posted
Is the term "white" appropriate in anthropology or genetics articles? You might find some article that uses the term but should it be?
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Is the term "white" appropriate in anthropology or genetics articles? You might find some article that uses the term but should it be?
Yes. The only problem is that there are few if any white ancient civilizations.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Is the term "white" appropriate in anthropology or genetics articles? You might find some article that uses the term but should it be?
Yes. The only problem is that there are few if any white ancient civilizations.
.
this question has nothing to do with civilizations
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Your explantion makes no sense. If white is not an appropriate term for anthropolgy and anthropology deals with any time period, past or present then your racist comment pertaining to ancient periods is irrelevant
You are the racist. I never said the term should not be used.
Name the ancient civilizations where archaeologists have found white skeleral remains.
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there is no such thing as "white skeletal remains" and you will find no articles that use such a term, stop the nonsense
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Name the ancient civilizations where archaeologists have found white skeleral remains.
thre is no such thing as "white skeletal remains" and you will find no articles that use such a term, stop the nonsense
Are you sure?
. We have numrous articles that claim that the skeletal remains of the Paleoamericans , like Naia, were phenotypically African, Australian and Melanesian.
quote:
The divers who found the skeleton in 2007 named her “Naia,” Greek for water nymph.
The young woman’s skeleton shares many of the physical traits that led Chatters to question Kennewick Man’s relationship to modern Native Americans. “Even though she is extremely feminine looking and he is very masculine, they look a lot alike,” he said.
Both skeletons have narrow brain cases, short faces and prominent foreheads typical of people from the Pacific Rim, Australia and Africa.
posted
lioness in addition to being a racist you are a great liar. There is such a thing as "white skeletal remains".
Such remains are discussed in Human Skeletal Remains: Beyond Black and White Gregory E. Berg, Sabrina C Ta'ala
. Below is the Table of Contents
quote:
Table of Contents
A Brief History of the Race Concept in Physical Anthropology; Sabrina C. Ta’ala
Biological Affinity in Medicolegal, Public, and Anthropological Contexts; Gregory E. Berg and Sabrina C. Ta’ala
Cranial Morphoscopic Traits and the Assessment of American Black, American White, and Hispanic Ancestry; Joseph T. Hefner
Biological Affinity and Sex from the Mandible Utilizing Multiple World Populations; Gregory E. Berg
Metric Ancestry Estimation from the Postcranial Skeleton; Kate Spradley
The Sagittal Suture as an Indicator of Race and Sex; Robert W. Mann, Jiro Manabe, John E. Byrd, Stephanie Ah Sam, Thomas D. Holland, and Panya Tuamsuk
Beyond the Cranium: Ancestry Estimation from the Lower Limb; Natalie R. Shirley, Emam Elhak Abdel Fatah, and Mohamed Mahfouz
Population Affinities of Hispanic Crania: Implications for Forensic Identification; Ann H. Ross, Dennis E. Slice, and Douglas H. Ubelaker
Dental Nonmetric Variation around the World: Using Key Traits in Populations to Estimate Ancestry in Individuals; Joel D. Irish
Dental Morphological Estimation of Ancestry in Forensic Contexts; Heather J. H. Edgar
Size Matters: Discrimination between American Blacks and Whites, Males and Females, Using Tooth Crown Dimensions; Edward F. Harris and Candice L. Foster
Linking Identity with Landscape: Osteological and Sr–Pb Isotopic Methods for Biogeoreference; Erin H. Kimmerle and George D. Kamenov
The Use of DNA in the Identification of Degraded Human Skeletal Remains: A Basic Primer; Suni M. Edson and Alexander F. Christensen
Identification of Deceased Unauthorized Border Crossers in the United States; Lori E. Baker
Sequence, Haplotype, and Ancestry: Using the Mitochondrial DNA Hypervariable Region to Predict Forensic "Race"; Alexander F. Christensen
posted
Since the thread on use of the label "black" is locked...
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Tukuler is correct. The only ones making an issue about the label 'black' are negrophobes like Antalas. Notice nobody questions the label of 'white'. Yet people with chocolate dark complexions are no longer black but 'brown'.
By that judgment then these Nigerian women below are 'brown' as well.
If the same colors had been on something else than people, the colors of these women would have been seen as brown. Black is more of a social construct or political designation than purely descriptive (except a few peoples who are more or less black in color).
