Race of ancient Egyptians

Questions of race and the ancient Egyptians have been a subject of debate and controversy dating back to the 18th century. The ancient Egyptians considered themselves part of a distinct race, separate from their neighbors. The ancient Egyptians did not view race in the same manner in which many see it today, either.

Race is regarded by most anthropologists today as a platonic, socially constructed category, with a limited scientific basis. Thus, when mainstream scientists research what ancient Egyptians, or any other ancient people looked like, they tend to focus on the society's genetic and demographic history, rather than "race". However, many researchers still use the language of race to describe what peoples of the past looked like, even if it is not the paradigm of their research.

The dynastic race theory, which argues for a Mesopotamian origin of Egyptian civilization, has fallen out of favor in mainstream Egyptology, as new studies have been published, that conclude Egypt was originally settled by East Africans, not Mesopotamians. However, scholars still take pains to note that while the dynastic race theory is probably fallacious, the evidence upon which it was based does still indicate at least some predynastic Mesopotamian influence. The nature and extent of Egyptian evolution that resulted from natural selection and migration/war with neighboring Mesopotamia and East Africa between the pre-dynastic and dynastic periods is still debated and researched to this day.

Statistical analyses of ancient Egyptian crania have led to differing conclusions, because of differences in the statistical methods and sample sizes used. A 1993 study concluded that ancient Egyptian crania had no ties with sub-Saharan Africa, but clustered with North Africa, Asia, and Europe.A 2005 study, however, concluded that the crania showed ties primarily to East Africa (Somalia), North Africa (Sudan), and only secondarily with Europe. Analyses of mummies, based on either CT scans or melanin tests have come up with a variety of results, some reporting "Caucasoid", others reporting "mixed racial characteristics", and still others reporting "Negroid."

There is still debate, for the most part outside the scientific community, over what ancient Egyptians looked like. Consensus amongst Egyptologists is that Egyptian skin color most likely reflected adaptive response to selective forces consistent to their latitude. In ancient Egyptian art, Egyptians come in a plethora of different colors, ranging from very light to very dark (and sometimes, even in impossible colors such as green). Skin color, after all, was not of significant social or political importance to the ancient Egyptians, compared to divisions deemed significantly more important, such as nationality and religion. This debate is of only minor importance to scientists, but of high importance to some of those who view it as an important element of the politics concerning race and racism, especially in the United States.

Race

Ancient Egyptian view

The Egyptians considered themselves part of a distinct race, separate from their neighbors. Most modern Egyptologists believe the Egyptians thought of themselves as Egyptian people, not African, Mediterranean, White, or Black people. They discovered wall paintings that contrast Egyptian [8], Nubian [9], Berber[10], and Semitic peoples [11].

Although it should be important to note that according to Egyptologist, Frank J. Yurco, the Egyptians did not view race in the same manner in which we see it.

The Ancient Egyptians considered the Land of Punt as being their ancestral homeland. Punt, an ancient land south of Egypt was accessible by way of the Red Sea. Its exact location has not been identified, but it is thought to have been somewhere in eastern Africa, probably including northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, and east-northeast Sudan (southern Beja lands).[12] Temple reliefs at Deir el Bahari in W Thebes depict an Egyptian expedition to Punt in the reign of Hatshepsut.

Modern scientific view

Main article: Race

The term race distinguishes one population of an animal species (including human) from another of the same species. The most widely used human racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color, facial features and hair texture), genes, and self-identification. Conceptions of race, as well as specific racial groupings, vary by culture and over time, and are often controversial, for scientific reasons as well as because of their impact on social identity and identity politics. Some scientists regard race as a social construct while others maintain it has genetic basis.

Since the 1940s, some evolutionary scientists have rejected the view of race according to which any number of finite lists of essential characteristics could be used to determine a like number of races. For example, the convention of categorizing the human population based on human skin colors has been used, but hair colors, eye colors, nose sizes, lip sizes, and heights have not. Many social scientists think common race definitions, or any race definitions pertaining to humans, lack taxonomic rigour and validity. They argue that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, have many exceptions, have many gradations, and that the numbers of races observed vary according to the culture examined. They further maintain that "race" as such is best understood as a social construct, and they prefer to conceptualize and analyze human genotypic and phenotypic variation in terms of populations and clines instead.

Many scientists, however, have argued that this position is motivated more by political than scientific reasons. Others also argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful, that these categories correspond to clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data, and that this correspondence implies that genetic factors contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation among groups.

Science, racism, and black pride

In the 19th century, supporters of slavery and colonialism began to use scientific racism to justify the exploitation of Africans. They claimed that people such as sub-Saharan Africans were incapable of living freely in a civilized world and were naturally inclined towards slavery.

