Everytime I have these discussions about the history,culture,and society of ancient Egypt everybody always references websites. Does anybody here ever read about ancient Egypt or even archaeology of ancient Egypt? Not all information about ancient Egypt can be grasped from Wikipedia or internet sites. Infact, I caution using internet sites off book sources.

A few people here have cited information from books,but most of it is internet sites.

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Originally posted by ausar:

Everytime I have these discussions about the history,culture,and society of ancient Egypt everybody always references websites. Does anybody here ever read about ancient Egypt or even archaeology of ancient Egypt? Not all information about ancient Egypt can be grasped from Wikipedia or internet sites. Infact, I caution using internet sites off book sources.

A few people here have cited information from books,but most of it is internet sites.

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yeah ........

of course I started out reading afro(i)centric books but they started to get a wierd feeling that I couldn't trust what I was reading.......only because much of the writing was (now understandably) passionate and emotional - and quite often used, feel good words, and sarcasm to express points.
However I, through continuous examination of the hard facts, was able in large part, to find corraborative information and evidence relative to much of what I had previously read from black authors..................even if there were opposing theories ............these (theories of the black authors and africentrists) were theories biased or not that I could readily, and easily identify with........
I pick up things constantly and usually if there are some things I haven't heard before.....I try to look them up by keyword in the University of chicago library catalog system......... then I go get the city of chicago library to order the book(s)........pretty nice and cheap system.....

so I can get a test run before the purchase...............

egyptology
arch...anthropol.....ogy

What books have you recently read about ancient Egypt?

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Originally posted by ausar:

Everytime I have these discussions about the history,culture,and society of ancient Egypt everybody always references websites. Does anybody here ever read about ancient Egypt or even archaeology of ancient Egypt? Not all information about ancient Egypt can be grasped from Wikipedia or internet sites. Infact, I caution using internet sites off book sources.

A few people here have cited information from books,but most of it is internet sites.

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I read this book a couple of months ago. Though it’s not actually a book on Ancient Egypt it discusses how the 25th dynasty may have played a role in saving modern religion.

The Rescue of Jerusalem
The Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC

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In the summer of 701 BC, the powerful Assyrian army laid siege to Jerusalem, threatening the Hebrew kingdom with destruction. Had Jerusalem perished, so too would Hebrew society itself. Rabbinical Judaism and its two offshoots -- Christianity and Islam -- could never have arisen.

But suddenly, the invaders fled, leaving the City of David intact. Why? The Assyrian retreat has been one of history’s most enduring mysteries. Now, in this ground-breaking account, award-winning writer Henry Aubin proves beyond doubt that Jerusalem was saved by the army of the Kushite pharaoh of Egypt, made up largely of black Africans also known as Nubians, from what is now Sudan. Led by the great general Taharqa, who would go on to become a pharaoh himself, this African army seldom figures in modern biblical scholarship -- the result, Aubin argues, of a racist campaign over the last two centuries to erase the Kushite contribution to Israel’s survival.

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I thought this book was good. If gave me a new perspective on the Bible and religion in general.

Does anyone have any recommendations for Ancient Egypt books? I have "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt", but it's pretty dry. I found it to be a better reference book.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Mansa, I have about 15 books on ancient Egypt by some of the top Egyptologists in the world, in none of those books has the subject of race ever been mentioned.

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Like it or not, “race” is a reality in our world. I wish I wasn’t judged by the color of my skin, but as a man. Before I open my mouth some people will assume I’m a deadbeat dad, womanizer, or criminal, the list goes on and on. I wish the world wasn’t like this, but it is, there’s no running from it.

Who were the first to assign Ancient Egyptians to a racial group? Who has promoted racial superiority throughout modern history? Don’t ask me not to talk about race when that’s all you (not you specifically) do and have done throughout history. I say, Europeans have made their beds and now they have to lye in them.

And although it's true that most Egyptologists' books rarely mention anything about 'race' but about culture, many of the books I read do acknowledge the African nature of Egyptian culture and even a few have noted about the 'racial' issue in Egyptology. Of course other authors like Hawass make on mention of the cultural nature let alone ethnic aspects, but what do you expect from a guy like Hawass.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Looks like an interesting book Tdog. I looked up the writer on the net, he started talking about the bias' of western historians and that is always a red flag for me. You gotta be careful when you read books written by these political guys.

