Salam,
Brian
quote:
Originally posted by brian04:
Hi everybody,
I was just wondering who are the direct decendents of the ancient egyptians? I heard the copts believe that they are the direct decendents. Is this true?Salam,
Brian
Hi Brian. There are many descendants of ancient Egyptians today. First there's the modern rural Egyptains. Most of these people, from Upper or Lower Egypt are probably descended from ancient ones, even if there was some mixing in certain areas.
There is a question of the actual ancient border, which I'm sure extended into the modern Sudan. So my belief is that the northern Sudanese we know call Nubian are probably also descendants.
Aside from this, there are a number of theories. Many scientist believe that the ancient Egyptians dispersed deeper into Africa after all the invasions. The most accessible text you'll find on this subject is probably Moustafa Gadalla's Exiled Egyptians. I watched a program on the Dinka people, and they mentioned that some believed that they were were descended from the ancient Egyptians, though they didn't name any of these people that believe this.
There are other groups like Yoruba speaking people of Nigeria and Benin, and Wolof people from Senegal to name a few that people argue are descendants of ancient Egyptians.
More research needs to be done on this.
Thought Writes:
Genetically most modern humans share in the same gene pool as Ancient Egyptians. Culturally, Western Civilization and Judeo-Christianity are both outgrowths of Ancient Egyptian culture. Do modern Egyptians have GREATER affinities, yes.
quote:
Originally posted by brian04:
Hi everybody,
I was just wondering who are the direct decendents of the ancient egyptians? I heard the copts believe that they are the direct decendents. Is this true?Salam,
Brian
Egyptian fellahin are the most direct connection to ancient Egypt.
Not only does a good percentage of phenotype exist with the Sa3eadi and Fellahin,but also many customs of the religious life and culture remain intact despite years of domination by alien races. You can visit most Upper Egyptian villages even in a time like 2004 and feel automatically transported back to what life might have been for the average Egyptian back in anttiquity. Also other linguist like Dr. Georgy Sobhy have even found that much of the so-called Sa3eadi Arabic is most identical to Sahidic Coptic spoken by rural Egyptian peasents untill at late as the 16th century,but other push it as far back as 1913.
Here are some references:
Arab writters on the rual Egyptian Fellahin during the Middle Ages
While the villages live on in their enclosed world,almost untouched by the influence of Islam,the cities were the product of the great medevil Islamic civlization which was essentially urban. The city dwellers depised the Fellahin and had almost no contact with them excepot in the purchase of their crops. It is no exgeration to say that the citzens of Cairo felt more in common with the inhabitants felt more in common with the inhabitants of Damacus or Bagdad than he did with a Egyptian fellahin. All the Arabic litterature of the period belongs to the cities and provides no insight of the country side.
Page 100
The Arab World: A Comprehensive History
by Peter Mansfield
Some ancient traditions still survive in modern Egypt. These
include the festival of Shem-el-Nessim which marks the start of
spring in the same way that the festival Khoiakh did in antiquity.
Families celebrate this out-of-doors,exchanging gifts of colored eggs
to reassert the renewal of the vegetation and the annual rebirth of
life. Another modern festival,Awru El-Nil,takes the form of a
national holiday;at this celebration of the inundation of the Nile
flowers are thrown into the river. In ancient times a festival was
held annually to mark the innudation,and prayers were offered to ask
for a good flood[neither too high no too low]which would ensure ample
crops and general prosperity .Other modern ceremonies reflect ancient
funerary customs . Forty days after death and burial the family of
the deceased will take food to the grave,and this is then distributed
among the poor who have gathered . This occasion,known as el-
Arbeiyin,retains elements of the ancient service preformed at the
time of burial when relatives gathered at the tomb and at the
conclusion of the burial rites shared funerary meal. The forty days
that still elapse between death and el-Arbeiyin probally reflect the
period that was set aside for mummification procedures in ancient
Egypt. Another early tradition is probally preserved in the modern
annual family visit to the grave when special food is brought which
is then given to the poor.
page 129
Rosalie David Handbook of Life in Ancinet Egypt
Except for his curly black hair, with its hint of African negro
blood, he [Shahhat] looked more Arabian than Egyptian; most of the
men in the village were shorter, more heavily built, and had strong
cheekbones, thick noses, and heavy jaws. Among their rugged faces,
Shahhat's stood out as singularly expressive."
