Ancient Egyptian race controversy

A tomb painting of Seti I as reconstructed by Giovanni Battista Belzoni (d. 1823), depicting various peoples as the ancient Egyptians perceived them. (from top right) - Libyans, Nubians, Asiatics and Egyptians.

The controversy around the racial identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in the conflicting perceptions of Egyptians since ancient times, both in academia and elsewhere. The absence of conclusive evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts, have served to fuel the debate.

Modern scientific studies of various specializations have been conducted on various aspects of the debate. The issue is further clouded by disagreement over the very definitions of race and racial categorization. There are many paradigms of racial classification within the debate itself, with scholars variously basing their conclusions on hair and facial features, skull shapes, skeletal proportions, DNA, cultural associations and language. Many people agree that the ancient Egyptians did not fit neatly into any of the modern racial classifications, and a growing consensus dismisses racial classification as a social, rather than biological, construct.

Many modern Egyptologists, especially Egyptians, hold the view that ancient Egyptians were neither Black, White nor ethnic Arabs. Some scholars and supporters hold that the ancient Egyptians were a part of the Nilo-Saharan subgroup which, together with Nubian, was a black racial sub-group. The Dynastic Race Theory and similar viewpoints hold that the ancestors of dynastic Egypt came originally from Mesopotamia and were racially members of the Caucasian, Hamitic or Mediterranean race. There is also support for a range of "fringe" theories, which variously claim the ancient Egyptians were descendants of Atlantis, alien civilizations or "the gods".

Although there are many surviving texts, paintings and sculptures from the dynastic period which tell us a great deal about the people of the time, such as the Book of Gates, the variety of skin tones and features illustrated do not permit conclusive identification of their race.

The definition of race

See also: Race (classification of human beings)

There is no scientific basis on which to classify human beings into biological races, and the scholarly consensus is that the concept of biological race isn't applicable to modern humans. Humans vary substantially in phenotypic traits and gene frequency within as well as between geographic populations. It has also become evident that modern racial classifications are often social constructs based on arbitrary criteria, and that these criteria differ from region to region around the world. Nevertheless racial thinking still persists in the scientific community and some scientific studies on human biology continue to use racial terms and concepts when addressing the origin and population relationships of modern humans.

Historically whenever different human populations have come in close contact for extended periods of time, they have interbred freely. Human phenotypes thus vary in clines, whereby populations that live closer to each other are likely to be more similar genetically than populations that live farther apart. A population that lives in between two populations is likely to share traits with both neighboring populations. In addition to gene flow, environmental factors such as climate also influence the variation in human phenotype. Most notably, human skin color on average varies clinally with the intensity of sunlight (i.e. with latitude,) and populations that developed over time in colder areas tend to have comparatively shorter and broader bodies on average while populations that have developed over time in warmer areas tend to have taller and narrower bodies.

Modern Egyptians, thousands of years after dynastic times, demonstrate clinal patterns in phenotypic traits such as skin color and craniofacial morphology, with modern Southern Egyptians on average having darker skin and facial features more consistent with tropical Africans than modern Northern Egyptians.

While situated geographically on the African continent, Egypt lies near the cross-roads of two other continents (Europe and Asia) as well as on the Mediterranean trade routes, and has interacted with neighboring regions which resulted in cultural as well as genetic influence on the indigenous population. Its location makes it an ideal place to study historical population biology.

Race and Science

Many “scientific” criteria are used in the attempt to distinguish the race of populations, including consideration of skull shape, the ratio of limb length to body mass, and facial characteristics.

Dolichocephalism

Broadly speaking, a dolichocephalic skull is a skull whose width is less than 75% of its length. It has been widely claimed that dolichocephalism is an “African” or “Nubian” trait. An article published in 2009 in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery studied over a thousand CT scans of skulls from Kerman (Iran), and found that “the most frequent skull type was dolichocephalic”. An article published in the Jewish Encyclopaedia states that “The pure Semitic skull is dolichocephalic, as may be seen from a study of the heads of modern Arabs, Abyssinians, Syrians, etc.”

Secondly, in 1912 Franz Boas demonstrated that cranial shape is heavily influenced by environmental factors, and therefore cranial measurements cannot be a reliable indicator of inherited influences such as race. This conclusion was supported in 2003 in a paper by Gravlee, Bernard and Leonard. However, given that it is based on heat stresses it has thus been associated to biogeographic ancestry as these traits are not consistently found in Europeans and other cold-adapted peoples, who are generally brachycephalic. In fact, in the American anthropologist, Susan Anton's examination of King Tut, she used as a reference his "pronounced dolichocephalism" to identify him as African and exclude him as being of European background, while avoiding any allusions to taxanomic race.

