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Egyptian origins (race/ethnicity)

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  Quote MKGlouisville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Egyptian origins (race/ethnicity)
    Posted: 22-Nov-2010 at 20:58
Something that I noticed when I joined this forum was the incorrect grouping of ancient Egypt as a Near Eastern civilization, as opposed to it being put in it's proper African context. So here are two articles by respected scientist confirming their inner African origins.
 
The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians
Professor S.O.Y. Keita
Department of Biological Anthropology
Oxford University

Professor A. J. Boyce
University Reader in Human Population
Oxford University

What was the primary geographical source for the peopling of the Egyptian Nile Valley? Were the creators of the fundamental culture of southern predynastic Egypt—which led to the dynastic culture—migrants and colonists from Europe or the Near East? Or were they predominantly African variant populations?

These questions can be addressed using data from studies of biology and culture, and evolutionary interpretive models. Archaeological and linguistic data indicate an origin in Africa. Biological data from living Egyptians and from skeletons of ancient Egyptians may also shed light on these questions. It is important to keep in mind the long presence of humans in Africa, and that there should be a great range of biological variation in indigenous "authentic" Africans.

Scientists have been studying remains from the Egyptian Nile Valley for years. 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, Ku****es, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans.

Another source of skeletal data is limb proportions, which generally vary with different climatic belts. In general, the early Nile Valley remains have the proportions of more tropical populations, which is noteworthy since Egypt is not in the tropics. This suggests that the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples, such as Europeans.

Art objects are not generally used by biological anthropologists. They are suspect as data and their interpretation highly dependent on stereotyped thinking. However, because art has often been used to comment on the physiognomies of ancient Egyptians, a few remarks are in order. A review of literature and the sculpture indicates characteristics that also can be found in the Horn of (East) Africa (see, e.g., Petrie 1939; Drake 1987; Keita 1993). Old and Middle Kingdom statuary shows a range of characteristics; many, if not most, individuals depicted in the art have variations on the narrow-nosed, narrow-faced morphology also seen in various East Africans. This East African anatomy, once seen as being the result of a mixture of different "races," is better understood as being part of the range of indigenous African variation.

The descriptions and terms of ancient Greek writers have sometimes been used to comment on Egyptian origins. This is problematic since the ancient writers were not doing population biology. However, we can examine one issue. The Greeks called all groups south of Egypt "Ethiopians." Were the Egyptians more related to any of these "Ethiopians" than to the Greeks? As noted, cranial and limb studies have indicated greater similarity to Somalis, Ku****es and Nubians, all "Ethiopians" in ancient Greek terms.

There are few studies of ancient DNA from Egyptian remains and none so far of southern predynastic skeletons. A study of 12th Dynasty DNA shows that the remains evaluated had multiple lines of descent, including not surprisingly some from "sub-Saharan" Africa (Paabo and Di Rienzo 1993). The other lineages were not identified, but may be African in origin. More work is needed. In the future, early remains from the Nile Valley and the rest of Africa will have to be studied in this manner in order to establish the early baseline range of genetic variation of all Africa. The data are important to avoid stereotyped ideas about the DNA of African peoples.

The information from the living Egyptian population may not be as useful because historical records indicate substantial immigration into Egypt over the last several millennia, and it seems to have been far greater from the Near East and Europe than from areas far south of Egypt. "Substantial immigration" can actually mean a relatively small number of people in terms of population genetics theory. It has been determined that an average migration rate of one percent per generation into a region could result in a great change of the original gene frequencies in only several thousand years. (This assumes that all migrants marry natives and that all native-migrant offspring remain in the region.) It is obvious then that an ethnic group or nationality can change in average gene frequencies or physiognomy by intermarriage, unless social rules exclude the products of "mixed" unions from membership in the receiving group. More abstractly this means that geographically defined populations can undergo significant genetic change with a small percentage of steady assimilation of "foreign" genes. This is true even if natural selection does not favor the genes (and does not eliminate them).

Examples of regions that have biologically absorbed genetically different immigrants are Sicily, Portugal, and Greece, where the frequencies of various genetic markers (and historical records) indicate sub-Saharan and supra-Saharan African migrants.

This scenario is different from one in which a different population replaces another via colonization. Native Egyptians were variable. Foreigners added to this variability.

The genetic data on the recent Egyptian population is fairly sparse. There has not been systematic research on large samples from the numerous regions of Egypt. Taken collectively, the results of various analyses suggest that modern Egyptians have ties with various African regions, as well as with Near Easterners and Europeans. Egyptian gene frequencies are between those of Europeans and some sub-Saharan Africans. This is not surprising. The studies have used various kinds of data: standard blood groups and proteins, mitochondrial DNA, and the Y chromosome. The gene frequencies and variants of the "original" population, or of one of early high density, cannot be deduced without a theoretical model based on archaeological and "historical" data, including the aforementioned DNA from ancient skeletons. (It must be noted that it is not yet clear how useful ancient DNA will be in most historical genetic research.) It is not clear to what degree certain genetic systems usually interpreted as non-African may in fact be native to Africa. Much depends on how "African" is defined and the model of interpretation.

The various genetic studies usually suffer from what is called categorical thinking, specifically, racial thinking. Many investigators still think of "African" in a stereotyped, nonscientific (nonevolutionary) fashion, not acknowledging a range of genetic variants or traits as equally African. The definition of "African" that would be most appropriate should encompass variants that arose in Africa. Given that this is not the orientation of many scholars, who work from outmoded racial perspectives, the presence of "stereotypical" African genes so far from the "African heartland" is noteworthy. These genes have always been in the valley in any reasonable interpretation of the data. As a team of Egyptian geneticists stated recently, "During this long history and besides these Asiatic influences, Egypt maintained its African identity . . ." (Mahmoud et al. 1987). This statement is even more true in a wider evolutionary interpretation, since some of the "Asian" genes may be African in origin. Modern data and improved theoretical approaches extend and validate this conclusion.

