In the thread about Netflix Cleopatra I posted a couple of videos made by a young Egyptian woman who calls herself Kemet Queen on YouTube. Here is another video made by her about Egyptian statues and broken noses.
Nice to see young people who are interested in history and archaeology, and also interesting to get an Egyptian perspective on Egyptian history.
Actually, Egyptians have always been interested in history, but Islam and colonization have played a role in how that history was discussed. Obviously Islam had a big role in this and beyond that the fact that most colonizing cultures give little relevance to history before their own. In Islam, anything prior to the advent of the Prophet is called the Age of Ignorance and that even applies to the Arabian peninsula itself. As such, they had no problem giving away most of the artifacts taken out of the country in the past, primarily by Ottoman officials.
Europeans promoted the idea of history for history's sake, but mostly it was a treasure hunt for them to claim themselves as the custodians of all history. And they took advantage of the attitude of the Ottomans of the areas of North Africa, the Levant and Greece that they controlled to acquire artifacts. And those artifacts from those regions, are the foundation of modern archaeology and anthropology in the west.
But even with all that, Egyptians have always had their own voice on the topic of history. The issue is that they speak Arabic and unless you read or speak arabic, you aren't going to be aware of it or what it says. And there are numerous universities in Egypt that predate European colonization, but they are Arabic universities and mostly teach Islam.
Obviously this woman speaks good English and only came to youtube to speak in English about Netflix's Cleopatra, to a Western audience.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
A young Sudanese American woman reflects over Kushite artifacts and history
Amena Teferi Let's Learn About Ethiopia! 🇪🇹 Geography Now Video Discussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLZv7WA4FMU Talk around 1: 44
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Sudanese history predates so-called "Nubia" and Kush being tens of thousands of years old....
And there are many cultural elements tied to the ancient Nile Valley still found in Sudan and into the Horn.
The Egyptian woman Kemet Queen with another video where she talks with an Arab historian about things like the Arab conquest of Egypt and slave trade.
In the future she also plans to interview Egyptian and Sudanese historians.
quote: This is my talk with Bahraini Historian Karim Wafa where we take a deep dive into the historical events during the Arab/Islamic conquest of Egypt and North Africa. Tackling some of the biggest questions such as how much resistance there was, how long did the process take, was there a genocide of the indigenous Egyptians, was Islam enforced, and how/why did Egyptians adopt the Arabic language.
Here she talks about Cleopatra and about how Cleopatra may have died
quote: Where is Cleopatra's tomb? And how did she die? Kemet Queen unravels the mysteries of one of her favorite Pharaohs, Queen Cleopatra.
Embrace the essence of ancient times as we embark on a captivating expedition to unravel the mysteries surrounding the demise of Cleopatra, the illustrious last Pharaoh of Egypt. Accompany us on a remarkable quest, delving into the secrets that shroud her poignant departure and the hallowed grounds where she forever lies.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: The Egyptian woman Kemet Queen with another video where she talks with an Arab historian about things like the Arab conquest of Egypt and slave trade.
In the future she also plans to interview Egyptian and Sudanese historians.
quote: This is my talk with Bahraini Historian Karim Wafa where we take a deep dive into the historical events during the Arab/Islamic conquest of Egypt and North Africa. Tackling some of the biggest questions such as how much resistance there was, how long did the process take, was there a genocide of the indigenous Egyptians, was Islam enforced, and how/why did Egyptians adopt the Arabic language.
Funny how this is the exact same thing that Afrocentric black Americans have been saying for years. Yet when black Americans say it, it is Afrocentric nonsense yet Egyptians and other North Africans have been saying the same thing. The Arab conquest of North Africa including the enslavement of women and children, the indoctrination of the latter, and the imposition of the dhimma (2nd class status) to the native Christian populations both Byzantine and indigenous. During the Arab Caliphates, more Arab tribes were imported into Egypt and later in the Ottoman Caliphate, Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus were also imported. This is why even as far south as Nubia you have a tribe of Nubians that are of Albanian ancestry and a tribe of Arabs with Hungarian ancestry (Magyarabs).
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Here she talks about Cleopatra and about how Cleopatra may have died
quote: Where is Cleopatra's tomb? And how did she die? Kemet Queen unravels the mysteries of one of her favorite Pharaohs, Queen Cleopatra.
Embrace the essence of ancient times as we embark on a captivating expedition to unravel the mysteries surrounding the demise of Cleopatra, the illustrious last Pharaoh of Egypt. Accompany us on a remarkable quest, delving into the secrets that shroud her poignant departure and the hallowed grounds where she forever lies.
Not to mention other mysteries surrounding the Ptolemies, like what happened to Cleopatra's sisters, and what went on in Alexandria concerning the Judaean peoples and the Macedonians?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Funny how this is the exact same thing that Afrocentric black Americans have been saying for years. Yet when black Americans say it, it is Afrocentric nonsense yet Egyptians and other North Africans have been saying the same thing.
Maybe it is for Egyptians, and also others, that history sometimes seems more legitimate when told by the peoples in question themselves. Probably many Egyptians trust their own historians more than foreigners. Also some African Americans, especially online, may have given other African Americans a bad reputation due to exaggerated and unrealistic claims, like this guy who wants to expel the modern Egyptians from Egypt.
Many modern Egyptians may be rather mixed, but they still have threads, both biologically and culturally to ancient Egypt.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
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Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Nora (Kemet Queen) has started a petition for the return of Egyptian artifacts
quote:There are over 50,000 Egyptian artifacts in the Louvre and other French museums that are currently in danger. Please sign the petition to help Egypt return its artifacts safely back to their home.
Nora seems ambitious. Soon she will have an Egyptologist as a guest in an upcoming video
quote: I am going to be having Egyptologist and book author Dr. Mariam Ayad on the Kemet Queen show 🥰
The topic will be Women in Ancient Egypt. We are going to discuss everything from women’s roles in society, women’s rights, to the lives and reign of well known Egyptian Queens.
As always we’re gonna have a Q&A part at the end of the episode so please drop your questions below
Here is an excellent book on the issue of Egypt's stolen artifacts.
The Egyptians should handle their own heritage. I know that amongst Egyptians there is a dispute between the Baladi and Afrangi but that is for them to sort out. Egyptians whatever their ancestry have a far better claim to their antiquities than khawaga (foreigners).
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Thanks for the tips about the book. It sounds very interesting.
So many books to read, I wish the day and night had more hours
I recognize the author, his book People of the Earth was among the first books we read in the first semester of my archaeology class.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Kemet queen (Nora) gives her take on the Tal Al Taramsa child and the Nazlet Khater 2 man.
She talks about the context around the findings and about the affinity of especially Nazlet Khater 2
quote:In this video you will learn about the oldest human remains found in Egypt and the earliest artifacts that tell us hints about life in Egypt during the stone age.
Nazlet Khater 2 at the National Museum of Egyptian civilisation in Cairo Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Nora seems ambitious. Soon she will have an Egyptologist as a guest in an upcoming video
quote: EXCITING NEWSS my fellow history geeks😍😍
I am going to be having Egyptologist and book author Dr. Mariam Ayad on the Kemet Queen show 🥰
The topic will be Women in Ancient Egypt. We are going to discuss everything from women’s roles in society, women’s rights, to the lives and reign of well known Egyptian Queens👸🏻👸🏽
As always we’re gonna have a Q&A part at the end of the episode so please drop your questions below 👇🏽
And in this last video she says the following at the 1:03:50 mark:
quote: In terms of contemporary Egyptians, contemporary Egyptians for the most part, are quite divorced from their past. They don't view themselves so much as descendants of the pharaohs unless there's a soccer match and they want to ramp up the national furor. But generally speaking, I've had a mentor, currently a colleague at the AUC, whose work has really focused on cultural idiom, whether its in religious practice, or in the vernacular of Egyptian Arabic. And she's ingrained in me, and in her own work, the importance of doing ethno-Egyptology and the success she's had there. So I've tried to apply some of it, like if there's a turn of phrase that is especially cumbersome to render in English, then if I think of it in colloquial Egyptian, then it makes sense and I can provide an intimate translation occasionally. There's also, according to her work, some religious practices that have to do with having a meal at the tombs, with the deceased, on feast days, that are still practiced. Certain phrases that are said today in commemoration of the departed that we can show are direct descendants of tomb decoration, like the <garbled> at the top of the tomb is something that's often referred to. and she's been able to demonstrate that these are essentially Egyptian and not-- because, you know, Egypt had a lot of cultures and it's been a long time since then. But in these two instances or more, that was very clearly demonstrated. But aside from that, Egyptians are totally decoupled from their past, to the extent that they can desecrate and loot monuments. And they think that these monuments belong to the tourists. There's no sense of national ownership of that culture. And its sad and breaks our hearts. And that's partly why I moved back Ann, to circle back to your question, because one of my colleagues Monica Hanna, has been very vocal about the importance of cultural preservation. And shes's a very courageous woman, and did tremendous work combating looting and shedding light on the state of looting since 2011. And I thought, you know, I'm here in a comfortable job, tenured in Memphis (Tennessee), but essentially isolated from all the action. And in the ferver post-2011, I thought maybe the most revolutionary thing I can do is move back and be the best scholar I can be, where I may be more needed. But it turns out I'm still in an ivory tower at AUC. It's quite isolated. But outside of school and the limited number of students that we have, I may be able to support colleagues who are in the field there.
As for remains from Nazlet Kater, they date from u upwards of 25,000 years prior to the emergence of Nile Valley civilization. And some of them posses "archaic features, which only are important in the overall understanding of the evolution of human physiognomy over time in the Nile Valley and overall.
quote: Nazlet Khater[1] is an archeological site located in Upper Egypt that has yielded evidence of early human culture and anatomically modern specimens dating to approximately thirty to fifty thousand years ago.
Excavations at the Nazlet Khater 2 site (Boulder Hill) yielded the remains of two human skeletons in 1980.[2] One of the skulls was that of a male subadult. The cranium was generally modern in form, but with a very wide face, and it evinced some archaic traits in the temple and mandible areas. Below the skull, the skeleton was robust, but otherwise, anatomically modern. Morphological analysis of the Nazlet Khater mandible indicates that the specimen was distinct from the examined Late Pleistocene and Holocene North African specimens.[3]
Ron Pinhasi and Patrick Semal (2000) found strong Stone Age Sub-Saharan affinities in the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet Khater, Upper Egypt as the authors noted "The morphometric affinities of the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet Khater, Upper Egypt are examined using multivariate statistical procedures. The results indicate a strong association between some of the sub-Saharan Middle Stone Age (MSA) specimens, and the Nazlet Khater mandible , which are different from modern sub saharan africans. Furthermore, the results suggest that variability between African populations during the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods was more pronounced than the range of variability observed among recent African and Levantine populations."[4]
The Nazlet Khater 2 skeleton possesses two plesiomorphic features in its mandible, which are not found among coeval, anatomically modern, humans. This suggests that the ancestors of the specimen may have interbred with neighboring late archaic humans.[5] At Nazlet Khater 4 to the southeast, Upper Paleolithic axes, blades, burins, end scrapers, and denticulates were also excavated. The site has been radiocarbon dated to between 30,360 and 35,100 years ago.[3] The similarities between NK2 and Upper Paleolithic European samples may indicate a close relationship between this Nile Valley specimen and European Upper Paleolithic modern humans.
Yes, there are a couple of threads on the Nazlet Khater man and also about the different facial reconstructions of him. I noticed in the video they showed Ancestral Whispers reproduction, but not Cicero Moraes version. Both reconstructions are made from photos and not any cast of the skull.
The REAL Reason People Say Egypt Was "Multiethnic"
Mr. Imhotep
quote: Have you ever heard that ancient Egypt was Multi-ethnic? Do you really know wha it means? Because that's not what they are trying to make us believe. The motivations behind that categorization are way darker than you think. And In this video, I am going to reveal it to you. Keep in mind that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We will go deeper in future videos. So, make sure to subscribe and activate the bell if you don't want to miss the second part of this message. And please no racism in the comments.
Sometimes I wonder over some of the YouTube African Americans (and other foreigners) who make video after video about ancient Egypt and it´s racial affiliations. How many of them have actually been to Egypt? How many have relatives there or some other kind of affiliation to the country? How many have worked there (especially in the fields of Egyptology, archaeology or anthropology) or studied there?
If they actually been there and worked there it could be interesting to hear about their experiences, how were they treated, or what kind of studies or research they did conduct there. Which ancient sites and museums did they visit, and so on. Some of them only talk about racial issues and not so much else.
One or another seems to have taken matters to the extreme like @ShezmuOperative who thinks that todays modern Egyptians ought to be deported out of Africa:
I wonder how welcome he will be if he decides to travel to Egypt?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
A lecture with professor Fayza Haikal from Egypt about continuity between ancient Egyptian culture and modern Egypt.
quote: Fayza Haikal, Professor of Egyptology, The American University in Cairo
Egypt’s recorded history spans six thousand years and is, therefore, one of the longest and best known in the world. Today, Egyptians practice several religious, artistic, and social traditions that can be traced to ancient Egypt, demonstrating the power and longevity of cultural memory. Drawing on research in archaeology, Egyptian art, writing, and culture, Fayza Haikal examines Egyptian society’s cultural expressions from antiquity to the present, focusing on language, spirituality, superstitions, funerary traditions, and folklore.
