History buffs, a question.

[Shylence]

I dont think Celts were particularly Blonde haired. Most of them were probabaly Brown or Dark haired as with most of the population is today in what we belive to be the "celtic" regions. Fair hair is more common in more northern lattitudes such as Baltic and Scandanavian regions.

Thats just my opinion but Celts probbaly orginated somwhere in southern France and not the whole central europe theroy that occurs with La Tene and Hallstat culture i think that was a culture that eveolved in a celtic region that soon spread to the rest but i doubt was the original homeland.

I belive more Southwestern/Central France.

Thats complelety off point but im aware that you may have got the whole blonde haired blue eyed quote of wikipedia because i have read it too.

Maybe people will have more to say on this. But yes Gauls migrated along the alps down along the danuabe it seems and ravaged makedonia and thrace for a while then headed furthest east by political invitation as stated above.

[Hax]

Many Mamluks had blond hair and blue eyes too and that's somewhat later in Egypts history ;)

That is mostly because the Mamelukes were elite soldiers trained by the different Caliphates to fight against eachother, because Islam forbids Muslims to fight eachother, they trained young captives (non-Muslims) to fight eachother.

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The reason why you can find fair-haired people in modern-day Egypt has to do with the fact that the Ptolemaic kings used Galatians extensively in their army, due to a severe lack of manpower (the amount of Hellenes and Makedonians living in Aigyptos was low), so they trained the Galatians as elite shock troops. In return, they gave the Galatians a nice big kleros (tract of land) to live in, and since they stayed there for about 2000 years, this is one of the reasons why there are still fair-haired and light-skinned people in modern-day Egypt.

[tapanojum]

I had grown to believe that Ancient Egyptians in fact resembled more Greek than Arab. How far off am I?

[MeinPanzer]

I had grown to believe that Ancient Egyptians in fact resembled more Greek than Arab. How far off am I?

Looking purely at Egyptian art, they seem to have looked like light skinned north Africans. So they in fact resembled neither Greeks nor Arabs.

[QuintusSertorius]

Looking purely at Egyptian art, they seem to have looked like light skinned north Africans. So they in fact resembled neither Greeks nor Arabs.

Course that's because you're only seeing the people in power. How often were the common people depicted?

[Moros]

Course that's because you're only seeing the people in power. How often were the common people depicted?

Quite a lot actually. A lot of graves contain these little wooden puppet-statues (Can't find the right word for it in Enlgish) portraying farmers, bakers,... making/bringing the food or drinks for the deceased. There were also little statues of slaves/workers/... As egytians seemed to believe that this way the slaves etc... would be there in the after life to help the deceased in the after life. These last ones, called Sjabti's, however were usually sculpured as mummies in coffins. And thus don't tell us that much. The others however give a great insight in the looks, and lives of the less fortuned egyptians.
Edit: also on wall paintings you can sometimes see the making, collectioning, bringing of these goods.

Howver nor the rich nor the poor Egyptians should be called fair tanned or fair haired. While they were surely not Ethiopians, they weren't swedes either if you get my drift. Apparantly the picture I posted showing about an average egyptian dissappeared, I'll look for another one when I have the time.

EDIT 2:
here I uploaded a pic to imageshack:


It isn't the best one out there (the previous one was better), but I didn't feel like searching my pc too long.

[lobf]

That is mostly because the Mamelukes were elite soldiers trained by the different Caliphates to fight against eachother, because Islam forbids Muslims to fight eachother, they trained young captives (non-Muslims) to fight eachother.

======================

The reason why you can find fair-haired people in modern-day Egypt has to do with the fact that the Ptolemaic kings used Galatians extensively in their army, due to a severe lack of manpower (the amount of Hellenes and Makedonians living in Aigyptos was low), so they trained the Galatians as elite shock troops. In return, they gave the Galatians a nice big kleros (tract of land) to live in, and since they stayed there for about 2000 years, this is one of the reasons why there are still fair-haired and light-skinned people in modern-day Egypt.

Quite alot moved over to Egypt and lived there. Of course also because of hellenes as some hellenes actually had blond hair too. Alexander and Cleopatra VII both were blond if I'm not mistaken. There were also red haired hellenes, like Phyrrhos if I'm not mistaken.

Edit: I should have said one of the reasons.
Also Alexander wasn't blond but had rather fair hair. I guess I've got someone else in my mind I guess.
Edit2: Wait yes he was. Gah! I need to sleep more often and longer Gah! My memory is like Swis cheese lately.
Edit3: Forgot to add the 'Edit:'

I could have sworn there was a discussion about this a while back and it was decided that not enough Celts moved to the region to seriously affect the gene pool.

[Moros]

I could have sworn there was a discussion about this a while back and it was decided that not enough Celts moved to the region to seriously affect the gene pool.

Then I missed it. However I'm not an expert when it comes to this. Also though there might have been more brown haired celts and Hellenes than blond. There certainly were more blonds among them than among native egyptians. (Which had none, unless albino's or something). And it's not just about blond but about fair tan and hair too.

Egyptians probably looked like this:

And tended to have black hair.

Though some depictions of blond egyptians are found. They are most probably just wearing helmets:


Mummies with blond or better golden hair, had their hair dyed or coloured.