Literally speaking they are brown, even if they are called Black
If seen only as colors one can see it here
And the label Black can be problematic also to some people who are called black by others but do not want to be called that themselves.
quote:This article argues that the use of the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ as human categories, together with the symbolic use of these terms, help to sustain the perception of Africans as inferior, because their categorical use was accompanied by a long-standing set of conceptual relationships that used the terms symbolically to connote a range of bad and good traits, respectively. This set of associations creates an underlying semantic system that normalised the assumed superiority of those labelled white and the assumed inferiority of those labelled black. The use of this dichotomy as a human categorising device cannot be separated from its symbolic use. It is therefore incumbent on egalitarians to abandon either the symbolic or the categorical use of the dichotomy. I argue that abandoning the categorical use is the preferable option because the negative symbolism of the term ‘black’ is deeply embedded in the English language and in Christianity.
Tsri, Kwesi, 2015: Africans are not black: why the use of the term ‘black’ for Africans should be abandoned African Identities
But in the end it is maybe up to the individual how he/she identifies, as a color, or as an ethnicity, nationality or in another way.
When it regards labelling ancient peoples, the debate will probably continue since they can not choose what they are called.
Color labels like 'black' and 'white' are what are known as hyperbolic labels that is exaggerations of what the true color is. Thus 'black' people are not truly black in color the same way 'white' people are not truly white. Both labels are ones of contrast indeed opposites and so are interdependent on each other. As such 'black' identity is based on 'white' identity and so forth. Dark skinned people of Africa for instance never referred to themselves as 'black' until contact with Europeans who were 'white'. In the U.S.A. the racial category of 'Black' first came into use in the late 1700s in the colony of Virginia due to the growing population of Africans in the region, not all of whom were slaves, but many were. Again although these Africans were not literally black in color their dark skin approached that color the same way European skin is not literally 'white' but approaches it.
However the labels of black and white far predate colonial America or the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. As I've mentioned many times in this forum Greco-Roman writers have consistently described North Africans as 'black' or melanocrhoi in Greek and aratri in Latin.
the Greek Aristotle in his Physiognomica:
"Too black a hue marks a coward, as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians, and so does too white a complexion, as you may see from women. So the hue that makes for courage must be intermediate between these extremes. A tawny colour indicates a bold spirit, as in lions: but too ruddy a hue marks a rogue, as in the case of the fox...."
much later the Roman Ammanius Marcellinus wrote:
"The men of Egypt look mostly dusky and black with a skinny and desiccated look.."
Achilles Tatius of Alexandria: "...the herdsmen of the [Egyptian] Delta are blackish of skin like Ethiopians.."
posted
Some labels obviously still lives while others are not used so much anymore. The Greeks for example used words as Barbarians or Troglodytes about certain peoples which we seldom use today.
About color there is an ongoing debate how ancient Greeks described color and how the words they used corresponded to todays terms. It has been said for example that they did not call blue blue. There is even some who claim that they could not see blue. Others have questioned the notion that they did not have any names for blue since they were surrounded by that color, both in the sky and ocean. If one visits Greece today one is struck by the intense blue colors of sea and sky.
Were I live some people use the expression "dark skinned" instead of "black". Common is also "African" or "Afro Swede". Up until the 1970s or later the n-word was used for dark skinned people of African descent. Other dark people, like Indians, are often described as Indians, Arabs, dark skinned, sometimes black but not as the n-word. The latter word is/was reserved to people who are perceived as being of African descent.
In older times black could mean people who was of a darker complexion or who had dark hair and eyes. Thus Romani people were sometimes referred to as black.
Africans were in the medieval period called "blamadr" (blue men) and later moors or morians. The word "Negro" reached Sweden first in the 17th century.
In todays Sweden they try to get rid of racial labels, thus race is not included in any censuses, in birth certificates or identity papers.
Even Romani people could be labelled "Black" in older times
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posted
About ancient views of Whiteness, Wikipedia has an introduction to the subject:
quote:Pre-modern conceptions of whiteness
Description of populations as white in reference to their skin colour predates and is distinct from the race categories constructed from the 17th century onward. Coloured terminology is occasionally found in Graeco-Roman ethnography and other ancient and medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of a white or pan-European race. In Graeco-Roman society whiteness was a somatic norm, although this norm could be rejected and it did not coincide with any system of discrimination or colour prejudice. Historically, before the late modern period, cultures outside of Europe and North America, such as those in the Middle East and China, employed concepts of whiteness. Eventually these were progressively marginalised and replaced by the European form of racialised whiteness. Whiteness has no enduring "true essence", but instead is a social construct that is dependent on differing societal, geographic, and historical meanings. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept from pre-modern descriptions, which focused on skin colour, complexion and other physical traits.
posted
^ Of course 'whiteness' like 'blackness' is a social construct and it was a construct conceived purely as a contrast to the 'blackness' of African natives. It was that way to the Greeks and Romans who saw Africans on the other side of the Mediterranean as it was to those English colonists in Virginia who saw African immigrants both free and enslaved.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Some labels obviously still lives while others are not used so much anymore. The Greeks for example used words as Barbarians or Troglodytes about certain peoples which we seldom use today.