Interesting story of Fayza Haikal, first woman to get a PHD in Egyptology from Egypt. In the context of Egyptology as a discipline primarily being dominated by Europeans and European institution, including the American University in Cairo.
quote: Haikal was born on April 11, 1938; her father was a prominent Egyptian politician. She attended the Lycee Français du Caire as a child, and studied Egyptology at the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University from 1956–60, where she received her BA. After graduating, she successfully applied for a scholarship to study Egyptology abroad; in the following year, before taking up the scholarship, she worked on the UNESCO Campaign in Nubia to save monuments at risk from the construction of the Aswan Dam, first being responsible for revising the campaign's epigraphic material for publication, and then conducting fieldwork in Nubia. Egyptian women had not previously been allowed to travel to work archaeological excavations, and Haikal describes herself as having 'paved the way for women Egyptologists to work in Nubia". From 1961-65, Haikal studied in the UK, initially at University College London, where her supervisor, W.B. Emery, on being asked to include her in his team working in Nubia, replied "I don't take girls in my team". She transferred to St Anne's College, Oxford University, in 1962, where she studied for a D.Phil. on Egyptian papyri at the British Museum. She gained her doctorate in 1965, becoming the first Egyptian woman to earn a Ph.D. in Egyptology.
After graduating, Haikal returned to Cairo to teach Egyptology, but subsequently moved to various countries due to her husband's job as a diplomat (she had married Mohamed Abdel Halim Mahmoud just before graduating with her D.Phil.; he died in 1979); during his posting to Italy she taught at La Sapienza University of Rome. In the 1980s she became Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. Her archaeological work in this position included directing a project to protect archeological sites during the construction of the Peace Canal in northern Sinai. In 1988, she was elected as the first woman President of the International Association of Egyptologists. Haikal has also been a visiting professor at La Sapienza in Rome and the Sorbonne (both 1994) and Charles University in Prague (2000), and in 2006-2007 was the Blaise Pascal Chair of Research at the Sorbonne.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Yes, there are a couple of threads on the Nazlet Khater man and also about the different facial reconstructions of him. I noticed in the video they showed Ancestral Whispers reproduction, but not Cicero Moraes version. Both reconstructions are made from photos and not any cast of the skull.
The point is that the Nazlet Khater remains are upwards of 20 thousand years older than the creation of the Nile Valley Kingdom and therefore not "Egyptian". Just like 20,000 year old remains in the UK aren't "English" because England didn't exist.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Sometimes in daily speak we still talk about ancient peoples as if they belonged to certain countries, even if those countries did not exist at that time. You can see it in Europe, in China or wherever you go. For example here in Sweden we have books titled "The first Swedes" or in France you can find books about "The prehistory of France" and similar, even if Sweden as a country did not exist 12 000 years ago or France 25 000 years ago.
Sometimes we just use the modern names because we do not know what those ancient peoples called themselves or the place they lived in.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
In the video with the Nazlet Khater man, Nora also introduces us to the much older Taramsa child.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Sometimes in daily speak we still talk about ancient peoples as if they belonged to certain countries, even if those countries did not exist at that time. You can see it in Europe, in China or wherever you go. For example here in Sweden we have books titled "The first Swedes" or in France you can find books about "The prehistory of France" and similar, even if Sweden as a country did not exist 12 000 years ago or France 25 000 years ago.
Sometimes we just use the modern names because we do not know what those ancient peoples called themselves or the place they lived in.
Yes, true, but generally they are given names of the geographic areas they are found in order to distinguish them from more recent historical cultures. Hence "Cheddar Man" is named after the Cheddar Gorge where the remains were found. Or Neanderthals being named after the Neanderthal Valley. The Nazlet Kater remains are named after the town of the same name near where they were found. The Taramsa Child also named the same way. Plus a lot of the research is in determining how those various sites relate to other sites and populations at different times.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Yes, here is it also common to give ancient individuals name after the place they were found, like "The Barum woman" or the "Österöd woman": Sometimes though they can give other names like "the Rasberry girl", a neolithic woman whose last meal consisted of rasberries. Another example is the "Hedgehog girl" a neolithic girl named after remains of hedgehog in her grave.
Then some get nicknames too like "Naia" from Mexico or "Luzia" from Brazil.
People from ancient cultures can also get collective names after the archaeological culture they belonged to, like "the Battle axe people".
So how one calls ancient individuals are not always consistent. In archaeological reports they often just get a number, or a geographic designation combined with a number.
But in newspapers or popular books, and even in textbooks one sometimes can se people being referred to as ancient Swedes, or Brazilians and so on.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
One or another seems to have taken matters to the extreme like @ShezmuOperative who thinks that todays modern Egyptians ought to be deported out of Africa:
One or another seems to have taken matters to the extreme like @ShezmuOperative who thinks that todays modern Egyptians ought to be deported out of Africa:
Why do you keep promoting this guys stuff if he is a fraud? Is anybody here a supporter of his views?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Just wanted to give an example of some of the BS going on out there, for educational purposes.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
An education for who and on what? Why does anybody need to know about some random individual spouting half truths or falsehoods on social media? How does that help you in your discussions here on this forum when it comes to facts and evidence?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Because he is not alone, some fringe Afrocentrics are swamping the net with their shenanigans and also harassing others. It can be worth to adress.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Because he is not alone, some fringe Afrocentrics are swamping the net with their shenanigans and also harassing others. It can be worth to adress.
I only see you making claims about fringe Afrocentrics "swamping the net" using one person. The point being why are you following these people if they are frauds and fringe? If nobody else is posting these people or following them here, why are you posting them?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Well, I actually followed other people and could not avoid to see some of these fringe types hounding them.
This has been going on for years, I first came in contact with the phenomena when some of these fringe Afrocentrics harassed Native Americans who tried to defend their culture. Some of the worst fringe types even went in on peoples messenger and wrote slurs and acted threatening.
But again, if they are frauds why are you posting them HERE as if what they think is relevant when nobody here that I know of is following them or promoting them? This thread is about Egyptian telling Egyptian history and sounds like you just need to continually bring in random folks on social media into every thread in order to promote a narrative. If you are following and paying attention to people who you claim are frauds, then that is a you problem. There is all kinds of information on the internet about every topic. Certainly most people are not going to follow something that is fraudulent vs something that is factual. And by the way, how come you so far have found only 1 actual native Egyptian discussing ancient Nile Valley history. Where are all these Egyptians all over the net discussing their own history, as opposed to all these so-called "fringe Afrocentrics" you keep obsessing over and following?
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
Doug, you've been following around Archeopteryx for a couple weeks now
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M But again
You do not have to repeat everything, your arguments do not get more valid because you repeat them. It just getting monotonous.
quote:if they are frauds why are you posting them HERE as if what they think is relevant when nobody here that I know of is following them or promoting them?
Actually some posters here have now and then also posted claims that are as ridiculous as some of the posts I see on other social media.
quote:This thread is about Egyptian telling Egyptian history and sounds like you just need to continually bring in random folks on social media into every thread in order to promote a narrative
I wanted to point out some of the problems Egyptians can face when they defend their own culture. It is relevant.
quote: If you are following and paying attention to people who you claim are frauds, then that is a you problem. There is all kinds of information on the internet about every topic. Certainly most people are not going to follow something that is fraudulent vs something that is factual. And by the way, how come you so far have found only 1 actual native Egyptian discussing ancient Nile Valley history. Where are all these Egyptians all over the net discussing their own history, as opposed to all these so-called "fringe Afrocentrics" you keep obsessing over and following?
I have in the thread about spreading falsehood to the children mentioned fringe Afrocentrics making ridicolous claims about Ancient Americas.
I just see similar patterns online with fringe people making weird claims about Egypt, and other parts of the world.
Concerning Egyptians I posted videos already with Egyptian scholars like Zahi Hawass and Fayza Mohamed Hussein Haikal, even if it was in other threads. In the thread about Netflix Cleopatra I posted some actual Egyptians and their reactions concerning the film. You may have missed those posts.
In this thread I came to focus on Kemet Queen. Otherwise you can check the thread about her presenting statues from the tomb of Meketre to get an example of fringe people posting on her threads.
Seems you just want to diminish the problem with fringe Afrocentrics online trying to distort other peoples history and even harassing people. As if it is wrong to adress their antics.
If you want to see Egyptians discussing these issues you can check out Egyptian History Defenders on Twitter, or Sekhmet on YouTube, so Kemet Queen is not the only Egyptian online discussing Egyptian history and Afrocentrism.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Just some young Egyptians discussing in the context of Netflix Cleopatra
Here is another Egyptian who discusses the Netflix Cleopatra and also adresses the curious issue of so many African Americans obsessing over Egypt instead of taking an interest in their own cultural heritage, that of Western and Central Africa.
You do not have to repeat everything, your arguments do not get more valid because you repeat them. It just getting monotonous.
quote:if they are frauds why are you posting them HERE as if what they think is relevant when nobody here that I know of is following them or promoting them?
Actually some posters here have now and then also posted claims that are as ridiculous as some of the posts I see on other social media.
quote:This thread is about Egyptian telling Egyptian history and sounds like you just need to continually bring in random folks on social media into every thread in order to promote a narrative
I wanted to point out some of the problems Egyptians can face when they defend their own culture. It is relevant.
quote: If you are following and paying attention to people who you claim are frauds, then that is a you problem. There is all kinds of information on the internet about every topic. Certainly most people are not going to follow something that is fraudulent vs something that is factual. And by the way, how come you so far have found only 1 actual native Egyptian discussing ancient Nile Valley history. Where are all these Egyptians all over the net discussing their own history, as opposed to all these so-called "fringe Afrocentrics" you keep obsessing over and following?
I have in the thread about spreading falsehood to the children mentioned fringe Afrocentrics making ridicolous claims about Ancient Americas.
I just see similar patterns online with fringe people making weird claims about Egypt, and other parts of the world.
Concerning Egyptians I posted videos already with Egyptian scholars like Zahi Hawass and Fayza Mohamed Hussein Haikal, even if it was in other threads. In the thread about Netflix Cleopatra I posted some actual Egyptians and their reactions concerning the film. You may have missed those posts.
In this thread I came to focus on Kemet Queen. Otherwise you can check the thread about her presenting statues from the tomb of Meketre to get an example of fringe people posting on her threads.
Seems you just want to diminish the problem with fringe Afrocentrics online trying to distort other peoples history and even harassing people. As if it is wrong to adress their antics.
If you want to see Egyptians discussing these issues you can check out Egyptian History Defenders on Twitter, or Sekhmet on YouTube, so Kemet Queen is not the only Egyptian online discussing Egyptian history and Afrocentrism.
The point is that you have joined a forum with real people who study and engage in discussion about history in Africa and the Nile Valley. So why don't you engage with real people who can reply to you directly on their views instead of bringing up random people on the internet that are not on this forum? These random people cant reply to you or discuss anything with you because they aren't here. It just sounds like you are desperate to try and make a stereotype of African scholarship being full of frauds and dishonest people, because you dont want to engage with anybody in a real actual discussion on anything. And the same goes with the discussion of Olmecs, where I showed you that the idea of African Olmec originated with the Spanish and other Europeans who discovered them, but you still persist in trying to distort reality and pretend it was all made up by Afrocentrics.
As for Egyptians discussing the ancient history of the Nile, most Egyptians aren't interested in it as I posted earlier from an actual Egyptian Egyptologist. Sure, they may speak out about Cleopatra, but generally you won't see them on youtube talking about the ancient Nile, especially not in English. But if you can find some that would be nice.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Yes, the idea of African Olmecs was invented by Europeans, but today no serious scholar (European or otherwise) upholds that idea, just some Afrocentric extremists and some other fringe people. African Olmecs are not a part of modern academic scholarship. I know some people who actually work as archaeologists in Mesoamerica (and other parts of America) and they just laugh at the thought that there are people still upholding that old myth.
As I showed there are Egyptians debating history, both Cleopatra but also other aspects of it. I just mentioned Egyptian history Defenders on Twitter and the YouTube channel Sekhmet which has a connection to them. They talk about Egyptian history and about Afrocentrism.
Otherwise you can not know so much about what Egyptians, especially young people discuss or what interests they have. Or have you been there and been able to interview them?
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Yes, the idea of African Olmecs was invented by Europeans, but today no serious scholar (European or otherwise) upholds that idea, just some Afrocentric extremists and some other fringe people. African Olmecs are not a part of modern academic scholarship. I know some people who actually work as archaeologists in Mesoamerica (and other parts of America) and they just laugh at the at the thought that there are people still upholding that old myth.
That idea was still supported by various European scholars right up to the 90s and 2000s. And it mostly got abandoned in the era of DNA research. And there are still folks who believe in bigfoot on social media as well. So just claiming that some random individuals on the internet represents "African scholarship" is the problem, because it doesn't.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: As I showed there are Egyptians debating history, both Cleopatra but also other aspects of it. I just mentioned Egyptian history Defenders on Twitter and the YouTube channel Sekhmet which has a connection to them. They talk about Egyptian history and about Afrocentrism.
Otherwise you can not know so much about what Egyptians, especially young people discuss or what interests they have. Or have you been there and been able to interview them?
