Argument on Egyptsearch about the blackness of ancient Egypt

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

After my defeat in the debate in the HoS, I've decided to argue with some proponents of the "black Egypt" hypothesis:

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultim ... 8;t=006724

This is my opening post:

I've just finished debating the StarDestroyer.net people, and honestly, I thought they had some valid points. Now, I am no longer certain the ancient Egyptians were black. To rebut some common claims made to argue for black Egyptians:

* People here make a big deal out of limb ratio studies purportedly showing the ancient Egyptians to have "tropical" limb ratios, but what people fail to take into account is that while Egypt is north of the Tropic of Cancer, it's still very hot for most of the year. Even winters are mild rather than truly cold. The only time Egypt truly gets cold is during the night time, when most Egyptians aren't even active.

* The melanin study cited by Evergreen which is claimed to show that Egyptians had "Negroid" melanin levels doesn't specify the exact amount of melanin beyond saying that it was within a "Negroid" range that is never clearly defined.

* Craniofacial studies (e.g. those of Keita) don't say anything about skin color, and often fail to take into account convergent evolution as a result of adapting to similar climates. Since Egyptians live in a hot climate, of course their craniofacial morphology would look more similar to that of Nubians and other Africans than to Europeans, regardless of their actual genetic relationships.

* People like to assert that the reason we have lighter-skinned Egyptians today is because of foreign invasions, but where is the genetic or other evidence that these invasions significantly affected the Egyptian population?

* Egyptian art is not meant to be realistic and therefore should not be used to back up any argument about their biological affinities one way or the other.

* And, of course, just being in Africa does not make one black.

Anyone here got any good counterarguments to these?

And one of the regulars' counter-arguments:

* People here make a big deal out of limb ratio studies purportedly showing the ancient Egyptians to have "tropical" limb ratios, but what people fail to take into account is that while Egypt is north of the Tropic of Cancer, it's still very hot for most of the year. Even winters are mild rather than truly cold. The only time Egypt truly gets cold is during the night time, when most Egyptians aren't even active.

It's sad that a person on ES as long as he's been can't put this argument down in his sleep. It's the stupidest argument I've ever seen. I mean, for goodness sake, it's been stated and observed repeatedly that the tropical body plan being described is not simply a regular adaptation to sub-tropical temperatures, but extreme temperatures, associated with southern zones as "their limb proportions are longer than that seen in many African populations", or as robins states, than that seen typically in West Africans. Is it hotter in West Africa than Egypt, Tyro? If yes (which it obviously is), then how the hell can this logic hold up? What is wrong with you?

Kemp also shows that there is no cline moving directly into Palestine, whose mediterranean climate is closer to that of most of Egypt's! Give me a break Tyro. Do modern Egyptians have this same extreme tropical body plan, if not, what changed? Who changed? What changed it? When did this change begin to take place and why?

Let me also quickly knock down your other objections.

The melanin study cited by Evergreen which is claimed to show that Egyptians had "Negroid" melanin levels doesn't specify the exact amount of melanin beyond saying that it was within a "Negroid" range that is never clearly defined.

Evergreen's melanin citation is good enough to suggest high melanin concentrations among the Egyptians yet by inference this is only confirmed. If you recall, Brace identified a direct correlation between elongated limbs and increased black pigmentation as they are guided by similar environmental stresses. The tropics begets black skin and long limbs. Combination of Allen's rule and Vitamin D theory. This is common sense. What's most probable, based on your own inductive reasoning Tryo? A light skinned African population with elongated limbs or a dark skinned African population with elongated limbs? What makes more sense, really, honestly? Consider how many light skinned populations with elongated limbs that you know of, compared to the dark skinned ones.

* Craniofacial studies (e.g. those of Keita) don't say anything about skin color, and often fail to take into account convergent evolution as a result of adapting to similar climates. Since Egyptians live in a hot climate, of course their craniofacial morphology would look more similar to that of Nubians and other Africans than to Europeans, regardless of their actual genetic relationships.

