Ancient Egyptians

[total_eclipse]

So, I've seen a few of you logically smashing the claims by Afro-centrists that the Egyptians were a black people. But, I've decided to bring a theory of mine into this and see what you guys think, because I do plan on doing further research into this.

Apparently, in anthropology, it's commonly known that the Horn of Africa experienced a mass back-migration of Caucasians from the Arabia Peninsula. Now, given that these ancient Egyptians allegedly had "tropically adapted limbs," which to me does not indicate blackness, but simply adaption, I figured that these Caucasians in the Horn might have adapted to the environment after being there so long, for this back-migration happened way before the Egyptians. Even Ethiopians and other Horn Africans carry this significant Caucasian admixture.

Supposedly, the Egyptians said that they came from the South, which could have meant the African horn or the Arabian peninsula...both lying to the south of Egypt. So, could it be a plausible argument that the Ancient Egyptians were these Caucasians from that back-migration that eventually migrated North into the Nile Valley?

Let me know what you guys think. You seem as willing as anyone else who knows better to prove these Afro-nuts wrong. Also, let me know of other things that you suggest I look into to further help my argument. Thanks!

[Knife]

Hmm, I'm not sure when the Sahara dried up and made a natural barrier between Northern Africa and central/southern Africa. I do know that many different tribes of people lived in the general area though, even before the rise of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. Bur-burs for one. Are you asking if, when the Sahara turned into desert, it pushed some of the lighter skinned tribes south to where the Bantu tribes were/are? Thereby mixing with the gene pool and then migrating back north to establish the Upper Kingdom?

If that is what the question is, I don't think so. While Egypt was isolated and thus allowed to grow fairly rapidly in 'peace', there was trade. IIRC, there is evidence of Mycenaean trade, as well as trade down into the Ethiopian Plataea. While isolation would limit new tribes and ethnicitys from getting into the mix, remember for quite a while there were two Egyptian kingdoms, each with their own culture and trade. The upper kingdom was pretty close and had trade with Nubian tribes and later empires, while the lower kingdom was open to trade with Mycenaean and other proto Greeks along with Mesopotamian cultures.

[Jeremy]

"tropically adapted limbs,"

What does this mean?

[total_eclipse]

@Knife

Thanks for the response. Well, from what I'm gathering, most of the North African population has Eurasian ancestry, for example, the Berbers. BUT, there was a Caucasian migration into the Horn of Africa, where modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea lies, from the Arabian peninsula. The Egyptians said their origin was in the South, so I'm just curious about the possibility that those Caucasians migrated North into Egypt. I'm not asking about any North to South and back to the North again type of migration...I'm referring to just the migration of people from the south to the north into the Nile Valley...and, like I said, the possibility of those migrations coming from the Caucasian people who had entered or re-entered the Horn of Africa. Because supposedly, scholars have placed their origin in the Ethiopian area. And being that there was a historical large Caucasian presence there (the Ethiopian area)...I figure those could have been the people that migrated North. And if the modern Egyptians are largely a continuum of the ancient Egyptians, as some anthropologists suggest, then maybe that would lend credit to my theory, being modern Egyptians are largely of the Caucasian stock.

P.S. I'm not taking into account the "political" differences of Upper and Lower Egypt, I'm just talking about the ancient Egyptian people as a whole. Though I think I understand what you were getting at bringing up the small black population that lived in Upper Egypt (Nubia at the time), I'm talking about the Nile Valley settlers prior to and aside from any mixing with blacks that happened. I'm solely talking about the Caucasians who lived in the African horn.

[total_eclipse]

@ Jeremy

"Tropically Adapted Limbs" is something being used by black people to try proving the Ancient Egyptians were black. They say that the Egyptians had "tropically adapted limbs," or...limbs that are much longer and closer to the limbs of black people in the tropics than to Caucasian people living in North Africa...or Caucasians in the Middle East and Europe.

They say that the limb length suggests that they were a black people because Caucasians do not have those kind of limbs, and that the only people with those kind of limbs are blacks from the tropical African area.

[Kanastrous]

If the Old and New Kingdom Egyptians were black African people, why didn't they depict themselves as such in their art? I guess that's the first question I would ask someone suggesting that they were black people.

Anyway, we know from modern archaeology that the ancient Egyptians looked like Zahi Hawass. According to modern Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, that is.

