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Thread: Black Egyptians

  1. #121
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by odia View Post
    This is astonishing!!! And how did you come about this assertion of yours. Do you know that this was essentially what those early Egyptologists that have created the mess today said? While dont you just be honest and say that this is what YOU believed all along in stead of beating round the bush, so that demands can be made of you to defend it.
    I do not want to be to deeply involved in this debate, but let me quote from the entry on the PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS in the Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt 1999(ed) Kathryn Bard and Steven Blacke(the noted encyclopedia with articles written by the Big names in Egyptology); the particular article was written by Kathryn Lovell ,incidentally it was this same Kathryn Lovell that the noted anti-Afrocentrist and opponent of Black Athena recommended her pending work for knowledge on the biological affinities of ancient Egyptians:
    How did I come to this conclusion?

    I looked at the map. The Nile forms an easy corridor for the Nubians to access Upper Egypt, any other people would either have to come through Nubia and into Egypt or cross the Sahara. Those Africans you are talking about who have lighter skin, and particularly skin as depicted in Egyptian paintings, are located in the African interior, they are not adapted for the Sahara itself. By contrast, the people of the Levant could access the Nile Delta just by taking a coastal route through the Sinai, or even boats.

    Large groups of people move in the easiest direction, the Sahara is hard to cross so the only reason a population would cross it in number is if they were being chased. If that were the case I would expect there to be some historical record of such a population fleeing into Egypt.

    Then, of course, you have the simply fact that we know Egypt had contact with the Levant because proto-Caananite is developed from Egyptian script and the Egyptians at one point controlled the Levant and contested with the Hittites for that control.

    This is not the same view as the early Egyptologists, because they saw the Levant as a "white" rather than a seperate "Semtitic" area.

    Now, waht I personally believe to be most likely is that the Egyptians appeared as they depicted themselves in their artwork because that makes sense anthropologically. That depiction changed over time, but it is clear that Egypt was not, for much of its history, depicting itself as the same as the Nubians.

    If you can't cope with that, that's your problem. If you want to accuse me of racial prejudice because I'm white, brankly I don't care, as an Anglo-Scandanavian with Welsh blood I've been on the recieving end of enough recial prejudice that I can put up with that.
    "If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."

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  2. #122

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    How did I come to this conclusion?

    I looked at the map. The Nile forms an easy corridor for the Nubians to access Upper Egypt, any other people would either have to come through Nubia and into Egypt or cross the Sahara. Those Africans you are talking about who have lighter skin, and particularly skin as depicted in Egyptian paintings, are located in the African interior, they are not adapted for the Sahara itself. By contrast, the people of the Levant could access the Nile Delta just by taking a coastal route through the Sinai, or even boats.

    Really? So, when, earlier, you claimed that;

    The Unbreakable has put forward a theory, but he has not accounted for the evidence which runs counter to his theory.
    the evidence which runs counter is....that you have looked at a map?

    Large groups of people move in the easiest direction, the Sahara is hard to cross so the only reason a population would cross it in number is if they were being chased. If that were the case I would expect there to be some historical record of such a population fleeing into Egypt.
    Yes. One would expect to see such historical record. Do you have one in mind - other than, of course that coalescing of sub-Saharan Africans around the Nile as the Sahara dried out that all the evidence points toward?

    Then, of course, you have the simply fact that we know Egypt had contact with the Levant because proto-Caananite is developed from Egyptian script and the Egyptians at one point controlled the Levant and contested with the Hittites for that control.
    Indeed. It is, perhaps, telling that proto-Caananite is developed from Egyptian script. And, of course we know that there was contact between the Levant and Egypt. That has been covered within the discussion. That is not the same as saying the Levant is Egypt. And, the bottom line here is that all the evidence points toward a sub-Saharan, African peopled upper Egypt.

    This is not the same view as the early Egyptologists, because they saw the Levant as a "white" rather than a seperate "Semtitic" area.
    But is equally as wrong, as the evidence tends to bear out. This is simply a technicality, it is the same (discredited) story that the early Egyptologists espoused. It was unevidenced then, it is contrary to evidence now.

    Now, waht I personally believe to be most likely is that the Egyptians appeared as they depicted themselves in their artwork because that makes sense anthropologically. That depiction changed over time, but it is clear that Egypt was not, for much of its history, depicting itself as the same as the Nubians.
    Now, this being a positive claim, could you back this up with some evidence?

    If you can't cope with that, that's your problem. If you want to accuse me of racial prejudice because I'm white, brankly I don't care, as an Anglo-Scandanavian with Welsh blood I've been on the recieving end of enough recial prejudice that I can put up with that.
    Firstly, its not a matter of coping, its a matter of how much sense does the argument make. Now, according to your own view the very large body of evidence, all correlating together to make a whole argument does not counter the fact that you looked at a map. While that may be enough for you, I have to say that I find The Unbreakable's position and argument far more convincing.

    I'm going to make no comment on the last point as, well, I'm just not sure what racial prejudice an Anglo-Scandinavian with Welsh blood might have 'suffered'. I'm not really sure what Welsh blood might be.....
    Last edited by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus; 07-12-2012 at 20:37.

  3. #123

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    Don't get too excited, what he is describing are DNA "markers", they're in the inert DNA (so they aren't subject to sexual or natural selection like other traits), but those sorts of markers just tell you who a person definately is descended from, not their entire family tree.

    For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_Genghis_Khan

    The largest number of Ghengis Khan's descendents are in Afghanistan.

    The DNA studies indicate African ancestry, but not exclusively so.
    Why do you do this? Your response here would suggest that the argument is based around this one line of evidence. This has been gone through, and as has been pointed out, this is just one aspect of the argument, which all put together, makes for a very convincing proposition.

  4. #124

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by The Unbreakable View Post
    I'm not strawmanning anything that you stated. You cited a passage from Keita's study in which a commonality was noted between Lower Egyptians and Coastal Northwest African populations. I merely pointed out the fact that Keita (and many other bio-anthropologist) have found that Coastal Northwest Africans are a mixture of tropical Africans (black) and neighboring Europeans, and the less than probable theory that Africans on the other end of the continent during Pre-Dynastic times obtained their phenotype from that type of admixture. But as you've noted their cranio-metric variation was indigenous to Africa.
    You repeatively claim that i am equating lower egyptians with semitic people, rather i am stating that they share similar physical traits that could be explained by either environment, genetic mixture, or otherwise

    You're reaching now! No where does state that their cranio-metric pattern is intermediate between Semitic and Nubian populations, he stated that it was intermediate between some Sub Saharan African populations and Northern Europeans. Why you are desperately trying to inject Semitic people into this mix is beyond me, but please do not insist that my source states things that it clearly doesn't.

    Then the study is silly, why not compare it to cranium that is geographically similar rather than distant?

    Again you are reaching. Divergence is seen across "black African" populations. The skulls and genetics of some Sub Saharan East Africans are divergent from other Sub Saharan populations, it does not mean that they are less African or are the result of some type of admixture; it does not mean that they are no longer tropically adapted and obtained lighter skin color during this process. All if indicates is a new indigenous variation to Africa.
    Actually east africans have been mixing with Arabs for some time now. Their gene pool has shown to include Eurasian genes as i noted below. What you seem to be doing is making this into a categorical yes or no question, rather it is a dimensional one. Lower egyptians had less of a tropical body than their upper egyptian cousins, but more so than the people to the east. I find it interesting how you assume that Africans= Black when it only applies to tropical Africa. Tropical body plan correlates with colour, yes or no? If not, then the colour of lower egyptians are still under question
    Again no one denies that there was interaction between Lower Egypt and populations of the Levant, but you are equating both population with one another in some attempt to lighten the appearance of early northern Egyptians which is fallacious.
    What? I'm equating the fact that they inhabit similar latitudes, which correlates much more to skin colour than body type. I am not equating semites to lower egyptians


    You for what ever reason are continuing to ignore the fact that Pre-Dynastic Lower Egyptians were tropically adapted like the Africans further to the south, and distinct from the sub tropically adapted people to East in the Levant:

    No i am not, i said they were LESS THAN UE but GREATER THAN the levant. Individual Human variation is much larger than group variation, so there will be levantine people that are tropically adapted, but less frequently than Northern egyptians

    PLEASE ADDRESS THE FINDING ABOVE, before you make anymore assertions about the physical appearance of Lower Egyptians. Once gain tropical adaption by ecological principal means that a population has dark skin (are amongst the darkest in the world). The fact that early Lower Egyptians were tropically adapted and had a Saharan Nilotic agricultural system and cultural basis, is a dead give away that these people came from the Nilotic communities of the ancient Sahara.

    First: the link http://bioanthropology.huji.ac.il/pdf/13.pdf
    Second: P.5 mentioned evidence of craniofacial similarities Between the Levantine people and Lower Egyptians posited by Klug and Beck
    Third: i never denied that Lower egyptians had "tropical body patterns" but that they had less of one compared to Upper Egyptians. In fact, the evidence here suggests that craniofacial patterns are more similar to levantine populations than Upper Egyptians, micro-evolution or genetic mixture.


    Dude this assertion is a JOKE! You nor anyone else has even provided artistic evidence of a physical differentiation between Upper and Lower Egyptians, yet you and some others for some reason maintain that one was "somehow" lighter skinned then the other. What you all basing this assertion on, please provide the evidence that leads some of you to believe this nonsense.

    Dude, i was talking about the new dynasty, and you admitted yourself that the New Dynasty were mixed peoples. With Lower egypt becomming more powerful in the new kingdom, it stands to reason that more lower egyptians came into power

    You stated that there was no way to know the exact population of both regions, and I provided a scholars interpretation of the available evidence and that scholar like many others concludes that Lower Egyptians was much less populated then the south. Is it really that hard to believe? Here are other scholars who share the same opinion of the regions population density:

    Yes, but even they admit it as a WORKING HYPOTHESIS, meaning that its a starting point and not even close to fact. I said there was no EMPIRICAL way of proving it, which means settlements and housing. All of which has been destroyed or lies under metres of silt.

    Once again I'm not sure why you're so hung up on proving that Lower Egypt was as populated as the south during early Egyptian history, but it's getting beyond the point of ridiculous when you disregard the consistent words of scholars just to come to your own lofty conclusions of the matter.
    Lower egypt at the time consisted of the Nile delta and the nile all the way to around Faiyum, not just the nile delta. We go by cultural artefacts, not arbitrary geographic lines. Its not this barren wasteland that you imagine it is, there were a significant number of people there that even scholars using a working hypothesis gave at least 1/4 of egyptian population there


    Remember that it's always best to cite your source. The above is an UNpeer reviewed, UNpublished, THESIS paper from Raxter. There are several flaws in her conclusions. One being the assertion that populations can rapidly obtain longer limbs by moving into a warmer climate, when it has been proven that it takes over 15k years for a population to begin to adjust to a new climatic region. By her explanation the Native Americans who settled in the tropics of America thousands of years ago should also be just as tropically adapted as most Africans who have been longer residents of the tropics, but of course they aren't! None the less even through her lofty conclusion she cannot deny this:
    Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, i agree her conclusion is unfounded, but the data suggests an intermediate body type of predynastic lower egyptians, that may have mixed with isolated levant migrants The majority are probably still indigenous North Africans


    The bolded red says it all and comes from the same study. The ancient Egyptians and Nubians (notice how both are yet again mentioned interchangeably) are tropically adapted like other black African populations. Nothing new here.
    Yes we already established that Upper egypt and nubia were closely intertwined. The problem is of course the unbalanced skeletal remains of upper egypt compared to lower egypt.

