intermixing with foreign invaders, the blood type of modern Egyptians is the “same group B as the populations of Western Africa on the Atlantic seaboard and not the A2 group characteristic of the white race prior to any crossbreeding.”



Banqueting Scene, Thebes, tomb of Nebamum & Ipuky, 1400 BC

The Egyptians as They Saw Themselves
Diop noted that “Egyptians had only one term to designate themselves: KMT, which literally means ‘the Blacks.’ This is the strongest term existing in the Pharaonic tongue to indicate blackness.”

He added: “The term is a collective noun which thus described the whole people of Pharaonic Egypt as a Black people.”

For further evidence, Diop focused on both the monuments and how the ancient Egyptians represented themselves in their art.

egyptian-pictures

Cultural Unity of Egypt With The Rest of Africa

Diop found that in ancient Egypt there existed “African cultural commonalities” of matriarchy, totemism, divine kinship, and cosmology.”

Through a study of circumcision and totemism, he offers detailed data on the cultural unity between Egypt and the rest of Africa. He noted: “Historians are in general agreement that the Ethiopians, Egyptians, Colchians, and people of the Southern Levant were among the only people on earth practicing circumcision, which confirms their cultural affiliations, if not their ethnic affiliation.”

He added: “The Egyptian style of (adolescent) circumcision was different from how circumcision is practiced in other parts of the world, but similar to how it is practiced throughout the African continent.”



egypt_ancient_rel01

Divine Epithets
Diop also demonstrates that “Black or Negro” was a divine epithet invariably used to refer to the chief benevolent gods of Egypt, while evil spirits were depicted as red. InEurasian culture, good is described as white and evil as black.



Somali Egyptian-Puntite Culture and The 'Issa Princesses during the coronation of the 19th King of Issa - Ugaas Rooble

Evidence From the Bible
Diop wrote: “The Bible tells us that ‘…the sons of Ham [were] Cush and Mizraim [i.e. Egypt], and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah and Sabtechah.”

According to biblical tradition, Ham was the father of the Black race. Diop asserted that “generally speaking, all Semitic tradition (Jewish and Arab) class ancient Egypt with the countries of the Blacks.”



5ket78

Linguistic Unity With Southern and Western Africa
In a detailed study of languages, Diop illustrated the strength of the cultural ties between ancient Egypt and its African neighbors by comparing the Egyptian language with Wolof, a Senegalese language spoken in West Africa near the Atlantic Ocean.

Diop clearly demonstrates that ancient Egyptian, modern Coptic of Egypt, and Wolof are related, with the latter two having their origin in the former.

“The kinship between ancient Egyptian and the languages of Africa,” Diop wrote in the General History of Africa, “is not a hypothetical but a demonstrable fact which it is impossible for modern scholarship to thrust aside.”

He believed the kinship to be genealogical, and he provided examples:

In ancient Egyptian “kef” means “to grasp, to take a strip (of something)”; in Wolof it means “to seize a prey.”

“Feh” means “go away” in ancient Egyptian; in Wolof it means “to rush off.”

To further demonstrate similarity between the two languages, Diop also examined verb forms, demonstratives, and phonemes. The results, he found, showed little difference between the two.





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Testimony of Classical Greek and Roman Historians
Virtually all of the early Latin eyewitnesses described the ancient Egyptians as black-skinned with woolly hair. Several ancient Greek historians noted that Egyptians and Ethiopians had complexions that were “melanchroes,” which most scholars translate as black, while some scholars translate it as “dark” or “dark skinned.”

Some of the most-often quoted historians are Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus.

According to most translations, Herodotus wrote that a Greek oracle was known to be from Egypt because she was “black,” that the natives of the Nile region are “black with heat,’ and that Egyptians were “black skinned with woolly hair.”

Diodorus Siculus wrote that the Ethiopians considered the Egyptians their colony.

Lucian observes an Egyptian boy and notices that he is not merely black, but has thick lips.

Appollodorus called Egypt the country of the black-footed ones.

Aeschylus, a Greek poet, wrote that Egyptian seamen had “black limbs.”

Gaston Maspero states that “by the almost unanimous testimony of ancient [Greek] historians, they [ancient Egyptians] belonged to the African race, which settled in Ethiopia.”



KingTut
DNA Evidence (BONUS)


DNATribes, a genomics company that specializes in tracing individuals’ ancestry to certain global populations has recently subjected the published STRs profiles (DNA samples) of Pharaoh Tutankhamen and family to analysis. They report that the closest living relatives of the mummies are sub-Saharan Africans, especially those from Southern Africa and the Great Lakes region.

The company also tested the STR profiles of Ramesses III and found that among present-day populations, Ramesses’ autosomal STR profile is most frequently found in the African Great Lakes region, where it is approximately 335.1 times as frequent as in the world as a whole.

Sources:
ORIGIN OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS by Cheikh Anta Diop

http://www.answers.com/

http://www.melanet.com/

Posts: 5374 | From: sepedat/sirius | Registered: Jul 2012  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
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We don't need "clues" to know the ethnicity of Ancient Egyptians since we have the DNA sequences of many Ancient Egyptians mummies.

Before the DNA analysis I wasn't sure about the ethnicity of Ancient Egyptians but with DNA the ethnicity of Ancient Egyptians is clear. At least the ethnicity of those mummmies that were sequences, mostly royals from the 18th and 20th Dynasty (and the old Paabo study on the 12th dynasty).

Ramses III and the Screaming Mummy are determined to be E1b1a, the most widespread male lineage in Africa and among African-Americans:
BMJ study

Autosomal analysis of the 18th dynasty royal family:
JAMA study

The 18th and 20th royal families are more closely related to sub-Saharan Africans (Great Lakes, Southern and West Africans) than any other populations using autosomal STR DNA:
DNA Tribes analysis 1 of the JAMA study
DNA Tribes analysis 2 of the BMJ study

The current genetic results show us Ancient Egyptians to be for the most part indigenous black Africans.

DNA are used for paternity test and in forensic to identity crime suspects with DNA and they provide the strongest way to determine the ethnicity of a person or a mummy.

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