The reader might conclude from such a description that Critchfield's
initial attraction to Shahhat was due to the fact that his features
were much less African than those of the majority of Upper Egyptians.
Ironically, that is the attitude of some inhabitants of northern
Egypt, who refuse to acknowledge Upper Egyptians as Arabs, and
consider darker skin to be a negative trait. Such prejudice is the
second challenge which faces Upper Egyptians, in addition to poverty:
racism.
Although I did take issue with the presumably inadvertent racial
implications of Critchfield's observations, Shahhat, an Egyptian is
an entertaining and vivid introduction to the richness and diversity
of rural Egyptian life.
Uzra Zeya is a program coordinator for the American Educational Trust
specializing in Islamic affairs.
Advise and Dissent and Shahhat, an Egyptian are available from the
<http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/598/li1.htm> http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0390/9003045.htm
Except for the black Nubians and Sudanese,Egyptains appear ethnically
homogenous ''arabs'' to most Western foreigners,compared to the
United States,India,or Indonesia,this might be the case,but Egypt's
ethnic makeup is far more complex.
Most Muslim Egyptains consider themselves Arabs with a strain of
native Egyptain ancestry that links them to the pharoahs and the
semetic people of Ham.
IN most cases the north,it's usually more complex than that. Waves
of foreign invaders and colonizers from the
Greeks,Romans,Persians,and Turks,and other Central Asians,to the
Mamelukes and Ottomans with ancestry from the Balkans,the caucaus and
places like Azerbaijan have been assimilated into the Egyptain blood
stream.
The majority of Egyptains who still work the land along the banks
of the Nile are known as Fellahin,or peasents. They are ther
backbone of Egyptain soceity asnd are closely associated with the
land and the riverthat has shaped their way of life for thousands of
years. The fellaheen are purer in their native Egyptain stock than
urban folk,who over the years have intermixed,married,and assimilated
with invaders and expatriates.
Those in Middle and Upper Egypt are called Sayeedis<Upper Egypt is
known as ''Sayeed'' and are streotypically known for their hot
blood,family loyalthy,and stubborness. Like the Irish in england or
southerners in the American northeast,they suffer bad jokes at the
hand of urban Northern Egyptains who consider them thick and simple
minded.
Page 39
Egypt Guide
John J. Bentley
Egypt Guide (Egypt Guide)
by John J. Bently, John J. Bentley
Historicallyt,''baladi'' indicated the locals,the egyptians,as versus
the turks,the mamelukes,the french,or the british. To be Ibna' Al
balad,sons of the country,was to defend Egypt against French and
British occupiers. Balad a noun means community-wheater
country,city,townor village;in colloquiual Egyptian it can means
downtown or village. Baladi adjective form,means local or indigenous.
Through time,balady has come to connote the local or residents and
life of urban quarters such as bulaq Abu AlaIt is a self
descprtive,emic term that can roughly be translated ''traditional''
but which also retrains a rich infusion of the local and authenic.
The early ninteenth centuiry history Abd Al Rahman al Jabarti used
ibn al balad to mean urbanite Cairene muslims who shared a dialect
and a relgion as oposed to foreign rulers who spoke arabic and
violate muslim normsJibarti detailed the mistreatment of these
Cairene theologians,merchants,and aristans by ruling elites. The
following Al jabarti references are quote in El Messiri''Some of the
troops used to buy sheep and sluaghter them,then sell them at high
price. They would give short weight and ibn al balad could nothing
but check them ""
pg 54 Baladi Women of Cairo
Egyptians long considered Bedouins as ''the Arabs' and viewed the majority of the population as the ''real Egyptians.'' Fellahin[literally''tillers of the soil''] in many isolated Nile Valley villages have maintained features and many cuystoms of the Ancient Egyptians,as those shown in ancient representations.
page 447
Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics
by Colbert C. Held
One group prominent among Egypt's growing social and economic elite are desendants of the former ruling class,the Turks
page 448
Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics
by Colbert C. Held
Despite the marked growth of several cities,especially Cairo,Egyptian social structure retains village roots more than the urban migration would indicate. Increasing hundreads of thousands of landless and displaced fellahin have flooded into cities since the 1950's,often grouping themselves by place of origin and thus preserving their village idenity. Indeed,this kind of urbanization,the virtual displacement of village to city has been reffered to as the relization of Cairo''Incoming migrants typically have little education,almost no money,and no relavent skills.
page 449
Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics
by Colbert C. Held
Here is a reference that shows in Blood Group Distribution Muslims nor Christains are not much different.