In summary, various kinds of data and the evolutionary approach indicate that the Nile Valley populations had greater ties with other African populations in the early ancient period. Early Nile Valley populations were primarily coextensive with indigenous African populations. Linguistic and archaeological data provide key supporting evidence for a primarily African origin.


References Cited:

Angel, J. L., and J. O. Kelley, Description and comparison of the skeleton. In The Wadi Kubbaniya Skeleton: A Late Paleolithic
Burial from Southern Egypt. E Wendorf and R. Schild. pp. 53-70. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. 1986

Brauer, G., and K. Rimbach, Late archaic and modern Homo sapiens from Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia: Craniometric comparisons and phylogenetic implications, Journal of Human Evolution 19:789-807. 1990

Drake, St. C., Black Folk Here and There, vol 1. Los Angeles: University of California. 1987

Keita, S.O.Y., Studies and comments on ancient Egyptian biological relationships. History in Africa 20:129-154. 1993

Mahmoud, L. et. al, Human blood groups in Dakhlaya. Egypt. Annah of Human Biology. 14(6):487-493. 1987

Paabo, S., and A. Di Rienzo, A molecular approach to the study of Egyptian history. In Biological Anthropology and the Study
of Ancient Egypt. V. Davies and R. Walker, eds. pp. 86-90. London: British Museum Press. 1993

Petrie, W.M., F. The Making of Egypt. London: Sheldon Press. 1984

Thoma, A., Morphology and affinities of the Nazlet Khaterman. Journal of Human Evolution 13:287-296. 1984
 
 
And
 
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

 
 
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


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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Nov-2010 at 16:49
So, just why was "Dynastic Egypt" mostly ruled by foreign rulers? Please find me any periods of 500 years that the local "Afroasiatics" actually ruled? Or just find me a total of over 600 years in the "Dynastic" periods where "Afroasiatics" ruled the area?

Please note under the current scheme of Egyptian Dynasties, we are looking at a period consisting of thousands of years!

Edited by opuslola - 23-Nov-2010 at 16:50
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  Quote balochii Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Nov-2010 at 16:57
The old kingdom of egypt definatly had east african rulers or atleast their ancestors were from east africa (land of punt) but as time passed, a lot of other non african people took control of egypt.
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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Nov-2010 at 17:25
But, balochii, just exactly where do the boundaries of Eastern Egypt end?

Just whom do you believe?

Israel could be either the seperation line, or included within the boundaries of Egypt?

Do you see where I am going?

And, at one time, modern Turkey was considered as "Asia", as well the "orient" was the, "Levant!", etc.!

Time is everything, sometimes!

Edited by opuslola - 23-Nov-2010 at 17:34
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  Quote MKGlouisville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Nov-2010 at 00:06
Originally posted by opuslola

So, just why was "Dynastic Egypt" mostly ruled by foreign rulers?
 
What does this question have to do with Egypt's Biocultural origins?
 
Menes however was Egypt's first "Dynastic ruler";
 
 
Please find me any periods of 500 years that the local "Afroasiatics" actually ruled?
 
I'm not too sure where you're getting at with this. The point of posting those two articles was to relay the fact that Egypt's origins do not lie in the Near East, but in Southerly Africa.
 
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  Quote MKGlouisville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Nov-2010 at 00:12
Originally posted by balochii

The old kingdom of egypt definatly had east african rulers or atleast their ancestors were from east africa (land of punt) but as time passed, a lot of other non african people took control of egypt.
 
Thank you this was the message that I was trying to relay. Egypt's origins and people were Northeast African. The kingdom was comprised predominantly of Northeast Africans for it's first 1,100 years of existence;
 
Zakrzewski (2007) provided a comprehensive summary of previous Egyptian craniometric studies and examined Egyptian crania from six time periods. She found that the earlier samples were relatively more homogeneous in comparison to the later groups. However, overall results indicated genetic continuity over the Egyptian Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, albeit with a high level of genetic diversity within the population, suggesting an indigenous process of state formation. She also concluded that while the biological patterning of the Egyptian population varied across time, no consistent temporal or spatial trends are apparent. Thus, the stature estimation formulae developed here may be broadly applicable to all ancient Egyptian populations.."
("Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature." Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, (Am J Phys Anthropol. 2008, Jun;136(2):147-55
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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Nov-2010 at 00:41
No MKGlouisville, the argument was the rule of Afro-asiatics from N. East Africa!

I merely proposed just who, derived what is considered as N. E. Africa?

Just why could not that area be considered as the Levant?

It is not a difficult question, but it may well require a difficult answer?

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  Quote MKGlouisville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Nov-2010 at 01:17
Originally posted by opuslola

No MKGlouisville, the argument was the rule of Afro-asiatics from N. East Africa!
 
???  I'm still not understanding where you are coming from!

I merely proposed just who, derived what is considered as N. E. Africa?
 
I think Geographers designated the continents and sub continents a couple of centuries ago Wink 

Just why could not that area be considered as the Levant?
 
Probably because Egypt lies on the continent designated as Africa, and all available research confirms that the originators of this civilization came from inner Africa (Northestern Africa) and not the Levant.



Edited by MKGlouisville - 24-Nov-2010 at 01:18
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  Quote balochii Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Nov-2010 at 00:19

i am not sure why scientists often lie about ancient egyptians, just few years ago when King Tut's dna was discovered to be R1b haplogroup, almost every person of european desent jumped to conclusion that he was european, i even saw many archaeologists describe how he was caucasian blah blah... what they failed to mention is that in africa there is even an older R1b haplogroup found in north and central africa, even going as far south as cameroon. read this regarding R1b in africa

 
^ look even some is found in western egypt, 
 
while  i dont agree with a lot of things with what  afro-centric people say, i must say that there is huge lie regarding egypt coming from mostly western  archaeologists, they totally undermine the african link of egypt, they almost want to make egypt a European civilization, perhaps the last periods of the egyptian civilization were indeed closely tied to european history, however i still maintain the begining of the civilization definatly lie in africa, (east africa) to be specific. Egypt had a long history of 3000 years, dont forget that.
 


