Why is there a huge rise of Afrocentrism in history?

[athanaric]

[...] Which makes it easy for folks to misrepresent the data to say what they want it to say in online debates, which keeps this whole thing going.

Like the guy who thinks that ancient Egyptians were African American, refuses to give solid evidence, and accuses everyone who disagrees with this of being "racist" and "Eurocentric" just like some Italian guy who wrote a book on race 150 years ago.

[saxdude]

Is this really a big issue? Or is this just another fringe group of racial(ists?) or nationalists, that you guys have decided to focus on because, silly black people, thinking they can accomplish feats of civilization, and feel threatened by imagined dangers of a PC world? My guessing is that it's the latter, and that no actual academics take any attempts at afrocentricity north of Nubia, seriously.

But if there is a reason, in my opinion, why Nubia, Ghana, Songhai, Mali and Zimbabwe are frequently ignored, in favor of apropriating other civilizations by afrocentrist types, it's probably this:

a) As Egypt is a target of Afrocentrics, Nubia (and the Horn of Africa cultures) are frequently targeted by Eurocentrists, both attempting to subverse one "races" influence over the other.

b) As for Ghana and Songhai, of the top of my head, I'm guessing that heavy influence by the Arabs, may subvert their own achievements in their minds. Regardless of the validity in these reasonings (The empire was still 'black'.)

c) Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe (among others in southern africa) are the odd one's out, I'm going to go on a limb here and say that the reason they are not prominantly used to validate African capability for civilization is purely because nobody but local archaeologists know about them? Their seem to be several iron age, sedentary, urbanized cultures in southern Africa, but as evidenced by some commentaters in this thread (and other threads regarding African Civilizations), the basic idea of Sub Saharan Africa is Hunter gatherers and Zulu's.

The genetic discussion in this thread is interesting though, beyond the subtext of the OP. The Olmec black origin is defacto, a non-accepted theory here in Mexico and the US, were the bulk of Mesoamerican investigators lay. The superficial appearance of the Olmec heads is not a deciding factor, just by looking at relatively unscathed (genetically), golf coast modern mesoamericans. Of course, actual empirical evidence dissmisses this theory as well, though I would have to actively search for it, and this thread is mostly focusing on Egypt.

[Condottiere 40K]

12965
More likely because Egypt has physical monuments and verified records of it's great achievements, and more people care about that history done some vague half mythical countries that few study.

[athanaric]

Is this really a big issue? Or is this just another fringe group of racial(ists?) or nationalists, that you guys have decided to focus on because, silly black people, thinking they can accomplish feats of civilization, and feel threatened by imagined dangers of a PC world? My guessing is that it's the latter, and that no actual academics take any attempts at afrocentricity north of Nubia, seriously.

I think the "you guys" and the aggressive wording is really unwarranted here - this thread is only so long because one or two afrocentrists turned up and started trash talking. Otherwise, it'd have been over on page 1.
I can't comment on why the OP chose the wording "huge rise", since I don't know if there's a rise. I only know that there's some people peddling crackpot theories on this forum, and trying to establish them as historical truth. Imagine if some guy came along and said that dinosaurs never had feathers and were in fact the closest relatives of snakes and that you were a racist and an American-centrist for saying otherwise (and because of your skin colour, or name, or what have you). Would you let that slide?

12965
More likely because Egypt has physical monuments and verified records of it's great achievements, and more people care about that history done some vague half mythical countries that few study.

Also because Egypt has been in (European and Middle Eastern) collective memory for millennia, and is closer to Asia and Europe.

[saxdude]

I think the "you guys" and the aggressive wording is really unwarranted here - this thread is only so long because one or two afrocentrists turned up and started trash talking. Otherwise, it'd have been over on page 1.
I can't comment on why the OP chose the wording "huge rise", since I don't know if there's a rise. I only know that there's some people peddling crackpot theories on this forum, and trying to establish them as historical truth.

Perhaps, *a few of you guys*, may be more accurate, but I insist on the focus in afrocentrism and the structuring of the original post, It isn't a rising theory, and it only seems bigger than other crack pot theories because african americans are a large minority in the US, that since the 60's have increasingly struggled with forming a cultural identity, what with constant marginalization. These things are bound to appear, and are not accepted by the larger scientific community. I wonder then, why is this so preocupying to the OP, that he is concerned as to wether or not there has been a concise attempt to debunk these theories, and why is he not similarly worried about European based ethnocentric theories, gaining traction in a ever more extremist Europe (more eastern than western)?

So, they make fake history to signify importance they never had and never will have.

Does this not seem equally condescending and incorrect Athanaric, or do you only feel the need to point out the afrocentrists in the thread?

Imagine if some guy came along and said that dinosaurs never had feathers and were in fact the closest relatives of snakes and that you were a racist and an American-centrist for saying otherwise (and because of your skin colour, or name, or what have you). Would you let that slide?