*The Distribution of Human Blood Groups* by A.E. Mourant and A.C. Kopec
(1976), p.85 showed that the Copts had no significant differences from
the
Muslim Egyptians in blood group frequencies which confirms my belief
that the
majority of Muslim Egyptians are converted Copts.In other words,they
did not
mix with the invading Arabs. Boyd and later Batawi showed that there
were no
significant physiological differences between the modern and ancient
Egyptians in skin colour and skull remains. The American Frank Yurco is
another recent and peer-evaluated reference I would suggest you read
http://www.egyptsme.org/REDECSohag/_images/WebAlbum/html/index001.html
http://www.pbase.com/weirdrob/friends
quote:
Originally posted by Ayazid:
Amwa
I donīt say that these people "white" or "arab-looking". On the contrary, they have distinct negroid or "black" admixture. Surely, between Sohag and Aswan is a lot of "black-looking" Egyptians.Black, at least for Europeans and Americans.But itīs not my point. You must know that majority of Egyptians see themselves "brown" and not only "white" or "black" like Americans and Europeans.The Egyptians are mixed people and they always were mixed.
Thought Writes:
Ayazid,
How can the majority of Egyptians see themselves as "Brown" when the word "Brown" is not a Arabic word? How were they able to translate this word and then define it as their own? Furthermore, what sampling method did you use to determine that this is how the majority of Egyptians felt about themselves, after they translated this ENGLISH word and contextualized it? Do the words Black and Brown mean different things in America? Are there Black people that have Brown skin? Are Black Americans also mixed, yet Black at the same time? Would the typical "Brown" Egyptian be able to convince a Aryan Nations Skinhead not to stomp his or her head in because he/she is actually "Brown" and not Black?
Again you apply American classification on Egyptians. he is correct. Arabs refer to europians skin color as RED. Most egyptians and Arabs don't see their skin coloure as RED nor black but either white "again not like a RED european" or tanned and sometimes blacks if you are in Somalia or Sudan.
There is no sampling used it is a matter of language, SKIN COLOR HAS NO SIGNIFICANTS WHAT SO EVER AMONG US. the way we look and describe our own skin color is difffernet that Amricans do. I hope you do understand the difference.
quote:
Originally posted by Thought:
Thought Writes:Ayazid,
How can the majority of Egyptians see themselves as "Brown" when the word "Brown" is not a Arabic word? How were they able to translate this word and then define it as their own? Furthermore, what sampling method did you use to determine that this is how the majority of Egyptians felt about themselves, after they translated this ENGLISH word and contextualized it? Do the words Black and Brown mean different things in America? Are there Black people that have Brown skin? Are Black Americans also mixed, yet Black at the same time? Would the typical "Brown" Egyptian be able to convince a Aryan Nations Skinhead not to stomp his or her head in because he/she is actually "Brown" and not Black?
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/598/li1.htm
I understand that America has such a different classification when it comes to blackness. The system is different from both traditional Western African observation and Egyptians ones. In Western Africa people who are slightly lighter than them or a light skinned black person is reffered to as ''red'' or even sometimes ''white''. This often happens to tribes like the Fulani people and Tuaregs. Sometimes the Fulani are even lighter than most Egyptians,but in America both the Tuareg,Fulani,and even some Egyptians would be ''black'' This is important to note when consulting folk classifications like the ones mentioned.
Egyptians also have a system that sets them apart from some Arab groups. The word Shamy is often used to denote Arabs from Syria,and the word Sheiko Shamy is also used. Meneghiroo shamy is an expression used to distinguish from Syrian Arabs by their nose.
Again you apply American classification on Egyptians.
Thought Writes:
And again, we are using a forum that communicates via the English language and the associated somatic and cultural norms. When in Rome do as the Romans.
Thought Writes:
One also have to be cognizant of the effects of European colonial values and beliefs on native Africans.
Like wise This is a forum about egypt so get used to egyptian classification and When in Rome do as the Romans
quote:
Originally posted by Thought:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by DubaiDoctor:Again you apply American classification on Egyptians.
Thought Writes:
And again, we are using a forum that communicates via the English language and the associated somatic and cultural norms. When in Rome do as the Romans.