Edited by balochii - 27-Nov-2010 at 00:28
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Nov-2010 at 03:00
There were lot of pharaons.I beleive from different parts of ancient world.Royal families always married among themselfs..During time of royalties,we have kings/quins,that were not always from the country they have ruled....Lot of mixed DNA..but population you can not change over the night...Egypt Upper is place where were living one of the most native population.This one lives, all around mediterranean area...Mostly costal area and big rivers... But looking from long time distance,Egypt was place were civilizations meet each other,dominate and rules..
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  Quote Felakuti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2011 at 18:16
Culled:

"They (the Ethiopians) say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the EthiopiansOsiris ["King of Kings and God of Gods] having been the leader of the colony . . . they add that the Egyptians have received from them, as from authors and their ancestors, the greater part of their laws." Diodorus's declared intention to trace the origins of the cult of Osiris, alias the Greek Dionysus also commonly known by his Roman name Bacchus. The Homeric Hymn "To Dionysus" locates the birth of Dionysus in a mysterious city of Nysa "near the streams of Aegyptus" (Hesiod 287). Diodorus cites this reference as well as the ancient belief that Dionysus was the son of Ammon, king of Libya (3.68.1), and much of Book 3 of the Bibliotheka Historica is devoted to the intertwined histories of Dionysus andthe god-favored Ethiopians whom he believed to be the originators of Egyptian civilization.  [emphasis added]
(1st century B.C., Diodorus Siculus of Sicily, Greek historian and contemporary of Caesar Augustus, Universal History Book III. 2. 4-3. 3)

Dionysus is Orisis reinvented. The mysteries were neither of Cretan origin nor a part of the original Greek religion is well established by the fact that the initiatory rites as practiced among these islanders were open to everyone, in contrast to the secret rituals of Byblus, Cyprus, Thrace, Samothrace, and Eleusis (Diodorus, Book V, 77). The mystery, which originated in Egypt, was imported into Greece long after Zeus and his family had migrated from Mt. Ida to Mt. Olympus.

Diodorus devoted an entire chapter of his world history, the Bibliotheke Historica, or Library of History (Book 3), to the Kushites ["Aithiopians"] of Meroe. Here he repeats the story of their great piety, their high favor with the gods, and adds the fascinating legend that they were the first of all men created by the gods and were the founders of Egyptian civilization, invented writing, and given the Egyptians their religion and culture. (3.3.2).

"Now they relate that of all people the Aithiopians [Ethiopians] were the earliest, and say that the proofs of this are clear. That they did not arrive as immigrants but are the natives of the country and therefore rightly are called authochthonous is almost universally accepted. That those who live in the South are likely to be the first engendered by the earth is obvious to all. For as it was the heat of the sun that dried up the earth while it was still moist, at the time when everything came into being, and caused life, they say it is probable that it was the region closest to the sun that first bore animate beings".

Diodorus continues:

"They further write that it was among them that people were first taught to honor the gods and offer sacrifices and arrange processions and festivals and perform other things by which people honor the divine. For this reason their piety is famous among all men, and the sacrifices among the Aithiopians are believed to be particularly pleasing to the divinity," 

"The Aithiopians [Ethiopians] say that the Egyptians are settlers from among themselves and that Osiris was the leader of the settlement.The customs of the Egyptians, they say, are for the most part Aithiopian, the settlers having preserved their old traditions. For to consider the kings gods, to pay great attention to funeral rites, and many other things, are Aithiopian practices, and also the style of their statues and the form of their writing are Aithiopian. Also the way the priestly colleges are organized is said to be the same in both nations. For all who have to do with the cult of the gods, they maintain, are [ritually] pure: the priests are shaved in the same way, they have the same robes and the type of scepter shaped like a plough, which also the kings have, who use tall pointed felt hats ending in a knob, with the snakes that they call the asp (aspis) coiled round them."

"There are also numerous other Aithiopian tribes [i.e. besides those centered at Meroe]; some live along both sides of the river Nile and on the islands in the river, others dwell in the regions that border on Arabia [i.e. to the east], others again have settled in the interior of Libya [i.e. to the west]. The majority of these tribes, in particular those who live along the river, have black skin, snub-nosed faces, and curly hair". 
(Diodous Siculus, Bibliotheke, 3. Translated by Tomas Hagg, in Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, vol. II: From the Mid-Fifth to the First Century BC (Bergen, Norway, 1996))
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Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Greek philosopher, scientist, and tutor to Alexander the Great. 
Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises.

"Too black a hue marks the coward as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians and so does also too white a complexion as you may see from women, the complexion of courage is between the two."
(Physiognomics, Vol. VI, 812a)

Aristotle makes reference to the hair form of Egyptians and Ethiopians: "Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair supports this theory; for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were crookedness of the hair."
(Physiognomics, Book XIV, p. 317) 
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The evidence of Lucian (Greek writer, 125 B.C.) is as explicit as that of the previous writers. He introduces two Greeks, Lycinus and Timolaus, who start a conversation:

Lycinus (describing a young Egyptian): "This boy is not merely black; he has thick lips and his legs are too thin . . . his hair worn in a plait behind shows that he is not a freeman."

Timolaus: "But that is a sign of really distinguished birth in Egypt, Lycinus, All freeborn children plait their hair until they reach manhood. It is the exact opposite of the custom of our ancestors who thought it seemly for old men to secure their hair with a gold brooch to keep it in place."
(Lucian, Navigations, paras 2-3)
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Herodotus (490-425 B.C.E.) The first Greek historian. Called the Father of History.
He reports faithfully what the Egyptian priests communicated to him as the history of their country, when he visited Egypt about 460 to 450 BC.

