The Original Egyptians were black (Mexico, Spanish, countries, Columbus)
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The ancient Egyptian language (of which a descendant, Coptic, survives to this day) was an Afro-Asiatic language related to the Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic), Berber, and the Kush languages of the Horn of Africa. The ancient Egyptians probably looked very similar to modern-day Arabs and Berbers, with possibly some Nubian and/or Kush ancestry.
The Egyptian royal dynasties changed many times. One dynasty, the Twenty-Fifth, included several rulers from the Nubian royal family. They would have been black. They were driven back to Nubia by the Assyrian invasion. There's a good article about them in a recent issue of National Geographic.
Modern-day blacks and African-Americans have plenty of history and ancient culture to look to. Ancient Egypt fascinates people around the globe to this day. But to call them black is as false as to call them white. They were closely related to Semites, and their art portrayed outsiders (including Sub-Saharan Africans) as looking quite different than Egyptians. Research the civilizations of Nubia and the Ghanian Empire if you'd like to discover some African history that is without a doubt black.
Also, I had to edit this because the forum mangled the word Kush.
Last edited by Mississippienne; 02-13-2008 at 10:45 PM..
Reason: sp -- mangled Kush
The ancient Egyptian language (of which a descendant, Coptic, survives to this day) was an Afro-Asiatic language related to the Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic), Berber, and the Kush languages of the Horn of Africa. The ancient Egyptians probably looked very similar to modern-day Arabs and Berbers, with possibly some Nubian and/or Kush ancestry.
The Egyptian royal dynasties changed many times. One dynasty, the Twenty-Fifth, included several rulers from the Nubian royal family. They would have been black. They were driven back to Nubia by the Assyrian invasion. There's a good article about them in a recent issue of National Geographic.
Modern-day blacks and African-Americans have plenty of history and ancient culture to look to. Ancient Egypt fascinates people around the globe to this day. But to call them black is as false as to call them white. They were closely related to Semites, and their art portrayed outsiders (including Sub-Saharan Africans) as looking quite different than Egyptians. Research the civilizations of Nubia and the Ghanian Empire if you'd like to discover some African history that is without a doubt black.
Also, I had to edit this because the forum mangled the word Kush.
Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture
Christopher Ehret
Professor of History, African Studies Chair
University of California at Los Angeles
Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.
The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.
A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.
During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period.
One of the exciting archeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East.
One major technological advance, pottery-making, was also initiated as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East.
Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era.
But several notable early Egyptian crops came from Sudanic agriculture, independently invented between 7500 and 6000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharan peoples (Ehret 1993:104-125). One such cultivated crop was the edible gourd. The botanical evidence is confirmed in this case by linguistics: Egyptian bdt, or "bed of gourds" (Late Egyptian bdt, "gourd; cucumber"), is a borrowing of the Nilo-Saharan word *bud, "edible gourd." Other early Egyptian crops of Sudanic origin included watermelons and castor beans. (To learn more on how historians use linguistic evidence, see note at end of this article.)
Between about 5000 and 3000 B.C. a new era of southern cultural influences took shape. Increasing aridity pushed more of the human population of the eastern Sahara into areas with good access to the waters of the Nile, and along the Nile the bottomlands were for the first time cleared and farmed. The Egyptian stretches of the river came to form the northern edge of a newly emergent Middle Nile Culture Area, which extended far south up the river, well into the middle of modern-day Sudan. Peoples speaking languages of the Eastern Sahelian branch of the Nilo-Saharan family inhabited the heartland of this region.
From the Middle Nile, Egypt gained new items of livelihood between 5000 and 3000 B.C. One of these was a kind of cattle pen: its Egyptian name, s3 (earlier *sr), can be derived from the Eastern Sahelian term *sar. Egyptian pg3, "bowl," (presumably from earlier pgr), a borrowing of Nilo-Saharan *poKur, "wooden bowl or trough," reveals still another adoption in material culture that most probably belongs to this era.
One key feature of classical Egyptian political culture, usually assumed to have begun in Egypt, also shows strong links to the southern influences of this period. We refer here to a particular kind of sacral chiefship that entailed, in its earliest versions, the sending of servants into the afterlife along with the deceased chief. The deep roots and wide occurrence of this custom among peoples who spoke Eastern Sahelian languages strongly imply that sacral chiefship began not as a specifically Egyptian invention, but instead as a widely shared development of the Middle Nile Culture Area.
