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Thread: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

  1. #61

    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MAXlMUS View Post
    there is no need for him to present anything. your fringe theories are only taken seriously by african-american afrocentrists
    First of all this is a logical fallacy, an ad populum to be exact. You assume that because most people don't want to accept a truth that it will take away from it's reality.

    Secondly do you seriously know how incorrect, ignorant, and pretty offensive that sounds? Why in the Hell would the Oxford Encyclopedia of ancient Egypt support a fringe theory? Why do you ignorantly ignore the clear and recent scientific findings presented on page two via plot and dendrogram just to resort to sad interpretation of a PAINTING? Better yet why are you ignoring the art presented on page two as well, it is after all Egyptian!

    You claim that only African Americans believe this FACT which is ignorantly false and pretty well.. racist. The late Basil Davidson seen below is a world reknown African historian who has been arguing this truth for decades:





    This second video is a direct translation of the Greek testimonies of the ancient Egyptian descriptions that we were discussing earlier.

    Is he also a "fringed" Afrocentric? You nor anyone else who has commented in this thread has produced not a shred of to counter what he has founded?

    i'm not even sure if there ever even was a significant berber population in egypt.
    I was regarding another poster who inferred that the ancient Egyptians resembled North African berbers, which is false as you can see:



    Somalis are the only modern population to group next to the Naqada sample.





    as for the arab influx it would of been very small.
    You are obviously not aware of the fact that small scale migration from the Middle East through Egyptian history noted. This small scale migration over the course of a Millenium did in fact change the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians by the New Kingdom period from tropical African to Middle Eastern. This correlates with dendrogram on page two, which shows all Egyptians prior to the New Kingdom grouping with Nubians and more southerly African populations. The New Kingdom period is also when the Delta region began to become populated, prior to this during the Old Kingdom Upper Egypt held the vast majority of Egypt's population (which is currently the complete opposite).

    the population of egypt at the eve of the arab conquests probably far exceeded the population of the entire arabian peninsula, which could not accomodate a large population anyways because of the geography and climate.
    You cannot disregard the impact of the Arab conquest based on assumptions. This event was probably the biggest contributor of Eurasian gene flow into Northern Africa (including Lower Nubia)

    Keita and Boyce, Genetics, Egypt, And History: Interpreting Geographical Patterns Of Y Chromosome Variation,
    History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246

    Ovacaprines appear in the western desert before the Nile valley proper (Wendorf and Schild 2001). However, it is significant that ancient Egyptian words for the major Near Eastern domesticates - Sheep, goat, barley, and wheat - are not loans from either Semitic, Sumerian, or Indo-European. This argues against a mass settler colonization (at replacement levels) of the Nile valley from the Near East at this time. This is in contrast with some words for domesticates in some early Semitic languages, which are likely Sumerian loan words (Diakonoff 1981).. This evidence indicates that northern Nile valley peoples apparently incorporated the Near Eastern domesticates into a Nilotic foraging subsistence tradition on their own terms (Wetterstrom 1993). There was apparently no “Neolithic revolution” brought by settler colonization, but a gradual process of neolithicization (Midant-Reynes 2000). (Also some of those emigrating may have been carrying Haplotype V, descendents of earlier migrants from the Nile valley, given the postulated “Mesolithic” time of the M35 lineage emigration). It is more probable that the current VII and VIII frequencies, greatest in northern Egypt, reflect in the main (but not solely) movements during the Islamic period (Nebel et al. 2002), when some deliberate settlement of Arab tribes was done in Africa, and the effects of polygamy. There must also have been some impact of Near Easterners who settled in the delta at various times in ancient Egypt (Gardiner 1961). More recent movements, in the last two centuries, must not be forgotten in this assessment.
    and besides, look at mubarak for your average egyptian.

    Why are your referencing modern Northern Egyptians, even though it's been proven that due to signifigant non African gene flow they do not look like their early Egyptian ancestors:

    "Cosmopolitan northern Egypt is less likely to have a population representative of the core indigenous population of the most ancient times".
    - Keita (2005), pp. 564


    he doesn't even look very arab.
    Egyptians as a whole look like mixed population! Some have more African features, some have more Eurasiactic features. Modern Egyptians have a noticeably more African look than the others in the Arab world.

    what's wrong with that picture is that it's taken from an anfrocentrist website
    You have yet to explain why in the Hell discussing ancient Egypt in it's proper African context is "Afrocentric". Obviously you were not aware that what you consider a "fringe theory" (the African origins of Egypt) is really a mainstream concensus, yet you still will not consider what the thesis of this entire argument is. Are you aware that even outspoken Afrocentric critic Mary Leftkowitiz concedes to the fact that the Egyptians came from Sub Saharan/Saharan Africa:

    "Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54."
    (Mary Lefkotitz (1997). Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. Basic Books. pg 242)


    According to your logic this author of "Not out of Africa" is a raving Afrocentric who concedes to a "fringe theory"

    Are you not starting to see how illogical your blatant denial is? Wouldn't an actual scholar who openly criticizes Afrocentrism, be the first to combat a "fringe theory" such as this one if it were really the case? Obviously she recognizes that this stance is backed by enough evidence to be considered a fact. If she of all people can admit this then why can't people like you?

    and supposing the ancient egyptians were black, who cares?
    Apparently you care, we are after all debating this subject!

    just because your also black dosen't mean your a descendant of ramses, nor that you have anything in common with them other then 'race'.
    Strawman! Who in the Hell is arguing that Ramses or Tiye are my ancestors? Why does this ultimately become the main point of contention for Eurocentrics who are indenial about this fact? It's like it strikes the fear of God in you all to fathom the thought that little Tyrone might take pride in this black African civilization. The same way little Brad of Celtic descent might view Rome or Greece as his white European heritage. We are about as distant from the ancient Egyptians as the vast majority of white Americans are from those two European civilizations. Yet we still see British actors protraying the Greek warriors in "300" Despite Greece being on the complete opposite fringe of Europe! Don't impose a racial double standard!
    Last edited by MKGlouisville; February 09, 2011 at 01:03 PM.

  2. #62
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MKGlouisville View Post
    Strawman! Who in the Hell is arguing that Ramses or Tiye are my ancestors? Why does this ultimately become the main point of contention for Eurocentrics who are denial about this fact. It's like it strikes the fear of God in you all to fathom the thought that little Tyrone might take pride in a black African civilization. The same way Brad if Celtic descent might view Rome or Greece as his white European heritage. We are about as distant from the ancient Egyptians as the vast majority of white Americans are from those two European civilizations. Yet we still see British actors protraying the Greek warriors in "300" Despite Greece being on the complete opposite fringe of Europe! Don't impose a racial double standard!
    Yeah... What you say here is entirely true... I don't disagree with it.

    I just have a simple question for you...