Limb ratios

There have been many studies assessing the limb proportions of ancient Egyptians. Anthropologist C. Loring Brace points out, such limb elongation is "clearly related to the dissipation of metabolically generated heat" in areas of higher ambient temperature. Since Egypt always had a hot climate (even though most of it lies north of the tropics) the indigenous people would have developed relatively higher limb elongation ratios to help them dissipate body heat. However, according to Robins and Shute, the average limb elongation ratios among ancient Egyptians is higher than that of modern West Africans (described by them to be "super-negroid"), who reside much closer to the equator. Gallagher et al point out that "Body proportions are under strong climatic selection and evince remarkable stability within regional lineages." and Keita notes that this is significant because Egypt is not in the tropics, suggesting that the Egyptian Nile Valley was settled by migrants from a tropical environment such as East Africa (and not by cold-adapted peoples such as Europeans).. Zakrzewski later confirmed the results of Robins and Shute, assessing continuity well into the dynastic and affirming that the Ancient Egyptians in general had "tropical" body plans"

Barry Kemp surveyed the pre-dynastic populations of northern Egypt, Palestine to the north and Sudan to the south. He concluded that the affinity groups the Northern Egyptians with the African populations, "suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time" with the populations of early Palestine. Finally, a more recent study compared ancient Egyptian osteology to that of African-Americans and White Americans. Closer similarity was found between African-Americans and Ancient Egyptians, while not being identical.

Dental morphology

A 2006 bioarchaeological study on the dental morphology of ancient Egyptians by Prof. Joel Irish shows dental traits characteristic of indigenous North Africans and to a lesser extent Southwest Asian and southern European populations. Among the samples included in the study is skeletal material from the Hawara tombs of Fayum, (from the Roman period) which clustered very closely with the Badarian series of the predynastic period. All the samples, particularly those of the Dynastic period, were significantly divergent from a neolithic West Saharan sample from Lower Nubia. Biological continuity was also found intact from the dynastic to the post-pharaonic periods. According to Irish:

[The Egyptian] samples [996 mummies] exhibit morphologically simple, mass-reduced dentitions that are similar to those in populations from greater North Africa (Irish, 1993, 1998a–c, 2000) and, to a lesser extent, western Asia and Europe (Turner, 1985a; Turner and Markowitz, 1990; Roler, 1992; Lipschultz, 1996; Irish, 1998a).

Irish has been criticized in the past however, by anthropologist Shomarka Keita for a limited approach in the interpretation of these results. Taking issue with Irish et al suggestion that Egyptians and Nubians were not primary descendants of the African epipaleolithic and Neolithic populations. Keita criticizes them for ignoring the well-known post-pleistocene hunting/dental reduction and simplification hypothesis which postulate in situ microevolution driven by dietary change, with minimal gene flow (admixture) while citing among the ancient Egyptians the presence of fourth molars and alveolar pits behind the third molars. These are referred to as "fourth molar variants" and are much more common among more southernly Africans than in Europeans.

Origins of the debate

The classical observers

• Herodotus travelled to Egypt around 450 BC, about 2000 years after the Pyramid Age and when Egypt was part of the Persian Empire. In his writings about the Egyptians, he described them as having "black skins and woolly hair".
• The Greek playwright Aeschylus [525 BC - 455 BC], (also at the time of the Persian Empire) mentioning a boat seen from the shore, declared that its crew are Egyptians, because of their black complexions.
• Josephus regarded the Egyptians in his day (1st century) as descendants of Mizraim, son of Ham on the basis of Genesis 10, which remained the basis for most scholarship in the Middle Ages.
• Strabo, (c. 64 BC – AD 24), the Roman historian and geographer, wrote in his work Geographica that “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.” (Strabo, Book XV, Chapter 1, Section 13.)
• Arrian, (c. 86 AD – 146 AD), one of the main ancient historians of Alexander the Great, wrote in his work Indica that “the southern Indians resemble the Ethiopians a good deal, and are black of countenance, and their hair black also, only they are not as snub-nosed or so woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; but the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians in appearance."

The colonial period

The bust of Amenhotep III referred to by Darwin - British Museum

Another bust of Amenhotep III, in the Ägyptisches Museum Berlin.

In 1798 Constantin Francois de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney, published his book Travels Through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785, in which he documented his experiences. In the book he states that in his opinion the Great Sphinx has "negroid" facial characteristics. He also describes the modern-day Egyptians he encountered as appearing to be of mixed race.

In the early 19th century slavery was still legal in the United States, and was being justified in part on the assumption that Black people were intellectually inferior. The anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum, and pro-slavery advocates were thus unreceptive to any suggestion of advanced Black civilizations that would undermine this rationale. In 1844 Samuel George Morton, a proslavery supporter and one of the pioneers of scientific racism and polygenism, published his book Crania Aegyptica with the intention of “proving” that the Ancient Egyptians were not Black. In 1855 George Gliddon and Josiah C. Nott published Types of Mankind with the same intention. All three authors acknowledged that Negroes were present in ancient Egypt, but claimed they were either captives or servants. However, they also concluded that the Egyptians were intermediate between the African and Asiatic races.

