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| ] (from the tomb of ]) as reconstructed by ] (d. 1823), depicting various peoples as the ancient Egyptians perceived them. (from top right) - Libyans, Nubians, Asiatics and Egyptians.]] | |||
| <!--Please note: this is not the article for discussing actual evidence pointing either way in this debate. This is a "history of controversy" article: please discuss it in this way, bearing in mind academic consensus.--> | |||
| '''Controversy surrounding the race of ancient Egyptians''' is an integral topic in ], and an important issue for ] since the early years of the 20th century. | |||
| Today, the debate largely takes place outside the field of ].{{Fact|date=February 2009}} Scholarly consensus is that the concept of "pure race" is incoherent;<ref>Bard, in turn citing ], "Nubian, Negro, Black, Nilotic?", in ''African in Antiquity, The Arts of Nubian and the Sudan'', vol 1, 1978.</ref> that applying modern notions of ] to ] is ];<ref>Snowden, p. 122 of ''Black Athena Revisited''</ref> and that as far as ] is concerned, the ancient ] were neither "black" nor "white" (as such terms are usually applied today).<ref>Bard, p. 111 of ''Black Athena Revisited''.</ref> | |||
| The ] of the ]ians is a subject that has attracted some controversy. | |||
| The ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as having a different appearance to the other nations around them. | |||
| The modern mainstream opinion is that the ancient Egyptians were the product of a complex ], and were neither "black" nor "white" as per current terminology. However ]s tend to insist that Ancient Egypt was a "black civilization".<ref>General history of Africa, by G. Mokhtar, International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa, Unesco</ref><ref>Afrocentrism, by Stephen Howe</ref> | |||
| ==Origins== | |||
| ==The definition of race== | |||
| {{see|Afrocentric historiography}} | |||
| {{See also |Race (classification of human beings)}} | |||
| The roots of Afrocentrism lay in the repression of ] throughout the Western world in the 19th century, most particularly in the United States.<ref>Bard p.106</ref> At the turn of the century, however, came a rise in black racial consciousness as a tool to overcome oppression. Part of this reaction involved a focus on black history, and counteracting what was perceived as white, ] history in favour of a historical narrative of Europe (and what was viewed as its founding culture, ancient Greece) that gave blacks a more prominent role.<ref>lefkowtiz p. 7</ref> To a certain extent Afrocentrism also arose as a backlash against ] (broadly speaking, a 19th-century phenomenon) which tended to attribute any advanced civilization to the immigration of Indo-Europeans. | |||
| {{See also |Population history of Egypt}} | |||
| Specifically, this attempted rewriting of the historical narrative of Europe developed into two main forms: the claim that European civilization was founded not by the ], but by the ], whose culture and learning the Greeks allegedly stole, and that the Egyptians themselves were not only African but also black.<ref>Lefkowitz p. 8</ref> Often, Afrocentrists link the two claims, as the following quote (by ]) displays:{{cquote|Every student of history, of impartial mind, knows that the Negro once ruled the world, when white men were savages and barbarians living in caves; that thousands of Negro professors at that time taught in the universities in Alexandria, then the seat of learning; that ancient Egypt gave the world civilization and that Greece and Rome have robbed Egypt of her arts and letters, and taken all the credit to themselves.<ref>]: "Who and what is a Negro", 1923. Quoted by Lefkowitz.</ref>}} | |||
| The scholarly consensus is that the concept of biologically distinct races isn't applicable to modern humans.<ref> </ref><ref name="Keita et al.">{{cite journal|title=Conceptualizing human variation|year=2004|last= Keita |doi=10.1038/ng1455|url=http://wysinger.homestead.com/conceptualizing.pdf}}</ref> Human populations do differ in phenotypic traits and gene frequencies, but most human variation is found within populations rather than between populations. | |||
| Both themes were to survive Garvey and to continue throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, provoking debate both in academia and in more public spheres, such as mainstream media and the internet. | |||
| ==In academia== | |||
| It has also become evident that modern racial classifications are often ] based on arbitrary criteria. Criteria for racial classification differ from region to region and also criteria can change with time.<ref></ref><ref></ref> Consequently, many scholars agree that it is misleading to apply modern notions of race to the Ancient Egyptians. | |||
| Although questions surrounding the race of the ancient Egyptians had occasionally arisen in 18th and 19th-century Western scholarship as part of the growing interest in ], in academia the meme was popularised and continued throughout the 20th century in the works of ], ], and even, to a certain extent, in ]'s '']''. All three have used the terms "black", "African", and "Egyptian" interchangeably,<ref>Snowden p.116 of ''Black Athena Revisited''.</ref> despite what Snowden calls "copious ancient evidence to the contrary".<ref>Snowden p. 116</ref> | |||
| While at the ], Diop tried to establish the skin colour of the Egyptian mummies by measuring the melanin content of the skin, stating: “In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin color and, hence, the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility.”<ref>Chris Gray, Conceptions of History in the Works of Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga, (Karnak House:1989) 11-155</ref> | |||
| Historically whenever different human populations have come in close contact for extended periods of time, they have interbred freely. Human phenotypes thus vary in ], whereby populations that live closer to each other are likely to be more similar genetically than populations that live farther apart. A population that lives in between two populations is likely to share traits with both neighboring populations. In addition to ], environmental factors such as climate also influence the variation in human phenotype. Most notably, ] on average varies clinally with the intensity of sunlight (i.e. with ],). | |||
| Diop's work was well received by the political establishment in the ] formative phase of the state of ] under ], whose politics of ] was inspired by the Pan-Africanist '']'' movement. Diop further attempted to link Egypt to Senegal by arguing that the ] was related to his native ].<ref>Alain Ricard, Naomi Morgan, ''The Languages & Literatures of Africa: The Sands of Babel'', James Currey, 2004, p.14</ref> The University of Dakar was renamed in Diop's honour after his death, to ]. Diop participated in a ] symposium in ] in 1974 and he wrote the chapter about the "]" in the UNESCO ''General History of Africa''.<ref>UNESCO, "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script; Proceedings", (Paris: 1978), pp. 3-134</ref> | |||
| Modern Egyptians, thousands of years after dynastic times, demonstrate clinal patterns in phenotypic traits such as skin color and craniofacial morphology, with modern Southern Egyptians on average having darker skin and facial features more consistent with tropical Africans than modern Northern Egyptians, whose coloring and features are more Eurasian.<ref></ref> | |||
