posted
I wrote: originally an ethnic group of Graeco-Africans (much like the 'coloreds' of South Africa)
Ausar responded: "Really you see the Copts in that manner? Please explain more your views. I have never honestly seen a Coptic Christain who looks like any of the sculpture nor arrwork in the tombs. Most I have seen look Syrian or Greek. This is why I asked you originally Wally where you got that picture of the Copt because he certainly does not look like most I have seen.
My belief is most of them are Syrians and Greeks who lived amungst the indigenous Fellahin or Jews who converted to Christainty to stay in Egypt. Most people don't realize that during the Ptolomeic period many pockets of foreginers lived within Middle Egypt. Lots of refugees from Judea came into Egyptand Syrians served in Ptolomeic armies were awarded plots of land in Egypt particular around Faiyum. Even during the Middle Ages Faiyum has a couple of Jews."
My Response:
I think, perhaps, that we are both correct, simply because there is great confusion as to who or what exactly is a Copt.
My first image of an Egyptian Copt was when I was studying the history of modern Ethiopia. I became aware that at one time, the head of the Ethiopian Coptic church had to be an Egyptian, an Egyptian who incidentally looked very much like this gentleman...
"His Holiness Shenouda III is considered by Copts to be the 117th patriarch of Alexandria in direct succession to Saint Mark the Evangelist, author of the second Gospel..."
He certainly resembles a description of the Copts as you stated above. Here's a picture of some Cairene Copts. I couldn't get images of Upper Egyptian Copts, but I imagine that they would resemble the people of Upper Egypt, as the Ethiopian Copts look Ethiopian...
This ambivalence about the Copts can also be seen in this definition from the WorldBook Encyclopedia:
Copts is a term first used to refer to certain native residents of ancient Egypt. The Copts spoke a version of the ancient Egyptian language enriched by many Greek words and written with a modified Greek alphabet. The name Copts also refers to members of the Coptic Orthodox Church in modern Egypt, who use the Coptic language in their church service. However, like other Egyptians today, Copts speak Arabic.
What did Volney see?
In his writings, Count C.F.C. de Volney describes the modern Egyptian Copts whom he encountered as resembling a mulatto race, as a combination of Greeks and Blacks...
(That is why my comparison to the 'coloreds' of South Africa; which is a political description - biologically speaking they are simply a Black people mixed with other races -- We learned dominant and recessive genes in Middle School biology)...
There is definite confusion here. What we do know for certain is that the Coptic language is a direct descendant of Kemetian. That's really all that's important.
Purest Descendants of the Pharaohs?
This has been a constant slogan of Egypt's Coptic church (the Greek elite?) but it is of course nonsense. The purest descendant's of the Pharaohs are the Egyptian fellaheen or Rural Egyptians, especially those of the Nile Valley. Because of this, and because of the confusion surrounding "Copts," I have updated a page on my website:
Virtually all Egyptologists and anthropologists agree that the Ancient Egyptians belonged to the same ethnic sub grouping, usually referred to as 'Hamites,' as the Somali, Galla (Oromo), Beja, Afar (Danakil), etc. - peoples of northeast Africa. We would also include the Wolof of Senegal, and of course modern Egyptians of the Nile Valley, especially the Fellaheen or Rural Egyptians, and the Nubians. http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/people.html
As far as the Wolof of Senegal, If anyone wants to get a clear view of a Kemetian people, I would recommend the movie "Saraaba"(Utopia)by Amadou Seck. It conveys,in my opinion, a real "feel" of Ancient Kemet. Besides, it's also a good movie, and it's available on Video...
[This message has been edited by Wally (edited 06 July 2004).]
quote:Originally posted by mightywolf: These are pics from Coptic Egyptian people. The young woman with the white veil and the man in the first pic, strongly resemble the people from the Fayum depictions. The man also has a similar phenotype as these Abusir guys.
May I ask you, do you think that these Copts in the posted pics are the direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians or not? Keep in mind, that Copts are mostly from Upper Egypt.
By the way, I do believe that some Ancient Egyptians were what is deemed as black, but they were a minority.
Copt is a Christian denomination NOT an ethnic group! Copts vary in phenotype and even culture depending on the region of Egypt. Copts in Alexandria for example are largely descended from Greeks and other Balkan people as well as from Italy from the Greco-Roman Empire. Whereas there are darker [black] Copts who reside in Upper Egyptian cities like Sohag, Minya, and Luxor.
By the way, your assessment of ancient Egypt is wrong! In ancient Egypt black people who were the indigenous population were always the majority until Medieval times when they began mixing with foreigners. Even today, there is a distinction between the darker indigenous Egyptians called Baladi (indigenous) and the fair-skinned upper classes called Afrangi (foreign).
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Copts in Alexandria for example are largely descended from Greeks and other Balkan people as well as from Italy from the Greco-Roman Empire.
Is there any evidence for this? I can buy that it was probably Greco-Roman (and maybe Judean as well) immigrants who first introduced Christianity into Egypt, but how do we know that the majority of Christians in Alexandria today can trace their roots to these immigrants?
posted
^ Well it's a well established historical fact that has been taken for granted. Alexandria was a colonial city established by Alexander the Great and served as capital from the Ptolemies, the Roman conquest, and Byzantine times. It was a port city that received further immigrants from the Balkan and Roman world and in fact, many Alexandrians to this day speak Greek in their own communities and not Coptic except for church liturgy, whereas the very rural Baladi still speak Coptic which is peculiarly interesting.
Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt The historical roots of Christianity in Egypt are often linked to Alexandria in the first century. Although there is scant physical and documentary evidence for this period, later tradition identifies St. Mark the Evangelist as the first patriarch of Alexandria and the apostle attributed with introducing the religion. The first fully developed account of Egypt’s Christianization does not appear until the fourth-century history of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who tells the story about Mark the Apostle establishing churches in Alexandria and the later episcopal successors to Mark (Hist. Eccl. 2.16, in Davis 2004). There is in fact growing support to see Alexandrian Christianity spawning from the missionary activity of Palestinian Jewish Christians, who first evangelized the Hellenized Jews in Alexandria (Davis 2004, 6–8). Whether based upon the presence of Jews in Jerusalem during Pentecost (Acts 2:10, 6:9) or the natural transmission of ideas between the two major cities, Christianity does appear to have taken hold in the Greek-speaking, urban center of Alexandria and other cities before spreading to the countryside or chōra (Papaconstantinou 2012).
^ Usama Dakdok, Egyptian Copt who is a Christian apologist and evangelist here in the US who is always mistaken for black American.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Well it's a well established historical fact that has been taken for granted. Alexandria was a colonial city established by Alexander the Great and served as capital from the Ptolemies, the Roman conquest, and Byzantine times. It was a port city that received further immigrants from the Balkan and Roman world and in fact, many Alexandrians to this day speak Greek in their own communities and not Coptic except for church liturgy, whereas the very rural Baladi still speak Coptic which is peculiarly interesting.
Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt The historical roots of Christianity in Egypt are often linked to Alexandria in the first century. Although there is scant physical and documentary evidence for this period, later tradition identifies St. Mark the Evangelist as the first patriarch of Alexandria and the apostle attributed with introducing the religion. The first fully developed account of Egypt’s Christianization does not appear until the fourth-century history of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who tells the story about Mark the Apostle establishing churches in Alexandria and the later episcopal successors to Mark (Hist. Eccl. 2.16, in Davis 2004). There is in fact growing support to see Alexandrian Christianity spawning from the missionary activity of Palestinian Jewish Christians, who first evangelized the Hellenized Jews in Alexandria (Davis 2004, 6–8). Whether based upon the presence of Jews in Jerusalem during Pentecost (Acts 2:10, 6:9) or the natural transmission of ideas between the two major cities, Christianity does appear to have taken hold in the Greek-speaking, urban center of Alexandria and other cities before spreading to the countryside or chōra (Papaconstantinou 2012).
^ Usama Dakdok, Egyptian Copt who is a Christian apologist and evangelist here in the US who is always mistaken for black American.
Well, Dakdok looks mixed. I thought he was Puerto Rican. However, he can also pass for African American since biracial and quarter black Americans are considered African Americans, too. In addition, it's actually not true that all Copts have only a minor SSA admixture. What is more remarkable is the fact, that their SSA ancestry is rather old and basically exclusively East African-like. In contrast, their Muslim fellow country men also harbor West African/Yoruba-like DNA. I was told by a Christian Egyptian that there were Christian Nubians that were absorbed by the Coptic population.
In contrast to Dakdok, some people thought that Rami Malek who is a Copt, ( albeit 1/8th Greek and 7/8 Coptic Egyptian) is "white".
Sci Rep. 2015; 5: 9996. Published online 2015 May 28. doi: 10.1038/srep09996 PMCID: PMC4446898 PMID: 26017457
The genetics of East African populations: a Nilo-Saharan component in the African genetic landscape Begoña Dobon,1,
The North African/Middle Eastern genetic component is identified especially in Copts. The Coptic population present in Sudan is an example of a recent migration from Egypt over the past two centuries. They are close to Egyptians in the PCA, but remain a differentiated cluster, showing their own component at k = 4 (Fig. 3).Copts lack the influence found in Egyptians from Qatar, an Arabic population. It may suggest that Copts have a genetic composition that could resemble the ancestral Egyptian population, without the present strong Arab influence.
________________________
According to Y-DNA analysis by Hassan et al. (2008), around 21% of Copts in Sudan carry the E1b1b clade
Regions with significant populations
Traditional areas of Coptic settlement: 5–20 million Egypt 5–20 million (estimates vary) Sudan c. 500,000 Libya 60,000
Diaspora: 1–2 million (estimates vary) United States c. 200,000 – 1 million Canada c. 200,000 Australia c. 75,000 (2003) France c. 45,000 (2017) Italy c. 30,000
quote:Originally posted by mightywolf: Well, Dakdok looks mixed. I thought he was Puerto Rican. However, he can also pass for African American since biracial and quarter black Americans are considered African Americans, too..
That's because most modern Egyptians ARE mixed, in contrast to their ancient ancestors who for the most part were not.
A more famous Egyptian American
Hoda Kotb
quote:In addition, it's actually not true that all Copts have only a minor SSA admixture...
Nobody said otherwise. Again Copt is accurately a religious label not an ethnic one. You have Copts in Alexandria who have no African ancestry whatsoever whereas there are Copts in Aswan who are overwhelmingly SSA in ancestry. The same is true with the Muslim populace.
quote:..What is more remarkable is the fact, that their SSA ancestry is rather old and basically exclusively East African-like. In contrast, their Muslim fellow country men also harbor West African/Yoruba-like DNA...