The word 'barbarian' is still used today to describe someone less civilized, despite the fact that the original Greek term barbaroi simply meant 'foreigners' or non-Greeks despite how civilized the people were.
quote:About color there is an ongoing debate how ancient Greeks described color and how the words they used corresponded to todays terms. It has been said for example that they did not call blue blue. There is even some who claim that they could not see blue. Others have questioned the notion that they did not have any names for blue since they were surrounded by that color, both in the sky and ocean. If one visits Greece today one is struck by the intense blue colors of sea and sky.
That the ancient Greeks had no word for blue is a common misconception. The Greek word for blue is kyano which we get the word cyan. Light blue like the day sky is kyano-leukos (literally blue-white) or glaukos for short. Dark blue mela-kyanos or mple which many translate as blue proper.
There are Greek words for specific color or hue and other words describing tone or shade of darkness. Hence 'aethiops' means burnt face or visage in describing Africans whereas Homer in the Iliad describes the Mediterranean Sea as 'oinops' which many translate as "wine visage". Wine in this context does not mean the actual color but rather the darkness. Thus "wine" in this context means "stain" or "dye" as in stained sea or sea dyed to the darkness of wine.
quote:Were I live some people use the expression "dark skinned" instead of "black". Common is also "African" or "Afro Swede". Up until the 1970s or later the n-word was used for dark skinned people of African descent. Other dark people, like Indians, are often described as Indians, Arabs, dark skinned, sometimes black but not as the n-word. The latter word is/was reserved to people who are perceived as being of African descent.
In older times black could mean people who was of a darker complexion or who had dark hair and eyes. Thus Romani people were sometimes referred to as black.
Africans were in the medieval period called "blamadr" (blue men) and later moors or morians. The word "Negro" reached Sweden first in the 17th century.
In todays Sweden they try to get rid of racial labels, thus race is not included in any censuses, in birth certificates or identity papers.
Even Romani people could be labelled "Black" in older times
That's because the Romani people were originally "black". Linguistics and genetics as well as native folk traditions concur that the Romani ancestors were West Indo-Aryans from India closely related to Rajasthani people.
Rajasthani family
Roma
Ironically the Romani were given the misnomer "Gypsies" because it was thought they originated from Egypt due to their 'black' appearance. But throughout the centuries the Roma have intermixed with the local European populations in which they dwelt-- typically the dregs and outcasts of those societies and have even resulted to kidnapping European children to raise as their own and intermarry with!
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posted
Here is an easy to remember graphic representation of some Greek color names
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Even the rather light Romanis were sometimes called black here in Sweden, yes it was enough sometimes someone had black hair and dark eyes to be called black.
Still in the 1930s we had a popular song called "Du svarte Zigenare" (You black gypsy), and already then many Romani up here were rather light skinned.
Also we have different groups of Romani here, the "Swedish" Romani, a group that been in Sweden rather long time, the "Finnish Romani" who came to live in Finland, but many also live in Sweden, then we have Romani who come here to beg, most of them are from Romania.
In Greece I saw many Romani too, many of them sold fruit at markets. One can often discern the different groups due to every group has its own traditional clothing.
Romani people are already mentioned here in Sweden in the 1500s. Mostly they were not welcome and sometimes they were punished for entering Swedish territory.
A word that also was rather common once was "svartskalle" (black head) for people with black hair, often used for foreigners from south Europe and Middle East.
Africans were usually called the N-word. Then after the Black liberation struggles in USA people here started to use the word "färgad" (colored), then "black" or African, or Afro Swede. Somalis are often called Somalis, they are seen as a bit different.
Some people still use the N-word, especially if they are drunk or angry. Otherwise it is not used so much anymore.
Romani people in Stockholm, 1930s
Romani women have often been sexualized by the majority society, and there are sensual novels and romantic songs about them, and a whole genre of paintings, invented by Hungarian (but living in Norway many years) painter Charles Roka.