    The Egypt that we Europeans know had a "whiter" ruling aristocracy...

    Is that true or false?

    If true... When did the Egyptians "whiten" up...?

  3. #63

    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by Getwulf View Post
    The Egypt that we Europeans know had a "whiter" ruling aristocracy...
    By "whiter" what do you mean? During the Greco Roman occupation of Late Dynastic Egypt? Or during the Hykso or Persian occupations of the nation? All of these occupations of Egypt would have brought a "whiter" element to the original African ruling aristocracy.

    None the less I think that it would be most likely that the general ruling class of Old Kingdom Egypt, just like the general population was what we would call black:

    "The predominant craniometric pattern in the Abydos royal tombs is 'southern' (tropical African variant), and this is consistent with what would be expected based on the literature and other results (Keita, 1990). This pattern is seen in both group and unknown analyses... Archaeology and history seem to provide the most parsimonious explanation for the variation in the royal tombs at Abydos.. Tomb design suggests the presence of northerners in the south in late Nakada times (Hoffman, 1988) when the unification probably took place. Delta names are attached to some of the tombs at Abydos (Gardiner, 1961; Yurco, 1990, personal communication), thus perhaps supporting Petrie's (1939) and Gardiner's contention that north-south marriages were undertaken to legitimize the hegemony of the south. The courtiers of northern elites would have accompanied them. (S. Keita (1992) Further Studies of Crania From Ancient Northern Africa: An Analysis of Crania From First Dynasty Egyptian Tombs, Using Multiple Discriminant Functions. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 87:245-254)


    "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


    Is that true or false?
    Can you give a specific reference to which time frame that you are talking about? I would agree that around the New Kingdom period Egypt began to see "whitening" of their general population, due to small scale migration that occured throughout OK Dynastic periods (thousands of years). Though I'm certain that Asiactic rulers during the OK period would not have been unusal.



    Notice that coming into the New Kingdom periods affinities towards Asiactic populations begin to be shown.

  4. #64
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MKGlouisville View Post
    Can you give a specific reference to which time frame that you are talking about? I would agree that around the New Kingdom period Egypt began to see "whitening" of their general population, due to small scale migration that occured throughout OK Dynastic periods (thousands of years). Though I'm certain that Asiactic rulers during the OK period would not have been unusal.
    That’s true I should have been more specific. I’m not an Egyptologist and my knowledge of Egypt is relatively limited so you have me at a disadvantage.

    Nevertheless… I think discussing the New Kingdom, …the period after 1600 BC might be in order.

    So do you think that Egyptian rulers start to become white or “whiter” during this period? If so why…?

    Also what about Ramses II the ruler from around 1200 BC…? Was he white…? Supposedly he had red hair.

    The Hyksos are also interesting… and I may very well have a theory on that.

  5. #65
    James the Red's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Considering Caucasoid and brownish people live in the middle east, and Berbers lived in western north africa above the Sahara, and Egypt is between the two, I dont think it would be unreasonable to assume northern Egyptions were generally of the lighter skinned variety.


    So considering Egypts location, if the ancient population was mostly Black, I would say it would have had huge minorities of non-black and mixed people, particularly in the north.

    And if the the ancient population was mostly non-black, it would have had huge minorities of Black and mixed peoples, particularly in the south.


    However, Egyptian is very much African in many ways. It was an uniquely African culture and civilization with many ties with the Nubians.
    Last edited by James the Red; February 10, 2011 at 08:36 PM.

  6. #66
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Culturally Ancient Egypt was probably in a continuum that reached all the way to Ethiopia and even over the water to the Southern Arabian peninsula.
    But That's rather quite a ways from Central en West-Africa though.
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  7. #67

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Manco View Post
    Culturally Ancient Egypt was probably in a continuum that reached all the way to Ethiopia and even over the water to the Southern Arabian peninsula.
    But That's rather quite a ways from Central en West-Africa though.
    Who said anything about West or Central Africa? What is the point of stating this? Regardless if you watched on the clips that I've provided up top you will see where Basil Davidson like most other scholars confirms that the central Sahara (Nilo Saharan was the other main contributor to the original population of Egypt.

    Quote Originally Posted by James the Red View Post
    Considering Caucasoid and brownish people live in the middle east, and Berbers liver in western north africa above the Sahara, and Egypt is between the two, I dont think it would be unreasonable to assume northern Egyptions were generally of the lighter skinned variety.


    So considering Egypts location, if the ancient population was mostly Black, I would say it would have had huge minorities of non-black and mixed people, particularly in the north.

    And if the the ancient population was mostly non-black, it would have had huge minorities of Black and mixed peoples, particularly in the south.


    However, Egyptian is very much African in many ways. It was an uniquely African culture and civilization with many ties with the Nubians.
    Earlier on this page I provided limb proportion evidence which found early Northern Egyptians to "signifigantly different" from Neasr Eastern populations and Europeans and cluster instead with Tropically adapted African. I couldn't imagaine a white skinned population that is Tropically adapted can you? While it would not be surprising to find a signifigant proption of Middle Easterners in Northern Egypt this evidence sugguest that those indigenous Egyptians were not.

    Also remember Northern Egypt was sparesely populated prior to the New Kingdom. Upper Egyptians comprised the vast majority of Egypt's population up until then.
    Last edited by Darth Red; February 14, 2011 at 11:37 AM. Reason: double post

  8. #68
    Border Patrol's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    So why can Egyptians not be African and non-Black at the same time?

  9. #69
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MKGlouisville View Post
    Who said anything about West or Central Africa? What is the point of stating this? Regardless if you watched on the clips that I've provided up top you will see where Basil Davidson like most other scholars confirms that the central Sahara (Nilo Saharan was the other main contributor to the original population of Egypt.
    That stating that Egyptian culture is a "uniquely" African culture is meaningless. There is no singualr African culture and Ancient Egypt has zilch to do with West and Central Africa.
    Also I wasn't responding to you, this thread surprisingly doesn't revolve around you.


    Oh btw, when will you adress the simple fact you've been using pseudosciences likephrenology to support your argument?
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  10. #70
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MKGlouisville View Post
    First of all this is a logical fallacy, an ad populum to be exact. You assume that because most people don't want to accept a truth that it will take away from it's reality.

    Secondly do you seriously know how incorrect, ignorant, and pretty offensive that sounds? Why in the Hell would the Oxford Encyclopedia of ancient Egypt support a fringe theory? Why do you ignorantly ignore the clear and recent scientific findings presented on page two via plot and dendrogram just to resort to sad interpretation of a PAINTING? Better yet why are you ignoring the art presented on page two as well, it is after all Egyptian!

