Ancient Egyptian race controversy

This article is about the history of the controversy eyes, their crushed noses, and their thick lips ... the an-
about the race of the ancient Egyptians. For dis- cient Egyptians were true negroes of the same type as
cussion of the scientic evidence relating to the race all native born Africans.[6][7] Just a few years later, in
of the ancient Egyptians, see Population history of Egypt. 1839, Champollion stated in his work Egypte Ancienne
that the Egyptians and Nubians are represented in the
The question of the race of ancient Egyptians was same manner in tomb paintings and reliefs, further sug-
raised historically as a product of the scientic racism of gesting that: In the Copts of Egypt, we do not nd any of
the 18th and 19th centuries, and was linked to models the characteristic features of the Ancient Egyptian pop-
of racial hierarchy based on skin color, facial features, ulation. The Copts are the result of crossbreeding with
hair texture and genetic aliations. A variety of views all the nations that successfully dominated Egypt. It is
circulated about the racial identity of the Egyptians and wrong to seek in them the principal features of the old
the source of their culture.[1] These were typically iden- race.[8] Also in 1839, Champollions and Volneys claims
tied in terms of a distinction between the Caucasoid were disputed by Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac,
and Negroid racial categories. Some scholars argued that who blamed the ancients for spreading a false impression
ancient Egyptian culture was inuenced by other Afro- of a Negro Egypt, stating The opinion that the ancient
Asiatic-speaking populations in Northeast Africa or the population of Egypt belonged to the Negro African race,
Middle East, while others pointed to inuences from var- is an error long accepted as the truth.... Volneys conclu-
ious Nubian groups or populations in Europe. sion as to the Negro origin of the ancient Egyptian civi-
lization is evidently forced and inadmissible.[9]
Since the second half of the 20th century, many anthro-
pologists have rejected the notion of race as having any The debate over the race of the Ancient Egyptians in-
validity in the study of human biology.[2][3] Typological tensied during the movement to abolish slavery in the
United States, as arguments relating to the justications
and hierarchical models of race have increasingly been
rejected by scientists in favour of models of societal de- for slavery increasingly asserted the historical, mental
and physical inferiority of black people. For example,
velopment based on geographical origin.
in 1851, John Campbell directly challenged the claims
However, the question of the phenotypical characteristics by Champollion and others regarding the evidence for a
(skin color, facial features, hair texture) and genetic al- black Egypt, asserting There is one great diculty, and
iations of the ancient Egyptians remains a point of study to my mind an insurmountable one, which is that the ad-
and debate.[4] vocates of the negro civilization of Egypt do not attempt
to account for, how this civilization was lost.... Egypt
progressed, and why, because it was Caucasian.[10] The
1 History arguments regarding the race of the Egyptians became
more explicitly tied to the debate over slavery in the
United States as the United States escalated towards civil
The earliest examples of disagreement regarding the race war.[11] In 1854, Josiah Nott with George Glidden set out
of the ancient Egyptians occurred in the work of Eu- to prove: that the Caucasian or white, and the Negro
ropeans and Americans early in the 19th century. One races were distinct at a very remote date, and that the
early example of such an attempt was an article published Egyptians were Caucasians."[12] Samuel George Morton,
in the New-England Magazine of October 1833, where a physician and professor of anatomy, concluded that al-
the authors dispute a claim that Herodotus was given as though Negroes were numerous in Egypt, but their so-
authority for their being negroes. They point out with cial position in ancient times was the same that it now
reference to tomb paintings: It may be observed that is [in the United States], that of servants and slaves.[13]
the complexion of the men is invariably red, that of the In the early 20th century, Flinders Petrie, a Professor of
women yellow; but neither of them can be said to have Egyptology at the University of London, in turn spoke
anything in their physiognomy at all resembling the Negro of a Nubian queen, Aohmes Nefertari, who was the di-
countenance.[5] vine ancestress of the XVIIIth dynasty. He described her
In the 18th century, Count Volney wrote The Copts physically as having had an aquiline nose, long and thin,
are the proper representatives of the Ancient Egyptians and was of a type not in the least prognathous.[14]
due to their jaundiced and fumed skin, which is nei-
ther Greek, Negro nor Arab, their full faces, their puy