Painting by Charles Roka of a young Romani woman
Spanish Romanis 1854
Debret, Jean-Baptiste (c. 1820), Interior of a gipsy's house in Brazil
Wiki has an overview on the Romani people: Romani people
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Of course 'whiteness' like 'blackness' is a social construct and it was a construct conceived purely as a contrast to the 'blackness' of African natives. It was that way to the Greeks and Romans who saw Africans on the other side of the Mediterranean as it was to those English colonists in Virginia who saw African immigrants both free and enslaved.
White or fair as a descriptor was also used by Arabs and other muslims. One example is the Andalusian traveller Abu Hamid who travelled in Eastern Europe in the 12th century. He describes a slave girl like this:
quote: 1 bought a slave girl who had already borne a child, and whose father, mother and brothers were still alive; I bought her from her owner for ten dinars. She was fifteen years old and as beautiful as the moon, with black hair and eyes, and skin as white as camphor. She knew how to cook, sew and embroider.
posted
Already the ancient Greeks seems to have associated certain physical and mental properties to skin color
quote: As with Ancient Egyptians, Mycenaean Greeks and Minoans generally depicted women with pale or white skin and men with dark brown or tanned skin. As a result, men with pale or light skin, leukochros could be considered weak and effeminate by Ancient Greek writers such as Plato and Aristotle. According to Aristotle, "Those whose skin is too dark are cowardly: witness Egyptians and the Ethiopians. Those whose skin is too light are equally cowardly: witness women. The skin colour typical of the courageous should be halfway between the two." Similarly, Xenophon of Athens describes Persian prisoners of war as "white-skinned because they were never without their clothing, and soft and unused to toil because they always rode in carriages" and states that Greek soldiers as a result believed "that the war would be in no way different from having to fight with women.
posted
^ The Greeks were ethnocentric even to the point of chauvinism so they promoted ideas that made themselves, specifically Greek men, as the ideal of human perfection including this instance of color.
Their view was that Hellas (Greece) was at the center of the world (like in many other cultures including Egypt) located in the Central Sea (Mediterranean) and thus had the 'best' goldilocks like complexion--not too dark and not too light. Greek men were usually darkened by the sun (tanned) which was all throughout their bodies because they liked to exercise nude in open air gymnasia whereas Greek women typically either stayed indoors or if outside kept themselves covered by veils, hence they were not tanned but pale. This is one reason why the Greeks considered the Persians to be "effeminate" because Persian men also covered themselves by scarfs and wrappings and so when unclad had pale bodies. Another reason was that Persian men wore trousers which was usually worn by women in Mediterranean cultures. Africans like the Egyptians were too dark and thus according to the Greeks also a sign of "cowardice". They would point to the myth of Busiris and his men as cowards.
As for the Roma, they were described as "black" in various languages because that's what they originally looked like before they mixed with indigenous Europeans. They were part of a westward migration of Indians that arrived in Europe by the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 CE)
While the vast majority of Roma today are heavily mixed with Europeans, there are pocket communities that have remained endogamous and thus preserved their original phenotype, specifically in southern Iberia (Spain & Portugal).
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: As for the Roma, they were described as "black" in various languages because that's what they originally looked like before they mixed with indigenous Europeans. They were part of a westward migration of Indians that arrived in Europe by the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 CE)
While the vast majority of Roma today are heavily mixed with Europeans, there are pocket communities that have remained endogamous and thus preserved their original phenotype, specifically in southern Iberia (Spain & Portugal).
Obviously they sometimes even referred to themselves as dark or black.
quote: The Romani identify as distinct ethnicities based in part on territorial, cultural and dialectal differences, and self-designation.[
Like the Roma in general, many different ethnonyms are given to subgroups of Roma. Sometimes a subgroup uses more than one endonym, is commonly known by an exonym or erroneously by the endonym of another subgroup. The only name approaching an all-encompassing self-description is Rom. Even when subgroups do not use the name, they all acknowledge a common origin and a dichotomy between themselves and Gadjo (non-Roma). For instance, while the main group of Roma in German-speaking countries refer to themselves as Sinti, their name for their original language is Romanes.
Subgroups have been described as, in part, a result of the castes and subcastes in India, which the founding population of Rom almost certainly experienced in their south Asian urheimat.
Many groups use names apparently derived from the Romani word kalo or calo, meaning "black" or "absorbing all light". This closely resembles words for "black" or "dark" in Indo-Aryan languages (e.g., Sanskrit काल kāla: "black", "of a dark colour"). Likewise, the name of the Dom or Domba people of north India—with whom the Roma have genetic, cultural and linguistic links—has come to imply "dark-skinned" in some Indian languages. Hence, names such as kale and calé may have originated as an exonym or a euphemism for Roma.