| Founded in 1979, the ''Journal of African Civilizations'' has continually advocated that Egypt should be viewed as a black civilization.<ref>Snowden p. 117</ref><ref>Homepage of the </ref> Figures attached to the group centering around the journal include ] and J.H. Clarke (who has advanced further the "Cleopatra was black" meme). Other notable proponents of the meme include ].<ref>Snowden pp.117-120</ref> Mainstream scholarship has generally been critical of the journal: J.D. Muhly describes it as "well-intentioned but quite unconvincing and lacking in the basic techniques of critical scholarship."<ref> Muhly: "Black Athena versus Traditional Scholarship", Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 3, no 1: 83-110</ref> | |||
| There is however much disagreement over the extent to which these modern features are reliable indicators of the appearance of the ancient Egyptians. Afrocentrists such as ] argue that the Egyptians were primarily ] before the many conquests of Egypt diluted the Africanity of the Egyptian people.<ref>{{cite book|title=Egypt, Child of Africa|authorlink=Ivan van Sertima|chapter=|chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y7KmBTz2vUoC&printsec=frontcover#PPA2-IA1,M1|year=1994|isbn=1560007923}}</ref>. Others believe that Modern Egyptians are a good indicator of what the ancient people looked like.<ref>Frank Yurco, "An Egyptological Review" in Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers, eds. ''Black Athena Revisited''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. p. 62-100</ref> | |||
| The Afrocentric claim that European scholars have tried to deny significance of black people in the ancient Egyptian culture has some substance. During the European colonial era on the African continent, the prevalent European attitude was that ancient Egyptians were 'white', as the French scholar Alain Froment shows on the basis of two encyclopaedias from the 1930s.<ref>Froment 1994, p. 38</ref> | |||
| ==Origins of the debate== | |||
| ===The classical observers=== | |||
| The British Africanist ] summarized the issue as follows: | |||
| Some modern commentators have reviewed the writings of classical historians (from the Greco-Roman period) for clues about the appearance of the Ancient Egyptians. | |||
| These eye-witness accounts were recorded right at the end of the Egyptian civilisation, and give varying descriptions of the physical appearance of Ancient Egyptians. | |||
| <blockquote> | |||
| *] travelled to Egypt around 450 BC, about 2000 years after the Pyramid Age and when Egypt was part of the Persian Empire. Some interpretations of his writings hold that he described the Egyptians as having "black skins and woolly hair". However a number of scholars hold that the word used by Herodotus – ''“Melanchroes”'' – should be interpreted as “dark skinned” or “swarthy” rather than “black”, and that Herodotus usually used the word ''“Aithiopsi”'' to described black-skinned people.<ref>Ethiopians - Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, by Simson Najovits</ref><ref> Romans and blacks, by Lloyd A. Thompson</ref><ref> Herodotus, book II, by Herodotus, Alan B. Lloyd</ref><ref> Black Athena revisited, by Mary R. Lefkowitz & Guy MacLean Rogers</ref><ref> Ancient perspectives on Egypt, by Roger Matthews, Cornelia Roemer, University College, London</ref> | |||
| Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south (from what a later world knew as Nubia): while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew.<ref>{{cite book|first=Basil|last=Davidson|title=African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to Modern Times|year=1991|publisher=Africa World Press}}</ref> | |||
| *The Greek playwright ] , (also at the time of the Persian Empire) mentioning a boat seen from the shore, declared that its crew are Egyptians, because of their black complexions.<ref name="anthon">{{cite book|authorlink= Charles Anthon|last=Anthon|first=Charles|title=A classical dictionary| chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=lWQPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA30#PPA30,M1 |chapter=Complexion and Physical Structure of the Egyptians|year=1851}}</ref> | |||
| *] regarded the Egyptians in his day (1st century) as descendants of ], son of ] on the basis of '']'', which remained the basis for most scholarship in the Middle Ages. | |||
| *], (c. 64 BC – AD 24), the Roman historian and geographer, wrote in his work ] that “As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.” ''(Strabo, Book XV, Chapter 1, Section 13.)''<ref>http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/15A1*.html </ref> | |||
| *] (1st Century AD) classified the Ethiopians as the darkest of the dark-skinned peoples, the Indians as “less sun-burned”, and the Egyptians as being of a “medium tone”.<ref> Manilius, Astronomica 4.724 </ref><ref>Black Athena Revisited, by Mary R. Lefkowitz & Guy MacLean Rogers</ref> | |||
| *], (c. 86 AD – 146 AD), one of the main ancient historians of ], wrote in his work ] that “the southern Indians resemble the Ethiopians a good deal, and are black of countenance, and their hair black also, only they are not as snub-nosed or so woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; ] | |||
| *The Persian author ], the Egyptian ] (9th century), ] in his ''Mir’at al-Zaman'' (c. 1250), and ] all mentioned the existence of a mediaeval Arabic tradition that the great pyramids had been built by an ] race. | |||
| *] in some of his works made correlations between the physical appearance and moral character of human populations. In his book ] he wrote, "Those who are too black are cowards, like for instance, the Egyptians and Ethiopians. But those who are excessively white are also cowards as we can see from the example of women, the complexion of courage is between the two."<ref>Egypt Revisited by Ivan Van Sertima p. 17; Aristotle, Physiognomy, 6</ref> | |||
| </blockquote> | |||
| ===The colonial period=== | |||
| ]] | |||
| In 1798 Constantin Francois de Chassebœuf, Comte de ], published his book ''Travels Through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785'', in which he documented his experiences. In the book he states that in his opinion the ] has "negroid" facial characteristics. He also describes the modern-day Egyptians he encountered as appearing to be of mixed race.<ref>Diop, Cheikh Anta. ''Nations Nègres et Culture'', tome I, Paris 1979, 57-58.</ref> | |||
| ==Specific controversies== | |||
| The Egyptian pyramid used in the ] and the Washington monument indicate that American society of the colonial period held the Ancient Egyptian culture in high regard. The industrialized west, being predominantly Caucasian, had historically held a low regard for black people, many of whom were slaves. In the early 19th century slavery was still legal in the United States, and was being justified in part on the assumption that Black people were intellectually inferior. The anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum, and pro-slavery advocates were thus unreceptive to any suggestion of advanced Black civilizations that would undermine this rationale. In 1844 ], a proslavery supporter and one of the pioneers of ] and polygenism, published his book ''Crania Aegyptica'' with the intention of “proving” that the Ancient Egyptians were not Black.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=YHgv011kWIAC&printsec=frontcover#PPP1,M1|title=Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-century American Egyptomania | |||
| ===Controversies about 'race'=== | |||
| |first=Scott|last=Trafton|year=2004|isbn=0822333627}}</ref> In 1855 ] and ] published ''Types of Mankind'' with the same intention.<ref></ref> All three authors acknowledged that Negroes were present in ancient Egypt, but claimed they were either captives or servants. However, they also concluded that the Egyptians were intermediate between the African and Asiatic races. <ref name="morton">{{cite book|first=Samuel George |last=Morton|authorlink=Samuel George Morton|title=|chapter=Egyptian Ethnography|chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=t1MGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#PPA4,M1|year=1844}}</ref> | |||