I literally just posted an actual Egyptian Egyptologist stating point blank that most Egyptians don't care about the ancient past. You just proved it in that most of these Egyptians are responding to the Cleopatra TV show but were not discussing the ancient Nile before that. But instead of addressing that obvious fact you turn and ask me whether I have been to Egypt. Does it matter? No. Becuase we are talking of social media and the biggest issue impacting what you see on social media is language. And unless you speak arabic and have the arabic locale set in your browser or operating system, you won't see the majority of content from Egyptian social media. The point is most Egyptians are discussing things related to their lives in the modern day and or more recent history after ancient Kemet.
Again, the point here is that it was the Egyptian state either under the Ottomans or otherwise that gave away much of the ancient artifacts and allowed them to sit buried in the sand.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Well, I have a friend who worked in Mexico for 30 years now and not even when he first went there any serious scholar upheld that idea, since they just did not find any tangible evidence on Africans in the Americas in precolumbian times.
There were perhaps some old, excentric out of date scholar but the consensus already then were that the Olmec culture, and other similar cultures were autochthonous indigenous developments.
I also remember when I studied archaeology in the university there were never mentioned any Africans in ancient Americas. Also when I worked in a museum that had, among many other things, precolumbian American artifacts none of the experts even mentioned the idea of ancient Africans. So since long time most Americanists have considered such ideas being fringe ideas.
Anyway, even if the fringe elements who forward the African Olmec myth (and similar ideas) are few they are rather loud. Maybe they are getting fewer though, I do not encounter them as often today as I did a couple of years ago. Hopefully also fewer and fewer people take their claims seriously.
Otherwise eccentric scholars, or scholars who did not follow the latest research also have claimed that the ancient Olmecs had affinities with China. Non scholars have also speculated about Middle Eastern or European affinity. Seems everyone wants to be an Olmec.
-- If one Egyptian say one thing so another can say something different. There are many voices in a country.
There are always a group of people in every country who like history, and now with social media that group grows. Same in USA or Sweden most people are not history buffs, but still enough many to uphold a discussion.
And you can still not know exactly how the history interest in Egypt is until you been there and asked people. Everything else will be second hand information.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Well, I have a friend who worked in Mexico for 30 years now and not even when he first went there any serious scholar upheld that idea, since they just did not find any tangible evidence on Africans in the Americas in precolumbian times.
There were perhaps some old, excentric out of date scholar but the consensus already then were that the Olmec culture, and other similar cultures were autochthonous indigenous developments.
I also remember when I studied archaeology in the university there were never mentioned any Africans in ancient Americas. Also when I worked in a museum that had, among many other things, precolumbian American artifacts none of the experts even mentioned the idea of ancient Africans. So since long time most Americanists have considered such ideas being fringe ideas.
How does that change the point that the idea of African Olmecs came from Europeans, you know the ones who invaded and destroyed the indigenous civilizations there? And yes, some still do believe it, whether it is labeled as fringe or not. The point being this is not unique to or originate with so-called Afrocentrics.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Anyway, even if the fringe elements who forward the African Olmec myth (and similar ideas) are few they are rather loud. Maybe they are getting fewer though, I do not encounter them as often today as I did a couple of years ago. Hopefully also fewer and fewer people take their claims seriously.
The main Afican scholar in America who promoted the idea of the African Olmecs was Ivan Van Sertima. And a lot of his work followed on that of the Europeans, with the book being written in 1976 and then followed up on in 1998 with another book Early America Revisited in 1998. But then he died in 2009. Not sure how he would have modified his points in light of more recent data. But outside Van Sertima, there are hardly any Africana scholars today that I know of who are promoting this like he did. And certainly most on this forum have not promoted that idea either, because all Africans engaged in historical study do not think alike or have the same views. So I don't know what "loud" people you are talking about on social media because I certainly haven't heard of them.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Otherwise eccentric scholars, or scholars who did not follow the latest research also have claimed that the ancient Olmecs had affinities with China. Non scholars have also speculated about Middle Eastern or European affinity. Seems everyone wants to be an Olmec.
Just like any other topic on social media you can find a wide range of views from many different angles. That doesn't mean that because it is on social media that everybody believes it.
As opposed to the heyday of Afrocentrism in the late 80s and early 90s when social media was just getting started and nowhere like today. Most communication back then was in person, via books or VHS and that is when Afrocentric scholars became well known to the wider world. And contrary to your position, most of their arguments have not been necessarily debunked, especially when it comes to Africa proper.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: -- If one Egyptian say one thing so another can say something different. There are many voices in a country.
There are always a group of people in every country who like history, and now with social media that group grows. Same in USA or Sweden most people are not history buffs, but still enough many to uphold a discussion.
And you can still not know exactly how the history interest in Egypt is until you been there and asked people. Everything else will be second hand information.
So are you going to argue on how interested the people of Egypt are in ancient history and have you been there seeing as how you opened the thread? I am not saying it is a bad thing because obviously the history of the Nile doesn't belong to Europe. However, before France invaded Egyptians were not concerned about the ancient past. That is just an obvious fact. They may be more concerned about it today because tourism related to that past is a big part of the economy, but that is a recent occurrence.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:originally posted by Doug M How does that change the point that the idea of African Olmecs came from Europeans, you know the ones who invaded and destroyed the indigenous civilizations there? And yes, some still do believe it, whether it is labeled as fringe or not. The point being this is not unique to or originate with so-called Afrocentrics.
Why do some Afrocentrics uphold old racist notions that even the Europeans abandoned? Are they not aware about the destruction of Native American civilisations? For many Native Americans their history is among the last things they have left. And then some Afrocentrics also chomps into to the plunder party, and since they can not steal land they try to steal history. Have they not any culture or history of their own?
quote:The main Afican scholar in America who promoted the idea of the African Olmecs was Ivan Van Sertima. And a lot of his work followed on that of the Europeans, with the book being written in 1976 and then followed up on in 1998 with another book Early America Revisited in 1998. But then he died in 2009. Not sure how he would have modified his points in light of more recent data. But outside Van Sertima, there are hardly any Africana scholars today that I know of who are promoting this like he did. And certainly most on this forum have not promoted that idea either, because all Africans engaged in historical study do not think alike or have the same views. So I don't know what "loud" people you are talking about on social media because I certainly haven't heard of them.
Ivan Van Sertima was not an expert on Native American cultures, archaeology or anthropology. His ideas met hard critique already when his book came out in the 1970s. And today his ideas are rather outdated. It is weird that some people still try to keep his ideas alive online. But there will always be fringe people and pseudo scholars. Many people also believe in Von Dänikens writings, so pseudo history and pseudo science seems hard to get rid of.
Van Sertima has also some followers who also written books but it seems they never became as successful as Van Sertima himself. Maybe some of them were to far off with too outlandish claims.
I have been in some Native American groups that debunked some of the bs regarding African Olmecs and similar theories and we saw many examples of Afrocentric pseudo amateur scholars who was not only loud, but some times even threatening and very racist. But we reported some of the worst so they got kicked out from YouTube, Facebook and other platforms they haunted.
But still today one can find fringe videos on YouTube and groups on Facebook and accounts on Twitter and other social media which promote that kind of pseudo science. But it seems they do not dare to be so threatening anymore because they know that they will get kicked out.
quote:Just like any other topic on social media you can find a wide range of views from many different angles. That doesn't mean that because it is on social media that everybody believes it.
As opposed to the heyday of Afrocentrism in the late 80s and early 90s when social media was just getting started and nowhere like today. Most communication back then was in person, via books or VHS and that is when Afrocentric scholars became well known to the wider world. And contrary to your position, most of their arguments have not been necessarily debunked, especially when it comes to Africa proper.
There are of course different grades of Afrocentrics, some are actual academic scholars, but many of the fringe people online are just pseudo scholars with their own home made theories, not more serious than Von Däniken and company.
quote:o are you going to argue on how interested the people of Egypt are in ancient history and have you been there seeing as how you opened the thread? I am not saying it is a bad thing because obviously the history of the Nile doesn't belong to Europe. However, before France invaded Egyptians were not concerned about the ancient past. That is just an obvious fact. They may be more concerned about it today because tourism related to that past is a big part of the economy, but that is a recent occurrence.
I am no expert on Egyptians interest in history but I have some contacts there and they say the history interest is rising, especially among younger people. Just as other countries also Egypt teach history in school, and at least some young people are getting interested. But tourism and the international interest in Ancient Egypt is of course also a factor. And also Internet since also Egyptians today communicate with the outer world.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Why do some Afrocentrics uphold old racist notions that even the Europeans abandoned? Are they not aware about the destruction of Native American civilisations? For many Native Americans their history is among the last things they have left. And then some Afrocentrics also chomps into to the plunder party, and since they can not steal land they try to steal history. Have they not any culture or history of their own?
But you are the one following these people right? Nobody forced you to follow them and you are the one listening to them correct? So I would ask the question why you are following what they say? Do you hear me whining about the racists on stormfront or other web sites that promote that kind of pseudo science? I don't go there because there is nothing to go there for. It just seems to me like you want to promote the idea that all Africans talking about African history are frauds as opposed to simply the fact that social media is a tool that can be used by anybody and therefore will have a range of opinions and views on everything.
It just sounds like to me you are trying hard to avoid serious African scholarship in order to slander all African scholars as frauds by constantly using random folks on social media.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Ivan Van Sertima was not an expert on Native American cultures, archaeology or anthropology. His ideas met hard critique already when his book came out in the 1970s. And today his ideas are rather outdated. It is weird that some people still try to keep his ideas alive online. But there will always be fringe people and pseudo scholars. Many people also believe in Von Dänikens writings, so pseudo history and pseudo science seems hard to get rid of.
Van Sertima has also some followers who also written books but it seems they never became as successful as Van Sertima himself. Maybe some of them were to far off with too outlandish claims.
And he was the main Afrocentric scholar who discussed the topic and made it part of the mainstream debate over Afrocentrism. Since then, few Africana scholars have been as outspoken on such things as African Olmecs. He is 1 scholar is the point yet you keep trying to make the case that somehow all African scholars have the same views as him. No they don't. Again, you seem more concerned about promoting certain voices you claim represent all African scholarship as if African scholars are a monolith and all believe the same thing when that isn't the case. And what's worse, you make it seem as if only African scholars engage in pseudoscience when we know for a fact this has been a hallmark of European Eurocentric scholarship for quite a long time.
Not only that, but there have been multiple European studies showing that the natives of the Americas were always diverse, some of whom have always had phenotypes similar to some Africans, people from the Pacific and parts of Southern/Southeastern Asia. Not to mention the Bonampak murals which were painted by the natives themselves showing them to be quite dark as expected from populations living in tropical environments. Suffice to say the diversity of ancient indigenous Meso Americans is an established fact of science, even without direct contact with ancient Africans.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I have been in some Native American groups that debunked some of the bs regarding African Olmecs and similar theories and we saw many examples of Afrocentric pseudo amateur scholars who was not only loud, but some times even threatening and very racist. But we reported some of the worst so they got kicked out from YouTube, Facebook and other platforms they haunted.
Again, the core idea of African Olmecs came from Europeans. You keep going in circles determined to make it seem as if it came from African scholars, but then omit all the pseudo science Europeans have promoted about American history. Not to mention the fact that they have stolen or destroyed so much of that history. Which they have also done world wide, but according to you the main problem is "Afrocentrics".
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: But still today one can find fringe videos on YouTube and groups on Facebook and accounts on Twitter and other social media which promote that kind of pseudo science. But it seems they do not dare to be so threatening anymore because they know that they will get kicked out.
And there is fringe pseudo science from Europe and Asia and everywhere else. I just find it odd that you seem so obsessed with talking about random "Afrocentrics" on this forum when nobody else seems to be mentioning them.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: There are of course different grades of Afrocentrics, some are actual academic scholars, but many of the fringe people online are just pseudo scholars with their own home made theories, not more serious than Von Däniken and company.
There is only one meaning of Afrocentric, which means scholarship centered on Africa as the birthplace and origin of human beings, human culture and civilization. So there are no "grades" of Afrocentrics. The main reason why Afrocentrics caused controversy in the 1990s and even before the term Afrocentric, is because of the Nile Valley. At the core of this debate has always been the issue of Africa as the birthplace of human civilization, culture, language and everything else. Eurocentrics are those who promote Europe or Eurasia as the origin of human culture, language, civilization and everything else which has always been at odds with reality. And this is the basis of the core arguments against Afrocentrism which always revolves around the Nile Valley. It isn't about Olmecs or anything else and it isn't about how good the scholarship is, as opposed to the fact that it goes against European Eurocentric domination of the study and dissemination of African history. Again, you seem to just want to lump all people together just because they call themselves Afrocentrics as somehow the same when they aren't. But on the other hand, you ignore all the Eurocentric pseudo science that is also all over social media as if somehow that doesn't also exist. Meaning that all kinds of pseudo science exists from all parts of the planet, including Europeans, but you simply don't want to discuss any serious history as opposed to focusing on random folks on social media. Are you interested in getting to the facts or are you wasting your time worrying about random folks on social media?
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I am no expert on Egyptians interest in history but I have some contacts there and they say the history interest is rising, especially among younger people. Just as other countries also Egypt teach history in school, and at least some young people are getting interested. But tourism and the international interest in Ancient Egypt is of course also a factor. And also Internet since also Egyptians today communicate with the outer world.
OK so you don't follow your own advice and I find it funny you feel the need to speak for other people like Mexicans or Egyptians when you are neither Mexican or Egyptian..... But that is neither here or there.