Am I to take seriously this suggested equivalence? Surely you don't suggest that wether or not hundred million year old animals had feathers has the same, if any, racial implications to theories on ethnic development?
I have made clear my point, and I am firmly against these afrocentist views, but I can't help but wonder why it was such a concern to the OP, and several other posters... More so anyway, than other equally incorrect and aggressive theories. Don't underestimate, Athanaric, the word choices.

More likely because Egypt has physical monuments and verified records of it's great achievements, and more people care about that history done some vague half mythical countries that few study.

but as evidenced by some commentaters in this thread (and other threads regarding African Civilizations), the basic idea of Sub Saharan Africa is Hunter gatherers and Zulu's.

Case in point, learn to google Condotierre. Unless you suggest Songhai and Zimbabwe are made of air?

[Roma_Victrix]

The genetic discussion in this thread is interesting t though, beyond the subtext of the OP. The Olmec black origin is defacto, a non-accepted theory here in Mexico and the US, were the bulk of Mesoamerican investigators lay. The superficial appearance of the Olmec heads is not a deciding factor, just by looking at relatively unscathed (genetically), golf coast modern mesoamericans. Of course, actual empirical evidence dissmisses this theory as well, though I would have to actively search for it, and this thread is mostly focusing on Egypt.

The whole Afrocentrist spiel of trying to connect the Olmecs with Africa is spurious to say the least, and not just in regards to their silly argument about the facial features on the colossal heads (which resemble native Amerindian facial features as far as I'm concerned). There is simply no archaeological evidence for some transplanted African culture in Meso-America (which sub-Saharan peoples in that time period were even advanced enough in terms of nautical tech and shipbuilding to cross the Atlantic?). Not even the stalwart explorers and sailors among the ancient Carthaginians, like Hanno the Navigator who explored Atlantic islands and the West African coast, made it to the Americas. There's certainly no evidence for Egyptians or Greeks doing it either, let alone the Romans (or the later Ming Chinese as the fraudulent crackpot amateur "historian" Gavin Menzies has unfortunately led some to believe). The first people of the Old World to reach the Americas were most likely the Vikings in the 11th century, landing in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada not long after their discovery of Greenland, relatively speaking. There were certainly no meaningful interactions or mass colonizations before the time of Columbus, though.

As for African civilizations, I feel like ancient Nubia - thanks to its proximity to Egypt - gets a lot more attention in academia, the media, and public than the Kingdom of Aksum in what is now Ethiopia. Originally part of the Himyarite kingdom (at least a portion of it), it was founded in the 2nd century AD and was among the first countries after Armenia and the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity. The Aksumite King Ezana was converted to Christianity by the Syro-Greek bishop Frumentius (d. 383 AD), who is now considered a saint and founder of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Given its long Christian history, I'm surprised that Ethiopia's history isn't really emphasized in the West (especially after Italy's imperial forays in the early 20th century).

[saxdude]

The first people of the Old World to reach the Americas were most likely the Vikings in the 11th century

Well yes, excluding of course the original arrival into the american continent from all around the world. Though I am not opposed to the odd straggler ship from the old world crashing into american beaches.

As for African civilizations, I feel like ancient Nubia - thanks to its proximity to Egypt - gets a lot more attention in academia, the media, and public than the Kingdom of Aksum in what is now Ethiopia. Originally part of the Himyarite kingdom (at least a portion of it), it was founded in the 2nd century AD and was among the first countries after Armenia and the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity. The Aksumite King Ezana was converted to Christianity by the Syro-Greek bishop Frumentius (d. 383 AD), who is now considered a saint and founder of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Given its long Christian history, I'm surprised that Ethiopia's history isn't really emphasized in the West (especially after Italy's imperial forays in the early 20th century).

Well a lot of people like to fap to the egyptians. I mean yeah they are cool and interesting, but they are so painfully over done that I end up groaning at their mere mention. Which also sumarizes my feelings towards Rome and Greece, thankfully not the Aztecs though...yet.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

It's not threatening, it's just annoying. Have you ever tried arguing with these people? It's freaking impossible. You give them facts which shatter their arguments and they start crying out about racism or euro centrism. One guy even called me a white ape! More than once I've had my opponents start quoting pseudo-historical bs from the Bible about the sons of Ham or some crap. Or they go the phenotype argument and say that x or y group looks African.
Almost all of the so called great civilizations targeted by the Afrocentrists are targeted by White Supremacist groups. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I have never had the chance to argue against very many of the Eurocentrists except when it comes to the inherent immorality of other peoples.

[Roma_Victrix]

It's not threatening, it's just annoying. Have you ever tried arguing with these people? It's freaking impossible. You give them facts which shatter their arguments and they start crying out about racism or euro centrism. One guy even called me a white ape! More than once I've had my opponents start quoting pseudo-historical bs from the Bible about the sons of Ham or some crap. Or they go the phenotype argument and say that x or y group looks African.
Almost all of the so called great civilizations targeted by the Afrocentrists are targeted by White Supremacist groups. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I have never had the chance to argue against very many of the Eurocentrists except when it comes to the inherent immorality of other peoples.