| Debate in the public sphere has tended to focus more on the race of specific notable individuals from the history of Egypt, particularly ], ] and also the ]. Such claims by Afrocentrists have not been limited to Egyptians: ] general ] and Roman Emperor ] have also been claimed as black, despite non-existent evidence,<ref>Snowden pp.120-121 of ''Black Athena Revisited''</ref> as well as the ancient Greek philosopher ].<ref>Black Athena revisited, p. 4</ref> | |||
| In England, ] and others concluded that a statue of Amunoph (Amenhotep III) had strongly marked Negro-type features.<ref></ref><ref name="nott">{{cite book|first=|last=Nott|authorlink=Josiah C. Nott|title=Types of Mankind|chapter=Negro Types|chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=znlxAAAAMAAJ&printsec=titlepage#PPA217,M1|year=1855}}</ref> In 1886, ] wrote that the physical type, language and tone of thought of the modern Egyptians is “Nigritic”. Though he believed the modern Egyptians were not Black, he stated that they bear an “indisputable” resemblance to Black Africans.<ref name="rawlinson">{{cite book|first=George |last=Rawlinson|authorlink= George Rawlinson|title=Ancient Egypt|chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=Et1EFsr8VSIC&pg=RA1-PA24&output=html|chapter=The People of Egypt|year=1886}}</ref> | |||
| ====Tutankhamun==== | |||
| In 1905 ] analysed the remains of at least 1560 individuals from ] (in Upper Egypt) to determine the race of the deceased. Based on the elaborateness of the graves, he concluded that during predynastic periods Negroid people were the social equal of others, and were equally represented among the lower and higher classes. According to McIver's study, the Negroid element in Upper Egypt was very pronounced in predynastic periods, but had significantly diminished by Roman times.<ref name="mciver">{{cite book|first=|last=MacIver|authorlink=David Randall-MacIver|title=The Ancient Races of the Thebaid |chapter=chapter 9|chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=gYoTAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage#PRA1-PA86,M1}}</ref> | |||
| {{Expand section|date=February 2009}} | |||
| Attempted reconstructions of Tutankhamun's facial features have encountered much Afrocentric protest over concerns that he has been represented as too white.<ref>, ], September 2007</ref> | |||
| ===Afrocentrism=== | |||
| {{Main|Afrocentrism}} | |||
| ''']''' is a ] that emphasizes the contributions of ] through history. Afrocentrism has contributed considerably to the controversy by claiming that the Ancient Egyptians were Black.<ref name="Africana">'']'' Volume 1., p. 111 by ] (Editor), ] (Editor) Oxford University Press. 2005. ISBN 0195170555</ref><ref>Asante, Molefi Kete. ''Afrocentricity'', Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1988.</ref> | |||
| === |
====Cleopatra VII==== | ||
| Since race is not considered to be a valid scientific concept by most scientists, some experts have focused instead on examining the biological origin of the Ancient Egyptians.<ref name="S.O.Y. Keita">{{cite journal|title= Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships|year=1995|last= S.O.Y. Keita|doi= 10.1007/BF02444602|url=http://wysinger.homestead.com/keita-1993.pdf }}</ref> | |||
| {{see|Cleopatra VII}} | |||
| The race of the ancient Egyptians was addressed at UNESCO’s international Cairo Symposium in 1974, where more than 20 of the world’s top Egyptologists debated inter alia the race of the founders of ancient Egyptian civilization. The majority view was that the ancient Egyptians were a mixed race, being neither black nor white as per current terminology.<ref>General history of Africa, by G. Mokhtar, International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa, Unesco</ref><ref>Afrocentrism, by Stephen Howe</ref> However a few scholars before and since have continued to assert otherwise, and have variously proposed that the ancient Egyptians were black, Asian, Mediterranean, ] or even ]. | |||
| Cleopatra's race and skin colour have also caused frequent debate as described in an article from ].<ref>: "Was Cleopatra Black", 2002</ref> There is also an article titled: ''Was Cleopatra Black?'' from ], <ref>, from '']'' magazine, ] ]. In support of this, she cites a few examples, one of which she supplies is a chapter entitled "Black Warrior Queens" published in 1984 in ''Black Women in Antiquity'', part of the ''Journal of African Civilization'' series. It draws heavily on the work of J.A. Rogers.</ref> and an article about Afrocetrism from the ] that mentions the question, too.<ref>, from the ''St. Louis Dispatch'', ] ].</ref> Scholars generally suggest a light olive skin colour for Cleopatra, based on the facts that her ]ian family had intermingled with the Persian aristocracy of the time, that her mother is not absolutely known for certain,<ref>Tyldesley, p. 30, suggests ] as the most likely candidate.</ref> and that her paternal grandmother may have been African (or indeed from anywhere at all) which is possible but not provable.<ref>Tyldesley p. 32</ref> Afrocentric assertions of Cleopatra's blackness have, however, continued. The question was the subject of an heated exchange between ], who has referred in her articles a debate she had with one of her students about the question whether Cleopatra was black, and ], Professor of African American Studies at ]. As a response to ''Not Out of Africa'' by Lefkowitz, Asante wrote an article: ''Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa'', in which he emphasizes that he "can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black."<ref> By Molefi Kete Asante</ref> | |||
| In 1996 Indianapolis museum of art curator Theodore Celenko held an exhibition titled ''Egypt in Africa'' in order to present works of art that emphasized Egypt’s cultural connection to the rest of the African continent. <ref></ref><ref>S.O.Y Keita & A.J. Boyce: "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", Egypt in Africa, (1996), pp. 25-27</ref> | |||
| He also arranged for experts in various fields to submit essays on the subject, including ], ], Robert Steven Bianchi, Arthur P. Bourgeois, ], ], Chapurukha M. Kusimba, ], and Frank J. Yurco. This collection of essays was then published under the title ''Egypt in Africa''. While the contributors differed in some opinions the scholarly consensus was that Ancient Egypt was and should be considered a ],<ref name="keita_natgeo"></ref> along with ] and ] (] / ] / ]). They also contend that Egypt had cultural and biological connections with its African neighbors.<ref></ref> | |||
| ====Great Sphinx of Giza==== | |||
| Some Egyptian Egyptologists such as ] insist that the Ancient Egyptians did not fit neatly into a racial group and that Ancient Egypt was not even an African Civilization. | |||
| {{Expand section|date=February 2009}} | |||
| ===Controversy about the meaning of 'Kemet'=== | |||
| A lot of scientific effort has been invested in examining the physical remains of the ancient people, and in analysing population movements over the millennia, in search of clues to their origins. These investigations have thusfar not been conclusive. See the article ] for a detailed discussion. | |||
| {|align="right" border="1" style="margin: 9px 1em 1em;" | |||
| ==Ancient Egyptian material== | |||
| ], husband of Nofret, from the ], with much darker skin than his wife.]] | |||
| ], from the 4th Dynasty, with much lighter skin than her husband.]] | |||