After about 3500 B.C., however, Egypt would have started to take on a new role vis-a-vis the Middle Nile region, simply because of its greater concentration of population. Growing pressures on land and resources soon enhanced and transformed the political powers of sacral chiefs. Unification followed, and the local deities of predynastic times became gods in a new polytheism, while sacral chiefs gave way to a divine king. At the same time, Egypt passed from the wings to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.
A Note on the Use of Linguistic Evidence for History
Languages provide a powerful set of tools for probing the cultural history of the peoples who spoke them. Determining the relationships between particular languages, such as the languages of the Afrasian or the Nilo-Saharan family, gives us an outline history of the societies that spoke those languages in the past. And because each word in a language has its own individual history, the vocabulary of every language forms a huge archive of documents. If we can trace a particular word back to the common ancestor language of a language family, then we know that the item of culture connoted by the word was known to the people who spoke the ancestral tongue. If the word underwent a meaning change between then and now, a corresponding change must have taken place in the cultural idea or practice referred to by the word. In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, it attests to a thing or development that passed from the one culture to the other. The English borrowing, for example, of castle, duke, parliament, and many other political and legal terms from Old Norman French are evidence of a Norman period of rule in England, a fact confirmed by documents.
References Cited:
Ehret, Christopher, Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sahelian Neolithic. In African Archaeology: Food, Metals and Towns. T. Shaw, P Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko, eds. pp. 104-125. London: Routledge. 1993
Ehret, Christopher, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone Consonants, and Vocabulary. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Berkeley. 1995
Wendorf, F., et al., Saharan Exploitation of Plants 8000 Years B.P. Nature 359:721-724. 1982
Wendorf, F., R. Schild, and A. Close, eds. Cattle-Keepers of the Eastern Sahara. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, Department of Anthropology. 1984
As a white European, it seems amazing that the common origin of each and everyone of us is in doubt. Go back far enough and we are all related like it or not, and out of Africa. In this respect I consider myself to be related to the ancient Egyptians but I do not doubt they were of a black skin colour, why not?
Although the learned on this thread are outnumbered they have made up for it in quality and as usual education and scholastic interest win the day.
As a white European, it seems amazing that the common origin of each and everyone of us is in doubt. Go back far enough and we are all related like it or not, and out of Africa. In this respect I consider myself to be related to the ancient Egyptians but I do not doubt they were of a black skin colour, why not?
Although the learned on this thread are outnumbered they have made up for it in quality and as usual education and scholastic interest win the day.
I agree "the learned" on this thread have presented more valid evidence for why the Egyptians were Black versus the naysayers ( I also noticed, as did some previous posters, that this evidence was tip-toed around by posters on the other side of the argument) The Greeks themselves regarded the Egyptians as a Black African people. I always found it interesting how no one ever had a problem with European actors representing Egyptians....but let someone even suggest the Egyptians were a Black people, and the sparks start to fly. Kind of like how it's okay for Jesus to be frequently represented as having blond hair and blue eyes (clearly Nordic in origin, and the wrong part of the globe 2000 years ago) and it's A-OK, but let a black actor play the role in a play or movie and it would be a BIG issue. It's veeeery interesting, the forces at work.
I don't see it as black people trying to claim ancient Egypt, insomuch as the rest of the world trying every which way to discredit any connection whatsoever- a movement which did start around the 1800's, and we all know why.
The Egyptians living in Egypt today are no more representative of the Ancient Egyptians than your average American is of the original Native inhabitants of America. Egypt was conquered many times by invaders and Egypt today is the result.
Now, I also believe civilizations do not exist in vacuums, and that there was mixing going on in Egypt. Human beings are not static creations...we move around, we mix, we blend. And interestingly enough, Black Americans, yet another moved around, mixed group of people, do often look similar to historical art of the ancient Egyptians...as was remarked on by a previous poster. It isn't a stretch to say that the ancient Egyptians, if not a Black people, were atleast mixed with Black (actually the latter is pretty much a clear fact). And if so, by today's definitions, would be classified and viewed as Black. Just like Halle Berry, and Barack Obama, and Tiger Woods are, despite being mixed with other races.
I came to this message board looking for some advice on moving and my first post is on whether Egyptians are black. Irony :-)
Anyway, my take on it is that Egyptians were primarily black. Prior to the early 1800's this fact was not in dispute but with the rise of European Imperialism it was going to be very hard to justify teating blacks as less than human with the spectre of a previous black civilization hanging in the back actively refuting that notion. Cheikh Anta Diop wrote about this in "Black Athena" and I may not necesarily agree with all his conclusions I think he has it mainly right. Taking the overwhelming evidence, and the statements of Herodotus and Aristotle and even the sculptures and paintings (if you are in Boston the MFA currently has a permanent Egyptian exhibit, take a look at the faces of the statues). it is pretty obvious that Egyptians were primarily black.