1
2 3 SPECIFIC CURRENT-DAY CONTROVERSIES

2 Position of modern scholarship Valley, and was made up of people from north and south
of the Sahara who were dierentiated by their color.[26]
The arguments for all sides are recorded in the UNESCO
Main article: Population history of Egypt
publication General History of Africa,[27] with the Ori-
See also: DNA history of Egypt
gin of the Egyptians chapter being written by Diop.
In 1975, the mummy of Ramesses II was taken to France
Modern scholars who have studied Ancient Egyptian cul-
for preservation. The mummy was also forensically tested
ture and population history have responded to the contro-
by Professor Pierre-Fernand Ceccaldi, the chief foren-
versy over the race of the Ancient Egyptians in dierent
sic scientist at the Criminal Identication Laboratory
ways.
of Paris. Professor Ceccaldi determined that: Hair,
Since the second half of the 20th century, most anthro- astonishingly preserved, showed some complementary
pologists have rejected the notion of race as having any data - especially about pigmentation: Ramses II was a
validity in the study of human biology.[2][3] Stuart Tyson Red haired 'cymnotriche leucoderma'. The description
Smith writes in the 2001 Oxford Encyclopedia of An- given here refers to a fair-skinned person with wavy Red
cient Egypt, Any characterization of race of the ancient hair.[28][29]
Egyptians depends on modern cultural denitions, not
In 1996, the Indianapolis Museum of Art published a
on scientic study. Thus, by modern American stan-
collection of essays, which included contributions from
dards it is reasonable to characterize the Egyptians as
leading experts in various elds including archaeology,
'black', while acknowledging the scientic evidence for
art history, physical anthropology, African studies,
the physical diversity of Africans.[15] Frank M. Snowden
Egyptology, Afrocentric studies, linguistics, and classical
asserts Egyptians, Greeks and Romans attached no spe-
studies. While the contributors diered in some opin-
cial stigma to the colour of the skin and developed no hi-
ions, the consensus of the authors was that Ancient Egypt
erarchical notions of race whereby highest and lowest po-
was a Northeast African civilization (although ethnic type
sitions in the social pyramid were based on colour.[16][17]
was not mentioned), based on Egypts geographic loca-
Additionally, typological and hierarchical models of race
tion on the African continent.[20]
have increasingly been rejected by scientists in favour of
models of geographical origin. In 2008, S. O. Y. Keita wrote There is no scientic rea-
son to believe that the primary ancestors of the Egyp-
It is now largely agreed that Dynastic Egyptians were in-
tian population emerged and evolved outside of northeast
digenous to the Nile area. About 5,000 years ago, the
Africa.... The basic overall genetic prole of the modern
Sahara area dried out, and part of the indigenous Saharan
population is consistent with the diversity of ancient pop-
population retreated east towards the Nile Valley. In ad-
ulations that would have been indigenous to northeastern
dition, peoples from the Middle East entered the Nile Val-
Africa and subject to the range of evolutionary inuences
ley, bringing with them wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and
over time, although researchers vary in the details of their
possibly cattle.[18] Dynastic Egyptians referred to their
explanations of those inuences.[30]
country as The Two Lands. During the Predynastic pe-
riod (about 4800 to 4300BC), the Merimde culture our-
ished in the northern part of Egypt (Lower Egypt).[19]
This culture, among others, has links to the Levant in the 3 Specic current-day controver-
Middle East.[20][21] The pottery of the later Buto Maadi
culture, best known from the site at Maadi near Cairo,
sies
also shows connections to the southern Levant as well.[22]
In the southern part of Egypt (Upper Egypt), the predy- Since the 1970s, the issues regarding the race of the
nastic Badarian culture was followed by the Naqada cul- ancient Egyptians have been troubled waters which
ture. These people seem to be more closely related to the most people who write (in the United States) about an-
Nubians than with northern Egyptians.[23][24] cient Egypt from within the mainstream of scholarship
avoid.[31] The debate, therefore, takes place mainly in
Due to its geographical location at the crossroads of sev- the public sphere and tends to focus on a small number of
eral major cultural areas, Egypt has experienced a num- specic issues.
ber of foreign invasions during historical times, including
by the Canaanites (Hyksos), the Libyans, the Nubians, the
Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonian 3.1 Tutankhamun
Greeks, the Romans (Byzantium in late antiquity/early
Middle Ages), the Arabs, the Turks, and the British. Several Afrocentric scholars, including Diop, have
At the UNESCO Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient claimed that Tutankhamun was black, and have protested
Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script in that attempted reconstructions of Tutankhamuns facial
Cairo in 1974, the Black Hypothesis met with profound features (as depicted on the cover of National Geographic
disagreement.[25] Most participants concluded that the Magazine) have represented the king as too white.
Ancient Egyptian population was indigenous to the Nile Among these writers was Chancellor Williams, who ar-
3.3 Great Sphinx of Giza 3