| The ancient tombs and temples contained thousands of works of writing, painting and sculpture, which reveal a lot about the people of that time. | |||
| However their depictions of themselves in their surviving art and artifacts are rendered in sometimes symbolic, rather than realistic, pigments. | |||
| As a result, ancient Egyptian artifacts provide sometimes conflicting and inconclusive evidence of the ethnicity of the people who lived in Egypt during dynastic times.<ref>http://www.egyptologyonline.com/book_of_gates.htm</ref><ref>http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/gate/gate20.htm</ref><ref>http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/bookgates5.html</ref><ref>Charlotte Booth,The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies (2007) p. 217</ref><ref></ref> | |||
| ===Meaning of 'Kemet'=== | |||
| {|align="right" border="1" style="margin: 2px 1em 1em;" | |||
| |+''km'' in ]s | |+''km'' in ]s | ||
| |-align="center" | |-align="center" | ||
| Line 82: | Line 61: | ||
| |<hiero>km:t-A1-B1-Z3</hiero> | |<hiero>km:t-A1-B1-Z3</hiero> | ||
| |} | |} | ||
| One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is ''km.t'' (read ''Kemet''), meaning 'the black land' or 'the black one'. Generally, 'Kemet' is taken to be a reference to the fertile black soil |
One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is ''km.t'' (read ''Kemet''), meaning 'the black land' or 'the black one'. The claim that ''Kemite'' referred to the fact that the people of the land had black skins, as argued by ],<ref name="Shavit01-148"/> ],<ref name="Shavit01-148"/> or Aboubacry Moussa Lam<ref>Aboubacry Moussa Lam, "L'Égypte ancienne et l'Afrique", in Maria R. Turano et Paul Vandepitte, ''Pour une histoire de l'Afrique'', 2003, pp. 50 &51</ref> has become a cornerstone of Afrocentric historiography.<ref name="Shavit01-148"/> This view is rejected by most Egyptologists.<ref>Bard, Kathryn A. "Ancient Egyptians and the Issue of Race". in Lefkowitz and MacLean rogers, p. 114</ref> Generally, 'Kemet' is taken to be a reference to the fertile black soil which was washed down from Central Africa by the annual ] inundation, and which made Egypt habitable and successful in contrast to the barren desert or 'red land' outside the narrow confines of the Nile watercourse.<ref name="Shavit01-148">Shavit 2001: 148</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Kemp | first = Barry J. | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Ancient Egypt: Anatomy Of A Civilization | publisher = Routledge | date = | location = | pages = 21 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=l-t5vWHAVN0C&pg=PA21&ots=Whio1cbGsZ&dq=egypt+black+soil&sig=jmy3OWcilcwPoYZYgfbO2LU5_B8#PPA21,M1 | doi = | id = | isbn = 978-0415063463 }}</ref> The use of the word ''kmt'' when referring to people is thought to be derived from the name of the land, meaning literally "those people who live in the black, fertile country."<ref name="Shavit01-148"/> Raymond Faulkner's ''Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian'' translates it into "Egyptians", as do most sources.<ref>Raymond Faulkner, ''A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian'', Oxford: Griffith Institute, 2002, p. 286.</ref> | ||
| The claim that ''Kemet'' referred to the fact that the people of the land were black, as argued by ], ], ] or Aboubacry Moussa Lam has become a cornerstone of Afrocentric historiography.<ref name="Shavit01-148">Shavit 2001: 148</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Kemp | first = Barry J. | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Ancient Egypt: Anatomy Of A Civilization | publisher = Routledge | date = | location = | pages = 21 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=l-t5vWHAVN0C&pg=PA21&ots=Whio1cbGsZ&dq=egypt+black+soil&sig=jmy3OWcilcwPoYZYgfbO2LU5_B8#PPA21,M1 | doi = | id = | isbn = 978-0415063463 }}</ref><ref>Aboubacry Moussa Lam, "L'Égypte ancienne et l'Afrique", in Maria R. Turano et Paul Vandepitte, ''Pour une histoire de l'Afrique'', 2003, pp. 50 &51</ref> This view is rejected by most Egyptologists.<ref>Bard, Kathryn A. "Ancient Egyptians and the Issue of Race". in Lefkowitz and MacLean rogers, p. 114</ref> | |||
| ===Ancient Egyptian texts and inscriptions=== | |||
| ] showing the four nations of men, depicting (from top right): ], ], ], ], from the tomb of ].]] | |||
| There are a number of surviving copies of a sacred text from Dynastic times called the ]. These were usually carved and/or painted inside tombs, for the guidance of the soul of the deceased. <ref>http://www.egyptologyonline.com/book_of_gates.htm</ref><ref>http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/gate/gate20.htm</ref><ref>http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/bookgates5.html</ref> Among other things they described the "four races of men", as follows: (translation by E.A. Wallis Budge): | |||
| <blockquote>The first are RETH, the second are AAMU, the third are NEHESU, and the fourth are THEMEHU. The RETH are Egyptians, the AAMU are dwellers in the deserts to the east and north-east of Egypt, the NEHESU are the black races, and the THEMEHU are the fair-skinned Libyans.</blockquote> | |||
| ===The Land of Punt=== | |||
| The ancient Egyptians viewed the ] ''(Pun.t; Pwenet; Pwene)'' as their ancestral homeland.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ethiopia|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=oPAUxFDrQaQC&printsec=frontcover#PPA21,M1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=A short history of the Egyptian people|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ZwlFAAAAIAAJ&printsec=titlepage#PPA10,M1}}</ref><ref name="White">White, Jon Manchip., (Dover Publications; New Ed edition, June 1, 1970), p. 141. "''It may be noted that the ancient Egyptians themselves appear to have been convinced that their place of origin was African rather than Asian. They made continued reference to the land of Punt as their homeland''."</ref> In his book “The Making of Egypt” (1939), W. M. Flinders Petrie stated that the Land of Punt was “sacred to the Egyptians as the source of their race.” E.A. Wallis Budge stated that “Egyptian tradition of the Dynastic Period held that the aboriginal home of the Egyptians was Punt…”<ref> Short History of the Egyptian People, by E. A. Wallis Budge</ref> Per Emmet John Sweeney: “The Horus Kings of the First Dynasty insisted their ancestors came from the Land of Punt.”<ref></ref> | |||
| The exact location of Punt remains a mystery. The mainstream view is that Punt was located to the south-east of Egypt, most likely in the ]. | |||
| However some scholars disagree with this view and point to a range of ancient inscriptions which locate Punt in Arabia. Dimitri Meeks has written that “Texts locating Punt beyond doubt to the south are in the minority, but they are the only ones cited in the current consensus about the location of the country. Punt, we are told by the Egyptians, is situated – in relation to the Nile Valley – both to the north, in contact with the countries of the Near East of the Mediterranean area, and also to the east or south-east, while its furthest borders are far away to the south. Only the Arabian Peninsula satisfies all these indications.”<ref>Dimitri Meeks - Chapter 4 - “Locating Punt” from the book “Mysterious Lands”, by David B. O'Connor and Stephen Quirke.</ref> | |||