Afrocentrists seem to spread out their ranks across the web, whereas Eurocentrists seem to concentrate themselves on sites like Stormfront, their bulwark of defense in the virtual world of the Internet.

Well a lot of people like to fap to the egyptians. I mean yeah they are cool and interesting, but they are so painfully over done that I end up groaning at their mere mention. Which also sumarizes my feelings towards Rome and Greece, thankfully not the Aztecs though...yet.

I think you're going about it all wrong. In terms of nuance and case studies, there is so much you can still learn about ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. I was a huge Chinese-history fan for the longest time, which kind of burned me out on that subject, so I understand your feelings. However, there's no way I could start reading Chinese historical sources and biographies of ancient Chinese people today, consuming every hour doing so, and finish by the time I turn like 60 or 70 years old. Trust me, bro, not every rock has been left unturned!

[athanaric]

Does this not seem equally condescending and incorrect Athanaric, or do you only feel the need to point out the afrocentrists in the thread?

I did't pay heed to that part TBH. Of course nobody can say what the future will bring (or more to the point, what is not going to happen). I believe somebody already said at some point in this thread that nobody in the ancient world would have believed it if they'd heard that the "savages" of Northern Europe would become the culturally (and otherwise) dominant force in the world.

Another point is that while Eurocentrism is on the retreat (except for some bizarre variation that sees white Europeans as the greatest villains ever, regardless of time period, and everyone else as hapless victims), Afrocentrism has the potential to do huge damage, should it catch on, given the African expansion of our days.

[ArmoredCore]

Like the guy who thinks that ancient Egyptians were African American, refuses to give solid evidence, and accuses everyone who disagrees with this of being "racist" and "Eurocentric" just like some Italian guy who wrote a book on race 150 years ago.

If you can show me where I said this then fine ....

I said point blank that Africans have been on the Nile since before any European existed and have been black since the beginning, more than 200,000 years ago.
That isn't fantasy history, those are simply facts. Whether you don't like it or not is not my issue. However, it is my issue when folks claim that Africans calling ancient Africans IN AFRICA black is simply slander. Like I said this issue goes on because racists over 150 years ago decided to make up 'race science' based on trying to prove that ancient Egypt was created by a white race from Europe. Therefore, if anyone can be accused for making up racial theories for 'claiming' African history it is not AFRICANS, as absurd as that sounds.

Samuel Morton.

Morton claimed that he could define the intellectual ability of a race by the skull capacity. A large volume meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. He was reputed to hold the largest collection of skulls, on which he based his research. He claimed that each race had a separate origin, and that a descending order of intelligence could be discerned that placed Caucasians at the pinnacle and Negroes at the lowest point, with various other race groups in between.^[7] Morton had many skulls from ancient Egypt, and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were not African, but were Caucasian. His results were published in three volumes between 1839 and 1849: the Crania Americana, An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca.

Morton's theories were very popular in his day, and he was a highly respected physician and scientist. The anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička called Morton "the father of American physical anthropology".^[8] Crispin Bates has noted that Morton's "systematic justification" for the separation of races, along with the work of Louis Agassiz, was also used by those who favoured slavery in the United States, with the Charleston Medical Journal noting at his death that "We of the South should consider him as our benefactor for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race.

...

A 2014 restudy of Morton's data by University of Pennsylvania philosophy professor Michael Weisberg, tended to confirm Gould's original accusations, concluding that "there is prima facie evidence of a racial bias in Morton's measurements". Weisberg concludes that although Gould did commit mistakes in his own treatment, Morton's work "remains a cautionary example of racial bias in the science of human differences".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton

Not only was Samuel Morton a known racist but so Flinders Petrie was also a Eugenicist, trying to find some way to use Egypt as the basis for his belief that whites should destroy dark 'inferior races'