Not all SSA in modern Egyptians is East African. A minority of it is of West African affinity as well and is largely found in Upper Egypt but also has its highest frequency in the western oases. Interestingly it seems to highly correlate with the Benin HBS form of sickle-cell anemia.
quote:.. I was told by a Christian Egyptian that there were Christian Nubians that were absorbed by the Coptic population.
You mean Coptic Nubians being absorbed by Coptic Egyptians. That probably happened in some communities but the majority of Nubians and the majority of Baladi are very endogamous to the point that members of both communities would rather marry their own cousins before marrying those outside of their communities even though they may share the same religion!
quote:In contrast to Dakdok, some people thought that Rami Malek who is a Copt, ( albeit 1/8th Greek and 7/8 Coptic Egyptian) is "white".
Rami Malek is someone that here in America would be called "ambiguously white" or "vaguely white". And again "Coptic Egyptian" is not an ethnicity but a religion. The accurate term for indigenous ethnic Egyptian is Baladi.
Here is a rural Baladi man from Giza who is not a Copt but a Muslim.
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posted
^ According to the paper I just cited, yes E1b1a only amounts to just 2.8% but these results are only based on 63 samples from the capital city of Cairo. Even the authors said their results should not be taken as a complete assessment of the entire nation's population let alone reflect the genetic landscape in ancient times.
As for the mtDNA, the predominant clade in Egypt especially Upper Egypt is M1 which ties the Egyptian population to the Horn region.
So let's not be dishonest. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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You can double check the Arredi for details I just looked at it briefly according to the above Southern and Northern Egyptians zero E1b1a (Mansoura and Luxor)
Sometimes haplotype IV (and the M2 lineage) is seen as being associated with the "Bantu expansion" (~2000-3000 bp), but this does not mean that it is not much older, since expansion and origin times cannot be conflated. Haplotype IV has substantial frequencies in upper Egypt and Nubia, greater than VII and VIII, and even V. Bantu languages were never spoken in these regions or Senegal, where M2 is greater than 90 percent in some studies.
It's been touched on several times in this forum how E-M2 is older to North and East Africa than was previously thought.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: [QB] ^ Why no reference to the 2005 Keita & Boyce study?
Because Keita et al didn't do the DNA sampling in that chart was Lucotte and Mercier in 2003 who said the following before the nomenclature haplogroup E1 was used:
_______________________________________
Lucotte, G., & Mercier, G. (2003).
Brief communication: Y-chromosome haplotypes in Egypt. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 121(1), 63–66. doi:10.1002/ajpa.10190
frequencies of haplotype V are 51.9% in the Delta (location A), 24.2% in Upper Egypt (location B), and 17.4% in Lower Nubia (location C).
On the other hand, haplotype IV is a typical southern haplotype, being almost absent in A (1.2%) and preponderant in B (27.3%) and C (39.1%).
Haplotype XI also shows a preponderance in the south (in C, 30.4%; B, 28.8%) compared to the north (11.7% in A) of the country. __________________________________________ .
.
^^ here is that 27.3% figure and Keita references
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti:
Haplotype IV is identified as E1b1a-E-M2
Where is a credible reference that states Haplotype IV is identified as E1b1a?
The above Lucotte and Mercier is from 18 years ago. In light of other much more recent articles I am not convinced that Southern Egypt is of 27% E1b1a ancestry
________________________________
According to Cruciani, 2007 (yes only 4 years later but I covered more recent articles in the wiki chart, previous post) - but around this time 2007-2011, Cruciani was doing some of the fundamental research on E clades in Africa
Tracing Past Human Male Movements in Northern/Eastern Africa and Western Eurasia: New Clues from Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups E-M78 and J-M12 Fulvio Cruciani, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 24, Issue 6, June 2007, Pages 1300–1311, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msm049 Published: 10 March 2007
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Be honest, it's dubious to assume 27.3% E1b1a in Southern Egypt and it's not even when they were not even using that nomenclature. Why so much EM2 be there when there are East African haps there
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Because Keita et al didn't do the DNA sampling in that chart was Lucotte and Mercier in 2003 who said the following before the nomenclature haplogroup E1 was used:
I never said Keita & Boyce did the sampling themselves but you're right, I should have been more specific since the chart I borrowed from Zarahan cites Keita and Boyce.
I also should have been more clear about the nomenclature. Instead of E-M2, I should've wrote E-V38. I know paranoid Euros like your mistress Mathilda and yourself are more on top of African haplogroup nomenclature than I am since you like to keep track of African ancestry among your people.
quote:The above Lucotte and Mercier is from 18 years ago. In light of other much more recent articles I am not convinced that Southern Egypt is of 27% E1b1a ancestry
________________________________
According to Cruciani, 2007 (yes only 4 years later but I covered more recent articles in the wiki chart, previous post) - but around this time 2007-2011, Cruciani was doing some of the fundamental research on E clades in Africa
Tracing Past Human Male Movements in Northern/Eastern Africa and Western Eurasia: New Clues from Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups E-M78 and J-M12 Fulvio Cruciani, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 24, Issue 6, June 2007, Pages 1300–1311, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msm049 Published: 10 March 2007
_________________________________
Be honest, it's dubious to assume 27.3% E1b1a in Southern Egypt and it's not even when they were not even using that nomenclature. Why so much EM2 be there when there are East African haps there
You're likely right that E1b1a is not as high as nearly 30% even in Upper Egyptians but I believe it's still higher than 2%. I recall Trombetta in more than one study say that E-V38 as stretched from Egypt to Morocco with the latter having almost 10% frequency. And there is till the issue of Ramessu III carrying E1b1a and thus that hg being a Ramesside lineage. But if you want to discuss the provenance of E1b1a in Egypt or North Africa in large we can do so in your thread here.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: I know paranoid Euros like
No need to be racist, that is not valid argument.
"paranoid" ?
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti:
I also should have been more clear about the nomenclature. Instead of E-M2, I should've wrote E-V38.
Haplogroup E-V38 = E1b1a1 + E1b1a2
"IV" is obsolete and where is a reference that says that = E1b1a1 ? Go by "Haplotype IV" 2003? No articles since then have relevant E clade data for Egypt ?
E1b1a2 aka E-M329 is the East African branch of aE-V38 and found in Mota man, Ethiopia
E-P2 (Trombetta et al35) and its two basal clades E-M2 and E-M329, which are believed to be prevalent exclusively in Western Africa and Eastern Africa, respectively.
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posted
As an aside, does anyone know who the subjects of the Fayyum portraits would be? They always looked more Greek or Roman to me, yet I've seen Eurocentrics pointing to them as evidence of how AE would have looked (and then there's that Joel Irish study claiming their dental affinities were more Egyptian). Perhaps they represent a "creole" class of mixed ancestry?
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: No need to be racist, that is not valid argument.
"paranoid"?
The definition of 'racist' is someone who believes one's race or another is superior to another. What I said wasn't racist but an observation I've noticed about some Euros being paranoid about the African ancestry in their heritage.
quote:Haplogroup E-V38 = E1b1a1 + E1b1a2
"IV" is obsolete and where is a reference that says that = E1b1a1 ? Go by "Haplotype IV" 2003? No articles since then have relevant E clade data for Egypt ?
E1b1a2 aka E-M329 is the East African branch of aE-V38 and found in Mota man, Ethiopia
E-P2 (Trombetta et al35) and its two basal clades E-M2 and E-M329, which are believed to be prevalent exclusively in Western Africa and Eastern Africa, respectively.
As I said, I'll be happy to discuss the provenance of E1b1a--E-V38 elsewhere. For now I want to get back to the topic of this thread.
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: [qb] No need to be racist, that is not valid argument.
"paranoid"?
The definition of 'racist' is someone who believes one's race or another is superior to another. What I said wasn't racist but an observation I've noticed about some Euros being paranoid about the African ancestry in their heritage.
This term you used "Euros" is baiting. It's like someone coming in and calling black people "Afros" The word isn't innately racist but when you call people words that they don't call themselves it's disrespect -not to mention applied to a person that it doesn't even match with And now you have Brandon using it which is quite ridiculous
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posted
^ Euros refers to Eurocentrics and yes I would use the word Afros as well. There is nothing intrinsically negative or racist about those words but if a Euro like yourself feels offended, I'll just use 'white' then if that makes you feel better.
Getting back to the topic. Wally asks "Just who are the Copts?" and then presumes they are Greco-Egyptians. It is a common mistake to assume the Copts represent a separate ethnic identity when in fact they are merely a religious denomination of Christianity.
Because Copts are a religious group and not an ethnic one, Coptic people vary in looks depending on the region and even on the family since some Copts from wealthy Afrangi elite families do intermarry with foreign Christains as discussed before.
The common assumption that Copts somehow represent the "purest" Egyptian stock stems from the simple fact that they best preserved the indigenous language. Nevertheless this hasn't stopped anthropologists especially in the past from touting the Copts as exemplar par excellence of Baladi (indigenous Egyptians).
https://copticliterature.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/how-they-saw-the-copts-the-meyers-konversations-lexikon-or-meyers-lexikon/ The Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (or Meyers Lexikon) is a famous German encyclopaedia that was published in various editions from 1839 to 1984.[2] The work was inaugurated by the dynamic Joseph Meyer (1796 – 1856). The monumental work included, inter alia, a survey of the Völker (peoples or nations) of the world, with plates displaying figures of African peoples, Asiatic peoples, American peoples, etc., and with individual notes of each nation. The Copts (Kopten) he included with the African nations (Afrikanische Völker), as indeed their geographical position dictates. I have published the relevant plate at the top. Below, I publish an inset that shows the figures of the Coptic man and woman (figures 6 and 7 in the plate), which, I believe, have not done justice to the Copts, and cannot be taken as representative of them (but it must be stressed there is a spectrum in the physiognomy of the Copts):
Figure 2: Inset from Fig. 1 showing the Coptic man and woman (number 6 & 7).
A tribe in Egypt, the Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians. While, in Lower Egypt, from the time of the Mohammedan conquest, they have not remained unmixed, in Middle and Upper Egypt, their main region of distribution, they remained quite pure (although it seems that some Negro blood was infused in the veins of the ancient Egyptians, as we can see from figures, especially in the lower classes). They still show in their body composition the Egyptian type: a wide, mostly low forehead; black, slightly curly hair; mostly straight, sharply cut nose; in addition the eyes which are oblong, but large and black always strangely beaming. The skin colour changes from Yellowish to brown (see panel “African nations“, 6 and 7).