gued that King Tutankhamun, his parents, and grandpar- Macedonian family had intermingled with the Persian
ents were black.[32] aristocracy of the time. However, her mothers identity
[46]
Forensic artists and physical anthropologists from Egypt, is uncertain, and that of her paternal grandmother is
France, and the United States independently created busts also not known for certain.[47]
of Tutankhamun, using a CT-scan of the skull. Biological The question was the subject of a heated exchange be-
anthropologist Susan Anton, the leader of the American tween Mary Lefkowitz, who has referred in her articles
team, said the race of the skull was hard to call. She to a debate she had with one of her students about the
stated that the shape of the cranial cavity indicated an question of whether Cleopatra was black, and Mole
African, while the nose opening suggested narrow nos- Kete Asante, Professor of African American Studies at
trils, which is usually considered to be a European char- Temple University. In response to Not Out of Africa by
acteristic. The skull was thus concluded to be that of a Lefkowitz, Asante wrote the article Race in Antiquity:
North African.[33] Other experts have argued that neither Truly Out of Africa, in which he emphasized that he can
skull shapes nor nasal openings are a reliable indication say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time
of race.[34] arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black.[48]
Although modern technology can reconstruct Tu- In 2009, a BBC documentary speculated that Arsinoe
tankhamuns facial structure with a high degree of IV, the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, may have been
accuracy, based on CT data from his mummy,[35][36] part African and then further speculated that Cleopatras
determining his skin tone and eye color is impossible. mother, thus Cleopatra herself, might also have been part
The clay model was therefore given a coloring, which, African. This was based largely on the claims of Hilke
according to the artist, was based on an average shade Thr of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who in the
of modern Egyptians.[37] 1990s had examined a headless skeleton of a female child
in a 20 BC tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together
Terry Garcia, National Geographic 's executive vice pres-
ident for mission programs, said, in response to some of with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing
skull. He identied the body as that of Arsinoe.[49][50]
those protesting against the Tutankhamun reconstruction:
The big variable is skin tone. North Africans, we know Arsinoe and Cleopatra, shared the same father (Ptolemy
XII Auletes) but had dierent mothers.[51]
today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In
this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say,
quite up front, 'This is midrange.' We will never know 3.3 Great Sphinx of Giza
for sure what his exact skin tone was or the color of his
eyes with 100% certainty.... Maybe in the future, people The identity of the model for the Great Sphinx of Giza
will come to a dierent conclusion.[38] is unknown.[52] Virtually all Egyptologists and scholars
When pressed on the issue by American activists in currently believe that the face of the Sphinx represents
September 2007, the current Secretary General of the the likeness of the Pharaoh Khafra, although a few Egyp-
Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi tologists and interested amateurs have proposed several
Hawass stated Tutankhamun was not black.[39] dierent hypotheses.
In a November 2007 publication of Ancient Egypt Maga- Numerous scholars, such as DuBois,[53][54][55] Diop,
zine, Hawass asserted that none of the facial reconstruc- Asante,[56] and Volney,[57] have characterized the face of
tions resemble Tut and that, in his opinion, the most ac- the Sphinx as Black, or "Negroid". Around 1785 Vol-
curate representation of the boy king is the mask from his ney stated, When I visited the sphinx ... on seeing that
tomb.[40] The Discovery Channel commissioned a facial head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered
reconstruction of Tutankhamun, based on CT scans of a ... Herodotus says: "... the Egyptians ... are black with
model of his skull, back in 2002.[41][42] woolly hair....[58] Another early description of a Ne-
groid Sphinx is recorded in the travel notes of a French
scholar, who visited in Egypt between 1783 and 1785,
3.2 Cleopatra VII Constantin-Franois Chassebuf[59] along with French
novelist Gustave Flaubert.[60]
Further information: Cleopatra VII American geologist Robert M. Schoch has written that
the Sphinx has a distinctive African, Nubian, or Negroid
[61]
The race and skin color of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of aspect which is lacking in the face of Khafre.
the Greek Ptolomaic dynasty of Egypt, established in 323
BCE, has also caused frequent debate.[43] For example,
the article Was Cleopatra Black? was published in Ebony 3.4 Kemet
magazine in 2012,[44] and an article about Afrocentrism
from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch mentions the ques- Main article: Km (hieroglyph)
tion, too.[45] Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as of
Greek and Persian ancestry, based on fact that her Greek Ancient Egyptians referred to their homeland as Kmt
4 3 SPECIFIC CURRENT-DAY CONTROVERSIES

