Some of you may have noticed in the comments that I replied to a commenter that the idea that ancient Egyptians were Negroes is nonsense (er, paleobabble). I thought I’d direct anyone interested in this to some resources.
Here is a scholarly article that does a nice (but technical) job of saying that such discussion about race entirely miss the mark. The article deals with .. wait for it … biology and the ancient Egyptian race issue. No, they weren’t Negroes; there was a lot of genetic interchange between native Egyptians and Negroes (and others), though.
Keita, S. O. Y. (1995). “Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships”. International Journal of Anthropology 10 (2–3): 107–123.
You might also find this article by professor Frank Snowden (recently deceased, and of Howard University, an African-American institution of high repute) of interest. He takes Afrocentrists to task for their idiosyncratic views on this subject. Snowden was one of the leading authorities on blacks in antiquity.
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Mike, glad to be able to read your stuff, a nice respite. Anyway, I don’t know if the Hebrew supports this, and without doing any real searches or other reading, I always just figured that the races were established at the Tower of Babel with the confusion of the langauges.
You do know that there is no objective scientific definition of race. So the question that should be asked is “were the Egyptians Africans”. And the obvious answer is yes. The other question to ask were the Egyptians more related to other Africans that they were to non Africans. And the answer is yes. The other question that can be asked is “Are Europeans and Asians related to Eyptians?” And the answer quite surprising is yes, not closely, but a definite yes and quite recent too.
I think the problem of definition is the point of one of the articles posted. People are a genetic melting pot, if you will.
What about the Genesis reference to Misraim as a son of ham? Would that not make the ancient egyptians of the hamitic race or black?
where is the verse that says Ham was black?
Psalms 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22; 1Ch 4:40 All make refernce to egypt to being the land of ham.Most of the nations that descend form Ham are found in africa (egypt,cush ,punt,lud). Some of cush’s son nimrod focused on the middle east though.
No mention of actual appearance of ham is spelled out in Genesis but hey what is the meaing of the name ham in biblical hebrew, aramaic, and arabic usage?Often it is hot as in diminutive of the originator some nation form a hot tropical land.
correct – we are NEVER told about Ham’s appearance. The word behind “Ham” in Hebrew has nothing to do with color. Period. It just doesn’t.
Im white and I studied this for a while. I believe that the Egyptians were what Americans call black people. All this blog is nothing more than another example of racism that is still happening in the United States
utter nonsense; the Egyptians themselves distinguished themselves from Negroid peoples in north Africa (like Libyans). It’s about archaeology, not racism. Let’s grow up.
Thank you for these articles Mr.Heiser. By the by I’m African American.
You’re welcome.
Thanks for responding. I have The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt book and a translation of Taticus’ Annals. I plan on reading Blacks in Antiquity soon. What do you think of the book?
Great job debunking the shoddy ‘research’ of Afrocentriscs. I plan on getting Frank Snowden’s book Blacks in Antiquity. Oh and by the way I’m African American.
it’s nonsense to say ancient egypt wasn’t black Dr Cheikh Anta Diop proved it at UNESCO he is the greatest name you never heard of ….the further you go back the blacker it is. The people that live there now have no connection with ancient egypt. just look at narmer look at him!!!…sure there was mixing but don’t get confused with europeans deciphering the history…Dr DIOPS work was left unanswered him and Dr Ivan Van Sertima. youtube Dr Cheikh Anta Diop Pt1 for a intro into this genius mind part 3 shows who ancient egyptians were…. the melanin count in the mummies leaves no doubt…what is a ‘negro’ anyway as africans are VERY diverse. Everyone should be Afrocentric homosapien sapien mitochondrial Eve it’s not the motherland for nothing, Adam had to have all ‘races’ in him = black skin……that is genetics. Dr Diop nuclear physicist,linguist,anthropologist,egyptologist don’t even think i named it all too bad he speaks french some of his work has been translated. it’s a shame what has happened to african history in european hands…
It’s nonsense to deny Egyptians painted themselves differently than, say, the Libyans or (good grief) the Nubians. You and the good Dr. are ignoring Egyptian art (for starters).
They’re all African. Why must it be about race?
For readers, see Donald Redford’s book on this (he’s an Egyptologist):
From Slave to Pharaoh: The Black Experience of Ancient Egypt
Pay closer attention to the Egyptian paintings. Especially the hairstyles and the clothing It is nonsense to deny Ancient Egyptians painted themselves darker than the Asiatic semites from East desert. Ancient Egyptian always painted the Nilotic ‘Meshwesh’ Libyans jet black, darker than themselves.The ‘Libu’ Libyans similar to themselves.The ‘Tehenu’ ‘Tedjenu’ Libyans lighter than themselves.The ‘Temehu’ Libyans similar to themselves, The ‘Nehesu’ Nilotic Kushites were painted jet black.
Inorder to accurately describe the ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians, it is important to identify who these Libyan tribes are; and where they are today.
1) LIBU Libyans. Through my research I have to the conclusion that the modern descendants of these people are the LEBOU or LEBU of Senegal. They have a oral history of migration from Libya and west of Egyptian west Nile Delta, after the Persian invasion of Egypt by Cambyses.
2)TEHENU or TEDJENU .Their modern descendants today are the Fulani,Fulbe and Woodabe. Judging by their traditional robes,side locks hairstyles, yellow brown lightskin, streamlined faces with long thin noses.
