posted
You know how Ancient Egyptians often painted people red?
E.G.
Well, I don't know any human population where people have exactly that skintone. I've been to Dubai, where the residents come in various dark shades, and I couldn't find anyone with exactly that really red skintone---they were either light brown or dark brown. Do red-skinned people really exist?
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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The statue above isn't red, and people are not literally red.
A literally red person would look ghastly.....
The Km.t used red in the relative sense, just as many other Africans and some non Africans do.
Human color-ethnic references are not literal, and color is and illusion, which means that color classification is subjective and dependant upon culture.
Some cultures have no color for brown, or orange or purple but rather consider those colors kinds of black or red or blue.
They are neither right nor wrong since color divisions don't exist in the EM spectrum.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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We are used to the basic names of colours like red, green, blue, etc. We even speak about “greenish yellow” but that’s not so in all cultures. A study conducted by Berlin and Kay* (1969) on more than 100 languages of different cultures showed that the primary colour names are considerably consistent across cultures although different cultures have a different number of them.
The naming of colours is consistent across cultures, but not all of them have the same number of colours.
In those that have only two names they always correspond to black and white, the third is always red and then come green and yellow or yellow and green.
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus: You know how Ancient Egyptians often painted people red?
E.G.
Well, I don't know any human population where people have exactly that skintone. I've been to Dubai, where the residents come in various dark shades, and I couldn't find anyone with exactly that really red skintone---they were either light brown or dark brown. Do red-skinned people really exist?
Hi, off topic im assumed the RED SKIN was an animal,not of human .The Red Indians were given this name in America to which to them is hurtful and insulting .But then im off topic why is this so to the Egyptians being called of red was it because of the colour to be refered of or just in Art.Finding this interesting have been reading up on this quite a bit and still looking to individual names given to Egyptians .
Posts: 53 | From: Daffodill land entering Egypt | Registered: Apr 2007
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quote:then im off topic why is this so to the Egyptians being called of red
The Ancient Egyptians were never called Red. They called Asiatics Reds. They called themselves Blacks.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus: You know how Ancient Egyptians often painted people red?
E.G.
Well, I don't know any human population where people have exactly that skintone. I've been to Dubai, where the residents come in various dark shades, and I couldn't find anyone with exactly that really red skintone---they were either light brown or dark brown. Do red-skinned people really exist?
You are asking the WRONG question.
The question is does this particular item represent:
a) the ACTUAL color of a specific individual? b) the effect of time and age on colors painted thousands of years ago? c) the color of most or many Egyptian nile valley africans? d) a different type of african from other Africans along the nile? e) the color of most or many remaining Egyptian artworks? f) the effects of chemical or preservative treatments on Egyptian artwork? g) is it a symbolic or literal representation?
Unless and until you can answer those questions, you cannot BEGIN to explain or try to understand what the color of this item means relative to the actual complexion of the ancient Egyptians.
And, an even better question is WHY should we expect to take EVERY color found in EVERY statue or tomb as LITERAL for the ancient Egyptians? ONE king or Queen could have surviving images of DIFFERENT colors from tan, to black, to brown, to yellow, to organge to white, to pink. Which one is the right one and how do we explain these differences? THAT is the question we should be asking, not whether the Egyptians were ORANGE because some statues seem to have ORANGE colors. We KNOW that humans do not come in ORANGE and therefore OBVIOUSLY are other answers that could explain this WITHOUT even touching on the ACTUAL skin complexions of specific individuals.
Statues, portraits and colors therein are subject to chemical composition depending on environmental and human factors that makes it NEARLY impossible to determine with ANY precision the EXACT complexion of any specific ancient Egyptian from ARTWORK alone. Even more than that, egyptian artwork was GENERALIZED, meaning:
1) Artists working on tombs did not often take the time to draw out distinct and unique details for each and every individual in the tombs. 2) Tomb art was an assembly line type process 3) The person drawing the colors most often chose one color for the men and another for the women and that color was the same for all, with no attempt to make any distinctions based on ACTUAL skin complexion. 4) The outlines of the humans most often have the exact same features, with the only differences being dress, decoration or hairstyle in order to figure out who was a god, who was a king, who was a servant and who was a foreigner. 5) The various ethnic groups were often identified according to a archetypal template with all members of that group having the same features, with variation most often shown by differing colors of dress or other attire and therefore not indicative of the specific features of any ACTUAL members of said population in real life. 6) The variations of style owed more to the crew of artists and their methods than any specific differences among individual persons. 7) Each tomb displays the unique signature of the art school or artists as much as the physical features of any specific individual. 8) The styles of different artists and the preferences of different periods also determines the way men and women would be portrayed as much as the physical features of any ACTUAL persons being represented. 9) Colors were most often generalized and intended as a general rule of thumb not a scientifically and biologically accurate description of the exact features and complexions of any population, Egyptian or otherwise.
Therefore, all of these things have to be taken into account when analyzing Egyptian art.
Likewise, ONE statue, ONE image and ONE tomb does not tell the WHOLE story. You have to look at ALL the images and all the statues to try and gather an overall impression as to the way the person may have looked in life and the way that the Egyptians looked at themselves. One statue that is orangeish does not suggest to me in any manner that this person had literally orange skin, there is not enough information in this one statue to go on one way or another.