The problem of course is that there is no discernable difference between Copts and the majority Muslims of Egypt. In fact, even before the Islamic period or Arab invasion Copts have always varied in appearance depending on locality an family heritage.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Euros refers to Eurocentrics and yes I would use the word Afros as well. There is nothing intrinsically negative or racist about those words but if a Euro like yourself feels offended, I'll just use 'white' then if that makes you feel better.
you think you're superior to most Europeans
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Wally asks...
Wally hasn't posted for ten years
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posted
As an example of the diversity of Coptic people here are two icons of Coptic saints:
Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Saint Maurice of Thebes (Upper Egypt)
St. Maurice was discussed in various threads but he was a 3rd Century Egyptian who served in an all Christian Roman legion based in Thebes and was martyred for his faith sometime in the year 287. Maurice is among the most famous of the 'black saints' and a patron saint of soldiers fighting for their faith and country.
In the very year of Maurice's death was born St. Catherine who was the daughter of Constus governor of Alexandria and therefore a member of the Greco-Roman elite. She was martyred in the year 305. Traditions say she she had reddish blonde hair and was obviously white.
Both individuals are Copts and yet they are of entirely different backgrounds while both being Egyptian. Maurice was obviously a Baladi while Catherine obviously was not and hails from the colonialist powers while Maurice was the colonized native.
However this begs the question then of just how the Coptic faith came to be? That is how did Christianity enter Egypt and into the lives of its denizens?
This has been somewhat of a mystery since the seeds of Christianity were being planted in the Roman imperial realm which was still largely pagan and the earliest descriptions of Christians were simply that of a strange Judaean sect.
It has been taken for granted per the traditions that the city of Alexandria was an episcopal see (ecclesiastical seat) of with its first bishop being none other than the Apostle Mark who founded the first church there. That Alexandria should be a center of Christianity is not surprising considering that Christianity originated as a Judean sect and that Alexandria had the largest population of Judeans in the country of Egypt during Imperial Rome.
However as the source I cited, Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt shows, there very few traces of early Christianity in Alexandria. This is no doubt due to the persecution not only from the pagan Roman authorities at large but also from the anti-Christian members of the Judaean community, not to mention competition with the various Gnostic sects. It's very likely that these first churches were none other than private homes. The earliest archaeological evidence of churches in Egypt is found at Kellis, a Roman village in Dakhla Oasis (Aravecchia 2015). The oasis settlement has three churches. Based upon the dating of numismatic and ceramic evidence recovered during the excavation of the churches, the earliest church is a converted domus ecclesiae (Small East Church), built in the early fourth century. Next to this church a later, Constantinian, large three-aisle basilica was built, which was also dated by numismatic and ceramic material. Side chambers (pastophoria) flank a raised apse. The presence of the side rooms became a common feature in Egyptian churches. On the west edge of the village a third church sits amidst an impressive Christian cemetery. These early Egyptian churches illustrate the importance of an east-west axis, the placement of the east sanctuary, and the swiftness with which new church construction followed Constantine’s patronage of Christian institutions. A fourth-century church at nearby Ain el-Gedida in Dakhla also demonstrates the speed with which even oasis settlements began building churches (Aravecchia 2015).
Although no early churches are preserved in Alexandria, the southern city at Antinoopolis, the capital of the Lower Thebaid province, provides the best and earliest example of a monumental basilica built in the late fourth century, like those that may have existed in Alexandria. The church is a five-aisle basilica located in the south cemetery of the city. With an east apse the church measures 20 by 60 meters; it is highlighted by applied columns (McKenzie 2007). Two other churches date to the later fifth century and contain features such as baptismal fonts, painted panels, and cruciform plan. The examples from the Dakhla Oasis and Antinoopolis represent how architects modified the Roman civic basilica plan into a form conducive for Christian liturgical events.
Interesting how the first Church buildings were found outside Alexandria and other major cities of power and in smaller more rural towns. Also is the fact that Thebes turns out to be an early center of Christianity as well considering this was the home area of St. Maurice.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: However this begs the question then of just how the Coptic faith came to be? That is how did Christianity enter Egypt and into the lives of its denizens?
Couldn't that have something to do with Christianity becoming the official religion of the Eastern Roman Empire? I don't think the pagan Roman emperors, or all the earlier colonial overlords, did much to force the Egyptian people away from their indigenous traditions. Some like the Ptolemies even pandered to them instead. Before the Eastern Empire's Christianization, the Egyptians seem to have clung to their traditional religion even after foreigners took over the country.
EDIT: I saw your edit and I see that you were talking about the earlier establishment of Christian communities in Egypt prior to the religion taking over the Eastern Roman Empire. My bad.
posted
^ Yes, I am referring to the development of Christianity before its acceptance by the Roman Empire let alone established as the imperial state religion.
I think the key is looking first at the Judaean communities in Egypt where those seeds of Christianity was first planted. I think a common mistake of many scholars is focusing solely on Alexandria and Mark the Apostle establishing the episcopal see there. In fact there's a common conception that the first church in Egypt is in Alexandria when there's really no evidence or even tradition that Mark didn't establish a church elsewhere in Egypt before he arrived in Alexandria.