"I went as far as Elephantine [Aswan] to see what I could with my own eyes, but for the country still further south I had to be content with what I was told in answer to my questions. South of Elephantine the country is inhabited by Ethiopians. . . Beyond the island is a great lake, and round its shores live nomadic tribes of Ethiopians. After crossing the lake one comes again to the stream of the Nile, which flows into it . . . After forty days journey on land along the river, one takes another boat and in twelve days reaches a big city named Meroë, said to be the capital city of the Ethiopians. The inhabitants worship Zeus and Dionysus alone of the Gods, holding them in great honor". 

"The Ethiopians to whom this embassy was sent are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in the whole world. In their customs they differ greatly from the rest of mankind, and particularly in the way they choose their kings; for they find out the man who is the tallest of all the citizens, and of strength equal to his height, and appoint him to rule over them . . . The spies were told that most of them lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, while some even went beyond that age --- they ate boiled flesh, and had for their drink nothing but milk. Among these Ethiopians copper is of all metals the most scarce and valuable. Also, last of all, they were allowed to behold the coffins of the Ethiopians, which are made (according to report) of crystal, after the following fashion: When the dead body has been dried, either in the Egyptian, or in some other manner, they cover the whole with gypsum, and adorn it with painting until it is as like the living man as possible. Then they place the body in a crystal pillar which has been hollowed out to receive it, crystal being dug up in great abundance in their country, and of a kind very easy to work. You may see the corpse through the pillar within which it lies; and it neither gives out any unpleasant odor, nor is it in any respect unseemly; yet there is no part that is not as plainly visible as if the body were bare. The next of kin keep the crystal pillar in their houses for a full year from the time of the death, and give it the first fruits continually, and honor it with sacrifice. After the year is out they bear the pillar forth, and set it up near the town. . ."

"Where the south declines towards the setting sun lies the country called Ethiopia, the last inhabited land in that direction. There gold is obtained in great plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild trees of all sorts, and ebony; and the men are taller, handsomer, and longer lived than anywhere else. The Ethiopians were clothed in the skins of leopards and lions, and had long bows made of the stem of the palm-leaf, not less than four cubits in length. On these they laid short arrows made of reed, and armed at the tip, not with iron, but with a piece of stone, sharpened to a point, of the kind used in engraving seals. They carried likewise spears, the head of which was the sharpened horn of an antelope; and in addition they had knotted clubs. When they went into battle they painted their bodies, half with chalk, and half with vermilion. . ."
(Herodotus: The Histories, c 430 BCE, Book II); Herodotus, The History, trans. George Rawlinson (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862)   

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  Quote Felakuti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2011 at 18:21
Herodotus also asserted that "the names of nearly all the gods came to Greece from Egypt . . . for the names of all the gods have been known in Egypt from the beginning of time . . . It was the Egyptians too who originated, and taught the Greeks . . . ceremonial meeting, processions and liturgies . . . The Egyptians were also the first to assign each month and each day to a particular deity, and to foretell the date of a man's birth, his character, his fortunes, and the day of his death . . . The Egyptians, too have made more use of omens and prognostics than any other nation. . ."
(Herodotus, The Histories, 149-150; 152; 159).

There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too. But further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learned the custom of the Egyptians. And the Syrians who dwell about the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, as well as their neighbors the Macronians, say that they have recently adopted it from the Colchians. Now these are the only nations who use circumcision, and it is plain that they all imitate herein the Egyptians. With respect to the Ethiopians, indeed, I cannot decide whether they learned the practice of the Egyptians, or the Egyptians of them (it is undoubtedly of very ancient date in Ethiopia). But that the others derived their knowledge of it from Egypt is clear to me, from the fact that the Phoenicians, when they come to have commerce with the Greeks, cease to follow the Egyptians in this custom, and allow their children to remain uncircumcised. (Herodotus, The Histories, Book 2:104)
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The Greek writer Herodotus repeatedly referred to the Egyptians as being dark-skinned people with woolly hair. "They," he says, "have the same tint of skin which approaches that of the Ethiopians." The opinion of the ancient writers on the Egyptians is more or less summed up by French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero The Dawn of Civilization (1894), when he says, "By the almost unanimous testimony of ancient historians, they [the Egyptians] belong to an African race which first settled in Ethiopia on the Middle Nile: following the course of the river they gradually reached the sea." The German scholar, Eugen Georg, in his book The Adventure of Mankind (1931) p. 121, tells us about the ". . . world-wide dominance of Ethiopian representatives of the black race. They were supreme in Africa and Asia. In upper Egypt and India they erected mighty religious centers and mastered a perfect technique in the molding of bronze --- and they even infiltrated through Southern Europe for a thousand years."
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Stephanus of Byzantium, who is said to represent the opinions of the most ancient Greeks, says:
"Ethiopia was the first established country on the earth, and the Ethiopians were the first who introduced the worship of the Gods and who established laws."
Quoted by John D. Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, p. 62.
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According to Professor Emeritus Frank M. Snowden Jr., (AB, AM, Ph.D.) Howard University Classicist Department  --- reading of the sources, the Ethiopians "pioneered" religion, and were key to the origin and propagation of many of the customs which existed in Egypt. The Egyptians, it was argued, were descendants of the Ethiopians. Snowden states that the term Kushites, Nubians, or Ethiopians is to used in much the same way as the modern term "colored", "black, or Negro". "The experiences of those Africans who reached the alien shores of Greece and Italy constituted an important chapter in the history of classical antiquity," he writes. "Using evidence from terra cotta figures, paintings, and classical sources like Herodotus and Pliny the Elder, Snowden proves, contrary to our modern assumptions, that Greco-Romans did not view Africans with racial contempt. Many Africans worked in the Roman Empire as musicians, artisans, scholars, and generals as well as slaves, and they were noted as much for their virtue as for their appearance of having a "burnt face" (from which came the Greek name Ethiopian)." 
(Snowden Jr., Frank M. Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1970; Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (1983).) 

