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Message: HTML is not enabled. UBB Code™ is enabled.	[QUOTE]Originally posted by Doug M: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan- aka Enrique Cardova: [qb] [b]^ LOL Yeah, well the artists did take creative license to give uncommon eye colors to the Egyptians like blue, green, and hazel this is not to say the Egyptians really had this.[/b] I am glad the Nubian depictions seem to have real character and are not one dimensional types. There are inaccuracies as you say. And yet, in real historical terms, many of the Nubians could double as an Egyptian, given their close historic links. [IMG]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/2849/nubianegyptianlinks.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/8310/closenubianegyptianlink.jpg[/IMG] [/qb][/QUOTE]While I disagree with posting contemporary urban models with fake processed hair as an example of African diversity, your point is absolutely on point. Egypt was a Nile Valley civilization and therefore was physically closest to other populations of the Nile valley which would be those from Further south: Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. That is where you will find phenotypes ancestral to those of ancient Egypt as populations who migrated to the Nile Valley came generally from the South before anywhere else. Note: I don't use the term Nubia because no such thing ever existed in ancient times. It is a modern concoction used to create artificial "racial" distinctions in history where none existed. "Nubia" was only first attested in the GrecoRoman period. It probably is a corruption of the Egyptian word for Gold which is Nubt. Now, considering that the Egyptians put themselves above all others in their culture and cosmology, they would never describe foreigners as "golden ones", which is literally what Nubian would translate to in an ancient Egyptian context. Egyptians only reserved Nubt as a term of reference for their own people. The pharoah had a "Nubti" name, or golden throne name, among his many other titles. There was a gold trading town in ancient Egypt called Nubt that was an ancient gold trading center and the home of the deity Set. Set was often referred to in ancient Egyptian texts as Set the Nubti (Nubian). Only later after Greco-Roman occupation was this changed to Set the Ombite, as Ombos was the GrecoRoman name for Nubt. And gold was a symbol of eternity as seen in the golden coffins and shrines in the burial chambers. The ancient Egyptians did not use such a term as a reference to foreigners. [QUOTE] The "golden Horus name" Nebti name of Netjerikhet The Nebti-name of the Horus Netjerikhet is combined with the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" (later to become the introduction title of the prenomen) on the statue found in the Serdab of his mortuary complex at Saqqara. The meaning of the third part of the royal titulary, the "golden Horus name" Golden Horus , is (even) more disputed. It represents the falcon god Horus perched on a symbol that usually represents "gold". Based on the Greek equivalent of this title on the Rosetta Stone, which translates into English as "superior to (his) foes", it has been proposed that the hieroglyphs symbolised Horus as victorious over Seth, "the Ombite" (another possible reading of the hieroglyph on which the falcon is standing). This was, no doubt, the interpretation of Greek times, when the opposition between Horus and Seth was much more pronounced than in earlier times. For these earlier periods, however, the evidence may point in another direction. If the "golden Horus name" symbolised Horus’ victory over his enemy Seth, one might expect that the names following this group should be aggressive in nature, but most of the time, those names are far from being bellicose. Both Kheops of the 4th Dynasty and Merenre of the 6th Dynasty have the title with two falcons over the "gold" sign. These two falcons are frequently used as a symbolic representation of the reconciled gods Horus and Seth. Should the hieroglyph over which Horus is perched represent Seth, we have here an example of Horus and Seth both being indicated as vanquishers of Seth. In a context dealing with the titulary of Thutmosis III that king says "he (Amun) modelled me as a falcon of gold". Thutmosis III’s co-regent Hatshepsut calls herself "the female Horus of fine gold". The concept of the golden falcon can be definitely traced back to the 11th Dynasty. An inscription of the 12th Dynasty describes the golden Horus name as the "name of gold". The notion of "gold" is strongly linked to the notion of "eternity". The burial chamber in the royal tombs of the New Kingdom was often called the "golden room", not (only) because it was stacked up with gold, but because it was there for eternity. The "golden Horus name" may convey the same notion of eternity, expressing the wish that the king may be an eternal Horus. [/QUOTE] http://www.ancient-egypt.org/index.html So again, this is a blow to the fake distinctions modern archaeologists try and impose on ancient societies. Nubt doesn't even mean black but in their convoluted logic, they try and turn the word for Gold into a synonym for black, which is stupid. But on top of that, this concept of Nubia in modern times is the biggest strawman of all time. It pretends that an ancient nation state existed with a common ruling structure and coherent ethnic identity among all populations to the South of Egypt along the Nile, when no such thing existed. Egypt was the earliest nation state we know of along the Nile. But it was a Nile Valley civilization, meaning it grew out of the earlier cultures to the South. By making Nubia an ancient polity even before the rise of the Egyptian