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 ethnicity, separate from their neighbors, and were not conscious of "race" in the modern sense.

Race is regarded by most anthropologists today as a 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 the Egyptian state formation was a primarily indigenous process, not the result of Mesopotamian immigration. There has been some disagreement over the various outside demographic influences that acted on the ancient Egyptian population throughout its history, and more research is still being done in this area. However, most scholars do agree that at least the onset of Egyptian civilization was comprised of mainly indigenous NorthEast African elements. Geographic East Africans themselves are more related to Eurasians than to other African populations.

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 same crania actually showed ties primarily to East Africa (Somalia), North Africa (Sudan), and only secondarily with Europe.

There is still debate, for the most part outside the scientific community, over what ancient Egyptians looked like. Most mainstream Egyptologists however, tend to avoid the issue of the race and skin color of Ancient Egyptians, focusing instead on all other aspects of Egyptian life. However, this very avoidance has aroused the suspicion of Afrocentrists who believe that mainstream Egyptologists have attempted to play down the contribution of Black Africa to ancient Egypt..

Research

Origins

Some genetic studies suggest that modern Egyptians don't have very close relations to most tropical Africans. Populations from throughout the world were compared using extensive genetic data. The North African populations grouped with West Eurasian (European, Middle East) populations rather than sub-Saharan Africans. However, extensive studies have also been carried out to determine the origins of the Egyptians.

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 but concludes that Egyptian civilization was predominantly indigenous in development, with some, but limited migration from elsewhere. If true, this would further discredit 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.

Genetics and demographics

Clusters and clines

A 2003 Y chromosome study was performed by Lucotte on modern Egyptians, with haplotypes V, XI, and IV being most common. Haplotype V is common in Berbers and has a low frequency outside Africa. Haplotypes V, XI, and IV are all supra/sub-Saharan horn of Africa haplotypes, and they are far more dominant in Egyptians than in Near Eastern or European groups. Recent studies on Egyptian Y chromosomes have seemingly also found close ancestral connections between modern Egyptians and various other supra/sub-Saharan African populations.

A review of the recent literature indicates that there are male lineage ties between African peoples who have been traditionally labeled as being ‘‘racially’’ different, with ‘‘racially’’ implying an ontologically deep divide. The PN2 transition, a Y chromosome marker, defines a lineage (within the YAPþ derived haplogroup E or III) that emerged in Africa probably before the last glacial maximum, but after the migration of modern humans from Africa (see Semino et al., 2004) This mutation forms a clade that has two daughter subclades (defined by the biallelic markers M35/215 (or 215/M35) and M2) that unites numerous phenotypically variant African populations from the supra-Saharan, Saharan, and sub-Saharan regions based on current data (Underhill, 2001).

A 2006 bioarchaeological study on the dental morphology of ancient Egyptians by Prof. Joel Irish shows dental traits characteristic of indigenous North Africans, and Southwest Asians to a lesser extent, with particular affinities reminiscent of that observed among post-Paleolithic Nubians. The conclusions were suggestive of biological homogeneity and continuity stretching from predynastic times into perhaps, the Roman period of the late Dynastic..

the clustering of 11 or so samples is reminiscent of that observed among post-Paleolithic Nubians in a previous regional dental study (Irish, 2005). In the latter case, homogeneity was thought to be suggestive of population continuity. Similarly, the potential Egyptian continuity extends across time (as evidenced by affinities among the three predynastic, five of seven dynastic, and two or perhaps three Roman period samples) and space (as indicated by the mostly random distribution of points denoting Upper and Lower Egyptians). If true, the present findings vary from those based on cranial morphometric data that suggest biological heterogeneity, at least in predynastic times (Prowse and Lovell, 1996; Keita, 1996), and a broad clinal variation between populations in the north and south (Keita, 1990, 1992).

Demographic influences

There were several theories regarding the effects and types of demographic influence on ancient Egypt. All of these theories aimed to explain why ancient Egyptians cluster the way they do in regards to genetics, cranial affinities, and languages/culture. One theory is that the ancient Egyptians belong to a primarily African group, with relatively little significant outside influences from the Near East. Other theories postulated that the ancient Egyptians received significant demographic influence from the Near East, and with minor demographic effects from regions further south.(SeeDynastic Race Theory)

However, recent demographic analyses and work done by various anthropologists has led many scholars to conclude that there was in fact overall population continuity stretching from the Neolithic, right into dynastic times with small amounts of possible miscegenation with foreigners, placing Egyptian society with in a localized NorthEast African and Nile Valley context.