Besides Alexandria, there were 6 other cities that were centers of Judaean communities since the Ptolemaic period and even before then: Tahpanhes (bordering the Sinai), Migdol (somewhere in the eastern delta), Leontopolis (in the east-central delta in modern Damietta), Memphis, Oxyrhyynchus (in middle Egypt near Abusir el-Melek), and Antinoopolis (in Upper Egypt near Thebes).
Also, while St. Mark the Apostle was the most prominent evangelist to bring Christianity to Egypt there's no tradition or evidence that he was the first person to do so. In fact the earliest tradition of the first evangelist to the African continent comes from the Book of Acts in the form of the Ethiopian Eunuch called in popular traditions 'Simeon the Black' who was baptized by Philip the Evangelist after receiving the Gospel. Simeon was said to be a courtier of Candace the Nubian Queen and is credited by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church with introducing Christianity to Ethiopia via Nubia. But who's to say he didn't spread it first to any communities in Egypt.
What's interesting also is how the Christian Church in its development begin to schism and divide into multiple churches. Most are familiar with the division of the Imperial Church into Eastern/Greek Orthodoxy and Western/Roman Catholicism. However even within the Eastern Orthodox there was variance and some division. The Syriac Orthodox Church is perhaps the Church that comes closest to the original church of Israel and the ministry of Jesus and his family. The Syriac Church uses Aramaic as their liturgy which differs from Greek liturgy of the greater Eastern Orthodoxy though they are still part of the same Church. This is in contrast to the Assyrian Orthodox or Nestorian Church which diverged due to the Nesotrian heresy and spread into Persia and further east. The Egyptian Orthodox or Coptic Church uses the native Coptic language as its liturgy which is very interesting since most Alexandrians at did not speak it Coptic but Greek. However, its split from main Eastern Orthodoxy stems from their monophysite heresy. The Coptic Church as we know spread further west into Libya and the Maghreb as well as south into the Sudan and Ethiopia. In fact, most people forget that before the Islamic conquest a third of Christendom was in Africa which was greater than that of Europe.
Aside from the use of Coptic as liturgy, there are other practices peculiar to the Copts that other Orthodox Churches or any Churches for that matter do not practice. For example, tattooing. Tattoos were forbidden among Judaeans per the Old Testament laws, but among the Greeks tattoos were a sign of slavery. It is only among the Baladi Egyptian community that tattoos held spiritual significance both in their ancient Egyptian religion as well as both for Egyptian Copts and Egyptian Muslims. The Copts would have tattoos of crosses on their wrists as a sign of faith. Ethiopian Christians wore tattoo crosses on their foreheads or necks. Another example is the musical liturgy. The Copts would in their rituals would use both tambourines and sistrums in ceremonies. Again both instruments were used in ancient Egyptian ceremonies by the sacred women musicians called khener but today is implemented by altar boys. There are probably other practices peculiar to the Copts which our old moderator Ausar is probably knowledgeable of.
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Some of the links you've sent show Ethiopian Coptic believers. I thought were are talking about Egyptian Copts only?
Posts: 102 | From: private | Registered: Jul 2021
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quote:Originally posted by mightywolf: Some of the links you've sent show Ethiopian Coptic believers. I thought were are talking about Egyptian Copts only?
The thread title doesn't say Egyptian Copts only.
Coptic presence in Sudan dates back more than 1,300 years, although many are descended from more recent Egyptian immigrants.
Egypt 5–20 million (estimates vary) Sudan c. 500,000 Libya 60,000 Diaspora: 1–2 million (estimates vary)
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I don't know about in Ethiopia
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by mightywolf: Some of the links you've sent show Ethiopian Coptic believers. I thought were are talking about Egyptian Copts only?
The thread title doesn't say Egyptian Copts only.
Coptic presence in Sudan dates back more than 1,300 years, although many are descended from more recent Egyptian immigrants.
posted
Egyptian Copts have a range of looks as we can see from all kinds of pics. They are diverse to a degree, not super diverse, though. Some of them remind me of the so-called Hispanics or Latinos.
I removed the last pic since it couldn't be reduced, and replaced it.
Posts: 102 | From: private | Registered: Jul 2021
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it doesn't have the word "Ethiopian" anywhere [/QB]
The attire alone, which is the traditional clothing Ethiopian or Eritrean Churchgoers wear, tells you that they are not Egyptian or Sudanese. And I'm sure lioness you have seen enough pics of Ethiopians or Eritreans in this typical white traditional dress to know that these women are not Egyptian, Nubian or Sudanese,etc.
Posts: 102 | From: private | Registered: Jul 2021
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it doesn't have the word "Ethiopian" anywhere [/QB]
Here is a link with the word "Ethiopian" there that shows Ethiopian Copts that attend a Church in Cairo. You can see that the women are, unlike the Egyptian Copts, dressed in the same white clothing like the women in the link that Djehuti has posted. Bear in mind, that there are Eritrean and Ethiopian people who live as migrants or residents in Egypt, and they go to the Coptic Church there.
quote:Originally posted by mightywolf: Some of the links you've sent show Ethiopian Coptic believers. I thought were are talking about Egyptian Copts only?