So I am going to take the question and flip it "Given the overwhelming proof that Egypt was dominantly black, why the insistence that they were white?" I think this is due to an overwhelming cultural framework that cannot reconcile an advanced civilation with being black. I am actually fairly intimate with the hamitic ploy used. I am Kenyan, a Kikuyu and the kikuyus are considered bantus. The maasai and somalis are to some extent considered hamitic. This does not square with the fact that there has been a lot of inter-marriage within the Kikuyu and maasai. I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a kikuyu and a maasaiThe hamitic ploy was used by the British during colonial times in their strategy of "Divide and Conquer" The belgians did the same in Rwanda (I challenge most people to differentiate between a hutu and a tutsi). If you look at the language used by the Belgians, you can see what I mean
To quote Mahmood Mandani
"THe idea that the Tutsi waere superior because they came from elsewhere, and that the difference between them and the local population was a racial difference, was an idea of colonial origin. It wa an idea shared by rival colonists, Belgians, Germans, English, all of whom were convinced that wherever in Africa there was evidence of organized state life, there the ruling groups must have come from elsewhere. These mobile groups were known as the Hamites, and the notion that they were the hand behind every bit of civilization on the continent was known as the "Hamitic hypothesis"
I think we see the same idea at play when discussing Egyptian history. A lot of African immigrants to the West (me included) are constantly amazed at how people are shocked that we are just like them ("You had schools!!", "You wore shoes!!" etc etc repeated ad-nauseum). Africa as a continent is hugely diverse and looking through this thread it constantly amazes me that people think all people in Africa are alike. Even in skin tone, my mom is darker than me, my dad was much lighter than me etc etc. I don't think there is any one stereotypical African phenotype. But the physical evidence, the archeological evidence and the written evidence point to ancient Egypt being dominantly African.
We know what the original Egyptians looked like. Sorry, they weren't exclusively subsaharan black Africans anymore than they were blonde Scandanavians. If they were, I wouldn't care either way, but there are actual paintings and murals of ancient Egyptians that survive to this day. But I guess some people would rather believe bogus "the white race was created in a laboratory 6,000 years by an evil Ethiopian scientist" or "Napoleon blew the nose of the Sphinx with a cannon because it had a black nose" Afrocentric type nonsense than what their own lying eyes can see in any Egyptian museum. Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't mean that a large empire like Egypt didn't have some black African subjects in it as it stretched down the Nile but since most of the empire was near the Mediterranean sea most would not be black. But at most, you could say ancient Egypt was multiracial so what is wrong with just accepting that?
We know what the original Egyptians looked like. Sorry, they weren't exclusively subsaharan black Africans anymore than they were blonde Scandanavians. If they were, I wouldn't care either way, but there are actual paintings and murals of ancient Egyptians that survive to this day. But I guess some people would rather believe bogus "the white race was created in a laboratory 6,000 years by an evil Ethiopian scientist" Afrocentric type nonsense than what their own lying eyes can see in any Egyptian museum. Whatever floats your boat. It doesn't mean that a large empire like Egypt didn't have some black African subjects in it as it stretched down the Nile but since most of the empire was near the Mediterranean sea most would not be black. But at most, you could say ancient Egypt was multiracial so what is wrong with just accepting that?
I don't think you get my point. I said that Egypt was primarily black, I didn't state they were exclusively sub-saharan black africans. The physical evidence points to it being dominantly black, Greek historians clearly stated it was black. This is not some ridiculous 'Afrocentric' statement. I think the more relevant question is why, given the physical evidence are people not willing to admit this and the most they grudgingly admit is that it had ' black African subjects' and discounting vehemently any black african influence on Egypt.
baikeli, I really wasn't responding to your thoughtful post but to the original post in the thread which was written quite a while back. Sorry for the confusion.
Egyptians were black, not mixed, not anything else but black. I don't care what the tv shows or the media tells you. Im talking about facts when it comes to the egyptian race.
Queen Nefertiti was a black woman.
Never mind TV, just look at the pictorial evidence left by the ancient egyptians on the walls of tombs. The only blacks depicted were servants. The others are much more fair skined with olive complexion. I have seen Nefertiti's bust at the egyptian museum in Berlin. She was fair skinned. Someone has sold you a load.
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Actually their langeage was African
