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T O P I C     R E V I E W
tropicals redacted
Member # 21621
 - posted
"[W]e know something about what ancient Egyptians looked like because we have representations of them in visual art. They were not black Africans, they were Caucasians, think of the statue of Nefertiti that everybody has seen on some reproduction. Ummm, in the film there are some black characters and they are servants or probably slaves and I suspect that that's historically realistic."

(From 5min 16 secs:)
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=372466263&m=372526925


http://www.npr.org/2014/12/22/372466263/we-ask-a-scholar-how-does-ridley-scotts-exodus-compare-with-the-bibles
 
tropicals redacted
Member # 21621
 - posted
17/11/2014

"I was contacted by the makeup artist for that film last year. She said the eye colours weren't working on the actresses. I asked what colour they were and she said White. I responded by saying that was the problem. She then said we have done black actresses in the film and when I asked what parts they were playing, yep you guessed it- the slaves. I responded by saying that was racist. I then explained how this impacts on young black people. Doesn't look like she passed on the message to the director. It has to be the same film , she said it was a remake of the Ten Commandments with Christian Bale as the lead."
 
Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
Here is the loony toon, racist fool.

quote:

Robert Alter is Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Council of Scholars of the Library of Congress, and is past president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He has twice been a Guggenheim Fellow, has been a Senior Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, and Old Dominion Fellow at Princeton University.


Professor Alter has written widely on the European novel from the eighteenth century to the present, on contemporary American fiction, and on modern Hebrew literature. He has also written extensively on literary aspects of the Bible. His twenty-two published books include two prize-winning volumes on biblical narrative and poetry and award-winning translations of Genesis and of the Five Books of Moses. He has devoted book-length studies to Fielding, Stendhal, and the self-reflexive tradition in the novel. Books by him have been translated into eight different languages. Among his publications over the past twenty years are: Necessary Angels: Tradition and Modernity in Kafka, Benjamin, and Scholem (1991), The World of Biblical Literature (1992) and Hebrew and Modernity (1994). Professor Alter’s two most recent books are Imagined Cities (Yale, 2005) and Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (Norton, 2007). His new book, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible, will be published by Princeton early in 2010.
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http://nes.berkeley.edu/Web_Alter/Alter.html


Loon "alter", look:


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Loony "alter" you are a racist fool!
 
Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
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The famous bust of Queen Nefertiti believed to be 3,400 years old could be a fake, according to an art historian.
Henri Stierlin, who has studied the subject for 25 years, claims the bust of the Egyptian beauty is a 1912 copy.

He suggests it was made on the orders of German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, who is credited with finding the treasure on the banks of the Nile.

A spokesperson for the Neues Museum in Berlin, where the bust is housed, was not available for comment.

Egypt has demanded the return of the bust since it went on display in Berlin in 1923.

Swiss-born Stierlin, the author of several books on Egypt and the Middle East, said: "It seems increasingly improbable that the bust is an original."

Courage

Stierlin said Borchardt had hoped to produce a new portrait of the queen wearing a necklace he knew she had owned and also carry out a colour test with ancient pigments found at the digs.

But when the copy went on display in December 1912, it was much admired as an original work by a German prince and the archaeologist "couldn't sum up the courage to ridicule" his guests, Stierlin said.


The historian said he based his findings on several points, including the fact the bust has no left eye, which "is an insult for an ancient Egyptian who believed the statue was the person".

He also said the shoulders were cut vertically while Egyptians cut shoulders horizontally, and that Nefertiti's facial features were accentuated in a manner resembling an Art Nouveau style.

Written accounts

Stierlin claimed it was impossible to scientifically date the bust because it was made of stone covered in plaster, whereas the pigments were "really ancient"

And he said French archaeologists present at the dig never mentioned the find, nor did contemporary written accounts.
Stierlin added that the archaeologist "didn't even bother to supply a description, which is amazing for an exceptional work found intact".

But earlier this year, newly-published documents suggested Borchardt used trickery to smuggle the bust back to Germany.

According to those documents, he listed the bust among his finds in Egypt, but described it as a worthless piece of gypsum and hid it in a box.

The Neues Museum, which is currently closed, will reopen in October, with a new room for Queen Nefertiti's bust.


Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8038097.stm


Lol at this supposed to be Professor, who doesn't know ****! Your credentials need to be revoked! After years of teaching white supremacy, you have finally exposed yourself, the real reasoning behind your teachings.


A detail of a relief showing Nefertiti kissing her daughter, perhaps Meritaten, under the rays of the Aten:



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tropicals redacted
Member # 21621
 - posted
.
 
Doug M
Member # 7650
 - posted
Robert Alter is neither an anthropologist or Egyptologist so why does his opinion matter? I guess that just because he is white we are supposed to take his word on it huh? That itself is the issue.

And on the point of Egyptian art, you have literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of images from the 3,000 years of Egyptian history with in many cases hundreds if not thousands from individual tombs yet they always focus on one or two pieces as if those are the only pieces of art from ancient Egypt for us to look at. Come on, we have discussed this ad infinitum on this forum and folks are still trying to rehash old news....

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=000009;p=5

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=15;t=000266
 
Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
Of course Robert Alter is no anthropologist or egyptologist,but matters in the sense that he was skied to review the accuracy of the movie. And he made bold claims, and he expressed what he thinks on this matter. His position makes it fragile. And the reason for my rant, was because I was very upset listening to him saying all these inaccurate things.

So we have a movie based on "fiction", but the "black slaves / Africans" are accurate?


quote:

NPR's Robert Siegel asks Robert Alter, a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, for his thoughts on the film. Alter has translated most of the Hebrew Bible, including the five books of Moses, and he's a leading secular scholar of Scripture.


Well, of course, we know something about what ancient Egyptians looked like because we have representations of them in visual art; and they were not black Africans, they were Caucasians — think of the statue of Nefertiti that everybody has seen in some reproduction. In the film, there are some black characters and they are servants, or probably slaves, and I suspect that that's historically realistic. Now, as far as the Israelites proper, we don't really have visual representations of them. I would guess that most of them were on the dark side of Caucasian. On the other hand, we're told about David that he was either ruddy or a redhead, which would mean that he might have been very fair.


quote:

“Ancient finds in the Western Desert of Egypt at Gebel Ramlah circa 5,000 BC show culture closely linked with indigenous tropical Africans of both the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions, not Europe or the Middle East. Dental studies put the inhabitants of Gebel Ramlah, closest to indigenous tropical African populations.”

https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/online_journals/bmsaes/issue_13/kobusiewicz.aspx


-- Burial practices of the Final Neolithic pastoralists at Gebel Ramlah, Western Desert of Egypt

Michal Kobusiewicz, Jacek Kabacinski, Romuald Schild, Joel D. Irish and Fred Wendorf

British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 13 (2009): 147–74


quote:
There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.

In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas

[...]

Any interpretation of the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians must be placed in the context of hypothesis informed by the archaeological, linguistic, geographic or other data.

In this context the physical anthropological evidence indicates that the early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage, but exhibiting local variation.

This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection influenced by culture and geography"



--Kathryn A. Bard (STEPHEN E. THOMPSON Egyptians, physical anthropology of Physical anthropology)

https://www.academia.edu/1924147/Kathryn_A._Bard_The_Encyclopedia_of_of_the_Archaeology_of_Ancient_Egypt

http://www.bu.edu/archaeology/about-us/people/bard/


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kdolo
Member # 21830
 - posted
Alter is a Khazar Turk 'Jew'.

He has to do everything in his power to defend his fake identity that has been foisted upon him all his life.
 
Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
quote:
Originally posted by kdolo:
Alter is a Khazar Turk 'Jew'.

He has to do everything in his power to defend his fake identity that has been foisted upon him all his life.

I wonder if he sees those black slaves as Hebrews?


A Semitic slave. Ancient Egyptian figurine. Hecht Museum


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the lioness,
Member # 17353
 - posted
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Queen Tiye

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Ramses II-Colored Relief, Brooklyn Museum

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In movies Ramses II should be played by
a dark skinned person of African descent who has non-bushy naturally wavy-straight hair.
That would be closest to what we see in the art and the mummy
 
tropicals redacted
Member # 21621
 - posted
Nah,I'd go for a 'blind' facial reconstruction based on a CT scan. Then I'd cast according to the actor's likeness.
 
the lioness,
Member # 17353
 - posted
quote:
Originally posted by tropicals redacted:
Nah,I'd go for a 'blind' facial reconstruction based on a CT scan. Then I'd cast according to the actor's likeness.