    You claim that only African Americans believe this FACT which is ignorantly false and pretty well.. racist. The late Basil Davidson seen below is a world reknown African historian who has been arguing this truth for decades:





    This second video is a direct translation of the Greek testimonies of the ancient Egyptian descriptions that we were discussing earlier.

    Is he also a "fringed" Afrocentric? You nor anyone else who has commented in this thread has produced not a shred of to counter what he has founded?
    you're making this a black vs white issue, which it isn't. the fact is that the vast majority of credible egyptologists and historians reject this theory because there is little to no evidence to support it.


    You are obviously not aware of the fact that small scale migration from the Middle East through Egyptian history noted. This small scale migration over the course of a Millenium did in fact change the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians by the New Kingdom period from tropical African to Middle Eastern. This correlates with dendrogram on page two, which shows all Egyptians prior to the New Kingdom grouping with Nubians and more southerly African populations. The New Kingdom period is also when the Delta region began to become populated, prior to this during the Old Kingdom Upper Egypt held the vast majority of Egypt's population (which is currently the complete opposite).
    so wait. egypt began to 'whiten up' at the time of the new kingdom? why?

    You cannot disregard the impact of the Arab conquest based on assumptions. This event was probably the biggest contributor of Eurasian gene flow into Northern Africa (including Lower Nubia)
    so history is explained through dubious unsubstantiated assumptions now?




    You have yet to explain why in the Hell discussing ancient Egypt in it's proper African context is "Afrocentric". Obviously you were not aware that what you consider a "fringe theory" (the African origins of Egypt) is really a mainstream concensus, yet you still will not consider what the thesis of this entire argument is. Are you aware that even outspoken Afrocentric critic Mary Leftkowitiz concedes to the fact that the Egyptians came from Sub Saharan/Saharan Africa:


    "Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54."
    (Mary Lefkotitz (1997). Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. Basic Books. pg 242)
    According to your logic this author of "Not out of Africa" is a raving Afrocentric who concedes to a "fringe theory"


    Are you not starting to see how illogical your blatant denial is? Wouldn't an actual scholar who openly criticizes Afrocentrism, be the first to combat a "fringe theory" such as this one if it were really the case? Obviously she recognizes that this stance is backed by enough evidence to be considered a fact. If she of all people can admit this then why can't people like you?
    learn how to ** read please. he says ALL of humankind came from south of the sahara.



    Yet we still see British actors protraying the Greek warriors in "300" Despite Greece being on the complete opposite fringe of Europe! Don't impose a racial double standard!
    well it's a british movie will have british actors, normal, no? but i do agree it's stupid that most romans in tv shows have colored hair and blue eyes (e.g. the spartacus series, and rome) when most had black hair brown eyes

  11. #71

    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by Border Patrol View Post
    So why can Egyptians not be African and non-Black at the same time?
    Why does this fact bother you? Every shred of evidence presented confirms that they came from tropical Africa and were most closely related to other tropical Africans. Show me one living tropical African population that wouldn't be considered "black". If you can't then you have no reason (logical that is) to dispute that the ancient Egyptians were too "black".

  12. #72
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    You have yet to explain how on earth the black Egyptians became Middle-Eastern.
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  13. #73

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    Quote Originally Posted by Manco View Post
    That stating that Egyptian culture is a "uniquely" African culture is meaningless.
    How so? The point of contention that Basil Davidson is making with this documentary is that the original ancient Egyptians were an African people who's "origins lie to the south" (direct quote from Basil). He demonstrates the indisputable inner African cultural foundation of Egypt. This scholar's work of the 80's, has been excepted build on by the mainstream as fact:

    "The evidence also points to linkages to
    other northeast African peoples, not
    coincidentally approximating the modern
    range of languages closely related to
    Egyptian in the Afro-Asiatic group
    (formerly called Hamito-Semetic). These
    linguistic similarities place ancient
    Egyptian in a close relationship with
    languages spoken today as far west as
    Chad, and as far south as Somalia.
    Archaeological evidence also strongly
    supports an African origin. A widespread
    northeastern African cultural assemblage,
    including distinctive multiple barbed
    harpoons and pottery decorated with
    dotted wavy line patterns, appears during
    the early Neolithic (also known as the
    Aqualithic, a reference to the mild
    climate of the Sahara at this time).

    Saharan and Sudanese rock art from this
    time resembles early Egyptian
    iconography. Strong connections
    between Nubian (Sudanese) and
    Egyptian material culture continue in
    later Neolithic Badarian culture of Upper
    Egypt. Similarities include black-topped
    wares, vessels with characteristic
    ripple-burnished surfaces, a special
    tulip-shaped vessel with incised and
    white-filled decoration, palettes, and
    harpoons...

    Other ancient Egyptian practices show
    strong similarities to modern African
    cultures including divine kingship, the
    use of headrests, body art, circumcision,
    and male coming-of-age rituals, all
    suggesting an African substratum or
    foundation for Egyptian civilization.."

    Source: Donald Redford (2001) The
    Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt,
    Volume 3. Oxford University Press. p. 28


    LIKE IT OR NOT the above is the MAINSTREAM view of Egyptology, for this reason it is stated in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (pretty common sense)!

    There is no singualr African culture and Ancient Egypt has zilch to do with West and Central Africa.
    Your post sound so rabid! While it's certainly true that there is no representative for African culture, there are however many common traits that are seen (Sub Saharan/Saharans in particular) across the continent. Notice what is listed in the third paragraph of the my source above. Those cultural traits are seen from the Gold Coast to Ethiopia.

    Secondly why do you keep bringing up West and Central Africa as if you know d*** thing about African culture? Why are you the first person to bring of those African regions, I certainly didn't. Your main contention seems to be to disconnect New World blacks from this civilization, by making baseless and uninformed statements. Why is this regulation such a priority for you Eurocentrics, when 9 out of 10 African Americans could care less about such a connection?

    Take this how you will, but the range of the ancient Saharans who were probably the most instrumental in Egypt's origins stretched across North Central Africa (as the desert does now). When desertification occured some went to the Nile Valley while other's went to West and Central Africa. This is shown in the documentary on the previous page. Perhaps this is why the cultural traits noted in the source above are seen throughout the continent.

    Oh btw, when will you adress the simple fact you've been using pseudosciences likephrenology to support your argument?
    You seriously just sound childish! You keep wanting to attach the word "phrenology" with this fact without even providing so much as one counter scholarly source to combat what I have presented. You have nothing to combat what the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians were (tropical African). You have yet to find a counter source (scholarly) supporting a "Berber" or "Middle Eastern" input of Dynastic Egypt's origins. You have nothing to combat the fact that linguistic and genetic evidence both show the same pioneering migration from Sub Saharan East Africa into the Nile and across North Africa. You are essentially basing your denial on nothing more than ignorance.