I haven't researched this but the caption of your link said those are
"Ethiopian Christian Orthodox women (L) attend an Easter mass led by of Egypt's Coptic Christian, Pope Tawadros II at the Saint Mark's Coptic Cathedral, in Cairo's al-Abbassiya district late on April 15, 2017. "
So perhaps they are not Copts at all > I though I think there are some Coptic churches in Ethiopia, I dont know much about these details
BUT that other photo says
Coptic Orthodox women attend an Easter mass, led by Pope ...
they seem to be at the Coptic church for Easter but not identified as Copts
I posted earlier Hassan on Sudanese Copts' YDNA
wikipedia on Copts mtDNA:
Maternally, Hassan (2009) found that Copts in Sudan exclusively carry various descendants of the macrohaplogroup N. This mtDNA clade is likewise closely associated with local Afroasiatic-speaking populations, including Berbers and Ethiopid peoples. Of the N derivatives borne by Copts, U6 is most frequent (28%), followed by the haplogroup T (17%)
Ethiopian Mitochondrial DNA Heritage: Tracking Gene Flow Across and Around the Gate of Tears Toomas Kivisild, 2004
All eight Ethiopian U6 samples descend from the major U6a1 founder (fig. 2B), which is spread from the Near East to northwestern Africa at appreciable frequencies (Maca-Meyer et al. 2003). Their absence in Yemen suggests that these U6 lineages have likely penetrated to Ethiopia from the north rather than by the sea route from Arabia.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the largest of Eastern Christianity's branch of Oriental Orthodox Christian churches. One of the few Christian churches in Sub-Saharan Africa originating before European colonization of the continent,[6] the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates back millennia, and has a current membership of about 36 million people,[2][3][4][5] the majority of whom live in Ethiopia.[7] It is a founding member of the World Council of Churches.[8] The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is in communion with the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church, having gained autocephaly in 1959.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church had been administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria from the first half of the 4th century until 1959, when it was granted autocephaly with its own patriarch by Saint Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It is one of the oldest Christian churches and Ethiopia is the second country historically, following only Armenia, to have officially proclaimed Christianity as its state religion (in AD 333).
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
These people have little to nothing to do with the ancient Ausarian principled people who created ancient Kemet. I think that you all are a group of people set out here to mislead Blacks seeking information about ancient Kemet.
"In Libya, which is mostly desert and oasis, t here 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")
Professor Ivan Van Sertima made it clear that these people in Egypt today even the Arabanized Blacks have nothing to do with the ancient civilization. It is their wet dream to have a linkage to the land that they stumbled upon. They have been there for over a thousand years AFTER the fall of the real dynastic race, which is found in inner Africa. You all seem to know this, but continue to post these non African folks (mentally) as having some sort of authentic linkage to ancient Kemet.
quote:Originally posted by mightywolf: Egyptian Copts have a range of looks as we can see from all kinds of pics. They are diverse to a degree, not super diverse, though. Some of them remind me of the so-called Hispanics or Latinos.
I removed the last pic since it couldn't be reduced, and replaced it.
Why do you keep posting these pasty little kids as though they have linage to ancient Kemet?
Priest for the Royal funerary religion, 6th Dynasty., -2400 B.C.
quote:Originally posted by Big O: Why do you keep posting these pasty little kids as though they have linage to ancient Kemet?
They are not pasty stop being racist
The average black person in America is about 20% European
So a black person could be 20% Irish or 20% German Or some combination yet still be regarded in America as a black person and have dark skin
So say some black person is 15% Irish This black person could be more Irish than a white person from Russia
Similarly a Copt resembling a Hispanic might have ancestry going back to the dynastic Egyptians whereas a black person in some random location in Africa, say an Angolan may have no ancestors who were Egyptian
You might say maybe some people in Angola do but Africa is a large continent and most Africans do not have ancestors who were Egyptian
People living in or neighboring Egypt would be more likely to have some ancestry going back to ancient Egypt. This is obvious and I have already posted Coptic DNA which is further information
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Big O: Why do you keep posting these pasty little kids as though they have linage to ancient Kemet?
They are not pasty stop being racist
The average black person in America is about 20% European
So a black person could be 20% Irish or 20% German Or some combination yet still be regarded in America as a black person and have dark skin
So say some black person is 15% Irish This black person could be more Irish than a white person from Russia
What on Earth are you talking about? Why are you talking about "Irish" as though it is a genetic reality? Idc about "European" ancestry, because I don't know my European ancestors. Nor do I do care to! I know my African ancestors, and my family's oral history of being "Blackfoot" Native American.
quote: Similarly a Copt resembling a Hispanic might have ancestry going back to the dynastic Egyptians whereas a black person in some random location in Africa, say an Angolan may have no ancestors who were Egyptian
Why are you bringing up far fetched scenarios? The peoples through inner Africa are the original people of Kemet. There are entirely too many threads on this forum from what I have seen that prove this, and yet you play dumb. Those Copts are white invaders to an African land. If they absorbed some of the remaining Africans who did not flee into the interior until as recently as a few centuries ago then that is all that they have. The cultural legacy of ancient Kemet is found only in inner Africa, and some remote peoples in the World.