    Alright it appears I'll never be able to convince you of abandoning this "Black Egypt" theory. Rather, i'll outline what is known with a fair amount of certainty.

    - Upper egypt and Nubia during Predynastic Egypt were genetically and phenotypically very similar, black as you say.
    - Upper egypt had greater population density than lower egypt
    - Bidirectional migration occurred along the Nile, resulting in Genetic Mixing
    - Lower egyptians are less similar to upper egyptians than upper egyptians are to nubians
    - Upper egypt conquered Lower egypt.

    All this i agree with you, however these issues are unresolved, and thus hamper the theory of a uniformally "Black Egypt":

    - Who were the lower egyptians? No usable remains have been identified that dates back to the Mid-holocene, only ones that exists from the new dynasty has been used and evaluated by peers
    - Population densities are assumed, however due to lack of identifiable settlements, true population numbers can never be ascertained
    - Culturally, predynastic Lower Egyptians are distinct in their burial traditions and socio-political organization. It is regarded as more egalitarian compared to the intense social stratification of upper egypt. Suggesting different people
    - Migration along the Levant/Egyptian border occurred frequently, the largest one being 30 000+ years ago from the levant to Egypt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182266/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC447595/ The fact that people from as far as cameroon have these genes discount the theory of recent migration of arabs into egypt as cause of genetic transmission
    - Population extrapolation from your source http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/early_hydraulic.pdf p.99 suggests that Lower Egyptians is composed of approximately 1/4th of egypt's population at around 4000-3000 BC. This estimate is based on the fact that the Delta was viewed as a settlement destination by Egyptian Kings, however it is unclear if the impetus for settlement was due to avaliable land or to better control lower egyptians. Sparsely populated or not, it is clear that Lower Egypt had enough population to constitute as one of the states that vied for power in upper egypt. These people did not disappear, but integrated into Egyptian society. Their history is as much a part of Ancient Egypt as Upper Egypt.

    All in all, i like to thank Unbreakable for this debate. I learned a lot about a period in egyptian history that i knew very little about. I still think that Egypt, and in fact every human alive, is a melting pot of different ethnic and racial combinations. Race should not come into play in the interpretation of history, unless it is used by people during that time to justify such and such, and mentioning the importance of race is vital to understanding the context of that circumstance. I don't believe that race played a role in ancient egypt, so i am inclined to believe that it is unecessary in the understanding of ancient egyptian culture.
    Last edited by Vaginacles; 07-12-2012 at 22:29.

  5. #125

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Blxz View Post
    Living in Japan has given me political motivations about egypt or black/white origins? I think not.
    And as I said in my post, I don't appreciate your cutting and pasting while looking for offence in specific parts. Take the whole thing in context if you wish to say something.

    Now I read your post and the extra information that you like highlighting in red as well as the normal text. And, as I said in my previous post. I don't agree with your interpretation. Your information their mentions only predynastic and early dynastic Nile valley samples. Egypt is not fully defined by a single part in their history.

    Going back to your stance that Egypt is black. I find you have only shown evidence that some of the origins and influence is from the south. They aren't made up entirely of Nubian peoples either genetically, linguistically or biologically. There ARE a range of other sources.

    Then you go on to name-calling and mention the word 'Juvenile' in reference to me. Insults are to be the call of the day are they? Someone doesn't take your word as gold and you begin to insult people.
    Art and how people depict themselves is highly important. As an example: you, a dark skinned ruler of a mighty kingdom with your dark skinned subjects and your dark skinned advisors and your dark skinned gods hire one of your dark skinned subjects to paint a wall mural depicting your greatness. He finishes but lo and behold there are darkskinned people and light skinned people there together. Odd considering no one is light skinned. Unless of course there are actually light skinned people as part of your court, society and country. And I would hazard a guess that they would make up at least a significant amount to warrant repeated paintings (as kindly linked by someone else on page 4 as well as yourself in the opening posts). So my conclusions are, as previously stated, that there is a mixture. A cultural melting pot if you will. I hypothesised earlier in this thread that I suspected darker people in the south and lighter (on average) in the north. We KNOW there was a mixture based on the art. Why are you arguing against a mixture in society as a whole? And why are you attempting to insult people who don't agree with you?
    Why mention that you lived in Japan? You're not from Japan, are you, so that seems an oddly....mis-directing response.

    Please stop playing the injured victim. The post that I responded to earlier was, as far as I can see, disrespectful and condescending. Unless you can explain how it was meant any other way then perhaps we should leave it at that and move on.

    I think that you, and others , have misunderstood what The Unbreakable's argument has been. If you read the thread from the beginning you will see that he entered after a number of posters had put forward opinions regarding how non-black Egypt was. The Unbreakable did not start this discussion. What he did do was to introduce a great deal of information and evidence that the early Kingdoms of Egypt were of black African origin.

    At no point did he make the claim that Egypt remained black, without any migration from the Levant or North Africa. At no point has he claimed that Egypt is balck or in some way belongs to black Africans.

    As to how important this is...as I have said before, I think that the pusuit of an accurate history is important in itself. Surely none here would disagree with that. It might even be relevant to the timeframe of EB.

    Let me explain that last claim. It is well known that there were a number of attempted rebellions in Upper Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies. As has been pointed out, Lower Egypt at this time became Hellenised. With the Kingdom of Meroe gaining power in the area, isn't it possible that Upper Egypt felt, at this time, more of a cultural affinity with their Southern neighbours?

    It seems, from what I have read, that Cleopatra (the one famous to us for consorting with Caesar and Marcus Antonius) made a great deal of effort to ingratiate herself with the communities in Upper Egypt. Did she, perhaps, understand that that was her power-base within Egypt (understanding, of course, that the power from outside of Egypt, in the form of Caesar and then Antonius, was just as important)?

  6. #126

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus View Post
    Why mention that you lived in Japan? You're not from Japan, are you, so that seems an oddly....mis-directing response.

    Please stop playing the injured victim. The post that I responded to earlier was, as far as I can see, disrespectful and condescending. Unless you can explain how it was meant any other way then perhaps we should leave it at that and move on.

    I think that you, and others , have misunderstood what The Unbreakable's argument has been. If you read the thread from the beginning you will see that he entered after a number of posters had put forward opinions regarding how non-black Egypt was. The Unbreakable did not start this discussion. What he did do was to introduce a great deal of information and evidence that the early Kingdoms of Egypt were of black African origin.

    At no point did he make the claim that Egypt remained black, without any migration from the Levant or North Africa. At no point has he claimed that Egypt is balck or in some way belongs to black Africans.

    As to how important this is...as I have said before, I think that the pusuit of an accurate history is important in itself. Surely none here would disagree with that. It might even be relevant to the timeframe of EB.

    Let me explain that last claim. It is well known that there were a number of attempted rebellions in Upper Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies. As has been pointed out, Lower Egypt at this time became Hellenised. With the Kingdom of Meroe gaining power in the area, isn't it possible that Upper Egypt felt, at this time, more of a cultural affinity with their Southern neighbours?

    It seems, from what I have read, that Cleopatra (the one famous to us for consorting with Caesar and Marcus Antonius) made a great deal of effort to ingratiate herself with the communities in Upper Egypt. Did she, perhaps, understand that that was her power-base within Egypt (understanding, of course, that the power from outside of Egypt, in the form of Caesar and then Antonius, was just as important)?
    If unbreakable only intended to show that The Early Egyptian Dynasties were black, then he succeeded a long time ago. However, he asserts that all of Egypt was black during the predynastic period. Thats my only source of contention, Lower Egypt being outside of the tropical zone and with close affinity with the Levant and saharan pastoralist suggests greater genetic diffusion, while living in a less tropical zone would suggest a lighter skin tone though definitely not white. One would simply look at south asians and see the discrepancy of skin colour
    Last edited by Vaginacles; 07-12-2012 at 22:48.

  7. #127
    Member Member odia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
    How did I come to this conclusion?

    I looked at the map. The Nile forms an easy corridor for the Nubians to access Upper Egypt, any other people would either have to come through Nubia and into Egypt or cross the Sahara. Those Africans you are talking about who have lighter skin, and particularly skin as depicted in Egyptian paintings, are located in the African interior, they are not adapted for the Sahara itself. By contrast, the people of the Levant could access the Nile Delta just by taking a coastal route through the Sinai, or even boats.
    first of all, it is amazing that you did not even acknowledge the findings of Dr Nancy Lovell that I directly referenced as the main counter-point to your supposition:

    ...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 characteristic that are within the range of variations 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 southernly areas....
    And that you refused to engage actual biocultural data presented in that study but was bold however to tell me that 'you came to this conclusion'(that light-skinned Europeans are closer to the Egyptians than light-skinned Africans) cos '(you) looked at a map'!!! And from that map you found that the 'Nile forms an easy corridor for the Nubians to access Upper Egypt' and that 'those ('Black')Africans..who have lighter skin...are located in the interior of Africa,(and) they are not adapted to the Sahara'(in other words according to your understanding, those 'Black' Africans were beyond the Sahara and not adapted-two wrong presumptions i will treat fully later-and so 'from looking at the map' it is seems difficult that they would have had contact with the Egyptian Nile than the Levant); continuing, you said 'but by contrast, the people of the Levant could access the Nile Delta just by taking a coastal route through the Sinai or by boat'. Convincing Right? I mean by just 'looking at the map' this great treat of fine imagination at its simplex(Occam's Razor I guess) would do just fine? Am sure you are pretty certain that you got it down real good.