Anywhere, here is an actual video on Egyptian history from Egypt (in Arabic):
quote: In a study that took many years, we will reveal an aspect of the unknown history, the first history before and after the Flood, to delve into a fundamental truth about the existence of the Pharaohs and their reality at that time, from the origin of the first civilization in the era of Adam, all the way to the era of Mizraim, son of Ham.
To understand the truth about the Pharaohs, we must go back to the first time in the land of ancient Egypt Many scholars of early history before and after Islam did not disagree that Egyptian history goes back tens and tens of thousands of years. From Herodotus, Pliny, and Theodorus of Sicily to Al-Suyuti, Al-Idrisi, Al-Maqrizi, and Ibn Kathir Al-Dimashqi, all of them wrote that the age of the Nile Valley civilization goes back as far as ancient times, and not just a few thousand as is claimed.
In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus was traveling among the nations and regions to collect some details about the unknown history from the largest libraries on earth at that time. But when he arrived in Egypt, he was deeply shocked by the antiquity of the first history, not because of the torches of fire that are known today as the pyramids, but because of the whispers of the wise men of the city. Among the Egyptians, their ancient manuscripts narrated that the sun rose twice as often as it set. This sentence was like a puzzle over the years. It was said that it was an astronomical phenomenon that occurred 39,000 years ago, but what was discovered after that proved that Egyptian civilization exceeded fifty thousand years of succession of time.
Watch the video for the full story
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:But you are the one following these people right? Nobody forced you to follow them and you are the one listening to them correct? So I would ask the question why you are following what they say? Do you hear me whining about the racists on stormfront or other web sites that promote that kind of pseudo science? I don't go there because there is nothing to go there for. It just seems to me like you want to promote the idea that all Africans talking about African history are frauds as opposed to simply the fact that social media is a tool that can be used by anybody and therefore will have a range of opinions and views on everything.
It just sounds like to me you are trying hard to avoid serious African scholarship in order to slander all African scholars as frauds by constantly using random folks on social media.
I mostly do not follow them, but I still run into them since I follow others.
I do not say that all Africans who write about African history are frauds. Actually my first encounters with fringe Afrocentrics were about some of them trying to usurp Native American cultures. It was first later I saw that some of them also behaved in a similar way against for example Egyptians. And then there were some who claimed to be the true Israelites and so on. Just calling out some of the bs.
quote:And he was the main Afrocentric scholar who discussed the topic and made it part of the mainstream debate over Afrocentrism. Since then, few Africana scholars have been as outspoken on such things as African Olmecs. He is 1 scholar is the point yet you keep trying to make the case that somehow all African scholars have the same views as him. No they don't. Again, you seem more concerned about promoting certain voices you claim represent all African scholarship as if African scholars are a monolith and all believe the same thing when that isn't the case. And what's worse, you make it seem as if only African scholars engage in pseudoscience when we know for a fact this has been a hallmark of European Eurocentric scholarship for quite a long time.
Not only that, but there have been multiple European studies showing that the natives of the Americas were always diverse, some of whom have always had phenotypes similar to some Africans, people from the Pacific and parts of Southern/Southeastern Asia. Not to mention the Bonampak murals which were painted by the natives themselves showing them to be quite dark as expected from populations living in tropical environments. Suffice to say the diversity of ancient indigenous Meso Americans is an established fact of science, even without direct contact with ancient Africans.
Yes, but still Van Sertima have had several followers who write books, but often are their claims even wilder than his, with Mande speaking Olmecs and other stuff.
No one denies that some Native Americans are relatively dark skinned. I have never claimed that they all look exactly similar. When it concerns ancient Maya depictions they vary greatly in color, some are light, some are dark. How much of that variation depends on the peoples actual skin tone and what depends on different art styles or conventions can vary. It is easy to misinterpret art from a culture if you do no know so much about it.
But even if there are variation among some Native Americans it does not mean that ancient Africans came sailing over the sea teaching the poor Natives civilisation, or new languages, or to write. Such fairy tales are debunked since years back. Still some Afrocentric pseudo scholars uphold such ideas. And people like you seem to have a problem when they are challenged.
quote:Again, the core idea of African Olmecs came from Europeans. You keep going in circles determined to make it seem as if it came from African scholars, but then omit all the pseudo science Europeans have promoted about American history. Not to mention the fact that they have stolen or destroyed so much of that history. Which they have also done world wide, but according to you the main problem is "Afrocentrics".
It is irrelevant that such ideas came from Europeans. TODAY most of them who promote these ideas are Afrocentric pseudo scholars. Seems they are unable to free themselves from the old European narratives, while most Europeans have abandoned these specific ideas. Then there are other fringe ideas that some Europeans spout, and I have adressed such things too, both online and in my work as an archeologist. But that has been on other platforms.
When I first came to ES there were a couple of posters here too who also promoted fringe ideas regarding Native Americans, and I have adressed that in some threads. So not even ES has been free from people spreading desinformation.
quote:And there is fringe pseudo science from Europe and Asia and everywhere else. I just find it odd that you seem so obsessed with talking about random "Afrocentrics" on this forum when nobody else seems to be mentioning them.
Since many here on ES are African Americans, or have some kind of African background, ES is a suitable place to talk about different kinds of Afrocentrism, and even challenge the more fringe sorts of it.
Seems you always have a problem when fringe Afrocentrics are called out or discussed. And you often blame all fringe ideas on Europeans. Even if some ideas are old European ones no one forces Afrocentrics to uphold them. Maybe time some of the fringe Afrocentrics start to update their notions and narratives.
quote:OK so you don't follow your own advice and I find it funny you feel the need to speak for other people like Mexicans or Egyptians when you are neither Mexican or Egyptian..... But that is neither here or there.
As I said, I know people in Egypt, but I do not claim expertise on Egypt, as some posters seem to do who never sat their foot there.
Seriously, as Chief X said, why listen to any African Americans trying to explain Egyptian history, or Mesoamerican history? Better to listen to these peoples themselves explaining there own history.
When concerning Native Americans (including Native Mexicans), I was actually invited into a group who debunks Afrocentrics trying to usurp Native history (and also Europeans who deny that they done anything bad to Native Americans). Sometimes even if you are not of a certain people you can have different kinds of ties to them which make you engaged in their causes.
Seems you always have a problem when Afrocentrics are called out. But I do not see you protest when some posters here on ES claim that certain posts from European people about anthropology have a connection with violence against black people
quote:Originally posted by Brandon
Not even West Africa is safe from Eurocentric nuttery.
Seriously, crap like this is dangerous. All this racist pseudoscience polluting the Internet is a major contributor to the recent spate of White supremacists gunning down Black people and other minorities in public spaces. People are dying because of this garbage.
Who knows, maybe Afrocentric fringe writings online poses a threat to Native American people? At least some of them (the Afrocentric extremists) have been rather threatening and racist.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Fayza Mohamed Hussein Haikal (born 1938) is a professor emerita of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and the first Egyptian woman to earn a PhD in Egyptology.
Fayza Haikal Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I mostly do not follow them, but I still run into them since I follow others.
I do not say that all Africans who write about African history are frauds. Actually my first encounters with fringe Afrocentrics were about some of them trying to usurp Native American cultures. It was first later I saw that some of them also behaved in a similar way against for example Egyptians. And then there were some who claimed to be the true Israelites and so on. Just calling out some of the bs.
But then you come here and open threads and tell us about these frauds and link to their videos when nobody else here is following them. As if this is something people here need to see or know about. IF they are frauds why are you promoting them and linking to their content? Do you see people here posting articles from stormfront or other fringe or racist web sites? It isn't like these so-called Afrocentric frauds are the only people spreading misinformation online, it exists in everything.
And the core issue is that on this forum there have been discussions about the ancient Nile Valley going back decades from all angles. You don't engage in those discussions with people you can address directly you talk about random folks off social media who you cannot directly debate but you bring their content here to discuss which is pointless because those people are not here. You cannot debate them here and they don't represent people here. So why are you constantly finding these random folks to talk about instead of actually engaging with people who are here? Sounds like you don't want to actually engage anybody in any serious discussion about anything.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Yes, but still Van Sertima have had several followers who write books, but often are their claims even wilder than his, with Mande speaking Olmecs and other stuff.
No one denies that some Native Americans are relatively dark skinned. I have never claimed that they all look exactly similar. When it concerns ancient Maya depictions they vary greatly in color, some are light, some are dark. How much of that variation depends on the peoples actual skin tone and what depends on different art styles or conventions can vary. It is easy to misinterpret art from a culture if you do no know so much about it.
The point was that certain features in those tropically adapted features are similar to other populations such as Africans, Pacific Islanders and so forth. This is why the Europeans called the Olmec heads Africans to begin with based on looks. And that same kind of confusion based on looks is the reason for some of those claims that persist.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: But even if there are variation among some Native Americans it does not mean that ancient Africans came sailing over the sea teaching the poor Natives civilisation, or new languages, or to write. Such fairy tales are debunked since years back. Still some Afrocentric pseudo scholars uphold such ideas. And people like you seem to have a problem when they are challenged.
You aren't challenging anybody though because they aren't here. Those people are on other social media platforms and you posting links to them here isn't challenging them. It is actually you spreading their content on this forum. If nobody else here is referring to them or using them in any discussion then you posting them means you are spreading their content. And I ask why because nobody else here seems to be following them except you. If they were as "loud" and "significant" as you say, then wouldn't people here be following them or at least have heard of them but they haven't. The only one referring to them on a consistent basis is you. You are the one giving them the attention you claim they don't deserve not anybody else. That is why it sounds disingenuous that you keep claiming they are frauds and spreading disinformation, but you keep posting their content here.
As for "people like me", you are free to refer to my posting history on the Olmecs and Mesoamerica all you like. So you cannot claim that I am against challenging frauds or misinformation without checking that first. What I am against is you promoting misinformation and frauds yourself acting like this is "news" or "content" that people here care about if other people aren't posting it and discussing it. If you are the one posting it then you are the one promoting it is the point I am making.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: It is irrelevant that such ideas came from Europeans. TODAY most of them who promote these ideas are Afrocentric pseudo scholars. Seems they are unable to free themselves from the old European narratives, while most Europeans have abandoned these specific ideas. Then there are other fringe ideas that some Europeans spout, and I have adressed such things too, both online and in my work as an archeologist. But that has been on other platforms.
It is relevant because it shows these ideas and the racial ideologies based on phenotype did not originate with Afrocentrics. And there still certainly are Europeans who still believe in the idea of Olmecs being of African, European or Asian origin. You just aren't going to social media and finding those people and posting their content here. But they absolutely exist, while you consistently keep going on about these "Afrocentrics" as if they are the only ones spreading misinformation.
Here is an example of European misinformation about the history of the Americas:
Not to mention they even had an entire magazine that was published at one time that often featured misinformation from all parts of the Americas...... And it still is around called "Ancient American Magazine".
And then there are the numerous sites and articles on social media talking about ancient Egyptian ruins in the Grand Canyon.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: When I first came to ES there were a couple of posters here too who also promoted fringe ideas regarding Native Americans, and I have adressed that in some threads. So not even ES has been free from people spreading desinformation.
And for the most part those people represented their own ideas and were engaged in discussions with other people who had differing views. Meaning they were using the forum as it is intended to be used for discussing ideas, even if you disagree. You posting random videos of other people who are not on this forum and not engaged in any discussions here is not doing that. So it is pointless and nobody is "taking your word for it" as to how influential or loud they are because if they were, other people would be referring to them or posting them. And trying to even compare these people to folks like Van Sertima who wrote books, gave lectures and was an actual scholar makes no sense, even if some of his infromation was erroneous.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Since many here on ES are African Americans, or have some kind of African background, ES is a suitable place to talk about different kinds of Afrocentrism, and even challenge the more fringe sorts of it.
Seems you always have a problem when fringe Afrocentrics are called out or discussed. And you often blame all fringe ideas on Europeans. Even if some ideas are old European ones no one forces Afrocentrics to uphold them. Maybe time some of the fringe Afrocentrics start to update their notions and narratives.
You posting videos from other random people on this forum is you promoting misinformation and frauds. Those people are not here to defend or debate their own ideas. You are the one promoting their content and asking people to look at it to see how bad it is. Why? If it is bad and fraudulent why should anybody waste their time watching it? The point is what do YOU think and what are YOUR ideas because that you can discuss and debate all day in defense of your own views and opinions and not someone elses. And again, if you check my posting history on any topic you will see where I stand on numerous subjects. Suffice to say I am against frauds and misinformation which is why I ask YOU why you keep posting them here when nobody else seems to be posting them or talking like that anymore. As you yourself said, those posters are long gone for the most part.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: As I said, I know people in Egypt, but I do not claim expertise on Egypt, as some posters seem to do who never sat their foot there.
Seriously, as Chief X said, why listen to any African Americans trying to explain Egyptian history, or Mesoamerican history? Better to listen to these peoples themselves explaining there own history.
But you aren't following Chief X if you continually keep posting misinformation from Afrocentric frauds now are you? You are doing the exact opposite an then coming here to spread their content to other people.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: When concerning Native Americans (including Native Mexicans), I was actually invited into a group who debunks Afrocentrics trying to usurp Native history (and also Europeans who deny that they done anything bad to Native Americans). Sometimes even if you are not of a certain people you can have different kinds of ties to them which make you engaged in their causes.