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The author is a “white” guy who adopted two African children. He was reading them stories about the Greeks and such and found that they really couldn’t relate to the Greek heroes. So he took it upon himself to do research about great Africans in antiquity. I don’t have the book with (I’m at work), but that is how the book came about.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Mansa, I have about 15 books on ancient Egypt by some of the top Egyptologists in the world, in none of those books has the subject of race ever been mentioned.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Todg, Not everyone is obcessed by the subject of race. Possibly its a black thing because you people can't deal with it. Why that is the case I have no earthly idea but if you are not careful it will turn your brain to mush.

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I disagree, but let's not start a racial debate.

Anyway.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Looks like an interesting book Tdog. I looked up the writer on the net, he started talking about the bias' of western historians and that is always a red flag for me. You gotta be careful when you read books written by these political guys.

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There is a western bias when it comes to AE! It could be deliberate or it could be a subconscience bias.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Looks like an interesting book Tdog. I looked up the writer on the net, he started talking about the bias' of western historians and that is always a red flag for me. You gotta be careful when you read books written by these political guys.

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Hore, for the thousandth time there is nothing "political" about it! The author is white and even he admits Western bias, why can't you?!

May I turn your attention again to thread 101 on Eurocentric bias...

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the imbecile says: SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!
YOU COULD ACTUALLY READ?

HARDLY ANY NEGROID PEOPLE IN MY PART OF THE WORLD COULD EVEN READ A NEWSPAPER--

EXCEPT, MAYBE THE SPORTS PAGE---

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ROTFL Well I am not "negroid", but I know plenty who can not only read large volumes of scientific information but actually understand them (not just the people in this board) As for YOU, shouldn't you be catching up on your 'milk-maid' fantasy article in Penthouse, you disgusting degenerate?!!

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Tdog, I think I mentioned one at the top of the thread....check it out but sorry, Bob Brier never mentions race in the book a single time.

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In books by Ian Shaw or Michael Rice, even though they never mention the word 'race' directly, they are pretty adamant that the Egyptians as well as their culture were indigenously African.

And Afro, you are correct to say that many (not all) Afrocentric books are based moreso on modern political and/or emotional appeal. Take for example Chancellor Williams book Destruction, It is highly inaccurate where it states that Asiatics had a significant presence and that the war between Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt had some kind of racial component to it.

Since I am persuing a career in film lets use that as an example. Let's look at this from a cinematic perspective in the way that Ancient Egypt is portrayed and the way that it should be portrayed.

Now if I were to make a movie about the Tokugawa Shogunate era in Japan for an American audience I would try to make it as authentic as possible. The only thing that I would change would be the language, casting English speaking Japanese actors for the film. At best if I could not find an all Japanese cast I would get some people who look enough like the Japanese that their appearance would seem natural to the audience. I don't think thats being overtly racially concious it is just attempting an honest portryal of history.

Regardless of what people say they do care about racial imagery. No one would take a movie seriously that was about Rome and starred an all Black cast. It may have been funny on the BET awards but most critics would find it highly inappropiate and inaccurate for a theatrical film.

I saw the movie Alexander a little while ago and I read some internet reviews. This one website in particular interested me.

How are Iranians and Greeks portrayed in the Alexander movie?

The page addressed some legitimate issues about the cast and historical accuracy of the film. One matter in particular was on the subject of Rosario Dawson being portrayed as Alexander's Bactrian queen, Roxanna.

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The portrayal of ancient Iranians is outright comical, if not insulting. The inaccurate Hollywood portrayal of Iranians is exemplified by the selection of Rosario Dawson (http://www.lostfocus.de/archives/rosario_dawson.jpg ), a very talented, beautiful and intelligent black actress, to star as Roxanna, an ancient Iranian queen from Soghdia-Bactria. Roxanna was not black, anymore than Alexander was Scandinavian. Having Rosario Dawson portrayed as Roxanna makes as much sense as having Lucy Liu, an Asian-American, portraying Queen Victoria of Great Britain.

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I totally agree with this there is nothing malicious about what this person is saying. They go on to state that there are many talented Iranian actresses and wonder why one of them wasn't cast for this part.