Archaeologists and historians alike recognise William Matthew Flinders Petrie and his invaluable contributions to the discipline of archaeology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is considered the father of scientific archaeology and is credited with developing a chronology of Ancient Egypt using the nondescript artefacts that other archaeologists had ignored. He occupied the first chair of Egyptology in England and is remembered for the museum built around his personal collection of Egyptian artefacts at University College London.
Although the archaeological aspects of his career are well known and appreciated, scholars have failed to notice Petrie�s involvement and important contributions to other areas of science. He was not only an archaeologist but also a numismatist, anthropologist, metrologist, statistician and eugenicist.
Eugenics, a large part of Petrie�s career, is largely left out of published works. However, an analysis of his unpublished correspondence, held in Special Collections at UCL, brings to light his eugenic interests and reveals his close relationships with eugenics pioneers, Francis Galton and Karl Pearson.
Throughout his career, comprised of over 50 digging seasons in Egypt, Petrie sent skeletons, skulls and bones back to Galton and Pearson at the University College London Anthropometric Laboratory. Over many years, Petrie corresponded with both Pearson and Galton about the bones, their measurements, different methods of statistical analysis for these measurements and what the results could mean for understanding the history of civilisation as a whole.
Petrie�s association with both of these men, and the exchange of ideas, materials and theories among them, was influential in his own practical and theoretical work on civilisation, race and culture; the exchange was also important for Galton�s and Pearson�s research. Racial Photographs from the Egyptian Monuments was the first work Petrie completed for Galton. According to the frontispiece, Racial Photographs is a 'series of 190 Photographs of the various races conquered or visited by the Egyptians [that have] been taken by Mr. Flinders Petrie from the monuments in 1887' (Petrie 1887).
After skillfully finishing this photographic compilation, Petrie continued working for the Galton Laboratory, collecting, measuring, and delivering skeletal remains. In fact, the Laboratory requested so much from Petrie that, in 1895, there was no more room for the skulls and skeletons. As a result, the Anthropometric Lab was expanded. The remains were clearly important for Pearson and Petrie in their continued eugenic work.
Petrie did not stop his eugenic mission there. His historical analysis of civilisation in works such as Janus in Modern Life (1907) and The Revolutions of Civilisation (1911), demonstrate Petrie�s adherence to a social evolutionary framework. In these two books, Petrie presented ideas about social change that reflected deep-seated eugenic influence. In Janus, Petrie (1907: 1) focused mainly on how the individual affected societal development and argued that good individual character led to good character for society, and furthermore that 'the character of a people is the essential basis of all their institutions and government.' If a state is successful, it is because a majority of its people, or at least a majority of the people who were in positions of power, were of good character. Thus, in order to create or maintain a society�s integrity, Petrie (1907: 87) argued that the state must support the 'best stocks' and 'tax down the worst stocks.'
Four years later, Petrie (1911: 105) published Revolutions, a short volume in which the main purpose was to find the 'real nature of human progress.' In Revolutions, Petrie argued that without diversity and competition within societies, there would be no progression. In man�s striving with nature and with other men, the stronger would survive and be selected to continue. This was true in physical abilities like war and battle as well as in mental abilities like art and science. He claimed that in the not-too-distant future eugenics would be able to establish a new, capable civilisation in the place of an old, unfit one. Eugenic practices would 'carefully segregate fine races and prohibit continued mixture, until they have a distinct type which will start a new civilisation when transplanted. The future progress of man may depend as much on isolation to establish a type, as on fusion of types' (Petrie 1911: 131).

http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/sheppard/

So please stop slandering African scholarship that is more rooted in reality than the nonsense the racists have been spewing out and calling 'science' for the last 150 years.

Not only don't you know anything about Egypt, but you don't know anything about the history of pseudo science, scientific racism or European scholarship on Egypt as plenty white European scholars have and to this day still are calling the ancient Egyptians 'black African people'.

[+Marius+]

So...about those redhead and blonde mummies I posted, you are just going to ignore that or?

The ginger Ramses II laughs at the blackness of Egypt

[sumskilz]

Not only was Samuel Morton a known racist but so Flinders Petrie was also a Eugenicist, trying to find some way to use Egypt as the basis for his belief that whites should destroy dark 'inferior races'

Hitler believed there was a biological component to Jewish ancestry, therefore all genetic research that corroborates this is racist. You're one illogical step away from the all vegetarians are Nazis argument. The reality is that any of Morton's ideas that aren't corroborated by solid evidence have been discarded by modern scholarship precisely because of his ideology. Although you are being deliberately misleading about Morton's alleged bias when it comes to craniometric measurements unless you didn't actually read the Wikipedia article:

Stephen J. Gould asserted that Morton had... selectively reported data, manipulated sample compositions, made analytical errors, and mismeasured skull...

In the latter study... authored by six anthropologists, it was concluded that the bias came from Gould, who failed to examine and remeasure the crania in order to determine Morton's level of accuracy.

A 2014 restudy of Morton's data by University of Pennsylvania philosophy professor Michael Weisberg, tended to confirm Gould's original accusations... although Gould did commit mistakes in his own treatment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton

1981: Gould, a Marxist known for bringing his ideology into science as much as Morton did, claims Morton's analysis was wrong without actually remeasuring the skulls. This was published without peer-review.

2011: Six anthropologists remeasure the skulls with modern equipment and conclude that Morton was really quite accurate especially considering his limitations and that Gould was wrong and thus likely much more ideologically motivated.

2014: A postmodernist philosopher reexamines both Gould's book and the 2011 paper, without actually remeasuring the skulls, and concludes Gould made mistakes but Morton was still biased.

2015: None of these measurements have anything to do with ancient Egypt because none of these skulls were from ancient Egypt, but it is evidently still important to selectively quote in order to argue that since Morton was wrong on some things he had to be wrong on all things.

Now here is a Wiki page that summarizes pretty well what all the obfuscating talk about Morton and Petrie amounts to: Association fallacy

[Roma_Victrix]

If you can show me where I said this then fine ....