    But lets get back to REAL scholarship where propositions/presumptions are tested against the evidences and where it is very dangerous to make assumptions by looking at just one line of evidence and not the fuller lines of evidence.
    First, by completely disregarding physical anthropological data that ties the ancient Egyptians, IN THE MAIN, to some groups to its south and less so to those in the Levant or Europe(which is the thrust of the study above that you did not even acknowledge),a good example been Limb proportions, you have thoroughly distorted the facts by narrowing on one line of thinking. The people of the Levant(who you call 'Semitic'- and I will come to that later on) generally have intermediate limb proportions while the Ancient Egyptians have tropical(and even at times, supertropical) limb proportions, yet both live in environment that are similar(sub-tropical-except the southern tip of Egypt). It is near impossible for intermediate-proportioned populations to get to another sub-tropical environment and in a few years become tropically/supertropically adapted in that environment. First point.
    The second assumption you made was in respect of the Sahara which i will be treating now

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
    Large groups of people move in the easiest direction, the Sahara is hard to cross so the only reason a population would cross it in number is if they were being chased. If that were the case I would expect there to be some historical record of such a population fleeing into Egypt.
    First, that you made this mistake shows you know nothing of the Sahara, which is the most crucial region in the peopling of the Nile Valley, and still you are arguing a process from ignorance of same(little wonder you have had to rely on very subjective stuffs like ART WORK and 'map looking'). Before and during the years of the 'prehistoric' developments of Egypt there was no desert in the Sahara- the Sahara at that time was generally like a savanna where most Africans lived at the time.
    Let me try to summarize this: some thousands years before the 10th millennium BC, what we now call the Sahara was a larger desert but from that time monsoon-winds from the south returned to the desert bringing rains and vegetation and hence attracting animals and of course humans who followed them. The Sahara(including the critical Eastern Sahara) therefore contained Africans who have come from many points esp the south and even the Nile Valley, with a similar techno-complex('Saharo-Sudanese' culture-with wavy and dotted wavy pottery) dominating through out most of the Sahara from West Africa to East Africa and some points to the south and north. This of course also spread to the environs of Nubia and Egypt(Eastern Sahara). After some time,starting form the 5th millennium BC, the winds moved south again and the desert started to reappear. Most of its inhabitants had to move-most went south, some went east, some to better-watered areas in the Sahara, some to the oases(including the Longest linear oasis in the Sahara- the Nile):
    (A) During the Last
    Glacial Maximum and the terminal Pleistocene (20,000 to 8500 B.C.E.), the
    Saharan desert was void of any settlement outside of the Nile valley and
    extended about 400 km farther south than it does today. (B) With the abrupt
    arrival of monsoon rains at 8500 B.C.E., the hyper-arid desert was replaced
    by savannah-like environments and swiftly inhabited by prehistoric settlers.
    During the early Holocene humid optimum, the southern Sahara and the
    Nile valley apparently were too moist and hazardous for appreciable human
    occupation. (C) After 7000 B.C.E., human settlement became well established
    all over the Eastern Sahara, fostering the development of cattle pastoralism.
    (D) Retreating monsoonal rains caused the onset of desiccation of
    the Egyptian Sahara at 5300 B.C.E. Prehistoric populations were forced to
    the Nile valley or ecological refuges and forced to exodus into the Sudanese
    Sahara where rainfall and surface water were still sufficient. The return of full
    desert conditions all over Egypt at about 3500 B.C.E. coincided with the
    initial stages of pharaonic civilization in the Nile valley.
    Climate- Controlled Holocene Occupation in the Sahara: Motor of African's Evolution by Rodoulf Kuper and Stefan Kroepelin{Science Vol313 Aug. 2006 pg 806}
    http://www.google.com.ng/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=Kuper%2C+R.+and+Kr%C2%A8+opelin%2C+S.:+Climate-Controlled+Holocene+Occupation+in+the+Sahara%3A+Motor+of+Africa%E2%80%99s+Evolution%2C+Science%2C+31 3%2C+5788%2C+803%E2%80%93807%2C+2006.&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDUQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.meteor.iast ate.edu%2Fclasses%2Fge415%2Fpapers%2FKuper_Kropelin_Science06.pdf&ei=dmVmT5yROoHb0QW_3e28CA&usg=AFQj CNEI4Te3DDe7HFD4ubruMLvEiKENlA&cad=rja


    So some tropically adapted Africans moved to the Nile,which will include a range of dark and lighter skinned 'Black' Africans(that of course hinged on Brown) carrying elements of the so-called 'Saharo-Nubian' culture group which was widespread in the Eastern Sahara, the Nubia Nile(form 1st cataract to beyond the 6th cataract) and the Egyptian Nile(form the 1st cataract to Middle Egypt and some elements going to join influences in the north where they likely were some interactions with the Levant). The names for these culture variants on the Egyptian side are Tasian/Badarian and Naqada I- from where Dynastic Egyptian culture directly arose :

    During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period....Between about 5000 and 3000 B.C. a new era of southern cultural influences took shape. Increasing aridity pushed more of the human population of the eastern Sahara into areas with good access to the waters of the Nile, and along the Nile the bottomlands were for the first time cleared and farmed. The Egyptian stretches of the river came to form the northern edge of a newly emergent Middle Nile Culture Area, which extended far south up the river, well into the middle of modern-day Sudan. Peoples speaking languages of the Eastern Sahelian branch of the Nilo-Saharan family inhabited the heartland of this region....After about 3500 B.C., however, Egypt would have started to take on a new role vis-a-vis the Middle Nile region, simply because of its greater concentration of population. Growing pressures on land and resources soon enhanced and transformed the political powers of sacral chiefs. Unification followed, and the local deities of predynastic times became gods in a new polytheism, while sacral chiefs gave way to a divine king. At the same time, Egypt passed from the wings[peripheral] to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.
    Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture by Christopher Ehret 1999
    After recalling that the formation of Egyptian civilization originated in the Naqada cultures and its expansion to the original ones of the Delta which traded with their Asiatic neighbours, the author considers links with of the Naqada cultures to its African hinterland. In deed, since the 1980s,archaeologists have excavated in the Saharo-Nubian area a web of African cultures that could provide patterns and features to the first kingships of Upper Egypt(Friedman et al 2002). These archaeological data outline a new map of the formation of ancient Egypt: Tasians and Badarian Valley sites were not the centres of a predynastic culture,but peripheral provinces of a network of earlier African cultures where Badarians,Saharans, Nubian and Nilotic peoples regularly circulated along(Darnell 2008) and Nabta playa could be one of the ceremonila high centres. From the 4th millenium BC, these polytropic popultions were pushed out of the Eastern Sahara by the esertification. Some spread southwards,some staye in the actual oases, others moved towards the Nile, directed by the Western Great Sand Sea and the Southern Rock Belt to the East and the sites of Upper Egypt.
    Abstract: Some Notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures from which Emerged Egyptian Civilzation by Dr Alain Anselin{Egypt in its African Context,3-4 Oct 2009, Manchester Museum, University of Manchester}

    So, you see that some of the Africans now found beyond the Sahara(including the lighter-skinned 'Black' Africans, who by the way still live close to Egypt in Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia etc, were 'closer' geographically at the time than you thought).
    Plus the Sahara took a longer time become it became as dried as it is today- so recent discoveries are now showing Egyptian and Nubian- related settlements and cities in the Sahara close to the Nile as well as a lot of interaction between the Desert communities and Egypt as well http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/is...egypt3841.html ; also, the recent discovery of a trans-Saharan route(Abu Ballas Route) all the way to Chad possibly towards the famous kingdom of Yam, should also be pointed to you at this point http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=62457
    Anyways, this is just why it is dangerous to use just one line of evidence(esp if it is suspect-stylized art work and 'map looking') to make arguments in stead of marshaling all the lines of evidences as Nancy Lovell did in the above:

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

    archaeological(from Saharo-Sudanese to Saharo-Nubian or Nubian Neolithics), linguistics(flow of Afroasiatic and Nilosaharan, the two main language groups in the Nile form the south-I hope you know that proto-semitic as the youngest member of the Afroasiatic phyla spread from Africa to the Near East), geographic(wetting and drying of the Sahara that spurred populations towards the Nile) etc. These were used to build the model that supplemented the primarily physical anthropological evidence, that enabled her to come to her conclusions(each Line of Evidence complementing each other and substantially pointed towards a similar narrative ie the Ancient Egyptians, been IN THE MAIN, Saharo-tropical variants whose greatest biological affinities and ethnogenesis was with some other African groups to its south). This is how Scholarship is done; exactly what you guys have refuse(or is it unable) to do.

    Any ways there goes your theory(imaginative though I must agree) and the assumptions that spurned it.

    For those people who want to read more on the Sahara and Ancient Egypt see: http://www.google.com.ng/url?sa=t&rc...KJ3SBQjgujDRLg , and http://independent.academia.edu/Nick...he_present_day

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
    Then, of course, you have the simply fact that we know Egypt had contact with the Levant because proto-Caananite is developed from Egyptian script and the Egyptians at one point controlled the Levant and contested with the Hittites for that control.
    And no one to my knowledge is arguing that Egypt never had any contacts with groups in the Levant. There was 'prolonged small-scale migration' of some nonAfrican groups, through trades,small scale migrations to and fro,diplomacy and exchanges, war, better opportunities, 'colonization', slavery, marriages, education etc, from the very start to first the Late Middle Kingdom/2nd Intermediate period(where significant migrations brought some Near Easterners to the Eastern Delta and the resulting the Hyksos ruled parts of Egypt), and then Late New Kingdom/3rd Intermediate Period(when the so-called 'Libyans' with the 'Seas peoples' migrated to the Delta and parts of Lower Nile Valley ) and of course the Late period/Ptolemaic period when more Mediterraneans and others migrated to the Nile Delta.
    Anyways, up the to the Late Kingdom-Late Period, the evidences show that the basis of the Egyptian population were the descendants of the African peoples that constituted the main source of its founding population and culture. This does not mean that you will not find some nonAfricans or even 'mixed' peoples in significant numbers(the problem been that one cannot be sure of how significant these peoples were as they became part of the Egypt)



    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
    This is not the same view as the early Egyptologists, because they saw the Levant as a "white" rather than a seperate "Semtitic" area.
    Plz you fool no one with these semantics. Your statement was 'light-skinned EUROPEANS are closer to Egyptians than light-skinned ('Black')Africans'. You, just like those early Egyptologists were saying same thing; the only difference been that while they were at least able to build something using very suspect concepts(like Mediterranean Race Theorem, Dynastic Race Theorem, Hamitic Theorem, True Negro Theorem, Asiatic Origin of Egyptians and their culture, Spread of Egyptian culture from Lower to Upper Egypt etc) that have all collapsed, you have even been unable to 'build' anything .


    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
    If you can't cope with that, that's your problem. If you want to accuse me of racial prejudice because I'm white, brankly I don't care, as an Anglo-Scandanavian with Welsh blood I've been on the recieving end of enough recial prejudice that I can put up with that
    No plz I do not accuse you of any racial prejudice AT ALL- this is a surprising claim of yours. I assure you that I do not think of you as racist but I do think though that you Sir are a sloppy debater.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus
    Let me explain that last claim. It is well known that there were a number of attempted rebellions in Upper Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies. As has been pointed out, Lower Egypt at this time became Hellenised. With the Kingdom of Meroe gaining power in the area, isn't it possible that Upper Egypt felt, at this time, more of a cultural affinity with their Southern neighbours?

    Yea there was.Look at this site and see some reasons for the close cultural affinity- an oddly shaped mountain venerated 1st by theNubains, then the Egyptians of the New kingdom and finally the Nubians again for more than a thousand years. This mountain(or rather the god(s) that within it) was believed to have 'given' kingship to the New Kingdom paraohs and the suceeding Nubians http://www.jebelbarkal.org/

    Dont have the time so cant really go on about how the Meroites or some powers in Lower Nubia helped some of the many rebellions by Upper Egyptians against Ptolemaic and other foreign rule, esp the case of Khabbash(who in fact mighthave even been of Nubian descent nd declared himself phara with the support of the powerful families of Upper Egypt). Then there is the case of Herodotus written about a group of Egyptian soldiers so agree at the happenings in their land(during foreign rule) that they mutinied, migrated to the Meroetic King and palced themselves in his service. According to Herootus, the soldiers and their amilies numbering about 100,000 were settled by the king in a location in Nubia. It is just Herodotus word thpough so...






    @Vaginacles thank you very much for providing the opportunity for me to download that Smith 1992 study on Early Lower Egyptian-Southern Levant Affinities. I have been longing for a long time to have it . Much appreciated.
    PS: But, the findings sought of do not upport significant migrations from the Levant as the study says- but I will look through it again.
    Thanks again, Please do you have access to the Bluk and Beck Studies on this issue or others, if you do be much appreciated if you shared.

