Skin tone is something that biologist at the moment cannot really be precise about, however we know that the general populace of ancient Egypt was tropically adapted like the black African populations further to the south. According to ecological principal tropically adapted populations across the world (including aboriginals, Dravidians, Asian pygmies ect) have dark skin:
"In this regard it is interesting to note that limb proportions of Predynastic Naqada people in Upper Egypt are reported to be "Super-Negroid," meaning that the distal segments are elongated in the fashion of tropical Africans.....skin color intensification and distal limb elongation are apparent wherever people have been long-term residents of the tropics." (-- C.L. Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters..")
Above is the Q&A segment of S.O.Y. Keita's lecture at Cambridge. Feel free to watch all six segments.
Well they were considered "foreign" because they weren't Egyptian, they were Nubian. I suppose in the same way that if a naturalized Englishman were to become president in the U.S. he would be considered "foreign" despite the coming from America's mother nation and looking like most other U.S. presidents. The ancient Egyptians did not really view you in terms of your race as much as they did your assimilation into their society. Also it is interesting to note that the 25th Dynasty was praised by the Egyptian populace for restoring the way of the old Egypt. They were the only foreign rulers to be viewed as such. Now ask yourself how would foreigners be driven to doing such a deed as restoring Egypt's, if not an acknowledgment that they were of the same origins. Just my hunch. I mean it is after supported by archaeology and biology.
You state that you are basing your entire analysis of this subject on your interpretation of art work, so I must ask, what art work have you seen that makes clear physical distinctions between northern and southern Egyptians? Would the absence of such evidence disregard the fact that biological research confirms that there were in fact cranial variations between the inhabitants of both regions? Likewise do the distinctions shown between Egyptians and some Nubians somehow nullify the fact that the actual physical remains of Egyptians and Nubians have been found to be almost identical (especially southern Egyptians)? Which one do you think is more reliable artwork or concrete biological research?
I actually provided an article on page one which specifies that as a result of the foreign invasions of the New Kingdom, by the time of the Late Dynastic period there was a significant biological difference between those later Egyptians and those Egyptians during points earlier. The people who were specified as being the "foreigners" were the Mediterraneans who settled and intermingled with the local native African population (Egyptians). The same article also stated that as a result of this biological distinction due to non African admixture, the Nubian populations of the same time period were closer to the early Egyptians than actual Egyptian descendants during the Late period. This reinforces the overlapping biological relationship between Egyptians and Nubians.
They are indeed the descendants of the ancient Egyptians (just as modern Egyptians continue to be) it just means that the line of descent is diluted. This is why it is silly for some people to assert that through thousands of years of non African migration into the Nile, modern Egyptians (those of the north) are the splitting image of their original black African Egyptian ancestors.
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