If I remember correctly the Romani I saw in Greece where somewhat darker than the Romani I see here. The Romanian Romanis seems also a little bit darker than the Swedish or Finnish Romani. Some though could be lighter, I especially remember one fair girl with light brown hair I used to speak with before she moved back to Romania. Mostly though different groups also can be discerned by different clothing.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: The Greeks were ethnocentric even to the point of chauvinism so they promoted ideas that made themselves, specifically Greek men, as the ideal of human perfection including this instance of color.
Interesting to contrast certain Greeks view of pale skinned people with Romans like Tacitus who described the light Germans with certain admiration.
quote: I concur in opinion with those who deem the Germans never to have intermarried with other nations; but to be a race, pure, unmixed, and stamped with a distinct character. Hence a family likeness pervades the whole, though their numbers are so great: eyes stern and blue; ruddy hair; large bodies, powerful in sudden exertions, but impatient of toil and labor, least of all capable of sustaining thirst and heat. Cold and hunger they are accustomed by their climate and soil to endure.
posted
^ Tacitus doesn't mention their complexion in that passage but he does admire their warrior prowess like many Romans do. He says they possess great bursts of strength but lack in endurance and tolerance for heat and thirst. He also assumes they are the most "purebred" since there was a stereotype that Germans look alike. That Romans admired foreigners with warrior prowess is why they were quick to employ them as mercenaries.
Most of the Roman descriptions I personally read of fairer/whiter Europeans were of Celts (Gauls).
Ammanius Marcellinus History XV--"Almost all Gauls are tall and fair-skinned, with reddish hair. Their savage eyes make them fearful objects; they are eager to quarrel and excessively truculent.."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History V--"Their aspect is terrifying. The Gauls are tall of body, with rippling muscles, and white of skin, and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so, but they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing color which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in lime-water.."
Manilius in his Astronomica makes a list of peoples by complexion as Tukuler succinctly noted.
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri:
Manilius composed a hierarchy of the white and black peoples known in his day by descending intensity of pallor or color in lines 711-730 of his Astronomicon as below.
quote: lines 711-714 Idcirco in varias leges variasque figuras dispositum genus est hominum, proprioque colore formantur gentes, sociataque iura per artus materiamque parem privato foedere signant.
lines 715-722 flava per ingentis surgit Germania partus, Gallia vicino minus est infecta rubore, asperior solidos Hispania contrahit artus. Martia Romanis urbis pater induit ora Gradivumque Venus miscens bene temperat artus, perque coloratas subtilisGraecia gentes gymnasium praefert vultu fortisque palaestras, et Syriam produnt torti per tempora crines.
lines 723-730 Aethiopes maculant orbem tenebrisque figurant perfusas hominum gentes; minus Indiatostos progenerat; tellusque natans Aegyptia Nilo lenius irriguis infuscat corpora campis iam propior mediumque facit moderata tenorem. Phoebus harenosis Afrorum pulvere terris exsiccat populos, et Mauretania nomen oris habet titulumque suo fert ipsa colore.
Anyone with basic analytical skills will produce the same skeletal list from the reference text. It's impossible to derive any other ordered list than that which I post.
First Manilius orders white complexions from the most light to the least light (in lines 715-22) - Germania - Gallia - Hispania - Romanis - Graecia - Syriam.
Then Manilius' order of black complexions from the most dark to the least dark are (as in lines 723-730)
- Aethiopes - India - Aegyptia - Afrorum - Mauretania.
Manilius did the above after announcing the fact of variation in the one human race, its colours being his primary consideration of human anatomy (opening lines 711-714).
Manilius made a hierarchy. He wasn't random in the least. He starts from Hyperborean to Mediterranean and concludes with Tropical to Mediterranean. This is the Graeco-Islamic zone system of lands and peoples under the Sun through the Zodiac.
I should also point out that the Syrians seem to be in the central or median point of complexion amongst the races listed since Syria geographically lies in the central Mediterranean latitude and are an outlier amongst the light/white races.
Years ago in college, I remember reading from several authors making the claim that the Romans who were relatively more cosmopolitan than the Greeks had a greater taste or affinity to the exotic than the Greeks. Hence, the Romans had lucrative trade in foreign slaves and even when it came to fashion or sexual fetish, there were styles that emulated foreign look. For example it became fashionable for Roman women especially matrons to wear red or blonde wigs in imitation of northern foreign women. While other women would emulate African women by tanning their skin and perming their hair or wearing dark curly wigs.