In England, Charles Darwin and others concluded that a statue of Amunoph (Amenhotep III) had strongly marked Negro-type features. In 1886, George Rawlinson wrote that the physical type, language and tone of thought of the modern Egyptians is “Nigritic”. Though he believed the modern Egyptians were not Black, he stated that they bear an “indisputable” resemblance to Black Africans.

Afrocentrism

Afrocentrism is a world view that emphasizes the importance of African people in culture, philosophy, and history. Afrocentrics are inter alia reviewing the history of ancient Egypt, and have made two main claims: that the foundations of classical Greek civilisation were "stolen" by the Greeks from the Egyptians, and that the Egyptians themselves were not only African, but also Black. According to Marcus Garvey:

Every student of history, of impartial mind, knows that the Negro once ruled the world, when white men were savages and barbarians living in caves; that thousands of Negro professors at that time taught in the universities in Alexandria, then the seat of learning; that ancient Egypt gave the world civilization and that Greece and Rome have robbed Egypt of her arts and letters, and taken all the credit to themselves.

The idea that the ancient Egyptians were Black was popularized throughout the 20th century in the works of George James, Cheikh Anta Diop, and, to a certain extent, in Martin Bernal's Black Athena. One of the earliest African-American historians to write about the Black presence in Egypt was Drusilla Dunjee Houston, whose Wonderful Ethiopians of the Cushite Empire was published in 1926. The Journal of African Civilizations has continually stated that Egypt should be viewed as a Black civilization. Figures connected to the journal include Ivan van Sertima and John Henrik Clarke. Other prominent historians who've posited the fundamental Blackness of dynastic Egypt include Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Ivan van Sertima, Runoko Rashidi, Molefi Kete Asante, and Chancellor Williams.

Modern Scholarship

Since race is not considered to be a valid scientific concept by most scientists, the focus of some experts who study population biology has been to seek an answer to the question of whether or not the Ancient Egyptians were primarily biologically African rather than which race they belonged to.

While some Egyptian Egyptologists such as Zahi Hawass insist that the Ancient Egyptians did not fit neatly into a racial group and that Ancient Egypt was not even an African Civilization, there is a growing scholarly consensus among academics of various fields that Ancient Egypt is also a Classical African Civilization, along with Numidia and Nubia (Kerma/Kush/Meroe). They also contend that Egypt had cultural and biological connections with its African neighbors.

A collection of essays published under the title Egypt in Africa included contributions from leading experts in various fields, including Chike Aniakor, Molefi Kete Asante, Robert Steven Bianchi, Arthur P. Bourgeois, Shomarka Keita, Christopher Ehret, Chapurukha M. Kusimba, Frank M. Snowden, Jr., and Frank J. Yurco. While the contributors differed in some opinions the scholarly consensus was that Ancient Egypt was and should be considered a Classical African Civilization.

In 1996 Indianapolis museum of art curator Theodore Celenko held an exhibition titled Egypt in Africa in order to present works of art that emphasized Egypt’s cultural connection to the rest of the African continent.

Ancient Egyptian history is taught in several African studies programs at Universities around the world.

Several anthropologists who study the bio-cultural relationships of the Ancient Egyptian population call for a recognition of Africa’s tremendous genetic diversity when considering the racial identity of the Ancient Egyptians.

Ancient Egyptian material

The ancient tombs and temples contained thousands of works of writing, painting and sculpture, which reveal a lot about the people of that time. However their depictions of themselves in their surviving art and artifacts are rendered in sometimes symbolic, rather than realistic, pigments. As a result, ancient Egyptian artifacts provide sometimes conflicting and inconclusive evidence of the ethnicity of the people who lived in Egypt during dynastic times.

Meaning of 'Kemet'

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 'the black land' or 'the black one'. The claim that Kemite referred to the fact that the people of the land were black, as argued by Cheikh Anta Diop, William Leo Hansberry, Yaacov Shavit or Aboubacry Moussa Lam has become a cornerstone of Afrocentric historiography.

This view is rejected by most Egyptologists. Generally, 'Kemet' is taken to be a reference to the fertile black soil, which was washed down from Central Africa by the annual Nile inundation, and which made Egypt habitable and prosperous in contrast to the barren desert or 'red land' outside the narrow confines of the Nile watercourse. The use of the word kmt when referring to people is thought to be derived from the name of the land, meaning literally "those people who live in the black, fertile country." Raymond Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian translates it into "Egyptians", as do most sources.

Ancient Egyptian texts and inscriptions

There are a number of surviving copies of a sacred text from Dynastic times called the Book of Gates. These were usually carved and/or painted inside tombs, for the guidance of the soul of the deceased. (translation by E.A. Wallis Budge):

The first are RETH, the second are AAMU, the third are NEHESU, and the fourth are THEMEHU. The RETH are Egyptians, the AAMU are dwellers in the deserts to the east and north-east of Egypt, the NEHESU are the black races, and the THEMEHU are the fair-skinned Libyans.