I said point blank that Africans have been on the Nile since before any European existed and have been black since the beginning, more than 200,000 years ago.
That isn't fantasy history, those are simply facts. Whether you don't like it or not is not my issue. However, it is my issue when folks claim that Africans calling ancient Africans IN AFRICA black is simply slander. Like I said this issue goes on because racists over 150 years ago decided to make up 'race science' based on trying to prove that ancient Egypt was created by a white race from Europe. Therefore, if anyone can be accused for making up racial theories for 'claiming' African history it is not AFRICANS, as absurd as that sounds.

Samuel Morton.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton

Not only was Samuel Morton a known racist but so Flinders Petrie was also a Eugenicist, trying to find some way to use Egypt as the basis for his belief that whites should destroy dark 'inferior races'


http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/sheppard/

So please stop slandering African scholarship that is more rooted in reality than the nonsense the racists have been spewing out and calling 'science' for the last 150 years.

Not only don't you know anything about Egypt, but you don't know anything about the history of pseudo science, scientific racism or European scholarship on Egypt as plenty white European scholars have and to this day still are calling the ancient Egyptians 'black African people'.

Yes, I think we're all aware of 19th-century pseudoscience and Eurocentric racism, yet while I don't remember the content of every post, I don't think anyone has come in here guns blazing and arguing for this or that Egypt was "white." Looking back at the arguments presented here, such as a very recent one by Sumskilz backing his claims with DNA analysis and empirical data, it seems the main argument is that Egyptians were collectively far more "brown" than "black" in their physiognomy, with Middle-Eastern origins (that just so happen to link genetically with some other pre-Indo-European Mediterranean peoples like the Basques). Sumskilz provided the credible theory of the reverse migration of Asiatic peoples going into North Africa, including Egypt (which is the natural first point on the way to Libya, Tunisia, etc.) No one has come to this thread arguing that Nordic Swedes reigned over ancient Egypt, which is basically what you're hinting and suggesting is going on. You seem to be repeatedly beating this strawman that no one here cares about instead of addressing the very lucid points laid out by Sumskilz.

[athanaric]

If you can show me where I said this then fine ....

I said point blank that Africans have been on the Nile since before any European existed and have been black since the beginning, more than 200,000 years ago.
That isn't fantasy history, those are simply facts. Whether you don't like it or not is not my issue.

"Ancient Egypt" doesn't cover proto-history and you should know that. This is about the specific Egyptian culture and its creators, not about the early history of Homo sapiens or other humanoids. It's dishonest to mix the two. Otherwise I could bring up Neanderthals to "prove" that white people have existed for far longer than generally assumed.

However, it is my issue when folks claim that Africans calling ancient Africans IN AFRICA black is simply slander. Like I said this issue goes on because racists over 150 years ago decided to make up 'race science' based on trying to prove that ancient Egypt was created by a white race from Europe. Therefore, if anyone can be accused for making up racial theories for 'claiming' African history it is not AFRICANS, as absurd as that sounds.

Samuel Morton.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton

Not only was Samuel Morton a known racist but so Flinders Petrie was also a Eugenicist, trying to find some way to use Egypt as the basis for his belief that whites should destroy dark 'inferior races'


http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/sheppard/

I don't give a about these people or their fancy theories. I care about genetic and archaeological evidence. Both of which speak against your constructs. You haven't given me any evidence despite my repeated insistence. Meanwhile, sumskilz provides the hard facts, as usual.

So please stop slandering African scholarship that is more rooted in reality than the nonsense the racists have been spewing out and calling 'science' for the last 150 years.

This isn't "African scholarship", it's American make-believe.

Not only don't you know anything about Egypt,

And how would you possibly be able to judge that?

but you don't know anything about the history of pseudo science, scientific racism

That's (almost) true, because I don't care about the history of pseudo science. Being a historian and not an ideologist, I care about real history.

or European scholarship on Egypt as plenty white European scholars have and to this day still are calling the ancient Egyptians 'black African people'.

Who are these guys? Give us names.

[ArmoredCore]

So...about those redhead and blonde mummies I posted, you are just going to ignore that or?

The ginger Ramses II laughs at the blackness of Egypt

Gingers hair is colored due to conditions after death. Do you seriously claim that some old person had blond hair that late in life before they died (if they were indeed some kind of white blond which as NEVER been documented in Egypt even today)? Or are you seriously claiming that Ramses II when he died was some kind of flaming redhead? The fact is that many Africans in that region have dark reddish brown hair. Also many Africans have 'flaming red' hair due to using henna to dye it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"Ancient Egypt" doesn't cover proto-history and you should know that. This is about the specific Egyptian culture and its creators, not about the early history of Homo sapiens or other humanoids. It's dishonest to mix the two. Otherwise I could bring up Neanderthals to "prove" that white people have existed for far longer than generally assumed.


I don't give a about these people or their fancy theories. I care about genetic and archaeological evidence. Both of which speak against your constructs. You haven't given me any evidence despite my repeated insistence. Meanwhile, sumskilz provides the hard facts, as usual.