Side Note: President Bush announced one of the 2003 Humanities medal to Frank M. Snowden Jr. (Washington, D.C.), one of the foremost scholars on blacks in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Italy, is Professor Emeritus of Classics at Howard University in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Harvard, Snowden has served as a member of the U.S. delegation to UNESCO in Paris and as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Rome. As a U.S. specialist lecturer for the Department of State, Snowden delivered lectures in Africa, Egypt, Italy, Austria, Greece, India, and Brazil. His many books on blacks in the ancient Mediterranean world include Blacks in Antiquity (1970), The Image of the Black in Western Art IFrom the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire, which he co-authored (1976), and Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (1983). Snowden’s nominator writes, “Howard students will remember him for his dramatic classroom recitations in ancient Greek and Latin from memory and his plea for the beauty and universality of great literature.”
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Basil Davidson, born on November 9, 1914 in Bristol, England, well-known English scholar of African history. Combining archeological evidence and scholarly research Davidson traces the exciting development of the rich kingdoms of the lost cities of Africa, fifteen hundred years before European ships first came to African shores. "East Africa has developed from a completely primitive country, . . . more backward than the Stone Age . . ." Yet the Stone Age blacks of Khartoum (in Sudan) manufactured pots before the inhabitants of Jericho, the world's earliest known city. The Khartoum Mesolithic culture is dated about 7000 B.C. Prehistoric Egyptian artifacts dated a thousand years later would reflect a Khartoum influence. Between 5th century B.C. and 3rd century A.D., Meroe in Sudan was an iron-smelting center. 12th century Arab writer Edrisi reported numerous iron mines in Malindi and Sofala. Edrisi rated Sofala iron better than India iron. At that time, southeastern Africa exported smelted iron to India. (Malindi and Sofala are in modern Kenya and Mozambique respectively.) 
(Davidson, Basil, The Lost Cities of Africa, Back Bay Books; Revised edition (1959)). Davidson has written more than 30 books on Africa since 1952.
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The Senegalese Physicist and African Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) tells us in his book The African Origin of Civilization Myth or Reality (1974) that the Greek writer, Herodotus, may be mistaken, when he reports the customs of a people. "But one must grant that he was at least capable of recognizing the skin color of the inhabitants of countries he visited." His descriptions of the Egyptians were the descriptions of a Black people. At this point the reader needs to be reminded of the fact that at the time of Herodotus's visit to Egypt and other parts of Africa (between 480 and 425 B.C.) Egypt's Golden Age was over. Egypt had suffered from several invasions, mainly the Kushite invasions, coming from within Africa, and starting in 751 B.C., and the Assyrians' invasions from Western Asia (called the Middle East), starting in 671 B.C. If Egypt, after years of invasions by other people and nations was a distinct Black African nation at the time of Herodotus, shouldn't we at least assume that it was more so before these invasions occurred?

Until the publication of James G. Spady's article, "Negritude, Pan-Benegritude and the Diopian Philsophy of African History," in A Current Bibliography on African Affairs, volume 5, number 1, January, 1972, and an interview by Harun Kofi Wangara, published in Black World magazine, February, 1974, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop was known to only a small group of Black writers and teachers in the United States. His major works includes The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality,Lawrence Hill & Co; (1983) (The book presents the historical, archaeological and anthropological evidence that supports the theory that the civilization of ancient Egypt, the first that history records, was actually Negroid in origin); The Peopling of Ancient Egypt & the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script, Karnak House, (1997) (A concise report of the 1974 Cairo conference and contains the arguments concerning the ethnic, linguistic and cultural composition of the ancient Egyptians as well as the deciphering of the merotic script). All of his books were originally published by Presence Africaine, the Paris-based publication arm of the International Society of African Culture. 

The Legacy of a Genius: Cheikh Anta Diop (New York Amsterdam News; 10/8/2003; by Boyd, Herb) [Excerpts]:

"Two words - "union" and "intellectual" - were integral to Professor Diop and his dream to create a united Africa, as well as a singular pursuit of knowledge that made him one of the most versatile thinkers the world has ever seen. During an interview with Dr. Charles Finch, Diop recounted some of the early motivations that influenced his quest for knowledge and identity. "My desire to know my history, my culture, my personal problem - that is, my desire to become fulfilled as a person - led me to history." My efforts were geared towards the restoration of the linguistic and historical personality of Black Africans," Diop declared. In 1966, the first World Black Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Dakar, Senegal, honored Dr. Diop and Dr. W.E.B. DuBois as the scholars who exerted the greatest influence on African thought in the 20th century. For many aspiring Black thinkers, they represented the twin towers of African achievement."
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The Western Dilemma:

If Egypt is a dilemma in Western historiography, it is a created dilemma. The Western historians, in most cases, have rested the foundation of what is called "Western Civilization" on the false assumptions, or claim, that the ancient Egyptians were white people. To do this they had to ignore great masterpieces on Egyptian history written by other white historians who did not support this point of view, such as Gerald Massey's great classic, Ancient Egypt, The Light of the World, (1907) and his other works, A Book of the Beginnings and The Natural Genesis. Other neglected works by white writers are Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, by A.H.L. Heeren (1833), and Ruins of Empires, by Count Volney (1787).

In the first chapter of his book, Dr. Diop refers to the Southern African origins of the people later known as Egyptians. Here he is on sound ground with a lot of support coming from another group of neglected white writers. In his book Egypt, British scholar Sir E.A. Wallis Budge says: "The prehistoric native of Egypt, both in the old and in the new Stone Ages, was African and there is every reason for saying that the earliest settlers came from the South." He further states: "There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the historic Egyptians that suggests that the original home of their prehistoric ancestors was in a country in the neighborhood of Uganda and Punt." (Some historians believe that the biblical land of Punt was in the area known on modern maps as Somalia.)