    Quote Originally Posted by Akrotatos View Post
    You have yet to explain how on earth the black Egyptians became Middle-Eastern.
    Seriously dude are you blind or something? Have you not read any of my post in which I've stating and backed with sources that small scale, but steady migration from the Near East into Egypt took place during early Dynastic times. This is over the course of THOUSANDS of years. By the New Kingdom so much gene flow had been absorbed by the region that their biological affinity began to tie with the Middle East. This was demonstrated in the dendrogram that I presented on page two and three:

    "...STABILITY and HOMOGENEITY persisted right through the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and breaks down only in the New Kingdom period, when we know from many sources that there was considerable infiltration into the Nile Valley."
    --Berry, A.C., & Berry, R.J., 1972. ‘Origins and Relationships of the Ancient Egyptians, Based on the Study of Non-Metrical Variations in the Skull’, Journal of Human Evolution, 1, 1972: 199-206; p.203
    Ancient Egypt was divided into two regions: Upper and Lower Egypt. Lower (northern) Egypt consisted of the Nile River's delta made by the river as it empties into the Mediterranean. Today the Delta is fifteen thousand square miles of alluvium (silt), which has been deposited over the centuries by the annual inundation of the Nile. Prior to the New Kingdom (before about 1539 B.C.), this area was only thinly settled, although it was used as a grazing area for cattle. Its high water table in modern times has made archaeological excavation for evidence of settlements difficult
    http://www.carnegiemnh.org/exhibitions/egypt/guide.htm
    see also Toby A.H. Wilkinson in his book Early Dynastic Egypt and Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw


    Quote Originally Posted by MAXlMUS View Post
    you're making this a black vs white issue
    No YOU ALL are making this a White vs Black issue! One poster is routinely bringing up West and Central Africa's relationship with Egypt, when I had previously made no such insinuation. He is doing so because as I stated earlier some of you simply cannot fathom the thought that the people who created one of the longest lasting and most accomplished civilizations in world history, looked like the people who whites in America for centuries were taught to view as intellectually inferior. It's that simple and you know it!

    None of you have any logical basis to dispute what has been presented, nor have you presented anything that argues against this fact or supports whatever you all support. This leaves the question, why are you even arguing? Why do you feel so strongly about this that you continue respond to my peer reviewed evidence with scuffs?

    The funniest thing is that all three of you who ironically respond to me at the same time can't even unanimously agree on what the ancient Egyptians looked like or came from. Some of you say Middle Eastern, others say Berbers, some even argue that the milleniums of different ethnic population mixings have not altered the phenotype of modern Egyptians. You all just seem to be in agreeance that they just simple CANNOT BE BLACK.

    which it isn't. the fact is that the vast majority of credible egyptologists and historians reject this theory because there is little to no evidence to support it.
    Are you sure of this? Can you cite one modern authorative statement that ascribes Dynastic Egypt's origins to a primarily non African source? I highly doubt that you will take up this challenge, because I've yet to see a scholar refute this fact.

    so wait. egypt began to 'whiten up' at the time of the new kingdom? why?
    This has been addressed by me numerous times in this thread including on page two. None the less the study below tells you why:

    "...STABILITY and HOMOGENEITY persisted right through the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and breaks down only in the New Kingdom period, when we know from many sources that there was considerable infiltration into the Nile Valley."
    --Berry, A.C., & Berry, R.J., 1972. ‘Origins and Relationships of the Ancient Egyptians, Based on the Study of Non-Metrical Variations in the Skull’, Journal of Human Evolution, 1, 1972: 199-206; p.203
    learn how to ** read please. he says ALL of humankind came from south of the sahara
    Ok first of all MARY Lefkowitz is a woman, so please get that straight!

    Secondly she was speaking in the context of Egypt's origins, there is no need to be dishonest. What else could she mean by Egypt's founders were not invaders from the North as previously assumed. Again you have a the author of "NOT OUT OF AFRICA" admitting that the ancient Egyptians came from the south. She cites this work for her conclusions on the matter:

    "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
    Here is what another critical author of Afrocentrism (though not a scholar) grudgingly admits about Egypt's early population after reviewing the evidence:




    "No serious contemporary scholar, however,


    appears to doubt that the great bulk of the

    predynastic and Pharonic population was of

    indigenous African origin (see, for example,
    Hoffman 1991; Rice 1991)"
    --S. Howe (1999) Afrocentrism: mythical pasts and



    imagined homes. Verso. pg 132.


    well it's a british movie will have british actors, normal, no?

    No it is technically historically inaccurate, seeing as how the Greeks and Romans were not North or Western Europeans! Some people threw a fit when Michael Jacksons music video "remember the times" had an African American cast portray the ancient Egyptians who were also black. If according to you all it's not "ok" for "us" to do this then why should Western and Central Europeans get a pass of going to the edges of their continent to identify with a culture that they had nothing to do with? Don't impose a racial double standard.

    but i do agree it's stupid that most romans in tv shows have colored hair and blue eyes (e.g. the spartacus series, and rome) when most had black hair brown eyes

    But despite these inaccuracies white Americans do not complain about this, but some threw a fit over:


    Gasp!
    Last edited by Darth Red; February 14, 2011 at 11:38 AM. Reason: triple posting

  14. #74
    Manco's Avatar Dux Limitis
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MKGlouisville View Post
    How so? The point of contention that Basil Davidson is making with this documentary is that the original ancient Egyptians were an African people who's "origins lie to the south" (direct quote from Basil). He demonstrates the indisputable inner African cultural foundation of Egypt. This scholar's work of the 80's, has been excepted build on by the mainstream as fact:




    LIKE IT OR NOT the above is the MAINSTREAM view of Egyptology, for this reason it is stated in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (pretty common sense)!
    Language says very little about origin. Practically all of Europe speaks a language that has it's origins in the Black Sea/Central Asia area, yet Western Europe is descended from the Iberian Refugium and Southern/Central Europe is mostly from the Balkan Refugium with Northern Europe a mixture of the two.

    So language is very unreliable when speaking about about genetic origin. Culturally no one here has ever contested they, the Ancient Egyptians, were in very close contact with Nubians and Ethiopians. In fact it's widely accepted that the Afro-Asiatic languages originated in Modern Ethiopia and Sudan.

    You're arguing a strawman here. A strawman that has no relevance on skincolour.