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posted
Also the exoticizing depictions of foreign peoples were popular in Rome. The earlier mentioned Tacitus is a good example of that. In Germania he tells about peoples in the North who has not much need for a lot of material things, just as we here in the west often have romanticized indigenous peoples around the world and admired their "simple" but "noble" style of life.
In Germania Tacitus for example tells about the Fenni:
quote: The Fenni live in a state of amazing savageness and squalid poverty. They are destitute of arms, horses, and settled abodes: their food is herbs; their clothing, skins; their bed, the ground. Their only dependence is on their arrows, which, for want of iron, are headed with bone; and the chase is the support of the women as well as the men; the former accompany the latter in the pursuit, and claim a share of the prey. Nor do they provide any other shelter for their infants from wild beasts and storms, than a covering of branches twisted together. This is the resort of youth; this is the receptacle of old age. Yet even this way of life is in their estimation happier than groaning over the plough; toiling in the erection of houses; subjecting their own fortunes and those of others to the agitations of alternate hope and fear. Secure against men, secure against the gods, they have attained the most difficult point, not to need even a wish.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Is the term "white" appropriate in anthropology or genetics articles? You might find some article that uses the term but should it be?
In many ways the partitioning of peoples in "black" and "white" is rather meaningless. One of the reasons is that black and white are only the endpoints of a spectrum of different colors and shades. To reduce all these shades (often shades of brown) to just two colors is an overly gross simplification. It is of no help if one somehow wants to capture the human phenotypic diversity.
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posted
What are people’s thoughts here on the terminology used in the Fitzpatrick scale of human skin tones?
The Human Phenotypes website insists that only Type VI, or the very darkest skin tones, qualify as "black", but a lot of people out there would consider Type V ("dark brown") to be a "black" tone as well.
posted
^ That's one possible way. The problem is that human skin color comes in a very broad spectrum. In the ancient world in places like Egypt, a particular complexion was referred to poetically using similes or metaphors. The same tradition is found today, for example in the Philippines skin complexions are likened to types of wood. Before Spanish influence it was said ideal complexion is like sandalwood. I've only come across a couple Egyptian references both love poems which liken a beautiful woman's complexion to jasper.
Here's one example from the Third Intermediate Period (XXV Dynasty, 700BC) hymn, recorded on the Louvre stela C100, there is a description of a priestess of Hathor called Muturdis:
"Black is her hair more than the blackness of night, More than the wine grapes of the sloe; Whiter her teeth than bits of alabaster; her breasts set firm in her bosom; Her face more than the pebble of jasper, More than the crushing of henna.."
18th Dynasty jasper portrait of Hatshepsut(?)
Unfortunately, we don't see much material on this. The most I've seen on the internet are poems describing "white" skin which is highly questionable, as Dana Marniche has pointed out before like here. In Afroasiatic languages, the term for white can also be used for "shining" or "lustrous" when referring to skin that is even and without blemish. This is why I need to see the original Egyptian script with the determinatives.
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Unfortunately, we don't see much material on this. The most I've seen on the internet are poems describing "white" skin which is highly questionable, as Dana Marniche has pointed out before like here. In Afroasiatic languages, the term for white can also be used for "shining" or "lustrous" when referring to skin that is even and without blemish. This is why I need to see the original Egyptian script with the determinatives.
I have seen translations of The Admonitions of Ipuwer saying "the face is pale" in reference to a number of undesirable events, but I question the accuracy of that translation too. I do believe that, when you're scared, perspiration builds on your forehead and other places, which might give the skin a glossy sheen even if your skin is too melanated to show a noticeable "paling" effect (although the blood will still drain from your face).
posted
Ironically the Egyptians referred to themselves as Kmmw (Kememu), meaning blacks. But they also called foreigners Dshrw (Desheru) meaning reds.
So I don't think it's a literal color label though I've heard the argument that Africans use the label 'red' for light-skinned folks, the problem is that the same label is applied to foreigners to their south who are darker in color than the Egyptians. The god Set is called dshr-ntr meaning the Red God in contrast to his brother Ausar who called Black.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti That's one possible way. The problem is that human skin color comes in a very broad spectrum. In the ancient world in places like Egypt, a particular complexion was referred to poetically using similes or metaphors. The same tradition is found today, for example in the Philippines skin complexions are likened to types of wood. Before Spanish influence it was said ideal complexion is like sandalwood. I've only come across a couple Egyptian references both love poems which liken a beautiful woman's complexion to jasper.
Some ancient Jews could also compare human skin color with a certain tree type, or the color of its wood.