3)TEMEHU LIBYANS: Through ancient Egyptian sources we learn that the TEMEHU lived in southern Libya and bordered the Nehesu(Nuer) of lower Kush. I strongly believe that their descendants today are either Modern TEBOU /TEBU of South Libya or TUAREG BERBERS of modern Libya.Or according to Greek historian Heredotus the GARAMANTES .The humpless long-horned cattle owned by the GARAMANTES as depicted by Herodotus in his book ‘The histories’ is known as ANKOLE-WATUSI Cattle breed .This Cattle is traditionally kept by Bantu speakers Tutsi,Hima and Nyankole of East Africa great lakes region.But also the Nuer of Sudan have these kind of cattle mixed breed with the Zebu variety.The Nehesu were sometimes depicted being jet black skinned with goldish yellow hair colour, now this is the traditional hairstyle of the modern NUER of Sudan..
The GARAMANTES could either be modern Tutsis,Hima and Nyankole or TEBOU or TUAREG BERBERS .But because Herodotus in his book ‘The histories’ described that they dressed similar to ancient Egyptians. Many scholars have observed the similarities between the Tutsi and ancient Egyptians. The Tutsi white traditional clothing and hairstyles. The Tutsi Ram god Imana and Egyptian Ram god Amun or Imn .The Tutsi sun god Ruwa and Egyptian son god Ra . My conclusion is that the Tutsi,Hima, Nyankole must have lived in ancient times between Eastern Libya and Western upper Egypt.
4) MESHWESH LIBYANS. Their descendants today are either the SERER of Senegal or Western DINKA of South Sudan. The oral history of SERER like their Lebou cousins always state of migration from Libya after Cambyses’ Persian invasion of Egypt.The Nilo-Saharan speaking Serer of West Africa Senegal today together with the East African Nuba and Dinka Nilotic speakers have preserved the Ancient Egyptian wrestling which they still perform today. Despite their geographical distance between them the serer and Dinka have many similarities from facial tattoos to language. In ancient Egyptian Paintings the Meshwesh are depicted with red ochred hairstyles with ostrich feathers. Similar to the traditional hairstyles of modern Dinka.
LIBYANS ACCORDING TO HERODOTUS .
Libyan tribes that lived around Lake Tritonis as described by Herodotus have many similarities to the modern day Central African Bantus and South Eastern Bantus. Link http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=009009;p=1#000000
ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.
Ancient Egyptians have two descriptions of themselves from tomb paintings.
1) RETH / RETEHU EGYPTIANS These Egyptians always depicted themselves Reddish brown or dark brown and their women brown and yellow brown.
Their hairstyles ranged from braids for both women and men and afros for men.
The use of this term Reth gained popularity from the middle kingdom where we also see kings and priests wearing leopard skins and egyptian heqa (vodoo ) dolls. The customs,dances, music and religion of these egyptians is very similar to those of modern South Eastern Bantus.
2) REMET / REMETW EGYPTIANS
The remet or remetu egyptians were always depicted jet black. these Egyptians were most likely South Nilotic due to their hairstyles and love for bow and arrow during warfare.Modern South nilotics like kalenjin and Datooga of greatlakes region still worship Egyptian deities Ptah and ISIS. (Asiis and ptaiyat). According to Egyptologists, the Egyptian term for ‘people of Egypt’ is ‘Remet en Kemet’. 11th dynasty warriors described as army of Egypt were mostly REMET Egyptians. REMET ambassadors to Kush were also REMET. Which shows their were also Egyptian settlers in Kush ‘remet en Kusu’.
Looking at the ethnicities which comprises of Egyptians and Libyans. I have come to the conclusion that two languages were spoken in the Nile Valley . Nilotic and Bantu. Hence ancient Egyptians were related to modern day Bantus and nilotics.
I still wonder why DNA testing is not being done to Egyptian mummies in large scale to identify the ethnicities of ancient Egyptians. And those that have undergone DNA tests why are the results not released to the public? why all the secret? My guess is that they are scared of the Truth. Ancient Egyptians were dark skinned Africans.
darker than Asiatics, and LIGHTER than Libyans and others.
I’ve seen Egyptian paintings. There are clear differences.
Libyans with the sidelocks and indigo robes were ancestors of the Fulani, Fulbe and Woodabe.
http://afroasiatics.blogspot.co.ke/2012/01/normal-0-false-false-false.html?m=1
https://www.temehu.com/Temehu.htm
Bantu and nilotic were the dominant tongues in the Nile Valley civilizations but not Afro-Asiatic. Afro-Asiatic languages entered Africa after the Persian invasion of Arabia and middle East. Nilo-semitic Africans from accad and Arabia entered Africa via the Yemen-horn of Africa route with their camels. Chadic speakers migrating from ancient Anatolia entered Africa via Egypt also during this period.bringing Afro-Asiatic languages to west Africa.
The Bible clearly describe ancient Canaanites as descendants of Ham but Modern revisionist historians still persist in searching for Semitic Philistines and Canaanites. The term Semitic should be pronounced SHEMITIC. Go to your Bible see who descendants of Shem were. And who the descendants of Ham were.
The desire of these white supremacists historians to whitewash history and wipe out black people from ancient history has resulted to today’s fake pseudo history being passed out as the truth.
People are too scared of black people. We all know the Egyptian and Kushite army defeated by Persians were taken to Persepolis in Persia as slaves. Then why is it that historians refuse to acknowledge Afro-Iranaians Nile Valley and Jewish origin?
In my opinion, the Bantu and nilotic migration theories require to be studied thoroughly.
These two groups were the East Saharan and Nile Valley populations 3000yrs ago who gradually migrated South over a thousand years. Possibly due to the periods of Assyrian, Persian, Greek,Roman and Arab attacks and persecutions.