Seems you always have a problem when Afrocentrics are called out. But I do not see you protest when some posters here on ES claim that certain posts from European people about anthropology have a connection with violence against black people
I only have a problem with you posting frauds and misinformation when nobody else seems to be discussing them or referring to them. So if the source of such misinformation is you then I have to challenge you on why you are posting it. Make sense?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:But then you come here and open threads and tell us about these frauds and link to their videos when nobody else here is following them. As if this is something people here need to see or know about. IF they are frauds why are you promoting them and linking to their content? Do you see people here posting articles from stormfront or other fringe or racist web sites? It isn't like these so-called Afrocentric frauds are the only people spreading misinformation online, it exists in everything. And the core issue is that on this forum there have been discussions about the ancient Nile Valley going back decades from all angles. You don't engage in those discussions with people you can address directly you talk about random folks off social media who you cannot directly debate but you bring their content here to discuss which is pointless because those people are not here. You cannot debate them here and they don't represent people here. So why are you constantly finding these random folks to talk about instead of actually engaging with people who are here? Sounds like you don't want to actually engage anybody in any serious discussion about anything.
Yes I can challenge the afrocentrics, I do not care if you have problems with it. Seems you are always whining and crying as soon someone critizises you beloved Afocentrics.
And some fringe people here have discussed also other subjects than only the Nile valley, and some have made some rather outlandish claims.
quote:The point was that certain features in those tropically adapted features are similar to other populations such as Africans, Pacific Islanders and so forth. This is why the Europeans called the Olmec heads Africans to begin with based on looks. And that same kind of confusion based on looks is the reason for some of those claims that persist.
Some features are alike, some are different, it depends on people. Some are totally different from Africans, some can have a more superficial similarity (like a broad nose or lips). Still they are not so similar as some people think, which they would discover if they were to study the subject more closely than simple lookership.
quote:It is relevant because it shows these ideas and the racial ideologies based on phenotype did not originate with Afrocentrics. And there still certainly are Europeans who still believe in the idea of Olmecs being of African, European or Asian origin. You just aren't going to social media and finding those people and posting their content here. But they absolutely exist, while you consistently keep going on about these "Afrocentrics" as if they are the only ones spreading misinformation.
You can not always blame everything on Europeans. Also fringe Afrocentrics must take responsibility for their own behaviour online. Playing the blame game is just a cheap way to avoid responsibility.
quote:And for the most part those people represented their own ideas and were engaged in discussions with other people who had differing views. Meaning they were using the forum as it is intended to be used for discussing ideas, even if you disagree. You posting random videos of other people who are not on this forum and not engaged in any discussions here is not doing that. So it is pointless and nobody is "taking your word for it" as to how influential or loud they are because if they were, other people would be referring to them or posting them. And trying to even compare these people to folks like Van Sertima who wrote books, gave lectures and was an actual scholar makes no sense, even if some of his infromation was erroneous.
I challenge some ideas, so I also engage in discussions. But stupid ideas deserve to be challenged, also here on ES. ES is a forum where some posters also spread Afrocentric misinformation, that is why such ideas can be discussed here.
To post videos about other people is to wake up a discussion about some peoples behaviour online. I suppose it is allowed to also mention such phenomena, as Afrocentric extremists spreading desinformation online.
I even showed examples in earlier threads of some of the desinformation. But maybe you just did not read those threads.
quote:I only have a problem with you posting frauds and misinformation when nobody else seems to be discussing them or referring to them. So if the source of such misinformation is you then I have to challenge you on why you are posting it. Make sense?
You are not a mod here, I post what I like if it is not against the rules of the forum. You are just whining since you can not stand that Afrocentric fringe scholars are exposed.
You yourself are often whining over studies made by European scholars. Better you adress those scholars directly instead of whining here on ES. They do not read your threads here so your criticism does not affect them.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Yes I can challenge the afrocentrics, I do not care if you have problems with it. Seems you are always whining and crying as soon someone critizises you beloved Afocentrics.
And some fringe people here have discussed also other subjects than only the Nile valley, and some have made some rather outlandish claims.
How are you challenging them? They aren't here. You are promoting them by posting their content here. I never heard of these people before and only heard of them because of you posting them. So how exactly are you challenging them when they are not here to respond to you? I see you as promoting the misinformation because nobody else here is promoting their stuff except you is my point.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Some features are alike, some are different, it depends on people. Some are totally different from Africans, some can have a more superficial similarity (like a broad nose or lips). Still they are not so similar as some people think, which they would discover if they were to study the subject more closely than simple lookership.
Well superficial looks and identification based on them has always been a part of European pseudo anthropology and it has only been very recently (last 50 years) that they have moved away from it.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: You can not always blame everything on Europeans. Also fringe Afrocentrics must take responsibility for their own behaviour online. Playing the blame game is just a cheap way to avoid responsibility.
I stated a fact. Now you want to argue that those aren't facts because you don't like it. So you can call out Afrocentrics and their pseudo science but you don't want anybody to call out Europeans on their history of scientific racism and pseudo science. So now the truth comes out and shows your hypocrisy.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I challenge some ideas, so I also engage in discussions. But stupid ideas deserve to be challenged, also here on ES. ES is a forum where some posters also spread Afrocentric misinformation, that is why such ideas can be discussed here.
To post videos about other people is to wake up a discussion about some peoples behaviour online. I suppose it is allowed to also mention such phenomena, as Afrocentric extremists spreading desinformation online.
I even showed examples in earlier threads of some of the desinformation. But maybe you just did not read those threads.
You cannot challenge those ideas if the people you refer to aren't here to defend them. There is a difference between challenging an 'idea' separate from a specific individual and using individuals on social media to prop up a talking point. There have been numerous threads on this forum on Olmecs and native Americans along with the ancient Nile Valley. You and anybody else are free to open any thread you want to discuss any topic related to those things. You don't need to refer to random people on social media to do that because those people are not here. And we have discussed these things to death on this forum already, from all angles. So you aren't introducing anything new here at all.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: You are not a mod here, I post what I like if it is not against the rules of the forum. You are just whining since you can not stand that Afrocentric fringe scholars are exposed.
You yourself are often whining over studies made by European scholars. Better you adress those scholars directly instead of whining here on ES. They do not read your threads here so your criticism does not affect them.
I am only going by your own statements and asking what is the value of posting misinformation from people you call frauds on this forum? And if you admit it is misinformation and coming from frauds then why post it unless YOU want to promote that misinformation here for discussion? The fact that nobody else is posting it and that most of the people who have ideas similar to that no longer post here should tell you that most people here don't believe that stuff. Yet you keep posting it as if it means something to anybody other than yourself because nobody is posting or discussing it. And for reference I can just point to the reason why you have the Deshret sub forum which didnt exist over 15 years ago when I joined. The whole purpose of the Deshret sub forum was for discussions such as native american and meso american history and other somewhat "fringe" topics not related to the Nile Valley. Just do a search of the forum or go a few years back and you will see posters promoting their own variations of ideas some people would call fringe. Those people aren't here anymore. So again, you are just posting misinformation that only has value to yourself because it has no value to anybody else which is why they aren't discussing it.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:How are you challenging them? They aren't here. You are promoting them by posting their content here. I never heard of these people before and only heard of them because of you posting them. So how exactly are you challenging them when they are not here to respond to you? I see you as promoting the misinformation because nobody else here is promoting their stuff except you is my point.
I just inform the members here on ES what some Afrocentrists are up to on the internet. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you can simply address certain phenomena and write about certain people without them being here on ES. Many here write about studies and other things, written by people who also are not members of ES and who probably never read posts here. I'm just showing some aspects of Afrocentrism and what expressions it can take.
quote:Well superficial looks and identification based on them has always been a part of European pseudo anthropology and it has only been very recently (last 50 years) that they have moved away from it.
Well, it seems to be a part of Afrocentric pseudoscience too. If Afrocentrists want to be better than Europeans they should not use the same pseudo methodology. Afrocentrics also have access to newer textbook and research but some prefer to still cling onto old outdated pseudo science. That is not the Europeans fault that some Afrocentrics not keeping themselves updated about more recent research. Often they do not even want to keep themselves updated since certain kinds of Afrocentrism is political ideology more than science or scholarship.
quote:I stated a fact. Now you want to argue that those aren't facts because you don't like it. So you can call out Afrocentrics and their pseudo science but you don't want anybody to call out Europeans on their history of scientific racism and pseudo science. So now the truth comes out and shows your hypocrisy.
I myself have challenged also "white" people concerning pseudoscience and different forms of denial. But that have mostly been on other platforms since there are not so many Eurocentrics here on ES. But I have discussed with them too.
quote:You cannot challenge those ideas if the people you refer to aren't here to defend them. There is a difference between challenging an 'idea' separate from a specific individual and using individuals on social media to prop up a talking point. There have been numerous threads on this forum on Olmecs and native Americans along with the ancient Nile Valley. You and anybody else are free to open any thread you want to discuss any topic related to those things. You don't need to refer to random people on social media to do that because those people are not here. And we have discussed these things to death on this forum already, from all angles. So you aren't introducing anything new here at all.
At least I can inform members here on ES about some of the pseudo history and pseudo science that are promoted by Afrocentric pseudo scholars online. Maybe it can lead to that some ES members do not buy their books or take them seriously. That could be worth the effort.
If you do not like to read such information you can just abstain from reading (and trolling) my threads.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Nora seems ambitious. Soon she will have an Egyptologist as a guest in an upcoming video
quote: I am going to be having Egyptologist and book author Dr. Mariam Ayad on the Kemet Queen show
The topic will be Women in Ancient Egypt. We are going to discuss everything from women’s roles in society, women’s rights, to the lives and reign of well known Egyptian
Here is a couple of videos with lectures and discussions with Dr. Mariam Ayad:
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I just inform the members here on ES what some Afrocentrists are up to on the internet. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you can simply address certain phenomena and write about certain people without them being here on ES. Many here write about studies and other things, written by people who also are not members of ES and who probably never read posts here. I'm just showing some aspects of Afrocentrism and what expressions it can take.
Right so me saying that you are spreading misinformation from frauds that has no useful value is not unfounded because you just said that is what you are doing. You seem to believe that you are doing some kind of "service" spreading misinformation when that doesn't make any sense. As opposed to citing actual scholarship of whatever kind that is more legitimate. The point being I am against misinformation from whoever originates it and spreads it and if that happens to be you then so be it..........
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Well, it seems to be a part of Afrocentric pseudoscience too. If Afrocentrists want to be better than Europeans they should not use the same pseudo methodology. Afrocentrics also have access to newer textbook and research but some prefer to still cling onto old outdated pseudo science. That is not the Europeans fault that some Afrocentrics not keeping themselves updated about more recent research. Often they do not even want to keep themselves updated since certain kinds of Afrocentrism is political ideology more than science or scholarship.
There is no well but or if about it. "Afrocentrics" do not dominate the global study of human history and anthropology and did not invent the modern study of race. That purely originates with Europeans and Race Science as a result of colonization and conquest. Your attempts to claim that some random individuals on social media equates to hundreds of years of theft and subjugation of native cultures and the use of pseudo scientific racial theories to justify it is simply you showing your true colors as to why you are obsessed with so-called "Afrocentrics".
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I myself have challenged also "white" people concerning pseudoscience and different forms of denial. But that have mostly been on other platforms since there are not so many Eurocentrics here on ES. But I have discussed with them too.
European Eurocentric ideology is embedded in the global institutions of Archaeology and Anthropology created during the height of the colonial era. Many on this forum have been engaged on some level with addressing these distortions of Eurocentric ideology within academia. So there is no need to invoke random "Afrocentrics" on social media if you want to engage with people on actual scholarly topics.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: At least I can inform members here on ES about some of the pseudo history and pseudo science that are promoted by Afrocentric pseudo scholars online. Maybe it can lead to that some ES members do not buy their books or take them seriously. That could be worth the effort.
If you do not like to read such information you can just abstain from reading (and trolling) my threads.
So what you are saying is that spreading misinformation from people you label as frauds is of more value than actual scholarship that is more legitimate. As opposed to representing your own views on subjects yourself. So you admit you just like spreading misinformation. You just said it and thats what I am calling out as not really being a "service". Not saying that referencing other online discussions don't have value but you seem to obsessed with "frauds" and misinformation.
Still haven't found any more Egyptians talking about their own history huh?
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Right so me saying that you are spreading misinformation from frauds that has no useful value is not unfounded because you just said that is what you are doing. You seem to believe that you are doing some kind of "service" spreading misinformation when that doesn't make any sense. As opposed to citing actual scholarship of whatever kind that is more legitimate. The point being I am against misinformation from whoever originates it and spreads it and if that happens to be you then so be it
i am not spreading misinformation, I just inform ES members about Afrocentric misinformation that exists online. Or maybe you think that if a person for example reviews a book he don´t like he is spreading the misinformation contained in that book? Then no one could review books they do not agree with, or videos online they do not agree with.
quote:There is no well but or if about it. "Afrocentrics" do not dominate the global study of human history and anthropology and did not invent the modern study of race. That purely originates with Europeans and Race Science as a result of colonization and conquest. Your attempts to claim that some random individuals on social media equates to hundreds of years of theft and subjugation of native cultures and the use of pseudo scientific racial theories to justify it is simply you showing your true colors as to why you are obsessed with so-called "Afrocentrics".