[total_eclipse]

@ Kanastrous

Amen, brotha. But, they are VERY ignorant. A simple question like that will only get you, in return, a bunch of bullshit. They judge Caucasian people as a whole based on stereotypes of Europeans, and then continuously resort to the works of Chiek Anta Diop and S.O.Y. Keita, whom an anthropologist called Mathilda, who has her own blogging site, has pointed out the flaws in their work. Even wikipedia points out a hole in information provided by either Keita or Diop on their conclusion about melanin levels in the "skins of mummies."

And if it's not any of that..they will simply avoid it. But, as much can be expected from a group of people that try to paint the ancient world black.

[Isolder74]

One thing that bugs me about them is they often use as their evidence of Egyptians are all black and always were is depictions of the Nubian Dynasties that took over more then once in Egyptian History. The fact that these kings are there isn't what bothers me what does is the fact that their using them is classic use of evidence out of context.

[total_eclipse]

@ Isolder74

Yeah! That's another example I forgot to point out. But, what do you mean the Nubians conquered more than once? I was only aware of one Nubian dynasty-- the 25th dynasty --which began with either Kashta or Piye and ended with Tantamani. And no, it's not an issue that there were black kings in Egypt, as you said...but..they were not Egyptians. They were foreign. And as a Caucasian..I'm willing to stand up for the histories of brethren, but I don't hate on others in the process, I'm just irritated by those pushing Afrocentric fallacies. It's so hard for them to accept that Africa was never and is not only a black man's continent.

[Vendetta]

It probably comes from a combination of the Nubian dynasty and the fact that there was a nontrivial Nubian presence in the Egyptian army for a fair bit of it's history, as Nubians were considered the best archers in the world at the time and served as such in a number of armies, so it's probably possible to find evidence of black people in Egypt for a quite long historical period.

[total_eclipse]

@ Vendetta

Yeah, I totally understand your possible reason for their misinterpretation of the identity of the Egyptian people. I'm sure that there were blacks in Egypt for a while, as you stated, for their military skill. I don't deny that. I just argue that they were not Egyptians...but Egyptian recruits.

But you really find idiocy in their argument especially when they make claims such as modern Ethiopians, Eritreans, and other horn Africans are 100% black. They argue that those people are completely black and just look Caucasian, therefore, the Egyptians were black and caucasian looking...and deny the fact that Horn Africans are like 40% Caucasian. But like I said, they think all of Africa was black and that there was never a caucasian presence there until the North African invasions of the Persians, Assyrians, Greeks, and so forth.

[sirocco]

Africa as a wide range of black sub-races. People from Senegal (west) and Zimbabwe (south-east) just don't look the same. Some are "pure" black but with Caucasian features. As a matter of fact, Caucasian and Black are just an average description of people.

This is why I think that Ancient Egyptians are a group on their own. They are somewhat "black" because of their early relations with the Nubians and surely "caucasian" and "asian" later when they approached the Greeks, the Hittites and all those early Indo-Europeans.

[Big Orange]

Although ancient art is abstract and should not be taken completely at face value I find this wall mural interesting:



In their own way, artists from way back then could depict the difference between an Egyptian and the two Mediterranean/Middle Eastern whites, although the Egyptian is not as dark as the Nubian and not clearly Sub-Saharan.

I don't get what the Afro-centerists like the late VRex are foaming about, an Afro-American trying to find kinship with Egyptians and Nubians is akin to a Brazilian trying find kinship with the lost civilization from the Indus Valley, 2000 BC. Modern Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Indians are pretty much closely related variants of Afro-Asians anyway.

[Broomstick]

@ Vendetta

Yeah, I totally understand your possible reason for their misinterpretation of the identity of the Egyptian people. I'm sure that there were blacks in Egypt for a while, as you stated, for their military skill. I don't deny that. I just argue that they were not Egyptians...but Egyptian recruits.

And if the recruits stayed for a lifetime... wouldn't their children be Egyptian?

Some of these folks arguing about race or ethnicity in the ancient world seem to be laboring under the assumption that there was ever a time when purebred humans existed, or forget that humans can and do mate with foreigners and have throughout all history. While some cultures can be rabidly xenophobic large empires tend not to be that way. Ancient Egypt already had a diverse population and they didn't seem adverse to someone moving in, adopting Egyptian ways, and thus becoming Egyptian. It wasn't just their royalty that married folks from abroad.