Thought Writes:
I am not claiming that color differences came after colonization. What I am saying is that we have to be carefull especially given the FACT that European colonists created many superficial divisions among African people and facilitated the Hamitic concept in Africa. I can't imagine that Fulani and Tuareg REALLY thought of themselves as white. If so what did they call the Spanish Muslims that visited Timbucktoo or Gao?
Thought Writes:
You don't have to do ANYTHING my way, but in this country you are forced to accept the standard social classifications when communicating.
Thought Writes:
I don't mind learning about modern Egyptian classifications, but this has little to do with Ancient Egypt.
The Ameican racial classification is so screwed up. Could explain to me why a German who migrate to USA is classified racially as a Caucassian while another german who moves to Argentina and than to USA becomes racially a Hispanic.
Thought Writes:
Because Hispanic is an "ethnicity", not a "race".
quote:
Originally posted by DubaiDoctor:Like wise This is a forum about egypt so get used to egyptian classification and When in Rome do as the Romans [/B]
Thought Writes:
Actually, this forum is about Ancient Egypt. The issue of who the Ancient Egyptians were similar to in a phenotypic and cultural sense has relevence in that Ancient Egypt was an African melting pot. Of course after the Middle Kingdom there were many invasions from foreign Eurasians as evidenced by the diversity now found in Modern Egypt.
Most early pharoahs came from the South from modern day regions like El Kab,Luxor,Abydos and other regions. Most these areas today are predominatley African in apperance despite what you believe. The 12,17,and 18 dyansty all had Nubian origins.[Frank Yurco,Kent R. Weeks and Edward Went in X-Raying the Pharoahs citing Sir Grafton Smith] Even top Egyptologist Kent R. Weeks in his book X-Raying of the Pharoahs admit this much.
The fact that Seti or Rameses II have red hair means very little since both of these people are of non-royal ancestry with little connection to the glory of the 18th dyansty. Rames I father you forget was a general in the Egyptian army that possibly had his roots in Libyan mercenaries or with Near-Eastern Hykos that settled in the Eastern Delta.
Even if what you say is true,I wonder why they can determine such mummies had red hair since Seti's mummy has absolutley no hair on it. Not to mention that Rameses II hair was grey on his mummy. I have read some repors that hair specialist using microscopic analaysis have found Rames II to be red;however this does not mean the entire populationb of Egypt was like this. Kent R. Weeks points out on the PBS website that ''red hair'' was rare.
The people who generally had red hair in Egypt were the Imazghen[Libyan Berbers] known as the Tamahou.
By the way,here are some things Greece did not have that Egypt did.
1. Circumcision rites for boys who reached puberty. Similar to many traditional African soceities[more details see Theodore Celenko Egypt in Afrca]
2.Divine kingship or the concept of the rain-maker king[Cyril Aldred points this out in his book. Previously it was pointed out in Henri Frankfort's books as well]
3. No stratified nation-state or equivalent to polis[ Egypt was never a nation state nor a civlization with cities. Most Egyptian soceity differed from the Eastern Mediterranean and Southern European lifestyle in this reguard]
4.Any similarities in Egyptian and Greek culture simply means that Greeks adopted it,or that Egyptians taught them it. The case in point is the proto-doric at Saqqura and kuros vases that go back to Minoan times.
5. ancestor whorship and communicating with the ancestors via. Letters to the dead has no equivalent in neither Mediterranean world nor the Near East.
6. Greece nor the Near East have no concepts as the Ba,Ka,Khu,and Ren. In both African and ancient Egyptian soceities the name was important and the shawdow was an extension of the soul of a person.
7. Middle East is a meaningless geographical term that was coined by British Orientalist. Early Natufian hunters in modern Palestine have African features like Alveolar prognathism. This is typically a negriod trait. Larry Angel,a leading bio-anthropologist from the Smithstonian,found the following in early burials.
8. The so-called features of narrow noses in Egypt or on Egyptians can be explained through a hot-dry climatic condition. Not through intermixing with people from Western Asia!!
Thought Writes:
Actually, Egyptian civilization began in the south not along the mediteranean climactic zone. Of course later in Egyptian history many parts of Eurasia were indeed colonized by these Africans.
Thought Writes:
No mainstream scholar supports migration from the Egyptian contemporary - Mesopatamia.