| The placement of Punt in eastern Africa is based on the fact that the products of Punt were abundantly found in East Africa but were less common or absent in Arabia. These products included gold, aromatic resins such as ], ] and ]s. The wild animals depicted in Punt include ]s, ]s, ] and ]s which were common in East Africa but are less frequent or completely absent in Arabia. Says Richard Pankhurst, in his book ''“The Ethiopians”'': “ has been identified with territory on both the Arabian and African coasts. Consideration of the articles which the Egyptians obtained from Punt, notably gold and ivory, suggests, however, that these were primarily of African origin. … This leads us to suppose that the term Punt probably applied more to African than Arabian territory.”<ref>http://books.google.com/books?id=jcpQqkHr328C&printsec=frontcover#PPA13,M1</ref><ref></ref><ref>Shaw & Nicholson, p.231.</ref><ref>Tyldesley, Hatchepsut, p.147</ref> | |||
| In 2003 reports emerged of a tomb that was discovered at El Kab (near Thebes) dating to the 17th dynasty (1575-1525 BC). It contained an inscription describing a huge attack from the south "by the Kingdom of Kush and its allies from the land of Punt".<ref>http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/649/he1.htm</ref> Encyclopaedia Britannica describes Punt as follows: “in ancient Egyptian and Greek geography, the southern coast of the Red Sea and adjacent coasts of the Gulf of Aden, corresponding to modern coastal ] and ].”<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/483652/Punt</ref> | |||
| The consensus view among the majority of Egyptologists is summed up by Ian Shaw from the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt: | |||
| {{Cquote|''There is still some debate regarding the precise location of Punt, which was once identified with the region of modern Somalia. A strong argument has now been made for its location in either southern Sudan or the Eritrean region of Ethiopia, where the indigenous plants and animals equate most closely with those depicted in the Egyptian reliefs and paintings''.<ref>The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Ian Shaw, p. 317, 2003</ref>}} | |||
| ===Ancient Egyptian art=== | |||
| ] | |||
| In the many surviving ] the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in a wide variety of colors, but the predominant color used for Egyptian men was reddish-brown, while the Egyptian women are usually portrayed with much lighter skin pigmentation. The Egyptians often distinguished themselves from the neighboring populations. Generally, Egyptians depicted themselves as darker than Asiatics and Libyans, but lighter than the Nubians. <ref></ref> However, Egyptian artists also depicted both themselves and non-Egyptians in other colors, including sometimes using unrealistic colors such as blue and green. The use of color is thus presumed to sometimes have symbolic meaning, but is not completely understood.<ref>Manley Bill, ''The Penguin Hisorical Atlas to Ancient Egypt'' (1996), p.83</ref> | |||
| ==Specific modern controversies== | |||
| There have been numerous controversies regarding the race of specific notable individuals from the history of Egypt, particularly the ], ], ] and ]. <ref>Snowden pp.120-121 of ''Black Athena Revisited''.</ref> | |||
| ===Language=== | |||
| {{see|Afro-Asiatic homeland}} | |||
| ] | |||
| The ancient ] has been classified as a member of the ] ], along with other ancient languages such as Cushite, Biblical Hebrew and ] (the language of the ]ians and ]ns). The Afro-Asiatic languages are today spoken throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia. | |||
| The Afro-Asiatic language family is believed by most ] to have originated in ], in the region between ] and northern ], during the African Mesolithic,<ref>Christopher Ehret: "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture", Egypt in Africa (1996), pp. 23-24</ref> although the language of Nubia is not an Afro-Asiatic language, being instead part of the ] language group. A minority opinion postulates an origin in the ].<ref>David O'Connor, ''Ancient Egypt in Africa'', (Cavendish Publishing: 2003), p.96</ref><ref name="Christopher Ehret, S.O.Y Keita, Paul Newman">{{cite journal|title=The Origins of Afroasiatic|year=2004|last=Ehret|doi=10.1126/science.306.5702.1680c|url=http://wysinger.homestead.com/afroasiatic_-_keita.pdf}}</ref><ref>Richard Peet, Elaine Hartwick, ''Theories of Development, Second Edition: Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives'', (Guilford Press: 2009), p.133</ref> | |||
| In his book '']'', ] argues that the phylum may instead have emerged around the ] in southern ] and northern ].<ref>]: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, pp 75</ref> | |||
| ] writes that the Egyptian language and the Negro-African languages derive from a common pre-dialectal ancestor he names “négro-africain”. According to him, the Afro-Asiatic language family has no scientific base and was created with the purpose of cutting off culturally the Egypt-Nubian Nile Valley from the rest of Africa.<ref>Théophile Obenga, Origine commune de l'égyptien ancien, du copte et des langues négro-africaines modernes. Introduction à la linguistique historique africaine, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1993, pp. 9-10</ref> | |||
| ===The Great Sphinx of Giza=== | |||
| ] | |||
| A number of writers have described the face of the ] as having features that are ''Ethiopian'', ''Nubian'', ''African'' or ''Negro'', as opposed to Grecian, Coptic or Arab (Semitic). These writers include the French philosopher ], <ref>Constantin-François Chassebœuf saw the Sphinx as "typically negro in all its features"; Volney, Constantin-François de Chasseboeuf, ''Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie'', Paris, 1825, page 65</ref> ],<ref>"...its head is grey, ears very large and protruding like a negro’s...the fact that the nose is missing increases the flat, negroid effect. Besides, it was certainly Ethiopian; the lips are thick.." Flaubert, Gustave. ''Flaubert in Egypt'', ed. Francis Steegmuller. (London: Penguin Classics, 1996). ISBN 9780140435825.</ref> and ].<!--which he stated were described as having "high cheek bones, flat cheeks,.. a massive nose, firm projecting lips, and thick hair with an austere and almost savage expression of power."--><ref>Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1915). . (New York: ], 1915).</ref> The exact identity of the model for the Sphinx is unknown as there are no known written records that proclaim its identity. Many Egyptologists and scholars currently believe that the face of the Sphinx represents the likeness of the Pharaoh ], whose statues have been located near the Sphinx and who is held to be the creator of the statue. A few Egyptologists and interested amateurs have made several conflicting hypotheses regarding the identity of the Sphinx, but at present, no definitive proof exists.<ref>Hassan, Selim (1949). ''The Sphinx: Its history in the light of recent excavations''. Cairo: Government Press, 1949.</ref> | |||
| Forensic artist Frank Domingo, a retired detective for the ], drew a profile sketch of both The Sphinx and Khafre's statue in order to compare the dimensions of the faces to determine whether or not they depicted the same person. Domingo concluded that The Sphinx had a significantly greater degree of ] (forward projection of the jaw) than Khafre's statue, suggesting that the statues did not depict the same person. In 1992, the '']'' published a letter to the editor submitted by Sheldon Peck, a ] professor of ]<ref> Sheldon Peck, Department of Orthodontics at Harvard</ref>, who noted of the Sphinx that it shows “an anatomical condition of forward development in both jaws, more frequently found in people of African ancestry than in those of Asian or Indo-European stock."<ref>{{cite news | first= | last=To the Editor | coauthors= | title= Sphinx May Really Be a Black African | date=] | publisher= | url =http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1D7163DF93BA25754C0A964958260 | work = | pages = | accessdate = 2007-10-18 | language = }}</ref> | |||