Cranio-facial similarity, I'll say this. Again, probability. In science we deal with what's most probable. Is it more probable that the similarity between Upper Egyptians (and per dendogram charts, Egyptians as a collective through out the dynastic) and contiguous Sudanese (your "Nubians") is due to covergent evolution, and not due simply to the fact they interacted and ultimately came from the same place as a people belonging to the same ethno-cultural group spanning a wide area with in the Nile valley and the Saharan periphery? Covergent evolution isn't an easy assumption to make since it is isolationist. It is usually applied to different species such as to explain similarities between Fish and Cetaceans. You'd have to make more assumptions. You'd have to assume that the Egyptians and Nubain cultural similarity has no correlation with their biological similarity. You'd have to also assume that they never intermingled to reinforce any chance similarity, effectively eliminating any explanation that involves chance resemblances. In addition, you'd have to assume, with out evidence that they were related to another people who lived farther away, didn't share a similar culture and wasn't in a position to interact to reinforce any genetic connection. Since the Nubians and Egyptians are geographically close and culturally similar, to attribute their phenotypical similarity to biological similarity doesn't involve a whole lot of assumptions to reach that conclusion, which brings us to occam's razor:

Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor), is the meta-theoretical principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one.

In this case, the simplest solution is that "Nubians and Egyptians" and therefore, Egyptians and other Africans are related. What about the recent study showing that not only were they similar, but mutually exclusive? You ignore a lot of data to keep this fake controversy brewing; you seem like an agent.

People like to assert that the reason we have lighter-skinned Egyptians today is because of foreign invasions, but where is the genetic or other evidence that these invasions significantly affected the Egyptian population?

In the varied Y-Chromosome and MtDNA profiles of various Egyptians, the question is identifying which markers are aboriginal and when the later ones got there. Keita wrote a detailed examination of this based on historical and archaeological data and states explicitly for example, that a lot of the J lineages are attributable to post-Islamic influence and Nebel notes the same. What's left actually is a predominance of E on the paternal side. Southern Egyptians carry East African maternal lineages at similar frequencies to Ethiopians. But which are aboriginal, the east African lineages or foreign ones? When did they get there? The historical interactions that explain the foreign lineages are well documented, what evidence is there to suggest that they DIDN'T affect the population when we have physical evidence to the contrary? To argue that the lineages were anciently present is begging the question and is making more assumptions. I know for one, Brace' 2006 dendogram shows ancient Egyptians clustering with modern Sudanese before they do so with modern Egyptians. Why Tyro? Is this easy to explain? How does this tie into the older Egyptian limb proportions? What kind of distorted logic can you offer to twist these implications? What's most probably at work here?

* Egyptian art is not meant to be realistic and therefore should not be used to back up any argument about their biological affinities one way or the other.

General blanket statement with no value. Of course Egyptian art depicts real people, this is really stupid to say.

* And, of course, just being in Africa does not make one black.

What does this have to do with contributing to your doubt that they weren't black? The point you evade is that they were FROM Africa, fully adapted to the flora and fauna since the inception of their identity. Being FROM Africa, makes you AFRICAN and being a native of Africa makes you Black according to my definition. Black = dark-skinned person of African ancestry (in my social context) and that's all that matters when discussing the idea of "blackness" in a modern social context. As for their biologcal affinities, it is clear that they were most closely related to the people you'd consider black as well, which makes you a hypocrite. Your doubts are unfounded and I think that you are psychotic as you change your position every 3 months.

[Junghalli]

Well, I'll repost the links I posted in the HoS.

GENETICS, EGYPT, AND HISTORY: INTERPRETING GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERNS OF Y CHROMOSOME VARIATION

To copy and paste from my summary from the other thread: ...the Middle Eastern and European VII, VIII, XII, and XV haplotypes are less than 10% in Upper Egypt while the "sub-Saharan" haplotype IV is the biggest one at 27.3%, and the second biggest (24.2%) is Horn-supra-saharan-African (it's more common in Ethiopia than Egypt and more common in Egypt than in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq). Now if the relatively light skin of modern Egyptians was due to interbreeding with Eurasians in the past few thousand years then why are the Eurasian and Middle Eastern haplotypes less than 10%? Yes, Horn-supra-saharan-African is common in the Middle East too, but it's less common there than in Egypt, and more common in Ethiopia than in either place, which is the exact opposite of what you'd expect if it was mostly introduced to Egypt from Eurasia.