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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Lots of great posts, a lot to learn here.

    My own ignorant impression is the Nile is such a great resource that surroung peoples must've been drawn to it. I'm surprised the DNA evidence doesn't show more Ethiopian, I had always imagined that was a bigger influence but it makes complete sense that the bulk of people came from the South and West (out of the Sahara, what a nightmare the drying must've been). The big highway was surely the river itself and that runs south.

    No doubt also there was an unwillingness among 19th centurey and later Europeans to aknowledge any kind of "black" element in the much admired Egyptian culture. The silliness of this position was recognised by some even in the 19th century: the rather disgraceful Sir Richard Francis Burton (himself not very politically correct) opined that the Egyptian was "but a negro whitewashed and not an Arab" IIRC, and commented on their willingness to marry people of all shades. Not scientific or even much help as evidence but it shows that people who visited Egypt could clearly see it was an African country with a hefty dose of southern populations in the mix.
    Last edited by Cyclops; 07-13-2012 at 02:05.
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    EDIT: Seems something struck a nerve of mine. I'm bowing out of this debate.

    My final parting comment is exactly the same as it has been all along: The Unbreakable's hypothesis is interesting but the evidence he presents fails to convince me. His statement is too large and wide encompassing to be taken seriously. A statement that Egypt was heavily influenced by 'black' culture from the south would be an interesting discussion topic but that isn't what he has said. He is adamant that the entire population was black and there is no way that other peoples could have emigrated from the neighbouring regions DIRECTLY ADJACENT to the north-east! My counter has always been that it is likely that the south was more heavily dominated by peoples from Nubia and beyond while the north is far more likely to have had a greater population of non nubian peoples who are lighter skinned in nature. This would make egypt a cultural mix of peoples as evidence by artwork and by the DNA evidence that doesn't show a 1-to-1 correlation with nubian peoples.
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Blxz View Post
    And unfortunately my language skills are now being picked apart. As much as any Japanese person who wasn't actually born here but has only lived here the majority of my life, I won't say I AM Japanese. (born in Australia if it actually matters). I unfortunately get enough racist attention here locally by not being pure blood and don't need you coming in and driving in a stake. So no, I'm not "from Japan" as you like to put it. Join the big queue of my fellow countrymen and women in driving that point home if it makes you feel your argument is strengthened.

    And keep going off the point with irrelevant statements. I'm tired of being called Juvenile or having offtopic remarks directed at me. This debate is irrelevant in the scheme of things and I am sick of some of the people in here who must be coming close to the border of ORG rules with some of their personal statements.

    My final parting comment is exactly the same as it has been all along: The Unbreakable's hypothesis is interesting but the evidence he presents fails to convince me. His statement is too large and wide encompassing to be taken seriously. A statement that Egypt was heavily influenced by 'black' culture from the south would be an interesting discussion topic but that isn't what he has said. He is adamant that the entire population was black and there is no way that other peoples could have emigrated from the neighbouring regions DIRECTLY ADJACENT to the north-east! My counter has always been that it is likely that the south was more heavily dominated by peoples from Nubia and beyond while the north is far more likely to have had a greater population of non nubian peoples who are lighter skinned in nature. This would make egypt a cutural mix of peoples as evidence by artwork and by the DNA evidence that doesn't show a 1-to-1 correlation with nubian peoples.

    As the one who opened up this thread, I've been reading literally every comment posted, some times more than once. I have not seen any ad hominem attacks.

    Being accused of Juvenile statements is also legit, I mean, if a debate was just point-form facts and leaving it up to the reader to figure things out, then I imagine debates would be half as popular to attend. There is some flavor involved with words and I don't think that’s a bad thing, it sure as hell makes the read less exhausting. Obviously this has limits; pure rhetoric is as corrosive to the audience as is pure fact dropping.

    I don't understand why you felt it important to state that this debate is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. You yourself at one point stated it was very informative, which is what I was hoping it would be for myself and I suppose other people.
    Last edited by Ironduke; 07-13-2012 at 05:43.

  12. #132
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    Quote Originally Posted by odia View Post
    first of all, it is amazing that you did not even acknowledge the findings of Dr Nancy Lovell that I directly referenced as the main counter-point to your supposition.
    We're talking about two separate things - you're talking about the Pre-Dynastic, I'm talking about the new Kingdom.

    Where did I say "white" or "European", I believe I said "from the Levant" - the people in the Levant are and were Semitic not European.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic

    Semitic peoples are Afro-Asiatic, not Indo-European. I think it's a bit rich for you to call me a "sloppy debater" when you aren't paying any attention to the specifics of what I'm writing. I said "racial prejudice", I perhaps should have said, "racial bias" - i.e. I think you are making an assumption about how I think based on my education.

    That's not unreasonable, and no doubt true, but if you were educated in Africa you no doubt have your own bias.

    What I'm looking at here is a material culture from at least 1,500 BC and later which is depicting a varied population in the artwork, coupled with historical evidence of strong contact with the Levant and I'm saying, these people are not what we would today call "Black", looking at the Depictions of Amarna are later Pharaohs and the later Dynasties - I think they were mixed and it is in that context and during that period that I am saying that the luighter skinned people in the Levant are closer and have an easier migratory path than the lighter skinned people in Africa.

    If we're talking about a mixed population (and I think what we're arguing about now is composition of the mix) then don't you agree that you need a fairly light-skinned people mixing with the Nubian population to produce people with skin tones as light as the ones we find depicted by the time we get to the Amarna period? Also, how do you explain Ramses red hair without a significant Semitic component to his ancestry?

    You also have the first two books of the Torah, which despite their dubious historicity clearly preserve a memory of migration of Semitic Jews in and out of Egypt.

    The Unbreakable's claim was "Egypt was Black" - I consider that to be a crude view, which he has since nuanced under persistent pressure as "started out Black".
    "If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    I said "racial prejudice", I perhaps should have said, "racial bias" - i.e. I think you are making an assumption about how I think based on my education.

    That's not unreasonable, and no doubt true, but if you were educated in Africa you no doubt have your own bias.
    The point raised by Calicula has not, imo, been articulated enough. To return to the OP - if one examines the socio-cultural context in which Bernal was writing, his line of argument is not so surprising. In exploring the impact of 'Black' African culture on what were thought of as 'Mediterranean' civilisations, Bernal raised an important point regarding the inherent biases with scholarship in that area. The argument is successful in highlighting the requirement for scholars to consider their own contextual biases when approaching ancient source material - in terms of its specifics it is much less so.

    Not long after Bernal, a female scholar (whose name I forget) published a paper building on his claims, arguing that Cleopatra may have been 'black'. Again, it raised an important point within scholarship at the time, but fell down on the total lack of positive evidence. One cannot totally rule out her claim - but it remains highly unlikely.

    In terms of the broader argument on the extent to which Egyptian culture drew from sub-Saharan culture it is my opinion that there is enough positive evidence, in the form of artwork among other things, demonstrating disparate cultural provenance to suggest a dynamic and heterogenous population, which shows influence from a number of neighbouring regions.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Scribonius Curio View Post
    The point raised by Calicula has not, imo, been articulated enough. To return to the OP - if one examines the socio-cultural context in which Bernal was writing, his line of argument is not so surprising. In exploring the impact of 'Black' African culture on what were thought of as 'Mediterranean' civilisations, Bernal raised an important point regarding the inherent biases with scholarship in that area. The argument is successful in highlighting the requirement for scholars to consider their own contextual biases when approaching ancient source material - in terms of its specifics it is much less so.

    Not long after Bernal, a female scholar (whose name I forget) published a paper building on his claims, arguing that Cleopatra may have been 'black'. Again, it raised an important point within scholarship at the time, but fell down on the total lack of positive evidence. One cannot totally rule out her claim - but it remains highly unlikely.

    In terms of the broader argument on the extent to which Egyptian culture drew from sub-Saharan culture it is my opinion that there is enough positive evidence, in the form of artwork among other things, demonstrating disparate cultural provenance to suggest a dynamic and heterogenous population, which shows influence from a number of neighbouring regions.
    With Cleopatra - I think we can pretty well assume she was not "black" because she said throughout her life "look, I'm a Macedonian" which implies she was "white", possibly paler than the contemporary Southern Greeks. If she had been notably olive skinned I rather think the Romans would have made quite a lot of it given her relationship with Caesar and her ethnic claims would have been ridiculed with traditional Roman viciousness.

    I'm not aware of any such tradition.
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    I agree, my point isn't that the author (Haley) is correct, or even that her argument in favour of the proposition is robust. Her point is that we cannot rule out the possibility entirely, as some have, since we do not know the ethnic origin or even social status of Cleopatra's mother. The most obvious solution to this problem, and the one that I support, is, as you've said, that Cleopatra was, to all intents and purposes, Macedonian on both sides of her family tree.

    What I intended was that Haley raises the pertinent point that the majority of classical scholars in the late 80s (and beforehand) were wealthy, white males and had all the inherent values and prejudices that this entailed.
    Nihil nobis metuendum est, praeter metum ipsum. - Caesar
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    You repeatively claim that i am equating lower egyptians with semitic people, rather i am stating that they share similar physical traits that could be explained by either environment, genetic mixture, or otherwise
    What biological evidence do you have of this? While I think that it's highly likely that there were pockets of people from the Levant in early Lower Egypt, the bulk of all evidence (in all forms) points towards this region being peopled primarily by the Nilotic communities of the ancient Sahara.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    Then the study is silly, why not compare it to cranium that is geographically similar rather than distant?
    Actually Keita only commented on the commonality seen between admixed Coastal Northwest African populations and early Dynastic Egyptians, he did not purposely exclude Semitic populations in the Middle East. In fact in his next study it was found that even when Egyptian cranial from different times periods and regions (including the north) pulled together they grouped closer to the tropical African series (which included Sudanese and even a West African sample) over the Near Eastern series:

    "Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Jebel Moya, Ashanti) context) the affinity is with the Africans. The Sudan and Palestine are the most appropriate comparative regions which would have 'donated' people, along with the Sahara and Maghreb. Archaeology validates looking to these regions for population flow (see Hassan 1988)... Egyptian groups showed less overall affinity to Palestinian and Byzantine remains than to other African series, especially Sudanese." S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54
    In case you haven't noticed by now, the number of studies conducted on early Lower Egyptian population remains are minimal at best. One of the main reasons given for the lack of anthropological analysis of those people during that time is due to a simple lack of human remains, which is another nod to the fact that this region was sparsely populated during pre-early Dynastic times.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    Actually east africans have been mixing with Arabs for some time now. Their gene pool has shown to include Eurasian genes as i noted below.
    No, Actually Northeast African cranial variations are not the result of isolated/limited outside geneflow, but instead an product of Africa:

    "The living peoples of the African continent are diverse in facial characteristics, stature, skin color, hair form, genetics, and other characteristics. No one set of characteristics is more African than another. Variability is also found in "sub-Saharan" Africa, to which the word "Africa" is sometimes erroneously restricted. There is a problem with definitions. Sometimes Africa is defined using cultural factors, like language, that exclude developments that clearly arose in Africa. For example, sometimes even the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea) is excluded because of geography and language and the fact that some of its peoples have narrow noses and faces.