Ausarian culture is what defined ancient Kemet, from the rest of the begotten World at the time. This culture is NOT practiced in the Copts today. Mummification and other traits of that Ausarian religion are only found in the living Black peoples of the African Continent and diaspora peoples.
quote: You might say maybe some people in Angola do but Africa is a large continent and most Africans do not have ancestors who were Egyptian
Lioness, I can reference a thread that I've read where you've been schooled on this topic. Now you want to play dumb about what you had to sit and accept.
quote:People living in or neighboring Egypt would be more likely to have some ancestry going back to ancient Egypt. This is obvious and I have already posted Coptic DNA which is further information
Ancient Egypt is not ancient Kemet.
"Ancient Egypt" refers to the land formerly known as Kemet after it was taken over by white an mulatto invaders afer the 4th century BC. Kemet refers to what was held in place by African up until that point.
You can NEVER show me an "Egyptian Copt" wearing a traditional ancient Kemetic leopard skin with it's societal implications like you find among the Bantu states in Southern/Central Africa and West Africa as well. You need to stop lying, by pretending that those light skinned pale people have anything to do with the legacy of ancient Kemet.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Why no reference to the 2005 Keita & Boyce study?
Haplotype IV is identified as E1b1a-E-M2
Sometimes haplotype IV (and the M2 lineage) is seen as being associated with the "Bantu expansion" (~2000-3000 bp), but this does not mean that it is not much older, since expansion and origin times cannot be conflated. Haplotype IV has substantial frequencies in upper Egypt and Nubia, greater than VII and VIII, and even V. Bantu languages were never spoken in these regions or Senegal, where M2 is greater than 90 percent in some studies.
It's been touched on several times in this forum how E-M2 is older to North and East Africa than was previously thought.
Something that no one talks about is how do we know that the Arabs who swept across Northern Africa were not E1b1 carriers predominantly, with some J in the mix??? There are studies that have been presented on here that show that populations that carry E1b1 (Horn Africans) have been in the Arabian peninsula since the Neolithic.
How do we know that this migration was not a spread of E1b1 across Northern Africa, not only haplogroup J? That's why when people have made the argument using this data from Keita I've always looked at it funny. Yes E1b1 IS African, BUT the CONTEXT to how it came into the North has never really been broken down. We know that some of this spread northward initially with other groups of Africans from the Horn. How did it spread into the Maghreb from that point? The only migration of peoples from an E1b1 carrying region into the Maghreb is the Arab invasion. I think that the bulk of these Arabs were Cushitic, and we find evidence that this is the only scenario possible. Especially when we look at how recently the area was almost completely dominated by these Cushitic Africans;
“Mr. Baldwin draws a marked distinction between the modern Mahomedan Semitic population of Arabia and their great Cushite, Hamite, or Ethiopian predecessors . The former, he says, ‘are comparatively modern in Arabia,’ they have ‘appropriated the reputation of the old race,’ and have unduly occupied the chief attention of modern scholars. ”-- Charles Hardwick (1872)
As recently as 150 years ago. I think that the E1b1a carriers, Nilotic Africans based on multiple lines of ancient DNA were the primary constitutes of ancient Nile Valley civilization. Dr. Winters points to Dravidans also being a factor particularly in Nubia and early ancient Kemet.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Big O you are destroying this thread.
It is about Copts and you are posting other Africans and artifacts that are not Copt
I'm refuting lying implications that these pale people are inheritors of ancient Kemet's legacy.
The are people who may have some genetic ancestry going back to the dynastic Egyptians as well mixed with later foreigners They are Christians and thus not particularly interested in the legacy of the dynastic Egyptians which was largely buried under sand and forgotten about until the Europeans started excavating it and discovering royal tombs
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Big O you are destroying this thread.
It is about Copts and you are posting other Africans and artifacts that are not Copt
I'm refuting lying implications that these pale people are inheritors of ancient Kemet's legacy.
The are people who may have some genetic ancestry going back to the dynastic Egyptians as well mixed with later foreigners They are Christians and thus not particularly interested in the legacy of the dynastic Egyptians which was largely buried under sand and forgotten about until the Europeans started excavating it and discovering royal tombs
It's not just the fact that they are Christian Lioness. They have nothing to do with the ancient civilization, and they know that! Just like YOU do lol smh.
The only people who match with ancient Africans to the south, and some Native American Blacks according to these studies. Fake pale "Egyptian" Turkish Arabs have nothing to do with ancient Kemet, and you know that.
posted
Please don't adulterate this thread into another 'race' argument. The topic of the thread is the identity of the Copts. It has been made apparent that Copt is NOT an ethnicity but a religious group that encompasses a variety of peoples. The very nature of the Copts is not based on phenotype but religious traditions. Thus the same is true for Egyptian Muslims. One is hard pressed to tell the difference between a Copt and a Muslim by physical appearance alone.
Native Egyptians when using ethnic differences usually use terms like Baladi for indigenous and Khawaga for foreigner or someone of foreign descent such as the Arabs or Alexandrians of Greco-Roman descent. The problem however is such distinctions are not always clear due to intermixing especially from ancient times since from the Middle Kingdom foreigners have been settling in parts of Egypt and becoming nationalized Egyptians.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Please don't adulterate this thread into another 'race' argument. The topic of the thread is the identity of the Copts. It has been made apparent that Copt is NOT an ethnicity but a religious group that encompasses a variety of peoples. The very nature of the Copts is not based on phenotype but religious traditions.
Any response to my post about that their genetic makeup that replied to your own?
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