And given that MOST images from ancient Egypt are rown, why should the rare and odd occurance of orangish or reddish artwork be considered as MORE indicative of Egyptian features than all those images that are brown?
And finally and most importantly, given these types of issues relating to artwork, the BEST thing to do is to compare and contrast images and artwork against actual populations. Understanding the diversity of a given region or specific population does not start with artwork, it starts with a comprehensive and thorough examinations of ACTUAL people, through pictorial, craniometric, genetic and biological documentation. THEN you can add the artistic information to that and do a comprehensive analysis, along with personal histories, official historical documents, other historical documents, geneologies and other data, to get a better understanding of variations in populations over time.
Also, take into consideration that there were thousands of images created during the lifetime of ONE King in Egypt, in temples, tombs and elsewhere. Multiply that by all the kings and thousands of years of Egyptian history and you will understand how ONE image does not represent MUCH of anything to begin with, even for the time period of ONE king, let alone a whole dynasty or the entire history of Egypt.
Now, some questions for YOU:
Where is this from? What is it? What time period? Who is it?
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I now understand a forum all different people have different views this is so confusing .Im not sure to which is right or wrong now or shall i just go with my instinct.
-------------------- Among the flower beds of waterlillys Posts: 53 | From: Daffodill land entering Egypt | Registered: Apr 2007
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__This picture you posted is distrubing in more ways than one. I don't even want to know why the girl in the picture would want to take such a picture or about the look on her face. I don't want you to delete the picture . I just found the picture to be a little strange.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: Perhaps I have color blindness but most bricks have a reddish-brown color to them.
The point is that the notion of reddish-brown is a cultural construct and not a -natural fact-.
I doubt, if it were not for repetition of this concept in Western-Egypto literature, if you would even be referring to it.
I ask several times with no answer - where in mdw ntr is there ever a reference to reddish brown - for anything?
Also Ebony Allen wrote recently that their obviously were people who were 'black' and 'white' and she couldn't understand why anyone would say otherwise.
The issue is just the same - it is dependant on how she 'chooses' to define black and white.
Fact is: no population completely lacks melanin, even if they did, it's questionable if the skin would be literally white as in 'snow'.
Populations who do have heavy melanin still do not have enought to absorb all light energy resulting in absolute black, so literally no population meets the absolute criterion of black either.
As for all the other colors - they are a joke, tricks of the eye and mind arbitrarily agreed on, or not, by any individual or group.
For instance - there is no pigment to produce 'blueness' of the eyes, it's a trick of light refracting when there is little pigment in the eyes.
As for the girl and the doll, It never occured to me that it was salacious in any way, but that too is subjective.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tyrannosaurus: You know how Ancient Egyptians often painted people red?
E.G.
Well, I don't know any human population where people have exactly that skintone. I've been to Dubai, where the residents come in various dark shades, and I couldn't find anyone with exactly that really red skintone---they were either light brown or dark brown. Do red-skinned people really exist?
Part of the problem as well is that Egyptology does not seem to follow the general trend in presenting archeological artifacts that is followed for OTHER ancient cultures. Almost all the other statues and depictions I have seen from ancient cultures often have disclaimers. These disclaimers almost always state clearly that the sculptures and artworks are not necessarily how the actual person looked in real life. As a good example, remaining hyperealistic Greek or Roman statues often have such disclaimers, due to Romans often reproducing copies of ancient Greek sculptures. And these are for sculptures with no coloring at all, just raw marble. Likewise for other cultures, it is often noted that certain images follow a artistic conventions that vary depictions of the same person based on region, artistic school or religious purposes. However, with Egyptian art and the fact that age and decay affects colors, along with the chemicals used in restoration, there is almost NO EFFORT to put images and sculptures into any context, by mentioning how they were aquired the state they were in, restorations done, other artifacts found nearby etc. In fact, the only disclaimer that they make is that men were painted reddish brown and women yellow, leaving it up to the individual to guess whether this is actually a accurate reflection or a general idea of what that person looked like.
But Egyptology seems to love to use these ambiguous images and colors to sucker their audiences. Case in point, the King Tut tour is currently in Philadelphia and to advertise it, they have one of his golden shawbtis blown up many many times its actual size on the poster for the tour. OBVIOUSLY that coffinette does not have anywhere near the accuracy of depiction as tut's death mask, yet there it is blown up to look life size on the poster. So you think you are going to see the fabulous golden mask of tut and all you get is some of his smaller coffinettes.
So... you have to take time and think sometimes about what you are looking at. The colors and images are only designed to be a generalized depiction of Egyptian populations, where the overall intent was to show that the Egyptians were a medium to dark brown complexioned people. The intent isnt to show that the Egyptians were some "special" reddish brown population as reddish brown is actually a common feature in black Africans and is caued by the same factors that produces pink skin in lighter populations: blood vessels below the skin.
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
T-rex, the Egyptian never painted themselves as red, let alone brick-red but as brown and perhaps reddish-brown.
Even the statue you posted is not brown but more like a faded light color.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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