European interest in "Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization" dates from the early part of the nineteenth century and is best reflected in a little known, though important, paper in German Egyptologist Karl Richard LepsiusIncomparable Survey of the Monumental Ruins in the Ethiopian Nile Valley in 1842-1844. The records found by Lepsius tend to show how Ethiopia was once able to sustain an ancient population that was numerous and powerful enough not only to challenge but, on a number of occasions, to conquer completely the populous land of Egypt. Further, these records show that the antiquity of Ethiopian civilization had a direct link with civilization of ancient Egypt.

Many of the leading antiquarians of the time, based largely on the strength of what the classical authors, particularly Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century B.C.) and Stephanus of Byzantium, had to say on the matter, were exponents of the view that the ancient Ethiopians, or at any rate, the Black people of remote antiquity were the earliest of all civilized peoples and that the first civilized inhabitants of ancient Egypt were members of what is referred to as the Black race who entered the country as emigrants from Ethiopia. A number of Europe's leading writers on the civilizations of remote antiquity have written brilliant defenses of this point of view. Some of these writers are Brice, Count Volney, Fabre, d'Oliver, and Heeren. In spite of the fact that these writers defended this thesis with all the learning at their command and documented their defense, most of the present-day writers of African history continue to ignore their findings. 

In 1825, German backwardness in this respect came definitely to an end. In that year, Arnold Hermann Heeren (1760-1842), Professor of History and Politics in the University of Gottengen and one of the ablest of the early exponents of the economic interpretation of history, published, in the fourth and revised edition of his great work Ideen Uber Die Politik, Den Verkehr Und Den Handel Der Vornehmsten Volker Der Alten Weld, a lengthy essay on the history, culture, and commerce of the ancient Ethiopians, which had profound influence on contemporary writers in the conclusion that it was among these ancient Black people of Africa and Asia that international trade was first developed. He thinks that as a by-product of these international contacts there was an exchange of ideas and cultural practices that laid the foundations of the earliest civilizations of the ancient world. Heeren in his researches says: "From the remotest times to the present, the Ethiopians have been one of the most celebrated, and yet the most mysterious of nations. In the earliest traditions of nearly all the more civilized nations of antiquity, the name of this distant people is found. The annals of the Egyptian priests are full of them, and the nations of inner Asia, on the Euphrates and Tigris, have interwoven the fictions of the Ethiopians with their traditions of the wars and conquests of their heroes; and, at a period equally remote, they glimmer in Greek mythology. When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by name, the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of their poets, and when the faint gleam of tradition and fable gives way to the clear light of history, the lustre of the Ethiopians is not diminished."
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The French writer Constantin-François Volney (1757-1820), in his important work, The Ruins of Empires, extends this point of view by saying that the Egyptians were the first people to "attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life." In referring to the basis of this achievement he states further that, "It was, then, on the borders of the Upper Nile, among a Black race of men, that was organized the complicated system of worship of the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labors of agriculture; and this first worship, characterized by their adoration under their own forms and national attributes, was a simple proceeding of the human mind."
Volney's Ruins; or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires, Boston, J. Mendum, 1869.
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English traveller Thomas Legh, member of the British Parliament, visited Egypt & Nubia in 1812-1814, was one of the first Europeans to visit the archaeological sites above the First Cataract and to publish plates of ruins that no longer exist today. Legh writes: "There has been considerable dispute about the colour of the ancient Egyptians, some authors asserting that they were Negroes, while others maintain that the present Copts are their descendants, and attempt to prove their supposition by the appearance of mummies, which exhibit complexions of dusky brown, lips occasionally thick, but the nose frequently aquiline. The opinion that the former inhabitants of the country were Negroes is founded chiefly on the expressions used by Herodotus, who calls them 'dark-coloured and woolly haired', and on the character of the head of the Sphinx, which has the Negro features, and may be justly supposed to offer a correct representation of the countenance of the Egyptians. On the other hand, with respect to the present Copts, it cannot be denied, that the dark hue of their hair and eyes, the former of which is frequently not more curled than is occasionally seen among Europeans, their dusky brown complexions and aquiline noses, all correspond pretty exactly with the paintings to be found in the tombs of Thebes. It is remarkable, however, that the inhabitants of the island of Elephantine (i.e. at the border of Nubia) are nearly black. But notwithstanding their colour, the females of Elephantine are conspicuous for their elegant shapes, and are, upon the whole, the finest women we saw in Upper Egypt." 
(Thomas Legh, Narrative of a Journey in Egypt and the Country beyond the Cataracts, Second Edition London, John Murray, 1817).
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Over a generation ago African American historians such as Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Drusilla Dunjee Houston, Willis N. Huggins, J. A. Rogers, and Charles C. Seifort read the works of these radical writer historians and began to expand on their findings. This tradition continued and is reflected in the works of present day Black historians such as John G. Jackson's Introduction to African Civilizations (1970), Yosef ben-Jochannan's Black Man of the Nile (1972),Chancellor Williams's The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race From 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. (1971), and Ivan Van SertimaEgypt Revisited. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (USA) & London (U.K.), 1999. 
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Egyptology developed in concurrence with the development of the slave trade and the colonial system. It was during this period that Egypt was literally taken out of Africa, academically. Historian Basil Davidson also states that throughout history "the land of Ancient Egypt appears to have detached itself from the delta of the Nile, some five and a half thousand years ago, and sailed off into the Mediterranean on a course veering broadly towards the coasts of Syria". (Basil Davidson,The Ancient World and Africa: Whose Roots? Race & Class (Vol. 29, no. 2, 1987). 
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Races of Africa, according to Edith Sanders, went through several editions and was reprinted until 1966 virtually unchanged. Much of the more vulgar scholarship on the 'racial' ancestry of the ancient Nile valley Africans can be traced to the intensity of racism in Europe from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Its decline after the second world war.  
(Edith R. Sanders, 'The Hamitic hypothesis: its origin and functions in time perspective', Journal of African History
(Vol. 10, no. 4, 1969), pp. 521-32).
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Flora Shaw's (alias Lady Flora Lugard) book is an extraordinary look at the history of Africa, which she gathered from countless sources, and one would imagine a great deal of it came from the British Library and from the archives of The Times of London, for whom she had for many years been the Foreign Political Correspondent. She had always been known to be an intensive researcher into her subject matter, and one wonders at the months and probably years she put into this undertaking, which became the reference work for so many future books on Africa. This book was first publish 100 years ago showing the detail and descriptive power, and the greatness that Africa once was. Lady Lugard argues that: 