The Egyptians often used pejorative terms to describe the enemies with whom they fought numerous wars. For example, at Assuan Prince Turi carved the inscription “His majesty passed this canal in force and power in his campaign to crush Ethiopia the vile.” Thutmose II carved at Assuan “The wretched Kush has begun to rebel, those who were under the dominion of the Lord of the Two Lands purpose hostility, beginning to smite him." Throughout Egyptian history successive pharaohs raided Nubia to secure supplies of gold, as well as valuable produce such as ivory, ebony and incense. The word Nubia itself is derived from the Egyptian word for gold.

The Land of Punt

Queen of Punt with possible steatopygia

The ancient Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt (Pun.t) as their ancestral homeland.

The Land of Punt, also called Pwenet, or Pwene by the ancient Egyptians, was a fabled site once thought to be in the Horn of Africa. In later years more Egyptian texts have been translated that locate Punt in the Arabian Peninsula. For example an inscription from the Cachette Court of the temple of Karnak, attributed to Ramses III, explicitly calls the Puntites “sand dwellers” which was the Egyptian term for the Bedouin and other tribes of Arabia. Inscriptions from the reign of Seti II describe Amun opening the roads of Punt during an Asiatic campaign. Fek-Heret, a turquoise-producing area in the Sinai, is described as being at “the height of the land in Punt". Egyptologist Dimitri Weeks states: "The hypothesis of an African location for the land of Punt is based on extremely fragile grounds. It is contradicted by numerous texts and has only become an established fact in Egyptology because no-one has taken into account the full range of evidence on the subject … The only way to reconcile all the data is to locate Punt in the Arabian peninsula … It incorporated in a rather imprecise manner the whole coastal zone of the Red Sea down as far as present day Yemen and the actual heart of Punt probably corresponded more or less to Yemeni Tihama."

However other Egyptologists continue to hold that Punt was located in the general vicinity of the Horn of Africa, based on the varieties of African flora and fauna pictured in Egyptian tomb scenes regarding Punt and the fact that the Egyptians brought Pygmies from these locations as proof of their successful voyages. In addition, the frankincense and myrrh brought back from Punt after Hatshepsut's expedition there are generally noted to have been of Ethiopia/Eritrean origin.

The major argument for an African location for Punt was their apparently African fauna. The area was known for producing gold, aromatic resins and spices, ivory, slaves and wild animals – including those found in Africa. The rhinoceros depicted in the temple is an Asian rhinoceros with one horn (native to India), not a two-horned African species, but also observed were clearly African animals such as giraffes. It is thus supposed by Prof. Aubrey Manning that the people of Punt were involved in wide-ranging trade.

The Queen of Punt is depicted with what some have suggested is steatopygia, a trait common with the Khoisan people of Southern Africa many thousands of miles away on the other side of the continent. It has therefore been suggested that the people living around Punt were related to the San.

During the reign of Queen Hatshepsut in the 15th century BC ships regularly crossed the Red Sea in order to obtain bitumen, copper, carved amulets, naptha and other goods transported overland and down the dead sea to Elat at the head of the gulf of Aqaba, where they were joined with frankincense and myrrh.

The trade with Punt continued into the start of the 20th dynasty before terminating prior to the end of Egypt's New Kingdom. Thereafter Punt became "an unreal and fabulous land of myths and legends."

Based on evidence from predynastic graves in Upper Egypt, W.M. Flinders Petrie believed that Punt was founded on the Horn of Africa in predynastic times by Mesopotamian colonists, who subsequently invaded Egypt and founded the dynastic rulership. He associated these Punites with the Punic or Phoenic peoples of Canaan and (much later) of Carthage, although the ancient Egyptian language did not derive from the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. This forms part of the Dynastic Race Theory.

The ancient Egyptians also called Punt “Ta netjer”, meaning “God's Land”. This designation is believed to mean that Punt was located in the direction of the sunrise. The term was used not only in reference to Punt itself, but also in reference to regions of Asia east of Egypt, and Lebanon to the north-east of Egypt. Lebanon was also part of the later Phoenician kingdom.

Ancient Egyptian art

In the many surviving tomb paintings, papyri and statues, the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in a wide variety of colors, but the predominant color used for Egyptian men was reddish-brown, while the Egyptian women are usually portrayed with much lighter skin pigmentation. However, Egyptian artists also depicted both themselves and non-Egyptians in other colors, as well as sometimes using unrealistic colors such as blue and green. The use of all these colors is presumed to sometimes have symbolic meaning, but is not completely understood..