    However, the Horn is at the same latitude as Nigeria, and its languages are African. The latitude of 15 degree passes through Timbuktu, surely in "sub-Saharan Africa," as well as Khartoum in Sudan; both are north of the Horn. Another false idea is that supra-Saharan and Saharan Africa were peopled after the emergence of "Europeans" or Near Easterners by populations coming from outside Africa. Hence, the ancient Egyptians in some writings have been de-Africanized. These ideas, which limit the definition of Africa and Africans, are rooted in racism and earlier, erroneous "scientific" approaches." (S. Keita, "The Diversity of Indigenous Africans," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Clenko, Editor (1996), pp. 104-105. [10])
    Genetic research also finds the same the thing:

    " These studies suggest a recent and primary subdivision between African and non-African populations, high levels of divergence among African populations, and a recent shared common ancestry of non-African populations, from a population originating in Africa. The intermediate position, between African and non-African populations, that the Ethiopian Jews and Somalis occupy in the PCA plot also has been observed in other genetic studies (Ritte et al. 1993; Passarino et al. 1998) and could be due either to shared common ancestry or to recent gene flow. The fact that the Ethiopians and Somalis have a subset of the sub-Saharan African haplotype diversity and that the non-African populations have a subset of the diversity present in Ethiopians and Somalis makes simple-admixture models less likely; rather, these observations support the hypothesis proposed by other nuclear-genetic studies (Tishkoff et al. 1996a, 1998a, 1998b; Kidd et al. 1998) that populations in northeastern Africa may have diverged from those in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa early in the history of modern African populations and that a subset of this northeastern-African population migrated out of Africa and populated the rest of the globe. These conclusions are supported by recent mtDNA analysis (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999)."
    [Tishkoff et al. (2000) Short Tandem-Repeat Polymorphism/Alu Haplotype Variation at the PLAT Locus: Implications for Modern Human Origins. Am J Hum Genet; 67:901-925]
    Understanding that not all "black" Africans conform to a particular set of traits is key to understanding this stance. So when some people are insistence on using their own subjective interpretations of stylized Egyptian art work (while simultaneously ignoring everything else), then they must take these facts into consideration. For example are the Egyptians not "black" because they don't have the same pitch black skin tone as Dinka people? If so then that would mean that damn near 90% of Nigerians tend be a brownish-to yellow skinned color aren't black either:

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    (Egyptians bottom left)

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    The list goes on X(1000).

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    Lower egyptians had less of a tropical body than their upper egyptian cousins, but more so than the people to the east.
    What evidence do you have for this? The Thesis paper by Raxter (assuming that's what you're building off of) is limited in validity, but none the less does not dispute the consistent fact that the ancient Egyptians and Nubians (who are once yet again mentioned interchangeably) had limb proportions that grouped them with the majority of other Africans (who are tropically adapted). No mention of this affinity with Middle Easterners who are not tropically adapted.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    I find it interesting how you assume that Africans= Black when it only applies to tropical Africa. Tropical body plan correlates with colour, yes or no? If not, then the colour of lower egyptians are still under question
    No I did do not equate all of Africa and Africans as black, instead I have always specified "tropical" African and note that this indicates that a population is "black" or has dark skin like black Africans. Both Lower and Upper Egyptians were tropically adapted like other Africans further to the south. One was not intermediate between tropical and sub tropical populations as you are insinuating, but fully tropically adapted.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    First: the link http://bioanthropology.huji.ac.il/pdf/13.pdf
    Second: P.5 mentioned evidence of craniofacial similarities Between the Levantine people and Lower Egyptians posited by Klug and Beck
    Third: i never denied that Lower egyptians had "tropical body patterns" but that they had less of one compared to Upper Egyptians. In fact, the evidence here suggests that craniofacial patterns are more similar to levantine populations than Upper Egyptians, micro-evolution or genetic mixture.
    Nothing in that study refutes what I have been arguing. NEVER have I denied that there was mutual influence between the Levant and early Lower Egypt. I have even stated several times that I believe it to be very likely that there were pockets of Levantine communities in early Lower Egypt. What I and the study that you just cited refute is the notion that Lower Egypt was initially populated by a large early movement of people from the Levant. The people of pre-Dynastic Lower Egypt were not LONG TERM residence of the Sub Tropical environment that they recently settled in, UNLIKE most people in the Levant. This is why they had limb proportion ratios which were said to have been "significantly different" from the people of the Levant and instead grouping with the majority of tropical African populations further to the south. This is consistent with archaeological evidence suggesting a migration from the southerly/tropical regions of the Sahara to Lower Egypt...hence the primary population source of that region. So why would these recent Nilotic migrants on the Lower Nile not be "black"?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    Dude, i was talking about the new dynasty, and you admitted yourself that the New Dynasty were mixed peoples. With Lower egypt becomming more powerful in the new kingdom, it stands to reason that more lower egyptians came into power
    No I'm asking YOU to back YOUR assertion that Egyptian artwork display a skin tone gradient from the south to the north. You have asserted time and time again (baselessly) that Lower Egyptians were tropically adapted yet "light skinned" and stated that artwork validates this claim (as nothing else appears to), so please back your assertion or admit that it is fallacious.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    Yes, but even they admit it as a WORKING HYPOTHESIS, meaning that its a starting point and not even close to fact. I said there was no EMPIRICAL way of proving it, which means settlements and housing. All of which has been destroyed or lies under metres of silt.
    You are in denial of what almost every Egyptologist considers to be common knowledge. ALL of it has not been destroyed by silt. It is SPECULATED that SOME sites may not have been destroyed, none the less I have yet to see any Egyptologist withhold judgement on the matter of early ancient Egypt's population centers because of this. They all conclude that it's CLEAR that the south was where most of early Egypt's population resided and conversely where Dynastic culture originated. Acknowledging this fact does not "down play" the cultures of Lower Egypt, is a statement of fact.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    Yes we already established that Upper egypt and nubia were closely intertwined. The problem is of course the unbalanced skeletal remains of upper egypt compared to lower egypt.
    Your entire opposition to calling ancient Egypt black, is because you wish to hold onto the SPECULATIVE notion that some sites in Lower Egypt were destroyed by silt. From that YOU (never citing an Egyptologist) comes to the conclusion that Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt may have had comparable populations (a statement which is contrary to two authoratative sources presented to you). Of course it all boils down to your unfounded belief that Lower Egyptians were some "light skinned" (yet tropically adapted) population. From all of that speculation that you've come up with YOU conclude that my position that Egypt was black, which is soundly supported by biological and cultural evidence showing closest affinities towards more southerly African populations is baseless. Interestingly enough I have authoritative scholarship unmistakably backing my assertion:

    "Physical anthropologists are increasingly concluding that racial definitions are the culturally defined product of selective perception and should be replaced in biological terms by the study of populations and clines. Consequently, any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depend on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study. Thus, by modern American standards it is reasonable to characterize the Egyptians as 'blacks' [i.e in a social sense] while acknowledging the scientific evidence for the physical diversity of Africans." Source: Donald Redford (2001) The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, Volume 3. Oxford University Press. p. 27-28
    So who is wrong; The scholars at Oxford or You and a handful of other armchair historians?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaginacles View Post
    - Migration along the Levant/Egyptian border occurred frequently, the largest one being 30 000+ years ago from the levant to Egypt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182266/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC447595/ The fact that people from as far as cameroon have these genes discount the theory of recent migration of arabs into egypt as cause of genetic transmission
    Tell me what bearing would population movement from 30k years ago have on a population that came into existence 5k years ago? Better yet what did people from the Levant even look like during early time in human history? Studies from the oldest skeletal remains in Egypt (around this time period) not surprisingly shows close affinities towards black Africans:

    Indeed, the rare and incomplete Paleolithic to early Neolithic skeletal specimens found in Egypt - such as the 33,000-year-old Nazlet Khater specimen (Pinhasi and Semai 2000), the Wadi Kubbaniya skeleton from the late Paleolithic site in the upper Nile valley (Wendorf et al. 1986), the Qarunian (Faiyum) early Neolithic crania (Henneberg et al. 1989; Midant-Reynes 2000), and the Nabta specimen from the Neolithic Nabta Playa site in the western desert of Egypt (Henneberg et al. 1980) - show, with regard to the great African biological diversity, similarities with some of the sub-Saharan middle Paleolithic and modern sub-Saharan specimens. This affinity pattern between ancient Egyptians and sub-Saharans has also been noticed by several other investigators..”

    --Ricaut and Walekens (2008) ‘Cranial Discrete traits)
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  17. #137
    Speaker of Truth Senior Member Moros's Avatar
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by The Unbreakable View Post
    What biological evidence do you have of this? While I think that it's highly likely that there were pockets of people from the Levant in early Lower Egypt, the bulk of all evidence (in all forms) points towards this region being peopled primarily by the Nilotic communities of the ancient Sahara.
    Egyptian art generally didn't depict people accurately instead they overly differentiated them from themselves by showing Nubians as pitch black, while they weren't and Libyans as white, while they weren't. However it is not just colour they used for this. Their southern neigbours also are depicted with fatter lips and the likes. So it rare cases when they needed to depict members of more southern native Africans of different ethnicities you get results like these:
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    Strangely enough here they don't do it, though it looks like the enemies include if they aren't all Levantines or other semitics:
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    Strange when you see them differentiate between Libyans and Africans so much more.

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    Does that mean they are the same? No. It only shows this art isn't really fit for making comparisons or we should trust that women were of another ethnicity as well:
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    So what is my point except that art isn't really good at making great depictions. It does show differentiation between Nubians, Ethiopians or southern Nubians and Egyptians. As well as a difference between Libyans and Egyptians. Yet possibly less difference between Levantines, though they'd have the same colour of skin mostly as the Libyans. Possibly they found themselves culturally less different from them? While at the same time suggesting they were darker and had more southern genitic influence in their heterogenous community to be depicted more dark then Libyans. I think this somewhat backs up the middle ground stance.
    Yes Upper Egypt was pretty high on more southern influence and heritage and provided a rather dark skinned royalty, while upper Egypt was less so and had also more influence and migration from less African ethnicities and cultures. Creating an interesting mix.