Also: there's good archaeological evidence that gene flow between North Africa and Eurasia was already happening 12,000 years ago. 12,000 year old Moroccan remains had 90.5% Eurasian mitochondrial DNA. If Egyptians are light because of cross-breeding with Eurasians what makes the Afrocentrists think this hadn't already been happening for a good long time by the beginning of the First Dynasty, if 12,000 year old Moroccans had Eurasian DNA in them? Sure, it's possible that population was an anomaly or something, but it sort of puts the burden of proof on them to show that Egyptians of 5000 years ago were pure African (lol at the irony of this coming to a question of "racial purity").

(Mitochondrial diversity in the Taforalt population (circa 12,000 BP, Morocco): a genetic approach to the study of the peopling of North Africa.)

ABSTRACT:

The population exhumed from the archaeological site of Taforalt in Morocco (12,000 years BP) is a valuable source of information toward a better knowledge of the settlement of Northern Africa region and provides a revolutionary way to specify the origin of Ibero-Maurusian populations. Ancient DNA was extracted from 31 bone remains from Taforalt.The HVS1 fragment of the mitochondrial DNA control region was PCR-amplified and directly sequenced. Mitochondrial diversity in Taforalt shows the absence of sub-Saharan haplogroups suggesting that Ibero-Maurusian individuals had not originated in sub-Saharan region.Our results reveal a probable local evolution of Taforalt population and a genetic continuity in North Africa.

The genetic inheritance of Taforalt population (12,000 years) is composed of:

Eurasiatic component (J/T, H, U et V) and North African component (U6).

Genetic structure of Taforalt:

Eurasiatic Component : H, U, JT, V: 90.5%

North African component: U6: 9.5 %

■42, 8% (9/21) H or U
■14, 2% (3/21) JT
■2 individuals (9,5%) U6
In modern Human population, JT is presents only in:

1,6% Berbers from the North of Morocco
1,8% of Sicilians,
1,6% of Italians.
...
The analysis of the diversity of mitochondrial DNA taken from the Taforalt population reveals the existance of 13 haplotypes. This haplotype diversity is similar to that of Europeans, and Mediterranean of the Mahgreb, with the exception of Algerian people ( the Berber Mozabites and non-Berbers) compared to whom they who have less haplotype diversity. The haplotype diversity of the Taforalt population is less than that of near Eastern populations.
...
…the hypothesis of a sub Saharan origin of the Ibero-Maurussians in the Sahara is not supprted by our results, which show a popultion more typical of the Mediterranean in North Africa for the past 12,000 years. Our results support the work based on cranio-facial and dental studies showing difference between Ibero-Maurussians and their contemporaries in the Sudan. the presence of a sub Saharan component in North Africa is due to migrations after 12,000 BP.

What does this have to do with contributing to your doubt that they weren't black? The point you evade is that they were FROM Africa, fully adapted to the flora and fauna since the inception of their identity. Being FROM Africa, makes you AFRICAN and being a native of Africa makes you Black according to my definition. Black = dark-skinned person of African ancestry (in my social context) and that's all that matters when discussing the idea of "blackness" in a modern social context.

Ask him whether he considers modern Egyptians black. If he does then there isn't really a problem with saying that ancient Egyptians were black. If he doesn't ... well, then we have issues.

[Broomstick]

* The melanin study cited by Evergreen which is claimed to show that Egyptians had "Negroid" melanin levels doesn't specify the exact amount of melanin beyond saying that it was within a "Negroid" range that is never clearly defined.

It's not just the quantity of melanin that counts, it's also the type of melanin. Eumelanin is significantly darker than pheolomelanin

From Wikipedia, but it's nice and concise:

There are two different types of eumelanin, which are distinguished from each other by their pattern of polymer bonds[citation needed]. The two types are black eumelanin and brown eumelanin, with black melanin being darker than brown. Black eumelanin is in mostly non-Europeans and aged Europeans, while brown eumelanin is in mostly young Europeans. A small amount of black eumelanin in the absence of other pigments causes grey hair. A small amount of brown eumelanin in the absence of other pigments causes yellow (blond) color hair.

Pheomelanin is also found in hair and skin and is both in lighter skinned humans and darker skinned humans. In general women have more pheomelanin than men, and thus women's skin is generally redder than men's[citation needed]. Pheomelanin imparts a pink to red hue and, thus, is found in particularly large quantities in red hair.

Thus, it is not merely a matter of having a lot of melanin but also what sort of melanin. A lot of brown eumelanin with little black eumelanin might indicate European origin, whereas a moderate amount of black eumelanin might indicate African origin.