Gallery of ancient Egyptian art

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  “Rahotep, husband of Nofret", from the 4th Dynasty, with much darker skin than his wife.
• 
  “Nofret, wife of Rahotep", from the 4th Dynasty, with much lighter skin than her husband.
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  A rural mural, showing the women as being pale-skinned but the men brownish-red.
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  “Seneb the scribe”, 4th Dynasty. The gender-based skin coloring is reflected in both the adults and the children.
• 
  A Grave mask of pharaoh Amenemope of the 21st Dynasty of Egypt.
• 
  From the tomb of Akmenthor the Physician – c. 2330 B.C.
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  Maiherpri, a high-ranking official buried in the Valley of the Kings
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  Glass statuettes from Medinet Habu, 19th Dyn. From left: a pair of Nubians, a Philistine, an Amorite, a Syrian and a Hittite.
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  Akhenaten, confirmed to have been Tutankhamun's father Cairo Museum.
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  Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, Ägyptisches Museum Berlin.
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  Queen Tiye, believed to be Akhenaten's mother, wearing a Nubian enveloping wig Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin.
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  Statue Head of the pharaoh Amenmesse, from the 19th dynasty, circa 1203-1200 B.C.
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  Asiatics shown entering Egypt, the tomb Khnumhotep II. Egyptians, top right, are depicted as darker than the Asiatic peoples.
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  Bust fragment of Prince Khaemwase, one of the sons of Rameses II, New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty. Altes Museum, Berlin.
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  Portrait of a pharaoh, probably Rameses VI. Painted shard of limestone, 1143–1136 BC (20th Dynasty).

Population history of Egypt

The population history of ancient Egypt has sen considerable attention due to its implications on "race". Studies performed to determine the population characteristics of ancient Egyptians have used various methods including examining craniometric variation among of skeletal remains, as well as DNA and archaeology. A survey cited by Kemp (2005) of ancient Egyptian crania spanning all time periods found the Egyptian population as whole to cluster along side Nubian and Ethiopic groups of the nile valley. This confirms in conclusions of anthropologist Nancy Lovell, who shares this sentiment.

[Data] "must be placed in the context of hypotheses informed by archaeological, linguistic, geographic and other data. In such contexts, the physical anthropological evidence indicates that early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage, but exhibiting local variation. This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection, influenced by culture and geography."

This view was also shared by the late Egyptologist, Frank Yurco. The ancient Egyptian population was assessed by Zakrzewski in 2007 in order to test the merits of the Dynastic Race Theory in terms of biological continuity. She found that among the earliest archaeologically defined ancient Egyptian populations at El-Badari, this group shared closest affinity with tropical Africans and were similar to much later material (albeit with variation), thus concluding that Egypt's founding was a primarily indigenous development. A craniofacial study by C. Loring Brace et. al. 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, Somalia, eastern Asia, Oceania, or the New World." Anthropologist Shomarka Keita and others have criticized this study due to what they say are contradictions which seem to imply a population relationship from Scandanavia to the Horn of Africa. Also pointing a selective approach to biohistorical Africans within a fixed archetype and biohistorical Africans are diverse and such relatioship need not suggest gene-flow. A different 2005 study by Keita of Badarian crania in predynastic upper Egypt (of which Brace's study excluded), in comparison to various European, and tropical African crania found that the predynastic Badarian series clusters much closer with the tropical African series.

Keita (2008) updated studies that he'd done in 1992 to assess the biological homogeneity of pre-dynastic and early dynastic Egyptians from Upper Egypt. His earlier studies were based on many assumptions made about lower Egyptian remains of which he hadn't had the opportunity to study. Keita found that these early predynastic/dynastic groups were most similar craniometrically to more southernly African groups, while also finding no sequential increase in dissimilarity between them, despite noted diversity. He concluded that more material is needed to make a firm conclusion about the relationship between the early holocene nile valley populations and later ancient Egyptians while suggesting that living Egyptians may be difficult to extrapolate to the past due to "more recent migrations, demographic factors, and more ancient migrations before the time of the ethnogenesis of peoples and even language phyla".

DNA studies

Certain types of DNA studies can be useful in identifying the race of the donor, while other DNA studies are useful in tracing the movements of populations over time. The limitations of DNA study are that they can give very limited insight to phenotype and skin color and may be overly stressed by some based on assumptions of the phenotypical state of the ancient control groups. For example, Eurasians in the first millenia B.C. were more varied and overall exhibited significantly stronger features associated with black Africans. This is most prevalent among cultures along the coast of the Indian Ocean. It is impractical and unreliable to rely primarily on DNA studies to determine the phenotype of the Egyptians without specifically publishing those genes which determine the relevant expressions of phenotype, especially when DNA studies of present groups may be impacted by changes over the time periods in question.

DNA studies on ancient Egyptians

Although DNA studies have been done on some ancient mummies, no data has been made public about the racial characteristics of those mummies. It is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Non_concordance on DNA to determine the racial phenotype of the ancient Egyptians , although it can be used, along with cultural expression and settlement patterns as an indicator.