Like wise I do not feel movies such as The Mummy did a good job in their portrayl of the Ancient Egyptians. If Blacks are in these movies at all they are confined to specific rules such as soldiers and servants (which though Alexander's portrayls of Egypt were during the time of the Ptolomies they also did with their casting) making you wonder if the Blacks represent an Egyptian minority or if they are just Nubians.

The movie The Scorpion King did a better job with Egypt making it more cosmopalitan and even starring The Rock who is Black/Somoan as the lead character (even though his character was an Akkadian, an Asiatic people).

If I were to make a movie about dynastic Egypt I would cast many people of various East African phenotypes if I could and high caliber African-American actors to play the leads ( being ofcoruse that it is an American movie).

I think Michael Jackson's music video Remember the time was an excellent and more realistic portrayl Ancient especially since they had Somali actress/model Iman in the cast representing a physical diverity that likely existed in Ancient Egypt.

If the Nerfertiti film starring Halle Berry is ever made I hope the look and cast are similar to that video and don't just have a White Egypt with one black actress as the lead.

There is simply no excuse with big budget Hollywood productions that historical films should not be portrayed as accurately as possible.

And Horemheb, it is not just a "Black thing", despite The Rock's ethnic stock Hawaiians were uncomfortable with him playing the Hawaiian cheif Kamehameha in a movie!

I feel that it is wrong for Egypt to be portrayed as a non-African civilization in film and it is wrong to teach it as a non-African civilization in history books.

It is a turn off to me to see people over stress Nubia as a Black African civilization when it gives the impression that Egypt was not (e.g. "Black Pharaohs").

When Ancient Egypt is put back in its proper context as an African civilization by the mainstream, people of African descent will decrease their intense pursuit of stressing the racial issue.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
This thread picked up when it bacame a stupid race thread, you guys are disgusting.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Looks like an interesting book Tdog. I looked up the writer on the net, he started talking about the bias' of western historians and that is always a red flag for me. You gotta be careful when you read books written by these political guys.

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This is directly from "The Rescue of Jerusalem: the Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC."

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I originally under took this research not as a historian but as a parent. My adopted son happens to be of African descent. In reading him the stories of Hercules, King Arthur, Charlemagne and Daniel Boone that I had loved as a child, and that his older brother had also greatly enjoyed, I saw that these did not resonate with him the same way. Stories that had implicitly affirmed the value of my own and my other son’s background, which is white European, meant less to Nick. A subsequent search for tales of heroes from African history turned up disappointingly little material, either historical or legendary, to fire a nine-year-old’s imagination. With my wife’s encouragement, I looked at books on African history for adults to see if they contained raw material that could be adapted. That’s how I came across some dry descriptions of a civilization I had barely heard of before, that of the Kushites, or Nubians, who lived in what is now northern Sudan and southernmost Egypt…..

….In this roundabout way I stumbled across as odd detail. One of the history books made a fleeting mention of a military expedition that a Kushite pharaoh in 701 BC had dispatched to the Near East. Its destination corresponds to today’s Israel.

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Again, he doesn't seem biased to me.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
This thread picked up when it bacame a stupid race thread, you guys are disgusting.

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I hope this doesn't address me! I only answered to your reply Hore. Most of the mainstream books that I read don't mention race but they do mean culture. But all in all, Mansa makes a valid point. In Hollywood, why portray people inaccurately. But then again, it is Hollywood.

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Originally posted by tdogg:
This is directly from "The Rescue of Jerusalem: the Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC."

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This brings up the interesting point that we should not reflect our modern day racial biases into ancient history (as so many have done.)

This alliance between Hebrews and Nubians reminds me of why when Ahmose in his ushering in of the New Kingdom was so hostile to the Nubians. Ahmose and the Egyptians' hostility toward the Kushites wasn't because of 'racial' prejudice but because they found out about an alliace the Kushites had with the Hyksos that threatened to conquer Egypt!!

Notice it does not matter that the Hyksos were not African but had closer political ties than Egypt at that time!!

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
he made the comment that European historians were biased. That, of course, is nonsense. In one sentence he slams some of the most brilliant minds in history.
That said, I do agree that more work needs to be done on Nubia.

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Of course not all European historians were biased but it depends on the timeframe. Back then, many were indeed biased. Need we remind you of 101 on Eurocentric bias...