This isn't "African scholarship", it's American make-believe.


And how would you possibly be able to judge that?


That's (almost) true, because I don't care about the history of pseudo science. Being a historian and not an ideologist, I care about real history.


Who are these guys? Give us names.

The facts have been there since forever. Ancient Egyptian culture flowed from South to North. The idea that the people in Upper Egypt and the Sahara from which the ancient culture originated were not related to or derived from the ancient African populations that existed in these regions previously is pure fantasy B.S. You are proposing basically the "dynastic race" theory which was discredited over a hundred years ago, yet you and others keep proposing it as "valid science" but there is no such thing that says an invading population of Eurasian back migrants settled in Egypt and created the society there. And that has been the contention by racist scholars in Europe since they 'discovered' Egypt. And as for those white scholars who have said otherwise, you have Budge, Count Volney, Champollion, Richard Poe, Martin Bernal and others. And as I said before, which you keep ignoring this 'debate' has been going on for over 100 years since before the word "Afrocentric" even existed. Who was Samuel Morton replying to or arguing against when he set out to write his book? Surely SOMEBODY was claiming that the ancient Egyptians were black even back then. So again, no matter how you slice it, this is not an issue that started with 'Afrocentric scholars', it started with white racists being MAD that they were being called out on their racism which is based on fantasies and lies instead of facts.

Hitler believed there was a biological component to Jewish ancestry, therefore all genetic research that corroborates this is racist. You're one illogical step away from the all vegetarians are Nazis argument. The reality is that any of Morton's ideas that aren't corroborated by solid evidence have been discarded by modern scholarship precisely because of his ideology. Although you are being deliberately misleading about Morton's alleged bias when it comes to craniometric measurements unless you didn't actually read the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton

1981: Gould, a Marxist known for bringing his ideology into science as much as Morton did, claims Morton's analysis was wrong without actually remeasuring the skulls. This was published without peer-review.

2011: Six anthropologists remeasure the skulls with modern equipment and conclude that Morton was really quite accurate especially considering his limitations and that Gould was wrong and thus likely much more ideologically motivated.

2014: A postmodernist philosopher reexamines both Gould's book and the 2011 paper, without actually remeasuring the skulls, and concludes Gould made mistakes but Morton was still biased.

2015: None of these measurements have anything to do with ancient Egypt because none of these skulls were from ancient Egypt, but it is evidently still important to selectively quote in order to argue that since Morton was wrong on some things he had to be wrong on all things.

Now here is a Wiki page that summarizes pretty well what all the obfuscating talk about Morton and Petrie amounts to: Association fallacy

The problem here is reading comprehension. The point is that modern anthropology was driven by white European racist scholars who wanted to prove their racial superiority by showing the ancient Egyptians were "white" people. That is all historical fact. Therefore, if any group in history has been bent on altering history based on racial predjudices and fables it is Europeans. To sit here and claim that Africans are 'racially biased' by calling ANY population of ancient Africans black is not only laughably absurd but also revisionist history. But European racists who wrote all kinds of racist books and papers trying to prove the superiority of the "white race" are given a pass.... That is the nonsense I am speaking to that goes on in this discussion which is why such hypocrisy should be challenged. I would go so far to say as the article should be renamed to 'Why the rise of Eurocentrism/Scientific Racism in the 18th and 19th century?" Not to mention that Morton's own findings often showed ancient Egyptian crania closer to "Negroes"...... And to this day nobody has any solid science proving the ancient Egyptians to be white Blondes.

Yes, I think we're all aware of 19th-century pseudoscience and Eurocentric racism, yet while I don't remember the content of every post, I don't think anyone has come in here guns blazing and arguing for this or that Egypt was "white." Looking back at the arguments presented here, such as a very recent one by Sumskilz backing his claims with DNA analysis and empirical data, it seems the main argument is that Egyptians were collectively far more "brown" than "black" in their physiognomy, with Middle-Eastern origins (that just so happen to link genetically with some other pre-Indo-European Mediterranean peoples like the Basques). Sumskilz provided the credible theory of the reverse migration of Asiatic peoples going into North Africa, including Egypt (which is the natural first point on the way to Libya, Tunisia, etc.) No one has come to this thread arguing that Nordic Swedes reigned over ancient Egypt, which is basically what you're hinting and suggesting is going on. You seem to be repeatedly beating this strawman that no one here cares about instead of addressing the very lucid points laid out by Sumskilz.