DNA studies on modern Egyptians

However a number of DNA studies have been performed on modern Egyptians, and these have been used to study the influences of historical migrations on the population history of Egypt. Biological Anthropologist, Shomarka Keita, has written several biohistorical articles interpreting the data of various DNA studies on modern Egyptians in order to address questions concerning Egyptian population relationships. In a video interview with National Geographic Magazine Keita gave the following statement:

"When the question of race is raised about the Ancient Egyptians or any other African population it has to be understood that the concept of race is not felt to be valid by most modern scientists....it's very difficult to talk about the diversity of the ancient populations because we don't have a lot of ancient DNA studies. However in terms of physical diversity it can be imagined that the modern diversity to be found in Egypt in terms of craniofacial features, skin color and what have you would likely have been very similar to that found in the past. We do have to acknowledge that at different moments in time, especially in Northern Egypt, various peoples who were non-Egyptian in terms of their ethno-nationality did in fact come into the country. I do think it's possible to look at modern DNA profiles and in essence determine what most likely are due to external influences of more recent time depths vs. more ancient influences perhaps even going back to the paleolithic period."

In general, these various DNA studies have found that the gene frequencies of North African populations are intermediate between those of Sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia, although they seemingly show a greater genetic affinity with the populations of Eurasia than they do with Sub-Saharan Africans.

A study by Krings et al. from 1999 on mitochondrial DNA clines along the Nile Valley found that a Eurasian cline runs from Northern Egypt to Southern Sudan, and a Sub-Saharan cline extends from Southern Sudan to Northern Egypt. Another study based on maternal lineages links modern Egyptians with people from modern Eritrea/Ethiopia such as the Afro-Asiatic-speaking Tigre. Similarly, an mtDNA study of modern Egyptians from the Gurna region near Thebes in Southern Egypt revealed that Eurasian haplogroups represented 61% of the population, with the remainder 39% being of Sub-Saharan origin.

A study using the Y-chromosome of modern Egyptian males found similar results, namely that African haplogroups are predominant in the South but the predominant haplogroups in the North are characteristic of other North African populations..

Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) compared populations from around the world using extensive autosomal genetic data, and found that the North African populations, including Egyptians, grouped with West Eurasian (European, Middle Eastern) populations rather than Sub-Saharan Africans. Cavalli-Sforza also state:

" The present population of the Sahara is Caucasoid in the extreme north, with a fairly gradual increase of Negroid component as one goes south"

A study of Coptic ethnic group in Sudan found relatively high frequencies of Sub-Saharan Haplogroup B (Y-DNA). The Copts are descendants of Egyptians who have recently migrated from Egypt. The authors of the study state:

The significant frequency of B-M60 in this group might be a relic of a history of colonization of southern Egypt probably by Nilotics in the early state formation, something that conforms both to recorded history and to Egyptian mythology

The results of these genetic studies is consistent with the historical record, which records significant bidirectional contact between Egypt and Nubia within the last few thousand years.

Biogeographic Origin Based on Cultural Data

Located in the extreme corner of Northeast Africa, ancient Egyptian society was at a crossroads between African and Near Eastern regions. During the Naqada phase, the predynastic Egyptians of Upper Egypt shared an almost identical culture with A-group peoples of the Lower Sudan. In fact, the cultures were so similar, as indicated by royal tombs at Qustul, along with the earliest examples of what was thought to have been distinct Egyptian iconography, some scholars have even proposed an Egyptian origin in Nubia among the A-group. Indeed, in 1996, Lovell and Prowse published a paper in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology citing evidence for endogamy. They reported the presence of individual rulers buried at Naqada in what was designated as elite, high status tombs, showing them to be related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia, more so than those in Southern Egypt. While others find this prospect intriguing, however, many scholars are not swayed by the evidence and cite the presence of royal tombs that are contemporary with that of Qustul and just as elaborate, while also addressing what they see as difficulty with the dating techniques.

Excavations from Nabta Playa, located about 100km west of Abu Simbel, suggest that the Neolithic inhabitants of the region were migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. There is some speculation that this culture is likely to be the predecessor of the Egyptians, based on cultural similarities and social complexity which is thought to be reflective of Egypt's Old Kingdom.

Toby Wilkonson, in his book "Genesis of the Pharaohs", proposes an origin for the Egyptians somewhere in the Eastern Desert. He presents evidence that much of predynastic Egypt was representative of the traditional African cattle-culture, typical of Southern Sudanese and East African pastoralists of today. In addition, Wilkonson cites the iconography on rock art in the region as depicting what he suggests to be the first examples of the royal crowns, even pointing to Qustul in Nubia as a likely candidate for the origins of the white crown, being that the earliest example of it was discovered in this area.

The language element

File:Afroasiaticorigin.jpg

Postulated origin and spread of the Afro-asiatic language family by Christopher Ehret

The ancient Egyptian language has been classified as a member of the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Afro-Asiatic languages comprise the following sub-families.

• Berber
• Chadic
• Egyptian
• Semitic
• Cushitic
• Omotic

The Afro-Asiatic language family is believed by linguists to have originated somewhere in either the Levant (ancient Canaan) or the Horn of Africa/eastern Sudan.