That is, of course, one of the reasons Ancient Egypt is so useful for such arguments - you can always find a clump of Egyptians of whatever ethnicity you care to name to trot out to support your pet theory. Egyptians weren't, and still aren't, monochromatic. They're a mutli-ethnic culture, and have been for millennia.

[Big Orange]

I also think the modern Berbers are way too broad and ambigious to be a particularly homogeneous group in appearance (like the Koreans especially or the Japanese to a lesser extent), they're more of a linguistic group and have shared cultural mores built around desert survival.

[total_eclipse]

@ Big Orange, I think that mural doesn't exactly depict people on a racial level...I think that kinda just differentiates Nubians, Syrians, Libyans, and Egyptians in Egyptian art. Reddish-brown is a color that represents masculinity in their art, so I'm sure they would stick with that. The women are depicted as being very fair. The berbers are a Caucasian people who have been in North Africa for a long time. A minority of them have become mixed with black blood over the years.

@ Broomstick, I really doubt that the Egyptian society was as mixed as you imply it was. From modern Egyptian samples...many of them seem to be pretty indigenous Caucasian-type, with Arab blood only getting as high as 10%. Apparently it is believed that those with black blood get it from the times of the Arab slave trade. As for your comment about the Nubian archers...I don't know how their "foreign policy" worked. I don't know if the Nubians were recruited for a time and then went back home, or if they stayed. But it's aside from the point that I'm making..they were not "the Egyptians." They may have taken up Egyptian nationality..but were they "ethnic Egyptians," no.

[Broomstick]

@ Broomstick, I really doubt that the Egyptian society was as mixed as you imply it was. From modern Egyptian samples...many of them seem to be pretty indigenous Caucasian-type, with Arab blood only getting as high as 10%.

Multi-ethnic doesn't mean everyone blends into one homogeneous color after a few generations. It's well established that there were visible differences between the average upper and lower Egyptian throughout the Ancient Egypt period, as an example. What it means is that "Egyptian" covered a variety of peoples, all of whom were seen as Egyptian.

Apparently it is believed that those with black blood get it from the times of the Arab slave trade.

Is that a man on the street belief, or is it backed up by archaeological evidence?

As for your comment about the Nubian archers...I don't know how their "foreign policy" worked. I don't know if the Nubians were recruited for a time and then went back home, or if they stayed.

I don't know either, I was just suggesting it as a possibility.

But it's aside from the point that I'm making..they were not "the Egyptians." They may have taken up Egyptian nationality..but were they "ethnic Egyptians," no.

I don't think there was ever one definitive type of "ethnic Egyptians" - that's the point of my argument, from the beginning Egyptians were variable in appearance. If the descendants of Nubians intermarry to some degree with the natives, if they adopt the language, religion, culture, and customs of the Egyptians, if other Egyptians regard them as Egyptian how are they NOT Egyptian?

[total_eclipse]

@ Broomstick

Your point-pushing of a multi-ethnic Egypt is a bit exaggerated. Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were never really defined on a racial level. Modern day Upper Egypt contained part of the land of Nubia. If Nubians blended into Egyptian culture over time...maybe they would have become Egyptians. But once again...were they THE EGYPTIANS that they blended in with? No...they were not, which takes me back to the question I asked in the beginning of the article. But, I would like to send you this link to check out:

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpr ... ent-egypt/

Plenty of links there for you to check out.

But anyway...my question was related to the Caucasian Egyptians.

[Broomstick]

@ Broomstick

Your point-pushing of a multi-ethnic Egypt is a bit exaggerated. Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were never really defined on a racial level.

True. At least in part because ancient peoples didn't view race as we do.

Modern day Upper Egypt contained part of the land of Nubia. If Nubians blended into Egyptian culture over time...maybe they would have become Egyptians. But once again...were they THE EGYPTIANS that they blended in with?

My point is that there never was just ONE type that represented Egypt after the union of the Two Kingdoms - which was pretty damn early in history.

But anyway...my question was related to the Caucasian Egyptians.

Arguably, NO Egyptians were "Caucasian" as we now understand the term. As I said, no one in the ancient world viewed race as we do today. "Caucasian" is a label that dates, if I recall, from the 19th or 18th Century to fit preconceived notions of race based on frank bigotry.

[Kanastrous]

Would it be correct to assume that they hypothesized an origin of 'Caucasian' people in the Caucasus region?

[Broomstick]

Correct.