  18. #138
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    First I want to thank you @Nabaati for been the only person amongst those championing the use of art works to at least try to 'contextualize' it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nabaati
    Be very careful about inferring colors from images on the internet. They will vary wildly based on lighting conditions and/or image processing. As someone who has a fair amount of first-hand experience with the skin tones represented in egyptian art, I can say that the images you posted show darker coloration than is typical, and in some cases, I know the scenes quite well and can say that the colors are darker than what I have seen in other representations of the same scenes.
    This is your word against posted images. It could have been better if you indulge us of your expertize and actually post the images in their 'correct' colour that perhaps have not been affected by the lighting condition and/or image processing(according to you).
    I say this cos I have seen in some of the images in other contexts,esp those models of boatmen and soldiers, and do not find them different from the images posted by The Unbreakable here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nabaati
    Women are routinely portrayed as quite a bit lighter skinned than men. If this is to reflect the fact that men are in the sun more than women, then this argues against egyptians as "black" because the high melanin content in "black skin" prevents skin tanning.
    No, it is not a case of tanning cos there was something else going on here:
    Yea, during a period of the Old Kingdom, the artistic convention used by the artist was to generally portray males in a Brownish/Reddish/Red-Brownish coloring while the females were portray in yellowish coloring. Now, the problem here is that am not aware of any human population in the world were its males are Brownish while its females are yellowish ie of two different colours. Even if we say Sexual Dimorphism-females are generally lighter relative to males, that shuld be shades variation within the same colours(not two different colours). That is the first point.
    What makes it even more bizarre is that during the following Middle Kindom and even more during the New Kingdom, the artistic convention changed again. During this long period, both males and females were generally painted in shades Brown/Reddish-Brown/Red. So what changed? Was there a genocidal cleansing of all yellowish females in Egypt(which by the earlier convention means virtually all the females)? And where did Egypt import the Brownish females that replaced the yellowish one from? Certainly, assuming we still have any faith in Egyptians paintings as ACCURATE PORTRAITS then we must accept one of the conventions and reject the other. Using commeon sense, we will aceept the latercase since the first case(where the males and females were painted in 2 different colours) is quite unnatural. This choice is supposed to help our case but i suspect an artistic system which suddenly changes conventions that way except to regard it as stylarize.(To increase the confusion further by the way, the artistic convention before that later Old Kingdom era painted both males and females in shades of Brown/Reddish-Brown/Red,even in the Predynastic era in such sites as Gebelein Cloth and Painted Hierakonpolis Tomb, where humans both were painted in same Brown Colour).
    To rely our Egyptian paintings or art as a form of evidence in determining the biological affinities of the ancients is a very slippery, unreliable and subjective path. Am not aware of any physical anthropologist or even Egyptologists who will dare do such.

    This kind of 'confusion' is not limited to paintings alone. There are many instances where there are very different 'portraits'(sculpture) of same person in ancient Egypt. There is for instance, a sculpture representing the pharoah Kharfre with thin lips and thin nose but the sphinx which is said to be a portrait of him has some of the thickest lips and nose of any Egyptian sculpture. Which is most accurate cos they can not represent same person. Another person represented with very different sculptures is Rameses II. Even Nefertiti had many 'portraits' of hers, that do not resemble each other such as the examples given by The Unbreakable earlier. Just last month, a new sculpture of Nefertiti was discovered with a thick nose and thick lips unlike the famous Berlin Bust http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com...nefertiti.html . Which sculpture should we just as the 'Real' one.

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  19. #139

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by odia View Post
    No, it is not a case of tanning cos there was something else going on here:
    Yea, during a period of the Old Kingdom, the artistic convention used by the artist was to generally portray males in a Brownish/Reddish/Red-Brownish coloring while the females were portray in yellowish coloring. Now, the problem here is that am not aware of any human population in the world were its males are Brownish while its females are yellowish ie of two different colours. Even if we say Sexual Dimorphism-females are generally lighter relative to males, that shuld be shades variation within the same colours(not two different colours). That is the first point.
    What makes it even more bizarre is that during the following Middle Kindom and even more during the New Kingdom, the artistic convention changed again. During this long period, both males and females were generally painted in shades Brown/Reddish-Brown/Red. So what changed? Was there a genocidal cleansing of all yellowish females in Egypt(which by the earlier convention means virtually all the females)? And where did Egypt import the Brownish females that replaced the yellowish one from? Certainly, assuming we still have any faith in Egyptians paintings as ACCURATE PORTRAITS then we must accept one of the conventions and reject the other. Using commeon sense, we will aceept the latercase since the first case(where the males and females were painted in 2 different colours) is quite unnatural. This choice is supposed to help our case but i suspect an artistic system which suddenly changes conventions that way except to regard it as stylarize.(To increase the confusion further by the way, the artistic convention before that later Old Kingdom era painted both males and females in shades of Brown/Reddish-Brown/Red,even in the Predynastic era in such sites as Gebelein Cloth and Painted Hierakonpolis Tomb, where humans both were painted in same Brown Colour).
    To rely our Egyptian paintings or art as a form of evidence in determining the biological affinities of the ancients is a very slippery, unreliable and subjective path. Am not aware of any physical anthropologist or even Egyptologists who will dare do such.
    It's not just OK where women are colored lighter than men. This happens through the NK, at least. Here are two scans I made myself, the first from Nina Davies's book (which was no small feat given its size) and the second from the papyrus of ani book with the translation by faulkner. Both are NK representations of women and both represent women as lighter skinned than men (at least on my monitor, I make no claims for how you set yours up). Sometimes you don't get that (my print of the famous Nebamun marsh hunting scene has Nebamun & his wife the same color) but in my limited experience, that occurs less often than differences.
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    Honestly, if one is going to completely discount how egyptians represented themselves, in my book, one better have an alternate explanation. I know of no claims that there was, say, a religious reason as to why women were portrayed with lighter skin than men, or why egyptians were painted as more red ochre-ish and nubians as black. In the absence of compelling evidence or argumentation, I interpret the scenes as representing a difference in the amount of outdoor activity engaged in between egyptian men and women and differences in skin tone between the peoples, respectively. If you don't make the same interpretation but have no argument for the pattern, well, bully for you.

    At the end of the day, the skin color of ancient egyptians gets you very little, if anything. This is why I find this topic so, so, SO ridiculous.

  20. #140

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    At the end of the day, the skin color of ancient egyptians gets you very little, if anything. This is why I find this topic so, so, SO ridiculous.
    Can we all agree that the skin tones for EB/EB2 Machimoi are acceptable? That's all that really matters here.
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  21. #141

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    I find this reliance on the artwork as an accurate depiction of how the Eyptions 'actually looked' as very compromised. How far should we go with this? We would have to accept, for example, that were races of very large (giant) people alongside races of very, very wee (small) people. As Odia has referred to, we would have to accept a level of sexual dimporhism not evidenced in any other human population, as well as the prospect that these people actually changed form between depictions. One might have to acknowledge that Egypt at this time was full of clones, perhaps, or that many twins/triplets were born within the time and place of ancient Egypt. Not to mention that they must all have walked a bit funny.

    Come on, there are few forms as stylised as Egyptian formal (religio-political) art-work, and more repleat with obvious symbolism. If one wishes to demonstrate how the art-works are depicting Egyptians 'as they are' one would have to contextualise what about themselves they are saying. Context (who is being depicted, doing what, in what era, and demonstrating what aspect of their world) has to be taken into account.

    Taking depictions in art-work, which are clearly heavily stylised and symbolic, and arguing that above and beyond the combined weight of evidence of genetic and skeletal archaeological data, as well as demonstrable cultural and religious affinities doesn't, imo, make much sense.
    Last edited by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus; 07-14-2012 at 11:18.

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  22. #142

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Nabaati View Post
    Honestly, if one is going to completely discount how egyptians represented themselves, in my book, one better have an alternate explanation.
    As far as an "alternate explanation" as to what they looked like.....how about their actual PHYSICAL REMAINS? Based on their skeletal morphology which populations do they resemble? Consistent biological evidence suggest that they most closely resembled Sudanese Africans:

    Nutter (1958) noted affinities between the Badarian and Naqada samples, a feature that Strouhal (1971) attributed to their skulls possessing “Negroid” traits. Keita (1992), using craniometrics, discovered that the Badarian series is distinctly different from the later Egyptian series, a conclusion that is mostly confirmed here. In the current analysis, the Badari sample more closely clusters with the Naqada sample and the Kerma sample. However, it also groups with the later pooled sample from Dynasties XVIII–XXV. -- Godde K. (2009) An Examination of Nubian and Egyptian biological distances: Support for biological diffusion or in situ development? Homo. 2009;60(5):389-404.
    Skin cell analysis don't yield any different findings:

    "During an excavation headed by the German Institute for Archaeology, Cairo, at the tombs of the nobles in Thebes-West, Upper Egypt, three types of tissues from different mummies were sampled to compare 13 well known rehydration methods for mummified tissue with three newly developed methods. .. Skin sections showed particularly good tissue preservation, although cellular outlines were never distinct. Although much of the epidermis had already separated from the dermis, the remaining epidermis often was preserved well (Fig. 1). The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin."--(A-M Mekota and M Vermehren. (2005) Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues. Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005, Vol. 80, No. 1, Pages 7-13[[37A]]
    What do these findings indicate about the phenotype of ancient Egyptians if not that they were black (originally). Why are a select few of you so desperately ignoring any biological evidence which rids any doubt on their physical appearance? If I am misinterpreting these passages then please give your own.
    Last edited by The Unbreakable; 07-14-2012 at 11:08.

  23. #143
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by odia View Post
    First I want to thank you @Nabaati for been the only person amongst those championing the use of art works to at least try to 'contextualize' it.

    This is your word against posted images. It could have been better if you indulge us of your expertize and actually post the images in their 'correct' colour that perhaps have not been affected by the lighting condition and/or image processing(according to you).
    I say this cos I have seen in some of the images in other contexts,esp those models of boatmen and soldiers, and do not find them different from the images posted by The Unbreakable here.

    No, it is not a case of tanning cos there was something else going on here:
    Yea, during a period of the Old Kingdom, the artistic convention used by the artist was to generally portray males in a Brownish/Reddish/Red-Brownish coloring while the females were portray in yellowish coloring. Now, the problem here is that am not aware of any human population in the world were its males are Brownish while its females are yellowish ie of two different colours. Even if we say Sexual Dimorphism-females are generally lighter relative to males, that shuld be shades variation within the same colours(not two different colours). That is the first point.
    What makes it even more bizarre is that during the following Middle Kindom and even more during the New Kingdom, the artistic convention changed again. During this long period, both males and females were generally painted in shades Brown/Reddish-Brown/Red. So what changed? Was there a genocidal cleansing of all yellowish females in Egypt(which by the earlier convention means virtually all the females)? And where did Egypt import the Brownish females that replaced the yellowish one from? Certainly, assuming we still have any faith in Egyptians paintings as ACCURATE PORTRAITS then we must accept one of the conventions and reject the other. Using commeon sense, we will aceept the latercase since the first case(where the males and females were painted in 2 different colours) is quite unnatural. This choice is supposed to help our case but i suspect an artistic system which suddenly changes conventions that way except to regard it as stylarize.(To increase the confusion further by the way, the artistic convention before that later Old Kingdom era painted both males and females in shades of Brown/Reddish-Brown/Red,even in the Predynastic era in such sites as Gebelein Cloth and Painted Hierakonpolis Tomb, where humans both were painted in same Brown Colour).
    To rely our Egyptian paintings or art as a form of evidence in determining the biological affinities of the ancients is a very slippery, unreliable and subjective path. Am not aware of any physical anthropologist or even Egyptologists who will dare do such.

    This kind of 'confusion' is not limited to paintings alone. There are many instances where there are very different 'portraits'(sculpture) of same person in ancient Egypt. There is for instance, a sculpture representing the pharoah Kharfre with thin lips and thin nose but the sphinx which is said to be a portrait of him has some of the thickest lips and nose of any Egyptian sculpture. Which is most accurate cos they can not represent same person. Another person represented with very different sculptures is Rameses II. Even Nefertiti had many 'portraits' of hers, that do not resemble each other such as the examples given by The Unbreakable earlier. Just last month, a new sculpture of Nefertiti was discovered with a thick nose and thick lips unlike the famous Berlin Bust http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com...nefertiti.html . Which sculpture should we just as the 'Real' one.
    The variation in lighter skinned people between those who stay indoors and those who go outside can be quite pronounced, to the extent that many European women with social standing still wear sun hats to prevent their faces tanning. If previously in the Pre-Dynastic period both men and women are depicted as the same shade then it is possible that what we are seeing later on is evidence of greater social stratification, such that high-class women no longer work and therefore do not tan.