(conventionally pronounced as Kemet). According to of a red, copper-colored complexion ... among African
Cheikh Anta Diop, the Egyptians referred to themselves tribes.[79] Conversely, Najovits states Egyptian art de-
as Black people or kmt, and km was the etymologi- picted Egyptians on the one hand and Nubians and other
cal root of other words, such as Kam or Ham, which blacks on the other hand with distinctly dierent ethnic
refer to Black people in Hebrew tradition.[62][63] A re- characteristics and depicted this abundantly and often ag-
view of David Goldenbergs The Curse of Ham: Race and gressively. The Egyptians accurately, arrogantly and ag-
Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam states gressively made national and ethnic distinctions from a
that Goldenberg argues persuasively that the biblical very early date in their art and literature.[80] He contin-
name Ham bears no relationship at all to the notion of ues, There is an extraordinary abundance of Egyptian
blackness and as of now is of unknown etymology.[64] works of art which clearly depicted sharply contrasted
Diop,[65] William Leo Hansberry,[65] and Aboubacry reddish-brown Egyptians and black Nubians.[80]
Moussa Lam[66] have argued that kmt was derived from However Manu Ampim, a professor at Merritt College
the skin color of the Nile valley people, which Diop et
specializing in African and African American history and
al. claim was black.[67][68] The claim that the Ancient culture, claims in the book Modern Fraud: The Forged
Egyptians had black skin has become a cornerstone of Ancient Egyptian Statues of Ra-Hotep and Nofret, that
Afrocentric historiography.[65] many ancient Egyptian statues and artworks are mod-
Mainstream scholars hold that kmt means the black land ern frauds that have been created specically to hide the
or the black place, and that this is a reference to the fact that the ancient Egyptians were black, while au-
fertile black soil that was washed down from Central thentic artworks that demonstrate black characteristics
Africa by the annual Nile inundation. By contrast the are systematically defaced or even modied. Ampim
barren desert outside the narrow connes of the Nile repeatedly makes the accusation that the Egyptian author-
watercourse was called drt (conventionally pronounced ities are systematically destroying evidence that proves
deshret) or the red land.[65][69] Raymond Faulkners that the ancient Egyptians were black, under the guise
Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian translates kmt into of renovating and conserving the applicable temples and
Egyptians,[70] Gardiner translates it as the Black Land, structures. He further accuses European scholars of
Egypt.[71] wittingly participating in and abetting this process.[81][82]
At the UNESCO Symposium in 1974, Professors Ampim has a specic concern about the painting of the
Sauneron, Obenga, and Diop concluded that KMT and Table of Nations in the Tomb of Ramses III (KV11).
KM meant black.[72] However, Professor Sauneron clari- The Table of Nations is a standard painting that ap-
ed that the adjective Kmtyw means people of the black pears in a number of tombs, and they were usually pro-
land rather than black people, and that the Egyptians vided for the guidance of the soul of the deceased.[74][83]
never used the adjective Kmtyw to refer to the various Among other things, it described the four races of men
black peoples they knew of, they only used it to refer to as follows: (translation by E.A. Wallis Budge:[83] The
themselves.[73] rst are RETH, the second are AAMU, the third are NE-
HESU, and the fourth are THEMEHU. The RETH are
Egyptians, the AAMU are dwellers in the deserts to the
3.5 Ancient Egyptian art east and north-east of Egypt, the NEHESU are the black
races, and the THEMEHU are the fair-skinned Libyans.
Ancient Egyptian tombs and temples contained thousands The archaeologist Richard Lepsius documented many an-
of paintings, sculptures, and written works, which reveal cient Egyptian tomb paintings in his work Denkmler aus
a great deal about the people of that time. However, their Aegypten und Aethiopien. In 1913, after the death of Lep-
depictions of themselves in their surviving art and arti- sius, an updated reprint of the work was produced, edited
facts are rendered in sometimes symbolic, rather than re- by Kurt Sethe. This printing included an additional sec-
alistic, pigments. As a result, ancient Egyptian artifacts tion, called the Ergnzungsband in German, which in-
provide sometimes conicting and inconclusive evidence corporated many illustrations that did not appear in Lep-
of the ethnicity of the people who lived in Egypt during siuss original work. One of them, plate 48, illustrated
dynastic times.[74][75][76] one example of each of the four nations as depicted in
In 1839, Champollion states in his work Egypte Anci- KV11, and shows the Egyptian nation and the Nubian
enne that the Egyptians and Nubians are represented in nation as identical to each other in skin color and dress.
the same manner in tomb paintings and reliefs. Univer- Professor Ampim has declared that plate 48 is a true re-
sity of Chicago scholars assert that Nubians are generally ection of the original painting, and that it proves that
depicted with black paint, but the skin pigment used in the ancient Egyptians were identical in appearance to the
Egyptian paintings to refer to Nubians can range from Nubians, even though he admits no other examples of the
dark red to brown to black.[77] This can be observed in Table of Nations show this similarity. He has further
paintings from the tomb of the Egyptian Huy, as well as accused Euro-American writers of attempting to mis-
Ramses IIs temple at Beit el-Wali.[78] Also, Snowden in- lead the public on this issue.[84]
dicates that Romans had accurate knowledge of negroes
4.2 Asiatic Race Theory 5