Even if Afrocentrism is not a dominating narrative, the worst parts of it could still be discussed and criticized. It is nothing wrong to inform about the spread of pseudo historical ideas online.
quote:European Eurocentric ideology is embedded in the global institutions of Archaeology and Anthropology created during the height of the colonial era. Many on this forum have been engaged on some level with addressing these distortions of Eurocentric ideology within academia. So there is no need to invoke random "Afrocentrics" on social media if you want to engage with people on actual scholarly topics.
But European archaeology and anthropolgy do evolve, while some of the fringe Afrocentric narratives just regurgitates old, outdated ideas. Also fringe ideas ought to be challenged and warned about.
quote:So what you are saying is that spreading misinformation from people you label as frauds is of more value than actual scholarship that is more legitimate. As opposed to representing your own views on subjects yourself. So you admit you just like spreading misinformation. You just said it and thats what I am calling out as not really being a "service". Not saying that referencing other online discussions don't have value but you seem to obsessed with "frauds" and misinformation.
Still haven't found any more Egyptians talking about their own history huh?
I inform about some of the desinformation that fringe Afrocentric "scholars" (many of them without any academic credentials in relevant fields of study) are spreading online. Nothing wrong in warning about pseudo science. Even here on ES some posters have been spreading BS pseudo historical ideas. So it is nothing wrong informing about them and warning people.
I have already posted Egyptians posting about their history. Seems you can not read.
Admit you are just pissed that someone informs about the Afrocentric bs that exists online. In your mind no one can criticize Afrocentric pseudo history, while you yourself criticize all kind of studies that you don´t like but which you really have no competence to judge about.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
An entertaining and colorful book review where Chief X warns about an Afrocentric pseudo book
The danger with the fringe Afrocentrism is that many laymen and historically ignorant people buy into it and even spread it to their children. Fringe books for both grown ups and children are sold and fringe videos and sites can be found over internet. A lot of desinformation which make people confused.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: i am not spreading misinformation, I just inform ES members about Afrocentric misinformation that exists online. Or maybe you think that if a person for example reviews a book he don´t like he is spreading the misinformation contained in that book? Then no one could review books they do not agree with, or videos online they do not agree with.
You are spreading misinformation because you keep posting random youtube videos off the internet as "representative" of "Afrocentric" or African centered scholarship when they are not. Not only are you promoting videos of those who you claim as frauds, as misinformation, but you also try and correlate African scholarship in general and African origins of the Nile Valley culture as somehow pseudo science with no facts or evidence. And then you try and claim these other Egyptian youtubers are legitimate in their claim that the ancient Nile Valley wasn't African. I mean seriously who on earth do you think you are kidding here? You aren't providing a service, you are low key passive aggressive promoting anti African scholarship. But you haven't yet in any single thread here on this forum proved that the idea of the ancient African origin of the Nile valley is invalid in any sense.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Even if Afrocentrism is not a dominating narrative, the worst parts of it could still be discussed and criticized. It is nothing wrong to inform about the spread of pseudo historical ideas online.
The worst parts of something do not define a thing, otherwise that is like saying all European scholarship is invalid because of the history of race science and racism in scholarship. You keep trying to prop up this narrative that Afrocentrism by default is pseudoscientific by making sure that you go and finding whatever sites you think proves this and posting them here, where nobody else is talking about them. People here have their own views and opinions and do their own research. And rather than argue your own positions based on your own research you sit here and try and promote random conversations based on hand picked social media posts from people who aren't on this forum and cannot post to defend their points of view. It is not a service, it is you promoting a false view of African scholarship and the Eurocentric domination of the study of world history and anthropology.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: But European archaeology and anthropolgy do evolve, while some of the fringe Afrocentric narratives just regurgitates old, outdated ideas. Also fringe ideas ought to be challenged and warned about.
You keep making a false equivalence, as all African centered scholarship and Afrocentric scholarship isn't pseudo science. You keep making this false analogy by deliberately going out and finding so-called frauds on social media and trying to use that to prop up your arguments.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I inform about some of the desinformation that fringe Afrocentric "scholars" (many of them without any academic credentials in relevant fields of study) are spreading online. Nothing wrong in warning about pseudo science. Even here on ES some posters have been spreading BS pseudo historical ideas. So it is nothing wrong informing about them and warning people.
I have already posted Egyptians posting about their history. Seems you can not read.
Admit you are just pissed that someone informs about the Afrocentric bs that exists online. In your mind no one can criticize Afrocentric pseudo history, while you yourself criticize all kind of studies that you don´t like but which you really have no competence to judge about.
The point is you aren't informing anybody of anything as this debate about the Nile Valley is decades old. And anybody can go find any sort of information on social media about anything. Again, the point is you keep trying to promote the idea that African scholars deserve to be disrespected because there are those claiming that they are Afrocentric who are frauds. But that is simply arguing that all African scholarship is pseudoscience. So you aren't providing a service you are promoting a false narrative based on deliberately promoting misinformation. Which technically makes you a fraud for promoting it.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M You are spreading misinformation because you keep posting random youtube videos off the internet as "representative" of "Afrocentric" or African centered scholarship when they are not. Not only are you promoting videos of those who you claim as frauds, as misinformation, but you also try and correlate African scholarship in general and African origins of the Nile Valley culture as somehow pseudo science with no facts or evidence. And then you try and claim these other Egyptian youtubers are legitimate in their claim that the ancient Nile Valley wasn't African. I mean seriously who on earth do you think you are kidding here? You aren't providing a service, you are low key passive aggressive promoting anti African scholarship. But you haven't yet in any single thread here on this forum proved that the idea of the ancient African origin of the Nile valley is invalid in any sense.
I just post some samples of what is out there, it is not misinformation, those films and videos are actually out there.
Everyone is maybe not aware of it so that is why I post about them.
It does not really matter which people lived in the ancient Nile valley, most African Americans do not descend from Egypt anyway, despite some of them being so obsessed with it. Those who live there today are at least partially related to the ancient ones, and some customs and cultural traits have even managed to survive.
Most African Americans have no connection at all with Egypt.
quote: The worst parts of something do not define a thing, otherwise that is like saying all European scholarship is invalid because of the history of race science and racism in scholarship. You keep trying to prop up this narrative that Afrocentrism by default is pseudoscientific by making sure that you go and finding whatever sites you think proves this and posting them here, where nobody else is talking about them. People here have their own views and opinions and do their own research. And rather than argue your own positions based on your own research you sit here and try and promote random conversations based on hand picked social media posts from people who aren't on this forum and cannot post to defend their points of view. It is not a service, it is you promoting a false view of African scholarship and the Eurocentric domination of the study of world history and anthropology.
I have nothing against serious Africana studies and serious Egyptology whichever people conduct it (Africans, Americans, Europeans or Asians). What I am against is silly pseudo history that some people spread on the net. Everyone who is interested in history and archaeology should be against the spreading of pseudo history and pseudo science.
quote:The point is you aren't informing anybody of anything as this debate about the Nile Valley is decades old. And anybody can go find any sort of information on social media about anything. Again, the point is you keep trying to promote the idea that African scholars deserve to be disrespected because there are those claiming that they are Afrocentric who are frauds. But that is simply arguing that all African scholarship is pseudoscience. So you aren't providing a service you are promoting a false narrative based on deliberately promoting misinformation. Which technically makes you a fraud for promoting it.
Most of the pseudo fringe types that promote nonsense online are not scholars. I respect real scholars, African and non African, but not pseudo armchair historians who promote all sorts of homemade theories.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
This thread is supposed to be about Egyptians who express their opinions about or lecture about ancient Egypt, or about their debates with certain Afrocentrists.
There seems to be a fear among some Egyptians that Afrocentrism poses a threat to the legitimacy of modern Egyptians as "real" Egyptians and as inheritors of ancient Egyptian culture.
So here is the Egyptian author and filmmaker Ashraf Ezzat discussing Afrocentrism in this video
quote:Ashraf Ezzat, is Egyptian born in Cairo and based in Alexandria. He is graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Dr. Ezzat is also an independent researcher in ancient history and comparative religion and mythology. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Egyptian Museum, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the National Museum of Alexandria.
Ashraf Ezzat Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
quote:Originally posted by Doug M You are spreading misinformation because you keep posting random youtube videos off the internet as "representative" of "Afrocentric" or African centered scholarship when they are not. Not only are you promoting videos of those who you claim as frauds, as misinformation, but you also try and correlate African scholarship in general and African origins of the Nile Valley culture as somehow pseudo science with no facts or evidence. And then you try and claim these other Egyptian youtubers are legitimate in their claim that the ancient Nile Valley wasn't African. I mean seriously who on earth do you think you are kidding here? You aren't providing a service, you are low key passive aggressive promoting anti African scholarship. But you haven't yet in any single thread here on this forum proved that the idea of the ancient African origin of the Nile valley is invalid in any sense.
I just post some samples of what is out there, it is not misinformation, those films and videos are actually out there.
Everyone is maybe not aware of it so that is why I post about them.
It does not really matter which people lived in the ancient Nile valley, most African Americans do not descend from Egypt anyway, despite some of them being so obsessed with it. Those who live there today are at least partially related to the ancient ones, and some customs and cultural traits have even managed to survive.
Most African Americans have no connection at all with Egypt.
You don't need to post so-called "Afrocentrics" in order to show that modern Egyptians have interest in ancient history. The idea that somehow they only care about their ancient history because of so-called "Afrocentrics" is absurd and ridiculous. And not to mention you expose yourself by claiming to be so concerned about African Americans and the history of the Nile, but you aren't from the Nile and propose to sit here and tell people what is and isn't factual about African history. Again, you are doing your usual passive aggressive trolling trying to portray the idea that the Nile Valley is in Africa and has always been in Africa and always been part of African history as somehow pseudoscience when it is not. This is the point you keep trying to push with obsessing over Afrocentrics, which is to suggest that the Nile being part of African history is somehow unscientific and unfactual. And you do so by posting so called Afrocentrics that you claim are frauds in order to justify posting modern Egyptians saying that the ancient Nile Valley wasn't in Africa or part of African history.
You aren't fooling anybody but yourself with your posting of as you yourself call it, "Afrocentric misinformation".
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I have nothing against serious Africana studies and serious Egyptology whichever people conduct it (Africans, Americans, Europeans or Asians). What I am against is silly pseudo history that some people spread on the net. Everyone who is interested in history and archaeology should be against the spreading of pseudo history and pseudo science.
And just exactly is posting that misinformation here in a thread about Egyptians ending people on the internet posting misinformation? Just exactly how is that supposed to work? Is this place supposed to be the internet police? It is not. You are posting those things in order to support the claim that serious African scholarship about the ancient Nile is based on falsehoods as if it isn't factually part of African history. You keep doing this knowing full well that is what you are doing. Just the idea itself that the history of the Nile isn't African history it in itself misinformation and psuedoscience and if that is what you are supporting then again, you are pushing misinformation and pseudoscience.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Most of the pseudo fringe types that promote nonsense online are not scholars. I respect real scholars, African and non African, but not pseudo armchair historians who promote all sorts of homemade theories.
And if they are fringe types why post them here when nobody is following them and promoting their "fringe ideas" here except you? Again, seems like you are obsessed with fringe pseudoscience as opposed to serious scholarship.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: This thread is supposed to be about Egyptians who express their opinions about or lecture about ancient Egypt, or about their debates with certain Afrocentrists.
There seems to be a fear among some Egyptians that Afrocentrism poses a threat to the legitimacy of modern Egyptians as "real" Egyptians and as inheritors of ancient Egyptian culture.
So here is the Egyptian author and filmmaker Ashraf Ezzat discussing Afrocentrism in this video
quote:Ashraf Ezzat, is Egyptian born in Cairo and based in Alexandria. He is graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Dr. Ezzat is also an independent researcher in ancient history and comparative religion and mythology. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Egyptian Museum, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the National Museum of Alexandria.
And where in that video does Mr Azzat show that the Nile is not completely in Africa or that the history of the Nile starts with Africans, including the ancient dynastic kingdom? Or is he just arm waving about "Afrocentrics" without addressing those facts of history that are obvious. And who are these so-called "Afrocentrics" that he is claiming are stealing African history? Does he name any of them and does he acknowledge actual serious scholarship on the ancient history of the Nile from Africans and non Africans showing it as a part of African history? And does he address the history of how all those artifacts from the Nile Valley got into European hands in the first place, as a result of modern Egyptians largely allowing them to take it?
quote: And yet Ahmed, a sprightly woman in her late 60s, won’t abandon her home. Not now, not ever, she insists. As one of the few remaining inhabitants of the Egyptian community of Qurna, she’s intent on dying where she was born. If nothing else, she’s keen to drag out one of the most contentious chapters in archaeology a little longer. “We are victims of one of the great injustices,” she says, angrily gesticulating at the police post at the foot of the hill. “They took our houses. They took our culture. They took our way of life. This is unforgivable.”
Om Ahmed is one of the few remaining inhabitants of Qurna.
Ever since the earliest days of organized antiquities excavation in Egypt, some 200 plus years ago, archaeologists and government officials have fixated on Qurna, Om Ahmed’s once sizable village. Strung across the low arid hills of the Nile’s west bank, among the tombs of the Theban Necropolis and across from Luxor, it stood at the heart of one of the world’s largest concentrations of historic treasures. Throughout the great, headline-spinning excavations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the village and its inhabitants played a pivotal supporting role. Qurnawis did the grunt work as Howard Carter uncovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. Even now they provide the bulk of labor on many dig sites.
