posted
can anybody reference the source of this statement. I keep seeing it in anthro sites: "From 1350 B.C., Egyptian paintings depict lower Nile peoples with red bodies, those from the east (Semites, Hittites) as being yellow, those from upper Egypt as white, and Nubians as black. When lighter Egyptians were in power, they referred to the subordinate group as “the evil dark-skinned race of Ish.” When darker Egyptians dominated, they called the conquered “the pale, degraded race of Arvad." Is this true?
Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have never come across such a reference while reading ancient Egyptian texts translated. The only mention to color I have seen is within the Hymn to Aten and maybe some other texts. Most of the comments were not racist in nature but descriptive.
Also, if you got this from a website you should email them asking for direct texts translation or from what second hand source they aquired this information.
I have also never seen any depiction of Upper Egyptians as being white.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
While the "wretched Kushite" type pejorative is easy enough to track down in the original, I've yet to track down the "pale degraded Arvad" jibe since I first read it in Rogers (either Nature Knows No Colorline or Sex and Race vol. 1) decades ago.
quote:Originally posted by abdulkarem3: can anybody reference the source of this statement. I keep seeing it in anthro sites: "From 1350 B.C., Egyptian paintings depict lower Nile peoples with red bodies, those from the east (Semites, Hittites) as being yellow, those from upper Egypt as white, and Nubians as black. When lighter Egyptians were in power, they referred to the subordinate group as “the evil dark-skinned race of Ish.” When darker Egyptians dominated, they called the conquered “the pale, degraded race of Arvad." Is this true?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
However, the wretched Kush'' pejorative is not a reference to color. I have yet to find an Egyptian text that shows disdain based upon complexion. We also know that Asiatics and Libyans were called wretched as well.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Agreed, on all counts. Colourism or racism was not a factor of AE society as far as what my studies reveal. They had nothing even approaching a colorline, limpieza de sangre, Jim Crow, apartheid, or herrenvolk policy limiting or denying education, housing, employment, marriage, etc., based on skin colour.
I think the Greeks introduced something akin to, but not the same as, the above policies when they segregated Alexandria. (This isn't in reference to natural system of city quarters, where arious ethnies themselves decided to live in 'hoods of their own.)
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, the Ptolemies in the latter part of their rule established a law that to attend gymnasia you had to prove paternal and maternal lineages back to Greeks. Romans took it further establishing that no Egyptians could go into Alexandria unless they were servents not could any Egyptian intermarry with a Roman citizen.
See Alan K Bowman's Egypt After the Pharoahs for such claim.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic