The Black African origins of Kemet (ancient Egypt)

[Sir Shawn]

Though this may be a bit of a stray from the overall theme of this forum I felt it as necessary. I was conducting a google search on the subject of ancient Egypt when it lead to a thread on this forum in which many astoundingly ignorant comments were being made about black African history compared to the rest of the world. One of the most interesting comments were regarding ancient Egypt which were apparent attempts to severe it from it's black African roots. The ancient Egyptians came from the Nilotic populations of the fertile ancient Sahara and the Afro Asiatic populations of the Horn. This is a common lie which stemmed from the colonial enslavement and dehumanization of black Africans that continues to be taught in the popular media despite a consensus in academia which annihilates this myth. Here is what real modern scholars have concluded on the matter:

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.

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.......

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

link to the entire article

Genetic migrations from Sub Saharan East African into Egypt and across Northern across correlate with the origins and spread of the Afro-Asiactic languages shown by professor Christopher Ehret above. From Luis et al. 2004

Archaeological evidence simply does not the support the common misconception that Middle Easterners and certainly not Europeans were present or seen in notable numbers during the Pre-Early Dynastic periods:

"The question of the genetic origins of ancient Egyptians, particularly those during the Dynastic period, is relevant to the current study. Modern interpretations of Egyptian state formation propose an indigenous origin of the Dynastic civilization (Hassan, 198. Early Egyptologists considered Upper and Lower Egyptians to be genetically distinct populations, and viewed the Dynastic period as characterized by a conquest of Upper Egypt by the Lower Egyptians. More recent interpretations contend that Egyptians from the south actually expanded into the northern regions during the Dynastic state unification (Hassan, 1988; Savage, 2001), and that the Predynastic populations of Upper and Lower Egypt are morphologically distinct from one another, but not sufficiently distinct to consider either non-indigenous (Zakrzewski, 2007). The Predynastic populations studied here, from Naqada and Badari, are both Upper Egyptian samples, while the Dynastic Egyptian sample (Tarkhan) is from Lower Egypt. The Dynastic Nubian sample is from Upper Nubia (Kerma). Previous analyses of cranial variation found the Badari and Early Predynastic Egyptians to be more similar to other African groups than to Mediterranean or European populations (Keita, 1990; Zakrzewski, 2002). In addition, the Badarians have been described as near the centroid of cranial and dental variation among Predynastic and Dynastic populations studied (Irish, 2006; Zakrzewski, 2007). This suggests that, at least through the Early Dynastic period, the inhabitants of the Nile valley were a continuous population of local origin, and no major migration or replacement events occurred during this time.

Studies of cranial morphology also support the use of a Nubian (Kerma) population for a comparison of the Dynastic period, as this group is likely to be more closely genetically related to the early Nile valley inhabitants than would be the Late Dynastic Egyptians, who likely experienced significant mixing with other Mediterranean populations (Zakrzewski, 2002). A craniometric study found the Naqada and Kerma populations to be morphologically similar (Keita, 1990). Given these and other prior studies suggesting continuity (Berry et al., 1967; Berry and Berry, 1972), and the lack of archaeological evidence of major migration or population replacement during the Neolithic transition in the Nile valley, we may cautiously interpret the dental health changes over time as primarily due to ecological, subsistence, and demographic changes experienced throughout the Nile valley region."

-- AP Starling, JT Stock. (2007). Dental Indicators of Health and Stress in Early Egyptian and Nubian Agriculturalists: A Difficult Transition and Gradual Recovery. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 134:520–528

The peer reviewed article above summarizes what mainstream research has concluded about the population history of ancient Egypt. They clearly find that the crania early ancient Egyptians more closely resembled tropical African populations (like Ethiopians and Somalis) to the south rather than to modern Egyptians, other populations on the Mediterranean or Europe. The dendrogram below is from Kemp 2006 which demonstrates the exact same finding:

(link to study in title above)

Notice that the early Egyptians and Nubians are the most overlapping population on the entire dendrogram. The next in line with the early ancient Egyptians are modern Ethiopians. Leading anthropologist on this subject S.O.Y Keita as groups the early ancient Egyptians with the populations above:

"Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans."(S. O. Y and A.J. Boyce, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 20-33)

This does not mean that modern Egyptians are not the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, because other studies including this one finds continuity from early ancient Egyptians to modern Egyptians. What these findings disproves however is that the phenotype of modern Egyptians is the same as the early ancient Egyptians. This is not surprising due to the fact that modern Egyptians are the result of a mixture of the countless foreign invasions from the Levant and Europe and the original black Africans of ancient Kemet (Egypt's real name). Modern genetic studies have also found some modern Egyptian populations (mostly in the south or isolated) to group closer to Horn Africans than to Northwest Africans and Middle Easterners, based on both common Mtdna and Y-DNA.

"The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of 58 individuals from Upper Egypt, more than half (34 individuals) from Gurna, whose population has an ancient cultural history, were studied by sequencing the control-region and screening diagnostic RFLP markers. This sedentary population presented similarities to the Ethiopian population by the L1 and L2 macrohaplogroup frequency (20.6%), by the West Eurasian component (defined by haplogroups H to K and T to X) and particularly by a high frequency (17.6%) of haplogroup M1. We statistically and phylogenetically analysed and compared the Gurna population with other Egyptian, Near East and sub-Saharan Africa populations; AMOVA and Minimum Spanning Network analysis showed that the Gurna population was not isolated from neighbouring populations. Our results suggest that the Gurna population has conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. The current structure of the Egyptian population may be the result of further influence of neighbouring populations on this ancestral population."(Stevanovitch A, Gilles A, Bouzaid E, et al. (2004) Mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in a sedentary population from Egypt.Ann Hum Genet. 68(Pt 1):23-39.)

This is not "AFROCENTRIC" but simply the TRUTH!

 

[Sir Shawn]

Other researchers have concluded that the general population of ancient Egypt was 'super tropically adapted' like the tropical Africans to the south of them. Based on ecological principal populations who have super tropically adapted body plans are within the range of the world's darkest skin colors:

"The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983).. This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003). "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (3): 219-229.

What do limb proportions indicate:

"In this regard it is interesting to note that limb proportions of Predynastic Naqada people in Upper Egypt are reported to be "Super-Negroid," meaning that the distal segments are elongated in the fashion of tropical Africans.....skin color intensification and distal limb elongation are apparent wherever people have been long-term residents of the tropics." (-- C.L. Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters..")

The skin color of early ancient Egypt nobles was found to have been packed with melanin like other black Africans to the south:

"During an excavation headed by the German Institute for Archaeology, Cairo, at the tombs of the nobles in Thebes-West, Upper Egypt, three types of tissues from different mummies were sampled to compare 13 well known rehydration methods for mummified tissue with three newly developed methods. .. Skin sections showed particularly good tissue preservation, although cellular outlines were never distinct. Although much of the epidermis had already separated from the dermis, the remaining epidermis often was preserved well (Fig. 1). The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin."
--(A-M Mekota and M Vermehren. (2005) Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues. Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005, Vol. 80, No. 1, Pages 7-13

Here are some images that based on my own subjective viewpoint (which is all that imagery can provide) illustrate my point:

Ancient depiction of King Tut (not a reconstruction)

Horn African children

compared to

or

Northeast African man

Egyptian dancers

Somali woman

 

[Sir Shawn]

Egyptian Army

Nubian Army:

Both look like black Africans to me, and modern biological evidence confirms that the people of Sudan (Nubians) and Egyptians have been the biologically the same people since Pre-Dynastic times, because they are of the same origins:

"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians. Table 3 lists the Mahalanobis D2 distance matrix... In some cases, the statistics reveal that the Egyptian samples were more similar to Nubian samples than to other Egyptian samples (e.g. Gizeh and Hesa/Biga) and vice versa (e.g. Badari and Kerma, Naqada and Christian). These relationships are further depicted in the PCO plot (Fig. 2).

The clustering of the Nubian and Egyptian samples together supports this paper's hypothesis and demonstrates that there may be a close relationship between the two populations. This relationship is consistent with Berry and Berry (1972), among others, who noted a similarity between Nubians and Egyptians.

Both mtDNA (Krings et al., 1999) and Y-Chromosome data (Hassan et al., 2008; Keita, 2005; Lucotte and Mercier, 2003) indicate that migrations, usually bidirectional, occurred along the Nile. Thus, the osteological material used in this analysis also supports the DNA evidence.

On this basis, many have postulated that the Badarians are relatives to South African populations (Morant, 1935 G. Morant, A study of predynastic Egyptian skulls from Badari based on measurements taken by Miss BN Stoessiger and Professor DE Derry, Biometrika 27 (1935), pp. 293–309.Morant, 1935; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Irish and Konigsberg, 2007). The archaeological evidence points to this relationship as well. (Hassan, 1986) and (Hassan, 1988) noted similarities between Badarian pottery and the Neolithic Khartoum type, indicating an archaeological affinity among Badarians and Africans from more southern regions. Furthermore, like the Badarians, Naqada has also been classified with other African groups, namely the Teita (Crichton, 1996; Keita, 1990).

Nutter (1958) noted affinities between the Badarian and Naqada samples, a feature that Strouhal (1971) attributed to their skulls possessing “Negroid” traits. Keita (1992), using craniometrics, discovered that the Badarian series is distinctly different from the later Egyptian series, a conclusion that is mostly confirmed here. In the current analysis, the Badari sample more closely clusters with the Naqada sample and the Kerma sample. However, it also groups with the later pooled sample from Dynasties XVIII–XXV.

The reoccurring notation of Kerma affinities with Egyptian groups is not entirely surprising. Kerma was an integral part of the trade between Egypt and Nubia.

However, the archaeological evidence actually showed slow change in form over time (Adams, 1977) and the biological evidence demonstrated a similar trend in the skeletal data (e.g. Godde, in press; Van Gerven et al., 1977). These conclusions negate the possibility of invasion or migration causing the shifts in time periods. The results in this study are consistent with prior work; the Meroites and X-Group cluster with the remaining Nubian population and are not differentiated.

Gene flow may account for the homogeneity across these Nubian and Egyptian groups and is consistent with the biological diffusion precept. Small geographic distances between groups allow for the exchange of genes.
-- Godde K. (2009) An Examination of Nubian and Egyptian biological distances: Support for biological diffusion or in situ development? Homo. 2009;60(5):389-404.

 

[Sir Shawn]

Some other black African civilizations:

Kano (Nigeria)
http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/images/africa_kingdoms.jpg

The Benin Wall which was the largest man made structure on Earth prior to it's destruction by British cannons.

http://lvvfsa.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pUdJZqfAD0JU2WUBaV7Ka-v1byrVsJDgludYr6UUBY-nbF--G8R-jjfQEeYUCUJRxpzCZPeU8BxIaibvePqtFHDSf5YjcqX4q/tim1.jpg?psid=1

 

[Mahmoud_EGY]

WTF ???
alot of DNA testing was done and the ruselt are 80 percent orignal egyptians the other 20 are mix of arab greak persian roman turks and arminian
the skin color didnt change most are brown with some white in upper egypt and some black in aswan
but of course you in amirca dont understrand a thing you call anyone who is not white black

 

[Mahmoud_EGY]

he is a false flag indian.......its usually the indians who suffer from inferiority complex cause of their dark skin tone.

i see and he is to ashemed of his country flag ......with this topic you can see what kind of man he is
a no one who speaks about something he doesnt understand and also ashamed of his people

 

[Sir Shawn]

What study are you referring to? Please post it. Genetic evidence of modern Egyptians shows that they are a mixture of African, Middle Easterner and Europeans lineages. The largest single component of their genetic landscape is African, which is remnants of their original African ancestry and shows that there was continuity between ancient Egyptians. None the less the biological evidence on every scale shows that the Europeans and the NOW strong Middle Eastern component was not present during Pre-Dynastic or early Dynastic times. That's why the peer reviewed studies above consistently show the earliest ancient Egyptians were "Negroid" in skeletal morphology (what they looked like) and became more Mediterranean in appearance during the New Period onwards when constant migration and occupation from those regions occurred (i.e Arab, Persian, Greco Roman, Hyksos ect).

One of the only studies conducted on ancient Egyptians came out this year from a dnatribes report on the Amarna period pharohs. They were found to be NILOTIC with little to no non African ancestry.

 

[Mahmoud_EGY]

i have alot of sources but in arabic i can search for english studys

Genetic evidence of modern Egyptians shows that they are a mixture of African, Middle Easterner and Europeans lineages. The largest single component of their genetic landscape is African

good and the anciant egyptians dna was ?

consistently show the earliest ancient Egyptians were "Negroid" in skeletal morphology

the coular is based on the location

for example most of aswan are black
from luxor to fayom are brown
giza to alexandria are white just like most countrys at the same location as us

 

[p(-)0ENiX]

I was extremely fond of Ancient Egyptian history along with a couple of other civilizations including my own. Here is a link I discovered:

What Race Were the Ancient Egyptians?

The plain truth is that ancient Egypt was a multi-racial society. Thanks to the practice of mummification, we have their actual bodies, so their race shouldn't be a question at all. Anthropologists have examined thousands of skeletons and mummies by now, and what they have found are the same types of people one sees in Egypt today: some white, some black, most brown. What's more, the handful of DNA tests done so far show a close connection between modern Egyptians and the ancient residents of the Nile valley, even during the Old Kingdom. To show how diverse they can be, compare one famous couple: the late president Anwar Sadat and his wife Jehan. Anwar was dark because he had a Nubian mother, while Jehan has such a light complexion that you could mistake her for a Greek or Italian. Why couldn't some ancient couples be the same?

Its quite an interesting read, I know nothing about its author though since I just discovered this article myself thanks to Google.

 

[breeze]

Very good and informative thread. Ancient Egypt was in fact the civilization of "black" Africans. No amount of history re-writing and 'white' washing by the Europeans can change this solid fact of human history.

 

[Sir Shawn]

i have alot of sources but in arabic i can search for english studys
good and the anciant egyptians dna was ?
the coular is based on the location

for example most of aswan are black
from luxor to fayom are brown
giza to alexandria are white just like most countrys at the same location as us

You are referring to modern Egyptian demographics and north-south clines. During early and Pre-Dynastic times the Egyptian population both south AND north were a mixture of Afro-Asiatic speaking Horners and Nilotic populations from the ancient Sahara (meaning black) with maybe a small presence of Levantine people in the Delta (via trade and cultural exchange). One thing to note also is that prior to the New Kingdom the vast majority of Egypt's population resided and originated in the south, today it is the complete opposite:

"...STABILITY and HOMOGENEITY persisted right through the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and breaks down only in the New Kingdom period, when we know from many sources that there was considerable infiltration into the Nile Valley."
--Berry, A.C., & Berry, R.J., 1972. ‘Origins and Relationships of the Ancient Egyptians, Based on the Study of Non-Metrical Variations in the Skull’, Journal of Human Evolution, 1, 1972: 199-206; p.203

and

As elaborated earlier, the major part of the Predynastic Delta was by no means a marshy wasteland, inhabited only by scattered pastoral communities. Such a conclusion is compatible with the antiquity of the Delta's cult centers and the fact that the Delta was the Lower Egypt of the semimythical wars of unification in the late fourth millennium B.C.(Kaiser 1964). In fact, the ten oldest of the twenty Lower Egyptian nomes predate the 3d dynasty (Helck 1974, pp. 199 f.) and are significantly situated between the Delta distributaries (Keiser 1964). Furthermore, over thirty towns north of Cairo are verified archeologically or epigraphically by the end of the Middle Kingdom (fig. 4).

It is nonetheless probable that settlements were far more dispersed than they were in Upper Egypt, that overall population density was significantly lower, and that the northernmost one-third of the Delta was almost unpopulated in Old Kingdom times. In effect, a considerable body of information can be marshalled to show that the Delta was underdeveloped and that internal colonization continued for some three millennia, until the late Ptolemaic era.

link

The urban areas of the North (especially the Delta) have absorbed a constant flow of migrants from the Middle East and even Europe over the last several thousand years which simply was not there during early Dynastic times. That is why modern urban northern Egyptians are said to be less likely to be good representative for there core indigenous Egyptian ancestors (who were black):

It is possible that the current VII and VIII frequencies reflect, in the main, movements during the Islamic period (vs. the Neolithic) and the effects of polygamy (Salem et al., 1996; Nebel et al., 2002), as well as some of the impact of Near Easterners who settled in the delta at various times in ancient Egypt (Gardiner, 1961), and even more recently in the colonial era due to political events. Cosmopolitan northern Egypt is less likely to have a population representative of the core indigenous population of the most ancient times. - Keita (2005), pp. 564

Link to the study

The people of Upper Egypt today say the same thing, which is that the original Egyptians were black and modern urban northern Egyptians have become very admixed with foreigners from the Middle East and Europe which is why most of them look the way they do:

 

[Sir Shawn]

I was extremely fond of Ancient Egyptian history along with a couple of other civilizations including my own. Here is a link I discovered:

What Race Were the Ancient Egyptians?



Its quite an interesting read, I know nothing about its author though since I just discovered this article myself thanks to Google.

I don't dispute the clear fact that course of thousands of years given it's location that Dynastic Egypt BECAME a multi-racial society, but when it comes to the origins of Dynastic Egypt the evidence both biologically and culturally proves that it was created by exclusively (or damn near) by black Africans.(Nilotes and Afrasian Horn Africans). Here is a documentary from the renown African historian Basil Davidson on the subject of ancient Egypt's race and origins in which he clearly details this:

 

[somebozo]

For the IQ challenged, Egypt is in Africa and the bedouin Egyptians are brown African people.

 

[Sir Shawn]

Also here is a documentary in which a forensic expert details the facial features of the great Sphinx and concludes that it's facial features are consistent with those which are found in many African populations:

But then again does it really take a forensic expert for people to conclude that the Sphinx clearly represents a black man?

Also this is Egypt's first Pharaoh Menes:

For the IQ challenged, Egypt is in Africa and the bedouin Egyptians are brown African people.

What do Arabs have to do with Dynastic Egypt?

 

[p(-)0ENiX]

This may not count as proof but it's an interesting video nonetheless. It compares ancient & modern Egyptians in terms of appearance.

Ancient Egyptians vs Arab Modern Egytians