The Hamitic Hypothesis purported to show that certain African languages around the Nile area could be associated with "Caucasoid" peoples is a typical case. Such schemes later fell apart when it was demonstrated that Negro tribes far distant also spoke similar languages, tongues that were supposedly a reserved marker of Caucasoid presence or influence.

Black nationalist and psychoanalyist Frantz Fanon wrote in his book Black Skin, White Masks that the history of white racism, colonialism, and oppression leads blacks, often out of an inferiority complex, to seek out and respond with historical proof of black civilization. He traced this ongoing dialectic and the role it played in his own development:

I rummaged frenetically through all the antiquity of the black man. What I found there took away my breath. In his book L'abolition de l'esclavage Schoelcher presented us with compelling arguments. Since then, Frobenius, Westermann, Delafosse-- all of them white-- had joined the chorus: Segou, Djenne, cities of more than a hundred thousand people; accounts of learned blacks (doctors of theology who went to Mecca to interpret the Koran). All of that, exhumed from the past, spread with its insides out, made it possible for me to find a valid historic place. The white man was wrong, I was not a primitive, not even a half-man, I belonged to a race that had already been working in gold and silver two thousand years ago.

However, he later decided that the issue was not essential to the plight of black people:

Let us be clearly understood. I am convinced that it would be of the greatest interest to be able to have contact with a Negro literature or architecture of the third century before Christ. I should be very happy to know that a correspondence had flourished between some Negro philosopher and Plato. But I can absolutely not see how this fact would change anything in the lives of the eight-year-old children who labor in the cane fields of Martinique or Guadeloupe.

Ancient writers

Herodotus, the "father of history", wrote that Egyptians had black skin and wooly hair.

Many ancient writers commented of the 'racial affinities' of ancient Egyptians. While some held them to be people with 'black skins and wholly hair' similar to 'Kushites', others described them as 'medium toned' or similar to that of northern Indians. Greek historian Herodotus commented on a perceived relationship between the Colchians and the Egyptians, he justifies this through his observation that these people had "black skins and kinky hair":

Several Egyptians told me that in their opinion the Colchians were descended from soldiers of Sesostris. I had conjectured as much myself from two pointers, firstly because they have black skins and kinky hair and secondly, and more reliably for the reason that alone among mankind the Egyptians and the Ethiopians have practiced circumcision since time immemorial.

Some interpretations have pointed out that Herodotus could of been speaking in relative terms, since the Colchians were noted as residing near the Black Sea, close to modern day Russia where there are virtually no dark skinned, wholly haired people today. While some question whether or not Herodotus ever visited the Black Sea region in the first place.

Others contend however, that there indeed was an ancient population of dark skinned, wholly haired people residing in Colchis, asserting that they were left there by the armies of Sesostris after initial campaigns in the region. Indeed, there is further description from ancient writers describing the populations of Colchis in this fashion. A Greek poet named Pindar described the Colchians, whom Jason and the Argonauts fought, as being "dark skinned". Also around 350 to 400 AD, Church father St. Jerome and Sophronius referred to Colchis as the "second Ethiopia" because of its 'black-skinned' population.

Aristotle, who is noted to have probably not traveled to Egypt, stills makes his observation on the physical nature of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, be it through hearsay or actual contact. Here, Aristotle makes claim that skin color is somehow correlated to courage, and also gives his impression on why the Egyptians and Ethiopians are bowlegged and 'curly haired'.

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.

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.

Strabo wrote that the Egyptians resembled the people of northern India.

Ancient writers have also made comparisons between ancient Egyptians and northern Indians of the time.

Strabo (63/64 BC – c. AD 24):

As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.

Arrian (c. 86 AD - after 146 AD) (Indica 6.9):

The appearance of the inhabitants is also not very different in India and Ethiopia: the southern Indians are rather more like Ethiopians as they are black to look on, and their hair is black; only they are not so snub-nosed or woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians physically.

It is important to note however, that phenotypes differ among populations and skin color varies and is highly adaptive, therefore alone, they're not good indicators of any concept of 'race'. In some cases, ancient textual sources can be extremely reliable, however, in cases like these bioanthropologist Shomarka Keita warns us that interpretation is highly dependent on stereotyped thinking, and in his words, "the ancient writers were not doing population biology", and that as a result, all of this should be taken with 'a grain of salt'.

Research

Crania

A 1993 study of ancient Egyptian craniofacial characteristic published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology found that:

The Predynastic of Upper Egypt and the Late Dynastic of Lower Egypt are more closely related to each other than to any other population. As a whole, they show ties with the European Neolithic, North Africa, modern Europe, and, more remotely, India, but not at all with sub-Saharan Africa, eastern Asia, Oceania, or the New World.

A 2005 study of predynastic Egyptian Badari crania in comparison to various European and tropical African crania, found that the Badarian series clusters much closer to the Tropical African series.