[Junghalli]

I've got something addressing the limb-length issue:

Mathilda's anthropology blog: limb length in ancient and modern Egyptians, compared:

In all ‘who were the Egyptians’ arguments, the single most important question is always ‘are the ancient Egyptians different to the modern?’ It is not enough to observe that the remains fit into the normal range for half a dozen different population samples, the point is… are they different to the people there now? Are the ancient population showing themselves to be essentially different to the modern.

One of the often quoted facts is that the ancient Egyptians come closer to black Americans than white Americans for limb length (an adaptation to a tropical climate). What these studies generally fail to comment on is the limb length of modern Egyptians. Modern Egyptians are the same as the ancient Egyptians.

This data is taken from a chart on page 92 of Stringer and Gamble (Stringer and Gamble, 1993, p. 92).

crural index = Tibia/Femur length
modern peoples 79% in Lapps
86% in Black African groups

Lapps 79% .25
modern Inuit 81.5% 4
Belgium 82.5% 10
S.African white 83.2% 8.5
Yugoslav 83.75% 8.4
American white 82.6% 9.8
Kalahari Bushman 83.4% 18
New MexicoIndian 84.6% 14
S.African black 86.4% 17
Arizona Indian 85.5% 18
Melanesian 84.8% 23
Pygmy 85.1% 24.2
Egyptian 84.9% 26.1
American Black 85.25% 26

Modern peoples limb length., on a page about Neanderthals and hybridisation.

<snip>

Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions
Sonia R. Zakrzewski *
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK

Abstract
Stature and the pattern of body proportions were investigated in a series of six time-successive Egyptian populations in order to investigate the biological effects on human growth of the development and intensification of agriculture, and the formation of state-level social organization. Univariate analyses of variance were performed to assess differences between the sexes and among various time periods. Significant differences were found both in stature and in raw long bone length measurements between the early semipastoral population and the later intensive agricultural population. The size differences were greater in males than in females. This disparity is suggested to be due to greater male response to poor nutrition in the earlier populations, and with the increasing development of social hierarchy, males were being provisioned preferentially over females. Little change in body shape was found through time, suggesting that all body segments were varying in size in response to environmental and social conditions. The change found in body plan is suggested to be the result of the later groups having a more tropical (Nilotic) form than the preceding populations. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Received: 19 February 2002; Accepted: 11 November 2002

Emphasis mine on the sentence describing little change in body shape.

Here are some more sources you may find useful:

Mitochondrial DNA transit between West Asia and North Africa inferred from U6 phylogeography:

Unfortunately I can only get access to the abstract:

BACKGROUND: World-wide phylogeographic distribution of human complete mitochondrial DNA sequences suggested a West Asian origin for the autochthonous North African lineage U6. We report here a more detailed analysis of this lineage, unraveling successive expansions that affected not only Africa but neighboring regions such as the Near East, the Iberian Peninsula and the Canary Islands. RESULTS: Divergence times, geographic origin and expansions of the U6 mitochondrial DNA clade, have been deduced from the analysis of 14 complete U6 sequences, and 56 different haplotypes, characterized by hypervariable segment sequences and RFLPs. CONCLUSIONS: The most probable origin of the proto-U6 lineage was the Near East. Around 30,000 years ago it spread to North Africa where it represents a signature of regional continuity.

Emphasis mine.

From here:

A compilation of 185 mtDNAs sampled across North Africa showed (1) that about half of the lineages belonged to the L haplogroups otherwise observed mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and (2) that most of the rest fell into haplogroup U6 (Salas et al. 2002), which perhaps originated in the Near East and spread into North Africa ~30 thousand years (KY) ago (KYA) (Maca-Meyer et al. 2003).

North African populations show evidence of significant intermixing with Eurasian ones going back 30,000 years.

You may also want to check out that paper:

A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in North Africa

Especially this:

just two haplogroups predominate within North Africa, together making up almost two-thirds of the male lineages: E3b2 and J* (42% and 20%, respectively). E3b2 is rare outside North Africa (Cruciani et al. 2004; Semino et al. 2004 and references therein), and is otherwise known only from Mali, Niger, and Sudan to the immediate south, and the Near East and Southern Europe at very low frequencies. Haplogroup J reaches its highest frequencies in the Middle East (Semino et al. 2004 and references therein), whereas the J-276 lineage (equivalent to J* here) is most frequent in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouins.