You are correct however in stating that there was immigration from the Near East. These periods seem to correspond with the cultural ebbs in Egyptian history.
Early in the 12th Dyansty there is constant reference by Sinhue of a Marsh man[Delta man] feeling uncomfortable in Abu[Elephantine,modern day Aswan]. Wouldn't you agree these two areas might have formed a cultural distinct place by the First Intermediate period or perhaps earlier in the 8th dyansty? Keita points out citing Kent R. Weeks and Wente that early remains of Giza are much similar to the ones in Upper Egypt,but started gradually changing over the course of the First Intermediate period. Would you agree with this?
Thought Writes:
Please provide your sources for this purposed MIGRATION?
I wouldn't be surprised that there were cultural exchanges between these two regions. It is of interest that Mesopatamian items are allways found in Egypt, while NO Egyptian items are found in Mesopatamia. The West African SLAVES that were brought to the Americas contributed to New World society. It is odd that civilizations that trade with each other would end up being a one way street. I am very curious about the history and spread of writing from Egypt to Mesopatamia. I am also interested in the spread of the Semetic language from Africa to this region.
Keita points out citing Kent R. Weeks and Wente that early remains of Giza are much similar to the ones in Upper Egypt,but started gradually changing over the course of the First Intermediate period. Would you agree with this?
Thought Writes:
Please rephrase the statement above?????
He cites Kent R. Week and Wente on Old Kingdom remains found in Giza that match people from southern Upper Egypt.
He later mentions that these southern types became foreign over a period of time by the New Kingdom.
I never proposed a migration of Mesopotamian people into Egypt during the pre-dyanstic times. I just pointed out that there were Sumerian settlements in the Delta region in Egypt. In later periods there was clearly mixing in this region with Libyans,Caanites,and other Western Asian people that became absorbed in Egypt's Asian empire. Does this explain the situlation in the Tales of Sinhue where a Delta man could not understand a man from Abu[Elephantine]?
quote:
Originally posted by Thought:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by DubaiDoctor:
[B]Look it is a big world and we don't have to do things your way.Thought Writes:
You don't have to do ANYTHING my way, but in this country you are forced to accept the standard social classifications when communicating.
Thought Writes:
I don't mind learning about modern Egyptian classifications, but this has little to do with Ancient Egypt.[/B][/QUOTE]
HISTORY OF DNA TESTING ON EGYPTIAN NEW KINGDOM ROYALS
by Charles Pope
http://dwij.org/forum/amarna/comments/popedna.html
Leave Ancient egypt out of any racial classification. Most African Americans are from the Atlantic coast "West Africa". they have little to do with Ancient Egypt
Just leave this racial garbage out of AE. Egypt is located in north Africa and people are composed of various races and ethnic groups. But no Jessie Jackson has to find some great ancestors
Thought Writes:
I don't mind learning about modern Egyptian classifications, but this has little to do with Ancient Egypt.[/B][/QUOTE]
The testing of the Dna samples in mummies ia very hard due to the embalming process in ancient Egypt. Most mummy samples come from the teeth and from deep layers of skin that is less affected from the embalming process. The only other method would to take bone and grind it up to obtained the samples. This has been done and sequenced with ABO blood typing.
See the following:
We all know that we ought to have a card in our wallets noting our
blood groups,so that in an emergency a blood transfusion of the
correct blood can be given without delay. Of course the method of
classifying was only discovered comparatively recently,in
1900infact,so it is hardly suprising that the labels attached to
mummies' necks which we have mentioned make no reference to their
blood group. Nonetheless it is possible to deduce it from a muscle or
bone which has been dissolved into dust through a special process.
This requires relatively large fragments,weighing about a gram,and so
a different technique was invented by Connoly,who used an enlarging
method to analyse tiny amounts of dust from human tissue,and so type
the blood.
At first sight it is difficulat to see what interest such a study
could have,but two examples will soon show us that it has a pratical
applications. When Boyd studied serveral series of mummies,he found
that the blood groups A,B,and O recurred with very much the same
fequency in ancient Egypt as they do there today. Above all he was
able to confirm the pressence of group B blood in pre dyanstic
mummies,going back more than three thousand years before
Christ,wheras it had been thought group B was only a mutation of
group o which first apperaed durikng the christain era.
page 19-20
The Egyptian Way of Death
Ange Pierre Leaca
[This message has been edited by Ayazid (edited 09 August 2004).]