So with a CT scan that does not indicate skin color or hair type, you would prefer a forensic artist, blind to this other evidence, simply make these things up
 
Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
Females from the same region as Queen Tiye.


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Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
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lamin
Member # 5777
 - posted
In empirical and scientific analysis the intelligent approach is to recognise that all types of evidence carry the same level of robustness. Some evidence may be circumstantial while other evidences could be direct.

At the most basic level we see it all the time especially with the U.S. police or with murders in general. Evidence may be "planted" as in the case of Police killings. In the case of murder, evidence could be planted to make the murder look like a suicide, etc.

Thus in the case of the mummy displays of Egyptian pharaohs we really don't know if the mummys in question actually belong to their reputed owners. It's all second hand and indirect.

That kind of evidence is much less secure than the hundreds of murals that the AEs left of themselves. The sculptures are also in that higher quality of evidence.

So to cheery pick a few dubiously harvested and putative remains of pharaohs does not provide robust statistical evidence of a civilisation that lasted 3,000 years, the longest to date.
 
lamin
Member # 5777
 - posted
Correction above: "All types of evidence DO NOT carry the same level of robustness.
 
tropicals redacted
Member # 21621
 - posted
@lioness
Facial reconstruction practitioners have told me that the results these days are broadly similar to the subject and recognisable by those who knew/know the individual.

To be sure, I would have each skull reconstructed 'blind' by three separate teams,and reference post-cranial information to narrow ethnicity where there was ambiguity.

Hair type and exact skin colour would be based on inference, although as one of the practitioners said, population backgrounds usually come through in the makeover(although I would say, when done in fair appreciation of diversity). THEN you would start casting with individuals who resembled the reconstruction.

This will not provide an exact representation, but it's more sensible than eye-balling mummies and images that were subject to artistic convention.
 
Ish Gebor
Member # 18264
 - posted
quote:
A CT-scan revealed that the skull had been filled with molten resin (a substance reserved primarily for royalty). It also showed that the abdomen had been cut open, organs removed, tightly wrapped with rolls of linen inserted. (This type of incision and procedure was used during Rameses I's time.) His back showed signs of arthritis, and one ear was severely infected.Finally, the high cheekbones and other facial features resemble other members of Rameses I's family.
http://www.mummytombs.com/egypt/featured.ramesesI.html
 
the lioness,
Member # 17353
 - posted
quote:
Originally posted by tropicals redacted:
@lioness
Facial reconstruction practitioners have told me that the results these days are broadly similar to the subject and recognisable by those who knew/know the individual.

To be sure, I would have each skull reconstructed 'blind' by three separate teams,and reference post-cranial information to narrow ethnicity where there was ambiguity.

Hair type and exact skin colour would be based on inference, although as one of the practitioners said, population backgrounds usually come through in the makeover(although I would say, when done in fair appreciation of diversity). THEN you would start casting with individuals who resembled the reconstruction.

This will not provide an exact representation, but it's more sensible than eye-balling mummies and images that were subject to artistic convention.

That is a massive fail. Look at the Tutankhamun reconstructions

So you have three blind reconstructions. Forensic artists working blindly GUESS the skin tone and hair and fleshier parts of the face based on CT scan. Then a director of a film says "I like this Nat Geo one of Tut, I'm using this"

Let me address your whole project now,
"Smith" = famous Egyptologist


1) FAIL

tropicals redacted: Some of the ancient Greeks said the Egyptians were black and there is evidence to support that, do you agree?

Smith: what do you mean black?

tropicals redacted: the Greeks said dark skinned and woolly haired

Smith: According to the mummies Ramses II and Queen Tiye didn't have wooly hair

tropicals adapted: but didn't they have dark skin?

Smith: Some may have but others may not have. There's no way of knowing about the masses other than making assumptions based on what could be artistic conventions

tropicals adapted:The paternal DNA of Ramses III was documented as African.