The late Egyptologist, Dr. Frank Yurco, visited the tomb interpretations of the origin of the name Kmt, conven-
of Ramses III (KV11), and in a 1996 article on the Ram- tionally pronounced Kemet, used by the Ancient Egyp-
ses III tomb reliefs he pointed out that the depiction of tians to describe themselves or their land (depending on
plate 48 in the Erganzungsband section is not a correct points of view),[116] biblical traditions,[117][118] and in-
depiction of what is actually painted on the walls of the terpretations of the depictions of the Egyptians in nu-
tomb. Yurco notes, instead, that plate 48 is a pastiche merous paintings and statues.[119] Other points of the
of samples of what is on the tomb walls, arranged from hypothesis include claimed cultural aliations, such as
Lepsiuss notes after his death, and that a picture of a circumcision,[120] matriarchy, totemism, hair braiding,
Nubian person has erroneously been labeled in the pas- head binding,[121] and kingship cults.[95] Artifacts found
tiche as an Egyptian person. Yurco points also to the at Qustul (near Abu Simbel - Modern Sudan) in 1960
much-more-recent photographs of Dr. Erik Hornung 64 were seen as showing that ancient Egypt and A-
as a correct depiction of the actual paintings.[85] (Erik group Nubia shared the same culture and were part of
Hornung, The Valley of the Kings: Horizon of Eternity, the greater Nile Valley sub-stratum,[122][123][124][125][126]
1990). Ampim nonetheless continues to claim that plate but more recent nds in Egypt indicate that the Qustul
48 shows accurately the images that stand on the walls rulers probably adopted/emulated the symbols of Egyp-
of KV11, and he categorically accuses both Yurco and tian pharaohs.[127][128][129][130][131][132]
Hornung of perpetrating a deliberate deception for the At the UNESCO Symposium on the Peopling of An-
purposes of misleading the public about the true race of cient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script
the Ancient Egyptians.[84] in Cairo in 1974, the Black Hypothesis met with pro-
found disagreement.[25] Most participants concluded
that the Ancient Egyptian population was indigenous
4 Historical hypotheses to the Nile Valley, and was made up of people from
north and south of the Sahara who were dierentiated
by their color.[26] The current position of modern schol-
4.1 Black Egyptian hypothesis arship is that the Egyptian civilization was an indige-
nous Nile Valley development (see population history of
Main article: Black Egyptian Hypothesis Egypt).[133][134][135][136]