[Big Orange]

@ Big Orange, I think that mural doesn't exactly depict people on a racial level...I think that kinda just differentiates Nubians, Syrians, Libyans, and Egyptians in Egyptian art. Reddish-brown is a color that represents masculinity in their art, so I'm sure they would stick with that.

The much lighter looking people on that mural look pretty Mediterranean (or Persian) to me. The black guy looks black. The Egyptian seems to be a mixture of both (with facial hair). Abstract and unrealistic but not intentionally misleading.

The berbers are a Caucasian people who have been in North Africa for a long time. A minority of them have become mixed with black blood over the years.

They're a broad culture, not a specific anthropological type, many tribes with shared costumes and customs that are a product of the overlap between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe:

[total_eclipse]

@ Big Orange

They belong to the Caucasian anthropological type with the exception of those that are mixed. If those last two pictures are indeed Berbers...they would be the mixed Berbers I'm talking about. But they, by far, do not account for any significant percentage. The main group of Berbers with the most significant black ancestry i think are the Tuaregs.

[takemeout_totheblack]

The problem here is that the concept of race as we know it today is based off of 18th-19th century pseudoscience used to morally justify exploitation of more primitive and coincidentally different looking people by colonial empires. So any interpretation of ancient texts regarding what seems to be race can just as easily mean something else entirely.

[Big Triece]

So, I've seen a few of you logically smashing the claims by Afro-centrists that the Egyptians were a black people.

I've just got done reading that thread I think the argument was that the original ancient Egyptians (Pre-early Dynastic Upper Egyptians) were what Western society would consider "black". This seems to be in line with the evidence that is available and presented in that thread.

Apparently, in anthropology, it's commonly known that the Horn of Africa experienced a mass back-migration of Caucasians from the Arabia Peninsula.

That theory was debunked ages ago;

"An earlier generation of anthropologists tried to explain face form in the Horn of Africa as the result of admixture from hypothetical “wandering Caucasoids,” (Adams, 1967, 1979; MacGaffey, 1966; Seligman, 1913, 1915, 1934), but that explanation founders on the paradox of why that supposedly potent “Caucasoid” people contributed a dominant quantity of genes for nose and face form but none for skin color or limb proportions. It makes far better sense to regard the adaptively significant features seen in the Horn of Africa as solely an in situ response on the part of separate adaptive traits to the selective forces present in the hot dry tropics of eastern Africa. From the observation that 12,000 years was not a long enough period of time to produce any noticeable variation in pigment by latitude in the New World and that 50,000 years has been barely long enough to produce the beginnings of a gradation in Australia (Brace, 1993a), one would have to argue that the inhabitants of the Upper Nile and the East Horn of Africa have been equatorial for many tens of thousands of years."(-- C.L. Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters..")

Now, given that these ancient Egyptians allegedly had "tropically adapted limbs," which to me does not indicate blackness, but simply adaption,

Again a statement from the same study and author;

"In this regard it is interesting to note that limb proportions of Predynastic Naqada people in Upper Egypt are reported to be "Super-Negroid," meaning that the distal segments are elongated in the fashion of tropical Africans.....skin color intensification and distal limb elongation are apparent wherever people have been long-term residents of the tropics."(-- C.L. Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters..")

Even Ethiopians and other Horn Africans carry this significant Caucasian admixture.

Again not true. Tishkoff 2009 which is the largest study of African genetics to date, found minimal (5%) to no Eurasian admixture in the numerous Ethiopian populations sampled in that study.

Supposedly, the Egyptians said that they came from the South, which could have meant the African horn or the Arabian peninsula...both lying to the south of Egypt.

Ancient Egyptian origin stories ascribing origins of the gods and their ancestors to African locations to the south and west of Egypt (Davidson 1959, White 1970).

"It may be noted that the ancient Egyptians themselves appear to have been convinced that their place of origin was African rather than Asian. They made continued reference to the land of Punt as their homeland." --(White, Jon Manchip., Ancient Egypt: Its Culture and History (Dover Publications; New Ed edition, June 1, 1970), p. 141.

A recent (2010) DNA study on ancient baboon remains in Egypt from punt, almost confirm that they came from the Horn. The DNA matches up with baboons from the area today and not with baboons from Arabian pennisula which were also sampled.

So, could it be a plausible argument that the Ancient Egyptians were these Caucasians from that back-migration that eventually migrated North into the Nile Valley?

Simply...No