    Your post sound so rabid! While it's certainly true that there is no representative for African culture, there are however many common traits that are seen (Sub Saharan/Saharans in particular) across the continent. Notice what is listed in the third paragraph of the my source above. Those cultural traits are seen from the Gold Coast to Ethiopia.
    The unknown guy who only joined for and posts about one topic, probably found by typing all sorts of Afrocentric search terms in Google, with smilies, long rants and disparaging remarks is usually regarded as the rabid one, guess what? That's you.
    Further more you're clearly misreading the use of African here. it's obvious from the context they're referring to the earlier mentions of Africa, in casu the Afro-Asiatic cultural region, not all of Africa.
    Secondly why do you keep bringing up West and Central Africa as if you know d*** thing about African culture? Why are you the first person to bring of those African regions, I certainly didn't. Your main contention seems to be to disconnect New World blacks from this civilization, by making baseless and uninformed statements. Why is this regulation such a priority for you Eurocentrics, when 9 out of 10 African Americans could care less about such a connection?
    Once again, that wasn't a response to anything you said. It was a response to the statement of "uniquely" African culture, which is simply wrong for the simple reason that the cultural continuum Egypt belonged isn't unique to Africa, but spread to the South Eastern Arabian peninsula (mostly by D'mt)
    You're also quick to throw around Eurocentric around without even knowing who you're talking to. I firmly agree that culturally Ancient Egypt was connected to the larger Eastern African area, however I don't necessarily agree that means anything on a racial level. Mostly because I don't ing care about that and usually only racialists/racists do.




    You seriously just sound childish! You keep wanting to attach the word "phrenology" with this fact without even providing so much as one counter scholarly source to combat what I have presented.
    I don't have to show a countersource to phrenology. Phrenology IS NOT a science, it's the domain of quacks and racists.

    You have nothing to combat what the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians were (tropical African). You have yet to find a counter source (scholarly) supporting a "Berber" or "Middle Eastern" input of Dynastic Egypt's origins.
    Why should I provide evidence of something I don't hold to? Once again you just show you have no idea what I actually think about this issue.
    What I say is that Ancient Egyptians were Ancient Egyptians, not some mixture of others. And that considering humans live in genetic clines and that skincolour is by and large decided by latitude and amount of sun, it's most like that Lower Egyptians would be 'olive'-skinned and that the more Southern you go, darker.
    You have nothing to combat the fact that linguistic and genetic evidence both show the same pioneering migration from Sub Saharan East Africa into the Nile and across North Africa. You are essentially basing your denial on nothing more than ignorance.
    The problem is you're arguing two different things: A) that Ancient Egypt belonged to the same culture group as Eastern Africa. No argument there as long as you accept that it also involved the Arabian peninsula and later even the Levant, yet was much further from the rest from Africa; and B) that Ancient Egyptans are genetically close to those same Eastern Africans or even practically the same. Which would only be logical cosnidering distance and human migrations.
    However both those arguments are essentially irrelevant to the Egyptian question, as the time of divergence in both cases would be many millennia before the first mentions of anything remotely like Egypt.
    So while Ancient Egyptian's ancestors could, and in all likelihood were Eastern African in origin, this does not mean that Ancient Egyptians themselves were Eastern African.
    Basically you're arguing about a 5000 year old culture but your evidence is only relevant to anywhere from 7500 to 15000 years ago. Or if we base ourselves in genetics to even long before that.

    And in the ent both linguistic and genetic evidence would hardly say anything about skincolour, not that any well meaning person would even remotely care about that.
    Some day I'll actually write all the reviews I keep promising...

  15. #75
    Akrotatos's Avatar Vicarius
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Manco pretty much nailed it
    Gems of TWC:

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    News flash but groups like al-Qaeda or Taliban are not Islamist.

  16. #76
    Getwulf's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by MKGlouisville View Post



    Meet Menes AGAIN! Egypt's FIRST DYNASTIC KING!
    Others consider Narmer to be Egypt's first king.

    Narmer may be Menes however, they look nothing alike...

    Narmer

    oversize


    Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 32nd century BCE). Thought to be the successor to the Protodynastic pharaohs Scorpion (or Selk) and/or Ka, he is considered by some to be the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and therefore the first pharaoh of all Egypt.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer

    Narmer Palette

    The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the king Narmer. On one side the king is depicted with the White crown of Upper (southern) Egypt and the other side depicts the king wearing the Red Crown of Lower (northern) Egypt. Along with the Scorpion Macehead and the Narmer Maceheads, also found together in the "Main Deposit" at Hierakonopolis, the Narmer palette provides one of the earliest known depictions of an Egyptian king, who is shown using many of the classic conventions of Egyptian art that must already have been formalized by the time of the palette's creation.[1] The Egyptologist Bob Brier has referred to the Narmer Palette as "the first historical document in the world".[2]
    The palette, which has survived five millennia in almost perfect condition, was discovered by British archeologists James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green in what they called the main deposit in the temple of Horus at Hierakonpolis during the dig season of 1897–1898.[3] Also found at this dig were the Narmer Macehead and the Scorpion Macehead. The exact place and circumstances of these finds were not recorded very clearly by Quibell and Green. In fact, Green's report placed the palette in a different layer one or two yards away from the deposit, which is considered to be more accurate on the basis of the original excavation notes.[4] It has been suggested that these objects were royal donations made to the temple.[5] Hierakonpolis was the ancient capital of Upper Egypt during the pre-dynastic Naqada III phase of Egyptian history.
    Palettes were typically used for grinding cosmetics, but this palette is too large and heavy (and elaborate) to have been created for personal use, and was likely a ritual or votive object, specifically made for donation to, or use in, a temple. One theory is that it was used to grind cosmetics to adorn the statues of the gods.[6]
    The Narmer Palette is part of the permanent collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.[7]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer_Palette

    I'm wondering what your take is on this???

  17. #77
    Border Patrol's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Nobody is saying Egypt wasn't African. Everybody else in the thread is saying they weren't black. My question for you is, why does black=African?

  18. #78

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    Quote Originally Posted by Manco View Post
    Language says very little about origin.
    In the case of the ancient Egyptian language it does give indication of it's origins, as the very population that brought Afro-Asiactic was instrumental (along with Nilo Saharans) in laying the foundations of Egyptian culture:

    Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture

    Christopher Ehret
    Professor of History, African Studies Chair
    University of California at Los Angeles



    continued


    Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.

    The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.

    A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.

    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.

    One of the exciting archeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East.

    One major technological advance, pottery-making, was also initiated as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East.

    Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era.

    But several notable early Egyptian crops came from Sudanic agriculture, independently invented between 7500 and 6000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharan peoples (Ehret 1993:104-125). One such cultivated crop was the edible gourd. The botanical evidence is confirmed in this case by linguistics: Egyptian bdt, or "bed of gourds" (Late Egyptian bdt, "gourd; cucumber"), is a borrowing of the Nilo-Saharan word *bud, "edible gourd." Other early Egyptian crops of Sudanic origin included watermelons and castor beans. (To learn more on how historians use linguistic evidence, see note at end of this article.)

    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.