"When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may be found that the kingdoms lying towards the eastern end of Sudan (classical home of Ancient Ethiopians) were the home of races who inspired, rather than of races who received, the tradition of civilization associated for us with the name of ancient Egypt. For they cover on either side of the Upper Nile between the latitudes of ten degrees and seventeen degrees, territories in which are found monuments more ancient than the oldest Egyptian monuments. If this should prove to be the case and civilized world be forced to recognize in a black people the fount of its original enlightenment, it may happen that we shall have to revise entirely our view of the black races, and regard those who now exist as the decadent representatives of an almost forgotten era, rather than as the embryonic possibility of an era yet to come."

"The fame of the ancient Ethiopians (ancient Kushites) was widespread in ancient history. Herodotus described them as the tallest, most beautiful and long-lived of the human races, and before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering language, described them as the most just of men, the favorites of the gods. The annals of all the great early nations of Asia Minor full of them. The Mosaic records allude to them frequently; but while they are described as the most powerful, the most just, and the most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly spoken of as Black, and there seems to be no other conclusion to be drawn than that remote period of history, the leading race of the Western World was a Black race."
Lady Lugard/Flora Shaw Lugard, Asa G. Hilliard, III, A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan With an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Nigeria, Black Classic Press (1996)
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A Shift in the Perception of Ancient Egypt:

Further archaeological discoveries continue to legitimize the southern origin of Egyptian civilization. Archaeologist Bruce Williams's discovery of the 
Qustul incense burner and of a city at Kerma dating back to 4,500 BCE. (Bruce Williams, 'The Lost Pharaohs of Nubia', in Ivan van Sertima (ed.), Egypt Revisited(New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction, 1993). Williams also claims that there were southern predecessors of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, one of the latest results of archaeological explorations in the northern Sahara should be noted: 

"The Sahara west of the Nile in southern Egypt was hyperarid and unoccupied during most of the late Pleistocene epoch. About 11,000 years ago the summer monsoons of central Africa moved into Egypt, and temporary lakes or playas were formed. The Nabta Playa depression, which is one of the largest in southern Egypt, is a kidney shaped basin of roughly 10km by 7km in area. We report the discovery of megalithic alignments and stone circles next to locations of Middle and Late Neolithic communities at Nabta, which suggest the early development of a complex society. The southward shift of the monsoons in the Late Neolithic age rendered the area once again hyperarid and uninhabitable some 4,800 radiocarbon years before the present (years BP). This well-determined date establishes that the ceremonial complex of Nabta, which has alignments to cardinal and solstitial directions, was a very early megalithic expression of ideology and astronomy. Five megalithic alignments within the playa deposits radiate outwards from megalithic structures, which may have been funerary structures. The organization of the megaliths suggests a symbolic geometry that integrated death, water, and the Sun. An exodus from the Nubian Desert at 4,800 years BP may have stimulated social differentiation and cultural complexity in pre-dynastic Upper Egypt. 
(J. McKim Malville, Fred Wendorf, Ali A Mazar and Romauld Schild, Megaliths and Neolithic Astronomy in Southern Egypt, Nature (Vol. 392, no. 2, April 1998).) 

The Mystery of the Black Mummy

This programme explores the enigmatic central Saharan society which once spanned the entire north African continent. We unravel their tale through the story of the discovery of the black mummy, Uan Muhuggiag. It soon becomes obvious that these people were responsible for an extraordinary array of innovations which later became famous under the Egyptians. Their presence re-writes the history of Egypt and of the entire continent of Africa.
Professor Fabrizio Mori discovered the black mummy at the Uan Muhuggiag rockshelter.


Conclusion:

In many ways Egypt is the key to ancient African history. African history is out of kilter until ancient Egypt is looked upon as a distinct African nation. The Nile River played a major role in the relationship to Egypt to the nations in Southeast Africa. During the early history of Africa, the Nile was a great cultural highway on which elements of civilization came into and out of inner Africa.

John D. Baldwin's Pre-History Nations or Inquiries Concerning Some of the Great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity and Their Probable Relation to a Still Older Civilization of the Ethiopians or Cushites of Arabia (1869). Baldwin, commenting on the greatness of the Cushite people, says that early in the period of its colonizing enterprise, commercial greatness, and extensive empire, it established colonies in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, which in later ages became Barbary, Egypt, and Chaldea. The ancient Cushite nation occupied Arabia and other extensive regions of Africa, India, and Western Asia to the Mediterranean. He concludes that "The old notion that Africa is chiefly a land of black savages arose from ignorance of the country, which could not be removed, but, on the contrary, was heightened by slave-trading communication . . . They could not describe truthfully what came under their observation, but they sought to excuse their own frightful savagery by describing Africa as a land of Negroes in the darkest and most hopeless condition of debasement. When this had been repeated many times, they ventured to represent their kidnapping villains as missionary agencies, intent on transferring savages to Christian countries for their own good." 

American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race" (May 17, 1998):

"How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. The "racial" worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent. Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances."
(To read the complete statement go to AAA Statement on "Race").