    There are of course other potential explanations to do with colour symbolism, but it is perfectly credible that what the artist is doing is exagerating an actual trait to emphasise the social strate the women occupy.

    With regard to statutary - the most likely explanation is that one artist is depicting a "form" of someone he has never met, that one artist is incompetent, or that they depict different people. In the case of the Sphinx, we don't know who it depicts, if anyone, there have been theories but none are anywhere near compelling enough for us to draw any conclusions from its facial features. It also lacks a nise, which throws the whole argument off anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus View Post
    I find this reliance on the artwork as an accurate depiction of how the Eyptions 'actually looked' as very compromised. How far should we go with this? We would have to accept, for example, that were races of very large (giant) people alongside races of very, very wee (small) people. As Odia has referred to, we would have to accept a level of sexual dimporhism not evidenced in any other human population, as well as the prospect that these people actually changed form between depictions. One might have to acknowledge that Egypt at this time was full of clones, perhaps, or that many twins/triplets were born within the time and place of ancient Egypt. Not to mention that they must all have walked a bit funny.

    Come on, there are few forms as stylised as Egyptian formal (religio-political) art-work, and more repleat with obvious symbolism. If one wishes to demonstrate how the art-works are depicting Egyptians 'as they are' one would have to contextualise what about themselves they are saying. Context (who is being depicted, doing what, in what era, and demonstrating what aspect of their world) has to be taken into account.

    Taking depictions in art-work, which are clearly heavily stylised and symbolic, and arguing that above and beyond the combined weight of evidence of genetic and skeletal archaeological data, as well as demonstrable cultural and religious affinities doesn't, imo, make much sense.
    You can tell a lot from artwork, this is not just a case of, "look, the Egyptians paint themselves as brown, so they are." This is a question of looking at how the Egyptians portray other using sylistic convention, looking at how they use colour symbolically and then looking at how the vast mass of Egyptians next to those contexts are portrayed. I.e. Horus is portrayed as pitch black, but the Egyptian he is giving something to is red-brown.

    You are also not ingaging with the argument that we are making - we have not said that the Unbreakable's data is false, or anomolous - we have said that it does not support the argument he is making in the face of conflicting data. Especially given that the biological date (as in the case of King Tut) can be highly ambigious and is coming from a very small sample.

    It's very easy for biological data to become scewed - a single Ethiopian or Caanite concubine will scew here children's DNA wildly off the average. There was a recent story about a Scottish (white Gaelic) academic who had his genome tested and discovered his mitrocondrial DNA was of a type found only in Africa. If, in 200 years, you only had his mitrocondrial DNA to test you would conclude he was African.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Unbreakable View Post
    As far as an "alternate explanation" as to what they looked like.....how about their actual PHYSICAL REMAINS? Based on their skeletal morphology which populations do they resemble? Consistent biological evidence suggest that they most closely resembled Sudanese Africans:

    Skin cell analysis don't yield any different findings.

    What do these findings indicate about the phenotype of ancient Egyptians if not that they were black (originally). Why are a select few of you so desperately ignoring any biological evidence which rids any doubt on their physical appearance? If I am misinterpreting these passages then please give your own.
    Problem 1: Sample size.

    Problem 2: Sample bredth (many individuals from few families).

    This does not invalidate the biological evidence, but it is (like the artwork) of limited value. For really compelling biological data you would need several large graveyards of mid to low level Egyptians, the sort of thing we use in Europe to test biological affinity. You don't have that for Egypt.
    "If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."

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  24. #144

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus View Post
    I find this reliance on the artwork as an accurate depiction of how the Eyptions 'actually looked' as very compromised. How far should we go with this? We would have to accept, for example, that were races of very large (giant) people alongside races of very, very wee (small) people. As Odia has referred to, we would have to accept a level of sexual dimporhism not evidenced in any other human population, as well as the prospect that these people actually changed form between depictions. One might have to acknowledge that Egypt at this time was full of clones, perhaps, or that many twins/triplets were born within the time and place of ancient Egypt. Not to mention that they must all have walked a bit funny.

    Come on, there are few forms as stylised as Egyptian formal (religio-political) art-work, and more repleat with obvious symbolism. If one wishes to demonstrate how the art-works are depicting Egyptians 'as they are' one would have to contextualise what about themselves they are saying. Context (who is being depicted, doing what, in what era, and demonstrating what aspect of their world) has to be taken into account.

    Taking depictions in art-work, which are clearly heavily stylised and symbolic, and arguing that above and beyond the combined weight of evidence of genetic and skeletal archaeological data, as well as demonstrable cultural and religious affinities doesn't, imo, make much sense.
    Because I have not seen a culture yet that habitually represents themselves, in broad strokes, in a way that is different from reality. I have what I consider a reasonable explanation for the pattern of lighter colored women in egyptian art. Discounting this explanation without suggesting another doesn't get very far with me. Perhaps I betray my physics roots, but you don't throw out hypotheses that have explanatory power in favor of others that have none.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Unbreakable
    Why are a select few of you so desperately ignoring any biological evidence which rids any doubt on their physical appearance?
    Because, as far as I can tell, you are extrapolating data from a single time frame (predynastic) from a single location (upper egypt) to 3000 years of history and all of egypt. I find this an extreme case of caricature. I would be absolutely shocked to learn upper egyptians, then or now, did not look a lot like their southern neighbors. However, there is evidence in the form of their artwork that they did not view themselves as quite the same as their southern neighbors. This is what makes the issue of egyptian skin tone more complicated than "egyptians were black."

    As I say, though, even if 100% of egyptians were the darkest skinned people in africa or the most fuchsia skinned people in africa or the most rainbow skinned people in africa, it explains little to nothing about their culture. This is why I always roll my eyes when this topic comes up. Some people care so much about something that is so trivial.

  25. #145

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    The variation in lighter skinned people between those who stay indoors and those who go outside can be quite pronounced, to the extent that many European women with social standing still wear sun hats to prevent their faces tanning. If previously in the Pre-Dynastic period both men and women are depicted as the same shade then it is possible that what we are seeing later on is evidence of greater social stratification, such that high-class women no longer work and therefore do not tan.

    There are of course other potential explanations to do with colour symbolism, but it is perfectly credible that what the artist is doing is exagerating an actual trait to emphasise the social strate the women occupy.
    Yes, there are other potential explanations to do with colour symbolism. That is rather the point being made here. I will grant you that it is, indeed, perfectly credible that what the artist is doing is exagerating an actual trait that is part of the problem with defining skin tones on art-work as being 'realistic' depictions of 'how people really looked'. It is, at best, depicting - stylistically - a trait and exagerating it. This argument also does not address the anacronystic
    aspects of the depictions (as alluded to by Odia, that such depictions are relative to temporal context and that such a simplistic understanding of the depictions would have to account for a sexual dimporphism unknown within any other human population.) Nor does it address the giants and/or midgets that appear to be inhabiting this ancient world, nor the incredible similarity displayed between individuals portrayed as stylistically similar.

    I think that the only conclusion that one can honestly come to with regards to Egyptian formal art is that it is stylistic (ie symbolic) and its interpretation must rely upon its context (temporal/political/social/religious)

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    With regard to statutary - the most likely explanation is that one artist is depicting a "form" of someone he has never met, that one artist is incompetent, or that they depict different people. In the case of the Sphinx, we don't know who it depicts, if anyone, there have been theories but none are anywhere near compelling enough for us to draw any conclusions from its facial features. It also lacks a nise, which throws the whole argument off anyway.
    Why is the "most likely explanation" that one artist is depicting a "form" of someone they have never met, or that one artist is incompetent? Given the changes/differences within depictions, within different contexts, would it not be, perhaps, more accurate to say that all of the work is depicting a "form" of someone - whether met or not. In other words, exactly what has been suggested, that all of the work is stylistic (symbolic)? But, of course, to accept that premise is to undermine art-work as 'true' depiction as null and void.

    But, let us take your own, diluted, variation from that sance as valid. How do we, then, ascertain which artist(s) is/are competent or incompetent? We are left with the same conclusion. We can, given such doubt, say very little about the 'reality' of depictions within Egyptian formal art without recourse to their contexts - with the added complication of defining the competence or otherwise of the artists.


    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    You can tell a lot from artwork, this is not just a case of, "look, the Egyptians paint themselves as brown, so they are." This is a question of looking at how the Egyptians portray other using sylistic convention, looking at how they use colour symbolically and then looking at how the vast mass of Egyptians next to those contexts are portrayed. I.e. Horus is portrayed as pitch black, but the Egyptian he is giving something to is red-brown.
    The "vast mass" of Egyptians next to those contexts? What "vast mass" are you referring to. Context is context, and citing one example is begging a question (within the context of a "vast mass"). But, I agree, one must (as has been suggested) look at the context(s) of the artwork.

    Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
    You are also not ingaging with the argument that we are making - we have not said that the Unbreakable's data is false, or anomolous - we have said that it does not support the argument he is making in the face of conflicting data. Especially given that the biological date (as in the case of King Tut) can be highly ambigious and is coming from a very small sample.

    It's very easy for biological data to become scewed - a single Ethiopian or Caanite concubine will scew here children's DNA wildly off the average. There was a recent story about a Scottish (white Gaelic) academic who had his genome tested and discovered his mitrocondrial DNA was of a type found only in Africa. If, in 200 years, you only had his mitrocondrial DNA to test you would conclude he was African.



    Problem 1: Sample size.

    Problem 2: Sample bredth (many individuals from few families).

    This does not invalidate the biological evidence, but it is (like the artwork) of limited value. For really compelling biological data you would need several large graveyards of mid to low level Egyptians, the sort of thing we use in Europe to test biological affinity. You don't have that for Egypt.
    You say that The Unbreakable's evidence does not support his claims "in the face of conflicting data", then proceed, rather than intimating what this conflicting data is, to attempt to undermine the data he has produced as possibly anomolous. In fact the argument that you have made (such as it is) contradicts your stated position ("we have not said that the Unbreakable's data is false, or anomolous"), as that is all that you have offered; the possibilty (without evidential counter-data) that the evidence put forward could be anomolous.

    Not only that, but you have narrowed the evidence down to one strand (genetic markers) without reference to the morphological data, nor the cultural and religious affinities.

    You said earlier (an argument I have come across many times in debates in physics, btw, and in both contexts it is equally as misplaced) that as the proponent of a positive claim that it is The Unbreakable's responsibility to 'prove' the claim. The Unbreakable (and others) have put forward evidence - continuously. The reason I find this form of argument disingenuous is because if you are simply making a negative claim (ie, you say it is not so) then you can only be arguing from a position of ignorance. The fact is, that to hold a negative claim without simply admitting ignorance one must hold a contrary claim as positive (otherwise, on what basis do you argue). You have elucidated this contrary claim, is it not now time to provide evidence for holding such a positive stance?