| Other authors have pointed out that the face of the Sphinx is angled upwards, and that if the face is angled vertically then the jaw appears very similar to that of the statues of Khafra.<ref>http://www.ianlawton.com/as2.htm</ref> | |||
| === Tutankhamun=== | |||
| {{See also|Tutankhamun}} | |||
| ] | |||
| Supporters of Afrocentrism have claimed that Tutankhamun was black, and have protested that attempted reconstructions of Tutankhamun's facial features (as depicted on the cover of ]) have represented the king as “too white”.<ref></ref> | |||
| Forensic artists and physical anthropologists from Egypt, France, and the United States independently created busts of Tut, using a CT-scan of the skull. Based on Tut's cranial features, specifically his narrow nose opening, he was classified as racially ]. Although modern technology can reconstruct Tutankhamun's facial structure with a high degree of accuracy based on CT data from his mummy,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dsc.discovery.com/anthology/unsolvedhistory/kingtut/face/facespin.html|title=discovery reconstruction}}</ref><ref></ref> determining his skin tone and eye color is impossible. The clay model was therefore given a flesh coloring which according to the artist was based on an "average shade of modern Egyptians."<ref></ref> | |||
| Biological anthropologist Susan Anton, the leader of the American team, said that the race of the skull was “hard to call”. She stated that: "The shape of the cranial cavity indicated an African, while the nose opening suggested narrow nostrils; a European characteristic. The skull was a North African." <ref> </ref> | |||
| Other biological anthropologists point out that narrow noses are a common trait among indigenous Northeast Africans, and a product of adaptation to the hot-dry climate of the region. Therefore the shape of Tut's nose does not necessarily reflect European ancestry nor rationalize classification as a ].<ref name="S.O.Y. Keita"/> | |||
| Other experts point out that dolichocephalic skull shapes are a common trait among European and Middle Eastern indigenous populations, and that skull shapes are therefore not a reliable indicator of Tut's race or ancestry.<ref> </ref> | |||
| In a press release of May 2005, the current Secretary General of the Egyptian ], Dr. Zahi Hawass, said that: “The three reconstructions (French, America and Egyptian) are all very similar in the unusual shape of the skull, the basic shape of the face, and the size, shape and setting of the eyes … In my opinion as a scholar, the Egyptian reconstruction looks the most Egyptian, and the French and American versions have more unique personalities.<ref> http://www.guardians.net/hawass/Press_Release_05-05_Tut_Reconstruction.htm</ref> | |||
| When pressed on the issue by American activists ] in September 2007, stated that "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilization as black has no element of truth to it …. Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa."<ref>http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=9519</ref> | |||
| Ahmed Saleh, the former archaeological inspector for the Supreme Council of antiquities, disagrees with many of Hawass' statements, stating that the procedures used in the facial re-creation made Tut look Caucasian, "disrespecting the nation's African roots".<ref>Mike Boehm , Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jun 20, 2005</ref> | |||
| In a November 2007 publication of "Ancient Egypt Magazine", Hawass asserted that none of the facial reconstructions resemble Tut, claiming for example that the French reconstruction ended up with a person that looked French, whose features do not resemble any known Egyptians. He asserted instead that in his opinion, the most accurate representation of the boy king is the mask from his tomb.<ref>Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue 44, October / November 2007, Meeting Tutankhamun. AFP (Ancient Egypt Magazine). Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue 44, October / November 2007</ref> | |||
| The Discovery Channel commissioned a facial reconstruction of Tutankhamun's golden mask back in 2002.<ref></ref> | |||
| === Rameses the Great=== | |||
| {{See also| Ramesses II}} | |||
| ] | |||
| Several commentators have noted that the mummy of Rameses the Great (of the 19th Dynasty) has red or blond hair.<ref>Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs, Time-Life books, Alexandria, VA 1992 p.8 </ref><ref>Smith, G. Elliot and Dawson, Warren R. - Egyptian Mummies, London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1924 p.99 </ref> Frank Yurco describes the mummy of Rameses as having “fine, wavy hair, a prominent hooked nose and moderately thin lips.” Yurco also describes Rameses as being “a typical northern Egyptian”. Although Rameses ruled from Thebes in Upper Egypt, he was originally from the extreme north-east of the country. | |||
| <ref name="yurco"></ref> | |||
| In 1975 the mummy of Rameses the Great was taken to Paris for conservation and the treatment of fungal infestations. A detailed examination of the mummy showed that his hair had been grey at the time of his death, and had been dyed red using plant extracts, but scientific analysis showed that the original natural color of the hair before going grey was also red. <ref>Nicholas Reeves and Richard Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings, 1997, p. 143</ref> In a dispute over nuance however, others have described the color as auburn (or brownish-red) who according to Spindler and others, have lead some to reach "far-flung conclusions".<ref>Spindler et al. "Human Mummies: A Global Survey of Their Status and the Techniques of Conservation", Springer, 1996, P43</ref>.Tyldesley sites, that neither red or auburn hair was common in dynastic Egypt and that "Ramses would have looked conspicuous among his dark-haired companions".<ref>Tyldesley. "Ramesses: Egypt's greatest pharaoh" (2000), pg 15</ref> Given many other peculiarities, it has been stated by some scholars that Ramses II may have been the product of intermarriage, citing Asiatic characteristics and that he and his predecessors Seti I and Merenptah appeared less typically Egyptian than that of the 18th Dynasty Pharaohs.<ref> - Egyptology Online, Retrieved April 21, 2009</ref><ref>http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ramesses2intro.htm</ref> | |||
| === Cleopatra VII=== | |||
| {{See also| Cleopatra VII }} | |||
| ] | |||
| Some Afrocentric scholars and supporters have claimed that Cleopatra, the last of the pharaohs, was Black. In her book ''Not Out of Africa'', Professor ] points out that Cleopatra’s ancestors, the rulers of the ], were Macedonian ] descended from ], one of ]'s generals.<ref>http://www.wellesley.edu/CS/Mary/contents.html</ref> Lefkowitz states that: | |||
| * it was their practice to marry close relatives – brother with sister or uncle with niece, etc. | |||
| * the only possibility that Cleopatra VII might not have been a full-blooded Macedonian Greek arises from the fact that we do not know the precise identity of her grandmother on her father's side, as this lady was the mistress (not the wife) of her grandfather, Ptolemy IX. | |||
| * because of the incestuous custom of the Ptolemy family it is generally assumed that this grandmother was also a relative, but it is possible that she might have been of another race - no evidence has ever arisen either way. | |||
| In 2009 a BBC documentary speculated that ], the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, may have been part African, and then further speculated that Cleopatra’s mother and thus Cleopatra herself might also have been part African. This was based largely on the claims of Hilke Thuer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who in the 1990s had examined a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20BC tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey) together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull.<ref>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5908494.ece</ref><ref> - BBC (2009)</ref> | |||
| However, a writer from the London Times described the identification of the skeleton as “a triumph of conjecture over certainty”.<ref>http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article5931845.ece</ref> | |||
| The assumption of the skeleton's identity was based on the shape of the tomb (octagonal, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria), the timing of the death (around 20BC), the gender of the skeleton, and the age of the child at death (although some commentators consider the age of the child to be rather young, considering what Arsinoe is described by history as having accomplished in her life.)<ref>http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=The-BBC-invents-its-own-Cleopatra..html&Itemid=102</ref> | |||
| The recent cranial analysis was done based measurements, notes and photographs made before the skull itself was lost during World War 2.<ref>http://rogueclassicism.com/2009/03/15/cleopatra-arsinoe-and-the-implications/</ref><ref>http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article5931845.ece</ref><ref>http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=The-BBC-invents-its-own-Cleopatra..html&Itemid=102</ref> | |||
| Boas, Gravlee, Bernard and Leonard and others have demonstrated that skull measurements are not a reliable indicator of race.<ref>http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/CG_pubs/gravlee03b.pdf</ref><ref> Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard find in “Heredity, Environment, and Cranial Form: A Re-Analysis of Boas’s Immigrant Data” (American Anthropologist 105:123–136, 2003)</ref> | |||
| Arsinoe IV was actually the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, sharing a father (]) but having a different mother.<ref>”The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia”, By Sarah Fielding, Christopher D. Johnson, pg154, Bucknell University Press, ISBN 0838752578, 9780838752579</ref> | |||
| ==References== | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{reflist|2}} | {{reflist|2}} | ||
| Line 196: | Line 73: | ||
| * Alain Froment, 1994. "Race et Histoire: La recomposition ideologique de l'image des Egyptiens anciens." Journal des Africanistes 64:37-64. available online: {{fr icon}} | * Alain Froment, 1994. "Race et Histoire: La recomposition ideologique de l'image des Egyptiens anciens." Journal des Africanistes 64:37-64. available online: {{fr icon}} | ||
| *Yaacov Shavit, 2001: ''History in Black. African-Americans in Search of an Ancient Past'', Frank Cass Publishers | *Yaacov Shavit, 2001: ''History in Black. African-Americans in Search of an Ancient Past'', Frank Cass Publishers | ||
| *]: "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", S.O.Y. Keita & A. J. Boyce. Egypt in Africa, pp. 25–27 (1996) | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| *Aaron Kamugisha: "Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko", Race & Class, Vol. 45, No. 1, 31-60 (2003) available online: | |||
| * ] | |||
| *Richard Poe: “Black, White or Biologically African?” Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? pp. 466–471 (1998) | |||
| * ] | |||
| </br> | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| {{Ancient Egypt topics}} | {{Ancient Egypt topics}} | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
Revision as of 15:31, 17 June 2009
Controversy surrounding the race of ancient Egyptians is an integral topic in Afrocentric historiography, and an important issue for Afrocentrism since the early years of the 20th century.
Today, the debate largely takes place outside the field of Egyptology. Scholarly consensus is that the concept of "pure race" is incoherent; that applying modern notions of race to ancient Egypt is anachronistic; and that as far as skin colour is concerned, the ancient Egyptians were neither "black" nor "white" (as such terms are usually applied today).
Origins
Further information: Afrocentric historiographyThe roots of Afrocentrism lay in the repression of blacks throughout the Western world in the 19th century, most particularly in the United States. At the turn of the century, however, came a rise in black racial consciousness as a tool to overcome oppression. Part of this reaction involved a focus on black history, and counteracting what was perceived as white, eurocentric history in favour of a historical narrative of Europe (and what was viewed as its founding culture, ancient Greece) that gave blacks a more prominent role. To a certain extent Afrocentrism also arose as a backlash against scientific racism (broadly speaking, a 19th-century phenomenon) which tended to attribute any advanced civilization to the immigration of Indo-Europeans.
Specifically, this attempted rewriting of the historical narrative of Europe developed into two main forms: the claim that European civilization was founded not by the Greeks, but by the Egyptians, whose culture and learning the Greeks allegedly stole, and that the Egyptians themselves were not only African but also black. Often, Afrocentrists link the two claims, as the following quote (by Marcus Garvey) displays:
Every student of history, of impartial mind, knows that the Negro once ruled the world, when white men were savages and barbarians living in caves; that thousands of Negro professors at that time taught in the universities in Alexandria, then the seat of learning; that ancient Egypt gave the world civilization and that Greece and Rome have robbed Egypt of her arts and letters, and taken all the credit to themselves.
Both themes were to survive Garvey and to continue throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, provoking debate both in academia and in more public spheres, such as mainstream media and the internet.
In academia
Although questions surrounding the race of the ancient Egyptians had occasionally arisen in 18th and 19th-century Western scholarship as part of the growing interest in attempted scientific classifications of race, in academia the meme was popularised and continued throughout the 20th century in the works of George James, Cheikh Anta Diop, and even, to a certain extent, in Martin Bernal's Black Athena. All three have used the terms "black", "African", and "Egyptian" interchangeably, despite what Snowden calls "copious ancient evidence to the contrary".
While at the University of Dakar, Diop tried to establish the skin colour of the Egyptian mummies by measuring the melanin content of the skin, stating: “In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin color and, hence, the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility.”
Diop's work was well received by the political establishment in the post-colonial formative phase of the state of Senegal under Léopold Sédar Senghor, whose politics of African socialism was inspired by the Pan-Africanist Négritude movement. Diop further attempted to link Egypt to Senegal by arguing that the Ancient Egyptian language was related to his native Wolof. The University of Dakar was renamed in Diop's honour after his death, to Cheikh Anta Diop University. Diop participated in a UNESCO symposium in Cairo in 1974 and he wrote the chapter about the "origins of the Egyptians" in the UNESCO General History of Africa.
Founded in 1979, the Journal of African Civilizations has continually advocated that Egypt should be viewed as a black civilization. Figures attached to the group centering around the journal include Ivan van Sertima and J.H. Clarke (who has advanced further the "Cleopatra was black" meme). Other notable proponents of the meme include Chancellor Williams. Mainstream scholarship has generally been critical of the journal: J.D. Muhly describes it as "well-intentioned but quite unconvincing and lacking in the basic techniques of critical scholarship."
The Afrocentric claim that European scholars have tried to deny significance of black people in the ancient Egyptian culture has some substance. During the European colonial era on the African continent, the prevalent European attitude was that ancient Egyptians were 'white', as the French scholar Alain Froment shows on the basis of two encyclopaedias from the 1930s.
The British Africanist Basil Davidson summarized the issue as follows:
Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south (from what a later world knew as Nubia): while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew.
Specific controversies
Controversies about 'race'
Debate in the public sphere has tended to focus more on the race of specific notable individuals from the history of Egypt, particularly Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII and also the Great Sphinx of Giza. Such claims by Afrocentrists have not been limited to Egyptians: Carthaginian general Hannibal and Roman Emperor Septimius Severus have also been claimed as black, despite non-existent evidence, as well as the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates.
Tutankhamun
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (February 2009) |
Attempted reconstructions of Tutankhamun's facial features have encountered much Afrocentric protest over concerns that he has been represented as too white.
Cleopatra VII
Further information: Cleopatra VIICleopatra's race and skin colour have also caused frequent debate as described in an article from The Baltimore Sun. There is also an article titled: Was Cleopatra Black? from Ebony magazine, and an article about Afrocetrism from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that mentions the question, too. Scholars generally suggest a light olive skin colour for Cleopatra, based on the facts that her Macedonian family had intermingled with the Persian aristocracy of the time, that her mother is not absolutely known for certain, and that her paternal grandmother may have been African (or indeed from anywhere at all) which is possible but not provable. Afrocentric assertions of Cleopatra's blackness have, however, continued. The question was the subject of an heated exchange between Mary Lefkowitz, who has referred in her articles a debate she had with one of her students about the question whether Cleopatra was black, and Molefi Kete Asante, Professor of African American Studies at Temple University. As a response to Not Out of Africa by Lefkowitz, Asante wrote an article: Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa, in which he emphasizes that he "can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black."
Great Sphinx of Giza
| This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (February 2009) |
Controversy about the meaning of 'Kemet'
| km biliteral | km.t (place) | km.t (people) | |||||||||
|
|
|
One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is km.t (read Kemet), meaning 'the black land' or 'the black one'. The claim that Kemite referred to the fact that the people of the land had black skins, as argued by Cheikh Anta Diop, William Leo Hansberry, or Aboubacry Moussa Lam has become a cornerstone of Afrocentric historiography. This view is rejected by most Egyptologists. Generally, 'Kemet' is taken to be a reference to the fertile black soil which was washed down from Central Africa by the annual Nile inundation, and which made Egypt habitable and successful in contrast to the barren desert or 'red land' outside the narrow confines of the Nile watercourse. The use of the word kmt when referring to people is thought to be derived from the name of the land, meaning literally "those people who live in the black, fertile country." Raymond Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian translates it into "Egyptians", as do most sources.
Notes
- Bard, in turn citing B.G. Trigger, "Nubian, Negro, Black, Nilotic?", in African in Antiquity, The Arts of Nubian and the Sudan, vol 1, 1978.
- Snowden, p. 122 of Black Athena Revisited
- Bard, p. 111 of Black Athena Revisited.
- Bard p.106
- lefkowtiz p. 7
- Lefkowitz p. 8
- Marcus Garvey: "Who and what is a Negro", 1923. Quoted by Lefkowitz.
- Snowden p.116 of Black Athena Revisited.
- Snowden p. 116
- Chris Gray, Conceptions of History in the Works of Cheikh Anta Diop and Theophile Obenga, (Karnak House:1989) 11-155
- Alain Ricard, Naomi Morgan, The Languages & Literatures of Africa: The Sands of Babel, James Currey, 2004, p.14
- UNESCO, "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script; Proceedings", (Paris: 1978), pp. 3-134
- Snowden p. 117
- Homepage of the Journal of African Civilizations
- Snowden pp.117-120
- Muhly: "Black Athena versus Traditional Scholarship", Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 3, no 1: 83-110
- Froment 1994, p. 38
- Davidson, Basil (1991). African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to Modern Times. Africa World Press.
- Snowden pp.120-121 of Black Athena Revisited
- Black Athena revisited, p. 4
- Tutankhamun was not black: Egypt antiquities chief, AFP, September 2007
- Baltimore Sun: "Was Cleopatra Black", 2002
- "Was Cleopatra Black?", from Ebony magazine, February 1 2002. In support of this, she cites a few examples, one of which she supplies is a chapter entitled "Black Warrior Queens" published in 1984 in Black Women in Antiquity, part of the Journal of African Civilization series. It draws heavily on the work of J.A. Rogers.
- "Afrocentric View Distorts History and Achievement by Blacks", from the St. Louis Dispatch, February 14 1994.
- Tyldesley, p. 30, suggests Cleopatra V as the most likely candidate.
- Tyldesley p. 32
- Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa By Molefi Kete Asante
- ^ Shavit 2001: 148
- Aboubacry Moussa Lam, "L'Égypte ancienne et l'Afrique", in Maria R. Turano et Paul Vandepitte, Pour une histoire de l'Afrique, 2003, pp. 50 &51
- Bard, Kathryn A. "Ancient Egyptians and the Issue of Race". in Lefkowitz and MacLean rogers, p. 114
- Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy Of A Civilization. Routledge. p. 21. ISBN 978-0415063463.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Raymond Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, 2002, p. 286.
References
- Mary R. Lefkowitz: "Ancient History, Modern Myths", originally printed in The New Republic, 1992. Reprinted with revisions as part of the essay collection Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
- Kathryn A. Bard: "Ancient Egyptians and the issue of Race", Bostonia Magazine, 1992: later part of Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
- Frank M. Snowden, Jr.: "Bernal's "Blacks" and the Afrocentrists", Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
- Joyce Tyldesley: "Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt", Profile Books Ltd, 2008.
- Alain Froment, 1994. "Race et Histoire: La recomposition ideologique de l'image des Egyptiens anciens." Journal des Africanistes 64:37-64. available online: Race et Histoire Template:Fr icon
- Yaacov Shavit, 2001: History in Black. African-Americans in Search of an Ancient Past, Frank Cass Publishers
