The Original Egyptians were black (influence, European, biggest, economy)

[LM1]

Originally Posted by truthhurts

Well, long story short when we left the museum my black friends, myself included were eating nice steak dinners compliments of our white friends.

When we walked in the museum the first thing out of one of my white friends mouths "Wow, they really are black people."

I haven't been to that exact museum, however, given the marvels of modern technology, I'm able to see some pretty interesting examples of "Egyptian sculpture" sitting right here at my computer.

Here are the first few that popped up (representing human forms)










... and if you're STILL going to insist that they really are black, I guess you just busted that age old myth...



Anyway, I don't think anyone disagrees that blacks were represented in Egyptian culture. Of course they were.
It's just this bullsht revisionist history that tries to suggest that all Egyptians were black- that's entirely contrary to the existing body of ancient Egyptian iconography we have to go by. It isn't that white people are "up in arms" about anything... It's just that history is pretty clear and it says otherwise (actually, it says the exact opposite)

[macmeal]

I'm hearing lots of reasonable "inputs" here, and this sounds like an interesting topic. It DOES show the "inexactness" of race and its designations, MOST of which involve a heavy dose of 'custom' more than science. The Brazilian mention was interesting (I've been there too, and the notion of 'blackness' is not quite like ours here). MANY Brazilians are OBVIOUSLY Black. The MAJORITY of American Blacks don't "look" African, and many look 'nearly' White. Obviously, 'black' and 'white' are more 'societal' concepts than scientific ones.

I've actually got a secret 'soft spot' for ALL sorts of "out-of-the-norm" tidbits of history. For example, there's SOME evidence the Chinese visited California long before the Europeans did. We now know for SURE that the Vikings landed in North America long before Columbus. Apparently, a stone tablet with ancient Gaelic inscriptions was unearthed in West Virginia, and has never been fully explained. Thor Heyerdahl, in the 1960's, tried hard to "prove" the islands of Polynesia were populated not from Asia, but from ancient South America. The ancient Romans apparently traveled at LEAST as far east as Viet-Nam, and the Chinese probably visited East Africa. Nobody knows this for SURE, because it never got into the official 'record books'.

Even today, in southern Appalachia, live folks who obviously aren't pure 'white", nor 'black', nor are they American Indian, either, in the normal sense of the word. These folks, loosely called "Melungeons", at one time kept a LOW profile, due to the strong racism of the area. Now they are 'coming out", and have several websites, looking into their own origins. The government of Turkey, some years back, actually sent a delegation to try to establish a Turkish origin for these folks (results were not clear). But in any case, they are NOT part of the official "history" of Appalachia.

But NONE of this is on a level with the idea that an entire "black" nation was replaced by an entire NON-black one, and it happened without a trace. The "all-Black" Egypt theory, I think, is just too difficult to explain..

[MissShona]

Jeez....this topic has it's own thread now?

Ok, what exactly is "black"? I mean really...let's define it. Is it medium to dark brown skin? If that is so, then I have a sister who is "not black" (her complexion is the same as Mya's). Is it kinky hair? If so, that Tatiana Ali is not "black". Is it wide noses and thick lips? Then Angelina Jolie and a lot of Filipinos are black. If you must have all of the above or some of the above, which features can be compromised, and which ones cannot?

Also, being "black" isn't always about ancestors either. My Father's mother was 100% East Indian and while she had her children with Black Jamaican men, she had 1 sister and two brothers that married other East Indians. Strangely enough, those cousins of mine consider themselves "black" - especially the ones who have immigrated to the US & Canada. Because the hang around and date black people, other people think it as well...although they are 100% East Indian. Maybe it's because they have Jamaican accents and don't say, "would you like a slurpee" or some other ridiculous Indian stereotype.

Africa is not a homogeneous continent - by far. On top of that, North Africa and the Mediterranean is the cradle of transient populations. I mean everyone seems to pretty much understand that a small percentage of today's modern Greeks and Italians are direct descendants of the ancient Greeks and Romans ( What Became of the Ancient Romans - Melting Pot - No Records - Forum Members Theories ). The same mindset really needs to be applied to North Africa as well where trade and travel has been frequent for thousands of years. Therefore, googling pictures of modern "Egyptian" people doesn't prove anything one way or the other.

Obviously, the ancient Egyptians were a "brown-skinned" people. If they were "brown-skinned" like Arabs, or "brown-skinned" like Jay-Z, does it really matter? Does it change what they were or the significance of what they did?

For me, and African-American woman (ughh...I can't stand that term though), it doesn't matter. I have other ancestries in me that I now I can lay claim to and Egyptian is not one of them.

[johndoeboy]

Originally Posted by macmeal

I don't want to get into an ugly 'spat' here with you, johndoeboy. I'll only say this---if, as you say, the Egyptians were "black--not anything 'but'---and not mixed" then I find that extremely difficult to believe. It would mean the entire population of "blacks" (pure blacks, as are found in Subsaharan Africa) was somehow 'evicted" from their homes and cities and 'sent packing' off to somewhere else, and a NEW race,(the present-day 'semitic' population of Egypt) somehow came in an 'replaced' them....All while they were known and observed by OTHER groups (Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Turks, etc etc.) NONE of whom, as far as I know, ever mentioned this cataclysmic event. Such an upheaval, had it happened, would have been 'front-page news' in its day. MANY groups would have remarked upon it in their records and oral histories.