The Black Egyptian hypothesis is held by various authors

that Ancient Egypt was a Black civilization. This includes
a particular focus on links to Sub Saharan cultures and
the questioning of the race of specic notable individu- 4.2 Asiatic Race Theory
als from Dynastic times, including Tutankhamun[86] and
the king represented in the Great Sphinx of Giza,[53][61] The Asiatic Race Theory holds that the ancient Egyptians
and Cleopatra.[43][44][45] Since the second half of the 20th were the lineal descendants of the biblical Ham, through
century, typological and hierarchical models of race have his son Mizraim. This theory was the most dominant view
increasingly been rejected by scientists, and most schol-
from the Early Middle Ages (c. 500 AD) all the way up to
ars have held that applying modern notions of race to an- the early 19th century.[137][138] The descendants of Ham
cient Egypt is anachronistic.[87][88][89]
were traditionally considered to be the darkest skinned
Early advocates of the Black African model relied heav- branch of humanity, either because of their geographic
ily on writings from Classical Greek historians, including allotment to Africa or because of the Curse of Ham.[139]
Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Herodotus, wherein the Thus, Diop cites Gaston Maspero Moreover, the Bible
Greeks referred to Egyptians as melanchroes with states that Mesraim, son of Ham. brother of Chus (Kush)
woolly hair.[90][91] The translation of the Greek word ... and of Canaan, came from Mesopotamia to settle with
melanchroes is disputed, being translated either as his children on the banks of the Nile.[140]
black or dark skinned.[90][91][92][93] Snowden claims By the 20th century, the Asiatic Race Theory and its var-
that Diop is distorting his classical sources and is quoting ious oshoots were abandoned but were superseded by
them selectively.[94] There is dispute about the historical two related theories: the eurocentric Hamitic Hypothesis,
accuracy of the works of Herodotus - some scholars asserting that a Caucasian racial group moved into North
support the reliability of Herodotus[95][96][97][98][99][100] and East Africa from early prehistory subsequently bring-
while other scholars regard his works as being unreli- ing with them all advanced agriculture, technology and
able as historical sources, particularly those relating to civilization and also the Dynastic Race Theory, propos-
Egypt.[101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113] ing that Mesopotamian invaders were responsible for the
Other points used to support the Black Hypothesis in- dynastic civilization of Egypt (c. 3000 BC). In sharp con-
cluded testing melanin levels in a small sample of trast to the Asiatic Race Theory neither of these theories
mummies,[114] arguing that the Ancient Egyptian lan- propose that Caucasians were the indigenous inhabitants
guage was related to Diops native Wolof (Senegal),[115] of Egypt.[141]
6 6 NOTES