But Qurna itself, authorities in Cairo soon decided, was more horror than help. Its residents were using their proximity to the antiquities to loot on an industrial scale, they said. Their houses, inside the ancient pharaonic-era tombs, and later on top of them, were damaging precious heritage. As antiquities officials and the archaeological community struggled to stymie widespread grave robbing from the late 1900s, many came to see Qurna as the most in-your-face illustration of their impotence. The battle lines had been drawn. “The [Qurnawis] are a key part of the story of the area, but archaeologists have denied them any history on the mountain,” says Caroline Simpson, a researcher and longtime campaigner for the villagers’ cause. “They’ve been horribly treated.”
This sordid saga first began in the late 1700s, when European adventurers started journeying up the Nile in real numbers. They were enchanted by the temples, many of which were still buried ceiling-deep in sand, and beguiled by the almost impossibly green riverside fields. The only thing that didn’t meet their romantic expectations were many of the locals themselves. “These rascally fellahs,” wrote Charles Sonnini de Manoncourt, a French naturalist after a visit to ancient Thebes in 1800. “This truly detestable place.”
ce the capital of Middle and New Kingdom Egypt, Thebes had been mostly reduced to ruins and rubble by the time the foreigners began to arrive about 5000 years later. The great temples, previously accessible only to high priests, had been savaged by the elements and cannibalized for building materials by subsequent rulers. And some of the villages that developed in their stead were populated by bandits and political dissidents fleeing the short arm of the state in Cairo to the north. Still largely intact, however, were most of the ancient burial grounds in which dozens of pharaohs and thousands of noblemen had been laid to rest – many under Qurna.
When Napoleon returned home after his invasion and occupation of Egypt from 1798-1801, weighed down with richly detailed accounts of Luxor’s splendors, antipathy towards the Qurnawis only hardened. European powers started clamoring for pharaonic antiquities collections of their own. It became a question of prestige, an ‘obelisk race’ to unearth buried treasures, with the people living among the tombs cast as unfair and uncultured competition.
The villagers have, at times, been their own worst enemy, never more so than when, in 1871, Qurna resident Ahmed Abdel Rasool hit pay dirt in the jagged bluffs overlooking the Temple of Hatshepsut. Closely guarding news of the discovery, he and his brother discreetely bartered away their treasures, including dozens of mummies, whenever they needed money. Legend has it that they even killed a donkey, and dumped its carcass down the tomb entrance in order to give other potential mummy snatchers the impression that the find was cursed. Some Qurnawis still wonder whether their continued association with this notorious crime ultimately proved their undoing. “We had a famous thief living among us, so maybe people thought we were all like this,” says Ahmed Abdel Rady, the curator of a small museum dedicated to Qurna’s recent history.
Similarly egregious bursts of looting followed over the subsequent decades. A villager found and sold a sacred boat, dating from the 18th Dynasty, roughly 3,500 years ago, allegedly acquiring 40 acres of land with the proceeds. Soon afterwards, other Qurnawis discovered and then melted down dozens of elaborate gold trinkets, arousing understandable outrage among archaeologists. With the much-celebrated opening of King Tut’s tomb, locals imagined that many of the other 3,000 to 4,000 tombs that dot the Nile’s west bank contained similar riches and began to comb the Necropolis accordingly. “This all really started after [Tut],” says Abdou Osman Tai Daramali, a native Qurnawi and foreman on a Swiss-led archaeological dig. “It made people think that all tombs had a lot of gold.” As first the Great Depression and then World War II struck, depriving the Luxor area of tourists, desperate locals turned to looting with abandon. Qurna’s nefarious reputation was sealed.
That, however, is only half the story, Qurnawis say, and the only half that some officials and archaeologists care to remember. Who, after all, was buying these treasures?, the erstwhile locals ask. And who was ferrying them out of Egypt? “Obviously not us,” says Said Morsi, who runs a restaurant across the road from Dra’ Abu Al-Naga’, one of the half dozen or so hilltop hamlets that collectively made up Qurna. “It’s not like we can take things to the airport and fly them out.”
At the root of the villagers’ enduring anger is a sense that they were only a cog in a big international swindle. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, there was little systematic grave robbing for collecting purposes, nor it seems even that large a population living among the tombs (though tomb raiding had flourished in the ancient era). It was only when foreign buying agents, among them representatives of the French, British, Russian, Belgian and Italian governments, set up camp looking to pad out both public and private collections back home that the exporting of Egypt’s patrimony really took off.
“Because mining for mummies was both illegal and religiously suspect, Europeans themselves will have been instrumental in setting up lines of communications, supply routes, and the organization and oversight of local suppliers,” writes Kees van der Spek, author of the Modern Neighbors of Tutankhamun: History, Life, and Work in the Villages of the Theban West Bank. Foreign Egyptologists, most of whom were French, dominated Cairo’s antiquities ministry well into the 20th century. Under their watch, half of excavated treasures were turned over to the Egyptian state, and the rest were dispatched abroad. (Until 1947, the Egyptian Museum sold genuine antiquities from its gift shop.)
Ahmed Abdel Rasool is a descendant of a famous tomb raider. Roger Anis
quote:You don't need to post so-called "Afrocentrics" in order to show that modern Egyptians have interest in ancient history. The idea that somehow they only care about their ancient history because of so-called "Afrocentrics" is absurd and ridiculous. And not to mention you expose yourself by claiming to be so concerned about African Americans and the history of the Nile, but you aren't from the Nile and propose to sit here and tell people what is and isn't factual about African history. Again, you are doing your usual passive aggressive trolling trying to portray the idea that the Nile Valley is in Africa and has always been in Africa and always been part of African history as somehow pseudoscience when it is not. This is the point you keep trying to push with obsessing over Afrocentrics, which is to suggest that the Nile being part of African history is somehow unscientific and unfactual. And you do so by posting so called Afrocentrics that you claim are frauds in order to justify posting modern Egyptians saying that the ancient Nile Valley wasn't in Africa or part of African history.
You aren't fooling anybody but yourself with your posting of as you yourself call it, "Afrocentric misinformation".
Most Egyptians who are interested in their history is it of course not because of Afrocentrics. They just happens to be interested in their own history. Some just get annoyed when African American Afrocentrics try to tell them who their ancestors were.
Africa is a continent and not one country with one people. Have you seen Japanese claiming India online or Chinese obsessing over Iranian history? Still they all live in Asia.
African Americans come from another part of Africa than Egyptians. They have not more to do with Egypt than Koreans have to do with Afghanistan-
Most African Americans are not Egyptians, they never were Egyptians and will never be Egyptians.
quote:And where in that video does Mr Azzat show that the Nile is not completely in Africa or that the history of the Nile starts with Africans, including the ancient dynastic kingdom? Or is he just arm waving about "Afrocentrics" without addressing those facts of history that are obvious. And who are these so-called "Afrocentrics" that he is claiming are stealing African history? Does he name any of them and does he acknowledge actual serious scholarship on the ancient history of the Nile from Africans and non Africans showing it as a part of African history? And does he address the history of how all those artifacts from the Nile Valley got into European hands in the first place, as a result of modern Egyptians largely allowing them to take it?
As I showed earlier there are Afrocentrics who claim that todays Egyptians are just invaders and not the "real" Egyptians. It is such ideas some Egyptians react on (including Mr Azzat) and protest against.
There are of course also Egyptians who protest against the European stealing of Egyptian artifacts and who demand that they should be returned. Zahi Hawass has done that, and even Nora have started a petition about France returning artifacts back to Egypt.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Most Egyptians who are interested in their history is it of course not because of Afrocentrics. They just happens to be interested in their own history. Some just get annoyed when African American Afrocentrics try to tell them who their ancestors were.
The only people who get annoyed is those who say that the ancient Nile Valley was not and is not in Africa and the populations of the ancient Nile did not originate in Africa. All of which are facts. Somehow you keep trying to use these Egyptians as "proof" the Nile isn't in Africa and that the ancient people of the Nile weren't primarily Africans.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Africa is a continent and not one country with one people. Have you seen Japanese claiming India online or Chinese obsessing over Iranian history? Still they all live in Asia.
Ahhh, so now your argument is that Africa is a country now? Because otherwise, Japanese and Indians are Asians so it is a false equivalence to compare the countries of Japan and India to a continent like Africa. Again, you seem to be trying to try and argue that any African scholar who claims the ancient Nile Valley people were African and that the ancient Dynastic kingdoms of the Nile were African is somehow promoting "Afrocentric misinformation". But those things are not misinformation and you claiming they are is misinformation, no matter how you try and use the excuse of "Afrocentric Misinformation" to spread your own misinformation.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: African Americans come from another part of Africa than Egyptians. They have not more to do with Egypt than Koreans have to do with Afghanistan-
Most African Americans are not Egyptians, they never were Egyptians and will never be Egyptians.
African Americans aren't the issue, the issue is that the Nile is completely in Africa and has always been in Africa and the ancient populations on the Nile originated in Africa. You seem to be trying to promote falsehoods as if somehow "Egyptians" have proof the Nile Valley isn't in Africa and the ancient populations on the Nile didn't originate in Africa. And your excuse for pushing this nonsense using passive aggressive tactics is "Afrocentric misinformation" when the truth is the only one promoting misinformation is you.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: As I showed earlier there are Afrocentrics who claim that todays Egyptians are just invaders and not the "real" Egyptians. It is such ideas some Egyptians react on (including Mr Azzat) and protest against.
There are of course also Egyptians who protest against the European stealing of Egyptian artifacts and who demand that they should be returned. Zahi Hawass has done that, and even Nora have started a petition about France returning artifacts back to Egypt.
And you seem to have a basic problem with facts and history because the Arab invasion of Egypt is documented history that was written about by various sources including in Arabic. And I literally posted those sources previously in response to you on another thread. That itself is a fact. Just like it is also a fact that the Nile Valley is still in Africa and has always been in Africa and never has been in Eurasia, Arabia or anywhere else. Which means anybody who states those facts are considered "Afrocentric" because you don't like facts and want to label all Africans stating those facts as the problem.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:The only people who get annoyed is those who say that the ancient Nile Valley was not and is not in Africa and the populations of the ancient Nile did not originate in Africa. All of which are facts. Somehow you keep trying to use these Egyptians as "proof" the Nile isn't in Africa and that the ancient people of the Nile weren't primarily Africans.
Most people get annoyed when foreigners try to define their history. That goes for Egyptians too.
quote:African Americans aren't the issue, the issue is that the Nile is completely in Africa and has always been in Africa and the ancient populations on the Nile originated in Africa. You seem to be trying to promote falsehoods as if somehow "Egyptians" have proof the Nile Valley isn't in Africa and the ancient populations on the Nile didn't originate in Africa. And your excuse for pushing this nonsense using passive aggressive tactics is "Afrocentric misinformation" when the truth is the only one promoting misinformation is you.
That is a separate issue. Some Afrocentrics online are spreading misinformation and behave in a bad way, it has nothing to do with if the Nile valley is in Africa or not. Most people are aware of that.
quote:Ahhh, so now your argument is that Africa is a country now? Because otherwise, Japanese and Indians are Asians so it is a false equivalence to compare the countries of Japan and India to a continent like Africa. Again, you seem to be trying to try and argue that any African scholar who claims the ancient Nile Valley people were African and that the ancient Dynastic kingdoms of the Nile were African is somehow promoting "Afrocentric misinformation". But those things are not misinformation and you claiming they are is misinformation, no matter how you try and use the excuse of "Afrocentric Misinformation" to spread your own misinformation.
The issue is that Africa is NOT a country but a continent. So for African American to obsess over Egypt is as logical as Koreans should obssess over India. They come from another part of Asia, just as the ancestors of African Americans came from another part of Africa than Egypt.
The ancestors to African Americans were never Egyptians.
quote:And you seem to have a basic problem with facts and history because the Arab invasion of Egypt is documented history that was written about by various sources including in Arabic. And I literally posted those sources previously in response to you on another thread. That itself is a fact. Just like it is also a fact that the Nile Valley is still in Africa and has always been in Africa and never has been in Eurasia, Arabia or anywhere else. Which means anybody who states those facts are considered "Afrocentric" because you don't like facts and want to label all Africans stating those facts as the problem.
I have no problem with facts, just problems with arrogant Americans sitting on the net trying to tell other peoples who those peoples ancestors were and how they looked like. And it seems some Egyptians also have problems with those individuals.
Posted by BrandonP (Member # 3735) on :
I for one honestly find the OP's fixation on Afrocentrists to be a bit weird. Sure, hoteps are annoying, but they're hardly the most influential or dangerous crackpots out there. Outside the African diaspora, most hoteps do not nearly have the reach or influence of, say, Graham Hancock or Erich von Daniken. That's not to say they should never be called out, but a White Swedish guy singling them out for rebuke as often as the OP does is suspicious to me. He'll wax poetic about how the "Aboriginal American" hoteps are appropriating Native American cultures and history, but what does he have to say about the Solutrean hypothesis or the claims that were being thrown about Kennewick Man's supposedly "Caucasoid" affinities? It's not just Black people who have tried to claim Native culture and history for themselves, I can tell you that much.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brandon I for one honestly find the OP's fixation on Afrocentrists to be a bit weird.