University of Chicago Egyptologist Frank Yurco confirmed these findings of historical and regional continuity, stating:

Certainly there was some foreign admixture [in Egypt], but basically a homogeneous African population had lived in the Nile Valley from ancient to modern times... [the] Badarian people, who developed the earliest Predynastic Egyptian culture, already exhibited the mix of North African and Sub-Saharan physical traits that have typified Egyptians ever since (Hassan 1985; Yurco 1989; Trigger 1978; Keita 1990; Brace et al., this volume)... The peoples of Egypt, the Sudan, and much of East Africa, Ethiopia and Somalia are now generally regarded as a Nilotic (i.e. Nile River) continuity, with widely ranging physical features (complexions light to dark, various hair and craniofacial types) but with powerful common cultural traits, including cattle pastoralist traditions (Trigger 1978; Bard, Snowden, this volume). Language research suggests that this Saharan-Nilotic population became speakers of the Afro-Asiatic languages... Semitic was evidently spoken by Saharans who crossed the Red Sea into Arabia and became ancestors of the Semitic speakers there, possibly around 7000 BC... In summary we may say that Egypt was a distinct North African culture rooted in the Nile Valley and on the Sahara.

Crania

A 1993 study by C. Loring Brace et. al. of cranio-facial structures concluded 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."

This particular study has seen some stark criticism by fellow anthropologists however, due to its limited sample size from regions closer to Egypt, and its alleged selective approach in denying populations such as modern day Somali people and Nubians equal 'African membership'. In a direct attack on the study by Brace et al.,('Clines and clusters versus "race"') (1993), Keita and Kittles accuse its authors of distorting the picture of the true genetic diversity of Africans and, as a result, of complicity with the very thinking they appear to denounce:

Another example of the use of a socially constructed typological paradigm is in studies of the Nile Valley populations in which the concept of a biological African is restricted to those with a particular craniometric pattern (called in the past the 'True Negro' though no 'True White' was ever defined). Early Nubians, Egyptians, and even Somalians are viewed essentially as non-Africans, when in fact numerous lines of evidence and an evolutionary model make them a part of African biocultural/biogeographical history. The diversity of 'authentic' Africans is a reality. This diversity prevents biogeographical/biohistorical Africans from clustering into a single unit, no matter the kind of data.

A 2005 study of Predynastic Upper Egyptian crania in comparison to various European and tropical African crania found that the predynastic Badarian series clusters much closer with 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).

Another study in 2006 of ancient Egyptian craniofacial characteristics published by anthropologist C. Loring Brace found that samples from Naqada II Bronze age Egypt clustered primarily with modern Somalis, Nubians, Arabic-speaking Fellaheen farmers of Israel, and more remotely with various Niger-Congo speakers.

The Niger-Congo speakers, Congo, Dahomey and Haya, cluster closely with each other and a bit less closely with the Nubian sample - both the recent and the Bronze Age Nubians - and more remotely with the Naqada Bronze Age sample of Egypt, the modern Somalis, and the Arabic-speaking Fellaheen (farmers) of Israel. When those samples are separated and run in a single analysis as in Fig. 1, there clearly is a tie between them that is diluted the farther one gets from sub-Saharan Africa. The other obvious matter shown in Fig. 3 is the separate identity of the northern Europeans.

Body Plans

A 2003 paper appeared in the 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.

Diop's melanin tests

Cheikh Anta Diop performed a series of the tests on Egyptian mummies to determine melanin levels and 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, are no longer susceptible of any analysis. Diop contends 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 innovated the development of the melanin dosage test which was later adopted by forensic investigators to determine the "racial identity" of badly burnt accident victims.

Language

African languages.

The Ancient Egyptian language (a language most closely related to Berber, Semitic, and Beja) is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Initially, it was believed that Semitic languages originated in the near east, however, linguists soon began to reveal a connection between them and several African Languages, it was found that they were more related to languages in Africa than to languages in most parts of Asia and Europe. Joseph Greenberg, based on these observations proposed the term Afro-Asiatic(formerly known as Hamito-Semitic) to encompass all of these languages. The origin of Proto-Afro-Asiatic languages is still debated. An African origin is often proposed since five of the six Afro-Asiatic subfamilies are spoken on the African continent and only one in the middle east. Furthermore, some scholars have proposed Ethiopia, because it includes the majority of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, often considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Hence, many scholars cite this as evidence of a primarily African origin for the Ancient Egyptians as opposed to a near eastern origin.

Kmt

km in Egyptian hieroglyphs

km biliteral	km.t (place)	km.t (people)

One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is km.t (read "Kemet"), meaning "black land". More literally, the word means "something black". The use of km.t "black land" in terms of a place is thought generally to be in contrast to the "deshert" or "red land": the desert west of the Nile valley...Likewise, one of the names the Egyptians used for calling themselves is Kmt. Raymond Faulkner translates it into "Egyptians". Aboubacry Moussa Lam translates it literally into "the Blacks".

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.