In Black Athena Professor Martin Bernal argues that the phylum may instead have emerged around the Great Rift Valley in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.

Of the six subfamilies of Afro-Asiatic, the Semitic languages form the only Afro-Asiatic subfamily that exists in both Africa and Asia. The other five of the six Afro-Asiatic subfamilies are restricted to the African continent. The majority of the diversity in the Afro-Asiatic language family is found in Ethiopia, where diverse languages exist in close geographic proximity.

UCLA Professor of African history, Christopher Ehret, says that archeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Ancient Egyptians are descended from speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic who migrated from further south to the Nile Valley. According to Ehret the speakers of the earliest Afroasiatic languages occupied lands between Nubia and northern Somalia around 15,000-13,000 B.C. before the formation of the Ancient Egyptian state.

Specific modern controversies

There have been numerous controversies regarding the race of specific notable individuals from the history of Egypt, particularly the Great Sphinx, Tutankhamun, Ramses the Great and Cleopatra VII.

The Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx of Giza

A metropolitan sphinx

A number of writers have described the face of the Sphinx as having features that are Ethiopian, Nubian, African or Negro, as opposed to Grecian, Coptic or Arab (Semitic). These writers include the French philosopher Constantin-François Chassebœuf, Gustave Flaubert, and W.E.B. Du Bois.The exact identity of the model for the Sphinx is unknown as there are no known written records that proclaim its identity. Almost all Egyptologists and scholars currently believe that the face of the Sphinx represents the likeness of the Pharaoh Khafra, whose statues have been located near the Sphinx and who is held to be the creator of the statue. A few Egyptologists and interested amateurs have made several conflicting hypotheses regarding the identity of the Sphinx, but at present, no definitive proof exists. In 1992, the New York Times published a letter to the editor submitted by Sheldon Peck, a Harvard professor of orthodontics, who noted of the Sphinx that is shows “an anatomical condition of forward development in both jaws, more frequently found in people of African ancestry than in those of Asian or Indo-European stock."

Tutankhamun

See also: Tutankhamun

File:Bust of King Tut.jpg

Tutankhamun royal bust.

Tutankhamun plaster model on the cover National Geographic Magazine.

Supporters of Afrocentrism have claimed that Tutankhamun was black, and have protested that attempted reconstructions of Tutankhamun's facial features (as depicted on the cover of National Geographic Magazine) have represented the king as “too white”.

Forensic artists and physical anthropologists from Egypt, France, and the United States independently created busts of Tut, using a CT-scan of the skull. Based on Tut's cranial features, specifically his narrow nose opening, he was classified as racially Caucasoid. Although modern technology can reconstruct Tutankhamun's facial structure with a high degree of accuracy based on CT data from his mummy, determining his skin tone and eye color is impossible. The clay model was therefore given a flesh coloring which according to the artist was based on an "average shade of modern Egyptians."

Biological anthropologist Susan Anton, the leader of the American team, said that the race of the skull was “hard to call”. She stated that: "The shape of the cranial cavity indicated an African, while the nose opening suggested narrow nostrils; a European characteristic. The skull was a North African."

Other biological anthropologists point out that narrow noses are a common trait among indigenous Northeast Africans, and a product of adaptation to the hot-dry climate of the region. Therefore the shape of Tut's nose does not necessarily reflect European ancestry nor rationalize classification as a Caucasian.

When pressed on the issue Zahi Hawass, the current Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, stated that "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilization as black has no element of truth to it …. Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa." However, the former archaeological inspector for the Supreme Council of antiquities, Ahmed Saleh, disagrees with many of Hawass' statements, stating that the procedures used in the facial re-creation made Tut look Caucasian, "disrespecting the nation's African roots". In addition, Hawass in a 2007 publication of "Ancient Egypt Magazine", also asserted that none of the facial reconstructions resemble Tut, claiming for example that the French reconstruction ended up with a person that looked French, whose features do not resemble any known Egyptians. He asserts that in his opinion, the most accurate representation of the boy king is the mask from his tomb. Others have commented that a 2002 facial reconstruction of King Tut's golden mask, looked decidedly African in appearance.

Rameses the Great

See also: Ramesses II

Mummy of Pharaoh Rameses the Great, Cairo Museum

Several commentators have noted that the mummy of Rameses the Great (of the 19th Dynasty) has red or blond hair. Frank Yurco describes the mummy of Rameses as having “fine, wavy hair, a prominent hooked nose and moderately thin lips.” Yurco also describes Rameses as being “a typical northern Egyptian”. Although Rameses ruled from Thebes in Upper Egypt, he was originally from the extreme north-east of the country.

In 1975 the mummy of Rameses the Great was taken to Paris for conservation and the treatment of fungal infestations. A detailed examination of the mummy showed that his hair had been grey at the time of his death, and had been dyed red using plant extracts, but scientific analysis showed that the original natural color of the hair before going grey was also red.