4.3 Caucasian / Hamitic hypothesis the Tartars.[155]

In 1844, Samuel George Morton wrote that the Nile val-

ley was originally peopled by a branch of the Caucasian 4.5 Dynastic race theory
race,[142] and acknowledged that Negroes were present
in ancient Egypt but claimed they were either captives or Main article: Dynastic Race Theory
servants.[143] George Gliddon (1844) wrote: The Egyp-
tians were white men, of no darker hue than a pure Arab, In the early 20th century, Sir William Matthew Flinders
a Jew, or a Phoenician.[144] Petrie, one of the leading Egyptologists of his day, noted
The similar Hamitic hypothesis, which developed directly that the skeletal remains found at predynastic sites at
from the Asiatic Race Theory, argued that the Ethiopid Naqada in Upper Egypt showed marked dierentiation.
and Arabid populations of the Horn of Africa were the in- Together with cultural evidence such as architectural
ventors of agriculture and had brought all civilization to styles, pottery styles, cylinder seals, and numerous rock
Africa, and asserted that these people were Caucasians, and tomb paintings, he deduced that a Mesopotamian
not Negroid. It also rejected any Biblical basis despite force had invaded Egypt in predynastic times, imposed
using Hamitic as the theorys name.[145] Charles Gabriel itself on the indigenous Badarian people, and become
Seligman in his Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in their rulers. This came to be called the "Dynastic
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1913) and later works argued Race Theory".[133][156] The theory further argued that the
that the ancient Egyptians were among this group of Cau- Mesopotamian founded state or states then conquered
casian Hamites, having arrived in the Nile Valley during both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dy-
early prehistory and introduced technology and agricul- nasty.
ture to primitive natives they found there.[146] In the 1950s, the Dynastic Race Theory was widely ac-
The Italian anthropologist Giuseppe Sergi (1901) be- cepted by mainstream scholarship. Scholars such as
lieved that ancient Egyptians were the Eastern African the Senegalese Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop, fought
(Hamitic) branch of the Mediterranean race, which he against the Dynastic Race Theory with their own Black
called Eurafrican. According to Sergi, the Mediter- Egyptian theory and claimed, among other things, that
ranean race or Eurafrican contains three varieties or European scholars supported the Dynastic Race Theory
sub-races: the African (Hamitic) branch, the Mediter- to avoid having to admit that Ancient Egyptians were
[157]
ranean proper branch and the Nordic (depigmen- black. Bernal proposed that the Dynastic Race the-
tated) branch. [147]
Sergi maintained in summary that the ory was conceived by European scholars to deny Egypt
[158]
Mediterranean race (excluding the depigmentated Nordic its African roots.
or 'white') is: a brown human variety, neither white nor Contemporary consensus suggests that Egyptian civiliza-
Negroid, but pure in its elements, that is to say not a prod- tion was an indigenous Nile Valley development (see
uct of the mixture of Whites with Negroes or Negroid population history of Egypt).[133][134][135][136]
peoples.[148] Grafton Elliot Smith modied the theory in
1911,[149] stating that the ancient Egyptians were a dark
haired brown race,[150] most closely linked by the clos- 5 See also
est bonds of racial anity to the Early Neolithic popula-
tions of the North African littoral and South Europe,[151]
Fayum mummy portraits
and not Negroid.[152] Smiths brown race is not synony-
[153]
mous or equivalent with Sergis Mediterranean race. Demographics of modern Egypt
The Hamitic Hypothesis was still popular in the 1960s Dynastic race theory
and late '70s and was supported notably by Anthony John
Arkell and George Peter Murdock.[154] Ngritude
Archaeogenetics of the Near East

4.4 Turanid race hypothesis Egyptomania

Biological Anthropology
The Egyptologist Samuel Sharpe (1846) proposed that
the ancient Egyptians belonged to the Turanid race, link- History of Anthropology
ing them to the Tatars. He was inspired by some ancient
Egyptian paintings, which depict Egyptians with sallow
or yellowish skin. He said From the colour given to the 6 Notes
women in their paintings we learn that their skin was yel-
low, like that of the Mongul Tartars, who have given their [1] Edith Sanders: The Hamitic hypothesis: its origin and
name to the Mongolian variety of the human race.... The functions in time perspective, The Journal of African His-
single lock of hair on the young nobles reminds us also of tory, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1969), pp. 521532
 7