Historical records of the Arab conquest, however, suggest that its demographic impact must have been limited (McEvedy 1980). In addition, genetic evidence shows that E3b2 is rare in the Middle East (Semino et al. 2004), making the Arabs an unlikely source for this frequent North African lineage. Parallel analyses between North Africa and Southern Europe have revealed strikingly similar patterns of Y chromosome variation which would support a scenario in which the Neolithic expansion, originating in the Middle East branched into two flows separated by the geographical barrier of the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, as in North Africa, Y-chromosome variability in Southern Europe is clinal, gene diversity decreases from east to west, and genetic distances between North Africa and Southern Europe increase in a regular fashion from the Middle East toward the west (results not shown). Under the hypothesis of a Neolithic demic expansion from the Middle East, the likely origin of E3b in East Africa could indicate either a local contribution to the North African Neolithic transition (Barker 2003) or an earlier migration into the Fertile Crescent, preceding the expansion back into Africa.

So if North Africans are light skinned because of interbreeding with Eurasians in recent historical times how come the most common Y chromosome type in North Africa is one that's rare in the Middle East and Europe? Or are early Egyptians supposed to have not been like other North Africans in having had significant gene flow with Eurasia in prehistoric times, despite being the group closest to Asia?

Also:

LOL, man come on dude. Look all you have to do is ask them were white people in Ancient Egypt? Not talking about Modern Egypt.

It's funny how so called Europeans like to say the first Greeks,Europeans,Canaanites,Egyptians,Ethiopians,Arabs and so on were white.

This is a strawman. I don't think anybody here has claimed that the first Egyptians were white. We're claiming that they're (roughly) the same phenotypic type as exists in Egypt today. Unless Bishop considers all these people white. I really doubt most of them would be considered such in modern social-racial terms.

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

I've got something addressing the limb-length issue:

Mathilda's anthropology blog: limb length in ancient and modern Egyptians, compared:

In all ‘who were the Egyptians’ arguments, the single most important question is always ‘are the ancient Egyptians different to the modern?’ It is not enough to observe that the remains fit into the normal range for half a dozen different population samples, the point is… are they different to the people there now? Are the ancient population showing themselves to be essentially different to the modern.

One of the often quoted facts is that the ancient Egyptians come closer to black Americans than white Americans for limb length (an adaptation to a tropical climate). What these studies generally fail to comment on is the limb length of modern Egyptians. Modern Egyptians are the same as the ancient Egyptians.

This data is taken from a chart on page 92 of Stringer and Gamble (Stringer and Gamble, 1993, p. 92).

crural index = Tibia/Femur length
modern peoples 79% in Lapps
86% in Black African groups

Lapps 79% .25
modern Inuit 81.5% 4
Belgium 82.5% 10
S.African white 83.2% 8.5
Yugoslav 83.75% 8.4
American white 82.6% 9.8
Kalahari Bushman 83.4% 18
New MexicoIndian 84.6% 14
S.African black 86.4% 17
Arizona Indian 85.5% 18
Melanesian 84.8% 23
Pygmy 85.1% 24.2
Egyptian 84.9% 26.1
American Black 85.25% 26

Modern peoples limb length., on a page about Neanderthals and hybridisation.

The study cited in Stringer and Gamble (which was carried out by some guy called Trinkhaus in the 1980s) actually used predynastic Upper Egyptians, not modern Egyptians as Mathilda claims.

[Junghalli]

The study cited in Stringer and Gamble (which was carried out by some guy called Trinkhaus in the 1980s) actually used predynastic Upper Egyptians, not modern Egyptians as Mathilda claims.

OK.

Hey, you might find this rather interesting:

Ginger:
A Predynastic Egyptian

The naturally preserved body of an adult man was found in a cemetery at Gebelein, Egypt, and dated to the Late Predynastic period, around 3400 BC, or earlier.

Ginger died more than five thousand years ago, yet his golden hair, which gave him his nick-name, and even his toe- and finger-nails were perfectly preserved. Before mummification was developed to preserve human remains bodies were placed in shallow graves, in direct contact with the sand. The bodies from these early burials frequently did not decay, because the hot dry sand absorbed the water that constitutes 75% of the human weight. Without moisture bacteria cannot breed and cause decay, and the body is preserved. There are many of these burials from the early Egyptian periods where the body is still in excellent condition.