The point is that without going into any serious details, the idea that an African calling ANY population in ancient Africa black is a racist is pure b.s. that can and should be challenged. And no I am sorry, European scholarship has shown itself to historically racist and therefore not above reproach. So the "guns are blazing" in the sense that Europeans should be trusted to be telling the truth about ancient Egypt and that if they say they were 'white' or 'near white' we should just take that at face value as being 'honest scholarship' which I would say is far from deserved given the history of the subject. So in any shape or form it is slander to suggest that Africans are motivated by racism in calling Africans black (when most Africans are black and black means brown in the first place), given NO HISTORY of racism in African scholarship or society and that Europeans are purely motivated by the "truth" given the overwhelming about of facts to the contrary. Not to mention this whole absurd notion that black Africans are different from brown Africans and that these 'brown Africans' as some special type of Africans only exist in Egypt. This is the reason I don't even like engaging in such debates because it is basically silly and absurd and boils down to people wanting to not be challenged on their nonsense while wanting to challenge anyone else that even begins to question them and their 'authority' on something that is not theirs in the first place.

[Condottiere 40K]

6425
I sort of doubt there's a significant Aryan element in either Egyptian culture or DNA.

[athanaric]

The facts have been there since forever. Ancient Egyptian culture flowed from South to North. The idea that the people in Upper Egypt and the Sahara from which the ancient culture originated were not related to or derived from the ancient African populations that existed in these regions previously is pure fantasy B.S.

Weasel words.

You are proposing basically the "dynastic race" theory which was discredited over a hundred years ago,

I'm not proposing any theory. I look at the data.

yet you and others keep proposing it as "valid science" but there is no such thing that says an invading population of back migrants settled in Egypt and created the society there. And that has been the contention by racist scholars in Europe since they 'discovered' Egypt. And as for those white scholars who have said otherwise, you have Budge, Count Volney, Champollion, Richard Poe, Martin Bernal and others. And as I said before, which you keep ignoring this 'debate' has been going on for over 100 years since before the word "Afrocentric" even existed.

Where and when did they say what you claim, and in which context?

And don't give me that mumbo jumbo about race theories in 19th century Europe, I really don't care.

I sort of doubt there's a significant Aryan element in either Egyptian culture or DNA.

The Aryans conquered ancient Egypt twice at least, so there's probably more Aryan traces in Egyptian DNA than, say, sub-Saharan African (excluding the Nile valley) or Northern European. As to cultural traces, I don't know. Probably not much because they weren't the most popular of foreign overlords in Egyptian history. Though I'm not sure what makes you come up with Aryans here.

[+Marius+]

Gingers hair is colored due to conditions after death. Do you seriously claim that some old person had blond hair that late in life before they died (if they were indeed some kind of white blond which as NEVER been documented in Egypt even today)? Or are you seriously claiming that Ramses II when he died was some kind of flaming redhead? The fact is that many Africans in that region have dark reddish brown hair. Also many Africans have 'flaming red' hair due to using henna to dye it.

Yeah;

Slightly NSFW;

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That is not African hair, not by a long shot.
That is wavy, plaid caucasian hair.

Significant traces of R1b1a2 were found in DNA testing of ancient Egyptian remains, most famous of which was Tutankhamun.

What is RR1b1a2 you ask?
Why allow me to visualize;




"Microscopic inspection of the roots of Ramesses II's hair proved that the king's hair was originally red, which suggests that he came from a family of redheads." (Bob Brier, Egyptian Mummies: Unravelling the Secrets of an Ancient Art, William Morrow & Co. Inc, New York. 1994. p.153)

[Roma_Victrix]

The facts have been there since forever. Ancient Egyptian culture flowed from South to North. The idea that the people in Upper Egypt and the Sahara from which the ancient culture originated were not related to or derived from the ancient African populations that existed in these regions previously is pure fantasy B.S. You are proposing basically the "dynastic race" theory which was discredited over a hundred years ago, yet you and others keep proposing it as "valid science" but there is no such thing that says an invading population of back migrants settled in Egypt and created the society there. And that has been the contention by racist scholars in Europe since they 'discovered' Egypt. And as for those white scholars who have said otherwise, you have Budge, Count Volney, Champollion, Richard Poe, Martin Bernal and others. And as I said before, which you keep ignoring this 'debate' has been going on for over 100 years since before the word "Afrocentric" even existed. Who was Samuel Morton replying to or arguing against when he set out to write his book? Surely SOMEBODY was claiming that the ancient Egyptians were black even back then. So again, no matter how you slice it, this is not an issue that started with 'African scholars', it started with white racists being MAD that they were being called out on their racism which is based on fantasies and lies instead of facts.

You keep returning to the 19th and early 20th centuries, eras which indeed had European scholars who denied that even the Nubians of Kush were black. On that issue, for instance, they were terribly wrong and allowed their racist attitudes to overtake reason. Yet scholars of the 19th century didn't have the modern luxury or convenience of being able to analyze DNA samples. We now know a great deal about the ancient Egyptians and who they were in relation to neighboring ancient population groups. This goes far beyond interpreting their skin tone or physiognomy using the artwork they created to represent themselves. In either case, how does the insanity of 19th-century Eurocentric racism excuse the present-day craziness and racism of Afrocentrism? Especially considering how present-day Afrocentrism has gone far beyond even the wildest claims of old-school Eurocentric racial eugenics, trying to appropriate the earliest Meso-Americans and Chinese as African in origin? Not even racist Europeans in the 19th-century were that ballsy or off their rockers.