    From the Middle Nile, Egypt gained new items of livelihood between 5000 and 3000 B.C. One of these was a kind of cattle pen: its Egyptian name, s3 (earlier *sr), can be derived from the Eastern Sahelian term *sar. Egyptian pg3, "bowl," (presumably from earlier pgr), a borrowing of Nilo-Saharan *poKur, "wooden bowl or trough," reveals still another adoption in material culture that most probably belongs to this era.

    One key feature of classical Egyptian political culture, usually assumed to have begun in Egypt, also shows strong links to the southern influences of this period. We refer here to a particular kind of sacral chiefship that entailed, in its earliest versions, the sending of servants into the afterlife along with the deceased chief. The deep roots and wide occurrence of this custom among peoples who spoke Eastern Sahelian languages strongly imply that sacral chiefship began not as a specifically Egyptian invention, but instead as a widely shared development of the Middle Nile Culture Area.

    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 to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.

    A Note on the Use of Linguistic Evidence for History

    Languages provide a powerful set of tools for probing the cultural history of the peoples who spoke them. Determining the relationships between particular languages, such as the languages of the Afrasian or the Nilo-Saharan family, gives us an outline history of the societies that spoke those languages in the past. And because each word in a language has its own individual history, the vocabulary of every language forms a huge archive of documents. If we can trace a particular word back to the common ancestor language of a language family, then we know that the item of culture connoted by the word was known to the people who spoke the ancestral tongue. If the word underwent a meaning change between then and now, a corresponding change must have taken place in the cultural idea or practice referred to by the word. In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, it attests to a thing or development that passed from the one culture to the other. The English borrowing, for example, of castle, duke, parliament, and many other political and legal terms from Old Norman French are evidence of a Norman period of rule in England, a fact confirmed by documents.


    References Cited:

    Ehret, Christopher, Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sahelian Neolithic. In African Archaeology: Food, Metals and Towns. T. Shaw, P Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko, eds. pp. 104-125. London: Routledge. 1993

    Ehret, Christopher, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone Consonants, and Vocabulary. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Berkeley. 1995

    Wendorf, F., et al., Saharan Exploitation of Plants 8000 Years B.P. Nature 359:721-724. 1982

    Wendorf, F., R. Schild, and A. Close, eds. Cattle-Keepers of the Eastern Sahara. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, Department of Anthropology. 1984

    Practically all of Europe speaks a language that has it's origins in the Black Sea/Central Asia area, yet Western Europe is descended from the Iberian Refugium and Southern/Central Europe is mostly from the Balkan Refugium with Northern Europe a mixture of the two.
    This has been proven (above) not to be the similar case with Egypt. The languages and cultures of Egypt and the North African region (Berber) came directly from Sub Saharan East Africa. Recent genetic evidence (including from this year) confirms this exact migration pattern.

    So language is very unreliable when speaking about about genetic origin.
    Again not in this case! The migration of lingustics seen above in Ehrets article has been confirmed by recent genetic studies:



    Louis et al. 2004


    Culturally no one here has ever contested they, the Ancient Egyptians, were in very close contact with Nubians and Ethiopians. In fact it's widely accepted that the Afro-Asiatic languages originated in Modern Ethiopia and Sudan. You're arguing a strawman here. A strawman that has no relevance on skincolour.
    No one really addressed the cultural aspects of Egypt until I brought them up. The hypocritical aspect of your argument is that you acknowedge such close cultural kinship that the ancient Egyptians have with these Sub Saharans, yet you reject what the scholarly concensus of biological evidence confirming that they also looked like these Sub Saharan/Saharan Africans.

    The unknown guy who only joined for and posts about one topic
    Why should I have to sit by and watch people blatantly lie about Egypt's origins? I joined the forum because of my utter disgust with the uninformed opinions expressed on this topic's previous thread. I was originally going to set the record straight in that thread until I noticed that Kahotep created this one to address the issue. Forgive me for engaging in a particular topic that interest me, a topic that is apparently relevant to the overall theme of this sub forum.

    Regardless of if I were a regular or not, the mere fact that I was arguing in favor of this fact would automatically start a wave of "Afrocentric" accusations by posters who are apparently uninformed Eurocentrics or undercover racist (the anything but black crowd).

    Further more you're clearly misreading the use of African here. it's obvious from the context they're referring to the earlier mentions of Africa, in casu the Afro-Asiatic cultural region, not all of Africa.
    I guess it would have helped if you watched the entire five part documentary. Basil Davidson's constant referencing of the discriminantory aspects of early European explorers (way after the Greeks) against the "black peoples of inner Africa" ability to create such a grand civilization is a dead give away that he in this documentary is equating African with black. If you watch this other clip from the documentary you will know that he is clearly doing such:



    It was a response to the statement of "uniquely" African culture, which is simply wrong for the simple reason that the cultural continuum Egypt belonged isn't unique to Africa
    You are making baseless claims that are in direct contradiction with scholarly statements that have been presented in this thread.

    but spread to the South Eastern Arabian peninsula
    Who spread these ideas and when did they reach this region?

    You're also quick to throw around Eurocentric around
    NO you all were quick to label me as an Afrocentric for merely correcting your misrepresentation of the ancient AFRICAN civilization. I still have yet to understand how I can be an "Afrocentric" for advocating that an African civilization who's people were proven to have come from inner Africa was created by people no different from those inner Africans. Can someone please explain this to me? Also explain what does it make the people who are insistant based upon little to no evidence that these people resembled those who are indignenous to Africa.

    firmly agree that culturally Ancient Egypt was connected to the larger Eastern African area, however I don't necessarily agree that means anything on a racial level.
    Putting this into a social context is primary what has been done by people who oppose Egypt's inner African origins. You all are essentially saying:

    "ok so they came from inner Africa, but that doesn't mean that they looked like inner Africans"

    Do you know how absurd and indenial you people sound? Seriously where does this denial come from if not from some sort of supressed prejudice? I have provided multiple studies and authoratative statements confirming that the remains of these ancient Africans are no different from modern Sub Saharan today. So why would they not be considered black in a social context?

    Mostly because I don't ing care about that and usually only racialists/racists do.
    I call BS! You do care otherwise you would not be debating me on this topic. You care because you while simultaneously not having any scientific basis for your denial are going against the scientific evidence that has been presented. You care because you are against the fact that the ancient Egyptians looked no different from the people of the inner Africans from which they came. There certainly is a "racialist/racist" aspect to this debate, otherwise people on your side of fence with no evidence would not be squeezing your eyes shut while jamming your fingers in your ears when my plethora evidence is presented.