As in Mishnah Negaim 2:1:
quote: Rabbi Ishmael says: the children of Israel (may I be atonement for them!) are like boxwood, neither black nor white but of an intermediate shade.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Ironically the Egyptians referred to themselves as Kmmw (Kememu), meaning blacks. But they also called foreigners Dshrw (Desheru) meaning reds.
So I don't think it's a literal color label though I've heard the argument that Africans use the label 'red' for light-skinned folks, the problem is that the same label is applied to foreigners to their south who are darker in color than the Egyptians. The god Set is called dshr-ntr meaning the Red God in contrast to his brother Ausar who called Black.
Do you have an example of Nubians called Dshrw?
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^ No I haven't. I've only come across a few examples of Asiatics.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Some ancient Jews could also compare human skin color with a certain tree type, or the color of its wood.
As in Mishnah Negaim 2:1:
quote: Rabbi Ishmael says: the children of Israel (may I be atonement for them!) are like boxwood, neither black nor white but of an intermediate shade.
The 2nd-century Rabbi Ishmael described the Jewish skin color as "like the boxwood tree (eshkeroa), neither black nor white, but in between." This rabbi's perception of the Jewish skin color as light brown, the color of the boxwood tree, agrees with the descriptions found in a number of papyri from the Ptolemaic period in Egypt that describe the complexion of various Jews as honey-colored. A similar self-perception is found among other Mediterranean peoples, the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, who saw their skin color as midway between the dark African and the fair German, inter nigrum et pallidum. The Mediterranean type of Caucasianí physiognomy with pale brown (albus) skin Ö represented the Roman somatic norm image.
What's interesting is that Swenet has brought up the fact that since the New Kingdom do we see more Egyptian texts describing individuals as "honey complexioned" especially in the Delta region.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ No I haven't. I've only come across a few examples of Asiatics.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Some ancient Jews could also compare human skin color with a certain tree type, or the color of its wood.
As in Mishnah Negaim 2:1:
quote: Rabbi Ishmael says: the children of Israel (may I be atonement for them!) are like boxwood, neither black nor white but of an intermediate shade.
The 2nd-century Rabbi Ishmael described the Jewish skin color as "like the boxwood tree (eshkeroa), neither black nor white, but in between." This rabbi's perception of the Jewish skin color as light brown, the color of the boxwood tree, agrees with the descriptions found in a number of papyri from the Ptolemaic period in Egypt that describe the complexion of various Jews as honey-colored. A similar self-perception is found among other Mediterranean peoples, the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, who saw their skin color as midway between the dark African and the fair German, inter nigrum et pallidum. The Mediterranean type of Caucasianí physiognomy with pale brown (albus) skin Ö represented the Roman somatic norm image.
What's interesting is that Swenet has brought up the fact that since the New Kingdom do we see more Egyptian texts describing individuals as "honey complexioned" especially in the Delta region.
Interesting. Here is a quote where a libyan and greeks are described as being honey-colored :
quote: As an anecdote, we can note that we have a genuine physical portrait of Neilôn, son of Sôtairos. Thus, it may not be without interest to observe that this character, described as libyan, has the same skin tone ('honey-colored,' or in other words, 'well-tanned') as the other witnesses, all Greeks [...]
Frédéric Colin, Les peuples libyens de la Cyrénaique à l'Egypte, p. 146
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quote:Originally posted by Antalas: Interesting. So that's what honey-colored means. Here is a quote where a libyan and greeks are described as being honey-colored :
I recall that term being used to describe the color of a recent Rameses II reconstruction. That color is on the mummy's face and neck in places, the darker parts probably being a blackened flesh decay color. Although paintings of Rameses II are the typical reddish brown But if you look at pictures of honey it has significant color variance, not exactly a precise description
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It seems that white color was appreciated among some of the Jews at Wadi Qumran.
Overall in Mediterranean art (Egypt, Greece, Rome) women were often depicted lighter than men.
quote:The sentences being read in the film are from a composition entitled Genesis Apocryphon, column XX, lines 2 to 7, in which the biblical description of Sarah's beauty is expounded. According to the biblical narrative in the book of Genesis, when Abraham and Sarah approached Egypt, the patriarch said to his wife, "I know that you are a beautiful woman," (Gen. 12:11). However, as befits the reserved biblical style, the Torah does not elaborate on Sarah's beauty. Therefore, the ancient author, who wrote this scroll in the spirit of similar descriptions in the biblical Song of Songs and in Hellenistic literature, completed what was missing in the Torah and detailed the beauty of the matriarch:
1. ______
2. ... how irresistible and beautiful is the image of her face; how 3. lovely h[er] foreh[ead, and] soft the hair of her head! How graceful are her eyes, and how precious her nose; every feature
4. of her face is radiating beauty! How lovely is her breast, and how beautiful her white complexion! As for her arms, how beautiful they are! And her hands, how
5. perfect they are! How [desirable] all the appearance of her hands! How graceful are her palms, and how long and thin all the fingers of her hands! Her legs
6. are of such beauty, and her thighs so perfectly apportioned!