Well there are other white guys who have zoomed in on half naked African girls with big assets, so the concept of weirdness can be a bit relative.
quote:Sure, hoteps are annoying, but they're hardly the most influential or dangerous crackpots out there. Outside the African diaspora, most hoteps do not nearly have the reach or influence of, say, Graham Hancock or Erich von Daniken. That's not to say they should never be called out, but a White Swedish guy singling them out for rebuke as often as the OP does is suspicious to me. He'll wax poetic about how the "Aboriginal American" hoteps are appropriating Native American cultures and history, but what does he have to say about the Solutrean hypothesis or the claims that were being thrown about Kennewick Man's supposedly "Caucasoid" affinities? It's not just Black people who have tried to claim Native culture and history for themselves, I can tell you that much.
I first came in contact with the more extreme kind of Afrocentrists when I got invited by a couple of Native American friends to a social media group that debunked Afrocentric pseudo science in the context of Native American history and prehistory. Some of those pseudo historians were just annoying, but there were some of them who behaved upright nasty against my Native friends. They even harrassed them in DM and in audio calls. Native women were called "hoes" and Natives overall were called "Siberian invaders", "Mongoloids", even "animals". So some of those people were more than annoying.
But we also debunked Eurocentrics concerning for example the Kennewick man, the Solutrean hypothesis, Welsh Natives and other weird ideas. Strangely enough those who promoted those ideas were not so toxic or aggressive against us as some Afrocentric extremists.
Then I have seen that some extreme Hoteps and Blackcentrics act in similar ways against Egyptians and North Africans online.
The reason that I started to discuss Afrocentric pseudo people here on ES is that also some posters here have now and then forwarded different pseudo theories, in particular when concerning Native American history, but also concerning Egyptian and other history. Not long ago we had a poster who proposed that Abraham Lincoln was black, and he also claimed that one hieroglyph told how more or less all Egyptians looked like during the whole history of Dynastic Egypt and even later. In this case the poster was finally banned when he promoted revisionist ideas.
When it concerns ancient Aliens, Atlantis or Odysseus adventures in the Baltic (with Troy located in Finland) I have called out such ideas mostly on Swedish foras.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I for one honestly find the OP's fixation on Afrocentrists to be a bit weird. Sure, hoteps are annoying, but they're hardly the most influential or dangerous crackpots out there.
but the art you sell is very hotep so isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: This thread is supposed to be about Egyptians who express their opinions about or lecture about ancient Egypt, or about their debates with certain Afrocentrists.
There seems to be a fear among some Egyptians that Afrocentrism poses a threat to the legitimacy of modern Egyptians as "real" Egyptians and as inheritors of ancient Egyptian culture.
So here is the Egyptian author and filmmaker Ashraf Ezzat discussing Afrocentrism in this video
quote:Ashraf Ezzat, is Egyptian born in Cairo and based in Alexandria. He is graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Dr. Ezzat is also an independent researcher in ancient history and comparative religion and mythology. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Egyptian Museum, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the National Museum of Alexandria.
And who are these so-called "Afrocentrics" that he is claiming are stealing African history? Does he name any of them and does he acknowledge actual serious scholarsh
If you watch the video he names several people
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: Most people get annoyed when foreigners try to define their history. That goes for Egyptians too.
The point is that the Nile Valley is in Africa and the history of the Nile is African. To sit here and argue that Egyptians being mad at "Afrocentrics" makes it OK to promote the idea that the ancient history of the Nile isn't African is to promote misinformation and fraud yourself. And the point I am making is you aren't fooling anybody with your nonsense about being concerned about Afrocentric frauds. You just want to push the idea that Nile Valley history isn't African, when it is. Stop kidding yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: That is a separate issue. Some Afrocentrics online are spreading misinformation and behave in a bad way, it has nothing to do with if the Nile valley is in Africa or not. Most people are aware of that.
The Nile being in Africa is the core issue and the fact that the ancient history of the Nile is primarily African history featuring black African people. That is the only "Afrocentric" concept that has been debated for over 50 years. For you to sit here and pretend that this isn't the issue and hasn't always been the issue is again you promoting misinformation and being a fraud. This forum has been debating this specific topic for many years, yet you sit here and act like somehow nobody understands or knows about all sides of this issue as if somehow we needed you to come and explain it to us, when you only have been on this forum for a relatively short time. So all of this idea that you are addressing something nobody here isn't already aware of is again you yourself posting misinformation.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: The issue is that Africa is NOT a country but a continent. So for African American to obsess over Egypt is as logical as Koreans should obssess over India. They come from another part of Asia, just as the ancestors of African Americans came from another part of Africa than Egypt.
Who said it was a country? You compared Africa to Japan and India, when both are in Asia. Obviously you are the one promoting misinformation if you think the word Africa is the same as Japan or India as countries. You keep pushing this nonsense that somehow you can avoid the facts of history by relying on proxy arguments from other folks on social media as if nobody is going to catch on to what you are doing. This is nothing but you trying to avoid a direct confrontation here on facts with people who are as interested in the truth as anybody else. But you want to pretend that only you care about facts and nobody else. Again, the core issue of debate around the Nile has always been that it is in Africa, has always been in Africa and that the ancient populations on the Nile were primarily African. This has been identified as the "Afrocentric" view since the 1990s. There is no other meaning for "Afrocentric" other than meaning "African centered or African oriented". So to say the ancient Nile was a culture originating in Africa is by definition "Afrocentric". And this point of view has always been rejected primarily by European Egyptology that promotes the ancient Nile Valley as some kind of "other", either being Eurasian or "mixed" but not African. That has always been the issue, you know it and everybody here knows it. The idea that you think you are breaking down this issue for the first time or revealing something that nobody is aware of is again you promoting promoting misinformation yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: The ancestors to African Americans were never Egyptians.
As stated above, the fact that the Nile Valley is in Africa and has always been in Africa and that the ancient people there originated in Africa is not an "African American" issue. Again, that is you promoting misinformation, because there is no "other" history and geography of the Nile valley, no matter how you try and claim there is. Just like for most of their history Africans have lived in Africa and there were no "African Americans" 1000 years ago, let alone 5,000 years ago.
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: I have no problem with facts, just problems with arrogant Americans sitting on the net trying to tell other peoples who those peoples ancestors were and how they looked like. And it seems some Egyptians also have problems with those individuals.
You obviously do because the original derogatory meaning of Afrocentric came from African scholars calling the ancient Nile Valley an African culture and people originating in Africa. By definition that is what African centered means. There is nothing you are doing here that is challenging those facts because the Nile being in Africa and always having been in Africa is not up for debate. It is a fact. Just as the ancient populations of the Nile also being primarily of African origin is also a fact. And that is the core of the so called "Afrocentric" point of view you claim is misinformation, when it is not.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: The Nile being in Africa is the core issue and the fact that the ancient history of the Nile is primarily African history featuring black African people. That is the only "Afrocentric" concept that has been debated for over 50 years.
Pre-Columbian Africans in the Americas and Black Chinese are other examples of Afrocentric theory and there are more of course, see George GM James , Runko Rashidi etc
They Came Before Columbus was written 47 years ago and James' books in the 50s
But Youtube is the new educator with much greater reach potential. Mr. Imhotep has 47 millions views King's Monolgue 11.8 Million views. Some of their videos have polished professional documentary level editing. Books don't get that kind spread these days. In addition Egyptian themes in music videos
Whether or not the Ancient Egyptians were primarily native Africans or primarily foreign settlers, the fact that Egypt was located in the place called Africa does not exclude either of these claims. The name of the continent does not resolve the issue
Look at the view counts on this. While we are here discussing dry academic articles on outdated forum formats these are the new educators, on youtube with a lot more influence on average people and the youth
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Archaeopteryx: An entertaining and colorful book review where Chief X warns about an Afrocentric pseudo book
The danger with the fringe Afrocentrism is that many laymen and historically ignorant people buy into it and even spread it to their children. Fringe books for both grown ups and children are sold and fringe videos and sites can be found over internet. A lot of desinformation which make people confused.
Archeopteryx, these posts you have been doing they are kind of on name calling level. You keep saying watch this of that video but we are beyond that in this forum, have been going over these detail for years You need to extract specific statements to discus from a video, not just say "Afrocentrics are wrong, watch this video", bring out specific things you thing are wrong that you agree with in the video
quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
So here is the Egyptian author and filmmaker Ashraf Ezzat discussing Afrocentrism in this video
quote:Ashraf Ezzat, is Egyptian born in Cairo and based in Alexandria. He is graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Dr. Ezzat is also an independent researcher in ancient history and comparative religion and mythology. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Egyptian Museum, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the National Museum of Alexandria.
8:52 he says "Afrocentricity discovered they could not compete with the European West by highlighting the history of Zulu and Masai tribes, cattle hunters, spear warriors and drinkers of cattle blood"
This comes off as kind racist
Then at 9:59 continuing on about Afrocentricity he compares: "This is exactly a repetition of the scenario of the Jews and their attempt to hijack an Ancient Egyptian history be deceitfully inserting their stories into an Egyptian history and geography. Every community that has no civilization or a bright history tends to hover over Egyptian civilization, no, WE are the children of Egyptian civilization."
^^ more foul spirited remarks
Then at 15:54 he is talking about Maiherpri who some scholars think was Nubian (lathough can't prove) and he compares him to a famous painting of the 19th dynasty artisan Sennedjem and his wife Iineferti, harvesting grain in the afterlife
He suggests that this particular image of Sennedjem represents the typical Egyptian skin color
^^ there is variation in the art but we all know this skin color is more typical
It seems dishonest to me to pick out that painting of Sennedjem
And here is Sennedjem again in the same tomb but this time a medium brown color that multitudes of other Africans also have
___________________________________________
So I can't give any credit to Ashraf Ezzat.
He's a bullshitter in my opinion
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Archeopteryx, these posts you have been doing they are kind of on name calling level.
quote:He's a bullshitter in my opinion
Names, names, names
I do not claim that he is right in everything he says. I just thought it interesting to hear what some Egyptians say about these subjects.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
Names are alright if you deal with quotes of what a person says first. Egypt today has people in it with varying political agendas, so one does not represent all
Let's hear what an Egyptian of today of this skin color has to say
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Archeopteryx, these posts you have been doing they are kind of on name calling level. You keep saying watch this of that video but we are beyond that in this forum, have been going over these detail for years You need to extract specific statements to discus from a video, not just say "Afrocentrics are wrong, watch this video", bring out specific things you thing are wrong that you agree with in the video
In that specific video Chief X scolds a book called MAAT: Guiding Principles of Moral Living by Ife Kilimanjaro, Tdka Kilimanjaro, Yahra Aaneb and T'Gama Heru
What he got annoyed about was that in 2021 the authors of that book still promoted the African Olmec theory.
That is why he did not recommend anyone to buy the book.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
Let's hear what an Egyptian of today of this skin color has to say
Did not find anyone for the moment but I earlier heard a video made by a Sudanese, or Sudanese descendant, man about DNA in ancient Egypt. He mentions the Abusir study but also some other samples
quote: In this video I will be showing genetic evidence that modern Egyptians are indeed descendants of ancient Egyptian populations, using multiple samples throughout different periods of the Ancient Egyptian History, going back to the Middle Kingdom.
Egyptian Egyptologists and guide Ahmed Seddik has made some short videos where he guides the viewer to different sites in Egypt
Seddik Speak Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
Different Egyptians have different perspectives. And by different, I mean depending on ethnic background. The true descendants of pharaonic Egyptians are the Baladi, particularly those from rural areas but they tend to be marginalized. Instead the Egyptians that hold most of the power including media are the Afrangi who are foreign extraction.
Baladi Egyptologist
Zahi Hawass is Afrangi from Damietta which was historically an Arab colonial city.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Ashraf Ezzat, is Egyptian born in Cairo and based in Alexandria. He is graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Dr. Ezzat is also an independent researcher in ancient history and comparative religion and mythology. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Egyptian Museum, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the National Museum of Alexandria.
Then he is obviously an Afrangi.
quote:8:52 he says "Afrocentricity discovered they could not compete with the European West by highlighting the history of Zulu and Masai tribes, cattle hunters, spear warriors and drinkers of cattle blood"
This comes off as kind racist
Is he aware that the predynastic ancestors of the Egyptians were no different?-- cattle pastoralists who fed on the milk and blood of their cattle?
quote:Then at 9:59 continuing on about Afrocentricity he compares: "This is exactly a repetition of the scenario of the Jews and their attempt to hijack an Ancient Egyptian history be deceitfully inserting their stories into an Egyptian history and geography. Every community that has no civilization or a bright history tends to hover over Egyptian civilization, no, WE are the children of Egyptian civilization."
^^ more foul spirited remarks
I don't see how the Jewish/Biblical story is a "hijacking". Their story was that they were Asiatics who sought refuge in Egypt from a famine and lived there for a few centuries as laborers who were later exploited as slaves before leaving. How is this a "hijacking" of Egyptian culture. Meanwhile he himself of Asiatic and likely European ancestry claiming Egyptian culture so what is that?
quote:Then at 15:54 he is talking about Maiherpri who some scholars think was Nubian (although can't prove) and he compares him to a famous painting of the 19th dynasty artisan Sennedjem and his wife Iineferti, harvesting grain in the afterlife.
Maiherpri in all likely hood was Nubian but he was obviously adopted by the Egyptian royal house which was why he was buried in the Valley of the Kings. I have yet to see an example of an Asiatic or European being given the same treatment.
quote:He suggests that this particular image of Sennedjem represents the typical Egyptian skin color...
It seems dishonest to me to pick out that painting of Sennedjem
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