    I care about this debate, because for centuries the idea of black inferiority have plagued the minds of Westerners. During colonialism traveling European explorers saw that the civilization was obviously created by the type of people whom they were enslaving. One of the just causes for black enslavement for whites was that blacks were intellectually inferior and could not have created anything of value (which was ironically contradicted in the Gold Coast), therefore revealing that this defined race of people created such a majestic civilization would tear at the heart of that justification. Though slavery ended, black persecution continued long afterwards. Scholars of the late 19th and early 20th century while noting the overlapping affinities of Egyptians with more southerly Northeast Africans could not concede that they were of the same race that they label other black skinned African, so those particular Africans (as well as others whom they deemed desirable for whatever reason) became "white" (scientifically speaking;Socially they were treated no different from other black Africans whom were under European rule). While genetics and anthropology now discounts both of those theories, a lot of people today still hold on to those colonial ideas. I like to say that this is due to the fact that the information that destroys this notion is not reflected on the National Geographic (media), but some hold on to the notion simply due to ignorance.

    I don't have to show a countersource to phrenology. Phrenology IS NOT a science, it's the domain of quacks and racists.
    You don't have any evidence! When has anthropology been considered "phrenology"? When has genetics been considered "phrenology"? When have statements from leading lingustic experts been considered "phrenologist"? It is not phrenology and you sound ignorant the more you keep asserting this against the number of mainstream sources that I've presented.

    Why should I provide evidence of something I don't hold to? Once again you just show you have no idea what I actually think about this issue.
    You are basing your entire response simply on denial, NOTHING ELSE!

    What I say is that Ancient Egyptians were Ancient Egyptians
    True, but what that say about their ORIGINS, which is what this topic is about? Where did they come from, who did the earliest Egyptians have the most in common with biologically and culturally. You are trying to place Egypt in a bubble that owes nothing to it's main influences, which simply doesn't work.

    not some mixture of others.
    Yes Pre-Dynastic Upper Egyptians were a mixture of Afro-Asiactic speakers and Nilo Saharans. Those are the people who Egypt owes it's origins to like it or not!

    And that considering humans live in genetic clines and that skincolour is by and large decided by latitude and amount of sun, it's most like that Lower Egyptians would be 'olive'-skinned and that the more Southern you go, darker
    Now your true motives are coming out! What evidence have you to sugguest that Lower Egyptians were olive skinned? Limb proportions are also indicative of lattitude and skin color. According to Kemp 2005 early Lower Egyptians were distinct from Middle Easterners of the same lattitude and Europeans. While they were closer to tropically adapted Africans of the south:

    "..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." (Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)


    The chart below comes from another unrelated study about the limb proportions of ancient and modern populations:




    Notice who are the populations that the ancient Egyptians group with in terms of limb proportions? All tropically adapted populations with black skin. This coincides with what anthropologist C. Loring Brace wrote:

    "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..")


    The problem is you're arguing two different things: A) that Ancient Egypt belonged to the same culture group as Eastern Africa. No argument there as long as you accept that it also involved the Arabian peninsula and later even the Levant
    What evidence do base this "phrenology" on? Basil Davidson nor Christpoher Ehret indicate not such cultural relations with the populations of the Near East during Egypt's founding. Show me evidence of this relationship or drop because it has been down right refuted!

    yet was much further from the rest from Africa
    Again how do you figure? You keep wanting to disconnect Egypt from other parts of Africa, without even being aware of just how extensive and wide ranging inner African cultures are. Below a map of African language families shows the Nilo Saharan family to strech across Central, Eastern, and even into Western Africa:



    You also ignore that clear cultural similarities in the Oxford en. between what lead to Egyptian cultural practices and what are seen today across ALL of Africa:

    Other ancient Egyptian practices show
    strong similarities to modern African
    cultures including divine kingship, the
    use of headrests, body art, circumcision,
    and male coming-of-age rituals, all
    suggesting an African substratum or
    foundation for Egyptian civilization Donald Redford (2001) The
    Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt,
    Volume 3. Oxford University Press. p. 28
    B) that Ancient Egyptans are genetically close to those same Eastern Africans or even practically the same. Which would only be logical cosnidering distance and human migrations.
    However both those arguments are essentially irrelevant to the Egyptian question, as the time of divergence in both cases would be many millennia before the first mentions of anything remotely like Egypt.
    A genetic mutation did occur when M35 (Ethiopia) diverged into M78 in Egypt, which further diverged as it moved across North Africa and into the Middle East. This again ultimately shows that Egypt and Northern Africa's origins come from Sub Saharan Africa.

    This has nothing to do with phenotype however! The bone samples of early Egyptians prove to be no different than those Africans from which their genetic mutation came from:

    "Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans." (S. O. Y and A.J. Boyce, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 20-33)


    So while Ancient Egyptian's ancestors could, and in all likelihood were Eastern African in origin, this does not mean that Ancient Egyptians themselves were Eastern African.
    They were indigenous Northeast Africans, most similar to more southerly Northeast African populations (Ethiopians, Somalis, ect). Either provide counter evidence or accept this fact End of story!

    Basically you're arguing about a 5000 year old culture but your evidence is only relevant to anywhere from 7500 to 15000 years ago.
    Read Christopher Ehret's artcle then comment back to~

    And in the ent both linguistic and genetic evidence would hardly say anything about skincolour, not that any well meaning person would even remotely care about that.
    You do care! You are obviously one of the those in the "anything but black African" crowd. You have anthropological evidence proving them to overlap with black Africans, you have genetic evidence confirming that they migrated from the land of black Africans (Sub Sahara), you have been presented with the facts that the cultural and linguistic aspect of Egypt's culture came from black inner Africans, yet they CANNOT be black Africans. This is called DENIAL. None the less there are numerous lines of evidence proving that they had the same melanin content as black Africans:

    "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]]


    Quote Originally Posted by Getwulf View Post
    Others consider Narmer to be Egypt's first king.

    Narmer may be Menes however, they look nothing alike...

    Narmer

    oversize


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

    Narmer Palette

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

    I'm wondering what your take is on this???
    Some sources say that Narmer was the last Protodynastic pharoh, and Menes was the first Dynastic pharoh. Other's are saying that they could very well be the same person.

    Quote Originally Posted by Border Patrol View Post
    Nobody is saying Egypt wasn't African. Everybody else in the thread is saying they weren't black.
    You base this denial on what? Your subjective views of select pieces of artwork? Is it the fact that they distinguish themselves from people who are literally the blackest Earth (The Sudanese Dinka)? Even when the vast majority of their art shows them with reddish brown skin! The same reddish brown skin that is seen across Sub Saharan Africa and particularly amongst Northeast Africans:
    long string of pics

    King Tut



















    Or Even the Zulu



    The Dinka of the Sudan are not the only way to be "black". Just like Nordics aren't the way Europeans can be considered "white".