The picture below is from the British Museum, where Ginger was brought more than a hundred years ago. He is one of the favorites for Museum visitors.

Although his body is heavily stained from more than 5,000 years lying in the sand we can see he had a yellowish-white skin. He now lies in an artificial sand grave, with pottery and artifacts placed there by the Museum curators to simulate his surroundings when he was found. They are typical of familiar household items placed with the dead of that era, similar to the way we would place tokens of memory with our dead. "Ginger" represents an Egyptian of early Badarian or Naqada times.

He lies in the tightly curled, infantile position common to the burials of those days. This may have been an attempt to imitate the grave as the womb and he as a new born about to enter heaven.



Although this photograph does not serve well to illustrate the reason for naming this man "Ginger" he received that nickname when he was first put on display in the British Museum because of his golden curly locks. They are somewhat visible. As we can see, similar curly locks were often sculpted on Greek and Roman statues. (The above photograph on the right is that of a statue of the Roman Emperor, Augustus.)

Quite clearly, the technology to produce the life-like eyes illustrated by Rahotep and Nofret in 4th Dynasty Egypt was long lost by the time the Romans produced their sculptures.

Subject to the high humidity environment of London Ginger's skin began to peel from his skull. This can be seen in the golden color blank area over his left eye. Curators have attempted to replace the peeling skin by gluing it back onto the skull, but with mixed success.

Joann Fletcher has become a leading expert on Egyptian mummy remains, and the evidence they can reveal about life in those ancient times through the study of hair. She has a bachelor's degree in ancient history and Egyptology from University College London and an Egyptology Ph.D. from Manchester University. She has studied human remains in museum collections around the world and on site in Egypt, including the Valley of the Kings, Yemen, and South America. She is Egyptologist at Harrogate Museum, in North Yorkshire, and field director of York University's Mummy Research Project and has published extensively in the field of Egyptology.
In an interview for the Discovery Channel,

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/qu ... tcher.html

she had this to say:

<snip>

In excavations at Hierakonpolis during the 1998 season many samples of hair was retrieved for laboratory study. Joann continues:

The vast majority of hair samples discovered at the site were cynotrichous (Caucasian) in type as opposed to heliotrichous (Negroid), a feature which is standard through dynastic times . . .

Close inspection revealed that the natural hair (from the grave of a woman), of slightly more than shoulder-length, had been augmented with a considerable number of artificial lengths of false hair, very reminiscent of modern dreadlocks, meticulously worked into the natural hair to create an imposing high coiffure. The complex styling techniques made it clear that her particular hairstyle was the result of many hours of careful work carried out by someone other than herself. This particular discovery is therefore extremely significant as it is the earliest evidence for the use of false hair in Egypt (if not the whole of the ancient world), predating previous examples by at least 500 years.

And, if this wasn't sufficient, the same lady also provided us with the earliest evidence for the use of hair dye. Indepth examination showed a contrast between the auburn cast of her dark brown hair and a smaller number of unpigmented white strands of hair associated with the aging process. The unpigmented hair had been turned the bright orange color typical of henna, a vegetable dye made from the powdered leaves of the shrub Lawsonia inermis. This shrub grows yet in the area and is still used for the same purpose by the local population, who kindly showed us where the best henna bushes were to be found

Although most of the hair found is the natural dark brown color, natural red hair was also discovered in association with male Burial No. 79, his hair originally falling in a wavy style ending in small ringlet-type open-center curls. Together with other burials, this reveals the great attention paid to appearance, the hair obviously of great importance to both men and women alike. There were clearly a great range of styles by this early date, from extremely short crops little more than I cm long as noted in Burial No. 76 (a female of c.25-30 years) to longer styles, as demonstrated by the large quantity of dark brown wavy hair set in partially twisted lengths recovered intact in association with Burial No. 91. Although the hair itself was discovered completely detached from the skull, it was possible to determine that it would originally have been set at shoulder length.