The problem here is reading comprehension. The point is that modern anthropology was driven by white European racist scholars who wanted to prove their racial superiority by showing the ancient Egyptians were "white" people. That is all historical fact. Therefore, if any group in history has been bent on altering history based on racial predjudices and fables it is Europeans. To sit here and claim that Africans are 'racially biased' by calling ANY population of ancient Africans black is not only laughably absurd but also revisionist history. But European racists who wrote all kinds of racist books and papers trying to prove the superiority of the "white race" are given a pass.... That is the nonsense I am speaking to that goes on in this discussion which is why such hypocrisy should be challenged. I would go so far to say as the article should be renamed to 'Why the rise of Eurocentrism/Racism in the 18th and 19th century?" Not to mention that Morton's own findings often showed ancient Egyptian crania closer to "Negroes"...... And to this day nobody has any solid science proving the ancient Egyptians to be white Blondes. And gingers hair is colored due to conditions after death. Do you seriously claim that some old person had blond hair that late in life before they died (if they were indeed some kind of white blond which as NEVER been documented in Egypt even today)?

Small correction here: some blondes or red-heads are proven to have existed in ancient Egypt after the conquest of Alexander the Great. When they weren't Macedonian Greeks or Thraco-Greeks, then they were certainly Celtic mercenaries from Galatia who sported such hair color. Obviously this is divorced from the original native population. However, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Marius March's point about Egyptian mummies with this sort of hair (and, although withered by time, are still able to provide is with DNA samples to compare with the present-day Egyptian population group). If ancient Egyptian artwork is anything to go by, however, I think it's fairly clear that at least the vast, vast majority of Egyptians had dark brunette and black hair.

The point is that without going into any serious details, the idea that an African calling ANY population in ancient Africa black is a racist is pure b.s. that can and should be challenged. And no I am sorry, European scholarship has shown itself to historically racist and therefore not above reproach. So the "guns are blazing" in the sense that Europeans should be trusted to be telling the truth about ancient Egypt and that if they say they were 'white' or 'near white' we should just take that at face value as being 'honest scholarship' which I would say is far from deserved given the history of the subject. So in any shape or form it is slander to suggest that Africans are motivated by racism in calling Africans black (when most Africans are black and black means brown in the first place), given NO HISTORY of racism in African scholarship or society and that Europeans are purely motivated by the "truth" given the overwhelming about of facts to the contrary. Not to mention this whole absurd notion that black Africans are different from brown Africans and that these 'brown Africans' as some special type of Africans only exist in Egypt. This is the reason I don't even like engaging in such debates because it is basically silly and absurd and boils down to people wanting to not be challenged on their nonsense while wanting to challenge anyone else that even begins to question them and their 'authority' on something that is not theirs in the first place.

You're hinting at the fluidity between "brown" and "black" here that actually does exist to an extent, surely, through the proximity and intermarriage of sub-Saharan with North African populations not just in Sudan and Egypt, but elsewhere like Morocco or Algeria throughout history. If we go by the comparative DNA analysis offered by Sumskilz, however, this admixture doesn't account for the vast majority of the population, though. I also think you are highly mistaken to paint North African populations and sub-Saharan populations as the same people or population groups, indistinguishable from one another in terms of physiognomy and shared genetic traits. That's already demonstrably false given the comparative DNA analysis provided by Sumskilz where it included sub-Saharan African groups side-by-side with the various North African groups including Egyptians, even the Arabs and Qataris.

Artwork, however flawed, does contain kernels of truth as well. I mean, just look at modern-day Egyptians or Berbers in other North African countries and compare them to the people represented not only in ancient Egyptian artwork, but also Roman-era artwork from Egypt showing the local inhabitants.



^ Slimane Rouissi, Tunisian activist



^A Libyan man in traditional headdress



^ An average Egyptian man



^ A Coptic Orthodox Christian priest from Egypt

Now a cursory, analytical comparison with ancient Egyptian art:



^ A seated scribe statue from the 4th dynasty (2600-2500 BC) of the Old Kingdom, excavated at Saqqara



^ Yet another ancient statue of a seated scribe, c. 2375 BC




^ The Fayum Mummy Portraits (1st century BC to 3rd century AD) from the ancient Roman period of Egypt

Now, I'm not ethnologist, but it really doesn't take an ethnologist to observe these works of art and conclude they resemble more or less how the North African peoples, including Berbers, Arab-Berbers, Egyptian Arabs and Coptic Egyptians, look today. It's pretty much irrefutable that in ancient times, given the proximity to Nubia, that a good amount of Egyptians were either black or mixed, but characterizing all ancient Egyptians as "black" would hardly account for these folks shown above.

In either case, this whole debate bores me when we could be talking about something substantive, like a discussion in another thread about REAL black African civilizations in Nubia, Aksum, Ghana, Zimbabwe, ancient Azania (Tanzania), etc.