    Take this murral of the Nubians for example:



    Nubian was a reference to all populations south of Egypt. Notice that the ancient Egyptians depict themselves as the same reddish brown hue as they do half of the Nubians in this murral. The Dinka pheontype was not the only Nubian type.




    ignore the chipping paint

    My question for you is, why does black=African?
    My question to you is why do you have a problem with the fact that the early ancient Egyptians were proven to be black Africans:

    Oxford Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt

    Two opposing theories for the origin of Dynastic Egyptians dominated scholarly debate over the last century: whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (historically referred to as Negroid) originating biologically and culturally in Saharo-Tropical Africa, or whether they originated as a Dynastic Race in the Mediterranean or western Asian regions (people historically categorized as White, or Caucasoid). Contemporary physical anthropologists recognize, however that race is not a useful biological concept when applied to humans. Although many people believe they can distinguish "races" on the basis of skin color, more of the variation in human genetic makeup can be attributed to differences between these so-called races than between them. Furthermore, the observable and unobservable (to the eye) physical variation is so great and complex that there are no criteria that can satisfactorily segregate all individuals into one race or another..[...]Unlike the classic typological approach, which interprets variation in physical form as resulting only from admixture of races, contemporary approaches to understanding variation takes into account genetic and physiological adaptations to local and regional environmental factors, such as the intensity of ultraviolet radiation, ambient temperature and humidity. Conceptually, biological affinity express a continuum of relationship that reflects genetic mixing (gene flow) from different local and regional areas in antiquity in addition to evolutionary factors, such as natural selection and genetic drift..[....]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 characteristics that are within the range of variation 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 southerly areas..[...] Any interpretation of the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians must be placed in the context of hypothesis informed by the archaeological, linguistic, geographic or other data. In this context the physical anthropological evidence indicates that the early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage, but exhibiting local variation. This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection influenced by culture and geography(Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)
    The Oxford Encyclopedia above has just confirmed that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans! The link to the text is in the title.

    The fact that you have no counter evidence means that you have no logical basis to deny this fact!
    another string of pics



    Here is the documentary (hyperlink) I referenced earlier about the forensic experts findings that the sphinx's facial structure is consistant with broad featured Africans (such as the Dinka)








    Egyptian princess showing unique Afican head deformity


    Limestone bust of Khufu of the fourth Dynasty (Pyramid age)



    Sahure of the fifth dynasty





    Comparison of King Tut's skull to another African
    Last edited by Darth Red; February 14, 2011 at 11:53 AM. Reason: merged 5 posts and used spoiler

  19. #79
    Farnan's Avatar Saviors of the Japanese
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    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    MK: Have you ever met an Egyptian?

    They are not Lebanese-type Arab and they are not Black-type African. In reality the only way to describe them is Egyptian...
    “The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”

    —Sir William Francis Butler

  20. #80

    Default Re: The African Origin of Ancient Egyptian Civilization

    Quote Originally Posted by Farnan View Post
    MK: Have you ever met an Egyptian?

    They are not Lebanese-type Arab and they are not Black-type African. In reality the only way to describe them is Egyptian...
    We are not disscussing modern Egyptians, we are disscussing their earliest Egyptian ancestors! These early Egyptians as you can clearly see through numerous lines of evidence above were indigenous Northeast Africans (Ethiopians, Somalis).Modern Egyptians especially those of the Middle And Northern region are extremely mixed wit African lineages from their earliest Egyptian ancestors and Eurasian migrants to the Nile during later times. Below is a modern southern Egyptian man whos explains why the blacker southern Egyptians (still admixed) are closer to their ancient Egyptian ancestors in appearance and culture than the Northern Egyptians that you see protesting in Cairo:



    Southern Egyptians (homeland of Dynastic culture)









    The Egyptians of the North like those who have been in media lately are proven to not closely resemble their early Egyptian ancestors:

    "However, in some of the studies, only individuals from northern Egypt are sampled, and this could theoretically give a false impression of Egyptian variability (contrast Lucotte and Mercier 2003a with Manni et al. 2002), because this region has received more foreign settlers (and is nearer the Near East). Possible sample bias should be integrated into the discussion of results. (S.O.Y. Keita, A.J. Boyce, "Interpreting Geographical Patterns of Y Chromosome Variation1," History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246 )
    "Cosmopolitan northern Egypt is less likely to have a population representative of the core indigenous population of the most ancient times".
    - Keita (2005), pp. 564


    "The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of 58 individuals from Upper Egypt, more than half (34 individuals) from Gurna, whose population has an ancient cultural history, were studied by sequencing the control-region and screening diagnostic RFLP markers. This sedentary population presented similarities to the Ethiopian population by the L1 and L2 macrohaplogroup frequency (20.6%), by the West Eurasian component (defined by haplogroups H to K and T to X) and particularly by a high frequency (17.6%) of haplogroup M1. We statistically and phylogenetically analysed and compared the Gurna population with other Egyptian, Near East and sub-Saharan Africa populations; AMOVA and Minimum Spanning Network analysis showed that the Gurna population was not isolated from neighbouring populations. Our results suggest that the Gurna population has conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. The current structure of the Egyptian population may be the result of further influence of neighbouring populations on this ancestral population." (Stevanovitch A, Gilles A, Bouzaid E, et al. (2004) Mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in a sedentary population from Egypt.Ann Hum Genet. 68(Pt 1):23-39.)


    "In a database of human cranial variation worldwide(CRANID) based on standardized sets of measurements, the population that is used to characterize ancient Egypt lies firmly within a Europe/Mediterranean bloc. The original source is the largest series of skulls from Egypt (1500, collected by Petrie in 1907 from a cemetery on a desert ridge to the south of Giza) and dating from the 26th to 30th dynasties. Some of the skulls bear weapon injuries. The cultural material found with them is wholly Egyptian, but was small in quantity. Conceivably, the community was immigrant, perhaps mercenaries and their families. Or it could be that, by this period, northern Egyptians, so long exposed to population mixing, were tending towards a greater similarity with European populations than had been the case earlier. If, on the other hand, CRANID had used one of the Elephantine populations of the same period, the geographic association would be much more with African groups to the south. It is dangerous to take one set of skeletons and use them to characterize the population of the whole of Egypt.Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation(Paperback) by Barry Kemp (Author) Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (December 12, 2005)
    p.54


    As you all can clearly read population mixing of later pharonic and recent times with Eurasian populations are the reason why modern Northern Egyptians do not resemble their early ancient Egyptian ancestors:

    Kemp 2005


    Notice as it's clear for everyone to see. Prior to the New Kingdom period the biological affinities of the early ancient Egyptians overlap with Nubians and modern Sub Saharan East Africans. As we progress into the New Kingdom (NK) when noted substantial migration began to occur we begin to see Middle Eastern affinity enter Egypt. Then modern Egyptians begin to come into the picture. Some modern Northern Egyptians however group more with Europeans than their ancient ancestors. This is consistant with every piece of evidence that has been presented in this thread.
    Last edited by MKGlouisville; February 12, 2011 at 10:10 AM.

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