It's obvious the Egyptians were aware of blacks, and that blacks have some representation in Egyptian culture. Some blacks may have held places of honor in the Egyptian society. Some Egyptians do bear certain 'black' physical characteristics. But that's a LONG way from an entire "black" population being 'uprooted', leaving no clear memory of its ever having existed.

We know of certain racial 'upheavals' in history. The Mongols invaded Europe. The Aryans invaded India. The Arabs invaded Spain. The Europeans invaded the New World, and blacks arrived here too. They 'pushed aside" the native Indians. All these things are 'known'. We know who invaded, and we know where they ARE now. We ALSO know what happened to the "original people". Nobody 'disappeared'. In the case of Egypt, I've NEVER heard a credible acount of the "original people" being kicked out by the "invaders", who then erased the very MEMORY of this event, leaving no record.

I find your history VERY questionable. I think the "ancient" Egyptians were the ancestors of TODAY'S Egyptians....I think they knew of blacks, they interacted with blacks (so did the Romans), they intermarried on occasion with blacks, but the Egyptians weren't a "pure, unmixed black" nation. That simply defies common sense....sorry.

My facts came from the tomb of Rameses III. Where are you facts coming from besides your own opinion. The first picture is a ancient egyptian about as black as you can get. The egyptians were black until romans, greeks, libiyans, arabs, and persians begin to conquered egypt and the middle east. I know you probably have seen or heard of the movie alexander the great. About a white man who conquered egypt and mix breeding as it was called at that time. Flourished between white men and black woman in egypt at the time. Facts are facts the people who starting the egyptian empire and built the pyramids. Were black thats it. Unitl the romans, greeks, and persians came later.

[truthhurts]

Originally Posted by LM1

I haven't been to that exact museum, however, given the marvels of modern technology, I'm able to see some pretty interesting examples of "Egyptian sculpture" sitting right here at my computer.

Here are the first few that popped up (representing human forms)



Anyway, I don't think anyone disagrees that blacks were represented in Egyptian culture. Of course they were.
It's just this bullsht revisionist history that tries to suggest that all Egyptians were black- that's entirely contrary to the existing body of ancient Egyptian iconography we have to go by. It isn't that white people are "up in arms" about anything... It's just that history is pretty clear and it says otherwise (actually, it says the exact opposite)

LM1 What race of people would you say these children belong to?




Okay LM1 You win I just found a historical accurate picture of the true Egyptians what ever was I thinking. I was totally tricked by the actual artifacts at the Berlin Musuem. Silly little me thinking a country in Africa might have black looking people.

[johndoeboy]

Originally Posted by LM1

There were plenty of Sub-Saharan genetics in Egypt. Pretty obvious why (same continent, and all). Still, though, to say that "Egyptians Are Black ZOMG!" is laughably off base.
They were a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society.
North-Africans are not the same as Sub-Saharan's, even though their genetics have been intermixing since the beginning of time.

Here's a girl from Morocco.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/f/ff/200px-Aa6cre2.jpg (broken link)

Here's a girl from Lybia

http://www.nageco.com/21f2e3e0.jpg (broken link)

And don't think I dug for these, either. I simply went to google images and typed in "Moroccan Girl" and "Libyan Girl". They were on the first line.

Truth hurst that last picture was funny. I get the sacarsim the picture doesn't even look real. It is funny that people want to argue about the egyptians looking black when the country is in africa. Why wouldn't a country in africa have black looking people. Truth hurts you couldn't be more correct it seems egypt is the only country in africa that people argue whether they were black. When egypt still has blacks living there in 2008.



LM1 i agree with you to a point. Yes the egyptians today are mixed of diffrent races and cultures. But im specifically talking about the ancient egyptians. Not the egyptians today that came from persians, arabs, greeks, and romans conquereing egypt.

[macmeal]

I always heard there were actually THREE races known in ancient Egypt...Chariot, Camel, and Horse. Later on a fourth race appeared--"stock car". But it was looked at as 'foreign' and has never been truly accepted as an Egyptian race.

[fred5]

The founders of the Egyptian dynastic period were an African people who would be classified as "black" the way the term is defined today. The origins of Egyptian civilization started in the south, and the Egyptians themselves believed their ancestral home was the Land of Punt (present day Somalia). Being that Egypt was centrally located, there were migrations from Asia, especially in the north. But it is not a stretch to suggest that the dynastic period was black.

[cpg35223]

Okay, this discussion is getting more abstruse by the entry, but I'll add this for consideration.

Herodotus travelled to both Egypt and Ethiopia. He does indeed describe Egyptians as having darker skin than Greeks. I quote:

"For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are their neighbours, say that they have learnt it lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise circumcision, and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians. Of the Egyptians themselves however and the Ethiopians, I am not able to say which learnt from the other, for undoubtedly it is a most ancient custom; but that the other nations learnt it by intercourse with the Egyptians, this among others is to me a strong proof, namely that those of the Phenicians who have intercourse with Hellas cease to follow the example of the Egyptians in this matter, and do not circumcise their children."
(Herodotus, The Histories, Book 2: 104)

Now the highlighted text is significant. If Egyptians were black, rather than Semitic, why would this distinction be made? Herodotus did write a rather gossipy version of history when it came to major figures and events. But he was also quite accurate in describing things he witnessed personally.

[Moth]

Why don't you guys sponsor a series of DNA tests and settle this once and for all?