Here follows a short film about the life in the place of the Dead Sea scrolls about 2000 years ago.
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Whiteness as a social phenomenon and identity can of course be studied in fields of knowledge like history or social studies and similar subjects. One can study how different cultures throughout the ages used terms such as "white" or "black" to describe people and in which contexts such epithets existed and what they stood for.
An example of a book that addresses how the concept was (and is) used is the book White Identities: An Historical & International Introduction by Alastair Bonnett The book describes, among other things, how the concept of whiteness has developed in the West to become a racial concept that includes almost all Europeans or people with European ancestry (and excludes most other peoples).
However, the book begins with a couple of examples of non-European people's use of the term white before the European concept (white as a "race") was created and spread.
An example is China, where the term white could be purely descriptive, but could also mark social class, or ethnicity.
During certain times, white was also seen as an ideal of beauty. This is documented in poems as early as the 7th century BC.
It is also interesting how certain social classes and other peoples were described. Thus, farmers could be described as "black headed". Also people abroad like Persians, Indonesians or the non-Chinese population in Malacca could be described as "Black". Europeans could be described as "red" or "ash colored".
The Manchu people (who overtook China in 1644) was described as even whiter than the (Han) Chinese themselves.
The book also talks about how Arabs identified themselves as white, long before the modern, Western concept of a white race had arisen. But they could also describe other people as white as in the example with the slave girl earlier in this thread.
The introduction and first chapter of the book can be read online:
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In the colonial and post colonial world many people have celebrated light skin color as the most beautiful, which has effected the behaviour and status of millions of people all around the world. But there are, or have been, exceptions in some places. Thus, at least in older times, on the Trobriand islands, east of New Guinea, DimDim (white people) were considered ugly and hairy. I once attended a lecture with an archaeologist who had visited the Trobriands in the 1980s and at least at that time DimDim was still considered unattractive. Overall in those days the islanders had managed to stay clear from too much western influence.
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the proper words are light and dark. People actually close to black in color are much less numerous than people that get called black.
"White" is a ridiculous term to use in anthropology and is seldom used in the past few decades
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Yes, light or dark is probably best. Brown is also a descriptive term that is closer to reality than "Black". Very few people are literally black.
But in literature that describes different concepts of "whiteness" and "blackness", or how such concepts were expressed, the terms can be justified.
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quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: in literature that describes different concepts of "whiteness" and "blackness", or how such concepts were expressed, the terms can be justified.
It's not justified
just made up
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Sometimes in quotes though from historical sources terms like "white"(or "black") have to be used if the source used them. Like in the example from above where the source used the word "white" to describe a woman´s skin color:
quote:1 bought a slave girl who had already borne a child, and whose father, mother and brothers were still alive; I bought her from her owner for ten dinars. She was fifteen years old and as beautiful as the moon, with black hair and eyes, and skin as white as camphor. She knew how to cook, sew and embroider.
So in some cases these terms are used in historical sources. But of course in modern descriptions of certain peoples skin colors terms like black and white are not necessary. If one for example describes an ancient painting with a figure with brown skin, it is not necessary to call it black.
Many terms in academic jargong are just made up and are sometimes hard to understand even for the academics themselves.
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In Jewish Midrash the matriarch Sarah was said to have been as fair as the moon, while in some traditional Hindu wedding songs the bride is described as fair as ghee (clarified butter) whose complexion ranges from yellow to near white.
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Also Genesis Apocryphon describes Sarah as having a "white complexion" (see earlier post in the thread for context).
quote: 1. ______
2. ... how irresistible and beautiful is the image of her face; how
3. lovely h[er] foreh[ead, and] soft the hair of her head! How graceful are her eyes, and how precious her nose; every feature
4. of her face is radiating beauty! How lovely is her breast, and how beautiful her white complexion! As for her arms, how beautiful they are! And her hands, how
5. perfect they are! How [desirable] all the appearance of her hands! How graceful are her palms, and how long and thin all the fingers of her hands! Her legs
6. are of such beauty, and her thighs so perfectly apportioned!
This quote gave rise to a whole thread here on ES:
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