Smith: yes, that individual had E DNA but he is the only mummy that has been tested by current methods and in a peer reviewed article. A lot more needs to be done
_____________________________

2) SUCCESS
(mass letter campaign addressed to Hollywood director and Producer working on upcoming film about ancient Egypt)

All the major Pharoahs and military regiments in Egyptian art are depicted with dark skin. The paternal DNA of Ramses III was documented as African.
Please cast your film with sensitivity and accuracy.
I have enclosed a wide selection of photgraphs from major books on Egyptian art supporting this including the Pharoah in your upcoming film.


3) SUCCESS B (letters to black directors)

The Egyptians were African and all the major Pharoahs and military regiments are depicted in Egyptian art with dark skin.
I hope you get a chance to make a film on Ancient Egypt using actors with naturally dark skin.
If not and you know of an upcoming film on ancient Egypt please speak privately and as loudly as possible publically that the director and producers cast some dark skinned people in the major roles and prominently in depicting the general popualtion
 
Doug M
Member # 7650
 - posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
Of course Robert Alter is no anthropologist or egyptologist,but matters in the sense that he was skied to review the accuracy of the movie. And he made bold claims, and he expressed what he thinks on this matter. His position makes it fragile. And the reason for my rant, was because I was very upset listening to him saying all these inaccurate things.

So we have a movie based on "fiction", but the "black slaves / Africans" are accurate?


quote:

NPR's Robert Siegel asks Robert Alter, a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, for his thoughts on the film. Alter has translated most of the Hebrew Bible, including the five books of Moses, and he's a leading secular scholar of Scripture.


Well, of course, we know something about what ancient Egyptians looked like because we have representations of them in visual art; and they were not black Africans, they were Caucasians — think of the statue of Nefertiti that everybody has seen in some reproduction. In the film, there are some black characters and they are servants, or probably slaves, and I suspect that that's historically realistic. Now, as far as the Israelites proper, we don't really have visual representations of them. I would guess that most of them were on the dark side of Caucasian. On the other hand, we're told about David that he was either ruddy or a redhead, which would mean that he might have been very fair.


quote:

“Ancient finds in the Western Desert of Egypt at Gebel Ramlah circa 5,000 BC show culture closely linked with indigenous tropical Africans of both the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions, not Europe or the Middle East. Dental studies put the inhabitants of Gebel Ramlah, closest to indigenous tropical African populations.”

https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/online_journals/bmsaes/issue_13/kobusiewicz.aspx


-- Burial practices of the Final Neolithic pastoralists at Gebel Ramlah, Western Desert of Egypt

Michal Kobusiewicz, Jacek Kabacinski, Romuald Schild, Joel D. Irish and Fred Wendorf

British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 13 (2009): 147–74


quote:
There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.

In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas

[...]

Any interpretation of the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians must be placed in the context of hypothesis informed by the archaeological, linguistic, geographic or other data.

In this context the physical anthropological evidence indicates that the early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage, but exhibiting local variation.

This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection influenced by culture and geography"



--Kathryn A. Bard (STEPHEN E. THOMPSON Egyptians, physical anthropology of Physical anthropology)

https://www.academia.edu/1924147/Kathryn_A._Bard_The_Encyclopedia_of_of_the_Archaeology_of_Ancient_Egypt

http://www.bu.edu/archaeology/about-us/people/bard/


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Right. And once you accept these people as biased and racist when it comes to the history of Egypt the sooner you will stop entertaining this foolishness. This gentleman has no validity or reliability on the subject and is only being consulted because he is white and possibly because of his religion. Egypt has a large role in Jewish history and many have tried to make Egypt a kind of proto Jewish state when no such thing actually existed. But as has been pointed out over and over again on this site, white Europeans have an agenda and their actions continually reinforce and expose this agenda yet we still have folks sitting up here giving them a pass as if they are doing it out of blind naive objectivity or ignorance.

And as your pictures show there are no "proto semitic" white European looking folks in Egypt to this day as opposed to a combination of black African and mixed Mulatto looking populations. To even suggest that 5,0000 years ago these people turned into pure nonsense that isn't even remotely close to the facts on the ground. And these people are going to cling to what they believe facts be damned.
 
Brada-Anansi
Member # 16371
 - posted
Ish why muck about that head of Nefertiti, it's been proven to be a 20th cent.fraud created by the Germans.
 



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