The Mahalanobis distances between all of the series were unlikely to be due to chance at the 5% level, with nearly all having even lower probability values (usually p < .001). An examination of the distance hierarchies reveals the Badarian series to be more similar to the Teita in both analyses and always more similar to all of the African series than to the Norse and Berg groups (see Tables 3A & 3B and Figure 2). Essentially equal similarity is found with the Zalavar and Dogon series in the 11-variable analysis and with these and the Bushman in the one using 15 variables. The Badarian series clusters with the tropical African groups no matter which algorithm is employed (see Figures 3 and 4). The clustering with the Bushman can be understood as an artifact of grouping algorithms; it is well known that a series may group into a cluster that does not contain the series to which it is most similar (has the lowest distance value). An additional 20 dendrograms were generated using the minimum evolution algorithm provided by MEGA (not shown). In none of them did the Badarian sample affiliate with the European series. In additional analyses, the Bushman series was left out; the results were the same (not shown).

Genetics and demographics

Noah A. Rosenberg and Jonathan K. Pritchard, geneticists from the laboratory of Marcus W. Feldman of Stanford University, assayed approximately 375 polymorphisms called short tandem repeats in more than 1,000 people from 52 ethnic groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. They looked at the varying frequencies of these polymorphisms, and were able to distinguish five different groups of people whose ancestors were typically isolated by oceans, deserts or mountains: sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas; East Asians; inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia; and Native Americans. A similar finding was made by Dr. Neil Risch of Stanford University. According to the New York Times:

These five geographically isolated groups, in Dr. Risch's description, are sub-Saharan Africans; Caucasians, including people from Europe, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East; Asians, including people from China, Japan, the Philippines and Siberia; Pacific Islanders; and Native Americans.

A 2004 study of the mtDNA of 58 native inhabitants from upper Egypt performed to indicate origins found a genetic ancestral heritage to East Africa.

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.

A 2007 study suggests overall population continuity over the predynastic and early dynastic periods with high levels of heterogeneity and concludes that Egyptian civilization was predominantly indigenous to Africa, with some, but limited migration from elsewhere. This alone does not indicate as to what the racial characteristics of the Egyptians were, but if true, it would disprove the Dynastic Race Theory:

Genetic diversity was analyzed by studying craniometric variation within a series of six time-successive Egyptian populations in order to investigate the evidence for migration over the period of the development of social hierarchy and the Egyptian state. Craniometric variation, based upon 16 measurements, was assessed through principal components analysis, discriminant function analysis, and Mahalanobis D2 matrix computation. Spatial and temporal relationships were assessed by Mantel and Partial Mantel tests. The results indicate overall population continuity over the Predynastic and early Dynastic, and high levels of genetic heterogeneity, thereby suggesting that state formation occurred as a mainly indigenous process. Nevertheless, significant differences were found in morphology between both geographically-pooled and cemetery-specific temporal groups, indicating that some migration occurred along the Egyptian Nile Valley over the periods studied.

A 2003 paper appeared in American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Dr Sonia Zakrzewski entitled 'Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions', where she found that the Ancient Egyptians had tropically adapted body plans.

The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the ‘super-Negroid’ body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many ‘African’ populations.

Mummies

Senu

The mummy of Senu, believed to be more than than 3700 years old from South Egypt, was facially reconstructed in 2006 by a team of 10 scientists and artists. The results, in regard to "race" were as follows:

His race can be presumed as a mixture of racial types, including negroid, Mediterranean and European.

King Tutankhamun

A rendering of Tutankhamun exhibiting hazel eyes, "mid-range" skin tone, and caucasoid features, as shown on the cover of National Geographic in 2005.

King Tutankhamun is the most famous of the pharoahs, and his mummy is estimated to be about 3000 years old. In 2005, King Tut's face was reconstructed by a team of scientists using 3D CT scans, as well as techniques taken from advanced CSI police forensics. They identified the skull as:

that of a male, 18 to 20 years old, with Caucasoid features. "Caucasoid" describes a major group of peoples of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and India.

A previous rendering in 2002 by the Discovery Channel however, provided much different results.

Diop's Melanin tests

Melanin tests developed by Cheikh Anta Diop concluded that Egyptians were dark-skinned and part of the "Negro race". Diop notes criticisms of these results that argue that the skin of most Egyptian mummies, tainted by the embalming material, is no longer susceptible of any analysis. Diop contended the position that although the epidermis is the main site of the melanin, the melanocytes penetrating the derm at the boundary between it and the epidermis, even where the latter has mostly been destroyed by the embalming materials, show a melanin level which is non-existent in the "white-skinned races". However, Diop does not describe any tests that verify his claims that melanin is "non-existent" among the "white-skinned races", nor provide evidence supporting his assertion that the absence of melanin in the epidermis is due to embalming techniques. Diop's technique was later adopted by the U.S. forensic department to determine the racial identity of badly burnt accident victims.