[2] American Anthropological Association Statement on [21] Josef Eiwanger: Merimde Beni-salame, In: Encyclopedia
Race, American Anthropologist Volume 100. Arlington of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Compiled and edited
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[19] Bogucki, Peter I. (1999). The origins of human society. [34] Skull Indices in a Population Collected From Com-
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[35] discovery reconstruction. [56] Asante, Mole Kete (1996). European Racism Regard-
ing Ancient Egypt: Egypt in Africa. Indianapolis, Indiana:
[36] Science museum images. Sciencemuseum.org.uk. Re- Indiana University Press. p. 117. ISBN 0-936260-64-5.
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[57] Diop, Cheikh Anta (1974). The African Origin of Civi-
[37] King Tuts New Face: Behind the Forensic Reconstruc- lization. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. pp. 27,
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[58] Diop, Cheikh Anta (1974). The African Origin of Civi-
[38] Henerson, Evan (June 15, 2005). King Tuts skin colour
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a topic of controversy. U-Daily News L.A. Life. Re-
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[39] Tutankhamun was not black: Egypt antiquities chief. [59] Constantin-Franois Chassebuf saw the Sphinx as typ-
AFP. 2007-09-25. Retrieved 2012-02-27. ically negro in all its features"; Volney, Constantin-
Franois de Chasseboeuf, Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie,
[40] Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue 44, OctoberNovember Paris, 1825, page 65
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azine). [60] "... its head is grey, ears very large and protruding like a
negros ... the fact that the nose is missing increases the
[41] "File:Tutmask.jpg - Wikimedia Commons. Com- at, negroid eect ... the lips are thick.... Flaubert, Gus-
mons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2012-05-01. tave. Flaubert in Egypt, ed. Francis Steegmuller. (Lon-
don: Penguin Classics, 1996). ISBN 978-0-14-043582-5.
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seum.org.uk. Retrieved 2012-05-01. [61] Robert Schoch, Great Sphinx Controversy.
robertschoch.net. 1995. Retrieved May 29, 2012.,
[43] Hugh B. Price, Was Cleopatra Black?". The Baltimore A modied version of this manuscript was published in
Sun. September 26, 1991. Retrieved May 28, 2012. the Fortean Times (P.O. Box 2409, London NW5 4NP)
[44] Charles Whitaker, Was Cleopatra Black?". Ebony. No. 79, FebruaryMarch, 1995, pp. 34 39.
February 2002. Retrieved May 28, 2012. The author
[62] Mokhtar, G. (1990). General History of Africa II: An-
cites a few examples of the claim, one of which is a chap-
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ter titled Black Warrior Queens, published in 1984 in
California Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-520-06697-9.
Black Women in Antiquity, part of The Journal of African
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Rogers. tion. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. pp. 246
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[45] Mona Charen, Afrocentric View Distorts History and
Achievement by Blacks. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Febru-
[64] Levine, Molly Myerowitz (2004). David M. Goldenberg,
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The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism,
[46] Tyldesley, p. 30, suggests Cleopatra V as the most likely Christianity, and Islam.. Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
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[47] Tyldesley p. 32 [65] Shavit 2001: 148

[48] Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa By Mole Kete [66] Aboubacry Moussa Lam, L'gypte ancienne et
Asante l'Afrique, in Maria R. Turano et Paul Vandepitte, Pour
une histoire de l'Afrique, 2003, pp. 50 &51
[49] Foggo, Daniel (2009-03-15). Found the sister Cleopatra
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fornia, USA: University of California Press. pp. 21, 26.
[50] Cleopatras mother 'was African' BBC (2009) ISBN 0-520-06697-9.
[51] The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia, By Sarah Fielding, [68] Herodotus (2003). The Histories. London, England: Pen-
Christopher D. Johnson, p. 154, Bucknell University guin Books. pp. 134135, 640. ISBN 978-0-14-044908-
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[52] Hassan, Selim (1949). The Sphinx: Its history in the light
[69] Kemp, Barry J. (2006). Ancient Egypt: Anatomy Of A
of recent excavations. Cairo: Government Press, 1949.
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[54] Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1915). The Negro. tian, Oxford: Grith Institute, 2002, p. 286.
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[71] Gardiner, Alan (1957) [1927]. Egyptian Grammar: Being
[55] Black man of the Nile and his family, by Yosef Ben- an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs (3 ed.). Grith
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[72] Mokhtar, G. (1990). General History of Africa. Califor- [88] Contemporary physical anthropologists recognise
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[101] Fehling, in Travel Fact and Travel Fiction [110] The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and
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[130] Early Dynastic Egypt, by Toby A. H. Wilkinson, p. 39, at [151] Smith, 1911, p. 25.

[131] Between Two Worlds: The Frontier Region Between An- [152] As according to Smith the hair of the Proto-Egyptian was
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[134] Prehistory and Protohsitory of Egypt, Emile Massoulard, Gaey, 1966, p. 4.
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[135] Frank Yurco, An Egyptological Review in Mary R.
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Frank M. Snowden, Jr.: Bernals Blacks and the

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 13

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