Turning to the major falsification of the history of mankind, as he puts it, Cheikh Anta Diop underlines that the time has come to bring justice to the Negro race, to give black people their due credit for leading the march, and blazing a trail for humanity to follow. 
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2011 at 19:00
I'd have thought it was obvious the Egyptians were black. Although seafaring Semites did colonise Carthage and Berbers lived in Libya, Arabs didn't dominate Egypt until the time of Islam. Northern Egypt may have had a light-skinned majority, but these were conquered and absorbed by the king of Upper Egypt: a civilization to the south bordering Ethiopia and Somalia
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  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2011 at 20:38


Originally posted by Nick1986

I'd have thought it was obvious the Egyptians were black. Although seafaring Semites did colonise Carthage and Berbers lived in Libya, Arabs didn't dominate Egypt until the time of Islam. Northern Egypt may have had a light-skinned majority, but these were conquered and absorbed by the king of Upper Egypt: a civilization to the south bordering Ethiopia and Somalia


The problem is in defining this 'black' which you refer to. How dark a complexion must one have to be considered 'black' and not anything else? I would firstly like to state my opinion that there is without a shadow of a doubt that Egyptians were genetically African (Negroid to be more scientific) and of African origins. I simply think that from what I see in the papyrus drawings and bas-reliefs it seems that Egyptians were not as black as the choice of the word might imply. I believe it was a more reddish brown tan darker than that of Semites and less than that of Nubians or Kushites.

 I also agree that there must have been a significant variation in genetic composition hence a variation in the phenotype of this ancient people. The question is when did humans mutate into having white skin, is it as soon as they entered Asia Minor? Can we prove such a claim although we have no illustrated drawings of these early emmigrants? This said, I think that ancient Egyptians had a decent variation in terms of genes and skin complexion and regardless of our bias towards what constitutes modern Caucasian or Negroid complexion, we cannot simply reject this variation as being foreign to Africa (excluding of course the migrations that occured in the past 4000 years or so).



Notice the complexion of Hu Nefer in this papyrus taken from the Book of the Dead. He seems to have the complexion of someone of mixed race (white/black) or a Somalian or a Touareg. Also notice the skin colour of Anubis and Thoth, much lighter than Hu Nefer's.



Touareg



Somalian




Timidi mater non flet
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  Quote balochii Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Sep-2011 at 21:40
^ i think east african black
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  Quote MKGlouisville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2011 at 01:38
Originally posted by Baal Melqart

The problem is in defining this 'black' which you refer to. How dark a complexion must one have to be considered 'black' and not anything else?


The historical definition of "black" is an indigenous African population having brown to black skin:




I believe it was a more reddish brown tan darker than that of Semites and less than that of Nubians or Kushites.


In my subjective opinion the skin tone of the original ancient Egyptians would have been within the range of Modern Horn African populations:


"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)



King Tut


Ethiopians


Egyptian dancers


Somali

The question is when did humans mutate into having white skin, is it as soon as they entered Asia Minor?


Here is a recent article on this subject.





Edited by MKGlouisville - 19-Nov-2011 at 01:39
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2011 at 03:15
99% of ancient people's works,in ancient times,were outside exposed on sunlight.Color black is protective mechanism from sun rays not to destruct skin structure!More expose to sun more black you look.You all know this cause you use solarium and know that.MK  my  conclusions  are based  on  language  i am working  within.Scientists  say  this was  people's  language  of Egyptians.There  is correlation  between  hieroglyphic scripts and this language!Regards.


Edited by medenaywe - 20-Nov-2011 at 15:37
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  Quote MKGlouisville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2011 at 04:27
I'm not quite understanding where you're going with this, can you please further elaborate? 
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2011 at 05:23
Middle text on Rosetta stone use syllables that are common today with so called Slavic languages also lot of Western roman languages.If Egypt had ruled 3000-5000 years they developed precise language also.If we are using them today and we are "white" than conclusion could be that white pharaohs ruled the Egypt once.Language I am working with is demotic.Till now that's it.But as proof about it will ask again:if they were black(brick color people) would have been not painted!Their color was not physical but religious :their religion was Goddess of Earth so they colored her color on pictures but not in real i believe!In ritual
devoted to Goddess:who did know it?Maybe and maybe not.



Edited by medenaywe - 19-Nov-2011 at 16:21
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  Quote Ancient Dravidian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2011 at 08:46
The Egyptians looked like the Dravidians of India today. Dravidians are classified as Saharan-Mediterranian Black peoples. The Horn Africans are more related to the Nubian type. They are fully Saharan. It's proven, that the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Elamites and the Dravidians were very similar in racial, cultural and linguistic terms hinting at the common ancestry of these groups. The European (or Indo-European/Aryan) white people have nothing to do with the origin of these civilizations. It's just ridiculous to say something like Egyptians came from Ireland. Having said that, let me go into the details of the proposed Nilo-Dravidian set of entities.

"The Egyptians came, according to their own records, from a mysterious land...This region was the Egyptian 'Land of the Gods,' Pa-Nuter, in old Egyptian, or Holyland, and now proved beyond any doubt to have been quite a different place from the Holyland of Sinai. By the pictorial hieroglyphic inscription found on the walls of the temple of the Queen Haslitop at Der-el-babri, we see that this Punt can be no other than India. For many ages the Egyptians traded with their old homes, and the reference here made by them to the names of the Princes of Punt and its fauna and flora", especially the nonmenclature of various precious woods to be found but in India, leave us scarcely room for the smallest doubt that the old civilization of Egypt is the direct outcome of that the older India."

Racial comparison. When we look at an average appearance of someone from Ancient Egypt, we see they were a Dravidian type of Black people. Some examples:


As you see, the white Muslim lady is not Dravidian. The rest represent Ancient Dravidians. The hair is curly to straight and the facial shapes are well rounded with typical noses and large eyes. As most Egyptian paintings portray young people, pictures of only young Dravidians:



These poor Dravidian girls belong to Kerala in South India.



An actress with beautiful Dravidian features, curly hair, well rounded Nilo-Dravidian shapes and big eyes. This is a classic Dravidian.

Classical Dravidian males performing in traditional attire:

Some Keralite Volleyball team:


In my next posting I will show you, what science has to say about the Egyptians and the Dravidians.


Edited by Ancient Dravidian - 19-Nov-2011 at 08:50
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