The best preserved hair, however, was found in the well padded Burial No. 85 (nicknamed Paddy), a female of c.20-25 years of age. Careful removal of the upper layers of matting and linen pads allowed the hair to be preserved intact on the head, particularly the delicate free-hanging hair ends around the shoulder area that give the most accurate idea of the original hair length. Further study back in the lab revealed an original shoulder length style of natural waves, extending c.22 cm from the crown, with a left side parting and an asymmetrical fringe made up of S-shape curls bordering the eyes. In addition to the excellent preservation of Paddy's cranial hair, her right eyebrow had also survived intact beneath the layers of protective wrappings,

Further facial hair recovered in association with the redheaded man in Burial No. 79 appears to have been cut with a sharp blade, while analysis of one mass of hair discovered last season proved to be an almost complete beard, possibly the oldest surviving example yet found! Body hair was also found during both seasons, including underarm and pubic hair.

Hierakonpolis was the first identifiable Egyptian capital of a developing dynastic regime. The date of these burials was around 3600 BC. According to the Nekhen web site,

http://www.hierakonpolis.org/

Now there's some question as to whether Ginger's hair might have been a dye-job or not, but there was apparently at least one natural red-head, and this would have represented a very early Egyptian population.

Then there's Ramses II...

In 1975 the Egyptian government asked French scientists to attempt preservation of the mummy of Ramesses. It was shipped to Paris where the work was done. This event offered an opportunity for forensic examination to determine his age, body condition, health, diet, and so on. One area of major interest was his racial affinities. The Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop was claiming that Ramesses was black. After the work was complete the mummy was returned in a hermetically sealed casket, and it has remained hidden from public view ever since, concealed in the bowels of the Cairo Museum. The results of the study were published in a lavishly illustrated work, edited by L. Balout, C. Roubet and C. Desroches-Noblecourt, and titled La Momie de Ramsès II: Contribution Scientifique à l'Égyptologie (1985).

Professor P. F. Ceccaldi, with a research team, studied some hairs from the mummy's scalp. Ramesses II was 87 years-old when he died, and his hair had turned white. Ceccaldi determined that the reddish-yellow color of the hair was due to a dye with a dilute henna solution. As we saw earlier, many Egyptians dyed their hair, and this personal habit was preserved by the embalmers. However, traces of the hair's original color remained in the roots. Microscopic examinations showed that the hair roots contained natural red pigments, and that therefore, during his younger days, Ramesses II had been a red head. Analysis concluded that these red pigments did not result from the hair somehow fading, or otherwise being altered after death, but did represent Ramesses' natural hair color. Ceccaldi also studied the cross-section of the hairs, and determined from their oval shape, that Ramesses had been "cymotrich" (wavy-haired). Finally, he stated that such a combination of features showed that Ramesses had been a "leucoderm" (white-skinned person). Refer to the above report.

Balout and the other forensic specialists were under no illusions as to the significance of this discovery. They concluded:

"After having achieved this immense work, an important scientific conclusion remains to be drawn: the anthropological study and the microscopic analysis of hair, carried out by four laboratories: Judiciary Medecine (Professor Ceccaldi), Société L'Oréal, Atomic Energy Commission, and Institut Textile de France showed that Ramses II was a 'leucoderm', that is a fair-skinned man, near to the Prehistoric and Antiquity Mediterranean's, or briefly, of the Berber of Africa."

[Junghalli]

I realize V-Rex has left the board, but in case he continues to lurk I will put up these thoughts for his benefit.

(1) Ancient Egyptians having bone structure like blacks. You should really see if you can find a study of the bone structure of modern Egyptians to compare it to, or better yet the Afrocentrists should do their own homework and find it if they're going to use the "super-Negroid" bone structure of ancient Egyptians to support their claims. Because talking about the tropical proportions of ancient Egyptians doesn't mean a whole lot unless we can compare it with the proportions of modern Egyptians. If they're different then there may be some evidence of demographic change from ancient times until today. On the other hand if modern Egyptians have the same sort of proportions (especially Upper Egyptians, who'd presumably have bred with Arabs and Europeans less - and the Y chromosome study backs this up, they have way more Middle Eastern and European haplotypes and only 1.2% sub-Saharan compared to 27.3% for Upper Egyptians) then it's not evidence for ancient Egyptians having a different skin color from modern ones.