  26. #146

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Nabaati View Post
    Because I have not seen a culture yet that habitually represents themselves, in broad strokes, in a way that is different from reality. I have what I consider a reasonable explanation for the pattern of lighter colored women in egyptian art. Discounting this explanation without suggesting another doesn't get very far with me. Perhaps I betray my physics roots, but you don't throw out hypotheses that have explanatory power in favor of others that have none.
    Well, surely you should throw out hypotheses that have explanatory power if it is only within certain contexts that things are explicable by those hypotheses? At the very least you should seek a deeper understanding of how those contexts interact. Given your physics backgound, should we all still believe in the explanatory power of 'perfect' circular orbits, or was Kepler right when he perceived a deeper pattern? Does a Newtonian mechanistic model adequately describe the motion of bodies, or isn't it rather that Einstein's General Relativity is a deeper understanding of the 'forces' at play?

  27. #147

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus View Post
    Well, surely you should throw out hypotheses that have explanatory power if it is only within certain contexts that things are explicable by those hypotheses? At the very least you should seek a deeper understanding of how those contexts interact. Given your physics backgound, should we all still believe in the explanatory power of 'perfect' circular orbits, or was Kepler right when he perceived a deeper pattern? Does a Newtonian mechanistic model adequately describe the motion of bodies, or isn't it rather that Einstein's General Relativity is a deeper understanding of the 'forces' at play?
    I have yet to hear a different explanation for the pattern of egyptian females generally being shown as lighter skinned than males. What I hear you saying is that we can trust absolutely nothing about egyptian representations of themselves in their art. This doesn't explain the pattern I've observed. Therefore, I'm sticking with my interpretation. If you have an alternate explanation, please, do share. If you don't believe the pattern is real, again, please, do share. I'm not an art historian; I'm just going by my own limited experience.

  28. #148
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus View Post
    Yes, there are other potential explanations to do with colour symbolism. That is rather the point being made here. I will grant you that it is, indeed, perfectly credible that what the artist is doing is exagerating an actual trait that is part of the problem with defining skin tones on art-work as being 'realistic' depictions of 'how people really looked'. It is, at best, depicting - stylistically - a trait and exagerating it. This argument also does not address the anacronystic
    aspects of the depictions (as alluded to by Odia, that such depictions are relative to temporal context and that such a simplistic understanding of the depictions would have to account for a sexual dimporphism unknown within any other human population.) Nor does it address the giants and/or midgets that appear to be inhabiting this ancient world, nor the incredible similarity displayed between individuals portrayed as stylistically similar.
    Then what Egyptians appear to be depicting is "we are normal (brown) the Nubians are dark (black) the Lybians are pale (yellow). This is particularly notable when Egyptians are depicted as Nubians alongside Egytpians, something is going on here.

    The diamorphism between men and women either depicts an actual trait exagerated, or it is depicting gender via symbolic colouring, or a mixture of the two. However, before we plump down on the "stylistic genderisation" I should like to hear an actual colour theory about the representation. The size discrepency is easily understood, the bigger you are the more important you are.

    Even then, as Odia has admitted, previously both genders were depicted as brown, which suggests that the male depiction may be normative as one might expect from a Patriarchal society. So you still have a "brown not black" issue to account for.

    I think that the only conclusion that one can honestly come to with regards to Egyptian formal art is that it is stylistic (ie symbolic) and its interpretation must rely upon its context (temporal/political/social/religious)
    There are a huge number of conclusions we can draw from Egyptian art about Egyptian society and their depictions of themselves and the "other" in the peoples they came into contact with.

    Why is the "most likely explanation" that one artist is depicting a "form" of someone they have never met, or that one artist is incompetent? Given the changes/differences within depictions, within different contexts, would it not be, perhaps, more accurate to say that all of the work is depicting a "form" of someone - whether met or not. In other words, exactly what has been suggested, that all of the work is stylistic (symbolic)? But, of course, to accept that premise is to undermine art-work as 'true' depiction as null and void.

    But, let us take your own, diluted, variation from that sance as valid. How do we, then, ascertain which artist(s) is/are competent or incompetent? We are left with the same conclusion. We can, given such doubt, say very little about the 'reality' of depictions within Egyptian formal art without recourse to their contexts - with the added complication of defining the competence or otherwise of the artists.
    You look at the context of the sculpture, the general skill of the artist and you look at the artistic context of the period. Statues of Ramses II invariably portray his prominant pointed nose - a feature he was so pround of his mummy was embalmed in such as way as to preserve it. The point is, you see that nose and you think, "ah, Ramses II". Egypt was a scribal cluture rather than a literate one - the peasants could not be relied upon to read inscriptions, that's why you had great honking statues to begin with. It's also a point that people are inherently vain, they want to see themselves depicted, not something that looks like some generic exemplar.

    The "vast mass" of Egyptians next to those contexts? What "vast mass" are you referring to. Context is context, and citing one example is begging a question (within the context of a "vast mass"). But, I agree, one must (as has been suggested) look at the context(s) of the artwork.
    How about paintings from different tombs within the same of close Dynastic periods?

    You say that The Unbreakable's evidence does not support his claims "in the face of conflicting data", then proceed, rather than intimating what this conflicting data is, to attempt to undermine the data he has produced as possibly anomolous. In fact the argument that you have made (such as it is) contradicts your stated position ("we have not said that the Unbreakable's data is false, or anomolous"), as that is all that you have offered; the possibilty (without evidential counter-data) that the evidence put forward could be anomolous.
    I shall repeat myself, I did not say they data was anomolous - i.e. that the mummies do not reflect the general genetic make up of Egypt in their given period, I said that there is insufficient date to found a claim about the whole of Egyptian society on. We cannot know the reliability of the data with such a small sample.

    Not only that, but you have narrowed the evidence down to one strand (genetic markers) without reference to the morphological data, nor the cultural and religious affinities.
    The morphological data comes under all the same criticisms as the genetic data, with the added note that even in a genetically mixed population natural selection will favour features prominant to one group but not the other. Much of the morphological data, especially in the New Kingdom period is ambiguous anyway. Cultural context is of limited value, as evidenced by the "Celtic" culture group which spread comprehensively from Austria to Britannia without any significant migration, likewise the Roman culture groups - which encompasses modern Iberia, Italia and Gallica without corresponding genetic homogenity, and indeed were it not for the Islamic conquests that same culture groups would be dominant in much of modern North Africa too.

    You said earlier (an argument I have come across many times in debates in physics, btw, and in both contexts it is equally as misplaced) that as the proponent of a positive claim that it is The Unbreakable's responsibility to 'prove' the claim. The Unbreakable (and others) have put forward evidence - continuously. The reason I find this form of argument disingenuous is because if you are simply making a negative claim (ie, you say it is not so) then you can only be arguing from a position of ignorance. The fact is, that to hold a negative claim without simply admitting ignorance one must hold a contrary claim as positive (otherwise, on what basis do you argue). You have elucidated this contrary claim, is it not now time to provide evidence for holding such a positive stance?
    A theory may be accepted if it adaquately explains the evidence, all the evidence. If the Unbreakable wants me or anyone else with historical acumen to accept his thesis he needs to explain why the Egyptians are often depicted in a way contrary to his biological evidence from the mummies. If he cannot, he must modify his theory to accomodate that evidence, particularly in the context of contact and exchange between Egypt and the Hitties and the people in the Levant.
    "If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."

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  29. #149

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Nabaati View Post
    Because, as far as I can tell, you are extrapolating data from a single time frame (predynastic) from a single location (upper egypt) to 3000 years of history and all of egypt. I find this an extreme case of caricature. I would be absolutely shocked to learn upper egyptians, then or now, did not look a lot like their southern neighbors. However, there is evidence in the form of their artwork that they did not view themselves as quite the same as their southern neighbors. This is what makes the issue of egyptian skin tone more complicated than "egyptians were black."

    As I say, though, even if 100% of egyptians were the darkest skinned people in africa or the most fuchsia skinned people in africa or the most rainbow skinned people in africa, it explains little to nothing about their culture. This is why I always roll my eyes when this topic comes up. Some people care so much about something that is so trivial.
    I think that here you show a misundrstanding of the argument made by The Unbreakable, and also of how non-trivial the subject is.

    It is not about skin tone/colour per-sé, but is very much about their culture.

    I will break the ice and say what nobody here wants to say. People are uncomfortable with this because they see it as politicised. Damn right it is politicised, which is why getting to the truth of it matters. It is why any perception of this debate must be well evidenced and structured. Nobody here is being or has been accused of racism, but the debate is coloured by racism. What I mean by that is that terms like Afro-centric are unhelpful in terms of a debate about the evidence. There is a suggestion within that term that there is an attempt to appropriate (and the term has been used in this discussion) Egypt for black people as a whole, which is a ludicrous idea.

    The historical perception we have of Egypt has been handed down to us by original (and subsequent) generations of scholars steeped in an ethno-supremacist world-view; one that regarded Africans as incapable of being civilised, let alone of civilising themselves. Let us be clear about how deep-rooted this racism has been carried forward. It was only in 1992 that a referendum (in which only white people could vote) allowed the black population of South Africa a say in their own lives. Look at the racial antagonism within certain elements of the USA regarding who their president is.

    It is not 'appropriation' to evidence an African cultural origin for Egyptian civilisation. And that is the crux of this, is that what has been put forward has been well argued via a number of strands. I see the term 'trivial' being used here but that, I think, is a reaction to the fact that it is far from trivial. In fact, I would suggest that the fear is of an appropriation that is politically (ethnically) motivated, and that such is to be avoided. I would agree with that. I don't believe that that is what has been put forward here. And I think that getting to the truth of the cultural and religious origins of ancient Egypt is no more trivial than getting to the truth of any ancient civilisation.

    I say this not to stir up some controversy, but rather to address what I think has, unspoken, shadowed this discussion throughout. If I am mistaken, then by all means say so. If the origins of ancient Egypt are trivial, then all history is trivial. If we wish to see colour as trivial then we would have to pretend ignorance of the last few hundred years of more recent history. It is because we know that it is not trivial (ie, it is a political hot potato) that we, perhaps, find the subject uncomfortable.

    I will re-iterate (lest there be any misunderstanding), there is no allegation of racism against any here implicit within what I have said. Oh, and I have no ethnic axe to grind. Bottom line here is that the argument put forth here (by The Unbreakable) has given me a new perspective upon ancient Egyptian history, and that I have seen little put forward that detracts from his main contentions.

  30. #150

    Default Re: Black Egyptians

    Quote Originally Posted by Nabaati View Post
    I have yet to hear a different explanation for the pattern of egyptian females generally being shown as lighter skinned than males. What I hear you saying is that we can trust absolutely nothing about egyptian representations of themselves in their art. This doesn't explain the pattern I've observed. Therefore, I'm sticking with my interpretation. If you have an alternate explanation, please, do share. If you don't believe the pattern is real, again, please, do share. I'm not an art historian; I'm just going by my own limited experience.
    So, you are happy to accept a level of sexual dimorphism within Egyptian history unseen anywhere else in any human population? So, whether or not the pattern you have observed can consistently explain the representation, and despite that representation being clearly (at the very least) nuanced and (at least) temporally contextual, you will use this as evidence in opposition to the available morphological and genetic data. Here you hide your physics background particularly well. I would have thought, from a physicists perspective, empirical data would trump an opinion of what something seems to look like.

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