state, it allows for people to make up a political boundary between the two regions when none existed. Hence the reason for the need to concoct the concept of Nubia when none existed. It allows for them to create artificial boundaries between cultures along the Nile Valley in prehistory when none existed. A perfect example of these fake boundaries is black topped pottery. Black topped pottery is first found in Nabta Playa in the far South of Egypt. It is then found throughout Upper Egypt and Lower Sudan among many later cultures including early dynastic Egypt. But to hear the Egyptologists tell it, this is simply an "Egyptian tradition" distinct from those to the south. Please. That is nonsense. But you hear them over and over saying things like "Nubian black topped pottery" as if that means something. All black topped pottery originated in the same cultural context of Nile Valley societies before ancient Egypt. They are all part of the same cultural complex. Egypt is simply one expression of that same complex. There may have been political distinctions due to the rise of ancient Egypt as a political nation state, but that does not change the flow of culture in the Nile Valley from South to North. So even though there was no distinction, these people keep trying to reinforce one through the use of the therm Nubia, which is done on purpose to reinforce a "racial" distinction between the two populations, when none existed. That whole agenda clouds everything else, even as the strong links to the South are uncovered over and over again in their excavations, they keep maintaining this fake "Nubian" entity as some discrete "other" population that is somehow separate from Egypt. [QUOTE] The presence of Black-topped pottery as part of a larger ceramic complex that shares general features is important. This is first because this combination of features represents broad changes in technology, which will be discussed in detail below, and second because this complex, although referred to by a variety of cultural names, including Badarian, Tasian and A-Group, appears to be a widespread phenomenon. Broadly defined, this ceramic complex includes Black-topped pottery, Ripple-ware and tulip-shaped vessels, together or in conjunction with other vessels that fall within the more general Red/Brown, Qussier Clastic and Olive wares (as described in Nelson 2002b). The extent of this complex includes the Nabta Playa area (Nelson 2002a), the adjacent Gebel Ramlah (Kobusiewicz et al. 2004), Dakhleh Oasis (in the culture described as Bashendi B in McDonald 2002), Kukur Oasis (Darnell and Darnell 2006), as far east as the Eastern Desert at Wadi Atulla (Friedman and Hobbs 2002), southwards to Khartoum (see, for example, Arkell 1949, pls. 91–100) and beyond. This ceramic complex replaces the rocker-stamped and impressed wares that were also widespread. It is not possible within the scope of this paper to discuss all of the details of the distribution and variability of this new ceramic complex. Regardless, it is necessary to understand the broader changes that led to this transformation in pottery and to consider this transition within the larger context of the formation of cultures in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. [/QUOTE] http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_journals/bmsaes/issue_16/nelson_khalifa.aspx Click on the PDF for the full article. Here is another example of how such distinctions, especially in early Egyptian history are arbitrary and nonsensical: [QUOTE] Our present work has been organized in two different parts. The first was devoted to the study of Nubian sherds from previous excavations in order to determine if they were A-Group and to which phase they belonged. The second included a survey of localities where Nubian sherds had been found or we supposed they might be. Each morning I walked over the site with my long-suffering companion and guardian, Gamal. Together we would search the pottery-covered surface for clues of Nubian presence. Our main goal was to find an A-Group cemetery (as we have for the later Nubian C-Group) or a campsite. Unfortunately, it seems that neither are present at Hierakonpolis. However, we weren't completely unsuccessful. A handful of sherds were recovered and study of the pottery revealed different phases of A-Group interaction spanning several centuries. So they were here, and their artifacts can be still found in the predynastic settlements and cemeteries, if only in low percentages compared to the unbelievable amount of local pottery. [b]But we found no evidence for a real A-Group site or long-term presence here. This result actually fits well with what we know from the other Upper Egyptian sites. Up to now, it is only at Armant, just south of Luxor on the west bank, that what may be A-Group campsites and maybe a cemetery (but this is doubtful) have been found. A possible explanation for this is that A-Group society was so similar to that in predynastic Upper Egypt that there was a kind of equilibrium between them. These Nubian people were not living in the shade of the predynastic Egyptians, nor were they subservient to them in a colonial way. [/b]They had no need to leave their home in order to find food or employment in the big city. Given the growing desire for exotic goods like the obsidian from the temple, A-Group Nubians likely came to Egypt for transactions! [/QUOTE]From: http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/nubian.html But even here, where there is no real distinction, they keep reinforcing the concept of "Nubians" as distinct from "Egyptians" even when the before the presence of an Egyptian state or any references even to the word "Nubt" as in gold. 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