Today however, scholars are much more objective and less prejudiced than their forebearers, which is why "mainstream" scholarship is slowly but surely accepting the FACTS.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
There you go again mansa, "the blackness of Egypt." Nobody cares, nor do they care about your silly racial phobia.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Djehuti, they are not even close to accepting the 'facts' you present here...

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Secondly, there is no such thing as a eurocentric...

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Do you have a short memory span or what? Again (for the thousand and third time) may I direct you to Eurocenric bias 101

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race has turned your brain to mush...

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No, because I have a better understanding of what you call "race." It seems Racial bias has turned YOUR brain into mush, for no matter how much evidence someone presents to you, you keep denying the FACTS. And no matter how many times I re-introduce you to my thread on the history of Eurocenric bias, you keep insisting that it "doesn't exist", yet at the same token you talk about "Afrocentrism".

Worse yet, you speak of African "caucasoids" and 'wooly' haired caucasians! I think your brain has been liquified a long time ago!!

I have seen you harp about Afrocentrism on this forum for over a year and seen you react to images of East Africans with the silly and biased notion that they were not "real" Africans but actually Arabs. For you to critisize anyone on this forum about taking a racial approach to discussions is the epitome of hypocrisy because you have reacted accordingly on many occasions.

I for one didn't discuss race on this particular thread until it was mentioned, I wanted to wait and see what books people actually recommended, since I haven't read any. If you are as passionate in your opinion as you say and want discussions to stick to real issues on Egyptology instead of degenerating into race matters you will recommend some reliable books for us to look at that you have read.

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Originally posted by Mansa Musa:
Horemheb, your contention that you are indifferent and even disgusted by the subject of race as it relates to history is unconvincing, especially when taking into consideration that if what you say is true you would not even dignify such discussion with a response.

I have seen you harp about Afrocentrism on this forum for over a year and seen you react to images of East Africans with the silly and biased notion that they were not "real" Africans but actually Arabs. For you to critisize anyone on this forum about taking a racial approach to discussions is the epitome of hypocrisy...

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Hypocrisy is an understatement when it comes to the professor.

For one thing, he denies the existence of Eurocentric bias (even though it has existed for centuries) yet complains about the Afrocentrism that has only been around a few decades!!

When some of the people in this board talk about Greeks having African ancestry due to migrations around southern Europe, he dismisses all of this as nonsense, yet at the same time classifies ancient Egyptians and others as North African "caucasoids"!!!

So yeah, I'd say hypocrisy is what the silly Hore is all about!

Eurocentrism is a real term with a real meaning and scholars past and present have in fact adopted a Eurocentric attitude to non-western cultures. Your Eurocentric 101 soruce had excellent insight on this issue and at the bottom of the page worte something very interesting on this subject.
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/racism_history.html

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A response to John Baines' review (August 11, 1991) of Cheikh Anta Diop's Civilization or Barbarism and Martin Bernal's Black Athena:

To the Editor, New York Times Book Review:

Mr. Baines' review of Diop and Bernal express alarm that their books "attack modern conceptions of the origins of Western Civilization" by showing the anteriority of African (especially Egyptian) achievements. It seems to me that he would like to deny the context of the whole discussion, which has been centuries of exalting the Greeks as the fount of Western Civilization and denying the role of Africa in the ancient world. Egypt is treated as part of the "Middle East," and her relations with the rest of Africa ignored. In this context, to demand an "intellectual contribution that will stand without reference to issues of race" is to perpetuate an injurious status quo.

This denial is especially ludicrous in the frequently-heard claim that because Egyptians were "ethnically mixed," they were not black. Southern African peoples are ethnically mixed, yet it would occur to no one that they are other than black. More to the point, if an ancient Egyptian were to find herself in the United States, she would fall within the range of colors we describe as "black." This business of reddish-brown-skinned men and golden-skinned women was a convention in Egyptian art (and one adopted by the Cretans, Greek vases, and Etruscans, bearing out the hypothesis of Egyptian influence). If Mr. Baine wants to take the golden women as a racial marker for light-skinned Egyptians, is he also willing to concede dark-brown-skinned Etruscan men? His claim that considering the race of the Egyptians is "unhelpful"--and the many others who declare it irrelevant--is coy and evasive.

Max Dashu, Suppressed Histories Archives

[The Times did not publish this letter.]

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And please don't ask him to discuss what he supposedly "read."