Language

Kmt

One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is Kmt(read "Kemit"), meaning "blackened land". More literally, the word means "black soil." As in other Semitic or Semitic-related languages, the vowels are omited. The use of "Kemit" as a name of Egypt refered to the Nile Valley, in contrast to the "desert" or "red land": the desert beyond the Nile valley. When used to refer to Egyptians, Kemit can be translated as "people of the black land." Thus, the ancient name, Kemit, was used to refer to the rich, black soil of the nile river, the basis for Egyptian's existance, rather than a term denoting race.

Art and architecture

Egyptian art is not considered a reliable source for what Egyptians looked like for several reasons:

• Egyptian art is often very faded and/or eroded.
• Egyptians are often portrayed in impossible shapes and colors. For example, in some paintings they are green.
• The skin color of a single individual varies widely from one portrayal to the next. For example, Tutankhamen is jet black in one rendering, and medium brown in another.
• Skin color was not such a significant political or social factor in that time as it is now.
• It is sometimes difficult to know if the artist is aiming for realism, or is actually painting an original or mythical conception.
• There is sometimes debate over whether it is an Egyptian, a slave, or a foreigner that is being portrayed.

However, even if ancient Egyptian art is limited in its use as scientific evidence, it is still worth examining.

• 
  From the 1700's to today, many scholars have commented on the Great Sphinx of Giza's "negro" or "black" appearance.
• 
  The most widely held hypothesis is that the Sphinx portrays Khafra, pictured above.

Discarded hypotheses

Hamitic hypothesis

Complications have also cropped up in the use of linguistics as a basis for racial categorization. The demise of the famous "Hamitic Hypothesis", which purported to show that certain African languages around the Nile area could be associated with "Caucasoid" peoples is a typical case. Such schemes fell apart when it was demonstrated that so-called 'Negroid' tribes far distant also spoke similar languages, tongues that were supposedly a reserved marker of 'Caucasoid' presence or influence. For work on African languages, see Wiki article Languages of Africa and Joseph Greenberg. Older linguistic classifications are also linked to the notion of a "Hamitic race", a vague grouping thought to exclude 'Negroes', but accommodating a large variety of dark skinned North and East Africans into a broad-based 'Caucasoid' grouping. This "Hamitic race" is sometimes credited with the introduction of more advanced culture, such as certain plant cultivation and particularly the domestication of cattle. This has also been discredited by the work of post WWII archaeologists such as A. Arkell, who demonstrated that predynastic and Sudanic 'Negroid' elements already possessed cattle and plant domestication, thousands of years before the supposed influx of 'Caucasoid' or 'Hamitic' settlers into the Nile Valley, Nubia and adjoining areas. Modern scholarship has moved away from earlier notions of a "Hamitic" race speaking Hamito-Semitic languages, and places the Egyptian language in a more localized context, centered around its general Saharan and Nilotic roots.(F. Yurco "An Egyptological Review", 1996) Linguistic analysis (Diakanoff 1998) places the origin of the Afro-Asiatic languages in northeast Africa, with older strands south of Egypt, and newer elements straddling the Nile Delta and Sinai.

Myths

Cleopatra

File:Ac.cleopatra.jpg

According to some Afrocentric academics, Cleopatra was black.

The myth that Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, was "black" or of African origin has been espoused by several Afrocentric academics, and has enjoyed a notable degree of acceptance within the African-American community. Cleopatra, however, was of Macedonian origin. Mary Lefkowitz argues that Afrocentric scholars are to blame for the proliferation of this myth.

"White" Egypt

The hypothesis that the ancient Egyptians were a predominantly "white" civilization was viable in the heyday of European colonialism, but is today regarded as (racist) pseudoscience. However, several neo-Nazi and racist groups such as Stormfront still hold this myth to be true, holding that ancient Egypt was a "Nordic desert empire." This view enjoys no support whatsoever among researchers of ancient Egypt for the simple reason that there is no evidence for it, and enormous evidence against it.

Bibliography

• Noguera, Anthony (1976). How African Was Egypt?: A Comparative Study of Ancient Egyptian and Black African Cultures. Illustrations by Joelle Noguera. New York: Vantage Press.
• Raymond Faulkner. "Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian". Griffith Institute; Rep edition (January 1, 1970) ISBN 0900416327
• James P. Allen. "Middle Egyptian : An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs". Cambridge University Press (November 4, 1999). ISBN 0521774837
• Lam, Aboubacry Moussa, Les chemins du Nil. Les relations entre l’Egypte ancienne et l’Afrique Noire, Paris : Présence Africaine / Khepera, 1997

External links

• "The evolution of human skin coloration",Department of Anthropology, California Academy of Sciences
• American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race"

See also

• Race of Jesus
• List of DNA tested mummies
• Races of Craniofacial Anthropology
• Who Built Great Zimbabwe?