Dynastic race theory

The Dynastic Race Theory was the earliest thesis to attempt to explain how predynastic Egypt developed into the Pharonic monarchy. It argued that the presence of many Mesopotamian influences in Egypt during the late predynastic period and the apparently foreign graves in the Naqada II burials indicated an invasion of Mesopotamians into Upper Egypt, who then conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty

The Dynastic Race Theory is no longer the dominant thesis in the field of Predyanstic Archaeology, and has been largely replaced by the theory that Egypt was a Hydraulic empire, on the grounds that such contacts are much older than the Naqada II period, the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period, and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.

Bibliography

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• Borgognini-Tarli, S. M., and G. Paoli, 1982. Survey on Paleoserological studies. Homo 33(2), 69-85

• Bosch, E. et al. 1997. Population history of North Africa: evidence from classical genetic markers. Human Biology. 69(3):295-311.

• Brace, C. L., D. P. Tracer, L. A. Yaroch, J. Robb, K. Brandt, and A. R. Nelson. 1993. Clines and Clusters Versus "Race": A Test in Ancient Egypt and the Case of a Death on the Nile. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 36:1-31. Also appears in Lefkowitz and Rogers, 129-164.

• Brothwell, D. R. and B. A. Chiarelli, B. A., eds. 1973. Population Biology of the Ancient Egyptians. New York.

• Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., P. Menozzi, and A. Piazza. 1994. The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

• Raymond Faulkner. "Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian". Griffith Institute; Rep edition (January 1, 1970) ISBN 0900416327

• Froment, A. 1992. Origines du Peuplement de l'Egypte Ancienne: l'Apport de l'anthropobiologie. Archéo-Nil 2:79-98.

• Froment, A. 1994. Race et Histoire: La recomposition ideologique de l'image des Egyptiens anciens. Journal des Africanistes 64:37-64.

• Howells, W. W. 1989. Skull Shapes and the Map. Craniometric Analyses in the Dispersion of Modern Homo. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

• Howells, W. W. 1995. Who's Who in Skulls. Ethnic Identification of Crania from Measurements. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

• Howe, Stephen 1998. Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes. London: Verso.

• Hrdy, D. B. 1978. Analysis of hair samples of mummies from Semma South (Sudanese Nubia). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 49(2):277-82.

• Irish, J. D. 1997. Characteristic high- and low-frequency dental traits in sub-Saharan African populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 102(4):455-67.

• Irish, J. D. 1998a. Ancestral Dental Traits in Recent Sub-Saharan Africans and the Origin of Modern Humans, Journal of Human Evolution 34:81-98.

• Irish J. D. 1998b. Diachronic and synchronic dental trait affinities of late and post-Pleistocene peoples from North Africa. Homo. 49(2) 138-155.

• Krings M, et al. 1999. mtDNA Analysis of Nile River Valley Populations: A Genetic Corridor or a Barrier to Migration? American Journal of Human Genetics 64(4):1166-1176

• Lefkowitz, Mary, and G. M. Rogers, eds. 1996. Black Athena Revisited. Chapel Hill, NC.

• Lam, Aboubacry Moussa, Les chemins du Nil. Les relations entre l’Egypte ancienne et l’Afrique Noire, Paris : Présence Africaine / Khepera, 1997

• 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.

• Parks, Lisa. 2000. Ancient Egyptians Wore Wigs. Egypt Revealed Magazine (www.egyptrevealed.com), May 29.

• Snowden, Jr., F. Bernal's "Blacks," Herodotus and Other Classical Evidence. Arethusa, Special Issue: The Challenge of Black Athena. Fall, 1989: 97-109.

• Titlbachova, S., and Z. Titlbach. 1977. Hair of Egyptian mummies. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 104:79-85

• Vercoutter, Jean. 1976. The Iconography of the Black in Ancient Egypt. In J. Vercoutter, J. Leclant, F. Snowden and J. Desanges (eds.) The Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. 1. Cambridge, MA.

• Yurco, F. J. 1996. Two Tomb-Wall painted reliefs of Ramesses III and Seti I and Ancient Nile Valley Population diversity. In Theodore Celenko (ed.) Egypt in Africa , Indiana University Press.

External links

• "The evolution of human skin coloration",Department of Anthropology, California Academy of Sciences
• American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race"
• Ann Roth: "Building Bridges to Afrocentrism"
• Professor Ibrahim Sundiata: "Afrocentrism: The Argument We're Really Having"
• Online Videos by Historian Basil Davidson
• BBC World Service Audio: Africa & the Nile Valley

See also

• Appearance of the ancient Egyptians
• Origin of the Nilotic peoples
• Race of Jesus
• List of DNA tested mummies
• Races of Craniofacial Anthropology
• Who Built Great Zimbabwe?
• Meroë
• Meroitic language