(2) How many black populations are there at or above lattitude 30 - Egypt's lattitude? Aside from descendants of recent black slave populations the only ones I can think of are South Africans and Australian Aborigines, and the South African San are some of the lightest Africans (there's a picture of one here, he doesn't look much darker than a lot of modern Egyptians to me). Australian Aborigines meanwhile were never a very big population and are probably descended from relatively small numbers of immigrants, so their genetic diversity would logically be lower than in a place like Egypt - less chance to acquire light skin genes. What I'm getting it is there may well be a selection pressure for light skin at Egypt's lattitude. And because Egypt is still hot it may be less than the selection pressure against tropical body proportions. Remember, skin color is a factor of sunlight and body proportions are a factor of temperature, and the two are not necessarily the same thing - Madrid and Philadelphia are at the same lattitude, but Madrid is significantly warmer. So you could easily get a selection pressure for light skin but not so much for different proportions. If we have to reconcile the genetic evidence with Egyptians having tropical body proportions, this strikes me as more parsimonious than "let's assume all those Middle Eastern invaders just happened to have a haplotype that's more common in Ethiopia than in the Middle East" or "let's assume the ancient Egyptians switched race without their Y chromosomes changing."

[Junghalli]

Just looking through that thread...

As soon as you tell me what these Y-chromosome lineages have to do with skin color, I'll answer your question.

If Egyptians were blacks until a few thousand years ago when they interbred with Europeans and Middle Easterners where are all the European and Middle Eastern Y chromosomes from all those outside invaders? They are not much more than 10% in Upper Egypt, most Upper Egyptian are walking around with Y chromosomes carrying the "southern" (i.e. predominantly African) haplotypes. Does that look like the imprint of interbreeding sufficient to produce a dramatic general phenotypic change to you?

I'm sure that modern upper Egyptians are decent representations of their ancient Egyptian counter parts, as are modern Sudanese, Beja and other eastern Saharan folk. The difference is that the latter groups have received LESS foreign-derived influence and are less ambiguous. The very paper that you link cites familial/genetic relationships between "Nubians" and "Egyptians" before the 1rst dynasty yet you use that paper to still entertain some notion of chance (and not genetic) similarity between two groups that have historically been in close cultural and geographic proximity? Wow..

No kidding there are genetic relationships between Egyptians and Nubians, they're right next to each other. The thing is North Africans (that includes Egyptians) have been interbreeding with Eurasians too and the genetic evidence suggests they've been doing so since prehistoric times. There was a community in Morocco 12,000 years ago where apparently 9/10 people had Eurasian mDNA. Combine this with the lack of evidence for massive recent demographic invasion by Eurasians into Egypt in the Y chromosome study and the Black Egyptians hypothesis is simply not remotely parsimonious. The parsimonious explanation is Egyptians have been a Eurasian/African mix since well before the beginning of historical Egyptian civilization.

[Junghalli]

I just emailed V-Rex with some info I thought he might like to know on the claim that some Egyptsearch guy used to "defeat" the genetic argument from Keita's paper.

Oh man, getting accused of blatantly lying by the Egyptsearch people for quoting a date that appears in the freaking article I linked the guy to was rich. Oh ZOMG I rounded off 18,000 years to 20,000, the dishonesty!

I also love the way the Egyptsearch guys cherry-pick the date for the SLC24A5 mutation that best fits their theory. And completely ignore the fact that SLC24A5 is not the only gene that causes light skin. If this is how they approach all their "overwhelming" evidence of a black Egypt I feel pretty confident in my horrible Eurocentrism or whatever other hilariously inaccurate strawman name they want to give my position.

And I absolutely adore the way V-Rex went off and replied to the email in Egyptsearch instead of emailing me back. Almost as if he doesn't actually want to discuss anything with somebody who disagrees with him but only wants to hear his Afrocentrist buddies confirm his own views. Or as if he doesn't feel confident in debating the matter without a bunch of his Egyptsearch buddies for back-up. Frankly, looking at his performance debating this "Sundjata" guy on Egyptsearch I can't blame him. His opponent completely failed to convincingly address how the Egyptians seem to have switched race without switching Y chromosomes, but he still threw in the towel almost immediately upon being challenged. It was pathetic.

Oh well, that was amusing but I'm done playing White Knight with this guy.

I wonder if he'll repost this on Egyptsearch too, where it will no doubt be promptly be cheerfully interpreted as me being too afraid and cowed by the mighty arguments against me to continue, rather than not wanting to bother wasting my time in a screaming match with people who are probably mostly totally unwilling to even consider the possibility that their opponents may have legitimate points.

Maybe they'll read racist connotations in "White Knight" too.