Other mummies and paintings

File:Tuyayuya.jpg

Mummy of Yuya (left), senior official of the 18th Dynasty, and his wife Tjuyu

Badly mutilated mummy of Seqenenre Tao II

Various commentators have noted instances of mummies or tomb paintings showing notables having blond or red hair:

• The wife of king Dedefre of the 4th Dynasty was his half-sister Hetepheres (Hetop-Heres II), who is shown in the colored bas reliefs of her tomb to have been a distinct blonde. It is assumed therefore that she was Libyan.
• The tomb of the wife of Zoser, the builder of the first pyramid in Egypt, has a painting showing her with reddish-blond hair.
• Paintings from the Third Dynasty show native Egyptians with red hair and blue eyes.
• Tomb paintings of Amenhotep III (father of Akhenhaten) shows him as having light red hair.
• The mummy of the wife of King Tutankhamen has auburn hair.
• The mummy of courtier Yuya, great-grandfather to Tutankhamun, had been taller than average and had caucasoid facial traits. His name is also not Egyptian, and the anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith considered that his appearance was not typically Egyptian.
• Red-haired mummies were found in the crocodile-caverns of Aboufaida.

Various commentators have noted instances of mummies or tomb paintings showing notables having Nubian features:

• Yurco described the remains of Seqenenre Tao II as having woolly hair and Nubian facial features..
• The mummy believed to be Thutmose I is described as having all the craniofacial characteristics common to Nubian people.
• The mummy of Thutmose II had a bimaxillary protusion, which is a Nubian trait..
• The mummy of Maiherpri was found with a woolly wig attached to his head.

Cleopatra VII

See also: Cleopatra VII

File:Cleopatra Bust.jpg

Cleopatra VII, last of the pharaohs

Supporters of Afrocentrism have claimed that Cleopatra, the last of the pharaohs, was black. In her book Not Out of Africa, Mary Lefkowitz points out that Cleopatra’s ancestors, the Ptolemy dynasty, were Macedonian Greeks descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals. Lefkowitz states that:

• it was their practice to marry close relatives – brother with sister or uncle with niece, etc.
• the only possibility that Cleopatra VII might not have been a full-blooded Macedonian Greek arises from the fact that we do not know the precise identity of her grandmother on her father's side, as this lady was the mistress (not the wife) of her grandfather, Ptolemy IX.
• because of the incestuous custom of the Ptolemy family it is generally assumed that this grandmother was also a relative, but it is possible that she might have been of another race - no evidence has ever arisen either way.

Lefkowitz also notes, in her surviving portraits on coins and in sculpture, that Cleopatra VII appears to be “Mediterranean” in appearance, with relatively straight hair and a hooked nose.

In 2009 a BBC documentary speculated that Arsinoe IV, the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, may have been part African, and then further speculated that Cleopatra’s mother and thus Cleopatra herself might also have been part African. This was based largely on the claims of Hilke Thuer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who in the 1990's had examined a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20BC tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey) together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull.

However, a writer from the London Times described the identification of the skeleton as “a triumph of conjecture over certainty”.

The assumption of the skeleton's identity was based on the shape of the tomb (octagonal, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria), the timing of the death (around 20BC), the gender of the skeleton, and the age of the child at death (although some commentators consider the age of the child to be rather young, considering what Arsinoe is described by history as having accomplished in her life.)

The recent cranial analysis was done based measurements, notes and photographs made before the skull itself was lost during World War 2. Boas, Gravlee, Bernard and Leonard and others have demonstrated that skull measurements are not a reliable indicator of race. (See also Dolichocephalism above.)

Arsinoe IV was actually the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, sharing a father (Ptolemy XII Auletes) but having a different mother.

See also

• Demographics of modern Egypt
• Dynastic race theory
• Race in the United States
• Négritude

References

• Mary R. Lefkowitz: "Ancient History, Modern Myths", originally printed in The New Republic, 1992. Reprinted with revisions as part of the essay collection Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
• Kathryn A. Bard: "Ancient Egyptians and the issue of Race", Bostonia Magazine, 1992: later part of Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
• Frank M. Snowden, Jr.: "Bernal's "Blacks" and the Afrocentrists", Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
• Joyce Tyldesley: "Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt", Profile Books Ltd, 2008.
• Alain Froment, 1994. "Race et Histoire: La recomposition ideologique de l'image des Egyptiens anciens." Journal des Africanistes 64:37-64. available online: Race et Histoire Template:Fr icon
• Yaacov Shavit, 2001: History in Black. African-Americans in Search of an Ancient Past, Frank Cass Publishers
• Shomarka Keita: "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", S.O.Y. Keita & A. J. Boyce. Egypt in Africa, pp. 25-27 (1996)
• Aaron Kamugisha: "Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko", Race & Class, Vol. 45, No. 1, 31-60 (2003) available online: Finally in Africa
• Richard Poe: “Black, White or Biologically African?” Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? pp. 466-471 (1998)